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Guilt by association by association (or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the ill-fated Greenwich Village nail bomb, part 2)

More on the New Left and fascism from Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism (aside to sashal: see here):

[…] it is worth noting that even some titans of the left still had the clarity of vision to understand what they were dealing with. Irving Louis Horowitz, a revered leftist intellectual (he was the literary executor of C. Wright Mills) specializing in revolutionary thought, saw in 1960s radicalism a “fanatic attempt to impose a new social order upon the world, rather than await the verdict of consensus-building formulas among disparate individuals as well as historical muses” —

— I guess I could pause here to note that Horowitz seems to lack a certain “fluidity” with radicalist argot — I mean, it’s “cute” how he tries to shoehorn a pragmatic argument about consensus-building into the “discourse” of an essentially totalitarian world view wherein “consensus” is demanded, else it’s “up against the wall, motherfuckers!” — but such an argument would be moronic, so I’ll skip it. No, really! —

— And [Horowitz] saw this fanaticism for what it was: “Fascism returns to the United States not as a right-wing ideology, but almost as a quasi-leftist ideology.”

Peter Berger, a Jewish refugee from Austria and a respected peace activist and left-wing sociologist (he helped popularize the phrase “social construction of reality”), saw much the same thing. When “observing the [American] radicals in action, I was repeatedly reminded of the storm troopers that marched through my childhood in Europe.” He explored a long list of themes common to 1960s radicalism and European fascism and concluded they formed a “constellation that strikingly resembles the common core of Italian and German fascism.” In 1974 A. James Gregor wrote The Fascist Persuasion in Radical Politics, which synthesized and cataloged these trends with sweeping detail and intellectual rigor. “In the recent past,” he observed, “student radicals and the ‘new left’ have legitimized a political style calculated to be maximally serviceable to an American variant of fascism.”

Even some in the SDS recognized the more extreme members were degenerating into fascism. And editorial in the Campaigner (published by the New York and Philadelphia Regional Labor Committee of the Students for a Democratic Society) observed of the SDS faction that spawned the Weathermen, “There is a near identity between the arguments of anarchists (around the Columbia strike movement, e.g.) and Mussolini’s polemics for action against theory, against program.”

William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrne remain largely unapologetic about their attempts to usher in an American fascism by way of violently radicalizing what, in its softer form, was once Progressivism, and is these days “progressivism,” a political movement that has, yet again, insinuated its way into the “activist” branch of the Democratic party, and has, since that initial failed merger brought about by ‘New Left’ pressures on ‘bourgeois liberalism,’ been trying new ways to seize control of the Democratic party and complete the transformation from “liberal” to “progressive” — all while taking the cynical tack of appending to themselves the label of “liberal,” a label that they at one time not too long ago spat out with disdain.

But when that particular in-your-face revolutionary rebranding didn’t go over well with the American electorate — giving the US a second Nixon administration — the more crafty and calculating of the ‘New Left’ theorizers realized that the best way to bring an authoritarian elite to power was to dress it up in bourgeois duds and have it spout innocuous and high-minded platitudes, with the last bit of machination being that the candidate chosen to front this plan arise from one of the traditionally underprivileged victim groups: rather than Black Panther force and Norman Mailer’s revolutionary “negro” hip acting as the catalyst to spurring traditional liberals to showings of self-flagellating guilt (of which they can be conditionally and temporarily absolved, should they cast their vote “correctly” — which many were dying to do anyway, in a show of self-righteous and ostentatious self-loathing), today’s more media-savvy progressives rely solely on editorialized “concern” over what it means, racially-speaking, that this country simply refuses to accept a black man as its nominee for President.

Of course, all this has many of the feminists feeling like they’ve lost the identity politics battle, but so it goes. Still, Hillary’s being mentored by Saul Alinsky, whose Rules for Radicals, as Goldberg notes, “served as a Bible for the New Left,” should have served notice to those trying to consolidate the current Democrat narrative that she would never go away quietly.

Incidentally, here is Alinsky on bourgeois liberals: “Liberals in their meetings utter bold words; they strut, grimace belligerently, and then issue a weasel-worded statement ‘which has tremendous implications, if read between the lines.’ They sit calmly, dispassionately, studying the issue; judging both sides; they sit and still sit.”

Today’s battle for the Democratic nomination is between two heirs of the New Left. What makes Clinton different, I believe, is that she is even more calculating, and as such, a worry to progressives who fear she might outmaneuver them, once she gains power. Whereas Obama is an unproven politician who will need to surround himself with the kinds of people who, in the sixties, were soaking in the neo-fascist ethos of the New Left, even if they weren’t outwardly participating in the “smashing of the establishment.”

— Which, in the case of Dohrne and Ayers and the Reverend Wright, doesn’t much apply.

****
Previous post here.

304 Replies to “Guilt by association by association (or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the ill-fated Greenwich Village nail bomb, part 2)”

  1. Dan Collins says:

    Yeah, but didn’t Obama state that true patriotism resides in expressing one’s opinion?

  2. shank says:

    No matter who they nominate, they’ll still self-destruct. Too many of the D voters are so entrenched in their internal debate that they can’t bring themselves to vote for the other D candidate if their own doesn’t recieve the nomination.

    Should be an interesting six months.

  3. happyfeet says:

    tacos!

  4. Karl says:

    Dan,

    He said that, but he has also strongly suggested that people who disagree with him on national security or foreign policy issues are not patriots.

    Jeff,

    I am always vaguely amused (and horrified) when I read those who suggest that Alinsky was hard to label because he was really all about obtaining power.

  5. sashal says:

    I see, so a few ultra-left radicals are called fascists cause they use or purport to use violent methods.
    It may be news to you, but lefty nut cases in the extreme occasions and historicaly(check the history of Europe) were the adherents of violence and revolutions ALWAYS.
    Now the rest is just speculations about “New Left” and Neo-fascism. Which, if anybody on this blog bothered enough to find out or to learn about this would have found out that neofascists are the extreme degradation of the radicals on the right.

    Somebody does not become fascists just for advocating more government regulations.
    And ultra-left assholes you mentioned in the history of the USA are assholes no question, but they are not the fascists…

  6. nishizonoshinji says:

    oh dear god Jeff please apply for this job.
    otherwise goldberg will get it and when i go back to school to get my doctorate in physics or genetics i will be forced to take a science-ethics class by jackbooted xian thought police!
    :(

  7. Karl says:

    That works on two levels, probably by serendipity

  8. Pablo says:

    Ah yes. If it isn’t that jackbooted Christian Goldberg, it’s sure to be that other jackbooted Christian Stein. Nicely done, Einstein.

  9. nishizonoshinji says:

    dur, where i did i say either of them were xians?
    jackboots, sure.
    /wicked grin

  10. Rob Crawford says:

    You’re still wrong sashal. If you bothered to read up on these things, you’d understand.

    But you refuse to, and instead say everyone else has it wrong.

  11. Mikey NTH says:

    What isn’t mentioned about the Ayers’ and Dohrne’s is that the clock is ticking for them. If they want to be in power then they have to get their protege in soon. The first of the new left bommers have hit their early sixties. In eight years they will hit their seventies. Some may keep up the energy and fire of their youth very late in life, but for most it is going to be declining health and declining drive from now on.

    This is it.

  12. Aldo says:

    Please excuse me for hammering away again at the same point I made in the prior thread, but I think it is important enough. The difference this time, (compared to 1972), is that the New Left will take power in a vacuum of opposition.

    The Republican party is in decline and disarray. Political liberty is no longer fashionable. It rarely is: In a brutal world, the idea of the nanny state that makes the trains run on time and gives everyone free healthcare is much more appealing. Academia is firmly controlled by the Marxists. Mainstream journalism identifies with Obamaism, and no longer values political independence in an era when feeding the zeitgeist is necessary in order to compete with openly partisan blogs. The entertainment industry serves up uncritical liberalism. Congress will be dominated by Democrats. The only question is whether or not they will have a fillibuster-proof majority.

    If Obama wins, and fills the Executive branch with his people, there will be no brake on the train. The final irony is that the people who are in the vangaurd of this complete cultural and political power realignment are psychologically invested in seeing themselves as rebels.

    I had to remind a commenter on another blog who made an insipid analogy to a victory over the “empire”: You are the empire once you control all the cultural institutions and levers of power in our society. If Democrats control the entire government, the press, the entertainment media, and academia, speaking truth to the “power” of the Republican minority in Congress, or “questioning the authority” of someone who dissents on a blog from the new zeitgeist is not exactly a profile in courage.

  13. Rob Crawford says:

    Shut up, nishi. Adults are talking.

  14. dre says:

    Which, if anybody on this blog bothered enough to find out or to learn about this would have found out that neofascists are the extreme degradation of the radicals on the right.
    To the right of the commies.

  15. Karl says:

    Aldo,

    Re: 1972, not for nothing did Tom Wicker end up writing a book about Nixon called “One of Us.”

  16. Thomass says:

    Comment by sashal on 5/14 @ 11:26 am #

    “Which, if anybody on this blog bothered enough to find out or to learn about this would have found out that neofascists are the extreme degradation of the radicals on the right.”

    I have but I think your missing a few things.
    1) The right in the US is not the same as Europe. We are closer to ‘liberals’ in Euro terms.
    2) In Europe, the right had many links to the left. People would jump from one ship to the other (Mussolini being just one).. As an ‘anti-liberal’ movement it shared a great deal with the left and the main differences were end game / vision (I’d go so far as to say it was mostly only an aesthetic difference)….
    3) In the 60s, the left were so busy blasting the American conservatives as right wing (re: that was the only enemy they were aware of) they started forming more links to the classical Euro right… as an anti capitalist anti liberal western movement, it had a lot of ideas that they could easily adopt… to fight the ‘real’ enemy.

    Now ‘the left’ is pushing the organic / green and anti globo movement memes. It complains about [the lack] of culture [inherent in US inspired globalization]… et cetera.
    Much like Euro fascism was a left right fusion, so is the New Left in the US..

  17. nishizonoshinji says:

    Academia is firmly controlled by the Marxists. Mainstream journalism identifies with Obamaism, and no longer values political independence in an era when feeding the zeitgeist is necessary in order to compete with openly partisan blogs. The entertainment industry serves up uncritical liberalism. Congress will be dominated by Democrats. The only question is whether or not they will have a fillibuster-proof majority.

    gee aldo, does that mean we can get rid of the Discovery Institute, the bioluddite council, and fund ESCR now?
    cuz that’s all im in this for, really.
    lulz.

  18. sashal says:

    flaunting once ignorance or misunderstanding on the problem does not help it at all.
    One thing Jonah is smart enough, there will be plenty of dupes to spend their money on his written crap .
    Again similarities do not prove or say about genetic relationships or philosophical identities.
    If socialist and fascist like to read papers, drink milk and beer, knock their neighbor on the head with a bucket of slime or organize coups and revolutions that does not make them part of the same.
    Yesterday’s conservative academics I quoted (not the editor of NRO, of course, what a shame)talked about the same.
    I told you, I toyed years ago with the similar idiotic ideas but just with phenotypical similarities. Not with Jonah’s crap of genetic identity.

  19. N. O'Brain says:

    ““Fascism returns to the United States not as a right-wing ideology, but almost as a quasi-leftist ideology.”

    So it’s oleo, compared to the butter, real reactionary leftist fascism.

  20. Glen Wishard says:

    Reading memoirs of former Weathermen, it seems clear that the real inspiration for the Weather Underground was not anything that happened in Vietnam, but the violence at the Democratic Convention in 1968. For the first time, the little radicals let their destructive urges run free, even if it was just breaking every window they could reach. They acquired a taste for it. Mussolini and Georges Sorel would have understood.

  21. Rob Crawford says:

    Again similarities do not prove or say about genetic relationships or philosophical identities.

    Read.

    The.

    Damned.

    Book.

    Or.

    Shut.

    The.

    Fuck.

    Up.

    About.

    It.

  22. N. O'Brain says:

    #Comment by sashal on 5/14 @ 11:26 am #

    Like they say, Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt anymore.

  23. N. O'Brain says:

    “If socialist and fascist like to read papers, drink milk and beer, knock their neighbor on the head with a bucket of slime or organize coups and revolutions that does not make them part of the same.”

    Leftist is as leftist does.

  24. Education Guy says:

    gee aldo, does that mean we can get rid of the Discovery Institute, the bioluddite council, and fund ESCR now?

    The first two are private organizations, so I’m curious how you propose “we” get rid of them. You could always fund ESCR now, but because you are a good little tyrant what you want is to force others to do so.

  25. sashal says:

    I am glad you read it, doubled your ignorance.

  26. N. O'Brain says:

    “#Comment by sashal on 5/14 @ 11:55 am #

    I am glad you read it, doubled your ignorance.”

    That is breathtakingly stupid.

  27. nishizonoshinji says:

    the “bioethics council” is not a private organization.

  28. Mikey NTH says:

    Aldo, here’s the shorter version:

    Ayers: “Bring down the establishment, man!”
    Me: “You are the establishment, asshole.”

  29. MarkD says:

    flaunting once ignorance or misunderstanding on the problem does not help it at all.

    Is English your native language, or do you enjoy self-parody?

  30. Pablo says:

    gee aldo, does that mean we can get rid of the Discovery Institute, the bioluddite council, and fund ESCR now?

    No (private orgs can do as they please), there’s no such thing, and yes. You can go away now.

  31. Rob Crawford says:

    (Can anyone tell I’m infuriated that sashal still feels compelled to comment on something he’s clearly ignorant about? He’s been told he’s far, far off base, but is so stuck on his own sense of superiority or purity, or whatever that he’s incapable of admitting he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But, hey, he got drunk once and called some Bolsheviks fascists, so that means he knows everything he needs to know about Goldberg’s book.)

  32. Thomass says:

    Comment by sashal on 5/14 @ 11:48 am #

    “flaunting once ignorance or misunderstanding on the problem does not help it at all.
    One thing Jonah is smart enough, there will be plenty of dupes to spend their money on his written crap .”

    You should read his book. He does not say the Euro right and left are the same thing. He defined the terms. Said, if we saying free market people, who believe in individualism, and a limited role for government, and this and this are ‘right wing’ and people who are statists, and want this and this et cetera are left wing… THEN fascism is left wing…

    I don’t think it was ignorance so much as an attempt to make a retorical argument that shows that they had more in common with each other than with classical liberalism… since it is so common in the US for leftists to try to compare US conservatives to the Euro right / fascism even though we have so few intellectual ties. It was even the left that decided to call us conservatives and right wing to begin with… I’d say I’m a liberal but they stole the term here…

  33. nishizonoshinji says:

    what you want is to force others to do so.
    yup, zactly, like others are forced to support Bush’s war.

  34. dicentra says:

    Sashal:

    What you have missed by not reading Goldberg is that the fascists are not actually right-wing, whatever that means. Mussolini was a die-hard Marxist; where he parted ways with the Bolsheviks was that he didn’t want to take marching orders from Moscow. (“Workers of the world, unite!”) He figured it would be better to make his version of Marxism national: all Italy, all the time.

    Hence the term National Socialism. The term “fascism” comes from the Italian word for “bundle,” which was also the word for “labor union.” The idea was for the “facisti” to rise up and control the means of production. Sound familiar?

    The Nazis decided to do the same thing, only Deutchland uber alles instead of Italy. The bit about killing all the Jews was mostly because of Hitler’s personal hatred of them, not because of fascism’s teachings. Il Duce had no problem with Jews.

    But because the Socialists (International) and the Fascists (National) were competing for the same ideological space (and the same reins of power), they became rivals, which is why they fought each other.

    But, like Coke and Pepsi, they were not polar opposites: they were first cousins engaged in fratricide. Their actual ideological opponents were Classical Liberals, who championed parliamentary procedure, democracy, and rule of law.

    Stalin is the one who popularized the characterization of fascism as “far right.” Maybe you can put fascism to the right of socialism, but it’s still way far left of democracy. Besides, the opposite extreme from socialism is anarchy, and just to the left of that, libertarianism.

    The so-called “far right” neo-Nazis are not on the right, but the intelligencia says they are because of their white supremacy nonsense. It’s a way of distancing themselves from people they hate. That’s not to say that Marxists and socialists are racist, but rather that they are continuing the same fratricide as 100 years ago.

  35. Aldo says:

    #13 Mikey:

    What isn’t mentioned about the Ayers’ and Dohrne’s is that the clock is ticking for them. If they want to be in power then they have to get their protege in soon.

    That isn’t true. Bill Ayers has power now. He is writing curriculum for public school children to indoctrinate them into the New Left.

    #19 nishi

    gee aldo, does that mean we can get rid of the Discovery Institute

    Isn’t the Dicovery Institute privately funded? I’m more concerned about the educational fraud that my tax dollars are funding. I’m less concerned with preventing private individuals from funding fraudulent ideas with their own money, unless it is an actual confidence scheme like the one Norm Hsu was running for Ickes.

  36. Mikey NTH says:

    gee aldo, does that mean we can get rid of the Discovery Institute, the bioluddite council, and fund ESCR now?
    cuz that’s all im in this for, really.

    No, I think keeping a tight leash on you is only a good thing.

    Hyuga, Ise!

  37. alppuccino says:

    Rob,

    I bet if you replaced the cover of Goldberg’s book with “How Bush Hate Will Save the World” and mailed it to sashal, he’d read at least a few chapters before epiphany.

  38. sashal says:

    Thomass # 18

    Much like Euro fascism was a left right fusion, so is the New Left in the US..

    no comment, …….sigh

  39. Education Guy says:

    the “bioethics council” is not a private organization.

    I stand corrected, it was founded by executive order from Bubba. I think it is refreshing that you admit you want to get rid of things that you don’t agree with.

  40. Jeff G. says:

    Sashal is still talking nonsense, and still hasn’t read the book.

    Instead, he tries to foist all this off on Goldberg, as if he invented it out of whole cloth (well, except that sashal thought of it first). I quoted left-wing academics who saw in the rise of the New Left fascist tendencies.

    And to dre, the “right” designation of the fascists was a propaganda coup of the Communists. They were to the right of the global communists, but they were still leftists. They just tied their leftism to romanticism and myth, and to a kind of nationalism that acts as a frame. Today, we have the transnational progressives whose aims are similar, but they see the whole world as their playground.

  41. nishizonoshinji says:

    ok aldo….lets just force the DI to change their fake status as a non-profit research institute (.org) to a commercial lobbyist status.
    Since they don’t do research, they only litigate and lobby.

  42. N. O'Brain says:

    “Coke and Pepsi”

    Maybe more like the Coke and the Coke Zero of the reactionary left.

  43. Rob Crawford says:

    I am glad you read it, doubled your ignorance.

    Defining “ignorance” as the edges of your body of knowledge… yeah.

    You, on the other hand, are content at leaving the extent of your knowledge static. You don’t grow any more ignorant, but that’s simply because you assume you know everything.

  44. Jeffersonian says:

    Democratic Party leaders have been embracing fascist ideas for some time now, to the point that they are even embracing fascist iconography:

    There’s a wonderful movie, The Straight Story. It’s about an old farmer named Alvin Straight. He wants to see his brother one last time to make peace before one of them dies — only Alvin can’t drive anymore because his eyes are bad and his hips are worse. So he rides his John Deere lawn mower nearly 300 miles. On the road, he meets a young woman who’s in a lot of trouble. He tells her that when his children were little, he would hand them a stick, and tell them to break it. And they would, just like that. Then, he’d put the sticks in a bundle and ask his kids to break it. They couldn’t. He gave them some advice: “That bundle is family. “That bundle is our community. We are stronger together than we are alone.” That is the simplest description I know of our party’s core belief.

    Senator Tom Daschle (D-SD), 2000 DNC address

    I couldn’t have said it better myself.

  45. dicentra says:

    Sashal:

    Goldberg doesn’t sit there and muse about the similarities. He did his homework: he researched what people were saying back then and quotes them. He doesn’t connect the dots because he didn’t have to; the dots were already connected by the original participants.

    But as they say, history is written by the victors; socialists won, and their counterparts in the U.S. write the history textbooks. They are the ones who whitewashed the fact that their ideological heros of the early 20th century thought Mussolini was the cat’s pajamas.

    It is obvious that your understanding of fascism is terribly lacking. You were taught the same politics as the rest of us. Goldberg does an end-run around the textbooks and reveals the original texts.

    Makes him a real poser, that does. A real deceiver of the first order of magnitude.

  46. dre says:

    “Comment by Jeff G. on 5/14 @ 12:04 pm #
    And to dre, the “right” designation of the fascists was a propaganda coup of the Communists.”

    Having read LF I know that and was commenting on Comment by sashal on 5/14 @ 11:26 am # but forgot to add “” around his comments

  47. JD says:

    The nishit never, but never, quits babbling. Wedge. Heavy lifting. Theoconz. ESCR. Expelled Exposed. Baracky love spunk. Old. Did I forget anything?

  48. GeoW says:

    Great Jeff, thanks. It seems you are girding for battle. That’s a relief.

    Hey, and a note of thanks in advance to all the regular awesome commentatorers here for ignoring the Nizbot. One thing I love about this site that makes all of your posts even more worthwhile, and I check back here four times a day to see what you all are up to, is that I can see who is posting before reading a post. So I always, as in **always** skip the niz notes. For one thing it’s too hard to read text message style, and it’s … I haven’t checked lately but by your replies is hateful, genocidal, ignorant, mendacious, etc. Still. Which makes reading your replies like listening to an old Bob Newhart phone call routine where you hear only one side of the conversation. At least you guys are the punchlines. Which is nice, but I guess my point is, no need to bother.

    Hey, it’s going to be an interesting year! PS I’m a Dem for Maverick.

  49. Mikey NTH says:

    Um, Jeffersonian the fasces were also the symbol of the Roman Republic, and we have adopted that as one of our symbols. “United We Stand; Divided We Fall.”

  50. McGehee says:

    19. Comment by nishizonoshinji on 5/14 @ 11:48 am

    Okay, who had “ESCR” in today’s Nishi Obsession pool?

  51. Rob Crawford says:

    Democratic Party leaders have been embracing fascist ideas for some time now, to the point that they are even embracing fascist iconography:

    Jeebus. I wonder if anyone ever told him the history of that analogy?

  52. N. O'Brain says:

    “And to dre, the “right” designation of the fascists was a propaganda coup of the Communists. They were to the right of the global communists, but they were still leftists.”

    IIRC, Stalinist propaganda labeled Leon Trotsky, Leon effin’ Trotsky, a fascist.

    From wikipedia:
    “…a Ukrainian-born Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist. He was one of the leaders of the Russian October Revolution, second only to Lenin. During the early days of the Soviet Union, he served first as People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs and later as the founder and commander of the Red Army and the People’s Commissar of War. He was also among the first members of the Politburo.”

  53. Carin- says:

    Aldo – that Ayers education (a link to a City Journal article was in the story you linked) stuff is crazy. I got a Masters of Ed … and was forced to read some of that crap that Ayers sites as influential – Max Greene and Bell Hooks. My grad school experience is the major reason I homeschool.

  54. Rob Crawford says:

    Mikey NTH — certainly. But Daschle slung the “fascist” epithet around with the worst of them. If yer gonna call people fascists, you shouldn’t say your party’s core belief is like a literal fasces.

  55. sashal says:

    dicentra, I bet your Ivy leage education entitles you to be at least sceptical of the facts Jonah peddles to mostly dupes.
    Yes, I know the history of Europe(and I bet better then majority on this blog) and EVOLUTION of Mussolini.
    It is not true about Italy and Jews, yes , no concentration camps, thank you.. but that’s about all.
    At least you can watch some Italian classic movies about this period, if you have no time for books(I know technical writing is very time consuming, my niece does the same)

    Socialists (International) and the Fascists (National) were competing for the same “ideological” space (and the same reins of power), they became rivals, which is why they fought each other.
    Very primitive truth, they were ideological rivals as well..

    Now , do you recall any property expropriations and nationalizations in Italy or Germany?
    Or was the government supporting and advancing private corporations ?

  56. Jeff G. says:

    Oops. I see now that dicentra has already covered this ground. My bad.

  57. sashal says:

    dicentra, I bet your Ivy league education entitles you to be at least sceptical of the facts Jonah peddles to mostly dupes.
    Yes, I know the history of Europe(and I bet better then majority on this blog) and EVOLUTION of Mussolini.
    It is not true about Italy and Jews, yes , no concentration camps, thank you.. but that’s about all.
    At least you can watch some Italian classic movies about this period, if you have no time for books(I know technical writing is very time consuming, my niece does the same)

    Socialists (International) and the Fascists (National) were competing for the same “ideological” space (and the same reins of power), they became rivals, which is why they fought each other.
    Very primitive truth, they were ideological rivals as well..

    Now , do you recall any property expropriations and nationalizations in Italy or Germany?
    Or was the government supporting and advancing private corporations ?

  58. Dear nishizonoshinji,

    FWIW, you occasionally have something very interesting to say, but most of the time you merely seem to be attempting to gainsay whatever Jeff, Karl, Dan, et al, have just written, albeit with a transparently self-conscious “look at me” ultra-hipness. Well, that and a dash of non sequiturs liberally sprinkled with progressive talismans and liberal hobby-horses. You don’t actually seem to be trying to persuade anyone of anything. At best most of your comments come across as ironic sophistry, at worst, well, never mind. Not that I expect you will heed much advice from someone not as smart nor as well read as you, but it would help if you dropped the juvenile spelling, grammar and punctuation. You know how to do it properly, so doing otherwise is just a conceit, and a highly annoying one at that.

    Have a nice day.

  59. sashal says:

    dicentra, I bet your Ivy league education entitles you to be at least sceptical of the facts Jonah peddles to mostly dupes.
    Yes, I know the history of Europe(and I bet better then majority on this blog) and EVOLUTION of Mussolini.
    It is not true about Italy and Jews, yes , no concentration camps, thank you.. but that’s about all.
    At least you can watch some Italian classic movies about this period, if you have no time for books(I know technical writing is very time consuming, my niece does the same)

    Socialists (International) and the Fascists (National) were competing for the same “ideological” space (and the same reins of power), they became rivals, which is why they fought each other.
    Very primitive truth, they were ideological rivals as well..

    Now , do you recall any property expropriations and nationalizations in Italy or Germany?
    Or was the government supporting and advancing private corporations ?

  60. Aldo says:

    ok aldo….lets just force the DI to change their fake status as a non-profit research institute (.org) to a commercial lobbyist status.
    Since they don’t do research, they only litigate and lobby.

    I have no problem with that, especially if it would quiet a certain single-issue mosquito who keeps buzzing about it in threads where it is a non-sequitur.

    While we are at it, let’s take the government earmarks and grants away from ACORN, La Raza, and dozens of other Left-wing front groups. Soros is wealthy enough to fund them entirely. He doesn’t need the help from my tax dollars.

  61. Melissa says:

    The New Left’s ideas play now with more American citizens. The Left and the press have cooperated in stoking discontent and inducing an entitled mentality. My concern is that the average American will trade freedom for ostensible security. Fascists promise TLC in the form of the government. Americans seem to be buying that ideology more than ever.

  62. Buford Gooch says:

    It seems there are a couple of dimwits who believe they are brilliant commenting here. They won’t recognize themselves as being the subjects of this post, but the rest of you will.

  63. Swen Swenson says:

    The Republican party is in decline and disarray.

    So.. what you’re saying is that the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy is only half-vast?

    Fortunately, I’ve been around long enough to remember when we were talking about the imminent demise of the Democrat party post-1994. Didn’t happen, and I doubt the Repubs are going to disappear either, although they certainly haven’t covered themselves in glory with their attempts to out-spend, out-regulate, and out-nanny the Dems.

  64. Rob Crawford says:

    Saying it three times doesn’t change the fact that you’re arguing from ignorance.

  65. Jeffersonian says:

    Um, Jeffersonian the fasces were also the symbol of the Roman Republic, and we have adopted that as one of our symbols. “United We Stand; Divided We Fall.”

    True, but does anyone think Daschle was thinking of imperial Rome whilst invoking that imagery?

  66. Rob Crawford says:

    True, but does anyone think Daschle was thinking of imperial Rome whilst invoking that imagery?

    Maybe. With him playing the role of Little Boots.

  67. Thomass says:

    Comment by sashal on 5/14 @ 12:02 pm #

    “no comment, …….sigh”

    Read any Sternhell? He is good for two reasons. France is one of the places with the largest ideological division between the left and right (re: I’m saying, outside of France it is quite common for the right to claim to be socialists… just ‘real’ socialists unlike the left / Marxists)… but even in places where that would not happen, they still have solid links and shared history…

    Two, step back from the back and forth of this discussion / argument. People on American blogs call you left wing. Consider that for a moment…. Maybe, honestly, to their American ears, you sound left wing. That says something about American lefties…

    Three, consider part of the point I made above. “the right” is not the same thing all over Europe. Just because it may seem one way where you are does not mean it was the same everywhere else.

  68. sashal says:

    oops , sorry for hiccup there, computer behaved wildly all of a sudden

  69. Aldo says:

    #56 Carin

    Aldo – that Ayers education (a link to a City Journal article was in the story you linked) stuff is crazy.

    I know. That is why I keep pushing that link. I think this was one of the great missed stories of this election season. The MSM wouldn’t touch it for obvious reasons, and our corner of the blogosphere was preoccupied with Wright.

  70. Thomass says:

    Comment by sashal on 5/14 @ 12:18 pm #

    “Very primitive truth, they were ideological rivals as well..”

    Goldberg’s point was they were fighting for the same pool of people attracted to collectivist movements of the era. Which I think was true.

    An individualistic classical liberal would never be attracted to either and would see both as an enemy.

  71. Mikey NTH says:

    Now , do you recall any property expropriations and nationalizations in Italy or Germany?
    Or was the government supporting and advancing private corporations ?

    Do you have to do that when you can just tell the factory owners what they are going to make and how much of it? Instead of killing them, you co-opt them. Or else.

  72. Jeff G. says:

    Read. The. Book. Sashal.

  73. Education Guy says:

    what you want is to force others to do so.
    yup, zactly, like others are forced to support Bush’s war.

    Well, it’s not exactly the same, but I have to admit that this point goes to you.

  74. nishizonoshinji says:

    I can’t really fault Goldberg on his geneology of fascism, that part of the book is thorough (sorry sash).
    But I do object to Goldberg’s deliminating rationalization of scientific atrocity as a root cause.
    Goldberg articulates his subthesis here…..

    I do think Darwinism led to Nazism, in a sense. But that’s because I see Nazism as one of many responses to modernism. And Darwin, for good and ill, represents the rise of modern science — along with Einstein and others. Nazism and Communism and Progressivism were all impossible without the industrial revolution, Darwinism, relativism, mechanized warfare, mass production, etc. They were reactionary responses to these things. Those responses amounted to an express rejection of the conservative and libertarian vision of society, which is why they were leftwing.

    Frankly, I think scientific and technological advancement is profoudly libertarian, and thus the antithesis of Goldberg’s theme, that science and technology must be governed by conservative ethos or devolve into enablement of fascism, communism, naziism, etc.

    So Stein’s movie, Expelled, becomes the popular cartoon version of the premise that scientific and technological advances somehow cause emergent fascist or totalitarian behavior.

  75. Swen Swenson says:

    Thanks, Gooch. I’m perfectly aware that I’m a dimwit, no need to rub it in..

  76. sashal says:

    look, I am not arguing that lefties/ socialists are statists, or that they are prone to governmental violence and revolutions etc.
    My parents lived through the worst times-Stalin dictatorship, and one of my grandfathers lost his life in one of the purges.
    I am strongly against using the term fascism against them(fascists were never against private property, btw, important distinction, isn’t it?). That’s just flat out wrong. Especially putting the word liberal next to it..
    There are and were plenty of fascists as it is, deserving fully that description.

  77. pjwoods says:

    Hey, has anyone read Obama’s books? I haven’t, but they’re total philosophical trash. If you have, incidentally, you’re now a double idiot.

  78. Rob Crawford says:

    Again, sashal, arguing from ignorance is unbecoming. Read the book or STFU.

    Nishi — just STFU. This is the third time you’ve tried to bait us with your twisted interpretation of Goldberg’s statement. We know you’re wrong, we know why you’re wrong, and we’ve explained it to you. Repeating your errors just make you look like a bigger asshole.

  79. Slartibartfast says:

    I’m wondering who has pirated nishi’s handle. It’s clearly not nishi speaking, there.

  80. SarahW says:

    Where is the cola of the enlightenment? Because I want me some of that back-
    The formula has really lost market share. In fact, really its gone, (except for that pandering Kosher Coke, with it’s secret club) Is there really no money in the clean brightness of pure cane self-government? Reason – Democracy –
    Those cute green bottles of rationality…?

  81. Sorry if this seems OT, but reading the above commenters talking about the Baby Boomers and Peaceniks of the ’60s brought an epiphany to me. The person said, in essence, that they are now feeling the urgency to get their guy in because they are getting old and running out of time. Upon reading that, it occured to me that perhaps the whole mad rush for Universal Health care is because we have this whole cohort aging fast, living longer, and suddenly realizing that they (the haters of capitalism and material things), hadn’t saved enough over the years to cover their own retirements and old-age-related pathologies. Hence they must pillage the rest of us to pay for it. Hence the hurry. Hence the red herring of “it’s for the children”. Too bitter of me?

  82. Smirky McChimp says:

    “Very primitive truth, they were ideological rivals as well..”

    Primitive truth? How is truth primitive? What the fuck does that even mean? Is it true that fascists and communists were ideological rivals for the same part of the ideological spectrum? Does that make them members of the same side of the spectrum, or doesn’t it?

    “Now , do you recall any property expropriations and nationalizations in Italy or Germany?
    Or was the government supporting and advancing private corporations ?”

    You know, sashal, if you’d Read The Book, you wouln’t think this quite the stunner you seem to think it is, as Goldberg uses this very definition to describe the doctrinal differnences between Mussolini and Lenin, which is to say, between fascism and communism. This has fuckall to do with the issue, which is: is fascism a revolutionary, statist, progressivist phenomenon, or not?

    News flash, hot shot: NOT ALL SOCIALISMS IS TEH SAME. Some Socialists advocate one thing, some another. Some want to expropriate all property, others merely want the Hegelian People’s Voice State to pick winners and losers. This earth-shattering bit of knowledge is also found in that paean of wingnuterry, the Communist Manifesto.

    Are Democrats Fasicsts?

    No. They’re Democrats.

    Are they Socialists?

    Yes, to varying degrees.

    Are they Progressives?

    Such is their favorite title, and indeed one far more descriptive than “liberal”.

    Is there a historic connections between early Progressives and early Fascists?

    Yes. It’s all in the records, if you but dig it up.

    Did Progressives cut themselves off from Fascists when Fascists created World War II?

    To their everlasting credit, yes.

    Did Progressives cut themselves off from Communists during the Cold War?

    Yes. And No. It’s complicated.

    Have Progressives even begun to deal with all this history?

    Judging simply from the response to Goldberg’s book, not just no, but HELL NO.

    Do disgusting totalitarian tactics and rhetoric still blossom on the progressive left?

    Ya think?

    Is it fair to call people’s attention to this, in an era when calling the President of the United States a gulag-running fascist is a commonplace?

    You damn betcha.

    You can tilt against strawmen till Rocinante throws a shoe and Sancho Panza wanders off and porks Dulcinea behind the barn, but until you READ THE BOOK, you’re going to demonstrate nothing more than your unwillingness to take a non-approved idea seriously, “I thot dat up yearses ago” backfill or no.

  83. Rob Crawford says:

    Too bitter of me?

    No, not at all.

  84. troy mcclure says:

    Ayers, Doehrn, Boudin, & co; got off pretty good; In France, the more active sort formed
    Actione Directe. In Italy, they went to Czechoslovakia and came back as the Brigatti
    Rossi, which kidnapped and murdered a Hubert Humphrey/Lyndon Johnson type P.M (Moro) and
    kidnapped an American General Dozier. In Germany they became the Red Army Faction, kidnapped and murdered titans of industry
    like Hans Schleyer, and worked with the PLO
    in that little side project called Entebbe.
    In Latin America, where authorities are not
    held back to constitutional niceties; the
    Montoneros (Peron’s former groupies)The Tupamaros, and the MIR got their hat handed to them in Argentina, Uruguay & Chile; with a great deal of civilian collateral damage. Had that bomb gone off at Ft. Dix instead of Greenwhich Village, one thinks Mr. Ayers &
    co, would not have made it to be Barry’s board mate on the Joyce Foundation, for starters

  85. mishu says:

    (fascists were never against private property, btw, important distinction, isn’t it?)

    Except when it belonged to Jews. Again, why own what you can co opt?

  86. Jeff G. says:

    Curse H.G. Wells, that rightwing marauder!

    Christ. I put a link in the post specifically for sashal, and he ignores it.

    Those orange thingies, Sashal? They actually do something. Try clicking them.

  87. nishizonoshinji says:

    /shrug

    rob, Goldberg absolutely said that.
    this is the interwebs. you can’t take it back.
    ;)

  88. N. O'Brain says:

    “Repeating your errors just make you look like a bigger asshole.”

    IM-possible.

  89. PalmettoTiger says:

    “To advance human good and avoid harm, biotechnology must be used within ethical constraints. It is the task of bioethics to help society develop those constraints and bioethics, therefore, must be of concern to all of us.”

    That’s the statement on the homepage of the President’s Council on Bioethics (i.e., Mini-Tyrant’s “Bioluddites”). Disanding this is, roughly, equal to saying that issues like cloning, etc should be considered with no ethical limits. Why should the practioners of science be excised from ethics?

    PT

  90. N. O'Brain says:

    Comment by nishizonoshinji on 5/14 @ 12:53 pm #

    Case proven.

  91. Glen Wishard says:

    Socialism is planning and control of production. Ownership is irrelevant; Marx made a fetish out of it because he inherited leftist ideas about the evils of “property” that are nothing but crass materialist superstition.

    By doing away with the anti-property phobia, Fascism was able to take control without the chaos of Marxism. Rather than running off the bourgeoisie and replacing them with clueless dolts, everyone was subordinated to Fascist Councils of Industry and Labor.

    Property was quietly abolished all the same, because under Fascism everything and everybody belongs to the State; the individual has no rights whatsoever that he can claim against the State.

  92. Carin- says:

    Because they’re smarter than us, PT, and they police themselves.

  93. Rob Crawford says:

    rob, Goldberg absolutely said that.

    And the meaning you’ve tried to ascribe to it does not exist. Goldberg isn’t saying “science and technology must be governed by conservative ethos or devolve into enablement of fascism, communism, naziism, etc.” He said that fascism and communism were reactions to modernity, particularly to the developments in the scientific world.

    But understanding that requires an education that touched on matters like reading and comprehension above the high school level. You’ve admitted you never got that, so I can understand the source of your confusion. If not why you cling to it like a drowning man to a life raft.

  94. Thomass says:

    Comment by nishizonoshinji on 5/14 @ 12:40 pm #

    “Frankly, I think scientific and technological advancement is profoudly libertarian, and thus the antithesis of Goldberg’s theme…”

    He did call them a reaction… that’s a value neutral to negative description…

    Again, I think he’s right. They were reactions. But science, without ideology, is good.

  95. Glen Wishard says:

    Did Progressives cut themselves off from Fascists when Fascists created World War II?

    To their everlasting credit, yes.

    To their everlasting shame, NO. Progressives did not “cut themselves off” until Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in 1941. Until that every day, all but a minority of dissenters supported the Nazi-Soviet Pact, and opposed any attempt to oppose Hitler as war-mongering.

  96. Ardsgaine says:

    Sashal,

    I stated in part one of this discussion that Goldberg does indulge in some arguments of the form “Nazis liked movies, and progressives like movies, therefore progressives are scarily similar to Nazis,” but those arguments come near the end of the book, and his thesis doesn’t depend on them. (They are actually used to damn certain leftwing causes without analyzing them in terms of individual rights.)

    Read the book.

  97. Thomass says:

    Comment by sashal on 5/14 @ 12:41 pm #

    “My parents lived through the worst times-Stalin dictatorship, and one of my grandfathers lost his life in one of the purges.”

    I’ve got you beat (re: lost more relatives to Stalin).

    None the less, my ‘right wing’ central European relatives insist they are socialists. One who lives here also loves Michael Moore and Chomsky.

    That’s our point. Consider it.

  98. Thomass says:

    Comment by nishizonoshinji on 5/14 @ 12:53 pm #

    “rob, Goldberg absolutely said that.
    this is the interwebs. you can’t take it back.”

    Yup, just the quote, it doesn’t mean what you think it does.

    He’s also talked about Stein’s movie and criticized it saying, essentially, what I said about your quote. Yes, science and Darwin inspired the progressives and the Nazis… but that’s not science or Darwin’s fault. It was the vulgar interpretations by the progressive’s and the Nazis of science and Darwin.

    You can’t wave way the enthusiasm either (or the traditional left for that matter) had for thinking science was on their side. They all, essentially, thought applying science to social rules would lead to a better system / world… On the other hand, you can point out they were wrong… about the science and most everything else…

  99. SarahW says:

    Well maybe,there is some fighting going for the “badness” of the label fascist.
    It would spoil prospects for ruling the world , should that sign get stuck onto the rear of a political movement like a kick-me sign. (In this case, the creep deserves it.)

    Thomass at #34 made a very good point about the rhetorical purpose of the book.

    If I were to morph that message into that of a frustrated Cassandra, it would
    be: Hey look, guys, not to put too fine a point on it, but Circe over there? you really don’t want any of that.

  100. Radish says:

    Too bitter of me?

    Seems right on. Or, they *have* saved enough (or have a pension) for their retirement, but prefer to spend it on frivol. The most ardent “universal health care/the government should take care of all our needs/Obama will create paradise on Earth” retirees I know personally are currently spending a year driving around the U.S. and Canada, staying at quaint B&Bs and eating in organic restaurants. The government encourages this–I’ll never forget the “don’t forget to sign up for Medicare Part D” PSAs with the old lady chirping about how she could buy the latest CDs for her grandkids now that I was paying for her blood pressure medication every month.

    To be fair, a lot of people nearing retirement age are supporting slacker adult children and grandchildren with deadbeat parents–daily expenses, not just electronic toys. In that case, it really would be “for the children.” No one’s ever explained to my satisfaction why these children are my responsibility…

  101. Thomass says:

    Comment by Bailey Yankee on 5/14 @ 12:48 pm #

    “Sorry if this seems OT, but reading the above commenters talking about the Baby Boomers and Peaceniks of the ’60s brought an epiphany to me.”

    Not at all. They often claim it is to help others when it really is for them. I’ve also found people project often. They claim politics / health care policy comes down to money / profits. People can’t be trusted because of their financial interests… but yes… they have them too. They’d get a lot healthcare they didn’t have to pay into a system for… Imagine that…

  102. PalmettoTiger says:

    Oh is that it, Carin. I feel much better now, thanks.

    There are ethical standards for areas ranging from business to medicine but practioners of acience are excused? I’ve read that proposition over and over and I cannot, for teh life of me, figure out why that should be so.

    PT

  103. PalmettoTiger says:

    science

    Whomever put the “a” and “s” keys beside each other should go against the wall.

    PT

  104. nishizonoshinji says:

    Thomass, oh, but they aren’t wrong. They just had bad implementation.
    This is a continuing battle.
    Do you doubt that progressives will embrace transhumanism, while conservatives will run to the bioluddite council to tell them how scary it is?
    Biopolitics is going to make the political plane into a cube.
    There will be three axises instead of two; fiscal, social, and bio.

  105. Mikey NTH says:

    Well, what I was getting at with comment #13 was that if the really radical, really new left boomers like Ayers and Dohrn want to get anywhere near political power, they have to do it now as they are running out of time to do something – they are getting old. They are too radioactive personally to run for something other than as city council or state rep., but if they can get their protege in and up to the highest levels, then they have influence on the real levers of power and can finally get something cooking.

    what i wanted to emphasize is that they have about eight years before their primary concerns will be focused on daily bowel movements.

  106. nishizonoshinji says:

    Jeff told me once it wasn’t always about religion.
    I think he might be wrong.

  107. Thomass says:

    Comment by SarahW on 5/14 @ 1:14 pm #

    “If I were to morph that message into that of a frustrated Cassandra, it would be: Hey look, guys, not to put too fine a point on it, but Circe over there? you really don’t want any of that.”

    That’s how I read it too. If you read between the lines he even says that Wilson’s war socialism / proto fascism was… pre fascist.. ergo, the progressives did not take cues from them…

  108. Mikey NTH says:

    There are ethical standards for areas ranging from business to medicine but practioners of acience are excused? I’ve read that proposition over and over and I cannot, for teh life of me, figure out why that should be so.

    If there are ethical standards then matoko can’t send wave after wave of animated undead, mutated giant insects, and extra-dimensional horrors after the villagers who most annoy her.

    Duh.

  109. McGehee says:

    Jeff told me once it wasn’t always about religion.

    For everyone else, it isn’t. For you, it is.

  110. Thomass says:

    Comment by nishizonoshinji on 5/14 @ 1:26 pm #

    “Biopolitics is going to make the political plane into a cube.”

    Not really IMO. Once you get a better communicator that Bush you should be able to build consensus policies.

  111. Mikey NTH says:

    Although to be fair to science, they are no longer required to have the lonely castle on the crag for their laboratories and are now permitted to set up shop in low-rise suburban office complexes (check local zoning laws).

  112. Rob Crawford says:

    Thomass, oh, but they aren’t wrong. They just had bad implementation.

    And ignorance of history rears its ugly head once again. Nishi, the cry of “we’ll do it right this time” precedes some of the worst political disasters in history.

    Do you doubt that progressives will embrace transhumanism, while conservatives will run to the bioluddite council to tell them how scary it is?

    Progressives already embraced “transhumanism”, but did so under the label “eugenics”. Conservatives will point out how that turned out last time — mandatory sterilization, concentration camps, and so on.

    But you’ll do it right this time, eh? And what happens when most people don’t get with the program?

  113. Rob Crawford says:

    Ah, fuck. At least the link should work.

  114. Another Bob says:

    Can you people *please* not encourage it to turn *every* thread into All-Nishi-All-The-Time.

    JeffG, I’m beggin’ ya. She’s killing the place.

  115. cranky-d says:

    She blinded me with science.

    SCIENCE!!

  116. nishizonoshinji says:

    hehe, ok …..but isnt Black Liberation Theology basially a grab to get some oldtimey religion onto the lefthand side?
    Didn’t Jeff do a geneology there too? Where he traced some BLT roots back to fascism?

    the red/blue or conservative/liberal divide is pretty much religious/secular.

    hmm….then the big cross visual stimulous O is using is pretty unity. Bringing religion onto the leftside.

  117. Rob Crawford says:

    the red/blue or conservative/liberal divide is pretty much religious/secular.

    No, it’s not.

  118. […] Protein Wisdom – Guilt by association by association (or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the ill-fated Green… […]

  119. nishizonoshinji says:

    Rob, yup we’ll do it right this time.
    all volunteer.
    we are NOT talking about eugenics, but individual libertarian transhumanism.
    you are free to decline to participate.
    in fact, i recommend it.
    ;)

  120. dicentra says:

    dicentra, I bet your Ivy league education entitles you to be at least sceptical of the facts Jonah peddles to mostly dupes.

    How can I be a dupe and have an Ivy League education at the same time? What, Potsie is the Fonz, too?

    Now, do you recall any property expropriations and nationalizations in Italy or Germany?
    Or was the government supporting and advancing private corporations?

    The fascists engaged in “corporatism,” wherein the totalitarian government and big business collude for their mutual benefit. The government guarantees a market for big biz and big biz helps the government implement its totalitarian aims.

    And Goldberg points out that such a thing happens in the U.S., e.g., Microsoft and Wal-Mart never used to have lobbyists in Washington until Washington started messing with them. So they figured that if government is going to meddle in their affairs, they should try to influence the nature of that meddling.

    What ends up happening is that the regulations that government sets up, ostensibly to “curtail excesses in the private sector,” actually help big biz run its smaller competitors out of the market, because newbies can’t afford the costs of massive regulation.

    It’s an unholy alliance, don’t you think? Maybe if government left businesses alone, they’d get out of Washington, to the benefit of the whole population.

  121. SGT Ted says:

    I see that sashal has fallen for the Soviet Communist propaganda meme that fascism is “rightwing”.

  122. nishizonoshinji says:

    if they can get their protege in and up to the highest levels,

    and here we go again, back to the base problem.
    there is nothing that Obama has said or written that puts him in lockstep with these old hippies (who, btw, have paid their debt to society).
    guilt by association, like Jeff says.
    is this all you got?
    that is all you had with wright too.

  123. Dave in SoCal says:

    JeffG, I’m beggin’ ya. She’s killing the place.

    Hear, hear! Roughly 1/3 of every single frigging post contains “What Grinds Nishidiot’s Gears Today” and the heroic (but always ultimately futile) attempts to shut her up. It’s like having every batch of yummy delicious waffles containing 33% sawdust as filler.

    We’re gagging here, Jeff!

  124. JD says:

    Every time I think the nishit has proven to be as big of a nishit as possible, it goes and proves me wrong.

  125. Mikey NTH says:

    It doesn’t matter the fine points of the philosophy – apprpriating property vs. you can run it as we tell you – the methods and results were the same. Good old authoritarianism pulling in every source of power in a society and placing it all at the command of government – run by one party or leader. Total Power.

    Utopianists tend to go to authoritarianism because a lot of people resist the implementation of the big utopian project, so to get it off the ground you use power – lots and lots of power – and remove power from those who resist. That is why progressives and liberals and other big idea people tend to be fascists or have fascistic tendencies (a breed of authoritarianism) – they need it or they can’t get anything done but in the most slow, slip-shod manner as they have to build a consensus and those bulldozers to build the gleaming metropolis of the future (complete with sky-highways and monorails!) are costing a fortune every day they don’t work!

  126. McGehee says:

    33% sawdust as filler.

    Actually, by her own admission Nishi’s head contains nonexistent particles, not sawdust.

  127. Aldo says:

    the red/blue or conservative/liberal divide is pretty much religious/secular.

    This is an article of faith (excuse the pun) on the Left. It has as much usefulness as any facile generalization when applied to the Republican party specifically. When applied to the broader “red” side of the political spectrum that includes libertarians (hint: most of us at PW) it has no validity at all.

    Nishi, hopefully your next college course on the scientific method or statistics will introduce you to the dangers of the Hasty Generalization.

  128. N. O'Brain says:

    “What ends up happening is that the regulations that government sets up, ostensibly to “curtail excesses in the private sector,” actually help big biz run its smaller competitors out of the market, because newbies can’t afford the costs of massive regulation.”

    “Some of the worst enemies of capitalism are successful capitalists.”
    -Jerry Pournelle

    (not an exact quote. YMMV)

  129. Karl says:

    As much as I don’t want to feed the troll, just to correct the record, I wrote the long essay on Black Liberation Theology, and no, I don’t trace it back to fascism per se, though its lineage does match up with Aryan Christians of the Nazi period.

  130. Karl says:

    there is nothing that Obama has said or written that puts him in lockstep with these old hippies (who, btw, have paid their debt to society

    Ayers never paid his debt to society and remains unrepentant. Obama worked for Ayers’s Annenberg Challenge for years. Ayers and Dohrn hosted his political coming-out party in Hyde Park. And Obama’s own website defends Ayers and Dohrn as “mainstream.” As usual, you have no clue as to what you’re talking about.

  131. kelly says:

    I don’t know. When I look at the comment count on a post before clicking and it’s, say, a buck fifty or so, I’m thinking, “no sweat, I’ll just skip over all the teenage girl text messaging and the responses to them.”

    Cuts down the comments I actually read to roughly a third.

  132. Bravo Romeo Delta says:

    Nish @ 1:45 sez:

    the red/blue or conservative/liberal divide is pretty much religious/secular

    Which is the genesis of the wildly successful staunch Republican candidates the Reverend Al Sharpton and the Reverend Jesse Jackson.

  133. Slartibartfast says:

    SCIENCE!!

  134. happyfeet says:

    I’m really upset about this whole polar bear thing. That’s so gay. So unremittingly gay. Besides that, aren’t they Canada’s job? I fucking hate polar bears.

  135. Aldo says:

    OT, but I had to share this:

    BDS turning into HDS in the nutroots:

    IT’S NOT CLOSE. YOU FREAKING LOST THE NOMINATION, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?

    Good God. What is wrong with her?

    […]

    I actually liked Hillary up until a few months ago. Other bloggers used to tell me that Joe and I were too nice to Hillary. People just assumed that we were endorsing her. Now I actually loathe her. She makes me yell at the TV like she’s George Bush, and no one other than George Bush makes me yell at the TV – until now. I actually can’t stand her or her husband any more. I defended her. I defended her husband. And now I’m actually wondering if the Republicans weren’t right about them.

    ROFLMAO!!

  136. JD says:

    there is nothing that Obama has said or written that puts him in lockstep with these old hippies

    Except his voting record (when he cared enough to bother to vote), and his socialist policies. So, if you do not count those things … Again, facts, they tend to get in the way of your narrative.

  137. sashal says:

    I don’t entirely object to the some of your ideas and arguments , Thomass and Dicentra. I think main purpose of Jonah’s writing was a bludgeon to attack liberalism in general.
    Seems like any time you subordinate living people to some abstraction, be it God, State, Party, Race, Gender, – you end up in a totalitarian mess, and people get hurt.

    The 21st century’s battlefront will be between human rights and property rights. Given the state of the world, I think property rights are winning — torture, secret prisons, suspension of habeas corpus, permanent war — these things are destroying human rights, and yet they’re in place. But property rights are as safe as ever. You can see where the priorities are. The friendly fascist will be gung-ho on property rights, and won’t give a rat’s ass about human rights.

  138. Ardsgaine says:

    The 21st century’s battlefront will be between human rights and property rights.

    I’m typically a very patient guy, and it takes a lot to drag me into name calling, but that comment right there has tested me more than anything I’ve read in a long time. If you do not understand that THERE ARE NO HUMAN RIGHTS WITHOUT PROPERTY RIGHTS

  139. Ardsgaine says:

    The 21st century’s battlefront will be between human rights and property rights.

    I’m typically a very patient guy, and it takes a lot to drag me into name calling, but that comment right there has tested me more than anything I’ve read in a long time. If you do not understand that THERE ARE NO HUMAN RIGHTS WITHOUT PROPERTY RIGHTS

  140. BJTexs TW/BP says:

    I fucking hate polar bears.

    Oh, I don’t know, feets. I find fire braised polar bear paws and penguin flippers to be quite delectable.

  141. Ardsgaine says:

    Er, let me try that again. It’s hard to type when you’re angry…

    There are no human rights without property rights… If you don’t own what you create with your labor, then you are a slave. A slave. Let me say it one more time: A fucking slave. You can’t say what you think, and you can’t do what you like, because the sonofabitch who controls your means of survival will starve your ass to death.

    So there is no conflict between human rights and property rights. You cannot have any rights without the right to property.

  142. sashal says:

    heh, Ardsgaine, I heard you.

    It is not always true, there are plenty of people on this planet who have no property, but I bet they still have human rights

  143. BJTexs TW/BP says:

    Ardsgaine is dead on.

    There is a book floating about by an Argentinian(?) economist that I read excerpts from a while ago. His contention was that the poverty of third world countries was completely rooted in lack of property ownership: Indeed in the lack ofany mechanism for property ownership in most of those countries. that is a major reason why democratic African nations tend to end up with a tiny group of people bleeding the country dry.

    But Ards is right: The best way to insure human rights is to have the ability to own property. Communal peoperty, on the other hand is a great mechanism for oppression. For many on the hard left, this is a concept that they either ignore or wave aside.

  144. Seriously, if that’s possible, what do torture, secret prisons, suspension of habeas corpus, [and] permanent war have to do with property rights?

    Oh, and the Manichean dividing line isn’t between human rights and property rights, it is between individual rights and statism. Notice how the words facism, liberal, and conservative never even came up in that formulation?

  145. Too mnay threads here… but, pray tell, what universal human rights do the people of Zimbabwe have today and who is guaranteeing them?

  146. abadman says:

    “It is not always true, there are plenty of people on this planet who have no property, but I bet they still have human rights”

    What kind of idiotic statement is this? If you are in a society that respects property rights you will have human rights regardless of your property status. In a society that does not respect property rights even if you have property it can be taken away at any time. You will ultimately have no rights other that what the culture or state will allow you to have. Rights, although intangible, are just as much personal property as any piece of land.

  147. […] their party are “frakked.”) For example, “neo-libertarian” Jeff Goldstein sees fit to post a lengthy “analysis” of the New Left’s fascists tendencies, a perspective he […]

  148. sashal says:

    The best way to insure human rights is to have the ability to own property
    I am not arguing with that, BJ.
    But I still claim that human rights can be independent from the property rights

  149. psycho... says:

    If you read between the lines he even says that Wilson’s war socialism / proto fascism was… pre fascist.. ergo, the progressives did not take cues from them…

    He points to its American lineage (which is half the story), then kinda pusses out, leaving a somewhat wrong impression. But you can’t just blurt out something like “Nazism was Rockefeller Socialism” in…certain company. So.

  150. MayBee says:

    sashal- not property. Property rights.

  151. happyfeet says:

    Oh. All I knows is polar bears sure have them some goddamn rights.

  152. sashal says:

    charles austin,
    it is between individual rights and statism.
    better, much better, thanks for correction

  153. Pablo says:

    But I still claim that human rights can be independent from the property rights

    sashal, you’re conflating the right to have property with actually having it.

  154. Jeff G. says:

    Gotta love these pingbacks.

    As if I really care about bomb-throwing hippies. No, what I care about is the ideology that nurtured them, and that still underpins progressivism, coming to power. It is totalitarian.

    Of course, if Obama didn’t want us fretting over “dirty, fucking bomb-throwing hippies,” he probably shouldn’t be trying to normalize them. The Weather Underground was what it was. I didn’t invent them. And I’m not the one who is now trying to downplay their role in the New Left that is at the heart of today’s activist progressivism — except when I noted in my “analysis” that I believe they’ve learned from their tactical marketing mistakes, and have tried to gussy up the ideology to make it more presentable to the mainstream. And the best way to do that is to speak in platitudes — and then, when challenged, screech about your victim status, and let the press cover your ass for you.

    And what the fuck is this “neo-libertarian” thing, and why is it put into quotes? I’m a classical liberal.

  155. sashal says:

    Pablo, maybee, I got it.
    I stand corrected

  156. Aldo says:

    And what the fuck is this “neo-libertarian” thing, and why is it put into quotes? I’m a classical liberal.

    “Neo-Libertarian” is the label the guys at Q and O prefer.

  157. N. O'Brain says:

    “I think main purpose of Jonah’s writing was a bludgeon to attack liberalism in general.”

    Um, well, no, his purpose was to set the historical record straight after years of propaganda and reveal the fascist foots of today’s “progressives”, nee reactionaries.

    Oh, and THERE ARE NO HUMAN RIGHTS WITHOUT PROPERTY RIGHTS

  158. N. O'Brain says:

    Comment by happyfeet on 5/14 @ 3:20 pm #

    Oh. All I knows is polar bears sure have them some goddamn rights.

    Weird. I had a dream featuring a polar bear the other night.

  159. Slartibartfast says:

    It’s all so we can refer to you as Neo, Jeff.

  160. thor says:

    Wet dream over polar bear?

    I’d interpret that as repressed sexual feelings toward a black bear that you wish was white. You’re faggy for Baracky; it’s easy symbolism.

    O!

  161. Pablo says:

    And what the fuck is this “neo-libertarian” thing, and why is it put into quotes?

    Here’s why:

    (posted by Mona)

    Anytime you need to be misrepresented, any time at all, all you gotta do is call, and she’ll be there.

  162. MlR says:

    Argentinian(?)

    Peruvian, Hernando de Soto, Mystery of Capital.

    Sashal’s the perfect example of someone who, as Goldberg would, conceives himself as piously manning the look-out towers for the next brush-up, but is looking in the complete opposite direction.

    Nishi, sad to say, is now usually doing little more than trolling, having not only attached her ego to her arguments, but allowed that ego to force herself into subject areas within which she obviously has little grounding. Hence the need to make up arguments, whether about the Founders and the purpose of the Court system, pretty much on the fly.

  163. Civilis says:

    torture, secret prisons, suspension of habeas corpus, permanent war

    Ironically, the reason these things are so prevalent in the world today is the people that claim to be concerned about human rights are much more involved with taking away others property rights than standing up against the totalitarian nastiness that pervades much of the world today… North Korea, Iran, Syria, the Sudan, Zimbabwe, etc. They get all worked up about three people being waterboarded because it allows them to bash the US and ignore the fact that our enemies always resort to torture. Nobody the US has fought has ever followed the Geneva conventions. And somehow, us going well beyond what the conventions call for is going to cause them to become all nice?

  164. Aldo says:

    (posted by Mona)

    Did you notice that the blog’s Special Feature is an interview with Greenwald?

    I never actually see them in the same room together. Just sayin.

  165. Rick Ballard says:

    “There is a book floating about by an Argentinian(?) economist that I read excerpts from a while ago.”

    BJT,

    Hernado De Soto’s The Mystery of Capitalism. He’s Peruvian and “complete lack of ownership” misses by a bit but his actual premise, involving lack of transparency and high cost regarding real property ownership and transfer is very persuasive.

  166. B Moe says:

    Frankly, I think scientific and technological advancement is profoudly libertarian

    Possibly, but they are registered as Independents, and technology votes Republican a good bit.

    the red/blue or conservative/liberal divide is pretty much religious/secular.

    I just realized the nishbots problem, she is a victim of the Benchley Paradox.
    http://www.donaldwestlake.com/shortstory2.html

    Political liberty is no longer fashionable. It rarely is: In a brutal world, the idea of the nanny state that makes the trains run on time and gives everyone free healthcare is much more appealing.

    The thing of it is, this isn’t happening in a brutal world. Most of the world today is decidedly unbrutal in fact, and this country is leading the way. Yet here we are.

  167. happyfeet says:

    Am not.

  168. Dewclaw says:

    WAR KITTENS?!??!??!

  169. Rob Crawford says:

    I think main purpose of Jonah’s writing was a bludgeon to attack liberalism in general.

    No, it wasn’t. I don’t know if it’s in his book, but he HAS written on his motivations. Basically there were three: 1) he was sick and tired of being called “fascist” by people who proudly declared themselves “progressives”, 2) those self-declared “progressives” had no fucking clue about the origins of their philosophical movement and if informed of it, disclaimed the roots but not the reflexes, and 3) lefties love to bash conservatives for statements made by people 40 years ago, ignoring any changes in those peoples opinions or the actual opinions of the person they’re talking to; Goldberg knew the left’s antecedents had said things as bad or worse.

    The title is a quote from H.G. Wells, and Wells used it with approval.

    Again, if you’d show a shred of intellectual honesty and read the damned book, you might understand what’s going on.

  170. Mikey NTH says:

    Just a quibble, Civilis, but I think Germany and Italy pretty much followed the Geneva Conventions, and I think Spain acted decently.

  171. Mikey NTH says:

    P.S.: Imperial Germany did (I haven’t heard any claims otherwise); with Nazi Germany you were okay with the regular services (army, air force, navy) but the Waffen S.S.? Malmedy Massacre. Of course, the Germans received pay-back for that – but don’t let the anti-Guantanamo protestors know.

  172. Rob Crawford says:

    They get all worked up about three people being waterboarded because it allows them to bash the US and ignore the fact that our enemies always resort to torture.

    I still chuckle when I think about how more people have been waterboarded by people protesting the US government that were actually waterboarded BY the government.

  173. Rusty says:

    #151
    read “The Federalist Papers” more importantly read the constitution of the State of Virginia.

  174. happyfeet says:

    Oh. You meant Mr. N. O’Brain.

  175. Jeff G. says:

    Ah, Mona.

    For someone who can’t take me seriously and who, in good conscience, would prefer I were excised like a cancer from the body politic, she sure does pay me an awful lot of attention.

    I’m like that mole that looks slightly hinkey, I guess — even though she’s always careful to wear 50 spf sunscreen.

  176. nishizonoshinji says:

    neo-libertarian.
    yummy.
    im a neo-pythagorean. i think metaphysics are gonna make a comeback.

    here Jeff, let me rephrase your problem in my native language.
    goldberg did the genealogy for progs, exposing their fascist ancestry.
    you make a fine case of linear inheritance in the case of ayers and dorhne.
    but, sadly, the consanguinous relationship you aspire to establish between the weathermens and Obama just isn’t there.
    the best you can mangage is like a 32nd degree cousin-kinship.
    ditto rev wright.
    perhaps you can prove some shared genetic material…but the potent consanguinity of the shared idealogical genetics of fascism escapes you.
    ;)

  177. nishizonoshinji says:

    shouldn’t we call her Hypatia?
    that was her name before. i think that is more….um …..classical!

  178. dicentra says:

    I think main purpose of Jonah’s writing was a bludgeon to attack liberalism in general.

    This is the last time I’ll answer you, sashal, until you read the book.

    Besides what Rob wrote, Jonah bends over backwards to say that just because you’re a Democrat or you’re left of center, it doesn’t mean you’re a fascist or that you have aspirations to totalitarianism.

    He also explicates at length that the current connotation of “fascist” is “absolute evil,” whereas in its day it just meant another form of “forward-thinking government.”

    Read.

    The.

    Book.

  179. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    here Jeff, let me rephrase your problem in my native language.

    Did anyone here ask for a translation into AOL TardSpeak?

    ‘Cause I sure didn’t.

  180. dicentra says:

    sadly, the consanguinous relationship you aspire to establish between the weathermens [sic] and Obama just isn’t there.

    How can you tell, nishi? The man has conscientiously campaigned as The Mirror of Erised, having no content of his own except what people project onto him.

    But can someone really be that empty-minded and get this far without being Chauncey Gardiner? Obama has his convictions, but he chooses not to reveal them at this time. He’s playing his cards close to the chest, but these dad-gummed “distractions” keep coming up.

    If his convictions are not revealed by his long-time associations, then what does it say about him that he hangs with people with whom he disagrees?

  181. Pablo says:

    She makes shit up and swears to it. Let’s move on.

  182. nishizonoshinji says:

    goldberg also says that you are a mean cowardly bigot if you have a darwin fish.
    i have two!

  183. Jeff G. says:

    but, sadly, the consanguinous relationship you aspire to establish between the weathermens and Obama just isn’t there.
    the best you can mangage is like a 32nd degree cousin-kinship.
    ditto rev wright.

    I believe its a 2nd or 3rd degree kinship. Hence the title of these posts: Guilt by association by association.

    It doesn’t help matters, of course, that Obama is trying to normalize unrepentant and largely unpunished domestic terrorists from the the last, most obvious era of proud leftist fascism, though.

    Ditto labeling an unreconstructed racist, segregationist, and Marxist Christian like the Reverend Wright your “spiritual advisor.”

    Any kinship connections that can be drawn are taken directly from Obama’s relationships and the way he’s framed them — as well as from his education and what he took away from his formative years and his years in the salons.

    In literary circles, this would be what is called biographical criticism — which is perfectly acceptable to bring to bear on what we feel are the intentions of a Barack Obama political career. That doesn’t mean this reading is necessarily correct, mind you; just that the case is made stronger by the collection and display of the evidence, particularly in light of Obama’s own reluctance to cut loose those ties.

    Soon he will. But it will be an opportunistic and pragamatic cut — and it will be done with the Weather Underground remnant’s approval as part of a calculated political strategy. What is so surprising is that it hasn’t yet happened.

    At least, that’s the way I see it.

    Or, if you prefer — LOOKIT! DIRTY FUCKING HIPPIES!

    (clearly, Hypatia/Mona missed that pic of me over on the left…)

  184. nishizonoshinji says:

    dicentra, consanguinity cannot be proved without evidence.
    suspect all you like.
    certainly O could have been pandering to build street cred.
    he may not share a single meme’s worth of idealogy with the weathermens.
    let alone whole whole meme complexes.
    has he written anything you can cite?
    nope.

  185. Aldo says:

    ,shouldn’t we call her Hypatia?

    We should probably call her “Glenn Greenwald” to be perfectly accurate, but, out of politeness, we accept the distinction, if not the difference.

  186. dicentra says:

    But it will be an opportunistic and pragamatic cut

    It will be done for show only. After he gets into the Oval Office, they go back into the Rolodex.

  187. dicentra says:

    has he written anything you can cite?
    nope.

    Has he written anything that YOU can cite?
    Nope.

  188. Mikey NTH says:

    Fortunately, most people still operate on cliches, such as ‘you are known by the company you keep’. Bad for Sen. Obama, but I guess he was operating on the narcissistic beliefs held by many politicians that he could explain away anything when he was questioned.

    Sideshow Obama is doomed!

  189. nishizonoshinji says:

    lulz, sure Jeff, you can suspect 2nd or 3rd degree all you like.
    but if O took them on to establish street cred, he will cut them loose when he needs to, an expend the minimum energy necessary to do it..
    membah, he didn’t cut Wright loose until he was forced to. he’s a uniter! ;)

    and it’s purely tactical.
    it won’t get strategic until HRC steps on.

  190. nishizonoshinji says:

    dicentra, you all keep sayin that the mirror of erised is a bug……it is a feature.
    he’s like that boy in the Bradbury story.
    O has has a better chance of uniting people if they see a little of themselves in him.

  191. Pablo says:

    From Dreams of My Father: ‘I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.’

    From Dreams of My Father : ‘I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mothers race.’

    From Dreams of My Father: ‘There was something about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.’

    From Dreams of My Father: ‘It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.’

    From Dreams of My Father: ‘I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa , that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.’

    From Audacity of Hope: ‘I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.’

  192. nishizonoshinji says:

    hmmm….hypatia’s death
    Believed to have been the reason for the strained relationship between the Imperial Prefect Orestes and the Bishop Cyril, Hypatia attracted the ire of a Christian population eager to see the two reconciled.

    One day in March 415 CE,[23] during the season of Lent, her chariot was waylaid on her route home by a Christian mob, possibly Nitrian monks[23] led by a man identified only as “Peter”.

    She was stripped naked and dragged through the streets to the newly christianised Caesareum church and killed. Some reports suggest she was flayed with ostrakois (literally, “oyster shells”, though also used to refer to roof tiles or broken pottery) and set ablaze while still alive, though other accounts suggest those actions happened after her death.

  193. Aldo says:

    he’s like that boy in the Bradbury story.
    O has has a better chance of uniting people if they see a little of themselves in him.

    The implied premise here is that “uniting people” is the criterion for selecting a President. I’m not even certain that it is an unmitigated good thing.

  194. nishizonoshinji says:

    severe!

  195. nishizonoshinji says:

    Aldo, it may not be a good criterion.
    but at least it is something different.
    a genuine desire to unite the country?
    he may be our best hope.
    did you see the Orson Scott Card essay dicentra linked?

    the right may wind up totally dispossed in november.

  196. nishizonoshinji says:

    disposessed

  197. B Moe says:

    O has has a better chance of uniting people if they see a little of themselves in him.

    Anybody who can look at the Dem primary and still call Obama a uniter is slap full of the dumbass.

  198. nishizonoshinji says:

    Card’s premise is that the left already owns the media, academe, and the arts, but this was balanced by the right having both houses of congress and the presidency.
    must have been written pre-2006.

  199. Ardsgaine says:

    disposessed

    Steerike two!

  200. Mikey NTH says:

    And Sen. Obama still can’t distance himself far enough from his associates. The ship is going down and no matter how hard he swims the suction has him.

    O! *glub*

  201. Mikey NTH says:

    test

  202. Mikey NTH says:

    Whew! Killed the open tag! What do I win?

  203. dicentra says:

    Where’s Lisa? She’s a much better opponent than sachal and nishi.

    Look at it this way, Jeff: if it weren’t for the trolls, these threads would never get this long.

  204. Aldo says:

    he may be our best hope.
    did you see the Orson Scott Card essay dicentra linked?

    the right may wind up totally dispossed in november.

    Yes, Card said what I’ve been writing in the comments. The Right will be dispossesed in November no matter what happens. Due to various trends the outlook for political liberty does not look good for the future. I foresee increasing concentration and centralization of power in this country and globally.

    GMcCain has been willing to face the wrath of his party in order to fight for goals that he believes in, usually associated with the Left, such as comprehensive immigration reform. Why doesn’t this make him the uniter? Is it the smiley face that makes the difference?

    I

  205. Aldo says:

    Obama is the “uniter” who has never expressed any willingness to cross party lines on any issue.

  206. dicentra says:

    Hey lookie: It turns out that Jonah Goldberg can speak for himself. The link is to his response to a reviewer who has some of the same objections as all y’all have.

    Matter of fact, the archives of his blog contain his answers to many reviewers.

  207. nishizonoshinji says:

    Aldo, mccain just cant win.
    he was a bad idea, the wrong man at the wrong time, like Jeff says.
    his medical reports are due tomorrow.
    likely he will have to take Huck as VP to defuse them.

    ok, Jeff and Jonah have presented an elegant genealogy for the left, and linear symbolic inheritance right down to the weathermens.
    a gallant and futile gesture.

  208. nishizonoshinji says:

    no way, dicentra.
    why, the man already called me a mean cowardly bigot.
    i shall live up to expectations. ;)

    i love the Derb.
    the rest of NRO, not so much.

  209. Aldo says:

    I don’t want to be “united.” I want to be left alone. I realize that this is an incomprehensible concept to those of you in the Millenium Generation, but it was fairly common in American history until recently.

    With that, I’ll have to wish you all a good night. I have an appointment at traffic school.

  210. nishizonoshinji says:

    b-b-b-b-but i want be left alone too!
    most especially i want the IDbots to stop tryin to push their dumb religion into public schools and secular unis!
    give me that one thing an ill go away.
    ;)

  211. Mikey NTH says:

    Always signal your turns, Aldo. And don’t accelerate when senior citizens or small children are in the crosswalk – you got few points for them. And anyway, those walkers can screw up your front end allignment.

    And Sen. McCain alrady sent a letter to Sen. Obama about reaching across the aisle in the senate. If it was true it was very polite – and very nasty. Darn near eighteenth century in polite nastiness. If Sen. McCain holds grudges, it will be a very uncomfortable season for Sen. Obama. And for those worried about Sen. McCain’s temper let me say again that he was a carrier pilot – if he doesn’t know self-discipline I will be surprised.

  212. nishizonoshinji says:

    rawr! theocon bioethics!

    The sickness in theocon bioethics goes beyond imposing a Catholic agenda on a secular democracy and using “dignity” to condemn anything that gives someone the creeps. Ever since the cloning of Dolly the sheep a decade ago, the panic sown by conservative bioethicists, amplified by a sensationalist press, has turned the public discussion of bioethics into a miasma of scientific illiteracy. Brave New World, a work of fiction, is treated as inerrant prophesy. Cloning is confused with resurrecting the dead or mass-producing babies. Longevity becomes “immortality,” improvement becomes “perfection,” the screening for disease genes becomes “designer babies” or even “reshaping the species.” The reality is that biomedical research is a Sisyphean struggle to eke small increments in health from a staggeringly complex, entropy-beset human body. It is not, and probably never will be, a runaway train.

    A major sin of theocon bioethics is exactly the one that it sees in biomedical research: overweening hubris. In every age, prophets foresee dystopias that never materialize, while failing to anticipate the real revolutions. Had there been a President’s Council on Cyberethics in the 1960s, no doubt it would have decried the threat of the Internet, since it would inexorably lead to 1984, or to computers “taking over” like HAL in 2001. Conservative bioethicists presume to soothsay the outcome of the quintessentially unpredictable endeavor called scientific research. And they would stage-manage the kinds of social change that, in a free society, only emerge as hundreds of millions of people weigh the costs and benefits of new developments for themselves, adjusting their mores and dealing with specific harms as they arise, as they did with in vitro fertilization and the Internet.

    Worst of all, theocon bioethics flaunts a callousness toward the billions of non-geriatric people, born and unborn, whose lives or health could be saved by biomedical advances. Even if progress were delayed a mere decade by moratoria, red tape, and funding taboos (to say nothing of the threat of criminal prosecution), millions of people with degenerative diseases and failing organs would needlessly suffer and die. And that would be the biggest affront to human dignity of all.

    an you guyz said i was makin it all up!
    Dr. Pinker FTW!

  213. McGehee says:

    Nishi, I really don’t think you should be quoting approvingly someone who says “overweening hubris” is a sin. Trust me on this.

  214. Civilis says:

    Just a quibble, Civilis, but I think Germany and Italy pretty much followed the Geneva Conventions, and I think Spain acted decently.

    I don’t know enough about the treatment of US troops taken prisoner by the Italians; you may be right in that regard. One can give the Germans partial credit, at least, for obeying the conventions most of the time, but we overlook incidents like Malmedy that happened too frequently to give them full credit.

    As you imply, my larger point stands. For all the big words about preventing torture, the dictators of the world have learned that the people who profess to care the most about it only give lip service to stopping it in cases where it’s a real problem. Which makes Sashal’s point even more ironic… torture has already won, a long time ago, and the victory goes to the same people that deny people human rights, especially property rights.

  215. serr8d says:

    Had there been a President’s Council on Cyberethics in the 1960s, no doubt it would have decried the threat of the Internet, since it would inexorably lead to 1984, or to computers “taking over” like HAL in 2001. Conservative bioethicists presume to soothsay the outcome of the quintessentially unpredictable endeavor called scientific research.

    No. Bioethicists (whether religion-based or not) will question stem cells derived from viable human embryos. The neo-corporate “Big” Science bloc (qualified as Nishi-state scientists–not all scientists lack ethics)would rather ignore any ethics questions that stand in the way of nice grant monies and lucrative patents. This “…if progress were delayed a mere decade by moratoria, red tape, and funding taboos (to say nothing of the threat of criminal prosecution), millions of people with degenerative diseases and failing organs would needlessly suffer and die” is reminiscent of fear-based arguments tugging at the heart strings of terminally ill patients (Christopher Reeve for example) who probably knew that even if stem cells came on line and scientists worked 24-hour shifts any ‘cure’ would still take longer than he had left.

    Nishi, catch!

  216. nishizonoshinji says:

    will question stem cells derived from “viable human embryos.”

    but not, i fear, the 400,000 cryostasised nonsentient cell clumps that GW is protecting in the snowflake bank.
    we may as well use some of those to restart the devolving cell lines.
    a fertilized egg in cryostasis is hardly a “viable human embryo”.

    ;)
    this is a war, an you theocons are on the wrong side.
    and you are gonna lose power in november, and the frackin bioluddite council will be fired! hahahaha
    sweetness.

  217. Civilis says:

    Nishi also shouldn’t be quoting someone that can recognize the difference between fiction and reality. And she should do some research on the precautionary principle, especially as it applies to climate science and who its advocates are. Pinker’s essay is off in that I don’t see any effort to soothsay the outcome of scientific research, but instead limit the methods of scientific research, exactly the same as those on the left that fret about GM crop fields or the use of animals in experiments. And his last ends-justify-the-means paragraph suggests that the good of the many outweighs the needs of the few, so perhaps we should suggest he volunteer his body for a scientific experiment; surely he can’t object as the research might end up helping millions of people.

    most especially i want the IDbots to stop tryin to push their dumb religion into public schools and secular unis!
    give me that one thing an ill go away.

    You get the left to stop pushing their dumb politics in public schools and secular higher education and we’ll talk. As long as the rules allow exploitation by anyone for political gain, you have to expect people will game the system.

    BTW, Nishi, I find anyone that puts any of the newer ‘fish’ decorations on their car is a cowardly bigot: Darwin Fish, Flying Sphagetti Monsters, Cthulhu Fish, Dead Darwin Fish, Jesus Fish eating Darwin Fish… but then again, I loathe politics via bumper sticker. You’re not trying to debate, you’re trying to ridicule.

  218. B Moe says:

    And they would stage-manage the kinds of social change that, in a free society, only emerge as hundreds of millions of people weigh the costs and benefits of new developments for themselves, adjusting their mores and dealing with specific harms as they arise, as they did with in vitro fertilization and the Internet.

    Agreed no one should be allowed to stage-manage, but you can’t disallow them from participating in the process, which is what you are arguing.

  219. happyfeet says:

    you’re still gonna die :(

  220. nishizonoshinji says:

    we don’t need to talk.
    ;)
    we are gettin the grippin hand.

  221. Civilis says:

    this is a war, an you theocons are on the wrong side.
    and you are gonna lose power in november, and the frackin bioluddite council will be fired! hahahaha

    And if we lose power in November, Nuclear Power and GM foods will still be unfairly stigmatized, and AGW proponents will still be dominating discussion of climate change policy, and politics will still trump reason at secular universities as well as religious ones, and trial lawyers will use juries composed of random members of the public to rule on scientific facts, but Nishi has assured us that the liberals wouldn’t dream of doing anything against her beloved science!

  222. ThomasD says:

    True, but does anyone think Daschle was thinking of imperial Rome whilst invoking that imagery?

    Arrggh. A little late to the topic, but I can’t let this pass.

    The Fasces were bundles of rods carried by Lictors and were the symbols of Consular or other elected offical) power in Republican Rome. They were symbolic of the strength of a political body united as as one, and in that sense Daschle was entirely correct.

    The Fasces, like many other symbols of ancient Roman glory, were appropriated by Mussolini. Well, not actually appropriated, stolen is the more accurate term because ultimately the fascists, just like the communists, were street thugs – no better than any other form of organized crime.

    that is the way I prefer to view national socialism vs. communism – two gangs, rivals but otherwise identical in principle and practice, fighting over the same streetcorner.

  223. B Moe says:

    BTW, Nishi, I find anyone that puts any of the newer ‘fish’ decorations on their car is a cowardly bigot: Darwin Fish, Flying Sphagetti Monsters, Cthulhu Fish, Dead Darwin Fish, Jesus Fish eating Darwin Fish… but then again, I loathe politics via bumper sticker. You’re not trying to debate, you’re trying to ridicule.

    I have a Darwin Fish on one of my guitars because I thought it was funny. I ain’t trying to ridicule anyone, lighten up dude.

  224. happyfeet says:

    At the end of the day though ID is a stupid thing to have in schools I think. But there are lots of stupid things in schools, so I don’t get all the drama really.

  225. Mikey NTH says:

    And all of #216 had what to say about Sen. Obama and his association with hard left domestic terrorists of the late 1960s?

    As much as Shiratsuyu. Shigure.

  226. Civilis says:

    we are gettin the grippin hand.

    …And those high school science classes are going to be filled with eager young minds soaking up the scientific wisdom of Saint Albert Gore. That’s the “We” you are referring to? You and St. Al, exemplars of science?

  227. happyfeet says:

    Like this is a war. That seems kind of dramatic. Does everything have to be so fraught? I hate polar bears and also Christopher Reeve.

  228. nishizonoshinji says:

    dur, civilis there are even prog-transhumanists. they reject the military aps of transhumanism of course, but i have a lot in common with them.
    im in transition between the partys.
    sure there are fascist whackjobs on both sides, but i know which side is gonna support ESCR and genetic engineering and lifehacking. and it aint the theocons.

    it isn’t difficult.
    AGW is selflimiting…the info tide is turning already.

    heh…im already thinking about white papers for military aps that the bush admin’s disdain for biotech and strong AI made unfeasible before.

    biotech FTW!

  229. Civilis says:

    B Moe: I don’t have any problem with Darwin Fish on guitars; I said cars. There’s a difference between the two.

    Seriously, A co-worker here in rural VA has a FSM-fish on her car, and I’m amused that we’re the only two that get the joke. I never expected it of her, to say the least, and it’s not a problem because it doesn’t turn into a proxy for a more serious debate; I know we’d have differences if it came down to a serious debate, but as long as it remains an in joke it’s cool. It’s those that take a serious political debate and distill it to a series of strawman soundbites that I hate, be it their bumper stickers or the comics in the paper; these debates are more complex than that. Your guitar, and your car, are fine. If you have an extra one, I’ll put it on my laptop. I don’t put anything on my car’s bumper save a US flag.

  230. happyfeet says:

    Civilis thinks good.

  231. Mikey NTH says:

    As I said Civilis, a quibble. The Malmedy Massacre ended up with the war-trials, Peiper didn’t get out of prison until 1956 (IIRC). It wasn’t overlooked, the US army post-mortemed the bodies they found for evidence, and that wasn’t normal for just any dead Joe in WWII. The big point you (and I – I hope) got across is that the Geneva Conventions will be rspected only by thoroughly westernized nations – the sort that put out the idea of the Geneva Conventions in the first place.

  232. nishizonoshinji says:

    and you said i was makin up the theocons.
    Dr. Pinker rules.
    did you know his evo bio paradigm has pretty much replaced chomskyian deep grammer as the origin of language paradigm?
    he and chomsky are sworn enemies.
    kinda like me an ponnuru.
    hahahah
    but i don’t think Dr. Pinker is very friendly to the right anymore.
    not after the bioluddite council.
    ;)

  233. happyfeet says:

    Yes. Deploying biotech weapons would have been a propaganda coup a lot I think. Baracky will have to get right on that.

  234. happyfeet says:

    If for real it’s a war then Ponnuru needs to go down I think. He creeps me out.

  235. RTO Trainer says:

    To amplify Civilis, teh Fasces appears prominetly in Army heraldry. The Solsier’s Medal: On a 1 3/8 inch wide Bronze octagon an eagle displayed, standing on a fasces, between two groups of stars of six and seven, above the group of six a spray of leaves. On the reverse is a shield paly of 13 pieces, on the chief the letters “US”, supported by sprays of laurel and oak, around the upper edge the inscription “SOLDIER’S MEDAL” and across the face the words “FOR VALOR.” In the base is a panel for the name of the recipient to be engraved. The medal is suspended from the ribbon by a rectangular-shaped metal loop with corners rounded.

    The Army Medal of Honor incorporated the Fasces as well until the design was changed in 1944.

    It also appears in the Seal of the National Guard Bureau and the unit crest of the 71st Infantry Regiment (NYARNG).

    It also appers in teh Seal of the United States Senate, above a door in the Oval Office, and in the State Seal of Colorado. Fasces are also the supporters of the arms of Abraham Lincoln’s chair in his memorial.

  236. Mikey NTH says:

    #226 ThomasD – I did specifically state the Roman Republic in my comment, just to be clear. It is the basis of E Pluribus Unum – From Many, One.

    Or as Ben Franklin reputedly said, ‘We must now hang together or we will hang separately’.

    Just because an asshole used the symbol doesn’t mean all those that used it B.A. (Before Asshole) are tainted.

  237. Mikey NTH says:

    #237 You can keep Roy Batty, haps. I’ll take Pris.

  238. McGehee says:

    he and chomsky are sworn enemies.
    kinda like me an

    …intelligible speech.

    Fixed that for you.

  239. Mikey NTH says:

    #242

    You can’t fix that which wasn’t designed right from the start. Even drunk I make more sense.

  240. happyfeet says:

    I remember in college I wrote a paper for this guy on Blade Runner. He bought me a pizza. I had a stupid tired prompt (Descartes!) but I liked more what it did with corporatism and marketing. Academic people a lot don’t appreciate how ideas about things like that resonate and sparkle ironically in a cineplex experience.

  241. B Moe says:

    It’s those that take a serious political debate and distill it to a series of strawman soundbites that I hate, be it their bumper stickers or the comics in the paper; these debates are more complex than that.

    Like calling anyone who disagrees with you, even atheists and agnostics, theocons?

    I liked the symbolism of the Darwin Fish because I have always been struck by the sequence of events in Genesis. If you take out the time frame, it is in perfect agreement with the current Big Bang/Evolution theory, including early cultural evolution. Things like this are why I am agnostic rather than atheist.

  242. nishizonoshinji says:

    do you know what i find extremely creepy feets?

    the premise that acuz the left is pushing AGW junkscience into classrooms that makes it okfine for the right to push IDT psuedoscience into classrooms.
    sux for the kiddos, eh?

  243. serr8d says:

    this is a war, an you theocons are on the wrong side

    Nishi, your glamorized warrior-style scientists are not all scientists. There are those who have some ethics, and will welcome the from-outside scrutiny. War? no, that’s not the way of it. If you think of yourself as a scientist in a position to dictate to people from your ‘pulpit’ what they can believe or not, then you are not at all objective enough to even be a true scientist. Plan to have your thinking polished a bit more before you apply for your first grant.

    There’s plenty of examples of bad science…Drs. Hwang Woo-suk and Ranjit Chandra are examples of those who would do anything for a new grant and some dippy interns easily-swayed grad students. You see where their lack of ethics got them, eh?

  244. B Moe says:

    You never did explain why the environment isn’t a designer in evolutionary theory, nishi. Still looking for something to cut and paste?

  245. happyfeet says:

    I think there’s a huge difference in degree though. And also IDT doesn’t get reinforced very much in popular culture and media. I think realistically IDT dissemination is of far less practical consequence than you think. Not so much with AGW. That said, they both need to be opposed. I think ridicule is more effective against AGW than against IDT because IDT feeds off of a certain (contrived) sense of persecution I think. AGW is just stupid dirty hippy marxism.

  246. nishizonoshinji says:

    Dr Pinker always was a sort of anti-idiotarian.
    i think the bioluddite council has caused him to switch sides.
    kinda like me.
    ;)

  247. McGehee says:

    You never did explain why the environment isn’t a designer in evolutionary theory, nishi.

    Because she says so. And what she says goes, with a capital “G.”

    She’s the designer, which means “intelligent” design must be false.

  248. TerryH says:

    Happyfeet: The polar bears are having a picnic. You are cordially invited to attend.

    Leave your rights at home.

  249. happyfeet says:

    Yay! Kind of. What kind of gay porn star name is Dirk Kempthorne anyway?

  250. nishizonoshinji says:

    no thnx, i had enuff of stupid arguments on the Derbs Pajamafia thread.
    i had to debunk that stupid eye complexity argument 3x.
    snore city.
    here yous go, knock yourselves out.

    Is it possible that the conservative movement really does want to self-destruct?

    Anyway, the anti-evolution self-improvement program Human Events is pitching is called “Tear Apart the “Theory” of Evolution — And Win Every Debate, Every Time,” and here’s the introductory description:

    Show any Skeptic that Evolution is Based on Myths,
    Falsehoods and Outrageous Lies – In 5 Minutes or Less!

    Dear Friend,

    I’m fed up with Darwin…

    When evolution supporters tried to make me feel foolish for believing in God, I decided to do something about it.

    Evolution is not proven fact. Every one of their claims can be torn to shreds. All you need are the missing pieces. Today, I’ll show you what they are.

    Within minutes, you’ll:

    * Quickly take down self-righteous atheists…

    * Easily and accurately defend God’s role as our Creator…

    * Send hardened skeptics into a state of confusion…

    * Expose the “theory” of evolution and leave scientists with their mouths hanging open…

    My name is Jeffrey Howard. If you ever challenged someone on evolution, I have great news.

    By the time you read to the end of this letter, you’ll have everything you need to take on the skeptics and win. You’ll never be at a loss for words. The whole evolution debate will be right in your pocket.

    Use it anytime, anywhere… It’s much easier than you think. Once you get the real story, it takes less than 5 minutes!

    via Eric

    if you go to Eric’s place, the mag this advert appears in is Human Events. Newt Ginrich anyone?
    goofballs.

    you’re going down.

  251. happyfeet says:

    Who is Jeffrey Howard though?

  252. MayBee says:

    Barack Obama is going to unite you with theocons, Nishi. You’ll see.

  253. happyfeet says:

    And Newt Gingrich is a big global warming pansy. He’s dead to me.

  254. MlR says:

    “Like calling anyone who disagrees with you, even atheists and agnostics, theocons?”

    Dude, she’s a one-note walking contradiction.

  255. nishizonoshinji says:

    Barack Obama is going to unite you with theocons, Nishi. You’ll see.

    im all for that.
    unitey is coolio….but theocons won’t have any power.
    we are still gonna have ESCR funding and restart the devolving lines, and samesex marriage and abortion rights, and have an actual transhumanist segment of the dem party.
    keen.

  256. nishizonoshinji says:

    Howard is the guy sellin the mail in course for 97 pound intellectual weaklings, hehe.
    39.99 and you can destroy atheists and evolutionists with a single blow from your mind, and get all the grrls, lulz

  257. Gray says:

    A major sin of theocon bioethics is exactly the one that it sees in biomedical research: overweening hubris.

    Like the wierd old deaf lesbians who have a deaf designer kid built for them.

    Or what about the gay stump-fetish amputees who want a child born without a limb so he can ‘inhabit their world fully’?

    Hey, it’s just a non-viable tissue mass until it’s ‘born’, then it’s a flipper baby built with flippers by design.

    Maybe we can intentionally build some elephant-men (and women) with horrible and disfiguring genetic syndromes so that they can ‘teach us all what being human really means’, like John Merrick.

    Maybe they could just bio-engineer all people to be white to reflect more sunlight and prevent global warming.

    Personally, I’d trade a million flipper-babies and genetic mistakes humanely euthanized to have some dinosaurs back!

  258. happyfeet says:

    Oh. On the bright side Darwin’s book didn’t make Human Events’ danger list.

  259. Gray says:

    and have an actual transhumanist segment of the dem party.

    Maybe they can be designed as synchronous hermaphrodites so that they can all just go fuck themselves.

  260. Mikey NTH says:

    #251:

    And the waves of giant mutated insects are sent down to the village, and she complains about the pitchforks and torches?

    Sheesh. No respect for the classics.

  261. B Moe says:

    You are arguing with phantoms and ghosts, nishi. I have no problem accepting evolution, my point is that evolution is intelligent design, and your only response is to throw quotes from totally unrelated arguments at me and scream shut up. You got nothing. Your vaunted intellect is nothing but a random dogma generator, completely incapable of forming an original argument.

  262. nishizonoshinji says:

    my point is that evolution is intelligent design,

    not by popular definition.
    anyways we had this stupid argument already.
    design implies a designer, an autonomous entity.
    this is just another boring pointless convo.
    tais tois

  263. nishizonoshinji says:

    guess what tomorrow is?
    may 15.
    the day mccains med reports are due out.
    ;)
    ima go sleep and dream about white papers on combat biotech and Friendly Ai.
    a demain

  264. B Moe says:

    Popular definition? Are you fucking kidding me? You calling yourself a scientist is the height of absurdity.

    design implies a designer, an autonomous entity.

    Bullshit. Find a definition anywhere with that as an exclusive qualifier. Give me something remotely resembling an argument explaining why the environment can’t be considered an intelligent designer. And note that neither of those words were capitalized, this argument has nothing to do with God or Theocons. Open you mind and think like the scientist you profess to be.

    Or go lock yourself in a closet and scream at Ben Stein some more.

  265. happyfeet says:

    This is long, but I thought it was interesting. #10 especially.

    Olivier Malnuit recently drew up the liberal communist’s ten commandments in the French magazine Technikart:

    1. You shall give everything away free (free access, no copyright); just charge for the additional services, which will make you rich.

    2. You shall change the world, not just sell things.

    3. You shall be sharing, aware of social responsibility.

    4. You shall be creative: focus on design, new technologies and science.

    5. You shall tell all: have no secrets, endorse and practise the cult of transparency and the free flow of information; all humanity should collaborate and interact.

    6. You shall not work: have no fixed 9 to 5 job, but engage in smart, dynamic, flexible communication.

    7. You shall return to school: engage in permanent education.

    8. You shall act as an enzyme: work not only for the market, but trigger new forms of social collaboration.

    9. You shall die poor: return your wealth to those who need it, since you have more than you can ever spend.

    10. You shall be the state: companies should be in partnership with the state.

  266. RTO Trainer says:

    hey feets, send me your e-mail addy would you?

    rtoDOTtrainerATgmailDOTcom

  267. B Moe says:

    Intelligent design is the assertion that “certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection”.

    Undirected?

    Natural selection is the process by which favorable heritable traits become more common in successive generations of a population of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable heritable traits become less common.

    How is that undirected?

  268. happyfeet says:

    done

  269. Okay, who had “ESCR” in today’s Nishi Obsession pool?

    oh! me! me! what did I win?

  270. nishizonoshinji says:

    why the environment can’t be considered an intelligent designer.

    in·tel·li·gent (n-tl-jnt)
    adj.
    1. Having intelligence.
    2. Having a high degree of intelligence; mentally acute.
    3. Showing sound judgment and rationality: an intelligent decision; an intelligent solution to the problem.
    4. Appealing to the intellect; intellectual: a film with witty and intelligent dialogue.
    5. Computer Science Having certain data storage and processing capabilities: an intelligent terminal; intelligent peripherals.

    the environment is not sentient and therefore cannot be possessed of intelligence.
    /yawn

    nite

  271. MayBee says:

    and have an actual transhumanist segment of the dem party.

    The genius of the mirror of erised is that even those who know it’s a feature, not a bug, don’t know when they are only seeing what they want to see.
    Apparently.

  272. Civilis says:

    the premise that acuz the left is pushing AGW junkscience into classrooms that makes it okfine for the right to push IDT psuedoscience into classrooms.

    The problem is that you aren’t solving the problem, which is that politics determines what gets taught in public schools. It shouldn’t be okay for anyone to push an agenda using the public schools. I object to your premise that I should worry about Intelligent Design proponents taking advantage of a broken system, but not anyone else, and should not worry that the system is broken to begin with. I cited AGW because despite your claims to the contrary it’s a much more accepted and much more dangerous example of politically charged psuedo-science, given that we’ve got three major presidential candidates that have to at least pay lip service to the idea of throwing away a good chunk of the American economy, and the same environmentalists that are pushing AGW have serious pull in the Democratic party, and they’re the idiots preventing us from fixing the American energy system with clean nuclear power or providing global agricultural improvements that will almost certainly benefit more lives to a much greater extent in the next century than your beloved transhumanism; they’ve probably saved a billion lives already.

  273. B Moe says:

    the environment is not sentient and therefore cannot be possessed of intelligence.

    In my case the word intelligent is a modifier for the word design, not designer. Whether the environment is intelligent is not the issue, the system or being that evolves to suit it most certainly is.

    Showing sound judgment and rationality: an intelligent decision; an intelligent solution to the problem.

    That is my point, evolution brings one to intelligent solutions. Your narrow, rigid, dogmatic approach to definitions and concepts rather reminds me of the Theocons.

  274. B Moe says:

    275- nishi seems to only see what she wants to see in everything, MayBee, I doubt she really even understands the level of Obama’s gift.

  275. nishizonoshinji says:

    shorter civilus: its fine for us to push crap anti-science on kids cuz the other side’s crap anti-science is worse.

    shorter B Moes: it depends on the meaning of the word “is”.

  276. McGehee says:

    At least B Moe is concerned with the meanings of the words he uses.

  277. maggie katzen says:

    Did I maybe win a Nishiworld Dictionary? cause that would be helpful.

  278. Rob Crawford says:

    shorter civilus: its fine for us to push crap anti-science on kids cuz the other side’s crap anti-science is worse.

    Shorter nishi: “durrrr…. what you say?!”

    Actually, he’s saying no one’s crap anti-science is OK, but focusing on the one that has bugger-all chance of going anywhere and ignoring the one that’s gotten so far as to be a required talking point in our political class seems more a matter of bigotry and obsession than either intellectual honesty or maturity.

  279. Slartibartfast says:

    Sorry, B Moe, I have to vigorously disagree with your reframing of a passive, let-it-happen process as “design”. “Design” has an implied “designer” who’s doing the design on purpose. In a sense, Intelligent Design is an oxymoron, because there IS no design without intelligence.

    Which is not to say that there are no stupid designs, but rather to say there would be no designs at all without intelligence. The human race has a long and glorious history of boneheaded fuckups for all of our vaunted intelligence; the real miracle is that we’ve managed to do anything at all that’s not a complete disaster.

    So no: in this case I have to agree with nishi that Intelligent Design does in fact imply an Intelligent Designer, and that furthermore such things are an argument for God Did It.

    Which I have no problem with, just to be upfront about it, but God Did It isn’t an explanation, and it doesn’t lead to understanding. It’s the poking around behind the God Did It curtain in the first place that got us laws of motion, theory of gravitation, and a whole host of other attempts to render the behavior of the real universe understandable, and to a certain extent, predictable.

  280. nishizonoshinji says:

    shorter rob crawford: its fine for us to push crap anti-science on kids cuz the other side’s crap anti-science is worse.

  281. maggie katzen says:

    and science is bad mmmmmkay?

    and here I had “McCain is teh old” in the pool today. : (

  282. happyfeet says:

    #284… I think that’s a valid point really, kind of, but more I’d say you never know what stupid indoctrinatey crap will be the final straw. Meanwhile, high school students get tooled all the time. It builds character. Have a little faith really that they can sort through the stoopid, or at least that they’re probably not really paying all too much attention.

  283. maggie katzen says:

    I think that’s a valid point really,

    um, except it’s not at all what he said.

  284. happyfeet says:

    Oh. I meant that Rob had kinda a valid point. But here’s how I look at it. Al Gore has hired the best brainswashy propaganda gurus he can buy for his $300M campaign of carbon dioxide bigotry. Though Gore lists the Girl Scouts as one of his partners here, the campaign is targeted at the general public, not kids/teens. That’s kind of curious, unless you consider that the propaganda people figure that kids/teens are getting more than adequate indoctrination at school. IDT is not even remotely playing in this kind of ballpark.

  285. nishizonoshinji says:

    anti-science is bad.
    both IDT and AGW are anti-science crapology.

    nah, i did mccain is too old at dkos.
    thsy are waaaaay more receptive.
    besides i can make an “activity” diary there, and people start pelting the MSM with activist emails.

  286. nishizonoshinji says:

    i made a post to call for the release of his med reports.
    ;)
    one thing the netroots are good at, is pelting the MSM with mail.

  287. nishizonoshinji says:

    now i think i’ll make a diary on samesexmarriage.
    because it just got legal in cali, dontchu know.

  288. nishizonoshinji says:

    and maggie, that is exactly what they both said.

  289. B Moe says:

    Sorry, B Moe, I have to vigorously disagree with your reframing of a passive, let-it-happen process as “design”. “Design” has an implied “designer” who’s doing the design on purpose. In a sense, Intelligent Design is an oxymoron, because there IS no design without intelligence.

    That would be a redundancy, not an oxymoron. Sorry, couldn’t help it. ;p
    Again, I don’t agree about the implied designer. Random designs happen all the time.

    So no: in this case I have to agree with nishi that Intelligent Design does in fact imply an Intelligent Designer, and that furthermore such things are an argument for God Did It.

    You are caught up in the Capital Letter Intelligent Design, also. My argument has nothing to do with those guys, or the complex systems whatchamacallits.

    Which is not to say that there are no stupid designs, but rather to say there would be no designs at all without intelligence.

    So you believe a fish isn’t designed for swimming? A bird isn’t designed to fly? A monkey isn’t designed to be demagogued politically? I see brilliant designs all around me in the natural world, if they didn’t happen randomly by evolutionary processes then I suppose their must be a God.

  290. maggie katzen says:

    and maggie, that is exactly what they both said.

    if you’re illiterate, I guess. fuck off.

  291. B Moe says:

    …a passive, let-it-happen process ….

    I would question that description of life in the food chain, also. Maybe it would help if you considered the lion as the designer of the gazelle?

  292. B Moe says:

    shorter B Moes: it depends on the meaning of the word “is”.

    So you got nothing, like I said.

  293. B Moe says:

    One more point, on another thread Slart posted this:

    This sort of thing was fairly typical for fighter aircraft produced in the 1950s-1970s. Since there weren’t decent computers or digital models, design flaws were mostly discovered when someone (or a few someones) died. So flying a new jet was inherently much more dangerous than flying a jet with several years of design revisions in it.

    This illustrates my point perfectly. The planes evolved as a part of the design process. Computer modeling is a quicker, cheaper and safer method of the same process, you try different things until you see what works. The mental process that develops the trial design is the same, you quickly hack the possibilities down to something worth trying by letting the idea evolve mentally, eliminating the obvious losers without really thinking about it.

    All I am saying, is this is the same process which occurs in natural evolution. What, or who, is driving the design matters not.

  294. Civilis says:

    if you’re illiterate, I guess.

    Thanks, Maggie and Rob.

  295. Slartibartfast says:

    A bird isn’t designed to fly?

    Or, planets are designed to whirl around their primaries? Black holes are designed to suck? Stars are designed to radiate blackbody-ish EM spectra?

    The reason I object to the “designed” meme is that it doesn’t lead to understanding of the underlying mechanics. It doesn’t add anything. It’s superfluous.

    Which of course means that you’re perfectly free to toss it into conversation in much the same way that Germans toss in random-ish alsos int their speech, but it doesn’t mean I have to agree with you, or do likewise.

  296. B Moe says:

    I give up, how about if we substitute configuration for design, might that better convey the concept without insulting your intelligence?

  297. in much the same way that Germans toss in random-ish alsos int their speech

    that’s so true! I noticed it yesterday during the cute guy from Ingolstadt’s presentation.

  298. Jeff G. says:

    also, sausages.

  299. also, they have to drive around in an American van to test tuners for luxury cars. BWAH HA HA HAaaaa

  300. […] of Obama’s radical ties, filtered through some of Jonathan Goldberg’s observations, this way: Today’s battle for the Democratic nomination is between two heirs of the New Left. What makes […]

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