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On SEK's latest "racism" charges [updated, to respond to what amounts to one of the most transparently asinine counter arguments ever levied in the history of counter argument levying; then, updated again to account for all manner of things — not the least of which is my opaque suggestion that Mr. Kaufman should never, ever get in front of a video camera]

A brief gloss on Darleen’s post, below:

Charges of racism are a serious thing. Kaufman uses them to silence critics and shame people into supporting egregious public policy that does nothing more than perpetuate the very racism he claims to abhor — with people like him overseeing the efforts like British noblemen overseeing their Wogs. He’s a selfish opportunist, and worse, he has exchanged the very real and serious charge of racism for the strictly rhetorical effect the word has in public discourse. That is, SEK has decided that actual racists are so few and far between (and so are the lesser of two evils, to his way of thinking) that the charge of “racism” is now to be directed toward those non-racists who exhibit the markers (which are often coincidentally teased out of “coded language” by academics like Kaufman) of a brand of “racism” that SEK and his cadre of progressive flim flam men have themselves determined: a desire for color-blind policy, a failure to support certain race-based initiatives, a refusal to vote social-Democrat, a disagreement with policies put forth by a black President…

Ironically, it is SEK and his like who are so worried about the dwinding number of actual racists in this country that they’ve felt compelled to invent whole new swathes of such — all in order to keep alive the kind of identity politics that, at their base, fundamentally challenge the classical liberal system upon which this country was founded.

SEK is both a serial liar and a moral fraud. He masquerades as a savior of the disadvantaged, and yet he champions policy that has the practical effect of stoking racial animus and keeping his charges (and let’s face it, that’s what he sees them as — not as individuals, but rather as a collection of similarly shaded objects upon which to elevate his own sense of worth) at a perpetual disadvantage. All so he can control the way wealth and power are spread around.

He’s the worst kind of petty tyrant: the kind that hides behind a shield of unearned righteousness and blinding sanctimony.

He should really start his own church.

****
update: Per Joe, Kaufman responds amplifies his position [see update 4, below, for explanation of the edit – jg]:

As the body of the post makes plain, I was pointing out that conservative bloggers are in the unenviable position of race-baiting by default, because no matter what grounds they criticize Obama on, a vocal portion of their commentariat will respond with unveiled racism.

Quickly, if it is conservative bloggers (who may or may not be racist, and who may or may not write in racist “code” in hopes of reaching an audience that may or may not be comprised of racists, at least some of whom are openly so) who find themselves in the “unenviable position of race-baiting by default,” this must mean one of two things: there are no other kinds of bloggers (which, using only SEK as a performative example, we know to be false) or else non-conservative bloggers don’t have such worries, because non-conservative bloggers don’t appeal to those readers who “respond with unveiled racism.”

— Which, it follows, means that either non-conservative blog readers aren’t really racist, or else they’ve learned to respond in a way that is more properly veiled.

Thus, we can safely conclude that, per SEK, non-conservative bloggers are to be envied either 1) because they don’t appeal to racists (and so, they themselves are members of a morally superior political compact and can’t themselves be racist) or 2) because the racists they do appeal to have learned how to “veil” their racism in a way that is socially permissible.

Like, say, by couching it in progressive political policy talk.

I’ll let my readers decide which of those cases SEK is more likely making with his response.

****
update 2: from the archives, my response to Steve Sailer on population genetics and the common usage of “race” in American politics. Check out the comments, where none other than Matthew Yglesias — a one time regular commenter here — chimes in with his “conservative” agreement.

Granted, mine is not so rigorous an argument as “conservatives attract racists because racists are conservatives,” but then, that’s why my shit has never really sold all that well.

****
update 3: A follow-up debate to the Sailer post with the late Aaron Hawkins of “Uppity Negro” fame.

Man. The blogosphere was so much different back then…

If Kaufman and his cloister of unreconstructed bigots wanted to have an actual debate, those past posts of mine — which draw out my “conservative” position on race — would be a fine place for them to start forging their counters.

Of course, tackling those ideas takes more time and effort than vomiting out post after post about how conservatives are racist just because they are, so I won’t be holding my breath.

Meantime, STOP OTHERING US, SCOTT!

****
update 4: Per Joe again, Kaufman responds to my response by noting that his initial response was responding to some other response, not to my response to his response (which response was never intended as a response to me). Accordingly, I’m an “idiot.” For noting that SEK responded. When what he did was something else entirely.

— Which, while his judgment on my intellectual capacity certainly is debatable (and while a side note and a response may very well be two different things), doesn’t change the fact that SEK’s note contains precisely the logic I detailed, and makes just as little sense even in its new context with its new compositional category, and regardless of at whom it was directed.

Besides, I’ve seen Scott’s youtube clips. And frankly? He really should avoid calling other people idiots. As well as “dumpy, slovenly-dressed chick repellants,” if and when that urge ever strikes him.

Pot, kettle, etc., you understand…

****
update 5: A reminder, for next time SEK talks about how we “conservatives” create an echo chamber or fear dissent.

270 Replies to “On SEK's latest "racism" charges [updated, to respond to what amounts to one of the most transparently asinine counter arguments ever levied in the history of counter argument levying; then, updated again to account for all manner of things — not the least of which is my opaque suggestion that Mr. Kaufman should never, ever get in front of a video camera]”

  1. Joe says:

    You shut down the competition by calling them racist. It is intentional. And it is a tactic that has worked. Stacy McCain is getting a good dose of it–he is now openly described as a “white supremacist” by the left.

  2. BJTexs says:

    Let me provide the response from SEK and his band of labeling men: OWWWW!!!! RACIST!!!

  3. Pablo says:

    Charges of racism are a serious thing.

    Well, they used to be. Now they’re mostly foolish, as SEK deftly demonstrates.

  4. Obstreperous Infidel says:

    Well said, Jeff. The dude’s an evil snake oil salesman and nothing else. At least a real snake oil salesman’s clients were just gullible, his are deluded and dumb as dirt on which he counts on. Are there any honest statists? Any?

  5. Joe says:

    Kaufman responds: “As the body of the post makes plain, I was pointing out that conservative bloggers are in the unenviable position of race-baiting by default, because no matter what grounds they criticize Obama on, a vocal portion of their commentariat will respond with unveiled racism.”

    It is not conservative bloggers who are to blame, it is those damn pesky racist conservative mobs who read and comment on them that are the problem (as Scott Kaufman chuckles at his next cocktail party oratory, “Fortunately most of the conservative proletariate can’t read.”).

  6. Pablo says:

    Ah, so that leaves Squat in the unenviable position of idiot baiting by default. You’ve seen his commentariat, right?

  7. Reason says:

    On the upside most of the reality-based community can’t think, Joe.

  8. ThomasD says:

    It is interesting to see how the level of discourse has eroded over the years as SEK is now descending into full-on bunker mode.

    It’s a pattern that we’ve seen before, and one I expect to get much worse.

    Should the Democrats lose control of the House and Obama be face a real need for compromise (along with some real investigations) expect it to get much, much worse.

  9. Spiny Norman says:

    “Fortunately most of the conservative proletariate can’t read.”

    Ironically, most illiteracy in this country is found in ethnic urban ghettos, where SEK and his like-minded self-styled elitists are, like Jeff wrote: “keeping his charges … at a perpetual disadvantage”.

    That’s what I’d call an “own goal”.

  10. SBP says:

    Ah, so that leaves Squat in the unenviable position of idiot baiting by default. You’ve seen his commentariat, right?

    Exactly.

    1) A post which inspires “racist” comments (by SEK’s fucktarded definition) is “race-baiting”.
    2) SEK has characterized the responses to HIS OWN POSTS as “racist”.
    3) Therefore SEK is a race-baiter.

    That’s white people’s oppressive logic, though, so I’m sure it doesn’t apply. Authentic black folk like SEK have Other Ways of Knowing.

  11. Carin says:

    As the body of the post makes plain, I was pointing out that conservative bloggers are in the unenviable position of race-baiting by default, because no matter what grounds they criticize Obama on, a vocal portion of their commentariat will respond with unveiled racism.”

    Ok, so SEK’s position isn’t that the conservative bloggers are necessarily racist. I mean, they could be, but being such good writers or some-such they are able to veil it. But the commenters? The readers?

    They unwittingly reveal their true selves. Can’t help themselves.

    That’s pretty much SEK’s position?

  12. Carin says:

    I mean, regardless, it’s idiotic. He’s not discussing any particular racism per sec. He’s just expressing his asinine opinion regarding conservatives (being RACIST!) which he can’t support empirically.

  13. cranky-d says:

    He doesn’t need to support his opinion, because it’s FACT!!!

    Why? Shut up, that’s why.

  14. Blake says:

    I’m confused, are we talking about Scott Kaufman or Charles Johnson?

  15. Pablo says:

    You know who’s the worst of the default race baiters, according to Squat’s definition? Barack Obama.

  16. Spiny Norman says:

    Hard to tell any more.

  17. Spiny Norman says:

    Other Ways of Knowing

    Is that what you get after going through compulsory re-education camp?

  18. Pablo says:

    Is there a sale at Amazon involved? If not, it’s Squat.

  19. Joe says:

    Huckabee proves that he is a cowardly douchebag. And probably a racist too. One of those liberal Christian bleeding heart racists, often the worse kind.

  20. Obstreperous Infidel says:

    Kaufman responds: “As the body of the post makes plain, I was pointing out that conservative bloggers are in the unenviable position of race-baiting by default, because no matter what grounds they criticize Obama on, a vocal portion of their commentariat will respond with unveiled racism.”

    So ONLY conservatives (meaning Republicans) are racists? Either way, SEK is an idiot. I live near Cleveland. This is a democratic stronghold and there are more honest to goodness racist democrats (think Union members) than you can shake a stick at. I feel bamboozled by SEK. I thought, at one time, he was a standup, non moronic Statist. I’d like to offer a mea culpa.

  21. Whitey Dont Play Dat says:

    “Stacy McCain is getting a good dose of it–he is now openly described as a “white supremacist” by the left.”

    It is inaccurate to call him a white supremacist. The guy writes about the “natural revulsion” towards interracial marriage and how targeting whites in teen pregnancy campaigns is part of racial suicide. Some of this under pseudonyms that evoke confederate supporters of slavery.

    That is not supremacy. It is decline. He seems to be leading by example in whitey’s decline. And it is amusing to watch.

  22. BJTexs says:

    So Scott’s position is that conservative commentators, because of the positions that they hold on ideology, policy and government, are the only ones who speak to “veiled” racists, bringing them to the front, because those very positions held constitute race baiting to a small group of veiled racists baited into revealing themselves by conservative bloggers and their positions?????

    […]

    Paging Rube Goldberg … Rube Goldberg … Please report to SEK’s rhetoric class to fix the outrage machine…

    So is SEK baiting the race baiting conservatives or does the use of “racist” constitute an unintentional baiting of conservative bloggers natural race baiting?

    Or is the whole thing as fundamentally ridiculous as it sounds?

  23. BJTexs says:

    sockpuppets ‘R us.

  24. Jeff G. says:

    Post updated to respond to response.

  25. cranky-d says:

    There is a certain “natural revulsion” towards anyone who is not of “our tribe.” This dates back to our hunter-gatherer past, which in evolutionary time is not very long ago. Since the left embraces evolution, it’s surprising that most of them don’t recognize this. I don’t see this as being wrong, it’s just a fact of life. I also think that basic horniness will overcome that instinct as tribal pressures to conform to it are lessened. Finally, since “mutts” are the most healthy of critters, I think ultimately that the mixing of “races” is overall a good thing for the future of human survival (when I care if humanity survives, which isn’t often).

    It’s also fairly clear that if your “tribe” does not reproduce at least at a replacement rate, your tribe will disappear. Pretty obvious, and not racist in the slightest.

  26. Jeff G. says:

    You should try responding to me, WDPD, and not Stacy McCain, who not only isn’t here, but isn’t the one making the argument.

  27. Pablo says:

    I’ll let my readers decide which of those cases SEK is more likely making.

    I don’t think he even knows.

  28. Pablo says:

    Uh, uh,…RUSH LIMBAUGH!!11!!

    Take that, wingnuts.

  29. ted360 says:

    Wow, a defense of hating inter-racial marriage! Don’t tell jesus that all people are people.

    We’re all just tribes, you know, and whatever instincts we have, we just cannot help. Civilization was a bad idea and the Founders had it all wrong.

    That’s pretty cranky, David.

    Would you care to defend RSM for anything found here:
    http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2009/10/meet-robert-stacy-mccain-neo.html

  30. cranky-d says:

    Yeah, I guess I should’ve left that comment by WDPD alone. I had a weak moment.

    The racism on the left is veiled and pervasive. It permeates a good deal of their policies and rhetoric. The racism on the right (what little there is from the fringe element) is blatant and limited. But since appearances clearly matter more than substance, the right is evil.

  31. cranky-d says:

    Ted is a moron. Everyone look at ted and laugh.

  32. cranky-d says:

    Ted is a product of our public schools, where apparently teaching “multiculturalism” is more important than reading comprehension.

  33. Carin says:

    FOCUS TED. Scroll up to the top of the page and re-check where you are. Scan through the commenters.

    Then get back to us.

  34. Jeff G. says:

    Good to hear ted is down with the whole melting pot thing.

    Because frankly, I find the whole multicultural / “diversity” quilt idea to be anti-American.

  35. Whitey Don't Play Dat says:

    “You should try responding to me, WDPD, and not Stacy McCain, who not only isn’t here, but isn’t the one making the argument.”

    That was in response to Joe, not RSM.

    “It’s also fairly clear that if your “tribe” does not reproduce at least at a replacement rate, your tribe will disappear. Pretty obvious, and not racist in the slightest.”

    The racism would be along the lines of your “tribe” being white people, as opposed to, say, people. But it could also just be lazy ignorance to use some pseudo-science evolution to declare a revulsion “natural” and therefore somehow acceptable to liberals. It’s not racism, it’s lazy ignorance. It’s not supremacy, it’s whitey’s decline.

  36. Jeff G. says:

    The racism would be along the lines of your “tribe” being white people, as opposed to, say, people.

    Whitey Don’t Play That is suddenly in for the whole melting pot idea, as well!

    Wow! Looks like we’ve inadvertently outed two conservatives here today!

    And by “conservatives,” I of course me racists. Congrats! SEK loathes you.

  37. Pablo says:

    The racism would be along the lines of your “tribe” being white people, as opposed to, say, people.

    Does it work that way for black people as opposed to, say, people? Surely you’ve got a condemnation up your sleeve.

  38. cranky-d says:

    Yup, my description of what I think is a natural, ingrained response in humans (which I also stated I think is best overcome) is my justification for saying that one should HATE “interracial” couples. It’s all there if you just read it with the proper nuance.

    Sheesh.

    Anyway, ted360 is Trollhammered again, so I won’t waste anyone’s time reading me batting him around any more.

  39. EJ D says:

    As the body of the post makes plain, I was pointing out that liberal bloggers are in the unenviable position of race-baiting by default, because no matter what grounds they criticize social programs on, a vocal portion of their commentariat will respond with unveiled racism.

    So amateurish.

  40. Pablo says:

    Ah, I’ll bet WDPT is down with abolishing the White Congressional Caucus.

  41. Slartibartfast says:

    The racism would be along the lines of your “tribe” being white people, as opposed to, say, people.

    But if there are only people, how can there be conservatives?

  42. Silver Whistle says:

    The racism would be along the lines of your “tribe” being white people, as opposed to, say, people.

    I think you’ll find that a “tribe” is a small subset of “people”, and that “tribes” exhibit “tribal” behaviour frequently, without the label “racist” being applied.

  43. Brock says:

    Now THIS is the sort of content that might be worth a monthly subscription. I’ve missed ya JG.

  44. cranky-d says:

    I should have hammered WDPD as well, but instead I read his latest screed of stupidity. Reading comprehension is not just a river in Egypt.

    Anyway, he’s hammered as well. If a regular can tell my why what I said is wrong, I will listen and take heed. While it isn’t fully fleshed out, to me it follows a logical pattern of human behavior and gives a reason for it’s existence. That doesn’t justify it, it just points out why the initial response occurs.

    Tangentially, as Ric Locke wrote before, the natural human inclination is towards a collectivist society, which again arises from our hunter-gatherer past. We didn’t really improve that much until we moved away from that kind of thinking into capitalism. However, those inclinations towards collectivism are still a part of our makeup, and should be recognized while being minimalized.

  45. Jeff G. says:

    Incidentally, genetic work is being done in the area of “race”; it’s just that race doesn’t mean the same thing to most geneticists as it does to people who use the word casually and politically.

    I made the same argument to Steve Sailer years ago: I argued for a change in terminology to account for a change in what is meant (an argument I’ve used also in the same-sex marriage debates).

    Ironically, it is a “conservative” like me who is able to reconcile the science (there are such things as “racial difference,” though I wouldn’t call them “racial” as such) and yet those differences are — and should be — incidental where the law is concerned.

    Whereas it is progressives who want to Balkanize the country into racial/ethnic/gendered identity groups, and grant special protected classes rights and privileges withheld from other groups — making the law complicit in racism, while pretending there is no scientific difference between so-called “races” that aren’t socially constructed (by whites, naturally).

    If only you people would stop being so defensive and examine the logic of your own positions, you wouldn’t tie yourself up in knots trying to justify your own bigotries. Try it. It’s liberating…!

  46. Jeff G. says:

    I like my ethnics unassimilated and their restaurants “authentic” and not watered down to please whitey.

    So you like them, like, all tribal and such.

    I hear Stacy McCain has a newsletter you can subscribe to.

  47. Jim in KC says:

    I like my ethnics unassimilated and their restaurants “authentic” and not watered down to please whitey.

    Up is down. Black is white. Cheech is Chong.

  48. SBP says:

    I like my ethnics unassimilated and their restaurants “authentic”

    I’d suggest staying well clear of SEK’s campus, then. White as a Lutheran lutefisk church supper in Luverne, Minnesota, it is.

  49. BJTexs says:

    Being 100% Portuguese I have the distinct pleasure of cultural history on both sides of the slave equation.

    While that might give me authenticity I’m having trouble defining the authentic.

    Suggestions?

  50. BJTexs says:

    #49 SBP: Garrison Keillor just issued a cease and desist order on your ass. ;-)

  51. cranky-d says:

    Whiter than white? Check.
    Raised Lutheran? Check.
    Live in Minnesota? Check.

    I guess a person cannot get whiter than I am without becoming translucent.

  52. alppuccino says:

    I always use the anti-racism-accusation-magic-bullet:

    “What Alan Keyes said.”

  53. JD says:

    Holy Jeebus and Good Allah. Denounced. Denounced and condemned.

    RACISTS !!!!!!!!!!!

    Merely by defending yourself against the charge of racism, you prove yourself to be a racist. Haven’t you learned that by now?

    I am going to go oppress some minorities, and women, all in my own home.

  54. Immigration's Red Rooster says:

    “So you like them, like, all tribal and such.”

    Tribal? I just like my food strong and flavored and not all melting-potted together into bland High Fructose Corn Syrup-based slop designed in a New Jersey chemical lab. However, I will add that the finest example of transcending the tribal / assimilation / non-assimilation debate is Sriracha hot sauce. Made in the USA. Does it get any more american than this guy?

    “While that might give me authenticity I’m having trouble defining the authentic.”

    How easy is it to find a decent Bacalhau à Brás?

  55. Carin says:

    I like my ethnics unassimilated and their restaurants “authentic” and not watered down to please whitey.

    So you like them, like, all tribal and such.

    I’m so down with my inner-tribal-self, I refuse to eat in any ethnic restaurant that would actually serve someone a pasty-white as SEK.

  56. BumperStickerist says:

    I find SEK’s comment about Darleen learning “jiu jitsu” from Jeff to be Anti-Semitic.

    Dozens of martial arts and mixed martial arts terms to use and SEK comes up with JEW jitsu?

    Jeff being Jewish and all …

    … why it’s clearer than clear. Scott Kaufman – Anti-Semite.

    Why, I doubt *any* of SEK’s commenters took him to task over SEK’s anti-semitic comment … ergo all of SEK’s commenters are anti-semites as well, being as they are attracted to SEK’s blatant anti-semitism.

    His viewers are more than likely to be Anti-Semites as well. But that just follows logically.

    ..
    ..
    ..

    and don’t give me any explanation that involves jiu-jitsu being a form that turns an attacker’s force upon his or herself. It’s anti-semitic. Unless you’re Asian. Asians are not anti-semite. They’re asian.

    ..

    ~ cough ~

  57. cranky-d says:

    46: Even before I read your argument years ago against the notion of race as it is normally used, I was ready to throw it out as the useless term it was. What you wrote finally pushed me over the edge, and I usually don’t like to use the word without having quotes around it, because it has too much freight.

    There are obviously certain expressions of the human genome that tend to clump in various regions in genetic space. Often those regions can be associated with melanin content. Beyond that, there isn’t much to say, which won’t keep the left from saying it.

    All humans should have an unobstructed chance at the brass ring. However, that doesn’t mean that if they don’t all make it we should “do something” about it. Some are luckier than others, some need to work harder than others, that is simply a fact of life. If you want to “fix” that, you are embracing your inner collectivist. If we do that too much, we’ll all be hunter-gatherers again.

    Here’s a fun fact that I learned when I was doing robotics as a grad student, before I switched to data mining. We shared a lab with the computer vision guys, and guess what? There is no such thing as different-colored humans. The only differences are the intensity. Sorry to burst any bubbles, lefty race-mongers.

  58. SBP says:

    I just like my food strong and flavored

    Right. Served by colorful natives who know their places and wearing their colorful native costumes!

  59. Rusty says:

    #49
    I went to my oldest daughters masters in education graduation at UC Irvine. Pretty damned white stuck out there in the middle of Orange County. I suspect it is a diploma mill. Maybe if I apply for a grant I can get a graduate degree in the forbidden science of transmorgafication. I could be right up there with the climate scientists, so called. I thijnk the Irvine family should a kept it a ranch.

  60. Jim in KC says:

    White as a Lutheran lutefisk church supper in Luverne, Minnesota, it is.

    Holy crap. I’ll bet that means my truck bumper is irretrievably racist, made as it was by Luverne Truck Equipment. I’m sure the fact that they’re now located in South Dakota is no defense…

  61. Carin says:

    Tribal? I just like my food strong and flavored and not all melting-potted together into bland High Fructose Corn Syrup-based slop designed in a New Jersey chemical lab.

    I bet you’ve often used the term “fly-over country” as well.

  62. Slartibartfast says:

    I like my ethnics unassimilated and their restaurants “authentic” and not watered down to please whitey

    “ethnics”? Sounds like racist code to me.

  63. SBP says:

    I find SEK’s comment about Darleen learning “jiu jitsu” from Jeff to be Anti-Semitic.

    Also racist against Japanese. You know, those inscrutable “Orientals” with their sneaky fighting tricks that no red-blooded white man would be caught using?

    SEK might as well have photoshopped Darleen as one of those bucktoothed Tojo caricatures from World War II.

    But some of his best friends are Asians!

  64. Slartibartfast says:

    Here’s a fun fact that I learned when I was doing robotics as a grad student, before I switched to data mining. We shared a lab with the computer vision guys, and guess what? There is no such thing as different-colored humans. The only differences are the intensity. Sorry to burst any bubbles, lefty race-mongers.

    I’d bet this was several years ago, at least. Multicolor imaging is fairly common, now.

  65. Jeff G. says:

    By the way. I don’t do rhetorical jiu-jitsu. My rhetoric ain’t designed to be “the gentle art.” Snap, no tap.

  66. SBP says:

    “ethnics”? Sounds like racist code to me.

    Me too. Ah, those spicy ethnics! Good cooks and musicians, if not quite what we’d want in the academy.

  67. cranky-d says:

    They were using color cameras, sir. They ran faces of the whitest of white and some of the darkest of dark. This is what they told me, and I have no reason to doubt it.

  68. happyfeet says:

    Chelsea is engaged?

  69. happyfeet says:

    here is a story about sensors and skin color and also Portia de Rossi is involved.

  70. Ted Turner's Colorizer says:

    “There is no such thing as different-colored humans. The only differences are the intensity. Sorry to burst any bubbles, lefty race-mongers.”

    All those black and white films — actually color!

  71. cranky-d says:

    I guess I should have said the intensity of the melanin content. Excuse me for living.

  72. Carin says:

    I find it amusing that it’s ok to criticize what one considers “white bread” eating habits. I’ve got a bet for you, Mr I-make-fun-of-Chain-restaurants as “beneath me.” Check out a Red Lobster located in any of the burbs of Detroit. Report back on the ethnic make-up of the patrons.

    Then, add that to your little superiority act.

  73. happyfeet says:

    yup. engaged.

  74. cranky-d says:

    I give up. I can tell why Jeff hates this, though I knew before. Believe whatever you want.

  75. SBP says:

    Check out a Red Lobster located in any of the burbs of Detroit. Report back on the ethnic make-up of the patrons.

    Or for that matter, McDonald’s.

  76. Jeff G. says:

    All the cool kids avoid the “white” chain restaurants. They’re like plantations.

    They like to dine in the kind of authentic restaurants where they just know that, were they racists, and were they willing to drop an extra $50, there’s a room somewhere in back where instead of a mint, some pretty Oriental lady would give them a happy ending.

  77. alppuccino says:

    yup. engaged

    Then there’s still hope for Susan Boyle.

  78. Slartibartfast says:

    Matthew Yglesias — a one time regular commenter here

    Also Andrew Northrup, before he lapsed into glibberish.

  79. Carin says:

    Truth be told, I hate chain restaurants. But not because I hate my whiteness.

  80. Joe says:

    Jeff, you are driving the argument here. Stacy McCain is just a recent example of a conservative being labled a “white supremacist” in order to shut him down. You have faced similar bullshit charges over the years from the right and left (certainly not limited to mere bogus charges of racism).

    As far as true genetic differences between various human populations, okay. The problem with that is “race” is often way too macro to be of much help in that analysis. It is in smaller populations where the statistical and genetic differences become more pronounced (and objectively undeniable). But when you have people trying to block legitimate scientific inquiry of a skeleton more than 9,000 years old because it was found in the same rough geographic location of some modern group of individuals–there are a lot of issues being raised well beyond science.

    But we can always schedule a PW meetup to discuss these issues in person, say at some high end places in Colorado like Applebees, Red Robin, or if you want ethnic, Bennigans.

  81. Joe says:

    Comment by BJTexs on 11/30 @ 11:12 am #

    Being 100% Portuguese I have the distinct pleasure of cultural history on both sides of the slave equation.

    You probably also know how to make a hell of a paella (Portuguese do it better than the Spanish do too).

  82. Kneel Before Ronald says:

    “I’ve got a bet for you, Mr I-make-fun-of-Chain-restaurants as “beneath me.” Check out a Red Lobster located in any of the burbs of Detroit. Report back on the ethnic make-up of the patrons.”

    Oh it seems like you are not getting it. It is not the ethnic make up of the patrons or even the staff that makes a place. It is the makeup of the food. I’d argue that you fly over that Red Lobster no matter who was in there.

  83. alppuccino says:

    Being 100% Portuguese I have the distinct pleasure of cultural history on both sides of the slave equation.

    And you’ve got that great weather in Port Ugu. I’m jealous.

  84. Slartibartfast says:

    “the [ethnic] makeup of the food” has still got me scratching my head.


    CANNIBAL!

  85. Jim in KC says:

    How many locations does a “chain” need before it sucks? I just want to make sure I don’t violate any rules of coolness or fail at worshiping ethnicity or whatever it is all the cool kids who don’t live in flyover country are doing these days.

  86. alppuccino says:

    CANNIBAL!

    I’m havin’ a ball!

  87. JD says:

    This one seems thor-ish, seeing as how thor is over at SEK’s doing his performance art.

  88. Jim in KC says:

    Like, there’s a well-known, sort of ethnic-y barbecue joint here in town that has at least six locations. Too many? Another has three. Just right?

    Please let me know, so I can understand what food I’m allowed to enjoy with little or just the right amount of guilt.

  89. newrouter says:

    “It is the makeup of the food. ”
    probably a walmart hater too

  90. DarthRove says:

    When I a kid, there was a breakfast place in Richmond, Indiana called “Sambo’s”. They had a little statue like the Big Boy restaurants do, but it was a very dark, chubby kid in a turban, silky pajama-type clothes, and pointy slippers. Holding a stack o’ pancakes (buckwheat cakes, I can only imagine). Inside, there were paintings on the wall of L’il Black Sambo running around the jungle, holding his rich buttery pancakes, (topped with Aunt Jemima syrup, no doubt), getting chased by a tiger.

    So you can have your chain restaurants and RACISM!!!1!!!!1! too.

  91. Jim in KC says:

    I agree, JD. Although “Alan Colmes’s Nutsack” would be a better name for it to choose than what it’s been using recently, if that’s true.

  92. psycho... says:

    Welcome back to the world, JG. Unfortunately, this is it. Still.

    But not because I hate my whiteness.

    It’s not your whiteness if you’re not at Red Lobster. Disdaining others’ whiteness — code: insufficient — is the One True Whiteness. It seems you don’t have it, or not much of it. Perhaps the Lobster calls.

    But it’s full of black people, so watch out.

    Please let me know, so I can understand what food I’m allowed to enjoy with little or just the right amount of guilt.

    “Authentic” “ethnic” food priced beyond the reach of the people who serve it to you.

    Etc., again, again.

  93. Makewi says:

    Jim

    The easiest way to be sure of your food choices is to call your local community college and get the opinion of the head chieftain of the gender/ethnic studies department.

  94. happyfeet says:

    it’s good to see you mr. psycho. I haven’t seen you since that post about DJ Adam. I’m glad you’re back.

  95. Carin says:

    Oh it seems like you are not getting it. It is not the ethnic make up of the patrons or even the staff that makes a place. It is the makeup of the food. I’d argue that you fly over that Red Lobster no matter who was in there.

    I’m arguing that folks of various ethnicities are driven to certain food choices. It’s OK to make fun of the eating habits of white folks (THE CORN SYRUP), but NOT those of blacks.

    For every Applebys that is filled with whites, there’s a Red Lobster that filled with blacks.

    Of course, it’s all theoretical at this point, ’cause I haven’t been inside either of those restaurants in over 15 years.

  96. happyfeet says:

    chain restaurants always have so much parking

  97. Carin says:

    There is a Somali restaurant in Detroit [insert joke here] that I ate at once. I think it really pumped up my otherness bonefides. The other customers were mostly those smarmy, hipster douchbag types. But I did enjoy the food. Spicy.

    You had to eat with your hands.

  98. Jim in KC says:

    “Authentic” “ethnic” food priced beyond the reach of the people who serve it to you.

    Gack. That puts us right into poser-land, doesn’t it?

    But that does it. I’m going to stop by the “La Taqueria Mona” taco truck on my way home for lunch and let them know they’re lame and perhaps inauthentic…

    Makewi, I don’t know how well that will work. Our local community college is a bit of a chain, too. So now I just don’t know what to do.

  99. Carin says:

    I always judge the authenticity of the “ethnic” food by how many of that ethnicity are actually eating there.

    If you want good chinese food, you eat where all the engineers from the GM tech plant eat. Chinese newspapers at the cashier are always a good sign too.

  100. Slartibartfast says:

    Didn’t I see you at working at Chotchkie’s, Carin?

    You weren’t wearing enough flair.

  101. Carin says:

    I’ve also got a GREAT Lebanese joint. Both these places are near work.

    Detroit may have many reasons for suckage, but if you want non-pretentious ethnic food? We’ve got that in spades.

    Oops. Denounced.

  102. No love for the Sizzler? Where do all of you go for your second dates? How do you close the deal without Sizzler?

  103. happyfeet says:

    like nobody’s ever like ok 8:00. Red Lobster. Where do you park?

  104. Carin says:

    I’m gonna have to google that, Slart.

  105. Slartibartfast says:

    You had to eat with your hands.

    I’m confused. What other body parts would you use to eat with?

  106. Jeff G. says:

    You hang with racists, happy. SEK says so. Because he’s a good person who is trying to help you out. By showing you where to go to avoid hanging with racists, and so absorbing their taint.

    That it happens to be on his side of the political fence, where he as an “academic” vested in raising the lot of the downtrodden (provided he gets to decide who are the downtrodden, and how best to lift them), is purely coincidental.

    I mean, that you can stop being the bad kind of racist by simply acknowledging your inherent racism and joining in with those who’ve done so? Who can resist THAT kind of absolution?

  107. Slartibartfast says:

    You have missed one of the greatest movies of all time if you have to Google that, Carin.

  108. Carin says:

    I did work for a bit at a TGIF’s.

    Didn’t really like it much.

    Only chain place I ever worked at. And, in my defense, I was 22. Before grad school.

  109. Carin says:

    Sorry. Hands and fingers. No utensils.

  110. Jeff G. says:

    You didn’t go to grad school, Carin.

    People who read and comment here are trailer trash.

  111. dicentra says:

    As my disappointingly revealing conversation with a lefty a few weeks back showed, THEY KNOW we’re using code language, even if we don’t:

    depleasant — None of Malkin’s statements are “hate Muslims.” It’s what she says in totality and the dog whistles are numerous. Furthermore, she basically condemns all Muslims directly w/as indirect language as possible. I’m not going 2 go searching thru tons of archives 2 satisfy your curiosity, & I’m not going to write a dissertation to prove it

    dicentra63 — Concept of “dog whistle” is faulty reasoning. You’re conflating what U hear with what she means and with what her audience hears.

    depleasant — I don’t have to justify my opinion to you. And if you can’t see what a hateful person Malkin et al. are, then, so be it. Furthermore, I’ve never seen one wingnut that when given facts accepted them.

    They really need to publish a lexicon of these codes and dog whistles so that everyone, including conservatives, can see how vile we are.

    It would be like the East Anglia CRU leak, only for wingers.

  112. Carin says:

    I’ve missed a lot of movies Slart.

    What’s it rated? It’s hard to watch a movie w/o the kids watching. Especially now since they often stay up later than me.

  113. happyfeet says:

    I don’t know how to help, Jeff. My whole week goes by and I can’t tell you how little racial drama there is. I remember George Lopez thought it was racist when his stupid show got canned and I thought to myself dude you should be kissing their ass for dragging you over the syndication line. But I just thought it. I didn’t say it out loud.

  114. Carin says:

    You didn’t go to grad school, Carin.

    People who read and comment here are trailer trash.

    My mistake.

    Also, folks who went to grad school don’t end sentences with a preposition like I did up there.

  115. alppuccino says:

    If ever you do say it happyfeet, try it like that girl from White Men Can’t Jump

  116. dicentra says:

    Did anyone point out that the vile comments attributed to RSM (“natural revulsion,” etc.) were fabricated out of whole cloth?

    I tried to find the original document for such things and found only “quotes” in articles by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

    Which is really quite tender, when you think about it. SPLC is so concerned with outing white supremacists that they put what they know we’re thinking into words FOR US, thus saving us the trouble of having to use all those veiled references and junk.

  117. happyfeet says:

    I’ve never seen that one. I have a way of avoiding quality films.

  118. Slartibartfast says:

    It’s rated R, for language and some brief bestiality.

    Ok, I totally made up the bestiality part.

  119. SBP says:

    It is not the ethnic make up of the patrons or even the staff that makes a place.

    Fess up. You just like having subservient brown people waiting on you.

  120. baldilocks says:

    There are plenty of persons who are black and who are competent in law, medicine, security, social planning, etc. But to hire any of them would deprive Obama of wielding his (and/or his puppeteer’s) heretofore pretty successful tactic: hurling accusations of racism. Thus are incompetents from Eric Holder to Desiree Rogers installed into place to wreck havoc. And Leftists will fall for the racism tactic every time. One might call the tactic the Obama Doctrine.

    This whole brouhaha about the “security breach” is yet another of his methods of sowing racial discord. But since it’s pretty elaborate, I don’t think that it originated with Obama.

  121. happyfeet says:

    I couldn’t function without sriracha. It’s on sale next door at Ralph’s all the time. Never the chili garlic sauce though.

  122. Carin says:

    Plus I don’t see why you’ve got High Fructose Corn Syrup as being that white.

    Well, you gotta read the entire thread. Here, #55:

    Tribal? I just like my food strong and flavored and not all melting-potted together into bland High Fructose Corn Syrup-based slop designed in a New Jersey chemical lab. However, I will add that the finest example of transcending the tribal / assimilation / non-assimilation debate is Sriracha hot sauce. Made in the USA. Does it get any more american than this guy?

  123. Jeff G. says:

    dicentra, I’m struck by that exchange you posted. Malkin is a vile hater! It’s in code! Christ, don’t you asshole wingnut fucks EVER accept facts for facts, or see hate where it exists? THIS IS WHY WE DESPISE YOU SUBHUMAN CANCERS ON THE BODY POLITIC!

  124. alppuccino says:

    It has Wesley Snipes which is one of Tim Geithner’s favorite actors.

    (I might have made that up too)

  125. SBP says:

    Plus Carin is from Detroit. It’s not NEARLY as ethnic as the Multicultural Wonderland that is Orange County.

  126. Carin says:

    He who should not be named said he’d been in Detroit more than I.

    [chuckle] that still cracks me up.

  127. SBP says:

    Concept of “dog whistle” is faulty reasoning.

    It’s like the ability to smell a witch. You either have it or you don’t.

  128. dicentra says:

    While that might give me authenticity I’m having trouble defining the authentic.

    1. You must spell ‘Brasil’ with ‘S.’
    2. You must palatalize all frontal occlusives after high and middle rear vowels.
    3. You must refer to inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro as ‘cariocas.’
    4. You must pronounce terminal ‘O’ as ‘U.’
    5. You must be an afficionado of the Fado.
    6. You must nasalize all vowels that carry a tilde (~).

    That should do it.

  129. happyfeet says:

    I’d like to see a Wesley Snipes movie just cause of Hollywood ones what have gotten up close and personal with the IRS are probably way cooler after than they were before. Wiser. Sadder. Awake.

  130. Blake says:

    Carin,

    No sex scenes in “Office Space” just some vulgar language and one memorable scene involving a middle finger display by Jennifer Aniston.

    Modern cult classic.

  131. Pablo says:

    They really need to publish a lexicon of these codes and dog whistles so that everyone, including conservatives, can see how vile we are.

    Oh, but codifying the rules would spoil the game, di.

  132. Joe says:

    Comment by DarthRove on 11/30 @ 12:20 pm #

    When I a kid, there was a breakfast place in Richmond, Indiana called “Sambo’s”. They had a little statue like the Big Boy restaurants do, but it was a very dark, chubby kid in a turban, silky pajama-type clothes, and pointy slippers. Holding a stack o’ pancakes (buckwheat cakes, I can only imagine). Inside, there were paintings on the wall of L’il Black Sambo running around the jungle, holding his rich buttery pancakes, (topped with Aunt Jemima syrup, no doubt), getting chased by a tiger.

    So you can have your chain restaurants and RACISM!!!1!!!!1! too.

    It is probably still there, Denny’s bought up most of the old Sambo Restaurants.

    I saw a play that explored this issue, it was actually pretty well done. Didn’t see the film.

  133. SBP says:

    Besides, it’s not about “rules”. It’s about how you feel.

  134. newrouter says:

    while looking through the trash at my trailer i found a dog whistle.

  135. dicentra says:

    Also, folks who went to grad school don’t end sentences with a preposition like I did up there.

    I went to grad school and I do it all the time.

    TO PROTEST THE LATINIZATION OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

    (Srlsy. They made that rule because classical Latin doesn’t have prepositions, it has an inflection, so you can’t separate off the preposition in English, either. Same with the injunction against splitting infinitives, which can’t be split in Latin.)

  136. Jeff G. says:

    They really need to publish a lexicon of these codes and dog whistles so that everyone, including conservatives, can see how vile we are.

    Just like a white male to clamor for such patriarchal structure. The horizontal logic of the hideously benighted Enlightenment.

  137. Carin says:

    I know, Dicentra, that you CAN. But, would William F. Buckley ever have done such a thing?

    gail gave me absolution years ago for my transgressions, but I always feel it reveals something about me.

  138. Carin says:

    I feel confident that somehow racism plays into this story.

  139. dicentra says:

    See, I’m trying to figure out what constitutes racism in the Leftist cosmos.

    Because back in the day (before 1964 or so), whites pretty much figured that Africans were objectively inferior—lesser intelligence, morally suspect, etc.—and so the idea of mixing with “not quite humans” had a big EWWW factor to it.

    Hence the Jim Crow laws that prohibited the intermingling of personal fluids (for lack of a better term): Stay away from our drinking fountains, lunch counters, hotel beds, bus seats, swimming pools, and ESPECIALLY OUR WIMMIN.

    It was OK to share sidewalks and such, but not stuff that might carry cooties.

    Currently, the idea of objective inferiority is not accepted (except by white supremacy pukes). So the “racism” is now more of a “you ain’t one of us” thing. Like rival gangs or tribes.

    And everyone can play at that game. The Africans couldn’t institutionalize any EWWW factors against whites, but they sure can decide We ain’t Them. On account of our fish-belly whiteness.

    But most conservatives I know? Their tribe has to do with actions and beliefs and lifestyle, not ancestry, whereas Leftists are still obsessed with tribes based on ancestry.

    Hmmm.

    Nope, can’t square that circle.

  140. BlandMix says:

    “Well, you gotta read the entire thread. Here, #55:”

    Oh I see, the part where I called it “meltinging-potted” is the part where you found it was “white.” So now I point to the part where I said I wouldn’t argue you on this.

  141. dicentra says:

    dicentra, I’m struck by that exchange you posted

    I hope you got to the part where the Preamble to the Constitution is not about ideas, it’s about PEOPLE (you racist wingnut!) on account of the word “people” being in the first line.

    My potted plants have better reading comprehension than that.

  142. alppuccino says:

    But the funny thing is some white men can jump. I mean, isn’t that funny? Dick Fosberry? Hello?

  143. dicentra says:

    Just like a white male to clamor for such patriarchal structure.

    But what would a fish-belly white FEMALE do?

  144. Pablo says:

    See, I’m trying to figure out what constitutes racism in the Leftist cosmos.

    Racism is the act of besting a leftist in debate.

  145. Carin says:

    But most conservatives I know? Their tribe has to do with actions and beliefs and lifestyle, not ancestry, whereas Leftists are still obsessed with tribes based on ancestry.

    That is the crux of it, now isn’t it. But, how else to stir up grievance based on history?

  146. DarthRove says:

    Racism is the act of besting disagreeing with a leftist in debate.

    FTFY

  147. alp, that wasn’t a jump. That was a white man using his privilege to get ahead.

  148. RTO Trainer says:

    Sambo’s is Denny’s.

  149. BJTexs says:

    Comment by dicentra on 11/30 @ 12:59 pm #

    While that might give me authenticity I’m having trouble defining the authentic.

    1. You must spell ‘Brasil’ with ‘S.’
    2. You must palatalize all frontal occlusives after high and middle rear vowels.
    3. You must refer to inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro as ‘cariocas.’
    4. You must pronounce terminal ‘O’ as ‘U.’
    5. You must be an afficionado of the Fado.
    6. You must nasalize all vowels that carry a tilde (~).

    That should do it.

    [Sigh]

    It is clear that a white Morman woman from Utah knows more about my own tribe than I do.

    Therefore I am in-authentically brown/othered and subject to all subsets, dog whistles. code words, secret handshakes and wink winks/nudge nudges, firmly implanted in the diorama of veiled racists, having been brought forth by SEK, Darleen and Jeff G.

    I should probably go weave a basket or something. Or sign up for Grad School!

  150. baldilocks says:

    My bad. I thought that this post was in relation to Darleen’s post about Desiree Rogers.

  151. BJTexs says:

    That’s OK, Juliette. We know you are authentic, no matter what the topic.

  152. DarthRove says:

    So is Denny’s using better code and no dog whistles, or are they still racist? The last time I was in a Denny’s was 15 years ago, and accompanied by Al K. Hall so I don’t remember much.

  153. baldilocks says:

    But most conservatives I know? Their tribe has to do with actions and beliefs and lifestyle, not ancestry, whereas Leftists are still obsessed with tribes based on ancestry.

    Reading Sowell’s Conflict of Visions will tell you all you need to know about us and them.

  154. happyfeet says:

    it wasn’t unrelated, what you said

  155. baldilocks says:

    “That’s OK, Juliette. We know you are authentic, no matter what the topic.”

    Authentic…lol

  156. Slartibartfast says:

    Never the chili garlic sauce though.

    You mean chili garlic paste? Man, that stuff will melt your earwax.

  157. JD says:

    We put that chili garlic paste on LOTS of things in our house. And Srirachi is Asian Ketchup.

  158. JHo says:

    conservative bloggers are in the unenviable position of race-baiting by default, because no matter what grounds they criticize Obama on, a vocal portion of their commentariat will respond with unveiled racism.

    In which SQEK invents the racially sensitive concern troll. Or maybe all concern trolls are racially sensitive.

    Regardless, cite said unveiled racism. Go on.

    Either way, thanks for the admission, SQEK. Because the extension of your wholesale, projected racist-baiting is what you’re basing a career on. Great work if you can get it, eh?

  159. Joe says:

    Comment by DarthRove on 11/30 @ 1:46 pm #

    So is Denny’s using better code and no dog whistles, or are they still racist? The last time I was in a Denny’s was 15 years ago, and accompanied by Al K. Hall so I don’t remember much.

    Denny’s is racist to chickens. And pigs.

  160. Lazarus Long says:

    Repeat:

    Remember, Nazism was the Grand-daddy of identity politics.

    (paraphrasing Jonah Goldberg)

  161. JHo says:

    Denny’s is racist to chickens. And pigs.

    See what Joe did there, SQEK? How about you divine his intent? Go on.

  162. Slartibartfast says:

    a vocal portion of their commentariat will respond with unveiled racism

    “a vocal portion”? This reads like Engrish.

  163. dicentra says:

    Racism is the act of besting engaging a leftist in debate.

    FTFY.

    Though you could specify Existing While Conservative as sufficent grounds in most cases.

    It is clear that a white Mormon woman from Utah knows more about my own tribe than I do.

    I took a semester of Portuguese 101 for Spanish-speakers, plus I had a course in Romance Philology (how Latin-derived languages evolved), my BIL served a mission to Brasil, and a cousin went to Portugal.

    So I ran into all kinds of stuff without ever having set foot in Portugal.

  164. happyfeet says:

    I haven’t done the paste… I will look… the chili garlic sauce is that red stuff you usually get at chinese… there’s a good brand next door and it sits next to the sriracha, which is always on sale.

  165. cranky-d says:

    I see the error of my ways, and I denounce and condemn all of you.

  166. SBP says:

    Because the extension of your wholesale, projected racist-baiting is what you’re basing a career on.

    A lot easier than real scholarship, to be sure. Just mouth the proper catch-phrases, genuflect to the correct dispositions, and you too can look forward to thirty or forty years of faculty teas, free trips to conferences, sabbaticals, and the occasional bit of grad student totty on the side.

  167. Jeff G. says:

    I don’t care what you say, SBP. SEK ain’t getting any grad student ass. Ever.

  168. Joe says:

    Gibbons really despise lemurs. They consider them a primative race of primates.

  169. Joe says:

    As anyone who has spent time in Asia knows, most Asians are race obsessed. When in Asia it was joked that races were ranked accordingly (with some variations) the following order:

    1. Predominate ethnic group of country you were in.
    2. Americans (white).
    3. Western Europeans/Australians/South Africans/Israelis (white).
    4. Americans (black).
    5. Japanese.
    6. Tawainese.
    7. Chinese.
    8. Neighboring Asians usually based on wealth.
    9. Eastern Europeans/Russians.
    10. East Indians.
    11. Black Africans.
    12. Pakistanis
    13. Arabs (they fucking hate Arabs in Asia).

  170. Jim in KC says:

    I don’t see how that solves my restaurant problem, Joe.

  171. Joe says:

    Jim in KC, if you are in KC you should not have any restaurant problems. Provided you like BBQ and steaks.

  172. Pablo says:

    Racism is the act of besting engaging a leftist in debate.

    FTFY.

    I thought it went without saying that those are one and the same. ;)

  173. SBP says:

    #170: I dunno… being on someone’s thesis committee does have powerful aphrodisiac qualities, or so empirical evidence appears to show (not as a participant on either side, let me be quick to note).

  174. baldilocks says:

    Tactical Analysis…

    (Preamble: Typepad’s html editor is making me crazy!) Eric Holder Valerie Jarrett And now Desiree Rogers. From Michelle Malkin: [Rogers is] the intimate Chicago fund-raising crony of Michelle Obama and Valerie Jarrett who was once married to fellow Ob…

  175. Joe says:

    You can rank blogs too: Start with Protein Wisdom and work your way down. Outlaws! Racists!

  176. newrouter says:

    if you need tickets please see Desiree Rogers

  177. Spiny Norman says:

    Comment by JD on 11/30 @ 12:16 pm

    This one seems thor-ish, seeing as how thor is over at SEK’s doing his performance art.

    It seemed pretty obvious, actually. I’d be surprised if it weren’t our favorite smarmy infantile pest.

  178. Jeff G. says:

    thor’s understanding of theory was decidedly MA-ish. He could drop names, had memorized a few quotes…but he didn’t really understand much of what he would parrot — or, at the very least, he hadn’t thought through the implications of the garbage he’d bought in to. After all, the “democratization of interpretation” sounds lovely and honorable on the surface.

    Strikeouts are fascist. Throw some ground balls. Ground balls are democratic.

  179. cranky-d says:

    Oh, that was thor all right. It changed its name every post just to be sure we saw it with its tallywacker waving about (the latter was just for LYBD).

  180. Joe says:

    Ground balls may be democratic, but it is awful when one gets away from you.

    Althouse has the bad sex literary awards. Funny and awful at the same time, but you could make them far worse by converting them into leftist rants about endemic conservative hypocrisy and racism.

  181. Bob Reed says:

    Strikeouts are fascist. Throw some ground balls. Ground balls are democratic.

    A delicious analogy Jeff! Is a quarterback throwing into traffic being democratic too? Or should he throw a pick every once in a while just to ensure equality of outcome

    Me? I prefer the running game. Very methodical and workmanlike…

    Run ’til their eyeballs are jiggling, then go play action to a massive tight end and let the DB’s have fun tackling the big guy…

  182. Lazarus Long says:

    “Run ’til their eyeballs are jiggling, then go play action to a massive tight end and let the DB’s have fun tackling the big guy…”

    And then I said to myself ‘Andy Reid’.

    Then I laughed and laughed and laughed.

  183. Jeff G. says:

    Bob —

    I can’t take credit. From Bull Durham. Paraphrased.

  184. Bob Reed says:

    That had slipped my mind Jeff. The dialogue in that movie is great…

  185. Joe says:

    SEK updates:

    My oh my, but is Jeff Goldstein an idiot. He believes that this post is a response not to the post linked to and discussed at length in it, but to something Darleen wrote. (I suppose he doesn’t know what “a side note” is.) Also, in another bit of proof of him having quit me, he stops posting get-rich-quick schemes and writes a diatribe against someone or other. (No link, though, to avoid generating an automatic trackback.)

    If SEK was a batter he would get beaned on a regular basis.

  186. Jeff G. says:

    Well, Joe, you did tell me SEK had responded.

  187. Jeff G. says:

    If SEK was a batter he would get beaned on a regular basis.

    The only way he could make the team in the first place would be through some kind of legislation ensuring that everyone plays and gets a trophy.

    Which, in a way, is what he promotes in his public policy pronouncements on race.

  188. Jeff G. says:

    update 4 added.

  189. JD says:

    Now that SEK has “responded” we can expect more nuggets of inanity from his angry mob of haters that hate on his behalf. So far, Teddie360 has brought its D game. Richie and Call Me Doctor! Steel should be along shortly.

  190. Jeff G. says:

    They won’t ever debate me here. Ever.

    Ever.

    Which is just as well for them. They can go on feeling superior — and they don’t have to watch in horror as I skin them, gut them, and turn them into belts.

  191. JD says:

    Theodore360 p3wnd all of us racists, Jeff ;-)

  192. JHo says:

    Maybe by now this is off topic but isn’t it my damn right to be hardcore racist if I so choose?

    Because if not, what is SQEK on about, anyway? Because if it’s not statism it’s religion. Pick one.

  193. Jeff G. says:

    Meh. SEK is learning what many of the big lefty sites learned before they were big lefty sites.

    Best to pick easier battles. And the easiest way to do that is to pretend the toughest battlers have already been discredited.

    That’s SEK’s new tack: who IS this “Jeff Goldstein” idiot, anyway? He writes a screed on something or other, but seriously, I just tuned him out. After all, I’m doing serious academic work here.

    Now, who wants to join my “Why are all conservatives racists?” academic listserv…?

  194. JHo says:

    Then I’m shocked to learn that SQEK just isn’t that racially goodhearted after all.

  195. Jeff G. says:

    Yeah. It’s the same reason Thersites only peeks his head out to comment on our debate on how interpretation works when it’s to cheer on someone like Patterico, who championed a similar argument.

    I’m very often the common enemy of the left and right here in the blogosphere. Because I’m an equal opportunity prick, one who recognizes that you can be just as wrong from the right as from the left.

  196. Jeff G. says:

    Oh. And another reason to go subscription? People like SEK will DIE when they can’t read what’s being written about them.

  197. happyfeet says:

    here’s a song that makes me happy

  198. newrouter says:

    now available in the pw shop sek pelts for your

    vulva

  199. JD says:

    Waaaaaay off-topic, but Olbergasm just stated that Cheney created the Taliban in 1991.

  200. Darleen says:

    knock me over with a feather, but Patterico is mocking SqEKer’s “conservatives should stop writing because they can’t do anything BUT race-bait. QED.”

  201. Darleen says:

    Waaaaaay off-topic, but Olbergasm just stated that Cheney created the Taliban in 1991

    wha..?

    Slobberman has been standing way too close to Sully.

  202. geoffb says:

    I don’t see why you’ve got High Fructose Corn Syrup as being that white. I see its ubiquity as more of a result of corporate and agribusiness policy than anything else.

    It’s the tariff on sugar combined with the power of ADM that did that.

    Now, my graduate degree owning wife (University of Michigan) drags me to Red Lobster every chance she gets because around here it is the only place to get fresh live lobster served. I don’t care what place i eat at as long as I like the food and can afford it. Any other criteria go whoosh, down the drain.

  203. Joe says:

    Comment by Jeff G. on 11/30 @ 6:55 pm #

    Oh. And another reason to go subscription? People like SEK will DIE when they can’t read what’s being written about them.

    I suppose he could sign up like Patterico did to the Factor Site, but that would require a credit card (O’Reilly had no idea was Patterico/Frey was before he signed up to his site).

  204. No one you know says:

    After what we witnessed in 2008 regarding the election, I have a very hard time thinking of liberals as anything but racists.

    Here’s a thought experiment. Imaging Barry O’brien from the Gold Coast decided he was going to run for President. He’s got the same resume and policy positions (yeah, I know, remember this is imaginary) as the eventual president. How far does Mr O’Brien get? I’m thinking he does not pull as many votes as Dodd in Iowa. Hell, he doesn’t raise enough money for anyone to know who he is. Want to keep working backwards? I’m thinking there’s no seat set aside for him at Harvard Law? Further still? He doesn’t get a leg up from Occidental to Columbia…..
    Looks like the color of a man’s skin counts for a whole lot to Dems.

  205. Alec Leamas says:

    How far does Mr O’Brien get?

    Well, he did have the obvious advantage of the fabulous inherited wealth common to the Irish diaspora. Obama, we are told, has been a victim – of what I have not yet been apprised.

  206. Spiny Norman says:

    Comment by JD on 11/30 @ 7:15 pm #

    Waaaaaay off-topic, but Olbergasm just stated that Cheney created the Taliban in 1991.

    BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

    “Blithering” doesn’t EVEN begin to describe the idiot Olberdouche is.

  207. mcgruder says:

    Olbermann, having been queried to appear on his show several times, is an amiably uninformed sort who found himself wielding real power and influence over a section of the electorate. Also, decent scratch. He was helped along mightily by the facts that Bush was an awful POTUS, that we have gotten ourselves into a couple of seemingly intractable wars in stupid places where we have neither the will or the resources (seemingly) to win, the 40k plus dead and wounded, and the Wall Street led economic collapse.

    Andrew Sullivan is just a sick asshole who harps on the parental lineage of a retarded kid. What a piece of shit. All because he went round the bend when the GOP said sod off to gay marriage; he went crazier when the Dems took his money, stroked his three-day growth and said, “Sorry, was it good for you?” on the same issue. [Granted, he realized Bush sucked, which made for easy copy, but he is still an asshole.]

    There is a difference between the two.

  208. JD says:

    Mcgruder – The differences are only in the root of the idiocy, and the dissemenation of same.

  209. geoffb says:

    OT: sorta.

    Learned a new, to me, term today. Post-Normal Science(warning 2nd link is pdf).

    A description here.

    Once there was modern science, which was hard work; now we have postmodern science, where the quest for real, absolute truth is outdated, and ’science’ is a wax nose that can be twisted in any direction to underpin the latest lying narrative in the pursuit of power. Except they didn’t call it ‘postmodern’ science because then we might smell a rat. They called it PNS (post-normal science) and hoped we wouldn’t notice. It was thus named and explicated by Silvio O. Funtowicz and philosopher Jerome R. Ravetz, who in 1992 wrote the paper The good, the true and the postmodern, and in their 1993 paper Science for the post-normal age, where they promoted the idea that

    ” …a new type of science – ‘post-normal’ – is emerging…in contrast to traditional problem-solving strategies, including core science, applied science, and professional consultancy…Post-normal science can provide a path to the democratization of science, and also a response to the current tendencies to post-modernity.”

    The ‘response’ wasn’t to be a reaction against postmodernism, but an embracing of it, and going beyond it. And it has sinister ramifications.

    PoMo Science, CRU was cutting edge after all.

  210. kristan says:

    damn, it’s good to see jeff kicking ass and taking names again.

  211. B Moe says:

    Post-normal science can provide a path to the democratization of science…

    Anybody that repeats that unironically should get a fucking bullet in the back of the head.

  212. Alec Leamas says:

    Chelsea is engaged?

    Alas, my heart doth breaketh again. Damn you happyfeet – I was blissful in ignorance of this fact.

  213. dicentra says:

    the democratization of science

    That would consist of posting all data and code and analyses on the web and letting the Army of Davids pick it to pieces.

    Like open-source Linux or summat.

    Which, that’s how all science should proceed from now on. Let retired statisticians like Steve McIntyre tear it all apart and put it back together.

    Climate scientists lean very heavily on statistical methods, but they are not necessarily statisticians. Some of the correspondents in these emails appear to be out of their depth. This would explain their anxiety about having statisticians, rather than their climate-science buddies, crawl over their work.

    *

  214. Adriane says:

    There are only 2 possibilities in this world – either it will or either it won’t. Thus, all things have a 50% chance.

    QED.

  215. alppuccino says:

    He was helped along mightily by the facts that Bush was an awful POTUS,

    I don’t buy this. Even if it was posited by someone with the gravitas to be queried to appear on Olbermann several times.

    Because, you know, Olbermann only queries those with an opinion contrary to his own. And he would never invite someone who takes every opportunity to frame is comments with “Bush sucked, but I’m with you guys.”

    Guess what Mcgruder, global warming isn’t happening. But it’s got major traction. Guess what else, Obama isn’t brilliant. He’d have to cram overnight to get to stupid. Yet the genius of Obama gets much press. How’s that smart diplomacy working as compared to Bush’s cowboy diplomacy. Don’t look now but it’s a fucking debacle. But will you and yours from the press report that? Not while little Shante is on societal life-support due to lack of health insurance.

    The world hates Bush like this: “Look at him. Deposing dictators and installing democracy. And helping tsunami victims and giving money to Africa for AIDS. He thinks America is so great.”

    The world loves Obama like this: “Look how he bows to self appointed kings and dictators. He’s not very strict. And he seems to hate America. I love this guy.”

    Except for Sarkozy. He knows Obama is a joke. But the guy who read more books in one week than Obama will ever read in his life was the worst president in history. I get it. Get a new headline.

  216. Carin says:

    Alp, let’s take a trip to a few months back- to a piece in the Huffpo (link at my blog if anyone is really interested). I get a kick out of this. After years of “cowboy diplomacy …”

    So it’s no shocker that perhaps it’s time for a new strategy. A policy of engagement, whereby the united States uses its diplomatic powers and not just its military muscle. A foreign policy centered on the negotiating table and not some arrogant frat-boy’s bully-pulpit. Thankfully, we now have a president who gets it. A president more interested in world peace than proving to his daddy that he’s not the colossal fuck-up he always thought, or that the history books will soon surely prove.
    What Obama did last week was brilliant. All of it. From going on the Jay Leno program and speaking directly to the American people (pissing off the mainstream media, which tends not to like being marginalized or circumvented) to addressing the Iranian people who, by the way, are 70% under the age of 30 and are much more Westernized than you would think. Obama bypassed Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollah Komenei much in the same way he did his end-run around the American press. Oh this Obama guy’s smart, alright.

    And that vision says, let’s talk to the enemy. Let’s engage them. Let’s bring pressure on their governments by opening a dialogue directly with their people. Let’s negotiate, but let’s not forget our goal of protecting America, nor our unyielding commitment to use force when all else fails.

    Thats working miracles in the ME, now isn’t it …

    Smartest. President. Ever.

  217. Carin says:

    Also, though, the ME don’t love Obama. They think he’s a tool. Yesterday in the WSJ:

    Steeped in an overarching idea of American guilt, Mr. Obama and his lieutenants offered nothing less than a doctrine, and a policy, of American penance. No one told Mr. Obama that the Islamic world, where American power is engaged and so dangerously exposed, it is considered bad form, nay a great moral lapse, to speak ill of one’s own tribe when in the midst, and in the lands, of others.

    The crowd may have applauded the cavalier way the new steward of American power referred to his predecessor, but in the privacy of their own language they doubtless wondered about his character and his fidelity. “My brother and I against my cousin, my cousin and I against the stranger,” goes one of the Arab world’s most honored maxims. The stranger who came into their midst and spoke badly of his own was destined to become an object of suspicion.

    Mr. Obama could not make up his mind: He was at one with “the people” and with the rulers who held them in subjugation. The people of Iran who took to the streets this past summer were betrayed by this hapless diplomacy—Mr. Obama was out to “engage” the terrible rulers that millions of Iranians were determined to be rid of.

    Now, anti-Americanism is the pap the tyrants use over there to keep their peps focused on anything but their own government, but Obama PROMISED. They hated us because of BUSH!!! You know, the small memories of folks really bugs me. Remember Obama PROMISED he was going to get Obama?

    People should have laughed. I know I did. But his voters took that shit seriously.

  218. alppuccino says:

    Thank you Carin.

    But I guess Obama did speak directly to the young people of Iran. But what he said was “You had better find a place to hide. Because I’m with the dictators.”

    Yeah, this guy is smart alright.

  219. alppuccino says:

    You’re faster than I Carin. And I wish Obama would hurry up and get Obama. Ha! Freudian?

  220. Joe says:

    Talking about homo-erotic wannabees like SEK, Charles Johnson explains why we are all haters and he is right. It has something to do with pony tails.

  221. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says:

    So it’s no shocker that perhaps it’s time for a new strategy. A policy of engagement…

    Actually, the engagement has gone wonderfully. As soon as Obama picks out his wedding burkha, we shall consummate the relationship.

  222. JD says:

    I was just thinking that I really hope there are a number of links to a bunch of other sites that I could go read on my own should I choose to do so. Fortunately, there are people who care about other people and crap links to their places. WHO GIVES A FLYING FUCK WHAT CHARLES JOHNSON IS DOING? Raise your hand if you care.

  223. Slartibartfast says:

    around here it is the only place to get fresh live lobster served

    For certain values of “fresh”, no doubt. And my lobsters are generally dead by the time I rip the claws off of them.

    :)

    Dead Lobster would probably be much more my favorite place to get lobster if they didn’t cook them at least five minutes past “way overdone”. I do better lobster in my kitchen, even if my methodology is a bit gruesome for the average amateur chef.

    Here’s what I do:
    Turn the lobster upside-down, and (being careful, because they’re wiggly up to this point) using a large chef’s knife, press the point in the seam between the small legs, and split the lobster along the midsection, all the way up to the mouth parts. Then hold the now-fairly-limp animal under running water, and wash all entrails, eggs, etc out of the head/midsection. Drop immediately into boiling water and cook for 10 minutes, max.

    You get the tail meat without all of that entrail taste to it, which no matter how much some folks say it’s the best part, is actually just the shit.

    For just the tail, I’d remove that from the live animal for the same reasons, and clean it a bit first.

  224. Slartibartfast says:

    I do not care, but Ace’s bit is kind of funny.

    I parted ways with the Republican Party a while back, but I did so without much of the fanfare Charles seems to need, because as you said: who really gives a shit?

    It’s not like sports. This speaks to who people are, and what they hold to be true. Going to bat for the other guys, as opposed to striking out on your own, is just a complete change of who you are. Perhaps Charles has done that, but who’s to say he won’t reverse himself again in a trice, just because someone or some group of folks pissed him off, again?

    And, as you ask, who really gives a shit?

  225. BJTexs says:

    Carin & al: The very things you two mentioning above are the sorts of problems that have to be driving those of SEK’s ilk mad. Combine that with a somewhat reinvigorated conservative electorate and the very early concerns based upon the two governor’s races and frustration is rearing its ugly head.

    It’s too much to expect SEK to take out his frustrations on Obama and the Dem Congress so he casts his eyes to those inconvenient wingnutz who continue to rant and scream their tired old limited government/individual liberty bromides. Rather than engage in a substantive way, SEK chooses to take the “lazy academic” approach, fed by his own inflated sense of “right,” and broad brush an entire half of the country as either veiled racists or race baiting.

    In addition to being easy it provides some visceral sense of satisfaction as well as a mile marker for self indulgent intellectual “superiority.” The irony, of course is that the approach is anything but intellectual or critical. Instead, it’s merely the leftist version of playground taunting. “I’m not a racist but you are or you bait those who are making your entire political philosophy cheap and tawdry.”

    It’s ridiculous, gutter leveled and would be sad if it didn’t speak so strongly to their almost utter disdain for free speech and reasoned discourse.

  226. Slartibartfast says:

    and broad brush an entire half of the country as either veiled racists or race baiting

    Oh, I dunno about that. He’s talking about vocal portions, and unveiled racism. Whatever the fuck those things mean.

  227. Joe says:

    Ace’s bit about CJ was funny JD and somewhat along the lines of what Jeff is doing with SEK. But hey, Patterico is doing an SEK theme too. You can check that out.

  228. BJTexs says:

    True, Slart, but don’t you think at least part of his thinking is colored by his own latent bigotry with regards to “flyover country rubes?” I’m not suggesting that he thinks the sorts of commentators here and at Patterico’s or Hot Air are uneducated rubes … but … he’s certainly willing to to apply “rubeish” status on those who comment in a “veiled racist” way.

    I know, even as I try to make sense of it the insular loopiness of the argument makes me shake my head.

  229. Joe says:

    Patterico is also on the CJ bandwagon too. Maybe you have a point JD. Of course, you are posting over there (and I did not see you protesting the CJ link Pat Frey put up).

  230. ted360 says:

    Comment by JD on 11/30 @ 6:27 pm #

    Theodore360 p3wnd all of us racists, Jeff ;-)

    So I see you are stupid too.

    As far as I can tell, the only racist here is the guy who thinks Obama got into Harvard as a “set aside.”

    You’re just an asshole who gets his ass kicked on regular basis. But, you know, don’t bother to read or nothing, ’cause that degree in sociology has taken SO far.

  231. BJTexs says:

    Hey Joe?

    While I agree that the Ace piece is tangentially related (and damn funny, as well) the other link had nothing to do with this discussion and, at least, deserved an “Off topic but interesting” preface.

    Just sayin’…

  232. Danger says:

    The world hates Bush like this: “Look at him. Deposing dictators and installing democracy. And helping tsunami victims and giving money to Africa for AIDS. He thinks America is so great.”

    The world loves Obama like this: “Look how he bows to self appointed kings and dictators. He’s not very strict. And he seems to hate America. I love this guy.”

    ALP
    Can’t wait for the BDA report on that strike 8^)

  233. JD says:

    Joe – My bad, I extend a humblke apology, as one of those links appears to have been tangentially on topic. Mea Culpa.

    Theodore360 – The next ass you kick will be your first. You are a weird little thing.

  234. Pablo says:

    Here’s a masterpiece in the annals of code reading and intent divining. The story also has a great moral: Do not fuck with Krauthammer.

    ted, STFU.

  235. Slartibartfast says:

    even as I try to make sense of it the insular loopiness of the argument makes me shake my head

    Don’t try; the argument doesn’t make sense. In the marketplace of ideas, Scott is attempting a wormburger ploy. Doubtless Scott thinks it’s clever, just as he thought the Click/claque play on words was clever.

  236. Danger says:

    “….In addition to being easy it provides some visceral sense of satisfaction as well as a mile marker for self indulgent intellectual “superiority.” The irony, of course is that the approach is anything but intellectual or critical. Instead, it’s merely the leftist version of playground taunting. “I’m not a racist but you are or you bait those who are making your entire political philosophy cheap and tawdry.”

    BJT,

    Thanks for the brain massage O8^)

  237. Joe says:

    BJTexs, off topic should have been stated, but given CJ’s hysteria on endemic racism of the right, Pam Geller’s breasts, Glen Beck, creationism, and the right wing; a piece suggesting we all will die (or most of us) by global warming seemed, well, in the holiday spirit.

    Meanwhile, my heating bill just came in and it is a bitch!

  238. SDN says:

    ted,

    1. Are there programs that allow members of certain groups to be admitted under lesser performance standards? Yes or No?

    2. Because O! has refused to provide any information, why shouldn’t we assume he’s one of them? Especially given his performance.

  239. Joe says:

    Pablo, thank you for the CK bitch slap down of AS. That was great.

  240. BJTexs says:

    This comment on a blog that shall not be named encompasses everything at odds with what Jeff G. has been trying to teach us as well as providing a skewed and twisted concept of Freedom of Speech: (Relating to the Charles Johnson kerfuffle)

    You seem to advocate in this post that this ad is only racist if those who created it intended it as such – otherwise, it’s not racism. I disagree. I think that the comparison of black people to apes is a well-known, racist archetype, and thus, thanks to America’s racist heritage, racism is subtly perpetuated even when those who make this comparison do so unintentionally.

    The commentator was not being an ass or superior when he posted this. In fact. he went out of his way to be respectful. He is, however, so carefully guilt ridden about America’s racial history that even the suggestion of a racial archetype regardless of the intention of the writer might perpetuate thoughts of racism in others. Thus it must be denounced and banned.

    Welcome to our world and I apologize in advance for Jeff’s agony when he reads the above.

  241. JD says:

    Of course, you are posting over there (and I did not see you protesting the CJ link Pat Frey put up).

    Joe – I do not have any idea what this means, but if someone wants to post a link to something on their own blog, I have no beef with that. I apologized already, humbly, for my little rant above. As people have gone over with you no less than 9481 times, this constant linking to other threads at other sites is a bit tiresome. But, my apology was sincerely extended.

  242. Joe says:

    JD, thank you for your apology and I did not say anything snarky about you after you made it. I agree that OT posts should be minimally labled as such, even if peripherally related to the post.

  243. Pablo says:

    I think that the comparison of black people to apes is a well-known, racist archetype, and thus, thanks to America’s racist heritage, racism is subtly perpetuated even when those who make this comparison do so unintentionally.

    That might make some tiny little bit of isolated sense if not for the fact that comparing people, all kinds of people, to apes/monkeys is a longstanding tradition. If any mention of lower primates were racist, then this would be racist. Sorry, kids. It ain’t. And your timing sucks out loud.

  244. Lazarus Long says:

    McClellan called President Lincoln “the original gorilla”.

    Was Lincoln black?

  245. Lazarus Long says:

    “I’m not going to use the federal government’s authority deliberately to circumvent the natural inclination of people to live in ethnically homogeneous neighborhoods. . . . I have nothing against a community that’s made up of people who are Polish or Czechoslovakian or French-Canadian or blacks who are trying to maintain the ethnic purity of their neighborhoods.”

    –Jimmy Carter, 1976
    President, 1977-81

  246. Lazarus Long says:

    “I did not lie awake at night worrying about the problems of Negroes.”

    –Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, 1961

    Kennedy later authorized wiretapping the phones and bugging the hotel rooms of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

  247. Lazarus Long says:

    “Everybody likes to go to Geneva. I used to do it for the Law of the Sea conferences and you’d find these potentates from down in Africa, you know, rather than eating each other, they’d just come up and get a good square meal in Geneva.”

    –Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D., S.C.) 1993
    Chairman, Commerce Committee, 1987-95 and 2001-03

    +++++Candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, 1984

  248. Lazarus Long says:

    “I have never seen very many white people who felt they were being imposed upon or being subjected to any second-class citizenship if they were directed to a waiting room or to any other public facility to wait or to eat with other white people. Only the Negroes, of all the races which are in this land, publicly proclaim they are being mistreated, imposed upon, and declared second-class citizens because they must go to public facilities with members of their own race.”

    –Sen. Richard B. Russell Jr. (D., Ga.), 1961

    ++++The Russell Senate Office Building is named for him.

  249. Lazarus Long says:

    “These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference. For if we don’t move at all, then their allies will line up against us and there’ll be no way of stopping them, we’ll lose the filibuster and there’ll be no way of putting a brake on all sorts of wild legislation. It’ll be Reconstruction all over again.”

    –Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson (D., Texas), 1957

    IIRC, he was President, too.

  250. Lazarus Long says:

    “Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.”

    –US Senator Robert Byrd

    +++++A man who is referred to by many Democrats as the “conscience of the Senate”

  251. Lazarus Long says:

    “These laws [segregation] are still constitutional and I promise you that until they are removed from the ordinance books of Birmingham and the statute books of Alabama, they will be enforced in Birmingham to the utmost of my ability and by all lawful means.”

    — Democrat Bull Connor (1957), Commissioner of Public Safety for Birmingham, Alabama

  252. B Moe says:

    But, you know, don’t bother to read or nothing, ’cause that degree in sociology has taken SO far.

    Did that pinhead just say that to JD?

  253. JD says:

    Yeah. Cute, isn’t it?!

  254. Jeff G. says:

    BJ —

    Was that posted in the comments of a site that I’m allowed to comment on?

  255. geoffb says:

    I just love when WordPress won’t post a simple comment for some reason and then insists when I retry that I’ve already posted it, though it hasn’t shown up yet, so I have to add an intro, like this which spoils the simplicity of the original which was…

    Perfect Progressive Projection.

  256. BJTexs says:

    Um … Jeff … um (Patterico’s)

  257. Way down the comment thread, but here’s a link that should set heads spinning. Right? I mean, who am I supposed to root for? Me being a racist by default and all.

  258. Jeff G. says:

    Oh. Well, I’m not allowed to post over at Patterico’s, so I can’t try to explain why such thinking is pernicious, and how it aids the progressive worldview, which is reinforced consistently through a decentering of language. That is, I am not permitted to reach that particular sector of the “right wing” audience and show them how they are in fact aiding the left in its long term plans to destroy individual freedom and replace it with liberal fascism.

    But hey, let’s keep our eyes on what’s important: did you see the latest bit in the LA Times? Why, they were less than precise in their reporting! OUTRAGE!

  259. BJTexs says:

    Jeff: Would you take a minute for this ill educated rube and explain “a decenterinf of language” as it applies to this foolishness?

  260. Jeff G. says:

    If you aren’t trying to discern intent, you aren’t trying to communicate with the person who put his intentions into language. At which point, there is no substantial ground for meaning: contexts shift, convention changes… communication has no lynchpin, and so “interpretation” becomes creative writing.

  261. JD says:

    Creative writing is a perfect descriptor of what SEK and its ilk do in these instances.

  262. Jeff G. says:

    And frankly, BJ, if the folks over there who supported Patterico’s position during our late unpleasantness over Rush and language are now disagreeing with this commenter, they are either hypocrites or dullards. Because this commenter is merely offering another iteration of the kid yelling “boy” to his dog when he knows a black man is around to scrutinize him. It’s again about “reasonable” interpretations in a world that inventories all it’s previous baggage, and so constantly accrues “reasonableness.” After all, what if not that is the OED?

  263. BJTexs says:

    Boy, I was hoping not to pick this scab but …

    I agree with you, Jeff, that the “reasonableness” argument was lame and borderline cowardly. It’s really the same side of the coin that SEK and CJ are trying to present in terms of allowing others to determine the consequences of a writer’s intended meaning as opposed to allowing the intent to reign supreme.

    Creative writing, indeed, devoid of critical thinking and lazy to boot.

    Someone has to make personal determination as to what constitutes “reasonable” in speech and image just as someone has to define “racism” or “race baiting” in same. It’s a white hankie presented to opposing views who, ultimately, will continue to impose their own template for “meaning” in their own, ideologically driven metric.

    Some of the commentators over at Pat’s agreed with your position but others will fail to see the connection today.

  264. John Bradley says:

    From LMC’s link:

    The cartoon, which appeared on the front page of Wednesday’s paper, depicts State. Sen. Nina Turner as Aunt Jemima, the much-maligned vaudeville character and food-company logo that has become a pejorative symbol of a black woman who aims to please whites in authority positions.

    And here I had always thought that Auntie J. was just trying to sell the good waffle-loving folks of all races a quality maple syrup.

    Jeff’s oatmeal could not be reached for comment.

  265. Jeff G. says:

    My oatmeal can never be reached any more, now that it’s gone all big time.

    It’s like my oatmeal is Adam Sandler and I’m Keisha Knight Pulliam.

  266. cranky-d says:

    The oatmeal has gotten too big for its bowl, huh? That is so typical of your rolled-grain products.

  267. Rusty says:

    My oatmeal won’t even return General Mills’ calls.

  268. John Bradley says:

    Dissing a General?!? Woah, that oatmeal of yours is gonna be looking at a stint in Leavenworth for insubordination.

  269. Slartibartfast says:

    The oatmeal has gotten too big for its bowl, huh? That is so typical of your rolled-grain products.

    That’s why I eat this stuff. All oats, not one of them rolled. Pretentious, but knows its place in the (pardon the expression) food chain.

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