Then parody is dead. Officially. Like, put pennies on its eyes, seal it in a box, and shovel dirt over the rigored thing-dead.
From Weasel Zippers, this editorial from the Carteret County News-Times:
TO THE EDITOR:
Republicans and “so-called” conservatives are at it again. They are claiming that the Constitution gives people the right to have guns without the permission of the government. If that were true, then how could New York and Chicago have laws against it?
We Democrats are sick and tired of Republicans constantly using the Constitution to cover up their true plans, which are to make us all afraid of everyone else. Our great president came from a civilized part of the country where there is strict gun control, and he is only trying to bring the benefits of that more modern way of living to the rest of us. I don’t know the exact statistics, but I’m quite certain that Chicago is a lot safer that Morehead City, when it comes to gun violence.
But do Republicans and conservatives listen to the voice of reason? No, of course not. All they want to do is whine and complain about how gun control and wealth redistribution violate the Constitution, as if the Constitution were all that great, anyway. There are a lot of things that need to be changed about the Constitution, I’d say, and President Obama needs to change it.
The Republicans are just trying to stand in the way, because the president is black. They even dared to question whether he was born in this country. I think all this demonstrates that the Constitution needs to be amended when it comes to the qualifications for being president. Right now, it says that a person has to be 35 years old and be a natural born citizen. Well, that is obviously unfair because there are a great many otherwise qualified people who cannot run for president because their mothers had to have a C-section. But because the Constitution was written a hundred years ago, nobody even thought of the discrimination that would result from a doctor having to deliver a baby in this unnatural way. Now that we Democrats are in control of the government, that’s just one more thing we should change in our drive to make life fair.
Please withhold my name because I don’t want to get crank calls.
PROUD TO BE A DEMOCRAT
Now, I hold out hope that this is indeed a winking bit of Swiftian satire. There are certain markers, for instance, that, to someone who’s studied, say, Linda Hutchinson’s work on irony and parody, jump out from the piece: the misuse of scare-quotes around “so-called” rather than “conservatives.” The backward logic that intentionally invokes logical fallacies for support, be it post hoc ergo propter hoc, to the appeals to authority (“our great president” coming from an area of strict gun control that subtextually we all know to be failing dramatically), to ad hominem attacks on Republicans (coupled with gross generality: Republicans block Obama because he’s black), to a (perhaps) knowing misapplication of statistics for dramatic effect (Morehead City has, since 2001, had 3 murders and 60-some odd rapes — though it does boast a crime rate in certain areas that are significantly higher than those in NC as a whole; still, the writer singled out “gun violence,” which one suspects would fall mostly into the murder or rape categories).
Then there’s the use of “one-hundred years” that echoes Ezra Klein’s insipid remarks about the Constitution, as well as the play on the word “natural” in “natural born” — which seems so incredibly absurd that one would be remiss were one not to suspect that this argument was written to imitate the simplistic, often-times wildly outraged and equally wildly uninformed emotionalism of leftist political “arguments.” Not to mention, the punchline is just too precious. And funny.
— Then again, this is contemporary leftism we’re dealing with. So I suppose one would be equally remiss if one didn’t consider that this should in fact be taken at face value: after all, it incorporates logical fallacies, generalized attacks, charges of racism, and the kind of benighted emotionalism coupled to a staggering misunderstanding (or willful ignorance) of facts — all of which are the hallmark of the rank and file low-information Democrat voter, who comes to believe himself wise and informed because he’s been able to adopt the tactics of his party leaders and regurgitate the lies that so effortlessly flow from their cynical, sociopathic maws.
In which case, I stand corrected.
(h/t Geoff B)
I think it’s brilliant. Reads like something I would write.
I vote parody, because it hits all the notes in the way one of us would hit them.
Even the misinterpretation of “natural-born” is not outrageous enough to make me believe it came from the Left, and there’s not quite enough bald-faced sophistry.
Face it, folks: Those of us who haven’t drunk the Kool-Aid can’t speak their language without an accent.
Which, whew!
Sad, innit, that parody of the American left has become well-nigh impossible.
For me, the tell was the comparison of gun violence in Chicago and Morehead City.
Good: a really amazing piece of satire.
Bad: I’ll bet that there are lefties applauding the piece right now.
remind me of the incomparable Mr. Jim (rell one not dhnger)
Yep. Throw some garbled spelling in there and I would be thinking witheld.
I miss that dude.
Thanks BMoe, I was trying to remember the name. witheld was the gold standard.
I think it best to imagine this read aloud by a retired British Army officer to the BBC, a la Monty Python.
Self-parody is still parody. The only difference is that in self-parody the comic genius is God’s.
I don’t know. I’ve had liberals on my Facebook that are both that left wing and that stupid.
McGehee, I see twisters on the weather map in your area. Are they close?
Damn, is there any daylight between parody and the left any more?
This has to be parody. It’s too self aware to be from a true progg. I mean, just the style of writing alone betrays an organized mind and level of literacy alien to useful idiots.
Then, look how he said “I don’t know the exact statistics, but I’m quite certain that Chicago is a lot safer that Morehead City”. When, EVER, have you heard a progg preface an assertion like that?
No, the guy is good, I’ll give him that, but he left some tells…
Or maybe David Allen Coe singing, “If this isn’t parody, I’ll kiss your ass.”
I’m gonna go with parody (Lord, please), but there are lefties that are truly that stupid.
I hope this is parody, but I could easily see this exact opinion piece appearing in the Boston Globe or one of the other more local Democratic Party daily newsletters.
How does that saying go? Something like: “Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity?” (I think I’m paraphrasing.) Given the Progressive mentality of today, why can’t it be both?
I vote parody. It was the C-section bit that did it.
That convinced me, as well.
Well done, though!
<pops head out of the hole I pulled in after me>
Oh, hi. Actually the last nearby tornado warning I saw is being allowed to expire at :15 after. Tornado watch currently going until 8:00 p.m. EST will probably be trimmed to exclude metro Atlanta before much longer I think.
There have been some tornadoes way north of here including one that tore up a town and left one person dead, but the main effect I think we’ll see at The Freehold is that the one rung on the neighbors’ dock ladder that was right at water level for the past few weeks, will be underwater.
…the former tornado warning is now a severe thunderstorm warning, but that storm isn’t headed this way.
First the storms slam into NoCal and dump most of their bounty west of the Sierras, then they pick up a bit of steam before piling into the Wasatch and Rocky ranges.
Then they pick up warm humid air from the Gulf just before frigid Canadian air slams into it, and from the plains east it’s havok cubed.
It always makes me feel marginally guilty to have sent along the storms that were a mere inconvenience to us but a disaster to all y’all.
The thing is, I don’t think mocking the modern left (like this) actually accomplishes anything. The right already knows it, and the left, should they detect the mockery, simply reject it out of hand and rail incomprehensibly about “civility,” between death wish tweets, that is.
That’s good, McGehee. We had the same thing here a few days ago, but it blew south of us and into Arkansas. Where they deserve it.
Mero, we mock the left for the benefit of the LIVs.
We don’t mock the left in TV on the radio much any more. Even Rush avoids it since ‘Fluke is a slut-gate’. When we do mock them publicly they rage and try to organize boycotts. I’d say it is effective when you keep it up. When you back off immediately and look guilty it doesn’t get the job done.
Hmmmm.
By guess who? https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=7122
I only mentioned the Hutchinson thing because it talks of things like markers and metatextual clues and such, which I then wanted to note. All you really need is a good ear. Explaining how parody works from the perspective of narratology requires a specialized vocabulary.
Sorry. Wasn’t trying to sound pompous.
Didn’t think you were. I thought it was funny that you pointed that out, then when I went looking at some old witheld posts he had done the exact same thing.
Kind of makes me wonder, you know.
Ah, witheld! I can write in a lot of styles, but I could never, ever come close to duplicating that mad genius.
There’s another sort of parody standing in plain view, but it seems as though no one has quite picked up on it yet — namely, with the Democrat Party staring an imposed austerity in the face, an austerity limiting the goodies they can plausibly offer future voters in return for their votes, they put on a show blaring their willingness to cut their adherents all the slack in the world where it comes to those adherents fucking underage girls overseas.
It may appear to be only a distantly wished come-on for 1/2 of the underinformed voting public, but hey, the Democrats go to war using the ethics they’ve got.
Since I’ve known Democrats dumber than the supposed writer I figured it to be real.
Now can we start calling them the “Party of Rape & Rapists“?
Emily Litella Lives!
Addendum.