Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Cutting Through the Bullshit 2
1) I was recently accused on a liberal blog of "always defending right-wingers". That, folks, is a bald-faced and slanderous lie. Rush Limbaugh - never defended him. Sean Hannity - never defended him. Glenn Beck- never defended him. Michael Savage - never defended him. Laura Ingraham - never defended her. Ann Coulter - never defended her (admitted that she was smart, that's about it). Donald Trump - never defended him. Bill O'Reilly - defended him occasionally, criticized him more. Michele Bachmann - never defended her. Melanie Morgan - never defended her. Brent Bozell - never defended him. Neil Boortz - never defended him. Tammy Bruce - never defended her (was actually banned from her web-site for criticizing Palin). Rick Perry - never defended him. Newt Gingrich - never defended him. Alan Keyes - never defended him (he I've actually ridiculed religiously). Rick Santorum - never defended him. Mike Huckabee - never defended him. Mark Levin - never defended him. Pat Robertson - never defended him. Mitch McConnell - never defended him. Steve King - never defended him. Louie Gohmert - never defended him. Etc., etc., ETC.. I mean, yes, I did defend George W. Bush against charges of war criminality and John McCain and Ronald Reagan against charges of treason. But I did so because I'm an intellectually honest person whose moral yardstick is level, and not because I'm any sort of "right-winger" (the same with some of the piling-on of the Tea Party; Janeane Garofalo's effervescently disgusting summation of them, for example) . Duh.............2) I've said it many times, people. I am IN FAVOR of the top tax rates going back to 39.6%. You would think that that would make me a member in good standing of the 99%ers, no? I don't know. I'm not so sure anymore. Me - I'm kind of getting the impression that they want a hell of a lot more than that; like maybe blowing up the system entirely. Hopefully, I'm wrong here.............3) I don't think that I am.............4) Did you folks see "60 Minutes" last Sunday. They did a story in which it appears that a lot of current (including Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner) and former (including Dennis Hastert) members of the U.S. Congress have made a boat-load of money by using what is essentially insider information. Worse yet, people, it isn't illegal! Yeah, that's right, the same frigging laws that put Martha Stewart in prison simply don't apply to the Congress (yes, they apply to the judicial and executive branches but not to the legislative). Nice, huh?...Hey, maybe the Tea Partiers and the OWS people can get together and try and put a stop to this nonsense. I mean, they do in fact want to make a difference, right (this, I'm saying, instead of simply bitching and moaning, blocking traffic, etc.)?
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16 comments:
Will: You would think that that would make me a member in good standing of the 99%ers, no?
No. Why would you want to be one anyway? You hate them. They are anti-corporatist.
Will: ...instead of simply bitching and moaning, blocking traffic, etc.)?
Patriot bitching and moaning? Protest is patriotic... Remember writing that? I knew you were BSing.
Dervish, you are one of the best representatives of the liberal position I have ever met, and yet you consistently make partisan attacks on Will. Will is a moderate, and a liberal-leaning moderate. You seem to resent him for not being a republican and to punish him you imply that he is.
That is unduly harsh.
John Myste: That is unduly harsh.
Patriotic protest becomes "bitching and moaning", and I'm being "unduly harsh" for pointing this out?
In a prior post he's so disgusted with the 99%ers that he declares he's writing in Bloomberg for president in 2012 (even though Obama has largely stayed away from saying much about the movement)...
Now in this post he thinks he should be a "member in good standing"???
John Myste: Dervish, you are one of the best representatives of the liberal position I have ever met...
No, you are wrong. I'm "not the sharpest tool in the shed" and also crazy and paranoid... or so Will believes. You didn't see those comments? If you did, you didn't feel inclined to say those comments were "harsh", so why mine?
Dervish,
You are crazed and paranoid. I know this. All fundamentalists are. I did not say you were the best representative of truth. I said you were the best representative of the far left liberal position (and you are).
However, I think Will tries harder to search for actual truth without bias.
I do not think any specific statement Will makes defines his character. He makes tons of statements.
I'm not crazed or paranoid. I'm not a fundamentalist. Will doesn't try "harder to search for actual truth without bias". He rejects anything that doesn't fit in with his extremist moderate worldview.
Also, you originally said, "you [w-dervish] are one of the best representatives of the liberal position" ... now you've added the "far left" bit and an implication that I lie (or buy into lies). What looked like a compliment became an insult. That isn't "unduly harsh"?
I'll accept any genuine comments if you've got any, but you can stuff the backhanded ones.
Dervish,
It as a compliment, not an insult. I packaged it with an insult. You are one of the strongest representatives of liberalism I have found on the web.
w-d,
While I generally agree with you, isn't calling someone an "extremist moderate" somewhat of an oxymoron? I don't see how one can be both.
I was talking about my position being compatible with what I thought that their position might be. And I DO think that protesting is patriotic. I was just giving them a TANGIBLE issue to agitate for; one in fact that the Tea Partiers might agree with.
"He rejects anything that doesn't fit in with his extremist moderate worldview." Hm, what do you say that we test that one? I'm strongly pro-choice on abortion. I adamantly oppose warrantless wire-tapping, rendition, preemptive wars, nation-building, counter-insurgency, and regime change. I'm in favor of a progressive income tax. I'm in favor of treating capital gains and dividends the same as regular income (maybe index it for inflation). I'm for public financing of elections. I'm strongly pro-gay-rights. I'm not opposed to sensible gun control. I was in favor of extending unemployment benefits.......Correct me if I'm wrong, but those all seem to be liberal positions.............Now, granted, I DO in fact have some conservative views, too. I'm against the corporate income tax. I'm against public service unions having unlimited collective bargaining power. I'm not opposed to some sort of partial privatization of Social Security. I'm not opposed to drilling in ANWR............And, of course, I also have have some moderate views as well; our approach to global-warming, for example.............Put it all together and it sure as hell sounds a lot more idiosyncratic than extremist to me.
John,
Here is the discussion at Shaw’s Place that may have prompted this thin-skinned post.
What Will said …
“Of course, you may not think that people like Bernie Sanders, Maxine Waters, Barney Frank, Michael Moore, Markos Moulitsis, Keith Olbermann, Ed Schultz, Howard Dean, Rachel Maddow, Mike Malloy, Bernie Sanders, Allen Grayson, Noam Chomsky, Cornell West, Meeks (Congressman, can't remember his first name), Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, etc. are wingnuts …”
Point #1: When you present a lengthy list of names, there is a high statistical probability that at least one name on said list may be someone’s favorite commentator or spokesperson. So what is the point … unless your intention is to BAIT and OFFEND someone, some reader at Shaw’s blog.
Here is the Cephalopod reply:
“I’ll tell you what [same names repeated from above] are NOT … They are NOT Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, Michael Savage, Jim DeMint, Scott Roeder. John Patrick Bedell, Jim David Adkisson, Bruce and Joshua Turnidge, Wayne LaPierre (of “guys with the guns make the rules” fame), Richard Poplawski, Don Young (R-AK), Hal Turner, Katherine Crabill, Paul Broun (R-GA), Andrew Breitbart, Gregory Girard, Solomon "Solly" Forrell, Sharron Angel, Joe Walsh (IL-08), and Joe Barton (R-TX), as examples.”
Point #2: FALSE EQUIVALANCE. Perhaps this point was lost on Will the Prisoner of Bad Logic. I interspersed the names of right wing pundits along with the names of known murderers … such as Jim David Adkisson who entered a Unitarian Church and killed two parishioners. In Adkisson’s car, police found a copy of Michael Savage’s book< Liberalism is a Mental Disease. In the political Universe, the left is NOT equivalent to the rabid right.
Point #3: Gratuitous incitement – left-leaning pundits do not incite people to commit murder and hate crimes. Ahh, yes, another point lost on Will the Prisoner.
Now Will the Prisoner of Bad Logic has a very thin skin and then proceeded to justify himself:
“I'm intellectually honest and have a consistent moral yardstick …”
Point #4: Self-Justification on top of bad logic (so lame it is laughable). Whenever I read disclaimers and self-congratulatory posts such as this, I am immediately skeptical. If a blogger needs to pin a medal on himself, place olive branches on his own head, engage in chest-thumping, and other forms of auto-eroticism, the least he can do is do the self-love bit in the privacy of a locked bathroom.
I thought the "extremist moderate" thing was a joke. I laughed my ass off at it.
Now where's Dmarks so I can rip him for hating unions for the wrong reasons?
Octopus, Shaw came to my blog and gave her opinion. I went to her blog and gave my opinion. Your problem is what exactly? You don't want me to go to Shaw's blog anymore? Fine, I won't go to Shaw's blog anymore.
This is one of my previous posts - "Friday, November 4, 2011
Pundits on the Far-Right that I Loathe
Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter (she actually kind of amuses me but, whatever), Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Mark Levin (kind of a shame 'cause he's smart), Ollie North, Tracy Byrnes (some nasty chick on the Fox Business channel), Brent Bozell, Bill Kristol, Liz Cheney, Mike Huckabee (and, no, I don't care how affable he is), Karl Rove, John Bolton, Monica Crowley, Melanie Morgan, Neil Boortz, Janet Parshall". Are those enough names for you? Or do you maybe need a few more?............Now, is there a precise moral equivalency? I don't know! But what I do know is that if it's wrong for Sean Hannity to splice footage to make a Democrat look evil, then it's also wrong for Ed fucking Schultz to splice footage to make a Republican look evil. And if it's wrong for Rush Limbaugh to tell a bald-faced lie, then it's also wrong for Keith Olbermann to tell a bald-faced lie. And if it's NOT wrong to blame Sarah Palin for some lunatic shooting a gun, then it's also not wrong to blame Al Gore for the Unibomber (there was a dog-worn copy of Mr. Gore's book in Kuzinsky's shed).............You got a nasty fucking attitude, you know that, dude? Enough with the bald-faced liberal love already.
Will Hart: “You got a nasty fucking attitude, you know that, dude? Enough with the bald-faced liberal love already.”
Are you talking about me? Here is your MOTIVATIONAL BLINDNESS (including your information deficit) speaking loud and clear:
Will Hart: “Shaw, really, you don't think that Keith Olbermann, with all of that shit that he laid on Scott Brown, and Ed Schultz with all of the nasty stuff that he's constantly saying AREN'T divisive?”
Now compare the alleged journalistic indiscretions of Olbermann and Schultz to the following:
Man Shoots Two California Highway Patrol Officers:
Accused Gunman Acknowledges Influence of Glenn Beck
Three Pittsburgh Police Officers Ambushed and Killed:
Gunman Posted Glenn Beck Video on White Supremacist Website
Federal Prison for Man Who Threatened House Speaker Pelosi:
Mother of Accused Man Blames Fox News
Glenn Beck Fans Target Legendary Scholar with Death Threats
Death Threats Against League of Women Voters Linked to Glenn Beck
Murders, shooting sprees, domestic terrorism, private citizens hiding in fear, infamous intimidations and provocations broadcast on national television - all linked to Fox News! There is no equivalence between the right wing versus the left wing. I don’t recall Olbermann, Schultz, or Maddow inciting people to perform acts of violence as the right wing media has done. Here is your false equivalence, your information deficit ... and your motivational blindness.
Finally, your claim, “I'm intellectually honest and have a consistent moral yardstick …,” is especially empty. I have found your comments and your blog posts to be just as callous, rabble-rousing, and hypocritical as those of any right winger despite your rationalizations to the contrary.
Furthermore, I find your tendency to engage in VICTIM BLAME (such as punishing innocent newborns for the indiscretions of their parents) to be lacking in conscience and most disturbing.
Octopus: I have found your comments and your blog posts to be just as callous, rabble-rousing, and hypocritical as those of any right winger despite your rationalizations to the contrary.
Will Hart = Moderate extremist.
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