Meow-Meowing The Flab-Catchers III: Revenge of the Sammich
A while back, our Jillian noted Doughy Pantload’s conveeeeenient distinction between good and bad populism:
Frum Pro-Elite, Anti-Populist [Jonah Goldberg]
David Frum has an interesting column on the limits of populism and the upside of elitism. These are two of my favorite themes. And since Huckabee seems to be a champion of the former and a foe of the latter, I thought (in the spirit of bloggy self-promotion) I’d call attention to one of my broadsides against populism and one of my defenses of elitism.
Regardless, I agree with David that populism is a useful and healthy passion when aimed at the liberal elite. But conservatives can get drunk on it when they proclaim that elites are bad simply because they are elites. Conservatives respect authority — the authority of ideas, traditions, morals, religion, customs, reason, law, excellence and so on. One cannot believe in this kind of authority while having a blanket hostility to elitism in any form.
12/18 03:02 PM
Translated from the Wingnutese, ‘good’ populism comes from anger against liberal elites, while ‘bad’ populism comes from anger at wingnut elites — Wall Street, Corporate America and its media whores, the perpetually wrong, the war cheerleaders, the wingnut welfare-collecting beneficiaries of nepotism like.. well, like Jonah Goldberg and David Frum.
Frum: The beginnings of a paunch under an ominous sky.
Or, as Brit Hume put it:
This is a party that if you’re going to be a populist, you better be for a lot of things that say, Ronald Reagan was for. You better be in favor of a lot of the…you don’t want to be a candidate associated with possible tax increases, policies that would require increased regulation and so on down the line. You can’t…I don’t think the anti-corporate message…it isn’t even selling very well in the Democratic party and I certainly don’t think it’s going to sell in the Republican party.
Now Pantload’s just a vector for this meme — much like he’s merely a vector for time wasters, geeky Star Trek quotes, hoof and mouth disease — so let’s deal with its source, David Frum, who’s been a busy little beaver lately, attempting to build a dam against the flood of populism that threatens to drown not only the Wealthy Criminal Class he worships (and who cuts his check), but the Depraved Chattering Class of which he is no small part.
First, some pertinent history. David Frum has never thought much of — as opposed to about — the masses. Fretting over the loose morals and soft character of the American people, he’s recommended as way of corrective a repeal of the social contract to the Donner Party’s level:
Contemporary conservatives still value that old American character. William Bennett in his lectures reads admiringly from an account of the Donner party written by a survivor that tells the story in spare, stoic style. He puts the letter down and asks incredulously, “Where did those people go?” But if you believe that early Americans possessed a fortitude that present-day Americans lack, and if you think the loss is an important one, then you have to think hard about why that fortitude disappeared. Merely exhorting Americans to show more fortitude is going to have about as much effect on them as a lecture from the student council president on school spirit. Reorganizing the method by which they select and finance their schools won’t do it either, and neither will the line-item veto, or discharge petitions, or entrusting Congress with the power to deny individual NEA grants, or court decisions striking down any and all acts of politically correct tyranny emanating from the offices of America’s deans of students – worthwhile though each and every one of those things may be. It is socials that form character, as another conservative hero, Alexis de Tocqueville, demonstrated, and if our characters are now less virtuous than formerly, we must identify in what way our social conditions have changed in order to understand why.
Of course there have been hundreds of such changes – never mind since the Donner party’s day, just since 1945 … But the expansion of government is the only one we can do anything about.
All of these changes have had the same effect: the emancipation of the individual appetite from restrictions imposed on it by limited resources, or religious dread, or community disapproval, or the risk of disease or personal catastrophe.
Really. Here’s Frum again, with a helpful translation by John Holbo:
The great, overwhelming fact of a capitalist economy is risk. Everyone is at constant risk of the loss of his job, or of the destruction of his business by a competitor, or of the crash of his investment portfolio. Risk makes people circumspect. It disciplines them and teaches them self-control. Without a safety net, people won’t try to vault across the big top. Social security, student loans, and other government programs make it far less catastrophic than it used to be for middle-class people to dissolve their families. Without welfare and food stamps, poor people would cling harder to working-class respectability than they do not.
The thing that makes capitalism good, apparently, is not that it generates wealth more efficiently than other known economic engines. No, the thing that makes capitalism good is that, by forcing people to live precarious lives, it causes them to live in fear of losing everything and therefore to adopt – as fearful people will – a cowed and subservient posture: in a word, they behave ‘conservatively’. Of course, crouching to protect themselves and their loved ones from the eternal lash of risk precisely won’t preserve these workers from risk. But the point isn’t to induce a society-wide conformist crouch by way of making the workers safe and happy. The point is to induce a society-wide conformist crouch. Period. A solid foundation is hereby laid for a desirable social order.
Of course, Frum’s social engineering schemes are offered in a decidedly us/them model. They should be economically stressed into behaving ‘better’; Frum and his peers (the Wealthy Criminal Class), however, already behave properly, so they need not endure such hardships. Or, as Holbo puts it:
Note how Frum’s pretty-pretty – “aren’t the hungry strugglers picturesque!” – perspective is indeed that of an aesthetically-minded spectator. And a very asymmetric perspective it is. Just as a movie-goer may enjoy watching all the grunts struggle heroically forward through the mud on the silver screen – while he himself sinks into a soft seat, 64 oz. Bladder-Buster Coke and popcorn ready to hand – Frum would never dream of employing public policy as a means to the good end of hardship for himself.
Of course not. I encourage everyone to read Holbo’s post in its entirety*; it’s a classic, and only errs in its horrified insistence that David Frum can’t possibly mean what he says. Actually, Frum does mean what he says; yes, he is really that bad; he’s prone to all recommending all sorts of demented policies that mean to rectify the behavior of — or purify the morality of — those who should do — be — better. Witness,
what is surely one of the most terrifying sentences written in recent years: “There is no middle way for Americans: it is either victory or holocaust. ” Yes, holocaust. And in the face of extinction, only a Democrat or a diplomat or a member of the liberal media would trifle over civil liberties or the use of torture. Perle and Frum warn against an unreasonable fear of McCarthyism at home. And abroad, they call for the violent overthrow of regimes in Syria and Iran, a blockade of North Korea and the destabilization of Saudi Arabia (and maybe France, too). All is pure dichotomy: the malevolent Other and the noble Us. “A world at peace,” Perle and Frum magnificently conclude, “will be brought into being by American armed might and defended by American might, too. ”
Just as what is good for the goose is not good for the gander with regard to poor and rich, so too what is good for America (armed to the teeth, self-righteous, violently hostile to everyone who would dare refuse to kiss its ass) is intolerable if practiced by another.
But back to populism and Frum’s discontent.
Populism can take many shapes but it is always about power: its adherents’ resentment at their lack of power, real or perceived, and/or resentment of too much power, real or perceived, being in the hands of elites, also real or perceived (power being a zero sum game). Some elites are technocrats, some are moralists; all are seen as paternalists by populists, and though the perception is only sometimes true about technocrats (rightwing populism’s reflexive fear and loathing of pointy-headed specialists is only rarely justified), it’s almost always true of moralists. Above all, paternalists like Frum are always in danger of blowback, of being called on their hypocrisy or double standards. No wonder Frum mounted the most vigorous defenses in all the WingNet when Rush Limbaugh, Bill Bennett, and Ted Haggard were busted on their hypocrisy — he knows their schtick is not unlike his**.
Which is not to say that it’s exactly like his, either. Frum’s type of elitism is something rather new. The Irish Famine — or, I should say, the non-response to the Irish Famine — was the fault of ideologues; Trevelyan and Russell were proto-technocrats, ideologues whose stubborn belief in laissez-faire dogma prevented them from a) being human(e) and b) dealing with reality. As such, they were analogous to our Grover Norquists, our libertarians, our neo-liberals: all concerns being subservient to a retarded belief in economic ‘law’. Meanwhile, the moralists advocated the same inaction on the grounds that the Irish were an inferior tribe who attended an inferior church; any help given them would surely be a waste. This is closer to the Bennett/Limbaugh type of bigot-elitist we know and loathe (and who would have been caught with an Irish mistress). But, so far as I know, there was no Frum around to combine the biases and tell the Irish that they ought to welcome the famine as a crucible in which their moral failings would be burned away, leaving fitter, happier & sober, self-reliant folks in its wake: ‘social Darwinism for thee, but not for me.’
No, Frum’s type came a little later — and now constitute a majority. Frum and most of the Wingnut Establishment believe that people aren’t poor because capitalism failed (noooo, that’s impossible!!!); instead, they believe people are poor and vulnerable because they make bad decisions because of their shoddy morality. The poor do drugs, don’t go to church (thus denying themselves the right kind of social network), get divorced, have pre-marital sex (and therefore, kids out of wedlock), are too undisciplined to work their way up the corporate ladder or manage their finances competently. And rather than letting misery do the ‘natural’ thing and force the poor to morally shape up or physically perish, liberals actually encourage their vices with a government-funded safety net! How perverse! Consider liberals with their food stamps, scholarships, Section 8, Head Start. Now contrast Rich ‘School of Frum’ Lowry’s counter-proposal: shotgun marriages! Which allows the Wealthy Criminal Class to keep more of its money? Which allows the poor to keep their dignity and individuality? Which is carefully-tuned to serve the interests of Capitalism and the Puritan’s concept of Jeebus? Which is tuned (less-carefully since the 90s, and not just because of wingnuts, I’m sad to say) to serve the interests of people?
Well, there are signs that even the wingnuts among the poor are tired of this paternalist shit. Some are tired of chickenhawks telling them that war’s awesome; these fed-up folks are supporting Ron Paul. Others are tired of being told that the economy’s great, and that the poor owe their economic condition to their moral inferiority; these fed-up folks are supporting Huckabee:
What the press doesn’t understand is that Huckabee has changed the equation of party-specific orthodoxies. A generation of GOP candidates have used the poor as a whipping-post stage prop, complaining about lazy, frantically copulating homeless fiends living in cars, fucking up the property values of Decent Folk. Huck turns that rhetoric around by saying, “We shouldn’t allow a child to live under a bridge or in the back seat of a car.” It’s a brilliant innovation for a candidate like Huckabee, who recognizes that the only thing he has to lose by talking about poverty and high CEO salaries is the support of the big-money wing of his party — something he doesn’t have anyway.
Choosing that strategy also allows Huckabee to do what no evangelical since Jimmy Carter has, which is talk about his faith in terms of sympathy for the underprivileged. “You can’t just say ‘respect life’ exclusively in the gestation period,” he says. Huckabee also edges openly into class politics, criticizing his own party for harping on the supposed success of the overall economy. “The reality is, there are many families that really are working as hard or harder than they’ve ever worked in their lives, and they’re not seeing that pay off,” he says.
For Huckabee, such lines aren’t just lip service. As governor of Arkansas, he outraged Republicans with his plan to expand health coverage for children, his embrace of refugees from Katrina and his support for subsidized higher education for the children of illegal immigrants. Worse still, from a Republican standpoint, Huckabee showed little hesitation in raising taxes to pay for such programs — one analysis claims that new taxes initiated during his tenure resulted in a net tax increase of $505 million. Even Max Brantley, editor of the Arkansas Times and one of Huckabee’s most ferocious critics, concedes that the candidate’s populism isn’t an act. “I don’t question his sincerity on that,” he says of Huckabee, who, like Bill Clinton, grew up in modest circumstances. “He identifies with ordinary people.”
Blarg! The peons are finally spitting out the Republican elitists’ Kool-Aid, so Frum assumes the form of an anthropomorphic pitcher and crashes through the wall, all yeah-yeah-yeah with even more of it***:
Many of us on the conservative side have fed this monster. (Rightly) aghast at the abuse of expertise by liberal judges, liberal bureaucrats and liberal academics, we have sometimes over-reacted by denying the importance of expertise altogether.
….So now instead of holes in our souls, we conservatives are getting candidates with holes in their heads.
Here’s the lesson to learn: It’s always important to respect the values and principles of the voters. But politicians who want to deliver effective government and positive results have to care about more than values — and have to do more than check their guts. They need to study the problem, master the evidence, and face criticism.
‘So go back to hating only Liberal elites, peons! And Vote for Rudy! In fact, the only “compassionate conservatism” you peons should practice is the kind that forgives crimes of the wealthy elite — my friends and peers!’:
U.S. too hard on white-collar criminals
David FrumU.S. prosecutors have threatened corporate fraud criminals the NatWest Three with prison sentences longer than those murderers serve in the U.K. Commentator David Frum thinks this is an example of a larger problem.
[…]
America punishes so-called white-collar crimes much more severely than any other nation, and much more severely than we did two decades ago.
It’s partly a political attempt to balance harsh penalties for violent crime. At the same time, American courts and prosecutors constantly seek to extend the reach of American criminal and tort law to companies around the world.
There are times when American lawyers care about international opinion. The United States Supreme Court cited foreign disapproval as partial grounds for a 2005 opinion forbidding the execution of under-18 killers.
So, question: If international disapproval matters in death penalty cases, why not for the rest of the U.S. legal system, beginning with white-collar crime cases that treat a five-year house arrest as just an appetizer before the real punishment begins?
But wait — it gets better, which is to say, it gets worse. Percolating in the WingNet for a while now is the Heritage Finktank’s paper on hunger in America. Channeling Phil Gramm, Heritage argues that poor people aren’t hungry, they’re giant fatties!. So while the fat cats have it too hard, the poor have it too easy:
Far from having too little to eat, they argue, poor people are eating too much. By the time the USDA report went public, Heritage had readied its own salvo, titled “Hunger Hysteria: Examining Food Security and Obesity in America.” In recent years, the U.S. media and public have become increasingly obsessed with the “obesity epidemic.” And what better way to attack the idea of deprivation among the poor than to note that they are getting fatter? Rightly or not, people still associate obesity with the sins of gluttony and sloth, which jibes nicely with the concept that welfare recipients are lazy people who would rather feed at the public trough than get an honest job.
“Hunger Hysteria” is the work of Robert Rector, Heritage’s senior domestic-policy man and a main proponent of welfare “reform.” He argues that while the USDA’s numbers might sound “ominous” on the surface, “the government’s own data show that the overwhelming majority of food insecure adults are, like most adult Americans, overweight or obese.” While “they may have brief episodes of reduced food intake, most adults in food insecure households actually consume too much, not too little food.”
His next step is to attack proposals that would give the poor more cash for food “despite the fact that most…already eat too much.” More food money, he suggests, will only make them fatter. Instead, Rector says, they ought to be encouraged to “avoid chronic overconsumption of calories” and to simply “spread their food intake more evenly over the course of each month to avoid episodic shortfalls.”
Rector goes on to attack common “misconceptions,” such as the argument that “poor people become obese because they are forced, due to lack of financial resources, to eat too many junk foods that are high in fat and added sugar.” Junk foods, he counters, aren’t particularly cheap—for example, Coke and Pepsi cost more than milk. “Snack foods such as potato chips and donuts [sic] cost two to five times more per calorie than healthier staples such as beans, rice and pasta.” In other words, if the poor want to eat junk food and get fat, fine, but let’s not finance such behavior. The solution, Rector argues, resorting to the perennial trope, isn’t a more-equitable society or expanded social programs, but greater “personal responsibility” on the part of poor people.
Uh-huh, so Frum waddles in:
One-third of all American men–and more than one-third of American women–are obese. Not just a little large, but seriously fat.
That’s more than twice as many as in 1980. Over the past quarter-century, fatness has emerged as America’s number one public-health problem[.]
and adds his own twistifications:
Obesity may explain the growing gap between U.S. life expectancies and those elsewhere in the advanced world. In 1990, Americans lived almost half a year longer than the advanced-world average. By 2003, they had fallen more than half a year behind.
Never mind the proverbially healthy Swede: The average American now lives less long than the average Greek, Portuguese or Spaniard. Despite the climate, the booze and the bad roads, even the Irish now live longer than the Americans.
[…]
Why is this happening? Why so much worse in the U.S. than in the other English-speaking countries, and so much worse in the English-speaking countries than elsewhere in the developed world?
I hear you say: “People are eating too much!” Well yes, that’s certainly the beginning of the answer. But only the beginning.
Food is cheaper relative to income in the United States than in any other country. Cities are less walkable; gasoline more affordable. Americans work longer hours than other English-speakers, who in turn work longer hours than Europeans, creating greater demand for prepared foods.
Aha, there it is! Unlike, say, the Donner Party, Americans are too coddled! Americans don’t live as long as people in other industrial nations not because of a terrible health care system or because shitty food is the only kind the poor can afford, nooo. It’s because Americans — even (especially?) the poor — suffer because of their moral failings: they are lazy and therefore fat! So now Frum can really be slick. Here’s his remedy:
Perhaps what is needed above all is a crusading leader, somebody who will make obesity a cause like drunk driving and anti-smoking.
And as it happens, we have the very guy: Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor who lost–and kept off–100 pounds. Huckabee has moved from nowhere in the polls to the probable Republican vice-presidential nominee on the strength of his wit and charm. Now he needs a cause. Why not this?
What a clever plan this Republican Elitist has come up with to get rid of Huckabee. The Huckster, instead of leading the rabble against the ‘Club For Greed’ and the Chamber of Commerce, can instead do something really useful and tell his class to get off their asses and lose some weight (and remember to keep the Israel fires burning, so the neocons can keep killin’ Aye-rabs in preparation for Jesus’ return). How convenient.
Well, allow me to retort. I know what’s the real cause of most obesity in America: Chickenhawk blogging. And if David Frum really wanted to do anything about obesity, he’d walk into the next Wingnut Welfare Convention and forcibly remove the giant sammiches and Cheetos bags. But we all know that ain’t gonna happen. After all, they — like chickenhawk Frum himself as well as the white-collar criminals for whom he’s shameless apologist — have no moral failings, are hard workers, are paragons of mental and physical fitness.
*Absorb Frum’s awfulness, stop to consider that the wingnut establishment more or less thinks as he does, then ask yourself if the average true-believing Talibangelical is half as bad.
** It also runs in the family: Frum’s wife, Danielle Crittenden, likes to tell women to take their husband’s last name — ‘maiden names for me but not for thee.’
*** Someone tell me again how exactly Kevin Fucking Drum is a decent ‘liberal’ blogger? Drum practically trips over himself rushing to congratulate Frum and welcome him back to the “reality-based community.” Thus Charlie Brown once again agrees to run to the football Lucy’s set up for him.
Man, if you packed any more stoopid into this post it would become a black hole of idiocy. Well, since you mentioned Der LœdedHösen, I’ll go down to the end and …
According to Johan, attempts to control American’s patriotic urge to eat deep fried Twinkies smothered in gravy is nothing more nor less than homoerotofascism. I expect him to challenge Dan “Where ya” Frum to a duel.
And then send his mom in as proxy.
The liberal elites in Europe and America seek to destroy National Soverignty and Western Civilization and form a one world socialist government under the auspices of the UN and based in euro-trash hq Brussels. These global leftwing elites led by the likes of George Soros seek to abolish the Nation State, prohibit the free exercise of religion, persecute Christians and Jews, abolish private property rights, enact a global gun-ban, promote a world wide homosexual agenda, embrace multi-culturalism at the expense of Judeo-Christianity, and establish a nannystate which would restrict all freedom of movement and speech. When these liberal fascists attempt to impose this on America I for one and many other Patriots will take up arms and resist! We will Kill! Kill! Kill! The nannystaters will be met with iron and with blood!
Edwards sport a $400 haircut = elitist.
bush sports a 2 trillion dollar war = homeboy.
Makes sense in the bizarro world that is the endless wingnut circle jerk.
That Bastion Booger guy: is he a Perl script?
Hey now Marco, how many people has Edwards’ haircut killed, maimed or displaced?
Bush has put turned the military into something the chi-cons understand: A big old rated M video game.
Never mind the proverbially healthy Swede: The average American now lives less long than the average Greek, Portuguese or Spaniard. Despite the climate, the booze and the bad roads, even the Irish now live longer than the Americans.
OMG. How many ethnic stereotypes can you cram into two sentences?
Edwards sport a $400 haircut = elitist. bush sports a 2 trillion dollar war = homeboy.
Edwards is only an elitist because he has a $400 haircut while giving a shit about the poor. If, like Bush, he was openly contemptuous of the poor, it wouldn’t be such a big deal.
He’d then be attacked for having a faggy haircut, not an expensive one – he is a democrat, and must be attacked in some fashion, after all.
Americans must Unite to defeat this radical socialist agenda!
UNITY THROUGH STRENGTH, STRENGTH THROUGH FAITH!
Excellent post Mencken but w/ all due respect:
LSU/Ohio State. Indeed, this is central to my next 2.5 hours !
William Bennett in his lectures reads admiringly from an account of the Donner party written by a survivor that tells the story in spare, stoic style. He puts the letter down and asks incredulously, “Where did those people go?”
Most of them got eaten.
Guess that’s what happens when you don’t have a gummint watching.
[…] January 7, 2008 Your Modern GOP Is A Wasteland Of Stupidity And Class Warfare Posted by John O under Political | Tags: C’mon, David Frum, Sadly No! | Budget yourself some time. Read the links. Think for yourself. […]
There’s so much shit there that I can smell it all the way here thru these intertoobs.
That was an awesome defenestration, Mencken.
I’d call attention to one of my broadsides
Thing is, Jonah’s pretty much always calling attention to his broadsides, whether he means to or not.
fucking hell , you call this a comedy blog?
FAITH IS IGNORANCE, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH!
Yes , I am stupid, but where’s the funny?
Another masterpiece.
I bow to your greatness.
Edwards’ haircut is one of the great historical stories. Wherein it was declared that you couldn’t care about poor people if you were rich, and how bat-shit retarded that was.
I’ll probably be dead by the time this narrative comes to be, but things DO move faster these days…
btw, im waty drunker than any body here, so there. I’ll go now,bye.
George Soros is a scum bag anti-American bloodsucker who should be sentenced to death for treason and hanged! If he hates America so much why the hell did he “bless us” with his presence and immigrate here in the first place? I would personally put the noose around his chicken neck and hang him!
down a couple posts, bpower. Sometimes, the No plays it to the bone, and we should appreciate these moments of smashmouth takedown for what it is.
Murder’s a sin, Booger. God won’t be amused.
That Bastion Booger guy: is he a Perl script?
No, I think Booger is in BASIC, and runs on a TRS-80. Maybe an Apple IIC.
Oh, by the way, any idiot who believes 9/11 was an inside job should be put up against a wall and shot! President Bush should make an executive order to that effect.
It won’t be a sin if he is tried by a military tribunal for treason and sentenced to death first.
Never mind the proverbially healthy Swede: The average American now lives less long than the average Greek, Portuguese or Spaniard. Despite the climate, the booze and the bad roads, even the Irish now live longer than the Americans.
Never mind the arrogant, blonde Swedes who, despite chomping down those little meatballs like there’s no tomorrow while simultaneously designing inexpensive furniture and skiing, seem to outlive us.
Seriously though, in Ireland they call excessive alcohol consumption one of the biggest health problems they face. If they, like the Scots, decided to deep fry every damn thing they ate, they would be at least as unhealthy as Americans.
And perhaps afterward, we could throw the bodies in a big mass grave. Y’know, like Pinochet did when he was our good friend. Wouldn’t that just show what kind of America you want, covered in the blood of innocence.
Uh, there are very few idiots that hang out here, BB. Just for the record.
*snicker/giggle/scoff*
the proverbially healthy Swede
That alleged proverb is still glistening with a coating of rectal mucus. “As healthy as a Swede” gets precisely zero Google-hits.
“As drunk as a Swede”… now that’s a different kettle of red herrings.
Well, firstly, I’m pretty sure George Soros doesn’t belong to the military. So, why would he be brought before a military tribunal? Second, murder is still murder. State-sponsored murder is just state-sponsored sin.
I like pie!
Its not innocent to accuse your own government of murdering 3000 innocent Americans, therefore those who believe 9/11 is an inside job are guilty of treason the penalty for which is death!
“As drunk as a Swede”… now that’s a different kettle of red herrings.
Indeedy. My ancestry is mostly Swedish and Irish – so there’s a mile-wide alcoholic streak on both pasty white sides of my family. And not much in the way of inspiring cuisine – boiled potatoes and lutefisk for teh yum!
I avoid alcohol and sunlight.
So, to show who’s boss, your government, in response to the accusation that they’re murdering U.S. citizens, would murder U.S. citizens.
Yeah, that’ll sure show them who’s a murderer.
Actually George Soros has been providing aid and comfort to the enemy, which in effect makes him a member of al-queda. Therefore a military tribunal would be appropriate.
Patkin, read the American law books, treason is a federal crime which in America the penalty for which is death.
Lessee here. Saul + Bastion Booger:
Boisterous Anal Bog
Treasonous Boil Bag
Absolution Arse Gob
Bastion, dude, you gotta go read a book or something. Jesus.
Military tribunals do not work that way.
Similarly, windmills do not cool down turtles.
…instead, they believe people are poor and vulnerable because they make bad decisions because of their shoddy morality.
Does they really believe that, or just say it because it serves their purpose?
David Frum has an interesting column on the limits of populism and the upside of elitism. […] And since Huckabee seems to be a champion of the former and a foe of the latter…
Wait, Huckabee is a champion on the limits of populism and a foe of the upside of elitism?
I think there is going to be some more nervous writing like this about how the rabble should be grateful for the elites, because the torches and pitchforks are starting to call to the Little People. I still don’t think a violent revolt is likely, but the thing that would head it off is an actual improvement in the bottom 99%’s fortunes – and the Redoublechins simply can’t deliver that.
I’m hoping for no violence but a far enough drop in the wingnut elites’ fortunes that wingnut welfare is a no-longer-affordable luxury. Seeing guys like the ‘load and Frum try to get ahead on their merits would be to funny forever.
Isn’t Frum the coiner of “the Axis of Evil”? Wotta maroon.
“[W]e have sometimes over-reacted by denying the importance of expertise altogether.”
That has got to be the biggest understatement of the last 30 years.
ZOMG!!1!!!1! FLYING FUCKING HOAGIES!1!11!!!1!!1!
President Bush signed an executive order in 2001 I believe which states that terrorists are to be tried by American military tribunals, and because George Soros has provided aid and comfort to the terrorists he is in effect a defacto member of al-queada, in other words George Soros is a terrorist.
The death penalty, which is a governmental euphemism for… hey, murder, would you look at that. Better yet, the murder of a captive individual. Aren’t we manly.
SamFromUtah, speaking of torches and pitchforks, here’s a youtube of Sean Hannity being chased down the street by Ron Paul supporters.
I don’t write the laws. The death penalty is on the law books in 37 States and the Federal Government and as long as it is on the law books it should be used where appropriate.
They deserve everything their gonna get. Hopefully. To bad the rest of us will continue to suffer. It’s pretty sad that you can buy a Big Mac for less than you can buy a head of lettuce or even an apple.
ITTDGY – I saw that vid. It’s priceless. Thanks!
The death penalty is an appropriate punishment for henious crimes like terrorism and treason.
I keep wanting to reply to BB with the Princess Bride quote about “you keeping using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means”, but then I realize he’s already adopted the Alice-in-Wonderland mode of language use. (” When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less”)
He’s certainly more amusing than Saul or the Fake-Garry-Rupert-bot
Hmmm…I wonder what happens if “the other side” gets all the power, declares it unilateral, and decides BB’s psychotic, xenophobic, homophobic rants qualify as “treason?”
Why do I think he would sing a different tune? I’m sure he’d volunteer for waterboarding, so we can be sure we would get at the truth.
Then why aren’t you charging it, Booger? Since you clearly think you have such a strong case for treason, let’s see you make your *actual* case in a U.S. court of law. Before a jury and a judge and with an attorney and prosecutor in full view of the public.
Or is that too much like something this country is about to actually do anymore?
ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said,
You’re nearly there.
They really believe it because it serves their purpose.
Yeah, yeah…But can I just say that a sky filled with looming hoagies is both horrifying and yet, oddly, taste-tempting?
I don’t think private citizens are lawfully permited to make accusations of treason in a court of law, I thought only federal prosecutors could do that, I could be wrong though.
Somewhere–I’m trying to find it–Jonah identifies conservatives as people who are skeptical of experts; a paragraph later, he (perhaps by quoting a reader) notes that conservatives respect authority.
What this presumably means is that conservatives only respect authorities who don’t know anything about anything.
Makes a lot of sense, if you think about it; it explains everything from George W. Bush to Jonah’s career.
It is clear however that George Soros deserves the death penalty.
Wow, ittdgy.. that Sean Hannity clip is fucking awesome.
GG:
Right on. Exactly. But don’t kid yourself that all of us don’t do it to some extent.
Not, mind you, “the Earth is 6000 years old” extent, but a little at least.
With, ahem, apologies to Barry Manilow:
I’ve been alive forever,
And I wrote the very first law.
I put the words and the crazies together,
I am judge,
And I write the laws.
I write the laws that make the whole world cringe.
I write the laws of treason that are special things.
I write the laws that make the young girls cry.
I write the laws, I write the laws.
My home lies deep within you,
And I’ve got my own place in your soul.
Now, when I look out through your eyes,
I’m young again, even though I’m very old.
Chorus
Oh my laws makes you dance
And gives your spirit to take a chance,
And I wrote some treason so you can execute.
Laws fill your heart,
Well, that’s a real fine place to start.
It’s from me it’s for you,
It’s from you, it’s from me,
It’s a world wide symphony.
Chorus
I am Booger, and I write the laws.
Patkin, it isn’t going to do any of that. It’s sole purpose here is to attract attention to itself. And if it gets ignored enough, it will reinvent itself again, with some other repetitive schtick.
And speaking of appropriate penalties, how many times can someone spam the same boring crap in the S,N! comment threads?
Shouldn’t there be some sort of per diem, at least?
Where’s your evidence?
Show us proof he’s aiding terrorist groups, using something that’s not just your hearsay or the hearsay of others. C’mon, it can’t be *that* hard if it’s so obvious a case.
Heh heh, Booger said “heinous”.
thunder: I’m aware, but this point just bothers me (I have genuine political beliefs concerning the morality of the death penalty, so it’s a sore spot). Seeing people throwing around the idea of the murder of people under a kangaroo court makes Patkin angry enough to speak in third-person and turn green.
By accusing President Bush and American troops of war-crimes, by impling that America deserved to be attacked on 9/11, by trying to enact a global gun ban aimed at Americans so we won’t be able to defend ourselves from terrorists, and by publically condemning America, President Bush and American policies during a time of war.
I agree about the death penalty, Patkin. But the troll here doesn’t really care about that, or due process, or even the alleged ‘treason’ itself.
(I wonder why Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, and Robert Novak walk the streets, free men.)
The troll’s only interest is that you don’t like what it’s typing. So it’s gonna type it some more. Yippee!
Ah, Patkin your morally opposed to the death penalty hah. Well than I guess I know your soft spot now. I’m from Texas where we have more executions than anywhere else in the Nation. I think all States should enact death penalty legislation, and in the States it exists it should be expanded to include pedophiles and rapists. The waiting period before an execution should be no more than 30 days and hanging I think would be the most satsifing method, Its always nice to hear a nice “snap” of a criminals neck break. Its the beautiful sound of justice my liberal friend.
Can you show sufficient evidence that any of George Soros’ claims were actually harmful to the nation in the way, selling government secrets to Israel or England or China or the Soviet Union or Iran or any of the other countries actual people convicted of treason was?
Or are you just trying to have George Soros murdered for using his right to free speech?
Dammit, Mencken, there you go again.
Ok, I’ll be back about next Thursday after I read all the links and google and wiki all the references and then go back and read the post again.
But the thing is, I’m pissed. That Frum fucker is a truly a wankstain piece of shit, isn’t he.
I’ve had a semi-epiphany right at this point. This election year is either going to really change the way america works (chances 3%) or it’s going to grind itself to a halt on the shoals of american antipathy, disinterest, hatred, fear and belief that personal wealth and success is a zero sum game (chances 97%).
So, I guess that means, after another year and a half or so, it’ll be my move…
mikey
That’s nice, Booger.
By making those claims George Soros has emboldened our enemy and let them know they have supporters here in America who agree with their plans to destroy America and Western Civilization. If thats not treason than I don’t know what is.
If thats not treason than I don’t know what is.
The pearl of truth, found amongst the swine slop.
I f-ing swear to God if the Frums and Goldbergs of this world of this world could produce ONE GUY who says “Well, I had a great idea for an invention/vaccine/etc. that would have improved millions of lives and made me billions of dollars, but taxes are so high I decided to be homeless and eat free government cheese” I might think about listening to them.
Secondly, I wasn’t even halfway through this post when I thought “Yeah, Frum’s got some theory there about how risk leads to better behavior. Somehow I doubt he feels that the risk of getting thrown in jail for white-collar crime leads to better behavior among rich people.” And there it was. Excellent post.
Michael Moore is also guilty of treason for making anti-American propaganda films in a time of war. Which I assume the terrorists watch somewhere in there caves in Afghanistan. He to should be senteced to death.
Patkin, I mentioned the “Alice in Wonderland” quote for a reason. This troll is using words & catchphrases (Al-quada, treason, terrorist, justice, liberal) without any real meaning.
Exactly. You don’t know what treason is. Nor do you care. As humpty-dumpty said “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less”. When you say “treason”, you’re picking a meaning that you intend. It has nothing to do with what the word actually means to anyone else, when you say it, it means what you intend it to mean!
(and they say it’s the left that’s big into post-modernism!)
Ah, mikey, after enough checks, you can trust the source, no?
I just check the links for fun and just in case, context. You should be done by Friday at 11:59.
The one thing that is clear is a little thing that happened when the wind blew and the crap flew and you couldn’t see clear for days
Unless I am hornswoggingly mistaken
which I am a lot
swogging picking up a lotta lotta horns
beep beep
Treason is providing aid and comfort to the enemy in war time, or selling out your Nation and its secrets to a foerign enemy or aiding and abetting the enemies of this Nation all of which George Soros and Michael Moore have done!
I’ve achieved a special and exalted place.
I can just ignore and laugh at BB.
Someone alert the media.
*zen-like calm oozing from my very pores*
Way to go, John O.
Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
A particular substance which adds nutrients aiding and abetting the growth of the dreaded Brussels Sprouts . No longer mistaken for musckle sprites
You liberals smell like feces, especially mikey!
BBBLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We r n ur hoods 8ing up ur meatballs.
Thanks, HTML – interesting post. Frum has never ceased to amaze me.
Bastian Booger is Saul. My take on BB/Saul is that we’re dealing with an adolescent who’s just trying to stir up shit.
Hey, dude, I like pie too.
But I’m gonna make a pan-broiled duck breast with Rosemary, some fresh sweet corn, Corn Bread with sweet cream butter and cole slaw with pine nuts.
Desert will be fresh homemade gingerbread with real whip cream.
So you can have all the pie you want, and if you decide to shove a couple pieces up your stupid mindless trolling ass, well, I won’t argue…
mikey
It’s the clever debate that draws me in. Like when a person can smell a group of people over the internet tubes.
That’s a lot of tubeage to get smell through. Just sayin’.
I’m sorry but an adolescent would definately not be as politically saavy as I am. So fuck you liberals!
HTML:
As always, you rock the tubes to the very last Cisco. However, the invocation of an antropomorphic pitcher made this post one of the best things I’ve read in a month. Excellent work.
Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking too. More’n likely they’re one of us, too, or they will be when they grow up. Heh, I used to do that kind of shit when I was 15. ‘course, that was way back in the dark ages of dial-up.
That just leaves us to explore theories of our resident meta-troll, Gary Ruppert.
Booger: You’re so right. Adolescents tend to have at least some attempt at understanding the world around them. So, would you call yourself more of a pre-teen or a tween?
Everytime BB post I weep a little for those poor trapped electrons – they didn’t asked to be aranged into insane gibberish.
Simba:
We’re all Gary Ruppert. He’s like Spartacus, except we’re protecting his innocent brain from the dangers of the outside world and not the Romans.
This is closer to the Bennett/Limbaugh type of bigot-elitist we know and loathe (and who would have been caught with an Irish mistress)…
Given B/L’s known proclivities, more like a string of pubescent Irish boys whose cover occupation involved underground gaming hells.
I seem to remember that Frum is actually Canadian, and no doubt has an evacuation plan in place in case the Arkansas Elmer Gantry gains more traction. He and his hell-spawned spouse figure they needn’t worry about any of the Democrats winning, because Democrats are more concerned with helping people than with punishing “enemies”, which as far as the Frum-Crittenden household is concerned is just a waste of valuable resources. Much like the government resources, and food supplies, and air that the Frum-Crittenden household sees the poor as stealing from their social betters.
When I get elected Dictator of the World, I’m putting Huckabee in charge of Frum’s and Pantload’s camp, and Willard Romney in charge of Bennet’s and Limpbaugh’s camp. Because I’m thoughtful like that, and want Huckabee and Romney to suffer almost as much as I do Frum, Goldberg, Bennet & Limpbaugh.
Shorter David Frum (and Booger)
ARBEIT MACHT FREI!
You know, I’m always disappointed that you don’t post more, but when you do … well, it’s always worth the wait. Thanks.
(One of the most revolting things I ever read was an account of Frum, Snitchens, and (of all people) Andrea Dworkin and their respective spouses dining and yucking it up over the “rapist” Bill Clinton.
Christ I wish these people would go the fuck away.
I just find Booger boring.
Parody trolls should be funny, at least. He isn’t.
No, Arby’s Macht Fries!
Parody trolls should be funny, at least. He isn’t.
Pretty sure they start out with all kinds of piss and energy, but in the end?
There’s just not that many things to say. God, obey orders, eat shit, live with the crumbs, and don’t think you deserve any help.
Don’t have fun, don’t get high, don’t fuck proscribed humans, don’t contribute to hippie causes.
On the other hand, get a couple mistresses, embezzle some REAL money, scam, dodge, duck, lie, cheat, play both sides against the middle, coast, screw, gamble, cheat, lie and fuck some more.
Oh. And if anybody calls you on any of it? Lie bigtime!
mikey
Jennifer said,
January 8, 2008 at 4:38
I’m with Jennifer. Can’t we occasionally vote one off the island?
Booger, my friend and ally. Praise be to Allah for the magnificent work you do.
We have had the pleasure of watching the films of Michael Moore. I have the staff hook up the DVD player while I am undergoing the dialysis. He is indeed a magnificent traitor.
Moore’s early work, typified by “Roger an Me”, was brilliant. Innovative and daring in a “Wavy Gravy Meets Morley Safer” kind of way. Allah be praised.
In his later works, such as “Fahrenheit 9/11”, and “Sicko”, the threads begin to show. There are only so many times a slovenly yutz dressed like an underpass wino can blunder through a scene without becoming somewhat tiresome.
But Moore is at least tolerably entertaining at his worst. Fucking Al Gore is another story, may Allah damn his leprous hide. He puts up a weak powerpoint presentation, films it, and gets the Nobel Prize! Dude just totally pulled it out of the nether region where his fat splits and where he excretes his waste. I rue the day I blackmailed Scalia to keep that cretin out of the Presidency. I could have kept dear George as my personal ball-washer rather than make him President.
In any case, Mom sends her regards. My best to all, and may the blood of the martyrs flow like sweet wine to wash down the salty Triscuits of the infidels.
Osama.
And that picture of Frum should be a poster for a new movie:
Plan 9″ from Outer Space: “Neocon ideology lacks rational narrative in this homage to the Ed Wood classic. Dick Cheney reprises the role played by Bela Lugosi in the original.”
After seeing BB polluting the blogwaves for so long (and BTW, nice touch, naming yourself after one of Vince McMahon’s worse ideas; why not call yourself “XFL”?) I finally imposed the Greasemonkey penalty on him.
Sic semper trollis.
As you can see, I made a little modifications. Dinner and a show!
homosexual = pedophile.
liberal = traitor.
2 + 2 = 5
Bastion Booger = Boring Boring I skip his “comments” (more like burps and farts imitating speech)
spammer = spammer
Did anyone else point out the close following of these phrases in dear Frum’s tightly composed prose?
Now, that’s quite an interesting topic to bring up — the “emancipation of the individual appetite” with respect to the Donner Party:
Now we follow that with the intro:
Perhaps they are devising a somewhat more direct method of reducing the prevalence of liberals in our society.
and there you have it. anyone whose presuppositions shape their ability to deal with inputs is an asshole.
that means: the religious (please not no use of modifier “right” at the end there).
the ideologue
and so on
look, my theory says that the irish will be fine if we just let the free market work its magic, because though i see that there are these starving people adam smith is really smart, and…that. adam smith. who is this person dead at my feet? can we have him removed? where was I?
Bastion Booger = Begonias Robot!!!
Isn’t Frum the coiner of “the Axis of Evil”?
He collaborated on the phrase.
Also, don’t miss Frum’s explanation of why environmentalism has become important in the U.S. and why he has decided to embrace it.
Oh, and I may have said this already, but I’m always happy to see a post from you, HTML!
Perhaps they are devising a somewhat more direct method of reducing the prevalence of liberals in our society.
“SOLYENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!!!!”
I am only 1 half or 1 pint of Guinness into my “work” for the evening. All others who have consumed more and are enjoying a buzz, are clearly fascists. This, in fact, is central to Pantload’s broadside.
Aha, thankee, J-.
So he didn’t exactly invent “Axis of Evil” – oddly, I like “Axis of Hatred” slightly better, but it’s a matter of liking being hit with a rhetorical tenderizing mallet 37 times more than being hit with it 38 times.
That a ruling elite would use social darwinism to inspire paralyzing fear among the masses… that doesn’t surprise me.
That a good-sized portion of the masses would ardently side with the elite that’s screwing them over… that’s what creeps me out. I’ve seen it all my life and I still don’t get it. There are a lot of masochists walking around on this planet.
That a good-sized portion of the masses would ardently side with the elite that’s screwing them over… that’s what creeps me out. I’ve seen it all my life and I still don’t get it. There are a lot of masochists walking around on this planet.
Oh, I get it.
There are a lot of people – the majority perhaps, but a sizeable minority at the very least – who will gladly select a screwing for themselves if promised that someone or some group they don’t like will get even more screwed. Though it is of course totally irrational. Look no further than the ironic paradox here that in this society where material wealth is prized above all else, people are willing to deprive themselves of it and actually give up more of their share to people who already have the biggest part of the pie…as long as they are promised that some poor bastard will end up with nothing.
How amusing. Little marxist hippie windups expelling hot air and calling it reasoned discourse. When the military coup comes, and it will, especially if a Democrat wins, or if a certain Democrat loses (cue LA Riots II) I hope there is enough order maintained to keep the patriotic mobs away from the homes of known liberals, they should all be rounded up for safekeeping first. Their property could be used to fund the war effort which they have refused to fund anyway. Maybe a thousand Kent States will teach the little shits to keep in line this time.
Osher Doctorow, PhD.
Oh, the class warfare here? Don’t bother. This is the land of opportunity and most folks disdain your envy, they just work harder. Great idea, too bad they don’t teach that in public schools anymore.
Osher Doctorow, PhD.
Shorter Jennifer: I smell dumb people.
(BTW, The Eau de Old Tuna Sammich is courtesy of Bashedin Booger.)
Bring it on, big Dr.
My favorite anagram for Bastion Booger is still Baboon Goiters.
Wait, there is such a thing as ‘good populism’? No wonder I don’t understand you, my hippie friends.
Y’know, a military coup or Kent State might’ve worked better if your political idols weren’t wasting your military in the sands of the Middle East and Central Asia.
I’m pretty sure the physically and mentally destroyed soldiers they’re willing to let stay in the U.S. instead of die in the desert aren’t going to be very interested in supporting a domestic war. Particularly when it conflicts with their physiotherapy and group psychiatric meetings.
More’n likely they’re one of us, too, or they will be when they grow up. Heh, I used to do that kind of shit when I was 15.
Simba B: Me too, except my friends and I used to prank-call people on the phone. This was back in the days before the InternetsTubes and caller ID and stuff. We thought we were the coolest shit ever. Now I just imagine what a bunch of obnoxious bratty jerks we were.
[…] brain trauma, cerebral palsy, diabetic foot arteriosclerosis and spinal cord injury. … Meow-Meowing The Flab-Catchers III: Revenge of the Sammich: Now Pantload?s just a vector for this me… Top 5 Questions on still s disease Disease…?I have Trichotillomania, the hair pulling […]
PhD-man, you’ve come back! Don’t leave us… immerse yourself in the hot gases we’ve expelled for you.
When the truth bites, when the truth stings,
when I’m feeling lame,
I simply remember my favorite themes,
and then I don’t feel the shame.
– Jonah Goldberg in The Sound of Muzak
Osher = Kevin = Bastion Booger = Saul = ban the boring fucker
Shalom, gentlemen.
I would like to know where Rector shops for his milk. I pay about $3 for a half gallon. Pepsi cost 89 cents for a 2 liter bottle.
For the record:
Osher Doctorow, PhD = ortho pod chowders
Nuff said?
Tom–
I had the same thought. These people MAKE IT ALL UP.
All right, Osher Doctorow, you asked for it. Prepare to be anagrammized:
Coder. Ooh, Worts!
Crowed; Ooh, Rots
Worst Echo Odor
Torches Door. Ow!
D’oh! Scooter Row
Screw Odor Hoot
BB and Saul are one and the same, but BB/Saul is posting from Atlanta and Kevin is said to be in Louisiana. Besides, Kevin seems to be an adult (sort of) and BB/Saul comes across as a kid. Osher Doctorow, PhD is an actual crackpot who’s been around for awhile at Amazon.com and other places, though of course one of our resident trolls could be imitating him.
As for banning BB/Saul – yeah, I agree. The Sadly, No team seems very reluctant to do that, though.
Conservatives respect authority — the authority of ideas, traditions, morals, religion, customs, reason, law, excellence and so on.
Um, wait. I thought in Jonah’s book he points out one of the hallmarks of Fascism (see – Liberals) is respect for authority and experts??????
Don’t tell me Jonah is inconsistent?
Late to the party – don’t hate me if I am repeating someone else’s point.
E. L. Doctorow rules!
Osher Doctorow could never, even at his peak on the best day of the millenia with all the planets in alignment while winning the Spanish national lottery, come close to Gary Novak, though I fear that by mentioning his name I have done us the evil of summoning the Morel evolution and prospective re-writer of all of Earthly physics here.
Perhaps if we had a New Improved Troll, the S,N! team would consider getting rid of Saul/Gary/Boring Bugger/etc. But where could we find one…?
It won’t be a sin if he is tried by a military tribunal for treason and sentenced to death first.
Ok, I see. First you sentence them, and then you try them. That’s democracy, allright.
Michael Moore may be a traitor, but he just won a Critics’ Choice Award!
jeff: E. L. Doctorow does indeed rule. Osher, who does not, is E.L.’s slow-witted younger brother, the one they kept in the upstairs back bedroom for a long time and who still wears a special batting helmet.
Osher, I believe, is Mother’s Younger Brother, who jerked off to Evelyn Nesbit.
And I think he really likes pie.
g! I loved “Ragtime.”
Well, the trials go a lot smoother that way. And it works even better if you carry out the sentence first – things are a lot quieter in the courtroom if the defendant is already dead.
BB/Saul aren’t worth the effort to ban them. I mean, even as trolls they suck. It’s hard to get very worked up about them as a result.
Conservatives respect authority — the authority of ideas, traditions, morals, religion, customs, reason, law, excellence and so on.
That actually pretty well explains why I’m not a conservative.
Even into middle age, I’ve maintained a healthy appreciation of delinquency…at least as long as the brick isn’t smashing through my window.
Snorhagen: Especially if you kill the defense attorney as well.
Western Civilization would be better defended if President Bush would be more like FDR and imprison all those who dissent with the war on terror. We can’t effectively wage war on our enemies with a fifth column running amok.
BB/Saul aren’t worth the effort to ban them.
Oh, as they say, I BEG to differ.
It’s no effort at all. It’s just not necessarily 100% effective.
But it would be well worth the effort…
mikey
Yeah, but mikey…they lack even the power of a strong fart. A strong fart can clear the room.
A lesser fart is usually best handled by being ignored by all present. Yeah, it still stinks, but it’s not enough to comment on.
The Clash of Civilizations is upon us my liberal friends, which side are you on, the side of Western Civilization or the side of the mohammedan hordes?
Thanks, Anne Laurie and res — and anyone else who said something nice about the post.
RE: banning, I dunno how to do it. That’s Seb’s or Brad’s or Gavin’s dept, as I’m a retard when it comes to that sort of tech thingy.
I will say that Booger has the same cox-rhode island IP that I’ve seen several times on my threads, and it’s always been a troll or a name-stealer. This Kevin, however, seems different. He’s always had a tampa IP, but not this time so far as I can tell.
I’m on the side of pie. What kind of pie do you like, BB? I know you like pie.
[Doughy Pantload]: Conservatives respect authority — the authority of ideas, traditions, morals, religion, customs, reason, law, excellence and so on. One cannot believe in this kind of authority while having a blanket hostility to elitism in any form.
Spoken like the archetypical right-wing-authoritarian neocon that he is.
Cheers,
Ew, there’s a Kevin in Tampa? Now I feel all dirty and violated.
I loved “Ragtime.”
MzNicky I had the pleasure of watching Brian Stokes Mitchell play Coalhouse Walker Junior 8 times a week for 4 weeks running. Sigh.
I’m just here to try and show you liberals the light is all, to show you that theres more to life than antiquated 60s riots, pot and bong. There are important things in life that should be embraced most importantly God and Patriotism. Seek after God with all your heart than you shall find Him.
There is so much more to life than bong! There is also bing, and ding, and dong (oh, the ladies do love that dong), and don’t go forgetting a-ling. Obviously ring (though I’m not too sure about rong), there’s just so many sounds.
Yes, the fabulous world of bell sounds is open to everyone, if you just let them into your heart.
“My Ding-A-Ling” – Chuck Berry’s only #1 hit.
The world is evil in more ways that can be counted.
Hey; quit baggin’ on my bro-bro:
http://www.drummerworld.com/drummers/Gary_Novak.html
I seem to remember that Frum is actually Canadian, and no doubt has an evacuation plan in place in case the Arkansas Elmer Gantry gains more traction.
If Obama or any of the Dems win this year, i would like to see them deporting a few of these types; Frum, Steyn, Hitch as anti-American traitors (prefarble along with a good beating). Can you imagine the furore if a non Yank on the dems side started criticizing the GoP and/or America?
obviously, that was preferably
Perhaps they are devising a somewhat more direct method of reducing the prevalence of liberals in our society.
“Active Assimilation” was Philip Dick’s term for it…
Jennifer makes a fine point. As (the sadly missing) Davis X. Machina said here once:
I would only add that a fair number of those who have consistently voted against their own economic interest have typically been under a constant and well-funded mental assault to get them to believe that Jesus would have them care more about womb babies than poor kids.
Kind of a drag that Hyuckabee is whipping teh economic populism. I was counting on Dems using that to reduce the GOP to a distant memory.
Another excellent post, as always Retardo.
Oh, and as for banning people: don’t. Their arguments suck so much that half the time I’m certain that they are a caricature of modern conservativism. So much so that sometimes the fake-gary/saul/bb/etc posts make more since than the real McCoy.
Really, I don’t see how they do any harm. Except to our sides, from laughter.
I’m still not convinced that the Dr. Osher Doctorow (Ph. D) commenting above is the dinkum oil. The real one would have sneered at us from his eyrie of lofty erudition, and then tried to sell us a copy of his junk-physics paper (“Magnetic monopoles, massive neutrinos and gravitation via logic-experimental unification theory (LEUT) and Kursunoglu’s theory”).
Their arguments suck so much that half the time I’m certain that they are a caricature of modern conservativism.
Dude, modern conservatism is a caricature of modern conservatism. There is no floor anymore… hasn’t been for years.
Oh and HTML… epic fucking post dude. I’m gonna have to go through all those links for a while. But really interesting. I guess your take on the ‘talibangelicals’ is different than mine- they usually seem only too happy to do whatever the Frums of the world want, as far as I can tell. Or maybe the Frums of the world have done what they want. But yes, Huckabee seems to represent a different view, doesn’t he.
Re: Goin’ back to Canada
Frum is a U.S. citizen (see the interview I linked to above).
Frum is a U.S. citizen (see the interview I linked to above).
Yes, but sadly, Frum can keep his Canadian citizenship, so there is a chance he might come back to Canada again..
If he’d only be like Conrad Black and totally renounce his Canadian citizenship…sigh.
Those engaging the “troll” should note upthread that he’s (mis)quoting a fascist party slogan from V for Vendetta as if it was a good thing.
Actually, that “pot and bong” line IS pretty funny. “Say, do any of you ‘hippies’ know where I can ‘score’ some ‘bong’?”
Otherwise the parody troll thing, as many others have stated, is so monumentally fucking boring and pointless that it beggars belief. Please find another hobby.
Check out Cecil Woodham Smith’s The Reason Why, the chapters on the Earl of Lucan. The guy seriously looked at the numbers in Ireland and figured that better cultivation methods would lead to massive displacement and starvation, so the Irish had better get on with the starvation already so that their landlords could go ahead with the better cultivation methods.
Oh yeah, and great post. I just like being a history jerk.
I love the photo, him holding the lawnmower to prove he’s a workin’ man is great. Who wears that kind of jacket when they’re going to cut the grass? What a sad little phony
Re Potato famine: Most of my ancestors come form Ireland – an uncle of mine has a small family chapbook which recorded the births and deaths in the extended family – the years 1846-1849 make damn grim reading – at first it’s the old and the very young by ’48 people in their 20’s were dying.
It’s a grim lesson in the reality of ‘necessary’ losses. I never fail to feel both sadness and anger one when you hear dip sticks like Frum paise such things. It’s the kind of talk that brings out the pikes and torches.
By the by the Donner Party went into the Mountians late in the season after a series of cluster f-ks against the advice of folks who knew the ground. – We tons of those kind of folks with us still – some in high office.
Conservatives respect the authority of law? That would be news to Abu Gonzalez, David Addington, Dick Cheney, Bradley Schlotzman, Monica Goodling, etc., etc., etc.
Michael Moore is also guilty of treason for making anti-American propaganda films in a time of war. Which I assume the terrorists watch somewhere in there caves in Afghanistan. He to should be senteced to death.
Films? BB obviously missed the memo from Cheney that the terrorists were ignorant, crude, gullible, and technologically backward. The Taliban attempted to destroy all films made in Afghanistan. There are no theaters in Kabul, and they sure as hell don’t have drive-ins over 6,000 feet above sea level. Somehow, I can’t envision Moore’s angst translating well into book form–let alone into Pashtun.
I’m sorry but an adolescent would definately not be as politically saavy as I am. So fuck you liberals!
w0000t!!! BB makes a funny!
BB, I know what older conservatives sound like; I live surrounded by older wingnuts! (And I’m talking don’t-pull-your-car-out-of-the-driveway-until-they’re-way-past-the-house oooooooooold!) You’re NOT an older conservative. Because older conservatives don’t drop the “F”-bomb when someone jabs their weak spot. And, sadly, despite the fact that they’re slip-sliding into senescence, the senior Bush fans are STILL more politically savvy than you’ll ever be!
I will say that Booger has the same cox-rhode island IP that I’ve seen several times on my threads,
Oh dear. I apologize on behalf of Rhode Island. Not for Cox, though.
Bastion Booger said,
January 8, 2008 at 7:44
I’m just here to try and show you liberals the light is all
Setting fires to farts is hardly showing us a light, shithead.
Somebody who goes by the name “Booger” should not be given the courtesy of this much attention, unless of course he’s this guy
[…] 9, 2008 By the way, if you haven’t read HTML Mencken’s post on David Frum, you really should. Which is not to say that it’s exactly like his, either. […]
Did I ever mention I have a couple monopoles in my underwear drawer?
Along with this really cool Hadrosaur pelvis….
mikey
Ja! UNITY THROUGH STRENGTH, STRENGTH THROUGH FAITH! SIEG! SIEG!
“Oh, by the way, any idiot who believes President Bush about 9/11 should be put up against a wall and taught! God should make an executive order to that effect.”
– fixed for you.
“Its not innocent to accuse your own country of murdering 3000 innocent Americans, therefore those who believe 9/11 is Clinton’s fault are guilty of (no)treason(ing) the penalty for which is ignorance!”
– also fixed for you. Free of charge so far.
“Actually George Soros has been providing cheese and hamburgers to the enemas, which in effect makes him a member of al-quesa. Therefore a military tri-seed bun would be appropriate.”
– fixed again, with a more surreallist take this time.
“Western Civilization would be better defended if President Bush would be more like FDR.”
– shortened, so it’s actually accurate.
“I’m just here to try and ask you liberals for a light is all, so I can find out theres more to life like antiquated 60s riots, pot and bong. These are important things in life that should be embraced more importantly than God and Patriotism. Seek God after you’re really high then you shall find Him.”
– fixed with what your subconscious mind is really thinking
[…] found it especially hilarious coming from the same man who’d written Dead Right, recommending that Americans endure Donner Party levels of duress so that they might rediscover their “lost” moral […]