Former Kos headliner Hunter has an important diary about one of those irritating rhetorical tricks that war defenders never seem to get tired of using, be it Peter Beinart or Glenn Reynolds or some random board warrior:
More and more, I’m seeing pro-war figures look for a healing, of sorts, between those who supported the Iraq War and those who decried it. But this healing seems to take exactly one form — the pro-war pundits perhaps begrudgingly admitting their errors, but simultaneously continuing to dismiss opponents of the Iraq War as being against it for supposedly shallow or insincere or offensive reasons.
Surprisingly often people arguing about Iraq end up arguing about semantics, so let’s talk about semantics.
People can point out that Hunter’s diary is an angry document as if somehow anger disqualifies an opinion. Why shouldn’t he be? Iraq war supporters smeared skeptics as pacifists and as America-hating appeasers of terrorists who didn’t take the War on Terror seriously. Better bloggers than myself, rightwingers with sizable readerships, fly into an angry rage over smaller provocations than that. It’s a normal response to being maliciously misrepresented for the sake of scoring cheap political points. Let’s look at the most common bullshit points:
Pacifist
Any Iraq skeptic who who spent 2002 and 2003 online will remember hours spent trying and failing to explain how opposing Iraq does not necessarily make you a pacifist. Inevitably the logic comes down to this: lefties who oppose war are pacifists, opposing this war makes you a leftie who opposes war and therefore you are a pacifist. One needs a veritable grab bag of fallacies to float this bark, from accident (most lefties are pacifists, you are a lefty so you are a pacifist) to hasty generalization (I can name lefties who were pacifists, therefore lefties are pacifists) yet on and on it goes. If an argument holds no water without appealing to at least one fallacy then we can safely move on.
Liberals Hate America
Correction, Noam Chomsky hates America. International A.N.S.W.E.R. seems to hate everything in existence. Pretending that these doofuses have anything to do with “the left” in aggregate requires yet another trip to the hasty generalization well. Sorry kids, try again.
Liberals don’t care about fighting terrorists.
You may not be aware that the overwhelming majority of America supported invading Afghanistan. Who knew? I honestly can’t think of anybody who thought that it was a bad idea to take down the people who attacked us and the regime who harbored them. So did liberals suddenly stop caring about fighting terror in between one war and the next? It doesn’t make very much sense. I’m sure that somebody shed a tear when we knocked over the Taliban but given the overall level of support you cannot tie these fringe actors to “the left” without an obvious hasty generalization fallacy.
I have noticed that war defenders these days will often get angry if you suggest that we invaded Iraq because of WMDs that they didn’t have or al Qaeda connections which didn’t exist. For the sake of argument let’s give that point of view the benefit of the doubt and acknowledge that we invaded Iraq in order to free its terrorized population. That leaves an extremely tenuous link to “terror,” does it not? Either we invaded Iraq because of its connections to terror (that would be Zarqawi, who was holed up in independent Kurdistan and easily bombable, and monetary payments to bombers who threatened Israel and not us) or else it has only an indirect connection at best with the War on Terror. If you go with the latter then you simply cannot claim that one must take Iraq seriously in order to earn some precious Serious About Terror (R) certificate.
It seems amazingly difficult for certain people, Peter Beinart included, to acknowledge that many of us perceived an Iraq war as a counterproductive distraction from fighting the people who actually attacked us. It seems like a simple enough proposition to get across, but go ahead and try it with your favorite war defender. It won’t scan. If I had to psychoanalyze (and why not? I’m a blogger) just imagine what would have happened if folks like Beinart, Glenn Reynolds, Fox News and thousands of allied keyboardists had acknowledged that people standing against the Iraq war might also be reasonable people with reasonable motives. Hysterical, unserious people and folks who actively hate America you can dismiss. Heck, you probably should. On the other hand dismissing reasonable people without listening to them makes you look like an asshole.
I expect some people to get mad when I point out that they dishonestly excluded Iraq war opponents from the national discourse for selfish reasons. Good. Anger is a reasonable reaction to having your character thrown into question.
***Update***
At Glenn Greenwald’s Barbara O’Brien asks a relevant question:
How many times do we have to say we are not against surveillance as long as it’s done lawfully before it sinks into a rightie brain? And are there numbers that go that high?
This is not a small point. If somebody cannot bring him or herself to represent the opposition honestly then there seems to be little point in talking, since the second party in the “conversation” isn’t really you but the malicious voices insidethe person’s own head. Apparently Captain Ed’s malicious voices oppose any sort of terrorist surveillance, in which case I’m perfectly in agreement with him – thank god the voices in Ed’s head are not running the country. Given a three-way choice between the Republicans, Captain Ed’s voices and the Democrats I would still pick the Democrats.
ppGaz
Not sure where I fit in now, Tim. I was a non-pacifist who loves America and would personally have gone Osama-hunting if it were possible …. who opposed the Iraq war from the first mention of its prospects in 2002 … on the grounds that (1) if Saddam had WMDs he was not out to use them beyond his borders because it made no sense, (2) Saddam was a thief but hardly a worse thief than a lot of the dictators we’d befriended over the years — including him, (3) Iraq could not be turned into a liberal democracy now for the same reason that Britain couldn’t straighten it out 75 years ago … the Iraqis don’t like each other, and (4) the history of the Arab world was devoid of any successful democracies …. for a reason, and Iraq was a pretty unlikely place to try to create an exception.
So, The Right has had a hard time pigeonholing me. I’ve been too patriotic, too right, and too consistent.
Hell, I’m such an oddball, I’ve had to hide out here at this obscure blog :-)
Tim F.
ppGaz, your poisitions sound like mine, except that I compressed (3) and (4) into the general point that spreading Democracy at the point of a gun simply isn’t our job, and even if it was we had better uses for those guns. I think that you fit in with the rest of us just fine.
MN Politics Guru
I opposed the Iraq war from the beginning because I thought it was doubtful that Saddam had WMDs, and it was very unlikely that Saddam and al Qaeda had any connections at all. But most importantly, I opposed the war because I knew that they would fuck up the peace. There was never any question about our military destroying Saddam’s pathetic army. But I knew that once the obviously bad guys had disappeared, we would be up a creek.
I would have loved to have been proven wrong.
ppGaz
Same here. For the troops, for the US, for Iraq, for the Middle East, and for a lot of good reasons.
Sadly, Colin Powell was right, and the NeoWrongs are still trying to justify their collossal mistake.
Ancient Purple
Oddly, I don’t remember more than a handful of people being against our toppling of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. I know I wasn’t and neither were even the most ultra-liberal of my circle of friends. Everyone wanted OBL caught and punished.
I have never heard a single person say that they oppose the War on Terror. However, Iraq is not the War on Terror and never has been, except in the small, pea-sized brain of that pathetic idiot we have in the White House. Well, him and his vile minions.
Hunter’s rant was well needed and spot on target. Too bad the screamers on the right are too ignorant to know the difference between being against the war in Iraq and being for the war on terror.
Pooh
Sadly, I was among those duped into at least ambivalence by the WMD claims – I wasn’t convinced especially the nuclear aspect, but I figured that they had better info than I did, etc. And I remember hoping every day that they would in fact find them, with that hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach as the prospect of having been bamboozled grew and grew.
It was about this time that I really started paying attention to the ‘unpatriotic’ rhetoric, and I started to become somewhat angry myself – as Daniel Davies said, good ideas tend not to need lies and demagoguery to find support.
srv
Your enemies aren’t on the other side of the planet. They’re right here, on the keyboard virtually across from you. They are the people who collectively wet their pants on 9/11.
If this “war” has done anything, it has shown just how reason-deficient large swaths of America are, and how easily manipulated they are. These reason-retarded now have a voice via the blogosphere, and you won’t be able to fix them any more than you can fix Ol’ Yeller. There is no meeting them half-way or any-way.
No doubt Brian or Darrell will trot around with their “keep saying that, and the Dems will lose in Nov!”. Awesome, I say. I’m all for the “conservatives” failing harder and more spectacularly. They can’t fail enough for me. If The People don’t finally stand up and flush your values down the toilet bowl of history, then we deserve what we get.
Perry Como
They are hidding in Iran, guarded by gay, Mexican, Muslim immigrants.
Andrew
Heh, Bush said “activist judges” in his radio address today. I thought that those disappeared in November 2004, along with the color-coded terror alert system.
Ancient Purple
Of course. They aren’t really interested in saving America. They are only interested in saving their own lives.
Tragically, they can’t see the stupidity in the ideology that says: you can only save your civil rights by giving them up.
That mentality works great for theological dogma, but not so much for everything else.
As a side note, I am completely amused by the fact that the so-called “religious right” who claim to keep Christ in their hearts and are forever saved from the fires of Hell are the first to pee their pants when the terror alert goes to orange.
Obviously, their version of Jesus isn’t quite so comforting after all.
GOP4Me
You liberals don’t want to take notice of all the progress that’s going on in Iraq. That’s why you choose to speak as if though Operation Iraqi Freedom were some sort of failure. Well, saying it doesn’t make it so. This war has been a resounding success on every level.
Okay, the government needs some work. I’ll concede that, freedom is not always a precise science. Give it some time, though. And what about the rest of it? Consider the Iraqi school system. We build schools in that country every day, but do you hear a word about them? Nope. Nor do you hear about the hospitals, police stations, or the well-trained, well-armed Iraqi Army we’re assembling. Instead, all you hear about are a few dead-enders and Qaedists trying to fight freedom and losing handily. The Iraqi people are turning them in. Tipsters are abounding, US losses are down, and Islamists are dying in record numbers. Who are you people to say that freedom isn’t on the march? By any objective reading of the history of this conflict, you were, and are, pro-Saddam.
What about the Iraqi stock exchange? Under Saddam, capitalism was severely curtailed, and freedom was ground under an iron boot. Now, the Iraqis are free to invest in a wide range of companies, and the cornerstone of every successful democracy has been laid.
As for this:
This goes to show why the Democrats keep losing. The American people know that there’s no issue more important than freedom, and that fighting for freedom is the only way to keep it. They know that the Democrats like to crow about freedom, but don’t understand that sometimes you need to fight for it. Afghanistan was a skirmish, but Iraq was the main battle in the struggle for freedom, and on this score most of the Democrats came up sorely lacking. The American people punished them accordingly in 2002 and 2004, and will probably punish them again in 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2016, by which point the Democratic Party will probably have split into moderates who’ve sensibly joined the GOP, and Naderites who’ve either sought their fortunes in Canada and Cuba, or actively betrayed America and been sent to Guantanamo. I’m not gloating about this, as it makes me sad that we have to have one-party rule in this country. If America had an opposition party that talked sense on any issue, I might even be willing to vote for it occasionally. But sadly, the Democratic Party has not done anything particularly sensible since the days of Harry Truman. And the American people are on to this fact, and it drives you moonbats crazy to know it.
I understand your anger, but I don’t care. Think of how angry the Iraqis would feel, if Saddam were still in power and lining his palaces with hidden nuclear weapons right now (as he probably would have been if we hadn’t permanently halted his WMD research). Think of how angry the American people would feel, if our only warning of Saddam’s WMDs came in the form of a mushroom cloud. Think of how angry freedom-loving peoples throughout the world (and perhaps other worlds, too, if it’s not too presumptuous to speculate on them; our satellite-transmitted films and news clippings possibly serve as an inspiration to freedom-loving species throughout the galaxy) would be if this great edifice to God and liberty, America, decided to crawl before the despot Saddam and his cohorts at the UN and beg once again for permission to play hide-and-go-seek with Saddam’s nuclear weapons. I cannot envision the outcome of such a hideous nightmare reality, yet you moonbats are angered because others rightly point out that leaving Saddam in power was your only solution to the problem. Well, the American people felt otherwise, and luckily the GOP was there to fight for freedom and liberty in the halls of government and in the sands of Iraq.
GOP4Me
Nonsense. There are no Mexicans in Iran, and judging by the Iranian policy of oppression toward Bahai and Jews, I doubt they let homosexuals guard their nuclear weapons program.
Ancient Purple
Andrew,
One of the writers over at dKos had a great quip in response to the President’s address today:
Since the President is so against activist judges, when can we expect Bush to make his stand against Loving v. Virginia being overturned.
Heh.
ppGaz
Well, that’s about all of your post I need to read.
Are you taking your rhetoric lessons from Darrell, now?
Go away.
GOP4Me
I thought you saiod you wouldn’t read any more, trickster! If this is all you could find to respond to, I take it you’ve conceded my central point: Iraq is on the up and up, and liberals keep lying about it.
Punchy
Funniest thing I’ve read all day.
If they’re smart, they’ll invest in companies making body bags and coffins, and US Marine Detectors.
OK, this is spoof, right? No one could be this unintentionally funny, could they?
Andrew
I expect that Bush’s response would be something along the lines of, “Yeah, heh heh, I’m loving Virginia every time I go and visit the Pentagon. Heh heh.”
I take some small solace in the fact that in 20 or 30 years, most people will look back and see the anti-gay Darrells of the world as exactly equivalent to the segregationists against interracial marriage. That, or we will live in a Road Warrior-esque post-apocalyptic nightmare after Bush nukes Iran and China gets pissed.
GOP4Me
The only thing that’s funny is how wrong you kooks are on the subject of Operation Iraqi Freedom. (Well, and on just about everything else, for that matter…)
r4d20
It seems to me that the extremists always get to set the tone of the debate.
r4d20
“But most importantly, I opposed the war because I knew that they would fuck up the peace. ”
LOL. I told myself “Its ok. We learned from Vietnam”. Then I watched them make stupid move aafter stupid move and within a year I had decided that this administration was incapable of winning this war.
GOP4Me
The problem with moonbats is that if there ARE any reasonable ones out there, their voices get lost in the fog of Chomskyites, Trotskyites, and Saddamists. Occasionally, you find a sensible Democrat- Joe Lieberman, Zell Miller- but their voices are quickly stifled by the group-thinking peacenik treehuggers encompassing them.
It’s really a sad state of affairs that the party of Andrew Jackson has become the party of Hillary Clinton. Andrew Jackson once shot a man in the groin because he insulted his wife; can any of you picture a leading Democrat doing something like that today? Not even Howard Dean on a screechy day would have the courage for such a deed.
KC
I’m just tired, frankly, of hearing “war, war, war” and “fear, fear, fear” all the time. The one-time mixed feelings about the Iraq war I had are long gone and I’m just sick of the whole goddamned mess. I may vote Republican for governor (I’m in California), but I sure as hell won’t be voting Republican for Congress this election.
ppGaz
I don’t know what an “up and up” is, but right now it’s in the middle of a civil war, and the American presence there is largely irrelevant. Already the “Prime Minister” is bashing Americans in his public comments, although you have to feel for the bastard, he can’t actually govern anything. Do some research and see if the PM can even get the electricity turned on. This matters, since the summer in Iraq is known to be a little on the warm side.
You spoofs are running about a year behind current events in your material now. Try to catch up.
Punchy
Where I’m from, they’d call that assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated assault, or attempted murder. So, no, I don’t see any Democrats doing that. Please encourage, however, as many Republicans as possible to start shooting at people. Maybe we can get them all in prison, instead of just ~40% of ’em.
D. Mason
Its kind of sad that this blog is absolutely crawling with spoofs.
MAX HATS
‘Skeptical’ is exactly how I would describe myself in the lead up to the war.
“Saddam is willing to use his WMD’s at a moments notice!
Aaaaaaand the war will be painless.”
Now wait a minute, won’t he gas our soldiers? Wouldn’t that be less than painless? But asking that, like raising any other issue with the to-be-war, led to a cavalclade of invective, usually with words like “America-hating” and “Saddam-lover” thrown in.
WMD’s, no WMD’s, sixteen words – throw it off the table. What I recall was a war argued for in fundemtally dishonest terms. There were good arguments to be made for invading Iraq, but by and large, they weren’t the big arguments. What it came down to was this: did you want to invade Iraq, or do you want to kiss Osama on the lips?
As for how the war has since progressed, the term “fruit of the poison tree” could find no better demonstration. It’s impossible to convince the American people we need to tough it out in Iraq, because everything the American people have been told up to now has been lies. After “agents met with Mohammad Atta,” “we cannot wait for a mushroom cloud,” “dead enders,” and “last throes,” you can’t turn around and suddenly tell it like it is. An entire fictional reality for Iraq has been constructed, and it can be neither discarded nor can it support the weight of further bullshit. We’re at an impasse, and everyone who supported the war under consciously dishonest terms put us here.
Brian
If you walk like a duck, and quack like a duck, well, you’re a duck. If you’re a pacifist, find endless reasons to defend our enemies yet find endless reasons to find fault with America, then you absolutely deserve to have your character thrown into question. If you don’t like this, then tough shit.
GOP4Me is correct, the reasonable liberal voices are drowned out amongst those like Tim F. and the Kossacks, purveyors of anger anti-Americanism at any cost.
DougJ
I was against the war, but I wasn’t very strongly against it. I feel bad about that and a lot of my friends have told me I was an idiot not to see what a bad idea it was; for the time being, I feel that my having been suckered somewhat about Iraq disqualifies me from commenting on foreign policy. That’s why I don’t comment in threads on Iran very much.
That’s also why I find the hubris of ass holes like Beinart stunning. Frankly, I despise the New Republic. I hate Peter Beinart, Andrew Sullivan, Joe Lieberman and the rest of the “liberal hawk” crew in a way that I could never hate George Bush. That may sound strange and I can’t explain it.
MAX HATS
Fake.
I read everything from Hugh Hewitt to Freep (I even posted there briefly), and no one, not the most mouth-breathing goose-stepping “imprison the press” zealot has ever seriously referred to democrats as “Trotskyites and Saddamists.”
DougJ
I don’t think Noam Chomksy hates America. Noam Chomsky is a provocative critic to be sure, but I’m very much against smearing him. We ignore dissident voices at our own peril. That goes for some on the right as well — I think that much of what Pat Buchanan says is valid (though his flitation with anti-Semitism repels me), even if I don’t agree with it.
It’s important to distinguish between those whose positions seem extreme to us (Chomsky, Bucahanan, the Club For Growth guy, many libertarians) and those who simply talk out of their ass (Ann Coulter et al.).
MAX HATS
How can one who supported the war in Afghanistan be a pacifist?
DougJ
Actually it’s the neocons who are/were Trotskyites.
GOP4Me
It was during a duel. Back when America was a freer country, we allowed those. Open a history book sometime.
Exactly. And what’s sad is that their groupthink is so self-contained, it’ll never let them see it.
I’ve posted these charges on this blog before, and on my own blog, scrutator.net. So obviously you don’t read everything, Mr. Know-It-All.
GOP4Me
Spoken like a true spoof. I forget which side of the aisle you’re even on anymore, DougJ. Are you a liberal spoofing conservatives, or is it the other way around?
CaseyL
Yeah, I thought the spoofs were amusing for a while, but at this point it just drags down the conversation.
The subject of The Angry Left is one I’ve found insulting for a very long time. Anger is the only sane and proper response to Bushism in particular and Right Wing-ism in general.
I’m still not over 9/11. I still think Bush and Rice ought to face prison, at least, for their reckless endangerment of human life; for all the warning signs they didn’t follow up, the memo they didn’t bother reading, the demotions of anti-terrorist experts, and the defunding of anti-terrorist programs.
And that’s just 9/11. Put that together with the Iraq War casualties, and the Katrina deaths, just about everyone in the Bush Admin, quite frankly, deserves to be hung.
MAX HATS
You’re a fake. A wanna-be Michael Savage. Pity the world only needs one, eh? Don’t quit your day job.
Punchy
I agree. Let’s allow duels again. It’ll make America freer, somehow. AFter glancing in my history text, I see that we used to have slavery. Maybe we could bring that back, too. I bet that’ll quadruple our freeness.
ppGaz
If you keep talking to yourself, we’re going to have to get out the DSM-IV here.
D. Mason
I never supported the war in Iraq, but I did believe there was a chance of accomplishing something worthwhile. I believe that chance was immediately after the military vs. military phase of the conflict. If we had shifted seamlessly into diplomacy when the insurgency began it seems there was atleast a chance to show the Iraqi people the personal benefits they could expect from a representative form of government. Unfortunately diplomacy is not Georges’ thing.
I say representative form of government because, honestly, why would we want to force democracy on such a factionalized people. That’s asking for trouble. You don’t want mob rule in a society where the majority would be happy to see the minority exterminated. That’s the biggest problem *I* have with the “spreading democracy” meme.
Unfortunately the Bush administration carried out the invasion in a very haphazard way. They failed to account for the centuries old hatred that exists between the various religious communities in Iraq. They failed to account for the hardiness and resolution that comes only from living in near constant conflict. They also failed to account for the spirit and determination of the Iraqi people. Add this to a general disregard for the suggestions of our own experianced generals and you have a recipe for disaster.
George Bushs’ own father knew why conquering Baghdad was such a sticky situation so George can’t claim that the opinions weren’t there or available to him. He chose to ignore them and now we are all paying for it.
To me, the rhetoric Tim mentions in his post is the “smoking gun” in regards to the willfulness of the deception. Dubya knew what he was doing and the fact that his administration smeared anyone who voiced even the slightest disagreement speaks volumes about the level of dishonesty they were willing to employ.
The Other Steve
The one that amazed me, back in 2003 when we were leading up to this.
A wingnut coworker of mine said we had to be afraid. What if Saddam did have weapons and used them, was I willing to be responsible for thousands of people dying?
I haven’t had a chance to ask him yet how he feels about being responsible for the deaths of thousands of americans over this failure.
ppGaz
I think we need to start calling it “freedominess” now. By the time Bush gets done with it, that’s all we’ll have left.
DougJ
Remember the great conversation we had with Darrell about how many important neocons were Trotskyite in their youths? Darrell agreed that Irving Kristol was a commie (hard to deny, he was at the 3rd international) and that Wolfowitz and Perle were Trostkyites in their early 20s. Then he turned around and said there was no evidence of a connection between Trotksyism and neoconservatism. It was surreal.
DougJ
A wanna-be Michael Savage
Is he a fake?
In all seriousness, I have a certain fondness for the scrutators. They seem well-meaning but misguided, like Don Surber. There’s no shame in that. They’re not so different from John.
ppGaz
Only if you think the conversation was about the topic as you described it.
Instead, when you are talking with Darrell, the topic is you and your errant philosophy. Since the latter is an established fact, the ups and downs of the conversation you are describing, don’t matter. The only thing that matters is that Darrell was right — about you — when the conversation started.
If you get this right, then talking with Darrell isn’t surreal at all, it’s perfectly understandable.
I am Darrell, and I approve this message.
Andrew
Come on guys, I think the right-wing just needs the chance to govern with a real conservative in the Whitehouse, not the compassionate liberal flip-flopper who is in there right now.
MAX HATS
As long as the tripple threat of Reid, Hollywood and the MSM have their way, I don’t see how anyone could say Bush has been given a fair shot.
ppGaz
Scrutator is a much better spoofsite than yours, dude.
Par R
Some moron says:
Any fool that writes such crap is not to be taken serious in even the slightest fashion.
Ancient Purple
There. Fixed that right up for you, Brian.
The Easter Bunny
I don’t know how you liberals manage to breathe with your heads stuck so deeply in the sand. Then again, you do manage to talk out of your asses; I suppose there could be some kind of air-exchange mechanism stuffed up in there too. Whatever. I’m sure some lefty science ninny will come along now to explain how that’s physiologically impossible, right before he puts me to sleep with some crapola lecture about how global warming is going to ravage the planet.
You wanna know what’s really going to ravage the planet, kooks? Yeah, that’s right – the creeping menace to the North. The tundra-sucking terrorists that killed Santa. You can deny, deny, deny all you want, but now there’s proof of the Canuckistani threat. Suck on that, bitches!
SeesThroughIt
Yeah, he’s a spoof. Still kind of a beginner, but he’s slowly improving.
ppGaz
The pot makes a funny.
Tim F.
It is telling that Brian sides with the guy who calls every single person whom he disagrees with a ‘kook.’ You have a dishonest streak, Brian, which is a double shame because you’re a relatively smart person. Hang on to your rhetorical safety blankets, big guy.
D. Mason
Fixed.
demimondian
What makes me very sad is that Brian and GOP4ME don’t understand that their joke is completely unfunny in this context.
Look, guys, has it dawned on you that we have been called cowards and traitors by the right you’re trying to spoof? I know it’s hard to imagine, but…gosh, that hurts. It isn’t funny to me when you call me a kook, or a moonbat, particularly when I stood for America all along.
ppGaz
There is no charge for this editing service.
DougJ
As long as the tripple threat of Reid, Hollywood and the MSM have their way, I don’t see how anyone could say Bush has been given a fair shot.
That is so spoofy that it makes me wonder if Brian, GOP4Me, and Par R are really spoofs. I say with the full knowledge that I write most of Par R’s and Brian’s spoofs.
I kind of like Brian and GOP4Me, though. They’ve got style. That goes a long way with me.
ppGaz
Dior had style. Those two have gall.
Gall Style
Bob
Please provide us with an example of Chomsky’s hatred of America,please.I’ve always thought his criticism of the government and it’s foreign and domestic policies were the sincere beliefs of someone challenging his country to be better by using the same yardstick we measure others by.
DougJ
Do you ever think that the lot of us should take over other blogs? Or maybe have our own blog called Pale Fire? Is http://www.palefire.com still available>
Punchy
What kinda blog name is that? Needs to be catchy and witty, like “Deciduous Jackalopes”, or we could spoof Mr. Cole and call it “Balloon Jews” or “Bah Luge Noose”
SeesThroughIt
I dunno, I think GOP4Me has a ways to go…he’s still very raw, ya know? I do think it’s good that he’s sometimes spoofing the Explosively Angry Republican, meaning that in the necessary mix of anger and obstinance, he leans heavily toward anger. That’s very fertile territory, but he hasn’t quite gotten it down yet, and it seems like he sometimes retreats from it in favor of a more traditional style–which is fine, but the traditional style demands brevity, which GOP4Me hasn’t really gotten yet. He has been getting better, though.
By the way, I’d nominate Gay Atheists for Mandatory Abortion for a blog name, but it’s too unwieldy for a URL.
ppGaz
Gay Pacifist Muslim-Mexican Atheists for Mandatory Abortion.
How’s that?
demimondian
I don’t know if enough people on BJ have actually read the original Nabokov to get the Pale Fire joke.
(Given that it’s Friday, could it be “pale ale fire”, instead…)
demimondian
How about “Truthiness or Consequences”?
srv
Tendril Fingerings
demimondian
“Jackalope Stmapede”
ppGaz
Anyone notice … not a single non-spoof righty on this thread.
canuckistani
I was going to chime in and say I supported the war in Afghanistan (where we also find the French, Germans and us Canadians) and opposed Iraq, but GOP4ME has poisoned the thread so thoroughly that I don’t really see any point to contributing.
Brian
I don’t think that’s fair, Tim. If you want to see our competing sides come to some understanding about this war, and I think that you do by the nature of this post, then you might at least consider how what people like me see as concrete evidence of anti-Americanism in your rhetoric is counter-productive to that understanding coming to pass.
The Left rambling on about America’s innumerable “crimes”, while ignoring those of other countries, some of which are literally out to destroy our way of life, then trying to escape this by claiming adherence and respect for our Constitution, and support for the troops, and that you’re only practicing your valuable right to dissent, does not pass unnoticed by conservatives as the rhetorical sleight-of-hand that it is.
Brian
Okay, I give…….
Someone, anyone, explain to me what a jackalope is, and what a spoof is. Are these BJ slang terms?
Have fun with my ignorance, but please explain these words to me while you’re at it.
Andrew
Well done, Brian! Spoofing ignorance of spoofing. I like the layering. You are so meta it hurts.
Ancient Purple
As you wish…
There is this thing. You may have heard of it. It is called “Google.” It is your friend.
John Redworth
Surprisingly enough, I was one of those against the war in Iraq, for the war in Afghanistan and nearly wet myself on 9/11… I am not one of those blame America first, hate Bush no matter what or even save a tree instead of a person… but a regular Joe who didn’t like what I was being told about Iraq and became even more jaded as the original reasons fell like leaves from a tree in the fall… yet, even though I was against the war in Iraq I have never advocated cut and run or a timetable… the idea or reasons for being in Iraq are moot right now while our troops are getting shot at… I hope for democracy in Iraq since it would be shame for those who died there to die for no real reason…
Even though I stand for these things and do not fit in to the normal “lefty liberal unAmerican traitor” BS that is pushed around, I have still had my patriotism questioned for daring to disagree with the supposed reasons we went there in the first place as well as disagreeing with our CiC during a war… simply put, I have started to ignore the extremists who pound their chests and demand all to obey their wisdom… I do push the idea of listening to others but when all that comes out of their mouths/fingertips is venom, there doesn’t seem to be a point any longer… if I want to be insulted, I have friends that can do it to my face instead of hiding behind the safety of a keyboard…
PeterJ
Gop4Me spoofed:
Yes, sometimes you have to fight for your freedom. But the one you need to fight for your freedom isn’t Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein.
GOP4Me
I’m not a spoof, I’m an American with viewpoints. Serious viewpoints, which you kooks have never addressed. I like the way you always sidestep the issue, though. Iraq is doing fine, and you know it, but rather than debate me on the merits of this fact, you always choose to stoop to attacking the messenger. I believe in the Bush Administration, therefore I’m “spoofing.” Obviously, anyone who doesn’t agree with you is “spoofing.” Why do you assume this? Is it impossible in your minds for anyone to disagree with you and support our President? Not too long ago, 51% of voters disagreed with you. Or were 51% of voters “spoofing”, too?
You claim you want to have a discussion, but it’s impossible to start one if you won’t take me seriously. Even Brian gets this treatment from you, and he laid the facts of the situation out far more eloquently and concisely than I could ever do just a few posts above this one. Yet you ingrates accuse him of “spoofing,” too.
This doesn’t hurt my feelings or anything, I’ve got a pretty thick skin. But it’s a telling indictment of the self-styled “tolerance” of the self-styled “reality-based community,” that’s for sure.
Ancient Purple
I am convinced you are a spoof, and, quite frankly, I am bored with them. They do nothing to further the conversation and all they do is make sure I don’t have to take an Ambien before bedtime.
That being said, I feel like venting, so I will engage your banter.
You may be “an American with viewpoints.” Bully for you. So am I. But my patriotism is questioned because I don’t agree that we should ignore the Constitution and I refuse to kiss Bush’s ass and, like that deranged idiot Hugh Hewitt, believe he is the best president this nation has ever had.
Why should I take you seriously? Besides being a spoof, you have already made your stand: King George can do no wrong. Ever. Without exception. He could rape your mother and you would claim it to be a necessity.
I, on the other hand, gave W the benefit of the doubt. While I had some concerns, I was convinced that Bush had done his due diligence and Saddam had WMD and could possibly be a threat to this nation. I did, however, know full well that the crap about the connection between 9/11 and Iraq was just that: pure bullshit.
It is also difficult to take you seriously when you whine and complain about how we call you a spoof because you “believe in the Bush Administration” and then do exactly the same thing by calling people kooks, traitors and anti-American because they don’t “believe in the Bush Administration.” Hypocrisy much?
PeterJ
No.
Tom in Texas
Ok, you are either a spoof or an idiot.
No one thinks things in Iraq are fine right now. Bush himself would never say something so preposterous. There are 2,500 dead Americans and untold thousands of Iraqis. We are currently investigating allegations supported by videotape that we slaughtered innocent shildren as they slept. The Prime Minister claims we indiscriminately attack civilians daily. Dozens die every single day. How you can possibly find this “fine” or “on the up and up” is astonishing (yet you claim you are serious).
Perhaps you believe that things in Iraq will be fine when the people see the power of an independent court as both Saddam and American soldiers are sentenced for their crimes against innocents. Perhaps you believe that things will be fine once Zarqawi has ended his nightmarish jihad. To claim that things are currently just hunky dory because of a stock exchange and a new schoolhouse when all this is going on is just preposterous — and incidentally, your anger at the story of rebuilt schools being ignored in favor of news like Haditha rings hollow when a reporter explains that they are asked by those schools not to publicize their opening or even announce their locations out of fear that suicide bombers will have a visible public target.
GOP4Me
Then take it up with DougJ, why don’t you. What do I care what you think of spoofs?
You publicly question the competence and integrity of our President during wartime. Question your patriotism? You bet I will. To do anything less would be irresponsible. If it hurts your feelings, call Amnesty International.
Bush wouldn’t rape my mother without a darn good reason, first of all. Secondly, if I were a spoof, I wouldn’t like George Bush, so you’ve negated whatever point it was you were trying to make in the first place. Nice going. With brains like this at the helm, it’s no wonder the Democrats control America… oh, wait.
In other words, you halfheartedly backed the job, while questioning the Vice President’s knowledge of national security. What do you want for this, the Congressional Medal of Freedom?
Well, at least a kook and a traitor has serious beliefs that they stand by, however kooky/treasonous they may be. What can you say for a spoof? Ask your buddy, DougJ.
You people stink. Trying to have a conversation with you is like ramming one’s head into the wall until the world goes black. Then you WONDER why I get frustrated and call you kooks?
Baron Elmo
Does “because his pecker was hard” count?
John S.
GOP4Me-
When attempting to be a spoof hoping to engage in reasonable discussion, it is best to not open every salvo with:
First off, it undermines whatever credibility you want to establish as not-a-spoof. Second, it has a tendency to put people on the defensive, which means that they go on the offensive. And third, thanks for proving Tim’s point by throwing out every scurrilous meme he mentioned.
RonB
Brian,
Careful, dude. Agreeing with a spoof is gonna get you called…well, a spoof.
If you walk like the ducks and quack like them…
RonB
Though there is this nagging feeling I get that maybe less than 10 of the posts above aren’t spoofs…
Slide.
the spoofs are ruining this blog. When done occassionally and with some wit perhaps it would be moderately intertaining, but this dreary, transparent, humorless spoofing is just off putting to most of us. So where are the true belivers? Are there anymore left? Macbuckets? Come on bucket boy, show us another Iraq poll which convinces you everything is just dandy in the fertile cresent these days. I need a good laugh.
John S.
You must have missed his recent re-write of history:
Any atttempt to remind him that the actual point of the invasion – as was sold to the American public – was to protect us from a mushroom cloud and to punish those responsible for 9/11, is deemed as:
Which is why we ALL prefer true believers like Mac to hapless spoofs. Truth is so much funnier than fiction (stranger, too).
ppGaz
John Cole: “You insufferable pricks.”
OMG, you are being written by John Cole?
Mr Furious
Brian-
Spoof: A parody tool that uses a fake (but often hilariously accurate) character to mock a certain viewpoint. Think Stephen Colbert and the Colbert Report.
Around here, GOP4Me is exhibit A. There is NO way I will be convinced that that clown is for real. The only difference is Colbert’s screaming eagles graphics and laughing studio audience make the paraody obvious. The blog commenter’s “spoofiness”, if you will, is more subtle…
For you to cite GOP4Me, and side with him, is pretty much on par (or Par R) with Tom Delay’s unwitting use of Colbert to bolster his positions.
Did you watch Colbert’s speech at the Correspondant’s dinner and cheer, “Yeah, take that liberal elite!” or, were you in on the joke?
—
I, and others, around here have actually engaged you in some good debates. So, as Tim mentions above, for you to hitch your wagon to views that are either so ridiculous as to be parody OR so extreme as to be shameful, is disappointing for those of us wishing to have an honest debate.
The best case scenario for you in this case is that you are a well-intentioned conservative being played for a fool. Otherwise you are either a spoof yourself or too much of a jackass to be taken seriously.
I don’t want to get too personal, or judgemental here, but it’s awfully hard when it is the first arrow out of your quiver.
Hope that clears things up for you.
DougJ
Just so you know, I am not writing GOP4Me or Brian or Par R. I’m sure Par is a spoof, but I’m not writing it. As for GOP4Me and Brian, if I had to guess, I’d guess that Brian is a real right-winger and that GOP4Me is someone from Protein Wisdom.
ppGaz
On the chance that you are Brian (no, I don’t buy your disclaimer, sorry, no offense, etc) …. I have $5 that says Brian is a spoof.
The evidence that I’ll present in Spoof Court is pretty convincing. I won’t review it here and give you … er, him …. any ideas. But let’s just say, it’s going to be an open and shut case.
Anyway, a fiver says Brian = Spoof.
Par R
DougJ is my gay brother and I wish he would stop mentioning me in his ever increasingly silly-ass comments. He has been nothing but a continuous embarrasment to our family since he was caught BJ’ing the football team during halftime three years ago.
ppGaz
Give it up, DougJ. You blew your cover on this one a long time ago.
ppGaz
“I have never had spoof with that womanizer, DougJ.”
Punchy
My bullshit meter just pegged out. Show me the Declaration of War from Congress. I want to see where Congress declared war on either Afghanistan or Iraq.
Until then, we’re not officially at war. So yes, I’ll question Bush on competence.
Sojourner
It’s looking more and more like Iraq will be an Islamic theocracy. Which bodes poorly for the more than 50% who are female.
Only a moron would believe that Iraq is better off with its women being treated as less then second-class citizens.
Larry
During the Iraq runup, I voiced the the opinion to several friends who supported the invasion, that Saddam’s posession of WMD and the means to deliver them was a ruse because Israel is quite sensitive to annihilation, and would have eliminated that threat well before it was operational.
Osirak demonstrated that the Israelis are uninterested in responding from beyond the grave and care more about survival than approval.
None of my friends had a reasonable answer.
ppGaz
Well, unless I have missed something, John Cole is still on record with “better off without Saddam.”
It was a lame refrain even when it was fresh and new. It relies entirely on “ends justify means” rationalization. It was factually unsupportable. It was a rallying cry at best, and a grotesque manipulation and misrepresentation at worst. “The world” has never been better off with this clusterfuck in progress, and Iraq has descended into the predictable civil war which means that not even the Iraqis are arguably “better off”. If better off means daily violence, a ruined economy, no electricity to cool your house in the blazing summer, and a dangerous and intolerable occupation …. well, you get the idea.
The “better off” theme will be the last whimper of the last fool who clings to the last vestige of deluded insistence that the war was a good idea, or that continuing it is necessary and proper.
Iraq is now in the throes of a civil war and the American presence there is not relevant to that civil war, for the simple and obvious reason that we have no control over it whatever, nor over its outcome.
Parlo
PPGaz missed that there were bio weapons. The lab was run by a woman who was freed by the Iraqi courts the day ‘Time’ had some intersting pictures.
As far as who started the war, you have to check out CIA. Plame was WMD at CIA at it was leaked just before the war. CIA taking advantage of Bush and using the war, if not starting it.
If you follow what we all have been through, you might see Plame and CIA there using America to justify what they have done. America is being used to justify mistakes, like Plame and the CIA; sorry, that’s how they work.
ppGaz
Read it and weep
Punchy
To anyone that’s seen “Hostel”, this has to make you just cringe…
feral1
Chomsky, that america-hating doofus, was invited to address the cadets at West Point last month. At the end of his address the applause was warm and enthusiastic. This speaks well for the cadets and the institution. Liberals in the U.S. need to engage Chomsky’s ideas, rather than reflexively dismissing one of the most respected and important intellectuals of the last 50 years, because they are scared of being tarred as “radical lefties”.
Tulkinghorn
As rude and pointless as it is to jump in at the tail end of this spoofy and reflexive thread with a sustantive response to Tim F., I think he underestimates the frivolousness and bad faith of recent winger and Bush-apologist arguments.
The structure of the argument goes like this:
You leftists were right about everything:
war in Iraq:
-predicated on false pretenses;
-alienates our allies;
-strengthens Al Qaeda;
-wastes our military resources;
-weakens our military forces;
-costs way too much financially compared to the attenuated and minimal benefit of refroming Iraqi government;
-obscenely enriches business cronies of members of the administration;
These were all predicted by the anti-war left. As a pro-war centrist Dem. I thought they were being cynical, conspiracy minded, and not taking terrorism seriously enough.
As it ends up, I was full of sh!t, not them. As special bonuses that exceeded even the most fevered nightmares of the looney left we get:
-torture now used indiscrimately as part of policy;
-Iraq completely ruined, not by the invasion but by this administrations’ indifference,
-25 american soldiers killed occupying Iraq for everyone killed conquering Iraq;
-the systematic debasement and waste of military discipline and moral, all to no discernable military or diplomatic benefit;
—and for extra, super-bonus credit– the administration wants to repeat its success by invading Iran.
All of us who supported this president have been shown to be fools. But, since these things are all bad for the US, and “The Left” is gleeful to be proven correct in their predictions, they are happy to be benefiting from the US’s misfortunes.
That makes them traitors and domestic enemies.
In short: “you were right, I was wrong, but being right means that you are an asshole, so I win, no tag-backs, etc.”
DougJ
Tulkinghorn — I wasn’t exactly pro-war, but I wasn’t very anti-war and I tended to mock my friends who were strongly anti-war. And I now feel exactly the same way that you do.
The difference between people like us and people like Peter Beinart is that we care about what is true, not just what is rhetorically effective.
ppGaz
Just had to quickly post this, because I am on my way out the door …. and could not believe this when I heard on the tv moments ago:
C. Rice on Face the Nation: (topic, can Iraq’s government actually govern?):
“(Prime Minister) Maliki has declared a state of emergency …. so he is taking care of the situation.”
There you have it, the view from inside the bubble. The “government” has it under control, because it declared a state of emergency.
Brian
Iraq was better off with Saddam in power? According to whom….. septuagenarian ppGaz, our resident Shiite who suffered under the thumb of Saddam??
Tulkinghorn is a prime example of the self-congratulatory nature of the Left. No wonder you’re all a perfect fit with celebrity culture, another group that fawns over itself and tells its members how great and beautiful they are, when in truth, they’re mental midgets who would never be trusted with anything beyond driving an automobile.
And, Tim, where is that post decrying the rights of terrorists being trampled in that Canadian raid? Surely, the civil liberties of some Americans were violated in that dragnet, no? I have to go to the bathroom now, where I’ll wipe my ass with my Constitution-on-a-roll toilet paper, and will check back with you later.
If we have to resort to tracking and arresting terrorists by monitoring them via telephone or the internet, then the terrorists have already won, folks, even if we stopped their plots to kill thousands of innocent people and score a victory in its war against the West and a way of life that you folks take comfort in as you trash the governments that protect said way of life.
Sojourner
Ironically, if Iraq becomes a fundamentalist Islamic country, the sad reality will be that most Iraqi women will be far worse off than they were under Saddam.
Brian
Mr. Furious,
Thanks for the explanation. I’m still awaiting one for “jackalope”. That HAS to be BJ slang.
All,
Chekitowt! He’s gearing up to be served another loss for his party. It’ll be Gore or Clinton on the ticket for the Dem’s in ’08.
ppGaz
Brian, you need to get a new handle. You are taken for spoof now. Pretending you never heard of a jackalope?We know you have a computer, therefore you can find this.
Don’t try so hard to look earnest, it just makes you look more spoofy than you already do.
And BTW, 59 is not “septuagenarian.” Vocabulary mistakes are another spoof indicator.
ppGaz
On balance, and weighed against the ten years of shit they will have gone through by 2013, for most Iraqis, yes.
That’s not a measure of what a great guy he is, it’s a measure of the bottomless pit of shit that we’ve thrown that country into, without a prayer of getting them out.
As Rosen said, the worst is yet to come.
DougJ
Tulkinghorn is a prime example of the self-congratulatory nature of the Left.
You nitwit — Tulkinghorn just said he was WRONG about Iraq. How is that self-congralutatory?
ppGaz
I think he meant “self conflagellatory.”
The Easter Bunny
Heh. Don’t believe everything you read on Wikipedia, kids.
Here’s the real story: I originally starting wearing the horns & antlers to scare off the goddamn pelt-hunters who were after me during the Little Ice Age.
As it turned out, they also helped me pick up a lot of trim – the whole “bad boy” thing, you know. No penicillin back then, bitches, so you can guess the rest: we were passing around STDs like a bong on Willie Nelson’s tour bus.
So your nozzlehead scientists have it completely backward: the horns & antlers came first, disease-infested rabbits came later.
So there you go, Bri. Jackalopes are a lefty invention, just like global warming, evolution, and gravity.
Ancient Purple
Thank God you finally admit it.
Admitting you don’t care about the Constitution is the first step to recovery.
In the meantime, I suggest rubber sheets or Depends just in case the terror alert code goes to orange before your journey is complete.
slickdpdx
I guess we all have to choose our battles.
ppGaz
Okay, the FTN transcript is online now.
From today’s show:
Now folks, you go and read the article I linked to earlier. You go and read the mainstream news coming out of Iraq in the last week, and today. And you read carefully the words of Rice today, and tell me with a straight face that her answer is anything more than a mealy-mouthed, spun, sorry-assed pack of lies and manipulative deflections from the truth. Every sentence of hers is a lie in one fashion or another, and in most cases, it’s several lies all wrapped together. Her last sentence, quoted by me, is a lie-in-your-face way of saying that the Iraq government has no control of its country, and in case you missed the news of the daily bus shootings and bombings, the US forces there have no control over the country either. The place is a violent shitstorm at this point. American forces are mostly interested now in keeping themselves from getting killed and trying to stay out of the line of fire between the two sides in a civil war that is just at the beginning of its ugly run. Just as Mr. Rosen described it, above. Just as your lying eyes will tell you if you bother to look around. Just as we predicted FOUR YEARS AGO that it would turn into. Just as any college student who had read the history of the region could have forseen and warned these idiots in Washington to avoid.
How that lying bitch can sit there on tv and do this, is beyond me. I can’t even imagine the depth of moral bankruptcy neccessary to sit there on that show and say that crap. I thought I had seen it all during the era of Nixon and Agnew, but this is a whole new ballgame. This is telling the biggest possible lie over and over again, taken to a whole new level.
ppGaz
Oh, sorry, on the blockquote, punctuation is mine. Edited very slightly for clarity only.
ppGaz
.
Ponder and savor that last comment by Rice. A “government of national unity.” Read that over and over again, before and then after each days summary of news from Iraq, and just savor the true nature of her comment. A “government of national unity.”
People being summarily executed for having a Sunni first name, as a matter of routine, and she is talking about a “government of national unity.”
Just keep thinking about that. Think of it when you find yourself just how far into lies an American government can go, and still get on a tv show without being stoned in the street on the way into the studio.
ppGaz
“find yourself wondering”
And now, back to your regularly scheduled spoofapalooza, already in progress.
Brian
Tim’s not very responsive today. Maybe he’s out mountain biking. Wonder if, when Islamists take over the West as the result of liberals’ protecting the terrorist’s civil liberties, they’ll let him mountain bike without wearing a turban and dragging homosexuals behind him.
ppGaz
How much can you take, before you start to get really, really pissed off? An angel sent me the material above from a large East Coast newspaper’s website that inexplicably charges money to read that editorial piece, and I accidentally pasted it into this comment editor …
In any case, like I said, how much can you stand? Are y’all ready to get out there and get some Dems elected to the House this fall and put a stop to this fucking insanity?
Par R
What a total piece of rubbish ppGaz put up here.
The best thing that the citizens of the US can hope for right now is that the typical commenters one finds here are not representative of anything more than the lowest common denominator of American society. Clearly, most of them write as if they had been fully indoctrinated in all the latest anti-American rhetoric out of al Qaeda and their ilk. Hell, today we even find an acolyte of the notorious anti-Semite, Noam Chomsky, posting comments here. What next…front-page posts by Osama bin Laden himself?
ppGaz
Mmmm, more and more, the majority view in this country, actually.
Par now demonstrates Spoof Indicator Number 7, which is Total Kool-Aid Immersion. This is a step up from addiction to drinking Kool-Aid, and involves actually bathing in the beverage.
Kimmitt
GOP4Me really isn’t a spoof, in my opinion. His opinions are genuine. Scary but true.
Anyways, the best way to deal with folks that have experienced breaks with reality is to ignore them. We’ve all taken subways and had to sit next to the crazy lady; this is no different.
jaime
It seems the “Give Me Liberty of Give Me Death” mantra of the founding father of this country has been replaced by “Daddy save me. I’ll be hiding under my bed”
Are you serious? Really? Islamists taking control of the American West? You stay under that bed, I’ll call you after the next election.
ppGaz
CBS/NYT: Can Bush successfully end war? No 67%
Two major polls, with essentiall agreement: Approve of Bush’s handling of war / can he succeed? No, 67%.
So I ask you, what are we waiting for? Is it time to elect some Dems to the House this fall and put and end to this clusterfuck? How much longer shall we sit by and let George Bush give America the finger?
Sine.Qua.Non
Since when did Capitalism become the “Cornerstone” of Democracy? You are going to have to show me where that is written in our founding documents. Oh, wait! That must be the OTHER Bush Constitutional Amendment besides the anti-gay amendment.
It is highly apparent you buy into the Bush fantasy. This is so far from the truth of the matter as to be laughable if it wasn’t so serious.
And, you believe Democrats are not sensible??? OMG
This is even funnier if that were possible:
ROFL…I am having serious trouble containing myself here….really!
Tim F.
It sounds to me as if you want the right to question other people’s character but you take offense when somebody questions yours. I have noticed that you tend to take the most nefarious possible interpretation of whatever an opponent says, for example your claim that Al Gore promotes distorting the truth. Cardinal Richlieu once wrote:
Go looking for anti-Americanism and you will almost surely find it. Go looking for well-intentioned an reasonable people and you will most likely find those as well. In my opinion your dishonesty comes from a need, subconscious for all I know, to find nefarious motives behind people who disagree with you. Your declaring that I hate America is neither less offensive not less ridiculous than my considering you dishonest or, to be generous, unfair.
Sine.Qua.Non
Popcorn, Spoofs and
aBJ … all on one Sunday afternoon. Could you ask for more?John Redworth
To me, this is one of the major problems with the so-called debate in which the mere questioning of the President is equated with unpatriotic talk… it is no different than questioning the patriotism of those who support the President as he wraps himself up in the term of “wartime President” to deflect criticism…
As a country, we do not necessarily live by absolutes of “with us or against us” that has become the norm… I find it very hard to believe that you could locate any great number of Americans who support terrorism which is what this supposed war is against… this includes great numbers of the extremist left who play the “hate Bush” card at every chance…
The idea of absolutism that is shown by chest pounding in support of the “wartime” President no matter what is paramount to the ideas of a dictatorship rather than a democracy… even in war, our President is not held above the standards of dissent… even in war, our President does not achieve god-like status or something along the lines of the fabled “cult of personality…”
GOP4ME, I sense you are a real person and not a spoof… this bothers me in a sense that you have decided to avoid real discussion by following the typical name calling and discounting the ideas and intellect of others who do not follow your line of thinking…
Punchy
The whole Republican modus operandi summed up in one neat sentence.
RonB
So which poster are you on Scrutator?
Sine.Qua.Non
Brian…you are fucking pathetic.
PPGAZ: Good catch on Rice.
Sine.Qua.Non
I thought it became brain fluid.
Andrew
GOP4Me was a great spoofer for a while, but it’s as if he really isn’t even trying anymore:
This stuff is only barely believable if Hugh Hewitt says it.
I like this new John Redworth character. A spoof of the moderate-center!
Anderson
Exactly. I’m reading Cobra II, and while on most days I think Bush/Cheney psyched themselves up into believing that Saddam had WMD’s, it’s impossible to square this with our indifference to rapidly securing the alleged WMD sites.
Apparently, The Entire Justification For The Fucking War ran into Rumsfeld’s “look, I can invade Iraq with one arm tied behind my back,” and TEJFTFW lost.
ppGaz
We are not sure that spoofs actually have brains. They may have “brainoids” which are brain-like constructs but we are not sure that they actually produce any thoughts.
Or, they may simple be in a PKS, a Persistent KoolAid-y State. Perhaps scs has some insights.
Perry Como
Versus the Defenders, which severly lack cluons.
SHT4Brains
We really need a mandatory blog-spoofing clause in the flag-burning/gay-marriage amendment. Who’s with me?
DougJ
I’ve been dying to do such a spoof. The trouble is, I actually hate people like Peter Beinart and the rest of the so-called moderate center and that impedes my ability to spoof them. I sort of like the right-wing nuts, the Surbers and such, so I can spoof them without trembling with anger. Not so the New Republic.
DougJ
I find it very hard to believe that you could locate any great number of Americans who support terrorism which is what this supposed war is against
Do you think? What unbelievable pablum. If this is a spoof, it’s genius. I want to work this guy. Unless he’s serious, in which case I want to strangle him with my bare hands.
rbl
Yes, because a Jewish Zionist who happens to believe in free speech, even for Holocaust deniers, must definately be an anti-semite. Yep
Perry Como
Freedomc, bithes!
…
The Dominionists must be jealous.
Bob In Pacifica
During Iran-contra, whenever I was so worried that I couldn’t sleep, about the state of our nation, where we were headed to, the hopelessness of it all, I’d listen to a lecture by Noam Chomsky and fall asleep.
If there wasn’t a lecture on public radio, I could open a book. Always put me to sleep. Never habit-forming.
ppGaz
AKA the Dream Highway ….
John Redworth
Hardly a spoof but thanks for the thought… would it make me more credible in your eyes if I threw out a few typical phrases like kooks, wingnuts, moonbats or even my personal favorite… douchebags…
Sine.Qua.Non
Hey NOW!
DougJ
Redworth, I defy you to find anyone who said something as stupidly obvious as this:
Doesn’t the New Republic have a comments section? How about Andrew Sullivan’s blog? I think you’d be happier over there. You can all pat each other on the back for how you see past the “extremism” on both sides of the debate.
ppGaz
I’m using “assbite” lately, which replaces “bonesmoker,” a term which served well for several months.
I like to rotate my insult words, that keeps me from getting into a rut.
John Redworth
When questioning the motives or policies of the war in Iraq, the idea that any such person is unpatriotic, emboldens the terrorists and supports the terrorists… as far as a group that says such things without much thought would be the fun-filled wonderments over at LGF…
Wow… you have nailed my position on every subject with my thoughts on this one? Give me a break…
My thoughts on extremist thought when it comes to Iraq isn’t Andrew Sullivan-esque but reality based… you can not have a discussion on the war, the invasion or the occupation without one side telling me that Bush lied and this is a some massive neocon world conquering tour conspiracy or the other side questioning my patriotism because I refuse to ignore the Haditha, Abu Ghrab, Gitmo or even just asking if Rumsfeld/Bush/Cheney have any flipping clue on what they are doing… there has to be some middle common ground to work towards… there has to be some way to discuss it without the personal attacks on my character… it gets tiresome and since this has been going on for three flipping years it has become just a pain… if I want to hear how I am wrong from the likes of Malkin, Moore, Hannity, O’Reilly, Coulter, the wannabes thereof or any other person who sees things in absolutes, then there are plenty of other debates which take part of… or I could just ask my wife why she doesn’t want to do a three-way with the cute blonde from next door…
John Redworth
thanks for the advice… I will have to start compiling a list of insults to keep things fresh…
DougJ
Sorry, John, I don’t argue with people who make excessive use of ellipses…
John Redworth
yeah, I am an extremist with ellipses…
RonB
Yeah, but the women drivers have been replaced by IEDs, so be careful what you wish for. I drove those fuckers a hundred times or so in Iraq and its pretty anarchic even sans women drivers. Road lines not painted in a dog’s age, people driving the wrong way on the highway, cloverleafs high as a skyscraper without guardrails…wild times.
DougJ
There’s not. Grow up and start rejecting the Broder hypothesis — that all wisdom is be found in the middle. Our country is run by incompetent, crooked, ideologs, most of whom belong in jail and may still end up there some day.
That’s the truth and if you’re not willing to see it, then roll up an issue of the New Republic and shove it up your ass.
DougJ
I hate to be such a prick, John, but I hate it when people profess to be left of center, then mock the “blame Bush” crowd. He’s the fucking president, and an imperial president at that, and you’re damned right I blame him for Iraq, for the budget deficit, for the response to Katrina, for the various forms of constitution desecration going on, for trying to discredit science, for paying journalists here (and abroad) to prodcue pro-White House propaganda, for outting a secret agent for political retribution, for gutting the CIA by appointing a hack like Hooker Goss to head it up, for calling his political opponents traitors, for shamelessly pandering to religious extremists at every turn, and to summarize, I blame him for what’s happened to the country over the past 5 years, that we’ve gone from united, propserous, and respected to divided, debt-ridden, and despised.
I call that accountability. I don’t know what you, Peter Beinart, and Joe Lieberman call it. And, frankly, I don’t care.
Andrew
Come on Doug, I think there is a lot promise in the moderate position: we could invade only half of Iran, seal off about half of the border, deport half of the Mexicans, and let black and Asian gays get married, but not white ones.
Andrew
And I’d be happy with only $45,000 in my freezer.
Pb
Andrew,
Yeah, the *real* neo-cons know that we’re up to WWIV or WWV or something by now. WWVI in 2008!
ppGaz
Point well taken. My smart-ass joke was ill considered.
Tim F.
People, you know that I won’t censor anybody but this spoof business is exactly what I’m talking about in my post. If it pisses you off to have your own credibility challenged then don’t declare that everybody who you don’t like/disagree with is a spoof. In my opinion it is exactly the same thing.
Cyrus
Heh. Well put. We shouldn’t assume that John Redworth here thinks like this — I think we don’t know enough about him yet to jump down his throat like you did, he seems to be talking about civility more than positions — but there are some people who choose centrism for its own sake, and they’re a big part of the problem. In terms of political results there is often (less often these days, it seems, but anyways) a place for compromise and splitting the difference, but in terms of principles and positions and rhetoric, it’s utterly ridiculous.
If Dobson and Co. ever decide that pi is equal to three, Amy Sullivan and Hillary Clinton and a bunch of other moderates would seriously push for legislating the standard of pi=3.07.
Cue Brian complaining about me calling Hillary Clinton a moderate in 3… 2… 1…
Speaking of whom, if Brian wrote this:
Then either the multiple references to the hasty generalization fallacy in the original post went right over his head, or he chose not to provide examples of what he’s talking about, or else this “concrete evidence of anti-Americanism” in Tim’s rhetoric is just another figment of his imagination.
ppGaz
Must disagree, with all due respect. It is not the same thing. With spoofing, one can never be sure what one is responding to. Good spoofing, I mean, and we have world class spoofing here, gotta give ’em their props. But spoofing it is. Over the last year, I’d reckon we’ve seen a hundred or more handles that are spoof …. maybe more. Some regular names here now (currently, within the last 45 days) are spoof.
Since I am one of those who often gets the “everybody you disagree with is called a spoof” targets, let me present this simple and irrefutable defense: Not true. The handles I call spoof are mostly spoof, and certainly not “everybody I disagree with.” That’s an absurd claim on its face. The list includes everyone who has ever posted here. I will argue with anybody, any time, as you all know. Whereas my spoof list is quite short. And mostly, correct.
LBNL, if a poster’s material looks like spoof, and gets called spoof, in a place where spoof is 20-40% of the traffic on any given day, that’s his problem, not mine.
I put that in bold, you know, for effect. Your posts walk like ducks, quack like ducks, paddle around in the water like ducks, look like ducks? Then I shall call them ducks. Don’t like it? Tough.
canuckistani
You can put me down as one of those wicked “centrists” who are part of the problem. I think when the right wing is in control, I need to push things back to the left. When the pendulum swings too far to the left, I push it back to the right, all the while trying to balance individual and collective rights. Being a centrist does not mean stupid compromises. It’s a pragmatic solution to an otherwise intractable problem.
Of course, being a Canadian centrist is probably like being an American Maoist.
And speaking of Canada, did y’all see how we can catch terrorists without breaking the law?
ppGaz
I think that’s exactly what it means. Do you think that the destruction of liberties is something that should be negotiated, or moderated? That makes you a Whig, and my enemy.
In the battle for liberty, compromises are for those who are willing to trade away MY liberty for THEIR reasons. In short, fuck you, sir.
Andrew
ppGaz, calm down. You should really take the moderate-center position with canuckistani, between embracing him and wanting to kill him, and that is a solid punch in the nuts.
The Easter Bunny
Like that’s something to be proud of. If you moose-worshippers had taken a hard line against terrorism to begin with, Santa would still be alive today.
Ah, why am I even responding to you? You’re obviously a spoof. A real Canuckistani wouldn’t post here – they’re too busy plotting new ways to destroy holiday icons and Christianity so that they can impose mandatory gay marriage.
ppGaz
That might be the best line in the thread!
But anyway, I declare him to be a Liebermantarian.
The dregs of today’s political lanscape.
canuckistani
Well, duh. It’s called multitasking.
Krista
I think you’re correct on that one. Even the farthest-right former member of the Reform Party would be considered centrist in the U.S.
I thought that was a fine bit of work. CSIS, the RCMP, and local police all working together…it was a beautiful thing. But…what now? Our immigration laws are so lopsided. I lived in the same city as a Kosovo Serb who had a job lined up, and was a productive and law-abiding member of the community, and who had to claim sanctuary in a church basement for over 440 days in order to avoid deportation, because the government didn’t believe she’d be in any danger if she had to go back to Kosovo. And yet, there are people living in our country who have known ties to terrorism. How in the hell is it that they got in and are allowed to stay, when this woman was not?
Don
I’m waiting for a rightie response to my personal centrist problem with the war: I WANT MY MONEY BACK.
Freedom for everyone is all well and good, but why should I be paying for it? Go ahead, stipulate the claims of all the pollyannas claiming that everything is going great in Iraq – I’ll go with that for the sake of argument. It’s still a damned expensive endeavor I’m never getting paid back for and it seems like I’m also paying in higher prices at the pump.
Who’s next on the freedom charity train? What other commodities can we drive the price up on while emptying our own pockets?
Larry
The Country is in the middle only on the way to being dragged from one extreme to the other.
canuckistani
Point missed. When George Bush infringes your rights from the right-hand end of the spectrum, you push back. Twenty years from now, when the left are in control and your rights are being violated, you push back the other way.
If I may draw a simple example; when the demand for free speech includes the right to yell fire in a crowded theatre, one’s right to personal safety is infringed and you push back. If, twenty years later, that precedent leads to further infringement of free speech, then you push back the other way.
And no, when politicians from the left embrace the abuses of the right, that is not what I mean by centrism.
And if advocating compromise and tolerance gets me nothing but a “fuck you” and a kick in the nuts, well, good luck with that cultural divide. I can see you’re going to be just fine healing that up.
ppGaz
Spoken like a true Liebermantarian.
Brian
Tim, if you want to get to an understanding, there has to be an acknowledgement of each side’s on-target and off-target points. Neither side is without its missteps that have resulted from ideology gone wild or from blind anger. If I am “dishonest”, I’m willing to listen as to why, but I have have been clear on this blog as to where and why I agree with the Left on the subject of Bush and this war. I strive for an honest balance.
But I also call a spade a spade. Claiming that it’s malicious to call out liberals for being a) pacifist, b) America hating, or c) unwilling to fight, is to dismiss with a wave of your hand years of writings/speeches by a broad array of liberals, using words that cannot be defined other than as belonging to these three categories. It may be Cindy Sheehan, Noam Chomsky, Howard Dean, John Kerry, or Kos talking, but the message that comes out always has a resemblance to any or all of your categories. At least Peter Beinart gets credit from me for taking national security seriously, maybe more seriously than Bush does.
I am loosely conservative, and would easily jump to a Democratic party that resembles that of FDR, Truman, or JFK. Since the Vietnam war, the radical Left has reduced that party to a group of ideologues that I want no association with. And until the party can open itself to people like me, there’s a good chance it’ll keep losing elections, because most voters also call a spade a spade, and will not trust the country to a gang of Kossacks.
Brian
Oh, and for those who wanted that Gore wuote regarding Global Warming, here it is:
You have to first accept his premise that it is a crisis to accept his willingness to stretch the truth to make points for his cause against global warming. I don’t accept it as a crisis, nor do I accept his willingness to stretch the facts in order to get everyone to say “the sky is falling!!!”.
dventimi
I like what I think was the intent of the original post, which is to at least start a careful, critical, and hopefully rational analysis of some terms of political debate. However it was quickly undercut by the off-hand remark that Noam Chomsky (and a few others) hates America, which I think is a careless, uncritical, hopelessly irrational attack of the sort that routinely clouds political debate. Unless Chomsky has ever said or written, “I hate America” or something very much like it, it’s not possible for others to know his personal animus towards or affinity for America. One might claim this is a small point, but I argue it is the whole point, that in political science as in any science, to make any progress one must adhere scrupulously only to conclusions that flow ineluctably from the facts.
Regards,
Dave
DougJ
Brian, there’s hope for you yet. But you’ve got to lose these ideas about a powerful, radical left that exists only in the minds of Fox News watchers (and possibly New Republic readers).
Something else, by the way apropos of Tim’s spoofing comments: try reading Brian’s or Mac’s comments and you’ll see that they’ve become better, more substantive, more original-sounding since the whole “you’re a spoof thing” began. Calling someone a spoof is a relatively inoffensive way of telling them to stop repeating bogus talking points.
Brian
DougJ, my posts, if they’re appearing any different at all, has absolutely nothing to do with being called a “spoof”, a term that’s definition I didn’t even understand until this weekend, even though it’s been used against me for weeks and weeks. It always appeared to me to be a lazy dismissal of my comments, and it turned out I was right.
Also, since you’re paying close attention to comments, note too that ppGaz’s have become less laden with profanity since being called out on it by people like me.
Darrell
There were huge protests in the streets with “Bush = Hitler” and “No blood for oil” signs in the runup to invading Iraq. Others on the left took it even further. The ever so patriotic left on multiple Indymedia sites followed Ted Rall’s lead and smeared Pat Tillman after he was killed
It wasn’t only a ‘small number’ of leftists who jumped on the White Phosphorous non-story as an excuse to smear our troops, it was a large percentage of leftists who did that. Why? Because so many of them really are unpatriotic and hate Bush so much that they are willing to do anything to drag him down, no matter what the cost.
Right after 9/11, Moveon.org, mouthpiece for the left, circulated a petition called for the US to ‘restrain’ our actions in retaliating against the attack. Michael Moore, hero to many on the left, refers to murderous Baathist and Al Queda terrorists as “minutemen” without a word of objection from his fans on the left.
Some on the left have thoughtful honorable objections to the war. But many, many others do not. We see them routinely harass military recruiters on campus, or in other cases, more subtley block ROTC programs from campuses. All the while these aholes pat themselves on the back congratulating each other on their ‘noble’ dissent.
demimondian
Shorter Darrell:
OK, so there never really was a Jackalope. See that made-up one over there?
ppGaz
This is why we know you’re spoof. No intelligent person can get that out of what Gore said. He was talking about how to use the bandwidth in making a presentation, not about overstating the argument.
If I’m teaching a class and I spend an hour on topic A and five minutes on topic B, it isn’t because I want to lie to you about the importance of A. It’s because I know that A takes longer to get and more explaining.
Get outta here man, you are a caricature of yourself now.
ppGaz
And Doug? Stop arguing with yourself and demonstrating your skill at dancing around IP addresses.
ppGaz
You just can’t help yourself, can you, dumbfuck?
You can use me as a typical lefty. I have never visited the moveon site. Never seen it.
ppGaz
Wow, you are really outdoing yourself today.
You are confusing “objection” with “action.” The honorableness of my objection has nothing to do with the honorableness of the action I take. You know, for those of you who never finished eigth grade here.
I oppose interfering with recruitment and ROTC functions, but that doesn’t make my objections more honorable. Or less. It just makes them more or less objectionable, or effective or ineffective.
You blithering idiot. I oppose the war, but not the people who are sent there to fight it. I support them to the greatest possible extent. But like I said, that doesn’t make my opposition “better.”
Darrell
I love how Tim is so enamored with the “relevance” of that post, completely oblivious to the fact that the very programs the left has been screaming are “illegal”, have not been determined to be illegal. There is a legitimate dispute over the legality of those programs which to this point has not been resolved (ie, not yet illegal)
THAT is the point which hasn’t yet sunk into the walnut size brains of so many on the left.
ppGaz
Here’s a point that you’ll never get:
Gross and general surveillance is not acceptable, whether the government can hire lawyers to argue that it’s legal or sorta legal or not.
Finding loopholes and then screwing me over with them is not acceptable government. To you, it obviously is, because you’re a person who thinks that bigotry against gays is okay if a lot of people think it’s okay. So we have to apply the Darrell Principle here.
numbskull
Brian,
You apparently agree with the Fox News interpretation of Gore’s statement. An alternative, and IMO more accurate interpretation was presented at Media Matters:
“In fact, Gore simply said that in order to get people to engage in a discussion of the possible methods of countering global warming, it is appropriate to initially devote more time to outlining the dangers posed by global warming than to discussing possible solutions.”
Tudor-Hart
GOP4Me tried to say :
Every levels? Please name those levels.
Since many rightwingers see every Iraqis as criminal insurgents, I guess Haditha was a success? Funny how you insisted on “liberating” a population that you neocons so quickly associate to terrorists without any exception, including children. (http://michellemalkin.com/archives/2006_05.htm)
A success on every level? Geez, you must be a joke. I guess you are part of this small fraction of brainwashed idiots who still believe there was any connection between Saddam and Bin Laden, between Iraq and 9/11. You must be watching Fox News.
Still, with such a low level of certainty, there was no reasonnable exit plan and nothing planned for the months following a military victory. In doubt, intelligent people try to gather more information. They don’t say “Ah, whatever…We’ll do it and see what happens”. Especially when you are putting so many young people in harm’s way.
Oh but then you did hear about them! How come? You’ve got contacts in Iraq? How many schools so far? And how many were actually destroyed when US troops decided to protect the Ministry of Oil first? (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/16/1050172643895.html)
See previous comment about hospitals.
As for the Iraqi Army, we DO hear about them. Maybe you are just not listening. And we hear that they are “willing” but poorly trained, and will need 5 more years before it can wage war without U.S. military help. And that it lacks basic equipment.(http://www.washtimes.com/national/20060502-110459-2311r.htm)
US losses are down? Maybe on a monthly basis, considering June when we are only 5 days into the month…Actually, there’s been more deaths in April and May than in the 3 previous months. (http://icasualties.org/oif/USChart.aspx)
Who the hell is feeding you bad intel? Italy?
Please don’t use words you know nothing about. Like “objectivity”.
Invest what money, if you don’t mind me asking?
Please explain how Iraq was a threat to your freedom? And please, try using facts for a change.
Oh! So you are in favor of a Police State, “Heil Bush” and that kindda stuff?
BTW, I’m from Canada. Doesn’t look like Cuba too me (and I’ve been to Cuba recently).
You missed the keyword : opposition.
Looks like you are in favor of single-party ruling. Just like fascists and bolcheviks.
So that’s what you base your opinions on? Wild guess and hypothesis?
Ok, let me play too. Imagine how Americans would feel if DUI and drug abuse were considered worst than lying about a blowjob?
(That last paragraph was irony. Had to mention it, since you proved on this very thread that you are not familiar with the concept.)
As for what Americans think, you should look here, here, here and especially here.
DougJ
Also, since you’re paying close attention to comments, note too that ppGaz’s have become less laden with profanity since being called out on it by people like me.
Brian, your posts have gotten better and I think it’s partly because when you used to recite talking points, we mocked you for it. Perhaps you didn’t know what it meant to be called a spoof, but one way or another you knew when you were being called out for using Bush cliches. To your credit, you stopped.
As for ppgaz, his comments always have and always will be laced with profanity. It’s his fucking trademark.
ppGaz
Fuck you.
Tudor-Hart
Darrel,
And why is that? Isn’t it because the Administration is doing everything possible in order to block the investigation?
How dishonest is it to block an investigation, but then to gloat about how there is still a dispute.
In fact, it’s just like blocking scientists from sharing their research on global warming and censuring them, but then pretend that the scientific community is not unanimous on this question…
So I guess Bush can do whatever he wants, as long as he blocks any investigation. Frightening.
Tim F.
Here we have a nice, compact grab bag of the most common logical fallacies that righties use to smear the left. By far the most common is picking somebody at some hilarious extreme – say, Ward Churchill – and then using the accident fallacy to attach him or her to an abstract notion of “the left.” That is a pretty common mistake on your part. Some folks, Darrell for example, take that a step further and rely on the accident–division daily double for extra bogusness: lefties supported communism, therefore leftism supports communism. You are a leftie, therefore you support communism.
Another point really makes me wonder if you actually read anything that I write. When I pointed out that people who oppose Iraq don’t necessarily oppose either war per se or attacking terrorists vigorously, did that not sink in or did you choose to ignore it? Given the hysterical rightwing rhetoric concerning Kosovo this ought to be an easy point to grok. It is also an amazingly convenient point for righties like yourself not to grok but who knows, you could prove me wrong. Maybe sixteen times is the charm.
Those are points that concern rightie rhetoric in general, but everybody has his or her signature rhetorical gimmick. I will illustrate yours from the perspective of washing hair. For the next paragraph I’m you.
[Brian] Look, I understand that a reasonable case can be made for washing your hair and a reasonable person might convince me that it’s a good idea, but look at the people who wash their hair. Hitler washed his hair. Carrot Top washes his hair three or four times a day. A year ago on CNN I saw some hair activists waving signs saying ‘dirty f*cking hippies should die.’ The guy who sold me a shitty life insurance policy had immaculate hair. Given all that it is just very hard for me to take washing your hair very seriously. [/Brian]
I could play the same game with rightwingerism: a surprising number of righties declared that we should nuke Fallujah. Does that make rightwingers emotional children who wouldn’t know the real world if it bit them in the ass? No, it doesn’t. It means that in every large group you will find nutty people who say stupid things and wave extremist signs. If you already don’t want to belong to that group then those people will stand out like black on white. If you want to belong then they’re practically invisible. Basic psychology, illustrated by you.
Finally, you lump Kos, Cindy Sheehan, John Kerry, Noam Chomsky and Howard Dean together as if they make some sort of logical set. Obviously you mean to tar important and unremarkable people by association with the unimportant and bizarre. Let’s say I threw together a list that included the president, Stormfront, Mike Huckabee, Dennis Hastert and Timothy McVeigh. You would probably cry foul and you would be right to do so. In fact, amazingly enough, each member of that list is a different person who has different basic perspectives on the world. Some are reasonable, some are batshit crazy.
Thus endeth the diatribe.
Darrell
Because Bush has a strong legal justification for the ‘illegal’ NSA program
Darrell
I NEVER said or implied that last sentence attributed to me. The left, by and large, did excuse and minimize communist atrocities.. but I never took it the step further and suggested all lefties support communism.
If you have a quote of mine saying otherwise, produce it. Otherwise, show some honor and apologize making that shit up.
John Redworth
Once again… I am only discussing the war and not these other issues… you have no flipping clue on how I feel about these other issues… my feelings towards the President is not of the highest regards and it never has been… believe it or not, I have spent a fair share of my time blaming Bush… but don’t let that get in the way of your rant…
I am discussing the war here and how I feel that the extremes from the left and right make actual discussion on what to do impossible… from being called unAmerican to the aforementioned “Bush=Hitler” folks… I want some sort of resolution as far as Iraq goes… I want Rumsfeld to hump his pasty white ass to the unemployment line… I want answers on why our intelligence was such an incredible failing or if it was fixed to make war the only option… I would love to finally hear how the hell Iraq even counts as part of this global conflict on terror or whateverthehell the new marketing term for it is… how is it at all New Republic of me to want to ignore the fuck stains (how is that ppGaz?) who continue to cry the absolutism of “with us or against us” shit or those that simply place a Nazi armband on a picture of Bush and call him the next Hitler?
BJ is interesting in the fact that they have a range of different opinions instead of the typical our way only shit in which anyone who disagrees must be a troll… according to the LGF fucks, I am a traitor and terrorist lover… to some of the folks at Huff, I am neocon wannabe and a Bush enabler… these characterizations of me is insane…
Scary as it seems, but I do agree with a number of the issues you mentioned and probably even more, but instead of giving me a chance you have gang-raped me as if my opinion means nothing while your opinion is key… fuck that and it shows the fucked way people react… you say there is no common ground on Iraq then fine… you must want to “cut and run” if not then you want to stick it out until the “job is done…” or maybe follow the Ted Nugent plan and just Nagasaki them… which one do you choose? Those are the options placed on the table without middle ground…
ppGaz
Thus ended Darrell’s last tendril of respectability here.
Darrell the Homophobe / Darrell the Slanderer maintained his innocence right up until they put the hood over his head.
Even then, from under the cloth, came the muffled cry, “I never said that!”
A memorial service for Darrell’s gonads will be held this Saturday at the Grapevine Lake, Texas Wal Mart Food Court.
Darrell
Or for a whole host of other reasons? I mean, after Saddam had a 12 year run of repeatedly violating his 1991 terms of surrender, can you believe Bush actually did something about it? And with overwhelming bi-partisan Congressional support.
rs
Noam Chomsky is anti-Semitic? Thanks for your contribution toward making any future use of the label meaningless,Par R.
Nash
On spoofs
I think it is safest to proceed publicly as if a comment is not a spoof for the following reasons:
Historically, the motivations behind posting spoof comments seem to have been either to entertain, to educate, or (in a variation of attention-seeking behavior) to antagonize. The spoof as entertainment thing has been done (to death). Rarely is it done with aplomb and the requisite level of ability to make it worth the reading. Hell, most blog topposts are not done well enough to make them worth the reading, but that’s an addiction I’m unwilling to address here.
The spoof as education thing (which in the hands of the truly gifted is also carried off in an entertaining fashion, see Cordrey, Colbert, etc.) has also been overdone. Spoof as education is a form of sarcasm–and sarcasm is an acre of humor which gets mossy quickly. Frankly, Colbert isn’t a funny to me as he used to be…I grow tired of the schtick, even though I know there is meaning behind the madness. Something that gets old in the telling ends up not getting told–meaning, it no longers works as education. So, it’s a waste and I sweep it, whether fairly or not, into the final category:
The spoof as antagonism/attention seeking. I’d suggest this is far and away the predominant form of spoof commenting here and at most other political blogs. This form of spoof is purely destructive to a thread. Whether it is desirable or not, so many of these discussions become zero-sum discussions and in such an black/white world, spoofs no longer have the capacity to entertain or educate, but rather, they simply annoy and derail.
I have been thinking about this for a long time and still feel that the best response to apparent spoofery is no response that takes a form of voicing your suspicions. If you can exercise your restraint, but a colleague cannot, the next best response is to avoid joining in on the speculations. In fact, if an apparent spoof sends a fellow commentor over the edge, I’d suggest you quietly cluck cluck to yourself and let it pass. That will be one fewer comment wedged in between comments that might actually be of interest.
I don’t really care whether a post by a “Brian” or a “GOP4ME” or an incarnation of “DougJ” (in an earlier life, right, Doug?) is a spoof. All the motivations for spoofing are lost on me anymore, and I hope, someday for you as well. In their place, we are left with comments that we can take at face value and choose whether to respond or simply ignore. I’ve found that by taking this attitude into my comment reading, I’ve been able to skim, read through, skip over and ignore much that used to be able to get a rise out of me. Much of what has been said in this very thread that could be thought of as spoofery has not be worthy of any response…but that’s just me talking and using too many ellipses.
Tudor-Hart
Since the justification is so “strong”, why not submit the question to a full inquiry? Then he’d be able to use the favorable conclusions to put this matter to rest during this most important election year…
With such a “strong” legal justification, Bush could only gain from a full inquiry. And yet…
Nash
So.
I backed/demanded our invasion of Afghanistan and feel we have an unfinished job there yet. I didn’t have the resources of the CIA, nor those of the intelligence agencies of all of the other nations said to agree that Iraq had WMD, and yet I didn’t support the invasion of Iraq, because I had read enough press accounts in such services as Knight-Ridder and in such outlets as Christian Science Monitor and even, egads, the NYT and WaPo that I was aware that there were serious doubts that Hussein retained WMD capabilities. I felt the prudent thing to do was what we were doing in Jan 2003–riddle the country with inspectors looking for bad stuff until we knew whether the doubts were correct or not. I felt strongly then (and not one pro-Iraq war person has ever explained away this mystery to my satisfaction) that if we needed to invade Iraq, it would be because we knew they had WMD, not because we weren’t sure if they had WMD and it would be AFTER the inspectors had completed their work. Of course, this presupposes that I also felt that even if Hussein had WMD, he had no way to harm us with them directly (how very provincial of me) and that a mid-March 2003 invasion was on its face proof that our invasion was arbitrary and desired by our political leadership. It was, in the vernacular, a war of choice, and my choice was not to agree with it.
So.
In the past, I have been known to vote for candidates from the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, and an assortment of unaffiliated candidates. I’ve voted for more Democrats than Republicans, but I am not even close to a one-party voter.
Having been called a “traitor” and a “pacifist” here and elsewhere by self-professed conservative Republicans has drastically changed my voting behavior. Since the first time that happened, I have not voted for anyone from the Republican Party–something I did with no little frequency before I was called a “traitor” here.
My own representative to the US House of Representatives is a personal friend. I’ve known her for almost 12 years and she is a good person and means well. But because people belonging to her party called me a “traitor” because I chose to question my country’s choices, I voted against her in the last general election and I will again this fall when she runs again. She knows this and tells me that she understands my position.
I think words should have consequences. They do with me.
Brian
Actualy, this is a fair respresentation of the Left’s rhetorical bombast against Bush and the War. It covers the political, the academic, the elite, and the citizen. Maybe this can and will change, but I have no Tim McVeigh or Unabomber on the liberal set, so I think mine is a more reasonable set, or representation, than your “righty” list.
As for your faux Brian-logic on hair washing and fascists or criminals, I think that they are mutually exclusive. I won’t be caught confusing hair washing with the extermination of Jews. However, liberals cannot be separated so easily from the rhetorical bombast they’ve been willingly associated with since 2000 (some would argue since Vietnam ended).
Am I missing something?
Darrell
I think it’s fair to say that those on the left who have equated Bush with Hitler and his supporters with being fascists, in general, far outnumber those on the right who accuse lefties of being traitors.
“Clap harder, clap louder for our Dear Leader!” [/leftist whackjob]
ppGaz
We’ll look forward to your White Paper on this.
GOP4Me
I agree with you on spoofing, but because you choose to equate me with this phenomenon and ignore my posts accordingly, I’ll extend you the same favor in the future.
You write too much anyway, and you sound like a Saddamite. The Democratic Party is riddled with Saddamites and sodomites, and most of the sensible moderates have already left it for good.
Christopher
Wonderful. So now you’ve realized that people on the Left -AND- on the Right are human. It’s unfortunate that so many on both such sides fail to realize this as well.
My only advice is this: do no treat “semantics” as the only argument for one side or the other. Just because so many arguments between human beings boils down into semantics doesn’t mean that there aren’t facts (or a lack of facts) to be argued. There’s a huge well of information being opened up on the WMD Files site… more and more information is coming into the open about WMDs that may indeed have existed, and al Qaeda connections may have in fact existed…
I say “may” for both of those last two points because I’m not here to argue them, but point out the fact that despite all of this semantics-mongering that anyone does in any lengthy heated debate, there -are- valid, credible points on both sides of the debate, and when we’re sitting over here in North America watching these things happen, it’s impossible to know everything, and know what’s what.
peace
ppGaz
Excuse me, my dentures seem to have shot across the room.
GOP4Me
What does this mean, Gandalf?
ppGaz
Mummah gummah lummah humma summa wumma. Gummadammuh!
Tim F.
Brian, with a less perceptive commentator I might consider that a response. You’re smarter than that.
Darrell, 5/16/2006:
By putting it in the second person you have expanded the set of people who defended communism to include the person to whom you are talking. If that is not what you meant, and you use this rhetorical construct frequently, then it seems like a very convenient mistake. “Leftie” or not I have no more obligation to apologize for communist lefties like David Horowitz than you do to apologize for Stormfront and Tim McVeigh.
Why? That doesn’t sound fair at all.
GOP4Me
Thanks, I guess.
Sorry, I didn’t realize you wore dentures on your fingers…
Darrell
If you agree that’s the case, then explain how in the world my use of term “left” or “lefties'” sympathies (by and large at the time) toward communism in any way justifies this leap on your part:
So Tim, by this logic, anytime you refer to attitudes and opinions attributed to ‘war defenders’ or ‘conservatives’, you must therefore be refering to every single person who defended the war or who identifies as a conservative without exception. Because that is precisely the standard you dishonestly applied to me.
My quote you highlight was in response to gratefulcub, who often tries to argue that the left’s historical positions were morally superior to that of conservatives. In that context, it was entirely reasonable to point out how horribly wrong the left had been (generally speaking) historically in minimizing and excusing the atrocities of communism. Examples of such excuse making were given, and many more available.
Doesn’t mean that ALL leftists to a man excused or minimized the suffering and murder under communism, especially the ones too young to remember before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
ppGaz
If ever a shoe fit, Darrell, this is it.
You been pwned, Barney.
Darrell needs more power! Pat! Pat! Pat! Will YOU help Darrell rocket out of this jam?
Pat! Pat! Pat! Pat! Pat! Pat!
Darrell
No? There were 10’s of thousands of protesters here in the US holding ‘Bush = Hitler’ or ‘No war for oil’ signs during protest marches. That’s not counting all the many, many liberals referring to Iraq war defenders as ‘fascists’ and ‘little Eichmans’. You’d be hard-pressed to come up with much more than a dozen or two examples of those on the right throwing out ‘traitor’ against the left, except in cases where the the leftists really deserved the ‘traitor’ label.
ppGaz
So why don’t you go and pester them, asshole? What the FUCK are you doing here bothering us? Do you see any of those signs around here?
Fucking jerk.
Mark
Brian thinks it bad that a person would choose to criticize his/her own country before criticizing another. But elementary ethics tells me that, if a person wants his words to have consequence, he would opt to critique his own country, rather than another, because a) he is complicit in his country’s actions and b) as a citizen, his words have leverage. Viewed in this light, it would be morally derelict not to criticize one’s own country, before critiquing another. Of course, one can think of exceptions, but, in general, ethics seems to require that we expend the bulk of critical efforts on our own country, rather than on another.
What say you, Brian?
ppGaz
I don’t criticize this country. I criticize the government. The government is not the country.
The country was founded on the idea that the government should be criticized, early and often. These motherfuckers are not taking that away.
John Redworth
I wouldn’t say that this is a fair thought since I have heard probably equal to if not more than my share of “traitors” as compared to the “Bush is Hitler” crap… but that is probably due to the company/media I keep… however, even if the headcount was what you said, the amount of “serious” conservatives/republicans or those with some pull/power that have questioned the patriotism of those on the left is much greater than the opposite…
Darrell
First, you underestimate the pull/power of the left.
Second, with all their “pull”, tell us how many citizens were rounded up on traitor charges by Republicans? And do you recognize that those thousands who held signs (as well as their non-protester sympathizers) equating our actions in Iraq with Nazism and/or fascism, deserve to have their patriotism questioned? Or do you believe their behavior was honorable dissent?
Mark
In one (very important) sense, ppGaz, you’re correct. To give an example, the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq was exactly that–the decision of the Bush administration. In no sense could it be said that the American people (“the country”) elected to go to war. Indeed, it can’t even be said that the country willingly elected to continue the war, since neither candidate in ’04 made it his promised policy to do otherwise. The country voted to continue the war, because the country had no choice.
But this objection overlooks the fact that the country enabled the administration then, just as it enables it now. The war is “our” responsibility, making it fair to say that Iraq is “our country’s” war.
What this points to, though, is the very vulnerability of the mystical notion of “country.”
Darrell
The decision of an elected President, backed by an overwhelming majority of a democratically elected Congress who authorized the Iraq invasion.
Darrell
In addition to electing the officials who decided to go to war, according to this CNN poll, 73% of all Americans supported the Iraq war in April, 2003. I hope this new information is useful
Mark
Darrell doesn’t know what “elect” means.
Inadvertantly, though, he is providing evidence for my second point, that the “we” enabled the administration to go to war.
ppGaz
Backed by a deceived, manipulated majority.
That was then, this is now.
Recent mainstream poll story.
Nice try, Darrell. The lying piece of shit manipulates people into going along with a bad idea, and then you come along 4 years later to claim that …. what? …. we should excuse him because so many people agreed with him?
We should excuse you for being a bigot because “most people” think like you do?
WTF? Do you actually have an idea of your own?
If not, why are you posting here? Why do they let you post here?
RonB
And partially craven, to be fair…
SimonR
GOP4me. It is with some interest I look at the rosy picture that is painted by yourself. Of course not backed up with fact. Things are not improving. May: deadliest month for Iraqi secuity forces and civilian death’s:1128. It is increasing each month. 2nd deadlist month for US forces this year: 79 dead. Number of readied iraqi police and troops who can operate without assistance = zero.
Basra the supposedly good story of a town under control: now chaos: 9 British troops killed in May. Previous month: 1. Still averaging 45 US troops wounded and not returned to battle within 72 hours – per week. Reconstruction has ground to halt, money has been siphoned off to corrupt US companies, and iraq politicians, and none is left.
Keep your head in the sand if you will…
John Redworth
I stand by what I said since it is easy to point to people like Hannity, Coulter, O’Reilly, Malkin, Savage, Limbaugh, Rove, Laura Ingram etc have made comments that those who oppose the war are basically traitors… these a bit higher profile and have a bit more pull than some kid holding up a sign in Seattle…
I don’t see the connection… you are trying to stretch the thought in to something irrational (arresting citizens) as compared to making public statements to the effect that people who disagree with the war are unpatriotic, un-American and traitors…
I don’t know if you noticed, I have said more than a few times here that sort of talk from the extreme left is annoying… this is why Doug and others call me a moderate for not jumping on the “Bush = Hitler” shit… but to answer your question, yes they do deserve to have their partiotism questioned to a degree but no different than those on the right that want to ignore the realities of our policies in Iraq…
Mark
John Redworth says, in response to GOP4me, “yes they do deserve to have their partiotism questioned to a degree but no different than those on the right that want to ignore the realities of our policies in Iraq…”
This makes no sense. If a person chooses to ignore the realities of Iraq, that says nothing about their love of country. All it speaks to is their competence. Similarly, if a person equates Bush with Hitler, this is a reflection on their competence, not on their love of country.
Patriotism and competence: not synonymous.
John Redworth
Mark…
I stand corrected and yes, your idea makes a helluvalot more sense about it… I fell in to the trap in which competence and patriotism were synonymous… you are correct and my viewpoint has changed… thank you!
DANEgerus
Fine… I was against Afghanistan… until we went.
Fine… I was against Iraq… until we went.
But the hystrionic anti-Bush attitudes out there are not factually based. You have noticed the MSMs have managed to demonize Bush on the economy, which has never been better, on a hurricane, that missed the whiners(D) in New Orleans to hit the (R)’s in Mississippi & Alabama.
You don’t really think any of this is about the truth?
If we hadn’t gone to Iraq I ‘believe’, I ‘accuse’, actually I know… that every single Bush-basher would be squealing the identical arguments against Afghanistan that they are using against Iraq.
If you check… you’ll notice a few slipped out.
The (D)’s even taunt about ‘Bin Laden’, in response to any good news from Iraq, which takes nerve since Clinton(D) let the boy go twice.
Because it isn’t about being ‘against’ a police action.
And if we didn’t go to Iraq… WHERE would we have gone instead? WHAT would we have done?
The war was over in weeks… the debate is about whether it is advantageous to use our forward deployment in Iraq to pressure Syria, Iran & Saudi Arabia to back down from supporting terrorism world wide.
That is why our boys are in the meat-grinder… and we’d win it sooner if we were tougher on the Sunni elite that is sore after losing 5 centuries of minority rule.
That forward deployment will not result in the creation of a democracy… it will result in the creation of a bureaucracy. A stagnant bureaucratic pit of indecision that will make Iraq no threat to anybody for a generation.
Oh… and just for the record.
Saddam was trying, Libya’s disarmed, Pakistan’s exposed, North Korea and Iran both confronted and so I was wrong…
We were right to go to Afghanistan and Iraq.
Bush postponed nuclear proliferation for a number of nations for decades…
…and put us on Iran’s door.
DANEgerus
To support my claims:
Nuancy.v.Nuancy
Where I link to NRO, Dan Darling, Jeff Goldstein and Quin Hillyer for support.
Not balanced… just… right.