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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

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A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

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Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

If you are in line to indict donald trump, stay in line.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

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Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

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You are here: Home / Last word from the League

Last word from the League

by DougJ|  February 10, 20114:29 pm| 114 Comments

This post is in: Blogospheric Navel-Gazing, Good News For Conservatives

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Suck on this, Balloon-Juicers, especially me.

I think the response her at OG has been far more thoughtful that the glib original question merited.

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Previous Post: « My Own Personal Thought Experiment
Next Post: Bald ambition »

Reader Interactions

114Comments

  1. 1.

    Zifnab

    February 10, 2011 at 4:34 pm

    Hey, you said you liked LOG specifically because they were prone to spats of reasonableness and thoughtful commentary. Dan just proved you right.

    I think everybody wins here.

  2. 2.

    General Stuck

    February 10, 2011 at 4:35 pm

    Don’t know why you all bother with those noodle headed frat boys.

  3. 3.

    mr. whipple

    February 10, 2011 at 4:35 pm

    I started into that long-winded response but began to nod off. Brevity is a virtue.

  4. 4.

    Erik Vanderhoff

    February 10, 2011 at 4:37 pm

    Can I have my ten minutes back?

  5. 5.

    DougJ®

    February 10, 2011 at 4:39 pm

    @Zifnab:

    I thought his comment had a whiff, maybe just a whiff albeit, of “I am aware of all internet traditions”.

  6. 6.

    Chyron HR

    February 10, 2011 at 4:40 pm

    I think the response her at OG

    I think a child has been left behind.

  7. 7.

    Bulworth

    February 10, 2011 at 4:41 pm

    far more thoughtful that than the glib original question

    fixed

  8. 8.

    Alex S.

    February 10, 2011 at 4:43 pm

    Reading the thread and the comments over there, I get the impression that these people have never heard of the Age of Enlightenment.

  9. 9.

    matoko_chan

    February 10, 2011 at 4:43 pm

    wallah….you are the Master Troll.
    may i touch the hem of your garment?

    do you not all see….this is the New Improved DougJ trollskill set…..he has moved up the evolutionary gradient from Redstate and PW to LoOG….he trolled those conservitards exquistely.
    i bow to the Master.

  10. 10.

    PGE

    February 10, 2011 at 4:43 pm

    Why would only an unreasonable person trust one’s ideological compatriots (whom you know to have expended far more effort into understanding a given issue than you have) more than one trusts a group of self-appointed experts whom one has never encountered and who you know to have a vastly different set of priorities than you?

    1) it’s laughable to pretend that someone with a PhD in one of the hard sciences is “self-appointed”

    2) To answer the question: when the “set of priorities” that is so different from one’s own is specifically to gain an understanding of the workings of the physical world, only an unreasonable person would think their ideology trumps that.

  11. 11.

    freelancer

    February 10, 2011 at 4:44 pm

    I knew I forgot to reject Stalin today! Goddamnit, they win.

  12. 12.

    morzer

    February 10, 2011 at 4:46 pm

    Looks like the LOOGies are running their own asylum, as usual. Though why DougJ bothers with such small fry is a bit of a mystery.

  13. 13.

    RSA

    February 10, 2011 at 4:46 pm

    Also from the OG post:

    Likewise, I do not see how it is the mark of an inherently unreasonable person to trust his interpretation of a holy book over the product of the scientific method.

    Maybe I’m just nitpicking, but I wonder how the word “reasonable” has come to be so different from its origin in “reason”.

  14. 14.

    geg6

    February 10, 2011 at 4:46 pm

    @Chyron HR: @Bulworth:

    Glibertarians: Spelling, grammar, and sentence structure, how do they work?

  15. 15.

    morzer

    February 10, 2011 at 4:47 pm

    @freelancer:

    Don’t forget, that has to be public rejection, with flagellation and a hair shirt, er…comrade.

  16. 16.

    Mark S.

    February 10, 2011 at 4:47 pm

    Why would only an unreasonable person trust one’s ideological compatriots (whom you know to have expended far more effort into understanding a given issue than you have) more than one trusts a group of self-appointed experts whom one has never encountered and who you know to have a vastly different set of priorities than you?

    Because who is to say Rush Limbaugh doesn’t know just as much as a bunch of “self-appointed experts” with fancy abbreviations after their names?

    Likewise, I do not see how it is the mark of an inherently unreasonable person to trust his interpretation of a holy book over the product of the scientific method.

    Then you’re an idiot.

  17. 17.

    Tom Hilton

    February 10, 2011 at 4:47 pm

    Well, I guess that settles it then.

  18. 18.

    DougJ®

    February 10, 2011 at 4:48 pm

    @morzer:

    Because we have a blogger in common with them!

    I think my questions did serve a purpose, at least for me: I am definitely going to read OTB more, jury’s still out on LGO.

  19. 19.

    trollhattan

    February 10, 2011 at 4:48 pm

    I don’t know how to interpret climate data, and honestly have neither the time nor inclination to bone up enough to have a truly informed opinion. On the other hand, as luck would have it, my father is both a brilliant scientist and skeptical about AGW for a variety of reasons.

    Cripes, what a tool. Yes, daddy’s brilliant on accounta finishin’ skul and awl. But wait, brilliant scientist/brilliant surgeon…hmmm.

    You know, I’m a rather brilliant surgeon. Perhaps I can help you with that hump.
    __
    What hump?

  20. 20.

    geg6

    February 10, 2011 at 4:49 pm

    @RSA:

    Likewise, I do not see how it is the mark of an inherently unreasonable person to trust his interpretation of a holy book over the product of the scientific method.

    Likewise, I do not see how obvious idiots like this one manage to feed and dress themselves in the morning.

  21. 21.

    morzer

    February 10, 2011 at 4:50 pm

    @DougJ®:

    And we have oxygen in common with everyone. Honestly, the LOOG are a nothing blog, and unless you want to set up as some sort of idiot grand inquisitor there’s nothing to be gained by conducting a survey of the obscure imbeciles of this world.

  22. 22.

    trollhattan

    February 10, 2011 at 4:53 pm

    @RSA:

    My car was designed by John the Baptist; likewise, the last jet I rode in was first sketched by Mary Magdalene (but further developed by a crack team of apostles).

  23. 23.

    freelancer

    February 10, 2011 at 4:55 pm

    @RSA:

    Agreed. This is the stupidest argument I’ve read all week:

    Likewise, I do not see how it is the mark of an inherently unreasonable person to trust his interpretation of a holy book over the product of the scientific method. Faith is experienced, and it is experienced personally in different ways by different people of different religions. The scientific method, for the most part, is not experienced in recognizable ways by many people. Would only someone who is inherently unreasonable trust their faith as actually experienced by them over a product of the scientific method?

    People don’t understand science, so for unreasonable people, faith is just a different way of “knowing” stuff, even if it’s not empirical, it’s just as good but not the same. So there.

  24. 24.

    asiangrrlMN

    February 10, 2011 at 4:57 pm

    You know, I never read the LOOG before E.D. started writing here. From the little excerpts I’ve seen, I am not bookmarking it. This whole smug pat-ourselves-on-the-back-while-wearing-a-smoking-jacket shtick is just unbearable.

  25. 25.

    Cackalacka

    February 10, 2011 at 4:58 pm

    This is rich; I’ve followed a couple responses to DougJ’s gauntlet-laying.

    The fact that he cites Ken at Popehat is a rich counterpoint to his counter-Loogie’s retorts earlier this week.

    The LOOGs basically double down and offer up a serious of half-baked/patronizing/non-relevant-even-in-the-tangent retorts.

    Ken eloquently spells out his reluctance to science and replies “So what?”

    The LOOGs see how the pros do it, and mimic a new retort.

    It’s like the monkeys in the beginning of 2001, where Popehat is the monolith, and these LOOGs are the monkeys, and DougJ’s relevant premise that flies over their heads, are the antelope bones.

  26. 26.

    PGE

    February 10, 2011 at 5:00 pm

    Faith is experienced, and it is experienced personally in different ways by different people of different religions…Would only someone who is inherently unreasonable trust their faith as actually experienced by them over a product of the scientific method?

    Hallucinations are also experiened, and in different ways by different people. Would only someone who is inherently unreasonable trust their hallucinations as actually experienced by them over a product of the scientific method?

    Answer: Yes.

  27. 27.

    Guster

    February 10, 2011 at 5:00 pm

    @freelancer: That’s actually a pretty cogent presentation of the moderate right: “What I feel is precisely as valid as what the evidence indicates is true.”

    The extreme right, of course, thinks: “What I feel is far more valid than what the evidence indicates is true.”

  28. 28.

    morzer

    February 10, 2011 at 5:00 pm

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Yeah, they are basically the Younger Dana Milbanks, but without his tenuous reporting chops.

  29. 29.

    Carnacki

    February 10, 2011 at 5:01 pm

    @geg6: Perhaps it is a “free market grammar” we don’t understand because of our socialist grammar?

  30. 30.

    Zam

    February 10, 2011 at 5:02 pm

    Does anyone else get the feeling that libertarian skepticism of global warming is due to the fact that it basically requires a non-private sector solution? Since the fix would overturn their free market purity it can’t possibly exist because the free markets are never wrong.

  31. 31.

    asiangrrlMN

    February 10, 2011 at 5:02 pm

    @morzer: Someone yesterday (JGabriel, I believe) called it a sausage fest. Do they even allow women to comment?

  32. 32.

    Mark S.

    February 10, 2011 at 5:04 pm

    I certainly haven’t read every thread on this subject, but a common theme seems to be “Yes, the planet has gotten warmer in the last 100 years, but it is still doubtful that humans are doing it.” Maybe, but pumping trillions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year probably has some effect, doesn’t it?

  33. 33.

    dmsilev

    February 10, 2011 at 5:05 pm

    @freelancer: Really? They said that? Wow.

    Quick question for anyone who claims that faith and science exist on the same level: When you get sick, do you (a) pray for health or (b) visit a doctor?

    dms

  34. 34.

    Judas Escargot

    February 10, 2011 at 5:06 pm

    Just read through the comments section over there. Never been before. And they call you folks smug??? (Very pretty site, though).

    “Yeah, my dad’s a wicked smart scientist and doesn’t believe in AGW for reasons I’ll allude to but not bother to explain or defend. So there. Nyah.”

    Anyway, a snippet (italics mine, FYWP be willing):

    the rest of us have little choice but to turn to sources we trust, and when those sources conflict with each other, then we will have little choice but to succumb to the conclusions of the source we trust more.

    Trust == feelings. So, once again, it’s all about the fee-fees: In the face of conflicting sources, just choose the source you trust more! Conflict resolved!

    Note to conservatives: The universe could not possibly care less about what you believe, think, “know”, profess or feel. Your feelings evolved on the plains of Africa some 1-2 million years ago, with roots deep in your mammalian brain going much further back than that. The atmosphere doesn’t care about your feelings. Your DNA doesn’t care about your feelings. Mathematics, physics, chemistry, all of it— they do not care about (and have no use for) your feelings.

    Reality (whatever that may be) does not re-order itself into any arbitrary shape of your choosing, just because you feel it must be so.

  35. 35.

    morzer

    February 10, 2011 at 5:06 pm

    @asiangrrlMN:

    I rather suspect that intelligent women wouldn’t waste time on the LOOGie Fratboy Jihad. But I am sure the cigar smoke is lovely.

  36. 36.

    lawnorder

    February 10, 2011 at 5:07 pm

    “Coz mah daddy said so!”

    Who can argue with such brilliant well thought out – adult – answer ? Face it guys we at BJ are mere amateurs.

    Next on LBOOG, why playing with yourself makes you blind and how not taking an umbrella when you are going out wil scar you for life.

  37. 37.

    Mark S.

    February 10, 2011 at 5:07 pm

    @PGE:

    It reminds me of this:

    Don’t mock me my friend. It’s a condition of mental divergence. I find myself on the planet Ogo, part of an intellectual elite, preparing to subjugate the barbarian hordes on Pluto. But even though this is a totally convincing reality for me in every way, nevertheless Ogo is actually a construct of my psyche. I am mentally divergent, in that I am escaping certain unnamed realities that plague my life here. When I stop going there, I will be well. Are you also divergent, friend?

    Who’s to say?

  38. 38.

    eemom

    February 10, 2011 at 5:07 pm

    henceforth you shall be known as A Glib Writer At Balloon Juice.

    Srsly dude — don’t want to speak out of turn but I fear there is something bordering on the pathological in your obsession with arguing with idiots. Appears you just can’t quit them.

  39. 39.

    DougJ®

    February 10, 2011 at 5:07 pm

    @Zam:

    Does anyone else get the feeling that libertarian skepticism of global warming is due to the fact that it basically requires a non-private sector solution?

    That is why I was curious to read what they would say about it.

  40. 40.

    trollhattan

    February 10, 2011 at 5:10 pm

    @Zam:

    Yup, the really verbose can’t help but warn of empowering the UN, gummint takeover of our energy sector and the like. Like that would be a Bad Thing.

    “In Massey and BP We Trust.”

  41. 41.

    Poopyman

    February 10, 2011 at 5:10 pm

    Doug, I want you to promise us that this is the last word on the LOOGies, because I really don’t need to read this crap here at BJ. I can just check the scrawl in the men’s room down the hall.

  42. 42.

    asiangrrlMN

    February 10, 2011 at 5:11 pm

    @morzer: LOOGie. I am immature enough to find that amusing. And, I’m immature enough to wonder what would happen if their orderly pipe-and-fireplace meetings got interrupted by some rowdy, raucous, intelligent ordinary ladies.

  43. 43.

    Ash Can

    February 10, 2011 at 5:15 pm

    Would only someone who is inherently unreasonable trust their faith as actually experienced by them over a product of the scientific method?

    He keeps using this word, “reasonable.” I do not think it means what he thinks it means.

  44. 44.

    DougJ®

    February 10, 2011 at 5:16 pm

    @Poopyman:

    It is.

  45. 45.

    morzer

    February 10, 2011 at 5:17 pm

    @asiangrrlMN:

    A mass-self-soiling and calls for the porters to remove these indecorous intruders. In the name of free speech and libertarian first principles, of course.

  46. 46.

    dms

    February 10, 2011 at 5:17 pm

    You know, this is all crap. Saying that people are, for the most part, unfamiliar with the scientific method is astounding to me. Has our educational system fallen this far?

    It’s been decades since I took a science course (college biology and chemistry), but if I recall correctly, one of the major tenets and methods of the scientific method is to prove a theory by specifically attempting to DISPROVE the theory.

    The scientific point isn’t to see a burning bush and assume that GOD did it because that’s how you have experienced your “faith”; the scientific method would start with the theory that GOD did it, and then try to disprove that theory, by postulating other ways the bush might have started burning, and then trying to “recreate” those ways.

  47. 47.

    asiangrrlMN

    February 10, 2011 at 5:20 pm

    @morzer: So in other words, it would be so fucking worth it.

  48. 48.

    freelancer

    February 10, 2011 at 5:21 pm

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Personally, just in terms of names commentariats call themselves, not actual content of discussion, I’m partial to Radley Balko’s “Agitatortots”. That little bit of wordplay kills me.

  49. 49.

    Donald G

    February 10, 2011 at 5:23 pm

    Doug, there’s a reason they’re the League of ORDINARY Gentlemen.

    1.) Alan Moore owns “the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”, and…

    2.) Mark Gatiss and company are “the League of Gentlemen”.

    The LOOG had to differentiate themselves somehow. :-)

  50. 50.

    Marmot

    February 10, 2011 at 5:23 pm

    @PGE: I’ve been looking for that paragraph! It’s us-versus-them rationale at its most fancy.

    Awesome.

    Why would only an unreasonable person trust one’s ideological compatriots (whom you know to have expended far more effort into understanding a given issue than you have) more than one trusts a group of self-appointed experts whom one has never encountered and who you know to have a vastly different set of priorities than you?

  51. 51.

    gwangung

    February 10, 2011 at 5:23 pm

    OK. Guess there are no intelligent folks on Team Conservative.

    Yeesh. What immature claptrap in the responses.

  52. 52.

    Roger Moore

    February 10, 2011 at 5:25 pm

    @Guster:

    The extreme right, of course, thinks: “What I feel want to be true is far more valid than what the evidence indicates is true.”

    FTFY.

  53. 53.

    morzer

    February 10, 2011 at 5:25 pm

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Let’s just say, their commentators are now trying to get the witless Robert “To the right of Franco” Cheeks to write a guest post on.. demons.

  54. 54.

    freelancer

    February 10, 2011 at 5:28 pm

    @dms:

    Well the OP missed the freaking point between “reasonable” and “unreasonable” people being analogous to “scientific” people vs “faith-based” people.

    Uhhh, Human Beings are, all of us, irrational! The Scientific Method is just a way of error-correcting for that goofy, messy bias when we investigate the Universe to find the truth. Faith is saying, “I’m predisposed to think the answer is B, no matter what.” Science educates us, faith becomes a wall you have to demolish to learn anything outside it’s scope of baseless claims.

  55. 55.

    morzer

    February 10, 2011 at 5:29 pm

    @Donald G:

    What was wrong with “The Libertarian Little Leaguers”?

  56. 56.

    asiangrrlMN

    February 10, 2011 at 5:30 pm

    @freelancer: That’s awesome! Yes. I love that kind of wordplay as well. If only it weren’t served with such a heaping of smug crap attitude.

    @morzer: Oooooh, let me! Let me! They should have me blog there. Ha.

    P.S. I seem to recall that m_c got banned from LOOG. We could actually have something in common!

    ETA: morzer, how are you doing? You completely healed yet?

  57. 57.

    morzer

    February 10, 2011 at 5:32 pm

    @asiangrrlMN:

    You have nothing in common with Tokie! She’s a gibbering nut-bar with pathological self-aggrandizement tendencies.

    You, on the other hand, write clearly and intelligently, have a sense of humor, know how many beans make five, and are in the definitely cool category.

  58. 58.

    morzer

    February 10, 2011 at 5:34 pm

    @asiangrrlMN:

    I’m good, and feeling ready for the fray. I’ve even been denounced by Stuck as a firebagger, which ought to be good for some sort of citation when the revolution comes.

    Now, if the Dolphins could just get their O-line sorted out, and I could finally get all the fun ideas I have down in sellable fiction form….

  59. 59.

    asiangrrlMN

    February 10, 2011 at 5:42 pm

    @morzer: Heh on the firebagger bit. Football? You’re speaking of football? Do you not watch the baseball? And, thanks for the compliments. I was just marveling that if I were to be banned from LOOG, I would have that in common with m_c.

  60. 60.

    SRW1

    February 10, 2011 at 5:48 pm

    Likewise, I do not see how it is the mark of an inherently unreasonable person to trust his interpretation of a holy book over the product of the scientific method.

    Dude, that makes you strong in faith, and, more importantly, weak in reason. And the latter kind of is the mark of an inherently unreasonable person. Where along this argument do we loose you?

  61. 61.

    morzer

    February 10, 2011 at 5:50 pm

    @asiangrrlMN:

    I’ve got an alter ego working on getting banned right now. So far, he’s caused some enjoyable conniptions among the Libertarian Little Leaguers.

    Baseball? Pah! Anyway, I live in Boston, so no chance of a real baseball team showing up soon.

    *ducks and runs*

  62. 62.

    asiangrrlMN

    February 10, 2011 at 5:52 pm

    @morzer: Ka-POW! Grumble grumble grumble. Mumble mumble mumble. If you see “Delicate Lotus Blossom” commenting at LOOG any time soon, you’ll know I’ve infiltrated the boys’ club.

  63. 63.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    February 10, 2011 at 5:54 pm

    @Erik Vanderhoff:

    It only took me five minutes but it felt like an eternity.

    @Donald G:

    They should have gone with The League of Ordinary Dudes.

    It would make it easier to take them seriously. ;)

  64. 64.

    Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)

    February 10, 2011 at 5:56 pm

    Right out of the gate the author is apologizing and justifying succumbing to arguments from authority. But dude, arguments from authority aren’t prima facia fallacious. It’s got nothing to do w/the application of logic and everything to do with the peculiar libertarian psychological tic.

    It’s a paper-thin veneer of learned over @ the League.

  65. 65.

    morzer

    February 10, 2011 at 5:58 pm

    @asiangrrlMN:

    You can take a look at the “reasonable” people thread if you like and see whether you can identify my nom de guerre. I think you’ll find some giggles along the way.

  66. 66.

    Nobody Important

    February 10, 2011 at 6:00 pm

    I found this statement from the last paragraph of Mark Thompson’s post to be completely ridiculous:

    “For instance, in a vacuum, all but perhaps the most ardent pro-choicers would view abortion as an evil…”

    His sweeping (and false) generalization instantly makes me think he is unreasonable.

  67. 67.

    elm

    February 10, 2011 at 6:08 pm

    “For instance, in a vacuum, all but perhaps the most ardent pro-choicers would view abortion as an evil…”

    In a vacuum, I’d be too concerned with asphyxiation.

  68. 68.

    asiangrrlMN

    February 10, 2011 at 6:11 pm

    @elm: Bwahahahahahah. You winz. And, I missed that. That’s just lazy, arrogant, and pointless.

    @morzer: I hate you. I did not find the giggles. I found a bunch of arrogant assholes wanking themselves and each other while loftily decrying the commonness surrounding them. You were the General, weren’t you? I’m not going to troll them. It wouldn’t be any fun at all.

    @Nobody Important: But, what do you mean by unreasonable? Surely, we can agree that people who value emotional resonance over empirical facts are just delicate little flowers who must be nurtured in a hothouse and not unreasonable at all?

  69. 69.

    morzer

    February 10, 2011 at 6:16 pm

    @asiangrrlMN:

    I still am…. and I’ve now got Thompson explaining that he simply doesn’t have the time to educate himself about the things he discusses, because he has a million things he’d rather do. I regard this as a most satisfactory moment in my interaction with the LOOGies. My closing gambit:

    Is it so unreasonable to ask you to form an educated opinion, rather than simply opining?

  70. 70.

    Brachiator

    February 10, 2011 at 6:20 pm

    @DougJ®:

    Suck on this, Balloon-Juicers, especially me.

    But then there is this, from Republican lawmakers grilling EPA chief Lisa Jackson:

    Republican lawmakers asserted that the science underpinning the regulatory effort was a hoax, questioned the agency’s interpretation of a Supreme Court decision giving it power to regulate carbon dioxide, and accused the Obama administration of sacrificing American jobs in its misplaced zeal to address climate change.
    __
    Another Republican, Representative John Shimkus of Illinois, asked Ms. Jackson whether she believed in the law of supply and demand. Ms. Jackson, who holds a graduate degree in chemical engineering from Princeton University, replied, “I was trained in it.”
    __
    “But do you believe that as costs go up, supply goes down?” Mr. Shimkus demanded.
    __
    “It depends on the elasticity of the cost curve,” Ms. Jackson responded.
    __
    A third Republican questioner, Representative Lee Terry of Nebraska, asked Ms. Jackson facetiously if she liked puppies. She started to answer that she did, provided that they were properly housebroken. Mr. Terry sharply interrupted, saying he was only mocking the gentle questions that Democrats were asking to elicit rehearsed answers.

    Reality is always crazier than we can imagine.

  71. 71.

    freelancer

    February 10, 2011 at 6:22 pm

    @morzer:

    This is nutpicking, but Oh the poetry of Genesis and the deep profundity of Logos has shown science to have such a black eye and not very satisfying. Theology is like masturbation for sophists who fancy themselves intellectuals.

    He might as well have said “Scripture tells us that Science is shrill.”

  72. 72.

    asiangrrlMN

    February 10, 2011 at 6:26 pm

    @morzer: I saw that, too. “I, like so many others, have much better things to do with my time than to figure out how that damn global warming thing works.” Then stop fucking talking about it! Seriously. I have never seen a bunch of guys so pride themselves on their erudite words and be so fucking clueless at the same fucking time. And so fucking smug. Argh. I still hate you. Even if you were the best thing over there.

    ETA: They are worse than gamers. At least gamers are doing something fun and interesting.

  73. 73.

    matoko_chan

    February 10, 2011 at 6:29 pm

    DougJ
    youz trollin’ right?
    the whole thing was a setup.

  74. 74.

    elm

    February 10, 2011 at 6:30 pm

    @asiangrrlMN: To take his point a little more seriously, it’s not sufficiently clear exactly which considerations he would have us ignore in that “vacuum”. It’s probably just as well (for him) that he can gloss over the (pretty-fucking-important-for-the-people-involved) details (which go far beyond abstract ideas about choice), otherwise he may need to change his mind.

    Returning to Thompson:

    But for the most part when we debate politics we’re really just debating priorities.

    I remember when I had that realization: I was, IIRC, 15 years old.

  75. 75.

    DougJ®

    February 10, 2011 at 6:31 pm

    @matoko_chan:
    ABT

    Always Be Trolling.

    Coffee’s for trolls only. Get them to type in the box that is sort of dotted.

  76. 76.

    asiangrrlMN

    February 10, 2011 at 6:32 pm

    @elm: I’m guessing things like rape or poverty or abuse or slut-shaming or pregnancy complications or…I don’t know. Why sully my beautiful mind thinking of such things? In a perfect world, everything would be just as I imagine it.

    As for the other quote, dude. Of course it’s all about priorities. WTF?

    @morzer: And, you were so right. They are not ready for the biggies. P.S. Did I conjure her up or did you?

  77. 77.

    morzer

    February 10, 2011 at 6:33 pm

    @freelancer:

    I must admit, I find it vastly more satisfying to see the physical world working, and to do so via science, than to debate endless verbal formulations about a God who seems to have shuffled off to Buffalo. It seems to me that science gives you facts you can take somewhere, whereas religion just offers you stories that don’t have anywhere to go beyond themselves. You believe in them, or you don’t – but they don’t really further your understanding of this world and the creatures in it. If you say that “God created water” (or for that matter Taiyi sheng shui), nothing much follows from that. Once you know that water is H20, that it flows in certain ways etc then you can start doing something with it. This isn’t a perfect formulation, but you get my point.

  78. 78.

    fasteddie9318

    February 10, 2011 at 6:34 pm

    Does everybody over there have his head firmly buried in his own rectum, or just the small sample of writers and commentors that I’ve apparently had the misfortune of reading there?

  79. 79.

    morzer

    February 10, 2011 at 6:34 pm

    @asiangrrlMN:

    *smiles* Well, I did call them the Libertarian Little Leaguers.. and I meant it. But yes, gamers and gaming are more rewarding.

  80. 80.

    freelancer

    February 10, 2011 at 6:41 pm

    @morzer:

    How is it reasonable to discount something that works and produces results? I suppose you could fake up some tortured syllogisms, but that would be a perversion of reason, not a triumph of it.

    Heee! :D

  81. 81.

    dbwhite

    February 10, 2011 at 6:42 pm

    I think I felt my brain disintegrate just a little from that reasonableness-porn. Muddy the waters with enough qualifications and propping up weak arguments and you can manage to sound intelligent without saying anything at all! Can we sequester these people to the boiler room of the internet so at least they can masturbate in private?

  82. 82.

    morzer

    February 10, 2011 at 6:45 pm

    @freelancer:

    I am an insensitive brute, I know. I just felt someone had to raise the issue.

  83. 83.

    morzer

    February 10, 2011 at 6:46 pm

    @dbwhite:

    I think they were happily self-selecting, until DougJ went and poked them. Apparently restricting the gene pool really doesn’t produce good results.

  84. 84.

    frankdawg

    February 10, 2011 at 6:47 pm

    I tried to read the leaks of ordinary gentlemen when I first discovered BJ and followed the link there. I wondered at the time why it was not in the “sites we mock as needed” section. The flabby, inarticulate, and uneducated postings were only slightly better than the comments. I gave it 3 or 4 tries but assumed it was just a stale link Cole had not removed.

    When he brought ED here & I realized Cole really liked those guys. I have no idea why, maybe he thinks they are bright enough to actually be trained or that, given a decent education, they might actually join the land of the living here in real world. But those guys are too dearly entwined in their fantasy world and prove time and again that they have no understanding of science or logic, or really much of anything that acts on reality.

  85. 85.

    morzer

    February 10, 2011 at 6:53 pm

    @frankdawg:

    I tried to read them for several months, and I couldn’t deal with the blend of ignorance, arrogance and self-satisfied perpetuation of both. I enjoyed mocking them today, but I have no illusions that they understood the stakes we all have in dealing with reality, not factiness and truthiness.

    I am sure that when climate change does become undeniable, they will immediately start whining that liberals should have fixed it when they controlled the government, and will be oblivious to the way they whined, lied and denied the science, as they went kicking and screaming all the way to the Koch bank.

  86. 86.

    matoko_chan

    February 10, 2011 at 6:56 pm

    @DougJ®: nice.
    i have completely underestimated you.
    i must rethink our historical intercourse en toto.
    ;)

  87. 87.

    pragmatism

    February 10, 2011 at 7:08 pm

    @matoko_chan: all of my intercourse is historic. sorry, couldn’t let it pass. i put the lip in cudlip.

  88. 88.

    Yurpean

    February 10, 2011 at 7:08 pm

    Shorter Mark Thompson:

    It’s perfectly reasonable for people to say ‘My friends don’t believe in climate change, so fuck you science’

  89. 89.

    Bill

    February 10, 2011 at 7:50 pm

    “Sufficiently intellectually rigorous” really needs to be added to the lexicon.

  90. 90.

    sukabi

    February 10, 2011 at 8:26 pm

    there is nothing worse than trying to read / listen to someone who uses extensive lingual gymnastics to hide the fact they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about and are too enamored of their own intelligence to admit as much.

    that’s what I got from reading the response to DougJ…

  91. 91.

    Stillwater

    February 10, 2011 at 8:49 pm

    Late to this, but Doug (if you’re there) that was masterful. I particularly liked the way he (Dan?) said that AGW believers are too willing to ‘defer to authority’ in forming their opinions, then admits that he knows nothing of climate science … but his father does! … and he says that AGW is a farce!

    Beautiful.

  92. 92.

    Stillwater

    February 10, 2011 at 8:52 pm

    @Bill: Especially when it’s followed by a gem like

    Perhaps you think my father must be a slavering moron, and I even more of one for taking his flagrant idiocy seriously. Somehow, this doesn’t particularly bother me.

  93. 93.

    FuzzyWuzzy

    February 10, 2011 at 9:24 pm

    But my daddy (who works for the oil company) says global warming is the work of demons. Be healed, atmosphere!

  94. 94.

    brantl

    February 10, 2011 at 9:54 pm

    I’ve never read such a bunch of pompous, self-aggrandizing, ignorant schmucks before in my life, until I read the LOOGies, and I hope never to do so again.

  95. 95.

    tom van dyke

    February 11, 2011 at 12:00 am

    To the Gentlepersons of Balloon Juice [esp DougJ® and Mr. “Poopyman”:

    As a gentleperson of the right, I strenuously object to your characterization of the League of Ordinary Gentlemen blog as “conservative.” It sits firmly on the center-left:

    —Scarcely a discouraging word for any Democratic Party figure

    >>>ex-Speaker Pelosi was mentioned only a handful of times in the past year, and then, only neutrally or approvingly;

    >>>President Obama is seldom mentioned by name, criticism of his policies largely restricted to Gitmo-type stuff of which Glenn Greenwald would heartily approve;

    —Traditional religion or even theism embraced openly by none of the contributors;

    —Anthropomorphic Global Warming is denied by none of the contributors, and heartily embraced by several such as Cato’s Jason Kuznicki;

    —Warm, indeed ardent support for marriage equality, esp the aforementioned Mr. Kuznicki, who has legally achieved it;

    —Virtually no support for any change in current abortion law/jurisprudence;

    —Ne’er a positive mention of Ms.[Mses.? Mistresses?] Palin, Bachmann or Coulter, let alone Presidents Bush or Reagan. [There is an occasional weakness for Bush41 as not-too-horrible, but this lone stumble from leftish orthodoxy surely does not make them “conservative.”]

    You have treated the Gentlemen of the League shabbily, and without due diligence, and I suggest—no, I demand!—that you reexamine their record. Any and all reservations about the left are de rigeur accompanied by a disavowal of the right. The prevailing sentiment is not “libertarian” but “liberaltarian.”

    Me, I find the prospect of “liberaltarianism” absurd, but I find your circular firing squad even more absurd. They are on the whole apologists for your agenda or non-combatants, not opponents. That they might create a dischord here at this Balloon Juice blog—what I find to be an echo chamber where everyone sings the same note—is only a misunderstanding of the principle of harmony.

    And yes, DougJ®, et al., I’ve written this a bit tongue-in-cheek, but on the whole, I’m sincere. I’m an unapologetic gentleperson of the right, and I [annoyingly, I’m told] criticize the League for what I consider a uniform conservatiphobia. I do think the LoOG has been ill-used here.

    And to speak for myself, I thought one of the posts in question, Mark Thompson’s

    http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2011/02/10/reasonable-people/

    beyond the matters of AGW and creationism, most importantly carried a soft but strong plea for religious tolerance.

    For the record, I’m no fundie, but religious pluralism is a—if not THE—cornerstone of the American experiment begun well over a hundred years ago [per Ezra Klein’s timeline].

    When next you feel the need to mock the “Old Testament,” have the grapes to do it as though you were speaking to a Jew educated in the rabbinic tradition.

    And if that isn’t enough to tame your tongue and confidence in your competence on that person’s scriptural text, imagine you’re arguing the Qur’an against the Qur’an with a Muslim.

    Face to face, at that. It’s fashionable and clever to thump the Christian fundies, but the challenge of our Western Civilization—if not World Civilization—will not be eradicating religious belief or sneering at it from the safety of the duckblinds of internet pseudonyms, but arriving at a genuine pluralism of the kind that Mark Thompson so gently and eloquently urges.

    Because such a pluralism—an understanding of each other, tolerance, if you will—is quite urgent. Each of us is free to accept or reject according to their conscience, but pluralism is tolerance, understanding and all those other humanistic, secular—civil—virtues.

    Even if the Ultimate Truth is that there is no god, the fact is that religion, religions, and the Problem of God have persisted for all of man’s history, and likely will persist until he draws his last breath. Man’s Ultimate Question is how he will deal with it.

    Best regards,
    Tom Van Dyke

  96. 96.

    Elia

    February 11, 2011 at 1:46 am

    I read OTB.

    I definitely think Joyner’s all right, but he’s also written some really winger shit in an unbearably “reasonable” prose that once or twice has gotten my blood boiling.

    I’d say his worst two moments, since I’ve started reading him, have been 1. when he used a Stanley Fish blog post to argue that Bush probably was a pretty good President and 2. any of the times he sanctimoniously lectured those of us who find torture morally reprehensible that there’s no reason to use strong language or get all hot and bothered because that’s just, like, your opinion, man.

    I haven’t read him enough yet to know whether there’s some winger shit I’m missing, but Steve L. Taylor seems OK. The guy doing the chapter-by-chapter review of Levin’s book seems promising — for one thing, he’s crowding Young Conor’s niche, which can only be a good thing; for another, he recently posted a list of what he’d like to cut from the budget and if I recall I thought everything he proposed was either good or not bad (but it was also a series of pipe dreams).

    Mataconis is potentially the worst. Maybe someone else there is worse, actually, but he posts so often, and is so…uh…well…I’m not sure he thinks things through as much as he should, shall we say. He also has a habit of throwing up lazy posts that just recycle the same AP bit that’s been at the top of memeorandum for 5 hours already with one sentence of analysis that rarely rises above, in essence, “interesting” or “heh”.

    And if you’re wondering why I just wrote 3,000 words on OTB — a right-wing blog for retired professors who LOVED Jack Kemp and liberals desperate to prove they’re fair-minded…the answer is that it’s 1.45 AM and I got about 4 hours of sleep last night.

  97. 97.

    gwangung

    February 11, 2011 at 1:54 am

    @tom van dyke: Hmph.

    I think you miss the entire point.

  98. 98.

    morzer

    February 11, 2011 at 1:56 am

    @tom van dyke:

    Perhaps “center left” means something different in your native language. In American English, it certainly doesn’t mean the lazy lollipop-licking libertarian preening which is the typical fare offered up by the LOOGies. And yes, I have tried to read the LOOG on a regular basis, and found it preposterously shallow, ill-informed, illogical and at points utterly divorced from reality. Since you asked.

    What Thompson wants isn’t tolerance at all, but rather an unquestioning acceptance of the mindless opining which he offers. Remember that this was the man who was too busy to educate himself in the science of climate change, even while cranking out posts on how reasonable it was to believe in the phenomenon. You do, I hope, see the intellectual disconnect here?

    As for your appeal to mock the Old Testament as if talking to a Jew learned in the rabbinic tradition – would you even recognize what we were doing, if and when we wasted time on so silly an exercise? Are you qualified to discuss such mockery on the same level? Come to that, are you even qualified to address the BJ posters without being able to post like them and without being learned in their traditions? Or are you aware of all internet traditions, hmm?

  99. 99.

    morzer

    February 11, 2011 at 1:57 am

    @gwangung:

    Isn’t that the point of LOOGifying? To miss the whole point with an air of superior virtue?

  100. 100.

    Elia

    February 11, 2011 at 2:20 am

    @tom van dyke: Well congrats, man. I clicked on the link and read a bit of your blog. You are all a bunch of very serious scholars and thinkers, indeed. If only the rest of the world could have the piercing intellectual courage you display on the site. Pimping your relation to a nobody far-right professor who, when he’s not recreating Plato’s Academy alongside Glenn Beck, is explaining the myriad ways secession was constitutional & Brown v. Board wasn’t–that was a nice touch. Page views: +1; the game is won.

  101. 101.

    Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)

    February 11, 2011 at 2:21 am

    @tom van dyke:

    What on earth are you talking about, young man? What is the meaning of this impenetrable fug of words?

  102. 102.

    morzer

    February 11, 2011 at 2:25 am

    @Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel):

    Sound and fury, signifying nothing. Which is, considering the source, not wholly surprising.

  103. 103.

    Yutsano

    February 11, 2011 at 2:32 am

    @tom van dyke: Immediate response: tl;dr.

    Slightly more substantive: my kitten could write better tripe with less pretension on a bad day.

  104. 104.

    tom van dyke

    February 11, 2011 at 4:49 am

    Thx for reading a bit of my home blog, Elia, altho how much you read I can’t tell, or if you read any of my actual posts and research. But I appreciate the effort at due diligence.

    As for the rest, bring the pain. Anything germane to the League of Ordinary Gentlemen, so much the better. Rock on.

  105. 105.

    tom van dyke

    February 11, 2011 at 5:46 am

    Oh, and Elia—if I understand your comment about my homeblog correctly, the scholar quoted was Dr. John Fea, quite well known as a gentleman of the left, in the very least center-left. He’s approved of by All the Right People, rest assured. ;-)

    http://usreligion.blogspot.com/2011/01/was-america-founded-as-christian-nation.html

    Another amplification, I think, of the current and unfortunate crisis and confusion about the LoOG’s leftish bona fides. They got atheists and warmists and gay marriage and Bush and Iraq and Guantanamo and all kinds of cool stuff. I hope you guys can straighten all this out. I’m a healer, not a fighter.

  106. 106.

    morzer

    February 11, 2011 at 6:12 am

    @tom van dyke:

    Tom, you can’t make right-leaning glibertarians into center-left Dems. It’s called the reality constraint.

  107. 107.

    brantl

    February 11, 2011 at 7:49 am

    @tom van dyke: For not knowing what libertarianism currrently is, you really are a pompous ass.

  108. 108.

    matoko_chan

    February 11, 2011 at 8:17 am

    @tom van dyke:

    And if that isn’t enough to tame your tongue and confidence in your competence on that person’s scriptural text, imagine you’re arguing the Qur’an against the Qur’an with a Muslim.

    thems fighting words, cudlip.
    less us battle.
    and before i paint my face with your dumbfucking cowblood you should know i was banned from LoOG because i regularily gave the glibertarians and conservitards an intellectual thrashing….ax EDK if you dont believe meh.
    ima muslimah, and we argue that shit here alla time….but from the perspective of evo bio, historical fact, EGT and evo theory of culture…..the Scientific perspective.
    why are 94% of scientists NOTrepublican? why are uppertail elite students fleeing the GOP like scalded cats?
    i think you fucking glibertarian assclowns know perfectly well.
    Grand New Party, page 154. Salam-Douthat stratification on cognitive ability…..or in layman’s terms…redstate selection for Stupid.
    And you and the rest of the bourgie conservatives stroking their e-peens over at LoOG are the avatars of conservative anti-empiricism and Dead-White-Guy Phailosophy……

    conservatism–where even the smart people are retards.

  109. 109.

    matoko_chan

    February 11, 2011 at 8:41 am

    @tom van dyke:

    I’m a healer, not a fighter.

    no, you’re a dishonest glibertarian whore. Libertarianism in America has been wholly suborned to the bankstahs and the socons.
    and apparently from that dreadful psuedo-intellectual website you are also a WEC, carrying on with the proud tradition of protestant anti-intellectualism established by Calvin and Luther.
    fap-fap-fap markets!

  110. 110.

    DougJ®

    February 11, 2011 at 9:12 am

    @tom van dyke:

    I know what you mean, that by most standards they are center to center-left. I consider Evan Bayh and Joe Lieberman to be conservatives too. So by my standards, LOOG is conservative.

  111. 111.

    matoko_chan

    February 11, 2011 at 9:16 am

    @DougJ®: Master, they ban people that disagree with them.
    that is a “conservative” website.

  112. 112.

    fasteddie9318

    February 11, 2011 at 1:11 pm

    @tom van dyke:

    —-Anthropomorphic Global Warming is denied by none of the contributors, and heartily embraced by several such as Cato’s Jason Kuznicki;

    Dead thread and all, but it’s “anthropogenic global warming,” not “anthropomorphic global warming.” Nobody is suggesting that global warming came alive and adopted human characteristics.

  113. 113.

    morzer

    February 11, 2011 at 4:12 pm

    @fasteddie9318:

    Well played, Sir, well played!

  114. 114.

    matoko_chan

    February 12, 2011 at 1:25 pm

    wallah….those guys are so stupid that they dont even get that they have been righteously trolled by a master.
    incredible.
    or mebbe they just can’t admit it.
    there is not enough desu in the Metaverse to fix that site.

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