Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

We will not go back.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

Trump should be leading, not lying.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

You are here: Home / Politics / David Cross on the contradictory language of the right

David Cross on the contradictory language of the right

by | 130 Comments

This post is in: 

A couple people have directed me to this clip (which I would embed if it were allowed.)

David Cross says what I was trying to say about the double-speak on the right much better – or at least much funnier – than I do.

This is more evidence that while the right is very good at talk radio, the left is much better at humor. Maybe this is why liberals can tackle pop culture better than conservatives.

Humor translates into mainstream pop culture better than anger and resentment. But anger and resentment and fear of change are perfect kindling for blustering talk radio or its doppelganger on Fox.

(cross-posted)

Reader Interactions

130Comments

  1. 1.

    patroclus

    I think it would be more accurate to say that most humans are very good at humor and pop culture, but that most conservatives aren’t. It really isn’t a left/right divide – it’s more of a normal human v. right divide.

  2. 2.

    BGinCHI

    Humor demands intelligence and curiosity about the world and all of the strange and different things in it.

  3. 3.

    Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity

    It’s pretty simple. You’re allowed to criticize America so long as what you’re criticizing can be blamed on blacks, liberals or gays.

    Everything else is not open for discussion because America, Fuck Yeah!, that’s why.

  4. 4.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    This is more evidence that while the right is very good at talk radio, the left is much better at humor.

    A lot of humor depends on being able to look at something from 2 (or more) different points of view, and the disconnect between them is what makes a funny. Anger and resentment on the other hand work better from a monomanical point of view.

  5. 5.

    Silver

    Your regular conservative hears that and thinks, “David Cross is a liberal, he used the word faggot and liberals laughed, so it’s funny when I call people faggots too!”

    Then hilarity ensues…God, I love David Cross. His bit on Strom Thurmond is priceless.

  6. 6.

    PeakVT

    A major theme in humor since the beginning of time has been pointing out the foibles of those in power, whether its the village chief, the king, or (these days) the CEO. Conservatives tend to rally to those in power, regardless of how bad they are. So their humor substitutes kicking those who are already down, which most people don’t find all that funny because they can empathize to some degree.

  7. 7.

    daveNYC

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ:

    A lot of humor depends on being able to look at something from 2 (or more) different points of view, and the disconnect between them is what makes a funny. Anger and resentment on the other hand work better from a monomanical point of view.

    I’ll buy that. It’s pretty obvious when you open up the comics and compare Doonesbury and Mallard Fillmore. One is funny, the other is just ‘fuck you hippie’, with pictures.

  10. 10.

    Culture of Truth

    Cartoons satirizing the poor for their shameless exploitation of the rich have a limited appeal.

  11. 11.

    daveNYC

    @middlewest: I though I had already lost all my faith in humanity. Guess there was a little bit still left just waiting to be stomped on and then lit on fire. Thanks!

  13. 13.

    Sargent Pepper's Spray

    The Left is snarky and the Right furiously angry, but both sense they are victims. Overall the Left thinks it’s lost the key economic battles of the past 30 years (it has), while the Right thinks it’s losing the key cultural battles (it is, albeit slowly). Either way, the very idea of a conservative Daily Show or Colbert Report is simply too awful to tolerate.

  15. 15.

    Seebach

    I think the left has its share of anger, frustration, and resentment, too.

    It’s just not, y’know, made up of inane conspiracy theories for those who don’t respect facts.

  16. 16.

    artem1s

    This is more evidence that while the right is very good at talk radio,

    I suppose if you define ‘very good at’ as screaming at the top of your lungs until everyone in the room has no choice but to hear you. They have dominated talk radio for the last 20 years by saturating the airwaves but that doesn’t make them good at it. They are losing their audiences as fast as the GOP is losing its base. Used to be I had no choice but listen to the radio or drive in silence. Thanks to the internet/iPhone now I can listen to whatever I want, when I want. I can’t wait for Clear Channel to start rerunning Rush on an endless loop and the 27% who will always tune in will never notice. Kind of like watching reruns of Family Feud on the Game Show Channel. They are gonna save a bundle when they finally figure it out and the quality won’t change one wit.

  17. 17.

    wvng

    I just think humor on the right is all about being mean to someone else, someone “other.” That is what is funny to them. It never involves introspection, because they see themselves and their issues as deeply serious, not funny. Which is why quite a few don’t get the Colbert is laughing at them, not one of them.

  18. 18.

    jl

    Need to distinguish between intentional and unintentional humor.

    Right now, TPM says, Gov. Christie and Rih Santorum are debating whether it is acceptable to debate Rih’s ravings about the titanic battle, All America U.S. versus Satan.

    I think it is OK to debate. That bout does not sound like an under card to me.

    I guess Rih knows his lunacy will sink him the general, so doesn’t want to talk outside of the GOP primary circles about the battle against Satan for all of our souls and soul of this country that is going on (RIGHT NOW!) .

    Dude, is there a live feed for this? I wanna see Satan with sulfur and flames coming out of his nose, lumbering down the Jersey Turnpike. Or will it be the first round of the debate?

    Meanwhile Mitt is flip flopping on macroeconomics faster than the speed of light in Michigan.

    I got a few chuckles out of this stuff.

  20. 20.

    Samara Morgan

    Self-deprecating humor is the pinnacle of evolution.
    Like i explained to you, Kain, conservatives don’t have self-deprecating humor.
    That is why pompous intellectual bores like the Tarnsman of Gor and Ross Douthat, and indeed, yourself are so easily ridiculed.
    We mock you because you are clueless as your crude analysis of LoTR ably demonstrates.
    Culture is a mostly reflective (and semi-permeable if handsmile is correct) multidimensional surface.

    in all your navel-gazing treacle about conservative doublespeak, you fail to mention your beloved freed market and your adored Hayek.
    Have you flipped on that too in your desperate quest for pageclicks?

  22. 22.

    slag

    @middlewest:

    Conservatives think they are hilarious, though.

    This is true. My conservative mother told me all the time that I had “no sense of humor”. Mostly because I found racism and abject meanness decidedly unfunny. And I’ve found this true for conservative “humor” in general. Most of the time, I’m just not amused by it, but they sure the hell seem to be. Somehow, conservatives have managed to confuse living by your dominant place in the current power structure with living by your wits.

  23. 23.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @jl:

    I wanna see Satan with sulfur and flames coming out of his nose, lumbering down the Jersey Turnpike.

    Hey waitaminute, I saw that very sight just last week. Oh wait, that was merely my brother-in-law’s Pontiac Grand Am with too much STP in the gas tank. Never mind.

  25. 25.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @jl:

    Meanwhile Mitt is flip flopping on macroeconomics

    The Romney campaign = Operation Rolling Blunder.

  26. 26.

    Samara Morgan

    Here is an example of me mocking SuperSerious EDK.

    Samara Morgan – February 18, 2012 | 11:34 am · Link
    __
    also too, you should all brace yourselves for Disney’s John Carter and EDK arguing that since Tal Hajus and the Green Horde are soc1al1sts (and possibly muslim “jihadis”, because, like, Green), that means ERB and Princess of Mars are “inherently conservative”.
    ;)

    see how easy that is?
    Kain, Douthat, Poulos, McMegan, Sullivan, Suderman, Freidersdorf, Brooks, etc, etc….all so earnest and serious– like a young suited-up and spit-combed mormon at your door.

  27. 27.

    Jim Pharo

    Um, E.D.? It’s called “projection” and it explains nearly everything about the weird ways of the GOP. Whenever they are railing against someone, they are really railing about themselves. Whenever they’re waxing about God, they’re really trying to convince themselves of something they know perfectly well is false.

    This ain’t rocket science once you see how the GOP’s lizard brain works.

  28. 28.

    Watership

    Somewhat OT, but I watched the clip, and sometimes I forget what a cesspool the comments section at YouTube can be. Holy schneikies.

  29. 29.

    geg6

    the right is very good at talk radio

    I gotta call bullshit on this. They aren’t good at it. They are just good at attracting the old, white, bitter, angry men who actually want to listen to other old, white, bitter, angry men shout at them and each other on the radio. Anyone who isn’t an old, white, bitter, angry man can tell you that there is nothing good about that shit.

  30. 30.

    Samara Morgan

    Maybe this is why liberals can tackle pop culture better than conservatives.

    We can certainly tackle pop culture better than you, Erik.

    Ideological conservatives’ notions of the interrelationship between art, culture and society, as baldly exposed by your citation of Kain’s example of LOTR, are simply too shallow to offer guidance.

  31. 31.

    Samara Morgan

    @geg6: actually the right is better at EMOTING. On average conservatives have more grey matter in the amygdala. This also explains the enthusiasm gap.
    so they are better at talk radio.

  32. 32.

    chrome agnomen

    a few thoughts, none original.

    humor involves a willingness to poke fun at one’s own constructs and excesses. humor also serves to release tension. in conservaworld, no right wing position can be mocked, as this is heretical. and tension must be maintained to fuel the anger with which to condemn the OTHER.

  33. 33.

    Samara Morgan

    c’mon Erik.
    Shrive yourself.
    Renounce Hayek and the “freed” market.
    i just dont find you ver believable.
    ;)

  34. 34.

    Martin

    @Watership:

    sometimes I forget what a cesspool the comments section at YouTube can be

    Really begs the question of the value of comments, when that’s all you ever wind up with. Same with most newspaper comments in my experience.

  36. 36.

    geg6

    @Samara Morgan:

    the right is better at EMOTING

    If you want to call screaming incoherently about the nears and their president and the skeery feminazis emoting, I guess you’re right. But then, how do you explain the emoprogs?

    This also explains the enthusiasm gap.

    Well, but they seem to be on the losing end of that gap, according to all the most recent polls.

    so they are better at talk radio

    I do not see how this follows from the statements above.

  38. 38.

    Samara Morgan

    @geg6: they are having some trouble mustering enthusiasm for the candidate field, arent they?
    But conservatives tend to have more grey matter in the amygdala, while liberals have more in the anterior cingulate cortex.
    the amygdala is associated with emotion, while the ACC is associated with reason.
    that is why its impossible to reason with ideological conservatives, and emotional appeals are so successful (god and country, american exceptionalism, religious belief).

  39. 39.

    chopper

    @Samara Morgan:

    We can certainly tackle pop culture better than you, Erik.

    who’s this ‘we’? EDK, talking about the music scene, mentioned Nashville and you literally thought he meant the city limits of Nashville TN. sheer idiocy.

    now go play with some crayons or something, the adults are talking.

  41. 41.

    Tonybrown74

    @Sargent Pepper’s Spray:

    the very idea of a conservative Daily Show or Colbert Report is simply too awful to tolerate

    Tell me about it. You obviously don’t remember the extremely horrific “Half Hour News Hour” that Fox News Channel aired for a short period of time.

    Tragic …

  43. 43.

    RD

    the very idea of a conservative Daily Show or Colbert Report is simply too awful to tolerate

    It’s been tried, with predictable results.

    Edit: Tonybrown74 beat me to it.

  44. 44.

    geg6

    @Samara Morgan:

    So what explains the emoprogs, then? They are almost as bad as the conservatives when it comes incoherently emoting, as far as I can see. Perhaps it’s not so much conservatives who have the larger amygdala, but those who have an authoritarian mindset? Because that is exactly what conservatives and emoprogs have in common as far as I can tell.

  46. 46.

    Samara Morgan

    @geg6:

    do not see how this follows from the statements above.

    oh, sry, missed this. talk radio is very emotional, a lot of shouting, and very little reasoning going on.

  47. 47.

    Samara Morgan

    @geg6: right wing authority tendency and fixation on Social Dominance Order is also a part of the conservative mindset.

    So what explains the emoprogs, then? They are almost as bad as the conservatives when it comes incoherently emoting, as far as I can see.

    very observant. you have probably noticed that emoprogs cant be reasoned with. they feel emotionally betrayed by Obama.

  48. 48.

    chopper

    @Samara Morgan:

    yes, clearly the fact that you’re so stupid you can’t even figure out what ‘Nashville’ refers to in a discussion about music makes me a ‘hayek fanboi’.

  49. 49.

    Amir Khalid

    @Samara Morgan:
    Ir’s sad. Over the past few days, you actually brought your A game to the comment threads here. Then you see an E.D. Kain post, and you go off the rails again. ::Sigh::

  50. 50.

    Tonybrown74

    @geg6:

    I admit it. I laughed … when it was canceled after, what? A month? Maybe two?

    I did try to watch a couple of episodes, just to keep an open mind … but it was really bad. Each and every “joke” was forced. And so was the laugh track …

  52. 52.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Samara Morgan:

    want me to leave?

    please?

    just dont comment on Erik’s pander posts.

    why the fuck should you care?

    he just wants pageclicks anyways.

    Doesn’t every blogger? I don’t get what your point is there.

  54. 54.

    Samara Morgan

    @Amir Khalid: deconstructing Kains posts is part of my A game.
    you didnt like the More-on thread?
    i actually try to correct EDK’s more moronic offerings, that he doesnt run up a flagpole here.
    Like showing solidarity with his bro the Tarnsman of Gor.
    if that post was here you guys would have laffed him off the FP.
    the he links back to three of his own posts here– i deconstructed every one of them.
    he thinks you guys are stupid enough to fall for another season of the EDK Fake-conversion Reality Show.

  55. 55.

    Ken

    Someone – maybe Charlie Chaplin? – once said “Tragedy is when I get a hangnail. Comedy is when you fall into an open manhole.” A lot of conservative humor is in that second category. (Come to think of it, a lot of conservative whining about how persecuted they are is in the first.)

  56. 56.

    Gex

    Humor requires surprise which often means there has to be more than one perspective on the premise/conclusion and that people have to jump from the one they expected to the one they didn’t expect.

    Conservatives do not abide by other perspectives.

  57. 57.

    Humanities Grad

    @Tonybrown74:

    I think one issue is that a lot of these folks don’t get that doing comedy well is _hard_. It takes a lot of work.

    Perhaps in their general disdain for their political opponents, some of the Fox folks looked at The Daily Show and thought, “Hell, anybody can do _that_!” So they found some Fimbettes, hired a couple of guys who had once had letters to the editor published in their hometown papers, and had them crank out material with about the same level of sophistication as fart jokes.

    And they were probably gobsmacked when it flopped.

  58. 58.

    Samara Morgan

    @arguingwithsignposts: orly?
    you are gunna fall for “Our” EDK again?
    Kain quit his day job. he is trying to make it as a fulltime blogger.
    and also, he can see now that O is going to win.
    so he wants to switch horses.
    but i dont believe him…..at least, not until he renounces Hayek.

  59. 59.

    Gex

    @geg6: What he means is they were good at buying talk radio. Once you dominate it like that, you don’t have to compete on quality. Just volume.

  62. 62.

    Samara Morgan

    @chopper: im not the only one that sees Kain for what he is.
    he will say anything to anybody.
    and Sully certainly recognizes a kindred soul in Kain– he linked him 4x last week.
    ;)

  63. 63.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @geg6:

    Perhaps it’s not so much conservatives who have the larger amygdala, but those who have an authoritarian mindset?

    Bingo.

    I’m old enough to remember interacting with the last tattered remains of the Old Left before they went into the history books. The authoritarians among them were just as grim and humorless and single-minded as the Right is today.

  64. 64.

    Samara Morgan

    @daveNYC: i would never boil a rabbit. i prefer animals to people.
    what im attempting here is to metaphorically boil Kain.
    im trying to make it too hot for him on Balloon Juice.
    ;)

  65. 65.

    chopper

    @Samara Morgan:

    i hear Wall Street is going against obama this year. can you believe it? how can an 8-block long street in lower manhattan hate the president? it’s a fucking street! streets don’t feel feelings.

  66. 66.

    RD

    @geg6:

    That actually started with Bob Grant in the ’70s. It wasn’t until Rush perfected the format that it became a template for high profitability/low risk in what was otherwise a dying medium.

  69. 69.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @Samara Morgan:

    For the N-th time, your obsessive fixation with biology, IQ and politics makes me ill, because you are keeping very bad company on this topic. Please leave me out of it. I don’t make a habit of flaming you on the subject, I’d appreciate it if you’d observe the same truce in the opposite direction.

  73. 73.

    Samara Morgan

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Whose company am i keeping? Chris Mooney’s?
    the Right is very much against research into red/blue genetics and neuropolitics.
    the same people that promoted racial differences in IQ are all about denying organic differences in political affliation.

  74. 74.

    Samara Morgan

    @arguingwithsignposts: but i dont hunt foxes here…..we hunt coyotes, and we never catch them, because they are too fast.
    ;)
    im defending the right of the english and irish to hunt how they please.
    their country, their laws, right?
    americans are such busybodies. especially conservatives, always poking their noses into other peoples bedrooms.

  79. 79.

    Amir Khalid

    @Samara Morgan:

    deconstructing Kains posts is part of my A game.

    Any time you make it about you, that’s when you leave your A game behind. Like when you keep on pursuing this feud with Kain. Like when you insist on your expertise in matters where you don’t really know what you’re talking about, and get all huffy when people point out holes in your facts and/or logic. Like when you start throwing tantrums and personal attacks in comment threads. These were missing from your posts for the past couple of days, and I thought you’d finally calmed down; but apparently not.

    In a way, the anger and resentment you direct at Kain, your obsessive heckling of him and his posts, are no different from what he’s discussing here: the humorless, obsessive hostility that the American right shows toward Obama and the Democratic party. Not to mention the sour and ineffectual attempts at mockery.

  80. 80.

    pragmatism

    @chopper: Hayek is a formerly obscure alt-Austrian/country band that formed in Nashville. They used to be less well known but now people drop their name to appear hip. I bet most of them dont even own an album. I discovered them when I was looking for some instrumental surf rock music and their song “road to serfdom” came up. I was severely disappointed.

  81. 81.

    Billy Beane

    I can state it much clearer than that.

    The right are a bunch of scared old white fucks afraid of anything that represents change so they vote every chance they get because Newt Gingrich says he will protect them from big bad Obama.

    The left, unfortunately, is too busy living in reality worrying about real things to bother to vote half the time.

  82. 82.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @Samara Morgan:

    Whose company am i keeping?

    William Shockley. The euthenasia and forced sterilization advocates. The so-called scientific racists. Take it from there and go all the way up to the full Godwin. Once you link biology with politics and politics with dysfunctional and destructive policy, and destructive policy with the general welfare of society, you are at the top of a very slippery slope which leads to eliminationist rhetoric, and from there to even worse things.

    Please, I beg you, give it a rest. There is a fair chance that someday when you are older and wiser you will look back on this particular fascination with revulsion and horror.

  83. 83.

    wvng

    Ditto what Amir just said. Kain posts an entirely reasonable item about the humor and rage, and certain people feel the need to assault him for, apparently, perceived past grievances. That’s right wing behavior in a nutshell. It is mean, and not funny.

  84. 84.

    RD

    @Samara Morgan:

    but i dont hunt foxes here

    Clear as day, I remember the first time I saw a red fox as a child. It was chilling by our mailbox while the hunting party was hightailing it southeast of our property.

    I could have sworn it winked at me before it ran up the road.

  86. 86.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Huge difference between the two; normal humor is criticizing some behavior. With the Right it’s just more propaganda to reinforce the talking points. Like Fox, like talk radio it’s there to support an already existing belief.

  87. 87.

    Chris

    @wvng:

    I just think humor on the right is all about being mean to someone else, someone “other.” That is what is funny to them. It never involves introspection, because they see themselves and their issues as deeply serious, not funny. Which is why quite a few don’t get the Colbert is laughing at them, not one of them.

    This.

    “Conservative humor is funny if you think bigotry or cruelty is funny.”

  88. 88.

    Samara Morgan

    @wvng: he linked THREE of his own posts, that i deconstructed, in the body of his post. shameless self promotion.
    those same three posts were also linked at Andrew Sullivans blog last week.

    why not just give Sully a FP slot, Cole?

    some people here remember EDK’s last tenure.
    either you werent here or you are an extremely slow learner.

  89. 89.

    Samara Morgan

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ: you are quite mad. i have never even read william shockley.
    im a transhumanist and a progressive, not a nazi.
    Is chris mooney a proto-nazi? how about aubrey de grey?
    those are the people whose ideas i associate with.

  90. 90.

    eemom

    meh,leave the child be. For fuck’s sake, this guy was chirping in the Paultard choir like a trained greenwald –until the political winds suddenly changed.

    There is for my $$ something just a little too coincidental about his sudden re-emergence here with this endless “dude, aren’t conservaties FUCKED??” series of suck-ups.

  91. 91.

    Samara Morgan

    @Amir Khalid: where has anyone successfully pointed out a hole in my facts or logic?

    i deconstructed each of the posts Kain linked back to.
    im just pointing out that Erik “Beyond Unions” Kain flipped on teachers unions the minnit he left this blog the last time, and that he is still a Hayek fanboi and a free market fucktard.
    Hes just here farming pageclicks from the juicers culpable enough to fall for another season of the EDK fake-conversion reality show….which i guess means you.

  92. 92.

    Samara Morgan

    @eemom: do you remember what his last series was?
    it was “dude, aren’t unions great?”
    until he got the forbes PAYING gig.
    then he flipped and attacked teachers unions like the full frontal libertarian he’s always been..
    ;)

  93. 93.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Samara Morgan:

    where has anyone successfully pointed out a hole in my facts or logic?

    When you show up with facts and logic, we’ll consider them, stalker.

  94. 94.

    Samara Morgan

    @Chris: its bully humor.
    like i pointed out, they are incapable of self-deprecating humor.
    they cannot laff at themselves.

  96. 96.

    Samara Morgan

    @Chris: that was exactly correct. conservatives laugh at pratfalls, at infirmity or misfortune or appearance in OTHERS.
    its bully humor.
    they are incapable of laughing at themselves.

  98. 98.

    Samara Morgan

    @Amir Khalid: i think this was a good effort at mockery. Omnes even said so.
    ;)

    Samara Morgan – February 18, 2012 | 11:34 am · Link
    __
    also too, you should all brace yourselves for Disney’s John Carter and EDK arguing that since Tal Hajus and the Green Horde are soc1al1sts (and possibly muslim “jihadis”, because, like, Green), that means ERB and Princess of Mars are “inherently conservative”.
    ;)

  99. 99.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @Samara Morgan:

    The idea that some human beings are innately superior to others by virtue not of the choices that they make, but as a result of their inherent biology, and that those who are superior have a greater claim to influence in politics than those who are inferior, that idea is at the core of your obsession with conservatives and IQ. That is a profoundly illiberal and anti-progressive idea. You are not a progressive, you are a bigot pretending to be a progressive because your bigotry is currently focused on the political opponents of the progressive movement. I want no part of that. Please either refrain from replying to my comments which are orginally directed at others, or else leave the subject of biology + politics out of the discussion entirely.

  100. 100.

    Marcellus Shale, Public Dick

    tragedy/comedy if we must focus on dichotomy.

    conservatives mourn for the past that no longer is, and yearn for a return to it,despite knowing that it can never be again.

    liberals are trying to deal with the past, but in the context of marking progress.

    one lends itself to tragedy, the other to comedy. anger and humor are both hinged on exaggeration.

  101. 101.

    Samara Morgan

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ: lolwut?
    i will when Thom Jefferson does.

    But Nature, not trusting to this moral and abstract motive, seems to have provided more securely for the perpetuation of the species by making it the effect of the oestrum implanted in the constitution of both sexes. And not only has the commerce of love been indulged on this unhallowed impulse, but made subservient also to wealth and ambition by marriages without regard to the beauty, the healthiness, the understanding, or virtue of the subject from which we are to breed. The selecting the best male for a Harem of well chosen females also, which Theognis seems to recommend from the example of our sheep and asses, would doubtless improve the human, as it does the brute animal, and produce a race of veritable {aristoi} [“aristocrats”]. For experience proves that the moral and physical qualities of man, whether good or evil, are transmissible in a certain degree from father to son. But I suspect that the equal rights of men will rise up against this privileged Solomon, and oblige us to continue acquiescence under the {‘Amayrosis geneos aston} [“the degeneration of the race of men”] which Theognis complains of, and to content ourselves with the accidental aristoi produced by the fortuitous concourse of breeders.

    Are you the new Hall Monitor?

  103. 103.

    Samara Morgan

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ: you dont understand transhumanism.
    our plan is get ahold of the legacy code and make everyone an aristoi.
    you might still think that is unnatural and icky, but someone is going to do it.
    i would rather it was us.

    Unless there is a totalitarian world order, someone, somewhere, will design and build an improved human.– Stephen Hawking

  104. 104.

    RD

    @Samara Morgan:

    fake-conversion reality show

    Why should EDK be any less credible than John Cole or Charles Johnson?

    If Jeff Goldstein suddenly veered left, would you stalk him?

    Oh wait…

  105. 105.

    Amir Khalid

    @Samara Morgan:
    As I understand, the producers of Fox’s Half Hour News Hour were so happy just to air their dislike of their political betes noires that they were oblivious to their “comedy material” utterly failing as comedy. You have the same lack of awareness about your material.

  106. 106.

    Samara Morgan

    @Amir Khalid: im relying on Omnes judgement, not yours. he is more representative.
    ;)
    @RD: were you here for the last round?
    when EDK morphed from union man to union basher in the blink of an eye when someone showed him a paycheck?

  107. 107.

    Samara Morgan

    @RD: Jeffie G. veer left?
    watchu smokin’ man?
    this is a guy who believes William Ayers ghost wrote Obama’s book, who believes that “the birchers were right all long”.
    hes not coming back from that.

  109. 109.

    Samara Morgan

    @eemom:

    There is for my $$ something just a little too coincidental about his sudden re-emergence here with this endless “dude, aren’t conservaties FUCKED??” series of suck-ups.

    Know who else does that?
    Sully.
    an here i thot EDK wanted to grow up to be Ross Douthat.
    he’s wanted to be sully all along.

    Kain should grow a beard.
    ;)

  120. 120.

    Amir Khalid

    @Samara Morgan:
    My general point stands: you are obsessively hostile toward E.D. Kain in much the same way that the American right is toward Obama and his party. And that your sniping at him is reflective of your obsession. Sure, Kain is not entirely consistent in his views over time, and maybe there’s reason to be suspicious of his motives; but when he’s right, as he is here, he’s right.

    I’ll grant that you get a good one off at him once in a while (or more often if that pleases you), and that sometimes your brilliant literary references escape me, but that still doesn’t vindicate your behavior.

  121. 121.

    Some Loser

    Yeah. It is better that you just ignore E.D. Kain than continue to harass him. You may be right about him, you may not, but harassing people is not the way to go. It only makes you look bad. You’re not dumb; you know this. So please, please stop clogging up the threads with these mean-spirited comments about E.D. Kain.

  122. 122.

    Samara Morgan

    @Amir Khalid:

    Sure, Kain is not entirely consistent in his views over time

    look malaysian dude.
    that is the point. Kain is entirely consistant in his views, right back to Culture 11, the foul spawning ground of all the nasty little embryo douthats.
    you guys didnt know him then.
    i did.
    and i cant believe you gave me crits on my brilliant EDK satire BECAUSE YOU HADNT READ THE FUCKING BOOK.

  123. 123.

    Samara Morgan

    @Some Loser: idc.
    what do you not get about that?
    if i can fuck up Kains pageclick count, make him look stupid so sully wont link him, then i won.
    ;)

  124. 124.

    Samara Morgan

    @Amir Khalid:

    you are obsessively hostile toward E.D. Kain in much the same way that the American right is toward Obama and his party

    false. i was just as hostile to de Bore, and i would be just as hostile to ANY of the nasty little embryo douthats that Cole welcomed on board.

    the Right hates O because he is an intelligent liberal black man that is kicking their asses.
    i hate EDK because he is a slimey panderbot with the ethical integrity of a smelly ulsio.

  125. 125.

    Samara Morgan

    lets try this ONE MORE TIME.

    Maybe this is why liberals can tackle pop culture better than conservatives.

    Liberals arent “tackling pop culture”.
    They are being part of pop culture.
    Did you learn nothing from the beatdown cw gave you at TAS three years ago?

  128. 128.

    Samara Morgan

    @chopper: haha, my grasp is vise-like.
    didnt you see that?

    he’ll disappear from the universe in a puff of smoke.

    i just need to make sure Sully doesnt link him anymore. Then he will be forced to go back to his dayjob.
    ;)

  129. 129.

    Samara Morgan

    @chopper: you see chopper..i dont want EDK to disappear from the universe….just from the blogverse.
    but ill be well satisfied if he just disappears from the BalloonJuice-verse.
    ;)

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