Since it is apparently impossible for people to disagree on this blog anymore, I’d like all of you who think my post below was some declaration of war on Soonergrunt or a “slap in the face” to cease and desist. This is a weblog. If the front posters can’t fight when we disagree, wtf is the point. There clearly is no editorial direction here, as chaos abides on a daily basis.
One of the more irritating things to happen lately was Freddie flaming front pagers on his private site, when the whole point of front page status is to flame people here. I talked to him, and he told me he just didn’t want to stir up shit on the blog. I understand where he is coming from, but the entire point of an opinion blog is to stir up shit. If DougJ or Freddie or Sooner or ABL or Anne Laurie or Kay or Bernard or the others think I am being an idiot, they should let me know, and they have the real estate to do it! Put it here. I’ve got thick skin, and so does everyone else.
I just disagreed with Sooner, posted as much, and tomorrow, if I wake up and he has ripped my argument to shreds, well, I must have had a shitty argument.
Fewer cheerleaders. More football.
Allen
John, you are awesome, and one of the few adults in the room. And by “in the room”, I mean all of humanity.
The Dangerman
I beg your pardon.
/lakergirls
khead
Are you sure you aren’t married? My wife and I joke about this all the time.
Spaghetti Lee
Since it is apparently impossible for people to disagree on this blog anymore,
I disagree.
Just Some Fuckhead
“We”Blog.
Just Some Fuckhead
I agree with both you and Soonergrunt on this topic, BTW.
John Cole
@Spaghetti Lee: Fuck you, manic progressive.
jwb
Freddie doesn’t want to stir up shit? What the fuck is he doing political blogging for? Seems like he’s in the wrong business. Nevertheless, that post of his was badly argued in a way that Soonergrunt’s was not.
LanceThruster
The best way to ensure a continual sharpening of points in the arena of ideas is to allow them to compete on a level playing field.
Bring out your champions!
El Cid
__
I just don’t understand this dynamic. If there are two, or two dozen, or two hundred, or two thousand furious, angry, denunciatory comments on some post, how is anyone hurt?
Who cares? I mean, outside the arguments themselves, and so forth.
This stuff is talked about like there’s actual damage to people, or to the blog, or to god knows what.
Nobody here (at least as far as their existence as blog commenters goes) is deciding anything, or creating or destroying policy, or hiring or firing anyone.
Is the fear that angry comments = readers all going away? What?
BGinCHI
Fuck yes. Arguments.
“The personal is political” does not mean that you take things personally when your issues are at issue. It means that you have to drag difficult things into the light via reason, example, and argument.
Otherwise you live in that fucking echo chamber Newt Gingrich calls “today.”
eemom
Oh THIS is productive. Start a new meta-post to stomp on the first one before it’s even gotten going.
You know what Cole — as I noted on SG’s post yesterday, he did something that’s fucking unheard of here: raised an intensely loaded issue openly and honestly, expressed an honestly-held opinion thereupon, and honestly invited discussion. All of that without any of the cutesy-pie soap opera drama queen shit you can’t seem to live without.
Just Some Fuckhead
@El Cid:
It could cost Obama reelection.
Jim C.
I suspect that the right way to settle these disagreements among the proletariat of Balloon Juice is for me to post a picture of my schlong on here.
Afterward, everyone will be in awestruck silence and the moderates can move in and take over the power void.
John, let me know if you need to put my thang down.
LanceThruster
Still…do not feed the trolls. They create toO much dreck to scroll through and I think most in here are savvy enough to spot them.
If you must, post a notice.
TROLL – DO NOT FEED.
Lojasmo
haha. epic.
MoeLarryAndJesus
The Jets suck and their fans are masochists.
That’s all.
Linda Featheringill
Jesus, John! Who the hell did what to you?
I read the post below and the thread and wandered on to the next post and here you are throwing a shit fit. Damn.
I’m going to wander off and do something else. Maybe your anger and defensiveness can keep you company when you can’t sleep in the middle of the night.
And remember, you were pissed off before I wrote this. Don’t go blaming me for your foul mood.
burnspbesq
It’s being-hit-on-the-head lessons in here.
Violet
WTF is anyone doing here, front pager or mere commenter, if they don’t want to argue about political stuff? The pet pics aren’t frequent enough to justify visiting otherwise.
The Other Chuck
And the tagline I got was “A refuge for a snarling mass of vitriolic vicious jackals”. QFT.
Oh and ima make this an open thread and say I found a cool feature in Jellybean on the tablet where if I swipe up from the soft-buttons on the lower left, it pops up Google Now. Nifty.
MikeJ
Can’t we all just agree we should drop Tunch on Waziristan?
Cat them all and let Tunch sort them out.
El Cid
@Just Some Fuckhead: What? Really? If the Balloon Juice commentariat lose discipline, all is lost?
My god, I had no idea there were such low qualifications to be at the commanding heights of politics.
Spaghetti Lee
OT: I saw a WSJ poll that said 57% of those polled think the economy is improving.
“Obama isn’t working,” eh, Mitt? By the way, when do September job numbers come out? And what’s the over/under?
Punchy
Willy pete is a terrorist’s weapon. Shame on the USMC.
The Dangerman
@MoeLarryAndJesus:
Mark Sanchez is a head case (and still a better QB than Tebow, but, then again, so is everyone in the NFL).
Sports Controversy du Juor: Since it looks like Cabrera will win the Triple Crown, does he take MVP or does Trout?
some guy
@eemom:
there are at least three grammatical imprecisions in Cole’s latest post you have failed to correct.
trollhattan
@MikeJ:
I think we can probably agree that Waziristan is either the coolest or oddest place to live or be from. Of all the stans, is there an odder stan than Waziristan?
Okay, I’ll grant you Dagestan sounds like a sandwich, but Waziristan is just…special among stans.
Spaghetti Lee
@eemom:
He does it because stupid people do what he warns against. We already have two different people saying he only posted that to suck up to Glenn Greenwald. As if Glenn fucking Greenwald hasn’t been criticized on this blog millions of times! Hell of a way to make nice with him.
ETA: I mean, you’ve been strangely quiet, no? I’m sure there are a couple points you could make about the topic.
Fluke bucket
Sometimes I miss Tom In Texas
Just Some Fuckhead
@Fluke bucket:
That’s just nostalgia. If he was here, he’d be just as despicable as the rest of them.
khead
@Spaghetti Lee:
Under.
Damn, I’m a degenerate.
arguingwithsignposts
That’s the translation from FdB to English.
El Cid
@trollhattan: I always thought “Islamabad” sounded pretty cool if said the right way.
LanceThruster
@Punchy:
WP is scary stuff even when it’s not being utilized in weapons form. I saw an anonymous guy light a WP flare as cops were busting a backyard party (I think he said it was mil-surplus). It was in a foot long 4 inch pipe set on the sidewalk. It burned for what seemed like forever and heat scarred/cracked the concrete beneath. Prior to that, I had only lit tiny shavings in chem class.
Just Some Fuckhead
The truth is that in 10 or 20 years we’ll all be laughing about piddly drones as giant killer robots with laser cannons savage the planet.
Hill Dweller
So Jake Tapper and Jan Crawford are pretending the new Obama tape is newsworthy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@The Dangerman: and Woody Johnson is, as I suspected but wanted to check, an heir to Johnson & Johnson. I also learned he’s a tax cheating billionaire.
So of course he’s for Romney. Job Creator. Earned everything. Monkey purple dishwasher.
redshirt
@Just Some Fuckhead: Precisely. Enjoy these piddling wedding party drone strikes today, for they are but appetizers to tomorrow’s ravaged cities.
Morbo
But if he hadn’t done it I never would have learned about this bit of hilarity at his expense. Really explains a lot about some of his posts actually.
jwb
@Hill Dweller: Of course. They’ve received their marching orders and understand who pays the bills.
Cacti
@Hill Dweller:
Well, it came from Fox.
And Tapper says Fox is a sister network.
Pen
Well my day’s complete. Long day t work, got drunk when I got home, saw John give the commentariat a big FU…. Yep, the world’s still operating as it should.
Hill Dweller
@jwb: The speech was covered by Fox, MSNBC, CNN, The Atlantic and Politico when Obama gave it. Parts of it have been on youtube since ’07. The event was open to the press, and TV cameras recorded it.
There is nothing secret about the speech, but we’re supposed to believe it is relevant.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Cacti:
Yeah, if yer sister had a lobotomy and spent all day watching Fox, quoting Steve Doocy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Hill Dweller: in a week, neither they nor anyone else will remember they did. Darrell Issa is going run in front of them with a Benghazi* kite, and Jakey and Jan (wasn’t she a Supreme Court reporter?) will go running after that.
*Benghazi is a serious matter that should be investigated by congress, but if you let Darrell Issa and Peter King run that investigation, you’re abandoning any claim to giving a fuck.
Liberty60
No Erick Erickson Banhammer?
Wow, you really aren’t a conservative any more!
SatanicPanic
This is why I like this dumbass blog
Just Some Fuckhead
@Hill Dweller:
It’s retroactively relevant.
SatanicPanic
NFL IS MODERN GLADIATORS!!
The Other Chuck
@LanceThruster:
Am I the only one that read WP as WordPress?
Hill Dweller
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Judging from the twitter machine, everyone involved is getting ridiculed.
Hannity apparently did his best black person imitation during his show, which should leave no doubts about his motives.
Cacti
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I was thinking more if your sister was a toothless crack whore in the last stages of AIDS.
Gin & Tonic
@Morbo: That is some seriously funny shit, right there.
jwb
@Hill Dweller: As I said, they’ve received their marching orders. The orders will be followed until new orders are received. It makes no difference whether the orders make objective sense. They will be followed. The orders are: this tape is explosive. In Tapper’s and Crawford’s world, now, this tape is explosive and will remain so until they are told otherwise, then it will be completely forgotten. In Tapper’s case, he’s likely to be making fun of it as soon as he is no longer under orders to pretend otherwise. These people are just not very complicated, they do not have interesting opinions, and more and more they don’t even have access to interesting facts. Yet they think they can put shit like this over, but the only folks that they are fooling are themselves and those who want to be fooled.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Punchy: Serious question…what’s the difference to the poor fucker on the receiving end? Burned to death, punctured by shrapnel, brains blown out by a bullet…seriously. What’s the fucking difference?
I’ll start listening to the arguments about the relative merits of killing someone with any kind of weapon if you can first make the argument that there are different degrees of being dead.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@The Other Chuck: I thought it was the Washington Post.
I’m thinking Willard has written Obama’s ‘zinger’ and one that could last: “What’s in the bucket?” Willard has actually stirred up more shit than he did by being secretive with this “bucket” and made a dorky image that will stick to the RR campaign
Svensker
@Hill Dweller:
Yeah! Did you know Obama said youth who were raised in violent surroundings might need some help to get a good education and get jobs? Frigging communist! Also, he spoke with a slight “black” “preacher” accent. OMFG. Some scary shit, talking like that. Almost as scary and radical as when GDubya used to talk with that down home Texan-Connecticut accent — that was almost like getting mugged in an alley!
SatanicPanic
@Forum Transmitted Disease: There are different degrees of pain before you’re dead.
jwb
@Morbo: Excellent find.
Narcissus
@Forum Transmitted Disease: There are different degrees of wishing you were dead
Which you might if your skin burned off
jl
“Chaos abides, stirring up shit.”
I sense a new rotating tagline in the making.
jwb
@SatanicPanic: I’m surprised that Cole hasn’t put “modern gladiators” in the spam filter.
Spaghetti Lee
@Hill Dweller:
No one cares anymore, and the Drudge/Fox axis is the last to know. They’ve been pushing Obama is a scary foreigner/illegitimate love child/Muslim/blah blah whatever since 2007/ If that crap could have changed people’s minds about Obama, it would have happened already, because it’s been such a constant. But it didn’t, and now it’s just background noise. I can’t believe they really think this sort of crap will swing the election. Christ, even the nuts I know have given up on it.
MikeJ
@Forum Transmitted Disease: There’s only one humane form of warfare.
Violet
@Hill Dweller: Remember when Jake Tapper posted here? Good times.
taylormattd
*Soonergrunt* is the one you bitch out?
Do you happen to know why he wrote his diary?
He wrote it as an actual attempt to have a discussion about use of drones, and although you take issue with a couple of relatively mild wording, it was a great diary and a much more even-handed attempt to start a conversation than the bullshit initiated by that douchebag Freddie.
And mind you, Freddie calling DougJ a “Manchurian Monster” re: DRONNEZZZ was the reason Soonergrunt’s post exists.
But good to know it’s Soonergrunt’s post that you feel compelled to respond to, not to one of your front pagers taking a shit on another, from the comfort of his own blog.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Hill Dweller: Do the non-Foxers give any reason for alleged relevance, or is it just the “may raise totally non-racist concerns of white voters?”
I posted this earlier from a Time politcal reporter:
really something, indeed
Spaghetti Lee
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Can’t that be turned around? If we’re accepting the fact that people are going to die, and that dead is dead, couldn’t we find the least painful way to do it?
trollhattan
@El Cid:
Especially when said by Strong Bad.
I was half convinced Abbottabad was a made-up name, conjured just for Osama’s coda.
Abbottabad, Abbottabad, Abbottabad, Abbottabad, Abbottabad, Abbottabad, Abbottabad, Abbottabad, Abbottabad…
–Hamza the Tank Engine
jwb
@taylormattd: Cole’s long gone. He rarely reads past the tenth comment in any case.
suzanne
@Morbo: That was fuckin’ rad. I love that blog. I never really read Freddie’s posts—TL;DR, too boring, not enough art or humor or pets. Reading that makes me glad for that fact.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@LanceThruster:
It is indeed. I’ve always thought that its use as an anti-personnel weapon is barbaric. That said, WP is sovereign for creating smoke screens and there were some times when I was damned glad that we had the cover of smoke.
Jewish Steel
“If DougJ or Freddie or Sooner or ABL or Anne Laurie or Kay or Bernard or the others think I am being an idiot, they should let me know…”
Breaking: John Cole Snubs Randinho In Blog Post Shocker!
trollhattan
@MikeJ:
Totally works, although I’ll opt for Scarlett Johansson and a kilo of manteca.
Radio One
One of the things I’m not interested in reading on a political website is meta-infighting about something I know nothing about, and shouldn’t have to care about. Especially a month before an election.
Another Halocene Human
FWIW, I agree with your approach, Cole.
Betcha Freddie knew the heat that was going to come his way in the comments, though. Not like he prevented it by doing it that way. He probably made it worse.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
ah, crawford explains that the news value of this tape is Romney is rubber, and Obama is glue, or something
JOURNAMALISM!
DPS
@taylormattd:
As I said in Freddie’s thread, it’s pretty funny that in a post whining about marginalization and demonization of himself he managed to say that it was “frightening” how people like DougJ are made “crazy” and “Manichean monsters.”
That’s some pretty good marginalization and demonization!
eemom
@taylormattd:
Cole’s management skill IS pretty amazing, innit? I mean how he can pluck an insufferable, clueless asshole like de Boob from the well-deserved depths of blogoriphic obscurity, make him a FPer here, and fight to the death to defend him….while simultaneously according the same status to a decent man like SG and then shitting all over him. Ya gotta admit that’s impressive.
max
I’d like all of you who think my post below was some declaration of war on Soonergrunt or a “slap in the face” to cease and desist.
Seemed reasonable to me. It’s now up to 135 comments and responding to it would take a long time. Blarg.
max
[‘Still with SG though.’]
Hill Dweller
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes, Obama criticizing the Katrina response and Willard holding down a gay kid and shaving his head are equivalent.
Crawford is a Willard shill.
TG Chicago
Thanks for this post. I wondered why Freddie’s post wasn’t here on the Juice. I’m definitely a fan of having vigorous debate out in the open. (for example, despite all his flaws, Sullivan does a decent job of that.)
One of the great things about liberals is that we don’t march in lockstep. Yes, that does cause problems at times on the political end (and that’s yet another issue which is worthy of debate), but at least that means we’re all thinking for ourselves.
El Cid
@trollhattan: Especially if its sister city across the river was Costellostan.
Earl
Rotating tagline material…
General Stuck
I’d rather focus the energy on getting our happy asses out of Afghanistan, sooner rather than later. With the Afghan army turning against us and killing our troops, that is a very clear wake up call to hi tail it out of that country. They treat unwelcome armies pretty rough, and it is starting to go that way with ours.
Even the generals seem to get the gig is up, time to skeedadle maybe early. I am going to write some long letters to my congresscritters in the next few days, and one for the WH as well. I’m sick of this crap.
Good night and good luck.
Hill Dweller
@General Stuck: I also saw a report earlier today saying the US has basically given up on a treaty with the Taliban.
It seems the Afghan soldiers shooting our troops has even given the hawks in this country pause.
Violet
@General Stuck: I think Elizabeth Warren said in the recent debate that she wanted the troops out ahead of schedule too. Maybe she knew something…
WJS
@General Stuck:
But using drones is cool with you? Which way do you want to have it?
You’re all for the use of drones, which further recruits the people who go and kill our troops in Afghanistan, but you want us out of Afghanistan which is where the drones are based that are going and killing people in Pakistan who want our troops out of Afghanistan, and yet, one of the reasons why the so-called Green on Blue killings are happening is because it is, effectively, pushing the US out of Afghanistan so that we can withdraw our drones from the bases in Afghanistan.
I’m sorry, but wrong is still pretty goddamned wrong.
DPS
I actually think that the only problem with Freddie on this is that he was fucking whining about how people refuse to agree with him and tell him how awesome his views are. If you want to take positions in public, you should expect that some people will not agree with them, and may even conclude that you’re an idiot for holding them and want to make fun of you. Expecting everybody you talk to to coo and tell you how special you are is akin to expecting every election to provide you with your fucking magic pony who agrees with and will support every single position you yourself hold.
General Stuck
@WJS:
what, you going to start following me thread to thread with the assholish accusations and taunts. You can find my position on drones on Soonergrunts thread, mostly. And then you can go straight to hell.
Mandalay
@Radio One:
What election?
The prophet Nostradumbass
I see the whiner-in-chief is active in this thread.
Mnemosyne
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Actually, the thing that will get your weapon put on the banned list is not if it kills lots of people, but if it maims lots of people in horrible ways while still leaving them alive. That’s why stuff like mustard gas and Agent Orange are banned. It wasn’t how many people it killed immediately, it was the ongoing physical and mutagenic damage to the survivors.
Spaghetti Lee
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
Which one? (Nyuck nyuck)
Mnemosyne
@Morbo:
Ouch, that’s gonna sting. I think it’s been noted before by this blog’s denizens that Freddie doesn’t really get this whole “humor” thing that other people do. The words “sanctimonious prig” frequently come to mind when reading his posts, which is why I don’t read them very often.
handy
I haven’t seen this much drama over a FPer since Michael D.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@handy: You don’t remember some of the ABL drama (which has thankfully mostly gone away)?
Radio One
@Mandalay: Indeed! What election could I possibly be talking about?!
magurakurin
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
hmmm, I kind of thought the years from 1914 to 1918 put a different spin on that argument.
Bring back mustard gas, phosgene and chlorine, too!! Good times.
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime…….
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, –
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Wilfred Owen – Dulce et decorum est
Yes, dead is dead and war is the utter failure of politics and human society. But limits on what it becomes have to be seen as a positive in what is otherwise a completely black hole of humanity. White Phosphorous when used as a weapon and not for battlefield illumination is nasty and indiscriminate…like phosgene gas was.
I don’t see drones and spraying enemy troops (or civilian populations like the IDF has done in Lebanon and Gaza) with with white phosphorous as two sides of the same coin.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Mnemosyne: The one thing I wondered about was which “conservative web magazine” to which he contributes.
ETA: fixed tense confusion.
Mandalay
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
If your brains are blown out by a bullet your death will be close to instantaneous and painless. With willie pete…probably not so much, and potentially very painful, slow and nasty.
That’s the “fucking difference”. Seriously.
SATSQ.
handy
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
Actually I do but I just rather stir the shit any more than has been done.
different-church-lady
Soooooo… the reason we spend so much time here screaming at each other is because you want it that way.
Good to know.
Lee
I realize this is late in the thread but here is my 2 cents worth on Freddie.
There is a clear distinction between the two candidates (and parties) on the issue of women’s rights. So if you are like Freddie and get your fee-fees hurt because Obama is not the magic pony you wanted for your birthday and so you will no longer supporting him all you are telling me is that you believe that your feelings are more important than the rights of women.
It is very simple in this election, if you care about women’s rights you should support the Democrats. I’m sorry your feelings are hurt about X, but is it really more important than rolling back women’s rights 50 years?
RP
There’s a difference between honest argument and petty sniping. I think Cole’s earlier post straddled the line because he mischaracterized SG’s post. The fact that he included a bunch of quotes doesn’t mean anything — remember, apes read philosophy, they just don’t understand it.
Maude
I won’t argue much here.
I did point out a different fact some time ago and was attacked.
I decided to stay out of those types of threads.
I don’t mind arguing a point, but sometimes this blog doesn’t allow that.
NA
@Morbo:
I remember that! But didn’t realize they were the same Freddie! Quite revealing.
LanceThruster
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Boy Howdy! I got a taste of the smoke output from that party flare. Too bright to look at directly (but great light show), and filled that intersection and beyond with thick white smoke for more than an hour. A small cadre of green officers wanted to take action against the offending flare, but a more seasoned officer told them to just keep their distance and let it burn.
Good times.
Nutella
I think the problem is that you used this shocking, inflammatory, and deeply offensive title on your last post: “I Must Disagree”.
Have you no decency, sir?
LanceThruster
@The Other Chuck:
I’m so ancient I used to read the WP (as in FYWP) as “Word Perfect.”