Fuck you, Freddie deBoer.
In a rambling post that reads like the critical theory section of every curriculum development text used in doctoral programs in education (translation- every Freddie deBoer post), we learn that liberals are the suck because they decided they were not fans of Eich and Sterling’s racist and homophobic bullshit. What, you say? Surely he is not making that argument! Oh yes he fucking is:
Online liberalism, as I’ve said many times, is not actually a series of political beliefs and alliances but instead a set of social cues that are adopted to demonstrate one’s class background– economic class, certainly, but more cultural class, the various linguistic and consumptive signals that assure those around you that you’re the right kind of person and which appear to be the only thing that America’s 20-something progressives really care about anymore.
The dominance of personal branding and cultural signalling over political theory means that liberal attitudes change very rapidly and then congeal into a consensus that is supposedly so obviously correct that it does not need defending. In the past year, liberalism as an elite social phenomenon has abandoned first rights of the accused and second the right to free expression. The Jameis Winston and Woody Allen sexual assault cases saw the rise of resistance to any discussion whatsoever of due process and rights of the accused, and in the way of their culture, online progressives moved quickly to a place where anyone mentioning those rights at all were immediately and angrily denounced, and accused of insufficient resistance to (if not outright support for) rape and rape culture. Similarly, the Brandon Eich situation, and now the Donald Sterling fiasco, have prompted this social cohort to change liberalism such that its traditional staunch defense of free speech rights has become instead an assumed disgust with those who talk about free speech rights at all. On Twitter and Tumblr, the notion that people have the right to hold controversial political opinions is not a cherished precept of the left but tantamount to racism and homophobia. And, as I recently wrote, abandoning these commitments also entails abandoning the traditional liberal argument that rights are meaningless without ability.
His reasoning for this is that one day, the right wing might come after people on the left for thought crimes!
Shirley Sherrod wants to tell you to go fuck yourself. As do any one of the thousand people who have been neutered publicly for uttering entirely sensible thoughts. Van Jones?
Do I really need to make a list for you? I’m sure you all can come up with samples for Freddie in the comments. The right manufactures bullshit and ruins peoples lives. The despicable (in Freddie’s mind) online left merely reacts accordingly to the appalling statements these people make.
Not to mention intolerant liberals had nothing to do with Eich and Sterling getting shitcanned. Eich quit because his whole company was going to quit (half the board did) and because other programmers and Silicon Valley companies were shunning him. Sterling got the boot because 29 other billionaires saw their golden goose bleeding out, so they had the league courtier show him the fucking door. Us hater leftists got no fingerprints on those clean hits.
And seriously. WOODY FUCKING ALLEN and JAMEIS WINSTON?
But it gets better! In the comments, we find this:
He was reacting either to us not wanting to put up with Sterling’s racist bullshit or to one (1) comment from DougJ. One. That was interpreted by our thin skinned truth teller to be “silencing the heretics.” Nobody here had a strong opinion about Eich other than this really isn’t a free speech issue, the dude just pissed off all the people in the community and in his organization, so he had to go. There was no advocacy (nor was there for Sterling other than noting he is an addled old racist asshole), just an examination of reality. Which is probably what confuses Freddie.
Yes, Balloon Juice is silencing the heretics. We’ve silenced Freddie so much that he used to post here and still has an active account.
Stop Balloon Juice before we silence the heretics again. Hell, I’ll give Sterling an account so he can explain why we all suck for thinking he is an asshole who shouldn’t be an NBA owner.
You’re a regular fucking Solzhenitsyn, Freddie. Get over your bad truth telling self.
*** Update ***
And may I just say that if this blog is going to get lumped in with ANY blog that is considered evil and wrong, I’m fucking super cool with us and LGM as the badboys.
Hunter Gathers
The Dixie Chicks must find Freddie DeDouchebag’s observations to be fucking hilarious.
patrick II
In fairness, DougJ has a very intimidating internet presence. I know I would be scared.
RaflW
Well, of course, commenting on Freddie’s own thread by Doug (or any BJer) is exactly equivalent to shutting him down.
What a fucking pussy. He can’t even take a comment from a dissenter on his own page? What a spineless twaddler.
RaflW
Well, of course, commenting on Freddie’s own thread by Doug (or any BJer) is exactly equivalent to shutting him down.
Joshua Norton
tantamount to racism and homophobia.
If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…..
Suzanne
I couldn’t even read that shit he wrote. What does any of that even mean? It looks like English, but different. I cannot even tell what he’s trying to say.
West of the Rockies
That first sentence of Freddie’s runs about 70 words. Well, one must remind the great unwashed how brilliant one is, I suppose. I have found his work here to run to the pretentious and dull. Oh, wait… Does sharing such an opinion mean I am silencing our fragile flower?
kuvasz
Does that guy live in a jar? Nobody thinks like that in the real world.
RaflW
My question is, does the guy have even the most basic clue what the right of free speech pertains to?
Did the government shut down Mr. Sterling’s team? Take away his ability to say moronic and racist crap? No, and no.
The NBA made him accountable for his words and deeds. The NBA is not an arm of the government, did that escape your notice, Freddie?
Suzanne
@West of the Rockies: It runs about seventy words, and says….not much.
Mnemosyne
I’ve been looking for a spot to put this link, and this seems like a good one:
No One Cares If You Never Apologize for Your White Male Privilege
(via Fred Clark, of course, who has an even better headline, plus additional relevant links)
Poor Freddie just can’t get over the fact that growing up as an impoverished white male is still starting off on the “easy” setting in the videogame of life no matter how oppressed he feels.
Frankensteinbeck
Presumed guilt is a major human failure, and whether or not those guilty of particularly awful social crimes (like blatant racism) should be hounded from their important private positions is a question worth debate. In both cases, laying these on liberalism is hilarious. Conservatives hold both practices up as proud centers of their platform. Liberals merely do them sometimes, when they feel morality is particularly aggrieved.
Hunter Gathers
So we’re not allowed to call out racist and homophobic bullshit as long as it is political racist and homophobic bullshit.
Freddie probably sympathizes with Cliven Bundy. That simple rancher was just expressing his controversial political opinions.
Warren Terra
That whole episode where Freddie was given front-page privileges here and proved completely incapable of engaging with even the most politely couched disagreement was utterly hilarious – especially as even while continuing to post here he wrote posts elsewhere slagging off Balloon Juice for being closed to his viewpoint.
I didn’t realize he still had actual posting privileges; I thought he was still on the author roll out of laziness, or to mock his craven ass.
ETA the times he did blog here can be found at this link. There appear to be a few dozen, which is more than I remembered.
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne: That kid’s essay was embarrassing. The kid is a total moron.
DaveinMaine
Holy hell, Freddie. “Free speech rights” for Sterling? Take a fucking base-level civics class. He has the right to say what he believes. He isn’t free from consequences that derive from him saying it as long as it isn’t the government clamping down on him.
God I can’t fucking stand the left-wing Purity Brigade.
Cacti
The most tiresome thing about DeBore when he used to front page here wasn’t that his ideas were easily refuted, facile bullshit.
It’s that he’d take 20,000 words to say them.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
I do think it’s important to point out, though, that in Sterling’s case he was using his position of wealth and privilege to discriminate against people on the basis of race. Yes, his words got all the publicity (especially since the MSM was able to slap a photo of a hot chick over the audiotape) but, as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar pointed out, Sterling had a long history of racist actions that went along with his racist words.
Eich is a little more of a borderline case: he made a political donation that helped (temporarily) invalidate existing gay marriages in California, but there isn’t much evidence that he personally discriminated against GLBT people. I still think that one was more due to the ongoing rage over Prop 8 removing an existing right from people who had already started using it and throwing those people into legal limbo for several years. If it had just been a general donation to, say, NOM, and not in 2008, it wouldn’t have been as big a deal.
RaflW
@DaveinMaine: Wait, what? Freddie is left-wing? Huh?
I agree with everything you say before that. But I got lost at left-wing purity bit.
Seanly
I don’t remember us liberals attacking Jameis Winston too much. Any attacks on him from me would’ve been Nelsonian (Munch) ha-ha’s about him getting in trouble because I hate fucking FSU. But even as a hater of fucking FSU, I want the police to do a thorough & evenhanded investigation. And the accused better have rights & due process.
Eich & Sterling got hoisted on their own petards. Both are rich and I imagine that crying into their Scrooge McDuck-like piles of money will somehow assuage the anguish of being ousted from a portion of the rich white guy club for being a raging homophobe and a racist douchebag, respectively.
And here’s my political philosophy – it’s simple & doesn’t change due to Teh Internets:
1) Don’t be an asshole
2) Have some empathy especially for those less fortunate
3) Shit we all want costs money and that means taxes
4) Equal opportunity and treatment to all
5) People should be free in their thoughts, sexuality, privacy & associations
6) Corporations are not people
John O
When I read excerpts like that, I think “Ben Carson.” A really smart guy who is…well, kind of a dick.
As a borderline free speech absolutist (I don’t even care if someone shouts “Fire!” in a crowded theater–I’ll proceed in an orderly fashion to the nearest exit if I smell smoke while I count on onerous government regulations like “smoke detectors” to tell me how fast I need to move) I love the fact that this place allows dissent. FWIW, Sully’s blog does the same, bless his confused gay Catholic heart.
Phil Perspective
@DaveinMaine: It has nothing to do with a left-wing Purity Brigade. It has to do with Freddie being a pompous dillweed.
Xantar
BONERS!!!
Go look up Tiger Beatdown if you don’t know what I mean.
myiq2xu
Yeah, this place would never try to silence dissent or contrary opinions.
Never ever.
John O
@Seanly:
7. Money does not equal speech.
elm
Can’t you all understand that Freddie is purer, holier, and better than you? While to the untrained eye, he may *look* like a navel-gazer who peddles sub-Slate quality contrarianism or a useful idiot endlessly willing to criticize anyone and everyone on the left, he is really the only pure and noble soul on this planet.
Mnemosyne
@John O:
FWIW, the reason you’re not supposed to falsely shout “Fire” in a crowded theater is because people in that time period had actually died that way. People trapped in an enclosed space tend to panic, and panicked people tend to crush each other to death trying to get out.
Today’s equivalent would probably be shouting, “He’s got a gun!” in a crowded movie theater.
amk
@Suzanne: Also. Too. Me. Word salad on tundra twit level.
But the whine, whine, whine still shines through, though.
RaflW
@myiq2xu:
The point remains that the Juice is a blog by some people, and a bunch of commenting jackals. It’s not the gubmit and it is neither a grantor or nor denier of rights.
Warren Terra
@myiq2xu:
Oh, gawd, myiq0.1xu. I’d almost forgotten that idiot.
you weren’t “silenced” in some corrupt way, to prevent the purity of your wonderful ideas burning through, myiq0.001xu. You were shouted down, and roundly mocked, and asked to leave for repeatedly making an ass of yourself.
Joel
People with a shared political identity also share thoughts and principles? Am I getting this right?
John O
@Mnemosyne:
Yes, I understand the principle. I just wouldn’t panic myself in that situation.
Panic leads to bad decisions and bad actions.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Yep, been on the receiving end of this’n, at least as regards the Allen case. It’s a loaded one, but there’s no concrete evidence either way, is there?
Okay, I’m not up on Eich, but I’m very familiar with the Sterling case. Hell, I’m very familiar with Sterling as the shittiest franchisee, hands down, in the NBA since 1981. Here’s the difference between Allen and Sterling: There’s concrete evidence of Sterling’s words, he’s admitted to saying those words, and those words damage the league that conditionally granted him his franchise. End of story.
NotMax
Joycelyn Elders
Kevin B.
The Lawyers, Guns & Money post is awesome. and then there’s [BONERS].
HR Progressive
So wait, was his entire premise supposed to be “Liberals don’t like people who are racist homophobes and that’s bad because ‘free speech’!”?
If that’s not it, I don’t fucking get it.
It may also be because it is almost 2 in the AM on the East Coast, so…also, too, and heh, indeed.
elm
@HR Progressive: The premise is, as always, Freddie is better and purer than you. He seldom writes anything else.
scav
Are the left being uppity again and not agreeing with their betters, when allowed to vibrate their vocal cords at all? A silent nod and forelock tugging is ideal in the hallowed presences, I guess.
It’s like the war on Christmas, hearing other people being told to have happy holidays or having to listen to opinions contrary to your own is sheer and unutterable oppression and not to be tolerated.
? Martin
@Mnemosyne: Eich was a backlash against dark money political spending. The reason why liberals demand disclosure laws for political spending is so that we can have an opportunity to balance out through actual speech what the wealthy produce through ‘money speech’. Because these donors are often anonymous, the public is powerless to respond. But the Prop 8 donors were made public, and so it is really our only opportunity to protest. Eich was more a victim of being named CEO while USSC was ruling on a case of campaign contributions (he resigned the day after the decision).
USSC cannot expect that the wealthy get as much speech as they can afford and the rest of us won’t match that speech in ways that we can – and one thing we can do is boycott a company. So, I think that Eich and the USSC decision go together. That happens a lot in politics.
But it wasn’t the boycott or the complaints that caused Eich to resign. It was the fact that half the Mozilla board resigned and the employees at Mozilla started a campaign to remove him. Liberals also didn’t get Sterling removed – that was his coach and the NBA players that did that. Both were consequences from within their own organization. And I don’t know how anyone argues with that.
Mnemosyne
@John O:
Lotta good that does you when the 50 people behind you do panic and trample you as you try to calmly walk to the door.
I’m guessing that at least a few of the people who died at the Who concert in 1979, or the Station nightclub fire in 2003, did not themselves panic, but their lack of personal panic didn’t prevent them from dying in the crowd of others who were panicking.
RandomMonster
Why is it so hard for people to understand that liberals don’t abhor “those who talk about free speech rights”, we dislike the disgusting content of certain speeches (that are freely and lawfully given). Pointing out that something is disgusting is not suppressing it.
kdaug
Evil and wrong, since 1967. Deal with it, kids.
(ETA: Not consistently wrong, mind you. I was wrong once in ’67. The whole “being born” thing threw me for a loop…)
West of the Rockies
@John O: Well, fear is the mind killer, no?
ruemara
@Warren Terra: why is his nym such an inverse of reality?
Plus, fuck de Boer
Chris Grrr
“Assumed disgust”?
About someone choosing to speak, or supporting a voter initative? No.
He’s just applying more spin. Again.
Thomas F
Freddie made a perfectly sensible argument using coherent arguments in sentences and paragraphs. He didn’t post a picture of his cat, he didn’t have a mid-life crisis emotional meltdown, and he didn’t inflict his readers with a trolling inflammatory rant. He didn’t deploy cool codewords, and he didn’t deflect obvious counterarguments by linking to a “cool” misogynist like Tom Boggioni.
DougJ made a stupid fucking comment on the post because that’s who he’s become. Just like you, he’s a spineless coward who doesn’t make substantive posts anymore. Whether, like you, it’s because he’s sober or because he’s compromised or because he realizes the front pagers at this site have long since subordinated any and all principles to the overarching project of defending the current administration.
Good god you pick odd fights. And, even when you do, you can’t even engage an argument like an adult. Get some help.
hilzoy
The hell with this. I came here wanting to take a break from reading about how someone I know has been very publicly accused of predatory sexual stuff: I needed a break because, having read the post by the victim, I really felt for her, but knowing the person I know, I couldn’t not wonder whether this could possibly be true. I was worried about, you know, what I should make of an accusation that was not proven, and other rights- related stuff. And I was all broken up about it.
And ain’t I a liberal?
Mnemosyne
@Thomas F:
I think your standards for “coherent arguments” are extremely low. But, given the quality of the arguments I’ve seen you make here, I’m not surprised that you mistake pretentious bullshit on a stick for coherence.
West of the Rockies
How about a “Write a Sentence alike Freddie” contest: express the point that the day is warm….
The mid morning juxtaposition of the earth to the nearest celestial star led to a potentially uncomfortable — in terms of ambient temperature– experience for bipedal organic life forms in the region of the globe near but not below Nevada.
Thomas F
@Mnemosyne: “Poor Freddie just can’t get over the fact that growing up as an impoverished white male is still starting off on the “easy” setting in the video game of life no matter how oppressed he feels.”
The person who wrote something as hysterically stupid as that quote above – with a straight face – need not compliment me by commenting on the poor quality of my arguments.
Mnemosyne
@hilzoy:
Ugh. What a nasty thing to be caught in the middle of. I honestly have no idea what advice to give you, except maybe to try and stay as neutral as you can while it gets sorted out.
Mnemosyne
@Thomas F:
Uh-huh. Poor, oppressed white males, who just can’t compete against us uber-powerful wimmens and minorities. How do you poor dears manage to drag yourselves through the day with all of the discrimination that’s thrown in your way?
Oh, and since you seem to have trouble understanding the difference: that’s not an argument above, that’s vitriol. You may wish to educate yourself on how these different methods of communication work.
NotMax
Phil Ochs put it more succinctly and exponentially more cleverly.
some guy
By ANNE BARNARD
Published: August 28, 2011
BEIRUT, Lebanon — After trying for months to engage with Syria in an effort to ease the violence there, Turkey’s president declared Sunday that he had “lost confidence” in the government in Damascus, and he stopped just short of calling on President Bashar al-Assad to step down.
March 14th propagandists Say What?
Petorado
… Says every despot voted out of office in a democracy. If your opinion can’t stand up to public scrutiny, maybe it’s not worthwhile.
BTW, where does dear Freddie stand on Jamies stealing crab legs? Leftist conspiracy or simple shoplifting?
eemom
sheeyit, some of us told you that little twat was a twat like five seconds after you started letting him post here….and what was the thanks we got from you, O Lord of the Blog? MORE fuck you’s.
Jussayinzall.
Pen
@Thomas F: would you settle for one step up from the easy setting? Yeah growing up poor sucks, but being white and male pretty much means that, if you can dress nice, you’re highly unlikely to EVER have either your race or gender used against you in the legal system or job interviews.
This isn’t a hard concept.
some guy
Cacti’s bestest and most faithful correspondent (BJ Center Right Fight Club, check in up in the club0 reports in from Beirut
got a link for that?
scav
@Thomas F: If you can’t recognize the string of cool code wrapped around the argument, you need to get out more. That’s definitely a jargon-rich lode and a fair number here can use it when required. We’re just bilingual. To apparently posit that the cultural signaling he’s going on about is uniquely a characteristic of the left is laughable and bad faith in what I consider academic research. Does such exist on the Internet, well, duh. But the wholesale and rapid flocking of the Right Wing to support Chik-fil-et, Sterling and whatever mean-spirited tea-tantrum du jour is equally apparent. Am I really to assume that their magically appearing support of scoff-law cowboy vigilantism is a sign of deeply held, thought-out and long-standing coherent political belief, whereas objecting to racist and sexist actions and words is vapid trendyism despite being an on-going project since, oh, well, the Civil War, the Civil Rights era, the Suffragettes — repeat further back into time, even back so long ago as one where conservatives paid taxes without fainting.
some guy
poor Anne, sent to be a catapuLt.
at least Liz Sly has the opportunity to appear on Fred Hiatt’s Crayon Scribble page. poor Anne gets the March 14th Consolationj Prize. aftER MORE THAN 3 YEARS
slag
@Thomas F:
So…just to be clear…any random thing you happen to find up your own ass is worthy of discussion as long as it’s done in complete sentences? Yet cat pictures are a no?
JGabriel
So, umm, off-topic, but I just got back from the Jay Ackroyd/Digby meet-up at Rudy’s in NYC.
In attendance:
Joan (?) – I didn’t get all the names clearly, but I think Joan comments here too.
Todd (?)
Sophia (Lurker, Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That)
Dave (Lurker, Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That)
Philip Turner (blogger)
DaveNYC (BJ Commenter)
JGabriel (Me)
Jay Ackroyd (BJ Commenter, Eschaton, Virtually Speaking)
Digby (Hullabaloo)
John Amato (Crooks & Liars)
Lindsay Beyerstein (Duly Noted, Hillman Blog)
Amanda Marcotte (Slate)
Joan Walsh (Salon)
Jonathan Cohn (New Republic)
BillinGlendaleCA
@elm: Though he will you 1000 words to get that point across.
Petorado
@JGabriel: Pretty awesome crowd you surrounded yourself with. Must have been a really fun night! The rest of us will check our envy at the door.
JGabriel
@hilzoy: Yeesh. I got nothing either, except to echo Mnemosyne’s advice: best to stay as neutral as possible until the situation is clearer. My sympathies.
wetcasements
Eh, bad idea to give him any attention, let alone a link.
He reminds me of a certain type of grad student — pretentious but in reality quite limited, excessive use of jargon to make-up for a genuine lack of ideas, and so very, very desperate to be noticed by anybody.
Here’s a little bet for you — his “projected” Ph.D. will never happen.
Anybody spending so much energy on bullshit internet contrarianism isn’t really serious about finishing an advanced degree.
Jane2
@West of the Rockies: You need 50 more words in that sentence.
superfly
Freddie posts under his name in the comments at the Gawker sites too, I’ve seen him get his ass handed to him there as well, and seem to remember someone replying to him, and I’m paraphrasing “This is the same kind of bullshit that got you kicked off of Balloon Juice.”
Though apparently he wasn’t kicked off, but just slinked away.
Whammer
@scav, totally on point — “wholesale and rapid flocking of the Right Wing to support Chik-fil-et, Sterling and whatever mean-spirited tea-tantrum du jour is equally apparent”
Let’s put this very simply. Right wingers think it’s OK for me to be fired for no reason at all; I am an “at will” employee. They also, apparently, think Donald Sterling, Limbaugh, et al, should get sponsor money no matter what they say. The Dixie Chicks, however, should be boycotted based on what they say.
Out of that pile of incoherent fecal jambalaya, we see that when public opinion starts to move against them, they clutch their pearls and bemoan the end of civility.
To my fellow right-wing humans who cannot seem to grasp how idiotic their argument is — I’ll try being nicer when you try being smarter.
NotMax
Memo to Mr. deB.: Questing to be the next David Brooks is not without its pitfalls.
Mustang Bobby
@JGabriel: I would have loved to have been there except I know I would have made a fool of myself being in the presence of a lot of people whose writing I admire.
Mustang Bobby
Okay, I read that quote twice and it still sounds like something Sarah Palin wrote but with real words and all.
It sounds to me like he’s pissed off about not being welcome at the Kool Kidz table in the lunch room anymore.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mustang Bobby: That was my general impression of Freddie’s writing while he was posting here.
Cacti
@some guy:
Still fighting the good fight against “Islamofascism”?
;-)
Villago Delenda Est
Quote cut and pasted from LGM:
Poor Freddie. What, someone from the House Select Committee on Benghazi has bumped him from his seat n the projection booth down at the mall?
The key to the quote is “objectively” which, in this case, means failing to support my point of view 100%. Sort of like how it was used to attack those who told everyone that Iraq was destined to be tres fucked up.
Arclite
@Suzanne:
Yeah, when Freddie first started blogging, I enjoyed his posts, long though they were. But they got increasingly convoluted, and I kind of lost interest. I tried reading what he wrote above, but the sentences kept circling around any meaning, and I couldn’t make sense of it.
kdaug
@? Martin:
Seconded.
Jewish Steel
Someone at LGM suggested Ef De Bee has been in a froth generally since Elias Isquith got his gig over at Salon. Thus the tantrum.
Joey Maloney
I’d like to thank Matthew McConaughey, Nic Pizzolatto, and the entire cast and crew of “True Detective” for making it possible for me to succinctly express my reaction to this latest DEBONER.
http://youtu.be/nH_v0WpTdLk
Joshua James
He’s an epic tool… and was when he was posting here, he’d regularly get his ass handed to him on his posts, because his arguments were often bullshit and exposed as such fairly regularly, and I remember him also being surprised at having to defend them, too, and also whined that he had a day job and didn’t have time to hang around in the comments and mansplain his thoughts to us lower creatures of intellect…
So it’s not surprising that he’d write a turd such as this.
sorry I missed the party in nyc last night, yo… next time, I hope :)
Matt McIrvin
Yeah, that was what OWS was about, not, say, being unemployed and tens of thousands of dollars in the hole.
Freddie deBoer
And this getting what you want, John – whipping up your notoriously nasty group of commenters who can day, under the blanket of pseudonymity, all the truly ugly stuff that you want then to say. That’s your MO, it’s how you operate around here. It’s how you get the barely disguised misogyny that people direct towards Megan McArdle, the barely disguised homophobia towards Glenn Greenwald, the ritualistic flogging of anyone who isn’t a good loyal Democrat. You get your pet min here to say the really gross, personal shit that you would like to, knowing that they are protected by internet anonymity. That’s a bullshit, cowardly, pathetic way to behave, John. I never figured you for a bully.
Matt McIrvin
Wait, isn’t John usually on Greenwald’s side of the fights here over Greenwald?
RSR
@Hunter Gathers: #1 response is right on target-
Dixie Chicks. Prime example of ‘do what we say, not what we do.’
BruceFromOhio
@Seanly:
6) Corporations are not people
I’ll accept corporations as people when Oklahoma executes one.
As for “silencing a heretic,” get back to me when you’ve lost your job, voting rights, marriage, home, crops, lands, or been thrown in a river with your hands tied, because of the actions of a local, state or federal government agency in response to what you say in public.
Until then, please, proceed.
Joshua James
Shorter Freddy: “Freedom of speech for ME, but not for THEE…”
Hawes
@Matt McIrvin: Keep your facts out of Freddie’s beautiful theories.
Hawes
This reminds me of what Ed at Gin and Tacos wrote: The Venn diagram of racists and people who don’t understand the first amendment is a single overlapping circle.
Kay
@Freddie deBoer:
How were Woody Allen’s due process rights not protected? A physician reported the child’s allegations. Physicians are mandated reporters. It was referred to police investigators, which is not at all unusual. They investigated and Allen was never charged with any crime.
Allen then sued Farrow for custody of the children, and the two of them had all the civil process money can buy.
http://www.vanityfair.com/dam/2014/02/woody-allen-1992-custody-suit.pdf
Joshua James
I’d add, Freddy, that John, under his own name, pretty much said the ugliest thing that could be said at the top of this post, when he linked to you and said, “Fuck you, Freddy”…
So he’s hardly siccing his allegedly anonymous horde (many of whom actually post their real names) to do his work for him… seems to me, the work’s done right there, yes?
sharl
@myiq2xu: Meatprod! Howz it hanging, you sick, twisted fuck?
Betty Cracker
You know how it’s always about projection with wingnuts? FdB suffers the same malady. He’s had his ass handed to him repeatedly by feminists and people of color, and rather than finding succor in “traditional liberal arguments,” which don’t happen to support his clueless bloviations, he’s doing the aggrieved white male dance. While accusing others of cultural signaling! And of course incoherent douchecanoe Heliopause is there to polish his knob. Funny stuff.
Joshua James
@Betty Cracker:
yeah, this… what you said.
Kevin
And when all else fails, Freddie busts out the smarmy, tone policing whine.
Freddie, you wanted this. You wanted the attention, because your blog gets 5 people a month reading it. So you write this idiotic blog filled with straw-men and stupid, and then try to taunt BJ and LGM, hoping that they will take the bait and link to you. That gets the blog traffic flowing, and then, you can play the martyr.
I’m just surprised you type so well with nails in your palms (well, a couple of odd spelling mistakes aside).
And what gross personal stuff has anyone said about you in these 83 posts? You did the same thing on the LGM thread, calling everyone vile and disgusting, but I just don’t see it.
BTW, your whole argument was crap. Utter crap. You are mad at liberals online for supporting NBA players right to be enraged by Donald Sterling? Really? Is that the hill you are putting your reputation to die on? (it’s more of a gentle slope, you didn’t have much of a reputation).
Yes, Donald Sterling said some vile crap in privacy, and this was exposed. I’m not a fan of doing stuff like that. But the cats out of the bag, and the people who were most enraged are not the bloggers you rage at. It’s the players and other owners. They forced him out, not us. But I guess you would have us leap to the mans defense? Really, I’m asking you this. What would you have us do? Take your words to their logical conclusion. You would have us be loud and vocal in support of Donald Sterling against the very players on his team. The coach of his team. The players on opposing teams. The owners and sponsors of other teams.
Why? Because what he said was said in supposed privacy? Should we forcefully denounce Doc Rivers as a scumbag for violating Sterlings free speech rights? Please, tell us great one, what should we do????
SRW1
That Freddie de Boer guy is gonna go places. He’s concerned for the right people and he’s fine with a bit of back stabbing the ones that don’t matter as much if it serves his purpose.
Scott S.
Freddie has a ridiculously oversized, ridiculously fragile ego. He’s the Wisest Man in the World, and when you demonstrate that he actually isn’t, he’s the Most Insulted Man in the World. If we ever get him, Greenwald, and Trump in the same room, the resulting explosion will blow a hole in the planet.
Kevin
@Betty Cracker: I’m not sure heliopause isn’t a Freddy sock puppet. When I asked over there if we are able to support the NBA players in their actions against Sterling, he said of course, but not for anything Sterling said in super secret.
…which i think means I have to support Sterling. Or something. Like Freddy, he just used words but didn’t say anything.
Scott S.
@Freddie deBoer:
And this getting what you want, John – whipping up your notoriously pancake group of pancakes who can day, under the blanket of pancakimity, all the truly waffley stuff that you want then to say. That’s your MO, it’s how you pancake around here. It’s how you get the barely disguised pancakes that people direct towards Mrs. Butterworth, the barely disguised pancakephobia towards Waffle House, the ritualistic flogging of anyone who isn’t a good loyal Pancake. You get your pet min here to say the really gross, personal waffles that you would like to, knowing that they are protected by pancake anonymity. That’s a pancake, pancakey, pancakic way to pancake, John. I never figured you for a buttery, fluffy pancake.
Kevin
@SRW1: Freddy is desperate to get a job as the liberal contrarian somewhere. He actually ripped LGM saying they only attack people to their left. Go through Freddie’s entire blog posts (well…that may kill you…so be careful). He only ever attacks liberals. He never attacks the right.
It is literally “no one is as left as me” all day every day. He want’s that “gay blogger who hates gay people” spot that Vox had (but for leftist hates liberals). He wants to be some outlets Conner Friedersdorf. And the only thing stopping that from happening is, well, he is a terrible writer. So he is just lashing out for attention.
RSR
also, too: http://xkcd.com/1357/
Warren Terra
@Kevin:
pretty sure Freddie’s blown his chances of getting hired at Vox.
More than that, I’d guess that’s generally true. De Boer is presumably unemployable in academia, if he ever finishes his PhD; nobody wants controversy and conflict, and departments want to recruit new members who won’t pick personal fights with the existing ones. All of De Boer’s track record indicates that’s not him. And even as a blogger/writer, he’s notoriously turgid and uninteresting, and has terrible personal ties with his potential peers.
Oh, and Freddie, since you’re reading this thread. I went back and looked at a couple of your posts here, and while some of the comments were rude, many were sincere or even kind attempts to seriously engage with perceived failings in your posts; other fools even applauded your posts. You lost all your credibility because you had absolutely no ability to engage with even the politest of disagreement. If nowadays the treatment you receive jumps several steps and goes straight to the contemptuous mockery, it’s because you’ve worked very hard at demonstrating you deserve nothing better, by not responding in kind when something better was offered.
Vlad
@Freddie deBoer: So, just to be clear: It’s your working theory that people complain about McArdle not because she’s a terrible writer who doesn’t think her arguments through, but rather because she’s a woman?
Interesting.
Lurking Canadian
I think there is an important issue in these cases, about whether somebody can be fired for something they say. That is a free speech issue, and could get ugly. If, say, Hobby Lobby started firing staffers for posting pro-choice comments on blogs, we would be rightly outraged.
HOWEVER, Eich and Sterling are really bad examples. It is much less clear to me that even in the free speech utopia an organization shouldn’t have the right to terminate somebody who is materially harming the organization.
different-church-lady
@RSR: Beat me to it.
different-church-lady
@Matt McIrvin:
Usually accompanied by a bunch of “fuck yous” when we disagree with him.
We appear to be most poorly trained group of Orcs ever to rampage across the blogsphere.
WereBear
@kuvasz: I wish.
different-church-lady
DOOO EEEEEEEET!
Belafon
@RSR: Yep. I want to thank Randall for giving us that one.
I would like to coin a new term: deBoering. It’s the inability to realize that being able to respond to criticism from others means that your rights to speech have not been taken away.
NonyNony
@Betty Cracker:
Mark this down as a prediction – in 20 years Freddie will be a conservative hack of the “I used to be a liberal but now because of X I’ve realized I’m outraged by welfare spending” variety. I’m thinking he’ll be the next generation David Horowitz, but maybe that’s too harsh.
sm*t cl*de
I am not so convinced of that, since the comment he left over at LGM is almost identical to his emanation here. He is responding to threads, but there is no evidence that he’s actually reading them.
Paul in KY
@Seanly: I like your political philosophy.
sm*t cl*de
@NonyNony:
Finding it hard to tell how anyone will know the difference.
different-church-lady
@sm*t cl*de:
Based on how boiler-platey his comment was, I don’t think there’s any evidence he’s actually reading the front page posts either. I mean, he’s got Cole pegged as anti-Greenwald — that’s gotta be either a statement from ignorance or one of the most mammoth reading comprehension fails in history.
Paul in KY
@West of the Rockies: Needs a few more words, but good try!
Paul in KY
@JGabriel: Man, wish I was there. Hope y’all had a great time!
Paul in KY
@NotMax: Think you’ve got him pegged!
Alex S.
@Freddie deBoer:
ehehe, as if the main reason to make fun of Megan McArdle is her being female….
Paul in KY
@Freddie deBoer: Man, you are a delicate flower if you think the commenters in here are so mean & badass & all that. Being a loyal Democrat is the only correct position for any rational, thinking person in 2014 USA. You are a tool if you don’t realize that.
Marc
The worst part is, de Boer opens with a kernel of an important argument:
He swaddles it in jargon, but the idea that much of the online discussion from the “social justice” left is concerned more with self-positioning and self-aggrandizement than with actual political beliefs, strategies, or accomplishments isn’t wrong. #CancelColbert would be a prime example.
But as many other commenters have said above, Eich and Sterling are terrible examples. Neither one was brought down by “hashtag activism” or social media or online anything. The Eich case is an example of honest to God activism by people who actually had something to lose when they resigned from Mozilla’s board or refused to do business with them. Is this the sort of activity de Boer wants to delegitimize? Why does Brendan Eich have the right to donate to anti-gay causes, but other Mozilla board members and employees don’t have the right to protest his hiring as CEO?
There’s a good argument to be made against the social justice left’s elevation of personal branding over political theory. Unfortunately, by tangling it up with the Eich and Sterling cases and wrapping it up in a general screed against “online liberalism” de Boer turns it into a typically contrarian piece from a nominal leftist who spends most of his time complaining about the left. In other words, a perfect example of placing personal branding over political theory.
It really is always projection.
Morzer
@Freddie deBoer:
Freddie, have the guts to actually put up a post making an argument and defending your position – and respond civilly to the commenters who discuss it – or accept that these abusive driveby whineathons in which you specialize are the mark of your cowardice, intellectual limitations and inability to bring anything constructive to a discussion among adults.
sm*t cl*de
I imagine that “consumptive signals” involve being pale, coughing blood into a handkerchief, and singing arias from La Boheme.
Morzer
@different-church-lady:
We ain’t had no meat for three stinkin’ days….
different-church-lady
@Villago Delenda Est:
We’re despicable for telling him he’s full of it. At the same time, Donald Sterling just has a point of view!
Paul in KY
@Vlad: He has glommed on to a very occasisional comment by someone on her looks (or lack of them), usually interjected within an otherwise spot-on takedown of her non-female deficiencies.
Paul in KY
@NonyNony: If there’s alot of money in that gig, I would expect him to be all over it.
Betty Cracker
@sm*t cl*de: LMAO! I had the same thought.
different-church-lady
@Marc:
The problem here — and it’s not exactly hard to see — is the assumption that Left-Blogistan is monolithic.
Your prime example proves it: #CancelColbert was like a caricature of of a hyper-leftist, and plenty of other lefty bloggers thought it was ridiculous. But when one wants to condemn an entire end of the spectrum, one can just ignore the data that doesn’t support one’s essay. It ain’t science, after all, it’s just bloviating.
Yes, “the left” is capable of writing absurd things and acting like a bunch of Heathers. It’s one thing to make that observation. It’s quite another to attempt to claim this is the very ethos of the left. Because if there’s one thing the Left-Blogistan is really really good at, it’s screaming just as loudly at each other as at anyone else.
Morzer
@different-church-lady:
As Will Rogers almost said:
“I am not a member of any organized blogosphere. I am a Left-Blogistani.”
J.W. Hamner
Freddie is upset that nobody is responding to this question apparently. The reason why, of course, isn’t because nobody has an answer… but because the answer was implicit in the demolishing of his specious arguments that precede the question.
If a CEO was being forced out for expressing opinions I support… I would… uhm… exercise my right to free speech in support of them. That’s how free speech works.
Kevin
@Marc:
Colbert wasn’t brought down by #hashtag activism. And I hardly think that was an example of liberals flocking to a cause. In fact, the liberal blogs mostly mocked the position of the activist, and rightly exposed her as a shameless self promoter. Very few bit on that one.
Unless i’m reading you wrong, I don’t think your example is very good.
sm*t cl*de
Speaking of Bohemian rhapsodies, Shakezula brings the funny at LGM.
Poopyman
@Scott S.: Pie not good enough for ya?
Poopyman
NOW can you move the LoOGies to “Blogs We Monitor and Mock as Needed?”
Marc
@Kevin: Then I wasn’t being very clear. I wasn’t saying that Colbert was “brought down” by hashtag activism, or that #CancelColbert was an example of liberals flocking to a cause. I was saying that they were an example of one particular stripe of online discussion from the left (which sometimes identifies itself as “social justice” despite doing absolutely nothing to advance social justice, and quite a bit to degrade the discussion of social justice issues IMO). They are a perfect example of putting personal branding above political beliefs, and that is worth pushing back against.
The problem, as different-church-lady says, is that de Boer rather willfully confuses one strain of online discussion with the entire left. (Well, all but him, bravely speaking truth to the powerless.) In so doing, he also forgets that the protests against Eich and Sterling were about actual beliefs that have tangible effects on actual human beings, making them pretty much the direct opposite of the personal posturing he decries–and the posturing post that decries them.
Sly
@Marc:
No, he doesn’t.
Freddie is just one of many, many, many people who operate under the illusion that there are two kinds of politics: the Politics of Reason, built on pure objectivity, and the Politics of Identity, built on puerile subjectivity. Of course, by magical coincidence, every position staked out by those who believe this is derived from the Politics of Reason, while the positions of those who disagree with them are built upon the Politics of Identity.
The truth is that the Politics of Reason is a myth. All politics is the Politics of Identity. The Politics of Reason is just the thinly-concealed subjectivity of the privileged, rhetorically elevated to cast all other politics as trivial.
Ruckus
@Kevin:
The world is round, so is Fred’s logic. It’s so round he looks left but circles all the way around and stops at right. As in I’m right all the time and I’m gunna hold my breath till I turn blue if you don’t believe me.
Malaclypse
@Belafon:
I would like to coin a new term: deBoering. It’s the inability to realize that being able to respond to criticism from others means that your rights to speech have not been taken away.
That’s already called a Palining.
different-church-lady
@Ruckus: That was objectively despicable.
different-church-lady
Holy christ, I don’t think I’ve ever before seen anyone attempt to say “GAME ON, MOTHERFUCKERS!” and “I’m taking my ball and going home” at the same time.
Scott S.
@Poopyman: The LGM folks rewrite troll posts so they’re all about pancakes, which I enjoy because it also gives me an opportunity to post the word “waffle” a lot. :)
Marc
@Sly: I agree with most of that. That doesn’t mean that de Boer’s wrong to observe that one prominent strain of the social justice discussion online prizes social cues and personal branding over political beliefs, alliances, strategies, and accomplishments.
The Politics of Identity has its preening narcissists, too. The irony of this particular criticism is that it comes from one of the most preening narcissists of the Politics of Reason.
Jamey
@Freddie deBoer: Why, when you’ve got actual publishing privileges here, do you whinge in the comments thread? Your point of view matters, Freddie. What’s left to be determined is whether it’s valid or stands up to critical analysis. If multiple points of view disturb you, maybe you should try doing something else for a living, other than sharing your opinions, that is?
Poopyman
@Scott S.: Wow! Thanks for that. I thought I was already Aware of All Internet Traditions, but apparently I wasn’t.
Jamey
@Paul in KY: This, also.
Omnes Omnibus
Freddie’s response at his own blog.
Morzer
@Omnes Omnibus:
Let me guess, it’s a blend of tu quoque, no true leftist and goodbye, cruel world? And all without links!
Scott S.
@Omnes Omnibus: Is it worth giving him the hit? I assume this is all about trying to drum up some hits so maybe the Blaze or WND will start accepting his columns…
Omnes Omnibus
@Morzer: It had two links. One to the Heliopause pause comment cited in Cole’s post and one to the LGM post.
Sly
@Marc:
Name any strain of any political movement that doesn’t.
Social cues and personal branding are inevitably valued more than beliefs, alliances, strategies and accomplishments, because the latter group follows from the former. You will not get a coherent political community without social cues and personal branding, because those define the very boundaries of the community. Without them, there will be no beliefs (that form the basis for communal shibboleths), no alliances (with other communities), no strategies (to advance and defend the interest of the community) and no accomplishments (of the community’s political action).
slag
@Marc:
Indeed. FDB, Slate, John McCain, Joe Lieberman, etc, etc in a nutshell. So predictable in their “originality”.
Morzer
@Omnes Omnibus:
But no links that support Fredo’sbig, important, very-serious-person, theoretical claims, amirite? How was my misguesstimation on the content?
kc
He’s not wrong about that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Morzer: I pointed out the only factual and/or interpretive error in your previous post.
Morzer
@kc:
My memory is that leftists tended to be more upset by the sloppy, or non-existent police work in the Jameis Winston case. That said, I don’t think Fredo’s claims mean very much because they are, as usual, hyperbolic and unsupported by evidence. What – or who – exactly does he mean by “online progressives”? Who is this “anyone” who was denounced?
Morzer
@Omnes Omnibus:
I stand in awe of your graciousness.
Francis
Freddie: Buried in your bafflegab are a couple of factual claims: (a) that liberal values change rapidly, and (b) the speed of the change is due to the dominance of posturing over theory.
Please provide evidence for these claims.
Marc
@Sly:
Moving the goalposts. “The other guys do it too” doesn’t mean it isn’t a problem for the social justice left.
And without the political beliefs, alliances, strategies, and accomplishments, those social cues and brands will amount to little more than personal marketing and posturing–or a set of cudgels used to dismiss and berate others. Neither one advances the project of social justice, and the latter actively impedes it.
chopper
@Freddie deBoer:
oh, boo fucking hoo. you want to make fun of people on the internet, you have to be able to take a few punches.
Omnes Omnibus
@Morzer: As well you should.
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s hilarious to me that FdB cites Heliopause while taking a dump on the vicious meanies who comment at Balloon Juice. “My trusted advisor Bernie Madoff brought multiple instances of financial chicanery at JP Morgan to my attention…”
chopper
@Betty Cracker:
hey now, heliopause is the nicest commenter i’ve ever read.
in all seriousness, this is just a fucking clown show. freddie’s broad-brush criticisms of online liberals were stupid enough, but his thin-skinned whining about having to deal with criticism of that was even dumber. it was the same when he was a FPer here. two posts in to a thread, after some jerk had the nerve to point out a flaw in his deeply-constructed (i.e. ‘too verbose by half’) argument and he’d start huffing and puffing about how everybody needed to just lay off.
how fucking hypocritical. “my god, this medicine tastes terrible!”
Matt McIrvin
@Vlad: I actually do think there’s a tendency for male liberal snark aimed at female right-wingers to become sexist, and I wish it would stop. Balloon Juice isn’t as bad as, say, the old TPM comment boards, and it’s never as bad as the sexism on the right, but it happens.
That does seem like it cuts against the original “left politics has transformed into PC gone mad” thesis, though.
Sly
@Marc:
This misses the point; that valuing social cues and personal branding isn’t a problem for anyone because it isn’t a problem, so it need not be imagined as a problem for the “social justice left” in particular. But believing that your own social cues and personal branding do not exist, and that you practice a form of politics that is entirely divorced from a cultural identity? That’s not only a problem for many political communities, but a noxiously oafish one to boot.
I would agree that a political community without these things has no purpose, and that they do not inevitably flow from the creation of a community, but I would make the case that, without the community, those things are impossible to cultivate. You can have the former without the latter, but you can never have the latter without the former. So to claim that the problem is the former itself is a hard row to hoe.
Again, I see no reason to single out one particular group of leftists for scorn on this front, and certainly not to subject a broad category of “online liberals” to this accusation. Especially when that argument is coming from someone with Freddie’s track record.
Tripod
LEAVE FREDDIE ALONE!!!
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: As a student of rhetoric, I tend to find him a bit lacking. OTOH, his criticism of liberals comes from a long standing tradition in left of center politics. Generalizing madly here, there are really two strains of thought on the left. One is that the system is so broken and corrupt that it should be replaced; broadly speaking, these are the leftists. The other one is that the system is flawed and/or broken, but capable of being and worth the effort of fixing; broadly speaking these are (American) liberals. The terms get thrown around so indiscriminately in Left Blogistan that sometimes people lose track of this. Soi-disant leftists like FdB have been doing taking swipes at liberals for years – sometimes with wit and elegance and sometimes without.
Donut
This is about the most naive and silly and child-like thing I’ve ever seen someone say about politics.
It’s fucking POLITICS, Freddie. It’s not supposed to be ‘advanced’, or reasonable, or rational, and no one practicing politics has ever said exactly what they mean. And they never will. Politics is supposed to be broken, ugly, messy, stupid and any other pejorative you can think of. That’s how it operates. Representative democracy can only mitigate this condition. It certainly can’t fix it to some awesome, super-rational result where everyone gets a little of what they want, if we all just said what we mean. If that were the case, the US Civil War would have been the last argument, ever, that Americans had about how to do democracy the right way. Yet here we are, 148 years later, having the same arguments. Huh. We’ve never resolved the issues that have been with us from the start. Gosh, I wonder why that it is.
Every bit of recorded human history pretty much backs up what I’m saying. Pretending otherwise is kinda pointless. But have at it.
jrg
Mnemosyne seems to be doing a good job of that.
Mike E
@Scott S.: OK, I lagged. Then I got really hungry. Bastard! Thanks a pantload.
kindness
Freddie misses the old John Cole. Who knew that Balloon-Juice is now the new Great Orange Satan? Freddie does apparently. And his pack of lackies. Did you read those comments over there? I got through about half before I gave up hope.
Elly
I suspect Freddie’s problem is that he’s a hothouse flower. He’s firmly ensconced in the ivory tower, with teaching and mentoring responsibilities. I don’t doubt that he’s deferred to by the undergrads he works with, and treated with considerable respect.
Trouble is, he can’t duplicate this very ego-satiating experience outside of academia, and it’s driving him to distraction, IMHO. Worse, his immature and petulant outbursts in response to criticism could come back to haunt him… it’s completely unprofessional.
Mike E
@Mike E: Laff’d, even. Autocorrect is McMegan’s calculator it would seem.
Paul in KY
@Marc: I don’t think the ditz who got on Colbert about that skit (making Chinese pidgen sounds) was a ‘leftist’.
Citizen_X
@Freddie deBoer:
Well, which is it? Is it utterly shocking that John would be such a mob-whipping meanie, or it the way he typically operates?
Mnemosyne
@jrg:
If you disagree with Fred Clark, Mychal Denzel Smith, and John Scalzi, please state your reasoning. You did follow the two links I provided to support what I said, right?
SatanicPanic
I was mostly rubbernecking over at LGM, didn’t know we’d get in on making fun of Freddie too, damn late to the party
chopper
@Villago Delenda Est:
ah, the mark of the orthodox internet buffoon, using ‘objectively’ like that in an actual serious manner.
Ivan X
@Suzanne:
I can’t stop laughing at this. Spot-on.
different-church-lady
@Morzer:
You can’t link to an ethos, dude!
RaflW
@Warren Terra: Thank you for helping me find just the bon mot needed for essence de Freddie:
The notoriously turgid and uninteresting FdB.
Perfecto.
(Oh, and this is of course an objectively despicable thing I’m saying. I own it. I regret my choice of words in my first comment way upthread late last night.
Well, I don’t regret calling him a spineless twaddler. That I think was confirmed, given his visit here this morning to whine like a 1/3 amp motor running at 115%.
I regret the other invective. Not my best moment).
different-church-lady
@chopper:
But he doesn’t want to make fun of people — he wants to vanquish them with his superior intellect, and he appears to be upset by the idea that not everyone else wants to do the same.
different-church-lady
@chopper:
I know. And such small portions.
different-church-lady
@Matt McIrvin:
So why not decry the instances when it happens, instead of trying to claim it’s the very value system of an entire end of the spectrum?
jrg
@Mnemosyne: You’re going to have to convince me it’s worth my time arguing with a left-wing incarnation of Poe’s law, first.
RaflW
@different-church-lady:
Indeed. I thought the #CancelColbert thing was way overblown and had the stink of rightwingers grafting onto it.
I do think that Asian Americans have a valid criticism to advance re: the safe racial demo to spoof.
But the push to cancel him over that was over the top (and not successful, which could be anti-Asian racism, or it could be confirmation that the blowback was disproportionate).
RaflW
@different-church-lady: He appears to be upset that 99% of humans do not wither before his massive summa cum laude smarts.
Scott Lemieux
@Thomas F:
Really? Can you point me to the substantiation for his assertions that 1)liberals who believe that local authorities shouldn’t obstruct investigation into credible sexual assault charges oppose the due process of law and/or that 2)liberals oppose the very concept of free speech? Because for some reason the evidence isn’t showing up in my browser.
I note as well that the replies to him were in complete sentences, were on the merits, and contained no cat pictures.
The Thin Black Duke
I know I’m late to the party, but I find it incredible that the hill so many delusional white men are willing to die on is the “right” to be be able to say “nigger”, “faggot”, “spic” and so on without suffering any consequences. Y’know, the Good Old Days. But as Gil Scott-Heron wisely observed, “What you call ‘nostalgia’, ain’t what I’ve been missing.”
Bobby Thomson
@Freddie deBoer: You seem nice.
beergoggles
@chopper: ‘Objectively’ is the new ‘literally’.
Marc
@Sly:
Only if you insist on defining it away. The recent history of online discussion around social justice issues (esp. as reported by Michelle Goldberg) would suggest otherwise.
But that wasn’t my point, and it wasn’t even the point of de Boer’s that I quoted. The cultivation of social cues in and of itself doesn’t have to be a bad thing (I agree with you that it’s universal, and that de Boer is completely oblivious to his own) but the observation that they dominate particular strains of American politics, on the left as well as the right, and that they have been used both to stifle discussion and to preclude other forms of political activity strikes me as both accurate and worthwhile.
The problem is that de Boer wraps it up in so much other nonsense and paints with such a broad brush that this point becomes lost (if not actively discredited). That’s a shame, because it’s a conversation worth having. Unfortunately, Freddie is just about the worst person to have it.
eemom
I like this thread. It reminds me of olden times.
[waving to Morzer]
Rex Everything
I like Freddie. He’s wrong sometimes, e.g. in this case. He’ll probably get around to admitting it sooner or later.
In the meantime, it’s sure entertaining to watch Cole respond by pulling live cats out of his vagina.
Morzer
@eemom:
[wavez backs to da youf element]
What are the odds on Freddie de Boer being arrested for starting a bar fight just to get his thrills by being beaten up? I don’t think the intertoobz can give him enough of a fix over the longer term.
Omnes Omnibus
@Marc:
Part of the problem with this is that in the context of FdB is that he is arguing a mirror image of Goldberg’s point.
Lee Rudolph
@Elly:
You don’t, huh? Somehow I do. Undergraduates, as a group, may have many flaws, but I have never observed deference to and respect for pomposity to be one of them, and (though here I may be wrong, not having had nearly as long as experience of Mr. deB. that I have had of undergraduates and pompous persons) neither I have I seen any evidence that he is capable of doffing and donning his pomposity at will: I think he’s stuck with it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Lee Rudolph: If he is grading their work, they’ll give at least surface respect and deference to his face. What is said behind his back may differ.
Pogonip
Oh, Hodor this $hit. Does anyone else want Hilzoy to blog again?
Pancakes! Yay!
1weirdTrick
@RaflW: Exactly. Teh wordz, tehy burnnnnn!
ranchandsyrup
Is this all an elaborate ruse to increase FdB’s Klout score?
SatanicPanic
@The Thin Black Duke: My response to people complaining about that double standard is “why do you want to use those words? I mean, I don’t want to anyways, so why do you?” That usually shuts people up, but not always.
taylormattd
I have two things to add:
(1) Here is LGM’s take on Freddie’s bullshit:
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2014/05/clearly-careerism-talking
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2014/05/hope-will-engage-serious-soul-searching
(2) [BONERS]: http://tigerbeatdown.com/2010/04/09/why-tiger-beatdown-has-jokes-on-it-turns-out-some-motherfucker-had-to-ask-me/
worn
The funniest thing about reading Freddie’s response to the responses is his exhaustive list of all the various factions he’s “fought” with. This accounting comprises an 83 word sentence. Never settle for one word where two or three will suffice, I guess…
He also states this: “Well, I don’t have an army of rabid, anonymous commenters…”
In my empirical observations (admittedly a very small sample set), the lack of a community having arisen in response to his many years of blogging might very well be presented as prima facie evidence that said writing isn’t very compelling (in any number of ways one might valuse, be it insightful social/political analysis, beauty of the prose, humor, snark, you name it).
taylormattd
@Freddie deBoer: Oh for fuck sake. Don’t forget to climb down from the cross before you go to bed.
Marc
@Omnes Omnibus: Which doesn’t mean that Goldberg is wrong or that there isn’t an important point buried underneath all the bad faith in de Boer’s piece.
eemom
@Morzer:
speaking of youf element, ‘twaz our very own little toko-loko who, emperor’s new clothes-like, was the FIRST to call out de Boob, back in the day.
[sniff] Wonder where she is now?
gwangung
@RaflW: What people were missing was that there was a lot of right wingers who glommed onto that. AND that there were a lot of liberal racism lurking in there. As well as that there was a bit of the point to it, but that a lot of over blown self importance and that of Asian American ACTIVISTS thought the campaign was rubbish.
Anybody who’s using this to make ANY point (other than that humans are messy, often incoherent creatures) is way off base, IMAO.
gwangung
@Marc: Think you need a high power electron microscope for that.
West of the Rockies
So in the simplest of terms, FdB is suggesting the leftist internet community is capable mostly of just piling on, issuing invective, and lolling about in orgasmic group-think, yes? The Left… Us… And what about the Right? Have they any notable sins in FdB’s view? Are they truly the victims of the hempen homespuns of the left, the rude curs of rhetoric? Wow. Just wow.
Morzer
@eemom:
Probably re-enacting Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow against the Cudlips!!!
J R in WV
My two favorite blogs are B-J and LGM, because the commentors at both places are stone hilarious when they get the snark running right. Also, the topics of discussion are interesting to me.
The FP guys are pretty good too. But the long riffs on LGM, once someone gets it started, bust me up! I haven’t ever doused a keyboard (yet) but if it happens, LGM might be the cause. That’s where I’ll send the bill, anyway!
My intertubes connection is hosed up right now, wireless router may be dying, sat provider has us throttled too, so I’m using Panera’s free wifi to catch up. Just in case anyone’s missed me ;-) ha, ha.
Later!
Sly
@Marc:
Michelle Goldberg is a good writer and reporter; I’d rate Kingdom Coming as the go-to expose of Christian Nationalism in America. Having said that, I think the hullabaloo around Suey Park vacillated between whitesplaining and smug condescension toward “hashtag activism.” And this is directly related to the discussion about Freddie, since he’s engaged in the same kind of behavior multiple times.
Stifle what discussion? Preclude what forms of political activity?
We’re talking about Freddie deBoer, whose entire schtick is to oafishly bludgeon his way into conversations and tell other people that they’re doing it wrong (whatever it is they’re trying to do: feminism, gay rights activism, leftism in general, etc), and then scream like a four year old when he gets the ridicule he deserves. If that is the kind of discussion being stifled and the kind of political activity being precluded by the “social justice left” or “online liberalism,” then I say so be it. If it means that we’ll have fewer people engaging in the same kind of behavior, mores the better.
low-tech cyclist
You guys need to add “objectively despicable people” to the rotating phrases at the upper right hand corner of each page.
Hell, as I said over at LGM, it would be a great name for a group blog. (No, don’t go changing the name of this blog. But if I were starting a new group blog, I’d grab that name in a heartbeat.)
Will Shetterly
@Sly: “the ridicule he deserves”? I’ll stick with Malcolm X’s advice: “Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.” If deBoer hasn’t put a hand on you, he doesn’t deserve ridicule. Though I realize there are people who think ridicule is the reason for the web.
chopper
freddie’s old M.O. was to cough up some loogie of a post about how he is the one true pure liberal and get flustered when people poke holes in his argument.
now he just preemptively vouchesafes any possible responses, declaring people who disagree to be assholes. to be fair, we shit on cole when he does the same thing (‘but GG is gay’).
chopper
@taylormattd:
the guy needs to figure out, it doesn’t work anyway. there’s no way to pound in that last nail.
Morzer
@chopper:
Well, not with a wet noodle, at any rate.
Paul in KY
@Lee Rudolph: I’ve seen a few get it. Usually just because the people in the class knew the pompous jerk would downgrade them if his (and it’s always a ‘he’) fee fees were hurt.
Paul in KY
@eemom: That she did. She was on him like stink on shit.
Marc
@Sly:
No, you’re talking about Freddie de Boer. (And that was a remarkably quick jump from “Stifle what discussion?” to “mores the better.”) I’m talking about a problem much larger than Freddie de Boer, or Suey Park, or any other single person. You seem to be doing your best to deflect that back onto an eminently mockable but ultimately safe target.
Oh, and both of your questions are addressed in the other Goldberg piece I linked, and even that is just one facet of a much wider trend in online discussions of social justice. The focus on ideological purity and the contempt for allies (or sometimes even the very concept of allies and coalition formation) are problems whether you care to recognize them or not.
PJ
@Will Shetterly: @Freddie deBoer: DeBoer deserves, and invites, ridicule, for two main reasons, which are really one: 1) when his arguments are substantively questioned and his prose is stylistically mocked (for being turgid, pompous, and lacking clarity), instead of arguing on the merits or addressing the criticism directly, he whines that the mean people of the internet are attacking him unfairly and refusing to address his arguments; and 2) he interjects himself into discussions and criticizes writers and commenters for being mean to him by disagreeing with his poorly argued and written concerns. Either way, it’s all about Freddie, and how rotten people are for not recognizing him for being the one true feminist and leftist, but, never fear, despite all this despicable behavior, Freddie will go on fighting the good fight for truth and justice.
I’m no clinician, but it he comes across as a borderline histrionic narcissist who is in serious need of treatment.
chopper
@PJ:
it’s ‘fredsplaining’, basically.
Another Holocene Human
@Seanly: Not sure why DeBoer would be taking up for Winston since the case is more a case of the police and the university athletics organization squashing a rape case–failing to do interviews, secure evidence, etc. There was supposedly a cell phone video but the police didn’t attempt to get it for months, and now it’s gone. Stuff like that. The result of letting evidence go was that it now can’t be successfully prosecuted. And Winston was hardly the only beneficiary of the system of silencing rape victims for the sake of a winning football team. It’s an absolute cluster which is even more shocking when you consider that Tallahassee is one of the more well run cities in Florida and has more liberal leadership. Even there the police are terrible and the town sacrifices justice to football.
Some sports fans made up their mind about the Winston case based on how they felt about FSU. UF’s student paper reported on the case in detail, with schadenfreude aplenty. UF has plenty of SIMILAR incidents going back many, many years. (See the book PROS AND CONS to see some horrific case files on violent assaults UF sought to cover up.) That’s dumb, but, you know, like Michael Kennedy, I’m inclined to think there’s something to the case. Most rapes never result in a successful conviction.
Gravenstone
I’m sure I’m quite late to the party, but I just love watching allegedly intelligent people make utter asses of themselves in public over the complete misunderstanding of free fucking speech! Seriously, at what point did the federal government, in any form, manner or person, act to silence Eich of Sterling for their comments or action?
Another Holocene Human
@wetcasements: All the REAL young lefties I know either went to work at union jobs through Young Workers right after graduating or got hired BY unions.
As a side note, the smarter, more effective organizers got hired by AFL-CIO, while the dumb ones went to Teamsters or SEIU.
Unless DeBoer is the most amazing GAU organizer of ever (of all time) which I distinctly suspect he is not, he isn’t a real lefty anyway.
Another Holocene Human
@Sly:
That may very well have been true on this blog and blogs like it. There was a lot of white privileged derp getting spewed. However, it wasn’t true of the internet in general. Rather, some of Park’s closest associates in activism ended up writing about their experiences working with, and later getting betrayed by Suey Park. In her desperate attempt to claw to the top she has hurt a lot of people who were close to her and she has sabotaged a lot of efforts at activism. In fact, the entire #CancelColbert flap was a deliberate and successful gambit to draw attention to herself that had the direct result of burying EONM that week and the #notforsale hashtag (which was the work of another group which was working WITH Park until she fucked them over). EONM is still kicking, but it’s really sad to see people actually get out of activism because of Suey Park and the way she hurt them.
She is young, she could grow out of it, but whether it’s a phase or her face is frozen that way she is a severe narcissist and such people often wreak havoc in organizations. It’s not a left, right, or center thing.
Someguy
People just don’t get the First Amendment. It protects your right to say what you want. It doesn’t protect you from being fired by your boss, ostracized by your neighbors, making you utterly radioactive to future employers and / or having people do everything in their private power to make your life completely suck. (A fate that should befall every bigoted jackhole who contributed to the Prop 8 campaign, BTW).
Here, Freddie, have some Freedom Fries. They’ll go great with that big glass of whine.
David Rickard
@Freddie deBoer: Just a thought, Freddie: if you’re this thin-skinned and self-pitying, just maybe you shouldn’t be working on the intertubes…
Sly
@Will Shetterly:
This is nonsensical. I have no intention of sending Freddie “to the cemetery,” and I think comparing that to some internet snark is completely vapid.
@Marc:
What problem? The only “problem” I see is that certain activist communities don’t feel the need to comfort the delicate sensibilities of mainstream (read: white) liberals. Which isn’t a problem, but a response to one.
Someone who strolls into a gay rights discussion and tells gay people that they don’t fit his preconceived notions of who gay people are and what they ought to fight for is not into coalition formation. Someone who strolls onto a feminist website and lectures feminists on how proper feminism is utterly humorless, and enjoying humor is akin to “denying intellectual rigor,” is not an ally.
Robert Waldmann
No no no John you are confused “consumptive signals” means “symptons of consumption” that is of tuberculosis such as coughing up blood. DeBoer was not asking for “signals of consumation” (presumably of your marriage). in plain English, he was not, in fact, asking you to fuck him.
Given the clarity of his prose, “fuck you Freddie DeBoer” can be understood as an attempt to give him what he wants, but you really shouldn’t be surprised if he is a bit sore as a result.
Frolicking Gadfly
A-fucking-MEN Mr. Cole.
different-church-lady
@RaflW:
But then again, what doesn’t nowadays?
different-church-lady
@beergoggles:
Objectively the new literally, or literally the new literally?
different-church-lady
@Morzer: Is that a Barfly reference or a Fight Club reference?
Gravenstone
@myiq2xu: You’re stupidly conflating deserved mockery with silencing of opinion. In other words, you haven’t changed much from the last time you darkened our virtual door.
jayackroyd
@Joshua James: You didn’t miss many BJers, but we did get the last drinks overflow from the main event, which was fun, if late. John Amato, Amanda Marcotte, Joan Walsh, Jonathan Cohn ( http://www.hillmanfoundation.org/2014-hillman-prize-magazine-journalism ) among others stopped by,
Elly
@Lee Rudolph:
People are complex… and at least some of them behave differently face-to-face than they do online.
Freddie deBoer works in the English Dept. at Purdue U., so – unless there’s more than one Fredrik DeBoer in that department – these ratings refer to him: http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=1804618. Sure, it’s a small data set, but I think it shows he has a less pompous/more human side.
Ruckus
@chopper:
At one point in history there were people who were more than willing to pound in that last nail for you. Hell, they’d even help you up on the cross in the first place. But we’ve become more civilized and maybe a little more dainty about that much blood. OK that last part made me laugh considering an awful lot of the comments I’ve seen about the murder recently sanctioned by Oklahoma.
Lyrebird
@Scott S.: Too late to the show but THANK YOU i needed that fluffy, delicious, yet gluten-free pancake-ification!
Ben
@different-church-lady:
And you quote Annie Hall, and the thread comes full circle…