Paul Krugman and Ron Paul, arguing over whose policy cuisine reigns supreme. It’s worth a gander.
This could lead to a fighting or a challenge. Ron Paul repeatedly uses Get Your Socialism Off My Lawn from his stump speeches where he’s still running for Dwarf-in-Chief of Lost Carcosa (he’s short, cranky, good at digging himself into holes and obsessed with obsolete relics and gold), but Kroog’s Mighty Beard Tentacles invade the argument with sanity at several points throughout and he’s clearly having none of Ron’s crap, pointing out that Diggy Diggy Hole’s arguments here have been applied in the real world through austerity cuts and the results have been kind of poopy.
Open thread.
Hugh
I’m a big fan of Krugman. Not of Paul. I hate posts with “dwarf in chief” lines and the like. Really. It isn’t cute or clever. Makes me think of Michelle Malkin and her writing style.
Michael Finn
Krugman’s face as Ron Paul goes off on a rant about ancient Rome was priceless, he looked around in horror as if they expected him to debate the ancient currencies. It was a Emperor has no clothes moment.
Cacti
A debate on economics between a Nobel Laureate econ professor, and…
A gynecologist.
Somebody shoot me.
eemom
hey, gander rhymes with Zandar.
Strandedvandal
@ Hugh Than you ignore them. It’s friggin easy. Much easier than writing a post bitching about it.
Forum Transmitted Disease
The look on Ron Paul’s face says it all “I’ve just been called out on my fifty years of bullshit and yes it’s a scam…you dick.”
Walrus
Yogscast reference ftw.
liberal
@Cacti:
While I think Krugman is usually right on most things, and Paul is 99.99% wrong on domestic policy issues, I don’t think that “he’s an economist!” alone offers much in the way of bona fides, given that the economics profession as a whole missed a multi-trillion-dollar housing bubble.
gaz
Tennessee house just passed the Handholding = Gateway Sexual Activity legislative monstrosity.
Proof positive that a plurality of Americans are pants-on-head retarded.
WereBear
@liberal: Still, it should give you more cred than the letters OB/GYN.
Hal
I finally saw that debate on MTP between Alex Castellanos and Rachel Maddow, and wow, could Castellanos have been a bigger asshole? All that was missing was a pat on the head and comment that maybe Maddow was on her period.
My favorite was when he smiled douche like and said he wished she was as right as she was “passionate”, in other words, hysterical woman.
Chris
I watched as far as the anchor calling them “those two pillars of economic thought.” Fucking Christ, Ron Paul a pillar of economic thought. This is how far the country’s sunk.
gaz
Ron Paul is a racist. A racist. A raaaaacist.
I wouldn’t debate him if I were kthug. I’d just chant the word bigot at him over and over.
ETA: Either that, or I’d ignore him, and instead just flip through one of his insipid survivalist newsletters. On camera
Chris
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
“Yes it’s a scam” indeed…
I remember reading somewhere that Ron Paul loved to piggyback a ton of pork barrel spending for his district onto bills he opposed, then voting against the bill anyway to maintain his purity cred while knowing it would pass. And then there’s his son, who rails against government spending but when elected immediately turns around to reassure the good people of Kentucky that they have nothing to fear in terms of their farm subsidies being cut.
The Paul family seem to be among the more successful scammers in Congress.
liberal
@WereBear:
I think that’s a dangerous attitude. Aside from the fact that it’s nominally a logical fallacy (argument from authority or whatever it’s called), it could be turned around on “us” anytime one of the interlocutors is a reasonably knowledgeable left-of-center person and the other guy is a highly regarded, even Nobel-winning, right-wing hack.
The fact of the matter is that while claims that a “positive” (i.e., descriptive, not normative) science of economics is impossible are clearly wrong, it’s all bungled up: clearly pecuniary incentives do matter (as an empirical observation), and in our world, that means economists are going to be biased towards right-wing-hackdom.
Anonymous At Work
Krugman pretty well covers this debate in his blog, which basically said “WTF!?!” at Paul and lamented that this even happened, much less the fact that no one can win such debates in front of their followers and the inability to use data/fact-checking to enforce sanity.
Cacti
@liberal:
An argument from authority is only fallacious if it is assumed that X is an expert in Y topic, therefore his pronouncement on Z must be true.
It’s not fallacious to point out that in a debate on economics, one of the participants is a trained, credentialed expert in the field, and the other is not.
RP
“and they [the Byzantine Empire] didn’t fight wars.”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Byzantine_wars
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Byzantine_revolts_and_civil_wars
ellennelle
couldn’t help be fascinated with this woman’s intro – referring to krugman not as dr. krugman but professor, and completely omitting the minor detail of his nobel prize.
can’t agree with liberal @15 that this can be turned against liberals; name an instance, and i’ll get nervous. moreover, i’ll pay attention to the nobel laureate in economics over a gynecologist any and all days of the week. just as i would pay attention to the gynecologist for my personal plumbing over the nobel laureate in economics.
pretty absurd argument, on both levels.
Jennifer
@Chris: I had the same thought. Also noticed that after that absurd description, there was a failure to mention that one of the “pillars” is a Nobel Prize winner, while the other one is a goldbug.
Mark S.
I watched about half of it, and Ron Paul is bugfuck crazy. Things I learned:
1. The Eastern Roman Empire lasted a millennium longer than the Western because of the gold standard.
2. The Great Depression ended around 1950 because we reduced the debt.
3. It would be harmless to allow every state, local government, and crackpot to issue their own currencies.
Maybe it gets even crazier after the 12 minute mark, but that was all I could take.
joeyess
I simply cannot listen to this buggity-buggity-GOLD!-buggity-bug-bug-fuck-gold-bug-buggity-bug-bug-bug any longer. I lasted for about 2/1/2 minutes and had to shut him off.
Jeeeebus Keerist. No wonder that his adherents are insane. They’re driven to that special place in the brain where madness and decay reside.
⦿⦿
__
Linnaeus
@Chris:
My thoughts, almost exactly.
amk
The librul media – a washed out crazy coot of a doctor and a nobel laureate in economics – both have valid points. Fucking fifth columnists.
joeyess
@Chris:
If Goldy is a pillar of economic thought, I’m John Lennon incarnate.
RossInDetroit
A short pillar, upon which anything laid would forever be crooked.
Zandar
One pillar is made of a load-bearing material, the other pillar is just a load we can’t bear.
RossInDetroit
Ron Paul only has a hammer in his tool box, so everything looks like a nail to him. Gold is the answer to all. And if you have the wits of a box of hammers this makes sense.
joeyess
@amk:
This.
The madness must end.
I blame the producers of these shows. They love the debate format. But this is not debate. Debate is where both sides have a valid argument. Ron Paul is to valid what George W. Bush was to valor.
And just where do these “journalists” go to school? Is this faux balance taught in any journalism class anywhere? If so, I’m now in favor of revisiting the whole tenure issue. This is malpractice.
Linnaeus
Plus Ron Paul’s a terrible historian. I’m by no means a specialist on the ancient Western world, and even I know that the western Roman empire’s problems were more complicated than “they debased their currency” and that the Byzantines did in fact fight wars.
SatanicPanic
“I am not a defender of the economic policies of the Emperor Diocletian” classic
Rachel
@Chris:
That’s as far as I went, too. Ugh. As Krugman would say, “We’re doomed!”
Chris
LOL, I’m glad my moment of fury is enjoying such success.
Jennifer
The only reason Paul’s even able to get away with spouting his nutjob monetary theories is that economics requires a bit of thought and for people who don’t like thinking, therefore, it’s really easy to blow a fog of smoke over it all. Such as Paul’s contention that a gold standard would stop devaluation of money, which anyone who understands that unless that gold is circulating, in the form of currency, then no, bullshit, it can’t stop currency devaluation. The ability to print more money still exists; the only difference is that the gold in reserve is worth more in relation to the currency. Gold in reserve currently valued at $100 per ounce will be worth $200 per ounce if the amount of currency in circulation is doubled by printing more money.
The one and only way a gold standard can protect the value of currency from a government printing money is if the currency is the gold itself. Even then that currency will adjust itself in value, though likely more gradually.
The biggest stupidity of all though is the assumption that somehow gold is a better stand-in for measure of value than a bill printed with a dollar valuation. In both cases, they’re only worth the value we ascribe to them. It doesn’t make a hill of beans whether we assign the value of something in terms of weight of gold or number of dollars; neither has a greater intrinsic value; both have the value that human beings believe they have. In a famine where food is not available at any cost, gold is every bit as worthless as a printed bill. In such a situation where very very little food was available, a pound of wheat or corn would exceed the value of a pound of gold.
As Dr. Johnson might have said of Paul, “that fellow has but one idea – and it is a wrong one.”
RossInDetroit
It’s all just for show. No real debate to it. Krugman says he was only there to promote his book. The book will do more good than Uncle Crazy appearing on TV again will do harm.
Cacti
@Linnaeus:
Perhaps it’s because he lacks any expertise in world history.
Nah, pointing that out would be a logical fallacy, or something like that.
SatanicPanic
What in the hell is Ron Paul talking about? People want to print their own currency? People must be high to listen to this man.
gaz
@Jennifer:
I thought you were talking about Paul Krugman for a minute. Heh.
Brachiator
@Zandar:
Great title. Robert Chambers’ The King In Yellow is a distinctly odd piece of horror fiction.
Much like Ron Paul.
@SatanicPanic:
Yes.
Linnaeus
@Cacti:
Indeed. Although one wouldn’t even need to be an expert to know that Paul’s way off-base – you would, however, need to read and understand stuff written by the people who do have expertise.
We don’t even need to go to examples of ancient history. We had “currency competition” in this country through the mid-19th century. And that was one of the reasons behind the “panics” and bank failures of the time.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@SatanicPanic: You can trust me on this, Ron Paul does not make any more sense, or become more likable, even if you’ve got a really good buzz on.
My personal theory is that stupid is drawn to stupid; Paul’s acolytes love him because, having no experience with smart people, he’s their idea of what a smart person would sound and act like.
Hugh
@Strandedvandal: lol. What about writing a comment to complain about a comment?
amk
@SatanicPanic:
His peeps are.
gaz
@SatanicPanic:
His base of support is a bunch particularly insane legalize-everything drug addicts. What else would you expect? It’s an essential part of his grift.
ETA: When I think of a Ron Paul supporter, I picture that chubby chemist/meth-cook that put together the superlab in breaking bad and worked with Walter before Jesse shot him in the face. I forget his name, he was a secondary character.
SatanicPanic
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Listening to him, I understand why conspiracy theorists love him. They’re all under the impression that because they don’t know something, it cannot be known.
vtr
How come Dr. Krugman virtually disappeared 2/3 of the way through the video? During a discussion of monetary policy, why was the OB/GYN asked about his chances in the GOP primaries? Why wasn’t Dr. Krugman asked about the Rangers’ changes in the NHL playoffs?
Strandedvandal
@Hugh: That would have been applicable if I had, in fact, been complaining.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mark S.:
The Byzantine Empire was almost at a constant state of war threw out its history, it’s major circulated coin was copper and it had serious price controls. One of the things that brought it down was the military getting over powerful and it fragmented when the central government tried to reign it end.
Ron Paul’s never opened a history book in his life.
Zandar
@SatanicPanic:
Strange is the night where black stars rise,
And strange moons circle through the skies,
But stranger still is
Lost Carcosa.
liberal
@Cacti:
That’s just side-stepping my point, which is to question the very value of that so-called “credentialing”.
Waynski
@liberal:
Except that Krugman didn’t miss it.
Argive
The Byzantine Empire didn’t fight wars? Goodness. Perhaps Basil II acquired the nickname of “The Bulgar Slayer” because his stand-up comedy went over really well in Bulgaria. And of course there’s the small matter of Justinian’s many overseas conquests. But hey, Ron Paul’s never been known for his command of history. It’s too bad that Krugman didn’t get the chance to confront Paul on that hyperinflation that Paul keeps predicting and that keeps not happening.
General Stuck
Jeebus christ, the OBL stuff right now is driving the wingnuts into butthurt orbit. Obama stole their national security creds and the bullshit fluffing of Bush and now Romney is set on rock and roll. Never mind what they said about not caring about getting Bin Laden, just who is this too big for his britches colored guy, to think he out manned the daddy party. And the press whimpers on that the wingnuts have a point. What a fucked up country.
liberal
@ellennelle:
Really? I’m sure if I tried hard enough, I could find (a) an OB-GYN who thinks there should be an estate tax, and (b) a Nobel laureate economist who thinks there shouldn’t be an estate tax.
In that case, you’d listen to the Nobelist?
Mark S.
I wonder if it would be a good idea if we had the same money supply today that we had in 1900, when we had 80 million people. But we’ll have to leave it at that, and agree to disagree.
sdstarr
Oh my elder gods, it’s a Cthulhu AND a King In Yellow reference in one post. I think that R’lyeh is dangerously close to rising from the sea…..
liberal
@Waynski:
I didn’t say Krugman missed it.
But while he’s been right most of the time, he’s not always right. E.g. his claim that it was impossible, even in theory, for speculators outside of spot markets to influence the price of oil.
The fact is that having “economics” credentials is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for getting policy right in matters of econmics.
JasperL
Sometimes I think Ron Paul is a good thing because he’s a good counterweight to the status quo, and at least has the good sense to recognize as a republican that “small, limited government” is utterly inconsistent with a police state at home, our War on Drugs, and empire building abroad.
Then he does what he did in this interview. Whines and cries about the deficit and debt and how it’s going to kill us all, then ends the interview with a plea to Romney to keep tax collections at 60 year lows. Because this deficit and debt is awful, dangerous, and will destroy the country!@!!!!!, so priority number 1 is preventing the government from increasing tax rates on the plutocrats…
And he cries about corrupt Wall Street, and how if we just ended the Fed they wouldn’t be able to get away with their looting. But in the meantime on planet Earth the Fed isn’t going away, and yet he opposes any and every effort to regulate Wall Street. So, in this reality based world we actually inhabit, his policies mean Wall Street is unregulated and free to loot, AND their losses backstopped by the Fed.
He’s more a cult leader than a serious thinker, IMO.
amk
@liberal: Rrrright. Economists suck because they couldn’t predict or prevent corrupt pols from making corrupt practices into corrupt laws. Got it.
Villago Delenda Est
Adam Smith would denounce Ron Paul as a hopeless crank.
gaz
@liberal: You’re right. Luckily Krugman needs not fallback on his credentials to make his case.
And the field of economics being what it is, economists tend to be right during a period. Right at the time. Right now, Krugman is correct.
Not that Ron Paul is an economist, but were he, he may have been correct at one point – maybe in feudal medieval europe.
Hungry Joe
OT, right? Okay, I’m going to out myself: Today Simon & Schuster is publishing “Anyway*”, a middle-grade novel—my first book. On Scalzi’s “Whatever” site he has a feature called The Big Idea, in which an author writes a short essay about his new book. Well, Scalzi, an old friend from wayback, spotlights my book in today’s Big Idea.
(The book’s subtitle: *A Story About Me with 138 Footnotes, 27 Exaggerations, and 1 Plate of Spaghetti.)
The Tragically Flip
I’m reminded of the biologist who refused an offer to debate a creationist saying “I know debating me would look good on your resume, but my debating you would not look good on mine.”
I’m not surprised Ron Paul would cite Rome. Rome is basically the glibertopian fantasy world: A wealthy 1% unmoored by religion, morality, ethics, with slaves doing all the work, and everything is privatized (and hilarity ensued). Oh and gold is used as currency.
Argive
@The Tragically Flip:
When it comes to Rome, it’s worth noting that one of the major causes of instability leading up to the Roman Civil Wars was rampant unemployment caused by wealthy men buying up as much land as they could and then having slaves do all the work.
ShadeTail
But what is this? A Zandar posting without that troll Knockabout popping in? Is the Apocalypse happening?!
Villago Delenda Est
@Argive:
Not to mention the destruction of the backbone of the Roman army during the Republic, the farmers who tilled their own fields, and fought in the off season.
The Roman military became more and more mercenary in nature over time, which meant that the army didn’t have much of a stake in the civilization itself, and reacted for short term gain.
Sound familiar?
Jewish Steel
As any reader of Tom Levenson’s book Newton And The Counterfeiter can tell you our modern system of liquid currency was not even a twinkle in Diocletian’s eye at this point in history.
Hugh
@Strandedvandal: Of course you weren’t. How could I have thought otherwise?
Linda Featheringill
@Hungry Joe:
Good luck!
Forum Transmitted Disease
@General Stuck: They didn’t realize just how much damage Bush had done to those selfsame creds when the word got out that we’d let Bin Laden go at Tora Bora, followed by his “I don’t think about him that much” statement. All it took was one more little straw to destroy the whole GOP “strong on national defense” meme.
Obama didn’t bring a straw, he bought a whole haystack encased in concrete and has rammed it right up the asses of the GOP war porn cheerleaders. Think you’re hearing butthurt now? They don’t even realize what has happened to them yet.
When they do, that’s when the real butthurt begins.
Chris
@Jennifer:
I agree that a lot of Ron Paul’s base is made up of people who don’t like thinking and look for simple explanations, but I’d add that there was a time when the left excelled at appealing to these people. Socialists, Populists and all the rest weren’t exactly drawn in by deep thought and a rational understanding of the issues (look at W. J. Bryan’s campaign) but because it gave them simple, easy to understand rhetoric complete with enemies to blame.
I’m not bringing this up to say both sides do it, more to wonder how to get both sides to do it again. For whatever reason, Karl Marx type populism is out and Ayn Rand type populism is in.
geg6
@General Stuck:
Personally, I am finding the frantic and manic screaming of the wingnuts as they deal with their butthurt over the OBL raid’s anniversary to be some of the best news and comedy I’ve seen in weeks or months or…well, at least since the reaction to the announcement that Obama sent Seal Team 6 in to kill that bastard.
Their butthurt and that of the Mittbot 3000 is delicious. It smells like…winning.
geg6
@Hungry Joe:
Awesome! Congratulations!
I’ll be checking it out.
maus
@liberal:
What a stupid statement. It didn’t “miss” anything. It exploited the FUCK out of it. Do you think it was a surprise to anyone?
This is how things SHOULD work, to plenty of economists (and Paul.) Just get out early, they did. Also, force the Federal, state, and local economies to subsidize their losses.
JPL
What did Ron Paul actually say? We don’t want to go the way of the Romans is all I got out of it. It’s unfortunate to have a panel of two but ask the majority of questions to only one member.
Jennifer
@Chris: Ayn Rand style populism preceeds Karl Marx style populism. As people’s fortunes decline, they are set against each other – purposely – in the belief that their affluence is being sacked by their equals or those less-well off than they are; when they hit rock-bottom, and all of those with the power to lighten the load of misery decline and refuse to do so (while not themselves sharing in the misery), then you get Karl Marx style populism. Because at that point, it’s hard to convince even the dimmest of wits that the reason they don’t have enough to eat is that the black guy in the larger refrigerator box down the row got unfair advantage, or that anything was “taken” from them for his benefit, just because he managed to find a bigger box to live in.
Steeplejack
@Hungry Joe:
You’e too modest. Full Amazon outing here. And available for the Nook, too.
Good luck!
Redshift
@liberal: If only there were some middle ground between blindly accepting the pronouncements of experts based solely on their credentials and treating them as not worth any more than the crackpot ravings of a fringe political figure! Like, perhaps accepting that having studied the field makes their opinions worth serious consideration, though we still may reject them, but being an ob/gyn discussing economics means you bear the burden of proof that you have any idea what you’re talking about.
Apparently, just saying that Krugman’s Nobel Prize is worth more in an economics debate than Paul’s MD means that we reject that possibility. Who knew?
Clime Acts
@Hugh:
I agree. And was wondering if Zandar’s mockery of Paul’s physical attributes opens the door to the use of fat jokes and fat shaming at BJ.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@Jennifer:
A goldbug with at least 64% of his personal portfolio invested in gold and silver mining interests, BTW.
When Ron Paul tells you he wants the US to go back to a gold standard, what he really means is that he wants you to tie every asset you have to his asset. Essentially at gunpoint (ie government force).
fasteddie9318
@RP:
I can’t bring myself to watch. Did he actually say that? What a fucking loon.
Also, on the subject of credentials, it’s worth noting that, despite Paul’s training as an OB/GYN, I’m pretty sure Krugman has him beat on the issue of ladies and what to do with their lady parts also too.
gocart mozart
Rush Limbaugh has a fat ass and ginourmous man boobs. Ron Paul is old and short. How’s that?
(response to Clime Acts)
fasteddie9318
OK, I just watched the Roman bit. Holy fuck. What we’ve learned is that Ron Paul doesn’t know anything about Byzantine or Roman history, apparently thinks the “Byzantine” Empire and the Roman Empire were somehow two separate things, and yet feels competent to try to craft analogies between the Roman and modern economic circumstances.
What a loon.
fasteddie9318
@Argive:
Or anything else. Yet he keeps appearing on my teevee.
fasteddie9318
My friends, who among us could forget the cautionary tale of Mehmet the Conqueror, who upon hearing of Roman debasement of their currency, swore that he would seek vengeance for Constantine XI Palaiologos’ rejection of von Mises and free market principles and subsequently conquered Constantinople when his cannon shot clean through the Romans’ cheap-ass copper coinage. It was the Ottoman Empire’s strict adherence to the Austrian School that enabled them to survive until the 20th century, but unfortunately the adoption of a Imperial Health Care program doomed them to disaster.
ericblair
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor:
Not to mention putting the US at the mercy of South Africa, China, and Australia as the top gold producing countries. Nice to know your monetary policy is determined by how fast a bunch of Chinese guys can dig shiny rocks out of a hole in the ground.
Oh, I know, though, gold has INHERENT VALUE. Like how I can dump Ron Paul on a deserted island with nothing but a $1M stack of Krugerrands and he’ll be living in the lap of luxury by the end of the next week. We can try it out and see how it works.
Hungry Joe
Thanks, Steeplejack & geg6.
I’m too modest, huh? Okay, how’s this: Book launch reading/party Wednesday, 7:30pm Warwick’s Bookstore, San Diego.
Villago Delenda Est
@Clime Acts:
Fuck you’re a dipshit. A serious one, no matter if you’re fat or thin. A dipshit.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@ericblair:
That’s the funny thing: It doesn’t. Here’s the dirtiest little secret of our era: Money isn’t real. It’s all in our heads.
The dollar bills in our pockets only have value because we both agree on them as a medium of exchange. If we each had gold coins instead, those too would only derive their value due to mutual agreement.
Any imagined special status of GOOOOOOLD! is a total falsehood.
fasteddie9318
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor: Oh please. It’s well known that Jeebus declared that gold is the super-awesomest thing ever and totally worth it right after he condemned abortionists to a violent death and went on at some (disturbing) length about how gross it is for two dudes to get it on.
David Hunt
Almost entirely true. Gold has industrial uses, such as an electrical conductor, for instance. However your statement is effectively correct. We couldn’t use gold for coins if it wasn’t.
A vital aspect of any medium of exchange is that it should have an intrinsic value less than it’s listed currency value. Far less intrinsic value is ideal. If the base materials that make up your coins is worth more than it’s currency value, people start melting them down instead of using them for currency and suddenly your whole monetary system falls apart. It also become prohibitively expensive to coin your currency.
Argive
@ericblair:
Well, that’s just it; obviously Paul Krugman wants us to return to Roman times because that economy was based on conquered provinces paying tribute to Rome. So the US would then have to conquer all of the main gold-producing countries worldwide in order to sustain itself under Emperor Paul Krugmanustus. I mean, duh.
Clime Acts
@Villago Delenda Est:
Succinct!
Yet irrelevant.
Stature insults: Cool! Fat insults: Not cool!
Ben Wolf
Let’s not forget we had six depressions and a dozen financial crises during the 19th and early 20th Centuries while on the gold standard. There is no empirical evidence it provides any financial stability.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
“The Great Depression ended around 1950 because we reduced the debt.”
Oh Jesus. GDP grew between 1933 and 1941 by *on average* over 8% per annum. And that was before things really got cooking when the U.S. joined WW2. By 1936 Real GDP was above the pre-1929 crash levels. Barry Eichengreen has shown that the faster economies dumped the Gold Standard, the faster they recovered.
Where do loons like Paul get this stuff?
Maus
@fasteddie9318: bbbut Ron Paul has delivered 10,000 babies therefore he knows what’s good for the wimmins.
@Herbal Infusion Bagger:
From whole cloth, like every other Republican.
Hugh
@Clime Acts:
Contemptuous name-calling feels pretty worn to me, especially using terms like “dwarf”. Maybe it’s intended as a double ironic judo chop (like hipster racism) but it reads as trying way too hard. Plus using terms like that in order to diminish creates genuine offense in a lot of people (it’s so gay!). I recognize one shouldn’t use a comment section to make a comment on the post that heads it but there you go.
A Humble Lurker
@Clime Acts: Why should you worry? We’re not making fun of pedophiles or pedophile defenders in this thread.