Among the few redeeming qualities that grace our current crop of conservative believers, my personal fave must be how their info bubble prevents any effective filter between brain and mouth. Take for example PA House majority leader Mike Turzai (please). Or you could cite Arkansas State Senator Jason Rapert, justifying his draconian new abortion bill on Wednesday:
We’re going to take this country back for the Lord. We’re going to try to take this country back for conservatism. And we’re not going to allow minorities to run roughshod over what you people believe in!
Before you people read too much into it, by ‘minorities’ I am sure he meant urban welfare rap music single parent types. Those Others who take from ‘real’ Americans and outvote patriotic rural folk from their dense urban areas. Or something even a little bit less offensive blatant than telling a news outlet that God wants white christians to subdue minorities and (apparently) wimmenfolk. I guess we can thank jeebus no one asked Rapert what god says to do with the gays.
LeftCoastTom
The link’s broken, try this.
maya
Well, you know, back in the day they did hang minority Quakers for not doffing their hats to the Puritan colonial magistrates. So Rapert does have his precedents.
Smiling Mortician
Wait. Guy’s name is Rapert? Seriously?
Tone in DC
No filter at all between (rather marginal wingnut) brain and mouth.
Over the last four years, these guys have really let their freak flag fly. These wingers put Lee Atwater to shame.
Ash Can
No, they should ask him about the gays. Get him a little more well-deserved publicity.
General Stuck
Relative and reposted from thread below
What a country. It is rare and good news that the Senate reached a rare 60 vote supermajority for the far left (cough cough) Violence Against Women act for a reathorization. Now it goes to The House of Neanderthals http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo…..fpnewsfeed
IOW’s , you can’t beat womens who aren’t wetbacks queers left wing campus commies, or Redskins.. Go wingnuts!!!
LeftCoastTom
Hey, at least it beats National Review Online condemning Obama for calling Nazi violence senseless.
The GOP’s “sensitivity trainers” are going to be somewhat busy this month.
Villago Delenda Est
That whirring sound you’re hearing? Founding Fathers revolving at high velocities in their graves.
Matthew Reid Krell
I’ve always suspected that the Republican Party was at heart feudalist. I’ve never seen such blatant confirmation.
Seriously, why not just say, “droit du seigneur and primus nocte for all!”
aangus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4bBff9aBRw
Suffern ACE
We’re the ones who’ll be doing the roughshod riding, thank you very much.
jibeaux
I like to think it’s not an accident that the loser on 30 Rock (who last night wanted their last free NBC lunch to be Blimpie’s, that guy) is named Frank Lutz, just a letter off to satisfy legal….
schrodinger's cat
@LeftCoastTom: That makes no sense, what should he have said instead, sensible violence?
General Stuck
@LeftCoastTom:
It’s all that is left at the bottom of their barrel.
wuzzat
I suppose that pointing out that the country was founded by Deists during the Age of Enlightenment, effectively making the good Senator a literal jihadist, gets you burnt on the altar as an offering to the Lord…
Bokonon
I think the Luntz-approved talking point in this case would be “Ahem … um … I care deeply about family values. Life is a beautiful choice.”
Doggone it! These people are so passionate about their beliefs that they just can’t talk in code correctly! They keep breaking cover! It is flipping INCONVENIENT!
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Tone in DC:
The thing that saddens me is the fact that they’re going full bore on the naked crazy, and yet, most of this shit is still going to end up passing and succeeding state level because these assholes can afford to be crazy. Hell, the states they tend to pull this in love it so goddamn much.
LeftCoastTom
@schrodinger’s cat: I linked to Wonkette rather than directly to NRO to help reduce blood pressure…if you click through to NRO and scroll to the bottom, they manage to tie Benghazi, somehow, to this idiocy.
Villago Delenda Est
@LeftCoastTom:
Two jokes here: National Socia1ist Review Online
Senseless? Say what you will about the tenets of National Socia1ism, at least it was an ethos!
eemom
That fuckstick was in my law school class. Went by “Mickey” then with a bullshit boyish aw-shucks type schtick that charmed the crap out of a bunch of dumbass former sorority queens on the extended M.R.S. program. Ugh.
Fuck him.
japa21
I believe, when I read about this on another site, it was pointed out that Rapert was speaking to a group of TPers. Therefore I am relieved by these words since by all polling out there, the TP definitely qualifies as a minority in this country (I believe around 27%)and therefore Rapert is saying that the TP won’t be allowed to run roughshod over the rest of us. That is what he meant, isn’t it?
reflectionephemeral
Y’know, it seems to me that there was a pretty successful effort to tar the reputation of the Democratic Party by pointing not to its extremes, but to people outside the party. Try to make people refuse to vote for Clinton or Kerry because they didn’t like the protests outside the 1968 convention, or a guy with a silly hat & sign at an anti-Iraq invasion rally.
That was always unfair & stupid– even at its supposedly most extreme, the party always included people like Sam Nunn, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Joe Biden, etc.
But the GOP is now effectively, by its own efforts, driving down its own reputation by virtue of this kind of stuff, from actual elected officials, right up to Romney & the 47%, that reads like the flipside of Radical Chic. Dunno what the pithy phrase to capture it would be– might be a bit too wordy to say “it’s like they’re proud of being ignorant”.
Mojotron
@jibeaux: “Frank” and “Lutz” are two different characters, Frank being the character sporting ballcaps with phrases like “FREE HIPSTER RIDES”. But yeah, the Lutz character does remind me of Frank Luntz.
Mike in NC
Change the name to Jason Rapist for a perfect fit. Scumbag.
Steve M.
Mock Jason Rapert all you want, but he’s owned and operated by the Kochs and other fat cats.
PeakVT
Foster “Bayer Asprin” Friess knows how to solve the problem of those pesky minorities:
Mnemosyne
@Mike in NC:
Heck, just drop the “t” off the end of his name.
Trakker
Ordained Minister of the Sanctuary of Hope Church. That says it all.
jp7505a
None of this is very important since we have a new ‘GATE’ to worry about – ‘SKEETGATE’. It seems that the White House will not produce the clay pidgons (yea I know that is a hanging curve for any number of snarky comments) that Obama has destroyed at Camp David.The conservatives are demanding photos, the WAPO fact checker is on the case and one GOP congresscritter wants a skeet contest.
It’s important that we get to the bottom of this and not be distracted by triva such as at the current rate it will be 2022 before the economy gets back to full employment.
Suffern ACE
@LeftCoastTom: I’m going to guess that Obama also called the Sandy Hook deaths “Senseless.” Funny how in their examples of the president misuing that word (Like All Liberals Do), they skip right by that.
National Review – Making Death Sensible since 1955.
Villago Delenda Est
@jp7505a:
Louie Gohmert is missing?
David Hunt
@schrodinger’s cat:
No. the only thing that Obama could say that would satisfy the “people” at the Corner is, “I am giving up the Presidency immediately. My last act is to order the immediate execution of myself and Vice President Biden for treason. Speaker Boehner will then be sworn in as President.”
That might mollify them, but I’m not sure because Boehener has shown a few glimmerings of sanity, but he’s the only Republican that Obama could legally get into the Presidency.
Villago Delenda Est
@Suffern ACE:
Actually, I think they’ve also been involved in rehabilitating fascism since the German branch gave the brand a really bad rep with that Holocaust thingy.
Schlemizel
@General Stuck:
they scraped through the bottom of the barrel back in the mid-90’s. They have excavated several feet of muck below the bottom of the barrel with this crop.
Schlemizel
@General Stuck:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/bottom-of-barrel-dangerously-overscraped-experts-w,767/
Poopyman
@jp7505a: If I were the White House, I’d leak a photo of a staffer with a box of clays and a hammer.
drj
@eemom:
You forgot to mention the rusty farming implement.
Comrade Dread
What? Did God leave the USA at the park one day and by the time He got back to look for it, liberals had stolen it?
General Stuck
@Schlemizel:
Ha! word is spreading.
Bulworth
By ‘minorities’ I’m sure God’s fighter merely had in mind “elites” in Hollyweird and in Communistic colleges and universities. //
Xenos
You know who is a minority now?
Republicans.
Betsy
@eemom: ska lover AND law school graduate – neat
cmorenc
@LeftCoastTom:
You’re referring to Eliana Johnson’s column @NR, which to be fair, provoked overwhelming negative reaction even @NR in the comments to that article. For example:
and
OK, I know, I know…the fact that there’s not only a portion of the readership of NR sensible enough to grasp the obvious stupidity of Johnson’s article and condemn it, but also not even *one* commenter there so far obtuse enough to try to step up and defend it…does NOT necessarily mean the overall readership over at NR has suddenly overcome being reality-challenged. Also, it must be noted that the editors of NR either did not or could not dissuade Johnson from publishing her column.
jp7505a
@Villago Delenda Est: I knew there had to be at least one clay pidgon that belonged on the side of a milk carton
Bokonon
@reflectionephemeral: I appreciate that (and resemble that comment). I used to work for Pat Moynihan. :-)
Ed Drone
@General Stuck:
I saw a phrase somewhere the other day, and, paraphrasing it:
“The Republicants* have learned how to have the bottom of the barrel scrape itself!”
Ed
Note: * Republican + T Parties = Republicant Party
Ed Drone
@General Stuck:
I saw a phrase somewhere the other day, and, paraphrasing it:
“The Republicants* have learned how to have the bottom of the barrel scrape itself!”
Ed
Note: * Republican + T Parties = Republicant Party
Chris
@Xenos:
“They say we are intolerant! They say we hate minorities! Shall I tell you who the true minority is? WE are the minority!”
Etc
General Stuck
@Ed Drone:
It’s like me late great Gramms Stuck used to say.
For people who scrape the bottoms of barrels, everything looks like a ladder
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Chris: “Word ‘minority’ is power word. I will say power word and take the power of the minority and become president!”
Christ, I’ve met dogs that have better reasoning power than these people.
Nina
I think that Republican (and some Democrat) state legislators have always been this dumb, but nowadays with social media it’s much easier to pull out examples of them being idiots and broadcast it to all and sundry.
aimai
Aside from the points everyone else has made I find the senseless violence over the phrase “senseless” really historically interesting. The Republican party, in its long time linkage with Evangelical Christianty against modernity has always prided itself on labeling evil as EVIL all caps. One of their biggest beefs with the Jews, Liberals, and Modernity has been Freudianism and Psychology and later Psychiatry generally. Why? Because it seeks to discover a logic to evil acts that is Satan Free and therefore a cure for evil acts that is societal and individual rather than religious.
My take on why they attacked Obama over “senseless violence” is that, at base, they refuse to accept the notion that Obama gets to make any speech about world historical events (because he’s not a legitimate president/authority figure) but also that they can’t believe he stole their shtick of not attributing exact motives to the Nazis. They were spoiling for a charicature of Liberalism in which Obama would stand up and say “let me explain where the Nazis were coming from” with the soft bigotry of low liberal expectations for minorities and women extended to the Nazis just because. All such explanations–historical, cultural, logical are anathema to the modern Republican party because such explanations imply that with the right timing and leadership modern Americans, too, will commit genocide and mass slaughter.
They wouldn’t and didn’t bat an eye at Reagan calling the Nazi’s acts senseless because they preferred to see those acts as purely evil without historical and cultural precedent. It made them feel better about the role of a theoretically omnipotent god in failing to prevent it.
Paul in KY
@General Stuck: Sounds like you can beat wingnuts who aren’t in the above catagories.
So there’s that…
Paul in KY
@Mike in NC: Guess his family were er…experts at something back in the day.
El Cid
@aimai: Also, people using a phrase such as “senseless” violence (or “meaningless” death) are not trying to argue that the terms are undefined, that deaths caused by Nazis are the equivalent of dividing by zero, that the body count of the gas chambers was being written about with non-alphabetic, random script and thus could not be analyzed into sentences with nouns, verbs, other parts of speech, and a grammatically comprehensible syntax.
It’s a bold attempt, though, to use the powers of mindless literalism and definitional favoritism in order to condemn one’s enemies.
Paul in KY
@Villago Delenda Est: Can you imagine getting that account & trying to come up with a catchy marketing campaign?
Svensker
For a second there, I thought the Queen had gone mad and knighted Frank Luntz.
Thank God.
Paul
I just re-checked my bible. And it still says “turn the other cheek” and “love thy neighbor”.
I guess I want to tell this guy (who ever he is) that I want to take Christianity back from people like him who have hijacked it to something that it is not.
MikeJ
@aimai:
Maybe Obama should lay a wreath on an SS grave.
jibeaux
@Mojotron: Oh, you’re right. I don’t even know Lutz’ first name.
The Golux
@Mnemosyne: I just assumed it was a silent “t”.
piratedan
@Comrade Dread: well in their defense, they did have candy
Hillary Rettig
great post, and I don’t know who does the headlines here but I’m starting to think they’re the best on the web.
Left Coast Tom
@cmorenc: To me this is the main point:
The NRO is what it is. Its readers can decide whether they still want to be readers.
Bubblegum Tate
@jibeaux:
Both the character and the actor who plays him are named John Lutz (though the character goes by J.D. Lutz).
Elizabelle
@Hillary Rettig:
Agreed. Brilliant headline.
Paul in KY
@aimai: Sound analysis. Dovetails, IMO, with the ‘If a Democratic president said it (especially a blah one), we’re agin it’ policy we have seen so much.
Chris
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
LOL, indeed. It was a Twilight Zone reference, but yeah, they pretty much see (or think they see) something’s working and try to appropriate it – more prominent example, “Obama only won because he’s black! Say what? Herman Cain, Bobby Jindall and Allen West, you say? Ooooo, they can be our Obamas!” [claps and squees excitedly]
Citizen_X
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yeah, but the Founding Fathers of the Confederacy are busy dancing to “The South’s Gonna Do It Again.”
Patricia Kayden
So how exactly is Rapert going to “take back his country”? As a minority female, I’d love to know.
Chris
@aimai:
I think it depends on the evil. Lots of conservatives have written extensively about communism and socialism and the things that make them evil both in theory and in practice, if only because it was important to convince other people that these things suck.
But conservatives have never really had an official framework for understanding fascism, not because they see it in elemental, “senseless” and religious terms so much as because it’s impossible to do without implicating quite a bit of the hard right’s core beliefs. Traditionally, they either dismiss it as a mysterious flaw in the German national character (that was especially popular immediately after World War Two), or dismiss it as the product of Hitler’s diseased mind (which a bunch of Germans for some unfathomable reason just decided to agree with).
Jonah Goldberg became popular mostly because after seventy years, he finally gave conservatives a way of talking about fascism that didn’t implicate their own values and reinforced their core belief that “all bad things are caused by left-wingers.”
Ben Cisco
Parody, him STILL ded.
El Cid
@Chris: Also it’s an innovative argument technique that he and other right wingers have not so much invented but renewed: “begging the question.”
All they have to do is begin the argument by defining terms in such a way that if you go along with that, then they instantly win, which then convinces them of their brilliance.
So they can now ‘prove’ that Nazis were liberals & leftists, because they begin with the minor point of defining “liberal” and “left” as “for bigger government”, and what the Nazis did as “bigger government”.
Why, it’s so brilliant it can’t fail!
gene108
@Patricia Kayden:
I think step one is to stop the oppression of the White Man, whatever that is….
Mnemosyne
@Chris:
G and I had a whole conversation with my now-late father this past summer where he carefully explained that because Mussolini had been a communist first, that meant that fascism was really a form of communism.
I think he started to get frustrated by our goggle-mouthed expressions of disbelief as he waded deeper and deeper into this weirdness. My dad was a pretty smart guy, so it was a horrifying demonstration of the kind of pseudo-intellectual bullshit Fox News was feeding into his brain.
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
So by that standard, Saint Paul and every pagan who’s ever converted to Christianity proves that Christianity is really a form of paganism.
::clap clap clap clap clap::
Mnemosyne
@Chris:
It’s more that all Christians and Muslims are actually Jews because both Christianity and Islam were developed from Judaism.
West of the Rockies
Do any of you ever get tired of this sort of story? Bonehead politician says something incredibly ignorant, claims he was misquoted or misunderstood and offers a vague faux apology; conservatives cast themselves as the victims of a gotcha media while progressives make political hay of the situation for a day or three: rinse and repeat.
I know that this is what modern political life entails now, and such stupidity/racism as demonstrated in the story must be reported and discussed, but, honestly, on certain days, in certain moods, the whole stupid show just seems like one shitty joke. Meh… It’s Fridy. Maybe I should go have a beer.
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
Well, in terms of comparing it to religions…
… I do get what people are saying when they say that communism and fascism amount to the same thing in practice (even though there are real material differences) because they’re both totalitarian regimes, in the same way that the Taliban and the Lord’s Resistance Army add up to the same thing because they’re both theocratic psychos.
But you’d be making a hell of a leap if you went from that to say “Christianity and Islam are the same thing.” And the “liberal fascism” thing, linking right wing totalitarianism to left wing republicanism, is another several leaps of stupid away. It’s like tracing the Taliban to the Quakers. It makes no fucking sense.
/preaching to the choir, I know
Mnemosyne
@West of the Rockies:
It probably wouldn’t have gotten as much attention if the guy with the anti-abortion bill didn’t have “Raper” as part of his name. If nothing else, it’s good for a mordant snicker.
hells littlest angel
@Smiling Mortician:
After a discussion with the party’s outreach director, he has changed his name to Jason Rt.
gnomedad
#notracistatall
SiubhanDuinne
@jp7505a:
I read that this morning and kept screaming “Absence of proof is not prrof of absence, you fucking assdouchenozzletip!!”
SiubhanDuinne
@Svensker:
Commas are useful things.
– – – –
“Do you want to eat, Grandma?”
v.
“Do you want to eat Grandma?”
Yutsano
@SiubhanDuinne: OO has the comma monopoly around here. All approved comma use must be by his direct say-so.
SiubhanDuinne
@Chris:
Another example.
SiubhanDuinne
@Yutsano:
OO and I share a birthday, so, despite your protestations, the courtesy is, Deo gratia, extended to all fortunate enough to have been born, or brought into this, how you say, “mortal coil,” on the third day, or 3rd day, of August, notwithstanding the year.
/Comma Chameleon
AA+ Bonds