Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

One way or another, he’s a liar.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

They don’t have outfits that big. nor codpieces that small.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

“They all knew.”

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Fucking consultants! (of the political variety)

A fool as well as an oath-breaker.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Books are my comfort food!

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

You are here: Home / It Isn’t An Ideology, Charles

Reader Interactions

96Comments

  3. 3.

    Scott

    Nope, not going to LGF.

    And I’m not considering him “not a wingnut” until he renounces his racist posts from the past few years.

  4. 4.

    r€nato

    FYI I saw the “edit comment” link on a comment I left on the previous thread but I do not see it here now. Strange. Firefox 3.5.3 for Mac.

  5. 5.

    Mnemosyne

    I have to say, I’m still in shock. Who would have thought even a year ago that Little Green Footballs would be a voice of reason on the right? The world is topsy-turvy these days.

  6. 6.

    Willy Wonka

    Powerline has been going in a very bad direction recently

    If by “recently” he means in the geologic sense, then yes.

  9. 9.

    cleek

    @General Winfield Stuck:

    no non o. i’ve been assured by the big brain on Megan McAddled that innovation cannot happen in a country such as France. clearly this is a sham – i bet some fine US drug maker gave the vaccine to Sanofi under pressure from some of Obama’s Chicago-style thugs, in an attempt to make defenders of our Glorious Free-market Health Care look silly.

    but their plan has failed!

  10. 10.

    Cyrus

    Yeah, this isn’t Charles Johnson’s first disagreement with conservatives. For example. As far as I can tell his policy preferences are just as nutty right-wing as ever despite the example of the past few years, but he differs with Republicans about the value and/or ethicality of birtherism, conspiracy theories, racism, and going so far as to ban Islam.

    It’s funny to think about people too crazy for Charles Johnson. Sort of scary and reassuring at the same time, if that makes any sense. Scary that they’re out there, and that there are so many of them and they’re cooperating, but reassuring that Johnson could, in the end, get co-opted by consensus reality.

  11. 11.

    joe from Lowell

    Movement-conservative ideology is like a pile of oranges at the grocery store.

    Once you recognize the dishonesty, the cluelessness, and the irrationality behind one plank, you can’t help but see those same failures behind everything they do.

    It’s like pulling out one of the oranges at the bottom. Charles may think he’s just de-linking some extremists, but he’s going to end up like John within a year.

  12. 12.

    Lee

    Nice to see the site is back up. Hopefully these are just the upgrade pains.

    I have to admit, that was the first time in many many years that I have clicked on an LGF link. Normally I loath giving them any traffic.

  13. 13.

    asiangrrlMN

    Free at last! Balloon Juice is free at last! And so is LGF. Only second time I’ve clicked on his link, I’ll tell you that much.

    And the wingnuttery just got a wee bit purer.

  14. 14.

    Bubblegum Tate

    @Cyrus:

    It’s funny to think about people too crazy for Charles Johnson. Sort of scary and reassuring at the same time, if that makes any sense. Scary that they’re out there, and that there are so many of them and they’re cooperating, but reassuring that Johnson could, in the end, get co-opted by consensus reality.

    Exactly. There’s the classic old joke:

    Q: What did the Deadhead say when he ran out of weed?
    A: “Wait a minute…this music sucks!”

    Ol’ CJ apparently isn’t getting high on the uber-wingnut dope anymore and is realizing that he had thrown in with a freakshow.

  15. 15.

    Mojotron

    Does anyone know what the specific issue was that broke his brain? Was it that Belgian separatist Vlaamse Frites thing?

  16. 16.

    ellaesther

    Is this really that time? Is this that point in American history when a new party will be formed? I remembered being fascinated as a kid that parties used to form and disband seemingly all the time — like, “they can do that?” — and I really have to wonder if, sometime between now and, say, 2020, a new party might not replace the current GOP. Because the current conservative movement really, but truly, seems interested only in shooting the GOP from which it sprung in in the foot, and on a daily basis.

  17. 17.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    John,

    Have you considered selling survival kits for others who made it out of the cult in time? Or at least putting up an FAQ page with info on how to deal with wingnut withdrawl symptoms, how to fend off attacks by flying monkeys sent by former compatriots with instructions to pluck your eyes out, a glossary and pronunciation guide of DFH terms, handy hints for how to avoid getting the patchouli smell on your clothes, what kind of mustard it is safe to put on your hamburgers, etc.

    With luck there might be a growth market in this.

  20. 20.

    asiangrrlMN

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ: This would be an excellent survival guide. How to fit in with the dreaded urban elite in ten easy steps. How to crowd on the subway without blinking an eye. How to STAND on the right and WALK on the left. How to turn off the lights when you’re not in the room. How to actually care about other people! The last one would be the hardest, me thinks.

  22. 22.

    Cyrus

    @ellaesther:

    Is this really that time? Is this that point in American history when a new party will be formed? I remembered being fascinated as a kid that parties used to form and disband seemingly all the time—like, “they can do that?”—and I really have to wonder if, sometime between now and, say, 2020, a new party might not replace the current GOP.

    I doubt it, but you never know. In terms of Congressional representation the Republican Party was in worse shape in the 1930s and 1940s than it is today, the GOP lost the 1964 election more decisively than the 2008 election (and, of course, Democrats lost 1980 more decisively than that), and the demographic trends that are hurting Republicans have been ongoing for some time and still probably won’t lead to an actual majority-minority country until well after 2020. All of those factors together, though…

  25. 25.

    Svensker

    Glad to see you back up. Having withdrawal.

    Once Charles Johnson acknowledges the basic humanity of Arabs and Muslims, I’ll give him a read. Otherwise, glad to see he’s put down the Kool-Aid straw, but far as I know, he’s still an out and out racist.

  26. 26.

    jenniebee

    @cleek: You know innovation is a curious thing. Both the US and the Soviets were faced with a problem during the space race, specifically, that ballpoint pens don’t work in zero gravity. This seems like a little thing, but it was really a big deal.

    And American Capitalist Ingenuity did, in fact, solve the problem. A guy named Fisher spent millions of dollars developing the “Space Pen” and sold his product to NASA for an undisclosed amount of taxpayer money, but the benefit is that not only did the space program go forward successfully, but now there are zero gravity pens for sale in most Science Museum gift shops, usually located near the Astronaut Ice Cream packets and the kaleidescopes. The real Fisher pens run around $50, the more suspect knock-offs cost about $10 apiece. The pens are popular school group souvenirs and last-minute Fathers’ Day presents, and although you probably won’t ever test their zero-gravity writing ability (or their ability to write at temperatures exceeding 400 degrees farenheit), you can write upside down with them, should the need arise.

    And the Soviets didn’t innovate anything at all to solve the problem because their Socialist economic pressures prioritized cost savings over the development of new technology. They just issued their cosmonauts pencils.

    Also. Too.

  29. 29.

    asiangrrlMN

    @JK: How to open your mind to the idea that maybe your way of life is not right for everyone. How to not sneer when you say, “Community Organizer.” How to wish someone a Happy Holiday–and mean it! How to correctly pronounce nuclear. How to tell the difference between truth and truthiness. How to tell that Stephen Colbert is making fun of your ass, just as Jon Stewart is! How to realize that Beck, Limbaugh, et. al, are laughing at you all the way to the fucking bank!

    Cole, you may have to make it a two-book guide.

  30. 30.

    martha

    @asiangrrlMN: Oh, oh, oh! You can’t mean that someone should really stand on the RIGHT on the moving walkway at MSP while blabbing on their phone instead of lounging in the middle of the walking and blocking all forward traffic when I was trying to run from G-28 to C22 with about 5 minutes to spare?

    Obviously, I’m still cranky from that Delta dash…I hate Delta. NW sucked, but Delta is worse. Harumph.

  33. 33.

    Zifnab

    @Cyrus:

    Democrats lost 1980 more decisively than that), and the demographic trends that are hurting Republicans have been ongoing for some time and still probably won’t lead to an actual majority-minority country until well after 2020. All of those factors together, though…

    I mean, you need a viable new party to form. The Whigs collapsed and reformed as the Republicans, and promptly won the election under Lincoln. The modern GOP has been rebuilding from it’s shattered remnants since the Depression. One could even argue that after Southern White Flight and the big North/South Republican/Democrat flip we got two totally new parties from the 50s to the 70s.

    I mean, if Glenn Beck leads the charge to build up the Constitution Party or whatever, I don’t think that’s ever really going to get off the tarmac. But if the GOP wants to just rebrand itself, that’s definitely viable.

    It depends on what you want to call a “new” party. I mean, Farmer/Labor Democrats in Minnesota couldn’t be farther away from New York business Dems or Florida/Texas/California first generation immigrants. Those regional politics aren’t going to change any time soon, no matter what party is currently ascendant.

  34. 34.

    dmsilev

    @asiangrrlMN: Someone has to have written such a thing already; it’s just impossible that such a desperately needed work hasn’t already been penned.

    If not, then we collectively need to step up and fill the gap. How to order coffee in a Starbucks (and for advanced students, why you should never actually do so except in times of great coffee need). How to take a city bus or subway. The joys of mandatory gay abortion parties. You know, the standard stuff.

    -dms

  36. 36.

    General Winfield Stuck

    the site has been down to me all afternoon. But now is quick as a cat. Was this change to a new server?

  39. 39.

    asiangrrlMN

    @martha: No kidding! People, on escalators, moving stairways, whatever, just like on the road, slow on the right, haul ass on the left!

    @dmsilev: I think we should do it. Balloon Juicers guide to camoflauge! How to tell arugula from Romaine without breaking a sweat. How to tell the difference between a progressive and a liberal. How to effortlessly name-drop Ezra Klein, George Soros, and Howard Dean into a convo. How to tell a funny political joke. How to schedule your abortions around your anti-war protests, while taking time to stop at a vegan-owned co-op for a bulgur-filled lunch. We could make millions!

  40. 40.

    Axe Diesel Palin

    @Mnemosyne

    I have to say, I’m still in shock. Who would have thought even a year ago that Little Green Footballs would be a voice of reason on the right? The world is topsy-turvy these days.

    I am really shocked. I don’t follow LGF or the other right blogs at all. I leave it to John to summarize for me in his “I read these so you don’t have to”. But Sully pointed to a recent LGF post that sounded sane to me and now this. Is this a true conversion? Is LGF following the path of Balloon-juice?

  47. 47.

    Warren Terra

    @ Napoleon, #24

    How long has there been a link to the Balloon Juice Dictionary in the top right hand corner?

    I’ve never seen it before, and I note that it contains a single definition (for “DFH”). I think either it needs to have comments on that page or we need a Dictionary thread, to garner suggestions for additions. All kinds of things come to mind, such as “Also”, “IOKIYAAR”, etcetera.

    (Apologies for using this as if it were an open thread, but with the site performing as it has today the distinction seems a bit minor).

  48. 48.

    Warren Terra

    I notice that I now have options to edit or to “request deletion” of my recent comment, and these are nice. but:

    I can has Preview?

    Heck, I can has functional site?

  49. 49.

    Warren Terra

    Also, it seems that I have some ability to influence my first comment in a thread, but not subsequent comments?

  50. 50.

    Comrade Jake

    My post got zapped before, but this whole thing reminds me of when some of the (relatively) sane conservatives jumped off the Iraq war fanclub boat. I think we’ll begin to see more people look around at the folks they’ve been partying with on the right, and come to the conclusion that a good number of them are batshit fucking crazy.

  52. 52.

    Mark S.

    I like the idea of a glossary.

    Burkean Bells: Conservative intellectual name-dropping to mask the fact that conservative philosophy has always been “I’ve got mine, fuck you.”

  54. 54.

    torrentprime

    (Returning briefly to OP)
    I argue on gaypatriot.net (ugh) on a semi-regular basis. There exist a collection of centrist-to-extreme gay right-wingers, all thoroughly indoctrinated in the most repulsive of anti-gay doctrines: that gay marriage is an attempt by gays to force straight people to validate their relationships, the GOP does more to help gay rights than Democrats, that the “GayLeft” is out to destroy organized religions, the family, America, and kittens, and so on.
    I figure that if I made it out from the cult (as did John and others before me, and this site was no small part of my escape), it’s my job to help shine the light for others, and I might as well stick with what I know: (extremely confused) west coast, gay Republicans.

  59. 59.

    doubter4444

    @Scott:
    He has.
    I visit several blogs regularly, this and LGF are two.
    It’s changed a lot over the last year and it’s worth going to and see what’s up.
    Reasoned arguments (for the most part) and a it’s a place that, if you put together a good case for a point, it’ll be considered and discussed rationally.
    Try it.
    And by the way, he has moved on from the comments you mentioned, you’ll find it pretty refreshing.

  60. 60.

    ellaesther

    @Cyrus: I think you’re probably right — aside from anything else, there is too much history, money, and sheer electoral industry invested in these two particular parties for anyone to just walk away, and it takes an awful lot to move that kind of weight out of the way — it’s just that for the first time in my lifetime, it seems like a possibility! Which is just weird. And I guess in my lifetime I’ve seen a couple of impossible things happen (the Berlin Wall comes to mind) and every once and awhile, I think “is this it? Is this another one of those impossible moments?”

  61. 61.

    Roger Moore

    @Warren Terra:

    All kinds of things come to mind, such as “Also”, “IOKIYAAR”, etcetera.

    “Diapers”, “countertops”, “two wetsuits and a dildo”. I want a full wingnutopedia.

  62. 62.

    grumpy realist

    Romaine’s the stuff you find in Cesar salad. Long and skinny leaves with a wide rib of a backbone. Argula isn’t (although what it looks like, damfino. Is it the curly stuff with red edges?)

    Don’t care too much about the name, just need to know how edible it is and what you have to do with it to make it edible: e.g. raw kale.

  63. 63.

    MikeJ

    Argula isn’t (although what it looks like, damfino. Is it the curly stuff with red edges?)

    Arugula is what many people call rocket.

  64. 64.

    daryljfontaine

    OT: Has anyone seen these galleries from Little Bitsy’s Cutest Dog Contest? Apparently some folks got caught with their hand on the autovoter:

    Week 6
    Week 7

    Say goodbye to the Diebold puppies, and hello to a better shot for Bitsy!

    D

  65. 65.

    Ash Can

    This post prompted me to go check out LGF for the first time. Generally, I don’t make time to read RW blogs because being angry at assholishness and swearing at the computer moniter isn’t my idea of fun. I was pleasantly surprised, however, to see LGF reaming the teabaggers, and the stupidity in the comments more or less limited to myopic views of government spending. I’m holding off on making LGF part of my daily routine, however, until I’m convinced that the site’s anti-Muslim bigotry that I’ve heard about is either manageable or non-existent. I have no patience whatsoever for drek like that.

  67. 67.

    torrentprime

    @asiangrrlMN:
    Well. That’s another topic, innit?
    But I have looked over some of my bone-headed, Bush-defending, conservatard comments/emails from 2000 – 2004, and, well, if Internet posts penetrated my GOP-voting thick head, the least I can do is inject a little reality/common sense into the hilarity that is gp.net and hope for the same. (I still fondly remember being banned from RedState for questioning Bush’s being informed of water going over a New Orleans levee and not through a levee.) If I can save but one blah blah yarp (insert “Footprints on the beach” poem here, also). I’m not alone; a few other progressives/reformed conservatives do join me from time to time (altho a few are, sadly, of the “Bush was a Nazi so Obama is better anyway!! 1!” type, which doesn’t help my cause any).

  71. 71.

    General Winfield Stuck

    Is this a true conversion?

    Odds are against it. Usually when a winger starts to rebel, it gets to a point of no return fairly soon. Whereas, they either make the break, or more often become even wingnuttier than ever. A case in point is AJ Strata not long ago sort of left the GOP from the fury of his bashing the birthers, and some other stuff. Now he is full on wingnut, anti-Obama frother.

    There are others who made noises sounding like moderation only to get some winger religion after feeling the pitchforks closing in. Folks like Joyner, Allahpundit, etc..

    Then there are the odd cases that linger like RW Poltergeists, in suspended agony that become angry and erratic, and even self loathing, ie RicK Moran. They can’t go back and can’t make the leap to DFH land.

    Then there are the Cole’s, well, then there is Cole/

  72. 72.

    Demo Woman

    Little Bitsy already has over 400 votes and it’s only Monday.

    We have had flooding all over Atlanta today. As you know several of us have mentioned the continuous rain that Atlanta and the burbs received the last 7 plus days. Today the rain caused some heavy flooding due to ground satituration. Highways have been shut down, some apartments lower levels have been flooded. Where I live it has not been a problem. I have a patch of flooded yard but that’s about it. Cobb and Gwinnett county have already closed their schools for tomorrow. I think we are suppose to get another few inches of rain tonight but then it should ease up.
    I hope that Mom and SD and the rest of the Atlanta folks are okay.
    The only site that was harder to connect to than John’s was GA Navigator.

  74. 74.

    daryljfontaine

    LB’s in 4th among the Week 6 and Week 7 legitimate leaders (top dog, Mozart, has 843 votes), with at least three other pooches dogging her heels. Spread the gospel of Little Bitsy!

    (Seriously, though, maybe we need a bit of copypasta to throw on our favorite message boards regarding why voting for LB is a good idea.)

    D

  75. 75.

    Linkmeister

    @xaaronx: Heh. But what if I’m in the produce section and Glenn Beck and his minions have removed all the identifying labels? How will I know the difference if that happens?

    I was once on a criminal jury; one of our colleagues kept coming up with idiotic scenarios like that just to keep from voting “Guilty” with the rest of us. Fortunately we finally persuaded him that we had to go with the evidence we’d been shown, not the “what-ifs” he could think up.

  76. 76.

    Laura W

    @daryljfontaine: Thanks for tracking it so closely and caring (everyone). I keep posting in various threads when questions come up and since the whole story is not really in one place right now, here is my first post with some of the Bitsy history on 8/30.
    Please see #40 in that same thread for more from Evelyn Bridges, the woman who rescued her, and the condition Bitsy was in when she finally allowed herself to be “caught”.

    Here is a bit more info I posted last Sat. morn in response to a question about who she belongs to. I included an email to John from Sylvia, the woman who adopted her. I probably can not do a third link but Sylvia posted a thanks to the BJ community in the Bitsy Beg post on the 19th, comment # 68.

    Evelyn and Sylvia offer generous thanks and praise to everyone working on this on a daily basis. Not only does it raise awareness, and hopefully funds, for Evelyn’s about-to-be-created non-profit rescue group, but for animal welfare and rescue work in general. It’s just A Good Thing all around.

    So thanks for asking and for caring and if you need additional info to crosspost in various venues, you can email me:
    [email protected]

  77. 77.

    Carol

    Some people are too crazy for the crazy, and I think he’s reached that point. It’s kind of like the cult conversions I have read about elsewhere on the web. You get vested up to a certain point, and slowly you realize, “this is too crazy to believe” or these people are too crazy for me to keep wanting to be around them”. At that point you start slowly backing away, first with the hope that the crazy will burn itself out. Unfortunately that seldom happens, so you start looking for an alternative.

    I think the whole Obama birther thing is just that line across too crazy. To believe that, you have to believe that the entire security establishment, all the investigative reporters out there, all the well-paid PIs were totally incompetent. Not to mention that all of the professional oppo research funded by one of the major parties combined with security agencies serving under a Republican President also missed something so important.
    They missed this, and nobodies like Orly Taitz somehow just knows he’s foreign. Once you get into that level of crazy, you find yourself in the crowd of flat-earthers, anti-vax people, and similar sort. So a sane person backs away in the hope that other cherished beliefs can be salvaged like low taxes or improved defense.

  78. 78.

    Mnemosyne

    @General Winfield Stuck:

    There are others who made noises sounding like moderation only to get some winger religion after feeling the pitchforks closing in. Folks like Joyner, Allahpundit, etc..

    The same seems to be happening with Kathleen Parker, too. She had a few brief moments of sanity and now is apparently diving deep into the soshulist/Nazi pool of crazy.

    It could happen to Johnson as well, but he does seem like the kind of asshole who would stand up to the pressure and tell them all to eff off, so we’ll have to wait and see.

  80. 80.

    Betsy

    Encyclopaedia Realica

    That title is perfection.

    Also to be included:
    the Liberal Professor Indoctrination Handbook: How to Indentify Patriotic Conservative Students So You Can Convert or Fail Them.

    Travel Guide to Massachusetts

    Actual sex education.

  82. 82.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    Encyclopaedia Realica

    And let’s not forget:

    Evolution: It’s not just for monkeys

  84. 84.

    HyperIon

    this is OT but it is so “out there” that i will supply the link anyway.

    this is the audio of an amazing Chris Hedges talk in Seattle.
    he manages to address the Jackson memorial service, “Brand Obama”, media “courtiers”, and the national security state in an extended diatribe called “Our Dying Culture” (about an hour but the first fifteen minutes give you a gist).

    kuow.org/program.php?id=18067

    I cheered at several places and muttered “wow” at others.
    I don’t always agree with him but this guy is smart. A very impressive bio.

  85. 85.

    DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)

    If we’re talking salad, though, I go for a butter leaf/mescaline mix.

    Can I come over for dinner? ;)

  86. 86.

    Carol

    @Mnemosyne, going deeper into the crazy is also possible. But from what I read, folks who do after a period of reluctance eventually recoil and then flee. Everybody has their limits, and this should make the recoilers reach them very quickly.

  87. 87.

    IndieTarheel

    @Punchy:

    Cue Squalkin’ Malkin and Her Craptacular Friends.

    An entry from the Saturday Morning Cartoon Lineup From Hell if I ever heard one. Sort of like a Bizarro World version of the Superfriends, only MM strikes me as more of a Wonderdog than a Wendy. Or maybe Scrappy Doo.

  88. 88.

    Cyrus

    @Zifnab:

    I mean, if Glenn Beck leads the charge to build up the Constitution Party or whatever, I don’t think that’s ever really going to get off the tarmac. But if the GOP wants to just rebrand itself, that’s definitely viable.

    What I’d like to see(1) is for the Republican Party to wither to third-party status, the Democratic Party to become the conservative major party in this first-past-the-post, de facto only-two-party system of ours(2), and for some left-wing third party to grow into a major party and provide a genuine voice for the left, which hasn’t had any power in this country in decades.

    Because when conservatives call Democrats communists, they’re either clinically insane or simply lying. By any measure of recent history, every major Democratic Party idea has been a moderate, and often too moderate, reaction to changes in society rather than a push for change. “We are all Eisenhower Republicans now!” “The era of big government is over!” “If you like your insurance, nothing is going to change!” “Shrink the stimulus package, and shrink it again, and take out the parts about taking over the banks!” I’m happy to vote for that when the alternative is “Drill, baby, drill! and “Barry Hussein Soetoro was born in Kenya!”, but I’d be even happier to have an alternative that’s actually left of center.

    And this sort of ties in to Charles Johnson. He (AFAIK) still believes that deregulation and tax cuts cure all wounds, and that we should have invaded Iran, and that McCain would have made a better president than Obama. He just differs with the rest of the right-wing on the ideas that Obama was born in Kenya, and his economic policies are exactly as bad as death camps, and liberals would literally mount a fifth column.

    And that’s fine! All the stuff he believes is within the Democratic Party’s big tent. (It’s a big tent.) Lieberman lasted in the party for decades, and he doesn’t believe anything much crazier than Johnson, and he only got successfully primaried because he didn’t merely believe it but talked about it on Fox News all the time.

    If the Democratic Party keeps winning elections long enough and becomes ruthless about parliamentary procedure(3) – it might take 60 Senators to beat a procedural filibuster, but it only takes 51 to end the filibuster rule – then the corporate money will give up on the GOP. Performance artists like Glenn Beck will realize which side their bread is buttered on. Their crazy followers in the general public will either follow their demagogues to the Democratic Party or will go off and become Birchers and separatists and Dominionists. And then the moderate left will join the more fringe left and we might have a shot at a genuine war of ideas here and some genuine progress in this country(4).

    (1) Yes, I’m dreaming here.

    (2) Ooh, heh, maybe it would call itself the Democratic-Republican Party again.

    (3) Both parts of this seem very unlikely, at least in the near future.

    (4) And then maybe they’ll give me a pony.

  89. 89.

    General Winfield Stuck

    Pretty soon tasers will be obsolete. And then it’s hello to the Sonic Gun.

    San Diego Sheriff Buys Sonic Weapon for ‘Terrorists on Walkers’ Threat

    ChattahBox)—San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore is a man who likes his toys big and loud, like for example, a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) military grade sonic weapon that can cause burst eardrums, bleeding in the inner ear and even death in some cases. Inexplicably, Sheriff Gore purchased such a weapon to use for local crowd control.

    Why in the name of God you would take one when a United States member of Congress has invited people to come speak about health debates that’s going on right now, I don’t know. Probably the majority of these people are Medicaid recipients, so you probably have terrorists on walkers,” he quipped,

    Isn’t it swell to be an American these days?

  90. 90.

    Brian Griffin

    @Cyrus: yes!

    been imagining this since the election: a Democratic party, a Liberal party, and our own American version of the Parti Quebecois, the Republicans.

    I’ve assumed they’d have to drop much further in popularity, to around 15%, for that to happen, but if they became wholly regional, then well… a kid can dream, right?

  92. 92.

    General Winfield Stuck

    @Comrade Darkness:

    Don’t know, but that’s what they said, and that the vaccine was just FDA approved last week.

    Sure your not thinking about the regular flu vaccine they start administering every year about this time.

  93. 93.

    hamletta

    IIRC, Johnson was an apolitical guy who had a blog about Web design until 9/11 made him piss his pants (we all know the type). I guess it’s not too surprising that the paroxysms of his ragegasm would subside eventually.

  94. 94.

    Surabaya Stew

    Is this a true conversion? Is LGF following the path of Balloon-juice?

    From what I have read over the past few months compared to the trash that I remember back in 2005, I would have to say that Charles Johnson has fully returned to the land of thinking people. In terms of his political evolution, he’s is at a similar point to where John was about 2 months before he became a democrat. As Mr. Furious might say, LGF “has seen the light”!

    What is also interesting to observe is how the “lizards” are pretty much moving along the same path that he is, and it mostly has to do with frustration and disgust over the decay of the GOP and conservative movement. Reading the threads (that I can’t comment on due to the sock-puppets and trolls making registration virtually impossible) is a joy every day, as Evolution is proven by the incremental yet steady growth of “lizard” thoughtfulness and reasoning.

    But why should sanity have struck LGF now as opposed to several years ago? If I had to guess, Charles Johnson’s “Schiavo” moment was the alleged non-existence of Obama’s Birth Certificate becoming a pet cause of his (now former) associates. Ever since then, the site’s been considering the direction that America has been taking, and that has led to a rejection of most of what Bush Jr. and company were about.

  95. 95.

    pseudonymous in nc

    Was it that Belgian separatist Vlaamse Frites thing?

    Not that I follow LGFery, but I believe it was that, or something very much like it. The diehards — Atlas Shrieks, Hates of Vienna, etc — decided that the enemy of my enemy etc. meant it was worth striking up relationships with various white nationalist / neofascist groups like the Vlaamsers and the BNP, for whom hating Muslims was just an extension of hating everyone different from them.

    I’m not going to extend any charity to Johnson, though. I’m sure that without LGF, some other blog would have become as the motherlode of frothing anti-Muslim lizardoids, eventually spinning off into their own separate communities, but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t play his own part in creating them.

  96. 96.

    sdh

    I read a profile of Charles Johnson some time ago — last year maybe? — discussing his growing tendency to split from the ‘movement’. The issue that seems to have driven LGF towards reality-land seems to have been two-fold: global warming and evolution. Seems that the gearbox in the LGF machine respects the idea that ‘nature is not ideological’.

    I started blogging in 2000-2001, in reaction to my rage over the election (at a very different blog than the one I have, but don’t really use, now). LGF linked to me. And I thought his site was interesting, but I found some of his posts a leeeetle perturbing. Then after September 11 he became a full-time war-blogger. Today has been the first time I have visited his site since then that I have not felt the need for a mental disinfectant. Strange.

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