I can support the wiretapping of your phones. I can support your illegal detention and demand that you be tortured with no hope of habeas corpus on the horizon. I can wave away the death of over half a million civilian Iraqis. I can demand that your children go to fight an adventure war and get killed while my children sit pretty at college manning the college Republicans. I can show up at your doctor’s office and accuse you of moral turpitude because of what I imagine your sex life must be like, and I’m still the paragon of decency.
But if I say you’re fucking awesome, I’ve crossed an unspeakable boundary and only then have I managed to betray the bounds of civility.
This is according to Don Surber and all the other wingnuts defending the routine use of arbitrary taboos and Calvinball rules of debate that are used to concoct fake controversies to run liberal activists out of jobs and deprive them of funding. The latest witchhunt is against YearlyKos, which Bill O’Reilly is trying to defund by pretending to be offended at some random comments that were found after his staff was assigned the thankless job of combing through probably millions of comments to find something for Bill O’Reilly to find offensive. It’s how he has fun, you know. After he’s done at work, O’Reilly likes to relax by visiting public restrooms in San Francisco, one after another, until he finds a toilet that someone forgot to flush and boom! All the evidence he needs that gay rights are the end of life as we know it.
Surber uses a very unfortunate euphemism when describing his fear of naughty words.
Lefties have a tendency to drop F-bombs. And not just in comments. Over at the Huffington Post, a search of the F-word hit the jackpot.
Which basically begs me to point out that righties have a tendency to drop real bombs.
Here’s a question: Imagine if you would that instead of beating, raping, and murdering illegally held detainees to torture them, the U.S. government instead had mercenaries tie people up an listen to songs like Liz Phair’s “Fuck and Run”? Would Surber suddenly find love in his heart for the Geneva conventions?
Of course not, silly rabbit! Arbitrary taboos and Calvinball rules exist to give Bill O’Reilly and company something to harass liberals about, because that’s all they have. They can’t argue fairly; they’d lose. They can’t ignore us any longer, either. Which is why seemingly excellent points, like this one made by Glenn Greenwald, fall on deaf ears.
It goes on and on like that. On a daily basis, Michelle Malkin’s hate sites promote violence, rank bigotry, jihad against Muslim Americans, imprisonment of Democratic Party leaders. The comments are not deleted and are virtually never opposed. Her hate sites traffic in content which is the hallmark of white supremacism and violent groups targeting Muslims. And once she is done promoting that, she goes on Fox News and demands that corporate sponsors cut their ties with Daily Kos due to the comments left on that site.
UPDATE: From past experience, posts which employ the line of reasoning used in this post are fundamentally misunderstood by those who are, for whatever reasons, incapable of understanding this two-step logical train:
(1) Standard X is dishonest and corrupt.
(2) Those who advocate and apply Standard X to others ought to have that standard applied to them.
That is not all that complicated.
Well, yeah, but c’mon, Glenn! We all know that what’s offensive is not what they say about us, but our political beliefs. Which is why it’s confusing to people employing the standards. Here are the real rules:
(1) Liberals have the power of reason and justice on their side.
(2) That’s an unfair advantage.
(3) Therefore the game should have handicaps to make it more competitive. One of these handicaps is holding liberals to unfair, unattainable standards. Because
(4) Politics is just a game with no real world consequences and it wouldn’t be as fun to play if everyone had to simply make up their mind based on the logic and arguments of both sides, since liberals would win pretty much every time.
We’re not racing F1 people, but MarioKart! Conservatives are lagging in the logic department, so of course they get the blue turtle shell. And another war gets started and another few hundred thousand people die needlessly, but hey, better than having a less competitive game, right?
By the way, chalk up “arguing in bad faith” as something completely civil if conservatives do it, since that’s what all this is about. O’Reilly isn’t offended by what anyone said on DailyKos. If the man was really concerned about hate in the discourse, he wouldn’t be a one-man transmitter that moved ideas cracked in Klan rallies to the mainstream. But cut the guy a break; they have to use dishonest tactics to run liberals out of the mainstream political discourse. They’ve been trying for decades now to make “liberal” as dirty a word as “socialist” and it hasn’t quite taken. If you people would just let the wingnuts ban anyone to the left of Hitler out of the discourse permanently, they wouldn’t have to resort to dishonest tactics. It’s not like our country was founded on the idea that democracy only functions with a healthy and free political discourse—
66 Responses to “Today’s rule is that if you’re liberal and have sneezed in the past 24 hours, you don’t get to talk”
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Once again, the right wing excels at projection. The folks whose ideologies were the original impetus for the phrase “hate speech” are now shocked! to learn that we (many of whom have been the target of their hatred) sometimes use threatening or obscene language.
I also love the double standard at play here. If you as a site owner allow don’t remove comments that step past the bounds of civil discourse, you’re “allowing hate.” But if you do remove posts, you’re a hypocrite who doesn’t realy believe in tolerance and free speech.
Testing 1, 2, 3.
Damnit. I was wondering what was up with the MarioKart picture, then I found out and nearly spit soup all over the place.
But you’re exactly right. It really is MarioKart style balancing. Those that are behind get the good power-ups to help them catch up. And it’s the media that doles them out. Because the closer the race, that means the better a job they’ve done.
All this chaos and pain and suffering..it’s just to feed their fragile egos.
How pathetic.
Ah well. With the new comment system I’ll take up Jeff’s request to enter into the food hierarchy.
Don’t mind me. Just testing my login.
Bwhahahaha! Soon all will be mine and I will have overthrown that “great” cat.
Seeing Bill talk about this crap in youtube clips and the like is painful. His face is just so bizarrely revealing of his dishonesty. And his voice grates for the same reason, kind of like he doesn’t believe a word he says. His tone of voice, his manner, everything about him screams “I’m in it for the selfish egoistic reasons, not because I want the world to be better”. Does being a conservative make you a bad judge of character? Or does being a moron make you a republican? Both equally, I’m sure.
Aha - clicking on Site Admin & registering for an account does wonders for one’s posting abilities.
So, granted that the comparison is beyond fair to shockingly accurate, does that mean sooner or later we’ll get the gravity bomb launcher or even a wimpish freeze-ray?
off topic one: I’m here
off topic two: is there any chance of getting an RSS comment feed like there was on the last site (comments only on a separate feed)
Also, this post is right in line with the conclusions in Al Gore’s book, and in my opinion is terribly important.
I’ve long said that if you want to find out what conservatives are doing, look at what they’re accusing liberals of–just look at Mark Foley for an example.
And yes, I joined the foodies here too.
Gore just doesn’t resort to bananas and turtle shells to get his point across.
Test…
Here’s what I wrote at Surber’s place (reposting it here since I suspect it will get moderated into oblivion…)
Consider 2 pieces of writing:
1. A lengthy screed written by lawyers and statisticians explaining, with numerous polysyllabic phrases and data extrapolations galore, the benefits that would accrue to the national discourse, the economy, and morality in general should the polity choose to put all of the citizenry who happen to be of Jewish extraction into cleansing facilities (which, it is explained in a technical footnote, will contain only the most humane and sanitary of gas chambers and crematoria)
or
2. A short flyer posted on lamposts telling the Nazi Punks to F**K Off.
Which set of writers would you prefer to dine with?
Which basically begs me to point out that righties have a tendency to drop real bombs.
That line was jaw-dropping good.
When people on the right complain about political correctness, I’m reminded how happy I am about the trade we’ve made over the last few decades — it’s more acceptable to use naughty sexual expressions, and less acceptable to use bigoted terms for women and minorities. Which is great, because it’s more fun and better for society to talk about sex (and to cuss) than it is to say bigoted things about women and minorities.
*achoo* test?
Which “naughty sexual expressions” are you referring to, Neil?
I just can’t think of any offhand, and the word ‘naughty’ will tend to capture my interest pretty quick, so dish.
Maybe it’s “I’d like to check you for ticks”?
(testing, one, two, three
I
LOL @ Cheney raising his voice (the article was written a whole 3 years after the “go fuck yourself” incident.)
I really truly don’t understand why everyone is mad at the right wingnuts and not mad at JetBlue.
Hey, corporate sponsors,
Get some balls!
Act like you like democracy. Act like you care about freedom. Act like the free market works and isn’t just ruled by rich wannabe nazis.
Sincerely,
One of JetBlue’s passengers who was delayed unnecessarily for three hours a few weeks ago, but who would have a change of heart about JetBlue’s concern for human beings if they sponsored progressive conferences.
I think Surber had a second hidden motive with that post: not just play fast and loose with the rules, but to confuse whoever he can about the point of the post and deflect attention away from his game of Calvinball.
Testing . . . is this thing on? Testing . . .
Heavens to Murgatroyd! I can’t believe that no one has mentioned the fondness for the F-Bomb as displayed by the Great and Mighty Dick! Shouldn’t Surber et al be on the warpath against the executive branch being besmirched by that foul language? Oh that’s right, that would be logical and that’s not good.
Es-chewing the food hierarchy and remaining with the plant queendom.
A lot of the time, I think that wingnuts are waging a more or less open war on reason, what with the way language and discourse get put in “stress positions,” as it were. I guess war’s the thing if one is a wingnut.
Also, according to XKCD, you can dodge blue shells, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
Heavens to Murgatroyd! I can’t believe that no one has mentioned the fondness for the F-Bomb as displayed by the Great and Mighty Dick! Shouldn’t Surber et al be on the warpath against the executive branch being besmirched by that foul language? Oh that’s right, that would be logical and that’s not good.
Es-chewing the food hierarchy and remaining with the plant queendom.
Maybe I am dense, but what is “Calvinball”?
What’s this registering thingie? I thought I’d registered… but I still have to put my name in all the time. Is there a purpose to registration?
Calvinball was a game played by Calvin and Hobbs- fab cartoon about a 6 year old boy and his stuffed tiger, who only came alive when talking to Calvin. They used whatever was on hand to play Calvinball, often made up the rules arbitrarily to suit their own needs, and had no real discernable way of knowing who was “winning”.
Hence, a typical game score was: Q to 12.
From Surber: “People have the God-given right to write what they wish.”
You’d think the Constitution was first scribbled down on stone tablets…
I posted this on his blog and suppose it’s going to get lost in moderation.
What is so funny about this sort of post is how it demonstrates the basic falsehood of the North American mainstream (read: right-wing) media’s narrative of the Right as a populist movement and the Left as an elitist movement. The most common comment here is that the Left’s overuse of the ‘F-bomb’ is due to lack of *class*, culture and/or education. It’s the very *definition* of elitism. And we don’t even have to go and disprove the Left=elitist, Right=populist narrative when the Right is quite happy doing it by themselves.
As for vocabulary, if I use the ‘F-bomb’ and you don’t, that already shows I have at least one more word in my vocabulary than you do.
But as us Quebecois leftists know, if you’re out there trying to speak for the People, using its own language “c’est important en tabarnac!”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19975387/
Bet there’s a bunch of F-bombs going off in the White House right now…
Dang, why is it that when I do a blockquote my post disappears? Or maybe it was my less than + 3 quotes for “love.”
Here’s the original post I intended, with “love” intended to be the less than+3 thing above:
I “love” Mario Kart, thanks for the photos. I also “love” Calvinball and Calvin & Hobbes in general (I’ve met Bill Watterson’s father, very nice man and by his own admission exactly like the biking-addict “building some character” patent attorney dad in the strip, although BW himself is more reclusive.)
Anyway, the “Lefties have a tendency to drop F-bombs” quote reminds me of an amusing quote from Thomas Sowell:
“What is surprising, however, is how often the opinions of those on the left are accompanied by hostility and even hatred.
Particular issues can arouse passions here and there for anyone with any political views. But, for many on the left, indignation is not a sometime thing. It is a way of life.
How often have you seen conservatives or libertarians take to the streets, shouting angry slogans? How often have conservative students on campus shouted down a visiting speaker or rioted to prevent the visitor from speaking at all?
The source of the anger of liberals, “progressives,” or radicals is by no means readily apparent. The targets of their anger have included people who are non-confrontational or even genial, such as Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.
It is hard to think of a time when Karl Rove or Dick Cheney has even raised his voice, but they are hated like the devil incarnate. ”
LOL @ Cheney raising his voice (the article was written a whole 3 years after the “go fuck yourself” incident.)
Bein’ me…I went to lookit th’…’TITTIES’
But shit -I took out flash…diversionary, mostly…for me.
No titties.
Sob.
[actually just an anti-robot scribble check so, here…]
GotDaFeevah:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes#Calvinball
Well, I think …ah choo…dang.
As any avid MarioKart player can attest: It’s very easy to blow yourself up with a blue shell. A lesson I will not bother explaining to the right wing because 1) it’s funny and 2) I’m comin’ up at them with the chain chomp.
ace: that Thomas Sowell quote is fabulous. His calling GWB “non-confrontational” is the punchline.
This one’s great: “How often have you seen conservatives or libertarians take to the streets, shouting angry slogans?” Yes, how often have you seen those who are protected and served by the status quo angry at the way things are?
<3 <3 <3
Which “naughty sexual expressions” are you referring to, Neil?
Fuckin’ cheesebombs for the lot of ‘em!
Oh, just the usual stuff. Despite the Don Surbers of the world, there’s a pretty large space in which you can say ‘fuck’ while delivering a political argument and nobody will mind.
Or to take the more inventive cases (you wanted naughty, didn’t you? *G*) Melissa McEwan can call herself “Queen Cunt of Fuck Mountain” and nobody takes her less seriously for that. Similarly with Amanda’s past self-description as a “cum-guzzling boozehound” (she was noting her heterosexuality in the course of making some larger point). These self-descriptions are exquisite in their raunchy way, and I’m happy to live in a world where an increasing number of people will take your arguments just as seriously if you self-describe in such delicious ways.
This is why I have such a hard time trusting people who are afraid of swearing. Even if you’re not a trigger-happy, thumb-sucking, panty-sniffing conservative, objecting to profanity makes you look shady by association.
Wingnuts seem to be like B.F. Skinner’s pigeons.
Ah, you got the
thing that cuts you off, ace?
I think it bleeds over to the conservative focus on form over substance.
Not only do they disregard anything a liberal says if the word ‘fuck’ appears, the use of the word ‘fuck’ if done intelligently, is also not a consideration for them.
The reverse then also becomes true, where the form of something becomes more important to them than actual content.
You’ll hear that from fundamentalists, where they say “But I don’t hate homosexuals” as though hate is merely screaming at someone, when their actions themselves are what are disgusting and hatefilled. But because the pretense of politeness is thinly maintained, they can claim to be ‘moral’. Just as a so-called ‘born-again’ can go out and have sex with loads of women behind his wife’s back, but then sermonize about traditional marriage on sunday, an libertarian can talk about “freedom of the market” when his policies leave the little guy hanging out in the wind to dry and be oppressed with the first arsehole to come along with a club.
It’s the focus on appearance over substance … “We’ll appear weak to the terrorists!” … so, it’s not wonder that given they have no real substance, and all they can barely cling to is appearance, that their fixation on liberals “they are always screaming about Bush” would find them having coniptions over the use of the word ‘fuck’.
No, but we, living in hope, do want to take her to dinner to discuss it.
wtf, I need to stop using those more than and less than signs. I was saying that Cris got those things to work, and that signs “absorbed” everything that was between them when I posted.
Or in my case, bow.
Oh. Your. God. Someone swore, oh noes! Can’t take ‘em all serious-like when they swear! Now, pardon me while I ‘preach the good word’ to a couple of those sodomites (scream at some people that I don’t know and have never met about how they’re living in sin and will burn in hell for all eternity).
Next ass-cat I hear talk about “Political Correctness” is going to get a copy of ‘Grammatical Categories and Cognition’ shoved right up their poop-shoot!* Its not like these people even know what they’re talking about and I am so bloody sick and tired of hearing it! You speak how you view the world, so if I take just an extra minute or two out of my day to think about what I say and how it might affect the person(s) I’m talking to, then so much the better!
*Ass would have worked, but I simply love ‘poop-shoot’
test
I am just testing. Dick Cheney Sux. ALL the Rethugs Suck. What I want to know if why Pelosi and friends won’t impeach, now that the White House has proven they WILL NOT obey the LAW. ANd why don’t we have traceable paper ballots in every precinct of the country yet? Are they TRYING to lose?
I think it’s a fuckin’ poop-chute, no?
A profane eggcorn!
I also like Mario Kart. And to Mrs. Mighty Ponygirl, I also won’t be telling the wingnuts anything about the spiked shell either because I will be just behind you — hitting the wingnut crowd hard with my Super Starman.
If Amanda had Diddy Kong Racing in the photo, then I will have my ten missiles ready to shut up the neocons. If she had a GoldenEye pic, I would pull out the Proximity Mine to put the neocons out of their misery. Sorry, but I just had to include my two favorite Rare games.
Adlai Stevenson once said:
We’ll stop telling the truth about them when they stop lying about us.
Adlai Stevenson once said:
We’ll stop telling the truth about them when they stop lying about us.
Edgy B, your name suggests a strong fondness for cunnilingus. I’m just saying. Lover of Venusian cats, eater of pleasingly musky tacos.
maybe after you post a couple of times the name and log in stay?
Oh, yeah. What I meant to say was:
“Fuckin’ A! Now my name and e-mail show up. Must be a fucking lucky break!”
(or the system just needed me to use it a couple of times)
Nope, not really offensive, just not very articulate or original. Still, sometimes those nasty words are the only appropriate response. Any Bush policy is likely to be an example of those times.
(I’m only commenting because I did sneeze mightly last night)
Profanity retains its ability to shock many women over seventy, so it might not be entirely unfair to mock the conservatives for having the sensibilities of old women. (I live with an elderly parent, and an emphatic F-bomb still has magical effects.)
The difference between commenters on the right and the left is that the right indulges in fantasies about violence, receiving at most a PG-13 rating, and the left indulges in talk about sex, which gets R or NC-17.
OK, Bill is about 10 years older than me but I grew up in his neighborhood and even went to Catholic schools but still managed to get over my fear of the work “fuck” when I was about 9. I almost asked if Bill was ever going to grow up but of course he is a right wing jerk who really doesn’t give a shit about the word “fuck” but needs an excuse to get huffy about the left wing blogosphere.
FWIW, there are a couple of posts at HuffPo and other places about folks who showed their bravery by going through the comments at O’Reilly’s site to hold him to the same standards.
O’Reilly’s site and commenters are now being investigated by the Secret Service for threatening Sen. Clinton.
And the brave folks who took one for the team by going over there are now banned from O’Reilly land.
This is test…
d’oh!
This is A test…
Cripes, four simple words to type and I still screw it up.
I actually think wingnut tactics these days are more analogous to WarioWare than MarioKart. What we’re seeing is a series of short burst tactics that leave their opponents with around 5 seconds to figure out what they’re doing before moving on to the next tactic. Here we go: the left is unhinged and angry! The Rod Majors brouhaha proves the left is homophobic! Left wing bloggers hate religious people! FASTER! The AP is conspiring with terrorists! Hummel figurines can’t be logos! The surge is working! BOSS STAGE! SWEAR WORDS PROVE THE LEFT IS HATEFUL!
It’s been told to me by my mother that on my first day of school, I taught my then 3 year old sister the new word I learned from the big kids on the bus. Mom only found out when she heard her baby screaming happily, “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” outside the livingroom window.
Who knew you could be a foul mouthed liberal so young?
You’re right, Sven, it should really have been chute (unless I was going for some sort of weapon analogy, but I think I just spaced).
Amanda: Wow, I am absolutely no good at innuendo (seriously, I’m not being snarky; I’m a HUGE flake when it comes to all that). I’m getting a new apartment soon that allows cats (so I’ve been hanging out with some friends cats and am pretty excited) and I just really like eating at Taco Bell and sort of wanted to get in on the food thing. I changed Taco to Curry, which are better than tacos anyway (I make a mean vindaloo!) and I’m pretty sure that ‘Curry’ doesn’t really mean anything except what its supposed to mean (which is a primary colored foodstuff that will melt the roof of your mouth, stain anything that it gets near and likes to be followed around by several beers of a strong type).
Huh. So, some of us (me) just can’t handle this whole food-thing.
It’s all good, Edgy. I am just a pervert is all.