Kicking Loud Trash

Mark Steyn decides that dammit, nobody on the right is going to be nearly the asshole he is.

Sorry, no sale. The Democrats chose to outsource their airtime to a Seventh Grader. If a political party is desperate enough to send a boy to do a man's job, then the boy is fair game. As it is, the Dems do enough cynical and opportunist hiding behind biography and identity, and it's incredibly tedious. And anytime I send my seven-year-old out to argue policy you're welcome to clobber him, too. The alternative is a world in which genuine debate is ended and, as happened with Master Frost, politics dwindles down to professional staffers writing scripts to be mouthed by Equity moppets.

"Debate"? Steyn just linked to nonsensical freeper bullshit about the boy's family. And then we get this gem:

But one thing is clear by now: Whatever the truth about this boy's private school, his family home, his father's commercial property, etc, the Frosts are a very particular situation and do not illustrate any social generality - and certainly not one that makes the case for an expensive expansive all-but universal entitlement.

That "whatever the truth" bit is precious. The freeper post was a load of crap, obviously so. Steyn decided to publicize it without even bothering to even think about whether or not it made any sense.  All the lunatics on the right blogosphere went bananas and many of them decided to pester the hell out of the family he'd mocked as liars.

And then it turns out that nothing he said or insinuated about them was true or relevant, and he shrugs and says "the kid was fair game, whatever."

What an incredible asshole.

All that shit about how the Democrats are hiding behind a kid who is now "fair game," and Steyn can't be roused to actually quote what the kid said and handle it: instead he attacks the kid's family. Mark Steyn, less mature than a middle schooler.

He never gets around to explaining why if their example is meaningless he thought it was so important or so much fun to talk crap about them in the first place. But he does claim that there are no poor people in western democracies like Canada. And then he pulls up an obituary of the young Frost's grandfather to prove that the kid isn't middle class at all, really, neatly contradicting himself, while arguing that it's just fantastic that the boy's parents had to borrow money from his grandparents because doing so is The American Dream. He winds up with standard issue guff about the "government teat" and how it would be "corrosive of liberty" if most Americans weren't living in constant abject fear about medical care, because, after all, terror shall set you free.

The actual healthcare issue is separate from the ethical one, where Steyn is fine with lying about a kid's family because it served his ideological ends. That issue I should hope is clear cut. But it is anyway "clear by now" that Steyn is not only unable to ethically participate in this debate, but that all he has to offer "intellectually" is paranoia and dishonesty. 'Cause what the Frosts' example really shows us is that we need to get rid of the estate tax! Wheeeeeee!

The American middle class knows that the American healthcare system is a disaster and deeply unfair. They're also beginning to cop on that having their healthcare paid for by the government is no more a threat to their liberty than are, say, child tax credits.

Steyn is swine, though Malkin is sicker. Or something like that.

UPDATE: Just for shits and giggles, for those who care about such things, the comments thread after this silly attempt at rightwing snark is comedy gold (not least in that it's been closed).

UPDATE 2: And... true fans of Steyn being exposed as a hypocrite of the zillonth degree could perhaps do worse for themselves by reading this TBogg comments thread. The things you can learn on the Internets, I'm tellin' ya...

Comments

[va]

send a boy to do a man's job

Steyn seems to be confusing this with the time John Boehner hid among a gaggle of adolescents to avoid being asked questions regarding what he knew about Mark Foley's predatory habit.

Some Democrat should pop up and let everyone know that "vetting" isn't something only Republicans know about and that they should back the fuck off. I know it's rash and it "legitimates" the right wing backlash but we should be able to protect our own fucking spokespeople, even & especially when they're 12 years old.

[Me]

Sorry, I won't follow your links. You've volunteered to do the dirty work, after all. If you really want us to read those comments, you'll reproduce them in their entirety.

Don't ever ask me to wade in sewage again. I resent being asked.

[sgb]

In Malkin's post regarding the Frosts, she interviews the neighbor, then absolutely dismisses what he says based on his political views. Thats not even honest, smearing a messenger because he does not agree with a predetermined outcome is no less a lie than interviewing one side for an unbalanced opinion.

I give credit to the Frosts, who are exemplary of many middle class Americans, especially Americans in greater urban areas that have experienced tremendous appreciation in property value. Many times, I have walked by this one particular blue collar family in Lincoln Park here in Chicago. They too kept their property when its property value has clearly climbed beyond their original means (as in, they pay a lot of their income in property tax).

Malkin and her ilk no nothing about and have no interest small business. Besides being anti-tax, their policies have consistently favored those who can afford lobbyists and corporations to line their pockets.

[Thers]

Sorry, Me -- the Blue Crab thing is really funny, actually. A lefty who knows what's he's talking about enters the thread, and in two posts the Blue Crab Guy is complaining that Leftists are Ruining his Comments Thread with Their Tags and that thus the Thread is Closed for Technical Reasons.

A very small thing, but still one of life's little hilarities.

[Mark D]

So let me get this straight:

Steyn says that the Dems shouldn't have sent a boy to do "a man's job."

Steyn then proves he's a real man by ... picking on a seventh grader?!

Wow ... just ... um ... yeah.

I don't know about Steyn's upbringing, but given the average wingnut, my guess is that he was picked on. Profusely. So this is his little way of being a bully back at someone else.

I mean, that's got to be the only answer. No one can be this totally devoid of any sense of decency.

Can they?

[wtfwjd?]

More idiocy from the same Steyn column:

Nonetheless, progressive types persist in deluding themselves that there are vast masses of the "needy" out there that only the government can rescue. An editorial in Canada's biggest-selling newspaper today states:

A total of 905,000 people visited food banks across the Greater Toronto Area in the past year.

The population of Toronto is about two-and-a-half million. Is the Star suggesting one in three citizens of one of the wealthiest municipalities on earth depends on "food banks"? Or is it the same one thousand people getting three square meals a day there? Or ten thousand people swinging by a couple of times a week? And, in that case, how many of them actually "depend" on food banks? Only the Star knows. But the idea that 905,000 Torontonians need food aid is innumerate bunk.

(emphasis added)

Now, I don't know anything about the Star article in question, but anyone who's not a wingnut engaged in "fact-checking" can plainly see that the "Greater Toronto Area" would have a larger population than "Toronto." Since wingnut research is done entirely with The Google, let's consult the oracle:

The Greater Toronto Area (widely abbreviated as the GTA) is the most populous metropolitan area in Canada. The GTA is a provincial planning area with a population of 5,555,912 at the 2006 Canadian Census.[1]

5.6 million vs 2.5 million. OK, the actual figure is only 220% higher than Steyn's.

As far as wingnut factchecking goes, that's pretty good!

[eRobin]

The American middle class knows that the American healthcare system is a disaster and deeply unfair.

I wish that were true but I don't think we've made that jump yet. Battles like this will help though if we use them to expose the conservative line that we don't deserve health care.

It will be fascinating to see what happens with SCHIP. It's a good litmus test to see where are in th struggle for universal health single payer care. The right is all-in, as we can see from the tactics and the blunt (and frankly shocking) framing, which is: "You don't deserve health care." If we're serious about getting movement in our direction, it will only happen with a big win here. I hate to rely on the corporate owned and operated Dems for something so important.

Keep calling your Congresspeople and tell them you want SCHIP AND universal health care and you want it now.

[rea]

Strange claim from Blue Crab that Maryland doesn't means-test SCHIP, when of course all SCHIP benefits are means-tested--if they weren't, all of this fuss about universal health coverage would be unnecessary, because we'd have it already.

As usual, the right opposing stuff without understanding it.

[Barry Champlain]

Just wanted to pop my head in, and point out helpfully that this Steyn character pulls a rhetorical fast one: after establishing that Mr. Frost is a "seventh grader", he then goes off into, "Anytime I send my SEVEN YEAR-OLD OUT to.."

Seventh graders are, by and large, 12 years old like Mr. Frost. "Seven year-olds" are a lot tinier, and evoke a lot more sympathy for being so.

Meaning that, in the reader's subconscious, the argument has just been strengthened that the evil librul Democrats are sending tiny, defenseless babes out to do their "dirty work".

Nice subliminal touch, eh?

[Andy Vance]

Strange claim from Blue Crab that Maryland doesn't means-test SCHIP

Yeah, I should've guessed that he'd read the talking points somewhere and completely confused himself, as usual. There is no asset test in Maryland and most other states (which makes sense, given that such a test would force the family to give up their business and home to pay the hospital bills, and end up on the dole anyway).

Such examples make me strongly suspect there's a causal link between being a total fucking moron and being a total fucking asshole.

[flory]

Young Gaius of the Blue Crabs (bet that itches like hell) should stop and think for a moment how grand an argument he makes for doubling the estate tax.

Surely that obnoxious kid he represents should have to pony up some taxes before he throws away all his inheritance on booze and drugs?

[SteveB]

OK, here's another idea: a federal witness protection program for the family of any ordinary citizen who dares to provide the Dem response to a Bush speech.

Immediately after you're off the air, we whisk you and your family to a secure, undisclosed location. North Dakota, maybe.

No, wait... that's too close to Lileks. Maybe Canada... oops, that's Steyn's territory. Um... Nebraska.You'll love it.

[flory]

Um... Nebraska.You'll love it.

Too close to Colorado and Dobson.
Try again.