Fans of the Old Adult Wingnut Fiction genre always go wild for the inevitable Dinner Party scene, wherein the protagonist attends a dinner party infested with Liberal Elitists, is treated with condescension, and yet inevitably triumphs by dramatically arising and shaming all his (usually His) oppressors through the cunning deployment of Newsmax factoids and a strategically timed dip of the penis into the chardonnay.
It gets old, though. And it was never especially young to start with.
Hence, I very much savor this particular attempt to ring changes on the old cobwebby dingaling formula, as performed by some nondescript Townhall peabrain. It is profoundly stupid, but at the same time, uninteresting and brainless.
It begins with a Ghostbusters reference, because conservatives understand the Youth Culture of Today. But the burden of the banality is that certain brands of American whiskey may soon become more expensive.
Then it gets goofy:
There is some good that will come from all this. If you happen to know a hipster liberal who looks down their nose at you, because they’re too busy sipping some obscure brand of whiskey, you might be able to conduct a little impromptu economics lesson. You might even be able to convince them that free markets are not about big-business or big profits (well… not entirely), they’re just democracy in action.
This doesn't mean anything in terms of sense, but it does tell us a good deal about wingnut phantasmagoria.
So two guys walk into a bar. One is a hipster liberal who is snobby about preferring obscure brands of whiskey. The other is You.
You are Cool, which is of course commonly defined by all sensible adults as "a person eager to deliver impromptu economics lessons." Because as is commonly understood, people in bars eager to deliver "impromptu economics lessons" are NOT the polar opposite of "insufferable assholes."
So next time you’re out at the bar, or tipping back a Templeton Old Fashioned with your Don Drapper wannabe liberal buddy (doesn’t he know Don’s a registered Republican?), whip out the headline conversation starter: “This stuff might be hard to get soon…”
Remember: you are Cool. Spelling the last names of fictional characters correctly is real melvin.
Forget: that in 1960s New York, there really were liberal Republicans.
Forget: that shit in the paragraph up above where you bashed "hipster liberals" for "sipping some obscure brand of whiskey," and then you linked to a web-site featuring "an obscure brand of whiskey."
Oh Lord though it continues:
Don’t get discouraged when they initially blame George Bush. It’s just a knee jerk reaction, because they assume what follows will be a rant against Democrat policies, or “big-government”. So now is when you get to surprise them by simply taking a sip of your drink, and casually blaming “big business”.
Don't forget to have first set a giant bear-trap beneath their bar stool first, because otherwise they will already be outside frantically calling either a cab, or else the police. In the latter case that is because you have not set the trap properly and they have already chewed off their own ankle in a desperate attempt to achieve sweet, sweet Freedom.
Such an utterance could yield a variety of reactions: They might quizzically raise an eyebrow, they might simply nod in smug approval of your words, or they might break out into a spontaneous Occupy Wall Street rally. Regardless of their reaction, this is exactly when you want to explain why the big-bad-businesses are about to take whiskey away from the proletariat. (Yeah… You can use that. They’ll love it.)
They also might suspect they are trapped in a stupid made-up fake anecdote and will dislike you.
Next they will read the following attempt at a "joke," and everyone will agree you deserve to be shot:
See, whiskey isn’t exactly a “liquid commodity”. Wait… We should start that over--
And my patience for this shit is gone.
The smug to stupid ratio in this column is appalling even by Townhall standards.
In the finest wingnut tradition, this was written by a fucknose too clotbrained to understand his own links. Big distillers of fried liquified poo such as Jack Daniels will continue to do well. The whiskey of the "proletariat" will remain cheap and disgusting.
Smaller distillers of the sort dismissed as favored by "hipsters" will have supply problems, but how exactly fashionable niche "prestige" brands are hurt by scarcity is a mystery only to people who aren't absolute shitbrains.
And the punchline:
When the drought corrects itself (several years from now) things may get tough for distillers. Prices for some labels will plunge, and competition among the many brands will become cutthroat. Only the best, most loved, most widely enjoyed whiskeys will emerge from this boom and bust cycle unscathed and healthy. Which is why free markets are so democratic in nature....
Democracy, after all, is simply the will of the masses; and what’s more democratic than consumers being provided with the products and services that they enjoy and demand? It’s not about “corporate Darwinism”, or “creative destruction”… It’s about businesses only surviving by giving “the people” what they want at a price they are willing to pay. Essentially, capitalism was built for the huddled masses… Not the elites.
This is phenomenally dumb.
The "masses" will always drink cheap shit, because they want to get drunk, because capitalism sucks. Jack Daniels will always produce its liquid garbage, and for fuck's sake, that brand is in most of the country considered "quality" because it costs more than $15 a bottle, even if it is just Satan pissing into a sweatsock.
The "competition" in the whiskey business that responds to "the market" is to do with small niche distillers responding to the butterfly-level informed opinions of moneyed jackasses who read glossy magazines and want to jerk/show off.
Also rye whiskey is as a drinks class disgusting distilled vomit made from the desiccated balls of a Civil War-era slave-owning Colonel, and if you enjoy it, enjoy the taste of liquid racism. (I'm not a fan.)