Whiskey Fire

If Your Homophobia Can't Make It Here, Fuck Off, New York, New York!

Jonah Goldberg does not so much weigh in on an issue as he plops in on an issue. Let us apply the advanced fartology.

On paper, "liberal intolerance" is something of an oxymoron, like "jumbo shrimp," "loyal opposition" or "conspicuous absence."

Fuck off.

But what makes oxymorons funny is that they are real things.

Nothing makes these things funny. If you are yukking it up over "jumbo shrimp," fuck you, you're writing the ballad of a sad cliche. With laughter, Jonah thought the world would melt, but he just liked the way his finger smelt.

Last Friday, in a public radio interview, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo offered the sort of potted analysis of the national Republican Party one would expect from an MSNBC talk show. But he went a bit further. After nodding to the fact that, historically, the New York state Republican Party has been the most ideologically gelded of the breed (it is the birthplace of Rockefeller Republicanism, after all), Cuomo proclaimed that "extreme conservatives" have "no place in the state of New York."

Never mind the gibberish, this is all my bollocks. By "ideologically gelded" Goldberg presumably means that there used to be a Republican party capable of attracting voters in the Northeast, and now there isn't. Awww.

Cuomo is absolutely correct, though:

Who are extreme conservatives? People who are "right-to-life, pro-assault weapon, anti-gay."

Yeah. No down-the-line hardcore tea-bagger politician will ever win statewide or national office in New York.

It's an interesting -- and repugnant -- tautology: Extremists hold extreme views, and we can identify extreme views by the fact they are held by extremists.

By the standards of New York, these are extreme views. And fine!

By the standards of a cesspit like, say, Texas, what do those horrible zealot fuckers think of Texans who are pro-choice, pro-gun control, and pro-gay?

Imagine how much smoke would emanate from the liberal outrage machine if, say, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said that "extremist" Democrats who support gun control or oppose gay marriage or abortion rights "have no place in the great state of Texas."

No, Jonah Goldberg is NOT edited. (Read that sentence again, holy shit.)

Also, Google.

Of course, liberal intolerance isn't rhetorical or limited to hot-button issues; it is woven into mainstream liberal policymaking. The Supreme Court is now pondering whether nuns -- celibate, elderly nuns -- have the right to opt out of Obamacare's birth-control requirements.

This is drool, even for Goldberg. Nobody is trying to force nuns to take birth control pills.

And it's not just policymaking either. Liberalism has a culture all its own. From cities like New York; Madison, Wis.; and San Francisco to countless college campuses in between, that culture can produce people as judgmental as the old Church Lady character from "Saturday Night Live." They'll be judgmental about different things, to be sure, but every bit as intolerant.

The fucking "Church Lady." Heading towards the half century with the cultural references.

Well, anyway, yes. In our culture, gays can get married, don't wander around with your boom-sticks like an asshole, and women have rights as regards their bodies.

Given that Andrew Cuomo is basically a center-right neoliberal autoritarian fuckstick, we can at least take these other three things, dammit.

Where I Stopped Reading

In the second paragraph of this Jennifer Rubin drivel:

Jonah Goldberg has an exceptionally insightful piece explaining just how ...

— M. Bouffant

Jonah Goldberg Has a Good Point, If You Leave Out the Assasinations, Acid Attacks, and Firebombings

So Jonah Goldberg is farting around on BuzzFeed, which is as it happens the most productive use of his time imaginable, and he discovers some pro-choice protesters in Texas holding signs that contain puns on the word "fetus" and "embryo."

He has thoughts about this, and decides he will deliver these to the Internet, with the usual lamentable results.

This is a fundamental disadvantage that pro-choice activists have in the public debate. Most of the pro-lifers I know have the moral imagination to at least understand where pro-choice women are coming from (I still wrestle with the issue of very early abortions myself). Every pro-lifer I’ve ever talked to has understood that unwanted or unexpected pregnancies can pose a real crisis for women (and men). That’s one reason pro-lifers invest so much in counseling efforts. I haven’t been to too many pro-life protests, so maybe I’ve missed the signs belittling pregnant women who want to have an abortion. But something tells me that if such signs existed, MSNBC & Co. would hype them relentlessly....

Meanwhile, these activists trivialize what to most Americans is not trivial. I’m sure they have their giggles and someone writes them a check. But it’s no way to persuade the unpersuaded.

Gosh.

Well, it's perhaps not as upsetting to the delicate sensibilities of the "unpersuaded" as a sign containing a play on the word "embryo," but it might be mentioned, you know, that "pro-life protests" have historically featured such Great Moments in Civil Discourse as:

Butyric acid attacks

Harassing abortion clinic landlords

Harassing and threatening abortion providers

Shooting abortion providers

Bombing and burning down abortion clinics

Oh, and one of the other reasons "pro-lifers" do things like "invest so much in counseling efforts" is in order to intimidate and lie to pregnant women.

So, the pro-lifers sure have taken gold in the Civility Olympics, yessir.

And , yes, Jonah Goldberg is not intellectually competent to cope with a BuzzFeed listicle, in case you were wondering. One shudders to contemplate the horrors he will unleash on us once he discovers that the Internet contains cat videos.

IGNORE ALL OTHER IDIOCY

Yes, a lot of stupid things are happening. But Jonah Goldberg has said something, so nothing exists that is more stupid. Be glad as regards such Eternal Verities, redsnouts.

One thing nearly everybody agrees upon is that the "sequester" is a silly sideshow to the real challenge facing America: unsustainable spending on entitlements.

Omigod no. "Nearly all privilged morons" agree as to this, but it's total bullshit.

Ironies abound.

Fuck you.

Democrats, with large support from young people, tend to believe that we must build on the legacy bequeathed to us by the New Deal and the Great Society. Republicans, who marshaled considerable support from older voters in their so-far losing battle against Obamacare, argue that we need to start fresh.

Young people want the benefits that old people get. Old people want the benefits that old people get. It's ironic, precisely like rain on your wedding day.

Perhaps it's time for both sides to consider an underappreciated fact of American life: The system we are trying to perpetuate was created for the explicit benefit of the so-called greatest generation, the most coddled and cared for cohort in American history.

Those Depression-surviving, Hitler-whipping pussies.

I don't mean to belittle or demean the heroic efforts and sacrifices of those who served in World War II. But the idea that a whole generation deserves credit for what only some did is little more than an attempt to buy glory on the cheap. One of the egalitarian precepts that all Americans are supposed to subscribe to is the idea that one citizen isn't more worthy than another, simply by accident of birth. If you stormed the beaches of Normandy, you are due praise and honor. If you were simply born the same year as those who stormed the beaches, you're no more deserving of praise than someone born of any other generation.

Golly. Well, so much for you, Little Jimmy collecting scrap metal for the War Effort, you selfish little prick. Fuck you and your flatfooted uncle!

My paternal grandfather was rejected for service in WWII because he was the sole provider for three generations; my maternal grandfather was color-blind. Both volunteered and were turned down. Both did everything they could to help out on the Home Front. Working class people of that generation are justifiably proud of their contributions to The Effort.

My grandmothers also existed, and would have proudly punched Hitler if they had the chance.

Thank you, Jonah Goldberg, for explaining why all the women of the WWII generation are dishwasher boring!

Jonah Goldberg is talking fantastic shit.

I don't mean to belittle or demean the heroic efforts and sacrifices of those who served in World War II. But the idea that a whole generation deserves credit for what only some did is little more than an attempt to buy glory on the cheap.

This is... what you'd expect from Jonah Goldberg.

But it's revealing.

I don't think the Jonah Goldbergs among us much admire the US that beat Hitler, and the Great Depression. They don't want a strong nation that looks out for its own in the face of enemies foreign or domestic.

Obscurity and Misery

I've been busy this week with the Real World, which lately has included two feverish and vomiting flu-ridden children aged 6 and 8. But here are a couple of hanging curveballs from The Corner. Punchlines not even necessary!

Jonah Goldberg laments the cruel double standard of the Main Stream Media, which consistently depicts The Right as dominated by "conspiracy-theory" obsessed loonballs, but neglects the exact same phenomenon as it exists on The Left:

It is hardly as if Democrats don’t have embarrassing characters in their midst. Indeed, as Weigel casually notes, Obama had a very severe nutjob problem in that he had ties to some very sketchy people, including a domestic terrorist named Bill Ayers.

Bill Ayers! The same guy who wrote Obama's memoirs!

Munch cud, emit methane, post to Corner.

And then there is this bit of Fun from Immigration Expert Mark Krikorian. He advocates that the GOP set up "community centers" which will offer social services but will also have propaganda elements, along the lines of the local outreach efforts pioneered by Sinn Féin and Hamas. As Krikorian observes,

It’s a long-term proposition, designed to facilitate (and shape) their Americanization, and not one that’s purely political. Sure, they’re still going to vote mostly Democrat for a long time, but it’s a way to speed them along the path to being part of a common American identity — which contributes to the common good regardless of politics, but also can lead in time to more balanced voting behavior more in line with the rest of the population.

I bolded the last part because it's fun!

By "the rest of the population" Krikorian means "old white men."

This is kind of a Very Special Moment here for Mr Krikorian. What an epiphany.

By all means, GOP -- listen to this fellow!

 

Snaky Bemusement

 

Will wonders never cease: It seems like The Government tried something kinda-sorta like an idea Jonah Goldberg had last year involving gigantic snakes, the Free Market, and guns. How's it working out?

The state of Florida this weekend unleashed a thrill-seeking public on the Burmese python, an invasive species that has set up house in the Florida Everglades and surrounding wildlife management areas over the past decade or so.

Nearly 800 people pre-registered for the inaugural Python Challenge, which began at 1 p.m. Saturday and lasts until midnight Feb. 10. Another couple hundred signed up on Saturday, said Carli Segelson, spokeswoman with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

By the end of the day, Segelson said, probably more than 1,000 snake hunters, some experienced and many not, had paid the $25 entry fee and signed up to go out sometime over the next month.

Based on results from the first weekend, a lot more people might need to sign up to appreciably diminish a python population estimated in the tens of thousands.

By 4 p.m. today, hunters had turned in a total of 11 dead snakes to the wildlife commission.

Of course, we don't know how many of the snake-hunters are Ted Nugent fans, so maybe I'm being unfair.

MAS. Vertalio makes a sound point, in comments.

Anthropocentric Global Heating will make Florida a nice place to live, if you prefer the Jurassic.

More precisely, the conservative -- excuse me, Classical Liberal -- solution to this specific problem is to do absolutely nothing about climate change, which will, ultimately, result in the utter eradication of the entire Everglades population of Burmese pythons.

These folks are more far-seeing than I had previously considered. Such wisdom.

Big Boring Goldberg

Jonah Goldberg explains how The Left is Boring because he knows FOR A FACT who "sat in Jimmy Carter's suite at the 2004 Democratic Convention." (MICHAEL MOORE.)

As a further compelling example of how Conservative Thought Is Cutting-Edge, Jonah Goldberg explains that according to exciting, adventurous research, Noam Chomsky may not have paid all his taxes.

I don't expect young people to become conservatives, though if you want to see a true rebel on campus, seek out the pro-life Christians. But is libertarianism really too much to ask? Championing economic liberty will tick off your professors, and you can still be a libertine on weekends. And if you get rich, you won't be a hypocrite for defending your villa.

Right, because that's working so well for, uh, Donald Trump.

Here is the Bit What Kills:

And yet the kitsch of leftism still works its magic. In huge numbers, young people think they're rebelling when all they're doing is playing their assigned part and lending energy and, often, votes to a stale, regimented form of statist liberalism that often disappoints and never satisfies.

Because Mitt Romney...

WAS THE REAL.

What a tit.

Many of My Best Friends Are Racists

Someone at Townhall has decided to explain to us the Curse of Racism. HARK! TO THIS SENSIBLE ADVICE!

It's quite wonderful, this Townhall piece. Here:

I’m not going to fall back on the old saw "Some of my best friends are black (or Hispanic)."

And then in the very next sentence:

Some of my friends over the years have been black, and my best friend in high school was in fact, a native of Mexico.

Holy tits of Santa.

Whatever. This Townhall git is however instructive insofar as his cluelessness takes us. He wonders why black people voted for Obama, and ends up, no shit, here:

When the Khmer Rouge seized control of Cambodia, they eventually ran out of enemies to lock up, and began arresting seemingly loyal party members out of paranoia and a need to maintain a grip on the country. People with power will do many things to hold on to that power, and if you step out of line, then suddenly, you may become The Other. 

Take care that in your zeal you do not become the thing you claim to despise. You may be one complaint away from becoming one of us.

If you think the Democratic Party has become the Khmer Rouge, you've either lost your mind, or you have some special personal reason to be bothered by Reconstruction that involves cheesy vampire fan-fiction. Or, worse, improperly digested family history. In either case, shut it, the rest of us are moving on.

Which brings us, lamentably, to Jonah Goldberg, who informs black people that they are idiots for voting Democratic because the Southern Strategy never happened, Condoleeza Rice did happen, and the GOP didn't openly try to suppress the black vote as long ago as last month.

MAS. Got banned from Chicago Boyz, ochone. For this --

Isn't It Interesting? Isn't It Nice?

I am startled and frightened to learn that there exist human souls who of their own volition are watching the Republican Convention.

I frankly find Mittnuttery far creepier than Standard Wingnuttery. Your W-era wingnut wanted to start stupid wars and fellate the rich. Your Modern Mittnut wants to start stupid wars, fellate the rich, and then hard-sell you a timeshare in Provo.

Anyway, Jonah Goldberg is a shit.

No, really.

Unfortunately, the claim that Romney is trafficking in racism has proliferated. His ads attacking Obama for unwinding the 1996 welfare reform are being denounced as not simply inaccurate but racially loaded.

For instance, in a piece titled "Making the Election About Race," Columbia University journalism professor Thomas Edsall writes, "The racial overtones of Romney's welfare ads are relatively explicit" -- an interesting analysis given that the ads explicitly don't mention race, which you'd expect to be a minimum requirement of "explicit" racial overtones.

If the ad don't say "nigger," it ain't pulled da "trigger."

!

For fuck's sake. Really? Really?

Moving on.

Christ this is ghastly...

However, Edsall concedes that the racial overtones of Romney's Medicare ads are "a bit more subtle." Those ads charge that Obama raided Medicare to pay for Obamacare. Then Edsall notes that Medicare recipients are "overwhelmingly white."

He conveniently leaves out the fact that American seniors are overwhelmingly white as well and, if anything, under-enrolled in Medicare.

First, Romney's Medicare ads are all lies. (Really? You need links?)

Second, how on earth... what? What Jonah Goldberg said isn't a rebuttal. It's kind of evidence for the other side's point, if anything... what?

Here in Tampa, former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour told BuzzFeed that the Democrats are playing "the race card" in order to gin up black turnout. I'm sure that's true, but they're also trying to transform Romney into the ultimate unacceptable other in American politics -- a bigot (and a Mormon one to boot).

Gosh. The GOP sure has transcended racism.

"Here in Tampa, former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour told BuzzFeed that the Democrats are playing 'the race card' in order to gin up black turnout."

Jonah Goldberg quite seriously wrote this sentence to prove that liberals are the real racists, while at the same time, we see the GOP engaging in blatantly racist voter suppression efforts.

Face it, you're racist, all that's missing is the white sheets.

The Kraphammer of the Gods and the Dolchstoss

Warning: link is to the Daily Cruller, and it's not just Kraphammer, but also the Doughy Pantload explaining why polls of veterans show a preference for Rmoney.

"At the same time, it seems to me that if you were a traditional military voter, you might have some serious problems with Obama. The way he sometimes talks about the military, he talks about the troops — it can often seem narcissistic, political, and rub people the wrong way."

- the Doughy Pantload

"And we heard Obama today doing essentially doing penance for a country that spat on soldiers who returned from the Vietnam War."

- The Kraphammer of the Gods

Stabbed in the back! The past and future of a right-wing myth

By Kevin Baker (Harper's, June 2006)

Yet the cultural division that Richard Nixon had fomented to try to salvage the war in Vietnam would take on a life of its own long after the war was over and Nixon had been driven from office in disgrace. It cleverly focused on the men who had fought the war, rather than the war itself. If Vietnam had been an unnecessary sacrifice, if world Communism could no longer be passed off as a credible threat to the United States, then the betrayal of our fighting men must become the issue.

Vietnam, for the right, would come to be defined mainly through a series of closely related, culturally explosive totems. The protesters and the counterculture would be reduced to the single person of Jane Fonda, embalmed forever on a clip of film, traipsing around a North Vietnamese antiaircraft gun. The soldiers, meanwhile, were transformed into victims and martyrs. It became general knowledge that they had been savagely scorned and mocked upon their return to the United States; those returning through the San Francisco airport were especially liable to be spat upon by men and women protesting the war.

...

It would do no good to point out that there is no objective evidence that veterans were ever spat upon by demonstrators or that POWs were ever left behind or that Jane Fonda's addle-headed mission to Hanoi did anything to undermine American forces.

And there you go.

(Posted by ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© and cross-posted at my place. Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.)

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