Friday, October 01, 2010

Recent Examples of Conservative Values

The latest post on Wonkette as of this moment is from Cord Jefferson. Title pretty much says it all:

Teabagger Who Warned of DC Black People Celebrates Black Kid’s Death

Which reminded me of some items in yesterday's news, about which I was too discouraged to blog at the time.

First, there was fake pimp, liar-by-videotape, and tool of conservative billionaire Peter Thiel, James O'Keefe, whose latest stunt involved trying to lure a CNN reporter onto his boat, where he planned to "seduce" her, and yes, of course, secretly videotape it. (h/t: Jack Stuef)

One small upside: this "prank" means he has managed the unthinkable: embarrassing another one of his past benefactors, the perennial lout, Andrew Breitbart, to the point where the Big Ho man has disowned him and is threatening to sue for libel anyone who associates their two names on this one.

Next up, we heard of one Andrew Shirvell, an assistant attorney general in Michigan, who has spent the past half-year running a "Watch" blog under the identity "Concerned Michigan Alumnus." His "concern" appears entirely to have been "what can I post today, to smear Chris Armstrong?" Armstrong is the student assembly president at the University of Michigan, and he is openly gay. Yes, you read that right: a state AAG, harassing a college kid online. [Added: online and elsewhere, it now appears.]

After going on the teevee (h/t: Josh Fruhlinger) to assert that he did nothing wrong and he stood by what he posted, his next move was to flip the switch to make his big blog o' hate viewable by invitation only. Most of the posts, however, are still cached by Google, if you're interested.

Today, it has been announced that he has taken a leave of absence. Perhaps he will use this time to meet with some of the 11,000 new friends he has made on Facebook. (Oh, wait, those aren't friends? My bad, Mr. Shrivel. Shirvell. Whatever.)

Oh, and then there was news that Mark Foley is back at it again, e-stalking underage boys, this time on the Twitter. And Vox Day and Alex Knepper are having another race to the bottom, to see who can say the most offensive thing about that gay kid who killed himself. And then there's New York's Republican candidate for governor, teabagger hero Carl Paladino, who can't decide whether the best way to diffuse the attention he's been getting about his failed cover-up of his out-of-wedlock child is to make shit up about his opponent, Andrew Cuomo, or to physically threaten reporters ("I'll take you out, buddy!"). (h/t: Roy Edroso)

And then there was St. Sarah of Wasilla, whose latest graspy-grab for attention was to make sure the world knew that she'd taken out a restraining order against some kid in Pennsylvania, who, she and her lawyer claim, has been making "implied threats." Not that I condone creeps sending creepy letters to anybody, but still, here, I can't help but snort. Guess violent rhetoric is only fun when it's pointed the other way.

And so on. So you see why it gets a little discouraging from time to time.

17 comments:

AmPowerBlog said...

Hypocrite. Much?

Racism-sponsor Brendan thinks gangsta photoshop w/ snark at my place is racist? But he's down with "Pale Scot" personal slurs.

Total fail. Morally bankrupt as well.

bjkeefe said...

Oh, look! It's Friday night, La Donalde can't get it up with a crane, and so he is reduced to trying to resurrect an imaginary beef from two weeks ago!

And of course he will type "fail," many times! This is because he is a wingnut, and hence, has a stupendously limited vocabulary!

For the record, once again: Because I allow comments to stand on my blog (unlike La Donalde), this does not mean I agree with them. I allow people to speak their piece in my house, however stupid or objectionable their piece may be.

If you would like to see what La Donalde is whimpering about, see the comments here and here, for context. (Context is a liberal thing, I grant.)

AmPowerBlog said...

Fail. Brendan.

I can't remember you ever defending a point on the merits. All funny stuff and ridicule.

Fact is you defended "Pale Scot" then have the nerve to take issue with a photospop and snark paraphrase? That's "success" in your world, right Brendan?

bjkeefe said...

Learn how to read, Donalde. (And learn another word beside "fail," if only because it is, in your case, so hilariously self-referential.)

I did not "defend" Pale Scot. As I said in the other comment threads I linked to above, and in other places on these Internets, I ignored him. For the ninety-eighth time: I do not endorse people coming to conclusions on the basis on skin color. Even as I am aware that you do. (Latest example.)

As to the rest of your whimpering for attention: Again, as I explained in those earlier threads, I do not waste time trying to discuss "a point on the merits" with someone like you. You are, clearly, someone who has so made up his mind about matters that it would be a waste of time to treat you as a rational human being, open to discussion. Your incessant attempts to make something out of one comment that was left on my blog shows this beyond any shadow of any doubt.

So, yes, I ridicule you, sad Donalde. You leave me no other avenue.

When you grow up, perhaps I will think differently. But as old as you are already, I sure ain't betting on it.

AmPowerBlog said...

Brendan: I'm having a hard time believing you'd be so cold hearted, but since progressivism is an ideology of hate, I shouldn't be surprised.

You call me a whiner, a wimperer, because I take offense to racist posts on your blog. I'm long past being surprised at vile bigotry, and in fact I teach this stuff. For the sake of argument, however, let's say that Pale Scot's comments caused me pain, okay. Because you hosted the comments at your blog, you are implicated in inflicting pain. I know, I know. You've denied this ad nauseum. But that's the difference between progressives like you (and people like you generally) and myself: I care about others. I help and nurture. You ridicule and put down others in hosting racism and bigotry. If someone wrote hateful things on my blog I'd remove them. In your case, you've said you would not. To each his own you say. Free speech and all that. But the intentions are irrelevant. It's the effects that matter. Comments at your blog have caused people pain. And since you hate the people at whom those comments were directed, you're more than happy to let them stand. Thus, you're a hater and racism-sponsor.

All hypothetical, of course.

bjkeefe said...

The only reason you're feeling "pain," Donalde, is because you have spent the bulk of your waking hours looking for reasons to imagine you could so feel.

No one but you and the three or four sad clowns who follow you could possibly take you seriously on this. But you want number ninety-nine of my for-the-records? Okay, here it is.

I think you are a typical bottom-feeding example of what the right-wing noise machine has spawned in this formerly great country of mine: someone who thinks that his way forward is by feigning outrage at the most picayune things imaginable. No matter how much you have to imagine them, and no matter how much gloss you have to make up even to be able to tweet about them.

And meanwhile? Meanwhile, you support full-throatedly the very party who makes it their business to get elected people who in large part embrace the very sort of thing you are pretending to be offended by.

I don't give a shit what color your skin is, Donalde. Nor do I care that some random dude on the Internet could think of nothing else than to say something about it. He said one thing, he was ignored here and taken to task for it elsewhere, and so far, I have never heard from him again.

Wanna know what I care about, to the extent that I care about you, which is only microscopically above Not. At. All.?

What I care about is the steady stream of hate speech you issue every day on your blog. You have defined, repeatedly, somewhere between half and two-thirds of this country, in your own sad and twisted little mind, as scum that you would like to crush under your boot. Merely because they believe in concepts like: let's try a little harder to achieve justice for all.

I do not "sponsor" racism. Anyone who knows me, or who reads this blog, even from time to time, knows that your claim is diametrically opposed to the truth.

But you don't care about truth, do you? You, like Malkkkin and Hateway Pundit and other of your heroes, would rather just make up reasons to feel offended.

Isn't that really the truth, Donalde?

You're a sad sack of shit, and probably the worst part of it is this: you don't even realize that the only reason you have the job that you have, and the right to spew on the Internet as you do, is because of liberals.

You will never admit this, and that is why I will never have an iota of respect for you.

repsac3 said...

Donalde... You don't feel the slightest little bit like you're playing the victim card, here?

The fact is, not everyone runs their blog the way you run yours. Where you choose to moderate comments for content and keep who knows how much from seeing the light of day, based on whatever criteria you feel proper, others choose to treat people like adults, and to post whatever they want. We know THEY are responsible for their words, and THEY deserve whatever credit or recrimination folks choose to heap on 'em, based on what they say. (And we allow the credit/recrimination to appear in the comment sections of our blogs, as well.)

You don't have to like it. You don't have to agree with it. Because buddy, it isn't your blog. (If you ask me, I think you're treating your commenters and readers like children, protecting them from words, thoughts, and ideas you find distasteful. Talk about a nanny state.)

You can run your blog any way you wish. We allow folks to be as stupid and offensive as they want to be on ours, knowing that they're only exposing themselves.

Your guilt by association meme is bullshit, and I think you know it. I am no more responsible for the words someone else writes in one of my comment sections than my pet cat is. Holding bloggers responsible for every word that come out of the keyboard of any commenter on their blog is just stupid, and I can't speak for Brendan, but I reject it completely. That's not the way individual responsibility works, Donalde.

Now you can keep tossing it out there, regardless, but the response you'll get will remain the same. There's some kinda handle attached to every blog post and comment. If you have an issue with something someone writes, that's the person to whom you should address your complaint. Blaming the blog owner, or "the Left," is foolish stuff and nonsense.

AmPowerBlog said...

Ah! We're finally getting somewhere!

The fact is you have no response to my substantive point, Brendan. I'm calling you out for defending the hate on your blog, again. You claim it's a random comment. You claim it's a free world. All covers for what's really goin' on, which is this: "...the steady stream of hate speech you issue every day on your blog." And the Malkin comparison is a compliment! Thanks!

But to correct you: I do care about the truth. The problem is that you've not shown me to be untruthful. You simply don't like what I stand for, which means you'll support vile slurs against me.

One does not have a free speech right to yell "fire!" falsely in a crowded theater. The idea is that there's no conceivable useful purpose for such speech. And if it causes violence it could be banned. And here there is no useful purpose to slur me as subhuman. But since you feel free to publish it, you must not feel it's false, and thus should not be banned. Hence, once again, you are a hate sponsor. It's your blog and your power to protect others from the hate ...

AmPowerBlog said...

... but you don't want to. And that's because you hate. And you box your opponents into a subhuman frameset so as not to trouble with actually defending your ideology, for example:

" I do not waste time trying to discuss "a point on the merits" with someone like you. You are, clearly, someone who has so made up his mind about matters that it would be a waste of time to treat you as a rational human being, open to discussion."

So, I'm not a "rational human being." Interesting, since classical enlightenment theory sees all humans as endowed with the ability to reason. As you deny that I have rational faculty, you're in essence attacking me as inhuman, or subhuman, i.e., as beneath you and not meriting the dignity of a response.

And again, that's why I am different, and better, than you. I refuse to discrimate against people in such ugly fashion. Arguments to the effect that you run your blog how you see fit don't fly when we're bascially talking about eliminationist ideologies. Fact is, Brendan, you're weak and feeble. You simply CAN'T defend the sick doctrines that animate the contemporary left. Hence, you lash out at the perceived "hate" on my blog, or Malkin's. Show me the money, friend. All else is sound and fury, and you, Sir, definitely signify nothing with your pathetic yelps. But you have revealed what's really getting to you, which is my truth, my moral clarity, which can't be dismissed as wimpering, as much as you crave.

repsac3 said...

Donalde's got his meme, and he's stickin' to it, regardless...

Donalde, how about you quote Brendan defending this comment you find so distasteful, or whatever else you believe to be "hate" on his blog.. Rather than rant about "vile hate speech," or "eliminationist ideologies," why not quote specific passages, and show by example how Brendan is responsible for the words. (Did he write it? Did he defend it? Did he really defend it, or did he just not moderate it away?)

When someone does yell fire in a crowded theatre, do you blame the theatre, the theatre owner, all of the patrons in the theatre, or the one guy who actually yelled fire? Personal responsibility, Donalde. Brendan and his "theatre" here are not responsible for the one guy who yelled fire. Blaming anyone besides that one guy makes you look like you're incapable of understanding how this whole responsibility thing works. I urge you to think it over, and develop a clue...

As I said earlier, people don't need you, or me, or Brendan, to "protect" them from unpleasant words and ideas. (And that you believe your readers do is truly sad, in my opinion.) They're big boys and girls, and they can handle both reading something offensive, and responding to it appropriately, by blaming the party responsible for saying it. Hiding away offensive words and thoughts isn't good for anyone. It's treating your readers as children, and it shields the offender from having to take responsibility for what he said. Just bad all around, if ya ask me...

For the record, I do believe you to be a rational being. (It must take a whole lot of rationalization to convince yourself of some of the shit you do, I'll bet.) But as I said above, once you've convinced yourself that something is a "fact," there's no reaching you, anymore. You've got your meme, and you're stickin' to it, come hell or high water...

Donalde, you really don't need to tell people what to think of you and your moral clarity. For good or ill, people see you for who you really are, regardless of how you toot your horn.

bjkeefe said...

Thanks very much for saying everything I would have said, and more, repsac3.

I'd add just one point, for Donalde's benefit, not that he'll be able to derive any from it: When I said "it would be a waste of time to treat you as a rational human being, open to discussion," of course you picked out a cherry to feel butthurt about and ignored the context of the entire phrase. The last three words? That was the whole point right there, Donalde.

As I said before, you've really got to brush up on your ability to read if you want anyone to take you seriously. And as I've said numerous times before, you've got to decalcify your mind if you want anyone to engage with you.

Till then, penguin ...

AmPowerBlog said...

Actually, non-response, Brendan, once again.

Telling me I can't read is more of your condescension and dehumanization. Of course that's just your standard ploy to avoid dealing with fundamental questions of argumentation, debate, and ideology. You're feeble, son.

For example, you laugh when I call you guys commies, but that's exactly what you're all about and what your movement calls for. It's just out there. So you have to deny it. You have to "sub-humanize" those with whom you disagree simply because you have no response. You support hatred, as demonstrated here. You support neo-socialism (not "liberalism") with your support for radical progressivism. And you defend this be dismissing others as beneath you. So, once again, I've shown you to be feeble and woefully anti-intellectual. But I'll be back to see how many times you can smear me by typing "YOU CAN'T READ. YOU CAN'T READ. YOU CAN'T READ."

Racism-sponsor Brendan --- bankrupt, morally, intellectually, and spiritually. Oh, what's that? I hear the whining and wimpering already.

bjkeefe said...

Actually, non-response, Brendan, once again.

And yet, you keep coming back, don't you? A certain line comes to mind.

Respect is something that must be earned, Donalde. You aren't there yet. Not by a long shot. Come to that, you're barely worth ridicule, due to your one-note bleating.

Ta ta.

AmPowerBlog said...

Er, when did I ever ask for your respect, Brendan? I don't respect you, obviously. I'm simply pressing you to put together a coherent line of argument, which you haven't been able to do in your delicate state.

And this just proves my point: "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." If you dismiss your opponents as insane (a variation of "irrational", hence, without reason and subhuman) then you can avoid answering the hard questions. You believe what you want to believe because your ideology is a faith. And religious faith is not subject to empirical validation, so it's obvious that you have no need to try beyond dismissing those with whom you disagree as inhuman unbelievers. And if they're sub-rational unbelievers, they're by definition crazy, for no one in their right might could possibly hold truths opposed to the neo-socialist and statist agenda that today's progressives push. And this is why leftists have to beat and intimidate their opponents, which flies under the radar with the help of the conformist press --- the same one that elected the unqualified Barack Obama to office without the kind of vetting that a normal process would entail. But I know, I know. All this is "crazy talk," since those of your ideological superiority cult have all the answers and wisdom. The reckoning is coming, however, and I'm enjoying every minute of watching your failed socialist agenda get repudiated.

What's that ... oh, wimpering in the backgound. Go get yourself cleaned up. You're making as fool out of yourself...

bjkeefe said...

Er, when did I ever ask for your respect, Brendan?

The last ninety-three times you begged me to "debate" you and squeaked that I was being "non-responsive."

I grant your pathological lack of self-awareness may impede your ability to discern what you are seeking, but really, it's plain as day to me.

If you dismiss your opponents as insane ...

I said your behavior in one regard reminded me of a line. Not the same thing.

More importantly, this has nothing to do with my so-called "opponents." I do not feel the need, as you do, to make this about teams. My view of you is as you present yourself as an individual. You're a sad, bitter, old man with no evident skill at self-reflection, looking to create some meaning in your life by waddling around the Internet slapping labels onto people. Your political views are comically simplistic. Your habit of demonizing everyone who doesn't agree with you is contemptible. Your monotony is pitiable.

None of this has anything to do with anyone else. Own your own image, Donalde. At least be man enough to do that.

repsac3 said...

"If you dismiss your opponents as insane..."

It's obviously completely different if you dismiss your opponents as commie-progressives, or hate-bloggers (cyber-bullies), or nihilists, or demons, or ..., or ...,

Get over yourself Dr Douglas. Your victimhood is showing.

The fact is, whatever ability to reason you possess is often overshadowed by your willingness to hear anything that doesn't emanate from your own head. It's not that you can't think; it's that you refuse to think, because doing so would necessitate admitting that you're wrong once in a while. It's not that you can't read, but that you feign misunderstanding and cry foul about some imagined maligning, rather that dealing forthrightly with the words people post.

Other than "Sasquatch Isreal," (a fuck-up not even you could paper over), I can't recall the last time you admitted to being wrong about anything. (And again, it's more than likely not because you can't admit error, but because you refuse to do so.) That is the sense in which you are irrational, and not worth arguing with... When you know you're about to lose, you pick up your marbles, declare the debate DONE, and run for the safety of your moderator delete button.

Yes Donalde, the left does include the odd communist and socialist, but that doesn't make everyone on the left communists or a socialists, anymore that the fact that you're on the right means everyone on the right is you.

Look again at your post about the Rutgers suicide to see the variety of opinion on the right about that one issue. Obviously, they don't all believe what you believe. So why is it that you believe one picture of a socialist party sign at a rally means everyone there is a socialist? Think about it Donalde...

As I've said to you before (and as Brendan puts quite nicely in one of his replies, as well) you would do well to stop seeing everyone as groups and factions, and instead treat people as individuals. I am not the left. I'm just one guy, repsac3. Brendan isn't the left. He's just Brendan. You are not the right. You're just Donalde Douglas. While my argument with you or your argument with me may be applicable to those people who believe the same thing that you do or I do, the argument you're having is only with me. Pretending that I'm "the Left," and that whatever I say is representative of everyone on "my" side is just stupid, and wrong, besides. Believing that my disagreeing with you is an attack on the whole of "the Right" is equally foolish and equally wrong.

Personal responsibility Dr Douglas. You ought to consider trying it, some time...

repsac3 said...

Huumph.

Guess it was time to pick up the marbles and run back home to AmPow, and his moderated lair.

(Besides, I'm not sure he's speaking to me, at present. Several posts/comments in several venues of late have failed to elicit even a syllable out of him... Go fig...)

Never fear... There's a fair to good chance that few days from now, Dr Douglas will lock onto a sentence or two in a new bjkeefe post, and pretty much cut'n'paste the same nutty accusations in a reply to that one...

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