Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Civility was sent to intensive care during the infamous “Florida recount” a decade ago, and it hasn’t been discharged from that section yet. Our liberals have been suffering from this deranged notion that they need to get back at “them.” This is a relatively new situation. I remember vividly wondering what was going on that my parents liked Ford and this other neighbor agreed with them, but that neighbor over there liked Carter. They’d discuss this and disagree on things, but we kids were told everyone really desired the same outcome although they had different concerns along the way of getting there. It seemed believable at the time. The election debacle changed all that. Since then there has been a palpable sense, on both sides, of “Us versus Them.” Who’s acting and who’s reacting? Depends on your perspective, I suppose.
During that big ol’ dust-up from two years ago — Hillary or Obama? Hillary or Obama? Hillary or Obama? — it seems Civility slipped into a coma. I notice since about that time, someone has circulated a talking point among The Left that it’s a desirable thing to make a move toward a reasoned and rational exchange of ideas, and then at the last minute scuttle it. I see this over and over again. Yesterday I noticed liberal gadfly comment-poster Arthurstone drifted over here, just like a virus, and opened an account so he could continue his long-established penchant of outwardly pretending to say something substantial, but in substance just making asshole-ish little quips. And coincidentally…or not, depending on your point of view…his fellow lefty asshole Geico voice-actor Lance Baxter, a.k.a. D.C. Douglas, made headlines when PRWeb starting whining on his behalf over his losing his gig. Whining, apparently, at his prompting.
Los Angeles actor, D.C. Douglas, says he was dropped from the upcoming GEICO “Shocking News” campaign after a group of Tea Party members harassed him and the insurance giant over a private voicemail the actor left for FreedomWorks. Matt Kibbe, President and CEO of FreedomWorks, posted Mr. Douglas’ cell phone number in a blog post on biggovernment.com, instructing readers to “Feel free to contact (him)… call his employer too. Let them know that you…are now in the market for car insurance.” The next day, GEICO held auditions to replace Mr. Douglas’ voice on the campaign.
Mr. Douglas’ message hardly warranted the mobilization of the Tea Party Movement. Upset by the recent gay and racial slurs slung by Tea Party members at Congressman Barney Frank and Representative John Lewis during the Health Care Reform Weekend, Mr. Douglas left his opinion of FreedomWorks’ staff and followers on their company voicemail and included his phone number.
“I called as a private citizen to make a complaint,” explains Mr. Douglas. “Racism and homophobia are my Achilles heal, but unfortunately my message included inappropriate words and I am sorry for that. However, telling their members to harass my employer to get me fired is an egregiously disproportionate response to my actions.”
Sounds pretty serious, huh? Yes, let’s all take Mr. Douglas’ word for it, let him define “egregiously disproportionate” and head on home.
Not so fast though. Moonbattery links to the audio left by Mr. Douglas at FreedomWorks…which in turn links to the recording made when FW had the decency to call Douglas back, and discuss whatever bug might have been up his butt much more courteously than I would’ve.
I note, with interest, that “racism and homophobia” don’t make the cut either in the original “private message” or in the follow-up call. That is not to be taken as a refutation of Mr. Douglas’ words as he summarizes his motivation for leaving the original message. But if that is what motivated him, that’s almost worse isn’t it? Kind of like…I’m going to use my liberal rope-a-dope strategy on you, because I’ve figured out you’re a racist and a homophobe and this is what you deserve.
It all goes back to what I’ve been saying for years: When an argument arises, be it a passionate one, a constructive one about figuring out what to do, or both of those — liberals are no friends to the substance in it. They’re much less fond of the what than they are of the who…as in, who is substandard, unworthy of civilized discussion, unfit for breathing the same oxygen as the rest of us, who should be locked out of the great doors of our village. All of their so-called “discussion” seems to lead right back to that.
This is not the way responsible grown-ups behave, especially when they’ve been invested with the authority and power to make all of the important decisions in our country for a block of 24 months. I would expect adults, worthy of that trust, to explain to us what they’re going to do as a follow-up act to ObamaCare. Why they think it will be within my son and grandchildrens’ abilities to pull in a household income sufficient to keep that household humming…and are they all going to have to live in the same one? With, horror of horrors, Granddad? In other words, I would expect them to directly address the concerns so many of us so obviously have. Rather than resort to the time-tested labor-union tactic of marginalizing whoever doesn’t go along.
Of course, Douglas doesn’t represent the people who have been put in charge. But he is displaying — getting fired for — a particularly odious method of avoiding the subject, and the air has been so thick with it for the last couple of years I simply cannot accept that it’s his idea & his idea alone. I think this is coordinated. You see it all over the place now. “All right, let’s compare evidence, anecdotes, life experiences that have caused us to see things differently, and you’ll try to persuade me and then I’ll explain my point of view…PSYCH!!!” And then some innuendo about the “teabaggers” being homophobes or believing dinosaurs walked the earth a century ago.
We’ve slowly become acclimated to this childish behavior from our liberals, and it takes some effort to notice it’s all over the place now, and wasn’t so frequently encountered three years ago. Certainly not ten years ago.
What is it they hope to get out of such a ruse? I think it hasn’t been thought out. I think, in their private cloakrooms, they aren’t discussing anything more rationally in there than they are out here. It’s a reflex action, a hold-over from the Election of 2008.
In 2000, the message was that Republicans would force grandma to choose between her heart medication and her supply of cat food…which of course she was eating herself. In 2004 it was about George W. Bush being a dunce. In 2008 it was about anyone who failed to support {Insert Name Here} being a dunce…and of course they needed all summer long to figure out Barack Obama was {Insert Name Here}. And that was rather silly. Like “Now that we finally got that settled, you’re a stupid idiot if you don’t fall in line behind…uh, that guy, him.”
Yeah, you can be fired if 1) your job is to represent a brand that is a household word, 2) you leave a “private message” clearly designed to waste someone’s time and showcase your uncanny ability to be a jerkwad, 3) you leave your name. When all three of those line up it creates an impression that your company is stuffed full of liberal assholes who have no wish to co-exist with anyone who isn’t exactly like them. And then it becomes your employer’s decision to make, about whether it’s desirable for them to have that rep.
The conservative blog-readers who are calling up to cancel their Geico policies? Hey, don’t blame them, Mr. Douglas. Mr. Kibbe, and they, were just following through on the desire you presented to them. Wouldn’t wanna be taking any money away from those retarded people, would you?
Sorry you’re on the unemployment line. But I got a feeling that in the long run, this is likely to make Civility’s condition in the intensive ward better, not worse. The whole “I wanna have a reasonable discussion with you OH NO I DON’T!!” maneuver is no longer clever, and in fact it’s become somewhat tedious. We’re going to look back on it in a few years and say, you know, that really didn’t help things. We’re going to say, the people who did that, are really to blame for the constant Hatfield/McCoy type of snarking that was the defining signature of the naughty-aughties. Whether they were blamed at the time, really doesn’t matter. By then, if we’ve studied history responsibly in order to determine cause-and-effect, we’ll understand this is a big part of the reason why so much heat was generated with so little light.
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