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...
Some of my wisdom on Facebook (subscription probably required), trying to figure out why liberals are liberals:
Seems to me they go through these stages. They start off like I was when I was ten, and Carter was about to be elected…”Well if we have these poor people out there, why wouldn’t we try & do right by them?” From there, it seems they shift forward…very much like a car entering a freeway entrance ramp from a traffic meter, from a dead stop, going through the gears…at some point they make up their minds that everyone with a different viewpoint must be a Bad Persontm.
After I jotted that down, I thought back on all my years arguing with libs and I realized there is some irony here: They are backed into a corner of thinking, those with different viewpoints are Bad Peopletm. They don’t set out wanting to come to this conclusion…well, the ones who start out being nice people, they don’t. They are choosing this option after other avenues have been blocked.
I think they are pushed into this corner by…or perhaps, they were once themselves…Cheesecake Nazis, the people who leap to take over any social event where people get into discussions about politics, to stop them from discussing politics. Presumably because of practical matters, like people need to stop discussing politics anyway, to be served cheesecake. Which, when you think about it, you realize isn’t true.
Cheesecake Nazis are always serving cheesecake, though. After the cheesecake has been devoured, if you want to go back to discussing politics, the Cheesecake Nazi will stop you. And, you’ll notice, they’re usually still serving their cheesecake when the political discussion hasn’t even turned nasty.
So there is the irony: Cheesecake Nazi acts out of fear that a discussion about ideological viewpoints is going to turn rancid and acrimonious — and then she makes it that way.
I suppose it varies on a case-by-case basis whether the Cheesecake Nazi is the liberal running through these “gears,” these different stages of becoming a frenzied, agenda-driven conservative-bashing liberal…or…whether she is acting upon the person going through that transformation. It doesn’t really matter. This is a pressure that has been placed on us all by our modern society as a whole, rather than by any individual within it: We are to put on a good show of thinking things through and coming to our own opinions about things, but we aren’t supposed to actually be doing it.
And so, given those incentives and pressures, the only place we can end up when we set out to fulfill all of the most clear expectations, is — another irony — like the “politically incorrect” guy Bill Maher. Most progressive position possible on each & every issue that comes along, suspecting the absolute worst about anybody who has a different opinion, denigrating both character and intellect, and rude as all holy fuck about it. That would be your “overdrive” gear, with all the others just transitional phases on the way toward getting there.
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I think I see what you’re saying.
Me, I always attributed it to the intellectual and moral uplift of liberalism. Want people to think you’re a good person? Spout some liberal dogma. You only want to raise taxes on “the Rich” because you care about “the Poor.” Similarly, if you want to seem smart, spout some more liberal dogma — Professors will think you’re very clever for coming up with wildly counter-intuitive conclusion from plain facts, because after all, that’s what they do, and they’ve got PhDs.
Thus: if liberal dogma is “good,” “caring,” “intelligent,” etc., then conservative positions must — by definition — be bad, callous, stupid, etc. They’ve given themselves a monopoly on virtue. ALL of it.
Throw in the leftist emphasis on class — which, again, they like because they care— and it makes one absolutely impervious to argument in short order. Why should I listen to you, you drooling troglodyte? You probably have black orphan droids chained up in your spice mines back on Kessell. And any of your so-called “facts” are clearly the product of middle-class whites, who are just trying to protect their white, heteronormative, patriarchal privilege….
And hey, whaddaya know? Winning an argument is surprisingly easy when you alone are allowed to decide what constitutes a “fact.”
- Severian | 10/13/2011 @ 14:01