Mean Republican People Suck.

And so does people who sympathize or otherwise condone GOP meanness. 

Let's talk about mean girls for a moment.

Not as a hard and fast rule, but I suspect mean girls grow up to be Republicans.  Likewise, for the sick children who admire the mean girls.  They are less likely to grow up to be Republican politicians, pundits, or just well heeled supporters.  They grow up to be the broke assed trash who support the GOP against their own financial interests.  

Such as, getting all excited about the culture war bullshit.  Which for the most part, really doesn't materially affect their lives.  But they vote for the people who give tax breaks to the rich, to corporations, and let the corporations make the workplace more dangerous, and pollute their towns, and give them and their families horrible illness, and shit.

But . . . .own the libs!

Intent Matters!

 

Here is Ann Althouse, sort of siding with hateful, selfish, human dignity disprespeting Gov. Ron DeSantis.  As a quick sidebar.  If one sort of sides with hateful, selfish, human dignity disprespeting people and actions, does that mean one is in fact hateful, selfish, human dignity disprespeting people?  If you grade as hard as I do  the anser is an unequivacable, fuck yeah.

Firstly, my open question is, once an agent of the state government gets invloved, isn't there some greater duty of care called for than is being met here?  Humanitarianism, if not state and federal law, demans that!

Next, they are not coordinating with the relocation locations.  Intent matters, and that failure is evidence of bad faith.  What they are doing reminds me of this old game in my home town where the cops would pick up the local wino, and bring him across the town line, and try to make the wino someone else's problem.

Lastly, and as expected, the transportees are being lied to.  Just heard the specific charge that they are being told there will be not only basic services, but fast track to work authorization, if they take the trip.

I would never want to be associated with this kind of cruelty.  

Yo! Althouse!  The harm is to the transportees!  Are you that much of a Republican now that treating human beings like they are human beings is entirely dependent on how much they are like you, and members of your sociopolitical tribe?

This Coming From a Man, Who Wrote a Book Reverse Demonizing His Enemies . . .

And by reverse, I mean wrote a book titled "Woke Racism."  Using "religion" as a pejorative" Tsk,  tsk!

To explain, McWhorter has a years long anmosity with the new wave, current Civil Rights thinkers and leaders.  As that is what 'anti racism' is. It's the same essential wine, but different vintage.  None of that shit is new.  I was thinking the same shit, back in the 70s!

And I am about to do here, something I really disfavor;  criticising a piece with out really reading it.  However, I am being very narrow here.  I can't access the full thing.  So I am sticking to this quote, and McWhorter's personal history.  I will stop short of calling him  a hypocrite.  But if he ever were to read this, I would suggest he listen to MJ's "Man in the Mirror," over and over, until he gets the meaning, and how it applies to him.

Anyway.  the bulshit quote:

"In our moment, we talk a lot about the dismaying degree of partisanship in our nation. We declare fealty to the ideal of being open to the ideas of others. Yet [Mitchell] Jackson exemplifies a sense that when it comes to [Clarence] Thomas, none of this interest in comity applies and that it qualifies as insight to discuss him as a horrid, pathetic figure."

Writers who write books  trashing their ideological advesaries should not be saying shit like that.  

It's bullshit to make bank writing a book trashing your ideological advesaries, and then calling out people for basically doing the same disreputable shit.

There is a word for that, other than bullshit.  I won't use it here, though. 

But personally.  Even if I claim to be a retired political internet troll.  And I do get harsh here sometimes.  But no one reads me here, so does it matter?  Anyway, I will always admit.  I loved it.  I loved trolling.  I loved throwing shit at people, metaphorically speaking. I don't really play that shit anymore.  Not one on one, at least.  And I never did it professionally.  And peeps have monetized that shit.  And that is not a new idea, but I digress.

By you ain't gonna  catch me acting like I did not help invent that shit.  I was Godzillia back in the day.  Meatphorically speaking.

Been there.  Done that.  Wore out the T-shirt years ago.

And before I let you go.  Conservatism is at it's worst an evil ideology. On it's best days it is merely horrid, pathetic."  So in my view each and every conservatives is a 'horrid, pathetic figure."  Let's not cry over people dumping shit on Uncle Justice Thomas.  A person who is likely to do that is also like to do the same to Rush Limbaugh.  Fucking get real!  If one is really, truly a liberal, you pretty much have to think conservatism is horrid, pathetic, and wrong, if not evil.  Otherwise, why bother wanting to change shit?

I Don't Criticize Her For Still Posting TikToks

 Well.  No more than any other day.  It's her way of letting the world judge her for doing her.  You do you.  And shit.

But I do fault her for on the one hand seeing that it might be too somber an occasion with Good Queen Bess passing.  And what of that for America?  If you care for British monarchy, that is not an obligation of American citizenship.  Again, it's in the you do you, category.

Her fuck up is raising the issue, and then basically taking a fuck that shit attitude, and posting her chosen, trivial short vids.

Compare that to my original take.  With no disrespect in my heart, I had a powerful urge to listen to the Sex Pistols song, "God Save The Queen." Which HRH had good naturedly referenced during her recent anniversary.  But I did not post the vid to my FB wall.  I mentioned it.  But I acknowledged those of my people who were feeling sentimental and genuinely mourning, and did not post the song.

You do you is a not bad way to go through life.  Be honest with yourself and others.  And don't be bullshit.  Just because the world is not coming down on you like a monsoon, doesn't mean the world did not see you being bullshit, and judged you accordingly.

Fake! Fugazy! Fiction!

 

Call this a follow up to last post.  The stupid shit a lot of MAGA Republicans believe, from election deniers, to vaccines will create zombies?  It's all fucking stupid.  I totally disagree with Althouse.  When we treat looney tunes delusions as if they have any validity at all?  We demean reality itself.   I am just going to briefly mention my favorite mini book of all time:  

"On Bullshit."  by Harry Frankfurt.

If as he argues, bullshit is particularly damaging to society, than raising looney tunes delusions to the status of views that might deserve serious treatment?  Well no wonder shit is currently so fucked up.  Having full blown malaria is now to be considered same as being healthy? That is my metaphor.  We suffer greatly as a society when we normalize pathology.

I don't think the  looney tunes delusion needs be as obvious as believing in lizard people, to be called out for being evidence of pathology.

Fuck all that crazy assed shit.

Don't Blame The Doctor. He Did Not Give You Cancer. He Gave You a Diagnosis.

 

I don't want to make this mostly about Ann Althouse.  But she is the trigger.  I can make a more general point, though.  In the ridiculous argument she makes above? She is showing a particularly fucked up way of looking at the world.  To rephrase it, she is arguing the problem is not delusional people.  But it is the people reporting  about the delusional people who are the problem.

She calls them evil.  Now I could cheap shot her and say her lack of a solid moral compass is showing.  But like I said in the title.  She is blaming the reporter of bad news.  She is blaming the doctor for saying, sorry, you've got cancer.

It's not all that strange for people who live  partial if not greater delusional lives, to lash out at the people out there who burst their bubbles.  It is not a healthy way of going through life.  And I do not know the sum total of possible delusions she lives by.  But if she really thinks the problem is the reporters, not what bad news they are reporting?  She really needs to be "recalibrated,"  Not that my saying so has any weight.

Now to the matter of the ridiculousness of what she says about what to do about election denialism.  Not exclusive to that issue.  But the people who study this shit, most if not near all with proper credential as experience agree.  

When someone locks in on a political (or cultural, or otherwise social) opinion.  The odds of changing their mind is really low.  And the more you try to change their mind, the more they lock in.

Talk about a delusion!  Believing you can convince people who are locked in on a delusional belief, that they are wrong.

Like I said. A recalibration is called for here. 

Edit to add:   She doesn't give her usual remedy here.  But she is an adherent of what I dismissively slam as the Cult of Free Speech.  She loves to say  the way to respond to bad speech is more speech!

Delusional.  That is what the experts say.  I refer to them above.  I am no terribly old, but I am old and experienced enough with out the back stop of the expert researchers to tell me.  Don't fucking bother.  The delusional person might be suffering from an advanced case of Dunning-Kruger.  But you are delusional if you think you can change their mind.