Hubris, Nemesis, and Partying Like It’s 1773
When Sarah Palin told a Tea Party crowd last Monday that it wasn’t time yet to “party like it’s 1773,” segments of the left such as Kos’s founder Markos Moulitsas chortled at her supposed stupidity. Their kneejerk assumption was that Palin was so ignorant that she didn’t even know the date of early events in the American Revolution. But since it was actually the Boston Tea Party (1773) to which she was referring, it was Sarah who had the last laugh.
Yes, it’s a funny story. But it has a serious side — and contains a lesson for the left, if they could ever learn it. The message is this: if you misunderestimate (Bush’s word) your opposition, that’s a form of hubris. And when hubris arrives, can nemesis be far behind?
But the left has such a low opinion of Sarah Palin’s intelligence and knowledge that they frequently assume not only that she is ignorant of the more subtle details of history that are easily grasped by leftist intellectuals, but that she lacks even the sort of basic information about American history that used to be taught to every grade school student.
That is a mistake of epic proportions, not only because Palin might surprise them by coming across better than they have come to expect, but because it can lead them directly to the sort of pitfalls that lie in wait for those who make such arrogant assumptions. Just a drop of respect for Palin’s knowledge — or, at the very least, her speechwriter’s and/or fact checker’s–would have led them to take a mere moment to research her 1773 reference. That effort would have been quickly rewarded. But their certainty led them to make automatic assumptions, and then directly into an embarrassing error.
Such stupidity I have not read for a long time, its kindergarden stuff, the exact stuff that Palin ahd her follikers are made up of.
Maleva, love your grammar and spelling,you should put sarc at the end.
You’ve just proven that you fall into the category of people too ignorant to know they don’t know. Liberals don’t think Palin is stupid–they think she’s the most dire conservative threat there is to the here-to-fore elite ruling class (i.e. Congress/Politburo). Hence, their panic in the fall of 2008 and the mass media circling of the wagons to attack her. Progressives have so little respect for conservatives that they think lying about Palin’s intellect will sway us. They think we will forget the unbelievable contempt they showed their constituents when they passed the Obamable Health Care bill a few short months ago. They forgot our party’s mascot with its unfailing memory. They are the stupid ones–they don’t recognize the swelling wave when it’s in their faces. If they are fired from Congress, will they have to pay into the unConstitutional health care plan they helped to pass over their constituents’ outcry? We won’t forget–neither 2010 nor 1773.
Maleva,
I don’t know if I qualify as one of Palin’s “follikers” but I do know how to spell and unlike the left, Palin and I also know history. BTW the stuff that the followers of Barack Obama are made up of is excreta.
They did their very best to destroy this woman’s rep, and succeeded to a large extent. However, they did not quit while they were ahead, and their efforts to further tar her have only succeeded in rehabilitating her.
Did she bait them? Nah. Their reactions are so far out there, that decent folks just cannot imagine them. In other words, you cannot make this stuff up.
Palin was just being her happy self, talking to her peeps. She is definitely beginning to resemble Reagan’s teflon style, when they fling their poo. Or rather, it’s a rubber style. “I am rubber. You are glue. It bounces off me, and sticks to you.” I know it’s a childish phrase, but so is their invective.
She looks better every week, doesn’t she?
I think that you are mostly right Marc, Sarah didn’t say that deliberately to bait the left, but she was most likely aware of that very possibility happening…because she is a good hunter, and all of the good hunters that I know see the prey even if they aren’t hunting…
“She looks better every week, doesn’t she?” – Marc Malone
Not always, Marc. She has her moments. I’ll grant you that.
But there are other times when she goes too far. For example, a few days ago she made a flippant, nervy and arrogant assertion to the effect that if all of the members of the GOP don’t adopt HER beliefs, they will go the way of the dinosaurs, and they will become extinct; an irresponsible (and absurd) assertion that clearly indicated that her influence with giddy Tea Partiers has gone to her head.
Tea Partiers need to recognize that she needs them more than they need her. Savvy Tea Party candidates already recognize that there is going to be a backlash against them if Sarah Palin doesn’t tone down her conceited, smug and arrogant rhetoric, which is beginning to get on the nerves of some Independents (and others) already, or haven’t you been paying attention?
Sarah Palin is a double edge sword. The GOP could win big time with her help. But they could also lose big time if Palin alienates Independents and Democrat potential swing voters with her cutesy, smart ass, loose talk..
No deliberation was required, I’m sure. Governor Palin has dealt with “progressives” long enough to know that in their mental parallel universe, “history” invariably begins five minutes ago, and nothing before that is real.
Progressives’ view of history is best summed up by the likes of Howard Zinn and Ward Churchill, both of whom believe it consists of one unending litany of crimes against humanity perpetrated by the eponymous DWEMs (Dead White European Males). To them, the New World was a magical paradise of peace and plenty until Columbus set foot on Hispaniola, Africa was the same until the Dutch and English got there, and Spain and parts of the Balkans were much better off under Islamic rule. And oh yes, the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were a fiendish plot by the Founding Fathers to maintain their own power and privilege.
Never mind the tribal wars that wracked the Americas and Africa in those days. Or that the African slave trade began with African tribes who sold those defeated in their internecine wars to Arab slave traders, who sold them on to Europeans who didn’t know any better. Or that the Spanish Inquisition (incorporated less than two decades after the end of Muslim rule in Spain) learned most of their nastier tricks from their former Muslim overlords, who were no amateurs in the business of making heretics “confess and convert”. And that Vlad Tepes, aka “Vlad the Impaler” aka “Dracula”, is a national hero in Romania for his dogged resistance to the Turks, in spite of his rather… extreme… personal behavior.
And let’s not even mention that in signing the Declaration, the Founders were inviting a date with the King’s hangman. Benjamin Franklin wasn’t kidding when he remarked that “Gentlemen, we must all hang together, or we will all most assuredly hang separately”.
Real history stubbornly refuses to look like the progressives’ version. Which probably explains why they prefer their version to the real thing.
When all that matters in the “study” of history is figuring out how to blame all the world’s ills on one group of people, and/or one country (like ours), actual knowledge is rarely necessary. As Col. Jeff Cooper once observed, what counts today is not intelligence or knowledge, but shrillness. Which is something the progressives have raised to an art form.
It is amusing to see it biting them on the bum for once. Even if it’s more of a nibble.
cheers
eon
Well said eon. The lefts ignorance of history is stupefying. Like the environazis who think the world was a better place or would be better without humans, and that the natives lived such idyllic lives in the jungles and forests of the past. Cannibalism, mass slaughters of waring tribes, and hey scalping, gee , the American indians invented that just for the evil white man I suppose for all sin and disease he brought with him.
It helps to understand why they can accept Islams child marriages, boy slaves, stonings etc.. . Oh and how do they square the fact that Thailand has a child prostitution industry. When my father travelled to Nigeria in the 70′s taxi drivers and locals often asked if he would like a young girl, or little boy for sex. Yah that happens daily in North America. Right.
You Sir have hit the nail on the head.
Unfortunately those who are “liberals” out of ignorance of real history have heads just as hard and unyielding. For a group that prides itself on not believing anything, they are convinced that what their high school teacher taught them is unalterable gospel. I wonder how many know if their history “teachers” even have their degree in history or interest in the same and of those who did that had Ward Churchill as their paragon.
Somone once said that progressives’ view of history reads like a cut ‘n paste ransom note.
Serial nihilists, all of them.
The far left also made fun of another politician. They called him a jerk, politically naive, and a threat to world peace because of his ignorance. His name? Ronald Reagan, who turned out to be one of the best presidents of the 20th century. Face it, the far left and Democrats will make fun of any conservative, whether it’s a man or a woman. But what kills them, what absolutely destroys them, is the idea that somebody “that dumb,” a person they think is so very far “beneath” them intellectually, can be so successful. Well, the far left and the Democrats are about to get a hard lesson on November 2nd on how wrong they can be. I hope they choke on it. One of the basic principles of war under Tzun Tzu is to “Know your enemy.” Seems like the far left and the Democrats have learned nothing since Ronald Reagan.
I just came upon this website and reading the comments reinforces my belief that conservatives are a nasty bunch. Their tactics are down and dirty and their views on their fellow Americans who see things differently are caustic and they are like the terminator – they attack, that’s what they do, that’s ALL they do. I really do believe that they would love to start an actual civil war. Maybe us libruls should go and get us some guns too, just in case.
Hi Pot!
This doesn’t surprise me since today’s left are products of progressive education and thus have never been taught American history objectively. How can one expect students to love and defend a country they know nothing about, and, when what they have been taught is greatly distorted?
Part and parcel in the progs decades old playbook. To destroy nationalism you must separate a people from their past. Implemented in England, most Brits are unaware of their rich and wonderful past. They have been spoonfed the bilge of what a horrible people they were. Gone are Nelson and Trafalgar – and due to their large muslim population, so are Churchill, the Blitz and the holocaust, due to sensitivity issues regarding their holocaust deniers.
It is startling to one who has been a visitor to England for over 30 years to see the loss of history among schoolchildren but even among the older population. Historical places like Warwick Castle are now devoid of signage concerning the rich history and have become children’s playgrounds. The last time I was there, I asked a security guard where something was (I don’t remember what it was) and he didn’t know what I was talking about.
Implemented in England, most Brits are unaware of their rich and wonderful past.
Very, VERY true! Theodore Dalrymple, who is British, has been writing about this phenomenon off and on for over a decade. Although he retired three or four years ago, he used to practice medicine in Birmingham (England) at both an inner-city hospital and a prison. He routinely gave short knowledge assessments to new patients. Some of these patients were foreign-born and were likewise educated outside of Britain but, considering just the patients that were born in Britain and had their entire education (15 years of compulsory education) there, he found only TWO patients out of many hundreds, who could correctly cite the year that World War II began and ended for Britain. Virtually none of his younger patients could cite any British prime minister other than Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher. Churchill is unknown to the younger Brits, let alone Disraeli, (either) William Pitt, David Lloyd George, Neville Chamberlain or the rest.
But their ignorance is not limited to history! Only a tiny handful of Dalrymple’s patients were able to correctly answer the question “What is 6 times 7?”. When his father died, Dalrymple went through his father’s belongings and found his (the father’s) old school books. On looking through the math books, he realized it wasn’t just today’s students that could not possibly do the work that had been routine during his father’s school days: most of today’s (unionized British) TEACHERS couldn’t do it either!
“On looking through the math books, he realized it wasn’t just today’s students that could not possibly do the work that had been routine during his father’s school days: most of today’s (unionized British) TEACHERS couldn’t do it either!”
Thomas Sowell has pointed several times that overwhelmingly American teachers come from the bottom quartile of their college graduating class, and many from the bottom decile.
How could we expect anything else from the NEA?
“Those who can’t do, teach”…and poorly at that.
and before Donald Rumsfeld, a sage gave this excellent advice:
He who knoweth not, and knoweth not he knoweth not,
He is a fool. Shun him.
He who knoweth not, and knoweth he knoweth not,
He is simple. Teach him.
He who knoweth, and knoweth he knoweth,
He is wise. Follow him.
I confess, I know not whom I quote. But doncha just LUV the archaic language?
I’ve seen it in this form;
He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, he is asleep; awaken him.
He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, he is a child; teach him.
He who knows not, but thinks that he knows, he is a fool; shun him.
But he who knows, and knows that he knows, he is a wise man; follow him.
This is how Col. Cooper quoted it, usually attributed to Socrates.
cheers
eon
It’s the arrogance, stupid.
Obviously the people who did not recognize the 1773 – Tea Party connection are idiots. But I am still trying to figure out what her line MEANS, assuming it has any meaning. Don’t celebrate, or don’t dump tea? Help me out here.
The original Tea Party was an act of civil disobedience against the crown. She’s basically telling people to hold off until after the vote in November (wiat and see) because if they (congress critters) carry on as usual, civil disobedience is all we have left.
I think she used a mixed metaphor–don’t quit and start celebrating, but instead keep pressing on; and remember that you have a proud history of protesting oppressive policies that goes back to the founding of America. I don’t think there is a neat way to combine these two thoughts.
I think she means that the Tea Partiers — Sam Adams and those people — wiped off their greasepaint and headed off to the pub to raise a toast wishing “eternal itching without benefit of scratching” to the enemies of America. The pub was one of the foci of the Revolution. (I don’t know if they did, but certainly the pub was one of the foci of the Revolution.) She means, finish the job, then celebrate.
You’re really having a hard time trying to make hay out of this, aren’t you? It didn’t work for you yesterday, and today’s not looking good either.
Just admit you are ignorant of the date, and it’s significance with regards to today’s political environment.
Mrs. Palin, like incomparable Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs, is a giant. Once in a lifetime, or maybe a century there is a person who has such a grasp of reality, the threat to others, they eclipse everyone around them. Not out of or for glory, but from the soul searching sense of what is right and what is wrong. They have the uncanny almost magical gift of totally unselfishly speaking for what is in the best interest of their fellow man. There is no ideology or narrative in their thinking and lexicon, there is no agenda, it is the purest form of doing what is right. Where this comes from, what is it inside the heart and spirit of this woman defies explanation, for there are few like her ever, but one thing for certain is that we as a nation, a people, an idea, are fortunate beyond compare to be blessed with her.
Truth be told, I honestly believe there are few of her courage and principle through history.
The more I hear what this amazing Hero says the more I’m thankful for what she does.
Thank you Sarah Palin. Bravo!
God Bless your Soul.
OMG!! You have got to be kidding. Talk about worshipping a Messiah. And Steve of the follow-up reply: it was not the left who oozed worship of Obama – that was just a mocking talking point of the right. And the pundits on the right say things like that and then everyone on the right joins in lock-step until they believe their own propaganda. It was McCain who call Obama ‘the one’ and the lemmings laugh and mock. Sarah is pretty egocentric and she is very divisive. One thing I don’t like about her is how she puts her words in other people’s mouths and then you all believe that those people said that or think that. She’s very, very clever for sure – but she is not good for America and I think a lot of people see how she divides us. But you go on and revere her, that’s your right.
It’s not so much dividing us as just making obvious the division that already exists.
Sarah Palin, members of the political left contend, is ignorant and not too bright. Hence the ease with which she was able to bait them with her 1773 remark. (Count me among those who believe that, yes, Sarah DID deliberately sucker them.)
Just as people who occupy the political left fail to understand — much less appreciate — Palin, they are similarly incapable of comprehending the political movement of which she is an unofficial leader: the Tea Party.
Regardless, Sarah and the Tea Partiers are poised to assert themselves in a very big way: “…they will issue a wake-up call to politicians on November 2nd. They will give Democrats and Republicans alike an opportunity to ‘wake up and smell the tea.’ For those who don’t, the party will be over.”
http://bereapundit.com/2010/10/21/wake-up-washington-2/
O.T.
But linked above in the comments section of Cuffy’s “Perfunction” (Markos Dickweed “chortled”):
Lt. Col. Allen West MUST win his election bid in Florida. The man is on the right (correct) side of every isue. If you haven’t followed and supported him, I suggest you do so. The man deserves our suport. Personally, I hope he eventually makes it onto a national ticket!
Ms. Palin, like the incomparable Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugged fame, is a giant. Once in a lifetime, or maybe a century there is a person who has such a grasp of reality, the threat to others, they eclipse everyone around them. Not out of or for glory, but from the soul searching sense of what is right and what is wrong. They have the uncanny almost magical gift of totally unselfishly speaking for what is in the best interest of their fellow man. There is no ideology or narrative in their thinking and lexicon, there is no agenda, it is the purest form of doing what is right. Where this comes from, what is it inside the heart and spirit of this woman defies explanation, for there are few like her ever, but one thing for certain is that we as a nation, a people, an idea, are fortunate beyond compare to be blessed with her.
Truth be told, I honestly believe there are few of her courage and principle through history.
The more I hear what this amazing Hero says the more I’m thankful for what she does.
Thank you Sarah Palin. Bravo!
God Bless your Soul.
Careful Mt Top Patriot. While I agree with many of your points about Ms. Palin, you sound an awful lot like the other side speaking of “the one”.
“eclipse everyone around them”
“magical gift of…..speaking for what is in the best interest of their fellow man”
“purest form of doing what is right”
Wrong as they may be, the enthusiastic left believes these things of Obama. They actually believe that he has “no agenda” and has “the uncanny almost magical gift of totally unselfishly speaking for what is in the best interest of their fellow man”.
Pardon me now….gotta go barf.
I guess the difference would be that Mrs. Palin is a champion of the Constitution and America as an ideal, while the President is a champion in dismantling it.
Don’t worry Steve. Ther is -0 danger of god folks falling in some sort of personality cult with Sarah.
Unlike in the case of THE DEMON where milions of his mental slaves agree enthusiastically to serve as his cannon-fodder, those who love Sarah love their FREEDOM even more.
FREE PEOPLE by their very nature will NEVER sucumb to the charisma of a VOZDH (an eternal supreme leader in Russian) and they love her mainly because she loves her freedom as they do.
In the short clips from the show “Sarah Palin’s Alaska”, she said that “…she would rather roam free around all those open spaces than sit in some political office…” Such a people consist no danger for a TRUE DEMOCRACY.
“I’d rather be doing this than in some stuffy old political office. I’d rather be out here being free.”
I hope she gets her wish, but I’m reminded of Lisa Murkowski’s claim that, having lost the primary, she’s running a write-in campaign because the people of AK insisted.
Palin is a voice for a constituency that the Republican Party has despicably taken for granted, so I’m okay with her being a power broker in the GOP. However, I have changed my opinion about her fitness for high executive office.
When Gov. Palin was plucked, seemingly out of nowhere, to join Sen. McCain’s ticket in 2008, I honestly believe she was one of many. Yes, she was a promising young conservative, with a track record and plenty of guts and grit — but I believe there are, and will be, others who fit that description.
The American Left did their level best to crucify her. But by walking through that hell and coming out the other side, she became stronger, wilier, more capable — as we are now just beginning to see. As such, she is no longer one of many. How many of us could have endured what she did, for so long, without losing the smile?
The Left made a conscious, deliberate effort to destroy her. They have no idea what a giant they have helped create.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
“But their certainty led them to make automatic assumptions, and then directly into an embarrassing error.”
Error. They will not be embarrassed. In order to be embarrassed, one must have some form of conscience, some inner guiding principles, that one violates. The Left cannot be embarrassed.
Unfortunatly for Christine O’Donnell she doesn’t have as many on the conservative side to point out that she also was correct and her detractors were not.
O’Donnell correctly pointed out that “Separation of Church and State” are NOT in the first ammendment.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof
Not THE Establishment, not ANY Establishment – but AN Establishment. In other words, the Government doesn’t get to Pick One.
People like Coons want to do a lot of Prohibiting the Free Exercise Thereof in the name of not respecting any, or for that matter the esablishment of religion. Make no mistake, that is how they see ‘the separation of Church and state.’
So while Palin has a nice backlash building on a simple error of a date made by the idiots on the left, O’Donnell who is just as historically correct, is floundering with cover given by elitist journalists.
The MSM had me fooled for an entire day, until I found out the context and full extent of O’Donnell’s remarks. This means that I have exposed a bias within myself about Christine O’Donnell. But the more she speaks, once I’ve gotten past the obnoxious news “gatekeepers,” the more intelligent she sounds. Her brief on-location CNN interview revealed her to be both thoughtful and mindful of the viewpoints of Delawarans who might not agree with her.
At an absolute minimum, she would be more qualified to be a Senator than Patty Murray, who first campaigned as a “housewife,” and is infamous for her remarks about bin Laden having a “Marshall Plan” for Afghanistan, and O’Donnell is at least as qualified as that professional clown Al Franken. She’s also a much more qualified and lucid candidate than Alvin Greene.
eon (3)
And that Vlad Tepes, aka “Vlad the Impaler” aka “Dracula”, is a national hero in Romania for his dogged resistance to the Turks, in spite of his rather… extreme… personal behavior.
Which, BTW, he learned from the Turks while he was a fostered hostage as a youth.
So was his brother Mircea, but he didn’t impale people on sharp (or even worse, blunted) stakes for somehow irritating him.
Vlad was a superb military strategist and tactician, who managed to be a major handicap to the Turks for over two decades in spite of being consistently outnumbered and outgunned. His personal “style”, however, was that of a (barely) controlled homicidal psychopath. I do agree that his Turkish captivity probably triggered the behavior, but it must have been latent in his character before that.
Vlad Tepes is a casebook example of a homicidal psychopath who just happened to be a square peg fitting almost precisely in a square hole, in his time and place. However, I doubt many of us would want him for a dinner guest- or a military commander- today. (Imagine him with access to nuclear ordnance…)
cheers
eon
Behind their chortling is a more serious purpose. It might look we have the last laugh. And we did. But the forces against Sarah Palin are an attack machine and their purpose is cultural hegemony. The mode of their message – “she’s stupid” is no accident. These people are self-appointed gatekeepers keeping the likes of you and us out of national power and office.
They scan the news and twist anything they can find to their purpose. This process is not stupid, indeed, it is very effective. There job is to discredit the worthiness of their enemy. They will never engage in debate. They aren’t supposed to. This isn’t because liberals are always stupid and uninformed. Believing such is a mistake. Their mantra is always negative always personal.
For example, how many people think O’Donnell is not as serious and a lightweight compared to, let’s say, Angle? How many people think O’Donnell is a bit, even a small bit, of an airhead? I bet you lots. And how, and where, did they get these impressions?
No, the attack machines are very very serious and very very effective.
If you are a socialist you are ignorant of history and current events or you are amoral.
The more you defend these idiotic statements from people like O’Donnell and O’Reilly, the more obvious it is you realize they’re wrong. This is classic behavior. Whenever Beck or O’Reilly or Limbaugh say something really stupid, you can count on them to spend the entire next day “explaining” why they’re not wrong.
Witness Michelle Malkin, duly appointed by the Foxian Overlords, to counter Marueen Dowd’s column about conservative mean girls. Malkin gleefully suggests the conservative woman must be doing something right, because “when you catch flak you know you’re over the target. Now, despite the false bravado and military fantasy language so popular among the right, Malkin fails to recognize the flak she is sending Dowd’s way. I guess Dowd is over the target.
Think, people. Think!
Oh, if only we were all as intelligent as you are….the world would be such a wonderful place. Until that time, though, you must please continue your simpleminded lectures in an effort to enlighten us and our conservative overlords.
Will do.
What the heck are you talking about?
Or are you just babbling because your quota requires a certain number of “contrary” comments a day?
I think you’ve hit on it. Wow is one of those Soros sponsored trolls the libs have been calling for. He needs to meet a quota and get a certain number of trackbacks. Don’t respond. Starve the trolls.
Wow Really, get back into your cell, did anybody in the hospital give you permission to touch a computer? Now get back into your rubber room before your handlers put that funny strapped jacket back on you. Shame!
The more you defend these idiotic statements…
Still waiting for you to “defend” against the fisking I gave your Young Turks video in the thread “Dangers of Politicized Conservative History”.
Anytime now, wow really.
The only fisking you gave was to yourself, proving the Tea Party sponsorship of the Koch Bros despite their claims to the contrary. When someone makes my point, I let it stand.
Who pays you to spout slander and nonsense at Pajamas Media, WR? You can’t possibly be getting any edification from what you read here, and the reaction to your drivel is invariably dismissive to hostile. Therefore, you’re either a techno-masochist, or you’re being paid by the comment. Which is it?
He/she/it is just a gender challenged dullard convinced he/she/it is speaking truth to power and has found a site where it’s still allowed…somewhat. Posting for several years now under too many pseudonyms to remember – skeez/Alice/moho/Carol is locked out of commenting on most PJM blogs. That’d be by IP, rather than handle, so no matter what personality comes up for the day, the number of PJM blogs that don’t filter out this clown is limited.
The truth to power fantasy is displayed when he/she/it is mocked for being banned. The response is that the few blogs that haven’t yet done so are the ones showing ‘courage’. Think about the sublimely stupid over-inflated sense of importance and contribution that requires for a moment. Claiming it is a mark of courageously exhibiting well-considered counterpoint that allows he/she/it to comment. The fact that every individual that responds mocks he/she/it as a harmless twit might illuminate the real reason he/she/it is still allowed to post on some PJM blogs would never occur to he/she/it.
WR’s comment don’t deflect anyone. They’re just comic relief and no one would pay for comments that just amuse the opposition. And you certainly don’t hire WR’s sort of damaged goods just to be an ankle biter. WR is on his/hers/its own making his/hers/its comments. What the driver is for being obsessed with following a pursuit that returns nothing but derision isn’t something that any stable individual except a trained therapist could begin to understand.
I know, you’re disappointed that I won’t/can’t indulge your transgender predilections. Sorry, but I’m not “that way.”
skeez/carol/moho/alice,
Tell me. Did the choice of the pseudonym, ‘Alice Wigginbottom’ get a raised eyebrow and a rueful shake of the head from your therapist? Or your mom?
Gotta believe that when the skeez persona came up with the ‘I’m a manly man’ fantasy of a couple of friends and a couple of hookers on a boat – got a particular chuckle out of that tale – there had to have been a itched battle or the sexes in that confused muttonhead of yours. There was some short-lived persona in between, but Alice seemed to have won out – bet she kicked ol’ skeez the basement dweller around but good – but it looks like she couldn’t hold the fort. Now it’s ‘Wow Really’ at the helm.
You are quite possibly the lamest troll I’ve ever run across. Certainly one of the most obtuse fabulists, anyway.
How Silly, The Lamest of the Lame….
108. sleazits
I have a date with a boat. Big one. Blue and white. Four or five friends finally free from their work-a-day week. (Poor bastards.) Tequila. Poker. Couple of hookers…
July 9, 2010 – 1:16 pm
Kyber barks. Van Jones cries. The Cesspool gurgles.
Whatever.
Sorry. No kidding. Sorry.
Hey How Silly, does Van Jones still ride you like a bicycle? Flat tires and all.
Does the Kick Me sign riveted to your ass get in the way? Clange!
Whatever.
Neither. I’m a real American sent by the Lord to tear asunder the wild-eyed hypocritical groupthink of right wing extremists. And speaking of edification, slander is spoken. Libel is written, so that’s the word you’re looking for. Now if you’ll just point to my libelous writing, I’ll be happy to explain why it’s not.
Will you ladies and gentlemen please stop feeding this troll? You’ve been baited just like Kos, and every time you take the bait and reply, you just encourage this childish behavior. Don’t any of you have children? Just give him/her/it the time out chair.
We got bigger fish to fry! Can’t you hear the sound of the string running off the reel? Sheesh!
Unlike Kos, there is no ovine audience of grinning idiots to play to here. No one considers WR anything but an imbecile. You’re correct in saying that addressing anything the grinning idiot says as worthy of serious consideration is feeding and no one should do that. However, ignoring the grinning idiot’s prose entirely and instead pointing out and mocking the fact that the grinning idiot is, was, and will never be considered to be anything but is not. Quite possibly, by the evidence maybe even evidently, universal derision satisfies some distorted need for attention the grinning idiot has that a normal person can’t fathom. Nonetheless, mocking the grinning idiot is not the same as being baited.
OBTW, his/her/it’s real spanking comes November 2…
Momma always told me if a person isn’t be a good example, they’re probably a horrible warning. Well, you delivered. You’re a perfect example of autopilot patriotism. Some conservative taking the high ground . . . before returning immediately, irrevocably, immutably to his natural state in the muck, slinging Freudian insults that inevitably involve scat or spanking. It’s a pathology unique to the sexually repressed class, masquerading as spiritual protagonists while they seek the comfort of numbers, siblings in the shared desperation that attends the gnaw, the pang, the cramping realization of unrequited potential. Just short of genuine character. Just shy of honest. Self deluding. Arbitrary. Claiming loudest their vaunted principles only to have that volume lay bare the quivering innards of a hypocrite.
You should be proud.
Yeah How Silly, the scat thing. Lame. Would you like to see that one too?
Pol Pot takes the high road. Why not just deny and leave it at that? But somebody knows, don’t they. Momma? She feels sorry for you. That makes three, you, her and the Funhouse Mirror.
How about a Hail Something? You People still there? No Standing? Bigots, racist, retards, come on let loose! Be you! Nice to see how easy it is to modify your behavior.
The Cesspool finally got its stimulus funds. Flush! Mr. President likes that delivery system. Why is he so unpopular?
Happy apple bobbing Silly Thing.
The Kick Me sign.
Van Jones.
Kyber.
Lame.
Whatever.
How Silly “I’m worse than a liar” crawls again. Check this out. “Explain” why this is so familiar. How Silly can How Silly be? The syntax, the cadence, the… Whatever.
sleazits
“Just so you know, I mean, it’s only fair to tell you. I’m worse than a liar. I’m Satan, the Horn-ed One, and I’m here to infiltrate your righteousness. I’m here to suck the sweet scent of heaven out of your soul. You were right about me all along. I can’t hide it any longer.”
May 14, 2010 – 7:32 am
Hey How Silly, remember “all those terabytes”?
That’s better than I remember. Now tend to your business, something needs flushed.
No kidding How Silly.
Methane running low? Care package on its way!
And what are you now, a wannabe Wannabe Jaaaavvvvellllllinnnnn?
Boom! Whatever.
I sincerely hope Sarah Palin was luring the Kos Krowd into error if only for the delicious schadenfreude, but I rather doubt that’s the case. She was making a speech warning the crowd not to get cocky before the election, wise words we should all heed.
The Kos Krowd is just too ridiculous to take seriously.
Palin in 2010. Can’t wait for the left wing socialist’s heads to explode. President Palin. What a great sound.
Like when Palin was mocked after the debate with Biden for naming Talibani as a partner in Iraq — the “more intelligent” commentators all cried that the Taliban were our enemies, and not in Iraq, but Afgh, stupid. Of course she was referring to the President of Iraq, Jalal Talibani. There was a collective “whatever” and the “Palin is stupid” meme continued.
I was at the rally in Reno on Monday.
We got it.
Palin is a wily hunter? I think we should take a breath and stop trying to make ourselves out as more than we are. A little scent of Hubris is being noted here. Yes the left made an ass of themselves, but that doesn’t make the right filled with Einsteins.
Keep a level head and keep the target in the sights. Success will only be gained when the game is finished. And that certainly won’t be in this election cycle. Maybe in the next.
“When the stars are right,” eh?
The list of people that the left has villified is really quite endless – when leftist genocide started in the 20′s and 30′s they called Hearst a Nazi for reporting the truth about the millions that Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin had killed in Ukraine. Meanwhile the Left feted Duranty with Prizes.
Then they villified Patton for wanting to take the battle to the Commies (which would have saved us the huge expense of the Cold War as well as an additional 60 million lives).
And then it was McCarthey (who was right) and then President Reagan.
Thankfully, the left no longer has a monopoly on information.
For those who question the point of what Sarah said, I commend to you one Mr. Winston Wolfe, Problem Solver.
You can look that up for yourself, as it’s NSFW.
But it’s simply an admonishment to not step back and declare victory, because the job’s not done.
Comment #5 goes in the correct direction, but not far enough. Not only have today’s 20-somethings (and younger) had a progressive education but they have also had a “teachers unionized” education. It’s hard work pounding real facts and skills into bored children’s heads, so over the last 4 decades the public schools have done less and less of this sort of thing. As a result students read more poorly, do arithmetic more poorly, and have been taught history so poorly that to them 1776 seems like the sort of obscure date that someone like Sarah Palin might get wrong. Sarah could be as intellectually ordinary as the left claims and still know more than almost all the young leftist bloggers because she went through our educational system decades ago when it was mostly functional rather than mostly dysfunctional.
It’s pretty simple. Most liberals are stupid. Most conservatives are stupid.
The problem with this country is that the politicians are crooks, the corporate executives are crooks, the garage mechanics are crooks, the unions are crooks, the plumbers are crooks. The retail outlets are crooks. Medical charges are highway robbery. The investment brokers are crooks. There is hardly anyone who is not participating in this idiocy.
Why is the government so bad? Too many voters liberal, independent, and conservative are crooks.
Some people are hopeful that the tea partiers will fix whats wrong with this country. There is a possibility they will cut down the size of the government but that won’t address the fact that all other facets of society are based on deception for personal gain.
Capitalism is the best economic system we know but that doesn’t change the fact that it is a very bad economic system. Unfortunately there is no known good economic system. This is because economics is just a fancy name for survival of the fittest. When a large majority of people care more about true tolerance, respect, kindness, and helping others than they do about their own economic gain then there will a possibility for a humane society.
The root of the problem is the values we share that more money, more power, more status is better and is what we want most. This is the result of evolution – there is no solution.
Cynical and wrong.
While you will find crooks in every group of humans you care to name, in most only a tiny percentage are crooks. Are they saints? Of course not, but most people are not actively looking to behave dishonestly. Of course there are some exceptions, politicians, lobbyists and union leaders come to mind. This is why the now enraged regular folks are determined to remove this self created political class from government.
You are also wrong about the stupidity of people. Just because they fail to act in a fashion that you deem timely, smart and wise does not make them stupid. The entire surge in activism we see taking place demonstrates that once their attention is captured, average people are more than capable of effective, creative, selfless action in defense of their personal and shared interests.
Perhaps you should consider reexamining things
The reason capitalism is the only system that has ever worked in human society is because it takes into account true human nature…which is not always “good.” It uses the traits of human nature, good and bad, and is a system that utilizes checks and balances to give us a system that works and is just. Any other system relies on the denial of true human nature, which can never be truly denied for long, and thus is doomed for failure and corruption (i.e. socialism, communism, etc.).
Exactly, Crystal.
The notion that human nature is going to somehow tilt to the ‘good’ side for any length of time betrays a total lack of understanding of our nature. We should not be working on perfecting human nature, but rather on building institutions that recognize this fact. This urge towards human engineering always snaps back to equilibrium – and the energy of snap backs always overshoots.
I’ve seen people refer to the Left’s “believing in the Perfectibility of Mankind” before, yet I’m not sure that’s really the correct understanding. I think it’s more like “believing that Liberals can create an entity to replace God”.
First, in my view, the Left chooses NOT to believe that there is a Supreme Being who has given us humans definite rules for living in harmony with each other (probably because those “rules” tell us that God values our fellow humans as much as we value our own exquisite selves, and that we must therefore not lie, cheat, steal, murder, covet, and so forth). In other words, if we acknowledge a God and his law, we are required to restrain our passions and appetites, to control our impulses, to limit our actions, to not behave as though WE were gods whose mere wish should override all other considerations.
Instead, the Left posits a supremely-powerful, ever-abundant, all-knowing Super-State which will efficiently and compassionately regulate production, consumption, and even enforce appropriate social interactions. Their belief is that the Benevolent State will ensure that everyone contributes fairly TO society, and will receive “social justice” and a fair distribution of goods and services FROM society. (Lefties seem not to notice that under their system The State effectively TAKES THE PLACE OF GOD, defining what is good and evil, and offering the rewards of Paradise –or rather Utopia– to those who commit themselves in service to the True Religion.)
It’s interesting that no part of Lefty doctrine involves “Go and sin no more”; they believe that any so-called “moral failings” of their Nanny-state clients (lying, cheating, stealing, drunkenness, thuggery) are not the CAUSE of their misery, but rather are the RESULT of their “oppression” by the wealthy and powerful of society who refuse to share their (obviously ill-gotten) bounty with their deserving-but-unlucky brethren. To people of this mindset, any attempt to correlate lifestyle choices to socio-economic standing is rude at best, and might even be considered “heresy”.
In their urgency to establish Paradise-on-Earth, Leftists never seem to stop and analyze these few things:
Start with the premise that The State is not a magical, eternal, perpetual-motion machine. It requires people to serve as functionaries/ bureaucrats, it requires people to produce the wealth it distributes, and it requires people who need its Benevolent Services.
(1) While the revolutionaries who will bring Utopia into being no doubt consider themselves to be morally pure and keenly rational Arbiters Of What Is Good For All, they make no allowance for ensuring that the generation of leaders that succeeds them isn’t corrupted by the very power and wealth that accrues to any Establishment (and it is, of course, the corruption of -and oppression by- the current Establishment that necessitates their Grand Socialist Revolution in the first place).
(2) The “producer class” of a society does not necessarily produce for the sheer love of hard work. Productivity is closely tied to the pursuit of profit -aka money. Money is a powerful incentive- it brings comfort, status, recognition, influence, and just-plain-more-choices to whoever has it. If the incentive-to-produce is removed, production will drop; and when production drops, there is less for the Beneficent State to distribute. (And if those who depend on the Beneficent State get hungry enough and angry enough, torches and pitchforks and yet-another-revolution follow.)
(3) The “oppressed” and “needy” need to be kept to a manageable number, or else Need will outstrip Supply. Our dim-witted Socialists never follow the logic of “what you tax, you get less of; what you subsidize, you get more of”. Subsidizing unwed mothers perpetuates the problem of fatherless children, and all the societal ills that follow from that. Rewarding social pathology doesn’t eradicate it; it only leads to more-entrenched pathology. What happens when the majority of your populace has become Needy and there aren’t enough Producers?
I honestly don’t understand how the Lib-Progressive Left can profess belief in the Marxist/Socialist idiocy they spout. There are some very fine minds among them, yet so far as I can tell, not a one has ever sat down and thought carefully about the inevitable results of the programs they’re trying so hard to put into place. They’re not claiming to make mankind perfect, but they DO assume they can create a Perfect Political Institution — which I think is even stupider than trying to persuade us all to follow their Leftist agenda.
15 years of compulsory education in Britain??! Oh, dear … Having taught in British schools, been a school governor and had a child go through the entire British education system from kindergarten to university (a degree in history and Eng Lit), I can’t understand how I managed to do all that when I was so ignorant of the system. I have always laboured under the delusion that the statutory school-leaving age is 16. Maybe kids over here start school when they are one year old?
Americans have become so used to being prey that they have forgotten what it is like to be a predator…
Poor Gwen Ifell of NPR
She’s like the the pass rusher who nails the quarterback and celebrates,
only to realize that the pass went for a touchdown
Liberals have become so used to being prey that they have forgotten what it is like to be a predator…
Change that to…
Liberals have become so used to being predators that they have forgotten what it is like to be a prey…
The left (public sector unions and academia) doesn’t understand the structural threats to the ponzi scheme teat that its been sucking on. Just like any ponzi scheme, its demise is based on demographics. We have fewer and fewer workers to support the upside-down benefits pyramid. The pension and benefits paid out of these plans have NO relation to contributions paid in and the taxpayer is EXPECTED to make up the difference between promises made by the politicians and investment returns in the pension plan.
It’s remarkable that the left’s behavior is much like the cargo cults of South Pacific tribes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult
“A cargo cult is a religious practice that has appeared in many traditional tribal societies [unions] in the wake of interaction with technologically advanced cultures [wealth creating sector of the economy]. The cults focus on obtaining the material wealth (the “cargo”) of the advanced culture [pension & health benefits] through magic and religious rituals and practices. [voting for corrupt politicians]
Cult members believe that the wealth was intended for them by their deities and ancestors.” [Marx and Alinsky]
Notice the same sense of ENTITLEMENT
There is more than one bottomless well that the Left returns to again and again.
The stupidity and ignorance that renders these people utterly oblivious to the significance of the date 1773 would not have been exposed without the arrogance and extreme pettiness that motivates them to lie in wait for each and every one of Sarah Palin’s public utterances. And for what? To “prove” yet again what any of these folks (and keep in mind we’re talking about elites–the Kos and Gwen Ifill) would surely claim is established fact: Sarah Palin is dumb.
The same stupidity, ignorance, pettiness and arrogance are all on display with the flap over Christine O’Donnell wanting to know where “separation of church and state” appears in the Constitution. They rush to laugh and jeer at the notion that the phrase isn’t in the First Amendment.
Slow to realize their embarrassing mistake and utterly incapable of experiencing shame, they double down. They pretend that they were talking all along about subsequent case law that cites Jefferson’s “separation of church and state,” that their ridicule was meant in an airy, metaphorical sense and that their figurative readings (of the law, mind you) are somehow superior to those of the literal-minded “teabaggers” who are actually aware of the First Amendment’s contents.
Everywhere, with every issue, you can see these people employ ridicule instead of argument and dogma instead of ideas.
So…who wants to get in touch with their inner Anti-Federalist?
http://www.constitution.org/afp/brutus00.htm
It’s a really big gun for hunting liberals and RINOs….or even Neo-Cons.
No, it wasn’t bait.
Party Like It’s 1773 has been a Tea Party slogan since February 2009. The earliest reference I’ve seen to it was by Dana Loesch on 02/25/09,less than a week after Rick Santelli called for another Tea Party.
Party Like It’s 1773 with the New American Tea Party
Dana may have been the one to come up with the slogan. Those who have been to Tea Parties recognize it. Sarah Palin obviously seen it and was using it as a reminder to those in attendance.
Gwen Ifill & Kos, et al., jumped on it and embarrassed themselves, proving they don’t know much about the original Tea Party or the Tea Parties of today.
Yeah, I don’t think it was deliberate bait. On another blog, I commented “Let’s party like it’s 1894″ referring to the upcoming election. That was a more obscure reference: the 1894 election saw the largest party turnover in the history of Congress.
I prefer what Harry said (that’s Truman not the lawn gargoyle): “It’s not what you don’t know that’s the real trouble, it’s what you do know that just ain’t so!”
“Was it actually a deliberate lure? There’s been a bit of speculation in the blogosphere that Palin may have made the reference as bait, knowing that it would be irresistible to some. And maybe she did; after all, she’s a wily hunter.”
Heh. Sarah, you magnificent bastard!
Remember the hysteria into which the Left exploded over those few notes that Sarah had written on her hand?
Remember the “boob-gate”?
The leftist elite “credentialed” IDIOTS are getting their butts kicked “left and right”. There is no doubt that Conservatives and Tea Party members are better educated and know more about American History and our founding documents -Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Now in November we are about to elect scores of NEW Conservative Republicans to begin taking back our government from the Socialist Democrats in Congress and Marxist in the White House. It is going to be an ongoing job to replace politicians who see themselves as “annointed” professional politicians with American Citizen Representatives.
The Republican Party had best recognize the change that’s coming or it’s going to get run out of town with the Socialist Democrats.
The left is afraid of Sarah, and for this reason they try to destroy her, one reason they are afraid is that she keeps bring up facts, and facts confuse the left. They are use to making up the “facts” to suit whatever cause they are supporting and hate anyone who can use real facts to refute them. Sarah in 2012.
Richard,
The left is afraid of their own shadow these days. And certainly for good reason. You look up scardy cat in the dictionary, you find a picture of a ‘liberal’ or ‘progressive’ or whatever they call themselves these days. I just call ‘em socialists and commies, you know, one of those facts they hate so much. They are forced to demonize and call names as their own theories and ideas keep proving to be epic fail. They keep dredging up Keynesian economics and socialism from the swamps of the past.
I’m not so sure they hate people using real facts as much as they hate everyone and everything. Here’s what’s so funny, the Angry White Guys they accuse the tea party of being are they themselves. We call it projection.
You know they almost had me convinced that Sarah was washed up, but she just keeps coming back doesn’t she? Teflon? As someone previously mentioned the name Ronald Regan comes to mind…
“It’s not that our opponents are ignorant, it’s that they know so much that isn’t so”
Well done article, more like this please.
Unless history lessons start being ‘tweeted’ to ignorant people like these examples, do not expect anything to change.
History means nothing to them; They can’t read nor comprehend what history was about; And unless the names of the people and places in history, are given the encrypted language used for texting and tweeting, they’ll never be able to pronounce them.
The left is heavily populated with “credentialed” people, who think that makes them “educated.”
I have found out first hand numerous times how ignorant lefties are about solid history. Many a time, for admittedly sadistic pleasure (shame on me!) I’ve baited traps with historical anecdotes with unusual twists for leftist acquaintances.
My favorite was telling the accounts of Jesse James bragging about shooting Republicans (he wreaked his havoc during Reconstruction). My listeners would invariably take the bait without hesitation, making remarks like, “well, I guess he was good for something then, HA! HA!” That’s when I’d remind them that Republicans were trying to secure the vote and civil rights for blacks, and that Jesse James and his bunch were racists and ardent Democrats. My listeners would then glare at me for being obnoxious and mean. They’re right, as it’s not polite of me to do that, but hey, it’s a guilty pleasure to put down insolent fools who think they’re more highly evolved than the rest of us.
What I find interesting is that there are so many ignorant people in America who want to return to the Republic of 1776. That Republic wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for the Boston Tea Party in 1773, which got the ball rolling.
Do we really want to return to the Republic of 1776?
The facts are that only white men who owned property could vote.
Women and children were chattel–property of a husband, brother or father. Women couldn’t vote or own property. Children could be sold into a form of slavery called servitude. In the Southern Colonies, there were African slaves, who had been gathered in Africa by Islamic slave raiders to be sold and sent to the Americas. It would take more than 80 years to rid the young Republic known as the Land of the Free of slavery and to do that would cost hundreds of thousands of lives in a bloody Civil War.
It would take longer (more than a century) to free women as chattel and eventually those women gained the right to vote.
Children would be the last to be free from the danger of being sold into servitude to help mom and dad pay the bills and feed the rest of the family since wages were low for the working man and job security didn’t exist.
For more than a century, children as young as seven would be sold to work in sweat-shop factories for no pay or in the coal mines because those children were the right size to drag sleds loaded with coal up narrow bore tunnels that a full sized man couldn’t fit in.
Ssssssh! Not so loud. Don’t disturb people with your hateful facts!
“For more than a century, children as young as seven would be sold to work in sweat-shop factories for no pay or in the coal mines because those children were the right size to drag sleds loaded with coal up narrow bore tunnels that a full sized man couldn’t fit in”.
Er… no, to that last part. In the mines the children were used to go into the ventilation shafts to open and close the shutters at the beginning and end of shifts (because they were the right size to fit in). It was comparatively light work. Disraeli described this in some of the background to his novel “Sybil”. Think about it; the shafts to the coal were dug by miners following seams, often using undercutting to get at the coal, and had to be big enough for men strong enough to dig them in the days before remote digging machinery.
So in 1773, Sarah Palin, Nancy Pelosi, and Abigail Adams would all have been at home having births… and miscarriages, dealing with small pox, and deciding whether to drink tea on the sly…or not.
It is true that libs tend to be hazy on the details of the Revolution and Constitution, but Tea Party people tend to pretend that we can perform magic and go back…when NO ONE could possibly want to do that. What’s ideal about 1773, though, from a righty perspective is that we were beginning to have no functioning government AT ALL. Once the War started, taxes had to be paid locally to support the soldiers and they have just kept on rising for abut 240 years.
It was a very good time though; if you got sick, you did the patriotic thing…and died without burdening you fellow citizens. We have become so wimpy, wanting to live long lives, be comfortable etc. I despair for my country.
I know that a lot of commentators are hired for their looks (assume we can train them) or their supposed gravitas (gee they are SMART), but to have no one check the basic information (even in the Presidents speech) is just an embarrassment to me. It fits right in with that “stupid American” stereotype that already circulates around the world about us. For me? No one believes I am an American when I travel.
“But the left has such a low opinion of Sarah Palin’s intelligence and knowledge”
Well, no. What’s actually going on is Palin is a strawman. She’s portrayed as an idiot, so they can attempt to position themselves as well-informed by comparison.
By maintaining the illusion, other targets (mostly Republicans) may be made to look foolish simply by being associated with her. That’s why the left jumps all over Palin so quickly and consistently. The image of her as a rube is very useful and important to them. But this has nothing to do with what they ‘think’ about her. It’s about propaganda and tribal boundaries.