…and this is a 
Cruise from hell
Category: Politics
Posted on: July 16, 2007 1:00 AM, by PZ Myers
No, I don't mean the infamous cruise of diarrhea and vomiting, I mean something far, far worse — a trip that would make a week locked in the head with fluids gushing from your orifices seem enticing. I mean…
Neo-cons. Casual racism. William F. Buckley, Dinesh D'Souza, Norman Podhoretz. Fear of Mexicans. Nuke the liberals. Bernard Lewis and Kate O'Beirne. Muslims must die. Desiccated ancient WASPs urging their kind to breed.
Steven King must ship out on one of these cruises sometime. It will spawn a horror novel so terrifying that it will need to be stored in a secret crate in a warehouse somewhere near Washington where it will be promised that Top Men will study it.
(via at-Largely)
Comments
As an avid fan of his (and yours), I must tell you it's StePHen King.
I would definitely get sick on that cruise, but it wouldn't have anything to do with the food or the motion of the boat.
Posted by: Aaron | July 16, 2007 1:40 AM
Loose torpedo!
Posted by: natural cynic | July 16, 2007 1:43 AM
damn the torpedoes!
let loose the Kraken!
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 16, 2007 1:53 AM
So... Anybody got a spare nuclear attack submarine lying around?
Posted by: Joshua | July 16, 2007 2:03 AM
Gotta love ex-Judge Robert Bork:
If he's so proud, why no accolades and Fox News appearances for Les Roberts and his compatriots at the Boston School of Public Health, who have in two rigorous studies shown just what 'an excellent job killing them' the US is doing?
Posted by: llewelly | July 16, 2007 2:05 AM
Jeez, that was nasty.
Posted by: Hank Fox | July 16, 2007 2:32 AM
PZ,
Whatever your disagreements with conservatives may be. your charge of racism is baseless, and undermines your own position.
-jcr
Posted by: John C. Randolph | July 16, 2007 2:42 AM
JCR,
Given the neocon reaction to Mexican immigration (among other things), and some of the characters on that cruise, a charge of 'casual racism' is fairly mild.
Posted by: Abner Cadaver | July 16, 2007 3:24 AM
Abner,
When you can show me that any of the speakers listed have called for deporting anyone due to their race rather than their legal status, then you'll have a leg to stand on. I'm in favor of an open-border policy myself, but I will not try to support my position by making unfounded claims against the other side. That does nothing but weaken my argument.
-jcr
Posted by: John C. Randolph | July 16, 2007 3:30 AM
No true conservative is racist? Sounds like a fallacy to me.
Everyone has racist tendencies. They operate at the level of our pattern recognition abilities. Some of us are better than others at recognising and suppressing racism in ourselves.
The reporter, Johann Hari alleges casual racism. In evaluating the truth of these statements, a conservative may use a different filter than a liberal might.
You demonstrate that you, a conservative have an us vs. them attitude towards liberals. Why is that not a confirmation that conservatives could have a similar attitude to minorities?
Posted by: JohnnieCanuck, FCD | July 16, 2007 3:31 AM
"A Filipino waiter offers him a top-up of his wine, and he mock-whispers to me, "They all look the same! Can you tell them apart?"
Sounds remarkably like racism to me...
Posted by: Geoffrey | July 16, 2007 4:11 AM
When you can show me that any of the speakers listed have called for deporting anyone due to their race rather than their legal status
I thought about saying something comparative, like "when you can show me how concerned they are about white illegal immigrants"...
but then I just thought:
nevermind, you're just a naive fuck.
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 16, 2007 4:12 AM
I did get the impression that at times the author took a few liberties, though obviously it's hard to judge. For example, with that Ward Connerly chap it sounds like quotes about the KKK were abused and meant to mislead. I am fairly certain that a quarter-black/quarter-native american chap is not fond of the KKK, and that his reasons for opposing affirmative action are more to do with deep principles about equality rather than racism against blacks.
Overall I enjoyed it, and am sure that most of the racist, anti-anythingnotAmerican crap reportedly spewed was actually spewed, and gets spewed very often by neo-conservatives.
Posted by: Graxthal | July 16, 2007 4:21 AM
If you despise Islam, and also Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Taoism, Ba'hai Faith and the multitude of silly world views that spew pus like from the religious boils of humanity, does that make you anti-muslim?
'Cos Mohammed, may he be forgotten and reviled, is a dick.
Oli
Posted by: Mystic Olly | July 16, 2007 4:23 AM
How did the cruise line find the crew and staff for this cruise? They must have had to vet them all or perhaps they had a massive amount of security to protect the NR passengers. I would hate to be the person that had to sample the food to protect the passengers.
Posted by: Ron Hager | July 16, 2007 5:03 AM
semi-book review from the neo-con cheerleading corner, the WSJ opinion page. This should give you your RDA of indigestion.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118454735982067207.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
Posted by: Paul Flocken | July 16, 2007 5:08 AM
"nevermind, you're just a naive fuck."
Wow, you're so clever, if you do say so yourself.
How about showing me anyone who's called for amnesty for Irish or Germans who overstay their visas, while demanding that Mexicans get deported? "Racism" isn't some magic word that gives you the power of assigning guilt by fiat.
Now, are you ready for a big hint? Tossing off facile epithets at people who disagree with you doesn't support your argument. It just shows that you're too lazy or too stupid to make your case.
-jcr
Posted by: John C. Randolph | July 16, 2007 5:51 AM
Mystic,
While it's true that all superstitions are absurd, it's a mistake to treat them all equally, because they do vary drastically in the degree of damage they do. There haven't been any Buddhists on a mass-murdering rampage since World War II. The Bah'ais have *never* been violent. Whatever someone believes is no concern of mine, it's their actions that matter.
-jcr
Posted by: John C. Randolph | July 16, 2007 5:54 AM
Pinochet a hero? Me living in Greater France? Execute the liberals? Europe overrun by Muslims? Bomb the UN? You aren't going to come to France's rescue anymore?
Geez, how smug do you have to be to hold these views? Apparently this total reality-disconnect is not a direct consequence of old age and I find this scary. Maybe you get a party badge in gold for participating in this cruise.... and while I am on the subject, the only two times the US had to bail out France was because of us.
The thing I found the most amusing---in a sick way---was postulating that the English were bound to have a facist regime on their hands, while at the same time clamoring for executing liberals and declaring Pinochet a hero.
Well, at least the analysis of Reagans options was right, in that he would have solved the problem by supporting a strongman for Iraq... as a matter of fact, he really did.
Posted by: TheJerrylander | July 16, 2007 6:09 AM
A Stephen King novel? I'd style the novel more along the lines of Deliverance...
Posted by: forsen | July 16, 2007 6:26 AM
To paraphrase the late, great Bill Hicks: "I wouldn't come off that cruise loving the ocean, I'd come off it wanting to mainline heroine into my fucking eyeballs."
Posted by: BigHeathenMike | July 16, 2007 7:42 AM
jcr,
You must be new here. This is the home of godless liberalism, not nuanced discussion.
Posted by: other bill | July 16, 2007 8:22 AM
If he wasn't dead already, I'd say this sounded like a Hunter Thompson article waiting to be written... Here's my version:
"Neo-cons. Casual racism. William F. Buckley, Dinesh D'Souza, Norman Podhoretz. Fear of Mexicans. Nuke the liberals. Bernard Lewis and Kate O'Beirne. Muslims must die. Dessicated ancient WASPs urging their kind to breed. Goddamned giant lizards. Bats!"
Posted by: DaveX | July 16, 2007 8:37 AM
Why go on a cruise to Mexico and the Caribbean if you're a racist? Wouldn't they have had a better time taking a cruise in Europe or Alaska where most people are white?
Posted by: k | July 16, 2007 8:39 AM
This cruise sounds great. If I go, I can finally get learned on how them dinosaurs was evil. Rockin' with Dokken!
Can't go, though. Too scared of sharks.
Honk if you love Jesus,
mom
Posted by: Snikpan | July 16, 2007 8:42 AM
Racists have no problem visiting darker lands, especially when looking down on them from the hight of a cruise ship. The problems come when those darkies try to join their clubs or marry their daughters.
Posted by: Ick of the East | July 16, 2007 8:58 AM
DaveX:
We were somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of San Diego, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying, "I feel a little out of place," when suddenly the air was full of huge pterodactyls, swooping and diving around the cruise liner, and a voice was screaming, "Sweet Lady Isis what are these goddamn animals?" while a man was standing on the chlorinated water of the kidney-shaped swimming pool, opening his arms wide and proclaiming to the crowd, "Have no fear, for they are only My flying Jesus lizards."
"Of course, we need to execute some of these people," a woman says, her dainty feet morphing into velociraptor claws which tear her white slippers and click, clack on the PVC frame of her deck chair. "A few of these prominent liberals who are trying to demoralise the country," she tells me. "Just take a couple of these anti-war people off to the gas chamber for treason to show, if you try to bring down America at a time of war, that's what you'll get."
Smiling, she turns to me. "Then things'll change."
Posted by: Blake Stacey, OM | July 16, 2007 9:05 AM
The NR cruise: all the intellectual content and general creepiness of the Scientology cruise without the Hollywood celebrities to jazz it up.
Posted by: Chuck | July 16, 2007 9:07 AM
"let loose the Kraken"
But using the Medusa's head would give pigeons more things to poop on. Quid pro quo.
Posted by: Gil | July 16, 2007 9:10 AM
Re Norman Podhoretz and Bernard Lewis
Somehow I don't think these fellows qualify as Wasps.
Posted by: SLC | July 16, 2007 9:23 AM
I bet you're fantasizing about the ship being boarded by Davy Jones and his crew...with Davy disposing of them the way he did Mercer in PotC: At World's End...
Aaaargggghhhaarrggggg!!
Posted by: Ian H Spedding | July 16, 2007 9:41 AM
It's a very well written account. It's a pity that it takes a Brit to do this sort of journalism.
Posted by: Christian Burnham | July 16, 2007 9:50 AM
But what about their feelings? Did you remember to ask for permission this time before saying what you think about people and what they believe?
Posted by: wrg | July 16, 2007 10:15 AM
Dr. Myers, I have never been so disappointed in you, not even when you persist in using "data" as a singular.
You misspelled "desiccated."
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | July 16, 2007 10:20 AM
k (#24):
Oddly enough, the article addresses this very point:
Posted by: Blake Stacey, OM | July 16, 2007 10:25 AM
Bill,
Being a godless Libertarian myself, I often find myself taking both right- and left-wingers to task for demonizing each other. Each side is right about some things, and tragically wrong about others.
-jcr
Posted by: John C. Randolph | July 16, 2007 10:29 AM
Posted by: llewelly | July 16, 2007 10:36 AM
Doesn't D'Souza have his own "point" backward? I'm assuming that the thrust of his argument is that his family--having come much further, from India--is higher quality than the Latinos, correct?
If we stipulate that "point" for the moment, doesn't he mean "directly proportional", rather than "inversely proportional"?
Like Dembski, these yahoos apparently can't even abuse math correctly.
Posted by: RavenT, Adjutant Minion | July 16, 2007 10:42 AM
The Groupthink Cruise 2007
Posted by: Bob | July 16, 2007 10:56 AM
Podhoretz is the Brooklyn-born, street-fighting kid . . .
Well, if by "street-fighting kid," Hari means Podhoretz got his fat ass kicked on a more-or-less daily basis by pretty much everyone in the neighborhood just so they could enjoy the reliable spectacle of him wetting his pants and running blubbering to his mother, then yes, Podhoretz was a street-fighting kid.
Posted by: Molly, NYC | July 16, 2007 11:34 AM
Especially the power of the free market to solve any and all problems.
Posted by: commissarjs | July 16, 2007 11:49 AM
D'oh! RavenT (#38) beat me to it.
Posted by: Blake Stacey, OM | July 16, 2007 12:13 PM
I feel dirty after reading that.
Posted by: ckerst | July 16, 2007 12:43 PM
It's oddly satisfying to realize that D'Souza, though color-blind, has no Canadian friends.
Posted by: Kseniya | July 16, 2007 1:08 PM
As bad as this is, I was wondering how much worse the Free Republic cruise would be. First of all, the budget would be a lot lower. Every meal would consist of Cheetos and about half of them would end up going overboard for being RINOs.
Posted by: mena | July 16, 2007 1:18 PM
Whatever your disagreements with conservatives may be. your charge of racism is baseless, and undermines your own position.
Split the difference. Call it generalized xenophobia.
And what makes it worse is that in a certain sense you're right: I doubt that many of the "leading lights" of the right-wing nutcase ward are genuine bigots. They're just happy to play to the fever dreams of bigots, for tactical political purposes.
Finally, I wouldn't classify sociopaths like Kristol or Goldberg as "conservatives" in any meaningful sense. The best term I've heard for their ilk is "Right Bolsheviks". These guys all show the same mental habits that Zinoviev and Dzerzhinsky valued -- the power hunger, the willingness to drop today's truth tomorrow, the delight in bloody "solutions", the doublethink.
Posted by: sglover | July 16, 2007 4:01 PM
I'm sorry, JCR, I, too, have to come down on the side of 'Hell Fucking Yes: Have you paid any attention to what these freaks say on a daily basis?' in response to the Racist Conservatives issue.
As for calling yourself a Libertarian, you might want to refrain from doing that lest people rightly call you out as a clueless jerkoff.
Posted by: stogoe | July 16, 2007 4:09 PM
From the article:
What does D'Souza have against William Shatner and Peter Jennings?
Posted by: arensb | July 16, 2007 7:53 PM
Is Casual racism any different from prejudice of low expectations that liberals enjoy using? How many times have you interchanged black and poor? Of course that's not being racists because you know, you care.
Posted by: NatureSelectedMe | July 16, 2007 8:16 PM
Don't confuse an awareness of overlap with the assumption of complete interchangeability.
Posted by: Kseniya | July 16, 2007 8:24 PM
JCR,
I agree whole-heartedly with your response to my comment.
I was just mouthing off after a day and night of beach-party/japanese town matsuri, in which I had consumed way too much sake.
Ah, drunken posting . . . is there anything more shameful.
Well, er, yes there is, but it sure gives you a guilty glow in the morning.
Oli
Posted by: Mystic Olly | July 16, 2007 9:18 PM
Is it racism when the other guy is a jerk?
And Molly (#40), are you finding it hard to pass for liberal? Would knowing that Myers is more hidebound than a cat make it easier to come out of the closet?
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | July 16, 2007 9:20 PM
Llewelly,
I'm right more often than I'm wrong, but since I'm a libertarian, my choices won't be imposed on you. Smoke dope, thump bibles, or refuse competent medical treatment if you want, and a Libertarian may call you an idiot, but we won't demand that the state save you from your own stupidity. Your life is your own business, not mine or anyone else's.
If I were of a more statist bent, I'd demand anti-snottiness legislation against people like you. (For the *children*!)
-jcr
Posted by: John C. Randolph | July 17, 2007 2:48 AM
I read about this a while back. Terrifying, and it does seem to substantiate Altmeyer's research.
Posted by: Keith Douglas | July 18, 2007 9:56 AM