…and this is a 
Yeah, so? I've been doing this for years
Category: Politics
Posted on: March 26, 2008 6:57 PM, by PZ Myers
Blanch, you delicate souls, blanch. Somebody else finally gets it.
I'd like to suggest a very simple strategy for American liberals: Get mean. Stop policing the language and start using it to hurt our enemies. American liberals are so busy purging their speech of any words that might offend anyone that they have no notion of using language to cause some salutary pain.
I wish I knew where Americans got this idea that being a liberal meant being Mr and Mrs Milquetoast.
Comments
American liberals have assimilated as dogma the belief that dialogue and conciliation are always the way to go. As time has progressed it has become obvious that such isn't true unless you have adversaries that are prepared to argue in good faith. That certainly hasn't been true of the Republican right for a good while.
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | March 26, 2008 7:02 PM
Yeah, I don't know when being a liberal was something I was supposed to run away from. But I've never done it. Never will.
Conservatives are corrupt and inept.
Posted by: Steve_C | March 26, 2008 7:03 PM
Yeah, what's with all this talk of "Intelligent Design proponents"? Everyone knows it's "fucking morons."
Posted by: Chris | March 26, 2008 7:03 PM
Y'mean that, as a liberal, I'm not supposed to like swearing?
... well, fuck me.
Posted by: Tristan I Croll | March 26, 2008 7:05 PM
I disagree with the basic premise that liberals should get mean. The appeal of Mr. Obama's campaign lies in its nobility. Mr. Obama seeks to rise above the meanness of the conservative attack machine. I believe that he will discredit that whole way of thinking.
Besides, is your goal to change the world or feel better by letting off some steam?
Posted by: Chris Crawford | March 26, 2008 7:13 PM
"Conservatives are corrupt and inept." Define conservative. I think part of the problem is that there is a fairly broad range of the definition conservative and liberal. IE
I like gun and want to own as much fire power as possible but I have no problem what so ever with waiting periods and complete background checks.
I hate getting ass raped taxes but have no problem if the money is used to boost the economy and help feed an cloth the poor.
I'm pro choice but think the third trimester abortions without medical need are wrong.
I eat meat but do so from quality farms the treat their animals well.
I don't mind national health-care as a concept but can't see it ever actually being applied properly. The rich areas would simply implement for pay hospitals and the middle class would get boned for paying higher taxes and having to use "free hospitals" because they can't afford private insurance.
I was against the Iraq war but feel that if we just pull out without stabilizing the nation we are going to be hugely screwed in the end. Russians in Afghanistan anyone.
So what does that make me?
Posted by: vlad | March 26, 2008 7:18 PM
"Besides, is your goal to change the world or feel better by letting off some steam?" Mean gets people attention if used properly. Polite is generally ignored unless you at least give off the aura of the ability to be mean.
Posted by: vlad | March 26, 2008 7:20 PM
I prefer "grumpy," instead of "mean," myself. I don't rip anybody's arm off until they say something like "I don't mind if we spend another hundred years in Iraq."
Yes, I know, something like "Hi, I'm from the Discovery Institute" would be an even BETTER excuse to get out the de-arming device, but that's not so much a LIBERAL cause as a pro-truth cause.
Posted by: mjfgates | March 26, 2008 7:24 PM
You've got to be cruel to be kind sometimes. Being mean when people are complacent gets their attention.
The peace vigils against this war have been very "peaceful," lighting candles, singing "Give Peace a Chance," marching on sidewalks to avoid disrupting traffic. People think it's cute that there are still hippies out there. Hasn't done much, has it?
Posted by: Mike Haubrich, FCD | March 26, 2008 7:26 PM
#6 -- Human.
Posted by: Brad Hudson | March 26, 2008 7:28 PM
John Dolan tells it straight. Attack until the enemy cry uncle and are prepared to listen to reason. The fundamentalist, the creationist, the illiberal are either scum, or suckers, or both, and we should be unafraid of letting them know so.
What was that great American aphorism? Oh yes, "never give a sucker an even break".
Amen.
Posted by: Lee Brimmicombe-Wood | March 26, 2008 7:28 PM
I marched for peace before the war started.
It was mostly ignored and downplayed in the media.
When it was mentioned it was usually along with the word traitor.
It was a waste of my time.
Posted by: spurge | March 26, 2008 7:33 PM
You read Hitchen's screed today in Slate.com and National Post? Woo-hoo!! Your GREAT friend Omaba gets reamed. So make your choice. Hitchens or Obama? You can't agree with both thom them, can you?
Posted by: eleanor | March 26, 2008 7:34 PM
I didn't know Hitchens was running for President. God damn it. I hate it when I miss these things.
Posted by: Alex | March 26, 2008 7:37 PM
"Your GREAT friend Omaba gets reamed."
Whos friend?
"So make your choice. Hitchens or Obama?"
Who the hall are you to tell anyone to do anything?
"You can't agree with both thom them, can you?"
It depends on the issue at hand.
Not to mention that one could dissagree with both.
Posted by: spurge | March 26, 2008 7:41 PM
Two commentators observe that "mean gets attention". They're absolutely right -- but is it the kind of attention you want? This is the same basic reasoning that terrorists use. "Let's do something spectacular and people will notice us." Sure, being verbally injurious isn't anywhere as bad as being physically injurious, but it's still using the same stupid tactic. Being mean to people accomplishes two things:
1. It antagonizes the people you're mean to, encouraging them to respond in kind.
2. It suggests to bystanders that you're a barbarian, thereby discrediting your cause. 9/11 did NOT help the cause of Islam.
Posted by: Chris Crawford | March 26, 2008 7:42 PM
Of course we can! We can love Hitchen's' irreligiousity at the same time as deploring his pandering to neoconservatism.
You see, this is how it works in a world of nuance, Eleanor. You are clearly unfamiliar with the concept.
Posted by: Lee Brimmicombe-Wood | March 26, 2008 7:44 PM
Yeah, I can't wait until liberals amass enough power-via-meanness to assrape me through overtaxation, because the conservatives aren't doing enough of that already.
Posted by: zoltan | March 26, 2008 7:44 PM
eleanor asked:
Obama.
Posted by: Norman Doering | March 26, 2008 7:45 PM
Has nobody learned ANYTHING in these last 30 years?
There is no "good faith" anymore. If the torture 'debate' proves nothing at all else, it conclusively demonstrates that, in public policy, the ends justify the means. It's the Triumph of Instrumentalism. Once gone down that track, there has never been a turning back; not a voluntary one, at any rate.
"WE" the People are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Fucked, that the extent, and the permanence, and the utter corruption of it all has yet to sink in...
Johnny McStain's gonna lead the way into the new "reality"--see the paragraph immediately preceding this one for details...
Posted by: woody, tokin librul | March 26, 2008 7:47 PM
I've been saying that for years. When Gingrich was still in the House, I read a study on communication styles and audiences that came to the conclusion that "conservatives" tended to react much more to the emotional content of a message than the intellectual content of a message. Whereas, "liberals" tended to go the other way - toward the rational/intellectual side.
The study suggested that "liberals" communicate more like the conservatives to get a broader appeal. Ironically, I see Obama doing some of that and it creeps me out. But I think it explains much of his appeal - his rhetoric is more feeling-based than Clinton's.
In other words, speak from the fire in your heart. Rule with your head.
Posted by: Moses | March 26, 2008 7:49 PM
I think the term "mean" if far off-base. There's a difference between being rhetorically impassioned and hurtful. It shouldn't be about being mean for mean's sake, or to get even. When countering those who disregard reasonable intellectual engagement, it can be useful to escalate the rhetoric to give your opponent too many flies to swat at. To onlookers, this makes them look disorganized and unprepared to meet the challenge.
Posted by: Alex | March 26, 2008 7:50 PM
Tristan I Croll wrote:
No, you don't have to. In fact there's a difference between being mean and aggressive and being vulgar and stupid.
For example, if you want to call someone a moron in a polite way you can ask: "Is there some reason I should consider the possibility that your statement is not as moronic as it seems to be? I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here."
Posted by: Norman Doering | March 26, 2008 7:52 PM
Any suggestions on what to say to the Jehova's Witnesses who showed up at my door 5 minutes ago?
Posted by: jsn | March 26, 2008 7:55 PM
10000% agreed.
Sane people need to start going Henry Rollins on the repugs. If we don't, I offer everyone the junta-style politics that intends to bring humanity back to the dark ages. No more verbal knives, only black trechcoats filled with verbal munitions. Start dropping some Matrix-style Gung Fu.
"...speak from the fire in your heart. Rule with your head."
Has there really been any better way to go? It's obvious yet we so easily lose sight of it. I also once again insert kudos for the Mad Biologist QOTW.
Posted by: BlueIndependent | March 26, 2008 7:56 PM
#6 - Part of the problem (to put it far more politely than such witlessness deserves).
Posted by: Nick Gotts | March 26, 2008 7:57 PM
True, but at the same time it forces them to fight, and it exhausts them. Which is exactly what you want to happen. You make them pay a price for their fuckwititude. People only have so much energy to engage in a donnybrook, verbal or otherwise. If you engage them and wear them down there is a greater likelihood that they will learn from this and be more civil, or sensible, next time around. Only the most obtuse feckers can keep ploughing on indefinitely. And frankly they are not the minority we are targeting.
What a crock! We are hardly advocating flying airplanes into skyscrapers. "The rude boys are like unto Jihadist terrorists!" Is a claim like this not a modern variant of Godwin?
No, this is a war with words. Pugnaciousness suggests to bystanders that your cause is worth fighting for and that there are lines they should be wary of crossing. It suggests they can't walk all over you.
Of course, they may conclude you are an arsehole, but frankly if you are in this to win popularity contests you are going to be sorely disappointed. Because the only way you will succeed at that is to act like a doormat. And they still won't respect you.
Posted by: Lee Brimmicombe-Wood | March 26, 2008 7:58 PM
Norman@23, that's just fucking stupid. /sarcasm
Posted by: Alex | March 26, 2008 7:58 PM
I always equate "conservative" with "bully". The people on Fox are bullies, Ann Coulter is a bully, etc. The dumbest of the dumb like bullies because it makes them feel powerful too. They then think that they have the right to be bullies too, and that the rest of us will allow them to push us around. That's the main reason to fight back, although the guy that the so-called True Conservatives TM claim to be in ultimate obedience to once allegedly said " Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." We tried that method but they managed to destroy the country. Something has to be done now so that it doesn't get any worse.
Posted by: Mena | March 26, 2008 7:59 PM
"Is there some reason I should consider the possibility that your statement is not as moronic as it seems to be? I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here."
just doesn't have the punch of "Eat shit and die, cully." Too many polysyllables ("consider," "possibility," "statement," etc)...i used to try to suggest fools "imbibe your own excrement and expire..." but i think the effect is lost ehn thhey have to think about it, in that drooling, eye-rolling, nose-picking way they have...
Posted by: woody, tokin librul | March 26, 2008 8:00 PM
Personally I prefer "I shall drive my enemies before me and hear the lamentations of their women!"
Posted by: Lee Brimmicombe-Wood | March 26, 2008 8:03 PM
Any suggestions on what to say to the Jehova's Witnesses who showed up at my door 5 minutes ago?
Posted by: jsn | March 26, 2008 7:55 PM
i have always found that suggesting, very politely, that we all get naked and lie in a heap and fuck is effective.
Posted by: woody, tokin librul | March 26, 2008 8:03 PM
Any suggestions on what to say to the Jehova's Witnesses who showed up at my door 5 minutes ago?
"Hi! You're just in time! Our Satan-worshipping service is just about to start!"
Posted by: Chris Crawford | March 26, 2008 8:07 PM
That is what is best in life Lee.
Posted by: spurge | March 26, 2008 8:07 PM
I think I understand.
Do not speak to your audience as if they were rational, for they are not. To manipulate the populace you must treat them as the hairless apes that they are. You must invoke an emotional response in order to sway opinion.
However, this is a delicate balancing act. You must provoke emotion without alienating or offending to the point of stubborn defiance.
Religion is itself an emotional response to the unknown and maintains the afflicted in an irrational, emotional state.
How do you present rational, logical, informed thinking in an emotional way?
In other words, how to you get people excited about not being dumb-asses?
Posted by: Bill | March 26, 2008 8:07 PM
I'm sure you've seen it already PZ, but your favorite creationist, Ms Dense O'Leary, is already whining about you over at UD, that you're not a nice person!
Posted by: Timcol | March 26, 2008 8:08 PM
There is also a difference between being vulgar and stupid, and vulgar and smart. If you don't know the difference I'd suggest you don't go in for vulgarity. If you do, then give them both barrels, motherfucker!
Posted by: Lee Brimmicombe-Wood | March 26, 2008 8:10 PM
Not "mean" since "mean" is what shits like Dick Cheney and the Faux News trolls are.
A more appropriate phrase is "uncompromisingly honest."
This allows for reasonable compromise (meaning a compromise that uses reason), and admits the probability that I am, to some degree, not in possession of important information or unaware of other, reasonable interpretations of the shared problems. It also is a shot across the bow of those people, generally calling themselves "conservative," who rely on bullying and lies to cover their own dishonesty.
Politics should be like martial arts: real martial artists aren't interested in "winning" but in settling the situation with understanding, so both parties can get back to useful, creative activities. This, given the fucked-up nature of those with poor, or even evil, teachers, is of course not always possible but is never to be discarded as a goal.
Posted by: Sue Laris | March 26, 2008 8:10 PM
I suggest that the term "crackpot" be used against the creationists. It summarizes their ideas and mentality. I think it will sting because of the evasions and self-deception involved and "crackpot" succinctly catches it all. "Crackpot" may make them visible to themselves and to anyone looking on; people do not like to be associated with crackpots nor believe they are duped by them. Using "crackpot" makes the battle line and the issue fully clear using just one word.
Posted by: MelM | March 26, 2008 8:10 PM
Any suggestions on what to say to the Jehova's Witnesses who showed up at my door 5 minutes ago?
"Hi, I'm brother John, and have you heard of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints?"
Posted by: Moses | March 26, 2008 8:10 PM
Lee suggests that the value of antagonizing conservatives is that it wears them down. This sounds like the strategy used at Verdun in World War I.
" Pugnaciousness suggests to bystanders that your cause is worth fighting for and that there are lines they should be wary of crossing. It suggests they can't walk all over you."
I disagree. I don't know what motivates you, but I will warn you that, if you allow your anger to affect your judgement, you will surely fail. I do see a lot of anger being expressed in these comments, and that anger, while justified, is our enemy. Success does not go to those who lose their heads.
Posted by: Chris Crawford | March 26, 2008 8:12 PM
It all depends on context.
Unfortunately, the context since the 90's has been trending toward people screaming at each other on TV. In that context, yes, it's best to be brief, to the point, and not too polite.
Obama's race speech was breathtaking simply because it wasn't stupid. American discourse is a stupid, emotional, fact-free shit-flinging zone. It always has been, to a certain extent, but there seems to be absolutely no room for anything else these days.
Woody Thanks for bringing up torture. There have been so many indignities suffered on this nation in the past 8 years, it is hard to remember them all. I remember reading one of AL Franken's books once; there was no new information in them for me, but to have all those crimes listed in one book, chapter after chapter, with no time to forget one... it was seriously aggravating.
Posted by: inkadu | March 26, 2008 8:13 PM
Michael Dukakis
nuff said
Posted by: Not Dukakis | March 26, 2008 8:13 PM
I certainly didn't think that. Of course I think that's mostly because I don't think with words like Milquetoast
Posted by: Patrick | March 26, 2008 8:15 PM
#24-- you tell them "Goodbye" and shut the door. Firmly. Keeping the dog from biting them.
Posted by: Faithful Reader | March 26, 2008 8:17 PM
"Any suggestions on what to say to the Jehova's Witnesses who showed up at my door 5 minutes ago?"
Simple, say, "Huh? The agency usually sends the same strippers, but you'll do!"
Now, all you tough-but-smart liberals out there, go out and obtain "No Rest for the Wicked" by the New Model Army, select the track "My Country", turn it up to the proverbial eleven, go out, and rip anyone to the right of Nancy Pelosi a new one. The bridge is a neat little set of words to roll up and smack a right-winger's snout with:
"No rights were ever given to us by the grace of god, no rights were ever given by a United Nations clause, no rights were ever given by some nice guy at the top, our rights, they were bought by all the blood and all the tears of all our grandmothers and grandfathers before."
It is the anthem of the kick-ass liberal. Also, the next time some dumbass sends you an e-mail about the only two "defining forces" that died for you, ask them, "What about all the labor and civil rights activists who gave their lives for our ability to make a decent living without undue harassment and exploitation?"
Posted by: Longtime Lurker | March 26, 2008 8:17 PM
RE: #13
This, I think, illustrates perfectly the way the conservative mind works. At the root, it's not about ideas, or facts - it's about people. They will pick figureheads - the person or people they consider the strongest, the most likely to win, and then get back that person 100%, no matter what. They expect us to do the same thing, which is why you get attacks like this - to that mindset, this would be a telling blow. To the intended recipients, however, it's just bemusing, and a little sad.
Posted by: Tristan I Croll | March 26, 2008 8:18 PM
Who says anyone is angry? Calculated displays, that's all.
Posted by: Moses | March 26, 2008 8:18 PM
"Get mean."
Yes!
This generation of Republicans in Congress and in the administration has to be the biggest bunch of assholes to hit government since our nation was founded.
They should be treated like the complete fucktards they are.
Posted by: CalGeorge | March 26, 2008 8:21 PM
Then it sounds like a strategy that works. Draw them onto your guns and grind them down.
The problem with these battles of rhetoric, whether it is face to face or in a flame war, is that too many try for the killer blow, and it rarely works. 'Ha! See my rhetorical ju-jitsu!' Nope, it just bounced off them.
No, my own experience is to keep worrying at people and wear them down. Make them work at the argument. Make them expend energy. Keep them engaged. Keep them irritated. In the end either you give up or they do. And if you're smart about it and know how to argue by making them do most of the work, they will withdraw first. Or they will lose it, which is even more entertaining, because at that point you have humiliated them.
Then don't get angry. Aggression is not the same as anger. Aggression is disciplined and focussed. Anger can feed that pugnaciousness and keep you in the fight, but you must master it, my Padawan learner.
Posted by: Lee Brimmicombe-Wood | March 26, 2008 8:24 PM
"Those who fight monsters should take care that they never become one. For when you stand and look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
Posted by: dave | March 26, 2008 8:25 PM
Fucking right on.
Posted by: ndt | March 26, 2008 8:27 PM
It's gone midnight in Eng-er-land and papa Brimmicombe-Wood needs his sleep.
Goodnight, Smurfs and Smurfettes!
Posted by: Lee Brimmicombe-Wood | March 26, 2008 8:27 PM
Lee, when you write that the tactics used a Verdun sound like something that works, well... you're very, very wrong. Verdun is archetypical of the worst kind of military operation, a huge bloodbath that accomplished absolutely nothing.
The tactics you propose are debating tactics, nothing more. They might permit you to feel that you have emerged victorious from some childish blog battle, but if you think that they convince anybody else, you're horribly wrong. You are not smarter than the bystanders and they can see a debater's trick a mile away.
And whether you call it aggression or anger, it's still ugly and bystanders are still put off by it.
If you want to convince people, you just stick with the facts, avoid chest-beating, and speak gently.
Posted by: Chris Crawford | March 26, 2008 8:31 PM
Indeed, we should not become a human rights violating dictatorship in the name of security. But, neither should we let those would take us down that road have their way with us. It is possible to be strong, assertive and aggressive without being monsters, indeed it is required, for to do nothing as we are now is to let our nation become monstrous.
Posted by: scote | March 26, 2008 8:35 PM
In the (fictionalized) words of President John Adams:
"This is a revolution, damn it! We're going to have to offend somebody!"
Clip here
Posted by: Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. | March 26, 2008 8:36 PM
@#21
The study suggested that "liberals" communicate more like the conservatives to get a broader appeal.
This is also known as "framing."
Posted by: gmcfly | March 26, 2008 8:38 PM
Besides, is your goal to change the world or feel better by letting off some steam?
How about not getting steamrollered? The right own the dialogue. They set the terms -- intelligent design, surge, war on XYZ, middle east, climate change, pro-fucking-life (they're ANTI-fucking-CHOICE), family-friendly, intellectual property, harsh interrogation, etc. -- and everyone else plays catch-up and actually use those terms. Its all spin and marketing, and the bad guys are winning, because spin and marketing types are soulless facesuckers.
Yet, pop culture just keeps sucking it up as new phrases are fed into the discourse, and old ones are twisted beyond all recognition.
Stop using their words.
Posted by: AlanWCan | March 26, 2008 8:45 PM
Don't have time to read all the posts right now, but I've been saying something like what this guy has, for years.
I disagree that it has to be "mean," per se, but I do think we need to stand up and speak up and fight when we believe we're right, in no uncertain terms. It's for a simple reason: Psychologically, if you won't stand up for yourself and what you believe, then Joe and Jane Sixpack will wonder if you will stand up for them.
Posted by: Aquaria | March 26, 2008 8:45 PM
#23
You lost me after "Is there some reason...". You will never reach the people who vote Republican and ought to vote Democrat by talking to them like that. These are people who are not rational/smart/aware enough to know that they are voting against their own material interests. They vote GOP because Rush Limbaugh makes them feel stupid in the most exquisitely vivid ways if they vote Democrat. That's what we need to do.
Posted by: Nick K | March 26, 2008 8:46 PM
Maybe the rest of you have stronger stomachs, but violent rhetoric always loses my attention fast. If it becomes much more popular than it already is, I'm afraid that I'll just have to start ignoring politics altogether.
Posted by: Ian | March 26, 2008 8:46 PM
I agree with Chris Crawford. No point getting angry or needlessly mean. We have the facts and reality on our side, so we stand firm with that and never back down. That's the problem, though. A lot of times, people WILL back down to avoid hurting another's feelings or to be politically correct. That's what we need to do away with.
Posted by: October Mermaid | March 26, 2008 8:47 PM
On greeting J's witnesses: Fling open the door and "Oh, my goodness, strangers, maybe I should put some clothes on.
Posted by: Bob Carroll | March 26, 2008 8:58 PM
Y'all are working way too hard.
Victory in politics is patience plus consistency. Clausewitz, or maybe that japanese feller, they had it right. Holding your ground is the easiest, most efficient means of combat, and of political victory.
The conservatives are energetic, and they have a fund of momentum from history--it's a Christian nation, and a scientifically foolish one, and a nation with a history of violent overreaction, and so on. But we have progressed, by fits and starts but we have. Conservatism by definition hopes to turn the clock back, or at least stop it, and all occasions do inform against them. They're not mean; they're furious, because fury is contagious, and effective, but short-lived, and nothing seems sillier and less impressive in retrospect except perhaps first-date sex.
The creotards and Intelligent Design smoothies, the in-the-closet homophobes, the Wolfowitz crusaders, the home-schoolers, the no-new-tax and starve-the-beast fiscalists, the Minutemen, all of the phenomenal movement politicians are susceptible to patient, smiling, polite, dogged, determined, repetetive, unflappable argument. It's not overpoliteness, or intellectual constipation; it's confident patience, the four-corners offense, the Napoleonic creed of short internal lines of supply and communication and lots of spades working overtime.
Take our own Michelle Bachman, a brittle glass dish of a Bushie, the perfect Christer for America, a blueprint for the modern conservative our brain-dead trailerians elect to plan for a future they think will end in rapture any minute. Bachman is elected, and will likely stay elected, but she can't sit still. If she just takes that empty grin to Washington and votes the way Uncle Dick says she should, all will be well and whatever reptilian hypocrisy she's hiding (I'm betting she's been to a certain Greek island, and liked it, and wants to go back) would stay hidden forever and she'd become one of the fossilized minority.
but no, she can't. She's too stupid, too dedicated to the antithesis of public service and government that is the bold thesis of modern conservatism. She's just too sure that Jesus loves her special. So she sponsors a Lightbulb Freedom of Choice bill, which is all about scoring silly little points off of science and government, and instead volunteers herself as a glassy-eyed grinner of a half-wit clown. She and her ilk are so sure, so absolutely true-believer, that they will destroy themselves sure as you're born. They were educated to one standard: underestimating other people in the process of overestimating themselves. Hence the hubris of the hypocritical moralists--too many to mention; the grotesque fiction of the "fiscal conservatives," Laffering all the way to the bank; the pathetic sagging depletion of the Religious Wing, crowned by raving Robertson or flap-jowled Falwell and his comical university.
Left alone, the Bush administration would collapse into a zoological park of comical absurdity: Jeff Gannon, Alberto Gonzalez, Harriet Miers (though I for one would have kind of enjoyed that one--imagine the girl-talk with Bader Ginsberg--Harriet would flee the Court knock kneed and pale some night, howling like Kitty Genovese.) We have science, we have rhetoric; we studied and read books while they were nodding at each other's vapidity and then taking it for their own.
So don't get mean. Just keep cruising their blogs and leaving little steaming turds of wisdom. Every time they ban you for being politely annoying, we win. Every time you patiently entertain their zombie-logic, we win. Every fallacy we nail, every quote-mine we ridicule, every assertion we lacerate: victory. Doesn't seem like much, I know, but it works. Drip, drip, drip.
Ooh, I'm out of Pinot.
ice
Posted by: ice9 | March 26, 2008 8:59 PM
Great hair, Chris Crawford.
Posted by: Stogoe | March 26, 2008 9:02 PM
#56: Love the musical theatre reference!
Posted by: Robin | March 26, 2008 9:03 PM
Y'all are working way too hard.
Victory in politics is patience plus consistency. Clausewitz, or maybe that japanese feller, they had it right. Holding your ground is the easiest, most efficient means of combat, and of political victory.
The conservatives are energetic, and they have a fund of momentum from history--it's a Christian nation, and a scientifically foolish one, and a nation with a history of violent overreaction, and so on. But we have progressed, by fits and starts but we have. Conservatism by definition hopes to turn the clock back, or at least stop it, and all occasions do inform against them. They're not mean; they're furious, because fury is contagious, and effective, but short-lived.
The creotards and Intelligent Design smoothies, the in-the-closet homophobes, the Wolfowitz crusaders, the home-schoolers, the no-new-tax and starve-the-beast fiscalists, the Minutemen, all of the phenomenal movement politicians are susceptible to patient, smiling, polite, dogged, determined argument. It's not overpoliteness, or intellectual constipation; it's confident patience, the four-corners offense, the Napoleonic creed of short internal lines of supply and communication.
Take our own Michelle Bachman, a brittle glass dish of a Bushie, the perfect Christer for America, a blueprint for the modern conservative our brain-dead trailerians elect to plan for a future they think will end in rapture any minute. Bachman is elected, and will likely stay elected, but she can't sit still. If she just takes that empty grin to Washington and votes the way Uncle Dick says she should, all will be well and whatever reptilian hypocrisy she's hiding (I'm betting she's been to a certain Greek island myself) would stay hidden forever and she'd become one of the fossilized minority.
but no, she can't. She's too stupid, too dedicated to the antithesis of public service and government that is the bold thesis of modern conservatism. So she sponsors a Lightbulb Freedom of Choice bill, which is all about scoring silly little points off of science and government. She and her ilk are so sure, so absolutely true-believer, that they will destroy themselves sure as you're born. They were educated to one standard: underestimating other people in the process of overestimating themselves. Hence the hubris of the hypocritical moralists--too many to mention; the grotesque fiction of the "fiscal conservatives," Laffering all the way to the bank; the pathetic sagging depletion of the Religious Wing, crowned by raving Robertson or flap-jowled Falwell and his comical university.
Left alone, the Bush administration would collapse into a zoological park of comical absurdity: Jeff Gannon, Alberto Gonzalez, Harriet Miers (though I for one would have kind of enjoyed that one--imagine the girl-talk with Bader Ginsberg--Harriet would flee the Court knock kneed and pale some night, howling like Kitty Genovese.)Etc ad nauseum.
Hang tight. Stand your ground. Refute those posts. Cite those logical fallacies. Keep reading and studying. Stay patient.
ice
Posted by: ice9 | March 26, 2008 9:03 PM
Y'all are working way too hard.
Victory in politics is patience plus consistency. Clausewitz, or maybe that japanese feller, they had it right. Holding your ground is the easiest, most efficient means of combat, and of political victory.
The conservatives are energetic, and they have a fund of momentum from history--it's a Christian nation, and a scientifically foolish one, and a nation with a history of violent overreaction, and so on. But we have progressed, by fits and starts but we have. Conservatism by definition hopes to turn the clock back, or at least stop it, and all occasions do inform against them. They're not mean; they're furious, because fury is contagious, and effective, but short-lived.
The creotards and Intelligent Design smoothies, the in-the-closet homophobes, the Wolfowitz crusaders, the home-schoolers, the no-new-tax and starve-the-beast fiscalists, the Minutemen, all of the phenomenal movement politicians are susceptible to patient, smiling, polite, dogged, determined argument. It's not overpoliteness, or intellectual constipation; it's confident patience, the four-corners offense, the Napoleonic creed of short internal lines of supply and communication.
Take our own Michelle Bachman, a brittle glass dish of a Bushie, the perfect Christer for America, a blueprint for the modern conservative our brain-dead trailerians elect to plan for a future they think will end in rapture any minute. Bachman is elected, and will likely stay elected, but she can't sit still. If she just takes that empty grin to Washington and votes the way Uncle Dick says she should, all will be well and whatever reptilian hypocrisy she's hiding (I'm betting she's been to a certain Greek island myself) would stay hidden forever and she'd become one of the fossilized minority.
but no, she can't. She's too stupid, too dedicated to the antithesis of public service and government that is the bold thesis of modern conservatism. So she sponsors a Lightbulb Freedom of Choice bill, which is all about scoring silly little points off of science and government. She and her ilk are so sure, so absolutely true-believer, that they will destroy themselves sure as you're born. They were educated to one standard: underestimating other people in the process of overestimating themselves. Hence the hubris of the hypocritical moralists--too many to mention; the grotesque fiction of the "fiscal conservatives," Laffering all the way to the bank; the pathetic sagging depletion of the Religious Wing, crowned by raving Robertson or flap-jowled Falwell and his comical university.
Left alone, the Bush administration would collapse into a zoological park of comical absurdity: Jeff Gannon, Alberto Gonzalez, Harriet Miers (though I for one would have kind of enjoyed that one--imagine the girl-talk with Bader Ginsberg--Harriet would flee the Court knock kneed and pale some night, howling like Kitty Genovese.)Etc ad nauseum.
Hang tight. Stand your ground. Refute those posts. Cite those logical fallacies. Keep reading and studying. Stay patient.
ice
Posted by: ice9 | March 26, 2008 9:04 PM
o crap I triple posted. Sorry. Somebody delete me.
ice
Posted by: ice9 | March 26, 2008 9:06 PM
Good grief, some of you people...did you actually follow the link? It is NOT advocating pulling out guns and pistol-whipping your opponents. The first thing it advocates is bumper sticker slogans: ""There are two kinds of Republicans: millionaires and suckers." It's saying that we need to stop using weasel words and get right out there and say what we think of right-wing nut jobs.
You wilting flowers are the problem. Grow a spine.
Posted by: PZ Myers | March 26, 2008 9:07 PM
Who's the wilting flower? Is it me? Is it me? I'm sorry if it is. If it isn't, I told you so.
ice
Posted by: ice9 | March 26, 2008 9:10 PM
Like they said on B5, you can get more with a kind word and a two-by-four that you can with just a kind word.
Posted by: Jim | March 26, 2008 9:11 PM
(NB: in this case I mean a rhetorical two-by-four.)
Posted by: Jim | March 26, 2008 9:13 PM
#5:
I think we should wait to see how that story turns out before we decide what the lesson of it is.
Posted by: mgarelick | March 26, 2008 9:23 PM
jsn:
"Do you know a prayer that works on Ebola?"
Posted by: Epikt | March 26, 2008 9:24 PM
Bring it on! Now is as good a time for the End Times as any other!
Posted by: Hipple, Rev. Paul T. | March 26, 2008 9:39 PM
Ooh, I'm out of Pinot.
ice
Posted by: ice9 | March 26, 2008 8:59 PM
then you won't have nay trouble describing for me the ground "we" hold?
I cant see it much anywhere.
what have we held secure? liberty? feh. prosperity? gah! health? look the fuck around you!!!
what the fuck are "we" defending?
Posted by: woody | March 26, 2008 9:40 PM
PZed, if you are addressing me, I can genially respond by shoving those figurative wilting-but-still-thorny flowers up your figurative ass, with a smile and hopes that we can lower the rhetoric again.
If not, excuse me, but you are over-reacting in a way I do NOT believe you would in person.
Posted by: Sue Laris | March 26, 2008 9:54 PM
Also, remember that "lib'rls" generally have, as they say, a fuckin' LIFE, while the high point of a Bushite's week is going to church to be told that heaven won't be as shitty as his/her earth existance is.
Bush-"republican" polotics is the organizing of the viciously unhappy in the interest of the leaders seeking to perfect the banality of Evil.
Posted by: Sue Laris | March 26, 2008 10:04 PM
Woody - We are defending freedom of thought. The right for our minds to be free of religous dogma. The right to not be bullied into bowing before a lie. The right to not have our souls held hostage so that others may gain more power. The right to search for the truth of the universe in our own way and someday find a way off this God forsaken rock and get away from all these damned crackpots!
Posted by: Bill | March 26, 2008 10:04 PM
Ahh...so this is that hegemonious PZed Mafia the enemy is always intimating.
Pretty funny that the creationists think we all are in lock step. They must be projecting something fierce.
Posted by: scote | March 26, 2008 10:06 PM
2. Have someone else in the house shout, "Honey, can you hurry up? The chicken is trying to get away."
3. Say, "I'd love to listen to what you have to say, but can you give me a hand with something first?", and hand them each a roll of Saran Wrap.
Works every time.
Oh, and this article is dead-on. Fucking-A.
Posted by: markbt73 | March 26, 2008 10:10 PM
I second #58
There is no Intelligent Design; there's creationism
There is no Creationism; there's Bible-thumping
Nothing is "faith-based"; it's 'religious'
There's no such thing as a "death tax" There's an estate tax. (the Paris Hilton tax)
There's no such thing as "islamofascism"; there are violent cults.
There is no Iraq war: there's an occupation.
This isn't the "Homeland": it's the Former United States.
This could go on an on. Is there a website or something?
Posted by: Dzho | March 26, 2008 10:16 PM
Well, I've seen PZ's traffic stats. It seems to work for him. And to everyone who finds it so unappealing: Why do you read him?
Posted by: Stephanie Z | March 26, 2008 10:50 PM
#58 right on.
The one that really gets me is the term "values voters" - everyone uses it.
Code for anti-gay, -immigration, and -choice. Even liberal democrats use the phrase, sometimes adding air quotes, as if they help. No, all it says is "if you oppose these views, you have no values."
George Lakoff, most of whose ideas on framing I agree with*, got it exactly right. Stop using their words.
(*He's actually came up with some new words to use, in