If only someone would give right-wingers the vote.
Wait.
Did that.
Back in ’76.
1776, or thereabouts, anyway.
Shit.
If only someone would … wait, I know! Give right-wingers more votes than everybody else!
THEN everything would be fine!
seem to be very effective in getting them to eschew violence. In fact,
itseems to be a very good way of getting more violence.
Possibly because those fringes have often turned to violence precisely
because they feel that the political process has been closed off to
them.
Lady, are you smoking crack? Are you smoking crack while sitting in a cloud of crack-smoke wearing a T-shirt that says I HEART CRACK while waiting for your crackhead boyfriend to come home with more crack that you sent him out to get so that you’d have some crack when you were done with the crack you’re smoking now? Seriously? Because last I checked, “not being able to convince somebody else that you’re not a fucking lunatic and that your ideas about everything should be adopted by everybody” doesn’t qualify as “the political process has been closed off” to you. That’s not how this works, that’s not how this has ever worked, and to coddle domestic terrorists by saying they were just pushed to it because they weren’t handed everything they ever wanted is … special. Some kind of special. Some kind of something, that’s for sure. What the fuck, today? It’s like all the stupid were set free from their stupid-farm for some kind of idiotrumspringa of 24 hours.
For eight fucking years anybody to the left of Pinochet had to kick back and watch while sensible centrists and the Coalition of the Involuntarily Committable got together and raped the country and fucked up the whole world. For eight fucking years we were told that marching in the streets with giant puppets was the most horrific form of treason imaginable, was demoralizing our troops and hurting the debate and making the baby Pope Benedict cry. Not once did I ever in that time hear Megan McArdle or any of her other sensible friends discuss how maybe, just maybe, President Bush and his administration had PUSHED us to the edge, where we HAD to make those puppets because we felt the political process was closed to us.
No, back then it was “elections have consequences” and “you lost” and “look upon my works, ye mighty, and fuck off,” and anytime anybody had the temerity to say, “erm, dude, if you don’t mind I’ll be over here with this sign on a stick” they might as well have been plotting to shoe-bomb Air Force One the way the whiners in the nuttersphere howled and shrieked. There was none of this, “you just don’t know how hard it is to be on the losing end of everything including your soul” back then. Just them, partying with Free Republic on the White House lawn, waving their big foam fingers in our faces going “nyah nyah nyah.”
Now that they’re out of power, natch, what choice do they have but to go shoot up church lobbies in the hopes of bagging abortion doctors for their trophy wall of American apostates? Really, what else could they do? It’s not like they could vote, or convince other people to listen to them, or organize, or do any of the damn things I feel like we’ve been doing since before there was dirt in order to get a not-entirely-crazy in-another-life-he’d-be-a-moderate-Republican dude finally elected so a third of the country could act like Satan just put his feet up on their mother’s white-clothed dinner table. It’s not like they could do anything else, right? They had to start shooting.
Right?
A.
At least we didn’t threaten to curb-stomp anybody.
I marched amidst the puppets in 2003 and 2004 with an American flag, and anyone who asked me why i chose a flag rather than a sign or a puppet learned that just because the media was telling me everyday that the flag wasn’t mine anymore (because I was a protester, and not a jingoist), did not mean I had to play that game. The flag is mine too. It’s not Bush’s, Limbaugh’s, or that guy with the Truck Nutz’ to take away from me.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Too bad he had a gun, and not a flagpole.
maybe they should MOVE ON.
couple dozen LGBTQ folks get murdered every year. I guess I have no recourse but to take the law and karma and judgment and whatever into my own hands, huh?
Next time I read about some guy raping a child, or a serial killer preying on the populace, I guess it’s up to me to bring them to justice.
There’s losing and there’s being a vigilante. The latter is a crime.
That was just a beautiful rant, Athenae.
After an evening of reading ManCow waterboarding flamewars on RPGnet, which inspired one person to actually waterboard himself you still win @angry rants.
What we see here is an example of conservatives’ immense sense ofentitlement on display. McArdle apparently believes thatfailing to convince a majority of people she’s right is equivalent tohaving the political process closed to her. Because I guess she thinks that she DESERVES to get her way, regardless of democracy?
I know that the idea that Athenae writes rants is fun, but actually this is just excellent writing. Calling her sharp sentences and crackerjack metaphors a rant somehow makes them seem less powerful. It’s like when they referred to us as “the angry left” and assume we all live in our parents basement. It’s as if we didn’t deserve to be angry and we can’t write circles around them.
Seriously, they worked very hard to keep us tamed what with the free speech zones and the mocking. I think that the media actually LIKE the idea of the right wing getting violent. It’s conflict! If it bleeds it leads! Us pussy DFHs don’t have the balls to shoot someone! Of course when someone on the left does they become “unrepentant terrorist Willian Ayers”
I just found out today that M elanie M organ got a radio syndication gig with a Moonie Times writer. They are going to be conservative muckraking journalists because heaven’s know we need hard hitting “journalmalism” from the right. “Obama is not a citizen!” That and other stories will be broken wide open!!
I shoulda stayed in Europe, much saner people.
“McArdle apparently believes that failing to convince a majority of people she’s right is equivalent to having the political process closed to her.”
Actually, her “political process was closed” was a Roe v. Wade reference. That does not bring her logic back to life, of course, but folks ought to at least rebut the point she is making.
But it’s not closed to her, not even if she was talking about Roe. She can still organize, and try to convince people to elect representatives of which she approves, like say, a Republican, to high office, like say, president, who can then put different judges on the supreme court who are able to overturn Roe.
See, political process = Open. No need to start shooting.
I’m sitting on an atheaena cloud, wearing an “I heart Athanae” t shirt, and dreaming that the whole world is made up of Athaenae. That was a f*cking righteous speech, even the moderate Hilzoy agrees and insists on those little asterisks.
aimai
I suppose it would be redundant to say that they “may very well amount to a fifth column.”
One observation: marginalizing yourself in response to attempts to marginalize you is not, contra McArdle (and what isn’t, really?), an especially sensible strategy. The only way to combat marginalization is normalization.
Her equivalency of organizing within the political process to expand women’s choice with invading a country that didn’t attack us and committing war crimes in the process makes me sick to my stomach.
Hilzoy should leave your fucking words alone. If you’d have meant “oh fudge” you’d have written “oh fudge”, n’est-ce pas?
“Actually, her “political process was closed” was a Roe v. Wade reference. That does not bring her logic back to life, of course, but folks ought to at least rebut the point she is making.”
Posted by: Tom Maguire
Seven out of 9 SCOTUS justices are GOP; 4 of them are radical right-wingers. The right has had pretty good success keeping the SCOTUS in supermajority GOP hands, and is now holding one-vote-less-than-majority in Opus Dei-level right-wingism.
And in addition, your comment gives license to anybody who disagrees with SCOTUS decisions to take whatever actions they please. Were you saying that after Bush vs. Gore?
Thats moronic, Barry. Athenae’s point is clear–civil disobedience and peaceful protest–good and necessary in a democracy. Violent attacks on private citizens, criminal activity and harm to other individuals because your panties are in a bunch–not ok.
How hard is it to see the difference, the centuries long difference, between the citizens right to peacefully “petition” its government–which is a constitutional right–and the right of religious nutcases to shoot everyone they dislike? There’s kind of a big difference there.
aimai
because bush vs gore WASN’T POLITICAL. fuck you.
taint it enough georgee was not deposed years ago?
Shorter Megan McArdle: We should let the terrorists win.