Letters to the Editor
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Salon.com, bravely reading books you would never read yourself.
Cry me a river, you poor oppressed White men.
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"Moral equivalent of war"
War on drugs, war on poverty. Conspicuously missing: actual war!
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The final words are all that are required reading here
Frankly, I think judging this book by it's cover is all that Goldberg could hope for. Any serious writing would call for a thought-provoking first look, not the immature baiting that this one utilizes.
All in all, I think Jonah sums it up nicely by reminding us that he is, indeed, just a "doughy pantload".
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I Tried
But, I couldn't get interested in Jonah Goldberg's take on anything. What a waste of (4 Pages!!) space. How about an interview with someone who's relavent - georgejr, maybe? - No, Jonah's on a par...
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Typical conservative: deny reality about the right, cherrypick liberal extremism
With this set of statements, Goldberg puts himself in the company of all the cliched major conservative players in the way he distorts the motives and actions of right vs. left:
"I don't think that the equation between liberalism and conservatism goes as far as you would like to take it. You know, you have environmental groups giving out kits and instructions about how to have environmentally conscious sex. You don't have conservative groups talking about what kind of condoms you should use or what positions you can be in. That kind of thing doesn't really go on."
Uh, maybe there are environmental groups giving out instructions on environmentally conscious sex, or maybe there aren't. Can anyone confirm if this is true? If so, is it a well-funded, mainstream group, or a small, fringe one? Is it multiple groups, as he suggests by using the plural? The fact is, there is no major effort by liberals to force people to think about sex in environmental terms.
HOWEVER, there is a huge, well-funded, and in the Bush administration, well-rewarded, effort by many, many vocal and prominent conservative individuals and groups not just to talk about which condoms you should use, but to convince us we shouldn't use condoms at all! Abstinence and steering teenagers--not to mention Africans at risk of contracting AIDS--away from condom use is a top policy priority for Republicans. And one they unfortunately have succeeded at inflicting on the country and the world, solving nothing and instead causing unwanted pregnancies and further spread of disease.
Name a Democratic politician who has requested funding for promotion of environmentally conscious sex. You can't, because it's a bullsh*t straw man.
So like conservatives do, Goldberg either lies outright here or simply deludes himself into believing that conservatives don't bother themselves about issues like sex and condoms -- "That kind of thing doesn't really go on" -- while trying to use some anecdotal and who-knows-if-it's-even-true fringe example about environmental sex instruction as a characterization of how liberals allegedly try to control all aspects of people's lives. And he has the lack of self-awareness to accuse other people of not being serious. Give me a f-ing break.
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People get hung up on stupid words.
Left, "You're the Nazi".
Right, "No, you're the Nazi!"
Left, "Wrong, you're the Nazi!!"
Right, "Screw you! NAZI!"
Left, "Fuck off, Nazi!"
Right, "Nazi!!"
Left, "NNNNNAZI!!!!"
The left AND the right are driving this country off the cliff. It does not matter who is doing it and who the Nazi is, BOTH are engaged in cynical, manipulative totalitarian junk.
How about, there are Left/Right Wing Extremists on the one hand, and there are Decent People on the other.
The marionettes who are bought and paid for in the Demopublican Party are on the former, Ron Paul is in the matter.
Hence, all of you are evil except those voting for Ron Paul, who believes in a strong free nation, not in lying, pandering, unjust, "we'll tell you what to do and think" bullshit.
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Ron Paul is in the LATTER
you knew that.
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The mama's boy doughboy speaks.
Pudgy-wudgy Jonah Goldberg has ridden his harpy mother's coattails into a job as a hack rightwing pundit. He has very little talent and even less capacity for critical thought. The fact that he has gotten so far with his mommy's help as to be discussed in Salon is a far more interesting phenomenon to be discussed than his instantly forgettable "book."
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I'd be interested to know if he considers...
- The state making abortion illegal fascism.
- The state blocking pornography fascism.
- The state requiring schools to give equal time to
conservative views fascism.
- The state stopping you from walking outside nude fascism.
- The state stopping you from walking onto a plane with a
gun fascism.
- The state stopping euthenasia fascism.
- The state stopping drug use fascism.
I mean are Driver's Licenses fascism?
If the state stops me from stealing, killing, raping are they being fascist? Is the only answer to being fascist being an anarchist instead? Or do state sponsored conservative "rules" get a pass here?
However if the state stops me from dumping poison on my land that kills, reduces the property value of neighbors (stealing), and is no doubt raping the land, that's definitely um, fascist?
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Hostile room
"Loving and gentle, all else is treason."
When you foolishly flock to the latest PC holy war, you have already lost. Certainly a lot of hostile opinion in the letters so far.
Truth(tm) is an impossibly fragile gossamer entity. You just cannot fasten a handle on a soap bubble and drag it intact to class for show-and-tell.
I'll take the holy, but spare me the war.
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You should probably...
Rlloyd97 should probably have read the whole article, or at least the last paragraph before he made such a hilarious post.
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A refreshing viewpoint
In it's day, "Mein Kampf" was considered a refreshing viewpoint.
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Garbage
Apparently Jonah really needed to clearcut several acres of forest to provide the paper for his masturbatory exercise in Godwin's law.
The definition of vanity publishing is writing something just to say you've published it, whether anyone reads it, believes it or even cares. Since he's arguing something no actual historian would believe and does contributes nothing substantive to historical understanding, I'd say he's hit it on the head.
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Oh, god. Liberalizing Nixon. What a crock!
I'm not even finished reading the article, but this made me so livid, I had to write about it immediately. I'll come back to the rest of the bullcrap later, but this line is beyond the pale:
As for the war on drugs part, I think you make a perfectly fine point, except I would argue that Nixon was not a particularly conservative guy. Measured by today's standards and today's issues, Nixon would be in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.
Nixon was against all of the "liberal" things he gets uncritical credit for today. Nixon was against the EPA, against OSHA, and spoke against them. But, he had a veto-proof democratic majority in the congress to contend with. He signed the bills because he wanted to look like a good guy, and he knew if he vetoed them he'd be overridden.
He also gets credit for "opening the door to China." He doesn't deserve it, because he was chief among the McCarthyists who would have wasted no time calling anyone else who went to China a stinking pinko commie. He was the only one who could, because he had the "moral authority" engendered by his dirty politics and lies.
Please don't be taken in by the big lie of Nixon, the liberal.