49 Comments

What Ayn Rand did for pure libertarianism, you have done, in a small way, for Murc’s law: only Dems have agency. The principal you illustrate has the distinction of being true, as opposed to the fantasy of pure laissez faire.

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The mainstream media love to impute power to the Dems that they don't have. Makes the failures more prominent and worse than if, you know, they didn't have power to act in the first place. Then again, *informing* isn't their primary job; attracting an audience is.

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They aren't the only ones.

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"What Ayn Rand did for pure libertarianism"

You mean, the sheer incoherency?

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Hey, The Fountainhead is a helluva film, no thanks to Ms. Rand's wooden dialogue.

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I’m back with my broken record: conservatives are the Matt Bors Nazi cartoon, all the way down.

1. Random GOP candidate supports The Big Lie, has sex with underage girls, got busted for drugs

2. Democratic political ad: This GOP candidate supports The Big Lie, has sex with underage girls, got busted for drugs

3. GOP voter: Wow, sounds great, he’s my guy!

It’s apparently the case that GOP voters have no agency. They also have no capacity for logic, discernment, or for that matter anything more than brain stem activity. I mean *I’ve* believed that for quite some time but I’m surprised the NYT and other major publications are endorsing the theory.

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Wait'll they find out that the campaign of Ms. Deep State herself, Hilary Clinton, paid for ads in 2016 that did just what you're talking about here: highlighting all the wonderful reasons Real™ Republicans™ love Donald Trump. And that's why those RR's voted for him! If it weren't for Hillary, Hillary would be President!

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"If it weren't for Hillary, Hillary would be President!"

Revealed, a compelling and succinct truism about 2016 we* can all take to the bank.

*The Flocks Gnus punditocracy.

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Hillary is her own worst enemy, except for the approximately 90 million people who hate her even more.

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Dangerous Donald!

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Shame on the New York Times looking down on the common folk who vote Republican. As penance for this act of Liberal Elitism, they will now send half of the reporting staff out on the Ohio Diner beat.

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I am concerned for the NYT editorial board. They are clutching their pearls so hard over these ads that I'm afraid they might have a stroke.

Narrator: He was not concerned.

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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I was going to note my question about these Dem ad buys but nah, some other time. Too funny to spike with reality. Ditto the implication that these people are *that* stupid. Some other time, maybe.

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Derplomatic Impunity: It's not your fault; we'll do what we want anyways. . .

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Look, I would have voted for the not-Nazi guy. But then I saw this ad about how the other guy was an actual Nazi and, well, what choice did I have, really? I know my dad is really upset by my supporting the Nazi, but then my dad's been woke ever since that German freedom fighter in France shot three fingers off dad's left hand.

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"We were just peacefully occupying France at the time, when some heavily armed agents of the Deep State came barging on up our beaches. It was self-defense!"

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See Cthielhu's perrenial 'Why pick the LESSER of two evils?'

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I was kinda hopin' you'd take on this...thing...the Dems be doin'. 2 marks, not for appeasin' me, just fer the grins.

Oh, and also too: why punk the drag queens? I do not get what the deal is with dissin' on funny cars and stockers. I just love the smell of nitromethane...

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Murc's Law.

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I would like to preface this by saying I got a new batch of weed ready and folks, I'm here to tell you, this shit is the funk. So if I have some issues staying on topic, well, sorry (not sorry).

Anyway, here in Southwest Ohio where it's been my experience you don't have to look very hard to find an actual Nazi, there's a racist on every other seat in the diner downtown and most nearly everyone you meet he's honestly kind of stupid. Today's cogent ever so well-written Ed Rosso essay seems more "ripped from today's headlines names have been changed to protect the innocent" to me than " satirical essay featuring broad characters and exaggerated situations to entertain and prove a point". Either way it was great stuff. I read a lot of things and it's always such a treat when I get to read something well written.

Anyway on the way into work this morning I was

thinking about the Kansas election from early this week-

I think the GOP really stepped in some shit. And I don't think it's just abortion rights. I think overall by and large Americans are cool with the Sexual Revolution. A generous common sense approach to sex makes everyday life a whole hell of a lot easier to cope with. It's nice not to have to care about whether your kids are gay or if you're going to be somehow mistreated because you're gay. We've come a long way on the subject in my lifetime. There is a terrific amount of beneficial harmless gratification available to those with a common sense attitude. People aren't ready to give that up no matter what Mr./Miss/Mrs. Dry Coochie Old Biddy thinks. ( year before last two of the ladies in production got into quite the brouhaha and at one point one of the ladies called the other lady a "Dry Coochie Old Biddy". Everybody loved that. We called one another that frequently for the next couple of months. I suspect most DCOBs vote Republican.

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DCOBs need liberal* love too...

*I mean the application of the appropriate lube

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If you can keep a population twisted up & conflicted about the impulses they feel down below you can keep them angry & paranoid & hateful. This is exactly why the alt-right recruits incels -- and once they join something like the Proud Boys insist that they do they refrain from masturbation.

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Wondering where Lil' Ben Shapiro stands on this DCOB question, we all know that public pronouncements about the moisture level of ones privates has met with his disapproval in the past, but "I'm proud of my LOW moisture" might be OK with him?

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I was gonna say this satire will turn to irony right quick (like in a nanosecond or so) when they actually start spouting it.

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Sorry, we are oversupplied on irony at the present time, and will not be taking any further irony in the foreseeable future, thanks.

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Because authoritarianism is the new "in" thing with conservatives you'll take all the additional servings of irony we care to dish out, mister!

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Well, it IS fiction.

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There's a Ben Shapiro segue in there somewhere.

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The bikini model is on loan from Shapiro Productions, LLC.

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I am *so* glad I'm not the only one giving the side-eye to the navel-gazers bashing anyone for "promoting GQP candidates". That's some 11th dimensional chess reverse psychology if you think that campaign advertisement caused the less-insane Republican't to lose his primary. The chickenshits won't even own up to their own ownage.

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Hearted for "own up to their own ownage"

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What issue can the media amplify that will get Republicans back in charge? Gas prices had their day but sadly failed to keep rising. Inflation is still in the running because what good is a historic unemployment rate if Joe can’t afford his six pack? Monkeypox shows promise: a national emergency of 7000 cases of a disease that requires close personal contact with not enough vaccine for all the Red staters who knew those gays were going to give them something icky. And now a surprise contender, Democrats paying for ads that promote assholes they hope they can beat in November - unfair! Media would prefer “moderate” Republicans win out. Of course those Republicans are a figment of David Brooks’ imagination but who else should media owners listen to, if not David Fucking Brooks? Some mornings while watching Good Morning America I wonder, what would happen if one of rotating anchors paused part way through pushing one of these messages and said, “Fuck this, people, we have a fascist party with their installed Supreme Court Justices out there remaking America into their dream of a country where nobody counts except racist forced birthers - woke? You ain’t nearly awake enough if you aren’t scared as hell!” C’mon, Michael Strahan, tackle this moment like a Manning quarterback in a collapsing pocket.

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"Media would prefer 'moderate' Republicans win out."

The Times editorial quoted Adam Kinzinger saying something like, "You Democrats say you want moderate Republicans, and then you do this?" And I'm sorry, Adam, but the only hope for any moderate Republicans in our future is for the whole Republican party to be burnt to the ground and rebuilt from scratch. Republicans need to lose everywhere, all the time, for probably three or four election cycles before their idiot base wises up to the fact that success does not lie in this direction. You're young, Adam, maybe we'll get some kind of normal political party named "Republican" before you die, but you'd better get busy making bank in the private sector just in case that doesn't work out.

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Ok, OK...enough with the football! There's still 7 weeks of baseball before the playoffs!

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FWIW, the monkey pox tocsin seems to be a rerun of Ebola 2014 when the media-engorged hysteria was used to bash Obama going into the election and then it was all over within 24 hours of polls closing.

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Sure, Democrats are free to spend money on whatever ads they want to run, and I'm free to take that into consideration when I get the five-thousandth fundraising email from Nancy Pelosi.

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I'm kind of surprised by the complaints I'm not hearing about those Democratic "hey, this Republican candidate is a lunatic" ads. I mean, assuming "if we just point out that this candidate is delusional surely the voters will notice" is the act of a Party that still thinks the guard rails will hold while the car is already in mid-air. Maybe the problem is that this should be one of those "whisper campaigns" (hey, remember when people had to whisper slanderous lies?) like John McCain fathering a child of color out of wedlock, except whispering the truth kind of misses the point. I think its good that the Democratic Party is trying to come to terms with reality, but they've got a ways to go yet.

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"It means it’s not your fault."

One sentence every conservative LOVES to hear.

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I don't know, you guys. The premise of this piece is that conservatives--or, at least, Republicans--have, however vestigial, a sense of shame. But that ship has sunk. Any party that would run Herschel Walker for public office is, by any definition, entirely sociopathic.

As for the MAGA rank and file, politics is, for them (and speaking of Walker), football by other means. Fault and responsibility have nothing to do with it. The goal is to inflict as much pain on, or to elicit as much outrage from, Dems, as possible, and thus to "win." It's touching that Roy thinks the choads have consciences that might occasionally need some soothing. But these people voted for Trump. Twice!

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"But that ship has sunk"

2 marks!

Re: Politics as football...only if we get to threaten the lives of the refs' families, then run over them with our pickemup trucks at half time, and then tilt the entire field downhill whichever way we choose. Oh. And the wind: we get to control the weather so we always have a tailwind. Then we're good.

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Blaming Democrats for your own choices could just mean you really, really enjoy blaming Democrats for stuff, and this is one more opportunity for that enjoyment. No conscience or feelings of guilt required. To say "Blaming others for X must mean you disapprove of X" is employing logic, and we should all know better than to do that.

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As Harold Ross used to say, back when he invented the New Yorker, "YOU'VE GOT ME THERE!"

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