Stumbled into your “blog.” Can’t understand how a “veteran” could be a big dumb lib. I know alot of vets and none of them are “socialists.” Makes me wonder if maybe you might be lying about your military service, chief? Because I “cannot” understand how a supposed vet like you could support the fascist traitor Obama and his socialist dumbocrats. But, yeah, you keep fighting the “good fight” there, you hear?
Couple things:
1) By “Stumbled into your blog” do you mean using the StumbleUpon service for Firefox or Chrome? Because if so I hope you gave me a big thumbs up! Thanks!
2) Quote marks are for quoting, not for emphasis. The rule applies to both liberals and conservatives. See the example in the previous paragraph, also note the use of italics in this paragraph to denote emphasis. Perhaps English is not your first language? If so, I certainly hope you are a lawful guest in this country and not some nasty stinky illegal alien here to eat our good Christian babies and steal our jobs.
3) I don’t think either the words “fascist” or “socialist” mean what you think they mean (also, note the proper use of quote marks). Allow me to explain (don’t worry, I’ll use really small words):
Let’s start in the middle, where you have Centrists, moving left you have moderate liberals, moving a little more left you have Liberals (note the big “L”), moving further left you have Socialists, and moving even further left left left, you end up with Communists.
Note the lack of Fascists.
See fascism is on the other side of the aisle. That would be your side, just in case you’re as obtuse as you sound (that means “stupid” and “ignorant”).
Again, let’s start in the middle, only this time we’ll go to the right. Centrist, Progressive, moderate conservative, Conservative, batshit crazy Neo-Conservative, Fascist.
Sort of explains why the Nazis (fascists) hated the Soviets (Commies) and vice versa, doesn’t it?
Labeling Obama a Fascist is the same as calling him an ultra conservative.
Here’s a handy diagram to help you keep it straight:
4) Print this out and show your friends in the militia.
5) Lose my email address and please, fuck right off. Thanks.
Seriously, folks, the words, they’re really not interchangeable.
Thank you! I was beginning to feel like a lone voice in the wilderness on this issue.
ReplyDeleteCertain elements in this country (far to the right on your nice chart) can be so achingly stupid...
Now I wonder why it didn't show my quoted text...?
ReplyDeleteWill it this time?
Seriously, folks, the words, they’re really not interchangeable.
Perhaps, Alesia, you should have used quote marks instead of "italics?"
ReplyDeleteBawahahaha.
Small quibble: while I understand you're using the historical definition of Progressivism (a la Theodore Roosevelt), in today's U.S. political climate, Progressive is considered to be to the left of center. Actually, it's between Liberals and Socialists. Otherwise you're spot on.
ReplyDelete--- Carol Elaine, Progressive
I must express my agreement with Carol. Today, a "Progressive" is one who champions the progress of Liberal causes more vehemently than a Liberal. At least, I am.
DeleteThere it is, the Liberals trying to redefine the English language of Jesus like some kind of English technocracy or something.
ReplyDelete*smacks self on forehead*
ReplyDeleteWhy didn't I think of that?
Too much holiday eggnog, obviously...
Carol Elaine totally beat me to it. Modern Progressivism is leftist; sometimes as an alternative to "liberal" (since that word is frequently perceived as discredited in post-Reagan America), sometimes (as Carol Elaine says) as a stripe of liberalism.
ReplyDeleteEven historically, I'd contend it had a leftist bent: the Progressives of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries were reformers whose agenda included unionization and governmental antitrust regulation, among other things. (The latter, of course, being the reason they were a surprisingly natural fit for Theodore Roosevelt when he broke with the Republican party.) Historical Progressives were bedfellows with the socialists, though American reactionaries did such a boffo job discrediting socialism that they ultimately distanced themselves from the far left.
-Eric, also a progressive (and liberal with strong socialist leanings)
---
"thapegal": tha nabe ob da shipb Dahwin sailed to tha Galabagos Islands on.
Quiet down, you fascist rabble!
ReplyDeleteNah, Jim, it's that college book learning that turns us into elitists who don't have any of that good ol' common sense your former governator's always referring to in that book what she wrote.
ReplyDelete---
bortsan: (archaic) a large lead weight connected to a string used by sailors in the 1700s to measure barometric pressure, also referred to as a "Davy Jones stringdiddle."
Eric, I never finished my college learning - just took a few classes here and there that interested me. Does that mean I have a little good ol' non-elitist common sense left?
ReplyDeleteepers = the rating of a dyslexic psychic
Hope you don't mind a nitpick, but your chart says "Moderate, Progressive" while your text says "Progressive, Moderate."
ReplyDeletereinate = to halt a cyborg horse
Hah! My book learning didn't have any of that. So there! And I have a lot of "book learning", in which I learned to employ italics and quotation marks.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure my stint teaching evolution to poor innocent undergrads just puts the final nail in the coffin.
"Hummil" - a modest Middle Eastern chickpea dish
And it also depends on where you stand. Since the Right has moved itself to the Ultra Right (just as a reminder, Judge Sandra Day O'Connor used to be a middle of the road conservative and her position on issues didn't change), Progessives, even if once right of Center, are now firmly in the left (as the freeze dried whackaloons moved the center point since the 80s, farther in the 90s, and exteemely so in the aughts).
ReplyDeleteemita - what a radio transmitter does
Did I read that right? Forget the part where you were required to educate the “frothy Obama hating person”. I can not believe someone actually questioned your military service. As someone who served with Jim in the “actual” military, of which I’m willing to bet he/she did not. I can honestly say he is one of the finest Chief’s and Military Officers I’ve ever met. The next time you care to question Jim’s service at least capitalize the “C” in Chief, Jim has certainly earned that much.
ReplyDeleteHave you been where I work? This post sounds like the afternoon Drudge report recap, the Rush recap, Hannity recap, but they stay away from O'Reilly, he talks too fancy and they don't like blowing the dust off the dictionary round these parts.
ReplyDeleteSorry Craig Bailey, but I have to burst your bubble here. I happen to know that, not only is Jim's military history imaginary, Jim, himself (note proper use of italics), is a work of fiction. He'd have you believe he's a retired Navy Chief, living in small-town Alaska with his wife and tween. In fact, he's really an utterly precocious 11-year-old girl posting from Ulan Bator. (Her real name is Naranbaater Narentsetseg - Sun hero Sunflower).
ReplyDeleteShe tried blogging under her own name when she started but nobody took her seriously. Then she came up with the "Jim Wright" persona and she's been milking it for all she's worth ever since. She even went so far as to get herself named Persona non grata in certain precincts by telling some dumb joke about Princess Leia in a bikini. (It was a stroke of genius and solidified the inability to pin down "Jim Wright" and his place on the "Communist - Fascist" sliding scale.)
Her wood turning is also something of a fiction. All of those bowls and bird feeders are actually turned by hand by the various men of her village and prior to the creation of "Jim Wright" they just sat around gathering dust (and snow). Now, "Jim Wright's" bowls are supporting the entire village and they've made enough money to buy an automated Yak milker. Way to go, Naranbaater!
One of these days, she fully intends to come clean about the whole thing, but in the meantime, when she says things like "I can see Sarah Palin from here", you'll know it's a much more impressive feat than previously believed.
boramb = a tasty but dangerous genetic mixing of wild pig and sheep. (also the sound they make when butting heads.)
You could at least point us to the blog entry this comment appeared under.
ReplyDeleteHitler claimed to be a socialist and everybody knows he never lied.
Nathan
ReplyDeleteYou were never supposed to let the yak out of the bag.
rette military short form for retrograde march
Warner, it was one of the many admiring emails I've received recently.
ReplyDeleteNathan, small correction - the bowls are actually made by the children of my village, working in the heroic people's factories. They also make sweatshirts and sneakers. Also, thank you very much for bringing up the Leia Bikini Debacle, again. Jerk.
MWT, well, as has been previously noted the chart is apparently full of nits.
But, but...the e:mailer knows "ALOT" of vets.* Don't you see that makes him or her (I'm betting "him," but only because I'm a sexist) an EXPERT in ALL THINGS MILITARY AND POLITICAL?
ReplyDeleteYou people just don't understand how REAL AMERICANS think and feel. It's really kind of sad, actually, since we're on the verge of TAKING OUR COUNTRY BACK.
Okay, that last part made me throw up in my mouth a little.
And Werner, you win the Internet today for writing "let the yak out of the bag."
*I'm pretty sure I know more vets than e:mail boy. And as a bonus, I also know that "a lot" is two words. But since I'm a big dumb lib, I guess my superior knowledge of the military and the English language should not be taken seriously.
tareavi = A sauce used to season the meat of Christian babies before they're roasted over a liberal fire.
Well Jim, you have more interesting admirers than I thought
ReplyDeleteburedge what the edge of the bowl is before the children deburr it with their teeth.
You wouldn't believe some of the hate mail I get. Especially since the Hasan shooting and the posts I wrote.
ReplyDeleteAlso the Liberalism, Conservatism, and Insanity post linked to in the header generates regular hate mail at least several times a week. And lately that post has gotten all kinds of attention, I'm not sure why.
Mostly I find the hate mail entertaining, especially the ones that offer to pray for my soul while damning me to hell for all eternity. Soon. A while back I got a number of death threats or threats of violence, those I found less entertaining. Haven't got one of those in a while - maybe I need to write another gay marriage or abortion post? Maybe something about Mensa?
To be fair though, I get at least an equal amount or more of supportive and cool email too.
Also, I get a lot of offers for discount Viagra and Rolex Watches. Also, there's a nice rich lady in Nigeria who wants to marry me and love me long time boom boom for Jesus.
The true "Jim" revealed at last.
ReplyDelete(I figured out that the omnipresent little bluetooth thingie in his ear is really a hologram generator that creates that "face" he uses online.)
I was truly afraid to click on that link, I was sure there'd be a Leia Bikini in there somewhere.
ReplyDeleteThe latest right-wingnuttia is the "Liberal Fascist" book, more accurately alt-history novel, by Jonah Goldberg.
ReplyDeleteTalking to Goldberg's believers can be like going through the Looking Glass...
I'm sitting in an actual university reading this, so clearly, I[m already in hell. [Reaches for holiday eggnog, flavors with pinch of brimstone]
ReplyDeleteuncest- the technical term for the sex life (or lack thereof) of Frothy Obama-haters
Liberal fascist?
ReplyDeleteis that like NeoCons for Gay Marriage?
So Jim, you want to be a published author?
ReplyDeleteJust collect your hate mail into a book. And, you know, give them grades.
Yeah, I know there's another book with a title sorta like that--but that author never actually published the emails, let alone discussed the grades he allegedly gave out to them.
So you'd be breaking new ground.
aketanso -- new martial art combining aikido and the tango
Nick, maybe I could write in a coffee shop?
ReplyDeleteChris, I can't stand Goldberg. Granted, I can't stand most (or any) of the talking heads on the far right, but Goldberg impresses me as the ten year old in the corner who thinks he's smarter than anyone else because he knows some big words and will string them together, even if they don't make any sense.
ReplyDeleteMind you, I used to be that ten year old, but I eventually grew up. Goldberg? Not so much.
affila = half-hearted partnership
is that like NeoCons for Gay Marriage?
ReplyDeleteNo, it's a bullshit argument that Facsism is really a liberal idea. Much is made of the Nazis being the "National Socialist Party. That and a bunch of mis-quotes is what passes for "analysis" in Goldberg's book.
Let me explain it all for you:
ReplyDeleteFox News = Ministry of Truth
Rush, Beck, O'Reilly, Teabaggers, neocons = Newspeak
How to best describe all the idiots like the one who emailed you? Doubleplusungood
"In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy."
Nice. I actually laughed out loud in my office. Then my secretary gave me a strange look. Thanks Stonekettle Station!
ReplyDelete-tt
I live to amuse, tt
ReplyDeleteJim, don't be a liar, liar, pants on fire. You don't live to amuse. You live to poke the morons with a stick. In public.
ReplyDeleterabilfn = a moron e:mailer's medication when he can't decide if he has ADD or rabies.
Jim,
ReplyDeleteRecently you semi-bashed my favorite SF TV show Babylon 5 which kinda pissed me off. (Not that you would care ....)
B5 had a story arc about the rise of "Nightwatch," a group of patriotic citizens dedicated to preventing crime, including disloyalty and treason.
Here's what the creator of Babylon 5 had to say about such a concept back in 1996. (Printed without permission under fair use doctrine.) Also: EA = Earth Alliance, the military force.
96-02-28 04:29:16
Here's something to consider in this.
It's easy -- safe and reassuring -- to dismiss Nightwatch and the whole political climate on Earth at this time as referring to Nazi germany...SS, Stormtroopers, informers...but if we know our history, it shows that this is not so isolated as we might think. If we say it was just the Nazis, then it's a non-repeatable phenomenon, we needn't worry about it again.
But, of course, it does happen again...it did, and it will, to varying degrees. Go back to the Inquisition, and forward to Joe McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) which destroyed lives and reputations based on association, past history, social contacts and party
affiliations (the items specified by Musante to the EA folks in Nightwatch). Stalin and to a lesser extent Lenin would have been right at home in Nightwatch. Several of the leaders speaking for parties in the ruins of what was once Yugoslavia would also fit.
It's easy, and safe, for us to say, "Oh, we would never do that, only THEY did that." But the "they" in this ARE the we on the other side...and "we"
have done it, are doing it now, and will continue to do it. Only when we *know* the history of such things, when we recognize the rhetoric of control, when we oppose blacklisting and scapegoating and dead-catting do we help to assure that they *won't* arise again. Remember the quote: "Those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it."
There's a great deal of generalized historical and political metaphor in the show, never one-to-one because that's too easy, but disguised in one form or another, transmuted. The Centauri Republic isn't a real republic by any stretch of the imagination...any more than the Roman Republic from which it draws some of its political structure, particularly the Centarum, the ruling body. There's a great deal of Japanese political and social structure to the Minbari, in their culture and art and some of their philosophy. You can find parallels to the story in World War II, and the bible, among a few dozen others.
[3 sentences deleted]
jms
nymene -- The writing on the wall, when the wall is in New York.
Nick, I didn't bash B5, or Star Trek, or Star Gate.
ReplyDeleteNow I do think SG is a direct knockoff of ST, and ST is a incestuous knock off of itself. But, what I was bashing are those pompous Fans who constantly complain about there being no originality in science fiction any more, BUT will only watch or read the same series over and over and over.
Case in point: Firefly. Fans: haha horses hahahaha we're not watching that, it's suuuuupid.
These people would rather have yet another Star Trek sequel instead, of say, Avatar - and anything that isn't a Star Trek sequal they turn their nose up at with pseudo intellectual disdain.
Jim,
ReplyDeleteI think the problem with many people is that they don't really understand the concept of "originality" in art.
There's a real difference between a trope, an homage or an inspiration and "copying" or "infringing". People get worked up for movies/books that use the same tropes even though it's perfectly fine. Many don't seem to understand the long standing since the age of civilization tradition of storytelling, myth and legend. Most of these folks have a completely wrong grasp of copyright law and trademarks too and spout infringement way too fast.
-tt
These people would rather have yet another Star Trek sequel instead, of say, Avatar - and anything that isn't a Star Trek sequal they turn their nose up at with pseudo intellectual disdain.
ReplyDeleteWell, since you can't spell "sequel" the same way twice in a paragraph that discusses Star Trek, you're obviously anti-Trek and aren't worth reading.
*mumbles* Stupid Star Wars fans...
frackebo = what adults and babies play in the BG universe
Hey, I'm not going to be constrained by you damned social fascists into some kind of cookie cutter spelling. Next thing you know, everybody will be be spelling the same way like good little Nazis.
ReplyDeleteNot me. No, not me. I'm not having any of your jackbooted progressive rightwing communism!
I love it. I have a series called "reader-submitted complaints" with all of the silly stuff and hate mail people send me. We need to bring this stuff to light, not leave it to moulder in our e-mail inboxes.
ReplyDeleteI have a series called "reader-submitted complaints"
ReplyDeleteI'd be afraid this crowd would simply take that as encouragement...
I have a series called "reader-submitted complaints"
ReplyDeleteI'd be afraid this crowd would simply take that as encouragement...
Where are my brownies?!
tored = an attempt a romance that falls apart
Jim,
ReplyDeleteI make it a point never to argue with a man living in Alaska. Especially one who's (allegedly) retired military.
But just so you know, the sentence that ticked me off was: "Who decry the lack of originality in science fiction, but then only watch endless rehashes of Star Trek and Star Gate and Babylon 5, with the same four characters (the plucky Captain, the Professor, the Doctor, the emotionless Alien, and The Boobs) and same dozen or so recycled plots (the Trial episode, the Time Travel episode, the Body Swap episode, the Mirror Universe episode, the Alien Mother, and etc)."
Lumping B5 with the other shows is bashing, at least in my uber-sensitive geek mind.
Now, back to your regularly scheduled socialist programming.
aeteram -- implement used to force one's personal aesthetic down somebody else's craw.
No no no, that was "lumping." Bashing, you'll know that when you see it.
ReplyDeleteDamned over sensitive politically correct anarchist.
My BlackBerry isn't working right because of some kind of data outage! I feel old and I'm not mentally prepared for being almost 40! I don't want to do a load of laundry that's nothing but socks but I think I have to because all my warm socks are in the hamper! The weather is messing up my sinuses!
ReplyDeleteWait, you did say you wanted to encourage this crowd to complain, right? Or did I misunderstand something?
-----
"monseles": the little things hanging down in the back of Frankenstein's throat.
I feel old and I'm not mentally prepared for being almost 40!
ReplyDeleteSuck it up you big socialist sissy.
Eric, I'm with Jim here. Almost 40? Bah.
ReplyDeleteYoung Commie Fascist whipper snapper.
buslinh = Texas neo-con bedding material
Jim,
ReplyDeleteI have to comment on this wonderful post.....
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
The morans never cease to amaze.
I'm saving the picture you made and turning it into business cards to hand out to the cognitively challenged!
Thanks for the smile! And Happy Holidays!
SP
[yes, it is the wimpy non-sectarian greeting! I guess that makes me some kind of politically correct, socialist fascist or something! :) ]