COLLECTIVE MINDS READ

Cartoonist August J. Pollak, who would like you to believe he traffics in "subversive leftist propaganda", discusses the psychology of the blogosphere:

[Conservative] bloggers don't care. They just don't. They don't care if anything they say is one hundred percent pure bullshit. If they can feel good about themselves and extract one more day of joy out of their meaningless non-blog lives by snarking in someone's comments section, they will.

The accusations about Kos being a Armstrong Williams-esque shill for Howard Dean are bullshit. Everyone knows it. Why are we even bothering trying to legitimately counter it? It's bullshit, we all know it's bullshit, the right-wingers all know it's bullshit. But they know the "Al Gore invented the internet" line is bullshit too, and you still see it in weblog comments ...

They don't care. They don't care about their own self-evaluations. What matters- the only thing that matters- is that they said something they think was really clever on the comments section of some person they've likely never met.

In the three years I've been blogging I've seen college professors knowingly lie. I've seen gay men sell out their very soul for the sake of pretending that their President doesn't consider them an abomination. I've seen brilliant women with the most clever minds for pop culture force themselves to act stupid for the sake of convincing themselves of the infallibility of recent foreign policy. The right-wing blogosphere has removed itself from any realm of rational discourse and instead established only one principle: win the argument.

>How is it that the right wins arguments

Because they are right!

"I remember the day I became politically active. It was my senior year of high school and I was repairing my computer in front of the TV watching the House of Representatives vote to impeach the President of the United States. And my reponse to the only other occupant of the room- my cat- was not a listing of factual rebuttals or mentioning the hypocrisy of Bob Livingston, but a simple, gut reaction- 'Are you fucking kidding me?'"

And the rest, as they say, is very very boring.

"Worst of all, rightwing bloggers don't care about me!" (Sounds of sobbing.)

"How is it that the right wins arguments while at the same time existing outside the realm of rational discourse?"

Hahaha, Tim it's "any realm of rational discourse," not the realm, as if words don't have meaning. You'll twist and distort bullshit cause you don't care as long as you win. Behold my augustly sneers and flee in tears. Hahaha

I don't care what Pollack says, I care!

Ah, Mr. Oni — So you submit there are multiple rationalities, eh?

Risperdal! It's what's for breakfast!

I'm not sure Mr. Oni knows what he said. I sure can't figure it out.

"Oliver Willis or Jesse Taylor could write 2,000 of the most eloquent, intelligent words on the dangers of the current Middle East crisis."

What are they doing with those words? Could they please put them on their blogs, instead of what they've got there now?

Reading down futher, I find:

"Michael Moore is delegitimized by the Right by means of sarcasm and humor."

Sure, that's how he lost his legitimacy.

Sounds like bullshit to me.

I thought he lost his legitimacy when Daddy got that second Social Security number and moved out without leaving a forwarding address...

I've seen brilliant women with the most clever minds for pop culture force themselves to act stupid for the sake of convincing themselves of the infallibility of recent foreign policy.

I think he's talking about me. And I think I'm insulted.

Richard, stop delegitimizing Michael Moore by means of sarcasm and humor already! You'll make August Pollak cry into his herbal tea again.

I loved this part in particular:

The accusations about Kos being a Armstrong Williams-esque shill for Howard Dean are bullshit. Everyone knows it. Why are we even bothering trying to legitimately counter it?

If it's bullshit, it should take him all of maybe five minutes to destroy the case. Only he can't do that, so he retreats behind the "everyone knows it's false anyway" claim. I guess that's because that line of thinking has worked so well for them in the past, e.g. by asserting that everyone knows Bush is a moron, everyone knows that red-staters hate gays, everyone knows the military is a bunch of baby killers...

By the way, is it just me or does his description of right-wingers as devious beasts who have subverted rational discourse for their nefarious goals not quite mesh with Atrios' description of the conservative movement as "just too fundamentally stupid" five posts up? I guess it's the lefties' "if Dubya is such a moron, how stupid are you guys to get beaten by him all the time?" problem writ large.

Pollak wants to discuss psychology? Maybe he should study it a little more, first. Specifically projection. That's what his entire column consists of, so it's understandable he'd have a blind spot about it.

I'm sure with a little gentle help he'll get the idea.

If you want some psychological insight into the left you can take a glance at Michelle Malkin's hatemail. Actually, you don't even need to go that far. Just take a look at the comments section of one of the left's own - Zonkette. They won't have to worry about de-legitimizing themselves with rational argument any time soon.

I've heard this about the whole 'I invented the Internet' thing before - as a British man who honestly doesn't know one way or the other, did Al Gore honestly say that to Wolf Blitzer? I just want to know.

It was something lile, "I took the initative for early development of the Internet" or something.

Gore never claimed to have invented the Internet. He claimed in an interview with Wolf Blitzer to have "taken the initiative in creating the Internet", referring to the role he played in passing legislation that privatized the Internet and opened it to commercial traffic. Gore did play a key role in creating the Internet we have now, and saying that he claimed to have invented it is a bum rap. If you don't believe me, see the article in snopes.com:

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.htm

That being said, I still voted for Bush twice, and I'm glad he won. The thought of Dithering Al in the oval office on 9/11/01 makes me break out in a cold sweat.

If some liberal said something, they're either a hypocrite, a liar, or a traitor. ~august j pollak~

or an imbecile.

No one proved that the Killian memos were forgeries, only that their accuracy wasn't verified. ~august j pollak~

There's nothing that's going to stop the right-wingers from doing it. It's their new code. ~august j pollak~

keep up the good work people. our only hope is to out-breed them.
and remember, practice makes perfect!

"No one proved that the Killian memos were forgeries"

By that standard, no one has proved that the earth orbits the sun either.