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Last updated on August 9th, 2017 at 05:06 am
THEORY: that lefties are witless relativism-shackled PC bores.
STATUS: proved, proved, proved, and proved again! John Birmingham’s column on humourless lefties provoked exactly the kind of grim, droning leftoid introspection that Birmingham complained of. Some—like the crowd over at Anonymous Lefty—simply couldn’t believewhat they were reading, and theorised that Birmingham was in fact satirising the right:
That was a pretty appalling effort at satire, if that’s what Birmingham was aiming for.
—MrLeftyHere’s Birmingham’s blog post on the subject.
—FlashmanJust checked the blogs and the comments. Looks pretty earnest to me… No indications of satire or any “a ha! got you!” exclamations. He honestly seems to think lefties are humourless …
—Christo
If he didn’t think so before, he sure has reason to now. The most telling reaction came from lefty group blog Larvatus Prodeo, the pretentious, tin-eared name of which is a clue to its general hopelessness. One of Birmingham’s points was that the left has declared discussion of certain subjects to be off limits. This was helpfully illustrated in LP’s comments thread, to which somebody using the title “smellydeadjesus” repeatedly contributed. Emboldened by this mockery of religion, Currency Lad tossed in a comment using the name “The ‘Prophet’ Raped Children”.
How did the laughing leftists react? Currency Lad’s mocking title was quickly replaced, a later comment was cut entirely, and the thread was then closed. Click here for the full story. Birmingham was more accurate about these people than he could have known.
- Good-humored, tolerant, enterprising reasonableness trumps dour, self-important, hallucinatory school-marmishness every time. The trouble with leftists is that they’re trying to find humor with a microscope; they need a telescope.Posted by paco on 2006 01 25 at 01:16 PM • permalink
- I defy anyone finding a more bizarre display of leftwing humor than Tim Dunlop’s photo labeled “A kindergarten child models Mr Iemma’s proposed new school uniform” (scroll up).
The man is simply in a class of his own, thank goodness.
Posted by wronwright on 2006 01 25 at 01:58 PM • permalink
- That’s beautiful! Birmingham could not have been proven more correct than by Currency Lad’s resounding victory. The Left is not only humorless, they’re utterly clueless.Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 01 25 at 02:50 PM • permalink
- See also: Pretty much any comment thread over at John Cole’s.Posted by Jim Treacher on 2006 01 25 at 03:13 PM • permalink
- I think it’s obvious that Currency Lad was supporting the left with his comments using a clear reference to antiglobalism and anticapitalist orthodoxy. We all know that “profits” rape children and that’s what was really meant.Posted by andycanuck on 2006 01 25 at 03:28 PM • permalink
- Those Larval Rodeo clowns deleted a bunch of my posts once, not for anything offensive, but because I gave them a righteous logical beat-down. They left one comment up, to which they appended what their pea-brains thought was a “gotcha.” My reply to that, which eviscerated their “gotcha”, was promptly deleted, but the original post and faux-gotcha left up.
So, they’re basically a bunch of lying, memory-hole-stuffing pussies.
- OK people, move along. There’s nothing funny here. That means you too, Paco.
—Ralph Nader
Posted by Gary from Jersey on 2006 01 25 at 04:33 PM • permalink
- Flutee?Posted by Quentin George on 2006 01 25 at 05:34 PM • permalink
- You guys are mean! I have at least one good friend who is a leftie with a superb sense of humour. Mind you, he spends a lot of time arguing with his mates. One of his friends is Chris Shiel so I suppose he needs a good sense of humour. Unfortunately I think he only reads blogs and rarely contributes.
- “Nice to see you lot getting behind free speech.”
Damn, is that what we’re doing?!? Richard, Wronwright, what’s Karl up to now? I’ve already ordered my black uniform, jackboots and armband (with the “Plastic Turkey” insignia), and now I find out that we’re supporting democracy? So, do I ditch the nickel-plated “Kaiser Wil-helmet” headgear with the seven-inch gold-plated spike, or just go back to fedoras?
- Flutee is a lightweight leftie with the usual addiction to politics. Once he seemed to have something serious to say about tertiary education but as soon as the debate got a bit interesting it became too hard.link to offending post and comments
- #11 = I meant the American “rooting”, not the Australian one. Although, considering who’s doing the rooting, I guess the Australian “rooting” would do as well.”
O/T Calls to mind the headline in today’s Herald-Sun:
Drug boss in Kim Clijster’s box
So much for the tennis being family entertainment.
Posted by walterplinge on 2006 01 25 at 06:24 PM • permalink
- Flutee is damned with faint praise by CS, also known for his unmitigated support for Latham.
Of course, its very hard to get tampered with on this site isn’t it?
Actually, yeah. Almost impossible, really. I don’t know of a single instance where comments were edited. Also only recall a couple of instances where they were removed, and it always came with an explanation (i.e., they were gratuitously offensive.)
So, your point is, well, pointless.
Nice to see you lot getting behind free speech.
Hey, we’re not the one throwing pies.
- I certianly agree that the left take them selves to serriously .
Our good friend “Mr Lefty” is a master of the un acknowleged edit of his comments . After our stoush about his “anonyminity” on the net He discovered my Name and then proceeded to publish some very derisory comments and aspersions on my character . When I demanded he remove them with out requiring an apology from him he was so lacking in good grace that he replaced a specific attack which named me with a more general one that did not name me but refered to me anyway .
I quote both comments here but I have removed my last name from the first quote .Thanks Bridgit. What a gullible fool the gutless coward and wannabe spiteful bully Iain XXXX turned out to be.
MrLefty | Homepage | 01.08.06 – 10:07 pm | #Thanks Bridgit. I wonder if they’ll get the point and realise that guesses do not equal proof. You’d hope they’d learn learn their lesson… but I doubt they will.
I wonder what causes such people to dedicate themselves to trying to attack people who’ve simply disagreed with them on the Internet? A lack of a real life, perhaps? A surfeit of spite and vindictiveness in their diet? Envy? Impotence? Who knows.
Really, who cares. Some people are just beneath contempt. And, really, I’m pretty thoroughly sick of the whole affair.
I wonder what they think they’ve achieved by it? They’ve attacked an innocent barrister for no good reason in an unsuccessful attempt to shut me up. What horrendous bastardry. What a total waste of everyone’s time.
MrLefty | Homepage | 01.08.06 – 10:07 pm | #I draw readers attention to the lack of acknowlegement of the edit and the unaltered time code . and this man claims integrity as one of the virtues of his profession.
- “flutee” has been banned from here before, under different versions of his unfunny joke of a name, and if he keeps on being an obnoxious little turd he’ll be banned again. There is no “free speech” on this blog, and there never has been, just as there is no right to smash up a bar when you’re drunk and mad, or to shit on the carpet of someone who has invited you over to their house.
In fact, I think the larva rodeo people have a perfect right to delete comments and ban anyone they want. It’s their blog. However, they shouldn’t puff their chests out about how much more tolerant they are of differing opinions than us rightwing deathbeasts, because obviously they aren’t—and in fact, they are less tolerant, because they not only delete obnoxious troll posts, they delete anyone who doesn’t agree with them completely.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 01 25 at 07:32 PM • permalink
However, they shouldn’t puff their chests out about how much more tolerant they are of differing opinions than us rightwing deathbeasts, because obviously they aren’t—and in fact, they are less tolerant, because they not only delete obnoxious troll posts, they delete anyone who doesn’t agree with them completely.
Exactamente.
- Sure you did, flutee. I believe you. :rolls eyes:
By the way, this is Tim’s blog; I just run it. If he told me to let the freaks roam free here, I would. But hey, he doesn’t like finding troll-shit in his comment section, just the way your larva pals don’t like being disturbed by different thoughts in the comment section of theirs.
In a way, we do have free speech here. Free of the stench of troll. And until I am directed otherwise I plan to keep it that way.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 01 25 at 08:09 PM • permalink
- Hey Tim,
I’m not sure how linking to Birmingham’s blog post means that I “simply couldn’t believe what [I was] reading”, or that I “theorised that Birmingham was in fact satirising the right”. (Unless you just included me to give context to Christo’s remark.)
But thanks for quoting me, I’m particularly vain and needy when it comes to publicity. (Ooh, my ears are burning now!)
- I’m not sure how linking to Birmingham’s blog post means that I “simply couldn’t believe what [I was] reading”, or that I “theorised that Birmingham was in fact satirising the right”. (Unless you just included me to give context to Christo’s remark.)
I don’t think it was any attack on you, I think your quote was included for context.
Posted by Quentin George on 2006 01 25 at 08:22 PM • permalink
- My theory is that some people think that having a laugh diminishes their seriousness or the seriousness of their cause. Best to be grim-faced to show how much you care and all that bollocks. Can you imagine Australian luvvies doing an equivalent of Dafydd from Little Britain, even though the humour proves being a “gay” doesn’t matter one iota.
Anyway, I’m being too serious because I’ve just tried to watch a local film called Little Fish to celebrate Aussie day. Aarrghhh, sooooooo boring and full of horrible characters. Totally not recommended.
Posted by Major Anya on 2006 01 25 at 09:00 PM • permalink
- Andrea has the right of it.
There are a few funny lefties out there, but I have to say that they are few and far between.
But, really, the problem that I see is not the lack of humor, but the inability to laugh at themselves, or be laughed at. In other words, they don’t take criticism well, and sometimes go out of their way to deny an error. This manifests itself, for example, as the unacknowledged deleting of contrary comments, when a thread starts to decimate the original post.
Self-honesty (which includes accepting valid criticism) is an important aspect of life, but seems to be missing in a large number of lefties (and some extreme right wingers also). This is a major reason why I’ve been leaning right for several years, after leaning left. That side of the political spectrum lost it……and keeps on losing it.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 01 25 at 09:35 PM • permalink
- Paco—Shhh… “Free” as in “special introductory rate,” free, as in Russian Porno Site “no registration required, we just need your cc number for age verification,” free, as in the “sample from the pusher,” free…
Patience, grasshopper.
heheheheheheheh…..
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 01 25 at 09:39 PM • permalink
- Brian, (#42)
I still treasure the memory of Red Kezza’s face all twisted up with bitterness and bile when he had to announce that JWH had won the October 2004 election in a landslide.
That image will sustain me in gloatiness well into my old age.
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2006 01 25 at 10:54 PM • permalink
- It’s been my experience that a leftwing blog’s idea of humor is accusing George Bush of murdering innocent people by an especially unusual method. It usually comes off as a very sick joke.
Interestingly, when a rightwing blog or commenter reads it, he will often try to parody it. As we all do here with King George II and the Evil Lord Karl. Gosh, by now we’ve built up Karl Rove’s reputation as a master manipulator so much that I’m even beginning to wonder whether the man might be one of Satan’s spawn sent in preparation for the end times. Oooo, maybe I can use that as some future material. I need to confer with Richard and Paco on this.
Posted by wronwright on 2006 01 25 at 11:31 PM • permalink
- The humor imbalance between left & right has been going on for a long time now and it’s puzzled me. I do remember a time decades ago when leftist humor seemed no rare thing. That was a time when the left was “against the establishment”—there was a “counter-culture” but not much of a leftist establishment, or a leftist part of “the” establishment. That’s changed with the dominance of leftism in academe and considerable influence of leftism, leftist ideas, in TV & movies.
Whatever the causes of the left’s humor deficit in political discussions, it does seem to go naturally together with the left’s having an establishment and a set of rules of behavior, feeling, and understanding—political correctness—which the left gets reactionary in defending and which it feels the need to zealously enforce and expand. All this excessive psychological and social policing would make any advocate of it humorless on the subject. It’s undeniably excessive and good political humor is subversive. The leftist humor deficit in political discussion is a sign not necessarily that conservatives have better senses of humor, but that there is a leftist (cultural) establishment almost begging to be ridiculed even while leftists feel constrained to defend it—it’s a relatively recent acquisition and leftists don’t feel it to be secure enough yet.
- Paco, your uniform is obviously a business expense, so use it as a tax deduction. You’ll have to use the special Form 1040-RWDB that is unique to Neocon cospirators, but you can get a number for the secret division of H & R Block to help you fill it out. Look on the website (the URL was provided in a memo from HQ last December). It’s encoded in one of the pictures from the SI Swimsuit edition (that ensures that if anyone stumbles across the site they will think it is just a porno site, like 99% of the other sites on the web). Your secret decoder ring will facilitate decoding the number.
An additional advantage of using this form is that the tax rates are much lower for RWDBs than for other people. After all, Bush’s tax cuts were only for the rich, right (that’s what the lefties keep telling us, and they couldn’t possibly be wrong or lying about that, could they)? Who is richer than the Neocon conspiracy, with our usufruct on the whole world?
Posted by Michael Lonie on 2006 01 26 at 12:37 AM • permalink
- By the way Paco, be sure not to throw away that uniform It sounds perfect for use when we have to install a new caudillo in Bolivia.Posted by Michael Lonie on 2006 01 26 at 12:39 AM • permalink
- Paco — Dennis the Peasant is an accountant; run that uniform deduction by him…
Funny leftists? It tells you all you need to know about the Left and humor that there have socialist-realist paintings, sculptures, novels, plays and films… but NEVER a socialist-realist comedy.
And no, the SCTV “Uzbeks are everybody’s problem” sketch doesn’t count…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 01 26 at 12:53 AM • permalink
- RWDB ALERT
Hide, Paco! We have contacted HQ to activate the SuperSecret RWDB Tunnel System (SSRTS) for you.
Just head for the nearest Halliburton subsidiary. Your decoder ring will let you in. Wronwright’s space lasers have recoded it for you.
Just got a report on MinionNet that the makers of
BarebackBusted ArseBungholerdammit Brokeback Mountain have heard about your uniform and are after you as Michael Moore’s love interest for the sequel!MarkL
Canberra
- Whatever the causes of the left’s humor deficit in political discussions, it does seem to go naturally together with the left’s having an establishment and a set of rules of behavior, feeling, and understanding—political correctness
Excellent observation For Now.
I recall watching with Nicky an episode of Murphy Brown where Ms Brown was waxing lyrical about her radical leftie college professor. She invited him on the show and lo-and-behold time had turned him into radical righty college professor.
The point was, academic and culturally, the left had (and is) the establishment.
Humour provides an important and powerful counterpoint and the pendulum has swung right.
—Nora
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2006 01 26 at 01:56 AM • permalink
- #19
Australia Day.
Bugger all on TV if you hate cricket and tennis (boring, sorry). OK, let’s watch the Australia Day awards on 10 from Canberra.
Arrrgh. Sandra-talk from the diaphragm-Sully speaks. The first wanky words I hear honour the indigines of Canberra, who owned the land first and we displaced and we honour and respect them. After I finished spewing I switched the TV off.Later, news previews of some morons burning the flag. No faces, no soundtrack, just the voice over about the flag burning (Australia Day a different celebration for some). But you could see that they were aborigines, the telltale black and red tee shirt with the yellow circle, you know.
News is on and I catch the whole story. Some screaming painted dole bludger is whinging about the flag. Not word-for-word, I didn’t take notes, but it went like this: We should be a republic and have a flag we can all love and respect. This flag represents what they done to me and ma-pee-pl. Ma-pee-pl suffered, blah, blah, blah. (This bloke was almost incoherent, must a been on the goon, ay?)
Same old shit. I say cut his fecking dole off. See how the dole bludging sit down pee-pl get on then. It makes me angry, this stuff. There are more important injustices to rail about than shit that happened years ago. Get over it. Sort out the pee-pl who get pissed and belt or even murder their wives, or abuse their kiddies. It happens everywhere in society, but it is disproportionately represented in the indigenous population. Healing for this must come from inside, the white man can only do so much./rant off
Having said that, I don’t tar all aboriginal people with that same brush…
And I know that there have been injustices, but what about the ones that you tolerate yourselves, with silence?
er, perhaps an unfortunate choice of words there.
- I’ve responded to C.L.‘s complaints on his blog here and here.
As to the comment by Ms Harris at #32.
Now I agree entirely with the first bit of what she says.
As to whether LP is a zone where we expect everyone to agree, I refer you to this post, among many others I could cite, where there’s vigorous disagreement and much input from RWDBs.
Posted by mark_bahnisch on 2006 01 26 at 09:52 AM • permalink
- Upon trying to read through the comments on the Provartus thing, I Failed to find a funny comment in all the comments by leftists that I read. They were proof positive that they aren’t funny. They were very serious about how Tim and Mark Steyn weren’t funny, either. I got so depressed about how not funny the things I think of as funny were, that I had to stop reading and go mock something, quickly. Upon failing to mock Senator Kennedy for making certain that Judge Alito becomes a member of the Supreme Court, I thought, “ridicule.” That’s it. Since all the right have in their pockets, apparently, are mockery and ridicule (two “mean-spirited” forms of humor – duh!), I was down to one.
- HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW !!!
ekw sits side-saddle to post
HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW !!!Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 01 26 at 06:14 PM • permalink
- What would I do with you, Dave? I definitely am feeling more abashed. And the ridicule was marvelously archaic and class-centered, if I may be so bold. Side-saddle to the post, indeed. Why, Stoop, I would be caught dead on a Western saddle!
Also good parody of leftist satire of rightist humor. Not easy, is it?
And the ridicule was marvelously archaic and class-centered, if I may be so bold.
Quaintly homophobic too, no? Tee hee, one does one’s humble best.
Also good parody of leftist satire of rightist humor. Not easy, is it?
It is for me. I was raised by leftists.
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 01 27 at 01:23 PM • permalink
- Michael Lonie: using that word (‘ususfruct’) will get you banned on all feminist and most Progressive sites. THAT’S NOT FUNNY!! Even if it doesn’t mean what they think it means, it sounds like it means what they think it means and that means they don’t want you to use it, if you know what I mean.
Uusfruct, indeed, you heterosexist womyn-hater.
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2006 01 27 at 02:47 PM • permalink
Even if it doesn’t mean what they think it means, it sounds like it means what they think it means and that means they don’t want you to use it, if you know what I mean.
If I don’t know what you mean, and I swear I don’t, then does it still mean … um, wait … does it still mean what you know it means, or does it then mean what they think it means?
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 01 27 at 03:40 PM • permalink
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