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Saturday, August 6, 2011
Quotable Quotes
I should have the following posted on my masthead:
A freewheeling blog where the comments are better than the posts that inspire them!
This is not false humility or a backhanded search for compliments, and I’m not trying to curry favor. I really mean it.
Some excellent debate goes on here, and we are fortunate for the diversity provided by the likes of Jez, Ducky and Jersey, who enter this arena unafraid to duke it out with the conservatives, libertarians and the dreaded tea partiers. I also appreciate people like Jack Camwell and the ever-garrulous FreeThinke, who stake out their own brand of conservatism and give no quarter. Of course, my favorites are those like Z, AOW, Conservativesonfire and MK who agree with me, but that goes without saying…
Anyway, here are just a few of my favorite comments over the past few weeks. As usual, Professor Bastiatarian leads the way.
Bastiatarian:
Each time a liberal/Democrat/leftist/collectivist/progressive blurts out the charge of "RACIST!" I interpret it as that individual saying "Hello, I'm a complete moron. I engage in absolutely no intellectual activity whatsoever. Instead, I emote and repeat the idiocy that I hear spewed out by other imbeciles in my liberal/Democrat/leftist/collectivist/progressive emo club."
As for the moron in the White House, he's as much white as he is black, for one thing. Second, the reason I want him to fail and ultimately be eradicated from any position in which he has any effect on anything at all is not that he is half non-white, but that he is an incompetent buffoon, a genuinely bad person, and an enemy of everything that is important to decent, intelligent people around the world.
When it comes right down to it, the so-called liberals are merely projecting. They don't have the intelligence or integrity to avoid racist thought (or even realize that "race" itself is a pseudo-scientific concept), so they believe that everybody is as depraved and malicious as they are. ( http://westernhero.blogspot.com/2011/08/its-because-hes-black.html)
Trestin Meacham:
If we are ever invaded our only hope is that Washington falls first. (http://westernhero.blogspot.com/2011/08/perfect-storm-of-stupidity.html)
FreeThinke:
Until 911 it was always the Koran. As far as I am concerned it is STILL the Koran and never will be the Qu'ran. I feel the same way about Peking and Bombay and Burma. (http://westernhero.blogspot.com/2011/07/european-terror-fallout.html)
Finally, here is a YouTube sent to me by Mustang as his own response to my Friday post about government welfare programs. If this doesn't doesn't piss you off I don't know what will. And why are we giving taxpayer money away to able bodied young adults?
Have a great weekend!
Lest anyone misunderstand it's significance here is the context of the quote you chose to showcase, Silver Fiddle:
ReplyDeleteMajor Hassan got himself planted in the midst of OUR military through the practice of TAKEEYA, which I refuse to spell with Q's, because it shows capitulation to Muslim demands that we change OUR language to suit THEIR whims -- yet another form of Muslim aggression. Until 911 it was always the Koran. As far as I am concerned it is STILL the Koran and never will be the Qu'ran. I feel the same way about Peking and Bombay and Burma. [I will NEVER refer to hose places as Beijing, Mumbai, and Myanmar.] Do the Germans demand we call their country Deutschland? Do the Italians insist we say Italia? Have the the Spaniards badgered us into calling their country Espana? NOT ON YOUR LIFE. So why should we knuckle under to Oriental and Middle Eastern pressure to change the way we refer to their countries? It's fuckin' absurd, and just one of myriad ways in which the activist left has been slowly-but-surely transforming us into something we never wanted and were never intended to be.
Your admittedly prolix, loquacious, garrulous, logorrheic, long-winded, pleonastic, wordy, verbose, windy, tediously prolific, overly precise friend who, nevertheless, tries never to be circuitous, circumlocutory, diffuse, or rambling, and has never succumbed to the modern trend towards the oversimplified, telegrammatic style of communication evoked and exemplified so chillingly in Orwell’s 1984.
Cheerio!
~ FreeThinke
Judge Judy would make a wonderful president.
ReplyDeleteThe pathetic creature with whom she is trying to reason doesn't deserve blame for being the imbecile he is. He is the direct result of eighty years of idiotarian liberal policy towards "the advancement of colored people."
One more bit of proof that niggers are made by white liberal policies not natural-born. I'll bet African natives in the bush don't act that stupid.
This charming old song by Brown and Henderson explains it better than I ever could:
Someone had to pick the cotton,
Someone had to pick the corn,
Someone had to slave and be able to sing,
That's why darkies were born;
Someone had to laugh at trouble,
Though he was tired and worn,
Had to be contented with any old thing,
That's why darkies were born;
Sing, sing, sing when you're weary and
Sing when you're blue,
Sing, sing, that's what you taught
All the white folks to do;
Someone had to fight the Devil,
Shout about Gabriel's Horn,
Someone had to stoke the train
That would bring God's children to green pastures,
That's why darkies were born.
It's futile to attempt to subvert Mother Nature's intentions.
Now, everyone can have a field day taking offense. Won't it be jolly?
~ FreeThinke
SF,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the compliment.
You have a GREAT with excellent comments threads.
Vanity is the best way to keep people coming. Now we're all going to hope we make your weekly quote roundup.
ReplyDeleteWell played ;)
Silverfiddle - These two brainless morons (in the video clip) should be the poster children for why the tea party is right on target for demanding government spending reforms which cut payments to lazy slackers such as these. This arrogant display of complete and utter stupidity should convince all Americans of the folly of throwing good money after bad in supporting these people who have no shame in taking money from their neighbors to fund their worthless life pursuits. If this young man is receiving an education, he is certainly hiding any evidence of it....sigh.
ReplyDeleteLinda
You do have eclectic group of followers, Silver. I always enjoy reading all the comments here, even those I vehemently disagree with.
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed it SF, thanks.
ReplyDeleteConservativesonfire:
ReplyDeleteIt's an awesome and interesting collection, but they are not followers, which the diversity of opinion attests to.
From the mundane to the absurd. Great comments~~!! Great blogie
ReplyDeleteThanks SO much, Silverfiddle....I SO enjoy your blog and your commenters, too.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, on that video (leave it to my good buddy Mustang to find this good stuff).....did you love it when she said "...this THIRD YEAR COLLEGE STUDENT" (in utter disgust) as he said things like "I don't gotta give her nuttin..." And did you catch him say "she's older dan "me" and my talkin' to her and us messin' around is ENOUGH (Payment to her)"? 'Just a gigolo...'
our tax dollars at work.
(again, thanks, SF...I really appreciate your mention)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHey, that clip was up at another fan of z's.
ReplyDeleteHard not to make the same comment here. If you stoop to trying to debunk social democracy with a clip from Judge Judy then you are too far gone to be taken seriously.
Pretty good indicator that the poster is someone who read a little Hayek, read a lot of Queen Ayn and pretended to read Adam Smith.
Of course Smith always warned about the dangers of unregulated Kapital so I don't know why the Libertarians are quite so enamored of him.
Judge Judy, that your best game, Silverfiddle? Quote me.
It is fun to go back and forth over here. Sometimes I come just to see what the dynamic duo have to say in the comments.
ReplyDeleteWrong again, Ducky. I am not an Ayn Rand fan and I didn't set out to prove anything with the Judge Judy clip other than to show what our tax dollars are paying for.
ReplyDeleteIt got you quacking, didn't it?
The rest of your comment is a typical farrago of disconnected mental detritus, I don't even know what your point is...
If you stoop to trying to debunk social democracy with a clip from Judge Judy then you are too far gone to be taken seriously.
ReplyDeleteStoop? Social Democracy debunks itself. How many ticks can a dog's body support before they overwhelm and kill the dog? We've just now passed that limit.
I had to throw in the comment on Adam Smith because I ran into a post on your site about Smith and as is common with conservatives, it became a little hazy that you'd ever really read him.
ReplyDeleteHe's not the ally you imagine.
A number of things. Silver you're right that pisses me off!! Grrrrrr
ReplyDeleteI agree with Z. What an ignorant bastard. Don't waste another year of college. The world need ditch diggers too. Somehow I don't think he's going to ace that MBA interview with Northrop Grumman. And what the hell is a finnin'?
Bird needs to escort that fellow outside forcefully.
Oh and take that snot slimmed podium out and burn it.
I think I know what Ducky's point is, SilverFiddle.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you've noticed that the way he couches his phrases invariably carries the heavy implication that he has read and thoroughly digested every book and treatise he refers to, and has a far superior understanding of what all these important works "really" mean than any of us poor, pretentious, ill-informed pseudo-intellectual peons could possibly ever hope to comprehend.
It's the lofty, often sneering tone of condescension with which Ducky approaches his audience that annoys and alienates most of his hearers, and too often stops them from seeing that occasionally Ducky makes a point well worth taking.
Glibly yours in ever more glorious and gregarious garrulity,
~ FreeThinke
Some excellent debate goes on here, and we are fortunate for the diversity provided by the likes of Jez, Ducky and Jersey, "
ReplyDeleteThey have a platform to spew their misguided intellect.
Example:
"I'd rather poke fun at fringe right wingers who spend most of their lives so frightened they can't stop pissing themselves."
Oh yeah, thats diversity all right.....
>I don't even know what your point is
ReplyDeleteDucky's point:
LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!
Mark Adams: "They have a platform to spew their misguided intellect"
ReplyDeleteAnd no Conservative who's built a blog deserves to be a platform for far leftwingers who can't be civil let alone add anything to the discussion.
There must be something wrong with my computer screen?! Whenever Ducky posts all I see is "quack, quack, quack!"
ReplyDeleteNonetheless, I am waiting to hear your point of view on the topic of the "alleged" racist riots at the Wisconsin State Fair...
Ducky,
ReplyDeleteIf that moronic creature -- who feels he don't owe nobody nuttin' because the privilege of listening to him spout inanity and suffering the dubious pleasure of his company is more than payment enough for whatever largesse comes his way -- is an example of "Social Democracy" at work, is it any wonder most of us can do nothing but heap scorn on the very idea of giving such a process a scintilla of credence?
Good God, man! I know you have a brain. When are you gong to start using it?
Are you such a snob that you cannot see the wisdom and perfect understanding Judith Scheinkopf [I think that's her full name. I know it isn't Scheisskopf, which you'd doubtless enjoy, if it were.] exhibits in her dealing with the dregs of the earth?
It's pitiful if you can't.
~ FreeThinke
"And no Conservative who's built a blog deserves to be a platform for far leftwingers who can't be civil let alone add anything to the discussion."
ReplyDeleteOh, I beg to differ, Z, -- and I am in good company.
"We can never be sure that the opinion we wish to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still."
~ John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
"If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought – not free thought for those that agree with us, but freedom for the thought that we hate."
~ Oliver W. Holmes (1841-1935)
Allowing ourselves to become little more than a compendium of pet peeves, effusive praise for imagined allies and vehement denunciation of individuals whose ideas we may not properly understand well enough to disagree with is characteristic of small minds and petty tyrants everywhere.
But I SO understand how much fun it must be to have the power to delete and debar everything and everyone who irks and displeases -- just as I SO appreciate the privilege of being free to vent my spleen occasionally at this genuinely liberal blog.
It's SO too bad things that don't work that way in the real world, isn't it?
Of course, as my dear mother used to say (with twinkling eye and tongue-in-cheek, of course), "If thoughts could kill, there wouldn't be a soul left alive in the next thirty seconds."
The veneer of Civilization is paper thin. Feral instincts constantly threaten to burst through and always when least expected.
~ FreeThinke
@Mark Adams: Oh yeah, thats diversity all right.....
ReplyDeleteSure it is! You don't see any conservatives here talking like that.
Free speech is a beautiful thing, even if its practice sometimes results in ugliness.
Free Speech is a good thing when a female blog owner isn't being called another blogger's "Bitch", Silferfiddle, don't you think?
ReplyDeleteAs for free speech and civility; our blogs are our blogs and the civility is our call.
SF; I'm far less offended by 'ugliness' (Lord knows I had enough of that and it's been 3 1/2 years) than I am of opening my blog in the morning and seeing my blog's being used as a far leftwing platform for those without blogs.
I may stay off Moderation, but thank goodness for "Delete!"
I admire your arguing with those who are rude and ugly; I just got tired of it.
I love your blog, SF...I really DO.
I just want to add I won't be discussing this more with with certain of your bloggers, overtly or not! I'm SO over the problems and just have to do what's right for me.
ReplyDeleteI wish EVERYONE well and am sorry for the problems that happened and extremely glad to move on.
and, I'll just say it again: SF; your blog is a gift to us all!!
Thanks Z.
ReplyDeletePeople who resort to direct ad hominem pointed at fellow interlocutors only demean themselves and destroy their credibility.
Everybody's got their own comfort level and I don't begrudge other bloggers their own standards.
Just a "conservative" word of advice from Joseph de Maistre, the truth of which I doubt sf fully appreciates.... yet.
ReplyDelete"all greatness, all power, all social order depends upon the executioner; he is the terror of human society and the tie that holds it together; Take away this incomprehensible force from the world, and at that very moment order is superseded by chaos, thrones fall, society disappears."
You have not seen chaos until you have experienced a blog w/o the threat of an executioner.
Thanks, SF......I knew you understood.
ReplyDeleteFJ...well put. You were around during my 'nightmares'...thanks for your unending support.
Take a lesson from the demise of Evan Sayet's blog.
ReplyDeleteYour trolls ain't nothin'! You aren't "popular" enough to destroy... yet.
Z, I thank you for the opportunity to post at your well managed site.
ReplyDeleteGlad to know my tax dollars aren't be wasted...*shaking head*
ReplyDeleteI am disgusted that he has had three years of college and is unable to speak properly or for that matter, proper etiquette.
FJ...you're an asset, no thanks necessary.
ReplyDeleteEVAN SAYET is CLOSED? I thought about him the other day; what a fabulous guy he is. I remember he had REALLY FOUL leftwingers there....so he had to close?
Weeks after I opened geeeeZ, I commented at his site, a little angrily I must admit, at some of the REAL vile leftist comments and, as I clicked PUBLISH COMMENT, my heart sank; I knew I'd forgotten to post as Anonymous and people had warned me to do that if I got a little too 'angry' :-)
I SWEAR I counted to 10 and there were THREE REALLY vile leftwingers commenting at geeeeZ in ways that made my admittedly tough comments to them sound like Hickory Dickory Dock in comparison!......it was the only other time I was forced to go to Moderation and that was 3 1/2 years ago.
Evan is such an asset; I wish he'd show up somewhere on TV or something...another leftwing New York guy who woke up after 9/11. Very articulate and hilarious.
thanks for the info, FJ>
Leticia, our tax dollars are paying for a gigolo...did you hear him say he doesn't have to pay her rent? That she's older than he is and she's lucky he talks to her and that they 'mess around' so why pay her rent? THat was QUITE something! :-)
ReplyDeleteDiversity of an opinion on an issue is one thing. But that quote was being a blatant attack dog, on his part.
ReplyDeleteAnd it discredits him as a serious interlocutor.
ReplyDeleteThanks Silver.
ReplyDelete"If we are ever invaded our only hope is that Washington falls first."
Amen to that, if nothing else i'd want those bastards to get the boot up their ass first, true conservatives excluded off course as they don't deserve it.
Freethinker, the word of the day is -- anecdotal.
ReplyDeleteAw Gee, Ducky!
ReplyDeleteI was so hoping the word of the day might be sacerdotal -- as in:
"The ascendency of the sacerdotal order was long the ascendency which naturally and properly belongs to intellectual superiority."
~ Macaulay.
Oh well, as Miss Scarlett famously said, "I won't think about it now. I'll think about it tomorrow. After all tomorrow is another day."
Hope springs eternal and all that.
See ya 'round the mulberry bush.
~ FT
Oh %$#@, I'm commenting late tonight (hard work these days).
ReplyDeleteHear, Hear to Silver for the great, honest, unfettered debates here!
JMJ
Damn, it's the effin' self-entitled Gen Y slackers like the lugnut on Judge Judy that really piss me off!
ReplyDeleteWhen you pay for something, you value it. Period. Parents - and much less the freakin' gov't - shouldn't GIVE their semi-adult children anything. Car? College? Apartment? If it comes free, it will be meaningless.
To me - and I'm doing my level best to use this as my own parenting compass - children must be given choices and opportunities and also given the freedom to learn the consequences of those choices. So, yes, teach your child that he should take good care of his toys. But they step back and let him learn from experience what happens if he opts not to do so. Don't you dare swoop in and replace that broken plaything or you'll rob your child of one of the most effective opportunities for personal growth he'll ever have.
And this better damn well start at 3 when those failures are cheap, not 23, when poor choices can be catastrophic or at the very least, a burden upon the rest of us.
By the way, I'm truly disappointed that Judy didn't instruct the bailiff to wipe that effin' punk's nose for him - with whatever force deemed appropriate!
silverfiddle said:
ReplyDeleteEverybody's got their own comfort level and I don't begrudge other bloggers their own standards.
I look at blogging in this way....Commenters are guests on a blog in much the same way that a guest is visiting one's house. And a little occasion that happened at my house (the real one, not my blog) springs to mind....
Years ago, S came over for dinner and gift exchange at Christmas. She wouldn't eat the main dish, which was ham. No religious or cultural reason for that, just a matter of personal taste. I went to a lot of trouble to cook a turkey breast, which S loved and gobbled right down. After dinner and after we'd exchanged gifts, S cornered me in the kitchen and said: "I want to tell you something. You are the most selfish person I've ever known."
You can imagine the explosion that ensued -- from me, from her, and from S's mother.
Does S have the right to think what she wants about me? Sure. Does S have the right to talk about me in her circles? Sure. Will I let her speak to me that way in my own home? Nope.
Now, S and I regularly engaged in political and religious discussions -- and usually disagreed. I had no problem with such discussions in my home. But when she launched into her ad hominem attack, I literally told her, "You're not welcome here again until you apologize." S has never apologized and never been in my house again. Of course, on numerous occasions I have seen S other family gatherings and at her mother's home (Her mother is like a daughter to me). I won't be seeing S at her mother's home anymore, however, as her mother has disowned S now some 10 years later after S's downward spiral.
All this blabbing to point out that running a blog is a personal decision, especially with regard to exact how much one puts up with in the comments thread. If one isn't welcome as someone's blog, then that individual should move on, on one's own, IMO.
I've been banned at a few blogs -- because I politely disagreed with the blogmaster/blogmistress. Oh, well.
AOW: Well-stated and definitely not a ramble.
ReplyDeleteYou are exactly right. Whoever owns the property decides what free speech is. No one has a constitutional right to step on another's property (be it a house or a blog) and say whatever they want.
On private property, the owner decides. And each owner has her own rules that others either respect or they get bounced.
Perhaps I've sounded too high and mighty when invoking free speech. For that I apologize.
I have been censored at liberal blog for no other reason than I was scoring points, and I hated it every time. Other blogs had either banned me or asked me to leave and I always did.
I like debate and a clash of ideas.
AOW, I understand exactly what you're saying, and I would agree under most circumstances, but let me ask you this:
ReplyDeleteHave you ever been married, remained faithful to your spouse, thought you had a good thing going, fully supported your life's partner on all major issues, expressed nothing but sympathy for their concerns, felt no undue tension or dislike towards your mate, and then were coldly informed one day out of the blue that your spouse doesn't like you and wants a divorce -- for no reason you can possibly discern?
Well, the situation we're tiptoeing about is not exactly like that, but it's pretty close.
I'm sure it would be hard for you -- or anyone who has feelings -- just to react calmly and say, "Oh sure, dear. I'm so sorry you feel that way, but of course I'll oblige you. I don't know what I've done, but whatever it is I'm awfully sorry I did it. So goodbye, dear, and amen, here's hoping we meet now and then, for it was great fun, but it was just one of those things. Buh bye!"
It's always unseemly to wash one's dirty linen in public, but when you've been close to someone for a long time, it's very hard to accept sudden, inexplicable rejection. It felt as though the friendship could never have been real in the first place.
What happened, of course, built up over a long period of time. It started with the initiation of a certain blog as a matter of fact. Apparently, my confidence and sympathetic understanding wasn't needed anymore, and was regarded as an impediment to the enjoyment of a great new love.
I couldn't believe what was happening, and so hung on hoping it was just a bad dream or something temporary that would blow over quickly. The longer I clung to the hope of reviving a dead relationship, the more unpleasant the person determined to get rid of the relationship became -- and the more disgruntled I became.
Regrettably, the struggle became eerily reminiscent of the movie Fatal Attraction -- minus the violence, of course.
No excuse for churlishness on my part, but at least you now have some context. There are always two sides to every story.
Even doughty old curmudgeons have feelings you know.
~ FreeThinke
Z, he disgusted me. I wonder if Judge Judy turned him in? I am hoping she did. She is one tough lady.
ReplyDeleteI cannot believe losers like that man are living off the government, where those who truly need the aid, are rejected.
A fatal attraction, indeed.
ReplyDeleteI'd call it the uncanny "middle aged crazies" or "midlife crisis". A point in your life when you realize that you've accomplished none of those lofty goals you once had as a young person for your life... to be rich, succesful, satisfied and instead of looking "forward" to some new "pinnacle", all you see ahead now is running down-hill and into an empty casket.
And so you turn away from that, and pretend that had you taken a different road, things could and will turn out "differently". Ah, the allure of this new mysterious love is potent, indeed. Potent, but ultimately, as empty as the dream one first held in youth.
The two in the bush seem tempting to the "dying" man with a bird in one hand...
Midge can't compete with Judy (Vertigo), for how can flesh and blood compare with an "ideal"? It's bound to come up short.
ReplyDeleteBut then, suspended from the rooftop ten stories above the ground, how many of us would embrace and accept the prospect of death, and then calmly, let go?
Either to thine own self be true, or otherwise turn away and prove your previous (and future) existences to be those of a "fool."
ReplyDeleteBut of course, to embrace and be true to your "previous" self, in midlife, does necessitate a "change" in the scorpion's nature. For to be a "young" human, is to avoid thinking too precisely, upon future events to be encounted over the course of one's life. And to be an "older" human, true to oneself, means NOT to completely repress/block them out by overlaying a "new" fantasy enshrouded in mystery.
ReplyDeletePlease, Speedy. We all know YOU went completely nuts when you hit mid-life. So shut up and sit down.
ReplyDeletebtw - Whatever became of your "Judy", FJ? I hear that you froze her with your gaze and she jumped from a tower? Is it true?
ReplyDeleteSometimes, Speedy, Pygmalion's gaze is not as petrifying as it might under other circumstances be. And so a goddess comes along, readjusts the Fates, and then free's Galatea from all previous foolishness.
ReplyDeleteA poem, by a talented poet,
Petrified
Kaleidoscopic bits of vanished days ––
Ancient forests petrified –– undemolished
Trees –– fallen witnesses –– still gaze
Humorless at cultures long abolished.
Yielding jittery rings when sliced then polished
Showing clearly in each long-dead tree
A chart laid bare –– unedited –– unpublished
Now reveals a climate’s history.
Does the beauty of these records’ punditry
Enable us in any way to cope
Rationally with surrounding bigotry ––
Still burdened, as we are, by unquenched hope?
Oh, we’ve learned much, but can’t stop shedding tears ––
No wood, however petrified, has fears.
~ FreeThinke
Hope you don't mind the bricolage, FreeThinke.
ReplyDeleteCard? Or no card?
ReplyDeleteWait a minute? Am I dealing?
FJ, thank you for your understanding -- and appreciation.
ReplyDeleteOur lives are Swiss -- so still , so cool,
Till some odd afternoon
The Alps neglect their curtains
And we see farther on.
Italy stands the other side,
While like a guard between --
The solemn Alps -- the silent Alps
Forever intervene.
~ Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
Emily always seems to have anticipated -- and neatly summed up -- just about everything that was to happen to me more than a century after her death. Curious, isn't it?
On a more practical level I do realize how wrong it is to hold poor "Midge" responsible for not being "Judy."
Maybe true success in life could be defined as learning how to survive disillusionment without succumbing to bitterness?
In the end Understanding is the most important thing -- and the greatest gift -- anyone could bestow on another.
Best regards, my Triune Friend,
~ FreeThinke
Curious, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteUncanny! ;)
The beguiling Hispanic beauty with the gentle voice seems anything but bitter.
ReplyDeleteCharming, FJ!
~ FreeThinke
Ud. eres Hispano? ;)
ReplyDelete