Sunday, August 12, 2007
I (want to) see dead people.
Apparently (and to my surprise), lots and lots of dead citizens killed in a terrorist attack can be a good thing:
Now, given the fuming, frothing, sputtering anger that accompanied my blog post of a few weeks ago where I simply took animated exception with someone who was using the death of her son for political purposes, one can only imagine the limitless, howling outrage from, say, Canada's Blogging Tories in response to someone who opines, in print, that he wants to see numerous more dead Americans from a terrorist attack.
Are you ready for the outrage? Ready? Here it comes ... here it comes ... ah, there we go.
Kind of anti-climatic, wasn't it?
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30 comments:
Despite your ideology, you seem to be a reasonably intelligent person, so I find it hard to believe that you cannot fathom the difference between the idiotic ramblings of someone like Bykofsky about a hypothetical event, and your vitriol directed at a grieving mother, whose son's death is quite real.
Perhaps we'll just chalk it up to a slow news day or maybe writers' block.
What is your pain, Fergusrush? Share with us...
...Yes, I'm bored, and have gone back to finding the chronic dyspepsia of righwingers fascinating.
"Controversial, but interesting"... Oh, that's just priceless. Maybe we should turn this fellow into the Ward Churchill of the Right, what say? After all, isn't he just vocalizing what many of them really think? They WANT another attack so badly they can practically taste it. Especially if it's the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. No coincidence that, you can be sure.
There is a difference. In wishing for his fellow citizens to die so that we can have more and more war, Bykofsky has more in common with the grieving mother in question than he does with Canadian Cynic...
Tiggy and adam c, you've both missed the point by a wide margin. CC tries to equate his antics with those of Bykofsky, and compare the reactions of the BTs to each. I am pointing out the simple, inescapable fact that he is comparing apples to oranges, and therefore should not expect those reactions to be similar.
Despite your ability to spell "dyspepsia", Tiggy, I know that such subtlety is beyond you, as you demonstrate each time you post a comment. There does seem to be hope for you, though, adam.
Ha, ha...Fergus hates me more, Adam!
I am pointing out the simple, inescapable fact that he is comparing apples to oranges, and therefore should not expect those reactions to be similar.
You keep asserting this, but you still haven't advanced an argument to support it. Maybe your parents didn't hug you enough?
Your point is pretty obvious, Fergus. Nobody "missed" it; although it is a matter of degree. Both CC and Bykofsky made inflammatory statements, so you can at least ascribe that degree of similarity.
If you like, we can explore your point some more. CC directed crude language at a specific individual, who was mourning the death of her son, and who had first made some offensive public remarks of her own. Bykofsky natters on about how another terrorist attack, and the deaths of thousands of non-specific individuals, would be good for his country.
Which is worse, Fergus? What is the fundamental difference here?
Personally I don't find either of them all that outrageous. I don't believe that CC harbours any ill will toward the mother; he was using shocking language to draw attention to the fact that her pronouncement was out of line. And I don't believe that Bykofsky really wishes for another deadly terrorist attack; he's using a shocking premise to draw attention to his belief that Americans aren't taking the terrorist threat serious enough (of course, his reasoning is wildly illogical, but I guess that's why he gets paid to write).
Sorry, adam old boy, but you still missed the point: CC is going on about the Blogging Tories and his expectation that they will not rag on about Bykofsky like they did about him. That is the real point here.
Still too subtle, perhaps?
You need a high colonic, Fergus. You're really crabby.
Not crabby, Tiggy, just right. Too bad it pisses you off.
Try thinking instead of making insults, you might actually get lucky and make some sense one day.
CC is going on about the Blogging Tories and his expectation that they will not rag on about Bykofsky like they did about him. That is the real point here.
Um, that was CC's point. I read his post. It was quite clear. Your point seemed to be something about the comparison being invalid. That was the point I was addressing. Are you running away from it?
Since fergusrush seems to be having difficulty making the appropriate comparison, let me help him out.
Number of people I wished dead: 0.
Subsequent wanker outrage: Spectacular.
Number of people that Bukofsky wished dead: Many.
Equivalent outrage: ***Crickets***.
Was that simple enough for you, fr, my boy?
Unless Bykofsky, somewhere in his dumbass ramblings, directed a foul-mouthed tirade against a woman, your comparison is certainly apples-to-oranges. For it is your use of that kind of language against a woman that drew the response it did. Notice, if you will, that your use of the same attack, this time against some guy named Rhoades, drew "crickets". Nobody cares if you speak that way to another man. Beating up on a woman, even verbally, is beyond the pale.
Clear enough?
Perfectly. I'll mention that to Cindy Sheehan and the 9/11 widows the next time I see them.
There it is. I did miss, Fergus, that you were pointing to the puffed-up false gallantry of the BTs. In fairness, you were being awfully oblique about it.
THAT was his entire point? Chivalry? God, what century is he from? In case you don't know this, Fergus...treating women as if they're delicate hysterics is sexist.
I'm so happy I didn't waste any time taking him seriously.
"Perfectly. I'll mention that to Cindy Sheehan and the 9/11 widows the next time I see them."
Now THAT is a fair comparison, CC. And you are correct that the treatment of those women by right-wing pundits and bloggers was reprehensible.
As for you, Tiggy, if you truly think that chivalry was my point, you are thicker than two planks.
Oh, God...another psycho. That was your point, fuckwad. That's what you meant by this: "Nobody cares if you speak that way to another man. Beating up on a woman, even verbally, is beyond the pale."
...try commenting sober. That might help.
" CC is going on about the Blogging Tories and his expectation that they will not rag on about Bykofsky like they did about him. That is the real point here."
This is what I wrote, Tiggy. Read it s-l-o-w-l-y. It might come to you.
You are still thicker than two planks.
Yeah, Tiggy, get with the program. I never wished anyone dead, while Bykofsky wished lots of people dead. Therefore, I am clearly the more evil of the two of us.
What part of that is confusing you?
" I never wished anyone dead,..."
Which, of course, is entirely NOT the point because your detractors were kicking your teeth in over different behaviour altogether. But you know that.
fr:
Yes, I know that. So let's just summarize one more time, so that the mentally sane that drop by unannounced will realize that, yes, they're reading you correctly.
I teed off on a single grieving woman who was using the death of her son to make a partisan, political statement.
Stu Bykofsky publicly wants another few thousand people (including women, I'm guessing) to die in another terrorist attack because it would be good politically for the Republicans.
And your position is that I am the more reprehensible of the two of us.
Yes, folks, you can stop shaking your heads in confusion -- that's truly what fr believes. And he seems to think that's not clinically insane.
Go figure.
P.S.:
By the way, fr, there's a simple way to decide which of the two of us is totally batshit crazy. Let's take a survey.
Let's ask 100 random women which they would prefer:
a) to be yelled at in a single blog post, or
b) to be killed in a terrorist attack.
Whaddya think? Any bets on how that survey would go? Come on ... be brave ... make a prediction.
I did not compare you to Bykofsky, you did. I said such a comparison was wrong, that it was "apples-to-oranges" and I explained why I think this to be the case. My opinion of Bykofsky's position is clear from my use of words like "idiotic" and "dumbass" to describe his "ramblings"; only someone as thick as Tiggy could miscontrue my meaning.
I did not make any assertions as to the relative reprehensibility of your behaviour to that of Bykofsky: see "apples-to-oranges" above.
I believe "that the mentally sane that drop by unannounced will realize" that you are now just simply "making shit up", as you are so fond of saying.
And anyone who can read, and is not as thick as Tiggy, will be able to decide for themselves, based on your last few comments and without your laughable survey, which of us is the "batshit crazy" one.
FR, you're missing CC's original point completely. His point was, if people get mad at him for being rude to a grieving mother, then surely they must be angry at this guy who is calling for another 9/11. (This is logically consistent not only because they pretend to "respect life" more than abortion-lovin' leftists, but also because 9/11 is such a point of anger for those on the right, and is used to justify, among other things, limitations on personal freedoms and pre-emptive warmaking.)
CC is pointing out that the "outrage" was very strong among the BTs about him, and that not a single reference to Bykofsky's rather more prominent statement, despite the fact that it is considerably more outrageous to wish for four thousand people dead than to wish that a particular person would stop using her fame as a political tool.
Once we agree that these are the facts, we must admit that the BTs' collective outrage is politically motivated; it means "I disagree with my target politically", and has nothing to do with the outrageousness of any given statement. It can therefore be pretty safely ignored, as it merely empty rhetoric.
CC uses this rhetorical technique often; his recent notoriety in BT postings is just the latest example of their outrage. You'll notice he made the same point with the comparison between the CBC and Environment Minister's policies about what their employees can and can't say publicly.
Anyhow, I hope that clears up your confusion.
I happen to agree that CC was unchivalrous towards the grieving mother.
I assure you, m@, that I did not miss his point, I just disagree with him. His comparison is specious, intended only to lighten the impact of his own behaviour. It was an "I-know-what-I-did-was-bad-but-look-at-this-asshole" kind of comment. It was chosen because Bykofsky's nonsense is so psychotic that it does not merit outrage from reasonable people; who spends their time reacting to the rantings of obvious lunatics? CC would know without effort that no one would be enraged by the ramblings of someone who is to be pitied, not despised. Note, if you will, that when CC actually made a comparison I felt was apropos, I gave him credit for such.
As for your comments about the motivations of the BTs, I have no argument there; your take on it seems quite logical to me.
Fair enough then. But you must admit that the Philadelphia Daily News is not exactly an anonymous, free blog. Some guy in Waterloo saying "fuck you and your grief" doesn't quite have the legitimacy that is granted to a columnist in a major U.S. newspaper, pitiable though he may be.
I wouldn't be so quick, though, to speculate on CC's motives about why he chose that comparison (i.e. to defend his original point of view). It would be equally wrong to say that you are only criticising him because you are an apologist for the BTs -- which I expect you would say is unfair and incorrect.
Fair enough.
Perhaps we'll just chalk it up to a slow news day or maybe writers' block.
By fergusrush, at 11:17 AM
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What's Bill OReilly's excuse then? Or Ann Coulters? Or Michell Malkins?
I suspect ratings, in the case of O'Reilly; book sales, in the case of Coulter; traffic, in the case of Malkin.
What do you think, e?
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