Good stuff. Just wanted to add that I’ve always seen both as civil rights issues. Maybe this only makes sense if you are a certain “type” of marijuana user (steeped in the health/mysticism/history of the cannabis plant) – but then again, gay rights probably makes sense as a civil rights issue only if you are enlightened enough to see it as more than what homophobes like to classify as some kind of lifestyle “choice.”

“Sequester” the DEA.

Lefty anti-intellectualism is quite the niche market.

Sorry to hear it, TBogg. Be well.

Curmudgeon that I am, I usually only drive-by comment here when you’ve offended my “liberal purity” sensibilities.

Thought it’d be only fair to thank you for this post, and for many of the others you put up in defense of the exploited, TBogg.

Cheers.

Ah, the multi-dimensional chess theory. Just shoot me.

Seriously though – she’s in The Game now and that would slow down Jesus Christ himself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdTTqDGPEeg

seem to have… missed the lesson of this post

Shark jumped.

Psst! Over here – a guy who makes a cogent argument against boycotting the vote without insulting the hippies. Seems to be radiating some kinda radical, bleeding heart, “big tent” inclusiveness.

5 Things Everyone Should Know About the Corporate Influence on Politics

Tired and tiresome.

Yea, somebody’s got a little Bacile/Nakoula thing himself goin’ on there.

It’s a snark thing.

Fair enough, and I appreciate the gracious response, TBogg.

…you’re ALWAYS going to be choosing from the lesser of two evils, because as previously noted, you aren’t ever going to be presented with a candidate who you agree with on everything 100%… it’s a bit juvenile to sit around puling about how everyone who recognizes the reality of the system is less pure than thou…We’re still going to have one of two people as the next president. That would continue to be the reality even if we amped up our purity level to 11. So essentially it’s a pointless exercise in terms of having any actual impact, though I understand that it may make some people feel better about themselves to constantly point out to the rest of us how much purer and more moral they are.

Decrepatory strawman construct aside, I really don’t disagree with anything you say. I’d just like to remind you just who is tossing the bombs here.

I realize that this is primarily a humor site, so I take much of it with a huge grain of salt (and that is why don’t find me here “puling” very often.) But the cover of humor only goes so far, and even the best of them occasionally step in it (ask self-professed “clown” Rush Limbaugh, or ref. Michael Richards’ unfortunate meltdown). Frankly, very often the snark delivered here at a well-deserving right at times exceeds my comfort zone, but I am not of the righteous, and have no trouble keeping my own counsel.

However, there is a certain hypocritical lack of self-awareness on this issue. In his clearly defensible efforts to take the air out of lofty lefties, TBogg has demonstrated his own tendencies towards purity policing to the point of air-punching his own imaginary opposition. I’m a practical person, and I can appreciate realpolitik as well as the next non-hysteric, but these “Mumia t-shirt” rants go beyond merely puncturing the pontifications of the minority of “masturbating” liberal self-promoters (they are real, but they are a minority, and to aver otherwise is to hand the right the bouquet of snickering that they so delight in.)

They go beyond the taunting of this minority, into the deprecation of ideals and idealism that motivate progressivism itself. Mock it if you must, but holding these truths close is what keeps one’s “eyes on the prize” even as we are forced to navigate the muddier canals of political reality. I deeply resent this being characterized as “masturbation.”

If I believe that better behavior from my representatives is a possibility, that does not necessarily mean that I endeavor to subvert the sad practicality of the “lesser evil,” or that I shall stumble upon that path inadvertently in my righteous ignorance. But I find it very difficult to extend grace to someone who can nakedly state that they’d “prefer death from above” and then hide behind the lofty superiority of some brand of Machiavellian humor.

Some things just ain’t funny, and I would be more assured in enjoying the sharp wit on display here (and I have linked to stellar examples TBogg’s sharp observations, and surely will again) if he might dial back some of this repetitive “puling” over his DFH strawman, embarrassingly amplified and echoed by some of his more reactionary commenters who do not well-acquit his point.

But, as I have said before, I’d prefer death from above to the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Here is an honest endorsement of the virtues of “the lesser of two evils,” or as advocates like to say, “the perfect is the enemy of the good.”

Let’s face it, in order to efficiently feed the masses, you must accept a few rat hairs in your Snickers. Campaigning for better FDA oversight will only result in the bankruptcy of big ag and the death of millions, so back off you idealistic watchdogs of the commons.

MLK was shrill and, as Trent Lott pointed out, if Strom had won in ’48, “we wouldn’t have had all these problems.”

So courageous, so practical.

I see what you’re saying, and you’re probably right. However, this latest flap with Akins, and the (seeming) willingness on the part of even the Tea Party panderers of the GOP (read: “mainstream candidates”) to throw him under the bus… is it possible that the “frothers” have finally gone to far and the rightward shift of the Overton Window is finally reaching its limit?

Sigh. I’m really much too optimistic sometimes.

According to Ali Abunimah, he was hired to fill tasteless fascist coffers:

The Guardian has been losing tens of millions of dollars annually as its print circulation – like that of other newspapers – collapses. While it has an enormous and growing online audience, it has yet to find a way to sustainably generate revenue from it…

The solution, it seems, is to move rightwards in search of new audiences. “If, for example, the website’s American traffic reached 40 million, it would make it on to the schedules of major advertising agencies,” Wilby explains.

Also:

In April 2012 Nugent signed a plea bargaining agreement to plead guilty to two misdemeanors for illegally taking a bear after shooting one earlier at a bait station. He will be fined $10,000, banned from hunting in Alaska and on Federal land for one year and must complete two years on federal probation.

- Wiki

Too: I concur with others here, TBogg, on the quality of this post. Your “mastery and dominion over nature” rant is simply awesome.

But then she’d have to turn in her feminist bona fides and admit that more men than women are victims of rape.

Is it not worthy of note to the “philosopher” that the gender of the perpetrators is the same in both instances?

Thank you.