Repost: Torturing the cat

The following was originally posted on May 20, 2003 on my old Blogspot site. The permanent links to those archives have gotten bloggered, and since I'd like to be able to link to this post in the future, I'm reposting it here.

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"The most critical time in the history of the world"

What happens to a man to whom all things seem possible and every course of action open? Nothing of course. Except war. If a man lives in the sphere of the possible and waits for something to happen, what he is waiting for is war -- or the end of the world.

-- Walker Percy, in The Last Gentleman

Jeanne d'Arc at Body and Soul lately has been fruitfully drawing on Chris Hedges' book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.

The truth expressed in Hedges' title is true both forward and backward. Just as war can provide a sense of meaning, so too a lack of meaning -- or the desire to fill that absence -- can provide the cause for war.

A while back, Josh Marshall posted a nasty little piece of hate mail he received that illustrated this point.

It's the typical supercilious undergrad tone -- the kind of thing written by people who want to be Ben Shapiro when they grow small. But one sentence in particular (and yes, this is all one sentence, if not quite one thought) stood out:

This may be the most critical time in the history of the modern world much less of our country; and it is my fervent hope that the American People will remember and appropriately reward those, like you, who have chosen to use this opportunity to forward a political cause, and not incidentally their own careers, by attempting to sabotage an honorable effort to make the world a safer, better place.

You have to love the uppercase "American People" -- and I'm guessing this guy never expresses a hope without it being "fervent." But the important part here is the section I've put in bold -- that ours is "the most critical time in ... history."

Like many people who blindly support[ed] this war -- including perhaps many in the White House and the Pentagon -- the writer is desperate for his life to have some greater meaning or purpose than it apparently does. He hasn't quite managed to stare into the abyss, but he's taken a quick glance in its direction and seen something deep and dark and frightening that he doesn't quite know how to deal with.

"All flesh is grass," the prophet Isaiah said, and "the grass withereth." This guy, understandably, doth not want to wither. He wants his life to matter, to mean something. He wants to be remembered after he is gone.

He has given this war a metaphysical, religious significance. For him, the war isn't about oil, or "liberating" Iraq, or overthrowing an evil dictator. It's grander than that -- grander even than the dreams of empire that seem to be motivating Cheney, Perle and Wolfowitz. This war is an attempt to give his life meaning by turning our times into "the most critical time in the history of the modern world." If our times are meaningful, he hopes (fervently), then our lives must also be meaningful.

The writer gives his life meaning by taking a part in this great, epochal, transcendent struggle.

And note how easy, how undemanding of sacrifice, it is for him to play a role in this epochal, historic event. All he has to do is watch Fox News and fire-off the occasional sophomoric e-mail -- maybe even wave a flag, attend a corporate-radio rally, or rename some snack food.

This letter-bomber is not the only one narcotizing his existential crisis with an enthusiasm for "shock and awe." This is widespread -- it's one of the reasons it is nearly impossible to have a civil conversation with our fellow Americans who believe -- or want to believe, or need to believe -- Bush's baseless arguments for capricious war.

In terms of pure shock and awe, however, nothing in the Iraqi adventure compares to the gut-wrenching, paradigm-shattering, constitution-shredding shock and awe Americans experienced on September 11, 2001. As we watched the towers fall and the Pentagon burn we experienced shock, awe, and a powerful, inseparable admixture of fear, anger, sorrow, pride and love. But there was also something else, unseemly and almost unmentionable -- the perversely giddy rush of vicarious significance.

On September 10, 2001, as in Thoreau's day, the mass of Americans were living lives of quiet desperation but then -- as nearly every observer proclaimed -- everything changed.

A few writers took advantage of the anonymous forum provided by Salon's "forbidden thoughts about 9/11" feature to express this:

When the towers started collapsing and all chaos broke loose, I felt actual excitement. Here was an event that broke banality. Finally, here was something meaningful. I had grown so tired of the meaningless fluff our continent had become so enamored with. Here was an issue of raw emotions. I was glad that this was happening to snap people back into reality, to snap them back to mortality. My last sinful thought was that of genocide -- lets just send nuclear missiles to all of the Middle East and let it be done once and for all.

-- Name Withheld

Such feelings were of course taboo, but they were hardly unique to "Name Withheld." Josh Marshall's letter-writer, like many supporting the war on Iraq across the blogosphere, expresses the very same perverse thrill:

"I felt actual excitement ... here was something meaningful ..."

"This may be the most critical time in the history of the modern world ... "

The voices are different, the sentiments the same. Both are driven by a similar need to break through banality and ennui with the vicarious thrills afforded by war.

A whiff of something similar can be detected in the strangely envious plaudits baby boomers heaped upon the "greatest generation." Look a little closer and there's a hint there of something like "They're lucky. I wish we had a Hitler we could go fight." Little surprise, then, that mingled in with the horror of our own Day of Infamy was that taboo thrill and something like an unspoken, "At last."

We Americans are the wealthiest, most educated people the world has ever seen. We are a people and a nation to whom all things seem possible and every course of action is open.

What happens to a people to whom all things seem possible and every course of action open? Nothing of course. Except war. If a nation lives in the sphere of the possible and waits for something to happen, what it is waiting for is war -- or the end of the world.

The great struggle being waged by President Bush and his supporters is not really about making "the world a safer, better place." It's not even really about an imperial "Pax Americana." It's about the search for meaning by a people so bored, complacent, comfortable and desperate for significance that for them war gives birth not only to terrible beauty but to terrible joy.

This is why even dispassionate, prudential questions about foreign policy provoke outraged invective. Such questions are not merely seen as a threat to a policy position, but as a threat to a metaphysical, religious belief system.

"There comes a time in the late afternoon, when the children tire of their games," G.K. Chesterton wrote. "It is then that they turn to torturing the cat."

It is late afternoon in America, and tired at last of our meaningless games, we're looking for a new source of excitement.

Comments

[Hysterical Woman]

I have to admit, I sometimes wish for "interesting times".

[aunursa]

I'm guessing this guy never expresses a hope without it being "fervent."

Reminds me of all the letters to the editor in the local paper in which the writer is "extremely outraged" or "deeply offended" over some political disagreement, typically over some budget issue or perceived slight.

[Ursula L]

It's an extraordinarily negative understanding of "meaning" - a war is "meaningful," disasters are "meaningful," but the diplomacy that might prevent a war, the work that goes into rebuilding after a war, ant the preparations that ensure that natural disasters don't become human disasters aren't meaningful. They are actually anti-meaningful in a certain sense.

This doesn't just illuminate the motives behind creating the mess in Iraq. It also explains the dismantling of FEMA as an effective organization, and the reasons for doing so little to prepare for events like Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans. To this mindset, acting on the warnings to 9/11 would have been not just meaningless, but a way of actively reducing the "meaning" in the world. The engineering work to fix the levees would have been not just meaningless, but reducing the potential for a "meaningful" event.

"Meaning" = "horror"

I think I'll go be sick now...

[nieciedo]

I can understand the emotions. I felt them myself. However, I don't see at something that gives my life "meaning" but rather "excitement."

I have a BA and an MA in History. I've spent probably the majority of my life reading about Tudor and Stuart Britain, the French Revolution and Napoleon, -- exciting times of world-historical importance -- and I confess to get the same kind of thrill from reading about the Babbington Plot, the Revolt of the Northern Earls, or the Hundred Days that other folk must get from watching football or basketball on TV. Those same people consider it an even greater thrill to watch these games in person and so it was, despite the tragedy and horror, a thrill to watch history happen on 9/11.

[Jesurgislac]

Jeanne d'Arc at Body and Soul lately

...and I went squeeble and clicked on the Body and Soul link, because I miss Jeanne d'Arc so much: and only when I looked at it, figured out that you'd meant (obviously) "lately" when you wrote it, in 2003. :-(

[Drew Habits]

I was surprised to realize that I have read this before, even though I only started reading your blog regularly last year (sucked in by the inescapable pull of your Left Behind breakdowns). Someone must have linked your article when it was new. I enjoyed it then, too.

Anyway, small internet world, aren't coincidences fun, etc., etc.

[cjmr's husband]

"Meaning" = "horror"

I call it Y2K syndrome. A few million programmers around the world work their @$$es off to prevent a disaster. We did too good of a job.

Rather than a nice public "Thank You!", we got "What did you waste all of our money on?"

[bulbul]

nieciedo,

see, that's what I don't get. I've known people who think about WWII in similar terms - analyzing battles, discussing strategies, obsessing over uniforms etc. Now and then one of them (always the same guy) says something like "Man, I wish I lived back then". And invariably, I answer "You're a Jew from the East. You wouldn't."
Oh and these guys, they're historians, too. The only things worse than those idiots are foreign policy majors. Because the former only dream and obsess. The latter are actually dumb enough to try to make their dreams come true.
Kill all the lawyers? Nay. Start with foreign policy majors.

[Geds]

It's odd, but I have the exact opposite reaction to these things as you nieciedo. I don't have my Masters in history yet, but a huge part of my self-definition is my love of matters historical. I got in to it because of war and I spend a lot of time studying the nature of war and warfare.

And I would be more than happy to leave all of that stuff in the history books where it should be.

Give me a hotdog and a seat at Comisky Park or a bottle of beer and a Local H show any day of the week. I don't need the thrill of witnessing that kind of history firsthand.

I'm really not too worried about living in interesting times, either. As far as I can tell, there have always been and will always be people who think that we're living in the most important time in history. For stuff like that, I like to apply the wisdom of an eight grade teacher I had who once said, "And remember, you're unique. Just like everyone else."

[eyelessgame]

This is, by the way, one of the reasons many of us hope (fervently) to be around when humans first walk on Mars.

It is not only war that allows one to connect to something beyond the banal.

[Vermic]

So what we need, then, is some grand national endeavor to give us the same thrill and sense of meaning as a war, without actually being a war. And it would have to fit at least these two criteria:

1. It has to be a goal that most people in the country are in support of.
2. It has to be something sexy. Projects like health care reform and avoiding Y2K, though vital, don't capture the imagination as much as putting a man on the moon or a good solid war.

Any options? Maybe a nice big pyramid?

[jeffk]

Our culture feeds into this misguided need to feel *important* and *special*, from books and films to news to how we parent our children. It takes self-esteem to an extreme, and that's a recipe for disaster, especially for people who live in a black-and-white world.

If your personal world is black-and-white, good-and-evil, you will never be happy with the shades and colors of the real world. But that in and of itself is not the problem. The problem comes when people who want a black-and-white world have the try to do something about it, to change the world into their limited vision of it. And because they have that need to feel *special* and *important*, instead of focusing their energy in their own lives, on their work or their family, they want to focus it on the world at large.

In so many ways, so many Americans just Don't Get It. Of course, I don't get it either, but I'm under no delusions that I do. I just think I have a better clue about it than anyone with that limited, and limiting, black-and-white view.

[Robb]

"When the towers started collapsing and all chaos broke loose, I felt actual excitement. Here was an event that broke banality. Finally, here was something meaningful. I had grown so tired of the meaningless fluff our continent had become so enamored with."

Wow. . . that sums it up for me. I can't stand the way the West has become insulated to the historical shifts that are going on. Sept 11th was horrifying & terrible, yes, but it was exciting, and a reminder of what goes on in the parts of the world we don't like to think about. I don't exactly want to experience first hand the terror & uncertainty of the Iraqi people, but I'm often disgusted with myself for being so intentionally disconnected from everything going on there, and I wish to God someone would end this ridiculous one-party-two-sides political system we have. A dozen different factions would be nicer than watching Republicans & Democrats both pretend to complete represent all views of the American people.

But I don't think there is any benefit to extremism - I'd be one of the people shouted down for "dispassionate, prudential questions about foreign policy". As a follower of Christ, I'm commanded against doing so many things that are par for the course for my country's leaders, but I'm supposed to follow them?

It is so fucking frustrating to be an American with a conscience.

@ Geds:

I'm inclined to agree with you about sitting out history, but either it's a healthy dose of middle-class white liberal guilt or a concern for my own potential for failure, but I'm not totally comfortable with that. Yeah, I can enjoy the life I have (I sometimes feel when playing with my 20 month old that I'd never need to do anything else significant in my life), but I just feel it's a serious error made by American culture to be so self centered. I'm not slamming you or anyone else for having that attitude, but I can't do it.

[Nell]

Jes, I miss Body and Soul terribly myself. It pains me deeply that her archives are not available except for the wayback machine (and those are very partial).

[Salamanda]

I think that's the idea behind things like Battle Cry. Or hell, even the Left Behind books. I remember going to events like The Call. I remember singing this song during worship---fervently, even! ;) Frank Peretti novels were like crack to me. Oh, and has anyone ever heard of the Elijah List?

I remember when the world was fraught with hidden meaning, with significance, and I was a crucial part of it all. It felt good to feel like that, to feel like a part of something big and meaningful. Maybe it's some basic human longing, for adventure, for a cause. I don't know. But trying to satisfy it with fantasy---even fantasy with a Jesus label slapped onto it---eventually left me feeling sort of empty and sick. It lifted the depression for a while, but the depression finds its way back in, especially when you get that sneaking suspicion that you've devoted SO much time and energy into being SO full of shit. (My brother's having a similar sort of experience, except his is with military service. The parallels between being a Good Christian(TM) and a Good Airman are striking...and amusing in a sad sort of way.)

[MikhailBorg]

Salamanda, I had that same experience in my late teens, exploring Wicca.

I won't say that it was wasted time - I learned a lot that is still useful to me today - but the feeling that "the world was fraught with hidden meaning, with significance, and I was a crucial part of it all" is exactly what I experienced back then.

[Geds]

Whoa, Robb. I never said I have any intention of sitting out history. I said that I would prefer it if we could leave war and all the stupid things we as a race do to each other behind.

That's not the same thing as sitting out history at all. I'm a big fan of trying to see things get better and I believe that leaving the crap we do to each other behind is a good idea over all...

[Davis X. Machina]

Now, more than ever, il faut cultiver notres jardins.

On second thought, strike 'now more than ever'.

[cjmr]

We shoudld weed our own gardens?

I'm sure I'd understand that reference better if I'd actually finished Candide.

[cjmr]

ugh. *should* not *shoudld*, obviously.

[ako]

Wow. . . that sums it up for me. I can't stand the way the West has become insulated to the historical shifts that are going on. Sept 11th was horrifying & terrible, yes, but it was exciting, and a reminder of what goes on in the parts of the world we don't like to think about.

The problem is that September 11th didn't actually get Americans to move beyond the America-centered world view. It just added a new bogey-man for people to fear at night.

The idea that a disaster's going to knock down pretensions and wake everyone up to the wider world is appealing. And it's a staple of disaster-fiction for just that reason. But it's depressingly false. Yes, there's an initial burst of improvement, but relatively few people take a long-term interest. Most of the world will, if possible go straight back to their ordinary lives.

The disasters have the potential to make ordinary lives a lot worse, but a threat to survival rarely motivates large groups beyond reactive fear. Getting a mass movement towards hope and improvement is slower, and messier, and involves convincing people that things can get better.

[Geds]

I'm sure I'd understand that reference better if I'd actually finished Candide.

You might want to go do that right away.

Fantastic book. Somewhat anticlimactic ending and the sort of thing that makes any good activist or person who believes in happy endings want to tear their own skin off, but a fantastic book nonetheless.

And the ending makes sense, in context.

[cjmr]

You might want to go do that right away.

*checks LibraryThing*

*goes off to move Candide to reading stack from remote shelf*

[mom de plume]

cjmr's husband:

Yes! Yes! Yes! What you said!!!!!

(remembering getting up for work at ohmilordo'clock AM on New Years' 2000 Just In Case.)

Or they'll say: Remember that Y2K thing? Whatta crock that was!!

[John]

I remember going to events like The Call.

Sadly, that has nothing whatsoever to do with The Call that I'm familiar with, the rock band fronted by Michael Been (who appeared in "Last Temptation" as one of the apostles). Their album Reconciled is one of my all-time favorites. The first two songs are very nearly statements of faith for me.

[Ursula L]

Yeah, I can enjoy the life I have (I sometimes feel when playing with my 20 month old that I'd never need to do anything else significant in my life), but I just feel it's a serious error made by American culture to be so self centered.

Living this life is the ultimate in meaning. It is the culmination of what humans have worked toward, and longed for, and dreamed of, for as long as there have been humans.

A life where you don't fear hunger. A life where you don't see half your children die. A life where you don't fear epidemic, or deadly infection from minor injuries, or dread the birth of your child as being potentially deadly. A life where you can travel to the next town or city over without fearing attack from criminals and bandit gangs. A life where you don't fear war coming, killing the men, enslaving women and children, destroying everything you and your ancestors worked to build in your home village. (Particularly for US folk - war is something that young men go to, not something that consumes and destroys the entire nation. Do you know how special, and protected, that is?)

To reject this as "not meaningful" is to declare the hopes and goals of all of humanity as somehow not enough.

Destruction, war, is meaningless. A life that is the fruit of the constructive energies of humanity put to work, that is meaning.

[LMM]

Fantastic book. Somewhat anticlimactic ending and the sort of thing that makes any good activist or person who believes in happy endings want to tear their own skin off, but a fantastic book nonetheless.

Really? I read it one summer -- it struck me as something that would have made a good short story, but instead got turned into a rather drawn-out book. It's kind of a one-joke hobby horse.

Living this life is the ultimate in meaning. It is the culmination of what humans have worked toward, and longed for, and dreamed of, for as long as there have been humans. ...To reject this as "not meaningful" is to declare the hopes and goals of all of humanity as somehow not enough.

And that is, of course, the problem. Because "freedom from" is insufficient for happiness. Happiness requires a sense of meaning, and belonging, and both of those emotions aren't natural for our society.

[Robb]

Geds, I was responding to this:

Give me a hotdog and a seat at Comisky Park or a bottle of beer and a Local H show any day of the week. I don't need the thrill of witnessing that kind of history firsthand.

I wouldn't assume you're willing to sit out history, I just personally respond to that attitude with hesitation. I'm kinda lazy, and I'm tempted to take an attitude of enjoying where I am & ignoring the strife in the world. But that's what that is to me: a temptation. To (ahem) 'keep it copacetic' where I am, but at the expense of being removed from everyone else is bad in my view. Sorry if I implied that you were also committed to that attitude.

@ ako
The problem is that September 11th didn't actually get Americans to move beyond the America-centered world view. It just added a new bogey-man for people to fear at night.

Sadly, this is entirely true. My excitement & hope that the world was changing were slowly dashed.

The idea that a disaster's going to knock down pretensions and wake everyone up to the wider world is appealing. And it's a staple of disaster-fiction for just that reason.

I'm a post-apolcayptic fiction fan as well - the idea of society being erased, and humanity being reduced to mere survival and/or possibly getting around to re-structuring & fixing some past errors is very nice.

[ako]

Sadly, this is entirely true. My excitement & hope that the world was changing were slowly dashed.

My best hopes for the world changing for the better are in some of the non-violent revolutions. They're really a new phenomenon; before the twentieth century, I don't know of any instance of people peacefully overthrowing a tyrant.

But within the past half-century, we've had the Orange Revolution, the EDSA Revolution, the Velvet Revolution, the Polish Solidarity Movement, the collapse of Apartheid, and the liberation of Eastern Europe, to bring up a few examples. None of those countries are now perfect; I don't think as human beings we're ever going to get things completely right. But we've improved so much that a bunch of people gathering together and saying "No," to injustice actually makes a tangible difference, even when not backed by guns.

I'm a post-apolcayptic fiction fan as well - the idea of society being erased, and humanity being reduced to mere survival and/or possibly getting around to re-structuring & fixing some past errors is very nice.

I think part of the reason it work so well in fiction is the way fiction conventions work; all the important characters either survive, or die in a way that means something. Authors can't afford to get you too invested in the characters that are just going to wind up as another unidentified body rotting by the side of the road. Not if it's going to be a good story. So the readers nearly always identify with the people survive, or die meaningfully.

Also, resolution is a dramatic necessity (although far from inevitable in real life), and people want hopeful resolutions. Stories of people pulling out, pulling together. Building something new in the ashes of the old. Very rarely do they do stories where the foreseeable future doesn't give the readers anything to hope for. "Society took one giant step backwards - end of story" doesn't often get written.

Real life, unfortunately, lacks those narrative conventions. Most people are more likely to wind up just plain dead than being the heroes, and once people have pulled together enough to get through the worst, they tend to revert back to normal, with all that's bad and good.

(Tangential question for anyone; any idea why totalitarian dystopia books where the horror goes on indefinitely tend to be relatively common, but apocalyptic scenarios tend to have hopeful endings?)

[Ursula L]

And that is, of course, the problem. Because "freedom from" is insufficient for happiness. Happiness requires a sense of meaning, and belonging, and both of those emotions aren't natural for our society.

I'm not really just thinking of freedom from these fears - I'm thinking of delight in human triumph over them.

We see the "impossible" every day. Asparagus in winter. Children who are healthy and happy and whole. The ability to communicate, as we are now, with people whom we have never met, who may be half a planet away, and yet with whom we share common intellectual curiosity and interest.

Heck, if we want to have friends over, and share a generous dinner, we can. Without fear of being to generous, offering too much food and hospitality and then going hungry ourselves in a week or a month.

I would be dead, three or four times over, or more, in a world which people idolize as "meaningful." So would just about everyone here - from disease, from starvation, from war, from a thousand other deaths we have control over.

So much life, with so much connection, so much abundance - just to go through every day, and enjoy simple things that we take for granted, and know that it is something most humans over all time would have thought it was a miracle to have - a full plate at every meal, the friendship of someone who last year had an infection or disease that should have killed, but who was saved with a handful of pills.

It seems like deliberate cynicism, to look at this and call it "meaningless."

[bulbul]

ako,

But within the past half-century, we've had the Orange Revolution, the EDSA Revolution, the Velvet Revolution, the Polish Solidarity Movement, the collapse of Apartheid, and the liberation of Eastern Europe, to bring up a few examples.
Um, the Orange "Revolution" in the Ukraine was a staged show and as for the liberation of Eastern Europe, you seem to be forgetting Romania (here, of all places :) with its conflict between the Army and Securitate and former Yugoslavia with... Well, you all know the story. And not even the Solidarity revolution was entirely violence-less.
My point is, if any of the non-violent revolutions named above were truly non-violent, they were an abnormality (plus, a lot of things we don't know about happened in the background). The things got back to the old system pretty goddamn quickly. I wish I could share your optimism. But I don't.

None of those countries are now perfect
Um, no offense, but beam, mote, etc.

Which reminds me of how often our right wing fuckers compare the US to EU. To them, European countries are old, lifeless, mindless, drowning in the past, stagnating and generally worthless and weak*. The 'socialist' policies, they claim, have killed the human spirit and everybody here is just vegetating, not really living. And don't get them started on the Netherlands. Now the US, that's where it's at - dynamic, future-oriented, strong and young, ready to grab the destiny by the balls. No wonder they hate Europe and look across the pond with admiration. They look at you and see their dreams come true...

Also, what Ursula L. said, every blessed word of it.

* Now drop and give me twenty!

[bulbul]

It seems like deliberate cynicism, to look at this and call it "meaningless."
Or something only a sick mind could come up with...

[Jos]

And don't get them started on the Netherlands.

Oh come on, why would they single out my country?

I mean, two of our three ruling parties have the word 'Christian' in their name (and don't have 'Anti-' in front of it).

How could they possibly have anything against us? ;)

[ako]

Um, the Orange "Revolution" in the Ukraine was a staged show and as for the liberation of Eastern Europe, you seem to be forgetting Romania (here, of all places :) with its conflict between the Army and Securitate and former Yugoslavia with... Well, you all know the story.

Sorry. Must be bad information on my end.

Um, no offense, but beam, mote, etc.

Entirely fair point. I wasn't trying to suggest "Not as good as the US," (the number of countries I'd be willing to sling that at is depressingly small( just trying to get at the distinction between "solved every problem ever" and "substantially fixed some things".

Which reminds me of how often our right wing fuckers compare the US to EU.

Yeah, that whole line is crap. I wasn't going for that at all.

[bulbul]

ako,
I wasn't going for that at all.
I wasn't implying you were, apologies if it sounded like that.

Jos,
How could they possibly have anything against us? ;)
Dunno either, man. But I have a theory: the wingnuts hate socialists. Most socialist (social-democratic) parties use a rose in their symbols and flags. Your country is full of tulips. Tulips, roses, not much of a difference, right? :)
You wouldn't believe the anti-Netherlands bullshit propaganda. For example, two weeks ago I learned that the Dutch have had enough of the immoral liberalism and radical Islam that have taken over the Low Lands and are emigrating en masse into Australia. Of course, no one told Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek...
So, packing already? :)

[ako]

I wasn't going for that at all.
I wasn't implying you were, apologies if it sounded like that.

Wasn't sure. So I brought it up. Now it's clear to everyone I wasn't going for anything like that, you weren't accusing me, and it's all good.

Wait, are we allowed to do that on Slacktivist? Don't we have to argue about what the other person's really saying?

[bulbul]

Wait, are we allowed to do that on Slacktivist?
Um, crap, I'm not sure...
We might ask Duane to check in the 'Rules' subsection of the Notebook.

Don't we have to argue about what the other person's really saying?
I'm not sure, either, but I think that this rule is not in force on LB Friday AND while an abortion thread is active. I might be wrong...

[cjmr]

No, I think we have to argue about your interpretation of my interpretation of what the third person is really saying.

[Scott]

the writer is desperate for his life to have some greater meaning or purpose than it apparently does

The world is full of people who want to drag the rest of us, willing or not, into some Big Project in order to give their lives some meaning. Many of them aren't neoconservatives......

[MichaelR]

And some people are such worthless festering sacks of crap with no capacity for intelligent argument that they have nothing better to do than troll the repost of a four year old blog entry.

Seriously, Scott, we fucking hate you because you're a giant asshole with zero charisma. Go make yourself useful and choke on some rancid goat jizz or something.

[ako]

The world is full of people who want to drag the rest of us, willing or not, into some Big Project in order to give their lives some meaning. Many of them aren't neoconservatives......

Arguing with something not in the original post. Does that get me a bingo square?

(Is there one for "Scott being intentionally funny instead of ideological"? Because I spotted that on the Left Behind thread.)

[cjmr's husband]

Eew.

MichaelR, your cure is worse than the disease.

[MichaelR]

You don't think I overstepped any bounds, do you?

Unfortunately, because my general policy for responses to the local dumbfuck troll is "don't put much effort into it" and "go all out on profanity," I didn't think of a response that's actually clever-shaped until after I hit post. Specifically, "yeah, they're called Libertarians and want to see a return to the glory days of serfdom."

Oh well, I guess the lowbrow swearing will have to do for now...

[85% Duane]

2. It has to be something sexy. Projects like health care reform and avoiding Y2K, though vital, don't capture the imagination as much as putting a man on the moon or a good solid war.

We could fill up the grand canyon with styrofoam peanuts and then take turns jumping off that glass bridge.

[Jeff]

I guess the lowbrow swearing will have to do for now...

See The Rude Pundit for how to do it right, then. Otherwise, DNFTT. mmmmKay?

[85% Duane]

and I wish to God someone would end this ridiculous one-party-two-sides political system we have. A dozen different factions would be nicer than watching Republicans & Democrats both pretend to complete represent all views of the American people.

I agree and I'm getting excited about the notion of Christianists backing a third party candidate. Imagine if Rudy and Hillary got their respective nominations. Then the Christianists run off the reservation and support, say, the Constitutional Party candidate. Nader has already said he'd throw in if Hillary or another DLC/Corporatist candidate gets the Democratic nomination. So Nader- or some Nader-endorsed REAL capital D Democrat throws in. Right there you have four viable candidacies for President. However, now the voting is so diluted that marginal candidacies have a legitimate opportunity to garner a freak win. Libertarians see how much exposure and money Ron Paul has gained and invite him to the top of their ticket. Now you have five viable candidates. Pat Buchanan - or even old man Perot himself - does the math and figures he has as good a shot as anyone running on the Reform ticket again. At this point you have SIX viable candidates in what will amount to a coin-flip for President.

The outcome might suck big giant weenies but the ride would be an absolute hoot.

[85% Duane]

You don't think I overstepped any bounds, do you?

Nah. Yer doing the wrong thing for the right reasons so it's excusable. Like when my dog attacked the mailman. And a jogger. Of course, no one likes my dog anymore except me.

There's a lesson in there somewhere.

[bulbul]

The world is full of people who want to drag the rest of us, willing or not, into some Big Project in order to give their lives some meaning. Many of them are libertarians who want nothing short of complete remodelling of existing societal structures and relationships.
So what else is new?

[bulbul]

Michael,
my general policy for responses to the local dumbfuck troll is "don't put much effort into it" and "go all out on profanity,"
I like your style. Rock on, bro!

[hapax]

no one likes my dog anymore except me.

I've never met a dog I didn't like. I even harbor a sneaking fondness for the nasty little mini-Dobie who chases all of the neighborhood children.

His owner, on the other hand, I'm quite ready to slap upside the head with a clue-by-four.