Open Left

Once more -- and only once more -- unto the breach (0.00 / 0)

It's hard to grasp exactly what you're arguing, Jacob. And yes, I often suspect that you're not sure yourself. Is it that

1) the rabble is stupid,

or that

2) these self-appointed leftist intellectuals' identification with the rabble is false and self-serving,

or that

3) William Timberman is uniquely phony and therefore worthy of special condemnation,

or that

4) there's only one smart person, and his name is Jacob Freeze.

All of the above? None of the above? Something else entirely? In any event, there's no need to play the junkyard dog. Nothing said here, by me or anyone else, should cause a master of the wisdom of the ages to lose his self-possession. Polemic is one thing; intellectual rabies another, don't you think?

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by: William Timberman @ Mon Jul 06, 2009 at 11:51:22 AM CDT

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Wouldn't it be lovely if... (0.00 / 0)

Wouldn't it be lovely if everything anyone writes could be reduced one-line clichés?

Then Mr. Timberman would already understand everything, and his banal permutations of a few buzz-words would be dignified by something like inevitability.

"There are only 52 ideas, each of them expressible in one line, so why not just shuffle the deck."

This axiomatic approach to political philosophy would probably enchant Paul Rosenberg, who has obviously enjoyed a respectable mathematical education, and his presentation of Dedekind's development of the real numbers was so nearly irreproachable that I was finally reduced to picking on the small fry way down in the comments.

Harharharhar!!!

But even Mr. Timberman can read and comprehend simple prose, if he takes the trouble to try, and it really isn't additional evidence of his intellectual shortcomings so much as a carelessness which he probably intended to be insulting that he mistakenly substitutes identification for representation in one of his cliché-renderings of what I might think.

2) these self-appointed leftist intellectuals' identification with the rabble is false and self-serving...

Left-wing intellectuals don't "identify" with anything like the little people, sincerely or otherwise, and it's one of the grand advantages of the Republican Party that at least a few of its functionaries actually believe they are serving the interests of "people like us."

This attitude isn't really unusual among Republican staffers on Capitol Hill, especially for short-term Representatives, but after a couple of cycles most of them wake up to the fact that their bosses aren't "people like us" any more, if they ever were...

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by: Jacob Freeze @ Mon Jul 06, 2009 at 12:37:58 PM CDT

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Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! #4 We Have A Winner! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! (0.00 / 0)

4) there's only one smart person, and his name is Jacob Freeze.

Was there really ever any doubt?

"Senate passes expanded GI bill despite Bush, McCain opposition"

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Mon Jul 06, 2009 at 13:31:54 PM CDT

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I was trying to be polite (0.00 / 0)

Not trying very hard, I admit, and not really succeeding. Mea culpa. I won't do it again. Letting Jacob be Jacob may wilt all the flowers in the neighborhood, but on balance, it seems the Christian thing to do.

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by: William Timberman @ Mon Jul 06, 2009 at 13:51:13 PM CDT

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