Saturday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, February 8, 2025
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81 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
Follow Steven on
Twitter and/or
BlueSky.
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The Mood of the American Consumer is Souring (Wall Street Journal)
That didn’t take long.
Narrator: It was, in fact, what Paul signed up for.
He just didn’t think the leopard would eat his face, too.
The leopard is busy planning more middle and working class tax raises.
‘Reciprocal’ tariffs on every country to be announced next week, Trump says (Politico)
Confusion reigns and stocks sink as Trump announces more tariffs (CNN)
White House opens funding spigot for DOGE expenses (Roll Call)
Pete Hegseth Under Fire From Dems Over Alleged $49,000 ‘Emergency’ Paint Job For Government Home (Forbes)
So that’s two more examples of wasteful spending for Dangerous Oligarchs Gutting Everything to tackle.
Maybe Hegseth had to use vodka-resistant paint, hence the added cost.
@DK:
An article in the Times this morning, details unease along the border with Mexico. They’re feeling the leopard stalking them.
@Sleeping Dog:
Link? Would help.
Does he not have enough to do in his current job?
Voted for Trump.
Dislikes chaos.
I just can’t…
@charontwo:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/us/politics/trump-border-life.html
@Sleeping Dog:
Thank you.
Luddite is happy to announce the start of his 70th Revolution Around Sol Tour.
Yes, there’s cake!!!!!
https://youtu.be/3kyn9Es4HoY
Also reported in the article, Coristine was a member of an online group possibly involved with targeting persons for harassment including “swatting.”
thought for today:
H/t to our own Cracker, reporting in downtown PDX.
@Jen:
Helps him that unelected, ineligible, former illegal immigrant Musk is actually serving as president.
Frees up tome for First Lady Trump to work on side protects like the Kennedy Center board, or starting WW3.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
BINGO!
LOL. What could go wrong?
@Flat Earth Luddite:
“thought for today:
They got you to fight a culture war so you wouldn’t fight the class war.”
True, and a thought that has occurred to many over the years. As Lyndon Johnson put it, “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
@Rob1: When a spokesman announces that these DOGE folks have been properly cleared, they are saying they were given clearances by a proper authority. It does not mean they went through a clearance process and were properly vetted. Vetting means filling out forms with a lot of detailed history of employment, living locations, questions on arrest records, etc. Then, depending on the level of clearance, there can be an interview, whether in person or on the phone, potential visits to your neighbors asking about your loyalty to your country, etc. It is not done overnight.
The vetting of these DOGE “employees” that is going on today is by intrepid reporters doing their job.
There are a few of us here who have had clearances in the past (I’ve had a TS clearance for decades) so I’ve been through the process a couple of times. So has, I assume, has others who have written here and can add more details.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
Happy birthday!
I see Boebert and other usual suspects complaining about the performance of Lift Every Voice before the Super Bowl. I fully expect Donald to take a knee while it is sung.
@Rob1:
That Costitine kid looks like the prototypical shithead.
Honest questions for the group: how would you define the culture war and the class war, and do you think they’re separable?
Sarcastic question for the group (no need to answer this one): if you want to surrender the culture war, can we start drawing up terms?
@Flat Earth Luddite:
@Scott:
Good to confirm that info. I always had SFBTSIDR clearance (So Far Below Top Secret It Doesn’t Register). But from that vantage point, I had privy to information the TS folk always overlook in their assessments. There’s a wealth of information at “worms eye view” if you understand what you’re looking at.
@Scott: My Secret clearance was in 1970. I still keep a copy of my application because it’s handy as a very thorough summary of every address, every school, every job I’d had to that point.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
Happy birthday!You share it with Lana Turner, James Dean, Nick Nolte, Mary Steenburgen, Jack Lemmon, John Williams, and other notables.
@Kurtz:
That photo snip fails the full impact of him wearing shorts with that suit coat.
These guys are all “gamer” Gen. They learned their manners and politics from online chats. So they take their gaming-coding prowess as a sign of all encompassing competence. But competence from within a narrow, shrunken, dark world, running a deep deficit of humanity and humility. Throw together some “code,” add an “LLC,” and they think they built America.
@DK: Weren’t Musk’s little minions supposed to be unpaid volunteers?
@Rob1:
Thanks, but all credits to OTB’s own Cracker for spotting this yesterday.
As for me, I’m following this motto
From beyond the blue line, Luddite scores!
@Scott: I had a DOE “Q” clearance for 15 years. It required a full background investigation by OPM, with regular updates. But that wasn’t the top of the scale. There are higher clearances that require a full background investigation by the FBI.
@Scott: I had a DOE “Q” clearance for 15 years. It required a full background investigation by OPM, with regular updates. But that wasn’t the top of the scale. There are higher clearances that require a full background investigation by the FBI. Plus a psychological profile.
@Fortune:
Culture war: B.S. rightwing fabricated outrage over “Seasons Greetings,” woke, posting 10 Commandments in public schools, imposition of Christian ritual in the military, and non-binary gender identification etc. —–
in service of distracting from
Class war: assault on minimum wage, equal compensation for women, red-lining housing mortgages, elimination of social safety nets, full out assault on public education in favor of school vouchers, elimination of environmental remediation programs for low income communities…. etc. etc.
You already knew all of this as you posted your troll comment.
@Rob1: You consider equal pay for women as part of the class war, not the culture war? You put the Ten Commandments in public schools as part of the culture war, and private schools as part of the class war? You consider race as part of the class war?
@Flat Earth Luddite: Happy Birthday!
@Fortune:
Class warfare is about the degree to which a dominant class of actors has a material advantage over another set. The dominant group wishes to keep that material advantage and the disadvantaged group wants to change the dynamic.
Males have been, and remain the dominant group, although their relative power has declined over the last several decades as women have made inroads to being treated more equally by society.
Rather definitionally, then, the issue of women’s pay would be part of economic struggle, which if we are trying to fit all of these things into categories, would be part of class warfare.
I am not sure I fully accept the categories, but I understand the point that was being made above: there are a lot of distractions (e.g., “War on Christmas” and even “they are turning kids trans at school”) that are a lot less important that who has access to actually power, to include economic power.
And let’s face facts: the evolution of the GOP in recent years toward right-wing nationlism is driven, very much, by the fact that whites, males, and conservative Christians are losing relative power (that word “relative” is quite important, as all of those groups continue to have a lot of power). These groups are reacting to this loss. It is why we see things like reaction to DEI and the desire to go back “merit” which is perceived as being to the advantage of whites and males. And, it is, but not because those groups are in fact more meritorious but because they have a number of advantages that other groups do not.
@Paine:
Obviously Paul Bisson wasn’t listening on the multiple times Trump said he LIKES chaos.
If this is the best of all possible worlds, can you imagine what a hellhole the second best must be?
@Rob1:
Yeah, it was a tough choice–resolution vs. frame. Perhaps I chose wrong.
He is a walking, breathing advertisement for redundancy in contraception.*
*I settled on this one. The other options were more uh, let’s just say, visceral.
Somewhat popular on the right currently is an article in the Free Press about how DEI and wokeness destroyed Budweiser InBev. They claim that it destroyed the company’s stock price. So I have added a link here at the bottom showing the historical price of InBev. Note that you will never see this information included in a story from the right wing press about InBev. Instead you get a story about how it was a booming company and the Mulvaney ad killed them.
In reality, the stock had seen a steady decline since 2016, dropping by more than 50%. It was a failing, or at best stagnant company. In order to try to increase sales they tried to market to a wider audience. That failed as the manly men were offended and the non-manly men part of the market didnt think one ad by Mulvaney was enough to drink the mediocre, being generous, beer anyway. So in effect, the beer was canceled by some of the manly men Bud drinkers and a marketing attempt failed. However, it wasn’t some DEI failure and the company’s stock remains in line with its long term trend.
Steve
https://companiesmarketcap.com/anheuser-busch-inbev/stock-price-history/
@steve: Every time I see “Free Press” I think Detroit Free Press, which maintains some credibility,and then I remember it may be, as in this case, Barri Weiss’ online Free (sic) Press which has none.
@DK:
This. A couple of points:
(1) Please, Mr. Bisson. Were you not listening when Musk stated publicly that there would be ‘temporary economic pain‘ as the Trump agenda of chaos, Tariffs, and cuts was put in motion? Hate to say it but, even though you thought this was just talk, or scare mongering by Democrats, this is exactly what you signed up for.
(2) Populist liberals/conservatives also need to recognize that Wall Street isn’t just a place where the top 1% play, it is a place where millions of middle class and working Americans have their retirement monies invested – in 401Ks, 457s, 403Bs, etc.
About 4 decades ago Americn businesses got out of the business of providing defined benefit pension plans. They wanted that pension liability off their balance sheets. And so laws were changed and now the working millions have retirement funds invested on Wall Street.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
Welcome to 70. Too old to die young, too young for a ‘he had a good, long life.’
@Steven L. Taylor:
100%
Repeating myself, White vs. Not is a 60/40 split. Male vs. Female is a 50/50 split. Billionaires vs. Everyone Else is 1/99. This is the reach-across issue, and Trump has waddled right into a trap, if only we can throw off our funk, slap on some self-discipline, and embrace class warfare.
When Fox News says, ‘Isn’t this class warfare?’ The answer should be, ‘You’re goddamned right it is – we aren’t the ones who started it, but are going to win it.’
@Fortune:
I just noticed that the thread from yesterday has continued into today. I’m going to address it here.
I have questions for you:
Who specifically did you have in mind when you wrote the heterodox comment? In my view, your answer is important for several different reasons.
Despite whatever faults this community–as individuals and as a group–displays, we are on the whole, damn intelligent, curious, and diverse in profession, region, life experience, and intellectual interest.
Those faults (and faultlines) are there. But to our credit, we do try to check each other whether it’s a question of tone, knowledge, intellectual rigor, or ethics.
Can you respond to Steven’s criticism about your usual approach to complexity: refusal to engage?
My impression: you only respond to arguments that you have seen play out elsewhere. It stocks your quiver. But if the conversation veers into an area for which you have no roadmap, your engagement ends.
Right or wrong, but with the exception of profound outliers, I believe that intellectual limitations are often self-imposed. Sure, there are hard external limits–mostly, time and energy. I don’t think everyone has identical capacities, but I think people can surprise themselves with some attention and effort.
A word of advice: whatever criticisms I have of this person (and vice versa), if I were you, I would exercise extreme caution before picking a fight with @DK.
They are intellectually versatile, well-read, and can turn a phrase while in a deep coma, snowed on Ativan. That IV you see is more than just hydration.
Don’t be the drunk who stumbles into a bar, itching for a fight, scans the crowd, and picks the guy who uses his last opponent’s intestines for dental floss.
That’s how you end up in traction.
@steve:
Whoever you are. I went and read that article. Its not an article about stock price. Its about the effect of an ad (and corporate woke mindset) that blew up the brand image of their flagship brand: Bud Light.
You say: “Instead you get a story about how it was a booming company and the Mulvaney ad killed them.”
Link, please. AB/InBev share prices had been declining since 2016/2017, a point referenced in your article, with numerous factors cited. 2017 isn’t the 2023 Super Bowl.
The article is really about an ad that in one go destroyed a longstanding and carefully crafted brand image, and resulted in an immediate 21% decline in sales, and ultimately something like 40%. I’m no marketing guru, but I know enough to know that those numbers are staggering. Just staggering. And it started with the ad.
As far as share prices. $60 at the Super Bowl, never cracked $66-$67 since, and down to $50 today. I have no idea why its down. Call it flat. The S&P has increased in the same time frame by 50%. AB/InBev as an investment is a miserable loser. All the factors? I don’t know. But Bud Light sales down 40% is just a killer result and byproduct of the woke ad. A final thought. From what I read AB/InBev have been trying to runaway from that ad as fast as they can, and this years SB ad will be totally different. I think that tells you what they think, and what you seem to be trying to obfuscate.
@Steven L. Taylor:
@Fortune:
Fortune was being intentionally obtuse. It’s the the way “they” publicly delegitimize and then dismiss issues which expose the indefensible amorality of their policy positions. I mean, we’re all thinking, mature adults here, right?
@Kurtz: I hear your “visceral,” man!
@Kurtz: I typically don’t read Steven’s articles or comments. I’ve found when I talk broadly, people accuse me of bad faith, and when I talk specifically, they concede my point then accuse me of bad faith. I’m not saying it as a complaint but to point out there’s little benefit to the approach you’re suggesting. ETA: Additionally, after your temper tantrum on Thursday’s Forum I put you on my “don’t bother” list as well.
@Kurtz: and to your point: again, no engagement.
@Connor:
@steve is a well-established member of this community. If either of you can be described as “whoever you are”, it would be you. (Even though there is a reasonable suspicion that you are a sock puppet for a disruptive jackass who drew the ire of every poster here with his antics, but irrationally fancied himself as the economic and rhetorical equivalent of the master luthier Guarneri.)
Regardless:
Pretty sure that passage is a reference to stock price.
See, even if your description of the broader point of the piece is true, the substance is in the support of that point. The assertion is nothing without it.
That piece is riddled with a number of fallacies, assertions with weak or zero evidence, and (likely deliberate) deceptive claims. That last one is also know is willful dishonesty. All of which, you are quite familiar, as they describe your comments.
Rather than go through every single one of the problems of that piece, I will choose two.
Note that there is a link to the Kid Rock video, a superfluous detail that has no added value. But no citation for this confirmatory data. Now, perhaps that data exists. It may even be credible. But the reader has no way to assess it with no citation.
I would think a former senior executive, educated at Harvard and Yale, would know better. Ya know, meritocracy and all.
I only highlight the first claim, because it is relevant to you.
It did have a specific meaning. Until it spilled over from its roots in the Black community into the broader zeitgeist. (As often happens in America.) Sometimes, the artifact offers value to the dominant white business culture, and they can exploit Black, or Brown or Red creativity via deception and even outright theft to reap the fruits of the Other’s property and labor. (e.g. all of American history, music business)
But “woke” presented a threat, and there was no easy way to monetize it. So, render it meaningless by pretending it never had a meaning, and, crucially, supply a vague definition so that sympathetic minds can choose their own flavor of bigotry. (See also: CRT.)
What does this have to do with you? You used the term race baiting in a comment last night. That term had a particular meaning, until reactionary propagandists got a hold of it and decided to redefine it as whenever a non-right winger, especially, a minority, mentions race. It went from stoking racial hatred to any statement supporting the humanity of Black or Brown or Red people.
So, yeah. If I was not clear, you are the beneficiary of the oldest DEI program in the country–leveraging dominance gained through genocide, theft, chattel slavery, and disinformation to prop up mediocre individuals like you.
And you prove how much you needed it every time you click post on this website.
So with all due respect, fuck off.
Actor Tony Roberts, 85, has died. RIP.
Connor- Again to the data. Note that the same woke company that supposedly destroyed AB has picked up revenue since when it stagnated after the mid teens. Note that the same woke company that tried to broaden its appeal with Bud light and failed, dropping it to 3rd among light beers has also been promoting its Michelob Ultra, which is now 2nd among light beers. IF wokeness hurt Bud light, is it helping Michelob Ultra and AB overall. (Lets remember to weigh the results in light of alcohol consumption overall dropping.)
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/BUD/anheuser-busch/revenue
Steve
@Fortune: Are you and Connor the same person, or do you just crib off the same sites?
@Fortune:
I’ve yet to see you make a point worth conceding. And I am more than willing to acknowledge good points–see just about any interaction I have had with Andy.
When you have tried to offer an actual argument, you found yourself drowning, because you jumped into the deep end without your water wings.
For example, you tried to justify your abortion position via some 8th grade conception of DNA, and then abandoned it once people more knowledgeable about it showed you just how little you know.
General vs. specific does not define bad faith. And by the way, if you couldn’t tell, I was trying–I will concede that I did it in a patronizing manner–to invite you to join the discussion, but that requires actual engagement. If I was sure you couldn’t do it, I would treat you like I do Connor and be dismissive. My mistake.
You know what is bad faith?
Refusing to directly answer questions.
Refusing to meaningfully engage, then somehow claiming your points get conceded.
And the most obvious example:
Getting called out with actual analysis.
And responding with:
Good faith would have either defended your original point or conceded that you wrote what you wrote, but did not quite articulate what you meant. I didn’t manipulate your words, I took them at face value.
You cannot even be honest with yourself or us about the plain meaning of your own words! And you expect us to “get what [you] meant”?
That is textbook bad faith.
Call it a temper-tantrum if you want. You are out of your depth. Learn to swim, buy some swimmies, or stay out of the water. Your choice. But I am not going to pull you out when the water fills your lungs yet again, because you chose to debate thinkers rather than parrots.
I have no doubt that you thought you should place me on your do not bother list. But you chose to respond anyway, a day later.
Well, okay, Otis, you did stumble into the bar, itching to fight. You never stood a chance with one. The bookie in the corner booth never even took bets for the first one. Definitely won’t if your poking two people.
We have all the ground to stand on, the law is on our side.
You want flowers sent to the ICU, or should we donate to a charity in your name?
PS. You still have bronzer on your lips.
@Kurtz:
The depth! The cleverness! The openness to variety of thought! Above all, the engagement! Wonderful. ETA: how about that, an even better example before I could even submit.
First, Happy Birthday @Flat Earth Luddite: !
Young and old unite to make the world a better place!
A couple of points to respond to from yesterday:
@JohnSF:
I have thought about this extensively. My concern, and maybe you can help allay that a bit, is that when it comes time to make a choice, the UK and particularly England, will pull towards the U.S. It’s kind of a rational choice if you don’t think too hard about it, but its the obviously wrong choice.
Many in my community here have talked about getting guns or fighting back physically. I don’t find that realistic. There’s a lot more of them than us. We can take a lot with us, but at the end of the day guns and violence won’t save us.
As far as I’m concerned, what’s going to save us is art. They can scare us and wreck our bodies, but they can’t erase us or the memories we carry. Especially when we use those memories to make art. I can’t draw or make music, but I do think I have a way of speaking and being that drags people around. I’m going to work on bettering that and my understanding of the world.
I figure I’m going to start by reading Arendt, Baldwin and Marx. Yes, trite and very college dorm room, but I think that’s a good place for me to start. I’m probably going to go back to school. Maybe it’s time to do something stupid that will really twist people’s brains like getting a degree in economics and aesthetics. I have a friggin law degree, I don’t get the math, but I get the gist of the rest. Seriously, reading about international balance of payments and understanding it has been a mindfuck.
I can’t fight here, I know that. My job is to leave and live. I can’t squander that. Squandering that will be condemning my people and turning my back on them. I can’t do that.
@Kurtz:
I think they have to unless their goal is to be a crank and an asshole. Like, it’s fine to demand the right to use the word “retarded” and apply that to people, but what happens when you say that around someone and they break all your teeth? It’s all fine and dandy to be a free speech absolutist, but we live in a society and eventually people get tired of being an underclass or taking shit from people.
I also don’t think it’s possible for a writer, an artist, to simultaneously argue that the things they right both matter and don’t. Like, I get that for Reynolds getting yelled at by dorm room warriors over his writing is scary, but for everyone who gets driven out of the profession by professional yellers, there’s someone like Joanne Rowling out there being an abjectly terrible person just raking in the cash. His job as a writer, and all of our jobs as people in a society is to understand the useful criticism and ignore the rest.
For example (and I know this is a bugbear of his) but I don’t want most writers/artists coming up with trans characters. Not because they “shouldn’t” or “can’t” but because most of the time those characters and that writing is garbage that flattens out or distorts the existence of actual people like me (because words and art has meaning and impact). My guess is that if you ask the various groups of people here about characters that share their group characteristics they’d probably feel similar. And like, you can have good intentions, do research, and work really hard at a character/art and still fail. The job there is to understand the value of that criticism and try and do better next time. Not start whining about how a bunch of professional yellers are screaming.
I fully agree with you about your second point. I suspect this is a particularly American problem because people don’t understand law or its purpose and have forgotten history. Our system is quite odd and we’ve added a whole lot of cultural bullshit to it. It’s all well and good to say that the law is you can say whatever you want and the government won’t stop you. But that doesn’t mean everyone else is forced to put up with your bullshit. Eventually people will either break your teeth, or walk away. Then what do you do? Find refuge with a bunch of other assholes who’ve decided the world is mean to you in particular just because you have the ABSOLUTEST RIGHT TO SAY EVERYTHING that pops into your head. I have to constantly stop myself from staying all sorts of weird and stupid shit. That’s not oppression, that’s being a decent person.
I think the most unfortunate part of all of our backlash period now is groups of people who aren’t white men demanding to be talked to as people and even that gentle criticism is taken by white men as a pure assault on their being. Like, no man, just don’t be a dick.
@steve:
Just to add a little data point about l’affaire Mulvaney. I think it’s safe to say that most people in my community were happy for Mulvaney. She looked genuinely happy and good for her. I don’t think InBev really got any traction out of us because we knew it was pandering. Now, had they put some more effort behind that maybe we would have spent more money on Bud Light. Doubtful, but maybe. On the other hand, we all felt pretty fucking shafted when InBev decided to join in on shitting on us. I was in gay bars here in Chicago, and one in particular that has a large Trans clientele dumping their Bud Light. I watched them take down their taps and work to get rid of bud light as fast as they could.
Hey DK, how many gay bars sell Coors products? There’s a long memory there. We drink a lot. We party hard. We frequently remember how people shit on us. Lpl, there’s a lot of salience to the comment that people across the spectrum shit on InBev for the Mulvaney ad, which is true to an extent. But completely misses the point. The only people that were pissed about Mulvaney were the rightwing nutters like we have here. The rest, the majority, was people knowing that InBev was about to shit on a community that didn’t need to be shit on.
@Fortune:
So you take the last 7 words of a ~200 word post, and present that as proof that I didn’t engage? Well, you got me.
Still, flimsy as it is, it’s more than Trump, Vance, or Musk ever offer it to support their claims. So, you got them beat. Congrats!
I need a second, your good faith is overwhelming me.
Is it the Holy Spirit?
@Kurtz: You don’t engage intellectually, no.
@Fortune:
Purely out of curiosity, how do you define intellectual engagement?
@CSK:
Full and enthusiastic agreement with his bullshit updated hourly. Pure pure boredom.
@Beth: Hey, I tried to engage with you last week. What a waste of time that turned out to be. You didn’t want differing opinions, you wanted agreement.
@Beth:
I don’t expect a comprehensible answer to the question.
@Beth:
Given the tenor of my presence here the last three days, it may seem like I should emulate this approach. Shit, to some degree, I have. Some of what actually got posted is, well, still pretty damn mean. But I did not write, or erased, far more insulting lines.
Probably not the greatest justification, but I’m tired of taking the high road just to listen to people who can barely articulate a thought, much less chain multiple ideas together, treat those they don’t understand like shit. Connor is a more deserving target than Fortune. But the latter appears to be trying to provoke these sorts of responses. Because what else could he be doing?
Do they think they are getting a rise out of me–that I’m angry? I’m not. This is fun. It’s not as if I’m picking on something they cannot control. The high road takes discipline. Treating them like they treat others–cracking jokes and ridiculing them–is much more fun than restraint.
And most of all, to the extent they actually say anything other than a jumble of standard RW bs, it’s not like it takes much thought to counter it. I don’t even have to refresh old knowledge or double-check anything. I know where to look so I can copy and paste a passage.
As far as Michael goes, I’ve learned to live with it. I respect him. He’s a good writer. He’s smart, if a bit on the stubborn side. At one point in the past, you seemed to have affection for him. (Unless I missed the sarcasm.)
I hope you’re feeling better. Keep ya head up!
@CSK: Well, first I look for an intro like “out of a twisted sense of curiosity at the nonsense you’ll say, what do you think about…”. 🙂
@Fortune:
Uh…so pointing out flaws in a provided link isn’t intellectual engagement?
Responding to the elevation of states rights by quoting The Federalist no. 45 and arguing that the Framers were not a monolith isn’t intellectual engagement?
Countering some clumsy, weird DNA argument by pointing out that DNA mutates with each cell division? Not intellectual enough?
I mean, you could have responded with the Ship of Theseus and said that I’m relying on a particular answer to an unanswerable question, but you didn’t. You just abandoned it. Or maybe you realized it would be a concession to Beth’s (I think) argument about the moment of conception being a question of faith. Either way, you did no such thing.
You acted like none of it happened, then days later claim your points were conceded.
And I’m the one that isn’t engaging intellectually?
And, by the way, you just admitted that you don’t read Steven’s posts or comments, yet respond. So are you a liar? Or are you admitting that you just type things and demand more effort from everyone else?
So please, can you define “intellectual engagement”? Because I’m at a loss for how you could possibly define it in way they includes you, but excludes me or Beth or Steven.
Sure, if you want to say I’m being mean, or arrogant, or crass, or offensive. Shit, throw hypocrite at me if you want. Fine. I’ll own that when appropriate.
But for once, how about you do the same for yourself? Own what you actually type. Define your terms.
I promise, I will meet you there.
@CSK: FWIW, he has only talked about engagement after I repeatedly pointed out that he doesn’t engage.
And for the record, and for anyone who might need a definition, I think it has to do with taking seriously what other say and to try and directly respond to what others say/ask/assert.
I am idealistic enough to think that such interaction can be productive.
For example, I engaged above when a commenter asked a question (granted to someone else) about class warfare. I tried to give a reasonable response in the hope of productive dialogue.
An example of what non-engagement looks like is when the person to whom said comment was aimed utterly ignores it.
Hopefully this is helpful to someone, somewhere.
Well, Vaigai, an elephant at the Honolulu Zoo, predicts that the Eagles will win the Superbowl.
Kathy, take note.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I notice that Fortune did not answer my question.
@gVOR10: I believe the original quote was “kicking your ass” but am too lazy to double check.
@Michael Reynolds: I’ll have you know that Luddite was voted “most likely to be collateral damage in a police altercation” in high school. Living to 70 is a serious achievement for him even without the cancer sidebar.
@CSK: It’s his way.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Hahaha. Best senior superlative ever.
I got voted most likely to be President. That would be a disaster.
@CSK:
Did Fortune add a bunch of words to your quote?
@CSK:
She doesn’t seem to have a good record. 🙂
@Kurtz:
Yes, he did, turning a legit query into a snide one.
@CSK:
We got owned. (lol).
I wonder if he’s collecting all of this for a blog like Paul L. does.
@Kurtz:
Oh, I have a great affection for him. Anyone who supports their trans kids starts out with a huge mark in the plus column from me. I also believe that his heart is in the right place. However, I think in many ways his thinking has become sclerotic. My hope is to get him to wake his ass up before he sleepwalks into becoming a Republican. Maybe if we lived in a different timeline there’d be more room for his “get off my lawn” bullshit. But, we’re here and now and I need him to fight for us. Like it or not, he has power and we don’t.
lol, honestly I wonder if he ever shows my haranguing to his daughter and if she laughs. I think I’d take that as a win.
But, yes, there is affection, I wouldn’t call him Daddy Reynolds if there wasn’t. I’d just tell him to choke on his own dick.
I’m also with you on the high road. That didn’t work for us. I’ll leave the high road for craven milquetoast Barak types and attack from below like haters like Kendrick and the people like Michelle who’ve realized that the high road was used to choke us off.
And with that, I’m gonna take a shower, try and glue on some glittery fangs and dance to weird French electro with a bunch of queers in a holy space. I’ll pray to the Mother that Daddy sees the light and others choke on their dicks.
lol, for anyone curious:
https://youtu.be/VDoi7hlszw8?si=t5ZjCwGHACo-hhIV
And, a good reminder of what we need to do now for each other:
https://youtu.be/ffQ2vmf0ugo?si=sANXPv0_HQ27aM9o
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Grazzi! Although we’re apparently the poster children for “only the good die young,” eh?
@Kurtz:
Uh, yeah, I was certainly a smart mouth raised by the Norwegian version of rabid badgers. A trait I’ve never lost, which made life interesting, if financially poorer.
But in your defense, you’d make a much better president than the one we’re stuck with.
@Fortune: and yet you have totally ignored many of my attempts to engage with you, which I start from a place of attempting to understand your position. I’m not quite sure how I could engage in any better faith than that. So I’m beginning to form an opinion that you don’t actually want to engage with any degree of seriousness. I say this out of a sincere desire to invite you to view your behavior from a different point of view so that you can get the kind of engagement that you say you want. If the responses you are getting are not to your liking, then sure it could be that everyone here is an idiot and an asshole to boot, or it could be that there is a different reason.
@Flat Earth Luddite: Yes, it would seem we are, but I’ve never bought that good die young thing to begin with.
@Beth:
Michael Reynolds…become a Republican… Lolollolololololol *gasp* lolololololol. That’s funny. You’ll see gas station sushi served at Buckingham Palace first.
A lot, I think? The L.A. gheys do love their Blue Moon + pizza pairing. And I’ve been handed a Miller Lite in bars before. So yes.
Bud Light is not a Coors product, but we didn’t dump it in WeHo. We tried to support them against the str8 beta male backlash by ordering Bud Light for a while. But that didn’t last long cuz it just tastes like urine smells. My slactivism has limits. I’ve given up a whole lot for my fellow Alphabet People, but my taste buds they cannot have (I’m still from the South, after all).