Well, if you guessed the latter, you'd be Paul over at Brain Fell Out. In his ongoing quest to prove that conservitards are de-evolved subhuman filth soooooo far below his own exalted level that they barely register as life forms to his all-encompassing intellect, Paul takes a mediocre magazine article about a mediocre TV show called 24 and drives that baby off a cliff. His bat-shit insane conclusion? Conservatives = Terrorists!!! Here's the money quote:
On the other hand, conservatives are actually very close to the terrorists how they think--brothers under the skin, one might say: tribalist, ethnocentric, religious, fundamentalist, self-righteous, prone to violence and scornful of compromise or even dialogue. They are peas in a pod. No wonder conservatives don't want to understand the terrorists--they'd have to admit they're one and the same!Having proved to his own satisfaction that there's no difference between George Will and Osama bin Laden, Paul and his mighty intellect move on to recommend and even crappier TV show upon which his God-Emperor's administration might profitably base US foreign policy - CBS' potboiler procedural Criminal Minds.
Now, give the pwog credit, he does skate perilously close to the heart of the problem (that the 9/11 attacks were a law enforcement problem, not a military one.) But fear not! In true pwogwessive style Paul veers away from that simple truth to wind up his "think piece" with a turgid, banal, "know thyself" conclusion that wouldn't have been out of place on an ABC After-School Special starring Krystie McNichol and Timothy Van Patten.
I've been telling wingnuts for years that teevee shows aren't real life. That they need to base their approach to, oh, everything on personal experience; acquire some street smarts, make critical examinations and engage in thoughtful interaction with their peers. Maybe read a book now and then. Reflect, and profit thereby. Needless to say I got nowhere.
ReplyDeleteSo one might reasonably imagine I'd be dismayed to find the same admonitions are as pointless and futile when given to a pwog. But I'm not dismayed. I've been spared the need to come up with a new futile thing. The old futile thing is perfectly appropriate, to the issues at hand, and as the end result is the same, there's no point to cobbling something new. In this way, the pwog is actually superior to the wingnut. Sort of maybe, kind of perhaps. Okay, not really.
Well, why waste a perfectly good futility anyway? I mean, why not apply it as broadly as possible: freepers, pwoggies, moonies, krishnas, mormons, scientologists, amway, mary kay salesladies, orthidontists...
ReplyDeleteGood call. I reckon we could fend off Peak Futility and make inroads against the Lump of Futility Fallacy through simple recycling. It's a green thing to do.
ReplyDelete