# Can lonesome polecats' charges be debunked? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 21, 2010, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-lonesome-polecats-charges-be-debunked/561486 "2010-11-21T23:36:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-lonesome-polecats-charges-be-debunked/561486/41 "2010-11-22T19:30:51Z")
> [@Paranoid\_Randroid](#): > > But in that case, it could be argued, **lonesome polecat** ’s statement loses its force: > > If she was only punished in the sense of being marked down for violating one pageant judge’s sense of propriety, then she was not punished in any sense beyond all of the other losers that day. Taking the event as indicative of an oppressive culture of rampant leftist dogma – particularly when the judge in question is known primarily for his advocacy of homosexual issues – is terribly extreme. But clearly it is that extreme sense of “punish” that he must have meant for this event to merit inclusion in his list. OK. Here’s how I would frame the claim, if you’ll pardon the rhyme: But for Prejean’s answer, she would have won. That is to say, had she either been given a more typical “Which are fluffier, kittens or puppies?” type question, or if she had responded to Hilton’s actual question in a way supportive of same-sex marriage, she would have won. Hilton himself agrees with that claim. Now we can remove the distraction of “punishment,” from the issue and proceed from there. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-lonesome-polecats-charges-be-debunked/561486/42 "2010-11-22T19:38:56Z")
So her “punishment” was not by “The Left”, but by Perez Hilton. Gotcha. :rolleyes: And it has made her a far more marketable commodity than she would have been otherwise, too - quite an unusual punishment, that. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-lonesome-polecats-charges-be-debunked/561486/43 "2010-11-22T19:48:33Z")
James Watson was 79 years old when he was fired by CSHL, and still has a Nobel fucking Prize. It’s not as though he’s going to be remembered as anything other than the guy who discovered the structure of DNA. According to the Miss USA organization, the criteria for the interview portion of the contest is: > [@](#): > > …successes, talents, goals and ambitions. Attention is focused on [the contestant’s] poise, charm, self-confidence and her ability to communicate, as well as the substance of her answers. Perez Hilton apparently not find her very charming. So what? You’re free to organize a competing pageant if you don’t like having Perez Hilton judging the thing. As far as the “California school requiring students to dress like Muslims and pray to Allah in a class project on Islam”, that appears to be the position taken by right-wing blogs on the Eklund v. Byron Union School District case. The First Amendment Center briefly synopsized the case thusly: > [@](#): > > Jonas and Tiffany Eklund say pupils at a Contra Costa County public school were given pages from the opening chapter of the Quran to read and studied Islam’s Five Pillars of Faith in a world history unit on Muslim culture. The school district won at the trial court, on appeal, **and** on rehearing by the Ninth Circuit _en banc_. Then SCOTUS denied cert. It’s pretty safe to say the plaintiffs’ case is probably without merit. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-lonesome-polecats-charges-be-debunked/561486/44 "2010-11-22T20:01:10Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > According to the Miss USA organization, the criteria for the interview portion of the contest is: > Perez Hilton apparently not find her very charming. So what? You’re free to organize a competing pageant if you don’t like having Perez Hilton judging the thing. This is not a rebuttal of the claim. Let’s say I am a Redskins fan, and the new boss is a rabid Dallas fan. After a Monday victory by Washington over the Cowboys, he moves my office from a corner one with a window to a converted broom closet. I say, “I was punished for being a Redskins fan!” Your response is, “If you don’t like it, you’re free to work elsewhere.” Undeniably true, but it doesn’t rebut the claim. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-lonesome-polecats-charges-be-debunked/561486/45 "2010-11-22T20:15:59Z")
Your counterexample is not really on point. The Miss USA pageant isn’t a job. Let’s try a better one: suppose the question was, “what can we do to help starving children?” and Ms. Prejean responded that she didn’t care about starving children; or, perhaps, that we were lucky to live in a country where children can choose to starve or not starve. Now suppose Sally Struthers is a guest judge, and marked Prejean down for this answer. Would you contend that Prejean was punished for her un-PC views on children? And if so, so fucking what? How does anything that happened to Prejean support the idea that “liberals are fearful”? ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-lonesome-polecats-charges-be-debunked/561486/46 "2010-11-22T20:24:46Z")
> [@zamboniracer](#): > > [Details here](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130712737) I don’t see him stating a position. I see him telling what his feelings are. He didn’t say anything about Muslims other than how they made him feel. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-lonesome-polecats-charges-be-debunked/561486/47 "2010-11-22T20:26:57Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Your counterexample is not really on point. The Miss USA pageant isn’t a job. > > Let’s try a better one: suppose the question was, “what can we do to help starving children?” and Ms. Prejean responded that she didn’t care about starving children; or, perhaps, that we were lucky to live in a country where children can choose to starve or not starve. > > Now suppose Sally Struthers is a guest judge, and marked Prejean down for this answer. Would you contend that Prejean was punished for her un-PC views on children? Yes. > [@](#): > > And if so, so fucking what? How does anything that happened to Prejean support the idea that “liberals are fearful”? Well, that’s a slightly different question. “Did it happen?” as opposed to “It did, but so what?” But I imagine the inferences would go something like this: 1. Perez Hilton punished Carrie Prejean by giving her a very low score for her answer, which dragged down her average and cost her the crown. 2. One factor that mitigates against judges’ arbitrary exercise of sanctions like that is the loss of respect from the general community. 3. In this case, the general community to which Hilton belongs applauds, rather than condemns, this action. 4. The general community to which Hilton belongs is fairly described as liberal. 5. The effect of imposing this kind of sanction is to stifle debate and communication about the issue of same-sex marriage. 6. Liberals are fearful about honest debate and communication about the issue of same-sex marriage because, rather than welcome such debate, they seek to demonize opposing views and stifle such debate. Obviously this isn’t exactly a series of rock-solid syllogisms. But I suspect that’s a general outline of the intended argument. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-lonesome-polecats-charges-be-debunked/561486/48 "2010-11-22T20:36:18Z")
I suspect you may be giving both _freres_ **Polecat** and Hilton a little too much credit, there. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-lonesome-polecats-charges-be-debunked/561486/49 "2010-11-22T20:37:47Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I suspect you may be giving both _freres_ **Polecat** and Hilton a little too much credit, there. Perhaps; that’s the danger in stepping in to flesh out someone else’s arguments. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-lonesome-polecats-charges-be-debunked/561486/50 "2010-11-22T20:40:20Z")
In reading his list as a whole, I see no effort to explain the conservative perception of liberals as fearful. It reads more like a response to, “why I think liberals are poopyheads and/or ruining the country”. ---
**Author:** ![zamboniracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9a140/32.png) [@zamboniracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zamboniracer)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-lonesome-polecats-charges-be-debunked/561486/51 "2010-11-22T20:47:24Z")
Bricker, the Miss USA Pageant Title is an award. One doesn’t get punished by not winning an award, because by definition, one doesn’t win an award without the consent of the judges. Consider: On day 1, Prejean’s status is “hasn’t won Miss USA”. On Day 2, she annoys the Judges, and finishes 2nd. Her status remains “hasn’t won Miss USA” which is the same status she had before the pageant. Contrast this with your analogy, where on day 1 you had a nice corner office, and on day 2 you were working in the broom closet. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-lonesome-polecats-charges-be-debunked/561486/52 "2010-11-22T20:48:17Z")
Beauty contests are a _liberal_ thing now? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-lonesome-polecats-charges-be-debunked/561486/53 "2010-11-22T20:48:52Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Your counterexample is not really on point. The Miss USA pageant isn’t a job. True. The pageant is more like a job interview. It is rather close to interviewing for a secretary/receptionist at a doctor’s office. You find a candidate. She is smart, congenial, knows the phone systems already, types 110 wpm and during the interview you find out she is an atheist. So you don’t hire her. Would you agree that she hasn’t been punished for expressing a view? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-lonesome-polecats-charges-be-debunked/561486/54 "2010-11-22T20:52:00Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > In reading his list as a whole, I see no effort to explain the conservative perception of liberals as fearful. It reads more like a response to, “why I think liberals are poopyheads and/or ruining the country”. Well, I think the overall thesis is something like, “Look at all these extreme reactions to ordinary events. Why would liberals react so strongly to innocuous events? My theory is that secretly, the liberals fear what these events represent, and so rather than engage in honest dialog – a process which they know would expose the underlying weaknesses in the various specific positions – liberals attack with fury. The over-the-top furious attack, in other words, is evidence of fear.” For what it’s worth, I believe there’s at least a glimmer of truth to that view as applied to Palin: when Palin was first selected for nomination, some commentators on the left ran with the charge that she conspired to conceal her unmarried daughter’s pregnancy by claiming the resulting baby as her own. I absolutely believe that this charge arose from two instincts on the left: (1) This is a conservative woman, which renders some of our usual rhetoric useless; and (2) we lack any real substantive criticisms of her. However, it shortly became obvious that there WERE, in fact, plenty of real criticisms to level at Palin, and so the left, somewhat discomfited, quietly abandoned that tack and latched on to the real stuff. This was made easier by Palin’s revelation that her baby could NOT have belonged to her daughter since that daughter was already pregnant. Now, does that one incident support a generalized charge against the left? No, of course not. But it’s about the only thing I can think of that fits, even poorly, into the accusation. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-lonesome-polecats-charges-be-debunked/561486/55 "2010-11-22T20:53:57Z")
You guys are missing the meta here. It isn’t about the flimsiness of the charges themselves, some of them are total horseshit, some are only about fifty percent horseshit. Its about the overarching theme of conservatives being persecuted and hounded by the liberal conspiracy. You see, the path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men… ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-lonesome-polecats-charges-be-debunked/561486/56 "2010-11-22T20:54:57Z")
> [@zamboniracer](#): > > Bricker, the Miss USA Pageant Title is an award. One doesn’t get punished by not winning an award, because by definition, one doesn’t win an award without the consent of the judges. > > Consider: On day 1, Prejean’s status is “hasn’t won Miss USA”. > On Day 2, she annoys the Judges, and finishes 2nd. Her status remains “hasn’t won Miss USA” which is the same status she had before the pageant. > > Contrast this with your analogy, where on day 1 you had a nice corner office, and on day 2 you were working in the broom closet. Ah, but let’s frame it a bit differently. On Day 1, Prejean’s status is, “Will be judged by the totality of her presentation: looks, talent, charm.” On Day 2, Prejean’s status is, “Will be judged only by her view on same-sex marriage, which no other contestant has been asked about.” ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-lonesome-polecats-charges-be-debunked/561486/57 "2010-11-22T20:57:42Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > True. The pageant is more like a job interview. To use one strained analogy to counter another, saying that a beauty pageant is more like a job interview than an award is like saying the Olympics is more like vaudeville than a sporting competition. In other words, it isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-lonesome-polecats-charges-be-debunked/561486/58 "2010-11-22T21:00:50Z")
Other contestants were asked questions that she didn’t face, right? In any event, she certainly wasn’t judged only by that answer; the answer is seen as significant _because_ she got so much credit by other criteria. And answers to any possible question can be understood in terms of charm. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-lonesome-polecats-charges-be-debunked/561486/59 "2010-11-22T21:03:50Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Ah, but let’s frame it a bit differently. > > On Day 1, Prejean’s status is, “Will be judged by the totality of her presentation: looks, talent, charm.” > > On Day 2, Prejean’s status is, “Will be judged only by her view on same-sex marriage, which no other contestant has been asked about.” Yes. This is absolutely where the unfairness, such as it is, comes into it. And really that is the fault of the contest organizers by allowing such a politically and socially charged question, and for Perez Hilton for asking it. It’s just like the random family member that insists on asking what church you go to over Thanksgiving dinner. Awkward and unnecessary. But neither Perez Hilton nor your crazy aunt tell us much about a political strain of thought as a whole. Just that they’re both kinda assholes. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-lonesome-polecats-charges-be-debunked/561486/60 "2010-11-22T21:05:05Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > 1. Liberals are fearful about honest debate and communication about the issue of same-sex marriage because, rather than welcome such debate, they seek to demonize opposing views and stifle such debate. Honest debate? From the right? On gay issues? :rolleyes: No, it is they who are fearful. Nothing but a load of superstition and conspiracy theories. Liberals are trying to “destroy” marriage by “redefining” it? What on earth is “honest” about that? If they were honest they’d admit it (and not wanting DADT repealed) is about not wanting one little aspect of their religion refudiated. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-lonesome-polecats-charges-be-debunked/561486.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-lonesome-polecats-charges-be-debunked/561486.md?page=4)