Why then should I pay more than $4.50 for a mangorita?
This is some high-quality stupid right there!
Congratulations on working with the raw materials you were born with and refining and honing them to the point where you were able to reason something out like that; I’m sure it’s a giant leap forward from where you started.
It only works as a parallel if it’s comparing a double standard of the subject with either another double standard of the subject, or an insincere double standard “held” by the writer. You’re not making a “seeming” contradiction, you’re standing by both parts, both the “standing for nothing” and the “defend the indefensible” (as well as the quibbling early on, which works here too). A person who stands for nothing doesn’t quibble; quibbling is a weak form of argument, but it’s weak on the merits or the spirit, not on the steadfastness of the argument. A person who defends the indefensible, likewise, may do so unwisely or ridiculously, but not without being steadfast.
That’s why I changed the earlier part to whine - whining both runs in accord with the whimpering later on, but also matches up well to the idea of lack of steadfastness rather than contradicting it. It’s certainly possible to write in a way exemplifying the flaws you’re trying to write about, but then you can’t end on a point you’re actually making, because then you’re either stepping out of “character” (which you aren’t intending to, but doubling down on the final remark), or you’re accidentally inviting the reader to apply the same understanding of your lack of seriousness/accuracy to that last point. Put more simply, when writing something in character as an idiot, if your final point is one written in the same style, then it follows from the rhetoric that that final point is meant to be idiotic, too. That’s not what you’re going for, here.
To borrow your metaphor, I am blunting one side of the blade, that it not be double-edged.
So says the man whose views on how liberals ought to react to reports of anti-LGBT hate crimes are now completely the opposite of what they were 24 hours ago.
Well, he does provide a caricature of a conservative that’s easy to mock. However, it’s of limited value because it’s not credible that anyone is that stupid.
Every hour is Stupid Hour for the OP.
If we’re going to eliminate one religion because it promotes violence, shouldn’t we eliminate all the religions that promote violence?
Mr. McGee, don’t make me not angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m not angry.
My view is that all religions are stupid, but some are more stupid and dangerous than others. If we could get rid of all of them without interfering with people’s rights, I’d do it in a second. Unfortunately, people have valid rights to be stupid if they want. Some people of all religions actually go past stupid and into dangerous and violent. (I would agree that people of the Muslim faith are the doing this more than other faiths right now.) My impression of most these assholes is that they’d do the same or similar things even without some religious excuse. Columbine, Oklahoma City (perhaps debatable, but not really religiously motivated) and Sandy Hook come to mind.
Time will tell whether this bastard in Orlando was more devout than the bastards on 9/11. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he was mostly just full of rage and had no particularly strong “faith.”
Except my satire is grounded in the facts of the case and smears like fresh feces all over the Recreational Outragers, to whom truth is expendable in service of their preferred narrative.
Perhaps the difference eludes you. Or your olfactory sense is currently lacking.
At any rate, the stunning dissonance on display regarding these two successive events is illuminating: one would think from this board the right-wing boogeyman just killed 50 people.
If you can’t grasp that liberals defending the indefensible is equivalent to liberals standing for nothing within the context of defending Islamic intolerance, at least as a rhetorical device within the broader argument, then you are either playing pedagogue for kicks or suffer from a frightful ignorance of artistic flair.
I suspect you think Playing Professor was a good way to not even address the thread but derail it. Strunk & White give you a C-, professor.
Right-wing boogeyman certainly promote a culture where the sight of two men kissing drives people to hate and rage.
The thing that makes me angry here - aside from the hundred people who got shot, I mean - is right-wing morons pretending like their homophobia is completely separate and different from the homophobia of this killer, just because of their differing religion (both of which follow the same Book and point to the same quotes - but TOTALLY NOT THE SAME because one of them follows the Prince of Peace and the other is the Religion of Peace.)
It’s conservatives who are sending mixed signals. One day they’re saying all of the responsibility for a crime falls on the individual who commits it and you can’t diffuse the blame on to anything other than the criminal: guns didn’t kill those people, Kevin Loibl killed them. Then a few hours later, conservatives are saying you can’t just isolate the individual who committed the crime, you have to look at all the other factors that contributed to the crime and hold them responsible: Omar Mateen didn’t kill those people, Islam killed them.
Perhaps you can provide us an example of a liberal defending the indefensible? It might shed some light on your lack of anger.
It’s the rhetorical device that I’m addressing - and that it’s one device is the problem. The equivalency you’re talking about doesn’t exist on a rhetorical level within the monologue; using both breaks both so long as a consistent voice is being used throughout, which it is. If it wasn’t, you’d then have problems with your ending, which requires that consistent and intentional voice throughout.
You’ve replied to me twice so far, and only one other person. How can I be derailing the thread when you as the OP are choosing to respond to my posts? If anything I’d say this was readily following the tracks laid so far.
That said, my intention was to critique your monologue from a rhetorical perspective, and to try to re-write it to improve the style and the overall message both in terms of impact and success in getting the message across. I think my version works better without altering the sentiment or even tone expressed; rather, by cutting and replacing here and there, and moving things around, I think you have a rhetorically stronger monologue. I think to sum up, there’s plenty of good reasons to follow rhetorical rules and to break rhetorical rules, but at least before getting too meta you shouldn’t break the rules that you’re also relying on. Unless that sudden reversal is the linchpin of the piece, which isn’t the case here, and even then that generally requires a much longer monologue to work well with (otherwise you spend half of it breaking one half, when what you want is something more like one-half to two-thirds building, and one full breaking).
Here’s a liberal attacking a fellow liberal for “defending the indefensible.”
Or, if you feel Maher beneath you, the inimitable Hitchslap toward those who betray their own liberal values.
These are, of course, intense debates that have gone on for decades. I have chosen my side: the side of free expression and liberal democracy. In that regard, I should be as liberal as Marx. However, liberals no longer seem to believe in their own principles, preferring to subjugate them in defense of the Muslim community, where oppression of gays and women is ubiquitous.
This is the defense of the indefensible; standing for something while standing for nothing. So long as the left forsakes its own integrity in the name of cultural sensitivity, I will call them for their hypocrisy. And I will not apologize for it.
I find your re-write dull and uninspired. Something a failed writer-turned-high-school-grammar-teacher would have given me as an “improvement.” The type that would have given Faulkner a D for his audacity.
Cut out the meat for a prettier shell? Not interested. Every word had its purpose.
Yep, Faulkner. That’s what we’re all thinking.
You know what, you’re right. Anybody who venerates a book that calls for the killing of gays is a potential murderer, and should be treated accordingly.
3-1-1. Again, you’ve got an issue with your rhetorical contrasts. Painting my re-write as dull and uninspired contrasts with your later metaphor of “cutting out the meat for a prettier shell”. On a stylistic level, you undercut your point by using the same “character” to voice diametrically opposed ideas. As before, this works if the point of the writing is to invoke that contrast, to include it as a part of the whole or simply to make turn for the whole piece to something other than the expected. Here, the concept you’re attempting to get across is the same only in the most basic contextual element, and dividing it by introducing opposing rhetorical concepts halves it rather than shares it. Actually, a much better alternative for that line would have been the one you’d used earlier about the dulled blade (put some other way to avoid unpleasant repetition, of course), so it’s not like there aren’t other options which still keep your meaning. You just have to make sure that you’re using them at the right times. Alternatively you could have made a point about the content as opposed to the style, and kept your metaphor, but (personally) that seems silly and (depending on you) may not even be accurate, but it’s tricky to tell.
That last part is actually also true of some of your OP monologue, although I didn’t end up moving that much around. I’d look into your question about removing the meat to pretty up the shell in more depth, but honestly at this point given the conflations and contrasts messing with some of your communication, I’m not even sure whether you’d make an argument that the steak and the sizzle are effectively one and the same as far as the rhetorical construction of it all goes anyway. Which puts something of a damper on that. When you say every word had its purpose, are you speaking individually in *all *cases, or generally as their part in the whole? Or both or neither, of course.
FWIW, I wouldn’t give Faulkner a D for his audacity. Or give him a D for his audacity, for that matter!