This, a Thousand Times This

Mark of New Jersey

Mark is a Founding Editor of The League of Ordinary Gentlemen, the predecessor of Ordinary Times.

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83 Responses

  1. Mad Rocket Scientist says:

    Ken has a way of cutting through the BS with a plasma torch.Report

  2. Chris says:

    Some of the people applauding A&E are people who last week were furious at the concept that companies have First Amendment rights.

    Who among that group is now arguing that they do, or in a way that suggests that they do? Does applauding A&E for making a business decision imply that one believes A&E has first amendment rights? If so, weird.Report

    • Mike Schilling in reply to Chris says:

      Without Citizens United, the government could nuke A&E headquarters and no one could say anything about it.

      Or something like that.Report

    • Will Truman in reply to Chris says:

      I thought that criticism was a bit off-target. A comment that I have made, though, is that I have never seen so many liberals and left-of-centers talk broadly about how nobody has a right to keep their job. It’s a threadable needle*, but a lot of unusual suspects have embraced Employment-At-Will with ironic satisfaction.

      * – The argument being that Robertson is a de-facto spokesperson and therefore his political views and such are pertinent in a way that they wouldn’t be for an engineer that was fired for putting up an Obama yardsign. It is perhaps uncharitable of me to suspect that the thinking of a lot of the A&E-defenders is not actually this nuanced, even if this isn’t an invalid argument. I remember a lot of the arguments surrounding John Rocker.\]Report

      • Dand in reply to Will Truman says:

        i’d think the best parallel is with Hollywood blacklist, the left was spent 60 years arguing that it was a violation of the first amendment.Report

      • Mike Schilling in reply to Will Truman says:

        When Phil Duck has to testify before Congress, let’s talk.Report

      • Dand, one of the interesting things over the past year has been trying to differentiate between how terrible The Blacklist was and boycotting Ender’s Game because of OSC’s political views.Report

      • Mike Schilling in reply to Will Truman says:

        Because OSC will never work again. (Not that he was ever going to finish the Alvin Maker series anyway.)Report

      • Chris in reply to Will Truman says:

        I don’t actually think he should be fired, though I would understand if A&E didn’t want him to be one of the faces of their network. I do think he deserves to be called a bigot (for what he said in his speech) and an idiot (for everything he said about race and homosexuality).Report

      • “We’re superior because we don’t have the ability to ruin careers. Superiority through failure…”

        (Seriously, if the point of the boycotts is not to deny him his livelihood by making his works unprofitable, even if they ultimately do not succeed at it… what is the point, exactly?)Report

      • greginak in reply to Will Truman says:

        There is a huge difference between the Blacklist and this. The BL was created de facto by a congressional investigation which led Hollywood execs wanting to avoid scrutiny from the gov to not hire anybody who didn’t’ cooperate with the Gov. Sadly most of those execs, i believe, were Jews who were afraid of falling on the wrong side of Gov power. Victims of the Bl couldn’t work in their fields anymore. Mr. Duck was criticized for saying things. No gov involved. A and E suspended him. The next season of their show will be airing and he still has his business. Again no gov involved, no official pressure to cooperate or have your career ruined. People disagreed with him. His livelihood is unaffected, he can speak all he wants in public and likely with a big megaphone.Report

      • Chris in reply to Will Truman says:

        “We’re superior because we don’t have the ability to ruin careers. Superiority through failure…”

        There was a shameful internet mob event on Friday night, probably the worst I’ve ever seen, that made me really want to move to Tristan da Cunha and never log onto a network again. I was thinking of writing something about it, because I have a feeling most people here didn’t catch it despite how big it was, but I dunno if I can do it justice. It was truly, truly disgusting.Report

      • Chris, Justine Sacco?Report

      • Chris in reply to Will Truman says:

        Will, yes. I watched it in real time. I’d never seen anything like it.Report

      • Kolohe in reply to Will Truman says:

        Sacco’s an easy case, because she was a self described ‘PR Superstar’.

        (“you had one job…”)Report

      • Dand in reply to Will Truman says:

        There was no government action mandating the blacklist. It was a private action. True it could have been done to avoid problems with the government, but given the fact that mayors of major cities have said that they will refuse to issue licensees to business holding view similar to Mr. Duck the same could be said of this case.Report

      • Chris in reply to Will Truman says:

        Yeah, it’s not the firing that bothered me. It was what Twitter and the rest of the internet did while she was on that plane: worked themselves up into such a tizzy that I think some people began to worry for her safety. Hell, one guy actually staked out the Cape Town airport. For a nobody, because of one genuinely offensive but not radically evil Tweet. I imagined them all with flares and pitchforks walking through main street on the way to kill the witch/vampire/ogre.Report

      • greginak in reply to Will Truman says:

        Dand- Yes i completely agree about the threats to not grant licenses to fried chicken sandwich shops. That was wrong. That isn’t the Duck case though.Report

      • Even the airport guy seemed to think that people were going overboard in the amount of hatred directed her way.

        Like Chris, I was actually considering doing a post on it. But I was unsure of what to say. Unlike him, though, I didn’t actually see it unfold.Report

      • Dand in reply to Will Truman says:

        A&E is owned by the Disney Corporation. Given that the mayors of major cities (where Disney might need to acquire permits in the future) have stated that they will deny permits to corporations that have high profile homophobic employees, it is possible that the threats against chick-fil-a influenced Disney decision making in this case. That’s why this is comparable to the Hollywood blacklist.Report

      • Mike Schilling in reply to Will Truman says:

        Sacco’s an easy case, because she was a self described ‘PR Superstar’.

        And Adria Richards was a “developer evangelist”. You’d think people would read their job descriptions more carefully.Report

      • Chris in reply to Will Truman says:

        Will, my girlfriend was actually having a conversation with the guy who interviewed her father in the airport as he was having the conversation with the father. It was the only time I’ve ever been a witness to one of these things in real time on Twitter. I got more and more worked up until I reached a point where I got up and left (we were sitting at a coffee bar), because I couldn’t watch it anymore and she couldn’t look away. This was before Sacco landed. When she landed, I checked in and saw that her Twitter account, which everyone had gone through with a fine-toothed comb already, was gone, and that the dude in South Africa had taken photos of her, and I lamented that this is who we are now: the people who ruin someone’s life over a single tweet while she’s on an airplane.

        Don’t get me wrong, Sacco is an idiot and an asshole, and she probably doesn’t need a job in PR if she thinks that tweet was OK, but what the hell? When did the internet turn into a medieval village in the midst of a plague, where everyone is ready to join a bloodthirsty mob at any moment?Report

      • Jaybird in reply to Will Truman says:

        For some reason, I remember the scene from the movie Election where Tracy Flick wonders what her old teacher was doing now (cut to him using a pricing gun on spray paint in a hardware store).

        The argument about “moral luck” is coming back to me. The whole argument that you’ve got two people driving 35 in a 25 mile zone and one hits a kid and one doesn’t and yet it’s just luck that the kid was in the street at this moment rather than that one and yet we don’t have the same scorn for the person who never hit anyone driving through the neighborhood at 35… despite the fact that they haven’t is just luck.

        How many of us could have been crucified for something we said while we got on a plane? Jeez, just a week ago, I flew out here. Hitting the ground to find out that I lost my job because of something I said about (topic)? I mean, good Christ. I probably have comments on this very website that could ruin my life if they made it to Buzzfeed. I may even have meant a couple of them (and I’m pretty sure that her tweet was intended to mock her perpective of her SWPL privilege far more than anything else).

        And that’s not even counting the stuff I say out loud.

        And that’s not even looking at the thoughts that bubble up in my head.Report

      • Mike Schilling in reply to Will Truman says:

        It’s like when Michael Weiner lost his TV show when he told a caller

        Oh, so you’re one of those sodomites. You should only get AIDS and die, you pig; how’s that?

        There but for the grace of God go I, amirite?Report

      • Mike Schilling in reply to Will Truman says:

        “We’re superior because we don’t have the ability to ruin careers. Superiority through failure…”

        Card is primarily a writer and an English professor. If anyone’s organizing a boycott of his books or trying to get him fired from his day job, I’m unaware of it.Report

      • Jaybird in reply to Will Truman says:

        Is the argument that the PR Goddess didn’t lose her job (and, presumably, have the next year or so of her employment life ruined) because of what happened because there are shock jocks who haven’t lost their jobs?

        (As for Card, we pretty much had a post on here in which we exhorted each other to avoid Ender’s Game.)Report

      • Chris in reply to Will Truman says:

        I have to admit that I read much, much more offensive things on Twitter on a pretty much daily basis, and they do not bother me at all. One reason for this is that many of the people saying those things are damned funny, and while funny doesn’t excuse everything, it can excuse a lot (and if it’s funny, it is often so not because it is offensive, but because it is said in such a way that it undermines the offensive parts). Another reason is that I usually dismiss ignorance and hate as ignorance and hate, and as I think I’ve said here many times before, I’d rather know who the ignorant and the haters are than to be left wondering.

        I can understand a PR person losing her job for making such a big and obvious PR blunder, or a celebrity losing his cushy television gig because he’s said things that reflect poorly on the network and threaten their position with the viewers and advertisers they target, but I cannot understand a world in which people delight in tearing apart a person’s life, even the life of someone who is rich, privileged, and powerful, but still a person, over one tweet. People were treating the Sacco situation like a reality television show, anxiously awaiting the moment she landed and they could witness her pain. That is a very dangerous world, a world in which potentially positive forces are used so misguidedly, and without any sense of proportion, that they become counterproductive. If Sacco had come on Twitter as the mob was beginning to form and defended herself with other clearly racist statements, or the all-too-common “Y’all just don’t get the joke,” or “It’s not offensive, y’all just have no sense of humor,” I might not have agreed with, but would have at least understood the level of outrage and pleasure in the suffering of another human being that I saw Friday night. But what if she had been around, instead of incommunicado, and had apologized profusely for the tweet, said it was a misguided joke that should never have been made, and that she is truly sorry for saying something so obviously offensive? What if she had engaged her critics in a dialogue? Then I wouldn’t have understood it at all. She never got a chance to do that: by the time she’d landed, no dialogue was possible, no apology would have been sufficient. The mob had already crashed through the gate and it was going to have its way.Report

      • Mike Schilling in reply to Will Truman says:

        No, the argument is that while some things can be innocent gaffes, some stuff genuinely is reprehensible. Making fun of the AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa seems to me to be the latter. (Disclaimer that, just as with Adria Richards, I’m not condoning death threats or other forms of piling on.)Report

      • Will H. in reply to Will Truman says:

        @chris :
        I share your concern in this.
        I would prefer to think things through a bit more before commenting further.Report

      • Mike Schilling in reply to Will Truman says:

        (As for Card, we pretty much had a post on here in which we exhorted each other to avoid Ender’s Game.)

        Re-reading that post, I see people being all over the map on how to regard OSC and whether to see the film. (The book hardly got discussed, since few of us are SF readers, but there was a total lack of enthusiasm for burning it.)Report

    • Kolohe in reply to Chris says:

      Sacco’s an easy case, because she was a self described ‘PR Superstar’
      And Adria Richards was a “developer evangelist”. You’d think people would read their job descriptions more carefully.

      I’ve been trying for a day to figure out how these two incidents are in any way similar and failing. (after looking up who Richards was to refresh my memory)Report

      • Mike Schilling in reply to Kolohe says:

        Richards’s job was to attract developers, not alienate them.
        And she also blew herself up with an ill-considered tweet.Report

      • Kolohe in reply to Kolohe says:

        in the service of bro-shaming*, not in the service of an ill conceived racially tinged AIDS ‘joke’.

        This is the similar category error to the one that people make when they say ‘Sarah Silverman could have said what Sacco said’ – context matters, both immediate and overall.

        (one could argue, like most EEO handbooks would, that going public immediately with such a dispute rather than first exhausting other dispute resolution mechanisms is a mistake – and may in fact be a terminal one – but the two situations are nothing alike, other than they involve both involve women on the internet)

        *and one bro was fired, the other disciplined.Report

      • Mike Schilling in reply to Kolohe says:

        And both Sacco and Richards got themselves fired. Silverman would not have.Report

      • Kolohe in reply to Kolohe says:

        I mean, if you want a tough case that’s closer to what Sacco did, it was the dude in the room at the conference that made a hoary PG13 comment about computer jargon, was overheard, was reported, and was canned. He was representing his firm, sure, but passively. (until he opened his mouth).Report

      • Kolohe in reply to Kolohe says:

        All I’m saying is that I’m not sure if Richards should have been fired (I wouldn’t have done so, were I making that decision), but I’m much more of an at-will fire people for any reason or no reason whatsoever type person. You don’t want to work for a stupid company that fires good people for stupid reasons.Report

      • Mike Schilling in reply to Kolohe says:

        The developer was involved in what he thought was a private conversation. Tweets are by design sent to the whole world.Report

  3. Burt Likko says:

    I enjoy his iteration of the concept of the “Preferred First Speaker.” As well as his verdict: “It’s ultimately incoherent as a theory of freedom of expression.”Report

  4. Chris says:

    Also, given what he said about segregation and what he said in his speech (not in the interview) about homosexuality, this is the bullshit:

    A substantial percentage of outrage is bullshit.Report

    • NewDealer in reply to Chris says:

      Indeed!Report

    • J@m3z Aitch in reply to Chris says:

      Chris,

      I think Ken White was talking about outrage in general, inckuding the reactive pro-Duck outrage, not specifically about the anti-Duck outrage.Report

      • Chris in reply to J@m3z Aitch says:

        James, here’s the full quote:

        A substantial percentage of outrage is bullshit. So is a substantial percentage of outrage about outrage, and so on.

        He refers to the outrage and the outrage to the outrage separately, so when he called the outrage bullshit, I’m pretty sure he was talking about the “anti-Duck” outrage specifically.Report

      • @chris

        Not to parse it too finely, but “So is….” implies that White thinks the the pro-duck outrage is b.s., just like the ant-duck outrage.Report

      • J@m3z Aitch in reply to J@m3z Aitch says:

        Chris,

        He’s building a general argument about these types of free speech outrage events, not just talking about this particular case. Notice that he talks about “outrage” generally, and doesn’t say “the outrage.”Report

      • Chris in reply to J@m3z Aitch says:

        Pierre, yeah, what I was trying to say was that it was clear that he was referring to both the outrage and the outrage to the outrage as bullshit. My point in my initial comment was that I do not think the “anti-Duck” outrage was bullshit, given how extremely bigoted his spoken remarks about gay people were. One could argue that “homosexuality is a sin” doesn’t come from malice. One would be hard pressed to argue that gay people are “full of murder, envy, strife, hatred” does not come from malice.

        James, I’m cool with the idea that the internet outrage machine is out of control. I don’t think this is a good example to use to make that point, though. Initially I did think the reaction to his comments on homosexuality were a bit over the top (though his comments on racial segregation were stupid and genuinely offensive). Then I saw his speech, and I realized this man is a bigoted asshole. If Ken hasn’t seen the speech, as Mike hadn’t when he wrote his post in defense of Robertson the other day, then I’m cool with what he said, though I wouldn’t mind seeing him add an update. If he’s seen the speech and he’s still using this as an example, then he’s just wrong.Report

      • @chris

        Thanks for clarifying.

        I will note as an aside that sometimes I get outraged at things that I can demonstrate are truly outrageous, but that I sometimes wonder if I am not being at least a little bit hypocritical about it all. I sometimes believe and (more rarely, I hope) say offensive things, and part of me feels like I have a mote in my eye when I call others on saying similar things.Report

      • Stillwater in reply to J@m3z Aitch says:

        I think – perhaps incorrectly – that when Ken talks about outrage being bullshit, he means that a response entirely constituting emotional content is bullshit. That stuff is easy and cheap. Insofar as the outrage derives from an actual disagreement about views, then I think he’s saying – again, could be wrong – can the outrage and express the substance of the disagreement.Report

      • Mike Schilling in reply to J@m3z Aitch says:

        Name something on the internet that isn’t substantially bullshit. Anyone?

        (Note that “Facile false equivalence” is a wrong answer.)Report

      • J@m3z Aitch in reply to J@m3z Aitch says:

        Chris,

        I stand by my point that Ken White was making a more general argument than you seem to think he was making. But that aside, I agree with the meaning of Stillwater’s interpretation (whether or not it’s what White was saying). Phil Robertson’s words are just that, words. Stupid words. Outrageous words, but words.

        Meanwhile a woman was repeatedly raped by medical personnel at the order of police because a dog demonstrated in front of her. But we’re all going to spend more effort being outraged because some religious guy said something bad about gays.

        Sorry, I don’t have the outrage to spare on Robertson. He’s just another idiot full of bluster. But who has he really hurt?Report

      • Chris in reply to J@m3z Aitch says:

        I think outrage can be a productive force towards positive social change, but only when it is proportional and precise. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being outraged by what Robertson said, given how visible he is and how many people will treat both his saying of those things and the subsequent reaction to them by those who disagree with him as validation of their hateful and bigoted views and their sense of victimization. Outrage properly aimed and expressed is a teaching moment: it doesn’t confront hate with hate, but hate with knowledge and insight. Disproportionate outrage just makes its targets, or those who sympathize with its targets, feel embattled and angry.

        I wish more people were outraged about the way police treated that woman, or the way they treat a lot of people, particularly minority men, on a daily, no on an hourly basis. I wish the people who were outraged at these things were more visible and more powerful, and could create the sort of storm that people have created in the wake of Robertson’s remarks. I do not, however, think that this is a zero sum game (to steal someone else’s frequently used gotcha phrase): we can be outraged about Robertson and the people who defend not his right to say those things, but the idea that he was right in saying them, and create a storm while we’re creating other storms. Hell, the internet makes it even more possible to do this, because people are constantly taking in multiple stories and ideas at the same time.Report

      • Stillwater in reply to J@m3z Aitch says:

        I agree with what you’re saying in the above comment Chris. One quibble, tho (quibbles are what make the rage-less internet go round, no?)

        Outrage properly aimed and expressed is a teaching moment: it doesn’t confront hate with hate, but hate with knowledge and insight.

        I don’t think that’s quite right – and maybe you’d agree with me, so it may not even be a real quibble. I don’t think outrage can be an effective agent of change without a clear articulation of the disagreement. And at that point, I’m not sure outrage has much to do with it anymore. Contrast a passive movement intent on achieving certain goals with an outraged movement trying to achieve (ostensibly) the same goals. If there is conviction in the principles being advocated then I’m not at all convinced that the emotional expression of outrage contributes anything to the success of the movement, tho I am sure that it contributes to resistance/backlash. So it seems to me that outrage is, on balance, counterproductive to achieving the (ostensible) goals upon which the outrage is (ostensibly) based.Report

      • Will H. in reply to J@m3z Aitch says:

        One quibble here:
        we can be outraged about Robertson and the people who defend not his right to say those things, but the idea that he was right in saying them
        I find that to be flawed.
        Is it acceptable to say such things, provided the speaker believe they are false? There’s no commercial transaction in the speech, no fraud involved.
        I think it’s far better that he say such things fully believing them to be true.
        Ted Nugent, Naomi Judd, Mel Gibson.

        I have no idea what the man said, and I didn’t know until a few days ago who Phil Robertson was.
        It matters not one whit to me what the man might possibly think on any given topic. But I feel that he is entitled to his opinion. Provided that his opinions are expressed as opinion, I see no harm.

        I have a little kitten here who might take a mind to pee on my bed at any given time.
        That matters to me.
        I feel relatively certain that Mr. Robertson will not pee on my bed any time soon.
        If he does, we’re going to hook it up for a few rounds.

        In light of this, I care far more for what this little kitten might think at any given time than what little concern I am able to muster for any particular “Outrage of the Day” type of comment from a person wholly unknown to me.Report

  5. NewDealer says:

    No argument from me on his points.

    I saw on the Atlantic Wire that Huckabee is considering a Presidential run again and defended the Duck Dynasty guy as representing “traditional values.”

    As a liberal it amazes me that people think that there is an axiomatic argument that something traditional is correct. It strikes me that many traditions can be good but many can also be incorrect. And many things that we consider to be traditional might not be that old (under 200 years for the concept of modern Christmas.)

    Considering my Christmas post though, I can see why it is a bit odd that I am arguing against tradition.Report

  6. Mike Schilling says:

    I found this exchange interesting:


    Popehat Commenter:
    My sole observation about the Duck Dynasty kerfuffle is that if you green light a television show about a family of Christian Rednecks you have scant grounds for surprise when they express themselves like Christian Rednecks. You still have the right to fire them, but it does make you look like a bunch of pillocks.

    Ken White
    I concur. That’s what I was referring to when I said that a company’s stated rationale for its decision may be bullshit.

    I’d call the assumption that rural Christians are too dumb to realize that they’re public figures and act accordingly, well, bigotry.Report

    • I don’t think I agree. I don’t think self-censorship is why the family was hired to do a TV show. (Not having seen the show, I could be wrong about the nature of the show and their behavior on it. But my sense is that they were not hired to give viewers tips on how to hunt.)Report

    • Stillwater in reply to Mike Schilling says:

      I’d call the assumption that rural Christians are too dumb to realize that they’re public figures and act accordingly, well, bigotry.

      Heh. I agree with the main point. Whoever thinks rednecks are stupid hasn’t met too many of em. I mean, they’re UnCultured, sure – that goes without saying. It’s part of the meaning of the term. But stupid?

      That said, I’m not entirely sure what to make of this:

      and act accordingly.

      Do you mean “act professionally” given that salaries depend on profits depend on advertisers depend on the stars of the show not being offensive to big chunks of the audience? Or act according to the currently accepted (at least by liberals!) social norms which stigmatize anti-gay expressions?Report

  7. Jaybird says:

    The theory that made the most sense to me was that Dad wanted his life back and figured out a way to get the show taken off the air.

    Joke’s on him.Report

    • greginak in reply to Jaybird says:

      My theory would be more that he was pissed all his various weren’t being heard so he took an opportunity to say them without A and E cutting them out. It’s not like people can’t back out of lucrative reality shows if they want.Report

      • Michael Cain in reply to greginak says:

        It would be fun to see the contract. Might be large financial penalties associated with backing out (ie simply quitting before the contract term is reached), as opposed to getting fired for cause.Report

      • greginak in reply to greginak says:

        Those contracts almost always have clauses about the company being able to fire if you do something that is really embarrassing. Making the company look PR bad is a big no no and they keep the ability to can you. They can likely fire or suspend him with no contractual cost. However his family is still on the show ( he is only suspended). So even if he got booted for real its not like his family isn’t’ still raking it in.Report

      • trumwill in reply to greginak says:

        His family says that if he is out, they’re out.Report

      • greginak in reply to greginak says:

        Out of profits on merchandising or the show? Come on, all this is negotiating leverage at this point. They will all be watching the ratings on the new season, then figure it out. If anything they are already shopping a new version of their show to other networks. There are a couple outdoor type networks that are probably making offers them now for shows. I’m not a fan of boycotts in general partially because most of them are pointless. But people can watch and buy whatever they want. I seriously doubt some was planning to drop a few hundred bucks on DD beer cozies and t-shirts and are now seriously rethinking that. People didn’t watch their show are still not going to watch. People who did watch the show will go grab a chick-fil-a and raise their fist in a black power style salute to show their solidarity.Report

      • trumwill in reply to greginak says:

        I assume they mean no more show. Which is why I think either the guy will be back or the show will beon CMT or something next season.Report

      • Burt Likko in reply to greginak says:

        Or as a direct-to-web program.Report

      • greginak in reply to greginak says:

        Yeah plenty of networks will take them if A and E decides to go back to being the all-hitler network. Like i said i don’t dig boycotts for a few reasons. But i also find it hard to swallow how rich powerful people (whether they call themselves white trash and were raised poor) are also the biggest victims. The Duck’s are and will be fine. Choosing which network to put their show on is one of the ultimate first world/ rich peoples problems.Report

      • Will Truman in reply to greginak says:

        Yeah, I think it’s a stretch to call these guys victims of anything. There are circumstances where I’d have more sympathy, but none of them apply. They’re not reliant on their entertainment careers, they’re already wealthy, and they’re still marketable in any event apart from their other business interests. Which is why I am skeptical of victimhood and skeptical of some pronouncements I’ve heard here and there that they will continue to do the show even without Mr. Duck. In their shoes, I would fall between “probably wouldn’t” and “no way in hell I would.”Report

    • North in reply to Jaybird says:

      Weird, I was assuming the other way in that I thought A&E just wanted to give their show a big shot of publicity and gain street cred with the right wing.Report

  8. Stillwater says:

    Bristol Palin wants everyone to Leave Phil Robertson alooooone!

    I agree with her for the most part.Report

  9. greginak says:

    I have one great disappointment about Le Affair de Duck. It is that i haven’t been able to come up with one good joke alluding to the great Duck Season vs. Rabbit Season Loony Toons scene with Bugs and Daffy. It’s like the world tossed me a beach ball and i’ve whiffed.Report

    • Stillwater in reply to greginak says:

      Cartoon figure with an exaggerated beard: “All this pro-gay stuff bugs me.”

      Cartoon figure of an exaggerated, radically disproportionate and grotesquely distorting form of liberalism: “Are you Daft?”

      And so commences the war between Bugs and Dafty resolved at the end of a barrel.Report

    • Mike Schilling in reply to greginak says:

      It’s OK, come join me for some duck l’outrage.Report

  10. wardsmith says:

    tl;dr all comments but you might like this wapo articleReport

  11. Kazzy says:

    Two semi-related points:

    Drew Magary, who penned the GQ piece, saw fit to open by expressing his concern that Robertson would think of him as a “pussy” if he wore a seat belt. He doesn’t attribute the term to Robertson, mind you, but employed it himself. It matters no in the ultimate assessment of Robertson’s words, but it is curious that the misogyny present in such a comment goes ignored amidst the outrage over bigoted comments (though, to be fair, my hunch is most people only read the offending quotes and not the article itself).
    More here: http://www.gq.com/entertainment/television/201401/duck-dynasty-phil-robertson

    Separately, Cracker Barrel responded to Robertson’s comments by pulling all DD merchandise from their restaurants and stores. Two days later, they reversed course after a public outcry. In a statement on their Facebook page, they said: “You told us we made a mistake. And, you weren’t shy about it. You wrote, you called and you took to social media to express your thoughts and feelings. You flat out told us we were wrong. We listened. Today, we are putting all our Duck Dynasty products back in our stores.” The initial decision appears to have been made internally, absent outside pressure.
    I’m curious if the conservative outrage machine will decry Cracker Barrel for caving to people’s delicate sensibilities.
    More here: http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-cracker-barrel-duck-dynasty-20131223,0,480592.story#ixzz2oM5ab63bReport

    • Jaybird in reply to Kazzy says:

      I think it’s more likely that Cracker Barrel found out what A&E found out:

      There are more Duck Dynasteers spending money at Cracker Barrel than A&E Enthusiasts-at-large.

      Indeed, the Period Drama fans? I suspect that when they get together to discuss shows from the Beeb that have finally crossed the pond, they’re doing it at places that don’t have scrapple.Report

      • Kazzy in reply to Jaybird says:

        Let me start by saying that I think Cracker Barrel and A&E should be free to take whatever action they deem necessary (within legal limits, obviously) so long as they accept whatever consequences come with it (e.g., if Cracker Barrel would be violating a contract by removing the merchandise and their was no “morality” provision or what have you, they’ll have to accept the fallout of that).

        But the question for me is to conservatives think it appropriate/acceptable for people to organize and protest against companies engaging in behavior they don’t like and for those companies to respond. Because it seems to me that A&E and CB did exactly the same thing ultimately.Report

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