Commenter Archive

Comments by Freddie

On “Charles Johnson breaks from the right

More calculated, spineless centrism from Joyner.

If you actually talk to a lot of Truthers, they aren't anything that you could even remotely call leftist. Indeed many of them are genuinely reactionary.

On “Podcast: The Golden Age of Television

You should hear me say "New Britain." I've got those harsh glottal stops.

On “can’t win by not losing

You are, in fact, supporting my point. Ross associates Republican victory with Democratic failure and nothing constructive being done by Republicans. So, thanks.

On “Podcast: The Golden Age of Television

Sorry for my rambling. Still new to the podcasting biz.

On “healthcare reform and the appeal to emotion

And that is an argument that has nothing to do with emotion, as well you know.

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I'm actually much less interested in pointing out that there are people who don't care-- which I hope is common knowledge-- and much more interested in pointing out that people who say they care banish what they are supposed to be caring about entirely from their posts. Megan McArdle, for example, actually admits that there are people who suffer and die under our current system in a laughably small percentage of her posts on the issue. The effect is that you have an argument prosecuted against nothing. Ignoring the human costs of the status quo, or acting as if talking about them is some sort of trick or unfair is to shut the debate down entirely.

What I would like is more arguments that start by acknowledging what we're fighting about, rather than eliding such concerns, which inevitably handicap people arguing for reform, even if all sides understand what is unsaid.

On “can’t win by not losing

Wait, that sounds a lot snottier than I intended.

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You know what you could do? Quote the very next paragraph.

"But even the young will need to see results eventually. And the more that Democrats flail in the present, the more likely it becomes that the Great Recession will be remembered as the time when liberalism let the future slip away."

Cherry picking is fun!

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Ah. Empirics. Generally speaking, saying something is "empirically true" requires reference to, you know, empirical evidence. And if the best you have is saying that we had a budget surplus during the Clinton-Gingrich era, I suggest that you are dealing with a laughably small data set.

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Political politicians. Jeez. REPUBLICAN politicians.

On “one casualty

True story: my spam folder has been eating all of the emails I get telling me I have comments on my posts-- but didn't eat the one from Jaybird. It's like we have some sort of oppositional link, like in Highlander.

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Opusculum paedagogum.

Precisely as I described-- who here is actually talking about the moral urgency of what is happening? I challenged this comments section to talk about health care in a way that recognizes and acknowledges these horrible hardships, and was greeted by the utter failure of people to do so. I mean I made it very clear what I was doing, and yet still you can't bring yourself to confront these people. Zic is exactly right. I was asking if you all could argue about this without recourse to arguing about arguing rather than arguing about the actual flesh and blood consequences of what we're talking about. And you all failed, including ED.

Incidentally, you might take John Henry's comments as the ne plus ultra of how people talk about health care reform and the victims of our current system. I say, "look at this suffering," and he insists on talking instead about how I am talking. He must; they all must. He cannot actually consider the pain of these people when he responds, because he has no meaningful rebuttal to their pain, so he makes it all about me and what my argument says, rather than ignoring what I am asking him to actually consider. As have almost everyone commenting here.

Honestly, I cannot imagine a more comprehensive and embarrassing confirmation of everything I here argued than what this comments section just came up with. So, yeah, congrats.

On “6 steps to disenchantment.

Of course we're cool. Just saying.

On “Jumping To Conclusions

I'm reading more and more of these posts, and the disconnect between the constant assertions from the right wing that liberals were jumping to conclusions, and the actual content of the posts in question, is glaring. It is exceedingly hard to find a post that doesn't contain tons of proviso, caveats, and the admission that we didn't know what had really happened. It just goes to show that when people want to bash the left, they're going to do so no matter how true that narrative.

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Is saying that people engaged in "much speculation" really an indictment at all, worthy of posting about?

I'm just asking!

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I see that the question mark no longer holds the meaning I have always taken it to have.

On “Fiscal Responsibility, part II

You've responded to my accusation of occluding the issue by... further occluding the issue. The Republicans offer no material alternative on deficit spending to the Democrats, so Conor using that as a pretext for attacking Democrats makes no sense. You haven't addressed that issue.

On “Jumping To Conclusions

Please point me to some posts that came out and said that this was an example of Teaparty violence.

On “Fiscal Responsibility, part II

As usual, the commenters here miss the point entirely-- Conor acknowledges that the Republicans won't do anything to lower the deficit, and yet he is still willing to praise them for "acknowledging" the problem. There is absolutely no reason for a rational person to believe that Republicans are going to lower deficits. Absolutely none. So why do people continued to be credulous to their claims, or to support the empty verbiage and not the actuality?

On “Tucker Carlson to launch new right-leaning news site: The Daily Caller

You think a guy who repeatedly said that Democrats have the same ideas as Osama bin Laden is one of the best the right has to offer?

On “This is not a persuasive rejoinder to rigorous sports analysis

Man, criticizing Peter King... how daring!

On “sports metrics and the problem with unconventional wisdom

I am not in the habit of inventing odds and pretending that they have the authority of mathematics, unlike most of the people in this thread. I think the Patriots had a better chance to win had they punted, particularly given the fact that the Patriots had already successfully defended against the Colts on nine of fourteen possessions. Unlike all of the people arguing here, I acknowledge that I could be wrong.

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Try this one on for size: when did I ever make an appeal to authority? And how on God's green earth is appealing to the authority of the various sabremeticians any different or any better? Again, you all keep confirming exactly what I am accusing you of: you are possessed of absolute certainty in your beliefs, you refuse to question the assumptions undergirding those beliefs, and you respond to contrary opinion by losing your shit and saying "you just don't understand". Heal yourself, doctor C.

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