Ranndom Ranntings

[aberrantangels]

The BBC would like to apologise for the following announcement.

The real reason no debate ever breaks out in rann's journal: she bans anyone who starts making points. Or just anyone who looks like they might make a point. Or even just anyone who doesn't share her belief that Rush Limbaugh is God's youngest son. Or particularly anyone who tries to get her to consider that the "vast right-wing conspiracy" might be real. Rush Limbaugh said it's a fake, after all, and he couldn't lie even if he wanted to.

Here's what I would have posted in one of the threads I got into on her journal, in response to her saying "It's pretty sad that you think you've got an actual functioning brain, y'know."

Can you prove that I don't? With evidence? Or can you just throw out snarky putdowns as a substitute for debate?

Because you're right about one thing, I'll admit; you've never asked anyone to start a debate, and one never has. You post something that boils down to "Boy, aren't liberals STOOPID?" and somebody says "Yeah, they sure are!" and somebody else says "Gee, Wilgus, they're stoopider than stoopid, actually!" and, every once in a while, an actual liberal says "Why do you think liberals are so stupid? Have you ever actually read anything they write?"

And you, as if this person had asked "Why do you think the sky is blue?", say something that boils down to "Prove to me they aren't stoopid and I might read what they have to say." And when somebody takes you up on that and posts the words of actual liberals, you do what you did to bellatrys in the other post and go

LA-LA-LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU! I'M GOING TO IGNORE YOU AND PRETEND YOU'RE THE ONE IGNORING REALITY! I WILL NOT BE INFECTED WITH YOUR COMMUNIST PROPAGANDA! I WILL PRESERVE THE PURITY OF ESSENCE OF MY NATURAL BODILY FLUIDS!

or words to the same defect. Lather, rinse, repeat. Anything bad conservatives say about liberals is to be taken as self-evident; anything even remotely non-positive that liberals say about conservatives requires a detailed proof that must be no longer than 19 pages and no shorter than 20 pages.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the next rightwingnut like her I meet who's willing to listen to other points of view will be the first, and the next one I meet who's able to defend eir point of view will be out walking eir pet flying pig. (Note: sticking your fingers in your ears and la-la-la-ing does not constitute defending your views from anything except the risk that your memetic bubble-boy-ism might fail.)

EDIT 3:48p — can somebody please inform restless1, re this comment, that I was attempting to point up cuthulu's immaturity?

Comments

[ezrael.livejournal.com]

Dude, stop reading it. There's no debate, she's got the mentality of a precocious five year old who never grew up and doesn't understand that her cute "I-talk-like-the-big-people" shtick isn't funny now that we expect adult mentality, a desire to grapple with uncomfortable truths on all sides of the spectrum, and an understanding that if you say "It's sad that you think you have an actual functioning brain" that you have just admitted that the person you said it to does.

[aberrantangels]

Dude, stop reading it.

In the immortal words of Jake Stonebender on network TV, "It's like China. If you don't pay any attention to it, it just gets worse."

There's no debate, she's got the mentality of a precocious five year old who never grew up and doesn't understand that her cute "I-talk-like-the-big-people" shtick isn't funny now that we expect adult mentality, a desire to grapple with uncomfortable truths on all sides of the spectrum, and an understanding that if you say "It's sad that you think you have an actual functioning brain" that you have just admitted that the person you said it to does.

Something like that. I think you ought to post that on her blog, but I've no idea if she'd read it, and if she did read it, she probably wouldn't acknowledge its meaning. As bellatrys pointed out, R'Ann is the kind of snarky twat (and I use the term advisedly) who got fandom_wank evicted from LiveJournal. I know a number of people on my flist (just off the top of my head, I can think of 50ftqueenie, shallow15, thessalian and whataradialacks) will know what I mean when I say that R'Ann thinks she's Daria, but she's actually Sandi.

[ezrael.livejournal.com]

You're talking to the wrong guy with Mr. Stonebender's quote (Is Spider still writing those books? Gotta catch up) because I gave up network and cable TV about a year ago and man, I have never looked back.

China we should probably keep paying attention to, however.

I don't see the point in engaging in a debate or dialogue with someone like her, though: she's made it clear that she doesn't give a fuck what anyone but her and her LJ lickspittles think, right or wrong, good or bad. I just had a very similar buttplug drop me from his friend's list and OH MY GOD was it a relief to be able to stop trying to have any kind of discussion with Mr. "Liberal = Terrorist". This is a guy whose best friend came out as gay last year, and he's voting for the dude who wants to put discrimination against gays into the constitution. Fucking A well told I'm glad to stop having that particular discussion. Same with Ms. "Gaah. Liberals suck, doy" and her mook squad.

There are conservatives you can have conversations with, I've met them and had them. But this isn't one of them, and now that you've moved past the period of discovery I think you should save yourself the blood pressure and just laugh and point when you read her drivel.

[vincentursus.livejournal.com]

Is Spider still writing those books? Gotta catch up

Yes he is, but your opinion of Spider Robinson will be better if you don't.

[aberrantangels]

Is Spider still writing those books? Gotta catch up

The latest, Callahan's Con, is just lately out in mass market paperback, but I keep getting other things in the bookstore. I've got to correct that soon. (Which was the last one you read?)

now that you've moved past the period of discovery I think you should save yourself the blood pressure and just laugh and point when you read her drivel.

I'd like to, but it's like peering into a parallel universe (probably Earth-3). I mean, how can she look at any of the same evidence I can do and still be able to say things like

Though the logical part of me says that no one person could "destroy the US" in the length of four or even eight years [...], I can't help but feel that Kerry would give it his best shot. His eyes are cold and empty to me, he has NO morals or ethics (hell, it wouldn't be so bad if they were just morals I disagreed with, but he hasn't even settled on what morals they are yet). Before he even gets a chance to go into office, he's been shown to be at LEAST as big a liar a Clinton was. He has no heart, he's hollow, and compared to him, voting for Bush doesn't seem like the lesser of two evils, it seems like voting for a mild skin irritation over leprousy.

As Winston Smith said about Orson Scott Card:

If you forget any of these, it’s easy to recall them. Just think about what is TRUE, and then it’ll be the opposite of that.

I said to bellatrys, and the P@L herself said, that the question is how you get through to people like that. Actually, the question is how you convince yourself that you can't get through to someone who appears to be rational. At least, that's what I'm trying to convince myself of.

But she still seems to believe that Iraq must have had WMDs, or at least that it doesn't matter because Saddam Was A Bad, Bad Man™. She actually said, a while back, that as far as she could tell, the only reason for Iraqis to be rioting was if they objected to the idea of having running water and electricity. When somebody like that calls anyone else insane...it's not even "Pot, meet Kettle." It's more like "Pot, meet Spoon."

In the end, maybe Gabriel Syme, the Man Who Was Thursday, said it best to Lucian Gregory, said what I would say to R'Ann if I thought she would hear, could hear: "Perhaps we are both doing what we think right. But what we think right is so damned different that there can be nothing between us in the way of concession. There is nothing possible between us but honour and death."

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Actually, the line predates Callahan's, having been uttered by a character in a Ross Thomas novel back when the US was still keeping its fingers in its ears and humming loudly so as not to "recognize" the People's Republic of china.