Can we get a "leftwing bullshit" tag?

[zadok-allen.livejournal.com]

Comments

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Was Thomas Jefferson somehow not a philandering slave owner? "Just a teeny bit"?

And many a dad would have just kicked the door down and punched the kid. One reason I left home early.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Can we get a "leftwing bullshit" tag?

I suppose you could get on your knees and beg one of the mods. I'm happy to second your wish, with a caveat. Because I wonder if you are reading things right? You seem to have missed the point rather. The child has bad grades for his work, which is childishly political. The father wants to discuss the bad grades. It seems you have the same level of childish political engagement: an inability to register nuance of any kind.

Can we have a "rightwing frothing-at-the-mouth, inability to read, parse, or comprehend" tag as well please mods? Just to balance things, you know, in the name of nuance.

[zadok-allen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, he oughta be getting extra credit for knowing the less-advertised aspect of TJ's life. I think NPR brings it up three or four times a year on The Jefferson Hour, hah.

[blackdwarv.livejournal.com]

Ever notice how what people call "political correctness" these days was called "being polite" in our grandparents era?

[zadok-allen.livejournal.com]

I'm asking because as I was scrolling through tags I noticed there was a "rightwing bullshit" tag but no "leftwing bullshit" tag. Just to balance things, you know, in the name of nuance.

[phildegrave]

Oh, you poor thing! Having to be reminded of an unpleasant historical fact three or four times a year! If only there was a news network for right wingers to go to be told only what they want to hear.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

So, which bit of the admittedly unbalanced view of Jefferson is "bullshit"?

Was he a slave-owner?
Was he a philanderer?

The kid not wanting to talk about his report and using whoever excuses he can find is exclusively left-wing? Or that fact that he uses supposedly "left-wing" excuses. Excepting I see nothing about workers, capital, the bourgeoisie, or the apparatus of revolution: merely a wish to distance himself from racism.

Is anti-racism "left-wing"? Well in that case it seems the majority of folk in the developed world must be "left-wing": because it seems that most civilised folk subscribe to the notion that racism is a bad thing. No matter whether we accept privilege; elitism of other kinds; or economic advantage due to capital, inheritance, or whatever.

You see, to my mind, your criticism crosses the boundaries you set up for yourself. Especially as I would describe myself as a conservative of a kind.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Now you are calling all right-wing anti political-correctness people as unmannerly.

And I may just agree with you, with some exceptions, obvs.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

To be clear, is the cartoon left wing bullshit or is the subject of the cartoon left wing bullshit?

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Next on Fox: Jefferson cannot be racist because he actually stuck his penis inside a black woman.

[ponitacupcake.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it existed in my grandparents era. "PC" probably meant anything less racist than Archie Bunker.

Though I believe "PC" was originally a Maoist term that the 60's radical left adopted as a way of mocking their own smugness and then was discovered and perverted by the right into meaning "not being a bigoted assclown".

"SJW" is the new "PC".

[ponitacupcake.livejournal.com]

William F. Buckley for one, except for when he wanted to tattoo gay men on the ass.

[ponitacupcake.livejournal.com]

"Safe Space" lol. Bloom County is so brilliant.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

I was curious myself, and looked around online. It's a pretty recent word, used in the way most people are using it currently. According to Wiki, the word was first used in a rather limited way in relation to "dogmatic application of Stalinist doctrine, debated between Communist Party members and Socialists." while the word "politically correct" was used in the 1980s, what really got it wide spread use, was a New York Times article by Richard Bernstein:

The October 1990 New York Times article by Richard Bernstein (http://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/28/weekinreview/ideas-trends-the-rising-hegemony-of-the-politically-correct.html?pagewanted=all) is described as influential in the term's development. At the time it's mainly mentioned in educational context: "Across the country the term p.c., as it is commonly abbreviated, is being heard more and more in debates over what should be taught at the universities." Nexis citations in "arcnews/curnews" reveal only seventy total citations in articles to "political correctness" for 1990; but one year later, after the Bernstein article, Nexis records 1532 citations, with a steady increase to more than 7000 citations by 1994.

The term had only scattered usage before the 1990s, usually as an ironic self-description, but entered more mainstream usage in the United States when it was the subject of a series of articles in The New York Times. The phrase was widely used in the debate about Allan Bloom's 1987 book The Closing of the American Mind, and gained further currency in response to Roger Kimball's Tenured Radicals (1990), and conservative author Dinesh D'Souza's 1991 book Illiberal Education, in which he condemned what he saw as liberal efforts to advance self-victimization, multiculturalism through language, affirmative action and changes to the content of school and university curriculums.

[phildegrave]

That's what Donald Sterling tried to tell his girlfriend.

[donkeyjon.livejournal.com]

I think he was referring to the last two panels. The idea is fleshed out in the most recent strip:

[zadok-allen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, he oughta be getting extra credit for knowing the less-advertised aspect of TJ's life. I think NPR brings it up three or four times a year on The Jefferson Hour, hah.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

And again the kid (Binkley) uses crappy excuses which are being satirised by the cartoonist (Berkley Breathed). Or am I reading it wrongly? The "left-wing" aspect of the bullshit is questionable, given that it is commonplace now to question ones privilege, that is unless one is truly racist, sexist, homophobic, and completely off the scale of current political debate: and even now, the Overton window on political opinions on government and economics has moved so far to the right that folk like me, who are conservative of a Macmillanite variety (or in US terms Eisenhower-era Republicans) find themselves to the left of the Democratic Party.

I see no place in modern civilised society of any political hue for racism, sexism, or homophobia: but that could be just me...and maybe all those opposed to most aspects of fundamentalist Islam or Christian thinking.

Bill the cat in a storm trooper helmet is pretty impressive though.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Next On Nationalist Petroleum Radio, Thomas Jefferson, saint or benevolent savior?

[donkeyjon.livejournal.com]

I think it may be the lack of US context for you. In the last two years or so, there has been a fairly significant blowback against liberals, particularly on college campuses, who use terms like "trigger", "safe space", etc. as reasons to censor. In this case, for instance, it is absolutely important for children to learn about Jefferson (the good and the bad), and refusing to learn, for instance, the importance of the Declaration of Independence because the person who wrote it owned slaves is exactly the sort of left-wing hand wringing which has led to this blowback.

A couple of examples:
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/3/8706323/college-professor-afraid (http://www.vox.com/2015/6/3/8706323/college-professor-afraid)
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/ (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/)

Now, as a college professor, I can say that I've never seen anything like the incidents at Yale and Missouri which served to start recent debate on this topic, and I'd guess that the actual incidents of censorship are few and far between. But this is a pretty good example of "leftwing bullshit", if you were looking for one.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

I am aware of the stupidity of youth, tangentially and anecdotally of course, as those years for me are so far in my rear-view mirror as to be ancient history. However, it seems to me that Berkley Breathed is satirising such extreme attitudes, and actually such attitudes need satirising. But I regard them as "privileged" youthful stupidity rather than being left-wing, or even "liberal". The liberalism of Jeremy Bentham, or the Marxism or socialism of the revolutionary seem far removed from these particular ideas.

And if the blowback from these ideas leads to making racism, sexism, or homophobia respectable, well...that needs sorting too.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

An English boarding-school education can do that to you.

[donkeyjon.livejournal.com]

Oh, we absolutely need to begin by acknowledging that Bentham's definition of liberal is no longer what that word means. The terminology has changed. But these are absolutely modern liberal ideals (namely, that those who are being oppressed have the right to fight back against those oppressing them).

The good news about this whole situation (other than the fact that it is likely WAY overblown, and isn't really happening with the regularity that is claimed), is that the people at the forefront of the fight against it tend to be people who want to use the language and ideas of hate as learning tools to prevent it in the future. As always, communication will set us free.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

True, language changes. But fighting back against oppression is regarded as liberal? Ye gods. I'm a liberal: despite being an elitist, an aristo, a monarchist, and someone who is perfectly happy with inherited wealth.

Blimey, I learn something new about myself daily.

[immemor.livejournal.com]

That's fascinating. I don't ever recall hearing PC before the mid to late 90s.