tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1084144703351548082.post6061447998299890724..comments2023-10-29T10:23:27.584-05:00Comments on Androcass: PassionEric Easterberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11535369798458596223noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1084144703351548082.post-53245608539314277532008-09-28T00:21:00.000-05:002008-09-28T00:21:00.000-05:00i was just googling some of our good times togethe...i was just googling some of our good times together. i reposted red oak's rant:<BR/><BR/>http://mcfnord.livejournal.com/977672.html<BR/><BR/>some interesting responses. red oak's prose festers like a sore. he's the rage monster (and Defender o' the Realm). you're the "intellectual" (and i do think you're pretty smart). carrie's the town crier. and i'm apparently seven shades of worthless.<BR/><BR/>i haven't fully responded to your passionate defense in this thread. i will get to it. idiosyncratic, 300 million, good stuff. <BR/><BR/>"My only fear is that blithe spirits will fail to recognize some of the asymmetries and waste, and will not act in a way to preserve what is good."<BR/><BR/>that sounds so agreeable, like apple pie and mom. blithe spirits might move your old job to Mumbai. but i don't think the spirits are blithe! (idiocracy?) i suspect they're the opposite (with some exceptions). even with prescient judgement i can still lose something in the change.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1084144703351548082.post-73128240176933835362008-06-27T17:37:00.000-05:002008-06-27T17:37:00.000-05:00Thank you, red. I am sort of a native Midwesterne...Thank you, red. I am sort of a native Midwesterner, born in California but there only four years, then off to New York for two, but all the rest in Illinois and Michigan (only thing I picked up in my young life was the pronunciation of "aunt" as "ahnt" instead of "ant").<BR/><BR/>I hope I haven't quite snapped, but I certainly think more forthrightness is called for, and I'll shoot for that (until I fall back into "bad" habits).Eric Easterberghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11535369798458596223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1084144703351548082.post-516959125714834772008-06-27T15:35:00.000-05:002008-06-27T15:35:00.000-05:00Excellent, Androcass. Interesting timing, too. J...Excellent, Androcass. Interesting timing, too. Just a day or so a go I was considering responding to your recent exchange with Mr. Solipsist by telling you what you're telling yourself here. (Far less eloquently than you have here, of course.)<BR/><BR/>Are you a native Midwesterner by chance? You may have told us, don't remember. But you definitely are "Midwestern Nice", a condition both noble and perplexing to us non-Midwesterners. It's admirable because I see in your remaining reasonable and hospitable, in the face of serious provocation, the desire to uphold adult standards. Mcfnord indisputably, and that pesky "real journalist" apparently, are examples of the pathologically infantilized individuals that occur with distressing frequency in our culture, and you are attempting to discharge your duty of "training the young". But they aren't young, they are (chronologically) grown men, and it is beyond your power to aid them. (And frankly may they be spared the hammer blows that would be necessary at this late stage to rescue them from long-cultivated puerility.) I was wondering how many of mcfnord's childlike, autistic recitations of his three econo-clichés and four personal anecdotes (if you've read one Mr. Solipsist comment you've read 'em all) you were going to tolerate before you snapped.<BR/><BR/>But enough of the snark - the rest of the post was spot on. Knaves rule because we're the cowards who let them. We know perfectly well we're on our own, that the governing classes cut us adrift long ago. But we still pretend whining about them is going to change anything.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1084144703351548082.post-79873478437863071792008-06-26T17:03:00.000-05:002008-06-26T17:03:00.000-05:00All George Carlin:"By and large, language is a too...All George Carlin:<BR/><BR/>"By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth."<BR/><BR/>"Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist."<BR/><BR/>"Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit."<BR/><BR/>"The reason I talk to myself is that I'm the only one whose answers I accept."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1084144703351548082.post-10098726043215364432008-06-26T16:54:00.000-05:002008-06-26T16:54:00.000-05:00Shucks, here I thought the debate was whether the ...Shucks, here I thought the debate was whether the fear was rational!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1084144703351548082.post-19115549657983636302008-06-26T15:11:00.000-05:002008-06-26T15:11:00.000-05:00Neither do I oppose skilled labor immigration, and...Neither do I oppose skilled labor immigration, and your insistence that I do proves that you're not really reading what I'm writing. I have spent some time trying to define what "skilled" means, rather than blindly accepting that it represents anyone with a storefront B.S.<BR/><BR/>As for "The Fear" which you ascribe to me, again, read what I've written. My only fear is that blithe spirits will fail to recognize some of the asymmetries and waste, and will not act in a way to preserve what is good.<BR/><BR/>As for your facts, I've seen you try to universalize your own particular experience; that doesn't invalidate it, but that doesn't mean that it applies to a nation of 300 million, either. When you stop passing off the things you don't like to read or don't choose to read as emotion, then there is a basis for discussion.<BR/><BR/>Whatever you write on your blog, what I have seen in your comments here is your commentary on your own idiosyncratic life. What I haven't seen is an attempt on your part to engage with the things that others are writing, which is necessary if you seek to persuade. It's pat to pass Citizen Carrie or me off as fearful when we're drawing from facts - maybe not the ones you're hired to write, but truth nonetheless.Eric Easterberghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11535369798458596223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1084144703351548082.post-9515725106792100802008-06-26T13:19:00.000-05:002008-06-26T13:19:00.000-05:00My blog has hundreds of readers, but none of them ...My blog has hundreds of readers, but none of them oppose skilled labor immigration. So I come here to understand The Fear.<BR/><BR/>I'm hired to write facts, and I write facts. Turn it up to 11 and call it passion. I find more passion in the <I>WSJ</I> and <I>NYT</I>. Carlin was a comedian. He can't do what cogency does.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com