Reason Magazine: More Fun Than A Teabagger Rally

[LMNO]

What. The. Fuck.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

What. The. Fuck.

I can't stop giggling.   

[Cain]

HOLY FUCKING SHIT!

http://reason.com/archives/2011/05/26/ventriloquists-for-the-powerle

Aside from the obvious problem, it is interesting how this article mistakes or conflates Marxism with "postmodernist wankery".  Slavoj Zizek would have a field day with this.

[Disco Pickle]

In all fairness to Cain's thread and topic might I suggest splitting this into a "Let's make fun of Reason.com" thread?

[EDIT] It's Cain's topic, I suppose I should leave him to ask if he wants to.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

HOLY FUCKING SHIT!

http://reason.com/archives/2011/05/26/ventriloquists-for-the-powerle

Aside from the obvious problem, it is interesting how this article mistakes or conflates Marxism with "postmodernist wankery".  Slavoj Zizek would have a field day with this.

The whole site is like this.  It's like a gold mine full of right wing fuckbattery.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

In all fairness to Cain's thread and topic might I suggest splitting this into a "Let's make fun of Reason.com" thread?

[EDIT] It's Cain's topic, I suppose I should leave him to ask if he wants to.

I was just trying to refute your source and couldn't stop.

Like drinking out of a spitoon on a dare.  You have to keep going, because it's all one string.

[Cain]

In all fairness to Cain's thread and topic might I suggest splitting this into a "Let's make fun of Reason.com" thread?

[EDIT] It's Cain's topic, I suppose I should leave him to ask if he wants to.

Yes please.  Reason does deserve its own thread.

It's sad to think only five years ago, Reason was a mostly good, if sometimes misguided, publication.  They really went around the bend post-election...

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Done.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Holy crap!  It never ends!

There's more crazy there than in Charley Sheen's dressing room.   

[Freeky]

In all fairness to Cain's thread and topic might I suggest splitting this into a "Let's make fun of Reason.com" thread?

[EDIT] It's Cain's topic, I suppose I should leave him to ask if he wants to.

I was just trying to refute your source and couldn't stop.

Like drinking out of a spitoon on a dare.  You have to keep going, because it's all one string.

I very nearly puked on my laptop at that.

[Laughin Jude]

Yes please.  Reason does deserve its own thread.

It's sad to think only five years ago, Reason was a mostly good, if sometimes misguided, publication.  They really went around the bend post-election...

Okay, so that's not just me?

I started reading Reason.com during the libertarian phase I had in my early twenties. They were always kind of out of there on a lot of stuff, but they had some decent articles from time to time, and I had fun trolling the comments once in a while (though the poster called "joe" was definitely the king of that back then). I went back maybe six months ago after not reading it for years and the whole place was just awful. The comments threads are a sliver away from Free Republic. I wasn't sure how much of that was my own greater political maturity/not having Randroid tendencies anymore and how much was them really having just gone fucking insane after Obama was elected.

For an example of the opposite happening: is it just me, or has Cracked gone from being a crappy poor man's MAD clone to being fairly entertaining most of the time since it became an website?

[Prince Glittersnatch III]

HOLY FUCKING SHIT!

http://reason.com/archives/2011/05/26/ventriloquists-for-the-powerle

Poor people = animals.

You should have kept reading.

Try this for an exercise: Open any book written in the last 40 years on African-American history, women's history, or labor history and count the number of times Hribal's terms describing the consciousness of animals are used to describe the consciousness of people. Then look for evidence that the people themselves used those terms. Most often, you will find the self-appointed leaders of the "oppressed" and "exploited"—abolitionists, feminists, union leaders, civil rights leaders, and political radicals—standing in for their constituents and speaking the language that left-wing historians want to hear.

Yes the slaves were perfectly happy with their working conditions until those no good radical left wing abolitionists started putting words in their mouths!

 

[Prince Glittersnatch III]

It is not a defense of slavery, segregation, the denial of rights to women, or poverty to acknowledge the fact that, according to the available evidence, only a tiny portion of their alleged victims clearly thought of themselves that way. Few historians mention that a majority of the ex-slaves who were interviewed held positive views of their days on the plantation

I cant believe Im actually reading this. 

[Disco Pickle]

Yes please.  Reason does deserve its own thread.

It's sad to think only five years ago, Reason was a mostly good, if sometimes misguided, publication.  They really went around the bend post-election...

Okay, so that's not just me?

I started reading Reason.com during the libertarian phase I had in my early twenties. They were always kind of out of there on a lot of stuff, but they had some decent articles from time to time, and I had fun trolling the comments once in a while (though the poster called "joe" was definitely the king of that back then). I went back maybe six months ago after not reading it for years and the whole place was just awful. The comments threads are a sliver away from Free Republic. I wasn't sure how much of that was my own greater political maturity/not having Randroid tendencies anymore and how much was them really having just gone fucking insane after Obama was elected.

For an example of the opposite happening: is it just me, or has Cracked gone from being a crappy poor man's MAD clone to being fairly entertaining most of the time since it became an website?

WARNING: long winded and buzzed diatribe follows.  Summary is at the end.

It's not just you.  As Cain said, the quality has deteriorated some since "OMFG THERE'S A DEMOCRAT IN THE WH AGAIN"

But to put it in perspective a bit: in 2002 when the Hit & Run blog was started they were joining a rising voice of opposition to the Iraq debacle and the contributers there were also pretty damn harsh on the previous WH administration for the same things that are being said about this one, namely that the more things change, the more they stay the same.  

Any democrat that was all "BUSH BAD" during the 8 years his people were in and is now, still, cheering Obama after 2010 is suffering from a partisan delusion that there is any inherent difference in the policy positions of the people at the helm.  In my more lucid and honest moments, I'll lament that it doesn't matter who gets elected and their party affiliation because it's the people that hang out in D.C. for four to eight years while they wait for "The Other Guys" to get voted out that everyone should be more worried about.  We don't elect those people.  The just go away (or their friends get them jobs in other areas) for part of a decade and then return to do the same things they were doing before.  

But as is often the case in politics, when the other guy is doing it it is bad.  When my guy is doing it there's (x) number of reasons he has to be doing it/continuing to do what the last guy did in order to fix it/it was the other guys fault first we're just cleaning it up and how dare you etc. etc.

Now that the schism in the Republican party between the social conservatives and the libertarians is more prominent in the rhetoric if not necessarily in the ability to elect people who want the Repubs return to their stated values, you're bound to see a larger amount of passioned talk that you wont agree with (assuming you fall left on economic issues) as the real goal of the schism that started in mid 2007 was, if nothing else, to at least create a debate on subjects that had for the previous 20-30 years been off the table within the GOP, namely the shift from the Democrats being the war party of history to the Republicans, and the Republicans spending money like a drunken Democrat on shore leave.  

The internet result of this is that you'll have social and pro-war conservatives duking it out with social and anti-war libertarians on the same forum even when they're likely all still registered with the same party (assuming they're in a closed primary state).

Reasons' origin, if it can be said to have one, is The Cato Institute.  When they have an idiealogical difference, it can be found in The Ludwig von Mises Institute.  The reality is that they're just arguing over which defective life raft is the best one to jump ship with.  Libertarians suffer the same disease Democrats have suffered for decades: They squabble enough and refuse to stand together enough to the point that the opposition (both of the major parties) just panders to them when it's convienient to have their vote.

Summary: Blast Reason for the right reasons.

They're wrong in opposition to raising taxes on the people who benefited most from the last few decade's largess as necessary to help normalize and correct the damage and debt caused by several decades of electing people who borrow beyond the ability to pay those debts.  The "We'll just pay for it later" crowd is a cancer fueled by banks that encourage them to do just that, and it's hardly a problem limited to government.

The reality of the retirement of the Boomers' and the ability of the rest of us to support that retirement is a stark contrast to anyone paying attention.  Blame the Boomers for it, and their blatant disregard to being bent over a table and whispered sweet promises.  I know I do.  But admit that letting the house of cards fall down around the rest of us for the sake of maintaining the few who were smart enough to pay attention, save, invest and profit on it is the worst sort of medicine.

BUt give Reason credit where they've been right.

Staunch opposition to the longest wars in our recent history.  

Supporting and even advocating for equality under the law for marriage for guys who want to marry guys and girls who want to marry girls.

Opposition to the failed war on drugs and its creation of black markets for products that people can still, to this day, go find with a phone call or and hour in a bar making nice, but have to worry about having their entire professional lives ruined doing it.



Man, it seems like it took forever to write that.  

I await the ridicule and dissection that is expected and even encouraged.  

[Disco Pickle]

ah fucking hell.  I haven't checked the source contributor yet, but given the last two posts I had to finish my beer to even press post after the "warning more posts have been posted" thing.

fuck.

if that's really the shit that's getting published there now, you can completely disregard that last post where I actually defend the fucking site and I'll humbly commit to never go there again.


never ever.