Conflated confabulations of frenzied and fulminating Fonziephobia

Anti-libertarian snark fascinates me, and it seems to get louder and louder, and ever more insulting. I’ve complained about it before, and my recent worries have tended to focus on the tension between libertarians and social conservatives in the Tea Party context.

But I don’t mean to neglect anti-libertarian snark on the left! It’s just that sometimes there are more important issues to focus on, and it is easy for me to overlook things I don’t see.

Right now, a huge target of the left is the Koch family. For a hard core leftie (whether a union hack, a socialist or a commie), the Koch brothers are seen in much the same way people on the right see George Soros. A pair of Great Satans.

But oh, how the left hates it when their narratives fail!

Yesterday, Reason‘s Nick Gillespie ridiculed the demonization of the Koch brothers in a piece titled “Why the Evil Koch Bros. Must be Stopped: They Support Drug Legalization, Gay Marriage, Reduced Defense Spending.”

John Cole and his commenters are not happy with the piece. Nor do they seem happy over Nick Gillespie’s penchant for leather jackets. For this offense (and probably for his casual demeanor), he has been dubbed “The Fonz.”

You know, Fonzie, from Happy Days? I see it now! How clever!

And because Fonzie was a moron, Nick Gillespie must be too. And in exactly the same way Fonzie would if he knew how to write, Gillespie cites “gibberish”:

Demonstrating that not only does he have a finger on the beating heart of fashion, but also public opinion, the Fonz links to this gibberish from some random crank on Reddit:

    The KOCH brothers must be stopped. They gave $40K to Scott Walker, the MAX allowed by state law. That’s small potatoes compared to the $100+ million they give to other organizations. These organizations will terrify you. If the anti-union thing weren’t enough, here are bigger and better reasons to stop the evil Kochs. They are trying to:

          1. decriminalize drugs

          2. legalize gay marriage

          3. repeal the Patriot Act

          4. end the police state

          5. cut defense spending.

Gillespie claims this will have a hand in “complicating dumb media narratives and blowing the minds of some of your leftard friends…”

You seriously can not spoof this guy.

Aw, come on! It’s easy to seriously spoof this guy. Simply make fun of his attire and everything he says and everything he cites somehow becomes wrong. Gibberish! No further proof is required. 

Hmmm… I’m wondering about something. If Nick decided to ditch the biker garb and switch to a pinstripe suit and a more conservative haircut*, would that earn him new respect on the left?

I don’t know. But if the comments are any indication I somehow doubt it. I selected a few.

First, a fantastically ingenious penis insult:

Gillespie is about as useful as a dick that is wider than it is long.

Hey, there’s an old San Francisco expression about bigoted sexual narrowmindedness. “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!”

Somehow, Gillespie’s observations are also being seen as a teaching moment to instruct us about a chilling major goal I had never heard about before, but which is shared by both Republicans and Libertarians — the destruction of epistemology:

One major goal of current day Republicans and Libertarians is to destroy epistemology.

How come I have to go to a leftist blog to find that out? Why is there nothing in the GOP platform about destruction of epistemology? And why have I not heard so much as a word about this at any Tea Party event?

Am I being deliberately kept in the dark?

Deeply worried, I read on, and another commenter amplified on the meme:

No doubt. I’ve been saying for awhile that this crop of “repuglicans” are the greatest post-modernists this world has ever seen. French Philosophers would drop their hand-rolled cigarettes in shock at how far they’ve taken the concept “there is no truth but what we make”, and made a Global Reality of it.

All I can say to that is Who Knew? Why, just last month Sarah’s son wrote a great post about Post Modernism, and he didn’t say a word about the GOP or Tea Party PoMos. How much did the Koch brothers pay him to keep it out?

I am beginning to suspect a plot. Perhaps I should read leftist blogs more often!

After struggling with the deconstruction of epistemology idea till my dimwitted little libertarian head began to hurt, I found succor in a much more traditional insult:

Dude, you’re a glib little bitch who would let “the market” take care of people with special needs, which would cause them to be forever condemned to closets, institutions, and/or the streets.

Fuck you.

What a relief! All I can say to that is “Hey dude, meet the Fonz out back if you have any cajones!” Maybe he can finally knock some sense into their epistemology. (Just kidding, folks. I know the left would never engage in violence…..)

Another commenter had actually gone over to Reason to read comments, and was shocked to see that someone had actually questioned child labor laws. Yes, they actually debated such a thing. Heaven forefend!

There’s actually a debate in the comments of that post about whether child labor laws should exist – after all, shouldn’t the parent decide, not the state?

I cannot believe I wasted time reading that crap. I’m really really hoping my snarkmeter failed and they weren’t actually being serious.

I’d wish they would read Sarah’s “Marx is dead” post for additional enlightenment on child labor laws. Might send the snarkmeter off the charts.

I should read leftie blogs more often.

Seeing how upset they become over support for things like drug legalization, and gay marriage on the right makes me wonder if they aren’t natural allies for some of the social conservatives who are upset over the same things and who want to kick libertarians out of the tent.

As I’ve said before, the conservative “traditional values” crowd can’t do it alone.

Sometimes the left provides a lift.

* In the interest of full disclosure, I feel obligated to point out that when I met Nick Gillespie at an event in DC, I was in full capitalist pig attire, and Nick was wearing his leather jacket! I admit, for a moment I might have been inclined to feel overdressed. But being a libertarian, I failed to succumb to Fonziephobia.

Besides, according to Dave, Nick takes his leather jacket off occasionally.

MORE: More on the sinister pair who refuse to conform to the left’s narrative. Benito’s Boy Wonder Glenn Reynolds (who says the brothers have been “EXPOSED AT LAST”) links a Radley Balko piece titled “The Koch Brothers’ Right-Wing Conspiracy to Undermine the PATRIOT Act.

Balko has lots of dirt, including this:

the $20 million donation the Kochs made to the ACLU to fight the Bush administration over the PATRIOT Act. Browsing various accounts of the Kochs political spending over the years, that $20 million appears to be substantially more than the Kochs have contributed to all political candidates combined for at least the last 15 years.

What kind of shameless America-haters would help to undermine the Patriot Act?

And it gets worse. One of the brothers has Libertarian bona fides:

David Koch did run for Vice President on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1980, but on a platform of legalizing drugs and prostitution, and abolishing the FBI and CIA.

Isn’t it about time for real conservatives to join forces with the left and take their party back so they can rid the GOP of subversive libertarian infiltrators before they ruin every last narrative that’s left?


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9 responses to “Conflated confabulations of frenzied and fulminating Fonziephobia”

  1. guy Avatar
    guy

    “…the conservative ‘traditional values’ crowd can’t do it alone.”
    Obama/Huckabee 2012!!!111

  2. flenser Avatar
    flenser

    Anti-libertarian snark fascinates me, and it seems to get louder and louder, and ever more insulting. I’ve complained about it before
    You’re a funny guy, Eric. Have you somehow managed the miss the unending anti-conservative snark right here at your own blog? It’s hard to see how, since you write a good deal of it yourself. And Simon has no other function in life than to wet himself in fear at the thought of the Christianists.

  3. Eric Scheie Avatar

    I have missed all of my “unending anti-conservative snark” because I never notice what I write. But I’m really jealous that you think Simon does a better job with his wee wee than I do!
    WAAAAAAH!
    🙂

  4. M. Simon Avatar

    Flenser,
    I must say that fighting social conservative’s statist efforts to force people to live the “right” way gets me stiff.
    It is better than viagra. And at 66 that can be quite helpful. Blog posts are cheaper than pills.
    Now if you didn’t want to get it done by force of law you would gain an ally.
    My blog posts get more hits than yours. So not only is my dick stiffer, but my Google score is better.
    A twofer.

  5. Steve Skubinna Avatar
    Steve Skubinna

    I really pissed off a lefty a while ago by saying child labor laws were only possible in an affluent culture, that could afford to remove children from the workforce.
    I mean, really, really pissed him off. I though he might hit me.

  6. Veeshir Avatar
    Veeshir

    Baloon Juice? That used to be a good blog, but then the comments went insane and then John did.
    Now they’re just poo flinging, bar rattling monkeys.
    It’s best just to point and laugh.

  7. DJ Avatar
    DJ

    One major goal of current day Republicans and Libertarians is to destroy epistemology.
    One of my major goals is to destroy formal epistemology. Those damn formal epistemologists are taking over. As for metaphysics, Hume said it best:
    If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

  8. M. Simon Avatar

    From the work of Kurt Goedel we can see that the immediate answer is meta-metaphysics. In reality it is metas all the way down.

  9. JM Hanes Avatar
    JM Hanes

    You can’t be blamed for missing the Great Epistemic Closure Debate. kicked off by Julian Sanchez, who attempted to burnish the usual tarring of conservatives as closedminded with a little intellectual sheen. It didn’t last long, although it got interesting when Jim Manzi reignited the sputtering epistemic flame and conservatives began arguing amongst themselves. Ironically, of course, political debate would be considerably more interesting across the board, if liberals tried arguing amongst themselves once in awhile. Alas, lefty trolls suck up such catchwords, which they apply indiscriminately in every possible venue till a new improved talking point captures their febrile imaginations. Epistemic closure was just the successor meme to Republican nihilism. As my Google search results suggest, the New Republic is a particularly rich resource for the latest in liberal gospel chic, if you’re trying to keep up.