The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

A. Charles Johnson

Posted on | June 27, 2010 | 106 Comments

Q. What’s more boring than soccer?

We might assume, arguendo, that regular readers have been following The Other McCain’s relentless mockery of the 2010 World Cup. However, for those who may have joined the mockery in progress and missed the set-up for this particular running gag, let’s recall how liberals have portrayed American contempt for soccer as inherently racist:

“I was reminded about why when the United States wins in international tournaments, it can bring a nasty undercurrent in its wake. . . .
“It’s yet another reminder why it is so important for progressives to not just thrill to the joys of sport but be conversant in the politics of sports. The right will forever try to pump the worst kind of racist, nationalist garbage through our play, even at moments that by all rights should be above and beyond politics and just about the electric thrill of the moment.”
— David Zirin, The Nation, June 23

Anyone who has read Thomas Sowell’s The Vision of the Anointed (as everyone should) recognizes in this a signature trope of elitist liberalism: “We are enlightened and sophisticated, whereas conservatives are benighted and bigoted.” 

Sowell summarizes the danger of this tendency in his book’s subtitle: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy. That is to say, liberals support certain policies not because those policies are demonstrably effective, but because supporting such policies makes liberals feel good about themselves.

This nonsense about conservatives hating soccer because we are xenophobic jingos is merely a variation on the argument that conservative opposition to nationalized health-care is motivated by racism. The liberal worldview needs to be mocked, and often, and by someone who knows how, which was the primary motivation of World Cup Fever — Catch It! — here:

This recap is not necessitated by any need to allay fears that I’m turning into a soccer-loving elitist faggot, but rather to set up the punchline:




At one point in our Twitter exchange, Johnson used the term “wetback,” and asked what slur I would apply to the Ghana team.

This demonstrated that he did not recognize the premise of the joke, i.e., to employ derogatory terms for various nationalities — French “frogs,” Irish “micks,” Italian “dagos,” etc. —  whereas Johnson had in mind racial slurs, which terms I had of course avoided. At one point, I asked readers to suggest an epithet for Algerians, a situation where generic anti-Arab terms would not do.

Charles Johnson is simply too dull-witted to get the joke. Members of the Mexican soccer team are obviously not “wetbacks,” a term referring specfically to illegal immigrants. If they were “wetbacks,” they’d be playing for the USA and voting for Obama. Had the U.S. team ever played Japan, I might have been in trouble, but we need not waste much thought on that moot possibility now that America’s World-Class Losers have been eliminated.

Too bad Charles Johnson didn’t seek my advice before contacting R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., as I might have warned Charles that it has been a standard policy of The American Spectator since its inception to report all disgruntled letter-writers to the FBI for investigation as subversives.

We’ll wait and see whether I collect that $20 from Weigel.

UPDATE (Smitty): Clarification of “s32porchmanque” can be located here. Summary: ya got nothin’. Keep trying.

UPDATE II: Well played, Admiral, well played, indeed! Smitty’s penchant for Carrollesque word-play is notorious, as his authorship of Oedipotus Wrecks and Waiting for O-Dough demonstrates. His choice of monikers when installing SiteMeter for the new WordPress version of the blog was, perhaps, not what I would have advised. Yet he did not seek my advice, so I suppose he must suffer whatever pun-ishment is apt.

Johnson’s obsession with the SiteMeter calls attention to an interesting fact: Little Green Footballs does not display a SiteMeter link, so that no one can study LGF’s traffic trends. Whereas, as recently noted, June has been the Best. Month. Evah! hereabouts, and anyone can study the SiteMeter to analyze the trend.

While you’re mentally extrapolating November’s traffic based on a trend of April 106K to June 165K, take a gander at The Rules, a/k/a “How to Get a Million Hits.” Among the growth strategies advised is Rule 3: “Make Some Enemies.” So I guess that worked pretty good.

This recent drama — including an evidently authentic comment by Mad King Charles himself — occurred while I was briefly asleep. Donald Douglas at American Power displays the unfunny cartoon that one of the lizards composed.

We now have a Memeorandum thread,  so I suppose I’ll be drinking free next time I run into Dave Weigel. Many conservatives have asked me about Dave — “How can you be friends with that dirtbag?” — and I admit that this is becoming a difficult thing to defend. But I’m averse to the Total Vengeance mode of blogging, the compiling of Enemies Lists, trying to get people fired, and so forth.

The propaganda of dehumanization, turning individuals into symbols — Emmanuel Goldstein in the Two-Minutes Hate — is what incites such episodes as Michelle Malkin being swarmed by an Alex Jones-led mob in Denver. Having been vilified in that manner, I don’t hate the player, I hate the game.

Charles Johnson has played the game so long that he has forgotten it’s a game. He is now just a semi-professional bully. As I said of his vindictive campaign against Pamela Geller, if CJ was a Sioux, his tribal name would be Fights With Girls.

Bullies are not attractive, except to people who admire sadism. And I wasn’t raised that way. Generosity and kindness ultimately triumph over selfish cruelty, and honesty over lies. I don’t owe Bob Belvedere a hat-tip for this lesson.

“And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city . . .”

We know how that story ends.

Category: Blogging, Charles Johnson, Foreigners, humor

Comments

106 Responses to “A. Charles Johnson”

  1. Jenny
    June 28th, 2010 @ 1:58 pm

    Chucklehead you are such a funny, fat fellow. How is your personal economy doing in this Obama recession (and it is is recession)? Has Killgore Trout gotten laid yet? has Cato ‘s stomach shrunk even a little so he can finally see his feet? Has Irish Rose drunk herself into a stupor?

  2. Jenny
    June 28th, 2010 @ 9:58 am

    Chucklehead you are such a funny, fat fellow. How is your personal economy doing in this Obama recession (and it is is recession)? Has Killgore Trout gotten laid yet? has Cato ‘s stomach shrunk even a little so he can finally see his feet? Has Irish Rose drunk herself into a stupor?

  3. The Osprey
    June 28th, 2010 @ 9:28 pm

    Jenny, “Irish Rose” left LGF sometime ago. The Belle of Belfast City got into a little tiff with Chuckle’s new fave femme fatale, “Iceweasel”.

  4. The Osprey
    June 28th, 2010 @ 5:28 pm

    Jenny, “Irish Rose” left LGF sometime ago. The Belle of Belfast City got into a little tiff with Chuckle’s new fave femme fatale, “Iceweasel”.

  5. The Osprey
    June 28th, 2010 @ 9:30 pm

    You know Robert, I’m thinking there must be a lawyer out there who would be willing to make a defamation suit on behalf of you, Mr. Spencer and Pamela.

    That is, assuming Chuckles has any assets worth suing for.

  6. The Osprey
    June 28th, 2010 @ 5:30 pm

    You know Robert, I’m thinking there must be a lawyer out there who would be willing to make a defamation suit on behalf of you, Mr. Spencer and Pamela.

    That is, assuming Chuckles has any assets worth suing for.