September 21, 2005 by s.z.

Ultimate Wingnut Challenge: Townhallers Vs. Korner Kids 

The new season of Ultimate Wingnut Challenge begins with a match-up we've been anticipating all summer:  the batcrap-crazy, bought-and-paid-for brand of conservatism of the Townhall team (VBen Shapiro, Dr. Mike Adams, Ph.D., and Pastor Doug Giles) versus the intellectual heirs of William F. Buckley (John Derbyshire and Jonah Goldberg).  It should prove exciting.  For while I had to take a break from the Ultimate Wingnuts due to health concerns (they were making my eyes bleed and my head hurt), the contestants have apparently used the time to train, because most of them are extra wingnutty this week.

1.  So, let the challenge begin with our youngest, purest, and most-obsessed-with porn wingnut.  Yes, it's VBen Shapiro with The case for policing pornography

Thesis: The FBI should be fired for laughing at the plan for an "anti-obscenity" squad, because fighting porn is vital work.  In fact, if we don't arrest those responsible for such filth as "The Naughty Secretary of State Debriefs the President" and "Porno Generation: Dan Shaniro Gets It On With Ann Cunter," then we might as well just kill homeless drifters.

Excerpts:

On Tuesday, the Washington Post reported that the FBI was seeking agents to constitute a new "anti-obscenity" squad. "The new squad will divert eight agents, a supervisor and assorted support staff to gather evidence against 'manufacturers and purveyors' of pornography -- not the kind exploiting children, but the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults," the Post stated.

 [...]

The "objective" reporter for the Washington Post, Barton Gellman, promptly sought out FBI agents to critique the new program.

I guess VBen's point is that a truly objective reporter would have asked porn expert Ben to critique the program instead of some nameless FBI agents.

"I guess this means we've won the war on terror," said one FBI agent. "We must not need any more resources for espionage." "Honestly, most of the guys would have to recuse themselves," guffawed another. "It's a running joke among us," chuckled a national security analyst.

The jocularity of these agents is rather disturbing.

Because we don't pay the FBI to have a sense of humor -- especially about porn!

Plainly it is not governmental inefficiency these agents are worried about. They find the anti-pornography crowd disturbing because they believe that policing pornography violates fundamental rights.

Yeah, because there's no way that the agents could just think that the idea of expecting ten or so FBI employees to stop porn was stupid.

This has become the dominant view in our society: As long as what I do doesn't harm you personally, I have a right to do it. [...] Were we to truly recognize such a philosophy, we would have to legalize prostitution, drugs and suicide -- as well as the murder of homeless drifters with no family or friends. After all, if someone kills a homeless drifter, how does that affect anyone else?

So legally homeless drifters aren't themselves people?   I guess VBen learned this in one of his Harvard law classes.

Anyway, the bottom line is that the GOP owes it to VBen to enforce his values, and to eliminate porn.

Elections mean something in this country, and the alleged defenders of traditional morality are in power. Until they are ousted, they have a responsibility to work on behalf of their constituency.

And President Bush has the responsiblity to make the FBI stop laughing at Ben.  Otherwise, Ben is going to move to a country where they take porn policing seriously -- you know, somewhere like Iran.

2.  Now, here's Korner Kid Jonah Goldberg with Hurricane coverage veers off course.

Thesis: The poor will always be with us, and they will always be disportionately black.  And since there's nothing the government can do about this, Jonah would appreciate it if the media would stop talking about race and class, and instead talk about the colorful, flamboyant gays who make up the bulk of the populace in Key West

Excerpts:

Last week, at Nebraska Wesleyan University, I joined CNN's Carlos Watson at an event to discuss media bias.

 [...] 

He fervently believed that if the media were more diverse, then the federal response to Katrina would have been more Johnny-on-the-Spot.

[...]

This might show how deeply enmeshed in identity politics we have become, which is why I half-expected to see those stories about gays left behind in Key West. After all, there's plenty of diversity in the media on that front.

So, Jonah is implying that Rush Limbaugh, Armstrong Williams, Rita Crosby, and Sean Hannity are gay???

But I think the larger revelation of Katrina has less to do with identity politics and more to do with showing what various people think the government is for. We've heard constantly that it is a scandal of one sort or another that the (overwhelmingly black) inner city residents of New Orleans are so poor 40 years after the War on Poverty was launched.

Indeed, the underlying assumption of the War on Poverty (and the New Deal) that government should make sure no one is poor is now widely accepted on both the left and the right.

However, Jonah believes that everyone should make it on his or her own, without any help from anybody.  You know, like he did.   And his mommy agrees.

Bonus gratuitious swipe at Jonah's latest archenemy:

As Hurricane Rita barreled toward Key West, television news executives were unprepared to deal with the lamentable divide this storm would undoubtedly reveal between gay America and straight America. [...]

Why weren't reporters standing at the ready to caterwaul about the wreckage at their feet? Cher albums and the collected writings of James Wolcott strewn about like beer cans and pizza boxes in an apartment yet to be transformed by the cast of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

So, gay people like James Wolcott's work-- what a slam!  Take that, Wolcott!

3.   Now let's hear from Townhall's most popular hotel preacher, Doug Giles.  His column for this week is entitled God Hates New Orleans and Biloxi?

Thesis: "Religious" loonies like Michael Marcavage and Pastor Swank should stop claiming that God sent a hurricane to destroy New Orleans because of its sins, and instead work on helping the victims.  

Yeah, we realize that this isn't wingnutty at all, and is, in fact, something we agree with and which we commend Doug for saying --but it doesn't help him win this contest.  However, maybe Doug can manage to avoid being voted off the Island faster than Michael Moore is fat if Doug demonstrates some of his famous pop culture refs and tortured metaphors.  So, let's just look at those

Excerpts:

grannies blowing their social security check playing the slots like a monkey on crack

even the best of us as individuals and greatest of cities do creepy stuff that warrants (if God punishes everyone with natural disasters)  ... another JLo movie.

So, why did New Orleans and Biloxi get socked?  I’m not going to jump out there and speak for God (principally, because He hasn’t spoken to me since I went to that Celion Dion concert in Vegas four years ago),

Okay, not as wacky as usual.  So, I guess we'll just skip to Doug's conclusion:

So, Elijah-wannabe—why don’t you lay down your sackcloth and your rapture chart?  Now, pick up your checkbook and write a hefty check for disaster relief.  Next, if you actually have a job, take a week off from work and go help clean up the mess.  Imagine that . . . joining the hundreds of thousands of Christians doing the dirty work of ministry instead of just sitting back and bashing the victims and the places in which they live.  I’ll be down there in a few days, so maybe we can meet up, have a beer or Kool-Aid or whatever you drink.  And lastly, whether you decide to go or not, please do us all a favor and just shut up with the Sodom rhetoric and simply pray that we all take stock of how short our lives are and that somehow, through this disaster, our nation will get closer to God and to each other than we ever have before. 

Wow, that was actually very nice and kinda touching.  In fact we have tears in our eyes.  Yeah, it always makes us cry when a once promising wingnut like Doug start to make sense and express some Christian compassion. 

4.  So, let's move on, and hear from Korner Kid John "Sodomy Derb" Derbyshire, whose latest is called FEMA To the Rescue.

Overall Message One Should Take From It:  Derb is an annoying curmugeon who really hates politically correct ideas, such as expecting federal employees to respect the beliefs and feelings of the people they are paid to help.

Premise:  Derb reproduces an "amusing" imaginary class schedule for a fictional required FEMA training course.

Excerpts:

Day 2: Harassment Awareness

Volunteers working with FEMA employees come under the scope of federal rules on sexual harassment, as set out in relevant EEOC guidelines. [...] Class events will include a taped lecture by Prof. Anita Hill, class staging of a one-act drama Tailhook Torment, and the ever-popular Packwood Piñata.

Because it's just plain silly to expect men not to grope women or coerce them into having sex!

Day 4: GLBTQA Awareness

Our country has a dark record of oppression and discrimination towards orientational minorities. Because of this, we need to show particular sensitivity towards aid recipients from the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, questioning, and asexual minorities. This day’s session will involve group case studies led by qualified, credentialed GLBTQA-awareness trainers, including HIV-positive persons. Rubber gloves, condoms, and dental dams will be supplied.

You didn't expect Derb to write a column that didn't include a mention of  gay people (and how they're mostly disease-ridden), did you?  Anyway, AIDS is funny, so laugh, damn you!

5. Lastly, here's Dr. Mike Adams, with a tale even more unbelievable than the one about how that dame in Maine called Meghan Gurdon's children animals just because they weren't wearing shoes.  So, let's all sit back and enjoy a story of tension, treachery, and travel to rival Annie Jacobson's, only Mike's takes place mostly on a bus.  It's called Sugar Mountain

Overall Message One Should Take From It: Dr. Mike's is one insignificant slight away from going postal on the world.

Premise: Dr. Mike was a chaperone for a church ski trip for the youth.  The other chaperone was "a former hippie from the 1960's" (and current liberal) who gave the black bus driver faulty directions, pocketed food from the group's breakfast buffet for his kids even though he was wealthy, stole ski goggles, let his daughter smash croutons at Pizza Hut, and failed to appreciate that Dr. Mike is a genius.  The guy was stupid, arrogant, selfish, racist, sociopathic, and a leech -- all of which is all implied by the label "liberal."  However, Dr. Mike bested him at every turn with witty bon mots and better directions -- and this story is totally true, and really happened.

Excerpts:

When we got on the bus, the former-hippie-turned-chaperone began to take charge. [...] When the driver refused, he warned us that “this guy is going to need a lot of guidance.” When we looked at him, we only saw a professional bus driver. When the former hippie looked at him, he apparently saw an unintelligent black man. I have found that you can usually identify a liberal by the way he talks to black people. This was certainly no exception.

And Dr. Mike can usually identify a conservative by the way he pretends that black people are invisible.  [Ba bing!}

The driver had never been to Sugar Mountain, so we needed someone to navigate the next morning. The former hippie volunteered. The youth director consented. I didn’t voice my concerns because I thought it would be funny to watch him get lost. I also planned to time him before I offered to get us home later that night, betting that I could do so in half the time.

Man, it must suck to be Dr. Mike!  Imagine spending most of your life stewing about past slights, dwelling on (very petty) current injustices, and dreaming about someday you'll make them all pay!  (If only Dr. Mike had a killer gorilla, he could star in a Poverty Row horror movie.)

As we were entering Tennessee, I thought about the former hippie’s daughter who was wearing black leather boots and a ton of mascara. She had a pin on her jacket that said “Bush is stupid.” I wanted to ask her whether she thought that Bush was stupid enough to wind up in Tennessee while traveling westward through North Carolina (on the way to western North Carolina). But I didn’t want to interrupt her. She was reading Chomsky.

Okay, while I find Dr. Mike's account suspect on many levels, I have to call "no way!" on these details: (a) that the daughter was wearing a "Bush is Stupid" pin (I'm not positive, but I think that a few months ago Dr. Mike reported that an icky feminist was wearing such a pin while chating "vagina, vagina" -- and I can't believe that the pins are that common in the circles Dr. Mike haunts); and (b) that she was reading Chomsky on the bus. 

But I guess Dr. Mike could be telling the gospel truth here (anything is possible).  So, here's the deal -- if anyone out there participated in this youth trip last winter and will offer their account of it, I will pay them $5. And if crack investigative reporter John Stossel will investigate the situation, I will pay him $10.  I just want the truth!

But anyway, here's the conclusion to this story:

And that was pretty much how the whole weekend went. The adult chaperones spend most of their time looking after the hippie-turned-chaperone to make sure that he didn’t get anyone lost, fired, or thrown in jail for stealing food or ski equipment. I was so focused on controlling him that I just ignored his daughter when she started crushing hundreds of croutons with her fist at the Pizza Hut salad bar.

[...]

Of course, I’m not suggesting that every liberal hippie from the 60s is a full-blown sociopath like my fellow chaperone. But the symptoms are always the same, aren’t they? His condescension towards blacks, his unwavering arrogance in the wake of his own obvious stupidity, his looting and hoarding of limited resources, his lack of respect for the truth, his the lack of respect for the property of others, and, mostly, his refusal to grow up.

My weekend in the mountains reminded me that liberalism is not really a political philosophy. Instead, it is a state of arrested emotional development. It is a way of thinking, which leads to no place in the real world. It is a place existing only in the imagination.

And Dr. Mike's account of his weekend in the mountains reminded me that while Dr. Mike may not be the Ultimate Wingnut, he certainly has a shot at the title of "The Guy Most Likely to Have His Coffee Spat In."  It also reminded me that while drugs can help many people with many different mental problems these days, we don't yet have a cure for jerkdom.

And those were our candidates.  Vote the least wingnutty one off Wingnut Island -- because slowly we are culling the herd, and eventually, there will be only one ...

2:04:29 AM