Category Archives: Popular Culture
Of Ducks And Gays
…and tolerance:
The advantages of classical liberal market cosmopolitanism–the idea that it’s best to set aside peaceful differences of opinion and creed and worries about different races, nationalities, and genders when deciding how we interact with the world–has a great track record of making us all richer and happier.
The idea that that people should be punished with boycott or losing their jobs over having wrong beliefs hobbles the flowering of tolerant classical liberal market cosmopolitanism.
There may have been a good reason why classical tolerance of expression was summed up in the epigram: “I disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it!”
That has a different feel than: “I disagree with what you say, I think you are evil for having said it, I think no one should associate with you and you ought to lose your livelihood, and anyone who doesn’t agree with me about all that is skating on pretty thin ice as well, but hey, I don’t think you should be arrested for it.”
It’s a “heads I win tails you lose” situation, as it often is with the Left. As I noted at Twitter yesterday:
I despise hate speech. I won't say I hate it, though, because that would be hate speech. I think. #IAmSoConfused
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) December 20, 2013
I can't stand that intolerance exists. I won't say I won't tolerate it, though, because that would be intolerant. I think. #IAmSoConfused
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) December 20, 2013
As I also noted there, declaring someone a sinner does not justify bullying or assaulting them. There will always be bullies, but their existence is not a reason to suppress freedom of expression or religion.
[Update a few minutes later]
Joel Achenbach has a pretty amusing take: The Ducksters are the Flintstones.
[Update a while later]
The show is likely to be canceled. I noted yesterday on Twitter that A&E needed Duck Dynasty a lot more than the latter needed A&E. A&E can run whatever programs it wants, but I think that they’ll realize that this was a stupid business decision.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Thoughts from Jonah: Real rednecks.
Ender’s Game
Jon Goff has some gripes (with spoilers) about the movie.
I haven’t read the book in a third of a century, so I wasn’t as bothered by some of those things as he was. As he notes, in retrospect, it’s probably a mistake to read the book just before seeing the movie. If you haven’t read it, it would probably be better to watch the movie first.
Is Safety Stifling Space Development?
In which I’m interviewed by Popular Mechanics about the book. Which can be purchased on the button over to the leftright.
[Update a few minutes later]
I’d forgotten that it was on the right in the new template.
Smartphone Subsidies
The downside.
I’m currently month-to-month on my three-year-old two-year Verizon contract with a Droid Global 2. I think that if I upgrade, I’ll just buy it outright, but right now, I don’t see anything on the new phones that I can’t live without. Of course, I only use my phone when I’m traveling, or out of the house, so since I usually work at home, it’s no biggie.
Bad Sex In Fiction
The award winners. I agree with the judges on the worst one. (NSFW)
The Maria Problem
An update.
Remembering Altamont
When the hippies were expelled from the garden?
Shards
A new essay from Bill Whittle:
Anduril reminds me that there is no Greatest Generation. There is no sword broken; there is no Golden Age lost and locked in the past. There are only shards lying before us, waiting for us to gather the will to reforge and wield them. It’s a decision, not a doom or a destiny, and we have to make it every day.
I don’t know if we can stop the destruction of everything we love in this world. I don’t know that we can destroy this all-seeing eye that seems to watch us all now, day and night, in this once-free land. I don’t know if all of my efforts will amount to anything at all, in the end, and I don’t know if yours will either.
I only know that every day I will make a decision to do everything I can to make sure my land, my realm, my America does not fall into darkness today.
Read all.
American Anti-Americanism
Lileks has some thoughts:
The point is: Donald wakes up in America, in a room bedecked with American symbols, and is unabashedly grateful. It was an appeal to a vague but widely assumed national identity that was clearly superior to the Nazi alternative in every possible way. Oh, sure, some weisenheimer in the back row may have grumbled “It ain’t our fight!” or “no fourth term for Rooosevelt!” No one in the audience went home and hugged a flag. But you could also look at the cartoon in a different light: “That Time a Cartoon was Unapologetically Grateful For America Without Including a Moronic Hyper-patriotic Caricature Named Biff Punchjaw To Let the Animators Off the Hook Lest You Think They Have No Awareness of the Nation’s Dark Side As Well.”
It stuck in my craw, my craw being dipped in extra-strength adhesive these days, because another site I visit looked at another wartime Disney cartoon and took it to task for its gendered attitudes. It is not enough to be correct today; one must also demonstrate awareness of previous incorrectness, and parade around your awareness like a flag in a rally. Annnd this came after a visit to an animation site, where the people in the comments fell over themselves to pick apart “Frozen” and the “Lost” Mickey short that preceded it. His nose! It’s historically inaccurate! Mickey’s nose didn’t look like that until 1931, but that’s the 1926 Pegleg Pete! Hah! From hell’s heart I fling my poo! Shame!
Plus, the usual weekly Captain Video as a bonus.