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February 05, 2007
Frank Analysis: Liberal Blogs and Vulgarity
Amanda Marcotte of the popular liberal blog Pandagon was hired by the John Edwards campaign. When Marcotte's posts were subsequently scrutinized, many were surprised to see that her writing consisted solely of a combination of angry swearing and casual swearing. Those more familiar with liberal blogs were not so surprised as profanity laced rants has always seemed to be the norm on that side of the blogosphere. This may seem odd to some as it would be expected that the most popular political blogs would contain intelligent analysis of the issues of the day, and both anger and the use of vulgarity often indicative of the opposite of careful analysis. The right side of the blogosphere conforms with this, as the most popular political blogs there are seldom angry or vulgar. In fact, the only time I've seen Glenn Reynolds go off into a stream of obscenities is when I met him in person. Now, this isn't just a moral issue, as many of the right-wing blogs are not socially conservative and it's assumed the authors have no moral problem with swearing. Thus, those who eschew vulgarity seem to do so more out of societal expectations that the liberal bloggers seem immune to. Now, there are bloggers on the right who do use vulgarity and rant and there are liberal bloggers who do calm analysis that could be read on national TV, but if you look at the most popular blogs on both the right and the left, one is left with the feeling that angry swearing harms ones credibility on the right while it's expected on the left. Obscenity by them is used in everything including hot button issues, fiscal analysis, and cat-blogging. Looking also at commenters for the various sites even drives this point home further. While swearing is more common on both sides from commenters, the left almost seems incapable of writing a sentence without using vulgarity. Were one to use Democratic Underground;s forum as an example, you'd think liberals are incapably of understanding simple nouns unless they are bookended with swear words. It's almost like a typing form of Tourette's syndrome. So, why is this? Here are the most common hypotheses in the psychological community: * Liberals Put a Strong Emphasis on Feelings: It's a common trope among conservatives that liberals care less about facts and more about feelings. While this is easily dismissed as partisan rancor, it does contribute to an explanation of the use of vulgarity in liberal blog posts. Vulgarity is an easy way to express strong feelings on an issue and create a bond with the reader, but only if the reader finds vulgarity to be acceptable in the situation. This was confirmed by the Shchedrov Institute by measuring brain patterns when someone is exposed to a vulgar rant and also when someone converses with a well known friend. When the subject is not adverse to vulgarity and also was similarly concerned with the subject being ranted about, the brain patterns during the rant were a close match to the brain patterns when conversing with a friend. There were no controls for political bias, though. * Limited Vocabulary: There is a condition (Tizon's syndrome) that affects the part of the brain used for organizing words and severely limits the sufferer's ability to work with a large vocabulary. The sufferer often resorts to using the same words over and over for different purposes in something commonly known as "Smurf Syndrome." The most versatile words in the English language are swears as they can often be used in place of any adjective and noun and thus are used as crutches for those with Tizon's Syndrome when searching for the appropriate word. There aren't definitive figures on what percentage of the population has Tizon's Syndrome, but the incidents of it are thought to have increased in the past few decades due to some acne medications with unknown effects on pregnancies. An analysis of liberal blogs seems to show that many of the writers suffer from this disease. If one discounts proper nouns, the blogger known as Kos has used only 3,285 different words in all his years of blogging. In contrast, Danny Murphy, a 10-year-old who blogs about Pokemon, uses over 12,000 different words in the course of a week. If one were to accept that many liberal bloggers and blog readers have Tizon's Syndrome, that still doesn't explain why they would drift to the liberal side of politics, though. * They Have the Brains of Chickens: It's common knowledge among the scientific community that if you took a chicken and somehow gave it a human speech center without affecting the rest of the chicken's brain, the chicken would then proceed to spew forth nothing but vulgarity peppered with the occasional ethnic slur in results extremely similar to liberal blog posts. This would seem to indicate many liberals have the brains of chickens, but the mental processes used in speaking strings of swear words is much different than that of typing swear words, so the answer is most likely more complex. * They're Dumb and They Smell: The most common hypothesis offered in the comments to my blog are that liberals are dumb and they smell. Now, well it is usual to make a judgment of someone's intelligence based on his or her writing, judging the odor of a writer is not an easy thing to do. Still, it can't be denied that when reading the rants of liberal bloggers, one cannot help but assume these writers smell in some sort of unflattering away. While it is possible for someone to be both dumb and smell bad but still speak in a polite manner, numerous scientific studies confirm a high correlation between vulgarity and being dumb and smelly. So, to use Occam's Razor, the simplest explanation for all the angry profanity on the liberal side of the blogosphere is that all those people are dumb and smell. 35 Responses To "Frank Analysis: Liberal Blogs and Vulgarity"
I’ll take the dumb and smell explanation. I don’t think that insulting chickens is called for in this case… #1 - Posted by: ussjimmycarter on February 5, 2007 11:23 AMTrue, chickens are genetically cowards, they have an excuse. #2 - Posted by: spacemonkey on February 5, 2007 11:34 AMCould it be a reaction caused by Patchouli and Bong resin? #3 - Posted by: Derek on February 5, 2007 11:55 AMThere are two kinds of people in terms of politics. The first kind are those who hold their political beliefs because they have deduced, after much consideration, that their position is the correct one. The second kind are those who choose and defend their position because it feels right or because of peer or familial pressure. Whether they are liberal, conservative, or something else, I'd rather deal with the first type any day over the second type. The second type knows how to protest, scream, and throw ad hominem attacks, but they haven't got a clue how to argue their point. Most of the latter type that I've met are liberals. As the old saying goes, "instead of raising your voice, you should reinforce your argument." #4 - Posted by: The Land Walrus on February 5, 2007 12:14 PMI love the Wiki link for Bumblebee thrown in. That was Franking awesome! #5 - Posted by: DesertElephant on February 5, 2007 12:31 PMAn erudite and astute group of observations carried to the logical conclusion. #6 - Posted by: Writer on February 5, 2007 01:09 PMAfter much reading of your blog comments, and due consideration for each aspect of your viewpoints, I find that I just love you fuckers. #7 - Posted by: on February 5, 2007 01:20 PMThere's another saying that I have seen: They are just really confused, so they have a hard time formulating their thoughts. An example: Liberals think that having a baby is punishment for sex, so they abort them. Conservatives know it is a reward, we raise them and mold them into good little conservatives. So, don't worry, soon there will be more conservatives than liberals and the cursing will stop. #9 - Posted by: kim on February 5, 2007 01:29 PMOh yeah!?!? Well you can go to %&*@ you %*#@! #10 - Posted by: DG on February 5, 2007 01:40 PMLiberal: "I feel as though you motherf**king Repugs don't care about anything but oil." Neo-Con: "I feel like taking a shower after just standing near you. Now, shut your Hillary-hole, get a toothbrush & get outta my face." #11 - Posted by: AlanABQ on February 5, 2007 01:57 PMI saw a bumper sticker on a Volvo: If you are not appalled you are not paying attention" The libs need to be very angry to feel like they're getting it. They need to show how angry they are. #12 - Posted by: Gary on February 5, 2007 03:27 PMOf course, the rough drafts of all MY entries start out as nothing but a string of profanities (an old sailor habit, ya know), but I know SarahK reads my posts and she has the remarkable ability to hurl a frying pan from Florida to Wisconsin with stunning accuracy, so I clean them up a bit before posting. #13 - Posted by: Harvey on February 5, 2007 04:08 PMStrange. I run a blog where 90% of the entries are about Andrew Sullivan fisting his beagle. But when it comes to obscenities, I use the old Beetle Bailey method. !#%**@! I hope the "smell explanation" makes it's way into a hate-filled lefty comic one of these days. #15 - Posted by: Sue on February 5, 2007 04:30 PMAfter due consideration, I believe that the typical Leftie has room for no more than four or five letters in his head at one time. If you were a liberal male and spent most of your day taking it up the keister from other liberal males you might be a bit emotional too... #17 - Posted by: ussjimmycarter on February 5, 2007 06:07 PMThey're just emotional because their partner didn't have the common courtesy to give them a reach-around... #18 - Posted by: IllTemperedCur on February 5, 2007 06:41 PMFu$*&^g funniest Go*#&^mn muthafuc@#$%g post I ever read on IMAO. Does this vocabulary make me smell like chickenst? #19 - Posted by: Rooster on February 5, 2007 07:15 PMOn the contrary, Frank, "smelly" is quite easily deduced. Since most of the common "mentaly challanged" liberal's vocabulary relates to bodily functions or anal sex, one can easily see that their thought processes, speech and vocabulary eminates from the rectum. #20 - Posted by: Wolfman Dan on February 5, 2007 07:52 PMhey. don't dog on the volvo. it works great. it confuses them. when you're a shaved headed male, get out of a volvo dressed all in black with two earings and getting a guitar out of the trunk, you're expected to think a certain way (at least in their minds). Its great to listen to the closed minded diatribes (with no attribution mind you) and then wait the appropriate 30 seconds to shoot massive holes in the obscenity laden theories. the looks on their unwashed faces are priceless. #21 - Posted by: k2 on February 5, 2007 08:39 PMSo then, it's wrong for me to conclude my point in saying that libtard diatribe is full of sh^t? Bummer. I have fun saying that. #22 - Posted by: shimauma on February 5, 2007 09:00 PMThank you my friend. I have wandered this way in past posts and am glad to know that others see this as well. Here are a few questions I would like to ask the purveyors of such smutty prose. 1) Do you eat with that mouth? 2) Do you think this is 10th grade gym class? 3) Do you understand what you just said, and more important is it physically possible to do what you've just described? 4) Who paid for your college degree (BA,BS, MS, or PhD) Mommy and Daddy or the rest of us and when are we going to get our money's worth? Did you take an English class or just get lit, stoned or laid for however long it took to get a diploma? 5) This is for those who think the F bomb is a punctuation mark. (not a question, more of an observation) Yours linguistically, (yes, it's really a word- I looked it up) #23 - Posted by: seanmahair on February 5, 2007 09:06 PMC'mon, now. Don't dis Volvos just because many have the unfortunate fate to be owned by liberals. They're great cars, they're safe, and last forever (we have two). Even the ones owned by libs, though most libs don't know what "maintenance" or "common sense driving" means. As a testamony to their toughness, the lib-owned cars STILL keep goin' and goin'...! #24 - Posted by: Floyd R. Turbo on February 5, 2007 09:38 PMI'll admit, I cuss like a China Marine with a case of the clap, but I use it mostly for entertainment purposes, and seldom in an argument, unless it's to inform the sebacious little twerp that I'm bored and am ending the debate. And whenever I see Cindy Shehag, Algore, The Breck Girl or Hildebeest. But that's just a primal response of revulsion. #25 - Posted by: PaleoMedic on February 5, 2007 09:47 PMI just don't buy into the "they're dumb and they smell" conclusion. I think it much more likely that they have the brains of chickens. This would also explain the "chickenhawk" arguments, since a chicken would naturally fear the predator. #26 - Posted by: on February 6, 2007 12:17 AMThanks for the snopes link at the end, don't know what it had to do with the rest of the post (the Hellbender and Bumblebee jokes I got) but from there I found that my dad's been lying to me when he told me that Texas had a provision when they joined that said they could secede...I'm probably not going to tell him that though. :-/ #28 - Posted by: bgrx on February 6, 2007 03:23 PMyour kidding , right?
Subject: f*&k you f#$k you you liberal ass licker!!! Guess who is going to kick ass in November? THE CONSERVATIVES ARE YOU STUPID F*%KING LIBERAL WELFARE PIG!!!!! From: David -- well goody for you ! You are a bunch of DILDOS ! Liberals and Democrats suck ass, they have given us political correctness...... what a crock of s@!t that is!! They want to take away my right to own guns ...... right you can have my gun when you pry it from my cold dead fingers! they give us the Kennedys...what a bunch of DOUCHEBAGS!!! and lets not forget HITLERY CLINTON!!!!!!!!!! she needs to F^%K OFF and go get in a plane crash like that other ass hat last month. so in closeing let me just say GO F$#K YOURSELF!! from the few , the arogant, the Punk Rock Republicans! yes mother f*%kers there is an ever growing punk/ alternative group that supports the Republicans. and I convert more of them every year! so go die Socialist scum! Is That The Best You Got? You f%$king idiots get dumber every day. your nf#$king brains are in your ass. anybody that disagrees with you is supposed to be stupid.the only stupid people are the f*&king democrats. what f#$king idiots. #29 - Posted by: lefty on February 6, 2007 05:16 PMNice try, lefty. Where did you lift this from, DailyKOS or Rotten.com? This is why I can't get through more than 3 posts without exiting those sites. This is what's called the "MTV Generation" and "the public education system" at work. What the libs call "No Child Left Behind" should, in truth, be called "No Child Gets Ahead." #30 - Posted by: Wolfman Dan on February 6, 2007 07:44 PMI shudder to think of what lefty's doing with his right hand. I was looking at the dates on those obviously authentic emails. Did he(?) just travel through time to post that? C'mon, lefty. It's '07 now; try to keep up. #31 - Posted by: AlanABQ on February 6, 2007 11:53 PMHey lefty, (yea, a troll, I thought they were extinct) If libs want people to take them seriously, then they should grow up, wash their mouths out with Comet, take a bath and develop some people skills. (or skilz for our happening liberal readers, spelling rules being not really rules simply guidelines) #32 - Posted by: seanmahair on February 7, 2007 09:19 AM"There are two kinds of people in terms of politics. The first kind are those who hold their political beliefs because they have deduced, after much consideration, that their position is the correct one. The second kind are those who choose and defend their position because it feels right or because of peer or familial pressure. Whether they are liberal, conservative, or something else, I'd rather deal with the first type any day over the second type. The second type knows how to protest, scream, and throw ad hominem attacks, but they haven't got a clue how to argue their point. Most of the latter type that I've met are liberals. As the old saying goes, "instead of raising your voice, you should reinforce your argument." What I find so ironic is how liberals like to try and claim that as well. That they've "reasoned out their arguments" and conservatives are just 'voting like mom and dad do' (apparently dissing the fact that maybe - just maybe - mom and dad have years of wisdom and intelligence behind their decisions). I have to wonder how any political discourse can ever happen in this country when BOTH sides are claiming that they're the reasonable ones and the other side is just stupid. Of course, it seems that "rightist" generally try to express their ideas in a way that 'leftists' could understand and it's leftists that just claim the rightists are all morons. #33 - Posted by: Challenger Grim on February 7, 2007 10:39 AMI scanned quickly, didn't see another Eph 4:29 Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, Ephesians 5:4. Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, We all sin, but how can filthy talk So if this side of the house is the Frank, You know that I've admired your talent for many years. Unfortunately, what this uproar over the hiring of Amanda Marcotte and my friend Liss means that smart, funny people like you and she -- who use satire and humor online -- will be disqualified from working in politics. Imagine. IMAO could be a permanant black spot on your resume. The use of profanity on "lefty" blogs is an interesting topic for discussion. However, it isn't the most important issue in this case. What you have here (reportedly) is a politician caving in to the objections of people who would never vote for him in the first place. Forget about partisanism. As a blogger who has written numerous "controversial" essays for several years, your future is at stake. Unfortunately, there are many people who do not understand satire. They'll take everything you've written literally and condemn you for it. Think about the crazy comments and e-mails you've received from people who take your humor too seriously -- people just like Bill Donohue! Here's an example of what your future may hold: "Frank J. Fleming is a right-wing blogger who advocates the use of nuclear weapons. The Monterey Institute of International Studies Center for Nonproliferation Studies has written to Newt Gingrich asking that Fleming, recently hired to head Gingrich's online campaign strategy, be fired immediately. "Fleming is a clown who jokes about the use of nuclear weapons. He sells t-shirts that depict an atomic explosion," said Center spokesperson Knowle Newques. "Anyone who shows that kind of disregard for the safety and future of mankind has no place in a presidential campaign." I've known Liss for a long time. She's bright, funny, and I bet you'd like her. In spite of your political differences, you've got similar tastes in social satire. She certainly doesn't take herself too seriously. Depicting her as shrill and angry is just as much of a misrepresentation as depicting Frank J. as a "gun nut with a juvenile preoccupation with comic book violence." It would be easy to scan through your blog and misrepresent you in numerous ways. That's what Michelle Malkin is good at. And, there are many leftwing bloggers who are currently following her example. One of the reasons my brother (the other Frank from early days you may recall) and I left blogging was the realization that the activity could negatively impact our personal and professional lives. Now, I'm seeing friends losing their jobs and facing ridicule because of what they wrote in their personal blogs. This is something that could happen to bloggers regardless of their political leanings. Maybe a good review of a Pepsi product in 2001 will prevent someone from getting a job with Coke. Where do we draw the line? #35 - Posted by: Fritz on February 8, 2007 08:47 AMPost a comment
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