Screwballs

Aside from the gnashing and wailing from the Left, one of post-election America's richest sources of comedy is the unsated anger, and sense of unfinished business, emanating from the liberals-are-evil Right (or, the Angry Enfranchised Majority). A good example comes in today's L.A. Times from former Major League pitcher Frank Pastore. Some excerpts:

Since 1968, the left has taken millions captive, and we must help those Democrats who truly want to be free to actually break free of this evil ideology. […]

The left bewitches with its potions and elixirs, served daily in its strongholds of academe, Hollywood and old media. It vomits upon the morals, values and traditions we hold sacred: God, family and country. […]

Simply, a majority of Americans have rejected John Kerry and John Edwards and the left because they are wrong. They are wrong because there are not two Americas. We are one nation under a God they reject.

I know what you're thinking … Frank freakin' Pastore? Aren't you supposed to be at least a halfway decent pitcher, and not some 48-58 journeyman, before we pretend to care about your politics?

Comments

[joe]

"Since 1968, the left has taken millions captive, and we must help those Democrats who truly want to be free to actually break free of this evil ideology."

I actually have a Baptist minister's family in my basement right now. I make them run on big hampster wheels, so I don't have to use electricity from fossil fuels.

[Will Allen]

Who would have Babe Ruth voted for? The ex-bottle jockey with something resembling a common touch? Or the brahmin with the good sense to marry fabulously rich broads? Now, if we could get a bottle jockey who wouldn't stop, while serially marrying rich broads, while pursuing Bill Clinton's favorite pastime (without the nonsensical denials), that'd be the Bambino's choice! Hell, that'd be my choice! When's the first Party Congress?!

[Fabius Cunctator]

What would Jesus Alou do?

Crap, that was pretty lame.

[Ken Shultz]

joe,

Ha!

[Paul]

Matt:

Why do we care what Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon or Michael Moore think? Because they're there.

Paul

[Joe L.]

"I know what you're thinking ... Frank freakin' Pastore? Aren't you supposed to be at least a halfway decent pitcher, and not some 48-58 journeyman, before we pretend to care about your politics?"-Really I haven't really cared about Sprinsteen for years, never cared about Moore, or Diaz, or Streisand or Sharon Stone or Sarandon or Robbins and they gave me THEIR opinions!
So, now someone not of the Hollywood Left is givng an opinion. I think Matt you just aren't happy this week....Don't YOU believe in the 1st Amendment and everyone's right to speech?

[JDM]

Truly the interesting thing here is that the LA Times decided to balance out its coverage, apparently, and it runs Frank Pastore.

[dhex]

obviously not. good eye Joe L.!

Reason: Free Minds, Free Markets, Free Passes to Leftoid Celebrities.

(p.s. joe the original daily demonstrates the value of reading and participating in forums which don't march lockstep with one's favorite ideological hallucinations, as he's becoming increasingly witty.)

[Fabius Cunctator]

The LA Times is pretending to balance Scheer (a man with a very tenuous grap on reality - or a shameless liar) with Pastore so they can prove that a guy like Scheer is reasonable because Pastore's obviously a crank.

Now they can say, "See, we told you what the enemy was like."

Despite the Times' multitude of faults, it's not a bad paper, but the reader must be on his guard against their obvious biases.

[Luca Brasi]

His ERA+ sucks, as well.

[Argyles]

When asked one year to endorse a presidential candidate, Babe Ruth was quoted as saying, "Nothing doing on politics." (His ERA was pretty good.)

[fyodor]

Joe L & dhex,

It seems too obvious to have to state, but unless you're making jokes that escape me you apparently need to be told: Welch was not serious about former pitchers needing to be good ones in order to comment on politics. It was just a fippant way to flip the guy off.

My favorite part of the quoted passage is the end where he lambasts the evil liberals for thinking there's two Americas after going on about how leftists have rejected what American is really about. But you always here this stuff, from both sides if a little more from the right: YOU're the devisive ones, and if you'd just quit being different, I wouldn't have to hate you and we wouldn't have to have all this conflict!!

VOMIT!

[David Moynihan]

When asked one year to endorse a presidential candidate, Babe Ruth was quoted as saying, "Nothing doing on politics." (His ERA was pretty good.)

Well yeah, but with his curse being broken, it might finally be the case that a sitting president had a better year than the Babe did.

/reaching

[dhex]

holy fucksticks batman, of course i was joking.

[JDM]

"joe the original daily demonstrates the value of reading and participating in forums which don't march lockstep with one's favorite ideological hallucinations"

I always think of joe as a refutation of the idea that there's any value in it. He simply continues to make the same arguments, and ignore the same refutations week after week. Meanwhile, his ability to aggravate people with his self-righteous white-guilt liberal worldview, and monumental post volume waste a lot of time on useless arguments.

Now, bear in mind that all other posts here are also "useless" for reasons that are sometimes similar, sometimes not, but that's the particular flavor of this forum's uselessness vis a vis joe.

[JDM]

You know, given the sheer volume of text he puts up here, and his profession, it might be a useful demonstration of the libertarian belief that government employees are more or less useless. So I take it all back.

[SR]

I find it funny that multiple posters accuse Reason of giving left-wing celebs a free pass just one day after Ronald Bailey (correctly) slammed Joan Baez...

[Matt Welch]

Joe L. -- Actually, I'm ecstatic.

[dhex]

JDM: you miss the point. joe now is far funnier than joe a year ago. and genuinely funny, not "oh white guiltazor, why must thou vex us with your silliness!" funny.

[JDM]

"JDM: you miss the point. joe now is far funnier than joe a year ago. and genuinely funny, not "oh white guiltazor, why must thou vex us with your silliness!" funny."

The entire thrust of your post is so alien and incomprehensible to me, that I find myself unable to respond in any meaningful way.

[trainwreck]

Isn't this whole thing just mental masturbation here? JDM you like to stick the Joe vibrator up your ass all the while claiming you're against it, or what? I mean I love an ad hominem attacks as much as the next guy, but wtf?

[Henry]

OK, let's hear from a Hall of Fame pitcher then--anybody know which bunker Steve Carlton is hiding in nowadays?

[JDM]

wreck,

Hmmm. I'm not sure about the whole vibrator thing, but, if you read what I wrote, yes, all posts here are "useless."

I'm not saying he should stop, just that it doesn't seem to have made a dent in joe, or anyone else, in the way that you'd hope talking with people who have different belief systems would.

[joe]

JDM,

Since you never do anything in these threads except piss and moan that I think differently than you, perhaps you aren't the best person to ponder the value of hearing from the other side.

[JDM]

I don't think of you as being on the other side, just really dumb.

To clarify, I'm mostly here to satisfy my pathological need to mock idiots.

I knew a guy who was exactly like you once. Not (just) in terms of political expression, but personality wise, and in the odd interplay between his personality and political beliefs. Both his parents were psychiatrists. I always considered that a key factor in his particular fuckedupedness. Just out of curiosity, what do your parents do?

[joe]

Some of you might be interested to know that I've actually put some of the ideas discussed here into practice. I got the city to sell off the parking spaces in a neighborhood lot, rather than keep ownership and rent them out. When the zoning board worried about whether the new owners would keep up with the maintence, I responded by pointing to the City's own failure to maintain its parking facilities, and pointed out that the new owners would have a self-interest in maintaining their property. I won, btw.

As we rewrote the zoning code, I pushed the office in the direction of less regulation, and more closely following the demands of the market. I worked to include mixed use districts, so that the market rather than the planners would determine the ratio of commercial to residential uses in the neighborhoods.

I'm actually getting a bit of reputation. It's certainly been worthwhile to hash our questions with a side that I wouldn't have been exposed to. Even if you are wrong most of the time. 😉

[joe]

"I don't think of you as being on the other side, just really dumb."

Pretty much says it all.

[zorel]

Matt welch,

you really appear to need some time off - take a vacation (Paul Krugman is taking a long break too) and pull yourself together, you bitter male!

[Joe @ 12.43 pm,]

you made me spray coke on my desk:-)

[trainwreck]

Yeah I agree it's not all masturbation. Some of us actually get a handjob once in a while.

[Dan]

An ex-baseball player quoted in the LA Times?

That's got to be the gold standard for "who gives a shit". Maybe he was the only right-winger anyone on the staff knew?

[a]

"Maybe he was the only right-winger anyone on the staff knew?"

Max Boot (a right-winger) is a regular at the LA Times.

[Matt Welch]

Zorel -- Vacation? I haven't had this much fun in months.

[Ken Shultz]

joe,

I hope I develop something in your market, are you a planner or engineer?

[joe]

Planner, in a revitalizing city. You a builder?

[Ken Shultz]

I'm a developer.

[Mike]

Heh, you think that's bad, you should see the dreck they're spewing over at Slate.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2109218/

Granted, they're not right wingers, but this article gives them their ammo!

[Jim Walsh]

"...one of post-election America's richest sources of comedy is the unsated anger, and sense of unfinished business, emanating from the liberals-are-evil Right..."

Anyone who ever tried to sit through a second-rate journeyman right-wing talk show host already knows this (Lars Larson anyone? Michael Reagan? Laura freaking Ingraham? And of course every town has their own local version). Nothing is funnier than someone taking himself waaaaaay too seriously. Like Dennis Miller said, all you need to have a talk show is a miccrophone that works and an audience that doesn't...

[fyodor]

Some of you might be interested to know that I've actually put some of the ideas discussed here into practice.

See joe, lie down with dogs... 🙂

Actually, good going on getting those spaces sold off! Though if only you'd listened to Kevin Carson you would have gotten them given to the bums who slept in them based on squatter's rights!! 🙂

[gaius marius]

I'm mostly here to satisfy my pathological need to mock idiots.

self-diagnosis is usually misdiagnosis, as we see here.

[Fritz]

If you examine his stats, you will see Frank Pastor was an above average pitcher until his injury during the 1980 season. He led the Reds in wins the 1980 season. However, after his injury, he struggled with a profound sense of dissapointment. He then, of course, realized how selfish he was being for not appreciating what he had been given (A Freakin' Professional Baseball Career, no matter how mediocre) and was a real prat for looking a gift horse in the mouth. He then found God and dedicated himself to His work. Frank Pastore is writing as a Christian, a political conservative (he has a radio show here in L.A.), a Ph.D. candidate at the Claremont Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and NOT as a former baseball player. I'll admit that ad hominem attacks are easy, but just show how little you know about the man.

[Flu-Bird]

Communists have killed more then the nazis STALIN WAS A MASS MURDERER AND SO WAS MAO SI TUNG