I don’t get it. If Laura Schlessinger says “I’m Laura Schlessinger,” she gets no flak for it; everyone takes it in stride. But if I say the very same thing, people act like I’ve uttered some huge falsehood. Why the double standard?
"Austro" as in Rothbard and Wittgenstein, "Athenian" as in Aristotle and smashing-the-plutocracy.
About Roderick T. Long
The Empirical Me
I’m Roderick T. Long, Professor of Philosophy at Auburn University. I’m an Aristotelean/Wittgensteinian in philosophy and a left-libertarian market anarchist in social theory. (More about me here.) This blog, Austro-Athenian Empire, is a continuation of my earlier blog, archived here.
Because you have to see reverse-racism around every corner for the proposition to be true.
Just about everyone without a severe social impairment learns, by an early age, a general rule that’s familiar to all of us: it’s OK for me to make fun of my kinfolks, or talk bad about them–but if you do it, I’ll stomp your ass. That means it’s OK for a couple of people of Scots-Irish descent in the Ozarks to jokingly call each other “stupid rednecks,” or for a Brooklyn Italian to self-deprecatingly call himself a “Dago.” But if you’re outside of the group being referenced, using such a term is like whacking a hornet’s nest. What the holy FUCK is so hard to understand about this?
It’s like the people who claim to be puzzled about why it’s OK to start an African-American student union, but not a white student union. I have serious doubts as to whether they’re sincerely puzzled, unless they’re also surprised when the sun comes up in the east every morning.
What it boils down to is that people who use such disingenuous “arguments” are used to performing for an echo chamber in which they can pretend to be stupider than they really are, without getting called on it.
BTW, your example reminds me of a funny story from when I was working in a pizza restaurant years ago. This gangly teenage guy swiped the manager’s name tag, tucked in his shirt, and dropped a couple of cantaloupes down the front so they were sagging above his belt. He then started walking around out front introducing himself to the customers: “Hi, I’m Annette S., and I’m the manager here!” Needless to say, when Annette finally noticed him out there doing it she pulled him by the ear all the way back into the kitchen.
I am puzzled both by Roderick and by the comments.
I hope Roderick doesn’t resign from blogging because of your clear violation of his First Amendment rights.
He would make a great guest on Larry King though.
I’m going to violate my own First Amendment rights by not resigning.
I’m listening to the audio now. What an idiot!
I think the commentariat on “both” sides of the usually defined political spectrum are equally stupid. I just think those on the right are stupid in an uglier more embarrassing way.