No Timber, Plenty Crooked
From Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber:
Following the publication of a BBC list of the 10 worst Britons of all time , there’s now a meme going round listing nominations for the 10 worst Americans of all time . The propensity of “conservative” blog commenters to include Jane Fonda, MLK, or Paul Robeson on their lists is somewhat worrying …
“The propensity of conservative blog commenters to include Martin Luther King” .. I get it. Since we are conservatives, it follows that we are racist Klansmen.
“Propensity” is an interesting word. It does not strictly speak to “the percentage of a group that does something,” but if a group has a “propensity to do X,” one would conclude that a whole lot of them did X. “Propensity” is defined as “an innate inclination; a tendency,” as in the following sentence, “All those wingnuts, being racist, have an innate inclination to call MLK one of the Ten Worst Americans, those good-for-nothing, homophobic, neocon, illiterate, Red State, troglodytic, creationist, wingnut, misogynist, prejudiced, f*ckers.” Thanks, Chris.
Let’s see. The meme started/is hosted by All Things Beautiful. I count 47 (mostly conservative) blogs participating, plus 9 more lists in the comments. Okay, are you ready for the number of people who named MLK to their list? … Exactly two. One commenter, unknown to me. One blogger. I don’t suppose Chris Bertram bothered to look at the blogger in question. Sorry, Chris, he is a flaming liberal, and if you bothered to read his list, you would “get it.”The blogger is also a proud member of “Big Brass Alliance” and “censurebush.org.” And take a look at his blogroll and other posts. By Chris Bertram’s so-called standards, I can say that “Liberal bloggers have a propensity to name MLK as one of the Ten Worst Americans.”
Update: Comments at Crooked Timber note that the leftie blog post mentioning MLK came after Bertram’s post. Okay. So he based his “worrying conservative propensity” phrase on ONE comment. Unless of course that commenter was also a Leftie trying to parody conservatives.
You want “propensity?” How about this? “Chris Bertram has a propensity to grossly distort his opponents’ statements to serve his divisive political agenda. He has a propensity to lie and/or to be inexcusably lazy when flinging out his baseless charges.” And, yes, that is “somewhat worrying.”
I only have one nomination for the Ten Worst Americans: Chris Bertram, representing all the lies and gross distortions of the Moonbat-o-sphere.
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