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This week on GLoP Culture, sure, we cover the shutdown, but also life as a high profile dissenter, the realism of Gravity, some myth-busting about being a conservative in Hollywood, and some unsolicited advice for J.J. Abrams on the next installment of Star Wars.
Note: We had some audio difficulties towards the end of the show. Beware of the chop.
Solid as a rock, EJHill.
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Matede Just wanted to point out that on Ricochet we’re also out here in Liberalville.
We ALL live in Liberalville, unless one lives in a cave and refuses to interact with the world.
The media saturates us with it, the schools and churches (THE CHURCHES!) preach it, there’s no escape.
That’s where the friction arises between the rank and file Ricochetti and the “Contributors.” Once one believes that one’s opinion has achieved “special status” you’ve got a problem. There are no “extra points” for living in NYC, DC or the state of California. In fact, in many places in the “flyover” points are deductedfor that. ·1 hour ago
I’m sorry but as a Canadian I have almost all of you beat before the competition even begins. Remember: we ran Mark Steyn out of town.
Hoo hah.
Well, I’ve earned the right to question the people who question my right to make fun of pampered pundits for whining about people questioning their conservative bona fides.
Just like pundits are born with the right be annoyed, and born also with the right to make their annoyance seem a bit prissy and ungracious, not that I’m saying John and Jonah are acting prissy and ungracious.
I think you’re both right, but John saying he’s earned some sort of immunity from criticism (fair or unfair) struck me a little like Barbara Boxer telling the military officer she earned the right to be called Senator by “working hard.”
At a theater festival, Bruce Paltrow learned Schultz was a Reagan supporter. Later when Schultz was auditioning for a part in St Elsewhere, which eventually went to Howie Mandel, the show’s producer Paltrow said to him, “There’s not going to be a Reagan ***hole on this show!”
See anecdote in Ben Shapiro’s Primetime Propaganda, pp 70-71.
I followed that link and read several additional pages. It makes me sad, because that isn’t just hollywood, it is everywhere. That is exactly what it feels like to be a conservative in many of the places where I’ve lived and where I am currently living. That it is so utterly false, so intensely heated, so intolerant and bigoted is really discouraging. And all in the name of the exact opposite of those things, the hypocrisy hits you like a sock of quarters.
Matede Just wanted to point out that on Ricochet we’re also out here in Liberalville.
We ALL live in Liberalville, unless one lives in a cave and refuses to interact with the world.
The media saturates us with it, the schools and churches (THE CHURCHES!) preach it, there’s no escape.
That’s where the friction arises between the rank and file Ricochetti and the “Contributors.” Once one believes that one’s opinion has achieved “special status” you’ve got a problem. There are no “extra points” for living in NYC, DC or the state of California. In fact, in many places in the “flyover” points are deductedfor that. ·1 hour ago
I’m sorry but as a Canadian I have almost all of you beat before the competition even begins. Remember: we ranMark Steynout of town.
Hoo hah.
You’re a Canadian Pseud?!?! And I used to think you were a good guy. Oh, how they surprise. ;)
You’ve got this 100% right. That was John’s point.
His point was actually that he is a conservativeJew in NYC, not simply a Jew in NYC. There is no persecution of Jews in NYC; it is thebastion of American Jewry. However, they are an overwhelmingly liberal constituency within an overwhelmingly liberal city. Thus, John’s lament about being a minority within a minority: not merely a conservative in NYC, but a conservative Jew in NYC. ·29 minutes ago
His point was actually that he is a conservativeJew in NYC, not simply a Jew in NYC. There is no persecution of Jews in NYC; it is thebastion of American Jewry. However, they are an overwhelmingly liberal constituency within an overwhelmingly liberal city. Thus, John’s lament about being a minority within a minority: not merely a conservative in NYC, but a conservative Jew in NYC.
That is what I understood his point to be. And don’t get me wrong, I love jPod. But that whole speech was a bit of hand-wringing – or at least it sounded like it. I spent years in Seattle as a lawyer with Institute for Justice and a Christian university on my resume… that resume got to know the shredder pretty well. haha. I can empathize with jPod, and I actually agree with their complaints about being attacked on twitter. But it just sounds silly. Of course it’s difficult to be a conservative in liberalville. But I doubt that Ricochet listeners are the ones complaining, so they’re preaching to the choir.
Yeti – We all GOT his point. It’s the validity of it we challenge. He’s not as “special” as he thinks he is.
His point was actually that he is a conservativeJew in NYC, not simply a Jew in NYC. There is no persecution of Jews in NYC; it is thebastion of American Jewry. However, they are an overwhelmingly liberal constituency within an overwhelmingly liberal city. Thus, John’s lament about being a minority within a minority: not merely a conservative in NYC, but a conservative Jew in NYC.
And yes – sorry to be redundant, but I did understand that (although… see comment #72). I was also referring to jPod’s tendency to overplay the Jew bit. It’s something I don’t really get. Are there people out there who really discriminate against Jews? Apart from Islam? They are a pretty darned successful bunch in the US, and jPod talks about it as if it is this horrible burden. Maybe it is – I just don’t get it. I’ll buy it if he can explain.
Exactly, otherwise he’d simply say “I’m a conservative among liberals.” The way he phrased it was like this (and I’m actually contradicting myself a bit, here, but in discussing it, I’ve also been thinking about it). He said: “a minority within a minority.” That implies that both are bad enough. He’s already a Jew. Bad enough. But on top of that, he’s also a conservative. He’s trying to make it a double-whammy.
Well, if the point is that in New York, Jews are liberal, then the 2nd whammy is invalid. He’s a minority (by virtue of being a conservative). The “within a minority” is irrelevant, because I don’t see any evidence that it is super difficult to be a Jew in New York. But again, I’m happy to stand corrected.
So he’s not really a minority-within-a-minority. He’s just a conservative among liberals. Got it. Well I’ve got news for you, jPod. So are we.
Yes! It stopped completely and would not play to the end, even though I tried it several times. You guys ruined my exercise session!
@Podkayne Are you listening to the show on this page or through a media player? If it’s a media player (like an iPod or iPhone ) delete the file and re-download. If you’re using our built in player, you may have to clear your browser’s cache file.
Oh come on! I am on the edge of my seat here. Can you ask John to post it?
@Blue Yeti – Now that we know the Dwight Schultz story from the now infamous gap in the Ricochet GLoP tapes, what was the follow-on conversation when it starts back up? Apparently it had something to do with fears over how J.J. Abrams will portray the Star Wars universe??
Geeks want to know….
Jonah used to write frequently that he wasn’t a Republican, but that he was a conservative. That just left him arguing the Republican side most of the time. Which make s it funny to call him a RINO, since he’s always claimed to be one. (Yeah, I know that it was calling him that and meaning he’s on the liberal side was the insulting part, but I still find it ironic.)
Wouldn’t it have been bad if the Whigs split and a 3rd party formed?
@Ryan M We may be treading perilously close to hair-splitting here, but I must insist: John did not intend to insinuate that being a Jew in NYC is a burden. Not to be insulting, but the notion is ludicrous. I can think of nowhere in the U.S. where a Jew might feel as warmly enveloped in a protective cocoon as in NYC.
So what’s the second “whammy”? Given that Jews tend toward insularity — and I trust such a broad generalization will not be frowned upon in this forum — John has throughout his life met with disapprobation from members of the most intimate social groups with which he identifies: family and friends. It’s not for masochism that he’s put himself at odds with them. Given the hassle that he’s created for himself over the course of the years, it’s understandable that he would smart at any suggestion that he’s really just a liberal in conservative clothing.
To your point that you (and others) have also endured disapprobation from your communities: I don’t think John in any way meant to discount that reality.
I think we’re in agreement. Again, I love jPod. His sense of humor matches mine almost perfectly. What I was saying is that his comments sounded silly… why say “a minority within a minority” if only one of those matters? That was my point. That is where he’s trying to make it a double whammy, which may just have been a rhetorical funny. It is probably silly to argue over it, but I think it is a funny conversation, so what the heck. :)
If you discount the 2nd minority (as I would, too, and as you do above) then he really should have said “I’m a minority among all my friends/family.” No double whammy.
To your point that you (and others) have also endured disapprobation from your communities: I don’t think John in any way meant to discount that reality.
Agreed. That’s why I said he’s preaching to the choir on that podcast. I doubt that very many ricochetti are tweeting out that he and Jonah are RINO’s. I imagine that if I sat down for beers with Jonah and John and Rob, we’d have about as much in common as it is possible to have with someone from New York when you’re not from New York.
I could draw it into a larger point on about a million topics. How about when a client says “you aren’t working for me!” or when a liberal accuses you of not caring about people? The phenomenon that they’re discussing is when someone has a disagreement with you and then turns it into your whole life, forgetting that you’re still on the same side (or still in agreement, by and large). We’ve all experienced that. The twitter stuff is silly, but who cares. People do that crap all the time.
As much as the press is doing it’s best to call up down and down up, people can see the true face of leftism. We wouldn’t be in this position if every slander had been repudiated and fire returned between 2001-2008. I have suggestion as to where Rove should shove that whiteboard.
Maybe a twelve-step whiners anonymous program? The whining’s tiresome, Podhoretz and Goldberg know very well it is, and condescending too, and they try, almost manfully, to resist its lure, and then they just can’t help themselves: they begin to whine, a kind of perverse glee sets in and a rant-fest gathers unstoppable momentum, and they’re climbing over each other to get the next lick in. I blame bruised RINO enabler Rob Long, deliberately provoking the whole thing, Satan with a naive, “innocent” question, like he’s asking a jilted dame about her real feelings and nodding to the barkeep she’d like her cosmo freshened.
With no guess on how it finally plays out, I can see this shut-down has brought out the worst in everybody – Mark Levin, not exactly a modulated voice to begin with, in the last couple of weeks has become the total braying jackass. Impossible to listen to.
I love this podcast and all three of the hosts, but I am tired of the whining. Is being called a RINO unfair? Yes, but whining does no one any good, the hosts included. I think the RINO term gets thrown around because we’ve seen too many politicians say the right things, but when push comes to shove they have spines of jelly. So in this fight you all came out as the doves, and that got you branded as spineless, therefore RINOs. I know that is wrong and not accurate, but ignore it and move on. This ties into the larger problem of where the party needs to go. Many want to see the party move to the right, and I’ve heard you all argue that’s crazy. However, I think what conservatives are really craving, whether they realize it or not, is politicians who will fight tooth and nail to put this country on the right track. Is the answer to winning more conservative types, or more centrist types? Neither, it’s having fighters, these wishy washy independents are not going to vote for democrats lite or hard core conservatives, what they will vote for is boldness, sincerity, and strength.
I wanted to follow up with that I agreed that Cruz’s strategy was foolhardy and almost all risk and very little reward . It also jeopardized the republican strategies for the CR and debt ceiling. But the part to take notice of is that Cruz stood up and made the argument and that is what many in the right we’re responding to. While you three are constantly making the conservative argument, and I applaud and support you for it, the party as a whole is not. They need to constantly be making the case for conservatism. They can’t just stand up and say obamacare is bad, they need to hammer on what makes it bad and why. They need to explain why high taxes inhibits growth. Why larger government is harmful. Why government regulations add to cost, hurt consumers, stifle competition, and hurt jobs. They need to repeat these things ad nauseum until every Tom Dick and Harry knows the arguments by heart. One last thing , easy on the talk radio jabs, that is falling into the liberal stereotypes. It was not Rush Limbaugh calling you a RINO.
When asked who they intended who to vote for the GOP has never had an advantage even in the years that they actually won. It is nota leading indicator. ·18 hours ago
EJ, these “facts” of yours may make you feel better in the echo chamber of West Dakota or Kansahoma, but when you live in the real world of Manhattan, you know, in your conservative bones you know, Republicans must end this ridiculous shutdown and embrace Obamacare or they are toast.
If John and Jonah are offended at being labeled RINO’s then perhaps they should stop parroting RINO speech and style. When you sneer at “talk radio” hosts or listeners, you sound like John McCain. When you argue that people see Democrat as a more desirable brand than Republican, you sound like David Brooks. When you roll your eyes at the mention of the Tea Party, and marginalize the impact of Ted Cruz or Sarah Palin, you sound like Mitch McConnell.
Nobody denies the conservative bona fides of Peter Robinson, Mark Steyn or Rush Limbaugh. Maybe it’s because they don’t spend their time hurling fiery darts at us. Those individuals actually build up our side rather than mock it. John and Jonah have been doing this for two weeks straight.
Billy – I stand before you a chastened man.
I finally had a chance to listen to this episode. It is sad. When it ended, I muttered, “I miss Andrew Breitbart.” I didn’t know the man, and I understand you guys did. Still, I have to think he’d be disappointed if he listened to this.
Here is how I think the Glop cast would’ve sounded if were around a couple hundred years back.
Those blasted Tea Partiers! Don’t they know that if they go dump that tea in the harbor folks will think that we are nothing but thugs and outlaws? It’ll hurt our brand I tell you! And what are they really gonna accomplish? Do you think the king is going to give on the tax that is so much of his agenda? All that they are going to do is get the harbor shut down and WE are going to get the blame!
Nathan, thanks for summing up what appears to be the ‘voice’ of most current ‘supporters’ of conservative views. It is always a political strategy discussion but not a practical one, almost always goes like this: ‘Imagine what the polls will say about the Republicans after they do/say/vote for/don’t vote for __________ (fill in the blank).
It seems any ‘principle’ is derided as too extreme to be discussed, unless you are the left and every principle is to die for. To use Nathans analogy I can’t imagine the founding fathers even bringing up the idea of separating from England, and actually signing their names to a piece of treasonous paper like a Declaration of Independence! The polling would shut that down in a heartbeat!!!
Brietbart would have loved Cruz and what he’s doing.