Thursday, May 19, 2016

More Proof The Left Is Just Fringe

The other day, I wrote about how the public really doesn’t embrace leftist whining even though the internet and media would make you think they do. No sooner had I written that article than another interesting piece of news appeared.

A couple years ago, leftist sports journalists decided to start a crusade against the name “the Washington Redskins.” They claimed that this name was offensive and needed to be dropped because it made them cry. Many even said they would refuse to use it and they banned it from their webpages.

Unfortunately for them, there was a poll out there which shot them down harshly. It showed that 92% of the public did not consider it offensive. So they ran with the 8%. They called this “a sizeable number of people” and they said that when sooooo many people find something offensive, you just can’t do it. They ignored the fact that finding 8% of the public who are offended by something is easy regardless of what you claim is offensive.

Nothing changed.

So they tried something new. They tried peer pressure. Each one started writing articles about a handful of famous people and former players who thought the name was racist. They ignored or downplayed the much vaster number of players and famous people who embraced the name. Then they wrote articles about all the high school and college teams who changed their Indian mascot names. This time, they ignored the fact that education is dominated (almost 100%) by leftists, so this was not at all surprising... it’s a bit like being surprised to find communists at a communist party meeting.

Still, nothing changed and Washington was resolute.

So they tried pointing out all the other sites who were doing the same thing. They even claimed sportscasters were refusing to use the name, something each one would deny.

In any event, another poll came out showing that "only" 88% supported the name. They took this to mean that support for banning the name was growing! They ignored the fact this was well within the statistical margin of error. Now they tried something new. They found some Indians who claimed the name was offensive and they told us that we were all racists for opposing what these people wanted. The Redskins countered by pointing to Indian support as well. Our arm-chair justice warriors were undeterred, however. They dismissed that Indian support as people with an economic interest or people who were confused. And besides, just because you can find an Indian who favors the name doesn’t mean anything when I can find an Indian who opposes it! So there, I logiced it!

Well, the Washington Post just polled a group of 504 Indians: “The professional football team in Washington calls itself the Washington Redskins. As a Native American, do you find that name offensive, or doesn’t it bother you?” No doubt they hoped that a massive anti-Redskin finding would pressure the team to change the name. But guess what? 90% said the name doesn’t bother them. Only 9% said it did.

Splat.

Once again, if you paid attention to the media, you would have been under the impression that Native Americans were on the warpath and the public was quickly surrendering to their wishes and the name of your favorite sports team was just about to be wiped out by political correctness. Yet, 88% of the public and 90% of Native Americans are rejecting this crap.

See what I’ve been saying? This group of whiny leftists trying to reshape the world into a gray new world of bland is indeed tiny and their supporters are a tiny fringe of the American left. And all that screaming online is just them being loud, it's not evidence of any sort of public acceptance. The world remains sane.

Thoughts?

41 comments:

Critch said...

The Left is always mad about something....they whine, throw themselves on the floor and make up stuff...miserable lot.

AndrewPrice said...

Critch, That they are. Could you imagine living your life constantly looking to be offended by everything? What a waste they are.

EPorvaznik said...

Amen! Couldn't have smiled wider seeing Terry Francona wearing his Chief Wahoo cap on yesterday's MLB Network Intentional Talk interview. Sadly, however, the money men behind the Tribe's Progressive Field name will likely inspire the whiner contingent to guilt upper management to have the team wear their block "C" more often than not.

Kit said...

"Could you imagine living your life constantly looking to be offended by everything?"

It would be tiresome.

Anthony said...

Doesn't shock me. I live ten minutes outside of DC and the Redskins as a team come up for debate quite a lot, but the name never does.

Also as I've noted before, activists taking on pop culture phenomena rarely ends well for the activists. Yes, pop culture often has various messages and whatnot woven into it, but generally speaking most people don't care. They want songs that are fun to listen to, games that are fun to play, movies that are fun to watch, books that are fun to read and a sports team that wins...

Can something be both fun and fringe approved? Yes! I'd put both The Dark Knight and The Lorax into those categories. The fringes and the public want different things, but it is possible for those things to be contained in the same product.

Allena-C said...

Indeed. Yesterday, just for the hell of it, I read a Puffington Host post where the author lamented that Blake Lively would dare say something as insensitive as "L.A. Face, Oakland booty" to describe, in an obviously humorous way, a photo of herself.
I wasn't so much interested in the article, but rather the comments, which are mostly made by liberals.

Virtually every commenter thought the author was an idiot for coming to that conclusion, and saw nothing wrong with Blakeley's comment, lol.
And this was from liberals.,

I imagine the author probably double checked to ,are sure he was posting at the proper blog, and then, realizing he had, cried himself to sleep because of all of those mean, cruel, racist liberals who ridiculed him, lol.

Allena-C said...

It is good news that the Redskins will remain the Redskins, and that the vast majority of Americans (which includes many liberals) see's nothing wrong with the name.

ScottDS said...

As much as the right repulses me some of... most... nearly all the time... (to wit)...

...this is one of those cases, like the college safe space crap, where I can look at the left with total disdain. Equal opportunity and all that.

And I agree with Anthony: pop culture is what it is, for better or worse, but it's not helped by "thinkpiece nation" where everything has to represent something else and every movie has to have "issues" to be explored.

It's gotten to the point where I can watch a movie from as recently as 10 years ago (example: Superbad where they use the word "fag") and I think to myself, "Wow, the Internet would have a field day with this today!"

Breitbart was wrong: the right won't take over pop culture... it will be destroyed by the left first. Who knew?! :-)

Critch said...

We have two new workers in our office, both young ladies around 26 years old, both have college degrees. One is black, the other white, and both have little girls. We were talking about this transgender thing and public restrooms, both young women said they had better not catch a man in a public restroom when their daughters are in there, the young black lady said that her husband would do the operation for free at that point for any man caught around his daughter like that. She also added that Obama regularly gets railed on by her pastor. Black Christians in general don't much care for homosexuals, transgenders, etc.

BevfromNYC said...

I saw that poll in WaPo and laughed. Creating a controversy where there really is none is getting to be a new emerging industry. In a world full of 24/7 news/social media sites, blogs, selfies, and video sites, going viral is key - Clicks = $$$$. Everyone is jockeying for their 15 sec. of infamy.

AndrewPrice said...

Eric, Some teams seem to give in easier than others. The Redskins have refused to change because there's too much history there and because there's simply no opposition to the name.

AndrewPrice said...

Kit, I think it's probably a mental illness.

AndrewPrice said...

Anthony, I think pop culture holds particular frustrations for the fringes because pop culture not only tends to be more honest about what people really think, it also tends to push boundaries. Consequently, the fringe on both sides see it as the enemy because it shows that the public doesn't share there values and it seems to keep trending further and further away from them. So they go to war with it... and they look stupid.

The reason they look stupid is (1) they rarely understand pop culture, so they misinterpret what it is and what it means to people; hence their attacks miss the mark and come across as out-of-touch, (2) they don't understand that pop culture is not a perfect mirror of how people actually behave and they mistakenly blow things way out of proportion, and (3) their attempts to impose their own rules on it expose how out of touch they are and how intolerant they are.

AndrewPrice said...

Allena, It must be shocking to them to see people mocking them when I'm sure they expected everyone there to just blindly accept their whining.

AndrewPrice said...

Scott, The left is like this a lot more than you realize. The media just rarely trumpets the truly stupid things they do unlike with the fringe right.

AndrewPrice said...

Critch, That's one of the problems for the left -- their allies don't really play well with each other.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, That's exactly what it is. There are places, like leftist blogs and Yahoo, that seem to have intentionally hired whiners for the purpose of generating whiny articles.

EPorvaznik said...

Couple gals streetside by my office building (which also houses Comcast Radio Channels) with "LGBT Programming Matters" signs. Apparently the takeover of TV shows, where I'm fairly certain it's mandatory to have a weed smoker or homosexual as a character, only the beginning.

"We want the world and we want it ... now?!?!"

tryanmax said...

Native Americans were on the warpath

Do I even have to explain how *problematic* this phrase is? #sotriggered

BevfromNYC said...

Native Americans were on the warpath

Tryanmax - I was trying to ignore that sentence, but since you brought it up...

AndrewPrice said...

Eric, You need a t-shirt that says, "Stop Networks from Appropriating Gay Culture! No LGBT programming!"

EPorvaznik said...

Ha! LOGO, now on every network!

AndrewPrice said...

tryanmax, You caught that, huh? Ok, that one may have been a tad provocative... but it was funny.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, I blame my sense of humor. It's wildly inappropriate. I can't take it anywhere.

EPorvaznik said...

I should probably go downstairs and alert those two whiners how awesome it was in Reagan's 80s, listening to the radio and watching MTV while Freddie Mercury, Boy George, Joan Jett, George Michael, Bronski Beat, and Frankie Goes to Hollywood ruled the charts (and Husker Du rocked the indie world) ... and we didn’t give a shit who they were fucking. Congratulations, President Sand Trap Obama, you’re presiding over an era of oppression, and you didn’t even know it!

ArgentGale said...

I can't say I'm surprised either, though that isn't the craziest bit of outrage I've seen on behalf of Native Americans. That would be a Facebook post trying to give Thanksgiving the Columbus Day treatment for the exact same reasons. Somehow I don't see that idea catching on with the public. And locally speaking one of the big managers at my previous employer is Native American and not only is he a big Florida State fan but he joked with us that those of us who had to work on Thanksgiving were getting to spend it with a real Indian! Tough guy to work for but awesome to just chat with.

For some reason these delicates, SJWs, or whatever else they're called have been getting especially annoying these past few years. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them ended up with serious stress related health problems eventually. That kind of perpetual outrage, usually over the pettiest things, is definitely an indicator of serious issues.

- Daniel

EPorvaznik said...

Because it always bears repeating, Daniel, this is what happens when you give every kid a Participation Trophy.

"Would you please stop calling so many strikes on my son? You're hurting his feelings."
Actual request one of my ump colleagues received

AndrewPrice said...

Wait a minute! Boy George was gay????!!!

I do find it funny that liberals get so bent out of shape over things they often forget not to criticize things when their own people are in charge.

EPorvaznik said...

Yeah, sorry. Thpoiler alert.

ArgentGale said...

Pretty much, Eric. I'd find it all more amusing if I didn't know so many people who buy this garbage. Then again, that's what my visits to Commentarama and Larry Correia's blog are for; finding some sanity in all of this.

- Daniel

AndrewPrice said...

Eric, I am horrified. I had no clue. ;)

AndrewPrice said...

Daniel, We're all about sanity here... or insanity. Half of one, six dozen of the other.

AndrewPrice said...

ON Topic: I am LOVING the reactions to this poll by the delicates. They are whining that the poll doesn't matter because people are offended ("the public doesn't matter when they're wrong!"), that people didn't understand the poll ("that depends on what 'is' is"), that it was bought by rich Republican honkeys (who apparently own the Washington Post), who cares about 504 Indians... what can they tell us about all Indians anyways? (intense statistical ignorance), how do we even know they are real Indians? (paranoia), etc.

My favorite attack is that "you wouldn't buy a product with only 90% positive ratings, so why would you accept something just because 90% of people said it!" Think about that. So anything that doesn't have 100% conformity is irrelevant. Then why should we care at all about the wishes of the delicates if they can't win over 100% of everyone else?

Idiots.

ArgentGale said...

At least the insanity here is the good, fun kind! As for the replies I'm not sure whether to laugh or beat my head against the table at the illogic there.

- Daniel

AndrewPrice said...

We aim for high quality insanity here.

I know the feeling. These people are stupid and pathetic to such a degree that I truly wonder if they don't need professional help.

tryanmax said...

"you wouldn't buy a product with only 90% positive ratings"

Uh, that's equal to a 4 1/2 star review on Amazon or just about any other shopping/review site. That's considered a good rating and people buy 4 1/2 star stuff all the time. People buy 3 star stuff a lot. Oh, I wasn't supposed to think about it? My mistake.

BevfromNYC said...

Tryanmax - I only buy stuff with 2 stars or less so I can exercise my moral/ethical/social/environmental outrage skills and keep them at peek performance.

Allena-C said...

"Bev, I blame my sense of humor. It's wildly inappropriate. I can't take it anywhere."

LOLOL that is so funny Andrew! Mine is the same way! I love the humor here!

AndrewPrice said...

tryanmax, You can't use your brain if you want to belong to this club!

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, Good for you! Keeping your outrage at peek performance levels is key!

AndrewPrice said...

Thanks Allena, I like the humor around here too!

Post a Comment