I’ve deleted the part of the previous post where I was fooled by a parody account. It seemed plausibly extreme — in a party that includes Ted Cruz and Marjorie Taylor Greene it’s become almost impossible to tell reality from insanity — and I saw it cited in multiple places, but I didn’t check thoroughly enough.
That kind of parody account is taking advantage of a tragedy to get laughs at the expense of a political opponent, and whoever they are, they are scum.
I was informed that it was bad earlier this morning, and I would have taken it down earlier, but I was off at the optometrist’s to get my eyes checked. Even now I’m mostly blind from the eye drops, so I have to stop here with my mea culpa.
The real Randy Fine is bad enough already. He doesn’t need parodying.
It took less than 30 seconds viewing his real tweets to find a clear case of “Will no one rid me…”, i.e. a thinly veiled assassination threat.
I know that’s not satire, because a satirist would be more careful. And no, I doubt he’ll get in any trouble for it. IOKIYAR.
Well, for what it’s worth I fell for it to. I tend to believe my satire meter is in good shape (but then, who doesn’t).
One could safely bet their farm that a good many Republicans were also gleefully taken in by it.
The problem with Poe’s Law.
A Fine piece of work:
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/politics/os-ne-randy-fine-comments-reaction-20190416-story.html
“The Jewish Facebook commenter who was called a “Judenrat” by state Rep. Randy Fine earlier this month said the lawmaker “owes his constituents an apology for going down to that level of discourse.”
https://www.wftv.com/news/local/prosecutors-decide-no-charges-rep-randy-fine-over-complaints-brevard-school-board-member/SDBFNCX74VBQLLZCXHFXA6SS4I/
https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/amp/rcna25836
So yeah…just a few from his greatest hits collection. Florida has way too many safe Republican seats so they feel enabled to act with impunity.
Dennis K@4 Without evidence, I can’t say for sure, but I wonder if there was anyone who read that kids were an acceptable sacrifice and reacted “Yeah, somebody has to say it!” I mean support for “second amendment rights” already works out that way in practice, so I have to assume there is some constituency out there that thinks this.
Less controversially, there are plenty of parents who pull their kids out of public school to “protect” them, not from bullets but from learning about evolution, about their own bodies, and about the long history of racial injustice in the US. We already know they hate public schools and especially hate having to pay taxes to support them.
hemidactylus@6 Doesn’t “Rat” mean “council” in that case, like Stadtrat (city council), not to be confused with Ratte.
Or Rathaus for that matter.
me@8 Nvm. It does and I see the Nazi association.
Yes, it’s enough that such a parody is credible. I have difficulty in telling the difference between reality and nightmares nowadays. Let the day perish in which I was born (sic) !.
Sorry, ignore the last sentence of that post. I have these moments but nobody else need bother.
Just as any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, so any advanced satire is indistinguishable from Republican madness.
Although the deleted post was satire – and hats off to PZ for his integrity in deleting it – it doesn’t stop it making a valid point.
Back in the 1970s, when British troops were firing on British citizens on the streets of British cities in Ulster, Reginald Maudlin – the British Home Secretary – famously dismissed it all as “an acceptable level of violence”. It was all happening somewhere else to someone else.
Every politician who dissembles, deflects and dismisses the hard truth is implicitly saying the same thing and, by extension, that this slaughter is a price worth paying.
When it happened, I immediately thought the shooter was white. I’m willing to admit I’m wrong. Still the shooter was 18 years old and purchased TWO assault rifles. The USA has 20% more guns than it does people. Something is very WRONG.
According to Hindustani Times:https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/ar15-assault-rifle-used-by-salvador-ramos-in-texas-shooting-5-things-to-know-101653540059696.html
The low range of an AR-15 is around $1,800, so the shooter had access to almost $4,000 to spend on guns, ammo and body armor. RED FUCKING FLAGS!
Also what the hell, I had to dig this info from a newspaper in INDIA? I guess I could have shopped online for an AR-15, but this was actually faster. The rest of the world is looking at us and saying “WTF?”.
@14 Ray
You might be overestimating the price for an AR-15.
According to an online source, they start at $400 and go up.
The shooter had no reason to get a high end rifle since this was clearly a one way trip out of life for him and he was slaughtering grade school kids.
OTOH, he had no reason to not spend all his money either.
I doubt if hell takes American dolllars.
I lie in New Zealand and our second biggest news agency/channel was fooled by misinformation posted on this matter as well (nothing political just some misleading information on the killer).
It is extremely difficult to separate chaff from truth today, everyone is likely to be fooled somewhat at some time over something.
This is why I keep saying that satire is dead. Reality itself killed it.
By way of Paul Krugman’s NYT column, here is a Federalist Society paper that claims to make a “somber” case for homeschooling. Gosh, how very serious, and pragmatic, and caring of them!
This is not satire, which is why aside from the “Ginger Goblin” bit, there was nothing about this part of fake Randy Fine that even sounded unusual for a Republican. They use every excuse they can think of to attack public education.
PaulBC:
The Federalist (garbage website/media outlet) ≠ The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies (also garbage, with chapters at over 200 law schools)
Although there is a ton of overlap ideologically speaking.
cr@19 Good point. Note that Krugman made the same mistake. And an NYT editor (if they still have those) let him. But thanks for the correction.
I’m familiar with both and aware that they’re not the same thing. I didn’t actually check the link very carefully besides skimming the body of text. My bad. Anyway, garbage that it is, the Federalist is not satire.
I haven’t found a non-satire link advocating we “sacrifice” children for gun rights, but there were plenty advocating the sacrifice of human lives to avoid disrupting the economy at the beginning of the pandemic.
PaulBC @18
Are you completely sure he doesn’t actually call his son “Ginger Goblin”?
Walter Solomon@21 Nope. I’m not sure of anything anymore. As it happens I used to have red hair, but that was back when nobody said “ginger” in the US.