I love to read well-written internet articles that I completely disagree with. At least, occasionally.
Tonight I discovered Taki's Magazine, one of the most offensive, racist and radical political sites I've ever stumbled onto - and I can't stop reading! (Heck, I've spent a few hours on Stormfront.org, the white nationalist messageboard but I wouldn't call anything there "well-written")
Anything on the hot topic of the month Trayvon Martin is truly nauseating, but the site takes a fairly light-hearted approach to politics, rejects labels and even says that ideology in general is a "false god, a secular religion that seeks vainly to create a paradise on Earth."
But let's get real, these are old school paleoconservatives and small government Repubs who try to be edgy and throw political correctness out the window of their 4x4 pickup trucks.
Here's a quote from Taki, the site's founder:
"Neo cons stink of necrosis and flee from the thought of peace like a Victorian spinster from a penis."
Even here, on a site that touts the merit of the "The Bell Curve" and has such memorable anti-women quotes as "We know that women are not the same as men: not physically, mentally, or in terms of moral character" there is an anti-Santorum article:
"Rick Santorum, I Hate Your Face"
http://takimag.com/article/rick_santorum_i_hate_your_face_jim_goad
"He is unflinchingly pro-life, whereas I’m only in favor of saving the lives of people whom I like. And the story of him and his wife cuddling his infant son’s corpse will remain creepy throughout ten thousand eternities."
What can I say? I hate that it had to come from here, but I'm glad someone finally said it. Santorum bringing home a deceased infant from the hospital and presenting the
dead child to their living children as "your brother Gabriel" is downright creepy.
Here's the real controversy though. Amidst all the wild claims and statements which are just flat out wrong there are tiny kernels of truth. After all, the writers have a similar political bent but there's like ten or fifteen of them! I don't want to lump them all together. It's more interesting to understand the other side of the argument than stay coddled by a small group of like-minded folks who encourage you to stay on the "right side" of all the important issues.
The same article that says that "we were all at a level playing field after it [slavery] was done." (which is ignoring about a century of civil rights history) also led me to a more reputable article on nplusonemag.com about America's prison system and the under-reported and often overlooked male-on-male rape culture inside that system :
"After asking around, and performing some calculations, the Justice
Department came up with a new number: 216,000. That’s 216,000 victims,
not instances. These victims are often assaulted multiple times over
the course of the year. The Justice Department now seems to be saying
that prison rape accounted for the majority of all rapes committed in
the US in 2008, likely making the United States the first country in the
history of the world to count more rapes for men than for women."
TakiMag even has an article called "10 Unbelievable Things The Chinese Believe" which reads like it was published a few decades ago but is actually from 2011!
http://takimag.com/article/10_unbelievable_things_the_chinese_believe
While they're definitely good for a laugh, I think articles written by smart bigots who use big words, cite dubious studies, and rely on pseudoscience pose a real danger. They spread misinformation and what are we without a well-informed citizenry? Just look at the comments section on anything from TakiMag.
Alright, I'm going back to Jezebel or something. I need to detox.
- Chris
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