i've seen some pretty sketchy posts on INtouch, so i know what a bold statement it is to even suggest that any particular post there could be the "worst". but this abomination by mark shere just might be it.

Have you played the Opposites game? Take several common-sense notions and turn them into their opposites. Then string them together and, voilà, you have a set of progressive political views. For example:

ooh, this should be interesting.

It is a bad thing when chain stores sell quality products at a low price. Journalists, not soldiers, are the defenders of the First Amendment. The law should protect baby seals and wetlands, but not unborn children. Building more prisons encourages more crime. The poor would be better off if fewer people were rich. We would all be better off if drug companies made less profit. Teaching abstinence won't reduce sex among young teens. Killing terrorists creates more terrorists. There's nothing natural about the fact that so many men enjoy power tools and so many women enjoy shopping.

first off, has this guy ever even met a progressive? do you know anyone who really believes anything in this paragraph? talk about straw man arguments... maybe one or two of these points resemble actual things liberals believe (and even then, resemble is the operative word). the rest reads like one of those bad email forwards that your annoying in-law used to send you a few years ago.

second off, the opposite of these things supposedly are not just true, but common sense, according to shere. so... we'd all be better off if drug companies made more profit? the law shouldn't protect wetlands and baby seals? and the poor would be better off if more people were rich? or maybe it's that the rich would be better off if fewer people were poor? these positions are so common-sense that i can't even make sense of them!

so all that was bad enough... cloudy thinking, straw man arguments, ludicrous exaggeration, the works. here's the kicker:

The oddest part of the game is that the people who play it most often and most sincerely think they are smarter and nicer than the rest of us. My view is quite the opposite.

in other words, if you don't agree with me, you're f'n retarded!

shorter mark shere: i don't understand liberals.¶

Oh, god, why did I click that link? Now, I am pissed off. ¶