Mastodawn

Bryan Davis 4d ago

“The salient fact of American politics is that there are fifty to seventy million voters each of whom will volunteer to live, with his family, in a cardboard box under an overpass, and cook sparrows on an old curtain rod, if someone would only guarantee that the black, gay, Hispanic, liberal, whatever, in the next box over doesn’t even have a curtain rod, or a sparrow to put on it.” - Davis X Machina

Karen D 🇨🇦4d ago

@marick
This is bleak. And, I fear, too true.

Dane 🌎🖖✌️☮️⚛️☸️🕉️4d ago

Nicole Parsons 4d ago

Billionaires have always counted on the self-defeating voting patterns of bigots.

"Harlan Crow, Republican hedge fund billionaires Joseph Edelman, Dan Loeb, Paul Singer, Cliff Asness and Bruce Kovner, the hyper-conservative Bradley family from Wisconsin, the foundation of the late “funding father of the right” Richard Mellon Scaife, and the controversial and scandal-marked Walton Family"

https://hedgeclippers.org/billionaire-backed-bigots-in-the-big-apple/

The better way...
https://the.ink/p/archive-the-opposite-of-fascism

Billionaire-Backed Bigots in the Big Apple

In progressive New York City, it’s easy to think that rampant racism and homophobia in schools is unique to far-away conservative places like Florida and Tex

Hedge Clippers

@Npars01 @marick Avoiding focus on Trump’s Criminal Psychosis for this moment, he expertly harnessed bigotry because a pack of dummies were blinded by their racism, thinking they could be part of the Wealthy White Man’s Club because they are of the right color… even though they are on the menu. 1:2

@Npars01 @marick The Club has become more elite and exclusionary for the last 50 years, and the blind disenfranchised fools actually think the problem is wetbacks, not the destruction of a healthy democracy that 65 years ago was seriously flawed, but headed in the right direction (civil rights movement). 2:2

Toni Aittoniemi 4d ago

@marick Oh humanity.. Always ready to make themselves miserable, as long as someone else is made even more miserable.

@marick "If we make the nation utterly inhospitable to human life, dem forr'ners won't be able to live here, and then America will be great again."

Feedback_ATK 3d ago

@marick
Even though we've always known its true, its still frightening to reckon with the fact that white people will gladly shoot themselves in the head to get blood on black peoples clothes

@marick
I cannot locate the origin of this quote. But I can verify this quote by Lyndon B. Johnson:

"I'll tell you what's at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-lowest-white-man/

LBJ: 'If You Can Convince the Lowest White Man He's Better Than the Best Colored Man ...'

President Lyndon B. Johnson, who grew up in the South and understood the politics of racism from the inside, saw it in part as a ploy to divide and conquer.

Snopes

offbyone 3d ago

@qole @marick pretty sure it was a commenter on balloon-juice.com

got it back to 2009 without much effort (see also crazification factor)

https://balloon-juice.com/2009/10/07/open-thread-lagging-lexicon-indicators/

Balloon Juice - Open Thread: Lagging Lexicon Indicators

WordPress still won’t let me change so much as a misplaced comma in the Lexicon. Actually, WordPress is only allowing me to read the site about 60% of the time this week, just in case anybody thought the secondary front-pagers got some kind of special access. Either the Red State Trike Farce Strike Force is …

Balloon Juice

@offbyone @marick
That's a reference to the original, "by commenter Davis X. Machina," but the original seems to have been lost? The actual comment isn't linked?

offbyone 3d ago

@qole @marick agreed and that's annoying - I was (and still am!) lurking on BJ through those years and I remember the comment but doesn't seem to be linked anywhere. I'm going to poke around a bit

crazification factor is from 2005 so that limits it to 5 years or so of posts....

oh dear

this is going to be in some ways worse than that "exactly 2 propositions, an in group that the law protects but doesn't bind and an out-group who the law binds but does not protect" quote (mangled here for sure)

@offbyone @marick
This is often quoted by Cory Doctorow @pluralistic who refers to it as Wilhoit's Law.
https://x.com/doctorow/status/1876296096202547631

Cory Doctorow NO LONGER ON TWIT TER (@doctorow) on X

This is Wilhoit's Law in action: > Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. https://t.co/xwoeNFK06P 36/

X (formerly Twitter)

@qole @offbyone @marick @pluralistic
Fun fact, Wilhoit's law was not formulated by Wilhoit but by another person of the same name

offbyone 2d ago

@sabik @qole @marick @pluralistic right?? well known poliitical scientist Francis (Frank) Wilhoit did not formulate Wilhoit's Law

It was a completely different Frank Wilhoit who did it, on Crooked Timber back in 2018

and this one I have found the cite for - original is here

https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288

Slate did a piece on it as well.

https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservatives-frank-wilhoit.html

The travesty of liberalism — Crooked Timber

Cory Doctorow 2d ago

@offbyone @sabik @qole @marick Yup, "Frank Wilhoit (But Not THAT Frank Wilhoit)'s Law"

Zhi Zhu 🕸️2d ago

@sabik @qole @offbyone @marick @pluralistic

“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:

There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind,
alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

There is nothing more or else to it,
and there never has been."

~Frank Wilhoit, composer
https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288

#Conservatism #Law #Quote #Quotes #Meme #Memes #US #USA

@offbyone @marick @pluralistic
I don't really like this proverb, because I think conservatives think that the primary purpose of the law is to protect property, and it's not so much about protecting "in groups" as it is about protecting property (and its owners). As for the law binding, I think most people think the law is only partially binding on them. Most people I know regularly break one law or another, speeding or something, no matter how conservative or progressive they are.

Brian Marick 13h ago

@qole @offbyone @pluralistic I personally believe that “conservatism is about maintaining supposedly-natural hierarchies” is more plausible than that conservatism is about property.

But the word is an “essentially contested concept,” which to me means definitional discussions have low expected value compared to action-oriented discussions.

https://blog.oddly-influenced.dev/2025/10/14/essentially-contested-concepts-a-catchy.html

Essentially contested concepts – a catchy idea without a catchy name

What does it mean to be a good Christian? How do you decide whether something someone made is art or not art? If you say you’re practicing Agile software development, and I say you’re not – that you’re missing the point – where do we go from there? The answer to the last question, in my experience, is: nowhere, and fast. But we don’t have that problem with questions like “is that tree an elm?” or “is light a particle or a wave?” Why not?

@marick
That article about essentially contested concepts is really interesting, thanks. And I agree that hierarchy, authority, and obedience is very important to conservatism. Lots of studies back it up, too. I think that I was focusing on fiscal conservatives, and their obsession with property.
Anyway, I really like the Davis quote, but not so much the Wilhoit one.
@offbyone @pluralistic

Brian Marick 2d ago

@qole @offbyone Davis X. Machina (I assume the same person) still comments on the Lawyers, Guns, and Money blog, where that quote probably comes up yearly. I think it’s safe to assume he wrote it.

@marick @offbyone
Or it could be a she! Ali Davis goes by the name Davis Ex Machina...

Brian Marick 1d ago

@qole @offbyone You’re right.

Brian Marick 2d ago

@qole I can’t point to the origin, but I’m almost certain it was either the Balloon Juice or Lawyers, Guns, and Money blog. I know I saw the original comment on one of the political blogs I followed.

https://balloon-juice.com/

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Balloon Juice