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The other day I innocently (or as innocent as I can be) happened to make a comment over at the blog of Donald Douglas, American Power. Donald was going off against the stimulus plan and, knowing that Donald is a professor at LBCC, in all sincerity I commented:

Be careful what you wish for Donald. I would hate to see the definition of a "socialist" become: " a pro-victory associate professor who lost his job because the state didn’t get enough stimulus money".

And I’m not being snarky.

Best of luck to you.

Apparently that was fraught with more ominous undertones than a Sicilian kiss of death:

TBogg says he’s "not being snarky."

Okay, then what is he being? He’s certainly not being caring or compassionate. That’s not his intent at all, since his entire blogging schtick is snark.

[...]

And now TBogg claims that his comment at my post wasn’t "snarky"? Well, perhaps a little childish excoriation wasn’t up to the task needed to take me down more than a few notches, that is, to destroy me for speaking truth to Democratic power.

I’m halfway through reading David Denby’s, Snark, a book on the increasing corrosion of public discusion in American life. Now, I’m no fan of Denby. In a later section of the book, in a chapter devoted to Maureen Dowd, he slams the New York Times columnist for the inadequacies of her snarky essays in attacking President George W. Bush, who Denby calls a tyrant (and then pleads that he’s not comparing President Bush to "Hitler").

n his historical review of snark, Denby says some of those who professionally attack others intend their words to be strong enough to "make their victims disappear – go away, give up, even kill themselves."

This, then, perfectlly captures TBogg’s comment above.

I’m one neoconservative blogger who "just won’t die," and when I’m actually strengthened by the abuse and invective from folks like TBogg, they’ll abandon snark to just sow fear – in this case job loss for a professor like me employed by the state community college system.

[...]

It’s not just, "How dare you ridicule the Democratic socialist agenda? Don’t you know that you’ll lose your job?" It’s "I hope and pray you lose your job you wingnut freak, and that you die in the wet gutter of the unemployment lines. We’ve had it with neocons like you who’ve raked this country over the coals with war and economic catastrophe." TBogg’s beyond just flipping conservatives the bird of dismissal. His intent here is to feign serious concern – "Best of luck to you" – in disguise of the dark spells of death and destruction.

This is what’s at the heart of the left. Both sides do snark, of course, as Denby indicates to full extent in is book.

But people like TBogg have truly abandoned any modicum of divine grace and reason for the witch’s spell of contumely and ridicule. This is the faux humor of secular demonology. It’s not for fun and laughs. It’s to denigrate and destroy those whose values and ideas stand in the way of the left’s progressive nihilism that’s seeking a chokehold on the vitality of this nation.

Now you may remember that Donald dubbed me the Demonic Conservative Ridicule Machine, but I had no idea that I was capable of casting a "witch’s spell of contumely and ridicule" which sounds kind of awesome but I rather have X-Ray vision or Super Dictionary Powers so I would know what the hell ‘contumely’ is without having to look it up.

But this makes me sad. Not sad that I didn’t know what contumely means. But sad that someday I might meet Donald, since we both live in SoCal (represent 858!), and if I said "Nice to meet you" he might respond, "WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN!" …and that would be kind of awkward.

Or "incommodious"

Super Dictionary Powers! off.