“Sponsored by the Charles Koch Institute.”

Yet, just as many (if not more) feel empowered by their labels. The world (and the world of sexuality) becomes an obscure place without labels. Notice how he uses “man” and “woman” in his post: don’t these labels enforce social dogmas about the man-woman binary that cause “vast amounts of misery” for transgendered people? It is clear that he is ambivalent about particular labels referring to homosexuality, yet feels comfortable using others.

He didn’t refuse to be labeled. Notice he uses labels like “men” and “women.” The fact is, as a society, we are mediated by language. Whether you want to call them “signifiers” or “labels”, it is how we navigate the complex symbolic order that we find ourselves in (and, in fact, they constitute this order.) Sexuality isn’t the Kantian “thing-in-itself” - it is structured and interpreted by historical and cultural forces. Swartz is wrong when he says “people are just people” - a meaningless tautology if I’ve ever seen one.

Okay, we get it, Buzzfeed - politicians change their positions based on self-serving needs. This is not a particularly new, or interesting, revelation.

Because slightly increasing the top marginal tax rate to the same level it was during the ’90s is the same as Soviet totalitarianism.

The tracking polls are already showing Romney’s bump dissipating.

The story here is the blatant race-baiting on the part of Drudge and Hannity.

Even if liberals were really stupid in believing this (they were, I was), I would say that Simon’s defense that they should have spotted it based on jokes he made throughout the article (the PowerPoint one) is pretty ridiculous. Jokes can be made, and often are, in editorials. I was under the impression that he did just that and that no one actually believes Microsoft developed PowerPoint to stun cattle. Or that Ryan regularly has lunch with Peggy Noonan, just that that was a catty way for Ryan to be dismissive of Romney by invoking a conservative pundit who has been critical of how the Republican campaign has been run. Based on recent history (Palin “going rogue” during the 2008 election) and articles about in-fighting among Romney’s inner-circle, it is not totally out-there that Ryan has grown angry at Romney’s lackluster campaigning and lack of right-wing bonafides.

I’m genuinely interested in knowing how a Buzzfeed article such as this one comes to be swamped by conservative comments. I’ve got to admire the ability of the right to stay on message and inundate an article with their comments. It rivals, in its effectiveness and its organization, Soviet agitprop. I would imagine the high number of retirees in the conservative movement, with their hours of free time, partly explains right-wing saturation of Internet comments in otherwise (nominally) politically-neutral websites. In any case, I do think liberals, including regrettably myself, were too quick to accept the veracity of the Stench nickname, without fully reading the rest of the article or understanding the author’s past history. I would say I was almost as boneheaded as right-wing acceptance of a modicum of conspiracy theories about President Obama.

How about the real “modern slavery”: increasing the top marginal tax rate by 3%.