The Fringe For Fullerton’s Future
We just read a very interesting comment by our fellow blogger, The Fullerton Harpoon, who wrote what appears to be a fairly concise essay on the nature of the “fringer.” We have added some fun graphics to the text. Here is what The Harpoon wrote:
I think you guys are confusing unrelated terms. “Fringism” is a state of mind – not a political persuasion. The fringer has been identified as such by those in the gelatinous “center” who have an inherest trust and fondness for, or a personal stake in power structures.
The fringer embraces the supposed insult knowing as he does that independence from entrenched interests brings clarity and objectivity. The true fringer is (or should be) a fairly rigorous empiricist (a fringer with a theological or Idealist bent is likely just to be just plain scary); if he has an acerbic personality and is unafraid to deploy perfectly good Anglo Saxon words then the fringer has the weapons to puncture the hot air-filled balloon the aeronauts in the middle like to waft around in. Hopefully now the picture of the fringer starts to come into sharper focus.
The fringer is an iconoclast by nature or experience, refusing to recognize the graven images idolized by the marshmallowy middle.
The dead center (inertial resistance) is responsible for most of the lack of accountability in local government; the “conservatives” (they’re not) and the “progressives” (they’re not) are actually pretty happy just to share their five little thrones with each other while the real shot-callers keep the apparatus working behind the scenes.
Other definitions are welcome, as usual. Fringers are not dogmatic.
Always keep your harpoon loaded.
Why the drive-by shooting at: “… a fringer with a theological or Idealist bent is likely just to be just plain scary” ?
The precious commodity in any endeavor is TRUTH rather than fraud or false “facts” (did someone say “man-made Global Warming?).
The main reason that plain common sense is now something found only on the “fringe” is this habit of the Communist-media to use GIRLY words like “scary” in order to disparage or marginalize anyone who presents a minority or (worse yet) an “unpopular” opinion or viewpoint.
This Harpoon guy-girl sounds to me to be just EXACTLY like all those so very “conservative Republicans” who supported the great qualifications of Ackerwoman, et al. PHONIES.
Why the drive-by shooting at: “… a fringer with a theological or Idealist bent is likely just to be just plain scary” ?
Because people who wallow in abstractions, or worse, try to get other people to believe in their abstractions – one way or another – are sort of scary. And in my experience they very often turn out to be really, really ineffectual people, too. Sorry if that offends. Well, okay, I’m not sorry at all.
Just because we are fringe doesn’t mean we are obliged to recognize any view at all – marginal,minority or otherwise. This ain’t a raft anybody can climb on to get out of the Mississippi mud.
But thanks for actually reading what I wrote!
“Wallow in abstractions…” Huh?
The cheap shot you took was at folks (you guessed it, like me) “…with a theological or idealist bent…”.
My response zeroed in on TRUTH as the scarce commodity, and certainly no longer the touchstone for “public policy” decision making.
I’m all ears for someone with TRUTHFUL comments or contributions in any debate, and I don’t care if he gets his truth from any source, if it is in fact true.
And I would only accept the description of “fringe” with respect to the “media” world of “main stream” phonies.
Rather, I suspect that a considerable majority of Americans are informed by theological sources and that a much larger majority of Americans are just plain FLAMING “idealists” of the type who actually believe the words of our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.
The “main stream media” is the actual “fringe” group, as evidenced by the vast numbers of Americans who are cancelling their newspaper subscriptions and tuning out of “network TV news” and all other such junk which those PHONIES repeatedly tell us is “popular” opinion (as they file bankruptcy).
Again, “popularity” only sells to “girls” (that would be Feminists of any-every age, and homosexuals, who basically represent the thinking segment of the blithering idiot Feminist population, who still do read-believe the “main stream media”).
Rain, see comment to Travis below. I also suspect you are confusing the popular use of the term “idealism” (yours) with my use above, in which I was very careful to capitalize the “I.” The latter usage has a pretty concise philosophical meaning; the former means almost anything.
My own view is that most American are mis-informed by theological sources. The innoculation of religion into politics is the cause of much fuzzy-thinking and confusion and self-righteous ignorance. Consider the way informed religiosity has dealt with the topic of Evolution, f’rinstance.
Just the opions of a humble blogger.
Interestingly you’ve brought into sharp focus your own precision in the use of lauguage versus my use of terms which “means almost anything.”
Then you offer the “factual” matter of Evolution as the coffin nail indictment against “informed religiosity.”
The “science” of Evolution is so thoroughly “proved” and accepted by all the wizzards of the “elites” in America.
Please research-locate from about two months ago, the front page story in a Saturday edition of the Wall Street Journal, which depicts the absolute FINAL PROOF of the Evolutionary development of mankind, with a half-page sketch of the newly discovered ape-man missing link, which took “fourteen years of careful archialogical analysis” to ensure the air tight accuracy of this great discovery.
That WSJ report took up half of their FRONT PAGE and was loaded with “facts” the most significant (seemingly to the authors) was that this newly discovered missing link creature had “extremely long delicate hands and fingers” (please realize, that I “quote” from memory).
Then the LAST PARAGRAPH of the WSJ front page article about this final absolute proof of Evolution, explained that the bone fragments which were the entire basis of this “great discovery” were in fact bone fragments found within rock which were utterly crushed into POWDER, and the reason that it took the 14 years to “test and analyze” was that this entire “scientific” operation was a computer modeling-extrapolation drawn from bone powder fragments and built up into a complete new (old) ancester of man, with exact “knowledge” of the facial hair, etc. as well as those slender fingers.
Once you remove the concept of Truth from the sphere of debate and analysis you get a government school system which teaches propaganda, political correctness, precision in the use of initial caps, and all the other necessary ingredients for voting Communist Totalitarians into political office (i.e. directly and via the bribes-payoffs to the mute-complicit “opposition Party” incumbents).
One last question, Harpoon, which is the government school where you teach?
I’m not sure if I wallow in abstractions, but I do find them useful. If one observes that most, if not all, government forays into the realm of private business (i.e. redevelopment) result in miserable failures, it might be possible to formulate a generality such as “government fails whenever it competes with private enterprise, so government should have the power to take on that role”.
Of course you’re right that it’s easy to become intellectually lazy and insert half-baked ideals into complex situations and call yourself principled. Political ideals must constantly be re-tested by new practicalities, but the true ones stand the test of time. Unfortunately this takes effort, courage and an open mind, which is why most just like to be told what to think.
Travis, don’t confuse generalities arrived at through observation with “abstractions.” This is the very nature of empiricism.
OTOH, if you said something like: there is such a thing as Eternal Truth; there exist Platonic types; or, all men are created equal, then I would say that’s pretty doggone abstract.
Well I tried.
Rain, someday you can tell us all about your expertise in paleontology.
I evolved from a sad, beaten dog, to a happy, transcendental, platonic dog.
Rain sees Commies under every cabbage leaf and evil-doing secular humanists in every classroom.
Quick, call in an exorcist.