Cheap shots and epistemic closure

Via The Moscow Show Trial. I never noticed it before, but this guy is a ringer for Tom Friedman. Great Helmsman indeed!

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@Yastreblyansky @owillis exactly, I will close myself to your ideology. (Epistemic, I had to look it up).
— Boston Dave in Pitt (@orion99da) September 8, 2013

American Exceptionalism

Anybody out there know where this famous phrase came from? I just found out (thanks, Wikipedia!): none other than the Great Helmsman himself, Comrade Iosif Vissarionovich!

Seems in the late 1920s the Communist Party of the United States and its young leader, Jay Lovestone (born Jacob Liebstein in what was then Lithuania and now Belarus, [jump]
1897), were suggesting that what I call the Stupid Interpretation of classic Marxist-Engelsist theory might not apply to the US, so rich that it might be immune from proletarian revolution. Stalin, a champion of the Stupid Interpretation, did not like this kind of talk and referred to it as the "heresy of American exceptionalism." He was extremely pleased, of course, when the 1929 crash showed that America was not immune to profound economic crisis, and confidently looked forward to the revolution that was bound to happen any day.

As we now know, Lovestone was in a sense wrong: not because a proletarian revolution was around the corner for the US, but because it wasn't around the corner for anybody. The entire world turned out to be an exception to the Stupid Interpretation, as the international proletariat obstinately refused to assume its leading role, leaving the conduct of the Communist revolution to commonplace thugs like Iosif Vissarionovich himself. Instead of the state, it was the theory that withered away; Communism is dead but the Communist thugs are still in charge (I'm looking at you, Comrade Vladimir Vladimirovich).

Jay Lovestone, 1917.

Speaking of stupid, RedAlert Politics (Stalinist name if I ever heard one) has gone on a tear against the British-born talk show person Piers Morgan:

Piers Morgan doesn’t think that blind Americans should have the same rights as other people when it comes to owning and shooting firearms.

The CNN host sparked a fiery Twitter debate Thursday when he attacked conservative radio host Ben Ferguson over Iowa’s decision to grant legally blind Americans gun permits. The debate quickly escalated when Piers’ favorite conservative darling, talk show host Dana Loesch, got involved in the fight.

Dumb foreigner. He probably thinks an ultrasound wand is different from a penis, too.

Via Hipoint Firearms. From a forum on using glow-in-the-dark paint so you can see your sight at night. 

Ah, Freepers!

Superman is not likely to be Jewish. His moral certainty, and decisive actions are intended to resonate with the American public at large.
— FreeRepublic.txt (@FreeRepublicTXT) September 13, 2013

And they'll tell you they're totally not anti-Semitic.