March 01, 2007

Hey, We're Officially A Lefty Blog, or People With Too Much Time On Their Hands.

Via Instaputz (nice name, by the way), we get this marvelous comparison (at GatewayPundit):



So, lefty bloggers swear about nineteen times as much as righty bloggers. We're such fucking potty-mouths!

In case anyone cares, this isn't a valid comparison. The chart shows only total word count for the listed blogs. In other words, all posts in the blog (for all the time the site has been operating) are counted. Thus, the results aren't normalized for profanity per post or profanity per day (or something). In other words, if (and this probably isn't the case, but IF) lefty blogs wrote nineteen times as much language as righty blogs, then it would make sense for there to be nineteen times as many swear words (and, in fact, the rate of profanity would be identical). I doubt this is the case (I'm perfectly willing to believe that lefties swear more than righties), but there is a methodological flaw here.

Posted by baltar at March 1, 2007 01:30 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Blogorama | Crunchy Nutbars | Politics


Comments

There's tons to nitpick, but my observations suggest that the essential point is valid: many lefty bloggers are almost gratuitously potty-mouthed, almost like they're afraid of getting dinged by the movement as a fraud if they don't use some variant of "fuck' at least four or five times a post.

(And since when are you a fucking lefty blogger?) :-P

Posted by: jacflash at March 1, 2007 02:48 PM | PERMALINK

Well, that's what's so funny. I'm not really a lefty blogger (and I'm not really sure this site is consistently lefty), but we seem to swear a bunch. As for the "gratuitously potty-mouth" comment, the data isn't clear. Yes, the lefty blogs swear more. How much more? The data is just raw numbers, and don't really give any idea of how much more (19 times? 10 times? 2 times?). Thus, yes, more swearing, but enough to complain about?

Why they swear more is interesting. It might be a lefty-calling-card (your movement argument). It might also be a social conservative versus social liberal thing: social conservatives are likley not to swear for religious/moral reasons.

More important: is this remotely relevant?

Posted by: baltar at March 1, 2007 03:09 PM | PERMALINK

I fully embrace being a gratuitous potty mouth (as you might be able to discern from the fact that one of our categories is "fishwife central" as in swearing like a...). And although we don't display a bipartisan banner or anything, it's come up enough times as to be not trivial that we have one active and two former republicans, and that we all tend to stray across ideological boundaries depending on the issue.

And how are we officially? Because we swear, or because we made some profanity list?

Posted by: binky at March 1, 2007 03:24 PM | PERMALINK

No, the point was that (A) we swear a lot and (B) according to the charts, swearing blogs are lefty, and (C) we aren't a lefty blog. That's all.

Oh, and (D) there are methodological problems with the conclusions and (E) some people have too much time on their hands.

Posted by: baltar at March 1, 2007 03:41 PM | PERMALINK

And wow, only 278 for Atrios? Does he only keep a week of archives or something?

Posted by: jacflash at March 1, 2007 09:38 PM | PERMALINK

From what I've seen Binky and Armand are pretty clearly "lefty bloggers" by any reasonable definition, and I'm having a hard time filing Baltar under "active Republican", given that even the GOPers here in Gomorrahchusetts (much less the ones in The HeartlandTM) are way more righty than I think he is these days.

Posted by: jacflash at March 2, 2007 08:01 AM | PERMALINK

Eh, all depends on the what "the Right" is, doesn't it? If I remember political talk shows from when I was in high school and college (end of Reagan's years and under Bush the 1st) it was the Republicans who were always decrying "social engineering" and Soviet-esque trappings of central government (say, a national ID card, or perhaps the police being allowed to pull you ove for no good reason). Yet today that Republican party seems like it has a stake through its heart and instead we've got a big-government lovin' monster that yearns to engage in social engineering.

Posted by: Armand at March 2, 2007 09:54 AM | PERMALINK

You'd have define your standards before we could argue this. I'm not sure I've really slid all that leftward, so much as the mainstream discourse and policies of the GOP have slid much further to the right. I still believe in markets, I still believe the government is inefficient, and I still believe that force is critical in international politics. I don't believe that markets are perfect, that the government is unnecessary (if inefficient), or that force will solve all problems in international politics. I don't think those positions have changed much in me over the years.

Posted by: baltar at March 2, 2007 09:56 AM | PERMALINK

As I've said before, this seems to be the key position for defining us as lefties:

So I'm a commie, and this is a left wing blog simply because I don't think it's anyone's business what god anyone prays to, what people do in their bedrooms, what people do with their bodies. If you wanna buy it sell it drink it shoot it snort it abort it tie it up and spank it I don't care it's no one's business but yours.

Being pro-market and accepting of use of force has nothing to do with it anymore. The only yardstick that matters is social control, and "conservative" has gone from being anti- social control to vehemently pro-social control. Anyone with even the vaguest hint of libertarianism to them, left or right (traditionally) is now a lefty by this definition.

Posted by: binky at March 2, 2007 11:07 AM | PERMALINK

And we know of course, that real conservatives don't use obscenities.

As always, both sides do the same things. It's just nice to pretend to be righteous and bathed in sanctimony to distract from the fact that your party has soundly fucked up everything that matters in government for the last several years.

UPDATE: Barely related, but funny nonetheless. HT to Shakespear's Sister.

Posted by: binky at March 2, 2007 11:28 AM | PERMALINK

Oh, that's right, she doesn't even blog, does she?

Posted by: binky at March 2, 2007 08:11 PM | PERMALINK
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