{"id":5879,"date":"2013-06-30T20:49:56","date_gmt":"2013-07-01T00:49:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/?p=5879"},"modified":"2022-08-01T07:43:12","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T11:43:12","slug":"ross-douthat-is-not-a-big-fat-idiot-and-other-observations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/2013\/06\/ross-douthat-is-not-a-big-fat-idiot-and-other-observations\/","title":{"rendered":"Ross Douthat Is Not a Big Fat Idiot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>First of all, Ross Douthat is not big.\u00a0 And he is not fat.\u00a0 I concede those points*.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Douthat penned an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/06\/30\/opinion\/sunday\/douthat-democrats-get-a-gift-from-the-roberts-court.html?hp&amp;_r=0\">op-ed piece<\/a> for the June 29, 2o13, New York Times, in which he claims that Republican voter-restriction efforts were really a good thing for Democrats: &#8220;[By] trying to restrict the franchise on the margins, Republican state  legislators handed Democrats a powerful tool for mobilization and  persuasion, and motivated voters who might otherwise have lost some of  their enthusiasm&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In Mr. Douthat&#8217;s bizarre take, it is a good thing when a class of people are oppressed, because the fact of their oppression leads them to rise up against it and become stronger for having experienced it:\u00a0 &#8220;&#8230; Voter ID laws &#8230; shape voter preferences and  influence voter enthusiasm in ways that might well outstrip their direct  influence on turnout.\u00a0 They inspire registration drives and education  efforts; they help activists fund-raise and organize; they raise the  specter of past injustices; they reinforce a narrative that their  architects are indifferent or hostile to minorities.&#8221;\u00a0 In Mr. Douthat&#8217;s twisted view of the world, whatever doesn&#8217;t kill <em>you<\/em> makes <em>you<\/em> stronger &#8212; but of course<em> he <\/em> doesn&#8217;t need that kind of test, he&#8217;s strong enough already, thank you very much!<\/p>\n<p>If I were Ross Douthat, I would advocate the re-institution of slavery &#8212; after all, what better way to help motivate its victims to eliminate racism for once and for all?<\/p>\n<h5>* <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/0440508649\">Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot (and Other Observations)<\/a> by Al Franken, 1996.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>First of all, Ross Douthat is not big.\u00a0 And he is not fat.\u00a0 I concede those points*. Mr. Douthat penned an op-ed piece for the June 29, 2o13, New York Times, in which he claims that Republican voter-restriction efforts were &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/2013\/06\/ross-douthat-is-not-a-big-fat-idiot-and-other-observations\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5879"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5885,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5879\/revisions\/5885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}