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Cute for the Parallell Dictionary of Neologisms
I took them off because its POV.
Why was Eric Margolis - a moderate conservative - described as a moonbat in some warblogs? Does "moonbat" now mean "non- Islamophobe?" - GCarty 14:33, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I'm finding that the definition, by usage, is rather fluid. Lately the term seems to apply to anyone who does not readily agree with the current White House or to anyone who disagrees with or criticizes G.W. Bush. Wjbean 00:47, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
A northern Irish seperatist with a idiosyncratic approach to getting things done. E.g. That Brian Guiney lad is a right moonbat!
A praze used by some right-wing bloggers. Is this really worthy of an encycopedia entry. Non-notable me thinks.-- JK the unwise 13:19, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I came to wikipedia specifically to get some insight into this term. I'm glad the page is here. -- G.G.Salt, 10 Aug 2005
I'm with G.G.Salt. I was recently introduced to George Monbiat's positions through The Age of Consent and I found this entry informative after reading the main George Monbiat entry in Wikipedia. Mundek 01:30, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
The word is showing up all over the place. I've seen it in blogs, forums, and political cartoons where participants or targets, in the case of cartoons, have been called Moonbat. I thought the word was simply an insult for any left leaner. Without this article I would not have known Monbiat was the initial target or that a Libertarian publication had coined the term. Wjbean 14:41, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
"A praze used by some right-wing bloggers. Is this really worthy of an encycopedia entry. Non-notable me thinks.-"
I'm surprised how few people seem to understand what an encyclopedia is - if it is referenced elsewhere, and not axiomatic and only internally understood, it is worthy of an entry in both a dictionary and an encyclopedia, especially one that seems to want to be an all inclusive, non-specific encyclopedia such as this. Certainly it should be presented without a POV when presented, but certainly NOT feeling it worthy of inclusion is a POV as well.
I found it helpful when I was trying to understand where it came from. I would like to see it kept. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tuibguy ( talk • contribs) 16:57, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
The term has nothing to do with Monbiot. If you think otherwise, please provide references to back up your claims. The person who coined the term, Perry de Havilland, as a descriptor of those holding the absurd extreme of whatever ism they belong to (thus it does not merely apply to the loony left, but also to absolutist anarcho-capitalist libertarians, similarly nutty conservatives, etc), did so long before he had even heard of Monbiot, or that Monbiot was anybody worth coining a term about. Adriana Cronyn defines it as someone who sacrifices sanity for the sake of consistency. See: http://www.samizdata.net/blog/glossary_archives/2002/09/barking_moonbat.html 71.95.151.21 ( talk) 17:44, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
"Someone who sacrifices sanity for the sake of consistency."
It looks like you can call anyone making a logically consistent argument moonbat; because when sanity is not defined by the ability of logical reasoning it is in the eye of the beholder. R.H. 15:22, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
Actually what he means is someone who is "consistent" ie does or says the same thing over and over , even though repeating that thing is illogical or even insane. Xerex 01:56, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm going to remove the reference to Eric Raymond and the associated citation to http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/31/060731fa_fact as Raymond's use of the term obviously has no political connotation and only further muddies this article. If someone wants to create another entry for moonbat, defining it in the sense that Raymond uses it, great. 24.219.173.93 20:58, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Was this really coined only in 2002? I thought the phrase "moonbat" had been in use for quite some time previously. I know the first time I saw it on a website, discoverthenetwork.org, I immediately knew what a "moonbat" was, and seemed familiar with it previously. So it might not have originated on the web.
...Because the Goldberg link does not prove anything. Provide a source that "credits" Goldberg and he will get the "credit". -- JJay 16:34, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
I have a funny feeling our (trollish?) friend here might be on to something. If you search the National Review for 'moonbat' or 'moon bat' you'll find Jonah Goldberg using the phrase 'higher than a moonbat' a hell of a lot prior to 2002. This article nails it for me, including as it does the sentence "...many anti-state conservatives and libertarians think you’d have to be higher than a moon bat to support even the theoretical idea of a government-run TV network." - which is very, very close to (if not the same as) the usage of the phrase as discussed here. Perhaps there should be a paragraph about this in the article? -- This Is Interesting 10:02, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Why do the first and second paragraphs directly contradict each other? The first paragraph states it was originally used to describe a left-wing commentator, and the second states it was originally coined to describe commentators on the *right*.
Most of this article, in fact, is somewhat confusing as to who "tends to be" called a moonbat more often, left or right. I suggest all of the "tendency" speculation be removed entirely, but I don't know enough about the issue to do it myself... Kimpire
I'm going to remove the line about "US invaded Iraq to drive up oil prices." Hoping this doesn't make me sound like a moonbat, but there is some strong evidence to support motives related to oil. I'm not a political analyst or an extremist, but I don't think that's a safe comparison to make. Kimos May 15/2006
I added a reference to Howie Carr for usage. He's been using it every day on his radio show, and in many of his Boston Herald columns. I don't have a way to source the on the air comments (I hear him use it every day), but for the Herald reference, I linked to a Herald database query using "moonbat" as the search parameter, which spits out quite a few columns by Carr. Crockspot 12:57, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Its current usage is solely as a political epithet. Since the 'list of political epithets' entry has been deleted, it doesn't seem reasonable to keep references to the term 'moonbat's use as a political epithet. Please see the discussion of 'Friedman Unit'. I suggest that Howie Carr's use of the term be merged into the 'Howie Carr' entry and deleted from the 'moonbat' entry. 24.219.173.93 22:16, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
If you are okay with a person searching Wikipedia for the term'Moonbat' and being told'Word not found'...you might be a Moonbat.-Czarmangis
The phrase stating explicitly, "that was not the original intention," is mildly POV because it implies that the "original intention" was better than the current one. Better to make it "original usage" or something similar.
All information about the history of the term ought to go in a second paragraph, after a brief introduction to the term that should include a generalized defintion of modern usage. Currently historical inofrmation is spread across all but the last paragraph.
Some of the definitions and usage statements are superfluous. The definition by Adriana Cronin-Lukas is cute but not useful. The three statements about de Havilland ought to be together.
The last two paragraphs are unclear and should be rearranged if not completely paraphrased.
The mention of ad hominem in the "See also" section has no business there. "Moonbat" is a perjorative. In all uses I have ever seen, it has never been used to reply to an argument or assertion, as the ad hominem article directly states. It is a simple insult that one uses to refer to a person, just like most other political epithets (see here).
There is no reason to associate the term moonbat with the term ad hominem, except to disparage its use. Yes, it is "against the person" but it is not a reply to anything.
Nescalona 01:44, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I disagree. It is often used as a reply. Very typical blog exchange is someone leaves a comment on a blog explaining some glaring right wing inconsistency and the next comment by a right wing fanboy says "Another moonbat posting ..." and a disparaging remark. (e.g. "did they leave the asylum open tonight") And thats it. By hurling this pejorative against his opponent the right wing fanboy specifically expresses that no other response to the comment is warranted, and so the smear definitely takes the place of a reply. Wefa 23:20, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Moonbat might refer to a crazy person e.g. 'that Murielle is a right moonbat'
"Moonbat is a political epithet coined in 2002 by Perry de Havilland of Samizdata.net a libertarian weblog. It was originally used as a play on the last name of George Monbiot, a columnist for The Guardian."
versus
"De Havilland says it was not originally a play on the last name of George Monbiot, a columnist for The Guardian"
Three!
All of this is completely inaccurate, the term moonbat relates to Sun Myung Moon and the readers/followers of his far right outlets, specifically The Washington Times and the Unification Church.
Of course, the fact that reality is contnuously ignored on wikipedia doesn't surprise me at all, which is why it has become little more than a partisan battleground full of mudslinging and organized consensus on misinformation to further specific beliefs. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.171.214.1 ( talk) 06:33, 27 February 2007 (UTC).
Moonbat does not appear to be related to moonie. The sentences alluding to this have been removed, since this is unsupported by any context or sources.—Preceding
unsigned comment added by
71.206.196.188 (
talk •
contribs)
I did some copyediting to improve the flow. Basically just took what was already in the article and shuffled it all around so that it makes more sense. I did some cite formatting too, still need to reformat a couple. I think it's much better now. I'm tired, I'll come back for another pass later. Crockspot 01:51, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
There. Fixed. Now it reads like an encyclopedic article. All text that didn't meet POV and RS requirements was justifiably excised. Blogs, radio shows, and published sources without fact-checking aren't good sources for encyclopedia articles. 71.100.230.32 02:54, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
I want to run through the blog sources one by one, because I think there are some issues overall.
We're better off looking for more RS sources of usage, like published columnists. - Crockspot 21:51, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
The paragraph beginning "Some right-leaning users of the term..." is very unencyclopedic and begs for citation. Anyone can make any claim about anything and say that 'some [unidentified] people' believe it. In addition, it doesn't add anything to the article that the 'definition' in the first paragraph doesn't already address. - 24.219.173.93 13:56, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
The sourcing on this page is just terrible. The citation to Safire's article leads to an International Herald Tribune page with no article on it, the Jonah Goldberg citation leads to an imaginary conversation in which Goldberg apparently has Bill Clinton using the phrase "high as a moonbat", and the Allen Kelly citation references a blog, which clearly doesn't pass muster as a reliable source. None of these are encyclopedic. I'm deleting them. 24.219.173.93 21:11, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
I have deleted the following from the section explaining the History of Use:
You'll see some of the problems with these claims if you actually follow the link to the article on the History Buff web page which this passage cites (it seems no one has checked out this source before). The Great Moon Hoax of 1835 is well known and wikipedia has an article about it. But the astronomer in question who supposedly looked at the moon was not Bernard Lovell (he was born in 1913) but rather Sir John Herschel (who was actually alive in 1835). The hoax was quite a big deal, but the article at History Buff makes no mention of "moonbats." Part of the hoax was to say that there were, as the cited web site puts it, "furry, winged men resembling bats" on the moon but History Buff suggests they were called "man-bats" rather than moonbats.
I think the original article series from the New York Sun that created the whole moon hoax story is online somewhere so someone who cares could take a look at it and see if the phrase "moonbats" appears somewhere. If so the above sentence could be reinstated, but obviously with reference to Herschel as the astronomer rather than Lovell. My guess though is that there is no such reference. The original sentence mentions the "batscope" which sounds ridiculous to me and which has nothing to do with Sir Alfred Charles Bernard Lovell, Sir John Herschel, or the Great Moon Hoax as far as I know.
Safire's column is much more informative on the term "moonbats." He does date the earliest reference to Heinlein (and he apparently spent some time trying to figure out the etymology) so I think we should keep it at that and maybe even expand the History of Use section with some more info from the Safire piece.
Actually, to be honest, I think this whole article is still somewhat worthy of deletion but won't bring that up in a formal fashion. And incidentally, wherever the term came from, it does not appear in the Oxford English Dictionary.-- Bigtimepeace 05:46, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
here's a reliable source that attributes popularizing the term moonbat to Instapundit. - Crockspot 16:15, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
I've recently discovered that Google News has a new archive search. It's pretty useful, and I've pulled up articles on some subjects that were more than 200 years old. Often you only get an abstract, but it is enough to write a good cite. I searched for "moonbat", and every hit before 2003 was in reference to an unrelated footrace. (Obviously it isn't perfect, because it missed some of the earlier sources that have already been documented.) But here are links to the searches that did yield good results (by year).
Crockspot 18:52, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
Could someone lengthen the article (and maybe shorten the references? The reference section is almost as long as the article)? Purple Is Pretty 23:22, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
The first sentence in the entry reads: "Moonbat (also "barking moonbat" and "moonbat crazy") is a term often used currently in U.S. politics as a political epithet referring to anyone that is liberal or on the left. "Wingnut" (or "right wing nut") is frequently preferred as the analogous epithet aimed at extremists on the political right.[1]"
The highlighted texts indicate an apparent bias on the author's part. People on the left of the political spectrum are described as liberal or on the left, while those on the right are identified by the pejorative term "extremists". Does this mean that one can only be an extremist if one's views are conservative, or to the right of the political spectrum of opinion? Left-wing or liberal politicians cannot be extremists?
I also find the grammar to be a bit dodgy in places.
I suggest changing this sentence to read: Moonbat (also "barking moonbat" and "moonbat crazy")is a term often used in U.S. political discourse as a pejorative epithet referring to anyone regarded as being liberal or on the left. Likewise, "wingnut" (or "right wing nut") is frequently preferred as an analogous epithet for referring to anyone regarded as being conservative or on the right. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.38.206.168 ( talk) 17:40, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
This is probably very pedantic and nitpicky, but the Moonbat as described in Heinlein's 'Space Jockey' was not the third stage of a single rocket, but was rather a spacecraft in its own right. Safire appears to have misinterpreted what Heinlein wrote, which was that the Moonbat carried out the third step of the Earth-moon journey, from a space station orbiting the moon to the lunar surface (the first two steps being from Earth's surface to a station in earth orbit in one ship, then from the Earth station to the lunar station in another). Perhaps the current text: as the name of the third stage of a rocket bound for the moon, should be replaced by something like: as the name of a spacecraft used to travel between a lunar space station and the moon's surface. 82.4.213.71 ( talk) 20:34, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
This article states: "One explanation for the current political use is that the term was derived from the name of liberal English author and activist George Monbiot." This appears to be obscure in the extreme - why would a term in the U.S. refer to some unknown Brit? Where's the reference for this? It certainly doesn't come from the only reference cited in the paragraph - indeed, that reference does mention the Heinlein story and also the bat-like XP-67 experimental pursuit plane (not bomber as the original NYT story mistakenly identifies it) which isn't even mentioned in this wiki piece. Suspect this is another attempt to wrangle in a UK connection into every wiki article - surprised this whole thing hasn't been re-written in UK English because this clearly is UK-based content. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.243.164.201 ( talk) 23:46, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
The cartoon strip "This Modern World" by leftist cartoonist Tom Tomorrow has a pair of characters -- one of whom is a would-be Sherlock Holmes named "Conservative Jones". The other is his Watson-like sidekick . . . Moonbat McWacky. The usual pattern of strips when these two appear is that Conservative, who is dressed as a detective, asks Moonbat questions about politics. Moonbat gives reasonable answers, which Conservative turns into illogical statements about liberals. So this would seem to be a "counter-usage" of the term as it is defined here. [jalp] 209.172.14.154 ( talk) 06:43, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
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May be connected to "governor moonbeam", an unflattering nickname of Jerry Brown Jr. as governor of California... AnonMoos ( talk) 05:31, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
Greetings, all. The current definition of the term in the article is as follows: " a pejorative political epithet used in United States politics, referring to liberals, progressives, or leftists (especially the far-left)." In the text itself, though, an example cited of the term's usage shows that "moonbat" is also used for conservative commentators such as Jonah Goldberg. I'd suggest we need both stronger sourcing and a more nuanced definition. - The Gnome ( talk) 09:17, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
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Cute for the Parallell Dictionary of Neologisms
I took them off because its POV.
Why was Eric Margolis - a moderate conservative - described as a moonbat in some warblogs? Does "moonbat" now mean "non- Islamophobe?" - GCarty 14:33, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I'm finding that the definition, by usage, is rather fluid. Lately the term seems to apply to anyone who does not readily agree with the current White House or to anyone who disagrees with or criticizes G.W. Bush. Wjbean 00:47, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
A northern Irish seperatist with a idiosyncratic approach to getting things done. E.g. That Brian Guiney lad is a right moonbat!
A praze used by some right-wing bloggers. Is this really worthy of an encycopedia entry. Non-notable me thinks.-- JK the unwise 13:19, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I came to wikipedia specifically to get some insight into this term. I'm glad the page is here. -- G.G.Salt, 10 Aug 2005
I'm with G.G.Salt. I was recently introduced to George Monbiat's positions through The Age of Consent and I found this entry informative after reading the main George Monbiat entry in Wikipedia. Mundek 01:30, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
The word is showing up all over the place. I've seen it in blogs, forums, and political cartoons where participants or targets, in the case of cartoons, have been called Moonbat. I thought the word was simply an insult for any left leaner. Without this article I would not have known Monbiat was the initial target or that a Libertarian publication had coined the term. Wjbean 14:41, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
"A praze used by some right-wing bloggers. Is this really worthy of an encycopedia entry. Non-notable me thinks.-"
I'm surprised how few people seem to understand what an encyclopedia is - if it is referenced elsewhere, and not axiomatic and only internally understood, it is worthy of an entry in both a dictionary and an encyclopedia, especially one that seems to want to be an all inclusive, non-specific encyclopedia such as this. Certainly it should be presented without a POV when presented, but certainly NOT feeling it worthy of inclusion is a POV as well.
I found it helpful when I was trying to understand where it came from. I would like to see it kept. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tuibguy ( talk • contribs) 16:57, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
The term has nothing to do with Monbiot. If you think otherwise, please provide references to back up your claims. The person who coined the term, Perry de Havilland, as a descriptor of those holding the absurd extreme of whatever ism they belong to (thus it does not merely apply to the loony left, but also to absolutist anarcho-capitalist libertarians, similarly nutty conservatives, etc), did so long before he had even heard of Monbiot, or that Monbiot was anybody worth coining a term about. Adriana Cronyn defines it as someone who sacrifices sanity for the sake of consistency. See: http://www.samizdata.net/blog/glossary_archives/2002/09/barking_moonbat.html 71.95.151.21 ( talk) 17:44, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
"Someone who sacrifices sanity for the sake of consistency."
It looks like you can call anyone making a logically consistent argument moonbat; because when sanity is not defined by the ability of logical reasoning it is in the eye of the beholder. R.H. 15:22, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
Actually what he means is someone who is "consistent" ie does or says the same thing over and over , even though repeating that thing is illogical or even insane. Xerex 01:56, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm going to remove the reference to Eric Raymond and the associated citation to http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/31/060731fa_fact as Raymond's use of the term obviously has no political connotation and only further muddies this article. If someone wants to create another entry for moonbat, defining it in the sense that Raymond uses it, great. 24.219.173.93 20:58, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Was this really coined only in 2002? I thought the phrase "moonbat" had been in use for quite some time previously. I know the first time I saw it on a website, discoverthenetwork.org, I immediately knew what a "moonbat" was, and seemed familiar with it previously. So it might not have originated on the web.
...Because the Goldberg link does not prove anything. Provide a source that "credits" Goldberg and he will get the "credit". -- JJay 16:34, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
I have a funny feeling our (trollish?) friend here might be on to something. If you search the National Review for 'moonbat' or 'moon bat' you'll find Jonah Goldberg using the phrase 'higher than a moonbat' a hell of a lot prior to 2002. This article nails it for me, including as it does the sentence "...many anti-state conservatives and libertarians think you’d have to be higher than a moon bat to support even the theoretical idea of a government-run TV network." - which is very, very close to (if not the same as) the usage of the phrase as discussed here. Perhaps there should be a paragraph about this in the article? -- This Is Interesting 10:02, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Why do the first and second paragraphs directly contradict each other? The first paragraph states it was originally used to describe a left-wing commentator, and the second states it was originally coined to describe commentators on the *right*.
Most of this article, in fact, is somewhat confusing as to who "tends to be" called a moonbat more often, left or right. I suggest all of the "tendency" speculation be removed entirely, but I don't know enough about the issue to do it myself... Kimpire
I'm going to remove the line about "US invaded Iraq to drive up oil prices." Hoping this doesn't make me sound like a moonbat, but there is some strong evidence to support motives related to oil. I'm not a political analyst or an extremist, but I don't think that's a safe comparison to make. Kimos May 15/2006
I added a reference to Howie Carr for usage. He's been using it every day on his radio show, and in many of his Boston Herald columns. I don't have a way to source the on the air comments (I hear him use it every day), but for the Herald reference, I linked to a Herald database query using "moonbat" as the search parameter, which spits out quite a few columns by Carr. Crockspot 12:57, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Its current usage is solely as a political epithet. Since the 'list of political epithets' entry has been deleted, it doesn't seem reasonable to keep references to the term 'moonbat's use as a political epithet. Please see the discussion of 'Friedman Unit'. I suggest that Howie Carr's use of the term be merged into the 'Howie Carr' entry and deleted from the 'moonbat' entry. 24.219.173.93 22:16, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
If you are okay with a person searching Wikipedia for the term'Moonbat' and being told'Word not found'...you might be a Moonbat.-Czarmangis
The phrase stating explicitly, "that was not the original intention," is mildly POV because it implies that the "original intention" was better than the current one. Better to make it "original usage" or something similar.
All information about the history of the term ought to go in a second paragraph, after a brief introduction to the term that should include a generalized defintion of modern usage. Currently historical inofrmation is spread across all but the last paragraph.
Some of the definitions and usage statements are superfluous. The definition by Adriana Cronin-Lukas is cute but not useful. The three statements about de Havilland ought to be together.
The last two paragraphs are unclear and should be rearranged if not completely paraphrased.
The mention of ad hominem in the "See also" section has no business there. "Moonbat" is a perjorative. In all uses I have ever seen, it has never been used to reply to an argument or assertion, as the ad hominem article directly states. It is a simple insult that one uses to refer to a person, just like most other political epithets (see here).
There is no reason to associate the term moonbat with the term ad hominem, except to disparage its use. Yes, it is "against the person" but it is not a reply to anything.
Nescalona 01:44, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I disagree. It is often used as a reply. Very typical blog exchange is someone leaves a comment on a blog explaining some glaring right wing inconsistency and the next comment by a right wing fanboy says "Another moonbat posting ..." and a disparaging remark. (e.g. "did they leave the asylum open tonight") And thats it. By hurling this pejorative against his opponent the right wing fanboy specifically expresses that no other response to the comment is warranted, and so the smear definitely takes the place of a reply. Wefa 23:20, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Moonbat might refer to a crazy person e.g. 'that Murielle is a right moonbat'
"Moonbat is a political epithet coined in 2002 by Perry de Havilland of Samizdata.net a libertarian weblog. It was originally used as a play on the last name of George Monbiot, a columnist for The Guardian."
versus
"De Havilland says it was not originally a play on the last name of George Monbiot, a columnist for The Guardian"
Three!
All of this is completely inaccurate, the term moonbat relates to Sun Myung Moon and the readers/followers of his far right outlets, specifically The Washington Times and the Unification Church.
Of course, the fact that reality is contnuously ignored on wikipedia doesn't surprise me at all, which is why it has become little more than a partisan battleground full of mudslinging and organized consensus on misinformation to further specific beliefs. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.171.214.1 ( talk) 06:33, 27 February 2007 (UTC).
Moonbat does not appear to be related to moonie. The sentences alluding to this have been removed, since this is unsupported by any context or sources.—Preceding
unsigned comment added by
71.206.196.188 (
talk •
contribs)
I did some copyediting to improve the flow. Basically just took what was already in the article and shuffled it all around so that it makes more sense. I did some cite formatting too, still need to reformat a couple. I think it's much better now. I'm tired, I'll come back for another pass later. Crockspot 01:51, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
There. Fixed. Now it reads like an encyclopedic article. All text that didn't meet POV and RS requirements was justifiably excised. Blogs, radio shows, and published sources without fact-checking aren't good sources for encyclopedia articles. 71.100.230.32 02:54, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
I want to run through the blog sources one by one, because I think there are some issues overall.
We're better off looking for more RS sources of usage, like published columnists. - Crockspot 21:51, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
The paragraph beginning "Some right-leaning users of the term..." is very unencyclopedic and begs for citation. Anyone can make any claim about anything and say that 'some [unidentified] people' believe it. In addition, it doesn't add anything to the article that the 'definition' in the first paragraph doesn't already address. - 24.219.173.93 13:56, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
The sourcing on this page is just terrible. The citation to Safire's article leads to an International Herald Tribune page with no article on it, the Jonah Goldberg citation leads to an imaginary conversation in which Goldberg apparently has Bill Clinton using the phrase "high as a moonbat", and the Allen Kelly citation references a blog, which clearly doesn't pass muster as a reliable source. None of these are encyclopedic. I'm deleting them. 24.219.173.93 21:11, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
I have deleted the following from the section explaining the History of Use:
You'll see some of the problems with these claims if you actually follow the link to the article on the History Buff web page which this passage cites (it seems no one has checked out this source before). The Great Moon Hoax of 1835 is well known and wikipedia has an article about it. But the astronomer in question who supposedly looked at the moon was not Bernard Lovell (he was born in 1913) but rather Sir John Herschel (who was actually alive in 1835). The hoax was quite a big deal, but the article at History Buff makes no mention of "moonbats." Part of the hoax was to say that there were, as the cited web site puts it, "furry, winged men resembling bats" on the moon but History Buff suggests they were called "man-bats" rather than moonbats.
I think the original article series from the New York Sun that created the whole moon hoax story is online somewhere so someone who cares could take a look at it and see if the phrase "moonbats" appears somewhere. If so the above sentence could be reinstated, but obviously with reference to Herschel as the astronomer rather than Lovell. My guess though is that there is no such reference. The original sentence mentions the "batscope" which sounds ridiculous to me and which has nothing to do with Sir Alfred Charles Bernard Lovell, Sir John Herschel, or the Great Moon Hoax as far as I know.
Safire's column is much more informative on the term "moonbats." He does date the earliest reference to Heinlein (and he apparently spent some time trying to figure out the etymology) so I think we should keep it at that and maybe even expand the History of Use section with some more info from the Safire piece.
Actually, to be honest, I think this whole article is still somewhat worthy of deletion but won't bring that up in a formal fashion. And incidentally, wherever the term came from, it does not appear in the Oxford English Dictionary.-- Bigtimepeace 05:46, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
here's a reliable source that attributes popularizing the term moonbat to Instapundit. - Crockspot 16:15, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
I've recently discovered that Google News has a new archive search. It's pretty useful, and I've pulled up articles on some subjects that were more than 200 years old. Often you only get an abstract, but it is enough to write a good cite. I searched for "moonbat", and every hit before 2003 was in reference to an unrelated footrace. (Obviously it isn't perfect, because it missed some of the earlier sources that have already been documented.) But here are links to the searches that did yield good results (by year).
Crockspot 18:52, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
Could someone lengthen the article (and maybe shorten the references? The reference section is almost as long as the article)? Purple Is Pretty 23:22, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
The first sentence in the entry reads: "Moonbat (also "barking moonbat" and "moonbat crazy") is a term often used currently in U.S. politics as a political epithet referring to anyone that is liberal or on the left. "Wingnut" (or "right wing nut") is frequently preferred as the analogous epithet aimed at extremists on the political right.[1]"
The highlighted texts indicate an apparent bias on the author's part. People on the left of the political spectrum are described as liberal or on the left, while those on the right are identified by the pejorative term "extremists". Does this mean that one can only be an extremist if one's views are conservative, or to the right of the political spectrum of opinion? Left-wing or liberal politicians cannot be extremists?
I also find the grammar to be a bit dodgy in places.
I suggest changing this sentence to read: Moonbat (also "barking moonbat" and "moonbat crazy")is a term often used in U.S. political discourse as a pejorative epithet referring to anyone regarded as being liberal or on the left. Likewise, "wingnut" (or "right wing nut") is frequently preferred as an analogous epithet for referring to anyone regarded as being conservative or on the right. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.38.206.168 ( talk) 17:40, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
This is probably very pedantic and nitpicky, but the Moonbat as described in Heinlein's 'Space Jockey' was not the third stage of a single rocket, but was rather a spacecraft in its own right. Safire appears to have misinterpreted what Heinlein wrote, which was that the Moonbat carried out the third step of the Earth-moon journey, from a space station orbiting the moon to the lunar surface (the first two steps being from Earth's surface to a station in earth orbit in one ship, then from the Earth station to the lunar station in another). Perhaps the current text: as the name of the third stage of a rocket bound for the moon, should be replaced by something like: as the name of a spacecraft used to travel between a lunar space station and the moon's surface. 82.4.213.71 ( talk) 20:34, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
This article states: "One explanation for the current political use is that the term was derived from the name of liberal English author and activist George Monbiot." This appears to be obscure in the extreme - why would a term in the U.S. refer to some unknown Brit? Where's the reference for this? It certainly doesn't come from the only reference cited in the paragraph - indeed, that reference does mention the Heinlein story and also the bat-like XP-67 experimental pursuit plane (not bomber as the original NYT story mistakenly identifies it) which isn't even mentioned in this wiki piece. Suspect this is another attempt to wrangle in a UK connection into every wiki article - surprised this whole thing hasn't been re-written in UK English because this clearly is UK-based content. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.243.164.201 ( talk) 23:46, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
The cartoon strip "This Modern World" by leftist cartoonist Tom Tomorrow has a pair of characters -- one of whom is a would-be Sherlock Holmes named "Conservative Jones". The other is his Watson-like sidekick . . . Moonbat McWacky. The usual pattern of strips when these two appear is that Conservative, who is dressed as a detective, asks Moonbat questions about politics. Moonbat gives reasonable answers, which Conservative turns into illogical statements about liberals. So this would seem to be a "counter-usage" of the term as it is defined here. [jalp] 209.172.14.154 ( talk) 06:43, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
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May be connected to "governor moonbeam", an unflattering nickname of Jerry Brown Jr. as governor of California... AnonMoos ( talk) 05:31, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
Greetings, all. The current definition of the term in the article is as follows: " a pejorative political epithet used in United States politics, referring to liberals, progressives, or leftists (especially the far-left)." In the text itself, though, an example cited of the term's usage shows that "moonbat" is also used for conservative commentators such as Jonah Goldberg. I'd suggest we need both stronger sourcing and a more nuanced definition. - The Gnome ( talk) 09:17, 20 March 2022 (UTC)