skippy the bush kangaroo

Sunday, March 23, 2008

cc drudge, taylor marsh, huffpo, josh marshall; bcc rove, stone, penn; cya atwater

mark kleiman wonders what he missed:

... let me, just this once, defend glenn reynolds…

but when reynolds sends an item link to a posting of the easter poem "dulce lignem dulce clavo" by instapunk contributor "chain gang," i don't see where glenn greenwald is justified in tying reynolds to the racist rant posted on the same site by a different contributor, "old punk."

glenn reynolds sometimes says, and links to, silly and offensive stuff (for example this swipe at oprah, which greenwald points to in an update) and i haven't been backward in criticizing him. but he didn't endorse "old punk's" diatribe, even by implication, and i thought our side tried to be above guilt-by-association. has that changed?

somehow i keep missing these crucial memos.
full disclosure: without actually reading instapundit's post, we took greenwald at his word, or at least his intent, and wrote a post condemning prof. reynolds' supposed example of racism. upon reading mark's detailed explanation of the different posts by different people on the same blog in question, and then actually reading (there's an idea!) what instapundit wrote, we deleted our inaccurate post. our apologies to anyone who may have read it.

but to mark's question: yes, you did miss the memo, mark. the left side of blogtopia (and yes, we coined that phrase) did agree a few months ago to abandon principled debate in favor of duplicitiousness, invective and logical fallacies in lieu of actual points and structured argument.

we're sorry, we didn't keep the memo, so we can't really tell you exactly when this was decided, but we're pretty sure it was sometime early in the primary season.

that's when lefty's decided it was not only all right to utulize the same unprincipled screaming tactics to pollute public discourse as the righties, but it was also quite acceptable to use them against fellow progressives.

we can't say for sure whether it was the obamabots or the hillarybots that fired the first shot, and we certainly don't care. but both sides have been terribly remiss in gracious behavior, let alone adult and productive debate.

therefore we are not at all suprised that one of the leading writers of left blogtopia and yes, we coined that phrase, would use the same sort of tactics, this one being "guilt by association;" (see: wright, jerimiah) on the right side of blogtopia (y!wctp!).

we're sorry you didn't get the memo, mark; but feel free now to no longer be constrained by the actual need to be fair, transparent, logical and calm in your writing. in fact, apparently the crazier you can sound, the better (see: kos, daily).

we would link to various examples of this bad behavior, but the sad truth is, it's being performed by writers we heretofor had considered to be good friends of ours. and the other sad truth is, one doesn't have to click very many links to find examples of such; it has permeated all of blogtopia, and yes, we coined that phrase.

addendum: let us be clear, since apparently all these various posts are eliciting emotions high enough to cloud everyone's judgement.

yes, the post at instapunk was incredibly racist. but it was written by someone different than whom instapundit linked to.

i am simply agreeing w/mark, in that it's not particularly fair to hold reynolds responsible for a post he didn't link to, and thereby endorse.

sure, the right is full of racism. but greenwald could have easily written a post about the racism of the right, and and racism of that writer at instapunk, without bringing reynolds into the mix. but that wouldn't have gotten as big a response, and that duplicitous sort of writing is what we are objecting to.

if we can't, as mark implies, remain above the same sort of debating tricks that we deplore when the right uses them, are we any better than they?

Labels:

posted by skippy at 12:12 PM |

26 Comments:

" Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. "
—Matthew 26:52

Lefties have been in a feeding frenzy, hurling unprincipled invective directed at the right, for years now. It is quite rich to see the left suddenly discover that these tactics are unfair, puerile and counterproductive. It is unfortunate that this realization has only happened when the same tactics are finally (inevitably) turned inward.

=darwin
word verification : "obmumh" ... tell me that's a coincidence!
commented by Blogger Nuclear, 1:33 PM PDT  
lefties have been in a feeding frenzy, hurling unprincipled invective directed at the right, for years now.

well, that's kind of the pot calling the kettle black, but it doesn't help actual debate when either side resorts to it, no matter at whom it's directed.
commented by Blogger skippy, 2:06 PM PDT  
In all fairness, skippy, it's still a racist rant. And the best the Right as a whole, now aware of it, has come up with in condemnation is to mention that Dan Collins said it was "ugly". They're too busy jumping on Greenwald to care about the conservative id making it's latest showing.

Let's not allow guilt by association to cover up for plain guilt, shall we?

Regards, C
commented by Blogger Cernig, 2:09 PM PDT  
I have noticed, from reading both left and right blogs and comments, that the left only decided that stridency and name calling are bad since it started being from the left to the left. Please look back a year or so, and notice the invective directed toward the right. The right does some name calling of its own, but admits it. The left has pretended it was not done by them until they started devouring their own.
commented by Blogger Eric, 2:12 PM PDT  
This post should either win the Bulwer-Lytton or the Jon Swift Award of the year.

And if it doesn't, it's always an honor just to be nominated!
commented by Blogger The Sailor, 2:14 PM PDT  
>"The right does some name calling of its own, but admits it."

Reeeeeealy!? Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Malkin, McLain & Hagee, Robertson, Coulter et al spew hate, racial invective, christian white supremacy 24/7 ... and they not only don't admit it, they rejoice in it!
commented by Blogger The Sailor, 2:24 PM PDT  
I commend you on your integrity Skippy.
commented by Blogger Gateway Pundit, 2:42 PM PDT  
I've read that rant.
It's harsh. It's somwhat unfair in that the people named are not in my mind actually nigger.
I think Wright is an racist bigot and a living, breathing advertisment for atheism. That does not make him a nigger. He would be a racist bigot if he was purple striped.
Simpson is not a nigger. He is a double murderer who evaded the law soley on a tiny amount of doubt and big amount of "I'm a famous black actor, you can't penalize without being racist"
Tyson is a thug who happens to be black. A thug who does not understand what "No" means in relation to sex. Being black did not make him that.

Besides nigger simply meant "black" and now means "black, slave".

What the rant targets are idiots.
The idiots who like to dress up as gangster (Why don't they dress up as Al Capone ? Man had many faults but style at least.). Who think education is for.. who ? People who's taxes going to pay their welfare/their stores are going to be robbed by them ?
Let's be honest if they were white they'd be the kind of people the term "white trash" was invented for.
Americas Idiots happen to be mostly black. Here in Europe they're mostly white, at least when it comes to the part of dressing gangsta like.
The blacks I regularly interact with - hard working/studying men/women.
This rant does not call these people niggers.

This rant was about those who sit on their ass all day, collecting welfare, bring more kids into the world and teach these kids that all they have to do is look cool, collect welfare and pop out more kids. If you're male you have no responsibilities for your kids. If someone complains scream "My Grandpa was a slave you owe me".

This rant was also directed at the unwillingness of other people, no matter the color of their skin, to accept that a) not all (as in quite a lot sadly) black are sterling examples of human beings working for a better future of them, their children and fellow man b) slavery is done and over as to why they should be excused for being a waste of oxygen and c) when white people engage in this sort of anti-social behavior they get called "white trash", "trailer trash", wigger or "chav" (Britain), so why not black people get to be called names too ?

So, have at it.

HM, in case I'm stupid and comments are moderated/my browser fooled me: Disregard that second post I suck cocks (Or don't approve it, meh)
commented by Anonymous DoesNotMatter, 3:19 PM PDT  
"...and i thought our side tried to be above guilt-by-association. has that changed?"


Goodness! When the hell was that?

Was that before they branded Reagan as a "racist" on the basis that that he spoke at a political even in what happens to be a blue county because 16 years before some civil rights activists were killed in a neighboring county?

Progressives don't participate in discourse. They hate people who disagree with them for the crime of disagreeing. They prosecute this crime as a total rhetorical war in which "all is fair," and big lies and guilt-by-association attacks, no matter how tendentious, are moderated only by the amount of media force availible to push them forward.

Every week the left launches one or two truley eggregious attacks against open, pluralistic, responsible discourse - by which I mean attacks apart from the usual speciousness and hate or outright projections of political will, which others might object to, but which they may confront head-on.

It is rare that it happens that one of these exceptionally duplicitous attacks causes a progressive to pause and say, hey guys, that's low."

I could applaud such apostates, who are almost uniformly shot from the rear with accusations of secret fascist affinities, but such moments of apparent galantry are always girded with the dishonest trope, "...we don't have to be like the other guys."

When a progressive acts in bad faith; sockpuppets, sets off bombs, dehumanizes their opponents, poisons the well with hoaxes, malliciously misquotes, seeks to criminalize the opposition, lies, or hates - they are not momentarily lapsing into "the other guys'" millieu. They are being themselves as they have been since before the French Revolution.

When some progressive tries to cover for lefty malfeasance with the "we don't have to be like the other guys" trope, it can only ever be one of two things:

A) A knowing aparatchik'S calculated "force-protection" measure to quaranteen bad exposure, or

B) A spell, nervously whispered by yearling who, despite the manechean allegory painted on the inside of the blindfold he's chosen to wear, has caught an accidental glimpse of who his comrades really are.
commented by Anonymous jummy, 3:25 PM PDT  
When a democrat DA in Jena decided to prosecute some black teens as "attemted murderers" for participating in a schoolyard fistfight, progressives launched a national campaign calling Republicans "racist".

So, what really would be the point in honoring this guilt-by-association-by-association attack by discussing the racist rant lying three degrees of separation from the attack's victim?

If that post was really the issue, greenwald would have attacked it. That's not what happened. Rather, greenwald saw this rant, no worse really than what much of Hillary Clinton's progressive democrat base has had to say in recent months in various nooks and eddies of the net, and regarded it as not primarily objectionable, but rather as useful.

By picking it up and swinging it at Glenn Reynolds, Greenwald exposed himself as someone who hates a centrist libertarian more than he hates a racist.
commented by Anonymous jummy, 3:46 PM PDT  
This guilt-by-association attack, we should all keep in mind, is presented to us by a regular contributor to Pat Buchannan's AMCONMAG and a Ron Paul supporter.

And there is a gentleman above in the comments calling himself Cernig admonishing us to look past greenwald's malfeasance who is himself a confirmed liar and practitioner of the greenwaldian form.
commented by Anonymous jummy, 4:06 PM PDT  
Anyone who calls Reynolds a "centrist libertarian" has his head so far up his ass, it's amazing he can type at a computer.
commented by Blogger Blue Texan, 4:19 PM PDT  
It just came to me within the past few weeks y'all why so many folks are hating on Barack Obama. He doesn't fit the model. He ain't white. He ain't rich and he ain't privileged.

Hillary fits the mold. Europeans fit the mold. Giuliani fits the mold. White men fit the mold.
commented by Anonymous Rev. Wright, 4:27 PM PDT  
"He ain't white. He ain't rich and he ain't privileged"

LOL! He's all three, actually.
commented by Anonymous jummy, 4:30 PM PDT  
Blue Texan "Anyone who calls Reynolds a "centrist libertarian" has his head so far up his ass, it's amazing he can type at a computer."

This post proves the point about lefty invectives. I have seen thousands of these mostly always comming from the left and in greater proportion from progressives. Hillary is now being attacked by these and her followera are being driven from the progressive site. Nobobody who is moderate or conservative is surprized by this because they are used to being treated in this manner. Blue Texan is just another foul mouthed example who does not even get the point of the original post.
commented by Anonymous Anonymous, 5:01 PM PDT  
It is interesting that Obama once led us to believe that his great healing hands would include forging rational compromises with Republican jerk offs.

Now he is attacking HRC as being to cuddly with McCain.

I can't emphasize enough how much I agree in not being punked into playing by Marquis de Queensbury rules when agents of the greatest threat to democracy EVER is busy kicking us in the balls. The people you refer to seem to have a hard time keeping their mouths shut.
commented by Blogger liquiddaddy, 5:14 PM PDT  
Well, Glenn Reynolds links to reason.com and slate, and ...
The guy has to be stopped.
commented by Blogger Laura, 5:40 PM PDT  
I like you Skippy, but getting a high five from The Gateway Pundit made my shoulder hurt. I also took a shower. I think I understand where you are coming from, but I'm beginning to think it's an old model. I'm not sure, but I think I'm regressing to the days when it was right or wrong, & Greenwald was right & Renyolds is always wrong. Maybe it's the grandbabies.
commented by Blogger coldH2O, 6:11 PM PDT  
Skippy, have you seen the way Glenn Reynolds and his right-wing supporters have been characterizing the actual racist screed on the blog that Glenn linked to? Quite aside from the issue of whether Reynolds is being disingenuous about not knowing that a blog he links to as much as he has to Instapunk allows racists to post there, what about how Reynolds actually feels about what "Chain Gang" actually wrote? Paraphrasing, his response is, Yeah, I guess it is a pretty nasty post, but you know the guy does have a point, etc., etc., etc.

The fact that Reynolds doesn't, in his heart of hearts, think that Chain Gang wrote anything worse than just a little bit intemperate, in my view, goes a long toward explaining why posting at Instapunk is no big deal to him, even if he had seen the post in question.

There's a foul double standard at work here, and I think the left needs to shine a light on that whenever it rears its ugly head.
commented by Blogger Kathy, 6:30 PM PDT  
You pack of homos need to eat shit and die.
commented by Anonymous Goombasa, 7:46 PM PDT  
thanks for participating, goombasa!
commented by Blogger skippy, 8:13 PM PDT  
I was just wondering if "obamabot" was also coined here?
commented by Blogger ChenZhen, 8:36 PM PDT  
William Hazlitt explained the nature of it in his 1820 essay, "On the Spirit of Partisanship."

Conservatives and liberals play the game of politics differently, Hazlitt wrote, because they have different motivations. Liberals are motivated by principles and tend to believe that personal honor can be spared in political combat. They may, in fact, become vain about their highmindedness. Hazlitt condemns the mildness as a mistake, both in moral reasoning and in political strategy. "They betray the cause by not defending it as it is attacked, tooth and nail, might and main, without exception and without remorse."

The conservatives, on the other hand, start with a personal interest in the conflict. Not wishing to lose their hold on power, they are fiercer. "We"---i.e., the liberals, or the "popular cause," in Hazlitt's terminology---"stand in awe of their threats, because in the absence of passion we are tender of our persons.
commented by Blogger racrecir, 8:41 PM PDT  
If you agree with a speaker's point, you are very likely to regard her as funny, blunt or bold and will tend to take her evidence at face value; if you disagree, you will take the same words as unreasonable and hostile, and will be sceptical of any facts she cites. This is a built-in bias that all humans (you, your allies, your opponents) have.
I assure you that people on both the Left and Right have, over the last 30+ years, been every bit as rude, dishonest, and inflammatory as they accuse their opponents of being. Today's rhetoric is nothing new.
commented by Anonymous Classical Liberal, 8:16 AM PDT  
Very interesting indeed!

http://no-effort-money.blogspot.com/
commented by Anonymous alicia, 9:32 AM PDT  
"the left side of blogtopia (and yes, we coined that phrase) did agree a few months ago to abandon principled debate in favor of duplicitiousness, invective and logical fallacies in lieu of actual points and structured argument."

Only a few months ago?
commented by Blogger Mister Snitch!, 9:32 PM PDT  

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