tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692053.post224281808659959011..comments2023-11-03T06:35:48.003-05:00Comments on Shark and Shepherd: Is he being ironic?Rick Esenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07280070509167910367noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692053.post-11564788407111575872009-06-18T17:36:16.528-05:002009-06-18T17:36:16.528-05:00Plaisted, do you live on this planet?
You seem to...Plaisted, do you live on this planet?<br /><br />You seem to think that it is the duty of "organizations" to denounce its (semi-affiliated) "members" for "being loose cannons."<br /><br />I cannot recall such a thing, aside from Buckley's summary dismissal of the Birchers and Ayn Rand from the conservative movement, although I have a vague recollection that the AFL did toss a number of CIO officials for their open Communist membership.<br /><br />But lead on, Plaisted. Denounce all those on your side of the tree who are 'loose cannons,' (indicted or not). Give example, that others may follow!Dad29https://www.blogger.com/profile/08554276286736923821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692053.post-75857188858761782272009-06-18T16:31:49.506-05:002009-06-18T16:31:49.506-05:00This apparently includes Limbaugh, Hannity, Bellin...<i>This apparently includes Limbaugh, Hannity, Belling and Sykes</i>.<br /><br />Okay. Are they the sum total of conservatives? I thought "These people and their comments aren't representative of conservatism" was <i>your</i> line, not mine.<br /><br /><i>It includes people who think that aborting babies about to be born is rather nasty.</i><br /><br />I'm sure it includes some of them, yes. I can't think of any reason to assume it meant all of them, nor even most.<br /><br />Heck, I think that aborting babies about to be born is rather nasty. (The nature of awful situations is that sometimes the best course of action, or in any case a permissible one, is nasty.) I just don't think that using the gigantic megaphone to shriek "Killer!" again, and again, and again, and again, is a sensible response to the particular nastiness of it. Nor do I find it absurd to suppose that someone who had done so should face public scrutiny for the possibility that their actions contributed to subsequent violence.Clutchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692053.post-13235843589290777892009-06-18T16:00:03.661-05:002009-06-18T16:00:03.661-05:00The charge of inspiring and pandering to violent e...<i>The charge of inspiring and pandering to violent extremism is directed at some conservative commentators </i><br /><br />Actually he blames "the overheated right-wing lunacy that permeate mainstream radio, Fox News and various blogs every time there is a Democrat in the White House." This apparently includes Limbaugh, Hannity, Belling and Sykes. It includes people who think that aborting babies about to be born is rather nasty. I am not sure who it doesn't include other than those groovy Democrats who are dancing in the streets.Rick Esenberghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07280070509167910367noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692053.post-69102319957373914682009-06-18T14:36:58.333-05:002009-06-18T14:36:58.333-05:00Plaisted misrepresents Esenberg, so far as I can s...Plaisted misrepresents Esenberg, so far as I can see, in at least the following respect: by depicting him as aiming to show that the Nazis were more left than right. The actual claim, as Esenberg correctly notes here, was that it's just a wash -- there's as much reason to describe Nazis as leftists as to describe them as rightists (as modern US parlance would use these terms), and best of all would be not to attempt any such comparisons.<br /><br />This claim may be false -- I think it is -- and even crashingly false, but that's the claim he makes. Attacking a different one won't accomplish anything.<br /><br />Esenberg misrepresents Plaisted in at least the following respect: as holding that "conservatives promote 'hate' and are responsible for - or at least contribute to - murder." Framed this generally, that is not the claim. The charge of inspiring and pandering to violent extremism is directed at <i>some</i> conservative commentators (the term is almost too charitable in some cases). Plaisted's accusation as it bears on Esenberg seems to be that he credulously -- even disingenuously -- performs apologetics for some of these hate merchants (or some instances of hate-pandering, if you prefer focusing on the sin rather than the sinner), and not that he is a hate merchant himself. <br /><br />That charge may be false. It may even be crashingly false.* But that seems to be the charge. Raging against "the stone stupid enthusiasm for the idea that people like me <i>encourage hate and murder</i>" won't accomplish much, I think.<br /><br /><br />* I think it is false, but not, regrettably, by a whole lot. Substitute "incandescent stupidity and dishonest commentary" for "hate-pandering", and I'd consider it occasionally and approximately correct.Clutchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692053.post-36393436948832481532009-06-18T09:03:17.824-05:002009-06-18T09:03:17.824-05:00Well, Dad, it's always easy to "distance&...Well, Dad, it's always easy to "distance" yourself from someone after the fact, isn't it? Operation Rescue has been doing it with Roeder (without being all that upset with the result); other right-wing (yes, I said right-wing) white supremacists have been doing it with von Brunn and now the racist paramilitary Minutemen with Forde. <br /><br />They are in the fold until, ooops, they go off and do something, get caught, embarrass the movement and end up in jail. Then those left behind can "distance" themselves. But the damage is already done and somber press release doesn't quite hide the noise of the internal cheering.Mike Plaistedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18184502941014520240noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692053.post-75620724013989555352009-06-18T07:58:37.892-05:002009-06-18T07:58:37.892-05:00Well, Mr. Spice...CNN reported the story, taking i...Well, Mr. Spice...CNN reported the story, taking its cue from a couple of Lefty blogsites. Here's the pertinent text:<br /><br />"The nation’s largest Minutemen group has distanced itself from Ford, we should say, and we’ve learned that within Minutemen circles, she is considered a bit of a loose cannon..."<br /><br />See: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-balan/2009/06/17/cnn-graphic-labels-minuteman-movement-extremistsDad29https://www.blogger.com/profile/08554276286736923821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692053.post-67356177929985563922009-06-17T22:42:35.394-05:002009-06-17T22:42:35.394-05:00"What is your point?"
That's my que..."What is your point?"<br /><br />That's my question to you.<br /><br />You suggested this fellow's apparent antipathy to The Weekly Standard is incongruous with his white supremacist, anti-Semitic views. But it isn't. It's exactly in accord with them. Call it ankle biting if you will, but I've seen the same attempted distinction drawn elsewhere, and it needs debunking.illusory tenanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08524761974822871419noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692053.post-43099192480418923782009-06-17T20:30:25.713-05:002009-06-17T20:30:25.713-05:00Mr Spice says:
But seriosly, that's the probl...Mr Spice says:<br /><br /><i>But seriosly, that's the problem with the unidiminsional liberal-conservative/left-right continuum: too simplistic.</i><br /><br />Thank you. I've taken that quiz and I appreciate the complexity it introduces although it is predicated on libertarian assumptions and is limited by that but, then, any quiz would have some sort of foundational limitation. It's value is that it forces us to think past our normal assumptions about which teams we are on.Rick Esenberghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07280070509167910367noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692053.post-91534717161414858932009-06-17T20:20:10.386-05:002009-06-17T20:20:10.386-05:00Yeah, George, you are making the point - as I don...Yeah, George, you are making the point - as I don't think you have before - that this type of engagement is not worthwhile.<br /><br />The notion that Mike Plaisted is unaware of the devastating attacks on An Inconvenient Truth - by a court in the UK and all sorts of scientists - seems implausible to me, but maybe he truly doesn't know. <br /><br />I don't claim that my side is morally superior or smarter than the other side. Of course, I think we are more often right, but I don't think that people on the left are evil, have no souls, lust for unnecessary deaths, are nuts and lunatics, desire murder, etc. (Imagine if I had to respond to more than one post.)Indeed, if they are willing to acknowledge that they have no monopoly on the truth and are willing to - even if they are critical - engage what others say in good faith, I can learn from them.<br /><br />In fact, as I have said before, colleagues that I respect and love to interact with, friends and family (including my beloved daughter in law and one of my best friends in the world) are big lefties. So its kind of hard for me to deal with people who are so sure they are right that they think heaping vituperation on others is interesting or instructive. The problem with most of this medium is that it's boring. It doesn't have to be, but very few people are willing to engage and I fear that I largely chase the wrong ones.<br /><br />I do it because I think I see something in them that wants to have an honest and respectful debate, but I seem to be wrong more than I am right. In that sense, maybe I'm like Obama who overestimates other people's willingness to be reasonable. Maybe they taught us that in Langdell. <br /><br />I know that I write things that I sometimes wish I hadn't and that, like everyone else, I certainly overestimate my own reason and evenhandedness. But the stone stupid enthusiasm for the idea that people like me encourage hate and murder has gotten to me. It's made me question whether talking to these people is worthwhile.Rick Esenberghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07280070509167910367noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692053.post-36959306404464735032009-06-17T20:07:30.503-05:002009-06-17T20:07:30.503-05:00our difficulty in
thinking in dimensions beyond t...<i>our difficulty in <br />thinking in dimensions beyond the traditional three or four (length-width-height-time); imagine a fuzzy, moving, multi-colored buckyball -- difficult to grasp.</i><br /><br />Some of us refer to Satan now and then.Dad29https://www.blogger.com/profile/08554276286736923821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692053.post-62685285402139129222009-06-17T19:30:58.992-05:002009-06-17T19:30:58.992-05:00There is a broader point raised by this interactio...There is a broader point raised by this interaction — and many that unfold on several other blogs. Namely, it is hard to have a meaningful exchange in this medium. Too many participants are intent on scoring points, playing gotcha, etc. <br /><br />When the blogosphere has an impact, it most often is associated with hard news and factual information that the MSM has blown off or with analysis that is authoritative. <br /><br />So, when Rick comments on legal issues it is compelling regardless of your point of view. Or, when he or other brings facts to the fore that previously were not known, that has an impact. <br /><br />On the other hand, when Rick correctly dissects the likes of Plaisted, the predictable result is a petty food fight.<br /><br />What we need is more legal analysis and perspective from Rick and more hard news from him and others. <br /><br />Plaisted and others who are locked in to a perspective don't really add much.George Mitchellnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692053.post-85952226970163540872009-06-17T18:50:40.264-05:002009-06-17T18:50:40.264-05:00Rick wants to know if I can "take instruction...Rick wants to know if I can "take instruction". Two years into it and the professor thinks he's f-ing John Houseman. Talk about "seriously unhinged".<br /><br />It's nice to see such a careful, if selective, disection of my post here. It gives Rick another opportunity to say the same things all over again, without anything new to really prove his point about the supposed equivalency of left "hate" with right hate. The suggestion that Al Franken, Al Gore (please identify one wrong fact in "An Inconvenient Truth". Still waiting.), Keith Olberman and Michael Moore hold a candle, hate-wise, with the daily barrage of Beck, O'Reilly, Coulter, Limbaugh, Belling, Levine, Hannity, Sykes, Savage, et al, is crazy. But so is defining any part of the left as anti-Semetic, but that's the right-wing meme these days. If you repreat a lie often enough, it becomes perceived as the truth, which has been the right-wing shtick since Reagan.<br /><br />You can't take random (allegedly) stupid things said once in a while by lefties and compare it to the 24/7 campaign of misinformation and personal destruction that the right-wing echo chamber has conducted since Clinton in 1992. It is designed to dehumanize and delegitimize elected Democrats -- especially the most successful ones like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. As I said in my post (and Rick did not respond to), the wing-nuts don't just yell about how Obama is destroying the country; they taunt their listeners to get off their ass and do something about it. <br /><br />There is nothing like that going on on the left. To pretend we have such a message, much less the capacity to diseminate it is a deliberately distortion. To deny that the hatefully-intense right-wing messages distributed on so many free platforms is at least partially responsible for the violence of the infirm, if believed, is simply self-delusional.Mike Plaistedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18184502941014520240noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692053.post-2860389938615208422009-06-17T17:45:28.995-05:002009-06-17T17:45:28.995-05:00Rick,
I usually like your interaction with the le...Rick,<br /><br />I usually like your interaction with the left. I'm one of those "fuzzy buckyball types." Economically conservative, socially (get government out of the business of social engineering from both ends). And I like the reasoned, middle of the road approach of your site. But Mike is seriously unhinged. He is one of those people that Jim should feel the need to "own and denouce"<br /><br />Both sides have nutcases, violent or otherwise, who cause much more harm than good to their causes. <br />There are many people on both sides that you can have reasonable discussions with on some subjects, and others whom I may not describe as reasonable, but you can still hold civil discussions with. But Mike would fit neither of those, and I'm with the crowd that thinks you would be best off not dealing with him in any way. <br /><br />I don't think Jim needs to "own" any left wing nut, and more than I need to "own" a right wing nut. I just think we all could spend more time denoucing the nuts closest to us. I don't hold my lefty friends responsible for Mike's unhinged, illogical, and pointless rants, and I don't think I need defend any equally idiotic (that is a tough threshold) people on my side. We will all be better off when we can treat them like the crazy uncles of the left and right. I won't hold your idiot's against you if you won't hold mine against me.Curtnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692053.post-18604885368279877872009-06-17T16:27:10.700-05:002009-06-17T16:27:10.700-05:00Dad29: Obscure for about another 24 hour news cycl...Dad29: Obscure for about another 24 hour news cycle, I'd guess.<br /><br />Mr. Essenberg: Thanks for letting me off the hook. But seriosly, that's the problem with the unidiminsional liberal-conservative/left-right continuum: too simplistic. In mapping ideology, it would be more accurate to utilize a multi-axis measuring tape. This, however, introduces its own problems, specifically, our difficulty in <br />thinking in dimensions beyond the traditional three or four (length-width-height-time); imagine a fuzzy, moving, multi-colored buckyball -- difficult to grasp.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.politicalcompass.org/test" rel="nofollow">The Political Compass</a> offers a nice little online ideology quiz that at least incorporates two dimensions of political ideology -- economic and social -- as defined as one's view of the role of government in various aspects of life. They even have a <a href="http://apps.facebook.com/thepoliticalcompass/" rel="nofollow">Facebook app</a>. After you take the quiz you get the opportunity to see where you fit in relation to political figures of various leanings. Highly recommended.jimspicehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16316014985662331998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692053.post-10314460930333062582009-06-17T16:15:52.915-05:002009-06-17T16:15:52.915-05:00Well, Jim, my personal denunciation of this crazy ...Well, Jim, my personal denunciation of this crazy dame is herewith posted.<br /><br />Could you find a story a bit less obscure next time?Dad29https://www.blogger.com/profile/08554276286736923821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692053.post-55897010850792972532009-06-17T15:04:45.373-05:002009-06-17T15:04:45.373-05:00Tom
You know I could point out that people who ar...Tom<br /><br />You know I could point out that people who are concerned about conspiratorial Zionism are just as, if not (these days), more likely to be found on the left, Or I could say that your observation proves my point. It suggests that von Brunn was motivated by this anti-semitism and hatred of Israel which are not right wing principles at all.<br /><br />But, really, what's the point? What is your point? Do you really think that a socialist, anti-semitic, 9-11 truthing, socialist, racist neo-Nazi has anything to do with the left and right in the US or, for that matter, planet Earth> Or are you just ankle biting?<br /><br />Mr. Spice<br /><br />You might want to address the anti-military nut who took out a military recruiter the day after Tiller was killed. But, in my book, you don't have to because I wouldn't blame the anti-war movement for him. Nor would I think you need to own him.Rick Esenberghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07280070509167910367noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692053.post-9263136055083793222009-06-17T14:51:43.201-05:002009-06-17T14:51:43.201-05:00Dad29:
I, for one, immediately denounced the acti...Dad29:<br /><br />I, for one, immediately denounced the actions of these far-left groups, though I'm fairly sure my conservative kindergarten classmates discounted my condemnation out of hand.<br /><br />Rather than looking 40 years into the past for a liberal scapegoat, it might be more useful to target a more contemporary perpetrator. I'd suggest about the closest you could come is the uber-environmentalist movement which bomb offices and spike trees. They don't get my approval, nor the approval of any of the liberals with which I associate. Tree sitters and whale watchers, sure. But the appropriate response to extremists on either end of the spectrum is for the mainstream movement to own them, and denounce them. Not evade and cast aspersions toward the other side.jimspicehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16316014985662331998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692053.post-51441871163202128642009-06-17T14:20:12.531-05:002009-06-17T14:20:12.531-05:00Jim, I imagine that the Right, in general, is as &...Jim, I imagine that the Right, in general, is as "responsible" for Ms. Ford's actions as the Left, in general, was for the actions of the Weather Underground and SLA.Dad29https://www.blogger.com/profile/08554276286736923821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692053.post-44921181037689155602009-06-17T14:16:38.144-05:002009-06-17T14:16:38.144-05:00You can apparently, it seems, graduate from the Un...<i>You can apparently, it seems, graduate from the University of Wisconsin Law School without appreciating the distinction between condemning a reprehensible practice and calling for murder</i><br /><br />My father, a '32 MULS grad, told me that UW-Mad LS grads were "confused."Dad29https://www.blogger.com/profile/08554276286736923821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692053.post-78752754887427528632009-06-17T13:19:13.371-05:002009-06-17T13:19:13.371-05:00It will be interesting to see how the right tries ...It will be interesting to see how the right tries to disown the <a href="http://news.google.com/news?um=1&ned=us&hl=en&q=%22Shawna+Forde%22" rel="nofollow">Minutemen murders</a>.jimspicehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16316014985662331998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692053.post-9671113031586408062009-06-17T12:29:47.710-05:002009-06-17T12:29:47.710-05:00its the absence of open carry rights in DC that le...its the absence of open carry rights in DC that leaves high value targets like ther Holocaust museum and people in it at risk - DC's gun carry ban has gotta go!Mike Stollenwerkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00632292396713689206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692053.post-33868751730983680302009-06-17T11:00:00.038-05:002009-06-17T11:00:00.038-05:00"[James von Brunn's] alternative target w..."[James von Brunn's] alternative target was apparently the offices of The Weekly Standard."<br /><br />That's not in the least surprising, nor is it evidence of mitigating leftist sentiment. These people view The Weekly Standard as an organ of conspiratorial Zionism.<br /><br />As adept students of American political history, I'm surprised that neither you nor McIlheran seem to be aware of this.illusory tenanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08524761974822871419noreply@blogger.com