Free Association of Equals
By Mitch Berg
It is so good to have Fishsticks back blogging.
Over at TrueNorth, he tackles last week’s Anti-Strib flap:
For the record, it’s ignorant, and in the character of “dump” blogs, it clouds an issue more than enlightens it. It is more embarrassing to the conservative audience it would support than to the people it attacks or the liberal left.
While as I noted last week I think Eberly has learned a lot from this dustup (more than any comparable leftyblogger would under similar circumstances; when was the last time you saw a regional leftyblogger get called on the carpet by his own fellow bloggers for an ethical or moral lapse, much less actually acknowledge the problem the way Tracy did?), Westover agrees about the upshot:
Racist? I tend to reserve the “R” word for people that take action based on race, but the post certainly violates the conservative principle of judging individuals and not aggregating people by ethnicity or some other characteristic.
Not to speak for either Westover or Eberly, but if you’re a first-principles conservative, that is among the most damning indictments of racism, casual or otherwise; that it treats people as groups and categories (to say nothing of wrongly) rather than as individuals.
There’s a discussion to be had there, naturally.
Of course, no discussion is needed about the left’s response; Fishsticks loads his cannon with grapeshot and lowers them to deck level in re Karl Bremer’s vacuous attack on all regional conservative bloggers and, incidentally, Eberly:
As to the responses that included my name, they are worthy of the original post – they do the same thing, aggregate everyone associated with the MOB with an ignorant idea that, in fact, violates conservative principles.
If anyone were interested in really busting the Anti-Strib post, he might have started a conversation about the Iroquois constitution.
Read the whole thing. Welcome Fishsticks back.
And marvel at how much more lopsided the intellectual battle among the bloggers in this town just got.
November 16th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Funny how you can never admit to the mote in the eye of a fellow wingnut without immediately inventing a hypothetical beam in the eye of some made-up lefty. Never, ever. It’s positively Pavlovian with you.
November 16th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Carefully sidestepping the pile of poo left by angryclown…
he might have started a conversation about the Iroquois constitution
That point was brought up in the lengthy and lively discussion that ensued. Those dialogs tend to happen when dissent isn’t shut down as it is on certain other blogs.
November 16th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
In a similar note, the post did seem to revive the MOB a bit and make people think about what the MOB is and what is acceptable and is not.
November 16th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
“”And marvel at how much more lopsided the intellectual battle among the bloggers in this town just got.””
That’s funny, you here all week.
At best it returns the “intellectual battle” to an even keel, and that’s no Dig on the distinguished Captain, just pointing out how much has been missing in his absence.
Flash
November 16th, 2007 at 7:41 pm
some made-up lefty
Note to Karl Bremer – the Clown sez you don’t exist.
November 16th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
an even keel,
Riiight, because we were reeling at the repeated intellectual assaults by Wege, MNob, the Publius fratboys, Jeff Fecke and “Phoenix Woman”.
November 16th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
Mitch, why do you keep hitting yourself *laughing*
November 16th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
“Of course, those questions and delving into historical interpretation aren’t as much fun, at least for some people, as playing with photo shop or seizing the opportunity to indiscriminately throw around dirt. That’s one of the reason’s I shrugged and put my blog on hiatus. The gutter isn’t even a nice place to visit.””
Cap’n, truer words were never spoken
November 16th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Funny how you can never admit to the mote in the eye of a fellow wingnut without immediately inventing a hypothetical beam in the eye of some made-up lefty.
I admit to being guilty of the same behavior…when I was five:
My brother: Did your friend mess around with my stereo?
Me: Yeah, but you said a cuss word!
Liberal: Did that colleague of yours make a potentially racist post?
Mitch: Yeah, but the liberals are dumb!
November 17th, 2007 at 8:00 am
Liberal: Did that colleague of yours make a potentially racist post?
Mitch: Yeah, but the liberals are dumb!
If that’s the way you characterize my response to this flap, then with all due respect perhaps I’m not that far off.
November 17th, 2007 at 9:53 am
That’s funny, you here all week.
Translation: “I know you are, but what am I?”
November 17th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Tim in StP says:
potentially racist
Not to put too fine a point on it, but what the @#$ does that mean? Can you, or anyone else, explain what “potentially racist” means? Is it like “virtual reality” or maybe like Beatlemania? You know, not the real thing, but an incredible simulation?
Either you believe that Tracy’s piece was racist or you don’t. And if you do, it’s incumbent on you to explain why. Putting a qualifier like “potentially” in front of it is an evasion.
November 19th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
Can you, or anyone else, explain what “potentially racist” means?
It’s sort of like the feminist notion of “potential victim” (meaning “all women”); it implies that any person (or statement) can, with enough effort, be turned into a victim and/or racist.
Or so it seems.