Useless Idiots

So if you counterprotest a “peace” rally, that must naturally mean you’re “pro-war” or “anti-peace”, right?

Nobody could be that juvenile or stupid.  Right?

Bear in mind, I’m an inherently civil guy.  While I don’t mind mixing it up with people (hence, I blog and host a talk show), I don’t especially relish conflict. 

But Ken Avidor is not a very bright person.  He may be the one person on earth who makes Eric Zaetsch look coherent.    The only person who seems actually too dumb to post on the Dump Bachmann site (note to Eva Young:  You got me.  When a site that draws 2,500 visitors a day mentions a site that draws maybe 100, it’s a sign that I’m desperate for traffic.  Good call).

It’s a shame, really, that Chuck Olson – who is an unapologetic lefty, but seems to be a relatively reasonable guy, and who interviewed me for the “Uptake” site, the  left-leaning videoblogger site that carries Avidor’s little peal of self indulgence, before the demonstration yesterday – has to be associated with such a hamster.

On the other hand – if the other side has to dig THAT far down to respond, it’s probably a sign of intellectual bankruptcy.  Redundant as the phrase is when Avidor is involved.

Note to lefty videobloggers:  If you want to get footage of me, just ask.  It’s not like I’m camera-shy.  You have only your argument to lose.  He says with a half-smile.

UPDATE: Mike McIntee and Chuck Olson note that Uptake has changed Avidor’s original headline.  I thank them for this. 

As to what to call us?  Good question.  Anti-pullout?  I gotta think about that.

And for those among you (Flash?  I’m talkin’ to you!) who will point out my occasional lapses into ire, referring to “peace” protesters as “pro-genocide”; enh.  Half of it’s a fair cop.  I’m human.  But the fact is, when the Vietnam protesters got their way, millions died.  Had the anti-Cold War protesters gotten theirs, hundreds of millions would still be beholden to Communism, languishing in the Gulag (and that the Russians seem to be headed back toward that state doesn’t take away from the magnificence of the freedoms that Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Bulgarians, Slovenians and former East Germans now enjoy).  How are today’s protesters any different?

You answer that – and for my part, I’ll try to do as well as Mike and Chuck did, rhetoric-wise.

24 thoughts on “Useless Idiots

  1. So if you counterprotest a “peace” rally, that must naturally mean you’re “pro-war” or “anti-peace”, right? Nobody could be that juvenile or stupid. Right?

    Exactly. Nobody could be thatstupid:

    “Pro-Hussein demonstrators will gather…”
    “The pro-rape, pro-genocide demonstrations will be taking place…”
    “I do indeed believe the demonstrators are marching in support of dictators and thugs.”

  2. TiSP,

    Hussein committed genocide. His regime (and his sons) systematically raped women – for political ends, to terrorize, to interrogate. They were dictators and thugs.

    The war removed him from office.

    To demonstrate against his removal is to give tacit approval to his actions.

    Pro-genocide. Pro-rape.

    I am not, and have never been, “pro-war”. War is, at best, the second-least of all possible evils. “Anti-peace”? No, very much pro-peace; my son will be of military age before too long. But “peace” is not what we’ll get if we withdraw from Iraq – not that any of the “peace” protesters want to talk about that.

  3. The war has also resulted in the premature blowing up kids, women and the elderly, not to mention almost 4,000 US troops, but I would never imagine calling you or anyone else in favor of The Debacle “pro-US deaths” or “pro-child mangling.” Nor would I or any reasonable person say that your counter-demonstration gives tacit approval to Haditha and Abu Ghraib since to demonstrate in favor of our government’s actions in Iraq gave rise to these situations. That’s insane and I’m puzzled as to why you continue to defend this specious reasoning of yours.

  4. The war has also resulted in the premature blowing up of kids, women and the elderly, not to mention almost 4,000 US troops, but I would never imagine calling you or anyone else in favor of The Debacle “pro-US deaths” or “pro-child mangling.” Nor would I or any reasonable person say that your counter-demonstration gives tacit approval to Haditha and Abu Ghraib since our government’s actions in Iraq gave rise to these situations. That’s insane and I’m puzzled as to why you continue to defend this specious reasoning of yours.
    (reposted to fix typos.)

  5. Hey Mitch,
    Kermit contacted The UpTake about the headline (which Ken did not write) and I agreed it was an unfair characterization. I don’t think anyone is anti-peace. So the headline, supporting copy and the video title were changed last night, well before you posted this. The UpTake may have a viewpoint, but we’re going to be fair on coverage.

  6. You’re right Mitch, and as Mcintee said we corrected that bad headline ASAP.
    What would you want to be called, btw?
    Right now we’re calling you counter-protestors, and pro-occupation.

    Thanks again for the long interview saturday, which I hope to have up soon.

    -chuck

  7. You knuckleheads started rooting for war at a time when other options were on the table and now oppose an end to it anytime in the foreseeable future. You are pro-war.

    And whining about fair treatment in light of the ridiculous names you heap on your opponents every day on this blog? Please. No one, at this moment in history, could conceivably be called “pro-Saddam”. Saddam Hussein is dead, as you may have noticed. He is not remotely at issue. Lefties are inherently fair-minded, which is why Chuckumentary is being so accommodating.

    But you are pro-war. You love war. In fact, maybe you and war should get a room, the way you’re tounging and pawing each other on this blog.

  8. But the fact is, when the Vietnam protesters got their way, millions died.

    I’d like to see the numbers on that but for sake of argument I’ll pretend you’re right. Do you think the protesters had “get what we want and make millions die” on their to-do list? Of course you don’t. On the flip-side why not mention the untold number of American lives spared, the families not torn apart, the billions of dollars that were saved when the protesters “got their way”? It’s a dishonest, cheap rhetorical device used to passive-aggressively slur your opponents. Perhaps you and Mr. Avidor have more in common than you thought (now that’s a passive-aggressive slur!).

  9. I wasn’t at the march, so maybe somebody can answer this question. Were there any protesters carrying any signs or chanting any slogans about Afghanistan? Isn’t that also a war and an occupation? Are anti-war protesters neutral about Afghanistan, or are they only anti-Iraq-war.

  10. Pingback: Shot in the Dark » Blog Archive » Unpleasant Civility

  11. […] I responded at the time – if you want to talk to me, just ask. I’ll take on all comers, because – depending on who you are and what your motivations are – I either have no trouble talking across ideological divides (hence I had a great time talking on MPR and with Chuck Olson in the past few months), or I’m just plain smarter than you and dealing with your arguments is child’s play (certain other adversaries that shall remain nameless), which is kinda sad considering I’m really no great shakes in the “brain” department myself. […]

    Rolling on the floor, laughing out loud.

    You get spanked regularly, you deny it, you bluster about it, but you do.

    Your ‘taking on all comers’ normally amounts to pointilistic, pendantic blather, usually missing the piont overall, and nearly always failing to account for fact. Tim nailed you on the head, and AC followed it up – OMG Mitch, if you actually believe this, you are a sad, sad, sad man. No, really.

  12. You get spanked regularly, you deny it, you bluster about it, but you do.

    In your humble – and wrong – opinion.

    Your ‘taking on all comers’ normally amounts to pointilistic, pendantic blather,

    Which seems to go completely over your head, since my “pointilistic blather” usually sets you off on a round of screecy shrill ad-hominem – the mark of someone who’s terribly insecure about things.

    Mitch, if you actually believe this, you are a sad, sad, sad man. No, really.

    And you have left over 300 comments, totalling about 72,000 words (a typical small book-and-a-half) of almost-invariably insulting, ad-hominem on this “sad sad sad” man’s blog in the past nine months.

    I mean – why?

    At least I have a purpose. I enjoy doing this.

    If everything about this little exercise of mine is so depraved, what DO you think you’re getting out of it? Especially given that you’ve lied about your identity several times to skirt being banned from the blog you claim to hate so much!

    Makes no difference to me – even if we leave rightness and wrongness out of it (and let’s, for now, even though you’ve been pretty uniformly wrong about everything we’ve disagreed on), your every single visit puts $.001 in my kids’ college fund. So it’s a win-win for me, even without the entertainment value of watching you get the pedantic vapors every time people don’t roll over for you!

  13. I didn’t make the claim that I did, but I have.. just as you’ve claimed (ludicrously) that it never happened..

    That kind of bluster and bravado is self-defeating on it’s face, it’s an impossible reality that simply indicts you as both utterly insecure, and a fool.

    “If everything about this little exercise of mine is so depraved, what DO you think you’re getting out of it? Especially given that you’ve lied about your identity several times to skirt being banned from the blog you claim to hate so much!”

    Actually, Mitch, I NEVER ONCE LIED about my identity, I used another name when you, in your childish, churlishness, banned me. I never denied being me, not once, ever.

    Considering you get really bent out of shape about being called a liar, and in fact BANNED me for saying so, once again, you don’t live within the standards you demand, thus, you’re a hypocrite, and yes, you just now, again, got spanked, by me.

    Makes no difference to me – even if we leave rightness and wrongness out of it (and let’s, for now, even though you’ve been pretty uniformly wrong about everything we’ve disagreed on),

    That’s both – your wrong opinion – and the kind of blustering crappola that makes you look like an utter idiot. Do you seriously, I mean it, seriously think you’ve never been shown to be wrong by me? OMG.

    Let me count just a couple.

    Recently – you claimed the subject wasn’t pork, when your posts title was “PORK”

    You claimed that the 2nd amendment has no regard for whether the amendment has been incorporated, and claimed to not really even know what bearing incorporation meant.

    You claimed that I said Miller said something different from what you said it said, when I hadn’t.

    You claimed that White Phosperous (ok that’s going back a ways) was used by the military as an incendiary (it isn’t – certainly not in any normal means)

    You claimed (or at least supported) that you need an advanced degree to be a pilot (you don’t).

    You claimed that HSA’s don’t inject cash into health care (they do).

    You claimed that your friend didn’t say that Mike Opat trying to resist while unarmed wasn’t ‘the worst’ action, statistically, or at least inferred it, but at a minimum you claimed I was wrong to say that it was, when your friend had directly said that Opat’s actions were the worst action he could take, statistically.

    You claimed that the war in Iraq would be essentially over in a year (in November 2005).

    You claimed the Vietnam war was lost due to protesters in the US (a point both unproven and fundamentally wrong).

    You claimed Minneapolis was enduring ‘carnage’ and then I showed that the murder rate was essentially no worse than the 80’s and half what it was 10 years ago.

    Mitch, this list is almost without end, and you’re a fool to think you’ve never been shown to be wrong by me.

    If I’m helping your kids get through school, I’m glad of it, and I’ve tried to be conciliatory over the past few weeks, and in your typical failure to show you can be ‘a better man’ than you’ve been and indeed, show that you even grasp that you don’t get to behave like a pig and still claim to be “a better man’ you’ve essentially sidestepped every chance. I’ve apologized, you’ve never, not once, reciprocated. You are incapable of seeing flaw or admitting error (at least here) and behind the scenes, your worse, not better.

    I never once expected you to roll over, not close, actually all I had hoped for, which you quickly proved you would not engage in, was a substantive DISCUSSION about subjects. You asked me for proof of why it’s ok to have a Dept of Education. Rather than clog up your comments section, I tried to be polite and sent you my reply to your e-mail. An e-mail you never responded to, and then flatly misrepresented the fact that I had in fact done so.

    So NO Mitch, I don’t expect you to ‘roll-over’ I merely expect that you’d be better than the average rightwing blogger, you’d be better than Swift, or Brodkorb, and want to discuss things. Yet, you’ve shown, over and over again, your interest is in pointilistic hyperfocus on minutae, in pendantic churlishness focused on my own disability (mild dyslexia), and in insulting me personally.

    As for my word count, how many of the words are yours in contrast. It’s your blog, you should have more, but you right voluminously to frankly twist subjects into what is nearly always the most insulting distortion available, waiting until the topic or facts become convenient to allow it. My attacks aren’t ad-hominem, I think you may need to look that word up, just like I needed to look up self-flatulation, because it basically means without substance and without attribution, at least in intent – and Mitch, your past treatment of me certainly entitled me to treat you as well, and as bad, as you’ve treated me. In fact though, I’ve nearly always treated you better. I’ve never once called you a liar, or a whore. I’ve stayed away from implying you don’t quite grasp the Christian ideal, though I do think you don’t, because you (mistakenly) mistook my comments that you don’t grasp the need to help all as being Christian, with some how ‘questioning your faith.’ You (seemingly) leapt to an illogical conclusion and overblew the comment into nonsensical offense. But, since you were offended, I did what you didn’t, I apologized. You couldn’t even bring yourself to reciprocate, not even then.

    So, you may clip this out, who knows – but my showing back up was in part to prove to you that your threats and bloviation were impotent, but more, to try to prove to you that in fact, real discourse CAN happen, if you let it, if you want it.

    I’ve been far more civil over the past 9 months than you, and no, that’s not just opinion, that’s fact. I’ve admitted error, I’ve wished you well, I’ve apologized, that’s MORE CIVIL Mitch, maybe that will hit home, I hope so.

    Your blog could be the envy of a lot of others, and distinctly different, you COULD engage in real conversation, real debate, real depth into finding a better solution. For example, I believe HSA’s are a reasonable start, but far from the solution. I tried to engage you in that discussion, it could have gone somewhere. Instead what I see Mitch, is you treating with contempt and arrogant brush off anyone who disagrees with you outside of AC, whom mostly you don’t reply to, in part I’m guessing because he’s your friend, and in part I’m guessing because he nearly always rips you up, and in a way undeniable. Yet you could be a lot more, a lot better. If you’re on MPR, I’m glad, but then I hope you will stop blasting MPR – though if you do it raises the question of whether your stopping because you see it’s merits, or because you don’t want to offend, both are fine, but one isn’t really consistent – at least not for you.

    So Mitch, you can bluster all you like, I don’t comment so much that you need to cry about it as much as your sychophants do. I’d guess 300 comments in 9 months is about 1 a day, and that’s not exactly a lot. The number of words has to do with the complexity of the subject, and while you may not LIKE having to read through a complex argument you don’t agree with, it doesn’t make it wrong to make a complex argument. Whatever your insults (which seemingly doubtless will follow this post) may be about poorly constructed yada yada yada, the fact is, most of the time, my arguments are no less, and no more well or poorly constructed than yours. I over use pronouns, that’s true, but you offer opinion that is both not in any way proven, and usually without real support, so we both have our flaws.

    I’ve also somewhat moved on – I post on other blogs now. I’ve mostly given up on you ever showing enough class to engage in debate, but I’d be overjoyed to have you show me I’m wrong.

    If you do, I’ll apologize, publicly, at a bar of your chosing, because honestly Mitch, I’d like for us to be convivial, even friends, again, despite all of the harsh comments we’ve BOTH made.

  14. Sorry, I thought I’d pasted in the comment

    “You get spanked regularly, you deny it, you bluster about it, but you do.

    In your humble – and wrong – opinion.”

    Meaning, I didn’t claim I proved you wrong, merely that it’s happened, a lot. Sorry, big fella, but it has, acting like it hasn’t is silly, and makes you look very very foolish.

  15. Speaking of foolish – why are you noodling around in four-month old posts?

    If you do, I’ll apologize, publicly, at a bar of your chosing, because honestly Mitch, I’d like for us to be convivial, even friends, again,

    I don’t want or need an apology. A beer, on the other hand, would hit the spot.

  16. BTW Mitch, 72000/300=240 words, which is roughly 2-3 paragraphs, what a terrible burden, once per day..

    Do you so limit yourself?

    And just a quick thought, I’ve never, not once, said I hated this blog, I said it had some pretty huge problems, not the least of which is that you have two standards of conduct, both for your commenters, and toward them. As I said though, I’d be glad to have you prove me wrong.

  17. Speaking of foolish – why are you noodling around in four-month old posts?

    I don’t know, why are you responding?

    Speaking of why, because the title caught my eye… that’s why.. but that doesn’t explain your response.

  18. I always thought “peevish” was banned because he was being childish and churlish. And because he thinks “neo-con” means “naughty”. 🙂

  19. Pingback: Shot in the Dark » Blog Archive » OutTake

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