The House of David

Thursday, November 05, 2009

"I won :)"

(Title stolen from Pamela Gellar.)

To offer some background here, Honduras legally ousted its would-be tyrant Zelaya. LGF denounced that as a "coup". I considered this stance to be unprincipled Leftism. LGF banned me for pointing that out.

Even Obama now understands the legality of the process, although the Associated Press is still calling it a coup (h/t HotAir). There is no principled case to make for Zelaya. There's a "Whig" case, that Zelaya is so super-awesome that he should be El Supremo whatever the law says. But it's not a principled case.

Charles: You didn't ban me; I banned you. Enjoy your new friends at the Associated (With Tyrants) Press.

Labels: lgf, progressives

posted by Zimri on 07:46 | link |

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Rep. Mark Kirk's dereliction of duty

The so-called "Cap And Trade" bill which passed the house in June was a mistake. It was a job-killer as written (where it was even written), but that doesn't even matter so much. Worse than that, it had gaps where there wasn't even any text.

It's theoretically Constitutional to send a bill with a title and a demand to fill-in-later, to the Senate; but it shames the House to do it, and thereby it shames the entire government and so the nation. Some actions are so stupid that they shouldn't even be illegal. Some politicians deserve Darwin Awards.

(LGF's endorsement of this bill was one of the "WTF Moments" which pushed me out of that blog. I was barely able to spin the Von Brunn shooting as cultural-rightist. Not so here.)

Mark Kirk deserves his Darwin as much as any other.

Kirk was one of eight "Republican" rodents who pushed this swiss-cheese bill through the House. So when I see him (with fellow "capntr8or" Mike Castle) mulling healthcare nationalisation, I expect he's pulling an Olympia Snowe. He gets in payment for his perfidy: fawning news stories, national recognition, a primary endorsement from the RNC, and grovelling from other Republicans in office and on campaign.

Kirk is running for the Senate next. I think his aim is to establish himself now as the "electable" guy; and once in the Senate, to be the next "moderate" swing-voter who holds the real power and who gets the bribes and the accolades.

Illinois Republicans need to bounce Kirk from consideration now before he builds up a machine.

Labels: energy, lgf, republicans

posted by Zimri on 17:08 | link |

Saturday, October 31, 2009

On flu shots

I don't distrust the idea of the State saying that influenza vaccines are a good idea. If the State wanted to control us with injections, they could sneak stuff in to the other vaccinations: polio, measles, etc.

As for the hucksters claiming that vaccines cause autism, I see them as enemies. Behind that claim is the assumption that people on the autistic spectrum are diseased. I am on that spectrum myself and I take that talk personally. Beyond that, the claim is bumcombe; autism is genetic. Extreme forms of autism are a problem, but they won't be solved by lies.

(Some disclosure here: I was a regular at LGF's Parachat lounge, whose regulars migrated to Table 9. When LGF went with a pro-vaccine stance - which, I must add, opposed conspiracy-theorists on the Left as well as Right, here - the people in both lounges mounted an insurgency against it. For that, Charles Johnson shut down the former lounge. I am, like Moldbug, a believer in sovereignty. I applauded Johnson's decision and I still support it. I have more mixed feelings about the attendant mass banning since dubbed "The Night Of The Vaccine Needles". But all that is over and done with now.)

I'm more concerned about the State mandating who can get the vaccines. And, yes, there is a concern that the State might force a shortage by its own policies; and to fight the emergency, demand control over the healthcare system. In the Left's history of the past decade, Bush used 9/11 as a pretext to curtail civil liberties. The Left has been casting about for its own emergencies to do the same. The economic crisis has already led to mass takeovers of our industries and banks. Global warming is another supposed crisis, but the people have been losing faith in that.

H1N1 could serve as the next "manbearpig" that we all have to Unite Against. But, so far and touch wood, it's not acted as our generation's 1918 pandemic or even as SARS. H1N1 has just acted like... the flu.

Labels: bullshit, enemies, lgf, progressives

posted by Zimri on 17:54 | link |

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Oldspeak, Newspeak

The LGF dictionary is gone now. This represents the end of a shared language amongst that community.

The old language represented, for the most part, a community of friends with a shared set of values, and its enemies were shared among enemies of all civilisation: Iranian extremists ("hair rays"), Left-wing trolls ("mobies"). Some were assumed to be insane and naive ("moonbat").

A new lexicon has emerged. This represents a new community. Its enemies are personal enemies of that blog ("downding", "stalker"). Some are assumed to be insane and evil ("bad craziness").

Labels: lgf, propaganda

posted by Zimri on 16:30 | link |

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Ends and means

Looking through the recent "tags", I see that a strong plurality of posts I've done here have been about "conservatives" and mostly hostile at that. This is an artifact of the time I've spent hanging around (and occasionally trolling in) Conservative and generally right-wing blogs. If I spent more time at the blogs of Progressives (or Liberals), people being the primates they are, I might find similar, or at least analogous, problems with them.

I have not been disappointed.

For instance, take the blog "Holocaust Controversies", which I linked at the end of "LGF Considered Harmful". A first draught of that post below was a comment to the HC blog. HC delivered a few retorts, which mostly boiled down to "lighten up", but some were substantive and bear reproducing:

So Charles pointed out that mere appearance of V[an]J[ones]'s name on a document on a truther site (which is known for putting other names there of people who did not give their consent) doesn't necessarily prove that he is a truther. He is right. Such a crime! He also noted that Van Jones is too far left to be in the admin. Somehow you omitted this.
Since when is ACORN a "criminal enterprise"? And please, don't bring up videos of a few individual ACORN employees being naughty. It doesn't prove that ACORN is a criminal enterprise. (Not that I give a damn about ACORN. But let's not be ridiculous.)
[Killgore Trout trolling Hot Air] was a clumsy act of anti-racist sabotage.

The first of these has two parts: whether Van Jones was in the Truther movement, and whether Charles Johnson supported Van Jones.

The first is an historical question which may be demonstrated via the documents of the relevant period, which would be late 2001 to Election Day 2008. By the principles of historical research, Van Jones's trutherism should have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Buttressing the point, Jones was at a truther rally in San Francisco in 9/11/2002 (from topsecretk9). Against the counterargument, two of the guys covering for the man, Lerner and Zinn, are hard Left themselves, and long known by responsible academics as ideologues; and these two were also signatories to Truther events (from Ace).

Time was when LGF itself would be a clearinghouse for commenters to run that level of fact-checking. Now, LGF bans people who find this stuff. So when Charles Johnson covered for Jones, while still saying he was "too far Left": what Johnson was doing was dismissing a genuine evil (trutherism) and forbidding talk about it; while allowing for a relatively harmless political disagreement ("far Left"). Jones shouldn't be allowed to get away from his Truther past; and here was Johnson letting him do it. HC may think the view of the Right is hypocritical; my view, histrionic and aspergerish. But Van Jones's trutherism ought to be an objective conclusion from the facts at hand.

Let's talk ACORN next. ACORN was always against the rule of law in a capitalist society; which laws it views as a tool of the ruling class. I mentioned in the link (which HC didn't follow) that ACORN wasn't technically an inherent criminal enterprise but that it should be. Reading more about ACORN, though, I find that it got into the Motor Voter campaign, which was designed to create voter registrations without allowing checks into actual voters. ACORN became an explicit mafia at that point, where before it was just a parasite.

Lastly, Killgore Trout. An "anti-racist" action might be to publish a paper, or even a comment at LGF, refuting Putnam or otherwise detailing how races might mix and diversity be celebrated thereby. KT instead elected to go to a Conservative forum in the middle of the night, knowing that the moderator was asleep, and to post racist comments. KT didn't prove anything about any HotAir moderators and he didn't inspire any HotAir commenters to cuddle up and sing kumbaya. What he did do was to reinforce the prejudice Black visitors to any Conservative site might have, which is that White Conservatives are racist. This played to a racial stereotype others have of White Conservatives and, therefore, was racist.

"Holocaust Controversies" concludes, "I will survive". He doesn't care about the harm LGF does to history (in the case of Jones), to the nation (ACORN), or to race relations (Killgore). HC is just glad the harm is done "to certain people" which means, all Conservatives; and not just to the people with holocaust on their minds, the pretended concern of his site.

"Holocaust Controversies" is not a principled blog. It is not willing to expose Leftist websites, organisations, or celebrities to the same level of scrutiny it exposes Rightists. What HC has to say about RS McCain, or other Conservatives, will have to be balanced against that knowledge.

Labels: enemies, lgf, progressives

posted by Zimri on 20:40 | link |

Little Green Footballs Considered Harmful

I am seeing an ongoing fight between Robert Stacy McCain of "The Other McCain" and Charles Johnson of "Little Green Footballs". McCain has the support of the general right wing. Johnson has received the support of Liberals.

McCain is, I believe, a Conservative who has accepted the logical conclusion of Conservative thought in the South. He is a racist, although since I am an evolutionist myself I must give that a guarded pass. Less forgivably he is a Confederate. That last is nothing to be proud of, and it appears he is un-proud enough that he has tried to hide many of his comments he had posted in FreeRepublic.

Johnson for his part has had "much to be modest about" himself, lately, and in this post I will lay out that case.

Johnson has banned close to two thousand people from his site over the past couple years. At first, given the rules Johnson had established, many of those deserved it. But the current flood of bannees have been banned not because they are racists, or creationists, or general thread disruptors. They were banned because, LGF having supported anti-American saboteurs close to the Obama administration, the commenters objected.

The saboteurs I have in mind are, firstly Van Jones the hard-left "ex" Truther, and shortly thereafter the Alinskyist criminal enterprise ACORN. Johnson's support of these scum was made public in the Right not by McCain (then considered a rather extreme figure). It was the centre-Right (if foul-mouthed) Ace of Spades who called Johnson out. Hundreds of LGF's commenters agreed with Ace of Spades that Johnson was in the wrong; and they took it personally, as a betrayal of all LGF had stood for. If they said so - wham, out the door.

(My own account at LGF, "Zimriel", had been banned already in 30 June; I deal with some of that here.)

Yes, Conservatives are an inherently non-intellectual movement with a pack mentality. Yes, Johnson has turned over a rock. But Johnson's swift move over to the hard Left, and the tyrannical way he runs his blog, have discredited him, and bolstered his enemies.

Since then, Johnson has only moved further. Johnson has been an accessory after the fact for the deliberate act of racist sabotage by his enforcer Killgore Trout. And he's deleted at least hundreds of thousands of comments I know of, maybe millions; in some cases in mere spite against, for instance, buzzsawmonkey who was a supporter of LGF too. He has turned a dozen or so formerly critically-thinking commenters into slavish sycophants and bullies; hundreds more are lurking in fear and sorrow wishing they could have their community back. It's like Ukraine shtetls in the 1800s over there.

To put it in computer terms, Little Green Footballs is to be Considered Harmful.

To the McCain skeptics like Barrett Brown and Holocaust Controversies who are citing Charles Johnson: He's just using McCain, and you, to get his credibility back and this time from the Left. He'll stab you in the back too once his site crawls back up in the Alexa ratings.

Labels: enemies, lgf

posted by Zimri on 16:31 | link |

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Robert Spencer, LGF, and me

Not long ago I draughted a slightly laboured epigram: "If there's a PIG in your library, your library is a pigpen. If you write a book for this series, you're covered in mud." The link in that quote was to The House of David's first mention of Robert Spencer (of JihadWatch fame) in May 2006. That post had a parenthesis which cited the man with disapproval, but the article's main body cited his words with approval.

There's more to this saga between 2006 and now. Believe it or not.

I'll start with the positive. I do not believe that Spencer is a racist. A better such case, in the eyes of today's academy, could be leveled against me. (I'm a "believer" - I would say, accepter - of human evolution, including into the modern period.) Second, I don't have a problem with his belief in Western cultural superiority; except to quibble that by comparison with the Chinese culture, this may turn out to be a matter of preference only. Third, where he argues that democracy doesn't work for some cultures, I can't argue with that. Here too I may be more authoritarian than he is. Lastly, Spencer has an enviable grasp of Islamic history, language, and culture; and has written and edited several books, of which I cannot do other than recommend The Truth About Muhammad. Robert Spencer matters.

My fundamental disagreement with Spencer has to do with the Crusades. Spencer is still fighting them. He argues for the cultural and Christian West. There's a slogan for that in German: ein Reich ein Volk ein Gott. In my opinion this path can lead Conservatives at least to oppressive and, worse, sclerotic government if not to capital-F Fascism. The systems of government I would hold up as alternatives are probably not your cup of tea either, but at least I want a State that can be reasoned with.

Around the time I was lurking in LGF, among the commenters there was one Kejda "Medaura" Djermani. Medaura had already brought up Spencer's associations with the fascist (and not just right-wing) fringe in Europe, but did it in a less sober format than in the link here.

In 2007 I registered with LGF and, in their parlance, became a "lizard hatchling". I was not, then, on Medaura's side against Spencer. I was on her side that Kosovo is Albanian turf. That put me against Serge Trifkovic, a viciously anti-Muslim Serb who even then I knew had at least a literary association with Robert Spencer. At this point I wasn't sure which of the Djermani-said, Trifkovic-said comments I should believe. I reached an internal initial conclusion that Medaura was a troublemaker, and so I did not then wade in.

At some point in early 2008, I believe, Spencer disappointed me finally with his blurb for Hutchison's "PIG to the Bible". At this point I fell in solidly beside Medaura.

12 September 2008, Spencer had noticed (or rather, LGF had informed / shamed him) that racists in Gates of Vienna and Brussels Journal were tagging along behind him, and so Spencer turned against them. LGF noted that in post Spencer on Cologne 'Anti-Islamisation' Meeting. I had additional thoughts in #247, 4:16:34pm (but I can't link directly thereto, because I'm an ex-lizard "stalker" now, and links hence may be redirected; so you'll need to research that and scroll):

I am pleased that R.S. has acted against racialist opportunism on that site. (To his credit he has been consistent on this.) However he still troubles me -
"2. To form one group for indigenous Europeans, as has been done in several countries, reduces virtually every issue to the one non-negotiable issue of race and ethnicity, discourages cooperation, and thus encourages Balkanization, works against the idea of representative government, and obscures the common values of Judeo-Christian civilization that are shared by people of many races and ethnicities."
Note that he can't help but slip "Judeo-Christian" into his definition of civilisation in a European context ("common values"). In place of a racial definition of Europe, he wants a religious definition.

And then came the The Great Halloween Ban. Here's my wrap-up (not among those I've apologised for - #655 / 6:25:58pm):

A certain Albanian atheist poster and I were banging on this theme for some time back in the day, that the cut of the jib of this Spencer fellow was not as likeable as one might, uh, like. Colour me unsurprised. I absolutely guarantee you that the Lady M, for her part, is dancing around right now to the strains of New Order's "Told You So".
There have been signs for months that this was in the works. Spencer's pro-Crusades contribution to the "Politically Incorrect Guide" series was a freakin' HUGE sign. Providing the blurb to the obscurantist P.I.G. Guide To The Bible was, in my view, worse.
My understanding, which I believe I shared with That Other Commenter, was that Spencer holds himself as a believer in European civilisation as European, and defines Europe in magical terms. He always claimed that his beliefs were Catholic - and maybe they would be, in Pope Innocent III's Vatican.
I hope everyone has learnt something. You see someone ranting about "culture", no matter how well you think you know him, watch out.

Some months after that LGF sent sporadic swipes at Spencer, with varying degrees of fairness. I don't even remember if I said anything.

Then, on Thursday, April 23, 2009 2:33:16pm: commenter "Bubblehead II" announced that Spencer's friend, the shrill blogger Pamela Gellar, was about to take a trip to Cologne on behalf of Manfred Rouhs's group ~~F�r Volk und Heimat~~ uh, "Pro Köln". (These guys assured us they were NOT racists, because they'd invited a guy from the Society of Pius X. Apparently.) 3:37:33 pm PDT, Johnson followed up on this with a post devoted all to her - Pamela Geller: Poster Girl for Eurofascists. In this post we learnt that Pro Köln had announced Spencer as one of the other speakers.

I mused, 5:07:24pm, in #268:

Recneps Trebor has to be thinking hard about this one. He wants to be taken seriously as a scholar and overt participation in a fascist conclave would undercut that. On the other hand if he doesn't go, Geller and Belien might squeal that they've been "thrown under the little green bus".

Soon enough Pro Köln breathlessly reported Spencer's agreement, as Johnson reported the next morning 8:38:01 am PDT. Longtime commenter "Ayatolla Ghilmeini" 4:35:37pm relayed an email from Spencer that he was NOT going; but there was still no word from the man himself. Instead Johnson reported 5:43:00pm, that Spencer had posted, he was "looking into the group and the people involved".

I'd given this fracas a semi-pass at this point, but then Spencer said that Rouhs "has no neo-Nazi connections and is not an extremist". Big mistake. Charles posted the Rouhs library Saturday, April 25 at 3:56:17 pm PDT, Pro Koln Organizer's Nazi Merchandise. We all found a LOT of bad shit in that library. The merchandise Charles himself showcased included a Hess book, which I found was more properly Nazi themed than Nazi, but that was just nitpicking. In its place I found two books by Herbert Taege: a truly evil man, who was in the Waffen SS when they burned down the Warsaw Ghetto, and who graduated to guarding Dachau; I have no idea how he avoided the hangman. And it had holocaust apologetic from Dirk Bavendamm. And it had Johannes Rogalla von Bieberstein, Jewish Bolshevism: Myth and Reality. Other "lizards" found other material. A man's library shows the man's mind: Rouhs was absolutely an extremist, and he would have supported the Nazi regime if he had been alive. Why Spencer covered for this refuse is beyond me.

The whole mess sprayed egg upon the faces of all involved, as summed up by gegenkritic. Spencer has shown that there are few far-right and, yes, Nazi alliances he will not accept; and he has to be shamed into not accepting those. Both he and Gellar would be blogospheric footnotes by now, were it not for the subsequent self-footnoting of Lord Charles himself.

At any rate: since then, Robert Spencer has compared me to Ezra Pound, so I gather these opinions are mutual.

Labels: fascism, lgf, propaganda

posted by Zimri on 19:08 | link |

Thursday, October 15, 2009

The Holocaust Museum is not a political football

If the last post seemed familiar to some, it should. Much of it was aired in the comments of... another green-themed blog. (I didn't keep a copy; and I expect the cowardly Stalinist who runs the place "[deleted]" it.)

The original controversy was about one Von Brunn, an 88 year old who shot up a Holocaust Museum. It turned out he was a S@#$%front member and all-around racist nutter. Certainly a cultural Rightist. Case closed... to the history-warping Stalinist.

Since I'm no longer under any man's censorship, I'm free to reopen the case.

When somebody shoots up a shrine sacred to Jews, that's not an expression of the cultural Right. It's not cultural Left, either, pace Goldberg. It's straight-up anti-Semitism.

For that, all anti-Semites have to take responsibility. All those in the media - and not just Von Brunn's old hangout - have added to the climate of Judenhass which led him over the edge.

How many references to "neo-cons" have we borne? How many mournful shots of teddy bears, set up just-so in the ruins of some Hezbollard's ammo dump? In Houston on Westheimer I saw "Free Palestine" bumper-stickers. Along the highway 59, inbound, just inside the I-610: a mammoth "Pray4Gaza" sign. Never mind what Hezbollards would do to Jewish children; never mind the prayers of HAMAS.

AntiSemitism is a major problem in the media today. It's the sewer in which rats like Von Brunn flourish.

It doesn't matter that Von Grunn was in the "far Right". That wasn't the story nor the proximate cause. A real "far Rightist" would have attacked the office of the ACLU. Von Brunn was a Jew-hater first.

(By making this out into some uniquely Rightist problem, LGF devolved into propaganda, and we all should have seen where it would lead, and I should have left that place then.)

Labels: antisemitism, fascism, lgf

posted by Zimri on 19:27 | link |

Monday, October 12, 2009

... and then they came for me

I've had to deliver a few apologies over the weeks. (What the hell - decades.)

If theorem T seems objectively true, even if T has been demonstrated to the limit, there sometimes remain people who still won't see the truth of T - to a part of me, these people have ceased to be people. They have become a problem: a mathematical singularity, or at any rate an algorithm gone NP-complete.

I have to remember to step back and to remember that these people are, still, human. More human than me, a humanitarian would argue. I've shared my worries on that, over five years ago. Nothing much changes in human nature.

What might change is how I deal with the buggy software in my own head rather than fantasising about deleting everyone else from my life.

There is, or was, a large-ish sociology experiment on the 'Web, run by liberal jazz musician Charles Johnson. After 9/11/2001, he developed a community called "Little Green Footballs" - and then over the past couple years he placed ever more onerous restrictions upon that community.

One of his little roadblocks he set up in our little lizard maze: he declared for tyrant Zelaya in Honduras. At this point I wrote up an essay proving that L.G.F. was "anti-conservative". I figured I'd be quickly banned, or (much less likely) Charles would post something to the effect "yeah; deal with it".

Nope. First the post lingered around and attracted "down-dings". I picked up 10. And Johnson's final comment to me, announcing that he was terminating my account there, got about 2 or 3 "up-dings".

I'd become a problem to that community, and the problem was solved - to rejoicing all around.

It was about what I deserved.

Labels: apology, lgf, misanthropy, personal

posted by Zimri on 20:29 | link |

Birth Certificate skepticism is seditious

Certain of Barack Obama's opponents have been spreading a meme that Obama was not born in the USA. This has implications.

Other opponents, if not buying into "Birtherism" themselves, imagine that "Birthers" are useful; rallying the base to constructive activities, like taking the House for anti-Obama candidates in 2010. Most blow it off as harmless gutter politics. I beg to differ.

If Obama was not born here, then he is not the President. The office of President includes the formal military rank of "Commander in Chief". If Obama is not the President, then he is not the Commander. That would mean that no soldier is allowed to follow the man's orders. The whole chain of command is busted; every soldier becomes a mercenary, in it for the pay. Under such conditions - with which I am not agreeing - a mutiny, with the purpose of installing of Joseph Biden as President, isn't just likely; it's required. As for Obama, he could legally get shot during the mutiny, being the foreign and illegal head of a mercenary force on our soil (i.e., the army itself). The stakes are high; it is not an idle game.

It might help to understand how we got here. I was first introduced to birth-certificate skepticism at the site "Little Green Footballs" last year, during an election campaign against John McCain which was - at the time - close. This meme then spread around various right-wing sites along with other rumours of varying degrees of credibility. LGF then repudiated BC skepticism and turned against those bloggers who were still supporting it - like Pamela Gellar, originator of the typo "nirth certificate". Meanwhile, various drips and drabs have trickled out of the Obama camp, including a version of the BC. Obama then won, and took the Oath of Office.

A few documents remain unreleased (hence the "Long Form" sub-meme planted here and there) but it is no longer reasonable to doubt them. Obama has political reasons to hold onto what is left: it makes opponents look bad, and it also draws fire away from other "documentary hypotheses" like Obama's college records and whether or not Bill Ayers wrote Dreams From My Father. The courts agree; whenever Obama is sued over the BC, Obama wins.

The natural tactical shift is to "we are just asking questions"; such as we find in the realm of Holocaust denial, 9/11 trutherism, and Ben Stein's Expelled. Unfortunately for the Birthers, the tactic isn't new, and its targets know how to counteract it - as in the Dover evolution decision of 2005 (which helped lose the House in 2006). These court cases, coupled with the lost BC cases, have given Obama evidence which he may now use, in lawsuits against his accusers.

The issue is now bigger than Obama. Obama isn't an ordinary citizen going after slanderers, anymore. To the extent that such doubt exists in the military, it undercuts unit cohesion and morale. In short, this talk is - if false - a form of sedition; and since we are engaged in warfare, it must class with Tokyo Rose.

Birther talk is legally false, a deliberate slander, and sedition in a time of war. Obama has the legal right to order "Birthers" rounded up and tried for treason. Whether Obama will have to do it depends upon the Birthers, and upon to which degree the military and its friends buy into Birtherism. Pray that the Birthers remain irrelevant.

Labels: lgf, nirthers, obama

posted by Zimri on 17:15 | link |

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Layout changes

As you can see, I've reposted my blog under a new template.

I wasn't sure how much I still believed in any of the political stuff I once believed. I'll start slow. I remain as misanthropic, suspicious, and anti-democratic as I always was. So we'll put Mencius Moldbug on the blogroll. More links can join him "organically".
We'll keep the greenish-on-black theme I'd inherited from Carlene the "Misanthropic Bitch". (Remember her? No? Get off my lawn!)
This version should be a little easier on the eyes. The other colours should be less glaring.
Words are on the left now, links on the right. This is because of smartphones.
I finally figured out how to use Blogger for archives.

As to why I took down the blog: At first, I was trying to switch jobs and I didn't feel comfortable with people seeing what was here. While that was going on, my own political stance went through the wringer. I contributed to Little Green Footballs, mostly, and you might find some of my stuff there; although I expect my contributions are deleted by now.

As to why I'm restarting this thing: I've been steadily posting more and more substantive comments on other sites, concerning how I understand the world. People are taking offence to these comments. The comments are creating enemies: defined as, people willing to take the time to follow my screenname around the Internet, to dig up past comments, and to discredit me everywhere. Now, I don't have a problem with enemies. (I'm not in control over someone else's emotions; and I'm not important enough in the scale of things - I expect the enemies to find something better to do in the long term.) My problem is that I can't easily clarify a comment that I leave somewhere else. If you think I'm dangerous enough to warrant an expulsion off teh internets: at least make the case based on my comments here, and not on someone else's interpretation of some dashed-off troll-post I dropped weeks ago (or longer) elsewhere.

Labels: enemies, layout, lgf, misanthropy

posted by Zimri on 16:31 | link |

Thursday, May 11, 2006

By association

As of now, the New York Sun and Charles Johnson have noticed that Ahmadinejad's latest missive to the West follows the pattern of Muhammadan da'wah. The first to notice this was Robert Spencer.

(I'll have to defend my use of Mr Spencer, because I don't nowadays find him trustworthy. I lost respect for him - including as a human being - when he decided to publish his guide to Islam under the "Politically Incorrect Guide" label. This label has elsewhere run a "guide to science" which was a fraud. From this I must conclude that Spencer doesn't care by what means he gets his message published; his ethics are not much better than those of radical Islam. Spencer might have the excuse that the rival "Complete Idiot's Guide" imprint had tainted itself first, with its pro-Taliban guide to "understanding Islam"; but I wouldn't accept it. A better argument would be that it takes a thief to catch a thief - or a propagandist to catch a propagandist. We should disregard Mr Spencer's choice of associates, and evaluate Spencer's message.)

Spencer's argument is that the Iranian president lives in an area which believes in the Prophet's sira and which understands symbolism. And here we have a letter which parallels the sira.

Plus, even if Ahmadinejad isn't personally serious, he's backed up by a local and worldwide movement which is. Like that famous French demagogue: "he is their leader, he must follow."

Spencer may be overly careless, but in this case he's right. I should hope that other scholars come forward to support him on this.

Labels: islam, lgf

posted by Zimri on 22:43 | link |