And Sadly

It's a real shame that this is the first post I've written in some time for my own very minor blog. It's a double shame about the content and the context which prompts it.

The saying, "he doesn't suffer fools gladly," doesn't begin to express the lack of patience I have for foolishness. And, sadly, I have concluded that Lydia McGrew is a fool.

Now, assuming that my single reader cares to understand what I'm on about, I'll have to extract the pertinent posts; it would be most unfair to expect you to read the whole thing (interesting though it is) to pick out what I mean here.

Recently, on the "What's Wrong With the World" blog, in a thread about the recent Fort Hood jihadist massacre, someone posting as "Suburban Yahoo" said:

Equality and non-discrimination are attack weapons against the white Christian West. Any weapon will work, as long as the attack is pressed. One day it is "free speech", another day it is "freedom", another day, "equality". There may be a day where the remnant of Christian European Civilization will be best attacked by embracing a violent totalitarian religion. The cultural Marxists will do it in a New York minute, because like Satan they hate God and Christ.

This is all well and fine ... except for that "white Christian West" bit. I commented:

Culture does not depend upon, and certainly does not equal, race.

Sure, the multiculturalists hate "the white race," but it ain't really the race they're hating, it's the culture you've inherited which they hate.

I am not entirely "white," though casual observation would not reveal it to most (and I have relatives even less white than I), but I am a member of the culture and society you and I are wanting to preserve from the leftists.

Also, I'm a sight more intelligent than the average "pure white" person. Should I think myself better because my intelligence is greater than the average of you "pure-breds?"

This annoyed Mrs McGrew, who said:

Break 'er up, boys. No threadjacking to arguments about race.

Now, of course, there's no reason that anyone else ought to know, or perhaps even particularly care, what sorts of comments or attitudes get my dander up. Nevertheless, the sort of "evenhandedness" or moral equivalency exemplified here is just the sort of thing to do it. I replied (to Mrs McGrew):

Odd that you only *now* (now that I've said, "This is wrong," meaning both morally and factually) notice the race-talk. How "evenhanded."

and expanded (to her and to the general reader):

There is no such thing as "white Christian culture" -- Christianity is not *about* either race or ethnicity.

There is a Christianized culture, to which most persons in these shores belong; but that culture is, and will always be, a distinct thing from Christianity.

While I didn't *explicitly* say this at that time, my criticism is about an non-Christian (indeed, anti-Christian) attitude -- and, as "What's Wrong With the World" is an explicitly Chistian blog, one would think such criticism is almost always on topic.

Mrs McGrew said:

I'm an equal opportunity thread monitor on this, Ilion, believe it or not. (And, no, that isn't an invitation to you to start arguing with me about my putative fairness.) Suburban Yahoo is also required to heed my warning. I'm trying to give him a temporary break for posting at 2:17, as it was only three minutes after mine, and perhaps he didn't see it. But to _both_ of you, I say again, I will not have this thread turned into an argument about race. Can it, or have your irrelevant comments deleted.

I replied (to her):

You insult me (personally), and when I point out the insult, you insult me again. How odd.

I replied (to Steve Burton, whose post I haven't duplicated here):

I don't want to argue about race (what is there to argue about, anyway?).

Suburban Yahoo made some good points - and tainted his whole post by making it about “the white Christian West.” Let us call his post an exemplar of “Austerism” (whether or not Suburban Yahoo has ever actually read the VfR blog).

Fifty-five minutes later, I offered a pointed criticism of that specific invalid, false, and anti-Christian view exemplified in the phrase “the white Christian West.”

Four minutes after that, Mrs McGrew played an analogue to the moral equivalency card.

Would Mrs McGrew have said *anything* had I not said what I said? I, for one, do not believe she would have - I’m not talking about her sensitivity to thread-jacking, I’m talking about her insensitivity to “Austerism.”

Mrs McGrew replied (to those two posts):

Ilion, bag it. I haven't insulted you. I usually like your comments. I've liked nearly every comment you've ever made here at W4. Call me an anti-thread-jacking fanatic if you want.

Passing comments are one thing, arguments are another. Arguments become sub-arguments and sub-threads. I made my warning in response to you not because of some sort of bias against your position (actually, you don't have any idea what I think about any of these issues), but precisely because you offered a "pointed criticism" of a view that came out merely in passing in another comment and that has nothing to do with the topic of this post or thread. "Pointed criticisms" are the stuff of discussion and debate on a particular topic. I don't want that particular topic debated on this thread. My blog colleagues can attest that I am _very_ sensitive about thread-jacking and that I try _very_ hard to run a tight ship. This has nothing to do with moral equivalency. I haven't made any claim of moral equivalency. I don't even know what you could be talking about. I have told you and S. Y. not to have a debate about the topic of race on a thread that isn't about race. Heck, if anything, it's usually the "racialists," the people on the other side from you, who are obsessed and want to argue about the topic at every turn, even when it is off-topic. I've run into that problem elsewhere and, yes, I have demanded that the thread-jacking stop from that side. Now it's you doing it. Stop it. I've made my request clear. I like you as a commentator, but when you're on my threads, you play by my rules. Don't act like a kid arguing about whether you're arguing or not. Please.

And while we're at it, I'm not going to debate whether I have insulted you or been fair to you or engaged in moral equivalency or whatever. That's just more childishness. I don't know what you are upset about, because all I did was to make a simple and reasonable request. But I do have access to a delete key, and I will enforce my rules here from here on out, so be warned. Please rein in your desire to argue every point and meta-point, because I'm not going to allow it.

I don't wish to call her "an anti-thread-jacking fanatic" ... and while I don't wish to, I conclude that I must, call her a fool.

My last comments to her will not be found in that thread, as she deleted them:

(actually, you don't have any idea what I think about any of these issues)

I know that you are very reticent about criticizing Lawrence Auster ... or "Austerism."

Please rein in your desire to argue every point and meta-point, because I'm not going to allow it.

There is so much I could criticize, everywhere, and I let so much pass … because I don’t, after all, have a “desire to argue every point and meta-point.”

For instance, I noticed your silence on Auster’s defense of Norman [sic] Polansky [sic] and his attempted savaging of the “stupid” (that was at least one of his words) conservatives who were outraged at the “liberal” defense of Polanski. I noticed that not long after that deal died down, you said in passing something to the effect that you didn’t want to criticize Auster (but I, for one, already knew that).

Have I ever before said anything about that? I suppose that my comment which played on the rhyme about the girl with the curl could be taken as a vary [sic!] indirect criticism of that.

As I said above, "What's Wrong With the World" is an explicitly Christian blog. Also, that "white Christian West" bit is not just an example of bad reasoning, but also reflects a very anti-Christian attitude; one which it has long seemed to me that Mrs McGrew shares.

Now, Mrs McGrew's object in starting that thread was not to discuss the jihadist massacre at Fort Hood, itself. Rather, her objective was to criticize -- from a distinctly and explicitly Christian perspective -- the damned-of-God and suicidal-to-our-society "liberal" response (may I be forgive for so misusing the word) to the atrocity.

Therefore -- as the perspective from which to criticize the "liberal" response is meant to be distinctly and explicitly Christian -- how can it really be "thread-jacking" to criticize a distinctly anti-Christian attitude which crept into the thread?

Furthermore, anyone who is going to get her (or his) panties in that great a twist over "thread-jacking" really has no business writing on a blog which allows comments. Going off on tangents is just the way human beings are and the way we discuss things; there isn't much to do about about except to be patient. A face-to-face converstaion between only two persons rarely follows a linear track; why would anyone expect that conversation between multiple persons and taking place over many days would stick to a single narrow topic?

It seems to me that Mrs McGrew's real objection was not to the "thread-jacking," but rather to my criticism of (for lack of better term in this particular context) "Austerism." Lawrence Auster (and it has long seemed to me, Lydia McGrew), is like a mirror-image of "liberals," being fixated on race. But note: I didn't say I think that either he or she is a racist.


My sole reader may notice that I have long had Lawrence Auster's "View From The Right" blog on my blogroll. On certain topics, Auster is fool, but he's not stupid; when he's not being a fool, he says much that is good and thought-provoking; I presume that you don't need me to police your thoughts, nor which blogs you read.

It wasn't just about Limbaugh

What the Limbaugh Quote Hoax Really Tells Us

Gentle Reader will want to read it all, rather than only what I've excerpted --

Listening to the contemporary American left’s views of the rest of us is increasingly like listening to a paranoid schizophrenic slip farther into delusions that they are surrounded by malevolent people. Just as we have to worry that the schizophrenic might act on their delusional beliefs and strike out violently against the evils they imagine, we have to be increasingly worried that leftists will strike out against the rest of us based on their delusional fantasies about what we non-leftists believe.

And make no mistake about it, leftists do harbor dark delusions about non-leftists. The fact that so many leftists fell completely for the Limbaugh quote hoax proves it.

...

Only someone seriously immersed in a deep fantasy about Limbaugh’s beliefs would swallow such quotes without checking them or thinking about the practical possibility of Limbaugh making such statements without every person in the world knowing about it within the hour. More troubling, not only would they have to believe that Limbaugh thinks that way but that his audience does as well.

They fell for the hoax because their fantasy about the evil of non-leftists tells them that most non-leftists think this way. They didn’t need to check on the provenance of the quotes any more than the rest of us need to check an assertion that the sun came up in the East this morning. It was just that obvious to them.

So, we come back to the main question: What methods could these deluded leftists justify using against the rest of us if they really believe we hold such beliefs and values as are inherent in the fake quotes? What couldn’t they justify doing to drive such people from politics or even the nation itself? We even have to ask, what level of violence could they justify using against us?

This isn’t about Limbaugh. They clearly view Limbaugh as just the most visible manifestation of tens of millions of Americans pining for the good old days of slavery. Make no mistake. They aren’t just targeting Limbaugh as someone so evil that they can justify any extremity in fighting him.

They are targeting the rest of us as well.

(h/t Cartago Delenda Est)

People who argue this way are not scientists, but lawyers with a bad case

Jonathan David Carson on the 'American Thinker' site: Excuses for Lack of Global Warming

"What Happened to Global Warming?" asks Science, the flagship publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), in its October 2, 2009, issue, before immediately answering, "Scientists Say Just Wait a Bit." By a "bit," AAAS means a "few years."

The "blogosphere," it seems, "has been having a field day with global-warming's apparent decade-long stagnation." The world is supposed to sign a global warming agreement in a few years less than a bit, in Copenhagen in December, to be exact, but "What's the point, bloggers ask?"

So global warming skeptics are "bloggers." ...

...

"Climate researchers" do not deign to answer back in the blogosphere, according to AAAS, preferring instead to reply "in their preferred venue, the peer-reviewed literature": "The pause in warming is real enough, but it's just temporary, they are argue from their analyses. A natural swing in climate to the cool side has been holding greenhouse warming back, and such swings don't last forever."

After pretending that global warming skeptics are bloggers, not scientists, and that their home is the blogosphere, not the peer-reviewed literature, AAAS attributes the more-than-decade-long failure of the globe to warm to a "natural swing in climate." In other words, when the climate warms, it is as a result of anthropogenic causes, but when it cools or fails to warm, it is as a result of natural causes. Increases of temperature are human-caused. Decreases are nature-caused.

Skeptics have been saying for decades that the warming from about 1978 to 1998, which was after all only 0.40C, was probably due to natural causes; now AAAS says that the flat or downward trend since 1998 is due to natural causes, which had nothing to do with the rise between 1978 and 1998. They told us that the temperature of the earth would continue to rise, and when it did not, they said, see, our critics were wrong.

People who argue this way are not scientists, but lawyers with a bad case.

So, the alleged-President has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace?

So, the alleged-President of these United States has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace?


But ... and aside from the humor factor of the award, since he has done nothing; and aside from the amusingly blatant attempt to meddle in US politics ... was it not unConstitutional for him to accept it?

US Constitution, Article 1, Section 9:

...
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State.

Now, alleged-President Obama is indeed a “Person holding [an] Office of Profit or Trust under them.” And the Nobel Peace Prize *is* a present, and it *is* officially and technically a gift from a foreign State, for officially and technically it is awarded by the King and Parliament of Norway.

I understand that this is a “surprise” award.

Therefore, I do not see how it can be the case that alleged-President Obama has the prior Consent of Congress to accept the amusing award.


Kind of makes ya' wonder: Just what does this fool have to do to so embarrass (and/or disgust) the "liberals" who voted for him that they finally stop covering their eyes about what he is?

'Liberals' Do Not Believe in Constitutional Government

Via Lawrence Auster: Yet another new frontier of liberalism opens up

The real issue is not "gay marriage" --

Here's the referenced news item -- San Francisco Chronicle: Judge to Prop. 8 backers: Turn over your papers

(10-02) 18:10 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge has ordered sponsors of California's Proposition 8 to release campaign strategy documents that opponents believe could show that backers of the same-sex marriage ban were motivated by prejudice against gays.

Plaintiffs in a federal suit seeking to overturn Prop. 8 - two same-sex couples, a gay-rights organization and the city of San Francisco - contend that the measure's real purpose was to strip a historically persecuted minority group of rights held by the majority.

If the courts find that the ballot measure was motivated by discrimination, they could strike it down without having to decide whether gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry.
...

Proposition 8 was the legal and constitutional ballot measure by which the voters of California amended their Constitution to overturn the ruling of some fool judge who had decreed that the California Constitution *requires* "gay marriage."

Take-home lesson: "Liberals" do not believe in constitutional government ("liberals" are also constitutionally dishonest, in general).

Mind you, at this point, the issue and battle is not "gay marriage," but rather the question of who shall rule: the People, via written (and thus, *dead*) constitutions, or the Judges, via their "living constitutions". Now, that's been the issue for at least the past fifty years (thus the original ruling to which Proposition 8 was the response), but it's really out in the open now.

Atheism is a feeble ideology

Michael Egnor: Godless Theodicy
"... Atheism is a feeble ideology. Atheists don’t have answers; they don’t even have their own questions."

You'll want to read the whole thing, Gentle Reader.

Ken Brown on 'The Time Traveler's Wife'

Ken Brown: Love Has Gravity – A Review of The Time Traveler’s Wife

For what it's worth, I thought it was a good movie. I have logical quibbles with it, but I recommend it.

Douglas Wilson on the ACORN Stings

Douglas Wilson: We Need a Control Group

Well, the San Bernadino sting video is now out, and ACORN has got to be reeling. But before we stick a fork in this brand of community organizing and call it done, we still have to apply the scientific method. As fascinating as these journalistic methods are, we still need a control group. We have to get a guy and a girl to play the same roles, and make the same number of visits, with the same kind of request, to randomly selected H&R Block offices. See what happens.

Now is not the time for civility

This is an open letter to the newly (in)famous Rep. Joe Wilson, of "You lie!" fame.

I've never heard of Mr Wilson, and it goes without saying that he has never hard of me. So, naturally, I have no expectations of him seeing this post.


Dear Mr. Wilson,

I read [Speaker Pelosi agrees to plan to scold Rep. Wilson for 'You lie' outburst] that the Democrats (and, doubtless, the RINOS) have agreed to a plan to scold you for your so-called outburst in "speaking truth to power," unless you humiliate yourself on the House floor.

My advice, for what it's worth, is to tell them all to go to Hell: you spoke the truth; that they don't want that truth spoken is their moral failure, not yours. Having spoken the truth, it would be a severe moral failure on your part to deny it -- apparently, you've already started down that path by personally apologizing to That Man, the alleged-President.

So, you had an "outburst." Big hairy deal. Are you a man or are you a passive-aggressive pussy-man? Men tend to be blunt -- even though bluntness tends to distresses the passive-aggressive pussies in our midst. On the other hand, passive-aggressive pussy-men scheme in the corners and stab in the back.

This is, in fact, no time for "civil discourse" -- as defined and controlled by the Democrats and other "progressives." These people are set to destroy the nation, and many of them *know* what they're up to.

Of what use to you or to your descendants or to anyone else will it be to have gotten a patronizing pat on the head from those lying "liberals" once they've destroyed the country?

Well, don't that stink!

I'd mentioned that I suspect there are skunks living around my house (even though I live in the center of a city of 50,000). Well, a few days later, I got proof.

I'd set this big live-trap I have, hoping to catch a raccoon -- if my house ever burns down, it will be because some damned raccoon has shorted out some electrical wiring. And, for instance, the wired-in fire alarm system is already pretty much useless because they've chewed its wiring.

Imagine my surprise one morning when (expecting the trap was still empty, since the raccoons are pretty adept at taking the bait without springing the trap) I opened the basement door ... to be greated by a skunk!

What to do! How does one deal at close range with an animal (even if it is trapped and thus cannot bite one?) which employs chemical warfare?

[If Gentle Reader can deal with the ignorance and vituperation, here are some interesting comments and moral assertions about my character, made by folk who tend to deny actual morality ... this link being the reason I've classified this post under "liberalism" and "morality." And, for instance, one of the at least civil suggestions was that I drown the animal. Let's see, my issue was how to get near the animal, and the suggestion was to chuck cage and all into water to drown it because that would be more humane than just letting it slowly die.]

In the end, I used a friend's gun to shoot the skunk. So, I'm technically a criminal, since it's illegal to discharge a firearm within the city limits. Also, I'm guilty of the crime of "public indecency," as I'd removed all my clothes (except for goggles to protect my eyes) before I opened the basement door.

As I said, I shot the skunk, and from within three feet ... I was right down there at ground level. I saw it spasm, so I was sure I'd hit it with at least one of the two shots I took. Then, within minutes, the entire house was enveloped with skunk stench, at an almost unbearable level, and the stench was strong for hours; at times, I could still smell it the next day. The area around the basement door stank for days.

I'd shot it first thing in the morning, and I knew I'd hit it (and from within very close range). So, (once again) imagine my surprise when I went down that afternoon to dispose of the carcass and found that the animal was still alive! Now, on the one hand, the gun is a .22 caliber, so the bullets are small; but on the other hand, this was a small animal, no bigger than a half-grown cat.

So, I put four bullets into it, fired in quick succession. I've fired this gun before, and I fully expected it to jam (which was another component of my initial conundrum), but for once it worked properly.