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Dead Horse: Take that!
: I was actually in on the Charles Johnson v. Anil Dash debate before all the rest of you. I complimented Charles; Anil scolded me; I became bored with the topic. And now we’re all bored with the topic.
But Richard Bennett has a decent (if characteristically blunt) final word.
I hate to comment on a final word, and believe me, after death threats and accusations of all sorts of vile anti-semitism and anti-americanism and support for terrorists, I’m more bored and done with this thing than anywone. But I feel there’s an important part of Bennett’s statements that he’s missing. I *do* agree that mainstream Islamist tendencies are towards espousing violence and are preaching negativity and hate. That’s why I want to make sure that the people trying to shed light on those evils seem credible and sane.
Given the vitriol and threats I’ve recieved, a strong case can be made for the anti-Islamist extremism cause having been hijacked by zealots who make the legitimate points look like the viewpoint of bigots.
Bennett accuses me of a viewpoint I don’t have. Then he says Charles has an opposite viewpoint, making Charles right and me wrong. The problem is, Charles and I don’t disagree on most political points, just on the importance of disassociating an important message from some xenophobes who might try to co-opt it.
I appreciate the comments option being here to respond, and I hope I don’t draw your site into the same pattern of confrontation that’s followed this discussion elsewhere.
It strikes me that you’re trying to have it both ways, Anil. You’ve said all along that you feel the threat to America comes from “religious extremists” in the Middle East, and now you say you believe, as I do, that “mainstream Islamist tendencies are towards espousing violence and are preaching negativity and hate”.
“Mainstream” and “extremist” are mutually exclusive categories: one is situated in the fat part of the bell curve, and the other is at an edge.
Have you changed your mind, or are you trying to bamboozle your readers by cleverly revising history?
It’s not that hard to resolve, Richard. The extremists are actually dangerous right now. The mainstream are just talking about it (=espousing, preaching, who knows: blogging).
You’re right, LGF provides an eye-opening service about the excesses of the Arab “basement” and the dishonesty rampant on the Arab street. But Anil is right, too: LGF is all too often no better:
-http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=4513, or who cares if Muslims get threatened with explosives via anonymous leaflets
-http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=4298, or who cares if you make up pornographic crap about someone else’s religion.
The commenters only make these worse, but they are Mr. Johnson’s handiwork, not theirs, and not Hezbollah’s.
At best, it’s hypocritical to get mad about tendentious, angry, hateful speech elsewhere, and then allow yourself the same kind of excesses.
It’s absurd to equate LGF with Al Qaeda, and I won’t stoop to correcting you, Thomas.
I don’t and didn’t equate LGF with Al Qaeda!!!!
I may have written it poorly, but you have to want to read it that way to get that out of it.