Dean's World

Ron Coleman muses on an interesting question: Why are most internet readers silent?

This is a subject I've been contemplating for decades, from back in the days when I was a professional sysop on the old GEnie network, wherein we had thousands of daily readers on our RoundTable (GEnie's word for "forum") and I discovered from the user statistics that people who left messages in the "bulletin board" were outnumbered by at least 10:1 by people who actually read it.

When I started looking at the Dean's World reader statistics some five years ago, I was unsurprised to notice a similar pattern: readers always vastly outnumbered commenters. Always.

In fact, 10:1 is probably very conservative for the blogosphere.

Once you realize that this is simply a truism, and unlikely to change, it changes your attitude about blogging, and much else.

The reality behind this is visible every time you're in a business meeting with more than three or four people. What do you see in such meetings? A few people do most of the talking, a few others offer a few brief comments, and most others remain entirely silent unless directly prodded--and then they (usually) say as little as possible, although sometimes they change the entire conversation when they do so.

Some are afraid to be made fools of, or aren't sure what they think, or think you can learn more by listening than by talking. So they just sit and listen.

Now amplify it online: many people, even bright and talented people, just plain hate writing. Or they're insecure. Plus they see what really goes on: if you stick your neck out then people will often swing swords at it.

Writing is an act of leadership in such an environment. It may not seem like it, but it is.

I see it every day on Dean's World. I get emails constantly from people who don't want to leave a public comment but want to tell me privately what they think, or who want to share something with me but don't want to leave a public comment. I even have ex-bloggers--people who quit because they didn't want to do it anymore--email me regularly with their comments and with suggested links. Or from people who maintain a blog, but refuse to put anything controversial on it because they'd rather pass it to me quietly.

It's where half my links come from.

Here's the truth:

Blogging on controversial issues is an exercise in arrogance and occasionally self-indulgence. It is also an exercise in leadership. Both are basically the same thing.

If you're a blogger and you don't recognize that both assertions are true, then you're being at least a little foolish and/or naive.

The same is true of commenters. Commenters are truly invaluable to the good blogger. If you use them as an exercise in self-aggrandizement, then, you're just mentally masturbating on your front page. But if you look upon them as people who provide a necessary foil and a very necessary check on your own arrogance, then, they are invaluable.

But they, too, are being arrogant. They presume to take a public stance in opposition, or in support. And they, too, will always be a minority. They're willing to speak up. They're leaders too.

As another exercise in self-aggrandizement, I'll tell you what my philosophy toward commenters on Dean's World is, and has been for a long time:

I have no interest in sycophants, and I also have no interest in bloviators who seek to turn every conversation to their pet peeves--including my own shortcomings, which are manifold but not an appropriate subject for every conversation. Unlike other blogs, I want the Dean's World comments to be constantly challenging and interesting. I've worked hard to establish that. In my own imperfect way.

As Tyrone has said, if you come here, you'd best come correct. Meaning: if you're going to use up our precious time with your words, you'd better have something to say that's worth reading. Even if it's just funny or silly.

That's my arrogance.

But Dean's World had a bit over 32,000 visits on Sunday, out of 10,800 unique IP addresses. And only a handful of commenters. But almost all of those comments were worth reading.

I don't care how many comments get left, and assign no great significance to a thread that has zero comments. So what? Tons of people are reading, and benefiting from it. Even if the benefit is just to laugh, or determine that they disagree.

Dean's World could become like Tim Blair or Little Green Footballs or Daily Kos or Firedog Lake: every thread with dozens or hundreds of comments, most of them not worth the time to read.

I don't want that, so I do it differently. I don't care if an entire day goes by with no comments. The really good commenters will say something when they have something interesting to say.

When you first start a new blog, you want commenters. You thirst for them. Why wouldn't you? You--being an arrogant person in many ways--thirst for the validation of having someone answer you. Just getting an answer assures you that yes, someone is at least reading and thinking about what you wrote.

Then, if you keep going and develop an audience--and you will develop an audience if you keep writing regularly--you reach another point, where growth continues and you realize you actually want a decent conversation. Or you just want sycophants and constant validation. Or you let the constant nattering and criticism destroy you, which is what did the great Steven Den Beste in. Anyway, you make a choice:

1) Shut the comments down (like Instapundit did) and stop paying attention to most of the emails
2) Let the comments become chaos
3) Quit
4) Shepherd the comments and just deal with the fact that a lot of people seem to hate you

I see no other choices. #4 is the most demanding, which is why few choose it.

I mostly find it worth it, even if it makes me crazy sometimes, and I sometimes (usually?) fail in my best aspirations and lose my temper. In fact, losing my temper is probably my most chronic shortcoming.

But remember it always: when you blog on controversial issues, you're being arrogant, and you're being a leader. Both are always true. And if you keep writing, and keep writing well, the readers will come.

It may also make you a little (or a lot) crazy sometimes. That's your price of admission: you asked for it, bubbula.

The silent majority just sits and watches. They have their own lives and their own concerns, and you're just a small part of it at best.

I don't like Don Imus. I never have. But Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, what a bunch of sobbing whiners America's women have become.

Radio shock jock Don Imus recently issued an offhanded rude comment about a group of stellar, amazing college basketball players. His comment was mildly racially inflammatory, somewhat more sexist, and totally stupid. It was also just an offhand comment by a well-known shock-jock who's made his whole living being obnoxious.

The reaction of these poor wilting-lilly women and their coach? And both the "liberal" and "conservative" political establishments? Just look at the results: the coach gives us a lengthy and unnecessary defense of her players in a national press conference, while everyone else fulminates about the evil men and/or the evil liberals and/or evil conservatives or whatever.

What next? Will all these fragile flower basketball ladies get the vapors and faint?

Does even one of them have the moxie to just say, "to hell with you Imus, you stupid old fart" and otherwise forget his stupidity?

My God. When did American women--black women no less, who are usually so proud and so strong!--become such freaking wimps?

*Update*: Mrs. Esmay is even less charitable than I am.

*Update 2*: If these women had any balls at all, they'd make fun of creepy old Imus, challenge him to a game of one-on-one, and then ask him to lead the tipoff in their next game after they embarrassed him.

*Update 3*: Since some seem not to have clicked the link that led to my rant above, here are some choice quotes from the coach who held the national press conference:

"We have all been physically, mentally and emotionally spent. So hurt by the remarks that were uttered by Mr. Imus."

"Yes, and I’ve cried and I’ve been angry and disappointed. Because I don’t understand all of that. And yet, to a great extent I do. I do. "

"It’s more than the Rutgers women’s basketball team. It is all women athletes. It is all women."

"Is there malice in my heart? No, I’m hurt. But I do recognize that this issue speaks to a bigger issue. To utter such despicable words are not right, whether spoken by black, white, purple or green, male or female, tall or short, skinny or thin, fat, whatever. It is not right. It’s time for everybody to reflect on what is going on. Oh it’s time, ladies and gentlemen. It’s been time."

"And I trust that our president, our governor, our athletic director will continue to lead, support, respect, honor and defend these young ladies."

You need a national press conference and the involvement of political leaders, to tell us all you've cried and you're hurt and you need these young women defended--from a jackass shock jockey like DON FRICKIN' IMUS?!!?!?

In other news, a far more rational writer, Armed Liberal, a.k.a. Marc Danziger, has some thoughts.

I'd like to ask Marc to update his link to point to this. And I'd say that some of the comments left by others to his article illustrate just how deep a problem Islamophobia has become in certain segments of the right and/or hawkish community.

So here's what I'll state again:

I believe Islamophobia is real. I think Marc Danziger would agree that it is. Am I right, Marc? And if so, how do you identify it, and what do you do about it? I know what I do: I'm rude about it when I see it.

That's my choice. You can choose other approaches. But a few years ago I started arguing with Islamophobes with cool reason and logic and references. Their response was to get nastier and snottier and meaner. I was challenged to find some Muslims who might come to Dean's World to show that they were rational, decent, modern human beings, and I thought that was a simply terrific idea, so I found a couple of terrific writers who had lots to say--not just about Islam, but lots of things that they might want to write about besides that--and they often got treated like utter garbage and as if they could fix the problem of terrorism all by themselves. I started semi-regularly finding good news stories, about progress and hope and reform, about Muslims making a difference, only to see that crapped upon regularly, usually as "taqiyyah" or some other such rubbish.

I even posted inspiring stories of Muslims serving in our armed forces, with valor, only to have that dismissed and ignored as utterly irrelevant to anything.

At some point I stopped being nice about this. And I will not start being nice about it again.

Because the fact is that American forces are fighting side-by-side with Muslims to defeat terrorism--all over the world. There are Muslim nations asking for help to stamp out terrorism. There are Muslim organizations worldwide trying to fight the cause. Treating all of this with contempt is utter insanity.

Not to mention that it's just plain bad behavior.

I cannot make anyone think anything. I can, however, set editorial policies for this web site. Which is, as anyone who really reads it knows, pretty much as hawkish on terrorism as you can get without advocating nuclear annihilation.

But: this is an Islamophobe-free zone.

That does not mean there can be no criticism, by the way. That's just another straw man. It means that if you cannot agree in principal to all five editorial principles I laid out right here, you don't belong here and will not be welcomed or treated politely.

That doesn't mean we can't be friends. But this is what I insist upon on this blog.

And that's really all there is to it.

I'm curious to know if Marc and the fine folks at Winds of Change find all that reasonable. Because I don't find it unreasonable at all.

I recently lost my temper after two years of trying to be temperate (sometimes successfully, sometimes not at all) on the subject of religious hatred. But I hereby withdraw my previous demand for "ideological purity," which was snotty and sarcastic and not sincere. I used it because I knew that if I put down any editorial policy, I'd be accused of that anyway. So I snottily said, "yeah!!" Because I didn't think it necessary to say that we don't put up with religious bigots or racists. But apparently, we do need to say it.

But: this is the new editorial policy at Dean's World, stated concisely:

"This is an Islamophobe-free zone."

I will not engage in lengthy parsings and arguments over exactly what that means. If you cannot tell the difference between "I believe Islam is a false faith" and "I believe Islam is the cause of terrorism and repression in the Middle East and wherever else it goes," then you don't belong here.

If you think the problem in the Middle East is primarily a Muslim Problem rather than a problem with a region plagued with a legacy of fascism, communism, and brutal dictatorships stemming from the Cold War and colonial eras---along with the ethnic strife and of course the religious matters that usually add to such things--then you do not belong here.

Heck, if you think the Middle East is "The Islamic World," you probably don't belong here.

It is henceforth the editorial policy that if you cannot write with the following as your presumptions, you do not belong here:

1) Islam does not represent the forces of Satan or the Anti-Christ bent upon destruction of the Christian world.

2) There is no 1,400 year old "war with the West/Christianity" being waged by "The Muslims" or anyone else.

3) Islam as a religion is no more inherently incompatible with modernity, minority rights, women's rights, or democratic pluralism than most ancient religions.

4) Medieval, anachronistic, obscure terms like "dhimmitude" or "taqiyya" are suitable for intellectual discussion & analysis. They are not and never will be appropriate to slap in the face of everyday Muslims or their friends.

5) Muslims have no more need to prove that they can be good Americans, loyal citizens, decent people, or enemies of terrorism than anyone else does.

That is our stated editorial position. You--and this includes commenters--will work from respect for that, or you just need to leave.

If you have any further questions about the policy, direct them to me.

By the way, this also applies to people who hate Christians, or Jews, or other Major World Religions ("Major World Religions defined right here). Or even secular non-theists.

I am entirely certain that some will claim that this is still "ideological purity," which is why I caustically embraced the phrase in the first place. But I'm not putting up with having the front page or any more discussion threads derailed by Islamophobic garbage.

Back in the 1950s William F. Buckley Jr. conducted a purge in the ranks of his young publication, The National Review. He was running a conservative publication at a time when conservative publications were not respected and were thus by nature low-circulation. In those circumstances it would be hard to stand on principal and refuse to associate with certain parties who might provide short-term gain.

Buckley refused to align his publication with elements on the right that were excessively hateful, rabidly racist, or just plain nuts. The whole thing came to a head when Buckley one day drew a line in the sand:

You could either be a John Birch Society supporter, or you could write for the National Review.

One or the other. "Both" was not an option.

This is a minor correction to my friend Ron Coleman's earlier article by the way. It was not anti-semites he threw off his publication, although he was no anti-semite and hired many Jews. No, it was radical frothing nutjobs who saw Communist conspiracies everywhere. Buckley was staunchly anti-Communist, but would not align himself with people who saw everything as a Communist plot.

Today National Review is still one of the most respected conservative intellectual journals. The John Birch Society is rightly remembered as a bunch of right-wing nutjob conspiracy theorists.

Not that the National Review is the greatest publication in the history of the universe, but it's a venerable and respectable institution that's made a difference in the world. I find the example inspiring.

And, having wearied of fighting constantly against Islamophobic fools on Dean's World and other places, only to have people ridiculously deny the very possibility that there could be any such thing as Islamophobia even when the evidence is presented them full in the face, I've decided to draw a similar line in the sand:

You can be an Islamophobe, or you can contribute to Dean's World. You cannot do both.

This is meant for front-page contributors, submitters, or even commenters. It is time for you to make a choice, and to live by that choice. Because I certainly intend to.

Simply put, you must agree withto all of the following assertionsassumptions:

1) Islam does not represent the forces of Satan or the Anti-Christ bent on destruction of the Christian world.

2) There is no 1,400 year old "war with the West/Christianity" being waged by Muslims or anyone else.

3) Islam as a religion is no more inherently incompatible with modernity, minority rights, women's rights, or democratic pluralism than most religions.

4) Medieval, anachronistic, obscure terms like "dhimmitude" or "taqiyya" are suitable for polite intellectual discussion. They are not and never will be appropriate to slap in the face of everyday Muslims or their friends.

5) Muslims have no more need to prove that they can be good Americans, loyal citizens, decent people, or enemies of terrorism than anyone else does.

Is this a test of "ideological purity?"

Why yes. Yes it is.

If you cannot accept, wholeheartedly, all of the above 5 assertions--without exception or weasel-wording--then if you are a front page Dean's World contributor you should turn in your keys and say goodbye. You can do it gracefully or ingracefully. You can do it by email or by posting whatever you want on the front page before you go. Your choice. But you need to do it: you need to leave.

Furthermore, I will accept no more debate upon this matter by commenters bent upon snarky, snotty, Islamophobic irrationality. You should either stop using your comment account, or you should be prepared to simply be thrown out without further ado.

I'm done with this.

By the way, feel free to take us off your blogroll if you can't handle this. Or to ask me to take you off of ours.

We can still be friends if you want. I have relatives and even friends who are racists, sexists, homophobes, even anti-semites. But I won't provide them with a forum either.

Criticism is fine. Intellectual argument is fine. Traditionalist moral arguments are fine. But I will not provide a forum for haters or paranoids.

I'm done. Islamophobia has no more place in polite society than any other form of irrational hatred, and I will no longer be any part of hosting discussions or "debates" with Islamophobes.

*Update*: Made a slight modification above. Sorry about that. Nothing really major though.

I have long been known as a dedicated, unrelenting foe of Communism, and of the dysfunctional philosophy that underlies it known as Marxism.

If you're looking for me to say "but" right about here, just stop. There is no "but."

I feel almost stupid having to write the above sentences. Honestly, it's almost humiliating to have to write them. Search my archives. I'm not even a little nice on this subject. I don't even have much truck with those who say "Marxism and Communism aren't the same thing." Nice try. In the real world it's almost invariably a distinction without a difference.

I'll make some excuses for useful idiots and youthful idealists. But only so many. I make similar forgiveness of white supremacists or "black power" extremists or whatnot; basically, I sympathize with those who in fear and ignorance made youthful mistakes; this is why I think that American History X was one of the greatest films of the 1990s, and should be required watching. Not with your young children, but certainly with your older children. Not because it's an exercise in self-flagellation (it is not) but because it's an eye-opener that will leave neither the left nor the right nor members of any faith tradition or culture entirely comfortable.

Maybe the problem here is the Manichean worldview that still infects a lot of discussions: you're either X or Y, you're either black or white, you're either liberal or conservative, you're either left or right, you're either pro-market or anti-market, etc.

For example, I have always been so utterly against Islamo-fascist ideology that I can't express it. I don't find the term "Islamo-Fascist" wrong at all; I use it to distinguish the utter nutjobs from the sane people. Most of the sane people I know agree with me on that point. It is a stain that should be viewed much like the evil that infected some (not all, just some) Christian thinking in the past--and not always as far back in the past as we would like to imagine.

It's also not an attempt to draw a "moral equivalency" by the way--try as some might to shoehorn me into that nonsense.

I guess I write all this only because I get tired of hearing these days from people who think I have "changed." I suppose I have a little--if you've aged 5 years and you haven't changed at all, there's probably something wrong with you--but my "change" is a bit less dramatic than some seem to think.

I say all this by way of explaining: I feel that market-oriented libertarianism and conservatism are not evil, but in need of challenging forthrightly. You know, just because they proved themselves right about many issues--the overreaching of state power, of the limited value of populism and state regulation, and the limited value of state planning--that does not make them inherently right about everything.

So in this friendly, genuinely non-hostile and Socratic (I hope) spirit, I offer two simple questions:

1) Can you find for me, anywhere in history, the existence of any such thing as a "corporation" before Stora Kopparberg was granted a charter by the King of Sweden in 1347, and can you find me more than a dozen examples of such corporations that existed before His Majesty granted said charter? Indeed, can you provide me with examples of at least two dozen such corporations that existed in the entirety of history before the 18th century? Please be specific. Partnerships and family-owned businesses do not apply.

2) Although neither Ayn Rand nor Adam Smith were perfect or infallible philosophers, I think most would agree that they are the best expositors of the idea of the free market and the entrepreneur. So, can you find me any example of a vigorous defense of the idea of the Corporation in the entire writings of either Adam Smith or Ayn Rand?

Since I'm pretty sure that the answers are "no" and "no," I now ask sub-question 2a: Who was Howard Roark's primary nemesis in The Fountainhead? It wasn't the government, was it?

I am astounded by how many so-called "libertarians" and "conservatives" talk as if the Corporation is the ultimate expression of the natural and organic free market, the great expression of individual triumph--as opposed to being exactly what it is: a creation of and an ongoing expression of state power, and an exercise in collectivism.

By the way, Sam Walton has been dead for 15 years. So why is Wal-Mart an expression of the individual entrepreneur again?

Compare this to marriage, which existed long before the government defined it, and has existed for tens of thousands of years, under every culture and religion, whether the state recognized it or not. You really think they're comparable? How so? Where do you find an example in history of such a beastie as a corporation prior to 14th century Europe, and where do you find more than a dozen of them worldwide before 19th and 20th century governments expanded the concept for trade and other purposes?

I think these are important questions that don't get asked often enough. Indeed, I'm pretty sure these questions are going to define the political debate for the next generation.

To put it in short: you guys won on a very major and important question. Marx was wrong in most of his particulars. You won, the Marxists lost. Granted. So the argument stops there?

Four years ago I founded the Campaign for Democracy and Human Rights in Iraq.

Not long after that, I helped found the charity known as Operation Give.

I have no regrets over any of that, except for the fact that a lot of that work led to a nervous and physical collapse into alcohol and exhaustion that it took me some time to recover from.

My stepdad, and more than one friend, served over there. I'm proud of them too, and humbled by their sacrifice. More than I can say.

On this day of final justice being delivered to the Butcher of Baghdad, I am reminded of this Flash video, which I posted more than once on Dean's World. I first posted it on February 17, 2003. Much to my dismay, the old Dean's World archives are still completely broken, but here was my original posting.

Since those old archives are frustratingly broken, I present it here again:

In the intervening years my attitude has not changed in any way I can think of, except that I'm much more jaded about the American political system. But I have not one drop of remorse over my support of the effort to finally, after more than a decade of keeping the Iraqi people in agony, to excise the cancer on the world that was Saddam Hussein.

Was the sacrifice worth it? I have no doubt at all about the answer. I'm just bitter over the fact that some American politicians have conveniently forgotten why they also supported that action.

The video, by the way, was created by the Dissident Frogman.

Meryl Yourish notes, quite correctly, that I did not repudiate some obscure remarks by Dean's World commenters that have appeared here from time to time over the years. Which is quite true. But she then suggests that I was "ignoring" such things. Hahahaha. Riiiiight. [Eyes roll]. Leave it to Meryl Yourish to try to worm out of her shameful Kahanist apologism with a lame tu quoque response.

Truth: I didn't even remember those obscure remarks by my commenters, but if if a civil, decent person were to have asked I would have said, "I assume those commenters didn't know any better. I certainly didn't at the time. Now that I do know better, however, it's a different story."

For reference, here once again is the terrorist whom Meryl Yourish and others proudly allow to speak for the people of Israel:

I considered linking this video on Dean's World with a minor hat-tip, on the order of "Hey, this is pretty cool" when I first spotted it. But a friend asked if I knew all I should about the terrorist Kahane.

"Terrorist? No way!" Then I researched, and I realized: "Oh sh*t. Yes he was." In fact, he was convicted more than once of terrorist activities by the United States government. When he learned that he was almost certainly going to be indicted again for his ongoing terrorist activities, he finally fled to Israel--where he continued his terrorist activities with pride.

I initially posted a very mild, non-confrontational article about it. Here it is in its entirety. Please read what I wrote carefully and tell me where there was a single ad hominem attack on anyone besides the terrorist thug Meir Kahane and his violent movement.

Later in the day, I sent an even more polite, and utterly non-confrontational, email to Meryl Yourish about it, since it had appeared on her site. I'll happily re-post that email in public by the way. The whole exchange, every word of it. There was nothing in the least bit nasty about it.

The whole exchange from my perspective was, in essence: "Are you sure you want to be associating yourself with this guy? He was not a good guy."

Although I did not say so at the time, I don't think it right that anyone should let an avowed theocrat, an avowed terrorist, and a thug speak for the people of Israel, with little more than a weak "I don't agree with everything BUT..." description of the man.

Let us review:

Kahanists approve of stabbing homosexuals for being homosexuals and still hate homosexuals. And applaud the death of innocents as "holy".

Respected pro-Israel Jewish scholars recognize Kahanism as quasi-fascist and violent criminal terrorist.

Kahane wanted to make it a crime punishable by law for a non-Jewish man to have sex with a Jewish woman

The Anti-Defamation League calls Kahanism terrorism.

So does the US State Department.

So does the Israeli government, especially after the Kahanist murder of Yitzhak Rabin.

The Council on Foreign Relations calls Kahanism terrorism.

The Center for Defense Information calls Kahanism terrorism.

Even David Horowitz's Front Page Magazine declares Kahanism terrorism.

Note, please, that aside from the US State Department, the Center for Defense Intelligence, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Washington Times, I have not named a single source that is not a Jewish source.

Ehud Sprinzak's expose of Kahanism remains the single best source I have found so far on Kahane and his thug followers. These people terrorized not just Arabs or Muslims but also Americans. Christians and even Jews.

For the record: I hereby officially declare that I utterly repudiate Kahanism. I don't believe that any prior positive comments about Kahane that appeared from Dean's World commenters were made with full understanding of his record, and they certainly were not made with my full understanding. But now that I am fully aware (and the rest of us are too), I utterly repudiate them. Are you pro-terrorist or anti-terrorist? If you're pro-terrorist then I want nothing to do with you.

Will Meryl Yourish make make such an unequivocal statement? Just curious.

I get a lot of people who tell me I should let this go. They even tell me that I should stop because I'm being "emotional." You know what? I am emotional: I f*cking hate terrorists. I don't want to reason with them or try to rationalize their behavior. I want the military and law enforcement authorities of free democracies to hunt them down and kill them, or lock them in a dungeon and throw away the key.

Just so you know where I stand.

I still have two questions I am waiting to have answered by Meryl Yourish and her apologists:

1) Do you unequivocally condemn terrorism or do you not?

2) Do you think it's okay for a Jew to murder Christians, Muslims, and even Jews--Americans as well as Arabs--if it's done in the name of Israel?

I await unequivocal answers to these questions which do not involve attacks upon my person, my sex, my motives, my friends, my faith, or my family. Just answer the questions.

I for one have no more olive branches to offer to terrorist apologists. I just want to know who the enemies of terrorism are.

Some years ago Meryl Yourish and I had a fight over a couple of things that, in retrospect, were pretty stupid. Still, it was funny: a year or so after those incidents she wrote me to ask for a personal favor. She was entirely nice about it. I assumed this was an olive branch and complied. Since then we've exchanged short, polite emails a couple of times over mostly blogging-related matters. I didn't think we'd ever be friends again but I thought simple civility and courtesy were now a reasonable expectation.

Apparently not. Well, live and learn I guess.

Without responding to the slime spewed by Meryl and her commenters--the sexist, misandrist garbage about me, the slanderous claims about what I supposedly think about Judaism, or the shamefully Islamophobic nonsense--let me focus once again on my exact problem with the following video:

I agree with much of what's said in that video, as I've said from the start. I quibble with one or two things. If they weren't the words of a deplorable man, I would find nothing worth remarking negatively upon. I'd have probably posted the video on Dean's World, with a hat tip, and said little more about it.

However, the fact is that Meir Kahane was an evil man. Weak-tea statements like "I do not agree with everything he stood for" while glowingly quoting him at length strikes me as a big mistake. That opens up the Israeli people, and their supporters, to the charge that they stand by terrorism and theocratic extremism and are thus "no better than" their enemies--which is stupid garbage. But Kahane, by his life and actions, made such bullcrap harder to refute. If most Jews hadn't thoroughly rejected him he'd be the poster child for Jewish evil rather than the minor footnote he deserves to be.

I've spent too many years, too much personal time and money, and taken too much abuse for defending Israel. I will not stand by while a murdering terrorist thug and embarrassment to humanist values is approvingly quoted and treated as merely a bit controversial.

Under the assumption that we are actually talking like rational adults, let me point to a few examples that might help Meryl and her friends understand my point. I'll start with some comparatively mild objections about Kahane. I will then move up to issues that I consider felonies and not misdemeanors. So if someone tries the trick of only responding to my more mild objections, or pretending I put them all on the same level, we'll all know better.

Minor objection #1, which might be called a nitpick:

Meryl approvingly notes that Israel respects gay rights and is proud about this. She and I completely agree about this--we're both liberal humanists after all. As I noted almost three years ago, the following quiz is reason alone for tolerant people everywhere to respect Israel. You don't have to "approve" of homosexuality to note what it says about an enlightened, tolerant society not to imprison and persecute such people, to prefer to talk to them rather than stone them.

What would Rabbi Kahane have said about this? Well, he wanted to throw every non-Jew out of Israel, get rid of most of Israel's democratic institutions, and bring in traditionalist, Orthodox religious rule throughout the country. He advocated turning Israel into an officially theocratic, Orthodox regime. Furthermore, the Kahanist official line has always been that homosexuality is "detrimental to the perpetuation of Jewish life."

Update: This just in, Kahanists lionize a man for stabbing a homosexual. Nice folks, those Kahanists.

I think we are safe to assume that there would be no gay pride parades if Rabbi Kahane's Israel came into existence; indeed, the Kahanists continue to do their best best stop such things.

Minor objection #2, a bit more serious:

Ehud Sprinzak some years ago wrote an excellent expose of Rabbi Meir Kahane, detailing Kahane's theocratic views. There's lots there to read but I found this part particularly revealing:

The Arabs are, taken together, the collective entity that, for Kahane, threatens Jewish existence; and the Israeli Arabs (there is no Palestinian nation for Kahane) are a highly explosive time bomb. The Arabs claim the same land as the Jews, refuse to recognize God's biblical prescriptions and would never be ready to settle for less than the whole. This places them in the same position as the native population of Canaan at the time of the Israelite conquest, and all biblical rules and regulations adopted and applied by Joshua against the Canaanites are relevant today. Joshua, Kahane reminds us, sent the Canaanites three letters offering them three alternative courses of action: leave the land, fight for it and bear the consequences or peacefully surrender to the Jews and obtain the status of loyal "resident strangers." Any individual Arab is thus welcome to stay provided he fully accepts Jewish sovereignty, as well as the right upon which it is founded. Applying the rules of Halakha (written and oral tradition) according to his understanding, Kahane maintains that even in the case of complete submission, full rights of citizenship should not be given to "strangers." Only "strangers" who will obey the seven commandments of "Noah's sons," pay special taxes and submit to special labour regulations may remain. Following the "kingdom rules" of Maimonides, the "strangers" must also constantly be "humiliated and detested"

Does that sound like dhimmitude to you? It sure does to me.

I thought we were all proud of the fact that Arab citizens of Israel serve in its armed forces, in its government, and enjoy almost all the same rights that everyone else in Israel does. Israeli Arabs--not the Palestinians, but the actual Israeli Arabs who stood by Israel even when they were invaded--are treated with respect and friendship, and even gratitude. I've noted this myself many times as a reason to respect Israel. Would that every one of Israel's immediate neighbors was so tolerant of religious and ethnic minorities within their borders.

But Sprinzak notes that Kahane called for even Israeli Arabs to be expelled or at least treated with contempt and loathing. As Sprinzak noted, Kahane didn't just hate the non-Jews in Israel. He wanted them all gone, and the few who might stupidly remain should be treated with utter loathing and permanent second-class citizenship.

Minor Objection #3: To Kahanists, a Jewish woman who has sex with a non-Jew is a whore and a traitor to the Jewish people. If she doesn't deserve jail then certainly the man who had sex with her does. The Kahanists openly advocate this policy. They don't just frown upon miscegenation. They don't just condemn it. They don't even limit themselves to discouraging it. They want to make it punishable by law for a Jewish woman to have sex with a non-Jew.

I admit we are still in "controversial" territory here. I can understand why a reasonable Jew would say, "well maybe I support some of those ideas, or some parts of them," or even, "well I don't support much of that but I get where it's coming from." Either way, most would say, "we have higher issues we have to deal with right now--the protection of Israel."

I get that. So:

Not-So-Minor Objection #4: Kahanism is a terrorist movement.

If you read Sprinzak's expose, you'll find it's a pretty good introduction to Kahane's actual terrorist activities. The innocent people he beat up, the everyday people his followers hit with sticks and stones, the bombs they blew up or tried to blow up, the car bombs they set, the people he and his friends threatened to kill--and some of the people they actually did kill.

The Anti-Defamation League--an organization of which I am sometimes critical, but is certainly not anti-Jewish or anti-Israel--has a lengthy look at Kahane and his movement's violence. Click "show" below to see a few selections. By the way, the Jewish Defense League, mentioned repeatedly, is a Kahanist organization:

Those are just a few selections I chose almost at random; you should read the whole thing yourself.

Indeed, the ADL's listing isn't even complete. The Jewish Virtual Library notes one of the supreme ironies: Binyamin Zev Kahane, Rabbi Kahane's son, openly approved of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Rabin was murdered in 1995 by a Kahanist terrorist named Yigal Amir, a member of a Kahanist offshoot group known as Eyal.

Got that? No Arab, no Islamist, murdered Yitzhak Rabin. A Jew proudly affiliated with Kahane murdered Yitzhak Rabin.

Worse, the Kahane organization, in their typical fashion, denied being part of the terrorist act but then said they approved of the action anyway.

This was not the first time a Jew was terrorized by the Kahanists. But it was the final straw for most Israelis.

So let's get something straight: it is not Dean Esmay who says Kahane and his followers are terrrorists. The U.S. State Department says so. The Council on Foreign Relations says so. The Israeli government says so. The Center for Defense Information's Terrorist Project says so. The Anti-Defamation League says so. Even Front Page Magazine, of all places, recognizes that Jewish terrorism is still terrorism, and notes a recent Kahanist atrocity from 2005.

"Are they as bad as bad as the Islamist terrorists?" is almost a cowardly question. Who gives a damn? Are they evil or are they not? Do you have the moral fortitude to answer that without equivocation?

I do not "think" Kahane was a terrorist, I know he was. And now everybody, including Meryl Yourish, knows it too. Kahanism = terror and oppression and barbarism. That being the case, here are a few simple questions:

Will you unequivocally denounce Rabbi Meir Kahane as the leader of a radical theocratic and terrorist movement that even Jews are not safe from being harassed, beaten, and murdered by? Or will you stick with a mealy-mouthed "well, I don't agree with everything, but..." or "yes but Dean Esmay is a bad, evil man" response?

We all make mistakes. The real question is whether we apologize for them and try to make amends.

(And by the way, see Dean Esmay, Terrorist Supporter if you're thinking I've never made the mistake of unwittingly supporting terrorists myself.)

Update: And by the way, I thought this blindingly obvious but maybe it needs to be stated: when a terrorist--a man who was a practicing terrorist before he ever even moved to Israel--takes it upon himself to speak for all of Israel, the unspoken assumptions behind his "we don't give a damn what anyone in the world thinks" rhetoric seem pretty obvious, do they not?

"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation, under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all."

I'm not aware of any other nation on Earth which has a similar oath, but every American I know can recite that by heart. As children, we grew up reciting it every day in school. Every American who was born in this country knows that oath. They can recite it in their sleep. Conservatives especially tend to love it.

But here's the funny part: it was a liberal--a leftist socialist--who first formulated that pledge. His name was Francis Bellamy, and he was a Jimmy Carter-style liberal Democrat.

Ann Coulter must be having hissy fits over this news: a left-wing socialist in the Jimmy Carter tradition invented the Pledge of Allegiance. Worse, here is the pledge he actually wrote in the late 1800s:

"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands: one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all."

It was formulated to get young children past the wounds of America's great Civil War of the 1860s. It was meant to encourage children to see America as one nation, and to repudiate the war of secession that the South had lost.

By the 1920s the pledge was altered to read as follows:

"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all."

At the time they thought this was a better formulation because the words "my flag" seemed vague. An immigrant might say "I pledge allegiance to my flag" and they might mean the flag of another nation. So this new version seemed a much more clear. It was not just any flag, it was the flag of the United States.

This is almost the version of the pledge that most Americans know today. But back then, a lot of Americans still objected to the pledge for religious reasons. They considered it a form of idolatry, and even slightly blasphemous. You pledge allegiance to a flag?? And to a republic?? Isn't that putting your government and its symbols above your faith in God???

So in the 1950s some liberals suggested this formulation: "one nation, under God," so that everyone would understand that pledging allegiance to the United States would not mean you were making faith in America more important than faith in God. Devoutly religious people could now recite the oath and not feel like they were betraying their faith.

What's funny about all this is that a lot of people today take the line "one nation, under God" as some kind of affirmation of America's religious nature. When in fact that line was added for the exact opposite reason: so that the devoutly religious could recite the oath and not feel like they were putting love of country above love of God.

None of this makes either liberals or conservatives comfortable today. Because it flies in the face of all of their prejudices. Let's review:

Fact: The pledge was invented by a liberal left-wing socialist from the same tradition that Jimmy Carter came from.

Fact: the pledge was never intended to be a religious oath, it was supposed to be an oath that helped people get past the arguments that led to the Great Civil War, and to realize that they lived in a truly great country.

Fact: the words "under God" were only added in the 1950s so that religious people would be comfortable reciting the oath, so they could affirm the oath without feeling like they were putting love of country above love of God.

By the way, in case you're curious: I'm basically a secular humanist and a deist. I oppose the idiots who want to take the words "under God" out of the pledge, and I utterly oppose those who want to take the words "In God we trust" off of our money and who seek to abolish religious symbols in government. I oppose such efforts completely, for I recognize that religion has always been part of what makes America great. They're wrong, they're totally wrong.

I also have absolutely no problem affirming this oath:

"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation, under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all."

I do so pledge, without reservation.

Radio Shack started as the Tandy Corporation in 1919 selling home-hobbyist leather toolkits. Their market in those days was Boy Scouts and YMCA Indian Guides and other child enthusiasts for boyish (and tomboyish girl) crafts. In those days Tandy was mostly mail order with a few physical stores.

Some time in the 1950s or 1960s Tandy decided to get into amateur electronics, selling crystal radio sets and other do-it-yourself home hobbyist projects. By the mid-70s they were a great source of cheap CB radio equipment and guitar amplifiers and simple stereo equipment and simple electronics for hobbyists.

By the late '70s and early '80s they entered the world of home computers--"home computers" meaning computers you could put together yourself.

It is difficult to imagine now, but at one time there used to be something called a "home computer hobbyist," which then seemed very exotic: you mean an individual could put together his or her own computer? A home computer, as in a computer they had in their home?? It was radical.

Once those home computers became somewhat common Tandy began to sell mostly pre-assembled computers that you could expand upon yourself--the TRS-80 Model I, Model II, Model III, the Color Computer (CoCo), and so on. Indeed, at one point in Silicon Valley there was something called the "Four Sisters of home computers": Commodore, Apple, Atari, and Radio Shack. Then IBM came along and all but destroyed the 4 Sisters, with only Apple managing to survive.

Tandy/Radio Shack eventually gave up making their own computers and began selling other companies' computers. But they kept up their business of selling cool electronics and other gear that a young enthusiast--or older enthusiast--might get some pleasure and learning from.

A few years ago Tandy/Radio Shack finally just changed their name to Radio Shack Corporation. They no longer make computers but they still sell all sorts of useful and/or entertaining electronics, mostly geared for geek boyz and geek grrlz who love the magic.

Back in the early 1980s, when I was a "home computing hobbyist" (there used to be such a hobby, although no one calls it that anymore) it was extremely common for techies to refer to Radio Shack as "Radio Crap," and to refer to Tandy's pioneering Personal Computers, the TRS-80 series ("TRS" standing for "Tandy/Radio Shack) as the "Trash-80."

Even then I heard regularly about Radio Shack's imminent demise as a worthless purveyor of junk electronics.

Apple Computer was founded in 1976 and is still a Fortune 500 company some 30 years later. But also Wal-Mart was founded in 1962. Toyota was founded in 1933. Sony was founded in 1946. Polaroid was founded in 1929. Toys 'R Us was founded in 1948.

Radio Shack was founded in 1919.

Since we're in the middle of American Baseball's World Series, let me also give some baseball analogies: the Houston Astros and the New York Mets were formed in 1962. The Montreal Expos and the San Diego Padres were formed in 1969. The Kansas City Royals were founded in 1969.

Heck, let's say you're an American, and you don't like baseball but you do like American football. You like your Cowboys, your Steelers, your Colts, your Bears, your Lions, whatever: the NFL was founded in 1920.

Tandy/Radio Shack was founded in 1919.

So to make my point clear: I am not a Radio Shack fanatic per se. They are not the be-all and end-all of electronics. I acknowledge the company's many failings. But dude, I've been reading about how worthless Radio Shack is and how they are doomed to failure for most of my life. Yet they were founded some 47 years before I was born.

So now it's 2006, going on 2007, and still if you walk into a major shopping mall you'll likely find a Radio Shack tucked in there somewhere. And if you go in you'll find all kinds of cool little gadgets to play with, and all kinds of electronic components that only geeks fully understand.

If you're an under-10 enterprising young geek with an interest in electronics you'll still find things like soldering irons and diodes and resisters and fun little kits you can put together at Radio Shack. Plus some cool gizmos you don't have to put together yourself but can still just enjoy.

So you know what I think about people who snear at Radio Shack? Imagine yourself a classical musician or band leader. Not necessarily a great virtuoso, but someone quite accomplished in the field of music. So you walk into a little store dedicated to selling High School band uniforms and instruments and sheet music. And you snarl, "YOU WORTHLESS POSEURS!!!"

Dude, get over it. They are not the end-point. They are just a great start-point.

Of course Radio Shack is imperfect and limited. Of course it's a little kitsche-ey. Of course it isn't all things to all people. But I defy you to find a national chain that makes a better start-point for kids (or kids at heart) who are looking for an on-ramp to the future. Or or the older tech-loving geek who wants to go a little past what he can find in the "big box" stores for his home entertainment or computer needs without making that quest the center of his or her life.

I'm always pleased to see a Radio Shack in my local shopping mall. "A Radio Shack! Cool! Let's go in and have some fun!" And please don't tell me you ever said, "A Best Buy! Cool!" (Best Buy established 1986) to your nieces or nephews or sons or daughters. I won't believe you.

My general reputation is that I am unflappable. Which is usually quite true. In fact, when my temper erupts, it tends to upset people and leave them running for cover. They find it out-of-character and even alien. They look at me as if a demon has suddenly taken possession of me. (Which might even be true, for all I know.)

Otherwise, even if I'm sometimes snotty or sarcastic, most people recognize that I am almost hyper-rational. Sometimes, to a fault. (Personality type: INTJ) Anyway, I can usually be talked to.

But I do have certain hot-button issues that make me go medieval. One of them is overt racism (racism that goes beyond gentle jokes and rational discussion, anyway). Another is overt religious bigotry (a good joke is funny, but hating people for their religion is not funny at all). Or sexism, (if it goes beyond gentle barbs and rational discussion).

In fact maybe that's the hot-point: "if it goes beyond gentle barbs and rational discussion."

A case in point might be my beloved Polish wife. In our first week together she let me know she hated Polak jokes. I grew up on the South Side of Chicago in the 1970s, where Polak jokes were very popular. I heard a lot of them growing up, and I thought a lot of them were funny.

Pre-marriage, my beloved and I argued about Polak jokes one night on the phone, back in our first two weeks together. She tried to convince me that Polak jokes were NOT funny. She had a book of Polak jokes, most of them nasty. She read a few of them to me and most of them were just mean and hurtful. They were making all Poles out to be dumb, just based on the fact that most Polish immigrants at the time were new to our country and language. And I had to agree that most of them were really uncalled for. Her mother was a college graduate with a degree in accounting, and both her parents had come here in the 1960s with absolutely nothing, barely the clothes off their backs, and worked their tails off to make a new life for themselves and their children. They came to Detroit in a time when that city was erupting in racial violence. How could you not respect that?? They had come to this country about the year I was born, and by the time I was in my 20s they had already accomplished far more than I had.

So she read me all these nasty jokes, and I was agreeing. Some of them were kind of funny, but others were just nasty. Then she said, "I mean, what the f**k is this one?"

"Uh, what?"

"I mean, just listen to this: 'Why did the Polish couple take so long to drive across America? Because they kept seeing signs that said, 'Clean Restrooms.' How is that even funny?"

I started giggling. She said, "What? How is that funny?"

I started howling. She said, "What, why are you laughing??"

I dissolved into uncontrollable laughter.

Then she finally said, "Oh, you as**ole!"

For the next 3 minutes neither of us could stop laughing.

Oh, I only hope that if my beloved mother-in-law Anna reads this she'll recognize it as a story about a stranger in a strange land trying to make sense of things. Because it is nothing more than that. We've all been there.

I know what gets me mad. I can take a good joke at my expense, just like I can take a good black joke (dey spinnin' n*gga dey spinnin!), a good white joke (how do ya dance again, was that 1, 3, 4, 2... er nope, you meant 3, 2, 1, 4...?), a good hispanic joke (how many latinos does it take to change a lightbulb--hey, who stole all the lightbulbs?), a good Asian joke (can you help me with my math homework?), a good woman joke (what do you mean by that?!?!?!), a good Catholic joke (so what do you feel guilty about today?), a good Jew joke (can I get that on wholesale?), a good man joke (uh, pussy?), a good redneck joke (you mind if I crack open a Pabst Blue Ribbon at this here funeral?), a good gay joke (do the colors at least match and do you have some decent accessories at least, puh-leeze?), a good atheist joke (Ayn Rand was a GODDESS!!), a good Muslim joke (who should I blow up today?), a good evengelical Christian joke (would Jesus approve?), and so on. I mean, I could go all night. (And there would probably be an Indian or Korean kwik-e-mart attendant available in the middle of the night to serve me if I did.)

What really makes me mad is when you want to take these stereotypes about any broad group and make them a subject of general hatred and mistrust. THAT makes me very angry. I always lose my cool over that. Because I just don't think that's the American way.

Well except for the Presbytyrians. I think we all hate them.

Methuselah's Daughter is now available in deluxe trade-paperback edition through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other fine bookselling establishments. You can ask any local bookseller and they'll get it for you.

Yeah it costs a little more than your average novel. For now. But if you buy it you'll be getting an early edition of a book that an incredible number of readers have endorsed. Why did they endorse it? Well here is a sample:

They entered the clearing. My altar consisted of a pillar of carefully placed stones, with a large, flat slab at its top. It stood just thigh high to a normal man and was otherwise undecorated, but I enjoyed its simplicity as it stood in the center of a clearing devoid of other stones or stumps. It was solitary and solid and as such it represented me in a way that gave me some satisfaction. The old hunter pointed to it and the other three approached it. They circled it, looked it up and down, and peered closely. One of them said something in that odd tongue, and then all three of them laughed. I could not understand their words, but I could understand their intent.

This is what you have been babbling about all the way out here? A pile of rocks?

I was stringing my bow even before they acted, but what they did next sealed their doom. The tallest of the three lifted his boot and set it to the altar. With a powerful shove he toppled the slab from the top, and the pillar crumbled about it. As he did so I stepped clear of the trees and leveled my bow. They all laughed at the old hunter who nearly screamed in horror as his eyes locked on me. One of the three turned in his mirth to see what the hunter was looking at, and my arrow took him in the throat.

The other two reacted instantly, crouching and drawing their blades, but I killed the second with two arrows to the chest before he could do any more. The last warrior turned and dove for the trees, finding cover before I could drop him. I sprinted into the clearing, trying to listen for his movement, but the old man was weeping too loudly for me to hear the running coward clearly. I silenced the old fool with my knife through his throat, fair punishment for bringing these interlopers into my woods to desecrate my altar. In the blessed silence that followed I could hear the last man attempting to move quietly around to the south, back towards his camp.

Fetching an arrow from my quiver I set out after him and soon had him in sight, though he was unaware of me. I trailed him back to the camp, which was now brightly lit with two large fires and numerous torches. As we drew close he began to run, thinking himself safely away. I listened to him begin to cry out an alarm, watched as those in the camp reacted, and then dropped him with an arrow through the left calf. He shrieked in pain again as I sent another shaft into his right calf, effectively pinning him to the ground.

Others rushed towards him, but stopped suddenly as three shafts struck the ground before them in rapid succession. I drew down on my whimpering victim again, this time piercing his left shoulder. I waited a moment, listening to the commotion in the camp, seeing several men head out into the woods, doubtless to attempt to circle around me. I loosed another arrow into my victim’s other shoulder, fixing him to the earth at all four limbs. My last arrow struck him at the base of the skull, silencing his moaning.

The one who commanded, Rufus, came to the fore and stood just beyond where my three warning arrows had fallen. It would have been so very easy to kill him then and there, but I stayed my hand, taking his measure. He stood fearless with his arms crossed over his chest, staring into the deepening gloom of the forest, obviously intent on laying eyes upon the one responsible for this. I nocked an arrow and stepped clear of the tree line and out into the light. Our eyes met. His gaze was level as he regarded me in my loincloth, chest wrap, and bare feet. A flurry of motion began behind him, but my eyes never left his as with a motion of his hand he brought his warriors to a halt. I pursed my lips, spat on the ground before me and, certain that my point had been clearly made, turned my back upon him.

Order it here, while you still can get the early edition.

It is the best thing I have ever done creatively save the birth of my two sons.

Quoted:

I found your website today, but quickly realized it's not really promoting liberal or progressive causes. Lieberman is an enabler for the Bush crime family's radical right-wing agenda. And I also see you're repeating Lieberman's claim that Lamont is a one-issue candidate. This totally ignores the fact that the war in Iraq is the sinlge most important issue driving US policy at home and abroad, and most all other issues are affected by it either directly or indirectly.

Here's a quote by Paul Krugman, who really IS a liberal:

I can stop right there. This naif would not know real liberalism if it came up and bit him on the ass. But in case you think he's got no more to say, he then proceeded to say much more, and then send me an additional eleven--count 'em, eleven--emails, composed over a period of what looks like over two hours with his Jihadist rant about the evils of the Bush administration, the Republicans, and so on. Here's a screen shot:

Note, please, that I did not obscure his name, but I certainly would not publish his email address or any further identifying info. I try to never, ever do anything that might result in someone's being harassed. My guess is that this is a 19 year old inflamed with passion and a desire to make the world a better place, but deeply naive and unaware of how much hatred and bile he's swallowed into his politics. Although it's just as possible that he's a 40+ year old who just hasn't grown up yet and still thinks that guys like Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn are the height of intelligent observers.

I would not normally reprint this, but, this is far from the first time I've been email-pelted by a leftist-in-liberal-clothes like this, and this seemed like a good example. It happens to me several times a month at least. It merely amuses me when it happens. My response to all and sundry:

LOL. I've been reading and listening to hatemongering irrational leftists like you for years. You think you've got anything here that I haven't heard before? You naive fool.

You aren't a liberal in any sense of the word. You're just a hate-filled reactionary leftist. You don't even know what "liberal" really means.

Go join Pat Buchanan, Cindy Sheehan, David Duke, and the rest of the Axis of Idiots. I have no use for you.

And here's a news flash for you:

Paul Krugman is nothing but a left-wing Ann Coulter.

You stupid sucker.

Yet, I'll avoid the cheap cliche of claiming that because I've got rightists who dislike me, and leftists who dislike me, this means I am somehow automatically correct. That is not true at all. Many of my critics might be right and I might be wrong about many specific things. But real liberalism comes from avoiding making blanket assumptions, and listening hard even to arguments you strongly disagree with--not to defeat them but to understand them.

And, as the great liberal philosophere John Stuart Mill once said:

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

Never forget that it was a proud liberal who said that. I don't think that Franklin Delano Roosevelt or Harry S Truman would have had any great disagreement with such sentiments, and both those men did things far more draconian on their watch when faced with war than George W. Bush ever has. So, for that matter, did Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson.

I have had about enough, however, of rightists who call me a sellout and a denialist and a useful idiot who just won't recognize that Islam is the West's eternal enemy. They disgust me almost as much as this paranoid lefty. Furthermore, I don't care who condemns me for any of it either way. Come and get me you bastards: my position on all of this has not wavered in almost 5 years, and if you doubt it ask anyone who has been here on Dean's World from the beginning.

Not that consistency is the measure of moral rectitude. It is not. But please: understand me for who I am versus your presumptions. Of course I've learned some things in the last 5 years that have made me change my views in some specific cases, but I don't think my view has ever changed in any fundamental way.

I still think the following musical track--which I still fear YouTube will take down at some point--expesses my exact feelings on the entire subject of terrorism:

If YouTube takes it down (or even if they don't) you should still buy this DVD. You know, if the boys in U2 could befriend Jesse Helms and befriend both Pope Benedict and the Muslim community then it's not too much to ask others to try to do the same. Is it?

I mean, really, do you want to open up a dialogue with this people in respect and faith and argue with them? Or did you just want to treat them like the Eternal Enemy and Satan's minions? The choice is yours, but I think that if you really understood the Gospel you'd know what the right answer is.

You may think me guilty of an artificially "centrist" point of view. Yeah, I get that a lot. On the other hand you might consider that I myself walked away from Christianity in part due to what I percieved as unyielding dogma and intolerance and hatred. I walked away from the political Left for the same reasons.

I used to support Christian terrorists.

There are people who hate me for saying that. Some hate me for saying I supported terrorists. Others hate me for saying that there is such a thing as a Christian terrorist. To those who are angry with me for supporting terrorists I say that I am so, so sorry. For those who say there is no such a thing as a Christian terrorist I have no apology at all.

Like my co-blogger brother Dave Schuler, I remember growing up on the south side of Chicago and being in a pub and seeing posters supporting the "Northern Irish." They told me stories about poor Northern Irish schoolchildren who had no shoes and were hungry. They asked me for my support, and I gave them money. Then some years later I learned that most of my money had gone to buy IRA bombs and guns. It was used to kill little children, or the fathers of children who made the mistake of fighting for order.

I gave money to terrorists. I still see their supporters regularly. Just show up to any St. Patrick's Day parade in Chicago, New York, Boston: they'll put up their posters about how Northern Ireland should be "free." And maybe it should be free, but what do these people want the money for? If you're Catholic they'll even push the religion button: the Catholics should not be oppressed by the Protestants. Well no the Catholics shouldn't be oppressed, but does that mean they are right to blow up bombs and murder anyone who opposes them? Where's the glory in that?

If you read much about The Troubles, you'll learn that Tommy lost more of his buddies in Northern Ireland than he did during any conflict since World War II. Those Republicans may have had a point but once they started murdering little children they lost any claim to moral rectitude.

As a man of Irish descent, I think that the following video expresses my deepest feelings. As expressed by a band from Northern Ireland. Sadly, I think YouTube will take it down before most of you have seen it:

If they take it down (or even if they don't) I hope you'll buy this DVD. Hard to believe it's been almost 20 years isn't it?

I hate terrorists. I don't care which God or version of God they worship. There's no glory in anything they do. I hate them all.

Imagine you wrote something on your personal weblog that you knew was fairly controversial but was in your mind defensible. Maybe you wrote 500 or 1,000 words to state your opinion, then wrote a few of your blogger friends to ask what they thought about it, then went to bed.

When you woke up, you found that there were hundreds of comments left, and 20 trackbacks (like oh, say this thread), with each of those trackbacks containing further comments from people who either thought you wrong or thought you right.

Without invoking any self-pity--none is required--wouldn't that be both a source of pride and a source of panic? "Oh they all thought I was that important?!" is surely one reaction. But another is, "Holy crap, I have to answer all these people?!!?"

This is an overwhelming position to find yourself in. When was the last time YOU said something you knew to be mildly inflammatory, and then had thousands of people divying up sides: anti-you vs. pro-you??

Again this is not a call to self-pity. No pity is required.

On the other hand, I must say that "Well Dean YOU did not answer MY specific points!" is incredibly self-important. The ass who says, "You're wrong because you did not answer MY SPECIFIC POINTS THAT I LAID OUT FOR YOU IN DETAIL!!!" is someone who, frankly, deserves a kick in the gonads. Very hard.

I ask for absolutely no pity. I just ask for some recognition that I am a mortal human with all the frailties and limitations that come with that. You get in my face and I'll get back in yours. I used to reposses cars out of the cities of Detroit, Inkster, and Highland Park Michigan, and have faced death more than once. Don't f*ck with me because I don't take well to being f*cked with, and I'm not afraid of anybody. You get in my face, or worse, threaten my family, and I am a nasty motherf*cker who will enjoy hurting you, and if you f*cking forget it once I'll make sure you don't forget it a second time.

But if you give me respect, I'll give you respect back. You want to argue with me? I'll argue with you until the cows come home if I have time. You want to tell me I'm wrong? Well heck you may be right. Just don't be dumb enough to think I'm omniscient, okay? Or that I always have time to answer absolutely everybody who writes to me. Because I'm not omniscient and I do have a life outside of blgoging.

I am still thinking about how to respond in full to Michelle Malkin's response to me. This may be my entire response, or I may have more to say later. I haven't decided yet.

I admit to being a bit surprised and a bit disappointed. For instead of directly answering what I thought was a pretty reasonable (if slightly heated at the end) posting, she seems to have decided to delve into my comments section and dredge up some angry things I said to one of my commenters. Which was something I wrote in angry response to a troll who's been hanging out on Dean's World for a while now, regularly leaving horrible indictments of the entire faith of Islam.

Yeah I lost my temper and swore. But my comments should not be taken out of that context. I won't apologize for swearing--I'm a blue collar guy and I do talk like that when I'm angry. Nor will I apologize for defending my Muslim brothers and sisters who hate terrorists, of whom I know many.

And what did I say in that comment that was so offensive? I said that anyone who spits on the religion of many of our brave fighting men and women in the U.S. armed forces, and the faith of Muslims who are right now fighting side by side with them, is a traitor. A "G*d damned traitor" was my exact phrasing. Well if that makes you mad, too bad, because I believe it. You do not spit on the faith of our loyal citizens and allies who fight against terrorists. That's just wrong. Wrong on every level--politically, philosophically, patriotically, whatever.

But none of that was in my original article directed at Michelle. I wrote that in the comments to my article, in response to one guy who'd p*ssed me off several times before.

Still, I simply will not apologize for coming to the defense of our Muslim brethren who are engaged in the fight against terrorism. It makes me very angry when their faith is treated with contempt. I think I have a right to be angry about that. I think every American should be angry about that. You should not spit on the faith of our brave patriotic soldiers and their allies. You just shouldn't.

You should not spit on the faith of Hamid Karzai and Nouri al-Maliki either.

I'll also say I'm peeved with Michelle for accusing me of whoring for attention. Come off it, Michelle. That's totally unfair. I have about 30,000 daily readers, and its readership continues to grow over time. More to the point, when you were just starting out as a new blogger I was very supportive of you even though I often disagreed with you. I've always treated you with respect. Even when my blog had far more readers than yours I was happy to support you. I also still semi-regularly link both Michellemalkin.com and Hot Air, and have never once condemned you. We often disagree but I think you add a vital perspective, especially as a Woman of Color who is a conservative--which is nothing you should be ashamed of, even if sometimes I think your rhetoric is over the top.

I honestly, Michelle, think that I have never disrespected you, but I think you have disrespected me here. I was just looking for dialogue, but you decided to make me look like a fool because I posted an angry comment or two to my original article. (And yeah, my wife agreed with you, and that's fine too, she's a great woman and the mother of my children, but I think they were both were wrong.)

I wanted to start a real dialogue, and I think that this whole bit with quoting something I said deep in the comments to my original article sidelines the very real questions I brought up. So I'll re-iterate those questions here, in condensed form (which maybe I should have done in the first place):

1) Shouldn't we embrace Muslims who unequivocally reject terrorism as our friends and allies?
2) Shouldn't we be proud of the Muslims who wear America's uniform?
3) Shouldn't we admire and respect those Muslims who fight side by side with American forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Phillipines, and other places against terrorists?
4) Should we not be careful not to paint Islam in broad brush-strokes when it might alienate Muslim-American patriots, and the allied Muslims who support our efforts to defeat terrorists?
5) Shoot, shouldn't Hot Air have at least one Muslim Republican in their mix? They're out there you know. As a Woman of Color and a Republican, shouldn't you be able to understand that?

I don't think these are unfair or angry questions. I think they are good questions, important questions, that every Conservative (and every Hawk) ought to contemplate carefully. They certainly aren't intended to be attacks or indictments, and never were.

I will re-iterate my respect for Michelle. Yes, we disagree on many things, but I do not believe I have ever been nasty or condescending toward her. I think I have supported her many times even when that made me unpopular. (Even if, apparently, she never noticed.)

I think I'm done for now, although there are other specifics I may need to address later (well over a dozen trackbacks, and countless comments all over the place. Wow, the head spins). But I still think that Ali Eteraz, a Muslim-American who hates terrorists, understood my point much better than most.

Update: In response to Dean's World commenter "clarenancy," who says I have given no specific links against Michelle, I respond by saying that I tried to avoid that. Listing such things would read like an indictment, and I was trying not to do that. I thought I was writing to a friend and comrade-in-arms, not an evil person who needed to be denounced. As I said, it was a call to conscience, not a fight I wanted to pick.

Still, some of Michelle's postings that I think could have been better-phrased include:

The Religion of Peace Firebombs &Fatwas

Hmm. Not the violent nutjobs, but all advocates of the "Religion of Peace?"

Muslims kill Christians in Nigeria

Not Islamic radicals and extremists. Just Muslims.

In I Support the Pope, Michelle says things like, "The Muslims clearly have no response to this, because their religion was spread by the sword, and we can see it is spread so still by the forced conversions of Steve Centani and his camera operator." Not Islamic radicals or extremists. Just Muslims.

Her co-blogger at Hot Air, Bryan, posted this extraordinarily pretentious and condescending article defending the notion that Islam is inherently violent based on the Koran.

Muslims Will Execute Christians, wherein she describes three Christians who were convicted of fomenting violence that killed hundreds of Muslims in Indonesia--and implied that somehow Christians are put to a double-standard. But she did not mention that three Muslims are now on Death Row in Indonesia for the bombing in Bali. Yes, one Islamic radical got off with a light sentence of only a couple of years, but three other Muslims are sentenced to die for their horrible murder of Australian tourists and non-Muslim Indonesians.

On the other hand, Michelle wrote in Criticizing Islam on the Airwaves the following: "For the record, I do not consider all Muslims terrorists and would not call Islam a 'terror organization.'"

Again I do not mean, and never meant, to indict Michelle. I honestly hoped it would be a dialogue between friends and allies, who have supported each other for years. I just wanted to ask the question: shouldn't we do a better job of recognizing and embracing our Muslim friends who hate terrorism and radicalism? Who serve in our armed forces, and/or fight alongside our armed forces in the fight to capture or kill terrorists?

Please also see the last two or three minutes of this video.

Please also see this statement by Prime Minister Maliki:

These men are our allies. But not merely our allies, they are our Muslim allies.

Is it too much to ask you to remember that whenever you can, Michelle?

Seriously Michelle, you shouldn't be mad at me. It was only because I respect you that I brought up these questions in the first place.

Peace and respect to you, my sister.

Update 2: Something I have noticed in the angry responses to my question is the running theme that I somehow "attacked" poor Michelle. Please. Read my original question, without delving into the comments. Was there any attack there? I don't think there was. I think it was an honest call to the conscience of a fellow Hawk, with questions I thought badly needed answering. Anyone who thinks I was beating up on poor Michelle is just being sexist and stupid. If I didn't respect her in the first place I would not have posed the questions as I did. Let's dispense with the "Victim Michelle vs. Brutal Dean" narrative--which Michelle never suggested and neither did I. Such a narrative demeans us both.

Every time you are tempted to say "lie" or "spin" in response to a political statement you don't like, you should say "wrong" or "mistaken" instead. Even if it doesn't feel right at first, you should try to stick to that.

Not only will you achieve greater clarity when you speak, you will also hurt far fewer feelings when you do so. You'll also add greater clarity to your arguments.

Martin Shoemaker recently asked, regarding what I ask of commenters:

Reminds me of the old joke: "Why is it when you lose something, it's always in the last place you look?"

I really don't know what you're trying to say. Is it, "You all wait for somebody to choose a course or theme, and then you all follow?" That's the closest I can come to making sense of your complaint.

OK, I realize that I've made much of this, so I should explain it. So here's my best attempt:

Look, I don't expect people to agree with me. People disagree with me every day. Nor do I expect coats and ties and buttoned-down behavior every day.

Yet it is still called "Dean's World" at the top of this whole thing, so I recognize that it's up to me to set the basic ground rules. And I don't always spell those out explicitely, mostly because I don't want to. But here's what I'm saying:

First off, you should think of yourself as in a pub, or a club, and we're all here to discuss things. About 50% of the time, Dean decides the subject, but about 50% of the time it's someone else, like Mary Madigan or Dave Schuler or Jane Novak or Dave Price or Aziz Poonawalla or Tyrone Steels or Scott Kirwin or Ron Coleman or whoever. If any of us posts something serious that we invite you to respond to, the expectation is that you will not be a juvenile ass about it. Jokes are fine, but if someone's put something serious out there for you to discuss, you will not make like a class clown and make raspberry sounds and spit boogers and call people names, or go out of your way to derail a conversation just because you can.

Furthermore, there are more than 30,000 people reading this site every day. This might shock you to read it, but it's true. Yet alone among such high-traffic blogs, we don't just let anyone comment here. Which means that unlike Daily Kos or Little Green Footballs or whatever, when you see a thread on Dean's World you rarely see something like "261" or "727." There's a reason for that. And it's not because we are "elitist," it's just because we recognize that if you are a pre-approved commenter we respect you and want to hear what you have to say, but we do not operate under "wild wild west" rules.

On the other hand, I do NOT, unlike some other bloggers who go to the other extreme, demand that every comment be pre-approved. Because I don't want to do that. If I've let you in it's because I respect you enough that I think people should be able to hear what you have to say. It's a simple matter of, "Okay, I trust you. Go ahead."

You can ask any of the Dean's World front-page contributors (past or present): I've never told them what to write or what position to take. At most I've occasionally sent them an email to request them to write about a subject. Or posted a comment in disagreement with them. But I never told them what position to take, and never edited them (except maybe to fix a typo or a misdirected link now and then). I have never told them what to write, or who to link, or what they should say. And I never will. (Except for my special orders to Aziz Poonawalla to demand that all his Muslim friends swear eternal faelty to me, and also that time that I ordered Ron Coleman to make Dean's World be read aloud in all Orthodox Synagogues worldwide every Shul. But those don't count).

It goes that way with you as a commenter. I don't tell you what to say or how to say it. It's an open account. You do with it what you will. I don't pre-approve what you say, nor should I. You've walked into what I hope is a fine establishment, and ordered a beer (or if you don't drink, a nice cup of coffee or somesuch). Ther