A sad obsesssion
Anil Dash continues his sad obsession with Charles Johnson’s Little Green Footballs site, presuming to grade it as “improved” for publishing OS reviews. Dash reverts to the fiction that a majority of Arabs love America, and we only need to worry about a tiny, virulent minority (wouldn’t that make America’s PR task easy?)
In discussing this point with him previously, Dash admitted that he’d got his minority and majority transposed, but he’s returned to his comfy stereotype. A majority of Arabs don’t even accept that the WTC was blown up by Arabs, let alone that the US has a right to exist as a secular nation.
Incidentally, Dash disables comments only for his LGF posts, so if you want to comment on it, you can do so here, or better yet, on the Nitwit Troll Day thread on LGF. Have a ball.
And BTW, if anybody knows why Mr. Dash has such a high opinion of himself, will they please enlighten me?
- December 19th
“All the posts I see on your blog before and after your LGF post have comments enabled, Anil, so let’s not be coy.”
Have you seen how people behave on those threads, Richard? I don’t have the time or interest to sit around deleting pointless or off-topic comments.
And who’s puffing or growing furious? Seems you more than me… perhaps my tone doesn’t accurately indicate that I take this all pretty lightly. It’s just talk on the web.
“A majority of men don’t commit violent crimes, Anil, so let’s try and avoid logical fallacies.”
Yes, let’s. A majority of arab and/or muslim people don’t commit violent crime against Americans.
According to the polls, a majority of Arabs believe that no Arabs or Muslims commit crimes against Americans, so let’s try and face facts. Arabs are predominately anti-American.
Actually, Richard, it’s not just Arabs who are vocally anti-American. I read on Bjorn Staerk’s blog that Norwegians report becoming more anti-American over the past several months, and that’s probably true in many other parts of Europe as well.
I think it comes down to what people see and hear in their media and from their governments. In the cases of Arab countries, the media are government-controlled and used to promote anti-Americanism to take the heat off their corrupt regimes. For that matter, look at what Schroeder did in the German elections a few months back. It’s easier to get your people to hate successful foreigners than it is to take the blame for your own shortcomings. This is true of the Arab world as well, in spades, although we get second billing behind the Jews in the Arabs’ list of villains.
I think that the majority of foreigners are, at this point, anti-American. Hell, I would be too if I were them. They had gotten used to America being the world’s free ride (cough Clinton cough), and now that they’ve been left on the curb they are getting pissed at us. I say that’s all to the good. It’s better in the long run to be respected than to be everyone’s bitch.
All the posts I see on your blog before and after your LGF post have comments enabled, Anil, so let’s not be coy.
A majority of men don’t commit violent crimes, Anil, so let’s try and avoid logical fallacies. If a majority of Middle-Eastern (and perhaps all) Muslims harbor the belief that Muslims had nothing to do with 9-11 (and polls tell us they do), then there is a problem with USA/Islamic relations that goes far beyond a “tiny, virulent minority.” You’ve conceded this before, and now you’re backsliding on your own concession.
Is the truth so hard for you to swallow?
Having a high opinion of oneself is healthy up to a point Anil, but who made you the Universal Blog Critic with the insight to say which blogs are “improving” and which aren’t? You’re certainly no authority on any of the subjects Charles covers, so you really wouldn’t know if his blogging is good, bad, or mediocre.
And yes, I am obsessed with Eminem, but in a good way – as a symbol of the pathology of a particular family structure, he’s informative, and he’s also funny. Obessions that make us laugh are good; those that make us puff up or grow furious, less so.
Richard, I don’t enable comments on about 80% of the posts I’ve put up over the years. The fact that most people can’t debate in a civil manner on these points where there are clearly legitimate areas of disagreement (I’m excepting people like Steven Den Beste, for example, who’s always been civil though adamant in his disagreement.) is one reason why you don’t see a comment link.
Regarding your statement that “Dash admitted that he’d got his minority and majority transposed”, I conceded that there are countries in the mideast where that’s true. The reality is, there are millions of muslims who don’t live in the mideast. Do you think it’s important to distinguish between the negative members of a group and its entirety? Or should we use the fact that the majority of violent crimes are committed by men to just use the word “men” to refer to rapists and murderers, and assume that people know we mean the minority of men who commit such crimes?
Why do I have a high opinion of myself? Why shouldn’t I? I should think less of myself for being consistent and forthright in stating my opinions, even in the face of disagreement? Don’t you think the free market of ideas will decide which parts of our respective beliefs are correct?
Perhaps you can explain now why you’ve got such a high opinion of yourself.
And LGF has improved by recognizing that it is a community, inreasing tolerance of dissenting views and questions, and by broadening its subject matter (even within its main topic of focus) from purely brooding rumination to an embrace of other elements of life.
Overall, I think I’ve written 3, maybe 4 posts on LGF. That’s hardly an obsession. You’ve written about, say, Eminem (name picked at random) twice as often. Are you obsessed?