perfidy

Over at Norbizness' house, there is a discussion a-raging about a Steven Den Beste post that somebody called Balasubramania didn't like and didn't finish, that Instapundit linked to, that Norbizness called them on, and now everyone's piling on. What fun!

To sum up comments in support of den Beste: if you haven't drunk the kool-aid you cant't possibly understand the depths of den Beste. So shut your cryptoislamofascist liberal pansy piehole until you grow a pair, and learn that your snarky generalizations are inferior to others' dead-serious generalizations.

Bloggers like polemic; it garners traffic and approval. But jeez... this is a whole lot of fur flyin' from a pretty small dogfight. The Clueless piece is one of the more reasonable ones of late, and he deserves credit for that. But how can any commenter disagree with Norbizness' statement that the Clueless echo chamber have taken the loosest bits of the argument and turned them into Strangelovian crazy talk? 

The first half of den Beste's article (the part that Balasubramania read) says: "if you (I mean "Muslims") place us in a position where only you or us can survive, it's going to be us, and you'll all be dead."

I can see how that might come across a bit rectocranial.

But the second half says:

"We don't want to kill you, and we don't want you to surrender to us. We just want you to stop your fellow Muslims from trying to kill us. Do that, and this war is over."

I'm assuming #2 is what SDB meant to say, since it came at the end of his free-association where the actual thinking goes on. Also, this statement recognizes that Islam is comprised of individuals, not just suicide units and fellow travellers. The first statement is laughable and the second is tough but reasonable.

When I was teaching history, I was told always to lead my grading comments with the good news. It makes the medicine go down easier. I also taught my students that: context is everything; to make sure you've done your homework so you know the facts; to organize your work so that your point is clear; and to revise afterwards so you don't contradict yourself. Without doing all these things you risk building a castle that will very shortly burn down, fall over, and sink into the swamp. And then what do you have? A burning swamp and an ugly wife with huge tracts of land!

Den Beste? It might be a blog but that doesn't excuse lazy writing. Balu-wha? Finish your reading! Or, alternately, admit you came to uncertain conclusions.

Glenn Reynolds? Tell the whole story or go home! Also, "indeed" and "heh" don't count as incisive commentary anymore; they're schtick.

Johno? What a raging presumptuous a-hole!

SDB, Baluwhatever, and Reynolds are all guilty of lazy reading and writing, no matter what disagreements they may have otherwise. That doesn't help anyone. It's just a blog, but if you take challenges seriously, you better make sure you've done your homework. Participating in a discussion without arming yourself with knowledge is like making Shaq play donkey basketball. Weblogs tend to attract good writers and thoughtful, creative people, but the culture of polemic and generalization that tends to prevail among many weblogs is more donkey show than Shaq. Myself included.

This has been Johno, reporting from atop his high horse. Thank you, and good night.