A Fortiori: Poking Ideologues with Sticks
9 September, 2009 (with an update dated 21 September 2009, available HERE)
Merriam-Webster defines an ideologue as “an
impractical idealist” and “an often blindly partisan advocate or
adherent of a particular ideology.” Mike Reed’s flame warrior roster
is less kind; he asserts that the ideologue is “smug and
self-satisfied” in his certitudes, “genuinely astonished, bewildered,
and indignant that his views are not universally embraced as Truth.”
An idealist, by contrast, is simply (again, according to
Merriam-Webster) “an adherent of a philosophical theory,” a person
“guided by ideals,” especially “one [who] places ideals before
practical considerations.”
I consider myself an idealist. There certainly are
philosophies that I believe are more important than pragmatic concerns;
I am not a situational ethicist. At the same time, there are
those operating — or playing
at operating — within the field of political punditry who are, quite
obviously, ideologues. It is to one of these that I now turn a
baleful eye. I speak specifically of a little blog called ConWebWatch, which has obliged me with a few mentions of my work for the arch-conservative website, WorldNetDaily. As you can imagine, these mentions were not what you would call “fan mail.”
I first found myself on the blog’s nine-volt battery-powered radar
back in March, when I won the “Obama Derangement Award” for one of my
columns. As you never know when a site like that will be… er…
constructively revised, I took a screen capture for posterity.
Now, I’m not sure how you’re supposed take seriously any
organization with a .tripod web address, but okay; let’s stipulate that
this is simple Internet snobbery on my part. The little blog
is not
a watchdog group at all, really; it is just someone (male or female —
I
could not say) named Terry Krepel. The ire I managed to draw from
this Krepel seems centered on two points: One, that I repeated
the “lie” that Mr. Obama has plans to create an Obama-youth-like league
of little sycophants in the form of a civilian security force; and
two, that I don’t understand what a Chief Information Officer is
or does.
On the first point, Mr. or Ms. Krepel claims
that there is no civilian defense force and no plans to create one, because, well, people in the
administration say there isn’t, if I follow accurately the somewhat incoherent
argument. How embarrassing that this “lie” is so
easily supported, then, when Obama himself said, on video,
that “We
cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the
national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian
national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just
as well-funded.” Attempts have been made to excuse this statement
as a plea for renaming or otherwise augmenting the Peace Corps, but
that’s preposterous. Even those making the attempt know it is preposterous. I, on the other hand, simply like typing the word preposterous.
Why on Earth would anyone think Obama meant what he said? You
could argue that what he’s claimed he wants isn’t really as bad as
people are worried that it will become, but you cannot simply mewl,
with your fingers in your ears, that “La-la-la, it’s a lie, it’s a
lie, la la la.” Yet that is precisely the tactic
that apologists for Obama take whenever his extra-constitutional
power-grabs are criticized. They shout angrily that all
criticism of the president is “misinformation,” “lies,” and “myths,”
then send their union thugs to beat up American
citizens who have the gall to think incorrectly.
On the second point, poor Mr. Krepel expresses his (her?) outrage at my outrage over the
appointment of a Chief Information
Officer, pointing out, quite rightly, that many organizations employ
such individuals. This, of course, is a bit selective on Mr.
or Ms. Krepel’s part, for the fact that the post has been created was
not, in and of itself, the issue. Here is the quote from my
article in context:
Michael Friedenberg wrote in Computerworld that Obama has
demonstrated, in certain key ways, that he understands the power of
today’s information technology and is using it to good effect. The
president has, as reported by Friedenberg, appointed a chief
information officer (a post that sounds disturbingly similar to some
form of propaganda ministry, in title if not in fact),
allocated significant tax dollars in his stimulus package for
establishing electronic health records (the dangers of which we have discussed
in this column), and issued a memorandum on “Transparency and
Open Government,” which presumably, in demanding that government be
made “transparent, participatory and collaborative,” must of necessity
make use of information technology to do so. [emphasis added]
The concern I raised was, therefore, over Obama’s
technological savvy — his ability to understand information technology
(in a society built on
IT) and use it to his advantage. Yes, I did take a poke at
this Chief Information Officer and the implications of the posting in
the Obama administration, but my primary concern was (obviously) the
use of IT policy by Obama and his cronies, particularly where
electronic health records and other private and public data are
concerned.
The strangest part of Krepel’s objection to my column seems to
be a complete and total inability to understand sarcasm, either
deliberately (which is
understandable, if intellectually dishonest) or through a lack of
intelligence (which is at least amusing). Krepel seems to
think, as you can see in the blog post, that I believe Mr. Obama literally
to be Twittering his enemies list to minions downstream of his position.
Krepel claims that I “assert” that this
is actually
going on. Let’s look at the quote in context
(something left-leaning pundits like Mr. or Ms. Krepel don’t seem
capable of doing, perhaps out of long, dishonest habit):
President George W. Bush was famous for his lack of
technological knowledge. Obama, by stark contrast, is the most
technologically savvy president we have ever had. He has become
ever-present and all-encompassing in our media outlets and through the
technological vessels that carry these outlets’ product to our eyes,
our hearts and our minds. Barack Hussein Obama is, in word and deed,
quickly becoming our first technological dictator. As he Twitters his
daily enemies list through his Blackberry while waiting for his latest
firearms prohibitions to be uploaded to iTunes as podcasts, we can
expect Caesar Obama to record a series of YouTube videos in which he
explains why government price controls and salary caps are what’s best
for a formerly free America.We can then take to our blogs to complain about the erosion
of personal freedom in a nation that once boasted a free market —
until, of course, government spies using Web-crawling search engines
identify our seditious speech and order us, via e-mail, to be taken to
the re-education camps. We may then all update our MySpace page moods
accordingly, to “oppressed.”
I’m not sure exactly what part of that strikes Mr. or Ms.
Krepel as the most plausible. Does he think some future
partisan resistance will really be taking the time to update its
members’ MySpace pages? Really? Does she understand the idea that
when one layers on implausibilities while invoking the various
technologies discussed in the paragraphs preceding, that one might just
be speaking tongue-in-cheek for dramatic effect? It doesn’t
seem so. I am, frankly, more than a little alarmed that anyone
with access to a computer might be so desperately incapable of basic
critical thinking. No good can come from such obstinate
literal-mindedness. But let us soldier on.
Some time after the first mention of my work, Ms. (Mr.?) Krepel indignantly exposed my
controversial opinion that… drum roll, please… laws that target
specific behaviors while driving are oppressive to the cause of
individual liberty.
That’s right, gentle readers: I actually expressed
the idea that there are areas of your private life into which the
government has no business snooping. I even said that if you
use your phone while you drive,
you shouldn’t automatically
be
declared a public menace. On top of that, I took aim at a
study purporting to “prove” that increased accessibility to teens and
parents using text messaging was robbing our teens of the ability to
make their own decisions, while turning them into anxious, nervous
wrecks:
Regardless of the tack
taken or the appeal to emotion employed, text-messaging is not harmful
to your children and is no more dangerous while driving than is any other potentially
distracting activity. Each reasoning
adult must choose how to conduct his or her life in and out
of the car. He may choose to conduct himself responsibly, or he may not
– but empowering the government to treat all of us as irresponsible before the
fact is not acceptable. This is not the purview of the government of a
free society. It is not the proper treatment of a free people. If they
can take away your texting, they can take anything else they want to take.
In a world populated by people who think the government should
control every aspect of your personal behavior — people who believe that individuals
have no judgment, no reason, and no ability or even right to take
responsibility for their own behavior — you can bet that I caught hell
from people more intelligent than Terry Krepel for saying that I think
otherwise. I happen to believe that there are any number of
things you could do in the car that are dangerous. Texting, reading,
eating, and engaging in certain sexual acts are just a few of those in which I’ve personally seen other drivers engaged while on the highway. But if we set the
precedent that the government should be policing each and every one of
these activities by name, rather than simply holding drivers
responsible for
distracted conduct, we march a few baby steps closer to
the police state that is ever-more encroaching on our daily lives.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and us pesky
libertarians actually do adhere to this principle. It doesn’t
make us insane, inept, unreasonable, or unpredictable. Really.
What was
really funny about this particular mention in ConWebWatch, however, was
that Krepel thought there was some sort of insidious conspiracy at
WorldNetDaily to remove, quietly, columns Mr. or Ms. Krepel found so
offensive as to be worthy of burial. The proof?
After breathlessly reporting this conspiracy, in a feat of
muckraking journalism that puts to shame the best efforts of Woodward
and Bernstein, Krepel was forced to admit that the mysteriously
missing columns were deleted only temporarily thanks to a simple
file-serving glitch at WND’s website.
This brings us to the most recent mention of one of my columns
in Mr. or Ms. Krepel’s blog. In my September 3rd column, He wants you ‘hatemongers’ silenced,
I ‘pummeled’ the Obama administration’s efforts to demonize its critics
(in the words of the columns editor at WND). Specifically, I
underscored attempts by the administration to mischaracterize any and
all criticism of Obama as racist, unhinged, made up, or otherwise
falsified, when it wasn’t targeting for imprisonment or legal
harassment the people making
those criticisms. I talked about the Federal legislation that
has been introduced, in recently altered but no less harmful form, that would
give Obama “a giant ‘off switch’ to
the freaking Internet.” I also described the
concerns held by many Americans that the appointment of a Marxist
“Diversity Czar” (attorney Mark Lloyd) would lead to the implementation
of the euphemistically named “Fairness Doctrine” to silence Obama’s
critics in conservative talk radio. I cited many examples of
silencing and demonizing critics by President Obama, his
cronies, and his fellow travelers in politics.
I’ll admit that I did something else, as part of
the column. I deliberately mentioned my “Obama Derangement Award”
because I knew it would be like poking Terry Krepel with a stick,
something sure to garner me another mention in his or her “watchdog”
blog. I wasn’t disappointed:
Unfortunately, this is mostly a rehash of the first mention,
though it does include more unsubstantiated invective. I
certainly don’t begrudge Mr. or Ms. Krepel his or her outrage over my
opinion, or a certain amount of mean-spirited rock-throwing as a
result. I’m nothing if not indulgent of these little
tantrums.
Krepel seems to think that the thrust of my September 3rd
column is some sort of injury over the fact that Krepel’s far-seeing,
deep-gazing journalistic Eye of Sauron fell on me. I
suppose I should not have indulged my more self-serving instincts in mentioning the
little blog, for this elevates it to a level of scrutiny it probably
doesn’t deserve. But, still, one can’t help but marvel at how
representative of the level of left-wing discourse are the posts Terry
Krepel seems to think so incisive. After repeating his or her
already discredited notions about my “paranoid” lies, Krepel manages to
eat a shoe rather spectacularly:
Indeed, Elmore provides a link in
his current column to radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones,
which serves as more evidence of Elmore’s own unhinged approach.
If Mr. or Ms. Krepel had bothered to follow
the link, rather than simply mousing over it to read the address, he or
she might have discovered that the link is to an article written, not
by the “conspiracy theorist” Alex Jones, but by a Toby Harnden, writing
in the Telegraph.
(Specifically, the article was a supporting link to my assertion
that Obama and his people see racism under every rock and behind every
tree, in this case the famous “Joker” socialism bills.)
The column also includes links to CNET News, talkshow host Glenn
Beck’s website, WorldNetDaily, Newsbusters, McClatchy, this website,
the Huffington Post, and the Examiner. The idea that one cites a
link to support
one’s opinion is lost on this Krepel person, it seems; Mr. or Mrs.
Krepel can see no difference between CNET and the Huffington Post, or
between the Telegraph and a tinfoil-wrapped conservative blog.
They’re all one and the same, to Krepel; they’re all inconvenient
facts that distract this particularly brittle leftist from an ardently,
ignorantly held opinion.
I hope my readers will indulge me when I take a moment to address
Mr. or Ms. Krepel directly. Terry, I know you think you have a
“job” to “criticize the critics,” in your own words, and I realize
you’re really trying very hard. I would caution you, however, to
take a more earnest approach to this mandate that you believe justifies
using the royal “we” in your prose. You’re not a “we,” Terry;
you’re a you — and I would further caution you not to make my
job so terribly easy. In a world of conflicting ideals and
ideologies, the ideologue will always lose to the idealist, the leftist
will almost always lose to the rightist, and the left-winger will only rarely trump the conservative.
In logic, the term is a fortiori — the argument made from the stronger position,
the opinion expressed, again to borrow Merriam-Webster’s words, “with
greater reason or more convincing force — used in drawing a conclusion
that is inferred to be even more certain than another.” You will
never, Terry, grasp which argument is the stronger until
you let go of your leftist prejudices and start seeing the truth
objectively. An opinion is not a lie simply because you claim it
to be; a concern is not “paranoid” simply because you refuse to
entertain the idea. If this offends you, I apologize, but it is
only the truth.
After all, Terry, if you can dish it out, well, one hopes you can take it. We certainly think you can. >>