In a message dated 8/6/2007 12:04:24 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
It would be unwise to make assumptions about what I do or don't approve of
based solely on what in which databases my name lies, especially since you
admit you haven't done the extremely small amount of research necessary to
make
your claims plausibe.
Listen, you and I have butted heads in the past, and god willing will
continue to do so in the future, but you've never struck me as particularly
insane.
We disagree vehemently on many things, but you've always seemed, if nothing
else, a rational, thinking human being. I understand that you've got
something against the other list, but you cannot seriously look me in the
keyboard
and tell me that you think that what Glenn has done with this issue over the
last few days doesn't smack of looney-tunes? Surely your sophistry doesn't
extend that far.
Good points, sort of.
But you (and everyone else) know that I'm denigrating the other list on
purpose and I assume that almost everyone knows what that purpose is.
But what you say above is a bit of misdirection. The fact is that your post
was gratuitously insulting and is reflective of the kinds of things we should
all be trying to avoid. Not by a few people picking up their marbles and
going elsewhere (while still keeping their eyes on where they've been), but by
being more tolerant of people with opposing views. I'm not saying I haven't
slipped on occasion, but I try not to do this. Which explains why I felt
comfortable challenging Brian Siano's assertion that I engaged in
"mean-spirited
rants" and Phil Forrest's statement that I "spewed filth" because I knew they
couldn't back them up with quotes that would have been readily available in
the
archives if not in their own files.
If someone goes overboard -- occasionally or frequently -- I think the wrong
thing to do is to respond in kind. Sometimes, no response is the best
response. Other times, a measured response to what the person is trying to say,
and
not how it's said, would be appropriate.
Yeah, OK, I've come back on some people -- often but not always when they
attack me for what seems like no reason other than they either disagreed with
something I wrote or with what they think I think. Far more often, I just let
it go.
It seems that you don't like Glenn, or at least don't like the way he
handles things. But you could have done yourself and everyone else a service in
this particular case by thanking him for explaining the error he was making and
agreeing that police misinformation is a problem we should look into -- and
left out the insults. Those who think Glenn is paranoid would think so without
your accusation. Those who think he's right will think so despite your
accusation.
I quoted something from Amy Gutmann's book about deliberative democracy the
other day. Yes, I chide what seem to be her pretensions on this topic -- not
because I think what she says is wrong, or silly, or anything like that. But
because I honestly believe she may only practice what she preaches when she
thinks she's among the other anointed and doesn't think it at all necessary
when she'd dealing with us of the benighted -- that's a big part of what being
anointed is all about. Here's another quote from her book (emphasis added to
show what I think is the point):
Deliberation cannot make incompatible values compatible, but it can help
participants recognize the moral merit in their opponents' claims when those
claims have merit. It can also help deliberators distinguish those
disagreements
that arise from genuinely incompatible values from those that can be more
resolvable than they first appear. And it can support other practices of
mutual
respect, such as the economy of moral disagreement described earlier.
{There's a good chapter on-line at
_http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s7869.html_
(http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s7869.html) if anyone is
interested. Get past the stuff about Bush and Iraq to get to the heart of the
matter
as opposed to one manifestation thereof.]
I'm not opposed to bluntness -- the "rough and tumble" that Joe Clark
thought ill of me for saying and didn't notice how gratuitously insulting he
was
being when he posted to that effect -- if it cuts to the chase. But it doesn't
have to cut to the bone.
Al Krigman
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