Monday, February 14, 2005
A Liberal That Hates Me? -A Leftist Blogger Attacks Me!
Now here is the fun of blogging. One can offer an opinion and within minutes one can find a refutation of that opinion somewhere on the web. It is quite fun, really. I have been alerted that a fellow Blogger has picked me as his latest target. Therefore, in the spirit of open debate, I enjoin the fray. Yep, this is gonna be fun.
That fellow Blogger, Kurt Nimmo, has taken exception to my latest titled "Leftist's Tacit Support of Terrorism" , in which I warn our home grown anti-Americans that they should think harder about what they say in public in this new age of a general war on terrorism.
With the title he gave his critique, right off the bat you can tell that Mr. Nimmo wants to imagine that I said something that I did not say and that I mean something which I do not mean. He called his piece "Warner Todd Huston Wants You Locked Away". What is it they say? As long as they spelled your name correctly?
In his fist paragraph, Mr. Nimmo is upset at me over what he thinks is my unexamined fealty to President George W. Bush and his "phony baloney war on terrorism." Curiously, I never mentioned the President at all so he starts out his attack with a strawman he delights in knocking down. He also makes a similar leap in logic to proclaim that I feel any lawyer that represents an accused terror suspect must, therefore, be a confidante of terrorists and must be punished. Once again, I said no such thing. I did, however, mention a lawyer who it has been proven was a participant in her client's terror activities and has now been punished and rightfully so. All quite in accordance to our laws both morally and legally.
But, I never mentioned the President, nor did I condemn all defending lawyers in such a blanket way as Mr. Nimmo submits that I did. I can see that emotionalism is going to be the order of the day. But wait, all this wailing and gnashing of teeth is just Nimmo warming to his game.
In his next paragraph, Nimmo claims that I feel that racism and sexism are the American way of life, when he notices that I use disparagingly a quote attributed to the convicted Lynne Stewart. Yet he emphasizes the wrong aspect of the quote in the context in which I was using it. Nimmo utterly ignores the section where Stewart advocates violence to achieve the ending of "sexism and racism" in the USA that Nimmo imagines I somehow want continued. Regardless of the fact that "racism and sexism" was not in any way a subject of the piece I wrote, Nimmo imagines that his capability to read my mind is complete. He conveniently ignores the fact that my Op Ed was about terrorism and that Stewart ADVOCATED terrorism within her OWN country to rid us of "racism and sexism". It is an astonishing thing for him to ignore as it would be assumed that Nimmo would excoriate me if I were to say that liberals should have violence perpetrated against them to rid us of leftism. It can only be assumed that Nimmo is FOR terrorism, if only when it is leveled against the "right" enemy.
Tsk, tsk, Mr. Nimmo. You should be warned that advocating terrorism might get you thrown out of the Liberal Clubhouse. Then again, maybe it won't.
Next up, I was accused of saying that people such as Noam Chomsky and this silly Ward Churchill fellow should stop speaking their minds for fear of being condemned to death because the convicted Stewart could possibly face such a fate in the upcoming penalty phase of her trial. But, there is no such law on the books that might condemn people to death for political tract writings of a Chomsky or the banal uttering of a Churchill nor am I suggesting we institute one.
The amusing thing he wrote in this part, though, was this: "... I said death sentence, because that is essentially what Lynne Stewart may receive. She is 65 years old and could face as much as 45 years in prison at her July 15 sentencing." To me this is curious, as it seems to assume that no one who is so decrepit and old as 65 years of age should have their crimes receive a befitting penalty just because they are that old and decrepit! One could imagine that in Mr. Nimmo's world one should wait until that untouchable age of 65 to go on that killing spree they have always dreamed of launching. After all, they are OLD, man. You can't properly punish an old person, can you?
He also quotes another attorney who is worried that the eavesdropping that the Federal government did to amass the evidence against Stewart destroys the lawyer/client relationship and will make future defense attorneys afraid to represent their client properly. This is a farce. No attorney is being told not to represent their client, but what they are being told is that they should not ASSIST their client with terrorist operations which is exactly what Stewart did. There is no serious threat to representation with the conviction of Stewart at all.
Next, I am being accused of desiring to stop anyone who is against current US policy from saying his piece. But I clearly said supporting terrorism against the USA (ala a Ward Churchill for instance) was the type of inciting to terrorism I was against. After all, I was quite against most of what Bill Clinton did in the 1990's with his foreign policy and it proves that I was right since what he did contributed to the disaster of 9/11. But, I certainly wouldn't have wanted Clinton's leftist goon squad coming down on me in the 1990's. Nor do I want to squelch leftist dissent today in a like manner.
Amusingly he casts about that discredited 100,000 Iraqi casualty figure to bolster his thin argument. Along the lines of telling the lie loud enough and long enough and it will become truth, I suppose. He also proves he has no real knowledge of what America's Founding Fathers imagined "free speech" was with this: "It is sincerely interesting how these guys turn the constitutional right to engage in free speech into fascism".
The Founders did not imagine that they were opening the door to every last citizen the "right to free speech" when they were creating the Constitutional Union. "Free speech" was a political right, not a public one as I clearly define in the original Op Ed, which he conveniently ignores. Then they defined that political right as the right of politicians to enter into debate on the issues of the day without the fear of the National Government shutting them down. We based much of our political terminology and law structures on the English Common Law with the most famous interpretation of that being written by Sir William Blackstone. Blackstone defined "free speech" to be a Parliamentary right and did not extend it to the citizenry at large. He and the Founding Fathers thought that government had every right to curtail speech for the "good of the common weal". So, Nimmo is wholly wrong to say that we have a nation based on the type of "free speech" that he imagines the Founders understood. Further, the Supreme Court has repeatedly shown that Government does reserve the right to quell certain kinds of "free speech".
Now, I feel comfortable ignoring his racist remarks after that and will go on to more substantive points ... well, as substantive as Nimmo gets, anyway.
His next criticism is rather convoluted and hard to follow but I will make an attempt to do so here. Nimmo somehow mistakes my admonition to home grown anti-Americans to be more careful of what they say in public to my desire to put down any manner of criticism against US foreign policy. He then makes some kind of fantastic leap that I would imagine that what a Chomsky or Churchill says might directly incite Iraqis to attack Americans to "violently resist the illegal occupation of their country." I really don't imagine that most Iraqis would or even could easily discover what Chomsky or Churchill is saying, but it doesn't take every common Iraqi dissenter against American policy to have done so for an adverse effect to occur none-the-less. Only the ideological leaders need pay attention to a Chomsky or Churchill to imagine they have the USA on the ropes, so-to-speak, and take the supporting blather of Chomsky and Churchill to heart. Chomsky and Churchill give succor to the ideological leaders of anti-Americanism and that is quite sufficient to filter down to the terrorists in the "Arab street" to assist them in their aims.
To go on, Nimmo challenges me to find where Chomsky or Churchill did give support to terrorism. Churchill's comments were widely reported, after which he upheld them instead of repudiating them. So, his perfidy is widely dispersed and I don't have to go on about it here as it is easily found. Chomsky is, of course, quite a bit more careful of what he does say in his anti-American tirades, but people like David Horowitz have amply delineated Chomsky's tacit support of anti-American activities, so my efforts would be rather unnecessary to say the least.
But, and here Nimmo goes off the deep end once again, I did say TACIT approval of terrorism. Such as when Churchill said that innocent men and women deserved what they got on 9/11. Of course one can be intellectually dishonest and claim that he didn't directly call for them to be blown up on that terrible day, but his tacit approval is no better than a direct call for such. It should be remembered, though, the very title of my original piece had the word "tacit" included right in it upfront.
By the way, Nimmo teases us with a "lastly" just before the last section above, yet drones on for another two paragraphs. The left ain't much for "truth in advertising", are they?
So, he goes on to say that he is "afraid" of the "kind of terrorists who sit in the White House and the Pentagon" in a typical placard waving, left speak for "I have nothing terribly insightful to say". But he gets right to the kind of hate speak that I was talking about in my entire Op Ed when he goes on with:
"In fact, I hope for a day when sane people in other countries-most of whom declare emphatically in polls, over and over, that they are afraid of the sociopaths in the White House, the Pentagon and Congress-put an end to the murderous madness you support."
Amazing. The left really must be terror ism supporters, then. I mean, this polemic isn't even "tacit" approval but outright advocacy of violence against our own country. This is exactly what I was talking about. The self hating desire to see some foreign country come down and destroy this evil United States of America. What a horrible wish.
His last (and this REALLY a proper "lastly" this time) outrageous paragraph is priceless, so I will dissect it section by section.
"As for the resultant economic misery and privation that will result, you can only blame yourself, Warner Todd Huston..."
Ah, you mean the kind of economic "privation" that the USA is responsible for that has raised the standard of living upon every continent of the globe? THAT economic "privation"?
"... I will not be calling for you to receive a life sentence for engaging in free speech. As scurrilous and hurtful as your speech is - as you demand imprisonment for those who dare disagree with you..."
Where did I do that again? Oh, yeah, when I gloried in the disgraced lawyer's conviction for aiding and abetting the operations of a convicted terrorist, that's where. Funny how he extends my glee at a criminal correctly punished as my desire to attack everyone who doesn't agree with me.
"...and your heroes, Bush and the Strausscons - it is protected by the Constitution, that is for as long as we cherish that document, as you obviously do not."
Ha, ha. Yeah, we evil "Strausscons". First of all I am sure that Nimmo never heard of Leo Strauss until he got his leftist talking points email and I'd guess he still doesn't know who he was or what he taught to this very day. Secondly, I have already proven he doesn't know a thing about the Constitution nor the Founders who created it. But it is highly doubtful that he does cherish the document as he claims in any case. But that is just my guess.
Lastly (and I REALLY mean it, unlike Mr. Nimmo), His Blog ends with the typical spot where readers are invited to offer their comments to what he has written. With his much ballyhooed claim that he is a great advocate of free speech, one would imagine that Mr. Nimmo is eagerly awaiting your comments. Yet this is the last segment of his entry on my piece...
"Leave a comment ... Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time."
Priceless, just priceless!!
Yep, this REALLY was fun!
By Warner Todd Huston
That fellow Blogger, Kurt Nimmo, has taken exception to my latest titled "Leftist's Tacit Support of Terrorism" , in which I warn our home grown anti-Americans that they should think harder about what they say in public in this new age of a general war on terrorism.
With the title he gave his critique, right off the bat you can tell that Mr. Nimmo wants to imagine that I said something that I did not say and that I mean something which I do not mean. He called his piece "Warner Todd Huston Wants You Locked Away". What is it they say? As long as they spelled your name correctly?
In his fist paragraph, Mr. Nimmo is upset at me over what he thinks is my unexamined fealty to President George W. Bush and his "phony baloney war on terrorism." Curiously, I never mentioned the President at all so he starts out his attack with a strawman he delights in knocking down. He also makes a similar leap in logic to proclaim that I feel any lawyer that represents an accused terror suspect must, therefore, be a confidante of terrorists and must be punished. Once again, I said no such thing. I did, however, mention a lawyer who it has been proven was a participant in her client's terror activities and has now been punished and rightfully so. All quite in accordance to our laws both morally and legally.
But, I never mentioned the President, nor did I condemn all defending lawyers in such a blanket way as Mr. Nimmo submits that I did. I can see that emotionalism is going to be the order of the day. But wait, all this wailing and gnashing of teeth is just Nimmo warming to his game.
In his next paragraph, Nimmo claims that I feel that racism and sexism are the American way of life, when he notices that I use disparagingly a quote attributed to the convicted Lynne Stewart. Yet he emphasizes the wrong aspect of the quote in the context in which I was using it. Nimmo utterly ignores the section where Stewart advocates violence to achieve the ending of "sexism and racism" in the USA that Nimmo imagines I somehow want continued. Regardless of the fact that "racism and sexism" was not in any way a subject of the piece I wrote, Nimmo imagines that his capability to read my mind is complete. He conveniently ignores the fact that my Op Ed was about terrorism and that Stewart ADVOCATED terrorism within her OWN country to rid us of "racism and sexism". It is an astonishing thing for him to ignore as it would be assumed that Nimmo would excoriate me if I were to say that liberals should have violence perpetrated against them to rid us of leftism. It can only be assumed that Nimmo is FOR terrorism, if only when it is leveled against the "right" enemy.
Tsk, tsk, Mr. Nimmo. You should be warned that advocating terrorism might get you thrown out of the Liberal Clubhouse. Then again, maybe it won't.
Next up, I was accused of saying that people such as Noam Chomsky and this silly Ward Churchill fellow should stop speaking their minds for fear of being condemned to death because the convicted Stewart could possibly face such a fate in the upcoming penalty phase of her trial. But, there is no such law on the books that might condemn people to death for political tract writings of a Chomsky or the banal uttering of a Churchill nor am I suggesting we institute one.
The amusing thing he wrote in this part, though, was this: "... I said death sentence, because that is essentially what Lynne Stewart may receive. She is 65 years old and could face as much as 45 years in prison at her July 15 sentencing." To me this is curious, as it seems to assume that no one who is so decrepit and old as 65 years of age should have their crimes receive a befitting penalty just because they are that old and decrepit! One could imagine that in Mr. Nimmo's world one should wait until that untouchable age of 65 to go on that killing spree they have always dreamed of launching. After all, they are OLD, man. You can't properly punish an old person, can you?
He also quotes another attorney who is worried that the eavesdropping that the Federal government did to amass the evidence against Stewart destroys the lawyer/client relationship and will make future defense attorneys afraid to represent their client properly. This is a farce. No attorney is being told not to represent their client, but what they are being told is that they should not ASSIST their client with terrorist operations which is exactly what Stewart did. There is no serious threat to representation with the conviction of Stewart at all.
Next, I am being accused of desiring to stop anyone who is against current US policy from saying his piece. But I clearly said supporting terrorism against the USA (ala a Ward Churchill for instance) was the type of inciting to terrorism I was against. After all, I was quite against most of what Bill Clinton did in the 1990's with his foreign policy and it proves that I was right since what he did contributed to the disaster of 9/11. But, I certainly wouldn't have wanted Clinton's leftist goon squad coming down on me in the 1990's. Nor do I want to squelch leftist dissent today in a like manner.
Amusingly he casts about that discredited 100,000 Iraqi casualty figure to bolster his thin argument. Along the lines of telling the lie loud enough and long enough and it will become truth, I suppose. He also proves he has no real knowledge of what America's Founding Fathers imagined "free speech" was with this: "It is sincerely interesting how these guys turn the constitutional right to engage in free speech into fascism".
The Founders did not imagine that they were opening the door to every last citizen the "right to free speech" when they were creating the Constitutional Union. "Free speech" was a political right, not a public one as I clearly define in the original Op Ed, which he conveniently ignores. Then they defined that political right as the right of politicians to enter into debate on the issues of the day without the fear of the National Government shutting them down. We based much of our political terminology and law structures on the English Common Law with the most famous interpretation of that being written by Sir William Blackstone. Blackstone defined "free speech" to be a Parliamentary right and did not extend it to the citizenry at large. He and the Founding Fathers thought that government had every right to curtail speech for the "good of the common weal". So, Nimmo is wholly wrong to say that we have a nation based on the type of "free speech" that he imagines the Founders understood. Further, the Supreme Court has repeatedly shown that Government does reserve the right to quell certain kinds of "free speech".
Now, I feel comfortable ignoring his racist remarks after that and will go on to more substantive points ... well, as substantive as Nimmo gets, anyway.
His next criticism is rather convoluted and hard to follow but I will make an attempt to do so here. Nimmo somehow mistakes my admonition to home grown anti-Americans to be more careful of what they say in public to my desire to put down any manner of criticism against US foreign policy. He then makes some kind of fantastic leap that I would imagine that what a Chomsky or Churchill says might directly incite Iraqis to attack Americans to "violently resist the illegal occupation of their country." I really don't imagine that most Iraqis would or even could easily discover what Chomsky or Churchill is saying, but it doesn't take every common Iraqi dissenter against American policy to have done so for an adverse effect to occur none-the-less. Only the ideological leaders need pay attention to a Chomsky or Churchill to imagine they have the USA on the ropes, so-to-speak, and take the supporting blather of Chomsky and Churchill to heart. Chomsky and Churchill give succor to the ideological leaders of anti-Americanism and that is quite sufficient to filter down to the terrorists in the "Arab street" to assist them in their aims.
To go on, Nimmo challenges me to find where Chomsky or Churchill did give support to terrorism. Churchill's comments were widely reported, after which he upheld them instead of repudiating them. So, his perfidy is widely dispersed and I don't have to go on about it here as it is easily found. Chomsky is, of course, quite a bit more careful of what he does say in his anti-American tirades, but people like David Horowitz have amply delineated Chomsky's tacit support of anti-American activities, so my efforts would be rather unnecessary to say the least.
But, and here Nimmo goes off the deep end once again, I did say TACIT approval of terrorism. Such as when Churchill said that innocent men and women deserved what they got on 9/11. Of course one can be intellectually dishonest and claim that he didn't directly call for them to be blown up on that terrible day, but his tacit approval is no better than a direct call for such. It should be remembered, though, the very title of my original piece had the word "tacit" included right in it upfront.
By the way, Nimmo teases us with a "lastly" just before the last section above, yet drones on for another two paragraphs. The left ain't much for "truth in advertising", are they?
So, he goes on to say that he is "afraid" of the "kind of terrorists who sit in the White House and the Pentagon" in a typical placard waving, left speak for "I have nothing terribly insightful to say". But he gets right to the kind of hate speak that I was talking about in my entire Op Ed when he goes on with:
"In fact, I hope for a day when sane people in other countries-most of whom declare emphatically in polls, over and over, that they are afraid of the sociopaths in the White House, the Pentagon and Congress-put an end to the murderous madness you support."
Amazing. The left really must be terror ism supporters, then. I mean, this polemic isn't even "tacit" approval but outright advocacy of violence against our own country. This is exactly what I was talking about. The self hating desire to see some foreign country come down and destroy this evil United States of America. What a horrible wish.
His last (and this REALLY a proper "lastly" this time) outrageous paragraph is priceless, so I will dissect it section by section.
"As for the resultant economic misery and privation that will result, you can only blame yourself, Warner Todd Huston..."
Ah, you mean the kind of economic "privation" that the USA is responsible for that has raised the standard of living upon every continent of the globe? THAT economic "privation"?
"... I will not be calling for you to receive a life sentence for engaging in free speech. As scurrilous and hurtful as your speech is - as you demand imprisonment for those who dare disagree with you..."
Where did I do that again? Oh, yeah, when I gloried in the disgraced lawyer's conviction for aiding and abetting the operations of a convicted terrorist, that's where. Funny how he extends my glee at a criminal correctly punished as my desire to attack everyone who doesn't agree with me.
"...and your heroes, Bush and the Strausscons - it is protected by the Constitution, that is for as long as we cherish that document, as you obviously do not."
Ha, ha. Yeah, we evil "Strausscons". First of all I am sure that Nimmo never heard of Leo Strauss until he got his leftist talking points email and I'd guess he still doesn't know who he was or what he taught to this very day. Secondly, I have already proven he doesn't know a thing about the Constitution nor the Founders who created it. But it is highly doubtful that he does cherish the document as he claims in any case. But that is just my guess.
Lastly (and I REALLY mean it, unlike Mr. Nimmo), His Blog ends with the typical spot where readers are invited to offer their comments to what he has written. With his much ballyhooed claim that he is a great advocate of free speech, one would imagine that Mr. Nimmo is eagerly awaiting your comments. Yet this is the last segment of his entry on my piece...
"Leave a comment ... Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time."
Priceless, just priceless!!
Yep, this REALLY was fun!
By Warner Todd Huston
# posted by Publius @ 2/14/2005 11:06:00 PM 
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