If you read my post from earlier today, please read this one by Reihan over at the Scene, where he (with characteristic good humor) responds to some criticism from Matt Frost, Daniel Larison and me.
Freddie
Freddie deBoer used to blog at lhote.blogspot.com, and may again someday. Now he blogs here.
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Interesting response, but this bit really got my goat:
“Re: Iran, I’d rather be on the side of the Mandelas than the Verwoerds.”
I mean, really? So those of us not in favor of making meaningless symbolic gestures are akin to supporters of apartheid-era South Africa?Report
Yeah, that’s a shitty thing to say.Report
If he had instead said something like “But what alternative? People need little excuse to abdicate any moral obligation at all. What if the choice is piety or apathy? I’ll take piety, thanks. And I don’t think that the fact that something is impossible means we have no obligation to pursue it. In fact, I think impossible pursuits are some of our most important.”, would you have found that to be significantly less shitty?
Why?Report
It’s just the Manichean in him.Report
I do not have my opinion merely because I have my opinion (like you people).
I have my opinion because I am a better person than you people. If you people were better people, you would probably have an opinion closer to mine.
But everyone is entitled to his or her opinion.Report
I really do get under your skin.Report
When I ask an honest question and get accused of being a troll, then clarify the question and get psychoanalyzed, it irritates me.
I do tend to notice that your posts that are, effectively, Luke 18:11-12 tend to have you react the most violently when people disagree and/or question you. Indeed, your responses are, more or less, effectively the responses of folks at Focus who get all huffy when you question their certainty that Jesus did not, in fact, turn the water at the Wedding at Cana into grape juice.
I’d be down with saying something to the effect of “okay, he’s just thin-skinned when it comes to people questioning his piety” but then you post stuff like “You can understand the frustration that those disinclined to view capitalism as magic feel at this moment, right?” which, pretty much, shows a complete and total lack of belief in the good faith of the arguments given by other people.
Frankly, it reminds me of Roque’s mockery of others followed by his insistence that it is the others preventing real dialog from taking place when they start taking a tone similar to his own.
He makes fewer assertions to his own piety, though. So he has that going for him.Report
I never, actually, asserted my own piety; what I said, if you’d care to look, is that piety is preferable to apathy. You’re free to disagree. But I’ll take someone who is moralistic over someone who is apathetic or actively amoral any day. Just my preference. I think people deny the moral content of politics because the alternative is uncomfortable.
If I really am bent on not dealing with people who disagree with me, I’m doing a spectacularly bad job of it. I read almost no blogs by people who agree with me, and every quality one that I can find by people who disagree with me. Hell, I’m on a group blog where I’m probably the person most out of keeping with the rest of the bloggers. That doesn’t strike me as a sound choice for someone who is trying to avoid being disagreed with.
As for your saying that I’m not capable of arguing without getting upset, I can only say that I think you’re wrong. You’re posting in a thread that doesn’t do much to prove your point.Report
If I care to look? Hell, I quoted it back at you several times!
Then I asked what makes your insistence that piety was preferable significantly different from other people who insist that piety is preferable to apathy (and used the gay marriage debate as an example of a debate that has pul-enty! of people who argue in favor of piety). At which point I got psychoanalyzed.
“If I really am bent on not dealing with people who disagree with me, I’m doing a spectacularly bad job of it.”
You seem to be doing what you can to communicate to folks who question you overly that there is a downside to doing so and that questioning your piety will, in fact, result in you insulting them… I’m guessing that you’re hoping to create negative externalities for certain avenues of questioning. Unless, of course, you’re doing it as a gut response without thinking about it, of course…
“Hell, I’m on a group blog where I’m probably the person most out of keeping with the rest of the bloggers.”
And a fine group blog it is. I do not say that enough and that reflects poorly upon me. You guys are all the bomb diggity.
“As for your saying that I’m not capable of arguing without getting upset, I can only say that I think you’re wrong. You’re posting in a thread that doesn’t do much to prove your point.”
Really? What was your response to “Re: Iran, I’d rather be on the side of the Mandelas than the Verwoerds” again? Does your response make sense if it is in context of someone having said just the other day, and let me quote it again for posterity here, “But what alternative? People need little excuse to abdicate any moral obligation at all. What if the choice is piety or apathy? I’ll take piety, thanks. And I don’t think that the fact that something is impossible means we have no obligation to pursue it. In fact, I think impossible pursuits are some of our most important.”
Do you see how *THAT* phrasing is a mirror image of what *HE* said? Basically that there is the whole “piety” thing vs the whole “just not caring” thing while, at the same time, leaving *NO* doubt in the mind of the reader which side you identify with?
And, on top of that, “I have my opinion because I am a better person than you people. If you people were better people, you would probably have an opinion closer to mine.” was a response mocking Reihan!!! If you read it as something that was not mocking him but mocking you (dude, seriously, I have the “press the reply button” thing down) then I would say (if I may explore a little amateur psychoanalysis myself) that your skills at arguing without getting upset remain to be demonstrated.Report
Guys — plenty of smart, sober non-interventionists opposed meddling in South Africa’s internal affairs. It was a totally respectable position to take. “Choosing sides” in another country’s internal affairs is not, as you guys understand, the most unproblematic thing in the world. And yes, I do think Khamenei is as bad as the Afrikaner Christian nationalists who enforced apartheid.Report
I suppose the question becomes what sort of meddling is the most effective with these sort of regimes. I think having a diplomatic presence and stronger trade relationship with these regimes provides us with a great deal of leverage, and a great deal more potent leverage than empty threats and even emptier promises.
Of course we have no ties to Iran so it becomes very difficult to meaningfully pressure them without the threat of military force.
That said, I am entirely supportive of condemnations of violence – though such condemnations need not include a great deal of saber-rattling.Report
Yeah, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with condemning the violence; you don’t need to be an expert in Iranian politics for thatReport
I just don’t think South Africa and Iran are even close to comparable situations, either geopolitically or morally.Report
Good point. South Africa was far more geopolitically marginal than Iran. But in terms of the brutality of the secret police, plenty of South Africans — not that they should be the ones to decide — think the comparison is apt.Report