Lee Smith (not a Jew, in case you're wondering) offers
a lexicon of America's Jew-baiters. Andrew Sullivan
huffs and puffs in response. (And also consoles himself that ever more people think as he does. He seems not to read
Gallup polls). Lee's terminology, by the way, is interesting: since we ultimately can't know what a person believes in, about Jews or other matters, let's look at how they express things. That can be measured.
I reached much the same conclusion after visiting their blogs a few times. They're atttenion seekers; narcissists who pander to whomever sucks up to them & inflates their overbearing egos.
ReplyDeletePersonally I don't know why anyone bothers to debate or argue with people like that. There's only one approach that works with that type of human garbage; scorn & contempt. They're terrified of ridicule & humiliation, they just feed off any attempts to reason with them.
What's noteworthy is that Sullivan responded, it hit the mark and he's reacted with the bruised ego kneejerk of bluster & ad-hominem. More of the same please.... lots more.
Gavin
that Lee Smith piece has become a must-read all over the net, wich makes me ask:
ReplyDeletemaybe it is a long time Sullivan has had so much attention bestowed on him? ;-) and that must ouch.
as to MSM outfits promoting that kind of stuff, the Daily Beast tries it off and on - but of course that's only me saying it ...
Silke
I think how a person sees Jews tells us a great deal about their ability to evaluate life's crises rationally. And the fashionable willingness to engage in Jew-baiting in our time is revealing in just how much intelligent people find the irrational perfectly sensible to them. Trying to counter that with reason and the facts to those whose minds are closed is a waste of time.
ReplyDeleteAndrew Sullivan in today's London Times (sub only) gave me a good many laughs - he is such a cute guy - I really wonder who are the ones admiring him.
ReplyDeleteI hope the excerpts show what I found confirmed in the piece - that there is nobody more grandiose at teaching virtue than the reformed sinner i.e. the one with the imperial hangover.
Question:
isn't Hamlet a reluctant killer who in the end is responsible for a lot more deaths than a bit more decisiveness might have brought about?
Silke
But Doctor Who — like Star Trek but smarter — was not just entertainment to me. It expressed values, a world-view, a way of countering evil that never succumbed to true superhero shenanigans or raw violence.
...
If Bauer represented the primitive, aggressive American response to jihadist evil in the wake of 9/11, the Doctor represents a more decent, more British approach, as we get a better grip on the enemy we face and how to defeat it.
...
He is the reluctant killer, forced to it only when everything else has failed.
...
We meet Shakespeare and Queen Victoria; we return to the second world war; we get a feel for the past and for the Doctor’s empathy for the addled English heart and soul. And I think that matters. It places the Doctor in a moral context. He is an inveterate individualist with a respect for other cultures and ways of life. Upon encountering the strange, his impulse is curiosity — not disgust or fear.
...
A society whose former attorney-general, Alberto Gonzales, once described the Geneva conventions as “quaint” is not one dedicated to the lessons of history. But within Britain, history lingers. The sprightly sceptic is often a hero; intelligence is not regarded as a weakness but as a strength. Restraint is sometimes necessary and the imperial hangover has left a deeper respect for alien cultures than in an America which, for all its diversity, remains still somewhat divorced from the wider world, and a little paranoid about it.
Norman
ReplyDeleteI have my doubts about this rational argument. There is a piece at Walter Mead's blog today about the Ground Zero Mosque that goes on about rational which made me think again why it feels so wrong.
To me it seems that mankind has never been at a loss to come up with convincing rational arguments for all kinds of atrocities. However, when I watch an old man getting forced to clean the street with a tooth brush I hope that I'd have had a very strong emotional reaction and that points me towards doing what would be morally right. Whether I then have the guts to do it is another story. But one thing I should never do i.e. be so much of a coward that I find rational reasons for my not interfering I should always keep in mind, that it was pure emotion i.e. fear that kept me mum.
Silke
Now as America is getting its butt kicked in Afganistan, we should ask. What would happen if we had not responded to 9/11, but accepted it as the price of our foreign policy?
ReplyDeleteTony succumbs to fashion and does a what-if
ReplyDeletehow boring!!!
and I had such hopes for him to become a real wit
Silke
Is Rabbi Tony a parody or not? I can't really tell. Sometimes I'm sure he is, and sometimes he sounds just a little too earnest.
ReplyDeleteThe rabbi is a parody, Bryan - assuming he's a "he". He's not uniformly funny, but that's not an easy thing to do anyway. There's no need to respond to his comments, unless you wish to commend him for a well crafted line or that sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteNever mind "Rabbi" Amandla, a true idiotic fake, of the same species as fake Ibrahim al Berto.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the lexicon, it is interesting but, the bottom line, in this world in which everyone is an expert on anything, the best strategy to deal with such antisemites is to ignore the bating, as hard as it is. Because that´s what these mendacious types love to watch: people trying to reason with them.
It´s really amazing, though, how in the last decades antisemitic discourse rapdly become acceptable, through the usual disguises. Of course it is still not cute to be openly antisemitic and that´s the final barrier to be dismantled.