Tag: media

In defense of “extremism”

Frank Bruni complains about the loss of the media monoculture in the New York Times:

America these days is an immoderate land of fixed opinions and outsize fixations. More and more we wallow: in our established political philosophy; in our preferred interest group; in our pastime of choice; in whichever health routine we’ve turned into a health religion.

I BLAME the Internet. Well, that and social media and cable television, with its infinity of channels. In theory our hyperconnectivity and surfeit of possibilities have broadened our universes, speeding us to distant galaxies, fresh discoveries and new information. But in reality they’ve just as often had a narrowing effect, enabling us to dwell longer on, and burrow deeper into, one way of being, one mode of thinking.

Whether you’re predisposed to a conservative or liberal view, you can set your bookmarks to Web sites that reinforce what you already believe, take a similar tack with your Facebook and Twitter feeds, and turn for news to Fox News or MSNBC, each an echo chamber for like minds.

And many Americans do just that. The prime-time audiences for Fox News and MSNBC increased significantly between 2011 and 2012, while CNN’s prime-time audience dropped. The percentage of swing voters seemed to shrink, and over the last two decades, the percentage of voters who label themselves “moderate” has similarly declined. 

Bruni is whining about essentially the same “problem” that McRapey lamented in his recent interview.  The Left is deeply and bitterly upset about their inability to control the narrative in the way they were once able to.  Bruni is complaining that although ABCNNBCBS, NPR, the AP, and the New York Times are all still around and putting out news and opinion, Americans don’t have to pay attention to them anymore, and increasingly, they don’t.  Bruni resents the fact that, as McRapey said in the CBC-Q interview, “the internet is a great big world and you
can’t mallet everybody.”

But the Left would like to.  Oh, how they would dearly love to be able to shut out every critical voice, to see and hear no evil, to prevent the innocent ignorant from being able to learn that the Officially Sanctioned Story is not necessarily true and its case is riddled with holes.  This is why the Left so religiously shuns debate, erases its opponents from the history books, and often tries to pretend that the other side doesn’t even exist.  They have to rewrite history, and in some cases jettison it entirely, because the facts and lessons of history simply do not work in their favor.

It’s not the Right that is burrowing deeper into its own way of thinking.  We of the Right have been steeped in leftist propaganda and ideology for our entire lives.  We understand the Left’s thinking, and we reject it due to that very understanding, whereas leftists, when caught off-guard, will readily admit that they are both frightened and confused by what those on the Right are thinking.  This is usually because they are totally unfamiliar with it; in some cases they literally haven’t ever heard anything like it before.  And because their thinking is wholly based on rhetoric and rote-learning, they are almost uniformly incapable of operating on a genuinely dialectical level; what looks like leftist dialectic is almost always, when you examine it, nothing more than rhetoric.

Consider the poor leftist who believes avidly that a) racism is evil and b) evolution is true.  What is he to do when confronted by someone who points out, on the basis of genetic science, that humans are not even all equally homo sapiens sapiens?  If he is to cling to his beliefs, he must either accept a continual state of cognitive dissonance or bury his head in the intellectual sand.  This is why “burrowing” is an apt term for the Left’s response to the changes brought about by the Internet, though not necessarily the Right’s.

Expect more public lamentations from the likes of Bruni as the power of the media gatekeepers continues to fade and more and more independent alternatives whose only credibility is based on their substance, not their credentials or their historical position.  As was once said of liberty, extremism in the pursuit of truth is no vice.  It is, rather, the cardinal virtue.

Very important international news

Insightful investigative reporting on the part of The Guardian reveals that John “I am a rapist” Scalzi lied when he claimed that he was enjoying the attention of what he hitherto described as an adorable “mancrush”:

John Scalzi is the author of several books, including the Old Man’s War series and Redshirts, published in the States by Tor and the UK by Gollancz. He’s also the president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Fed up of being constantly targeted on his website by one particular individual and his followers, Scalzi decided to take action, pledging US$5 every time “the Racist Sexist Homophobic Dipshit in question posts an entry on his site in which he uses my name (or one of his adorable nicknames for me)”.

Scalzi put a ceiling on his “troll tip jar” of US$1,000, figuring that gave his bête noir 200 opportunities to abuse him over the coming year, and said he’d give the cash to four charities: RAINN, America’s largest anti-sexual violence organization; Emily’s List, dedicated to electing pro-choice Democratic women to office; the Human Rights Campaign, which works for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Equal Rights; and NAACP: America’s oldest and largest civil rights organization.

A novel enough way to tackle the trolls, for sure, but what happened next was somewhat astonishing: Scalzi’s friends, Twitter followers and readers asked if they could jump in with pledges too. Many of his friends are high-profile authors and industry types – Will Wheaton, the actor who played Wesley Crusher in TV’s Star Trek: The Next Generation, and a writer in his own right, was one of many who promised to match Scalzi’s US$1,000 pledge.

By the early hours of this morning, UK time, the pledges for Scalzi’s chosen charities had grown to US$50,000.

One of the triggers for the trolling of Scalzi seems to be a satirical blogpost he wrote in October last year attacking conservative politicians for their line on abortion control. It took the form of an open letter to them, in which he adopted the persona of a rapist….

However, the Guardian doesn’t seem to have gotten the story quite right.  The reporter appears to be under the impression that Mr. Scalzi did not enjoy the attention, when we were repeatedly informed, in writing, that he did.  When was it, the inquiring mind wants to know, that “the “McRapey” comments became too much”?  And why were we never informed?

The headline is certainly interesting: “Troll’s comments prompt author to pledge charity donation for every insult.”

John Scalzi’s name is an insult?  I suppose that’s true enough in light of his antics.  But just to set a few things straight.

  1. I have never trolled or sock-puppeted Whatever.  I am not sure of the exact number, but excluding the 30 or so comments on the TIA Big Idea post, I believe I have posted fewer than 10 comments there since 2005.
  2. I have never encouraged anyone to visit Whatever, to leave comments there, or to troll there.  I have linked to various posts at Whatever; a look through the blog archives shows a grand total of 58 references since 2005.
  3. I do not wish to have what passes for John Scalzi’s stature in the science fiction field.  If I had any desire to write unoriginal and derivative takes on Heinlein, Dick, Piper, and Star Trek, I would do so.  As should be obvious from my 854-page epic fantasy novel, my sights are aimed elsewhere.
  4. Since when does “constantly targeted” mean “criticized 26 times in eight years?”  Of the 11,327 posts here on Vox Popoli, precisely 58 refer to John Scalzi in any way.  Of the 58 references, 32 of them are not even critical.
  5. It was really reprehensible of The Guardian to omit to report that in addition to raising $50,000 for the noble cause of not quoting, criticizing, or even mentioning John Scalzi, Mr. Scalzi also commissioned the painting of a dancing pink rabbit.

What can we conclude from all of this?  Sheldon Cooper was right.  McRapey isn’t the problem.  We have to fight the real enemy!  Ensign Wesley must die.die.die!  Now, to be fair to the Guardian, it is entirely possible that the reporter, David Barnett, attempted to ask me for a comment before writing his story, but was unable to reach me as I was much too busy laughing.

UPDATE: A sometime critic of mine who has challenged me to a debate with John Scalzi adds his thoughts on the increasingly hilarious matter:

As Helen Smith demonstrated, John Scalzi likes easy and ideologically safe (politically correct) targets. This rule applies on those rare occasions when he responds to criticism, as well. Scalzi realizes that the best way to smear an entire group is to cherry-pick its worst members, and then present them as the representative norm. I noted earlier how he cherry-picks anecdotal cases of aberrant male behavior to build the case that women require his advocacy against sexism. In a similar manner, Scalzi strategically chooses which critics he responds to.

He would not respond to Helen Smith, as this would place him in the difficult situation of having a woman expose his chicanery and call his bluff. Nor does he respond even to Vox Day—who swings back and forth between moderate positions and more extreme ones. But Vox Day frightens John Scalzi not because he is sometimes extreme, but because he is consistently articulate and often insightful. Scalzi does not want real dissent; he wants either sycophants, or babbling cardboard opponents whom he can casually demolish. The more likely a critic is to debunk his methods, the less likely John is to engage him or her in open debate.

That is inarguably true, but on the other hand, John does commission rabbit paintings and solicit the burning of other people’s money in lieu of debate, which is considerably more amusing than mere rational discourse.  I certainly have no complaints.  I’m simply enjoying the dancing rabbits.

UPDATE II:  This should be amusing.  I’ve already done two little interviews with publications in the USA and Canada doing stories on the affair.  Is there no end to the madness?  How is he so masterfully pulling the strings of the global media?

    Speaking of rhetoric

    “Killer was home schooled” is a subtitle of an article in the Daily Telegraph.  “Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old who killed his mother and 26 people at a primary school in Connecticut, was “very, very bright”, his aunt claimed as she disclosed his mother had chosen to home school him after “battling” education authorities.”

    And yet, in the article itself, it refers to former classmates, his junior high school basketball team, the English class in which he read Steinbeck at 16, his membership in the high school computer club, how he sat alone at the table in the school lunchroom and on the school bus, and the way he graduated in 2010 from a high school with a yearbook.

    This is not an accident.  A dialectic reading of the article will rapidly cause one to conclude that the bright, but mentally unstable kid should have been homeschooled from the start.  Instead, he was thrown into public school hell, socially rejected, and eventually took vengeance upon those serving as proxies for the individuals he perceived to have harmed him.  It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he had serious issues at school dating back to first or second grade; there is a reason he went after the little ones even if we don’t know what it is. 

    But the intended rhetorical effect is for one to draw a connection between being homeschooled and being a murderous freak.  Which is deeply ironic, considering that homeschooling would help solve the problem from both ends, first by making it much less easy to slaughter large numbers of young children gathered in a single confined and defenseless place, and second by reducing the amount of abuse suffered by mentally unstable social rejects in their most formative years.

    Thom Hartmann interview

    THOM HARTMANN: Vox
    Day, which is Latin for “the voice of God.” VoxDay.blogspot.com, his
    website; Christian libertarian; author of several books, including A
    Throne Of Bones    , just out today. The blog is “Vox Popoli”, which would be the voice of the people. So, Voice of God, welcome.

    VOX DAY: Thanks, Tom.
    TH: Great to have you with us. You are a self-professed secessionist. Explain this to me.
    VD: The way that I would begin it is that I would say that I favor
    self-determination for all peoples, whether they’re American, whether
    they’re Scottish, whether they’re Catalonian…
    TH: You know, any person, including yourself, can hop on a plane and
    go to any other country, and if you can get them to take you, you’re
    there.
    VD: I am. I’ve lived in Europe for 13, 14 years now
    TH: Ok. So, you know . . . what’s the problem?
    VD: I don’t have any problem, it’s simply an intellectual
    thing. It’s simply understanding that, throughout the course of human
    history, it is entirely normal for groups of people to come together for
    a period of time, and then break apart after a while.  You
    know, this is a pattern of history that has existed for as
    long as man has written these things down. In fact, in that new novel
    that you mentioned, it’s based on the Roman social war of 91BC, which
    was, essentially, a secessionist movement, even though they ended up
    joining the empire after all.
    TH:
    So you’re suggesting … let’s translate this into simple English. Are
    you suggesting that the citizens of any particular state, on a majority
    vote, should be able to simply withdraw themselves from the union as
    states did in 1860?
    VD: Of course. We’re seeing it happen right now in Scotland. We think it’s unthinkable because America is such a short-lived….
    TH:
    But Scotland has historically been a separate country. And, they have
    profoundly different . . . I spent a fair amount of time in Scotland.
    And it’s a very different culture from British culture. And they have
    fought wars over the years. I mean, you know, what’s his name, the crazy
    actor, Mel Gibson, made a movie out of one of them.  I
    mean, they fought wars with the British. England, historically, was a
    separate country, just because they happened to be on the same island.
    And you could argue that the only reason Scotland was part of the United
    Kingdom was because they were conquered, and now they’re “unconquering” themselves.  That’s very different from states voluntarily joining a union like we have here in the United States.
    VD:
    But they weren’t conquered. They came together as part of the voluntary
    Acts of Union from 1707. Their voluntarily, democratically-supported
    union has lasted more than twice as long as the history of the United
    States [Union].(1)  And so, we’re seeing this all over the world.  We’re
    seeing Catalonia, which has been part of Castilian Spain for even
    longer than Scotland’s been part of the United Kingdom, voting, again democratically, left and right joining together, to vote the secessionists into power.…
    TH:
    Right. But, again, don’t you think that that’s because they’re sick and
    tired of Spain being part of the EU, and thus having lost their
    national sovereignty, and so they’re going to claim their own national
    sovereignty and withdraw themselves from the EU?
    VD:
    That might be the case with the Catalonians. That’s not the case with
    the Scottish. The Scottish actually want to get out of the United
    Kingdom, and then join  the EU in their own right which….
    TH: Which seems crazy to me.
    VD:
    It’s totally crazy to me, too. But that’s the whole point about
    self-determination. What is it to us as Americans or whatever we might
    be …
    TH:
    So do you think Lincoln should have just said when the South seceded,
    even before… A number of the states seceded after he was elected but
    before he was installed into office, because back then the elections
    were in November and you were sworn into office in March. And during
    that time, you had a bunch of states that said, “Ok, that’s it, we’re
    out of here”… that he should have just said, “Goodbye”?
    VD:
    Oh, absolutely. In fact, the interesting thing is that before Lincoln,
    about, maybe, 30 years before that, the secessionist states were the New
    England states. They were the ones who were talking about seceding. I
    don’t recall what the deal was, why they were interested. But it was
    never really questioned that a state had the right to voluntarily leave
    the union because, otherwise, if they didn’t have the right to
    voluntarily leave, then it was just another militarily imposed empire.
    TH: But that right is not laid out in the constitution.
    VD: I’m sorry?
    TH: That right is not laid out in the constitution.
    VD:
    Well, no, because the constitution has to do with the rights of the
    federal government. It doesn’t have anything to do with the rights of
    the states. If you’re writing a document limiting the federal
    government….
    TH: Well, actually, it does. It gives the federal government, for example, the right to regulate commerce between the states.
    VD: Sure.
    TH:
    It says how states shall apportion their electors. It says how states
    shall determine the number of representatives they’re sending to
    Washington, DC. There are a lot of rules for the states in the
    constitution.
    VD: And those are all things that have to do with the operation of the
    federal government. It doesn’t have anything to do with the operation of
    the sovereign and several states.  Obviously, when you join a group, you agree to abide by the rules of that group.
    TH:
    So if Texas secedes, and becomes the independent nation of Texas, what
    happens to those Americans in Texas who consider themselves Americans
    who don’t want secession?
    VD:
    Well, presumably in a democratic country, in a free and democratic
    country, those people would either have to decide if they wanted to stay
    and accept it, the same way that the people in America at the time of
    the revolutionary war …  You know,
    many them either moved to Canada, or moved back to England, or in some
    cases they just decided to stay and become Americans. It would be up to
    them, and presumably the Texans would be focused enough on freedom that
    they would let those people do whatever it was they wanted.
    TH: What is it about the United States that …  first of all, what state do you live in?
    VD: I don’t. Like I said, I’ve lived in Italy for 13 years.
    TH: So you live in Italy right now?
    VD: Yeah. I used to live in Minnesota.
    TH:
    In Minnesota. So… you really don’t have a dog in this fight. Doesn’t
    that diminish your credibility somewhat in making these kind of
    statements? I mean, this isn’t going to affect you.
    VD:
    Well, no, of course it’s going to affect me in the sense that I have friends and family there. I mean, I wouldn’t say that…
    Would you say about somebody who lived in the states who has family back
    in Scotland that they have no … Of course there’s an interest. But my
    primary interest in this, as in practically everything, is primarily
    intellectual.  Am I going to shed
    any massive tears if Catalonia breaks away from Spain? No. Am I going to
    be terribly upset if Texas decides to be independent? No. If you
    support self-determination for one group of people in the world, you
    should support it for everyone. And why shouldn’t Americans have the
    same right of self-determination that we support for the people in
    Libya, for the people in Egypt, for the people…
    TH:
    But most of the states who are talking about secession are states that,
    for every dollar that they send to Washington, DC, they get back $1.10,
    $1.20, $1.30. Texas gets more federal money in than they send out. So
    when they secede, first of all, all the military bases in the state
    would close. And that’s not even included in that equation that I just
    shared with you. Secondly, everybody loses their Social Security,
    Medicare, Medicaid, all those other things.  How is that state going to exist?
    VD: First of all, Texas is not going to have any trouble existing,
    because Texas is, would be one of the, I believe, twenty largest
    economies in the world, thirty largest economies in the world. I mean,
    if …
    TH: Not without federal infrastructure.
    VD:
    Obviously it might not be quite as easy for them. But whether it is or
    not, that’s their right to say. It’s not for you or me to decide. If
    Delaware, for example … let’s take the most absurd example … Delaware
    would be like, … Lichtenstein or something. Now, you wouldn’t think that they would have any business going independent.
    But if they want to go independent and live in grass huts and that sort
    of thing, what is that to you or me? That’s what freedom is all about,
    is allowing people freedom to make stupid choices.
    TH:
    Well, you make a very compelling and libertarian argument…. Hm.
    Interesting. I wonder if this is going to be THE thing for the
    Republican Party.

    (1)  Just to be clear, I can do the math.  I was referring to the post-1865 Union that was forcibly imposed, not the voluntary one that lasted from 1776 to 1861.

    I’d call that a two-for-one

    By voting for independence, Scotland will automatically leave the EU:

    Scotland ‘would have to apply to EU and lose UK’s opt-out after separation’ Scotland would have to apply to the EU and lose the UK’s opt-out from the euro if voters back separation in the forthcoming referendum, the European Commission is claimed to have confirmed. In what would be a significant blow to Alex Salmond, the commission is said to
    have drafted a letter to a Lords committee rejecting his claim that Scotland
    would automatically inherit the UK’s membership.

    Of course, the European Commission is lying, as it usually does.  I guarantee you that if Scotland voted to leave the UK, the EU will claim after the fact that it is still an EU member.  These guys know they didn’t get on the fascist gravy train by forcing fewer people pay their economic protection money.

    The only reason they are discouraging the Scottish vote for independence from the UK is because without the Scots, the English and Welsh Euroskeptics will have a majority.

    Speaking of Scotland, you can get an interesting perspective on secession and Scottish history from my interview with Thom Hartmann yesterday.  I’ll be posting a transcript sent in by SL soon.

    We’re number 19!

    John Hawkins has Vox Popoli at #19 on his list of top 60 conservative blogs.  I think that’s pretty good for a libertarian who is only slightly more conservative than Vladimir Lenin crossed with Alaric the Visigoth.

    In potentially related news, I’m going to be appearing on The Thom Hartmann Program at 4 PM Eastern to discuss the secession movement inside and outside the USA.  This has the potential to be a bit more interesting than usual because apparently it is a left-leaning program.  You can listen live via stream at www.thomhartmann.com.

    Dear Matt Drudge

    The Hill writes to Matt Drudge:

    I
    have written before that, whether I like it or not, you are the one of
    the most influential forces in modern media, possibly THE
    most influential single player. You tower above your peers in what you
    do. Despite my failed efforts, no liberal or Democrat has even tried to
    create a legitimate competitor to what you do. But with your influence
    comes power, and with power comes responsibility, and the Drudge Report
    in recent months has become inundated, and saturated and permeated with
    baiting stories about the president’s race, and about blacks generally.
    These are beneath the standards you should set for yourself and your
    profession.

    You should be, and I hope you will be, a
    better citizen and more worthy professional than is suggested by the
    sheer number of race-related and often race-baiting stories that you
    regularly banner on the Drudge Report.

     Translation:

    Dear Matt,

    We in the media have been successfully sweeping black-on-white crime under the carpet for decades.  Now that people are reading you instead of us, they are beginning to realize that vibrancy is not, in fact, our strength.  Please stop, or we will turn up our noses at you as our readers continue to turn to you for the information we are keeping from them.

    Thank you,

    The Mainstream Media

    A sickness in Britain

    After literally years of coverups by the BBC and the police, Scotland Yard finally appears to be something about the infestation of celebrity pedophiles in Britain:

    Police are on the verge of arresting up to a dozen household names accused of sex abuse but missed an incredible seven chances to trap paedophile Jimmy Savile while he was alive, it has been revealed.  Scotland Yard is to act ‘within days’ as it emerged the pervert DJ abused at least 300 people because he was allowed to rape and sexually assault victims unhindered for decades.

    Savile is believed to have had accomplices and celebrities named by victims – some huge TV stars – will be quizzed over serious sex assault allegations as police warned: ‘we will come for them’.

    It’s informative to compare the BBC’s general lack of interest and insistence on absolute proof before permitting any mention of the situation to the public with how it behaved when covering similar child abuse cases committed by Catholic priests.  In light of this and Penn State, we’re rapidly learning that the problem isn’t the priests per se, it is with the bureaucracies that are more interested in protecting the interests of the institution than the children with whom their members come into contact.

    And, of course, it tends to support my philosophy of never trusting any man who is inordinately interested in children.  Normal adult men find children to be tedious and teenagers to be obnoxious.  They tolerate them, they don’t actively seek out their company.  It never surprises me when a trusted, much-loved man who “just loves children” turns out to be a predator, for as with Willie Sutton and his banks, pedophiles will always go where the children are.

    Note too that the police have been lying about their previous inaction:  “[D]espite their action now, police blew more than half a dozen chances to arrest Savile while he was alive.  The Met, who had previously said they had no record of complaints about the pervert’s campaign of abuse, have now confessed that one woman spoke to them in the 1980s as did another lady in 2003.”

    How long will it be before the FBI finally begins to overturn rocks in Hollywood and investigate the gay pedophiles infesting the film industry?

    On the radio

    I’m on the Brian Greenberg show at 5 EST again.  WNJC 1360 AM in Philadelphia.  Here is the download link to the MP3.  If anyone is up for transcribing it, please say so here in the comments in order to prevent any duplicate efforts.  I’ll post it here once it’s been sent to me.