dagblog - Comments for "McArdle's Crusade"

Two reasons: first, most

Doctor Cleveland — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 15:30:39 +0000

In reply to If some atheist knocks off a

Two reasons: first, most people judge political ideas by results. If the results of a specific program involve being shot or killed, they're against it. And how on earth can you blame them? When violence is used as a political tool, it's not just a tool, it becomes an element of the user's program, and people very naturally turn against it.

Second, once any political party makes the decision that it's the judge of life and death, it earns distrust. And trust can only be earned back by disavowing that. I am not arguing for smearing political enemies by association. I am arguing for disassociating oneself, loudly and clearly, from any "allies" who are currently using violence as a tool.

Yes, the extremist violence in all of the cases you cite was used to discredit non-violent people who held similar ideological positions, and some of that was fearmongering hysteria. But some of it, to be fair, was also a failure to disavow violence by some of the non-violent left.

Stalin's purges had apologists on the American Left: far too many. We forget about it, because it's embarrassing, and we'd rather remember our virtuous Leftist martyrs, but the defenses of Stalin could be quite mealy-mouthed. The Panthers and Weathermen had "liberal" apologists even in their most incoherent and violent phases. (The phrase "radical chic" comes from an article about Leonard Bernstein throwing a society party for a bunch of Panthers.) And surely, there were some self-consciously "good Jews" who maintained what they imagined as their credibility by backing anything Baruch Goldstein did, on the "our homeland, right or wrong" principle. A speaker who doesn't commit violence but excuses it loses trust. And frankly, I think that is as it should be. If someone's willing to suspend his or her moral code for violence by "our side," I don't feel that s/he is on my side anymore.

Show me an anti-war protest where cars get set on fire, and I'll show you a protest that ain't stopping any wars. Show me a People's Revolution that kills some ideologically-incorrect workers and I'll show you a revolution that a lot of workers hate.

If you want to make social progress, you have to refrain from violence. If people who share some of your general aims resort to violence, you need to earn some credibility back, and that starts by making your separation from those bastards as clear as possible.

If some atheist knocks off a

Michael Wolraich — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 05:31:44 +0000

In reply to Right, but here's the thing.

If some atheist knocks off a few Orthodox priests tomorrow, and a rabbi, then atheism will become unpopular.

No doubt it would. After all, people blamed anti-war protesters for the Weather Underground bombings, Marxist sympathizers for Stalin's gulags, civil rights activists for the Black Panthers' militancy, and Jews for Baruch Goldstein's massacre of Palestinians.

But those people were wrong.

It may be true that "causing mayhem and death will turn hearts against even the most lucid cause," but I see no damned good reason for it.

As soon as that happens,

Nebton — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:10:32 +0000

In reply to Right, but here's the thing.

As soon as that happens, you're a bad guy, and everyone on your side is guilty until proven innocent.

I detest the guilty-by-association logic. I didn't like it when it was applied to Obama, and I don't like it now. I'm not entirely sure if you're being serious, but if this is some sort of a joke, it's eluding me.

Yeah. He really got into a

Doctor Cleveland — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 22:45:17 +0000

In reply to Hitler always hates a late

Yeah. He really got into a snit when the League of Nations called him Friday for a Saturday event. Never stopped holding the grudge, really.

Hitler always hates a late

DF — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:49:00 +0000

In reply to You make good points, but I'm

Hitler always hates a late invitation to the party.

You know, right after a

DF — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:46:24 +0000

In reply to Are there examples not just

You know, right after a posted my comment and took off I thought of communists. I also thought of the retort that their motivations were political, not religious, and quickly realized that it would be as difficult to separate the two in the case of communist leaders like Stalin or Mao as it would be for the crusades or even for modern Islamic terrorists.

Right, but here's the thing.

Doctor Cleveland — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:00:44 +0000

In reply to You make good points, but I'm

Right, but here's the thing. Once the bullets start flying, I don't care how right your thinking is, or what a swell guy you are. I'm simply angry that your principles matter more to you than someone else's life. As soon as that happens, you're a bad guy, and everyone on your side is guilty until proven innocent. Killing someone in the name of your atheist beliefs wouldn't make an anthropomorphic God burst into existence, but it would discredit atheism as a social and political movement. I mean, I think that should be obvious. If some atheist knocks off a few Orthodox priests tomorrow, and a rabbi, then atheism will become unpopular.

Politics, everyday politics, is about winning hearts and minds. Winning the intellectual argument but causing mayhem and death will turn hearts against even the most lucid cause, and with damned good reason.

No, I understood that. I

Nebton — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:39:15 +0000

In reply to In fact, Pelosi made no claim

No, I understood that. I merely meant that it would be fine if she (or anyone else) had, even if they hadn't yet done a full statistical analysis.

In fact, Pelosi made no claim

Doctor Cleveland — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:34:13 +0000

In reply to Are there examples not just

In fact, Pelosi made no claim about correlation.

She made a blanket claim that inflammatory rhetoric is dangerous, and has led to trouble before. She did not specify whose beliefs were correlated with anything.

You make good points, but I'm

Nebton — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:41:00 +0000

In reply to Well, Nebton, let me make a

You make good points, but I'm interested in adding some nuance that you might have missed (or might have been missing) from my previous discussion. There are very few ideas (if any) where all of its advocates, or even a majoirty of its advocates, are monsters. However, there are ideas that tend to attract more monsters than others, and there are ideas that tend to repel monsters more than others. Finally, there are ideas that actually create monsters.* I think it's revealing to consider why an idea attracts monsters, if it does so, but attracting monsters does not necessarily invalidate an idea. For example, Darwin's theories were abused by Hitler. (I threw that one in there just for A-man.) It doesn't make his theories any less valid, of course.

* Actually, maybe there aren't. But it's a useful catetory to distinguish from ideas that merely attract monsters.