Bill Whittle lays a smackdown on a commenter. He then goes on to write:
Many people hear or read something like “american’s” rant and think that because it is structured and literate there must be something to it. How many college students today, when presented with such nonsense, would read it and think that they are approaching the days of a Nazi state?
Lots.
Damn it! Lots of them would. Why? Because, like the 9/11 conspiracy “troofers,” no one bothers to call these people out. Thinking about this response took half again as long as actually typing it did: which is to say a few minutes. That is because I know how far from reality this diatribe is. These are things I think about every day, and likely, so do you. Realizing from scratch that his point was absurd, the specifics were easy.
We can no longer afford to let this anti-American garbage pass unchallenged. As a kind and secure people, we tend to let a lot of this go under the bridge, but this kind of crap gets more and more traction, and those days I think must come to an end for a while.
Now normally I do not employ personal ridicule, but I was writing in the heat of the moment and I thought it was no less than such a puerile attempt deserved. These people need to be challenged, factually defeated, thrashed, and mocked.
There was a time when common sense was prevalent enough that arguments this absurd would be laughed at on the street. I mean to return to those times, one self-righteous idiot at a time.
I have struggled with this dilemma for years, ever since I read Carl Sagan's story of the taxi driver. It's the dilemma from the monorail in Vegas, and my husband's right: as long as we keep giving people permission to promote crap, they will keep doing it. I blogged about it before the 2004 election, and now here we're already in another election cycle, battling the same baloney. And I am still struggling with the same dilemma.
By the way, Whittle is back. Settle in and read Forty Second Boyd and the Big Picture.
Posted by Sarah at January 3, 2008 01:20 PM | TrackBack