My most recent posting on "That Notorious Buckley AIDS Column" produced a torrential response, including some wild attacks on me threatening to beat me up and even sue me if I didn't take the post down. My intention was to keep the post up for a day or so, but when I saw this response, I decided to let it stay up through the weekend. Some of my critics are real goons, and it's important to teach these thugs a lesson in free speech.
Besides, what were they getting so hysterical about? I got the idea for the post by reading responses to my Buckley eulogy on the occasion of his death. All I did was tell the full story about the famou Buckley AIDS column, reporting how it came about, what the reaction was, and giving an accurate account of a subsequent National Review contest about the column. My own account of Buckley's article was not uncritical, and to the degree that the humor was offensive the culprits were Buckley himself and his associate Jeff Hart. Yet I took the brunt of the abuse.
A little secret about me: I enjoy this stuff. When I was editor of the Dartmouth Review we used to tell the deans that taking on our student newspaper was like wrestling with a pig: not only did it get everyone dirty, but the pig liked it! I guess my Dartmouth experience has made me a little thin-skinned with regard to a certain type of attack. I always try to learn from intelligent criticism, but when I get outright obscenity and threats and name-calling, I sit by my swimming pool with a drink in my hand and laugh my head off.
Some of my pals who read this blog do periodically ask why some of my critics are so out of control. One of my friends even printed out a bunch of responses to my recent posts, handing me a sampling. I reproduce a few items to give you the flavor.
"Dinesh you should be executed."
"Dear Dick (I mean Dinesh)"
"We are stupid if we let this sand n*gg*r speak for us. Go home."
"This guy is a friggin' dot head."
"Hypocritical jerkoff."
"Go back to India you narrow-minded punk. You don't have a f*ck*ng clue, bitch."
"You have sh*t for brains. You are a moron too."
"I f*ck*ng hate the way Dinesh uses that stupid voice...I want to punch him in the face."
"Oh Double D (that stands for Double Douchebag by the way)"
"Dinesh is far and away the dumbest human being on this planet."
"It's asshole immigrants like Dineshit, an untouchable from India is why I am against immigration."
"Self-absorbed cretin."
"You only need to take a look at Dinesh ato know something is wrong with him. He is the quintessential little ugly deformed fascist. Weird lower lip, sticks straight out, weird pink ledge. Goofy ears. Little weird looking fascist nerd with a barren intellect and an even more despitable soul."
"I hope you die. What a piece of crap."
"The only rational response is for me to tell you are that you are simply full of sh*t and need to pull your head out of your ass."
I've been examining these comments for valid criticisms. Maybe I am a little self-absorbed, although my critics seem far more absorbed with me than I am. Hypocrisy I plead guilty to: it simply means that I have higher standards than I can live up to. I have never claimed to be a handsome guy, although through some stroke of luck I managed to marry a woman who looks like a model: maybe she is partially blind. I doubt I am the dumbest human being on the planet although I may be--a) the dumbest guy to graduate Phi Beta Kappa from an Ivy League college, b) the dumbest guy to serve in his mid-twenties in the White House, c) the dumbest guy to have taught at Harvard and served as a scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, d) the dumbest guy to have written five New York Times bestsellers. Sometimes I wonder what I might have accomplished if I was a little smarter.
Now let's turn to these critics. It's striking that the cultural left, which wears the public face of tolerance and openness, quickly drops this cover when it's orthodoxies are questioned. Suddenly ad hominem epithets fly, and the intolerance and outright bigotry that is supposed to be the province of the right is quickly exposed as a distinctive feature of the secular left. I suspect that these folks are used to hanging out with people who share their political and cultural assumptions. They are not used to having these assumptions questioned. Unable to counter with facts and arguments, their only weapons are epithets and abuse. I have encountered this combination of left-wing and lowbrow on the campus, usually at second and third-rate universities. There occasionally I encounter a student who can do no better than yell "fascist" and run out of the room. In a way I feel sorry for him: his worldview has been shattered, and his abuse is simply an indication of the inner confusion he is experiencing.
To my friends and fans who keep encouraging me: No need to tell me to keep my chin up. It's already up. In fact, I feel blessed to have such irrational invective hurled at me. As long as my critics continue to reveal themselves as mean-spirited, foul-mouthed racists, how can I possibly lose the argument? Indeed such reactions from such people tell me that I must be doing something right.
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 32)
1. Two thumbs up Dinesh!
Christopher at 3:37PM on Mar 3rd 2008
2. Dinesh - I am also wondering why your critics get so hysterical about what you write, rather than just writing you off.
alan at 3:41PM on Mar 3rd 2008
3. Mr. D'Souza,
Perhaps you missed the point of some of the "hate filled liberals" objections.
Your love of Buckley was not really an issue. What was the major issue was the dirty little joke you retold about Aids victims, tatoos, and their backsides. It spoke volumes about your love of mankind.
That being said, I never suggested you be censored, no matter how disgusting someone may find you, for that someone may find me disgusting as well.
mac at 3:46PM on Mar 3rd 2008
4. Also, remember Mr D'Souza. You were the one who asked if all cultures were equal. Don't confuse a cultural joke with a racist one, surely one with as much education as you can see the difference.
mac at 3:49PM on Mar 3rd 2008
5. Dinesh,
As much as you toot your own horn I cannot help but wonder why you have such a weak ego. Perhaps counseling would help
Jerry Brown at 3:49PM on Mar 3rd 2008
6. Nice post. Although I don't always agree with everything you write, I agree with the majority of it, and always enjoy reading your posts. I enjoy watching your detractors sizzle and froth in their own venom, thereby doing the heavy lifting of proving your points for you. I initially thought that sometimes you might benefit from tempering your response somewhat, but after reading posted responses for several months; I say keep the gloves off!
chris at 3:50PM on Mar 3rd 2008
7. alan said it all in post #2.
Captain Negative at 3:54PM on Mar 3rd 2008
8. Dinesh; your critics are a random assortment of people who read an AOL news blog and represent all types. They are not "the cultural left".
I think you are fairly irrelevant to "the cultrual left".
Ryan Anderson at 4:00PM on Mar 3rd 2008
9. Dinesh:
Although you are quite correct that many who choose to blog here resort to ad hominem arguments when they run out of substantive comments (if they ever had any), it is clear that your decision to report on an insensitive and offensive idea from Mr. Buckley and the subsequent "contest" suggestion to tatoo people with AIDS has struck an all time nerve, not only with liberals and atheists (not necessarily the same!), but with many of your coreligionists and professed conservatives. It would be refreshing if you were sincere in your desire to open people's minds to the benefits of Christianity or belief in a Supreme Being, that you would recognize this backlash that calls you to task for shortsightedness and insensitivity (at the very least).
Friar Tuck
Harvey at 4:04PM on Mar 3rd 2008
10. Well, it's bovious you keep your chin up-- I wasn't going to suggest that. Rather, I mean to say that it's entirely unnecessary for you to list your accomplishments; your fans already know who you are & what you're capable of, and your detractors are oblivious.
I too feel compassion toward your critics, as their assorted worldviews give them no certainty, no security, no hope, and obviously no contentment.
I seldom comment here, because these naysayers aren't seeking dialogue, and their emotional reactions apparently render them incapable of reason.
This is not blind rhetoric on my part, for I was once one of them (not in your day, Dinesh, but earlier on). I am familiar with the agony of wanting the acknowledgement, appreciation, validation and respect of others, and being incapable and unworthy of gaining them. In fact, those yearnings haven't changed that much-- but by God's grace I have found that peace and joy do not reside in such transcient qualities; but are to be found and acquired only in Christ Jesus, who died to extend to us who believe in Him the very privileges He enjoys before God the Father.
I don't know your personal motivation for writing as you do, nor how you continue to do so, but you make a valuable contribution to our society, both by reason and by giving occasion for the real hypocrites among us to openly reveal themselves through their self-serving, unreasoning animosity and hostility.
God bless you, my Friend.
al at 4:08PM on Mar 3rd 2008
11. Allow me an explaination, Mr. Dinesh.
What you are seeing is the manifest anger towards one who employs hateful generalizations, snide innuendos, a politically myopic view, and rhetorically sloppy arguments. Many of the people who come to read the lastest outrages don't have the education to pose critical arguments. Those that do, I note, go absent from your review. Perhaps you are so busy preening and enjoying their vitrol that you can not acknowledge the rational, researched, and constant arguments that are placed against you.
I suppose that it's far eaiser to thumb your nose at the crowd than to deal with their outrage. Far too entertaining to strike sparks into the volitile fuel of the internet and watch the tempers and fires dance. I know that you don't care about conversion or convincing moderates. This isn't an argument for you. It's recreation. An edifice to your ego in which you can pick and choose whatever snide or bold faced comment you like and use it to paint a glaring generalization of an entire political spectrum. Bravo. You're a step above Ann Coultier, who simply makes them up as she goes along.
I didn't call for you to retract or recind your odious little commentary about what should be tattooed on the backsides of gay men. I felt that the sheer audacity and magnitude of your crudeness spoke far greater volumes about your character than any real truth about the subject. And as infuriating as it may be, you have a consitutional right to post whatever bile you wish to vomit on to a webpage. Who am I to insist your word not be shown? But for you to mock and jibe your critics reviels yet again the shallowness of your character. How much more effective you could have been if you'd at least attempted largesse and some decorum. I suppose the effort was beneath you.
I have come to this forum, and left it, returned, and left again. And I have come to the conclusion that it is my duty to civilization itself to counter your vile rhetoric will all the reason I possess and all the discipline I may bring to bare. You are a symptom of a social illness; one founded on supersistion, elitism, and favortism. You are a poor reflection of old aristocracy, playing at supporting traditions and faith and power to the few over the many. And some day, as the slow march of time has proven, you will be forgotten. A sorry echo, smacking of intellect, lost to the inevitable march of progress. And in years to come, when men can marry men and religion is a quaint ideal practiced by grandparents, your words will be but snippets cutted and pasted in college essays as proof of the social misfits and cowardly intellectuals, who hid behind rights and protections granted by liberal ideals, and who kept our society from truly maturing.
And that is your great tradegy.
Somber at 4:14PM on Mar 3rd 2008
12. Well, I agree that some of the folks on here are nutbags. Some carry on with each other comment after comment - one would think they would just call each other.
My objection to the article on Buckley was you did not write it to sing his praises, Mr. D'Souza - it seemed to me it was to show your disgust for gay people and liberals in one swoop - not to mention make fun of folks with AIDS, a very un-funny topic. However, that is your right to hate as much as you want, it is your blog, and I disagree with you 100%.
David S. at 4:14PM on Mar 3rd 2008
13. Hate to break it to you but it is not a secret that you enjoy creating controversy. Also there are plenty of people who have given you helpful/nonabusive criticism and I have yet to see you post that you have learned anything from their post. Frankly you are not a moderate and if you were this post would not be so popular.
Mr. D'Souza when you write a column for the specific purpose to create controversy through extreme remarks and use religion as a tool to promote your books you should anticipate a fair amount of hate mail. I do not agree with many of the hateful post you received, yet I have little sympathy because it comes with the murky territory you are in. Don't be in the business of mudslinging if you do not want to get dirty.
Also you say . . .
“Hypocrisy I plead guilty to: it simply means that I have higher standards than I can live up to.”
I don’t care how you word it, hypocrisy is not a good thing.
Gwen at 4:18PM on Mar 3rd 2008
14. Dinesh,
You are appreciated. Most of us who like what you do are not inclined to argue with the morons who hurl such filth your way because we know that you're not hurt by what idiots think and also because we know that the pig(s) will like it. Just keep doing what you're doing.
BTW, you're also the dumbest guy who gets hundreds of comments on every blog you write - none of the others on the same list even come close. Keep it up!
Dave at 4:21PM on Mar 3rd 2008
15. Dinesh, you are awesome! The illiberals who bash you on here are just exposing themselves for what they are: intolerant, simple people. They can never win in the arena of ideas and have to resort to: "You're stupid!" "You're ugly!." I love the constant religion debate that fires up, no matter what you're blogging about. "God doesn't exist!" I'd like to say to them: Just stop it already, I don't care. You don't believe in God, we get it. These people hate freedom of speech, at least speech they don't like. Do they also hate America? Yes. I said it. If you don't agree with me, you smell.
Boner-nosed, beanie wearing jew boy at 4:22PM on Mar 3rd 2008