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 31 of 32)
451. I love chihuahuas. We were going to get one, and then one day we were driving in the city, stopped in a line of traffic at a light, and right down the middle of the road strutted a pug. No fear. Just out for a little walk. His family was out there calling to him, and we saw him go to them, so we knew at least that he was safe. And then I started thinking about pugs. Looked them up online, and couldn't find one bad thing said about them. So we got one. Best doggy I ever had, and I've had quite a few over the years.
Speaking of chihuahuas, here's something I wrote once while posting to a thread on the movie "Snakes on a Plane..."
=================================================
You've seen the Hit Movie, "Snakes On A Plane"
Now be afraid of something even more horrible, more terrifying, than snakes could ever be...
"CHIHUAHUAS ON A CRUISE"
Vicious little doggies lacerating ankles randomly. And there's nowhere to run.
Prowling packs of piranha-like petite predatorial pooches producing Pacific Princess pandemonium; perforating people's pants, possibly producing painful pinholes to private parts, penetrating plywood with powerfully pointed piercing paws, pilfering petit-fors from the pantry, probing pockets post-mortem for partial packets of Purina pet products or perhaps pieces of pastry, pacing purposefully, patrolling the perimeter periodically, pursuing prey, peeing on the poop deck, pooping on the pee deck... proof positive that predatory puppies can practically paralyze a perennially placid population with panic. Phew!
Samuel L. Jackson Quotes from the movie:
"There's Mutha#$%!&n' Chihuahuas on this cruise!!!
"I'm so SICK of gettin' my Mutha#$%!&n' ankles bit!!!"
And my favorite:
"Yo quiero a can of negro whupass, you Taco Bell Bitches!!!"
Godless Heathen Brian at 4:49PM on Mar 5th 2008
452. The seventh from the last pic... "Walter Pugster, have you no shame!?" LMAO!
not-pboyfloyd at 4:55PM on Mar 5th 2008
453. http://puppywar.com/stats.php?id=52149
This one? Yeah, and I love how his paw's on his mouth. As if to say "Oops!"
Puggy porn. He has no shame.
Godless Heathen Brian at 5:00PM on Mar 5th 2008
454. "something even more horrible.."
Yea.. see.... they don't just kill ya!... they pester you. LOL
not-pboyfloyd at 5:01PM on Mar 5th 2008
455. Doggie porn!
not-pboyfloyd at 5:04PM on Mar 5th 2008
456. gotta go brian..later
not-pboyfloyd at 5:07PM on Mar 5th 2008
457. And while I've been talking to you, Walter has pulled his cushion out of his cage and is beating the shit out of it.
Endless amusement. It's like he's our personal jester. I love him... Just by being what he is, he makes our family a lot happier. He's always making us laugh.
Godless Heathen Brian at 5:09PM on Mar 5th 2008
458. k, see ya later pboy...
Godless Heathen Brian at 5:10PM on Mar 5th 2008
459. The real question is WHY did you chose that article to be Buckley's memento mori? One should think that although he possessed a certain melancholy and lugubrious attitude, he deserved a better elegy. Perhaps something that sought to illustrate that he a soul sincere despite his numerous frailties. Even as the pretentious pedagogue and prostitute-hustler of cornerstone conservative POVs, the man should have received a more judicious eulogy. It has nothing to do with you vaunted intelligence et al or the ever-accused demonic Leftists. It was simply poor taste and bad manners. But then again who is the pig here.
boredwell at 2:04AM on Mar 6th 2008
460. I realize I'm late in commenting in this particular blog and perhaps this will go completely unnoticed. I could honestly care less though, as Dinesh has taken his blog and turned to a point I can no long reasonably support with my presence. For all of you that I've enjoyed arguing and sharing ideas with, including yourself brian with little b, I bid you a fond farewell.
Oh noes why are you leaving Tsol!? You might ask yourself, since I shall not be around to respond. Because Dinesh has proven that through intolerance of others you can veil himself in mock-tolerance. With this blog I grow beyond weary in directly into exhausted writing hear. Fueling a hate mongering machine that refused to ever look in the mirror and accept certain undeniable truths about the self. Friends, Dinesh uses us all. We are nothing more than fodder for him to gleefully cherry-pick through and do what every great politically minded individual does, spin. You can tell by the fact he didn't tell his friend, "No no no, these examples you brought of my more irate readers is actually a smaller aspect to those who attempt to reasonably argue their points against me." Instead he laughs, sits beside his large pool, slaps his trophy wife on the rear, and begins taking advantage of the fact a few angered individuals give him ammunition to paint a broad sweeping stroke of everyone he dislikes. So in the better interest of society as a whole I shall abstain from commenting about Dinesh or his posters past this one final time.
From a purely person stance I don't hate anyone here, not even Dinesh. I don't hate Christian's nor their views even if I'm not one myself. If anything my general tolerance to view-points that don't hurt anyone in particular is rather great, and even though I do take comments about going to Hell as personal threats I don't feel the need to slander others. Have I, at times, lost my cool and slung names alongside everyone else here? I am guilty as charged. But before I'm damned to the pool of ignorance I must remind you that all here, even Dinesh, has fallen back into name calling. So to sit back and applaude Dinesh in this latest blog is somewhat disturbing, as I would expect a truely tolerent individual to not attack in a socially offensively manner. Nor in fashion that attempts making himself appear above critism.
This is where a fine line is drawn. Dinesh and many of his supporters seem to take on the classic sensibility that if you are not with him, you are indeed against him. Therefor, if we do not bow-down and agree to everything Dinesh states we, as people who disagree, are nothing more than intolerent, Christian hating, unacademic, fools. Which is a very interesting way for a person who, "debates," so frequently to view his public opposition. Though this is in the full right of Dinesh to do. This is, after-all, his personal, public, blog and he can pick at the social sores as much as he so choses. That said, Dinesh should feel more duty to uphold a civil social interaction between the various sides and not simply write them off as being under-educated louts. At the very least he should recognize that the only reason his blog gets so many responses, and so many hits, is because of the population that doesn't agree with him nor his stances. Something we reserve the full right to do and vocalize.
Personally, I don't think very highly of Dinesh. Friends who I've directed towards reading his blog, nearly all of whom refuse to write here, also walk away with distaste in their mouths. One, who just happened to rather devout protestant, said to me, "I don't understand why you read his blog. If you want to understand Christians then read the bible. If you want to discuss religion talk to a minister. And if you want to babble about politics talk to nearly anyone else." The last I checked Christianity is a religion that basis itself off the love God, the love Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and the love of accepting them both into your heart and soul. At no juncture does it include blindly agreeing with a man who claims to have the best intentions of faith in mind. Everyone needs to take a step back from this blog, and needs to view the credits Dinesh lavishes upon himself in whole. Is it in the Christian mannerism to attack other's quietly believe differently? Is it Christian to amuse yourself with the personal pains and tragedies of another life? Is it Christian to exclaim damnition of any different from yourself as if you were the Word of God yourself?
By no means am I against direct, academic, discussion in theology. I encourage, dare say implore, that rational debating between different parties of different beliefs is generally a good fashion to follow. That it encourages the growth of all individuals and an enhanced understanding of all of us, even ourselves. Unfortunately I was let down upon this blog. Time after time the chance for debate, discussion, and growth, was passed up for insulting, demeaning, and demanding voices. The academic degraded into the asinine. Many people refused to admit to being incorrect on topics even when corrected ( at several moments I had to swallow my own pride when statistical numbers corrected assumptions of my own ). People who argue in a consistent circular fashion, i.e.: brian consistently demanding that he is cronically right while everyone who disagrees is inherently wrong, Paul who finds a way to consistently blame Dinesh and brian for the ills in the world. In the ideal of a logical discussion on religion, and lack thereof, this blog has failed miserably.
Time and time again I've witnessed Dinesh pull from the population who comments on this blog very selected, very carefully chosen, posts. And even then generally a single line, perhaps two. At times I've even become confident that when we, as the public whole who respond and discuss here, do not sink into the mire of mud-slinging and cursing he makes it up for us. In the end he wants us to be angry, wants us to slam ourselves against the wall over and over purely because it amuses -him.- Not because we can all learn from each other. Not because we can socially interact in a respectful and mature fasion. But purely for the amusement of a man who, in the reality of us as individuals, is nothing more than another face against the masses. This is his job. This is how he feeds his child, under the assumption that he has any. This is how he clothes his wife. How he is capable of lounging by his pool with his drink in his chair and laugh at the whole body of us as he remotely checks his bank-account. What is done on this blog is by no means rational nor should it even be approached as being such, I've tried for sometime now to come at blogs done by Dinesh, and responses from the wide variety here, with a degree of understanding. I fully appreciate the points from which we all argue from. But this particular blog posting has shown to me that Dinesh, nor any of the rest of us, care about arguing, discussing, or debating in logical and honest fashions.
I don't expect this post to be so bold and to change the minds of Dinesh or any posters on his blog. I'm not so egotistical to believe that I have any sway over those who I have no personal connection with. I'm not out to make a devout Christian question his religion, nor to make an Atheist find God. This is simply my farewell to you all. I will not continue to post here, perhaps I will read through from time to time but by voicing my own personal ideals I do nothing more than feed a machine of hate and intolerance. You all make kick and scream about how you are tolerant, about how it's the conversatives, liberals, Christians, Atheists, whomever that are the intolerent ones. But the truth is all of us who post here, including myself, proves post and post that we have no social tolerance for each other. It's proven that brian is intolerent of people who don't bow down to the biblical word of God, of people who don't agree with his political view. It's proven that Paul is intolerent of people who read too deeply into the bible, that he is intolerent of people that believe in different and more conservative social order than he does. Even my own tolerence is consistently put to the test by aggrivating and nearly incomprehensible arguments that boil into, "Blahblahblah I'm right blahblahblah you're wrong blahblahblah Dinesh is great blahblahblah democrats suck blahblahblah." So no longer shall I drag myself through the muck, mire, and sewage of the drain-off of logic and academics. I wash myself clean of this.
On a final, leaving, though I want you all to consider what makes the word of Dinesh so unbelievably important. Contemplate why what he has to say is so much more truth that anyone else. Is it his education? Does graduating with high honors from an Ivy League institution make his word inherently more potent that a blue-collar laborer that lives in the -real world?- Is it his White House experience that makes him appear as an untouchable figure in the American social scene? Is it because of his success? His fortune? His list of published books? If your answer to all of those is yes then I simply have to ask, Why does Dinesh bother ranting us on the lower social rungs when we are so far beneath him?
Farewell all.
Tsol at 2:53AM on Mar 6th 2008
461. FOR: Somber at 4:14PM on Mar 3rd 2008
That has to be the largest, prize-winning crock of unadulterated bull dung in the history of posts here. Throw a rock into a pack of dogs, and the one hit is the one who yelps the loudest. You have undoubtedly identified yourself as the one most affected by DD's article, and it is laughable that you accuse him of all those things without giving consideration that the finger you point is pointed at yourself. DD does not have to "deal with their outrage" as you put it, they made themselves mad, let them also make themselves glad. Alternatively, if the shoe DD gave them fits, they should wear it.
You only give further and more than ample proof of what DD has been saying by providing us with your petty diatribe.
Marlinj Brown at 12:59PM on Mar 6th 2008
462. Tsol at 2:53AM on Mar 6th 2008 wrote:
“Because Dinesh has proven that through intolerance...”
If you tolerate any thing that comes along, soon those things will not tolerate you and you will be history. Intolerance is not a bad thing; it simply means that you use good sense and good judgment to determine if a thing is worthy or worthless. Yes, I am intolerant of many things: atheists, idiots, murderers, abortionists, homosexuals, liberals, lesbians, Muslims, and other such anti-American street trash. They don't like it? TOUGH!!! Think they can take my country from me without a fight? THINK AGAIN!
Marlinj Brown at 1:19PM on Mar 6th 2008
463. Marlinj Brown (#463) - Good for you. I hope that you achieve your goal and are not too lonely when you are the only one left.
Once you get rid of the atheists, idiots, murderers, abortionists, homosexuals, liberals, lesbians, Muslims, and other such anti-American street trash, you can start on the smokers, drinkers, left-handed people, parents who let their kids run around in restaurants, drivers who turn without signaling, and the new anti-American street trash who will take their place in your shooting gallery.
alan at 2:56PM on Mar 6th 2008
464. Amen Allen . . . were do you drawl the line marlin or is there no line . . . anyone who does not live up to your standards should be eliminated? Who will be the judge? You?
Gwen at 3:20PM on Mar 6th 2008
465. bump
kulari94 at 4:11PM on Mar 6th 2008