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 5 of 32)
61. Just one more thought.
D'Souza posted a vile, tasteless, hateful joke. Was he expecting civilized comments?
I always try to keep my comments to the tone of the blogger. I know it sounds childish, but he started it. He started the tone, he started the level of decency and profanity. Then, after he gets roundly and deservedly blasted for it, starts crying about how horrible and cruel his critics are? What did he expect? Wow, I really do believe the guy was banging Ann Coulter, he sure has that page from the right-wing playbook down.
I have to say everything posted about Dinesh D'Souza does appear to be accurate. He's a terrible person using religion and God of all things to promote hatred. That has to be the very definition of evil.
Davidg at 8:53PM on Mar 3rd 2008
62. here is a line from my new book,
" the agenda of the new atheist,however,is disturbing. these atheist embrace a belief system as intolerant,chauvanistic and bigoted as that of religious fundamentalism. they propose a route to collective salvation and the moral advancement of the human species through science and reason. they turn their notion of good into inflexible standard of universal good. they prove blind to their own corruption and capacity for evil. they soon commit evil not for evol's sake but to make a better world"
amen and amen. this is exactly what i should have said from the first day io ever blogged and saw this for what it is. mr. hedges hits the nail right between the eyes with his insight. this is what i have sais. there is so much intolerance here. you either see it your or the highway.
brian at 8:55PM on Mar 3rd 2008
63. brandon,
this tolerance you speak of was not afforded to DD reguardless of what you thought of his comment
brian at 8:58PM on Mar 3rd 2008
64. "there is so much intolerance here. "
This is the only thing you've said that I can agree with fully, brian.
brandon at 8:58PM on Mar 3rd 2008
65. Dinesh...
You used a flimsy excuse to repeat a gruesome joke. There is NO QUESTION about that. How do I know that? Because of two reasons. The first reason is this: your joke added NOTHING to the conversation about Buckley. All it did was offend people. (I will address the second reason below.)
Before I do that, though, I want to point out a few things for the sake of accuracy and integrity.
First, I know that I never threatened to sue you. (And I challenge EVERYONE to please cut and paste any threat of a lawsuit that I might have posted.) Instead, I simply contacted my legal team to see what could be done to stop people like you from furthering the pain of those who suffer with AIDS.
After contacting a few attorney friends that I have, they actually advised me to call the local police since that's who handles and investigates hate speech on the Internet.
Dinesh, I will tell you that I did not contact them because your blog isn't worth a waste of police force man hours. However, I have also been advised that the indelible record of your bigotry stands forever. It now lurks in the background of your life, ready to established a pattern of hate speech, when necessary for any future investigation. That's your's to live with.
But that was a nice attempt at suggesting with a misdirection. Your disciples will believe whatever suggestion you throw at them.
Secondly, repeating the joke was pointless, but now I see why you left it up: You really don't give a rat's ass about whom you offend, as long as you get the attention. You really don't care about whom you might hurt, as long as you create the controversy. You really don't care about whom you denigrate, as long as you can...how did you put it..."enjoy this stuff."
Naturally, your self-centered enjoyment always comes before the dignity of your fellow human being, doesn't it Dinesh?
Frankly, you haven't impressed me in the least with your "me first" defense. All you did was further illustrate just how shallow, uncaring, and completely depraved you really are.
You should have taken the post down immediately when you realized that there are nurses, doctors, innocent children, and otherwise undeserving people who suffer with AIDS and did nothing to warrant your humiliation of them.
Thirdly, this was never about Christian versus atheist. This was never about left verses right. This was never about me verses you. This was never about First Amendment guarantees. This was about your cruel and pointless repetition of a brutal joke.
And lastly, I noticed that you feigned some sort of addressing of your critics. But I noticed also that it was all the typical tripe from you about cultural liberalism and on and on about nothing.
And I noticed further that you never mentioned the one genuine criticism that NOT EVEN ONE OF YOUR OWN DISCIPLES could answer...so I'll repeat it, and maybe you can display a set of your own balls by answering it.
Dinesh, provide ONE HUMANE (JUST ONE, Dinesh) reason for repeating that joke.
Screw your red herring chatter about the First Amendment and your right to humiliate whomever you want with your freedom of speech because people have called you names in the past. Try responding to the REAL CRITICISM of your heartless, utterly unchristian repetition of a joke that further victimizes AIDS patients around the world.
Dinesh, for once in your life, grow a set of gonads and respond to real life criticism and not that criticism of your own making.
Or you can just do the right thing. The furor is over, so remove the post. Or do you really "enjoy this stuff" of humiliating innocent people by repeating decades-old ignorance?
Honestly, Dinesh...I know you can't remove it now. It's obvious to everyone with a working brain that you're too deeply invested in that post now. Removing it would indicate that my point is valid (which it is) and you simply cannot grow up enough to acknowledge your own arrested development. (If my point isn't valid then grow a set of gonads by meeting my challenge to produce ONE HUMANE REASON FOR REPEATING THAT STALE JOKE.) Emphasis on HUMANE, Dinesh; don't bother with your journalistic rationalization for needlessly harming people. We've heard that tripe before.
One, Dinesh...just one. Do your family proud. They're reading, y'know.
Paul at 9:00PM on Mar 3rd 2008
66. brian, sad, sad brian -
The fact that ANYONE posts here speaks volumes about tolerance. It's much like if the Grand Dragon Wizard Guy of the KKK posted a joke about "niggers and jews" and you told us all to tolerate him, it was just a haw haw, nodoby should get their panties in a bunch, etc. etc.
Which is why I am getting to a point where I don't want to discuss anything in Dinesh's arena. It just feels so wrong, so disgusting, to even give him a venue.
brandon at 9:05PM on Mar 3rd 2008
67. brandon,
come to grips and listen to yourself. Dd is not the problem anymore than atheism is the problem. the problem that you and religion has a fundemental desire to be right. you do not tolerate DD anymore than me. i tolerate you very well. i happen to like alot of what you say even though i do not agree. you atheist give a chrsitian alot to think about because you raise valid points. where you lose and lose big is that you are not tolerant at all. you are as dogmatic as any fundie anywhere. you are, because you insist that you know the way. this is where you ere. trust me on this brandon. take a step back and just let people have their views. its not that hard. argue if you like defend what you believe but allow everone their space
brian at 9:14PM on Mar 3rd 2008
68. I know...you're waiting the second reason why I KNOW that you used a flimsy excuse for repeating that gruesome joke.
I neglected to clearly identify the second reason, but the second reason was obvious: you never addressed the REAL criticism of your reworking of that ghastly joke. You offered feigned responses to fabricated criticisms instead of shutting your harshest critics down by providing ONE HUMANE REASON, Dinesh. Just one.
Paul at 9:16PM on Mar 3rd 2008
69. "if the Grand Dragon Wizard Guy of the KKK posted a joke about "niggers and jews" and you told us all to tolerate him,"
" take a step back and just let people have their views."
Message received, loud and clear, brian.
You're one of them.
brandon at 9:18PM on Mar 3rd 2008
70. Paul, do your family proud and jump off the Peace Bridge. When you said "I'm contacting my legal team", how did you expect one to interpret that? I think once you realized the obscurity of that comment, you detracted yourself from it by saying "I'm not suing anyone."
Tsar Nicholas II at 9:25PM on Mar 3rd 2008
71. brandon,
the grand wizard of the KKK is no reason for you to hate. the moral laws that God has set up are never broken. the moral laws break us. even the KKK wizards. they do not need you to act as if your just looking out for humanity,which your not. i went to an all black high for a year. i loved it even though i did not learn a thing. blacks in the seventies largely did not desire to learn and they did not see education as a vehicle out. they did and still do see sports as their way out. my son played college football and all the blacks on the team thought they were going to the "LEAGUE". its their culture. but don't think racism is solely confined to whites. blacks are a very racist bunch and at times can and do play the favored race card. but as Botts says LOVE is the key to everything. we can disagree and still get along. thats my motto
brian at 9:25PM on Mar 3rd 2008
72. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!. DD your hero GrandPa McCain has defended his supporter, the Rev. John Hagee, an extream anti-Catholic, to get the redneck racist base of the RepubliCon Party to vote for him. What do you think of the Rev. Hagee DD ????? HAHAHAHAHA!
Larry at 9:26PM on Mar 3rd 2008
73. Brandon:
That's a pretty strong statement you made against Brian - I hope you have something to back it up with. When has Brian called blacks niggers or made fun of jews?
kulari94 at 9:28PM on Mar 3rd 2008
74. We don't get hysrerical DD, we just laugh at you trying to defend the RepubliCon HATE Party HAHAHAHA!
Larry at 9:30PM on Mar 3rd 2008
75. "How did you expect one to interpret that..." --Tsar
_____________
First off, I'm really sorry that you are so obsessed with getting my attention.
Secondly, I don't care how anyone interpreted what I said about contacting my attorneys. I knew what I intended.
Thirdly, if someone threatens to sue Dinesh over an obvious example of hate speech, and that ranks as your harshest criticism of that someone then your point is weak at best and barely worth a response.
And lastly...as well as for the last time, I am not here to respond to your juvenile and inane barbs. So please, find another target for your pointless, feckless sniping.
Paul at 9:34PM on Mar 3rd 2008