Redstate

because I should have typed "too"

Molon Labe!

...not to be its mirror image. And, yes, I've been here from the start, so I know what I'm talking about.

We won't be bullied. Not by the Left, not by the media, not by our own putative sides and - most particularly - not by our readers. We've worked out that large sections of our readership disagree with us on the issue of Coulter's continued importance and utility to the Right, thanks. We're still going to say what we think on this and every other issue.

Frankly, deal. Or go read another site. Plenty out there that will tell you everything that you want to hear.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.

Wow, you read a lot into the few lines I wrote! If you want everyone to agree with your "version" of conservatism, then ban me, I will not leave because I learn a lot from several contributors here.

I do know this, for the last week all we have gained from this site is that Ann Coulter is bad (most of us got it after the fist 30 diaries), we learned Scooter Libby is now a felon, and now Horowitz is bad.

It seems to me that there is a big circular firing squad going on here. I think we have better things to discuss such as the economy and the hunt for Bin Laden. The difference between us is you say

"We've worked out that large sections of our readership disagree with us on the issue of Coulter's continued importance and utility to the Right, thanks. We're still going to say what we think on this and every other issue."

and I say, well I can't? We get you own the site, we get we are "guests", but this can be taken too far. Are you know saying members of this site can not disagree with a "red hot" poster? If so, why have open comments at all?

Molon Labe!

If I was going to ban you, trust me: you'd know.

Moe

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.

You attacked my comment on the diary, and went off about banning and how you and others were going to say what you wanted no matter what, as if anyone said you couldn't.

Molon Labe!

Please show the exact place where I 'went off about banning'. Quoted text, please.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.

however, you did say this:

"We won't be bullied. Not by the Left, not by the media, not by our own putative sides and - most particularly - not by our readers. We've worked out that large sections of our readership disagree with us on the issue of Coulter's continued importance and utility to the Right, thanks. We're still going to say what we think on this and every other issue.

Frankly, deal. Or go read another site. Plenty out there that will tell you everything that you want to hear."

As I said, I want to drop this and will not comment again in this thread. I know you can ban me, I know I am a "guest", but I am not a "reader", I come to discuss issues with others. I guarantee I never "bullied" anyone here.

Molon Labe!

You can even have an apology for being drafted to be the inadvertent lightning rod for four days' worth of reaction. I don't disavow the statement in general, but it was unfair to throw the whole thing on you.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.

no probs mate :)

Molon Labe!

We're not creating a circular firing squad - but we're not going to hold back or pull punches just because somebody's not a dyed-in-the-wool Liberal, either.

The point of the thread was in the last paragraph, and was not calling out a "misstatement," but calling out a willingness to run off to the cameras without having facts even remotely straight.

I come from a background in which little is praised as much as "attention to detail," and that breeds this sentiment: If a person can't even get the smallest detail correct, how in the world can he/she be trusted with bigger things?

My rationale for having differences with Mr. Horowitz was explained, I believe, in the first paragraph.

Well nothing you said angered me at all. I just said that it seemed your main point was he misspoke. You admitted you do not like Horowitz and feel he is not a thourough debater. I am not a big Horowitz fan either.

I admit I am a bit frustrated by the defense we are playing. It is a combo of Coulter and now libby. I read the lefty blogs too and they are actually using our points against conservatives.

I am not some kool aid drinker. I realize our movement is in trouble, much of that caused by leaders who are not that conservative when it comes down to nuts and bolts. I also think there is a thing called "timing" and right now many Republicans are down over so many recent hits. I think we should focus on the positive and changing direction.

I think I was called out upthread unfairly, but I will drop it.

Molon Labe!

No worries.

or are we merely Republican shills? Because the former does not imply that we need defend the indefensible, or that we may not condemn someone's words or works because they pull the same lever in the voting booth.

It's Horowitz's participation in and support for them and what forms those take.

There are those who look on Dresden and Tokyo and Hiroshima as some of the greatest evils ever perpetrated by man. I look on them and thank the perpetrators for saving millions.

but Horowitz has also been at the forefront of entrenching victimology among college conservatives, an intensely counterproductive phenomenon. Yes college is awash with affronts both petty and severe for the right-leaning, but one of conservatism's great strengths over the past several years came from the fact that it's recent college graduates had been ordained by fire. Horowitz undermines this by helping to convince people that their grades and other shortcomings are the product of inherent biases rather than shoddy work.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Completely agree.

And Kowalski, I live in academia. I have to see it every day myself - and I'm sorry, in my opinion a Horowitz does exponentially more harm than good.

I can accept that, especially because you're currently there and I'm currently not. I'll also say that at one point Horowitz asked me to write for his site, and I declined, partly because of my inexperience writing for this medium but also because I wanted to see what "else" was out there in terms of Republicanism and Conservativsm. Happily, I found the site we're reading now.

Let me put it slightly differently: I think Horowitz is valuable because reading his work can give people a starting point, and let them know they're not alone. His website(s) have been a valuable resource to me, because before RedState was doing interviews, Horowitz was responsible for bringing a lot of important people together for vigorous debates. I don't like to see people playing the "victim" card to excuse their own laziness, and maybe that's something Horowitz needs to address.

But let's give the man some credit: who among us (yourself and a handful of others, perhaps, not included) have had the guts to take on college administrations and shake them up and get them to take notice? Which one of our editors has made the Chronicle of Higher Education? I don't think characterizing Students for Academic Freedom as an organization devoted to creating a culture of "Conservative victomology" does anything except play into the hands of the people who would just as soon see it disappear altogether.

Jeff,

If you really believe that Horowitz and his organization are doing "exponentially more harm than good" I think one of the constructive things you could do is to email him and begin a dialogue with your concerns.

I've done so in the past here at RedState, in response to someone from Media Matters (who hate him like the plague for ideological reasons) and I've always found him to be a serious and thoughtful man in my correspondences with him.

In fact, one of the things that I've kind of hoped for here at RS for quite some time is an interview/meeting of the minds/guest blog column between the RS editors and Horowitz. Perhaps you and AcademicElephant could do such a thing and air your concerns with him and let him respond?

I've emailed with him off and on in the past (sadly, my own opinion has been reinforced through that, rather than being lessened), and would be happy to attempt to open a dialogue which can be run here on RS.

I have little doubt AE would like that, as well. Appreciate the great suggestion.

-JE

Feel free to mention my name and tell him that I hope he'll take you up on your offer, and that I'm alive and well at RS, TMR, and HinzSight.

I'll say right now that David Horowitz cut his teeth as a leftist activst (you don't get much more "activist" than supporting the Black Panthers) and red-diaper baby and a lot of that experience has carried over into his techniques to this day. Some of that is helpful, some of it is not. But that's also part of the reason so many of the leftists currently inhabiting tenured professorships like Todd Gitlin at Columbia would rather never hear his name mentioned again, and why he has a role to play in critiquing them and confronting them.

You can even give him the link to my blog entry castigating Coulter and let him tell me why he thinks I'm all wet. I'm a big boy, I can take it.

;)

http://www.redstate.com/blogs/kowalski/2007/mar/04/ann_coulters_big_mout...

I'm personally happy to have someone who can rattle some cages at the administrative level like Horowitz can when his name is mentioned. I worked for a dean of a law school who was so totalitarian in her desire for total control over the students that she did such things as walk through the hallways ripping down advertisements for student-sponsored, independent websites relating to their organizations and dictating they be shut down, lest anything they publish not have passed across her desk first and embarrass her.

These were 21-year old adults, Jeff -- hosting websites about their organizations with their own money and their own hours. I'll admit, she was a fairly extreme example of the kind of thought control that's out there, but I was *glad* to hear about Horowitz four years ago.

and I certainly understand where you're coming from, but groups like FIRE manage to highlight violations of student rights in a less ideological package. Horowitz advocates a sort of affirmative action for conservatism, which undermines the case against affirmative action based on other ascriptive characteristics. On the balance I have to agree with Jeff, this particular cure is far too often worse than the disease.

I don't know if there's a link there now, but for a long time there was one on his website.

I learned about FIRE by reading FrontPage, and when RedState was still on the old Scoop platform I almost always mentioned them together, not privileging one over the other.

I'd like say that I've never heard of "FIRE" but I have heard of Horowitz and have heard him interviewed by various microphone-holders many times. That's always a dicey way to try to get any idea across to the public, but it IS a way, and the attempt to do so is important and helpful. Horowitz does it about as well as anybody.

I would not characterize Horowitz's stand as favoring "affirmative action for conservatism," but rather as attempting to help conservatives get equal access to public facilities and forums. The difference is that "affirmative action for conservatism" would require a conservative counerpoint for every liberal activity. Equal access only requires that conservatives be allowed to do the same things that liberals do, when they follow proper procedures, without artificial roadblocks being thrown up especially for them.

Furthermore, Horowitz gets the message into the public eye with enough effectiveness and clarity to more than compensate for any mistaken references he may make (the confusion between the Michael Richards incident and the Isaiah Washington incident is easily understandable, even by those of us who insist upon technical accuracy). His point was one I agree with, and to complain about the erroneous reference is nit-picking at best.

Democrats on Iraq: "We don't want to win. We just want to quit."

...and a part of the "conservative movement" which is moving it in the wrong direction.

At least its part of the conservative movement that is doing anything. No one else seems to have the guts.

He's a rightist, but certainly no conservative. Neocon would be an apt label for him: right-wing policies, left-style thinking.

Run like Reagan!

of "neo-con" but your premise is sound.

Isn't that what brought over the original Neocons to begin with? They were Trotskyites and whatnot whose lefty logic brought them around to support right-wing policy positions?

Run like Reagan!

as I understood it, were disenchanted liberals (in some cases Trotskyites) who reacted to the failures of collectivism by charting a different path. The criticism that many have made of this generation of neocons, particularly Bill Kristol, is that they did not have that formative experience to make them cynical about ideology.

How about "left-style activism," too?

Although I'm almost always in favor of understatement vs. exaggeration, I'm also in favor of using all the tools available to us. I think there is some room for bombast and outrage in our cause.

Democrats on Iraq: "We don't want to win. We just want to quit."

Passion is great. We shouldn't throw it all out. But civility is great too, as are measured statements, careful consideration, and thoughtful rhetoric.

Run like Reagan!