For the annals of familiarity breeding contempt…

June 12, 2010 | Posted in Politics | | 74 Comments ↓

I’m thinking I’ve been spending far too much time dwelling on the beams in conservatives’ eyes, and that it’s time I devote attention to the Left, so I can seem pissed off more equally. Any suggestions?

74 comments on “For the annals of familiarity breeding contempt…”

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  2. Top Reasons the “Right” hates Obama:
    Pro Arab/Persian Foreign Policy,abandoning Israel
    Weak on Terror/Internal Security
    Socialist/huge deficits/taking over private corporations/TARP etc.
    Anti-Semite/Jeremiah Wright
    Hypocrite/Phoney
    Unwilling to cut taxes to allow new job creation

    Top Reasons the Left hates Obama:
    Wall Street Owns him/weak on Financial Regulation/Too Free Market
    TOO ProMilitary/TOO Pro Israel
    Take off the Liberal Mask/Bush’s face underneath
    Hypocrite/Phoney.
    Unwilling to create massive job programs like FDR

    Attack the Left’s positions on Obama

    Reply

  3. I just read the Pamela Geller’s website has been cut off by Paypal for being a site of “hate speech,” and therefore against their conditions of usage. Of course, Paypal is a private site, and can serve whom they like; still, I wonder whether and how you would defend the speech you hate against the very energetic activity of those who would like to demonize and if possible silence all criticism of Islam.

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  4. @ adam: Are you suggesting that the Tsar or any one else is defending the rights of Muslims because he or they agree with every particular thing spoken by Muslims?

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  5. That’s not the point Frog, it’s more in the fascinating field of ‘libel tourism, that Rachel Ehrenfeld, has discovered when trying to investigate the likes of certain Saudi businessman of Saudi extraction, or the travails or Levant and Steyn

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  6. @ factualizing frog:
    Not exactly. I’m suggesting that once you start looking into organized campaigns against the spirit of American freedom (as CK has defined it) by Muslim individuals and organizations that pass as “moderate” or interested in “dialogue” it might be more difficult to dismiss the arguments of McCarthy and others that would counsel suspicion of ventures like the Cordoba Initiative. But I don’t want to suggest any conclusions–as long as CK is asking, I’d like to see what happens if he were to take a look.

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  7. adam, I’m wary of general characterizations, since it’s easy to demonize someone as a demonizer. From my reading of Geller’s site and Geller’s performance on CNN, I think that at a minimum she puts a private company like Paypal, a deep-pocketed processor of transactions, in a poor position. Paypal and similar companies – credit card processors – are covered by numerous laws in numerous jurisdictions, and potentially subject to every imaginable liability claim if they fail to show due diligence.

    If you had a site that constantly described Jews as the enemies of all that was good and holy, constantly called for measures to curtail and restrict Jewish activities, described actions by or on behalf of Israel as actions “by the Jews” (“the Jews stopped the flotilla,” “the Jews’ propaganda says X,” “when the Jews invaded Lebanon”), would you have much of a problem with a corporation that decided to take its business elsewhere?

    And let’s be clear: McCarthy didn’t “counsel suspicion” of the CI – which is aggressive but might amount in practice to “keep an eye on the CI.” He called for a campaign to prevent Cordoba House-NYC from being built, depicting it as a significant milestone in the “Grand Jihad” to “sabotage America” and turn it into a “Shariah society.”

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  8. Yes for all the proper reasons we’ve outlined before, not surprising that
    the ‘devil’s advocates’ CAIR appears in some of these accounts. I imagine Kos and Huffington Post which has deep pockets and spreads
    the most scurrilous trash, as news don’t have to worry, In fact, every
    Democratic presidential candidate, including the present occupant, had a blog, where the owner, cheered at the ‘flambeying’ of American
    contractors in Fallujah, back six years ago

    Reply

  9. @ CK MacLeod:

    Paypal and similar companies – credit card processors – are covered by numerous laws in numerous jurisdictions, and potentially subject to every imaginable liability claim if they fail to show due diligence.

    Liability for what?

    If you had a site that constantly described Jews as the enemies of all that was good and holy, constantly called for measures to curtail and restrict Jewish activities, described actions by or on behalf of Israel as actions “by the Jews” (“the Jews stopped the flotilla,” “the Jews’ propaganda says X,” “when the Jews invaded Lebanon”), would you have much of a problem with a corporation that decided to take its business elsewhere?

    No–and, in a sense, I don’t have a problem with Paypal–even if they just don’t want good, progressive people saying nasty things about them, they have a right to institute and enforce their own rules of usage. But I wasn’t suggesting you argue against Paypal’s decision–I was suggesting that you look at the kinds of campaigns incessantly waged so as to make such decisions the easier one, and the consequences of such successful campaigns.

    And let’s be clear: McCarthy didn’t “counsel suspicion” of the CI – which is aggressive but might amount in practice to “keep an eye on the CI.” He called for a campaign to prevent Cordoba House-NYC from being built, depicting it as a significant milestone in the “Grand Jihad” to “sabotage America” and turn it into a “Shariah society.”

    What kind of campaign? One within the law, I assume, and without threat of violence, and without even denying the legal right to build the mosque.

    Anyway, I get the point–you don’t consider this a good candidate for pissing off the left.

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  10. @ narciso:

    narc, it’s either your writing skill or my lack of reading comprehension, I’m sure, but who are you saying did the cheering?
    I’m surely not correct in thinking that you meant that Dem candidates were owners of blogs in which they did that.

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  11. Markos Moulitsas, around April 2004 “@#$@#%#^ they’re Mercs, (didn’t matter that one was an ex Navy seal, whose family went back to Elihu Root, or ex rangers) they deserve what they got” he has never
    really been asked to apologize for this,

    Reply

  12. adam wrote:

    What kind of campaign?

    He proposed the kind of sustained protest that he believes kept the KSM trial out of Manhattan Federal Court. I believe that the “money quote” was included in the first “fight them all together” piece.

    Liability for what?

    If Paypal and other credit card processing companies facilitate fraudulent or otherwise prohibited activities, then they lay themselves open to being attached as defendants in civil lawsuits (as well as to being prosecuted in criminal ones).

    I’m not saying it’s likely, or offering an argument to shut down Geller’s site as a “clear and present danger,” but running a “hate site” and leading “hateful” political activities is the kind of thing that sometimes gets people in legal trouble, especially if acts of violence are at some point involved, and legal trouble of that sort very frequently leads to lawsuits, and lawsuits very frequently get paid for by the deep-pocketed defendants, and, whether or not the direct costs are easily absorbed, can lead to very unwanted PR and related troubles.

    Paypal operates around the world – in all sorts of different countries.

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  15. @ CK MacLeod:

    Leave the liability question aside. Unless you know about large awards or fines for similar stuff, move the chains.

    I’ll bet 10-1 that liability avoidance wouldn’t suffice as explanation.

    The more interesting question might be whether there’s a sufficiency of civic obligation owed by a for-profit company to the public discourse that might present a reason why such company would be hesitant to disassociate itself from gutter-level, loathsome, bigoted, stupidity such as that offered by Pamela Geller.

    Seems to me, she would have to be making somebody a ship-load of doubloons or there’s not a reason in the big wet world to avoid wrapping her in long chains of her own forging and deep-sixing her crazy keister.

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  16. @ factualizing frog:

    The more interesting question might be whether there’s a sufficiency of civic obligation owed by a for-profit company to the public discourse that might present a reason why such company would be hesitant to disassociate itself from gutter-level, loathsome, bigoted, stupidity such as that offered by Pamela Geller.

    I agree with this, in terms of the explanation it offers for Paypal’s actions. I.e., it is cowed by the politically correct mob, in its grand alliance with the Islamists–which was the point of my original comment.

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  17. @ CK MacLeod:

    He proposed the kind of sustained protest that he believes kept the KSM trial out of Manhattan Federal Court. I believe that the “money quote” was included in the first “fight them all together” piece.

    Exactly–no violence, no legal action–and no attempt to intimidate third parties, like Paypal.

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  19. @ adam:
    or, adam, why cowed or intimidated by others rather than disgusted, self-motivated and exercising freedom not to be associated with the crispy critter that lives inside Geller’s cranium.
    She’s not just wrong, she’s nuts.
    Why shouldn’t people throw her overboard rather than work with her?

    Reply

  20. @ factualizing frog:
    I just know from my business that credit card processors require merchant applicants to forswear all manner of naughty interests, and that we’re warned that violating Da Rules can lead immediately to termination of accounts. What proportions each kind of concern plays, I can’t say. But if such and such payment processor consistently or egregiously turned a blind eye, I betcha they could be jeopardized.

    A typical credit card processor agreement includes language like the following under Prohibited Activities:

    You agree that You will not at any time conduct Your business in any manner that directly or indirectly offers, sells, leases, licenses or displays, delivers, advertises, recommends, or promotes any product(s), service(s), data, information, image(s), text and/or any content which:
    ( i ) is unlawful or violates any applicable local, state, federal, national or international law, statute, ordinance, or regulation including, without limitation, Credit Card Association rules, consumer protection law, Internet tobacco sales, firearm sales, unfair competition, antidiscrimination or false advertising;
    * * *
    (iv) is threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, obscene, libelous, slanderous, deceptive, fraudulent, invasive of another’s privacy, tortuous, or otherwise violate Company’s rules or policies;
    (v) victimizes harasses, degrades, or intimidates an individual or group of individuals on the basis of religion, gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, age, or disability;

    I don’t think you need to engage in an unusually broad reading of Geller’s material to wonder which of the above, esp. (v), might apply.

    Precisely what a payment processor most fears I can’t guess, but I don’t find it hard to imagine an anti-discrimination lawsuit attaching a company that was made aware that its clients violated the above, but didn’t do anything about it. And I can imagine corporate legal departments erring (far) on the side of caution.

    The above was authorize.net. Don’t ask me why I didn’t go searching out Paypal’s specific language. I’m sure it’s like the above, if anything more restrictive.

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  21. She’s passionate, hyperbolic, overheated in rhetoric, that i’ll grant you,
    now some might say that might incite violence, like the anti Israeli neo nazi Ex . . .or the anarchist that flew his plane. . .the truther who shot
    up. . .how about the people who protested infront of a bank executive. . ., doesn’t this whole Minitrue scam get real old real fast

    Reply

  22. @ OhioCoastie:
    There are always plenty of targets. Ones worth bothering with, or that others aren’t already bothering, is another question.

    Thought it might be interesting to see what people at the site were finding of particular interest – whether they made for good posts or not. I hadn’t noticed the Geller news until it was brought up by adam, an author at this blog. Since even he is having trouble faulting Paypal for dropping her, even though he starts out more sympathetic to her, or at least to her side on certain issues, I don’t see a juicy lefty target, but I do think it’s an interesting item.

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  23. @ CK MacLeod:
    CK, theory is theory. find that PayPal or like business has paid out a dime because of association with someone engaging in expressing obnoxious opinion before trying to offer that theory.
    Last I checked PayPal was into $100mm/yearly profits. Large enough not to be afraid of defending itself.

    Go for the meatier argument with adam.

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  24. If you could find a truly hateful, relatively high profile lefty who engages in similar language aimed at a protected class (race, religion, gender, etc.) then you might have a post, or even something to push Paypal on. Bank executives, political officials and parties, nations… I don’t think they’d qualify unless the speech in question amounts to direct “incitement.”

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  25. @ narciso:
    “Let the people see what war is like. This isn’t an Xbox game. There are real repercussions to Bush’s folly. That said, I feel nothing over the death of merceneries. [sic] They aren’t in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them.[61]

    John Kerry’s official blog removed a link to his blog in response.[62] In a subsequent article, Moulitsas attributed his remarks to anger that the Blackwater employees in Fallujah were given more attention than the five Marines who were killed on the same day, as well as to childhood memories of warfare in El Salvador. [63]”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Kos

    well, narc, you got it almost half-right again. you’re quite consistent and I’m starting not to doubt that you’ve a wonderful memory. a few tweaks to some other stuff and you would be really something.

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  26. fuster wrote:

    CK, theory is theory. find that PayPal or like business has paid out a dime because of association with someone engaging in expressing obnoxious opinion before trying to offer that theory.

    I’m assuming that language like the “prohibited activities” stuff I posted was specifically designed, possibly laid out almost word for word, to protect businesses from lawsuits or regulatory enforcement.

    If you go to the divine Geller’s site, she has provided the letter she received, which includes links to the Paypal “Acceptable Use Policy” statements.

    http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/06/paypal-cuts-off-atlas-truth-is-the-new-hate-speech.html

    Several of the commenters are kind enough to demonstrate almost immediately why Paypal may have had a point.

    Reply

  27. @ CK MacLeod:
    but all them lefties is nothin but protected goddamn feminazi mudpeople Jew illegal immigrant non-birthin ‘tificate-carrying sitzpinkler
    commie subversitives and probably morbidly obestial anorexics to boot.
    how why gonna attack them ownselves?

    Reply

  28. One is reminded that Revolution Muslim, a site that incites violence directly (the clue is in the name) is still taking PayPal, do not think this ends here, with the policies propounded by Robert McChesney being
    adopted by the FTC, with Lloyd at the FCC, with Mr. ‘nudge, nudge’
    Susstein at OIA

    Reply

  29. @ narciso:
    Just visited Revolution Muslim for the first time. I don’t see anything that obviously violates Acceptable Use terms of the sort I quoted. It seems to have very little original content at all.

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  30. Just to be clear, my lack of a problem with Paypal does not indicate the existence of a problem with Geller–it just reflects a recognition that one shouldn’t expect political courage from any corporation. And, regarding frog’s comment #19, one also shouldn’t expect such autonomous decisions from them–there is no doubt that Geller was brought to their attention, in an angry and threatening way, by people who could not only make the kinds of broad allusions about “liability” CK is referring to but who could suggest that there might even be more to worry about if they sustain such connections.

    Which is to say you’re both missing my point, but I’m loath to insist upon this much further. There is a real attack on freedom in the form of an attack on “Islamophobia”–the Minneapolis Imams from a few years back, CAIR, etc. I suppose we so take for granted that, of course, no media outlets would reprint the Muhammed cartoons, that there’s not even anybody worth attacking or “pissing off” about that. But if you don’t like McCarthy or Geller, how about Ayaan Hirsi Ali–would it be of interest to follow up on a recent Mark Steyn column and see how the left has been responding to her?

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  31. adam wrote:

    But if you don’t like McCarthy or Geller, how about Ayaan Hirsi Ali–would it be of interest to follow up on a recent Mark Steyn column and see how the left has been responding to her?

    The reaction to Ali would be interesting to investigate, but by the time, as a writer, you’re reacting to the reaction to an original set of reactions (Ali’s to Islam), without much knowledge of the underlying subject (ain’t never read Ali’s books, maybe someday), it seems to me the odds of doing something very interesting get kind of long – too many levels of abstraction and too much accumulated static, too little contact with the Earth.

    In terms of static, some of Ali’s most provocative statements are highly criticizable, and discussing them honestly wouldn’t serve the purpose of turning my evil eye on the left. In the meantime, Kristof at the NYT reviewed Ali’s newest book, and was raked over the usual coals with the usual raking motions by Ali’s rightwing fans. The negative dialectical “repair work” would lead to recovering content from Kristof’s review that partisans of Ali’s have ignored, and I expect would be taken overall as yet another attack on the right by the deviationist thought criminal CK MacLeod.

    If you’ve seen a criticizable response to Steyn on Ali, please link it (you’re also free of course to do the critique yourself).

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  32. @ adam:
    adam, I’m really not missing your point. I quite agree that there are efforts to not only shape opinion but to squeeze it and used distorted perception to full outrage and to use the outrage to launch the nuttier wing of the “political correctness” crowd into making certain opinions
    part of the verboten list.

    It’s not exactly a new tactic. It should never be ignored.
    Anyone who spent much time reading Commentary and contentions would have noticed that type of thing. AIPAC spends quite a bit of money and effort on it.

    The Saudis and others are playing the game full and hard, but they’re still playing catch-up and they’ll never succeed in pushing us into accepting their version of public discourse or conduct.

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  33. Americans are flayed alive, on a bridge like something out of Predator, and that was Kos’s reaction, unacceptable, and CK, you’re talking about copyright issues, regarding a site that incites the Ummah to action, on a fairly regular basis

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  34. @ narciso:
    The copyright issue related to “We Con the World,” and was brought up by Glick, whose discussion reminded me very much of the kind of thing certain eBay sellers put in their listings in the hope of warding off “takedowns” of listings of suspect items.

    Acceptable Use may include copyright-infringing materials, but is much broader, and relates to the kind of material that authorize.net and Paypal prohibit and explicitly commit themselves to prohibiting. Direct incitement would be “hey, dudes, it’s majorly our duty to kill _____ or blow up _____ next week.” Publishing speeches, news articles, etc., that may support a “revolutionary” position is not the same thing.

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  35. How about their little contretempt regarding South Park, sometimes back, again the flexible standards are curious, I know the reason though

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  38. @ factualizing frog:

    The Saudis and others are playing the game full and hard, but they’re still playing catch-up and they’ll never succeed in pushing us into accepting their version of public discourse or conduct.

    If by “us” you mean the “US,” I agree, and made it clear that the US is the one place not joining the anti-Israel lynch mob (no matter how much effort our President puts into appeasing the mob). But in the rest of the world the game is already over.

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  40. @ adam:
    The Europeans have their own set of rules and I can’t always understand them.
    How Germany could attempt to ban people from reading a book written by the tyrant who ran their book-burning regime confuses me.
    Criminal convictions for “hate speech” in some parts of the EU?

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  43. @ adam:
    Not sure which team that would be, but renting my mind out to host anyone’s prefab talking points is not on my agenda. Nor would praising the practice be.

    I’m now wondering which would be worse, to do it consciously or to do it while thinking you’re thinking.

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  45. @ adam:
    I guess nothing if your objective is to destroy your own credibility.

    If you’re going to repeat someone else’s views, you ought to quote or credit them. That way, you might also distance yourself from pseudo-reasoning like this:

    One can surmise that Paypal’s action against Atlas Shrugs was prompted by complaints from pro-terrorist elements. Be that as it may, it is undoubtedly one small part of a broad effort to stigmatize and delegitimize the expression of mainstream, conservative views.

    One can “surmise” all sorts of things, I guess. One can define “pro-terrorist” in different ways, too. One can end up surmising, as I know many who think like Geller and possibly John do, that if you don’t share in their hatred of Muslims, you’re pro-terrorist.

    I surmise also that John’s definition of “mainstream” is different from mine. I hope that he’s merely insensitive and wrong.

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  46. @ CK MacLeod:
    Perhaps John loses credibility with you here and gains it with others; nor, of course, is credibility the same thing as truth. You choose an odd passage to cite as an example of devastated credibility, though. Yes, we can surmise all kinds of things; we have no choice but to surmise every time we read, write or speak. The process of surmising is not particularly opaque here–unless we assume that Paypal has the staff to, on their own, constantly search through their clients for “offensive” sites, someone drew their attention to this one; if we consider that what gets considered “offensive” is itself the process of drawn out ideological battles, with political dimensions and at times violent margins helping to shape things, then we can place Paypal’s decision here in the context of the refusal to publish the mohammed cartoons, the censoring of South Park, etc. The “pro-terrorist” is partisan, of course–we could just as easily say “those who don’t like harsh criticisms of Islam” or “exposure of crimes committed in the name of Islam”; or we could say, “those who think Geller’s site will incite violence against Muslims.” But while you like to surmise that those who see things differently than you must “hate Muslims,” where is the violence against Muslims? And where does Geller incite it? What would be the distinguishing features of discourse that incites such violence, and what would be the possibilities for pushing the line separating “incitement” from “criticism” in one direction or another? And who would be those especially interested in suppressing harsh criticism of Islam–what are they pro and what are they anti?

    If you’re going to repeat someone else’s views, you ought to quote or credit them.

    He is crediting Geller’s account, but I suppose I should have been careful not to assume that he is simply repeating that account–the fact that I have seen it on several conservative blogs doesn’t mean that he has. I was simply struck by what you might call the production of “prefab talking points,” or a “line,” which I consider inevitable any time a political faction emerges–so, it might as well be done well.

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  47. Perhaps John loses credibility with you here and gains it with others; nor, of course, is credibility the same thing as truth. You choose an odd passage to cite as an example of devastated credibility, though.

    The passage I selected was an example of an additional loss of credibility, to me, beyond what might originate simply in what you acknowledge to the parroting of a “line.”

    John presumes to “surmise” something that, as you again concede, may very likely be much more complicated than he suggests. The difference between people who are appalled by Pamela Geller’s undifferentiated attacks on “Muslims” and those who are appalled by Pamela anyone’s attacks on “terrorists” is a rather substantial difference… unless like certain recent visitors to this blog, commenters at the HotAir Greenroom, and rightwing opinion leaders you don’t in fact see a meaningful difference between defense of Muslims and “pro-terrorism.” “Pro-terrorist” isn’t just “partisan”: It’s a foul accusation – fighting words.

    There are plenty of blogs, mainstream sites, etc., that have done a lot more against terrorism than Pamela Geller has ever done that aren’t in trouble with Paypal and are extremely unlikely ever to be.

    As for “violence against Muslims,” Geller’s discourse is typical of a discourse of incitement, but we still have a generally peaceful and lawful political culture in this country. I’d like to see it stay that way. In the short term, the harm done by a political movement that commits itself to an intellectually stunted and counterproductive discourse may be at first be the harm it does to itself and its political fortunes, but over time the human costs may be much greater than any incurred by direct incitement. We can’t say yet that an openly anti-Muslim movement has gone “mainstream” in this country. If it ever did, the repercussions could be extremely dangerous.

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  48. @ CK MacLeod:

    The difference between people who are appalled by Pamela Geller’s undifferentiated attacks on “Muslims” and those who are appalled by Pamela anyone’s attacks on “terrorists” is a rather substantial difference… unless like certain recent visitors to this blog, commenters at the HotAir Greenroom, and rightwing opinion leaders you don’t in fact see a meaningful difference between defense of Muslims and “pro-terrorism.” “Pro-terrorist” isn’t just “partisan”: It’s a foul accusation – fighting words.

    Those who want to defend Muslims would want to argue against and discredit Geller, not shut her down. (Yes, I know closing her Paypal account won’t shut her down. But if this works, how about trying the same thing on whatever server hosts her? What about working towards “hate speech” laws? Etc. Again, I note the difference with the protests by those against the CI mosque) Those who want to shut her down are interested in a test of strength–they want to see what kind of threat will get what kind of result in what kind of forum regarding what kind of target. And they want to see this because they want to do more of the same, hopefully against more hardened or high profile targets. Insofar as terrorism is (among other things) the use of violence, or the credible threat thereof, to make certain things unsayable, certain claims or topics taboo, then “pro-terrorist” (not necessarily “terrorist”) is an accurate description of those using threats to silence opponents. And I surmise that threats, or the allusion to the general background of such threats were used in this case.

    I don’t know how to measure how much a given blog does in the fight against terrorism, but I do know that Geller is unrelenting in focusing on honor killings of Muslim girls, which hardly anybody wants to touch. And on this point, I am sure she is very much in the mainstream.

    As for “violence against Muslims,” Geller’s discourse is typical of a discourse of incitement

    How?

    The danger of violence entering our political culture is not from anti-Muslim sentiment, but from anti-Islamophobic sentiment. I hope people pressure Paypal on this, but more important is identifying who wages such campaigns and exposing them.

    In a sense, all taboos in civil or other society are backed by the more or less distant threat of violence. Our taboos about race, for example, go back to the fratricidal violence of the civil war, and the miniature versions of it that plagued us until fairly recently. But that kind of taboo, one rooted in founding events of the community, is also grounded in the principles of the community–it’s the way we worked out the principles of equality and freedom on a national level, which the Constitution left intolerably ambiguous. In this case, the taboos introduced under the threat of violence support a completely different principle–on the one hand, that of Islamic prohibitions, but more fundamentally, a new understanding of rights as pertaining to officially designated victim groups.

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  49. We know what they did to Cully Stimson, who just calmly asked some piercing questions of the firms that were underwriting the Gitmo attorneys, dittos for Yoo and Bradbury, on the very difficult work
    of authorizing aggressive interrogation, which saved the lives of thousands. tHose who challenged the Levich Groups whitewash of detainees like Uthman al Ghamdi

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  50. Insofar as terrorism is (among other things) the use of violence, or the credible threat thereof, to make certain things unsayable, certain claims or topics taboo, then “pro-terrorist” (not necessarily “terrorist”) is an accurate description of those using threats to silence opponents. And I surmise that threats, or the allusion to the general background of such threats were used in this case.

    There’s nothing unique about ostracizing people who say “certain things.” If someone was directing the same kind of speech towards Jews, Catholics, Evangelicals, Buddhists, whomever, that Geller directs toward Muslims, he or she would also be ostracized. I doubt that Paypal would hesitate to disassociate itself from Neo-Nazi groups. I doubt Paypal allows its services to be used by the organizations that promote sex with children or hatred of the “mud races” either. There are plenty of types of speech that we don’t completely stamp out, but we declare “unsayable” or “taboo” (backed by indirect threat of force) in the sense you’re using the terms.

    I don’t know how to measure how much a given blog does in the fight against terrorism, but I do know that Geller is unrelenting in focusing on honor killings of Muslim girls, which hardly anybody wants to touch.

    I’d like to see the argument that ties honor killings intrinsically to Islam rather than to tribal/traditional cultures. There are non-Muslim cultures with similar practices. (I’m not sure whether India has finally succeeded in stamping out the practice of forcing widows to commit suicide.) There are Muslim cultures without such practices. A focus on honor killings, or genital mutilation for that matter, would be typical of someone seeking to manipulate emotional reactions. It’s true that the radical Islamists seek close identification with tribal/traditional cultures, in part because one of the main spurs to radical Islamism is the disruption of those cultures especially as a result of economic globalization.

    Are (very partial list) child pornography, drug addiction, widespread abortion, exploitation of factory workers, industrialized warfare, and genocide intrinsic to Judeo-Christian or Western civilization? (Let’s not even start on traditional and modern Asian cultures.) If not, then why are honor killings a stain on Islam? If so, then who are we to judge?

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  52. That is not part of the religion, Sfrog, it is a gross deviation from it, these relativizing jags get a little much CK

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  53. @ narciso:
    it’s a deviation all right, but just because it’s not part of written doctrine doesn’t mean it’s not part of the customary practice.
    I expect that you’ve read enough to know that what is now considered outrageous and criminal goes back several centuries and was less outrageous and less hidden in Rome back then.

    Of course, buggering the acolytes isn’t limited to only the Catholics, pretty widespread in religious circles in Japan as well to date, most likely also more a customary matter in Japan, as it was also widely practiced amongst the nobility for many centuries.
    You’ve probably read all about that as well.

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  54. @ fuster:
    I guess I did.

    Interestingly, around the same time that Ummayad Cordoba was at its peak, Papal Rome was going through its “dark age” also sometimes known as the “Pornocracy,” with all that you might expect under such a title (and more).

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  55. One interpretation of priestly celibacy practiced in those Pornocratic days held that the doctrine applied only to relations with women, and certainly not to young boys collected from the countryside and given the honor of serving.

    @ narciso:
    “these relativizing jags get a little much,” do they? But relentlessly imputing every level of bestiality and murderous intent to all of 1 – 1.5 billion people, and defaming a complex religious tradition going back 1,300 years in order to encourage discrimination, prejudice, misunderstanding, distrust, hatred, fear, and war, that’s just what? Fun? A good day’s work?

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  56. @ CK MacLeod:
    all this should be blamed on narc. I was making a rude and utterly stupid wisecrack and he, with his intimidating memorial superpowers, scared me into thinking that I better not sound so slight and silly.
    So I tried to sound semi-intellecshulistic.

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  57. Bestiality has long been a staple practice of women in the larger Caribbean Islands, due to the extreme paucity of satisfactory partners among the humanoid male inhabitants of the islands.

    Man, a frog can have a hot time down there, even without munching on them there hot peppers named for the capitol city.

    (any one who fails to recognize this as a really lame and stupid joke should be ashamed of myself)

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  58. That sounds like it would be your fault, not his. Anyway, we’re grown-ups here, I hope with an interest in seeing things as they are and have been. I’m a big fan of Catholicism. I’m also a big fan of the ancient Greek philosophers, but, if I showed too great an interest in their sexual mores, I’d probably be ostracized. I might even get thrown out of Paypal.

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  59. @ CK MacLeod:

    There’s nothing unique about ostracizing people who say “certain things.”

    You’re right about this.

    If someone was directing the same kind of speech towards Jews, Catholics, Evangelicals, Buddhists, whomever, that Geller directs toward Muslims, he or she would also be ostracized.

    This is obviously false. Of course, it depends what you mean by “the same kind.” Plenty of speech by, e.g., atheists, to the effect that the Catholic Church, due to its doctrines, is a source of child rape, and don’t get ostracized at all. Have Walt and Mearshimer been ostracized?

    I doubt that Paypal would hesitate to disassociate itself from Neo-Nazi groups. I doubt Paypal allows its services to be used by the organizations that promote sex with children or hatred of the “mud races” either. There are plenty of types of speech that we don’t completely stamp out, but we declare “unsayable” or “taboo” (backed by indirect threat of force) in the sense you’re using the terms.

    This is the crucial move, aimed at demonizing and closing discussion. I’d like to see the argument that what Geller says (and, I suppose, what Robert Spencer, Andrew Bostom, Hugh Fitzgerald and others say) is “like” Nazism.

    I’d like to see the argument that ties honor killings intrinsically to Islam rather than to tribal/traditional cultures. There are non-Muslim cultures with similar practices. (I’m not sure whether India has finally succeeded in stamping out the practice of forcing widows to commit suicide.) There are Muslim cultures without such practices. A focus on honor killings, or genital mutilation for that matter, would be typical of someone seeking to manipulate emotional reactions. It’s true that the radical Islamists seek close identification with tribal/traditional cultures, in part because one of the main spurs to radical Islamism is the disruption of those cultures especially as a result of economic globalization.

    The question is less whether it’s tied to Islam intrinsically than whether the fear of addressing it is tied to the fear of appearing Islamophobic.

    Are (very partial list) child pornography, drug addiction, widespread abortion, exploitation of factory workers, industrialized warfare, and genocide intrinsic to Judeo-Christian or Western civilization? …If not, then why are honor killings a stain on Islam? If so, then who are we to judge?

    All these things are intrinsic to Western culture, as is the very powerful, in most cases more powerful, movement to counter, mitigate and abolish these practices. Where are these movements in contemporary Islam?

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  60. @ CK MacLeod:
    There’s nothing unique about ostracizing people who say “certain things.”

    I also just noticed that you left out the crucial “use of violence” here. I suppose you could believe that the people in charge at Comedy Central just spontaneously recognized that South Park episode as “Nazi-like,” as did all the major US media outlets regarding the Muhammed cartoons–but how credible is that?

    who are we to judge?

    And yet you are willing to judge some things. Are they only those things in which you are without sin? Which might those be? Or is the “we” that is incapable of judging here? In that case, nothing would be stopping you.

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  61. I should say that what seems to me most interesting and important in such discussions are those points of incommensurability–is Geller a Nazi or a defender of the ignored victims of contemporary Islam? I don’t think we have an objective standpoint from which to answet that question, but everything depends on the answer.

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  62. It si remarkable how far we have to go, to deny the influence of Salafi
    Islam, one of which is this aspect of ‘honor killings’ yes the Yezidis and
    other cultures may practice it, but it’s not a mainstay. Then again I trust the Sandcrawlers to get it right, more often then not

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  63. Well, anyway, for anyone interested in following this discussion into wider spheres, Richard Fernandez (aka Wretchard) has posted on it on Belmont Club/Pajamas Media, with over 100 comments already:

    http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2010/06/12/outrageous-fortune/

    Fernandez’s discussion is useful, for me at least, in reminding one to move beyond name calling and complaints and just realize that it is a political struggle all around: those seeking to silence Geller have their political ends and those defending her have theirs. The law itself is just one more battlefield at this point–if you can find a way to sue your enemies out of existence, have at it! This is helpful (again, at least to me) because it forces one to get as clear as possible about what one’s side is and why, and the problems are all reduced to finding and devising the appropriate means for your ends. Of course, not all means are equally available to all ends.

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  64. A Hitler photoshop ( I thought that was only the property of the Tea party (sarc) an appeal to etiquette by the founder of AQ, and some
    interesting links, very weak tea

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  65. This is obviously false. Of course, it depends what you mean by “the same kind.” Plenty of speech by, e.g., atheists, to the effect that the Catholic Church, due to its doctrines, is a source of child rape, and don’t get ostracized at all. Have Walt and Mearshimer been ostracized?

    You are obviously refusing to see what’s right in front of you. Criticizing the Catholic Church as an institution, or Israeli policy, is obviously fair game, as would be criticizing Islam or particular branches of Islam. I gave an example way up above, and I’ll repeat it here:

    If you had a site that constantly described Jews as the enemies of all that was good and holy, constantly called for measures to curtail and restrict Jewish activities, described actions by or on behalf of Israel as actions “by the Jews” (“the Jews stopped the flotilla,” “the Jews’ propaganda says X,” “when the Jews invaded Lebanon”), would you have much of a problem with a corporation that decided to take its business elsewhere?

    When, like Geller, you repeatedly and relentlessly attack an entire religion as a community, then you move over into what we designate as hate speech.

    I’ll give one trivial but typical example that I happened to notice the other day. In describing a joke video intended to show that things really aren’t so bad in Gaza, Geller introduces it as “Muslim propaganda”:

    http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/06/shocking-video-muslim-propaganda-gaza-oh-gaza-.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

    No second thought. That’s how she works in small things and big ones.

    How long do you think an analyst would survive at CNBC if he described Goldman-Sachs profiteering off the financial crisis as an action by “the Jews”?

    The subject of anti-Catholic and anti-Christian hate speech is complex, because it gets tied up with the perception that mainstream Christianity, as the majority faith in our culture, isn’t vulnerable in the same way. And no one would even think of referring to some Satanic cult as “The Catholics.” No one, to my knowledge, is out campaigning to get rid of “The Catholics” because they’re a bunch of child-rapists. No one, to my knowledge, handles a report on sexual abuse by priests by saying, “Here go the Catholics again. The Catholics were caught abusing children again. We need to restrict immigration of Catholics, supervise Catholic churches.”

    That said, I sympathize with Catholics and other Christians who feel that people like Bill Maher and Christopher Hitchens are hatemongers, and that their employers deserve to be held accountable.

    With particular sects and minority faiths, we tend to be more sensitive. If some blogger decided to attack Mormons, always referred to Reid, Romney, and Hatch as “Mormon Harry Reid” etc., undifferentiatedly associated them with the acts of polygamist sects and constantly brought up ugly events from the history of the church in one-sided and inflammatory ways, then Paypal might drop them, if Paypal was made aware of them. And I think you’d immediately recognize them as nutjobs deserving of being ostracized.

    As for honor killing, someone seriously interested in understanding and stopping the practice wouldn’t address it within a context of assaulting the entire faith community. Instead, they would encourage the faith community to confront the issue and to hold itself to a higher standard. Geller’s approach is similar to discovering that abuse may be going on in a family, and deciding that the way to handle it is to shame the whole family and chase it out of town.

    All these things are intrinsic to Western culture, as is the very powerful, in most cases more powerful, movement to counter, mitigate and abolish these practices. Where are these movements in contemporary Islam?

    Jury’s still out on whether the counter-movements really are more powerful. A lot of people, for instance, seem ready and willing to junk 1,000 years of progress on religious discrimination in favor of worldwide religious war. As for where those movements are in contemporary Islam, people like Geller have already decided it’s pointless to look. When someone does show up offering to explore and advance reform, he or she is accused of being a front or a fake who hasn’t yet agreed to expunge those scary passages from the evil book. When someone from outside the faith points to moderate or quietist traditions in Islam, or to Islamic traditions and settings around the world or from history that don’t bear whatever latest revolting characteristic, he’s denounced as a “dhimmi,” a “traitor,” a “fifth columnist,” well you SHOULD know the drill by now.

    And yet you are willing to judge some things. Are they only those things in which you are without sin? Which might those be? Or is the “we” that is incapable of judging here? In that case, nothing would be stopping you.

    You’re shifting to a different level of abstraction here. Geller wants us to judge all of Islam, permanently, on the basis of honor killings, 9/11, Paypal dropping her, and whatever other latest selected scandalizing epiphenomenon. I’m saying that’s demagogy, and it would be ludicrous if it wasn’t a) so widespread (according to John of Powerline typical of “mainstream” conservatism), b) dangerous, and c) morally revolting.

    It’s also part of refusing to recognize the authentic bases of the “clash of civilizations” in its contemporary manifestations, and insisting instead on an ethnocentric, chauvinistic, closed-minded, self-destructive, and childish narrative in which the good well-meaning West with minor flaws but thank-God powerful counter-movements blamelessly and thoughtfully brings peace and progress (the good kind, not the evil Woodrow Wilson kind) to a stubbornly resistant and benighted world, and the perverse Muslims respond by slaughtering us whenever they have time left over from mutilating their daughters – proving themselves incapable of reform and therefore deserving of Hellfire courtesy of the US military, and damnation courtesy of Pamela Geller.

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  66. Well Walt & Mearsheimer, I think I saw that book when it was published in the original Arabic, it had the imprimatur of the Saudi Foreign Ministry. A comparable one was Steven Emerson’s “American House of Saud” nearly thirty years ago, which outlined the connections very deliberately, which had they pursued may have prevented the BCCI scandal

    And what pray tell has the work of Carroll, Goldenhagen, Cornwell, been in the last few years, or the roman a clef of Dan Brown’s (wink, wink, we know it’s fiction) and scads of imitators

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  67. The question is less whether it’s tied to Islam intrinsically than whether the fear of addressing it is tied to the fear of appearing Islamophobic.

    Geller wants to appear “rationally Islamophobic.” She addresses honor killings in order to support her larger pseudo-rationally Islamophobic discourse. I am totally unpersuaded that she’s more interested in ending honor killings than she is in attacking Islam, or in fact anywhere near as interested in the former as in the latter.

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  68. You know that’s not how it works, you cannot denounce illegal immigration without seeming anti immigrant, likewise CAIR always has people tiptowing over the latest Salafi outrage, occuring anywhere in the world. Meanwhile you have crosses in the desert, either dissipated
    through litigation or vandalized, you have in Europe, boycotts of Jewish
    academics, etc, etc

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  69. We’re not going to get anywhere with equivalences here (saying x about Jews is the same as saying y about Muslims which is the same as saying z about blacks, or Christians, or Mormons, or whoever…)–I’m sorry I brought it up; or, more precisely, that I took up that part of your comment. We’re really talking past each other here, because we see the threat of civil society destroying violence coming from different directions. I don’t see any way of transcending such a difference, even on the level of finding a way to talk about the same thing. On other questions, I hope and believe our respective sense of where the fundamental problems lie will make very productive conversations possible.

    At any rate, I appreciate the discussion. It’s very helpful to get a stronger sense of where and how the lines are getting drawn at the moment.

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  70. @ narciso:
    That’s not a defense of Gellerism. That’s a complaint based upon gathered heterogeneous phenomena tied to the main topic only on the basis of ideological assumptions. “You” can denounce illegal immigration til the cows come home, and some people will attempt to denounce you in turn as “anti-immigrant” and worse. Your case won’t be helped if you welcome and defend would-be allies who cross over into blatant racism, racially tinged, jingoistic invective, and emotional denunciations of anyone who, like that evangelical group, urges a faith-based humanitarian consideration of the plight of illegals. Whether CAIR has anybody tiptoeing or not is, again, irrelevant except to the extent that the approach of people like Geller taints valid criticisms of CAIR – makes CAIR’s job easier. Or makes it harder to stand credibly and forcefully against anti-Christian or anti-Jewish acts.

    If it’s just your team vs the other team in a nihilistic struggle for domination, then one can hope both lose. Apply the same standard to CAIR and to Geller, to Islam and to anti-Islam, and we may get somewhere.

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  71. I don’t know CK, if the Catholic League lets say, defended the bombing
    of Mosques and targeting civilians, then you might have a point. Geller’s approach I’ll admit is unsubtle at times, then again so was
    Chief Brody in Jaws

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  74. No one, to my knowledge, is out campaigning to get rid of “The Catholics” because they’re a bunch of child-rapists. No one, to my knowledge, handles a report on sexual abuse by priests by saying, “Here go the Catholics again. The Catholics were caught abusing children again. We need to restrict immigration of Catholics, supervise Catholic churches.”

    Americans may not do that at present, but I seem to recall more a mention or two of such stuff in a American history class that I might have taken.

    (No-Nutting?)

    Here, in the New York City of eternal tolerance and slavish surrender, I do believe our Big Boss attempted to wipe out Catholic schools by making them accept public funding and subjecting them to public supervision.

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