Andy Rooney once said that he was often most embarrassed by people who agreed with him.
I am more dismayed by people who think they agree with me, although not as mortified as they would be when they find out I do not agree with them.
Yes, I am romantically involved with the Chicago Cannonball, and yes, she is politically liberal. She is a bright woman, and I am lucky. She is reasonable, clear thinking, and tolerant. I wish other liberals would learn from her.
It is not liberalism I object to most. It is stupidity. I respect intelligence, and have no patience for intellectual laziness.
I encountered an individual that is bizarre even by leftist standards. The guy linked to one of my columns, and when I looked at their site, I was stunned.
The column I wrote was entitled “General Petraeus, Please tell the entire truth.”
Somebody that was too lazy to read the column would assume I was against General David Petraeus and the War. They would be part of the lunatic fringe that refers to him in terms so disgusting only a Moveon cancer could love. A person who read the article would see it as a full throttled endorsement of the War in Iraq, and the General leading the counterinsurgency.
The fellow that linked to me has a blog called “The Lang Report.” While the blog is garbage, I do confess that at least the colors are pretty. I have decided not to provide the link because I am not in the habit of spreading hate speech, regardless of the forum. It also contains foul language, which I ban from my blog in an attempt to keep the discourse as civilized as possible.
The mission statement of the blog tells the entire story.
“The conscience of The Lang Report was born in the turbulent 60’s as that generation began to question everything desiring to build a better world. As our “pen is mightier than our sword”, we wield it to educate and stimulate our readers in an effort to spark solution-based dialogues. We believe that you are either part of the problem or part of the solution!”
As expected, a bunch of 1960s people…I will be generous and refer to these narcissistic spoiled brats as people…believe that cursing and using shrill rhetoric constitutes dialogue and education. These people are not part of the problem. They are virtually the entire problem.
It is not the liberalism by itself. It is the laziness.
This blogger (I am speculating it is one person based on their about page, although I have no desire to learn more about him/them) linked to my article thinking it supported his position, when it was completely opposed to his views.
Some would wonder why this bothers me. After all, it increases traffic on my blog. That argument would be valid if I valued ratings over integrity and quality. Also, it frightens me that blogs like his have any traffic at all. Then again, hate sells for some.
All this fellow had to do is read my article. He could have even condemned it. That would at least tell me that he values what he puts on his own site.
I would be mortified if I signed my name to something I disagreed with.
This is what irresponsible people do. They sign mortgages without reading the fine print. They buy something without knowing the true cost. They claim to not know what their pastor of 20 years is truly saying. While the last example is more likely to be dishonesty in the form of willful blindness, the campaign is claiming to be guilty of idiocy, so I will accept their explanation. Hillary’s billing records (actually almost everything about her) falls into one of those two categories.
I have said for years that the media is liberally biased. It is not because they are bad people. They are just intellectually lazy. Getting the story right does not matter.
This fellow who linked to me claims he wants to make people think. How can a thinker allow a post of mine to be given prominent mention on his blog, unless it is in an unflattering light. By the time many people go to his blog, he will have made the correction. Take my word for it. As this column was being written, it was there.
Related Post from Around the Web
Cenk Uygur: Why is General Petraeus Helping Iran?
General Petraeus, Please tell the entire truth
General Petraeus: “We Haven’t Turned Any Corners. We Haven’t Seen …
General Petraeus Iraq Hearings: Updates Here
My column is the second one. I am embarrassed to be linked to these crackpots. As I said earlier, the fellow from this blog is probably even more mortified. Nevertheless, when quality is job zero, interesting things can occur. Tomorrow I should publish an article on the positive aspects of Pol Pot and see who links to it. I mean he did have a cute name, and looked like a warm fuzzy fella, genocide notwithstanding.
It is not the leftism. It is not even the lunacy. Leftism and lunacy are often kindred drunken spirits. It is not even the linking by itself.
It is the laziness.
Like a sleazy record executive in a purple suit who shows up and puts his arms around the band and takes pictures with them, even though he has never heard of them or their music, I am not a fan of those that do not care enough about their own ideas to actually do minimal research.
I am a conservative republican blogger. If this Lang fellow truly puts in this amount of effort always, then he has a bright future ahead of him in the mainstream media, at least before that collapses due to the very problems that this blogger needs to fix.
Dude…take 5 seconds out and read something before you link to it.
You may not like me or my views, but you learned a valuable lesson. I expect you to ignore it and respond with venom. I get that view from your site itself.
I support President George W. Bush, General David Petraeus, Senator John McCain, and the War in Iraq.
People who spend seconds on this blog know this.
eric
I understand about the relationship thing. I’m libertarian/conservative and my wife likes to think of herself as a liberal. Because her biggest issue, by far, is abortion rights she can’t bring herself to leave the Democratic Party, but on most issues she is centerist or even conservative. This election is giving her kittens because she is staunchly in favor of the war on terror and is trying to ignore the fact that McCain is pro-life. Despite her instinctive approval of a female presidential candidate and not really caring if Obama is black or green she hasn’t been able to commit to her party because both candidates have advocated withdrawl from Iraq and higher taxes that probably won’t go toward the things they’re supposed to.
Her lack of interest in politics is probably why the subject has not been a problem for us although painful experience has taught me not to discuss the subjects of abortion or gun control with her.
As for the citation in question, it occurs to me that Lang is Schroedinger’s blogger, with the content of the linked articles being simultaneously liberal and conservative until actually observed. The BBC is famous for this, too, in regards to global warming/cooling.
Did the guy apologize yet? I’ve made goofy lapses in the past, but always apologized (rather famously once or twice if you feel like googling me).
JMJ
Well said. I have found our writings on some rather strange places, also, in part because some sites look for “key words” rather than content.
Then again, there are those who aren’t conciencious about what they post, only that they have posts with those “key words”. I haven’t bothered looking for this blog, either, as some of the lunatic left sites make my brains shoot out of my ears…..
Left or right, there’s plenty of loonies to go around.
JMJ
Really Jersey, give it up
There are plenty of loons to go around. And the majority of them are on the left.
Thats not just an opinion.
Sure some of these left loons think that even cons on the center are loons.
If you want to define loons at at any level it can simply be done as a matter of perspective.
But hey, whos making the headlines for stupid behavior ?
The left has always been an emotional bunch. Along with that emotion comes some over the top displays. After all, the left is the party of free expression, right ?
So why deny it when these guys act out ?
So you dont have to try and bail them out of the “loon label” every chance you get