Asymmetrical Information

Megan,

I read your blog mostly because I hate libertarians, and I like to read opposing peoples views so as not to insulate myself. I find you're the most intelligent so you're the one I follow. I'm mostly a lurker but I have to comment here.

Making fun of a professional journalists grammar is actually kind of on topic because, you know, it is THEIR FREAKING JOB to write things down.

Secondly, their "ad hominem" attacks are what we call parody. See, they have read your work and have attributed to it a personality. They now mock that personality by imitating it in a caricature like fashion. Again, parody is one of those things of which a professional writer should be aware.

Finally, they admit themselves that they were perhaps too mean. Yet you still go off on them self-righteously. Doesn't that sort of vindicate them for mocking you for being self-righteous?

I fixed that first sentence, and I'm not even getting paid by Teh Atlantic.

Oh, and ad hominem means to attempt to dismiss someone's argument by reference to their character.
I'm just saying Megan kinda sucks for comparing someone who's not around to defend themselves to Bin Laden.
Nothing to do with her arguments. Those suck in their own right.
Please do keep reading, tho.

What an awesome site! One can't help but wonder what drives a person to do something so laughable. Is the writer (presumably all the aliases are the same person) a jealous ex, a frustrated competitor for an Atlantic job, a paid political operative, or just very lonely? I'm sure we'll find out eventually; this sort of thing never stays anonymous forever.

Yeh, ad Hominem doesn't apply to all insults. Ad homnem would be more like saying that her arguments are wrong/she shuldn't be read because she makes tipos.

Dreck, nice to have you blogging. Wish you did it more when you had a bigger audience.

Note that she compared bin Laden to him, not the other way around, and in a way that makes no claims that "Scott" is evil. Just that his anger against "the white ... power structure" became anger against the "non-him power structure".

Which, assuming she knows him better than us, we can accept as true... and a useful bit of light shed on interpreting bin Laden.

This isn't Godwining, even quasi-, this is using personal experience to illuminate a major figure in current events.

Given that Megan never claimed he wasn't "better than bin Laden", your flailing to show he is just shows us that you aren't very good at reading, or alternatively at thinking. I don't know which is to blame, and don't much care.

Yeah right, FMM. Three sentences in to your insipid, derivative finger-flatulence and I started to develop a nervous tick at the overwhelmingly pompous self-important dullness that is you.

Mindless - how do you know when a blog meme (A-list trolls, in this case) is over? When twits like FMM crawl out of the woodwork, regurgitating and re-arranging criticisms written by far, far better critics (I mean, compared to this guy, Glenn Greenwald is Shakespeare).

The gift that keeps on giving from the bile-based community.

Why would he have to "defend (himself) to Bin Laden"?

Do keep blogging.

Sig, the point is that she drew a parallel between someone and Bin Laden for no really good reason AND identified them by name. I don't really care whether or not you compare me to OBL, or the other way around. I'm not really comparable (I'd like to believe). I imagine Scott isn't either (and would like to believe so too).

Nice failure to comprehend reading whilst mocking someone's reading comprehension skills though. Very classy.

It seems like its mostly right-of-center women who attract these blogger-specific "anti-sites." (Or are there some anti-Instapundit or anti-Volokh sites that I don't know about?) What this says about the relation between leftist politics and sexual resentment and frustration I don't know.

Caught me again. I was a little inebriated from a so-so date earlier in the evening. Somehow the words "from comparisons" got left out.
Thanks for this thread. It's just.... wonderful. I'll post about it while I'm watching the game later.
But to respond to a couple of you now
Sigivald- that is powerful logic. I think I have to just give up and say you got me. Hitler is like you, in that both your arguments simply stun me.
y81- there is instaputz, an anti-instapundit site. But, you're right, I hate women.

Oh, hi there, y81. I know that "It seems like" may be used to hide many sins of omission (our heroine swears by it) but could we have some examples, please?

I'd add christopherhitchenswatch.blogspot.com to Brad's Instaputz citation.

Oh, and Tom T? Unless my parents lied to me, Clem is my given surname.

Right, back to woman-hating.

What this says about the relation between leftist politics and sexual resentment and frustration I don't know.

Projection much, y81?

Boy, I thought I needed a life.
You guys remind me of my old aunt, who hated dirt so much she would stick her head into the toilet to check for it. I always wondered, if she hated dirt so much, why is she sticking her head in the toilet?
Howard Stern had some great advice: if you don't like what I'm saying, change the channel. Get a life, guys.
Pathetic.

"Too much time on my haaaannnnndddssss.............."

This is my life. Self-expression, and refuting the idociies of others. It's great. And while we do stick our heads in the internet tubes from time to time, when we find it we clean it out.

This is my life. Self-expression, and refuting the idociies of others. It's great. And while we do stick our heads in the internet tubes from time to time, when we find dirt we clean it out.

Sigivald is right. If someone said, "You know, Osama bin Laden reminds me of my eight-year-old, always changing his story when he's caught out," he would not be claiming that his child was the leader of a bloodthirsty cult.

That wouldn't occur to anyone but a pathetic troll.

Howard Stern had some great advice: if you don't like what I'm saying, change the channel.

Adolph Hitler would say, "If you don't want to see me slaughtering Jews, look the other way."

Wow -- I haven't anything that bad since Warbloggerwatch went silent. (Be warned: the URL has since been taken over by a porn site.)

Mad props to NutellaOnToast... I agree, I have a very low regard for so-called "libertarianism". In general, I view it as the signature political philosophy of the adolescent self-absorbed navel-gazing white-male-with-an-entitlement-complex. Yet I admire Megan's brilliant prose and ever-erudite analysis. She's the most "authentic" (in the Sartrean sense) libertarian I've ever come across.

Now, why doesn't she get back to writing on her own blog?! Don't tell me this Atlantic Monthly thing has gone to her head!!

Nutella: Wrong - I didn't miss his point. I just don't think it's valid, and don't think it's the horrible attack that FMM does.

The reason I don't think his point is valid is that I recognise that "comparing someone to bin Laden" is not a monolith. Saying "X is just like bin Laden!", "for no good reason" is indeed an insult and both typically ineffective and a sign of bad argument.

However, I repeat, this isn't what Megan did. She "compared bin Laden to Scott" (remember, the direction does matter - if I say "bin Laden is like all of us, he's a person with feelings and human goals!", as a stereotypical peacenik might, am I insulting everyone? No, though I'd be erring by minimizing the thoroughly negative effects of bin Laden's goals.) to say explicitly and only that his attack on the Western power structure looked a lot like it was really an attack on the not-bin-Laden power structure.

That it is somehow not fair play to draw from personal experience with people who aren't actors on the world political field to illuminate those who are, without slandering the former as supporters of the latter, is not an assertion I will accept.

Fire: If Hitler's arguments stun you, you're not real bright, since the man never made a decent argument-as-such in his life. I will not, however, take offense with your claim that all Hitler and I have in common is the ability to stun you, since, easy as that is, it's not an insult.

Anyway, since Angie Schultz agrees with me, I know I must be right.

Dreck, every time I worry that you've died or something, you come back with another spectacular class act. Bravo!

Angie:

Adolph Hitler would say, "If you don't want to see me slaughtering Jews, look the other way."

Nah. Hitler would have just said, "Criticizing my policies, eh? Only Jews do that!" and then summoned a few SS guards. Kind of like what FMM is doing, except that Hitler actually had money, influence, and a woman for a while.

Sig WRONG! You do miss the point.

Even if you're analysis of Jane's writing were taken to be correct, it doesn't matter. She's writing on the freaking internet! About 5% of her readers would even understand what you just wrote and not all of them would agree with that.

See, she's a writer. She has to think about the implications of her writing. If she identifies someone and then draws a parallel between them and Bin Laden, most people are going to think that she's calling that person something negative. Now, unless Scott is a politician, actor, or some other person who as intentionally made themselves a public figure, she has no excuse for doing something that she KNOWS will cast someone in a negative light to many people. Of course, I'm assuming here that she knows something. So yeah, you're right, maybe she's not evil. She might just have the completely inability to see things from the perspective of others.

Oh wait, she's a libertarian you say? WHAT A COINCIDENCE!

Scotty, is that you?

Note that since this is not just any Internet, but rather the "freaking Internet", Jane may well have to think about the implications of her writing but she doesn't have to sterilize the soul out of it just because some people take everything seriously.

Need a 2x4 with that?

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