Lonely Street (A Metaphorical Lonely Street. Not an Actual Street With No One On It. Or a Street With Just Me Walking Alone)
Well, it seems that we have passed peak wingnut (warning: Reynolds link ahead) and I can peek my head above the metaphorical bunker again.
I’m at the point where I’m pretty bloody angry with myself for using language intemperate enough to open the door to these people to try and change the narrative. It seems they failed, precisely because of the push back they received over freedom of speech. For this, I can’t thank the good people at Crooked Timber enough, not to mention so many other people. I never wanted to be the subject of a free speech campaign. Usually those are reserved for people who really said something offensive where one has to stand in principle. I still don’t see what I said as offensive, and certainly not as offensive as supporting policies that allow crazy people to have access to high-powered weapons. But while I generally use relatively measured language here, I was using Twitter as the site to express my true unabashed outrage about the world. I guess I have to be more careful on that going forward. Lesson learned.
That said, what really bugs me is that because of my intemperate language, we are talking about me and what others said about me instead of the policies of unrestricted ownership of killing machines that led to the death of 26 people in Connecticut last week and thousands around the United States and Mexico every year. I look forward to moving the conversation back to what really matters–regulations on guns.
Things were pretty lonely for me for awhile there. But thanks to everyone, and of course the Ray Price I was relying on to help me get through, there was indeed no Lonely Street for me. Except the song.
Vance Maverick:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:09 am
Streets don’t have feelings, Erik. They’re inanimate assemblages of stone and tar.
More seriously, I’m glad to see you’re not backing down about what matters.
rea:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:12 am
Well, well, Prof. Reynolds wisely takes the position that decapitation metaphors are not firing offenes for academics. Very prudent.
Erik Loomis:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:15 am
Wonder why.
charles pierce:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:16 am
Erik — They don’t need a reason to have their tantrums. Don’t beat yourself up about it.
somethingblue:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:16 am
Loomis is one thing, but when you start insulting Ray Price …
actor212:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:17 am
You were never alone, buddy.
DrDick:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:20 am
Hang in there, Erik. As Pierce says, the wingnuts (especially the deranged mouth breathers at Twitchy) do not really need an excuse for their tantrums. The world is leaving them behind and they are in a perpetual rage against it. They are protofascist brown shirts on a jihad to destroy the 20th century.
Walt:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:20 am
Now that this is blowing over, now we can get back to what’s important. The campaign to get Erik fired over his opinion of Janis Joplin.
somethingblue:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:21 am
Heh indeed.
(Personally, I’m still waiting for Erik to admit his culpability for Benghazi.)
LoriK:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:22 am
First and most important, I’m so glad that the nutters have now decided that Eric doesn’t need to be fired from his job for saying something they don’t like.
That said, gawd, why can’t I learn not to get out of the boat? That link made my brain hurt. The update highlighting Badger Pundit’s complete lack of logic skills was especially painful.
Pierre Corneille:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:24 am
I have never been in your situation. And as someone who comments and blogs pseudonymously and who has in the past said things that went over the line, I should be wary of casting stones. In fact, it might be inconsiderate of me to even lodge this comment.
However, I suggest it might be helpful to introspect and acknowledge how some of your language comes across. I think you’re trying to do that in this post, and good for you. Still, saying “I still don’t see what I said as offensive, and certainly not as offensive as supporting policies that allow crazy people to have access to high-powered weapons” is the type of comment that is more likely to create noise than advance your cause, although it probably has the virtue of being honest. (Who is “crazy”? How can we know? What process is due in the determination of who’s “crazy”? What are the chances that the only regulation that comes out of this will be a weak bill that in practice does nothing other than make politicians feel good? Does indulging in hyperbole make one outcome more or less likely?) I didn’t read all your comments, and I’m sure the one’s I saw were cherry-picked to put you in the poorest light possible. (I’ve mostly quit reading your blog quite a long time ago, based largely on how I and others were being treated when we raise qualifications to some of the views advanced here.)
But again, I have never been in your situation, where something I’ve said–perhaps in a moment of passion, perhaps after some deliberation–is examined hypercritically by those who oppose what I say. So I am not really trying to judge. And you’ve probably had enough of “helpful” comments like mine to suit you.
J.W. Hamner:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:24 am
I post under my real name to help remind myself that anything I say online can come back to haunt me and am very careful to moderate my tone, but it’s important to note what Farley said a few days ago… being careful of your language is sufficient protection against these guys. Many want the scalps (NOTE: For conservative readers, this turn of phrase is known as a “metaphor” and is not meant to imply literal scalping) of their ideological opponents and will clearly use the flimsiest of excuses to come after it.
Glad you made it through only chagrined.
J.W. Hamner:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:25 am
Er… “is NOT sufficient protection”..
Steve LaBonne:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:26 am
+100
Colin:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:26 am
Do you mean “hang in there” as a metaphor? Or as an actual literal expression of a desire to see Loomis at the end of a rope? It’s just so difficult to distinguish these days….
Bruce Baugh:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:28 am
Erik, in all seriousness, I genuinely think you shouldn’t kick yourself very hard. Let’s start with the basic reality: they lie all the time, and they fabricate charges out of whole cloth, including asserting the direct opposite of the facts of a case, as well as accusing others of doing something awful because of complying with orders the liars themselves put in place. It literally doesn’t matter that you said anything that can be twisted around to be useful. If you hadn’t, they’d have gone ahead and peddled an invention, or hit the next one in line.
There’s no defense to be had in good behavior, because reality is irrelevant to their hateful fears. Remember Shirley Sherrod.
I’m so sorry you’ve had to deal with it. What a damn waste of time, energy, and emotion.
Walt:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:29 am
I think he means Erik is a slider that went over the middle of the plate. We’re supposed to hit him really hard now. It’s the kind of savagery I’ve come to expect from Montanans.
RedWood:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:29 am
So when do get back to the extremely important work of writing dissertations on homosexual Marxist lumberjacks and their furry forest friends? Surely the world would collapse without such impotant, vital work.
OzarkHillbilly:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:31 am
May peace be upon thee.
Charlie Sweatpants:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:31 am
“The world is leaving them behind and they are in a perpetual rage against it.”
Yup.
And Erik, glad to hear the waters are calming. Put up an Amazon wishlist link or something, will ya? A man who gets smeared and comes through deserves some gifts or at least a little change in his pocket for the trouble.
bradP:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:32 am
Might not be something you want to get into here, but maybe a post about why you believe LaPierre should be in prison for his advocacy?
Steve LaBonne:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:32 am
You might as well come all the way out of the closet, you know.
Erik Loomis:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:32 am
Win
RedWood:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:33 am
The screename is intentionally ironic. Get it? Red WOOD? I’m mocking Loomis.
mds:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:33 am
Yeah, at first I presumed it was a metaphor, but then, like a Popehat blogger, I realized there was no way I could know that for certain.
Erik Loomis:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:34 am
At this point, you mean a book about Marxist lumberjacks, homosexual or not. The answer is today.
Steve LaBonne:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:34 am
Although, your Freudian mis-spelling of “important” suggests that any kind of sexuality may be beyond you.
RedWood:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:35 am
Did they prefer anal sex or oral sex? I forgot. I’m sure the world cannot do without this important contribution to scholarship. You are truly on the level of an Aristotle.
mds:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:36 am
Yeah, actually, we get that. You’re just not very good at it.
Steve LaBonne:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:36 am
Really? You’re very bad at it, so it was hard to tell. Your comment seems to be more about your own odd obsessions.
Steve LaBonne:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:37 am
They’ll do you whatever you prefer. As long as you have the cash.
RedWood:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:37 am
Remember, kids: “towering with rage” is a perfectly, appropriate, adult response to the horrible earth-shattering injustice of being told “no” to using a laptop at a bar.
Loomis has issues.
Dr.KennethNoisewater:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:38 am
And how will the world fare without the important work of your latent-homosexuality-tinged trolling? Well, I’m guessing.
Vance Maverick:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:39 am
Wait, are you seriously refusing to accept that any of the shooters in the recent string of massacres was crazy?
Dr.KennethNoisewater:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:40 am
I’d say the troll going on and on about homosex is likely to know something about having issues, so you may on to something.
Erik, quit towering with rage!
Sherm:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:40 am
I suggest that you jar your homophobia and shove it up your ass, and then crawl back under a rock where you belong.
bob_is_boring:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:41 am
I have already learned this lesson. No mangoes are delicious enough for boat-getting-out-of. Especially for the likes of Der Perfesser.
Besides, I’m under the impression that it would made my computer sad.
Steve LaBonne:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:41 am
And BloodyPecker has so many issues it’ll take years to microfilm them all.
RedWood:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:41 am
Right. I’m the one with sexual issues, not the guy who gets off on talking about dildos to 18 year olds, or the one who wrote page after page about anal sex in his dissertation. Lol.
Pierre Corneille:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:41 am
What I’m trying to say is how do we know prospectively that someone is crazy? We all (or most of us) know after the fact. It’s how do we know before the fact?
Bill:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:42 am
As someone who has been here from the beginning of the blog but generally only comments on the Night Life-related posts, I’m grateful for another opportunity to register my support for Erik… and to claim credit for anticipating the theme of today’s offering. I guess I’ll be back when we get around to discussing Buddy Emmons’ playing on “The Twenty-Fourth Hour” :)
Erik Loomis:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:42 am
I believe there is 1 page on homosexuality in my dissertation. That said, you can read much more about it if you follow the footnotes. I recommend it.
RedWood:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:42 am
Again LOOMIS was the one going on and on (and on) about anal sex in his dissertation, and tweeted that he gets very excited talking about dildos to his teenage students. Who is the one with issues again?
Steve LaBonne:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:42 am
Right. I’m the one with sexual issues
Glad you finally got that straight. As it were.
Steve LaBonne:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:43 am
Oh, we’re at the ALL CAPS stage now, eh TROLL?
Erik Loomis:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:44 am
To be clear, these are historical dildos we talked about. Actually read about to be specific. I can provide you some readings if you’d like to learn.
sharculese:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:45 am
I’m sorry your weirdgross creepy hatestalk didn’t work out, but the only lesson you can draw from it is that your a failure, fyi.
bradP:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:46 am
Focus on this:
Calling for someone to be jailed for political advocacy: OK
Calling for someone to be fired for political advocacy: Not OK
sharculese:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:46 am
Wait, you mean there were dildos… in history? Cut all humanities funding right fucking now.
John Protevi:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:46 am
Shorter Brad: “Fucking Fifth Amendment, how does it work?”
Pierre Corneille:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:47 am
To clarify:
It’s quite plausible that an all out ban on assault weapons is the right way to go, and I endorse it, provided it’s not so weak as to be ineffective and serve as fodder for those who oppose such bans.
If, however, we’re talking about identifying who is “crazy” ahead of time and restricting some of the legal prerogatives that are available to “non-crazy” people, then it’s a difficult call, at least sometimes. I actually saw David Kopel (a pro-gun person) on the NewsHour make a claim that seemed to endorse robust civil commitment procedures. If I interpreted the spirit of his comment correctly (and he didn’t have a lot of time to explain himself on the show, I admit) that approach strikes me as potentially a way to open the door to criminalizing mental illness. That’s part of my concern. (In fact, I note a disturbing trend among the pro-gun people to scapegoat mental illness in a way that seems, to me, to deny or forestall effective regulations. Disclosure: I’m not anti-gun and I believe self-defense is a constitutional right, so that obviously colors my position. However, I believe in very strict licensing requirements and limits on the number of guns one may own or purchase.)
sparks:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:47 am
After reading a number of your comments (for penance), all I can think is you’re the kid who says he knows how to play piano and who then hits the same note over and over, annoying everyone at the party. No variety in your trolling at all.
Steve LaBonne:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:48 am
Why should he explain anything to somebody as fucking stupid as you? Calling for someone to be fired can quite possibly get them fired. Calling for someone to be jailed is most unlikely to get them jailed.
bradP:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:50 am
Haha. Good one.
Scott S.:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:51 am
I was considering hitting the link, but I’m glad I resisted the temptation. I hate giving the wingnuts hits anyway, but my blood pressure doesn’t need the hit.
jhe:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:52 am
I’m pretty bloody angry with myself for using language intemperate enough to open the door to these people to try and change the narrative
a) It wasn’t that intemperate. Really, it just wasn’t.
b) The outrage was 100% manufactured with the intent (whether conscious or not) to distract from the real issue.
Once one of the big dogs decides “that’s the one we’re going to use” the rest of the a-holes follow along. It’s distraction and misdirection and most of all intimidation. I think the NRA stayed out of it knowing that the distraction storm would come at some point. (I’m not paranoid enough to believe it was planned – maybe I should be more paranoid.)
The intimidation is all part of the package. As another commenter reminded us, many of the Obamacare protests from the Summer of Hate had a “bring your gun” component. The guns, the packing the town hall meetings and the shouting down people were all part of the plan.
The real lesson to be learned is that the right-wing response to being completely and tragically wrong is to attack, misdirect and if they can personalize and intimidate.
Banking crisis? It’s really community reinvestment act and Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac (you know, ‘those people’).
Twenty people gunned down? Video games (interestingly, GTA – no one mentions Call of Duty), mental health (ok, stigmatizing mental health, not, you know, doing anything about it), not enough guns and (bonus) something to grab onto and make a big deal of while intimidating a critic.
Whether it’s CHIP program poster kid who had Malkin’s flying monkeys peering into his kitchen or Sandra Fluke getting savaged by Rush, it’s the same strategy. We’ve got to stop falling for it and make it really clear what’s happening to people who aren’t paying attention.
I know you’re feeling beat up, but everyone else needs to look at this and realize that nothing was said that requires apology. There’s no need even to say “well look what they’re saying.” There was no incitement to violence and no threat. None. Obviously, unambiguously none. Anyone who reacted to this like it was a real issue / problem got played. Big time. And the net effect beyond the anguish caused for Prof. Loomis was to distract for several days from the real issue – too many guns and an unaccountable gun industry.
Sargon:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:53 am
Hey, is there anywhere I can find Erik’s dissertation without giving pageviews to R. S. McCain? All these glowing reviews from our troll friend here have actually made me curious about it.
Vance Maverick:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:56 am
You wrote
In the sentence you quoted, Erik said nothing about prospectively identifying crazy people. Think about it. I trust you agree that crazy people committing mass murder is a problem. Consider the possibility that we might address it with policies not aimed at the craziness per se.
Or are you offended because Erik didn’t see what he wrote as offensive?
bradP:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:57 am
Wait were you trying to be ironic?
Bijan Parsia:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:57 am
Sigh.
While recognising that there’ve been a flurry of posts, it’s not hard to find precisely some of the introspection you covet:
Personally, I think the use of a common idiom as an idiom should be fine regardless of who uses it. Intemperate language is, of course, risky in a variety of ways. Erik is well aware of this.
Erik Loomis:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:57 am
Honestly, wait for the book. It’s not all that far away and it’s going to be a million times better.
Malaclypse:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:58 am
Why don’t you elaborate on how, as a result of Erik’s undeniable perfidy, LaPierre now has a plausible chance of prison. Focus on “plausible.”
mds:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:59 am
Oooh, so “follow the footnotes” is what the young people are calling it nowadays? I’ll have to remember that one.
mds:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:00 am
“Hey, baby, want to come back to my place and look at my readings?”
gmack:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:01 am
Yep.
bradP:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:03 am
That’s irrelevant.
Are you saying that I am right in arguing that anything should happen to anyone as long as its implausible?
Are you also saying that it was plausible to expect a bunch of rightwing dipshits would be able to get Loomis fired over that “head on a stick” comment?
Pierre Corneille:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:03 am
That’s a fair question.
I was unclear and tried to have it both ways.
First, I interpreted his comment as being at least partially directed at aimed at prospectively identifying mentally unstable people, but as you point out, that’s not the necessary takeaway.
Second, I suppose I am offended that he didn’t see what he wrote as offensive. Maybe “offended” is too strong, especially since I saw only the tweets that were cherry picked by people who probably disagree with him in the first place.
Your (and others’) mileage obviously varies, and who knows, at the end of the day, maybe you’re more right than I am on that score. I sometimes take offense quite easily at things that most people don’t.
Njorl:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:03 am
Please explain more humor to us.
Pierre Corneille:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:05 am
I do think think I acknowledged in my comment that Mr. Loomis was trying to do spect intro at least a little. I admit I didn’t point out the specific ways in which he was doing so. You pointed out the exact passages from his post, and you are correct.
Again, it’s not my place to judge or cast stones (although I’ll admit that what I’ve written so far might sincerely be seen as stone-casting).
Steve LaBonne:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:05 am
It’s irrelevant just because you say so? Guess again, ace.
mds:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:05 am
Eh, I’ll probably wait for the movie version. Should it just focus on the content, or should it include you and your committee as a frame? I see a feisty oral defense as a potential winning scene … especially if some metaphorical heads end up on metaphorical pikes.
actor212:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:06 am
Are you suggesting that Wayne La Pierre should be beat in the head with a baseball bat, lib?????
Pierre Corneille:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:06 am
As to this,
Point well taken.
Joshua:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:06 am
Heaven forbid, talking to 18 year olds about sex?
Steve LaBonne:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:06 am
If you don’t know that such things have indeed happened to untenured faculty members, you’re as ignorant as you are stupid.
Cody:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:07 am
We should write a really long blog post about this single excerpt.
Do you think I can post it on their blog? They seem down with taking a few words and extrapolating someone’s life from it.
rea:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:07 am
The world is leaving them
Gosh, I hope they have space suits and plenty of oxygen . . .
Steve LaBonne:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:07 am
We might even wish to subscribe to your newsletter. Or not.
John Protevi:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:08 am
*You’re* asking this? In a week devoted to malicious disingenuousness about metaphor, you’re thinking Loomis didn’t use “LaPierre should be in jail” as the very common shorthand for “I hope a good DA finds something to charge LaPierre with, gets a grand jury to indict him, brings him to court, and convinces a jury of his peers beyond a reasonable doubt that LaPierre is guilty of the charges brought, and then is thrown in jail”?
IOW, do you mean if I say “GW Bush ought to be in jail” you think I mean to skip all the pesky legal system stuff and just have Obama throw him directly in jail? Is that what you’re seriously trying to say? Because if it is, that’s really poor work, even for you.
Joshua:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:08 am
Yes, 18 and 19 year old college students. Surely, Erik Loomis’ class is the first time they have ever heard about sex or dildos.
actor212:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:09 am
Your curiousity is….well, both interesting and disturbing.
Sort of like speculating on whether Malkin shaves naked or has a Brazilian landing strip.
Anonymous:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:09 am
And your royalties will be higher, too. Boy, your publisher must be ecstatic now!
Seriously, though,is there an eta on its publication?
dave wing:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:09 am
They, for the most part, aren’t real tantrums in the first place in the sense that you said something that deeply offended a core belief that they held. It is just something that is a cynical and calculated attempt to divert attention. Also people like Glenn Reynolds are malicious and like to cause misery to the people who disagree with them. Keep up your great work.
Malaclypse:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:10 am
That’s irrelevant.
No, Brad, in the real world, plausibility matters.
Are you saying that I am right in arguing that anything should happen to anyone as long as its implausible?
I am saying that, when I say “well fuck me like a walrus” that I do not, in fact, wish to be copulated with in a matter more common with sea mammals.
Really, after several fucking thousand comments, do you still wish to pretend not to understand how language works? Because Christ Fucking Almighty (note: Yeshua bin Joseph had no Greek titles, was not Almighty, and may or may not have fucked), I don’t think anyone here today has the energy for that particular game.
And while you are not a troll, I’m done feeding you on this topic.
Rich Puchalsky:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:10 am
“I still don’t see what I said as offensive, and certainly not as offensive as supporting policies that allow crazy people to have access to high-powered weapons.”
You still don’t see? Let’s take all the right-wing nutbaggery and Two Minute Hate as read and agree that you didn’t mean anything that you wrote literally. But when people have to say “No, he wasn’t literally advocating violence against someone” and then later “No, he wasn’t literally clarifying that he wanted someone arrested. He doesn’t have the power to jail anyone” then maybe you should start thinking about what you’re writing. It is, actually, offensive to write that lobbyists should be jailed, if you actually believe what people on the left claim to believe in. Not because people think that you have the power to do it, but because it’s an offensive sentiment.
I don’t think that you should beat yourself up about it. As people say, the right will seize on anything, real or imagined, and it’s impossible to make it so that the entire Internet does not provide them with something to seize on. But you still don’t seem to understand that yes, it was offensive.
Murc:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:10 am
Far be it for me to agree with brad, but I kind of agree with brad.
LaPierre is a scumbag but arguing that he ought to be in prison just seems wrong-headed to me, as does describing the NRA as a terrorist organization. It seems problematic both on technical grounds (it really doesn’t seem like either LaPierre or his merry band of crazies have done anything actionable) and on practical grounds (throwing people in prison for radical beliefs is almost always going to wind up being a tool deployed against reformers, rather than entrenched power interests.)
actor212:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:11 am
This word, “towering”, it seems to intimidate you and yet you seem inextricably attracted to it.
Let me guess…leather fetish?
Malaclypse:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:12 am
Ark B.
actor212:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:12 am
Well, there’s at least one fossil of a dildo in this thread, made of Red Wood, apparently.
actor212:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:13 am
Etchings, Erik, or you’re doing it wrong.
John Protevi:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:13 am
I’m waiting for his answer to my point below before I pass judgement on his troll or non-troll behavior today.
rea:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:14 am
I actually saw David Kopel (a pro-gun person) on the NewsHour make a claim that seemed to endorse robust civil commitment procedures. If I interpreted the spirit of his comment correctly (and he didn’t have a lot of time to explain himself on the show, I admit) that approach strikes me as potentially a way to open the door to criminalizing mental illness.
Well, no–the point is not to criminalize mental illness–the point is to have some means of ensuring that mentally ill people who pose a danger to themselves or others get treatment before they commit crimes. Right now, just about the only available solution for dealing with the dangerously mentally ill is to wait until they commit a crime, and then imprison them.
Steve LaBonne:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:15 am
True, it doesn’t make much sense except as a kind of contentless rant, precisely because there’s no plausible mechanism for it happening. Which is not the case with getting somebody fired. Which is precisely why Brad is engaging in a disingenuous false equivalence. So I’m having trouble seeing your point.
John Protevi:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:15 am
Murc, I address this point above. “X ought to be in jail” is common shorthand, innit?
Erik Loomis:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:15 am
I’m hoping to have the entire draft done by the summer. So probably 2014-2015. Not tomorrow, but relatively soon.
Murc:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:17 am
… no! Wrong lesson.
The lesson here is “there are crazy people in the world, and they need to be pushed back again.”
Second-guessing your language and scrubbing it of anything that might be “offensive” or “misinterpreted” is precisely what the assholes coming at you WANT you to do. They want you to water down your language. They want you to hesitate before you say anything out of fear of the shitstorm they unleash, and they want to neuter you as a writer.
This is part of the reason our political rhetoric has become so dumbed down in recent decades, why brilliant political minds and people who ought to be great orators write speeches filled with meaningless, bland aphorisms designed not to give offense and written using sixth-grade or lower vocabularies. Why reading press releases and statements from our public institutions and leaders is like reading something produced by an inhuman robot.
If anything, you should resolve to be MORE intemperate in the future, rather than LESS. Because fuck these people.
Pierre Corneille:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:18 am
I do understand that’s the point. But I think a word of caution is in order. When we get into the thickets of how to do it, it is at least possible that the process will be abused.
Maybe the (what I see as) inevitable abuses are a price worth paying for safety, especially if the treatment offered is real treatment, with appropriate safeguards, and not just incarceration in a hospital.
rea:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:19 am
Oh, hell–we’re capable of reading the comment thread over at R. S. McCain’s site and seeing exactly who you are, Mr. Bob Belvedere.
Murc:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:19 am
I have always understood “X ought to be in jail” as common shorthand for “I really, truly do believe X ought to be in jail.”
I mean… is it used differently? I’ve used the term myself; I’ve said things along the lines of “The banksters ought to be in jail” and I absolutely do not mean it as some sort of metaphor; I use it to mean ‘these people have committed actual crimes and should be prosecuted for them and thrown in jail.’
bradP:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:21 am
I think if you say “GWBush ought to be in jail” I think you mean “GWBush deserves to be in jail”.
I’m assuming that Erik, per his comments, believes that LaPierre deserves be in jail for his political advocacy.
I would like to hear his argument for why Lapierre deserves to be in jail.
Pierre Corneille:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:22 am
I have to go to work and can’t respond to any more comments. Thanks for those who have engaged me. I’ve in the past (elsewhere) made a lot of snide comments about this blog, but I appreciate the thoughtful comments I’ve been receiving to my own comment.
Steve LaBonne:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:22 am
And what if I find tone trolling offensive?
sharculese:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:22 am
Also fyi:
If you want to pretend you’re different attention seeking weirdos, stop using the same rhetorical tics over and over.
John Protevi:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:22 am
yes, that’s what it means, and that’s why Brad is full of shit. You mean that they should be brought into the 21st century American legal system. Brad thinks you mean Obama can just throw them directly in jail. Which he can, unfortunately, but that’s not what you or I or anyone means by the “X ought to be in jail” trope. it means “X ought to be brought to trial and I hope he’s found guilty.”
Vance Maverick:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:22 am
I am deeply offended that you referred to the NRA as “crazies”.
Turning to your main point, yes, it’s possible to discuss whether any crimes have been committed, and I’m disposed to agree with you that none have. But that’s not to agree with the rhetoric of Brad’s “hypocrisy!” cheap shot. Erik was working to bring opprobrium on a public figure for his public advocacy as the head of a major advocacy organization. The wingnuts in this episode have been trying to get Erik fired for his independent personal expression.
Malaclypse:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:22 am
Well fuck me like a walrus.
arguingwithsignposts:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:22 am
I don’t.
…
metaphorically speaking, of course.
mark f:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:23 am
It’s sort of a weird coincidence that Robert Bork just died, because the first time I took notice of Brad was when he argued that Ted Kennedy’s “forced to have back-alley abortions” line was malicious because Hypothetical Dictator Bork wasn’t going to drag pregnant women into alleys for unwanted abortions.
Maybe Brad is a non-native English speaker. Or maybe he’s a robot whose programmers forgot to give him knowledge of common idioms.
Murc:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:23 am
Well, I don’t think brad is engaging in bullshit false equivalence, is my point.
When I say that I want someone in jail or to be fired, it means that I think those things are good ideas, that they’d be desirable, sound outcomes. The validity of those statements is thus dependent on whether or not I’m correct in my assessment.
The likelihood of either actually happening is irrelevant. I could argue that we ought to pile all the nukes in the world in one place and light them all off at once because it would be awesome. That’s completely unlikely to actually happen, but its likelihood or unlikelihood have no bearing or not on whether it is a good idea. (It is not. It is a stupid one.)
John Protevi:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:23 am
Fuck off, troll.
mark f:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:26 am
Are you also saying that it was plausible to expect a bunch of rightwing dipshits would be able to get Loomis fired over that “head on a stick” comment?
Let me introduce you to Rachel Ray and her keffiyeh.
Sherm:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:26 am
You are right. But it appears that your advice should be heeded only after one is tenured.
Malaclypse:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:26 am
There was somewhere in the other thread where he said that arguing something should be illegal was exactly the same as engaging in vigilante justice.
Steve LaBonne:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:26 am
And you’re wrong about that, is mine.
John Protevi:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:26 am
Seriously, fuck the fuck off. You don’t get to play this game here today. “For his advocacy”? Fuck you.
Scott S.:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:28 am
“Intentionally ironic”?
Just come out of the closet already. You’ll be happier, guaranteed.
rea:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:28 am
I have not been able to find that old dildo history post in the archives of this site, but as I recall, it made some interesting points about technological development and the 19th Century medical profession’s attitude toward women. In other words, it’s legitimate history.
arguingwithsignposts:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:28 am
I’ll wait for SEK’s “One of THOSE posts” about it, with yellow lines, and stuff. Who’ll play Erik in the movie?
Bill Murray:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:30 am
no, Erik is a cat with its paws on a pipe. I am familiar with all 70s wall poster traditions. Well mainly those that my sister had on her wall
Erik Loomis:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:30 am
Here you go:
http://www.alternet.org/story/154489/the_strange%2C_fascinating_history_of_the_vibrator
bradP:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:30 am
You aren’t feeding me anything because it doesn’t seem you want to discuss this with me. There is a huge difference between “he should be in jail” and “well, fuck me like a walrus”. So much so that I don’t even know why you would use it.
Do you agree or disagree with Erik that LaPierre should be in prison? If Mal was given control of the world, would he imprison NRA members and officials?
rea:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:31 am
brad, you’re not always a troll, but you’ve gone far over the line today. Dawn take you and be stone to you.
rea:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:32 am
And note–I’m not actually hoping that the rising sun catches brad and that he turns into stone.
arguingwithsignposts:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:32 am
As an untenured faculty person who comments pseudonymously for precisely this sort of reason, I am happy this seems to be subsiding, and glad that some sort of pushback was given against stupid fucks like Malkin, McCain, Reynolds, et. al. And I admire your courage in sticking your name and reputation out there where the jackasses can take a whack at it.
If anything, this episode shows the need for a robust tenure for academic freedom.
actor212:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:33 am
Isn’t it obvious? Sean Bean.
bradP:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:33 am
Was she removed as a sponsor or withheld payment?
Rich Puchalsky:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:34 am
Here’s one of Eric’s tweets:
“Dear rightwingers, to be clear, I don’t want to see Wayne LaPierre dead. I want to see him in prison for the rest of his life. #nraterrorism— ”
Is that just tone, there? I’m starting to lose track of what’s supposed to be just a figure of speech and what isn’t. Everyone knows that Eric Loomis does not run a private jail. But it’s not offensive that he seems to really want the guy in prison?
It’s one thing to say “I don’t care that people found my remarks offensive.” In that case, fine. If you don’t care about being offensive, then you don’t care about tone. But it’s not tone trolling to point out that someone really was, when they say that they don’t understand how they were.
bradP:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:35 am
I’M WONDERING WHY THE FUCK LOOMIS THINKS LAPIERRE SHOULD BE BROUGHT INTO THE GODDAMNED AMERICAN LEGAL SYSTEM
Leonard:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:35 am
Leonard likes this post.
Pestilence:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:36 am
good idea
bradP:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:36 am
I didn’t say they were exactly the same.
And yes, I have been trying to turn this asinine discussion into something productive.
mark f:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:36 am
They withdrew the commercial with the offending scarf. Bill O’Reilly managed to get Ludacris dropped from a Pepsi deal. They specialize in this crap.
Substance McGravitas:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:36 am
I support Erik Loomis in his opinion of Janis Joplin. URI administrators must understand that counting the number of superfluous “honeychiles” is legitimate academic inquiry.
Pestilence:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:37 am
I think it’d break your computers logic circuits
John Protevi:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:37 am
Fuck you, troll. Or if you want all-caps, FUCK YOU, TROLL. WHY THE FUCK DO YOU THINK HE THINKS THAT, THE WEEK AFTER THE NEWTOWN MASSACRE?
olexicon:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:37 am
And having the temerity to write things that require reading comprehension to these same 18-year-olds
bradP:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:38 am
Would it be ok for anti-choice individuals to start a political movement to shut down and/or imprison pro-choice advocates?
Murc:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:39 am
… I don’t think he does.
I mean, I’m not brad, I can’t read his mind.
But it seems like brad is saying “Loomis is made an argument that Wayne LaPierre deserves to be in prison. Many people have argued that Loomis deserves to be fired because he has committed actions unbecoming of an employee of a respected public institutions. Both of these things are wrong, but the latter is more wrong than the former.”
I don’t see how this is a bullshit false equivalency.
olexicon:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:39 am
Thank you for your diagnosis, now may we see your credentials?
bradP:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:40 am
So political advocacy that leads to bad/harmful government policy should be a criminal offense?
Malaclypse:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:41 am
I’m wondering why you seem to think Erik’s interests will be helped by further poking a wasps’ next, on today of all fucking days. And while I’m at it, I’m wondering why you couldn’t be bothered to sign on and defend Erik over at CT. I guess Principled Libertarianism doesn’t require defending people from actual mobs.
Sherm:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:41 am
If anything, this episode shows the need for a robust tenure for academic freedom.
This non-academic agrees with this statement.
Leeds man:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:41 am
“yes, it was offensive.”
I want your magic book which defines what is and isn’t offensive.
Steve LaBonne:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:41 am
Offense is in the eyes and ears of the beholder. In the context of the threats made against Erik, I find your repeated tone trolling (you did it on CT as well) far more offensive than anything Erik tweeted. And since you have not been elected sole arbiter of what is offensive, your point of view does not somehow have more weight than mine. Clutch your pearls somewhere else.
Murc:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:42 am
… what does the timing have to do with the existence, or lack thereof, of LaPierre’s legal culpability?
olexicon:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:42 am
Clearly RedWood only reads dissertations for the wanking
Malaclypse:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:43 am
If LaPierre was selling Laetrile, he could, in fact, be imprisoned. And if someone wishes to argue that the legal system reflect the idea that grounds are more dangerous than Laetrile, that is not inherently an unreasonable discussion.
rea:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:44 am
it is at least possible that the process will be abused
Well, of course. There were lots of instances of abuse in the old system–but the old system was abandoned more to save tax dollars than because of abuses.
Any functioning legal system is going to require constant vigilance to avoid abuses–just like your car need ongoing preventative maintenance.
bradP:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:47 am
Why would I sign into Crooked Timber and defend Loomis?
Leeds man:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:47 am
Ex-(praise be to Jeebus)-academic stands with this statement.
Malaclypse:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:47 am
I’d like to ask for further clarification, as it appears you have advocated a geocentric view of the solar system.
bradP:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:48 am
Yes. “For his advocacy”. LaPierre didn’t gun down those children himself, so I’m assuming his crime is political advocacy that lead to harmful policy.
Malaclypse:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:49 am
No reason at all, apparently.
Rob in Buffalo:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:50 am
I actually started to compose an email to Prof. Reynolds asking him whether heads will roll was not also “eliminationist rhetoric” of the type he constantly decries, but then I thought, “What’s the point?”. The chances of him conceding the point are approximately zero.
Malaclypse:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:50 am
LaPierre didn’t gun down those children himself
Manson never shot anyone, either.
Leeds man:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:51 am
Loomis with a Sheffield accent? I’m not seeing it.
bradP:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:53 am
So LaPierre is similar to Manson?
Bill Murray:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:54 am
If you can’t wait for the book, you can get it as a pdf for $37 here
http://disexpress.umi.com/dxweb
John Protevi:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:54 am
Brad Potts, voice of reason, ever vigilant against the gummit. I will type this very slowly so you will understand: “LaPierre ought to be in jail” means “I hope there is a law already on the books that a good DA can spot and bring LaPierre up on charges for, and win at trial.”
Now if someone can come up with a legal theory that would lead to passing legislation that passes constitutional muster and that puts LaPierre in jail and the NRA out of business, then I wouldn’t shed a tear, though I have no idea what that theory or that legislation would look like.
But seriously, Brad, have you no sense of the LGM community that you would pursue this today? Is your puffed up self-image as Brad Potts, fearless libertarian, really worth that? I guess you really are a selfish little shit.
Malaclypse:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:55 am
LaPierre is almost certainly an even worse musician.
Vance Maverick:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:57 am
Not sure what you’re getting at, which I suppose is the point. Are you talking about saying “Katha Pollitt should be in jail?” If so, we already live in that world, and that rhetoric makes me angry, but I don’t think it should be punished — it’s a case for more speech (TM).
Dr.KennethNoisewater:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:01 pm
If Erik looks like Sean Bean, I think we can conclude, officially, that he is The Cute One.
Murc:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:01 pm
No offense, John, but saying this without having a clear idea of what, precisely, LaPierre has done that’s illegal seems to violate common usage, and if it doesn’t it should.
I mean, maybe I’m wrong about this, but when I say someone should be in prison, I usually have a pretty good idea of why. I don’t mean “a DA should go fishing and I hope they come up with something.” I mean “I am pretty sure in my own mind this dude has committed a crime.”
proverbialleadballoon:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:02 pm
I sent an email to Dean Brownell, in support of Loomis’ words (her email address courtesy of Crooked Timber), to show that the ‘outrageous’ tweet speaks against violence and death, and not the other way around. Maybe that is a better outlet, rather than trying to deal with the ole’ perfessor.
John:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:06 pm
Isn’t Reynolds’s whole obsession with “eliminationist rhetoric” just a to quoque argument that’s gotten out of control? Like, many years ago, Dave Neiwert had a blog where he talked a lot about how the right in America uses “eliminationist rhetoric,” Reynolds took offensive, and ever since he has been up in arms about “eliminationist rhetoric” on the left.
That’s what happened, right? To be fair, Reynolds seems to be only intermittently aware of the fact that his obsession with “eliminationist rhetoric” on the left is actually a to quoque argument and not something he deeply believes.
John:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:06 pm
Sorry, that should be tu quoque. Not sure what happened there.
Rob in Buffalo:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:11 pm
Stating the obvious here, but someone with a few hours on their hands could compile quite a formidable list of “eliminationist rhetoric” (by the standard of “head on a stick”) from the right, and not just clowns like Coulter.
Murc:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:11 pm
Indeed, it is not, but I’m not sure that’s the topic at hand.
“Wayne LaPierre has committed his life to pimping dangerous tools of violence that ought not to be legal for civilians” is different from “Wayne LaPierre has already committed crimes and should be in prison.” They required different justifications.
John Protevi:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:13 pm
Well, I think LaPierre ought to be in jail because he’s like a drug pusher, but his particular drug isn’t yet, though it should be, illegal. So I hope we pass laws that make the sale and possession of assault weapons illegal, and that in the meantime, some DA is clever enough to have found LaPierre slipping up somewhere.
Erik Loomis:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:15 pm
This is fundamentally my view of the matter.
Malaclypse:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:15 pm
I didn’t say they were exactly the same.
You just said you did not understand the difference.
And yes, I have been trying to turn this asinine discussion into something productive.
You have failed, abysmally, and should now perhaps be remembering rules about holes.
commie atheist:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:15 pm
Wow, this is really dumb.
In my long life, I’ve wanted to see many people in jail, probably starting with Nixon and Kissinger, and continuing on through the banksters who precipitated the Great Recession. Did someone, somewhere find that offensive? Who gives a flying fuck?
Incontinentia Buttocks:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:16 pm
It seems that you also don’t proofread your posts carefully enough!
bradp:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:17 pm
I’m commenting on a blog post, John, and I’m not sure what you are going on about.
Joseph Slater:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:22 pm
“hitting”? What is it with you libtards and obviously real threats of violence????
Pseudonym:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:22 pm
That is not a good idea. That is a GREAT idea.
Bijan Parsia:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:23 pm
I really don’t understand the goal of your comment. It only makes sense if Erik has been inadequate in his reflection. It seems to me that he’s done enough reflection (e.g., discussing it in more than one post, substantively), and I think the outcome is more or less sensible.
Your comment close to states that Erik (probably) hasn’t done enough reflection, perhaps because you think his conclusions are wrong.
But even if one disagrees with Erik’s conclusions, it’s evidently not because of insufficiency of reflection.
Malaclypse:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:23 pm
I’m commenting on a blog post, John, and I’m not sure what you are going on about.
Brad, what do you think will happen to Erik, should he choose to answer your question with the nitpicking level of detail you will demand? Will that help his current problems? You might notice that wingnut track-backs have not, in actual fact, stopped. And we’ve already established that you will do nothing to have Erik’s back should the flying monkeys return.
I’m hoping you are just being completely obtuse about this, rather than deliberately malicious.
drkrick:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:26 pm
There’s your problem there. Most of us dealing in good faith don’t find it that difficult
John Protevi:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:28 pm
Shorter Brad 1: “context, schmontext.”
Shorter Brad 2: “fuck all y’all and your ‘community’ stuff. I’m here to get my rocks off about how brave and tough I am to talk reason to the emotional libtards.”
Sherm:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:30 pm
Why would I sign into Crooked Timber and defend Loomis?
Why not? Seriously Brad, why the fuck not?
Rich Puchalsky:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:31 pm
Did Nixon and Kissinger commit war crimes? Did the banksters commit financial crimes? The answer seems to be yes in both cases.
If the NRA committed actual crimes through its stupid and disgraceful advocacy for gun manufacturers, then you’d have a point. If Eric Loomis had said “Who gives a fuck whether someone thinks what I wrote was offensive” then you’d also have a point. But you can’t be the focus of what Eric Loomis says is a free speech campaign and not believe in freedom of speech. Or rather, you can, but it’s offensive, and you should at least understand why it is.
Green Caboose:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:33 pm
Someone has.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Eliminationists-Radicalized-American-Right/dp/0981576982
Pseudonym:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:33 pm
“Wayne LaPierre [morally] deserves to be in prison.” He is a bad person doing bad things that cause harm to innocent children.
“Wayne LaPierre [legally] deserves to be in prison.” He has committed crimes that should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Is it that hard to understand that these are both plausible interpretations? I think Dick Cheney deserves to rot in prison for the rest of his life, but I’m not sure there is a valid legal process that would result in that, and I’m hesitant to insist that there should be.
Loomis, on the other hand, has done absolutely nothing wrong. He is not abetting the murder of schoolchildren. He is not trying to get Wayne LaPierre murdered, imprisoned, or fired for views expressed that are unrelated to job performance.
In conclusion, bradP can shove his concern up his possibly metaphorical cloaca.
Pseudonym:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:36 pm
Ok in what sense? Legally? It certainly seems to be in practice. Morally? No, because anti-choice individuals are wrong.
Pseudonym:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:37 pm
Loomis not only has issues, he has subscriptions. You should subscribe to his newsletter. I believe there’s an RSS feed somewhere.
bradp:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:38 pm
I acknowledged that Erik may not want to answer, and my question did not obligate him to answer. I have said nothing about Erik not answering me.
And I’m not the obtuse one if you think that me throwing my hat into the ring at Crooked Timber would have helped Loomis at all.
Pseudonym:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Oh. That never ends well.
N__B:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Erik made my crops wither and my cow go dry and he has not yet apologized.
Yet.
Pseudonym:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:40 pm
Will you be revealing juicy excerpts or seeking beta testers?
‘Candyass Blogger’ Update: Free Speech Absolutists Who Banned Mr. Althouse UPDATE: ‘These Are Historical Dildos’ : The Other McCain:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:40 pm
[...] back to Commissar Farley and the LG&M politburo.“Intimidation,” anyone?UPDATE: From comments on Dr. Loomis’s latest opus:RedWood says: December 20, 2012 at 10:42 am Again LOOMIS was the one going on and on (and on) [...]
Sargon:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:41 pm
Sure, but that would ruin my indie cred.
Murc:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:43 pm
Actually, thinking about that, I kind of want Randall Munroe to use it as one of his XKCD-what if’s.
bradp:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:45 pm
1) Loomis definitely shouldn’t be fired (I do guess I was wrong to think this absurdity might get him fired), but I also don’t think he was right.
2) I’m still not sure what the point of going to Crooked Timber and defending him. I was under the impression that Crooked Timber was already a bastion of pro-Loomis talk.
Murc:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:47 pm
.. Jesus Christ, Brad, the one day I think you’ve said something worth defending and you make me look like a tool.
Apparently you’re totally fine with the shit-storm unleashed on Loomis, one of our hosts, who has treated you better than you deserve over the years, because he used a commonly-understood metaphor.
Or at least, you’re fine enough with it you can’t take literally a minute of your time to register your disapproval over on the big-ass place created to do that.
God dammit. I need a drink.
Sherm:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:51 pm
God dammit. I need a drink.
I might suggest that line to my wife for a my headstone when the day comes.
Kate M.:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:51 pm
But Bob’s friends on “the Other McCain” thought he was being so witty for coming up with that title of a future film adaptation of Erik’s dissertation. “The perfect title on so many levels. Good job Bob!” Why can’t the readers of LGM recognize how sharp Bob Belvedere is?!
Karate Bearfighter:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:53 pm
Given that a committee of script doctors will eventually decide that the story arc demands Erik actually decapitate Wayne LaPierre and place his head on a stick, I think Sean “the Human Spoiler” Bean needs to play LaPierre.
N__B:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:54 pm
You mean, like, steampunk? Because that sounds uncomfortable.
John Protevi:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:54 pm
Well said, Murc.
Leeds man:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:56 pm
Did the Mayans commit actual crimes when they sacrificed children to their gods?
bradp:
December 20th, 2012 at 12:56 pm
I said:
And I thought we had reached a resolution when I pointed out that supporters of anti-sodomy laws are little different from people who actually assualt homosexuals.
Linnaeus:
December 20th, 2012 at 1:01 pm
How many, exactly?
J. Otto Pohl:
December 20th, 2012 at 1:05 pm
I actually would sign on to the letter except that I am permanently banned from CT by Farrell and Quiggin.
mds:
December 20th, 2012 at 1:06 pm
Just to clarify, Bean’s character in the Sharpe series survived the Napoleonic Wars. So he only almost always dies.
John Protevi:
December 20th, 2012 at 1:09 pm
If this horse isn’t dead, this is an excellent comment by “Both Sides Do It” over at CT:
http://crookedtimber.org/2012/12/20/academic-and-workplace-freedom-open-thread/comment-page-3/#comment-439820
So Jonathan Adler wants to claim that Loomis’ statements show he’s in favor of jailing his political opponents for petitioning the government in favor of policies Loomis doesn’t like.
‘Sfunny, because I thought Loomis’ statements show he’s in favor of things like returning the ability for people to sue guns manufacturers by holding them liable for negligence when their products are used in crimes. Which was taken away in a 2005 law. Or allowing RICO prosecutions for violations of federal firearms laws, which has been kicking around Washington since at least 1968. Y’know, measures “that would mean real accountability for causing immeasurable harm,” in Loomis’ words, for both gun manufacturers and the NRA. Measures that have been bog-standard policy components of gun control debates. That’s what I thought Loomis was talking about. And not jailing people for disagreeing with him. ‘Sfunny.
mds:
December 20th, 2012 at 1:13 pm
“Commissar Farley and the LG&M Politburo”? Now there’s a band name to conjure with.
Did you see that? It’s right in the track-back, people! McCain calling for intimidation of the LG&M “politburo.” Commence pissing, moaning, organized harassment, and all the other usual tantrum-throwing asshole tactics of the Wingnut Blogosphere.
John:
December 20th, 2012 at 1:13 pm
That was the whole point – Neiwert was doing that, Reynolds got irritated and decided to start accusing leftists of the same thing. Then he forgot that it was a tu quoque argument and started to actually think that eliminationist rhetoric on the left was a real thing to criticize, although he seems to fitfully remember that that wasn’t the original point.
Spokane Moderate:
December 20th, 2012 at 1:28 pm
He introduced New Coke.
Malaclypse:
December 20th, 2012 at 1:39 pm
I’m still not sure what the point of going to Crooked Timber and defending him.
Why libertarianism is useless, in fifteen short words.
The point is to have someone’s back, and if you don’t see the value of that, you have excellently illustrated the self-defeating selfishness at the core of your alleged philosophy.
I was under the impression that Crooked Timber was already a bastion of pro-Loomis talk.
Not before yesterday. Holy hell, not before yesterday. But they, not being short-sighted libertarians, understood that defending Erik was actually pretty fucking important. And the fact you still don’t see that is really kind of disappointing. I thought better of you.
STH:
December 20th, 2012 at 1:48 pm
I still think it was perfectly appropriate to the occasion. Jesus, what situation more deserves hyperbole? Fuck Reynolds, Malkin, and all their disgusting minions (not literally, of course–yuck).
bradP:
December 20th, 2012 at 1:51 pm
I wasn’t aware that the link went to a statement that people were putting their names to. My name and a brief statement are awaiting moderation.
I also want to apologize to Erik for being flippant about what he is going through.
STH:
December 20th, 2012 at 1:55 pm
You might consider whether it’s a good idea to take the word of a “pro-gun person” on the position of gun control advocates as gospel. And it sounds like you’re forming your ideas of Dr. Loomis’ words based on what you read on other sides; also not such a good idea.
Murc:
December 20th, 2012 at 1:56 pm
The awesomeness of your comment over at RSC’s house of pain is sufficiently high I’d argue you should get a do-over, Otto.
Exactly.
I’m a giant nobody, but I had Loomis back, because that’s the way it works, and that’s the only way it’ll ever work.
bradP:
December 20th, 2012 at 1:56 pm
I’m loathe to engage you on this because I don’t want this to get uncivil again, but Wayne LaPierre isn’t a gun manufacturer, he’s a lobbyist.
bradP:
December 20th, 2012 at 2:01 pm
My cynicism and “pox-on-both-houses” attitude doesn’t always bring out the best in me.
And I was also dense enough to think you were asking why I wasn’t over on CT arguing in defense of Erik.
Malaclypse:
December 20th, 2012 at 2:03 pm
And it was not just Crooked Timber. It was Crooked Timber, and all the people sent there from here, from making Light, from Duck of Minerva, from literally dozens of smaller blogs, all of whom realized that it could just as easily have been them that got singled out and made an example of. Anybody could have been the target of that hate-fest. Nearly a thousand people, many of whom probably never heard of Erik before yesterday, understood what was going on. The fact that you apparently don’t might be food for some thought.
Malaclypse:
December 20th, 2012 at 2:05 pm
And now that I’ve seen your re-thinking, I take back what I said. I had hoped you had this in you, and I’m glad to see you are the person I hoped you were.
Leeds man:
December 20th, 2012 at 2:05 pm
I think he survived Stormy Monday as well.
Manta:
December 20th, 2012 at 2:07 pm
He’s a hipster? Off with his head! (metaphorically, of cours… On second thought, make it literally).
John Protevi:
December 20th, 2012 at 2:08 pm
Lobbyist, ha. He’s a bag man for a cabal of
drug pushersgun manufacturers. At best, he’s a mafia consigliere. I hope they RICO his ass right quick.Yes, I know, I know. RICO has been used against the left and there are lots of dangers in DA fishing expeditions. Still, fuck LaPierre, the NRA, and the gun manufacturers he fronts for.
bradP:
December 20th, 2012 at 2:13 pm
Considering my own tendencies and opinions, I would be exceedingly stupid not to lend my name to a statement like that.
Spokane Moderate:
December 20th, 2012 at 2:16 pm
Wow. They really need the traffic.
actor212:
December 20th, 2012 at 2:22 pm
Alles klar, herr Kommissar!
terry:
December 20th, 2012 at 2:25 pm
LGM has the best/worst? trolls on the inter tubes!
Bijan Parsia:
December 20th, 2012 at 2:26 pm
I’m glad that this thread was the result of misunderstanding rather than anything else. I’m glad once the situation clarified for you, Brad, you joined in solidarity.
Manta:
December 20th, 2012 at 2:27 pm
Will you use some of the blurbs for you book? Like “Erik Loomis is the reason many people go to [...] college”?
uncle rameau:
December 20th, 2012 at 2:28 pm
am I tainted by being in a fantasy league with Loomis now?
Prof. Erik Loomis clarifies: ‘Those were historical dildos we talked about’ | Twitchy:
December 20th, 2012 at 2:37 pm
[...] in the wake of an outcry about his anti-gun tweets (he still can’t see why anyone was offended), he is talking about dildos again. “To be clear, these are historical dildos we talked [...]
Malaclypse:
December 20th, 2012 at 2:44 pm
I can’t imagine why White Nationalist McCain keeps thinking about all those dildos.
brandon:
December 20th, 2012 at 2:48 pm
Ya gotta wear the hat the next time you Bloggingheads or whatever, Farley!
John Protevi:
December 20th, 2012 at 2:48 pm
Oh, God, I guess now I’m going to have to apologize to Brad too. Damn you, Brad, for displaying your mensch-hood like that. Now who am I going to hate on, now that you’re back to your normal (merely exasperating but not hate-worthy) self? So, okay, I’m sorry about the all-caps and the “troll” and all of it.
Malaclypse:
December 20th, 2012 at 2:52 pm
Now who am I going to hate on,
We’ll always have JenBob. And I do mean always.
Sherm:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:01 pm
America’s nuttiest professor, Erik Loomis, loves teaching about the history of sexuality…
That’s quiet a title. Wear it proudly.
Bill Murray:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:08 pm
doesn’t that imply there may be some non-superfluous honeychiles?
Rhino:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:09 pm
It would be a start.
Origami Isopod:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:11 pm
What Charles said. Don’t do that to yourself. You used a very common figure of speech, one referring to a very outdated act of violence. It’s no more a call to murder than “throw him under the bus,” “throw her to the wolves,” or “hang them out to dry” is.
I’m sure you’re reeling from the attack, and you’re wishing you could have written differently, but that’s along the same lines as a rape victim wishing she’d taken a different way home. You did nothing wrong, and if they hadn’t gone after you, they’d have gone after someone else.
The solution isn’t to walk on eggshells w/r/t everything you write. It’s for everyone decent to fight back any time the RWNM targets someone.
Bijan Parsia:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:12 pm
(I know I’m late to the party, but…)
With no access to the interior of Erik’s mind and acknowledging that a lot of distortionary events have occurred, I interpreted those comments as primarily expressions of grief and rage, and the particular content as an expression about moral culpability rather than technical legal culpability.
Perhaps Erik would argue via some complex mechanism for a legal regime wherein the NRA would be designated a terrorist organization and having an organization role in it be, itself, jail worthy. I would argue against that.
spencer:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:13 pm
He canceled Star Trek.
Substance McGravitas:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:13 pm
NO.
actor212:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:17 pm
That one’s Twitchy…Malkin.
So there’s at least one explanation
DrDick:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:17 pm
I meant that as in hang on to that ledge by the tips of your fingernails, as all nontenured faculty do in this economy and environment.
DrDick:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:18 pm
That was indeed my inspiration.
DrDick:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:18 pm
Not me.
Rhino:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:19 pm
Are you guys sure this is the real brad? Doesn’t feel right to me somehow.
spencer:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:19 pm
Sort of like speculating on whether Malkin shaves naked or has a Brazilian landing strip.
I hate you.
DrDick:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:21 pm
And they are all infested with the botulism bacillus.
spencer:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:21 pm
Are you also saying that it was plausible to expect a bunch of rightwing dipshits would be able to get Loomis fired over that “head on a stick” comment?
Yes. It’s highly plausible.
Anticorium:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:24 pm
Only his friends get to call him Bob. You libs have to call him Mister.
DrDick:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:25 pm
it is at least possible that the process will be abused
Please name one actual policy of which that is not true. Sorry, but this is quite simply inane concern trolling. To quote the esteemed Thers, Fuck civility. Give me the truth.
MAJeff:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:28 pm
how’s life at the rest area? Anal or oral?
DrDick:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:30 pm
I would also add that more robust civil commitment procedures by themselves are insufficient without stronger laws controlling access to fire arms. I mentioned this earlier in another thread, but I had a friend who was the patient advocate (lawyer) at a state mental hospital. He was shot and killed by an inmate who walked off campus, got a gun, returned to campus, entered my friend’s office and shot him. This was after background checks were instituted. Clearly the current laws are inadequate and need to be strengthend.
MAJeff:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:32 pm
Teaching the history of sexuality is actually a blast, and fascinating. I don’t understand why anyone wouldn’t love teaching it. Imagine how these crackers would lose their shit over 500-page tome on the history of masturbation. My students loved it.
DrDick:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:33 pm
I prefer simply to call him “Fuckwit,” since that is what he truly is.
MAJeff:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:34 pm
Mr. fuckwit works.
DrDick:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:34 pm
I am sure if you ask them real nice, they will let you know. They may even let you live.
mds:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:34 pm
Yeah, 1981 sounds about right for someone who thinks “politburo” is a devastating insult.
DrDick:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:35 pm
Whatever he can get, I expect.
Sherm:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:36 pm
quite a title, not quiet a title. Damn.
Erik Loomis:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:37 pm
“With no access to the interior of Erik’s mind and acknowledging that a lot of distortionary events have occurred, I interpreted those comments as primarily expressions of grief and rage, and the particular content as an expression about moral culpability rather than technical legal culpability.”
One thing that seems to have been forgotten in all of this by a lot of people–I was literally sitting in front of my computer reading the news on the verge of tears. I mean, maybe the lesson is to stay off the writing until calmness has prevailed, but for christ’s sake 26 people had just been slaughtered. If there’s a time for a slightly unreasonable reaction and hyperbolic language, that was it.
In other words, there’s a huge difference if I had said those things in an article versus a series of tweets as the news is developing. Even as an article it wouldn’t have been that bad, but given the context the response was even more absurd.
mds:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:37 pm
Ah, yes, as a teenager I once spent eight solid days in the bathroom with that one.
DrDick:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:37 pm
You are the only one here obsessed with these issues. Our gay commenters are quite open and comfortable with their sexuality, but do not feel the need to talk about it constantly. Those of us who are straight are equally comfortable and just laugh at you when you call us “fags.”
Erik Loomis:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:38 pm
I already learned not to use “throwing people under the bus” by being mocked in comments. Evidently as the newby around here, there are internet traditions I am not aware of.
I’d also like to point out that for a somewhat above medium sized political blog staffed by academics, this place has been involved in a lot of interesting situations over the years.
DrDick:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:39 pm
He can’t tell you now, because the pages are all stuck together.
Erik Loomis:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:40 pm
I do love teaching the history of sexuality, even though I’m not a true expert except for certain issues and periods. We actually have an awesome historian of sexuality at URI.
Sherm:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:40 pm
“Historical dildo” does sound like something from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.
Erik Loomis:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:41 pm
I feel like I should work out some sort of compensatory deal with some authors of great history of sexuality books. I talk about them on the front page. The right goes ballistic and gives them a bunch of attention. Sales skyrocket for a couple of days. And I get a cut.
Capitalism!
DrDick:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:41 pm
Well, he is a libertarian and we all no how hard it is for them to grapple with reality.
mds:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:42 pm
So they’re still babbling incontinently, like the morally-bankrupt dumbshit jackholes they are, about the sex stuff? I guess they were really, truly outraged about Professor Loomis’ eliminationist rhetoric. Sheesh, you’d think someone had just murdered twenty elementary school students with a dildo instead of the American Right’s favorite sex surrogate.
marijane:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:43 pm
thanks, jay leno!
DrDick:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:43 pm
John -
I think on this issue, and a few others, he is indeed a troll, though he is not all the time.
DrDick:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:46 pm
Rhino -
This is Brad. While he is not always like this, there are a few issues where he goes full on troll. This appears to be one of those. I think is an inherent problem with putting property rights ahead of human rights.
MAJeff:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:47 pm
well, one page on lumberjack homosexuality has certainly been an incitement to discourse
Erik Loomis:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:48 pm
Did they read the whole 500 pages?
John Protevi:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:49 pm
I see what you did there
DrDick:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:49 pm
The moral difference between advocating that the government punish someone as a criminal organization and actual vigilantism is not clear
A better example of Libertarian Derangement Syndrome would be hard to even imagine. If you cannot see the difference, then you are totally hopeless.
Linnaeus:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:51 pm
I just think it’s funny that they think that the history of sexuality is a strange or “nutty” topic for a scholar to study or teach.
DrDick:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:51 pm
I’m commenting on a blog post, John, and I’m not sure what you are going on about.
John -
You have your answer to your questions.
Malaclypse:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:55 pm
I already learned not to use “throwing people under the bus” by being mocked in comments.
Anybody using that phrase deserves to be drawn and quartered.
MAJeff:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:56 pm
Yeah, but I broke it up over 2 weeks.
sharculese:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:57 pm
That’s because you don’t recognize the Fundamental Truth of gender roles and family structures that were constant and perfect throughout all of history until the sexual revolution caused 9/11.
DrDick:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:59 pm
They have, it is called the Right to Life Movement. Next question.
Bijan Parsia:
December 20th, 2012 at 3:59 pm
Did Erik call, in any meaningful way, for anyone to be jailed for political advocacy? Are a few tweets sufficient? What actions were the tweets either intended or likely to trigger?
Contrariwise, people didn’t just tweet back: “I hope you get fired.” Or “I think you should be fired”. Or “You don’t deserve to be a professor.” They did things like call the FBI and the University (indeed, they called Erik’s ultimate boss). There were people calling for that as well (e.g., in this comment).
I don’t know that there were any direct calls for Erik’s firing from blog proprietors and there were a round of posts (e.g., Instapundit’s) saying that Erik wasn’t making threats, etc.
Given e.g., Malkin’s history, I’m not so convinced that the intended effect of all this wasn’t exactly what happened.
Now, with the possible exception of the call to the FBI (really?!) and some arguably defamatory statements, none of this is illegal. Nor, I think, should it be. There are circumstances in which I think I’d advocate for someone’s firing, even for things they said. I want those to be relatively rare, of course. Probably even exceedingly rare. I prefer them to be cases where there is a direct job connection.
An interesting case is Brad Delong’s explorations as to whether John Yoo’s tenure should be revoked.
(Personally, I think even if the case is reasonable, it wouldn’t be worth pursuing because of the potential backlash and precedent.)
rea:
December 20th, 2012 at 4:00 pm
Not to beat a (metaphorical, no, really) dead horse, but earlier today I came across this:
Chris Patten, chairman of the trust, told a BBC interviewer that he saw no reason for taking an ax to the broadcaster’s top management. “The management problems,” he said, “have to be addressed. But I don’t think you necessarily address them by just putting heads on spikes.”
DrDick:
December 20th, 2012 at 4:00 pm
That is how you know they are losing.
Malaclypse:
December 20th, 2012 at 4:01 pm
Fred Clark over at Slactivist has been running a Biblical Family of the Day ever since Chick-Fil-A decided to fly their hate flag high. Great stuff.
DrDick:
December 20th, 2012 at 4:02 pm
There may have been dildos in prehistory. A rather remarkably lifelike phallic artifact was found in a paleolithic site a white back.
I had not realized that RedWood was that old.
DrDick:
December 20th, 2012 at 4:03 pm
Clearly, he will never read mine then.
Bijan Parsia:
December 20th, 2012 at 4:05 pm
Yep. As I wrote elsewhere, a relative of mine posted a very uncharacteristic bit of invective about the shooting on Facebook (they deleted it later, at their spouse’s prompting). Yours was not an uncommon reaction.
Like privacy, intimacy and ephemera are changing as more of our social lives are online. I imagine that it will eventually sort itself out.
DrDick:
December 20th, 2012 at 4:08 pm
I emphatically find it offensive. Fuck civility and the civility trolls! Give me the truth or shut the fuck up.
Bijan Parsia:
December 20th, 2012 at 4:10 pm
Don’t throw “throw under the bus” under the bus! Esp. not a bus with steroids.
DrDick:
December 20th, 2012 at 4:12 pm
My department actually offers a human sexuality course and I teach a segment on it in my anthropology of gender class. Students love it.
N__B:
December 20th, 2012 at 4:16 pm
Which one? He’s not old enough for the original…
Linnaeus:
December 20th, 2012 at 4:16 pm
Heh. Indeed.
Sherm:
December 20th, 2012 at 4:21 pm
And the historical use of dildos by “physicians” is fascinating. What’s nutty about teaching and/or learning about that?
spencer:
December 20th, 2012 at 4:22 pm
How many pages contained references to anal sex?
Come on, troll. You’re not just gonna take someone else’s word for it, are you?
salacious:
December 20th, 2012 at 4:43 pm
For what it’s worth, I don’t think BradP is trolling here. The wingnuts can fuck off, but I would actually be interested in hearing Erik’s answer to the question of whether he thinks LaPierre should actually be imprisoned.
Of course, if Erik wants to keep his head down given the recent horseshit, that is understandable as well…
nosmo king:
December 20th, 2012 at 4:55 pm
Movie version? I’m waiting for the Broadway musical after that. And the ice-skating show after THAT! And the theme park thrill ride after all of them! Who wouldn’t want to ride down a giant log-flume in a hollowed-out historical dildo, while Karl Marx is read in the background?
(I realize nobody will probably see this, but I am very tickled by this progresssion.)
Leeds man:
December 20th, 2012 at 5:03 pm
Maybe he’s Bored of the Cock Rings.
spencer:
December 20th, 2012 at 5:06 pm
“You killed Ted, you
medieval dickweedhistorical dildo!”Works pretty well, I think.
sharculese:
December 20th, 2012 at 5:10 pm
He made them obsess about a random twitter comment from whenever ago. Liberal fascism.
Also, dude in the comments is talking about a plan for all of the to mail Erik dildos in order to prove… something.
MAJeff:
December 20th, 2012 at 5:12 pm
Hell, get enough of ‘em and you’ve got a class: Capitalism, commodity, and sexuality.
Ed K:
December 20th, 2012 at 5:19 pm
Oh hell, philosophy of sexuality, history of psychoanalysis, Foucault’s stuff, all sorts of fun things to teach in there. I don’t get to do it as often as I’d like, but it’s a blast…and I’m pretty jealous of those of you who get more of a chance to really look at the (wait for it, because there’s no way I’m not going there) nuts and bolts history of things.
Rhino:
December 20th, 2012 at 5:29 pm
Size queen. And then of course cannot actually handle it, leading to even more neuroses.
Bijan Parsia:
December 20th, 2012 at 5:49 pm
My impression from this comment is that Erik does not so think.
I certainly didn’t interpret the tweets that way.
Rhino:
December 20th, 2012 at 5:49 pm
Worry too much about tone and not enough about reality and eventually you’re admitting that form is more important than substance.
Maybe it is when listening to French minuets or dining at la bernardin, but not when coping with fucking piles of dead children.
That is why your trolling is so offensive: because there is a time to worry about table manners and this is not it.
Please go away unless you have more substantive things to do than shrink on your fainting couch and declare “I never!!”.
Rhino:
December 20th, 2012 at 5:52 pm
In a perfect world this incident would have cemented his tenure, IMHO.
Anyone care to reflect on reality?
Linnaeus:
December 20th, 2012 at 6:08 pm
Probably just like this guy.
olexicon:
December 20th, 2012 at 6:16 pm
Ironic for your pseudonym if I may say
olexicon:
December 20th, 2012 at 6:19 pm
Damn You Anne Althouse for earworming me with Der Kommisar
FlipYrWhig:
December 20th, 2012 at 6:20 pm
You Ladyes all of Merry England
Who have been to kisse the Dutchesse’s hand,
Pray did you lately observe in the Show
A Noble Italian call’d Signior Dildo?
The Signior was one of her Highness’s Train [5]
And helpt to Conduct her over the Main,
But now she Crys out to the Duke I will go,
I have no more need for Seignior Dildo.
[etc.]
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/dildo.html
SEK:
December 20th, 2012 at 6:20 pm
Rich! I think we all take your point, but I’m not sure this is the time and place.
(And for the record, Rich is no troll. He’s my oldest commenter, and a pain in the ass, but he’s not arguing disingenuously.)
olexicon:
December 20th, 2012 at 6:21 pm
Sounds like our troll named after a dildo went and cried to mommy that his fee fees git hurt because he’s a dumbass obsessed with dildos and anal sex with coal miners or something
olexicon:
December 20th, 2012 at 6:24 pm
And by the way both Eddie Murphy and Jerry Lewis would like a word with you
FlipYrWhig:
December 20th, 2012 at 6:25 pm
And there was just a movie about it. Hysteria, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal.
sibusisodan:
December 20th, 2012 at 6:30 pm
Chapeau! Although I think there’s a delegation of telephone sanitisers headed your way to complain about having to associate with them…
Darkrose:
December 20th, 2012 at 6:43 pm
I’m going to be disappointed if there’s not lots of buttsex. Just saying.
Darkrose:
December 20th, 2012 at 6:46 pm
Hey! Dildos can be festive! Especially if you put little bows on the tips.
Darkrose:
December 20th, 2012 at 6:47 pm
*clicks “Tell this publisher I want to read this on Kindle” about 20 times*
DrDick:
December 20th, 2012 at 6:53 pm
Dick is my first name.
Warren Terra:
December 20th, 2012 at 6:59 pm
All of them, regardless. He also authorized Star Trek V: Shatner Versus God
Warren Terra:
December 20th, 2012 at 7:03 pm
In words written and performed by the creators of the Original Transvestite Lumberjacks: go away or we shall mock you a second time
(I’m afraid you’ll have to imagine an outrageous French accent; italics was the best I could do)
Pierre Corneille:
December 20th, 2012 at 7:09 pm
Doesn’t “concern trolling” imply that the troll doesn’t care about the object he/she is expressing concern for? If so, I’ll suggest that you don’t know me well enough to make that accusation.
And no, I can’t name one policy that can’t be abused. I don’t think that’s a reason not to worry about abuses that may be attendant to a policy.
As for what happened to your friend, I am very sorry it happened. Maybe a more robust system of background checks would have helped prevent that. Even if it wouldn’t have, I still support them, in conjunction with additional regulations.
Pierre Corneille:
December 20th, 2012 at 7:11 pm
You’re right on both counts, which is why I acknowledged the biases of my sources. (Which, I’ll admit, doesn’t free me from the claim that I ought to take them into account.)
My jibe, when I talked about “pro-gun person,” was about hisapparent willingness to support to civil commitments, not about the support for civil commitment offered by those offered among those who support gun control.
DrDick:
December 20th, 2012 at 7:45 pm
Concern trolling means expressing greater concern about the style of the debate than the substance, which is exactly what you are doing here. We should not use harsh or forceful language because it might offend somebody’s delicate sensibilities. Sorry, but if somebody is more upset about the fact that, in a fit of moral outrage, Erik called for LaPierre’s head on a pike than the fact that the organization he leads makes sure we cannot pass laws to prevent slaughters of innocent children, they can simply fuck off and die.
SebastianDangerfield:
December 20th, 2012 at 8:00 pm
He turned me into a newt.
(I got better.)
melior:
December 20th, 2012 at 8:01 pm
So anyway then… we can haz more This Day in Labor History now?
Djur:
December 20th, 2012 at 8:02 pm
So what I’m getting from this is that Republicans think that dildos are unpleasant, unspeakable things.
Man, now I know why Malkin and Bachmann and Coulter are so damn angry all the time.
They certainly don’t seem to have any idea how much they cost, if they’re talking about mailing them to Erik en masse. Get enough wingers in on that and Erik might have to declare it on his taxes.
Djur:
December 20th, 2012 at 8:05 pm
I definitely can find myself feeling a bit “twitchy” after a long dry spell. Should we get a fundraiser together to donate Hitachis to needy wingnuts?
Djur:
December 20th, 2012 at 8:06 pm
To reduce chafing.
DocAmazing:
December 20th, 2012 at 8:06 pm
Don’t try to dissuade them. My stock in North American Dildonics just went up twelve points.
Uncle Ebeneezer:
December 20th, 2012 at 8:16 pm
If that’s still the case in four hours, contact a physician.
Uncle Ebeneezer:
December 20th, 2012 at 8:24 pm
It’s funny how the right-wingers who are always whining about how PC culture has ruined America because they can’t say the N-word or call people fags and they are such champions of free speech etc., are always the people leading the charge of these witch-hunts.
Sherm:
December 20th, 2012 at 9:18 pm
Thanks for the link. Gonna have to check that out some time.
max:
December 20th, 2012 at 9:47 pm
320 comments… ah. There is trolling and gay-baiting.
I still don’t see what I said as offensive,
It wasn’t illegal, improper or wrong. It was probably offensive for the sort of people who make it their pro-am job to be offended by that sort of thing. Luckily, we have a first amendment, and what you said was just fine under that. Calling in the cops and then going with the death threats was not only wrong and improper (and likely illegal depending on the threat) but also was chickenshit and lame beyond belief. Whether or not our little friends there are gay or not, they are certainly flaming drama queens.
and certainly not as offensive as supporting policies that allow crazy people to have access to high-powered weapons.
De gustibus, dude. You were fully entitled to say what you said, and they can say whatever they want to say (excluding death threats, mind), and leave it at that.
Hang in there, and don’t forget to say again some other time, after you have tenure.
max
['Fuck 'em.']
Grant:
December 20th, 2012 at 9:55 pm
Loomis is a pussy.
MAJeff:
December 20th, 2012 at 9:57 pm
Begone, fuckwit.
Eli Rabett:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:11 pm
We know damn well from experience that easier civil commitment will be abused. It sure as hell was.
We also know damn well from experience that opening the gates of the asylums leads to crazy people walking the street and screwing their lives and the lives of others up.
It ain’t pretty.
Eli Rabett:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:23 pm
It is interesting that Joe Biden who broke the logjam on gay marriage is going to run the jam the gun nuts committee. He is going to make them very sad
Eli Rabett:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:25 pm
When can we buy tickets to the musical?
Eli Rabett:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:31 pm
RIGHT NOW HE IS RUNNING IT OR HAVE YOU NOT NOTICED?
Eli Rabett:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:40 pm
Truly frightening
Tybalt:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:41 pm
Remember Shirley Sherrod.
Indeed, that is one we all should not soon forget.
Much as I viscerally dislike Erik’s penchant for hair-trigger intemperance, he can’t be angry at himself for this. Erik, you can’t. This wasn’t even a molehill. It was a mountain made our of a pebble. A mountain made out of a melody. They will always invent excuses to try to destroy someone who hits the target.
Eli Rabett:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:44 pm
Whatever Rich is, he is not a tone troller.
Erik Loomis:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:54 pm
That series is going nowhere. I have 2 posts scheduled for January.
Tybalt:
December 20th, 2012 at 10:57 pm
“It is, actually, offensive to write that lobbyists should be jailed, if you actually believe what people on the left claim to believe in.”
No it isn’t, because Wayne LaPierre is engaged in a conspiracy to put guns in the hands of murderers and frequently commits fraud to that end. But that’s a disagreement we can have rationally, as you point out, and perhaps another time.
Tybalt:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:02 pm
I would happily let this post use a dildo on me, but only if it was on the left.
Tybalt:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:04 pm
Chris Patten’s come a long way if he no longer thinks you must necessarily address problems by putting heads on spikes…
MAJeff:
December 20th, 2012 at 11:04 pm
As Charlotte Allen would have it, guns don’t kill people, HPV vaccines turn them into dildo-using sluts, which kills the baby jesus.
Bijan Parsia:
December 21st, 2012 at 12:33 am
Do we?
It’s clear that the tweets were intemperate.
It’s also clear that they were ill-advised (subsequent shitstorm foreseen).
I find it terribly annoying to have to explain them, whether I’m explaining why idioms with violent imagery do not entail that the rhetoric is eliminativist (while explaining why the category is useful) or explaining why expressing one’s anger and grief in a nominally illiberal way isn’t a big deal (intrinsically). (See below.)
I feel pretty confident that many similar expressions against guns or the NRA or gun culture or pro-gun control would meet with similar offendedness by people who claimed that Erik was calling for assassinations or jailings.
Rich wrote:
But it seems rather clear that Erik does believe in freedom of speech, in spite of the tweets intemperate. Part of the evidence from that is the rest of his life. Do we find Erik advocating for government surpression of certain lobbying groups?
Erik wrote:
Rich might disagree that equating advocacy for policies which (most of us here believe) result in terrible outcomes with criminal culpability for those terrible outcomes is inoffensive, but I’d guess he’d agree that it’s relatively inoffensive?
And Rich originally wrote:
And I’m back to “eh”. A lot of people were upset in a lot of different ways. When people are upset they say thing and express themselves strongly. We tend to be and should be more tolerant in those cases.
Which is compatible with those things being offensive. People venting tend not to offend me. YMMV.
But I do find Rich’s pushback wrongheaded. I would oppose an attempt to jail someone for (legal) lobbying (e.g., no corruption). But I’m not going to be bothered by someone wishing e.g., that LePierre was jailed. Wishes are free. Enjoy them, even if they’re mean.
Or to put it another way: I think that a robust commitment to freedom of speech recognises that people have expressive needs and to embrace letting them meet those needs. We should separate venting from speech that proposes or defends offensive sentiments.
I don’t find Rich’s comments offensive, though, merely wrong headed.
Bijan Parsia:
December 21st, 2012 at 12:36 am
And, obviously, as I like Erik, I’m at risk for motivated reasoning. I don’t think I’m special pleading too much. I’m not convinced I would spend a lot of time making arguments in support of someone I loathed, but I believe I’d endorse their application to people I loath.
I think venting tends to work better and be less risky when done more privately, but I’m also willing to avert my eyes.
Fen:
December 21st, 2012 at 1:28 am
Libtard: “I still don’t see what I said as offensive”
You called for the death of those who don’t share your political values. Spin and whitewash it all you want, we know what you are.
Thanks for displaying your true colors, and also for outing those associated with you.
IM:
December 21st, 2012 at 4:05 am
the more surprising that hes is suddenly tone trolling here.
MAJeff:
December 21st, 2012 at 6:23 am
Stop lying.
Byond Politics:
December 21st, 2012 at 6:40 am
dude. We finished that one a while back. Maybe you ought to join us.
Gus:
December 21st, 2012 at 8:09 am
Well, duh. You don’t think any of the wing nuts who expressed such outrage over your intemperate language really believed what they were saying, do you?
bradP:
December 21st, 2012 at 8:14 am
This is a problem of perspective. I would like for you to recommend a conservative blog with similar traffic to this one that I’ll regularly visit so you can get a frame for reference. Is there any you would nominate?
Gus:
December 21st, 2012 at 8:16 am
Okay, maybe some of the really stupid ones. Like Fen above.
olexicon:
December 21st, 2012 at 9:25 am
“You called for the death of those who don’t share your political values.”
Like Bill O’ReillY and George Tiller?
olexicon:
December 21st, 2012 at 9:30 am
I stand corrected and humbly apologize
atheist:
December 21st, 2012 at 9:44 am
But that one was the best one!
Malaclypse:
December 21st, 2012 at 9:45 am
Well fuck me like a walrus…
Fen:
December 21st, 2012 at 10:29 am
Olex reaches for the tu quo. Because if he can pretend that some blowhard on FOX did the same thing, then it makes what Loomis did okay in his world. What an intellectual coward.
Fen:
December 21st, 2012 at 10:31 am
Sure thing Gus. Because when I say I’m going to put Loomis down, it *really* means I’m going to tuck him into bed. Idiot.
Malaclypse:
December 21st, 2012 at 10:37 am
Lying, or stupid? We report, you decide.
Malaclypse:
December 21st, 2012 at 10:38 am
No, it means you are an Internet Tough Guy with delusions of relevance.
Carry on.
Fen:
December 21st, 2012 at 10:43 am
So who else do you guys want killed? Don’t be shy, you’re already all in. Show us your little list of people you want “beaten to death” because they disagree with you.
Fen:
December 21st, 2012 at 10:44 am
And you’re projecting. Again.
Malaclypse:
December 21st, 2012 at 10:50 am
You’re cute when you are ineffectually angry.
Fen:
December 21st, 2012 at 10:50 am
Come on Loomis. I’m sure there will be more dead children for you to abuse as a prop for your gun control rants, but why wait? Tell us who else you want dead.
Linnaeus:
December 21st, 2012 at 11:11 am
I mentioned this very thing in another thread. We’ve had “political correctness” of the right-wing variety in this country for a very long time. It was just never called that.
Hogan:
December 21st, 2012 at 11:22 am
J. Otto: When I signed on to the statement, I mentioned your support as well. We’ll see what happens.
mds:
December 21st, 2012 at 11:35 am
Yeah, and thanks so much for doing your part to ensure it. Why wait? Tell us how many more children you want dead.
olexicon:
December 21st, 2012 at 12:07 pm
Okay I can’t deal with people who don;t get causality
Jamie Mayerfeld:
December 25th, 2012 at 8:28 pm
Erik Loomis, I’m a huge fan of your blogposts. Thanks for your knowledge and insight. I think you’re great.
Erik Loomis and Free Speech | s-usih.org:
January 13th, 2013 at 9:11 pm
[...] was in no way an incitement to violence, I’m not a great fan of violent rhetoric like this. Loomis himself has expressed regret about employing it, if only because it (pretty predictably) became a distraction from the real issues raised by the [...]