Dear Kevin

by tristero

Dear Kevin,

You are making the exact same mistake you made in 2002/2003. I would have thought that by now you knew better than to engage seriously the “ideas” of fascist thugs. I guess not.

You are treating the lunatic Glenn Reynolds and his cheap-tv-series-style fantasies to murder Iranian civilians as if he is important and as if they are a serious proposal that needs to be parsed and understood rather than deplored, utterly condemned, and mocked. No matter how inadvertent your actions and well-intentioned you may be, you are providing him – and worse, his sick, insane, idiotic proposals – with crediblity. And believe me, Reynolds knows it.

Back in 2002/03, this is precisely how Bush et al built up support for the utterly ridiculous idea of invading Iraq without reason. Incredibly, people who should have known better felt, well yes, it’s a “breathtaking” idea, even an “audacious” one, but let’s look at it and not, you know, just reject it out of hand. Riiiight. We all know how that’s turning out, and it’s going to get a lot worse.

But there you were, in the runup to Bush/Iraq, when it was patently obvious that it was to be the worst foreign policy decision in US history, still opining that if Bush could get it right – hah! – then maybe it’s worth the risk. It wasn’t. It was a crazy idea and no one as intelligent and savvy as you should ever have been bamboozled.

And here you go again, reasonably entertaining notions that are sheer madness. You write there there is some kind of heavy-duty ethical conundrum at stake. There isn’t, not to Reynolds and his ilk. You talk about “moral knots” and definitions of terrorism. But Kevin, don’t you see, these terms have no meaning outside of the social philosophy of liberalism, which Reynolds and his fellow brown-shirts emphatically reject.

Talking about implied moral knots in Reynolds’ ideas is not sober commentary on your part, even if it sounds like it. Given what you are trying to take seriously – running the world, the real world, as if it were a 1 dimensional cable-tv thriller – you are talking sheer nonsense. There is a failure on your part to recognize what is really going on. Reynolds gleefully interprets your willingness to take him seriously and talk about moral dilemmas as a victory. And he is right. It is his victory.

Sure, sure, sure, I know you’re appalled at what Reynolds said. I know you don’t agree with any of it. But that’s not the point. You think there’s a moral knot where there is nothing but Reynolds’ stupid, ignorant, and utterly naive totalitarianism. Remember, Kevin, you are not dealing with liberals. You are dealing with people who do not accept the proposition that if they do the same thing al Qaeda does, it is terrorism by definition. You are dealing with people who do not believe in concepts like equal justice, liberty, or fair debate.

Please Kevin, for heaven’s sake, think before you discuss the utterly deranged ideas of people like Reynolds in a sober fashion. The only thing to take seriously about Reynolds and the rest of Bushism is their will to power and you have failed once again to recognize one important way they do it. They fool people like you into permitting them a place at the table.

love,

tristero