Spencer again

I’m told that Robert Spencer has re-opened his attack on me at his site, despite the long and grueling exchange between us over the weekend which had come to a close on Sunday. I’m not going to look at it, as I’ll just get sucked into it. By the way, see the previous blog entry posted late last night, where I objectively and approvingly described an article of Spencer’s, posted a criticism of it by a reader, but held off agreeing with the criticism myself. As I have said, despite Spencer’s way of responding to intellectual criticism with insulting and demeaning personal attacks (which he absurdly says are not as offensive as my supposed “smear” of describing him as a neoconservative), and his attempts to read me out of bounds altogether by means of the “racism” charge (which he employed in a manner that proved he’s the liberal he denies he is, and then he denied having employed it at all), I will continue to mention and discuss noteworthy articles of his, as I would any other writer’s. In other words, Spencer as a person behaves in a way that is stunningly immature and obnoxious, but as a writer on Islam he says worthwhile things and I treat him respectfully as such. I ask people to remember all this when they hear Spencer and his chorus of readers say that by daring to criticize him I am “dividing” the anti-jihadist side.

The denunciation of opinions because they “divide” us, as well as the attempt to marginalize people because they’re “angry,” is a classically liberal (or rather classically modern liberal) tactic, used every day of the week in the mainstream liberal media to invalidate and suppress conservatives. That Spencer and his readers repeatedly use the same technique against me proves my point about their essential liberalism.

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James H. writes:

Personally, I think that you handled the quarrel with Robert Spencer very well. Not only that, but your replies, in my opinion, sounded very professional, articulate and accurate.

It seems like Robert has absorbed himself so much in the Jihadist issue that he’s willing to accomplish his goal through any means necessary—even through recklessly arbitrary means, such as allying himself with dangerous secularists, or any other group that’s hostile to our beliefs.

Here’s analogy that’s similar to Robert and his alliance with secularists: The Allies teaming up with the Communists, who were dangerously hostile to Democracy, to fight Hitler.

LA replies:

But wasn’t it necessary (horrible but necessary) to ally with the USSR against Hitler? The mistake, in my view, is not that the U.S. allied with the USSR, but that in the process it lost all critical awareness of what the USSR was.

Ben writes:

As a regular reader of Jihad watch, I am extremely disappointed in Spencer and his inability to have a rational discussion about the future of Western civilization, his right liberalism, and the best ways to truly defeat Islamic progression.

It seems he wishes to takes sides with the likes of Hirsi Ali rather then the “right wing.” I guess he finds her a more useful ally because she’s not “extreme” and “racist.” That’s if you think wanting to destroy Christian thought isn’t extreme.

It seems you are right. His use of the term racism has really brought forth everything you have been saying about him.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 30, 2006 08:11 AM | Send