WWWW attack continues
Gintas writes:
Evening update: Hesperado, Ilion, and Burton are comforting each other with tales of AusterWoe.
LA replies:
I still haven’t read it. For the moment, I’m still doing the modified limited non-violent resistance hangout.
June 16, 10 a.m.
LA writes:
A reader says I need to read the whole WWWW thread to see the things I must reply to. I have a strong disinclination to doing that. I can’t believe that I have to spend my time on something like this, immersing myself in this muck. A supposedly fellow traditional conservative website initiates an attack on me (namely Steve Burton’s smear concerning my critical articles on Mark Steyn, Peter Hitchens, and Melanie Phillips), I replied to it and exposed Burton’s smear for what it was; and in petty revenge, Burton opens a new entry devoted solely to attacking me and inviting every anti-Auster malcontent in the blogosphere to sound off.
Kidist Paulos Asrat writes:
No, I think you don’t need to read it. Steve Burton basically threw a bomb and ran off for a day or two, returning with no concrete answers.
I posted saying as much, and asking Burton to provide specific information about what he thought we should know that he found wrong or critical in your assessments after he “skimmed” through your site.
He never replied. It was, I think a smear tactic, as you have written.
Gintas and others have provided the important points worth reading and commenting on.
I wouldn’t go there (or do so when it all winds down, if you are curious). But, it is actually depressing to read what could be normal, articulate, “conservatives” writing and behaving like this.
Awake, Roach and others are all there. I was waiting for Conservative Swede, but I think he’s happily watching in the side lines.
LA replies:
Thank you. I like your diagnosis and advice.
But how about that—Awake (a.k.a. Mike Slumber) and Christopher Roach, the dyed-in-the-wool anti-Auster crazies. (See some of Roach’s comments about me.) Just as, in whatever city the G-8 meeting takes place each year, the “anti-globalism” protesters automatically show up, in the same way, whenever there’s a website attacking me, the anti-Auster crazies automatically show up.
Kidist writes:
Here is what I commented.It is the second comment in the 71-comment long thread. Burton returned and posted at around the 65th comment, with nothing to say on this, or any other reasonable arguments made by some sane commenters.
——
With all due respect to Steve Burton, but rather than write a whole post basically repeating what you said in the comments section of the previous post, what did you find (or not find) in Lawrence Auster’s writings that still leaves you simply not understanding? A few specific points of contention from the new information that you “skimmed” would have clarified your frustration, and maybe allowed other readers to help you “understand.”
On another point, I am sorry to say that your method is one of the sophisticated, slightly passive aggressive, style of bloggers and commentators, who throw a mild “bomb” so to speak, and say they don’t understand the reaction that ensues.
You actually wrote:
“But it seems that the closer people get to your own position, the more furiously you denounce them for whatever disagreements still remain—as witness your ceaseless jeremiads against Mark Steyn & Melanie Phillips.”
There are strong words here—“your ceaseless jeremiads against…”, “the more furiously you denounce them”—all suggesting an incoherent attack at these writers without principle or thought.
“I simply don’t understand” was the least of it.
You are making an unfair argument. And not only that, I would wager a dishonest one too.
[end of Kidist’s comment at WWWW.]
LA replies:
That’s really something, that Burton opened a new thread devoted solely to attacking me, then immediately went away and posted no more comments himself for a couple of days, leaving everything to run riot. So it was basically an anti-Auster open thread.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 16, 2009 12:33 AM | Send