bad behavior

Twitter tells me that Jeb Lund, General Gandhi, and Mark Brendle are in trouble, because they wrote this (wonderful and necessary) response to Matt Yglesias's justification of the conditions that killed hundreds of people through explicit reference to their national difference. They are charged with being mean and trafficking in "ad hominem," which is a term that means "when someone accurately criticizes someone else in a way that others would prefer to not have to offer a defense against." Well, as far as the charges against them go, I suppose they're guilty. They did say mean things about Matt Yglesias, which I'm sure hurt his feelings as he paced the halls of his million dollar mansion. In contrast, Matt Yglesias justified the conditions that killed hundreds of people through explicit reference to their national difference.

Now, I've been blogging for half a decade, and I've interacted with a lot of people online, and had many perfectly lovely conversations with some of them. Yet I maintain a profound lack of understanding and an inability to predict how people will react. Try as I might, I can't comprehend the human mind that says, "you know, Matt Yglesias justified the conditions that killed hundreds of people through explicit reference to their national difference. But the guys at Mr. Destructo were mean to an affluent, connected guy who lives a life of ease in the halls of power in Washington DC. That's the real crime."

To me, what Yglesias said constitutes no-bullshit sociopathy, and in fact racist sociopathy, as "Different Places Have Different Safety Rules and That's Okay" is the way that decent, Harvard-educated types say that some human lives are worth less than other human lives, based on their race and country of origin. To me, it's clear that if that was published on National Review's The Corner, there would be dozens of anguished blog posts and essays calling them out, Chris Hayes would lead with it on his show, The Atlantic would publish a piece asking if Republicans are beyond saving, etc. The fact that, instead, so many are defending him suggests that there literally is no line whatsoever once you're in, that Yglesias could dig up and re-murder Medgar Evers and if Jacob Bacharach criticized him, the Tweeters would complain about it being ad hominem. But, then, you've heard that argument from me before, and those self-same people make fun of me about it, and so I guess I'm a little silly. I write silly things, sometimes. Meanwhile, Matt Yglesias sometimes writes pieces where he justifies the conditions that kill hundreds of people through explicit reference to their national difference.

Now some have clucked their tongues about the Mr. Destructo piece and said, hey, that's beyond the pale, making fun of Yglesias's looks! And indeed. Those guys made fun of Matt Yglesias's looks. Matt Yglesias, in contrast, justified the conditions that killed hundreds of people through explicit reference to their national difference. Some people have claimed that there's no content there, that it's all just insults. I would argue that in fact it's a profoundly effective rhetorical analysis, one that lays Yglesias's assumptions bare, demonstrates why they are both wrong and morally indefensible, and shows how this kind of being wrong serves establishment power. I would argue that Mark Brendle's section, in particular, is a direct and fair response to the actual content of Yglesias's post, one proffered by someone who is interested in actually responding to it, rather than to some nebulous conception of "Matt Yglesias is a good guy." But hey, you could argue that they didn't do a good enough analysis, that they got it wrong. If so, that was a failing. In contrast, Matt Yglesias justified the conditions that killed hundreds of people through explicit reference to their national difference.

Of course, to the degree that a post like this gets any traction, it's likely to be "there Freddie goes again, grinding his ax!" And, indeed, I suppose I am. Nolo contendere. I am grinding an ax. Matt Yglesias, in contrast, justified the conditions that killed hundreds of people through explicit reference to their ethnic and national difference.

You'll have to forgive me. Sometimes I say the wrong things.