Even though the feeling clearly isn't mutual:
(I mean, my heavens! It seems that I have "the reading comprehension of a six year old," I'm "moronic," I'm acting "out of bad will"...)
(Oh, and [unkindest cut of all] I'm "passive aggressive," too!)
Eh ;^)
Luckily, I have a deeply, almost criminally, insensitive nature - not to mention extensive experience dealing with the only guy on the internet who might just possibly have an even thinner skin combined with even more creative exegetical skills than Lawrence Auster's.
Anyway, be all that as it may, most of the stuff that Auster posts on his website every day is more worth a read than most of the stuff that you'll find on the average "conservative" website. And he can't stop me checking in, or linking.
So there!
Comments (6)
Larry is a force of nature.
Don Rickles on Dean Martin Roasts : Bob Hope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH23UjMG5wQ&feature=related
This is the way to take Larry.
Posted by Old Atlantic | June 19, 2009 4:48 PM
I read that latest Auster missive. In the Blogospheric anti-jihad movement, there should be one rule of thumb of comportment:
When a person disagrees with you and offers up criticisms, respond to the substance of the criticism itself. Abstain from two defects: 1) ad hominems and, in terms of the debate in question, 2) enabling the parallel pursuit of attack-counter-attack between personalities & motives.
(The "you" here is general, of course, not personal.)
If then your interlocutor happens to indulge in these two defects, you can continue to engage the debate on any substance that might be present in your interlocutor's responses, but you still must abstain from those aforementioned two defects. If your interlocutor's indulgence in those defects escalates such that substance in his responses begins to dwindle down to near zero, it is best to just stop engaging in debate with him. But even in this latter circumstance, you should never portentously ostracize that interlocutor or indulge in condemnations of his character. Perhaps one choicely delivered phrase would be acceptable, before you withdraw from the debate (as when I recently deemed Auster to "have a screw loose"). But to go on and on with recriminations, paranoid apprehensions of "attack", and articulating a Nixonian-with-a-haunted-five-oclock-shadow List of Enemies, as Auster tends to do, is simply outrageously inappropriate and sophomoric.
Lest someone counter my presentation here as self-contradictory if not hypocritical, in terms of my terms for Auster here ("screw loose", "outrageously inappropriate and sophomoric"), I would counter-argue that what I am presenting here is not part of a response to a debate within the anti-jihad movement about the anti-jihad movement and/or its methodology, but precisely a diagnosis of proper comportment vs. improper comportment: my presentation pertains to procedural matters, not substance matters. As such, my terms of Auster are descriptive of his behavior, behavior sufficiently egregious that a description devoid of the salt and pepper of his counter-productive eccentricities would be a deficient description.
At any rate, what is called for is more mature, dispassionate exchanges within the anti-jihad movement -- not avoiding humor and fun, of course, but in the interest of avoiding rancor, cliquish compartmentalization, and distracting sub-threads of personality conflicts. And Auster too often tends to indulge behaviors that betray this principle.
Note to Steve Burton: By the way, your internal link with "the only guy on the internet" doesn't seem to work.
Posted by Hesperado | June 19, 2009 4:50 PM
You're such a Bad Boy!
Posted by Ilíon | June 20, 2009 1:50 PM
Steve Burton:
Your link in the phrase "extensive experience dealing with the only guy on the internet who might just possibly have an even thinner skin" takes the clicker to this:
Page not found - /2009/06/leiterreports.typepad.com/%20%3Cbr%20/%3E
Posted by Hesperado | June 20, 2009 7:16 PM
While it is true that Steyn, being basically an entertainer, has few advantage over Auster - one of them is that his books can easily be read while one is tending one's garden - Auster is certainly more worth reading and definitely more than his patrons.
I think the worth of the two can be assessed if one tries to imagine how the Europeans will remember them after Eurabia replaces the Western Europe, or after Europe, once again, resists stops and repels the Islamic invasion.
Although the war has not been won or lost yet, being an average European concerned with the fate of our continent I think I express the common sentiments of other Europeans who read “America Alone” when I say that Mark Steyn when he, with perceptible giggle, tells us that we have already lost and it is unrealistic for us to hope to reverse our bleak future is definitely not a friend of ours. We, just like everyone who is facing catastrophe, don’t care for people who have already buried us.
Lawrence Auster does not deny our situation is very difficult, but he clearly says that it is up to us to win that war and he backs it up with concrete ideas how to go about it. He is not the only one who does it, but he has been one of the first who formulated them in a coherent manner. Admittedly, one needs to stop tending his garden in order to acquaint oneself with L. Auster’s ideas, and sentiments, but that is always when a serious man talks intelligently about serious matters. He is our friend.
Lawrence Auster has no patience with Steyn the clown. Neither do I and quite a few other Europeans. Perhaps from the other side of the Atlantic it looks different.
Posted by T. Hanski | June 22, 2009 1:31 PM
The first sentence in my last comment should read:
"While it is true that Steyn, being basically an entertainer, has a few advantages over Auster (f. ex. his books can easily be read while one is tending one's garden) Auster is certainly more worth reading and definitely more than Steyn's patrons."
I apologize for the mess.
Posted by T. Hanski | June 22, 2009 6:40 PM