Intellectual cowardice

There’s a lot of idiotic blogs out there. Hell, I’ve written my fair share of idiotic crap. But I think what separates us from other shitty blogs is that at the least we aren’t intellectual cowards. If there is a thing I loathe it is when you comment on someone’s blog (when they are talking specifically about us) and they cowardly delete the comments when you have them by the short and curlies. So, today I would like to award the “Intellectual Coward of the Day Award” to this positively absurd post by Michael Cummings.

I never heard of this guy before, never read his blog, and really couldn’t give a Senegali diarrhitic turd what he thinks about us, but you’d think that a guy with a CIB would have the courage of his convictions to actually address a comment without just deleting it, especially since I didn’t use any profanity. Alas no. So, since discourse at his shop isn’t working, I’ll just address it here.

Obviously with a title like “Our Politically Correct Communist Milblogs” the author was just trolling for us to link to him. It’s a great tactic, since apparently no one reads the thing anyway, and he’s achieved his goal. Bravo!

Without rehashing his entire argument, he says that Milblogs are hypocritical for bemoaning political correctness in the military, and then attacking Chris Hayes from The Nation for saying that he was uncomfortable with calling our brothers and sisters killed in combat “heroes.” If you don’t get the argument, you aren’t alone.

Here’s the crux of his argument:

In the same way that small-government libertarians drill a Nimitz-class carrier sized-hole through their own ideology to protect defense spending, conservatives critical of “liberal political correctness” completely extend “military political correctness” protection to the military and its service-members. Conservative milblogs and pundits silence any and all criticism of the military, labeling transgressors traitors or worse. Apparently, America’s toughest warriors are the most easily offended group on the planet.

[BTW, notice that we are the easily offended ones, and yet he’s the one deleting comments. Project much Sir?]

What makes this argument so idiotic is that he links to five separate blog postings, which he purports are from “conservative milblogs” that specifically address government political correctness, like this posting from TAH that talks about a gay pride event at the Pentagon. Jonn rightly pointed out that one of the key arguments about repealing DADT would be that they serve anyway, and this would allow them to just quietly go about their service without fear of being tossed. If that is the goal, quiet service, then why hold a big event? Hey, I’m a lover of the gheys as much as the straits, I really don’t care who anyone sleeps with, but as Jonn noted,

How about recognizing the service of male service members who perform cunnilingus? Don’t they deserve recognition for their service? Or female service members who perform fellatio?

Now bear in mind that I even signed a letter at one point from the same milbloggers that this jackass slimes (including Jimbo as well who he specifically calls out) saying that DADT should go the way of the DoDo. But, let’s not let facts get in the way of a good narrative.

Now, he deleted my first comment, which I am constructing here from memory.

This is the stupidest post I’ve read today, and I’ve read a lot of idiotic posts. If you can’t figure out the difference between government speech and political correctness, and engaging Chris Hayes in the marketplace of ideas for stupid statements, you guys need help.*

[* You should also note that Chris Hayes himself apologized for his comments after the fact, an uncomfortable detail that Cummings addresses in the most economical manner; he simply ignores it.]

Anyway, I know exactly what Cummings’ response was, because the comment was emailed to me.

@ TSO – Coming on our blog to call our post “stupid” doesn’t further the discourse, it lowers it. People all over America complain that politics are dirty and the two sides can’t get along. Insults like the above only make the situation worse.

[NOTE: The remainder of his comment remains, he only deleted my comments, and his response to me.]

I like how he takes the high ground here, and clarifies how his goal was to “further the discourse” and to avoid “insults” that “make the situation worse.” I hope he will excuse me from not realizing that was his goal, as my response to that point made clear.

My bad, I missed the nuance of you trying to further the public discourse when I made it all the way to your first sentence wherein you state that conservatives “hate single mothers.”

See, now I get what he was doing there. He was insulting conservative milbloggers in order to reach a deeper truth. I should have realized that my saying that his post was “stupid” was a crime of the highest order, whereas his assertion about hating single moms exposes the truth. Clearly I failed to realize that Cummings is a modern day equivalent of Joseph Conrad, teaching us that

the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine.

So, sure, he appears to be maligning people, and then excoriating me for doing the same, but that’s only because you aren’t concentrating on the larger truth, that conservative milbloggers suck. Oh, and we’re communists.

Much the same as I read Veterans Today every day for the humor, I’ll be sure to start reading this numbnuts as well. Maybe someday I can find the deeper truth like he is unerringly able to do. Probably not though, since I am encumbered by logic and integrity, unlike someone who finds themselves in an indefensible argument and simply resorts to deleting the comments that got them there.