Linecrossers
2006-12-28
Posted by: badanov
From the conservative political blog Red State comes an acknowledgement of a fight which has been going on for about two weeks concerning some remarks on a blog written by Wisconsin law professor Ann Althouse.
It is suprising to us we haven't seen more of this since the brutal 2004 elections and we suspect we will see much more of this after Jan 4th, when the left begins it domestic offensive against American national security.
We refer to the implosion of Dennis the Peasant, six months after he rose to some prominence after the bloggers Charles Johnson and Roger Simon welched on a deal involving the Internet advertising startup, Pajamas Media.
And a fine reference it is. Dennis decided after a few months of being in the spotlight he was so properly conservative it was incumbent on him to demonstrate how hollow and vacuous conservatives are and how he is much closer to a conservative than anyone, especially those Pajamas Medias folks.
But what tore it for me, wasn't the unprovoked attacks on conservatives, but when he began in conjuction with those attacks started showing some elements of the Somali-Islamist community as his personal allies.
At the time our conclusion was Dennis suffered from a malady known as target discrimination failure.
Target discrimination is an important element in personal security. If you are in a social situation where you prefer association with an untrusted element you endanger others around you. You become incapable of distinguishing friend from foe or you at least wish to blur the distinction.
Such a distinction may have the perverse effect of making you feel superior ( a very socialist affectation, by the way )for your bravery and generousity of spirit, but it also has the effect of making you unreliable as an ally, since you obviouisly can't tell friend from foe.
Now, Prof. Althouse has succumbed to the temptation of projecting her sueprior views on others by trying to convince that every person, namely conservatives, cannot be distinguished from Islamists, because both have strong beliefs.
The author of the linked article said that not only has Althouse refused to retract her remarks, a large number of presumed allies, even those from National Review, have simply made excuses and have tried to interpret what Alhouse really meant.
Frankly, we don't know which is worse: a linecrosser or a presumed ally trying to sell a bill of goods that Althouse really didn't mean what she wrote.
We read what she wrote. It is clear she is not only going to cross the line, she is quite willing to let her former allies make excuses for her awfulk remarks, and whatever happens in the first three months on Congress, Althouse will be on the left, denouncing her former friends for the strength of their convictions.
Target discrimination failure is a real malady, and potentially a dangerous one.
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