Said people are not writing for the NYT, where Weiss has used her platform to punch in one and only one direction when it comes to civility complaints.

Jesus Christ, really?


"OMG this piece about leftists acting like fascists is total bullshit" in the same breath as "stop writing about this topic". Not really helping your argument, here.

JLN playbook:

1. Read article/thread/argument.
2. Identify 1 statement out of MANY
3. Hammer statement for 6 pages.
4. Ignore other statements or overall argument
4. Declare victory

Uh what? Criticism that what a person is writing about in in clearly bad faith and maybe also not the most relevant therefore is evidence that leftists are actually acting like fascists?

When Certain People tell the media (or a member of the media) what to cover, it is fascistic. Curiously, such an action isn't fascistic when Other People do it. Interesting.

Other People do what?

Just wondering, how often have you made this point about for instance the Gawker thread? I simply must have missed all those times you totally defended outrage cycles on the left and the priorities of SJW writers, as any criticizing of their chosen topics would no doubt likewise qualify as fascistic I'm sure. Keep in mind that Weiss is an op-ed writer, not a reporter.

I'm not familiar with that Twitter account, but I don't think it matters. It's probably not a good idea to be using quotes from Twitter at all to make a point in the way she was attempting. Twitter really is the graffiti of the Internet.

But if we are going to have a standard that allows quotes from Twitter, I don't believe it matters if it was an actual Antifa account. Someone had the idea to post the words, didn't they?

Which gets us back to what seems to be the actual complaint, that the party being quoted was anonymous. If we're not granting any weight to anonymous Internet accounts and may not cite them, everything you're contributing to this discussion is necessarily null and void, isn't it?

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

Who are the speakers spouting the modern progressive talking points that are being shouted down on campuses?

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

I don't recall stating that a topic shouldn't be written about, if that's what you're asking. I've critiqued the entertainment value of national NBA talk on Bernstein & Goff and pretty sure I've stated it shouldn't be on the radio in Chicago, and if you want to paint that as hypocritical, have at it, but keep in mind that I've never denied that such critiques may be of a fascistic bent.

Your boy on twitter called the premise (leftists are fascistic) stupid and false, and then heavily implied that this particular member of the media shouldn't be writing about the topic.

Null and void for what purposes? Are the standards for being quoted in a major media column the equivalent of the standards of having any kind of discussion on the internet or anywhere else at all? I tend to think they should be a bit higher for running any kind of major media reporting, but perhaps you think otherwise. I also think downplaying whether or not it matters if the words were from someone actually with Antifa or the groups Weiss is attacking does in fact actually appear to contradict what Weiss and the Times believe given their correction.

Why does the domain only have to be campuses? I would say Weiss and her allies attempting to get people denied tenure for their beliefs about Israel would be one such example. Maybe it's the case though that you think Sommers getting shouted at is a far worse fate than having your employment threatened?

Like I said, I don't think they should be grabbing quotes from Twitter at all.

But you seem to know who runs that Twitter account. Who is it?

Finally, you seem focused on this particular case. I'm looking at it in a much broader sense. You've used the word "trolling" a few times in this discussion. Can you define that word? Does it mean throwing something out there that one does not really believe in order to incite reaction? That's probably how I would define "trolling". But I've seen people use it to describe any content that they don't like.

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

You seem like you may be on the verge of denying the Holocaust.

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I think the idea of characterizing any kind of media criticism as fascistic or having fascistic tendencies to be so absurd that it's hard to even respond to seriously, especially when it comes to the domain of editorial writing rather than actual reporting.

And I think questioning the prioritization of certain kinds of op-ed writing on top of the blatant inaccuracies and bad faith Weiss displayed especially doesn't qualify as that. Bennet has repeatedly talked a big game about increasing the intellectual diversity of the Times op-ed page but both Weiss and Stephens are continuously churning out grist for the good ol' conservative outrage cycles. Pointing that out does not entail anything close to the demand of a state takeover of the Times op-ed page or a literal thought policing, just like criticizing Gawker and co for many of their attacks on regular people who happened to Tweet something dumb never has either.

Before you respond to this, I want to apologize. That wasn't fair. I just find it maddening that in a world where people melt down and call it violence if someone wears the "wrong" Halloween costume, we're going to defend people that promote anti-Semitic propaganda under the guise of "scholarship".

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

Bret Stevens has a Pulitzer Prize for god's sake.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Why is that? Did the professors who Weiss, the principled champion of free speech on campus and attacker of witch hunts, attacked as racist and attempted to get turned down for tenure actually deny the Holocaust?

I think you're still taking it a bit far. There is a big difference between actual antisemitism and believing that the nation of Israel and BiBi need a good smack across the snout.

I don't think one needs to know who specifically is behind a Twitter account to characterize it as fake, a troll, or parody account. Yet again, Weiss and the Times specifically used the word fake as well when printing their correction. They didn't appeal to some general principle that they shouldn't have been quoting from Twitter all along.


I think it can encompass saying things you blatantly don't believe to exaggerating things you actually do believe to incite a reaction. I'm not really interested in having to hammer out a precise definition at all for this purposes of this thread however as I find it almost completely tangential and not particularly helpful.

Your assigning of infallibility upon the State of Israel is inherently dangerous.

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If that's true (and I'll take your word on it), that's not helping.

I've never done any such thing. But you failure to recognize that the Holocaust, Israel, and the Jewish people cannot be separated, though many try mightily to do so.

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I agree, because, as I'm certain you know, we could comb through Twitter and find many "genuine" accounts doing exactly what the "fake" one Weiss cited in the original article was doing.

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

But she didn't because of some combination of laziness, incompetence, and gullibility. She saw the "Officialantifa" and just went for it. Much like your earlier claim that overuse of the term fascism is truly a huge issue anyway regardless of Weiss' lack of citations, this doesn't do a thing to vindicate what she actually wrote.

They are separate. It would be just as dangerous if it were a black person attempting to conflate every criticism of African Americans with slavery.

No one is infallible. It is intellectually lazy and patently dishonest to accuse people with legitimate criticisms of being Anti Semitic. You are in essence saying that Israel should never be criticized. First of all Israel is a state actor. As such it is open for criticism just as any other state actor is open for criticism.

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You can't separate those things either. Don't you take issue with someone who points out how many more violent crimes are committed by blacks as if there is no background or any circumstances that might be responsible?

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No I don't. I have never believed that modern black crime is attributable to slavery. There are some things that I equate to slavery but usually they are tangible and specific. Historic racism is something you can attach at times but it is dangerous and dishonest to attach everything to it. When a black guy does a stickup on 47th and Cottage Grove I don't think that the residual effects f slavery are what is going through his mind.

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