Dispatches from the Culture Wars

If you wish to join them on that list, act like them. Otherwise, follow the rules and be civil. And by all means don't take my references of Moonbat, moron, imbecile, idiot, or stupid personally. I call all lefties that, and taking offense at such low level name calling, which I think is accurately descriptive of those who suffer from the mental disease of liberalism, is petty.

Wow. If you insult him, you're showing your immaturity; but if he insults you and you object to that, you're showing your pettiness. And it gets even better - if you insult him, he'll be happy to threaten violence:

However, should you want to settle this face to face, I'm game. Register for Blogging Man 2007, I'll be there. We can take a walk out into the desert and have it out. And Corporal Irrational, you can have your broken jaw if you like. But I assume no responsibility for your injuries. I don't fear you. I choose not to lower myself to your moronic level.

At this point, one would have to wonder how on earth this cretin actually thinks he could lower himself; he's pretty much hit the bottom level one can hit. This pseudo-macho behavior would be laughable if engaged in by a 14 year old on a playground. That it is engaged in by an adult with the chutzpah to call other people immature - well that's just about as ridiculous as one can get.

Anyway, since he specifically told me, "Ed, you are welcome to comment here any time you wish", I left a comment. That comment made 3 points:

A. I'm not a "lefty". I'm a libertarian, which means that conservatives think I'm a liberal and liberals think I'm a conservative, primarily because neither side can conceive of having a perspective outside of that simple little dichotomy.

B. I specifically said that I don't think you lied in your post. But the fact of the matter remains that much of the information even in your clarification post was false, yet it remains there without being corrected and without any indication that the information was false. That would at least suggest to a reasonable observer that, while you may not have lied, you don't place much of a priority on stating the facts accurately.

C. There is nothing in this discussion that could be "resolved face to face". Factual disputes are not settled with violence. Even if you broke someone's jaw, it wouldn't make the claims in your post any less false.

And he replied, continuing to insist that he was not wrong - but making no attempt at all to justify that conclusion:

And as for your insistence that my information is inaccurate, the way I read my sources, it isn't. So I am refusing to alter or change anything that I've written.

The way you read your sources? It's trivially easy to find out whether the Good News Club case involved the Equal Access Act; all you have to do is read the ruling. Here, I'll give you a link to it again. In fact, all you have to do is read the summary of facts about the case and compare them to the text of the Equal Access Act (I'll even link to that text to make it easy for you). The Equal Access Act could not have applied in Good News Club because that act only applies to secondary schools and to student organizations. Good News Club dealt with an elementary school and an outside organization using school facilities. This is really, really simple, Gribbit - you were wrong. It doesn't matter how you "read your sources", you were wrong. Anyone with a shred of intellectual honesty would admit that and stop making that claim. The fact that you refuse to do so speaks volumes.

Finally, he says:

Next, please, please, PLEASE. Don't hand me a load of crap that you aren't a lefty. You are. Face it you are. Anyone who embraces the ACLU in the manner which you have chosen is a Communist Dupe. Do don't try to deny it.

Now that's just funny. Me, a communist dupe? Not only am I not a communist, I'm a libertarian - that's pretty much as far from a communist as one can get. You just cannot help but laugh at such simplemindedness. Because Gribbit divides the entire world up into two groups - good, god-fearing conservatives and godless, immoral, communist liberals - and has only one criteria for distinguishing them (whether they accept all of his claims about the ACLU, even the false ones), I must be a communist. But that, of course, is ridiculous.

It's wrong even on its most basic premise - just because I point out that something you falsely attribute to the ACLU is wrong does not mean I "embrace" the ACLU. I applaud them when they do the right thing and I criticize them when they don't. I've been strongly critical of their proposed policy to prohibit their board members from expressing their disagreement publicly. When their Florida chapter put someone on their board who supports anti-blasphemy laws, I blasted them for it. But what you claimed about them was wrong and I proved it to be wrong. Does one have to accept any false claim as true as long as it makes the ACLU look bad in order to avoid being a "communist dupe"?

All of this proves several things beyond a shadow of a doubt. Gribbit clearly doesn't give a damn about the truth; as long as it aids his agenda, a falsehood is just as good as the truth. He also clearly doesn't care about consistency or coherency - he'll blast you for doing what he proudly engages in himself. In other words, he's pretty much your standard, bottom-dwelling, AOL chatroom right winger - too ignorant, deluded and glazed over with fanaticism to even recognize how ridiculous he is.