My personal experience with people who deeply believe that racism is wrong is that their beliefs proceed, like mine do, from deep subjectivity. Theirs belief may be supportable, but they are not really arguable.

I also sense that they want us to be non-racist. They probably can't help wanting us to be non-racists. But precisely how they manage their own desire to change us is what makes them either brilliant, amusing and loyal friends or people you want to run from.

I'm definitely going to use this insight the next time my friend starts hassling me about my racial slurs. It will also be useful in dealing with my anti-murder friend and my anti-rape friend - those two are a real drag. I'll just confront them and say "Hey, if we're going to continue being friends, we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this whole racism/murder/rape business. You have your subjective experience and I have mine."

Oh wait, no. That's horrifically bad advice if you take yourself to be talking about a genuine moral matter. And yet the letter writer's friend thinks this is a genuine moral matter. Even the letter writer seems committed to thinking he/she is in a position equivalent to some kind of racist/nationalist/tribalist who fails to recognize the status of some outgroup that will ultimately be recognized to be owed moral concern.

I don't think meat eating is anywhere on the same moral plane as racism, murder, or rape, and it's true that some vegans (like some religious people, some liberals, some conservatives, some meat eaters, etc, etc) can be both hypocritical and needlessly self-righteous.

But the overall general message seems to be - get over your friends' moral failings - nobody every convinces anyone of anything anyway, so either end the friendship or just go along to get along. That sort of approach shows neither the proper concern for morality nor the proper concern for one's friends.

The columnist is right about this point, though - no one's knowledge is infallible, so when you find yourself in disagreement with a friend (or, most often, even a stranger) the appropriate response is not to preach to your friend or demand a justification without being similarly prepared to give one.

Why are Slate and Salon wasting our time with this non-story? Who cares?

The author writes:

Thus if you record a Republican primary debate broadcast on Fox and edit it down to show what you believe to be the wisdom of Ron Paul, and then if you distribute your creation over YouTube, the network would likely face an uphill battle shutting you down.

We've seen time and again that it's easy to shut down even clear 'fair use' clips on sites like YouTube. All it takes is a cease and desist letter. Even when presented in bad faith, these letters can be successful at getting content removed without the need for actual litigation.

Glenn,

The first point you make in the post is that the successful conviction of Padilla shows that the criminal courts are adequate to dealing with terrorist suspects. But this is undermined by the things you say at the end: a) the trial wasn't really fair, chiefly because of the psychological after effects of his military detention, and b) he was never tried for the original charges he was held under.

But if a) and b) are true, then for all we know Padilla's case was only 'successful' because it was combined with the power of arbitrary detention at the hands of the executive.

For the record, I agree that we should be using the same system of justice for terrorists as we do for other murderers and conspirators. But the very same circumstances that make the Padilla case so shameful prevent it from serving as evidence for the effectiveness of such a policy.

While you're right about the other limitations, it is possible to watch those movies on your TV if your video card has a video out (every video card I saw at Best Buy came with one).

This is a silly and petty point to make. There are any number of differences between the Craig and Libby cases, not least of which are that only one involves a guilty plea, and only one involves members of the Bush Administration.

Now I completely agree with you on the underlying point - the Administration's refusal to discuss the Libby case is based entirely on political concerns, and that the legal standards invoked are merely convenient excuses that are disposed of when they are not convenient.

But this supposed 'inconsistency,' is no evidence for that underlying claim, precisely because there are relevant differences between the cases.

Posts like this and the 'Revisionist History' post from last week http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/08/24/surge/index.html

only serve to support the right wing claim that liberals are just looking for reasons to hate Bush.

By all means, please continue pointing out inconsistencies from the White House, Congress, talk radio, etc. But don't be so eager to find them that you bring in cases that are, at best, pedantic hairsplitting. Just wait; they'll make another substantive, clear contradiction before you know it.

Glen, I usually appreciate your column, and I appreciated the earlier point about the double standard applied to black and white evangelicals in the political arena. But Donohue is not a figure to be taken seriously - he sees offense to Catholics in everything, so the fact that he sees Hagee (and by association McCain) as anti-Catholic is not itself reliable information.

It would be like doing an interview with Rush Limbaugh to provide evidence that some Democratic politician hates America and wants the terrorists to win. Donahue sees anti-Catholic bigotry everywhere.