Letters to the Editor

• Sounds simplistic, but I do think that

  [Read the article: Charles Krauthammer takes rank hypocrisy to new lows]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  He thinks he is just making some important points that need to be said about the tragedy. It's not hypocrisy in his mind because he isn't "exploiting" it for personal aims, just as you aren't exploiting it just to hammer Charles Krauthammer once again. In fact, nobody believes they are exploiting the tragedy, and I see their point when it comes to pro/con gun control: after all, if they aren't allowed to talk about guns and gun violence in the aftermath of a shooting, that's kind of an unfair penalty on the important issue, like banning talk about Iraq's violence while the war is going on ("don't "exploit" the suffering of the troops for you own personal political purposes while they're still in danger").

  The point is, unless CK realizes how specious his connection of the shooting is to "islamic terrorists," he won't see how linking the two is exploitation, and therefore won't see himself as being hypocritical. Of course, believing everyone you disagree with acts out of some strange knee-jerk personal politics while only you act of out pure principle is pretty stupid -- but it's a stupidity many of us often fall into.

  Permalink Friday, April 20, 2007 06:23 AM

• Re: Glenn Greewald re: usmlrf

  [Read the article: Charles Krauthammer takes rank hypocrisy to new lows]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  Of course he thinks his points are important, otherwise he wouldn't make them. But the whole point of his column today (did you read it?) is that nobody should try to make points -- important or not, valid or not -- out of the VT shootings. And he says that's especially true for those who don't wait a decent interval between the shootings and the point-making.

  He isn't arguing against the drawing of invalid political conclusions from the shootings. He's arguing against the drawing of political conclusions of any kind, valid or otherwise.

  I hadn't read it, assuming that the relevant points were contained in your quotations. Having read it, I feel that it only bolsters my point. That is, I think he believes that some talk about the shootings is acceptable and some isn't -- "even less" should be said, but that's not nothing.

  That may sound like quibbling, but unless you posit brain damage, he clearly knows that he spends paragraphs 3-6 of his column discussing gun control and pschiatric policy. His main objection, on the other hand, is directed towards presidential candidates (and other such figures) using the shootings to make points on unrelated topics.

  There are a variety of views behind this, I think: that it's worse if it's tangetially related (Darfur) rather than directly related (psychiatry), and it's worse if the person making the point is a national figure (Obama) rather than some guy (which, for the present purposes, he considers himself [yes, erroneously, I know]). Thus speculations by a minor figure about the psychology of the killer don't count as the sort of thing he is most inveighing against.

  Meta: I find myself in a very odd position, defending this creep. But my point is not to justify his position (his arguments are clearly junk), but to try to better understand how the hell these people think. Obviously he himself was earlier trying to get "ideological mileage" out of the tragedy to support his own deranged views about "islamic terrorists", but it's important, I think, to understand better how he (and people in similar positions) could fail to perceive such rank hypocrisy. The point isn't to learn to sypathize, though, but to understand the enemy, particular if your enemy is deranged. The blog here tends to focus on arguing with the nutjobs, but I think it is equally important to understand how these people justify their nuttinesses to themselves.

  Permalink Friday, April 20, 2007 09:29 AM