Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Troll-Swatting

Stacy McCain is, unfortunately, faced with what I hope is a temporary troll infestation. Unfortunate for him as it is, I am enjoying reading his responses.

Stacy and Rush Limbaugh are, I believe, important test cases in the ongoing initiative by leftwing blogs (and, in Rush’s case at least, the dinosaur media) to isolate conservatives by trying to tag them with the racism label. The combination of fake quotes, vague, allusive references, and blatant falsehoods represents a smoke-bomb tossed into the dextrosphere in order to create confusion and distrust. It is a standard Alinsky tactic, and we will probably be seeing far more of it as the struggle between radicals and mainstream America heads toward a series of critical showdowns – on health care, Afghanistan, and cap-and-trade, among many other issues.

I have never met Rush Limbaugh, but I am in full agreement with his general observations on the dangers of leftism, and on the potentially disastrous consequences of Obama’s election (for the U.S. and the world). I do not have much opportunity to listen to his radio program these days, but I used to listen to it pretty regularly, and I never missed his TV show. I have no recollection of ever having heard him utter a racially-offensive remark.

I have long read Stacy McCain with great pleasure. I have had the honor of meeting with him in a social setting on two occasions and have found him to be kind, considerate, intelligent, humane, fair-minded, witty and as complete a gentleman as you might ever hope to encounter.

If Rush Limbaugh and Stacy McCain are racists, then you might as well mark me down as one, too.

32 comments:

kc said...

Ditto.

Well said, Paco. The Left claims MLK as their own (or do they, still?) but it's those of us closer to center and center-right who LIVE the words he spoke so long ago. Content of character doesn't seem to hold much water in Socialist Circles. I don't claim to be a Conservative, as I'm not near as far right as many I know, but I AM a Constitutionalist, if there is such a word.

You may mark me as racist also, if I am in company with The Other McCain, Rush, and yourself.

Rusty said...

Paco,

I used to listen to Limbaugh in the car, back when I had a job that involved a lot of driving. One racial comment he made stuck in my mind: When the rap group Sir Mix-a-lot released a crude song about women with big buttocks, Rush said it represented the pinnacle of black culture. It was a blatant insult to the entire race.

I've read a lot of Stacy's stuff recently, and he says he's not racist and that white supremacists are evil. But there are things he's written that are hard to interpret as anything other than racist.

When American Renaissance magazine ran a piece touting the white-supremacist strain of Christianity (including praising Christians who supported slavery, segregation, and apartheid), Stacy sent a signed letter to the editor thanking the author for his "vigorous defense of Christian faith." That just blows my mind.

Dennis Wheeler (who is openly racist) published emails Stacy wrote during a listserve debate over whether blacks should have full rights in the breakaway "nation" that members of the League of the South wanted to establish. Stacy argued for equal rights for blacks and called the Christian Identity and Aryan Nations movements "odious and hateful." But he also expressed his distaste for interracial relationships at considerable length. He insisted that it's not racist to oppose race-mixing, and he made it absolutely clear that he's against it. Here's one of his quotes from that debate:

"Beyond the objections of parents and of rejected suitors within their own race, the interracial couple then faces the question: With which race will their children be identified? Although children typically identify with their maternal culture (the children of any interfaith marriage are fairly certain of attending their mother's church), the fact that the white woman in an interracial relationship faces a social stigma tends to compel her toward an affiliation with 'black' culture. This is a result which (if you think through it carefully) any sensible Southerner would NOT desire. In discussing all this during the Jared Taylor debate and thinking it through since, it is apparent to me that the person who wishes to discourage interracial relationships or more grandly to 'preserve the white race' can take measures to do so that are entirely private."

If you can explain how that's not racist, I'd be interested to see your argument.

In defense of Stacy, he's squarely in favor of equal treatment under the law for everyone. But he's also made it clear that there's a limit to his tolerance for non-whites in his private life.

JeffS said...

Rusty, would you have any links to these accusations of yours?

Thanks!

Rusty said...

JeffS,

Sure. Here are the links.

The American Renaissance article McCain liked. "A Defense of the Faith," by Victor Craig (a pseudonym):
http://www.amren.com/ar/1997/09/

McCain's letter to the editor in a subsequent edition (scroll to almost the bottom of the page):
http://www.amren.com/ar/1997/11/

The race debate among members of the Southern League listserve:
http://spiritwaterblood.com/docs/greatsouthernleagueracedebate.html

The Rush Limbaugh thing I heard live. I have no link for it.

Rusty said...

It looks like one of my links got cut off:

http://spiritwaterblood.com/docs/greatsouthernleagueracedebate.html

It this still doesn't upload correctly, you can just google something from the quote I provided.

Rusty said...

Simply too long for this commenting software. Here's a snipped URL for the "Great Southern League Race Debate":

http://tinyurl.com/race-debate

richard mcenroe said...

Didn't you write something somewhere sometime about a person of color?

RAAAAACIST!

richard mcenroe said...

"In defense of Stacy, he's squarely in favor of equal treatment under the law for everyone. But he's also made it clear that there's a limit to his tolerance for non-whites in his private life."

And your point is? He's not even allowed to think thoughts you disapprove of?

You haven't seen racism until you've stood in a doorway on Benedict Canyon listening to a red faced white man in a tuxedo complete with Rainbow Coalition ribbon on the lapel, pointing at a black transient and screaming "Get that nigger off my street!"

Paco said...

Rusty:

I'm at work now, and can't do anything but let you know that I will respond this evening.

Yojimbo said...

I don't have time to really respond to this stuff right now but I think some people out there have been deepshaft mining without their helmetlights on. Rush wouldn't think this represented the pinnacle of black culture. Rush has long highlighted this type of garbage in the context of the black culture being highjacked by this type of music and its disastrous effects on young blacks. This was a common theme on his program when this stuff was at its zentih. Some people need to develop some type of nuance. Remember that Charlton Heston fought against this music by going into a shareholders meeting and acutally reading the lyrics to one of these songs to show what this company was doing to young people.

So this is actually the reverse of racism. They would be racist if they thought this was the best that black culture could do and laughed at it. They rail against it because they think it's so harmful. The White Ayrian Nation would not be taking the same tack.

This is the best I can do in a minute or two because I am very busy, perhaps tonight. As a longtime listener to Rush your portrayal is 180 degrees off the mark.

Anonymous said...

kc, being a Constitutionalist makes you a Conservative.

Rusty, you have obviously not developed a sense for Rush's style. It took me a bit to get it too. He is far from racist. I'm not too familiar with Stacy, but from what you've posted I don't see racism either. It seems that he is discussing a situation. It is guaranteed that if one goes around looking for racism, that they will find it, whether it is valid or not.

Deborah Leigh

Paco said...

Rusty:

[I typed most of this up during my lunch break and emailed it to my personal address, so there may be some overlap with other comments, particularly Yojimbo’s]

I doubt, seriously, that Rush Limbaugh literally meant that the rap song in question represented the “pinnacle of black culture.” Context is important. I recall that, years ago, rap music had become such an open celebration of violence and misogyny that Charlton Heston stood up at a stockholders’ meeting of some big media and entertainment company (I don’t recall which one), and asked how it could justify publishing such immoral swill. He even began reading out loud some of the lyrics (which were so foul they couldn’t be described in news accounts). There were, at the time, several high-placed academic types who attempted to justify this kind of music. My point being that rap represented such a pathological, but highly popular, development within black culture, that it roused the concern of many people, including people in the black community. Rush may well have simply been trying to highlight the pernicious impact of this music at a particular point in time. Weigh that one statement against his employment practices, and his obvious respect for people such as Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell, and the charge of racism becomes absurd (although I can see how the comment could be taken as racially offensive seen in total isolation).

As to what I presume is an allegation on your part that McCain simply doesn’t like the company of black people (unfortunately, I am having trouble accessing your links), (a) I don’t know that this is true, and (b) even if it were, that is not prima facie evidence of racism. There is, about most people, a desire to associate with like-minded folks with whom one is culturally (or religiously or politically) in sync; to a great extent, this is just part of the human condition. Almost all racial or ethnic communities exhibit a certain clannishness; however, this is not at all the same thing as racism, which, as an “ism”, necessarily posits the superiority of one group over another and seeks to devise laws that codify this presumed superiority. And by your own admission, you believe that McCain supports equality before the law. To me, that is the supreme test.

In my own family, one side clearly demonstrated through their words (though not through their actions) the attitudes typically associated with whites in the rural south. The other side demonstrated no racial prejudice at all. Yet it was the former that produced a Pulitzer-Prize-winning newsman who led the fight against the KKK in his newspapers. Human nature is a very mixed bag, and if, at the end of the day, we can say, on balance, that we tried to do good, and that we refrained from doing harm, then that is as much as can be expected from anybody below the rank of saint.


Here’s an exit question. Who is the real racist? The liberal who numbers among his close friends a gaggle of black activists who are working in league with him to permanently ghettoize African-Americans and to perpetuate their dependence on the state? Or the conservative who may have few if any black friends – for whatever reason - but works to create a society that reduces the intrusive power of the state and that supports the rights and independence of all individuals, thereby making possible the self-actualization of all citizens, regardless of race?

JP said...

"I have had the honor of meeting with him"

You left out one things Senor Paco.

Stacy McCain has had the pleasure of meeting you, as well.

Rusty, do you by any chance comment at LGF?

tradva:

A misspelled Russian News Agency

RebeccaH said...

I've never listened to Rush Limbaugh, or any talk radio, so I can't speak authoritatively to any racism that might or might not be exhibited there. Frankly, in this day and age, I find it hard to believe that anyone could get away with rank racism on the public airwaves. America just isn't bent that way anymore.

But I do remember real racism. I remember department stores with "white" and "colored" toilets and drinking fountains (when I was about four or five years old I begged my mother to let me go into the colored restroom because I needed to pee so bad, and she wouldn't let me). I remember drive-in hamburger joints with waitresses who would bring your meal tray to your car (unless you were black, and then you had to walk up to the order window, because you could get served but you couldn't go in, and you couldn't have it brought to your car). I remember when I was a freshman in high school, and the black kids in town had to be bussed seventy-five miles to a "colored" boarding school because they weren't allowed to go to school in our town.

You want to talk about racism? Let's talk about the real thing, and not that faux garbage where somebody said something that somebody else decides is hurtful, or some people have private thoughts about keeping within their own group (which, by the way, only seems to be wrong in the public mind when it's whites who do it, not blacks or Asians or Hispanics).

Institutional racism in America is dead. We have laws in place that forbid it, and our larger society increasingly finds it unpalatable. These mealy-mouthed attempts to find "racism" where it doesn't exist are destructive at worst, and pathetic at best.

Paco said...

JP: Very kind of you, sir.

Rebecca: Shoot, I wish you had posted that earlier; would have saved me the trouble of commenting altogether.

JeffS said...

Hmmmmmmm.

Rusty, as others have noted, your links are inconclusive, or require context.

Too much of what is deemed "racism" these days generally comes down to specific points, as opposed to a pattern of behavior.

In other words, "racism" is a way of life. You have to live it. I've dealt with racism, on several levels, throughout my life. In the military, in school, other places. Racism controls the behavior of the racist, such as Richard McEnroe notes.

I don't listen to Rush, either, but I know many people who do. They are who good people would not tolerate a bigot freely. I'll trust their judgement. I do not believe that he is a racist.

Robert Stacey McCain is similar, but not identical. I have read his work, and I don't see a racist there.

What you offer is not "proof of racism" on the part of both Rush and Stacy, but simply data points that may or may not prove your assertions. Cherry picking of data, though. Not a pattern of behavior, but individual events, some with very limited to no context.

I've seen this many times before. A person is accused of being a racist (or an idiot, or whatever). To prove this point, specific items are brought up, which may or may not be true. If true, context is deliberately vague. These are strung together to form a picture of the person that is not true.

Addressing the points does no good, as the the arguments are ignored, twisted, or the goal posts are moved. The accused explains himself, and never gets a break. They are presumed guilty, not innocent, and are guilty until they plead guilty. They are smeared for life. And it's represensible. Especially since you are doing it here and now.

Just so you know, this is the "Ransom Note Method", an explanation that I had been searching for, having seen this technique in action way too many times.

An explanation provided by.....Robert Stacey McCain.

JeffS said...

Rats! The URL was dorked up. Try here.

Rusty said...

It's been interesting to see the response to the two pieces of Stacy's writing that I posted. The thing that strikes me most is that everybody pretty much avoided discussing what Stacy actually wrote, preferring instead to say things like, "liberals are the real racists," or, "you're acting on orders from Charlie Johnson."

The latter is particularly amusing. I read LGF for the first time recently when I saw Stacy talking about the beef between him and Charles. I actually haven't read anything on LGF except the posts about Stacy, and those only because Stacy mentioned them. In following the online debates over Stacy's writings on race, however, I have repeatedly seen people attribute just about any kind of disagreement with their thinking to a conspiracy theory that Johnson controls the blogosphere thru his legions of robotic supporters. For someone like myself, who has no interest in that particular blog, it really seems bizarre.

I pointed to two things Stacy wrote: an enthusiastic endorsement of a piece of explicitly white-supremacist propaganda; and a statement that "sensible" Southerners don't want white women marrying black men.

Anybody have any thoughts about what Stacy wrote?

Anonymous said...

"you're acting on orders from Charlie Johnson."

I must admit, I've quickly perused this post and its comment content, so I may have missed the above quoted, Rusty.

Other then yours...can you point that out?

Did that spring from guilty conscience syndrome?

"Anybody have any thoughts about what Stacy wrote?"

Yes. What "Stacy wrote" are his own words, they are his opinion. You seem to be a TAD on the Left side in mind, word and deed.

You may read into what Robert Stacy McCain stated, verbally or in his writings, whatever you choose, just as others on the Left have and still do, with any that do not think as they do.

No one here has to defend McCain, he is quite able to do that himself. I'd suggest you pose and post your readings, questions, thoughts and innuendo...

Here: http://rsmccain.blogspot.com/

Because Gosh all mighty, I don't see a direct link to in this series of links.

84 RULES
A1A SOUTH
ANDREA HARRIS
ARTS & AMMO
BABALU
BLUEGRASS PUNDIT
BOY ON A BIKE
CAMP OF THE SAINTS
CLEVER S. LOGAN
COALITION OF THE SWILLING
CURRENCY LAD
CYNTHIA YOCKEY
DAN COLLINS
DOG FIGHT AT BANKSTOWN
EL CAMPEADOR
GATEWAY PUNDIT
HOTMES (MONIQUE STUART)
JULES CRITTENDEN
KAE'S BLOODNUT BLOG
MYTHUSMAGE
PIXIE PLACE
POLITICAL CASTAWAY
POLITICAL CASTAWAY
RIC'S RULEZ
RIGHTYBLOGS
SHADOWLANDS
THREE BEERS LATER
TIM BLAIR
TIZONA
WILL TYPE FOR FOOD

Or is this another "you're acting on orders from Charlie Johnson."

If you think that's "amusing", this should have you guffawing all over the place.

So do ask Stacy McCain in his public forum. You say you have "I've read a lot of Stacy's stuff"...Well Rusty, time to man up and ASK, not just READ.

OH...Anytime you feel like it...Do click this link:

http://elcampeador.com/

You will be typing to me.

poutann:

Indian Tribe, Virginia I believe..

Anonymous said...

OH Rusty....Two things.

One.

JP said...
"I have had the honor of meeting with him"

You left out one things Senor Paco.

Stacy McCain has had the pleasure of meeting you, as well.

Rusty, do you by any chance comment at LGF?

tradva:

A misspelled Russian News Agency

Lest I see typed...'well JP I wasn't typing to YOU". Ummm that JP is ME...here:

http://elcampeador.com/

Two.

If I've mistaken your gender and Rusty is female (heaven forbid, I be accused OR have someting read into "man up", as in 'gender hatred'...Then, Woman Up.

Anonymous said...

"someting"

Just in case, Rusty...

I missed my H

Had to type this, as I feel you have a propensity for majoring in minors.

Paco said...

Rusty: I'll boil it down for you. No, I don't think Limbaugh is racist, and if that's what you're implying by your quote that provides no context, then I think you're wrong.

With respect to Stacy, I don't see anything explicitly racist in what you've quoted (i.e., absolutely nothing that suggests an aversion to mere skin color), and there is much to suggest that he endorses equal rights under the law. Again, it is really only this last point that matters.

And what I find interesting is that you would rather fish for opinions here as to what stacy "means" instead of asking the man yourself.

Paco said...

No, actually, I misstate what you're doing. You're not asking what Stacy means, you're asking for my opinion on what he wrote, which I have given.

richard mcenroe said...

RebeccaH -- You Are Not Allowed to Remember Those Things.

Let me tell you how this works: The small press I work for published an updated edition of a well-known educator in children's theatre's work on the history of children's theatre. She had been updating on a decade by decade basis.

This meant that the book was, aside from its subject matter, a fascinating look into acceptable social mores and expressions of the period, especially in race relations.

Now this was a good, decent, and compassionate woman. The words "nigger" or even "nigra" would never have crossed her lips or her pen (certainly not with the frequency "nigger" escaped into the works of a Nobel-Prize winning "artist" like Eugene O'Neill). But she did say "colored." She did say "black." She did say "Negro."

But in the latest edition of this work, bowing to academic peer pressure, she rewrote every passage in the book dealing with minority theatre. Not only that, she italicized, every changed passage so the language police (see Diane Ravitch's excellent book) could see she'd done it.

As a result, you are asked to believe that everyone used the phrase "African-American" in the 1930's, 1940's, 1950's, etc. when no one did. You are not allowed to watch the changes that took place in American race relations, embedded in the very language itself, as they take place.

You are not allowed to recognize that there has been any progress.

I begin to think the African-American community in this country is being turned into our own domesic Palestinians by the Democratic Party and the progressive movement generally... an undereducated perpetual oppressed class economically and philosophically incapable of self-betterment, with an ineradicable sense of grievance against a manufactured enemy, being used for the advantage of the actual group keeping them down.

Yojimbo said...

Richard perfectly articulates ( no surprise there) what Rush and conservatives have been fighting against-that silent killer of reduced expectations and the enablers that make it happen. The quest for power that is inherent in the modern welfare state is destroying lives. The KKK types couldn't do a better job of this if they tried.

Some people only hear what they want to hear while others are interested in hearing what is acutally being articulated.

Seminar poster.

Rusty said...

Paoo,

I agree with you that Stacy's respect for equal rights is what matters most. Disagree, though, with your view that there isn't "anything explicitly racist" in congratulating an author for writing something explicitly racist, nor in saying that good whites don't let friends marry black.

As for asking Stacy about it, anyone who's been reading his blog lately knows that he has said explicitly and repeatedly that he won't address his past comments on racial issues unless he's paid to do so; and that he has stated outright that he does not allow commenters to criticize him. I know from first-hand experience that he does not allow comments on this topic.

But hats-off to you for being willing to discuss it.

Rusty said...

John,

You said: "Because Gosh all mighty, I don't see a direct link to in this series of links."

Not sure what the above was supposed to mean or what the significance was of your list of links, but I'll address your other points.

Regarding bringing this up with Stacy: been there, tried that. He doesn't allow comments on this topic, and has said straight out that he won't address himself.

Whether I'm "left": judging from the frequency with which you use the terms on your website, I'm sure you would call me a Marxist and/or a Maoist. Personally, I think the mindset that sees everything as a power struggle between Republicans and Democrats is one of the biggest problems afflicting our society. In my book, the RNC and the DNC are the two most dangerous special-interest groups there are.

Regarding your typo: couldn't care less. Not a flamer, and even if I were, the fact is that spelling flames are weak.

Paco said...

Rusty: The comments section at PE is practically Liberty Hall (except for those who would wantonly mock my beloved Detroit Tigers - and no, thanks, I don't want to discuss their loss to the Twins).

Anonymous said...

Rusty, Stacy didn't put a moratorium on comments. He stated clearly, to everyone except you apparently, his position on this subject. That you choose not to accept and respect it demonstrates a clear dedication to your agenda, rather than the truth. But hey, if you don't respect the truth, then how can you respect yourself.

I think Paco and everyone here has given you far more time than you might deserve. But then civil, truthful discussions are the mark of Conservatives.

Deborah Leigh

Rusty said...

Deborah: Good thing for me Paco sets the free-speech policy here instead of you.

I'm afraid you're simply wrong when you contradict me on how Stacy handles critical comments and questions about what he's written on race.

Here's Stacy's policy about deleting criticism: http://rsmccain.blogspot.com/2009/08/libertarian-skinny-dipping-in-daytona.html

And here's Stacy refusing, when somebody asked him, to address the issues we're talking about here:
http://rsmccain.blogspot.com/2009/10/reply-to-barrett-brown.html

These are not one-off examples, either, he's made these kinds of statements several times in the last two months about not allowing anyone to criticize him on his blog and not addressing the charge that's he's racist unless someone pays him to write about it. You've invoked "truth" three times above. If you really want it, the truth about these two issues is all there on Stacy's blog.

Given that Stacy's main response to Johnson was to criticize Johnson for being thin-skinned and banning dissent, I think it's pretty funny that Stacy was openly doing the same thing.

JeffS said...

"These are not one-off examples, either, he's made these kinds of statements several times in the last two months about not allowing anyone to criticize him on his blog and not addressing the charge that's he's racist unless someone pays him to write about it. You've invoked "truth" three times above. If you really want it, the truth about these two issues is all there on Stacy's blog."

I understand you. I believe that other folks here understand you. We just don't agree.

You provide flimsy evidence and opinions, subject to context and subjective (i.e., biased) analysis. It's not compelling evidence. We don't accept it.

IOW, we're going to have to agree to disagree, Rusty.

A couple other points:

(1) It's McCain's blog, and thus his rules (just like Paco is king here). If RSM doesn't care to discuss this matter, that's his privilege. Indeed, it's his right. If you disagree, that's your privilege. Indeed, it's your right. But it's his blog, and I choose to respect that. If you choose otherwise, start your own blog.

(2) RSM has explained why he won't address the racism charges. Clearly. You don't accept that explanation. Fine, that's your privilege. Indeed, it's your right. I do accept that explanation, as do others here. That's our right as well. You can either agree to disagree, or continue to hammer your point home. If you continue, I suggest starting your own blog.

Rusty said...

JeffS:

Since you accuse me of being stubbornly repetitive, let me recap the arc of this discussion:
1) Paco said there's nothing racist about Stacy;
2) I quoted some things Stacy said that are racist at face value;
3) John and Deborah said I should talk about this on Stacy's blog instead of here;
4) I pointed out that Stacy doesn't allow commenters to talk about this;
5) You accused me of disrespecting Stacy's ban on criticism (I merely cited the fact of the ban but didn't offer an opinion on it), and of not accepting Stacy's refusal to address this issues (again, I cited the fact of his refusal without offering an opinion on it).

Jeff, you were the one who asked me for the links to what Stacy wrote. Then you had nothing to say about the racial content of those writings. Why is that?

I get it that nobody here wants to discuss any specifics about the issue Paco raised, so I won't annoy his readers any further unless somebody expresses some interest. Just can't let it go without pointing out that every time I cited a fact, somebody tried to move the goal posts.