What say we get our enemies straight before we go ascribing their plans for our flag or currency?

This is the verbal equivalent of Dick Cheney shootin’ that old guy in the face.

Virgil Goode comes off here sounding like an hysterical bedwetter, and y’all want to argue that Al-Queda’s got a majoirty in Congress.

Who’s more weak and pitiful, the crybaby who thinks the Islamofascists control congress, or anonymous commenters who defend him.

Y’all must go through a lot of rubber sheets.

Look, if Judge Smails (or anyone else) wants to throw around ridiculous accusations against people (and yes, I do fit into some of those groups above), then he’s going to have to deal with their responses. It astounds me how many people think that they can sling ignorant and offensive crap all over the place, and then get all upset when someone calls them on it.

Further, I wasn’t speaking to you in this thread until you made it your business to inform me that I’d strayed from your preferred script. I then explained why I didn’t particularly care, and you’ve come back with something that makes me wonder about your reading comprehension. But hey, drop me an email, and I’ll see if I can’t gin up the patience to deal with your inability to understand some of the (apparently) more complicated points.

As to your inability to read plain text such as “that Islamists can decapitate homosexuals and cover women in the Mid-east, and gays and feminists in the West line up to march with them in opposition to Pres. Bush.” or “the enormous pathological problems 1.3 billion people have” next to Judge Smails name, and understand it as attributable to him, well, I can’t help you. Maybe Hooked on Phonics can.

I dunno. But good luck, and I’ll look for your email.

The funny thing is, you insist that you’re interested in substance, and yet you supply no logically sound arguments to back up your assertions that all I’m interested in is “pretty.”

I specifically took aim at you because you were posting personal attacks which are those things most likely to halt reasonable discourse. Was JS also making personal attacks?

Well, I found the claim that liberals are marching with al Quida to be ridiculous, but it’s one that JS never made. He made a lesser claim of similarity, not of co-operation. He didn’t label 1.3 billion people with enormous pathological problems, he just takes the (in my mind, morally wrong) view that the government is justified in racial profiling.

You were employing a straw-man. It’s another logical fallacy to go with your ad hominems.

Who Waldo tells to bug off is his business, not mine. I’m not saying that you’re going to be the end of this blog, nor will you drive me away, but it’s crap like ad hominems and straw men that pose a threat to reasonable and informed discourse in the long term.

I’ll keep trying to sort out who’s available for interesting and useful discourse (hint: it’s not people who make sweepingly ignorant statements)

But you said that JS is an ignorant fool, so why are you trying to engage and bait him?

I continue to wonder who exactly you’re trying to impress.

I’m equally sorry that your ability to detect insults seems rather limited, too. Liberals marching with al Qaida? Labeling 1.3 billion people with enormous pathological problems? And it’s “ignorant little fool” that gets your hackles up? Wow, Ben, way to really take aim on the important things.

I *do* value interesting and useful political discourse. It’s just that I’m more interested in substance, and you seem to be more interested in pretty. Let’s make a deal. I’ll keep trying to sort out who’s available for interesting and useful discourse (hint: it’s not people who make sweepingly ignorant statements) and you can have pretty discourse with whomever you like.

As a final note, I appreciate your crediting me with the ability to effect the quality of an institution like this, but I think you’re exaggerating a wee bit. That said, I’d happily drop off if Waldo ever told me that he thought I was harming things. But until then, I don’t really need any concern troll advice. Again, thanks eversomuch for your time and concern.

That said, given what’s happening in Europe where you’ve got an unassimable group of immigrants adhering to an explicity political religion which holds in contempt much of what we in the West hold dear, might it not be prudent to forestall any kind of widespread Muslim immigration to this country?

In the light most favorable to Goode, he’s merely using shrill rhetoric to get this point across. That’s what I think anyway.

Furthermore, there is no sane or rational argument that can be made as to how opposing the President’s little PR gambit surge would somehow lead to a radical Muslim being elected President of the US. This war has been everything that Al Qaeda has hoped for: a gift handed to them on a silver platter, and yet still the idea of them coming to politically control the US is ridiculous.

And the fact that Goode can’t even get basic Muslim theology right certainly doesn’t underscore the idea that he’s the guy to help deal with it or fight against it.

While I have many objections to what Judge Smails believes (and I do wish I had time to get into it here), I have seen a lot more well reasoned arguments coming from him than I have from you.

I’m not trying to defend JS, here — I’m sure he can do that himself. No, what I’m interested in is interesting political discourse, and constantly insulting people is disruptive.

I’m a utilitarian. I value politeness because it’s less disruptive to the intelligent and logical discourse that I’m interested in taking part in than the alternative, which has idiots screaming at each other.

What do you gain by calling JS a fool or an idiot? I don’t think you’re changing his mind, and if anything, you’re making those that agree with you look like jackasses. Maybe it makes you feel good about yourself, I don’t know, but it makes Waldo’s blog a worse thing to read, and it’s this kinda of crap that will drive me, a diehard liberal, away from the Virginia political scene.

I stand by the basic point though that the jihadists use language in criticizing the Bush administration is not dissimilar from the language of the hard left. To be fair, I concede that one could probably take some passages from Mein Kampf and mix ‘em around with some Reagan quotes and confuse a lot of people as to who the author was.

MB, I find it noteworthy that you feel it necessary to imply that my objections to Islam are racially motivated (“scary brown Muslims”). As I noted before, Islam is a religion, not a race. Is the racist bogeyman so central to your argument that you don’t have much to say if you can’t make use of it? I agree calling/implying that someone you disagree with is a racist is a lot easier than thinking, but I’m just not sure it’s an honest substitute.

And I, on the other hand, call him an idiot.

Yes, I can *totally* understand how I was being, ahem, unhelpful. Here, in the hallowed and – above all, *polite* – VA blogosphere, we prefer our hate and ignorance with pleases and thank yous. However shall I ever be forgiven?

I really don’t understand why you have to resort to ad hominem attacks on Judge Smails. Not only is it not helpful, but what you accuse him of is wrong, as well.

There are so many people on the internet deserving of a good flame, but Judge Smails just isn’t one of ‘em. You make a good case that you are, though.

So, c’mon, we’re ready for the quiz!