My career as a budding plagiarist ended at the tender age of fourteen. Attempting to impress a girl at church camp, I tried to pass off as my own a poem I had copied from Reader’s Digest. Unfortunately the subterfuge was too effective. She was so impressed by my work that she insisted on reading it in front of the entire assembly. As she read the poem aloud I blushed with shame. But guilt faded and I became flushed with pride after the pastor said the poem exemplified my “sensitive spirit.”
My enjoyment of the crime was cut short, though, when another girl and her mother told me that they had read “my poem” -- Comes the Dawn--before in a Minnesota newspaper. They asked if I had published other works. I said I had been printed in numerous newspapers and magazines, a sloppy, transparent lie. They simply smiled graciously and, to my great relief, changed the subject. We never spoke of it again and no one else ever expressed any awareness of my crime.
Even now the confession fills me with regret and shame. Yet I wouldn't change the outcome even if I could. For that day I stumbled upon the first postulate of plagiarism, a truth that almost every plagiarist eventually learns: Any text worth stealing has already been read by someone in your audience.
I was reminded of this incident after reading of the strange, sad tale of Ben Domenech. A week after being hired by WashingtonPost.com to start a conservative-oriented blog, Ben was forced to resign when it was discovered that he plagiarized material in articles he wrote for various print publications. Initially, he claimed there were explanations for the apparent impropriety. But within days he admitted his mistake and apologized for his actions.
Ben and I have been friendly acquaintances for a couple of years. He was generous and encouraging when I first began blogging and even invited me, about a year ago, to join a group political blog he was starting. (Although I appreciated the opportunity, I declined because I wanted to focus more on culture and religion than on politics. The blog—I believe that call it RedState—is still around, and appears to have picked up a handful of readers.) Ben is amiable, idealistic, smart, and talented. But he’s also a flawed young man who has displayed an incredible lack of integrity.
Unfortunately, the wrangling over the “Domenech debacle” has turned into a sleazy partisan dispute. Many critics on the left shifted the emphasis from an individual transgression to an example of a collective problem in conservatism. As DHinMI from the Daily Kos wrote, “Ben Domenech is just the example of an ethically and intellectually bankrupt conservative movement, especially its bloggers.” In response, many bloggers on the right attacked the messengers rather than decrying the numerous and irrefutable instances of plagiarism commited by one of their own.
The absurd spectacle became about “Ben Domenech the symbol” rather than Ben Domenech the person, a person who needed to confess and atone for his behavior. Hopefully, Ben will not let this distract him from looking into his own heart and learning from this incident. For as painful as the experience will be, the best thing that could have happened to him was for him to get caught.
Mendacity is difficult to uproot from one’s own character, yet withers on the vine when exposed to the light of public scrutiny. Not all deficiencies in character, of course, benefit from public exposure. And I’ll readily admit that I’ve committed worse sins than claiming someone else’s work as my own, skeletons that I hope remain deeply buried. But having my own act of plagiarism exposed was an invaluable lesson. I recognized the fragility of integrity and learned to guard it jealously.
I was also fortunate to get caught when I did. The odds of anyone at church camp having read the poem were low, yet the plagiarism postulate defied the probabilities. In the Age of Google, though, the chance that someone will be familiar with the stolen material is almost a certainty. Regrettably, my friend Ben has discovered that truth too late.
Related: Mark Byron and Josh Claybourn, both bloggers who knew Ben in the same way I did, share their views on the incident.
Joe:
This is so sad, and so telling on all sides:
1] Is not the blanket projection from one hiuman's failings to the class he represents not a gross example of PREJUDICE?
2] Is not a failure to face the fallenness of man, and so the inevitability of wrongdoing "among our own" [left or right] not a resistance to reformation? [Here I recall the issue over "impeach for perjury"/"jest lyin' about sex" when the shoe was on the other foot.]
Perhaps, the true path to greatness for sinners like me [and the rest of us, too] is the road of penitience?
++++++++++
Grace, open all our eyes
Gordon:
A SINNER
Saved by grace
Now under new management
And
Being reformed.
You're a bit tongue-in-cheek about Red State's "handful of readers;" it's become one of the political right's key reads. That was probably one reason that the Kossacks wanted to spend the man-hours going after him.
Even if the research may have been ill-intended, the facts of the case remain, and Ben winds up losing trust from the reading public. This'll be a case that I'll mention to my future students whenever the issue of plagiarism comes up, of why not to get into that habit.
Plagiarism is a tough nut to crack. So many people lack an understanding of what constitutes plagiarism. I spend a fair amount of time on this in my classes as the due date for a paper approaches. I give definitions and present examples of plagiarism from classes past. I inform the class that I can easily tell if their work is truly theirs and that my wife is a veritable sleuth when it comes to ferreting out plagiarism from online sources (both true!). Yet in all the years I've taught the percentage of plagiarists has remained stable. I can only assume that for the plagiarist the reward of an unearned grade outweighs the risk of detection and its consequences (which are severe).
My worst moments as a teacher come when I find that one of my students has plagiarized. Regret, sadness, anger, betrayal, pity...a cornucopia of negative feelings.
In order to subscribe to conservativism, one's mind must work a certain way; this pretty commonsense observation has been seen by people as diverse as Jean-Paul Sartre (his term for conservatives is a bad word in French, his view of them was intimately connected to the dishonesty of "bad faith") and psychological researchers.
There are problems with conservatism. And among them is obviously denial, and the willingness to believe things that are false, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
That's why it's about Domenech the symbol-as the story evolved, the denial phase from the conservatives became evident, and threatened to become the dominant conservative narrative. It stopped being the dominant conservative narrative only when National Review realized it was at risk (people can get sued or worse over things like this), and when P.J. O'Rourke called Domenech on his pathetic lies regarding Domenech's pilfering of O'Rourke's work.
It's easy to come up with some major examples of this kind of denial in general in conservatism: zygotes=living, born people; brain dead people= living, born people; Bush went into Iraq as a last resort; Joe McCarthy really did have the goods on Communists.
Folks on the right ignore their dance of credulousness and dishonesty at their own peril; eventually such movements are all intruded upon by reality, which relegates their movements to the ash heap of history pronto.
When at the start of a semester I take a few minutes to warn my students about the perils of plagiarism, I tell them that at bottom the issue is moral in nature. Plagiarism is both theft and a lie. One takes the words or ideas of others and attempts to pass them off as one's own. If done intentionally and repeatedly, it reveals a deep moral fault. If I were Christian, I would say that it puts one's immortal soul in jeopardy.
When at the start of a semester I take a few minutes to warn my students about the perils of plagiarism, I tell them that at bottom the issue is moral in nature. Plagiarism is both theft and a lie. One takes the words or ideas of others and attempts to pass them off as one's own. If done intentionally and repeatedly, it reveals a deep moral fault. If I were Christian, I would say that it puts one's immortal soul in jeopardy.
Mumon
Pause and look at what you posted again:
Do you not hear the hollow ringing of smugness and arrogance to the certainty in your own disourse?
Further, on your consistent track record inthis blog, it seems there is a major challenge on your claims to "overwhelming evidence."
Finally, notice the sharp contrast in tone between your comments and those of others, not to mention the original post. For, plagiarism is a widespread problem and no respecter of ideological or worldview lianings. As, the temptation to steal ideas and pass them off as your own is, sadly, a HUMAN trait; not a mark of any one despised class of people.
As Colson so often cited Solzhenitsyn -- note my chain of authorities! -- the line between good and evil passes, not between classes and nations, but instead right through the individual human heart.
++++++++++++
Grace, open our eyes
Gordon
Mummmon: There you go again...
That wacky Berkeley study has been fisked all over the place. It is an almost universally known fact that every human being goes through a whiny phase at some point in their development. Conservatives go through the whiny phase when they are very small children, then become confident, independent, capable, compassionate adults. Liberals go into the whiny phase sometime in their late adolescent or early adult years and stay stuck on whiny for the rest of their lives.
And speaking of having reality intrude on your comfortable ideological fantasy world, would you care to deconstruct your prediction made on 11/1/04 that Kerry would have a 60 EV margin in the election to be held the next day? Talk about living in a bubble! As some famous socialite in NY observed about McGovern in '72,"How could he have lost?!? Everyone I know voted for him!"
Onlookers with too much spare time on their hands and in need of a hearty chuckle may want to visit Mummmmy's archives in his blog and read the Autumn, 2004 posts that made the case with certainty that we were on the cusp of the dawn of the Kerry presidency. Comic relief at its finest!
I forgot to mention what great moral courage you and George C. Looney show in standing up to the perils posed by a drunken, dissapated Senator who has been dead half a century. I'm sure Theo van Gogh wishes he had half the cajones guys like you have.
Of course, the fact that there actually were Commies in the government, academia, and Hollywood can't get in the way of a good story line about ol' Tail Gunner Joe. Good Night, and Good Delusions!
Mummon, you have an interesting post, to say the least. Joe was writing about plagiarism, and you took off on your perception of conservatism. Since you have changed the subject to something that you want to write about, I'll go along.
Your second paragraph shows that you think that conservatives suffer from some mental defect by virtue of being a conservative: "denial", "willingness to believe things that are false." it is blatantly Orwellian to equate disagreement with mental defect. I mean Orwellian in a bad 1984 kind of way, not in the real Orwellian philosophical way. Perhaps it would be possible to get conservativism declared a mental illness and get those Republicans off the street.
The attempt to indentify Sarte and the Berkeley researchers as "diverse" is a bit ingenious as well. Their disciplines may be diverse (if anything Sarte did could be considered a discipline) but their philosophical foundations are the same. Atheism, humanism, liberalism, a disdain of tradition, which I would expand to include morality. Why not get really diverse? Eugene Debs, H.L. Menkin, the ACLU, Bishop Spong, several bikers who hang out at the bar down the street who are anti-everything, more than few rappers, and so on. All of them have made it clear that they depise conservatism. You can find examples of such people from all walks of life. Diverse? Not as much as you lead us to believe.
Do you really think that the Berkeley researchers conducted the research without an underlying bias? Do you think that, had they arrived at a different conclusion, you would have their findings published in various newspapers and on the liberal blogs that you quote?
Finally, I thought it was a bit ingenious to link the "psychological researchers" to your own web site, especially since you do not identify the researches in your post here on EO. One can only find that out if they use the jump to get to your web site, and then jump again to the Toronto Star. Not illegal, and only a tinge of dishonesty. Your post on your web site does link to the Toronto Star article on the Berkeley researchers, but the attempt for free advertising here on EO as well as the hint that you are the originator of the Berkeley news is interesting. Since Joe's post was on, well, you know, plagiarism.
Joshua Claybourn notes on his blog: "As a speechwriter [?] for President Bush [Ben Domenech] was the administration's youngest political appointee. He also served as a speechwriter for HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson and as the chief speechwriter for Texas Senator John Cornyn." Ben also edited a book for Hugh Hewitt and Michelle Malkin in his position as an editor at Regnery Publishing. This is a pretty heady resume for a 24-year-old.
What were Ben's credentials? Home schooled, didn't finish college even though he had a full scholarship. He got published as a teenager which is impressive but we've seen that he was plagiarizing back then as well as more recently. You've got to wonder how Hewitt, Malkin, Cornyn, and Thompson are feeling right now. The National Review Online is conducting an investigation into the material Ben contributed to them.
Ben's dad is Doug Domenech who according to Wikipedia was appointed as White House Liaison for the Department of the Interior; he is also Home School Legal Defense Association’s Director of Government Affairs. During an interview in that capacity, he said, "And we’ve got Dick Armey, who, of course, has been a great hero of home schooling—he is going to come and talk to us under the title _Recovering Our Moral Emphasis_." Oh, the irony.
You can read more about Doug Domenech here.
Can anyone tell me what the legal limit is for using someone else's words in a book? That is assuming that they have been properly quoted, given credit and sourced. I was told it was around 40 words but I need an exact number.
I understand that there is a computer program used at colleges to detect plagarism.
2$bill:
Joe Carter raised the issue somewhat when he said
There's a reason it became the issue, at least from the centrist/progressive side.
I didn't actually call Sartre a researcher, but actually, indeed he did research, but in philosphy.
But the dance of credulousness and denial and dishonesty can no longer be denied; the hardcore "true believers" use belief to avoid scrutiny of anything uncomfortable.
Regarding linking to my blog, it's done out of convenience to myself; I can avoid googling. And hey, some folks besides myself actually read the darn thing.
Cheesehead:
Although unintentional, the use of the verb "to fisk" is telling: it means to me "conservatives made stuff up about the study." I read one such "fisking," and it was clear that the "fisker" was...er...uh... basically whining...
And speaking of having reality intrude on your comfortable ideological fantasy world, would you care to deconstruct your prediction made on 11/1/04 that Kerry would have a 60 EV margin in the election to be held the next day?
Speaking of changing the subject... Kerry was lied about...by Ben Domenech's employer...which sort of goes right back to my point about denial and dishonesty...some folks believed Kerry, and he was not a great candidate. So what?
Gordon Mullings:
Actually, no I don't... but I detect a bit of discomfort having pointed out the emperor's style of dress leaves him liable to catch the chills...
As Colson so often cited Solzhenitsyn -- note my chain of authorities! -- the line between good and evil passes, not between classes and nations, but instead right through the individual human heart.
I don't understand why you'd invoke Charles(?) Colson...or actually the whole quote itself, unless you're saying that conservatives have problems with good and evil, which I can't disagree with. And yes, some conservatives do some good things, but some do not.
Point?
For, plagiarism is a widespread problem and no respecter of ideological or worldview lianings. As, the temptation to steal ideas and pass them off as your own is, sadly, a HUMAN trait; not a mark of any one despised class of people.
Ah, I don't think so. And I don't think you really think so either if you think about it for a second: you have to have a "worldview" that thinks you can either get away with plagiarism or its consequences don't matter or be completely unaware to actually plagiarize something.
Replace plagiarism with "crony capitalism," or "environmental destruction," or any number of things, and you basically have current de facto Republican policy. I'm sorry if that offends folks, but it is indeed how they're going about it: "Nobody could have predicted" that 9/11 happened...despite the Aug. 6 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing. "Nobody could have predicted" the levees in N.O. would break.
Get the picture?
This dishonesty - the lies to one's self as well as others is widespread in conservatism to where - I could find links from Newsmax and Rush Limbaugh as examples- they are so cynical they cannot imagine people acting out of sincerity.
If one has that "worldview," one is chained to one's own insincerity. One becomes, in effect, a "person of the lie," as Scott Peck wrote. Evil.
2$bill:
I couldn't leave this bit out:
Atheism, humanism, liberalism, a disdain of tradition, which I would expand to include morality.
I wouldn't know how you imparted all that to the Berkeley researchers. But it sort of proves my point...
Regarding Sartre, he was indeed an atheist, and considered his existentialism a humanism. But regarding a "disdain of tradition," I'd have to say he's innocent of that, unless you take the creation of anything new to be in disdain of what went before, which is pretty silly to me. Sartre's work is in effect Descartes carried to a conclusion informed somewhat by Nietzche, and Husserl; he was therefore extending a tradition of existentialist thought that can be extended way back to Abraham.
But as far as "morality" is concerned, that's kind of odd to me, because there is not a scintilla of evidence to show that atheists are any less moral than the rest of us; if anything, the latter tends to be true.
Terence Moeller:
There is not exact number. It depends on the type of work. A chapter is too much for most book-length works. A stanza may be too much in short poem.
See this page for fair-use information. An excerpt:
You also said, "I understand that there is a computer program used at colleges to detect plagarism."
Some colleges subscribe to a service which compares the student's work to published material and other student works. A couple of months ago an NPR show did a piece on it.
My God, Joe - have you read the things they've been writing about Domenech over at RedState?
Now Ben will have to wander the desert for a time, but he'll be back...
He needs to serve his penance, then he shall return, stronger and wiser...
You'd think the man was Moses incarnate. And he's a hack. A cheap hack. Good riddance to the little pissant. And if you see him again, you tell him I said that.
Look, language is my business. It's how I provide for my family. The craft of writing is one of the only things I consider sacred in my life. The very idea of plagiarizing another author is as unthinkable to me as as the notion of eating my neighbor's children. And Ben got a job blogging for WaPo - one of the highest prizes in journalism.
This entire incident should warn you that something has gone seriously, desperately wrong in the American media industry; why, I ask you, was a clown like Ben even offered this job? Because his dad was a Bush fundraiser and because the WaPo decided that it needed to promote the sort of garbage spewed by Coulter, Savage, MedVed, Limbaugh, Hannity, Cal Thomas, O'Reilly, Hindracker, Horowitz, Ingraham, Gordon Liddy, Gallagher, Dave Allen, Malkin, et al.?
I mean, c'mon fercrissake! There's enough of this hard-hearted toxic krill adrift in the waters of American discourse. There has to be a place for real journalism, analyis and insight. Why did they think - still think - that news requires "balance"? If a dog bites a man, do we have to have a spokesperson for bloodthirsty canines pipe up and explain that sometimes a dog has just gotta chomp a dude?
Is reality best presented to us in the form of a split screen with two partisan lapdogs screaming at each other, "Wait... let me finish... and "Let me just respond to that..."? And the guy who gets the most airtime by violent force is suppose to be the "winner"? Thus the WaPo, in presenting truth, has to balance it with a howling nutfreak like Ben in order to satisfy hoi polloi sensibility.
We are so screwed. But I'm sure that after his 40-day sojourn in the wilderness, Ben will be back as a Fox News analyst, seasoned and wiser. Right?
Superb rant, Raven. I agree with every word. However, reading the list of conservative bloviaters is really depressing, especially the "et al." on the end! Thankfully there is no one on the left who is the equal of any one of them. But why are there so many on the right? Why is it that conservatives find that sort of behavior not only okay but entertaining?
Joe writes, Many critics on the left shifted the emphasis from an individual transgression to an example of a collective problem in conservatism.
The question is, Joe, why don't you join those critics?
The Raven, AndyS, and Mumon,
You gentlemen have put forth an ad hominem argument, not against Joe Carter or Ben Domenech or George Bush, but against some 50 to 80 million Americans (the conservatives, or those on the "right").
You have done so without so much as the faintest wisp of evidence.
You have argued that those who disagree with you on some political issues are likely to have some sort of psychological dysfunction, be it "whininess" or some obtusely persistent denial of reality.
Your observations are of course truly devastating -- to your own credibility. Your lack of perspective and intellectual humility is truly impressive.
Let me spell it out for you: people can disagree about the War on Terror, the war in Iraq, on taxes and spending, on cultural issues, and many other things besides, without it being a reflection in any way, shape, or form of their intellectual or psychological strengths and weaknesses.
And if you don't get that, you're all a bunch of freaking losers!
Joe Carter,
You have written an excellent post.
It is smart, funny, informative, and personal.
I particularly like the part where you admit to buried skeletons more serious than plagiarism. It's a very appropriate way of pointing out that we are all sinners -- it gives your whole piece just the right perspective.
Thank you for sharing and for helping me digest the "Domenech debacle".
Raven:
Amen. I create intellectual property for a living too, and some of it was good enough to have been plaigarized, although that's an issue for lawyers to determine.
But in my experience the plagiarist is desparate and incompetent. Kind of like...you know...
Matthew Goggins:
...some 50 to 80 million Americans (the conservatives, or those on the "right").
Well, it's about time they shouldered some of the responsibility for that mess in Washington, don't you think? They committed actions that put those people there, do you think they're blameless in all of this?
You have argued that those who disagree with you on some political issues are likely to have some sort of psychological dysfunction, be it "whininess" or some obtusely persistent denial of reality.
It is irrefutably a behavioral issue; and you could see it over at Red State; you probably still can for all I know. There was this huge unwillingness to believe Box Turtle Ben could be a plagiarist. And, as Raven noted, there still is.
Are all conservatives this way? I say: it actually doesn't matter; enough of them are this way to form a core of support for the present folks in Washington.
Enough of them do behave this way, and it certainly is harmful to themselves, their fellow Americans, and their fellow human beings on this planet. And there are exceptions: that Bartlett guy; the first Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill are two notable exceptions.
So, yeah, you got it straight: the ones who drank the Kool-Aid are indeed dysfunctional.
It's not an ad hominem attack, it is the very core of the issue.
...people can disagree about the War on Terror, the war in Iraq, on taxes and spending, on cultural issues, and many other things besides, without it being a reflection in any way, shape, or form of their intellectual or psychological strengths and weaknesses.
In my experience people that disagree on all of those things, when pressed for discussion and debate on them reveal their degree of denial and resistance to reality. Take, say, "the War on Terror." As Gwynne Dyer so aptly put it, it's a hangnail compared to thermonuclear war between Great Powers, which is a massive coronary by comparison.
But if treated as a War, you have to ignore military science, history, and culture to come to anywhere near any kind of "support" for it that the Republican spin-machine cranks out. In other words, you have to be content free, but "truthy."
So, while I'm aware that folks have taken umbrage to my words, and it is hard to avoid the hurt feelings, if it causes just one person reading this blog to think about why they are upset, then I might have accomplished something.
Behind that umbrage is likely fear.
Why?
Matthew Goggins:
Please don't associate my reply to Raven with my reply to you. The referants to "Kind of like...you know..." live in Washington D.C., and are in our government.
Sorry 'bout that...
Can anyone tell me what the legal limit is for using someone else's words in a book? That is assuming that they have been properly quoted, given credit and sourced. I was told it was around 40 words but I need an exact number.
There's no single answer. Generally speaking, it's the percentage of the original that you're using, so if you quote 10 stanzas from a 20-stanza song, you've violated fair use. If you quote 500 words from a 70,000-word book, you're easily within fair use.
Those, I admit, are only broad examples. The best rule: when in doubt, ask permission.
Take, say, "the War on Terror." As Gwynne Dyer so aptly put it, it's a hangnail compared to thermonuclear war between Great Powers, which is a massive coronary by comparison.
Another silly Gwynne Dyer-ism. The guy fancies himself a military historian but he misses the crucial difference between the Cold War and the war against Islamofascism (terror being, of course, merely a tactic).
In the Cold War you were dealing with two rational actors who could be persuaded to do things in their own best interests. The current war against bin Ladenism features irrational actors on one side who cannot be reasoned with or persuaded to behave in a rational manner.
In a loose way, it's the same dichotomy seen in the European and Pacific theaters in WWII. The Germans, being basically rational actors, could eventually see that it was in their best interests to surrender. The Japanese, on the other hand, living by the bushido code, nearly had to be killed to the last man.
The overweening arrogance and fact-free reasoning of Mumon et al. is simply laughable to anyone who spent time visiting the moonbat ravings found on Daily Kos and similar sites.
Moral liberals? Yeah, like Alec Baldwin saying we should stone Henry Hyde to death? Cool reasoning, like those who insist to this day that the Twin Towers were brought down by the Mossad? I can cite example after example of raving Leftists advocating murder, mayhem and moonbat theories. Mumon et al. are highly selective in the evidence they choose to see. After all, there's none so blind as he who will not see.
... oh, and forgot that paragon of integrity, the non-plagiarist Joe Biden, Democratic senator from Delaware. Not!
Mumon,
So, yeah, you got it straight: the ones who drank the Kool-Aid are indeed dysfunctional.
It's not an ad hominem attack, it is the very core of the issue.
If you call someone dysfunctional, you are making an ad hominem attack.
You are shifting the terms of the debate from "Is position X a justifiable position?" to "Does a supporter of position X have something wrong with him/her?" You're changing the subject from a policy or issue discussion to a debate about personalities.
So get a life, you freaking loser!
In one case it is an English translation of a Hawaiian story written 150 years ago.
Terence, it's unclear by your wording whether the translation is 150 old or the Hawaiian story itself. If it's the translation, there's no way it's still protected by copyright. It has to be public domain, meaning no permission needed. I, too, make my living by writing, and I suspect you might have an overly cautious editor.
Matthew Goggins:
No, actually you're shifting the debate; as I noted I was responding as to why Domenech became the symbol.
However, even if I grant that you're correct, it doesn't mean that it's a fallacious or irrelevant argument; as I say, it's central to the whole issue.
tom:
You'd get no argument from me on Biden. He's just a teeny bit better than Liberman in my book; in particular, he's one of the big War on Drugs demagogues. Progressives don't like him almost as much as they don't like Hilary and conservatives don't like McCain- the two annointed-by-the-media-and-beltway-insiders for our next president.
Mumon,
No, actually you're shifting the debate; as I noted I was responding as to why Domenech became the symbol.
Yes, you are correct.
You were talking about personalities, and I am shifting the debate back to issues.
However, if the meta-issue is not, "Are conservatives dysfunctional?", but rather, "Are conservatives on the right side of various issues?", then you, in fact, are shifting the debate away from the meta-issue and towards personalities.
However, even if I grant that you're correct, it doesn't mean that it's a fallacious or irrelevant argument; as I say, it's central to the whole issue.
I never said you're argument was fallacious or irrelevant because it was ad hominem. I said it was fallacious because you failed to provide so much as a wisp of evidence for it.
But perhaps it is hard to follow my logic when I'm busy calling you a freaking loser!
Tom:
"Terence, it's unclear by your wording whether the translation is 150 old or the Hawaiian story itself. If it's the translation, there's no way it's still protected by copyright. It has to be public domain, meaning no permission needed. I, too, make my living by writing, and I suspect you might have an overly cautious editor."
This particular story was written in Hawaiian during the Twain era, but and the English translation was both made and published within recent years. The question is do the copyright provisions apply to the 150 yr old work or the recent translation of it?
In this book I use the quotes of three people in no more or no less than a a couple hundred words. One source is a poet, the other a newspaper and the other a Hawaiian translator. Three different circumstances.
Apparently it is jungle rules in this case, which means that I must defer to the editor whose main concern is covering potential liabilites. It is a major disapointment to have to fight for every word when no one knows or cares about it but the editor.
BTW your comment earlier made good sense. The examples given smacked of knowing what you were talking about.
"In the Cold War you were dealing with two rational actors who could be persuaded to do things in their own best interests. The current war against bin Ladenism features irrational actors on one side who cannot be reasoned with or persuaded to behave in a rational manner."
Thanks for that, and for and any advise you may have on the other matter.
All:
It seems I do need to make a couple of further remarks.
I will start with:
1] M: I don't understand why you'd invoke Charles(?) Colson...or actually the whole quote itself, unless you're saying that conservatives have problems with good and evil, which I can't disagree with. And yes, some conservatives do some good things, but some do not.
--> First, let's roll the tape [thanks to Larry Elder for that phrase]:
--> It is immediately clear that I am speaking to that classical Christian doctrine, the fallenness of man, and the struggle with evil and sin that each and every one of us faces, not least the smugly self-righteous, of whatever stripe.
--> I will cite a far more august authority on that:
--> While I spoke to the particular problem of plagiarism, the wider context as shown by Solzhenitsyn, who addressed the two great statist -- i.e. leftist -- evils of the last 100 years, marxism and fascism, is that each of us struggles with that line between good and evil in our own hearts. In short, Mr Domenech's problems do not reflect his specific affiliations: conservative leanings and/or homeschooling background [AndyS!], but rather his mere fallen humanity.
2] you have to have a "worldview" that thinks you can either get away with plagiarism or its consequences don't matter or be completely unaware to actually plagiarize something. This dishonesty - the lies to one's self as well as others is widespread in conservatism to where - I could find links from Newsmax and Rush Limbaugh as examples- they are so cynical they cannot imagine people acting out of sincerity . . . . This dishonesty - the lies to one's self as well as others is widespread in conservatism to where - I could find links from Newsmax and Rush Limbaugh as examples- they are so cynical they cannot imagine people acting out of sincerity. If one has that "worldview," one is chained to one's own insincerity. One becomes, in effect, a "person of the lie," as Scott Peck wrote. Evil.
--> I could not make up a better example of blind prejudice and hostility if I tried. Try substituting "person of colour" or "jew" in the above and you will see what I am talking about, M.
--> I have but little interest in your US version of what we in the Caribbean sometimes call "follytricks," and the associated spin games. But, surely, you know that there are good reasons to believe that on each and every actual issue you cite, there are two sides to the story, and not all the facts are on one side. THAT IS WHY IT IS AN ISSUE.
--> By the time a question is resolved -- as Reagan resolved the cold war in the teeth of rhetoric as fiercely hostile and dismissive as the above cite, it is no longer an issue and the hot rage against those who proved right is easily forgotten. [Especially if their side dominates in the mass media, as is so in the US and Europe. At the time of Reagan's funeral, I saw little sign of any apologies for the more outrageous things said against him that proved wrong headed and indeed wrong-hearted.]
--> Similarly, it is abundantly evident from global experience with natural disasters, there is a major problem with preparation -- tied to an apparently congenital refusal to considere the full fan of credible scenarios. THat is responsible for the fiascos here in Montserrat, it is responsible for the disaster at Nevada del Ruiz in Columbia 20 years back, and it is responsible for the gap between the almost routine management of lesser hits in the US and Katrina.
--> Maybe, I should note on NO, to illustrate a bit more. New Orleans simply should not be there, period. For, it is sub-sea level, sourrounded on 3 sides by massive bodies of water, and below sea level. A 30-foot storm surge can do horrendous destruction, as can a broken dyke. But, it is politically infeasible to remove that city to a safer site. That means that about once a generation, it will suffer major hurricane disasters as man finds out what nature can do.
--> That further means that the issue is to provide and implement a proper evacuation plan, which requires public education and prompt action at LOCAL level. The hundreds of buses drowned in the floods are the telltale on that, M. [Just as the brand new hospital full of state of the art equipment here, all lost to the volcano for want of simply trucking them out to the North and putting them in prefab warehouses that could easily have been shipped in, is the telltale here!]
--> Similarly, on many environmental issues, the hype is so much that Bjorn Lomberg's now vindicated stance as a Skyptical Environmentalist [the "y" is deliberate, and echoes Boyle]is well warranted. Onlookers, cf my remarks on SD here.
--> In short, you are manifesting classic signs of bias and prejudice leading to zeal multiplied by contempt for those who beg to differ. RX: kindly read the parable of Plato's Cave, and reflect on it.
3] Raven: You'd think the man was Moses incarnate. And he's a hack. A cheap hack. Good riddance . . . And if you see him again, you tell him I said that.
--> Raven, you both reveal your biblical ignorance and your own need to think again. MOSES WAS A MURDERER WHO RAN AWAY TO THE DESERT FOR 40 YEARS, AND THERE UNDERWENT A CHANGE OF HEART AND LIFE. It is after that time in the wilderness that God called him back to his servivce.
--> Similarly, Paul spent 3 years in the wilderness as he worked out the changes in his outlook from bloody-handed arch persecutor of the church, to chosen instruent of God. He said of himself that he was the chief of sinners:
--> In short, the Judaeo-Christian tradition is about redemption, repentance, reformation and transformation. If the younfg man in question undergoes such a process of chastening, reflection, change and transformation, he may well prove to be an instrument of blessing to many.
4] On "Balance"
--> I think I have a reasonable expectation of objectivity on reports that claim to be factual, backed up by the material evidence, not half the truth.
--> When it comes to opinion -- too often seamlessly integrated with alleged "news" these days -- I have a reasonable expectation to fairness, kindness and balance or at least an attempt at balancing.
--> I have a further reasonable expectation that pundits will show respect for others and will recognise that hey too can fall into wrong and even sin.
--> That is why MG's point needs to be heeded, seriously heeded. Or, more profoundly, let us never ever forget that Marxism started out as an attempt to address the plight of the poor man at the hands of the wealthy and powerful. That is, the road to a foretaste of hell can be paved witht eh best of intentions.
--> If you doubt me on that, just read Solzhenitsyn. [BTW, a Physicist by education! He was sent to the gulag from the front lines where he was serving as an Artillery officer. Then, he came down with cancer. He was freed under Kruschev, and first came to prominence by writing about the plight of prisoners and victims of cancer. He went into exile after writing his trilogy, The Gulag Archipelago. In exile, he fell afoul of the US media and elites by speaking frankly to America's sins and trends. After the fall of Communisim, he returned home.]
5] MG: You are shifting the terms of the debate from "Is position X a justifiable position?" to "Does a supporter of position X have something wrong with him/her?" You're changing the subject from a policy or issue discussion to a debate about personalities. So get a life, you freaking loser!
--> MG, you have raised a very balanced and inmportant setr of pints, but i that last part, I think you blew your top. [Or, was it you felt it necessary to give an illustrative example? I think your later remark was close enough to an apology to answer ;->) ]
5]TM: On the book
--> Congratulations in advance. I hope it sells well, even though the market is likely to be rather specialised. [But then, maybe tourists will love it!]
--> Generally, it is wise to follow the editor, who may well have had some experience with the lawyering game!
--> And, chain of sources on a matter and the multiple layers of possible intellectual property are indeed a minefield. I once had an IP lawyer regale me on the levels involved in a newspaper report of a public presentation, in which the speaker cites authorities. The original source has property. The speaker has property due to his inputs in selection and application. The newspaper has property. And so does the journalist. That is why fair or reasonable use provisions are so important!
--> If you think that IP issues get into hot waters on prose, think about songs. For instance, did you know that Bob Marley's line: "Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our mind" is NOT original to him? (He was citing Marcus Garvey.)
--> Then, there is software, in an era where code often gets swapped around on sites way out there in the depths of cyberspace. I recall a web development project where disclaimers on liability for such excerpts became a major concern for the contract.
+++++++
Okay, trust that we can move ahead on a more even keel.
Grace to all
Gordon
Onlookers:
A further thought is, sadly, necessary. For, M has raised the issue of the alleged justifiability of his ad hominems on the claimed grounds that they evidently reflect a broadscale character deficit in an "evil" movement. So, it is appropriate to generalise from one man to several pundits to several issues to assailing multiplied millions of people as "evil" on the grounds of their worldview.
Something is wrong here.
I think it is sadly, necessary to start with M; so, we can bring out the real root issue -- the one we would all rather dodge than face. Pardon the directness of what follows therefore.
That is, perhaps M needs to consider Nathan the prophet's rebuke to king David: THOU ART THE MAN.
Let us all think again, and pull back from the brink of personal attack. The issues and their implications are too derious for partisan points scoring.
Grace to all
Gordon
Okay, a PS;
Having gone over to Powerline for my usual morning glance, if not read, I saw this treasure on their Cap Weinberger RIP:
I think this might be a very useful read to balance what has happened above.
GEM
Gordon,
Thank you, Gordon, for pointing out the inappropriateness of my calling anyone a "freaking loser" or my suggesting to anyone that that person "get a life".
For the record, I do not consider anyone on this comment thread to be a loser, either "freaking" or otherwise.
I actually continue to have great respect for Mumon, the Raven, and AndyS. If anyone was fooled by my admittedly purposefully ambiguous use of ad hominem's, I apologize for the discomfit and/or confusion.
I think my selective use of ad hominem's did prove quite useful in getting my point across -- but precisely because I didn't actually mean them in the least.
Thanks again, sir, for your Christian concern and gentlemanliness.
Cheers, peace,
Matthew
Matthew Goggins:
There is ample evidence for what I'm speaking of; and anywhere in the progressive blogosphere you can find it: copious documentation of instances where some rightie's "opinion" differs with cold, hard reality.
But I have other evidence too: as I - and Raven noted, on Redstate, the denial and excuse making that Box Turtle Ben had plagiarized.
But I have still other evidence. There is a famous koan in which the capping phrase- the phrase completing and summarizing the koan is "truly words cannot open another's mind." I cite this because in experience it is true: those whose modes of thinking have congealed into a particular pattern can only extricate themselves through their own effort. It is, based on what I've seen, undeniable that conservatism or "conservatism" as done by the Bush folks and their apologists is harmful for living beings. Why the denial?
I also have other evidence: do a mad-libs on a few nouns and you can transform conservative arguments in to communist arguments (I was struck by the similarity in reasoning in political discourse with Party members in China to conservatives.) Heck, poke around on the blogosphere, and you'll even get the standard Marxist argument for why communism's results are so sucky adapted for conservatism: Bush isn't a conservatism, and conservatism hasn't been tried yet. It's the same dang argument the Communists use! Shouldn't that tell you something But no, words cannot open another's mind.
Gordon Mullings:
Try substituting "person of colour" or "jew" in the above and you will see what I am talking about, M.
You are trying to say -and badly I might add, becasue you're listing genetic traits (Berkeley study anyone?) it's insulting to point out to conservatives that a) they've been lied to, and b) at least some of what they believed were, in fact, lies. Again if you're offended it's not my fault. I would be lying to you if I didn't say that, in fact.
But, surely, you know that there are good reasons to believe that on each and every actual issue you cite, there are two sides to the story, and not all the facts are on one side. THAT IS WHY IT IS AN ISSUE.
Ah, Gordon, not in general. I disagree with Billy Bragg on this one ("When you wake up to the fact that your paper is Tory just remember there are 2 sides to every story.) No. There are not two sides when it comes to facts. There is only one set of facts, although there can be dispute about hwat is known and not known, and some of those are then matters of opinion as to what is a fact and what is not a fact. And when it comes to opinions there are not, in fact "2 sides," but an infinitude of sides usually. Only on simple yes/no questions is it a matter of "2 sides." And - here's the thing: with Box Turtle Ben Domenech all of the evidence said "he plagiarized." And yet commenters on Red State simply could not accept that fact.
Give me an explanation.
Reagan resolved the cold war in the teeth of rhetoric as fiercely hostile and dismissive as the above cite...
Ummm.. I still credit Gorbachev(people forget that perestroika was an economic thing at first, in response to the collapse in oil prices), although I agree with Gwynne Dyer: Reagan could have messed it up enormously, and didn't, and was able to step back from the abyss his rhetoric was leading. See there's those facts again...
At the time of Reagan's funeral, I saw little sign of any apologies for the more outrageous things said against him that proved wrong headed and indeed wrong-hearted.
I'm sorry but I thought you were a Christian, and I'd think that a guy who provided support for terrorists to murder a Christian archbishop as he celebrated mass would bring a smidgen of concern from you. I could say I've never seen any apologies by conservatives for funding the death squads in El Salvador who murdered Oscar Romero.
Again, facts like these are conveniently ignored.
...there is a major problem with preparation -- tied to an apparently congenital refusal to considere the full fan of credible scenarios.
Human beings do not take a long term view except from working at it. And when your goal is to get elected for "a generation" your goal won't be identical to "making society better."
New Orleans simply should not be there, period.
But it is there, and it isn't entirely below the sea. But why it grew that way, environmental effects played a role. But it's not simply a local problem. NO is a port, and a big one. That makes it a Federal problem.
The hundreds of buses drowned in the floods are the telltale on that, M.
Either you didn't get the memo, or you ignored it: the local goverment had been instructed by FEMA not to use the buses because "better transportation was coming." It's documented.
Oh, and Gordon? Again, why don't you just admit that our ideals of democracy came from pagans, rather than claim I engaged in an ad hominem attack?
Besides, as I noted on my blog last night there's a relationship to religious tolerance, and immigration to America that's never mentioned by folks like you. And it's a pity, too; probably why (besides the incomprehensible to me near-Gaelic) I never "discovered" Robert Burns.
The question is do the copyright provisions apply to the 150 yr old work or the recent translation of it?
You cannot copyright an idea, only the execution of the idea.
I can write a movie about a giant ape run amok in civlization and call it "The Giant Ape Run Amok in Civilization" and the creators/copyright holders of "King Kong" have no case against me. But if I set part of my movie on Skull Island and have character names similar to those in "Kong," and have my ape climb the Empire State Building and swat at airplanes, then I've come too close to the execution of the original idea and have therefore violated copyright.
The translation of the Hawaiian stories is an original execution of an idea, but your editor is probably being overly cautious (in my opinion, not knowing how much of the work you actually quote), but, hey, that's the wonderful world of publishing.
By the way, no matter what else you think about Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code," the present lawsuit in England (claiming that Brown violated the copyright of the book "Holy Blood, Holy Grail") is dangerous for all writers, as it means if you merely consult another work for idea (ideas that were centuries old even before "Holy Blood" was written), you can be hauled into court--in England, at least.
Terence Moeller,
Congratulations on your forthcoming book. One thing a publisher is supposed to do for you is obtain permission for the quotes you use when they might go beyond fair-use. This is usually a simple thing involving nominal sums of money which the publisher covers. I would certainly try that before revising your text.
Best of luck.
One thing a publisher is supposed to do for you is obtain permission for the quotes you use when they might go beyond fair-use.
Yes and no. It depends, actually, on what your contract says. Most book contracts I have signed put the onus of getting permission on the writer, even if the publisher then pays whatever fees may be involved. I've even seen some low-end publishers require the writer to pay for permission out of his advance.
Andy, Tom, Gordon;
Thanks for your advice and support. A little background. . . In order to complete this book I made 7 trips into Kalalau Valley, which is only accessable by an 11 mile trail along the rugged Na Pali Coast. (The Sierra Club rated the trail a "10" in difficultly and danger). Almost every trip was a real drama in and of itself.
Lord willing, the book will be out by Christmas through Mutual Publishing. Will keep you posted.
I forgot to mention what great moral courage you and George C. Looney show in standing up to the perils posed by a drunken, dissapated Senator who has been dead half a century.
You mean Teddy Kennedy?
Mumon,
In short you seem to be saying "People who agree are inclined to overlook each others shortcomings"
Master of the obvious statement, that.
Time to move on.
Matthew Goggins:
Please don't conflate our comments. There was nothing but exasperation in Raven's rant and I simply asked a question: Why are the conservative bloviaters as listed by Raven so popular? It's not because their message and the way they deliver it is so appealing to the left.
As for Mumon, well, although he and I probably vote the same way, I think he sometimes (usually?) goes a bit too far with his rhetoric. However, I did like the Berkeley study — still, it's just one study.
Gordon:
My remark about homeschooling was in this context:
Asking about his credentials is more than fair given that at the age of 24 Ben had been a speech writer for Cabinet and Congress members, edited books for two prominent pundits, and gotten a blogging job at WaPo. How did he manage that? Any one of those things is impressive in one so young.
Starting in the present and working back you find he didn't graduate from college. How many speech writers for Cabinet and Congress members, let alone book editors, don't have a college degree of some kind? I don't know the answer but have to guess it is a small number. Then you find out he's homeschooled. Naturally there is nothing wrong with that in itself; lot's of people are homeschooled and do fine. It comes into question precisely and only because you can't see into it the way you can a (public or private) high school. You have no way of knowing how his "school" was run, what standards it worked toward, what sort of academic and moral values it promoted. All of which leaves us with idea that it was Ben's father Doug's position in the administration that was his main credential.
And that's an interesting tie-in since Doug Domenech is White House Liaison for the Department of the Interior as well as Home School Legal Defense Association’s Director of Government Affairs.
There's nothing illegal in any of this, but it gives one pause to note young evangelical Christians can get on this assembly line as childern and end up in the halls of Congress and young adults potentially never experiencing anything along the way that is the least bit challenging to their worldview. And one tiny college providing interns to 22 members of Congress is more than exceptional.
Note: Ben Domenech went to William and Mary, not Patrick Henry College.
And one tiny college providing interns to 22 members of Congress is more than exceptional.
One wonders, considering that all the U.S. Presidents since 1989 have graduated from the same small, private college originally founded to maintain a strict Puritan theology, if there isn't indeed some sort of theocratic conspiracy afoot.
THE DOMENECH DEBACLE
By Michelle Malkin
. . . But now the determined moonbat hordes have exposed multiple instances of what clearly appear to me to be blatant lifting of entire, unique passages by Ben from other writers. It is one thing to paraphrase basic facts from a wire story. But to filch the original thoughts and distinctly crafted phrases of a writer without crediting him/her--and doing so repeatedly--is unacceptable in our business. Some of the cases occurred while Ben was in college; he is blaming an editor for these transgressions. But at least one other incident involved a piece he wrote for NRO after he graduated. The side-by-side comparisons of these extensive passages is damning.
I certainly understand the impulse on the Right to rally around Domenech. But I can't ignore the plain evidence. And the charges can't be dismissed as "lies" or jealousy attributed to Ben's age.
As someone who has worked in daily journalism for 14 years, I have a lot of experience related to this horrible situation: I've had my work plagiarized by shameless word and idea thieves many times over the years. I've also been baselessly accused of plagiarism by some of the same leftists now attacking Ben.
The bottom line is: I know it when I see it. And, painfully, Domenech's detractors, are right. He should own up to it and step down.
***
NRO posts at The Corner:
As the previous links on the matter mention, at least one of the pieces Ben Domenech is accused of having plagiarized was a movie review for National Review Online. A side-by-side comparison to another review of the same film speaks for itself. There is no excuse for plagiarism and we apologize to our readers and to Steve Murray of the Cox News Service from whose piece the language was lifted. With some evidence of possible problems with other pieces, we're also looking into other articles he wrote for NRO
"You gentlemen have put forth an ad hominem argument, not against Joe Carter or Ben Domenech or George Bush, but against some 50 to 80 million Americans (the conservatives, or those on the "right")."
"The overweening arrogance and fact-free reasoning of Mumon et al. is simply laughable to anyone who spent time visiting the moonbat ravings found on Daily Kos and similar sites."
There has been no dearth of responses to the comments of some of the left-leaning denizens of this blog. In all fairness, it should be pointed out that the ad hominems are not confined to one side of the ideological divide.
"Conservatives go through the whiny phase when they are very small children, then become confident, independent, capable, compassionate adults. Liberals go into the whiny phase sometime in their late adolescent or early adult years and stay stuck on whiny for the rest of their lives."
Cheesehead's distorted perception of reality (which may have been an attempt at humor) bears little resemblance to the world I know, a world in which conservatives whine just as much as liberals and in which liberals are just as likely as conservatives to become "confident, independent, capable, compassionate adults."
I just thought I'd point this out so that the discussion could appear more fair and balanced. ;-)
Jack:
I try not to overlook others' shortcomings merely because they agree with me. It takes effort.
Terrence Moeller:
Good contribution. I had commented on Atrios blog to re: Malkin, who later mentioned it on his blog.
But I'd note that even after Malkin published her bit on Domenech, there were still Red Staters defending him.
Mumon continues to rely on the flawed Berkeley study about the alleged whininess quotient of conservatives, but he overlooks a peer-reviewed study about psychologically immature liberals.
Among that study's choice findings:
Research on the psychology of radical activists helps us to understand this mismatch between [Noam] Chomsky's ideas and his personal style. In the 1970s, Stanley Rothman and Robert Lichter administered Thematic Apperception Tests to a large sample of "new left" radicals (Roots of Radicalism, 1982). They found that activists were characterized by weakened self-esteem, injured narcissism and paranoid tendencies. They were preoccupied with power and attracted to radical ideologies that offered clear and unambiguous answers to their questions...
and
The [liberal's] unwillingness to offer alternatives reveals a lack of self-confidence and self-esteem. If they offered their own policy ideas they would be vulnerable to criticism. They would run the risk that their ideas would fail, or would not seem persuasive to others. This is especially difficult for anti-capitalists after the fall of the Soviet Union. It has also been difficult in the war against terrorism because Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are such unsympathetic figures. Psychologically, it is easier to blame America for not finding a solution than it is to put one's own ideas on the line.
I try not to overlook others' shortcomings merely because they agree with me. It takes effort.
Certainly; but it is a failing found anywhere on the political spectrum.
tom:
Umm...that wasn't a "study" it was a diatribe. Chomsky isn't a member of the New Left, and equating the New Left with "liberals" is just false. Thanks again for illustrating my point.
BTW, the progressive side does have ideas. You can find them in all sorts of places on the net, except those places that parrot Republican talking points.
Jack: One wonders, considering that all the U.S. Presidents since 1989 have graduated from the same small, private college originally founded to maintain a strict Puritan theology, if there isn't indeed some sort of theocratic conspiracy afoot.
I trust this was merely an attempt at humor since it's not reasonable to draw parallels between Patrick Henry College and Yale.
Excerpts from a well-rounded article in the New Yorker:
(From Wikipedia: In the spring of 2004, of the almost 100 student interns working in the White House, seven were from Patrick Henry College, which had 240 students at the time. )
It can't be a theocratic conspiracy because it is all done out in the open. My liberal heart bleeds a bit for the students. Being in a sense cloistered, they are only exposed to people of different backgrounds after they graduate and get a job. It's a western Christian version of the Islamic school complete with strict dress code, no public affection between men and women, and an expectation that the women will give up any career to homeschool their children when they get married.
Rob Ryan: Let me rephrase my original proposition:
****THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH IS MEANT TO BE HUMOR****
"It is an almost universally known fact that every human being goes through a whiny phase at some point in their development. Conservatives go through the whiny phase when they are very small children, then become confident, independent, capable, compassionate adults. Liberals go into the whiny phase sometime in their late adolescent or early adult years and stay stuck on whiny for the rest of their lives."
****THE PRECEDING PARAGRAPH WAS MEANT TO BE VIEWED AS HUMOR****
I hope that helped to clarify my intent.
1) It really destroys satire to attach a disclaimer to it. I would have thought that by prefacing the remark with stating it as an "almost universally known fact", the astute and gentle reader would realize that in a country as closely divided as ours there are virtually no characterizations one can make about liberals and conservatives which will be regarded by almost everyone as fact, especially where whininess is involved.
2) When Mumon goes on his rants he is not looking for intelligent discussion. Gordon and Matthew were wonderfully patient in answering his folly, yet repeatedly he persists in (willful?) misunderstanding of what were clear, concise points well stated. Topping that list was Gordon's reference to Solzhenitsyn's formulation that the line between good and evil passes directly through every human heart. Reading Mummmy's response it is clear that he was either a) just skimming Gordon's post and answering what he assumed Gordon was saying (willful ingorance); b) understood what Gordon was saying but chose to twist it to a straw man he wanted to knock down (malevolence); or c) is just too dumb to be able to figure out what Gordon was saying.
So if my choice to laugh at Mummmmmmy's post instead of trying to engage him in serious discussion was inappropriate, I'm willing to listen to rebuke for it.
Ken: "I forgot to mention what great moral courage you and George C. Looney show in standing up to the perils posed by a drunken, dissapated Senator who has been dead half a century.
You mean Teddy Kennedy?"
Yeah, him, too!
Matthew: Once again you show yourself to be a gentleman and a scholar. I've enjoyed reading your thoughts!
Mumon
Your response to my post merely serves to prove the point others are making. One can find a psychological study to prove any point you want to make, just as you can manipulate statistics to say pretty much anything you want to say, too.
You also make an unwarranted assumption that (a) I get my ideas from "Republican talking points" and (b) that I am a Republican, period.
You continually cite "facts" but then post opinions as if they were facts, cf. your apparent love for the extremely fatuous Gwynne Dyer, who is a biased observer if I've ever seen one. (Yes, I've read Dyer.)
By the way, I've been reading the Dems' "ideas." They're mostly of this Monty Pythonish variety:
Alan (John Cleese): Well, last week we showed you how to become a gynecologist. And this week on "How to Do It" we're going to show you how to play the flute, how to split an atom, how to construct a box girder bridge, how to irrigate the Sahara Desert and make vast new areas of land cultivatable, but first, here's Jackie to tell you all how to rid the world of all known diseases.
Jackie (Eric Idle): Hello, Alan.
Alan: Hello, Jackie.
Jackie: Well, first of all become a doctor and discover a marvelous cure for something, and then, when the medical profession really starts to take notice of you, you can jolly well tell them what to do and make sure they get everything right so there'll never be any diseases ever again.
Alan: Thanks, Jackie. Great idea.
tom:
You also make an unwarranted assumption that (a) I get my ideas from "Republican talking points" and (b) that I am a Republican, period.
Given that you conflated "New Left" with "liberal," it's an easy assumption to make- it's not someone who's a Democrat or Independent is likely to make these days.
Maybe you're a Libertarian, Randian or some other rightie minority, but you're certainly not in the mainstream when you conflate "liberals" with "New Left."
Gwynne Dyer, who is a biased observer ...
He's fact based. Reality based. I guess that is a bias for conservatives...
Andy S: You say all of those things about Patrick Henry College like they are bad things!
(I borrowed that turn of phrase from Matthew Goggins for any plagarism investigators out there.)
I agree with Gwynne Dyer: Reagan could have messed it up enormously, and didn't, and was able to step back from the abyss his rhetoric was leading. See there's those facts again...
Mumon, you're too funny. You continually appeal to facts but then cite opinions as if they were facts, jsut as you've done above. Dyer may or may not be right here (he's almost certainly wrong), but this statement is not a fact; it is an opinion.
You also don't seem to realize that everyone brings an interpretive grid to the "facts" he observes. I'm not arguing for total subjectivity or solipsism--facts are facts--but everyone brings a different interpretation to them.
You previously cited the Terri Schiavo case and focus only on the "fact" that she was in a vegetative state. Others (myself included) looked beyond this "fact" to see that the state was setting a terrible precedent by allowing a helpless human being to be starved to death. (If you truly believed she wanted to die, simply shoot her in the head or inject drain cleaner into her veins.) We also look beyond the specific "facts" of her case to the inevitable slippery slope of euthanasia, and we can cite the facts of what is presently happening in Holland to support our case.
Likewise with abortion. Who could have imagined in 1973 when "Roe" was decided that within 30 or so yeras the court would find an alleged constitutional right to suck the brains out of a baby mere inches from birth? We then look beyond this "fact" to see that the same reasoning has led some ethicists to advocate outright infanticide.
Indeed, the ones who generally claim to be open-minded and objective (and, no doubt, smarter) than the rest of us are remarkable close-minded when it comes to looking at the "facts" beyond the facts.
Below is a sample of the level of the discussion in the Domenech homeschool controversy. The fact that the man was a homeschooler and a prolific writer/editor is a testimony at least of the effectivness of his HS program, irrespective of his ethical foibles.
Most of us at one time or another has been guilty of plagerism, or of harboring 'plagerism in our hearts -- though most are not so naive as to try to get away with it in publication. As Gordon pointed out, it is not the unforgivable sin. Although as a salaried professional editor/writer he may be finished (and rightly so), there is always a future on the liberal chat lines, where even the most neglected homeschoolers can shine.
Opps . . . that L word again.
damn. this little f...er has been groomed from the getgo. bkny | 03.21.06 - 10:26 pm
Freaky
Luther | 03.21.06 - 10:27 pm | #
ALTMAN : His mom admits home-schooling is a full- time job.
Don't these women have lives?
Don't they want lives?
Terry C, Coldplayer | 03.21.06 - 10:28 pm | #
So he was home-schooled and daddy has political connections... just wow.
cgreen | 03.21.06 - 10:28 pm | #
mom teaches 15-year-old Benjamin, 12-year-old Emily, 10-year-old Alice, and little Florence, who's almost three.
I repeat: The woman didn't have a life.
Terry C, Coldplayer | 03.21.06 - 10:29 pm | #
Home-schooling is like a lot of Rethug ideas, insidious once you understand its effects but incuous when you hear about it and never really examine it.
kei & yuri | Homepage | 03.21.06 - 10:32 pm | #
My apologies to those who think otherwise, but homeschooling is just plain WRONG, and should be inflicted on no child. Ever.
Sallyh, Madame Poissonniere | Homepage | 03.21.06 - 10:34 pm | #
Homeschooling is evil.
smalfish, enemy of the state | 03.21.06 - 10:34 pm | #
Wow, it's really bitch-slap Ben Domenech day!
Buzz Bomb | 03.21.06 - 10:34 pm | #
Home schooling is certainly an effective way for abusive parents to avoid detection.
OTOH, charter schools rock.
Evacuee | 03.21.06 - 10:36 pm | #
Mumon: "Regarding linking to my blog, it's done out of convenience to myself; I can avoid googling. And hey, some folks besides myself actually read the darn thing."
Ahhh....so that's how you came to be the sole contributor to the 10,842nd highest trafficed blog in the TTLB ecosystem. Lonely at the top, ain't it? Thanks for the explanation.
tom:
It is indeed a fact that we didn't have a nuclear war in the 1980s.
It is indeed a fact that Gorbachev, on his own, launched perestroika and glasnost as a means of reviving the Soviet economy.
It is indeed a fact that, outside of some espionage and perhaps provacateur-like roles, which were marginal, it was actually actions by the Eastern bloc people's themselves that ended Soviet rule.
Ronald Reagan continued Jimmy Carter's buildup of the armed forces (yep - fact).
But otherwise, there is no discernable cause/effect relationship to Reagan and the end of the Cold War- indeed, he was showing symptoms of Alzeimer's way back in the late 80s.
I know, Ronald Reagan is a saint to the right, but really...
Others (myself included) looked beyond this "fact" to see that the state was setting a terrible precedent by allowing a helpless human being to be starved to death.
Again, a) her brain had liquified- there was no there there, and b)it's actually not a particularly terrible way to go, especially if you have no awareness.
There was nothing but an endless poop-train of lies emanating from the right - and from outlets like CNN on this. And evidently there's still denial about this.
We also look beyond the specific "facts" of her case to the inevitable slippery slope of euthanasia, and we can cite the facts of what is presently happening in Holland to support our case.
It's so funny how folks that are so vocal about "freedom" are so eager to criminalize something for what someone might do.
Who could have imagined in 1973 when "Roe" was decided that within 30 or so yeras the court would find an alleged constitutional right to suck the brains out of a baby mere inches from birth?
Baby? Can you give me a case of such a thing that wasn't an anencephalic or other severely deformed fetus that couldn't live, and if not, what right do you have to criminalize it, especially when there's no provision for the health of the mother- which is the main reason why these things are done at all.
It's not surprising that people who know about these things think there's a lot of evil on your side of the aisle.
Cheesehead:
It ain't bad out of 10 million blogs...I'm in the top 1 percentile...lol.
It's so funny how folks that are so vocal about "freedom" are so eager to criminalize something for what someone might do.
This comment shows you're not serious, Mumon, and also that you have no idea what you're talking about.
There's no might involved in this. Involuntary euthanasia is already taking place in Holland, and it grew out of the first small wedge of saying we'll allow some people to choose to kill themselves with a doctor's help to the present, documented fact that doctors are now making that decision for people they deem unworthy or unable to make that decision themselves.
Baby? Can you give me a case of such a thing that wasn't an anencephalic or other severely deformed fetus that couldn't live, and if not, what right do you have to criminalize it, especially when there's no provision for the health of the mother- which is the main reason why these things are done at all.
More unseriousness as well as more know-nothingism. The notorious Dr. Warren Hern of Boulder, CO, has boasted about the number of partial-birth abortions he has performed, and there couldn't possibly be that number of anencephalic babies.
A Dr. Martin Haskell has talked about how he has performed partial-birth abortions simply because the baby had a cleft palate.
I'm not one normally given to name-calling, Mumon, but your ignorance of what you talk about is exceeded only by your arrogance.
Mumon:
"It is indeed a fact that, outside of some espionage and perhaps provacateur-like roles, which were marginal, it was actually actions by the Eastern bloc people's themselves that ended Soviet rule."
Although the Eastern block populace deserve credit for seizing the initiative, once the USSR imploded, I think that diplomatically little was actually done by them to hasten it. It was an unexpected phenomena that suprized even Reagan. I suspect that a more liberal president would have used their power to prevent the fall of Soviet Communism from ever occuring, as they did after WWII.
"Ronald Reagan continued Jimmy Carter's buildup of the armed forces (yep - fact)."
There are people here far more qualified than myself to deal with this, but suffice it to say that whatever Carter's "build up" was, it was undermined by his simultaneous deneutering of the military.
"Again, a) her brain had liquified- there was no there there, and b)it's actually not a particularly terrible way to go, especially if you have no awareness."
If you really believed that you should have no problem signing a living will expressing your desire to be dehydrated and starved to death, should you be ever be incapacitated. Are you willing to do that?
"It's so funny how folks that are so vocal about "freedom" are so eager to criminalize something for what someone might do."
The examples that Tom cited were of things that people actually did do and continue to do routinely.
"Baby? Can you give me a case of such a thing that wasn't an anencephalic or other severely deformed fetus that couldn't live, and if not, what right do you have to criminalize it, especially when there's no provision for the health of the mother- which is the main reason why these things are done at all."
They do kill babies don't they? If you can't come to terms with that reality, then you can never understand the rage that all conservatives feel about this. I have been through this several times at the EO and have provided statements from a doctor (who specialized in the 'procedure') testifying before the Senate that over 65% of the cases involved HEALTHY, VIABLE babies.
These are not rare. It happens several thousand times a year. And even if they were not heathy and viable, what gives liberals the right to declare the right to suck the brains out of baby at birth anyway?
Why is it that Buddists and Hindus are so spiritual that they wouldn't hurt a fly and yet they would remain silent about this, one of the the most blatant and barbaric atrocities ever concieved by man?
The AMA is on record stating that partial birth abortion is "never necessary to save the life of the mother." In rare cases where a late stage pregnacy threatens the life of the mother, a
C section is normal procedure. The only problem is, from the perspective of the abortionist, is that it doesn't result in a dead baby, which is the main objective.