This is why I don’t read blogs.
This is the sort of thing that emerges when every two-bit blowhard pseudointellectual wanker on the face of the planet gets a soapbox on which to stand and thump the chest, and it makes me yearn for the days when you couldn’t get a word before the public without squeezing it past a professional editor.
The writer is reasonably articulate, in a shallow, facile way. There’s just no intellectual substance there. No effort at all is made to elucidate or justify the premises on which the arguments stand, many of which are simply insupportable. The result is hot air laid over thin air. I could shred these “arguments” without half trying, as could anyone with a half-dozen functioning synapses. I won’t bother doing it; it’s just not worth my time.
Possibly the worst thing about the piece is its air of smug self-satisfaction. The whole thing positively reeks of “look at me, aren’t I smart?” Unfortunately, the only honest answer available is “no”.
What disturbs me is that people who really ought to know better pick this stuff up and pass it on, simply because they support the same goal that the author supports, though hopefully for different reasons. There are serious, reasonable arguments on both sides of this discussion. There is also arrant stupidity on both sides of this discussion. Some of the inanities used to oppose this war, especially those emanating from the left, make me want to gag; they do my cause far more harm than good, and I wouldn’t dream of passing them on with approval simply because those who present them are nominally on my side.
Nonsense doesn’t stop being nonsense because we approve of the cause pursued by its sponsors. |
