Good ol' Brian, always reliable. You whine like a little bitch about personal attacks, but this post is nothing else. Glenn Reynolds a "demagogue"? That's just nonsense. He does not say things that he does not believe are true and accurate.

Anybody who challenges your left-wing orthodoxy gets to be accused of being in a "cult." Yeah, like the left ain't cult-like. Puh-lease.

Bustamante's personal membership in an avowedly racial separatist organization might reasonably be seen to rate as considerably worse than Schwarzenegger knowing someone at US English who has made one or two remarks not nearly as bad as the avowed goals of Mecha.

Just remember, there is a difference between a conservative and a right wing nut, and that nuts join cults and keep them going, not conservatives, or liberals for that matter (but left wing lunatics do keep them going).

I consider myself a conservative, and I am very economically conservative, but socially, I will tolerate quite a bit of liberalism (and even admire it to some degree when it stands up for its beliefs, publicity stunt or not - see the Carey article for details).

I am a graduate of the Young America's Foundation and the Phillips Foundation's Ronald Reagan Future Leaders Program (and Leadership Florida's College Leadership Florida, but that's a whole other story), however, I am intelligent enough to know that America's health care system needs some kind of fixing, and that ideology works well in theory, but Marx's communism proved it doesn't actually work in practice. However, it does take one extreme to balance the other, it seems.

Whatever form of philosophy one follows really doesn't pose a danger as long as two things are in place: (1) Intelligence (this allows people to see what the truth really is) and (2) Sanity (this prevents cults from ruling the world). When they are not in place, right wing nuts are born, as are left wing lunatics, and while some of these ideological intellectuals may reign for a time, history shows us that they're either (a) exposed, (b) overthrown or (c) laughed at when proven wrong my their critics, or worse, those of us who have enough common sense not to worship the ideology at the center of our universe, or wherever it actually is to those of us with common sense. Both sides have fringes, unfortunately.

I did like the piece, though, Brian. Very well written and researched.

Cheers.

Brian,

I was attacked by Mike Larkin here on Blogcritics, more than once. He is a lefty nutjob, so what's his excuse?

I mean dude, PUUUUHHHLLLEEEASSSE with this right vs left crap. People are just assholes to each other sometimes, it isn't always about politics.

Al, that's not nice calling Brian a whiny bitch. Whiny liberal nutjob will do.

Wow, that doesn't seem very sporting, did anyone other than Glenn give you the time of day regarding

Brian, Glenn Reynolds is about as centrist as it gets. He isn't anywhere near the "right wing" on anything other than, perhaps, gun rights, which is just one of those personal things.

And to compare him to O'Reilly is just absurd. He is extremely judicious and fair-minded, as well as far-ranging and catholic in his interests. He sits where he does in the blogosphere for these very reasons. People - at least people who read blogs regularly - are not stupid. They can see through a phony, a dissembler, or a demagogue, if not immediately, then certainly over time. Reynolds is none of these things.

I don't agree with him, or anyone else, all the time, but what I look for in a writer, a reporter, a thinker is someone who approaches each situation with an open mind, who admits when he has made a mistake or changed his mind, is logical, gives fair reading to the other side, and airs at least some of his thinking process. Glenn Reynolds does all these things on a consistent basis.

Here is a phrase that speaks demagoguery pretty plainly to me:

And Glenn Reynolds played his part, only too happy to toss out the words "racist hatemongers" if it will smear the opposition. Sure, he later linked to people who suggested that Bustamante wasn't associated with racist hatemongers, but do you really think the goal was to have a discussion that led to the truth?

That's weird I meant to put a link to this:

And why did you change the title of the post? You're not trolling for an instalanche are you?

I know, questions.

Just one little thing -- the Crooked Timbers Post you cited has been overtaken by events. Since you were so hot and heavy on this story I might think you have noticed that. But, since you researched it this far, you should be able to figure out what I am talking about.

Also, this post is the equilivant of complaining that the media is conservative and then only talking about Fox News and the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal.

Tacitus did some nice work on this issue, it might be worthwhile to go back and re-read all the his stuff.

One more thing -- every try to disagree with the commenters over at Eschaton and Counterspin?

Brian,

You are being totally lame.

Thanks,
Dawn

Apparently you're under the mistaken impression that the definition of both the words "right-wing demagogue" and "fascist hatemonger" is "anyone who is not a pinko liberal." Those words, however, have real meanings, none of which even VAGUELY apply to Glenn.

You just cannot seem to STAND any dissent at all from the pinko party line, not even mild and even-handed Glenn Reynolds.

Do you think that you can just bully everyone into being thoughtless pinko drones by badgering us with bad names? Come on.

Hey, I've disagreed with the commenters at Eschaton and lived to tell about it! In fact I disagree with Atrios sometimes and he usually comes around or we agree to disagree. As soon as he gets a clue as to what a creep Jim Capozola, the Shrieking Queen of Philly, is, I'll start speaking to him again.

I know Reynolds is a patron saint of this site. But, I can't say that makes him any less of a pompous, Right Wing windbag in my opinion. He may have been the first 'name' blogger, but he will never be anywhere near the best.

Glenn doesn't strike me as a right wing nut. Take the 1st Amendment for example - he definitely leans toward the left on the right to free speech and expression. He's conservative on gun control, but so is everyone else who is a true conservative, and while his blog may not be 100 percent fair and balanced, I would bet that, neither is yours.

Glenn provides an interesting outlook on the news and interesting news bits, that's for sure. Whether everyone agrees with him or not, well, who cares. Blogging isn't about having everyone agree or disagree with you; that's what running for office is for.

So I guess now the question remains: Will Glenn Reynolds run for governor of California?

Probably not, but no matter what, you can guarantee that he'll remain a patron saint to Blogcritics and one of the most outstanding bloggers of all time.

Cheers.

-John Mudd

I would not call Reynolds a nut -- except in regard to gun control. But he is Right Wing, though he may not realize it because he only talks to an echo chamber kissing his arse here in the blogosphere. He would probably run screaming from anyone who dared challenge him.

Actually, I've been fair to the man. I don't even refer to him as InstaCracker, as many liberals do. (BTW, his beliefs about race, including blogrolling a white supremacy blog, Gene Expression, do give me pause.)

Nice to see the wingnuts coming out of the woodwork to prove Brian's point -- that since the facts aren't on the wingnuts' side, they must always resort to name-calling!

Nowhere, in ANY of the posts made to flame and trash Mr. Flemming's article, was there any attempt to use facts to disprove what he said. Instead, he was called "lame", a "nutjob", etc.

Come on -- if ANY of you Brian-bashers can prove that Glenn Reynolds didn't mistranslate/abuse the MEChA slogan, give us the proof. Right now!

Don't just call him a "nutjob" -- PROVE to us that his statements regarding InstaPundit are false.

Come on. I dare you.

Wow, InstaHack's right-wing cronies sure hopped to his defense here, haven't they?

The truth always strikes a nerve, I suppose...

Actually, the proper name is "Instacracker."

And remember - the closer you are to the mark, the more moronic brownshirt fucks will start whining.

Nicely done.

Come on -- if ANY of you Brian-bashers can prove that Glenn Reynolds didn't mistranslate/abuse the MEChA slogan, give us the proof. Right now!

[sound effect] chirp chirp chirp [/sound effect]

There's that elevation of discourse we've all been pining for!

InstaSlanderers, read and follow Chris's response, comment #7

I don't think that Glenn is a facist hatemonger anymore than Brian does. I do think that he is sloppy with who he links to, disingenous about his motives, and a bit glib for someone who wishes to be taken seriously. I think he plays to the conservative crowd while maintaining he's a centrist.

Yeah, I know. I'm glib too. But then I don't sell myself as a law professor/commentator on my blog or MSNBC, and I definitely don't sell myself as being serious. If Glenn wishes to remain a respectable "serious" or influential blogger, he needs to slow down and think before he links. Otherwise he runs the risk of becoming Mickey Kaus....(shudder)

Ok.

1. Juan Non- Volokh kicks things off with a response to the Ted Barlow piece Brian linked to.

2. Tacitus provides a semi roundup here.

3. One of the original posts that I am assuming started it all was also Tacitus, here.

Bottom Line: there are some troubling aspects to MEChA, you can't really excuse an organization for its ideology because the hold car washes to raise money for high school.

Which raises the other question -- are they a community organization or something more? I don't really know, I have read just about everything on this deal and followed links to read source documents and it looks like there are some questions.

Teach me to use Preview.

The link for Tacitus' orginal post is here.

The Penjmanesque roundup is here.

Excellent work, Brian.

(Mac Diva longs to be my bitch!)

I don't live in California, haven't been following the recall closely, and have nothing in particular to say about MEChA one way or the other. I made my general statement about Glenn in comment #5, which I stand by.

Those particularly interested in the dynamic at play here should peruse this post.

Fascinating. Whereas I assumed you were jockeying for the Instalanche, in fact, you triggered the 'Schatolanche. Brilliant!

Yeah, 'lanches of any kind are good - too bad this one was triggered by rabid partisan demagoguery. But hey, better demagoguery WITH the 'lanche than without.

The wingnuts dogged insistence on attempting to tar MEChA as a racist organization will throw the election to Bustamante (or better yet, Davis) yet, the ever-more-obvious lack of Ahnold's qualifications aside...

Wow.

One measure of Reynold's apparent power in the blogosphere is the level of obsequy displayed in defending him. Getting a link from a high traffic site is nice and all, but let's not grovel people. Show some dignity when you're begging for Instalinkage, you'll feel better about yourself in the morning.

Dave, as an apparent target of "wingnut" I will say Arnold's qualifications to run the most populous and diverse state in th enation are suspect at best, I don't think Davis should be recalled, and I don't care one way or the other about Bustamante.

I do care about Glenn Reynolds being attacked as a demagogue in a demagogic manner on this site, which is the subject at hand.

Slack, dignity in the blogosphere when there are links to be gained? Lay off the vodka, dear.

David, if you are reincarnated as a breeder in the next life, we're on.

I don't believe Reynolds mistranslated a short, simple phrase in Spanish by accident. It was a calculated spin for his audience -- the Right, not centrists.

Correct.

Always remember that to Instahack and Co. today's "left" was yesterday's center.

Irony folks. Irony. Don't get so upset.

You can listen to Dr. Velia Garcia, chair of la Raza studies at San Francisco State University, talk about La MEChA.

It seems to me that Bustamante is far more vulnerable on the campaign cash he is raking in now (though so is Arnold).

And I'm more disturbed by his support for the death penalty than anything he may or may not have believed when he was a student.

Wow. In defending ignorant right-wing hate mongering, most of the defenders of Reynolds have managed to produce nothing but. Beyond that, they've only linked to old "translations" by people who don't know the first thing about Spanish.

You've really managed to pull the sheet off of the right. The only shock is that there's nothing under it. They're still carrying water for "American Patrol" and are too ignorant to know it.

"Useful idiots" indeed. Suck on it, trolls!

There's a lot I'd disagree with in this post.

That said, I think the comments from Mark Kleiman are particularly on point: labeling someone as a "fascist hatemonger" is bad enough -- merely "updating" when that turns out to be incorrect is far, far worse.

Before you jump on me for that, think -- what if the New York Times buried a correction in the Arts section that said, "We're sorry we called the President a puppet for Dick Cheney -- those facts turned out to be incorrect."

I'm sure if that happened (ha!) you'd be seething and demanding a front page retraction.

I don't know the state of things well enough to say, "Oh, if this were a Republican, Glenn would be more vigilant in a public correction."

Instead, I'll just say that a more prominent correction is appropriate regardless of party affiliations.

" the pinko party line"

Holy Jesus, people still use the word 'pinko'? Hilarious! Where's my bell-bottoms?

Yeah, "pinko" is a cool word, ain't it? It feels like 1972 with some of these pinko nutjobs such as Howard Dean. He is SO George McGovern. What's Dean's platform: acid, abortion and amnesty?

You know, I have a feeling that all of the anger in these posts could be so easily washed away after you view some of the absolutely beautiful newly listed homes for sale on my real estate website.

There's nothing better to make you forget all about your ideological cares than the soothing comfort and joy that you feel when buying a new home or vacation home here in Florida's lovely Tampa Bay area.

Click here so you can started on discovering that new, spectacular place where you'll post your fabulously intellectual, and perhaps even ideological, rants from, straight to the blogosphere.

You'll be able to enjoy the pleasures of a new home or vacation home, invest in a spectacular piece of real estate and drive more traffic to your blog(s) all at the same time, and maybe even get some free publicity, too. Now that's showing your fellow bloggers just how "superior" you really are. Wow!

-John Mudd

Think Pink!

But, then we would have to try to vote in Florida.

You could always vote absentee in your home state, MD. It's not uncommon here.

That's an idea, John. We vote by mail exclusively in Oregon, so I already have experience with ballots and envelopes.

To me, there's no difference between the right wing and the left wing (at least as they appear on the internet). They're all assholes who use the exact same arguments and employ the same exact tactics, only they change some of the nouns to fit their ideology (like MadLibs).

In fact, I'd say that there are only two "wings" in the blogoshpere: normal people and assholes, with asshole-ism being an ideology unto itself. The whole "I'm a neocon" or "I'm a liberal" thing is just the framework the asshole provides himself with as a vehicle for proving just how much of an asshole he is.

Paul, though he sweetens the language, my good blogfriend Rick Heller woud mainly agree with you. Rick considers himself a centrist and has done a bang-up job of getting me to reconsider some liberal positions. He is putting together a loose-knit group of centrists in Bloggersville. Rick can be read and contacted at:

Smart Genes

Mr. Flemming, Reading your central theme about the compelling nature of the Right Wing subculture to be likened to a "cult", I had a thought of how fittingly that label could be applied to lefties as well. I caution that I make no personal attack on you or even your idea, and I consider you a superior writer, but this is a way you could see it from a different perspective:

"1) It has a dogma to which one is forbidden to apply reason," ...like diversity worship.

"2) It personally attacks its critics (because the dogma can't be defended by more reasonable means), " ...like when people are called racist, nazi, or worse for questioning things like the fairness of race based preferences, or the wisdom of unprecedented levels of third world immigration and the resulting effect on social services. (California)

"3) It insists that the cult itself is the only trustworthy source of information about the cult." ...presumably someone outside of the "distortion shelter" (I like that terminology), such as "on TV (Fox News), newspapers (Washington Times, New York Post) or talk radio (talk radio)."

I've always thought of myself as fair minded or at least trying to be. Sometimes I'm not sure of where I am on the political spectrum, or if everybody's got the same scale, but when I read Mr. Barger's "extremely repulsive post", it seemed to me like a reasonably indignent response to an undeserved attack on his character by Ms. Diva, a powerfully persuasive personality, with good passion and thoughtfullness, but nonetheless race obsessed.

Mr. Barger thinks erroneously that he, who absolutely considers himself non-racist and a lover of all peoples (the guy even enjoys going to concerts where black militant rappers march around with plastic machine guns}, should be afforded to retort in kind, to the attacks he has suffered. But not in the world of the multi-cultis. Only they are allowed to make ugly charges of hate, etc.

It can be kind of creepy to watch. At first there begins a kind of clucking, like "I'm not confortable with that statement". Then a demand for clarification of view, and a last chance to grovel. Then as more lefties pile on, there are suggestions of evidence gathered, ties to "racist" organizations and such. Then finally the shrieking of inflammatory charges, accompanied by belittleing insults. It really puts me in mind of the movie about the Salem Witch Trials, the scene in the church. (except for the actual burning at the stake).

As far as Bustamante and Mecha are concerned. If it is simply a benign organization, why doesn't Bustamante simply explain. (maybe he has?) Sort of like how all Sadaam Hussein had to do was to show the required disposal records of all the WMD's he, admittedly had at one time.

I don't know much about Mr. Reynolds. It was fascinating to learn that people of color are more likely to be sniper killers though. Thats the kind of thing you wouldn't hear even from a "reality distortion shelter".

D

Dan- Thanks for your understanding words. Your best part was the description of the debate process in your "creepy to watch" paragraph.

a last chance to grovel Oh Jebus, that is SO right on. I've felt that feeling a FEW times around here. Your explanation in that paragraph confirms to me that I am not just crazy.

On the other hand, Glenn has had PLENTY of chances to support some simple common sense gun control in order to prove that he's not a FASCIST NAZI NEO-CONFEDERATE DEMAGOGUE WHITE SUPREMICIST HATEMONGER- in short, a Republican. He has not availed himself of these NUMEROUS opportunities, so one can only conclude that he is REPUBLICAN, or to put it more simply, EVIL.

That is all.

Will someone please cue the music from The Twilight Zone?

Years on the Blogosphere and the only example you can come up with are some links to the spanish/english translation of MECHA'S mission statement? You accuse Glenn of being pure evil and that is the BEST example you could come up with?

Lame.

Infide, you are late to the party but better late than never.

O.K., here are two websites which talk specifically about the goals of MeCHA. Both of them claim to follow 'the plan'. Read 'the plan' and tell me it is not racist.

http://www2.sjsu.edu/orgs/mecha/ & http://www.berkeleymecha.org/about/

Spewing out vitriol such as "fascist", "nazi" or "cult" isn't a personal attack? Bottom line is any extremist point of view, left or right, is going to crash and burn in the public arena.

It's funny that this essay denounces the left for being incapable of arguing from logic and reason with what is essentially a long personal attack. Doesn't anyone realise that this same tired line is trotted out by 'the Right' whenever they can too? Replace a few nouns here and there, and this whole essay could be a Rush Limbaugh radio spot.

To show that Glenn Reynolds resorts to name-calling, you call him a "fascist hatemonger." Did I link to The Onion by mistake?

same situation here Gary, the post is from '03, the writer long gone