Naomi Schaefer Riley: The Academic Mob Rules

By Naomi Schaefer Riley | May 8, 2012 | Wall Street Journal

Instead of encouraging wide discussion, the Chronicle of Higher Education fires a blogger.

Recently, the Chronicle of Higher Education published a cover story called “Black Studies: ‘Swaggering Into the Future,'” in which the reporter described how “young black-studies scholars . . . are less consumed than their predecessors with the need to validate the field or explain why they are pursuing doctorates in their discipline.” The “5 Up-and-Coming Ph.D. Candidates” described in the piece’s sidebar “are rewriting the history of race.” While the article suggested some are skeptical of black studies as a discipline, the reporter neglected to quote anyone who is.

Like me. So last week, on the Chronicle’s “Brainstorm” blog (where I was paid to be a regular contributor), I suggested that the dissertation topics of the graduate students mentioned were obscure at best and “a collection of left-wing victimization claptrap,” at worst.

MSNBC: Don’t Expose Muslim Atrocities

By Colin Flaherty | May 22, 2012 | WND

Harvard professor doesn’t want ‘fuel’ against Islam revealed

MSNBC’s new golden girl was in a pickle: If someone sees a black person committing rape or domestic violence, should he report it if it makes black people look bad?

Or if Muslims see wife-beating, genital mutilation and childhood sexual abuse, should they just keep it to themselves, because saying something gives ammunition to the “Islamophobes”?

The questions appear to be simple. But they posed a challenge for the host of the new “Melissa Harris-Perry” show when guest Mona Eltahawy talked about her Foreign Policy magazine cover story about abuse of women by men in the Muslim world.

Eltahawy speaks from experience: She had her arms broken in a demonstration in Egypt and was tortured and raped in an Egyptian jail cell.

So she seemed surprised to find Harris-Perry questioning her right to draw attention to “traditions” such as involuntary female circumcision, wife-beating and childhood sexual abuse.

The Great Liberal Lie: Jonah Goldberg on the Left’s War on Words [Video]

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How Liberals Successfully Silence Dissent

By Phil Elmore | May 3, 2012 | WND

Exclusive: Phil Elmore challenges conservatives to start fighting for keeps

Liberals adore the idea of silencing dissent. To this end, and because they believe they hold the moral high ground when contending with heartless, selfish, benighted conservatives, liberals will use a combination of intimidation, threats and dishonesty to destroy or remove any and all critics.

The Obama administration has tried several times to exploit this tendency among its more ardent followers. There was the White House email hotline, flag@whitehouse.gov; there was the running joke that was “AttackWatch” and its Twitter account; more recently, Obama’s flacks have been pushing the Orwellian “Truth Team.” Liberals are also abusing Twitter’s spam-reporting system to trigger automatic blocking of conservative Twitter accounts.

The goal, in every case, is to respond to the outrage that is political dissent in Obama’s America. The means is to threaten, to shout down and to shut up. Dare to express an opinion counter to Dear Leader’s Democratic Party line? Obama demands his violent and foul-smelling Occupy Wall Street rabble “get in your face” and yell at you until you stop talking. This is the “Coming Obama Thugocracy” Michael Barone predicted almost four years ago.

There was a time when liberals told us that criticizing judges for their extra-constitutional interpretations of the law was tantamount to agitating for those judges’ assassination. Today, those same liberals attack the United States Supreme Court if they suspect there exists even the possibility some of Obama’s unconstitutional legislation may be found so. When Democrats did not hold the White House, no less a lib luminary than Hillary Clinton famously screeched that we are Americans, and we have the right to disagree with any administration. Today, if you disagree with Obama, Democrat thugs are supposed to “get in your face” and explain to you the error of your ways.

There is no room for debate; there is no opportunity for discussion; there is no way even to argue, no matter how passionately. No, if you are a conservative, you are supposed to close your mouth-hole, and if you don’t like it, Obama voters can find some union thugs, some club-wielding racists, or some mob of whining communists to beat you until you can’t speak.

Conservatives and libertarians are in part to blame for this wretched state of affairs. We don’t fight well. We don’t stand up for ourselves, nor protect our own. We harrumph and we cluck and we shake our heads, refusing to challenge the logically flawed premises the libs foist on us. We agree with liberal useful idiots that Rush Limbaugh should not call a slut a slut, that what Mitt Romney does with his money is a greater outrage than what Barack Hussein Obama does with your money. We let the enemy frame the “debate.” We let our opposition set the terms. We never simply stand up and say, “I reject your flawed premise … and if you don’t get ‘out of my face,’ I will drop you where you stand.”

Read the full article here.

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Occupy Twitter: Top Ten Dirty Tricks Leftists Play Online

By Liberty Chick | May 1, 2012 | Breitbart

Twitter has become the battleground for the 2012 elections and the fight to push the country further left or closer to the right. It is the vehicle that not only informs and influences the opinions of others, but often it is Twitter that actually drives the news cycle. Protest movements like Occupy and Anonymous are using Twitter and other online media as a key mechanism in fighting the battle for ideas and opinions. However, for months now, there has been a coordinated campaign on the part of some leftists to silence conservatives on Twitter in an effort to reduce the impact of the right’s voice on public opinion and the news.

It’s a campaign that has been obvious to many of those who’ve been experiencing this first-hand.  And Sunday night, more sunlight was shone on the issue as thousands witnessed an attack on a higher profile target when Chris Loesch, the husband of Big Journalism editor and CNN contributor, Dana Loesch, had his Twitter account suspended suddenly and unexpectedly–for “sending multiple unsolicited mentions to other users.”

The action sparked an outpouring of support, sending the hashtag #FreeChrisLoesch to the top of the trending tags, and once more with #FreeChrisLoesch AGAIN when his account was suspended yet again (and again) after less than a minute or so of having been restored. In reviewing the tweets that lead up to the incident, there is no evidence whatsoever that Chris abused Twitter’s terms of service. His “infraction” was the mere act of defending his wife by responding to those targeting her with vile, disgraceful tweets, all of which Dana has aptly reported here on Big Journalism.

It was later discovered that the cause of Chris’s suspension stemmed from a coordinated effort to abuse Twitter’s “block and report” features to trigger Twitter’s algorithm that flags an account as spam, thereby automatically suspending the account temporarily until human eyes could review the situation.

Many outlets have since covered Sunday night’s incident, including, but not limited to, Human Events, Newsbusters, Twitchy and The Washington Times. The truth is, this isn’t the first time that this has happened to a conservative on Twitter, either. In fact, many have experienced this and other attacks in recent months.  Sunday night was simply the first time that conservatives fought back–en masse.

We’ve all seen tactics like this in action online in one form or another.  Over time, countless numbers of activists on the right have sent me examples of similar attacks, and I’ve even spoken directly with many of them. We thought this might be the perfect opportunity to share a list of the “Top Ten Dirty Tricks Leftists Play Online.”

I’ll preface this list with a couple of obvious caveats.

First, I know that there are some on the left who vehemently disagree with such tactics, and to those individuals, I say thank you for standing up for free speech even when it does not reconcile with your own beliefs. I wish more on the left would speak out in support of all free speech.

Secondly, I would venture to guess that there are some on the right who might not play entirely fairly, either.  I don’t believe many on the right would excuse that behavior. The observation from many however, is that the instigators of such tactics I’m about to list below appear to be overwhelmingly left-leaning.

That being said, here is the list, by all means not all inclusive and in no particular order, compiled from examples that have been sent, tweeted, posted and discussed in recent months.

1. Google bombing: The act of flooding search engines with intentional disinformation about a person or group in order to mock or harm their reputation. This is usually then extended to Twitter. Even in the days before the infamous Santorum Google bomb, this was already a frequent and universal tactic.  Check out some of the most notorious Google bombs here. Often, the best remedy to a Google bomb is a counter-action to flood the search results with the truth.
2. Comment trolling: Amongst the midst of legitimate commenters on a site are comment trolls.  You know them well–the commenters that say outlandish things to provoke a response, sometimes to provoke YOU into saying something that can be used to make you look bad. As with any moderated website, many of you have seen instances of this here at the Breitbart sites.  Sometimes, the comments are even plucked from the boards, often before a moderator has been able to address them, and the comments are tweeted publicly. It’s an issue that any site owner struggles with on a regular basis. A proposed law in Arizona to curtail comment trolls has more recently put this problem on the map, and sparked a major civil liberties debate. Best defense when you spot a comment troll?  Rule #14.  Or, if you suspect it’s a troll whose comments were made to be tweeted, report them using the moderation feature. And tell others to do the same,
3. Doxing: The act of posting one’s personal information online.  his is an intimidation tactic that’s become even more popular with the advent of groups like Anonymous, which frequently employ the tactic (at times getting the information wrong), and even celebrities, as we saw when George Zimmerman’s address retweeted by Roseanne Barr and Spike Lee. Even hackers fear doxing by their own, as the attorney for one high profile member of Anonymous indicated, “The publicly available information may then be used to harass the cooperator and the cooperator’s family in a variety of ways,” she said. “This obviously creates danger for the cooperator, the cooperator’s family, and law enforcement.”  Posting publicly available information online is not illegal. Therefore, sometimes the only defense you may have is to report the action to the site hosting the information, assuming the act violates its terms of service.  If the information itself was obtained illegally, such as in the case of email hacking, this should be reported to your local law enforcement authorities.
4. Submitting false complaints: Opponents will often retaliate against one’s beliefs by sending complaint letters/emails to the employer or to any organization associated with their target. I have seen examples of complaint letters that contain everything from lies about the target being “racist” or “homophobic,” to the extreme of falsely accusing the target of wrong-doing or even of crimes. Given that many activists prefer to keep their politics separate from their careers, this can be devastating to some. If you suspect this could happen to you, it may be best to discuss this privately with your Human Resources department in advance, if you have that luxury. I have seen some instances that amounted to defamation, and the targets eventually sued over the loss of or impact to their jobs as a result. Legal action is not always the best course; however, and the potential for converse effects should be carefully considered and discussed with a legal professional.
5. “False Flag Suspensions”: The act of abusing Twitter’s spamblock feature to get accounts suspended. Given the intro to this post, this hardly needs further explanation. However, I will offer yet another example. Keep in mind that some opponents seem to have an interesting view on what constitutes “harassment” or “stalking”–views that don’t necessarily line up with the law enforcement community’s definition of those terms. In other words, some might consider your defending yourself to be “stalking” or “harassment” of them. Luckily, companies like Twitter often disagree, once they have a chance to review the situation.

Read the full article here.

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With ‘Tyranny of Clichés,’ Jonah Goldberg Delivers a Second Triumph [Update: Interview With Piers Morgan]

By John Nolte | April 30, 2012 | Breitbart

 No one who writes for a living wouldn’t want to be the person behind Jonah Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism,” which was not only a number-one New York Times’bestseller, but also a seminal publication in the growing canon of conservative-leaning books. What I would wish on no writer, however, is having to face the challenge and pressure of writing a follow-up to such a stunning debut. But with “The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas” (out today), not only has Goldberg (editor-at-large for National Review Online) avoided the sophomore slump — in many ways he has an even bigger triumph on his hands.

Everything conservatives will be looking for is on every page of “Tyranny.” Just as he did with “Liberal Fascism,” Goldberg uses scholarly history, damning logic, pop culture, and laugh-out-loud humor to connect the dots that expose the Left as the vacuous, dishonest, State-addicted mercenaries they really are. But what sets “Tyranny” apart from its predecessor and, in my opinion, improves on it, is two things:

First, simply by its title alone, “Liberal Fascism” was red meat for the Right; a delicious, timely, page-turning balm in The Year Of Obama. As we were getting our electoral butts kicked in every corner of America — as our worst political nightmares were impossibly coming true — we could at least get under the covers and flick a flashlight onto Jonah’s reassurance that we were right, dammit!

“Liberal Fascism” is ours and all ours, but to its credit, “Tyranny” is less so.

“Tyranny” isn’t red meat as much as it’s an argument. Yes, so was “Liberal Fascism,” but that was a more pointed argument made from a somewhat belligerent posture (which I loved). “Tyranny,” though, is something I would (and have) send to my Obama-loving, swing state-dwelling, left-wing mother. For years now, the two of us have fired books at one another in the hopes of persuading the other to see the light, and because Goldberg’s theme is less about partisan politics than it is about intellectual honesty, I’m convinced it’s going  to be one of my more persuasive missives.

“Tyranny” isn’t about ideology. Don’t get me wrong, Goldberg still takes it to the Left, but liberalism (for very good reason) is merely the vehicle the author drives to explore the much bigger theme of how and why the left and their allies in media and academia have allowed political debate to devolve into cliché. The over-arching theme, however, is even bigger and speaks to conservative and liberal alike:

Think.

For.

Yourself.

Unfortunately for the Left, they’re the ones most guilty of failing in that department (don’t worry, Republicans take a few well-deserved licks), but I can’t imagine any reasonable liberal, like my mother, reading Goldberg’s words and not only rethinking how they themselves argue, but also feeling a little unsettled and bamboozled by some of the arguments they’ve bought into. Which brings me to my second point:

Read the full article here.

Update:

Piers Morgan’s Childish, Hostile, Cliché-Ridden Interview of Jonah Goldberg [Video]

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The Best of Fred Hutchison: Postmodern Barbarians

By Fred Hutchison | April 19, 2012 | RenewAmerica

Originally published June 17, 2004

In this essay, I discuss some psychological similarities between Postmodernism and barbarism. Both seem to inflict some of the same kinds of torments upon the mind. I shall contrast these miseries with the joys of a high culture.

Modernism and primitivism

By an irony of history, men of the French Enlightenment began the cult of “progress” at the same time they began to idealize the “noble savage.” This curious paradox occurred in the middle of the eighteenth century. Interestingly, the writings of Jean Jacques Rousseau provided a stimulus for both seemingly contradictory things.

The fascination with primitivism has continued through the modern and postmodern eras. Modernism was disconnected from the great ideals of the classical civilization of Europe — which I like to call Baroque Civilization. In spite of this detachment from the old ideals, Modernism profited greatly from the western cultural heritage. It constantly drew from this heritage in spite of its irrational ideological insistence that the past was “darkened,” the present day is “enlightened,” and the future will be glorious.

There was a Romantic reaction against Modernism in which Classical and Medieval revivals in the arts and architecture occurred. Some critics have pronounced these Victorian styles to be “decadent.” (This kind of decadence is not to be confused with the fin-de-siecle decadent art which was pornographic.) Pitirim Sorokin said that Victorian classicism was “overripe.”

Some sensitive artists and scholars revolted against this overripe decadence and reached towards primitivism. Gauguin, a French post-impressionist painter, traveled to Tahiti to celebrate primitivism in his art and in his experience. Picasso’s transition from Neoclassicism to abstract expressionism began as he obsessively stared at an African mask. Margaret Mead traveled to Samoa seeking a rationale for a liberation from the Victorian “sexual repression” which Freud warned about. She sought an example of sexual liberation in primitive Samoa. Her game of pseudo-science has long since been exposed and discredited. But the myths she created are still in circulation among postmodern liberals. The myths are going strong in the cult of Multiculturalism and in the delusions of the sexual revolution.

In our popular culture, the longing for primitivism and barbarism can still be heard in the primitive beat of much of hard rock music, in cartoonish movies such as 1982’s Conan the Barbarian, and in the clownish exhibitionism of public wrestling.

The fallacies of barbarian fantasies

Kenneth Clark made short work of the Romantic nostalgia for barbarism. “People tell me that they prefer barbarism to civilization. I doubt if they have given it a long enough trial….they are bored with civilization; but all the evidence suggests that the boredom of barbarism is infinitely greater. Quite apart from discomforts and privations, there was no escape from it. Very restricted company, no books, no light after dark, no hope. On one side the sea battering away, on the other infinite expanses of bog and forest. A most melancholy existence!” (Civilization, by Kenneth Clarke)

Clarke pointed out that the Anglo-Saxon poets had no illusions about barbarism.

“A wise man may grasp how ghastly it shall be/ When all this world’s wealth stands waste/ Even as now, in many places over the earth,/ Walls stand wind beaten,/ heavy with hoar frost; ruined-habitations…/The maker of men has so marred this dwelling/ That human laughter is not heard about it/ and idle stand these old giant works.”

“These fragments have I shorn up against my ruin.” (T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land) Eliot’s gloom sounds a little like barbarian melancholy. He was an intelligent modern looking over the brink at Postmodernism. The existential despair which was shortly to follow Eliot’s time would be even more forlorn in its message. The liberal Postmodernism of our day is one further stage of retreat from hope.

Postmodern counter-culture

Postmodernism is not decadent. It is counter-cultural. Decadence (from the root word decay) is a debasement of aging cultural forms. A counter-cultural revolt is a rejection, not an inferior imitation of the forms’ cultural heritage. Postmodernism involves an utter renunciation of the Western cultural heritage. As a result, Postmoderns not only cherish cultural primitivism, as did their decadent Modernist forbears; they suffer from some of the pathologies which the barbarians used to suffer — boredom, fragmentation, hopelessness, and melancholy.

I would also add claustrophobia. Postmoderns do not suffer the claustrophobia of living at close quarters in a mud hut. I think they suffer from a mental claustrophobia of thinking within the closed system of cultural determinism. It is as though their minds are trapped in an endlessly repeating loop of a computer program. As their thinking has become compressed, they have become prone to narrow ideologies, ideological myths, the terrors of ideological bogeymen, and cartoonish interpretations of the world. The Postmodern renunciation of reason has turned their minds into a shadowy underground cavern in which all the exits are blocked. Such may be the fate of those who turn away from reason and from high culture.

Barbarism is filled with myths and taboos. The politically-correct speech codes of Postmodernism are also full of taboos. A barbarian will kill you if you violate a taboo. A Postmodernist will demonize you if you violate a taboo, will try to block you from speaking, and will prevent you from getting tenure if he can.

Read the full article here.

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The Ryan Test: Demagoguery Versus Ideas

August 12, 2012 By John Malcolm Leave a Comment

By Jonathan S. Tobin | August 11, 2012 | Commentary Magazine As John wrote earlier today, liberals are convinced that Mitt Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan to be his running mate offers them a golden opportunity to savage the Republicans about the Wisconsin congressman’s budget plans. Predictably, the New York Times delivered one of the first such salvos in its editorial posted […]

Smoking Obama’s Crack and Yearning for the Mud

August 12, 2012 By John Malcolm Leave a Comment

By Vanderleun | August 10, 2012 | American Digest [From 2008. Only the names have been changed because the target has changed.] This downward flight of intellectuals has been going on ever since the Romantic movement began its counter-revolution a couple hundred years ago. No matter how much they flap their lips it’s a fall, not […]