He wants to defend Instahack for his typical Glennocidal tendencies ("Thou shalt not speak ill of a [notional ally]" and all that) while still being on the right side of the issue. So he attacks Greenwald's mostly moral condemnation of Reynolds's plan while back-handedly lauding Yglesias's evisceration of its practicality. But Moran wastes no time demonstrating why even a junior-high schooler may disregard his disagreement with Greenwald:
How Lambchop managed to wangle a column at Salon is a mystery. They obviously haven’t been reading his shallow, calumnious, hate filled rants toward conservatives and Bush supporters. His generalized assaults on people who disagree with him are wildly beyond the pale of decency and common sense – coarse, exaggerated, full of laughably simplistic analysis coupled with nauseating, moralistic lecturing. Lambchop is a Calvinist without the redeeming belief in God’s mercy....Because by the time you're in 9th grade, you quickly learn from the low scores on your essays in Freshman English that you cannot continue neglecting to provide concrete examples in support of even the most mundane claims without ultimately failing the class. "Shallow"; "calumnious"; "hate filled [sic]"; and laughably, "beyond the pale of decency and common sense": All without a single link or quote to shore up his, let's face, far from mundane assertions. He even has the nerve to call Greenwald's posts "...full of laughably simplistic analysis..." without illustrating how this is so -- Rick cannot go beyond Moranic invective. While, to wit, Jeff Goldstein accusing someone of arguing in bad faith is utterly hilarious on the face of it.
But that is a digression.
There are not many, there is one holistic argument against government-conducted assassinations of civilian scientists and religious leaders, and Greenwald stressed its moral elements while Yglesias focused on the practical (a careful and ingenuous reading of each reveals that neither did so exclusively.) And there was no tag-teaming and shifting of goal-posts between Greenwald and Yglesias; one's argument (that Glenn's plan is wrong and nastier than a shithouse rat) reinforced the other's (that Glenn's plan is impractical and deeply stupid.)
Granted, here at Freedom Camp I only rarely delve into moral issues, knowing full well how tricky they can be, how unauthoritative I am, and how much easier it is to smack down the Rick Morans of Blogistan simply with observations that hew as close to materialism or utilitarianism as possible. But I can without any arrogance assert that unlike many of my counterparts on the Right, I know damn well there's a hell of a lot more to morality than, say, adhering to doctrinaire codes of sexual behavior.
For one thing, I've often noticed that a good litmus test for what is truly moral is that it virtually always accords with true pragmatism. It is morally feasible as well as materially pragmatic to fully fund and support public education. Torture is wrong as well as ineffective. Lying in order involve your country in an unjustified foreign war is as concretely damaging and counterproductive as it is evil and reprehensible. There's just no splitting the difference here.
PS "Lambchop"? "Sock-puppet"? This is an inside joke if I've ever heard one -- did I miss some Right-wing gotcha moment in which Greenwald was revealed as Sprezzatura II? What gives?
Labels: common sense, crypto-fascism, Glennocidal Tendencies, Greenwald, morality, Moranic Assertions, other bloggers' lives, Yglesias
