At the Snob Café: Ann Althouse and the Politics of Posturing

Ann Althouse

Ann Althouse likes to post pictures of plants and flowers and other Wisconsin flora and fauna, then label her post to describe it "At the ___ Café."  Her post today is "At the Garlic Café."  My post, in her honor, is called "At the Snob Café."

Yesterday I took Robert Stacy McCain to task for overstating his case against Althouse for voting for Obama.  His premise was sound, but he used a cannon to kill a gnat.  However, a gnat is still a gnat and a snob is still a snob, and I think Althouse is the latter.  She claims that her vote for Obama in 2008 was a rational act, but I doubt it.  Obama's credentials as a prosperity-destroying collectivist ideologue were well known, as were his radical associates.  The consequences of voting for him were obvious, but Ann Althouse chose not to see them.  (See my take on it just before the election in 2008.)

Then I had an epiphany.  If one wishes to establish his or her credentials as a wonderfully non-partisan, open-minded, racially tolerant and downright wonderful individual, a heroine to her college students, what better way than to vote for the hip hop candidate of choice, the candidate of sweetness and light.  Voting for Obama was just another way for snobs to posture ("look at me, I'm so enlightened!").  Althouse could not pass up the temptation.  I don't think there is anything cerebral in her decision.  Her vote was more a fashion statement than political conviction.

R.S. McCain wants Althouse to admit her error and apologize.  I want Pamela Geller to admit her error (in slandering the English Defence League) and apologize.  I seriously doubt that either of us will get his wish.  Snobs never apologize.

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When News Is Slow, Invent a Controversy: R.S. McCain vs Ann Althouse

Robert Stacy McCain loves to push the envelope in getting hits for his blog, The Other McCain.  He ignores real conservative controversies (probably to avoid losing linky love) like the Geller/Spencer EDL slur, but creates a conservative controversy that gets him links (and it works, because here I am linking to him).

This week RSM called Ann Althouse "a rube" because the latter voted for Barack Obama, and insisted that Althouse admit her mistake.  He writes:

Friday, the Wisconsin law professor asserted that she “made a rational choice” in voting for Obama in 2008, because she does not want to admit the truth: She was wrong, and not merely incidentally wrong, but disastrously, catastrophically wrong.

Ann Althouse is a comely right-leaning blogger in Wisconsin.  She is also a law professor there.  She has been quoted by Rush Limbaugh and gets a huge number of visitors each day, and voilà, there is the reason for McCain's recent attack on her.  Althouse complied, discussed McCain's attack, rebutted him, belittled him, and wrote about him at length.  With her huge readership, she played right into McCain's hands, no doubt sending huge traffic his way, at least for a day or two.  McCain played her like a cheap fiddle at an Alabama hoe-down.  Cue wild fiddle music:  Grab your partners, round and round, doe-see-doe!  Yeeehaaa!

I agree with McCain's assessment of Ann's decision to vote for Barack Obama, as quoted above.  I am disappointed to learn that Ann did something so downright dumb and destructive.  But, as Donald Douglas has pointed out, McCain is just trolling for traffic.  And it worked, big time!  Has "The Other McCain" become the "National Enquirer" of the blogosphere?  What's next, Stacy, "Bigfoot Marries Elvis in a UFO"?

I forgive McCain for this cynical blog ploy, for one good reason:  it was very entertaining.  McCain earned his hits.

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Jim Shankman is a Liar and a Coward

A couple of days ago Ann Althouse, a law professor and blogger in Madison, Wisconsin, received a threatening message from one of the pro-union leftists there.  Now the leftist has been identified as one Jim Shankman, who maintains a blog at this link.  Shankman had threatened to harrass Althouse until she leaves Wisconsin, promising that "We will fuck you up."

Now this leftist pussy has written a rationalization for his thuggish behavior.  He writes:

Ann Althouse and Meade advocate torture, attack against nonviolent protesters, police-state crackdowns on citizens exercising their constitutional rights, class privilege, race privilege, and basically the full spectrum of assaults against American democracy advocated by the radical, revolutionary wing of the republican party. They are unkind, unChristian and anti-American.

There is absolutely no truth in Shankman's screed; he just makes up outrageous claims to support his profound ignorance and immaturity.  He sounds like an ex-college student who was thoroughly marinated in crazy, moonbat, leftist ideology before he flunked out. Now he spends his time on a righteous crusade to slay the evil demons that exist only in his tiny little mind.

Anyone can make things up and then attribute the lies to his enemies.  Let's try it:

Jim Shankman advocates Marxist communism, the enslavement of all productive working people who will then be forced to supply the lazy, pot-smoking left with a high standard of living while the latter lounge about all day, sucking their thumbs and playing video games and producing nothing of value.  He represents everything that is decadent, backward, despotic, ignorant and false in the Democratic Party.

Whoops!  I meant to write something obviously false, ridiculous and exaggerated to prove my point.  However, it appears I have written a fair semblance of the truth about Jim Shankman.  My bad.

One thing I will say to Shankman is this:  don't threaten one of us, you pimply little punk.  Are you naive enough to believe that your threatened aggression will be passively accepted?   Guess again, punk.

Related post at the Other McCain

Correcting Some Conservatives on Islam: Ann Althouse and Smitty

Not everyone is crazy about the idea of "Draw Mohammed Day."  Alas, there are those conservatives with a shallow understanding of Islam, who have never read a book on the subject.  I've read about 14, including the Qur'an, so let me set these folks straight.

Ann Althouse said:

I don't like the in-your-face message that we don't care about what other people hold sacred. Back in the days of the "Piss Christ" controversy, I wouldn't have supported an "Everybody Dunk a Crucifix in a Jar of Urine Day" to protest censorship. Dunking a crucifix in a jar of urine is something I have a perfect right to do, but it would gratuitously hurt many Christian bystanders to the controversy. I think opposing violence (and censorship) can be done in much better ways.

Here's why you're wrong, Ann.
We DO care about "what other folks hold sacred."  Especially when what they hold sacred is oppression, murder and terror.  We care about it enough to OPPOSE it, because it erodes our personal freedoms and encourages fanatics to continue their threats of violence.

Muslims also hold the veil to be sacred, but I'll just bet Ann Althouse won't be shopping for a hijab anytime soon.  (You're so insensitive, Ann.)  Nor will she stop eating bacon for breakfast, nor will she get rid of her pet dog, nor stop listening to music, all of which "offend" Muslim sensibilities.

In any case, Ann, your argument is based on a false analogy.  No one is threatened with death for portraying a picture of Christ.  No one is threatened with death for dunking a crucifix in a jar of urine.  Muslims, on the other hand, go ballistic over any depiction of Mohammed, even those that are respectful.  It seems Muslims have many hair-triggers, all of which are easily detonated, often resulting in violence.  They need a reality check to desensitize their more disagreeable practices.  The "Draw Mohammed Day" is designed to do that, to punish bad behavior rather than accede to it.

Since Muslims hold murder to be "sacred," I do not intend to tread lightly around their sensibilities.  In my view, I am far more justified in being "offended" by Muslim practices and beliefs than they are justified in being "offended" by mine.  I too have my triggers, but none of them is wired to a bomb.

Further, Muslims are sensitive about their "prophet," one of the most evil men who ever lived.  He was a terrorist, a thief, a mass murderer, a pedophile a rapist and a liar.  The "religion" he started has killed around 280 million people since its inception.  It killed 3,000 people on 9/11 and adds to its grisly toll daily.  Islam murders people for being gay, for changing their religion, for refusing to convert.  It stones women to death for sex, genitally mutilates young girls, practices "honor" killings against children (mostly daughters) for acting "too western," for falling in love, or for refusing to marry the schmuck the family has chosen for them.

For Muslims, even those who live here in America, murder is often an acceptable practice.  There have been a number of honor killings carried out against daughters, and one Muslim beheaded his wife for seeking a divorce.  Recently I read on Red State how a Muslim grandmother smothered her 2 year old granddaughter to death, after learning the child was born out of wedlock.  Oh yes, let's be polite to Islam, a religion that turns human beings into monsters!

Islam is an evil ideology that obliterates freedom, murders great masses of innocent people in the name of God, and oppresses those who are forced to live under it.  I am deeply offended by the beliefs and practices of Islam every day and so I really DON'T CARE if my depictions of Mohammed offend any Muslims.

Second rebuttal coming up, this one for Smitty of The Other McCain.  Smitty writes in a comment at American Power:

Saberpoint is also getting rather crazy with the cheeze-whiz.  It's important to note that political correctness, not Islam as such, is the target here.

See my comments to Ann Althouse, Smitty.  They apply to you too.

In any case, you are incorrect.  It isn't merely "political correctness," a form of self-censorship based on fear of social ostracism, that is in play here.  It is MURDER and COWARDICE.  Muslim murder, which is a daily occurrence, and western cowardice in failing to oppose it within our own borders.  Perhaps I should also add Western IGNORANCE, a failure to understand the history, beliefs, goals and practices of Islam.  No offense, Smitty, but I think you may fall into this latter category.

I oppose Islam for the same reasons that Geert Wilders and Laurence Auster oppose it, because it is incompatible with western democracy and pluralism.  It is a time bomb that will eventually destroy our way of life.  Your great grandaughter, Smitty, probably has a veil in her future.

SATIRE is an appropriate and effective response to Muslim extremism.  Yid With Lid recently had an article on that very subject.  Muslims welcome death, so do not fear guns and bombs.  But they have no way of dealing with satire and they greatly fear it.  It is a potent weapon against Islamic tyranny and I intend to use it, "cheese-whiz" or not.