Sunday evening UPDATE:
Since Kinsella cites the NYT (“approvingly,” one might almost say!) in his column, I hope someone forwards this to him:
New York Times concedes that Spencer and other anti-jihadists are not responsible for Norway murders
***
Oh deary dear.
After giving Steyn’s writing VERY brief consideration (four citations according to this video), Anders Wayne Murderdude of Norway declares that Steyn’s observations about Islam and Europe may be mistaken.
Twice.
Those four Steyn citations are exceedingly tame — simple, factual two-sentence summaries of Steyn’s theses, which could easily be found in a book report by an indifferent high school student, cribbed from an Amazon.com book description — or even from the official complaint made by those belligerent Muslims (and those in their orbit) against Steyn/Maclean’s, come to think of it.
So Kinsella gets his facts wrong by using the word “approvingly” re: the Norwegian’s piddling employment of Steyn citations.
God, this gets exhausting.
How sad that we’ve reached the point where one must point out the following:
An uncomfortable, controversial personal interpretation of the “whys and wherefores” of an event is NOT a “willful mischaracterization of the facts.”
Such interpretations — those made after the shootings by Beck, Steyn, Coren — are opinions based on the facts.
Now, we all know that liberals frequently get “facts” and “opinions” mixed up, so this kind of mental, rhetorical lapse is understandable (if not excusible.) This bad habit of mind has been a primary cause of so much mischief liberals undertake in the name of their “good” causes, all of which we’re obliged to pay for, and suffer under. Ideas have consquences, etc.
No one Kinsella cites in today’s column got their facts wrong. Kinsella just doesn’t like the way Beck et al interpreted them, and the conclusions they came to.
Just so. Beck’s “Godwin’s Law” take was silly. Beck probably thinks so, too, a week after the fact.
But Beck didn’t get the facts wrong and neither did anyone else Kinsella cites in this particular column. (If they did, they were working with early news reports. So what? That isn’t a crime, and last I checked, time machines still haven’t been invented, allowing writers to go back and correct their initial on-the-record remarks.)
The victims in Norway were at a political camp (a concept which sounds odd to Glenn Beck’s midwestern American’s ears, especially since the Party is called “Labor” and Beck is an excitable guy, hypersensitive to such language.)
The kids had condemned Israel (based upon common falsehoods.) These were idealistic, well-intentioned young people dedicated to their particular interpretations of peace and love and non-violence. They were/are young and naive. That isn’t a crime, either, but the “irony” is obvious.
Noticing instances of “irony” is not a value judgement, it is an opinion-observation and in this case, a sound one.
If earthquake scientists are killed by an earthquake at the Annual Earthquake Convention, that is “ironic.” That doesn’t mean “they deserved to die” etc.
Yet Kinsella is implying that that is what Steyn et al are saying.
And “you’re saying they deserved to die!!!” has joined “commie” and “racist” as a bizarre would-be debate-ender, meant to strike terror into one’s opponent’s heart. Unfortunately it often works.
If I observe that JFK wouldn’t have been shot if he’d been driven down a street other than Elm, I’m not “saying he deseved to die!!!!” for taking that unfortunate route. I’m simply stating a fact.
Many liberals cannot cope when someone makes matter of fact observations based upon known evidence. Even if something is true, one must pretend not to notice it, lest the leftist worldview come crumbling down. And someone’s feewings get hurted.
Kinsella seems to be saying: young people were murdered. That is a horrible thing. (Agreed.) So horrible that no one should ever dare to try to interpret the whys and wherefores. (Wrong.)
Jeepers: If only that imaginary rule had been in effect after the Montreal Massacre…
