DELAWARE WATCH
Thanks Dana,
I can count on you for this kind of reality check.
That your contribution to our zeitgeist is so valuable unfortunatley implies how vulnerable it is to thinktank propaganda that makes its way, squeaking and creaking into the MSM.
Only hard work and dedicated journalism like yours will counter and eradicate the falsehoods.
Means that justify ends.....don't people read Orwell in middle school anymore??
Dana,
Your criticism of Ryan is not warrented. He didn't make up the story; he only linked to the story that a newspaper wrote. The newspaper should have independently confirmed the facts in the column by the Iranian ex-patriot. But surely you don't expect a college student blogger to have the resources to independently confirm a story from Iran.
Ryan did what we bloggers do everyday: link to a story by another media source and offer commentary. It just happed that this thime, the newspaper was wrong. When he realized that the story was false, he corrected his post.
You did the same thing in December when you posted a doctored photo of a soldier writing "fuck you" on a prisoner's head. Does that make you a "perpetrator of fraud" because you "gloomed on to the liberal lie" about the military?
http://delawarewatch.blogspot.co...ol-in-
iraq.html
After someone pointed out that the photo was fake you wrote this: "One of the great things about having intelligent people make comments on this blog is that I get to learn when I've gotten something wrong."
I completely agree your quote above that everyone makes mistakes and that you can learn that you got something wrong and correct it. So why won't you give Ryan the same courtesy?
Kid,
It's difficult to get lectured by someone when the words of his very lecture misrepersent what I said--like your critiicsm above.
I called Ryan "a local perpetrator of political frauds" not because he believed the story. That prhase "a local perpetrator of political frauds" AS YOU KNOW links to post which describes a **deliberate** fraud that Ryan instigated at the DE Republican Party convention--where he completely misrepersented the words of a political candidate for his own narrow political purposes.
My point is just to say that it is not the least bit surprising that Ryan would glom onto this story in a second.
That Ryan is spins frauds is further demonstrated by his comment that I "defend Iran."
http://www.jokerstotheright.com/...5/
herohack.html
That's a deliberate lie and smear and YOU KNOW IT. There is no way that reporting the discovery of a mendacious news story about Iran means that I "defend" Iran. That is absurd.
Clearly, only someone who thinks that exposing a lie told about the official enemies means you love the enemies. Only hoaxster and a mendacious propagandist would make such a weak argument. That's why I fully expect someone who defends McCarthy on the grounds that “the ends justify the means” to employ such tactics.
I encourage you to seriously consider the ramifications of Ryan’s defense of McCarthy on the grounds that the ends justify the means. That should tell you all you need to know about him. He is NOT to be trusted…not for a second.
I encourage you to continue to be a conservative, but don’t become one represented by the Ryans, Hubes, DTs, Coulters, Novak’s, etc.—-they have done nothing but bring shame and dishonor to conservatism. Be better than them. Kid. Love the truth and never think that sacrificing it for the sake of promoting a political agenda will ever serve your principles (like Ryan did at the convention or DT's tall tale about the Protack e-mail). Let your principles serve the truth and not visa versa. Otherwise, kid, you, like, them will lose your soul.
First off, you never responded to my question: why is it alright for you to be tricked by someone else's story, but not ok for Ryan to be tricked?
No, its not surprising that Ryan believed the story. It's not surprising that anyone believed it, or at least thought the story was interesting enough to blog about. Although I didn't write a post about it, I believed the story at first. It's not that far of a stretch to think that a country whose leader calls for the destruction of the Jewish state would make Jews wear a distiguishing symbol.
I do think that Ryan's comment about you defending Iran was over the top. I can't see anything in your post that supports that assertion. However, don't be surprised that he personally attacked you, considering that you did the same to him first.
That's the problem when blogging turns into personal attacks, not a debate of the issues. You called him a perpetrator of fraud and he called you a defender of Iran. Neither is completely true and neither was necessary.
Just look what happened with the story about the letter the College Republicans circulated at the convention. Instead of a civil debate of the issue at hand, the whole thing turned into a weeklong barrage of personal atacks (from both sides) with this and other blogs dedicating entire posts to shameless attacks on other people. Everyone was to busy with that nonsense to debate any real issues.
Getting back to this post, there was no reason that you had to write what you did about Ryan. There's nothing wrong with posting about the fake story about Iran; that's an important issue for discussion. However, what purpose was served by you adding the comments about Ryan? None, except to rehash old arguements and launch cheapshots.
"Although I didn't write a post about it, I believed the story at first. It's not that far of a stretch to think that a country whose leader calls for the destruction of the Jewish state would make Jews wear a distiguishing symbol."
Forgive me for saying so, but you have a lot to learn about the USA propaganda system:
http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/...d-
hitchens.html
"Just look what happened with the story about the letter the College Republicans circulated at the convention. Instead of a civil debate of the issue at hand, the whole thing turned into a weeklong barrage of personal atacks (from both sides) with this and other blogs dedicating entire posts to shameless attacks on other people."
There was nothing to debate. Ryan spread a deliberate fraud. He implied that Protack attacked all College Republicans. That wasn't even remotely close to the truth. Protack attacked one of them. Ryan lied about a fact. There was nothing to debate. That people like DT showed up to add his sophistry means nothing. After all, he spun a highly dubious tale about some e-mail that literally no one else has claimed exists or can even produce 1 copy of it. They're just birds of a feather.
They are phonies.
"First off, you never responded to my question: why is it alright for you to be tricked by someone else's story, but not ok for Ryan to be tricked?"
I never said it was. But the difference is this: I don't subscribe to the principle that the ends justify the means. When I found out I was tricked, I fixed it right away. I would have done that if I had found out on my own precisely because the ends do NOT justify the means.
If I hadn't embarassed Ryan w/ the truth of that story, I doubt he would have ever corrected it even if he had discovered on his own that it was lie.
Again I offer as proof that when I did correct him on it, what did he do? Well, he was so resentful of the fact that the story turned out to be a lie that he attacked the messanger: he said I was defending Iran. Anyone concerned w/ the truth would never resent discovering it. But someone who believes his political ends justify any means to achieve them would. That's just a no brainer.
Now let's talk about your hypocrisy, kid. You are here giving me shit about saying true things about Ryan, but you have yet to make one comment at his place about him FALSELY accusing me of defending Iran.
Is that because it would risk your position w/ the DE Con Bloggers Alliannce and DE 2006 website?
http://delaware2006.blogspot.com/
You certainly seem to be one-sided in who you go after.
Grow up, PolitiKid, and stop spending your energy doing the fighting for hapless idiots and devious zealots...like Silberstein and every person who has ever served loyally under a President named Bush.
Don't fall into the trap of sycophancy for some non-existent right wing solidarity, because the moment will come when you finally see the light and can't credibly or honestly answer for yourself the questions : "what the hell am I defending? and why am I defending it?"
Then you'll ask : "What the hell was I thinking?" And you will realize that you WEREN'T.
Dana - please don't take the bait from these amateurs any more. It is pretty amusing but also a bit scary that the best that Bush et al can muster for die-hard apologists are pimple-popping, smack-talking students. These kids should spend some time trying to actually learn during their 'education', rather than spouting off propaganda and 'talking points'.
Argh...I don't know if I want to live very long if these guys are the future....but then with Bush and their types in power, none of us probably will.
I also think you could roll with the punches more, Dana. However, to our benefit, you put yourself in a position where there are a lot of punches and it must not be easy.
But I also want to say that I think Politikid was trying to be fair. He sounds like a person with some character. Both parties can use young people like that right now.
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