You Might Be a Lunatic If . . .

You are taking WorldNet Daily's side in its spat with John Henke.

Joseph Farah at WorldNetDaily...

• He says my call for right-of-center organizations to stop supporting WND's conspiracy peddling is "bullying tactics". 
• He says he has never heard of me.
• He says that WND didn't say they were "concentration camps"; they just said that the legislation "appears designed to create the type of detention center" that people "fear" could be used as "concentration camps for political dissidents, such as occurred in Nazi Germany."  He calls this "nuanced".
• He claims I have called "for an all-out jihad against WND."
• He says, "Am I scared? No, folks. I'm not." and says he's just standing up for "truth".

In The Washington Times, Farah "questioned Mr. Henke's motives and standing", arguing that The Next Right is "pretty much a Republican establishment group who has worked for the RNC and the Republican Party and I can certainly understand why a group like that would have problems with World Net Daily." He added "these are not journalists, they are political activists who have their own agendas."

So, he's taking the "you can't handle the truth!" approach so beloved by true believers and conspiracy theorists.  He also seems to think I'm part of the "Republican establishment" and aligned with the RNC.  This is an interesting argument, considering the fact that I'm trying to get the RNC to stop working with Joseph Farah.

Some WorldNetDaily readers also wrote to offer feedback. 

Dave says I'm a Commie Leftist or RINO and he does't read this blog.

"Tell me son are you a Commie Leftist incognito or just a RINO being stupid? I've read WND for years, which is more than I can say for your blog. I can't wait to read your blog after BO gets his army of maggots after you one day."

Randy Curtis says Birchers and Birthers were right and I've drunk the Kool-Aid

Etc., etc.

You know what this reminds me of?  It reminds me, ever so poignantly, of a lengthy email dispute I had with a liberal commenter/emailer a few years back.  After some initial heat, he (she?) calmed down, and we had a fairly reasonable discussion of his/her fears problems with the Bush administration, some of which I shared.

But then my correspondent mentioned that htey thought it was reasonably likely that there would be no election in 2008.  Not certain, but enough that we should be preparing for it.  I think at one point they called it more likely than not.

At this point, I was at a loss.  What does one say in the face of an entirely sincere belief that an American system of government that revolted when FDR tried to pack the Supreme Court would, suddenly and for no apparent reason, allow George Bush to cancel elections and appoint himself dictator for life?  I mean, other than, "You are a lunatic.  An apparently nice and well meaning lunatic.  But nonetheless.  A barking moonbat."

So I'm kind of dizzy with deja vu when I read this sort of prime-aged poppycock coming from the right of me.  When you hear that "some people fear" that  an utterly anodyne bill creating emergency response centers "could be used as "concentration camps for political dissidents, such as occurred in Nazi Germany", the correct response is not to repeat that remark, except to make fun of it.  The kinder, more adult response would be to reach out to the person who said this in concert with a team of trained professionals and gently suggest that it is perhaps time to tweak the meds.

Yes, yes, I know . . . these things can creep up on you.  There was a time when people did not understand the threat that Hitler posed.  (We will leave aside the question of whether Hitler's various antisemitic ravings and other wacky notions constituted an adequate warning.)  Here's the thing.  If it is true that there is a period where you can't definitely tell that a head of state is about to turn into a mad dictator, that period is, almost definitionally, hard to distinguish from the actual majority of the time when a head of state is in fact not about to turn into a mad dictator.  It is not enough to note that Hitler was fond of high speed rail.  He also liked puppies.  Yet when George Bush bought one, we were no closer to a mad dictatorship than we had been before.

The American people are not such as can be seduced by high speed rail, puppies, or emergency response centers, into accidentally establishing concentration camps.  There will be plenty of time, should such camps be proposed, to leap into action and unleash the mighty force of your righteous opposition on the hapless would-be dictator.  Premature anti-fascism just makes you history's clown.

I'm not quite sure why I'm addressing this, when clearly Joseph Farah has little interest in reasonable debate.  But hey, I don't have a team of trained professionals at my disposal.  All that leaves is making fun of it.