There’s a decent post to be written about unseemly conservative whining (and its relation to the unseemly liberal whining that we have all come to love so well), but this piece of filigreed nonsense from Princeton is nowhere near it.

First, liberals are intolerant not of conservative viewpoints per say [sic], but of the persistence of these opinions in spite of the fact that they are overwhelmingly false, politically opportunistic, and proven to consistently fail America and its citizens. If we are antagonistic toward expressions of conservative ‘thought,’ it is because we are intolerant of positions that persist in spite of evidence proving they are intellectually dishonest, and of policy prescriptions that do more harm than good…

Well, I’m glad we cleared that up! Jesus. If we switch the instances of “liberal” and “conservative” in the above, it’d fit neatly into place on any number of right-leaning websites. It’s completely content-free.

Also, a fine piece of bait-and-switch debate. Ready? Here’s the bait:

Similarly, we have indisputable evidence that there was Iraq and Al-Qaeda did not collaborate with the purpose of attacking America on 9/11. We know for a fact that the assaults on New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania were the work only of Al-Qaeda, not of Iraq. The bipartisan 9/11 Commission report states very clearly that we have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on the attacks against the United States.

And here’s the switch:

What, then, are we to do when a conservative student, perhaps in a class on international relations, repeats the demonstrably false claim that there was a substantive, working relationship between Iraq and Al-Qaeda prior to 9/11, in spite of the facts?

See? “Substantive, working relationship” is a far cry from “organized 9/11”. Now, one may fairly question whether the nature and extent of the relationship warranted invading the damn country. (I have a feeling I’m going to be on the fence about this one for as long as I can manage to stay balanced there.) But that’s an actual argument, where both sides have valid points to make, and there’s no clear-cut answer. Where’s the fun? It’s easier to just write off everyone who disagrees with you as a moron.

(Hat tip: the CN, who may or may not still be speaking to us.)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 17th, 2004 at 14:50 by olly and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.