Manzi’s hit piece – raving, angry, and irrational

Levin’s reply – concise, reasoned, and rational

Now, which presentation belongs in a place like NRO, and which doesn’t?

I hope this was a slip-up by the editors, and not a bellwether of things to come.

the Trig Palin School of Investigative Journalism

and why in the world would you use such a description?

experiences an epistemic closure.

An embarassing (for the magazine) debacle occurred a few months back in The Weekly Standard when some tool attempted to review Levin’s book. How do these freaks sneak into what should be conservative bastions? These pseudo-conservatives need to be properly purged.

I have no respect for National Review. Showcasing Manzi was about more than Manzi vs Levin. It was unnecessary at best, timed for maximum harm against conservatives, and highlighted a positive view for global warming–which is the biggest crime against humanity in history. The worst possible thing a right of center publication–or a sane person for that matter– could do is defend that movement in any way. The criminalization of US citizens and their owing billions in reparations for use of CO2 is not a topic for opinion, it is a life and death issue that must be stopped. Additionally, discussion of this massive fraud on both sides has wasted a generation of time and effort. David Rockefeller and Soros must be grinning over cocktails right now.

the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation (which once supported the individual health care mandate and just now renounced it). I attended a local Federalist Society CLE with the Cato Institute’s Supreme Court expert right before Obama’s first nomination was announced. I remember him talking about Obama likely picking Cass Sunstein with absolutely no emotion or seeming care. My general impression was that he hung with a lot of liberals in the bubble and happened to have a job at Cato. Overwhelming cynicism and condescension oozes from them. That’s why we need some mini think-tanks and more info outlets like Redstate that are outside the bubble.

1. Manzi and Levin are big boys, and certainly big enough to call each other out when the other’s wrong.

2. I don’t buy Manzi’s larger argument about epistemic closure, largely because he chucks it pretty quickly as he dives into a very real problem in conservative writing–a talent for grasping the weakest arguments against global warming alarmism. You need men like Manzi (or Yuval Levin, or that matter); we ourselves in the fight against cap-and-trade if we’re perceived as leaning on any reed; no matter how weak.

3. Mark Levin’s a great advocate for the conservative ethic. He’s a piss poor debater on matters in the scientific and engineering sphere. That’s not a knock against the man, just a fact–the percentage of commentators of any stripe who can speak with even passing knowledge in these areas is probably in the low single digits. It seems to me the best way to do away with Jim Manzi’s epistemic closure accusation is…well…not to feed into it by defending to the hilt the most flawed and fragile arguments against Eco-Statism–especially those that flub the science side of things–simply to defend a fellow conservative.

in 1955 , WFB founded a soi disant ” journal of fact and opinion” called National Review,

Having deposed his son , it has developed an increasing preference for disinformation propagated by talk radio hacks over mere scientific facts.

The majority of the entries here suggest that you don’t have to understand the words’ epistemic closure to embrace what they signify.

Which means Mr. Erikson has done a very bad thing– giving practitioners of literary theory a real world example to point to.