Redstate

The more you spank them, the more they like it. Can this emotion stuff. That's their favorite battleground. Fight on the conservative battleground--logic.

Amen. Let us commit again to fight the war of ideas and build a community of intelligence and civility.

We can and should defend Ben from those who attempt to slime him with whatever they can fling in his direction. Men of character should be defended just as we defend the ideas they support.

But we should use this ugliness as a motivation to create something different; something better.

but the author has forgotten the Father of Framing - Karl Rove... he's still quite active, too...

Please, you've been walking a thin line with your comments, having fun dancing in the shadows. A cheap attempt to de-emphasize my point with a Rove reference buys you no time. Let me play this out for you: You'll respond to this by batting your eyes and claiming that you were just trying to make an innocent point about Rove being the consumate Framer. I'll claim that has nothing to do with my point, to which you'll ask if we really want debate here, or if it's an echo chamber.

Whew. Just saved us both the time.

I certainly support these defenses of Ben. I agree that the left side of blogsphere is completely unhinged. But has been hinted at numerous times in these threads, how about a top of site discussion of the content of Ben's blog entries?

We're supposed to be the issues folks, and they are the emotional ranting folks. That's not really the behavior at the moment.

Ben's first entry at WaPo was an accurate, but very challenging tome about the liberal orthodoxy.  I'd like discuss and defend those ideas alongside the discussion of Ben's character.

I'd post a diary that does as much, but his words are such core tenets to what this place is about that I feel one of the editors would do more justice to it.

Just my .02

What exactly are those attacking Ben afraid of?  That conservative and liberal ideas will be explored and debated?  Are they not confident liberal ideals can win a debate?  Obviously not.

The Left is afraid of exposure, someone who will  point out the hypocrisy and failure of the Left's social, economic and national defense policies.  They are afraid people will see both arguments, and chose the Right.

I'm going to probably be getting out to vote in November.  Because the Democrats are beholden to the lunatics at DailyKos.

I made a quick visit to netroot.com and it looks to me like it's just a software platform for blogging sites. Seems like a good idea to me. We all know of the kooks over at DailyKos but it appears it's not just liberal sites that are using Netroot. There's also a link to kuro5hin, which seems to be a blogging site for technologists.

We all know the content on DailyKos is below our standard but the site itself is very slick. Is Redstate.com barred from using Netroot?

I'd like to see a software platform that goes beyond allowing like-minded individuals to discuss current events. While I enjoy reading blogs including Redstate, there doesn't seem to be a tangible end result to all this blogging.

I have an idea stirring in my head about a platform that works similar to blogging except it is also able to churn out an end document. Perhaps in the format of a House bill with title, sections, and chapters. Each piece of the bill is edited and voted on by it's users. The resulting document could truly be a "living document", constantly edited, appended, voted on in a cycle of perfection.

Sorry for rambling on this one. Maybe I'll organize my thoughts and post this in a diary.

Yes, please do.

"The Netroots" are different than the netroots.com platform. I wasn't talking about software at all.

acts of plagarism and the netroot's overreaction and malice toward Ben. The two aren't mutally exclusive, and focussing on the critics without adressing their charges makes you look defensive, as if you are trying to change the subject.

Reading blogs only a few months ago. I started by googling 'conservative blogs'. I came up with RS of course, powerline and a few others. Naturally I wanted to see what liberals read in their spare time so I googled 'liberal blogs' as well.

This was my intro to DK. I wanted to debate those that saw things differently from me. To engagge them on their issues on their home turf.

I was stunned at what I read, at what my responses garnered.....Hate.....I was a troll, a loon, etc etc. all without them knowing if i was a conservative or communist. I did jump on their fuol-mouthed bandwagon so I was a pariah.

What I didn't get was debate. Just insults. That website is nothing more than a hate-filled echo chamber devoid of anything resembling debate on issues.

For Crimeny sakes!  

Movie reviews for a COLLEGE PAPER!  

I'm sure he was paid handsomely for those MOVIE REVIEWS!!!

WHO

GIVES

A

CRAP!!!!!!!!!!

If it was a thesis paper or substantive article I'd be concerned.  But it's not, so I won't.

If there has ever been a situtation that truly qualifies as a Temest in a Teapot - this is it.

Sheesh!

a book by P.J. O'Rourke and a news story from the WaPo.

The importance of the particular story he plagarized is irrelevant to the ethics of plagarism.

Like Malkin has said, Ben trades in words and ideas. If he is stealing those words and ideas and personally benefiting from them, that is unethical.

The motivations of the Netroots does not excuse this behavior.

lower standards then.  

I guess I just figured if Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton (to name but a few) can write for the NYT et al, and NONE of them has any ethical standing banked, then I won't have a hissy fit about this.

It would be interesting to see what would be dug up on ANY writer using the technology today.  It would not surprise me at all to find a lot of "cut & paste" going on w/out attribution.  

But I have a job - unlike most posters at Kos - so I don't have the time nor the inclination. I have no problem moving on.

...a lot of the faults you describe are not particular to libs/Dems/whatever. I'm not defending anyone's actions, mind you, but I would point out that name-calling and framing and putting people in boxes is something that both sides do. Because of their particular worldview, people on either side will tend to see only the other side's action as spin, though. But both sides do it.

> "Pure hate, prejudicial attacks, and rampant accusations are their message."

That's one view. The libs (and here, for simplicity, I'm lumping all left-leaning groups into one category) happen to view the cons as doing all of the above, though. Outspoken prejudice and hate against people based on sexual orientation is an example. Is that view accurate? Maybe of some cons, but not all, and I doubt most. Similarly, the view you describe of the libs is just that--a perception, not a fact. You're entitled to your views, of course, but I'd caution against generalizing.

> "Their platform incubated at the safe havens of Daily Kos, MyDD, and Atrios. Thousands of satellite blogs and message boards anxiously awaiting a dispatch from this "Axis of Idiocy", and faithfully linking and emailing without a modicum of sanity checking."

And conservatives have their safe platforms at RedState, Malkin, and dozens of others. What's the difference?

> "Racists. Homophobes. Evangelicals."

Pro-abortionists, baby-killers, tree-huggers, anti-Americans, darwinists, etc. Each side has its labels and frames for the other. None of them are flattering. Few are accurate.

> "Complaints about the bitter, divisive atmosphere in Washington are justified."

Definitely. You can't hang that on just one side, though.

is a very ugly thing.

Read Ben's story. Contemplate your errors.

But I'm not going to sing hosannas to leftists with sudden-onset fealty to journalistic ethics. If these people had any serious concern about plagiarism they'd have kicked Joe Biden, Lawrence Tribe, and a cast of dozens to the curb long ago. That they have not demonstrates that this was about scalp-hunting, pure and simple.

The fact that they may have stumbled over a good, sharp knife in their otherwise cretinous flailings does not make them heroes, nor does it make their motives any less risible.