Normally I would say, "Never throw small boys to packs of savage wild dogs", but if the kid were one of those really annoying, whiny ones, and also if he had deliberately injured the general's dog and had a habit of deliberately injuring helpless animals, then perhaps an exception should be made. (However, stripping the kid naked sounds like child abuse and would be, like apostropher, quite unseemly).
NOTE: I would never approve of throwing PK to the dogs, even on one of the days when he was being annoying and not really very cute at all. Nor John and Belle's kids either.
Theoretically I might be willing to toss one of my own nieces, but she's an animal-rightser who'd never give me a good occasion to do so -- that's the annoying thing about her. And anyway, she's 24 and technically not a kid.
NOTE: Just kidding.Incidentally, Kazcynski was not a leftist -- he hated leftists and feminists and seems to have been closest to the wacko wing of Earth First! (Yes, they do have a moderate wing. Everything is relative).
NOTE 2: What I said about the wacko wing of Earth First! was purely speculative. Also, they may be right about everything. Please don't blow me up.
That has to be the definitive rumination on the topic, John.
I confess I don't get this:
literary allusion as if it, like, makes a point or something
Why can't a literary allusion make a point? The point seems to be that any system of morals has situations which break it, which require us to step beyond the system and address them in a more direct, if you will, way. Right? I grant that the allusion doesn't prove anything, but it makes a point. (And the point is actually of a piece with how Tim describes the appeal of (a part of) fascism, as articulated by Gelernter in that other wacky thing you quoted.)
I vaguely remember reading an interview with Dave Foreman where he claimed he was not a vegetarian and that the only sure way to stop people from eating beef was to eat up all the cows.
Of course, saying "never" instead of "almost never" is a trap that well-meaning, lazy people have been falling into for a long time. In a celebrated passage of your small intestine, the duodenum, food mixes with pancreatic juice and bile to aid digestion. The next morning, whatever ex-food bits remain leave your body through a related organ. In general, your mother doesn't watch this happen.
Nowadays, who hasn't stripped and thrown an 8-year-old boy to the dogs before the mother's eyes? These are just childish pranks, comparable to frat hazing rituals.
Some literary references might help make one's point (but not substitute for it), and this reference might be apt in a death penalty debate, but not in one, I think, about torture. For that, Alyosha, with his tear-filled eyes, would have to solemnly acknowledge that sometimes, seven-year old boys must be thrown to dogs, or else the terrorists will become emboldened and harm even more hounds.
(Next, we discuss economics with Polonius: "Neither a borrower nor a lender be, so banktrupcy law should be made harsher.")
argle: The guy is such a waste of time at this point it's not even funny. I'm really hoping that most bloggers don't decide to help him out whomever it is he's after this time.
Thanks to Chalabi, we're now between Iraq and a hard place -- Iran.
In order to avoid the appearance of impropriety and unseemliness, boys below the age of 18 (16 in some states) should be thrown to the dogs fully clothed.
i've heard that Jack Russell terriers in large groups are good for throwing kids to. What they lack in size they make up for in spirit. You need about 8 per 100 lb. of kid.
Gelernter used to be sane --- a bit too conservative, but sane and interesting. (He wrote a very good book on the possibilities of really massive real-time databases, Mirror Worlds.) I think this was all before the bomb, though. His career as a pundit is, well, suitable fodder for a thread here.
I suppose I wanted a little more epistemic weight, Ogged. At just the moment Gelernter might have provided an argument, he does a little name-dropping, as if any real or fictional illustration could make his point for him.
To lean on Dostoevsky is to side with cowards!
Aristotle: "we must love the truth more than we love our friends, except when our friends are James Dobson, in which case things are different."
Was he always this much out of his gourd, or did getting mailbombed upset his delicate gourd equilibrium?
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 12:59 PM
Good question. I thought it impolite to ask "why you so crazy?" but one wonders.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 1:06 PM
Normally I would say, "Never throw small boys to packs of savage wild dogs", but if the kid were one of those really annoying, whiny ones, and also if he had deliberately injured the general's dog and had a habit of deliberately injuring helpless animals, then perhaps an exception should be made. (However, stripping the kid naked sounds like child abuse and would be, like apostropher, quite unseemly).
NOTE: I would never approve of throwing PK to the dogs, even on one of the days when he was being annoying and not really very cute at all. Nor John and Belle's kids either.
Theoretically I might be willing to toss one of my own nieces, but she's an animal-rightser who'd never give me a good occasion to do so -- that's the annoying thing about her. And anyway, she's 24 and technically not a kid.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 1:10 PM
Perhaps Kazcynski was onto something.
NOTE: Just kidding.Incidentally, Kazcynski was not a leftist -- he hated leftists and feminists and seems to have been closest to the wacko wing of Earth First! (Yes, they do have a moderate wing. Everything is relative).
NOTE 2: What I said about the wacko wing of Earth First! was purely speculative. Also, they may be right about everything. Please don't blow me up.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 1:15 PM
That has to be the definitive rumination on the topic, John.
I confess I don't get this:
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 1:16 PM
This is more of a reference than an allusion, innit?
And anyway, she's 24 and technically not a kid.
So it would be completely ok, right?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 1:17 PM
I vaguely remember reading an interview with Dave Foreman where he claimed he was not a vegetarian and that the only sure way to stop people from eating beef was to eat up all the cows.
I don't remember if he was being serious.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 1:19 PM
thread grenade
Posted by argle | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 1:23 PM
7: He just wanted more people to buy his grills.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 1:23 PM
Of course, saying "never" instead of "almost never" is a trap that well-meaning, lazy people have been falling into for a long time. In a celebrated passage of your small intestine, the duodenum, food mixes with pancreatic juice and bile to aid digestion. The next morning, whatever ex-food bits remain leave your body through a related organ. In general, your mother doesn't watch this happen.
I forget where I was going with this.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 1:34 PM
Nowadays, who hasn't stripped and thrown an 8-year-old boy to the dogs before the mother's eyes? These are just childish pranks, comparable to frat hazing rituals.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 1:51 PM
Some literary references might help make one's point (but not substitute for it), and this reference might be apt in a death penalty debate, but not in one, I think, about torture. For that, Alyosha, with his tear-filled eyes, would have to solemnly acknowledge that sometimes, seven-year old boys must be thrown to dogs, or else the terrorists will become emboldened and harm even more hounds.
(Next, we discuss economics with Polonius: "Neither a borrower nor a lender be, so banktrupcy law should be made harsher.")
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 2:04 PM
And the chickenhawk argument with the Kinks: "You say Jonah Goldberg should enlist to fight in the Gulf, but you're living an Iraq Enroll fantasy."
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 2:08 PM
Labs, you space your em-dashes all weird and it's driving me nuts.
Very truly and affectionately yours etc.,
SB
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 2:09 PM
argle: The guy is such a waste of time at this point it's not even funny. I'm really hoping that most bloggers don't decide to help him out whomever it is he's after this time.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 2:09 PM
Thanks to Chalabi, we're now between Iraq and a hard place -- Iran.
In order to avoid the appearance of impropriety and unseemliness, boys below the age of 18 (16 in some states) should be thrown to the dogs fully clothed.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 2:15 PM
And when it is televised on TV, there should be a parental discretion warning and a seven-second delay, so the censors can screen out nudity.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 2:16 PM
Actually, PK was bitten by my aunt's dog once. It's kind of a spastic border collie. He wasn't naked at the time, though: maybe we need a do-over?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 2:37 PM
i've heard that Jack Russell terriers in large groups are good for throwing kids to. What they lack in size they make up for in spirit. You need about 8 per 100 lb. of kid.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 2:41 PM
And some means of convincing all 8 that the kid is concealing their ball.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 2:53 PM
Gelernter used to be sane --- a bit too conservative, but sane and interesting. (He wrote a very good book on the possibilities of really massive real-time databases, Mirror Worlds.) I think this was all before the bomb, though. His career as a pundit is, well, suitable fodder for a thread here.
Posted by Cosma | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 3:15 PM
I suppose I wanted a little more epistemic weight, Ogged. At just the moment Gelernter might have provided an argument, he does a little name-dropping, as if any real or fictional illustration could make his point for him.
To lean on Dostoevsky is to side with cowards!
Aristotle: "we must love the truth more than we love our friends, except when our friends are James Dobson, in which case things are different."
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 8:59 PM
Weiner! Did you make that joke up?
Posted by neil | Link to this comment | 11-14-05 8:28 AM
Yes, to the best of my knowledge.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 11-14-05 8:46 AM