I have withdrawn as a contributor from Dean’s World, which has been a tremendous experience and great for promoting LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION. The tumult over Dean’s new policy regarding acceptable discourse on the issue of Islam is getting a bit of attention around the ‘sphere, too. It’s a fine debate. Meanwhile, you and I still have each other.
UPDATE: Cooler — incredibly cool — head prevail.
Originally posted 2007-03-02 20:44:35. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
you are a great loss Ron.
but Kevin and that puffy buffoon Spencer deserve each other.
Water seeks its own level, especially dirty water.
Please reconsider….where else in Known Blogspace can a muslimah and jew be friends, except at Dean’s World?
=)
At LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION, Matoko! Thanks for the kind words. Let’s put it this way — Dean and I will stay friends if I stay off Dean’s World. Ain’t that worth something?
Good luck Ron. We will miss you.
A real shame that you wont be contributing at Dean’s World anymore Ron. As much as I enjoy your work concerning copyright law, it was nice to read your thoughts on other subjects as well.
But I also understand why you have left, and I agree with your decision. I even wrote about the whole “litmus test†in my most recent piece.
Just keep on truckin, and I will keep reading.
The difference between an exchange of ideas and an exchange of blows is self-evident.
It seems someone forgot, that the right of free speech means the freedom to advocate one’s views and to bear the possible consequences, including disagreement with others, opposition, unpopularity and lack of support.
In my opinion that’s the ‘litmus-test’ for any man, who neither requires or accepts labels. As more of an observer, your input will be regrettably missed by one such man.
JG
Ron,
I only recently started commenting at Dean’s World, and many of those comments were disagreements with your posts, but still, I am sorry to see you go, and especially under such circumstances. (I was actually looking forward to fruitful arguments!)
Good luck and peace!
– Daniel
Thanks, again, to all of you.
Congratulations.
Anyone who thinks that, “There is no 1,400 year old “war with the West/Christianity” being waged by Muslims or anyone else.” – simply hasn’t been listening to those waging it. You might stretch to propose some arcane context where “Muslim” does not include bin-Laden, and the use of “Crusader” as an epithet is just slang, but you can’t remotely define “anyone else” as excluding al-Qaeda.
P.S. Did you see the latest Reason magazine article regarding John McCain’s motivations? 😉
It is a loss to Dean’s readers. However I will follow your posting here (even though we disagree occasionally).
Regulars at Dean’s, like Arnold and Tall Dave have expressed the hope that you’d think about coming back.
Dean has revised the ‘lines in the sand’ to be ‘editorial policy’. You might want to see if the tone is less confrontational, less objectionable? After all, lines in sand aren’t written in stone
Mary, thank you for the note!
First of all, I’m glad I’m missed. But there’s a conspicuous “miss” from the list of the missing. In any event, my real point was not to debate with Dean about his “Five Points” nor to urge him or squeeze him into revising, refining or defining them. I really don’t play games like that. I came on board in a Dean’s World with no “editorial policies” and I don’t want to live in a World with them. As I said in my not too melodramatic farewell, I don’t want to hold my breath and wonder what will be next.
I also don’t like the suggestion in much of the subsequent commentary, both on and off Dean’s World, that “Dean got rid of the Islamophobes.” I’m not an Islamophobe and as far as I know Dean never called me one. It was for me “the principle of the thing,” just precisely in the way Rosemary expressed it. In fact after what she wrote, I’d feel like a complete idiot — this is me, now, I’m not saying what anyone else should feel — staying aboard. Having said that, Dean’s silence in the face of the continuing repetition of that trope is also troubling.
At the end of the day, therefore, I think it makes sense to part ways. It’s such an obsession at Dean’s World, this topic. The heavy hand of Aziz is really such a strong influence there now that even though I’m not really as interested in it as all that — in reality if I never wrote about this topic again I couldn’t care less — I’m just not having fun, despite the ego gratification of all those eyeballs. There are other editorial and style compatibility issues, too, so I think this as good a natural time to part ways as any.
But I do have things to say. I am toying with a couple of invitations and I also have this beta up for my own general-interest blog, which I have not yet decided about following through with. If I can get one or two others to share the burden with me (I have made some invitations) I may go that route. Because the world really, really needs another blog.
Or I may opt to get my legal work done on something other than a last-minute basis!
In any case thank you again for thinking of me and thanks too to Arnold, who I have indeed grown to like a little, and Dave, and of course the Professor and Mary Anne.
It’s such an obsession at Dean’s World, this topic. ..
I like blogging at Dean’s site because he has usually been willing to listen to dissenting opinions – he even changes his mind, a rare (and I think an admirable) quality.
But the Islamophobia issue is starting to turn into one of those non-negotiable things. I’ve had a lot of offline discussions with Dean about how the site would suffer if it became an ‘Islamophobia watch’ site, with the inevitable slide towards political correctness and McCarthyesque accusations of thoughtcrimes. Despite objections coming from many other directions, it seems to me that the site is heading in that direction.
It seems that the Islamophobia watchers and the Jihad Watchers are two sides of the same coin. Whether they’re kissing Islam’s a*s or kicking it, both claim that the religion, Islam is the problem and/or the solution. They both think that we should be fighting an ideological war, both think that the other side is committing thoughtcrimes.
I don’t really agree with either side. If we’re going to fight a military war, we should identify the enemy combatants (defined by Bush as terrorists and the organizations/states that support them), and destroy their miltary/political infrastructure.
No one outside of a few soldiers and pragmatists agree with that one, so the point of political blogging for me is kind of being lost. I think I should concentrate more on work too, (not just the last minute stuff :-).
If I can stay out of the politics, Dean’s World might still work. Maybe.
..and you’re right, Rosemary said it best.