... and Ms. Oates says that's just an opinion, not a threat, and also that she knows for a fact that no one reading her blog would ever consider sending threatening e-mails to Tribune City Editor Amany Ali, although if those threats were made on Ms. Oates's blog, then they wouldn't be threats at all, but opinions, and that's fine so long as they're anonymous threats -- er, opinions -- because after all, you can't say what you believe unless you're hidden from view, and if you actually can say what you believe without fear of retribution, it must mean that you're a good old boy who's part of the problem.
Have I left any fallacies out?
Earlier today, the following unedited post from our old pal CT appeared on the Speak Out, Lout (NA) blog. I tried to answer it, but Speak Out's administrator seems to be suffering through another spell of raging co-dependency with respect to protecting the fragile, anonymous egos of her rabid fans, who want you to know that courage means never having to show your I.D. to the person you're about to sucker-punch.
---
At 12:57 PM, August 07, 2005, CONCERN TAXPAYER said...
Destination..
You need to continue your Debates and Forums with this Garner administration.
Ask us if we care what you all say or think. We don't need your Quarterly Public Awareness Forums. Trust me us Little People of New Albany are "VERY AWARE."Why don't you Debate Dan Coffey, Bill Schmidt, Steve Price, Larry Kochert?
You have no problem writing what liars, cowards, idiots they are.Have the guts to sit across from them and repeat to their face what you write on your Blogs!
As the Concern Taxpayer--I totally support Dan, Bill, Larry, And especially Steve Price.
Their is also not a finer experienced Voice and fairer Councilman than Bill Schmidt. He is one of the most "honorable men" in New Albany.
And the many Little People of New Albany totally Support Mr. Schmidt!
And I truly believe they will all do the right thing on Tuesday. And vote for a Full Investigation.
We don't need to Debate you. We have the truth, facts on our side.The Little People are Proud, Strong, fed-up and United.
Your game playing-taunting days with us on "SPEAK OUT LOUD NA" are about over..
We our focus and The Little Peoples Of New Albany's--Voices will be heard!
---
Laughing at the troglodyte's lament, I answered CT with this comment:
"Sure, as soon as you have the guts to sign your real name. They know who I am, and I know who they are, but no one knows who you are. What's so courageous about that?"
New Albany's reigning schoolmarm, Ms. Laura Oates, erased this immediately, and since then, she has announced (yet again) that freedom of speech and expression are the last two items on the agenda of the hysterical (and, sadly, anonymous) lynch mob she seeks so desperately to sanction right here in New Albany.
I'm still laughing, but here's the straight dope to go along with it.
It is tragic that Ms. Oates's frequent contradictions and inexplicable intolerance, and especially her inability to comprehend the precepts of fair play, ultimately doom her "movement" to irrelevance and failure.
That's because mob logic isn't logic at all.
It's adrenalin -- a biochemical reaction at best, and something that has nothing to do with thinking, unless you're of the opinion that a monkey scratching his groin is perparing to comment on deconstructionism.
The dominant, defining emotion of the mob is a seething anger borne of perceived disenfranchisement, and above all else, the incited mob yearns for the sort of quasi-intellectual legitimating so naively offered by the likes of Ms. Oates, so as to condone the vengeful pogrom that the mob craves above all else.
And when today's enemy is gone? There soon must be another target, because the very last thing the mob seeks is the ability to rationally analyze its own behavior, an ability not generally associated with rampant dysfunction -- and Robespierre would be happy to warn Ms. Oates to watch her back when it comes time for the next account to be settled.
Rational, thinking people understand that although Ms. Oates's intemperate community of bile-spewing crackpots is much smaller than its anguished wailing might lead one to imagine, their emotions, the ones she's seeking to unleash, are very real, and profoundly unsavory.
Ms. Oates defends the "right" of an anonymous person to make threats against known individuals, claiming in the most bizarre of metaphysical terms that it's just an opinion, and that all opinions are equal, but at the same time she is scandalized that known entities might for once like to see the face behind the veil, the face of the one freely making threats and enjoying Ms. Oates's prison-bride lack of perception, and she is offended by simple standards of fair play that even children in the sandbox grasp intuitively.
It's too bad. We can't be together, and we can't achieve, and we can't move forward, unless we know who we are. Only then can we debate, discuss, and form the compromises necessary for success. Ms. Oates apparently sides with "concern taxpayer" in the view that censorship is acceptable so long as "we (don't) care what you all say or think."
Sounds like one straight out of the Ayatollah's playbook.
More will appear in the comments section as the wires continue to hum.
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