tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1639046296081313228.post4773589282164477552..comments2024-03-21T07:00:29.129-07:00Comments on basmanroselaw: Pete Wehner On NPR and Juan Williams: My Takeitzik basmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04819878847328122792noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1639046296081313228.post-12056513690753708842010-10-26T21:38:42.811-07:002010-10-26T21:38:42.811-07:00No quagmires, but a different point: whether or no...No quagmires, but a different point: whether or not fears are rational or irrational is not necessarily the issue, though I can see how it might be.<br /><br />My point is that both speakers get beyond their fears/anxieties--reasonable or not--to express a better and laudable sentiment. If Williams's negative starting point--his fear aroused by any Muslim, however tha fear may be understandable--can be the predicate for his broadcasted better angels, why can't the non Jewish speaker's, whose instinctive anxiety might be born of a 1,000 understandable causes, be a similar predicate?<br /><br />Again, I understand the point you're making in distinguishing the two cases, but I'm not convinced that your point is to the/my pointitzik basmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04819878847328122792noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1639046296081313228.post-38948958687556560262010-10-26T13:05:42.809-07:002010-10-26T13:05:42.809-07:00Re: your push back, Itzik, I think, with all due r...Re: your push back, Itzik, I think, with all due respect, that it misses the point of rationality -- what sorts of fears, anxieties, etc. are reasonable, i.e., a product of, as I said, a whole rash of recent events and threats, and what are not? (And I hope we don't get into just another relativist quagmire which would erase the whole notion of irrational bigotry.)Metamorfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16199074976158603981noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1639046296081313228.post-9779115375601449782010-10-26T12:29:32.749-07:002010-10-26T12:29:32.749-07:00Well let me push back for a minute. In my Jewish e...Well let me push back for a minute. In my Jewish example, the speaker expresses some initial feelings, but goes on to say they're wrong. Let's tame the initial feelings to something like uncomfortable or anxiety-making to not lapse into polemical absurdity. I have trouble seeing the difference between the expression of that discomfort or anxiety and Williams's statement which, on his own reflection, is ultimately one of discomfort and anxiety which he then goes on to conquer. I can't see the Jewish statement passing broadcast muster. Why not? Williams has his reasons for his initial feelings. So does the speaker about Jews. Both feelings get gotten past by Williams and the speaker to the expression of a sentiment of equality and toleranceitzik basmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04819878847328122792noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1639046296081313228.post-91733591905980289042010-10-26T09:49:11.714-07:002010-10-26T09:49:11.714-07:00I take your point that "inartfulness" is...I take your point that "inartfulness" isn't, or shouldn't be, a firing offense, and it may well have been his "coziness" as you put it with Fox that underlies the firing, but the fact remains that it was his simple statement of honest feelings that was the reason given. And I disagree with the characterization of those feelings as in any way "dark" or "irrational" as so many good liberals -- no doubt including Williams himself, ironically -- hasten to tack on. If, as you say, the Jackson comment and a similar one from a white journalist -- and I think, by the way, that Susan Estrich is supposed to have said something along those lines -- are "logically comparable", then, logically, it's the attempt to deny such feelings that's irrational. (Your Jewish example isn't in the same ballpark, since it's irrational in the way that simple bigotry has always been.) If we let ourselves be morally bullied by the PC police to the point that even the expression of rational fears inspired by a whole raft of real-world events and threats is verboten then I think we're creating a kind of Soviet-lite culture where feelings and expressions of all sorts must be run by internal political censors before we risk exposing them.Metamorfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16199074976158603981noreply@blogger.com