Someone who is not actually a dittohead, when endeavoring to establish real political independence, will tend to focus on a substantial break with talk radio ideology. Whether it is “I think the marriages of homosexual couples should be legally recognized” or “I don’t really see what good sustained military occupation of Iraq does at this point” or even “maybe federal funding to provide health care for children who don’t have access now is not such a bad idea,” independence is established by showing independent thought.

Instead we have here a classic dittohead talking point — “I’ve been told even some liberals share my belief that global warming is all a hoax perpetrated by a fringe of villains like Al Gore.” Whatever the dittohead lie is, part of the narrative usually involves arguing that respectable liberals really “get it” while the mainstream media is just being fooled by prominent advocates for whatever beliefs undermine that lie. It may well be that horatiox is not a talk radio listener so much as a “dittohead once removed,” getting his programming secondhand from right wing blogs and woefully misinformed acquaintances. What matters is less how he poisons his mind and more the fact that it is so far gone as we see here.

I know that is a dark assessment. Still, there is merriment to be had in this. “Step in a ring and say brownshirt to me. Yeah?” — the man wants to get in a fight about whether or not he is the sort of person who would resolve disagreements by brute force and intimidation! He might have typed “liar” with the very same breath that was drawn while he was validating my use of the term “brownshirt.” Of course, he may be a chickenhawk instead, but I prefer to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.

After all, he doesn’t even know if I’m a mountain of a man with extensive paramilitary training or a bookish waif with two wet noodles drooping from my shoulders. Given belligerence in the face of that unknown, I’m willing to believe my original assertion was correct and he is indeed the sort who would throw a punch before letting someone in his presence get away with the horrible offense of promoting opinions that contradict his own beliefs. In another time and place, I believe he would have done Ernst Röhm proud.

I am discussing Hitchens and his use of “islamofascism.” Others use the term; he supposedly coined it. Whether he did or not, there appears to be evidence to support the use of the term–as H well knows, since he grew up in Paki I believe, and has written extensively on the 71-72 Paki/hindu genocide. The E. Paki govt.–muslim— was involved in the genocide. But that’s hardly the only incident.

You’re the Doublespeak expert–as in ‘dittohead” or “brownshirt”–types of loaded language. Proves nothing, except your own inabillty to reason. You defeat logic at every turn.

Step in a ring and say brownshirt to me. Yeah?

You are a deranged liar.

The word’s a bit harsh: unless maybe you were a relative of someone killed in the 911 attacks, or other muslim terrorism. There is no Doublespeak of the Orwellian sort. Hitchens, whatever his faults, actually wrote quite a bit on the paki muslim slaughter of hindus in east pakistan in 71-72 ( 1 to 2 million people killed in a matter of months). Rushdie is a pal of his. He also qualifies the term: he said he did not mean all muslims were fascist, but that Islam does have fascist elements to it. Hardly Doublespeak (Hitchens also like Orwell, a Trotskyite, at least at one point). Doublespeak is like calling someone who points out the problems with AGW temp. data dogmatic. You are dogmatic.

There’s no political narrative either to AGW. Some of the skeptics (Cockburn and Lomborg himself) are liberals. Others’ aren’t, like Crichton (of course if you want to just dismiss Mike Crichton out of hand, cool).

You politicize everything and ignore the problems with AGW data. Nothing to do with politics. Gore’s not a liberal anyway, except in name (and maybe last 5 years or so). Sort of like you.

I got into a mess a few weeks ago with this problem character, well known in other blogging circles for his clear break from reality, because I critiqued an incredibly weak and blatantly misleading analysis of An Inconvenient Truth. To horatiox, I committed the unforgivable heresy of suggesting that a band of pontificating frauds might not know as much about climate change risks as sensible scientists generally do about the matter. However, the specifics of the disagreement are not really material. What seems to have set him off is that anyone would dare violate precious political narratives woven deeply into his personal identity.

He even goes so far as to assert scientific knowledge must be filtered in order to exclude the work of individuals with particular political views. This guy is deeply invested in propping up the dittohead message — a 21st century brownshirt roaming the blogosphere in the hopes he might be able to put some sort of beatdown on those who do not rally behind key talking points produced by figures like Rove and Limbaugh. To him each reference to a historical event or public figure is not a clumsy display of cognitive ineptitude coupled with personal animus — those distortions are acts of heroism committed in valiant efforts to save the nation from the evils of liberalism.

The funny thing is, I did this piece in a rush on my way out of the house yesterday afternoon. While I was out being social, I was deliberating a complete rewrite (having yet to ever make more than minor changes to an entry here after the day it was published.) When I saw this blacklisted heckler turning in yet another ridiculous attempt at critique, I thought, “crap — now if I change the thing he might imagine himself to have been influential. Wait! Crap — now if I don’t. change the thing he might actually be influential!” Then I reviewed it and realized, while it ends with more of a fizzle than a flourish, it is not nearly as inarticulate or pointless as I’d originally imagined.

Then as an added bonus, we have horatiox himself chiming in to show us one variety of dittohead. Many are not inclined to academic pretenses, but they are precisely the sort of people driving the general public distaste for politics as dinner conversation. Not only does reality have minimal bearing on the substance of their views, but these bizarre views will be defended with as much hostility as can be brought to bear under the circumstances. In dinner conversation this is usually a matter of seeking vindication through volume. Online it may extend to some sort of toothless threat of litigation,

Perhaps being a part of a community of the misinformed really is a deeply satisfying experience for these folks. Perhaps it is less about the community and more about the clash. Who is to say whether or not this unfortunate soul really knows much in the way of human interaction other than defending dittohead memes with a mix of virtual spittle and actual malapropism?

Still, there are a few things we can say. We can say that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s call for maps that do not contain Israel is a far cry from what talk radio puppetmasters have taught — that it is a precursor to a nuclear first strike authorized by Tehran. We can say that people taking to the streets to express sincere collective grievances at rallies is the sort of thing fascism prevents — hardly a clear manifestation of it. We can even say that the violence associated with the separation of Pakistan from India had little to do with any fascist regime and much to do with the lack of governmental control over the borderlands (especially crucial north-south rail links) during the time of the slaughter.

In short, we can safely say that horatiox is too dedicated to the quest to make noise about his ideology to spend any time at all reflecting on its imperfections. Of course, it would be all the better if he were to recognize the flaws of life as an ideologue. It may not always be easy to avoid dogmatic thinking about weighty issues of our times. Yet clearly it is within the means of even average minds to give factual realities priority over dogmatic passions in formulating views.

They may not all be below average, and certainly this specimen is not the cleverest of the bunch, but dittoheads seem to forfeit every opportunity to engage with reality where doing so means abandoning some element of the conservative talk radio agenda. Doublespeak makes it easier for them to cling so, but fortunately it also makes it easier for the rest of us to identify individuals suffering from this disorder.

Given your own stated secularism you have no code of objective morality. Everyone plays machiavellian rules, muslims included. ( you won’t likely publish this, since you don’t really understand Orwell–not a pacifist, for one—nor modern politics, or what secular ethics entails)