Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Today In Conclusion-Jumping



A whole lot of people with vastly greater access to the media than you and me are very concerned about other people jumping to recklessly speculative conclusions in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing.

 Glenn Greenwald via Bill Moyers:
In this conversation with Bill, The Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald describes the manhunt for the perpetrators of the Boston marathon bombings as a “political event” that connects to larger questions about our culture, and explains how, in the wake of the event, people were forming opinions about the world and government based on little information.
Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic:
Given all that, the habit of suspending judgment on matters of terrorism, pending a trial or a fuller airing of facts, doesn't seem like "left-liberal self parody" so much as a prudent, disciplined skepticism.
Kevin Drum at Mother Jones:
Please. Just stop this.

...if there's anything we've learned over the last week, it's that jumping to conclusions on this stuff is foolish. Our natural curiosity isn't a good enough reason to rush to judgment... Just wait. There's no harm in it. We'll find out soon enough.
I wholeheartedly agree and call upon everyone within the sound of this blog to, for goodness sake, please stop with the wild, reckless speculation about the awful things the government might do in the  Tsarnaev case. In Mr. Greenwald's words, "people [are] forming opinions about the world and government based on little information..." and helping to harden those opinions with rampant, fact-free spitballing about every titillatingly fascistic scenario the government might possibly engage in with no facts in-hand whatsoever is deeply irresponsible.

Of course our government does some truly dreadful things, but our government also does some genuinely fine, noble and humane things every day, and it's just so lazy and cynical to immediately assume that in the Tsarnaev case, the government will automatically take the worst and lowest road to authoritari...

What's that?

 Oh, they're not warning us about jumping to wild conclusions about all the dark and dire things our elected representatives might do?

 They're warning us:
...What we know about Tamerlan Tsarnaev is that he was (a) Muslim and (b) enraged about something. Was he enraged, a la Sayyid Qutb, about the sexual libertinism of American culture? Was he enraged about perceived American support for Russia against Chechen rebels? Was he enraged about American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Was he acting on orders from a foreign terrorist group?

We don't know yet. Yes, there's plainly evidence of his growing Islamic extremism over the past three years. But if there's anything we've learned over the last week, it's that jumping to conclusions on this stuff is foolish. Our natural curiosity isn't a good enough reason to rush to judgment about Tsarnaev's motivations. Just wait. There's no harm in it. We'll find out soon enough.
Oh.

Well.

11 comments:

Unknown said...

"it's just so lazy and cynical to immediately assume that in the Tsarnaev case, the government will automatically take the worst and lowest road to authoritari..."

The only thing I assume is that no matter how vicious and vile the state power behaves, Droneglass will twist himself into whatever 'liberal' intellectual contortion is needed to cover for it, and spit on those, like Greenwald, who refuse to do the same.

Anonymous said...

Why jump to conclusions when pole-vaulting pays better?

Besides, it was the saxon violins they saw on the teevee. Damn BBC!

Lawrence said...

Appropos of nothing, I sent this reply to one of the Barrack Obama fundraising emails that I regularly delete:
I'm well aware that Jeff Flake is an asshole. If you have a minute, and if he will listen, tell the President to cease and desist with this Grand Bargain bullshit. I understand that he is an Eisenhower Republican and no liberal. So focus on getting us back to Eisenhower's America. I don't want to hear another word about shared sacrifice. Labor has yielded ground to the plunder of Capitol for 40 years. Enough. You might as well stand in front of Hoover Dam and talk about how we all will have to make do with less water, since there is less to go around. We know where the fucking water is. Open the damn spillway before you lose all control of the situation and the wretched underclass that our millionaire President cares less about than offending Lloyd Blankfien or Jamie Dimon decides to breach the fucking dam.

Pinkamena Panic said...

I'm sick of this place. Too soft on Greenrubes.

Yeah, I know you let pretty much anything through because that's what you do, DG, but these drool-cup-equipped followers are getting to be too much. The cost is outweighing the benefit.

Still going to listen to the podcast, though, because the Greensuckers aren't all over that. Yet.

Anonymous said...

So this driftglass person has figured out that there's an internet and from it you can find all kinds of evidences of wide ranges of opinions held, mas o menos, by devotees and poseurs alike. Good for you, driftglass person. You're right. And it appears that some black lawyer out of harvard who made it to prexy also figured out the same thing. So that's good, too. So why I wonder does bitching about things the prexy guy does somehow rub off on stuff the driftglass person does?

Anonymous said...

The Far Left's hatred of government seems to run counter to their desire for more government programs.

Not sure they've ever dealt with that philosophical conflict, beyond flirting with the Paullites on certain issues.

Anonymous said...

"The far left"? Do tell, Anny...

Anonymous said...

Pinkamena Panic said...
I'm sick of this place. Too soft on Greenrubes.

Yeah, I know you let pretty much anything through because that's what you do, DG, but these drool-cup-equipped followers are getting to be too much. The cost is outweighing the benefit.

What he said. Start filtering some of this crap....

Anonymous said...

I don't mind the Greenwald supporters that much. I think they can be useful for some things, and most importantly, a critic keeps you honest.

I do love The Far Left, though. The primary and often only defense mechanism of conservatives is projection. So... tree-hugging stoner hippies who get all weepy over dead owls and can barely get their shit together to buy a bag of Funions, are MILLITANT! MARXIST! COMMUNISTS! SHARIA! SECULARISTS! thug armies, working with the New Black Panthers, ACORN, the Zetas, and... I don't know... Hollywood Sharia-Jews? Reptillians?... to TAKE YUR GUNZ!!!1! Agenda 21!!!

These are the same people who said the soon-to-be-Justice Elena Kagan, a single Jewish woman who some say might be a lesbian, is trying to push Sharia Law.

Then again, "Sharia" is "Communism".

In reality, the Far Left is the boogeyman into which conservatives project their fear of accountability and being wrong. It is their fear that their malice to the poor will be shown as simply malice, so it can never happen. It is their fear that teaching their kids science will reveal themselves as superstitious and willfully ignorant. It is their fear that their malice and hostility to the GLBT's will be seen as nothing more than bigotry and bullying. It is their fear of realizing that after slowly slicing their own economic throat, there will be no day that a rich white man will not show up on their doorstep and shit a pile of gold coins on the stoop.

Hamfast Ruddyneck said...

I retain hope for Driftglass because he will tolerate criticism of Preznit Judas Goat.

Perhaps his support of the Preznit is not real Oborg assimilation after all, but merely the result of growing up in Chicago, where yellow-dog loyalty to the Dinocratic wing of the Property Party is so culturally ingrained that one could not be blamed for thinking it is genetically transmitted.

mahakal said...

The comments here are embarrassing. I've been free to express my disagreements with driftglass but for people to come here and call him names on his blog shows they have no respect. On the other hand, they must have obvious admiration of his writing talent and influence or they wouldn't bother to litter his comment section with insults.

Personally, and like driftglass, I recognize the reality that the presidency was not between Obama and a liberal progressive, but between Obama and a conservative Republican. Anyone who thinks John McCain or Mitt Romney would have made a better president can STFU as far as I'm concerned.

That doesn't mean Obama couldn't be better, but he can only do what his circumstances enable him to do, and he is not entirely in control of those circumstances.