Amazingly Clueless Shit Andrew Sullivan Says, Ctd.

I do not know whether, when he says the amazingly clueless shit he says, Mr. Sullivan is maybe just too high to notice how utterly he contradicts himself, or if he is suffering from some form of slowly encircling dementia, or whether this is just the standard-issue clueless-as-a-plank factory defect with which all Conservative public intellectuals are hardwire.  But from whatever deep well of fucked-in-the-head it comes, it genuinely amuses me that the same person who made a very public cause célèbre out of getting Alec Baldwin fired for saying something mean to a paparazzi who was stalking his infant child could turn right around and publish this without someone within his inner circle staging an intervention (emphasis added with gleeful abandon):

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Policing language is something no gay person should ever countenance – if only because our language and our speech, as tiny minorities, could be the first to be policed in that brave new world. And what does it say about someone’s self-esteem that they run crying out of a seminar because they cannot handle a simple fricking word (and that they do that, while preferring to be referred to as “it”!). I know life as a member of a sexual minority is not exactly an easy one. But what happened to self-empowerment? Whatever happened to the proud, fearless trans people fighting back against the cops at Stonewall? Whatever happened to the great tradition of flouting all sorts of public norms and parading down main street in full Pride regalia? Or the tradition of bawdy outrage perfected by generations of drag queens, gay satirists, cultural provocateurs, and performance artists whose goals often include the salutary impact of – precisely – offense?

All of this is to be buried in a ghastly, quivering, defensive crouch of affirming claptrap, with trans people whining to teacher that someone said a naughty word, and incapable of taking in even a completely benign discussion without collapsing into trauma and tears. There is only one word for this and it is pathetic. I’m all in favor of avoiding words that some people find distressing if at all possible. It can get in the way of an argument, or simple manners. But I am more in favor of free, bold and fearless speech and argument, in which every t and l and g and b can give as good as they get, and in which this sad and pathetic recourse to fathomless victimology is called out for the disgrace it is. It is entirely self-defeating. No one else can give you the self-respect you may want. No one else’s words have any more power over you than you decide to give to them.

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There is indeed only one word for this.

And that word is indeed "pathetic".