Stop Demanding Dumb Answers to Hard Questions

[Res Ipsa]

Stop Demanding Dumb Answers to Hard Questions is the title of today's entry in Ken White's (Popehat) Substack.https://open.substack.com/pub/popehat/p ... medium=web Popehat is/was one of the legal experts who regularly posted at the garbage fire formerly known as Twitter. The subject of the entry: the stupid House show hearings on anti-semitism in colleges.

America faces many problems. The easy ones we solve or ignore. We struggle with the hard ones. Hard problems raise complex questions that lack glib, one-word answers. The stubborn thirst for simple answers to hard questions is bad for America. It’s anti-intellectual, pro-ignorance, pro-stupidity, pro-bigotry, pro-reactionary, pro-totalitarianism, pro-tyranny, pro-mob.

Take this week’s Congressional hearing about antisemitism on college campuses, titled “Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Antisemitism.” A generous interpretation — a credulous one — would be that the hearing was designed to inquire why colleges aren’t protecting Jewish students from antisemitic harassment. A more realistic interpretation is that the hearing was a crass show trial primarily intended to convey that a wide variety of dissenting speech about Israel is inherently antisemitic, that American colleges are shitholes of evil liberalism, and that Democrats suck. Since Democrats do suck, they mostly cooperated.

The core Two-Minute Hate of this carnival was Rep. Elise Stefanik’s demand for yes-or-no answers to questions about whether policies at Harvard, Penn, and MIT would prohibit calling for the genocide of Jews. You might think Elise Stefanik is an unlikely standard-bearer for a crusade against antisemitism, given that she’s a repeat promoter of Great Replacement Theory, the antisemitic trope that Jews are bringing foreigners into America to undermine it. But if you bought Stefanik’s BS, you probably didn’t think that far. The college presidents did a rather clumsy job of saying, accurately but unconvincingly, that the answer depends on the context. Stefanik and every politician our loudmouth who wants you to hate and distrust college education and Palestinians pounced on it. And many of you fell for it. You — and I say this with love — absolute damned dupes.

Popehat does a very nice job of showing the complexity of free speech rights within the context of campus anti-harassment policy. Demanding yes or no answers to context-free, oversimplistic questions may be someone's idea of good political theater, but is a complete waste of time when it comes to figuring out whether a problem exists.

You might say I am being more than usually uncharitable in this post. That’s because I think people falling for Stefanik’s gambit have been more than usually gullible. They’ve become useful idiots for evil. They’ve become the dupes of people who will wave the banner of “fight antisemitism” while pushing Great Replacement Theory. They’ve become the patsies of people who transparently want to use Jews as an instrument and excuse to suppress speech they don’t like. They’ve become the creatures of cynical, dishonest politicians who want to treat hard things like they are simple to rile up mobs.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that antisemitism is on the rise in America in the wake of October 7th. It’s on the rise on college campuses. Sometimes criticism of Israel or defense of Palestinians is explicitly antisemitic, sometimes it is implicitly antisemitic, and sometimes it incorporates classic antisemitic tropes. Sometimes people of bad faith take advantage of the ambiguity. (I think some people use “from the river to the sea” that way, as a deliberately ambiguous taunt, a big brother’s back-seat ha-ha-I’m-not-touching-you, but with an implicit allusion to genocide.) I don’t blame Jews who feel under siege in America or on campus, even if I sometimes disagree with their interpretation of criticisms of Israel. Feelings are not right or wrong, and in the face of so much overt Jew-hatred, I understand a tendency to interpret ambiguous statements in the worst way possible. I think we should feel compassion and empathy for people who feel that way.

None of that is solved by pretending hard questions are easy. None of that is solved by letting demagogues and hucksters take advantage of the moment to push their agenda. None of that is solved by contributing to what America is becoming — stupider and meaner.

Stupider and meaner -- just what we need.

[Dr. Shades]

The core Two-Minute Hate of this carnival was Rep. Elise Stefanik’s demand for yes-or-no answers to questions about whether policies at Harvard, Penn, and MIT would prohibit calling for the genocide of Jews. . . The college presidents did a rather clumsy job of saying, accurately but unconvincingly, that the answer depends on the context.

According to the college presidents, under what context is calling for the genocide of Jews not prohibited?

[ajax18]

The core Two-Minute Hate of this carnival was Rep. Elise Stefanik’s demand for yes-or-no answers to questions about whether policies at Harvard, Penn, and MIT would prohibit calling for the genocide of Jews. . . The college presidents did a rather clumsy job of saying, accurately but unconvincingly, that the answer depends on the context.

According to the college presidents, under what context is calling for the genocide of Jews not prohibited?

When it's a member of the intersectional coalition that votes Democrat, i.e. Rashida Talib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jamaal (insurrectionist) Bowman, Corey Bush, Patrice Cullors, Ibram X. Kenadi. Democrats were fine with Robert Byrd espousing antisemetic views as long as he made sure the union and WV voted a straight democratic ticket. Jews are now viewed as the oppressor. They're more white and more successful than the Arabs. Jews have become a symbol of western culture in the middle east, the very culture that the far left is trying to tear down all over the world. What's ironic about this for Res Ipsa is that Muslims are currently tossing homosexuals off hotel towers in order that Allah cleanses their sins. I wonder if his children are out their marching with Hamas or attacking Jewish owned bagel shops in Philadelphia.

[Vēritās]

The core Two-Minute Hate of this carnival was Rep. Elise Stefanik’s demand for yes-or-no answers to questions about whether policies at Harvard, Penn, and MIT would prohibit calling for the genocide of Jews. . . The college presidents did a rather clumsy job of saying, accurately but unconvincingly, that the answer depends on the context.

According to the college presidents, under what context is calling for the genocide of Jews not prohibited?

No one has called for the genocide of all Jews.

[Res Ipsa]

The core Two-Minute Hate of this carnival was Rep. Elise Stefanik’s demand for yes-or-no answers to questions about whether policies at Harvard, Penn, and MIT would prohibit calling for the genocide of Jews. . . The college presidents did a rather clumsy job of saying, accurately but unconvincingly, that the answer depends on the context.

According to the college presidents, under what context is calling for the genocide of Jews not prohibited?

He lays it out pretty well in the article.

[Res Ipsa]

According to the college presidents, under what context is calling for the genocide of Jews not prohibited?

When it's a member of the intersectional coalition that votes Democrat, i.e. Rashida Talib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jamaal (insurrectionist) Bowman, Corey Bush, Patrice Cullors, Ibram X. Kenadi. Democrats were fine with Robert Byrd espousing antisemetic views as long as he made sure the union and WV voted a straight democratic ticket. Jews are now viewed as the oppressor. They're more white and more successful than the Arabs. Jews have become a symbol of western culture in the middle east, the very culture that the far left is trying to tear down all over the world. What's ironic about this for Res Ipsa is that Muslims are currently tossing homosexuals off hotel towers in order that Allah cleanses their sins. I wonder if his children are out there marching with Hamas or attacking Jewish owned bagel shops in Philadelphia.

More ironic is your use of the word "intersectional" in a post where you go on to prove you don't know what the word means.

But props on showing us all what stupider and meaner looks like.

Byrd is dead. So is the old notion of "southern Democrats." We all know the Rs and Ds swapped place on racial issues. So why pretend that Byrd is relevant to today's party?

I don't view Jews as the oppressor. I'm not calling for the genocide of Jews, and doubt any of the individuals you listed are either.

I think it's obvious that the government of Israel is oppressing the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. That has nothing to do with who is whiter or more successful.

In the U.S., Jews are treated as both white and not white, often depending on which disadvantages them more.

I think Isreal is its own culture -- some of it western, some of it eastern.

I have no idea what you mean by "western culture" or why you think I'm trying to tear it down all over the world. I don't have either the time nor the energy to try and tear down your "western culture" all over the world. I'm human -- not some kind of superman.

Some Muslims in other countries kill gay folks. Some Christians in other countries kill gay folks. I think killing gay folks is a bad thing and I'm against it. Regardless, neither the Muslims or the Christians who kill gay folks deserve to be treated the way Palestinians are being treated in Gaza and the West Bank. So, I'm against the government of Israel treating them that way. And I'm against killing Jews. It's really not that hard to sort through once one gives up being mean and stupid.

As for my children, they are doing neither. Although they have expressed opposition to the Israeli treatment of Palestinians, they haven't expressed their support for Hamas's explicit goals or tactics. They certainly haven't expressed any animosity towards owners of bagel shops -- local or in Philadelphia. They both like bagels, although they aren't sold on lox yet.

What they are is less mean and less stupid than the stuff you post here. I feel pretty good about whatever influence I had on that.

[Res Ipsa]

According to the college presidents, under what context is calling for the genocide of Jews not prohibited?

No one has called for the genocide of all Jews.

No one?

[Vēritās]

No one has called for the genocide of all Jews.

No one?

Employed in our university system? Not that I'm aware of.

What I see are numerous protests held by students and some employees voicing opposition to the occupation and the mistreatment of the Palestinians. Every time I see an example of someone "calling for the genocide of Jews" it usually amounts to a misinterpretation of someone using the phrase "river to the sea" or it is just basic criticism of Israel which is spun into antisemitism and then spun again into a call for killing all Jews.

[Vēritās]

To Ajax's repeated point about Palestinian support for Hamas:

How do Palestinians feel about Hamas, Israel, & the prospects for peace?

Turns out to be complete horse crap. A survey taken a few weeks before October 7th revealed that more than two thirds of Palestinians has little or zero trust in Hamas. Only 29% said they trusted them a lot.

More than half of the Gazan population was born after the last election, and only about 18% of the existing Gazan population voted in that election.

[ajax18]

To Ajax's repeated point about Palestinian support for Hamas:

How do Palestinians feel about Hamas, Israel, & the prospects for peace?

Turns out to be complete horse crap. A survey taken a few weeks before October 7th revealed that more than two thirds of Palestinians has little or zero trust in Hamas. Only 29% said they trusted them a lot.

More than half of the Gazan population was born after the last election, and only about 18% of the existing Gazan population voted in that election.

So why haven't they done anything to stop Hamas if there are so many of them that feel so strongly about it?