Joining a Fan Club

It had to happen.

When I see people at Crooked Timber open threads asking why they should take you seriously, and spend hundreds of comments calling you an idiot, [. . .] then I want to cry. They're being dishonest and cruel and not allowing you to make a single mistake. They're setting you up to fail.

They have no understanding of how to be a genuine scholar. I work like hell to help those around me have the best arguments possible, even if I disagree with those arguments. I understand the spirit Liberal Fascism was written in. And I'm sorry you live in a nation of genuine fascists, and I mean that word in its worst sense. There's no way I would accept the attitude of Henry Farrell from anyone around me; it is something I would end friendships over.

I'm just amazed you can take this abuse and keep going strong . . .

There's a great many things someone should pound into the soft head of this weepy mezzofanuc, but who has the time? Simply stated, the facts are as follows: Goldberg set himself up to fail with poor (ahem) "scholarship" and bad-faith arguments and premises, which in turn means that the fanboy himself clearly has "no understanding of how to be a genuine scholar"; a nation of "genuine fascists,....in [the] worst sense [of the word]", would by definition mean that a tragically disempowered free-thinker such as Doughy Ramone™ would never have gotten a book contract in the first place, not to mention his long-standing sinecure at the drive-up window of Duh Corner.

Oh, and uh, asshole? He can take this abuse and keep going strong because he's getting paid. You, on the other hand, are making a chump out of yourself for free.

As for Funyun Boy's valiant attempts to engage his snarky tormentors, he finally responds more, um, substantially to Dave Neiwert. I actually got Dave's book In God's Country back when it first came out, when Neiwert and myself were denizens of the same chat fora. I can unequivocally say that Dave is everything that Goldberg is not -- an excellent writer and debater, fast on his feet, operating from good faith in his arguments, intellectually honest, and an exhaustive researcher. He's given Goldberg far more time and attention than he deserves, and painstakingly picked apart this asinine book for exactly what it is -- a thin reed for the otherwise unemployable.