I’m going to go to the dentist and get treatment for TMJ, I’m gnashing my teeth so god-damned strongly right now.
Let me start by suggesting a simple test for all of us to look in the mirror and try out.
Recite the plaque that legend holds was over the desk of Lord Keynes when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer – “When I’m wrong, I change my mind. What do you do?”
Go do it and come back. I’ll wait.
*shuffles paper on desk*
Now let’s talk about some people who don’t seem to get it.
I’m beside myself with frustration right now. I read and respect a variety of sources; one of them is Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit. I may disagree with some of his policy pronouncements, and I hate techno, but overall I find that his arguments are sound and fact-based. If anyone can bring me over to the Dark Side, he would be a damn good candidate.
But today, he continues hammering the Martha Burk story based on his revised dictum that it wasn’t about self-evidently loony policy in her article (the original charge), but about the hypocrisy that permits left-wing writers to lampoon the other side, but won’t let right-wing writers (except maybe those named P.J. O’Rourke) lampoon the left. I’m not going to argue this point (I agree that there is too much sensitivity on all sides, everyone who reads my stuff knows I hold no truck with P.C. or victimology), but I’ll bet that if I had a spare two hours I could drag out right-wing satire as out there as Burk’s.
But then he goes on to laud this moronic column … and in saying this, I’m offending the IQ challenged, because any one of them could have written a better one … by Wendy McElroy in Fox News.
This column was actually written by Robert Fisk, as far as I can tell. Seriously, this author must have gone to the same rhetoric and disregard-for-facts school.
Here we go:

A recent flap in the media captures how PC feminism is fabricating conflict and then refusing to deal with the consequences.

Actually, it is the right-wing commentators (Lopez, the present author, and sadly, Instapundit) who are fabricating, as we’ll see below.

The controversy involves Martha Burk — the virago who blasted the privately owned Atlanta National Golf Club for not admitting women members. An old article Burk wrote for the Nov-Dec. 1997 issue of Ms. Magazine has surfaced. In the piece, entitled “The Sperm Stops Here!”, Burk advocates the mandatory sterilization of men at puberty as a solution to the abortion debate.

Wow, the ‘virago’; that’s rhetorically setting the stage for a fact-based argument. OK here are an opinion, two factual assertions, and a fabrication. Ms. Burk may or may not be a virago (A loud, overbearing woman; a termagant). She is challenging Augusta’s males-only position, and she did write an article (note link added) for Ms. Magazine. The question is whether Burk ‘advocated’ forced sterilization of men as a solution to the issue of abortion.
I’ll suggest that she probably didn’t, and that anyone with a reasonable liberal-arts education should have known it. McElroy continues:

“The Sperm Stops Here!” was allegedly intended as satire. The tip-off is Burk’s lead-in: “A modest proposal …” This refers to Jonathan Swift’s famous 1729 satire “A Modest Proposal” in which he exaggerates British policies in Ireland in order to discredit them. He carries British callousness to its logical conclusion by suggesting that the English farm and eat Irish babies. Swift intends to elicit horror in his readers.
But is “The Sperm Stops Here!” really a hoax?

OK, on what possible basis would you suggest that it wasn’t a hoax, but was rather a policy position? First, and foremost, the tip-off as above is pretty damn conclusive. How many clues would McElroy want? More importantly, when she goes to the movies, does she walk out wondering where they found the flying Ford Anglica to use as the Weasley’s car?

Kathryn Lopez in National Review and Rush Limbaugh on his radio program took the article at face value — much to both of their embarrassment. But there is nothing to be embarrassed about.
For example, in contrast to Swift’s classic piece, Burk was defending a policy — abortion — by ascribing absurd positions to its opponents, which they have never held. She opens by stating that both sides believe “if all babies were planned … women wouldn’t seek abortions.” If abortion is outlawed, therefore, men at puberty must be chemically sterilized. Then state tribunals (and women) could plan all babies. Burk is eliciting contempt for those who question abortion.

Well, as opposed to those on the pro-life side who rain contempt on those who support choice? This is an issue with a lack of reasoned voices, that’s for sure. So pot, meet kettle. But my favorite part of this argument is this: Burk’s argument can’t be satire because she is defending a policy…abortions…as opposed to opposing one…say, prohibiting abortions. Whatthehell?? McElroy, were you a journalism major in college by some chance? Did you ever take a logic class?? There’s a great book I’ll suggest for you… Attacking Faulty Reasoning: A Practical Guide to Fallacy-Free Arguments.

Then, those who object to this hamfisted tactic are doubly attacked as being so stupid or humorless as to not “get” that the article is a hoax.

Well, since a hoax is different than a satire, yes, you are stupid and ignorant. You’re embarrassing yourself, the cause you’re arguing for, your university, your high school, your elementary school home room teachers, and your parents and siblings. Jesus Christ, this is infuriating.

Consider Burk’s Nov. 12 appearance on CNN’s Crossfire. Co-host Tucker Carlson asked Burk about the mandatory male sterilization. Burk responded, “Hey, if they’re going to restrict abortion, buddy, we’ve got to do it this way.”
When attorney Debbie Schlussel had the audacity to take that response seriously, Burk countered, “Do you guys know what a spoof is?” Thus, she was able to make her point and retract it at the same time. Burk’s point: The reproductive rights and responsibilities of women and men are in direct conflict. Her retraction: Anyone who objects doesn’t have a sense of humor. Burk’s “now I mean it, now I don’t” approach accomplishes one goal very well: It blocks honest discussion.

Well, in writing, that’s called “having it both ways” and is an old and time honored rhetorical device. But that’s not what Burk was doing. She wrote a spoof. Schlussel took it seriously by dealing with the proposals as facts, as proposed policy, rather than as arguments meant to display the issues between men and women as reproductive rights are divvied up. Burke said it was a spoof, and McElroy won’t believe her, because it suits her political agenda.
The only people not saying it was a spoof are the people who tried to use it to smear Burk and by extension, fight her on the issue of integrating Augusta.
And what infuriates me, really, is not only that they jumped the gun in accusing her of this wacky policy, but that on being shown that a) it was obviously satire; and b) she said it was a satire, they reply “she couldn’t possibly have meant it”, they didn’t just go, “My bad” and move on.
You can’t have discussions with these people; you can only have yelling matches.
And I’m just baffled that Reynolds, who as I’ve said before is no moron…who is in fact hella smart…won’t just go “I was wrong. I changed my mind.” It doesn’t mean he agrees with Burk on Augusta, or abortion, or anything at all, except that we give her credit for meaning what she said when she said it, and that’s a basic courtesy we should extend each other.
That’s how we begin to have arguments and debates, as opposed to yelling matches, and it’s the only way we will ever get out of the horrible political loop we are trapped in.
I’ll have more to say on reproductive rights later on…amazingly, I actually agree with McElroy (assuming of course, that she meant to say what she said, and not what someone is going to tell you she really said, in spite of the words she used) on some of this. But I’m embarrassed to.
Damn.
(fixed grammar)
(edited for clarity)
(commenter Chuck Pelto dings me for not linking to the original article so people can make up their own minds. Duuh. here it is)