Thanks to Basil's Blog for reminding the growing membership of Ex-Lizards Anonymous of this fact:
Many of LGF's posts from February 7, 2001 to September 11, 2001 are gone. At least, from what I remember of the posts during that time period. You may not be aware of this, but before the 9/11 attacks, LGF attacked George W. Bush (whom he called by the Molly Ivins-inspired nickname of "shrub.").
Basil furthermore reminds readers that Charles Johnson's implacable hatred of traditional Judeo-Christian belief is one of those feature-not-a-bug things:
Johnson has no respect whatsoever for anyone who believes in creationism, or intelligent design.
Basil continues by saying of the now-banned ex-Lizards dismayed by Johnson's attacks on Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, Glenn Beck, the Tea Party movement, talk radio, Fox News, home-schoolers, etc.:
None of what they are complaining about is new.
Those that jumped on the Charles Johnson bandwagon in 2004 (or in September 2001), didn't seem to understand what they were getting into.
My own view was
explained to an agnostic ex-Lizard commenter earlier this morning:
As I've said before, any Christian can understand doubt, it is the intolerant certainty of atheism -- CJ's fanatical belief that he has proven the negative, that God cannot exist, and that the vast majority of Americans are therefore deluded ignoramuses -- which is intrinsically hateful.
What is most striking about all the vitriol now being poured out against conservatives by Charles Johnson is that he never seemed to complain about fundamentalist Christians, etc., when they were sending their sons and daughters to Afghanistan and Iraq to fight and die for his freedom. He never
threatened Michelle Malkin, then, either. And during all the years when I was at
The Washington Times, working under direct orders not to respond to the left-wing smears against me, Charles Johnson never wrote anything like what he wrote yesterday,
quoted by ex-Lizard Lily at 2.0 Blogmocracy:
222 Charles
9/19/2009 1:11:21 pm PDT
A big reason why so many wingnuts are pissed off at me is because they assumed that since I was on the ‘conservative’ side on issues like foreign policy, I was also on board with the whole social conservative agenda, including all of the extreme forms like creationism and theocratic fundamentalism, the crypto-racism of people like Robert Stacy McCain, and the extreme anti-Islamism of Robert Spencer and the shrieking harpy Geller.
They made a lot of assumptions about my beliefs that were completely wrong. Now they're raging at me because they think I "betrayed" them -- when I was never on that train to begin with.
Well, I'm not sure what
Michelle Malkin or
Ed Morrissey will say about Charles Johnson's Crazy Train to Hell, but I know what I say:
Chlanna nan con thigibh a so’s gheibh sibh feoil!
Posts
Doug Mataconis of "Below the Beltway" is a walking, talking mini-me to Charles Johnson. Nevertheless, his blog is listed under "Our Favorite Blogs" on your website. Have you ever bothered to read the crap he posts on his blogsite? He's no conservative, he's anti-homeschooling and violently anti-creationism, anti-Palin, in short, he's almost the antithesis of what this blog site stands for.
ReplyDelete"Below the Beltway" sucks. You heard it here first.
If Mataconis is "anti-Palin," that's probably because he's a libertarian. We libertarians generally dislike big-government "progressives" like the former mayor of Wasilla.
ReplyDeleteSome of us are, sometimes, naive enough to fall for Peckerwood Populism of the sort purveyed by (The Other) McCain as a substitute for libertarianism, but Palin's conversion to same was never very convincing.
I stopped peeking at LGF over a year ago...got tired of the constant anti-creationism rants. Enough already CJ, we get where you're coming from, put down the sledgehammer and move on. I kept thinking, change the subject and say something interesting.
ReplyDeleteAs I once commented to Rick Moran (before he chased me away with his angry retorts), "It takes a lot of faith to be an atheist."
Well it's their blogs and still a free country. All that Johnson (and Moran) are doing is making themselves more and more meaningless and insignificant by the day.
Actually it is his pre-9/11 liberalism that makes his change all the more regrettable.
ReplyDeleteLiberals are exactly the people that we NEED to bring over concerning the War on Terror. Johnson for all of his faults recognized the war for what it is right away and even now still links to Michael Yon and strongly supports the War and keeping Gitmo open. You can always change legislation you can't un-lose a war or un-kill someone.
The problem is that it would seem to me it is his nature to go "all out" once he decides something is right, everyone who supports it is right and a friend. Once he thinks something is wrong than everyone who supports them is wrong and his skin isn't as thick as it once was.
His obsession with Beck is a classic example, once Beck hit him ON TV that was it. If you are with Beck you were suspect and it would take very little to cross the line with him. I think that is where everything went from a slow match to a quick match.
When it comes right down to it Charles is hurting himself more than anyone else with what is going on. The major question is this: Will he change his position on the war on terror?
I can't see him doing it. I really can't and in the end I think it's the best hope for finally getting him off the ledge.
As I've mentioned here, on my blog and elsewhere, I have moved farther and farther away from Charles but have still yet to totally abandon his blog or the people in it who may still be open to argument.
I may reach a breaking point before it, (or he may with me) but if the blog actually went left on the war on terror that would be game over for me.
Da Tech Guy wrote: Liberals are exactly the people that we NEED to bring over concerning the War on Terror.
ReplyDeleteNo, DTG, what we need are ex-liberals like Ronald Reagan, who was a bleeding heart until he recognized that liberalism amounted to a formula for paralysis, failure and decline, as it still does.
Like Ronald Reagan, I am an ex-Democrat. You don't recruit liberals, you either defeat liberals or you convert liberals. The best way to do that is to tell liberals that their ideas are wrong and their leaders are lying cowards (which means CJ may soon be a leading liberal).
Please read "How to Think About Liberalism (If You Must)"
I think he still hates Bush. He wanted to strike back at the Islamic extremists who attacked us and he wants to ignore that the core of their belief is mainstream islam. he tolleated Bush because Kerry was weak, and he saw surrender on the horizon if JFK was elected.
ReplyDeleteChuck rolled over and hit the snooze button. The problem is that its not an alarm clock, its a smoke alarm! It does not have a ten minute lapse. The smouldering hate that vrought us 9-11-01 is still there.
There's no mystery here -- now that DC's splendid little wars aren't fun anymore, the unnatural coalition that backed them is falling apart. What else but a nation-building crusade wrapped up in patriotic language could induce well-meaning, patriotic Americans to do the bidding of lefties such as Christopher Hitchens, Charles Johnson, Hillary Clinton, and Irv Kristol?
ReplyDeleteThe Iraq and Afghan adventures were classic leftist projects to destroy traditional societies and reconstruct them into models of egalitarianism. The Neocons, who're nothing but body-snatching leftists, were going to accomplish what LBJ failed to do with his Great Society/Vietnam campaigns. The Neocons intended to impose their world democratic revolution at home and abroad -- that's why they supported amnesty for illegal aliens at home while American soldiers died trying to remake the Middle East. Those wars took more resources away from Americans and placed them in the hands of the central government, as all wars do. The additional powers our handlers in DC have appropriated, including domestic spying and "preventive detention" for enemies of the government, are now in the hands of Obama and his cronies.
The party's over, the bill has tripled the deficit, and folks like Charles Johnson have woken up with what they consider coyote-ugly bedmates. No wonder he's chewing his arm off.
"the growing membership of Ex-Lizards Anonymous "
ReplyDeletei like that! Seriously though, 1250+ and counting!
http://kirls.blogspot.com/2009/05/banned-monium.html
Robert. That last comment deserved a longer answer than something to clog up your comment thread. I posted it at my site under "Wars are for winning".
ReplyDeleteYikes. Thanks for posting. Again, IMO LGF has been going downhill over the last year,but his posts of late evidence this. Very sad.
ReplyDelete