As I've noted in the past, one of the decidedly weird aspects of the blogosphere is discovering that one is being denounced as "ignorant" or "stupid" by noxious mediocrities, individuals of no discernible accomplishment or intelligence, whose denouncements themselves often contain conceptual, factual or argumentative mistakes. (Remember Joe Carter from L'Affaire VanDyke?) Have these people no critical distance from themselves, no sense of their own limitations, no perspective on how out of their depth they are? Or, perhaps, as the psychologists report, "the less they know, the less they know it."
I suspect I miss most of these attacks, and I rarely, any longer, comment on the ones that I do find. But this outburst by someone named Dylan Alexander, a law student at the University of Houston, gave me that "decidedly weird" feeling rather strongly. (We encountered Mr. Alexander once before, here. If you peruse his site, you'll discover that these outbursts directed at me are normal practice.)
Within the parochial boundaries of Mr. Alexander's world, it was no doubt a bit startling to encounter the discussion of the possibility of nascent fascism in the United States. His response, perhaps just defensive, is that this is all "nonsense." I understand that it does not make sense to him, but that, alas, does not make it nonsense.
But he goes further; he singles out one passage as being "moronically biased" and "ignorant." Tough talk, to be sure; I favor tough talk, as readers know, but you have to be right, and not, yourself, moronically biased and ignorant--the fate, alas, which befalls Mr. Alexander. Here is the passage in question from my original posting:
"At the same time, we are witnessing alarming expansions of state power (to spy, to pry, to detain); the collapse of the rule of law in crucial areas (separation of powers, rights of habeus corpus--though with a hopeful push-back from the courts recently); and, finally, the packing of the judiciary with ideologues who exacerbate both the other tendencies. (In the 4th judicial circuit of the United States, the process is complete--there, if a 3-judge panel produces a decision deemed "too liberal," en banc panels are then convened, where the conservative majority on the circuit can overturn the remaining liberals. The rule of law is, for many purposes, effectively abolished in states like Virginia and North Carolina as a result.)"
Here is Mr. Alexander's putative rejoinder:
"En banc panels are of course part of the rule of law, and still subject to Supreme Court review. And while I'll grant the 9th circuit is not as liberal as the 4th is conservative, our side of the aisle could make the same complaint about their 'violations' of the rule of law."
That one circuit is more liberal or conservative than another does not constitute a violation of the rule of law; such differences in a federal system, where judicial appointees are political appointees, are probably inevitable. That much should be obvious, even to a law student of Mr. Alexander's apparent limitations. What would make for paralellism would be if there were evidence (I have seen or heard of none) that in the Ninth Circuit, as in the Fourth, results that are politically unpalatable to the majority on the Circuit were regularly subjected to en banc review and reversal. Such a procedure is not part of the "rule of law" ideal on any known conception, since one part of that ideal is neutral decision-making, that is, decision-making in accordance with public and pre-existing procedures that are neutral as to results, among other things. If, however, every time a randomly-constituted 3-judge panel produces a result politically unacceptable to the circuit majority, en banc review and reversal results, then the procedures are not neutral in one of the senses central to the ideal of the rule of law.
The merits of the discussion here aren't, of course, very interesting, since the mistakes in Mr. Alexander's rejoinder will be obvious to most. What is so curious, so decidedly weird, is that Mr. Alexander should make these dreadfully dumb counter-arguments in the context of charging his target with what appear to be his own failings, i.e., ignorance and moronic bias.
I do sometimes wonder whether stupid public displays like this are simply an artifact of the Internet, or whether the individual in question really conducts himself, say, at school in a similarly presumptuous, loud, and ignorant manner? Insight, anyone?
UPDATE: A philosophy graduate student writes:
"Each semester, I have at least one student who would match your description. At parties populated by my wife's co-workers (Fortune 100 accounting managers and salespeople), about a fifth of the men (and a few women) seek me out to 'talk with the philosopher' and then behave in this manner.
"I guess I can't offer insight beyond my recognition of Mr. Alexander of a type of interlocutor that appears time and again (and that often speaks from a position of power). I spend time on such people only in face-to-face situations -- like car-windows and drunken hazes, mail-relays give some people the sense of invulnerability that brings out their worst."
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