Well, here it is.\u00a0 Claire Berlinski, an editor-at-large over at Ricochet.com, has written a post describing her dissatisfaction with Trump, and detailing the reasons why she won’t discuss her book.\u00a0 But she won’t discuss the reasons for her dissatisfaction with Trump, arguing that it takes a book.\u00a0 That’s right, no way to summarize the argument in a way that preserves its essence.\u00a0 You’ll just have to read the book to find out what’s in it. Fair enough — this is book sales, not legislation.\u00a0 At the same time, I think that discussing a book too much can discharge the creative tension, essential in non-fiction just as much as in fiction.\u00a0 So there are good reasons to shut up about one’s book, even to financial backers.<\/p>\n
Yet she takes a kicking in the comments for her unsubstantiated facts and her quite well substantiated opinion that she is alienated from the readers<\/span> and posters over at Ricochet.\u00a0 She can’t describe the book or summarize the arguments because her readers, donors, and detractors are all too dense to grasp the point unless didactically led to it.\u00a0 No credit to the reader, no assumption of competence among the book’s audience.\u00a0 I would say that this is the existential problem she faces — writing a book to convince the unconvinced means addressing a room full of morons.\u00a0 She has been writing from overseas for many years, and alienation is probably as good a way as any to describe the complaint that many ‘Muricans have about her detached grad student assistant lecturer’s tone.<\/p>\n Another complaint that people have in the comments over there is that their real argument would be shut down by the powers that be, with a wonderful allusion to Snowball and Napoleon, and another to Radio Free Europe.\u00a0 I opened my site up to Ricochet folks of a particular bent — the sort of folks who would probably get suspended or banned if they made the argument they wished.<\/p>\n Here at BDB, we do not assume that all comers operate in good faith.\u00a0 Not all questions or argument need be treated seriously, or even with respect.\u00a0 Sometimes, people are just trolling and driving opposition points of view from the public stage.\u00a0 Here at BDB, I know that some people go online with a purpose and that this includes taking over various fora, infiltrating organizations, swiping key leadership posts and driving the wedge in further.\u00a0 It might sound like kookerism, but it is such an obviously good idea for a committed faction to implement, that the kooker position must be that this sort of thing never happens.\u00a0 If it happens anywhere, it happens at Ricochet.<\/p>\n And so I offer this space to continue the debate truncated at Ricochet.com.\u00a0 Don’t get me wrong — this is not fair or open to everybody.\u00a0 Those who agree with Claire will always be welcome at Ricochet — the rest are welcome here<\/span>.\u00a0 And a caveat — you don’t have to like or support Trump to post here.\u00a0 There are some folks here who cannot support him due to serious apparently insurmountable differences, deeply held beliefs incompatible with Trumps platform, positions, or actions.\u00a0 Fair enough.\u00a0 But this will not be a Trump-bashing zone, and I will not welcome those whom I know, in my educated opinion, to be trolling for effect.\u00a0 There are folks here of more or less libertarian stripe as well, but that label is used to cover a great deal of nonsense along with the commonsense libertarian conservatism espoused by the Founding Fathers.\u00a0 \u00a0It’s not about definitions — it’s about people, and some people are just no damned good.<\/p>\n So say here what you cannot say there, as you make your reasonable point \/ blow off some steam.<\/p>\n Don’t want to hear about your Mister Right Baby come and spend some time with Mister Wrong<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nCause he’s out of town tonight<\/p>\n