Monday, January 27, 2014

Right wing fruit loopery of the highest order - courtesy of Catallaxy and Sinclair Davidson

Only a few days ago, I had several thousand visitors from Mark Steyn's blog because I made the simple claim that climate change denialists seem too silly to know when they are losing a legal case. 

(Why did Steyn's blog bother linking to me, I wonder...)

Now, over at Catallaxy, Steven "why oh why am I the only economist in the world to understand Say's Law" Kates has a post up re-quoting Steyn's latest whine about the American legal system, and swallows whole heartedly Steyn's approach that it's a crucial matter of free speech that he be allowed to defame a climate scientist.  (I believe I paraphrase only slightly.)

Anyhow, that's not the dangerously nutty part.  It's this comment from fruitiest of Catallaxy fruitloops, Mk50, following the post:
Simply put, the alternatives in the USA to facing up to the leftists are becoming binary. Either you do not do it, or you literally kill them from ambush.

Their legal system is broken and skewed to ‘weaponise’ one side of the political spectrum (notice I did not say ‘Justice’ System). Once that becomes obvious to all, then the only recourse is to take responsibility back from the state into private hands. Steyn would have been better off in terms of money, convenience and even stress if he had shot Mann from a distance than to go through the ghastly and incredibly expensive legal idiocy he is currently experiencing. He would also have a very high chance of getting away with it, given his intelligence. Probably 99% plus.
This character - an ex Australian military gun lover who grandiosely calls himself an "Imperialist" (and who was caught red handed plagiarising great swathes of a guest post or two Sinclair Davidson published at the blog) -  has expressed fantasies before about the armed Right wing "citizen militias" having to have a second American revolution because of the Obama presidency.  I can't remember what sparked this last time - it could have been Obama merely talking up tighter gun control after the school shooting, or it might have been some other issue the Tea Party obsesses over.

But surely this takes the cake.   Because a journalist is being sued by a climate scientist for defamation, and said journalist has been losing important procedural steps in the case, this Australian character is telling his mates in the US that it's becoming clear that the only answer is to shoot climate scientists!  (Well, OK, actually "leftists" - that makes his counsel worse rather than better.)

Hey, Sinclair Davidson - tell me how else to interpret this comment being hosted at your blog?  You seem pretty keen on Mk50's contributions to the blog - he only had one of his trite and stupidly exaggerating guest posts published there last week.  (And as far as I know you've never removed his plagiarised content in the previous posts.) 

Hey, Andrew Bolt, seeing you're the publicist in chief of this Right wing blog, tell me if you approve of MK50's musings?   Is there some wafer thin grounds on which you don't see it as an endorsement of generic violence against "leftists" in the US?

And anyone else - can you explain why Sinclair Davidson is not pilloried across our country for hosting a right wing nut job who appears to endorse political violence in the US on the slightest of pretexts?  Why instead does he turn up on the ABC several times a year?

That is one of the biggest mysteries for me...

5 comments:

Paul Montgomery said...

Sinclair gets away with it because the Cat is obscure to all but those who don't matter.

Anonymous said...

I'm from Canada, not Australia. I originally came to your blog from the link on Mark Steyn's, and I've just stopped by again. I do agree with Steyn that freedom of speech means that you can criticize people, whether they are climate scientists or not. It did seem to me (from Climategate hearsay)--and to Mark Steyn obviously--that Mann had tortured and molested his data.

I do agree with you that that Catallaxy commenter is advocating violence. I don't agree with you that he is right-wing; he's more libertarian (even anarchist). I once took a quiz to see where on the political spectrum I was: I was on the far right, but vertically in the centre, halfway between libertarian and statist. Even the Catallaxy blog describes itself as "Australia's leading libertarian and centre-right blog".

John said...

And anyone else - can you explain why Sinclair Davidson is not pilloried across our country for hosting a right wing nut job who appears to endorse political violence in the US on the slightest of pretexts? Why instead does he turn up on the ABC several times a year?

I'm sure RMIT will be very interested that one of their professors tolerates plagiarism, inciting to kill, and the general hatred that permeates Catallaxy. I'm not surprised Soon never comments there anymore, his leaving has ruined the place.

Anonymous said...

Sinclair Davidson has to ban Mk50, it's that simple.

Anonymous said...

The comments are a pale shadow of what they once were.
mk50, and Davidson's refusal to ban him, is the cause.