Oh, the perilous, evil times in which we live.
The current escalation in the war between liberals and conservatives just took a very nasty turn as far left websites have published personal information, including the address and exact location, of Michelle Malkin’s house. The stated purpose was revenge: Malkin published the contact information contained in a press release from a University of California-Santa Cruz student group who physically threatened and violently intimidated military recruiters who had come on campus to participate in a job fair. The young military men were forced to leave fearing for their safety as well as the safety of anyone who may have been able to run the gauntlet of shouting, spitting, pushing leftist lickspittles who were trying to impose their idea of “free speech” on those who may have been a little more open minded about that alien concept in wishing to see the recruiters. (I would think anyone with courage enough to endure those kind of hardships just to see military recruiters should have been signed up pronto).
It is unfortunate that these facts have been drowned out by the subsequent brouhaha over Malkin’s publishing the student’s contact information. Or perhaps not. Lefty websites ignored the free speech implications of the UCSC incident until Ezra Klein came out with his best imitation of Joe “Have you no shame” Welch. His curious use of the euphemism “slug” to describe Malkin was probably appreciated by Michelle in that lefties routinely use very personal anatomical descriptives in referring to her. Klein’s dramatic, chest thumping denunciation of Malkin for publishing a press release was extraordinarily revealing. The student “protest” (assault) was just harmless fun! They’re “undergraduates,” for Gosh sakes.
And then, the jaw dropper:
Malkin has already done grievous harm to an idea. I went to UC Santa Cruz. It’s entirely possible I was friends with some of those Malkin has placed in danger. It’s a school filled with young, idealistic kids determined to save the world, feeling their way through uncertain thickets of ideology and unfamiliar collections of ideas, and naive about the dangers of direct political action outside a university’s protected confines. That, after all, is what college is about—providing a protected space for young adults to experiment, learn, try out ideas and identities. If they made a mistake attaching their home numbers to a press release, it’s understandable—forgive them father, they know not what they do.Malkin lays claim to no such ignorance. A skilled and experienced rhetorical warrior, she saw the pale, white flesh of their throats and lunged. The vicious always seek out the weak. Rather than forgive their poorly-written, too-revealing press release, she published their oversight, opening them to danger and harm. If any of these students are hurt by a crazed Malkinite, the blood will drip from her hands, the guilt will burden her shoulders. But forgive her just the same, for there is nought else she can do.
Oh puh leeze!
Did anyone else laugh out loud when reading “she saw the pale, white flesh of their throats and lunged?” That’s not hyperbole. It’s juvenile. One might expect to see something like that in the diary entry of a 12 year old girl.
And the idea that college “provides a protected space” so that these students can violently intimidate people they disagree with is one of the most outrageous ideas I’ve ever heard. Yes, let them protest the recruiters visit. Let them stand outside the venue and spout their slogans, wave their signs, even try and shame people who wish to visit the recruiters. But to physically insinuate themselves to prevent people from seeing the recruiters in the first place is wrong – wrong for anyone, of any age, in any place, at any time. And throwing rocks, slashing tires, pushing, shoving, spitting, and threatening violence are not the acts of innocents. They are the acts of criminals.
Of course, we’re now beyond the debate about what went on at UCSC and into the bloody aftermath; Malkin’s publishing the press release containing the telephone numbers of those poor, innocent college students. This is something Malkin does quite often. She publishes contact information of school principals, corporate CEO’s, college professors, local elected officials, and anyone and everyone who demonstrates either extraordinary cluelessness or a particular bias against conservatives. It is the fact that she encourages her readers to initiate contact that has lefty blogs up in arms.
The default position of Klein, et al is that because there is a minuscule percentage of Malkin’s 144,000 daily readers who are in desperate need of psychological help, she should have refrained from publishing the contact numbers of the students. This brings up a fascinating question; are bloggers responsible for the actions and attitudes of their readers? Are novelists? Are newspapers, screenwriters, and anyone else whose writings see the light of day responsible if some wacko makes a threatening phone call?
John Aravosis agrees with Klein; absolutely yes:
Malkin, on the other hand, has posted the phone numbers and email addresses of college kids on her uber-trafficked site, and the kids are now getting deluged with hate. It’s wrong, in terms of sicing your audience on kids. It’s also wrong in terms of once kids are getting death threats and they ask you to stop, you really ought to stop (hell, even for adults, if things start to get THAT out of control, you really ought to reconsider your activism strategy). Not dig in your heels in order to prove some bizarre, and rather sick, point.And finally, having her audience call these kids is a rather bizarre, and I’m not convinced defensible, practice. It’s one thing to call a corporation to complain about their sponsorship of x, y or z. But having your audience call up individual activists and yell at them because of a protest they held, that seems to start bordering on creepy and un-democratic.
In a demented sort of way, Avarosis has a point. Even though the last I heard, none of the students had been in contact with Malkin and asked that she remove the information (the same info is still available on at least three lefty websites), from my own personal point of view, once I heard that they were receiving death threats, I probably would have pulled the information. In the end, one does have a modicum of responsibility not only toward people who read your site but also anyone affected by what’s on it. It’s ridiculous to believe that Malkin deliberately set out to injure these idiot kids by publishing their little mimeographed press release. But once it became clear that some of her readers had crossed the line, I personally would have pulled the information without comment or notice.
That said, what do you make of people publishing Malkin’s home address and the location of her house?
The crickets are chirping on the left as only one blogger has mentioned the outing of Malkin’s personal information – and that was to simply tweak Jeff Goldstein’s nose. Goldstein applauds Malkins defiance of her tormentors and adds this:
So. I am now calling for the very public condemnation and ostracizing of those who would post satellite photos and personal addresses of a their political opponents on the web. I am also calling for the public condemnation and ostracizing of those hyperpartisan bloggers / media figures who condone or applaud such actions.
Jeff Goldstein is absolutely correct. The potential damage this practice could do to political speech demands that left and right make this a line of demarcation – a “line of death” to cross. Anyone, be they right or left who crosses this line should be immediately de-linked. Anyone who still links to the offending site should also be delinked. Anyone who links a post from the offending site (even to make sport of it or to criticize it) should be delinked.
For that reason, I am going to delink the Democratic Underground from my sidebar (as soon as I can figure out how to do it). And I am putting on notice anyone who still has them on their blogroll by this time next week will also be delinked. This includes numerous righty bloggers who link to them under the rubric of “The Enemy” or “The Left.”
And no, I will not delink Malkin even though some apparently have. The difference between what she did and what the DU crew did is night and day. Publishing a press release is one thing. Inviting people to physically harass someone is quite another.
This kind of thing must be nipped in the bud now before it gets out of control.
UPDATE
If you know of other lefty websites who published this information or linked to it, please let me know who they were.
Also, an absolute must read by The Anchoress: Judas and the Cult of Malevolent Mendacity.
8:31 am
College students are not “kids”. They are, usually, legally adults, and ought to be held accountable for their actions as any other adult would.
When I was in college as an undergrad (just 2 years ago), we understood that if we behaved in a disgraceful, disrespectful, or illegal manner not only would law enforcement be interested but we would also face potential discipline from the university administration. That, and the constraints of common decency & respect for others, kept a civil tongue in our heads and restrained our actions while protesting.
8:43 am
Michelle Malkin: Up Against A Wall
whether you like Michelle or not, I think you will agree this is an incident that regrettably has gone too far. Rick Moran (Right Wing Nut House) blogs it best: “This kind of thing must be nipped in the bud now before it gets out of control.”
9:04 am
Hmm, what a lesson. These ‘kids’ attack military recruiters and in return they get a taste of thier own medicine.
“It’s a school filled with young, idealistic kids determined to save the world, feeling their way through uncertain thickets of ideology and unfamiliar collections of ideas, and naive about the dangers of direct political action outside a university’s protected confines. That, after all, is what college is about—providing a protected space for young adults to experiment, learn, try out ideas and identities.”
Protected, as long as you don’t want to learn about joining the military and wanting to save your country that way.
9:12 am
Malkin stupidly included her personal details in a mailing sent out her own e-mail list and that’s how it went public. Decency? She launched her personal information about herself BY herself.
And the anti-racist One People’s Project website promptly released her new details.
Someone took it a step further and used live.windows.com and yahoo maps to do a Graphic.
Payback’s a bitch eh’ Malkin?
Her refusal to remove these kids contact information was not from conviction, but from revenue. Every journalist in the world knows that contact information on a press release is for journalists to call for more information or interviews, not to be published (or even pointed out) in the publication itself. If she were any kind of ethical person she would have pulled the information when asked.
If she were something resembling a human being with “feelings”, she would not have republished the information once the students themselves removed it. Michelle is a vicious, vindictive, venomous egoist with no discernible ethics nor even a shred of human decency. If she wants to be The Minority Woman Who Believes Minorities and Women Suck, that’s her right. But she should at least have the integrity to acknowledge that she has done wrong and to stop compounding the wrong. And she should not give us that disingenuous crap about how she doesn’t condone death threats and nobody should misuse her posting and reposting of personal information.
9:55 am
Good post, Rick.
Oh, this is gonna hurt (me). But the DU admins seem to be policing that thread, removing the links as they come up.
10:44 am
The Malkin Storm
Michelle Malkin stands up to the left whose only tool is violent intimidation.
10:48 am
The reason why the students don’t pull down their contact info is that for a leftist propagandist their is nothing better than being viewed as a victim. I mean look at Cindy Sheehan and Hugo Chavez.
12:37 pm
I’m sure it was not lost on the students when posting MM’s home information that she has published the Mohammed cartoons.
1:29 pm
[...] Rick Moran of the Right Wing Nuthouse has a post that is probably more alarming than he thinks A DASTARDLY DEED [...]
2:05 pm
Hi Rick –
Couldn’t take a shot at your post without letting you know!
One of your many loving brothers
2:29 pm
Yo Mole:
Run a simple google search and see how many self proclaimed lefty sites still display the USCS student’s press release, complete with names and contact information.
Now, do you advocate the authors of these sites be treated in a similar manner as Malkin? Take a minute and think about that.
I’ll wait.
Michelle Malkin posted only what these students gave to the public, nothing more. The results of their stance is brought on by their own actions, not by Michelle. And the way they and their supporters are reacting to the results of their actions make me seriously doubt their commitment to their convictions. Either Stand up and be counted or sit down and STFU!
2:33 pm
To purposely post Michelle’s info so to put her and family in danger is not a suprise! Some of today’s college children are first class assholes with the same for their parents and profs. Eventually some will come around to sanity others will run for office in the demoCrap party. Yep, they will find a home there.
The very idea that they didn’t know what they were doing goes to show what fools they are. Some how the students blocking and spitting and pushing and threatening recuriters on campus show that they have no respect for anyone that doesn’t believe as they do. How childlish. I think it is getting harder and harder to call them “liberal” they have strayed too far from the word.
They need another “handle” and I know asshole won’t work. Let’s put our heads together and come up with a party “tag” that best describes them and quit calling them liberal. These fools give a bad name to the word!
Progressive is alrady taken, doesn’t reflect this group. Will entertain suggestions – anyone?
4:10 pm
diamond:
How about “seditious traitors?”
7:17 pm
If I promise to never cite the DU again will you link me?
7:26 pm
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8:17 pm
#13, until something better comes along, I’ed go with your pick, “seditious tratiors” I like it.
4:51 am
Vicious
Leftists ‘outing’ peoples’ personal information is becoming a common occurrence. These leftists, by publishing Malkin’s home address, are inviting a nut to pay Malkin a personal visit.
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