Setting a broken record straight

One does not relish the tedious and faintly nauseating task of combing through the written balderdash of “Rev.” Jim Sutter. Every time he writes a sentence, it is filled with subtly incorrect insinuations, implications, and outright claims. When one looks at an entire paragraph by the guy, one feels the need to correct the whole mess—particularly, of course, when one is the butt of them—; but one also feels a fatigue and a vague gag reflex coming on at the labor of having to do so.

On the other hand, correcting any one of Rev.’s simple-minded complexes of disinformation may provide a bit of fun to work on, on a lazy, rain-drizzly day, much like those little puzzles and jumbles one finds in the daily paper.

About me, then, the preposterously (and apparently misleadingly if not falsely) self-described “Pastor Emeritus” writes on his luridly titled and designed blog, Hatewatch Hall of Shame:

Some, like the owner of JihadsWatch (different site), which is an allied site trying to help Spencer improve his hate speech, review my posts and then employs two tactics of deception: First, he criticizes anything he thinks is a grammatical or spelling error (rather ironic when he makes up his own words), claiming that spelling errors invalidate the hundreds of verifiable facts I've posted; Second, he cites references I made to historical domestic terrorist groups, where he cites that they are out of business or in prison and then claims this proves there are no domestic terrorist groups. I am sending him a dictionary with a bookmark on the definition of the word "historical". Of course, he completely fails to address the long list of current domestic terrorist groups. I'm pretty sure that the surviving victims, orphans, widows, widowers, and loved ones of the victims of Oklahoma City, teh Atlanta Olympics, and other domestic terrorist attacks would disagree with the claim that there are no domestic terrorist groups.

Let’s take this apart, piece by piece:

Some, like the owner of JihadsWatch . . .

My site is titled Jihad Watch Watch. The address is http://jihadswatch.blogspot.com/. The “Rev.” has visited my site a few times, so he should know the proper title of it, since every time a visitor comes here, it stares him in the face in giant font letters.

. . .which is an allied site trying to help Spencer improve his hate speech. . .

My Jihad Watch Watch blog is my attempt to help Spencer (and Hugh Fitzgerald, et al.) improve not their “hate speech”, but rather the precise opposite: their pedagogical mission of fighting Islamic hate speech as well as Islamic hate actions.

[The author of Jihad Watch Watch—i.e., moi] . . . employs two tactics of deception: First, he criticizes anything he thinks is a grammatical or spelling error . . .

I have never criticized anything I merely “think” is a grammatical or spelling error, but only that which in fact is such—as anyone with an English dictionary can easily verify for himself (example: when I criticized the “Rev.” for misspelling—twice, and in screaming caps in his self-vaunted official pdf file “exposing” Robert Spencer—hypocrisy as “HYPOCRICY”).

. . .(rather ironic when he makes up his own words). . .

A writer occasionally coining his own words is merely a rhetorical and aesthetic flourish, not an error, as are typos and misspellings. I also try to inform the reader when I do so, and have even created a separate lexicon for readers to consult.

. . .claiming that spelling errors invalidate the hundreds of verifiable facts I've posted. . .

I never claimed that spelling errors invalidate facts. My point was that blatant and relatively copious misspellings in a finished work (such as the Rev.’s pdf file on Spencer) indicate a shoddy author. One of his writings, dating back to 1995, contains egregious spelling errors—particularly because they pertain to his claimed profession in Christian ministry:

So the long and the short of it is that applicants go through five years of lay ministry to learn tenants and connonical law and biblical studies in whatever Christian religion they profess as their faith.

At the time of writing this, the good Reverend was an adult who had apparently gone through years of training for the ministry. For him to misspell tenets and canonical so comically (“tenants”) and grotesquely (“connonical”) betrays a gross ignorance.

“Rev.” goes on:

Second, he cites references I made to historical domestic terrorist groups, where he cites that they are out of business or in prison and then claims this proves there are no domestic terrorist groups. I am sending him a dictionary with a bookmark on the definition of the word “historical”.

I already responded to “Rev.”—twice—after he had left similar comments on my blog. First of all, I never claimed—as “Rev.” claims—that the largely moribund nature of most of the domestic terrorist groups on the list he provides “proves there are no domestic terrorist groups”. The gist of my response is that he himself adduced that list of “historical” domestic terrorist groups as part of his superficially weighty argument to show that the danger of domestic terrorist groups should be of greater concern for us than the danger from Islamist terrorism. “Rev.” then tries to turn around and dissociate himself from these same “historical” terrorist groups he himself used to prove his point!

Of course, he completely fails to address the long list of current domestic terrorist groups.

I don’t know what “long list” of “current” domestic terrorist groups he is talking about, since in the section of his pdf document against Spencer, the only “long list” provided is precisely the one he turns around and dismisses as “historical”.

I’m pretty sure that the surviving victims, orphans, widows, widowers, and loved ones of the victims of Oklahoma City, teh Atlanta Olympics, and other domestic terrorist attacks would disagree with the claim that there are no domestic terrorist groups.

Here, “Rev.” adduces of course the worst domestic terrorist attack—Oklahoma City—along with a much more minor one—the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing, which killed two people and injured some 200. These are about all he can adduce (other than a smattering of abortion clinic bombings). The attacks from domestic terrorist groups pale in comparison with the attacks from Islamist terrorist groups—particularly when we include all the plots that have been aborted often by sheer luck, not to mention credibly and unprecedentedly horrific ones in the offing. As I told “Rev.” before, I do not deny the threats from non-Islamist domestic terrorist groups: I simply believe in rationally prioritizing terrorist threats, which anyone with a lick of sense can tell leads to the conclusion that the threat from Islamist terrorist groups, in quantity and quality, should be a higher priority for us than the threat from non-Islamist domestic terrorist groups.