A Sorites of Beans and Small Potatoes on July 4th

The other day, Rev. Jim Sutter responded breezily in a comment to my previous post that, in conjunction with two lengthy Appendices, analyzed one massive, seemingly impressive aggregate of information (among several) that he had piled up in order to demonstrate the various sins & errors of Robert Spencer.

In my analysis, this aggregate’s seeming mountainousness dissolved, and what was left wasn’t a hill of beans nor, at the end of the day, even a sorites.

Now, maybe Rev. Jim Sutter just doesn’t have the time to take the trouble to actually read through my analysis—since I suppose he considers me to be small potatoes: and I am small potatoes, compared with a Robert Spencer, a much more important and increasingly influential “hatemonger”.

At any rate, his recent response to my analysis betrays his apparent failure to peruse my analysis, his apparent failure to understand elementary logic, and his apparent failure to digest data:

Interesting but fruitless attempt at misdirection, Erich. Citing the HISTORICAL domestic terrorist groups instead of the CURRENT ones, "overlooking" Director Mueller's use of the term "domestic" terrorism when you try to show that he implied foreign terrorism is worse, (which he didn't, he spoke on them as two seperate threat categories) all to your shame.

Here, Sutter is accusing me of citing historical domestic terrorist groups instead of current ones—when, if he would have read my essay carefully, he would have seen that the historical domestic terrorist groups I cited were merely reporting what Sutter himself was citing in order to beef up the danger of domestic terror, and I clearly and pointedly—and repeatedly—adverted to the fact that they were historical and defunct: thus Sutter’s citation of them was the attempt at “misdirection” (at least, as long as the reader did not bother to check into them), not mine.

Secondly, let me break down Sutter’s claims about what I did in my analysis of his use of Director Mueller’s Congressional testimony:

a) Sutter claims I overlooked Director Mueller’s use of the term “domestic terrorism”.

I did not overlook it: I pointedly and clearly adverted to it, I even quoted Director Mueller’s first two long introductory paragraphs about it.

b) Sutter claims I ignored Director Mueller’s separation of domestic terrorism and foreign terrorism as “two separate threat categories”.

I did not ignore this. I clearly and pointedly discussed this separation, in terms of contrast and comparison.

c) Sutter claims that my failures noted in (a) and (b) above was my attempt to try to show that Director Mueller implied that foreign terrorism is worse, which—Sutter claims—Director Mueller didn’t.

First of all, as any reader of my analysis of Director Mueller’s Congressional testimony will see, the distinction between domestic and foreign terrorism is irrelevant when it comes to the issue of threats to the U.S.A. and its people, insofar as foreign terrorists are plotting to attack the Americans and American infrastructure in the U.S.A. And it was this threat of attacks in the U.S.A. that Director Mueller, in his Congressional testimony, described as the “gravest threat”. Director Mueller was not merely—and certainly not primarily—talking about foreign terrorism in its capacity to strike at our foreign embassies overseas, or at American business overseas, or at American tourists overseas: he was talking about foreign Islamic terrorists and their desire and active plots to bring their terrorist violence to our shores, to the land of America—as they did in 1993 in the car bomb against the World Trade Towers, as they did on 9/11, as they have plotted numerous times since 9/11 (most recently, the Fort Dix plot in New Jersey, and prior to that, a multiple airline plot originating in the UK that involved destruction over American air space if not also on American soil). Thus, the “separation of categories” which Sutter so dearly and tenaciously wishes to hang onto becomes meaningless—and foolishly dangerous—when the foreign terrorists which are defined by Director Mueller as worse (“our gravest threat”) are plotting to attack us in our domestic homeland.

As for the rest of Sutter’s response:

“See the type of fans your effort attracts? Lady Predator, aka Jeanette Runyon, herself the subject of an article on Hatewatch Hall of Shame.”

Sutter thinks that because someone has appeared as the subject of one of his witch-hunts, that makes them a witch. After all his apparent knuckleheadedness, sloppiness and shoddiness which I have seen on his laughably titled “Hatewatch Hall of Shame”, I remain eminently unimpressed.

“Spencer now finds access to his Jihad watch site banned by the Bank of America, the government of the city of Chicago, the Chicago PD, Fidelity Investments, and the filtering software of Site Coach. The expose' on Spencer is featured in Time Magazine's online feature "The Sphere", exposing his hate speech, and two government agencies have opened investigations into his activities.”

This either attests to the fact that the mainstream is right, and Spencer is a “hatemonger”—or it attests to the fact of the mainstream dominance of PC Multiculturalism, whereby anyone who dares to criticize Islam and most Muslims, thereby breaking the axiomatic commandments of the PC paradigm, becomes vilified in a prejudicial kangaroo court as a “bigot”, a “hatemonger” and a “racist”.