Feel free to hit me up on AIM — TheBodyBurns — to discuss this stuff at length. I don’t like the way this whole thing has gone one bit.

They had, and have, no right to do that.

No, my gender did not apply in the case of the Ezra thread, but it certainly led other commenters–male ones, even long-term centrist/conservative Devil’s advocate Sanpete–to state such things as “the personal attacks on litbrit are over the top” and another to name himself Big Manly Man With Logic-creating Penis.

Where my gender does apply is when that thread is viewed in the context of all the other women Cain attacks online.

Face it, Cain, you’re a nasty little piece of work, and you have issues with women. That much cannot be argued, though I don’t doubt you’ll attempt it.

Numerous commenters pointed out that most, if not all, of these questions had been successfully resolved by reputable bodies of engineers and architects.

It’s funny, then, that you never once conceded that point in the comment thread. In fact, you continued to defend Fisk’s “questions throughout the thread and then began arguing those points yourself, even in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence. You’re acting like I and others just kept harping on you for no reason, when in reality you and others kept defending these ideas throughout the thread.

not only did Cain chime in right away with his attacks–not just disagreeing or saying I was wrong–but immediately called for my dismissal from Ezra’s group of weekend bloggers.

I still stand by this. I detest the 9/11 Truth movement, as it represents both the nadir of human reasoning capability and a morally repugnant argument. I felt giving credence to these arguments was a bannable offense (a position shared by Kos). How is this sexist?

Not for Cain. He joins forces with another male attacker, Vidor, and the two proceed to repeatedly spew, over and over and over, what was essentially the same thing.

How is the gender of Vidor and I in any way relevant? And we kept saying essentially the same thing because you kept arguing the same discredited points over and over.

He’s still up, on the attack, at 2:06:03 am (!!!)

Oh my, you got me! I’m a night owl, heavens forbid. Nice red herring, though.

Cain dutifully applauds him (it’s the next day now) at 10:58:35 am:

Actually, I was commending him on his point that the point of journalism was to discover the truth, not question the government as you had said.

Get it? She deserves whatever I feel like giving her. She deserves it.

Jesus Mary and Joseph, you deserved it because you plugged and stupid and wrong argument and then kept making the same stupid and wrong argument yourself, not because you’re a woman. Why the search for subtext when the plain meaning is so very clear?

I pity the women–or else the magazine collections–in Cain’s life.

Ooooooh, burn. I guess the ad hominem makes you more right somehow.

That entire thread had nothing to do with Litbrit’s gender, and to imply so is rankly dishonest. You were wrong and refused to admit so. You retreated to baseless charges of sexism in an effort to continue avoid admitting you were wrong. The only thing you were attacked for was your wrong arguments, and it’s a shame that you can’t see that.

Quixote, back to the original point of this post, to bring my comments history into this only further shows that you were cherry picking and holding a grudge. For instance, what other thread at roughly the same time on Ezra’s blog was I very active in? The one where I and others battled it out with David Sirota, who happens to be male. In both instance I was attacking bad arguments, not the gender of the people making them.

As far as Jill’s post? Yeah, I had problems with it, especially as I generally consider myself included in the Zeitlin, Meginnis, & Blogfriends group. But by the time I was aware of the discussion, Jill was already walking back her comments in response to your post.

But I could have still said something; I could have backed you up, if nothing else. Why I didn’t and why I’m hesitant to criticize the feminist blogs in general is a good question, especially given the context of this post. I will post a separate explanation shortly.

As for this situation, I don’t agree that Jill was posting “lies” any more than John is in the comments preceding this one. When we argue, we misconstrue each others points, we condescend, generalize. I’m not inclined to call it lying mostly because I’m not inclined to use inflammatory rhetoric, but it is a bad way of discussing something.

And that’s the problem. You’re willing to squint all day at a man, do analyses of his whole posting history and comments he made elsewhere, to divine if he’s a sexist or not.

But when Jill actually and obviously lies about not only him, but several other people including myself, she gets a pass.

Why?

And don’t you think it’s more sexist to give women an automatic pass on their bad behavior than to call them out for it?

First, I am not a 9/11 denialist. I wrote a short post linking to a Robert Fisk piece in a British newspaper, The Independent, a column in which he called into question certain aspects of the WTC buildings’ collapse. Numerous commenters pointed out that most, if not all, of these questions had been successfully resolved by reputable bodies of engineers and architects.

Not Cain, though. If you look at the comment thread following my post at Ezra’s, you will see that not only did Cain chime in right away with his attacks–not just disagreeing or saying I was wrong–but immediately called for my dismissal from Ezra’s group of weekend bloggers. At 1:47:18 pm:

That you would post this makes me wish Ezra will take away your guest blogging status once he returns, for this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever read on this blog.

You’d think that would be enough, right? Not for Cain. He joins forces with another male attacker, Vidor, and the two proceed to repeatedly spew, over and over and over, what was essentially the same thing. To wit, at 6:03:21 pm:

I abhor this post so much because it’s the worst type of drive-by CT argumentation.[...] The science backs up the official story on all these questions, and if you deny that, you shouldn’t be offended when someone calls you a loony crackpot, because that’s exactly what you are.

And at 8:35:32 pm:

Litbrit says What is not important, what is certainly not necessary, is the personal attack mode in which some unfortunate persons have their language skills permanently stuck.

You can play the martyr all you want, but it won’t make you any less wrong.

He’s still up, on the attack, at 2:06:03 am (!!!):

Who was that again? One of the people working on Litbrit’s house?

When Vidor chimes in with this:

This blog entry was by far the worst thing I have ever read on Ezra Klein’s blog. I do hope that he takes the keys away from Tornello if she continues to muck up his website with entries like this.

Cain dutifully applauds him (it’s the next day now) at 10:58:35 am:

Excellent point, Vidor.

And after Quixote steps in and essentially says, “Enough already, the way to handle your displeasure with a guest writer is to privately email the blog host, not pile on like this…”

Cain responds–again, same thread–with this, at 12:30:25 pm:

Oh please. Why does Litbrit get a pass on being criticized for her views when no other person who puts their opinions out on the internet gets the same? I know she’s a guest blogger here but she still posted idiocy, and she deserves all the flak she’s getting for it.

Get it? She deserves whatever I feel like giving her. She deserves it.

Mind you, this is just my experience with this person (as Quixote points out, there are other women who’ve had the misfortune of being in his warped sights). When his comments are laid out like this, though, even a casual observer would be hard-pressed to deny that Mr. Cain has some serious and disturbing issues, most saliently as pertain to women he feels–correctly or incorrectly–are wrong.

I’m not a psychologist, so I can’t and won’t speculate as to what causes someone to repress so much venom and then spew it all over a female online presence, but I will say this: I pity the women–or else the magazine collections–in Cain’s life.

Excellent trendspotting and well-observed post, Quixote. Thank you.

John also writes:

After my initial response, you then write: “Your arguments, taken together, form a narrative independent of their individual rigorousness. Even if everything you say is right and non-sexist.”

So I’m damned no matter what I actually write? Content is irrelevant? This is at best an illogical and superficial argument, at worst it’s the work of an idiot.

Saying that one’s arguments have a larger meaning when viewed in mass is the opposite of saying content is irrelevant. It’s saying that a collection of short stories has a meaning beyond that of an individual story. How is that illogical? How is that superficial? If you want to have a discussion, you must warrant your claims. Are you trying to say you wouldn’t find a blog dedicated to refuting Asian bloggers, a bit odd? That after the 10th criticism of an Asian blogger, you wouldn’t wonder what was going on?

John:

Jessica Valenti chooses to debate with more women than I do in her blogging. That must make her a sexist as well, as we’re disregarding the actual content of any posts.

You know that “debate” was never what I was talking about here, nor was the absolute number of women one decided to criticize, so you deliberately misconstrue my argument.

John again:

As I commented earlier, it’s a complete lie that I focus exclusively on women.

I do not claim you focus exclusively on women, just that you disproportionately concentrate on them. You suggest elsewhere that criticizing Burmese generals/monks, a baseball team, and bands is the same as criticizing individual female bloggers. This, as I explained, is not the same because these are abstract organizations, not even aware of your posts. Do you really come off better if almost the only people you take on are women or people too big to notice you? Isn’t Judah the one and only man you’ve ever posted against who could possibly respond to you?

I left these groups off my list, not because I wanted to further a “complete lie,” but because they weren’t women or men. I apologize if my lack of methodological clarity comes across as shifting goal posts. In reality, none of my arguments have changed; your changing understanding of my criteria is not the same as me changing the criteria. No where have I permuted anything in my original post.

(An exception: Tegan and Sara were a mistaken addition to the list. I was skimming and didn’t realize they too were a band. This is now fixed, and works in your favor. A note: Tania Head and Easterbrook are also two far removed to ever respond, but they are individual people, so I included them, which also works in your favor John.)

More John:

That said, what percentage should I be hitting, Quixote, to assure that I’m not sexist. Is there a quota you had in mind? Also, aren’t you deliberately skewing the results in favor of your conclusions by omitting all the posts in which I criticize no one, male or female?

If a quota would help you John, shoot for 1 man criticized for every 4 women — 20%. Skewed as that is, it would be an improvement. At some point though, just become a reasonable judge of what your blog’s collective content is.

As for listing: It might be an interesting exercise to see what percentage of your total posts were dedicated to criticizing women vs. men, but even if your have a million neutral posts, the criticism ratio remains the same. I don’t see how this helps or hurts my argument.

John’s last bit:

Q, this entire post is nothing but a smear, and a terribly constructed one at that. I expect an apology, although I doubt I’ll get one.

If I’m wrong, I will apologize, but that would require you actually making arguments, something that is distinct from an assertion, such as “this entire post is nothing but a smear.”

I stand by everything I have written.