House of Eratosthenes

Nobody ever reads this blog, so the mantra goes. But of course that leaves unexplained things like last weekend, when once again our traffic graph on Sitemeter went all spikey. We’ve been spiked much higher before. Sunday’s “surge” of traffic netted 350-or-so hits and over 600 page views, an achievement that was approximately duplicated the following day. It became clear rather quickly that Pajamas Media was responsible for the sudden boost, and they extended a hat tip to fellow blogger Rick at Brutally Honest for finding us.

How much of a lift did we get? Since our use of Sitemeter nine months ago, this blog’s record is somewhere around 2,000 page views in a day. I would regard that as somewhat low, even if it were a daily average rather than a “record.” It’s called “The Blog That Nobody Reads” for a reason. Now, while falling far short of even that modest statistic, this recent limelight event was notably satisfying. Everyone talks about wanting to gather expressions of diverse and unique points-of-view. Well, whether that got done before is something that could be debated; but this time, that’s exactly what happened.

Bush Hating The post that generated all the hubbub was this one, and the subject is the widespread visceral hatred toward President George W. Bush. I will bottom-line it real quick: I treated this Bush-hating emotion, now entering a seventh year — just for a change of pace — as exactly that. An emotion. I called a stop to the unfounded practice of treating it as a logical conclusion of reasoned anti-Bush arguments, just because certain people want everyone look at it that way. As Rick said, I “play[ed] shrink.”

It comes down to this: Someone had to play shrink. Six long years, society’s subwoofer has been drumming out this dull roar of Bush is bad, Bush is evil, Bush is stupid, I hate Bush, blah blah blah. Six years, as the rocket of Bush hatred punches into the stratosphere, The Left insists we all presume it is carried aloft on a fiery plume of logic and reason. Throughout all six years, evidence that logic and reason have something to do with it — is completely lacking. That’s three election cycles the President’s enemies lost. Barely. With statistical insignificance. Elections they could have turned around simply by explaining what they would have done differently…and somehow, chose not to so explain. That certainly isn’t logical. The time had simply come to ponder, gee whiz, maybe jealousy has something to do with it. Perhaps, just perhaps, there’s nothing logical about Bush hatred at all.

And wow. You’d think I had blown something up, demolished something precious and strategically valuable.

I guess that’s exactly what I did. You see, I learned something. There is a breathless urgency involved in proliferating the “Bush hatred is completely logical” canard. There must be. What am I supposed to think? I’m out here, writing for a blog that nobody even reads! Simply wondering, golly, maybe when people hate Bush, it’s a result of something besides Socratean, cool, clear-headed rational deliberation about his policies and where they should lead. I’m noticing that as a causative factor, jealousy explains a lot; some of what it explains, is left unexplained by the whole “cool-headed cogitation” thing we’ve been sold. And then I jot down what’s been left unexplained, that my theory explains. And for me simply jotting this stuff down, in a blog nobody reads anyway, there are people who’d love to KICK MY ASS!! At least that’s how some of them put it. Grrrr!!

I’ve always been suspicious of this kind of thing, perhaps to a fault. The Breathless Urgency Factor — B.U.F. for short. Ideas that seem otherwise reasonable, but Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! They just HAVE to get sold. Someone desperately wants to get those ideas out there. That has always struck me as fishy. Even if you have a financial interest in an idea, if it’s true, doesn’t it tend to get out there on its own?

And then there’s the whole Occam’s Razor thing. People who hate George Bush, don’t have any problems about advertising their emotions. But they are desperate to convince everyone the emotions started as something other than emotions. Well, what’s the shorter and more-certain path; emotions starting out as reasonable thought, and leaping over that critical barrier at some point? Or emotions just starting out as emotions and staying that way?

The emotions have been emotional for a very long time now. Our current President is the first one to spend his entire presidency with the Internet, as we know it, recording and saving everything it can, notwithstanding natural attrition. Let’s see what we have in the archives, shall we?

Ann Coulter, writing in November of 2001, just weeks after the attacks:

WE’VE finally given liberals a war against fundamentalism, and they don’t want to fight it. They would, except it would put them on the same side as the United States.
:
Not exactly smashing stereotypes of liberals as mincing pantywaists, the left’s entire contribution to the war effort thus far has been to whine.
:
Frank “No, No, Nanette!” Rich recently emitted an interminable screech on the op-ed page of The New York Times denouncing the Bush administration for not solving the anthrax cases already: “The most highly trumpeted breakthrough in the hunt for anthrax terrorists – Tom Ridge’s announcement that ‘the site where the letters were mailed’ had been found in New Jersey – proved a dead end.”

As Irish playwright Brendan Behan said: “Critics are like eunuchs in a harem: They know how it’s done, they’ve seen it done every day, but they’re unable to do it themselves.”

That’s five years ago. Since then, the Bush-hating culture has gobbled up a little bit more of the voting public; a tiny bit more, just enough to cross a crucial finish line. With all the speed, and enthusiasm, and jubilation after the the oh-so-critical gobbling, as my skinny kid chowing down the previously-agreed-upon number of bites of beef steak to get his dessert. They’ve won over barely enough hearts & minds to take over Congress. To win any more hearts & minds, is as interesting to them as a second helping of steak is to my son. They’ve won what they need to win; the rest of us who remain unconverted, are just “stupid.”

But other than the Democrats retaking the dome, has anything changed since 2001? Ann Coulter, the specific Frank Rich citation notwithstanding, could have written all that at any ol’ time. It’s spooky, really.

Byron York, writing in National Review in late summer of 2003:

If you haven’t heard the news, you’re not on the cutting edge of Bush-hating. Anyone with Internet access and a little curiosity can discover an extensive network of websites like Bushbodycount.com, which accuses the president and his family of involvement in “mysterious” deaths; Fearbush.com and Takebackthemedia.com, which traffic in images of Bush in Nazi regalia; and Presidentmoron.com and Toostupidtobepresident.com, which portray the president as a drooling idiot. Taken together, the sites, and dozens of others like them, represent the far Left’s online equivalent of the infamous Clinton Chronicles and Clinton Body Count videos and websites of the 1990s, which accused Bill Clinton of all sorts of murders and criminal deeds.

Back then, the Clinton compilations troubled liberal observers and spurred a series of disapproving articles — not to mention armchair psychoanalyses — about Clinton-hating. Today, there appears to be less concern. But perhaps the political world should take more notice. Yes, some of the Bush-hating sites are obscure, but others are not, and given the upcoming presidential race and the intense passions it will likely generate, it seems reasonable to predict that they will all become better known. And it seems just as likely that some of the material they publish will inexorably seep into the wider political discussion. Bush-hating, already intense in some circles, could well become a growth industry in the coming year.

Howard Kurtz, writing in the Washington Post a short time after that:

The words tumble out, the hands gesture urgently, as Jonathan Chait explains why he hates George W. Bush.

It’s Bush’s radical policies, says the 31-year-old New Republic writer, and his unfair tax cuts, and his cowboy phoniness, and his favors for corporate cronies, and his heist in Florida, and his dishonesty about his silver-spoon upbringing, and, oh yes, the way he walks and talks.

For some of his friends, Chait says at a corner table in a downtown Starbucks, “just seeing his face or hearing his voice causes a physical reaction — they have to get away from the TV. My sister-in-law describes Bush’s existence as an oppressive force, a constant weight on her shoulder, just knowing that George Bush is president.”

Again, this could have been written anytime. November of 2000. Last night. Any minute in between.

The words tumble out, the hands gesture urgently. But it’s rational thinking and not raw emotion, they tell me. Why am I to think such a thing?

They are indignant about me considering anything to the contrary; even more indignant about me writing it down where others can see it. “Man…I hope this guy’s not my next door neighbor!!! …CAUSE I WOULD KICK HIS ASS!!! WITH MY PACIFIST…HANDS!!! What an asshole…” Yeesh. Much to my relief, this fellow corrected himself once someone pointed out that hands usually don’t have much to do with kicking peoples’ asses. The issue is my uncertainty about Bush-hatred being grounded in clear-headed thinking. A threat to kick my ass with pacifist hands, needless to say, did very little to address the concern.

Zossima Disapproves And then there is Zossima. Liberal gadfly, seldom correct but never in doubt, always present on Brutally Honest. He’s like a flea, nibbling away on the blood and dander of Rick’s blog, determined to get the first bite, last bite, all bites, and to make sure everyone knows he’s biting…recently he’s jumped over here. Boing! Well, we’re happy to have him. Life gets boring quick if everyone agrees with you all the time. And I think Zossima has grown from the experience. He’s well known for being a little bit too certain about what meets his approval and what does not meet his approval, and it has not been unusual for him to seek all justification in some of his arguments, solely through that — the fact that he personally disapproves of something. He doesn’t like the graphic I made up for his benefit, and I can see why. He protests that it no longer applies. I agree.

The tactic he’s taken here, is slightly more-evolved. He disapproves of the “theory” I’ve been entertaining, and insists that I need to go look up what a theory is. If you read through his comments, you’ll see in his world, theories have to prove things. In fact, I need to prove things. Everything. I need to prove things that are, for all intents and purposes, settled. At one point, the whole notion that President Bush is hated to an extent meaningful in American history, is brought into question, with benefit-of-doubt withheld until proof is forthcoming. At another point, if memory serves, the notion that Bush is hated at all is brought into similar question. Again, nobody is allowed to presume this is the case, until scientific proof has been produced.

Now that is a strict standard.

It doesn’t apply to the things Zossima wants to think, though. Saddam Hussein being harmless, President Bush lying to get into Iraq…you can go ahead and jump to conclusions there. So you could say, whether or not Zossima approves of something, is still meaningful, but now we have a more elegantly crafted architecture to our thinking, that is based upon that. And it works through a standard of “proof” that shifts back-and-forth, according to — yeah, you got it — whether or not Zoss likes it.

But back to the theory about emotions driving Bush-hatred, more than reason and logic. It would appear I raised peoples’ cackles not so much by simply describing just that…but by reading something sexual into it. Something Freudian. Masculinity, you see, has a profound and ancient meaning. It has to do with being strong, of course, and it also has to do with supplying protection. Disciplined protection. And, in some cases, being a “bad boy.” In the final analysis, it has to do with following some rules and rejecting others. Essentially, it’s got to do with being ready, willing, and able to use strength to defend weaker people — or to simply get them out of a jam.

I compared Bush hatred to the intense feeling a rejected husband would have after his wife has found someone more virile. It seems this is what really, really, set people off. Perhaps I timed my comments poorly; the Democrats have just launched a campaign to instruct people to believe that they’re manly. It’s got lots of B.U.F. to it, the Breathless Urgency Factor, but as far as I’m concerned you can decide whatever you want about it. I just can’t help noticing they have a need to do this. I just defined masculinity as being ready, willing, and able to use force to defend weaker people; the Democrats have made a consistent platform out of carefully avoiding any of those three. Give money and benefits to, yeah. Coddle, placate and patronize, yeah. Insult the intelligence and resourcefulness of, sure. Defend — no way. Our liberals must indoctrinate people on the perception that they are manly, because they haven’t been behaving that way.

Regarding House of Eratosthenes’ latest day in the sun. The statistics were pretty modest this time, but I’m very happy it took place. The piece was linked here and here and here and here and here and here, and it even got Dugg. I got to meet people who don’t agree with me about things. That is when we grow. And it keeps coming back to me how “well-put” that other post was…even people who disagree with it, here and there have commented on this. I really don’t understand this. I’ve never understood it. I don’t get how people decide what posts are worth citing and linking and broadcasting, and others are not. And I’d have to be a little tougher on myself, in assessing whether that piece was well-written, because there are parts where I respectfully disagree. But I’m a wiser man for reading what people had to say, especially the ones who disagree.

Does that mean the theory has suffered and lost some of my confidence? Heh…I don’t like to write things to deliberately piss people off, and I know this will. I’m afraid the gap has been closed up, somewhat, between the current level of certainty and the Zossima’s high threshhold of proof. In my world, theories don’t prove things, and so we’ll never get there. But is Bush-hatred rooted in Freudian jealousy?

Freudian jealousy seems to be exactly what was paraded before me this week. Draw whatever conclusions you will.

“I don’t get how people decide what posts are worth citing and linking and broadcasting, and others are not. ”

What makes you write about one thing or another? What interests you or doesn’t? Those same things will dictate which posts are cited and linked. It is what interests the individual blogger at any point.

With me and this post, I was interested in your take on the “hatred” and over at Slate Magazine, the association of Pavlov’s Dogs and our lawmakers. Together, the posts created an interesting thought pattern.

Agreeing and disagreeing. That is what makes this world go ’round. We learn, we proselytize to our way of thinking and we have it returned. Sometimes we change our thought patterns, other times others change theirs.

The intelligence factor comes in when adults can do this and remain civil to each other. I don’t hate anyone for their opinion. Their attitude may dictate my distaste for them but not their opinion.

Thanks for a great post. No matter which side of the agreement we’re on, I value your opinion.
- ScottsMorningBrew | 01/11/2007 @ 10:17
Oh, I hope I’m not coming off like I’m scolding anyone. When it comes to things getting linked and cited, the point is I simply don’t know. Often, I gather the impression people think I have some kind of control over this, or at least can predict it, and nothing can be further from the truth. I’m constantly surprised.

Incidently, I was glad to learn about your blog from the whole exercise. You’re a worthy addition. So is Zossima (whom I’ve been trying to get around to “rolling,” and for months kept on forgetting to).
- mkfreeberg | 01/11/2007 @ 12:15
Not that most Leftists are known for their grasp of Scientific Method, but in fact, theories never prove anything.

Theories are speculation put forth as an explanation for observable phenomena. Real scientists never consider them to be complete. Ultimately, they can never be proven, they can only be disproven. If they can’t be disproven, they are by definition not scientific theories.

They can often be shown to hold true for most cases — even all known cases, and are often useful in predicting the outcome of future cases. But theories hold true on a case by case basis. Each case for which a theory holds true only provides more evidence that the theory is a good explanation. Theories are never true in and of themselves.

And they definitely never, ever prove anything.

I had a little blurb on a very similar topic back in September More Proof

What you did with your post was call in to question certain theories of the Left that they take to be “proven fact” when in fact they are pretty much indistinguishible from religious belief. People often get their hackles up when you call their religious beliefs in to question.

Add to that the fact that most of these people believe that their beliefs are not anything like religious beliefs at all, and you can really get their hackles up just by calling them religious beliefs as you call that one into question as well.
- philmon | 01/11/2007 @ 12:18
Absolutely not. It didn’t sound like that at all. I was just offering my idea of why things happen.

All we can do is guess. I know what tweaked my interest. Who knows what tweaks the next persons. We could probably fill up an entire blog on that thought pattern alone.

Great write up still. I just re-read it.
- ScottsMorningBrew | 01/11/2007 @ 21:12
Well said, as always, Morgan. But…but… (do I sound like one of them?) when you say…

“this blog’s record is somewhere around 2,000 page views in a day. I would regard that as somewhat low, even if it were a daily average rather than a “record.” It’s called “The Blog That Nobody Reads” for a reason.

I think you’re gonna have to change your tag line, eventually. Some of us (no names will be mentioned…) would kill for that level of traffic! When you DO decide to acknowledge that a lot of folks read you, can I have your tag line? 😉
- Buck | 01/13/2007 @ 17:08
Well okay, maybe it was stretching to call it “low” for a “daily average.” Just in my own case, there’s a huge difference between my daily average and my record…or that record anyway. It was actually a tie, if memory serves. Pajamas Media linked us in June and Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler nailed us in July. With the express purpose of proving the tag wrong, by the way. http://www.nicedoggie.net/2006/?p=1048. …which he did.
- mkfreeberg | 01/13/2007 @ 19:20

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Thursday, January 11th, 2007