In Response to my very long piece below, “Isn’t Vesuvius Pretty Today?” Joe Ororke writes:

“Well, that was certainly a long piece. I have no use for national review. I subscribed to it for a year in 1992. I decided it was crap. A lot of pompous sounding words and talk about what they wanted to do and, in the end, they caved in to you know who. IMO, Rusher was and is one of the worst. national review is despicable. In my opinion. I really should read your book “A Plague On Both Your Houses.” I’m sure I would learn plenty. If Rusher wrote the forward to your book my only question is did it change his life? Was this the thing he was looking for all his life? When I do read your book I can only hope that it won’t be filled with “everybody” and “nobody” and “only me.” So many of your pieces here are filled with “everybody” and “nobody” and “only me.” That makes reading difficult for me. This generalization won’t work. It is extremely unlikely that only you noticed something. It may be that someone else failed to comment on what he or she noticed but that only one person on the planet noticed something is just too unlikely for me to accept as fact. And “everybody” won’t work either. Unless you know everybody. Just because someone doesn’t comment on something does not mean he or she does not notice it. Lots of people notice things and say nothing. Anyway, I’ll read the book. Maybe I’ll highlight every time I run into “everybody” and “nobody” and “only me.” Just for game purposes. ”

Comment by joe rorke — 12/25/2005 @ 4:37 pm

Yes, it was a long piece. I don’t normarlly do long stuff. If yu can get all that into a shorter piece, please do so.

Rusher I will do a separate piece on.

It is difficult to write a short piece if, instead of “everybody,” I say, “everybody except illiterates, those who don’t know anything about the subject” and the endless list of qualifications that you can find in any academic publication.

Poetic license is the only way to write a SHORT piece, not to mention that it is the only way to avoid boring your audience out of its gourd.

My father was colorblind. When I write about a flag being red, white and blue I could remeber that my father was color blind. On some days that flag would gray, yellow, and purple to him and maybe a million other people.

So every time I mention a color, I could discuss the fact that is not in fact red or white or blue. I could give a very substantial discussion to the variety of looks it has to many different people.

I could also talk about the blind.

I doubt many people would want to read all that.

I also devoted a piece some time ago as to why I use “everybody” and “nobody” so much, besides not boring you out of your mind.

Many times my opponent has made the mistake of concentrating so hard on correcting me that all he managed to get across to the audience was the fact that finding an exception was so hard.

Which is the point I wanted to make.

For example when I state Bob’s Mantra,

” Everybody says there is this RACE problem. Everybody says this RACE problem will be solved when the third world pours into EVERY white country and ONLY into white countries.”

“The Netherlands and Belgium are more crowded than Japan or Taiwan, but nobody says Japan or Taiwan will solve this RACE problem by bringing in millions of third worlders and quote assimilating unquote with them.”

“Everybody says the final solution to this RACE problem is for EVERY white country and ONLY white countries to “assimilate,” i.e., intermarry, with all those non-whites.”

“What if I said there was this RACE problem and this RACE problem would be solved only if hundreds of millions of non-blacks were brought into EVERY black country and ONLY into black countries.”

“How long would it take anyone to realize I’m not talking about a RACE problem. I want the final solution to the BLACK problem?”

“And how long would it take any sane black man to notice this and what kind of psycho black man wouldn’t object to this?”

“But if I say that, I’m a naziwhowantstokillsixmillionjews.”

“Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white.”

the other person should try to get me off the point. But many of them make the mistake of attacking my use the words “ALL” and “ONLY.” They may even win their point. They may find one person who has criticized Japan for not opening its doors to immigration. But they have also made my point again. Such exceptions are extremely difficult to find and rare.

The exception often proves the rule. And if someone wants to prove my rule, he is welcome to win his quibble.

Likewise, “only I have thought of this.”

I have been very profitably corrected on this. Anonymous corrected me on being the only one who mentioned Jewish mob bosses in power in Hollywood by telling me about a book attacking Reagan — the latter point was brought up by others — which talked about how bad Reagan was for dealing with the mob whilst he was in Hollywood as president of the Screen Actors Guild.

I have yet to hear of a book devoted to attacking Jewish mob control itself. This seems to have only come to light in the context of an attack on Reagan.

This is a point worth making. And Anonymous made it FOR me. I didn’t know it.

As I say, I think the exchange was very useful.

I could say, “The media agrees that racism is awful.”

But people can and have argued that the internet is “media,” so my generalization needs a paragraph or two explaining exactly what I mean by “media.”

I doubt seriously readers want to see that. It’s boring.

One expects people to accept certain things as poetic license and if they feel it goes too far, to say so.

Without that assumption, much of what I write would be MUCH longer that the one you said at the outset was very long.

A seminar is not a lecture. When the prof is wrong, the other participants tell him so.