So I had a lot
of fun last night. I even made
Twitchy,
which is always cool. But the problem
with twitter is that it is like a river of thought and if you miss what someone
says, it floats away from you and it is hard to retrieve later. And I suspect a few people want this
preserved for posterity, if only to know that Sally Kohn is clueless. And read all the way to the end to see how bad
it is.
So yesterday
Kohn was debating with various people on the right, mainly lawyers, and she was
going very, very wrong on the law. I
replied a few times trying to correct her, was ignored, and then kind of
throwing up my hands in amusement, I wrote this:
Which might
seem mean at first glance, but give me a moment. I make my case.
So she deems
to respond to that, and then she deleted that response, which led to this…
And to be fair
to her, much later she gave me an answer to that question:
Which is fine
with me...
But that is
getting ahead of ourselves. At the time,
I didn’t know why she deleted it, but... you ever have someone ask you the
wrong question? I had a moment like that
about a month ago. Brett Kimberlin had
sued me, in part, because I said I thought he was a pedophile. At one point in the trial, he had me on the
stand and asked me why I thought he was a pedophile. I then gave a recitation of about five
minutes explaining in detail why I believed this to be the case, and by the
time I was done, I am pretty sure the jury thought he was one, too. (You can read the transcript from that trial,
here.) I decided to have a similar level of fun with
Ms. Kohn.
Or as one
tweeter put it succinctly:
Strap yourself in. This is going to be fun.
So I began:
Now most of
the time I linked to her tweets and then pointed out her errors. So in most cases I will show you the tweet I
am responding to, and then my critique.
Thus, first, I linked to this tweet:
And then I
responded, thusly:
(So, the link
in that tweet is back to the tweet I was critiquing...)
Next I linked
to this tweet:
And my
critique:
Next, her
tweet:
I should say
“viewpoint discrimination by the government.”
This time I
used a picture of a pair of tweets to show what I was responding to:
For instance,
I wrote a piece about how Ariel Castro might have violated the Thirteenth
Amendment,
here,
although much of my analysis was mooted by Castro’s subsequent suicide and
burning in hell. I don’t
think any other part of the constitution
can be violated by private conduct, but I could be wrong.
Similarly my
next critique used photos of tweets:
Next I
critiqued this tweet:
My critique:
It would have
had better logical symmetry if I pointed out that you can name something
specifically that protects freedom of religion, but oh well.
Typo: "buying" should be "buy."
I went on to
quibble with whether she understood what “semi-automatic” means, but she
claimed she did. Which makes the
reference to semi-automatic weapons, weird, but oh well. Moving on:
Besides
responding to my explanation of what semi-automatic means, claiming she did
know after all, she responded to my claim that there is no right to gay sex:
My reply:
Lest you think I am exaggerating,
read for yourself. If you think that the Dred Scott case was just about the Missouri Compromise, you are in for a nasty surprise. To quote its vile opinion:
They
had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior
order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social
or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the
white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be
reduced to slavery for his benefit
If you need a
shower now, I won’t blame you. I will
note that it has been repudiated by the Fourteenth Amendment as thoroughly as
any decision has been, as discussed in my post,
here.
Kohn is also kind
of missing the point. Conservative
reject, as a rule, the theory of living constitutionalism referred to above.
She also laid
down a pair of challenges. First she
asked this:
I replied:
Then her
second challenge:
That linked to
this tweet (which she had responded to, before):
I replied:
Just so you
don’t strain your eyes, let me rewrite it here in normal text. I said (with slightly improved grammar):
There
are many kinds of business that are engaged in expression: newspapers, radio
stations, movie studios, printshops and even wedding photographers.
I
believe the correct reading of the First Amendment says that if any
anti-discrimination law has the effect of treading on these kinds of companies’
First Amendment rights, that such laws are unconstitutional as applied.
But
suppose the courts don’t agree with me?
Then tomorrow states could pass laws forbidding discrimination based on
viewpoint. And thus a gay printshop
business owner could be forced to help the Westborough Baptist Church make anti-gay
signs.
Indeed, right
now in New York, there is a statute prohibiting employers from discriminating
against people for participating in political campaigns and engaging in any
other lawful activity, off-hours and off-premises. You can read it,
here. Is it very much of a stretch to say that a
state might make it illegal, say, for McDonalds to refuse service to someone
because they are a Democrat, or a Republican?
Anyway, two
minutes later, she posted this to the world at large:
And my
response:
“Rage quit” is
a term from gaming. It comes from when
someone does so badly playing that they quit the game, typically in anger.
And moments
later she retweeted this bit of passive aggressiveness.
One can’t be
sure that Ms. Filipovic was referring to me.
There were a lot of people disagreeing with Kohn. Some were lawyers, some were not. But as I said a moment ago, most of what I
said was not obscure legal doctrine: they were what I considered common
knowledge. Although to mangle Chuck D’s
words, common knowledge ain’t all that common.
For instance:
But one nice
thing about my credentials is that whenever a person tries to intellectually
“pull rank” on me, or others, I can often “one up” them:
But as I noted
subsequently:
Indeed, as I
am writing this, I see she says it wasn’t directed at me.
As I replied:
Ms. Filipovic
is a lawyer, after all. While we might
debate how common “common knowledge” actually is, surely she recognizes how clueless Kohn is, right? I mean it isn’t necessary to get a law degree
to know how clueless Kohn’s claims were, but if you have a law degree, how can
you not know this? How could a person be a lawyer and not know
this, or even get a law degree and not get this?
I mean
obviously Ms. Kohn can’t have had any legal education because her knowledge of
the law falls below what I consider to be common knowledge of the general
public who don’t have law degrees. So
she can’t possibly have a law degree, right?
Right?
Um, with
apologies for the language, I found out that this wasn’t completely true (
update: bad link in tweet, but this is the correct one):
I had a
private conversation during all of this, and originally I said to that person that
I thought Kohn’s problem was she lacked the humility to know what she didn’t
know. But with this additional
information, God Lord, I don’t know how she can write this stuff.
Seriously, I
have no explanation for the display she put on.
Is she actually this clueless?
NYU is a good law school, and frankly I can’t think of a single law
school that would let students graduate without this basic understanding of the
law. Hell, her bio states that she was a
“
Root
Tilden public service scholar,” which is given to “outstanding” law
students. And yet, she doesn’t know
this? Maybe she once did and doesn’t
now? Or maybe she is lying, playing “stupid
like a fox”? But the lie is so dumb and
so obvious I don’t think even most liberals would buy it and for what purpose
would she lie?
Seriously, I am
at a loss.
Anyway, read
for yourself and decide for yourself, as always.
---------------------------------------
My wife and I
have lost our jobs due to the harassment of convicted terrorist Brett
Kimberlin, including an attempt to get us killed and to frame me for a crime
carrying a sentence of up to ten years. I know that claim sounds fantastic, but if you
read starting
here,
you will see absolute proof of these claims using documentary and video
evidence. If you would like to help in
the fight to hold Mr. Kimberlin accountable, please hit the donation link on
the right. And thank you.
Follow me at
Twitter
@aaronworthing, mostly for
snark and site updates. And you can
purchase my book (or borrow it for free if you have Amazon Prime), Archangel: A
Novel of Alternate, Recent History
here.
And you can read a little more about my
novel,
here.
---------------------------------------
Disclaimer:
I have accused
some people, particularly Brett Kimberlin, of reprehensible conduct. In some cases, the conduct is even
criminal. In all cases, the only justice
I want is through the appropriate legal process—such as the criminal justice
system. I do not want to see vigilante
violence against any person or any threat of such violence. This kind of conduct is not only morally
wrong, but it is counter-productive.
In the
particular case of Brett Kimberlin, I do not want you to even contact him. Do not call him. Do not write him a letter. Do not write him an email. Do not text-message him. Do not engage in any kind of directed
communication. I say this in part
because under Maryland law, that can quickly become harassment and I don’t want
that to happen to him.
And for that
matter, don’t go on his property. Don’t
sneak around and try to photograph him.
Frankly try not to even be within his field of vision. Your behavior could quickly cross the line
into harassment in that way too (not to mention trespass and other concerns).
And do not
contact his organizations, either. And
most of all, leave his family alone.
The only
exception to all that is that if you are reporting on this, there is of course
nothing wrong with contacting him for things like his official response to any
stories you might report. And even then
if he tells you to stop contacting him, obey that request. That this is a key element in making out a
harassment claim under Maryland law—that a person asks you to stop and you
refuse.
And let me say
something else. In my heart of hearts, I
don’t believe that any person supporting me has done any of the above. But if any of you have, stop it, and if you
haven’t don’t start.
