micah holmquist's irregular thoughts and links |
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Welcome to the musings and notes of a Cadillac, Michigan based writer named Micah Holmquist, who is bothered by his own sarcasm. Please send him email at micahth@chartermi.net. Holmquist's full archives are listed here.
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Sites Holmquist trys, and often fails, to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution) Aljazeera.Net English Blogs that for one reason or another Holmquist would like to read on at least something of a regular basis (always in development) Thivai Abhor |
Friday, December 13, 2002
I never thought I’d be so disappointed with a link from Instapundit After writing "If you don't favor war with United Kingdom, you support the Official Secrets Act," I emailed Glenn Reynolds to alert him to the post since it was largely a response to something he had written. Reynolds responded by linking to me and writing: And I don't think it's any answer to say, as Micah Holmquist does, that: "This is exactly why nuclear weapons are going to be a sought after commodity by countries around the world for the forseeable future. They provide protection, something many countries are trying to obtain in light of the White House's imperial ambitions."A few things need to be said: 1) Reynolds presents my comments out of context. As my original post makes clear when I wrote what Reynolds quotes me as writing I was responding to him writing about the United States was unlikely to invade North Korea because North Korea has achieved, in Reynolds own words, "a military position that makes invasion prohibitively expensive." 2) As far as I can tell, Reynolds is saying that my comments are an example of an antiwar voice who appears to be siding with President George W. Bush's enemies. Since unlike most bloggers I don't really want the U.S. to win the "war on terror," this comments is understandable if not exactly accurate. Still I doubt Reynolds has read much of my blog and since in that entry I was merely explaining why a country might want weapons of mass destruction, it appears that the real message is that in Reynolds' mind anybody who goes against the War Party Line about other countries wanting weapons of mass destruction exclusively for the purpose of attacking the U.S. -a belief that requires ignoring facts and history but which dominates the popular debate surrounding whether or not the U.S. should attack Iraq- is effectively siding with the enemy. Talking about those Bush deems as the "enemy" in terms that recognize them as anything but 110% evil apparently isn't acceptable. 3) Reynolds ignores my argument about how the U.S. military could do lots of things and that if you believe opposing war with Iraq means siding with Saddam Hussein, then presumably you also believe that not favoring war with the United Kingdom means support for that country's Official Secrets Act. The same argument could be made with countless other examples including Canada and its single payer health care system, Japan and its tariffs and the Netherlands and its legalization of marijuana. In other words, if you don't support using the U.S. military to change those countries policies in those areas, then according to Reynolds' logic you are supporting those policies. It isn't exactly an intelligent way to look at the world. 4) At the risk of sounding petty, I’m disappointed by how few hits I got from Reynolds. Yesterday I got 62 page views which is good for me but isn't unheard of even on days when I don't get a link from something with as many readers as Reynolds has. In contrast, links from antiwar.com, Nick Denton, Spoons and Matthew Yglesias have generated more hits. Maybe Reynolds' readers just aren't interested in reading somebody who goes against the War Party Line. |