Garance Franke-Ruta's odd attack on right-wing bloggers is interesting for a couple of reasons. For one thing, her line of reasoning comes right out of the John Bircher's playbook. Instead of rebutting the argument, she tries to discredit it by inferring nefarious motives based on "unsavory" or "suspect" associations.
What is even more interesting is that this seems to be a common practice for her and TAP. Last year she did the same thing to David Brooks and Steve Sailer.
In so doing she is a perfect example of the habits Thomas Sowell wrote about in this column.
When the propagandizing activities of educational institutions were recently criticized in this column, a defender of these institutions sent an e-mail, claiming that there was nothing wrong with pushing particular beliefs, if those beliefs were correct.
Violating my New Year's resolution to stop trying to reason with unreasonable people, I replied, asking if this man would feel all right, if he were a member of a jury, to vote after having heard only the prosecution's case or only the defendant's case.
His reply was that he would -- if the people presenting one side of the case were people he knew and trusted.
Bizarre as that might sound, it is by no means as unusual as it might seem, even though most people who act on that basis do not spell out such a reason to others -- nor probably even to themselves. They don't say that they believe people on a particular issue because those are people with whom they feel simpatico. But that is often how they act.
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