I was initially too stunned by the news to do much more than note Andrew’s passing. Now that some time has passed, though, let me say this: Andrew lived professionally to expose the Left’s smug blind spots to its own hatreds and bigotries — to problematize progressives’ own self-perpetuated (and self-delusional) narrative of their own moral, cultural, and intellectual superiority.
And judging by the early reactions to his death from many of the self-styled paragons of moral and civic virtue — those who consistently carp about “fairness” while agitating for the government’s thumb on every scale; those who clamor for “tolerance” even as they isolate dissent from leftist cant into “free speech zones,” when they tolerate it at all; those who speak of rights and freedoms while moving to compel others to do precisely as they dictate; and those who talk about compassion and “social justice” while they reduce their ideological challengers to the status of vermin — his death may be, when all is said and done, one of the greatest performatives of his life’s late thesis.
Rest in peace, brother. We’ll continue to carry the sword for you. It’s the least we can do.
I bet O’Keefe and his crew are going to cook up an extra special memorial.
Here’s one now.
Matt Yglesias: Conventions around dead people are ridiculous. The world outlook is slightly improved with @AndrewBrietbart dead.
Im glad Yglesias identified that way.
I just wish he would suffer for it.
He won’t.
Many progressives constantly reveal themselves as evil. How far does it take to go from celebrating someone’s death to not interfering if someone is dying to helping them to get dead? Not all that far, if you think their death is a good thing.
Wishing death on someone, or celebrating it, because that person disagreed with you politically, is sick.
[…] thoughts from: Ben Domench, Jeff Goldstein, and Brandon […]
Melissa McEwan wrote a remarkably restrained bit, which LGM me-tooed.
So it’s not all shitting on the grave, thankfully.
Every time one of them justifies his hatred with an observation that “Breitbart did it first,” they should be reminded that they have explicitly, publicly, and proudly admitted that they are morally on the exact same level as a man they despise. Remind them that while they make take some little comfort in being “no worse than Breitbart,” it remains a fact that they are no better than he was, either.
They are bad little puppies, and their noses need to be rubbed in it. We can spend the next few days fighting the little fights, but after that we’ll need to pick up Andrew’s banner and fight the big fights. And we’ll do it with the intellect and historical arguments the Left always pretend to, and I, for one, will do it with the sneering condescension that the Left always pretends they’re justified in having. Because I come from a place where “no better than Breitbart” is nowhere near a stinging rebuke.
I don’t know that I can carry that sword Andrew carried.
Not everyone is suited to open battle. For many, simply carrying a sharp scalpel, and using it to take apart the contrived arguments of our counterparts, will be enough. Hell, just keeping a nice stiletto on hand for puncturing their fictitious world-bubbles is useful (and fun!).
‘They couldn’t revive him,’ father-in-law says