Blog P.I.

Comment-mining blogs on the right (or left) to find people saying crazy things and then holding them up as paradigmatic of their side is a fun thing to do, and while taking issue with him I’d be remiss not to note that Glenn Greenwald’s blog is a valuable resource for things like this extraordinary Ben Shapiro column.

Last I paid attention to Shapiro, he was still in his comfort zone: he didn’t get along with his professors at UCLA, and his fellow young adults weren’t living up to his exacting moral standards:

I am a member of a lost generation. We have lost our values. We have lost our faith. And we have lost ourselves… The ‘live and let live’ societal model is a recipe for societal disaster.

Shapiro is given to making this kind of statement, and he’s provided a great deal of sport for bloggers as a result. (Not just lefty bloggers, either - see also this review by Radley Balko, from which I pulled that overwrought quote.) However, he seems undaunted, and has now turned his attention to the history of armed conflict and hoisted the “sedition!” flag:

Under the Espionage Act of 1917, opponents of World War I were routinely prosecuted, and the Supreme Court routinely upheld their convictions. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes rightly wrote, “When a nation is at war, many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right.” The Allies won World War I. During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the internment of hundreds of thousands of Japanese-Americans, as well as allowing the prosecution and/or deportation of those who opposed the war. The Allies won World War II. During the Vietnam War, the Supreme Court repeatedly upheld the free speech rights of war opponents, whether those opponents distributed leaflets depicting the rape of the Statue of Liberty or wore jackets emblazoned with the slogan “F— the Draft.” America lost the Vietnam War.

Yes, the jackets were the last straw. What’s really impressive about this, though, is the Malkinesque dotted line connecting the internment of Japanese-Americans and Allied victory in WWII. By Shapiro’s logic, one supposes that the Nazis’ own acts, being so much more heinous than the Korematsu decision, should have given them a substantial tactical advantage of some kind. (Also, read in this light, he seems to be inadvertently calling for the suspension of habeas corpus.)

Of course, it’s in Shapiro’s interest to say ridiculous things to get a reaction, and it’s in the interest of the left-hand side of his audience to provide him with the outrage he’s looking for. This is a symbiotic relationship with which everyone seems to be happy - however, its significance is unlikely to be as great as any of the participants would wish it to be.