Star One Smart Blog's

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UPDATED

This take on the unfortunate, but necessary, incident that's enveloped two principle Conservative blogs for what, two weeks or more? left as a comment to tgirsh's open thread at TFree. (Now, I may have some details out of place, but forgive me; I'm not expert, and really not but barely conversant on the fields mentioned. But, I'm learning more and more as time goes on. Which is all one can expect, no?)

Since you declared ‘Open Thread’ and all (that seems to be an Eschaton - Atrios - Duncan Black favorite post topic, and may be patented) you should probably know a little about what’s going on in the right blogosphere. Particularly, between Patterico (Patrick Frey) and Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom (my favorite blog, if you haven’t noticed).

Jeff’s a linguist, with a Master’s in Lit Crit; and is a postmodernist specializing in semiotics. Jeff’s spent years lecturing and writing on the importance of the author’s or speaker’s intent at the time when his or her words were uttered or written, and the hazards of allowing a possibly hostile reader - listener to hijack the intent and change the meaning of the author - speaker. Much as we saw with leftys hijacking the meaning of Rush’s famous four words, taking them out of context and using them to malign both Rush and Republicans, serving their own political - propaganda purposes.

Of course that’s way simplified. You can find links to all of that in my last post.

Patterico, a Deputy District Attorney in L.A. (one who has done great work tearing down the LA Times, and exposing Gleen Greenwald’s multiple sockpuppets, all the while throwing criminals behind bars in his day job) took much offense at Rush’s four words. He, and Allahpundit of HotAir fame, took it on themselves to chastise Rush for his four words; thereby allowing the leftys to succeed at their wordjacking. No, no, no.

Jeff e-mailed Michelle Malkin, who gave him his first HotAir exposure. That went over very well (although some of the reader’s heads asploded, as Jeff barely toned down his admittedly academic approach to the matter).

Thing really got strange there, for awhile; Patterico put Jeff on a ’show trial’; there was much back-and-forth between the two camps (who share commenters to an extent) and PW actually was pulled down last night.

It’s back up now. But this episode shows the extent of the divide in the factions of the ‘right’. Jeff self-identifies as a Classical Liberal (which, today, is much closer to Conservatism, as so-called ‘liberals’ are really leftists, far-leftists at that.)

The fascinating thing about Jeff’s work in intent and anti-Derrida postmodernism is that his work in semiotics can help both left and right keep the meaning of ‘words’ (defined as what makes humans..well, human) from becoming hijacked from the author’s - speaker’s intent; the result of which is fascism.

Read Jeff’s HotAir post. I think it’s Post of the Year. So far.

Since I pulled Patterico's site from my sidebar, you'll have to visit Jeff's latest post to get his take on the matter. Or visit RS McCain (also linked under the pshop above) for more of that.

Hopefully, this kerfuffle will Patter out soon. I can't see it turning out will for Patterico, as in his latest thread, most of his commenters are telling him (more politely than would I) to STFU already. Is it too late for that?

I hope not. But, recall, Andrew Sullivan was once considered a true Conservative, before he...turned. Oleander side up, unfortunately.

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