In Response To The Recent Unpleasantness

Posted on Comments

by Smitty

The comment threads are getting a bit dodgy on Stacy’s last two posts. Have your opinions, but please don’t soil yourself with ad hominem.

The FedoraCon idea is interesting. “Success is the best revenge,” someone once told me.

The Quotes of the Day post at Hot Air grabs the NYT:

“If the administration loses its argument [on ObamaCare], one early strategy is to run squarely against the Supreme Court. Democrats believe that Mr. Obama could fashion himself as a modern-day Franklin D. Roosevelt, trying to convince voters that a majority of the justices are in the pocket of the Republicans. A Democratic senator on Wednesday referred to that as the ‘martyr strategy.’

One of the crucial lessons we all have to learn about being online is that this exuberantly free speech we enjoy is totally non-binding. I don’t owe you a link, you don’t owe me a link. If I have time to respond to comments, or read your posts, great. It’s all best effort.

Also, I can rail at you all day and night about you not paying attention to my work. Laughing at my jokes. Tweeting my posts. And you really don’t owe me the time of day. If I’m not paying you, I have no real cause for complaint. And if you go on Twitter and call me everything but a white man, what cause have I for complaint? I could say you’re wrecking me professionally, but, over time, the truth will out. If there is no basis for your finger pointing, you look a Charles Johnson.

We could plan do some kind of ‘FedoraCon’, perhaps as an in-joke attached to CPAC, I’m all for it.

Just keep in mind that the ‘martyr strategy’ is not a creative one, and, ultimately, impresses nobody.

Update: linked by The Catholic Bandita!

38 comments

  1. In order to be a martyr one must truly die for the cause. 

    Going down kicking and screaming does not necessarily make one a martyr.  Especially if you eventually rise victorious.  Then you are just a winner.

    Judging by his ability to parley ‘winning’ into a recent spate of, no doubt lucrative, ad gigs, Charlie Sheen really does appear to have pulled out a victory (of sorts.)

    Mybe I just like Stacy, or maybe there really is method to his madness. 

  3. Just keep in mind that the ‘martyr strategy’ is not a creative one, and, ultimately, impresses nobody.

    Remember: This isn’t my choice, Smitty.

    I was willing to walk away, but the readers evidently wanted more, and customer satisfaction is Job One.

  4. I know you have no obligation to recognize that an alternate conference was my idea, but if it will be called “FedoraCon”, if I get a hat will you add me to the Axis? 
    Also, if y’all seriously want to do this, someone has offered me access to specialized fundraising and organizational software that may be helpful in making it happen. Just let me know and I’ll get it, learn how to use it, and give everyone the keys to it (or whatever the right word for it would be). I am still very sick and the disease is cruelly attacking my brain so I don’t know what more I could do besides getting the software & promoting the conference (and of course attending it if my health improves by then) so if we seriously want to do this we have will need some people with skillz to work out the nuts and bolts and tell me what else I can do to help.

  9. In the long run, a person should do things for themselves (unless this blog here is about putting food on the table and paying the bills, you are not obligated to keep writing). It would be nice if you did, because this is a fun blog and why let the suckers get you down — but ultimately you are at liberty to do what you want and will (yeah, it would be nice if you stuck around, it would be nice if you at least went out in a blaze of glory and took down the names, but it’s your choice).

    So…hope this place sticks around (and that’s for purely selfish reasons), but if you decide to walk away I understand.
    (you aren’t are you?  because seriously I’ve been kicked off of just about everywhere — left, right, inbetween, all of them)
    And by the way: just remember — I came up with the idea of an alternate hootenanny down there in the comments…show me the money!!! (if you make any; no bills for this adventure please).I am nothing if not a capitalist…

  14. Just a little more hate, Stacy, and I’ll have you over to my side. Calvin was a fool, spewing the whole “no choice” business.
    Keep hating. LGF is depending upon you to complete the transition.

  15.  I need a small one, I am a petite woman with a  small (but remarkably hard & thick) skull. I like black to match my shoes & purse. I can send you my mailing address. 🙂 I want to be in the cool kids’ club!

  16.  6 7/8 size mayhaps? Dark Grey Fedora or black Borsalino? Snap brim or soft brim? I need to know! Press Pass in the band?

  20. […] me just say up front that I am mostly confused about a lot of the things that are surrounding this Stacy McCain thing. I’m doing headlines and chat moderation and twibe and helping my daughter with the chickens […]

  25. Therein lies the rub. Whoever does the organizing gets to call the shots. If I may be so bold, Tabitha Hale’s rebuttal to Stacy essentially cribs Teddy Roosevelt’s ‘Man in the Middle’ speech.

  27.  Oh come on Smitty, you really cannot think that Hale is the one calling all the shots here?

    But regardless of who is pulling the strings, if there is some method to the madness then perhaps Freedomworks might consider being a bit more upfront about the hows and whys of it all.

    You know, transparency.

  30. “Democrats believe that Mr. Obama could fashion himself as a modern-day Franklin D. Roosevelt…”

    Oh, goody. Now we can amend the Constitution to permit just one term for president. Methinks the Democrats have chosen to act stupidly.

  31. I still don’t get it – one of the Team Tabby boys was on the other thread insisting everything about BlogCon is free to everybody.  A big fat public service.  Sure is nice of the hotels and all to supply all that stuff for free. 

    I just can’t get it out of my head, though, something about free lunches.  Things should make more sense.

    Maybe I’m just confused.  I guess I should apologize for insinuating Hale has put on few pounds just because her Twit-pic looks younger than that photo of Trayvon Martin they put out.  Maybe I was wrong.  The more recent pictures I’ve seen might have been taken in funhouse mirrors or something.  Sorry!

  32. That’s not what I said. I said registration was free, and some scholarships are available to help bloggers cover hotel and travel costs. The conference costs and scholarships are funded by BlogCon’s sponsors, FreedomWorks and the Franklin Center. The airlines and hotels get paid. Stacy was offered scholarships to the 2011 and 2012 BlogCons and turned them down. 

  33. Or, perhaps, madness to his method. I just hope it all works out in the end and RSM keeps blogging.

  34. I don’t know a whole lot about  hats, but going by a shoelace and ruler measurement (kids stole and lost the tape measure) my head is about 21″ around, if that helps. I googled hat styles and the fedora is probably best suited to me, I like the dent in the top, reminds me of my favorite hat that my grandpa used to wear, his was grey plaid with a black silk band and a red feather. Shaped kind of like this one:
    https://www.henrythehatterdetroit.com/components/com_virtuemart/shop_image/product/resized/Dobbs_Glencove_4c9e1651e15c7_120x120.jpg
    Aside from being able to join the cool kids’ club, I need a hat because the medicine to fight my Lyme and Ehrlichiosis has made me very sensitive to sunlight, and I wear prescription glasses but can’t afford prescription sunglasses so going outside in daylight is a real bitch for for me.
     

  37. Both excellent choices, my wife gave me a SCALA Classico wool felt in green/olive two Christmas’s ago and I wear it everywhere but in the shower. Considerably more modestly priced also.

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