Good News: Butt-Hurt Is Not Fatal

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FROM AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
You may remember that on June 25 I published a post called “Healing Butt-Hurt: Theory and Practice,” in which I mentioned “the storm of infighting and recriminations among bloggers over the Kimberlin saga, an unfortunate development that has been a distraction and an emotional drain for the past several weeks.”

One of the things I’d done on June 24 — the day before I published that post — was to send an e-mail to Seth “Socrates” Allen, the first guy to get sued by Brett Kimberlin. Some of the people involved in trying to fight back against Kimberlin said they’d been getting nothing but hostility from Seth, which made no sense to me at all.

So I sent Seth an e-mail explaining that his attitude seemed to me a bad idea, and said that I had discarded (at least for the duration of this fight) my own personal grudges:

Let me stress an important point here: Until I got into this thing a month ago, I had been at odds with Patterico going back to 2009, for reasons it is not necessary to describe now. I had also experienced a conflict with Aaron, and furthermore had not been much of a fan of Lee Stranahan. (I had some quarrel with Lee’s blogging about WeinerGate.)
Given the gravity of the situation — the importance of this story — I have nonetheless resolved to put aside all personal considerations, welcoming every ally without regard to any previous disagreement. In fact, I’ve repeatedly found myself compelled to referee disputes among some of these allies who seem more eager to settle grudges between themselves than to keep up the fight against Kimberlin & Co.
In light of my own experiences, then, I am mystified to see you publicly quarreling with potential allies. Whatever wrongs you have previously suffered from these would-be allies, or whatever criticisms you have of other people’s involvement in this matter, by any measure would seem minor and irrelevant, in comparison to the great good that could be achieved if we were all cooperating.

So anyway, Seth decided Tuesday it would be a good idea to publish that e-mail with the title, “Robert Stacy McCain Exposed as Card Carrying Member of the Breitbart Cult.” Exactly how offering friendly advice qualifes as something that must be “exposed,” I don’t know.

But there are a lot of things I don’t know, and it’s late at night, so I’m too tired to explain everything I meant to explain here. The “storm of infighting and recriminations” continues unabated, and earlier this week I accidentally contributed to it myself. Mea culpa.

I’ll try to rectify my errors tomorrow or maybe Thursday, if I live that long. I just got word tonight that Ray Minner died.

You probably didn’t know Ray Minner, but he was a good man, and his daughter taught high school English to two of my children. Death has a way of putting other bummers in perspective.

— Robert Stacy McCain, Whereabouts Unknown

68 comments

  2. I’m sure I’m too dense to see it, but what in the world in your email exposed you as a Breitbartian?  It couldn’t have been the fact you have been open and vocal in your admiration of Breitbart, could it?  Nah, that couldn’t possibly be it. 

    I don’t have the decoder ring required to discern the obvious signs of Breitbartism in your email.  I even tried reading it backwards at slow speed and all I learned was that Paul McCartney is still dead.

    I went to Seth’s site following your link and what a pathetic person he seems to be.

    This has been the surreal topper to a very weird week.

  3. I don’t see what he is getting at, even from the e-mail he relayed. It seems some won’t accept help even from those who offer it freely.

    Apparently political ideology trumps all. Sad.

  5. It seems some won’t accept help even from those who offer it freely.

    Some people feel insulted to be offered help. Whereas I, by comparison, freely confess to needing all the help I can get. Speaking of which, thanks for hitting the tip jar, Jeff.

  7. It seems some won’t accept help even from those who offer it freely.

    DFQ2 is doing quite fine (without Stacy’s said help) actually blogging about the facts and misinfo about the Kimberlin related cases.

    IMHO, Robert Stacy and his pals in  anti-Kimberlin crusade need to clean up their houses before they even have the gall to offer helpful advice to the likes of Seth Allen.

  9. You are a good egg. I am not sure what is up with Seth Allen, but maybe he just needs a good partner to settle down with. Tabitha Hale or Anamika are available.

    I am sorry about Ray Minner.

  10. Speak the truth Stacy,  Feed the rest of those fuckers fishheads.

    If they want to start a circular firing squad, brett wins.

  11. This is a case of your enemies enemy not being your friend.

    Just because Seth finds himself being beleaguered by the same exconvict and perjurer Brett Kimberlin as you are, doesn’t mean he’s no longer a liberal and all the baggage that entails.

    As I understand it, Seth was just looking for an investigation of the antics of Brett Kimberlin and the Velvet Revolution. That doesn’t also mean he became a conservative or even a rational blogger and friend.

    CJ did good work for a while at LGF but he was still a liberal to the bone. Seems Seth shares that trait.

    I’d not concern myself any longer about whatever hurt he may feel. It’s probably mostly in his head anyway. Mostly.

  12. Here’s a quote from DFQ2:
    “Aaron Walker is simply a boring writer. Mandy Nagy is a music major also with limited skills. Stranahan and Darby are useless. Patterico has exposed himself as being a nasty cybersmearer.”Yep, that really tells us a lot about the “facts” and “misinfo” in the “Kimberlin related cases”.  If you smoke enough crack, that is.  What the hell has Stacy done that needs to be “cleaned up” except dig as hard as he can for the facts?

  13. I’m also sorry for the loss of your friend, Stacy, as you say it puts things in prespective.  Sorry I got distracted by the troll.

  15.  IIRC, Seth Allen brought us into this, with a couple of questions of Aaron Walker. That Stacy and the rest are running with it is to his advantage. But we’re icky conservatives, so forget it; we’re not wanted. GFY.

  18.  You cannot enter the asylum and expect rational reactions. 

    Even on the field trips, not every Bozo rides the same bus.  When you venture into the fever swamps of the moonbat left, the only certainty is the stench.

  28. I have a hard time understanding why Seth felt the need to disparage people that way, unless he’s attempting to build himself up by tearing them down, which is never an effective strategy in the long run.

  31. In order for anything you say to be “IMHO”, you would first need to be honest with yourself and others.  Why don’t you take a few decades to get that right and then get back to us, Cupcake?

  32. As evidenced here and above, the lefties current position is not just Extreme Left, it’s Scorched Earth. No compromise, always farther left, no surrender asked, no quarter given. Assistance is for the weak.

    (“Cupcake” indeed. Star Trek much?)

  34.  Seth Allen is all about the ego-defense at this point.  He’s the only “pure” person in this fight, as far as he can see.  Everyone else is tainted by their own partisanship.  So he spends his time making appeals to authority (braggins about all his degrees) and attacking others’ abilities.  (After all, how can a music major know anything about reporting facts?)

    I think, too, he’s been at odds with much of the left for the past couple of years.  Now that the right has taken up “his” cause, he has to prove to himself and whatever leftist followers he still might have (like anamika) his leftist cred by attacking these new allies of “convenience.”  He’s not like those stupid and evil wingnuts, after all.  They’re just the stopped clock which happens to be right NOW.  They won’t be right later, though.

  35. […] Good News: Butt-Hurt Is Not Fatal : The Other McCain One of the things I’d done on June 24 — the day before I published that post — was to send an e-mail to Seth “Socrates” Allen, the first guy to get sued by Brett Kimberlin. Some of the people involved in trying to fight back against Kimberlin said they’d been getting nothing but hostility from Seth, which made no sense to me at all. […]

  36.  I think you don a toga and take your tambourine to the airport…  Either that, or it involves drinking some Kool-aid.  Not sure which.  I’m sure all the cult’s insiders (like Stacy, here) will be forthcoming with the 411.

  37. While I have been exposed to Star Trek in all it’s forms but the re-booted movie franchise, I was blissfully unaware that “Cupcake” was a Trek reference.  Perhaps I shall pay closer attention the next time I watch.

  39. It seems to me like Seth Allen has decided that since HE is not the focus of the story that it is not being told correctly.  His writings come across to me as whining and envious of the attention that does NOT include him at the center of it.  

    I tried to talk with him yesterday when he was running down the NBC for not helping him legally.

    I asked him if he had even talked to them.  He tweeted to Ali: 

    Will your group appeal my case and start lawsuit against Rauhauser & Kimberlin or are you a hypocrite? 

    Is it any wonder no one will help him?

  40.  I thought the process was “blessed”, “venerable” and then canonization?

    For instance, Bede never got past being “The Venerable Bede”?

    Not a Catholic. I sometimes get lost in the procedures.

  42. I’m sorry Seth Allen is being awful. I’m sorry a slap-fight got started, and don’t quite see why Stacy feels he (even inadvertently) had anything to do with it, but I will wait for explanations and answers. 

  46. This is typical group (not herd) behavior that can be observed in any large group of people with common interests but differing values. 

    Butt hurt is a typical end result*, and is relieved only through working out those difference.  Sometimes that isn’t possible (for whatever reason), and people becoming alienated.  Watch a group of college students over the course of couple of years, and see how the dynamics change.

    As others here have noted, Seth Allen is his own worse enemy, being unable to deal with those differences.  I’d like to be able to help him, but if all he can do is growl and snap, he’s likely on his own.

    ————–
    *: Pun intended, thankyouverymuch. 

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