MORE ON THE ANTI-WAR PROTESTS….And speaking of conservo-libertarian-warhawkish responses to the anti-war protests, here is Megan McArdle with a different view:
Anti-war protesters are great. I disagree with them, and I really, really disagree with letting ANSWER organize their rallies, but I think having people who are willing to stand out in the cold to show their feelings about something as important as war is vital to the health of our nation.
Good for her. Megan was responding to the grief she’s gotten for a comment she made a couple of days ago regarding violent anti-war protesters and New Yorkers with two-by-fours, which she explains thusly:
Some of the confusion may be my fault, because until a friend emailed me, I didn’t know exactly how large a two-by-four was. That’s a native New Yorker for you.
Now, Megan’s comment was slightly intemperate, although in fairness she did make it clear that she was referring to violent protesters. But even so I’m glad to see that she has confirmed that she is not “advocating that they be torn apart by a mob of angry New Yorkers,” and I trust that we can all remain friends now that this has been cleared up.
And just a general note on this subject: on both the right and the left there’s a tendency to jump all over people who make joking or sarcastic references wishing harm toward other people. I agree that this kind of thing is inappropriate, but on the other hand we are talking about blogs here, not the op-ed page of the New York Times. We should probably try to keep the outrage dialed down just a bit.
