Often conservative commenters suggest that a faked crime of this kind reveals that the discrimination it alleges doesn't really exist to nearly the extent that activists assume. For some reason, I don't expect to see that argument made so much in this case.

Do you really have to refer to it as the left's 'playbook' suggesting that it's some tactic that is used in some larger struggle instead of a pathetic attempt for attention by some delusional individual or individuals.

For some reason, I don't expect to see that argument made so much in this case.

Maybe I missed* the protests, the candlelight marches, the pandering speeches by the professors, the statement from the university president, about how rampant violence against conservatives is. If so, I'll make my usual observation about how if you're going to draw sweeping conclusions from a single event, you need to draw equally sweeping conclusions when it turns out not to have happened.

* This isn't a sarcastic "Maybe I missed..."; I've only heard about this story in a single mention on Instapundit and now here. Were "activists" making, say, the demands for new faculty hires that their leftist counterparts always seem to want after a congenial hoax?

Perhaps becuase academia's critics concern themselves with curriculum, faculty hiring practices, and the abuses of the residential life and student affairs apparat. It is farily unusual to see the provost, the academic affairs board, the chairman of the sociology department, or the deputy dean of students for diversity accused of hiring goons.

One of the things I think is so disgusting about "the protests, the candlelight marches, the pandering speeches by the professors, the statement from the university president, about how rampant violence against [X group] is" is that some people are so willing to believe godawful things about huge swaths of other people. I'd a lot rather think one person went off the deep end (although that's bad enough).

I would like to see these fake hate crimes get some pretty severe consequences for the perpetrators - and that includes this Princeton student, Timothy, conservative though I am. They are a form of terrorism and they need to have the book thrown at them so that people who are contemplating them think twice.

Contra Timothy Burke, I suggest that a faked crime of this kind, whether perpetrated by the left or the right, reveals that the discrimination it alleges doesn't really exist to nearly the extent that activists assume. Otherwise there'd be more real hate crimes.

I wasn't surprised to see Timothy Burke on this site (a few months ago) complimenting Erin when she denounced UC Irvine for caving to right wing pressure and withdrawing a job offer to Erwin Cherminsky, a liberal professor from Duke. I was also not surprised when Timothy Burke failed to show up and compliment Erin for denouncing UC Davis for caving to left wing pressure and refusing to allow Lawrence Summers to speak to the faculty. I'm still waiting to Timothy Burke to denounce (or at least criticize) UC Davis for doing to Summers what UC Irvine did to Cherminsky-with the large exception that UC Irvine did finally hire Cherminsky while UC Davis has never let Summers speak.

dossier, the main difference between Burke and Erin may be that the former is guided by ideology, the latter by a standard.

Just an impression.

Erin,
The fact that you broach these types of subjects is most appreciated. I am with "dossier". I followed the subject of UC Irvine/Erwin Chemerinsky (correct spelling) and the contrasting UC Davis/Larry Summers anecdote.
T. Burke is inconsistent at best---AT BEST.
Conversely, Hugh Hewitt, a conservative talk show host, came to Erwin's defense on the first day this issue presented itself.

Timothy Burke:
"Often conservative commenters suggest that a faked crime of this kind reveals that the discrimination it alleges doesn't really exist to nearly the extent that activists assume. For some reason, I don't expect to see that argument made so much in this case."

I don't know that it has to. What "the activists assume" on the conservative side is generally that they're considered ideological outsiders on campus. Expressing their views often arouses the ire of student government bodies and campus speech code enforcers and the like. They don't usually adopt the line that they're routinely on the receiving end of physical violence. One of the things that made the Princeton case such a jolt was, in fact, that the assault seemed to go so far beyond the usual petty blocking-of-funds-for-the-pro-life-event routine.

Leftist groups based on identity politics, however, are constantly maintaining that they live under the threat of concrete physical brutality: high rates of date rape, rampant gay-bashing, nooses and vandalism that constitute serious death threats, et c. When such an incident is shown to be a hoax, it calls into question the prevalence of exactly the kind of opposition those groups argue that they face.

Dear Dossier:

Please read the following entry at my blog. Your wait is over, and would have never started if you were marking your scorecard correctly.

Timothy Burke:
Good of you to let the readers of this blog know yesterday what you thought and felt on September 21st, concerning UC Davis refusing to allow Lawrence Summers to speak to their faculty. It’s a minor point but why didn’t you post your thoughts and feelings here in September? You posted here concerning Erwin Chemerinsky (my apologies for misspelling his name previously) when he was going through his ordeal, so why the difference?

Now that I’ve raised a minor point, let me raise two major ones: a) that Chemerinsky was finally given his job by UC Irvine but Summers has yet to be permitted to speak at UC Davis; and b) that the left side of the blogosphere (and the left side of academia) have not insisted that UC Davis reinstate their invitation to Summers, and have not made it clear that they will keep insisting until it happens. That is exactly what the right side of the blogosphere (and the right side of academia) did concerning Chemerinsky. It is what they would be doing still if the job offer hadn’t been reinstated; and, if he had been forced to file a suit, they would be supporting it.

Except for your September 21 head-slap post in which you criticize certain Davis faculty members for having insufficient trust in their fellow members, while remaining silent about academic freedom, you and the others on the left who were so outraged over Chemerinsky, have done nothing more. (If you have, please inform.) If you want to demonstrate that you care about the ideological knee-capping that Summers suffered, to the same extent you care about what happened to Chemerinsky, it’s going to take more than the post you referred me to. It’s going to take a vow on your part, followed by action, to do as much to get the invitation to Summers reinstated as the right side of the blogosphere and academia did to get the job offer to Chemerinsky reinstated.

Wow. Just wow. So now I'm being held accountable for failing to reply in the comments field of each and every post at someone else's blog in order to keep you properly updated on a daily tally of my positional responses to every single controversy? I stop by here when I can, if I feel the impulse, I say something.

This more or less goes for my own blog. I post when I can and when I'm motivated to do it. I'm not your pet monkey, dossier, so I don't write to fill our your checklist, whomever you are. Erin does the same, as she should (e.g., writes when she can and when she is motivated to, not according to some exterior schedule of ongoing controversies which require her to make mandatory genuflection).

In fact, I had more to say about UC Davis at my own blog than I did the Chemerinsky case, about which I made no post or remark. I made a single remark here in appreciation for a post Erin made. So even here, you're blowing smoke, dossier, acting as if you're responding to something I've said rather than your imaginary version of me.

Where I come from, when I make a mistake of fact I just say so. It's common courtesy. Oops! Sorry! You did address that case! And you actually didn't write about Chemerinsky in your own blog! Sorry! I shouldn't have say I was waiting, etc. But not you, dossier. You'd rather up the ante, invent some more, make more demands, huff and puff and blow the house down.

Burke wrote:

So now I'm being held accountable for failing to reply in the comments field of each and every post at someone else's blog in order to keep you properly updated on a daily tally of my positional responses to every single controversy?

Where did dossier (or anyone, for that matter) hold you accountable for not commenting on "each and every post"?

Did I miss something? Or have you introduced a red herring? And if it's a red herring, was it deliberate, or simply the result of your having lost control?

And the larger point dossier made stands: that you are selective in your outrage, or the expression of it.

Erin is far more balanced than you are.

So there you go dittoheads. Don't do like the left and fake your hate crimes. Approach hate crime with integrity and sincerity. Everyone knows leftists always fake hate crimes. Be a real conservative and commit real hate crimes.

Yo! Derek Catermole!

Dude -- *LOVE* the handle!

And you've provided a perfect example of the logical fallacy argument by assertion.