Tuesday, September 13, 2022

The Internet Is An Outrage Generator

BE OUTRAGED! BE VERY OUTRAGED!!! And then what? Storm the criminal legal system with torches and pitchforks? Have you read "Bad Legal Tweets"? Most of the internet has no idea how the legal system works, much less the criminal legal system (which, yeah, pretty much functions criminally). But being "deeply disturbed" will do what?  Keep me up at night impotently disturbed at the state of the world?

I've been here a long time now.  This old world keeps spinnin' 'round, and it's still a wonder tall trees ain't layin' down.  Or that anything manages to get done.  Have you read The Peter Principle?  He was right.

I spent part of my Sunday night (I admit, I was lonely; the Lovely Wife had been gone since Thursday, and wouldn't return until Monday) arguing on NextDoor with people who were "deeply disturbed." Deeply ignorant, too. There is a truism confirmed everytime I get into one of those clashes: "You can't fix stupid." One person got so turned around trying to argue an inarguable point (their argument was all talking points and key word searches; knowledge without understanding, IOW) they ended up using my argument against me. That's not what they meant to do, but it was the outcome.

The other guy just snarled I was a "pompous a$$" (no, really, spelled that way) because he was incapable of rational thought, just emotional reactions. His specialty was telling me to quit wasting my time there and do something productive. When I pointed out I was retired, he proudly asserted he still worked 40 hours a week being "productive." Yeah, he was too dumb to get out of his own way.

But they were outraged!

So, thanks, the world doesn't need more outrage.
Yeah, people got pissed at Maggie Haberman for putting stuff in her book she didn't put in an article for the New York Times. Never mind Bob Woodward has been doing this since he published All the President's Men. This is an outrage! The NYT is a "serious paper," which may be why these nuggets didn't get into their pages. Journalistic standards at the NYT are notoriously more stringent than in book publishing. Bob Woodward reported that Nixon was talking to the portraits in the White House. But he did that in a book, not in the pages of WaPo. Pretty much for the same reason, I'm guessing. Maybe it's true; maybe it's not. But my guess is the editors of the NYT wanted more verification than Ms. Haberman had, so she saved it for her book. Aside from the questionable assertion that this story was "vital to the safety and continuation of the nation"? Really? Had we the people known this in 2021, what would we have done with it?  Been more outraged? Do we imagine the DOJ will be investigating this now, to bring sedition charges against Trump? Do we imagine, with 40 subpoenas we know of, and the seizure of some 50 cell phones, that the DOJ doesn't already know a lot more than we the twittering public know?  

Short of that, I don't see the importance of this story, except to: a) generate outrage and b) sell books.

Like I say, Bob Woodward's been doing it a long time, and he's still highly respected (which is another matter entirely).  Maggie Haberman has a pipeline into Trump's inner circle, little different from the one Nina Totenberg has into the Supreme Court.  Ms. Totenberg has never told us everything she knows.  Even if she did, most of America would say "Nina who?"  I doubt most Americans could name all 9 sitting Justices if you spotted them 6 of them.  But should we be outraged about who leaked the Dobbs decision prematurely?  It may be Ms. Totenberg already knows the outcome of that investigation.  If it involves a Justice directly, what then?

Nothing, pretty much.  Maybe more impotent outrage.  But we don't need anymore of that; we're all full up here.
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