The pros and cons of pseudonyms

At Mangan’s Miscellany, Dennis Mangan opines that race-conscious conservative bloggers would be more effective if they wrote under their own names instead of pseudonyms, and a lively discussion ensues.

- end of initial entry -

April 17

Adela G. writes:

Dennis Mangan writes: “…what kind of a movement that feels that it is not only in the right but, as White says, would have a majority of Americans on its side, writes under pseudonyms?”

Hmm…let me see now. Maybe the kind of movement whose adherents learned something from the homosexual backlash against the supporters of Prop. 8?

Homosexual activists got the names of those who’d donated money to help get Prop. 8 passed in California. An ugly backlash ensued, complete with threats and boycotts. Had it been homosexuals subjected to that level of threat and hatred, the media would have condemned a national outbreak of “homophobia”. As it was, the media downplayed or ignored the incidents and their chilling effect on free speech. [LA replies: A campaign of organized threat and intimidation directed against individuals for participating in normal electoral politics is not a “backlash,” it’s fascism. Too bad that the word fascism has been so misused and overused (by a factor of, oh, a thousand), that one feels embarrassed using it even with a legitimate meaning.]

This is just one example. Tom Tancredo was forced to leave a classroom where he was speaking the other day by violent leftist students who objected to his being invited to speak at the University of North Carolina.

The left will use any tactic to stigmatize, marginalize and criminalize anything and anyone to the right of itself. Mangan writes as if from some alternative universe in which the left disagrees and dissents reasonably and fairly and permits opposing points of view to be expressed freely and without fear of violence or other retaliatory measures.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 16, 2009 12:54 PM | Send