I'm a totalitarian?

I love my critics. I figure if they're reduced to attacking me personally instead of refuting my points, I'm doing my job pretty well. Occasionally one stands out though and I have to give the lifetime achievement award for most voluminous and creative arguments against what I didn't say to Lee at Postpolitical in a post his friend Lance at Second Hand Conjecture finds brilliant...

In this take down of the Libby Spencer smearing Manny Lopez. It also has one of the better analysis of the totalitarian mindset I have read in a while. A must read.

Maybe Lance believes that, or maybe he's just mad at me for blaming him for Lee's other post but if anybody can read the few short grafs I wrote -- follow the links to my comments at The Reaction -- and come to the same conclusions as to my politics and my point, please explain it to me.

As far as I can see they're both still engaging in the same conduct they're accusing me of, that being smearing the critic -- me -- to avoid addressing the points of the argument. It appears to me that neither of them are Venezuelan nor do they spend much time there, however they continue to dismiss the views of those who do live under Chavez' rule as inconsequential and beneath consideration. For myself, I find it rather amusing to be called a communist and a totalitarian for pointing out that alternative views exist.

If you read my comments at The Reaction, you can see they ignored my apology to the extent that I made a declarative statement on Manny's social background. I certainly had no intent to smear Manny, I happen to like the guy, and I should have said he was espousing the oligarchy's talking points without implying he was one himself. But otherwise I stand by my posts and in fact, let's just try that little thought exercise these two guys refuse to address. It works no matter who is pitching the anti-Chavez line. Lee said in this last post:

For a fuller breakfast, is Libby willing to trade her right to freedom of press, for one where criticism of the president is criminalized? Is she willing to trade a liberal society for a paramilitary cult, so that she has a cheaper health service?

For the record, I am disturbed by Hugo's censoring of the Venezuelan opposition press however, I'm more concerned that our own president censors our press. And Lee might want to ask Brett Bursey, or the Denver Three or the schoolteachers who were ejected from a public rally for wearing t-shirts that simply said "Protect our civil liberties" before he condemns another sovereign leader for criminalizing dissent.

If he wants to talk about press suppression, perhaps he could explain why the White House is so willing to vigorously pursue press leaks that expose their malfeasance and yet conduct no investigation into leaks from within the White House that compromised national security, despite our president's assurances that he welcomed investigation into the matter and falsely assured us no one in his administration was responsible.

And if we're to speak of a "paramilitary cult", perhaps Lee would like to address the White House ploy to negate Posse Comitatus.

In October 2006, Bush signed into law the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007. Quietly slipped into the law at the last minute, at the request of the Bush administration, were sections changing important legal principles, dating back 200 years, which limit the U.S. government's ability to use the military to intervene in domestic affairs. These changes would allow Bush, whenever he thinks it necessary, to institute martial law--under which the military takes direct control over civilian administration.

I'm sure you get the point, so I'm done with this little spat. I find it hard to take critics whose arguments rest on ad hominem attacks all that seriously and I'm not going to waste my time defending Chavez when his own countrymen are willing to do so. If you have a burning interest in the question, I suggest you read this comment at the Detroit News from Nestor, who apparently lives there and underscores the few points I did make.

As for Lee and Lance, I'd respectfully suggest they leave Chavez bashing to Venezuelans and focus their considerable efforts on the disintegration of democracy in our own country.