Honest, it was like that when I got here!

Glad someone brought up the freedom of press post, because, if, per Glenn’s update, we take him at his word that it didn’t occur to him that he’s encouraging vandalism, then we should think again about whether the press post was an “implied threat.” That charge seemed like a stretch at the time, and it’s even less likely now.

Come on, Ted. Frankly, you’ve gone weak in the knees because Instajerk gave you some attention. Stick to your guns here. You’re right.

Reynolds says: “Don’t do that [vandalize a box and then send me a picture]! I’m only interested in found graffiti, not made graffiti.”
I’m not a lawyer, but I think this is legally valid under current rulings–in the “Nuremberg files” case the Supreme Court ruled that posting the addresses of abortion providers, grayed out if they were wounded and crossed out if they were killed, was legally protected free speech as opposed to encouragement to murder.
OTOH, that decision stank, and I don’t think Reynolds’ disclaimer mitigates his incitement to vandalize Time boxes at all.
Just to be clear; this vandalism is not one-millionth as bad as attacking abortion practitioners. I really don’t care about vandalism much at all. I’m just trying to say that in both cases the claim that what’s being done is strictly for informational purposes doesn’t hold much water given the context.

Is this for real? Mr Insta thinks that defaced newspaper boxes is some sort of avant-garde protest of some sort? Where has he been for the last dozen years?

I could send in some pictures of National Post boxes defaced with accusations of fascism. (There’s plenty of those around Toronto to choose from, so it’s a trend!) Would Reynolds take that as credible evidence that Conrad Black’s vanity project lacks democratic credibility? Or would he take it as an example of decadent Leftists resorting to vandalism against private property because they know that they can’t compete in the marketplace of ideas? I have my suspicions.

“…If, per Glenn’s update, we take him at his word that it didn’t occur to him that he’s encouraging vandalis…”

“If” indeed. As another poster pointed out, to assume that it did not occur to Instaschmuck that gleefully calling for photos of vandalized Times newsboxes would encourage the vandalizing of Times newsboxes is to assume that Instaschmuck is a moron, which he is not. Reynolds knew full well what he was doing, and his coy response to Barlow seems every bit as calculated as the original remarks.

“..then we should think again about whether the press post was an “implied threat.” That charge seemed like a stretch at the time, and it’s even less likely now.”

I accept your if-then formulation — and therefore find this statement to be as unsupportable as the previous one. Far from being a stretch, there is no nonabsurd way to interpret Reynolds press post as anything but a threat. After all, he is clearly part of that “angry minority” that thinks press coverage of Iraq is unpatriotic. Are we really supposed to assume he views himself as the minority within that minority who DON’T think doing away with freedom of the press is a reasonable response to news coverage that doesn’t conform to his view of the world? Note that Reynolds at no point suggests that a crackdown on the press would be a bad thing (just as he never suggests that vandalizing Times newsboxes would be a bad thing). Indeed, since he bizarrely suggests that freedom of the press was a creation of that conservative bete noire the 1960s, there’s every reason to believe that Reynolds doesn’t think much of the idea.

Instaschmuck is quite adept at keeping himself at arm’s length from the clear implications of his own words. It is that skill that has given him the very undeserved image of a serious commentator rather than a rhetorical thug of the type that frequent Free Republic and Lucianne.com.

Uh, isn’t it possible that Reynolds isn’t a moron but that the possibility that his remark might incite anti-Times vandalism didn’t cross his mind (after all, how many of his readers are going to engage in vandalism? Does he have special right-wing mind-control powers?)? Why are the only options “moron” or “knew full well what he was doing and was just being coy in his update”?

Reminds me of something that was in the Seattle Times the other day. What the article doesn’t mention is that some guy at one point pulled off all the hoods and dumped them. Passersby chased him, because he was inhibiting the artist’s right to free speech. Of course, one might also see the unhooding as an act of free speech …

please. reynolds is the king of the no-retraction retraction, the no-update update, and the non-apology apology.

i hate to say it, but he played you, Ted. he gets to look (semi-)responsible by posting your e-mail, and yet people will still continue to send him photos for his dumb gallery.

btw, notice that he only requested no photos of made graffiti; he didn’t specifically request people not create the graffiti. i’m sure he’d be shocked to have that pointed out, as well. come on, people — the guy’s just a law professor; it’s not his job to parse words for a living!

Here’s a suggestion – a silly, juvenile one, but I have a pretty good track record at driving idiots and trolls to gibbering frothing 500+ post distraction by playing such silly juvenile games – you could advertise for defaced photos of *Reynolds* – horns, moustaches, text balloons, sexual partners, whatever imagination supplies, and post those in a little gallery.

Not that you’d be advocating that people do the LHOOQ thing to Reynolds, of course, just that you’d be interested in seeing what people might have done on their own…

bellatrys: Second that notion. But I suspect Glenn would find it hilarious, which might defeat the purpose from your perspective.

Don’t miss the latest-est Update, from the guy who took the picture:

I took it at the Medical Center stop on the red line of the DC Metro while I was visiting Sgt. Laven across the street at the Bethesda Naval Hospital. I can only assume it was one of the families or friends of a soldier wounded or killed in battle that attempted to deface a paper that has shown so little respect for their loved ones’ efforts and valient bravery.

If he “can only assume” that, he’s not much of an assumer, and should not attempt to go pro.

I notice that photos of vandalized NYT boxes are not exactly pouring into Reynold’s blog. Perhaps all Instapundit readers don’t sit around waiting to take “orders” from their master.

Let me know when the Instapundit-inspired epidemic begins.

Megapotamus:

When a left-wing, tenured law professor does what you are describing, please let me know. I’ll gladly post a protest of it on my blog.

“Gosh dude, you really handed it to that Insta-geek putz, didn’t you? Yeah, you showed him.
(BURP)
So, I suppose I will be seeing a full-throated denunciation here the next time a full press run of some college paper that dares to be something other than socialist is destroyed by Left activists? I’m holding my breath! Holding! Holding! Still holding!”

Megapotamus has favored us with a classic example of what passes for sophisticated thinking in the wonderful world of wingnuttery — ham-handed sarcasm that doesn’t rise above the junior high school level (and in the case of the burp, falls far below it), ludicrously hyperbolic rhetoric (“some college paper that dares to be something other than socialist”), the random and pointless sprinkling of words like “communism” and “socialism” (see above), and most important of all, the utter absense of any real rebuttal to my post. Instead, Megapotamus pulls a Coulter and describes the hypothetical behavior of hypothetical liberals in a hypothetical situation. He (or she) makes no attempt whatsoever to refute what I wrote or defend what Instaschmuck wrote — though he has my sympathy there, since I realize he can’t defend the indefensible. Instead, he simply falls back on character assassination.

We of course saw this tactic in action within the last 24 hours, as Congressional wingnuts flew into stratospheric dudgeon over the remarks of Nancy Pelosi. They called her a Bush hater, they accused her of undermining the troops, they even engaged in some low level homophobia left over from Jean Kirkpatrick’s 1984 keynote speech to the GOP convention — but they did not refute a single word of Pelosi’s comments. Because they can’t.

Keep on postin’, Megapotamus. What you lack in intelligence you more than make up for in entertainment value.

Oh and not a single word of Pelosi’s comments have been refuted because they are nothing but a rant, mad characterizations with which you obviously agree, but would have to be edited by a team of gifted psychiatrists to rise to the level of “opinion”.

nor is the socialism of the Left. Isn’t that what Left means?
Not in this country, really. The further left of our political parties (the Democratic Party) is not socialist at all. Glad I could clear that up.
Stealing newspapers is a dumb and common stunt carried out by liberal college students, BTW. I don’t support it at all. I also don’t think everyone has time to denounce everything all the time. Blogs tend to comment on other blogs a lot; if a left-wing blogger as prominent as Reynolds (that would be Atrios, or Kos, only) calls for stealing college papers, I imagine Ted would be happy to denounce it if you call it to his attention when it happens.

“As for Reynolds’s political leanings, I didn’t realize you spoke for all rightwingers.”
I don’t but if Right Left have any meaning (and we know what it means generally, don’t we?) a quick examination of the Instapage will reveal, well, what is “Right Wing” in your book? I’ll break it down from mine; Anti-imigration (possibly racist), protectionist, religiously intolerant (although the Left makes some impressive stabs at that), nationalistic, homophobic, um, anti-semetic? I mean, that’s Pat Buchanan but we’ve seen an awful lot of conspiracy mongering from the Left lately in that vein… Well, a tough question and I should add, my right wingness is a stipulation. Ideologically I am an anarchist, or we might say, minarchist.

No, I just think broad brush smears against “the Left” qualifies.

“Instaschmuck” says it all.”

In this we are in total agreement, Mega. Instaschmuck indeed says it all.

“The destruction of the newspapers is not in the least hypothetical”

Indeed it is not — any more than, say, the thuggery of Tom Delay’s brownshirts who physically intimidated the vote recounters in Palm Beach in November of 2000. What you were writing about was the hypothetical response of hypothetical posters at this website to some future incident involving the destruction of newspapers. Read what you write, Mega — if the rest of us have to slog through it, so do you.

“…the socialism of the Left. Isn’t that what Left means?”

Based on your bizarre suggestion above that Instaschmuck is not a right-winger, I think we have another point of agreement here — you are every bit as qualified to pass judgment on what is Left as you are to pass judgment on what is Right.

“Oh and not a single word of Pelosi’s comments have been refuted because they are nothing but a rant”

This of course is complete and utter nonsense. Whatever one may think of them, Pelosi’s comments included very specific charges that can be easily refuted if they are wrong. For instance, did the administration suggest that Iraqi oil revenues would pay for the war and the reconstruction? Yes or no. Is that what happened? Yes or no. Is this an example of competence? Yes or no. These are perfectly reasonable and legitimate questions to ask — and unfortunately for your side, more and more Americans are asking them. The latest Zogby poll show that a stunning 64% of us disapprove of how Bush is handling Iraq — and a paltry 36% approve. The reason that Hastert and company — and you — can’t refute what Pelosi said is because what she said is true.

“… mad characterizations… [that] would have to be edited by a team of gifted psychiatrists to rise to the level of ‘opinion’.”

An interesting bit of character assassination coming from you. Equating dissent with mental illness was a favorite tactic of the Soviet Union. I guess the old saw is true — go far enough off the deep end at either end of the political spectrum, and the distinctions between left and right vanish into a hellish blur of totalitarianism.

” a hellish blur of totalitarianism.”
Um, for someone concerned about totalitarianism you seem pretty upset at the liberation of Iraq. I’m going to use just your example, on the financing of the war from Iraqi oil revenues as my jump point.
“Yes or no. Is that what happened? Yes or no.”
No. In the sense that I don’t own my house because I haven’t paid it off yet. As you may not know, Iraqi oil production is back up to pre-war levels, another impossibility, so called, that has materialized despite the evil buffoonery of George Bush. Whether we ultimately draw from their well is for the future, if the Iraqi government is willing to pay the war costs, great, otherwise we can well absorb them. I guess you want to brand Wolfowitz a liar because it hasn’t happened yet. Will you hail him as a truther when it does? Or does such an event violate the laws of physics in your reality. ;-) I will spare you a snarky recitation of Pelosi’s “mad characterizations” as that is the bulk of the article we both read. And I stand by my characterizations… whether they are mad or otherwise time will tell but if she makes hers can’t I make mine? Don’t you make yours? Anyhow, I’m glad you brought up the polling… one of my favorite subjects.
“The latest Zogby poll show that a stunning 64% of us disapprove of how Bush is handling Iraq — and a paltry 36% approve. ”
Nice numbers for you, but speaking of stunning, brace yourself in Nov hoss, for while 64% is an impressive margin in an election, that ain’t no election or election question. It may distress you to think that in addition to those who are Against the War and For Bush, there are those who agree that Bush has made a hash of it, but because HE HASN’T PROSECUTED IT HARD ENOUGH. Are these folks likely Kerry voters? Are they likely to say, hell with it and stay home? Make your bets accordingly. Your 64% (I’m assuming that was the biggest split you could find among many polls.) is not a monolith but the pro-Bush side IS. This recognition will spare you many a head scratching on Nov 3rd.

“never, ever, ever equate Democrats or liberals with socialists again, right?”
Wrong. It’s, as Colin Powell said of White Power Structure, “A lazy, loaded locution that serious people should avoid.” And avoid it, I do, but when faced with ranting, unserious people, like yourself, sometimes…
You are a crack up, hoss! I hope you aren’t pinning your psychological well being on the electoral fortunes of the Left in this country. If so, be sure your meds are filled WAY ahead of time. Cheers.

Okay, quite an avalanche here. Anyone who would like to write me direct, please feel free. If you google my obnoxious moniker you will get mucho ammo, if you like. There is another megapotamus out there but seems mostly concerned with cat blogging so caution is in order before any denunciations. Good luck and good day to all. That’s not a sign off. I’ll be back.
Oh, I don’t denounce the graffiti. Never have and I endorse the sentiment. I might make myself a stencil.