Sebastian on Outing the Opponents

I made a critical comment over on Sebastian's blog the other day, which I must admit was fairly well received. For some reason four or five of my most vicious detractors stayed out of it. Part of my remark, the gist of it really was this.

Thirdpower discovered this dirty secret about Josh Horwitz, just like that famous case with John Lott and his female alias. I say, “so what – who cares?”. What a waste of time for Thirdpower and what a waste of time for you Sebastian. Talk about getting off the topic, this whole topic is off the topic. This is immediate personal attack, nothing else.

FishyJay made an interesting follow-up comment.

I have not seen MikeB say “so what – who cares?” about the John Lott case when it comes up on his blog, but now I expect Mikeb do so in the future.

I guess that's a fair point, but unless I actively condoned the outing of poor John Lott in some way, it does not disprove my claim that I say, "so what - who cares."

In another post, Sebastian took up the idea for further clarification. Basically he laid out a description of the difference between attacking someone's political existence and his personal existence. I don't find the explanation very convincing. How about you?

Do you think this is all about personal attacks or is it like Sebastian says, some of it is political or professional and therefore in bounds?