A Response to a Blog Comment for the Ages!

Over at Cliopatria, Chris Bray has had enough with a commentator named David Silbey. 

Earlier today Bray wrote a post criticizing attempts to compare mandatory health care to early republican laws mandating that citizens join the militia.  In this particular case, Bray was challenging the thesis of Jack Belkin’s post on civic humanism, a post we blogged about a few hours ago at The Way of Improvement Leads Home.

And then the fireworks started. 

Here is Bray’s post.

Here is Silbey’s comment to Bray’s post.

And here is Bray’s response to Silbey:

David, I’m done with you. You aren’t reading. You’re not making an argument. I’ve asked you three times in three ways to clarify your argument or arguments, and you’ve refused or ignored all of those invitations. I’ve repeatedly defined my argument and my intent, and have said explicitly that I am not examining the question of constitutionality. You’re throwing out word clouds — the kind of chickenshit wordplay that academics find so impressive. It’s beyond dull.

I’ve built a discussion about the functioning of the early militia and the arguments over authority that people had at the time, and I’ve done that using historical examples (and with historiographic references). You haven’t. You’re boring.

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