Kettle and Pot Boiling Over

A few days ago, the Pot was calling the Kettle black, but now they're both boiling over and scalding me! That's what I get for not staying away from the hot stove.

The "Pot" in this case is Dr. Sanity. The "Kettle" is Larisa Alexandrovna who runs the blog "atlargely.com".

Sanity described one of Alexandrovna's posts as histrionic. Alexandrovna is threatening to file an ethics complaint against Sanity:

...And this is a professional opinion then is it? Interesting, because the professional opinion of a 2 bit shrink distributed in order to smear a journalist for political reasons sounds to me like exactly the type of extremism I am talking about and smells terribly familiar of the Soviet stench. It is also a very good reason reason to file a an ethics complaint against the good doctor.

In the Soviet Union - a police state - medical experts often trotted out to discredit dissidents and free thinkers by applying such standards of medical practice. She appears to be proving my point rather nicely.

I suggest the good Dr. clarify her statements rather quickly because I will file an ethics complaint against a medical "expert" for using her expertise and professional authority to attack me in public and smear me as mentally unstable for my political views. ...

Sanity basically told Alexandrovna to stuff it:

You are a fraud. You wouldn't mind a police state at all as long as you and your friends were in charge. Your threats towards me and those of your commenters demonstrate a obvious desire to silence anyone who dares to have an opinion differing from your own. I would also suggest you hone your reading skills since the post in question merely uses your confused and convoluted rhetoric ("It's official, we are in a police state..."!!!!) as an example of the kind that is often found on your side of the political spectrum.

Foolhardily, I made a comment on Sanity's site that pointed out that, in my opinion, Sanity was attacking the messenger as well as the message:

Dr. Sanity wrote: "I would also suggest you [Alexandrovna] hone your reading skills since the post in question merely uses your confused and convoluted rhetoric ("It's official, we are in a police state..."!!!!) as an example of the kind that is often found on your side of the political spectrum."

That doesn't seem accurate to me since later in the post Dr. Sanity also wrote, "[t]hus our adolescent drama queen linked to above can say with absolute sincerity and passion...". That seems to me to explicitly link Alexandrovna to the rest of the post and the "diagnosis" of hysteria.

Sanity didn't think much of my comment and wrote a long response (my snarky comments are interspersed):

Bret, several points.

1. Her [Alexandrovna's] post is in my PROFESSIONAL opinion a perfect example of the kind of hysterical rhetoric that passes for intellectual thought on the left.

Got that.

2. In writing that post she is behaving like an adolescent drama queen (or, didn't you bother to read her post about the police state we are in?) and I called her on it. "Adolescent drama queen" is not an approved psychiatric diagnosis as far as I know.

Yeah, I read her post. But did Sanity read my comment? I wasn't complaining about her calling Alexandrovna an adolescent drama queen, rather I was pointing out that she was linking the messenger to the message and that Alexandrovna's reading skills were adequately honed for this purpose.

3. "hysteria" is not a diagnosis either but a perfectly acceptable descriptive term to describe overly exaggerated emotional behavior. Psychologically, the exaggerated behavior is specifically and often unconsciously used by the individual to obscure some aspect of reality that is unpleasant or unacceptable. Usually it is the case that it obscures some unpleasant truth about one's self (e.g. a person likes to think of themselves as being a champion of freedom and justice, but actually is a closet tyrant and only cares about their own freedom and is intolerant of other's speech)

I know that "hysteria" is not a diagnosis. That'd be why I put diagnosis in quotation marks in my comment.

4. You know the expression "if the shoe fits, wear it" ? Well Alexandrovna is not only wearing it, she's modeling it proudly to the world in her subsequent post. Fine. She can say whatever she wants about me and even disagree with anything I say; and she can be as ridiculous as she likes--it is a free country after all in spite of the BushHitler Police State and all the oppression we have to suffer under--but I will continue to describe HER behavior using the skills in which I have been trained.

I don't wear shoes (literally, as my co-blogger can attest - why do you think I moved to San Diego?) Alexandrovna did not use the term BushHitler. Sanity was and is putting words in Alexandrovna's mouth and claiming she modelled shoes that she never even wore. And those shoes are really ugly!

5. Ask yourself who is trying to censor whom here. I describe her behavior and call her to account for her exaggerated fearmongering rhetoric and she talks about "reporting" me to the state board for some sort of unethical conduct. Good luck with that. Clearly she hasn't a clue about what psychiatry or psychiatrists do or even what a psychiatric diagnosis is. My guess is that I hit a sensitive nerve and that she knows exactly what I was trying to say and that it cut through her emotionalism to the real person beneath. It must be very upsetting for her. Tough.

In my opinion, both are clearly trying to suppress the speech of the other. One through appeal to authority and ad hominem intimidation, the other via an ethics board. Bad, bad girls, both.

6. And here's a non-diagnosis for you: You are an idiot. I don't think that's in the DSM, but it sure describes a lot of the behavior of trolls like yourself.

I'm wondering if it's possible for Sanity to write anything without resorting to insult. I'm also wondering which behavior she's referring to. Me making a comment?

7. You have a nice day, too. Preferably somewhere else.

You got it, babe. Since I don't think my comment was particularly abrasive, I have to conclude that Sanity wants a pristine echo chamber to sound off in. I'm not exactly banned, but clearly very unwelcome, so per her request I'll stay away. At least she didn't delete my comments like some other bloggers we all know.

I sure hope Sanity doesn't work with mentally ill patients. I'm imagining that her bedside manner might leave a wee bit to be desired.