I Don't Have A Life So You Don't Have To: I'll Take Yours

Leave it to The Onion to address one of my main beefs with the world - the idea I live, literally and figuratively, with intellectual cowards. I thought I'd get online and meet all these stimulating minds, but what's here? Ann Althouse and her public nervous breakdowns - but no apologies - when challenged? Glenn Reynolds and his insistence on quackery, and let's-try-to-walk-the-line, race-based tomfoolery? Other famous feminists? Other famous libertarians? (Does anybody even care libertarians don't win elections?) NewAgers? Anybody, who can't stand the idea of society nailing down anything, but Jesus to a cross? They're all in this piece:

Courage requires us to remain steadfast in our beliefs. It asks that we stand by the convictions we express and never give an inch, no matter what the cost. However off base, wrongheaded, or patently false a position we’ve staked out may be, courage nonetheless demands that we blindly pound home our stupid fucking point, never letting up.

True valor is the moment in a conversation when you realize that what you’re saying is completely and utterly wrong, but you continue to say it over and over again anyway, only louder.

Suppose you’re discussing current events with a group of friends, one of whom politely challenges an assertion you’ve made about a particular issue. In such congenial gatherings, it can be tempting to back down, especially when someone has just put forth evidence that soundly debunks everything you’ve been saying. The courageous path takes more discipline. It means looking that friend in the eye and—though you know full well that you are totally wrong—saying, “No, I’m right.”

The same dilemma applies when you’re arguing with someone who obviously has far more information about a subject than you do. Basically, you have two choices: You can admit that you are out of your depth and that your lack of knowledge led you to the incorrect conclusion. Or you can dig in your heels, grit your teeth, and defend your misguided, uninformed opinion with every fiber of your being—even to the point of hysteria.

What is the measure of bravery? I think part of it has to do with how firmly we stand our ground when we have absolutely no fucking clue what we’re talking about.

Like sand through the hourglass, these are the days of their lives:

And, considering the weight these fools bring to bear on those below them, we should reconsider the worth of that whole stockade-in-the-public-square thing.

College campuses are perfect,...