Battle Without Honor or Humanity
Political discourse, as it were: Kevin notes that the recent official vice-presidential candidate of the Republican Party refuses to describe religiously-motivated anti-choice murders and clinic bombings as terrorism. One of our resident wingers responds almost immediately with . . . a totally irrelevant rant about a completely different issue – because, between open rationalization of terrorist murder and your petulant fantasies about the “liberal media”, it’s obvious which is more important.
MSM . . . dared pursued and exposed . . . relationship and connection with the terrorist Bill Ayers . . . of course not! . . . attack Palin . . . blah, blah . . .
Humoring him, we might try to take this nonsense seriously. But, characteristically, and portentously, it can’t be done.
A Google search on “Obama Ayers” returns 2,000,000 hits. Among the first 10 are stories by The Washington Post, USA Today, and CNN.com, followed in the next 10 by stories from the Chicago Sun-Times, Washington Post (again), and the New York Times. Going further, among the top 50 hits are stories in the New Yorker (twice), the Weekly Standard, Time Magazine online, and you can toss in National Review twice if you consider them worthy, which I don’t. (First hit on the first page: the Washington Post, which notes “the Obama-Ayers link is a tenuous one”.)
A Google search on “Palin abortion terrorism” returns 447,000 hits, including first-10 stories from the Guardian (a British paper) and ABC News. (My own “Random Comments” post here at Lean Left is #11!) Beyond that, the top 50 hits contain no links to mainstream news outlets; there are a few to political commentary magazines including the Washington Independent (a conservative magazine), and The American Prospect and Washington Monthly (both liberal), but almost all the links are to blogs or activist organizations on both the right and left. (Searches on “Palin abortion bombing” and “Palin abortion murder” produce similar results, with even fewer mainstream media hits.)
So: a ratio of almost 5:1 in total commentary, obsessing over the fact that a presidential candidate happens to know, and had condemned, somebody who once committed deliberately non-fatal violence 40 years ago, and almost ignoring the fact that the opposing vice-presidential candidate defended terrorist killers during the campaign and still today. Large numbers of stories from dominant media sources – the ones invariably accused of having a “liberal bias” – on the former, and virtually no stories in the US media at all on the latter. And all of this information freely available at almost no effort.
It took about 5 minutes to find this out. The claim that the media ignored the Ayers story and emphasized the Palin one is just crap. There are simple facts in question and it’s easy to determine what they are. Like most right-wing claims of “media bias”, this one is nonsense – more than that, it is the deliberate spreading of factual falsehoods that can only result from a complete indifference to truth, because the simplest effort to find out the truth would have shown them to be false. But that’s hardly worth noting. I would have bet money on that before doing the Google searches.
What is worth noting is the constant, continued, and utterly indifferent approach to intellectual responsibility on the part of the right that pervades these kinds of discussions. Factual claims are made without regard to facts. Irrelevant digressions are constantly thrown in to derail discussions away from matters of practical or immediate importance and in the direction of the right’s idiosyncratic obsessions. Every discussion of practical policy and overt tangible misdoings is turned into a whiny complaint of the most bizarre kind. (Some ways Christians suffer religious persecution: by people who say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”; by people who state correctly that anti-choice terrorism in the US is exclusively the work of Christians; by zoning boards who prohibit non-permitted non-residential activities in residential neighborhoods by Christians as well as by anyone else; by courts which prohibit erecting religious statues with Bible quotes in state courthouses; by gay people who get married if Christians don’t want them to; by non-Christian Congressmembers who do not swear an oath of office using Christian religious texts.)
The entire history of the recent string of posts here demonstrates this. A post on the fact that a man in San Diego claimed he was being “religiously persecuted” by being cited for zoning-law violations turned into an unending, and quite heated, thread on whether he should be allowed to run a church in his home, not his bizarre belief that doing so exempts him from the zoning laws. A post on anti-choice terrorism which observed, again correctly, that the terrorist is similar to every single prior known terrorist participating in that cause – by way of being a religious-right Christian with links to extremist organizations – resulted in another lengthy angry thread filled with complaints that it’s somehow unfair to acknowledge the truth of that fact, or that making a correct factual statement to that effect is somehow similar to making false and bigoted statements about black people. The post which prompted this one, noting that Sarah Palin, herself a right-wing Christian with at least some extremist views, in the course of her campaign as the Republican Party’s official candidate for the second-highest office in the land not only supported the anti-choice cause but refused to acknowledge the fact of terrorism by other right-wing Christians affiliated with that cause, was immediately met by an irrelevant and stupidly false claim about a completely different issue.
It is simply impossible to debate right-wingers productively because they will not, and do not seem to be able to, address the actual issues at hand, or offer arguments that are relevant, logically coherent, grounded on fact, and responsibly aimed at illuminating the issue. Invariably, right-wing responses to any social controversy consist of falsehood, distraction, idiosyncratic complaints or delusional religious or factual assertions that border on insanity, refocusing the argument on some imagined enemy (liberals, non-Christians, “the media”, the Democrats, “Communists” . . .) rather than the actual issue, and sheer stupid obliviousness to ideas or logic.
Almost every one of the posts here over the past week that has garnered any comments has turned out the same way. Among the few exceptions was the one about flying the flag, which generated an intelligent and worthwhile discussion about personal standards of patriotism. I had to scan back through to figure out why: it was conducted entirely between tgirsch, DanM, and Digglahhh – there were no right-wingers involved. Even though they disagreed – about an issue that usually sets wingers screaming about “treason” and “The Flag Code” – the discussion was perfectly rational. Most of the other posts, and especially the ones touching in any way on religion, attracted either witless drive-by provocations that seemed to be generated by some kind of religious nutcase with a Magic 8-Ball, or self-absorbed complaining to the effect that the real issue is how important the commenter thinks their religion is and what everyone else should do about that – not the actual, practical issue at hand that was offered for analysis.
And this pattern is universal. In just the time spent writing this post, here’s what popped up at Memeorandum:
- Jonathan Chait, at TNR, notes Michael Rubin at National Review being a complete, indefensible asshole with his claim that, in his recent speech in Egypt “Obama studiously avoid[ed] the word democracy”. Chait simply quotes exactly the same stretch of the speech that Rubin quotes from, in which the word “democracy” appears 4 times in 5 paragraphs of a passionate argument for popular rule (along with one reference to “government of the people and by the people”, which is hardly less more subtle). The opening sentence of that part of the speech is: “The fourth issue that I will address is democracy.” That is the sentence that appears just three sentences before the one Rubin quotes, to prove that “Obama studiously avoids the word democracy”. This isn’t stupidity – it’s literally not possible to be that stupid. Anyone who can read would have noticed that the word he was searching for appears throughout the text he was using as proof of that word’s absence. Anybody who cared about the words that come out of his own mouth would not have said something wasn’t there that was in fact so obviously right in the place he said it was not. This is simple indifference to fact – the unprincipled hackery of someone who will, literally, say the exact opposite of the truth without hesitation.
- Right-wing “Internet radio” host Hal Turner has been arrested for openly soliciting further terrorist murders – of government officials, to block revisions to laws regarding the incorporation of religious groups, and of doctors, to suppress abortion rights.
Radio host Hal Turner — accused of hosting a website that incited Connecticut Catholics to “take up arms” and singling out two Connecticut lawmakers and a state ethics official — was taken into custody in New Jersey late today after state Capitol police obtained an arrest warrant for him. Turner, who has been identified as a white supremacist and anti-Semite by several anti-racism groups, hosts an Internet radio program with an associated blog. Last week, the blog included a post that promised to release the home addresses of state Rep. Michael Lawlor, state Sen. Andrew McDonald and Thomas Jones of the ethics office. . . . “It is our intent to foment direct action against these individuals personally,” the blog stated. “These beastly government officials should be made an example of as a warning to others in government: Obey the Constitution or die.” . . . “If any state attorney, police department or court thinks they’re going to get uppity with us about this; I suspect we have enough bullets to put them down too.” . . . After the killing of abortionist George Tiller, another ‘doctor’ has publicly announced he wishes to take Tiller’s place to continue partial birth abortions! . . . Gee, this is becoming a ‘target-rich environment!’” I suspect someone has a bullet for this guy too. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
The religious corporation thing is a technical issue having to do with who owns and controls the legal entity comprising a church that is incorporated. The Catholic church has opposed a proposed change that would give the actual congregation of the church somewhat greater control of their own local church organization, as opposed to allowing the Catholic hierarchy to control local churches that were legally incorporated by the congregation members themselves. It’s a heated issue. The right-wing’s response, of course, is to kill somebody. And then there’s the abortion thing. I hope you saw that one coming . . .?
- Another news story reports that the building housing a “topless coffee shop” in a small town in Maine (where male and female servers worked topless serving coffee and pastry in an adults-only environment), previously the subject of right-wing protests, was burned to the ground last night at 1 am, while the owner’s family, including two infants, was asleep in their home in the same building. They only escaped because the local fire truck happened to be passing by and woke them up. Because of course the right thing to do to people who operate a perfectly legal business catering to people who like boobies, if you’re a sex-negative winger, is to physicall destroy their business establishment and try to kill them and their children in their sleep.
- Republican Congressmember Lamar Smith announced on Fox News that “this is going to sound radical . . . but to me, the greatest threat to America is not necessarily a recession or even another terrorist attack. The greatest threat to America is a liberal media bias.” Ali Frick at Think Progress does a great job linking the well-known statistics on the vast over-representation of right-wingers on TV political shows. Leaving aside the fact of yet another grossly false claim undermined by obvious and well-known fact, what kind of a jackass thinks like this anyway? He actually stated on live TV (Fox News host Bill Hemmer’s response: “I would not necessarily call that radical”) that some idiotic right-wing slogan about the media is more important than global recession or terrorism. (“Another” terrorist attack? I can presume he wasn’t talking about George Tiller. Could he mean 9/11? He really thinks “liberal media” are worse than 9/11?)
Smith is an excellent example of right-wing intellectual dishonesty. You can’t take his nonsense at face value. You simply can’t believe that anyone really means something as stupid – let alone as false – as what he says. And so, as with so much that comes out of the right wing, you can only take him seriously by assuming he doesn’t really mean what he says. And the right wing uses this as a universal tactic – they’re constantly saying outrageous, offensive, and stupid things, firing up their base with extremist rhetoric, and then pretending they didn’t really say anything at all. They can claim whatever political benefit comes to them from being offensive and outrageous, then deny their own words with impunity, because the words are simultaneously highly valent on the right wing and too stupid to treat as real. (Both Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter have made a career out of this.) It’s a variation on the “code” they use to discuss minorities and women – it’s deliberate and transparent, and they deny it while they say it. They can deny it because their words are meaningless even to them.
Words, facts, and logical argumentation are simply linguistic exhibitions for the right wing – noises you make with your mouth or marks you make on paper that are known to generate some kind of emotional response in your followers but don’t have to, aren’t expected to, and can’t even be asked to bear any relation to truthful concepts or the logical links between those truths. There is no reason not to respond to a concern about terrorism with an empty slogan about the media. There is no reason not to claim that someone has “avoided” a word that appears repeatedly in the very text you are quoting from. There is no reason not to cheer violence in opposition to ideas or values you dislike. There is no reason not to say things that are flatly false and easily shown so. Facts, words, ideas are of no import. There is no responsibility to be accepted in using them. They simply don’t serve the roles, for the right, that they do for the reality-based community.
It has often been commented, lately, that civil discourse has become divisive or hostile. I would say rather that there is less and less real discourse at all. The right is retreating into a parallel fantasy-world, one from which they can siphon off the benefits of pragmatic realism – science, technology, public benefit programs, social infrastructure – yet maintain their delusional pretenses – creationism, endless oil, the self-sufficiency of the rich, the non-existence of class or history. It is a world in which adhering to right-wing fantasies is a goal in and of itself, and so the facts and concepts that they entail become secondary; as the right wing recedes further into its own delusions the contrary facts of the world are simply denied, then abandoned. We are left with no way to actually conduct political discourse. The words that convey the facts of the world and the ideas that make politics what it is simply mean something else, or nothing at all, on the right wing. Any political discussion is in reality two simultaneous and disconnected monologues, one of which acknowledges no responsibility to connect with, and bears no relation to, reality.
UPDATE: Fixed broken links, and one of those confusing less/more thingies.
UPDATE: Big Tent Democrat gets it:
[Stuart] Taylor’s position [on "judicial activism"] is intellectually incoherent. Which proves my point – for conservatives like Taylor “judicial activism” is only bad when “liberals” do it. It is an empty judicial philosophy.
Huh. Where have I heard that before?
UPDATE: Matthew Yglesias gets it:
[Re: National Review's bizarrely racist Asian caricature of Sonia Sotomayor:]
It seems that what happened was that, as conservatives are wont to do, they tried to do something that would be racist, but also arguably not racist. Hence, instead of depicting a Latina with a racist stereotyped image of a Latina, they depicted her with a racist stereotyped image of an Asian. It’s hard to know exactly what to make of that. But National Review editor Rich Lowry seems to have known exactly what to make of it since as this post makes clear he was anticipating people criticizing the imagery.
At any rate, then he waited around a bit, got the accusations of racism he was waiting for, and then got to engage in every white conservative’s favorite passtime of wallowing in self-pity and calling his accusers humorless.
Unfortunately, there’s not a good shorthand term for the psychology behind this kind of behavior. “Racism” doesn’t, I think, capture it. But there’s this deranged fascination with walking up to the line and dancing around there in hopes of getting called on it. Then you get to become indignant.
I just call it “conservatism”.
UPDATE: Charles Pierce gets it:
From his intro at Firedog Lake:
America’s cranks, once relegated to park benches and late night public access programming, have hijacked the public discourse, from the junkie bobbleheads on the Sunday talk shows who greedily mainline false equivalencies to the power-hungry politicians who play Calvinball with our constitutionally-protected rights. . . .
[T]he country appears to have chosen blatant idiocy over reason, no thanks to a medium that puts a premium on intellectual laziness. Science, rationality, facts — anything reality-based, actually — is mocked and shunned in our new era of willful ignorance. To hell with Enlightenment, the television marketing geniuses insist; it’s just easier to embrace the Age of Stupidity. Thinking people need not apply. . . .
[Charlie] Pierce [host of "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me"] eviscerates this Epoch of “Dignitude” and bemoans the mainstreaming of the American Crank. Taking on the likes of would-be soapbox stars such as Jonah Goldberg (whose Liberal Fascism Pierce describes as having been “written with a paint roller”), the founders of the Creation Museum with its dressage saddle-wearing dinosaur, and the defendants in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, Charlie Pierce pulls away the curtain on the selling techniques that have duped the country into its current state of imbecility.
From the Amazon link to Pierce’s book Idiot America:
Question: What inspired, or should I say drove, you to write Idiot America?
Charles P. Pierce: The germ of the idea came as I watched the extended coverage of the death of Terri Schiavo. I wondered how so many people could ally themselves with so much foolishness despite the fact that it was doing them no perceptible good, politically or otherwise. And it looked like the national media simply could not help itself but be swept along. This started me thinking and, when I read a clip in the New York Times about the Creation Museum, I pitched an idea to Mark Warren, my editor at Esquire, that said simply, “Dinosaurs with saddles.” What we determined the theme of the eventual piece—and of the book—would be was “The Consequences Of Believing Nonsense.”Question: You visited the Creation Museum while writing Idiot America. Describe your experience there. What was your first thought when you saw a dinosaur with a saddle on its back?
Charles P. Pierce: My first thought was that it was hilarious. My second thought was that I was the only person in the place who thought it was, which made me both angry and a little melancholy. Outside of the fact that its “science” is a god-awful parodic stew of paleontology, geology, and epistemology, all of them wholly detached from the actual intellectual method of each of them. The most disappointing thing is that the completed museum is so dreadfully grim and earnest and boring. It even makes dragon myths servant to its fringe biblical interpretations. Who wants to live in a world where dragons are boring? . . .Question: What is the difference between stupidity and glorifying ignorance?
Charles P. Pierce: Stupidity is as stupidity does, to quote a uniquely stupid movie. It has been with us always and always will be. But we moved into an era in which stupidity was celebrated if it managed to sell itself well, if it succeeded, if it made people money. That is “glorifying ignorance.” We moved into an era in which the reflexive instincts of the Gut were celebrated at the expense of reasoned, informed opinion. To this day, we have a political party—the Republicans—who, because it embraced a “movement of Conservatism” that celebrated anti-intellectualism is now incapable of conducting itself in any other way. That has profound political and cultural consequences, and the truly foul part about it was that so many people engaged in it knowing full well they were peddling poison. . . .Question: With the election of President Obama, is Idiot America coming to an end? Or, will there always be a place for idiocy in America?
Charles P. Pierce: Look at the political opposition to President Obama. “Socialist!” “Fascist!” “Coming to get your guns.” Hysteria from the hucksters of Idiot America is still at high-tide. People are killing other people and specifically attributing their action to imaginary oppression stoked by radio talk-show stars and television pundits. That Glenn Beck has achieved the prominence he has makes me wonder if there is a just god in heaven.
I’m just glad to know I’m not alone.
UPDATE: Steven [not Stuart] Taylor gets it:
Gingrich was at a meeting at Rock Church in Virginia Beach along with Mike Huckabee and Oliver North.
Much could be said about Gingrich’s statement [that America is "surrounded by pagans"], but what strikes me most about it is that this reinforces my own view that Gingrich is very much looking to run for president in 2012. Such a statement has but one goal and that is base excitation. What I find at least passingly amusing is that Newt isn’t really Mr. Evangelical–not only has he never really (to my memory) based his political offerings from a religious point of view, his personal life hasn’t exactly been the stuff of religious legend.
Indeed, I find the whole thing a rather cynical pander designed to score cheap political points rather than a principled position.
Also at the meeting, Huckabee engaged in what I consider the worst kind of blending of religion and politics (which he has done before) which barely rises above praying that God would help one’s football team to win [by saying that the CA Prop 8 Hate Amendment was "a miracle from the hand of God"] . . . .
The problem (or, really, one of the problems) with such reasoning is that it would follow, therefore, that if California turns around and votes to reverse itself that either a) God changed his mind, or b) the miracle wasn’t much of a miracle. If anything he seems to be saying that stuff he likes is obviously God’s doing–and that strikes me as hubris. Further, such thinking creates all kinds of logical problems: if God affected the vote in CA, why didn’t he influence the state legislature in Maine (or elsewhere)? Why did he ever allow it to be legal in the first place? Why is it even an issue? Assertions such as Huckabee’s not only place a particular point of view in a privileged position, but they also create some bizarre (and utterly illogical) theological (and political) conundrums.
Exactly.
UPDATE: Johnny Pez gets it . . .:
The most important thing to remember about conservatives is how utterly full of shit they are. They lie to themselves, they lie to each other, and they lie to everyone else. . . . If you take a conservative at his word, you’ll always be screwed.
. . . and so does tgirsch.
UPDATE: LarryE gets it (as he knew without asking):
the right-wing flakes, the right-wing nutcases, the wingnuts, or as I commonly abbreviate it, the wingers . . . are the subject here. . . .
I have had it. I have had it with the evasions, the dodges, the schemes and slime that make up winger discussions. This is my most comprehensive (but not necessarily all-inclusive) list of winger tactics, their rules of engagement, if you will – and I will guarantee you that you have run up against every single one of these tactics, probably multiple times and often more than one in any encounter. . . .
Rule #1: Deny, deny, deny.
Rule #2: Attack, attack, attack.
Rule #3: When facts are undeniable, change the subject . . .
Rule #4: Issue a lengthy, ranting denunciation of “the left” . . .
Rule #12: When all else has failed – and in fact even when it hasn’t – lie. . . .
Too true.
UPDATE: Kyle at Right-Wing Watch gets it:
Back in April and May I wrote a whole series of posts about how the Right was systematically trumping-up a controversy over the Department of Homeland Security Report, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” [PDF,]” which eventually led the DHS to pull the report.
Now, in light of the murder of Dr. George Tiller and the recent shooting at the Holocaust Museum, we’re seeing a variety of pieces claiming that these events validate the report’s warnings. And undoubtedly they do, but the irony here is that this report was never about run-of-the-mill conservatives or right-wing political groups – it was focused on violent, racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-government extremists – but it was the conservatives and right-wing political groups who made it about them.
He gets it really, really well. Read that blog.
I believe the saying is “No, tell us how you really feel.”
I really do think you’re painting with too broad a brush. What you’ve said here groups together Ann Coulter, BigU, an arsonist, bob, and some guy who’s lied about what Obama said. (Strangely, you’ve left out Shoothouse Barbie, who could be called “conservative” sometimes for some purposes.) These people are really not equivalent.
For all his obtuseness in the previous abortion thread BU really seems to arguing in good faith, and definately has a real respect for people in general. And on the other hand, even Ann Coulter hasn’t actually (I think) tried to kill anyway by burning them to death. I’m not sure where bob fits, on this spectrum, but unlike the Catholic Church officials that he so strongly supports, I doubt that he’s personally raped any children or encouraged murdering witches in Africa.
Sure, you can treat Roeder, this Hal Turner, and the arsonist in Maine as pretty much the same, differing only in their degrees of success, but violent criminals are not the same as liars and people who are simply wrong. There’s a continuum between these ends, but the ends are not the same.
There’s a continuum between these ends, but the ends are not the same.
I don’t see this phenomenon as falling along a spectrum – I think it’s a singular characteristic that manifests itself in different ways.
That characteristic is an indifference to fact, truth, or the meaning of ideas as necessary parts of the justification of beliefs or action. What links making up stupid shit about the “liberal media” and killing doctors is not that one is a relatively mild form of the other – in fact, they’re very different kinds of behavior. What links them is the underlying cognitive dysfunction that justifies both – the fact that the perpetrators don’t care about being wrong or holding indefensible beliefs.
Rational justification of one’s beliefs or behavior is irrelevant, to the right wing – it just doesn’t enter into the calculation that finally leads to those beliefs or behavior. So the fact that what you are saying is false is no barrier to saying it; the fact that your behavior cannot be reconciled with the mores or laws of a civilized society is no barrier to acting that way. Telling a stupid lie and committing terrorism are very different acts, but they both require that the agent simply not care about the standards that normally preclude doing those things – standards that are ultimately grounded on rational analysis of truths about the world and people’s lives.
It’s not that conservatives don’t have “values” – they generally have very strongly-held values that they are deeply committed to. And those values are generally offensive and incompatible with a decent society. And that isn’t a problem for them, because rational defense of beliefs and behavior isn’t a standard for them. That fact is most evidently visible in the bizarre and disconnected way they go about promoting and defending their values – through propaganda, sloganeering, and religious presumption that simply makes no sense and is unreachable through rational discourse, or is at best un-self-critical and non-sequitur. And that carries over, all too quickly, to behavior defined and guided by the same illogic.
I didn’t say Ann Coulter, BU, bob, and the terrorists were doing the same things – I said they were all conservatives, and they all tend to do whatever it is they personally do in much the same way. Being a shrieking nutcase or a religious obsessive is “better”, in terms of overt behavior, than being an arsonist or murderer, of course – but you can only be any of those things, or any of most of the things represented by hardcore conservatism, by divorcing your words and behavior from any standard of rational accountability.
Great post! And Dan, it really doesn’t matter what your opinion is, because as KTK has so cogently argued, a wingnut’s version of truth and honesty are whatever they say they are. When your statements start to jibe with observed fact and reality, your opinion, and those of your wingnut friends, will matter. A bit.
I’m not sure where bob fits, on this spectrum, but unlike the Catholic Church officials that he so strongly supports, I doubt that he’s personally raped any children or encouraged murdering witches in Africa.
Talk about damning with faint praise. The tiny percentage of priests involved in the sex abuse scandals (which 80% of the cases btw, were of homosexual priests preying on young teenage boys) and the bishops who covered it up, in no way do I support or look up to as “officials” of the Church. The Catholic Church has taken tremendous steps to correct and prevent this type of abuse from happening again, much more than can be said of other faith organizations and institutions like the teaching profession.
Anti-Catholicism – the last acceptable bigotry in the US.
“Factual falsehood? now that’s funny! Think out it. I don’t waste time on Bill ayers & Obama, when I have Saul Alinskey and Obama, “Rules for Radicals,” which Obama taught in Chicago classrooms. This posting I’m responding to is a classic example of Alinskeys’ marxist doctrine. Get the Conservative into debate, and then “horrify “him/her with “ridicule.” It won’t work with me. I learned in Vietnam, “know your enemy well,” and so I do. KTK, I’m trained to do battle , you are not, and I come into the fray on Sarah Palin’s side.
I will only address the two following things:
“A post on the fact that a man in San Diego claimed he was being “religiously persecuted” by being cited for zoning-law violations turned into an unending, and quite heated, thread on whether he should be allowed to run a church in his home, not his bizarre belief that doing so exempts him from the zoning laws.”
This is a lie. Period. The discussion dealt with what constitutes a church and the fact that a gathering of friends to study the Bible was seen as a zoning violation, not whether or not he wanted to run a church in his home. KTK felt that since there was something to do with the Bible occuring, then those wingnut Christians were obviously running a church in that home. That was his biased perspective. There was no evidence whatsoever that a church was being run in the home and the fact that the pastor had people from the church he is employed by attending his house would further indicate that it was not a church. So a left-wing poster (KTK) chose to invoke his own interpretation of what constitutes a church and then attacks the right wing for ignore facts. Interesting.
“A post on anti-choice terrorism which observed, again correctly, that the terrorist is similar to every single prior known terrorist participating in that cause – by way of being a religious-right Christian with links to extremist organizations – resulted in another lengthy angry thread filled with complaints that it’s somehow unfair to acknowledge the truth of that fact, ”
Again, a blatant lie or at very best an intentional bias presented with the veneer of truth. No indication that the guy has any interest in Christianity. Simply an assumption by KTK. The best evidence of any link to Christianity being a specious argument that since the guy belonged to a group with Christian in it’s name that obviously he was one. Once again an intentional (or perhaps worse, truly believed) perspective from the left that had no basis in fact and yet was presented as such. New flash to KTK – not all right wingers are Christians and not all Christians are right wingers. And no amount of assumptions on your part wil change that.
So, say what you will. You have shown over and over on this site that you are more than willing to exaggerate, ignore or reject facts any time it means you can attack a Christian or someone from the right side of the political spectrum. You are the shining example of the left side of everything you wrote in the initial post.
This posting I’m responding to is a classic example of Alinskeys’ marxist doctrine. Get the Conservative into debate, and then “horrify “him/her with “ridicule.”
If he’s going to ridicule conservatives, he really should pick a different topic than the Ayers-Obama connection, or blatant media lefty bias. Those are pretty much slam dunks.
ilsnowbird,
I have no idea what the fuck your post means. I would like to hear how military experiences in Viet Nam have provided your with precise training for arguing on a blog though. Seriously. If you tell me, I promise to tell you how Tex Winter’s triangle offense can be extrapolated into an undefeatable strategy when playing backgammon. …Seems like equally relatable sets of subject matter to me.
NoOneYouKnow,
Your monicker is unnecessarily redundant as your apparent total unfamiliarity with Dan’s political views and intellectual capacity. If you were “SomebodyWeAreEvenRemotelyFamiliarWith,” you wouldn’t have made such an overzealous and egregiously inaccurate characterization of our boy, Dan. I do agree though, KTK’s response was pretty good (but , nonetheless, not exactly what Dan was arguing)
Bob,
Really, your fucking full-fledged homophobic ass wants to identify being anti-Christian as the last acceptable bigotry in the U.S.? That’s fucking rich, and the runaway winner of ironic comment/commenter relationship of the week!
The weird thing is the three wingnuts above were in no way pushed into giving examples of their logic and arguments.
In the Straussian universe points do not have to have any connection to reality. They are righteous “noble Lies”.
It’s rapidly approaching the point of having an enitre political ideology based on noble lies.
Been posting in the liberal blogoshere for a while. The descriptions of arguing with a wingnut are spot on.
Big U:
No indication that the guy has any interest in Christianity. Simply an assumption by KTK.
Have to disagree with you again on this one. Your refusal to accept the evidence that he self-identified as Christian doesn’t mean that there isn’t any. Operation Rescue, a group he followed, is an explicitly “pro-life Christian” organization by their own admission. A former roommate describes him as a deeply-religious man, and also associated with the Army of God, another extremist Christian pro-life organization (even more extreme than Operation Rescue). The latter group actually celebrates Tiller’s killing on their web site. That you don’t consider them Christian doesn’t mean that they don’t consider themselves Christian.
(Side quiz: Are Mormons “Christians,” in your narrow definition? What about Unitarians?)
not all right wingers are Christians and not all Christians are right wingers.
Too bad he never argued any such thing. What he argued is that virtually all right-wing, pro-life extremists are (or, if you want to obsess over this particular nit, consider themselves to be) Christians, and there’s no evidence that this is any sort of counterexample.
Mormons – no
Unitarians – Not sure – don’t know much about them
I’ll discuss the rest later.
Thirty seconds of research – Unitarians – no
In regards to the extremist “Christian” groups, they remind me of the Pharisees in the new testament. Powerful religious groups that used abuse and agression and yet never had a clue of what God was all about. It’s shameful to share the name Christian with such groups as they clearly have no interest in following what the Bible actually says.
tgirsch > your comments regarding him being deeply religious and connected to “Christian” groups as showing him to be a Christian goes against the definition you suggested before in another post. It says nothing about his personal connection to Christ but rather his external associations. I’m sure you know the difference and you are just trying to egg me on.
Big U:
I don’t recognize the difference. To me, a Christian is anyone who believes that Jesus Christ is the only begotten son of God. That’s it. That’s pretty much the lone requirement. You’re using a definition of Christian that eliminates the overwhelming majority of people who consider themselves Christian. In fact, if you make those restrictions tight enough, then there has only ever been one.
This loops us back around, then, to the fact that by the common vernacular definition, Roeder is a Christian, even if you don’t think he’s a good Christian, or believe that he’s doing non-Christian things. That’s not the point. It also means that all of these anti-abortion extremists who proudly self-identify as Christian are not “true” Christians in your estimation; but that’s irrelevant to KTK’s point. As down on Christianity as he is, I seriously doubt KTK has a big problem with, say, the United Church of Christ (modern day Quakers).
I’d see your beef if KTK had simply said “to no one’s surprise, he was a Christian.” But that’s not what he said. He included several qualifiers indicating that he was talking about a particular type of Christain, and while you may not deign to recognize them as “really” being Christians, virtually everyone else does, and they themselves do.
In any case, I’ve asked you this a couple of times and you haven’t answered: What do you think constitutes a “true” Christian? Give me a discrete definition that I can work with; an easy test that I can apply to someone to quickly decide “Yes, Christian” or “No, not Christian.” What’s the absolute minimum requirement to be considered a Christian in your view?
Big U: You can’t possibly be that obtuse, can you? With all of the thousands (hundreds of thousands? ) of disparate and competing factions, each claiming to be THE true Christians with THE true interpretation of Christ’s teachings, the Bible, and all disagreeing with each other to one degree or another, you seem to think that your definitions are the only ones that count (which is typical of the “Christian Right,” a movement that, as some have noted is neither) and that for some reason, the burden of proof is on commenters on this blog to keep track of what you believe and only refer to people as Christians who fit your definition of the word, regardless of what those people consider themselves. The fact is, every person or group I’m aware of that has EVER advocated or participated in violence against abortion providers and/or their associates in this country has been a self-identified Christian. The point that is being made is that there is a direct link between anti-abortion terrorism and conservative Christians, and your obfuscation is just another example of what KTK’s post was about.
On a side note, some Unitarian’s do not self-identify as Christian. One of the denizen’s of Fred Clark’s blog (http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/) claims to be a Christian Unitarian in a church that also has Muslim Unitarians and Buddhist Unitarians. She said that the three traditions independently developed and that people from the various traditions joined the Unitarian church. Because her congregation had mostly Christian Unitarians, it would be fair to call that particular congregation Christian if you wanted to.
Now, I’m sure Fred Morris will have blown a gasket upon reading this, if he’s feeling well enough to be lurking here. (I hope he’s doing ok, though I’d be happy if he sticks to lurking.)
I gave you one in other link but I will find it again and post it. And as for believing Jesus Christ was the only begotten son of God, you need to do some research. Mormons do not believe that (at least not in terms that tie in with Biblical statements http://www.watchman.org/lds/ldstimrk.htm). Neither do Unitarians (for lack of a more concise site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarianism). Nor do several other groups that classify themselves as Christian. So even by your own criteria, you are eliminating a large chunk of people. It just seems you may not really be aware of what they believe.
I actually find you definition of Christian a little surprising and restrictive TG. Why does Christ need to be bogotten? I mean sure, there was doctrinal enforcement of the view, but the whole point here is that ‘Christian’ has to cover all the doctrinal disagreements. It seems the more obvious plain-language understanding would be anyone who believes that that dude from Nazareth was “Christ”.
‘Christ’, which being Greek for Anointed One is the term used by Paul to talk about the “savior” of the world. At the time, the term was expected to refer to a RL king, but what with Christ being killed, that doesn’t work, so the word Christ has been transferred to the dude who saves the world. (Now, I’ve never actually gotten a straight answer from a Christian as to what the savior is supposed to be saving us from, but again, that sounds like doctrinal variation within the umbrella of ‘Christian’.)
(I of course could include some snarky comments here about Christianity being defined by Paul rather than Jesus, but that’ll just make things worse.)
Dan M. – three options. Christ was one of three things:
1. Who He said He was (son of God)
2. A liar (bringing into question whether anything He said was true)
3. A lunatic (making him the grandest psychotic prankster in the history of mankind).
You can not claim to be a true Christian unless you acknowledge that Christ is indeed the Son of God. It’s simply impossible.
It would be like Brett Favre saying he was a Dallas Cowboy. He may like alot of things the organization does and stands for.
He may embody alot of the traits some of the Cowboys QB’s had.
He could put on a Cowboys jersey.
He could even do ads on TV talking about how good the Cowboys are.
But none of those things would make him a Cowboy. The only way he would be a Cowboy would be if he was actually signed to be a Cowboy and became part of the team. Anything other than that, even if he was able to convince people he was a Cowboy, would be false. Of course, anyone who was a football fan would know it’s false, but anyone outside of those circles could easily be convinced and use arguments such as “he was shown in an ad in their Jersey, he said he was one, he acts the way Cowboys act, he played football so who am I to question?” I doubt this will be seen as a good example but it’s late, I’m tired and I’m headed to bed.
Brett Favre… I think that’s one of the names I see in the posts here about sports, which I summarily ignore. *Use Wikipedia* Okay, some guy who’s on a team different than the “Cowboys”. (Look! It’s just like the parable of the mustard seed! The target audience has no idea of the allusional material so instead of increasing clarity it adds extra work and makes the point less definite! (By the way, for once I’m not actually making fun of Christianity here; i’m making fun of the teaching of their scripture and the rather poor way that it has aged in the last 2000 years.))
Okay, great! Who’s the manager of the Christians so we can ask him for an official roster? Where are the contracts published? What regulatory and judicial bodies have purview if somebody not on the Christian team were to try drawing a paycheck from their coffers?
Big U:
If I’m understanding you correctly, being a Christian is still about what one believes. And Mormons and Unitarians generally do view Jesus as the Son of God. I’m guessing you’re ruling them out because they don’t believe that Jesus Christ is God, in other words, they don’t believe in the trinity. I’m not sure that’s a requirement, especially since Jesus himself never said anything about it (sorry, but one clearly allegorical statement in the Gospel of John as proof).
Now I could see drawing the line at someone who claims to be a Christian but believes Jesus never actually existed. But to rule people out because they disagree with you about a point of doctrine that MANY churches disagree about to varying degrees seems too exclusive. I mean, we’re certainly not talking about something akin to Dennis Kucinich claiming to be a Republican, here.
I agree with Dan M. that the Brett Favre example is a bad one, because that’s something that’s really easy to verify; much more so than what someone’s “true” religious beliefs are. With religion, we really only have their professed beliefs to go on.
And pretty please, not the Lord, Liar, or Lunatic thing again! It serves only to point out that false dilemmas need not be restricted to two choices. Suppose, for example, that Jesus really existed and did wonderful things, but people who wrote about him after the fact exaggerated things and made stuff up. Does that make Jesus a liar?
So let’s phrase it a different way: what evidence would you accept that Roeder was a Christian?
Thanks TG, that’s a more police response to “Lord, Lunatic, Liar”. Of course, you don’t really need any other choices; even if we assume everything in the bible and other scripture accurately reflects what Jesus wanted us to think he meant… How’s that discourage the conclusion that it was all a hoax and he was a liar or lunatic?
Don’t ask the mainstream sports media, they’d say Brett Farve to Jesus is a perfect analogy!
In one respect it is a great analogy; I’m really fucking sick of hearing about both of their “comebacks.” Zing!
[...] act that is bound to end in disaster. It’s lame and, in a way, kind of sad, but after my recent complaint about wingers’ persistent defiance of logic, I have to give an encouraging smile to one who [...]
“With religion, we really only have their professed beliefs to go on.”
“So let’s phrase it a different way: what evidence would you accept that Roeder was a Christian?”
Show me anywhere that he has stated that he is a Christian and what his beliefs are. Barring that, I have no reason to believe he is a Christian. And honest reasoning would cause one to refrain from making blind statements absent of fact.
But even in the list provided which showed that ALL the killers were white male Christians, the one killer says “I was born a Catholic and I will die a Catholic”. Clearly that has nothing to do with a personal decision on his part. It is simply an association with a group. BUT media assumes that his Catholicism automatically makes him a Christian which in turn removes truth from the matter and replaces it with perceived opinion.
to rule people out because they disagree with you about a point of doctrine that MANY churches disagree about to varying degrees seems too exclusive
Can you explain to me why a belief system has to be all-inclusive in order to be valid? You say to rule people out for one reason seems too exclusive and yet on this site, you, KTK and others are including as Christians anyone who uses the word “Christian” in their group’s name irregardless of how anti-Biblical their actions or anti-Christ teachings their actions are. That’s what does not make sense to me.
Now I could see drawing the line at someone who claims to be a Christian but believes Jesus never actually existed.
I’m sorry tgirsch but that is a very dumb statement. Why? Because it would mean that as long as someone says “I am a Christian”, they would be classified as such irregardless of what they actually believe or do. And why would anyone claim to follow someone they believe never existed?
Now, according to KTK, this is a completely irrelevant discussion because “whollly pointless obsession over the difference between unitarian Christianity and trinitarian Christianity that he simply cannot force himself to see is irrelevant to the topic, nobody gives a shit about, and is kind of a waste of time to rant about to an audience composed largely of atheists” so perhaps I should just drop the entire thing since no one on here is really interested. It seems he may think that these boards are just a place for left-leaning individuals to pat each other on the back because they obviously know everything. How that makes for a better society or an inclusive society I do not know but it shows an incredible level of intolerance that most on the left would say exists only in those on the right.
Big U,
Well, dis-irregardless of that… (Sorry, just had to get that one in there…)
The point is, these things are subjective. Nobody is the “perfect Christian,” by biblical standards. And frankly, in a modern, progressive society, there are many biblical precepts that are either irrelevant, or not looked to kindly upon.
Bottom line, you call yourself a Christian. Does that mean that if I identify one aspect of your life that is anti-Biblical, we get to say you’re not a Christian either? I heard Big U got a blowjob once. Sorry, but thanks for playing “Who Thinks He/She is Actually a Christian…”
That’s TG’s point. Instead of deciding, either unilaterally or on a case-by-case basis, where to draw the line whether he should consider somebody a Christian, he’s willing to let that person flesh that out for him/herself. If he/she self-identifies as a Christian, then apparently that person has decided that the inconguity between his/her actual beliefs/behavior and those professed by his religion does not reach the point of total incompatibility.
the one killer says “I was born a Catholic and I will die a Catholic”.
He said he’s a Catholic, dude. What else do you want? Are you asking me to judge him instead? How far does this freedom extend, Big U? Do we get to judge everybody, and have my judgments trump their own interpretations of self? If so, that’s awesome, bring it on. Please submit a detailed history of your sexual encounters, charitable givings, consumption of shellfish, and opinions on slavery. TG, KTK and I will convene and issue a verdict on your biblical Christianity within 48 hours…
Surely, you see the folly of your argument, don’t you?
Ah, the “you’re not perfect so you have no right to judge” argument. Interesting, but a false strawman. No one is perfect and that is not what is being discussed or suggested.
You are absolutely right, though. I am not a “perfect” Christian and would never suggest such. However, I am also not interested in “judging” others in regards to their personal spiritual lives. Judging involves passing sentence or dishing out consequences. I have no interest in doing that or ability to do so even if I was interested. I will, however, point out times where the actions of an individual go so blatantly against his/her professed beliefs that their profession of belief should be called into question.
As far as the “I was born a Catholic” comment….it is virtually unanimously agreed that being a Christian involves a personal decision based on knowledge and a belief system. It is impossible to be born a Christian, just as it is impossible to be born a Muslim, etc. simply because until you are able to make a cognitive decision how can you decide?
Being a Catholic is no different than being a Democrat or a Republican. It is an organization you belong to. And I have to wonder how a newborn can choose to belong to any organization from the day they are born.
Could I be wrong? Absolutely. Could I be right? Absolutely. You say TG is willing to let a person flesh things out by him/her self and also self-identify. And yet in the recent case, he, along with KTK willingly labelled the shooter based on their own perceptions with no personal acknowledgement by the shooter at all. This seems to me to be a judgement of sorts or a preconceived notion based on past generalities that have nothing to do with the individual which would be in violation of the process you say tgirsch uses to determine whether someone is or is not a Christian.
I’ll have a longer post for you later, but the crux is this:
If you want to use a limited definition of who is Christian, you have to apply it across the board. You’re asking for a direct quote from an individual that indicates not only affiliation but also particular doctrinal positions. That’s a very tall order, and if you apply it to all discussions of who is a Christian, there are very few people that you can count as one.
So, sure, you can disown Roeder, but you have to disown all those people who check “Christian” on surveys and all the ministers who don’t mention your docrtinal points, and all of their congregants, and all the congregents of the ministers who do agree with you doctrines, and most all polititians, and almost the entire history of western thought that is so often called our Judeo-Christian heritage.
That’s fine. But the onus then falls on you to make clear when you’re talking about your “real” Christians as opposed to all those other things that call themselves or get called Christian.
Dan M. – IF a person says they are a Christian and then their acts defy that claim, why am I supposed to be forced to accept their word as being true?
IF a person (Roeder) commits a crime and then someone (KTK, tgirsch, etc.) choose to say he was a Christian based on an affiliation with a radical group why should I accept their word as being true?
Take the following example:
Some mentally unstable person kills George Bush.
He had the phone numbers of some Democrats on his dashboard with proof he had spoken with them over the past few weeks.
He had a history of posting anti-Bush comments in the Lean Left blog.
A roommate said he had always followed politics closely.
Using the same logic used on here for determining Roeder to be a Christian, one would have to conclude the killer was a Democrat. And before you come on and say “it’s different”, those points were the exact same points used to determine that Roeder was a Christian, so please explain why you would see it as being different.
Big U,
Handy you brought up George Bush. I was just gonna ask whether you consider him a Christian? I’d say “no” based on the “actions speak louder than words” standard you’re ascribing.
I also want to make it clear, that I applaud your stance re: actions speak louder than words. I agree that they should. But, it gets rather messy when we get into the actual umpiring of these cases. Woman has an abortion. Does that automatically rule her out for being a Christian? Dude lives all around righteous lifestyle, but has a vicious addiction to rape-porn. Can he be Christian? The Aghanis grow poppy and produce opiates. So maybe we shouldn’t be able to call them Muslim.
I will, however, point out times where the actions of an individual go so blatantly against his/her professed beliefs that their profession of belief should be called into question.
Who determines this? You? Me? This is why we revert back to self-identification.
Replay the original questions regarding the Tiller killer and the WU. Can I just change my response to, “the WU wasn’t part of what I would consider ‘the left.’” Argument over. Really? Again, you must realize the foolishness of what you’re asking.
Personally, I also applaud your stance re: not being able to born Catholic. I agree. But, practically speaking, we’re both wrong. What percentage of the self-identified Catholic pop do you feel has taken a harshly, critically and OBJECTIVELY looked at their own religion, and strongly considered the merits of others, including Easter religions, an atheism, before determining that their particular sect of Christianity just happens to be the perfect on for them? My guess, I dunno, maybe 1 in 50, 1 in 100? BTW, people are born Republicans or Democrats as well, in the same sense. They are indoctrinated throughout their formative years with such sensibilities. Some grow older and fight the uphill battle to critically examine such beliefs. For some, such an exercise results in life-altering affiliation changes, for others the exercise simply confirms that which they felt to be true previously.
If you applied the prerequisite of making an unbiased, informed, and deeply personal decision to actually making the declaration of being a Christian a meaningful one, there’d be a lot of Tickle Me Elmos sitting in the clearance aisle during the Rose Bowl!
(Personally, that IS how I view things. That’s why I said that when a personal claims they are Christian it does not mean anything of substance to me at all, beyond the fact that that person believes it is in some sort of interest [not necessarily material, perhaps just intellectual] to self-identify as such). But, you have to understand, the discussion about whether the killer was “Christian” isn’t about some sort of metaphysical pursuit of truth, or an attempt to reconcile chasm between professed beliefs and actions, it’s about taxonomy, labeling, nomenclature. By those rules, homeboy is a Christian. I can get a lot deeper than that. But, as KTK pointed out, in terms of the original discussion that shit is all academic.
Wow, typos abound up there. Hopefully you guys get the point anyway.
Ah, the “you’re not perfect so you have no right to judge” argument. Interesting, but a false strawman.
Hey, YOU started it.
You’re the one who was willing to look past this guy’s associations with various self-identified conservative Christian organizations and use his ACTIONS to declare that you believe him NOT to be a Christian. So you’re the one who initially established that standard. You can’t get mad at US for using it against you.
My lone point here is that this guy clearly did, at least at one time, self-identify as “Christian,” which is a very broad group, and he does have a history of association with right-wing Christian organizations. So if you want to assert that the guy isn’t a Christian, despite those associations, then the burden of proof is on you, not us.
And in any case, the history here is clear, and validates what KTK originally wrote: it would be surprising — very much so — if the guy turns out NOT to be a Christian, based on the history of such actions.
It is impossible to be born a Christian
Man, now you’re really splitting hairs, aren’t you?
IF a person says they are a Christian and then their acts defy that claim, why am I supposed to be forced to accept their word as being true?
By one of the moving-target standards you gave above, being a Christian is about what one believes. So in this case, their bad actions don’t make them non-Christians, it just means they’re bad Christians. Hardly the same thing.
In any case, there are plenty of calls for righteous violence in the Bible, so it’s not outside the realm of possibility that someone who acted as Roeder did truly believed that they were being a good Christian and acting in accordance with God’s will. This type of reasoning is why I’ve accuse you of the “No True Scotsman” fallacy.
As for your example, you’re missing a couple key steps: That there’s a long-running campaign of intimidation, harassment, and even violence against Republicans in general (or GWB in particular) that has been around for decades and which has almost exclusively been perpetrated by Democrats; and that Lean Left had a history of calling for and participating in that history of harassment and intimidation (if not the violence directly). And at that point it would be logically sound to assume the perp was a left-leaning Democrat.
Digg:
If you applied the prerequisite of making an unbiased, informed, and deeply personal decision to actually making the declaration of being a Christian a meaningful one, there’d be a lot of Tickle Me Elmos sitting in the clearance aisle during the Rose Bowl!
OK, there’s a connection in there somewhere, but it’s too obtuse for even me to get…
Digg:
Something else you missed: By Big U’s admittedly fuzzy standards, not only is George W. Bush not a Christian, he’s also not a conservative!
Cliff’s Notes version:
Using Big U’s standards > very few Christians > drastically decreased celebration of Christian holiday, namely Christmas > “it” items for X-Mas seasons cease to exist > they don’t sell well > they’re on sale a month after said holiday.
That was classic Digglahhh. In my mind, as I’m typing it, I’m like “this is quote of the day material; I’ve outdone myself.” Then, TG reads it. His reaction: WTF is Digg smoking? LMAO.
So, um, do I “get it?”
Interesting LarryE > That entire list describes the left here in Canada perfectly. I couldn’t have made a better one myself. Perhaps it is not so much Conservatives as it is radicals on both sides of the spectrum.
Ah. Rule #10.
hehehe. Nice try Larry. Simply stating facts is not accusing accusers, is it?
Rule #8.
rule #2
Rule 34!
No, wait, that’s something else.
BU, I only just now saw you comment here and your link describing mormons. This perfectly show’s why I find the word “begotten” to be a strange restriction.
Also, I really have to laugh at somebody claiming that Momon’s are wrong about who Jesus was on the grounds that it’s not “the same historical person who walked the earth nearly 2000 years ago”, when they in the very same sentence claim that the historical person “br[ought] God’s final and full redemption to mankind”. I mean, not only has there been some question as to whether there even was a historical person, you can’t chide others for the magical mojo they claim for Jesus if you think his defining feature is magical mojo!
Ultimately, I think it’s perfectly fair to call “Christian” everyone who claims that Jesus was
magicaldivine.rule #2
Which only demonstrates you either have no clue or, I suspect, refuse to have a clue about what’s being said or going on here. So I will try this once and only once because I will not deal with any BS on this.
Leftists can be as dogmatic, pig-headed, uninformed, and nasty as anyone else anywhere on the political spectrum. Indeed, forget politics, those are faults to which all humans are heir. But there is a clear difference between the left and the wingers: Right-wingers, in the normal course of events, are fundamentally dishonest in their arguments.
Not occasionally, not sometimes, but persistently and as a matter of course.
That is not true of the left and statements to the contrary are either ignorance or lies. Period.
LarryE > You need to spend some time outside of the US if you think that is an apt description of right-wingers and left-wingers the world over.
I will accept that with your more significant knowledge of the US, that it is that way in your country.
Come to Canada and you would find it to be pretty close to the polar opposite.
The biggest difference between the countries? The left has largely been in control of things politically in Canada for the past 40 years. It seems to me that power, regardless of political stripe, results in what you accuse right-wingers of.
Big U:
See my example, in another thread, of the “Clear Skies Initiative,” lobbied for and passed by the American right; the primary thing it did was to weaken the Clean Air Act. The Act did precisely the opposite of what the name they gave it implied it would.
Does the Canadian Left routinely disregard and/or deny the established science of things like climate change, or the health risks associated with smoking, or even basic biology, the way the American Right does? Does the Canadian Left have well-funded “think tanks” whose sole goal is to obfuscate that science because they find it politically inconvenient? The American Right does.
THAT’s the type of bad faith argumentation we’re talking about here. Do you have examples of the Canadian Left doing things like THAT?