Impenetrable Logic

Every time I hear a politician (generally from the right these days) come out with some truly stupid pronouncement a part of me silently hopes we've hit bottom. My hopes continue to be dashed mercilessly. To wit: Meet the Honorable Gentleman, U.S. Representative Steve King (R-Iowa) who once sincerely argued that there is not a single law in the United States to prevent a pedophile from secretly transporting his underage victim across state lines to force her to abort her pregnancy in order to destroy the evidence of his crime. Not one law. But, hey, it's not like he's in charge of laws or anything, right? Right? Oh, wait.

Anyway, he said the following just recently.

Before I go any farther, I'd like to offer a quick message to my Republican friends (by which I mean people I personally know who are conservative and support the GOP for lack of a better option). I hope you all know how much I love and respect you. I also hope you know I am aware that not one of you is this stupid. In fact, living in deepest-of-deep-red Arkansas, the vast majority of my friends (family, too, for that matter) are conservative and serious-minded, devout Christians so I've had the opportunity that so few non-conservatives seem to avail themselves of these days—namely, actually talking to people who disagree with my politics. You are all, to a person, good and decent folks who are willing to accept that we can disagree on important issues without either of us being a degenerate. You have no idea how much I appreciate that fact. So, having said all those things, please understand that I'm not lumping you in with the likes of Rep. King up there. Now, onward we go.

The thing I'd like to point out about what Rep. King has to say in this clip is the exceptionally abysmal logic at play in his unspoken assumption that only Christians have any sort of morals therefore any display of morals is, by default, a conspicuous display Christianity. I see that assumption at work throughout much of the political right in the U.S. today, and it troubles me for several reasons. I won't go into them all right now, but I will describe one of them.

The attitude in question is a covertly hostile declaration against non-Christians whether we're talking about theists who believe in a different god or atheists who believe in none. In some cases, this declaration applies to theists who believe in the same god but do so in a slightly different way. I find this sort of bigotry (let's just call it what it is) deeply troubling since it necessarily means that those who hold this attitude operate under the assumption that anyone who doesn't share their conviction is a lesser person, and as such certain rights simply don't apply to that person.

As a somewhat different manifestation of this same bigotry, consider for a moment the current simmering scandal over the Obama administration assassinating U.S. citizens overseas. I have to admit that it took me a little while to come around on this issue because, let's face it, Anwar al-Aulaqi and his ilk are awful human beings. Al-Aulaqi, in particular, wasn't awful because he was a Muslim. I've known lots of Muslims who are just the finest people you'd ever want to meet. No, al-Aulaqi was awful because he decided that it would be a good idea to encourage other people to engage in suicide-murders in the name of an idea that he particularly liked. I hold that people who do such things have forfeited their right to breathe, but I don't get to make those decisions all on my own. Neither does anyone else, including our president. We established a system of justice in this nation when we ratified the constitution that guarantees certain rights, and if anything it's all the more important for us to uphold those rights when we're dealing with someone as terrible as al-Aulaqi was. The fact that it's difficult to do it is what makes it meaningful. If these things were easy then everyone would do them. We like to think we hold ourselves to a higher standard so it's a good idea that we actually do that.

So what does all of that have to do with our Rep. King? Well, other than offering a bipartisan example of really problematic attitudes toward people we don't like, what I'm attempting here is to show how much easier it is to dehumanize those you believe have somehow disqualified themselves from being worth the effort to respect, if nothing else, their basic humanity. I doubt very seriously that Rep. King would agree that he's dehumanizing people, but when you demote someone who doesn't see things your way to a lesser status that's exactly what you're doing. So when Rep. King argues, albeit implicitly, that morality equals Christianity he also implies the corollary—namely, that non-Christians cannot be moral by default. I suspect that the Honorable Gentleman believes he's being admirably ecumenical by sweeping up every moral person into Christendom, but some people don't want to be a part of Christendom. Sweeping them into it violates their right to make those decisions for themselves and debases them as a result.

Of course, doing what Rep. King is doing here is not the same as murdering U.S. citizens with flying killer robots, but the kernel of the idea is basically the same. When you make the mental shift to consider the rights of everyone who (insert thing you don't like here) to be beneath consideration, you've stepped onto a very dangerous path. You may only go far enough down that path to decide that it's just dandy to ignore the deeply held convictions of other people so you proclaim that governing according to your religious convictions is the only right thing to do because, conveniently, everyone really agrees with them whether they admit it or not. Or you may decide that it's a good idea to start murdering people with flying killer robots, but let's all hope things don't get that far out of hand.

As to the problematic nature of Rep. King's specific argument in this case, the logic only works if the neighbor whose dog you killed happens to be Jesus. Otherwise, you're just a decent guy with a decent neighbor.

Pat Robertson is mad as hell, and he's not going to take it anymore!

Pat Robertson is extremely upset about people twisting his words, and can you guess which words he's upset about people twisting? I'll just tell you. He's referring to the video I posted of him in my last entry. Here's what he had to say about the response to his previous advice.

So let's talk about what Ol' Pat had to say about what other people said about what he said the last time he said something so awful it needed to be exposed.

1) He begins by saying that his advice as a pastor (emphasis mine) is meant for specific people in specific situations to help them have a better life. Now, there's room for disagreement on this issue, but I personally think that to be a pastor you kind of need to be leading a congregation. Last I checked, Pat doesn't do anything like that and apparently never has.

2) He claims that some organization he refuses to name has as its raison d'etre embarrassing conservatives on television by twisting their words. I'm in no position to deny that there are some organizations on both sides of the political divide who do work very hard to selectively quote and suspiciously edit people with whom they disagree in an attempt to misrepresent and embarrass them. However, if Pat is referring to the organization which posted both this clip and the last one I posted he's going to have a bit of trouble trying to back up that claim. One reason I pay attention to Right Wing Watch is because they very clearly do not do the things Pat is referring to in this latest statement. What they do is take lengthy quotes, preserve their context, and simply allow people like Pat to say the horrible things they say on a fairly regular basis. That's a very different thing than what Pat says his critics are doing to him.

3) He trots out an email (which I will assume for the sake of argument is genuine) from a viewer as a means of demonstrating that, you know, he's not a terrible person after all because the ladies think he was right to say what he said. I typically avoid casting too wide a net on these things, but I have to point out a plain factual error in the email. Her second sentence reads, "I heard no excuse for the man's poor behavior in your answer to her." Hmmmm. That's a problem because Pat said quite plainly that this guy cheated because he is in fact a guy, and that guy's are prone to stray unless their ladies give them a reason to do otherwise. Where I come from (which, for the record, is Earth) that's an excuse for the guy's poor behavior. What's worse is the fact that said excuse at least partly shifts the responsibility for the guy's infidelity onto his apparently long-suffering wife which is just a complete asshole move. Granted, Pat doesn't come right out and say that, but when he starts doling out the advice on keeping the home attractive and appealing to the man in question it's pretty clear that he's not placing that responsibility on the husband.

4) Last thing about the email, I promise. The emailer says that God forgives us in the same manner she describes "a million times a day". I realize people like to use hyperbole in these instances as a way of making their points more effectively, but just stop for a moment and consider what she's saying regardless of what she may or may not mean by it. My basic assumption is that if God is having to forgive you a million times a day for just about anything you're probably not living the sort of life you need to be working toward living. Hell, for that matter, I'd say a hundred times a day is way over the line. Maybe, just maybe, instead of trying to mansplain by proxy Pat might want to encourage his viewers to work a wee bit harder on being decent humans in their daily lives. I know this is crazy talk and all, but it might be a good idea to set a goal of being a decent human for one full day and build from there.

5) Pat says toward the end of the clip, "I'm not politically correct in case you haven't learned. I tell it like it is." I submit to you, gentle reader, that anyone who believes Pat is politically correct has never once heard him speak, read anything he's written, or read/viewed anything about him. I envy those people. Really, I do.

6) Pat repeats his claim that he's being misrepresented by virtue of having his words twisted. I'll just repeat that running full-length, in-context clips of things you say that reflect poorly on you does not constitute the twisting of words. It's more akin to giving him enough rope to hang himself.

7) Finally, Pat intimates that he's going to air "a full-scale exposé" of this especially nasty group of mean meanies who show people who won't like what Pat has to say the things Pat says. My only response is a hearty, "Please do it, Pat. Pretty please with sugar on top!" If we've learned one thing about these kinds of people trying to take on and ultimately shame their critics it's that those efforts almost inevitably backfire and cause even more problems. Honestly, that sort of thing couldn't happen to a better guy. Besides, if I'm going to keep up this blistering pace of posting more often than every four years I'll be needing source material, and Pat is a goldmine, let me tell you.

Time to Shut Up Now, Pat

If I may, I humbly recommend Mr. Robertson go totter off into a quiet retirement now. Very quiet.

To be honest, the moment for his self-removal from the public eye passed many years ago, but he apparently has no sense of shame whatever. Pat, so it would seem, fears that we just couldn't possibly muddle through without him. After several decades of dispensing this sort of over-privileged claptrap masquerading as advice and counsel, however, I have a difficult time imagining how we could possibly do any worse. It boggles the mind to imagine how many times Pat's co-host must have cringed as he prattled on in this clip, and it's little wonder that this clip doesn't include a single wide shot of them both. I suspect it was simply impossible for her to keep the look of incredulous dismay off her face. At least, I hope that's the case.

Yeah, bite me.

Okay, so it's been a while since I posted anything on my blog. Don't act like I'm the first blogger ever to let a mere few years elapse between entries. What do you want from me?

It's probably important to point out that I officially have no followers for this blog, at the moment. Which means I'm really addressing myself. I'm okay with that. I talk to myself all the time because, let's face it, someone needs to benefit from my intellect and humor, and it might as well be me. Hell, pretty much everything I do online amounts to little more than amusing myself. Now, let's get on with it, shall we? (Yes, John, let's.)

So today is Mother's Day, and, despite the fact that most everybody knows it's a faux holiday created out of whole cloth as a way for greeting card companies to pad their ledgers during the other eleven months of the year when people don't feel compelled to mass mail their products to virtual strangers and people (they think) they're distantly related to, no one--NO ONE--would dare miss observing it by participating in one of the many empty gestures available to them for the purpose of acknowledging the person who popped them out into the world. I'm guilty of it. I just sent an email to my mother's work address apologizing for the fact that I didn't get the same pro forma gesture to her 24 hours earlier. Why her work address, you ask? Well, I've somehow managed to lose her home address. Not her physical address, mind you. Her email address. I totally have her physical address, and I could have very easily mailed her a real card or some such thing which probably would have gotten me bonus points for taking five minutes during a regular visit to the grocery store to pick out some vacuous card telling her I care enough to make a 20-foot detour between buying bananas and wandering through the baking goods aisle wondering why the fuck Kroger doesn't carry Dutched Cocoa. (And, yes, I know Hershey's is Dutched, but I don't buy Hershey's because I'm a cocoa snob. See the title of this entry if you have a problem with that.)

Now, I'm sure you're wondering how I managed to lose my mother's home email address. I know you're wondering because I'm wondering, and as previously mentioned I'm the only person who's reading this entry. That's actually a very good question. If you had asked a question it would have been good, at least. Anyway, I'm guessing it has something to do with the Cloud™. See, I very wisely back up things like my iTunes library and my personal contacts list to the Cloud™ because the worst could happen and my DVD backup disc, my external hard drive backup, and my smart phone could crap out at precisely the same moment (or, because fate is a motherfucker, each could crap out the instant I raced to it in a futile effort to retrieve the pertinent information so that I might have the experience of watching each safeguard fail in sequence in real time). So, of course, I make the only decision left me which is to entrust vital personal information to whatever company actually maintains the Cloud™ without asking myself whether it's secure or how said company might use said information in ways I wouldn't appreciate but will probably never learn about anyway. So, yeah, I do that because I trust anonymous people not to fuck me over. Because that sort of thing never goes wrong. So, John, you're patiently reading this entry as you type it wondering when I (also, you) will manage to get to the goddamn point. That would be now. Thanks for being patient.

Apparently, during one backup or another only my mother's work email made the transition, and when I synced everything else like a responsible 21st century man the Cloud™ noticed that one set of data had multiple email addresses for her while the other set did not so it did the only reasonable thing. It deleted the set with multiple addresses because the Cloud™ has reached the point in its evolution where it has an intellectual capacity equivalent to your run-of-the-mill English major (or a sensitive, precocious high schooler) and is rather fond of Thoreau's famous instruction to simplify. In essence, I've been outflanked by a computer algorithm. It's not surprising because, you know, Skynet and all.

So what does my ability (well, let's be honest, inability) to deal with the mystery that is the World Wide Web (which, for those non-existent readers under 30, is an archaic name for the internet) have to do with Mother's Day? Not much. It's a way to pad an entry centering on the overused trope which points out how Mother's Day is bullshit commercialism, and how that fact does nothing to prevent us from feeling obligated to tell our mothers that they're special on this particular day. Honestly, I considered for a moment not sending anything to my mom, but I knew that she would feel disappointed, at best, and rejected, at worst, and no matter what baggage I carry because of the history I share with her she really doesn't deserve to feel either of those things. Even though this day really isn't more important than any other, and we're both being manipulated.