Sorry I haven't added anything for a while.
I've been excessively busy both at work and home, as well as socially, and simply haven't had much time to write. I'll try to get some regular posting done in the future. For now, though... Back to work!
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Are All Presidential Assassins "Liberals"?
Ann Coulter, in her latest attempt to cash in on her hate mongering inanity, claims that most presidential assassins are liberals or communists. In a recent interview with CBS's Harry Smith, Coulter said:
Really now? Why do I have the feeling that Ann has pulled this factoid out of her anorexic, boney ass? On the surface, it sounds like she may have a point, after all, the most famous presidential assassin in recent memory was a communist (Lee Harvey Oswald), and anarchist Leon Czolgosz was President McKinley's assassin (how many people even know that guy's name?). But is Ann right when she says that every last assassin and attempted assassin was "a liberal, a communist, an anarchist", excluding John Hinckley, who gets off because he was insane?
Let's do a little fact-checking here...
The first and most famous presidential assassin effectively makes Coulter wrong. John Wilkes Booth (Lincoln's assassin) was a Pro-confederate, very conservative Episcopal, who was a member of the "Know-nothing party", which was an extremist religious conservative group whose platform would be familiar with many conservatives and republicans today. Here is a brief sample of what the party stood for:
To call Booth a liberal is not just absurd, there is no way anyone can support such a notion, given the man's history. This one assassin, clearly the most famous in U.S. history, is plenty to demolish Coulter's notion. But I'm never satisfied with such a quick disposal of a conservative's idiotic ramblings, so if you will, let me rub it in a few times to make it even more dramatic a disposal.
Charles J. Guiteau (James Garfield's assassin) described himself as a Theocrat and was member of a strange Christian cult called "The Oneida Community". He Supported the Republican party, and President Grant's election, so technically, that makes him a conservative. He was arguably insane, and Believed that God ordered him to assassinate Garfield for being ungrateful for his work in helping him get elected.
Leon Czolgosz (William McKinley's assassin) was definitely an Anarchist. Well, here's one point for Coulter!
Lee Harvey Oswald (John F. Kennedy's assassin) was definitely a Communist. No Doubt about it. He actually defected to the former Soviet Union, lived there for a while, and then came back to live in the USA, where he became well known as a fierce supporter of Cuba.
There are a string of assassins and failed assassins whose names are largely unfamiliar to us, and likely to Coulter (mostly because she is a lazy researcher), because they either tried to assassinate presidents who are not well known to modern Americans, or who were not as popular or notable as Lincoln or Kenendy. Their names are all recorded in history, and you can easily find out about them. Ann Coulter apparently didn't even do the 5 minutes of research it takes to find them all, which is the most common problem for pundits like Coulter.
Richard Lawrence (attempted ssassin of Andrew Jackson) was a British immigrant who believed that he was the King of England. He blamed Andrew Jackson for allegedly witholding money from him that was owed, which would allow him to realize his place as the rightful heir to the throne of England. He was certifiably insane.
Giuseppe Zangara (Attempted assassin of Franklyn Roosevelt) was an Italian immigrant who suffered from a variety of painful illnesses. He believed that Roosevelt was responsible for his medical pain. So he goes in the "Insane" category.
Griselio Torresola & Oscar Collazo (attempted assassins of Harry Truman) were Puerto Rican Nationalists. As political movements go, The Puerto Rican Nationalists were anti-communist, and their flag had a variation of a cross on it, so they don't fit into any of the molds that Coulter suggests (anarchists, communists, liberals). Reality gains another point against Coutler.
Arthur Bremer (attempted assassin of Richard Nixon)This guy was definitely Insane, and said that his attempted assassination of Nixon was supposed to impress a girl who dumped him.
Samuel Joseph Byck (attempted assassin of Richard Nixon) was insane.
Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme (attempted assassin of Gerald Ford) was Insane, a member of the bizarre Charles Manson's "family", a religious cult, which preached an apocalyptic message. I don't know if that makes them automatically conservative, so we'll just put this in the "insane" category. Anyone who has seen Charles Manson being interviewed knows that he's insane.
Sara Jane Moore (attempted assassin of Gerald Ford) was a Communist, or at least a leftist, as she stated that her reason for trying to assassinate Ford was mainly because of Nixon and his "war against the left". So I guess Coulter gets another point.
John Hinckley, Jr. (attempted assassin of Ronald Reagan) poses a serious problem. Though he was very much insane, and Coulter said we could leave him out because of it. Hinckley was actually well known to the Bush family! He Supported George H. Bush's run for president against Reagan, and his brother Scott Hinckley is a close personal friend of Neal Bush!. He may have been insane, but the ties, the political background, and more, all point to him being conservative. No wonder Coulter wanted to excuse him! He demolishes her idea, just like John Wilkes Booth does.
Another insane assassin was Frank Eugene Corder (attempted assassin of Bill Clinton), who smashed a stolen Cessna aircraft on the white house lawn in an attempt to kill Bill Clinton. He was a Former Viet Nam vet, honorably discharged from the military, but was insane and suicidal. His assassination attempt on Clinton happened, ironically, on September 11th, 1994.
Francisco Martin Duran (attempted assassin of Bill Clinton) was the Gun nut who was pissed off at the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, so he took an SKS semi-automatic weapon to the white house, and started rattling off shots from outside the fence. He was an avid listener of the conservative Talk Show Host Chuck Baker. Reality scores again against Coulter.
So there you go, Ann Coulter not just busted, but owned. Coulter claims that all presidential assassins are liberals, communists, or anarchists, but with about 5 minutes of work (trust me, it took less than a minute to find all of the presidential assasins in a list), it's easily proven to be just another dumb, unfounded assertion. This is because Coulter is not a journalist, but a propagandist. She likes to call herself a polemicist, but as the word is defined, she clearly fits more into the "contraversialist" or "sensationalist" definition, because all she really does is make the most deliberately contravercial opinion she can, because she just wants your attention.
...every presidential assassin -- or attempted presidential assassin in the history of the nation has either been a liberal, a communist, an anarchist, someone on the left, or there were two who had no politics whatsoever unless you count John Hinckley, who is certifiably insane.
Really now? Why do I have the feeling that Ann has pulled this factoid out of her anorexic, boney ass? On the surface, it sounds like she may have a point, after all, the most famous presidential assassin in recent memory was a communist (Lee Harvey Oswald), and anarchist Leon Czolgosz was President McKinley's assassin (how many people even know that guy's name?). But is Ann right when she says that every last assassin and attempted assassin was "a liberal, a communist, an anarchist", excluding John Hinckley, who gets off because he was insane?
Let's do a little fact-checking here...
The first and most famous presidential assassin effectively makes Coulter wrong. John Wilkes Booth (Lincoln's assassin) was a Pro-confederate, very conservative Episcopal, who was a member of the "Know-nothing party", which was an extremist religious conservative group whose platform would be familiar with many conservatives and republicans today. Here is a brief sample of what the party stood for:
- Severe limits on immigration, especially from Catholic countries
- Restricting political office to native-born Americans
- Mandating a wait of 21 years before an immigrant could gain citizenship
- Restricting public school teachers to Protestants
- Mandating daily Bible readings in public schools
- Restricting the sale of liquor
To call Booth a liberal is not just absurd, there is no way anyone can support such a notion, given the man's history. This one assassin, clearly the most famous in U.S. history, is plenty to demolish Coulter's notion. But I'm never satisfied with such a quick disposal of a conservative's idiotic ramblings, so if you will, let me rub it in a few times to make it even more dramatic a disposal.
Charles J. Guiteau (James Garfield's assassin) described himself as a Theocrat and was member of a strange Christian cult called "The Oneida Community". He Supported the Republican party, and President Grant's election, so technically, that makes him a conservative. He was arguably insane, and Believed that God ordered him to assassinate Garfield for being ungrateful for his work in helping him get elected.
Leon Czolgosz (William McKinley's assassin) was definitely an Anarchist. Well, here's one point for Coulter!
Lee Harvey Oswald (John F. Kennedy's assassin) was definitely a Communist. No Doubt about it. He actually defected to the former Soviet Union, lived there for a while, and then came back to live in the USA, where he became well known as a fierce supporter of Cuba.
There are a string of assassins and failed assassins whose names are largely unfamiliar to us, and likely to Coulter (mostly because she is a lazy researcher), because they either tried to assassinate presidents who are not well known to modern Americans, or who were not as popular or notable as Lincoln or Kenendy. Their names are all recorded in history, and you can easily find out about them. Ann Coulter apparently didn't even do the 5 minutes of research it takes to find them all, which is the most common problem for pundits like Coulter.
Richard Lawrence (attempted ssassin of Andrew Jackson) was a British immigrant who believed that he was the King of England. He blamed Andrew Jackson for allegedly witholding money from him that was owed, which would allow him to realize his place as the rightful heir to the throne of England. He was certifiably insane.
Giuseppe Zangara (Attempted assassin of Franklyn Roosevelt) was an Italian immigrant who suffered from a variety of painful illnesses. He believed that Roosevelt was responsible for his medical pain. So he goes in the "Insane" category.
Griselio Torresola & Oscar Collazo (attempted assassins of Harry Truman) were Puerto Rican Nationalists. As political movements go, The Puerto Rican Nationalists were anti-communist, and their flag had a variation of a cross on it, so they don't fit into any of the molds that Coulter suggests (anarchists, communists, liberals). Reality gains another point against Coutler.
Arthur Bremer (attempted assassin of Richard Nixon)This guy was definitely Insane, and said that his attempted assassination of Nixon was supposed to impress a girl who dumped him.
Samuel Joseph Byck (attempted assassin of Richard Nixon) was insane.
Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme (attempted assassin of Gerald Ford) was Insane, a member of the bizarre Charles Manson's "family", a religious cult, which preached an apocalyptic message. I don't know if that makes them automatically conservative, so we'll just put this in the "insane" category. Anyone who has seen Charles Manson being interviewed knows that he's insane.
Sara Jane Moore (attempted assassin of Gerald Ford) was a Communist, or at least a leftist, as she stated that her reason for trying to assassinate Ford was mainly because of Nixon and his "war against the left". So I guess Coulter gets another point.
John Hinckley, Jr. (attempted assassin of Ronald Reagan) poses a serious problem. Though he was very much insane, and Coulter said we could leave him out because of it. Hinckley was actually well known to the Bush family! He Supported George H. Bush's run for president against Reagan, and his brother Scott Hinckley is a close personal friend of Neal Bush!. He may have been insane, but the ties, the political background, and more, all point to him being conservative. No wonder Coulter wanted to excuse him! He demolishes her idea, just like John Wilkes Booth does.
Another insane assassin was Frank Eugene Corder (attempted assassin of Bill Clinton), who smashed a stolen Cessna aircraft on the white house lawn in an attempt to kill Bill Clinton. He was a Former Viet Nam vet, honorably discharged from the military, but was insane and suicidal. His assassination attempt on Clinton happened, ironically, on September 11th, 1994.
Francisco Martin Duran (attempted assassin of Bill Clinton) was the Gun nut who was pissed off at the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, so he took an SKS semi-automatic weapon to the white house, and started rattling off shots from outside the fence. He was an avid listener of the conservative Talk Show Host Chuck Baker. Reality scores again against Coulter.
So there you go, Ann Coulter not just busted, but owned. Coulter claims that all presidential assassins are liberals, communists, or anarchists, but with about 5 minutes of work (trust me, it took less than a minute to find all of the presidential assasins in a list), it's easily proven to be just another dumb, unfounded assertion. This is because Coulter is not a journalist, but a propagandist. She likes to call herself a polemicist, but as the word is defined, she clearly fits more into the "contraversialist" or "sensationalist" definition, because all she really does is make the most deliberately contravercial opinion she can, because she just wants your attention.
Friday, January 2, 2009
"Gay Panic" is a strange defense
Imagine that you are a 21-year-old man, approached by a 62-year-old man you know. You agree to go over his house, and while there, he takes off all of his clothes, and makes a homosexual advance at you. By your own admission, the advance is not a demand for sex or a threat of violence. He simply put his hand on your crotch. You are so taken by surprise, that you find a baseball bat (he doesn't own one, it came from somewhere else), and you beat his brains in until his head resembles several pounds of ground beef with hair imbedded into it.
So frightening was this experience for you, that you then you take his body (he's still alive, by the way), and you stuff it into the trunk of his car, and leave the car on the side of the road, where he dies. Later, you return to the car, and grab his wallet, and you go on a $1500 spending spree with his credit cards, buying video games, a TV, and an airplane ticket to Texas.
Clearly, you were the victim of a homosexual, and shouldn't be called a murderer, because you were under the effects fo "Gay Panic".
Now suppose you are a high school kid, and you and your friend are offered a ride home by your Music teacher, whom everyone reguards as "a fruit". You agree to go to his house, first, where you play video games. Later on, he asks you to come up to his bedroom, where he asks if you want to have sex. You refuse, and he understands, so he offers to drive you and your friend home, and he does.
After stopping in front of your house to drop you off, you choke him, and your friend helps you, and it takes about 10 minutes for him to die. You then drive back to his house, put his body on the couch, and load up the car with all of his valuables, which you take home with you.
Obviously, you're just another victim of Gay panic!
Many may recall the Matthew Shepard case, where Shepard was beaten with a baseball bat until near death, by 2 men who picked him up at a bar, then left to die on a barbed-wire fence. They used the Gay panic defense, too. Apparently, they later admitted that it was just a robbery gone bad, but their initial plea was Gay panic.
I wonder if the definition of Gay panic that a psychiatric dictionary would have includes something like "Symptoms include violence followed by desire to commit robbery." Of course, the victims of Gay panic are never just innocent little school-boys. In all of the above cases, the people using the Gay panic defense all had previous police records, or were known as trouble-makers to local cops. These poor victims are just misunderstood. I mean, they only wanted to rob the victims, but somehow finding out that they were gay created such painful trauma for their young minds that they couldn't just commit their robberies like they would if the victim was not gay.
Of course, this argument -- that we should excuse murderers because of Gay panic, sort of reminds me the Emmett Till murder, in 1955, where a group of white adults were so offended by a 14-year-old black boy wolf-whistling at a white woman, that they simply had to beat him to death and throw his body off of a bridge. Back then, they only pleaded "not guilty", but I'm sure that if the phrase "Black Panic" was in use back then, that's what they would have pleaded.
I'm waiting for "dumbass panic", where I get to get off of murder and robbery charges, because I was extremely offended by what a dumbass the victim was.
So frightening was this experience for you, that you then you take his body (he's still alive, by the way), and you stuff it into the trunk of his car, and leave the car on the side of the road, where he dies. Later, you return to the car, and grab his wallet, and you go on a $1500 spending spree with his credit cards, buying video games, a TV, and an airplane ticket to Texas.
Clearly, you were the victim of a homosexual, and shouldn't be called a murderer, because you were under the effects fo "Gay Panic".
Now suppose you are a high school kid, and you and your friend are offered a ride home by your Music teacher, whom everyone reguards as "a fruit". You agree to go to his house, first, where you play video games. Later on, he asks you to come up to his bedroom, where he asks if you want to have sex. You refuse, and he understands, so he offers to drive you and your friend home, and he does.
After stopping in front of your house to drop you off, you choke him, and your friend helps you, and it takes about 10 minutes for him to die. You then drive back to his house, put his body on the couch, and load up the car with all of his valuables, which you take home with you.
Obviously, you're just another victim of Gay panic!
Many may recall the Matthew Shepard case, where Shepard was beaten with a baseball bat until near death, by 2 men who picked him up at a bar, then left to die on a barbed-wire fence. They used the Gay panic defense, too. Apparently, they later admitted that it was just a robbery gone bad, but their initial plea was Gay panic.
I wonder if the definition of Gay panic that a psychiatric dictionary would have includes something like "Symptoms include violence followed by desire to commit robbery." Of course, the victims of Gay panic are never just innocent little school-boys. In all of the above cases, the people using the Gay panic defense all had previous police records, or were known as trouble-makers to local cops. These poor victims are just misunderstood. I mean, they only wanted to rob the victims, but somehow finding out that they were gay created such painful trauma for their young minds that they couldn't just commit their robberies like they would if the victim was not gay.
Of course, this argument -- that we should excuse murderers because of Gay panic, sort of reminds me the Emmett Till murder, in 1955, where a group of white adults were so offended by a 14-year-old black boy wolf-whistling at a white woman, that they simply had to beat him to death and throw his body off of a bridge. Back then, they only pleaded "not guilty", but I'm sure that if the phrase "Black Panic" was in use back then, that's what they would have pleaded.
I'm waiting for "dumbass panic", where I get to get off of murder and robbery charges, because I was extremely offended by what a dumbass the victim was.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Pakistan Arrests Mastermind of Mumbai Massacre
Today, December 8th, 2008, the Pakistani government announced that it raided a terrorist training camp in Lashkar suspected to be the base of the group which killed over 170 people in Mumbai, India, last week. During the raid, they managed to capture a man named Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, who is suspected of being one of the masterminds of the massacre in Mumbai.
Such swift justice from Pakistan, a nation that has been openly hostile towards India for decades, speaks volumes about the competence of the Bush administration in the war on terror. Since Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda's most important people have been hiding in Pakistan, the Pakistani government has not really done much in helping the US find them and bring them to justice, and we are supposedly their allies. Yet they seemed to bend over backwards for their arch-rival India, and swiftly staged a successful raid on a group that by all accounts were some of the best trained terrorists ever encountered.
Did the Bush administration even care about finding Bin Laden and the remaining Al Qaeda officers, or did Pakistan conduct the raid against the Mumbai attackers because they feared nuclear retaliation from India if they did nothing? If the Bush administration was serious about Al Qaeda, they could easily have gotten Pakistan to do what they did for India, and they could have done it years ago. The fact that India got such a quick favor after their attack by terrorists, and the Bush administration could only get lip service for 7 years, speaks volumes about how poorly the Bush administration has dealt with our foreign allies. Our allies seem to give their enemies better treatment than they give us.
Perhaps the arrangement with Al Qaeda and the Bush administration is similar to the arrangement that the Guild of Calamitous Intent has with Dr. Venture in the fictional cartoon series, The Venture Brothers. It's explained that the guild limits what super-villains are allowed to do to protagonists, to allow them to co-exist and allow both protagonist and villain to do their own thing without actually killing each other. Perhaps George Bush solicited Al Qaeda's help in becoming our nemesis, mainly so George could get the status he sought. In the Venture Brothers universe, super-scientists and other protagonists often solicit villains to gain status. Their managed conflicts keep each other alive while developing new super-weapons and gaining fame.
That may explain why the Bush administration hasn't managed to get Bin Laden or other Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan for the last 7 years. Al Qaeda is engaging in "controlled costumed aggression" with Bush, and both are bound by the guild's honor code. That way, both sides get the prestige and notoriety they seek, without actually killing each other. Henchmen are occaisionally killed, but the arch villains and protagonists, and their immediate family members stay protected.
Such swift justice from Pakistan, a nation that has been openly hostile towards India for decades, speaks volumes about the competence of the Bush administration in the war on terror. Since Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda's most important people have been hiding in Pakistan, the Pakistani government has not really done much in helping the US find them and bring them to justice, and we are supposedly their allies. Yet they seemed to bend over backwards for their arch-rival India, and swiftly staged a successful raid on a group that by all accounts were some of the best trained terrorists ever encountered.
Did the Bush administration even care about finding Bin Laden and the remaining Al Qaeda officers, or did Pakistan conduct the raid against the Mumbai attackers because they feared nuclear retaliation from India if they did nothing? If the Bush administration was serious about Al Qaeda, they could easily have gotten Pakistan to do what they did for India, and they could have done it years ago. The fact that India got such a quick favor after their attack by terrorists, and the Bush administration could only get lip service for 7 years, speaks volumes about how poorly the Bush administration has dealt with our foreign allies. Our allies seem to give their enemies better treatment than they give us.
Perhaps the arrangement with Al Qaeda and the Bush administration is similar to the arrangement that the Guild of Calamitous Intent has with Dr. Venture in the fictional cartoon series, The Venture Brothers. It's explained that the guild limits what super-villains are allowed to do to protagonists, to allow them to co-exist and allow both protagonist and villain to do their own thing without actually killing each other. Perhaps George Bush solicited Al Qaeda's help in becoming our nemesis, mainly so George could get the status he sought. In the Venture Brothers universe, super-scientists and other protagonists often solicit villains to gain status. Their managed conflicts keep each other alive while developing new super-weapons and gaining fame.
That may explain why the Bush administration hasn't managed to get Bin Laden or other Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan for the last 7 years. Al Qaeda is engaging in "controlled costumed aggression" with Bush, and both are bound by the guild's honor code. That way, both sides get the prestige and notoriety they seek, without actually killing each other. Henchmen are occaisionally killed, but the arch villains and protagonists, and their immediate family members stay protected.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
AFA puts the KKK back into Christmas!
This is a real ad from the American Family Association's web-shop. The ad, for the cross in this picture, reads:
Let Your "Light" Shine For Christ This Christmas Season!
Looking for an effective way to express your Christian faith this Christmas season to honor our Lord Jesus? Now you can.... with the "Original Christmas Cross" yard decoration.
Light up your front yard, porch, patio, driveway, business, organization or church this holiday season with a stunning Christmas cross. This beautiful Christmas Cross is 5.5 feet tall, with 210 individual ultra bright lights. SHIPPING IS INCLUDED!
Assembles in just minutes! Includes simple instructions and requires only a screwdriver. The cross is compact when not in use. And of course, it's weather-proof.
Decorate this holiday season with the Original Christmas Cross to remind your friends, family, neighbors, and all who drive by your home, office, or church of the real meaning of Christmas. You won't find the Original Christmas Cross in stores, so order online today!
PLEASE NOTE: This product ships directly from the distributor. If you wish to order other products at this time from the AFA Online Store, please make a seperate order.
I honestly don't need to add anything more to this, except to say that the irony nearly made me shit my pants.
UPDATE 24-NOV-2008
Well, I went to the AFA store, and this is the picture that now accompanies the ad! I guess they got enough complaints! Hahahahahahaha!!!
Friday, November 14, 2008
My "Extremist" Opinion on Free Speech
I recently wrote the following in the google-group "Atheism vs. Christianity", in a discussion about Canadian Hate-crime laws. I have corrected spelling and clarified it a bit from the original messy post.
How far should we go with allowing free speech? I have always been an advocate of completely unlimited free speech. I have always considered that if someone is offended by my speech, or someone else's, that they're just sissies who can't handle dealing with opinions that are different from their own. After considering the discussion over how people in Canada can no longer preach what the Bible says about homosexuality, because it's hate-speech against gays (I mean, think about it, Leviticus advocates that homosexuals be executed), I thought about why that was good, and why it could be bad. I realized that the good aspects of hate-speech laws sounded a lot more convincing to me than the "total free speech" I advocated.
There certainly are some types of speech or advocacy that people consider dangerous. For example, it is currently illegal to issue written or verbal death threats. People who have openly advocated assassination and killing of others have been charged and put on trial for it. There is good reason why death threats are illegal and not "protected free speech". It is because a death threat victimizes a person by creating an atmosphere of hostility and fear, or in constitutional language, it "attacks domestic tranquility", which the preamble of the United States Constitution purports to ensure for all. Imagine a family living in a neighborhood, and having several neighbors tell them "We'll kill you". The family is forced to live in fear, incurring mental and physical stress. It's not just that one family -- its any people living in the neighborhood or surrounding areas who hear of these threats. If you can imagine the family being Jewish or African-American, and the threats coming from neo-Nazis, it becomes even worse of a situation. It is unacceptable to make death threats for that reason -- it disrupts domestic tranquility, creating fear and hostility in a community. We have laws against disturbing the peace. You cannot set off explosives in the middle of the night, play extremely loud music that wakes your neighbors up, use heavy construction equipment early in the morning when people are still sleeping, and such, for the same reason -- it disrupts domestic tranquility.
Rather than issue a death threat, some people thought it was clever to avoid making a direct death threat against someone, by suggesting that someone else do it. For example, on a Christian radio program in Denver, Colorado, back in 1993, Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, said a prayer over the air where he asked that someone please assassinate Dr. Warren Hern, a Colorado abortion provider. The authorities didn't think that was free speech, and promptly arrested him. Members of his organization were found guilty of harassing the family members of various doctors who provided abortions, when they followed doctors' children home from school, or followed the families when they drove around town. Again, legally speaking, such activities are not protected free speech because they disrupt domestic tranquility, and force the victims to live in fear of hostilities or attacks. At a time when many abortion providers were being assassinated by anti-abortion activists, this became all the more frightening for these victims.
So on the issue of punditry, and the writers of trash-talking political diatribes, as well as so-called "entertainment" broadcasts of Fox News, and other conservative hate-filled language against so-called liberals, I believe that the same situation applies. When a Rush Limbaugh, an Ann Coulter, or a Sean Hannity goes on the air, and incites hatred against various groups considered "liberal" or "un-American", they are doing the same thing that a Neo-Nazi does when they spray-paint a swastika on a wall in a neighborhood. They are inciting people with propaganda, to hate other citizens. They don't actually come out and say "these people should be hated, treated with suspicion, killed, etc..." but they certainly incite animosity and hatred against certain people in society. After 9-11, the cry of "Treason" was heard a lot from far-right pundits. Treason often is punished by the death sentence (and the pundits made sure to mention that when they accused people of it), which is sort of a roundabout way of suggesting that so-called liberals or critics of the Bush administration should be killed. If you were a liberal or a Bush critic, you certainly felt a little bit of your domestic tranquility threatened by hearing such rhetoric.
There is a difference between being politically incorrect, and the type of speech that Joseph Goebbels delivered in Nazi Germany. One is simple criticism, occasionally crude, profane or awkward, without suggestion of violence or action that would scare the target of your criticism into thinking that they were in any danger. The other suggests that the target of the criticism is not worthy of their constitutional protections or freedoms, that they deserve to suffer, and that people who take it upon themselves to punish them would or should be considered to be doing a patriotic duty of some kind. It is one thing to suggest that a president, or a politician, or a religious leader, is wrong about their actions or opinions; that is totally reasonable, protected speech. It is entirely a different story, however, to call the same people devils, traitors, and suggest that they be intimidated, harassed, or held in suspicion, or treated unpleasantly for it.
When a Christian Minister or politician quotes the Bible, and reads the verse from Leviticus that orders homosexuals to be stoned to death, he is merely presenting an objective fact about what his faith says. When he suggests to his followers that they need to follow this law of God to the letter, and use votes or direct action to achieve it, he is victimizing gay people -- creating unease and spoiling domestic tranquility. All you have to do is change the references from Homosexuals to Jews, and the book from the Bible to Mein Kampf, and it brings the hate-speech to life quite vividly.
The disruption of other citizens' domestic tranquility is a crime; it is a violation of a person's constitutional protection. Disturbing the peace is a crime on most laws of our states. I say we police it. Thinly veiled threats against other citizens, no matter how cleverly worded they are, have an effect on their intended targets. They create unease, fear, and tension in society. People who make use this hate-mongering speech are sociopaths, plain and simple. They do not care about the constitutional rights of the people that they victimize, and in fact, many of them advocate the idea that those people have no constitutional rights, or that their constitutional rights should be taken away. Such ideas, are, ultimately un-American, because the spirit of the constitution is that all people, regardless of who they are or what they believe, have the same rights and protections. For most of the purveyors of hate-speech, the idea that someone they despise can be their equal, and have every right to disagree with them, is an inconvenient thing to live with. Ultimately, hate speech is about advocacy of inequality and non-protection of citizens. You can't get any less American than that.
I don't believe that my concept of civil rights, however, includes the "right to openly hate and advocate the elimination of, or disenfranchisement of certain groups of people", or "the right to abuse people". I am all for allowing Christians and Muslims to practice their faith, and for political groups to promote their beliefs, but when that "faith" includes bombing abortion clinics, sequestering a congregation in a "compound" so as to cut them off from society and control all information, or the "political beliefs" involve advocating the taking up of arms to shoot and kill other citizens, racism, disenfranchisement of others, or other patently antisocial activity, it's not about rights.
It's often said that people have a right "to be an asshole" if they choose to be -- Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Andrew Schlafly are all perfect examples of people practicing their right to be an asshole, and advocate ideas that are idiotic, mean-spirited, fraudulent, or just plain dumb. The problem is that all of these people are like modern day Joseph Goebbels. They are straddling the thin line of propaganda, balancing between mere political speech and hate. Behind everything they say is thinly veiled racism, sexism, fascism, but most importantly, a disdain for education, civil rights and constitutional freedoms. If enough people follow them, it could lead to the kind of fascist state where mob rule wins over constitutional democracy -- where the vigilantism of the Wild West replaces the rule of law and fair trials.
I do not believe that we can allow them to go unopposed, without putting back into place the laws which used to govern news and information programs -- The old fairness and accuracy doctrine that was made impotent when Fox News won a case by claiming that their news broadcasts were "entertainment" and not subject to any guidelines of journalistic integrity. All any media propagandist needs to do is proclaim their show to be "entertainment", and they instantly have no responsibility to separate opinion from fact, be objective or even report facts at all. They can just proclaim whatever they want their viewers to think is the truth, but say "we're entertainment" to a judge, and they have no responsibility for what they say. They can tell their reporters WHAT to say in a report, even if it's not true. They can craft intricate hate-pieces that slander anyone. They can reach millions with messages of hate, and there is no recourse.
So when we see a preacher preaching hate, or a pundit preaching hate, I believe it is dangerous. The typically mean-spirited nature of such speech has no legitimate place in society -- it's intentionally destructive, intentionally harmful. That's never good for society. Protect free speech, but when it comes to people who advocate hate, and mean-spirited treatment of others, I say fine them, make them criminals, and let them suffer for their hate.
How far should we go with allowing free speech? I have always been an advocate of completely unlimited free speech. I have always considered that if someone is offended by my speech, or someone else's, that they're just sissies who can't handle dealing with opinions that are different from their own. After considering the discussion over how people in Canada can no longer preach what the Bible says about homosexuality, because it's hate-speech against gays (I mean, think about it, Leviticus advocates that homosexuals be executed), I thought about why that was good, and why it could be bad. I realized that the good aspects of hate-speech laws sounded a lot more convincing to me than the "total free speech" I advocated.
There certainly are some types of speech or advocacy that people consider dangerous. For example, it is currently illegal to issue written or verbal death threats. People who have openly advocated assassination and killing of others have been charged and put on trial for it. There is good reason why death threats are illegal and not "protected free speech". It is because a death threat victimizes a person by creating an atmosphere of hostility and fear, or in constitutional language, it "attacks domestic tranquility", which the preamble of the United States Constitution purports to ensure for all. Imagine a family living in a neighborhood, and having several neighbors tell them "We'll kill you". The family is forced to live in fear, incurring mental and physical stress. It's not just that one family -- its any people living in the neighborhood or surrounding areas who hear of these threats. If you can imagine the family being Jewish or African-American, and the threats coming from neo-Nazis, it becomes even worse of a situation. It is unacceptable to make death threats for that reason -- it disrupts domestic tranquility, creating fear and hostility in a community. We have laws against disturbing the peace. You cannot set off explosives in the middle of the night, play extremely loud music that wakes your neighbors up, use heavy construction equipment early in the morning when people are still sleeping, and such, for the same reason -- it disrupts domestic tranquility.
Rather than issue a death threat, some people thought it was clever to avoid making a direct death threat against someone, by suggesting that someone else do it. For example, on a Christian radio program in Denver, Colorado, back in 1993, Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, said a prayer over the air where he asked that someone please assassinate Dr. Warren Hern, a Colorado abortion provider. The authorities didn't think that was free speech, and promptly arrested him. Members of his organization were found guilty of harassing the family members of various doctors who provided abortions, when they followed doctors' children home from school, or followed the families when they drove around town. Again, legally speaking, such activities are not protected free speech because they disrupt domestic tranquility, and force the victims to live in fear of hostilities or attacks. At a time when many abortion providers were being assassinated by anti-abortion activists, this became all the more frightening for these victims.
So on the issue of punditry, and the writers of trash-talking political diatribes, as well as so-called "entertainment" broadcasts of Fox News, and other conservative hate-filled language against so-called liberals, I believe that the same situation applies. When a Rush Limbaugh, an Ann Coulter, or a Sean Hannity goes on the air, and incites hatred against various groups considered "liberal" or "un-American", they are doing the same thing that a Neo-Nazi does when they spray-paint a swastika on a wall in a neighborhood. They are inciting people with propaganda, to hate other citizens. They don't actually come out and say "these people should be hated, treated with suspicion, killed, etc..." but they certainly incite animosity and hatred against certain people in society. After 9-11, the cry of "Treason" was heard a lot from far-right pundits. Treason often is punished by the death sentence (and the pundits made sure to mention that when they accused people of it), which is sort of a roundabout way of suggesting that so-called liberals or critics of the Bush administration should be killed. If you were a liberal or a Bush critic, you certainly felt a little bit of your domestic tranquility threatened by hearing such rhetoric.
There is a difference between being politically incorrect, and the type of speech that Joseph Goebbels delivered in Nazi Germany. One is simple criticism, occasionally crude, profane or awkward, without suggestion of violence or action that would scare the target of your criticism into thinking that they were in any danger. The other suggests that the target of the criticism is not worthy of their constitutional protections or freedoms, that they deserve to suffer, and that people who take it upon themselves to punish them would or should be considered to be doing a patriotic duty of some kind. It is one thing to suggest that a president, or a politician, or a religious leader, is wrong about their actions or opinions; that is totally reasonable, protected speech. It is entirely a different story, however, to call the same people devils, traitors, and suggest that they be intimidated, harassed, or held in suspicion, or treated unpleasantly for it.
When a Christian Minister or politician quotes the Bible, and reads the verse from Leviticus that orders homosexuals to be stoned to death, he is merely presenting an objective fact about what his faith says. When he suggests to his followers that they need to follow this law of God to the letter, and use votes or direct action to achieve it, he is victimizing gay people -- creating unease and spoiling domestic tranquility. All you have to do is change the references from Homosexuals to Jews, and the book from the Bible to Mein Kampf, and it brings the hate-speech to life quite vividly.
The disruption of other citizens' domestic tranquility is a crime; it is a violation of a person's constitutional protection. Disturbing the peace is a crime on most laws of our states. I say we police it. Thinly veiled threats against other citizens, no matter how cleverly worded they are, have an effect on their intended targets. They create unease, fear, and tension in society. People who make use this hate-mongering speech are sociopaths, plain and simple. They do not care about the constitutional rights of the people that they victimize, and in fact, many of them advocate the idea that those people have no constitutional rights, or that their constitutional rights should be taken away. Such ideas, are, ultimately un-American, because the spirit of the constitution is that all people, regardless of who they are or what they believe, have the same rights and protections. For most of the purveyors of hate-speech, the idea that someone they despise can be their equal, and have every right to disagree with them, is an inconvenient thing to live with. Ultimately, hate speech is about advocacy of inequality and non-protection of citizens. You can't get any less American than that.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Obama the Antichrist?
Okay, I'm making a little prediction here. Actually, I'm not really predicting, as much as just stating what trends I've been noticing. So bear with me here.
During the last few months, I noticed that a lot of Fundamentalist Christians have been not just writing posts against Barack Obama, they've been predicting that if elected, he would either turn out to be the Antichrist, or that it would usher in the end times, and that Armageddon would be coming. I'm serious. Here are a few more examples of what I read.
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Voting_for_Obama_is_a_SIN_What_decade_is_this
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=269841
http://davidbenariel.wordpress.com/2008/10/22/obama-a-disaster/
The best example was a recent McCain commercial titled "The One", which overtly suggested that Obama was indeed the Antichrist. Rush Limbaugh, on a recent show, said:
My old pal Ray "I am not a looney" Comfort, over at his blog, sort of had similar ideas about Barack Obama, but instead used the old tried-and-true "Some of my best friends are black... no wait, really..." method of using a black man to speak out against Obama for him. How often have Ray's posts consisted of an entire article of someone else's opinion on his blog before? Almost never, going back about a year.
So here is my prediction. I predict that either Ray Comfort or another well-known lunatic Fundamentalist, will post something this week proclaiming that America is now doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed. Someone is going to proclaim that the economic crisis was predicted by the Bible, and that Obama being elected is another fulfillment of prophecy, and that more terrible things are yet to come, all of which will be right out of the book of Daniel and the book of Revelation.
This kind of thing is only inevitable, and is not really surprising to anyone who has watched this happening for the last 30 years. It's really all just part of the usual election cycle. Every time we elect, a group of religious nuts somewhere proclaims the newly elected president to be the Antichrist. Remember how "Ronald Wilson Reagan" was the Antichrist, because each part of his name has 6 letters in it, which come out to 666?
Just wait. It's bound to happen. I'm hoping that Ray is the first to do it. I have everything planned for the occaision... but it will work fine on anyone else who is first to predict Obama's Satanic birthright! So let's see what happens! Just watch out for crazy posts by insane Fundy bloggers advising people to head for the hills, dig some bunkers, and stock up on canned goods and bullets.
During the last few months, I noticed that a lot of Fundamentalist Christians have been not just writing posts against Barack Obama, they've been predicting that if elected, he would either turn out to be the Antichrist, or that it would usher in the end times, and that Armageddon would be coming. I'm serious. Here are a few more examples of what I read.
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Voting_for_Obama_is_a_SIN_What_decade_is_this
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=269841
http://davidbenariel.wordpress.com/2008/10/22/obama-a-disaster/
The best example was a recent McCain commercial titled "The One", which overtly suggested that Obama was indeed the Antichrist. Rush Limbaugh, on a recent show, said:
"We'll find out in less than 30 hours how many people want to give up their freedom for what they think is going to be some version of a carefree utopia. We'll find out, and we'll deal with the result after it happens."
My old pal Ray "I am not a looney" Comfort, over at his blog, sort of had similar ideas about Barack Obama, but instead used the old tried-and-true "Some of my best friends are black... no wait, really..." method of using a black man to speak out against Obama for him. How often have Ray's posts consisted of an entire article of someone else's opinion on his blog before? Almost never, going back about a year.
So here is my prediction. I predict that either Ray Comfort or another well-known lunatic Fundamentalist, will post something this week proclaiming that America is now doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed. Someone is going to proclaim that the economic crisis was predicted by the Bible, and that Obama being elected is another fulfillment of prophecy, and that more terrible things are yet to come, all of which will be right out of the book of Daniel and the book of Revelation.
This kind of thing is only inevitable, and is not really surprising to anyone who has watched this happening for the last 30 years. It's really all just part of the usual election cycle. Every time we elect, a group of religious nuts somewhere proclaims the newly elected president to be the Antichrist. Remember how "Ronald Wilson Reagan" was the Antichrist, because each part of his name has 6 letters in it, which come out to 666?
Just wait. It's bound to happen. I'm hoping that Ray is the first to do it. I have everything planned for the occaision... but it will work fine on anyone else who is first to predict Obama's Satanic birthright! So let's see what happens! Just watch out for crazy posts by insane Fundy bloggers advising people to head for the hills, dig some bunkers, and stock up on canned goods and bullets.
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