CommentaramaPolitics: May 2015

Sunday, May 31, 2015

Question!

by ScottDS

Here's a question for the readership. I'm working on some book covers for classic dystopian novels and, in an effort to do something a little different, I've decided to use photos of real politicians and pop culture figures, people who might be identified with the ideas presented in the novels.

[+] Read More...

Friday, May 29, 2015

Kit's Friday Thoughts: Duggar, Iraq, and some other stuff

By Kit

Duggar Family Scandal
A number of you are probably aware of the sex abuse allegations that have hit the ultra-conservative Duggar family of the reality show, 19 and Counting. If you are like me and before the scandal broke had no idea who the Duggar family were, only vaguely aware of the existence of a show called 19 kids and Counting, and had absolutely no interest whatsoever in it, here are the details from what I know.

[+] Read More...

Thursday, May 28, 2015

No Arrests, But Lots of Useless Studies...

Since there haven't been any elected officials arrested this week, I am not sure what to write about. Oh, wait, how about a couple of studies that I picked up in the newspapers that have been published lately...

[+] Read More...

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Leftist Mad at Middle Class Gays in Chelsea for Being Middle Class

By Kit

Since it appeared no one was posting anything and I was very bored I decided to write something in response to a Slate article I read.

Note: The following contains some crude references to sexual acts.

Sometimes the greatest joys in life are the little joys and sometimes the greatest little joys come from reading the clueless ravings of magazines aimed at liberal upper-middle class whites. I am referring, of course, to the New York-area rags Slate and Salon. Now, while Slate is the more sane of the two (not exactly high praise), featuring writers who are occasionally willing to buck the left-wing party line, Emily Yoffe’s work on the rape culture hysteria comes to mind, they are still a magazine of the upper-middle class white urban left; I.e., the folks who whine about the gentrification of lower-class neighborhoods as they eagerly move into newly-gentrified neighborhoods. Which means that while Salon, with an eclectic mix of articles featuring some rant on the latest iniquity committed villainous Koch brothers one day and a woman recounting “How (insert non-normative sexual act here) made me a happier person” the next, is by far the more entertaining of the two magazines Slate still does its work in providing enjoyable work for those of us who dwell on the Right side of the political spectrum.

Which brings me to a column at Slate by J. Bryan Lowder, the site’s resident LGBTQ writer, headlined, “Gay Parents Fight Valiantly to Protect Children From Gay Culture.” You see, a group of parents in Chelsea, NY are trying to get a gay sex shop in their area closed because the shop features advertisements for sexual paraphernalia, as well as several items sexual paraphernalia, in its windows in full view of their kids. Also, this shop appears to promote a free-for-all sexual lifestyle as “they find used condoms and latex gloves in front of their homes, have light bulbs removed to darken their vestibules, and see men having sex in the hours before dawn on playground benches,” complaints that Mr. Lowder finds “silly.”

Now, it would be one thing if he were criticizing them on the libertarian principle of free speech; the “I may be offended by what they are selling but I will defend to the death by their right to sell their wares and display them in their front window for all to see —even if those wares are double-ended dildos that allow two consenting adults to bugger each other in the rump at the same time” principle.But, as you may have guessed from his headline, Lowder is furious because several of these uptight parents are… gay!

To him, by protesting these gay sex shops they are betraying gay culture and everything it has ever stood for. (To him.)

Mr. Lowder’s frustration with these prudish middle-class gays is, I think, best encapsulated here (emphasis mine), “The desire on the part of many gays to assimilate into traditionally straight ways of living is not in itself a bad thing; the problem comes when that move is made as some kind of repudiation of other, gayer ways of living, particularly as manifested with regard to important gay spaces like bars and shops.”

Catch the references to “traditionally straight ways of living”, such as raising a middle-class family, and “gayer ways of living,” as defined by sex shops and bars where you can have one night stands? It seems that he and other members of the gay left are discovering, apparently to their shock, that now having gained the right to marry and raise kids, many gays want to marry and raise kids responsibly. They want to be good spouses and parents. They want a house, a white picket fence, a well-paying job, a safe neighborhood, and finally, many want good, clean environments in which to raise their kids.

As P. J. O’Rourke said, “Gays want to get married, have children, and go to church. Next they'll be advocating school vouchers, boycotting HBO, and voting Republican.”

The thought must really incense him.

[+] Read More...

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Yet Another Telling Statement

Today's article is simple but I think rather cutting. This involves a statement David Letterman made during his final show. That statement really suggests to me why liberals cannot be trusted to make decisions regarding Islam.

Here is the statement:

"The reason we were attacked, the reason these people are dead... as I understand it (and my understanding of this is vague at best)... we’re told that they were zealots, fueled by religious fervor... religious fervor. And if you live to be a thousand years old, will that make any sense to you? Will that make any Goddamned sense?"

Do you see the problem here? The problem is that Letterman admits that he is incapable of understanding what went through the minds of the killers. Nevertheless, he continuously criticized people who did understand what was going through their minds and were trying to put policies in place to stop them. Think of it this ways. What Letterman has said is the same as saying, "I sure don't understand cancer, but those doctors better not do anything I don't think is right in fighting it." You would smack that Letterman upside the head as a retard, yet the one who opines about Islam is considered nuanced.

Now look, I get that this is largely hyperbole on Letterman's part and the reality is that he just doesn't have the stomach to face reality, but this is not an uncommon thing for liberals. In fact, it fits their mindset. Liberals have proven time and again that they are incapable of grasping that other people can have genuinely different mindsets. They show it in their inability to deal with opposition. They show it in their excuses for criminals and their need to see the perpetually unemployed class as "just like us, only suffering from bad luck," when the reality is that this is a drugged-fueled lifestyle choice. They show it in their need to describe people like Hitler as insane, when the reality was that he was quite sane until the end... he was just a rotten piece of sh*t. In fact, Liberals have proved so often and so consistently that they cannot grasp that others can legitimately have different beliefs that it strikes me as proven that they are genuinely incapable of understanding that not everyone shares all of their beliefs.

What Letterman says is proof of that once more. Like so many other liberals who assume that radical Islamists really do want equal rights for women (after all, they have daughters and liberals would never treat their daughters that way), gay rights, pro-environmental policies and $15 an hour wages at McDonalds, Letterman is completely incapable of grasping that Islamic terrorists genuinely believe that it is their duty to slaughter non-believers in the name of their one, true God. Like Charlie Manson, they not only shed no tears for their victims, they revel in the deaths and suffering of their victims. This is simply inconceivable to Letterman except as mental illness.

And if Letterman and his liberal friends cannot understand that, then how can they possibly propose valid solutions to the problem? So why won't they shut up when smarter people do talk about solutions? Because their very worldview prevents them from believing that anyone else can understand the things they cannot. Hence, what they don't know about cancer, no doctor can know about cancer either.

This stuff drives me crazy about liberals and it drives me even more crazy that they are too delusional and/or stupid to see it. This is why they are always caught flatfooted when their ideas implode and why they say, "Gee, no one could have known," even as every conservative and independent on the planet warned them all along the way.

I honestly do believe that liberalism is a mental condition... and Letterman just admitted that everything nasty he ever said about Bush or Cheney or anyone else who dealt with fundamentalist Islam was a statement made in ignorance. Good riddance, a-hole!

[+] Read More...

Monday, May 25, 2015

Memorial Day Open Thread

By Kit

Not much today. No post from Andrew and no new Summer of Marvel review (that will come next Monday). So instead it is an Open Thread.

[+] Read More...

Friday, May 22, 2015

Kit's Friday Thoughts: Memorial Day Weekend

By Kit

Well, it's Memorial Day weekend. Today I'll be touching on Tsarnaev, Boy Scouts, and a new series I might be starting, "Book Recommendation of the Week."

[+] Read More...

Thursday, May 21, 2015

Happy 6th Anniversary!

First of all, let me congratulate all the Commentarama/CommentaramaPolitics-ians on our 6th Anniversary! What a wonderful and thoughtful ride we have had for the last six years. I especially want to thank Andrew for giving me the opportunity to air my thoughts for all of these years and a very special thanks to Kit and all who contribute their inciteful comments and humor year after year. I continue to learn so much and laugh a lot! Also, I would like to add on this Memorial Day 2015, how much I miss our dear LawHawkSF/LawHawkRFD. He is missed every single day.

So, as we go into the official first weekend of "summer" and our seventh year, short of anything ever written by Shakespeare (or Andrew!), below is one of the most memorable speeches ever given commemmorating those who gave and continue to give their lives for the greatest cause of freedom. It was purported to have been written in haste on a train on the way to the brutal battlefield of Gettysburg on November 19, 1863.

The crowd expected another long, droning speech, but instead Abraham Lincoln delivered a short three minute speech. But in that that three minutes, the speech Lincoln gave has become one of the most memorable speeches ever given about war and the great sacrifice of those who "gave their full measure of devotion". Bless all of those who give their lives for the great cause freedom and may we never forget their sacrifice.

Abraham Lincoln - His Address Delivered at the Dedication of the Cemetery at Gettysburg
November 19, 1863

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Bless all those who have served and continue to serve, and those who have given their lives for the cause of freedom.

Interesting factoid - "Lincoln was feverish and weak, with a severe headache the day of the speech. A protracted illness followed, which included a vesicular rash and was diagnosed as a mild case of smallpox. It thus seems highly likely that Lincoln was in the prodromal period of smallpox when he delivered the Gettysburg address." [Wikipedia]

[+] Read More...

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

New York Corruption Without Limit

Andrew mentioned something in a comment last week about needing a distraction with more arrests of politicians. And as always, the State of New York is always happy to oblige! New York leads the country in highest taxes, best of the worst states to do business and...well, apparently corrupt politicians! Woo-hoo! Oh, wait...

[+] Read More...

Sunday, May 17, 2015

Stop Praising The Enemy

One of the things that annoys me with the GOP is that they don’t understand the nature of how to fight modern politics. In particular, they don’t grasp the need to undermine the credibility of those who will be attacking them. Nothing highlights this better than when some scandal arises that engulfs one of their enemies. For whatever reason, dozens of Republicans rush to the microphones to provide aid and comfort to the bad guys. I just don’t get it. The latest example of this comes from Marco Rubio and George Stephanopoulos. Here’s what’s happened...

[+] Read More...

Friday, May 15, 2015

Kit's Friday Thoughts

By Kit

I had a long thing on free trade planned but it got scrapped due to travel, so instead it is, again, an open thread, with some last minute thoughts.

Enjoy!

So, let's start with…

[+] Read More...

Thursday, May 14, 2015

I Got Nothing Open Thread...

Sorry, people of CommentaramaPolitics. I've got nothing I want to write about today. I know, I know, me without an opinion about something? How can that be?

[+] Read More...

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Deflategate: A Study In Journalistic Bias

I’m going to talk about Deflategate, but the real topic is journalistic bias. It’s been fascinating to watch the media respond to Deflategate and I think the lessons are easily transferred to the MSM and their relationship to the Democrats.

For those who don’t know, the NFL just sent down a punishment on Tom Brady and the New England Patriots for their role in the secret deflation of footballs below the air psi levels allowed by the rules and for their failure to cooperate with the NFL’s investigation. Let me make some quick points that will be useful as background.

(1) The investigation was conducted independently by an attorney who has worked for the NFL before, but no one objected to his impartiality until after he released his report. All of his findings were supported by written evidence in the form of text messages between Patriot employees and his scientific conclusions were reached with the aid of the head of the Science Department at Princeton.

(2) The reason deflation of balls matters is this: it affects the football itself (the key object in the game) and it provides the Patriots with a competitive advantage. Specifically, it makes it easier to grip the ball in cold weather, which makes it easier to throw and catch. Moreover, as Tom Brady alone was aware of this, only he had the opportunity to become accustomed to such balls, which according to Eli Manning do fly very differently. Hence, his opponent was always using a ball with unfamiliar traits whereas Tom was not. This goes directly to the integrity of the game.

(3) The penalties inflicted upon the Patriots and Brady are extremely light. Yes, light. A four game suspension (what Brady got) is typical for players found to have taken performance enhancing drugs. But players who have been involved in issues more fundamental to the game, such as the Saints’ bounty scandal, have received much longer suspensions, and their investigations haven’t been delayed until after the season... allowing them to play out the year as Tom did. Other coaches, like Sean Payton, have been suspended for as long as a year for failure to control their employees, even though he knew nothing of the violation. Belichick got nothing. The Patriot’s loss of a draft pick also is less than it appears as the pick will be from 2016 for a 2014 violation (picks are generally considered to lose one round in value each year).

(4) It is impossible not to see this as affecting Brady’s legacy. Keep in mind that the Super Bowls Brady won were all won in the last second by field goals, so any advantage would be huge. The first set were won when Brady had the illegal advantage of knowing the defensive signals. The new one was won when he had the advantage of the deflated balls, and even then was only won because of a fluke play by the Seahawks.

Against this backdrop, here is the issue. Almost every single analyst or talking head at ESPN and the NFL network has some close connection to Brady. Most are former teammates. Some are former Patriots executives. The pure journalists almost all come from the Boston papers or Sports Illustrated, which is located in that region. To a one, they have shown amazing bias:

(1) Most will openly begin their discussions by stating some sycophantic love of Brady. They will blather on about how amazing he is, how handsome, how his wife is beautiful, how great he is, etc. They have almost uniformly stated that “the public” views Brady as “the perfect athlete and the perfect man.” They don’t seem to be aware of the fact that the public outside of the Boston area and their newsroom sees him much more negatively. They claim his legacy is that of a squeaky clean athlete, which is not anything the public at large would say about Brady.

(2) In his defense, they have done several entirely intellectually dishonest things:

(A) They have only presented people who think Brady is innocent or doesn’t deserve to be punished. So far, I have only seen two people allowed on these shows who think Brady needed to be punished, and even they have said so grudgingly.

(B) They have misstated the report and the basis for the punishment repeatedly. For example, the report concluded that there was sufficient evidence to find that it is more probable than not that Brady was involved. That’s legal speak for “meets the preponderance of the evidence standard.” But they have argued this is equivocation, which it is not. They have also argued that there is no “smoking gun” because the report never found anyone who specifically admitted that Brady was involved. Yet, it is almost unheard of to find such evidence. Almost all cases are handled on the basis of circumstantial evidence. They have also misstated the basis for the punishment which is the violation AND failure to cooperate. They only stick to the first part of that and they claim they don’t see the proof.

(C) They have openly misstated the report to such a degree that its author took the unusual steps of debunking their reporting today.

(D) They have pretended that they are incapable of seeing any competitive advantage to doing this, even as others have pointed out the numerous advantages, and even as that would make Brady a total fool.

(E) They routinely endorse the conspiracy theory that the league wanted to punish Brady for reasons that make no sense in their assumptions and asides.

The worst of the worst is this dipstick named Mike Florio. He runs a rumor website which NBC bought, and he has been dishonestly defending the Patriots for years. Since this story broke, he’s been on the offensive. In the past several months, he has done each of the following:

(A) Tried to suggest that the mere act of testing the PSI in the balls caused them to become illegal, i.e. the NFL invented the crime.

(B) Made a wrong claim about how far below the legal limit the balls were and then debunked his own claim and used that debunking to attack the report as flawed as if the report relied on his own claim.

(C) Despite writing article after article attacking the report at the edges, he never once wrote an article outlining the actual findings of the report, like the damning text messages.

(D) He did things like claim that Wells’ claim of a lack of cooperation is based on Wells basically harassing the Patriots with “many requests” to interview the same employee, when the reality is that Wells only made two such requests and he said he would work around the employee’s schedule.

(E) He wrote articles saying this could not have led to an advantage and never reported the NFL quarterbacks and scientists who stated to the contrary.

(F) Then he got tricky... realizing perhaps that his case was hopeless, he began to write articles claiming that “everyone” does this. Despite the fact he never could identify a single QB who admitted that, he began using his own report as evidence of “public dissent” with the official report. (Others actually wrote articles saying that Tom should have been allowed to do this because... well, because!)

(G) He tried to deflect attention from Brady by attacking the Colts for reporting the crime... blaming the victim.

(H) He began attacking every other team or player he could find who had broken any rules. Basically, he smeared everyone else. He would also accuse any journalist who discussed Deflategate in anything less than a totally pro-Patriot’s manner of bias.

Today, the grieving process finally took these “unbiased” journalists to the point where they were assuring each other that the Patriots would teach every other team a lesson for doing this to them: “We’ll show you!!”

All of this has been an amazing example of what happens when you are biased and what can happen to a news organization when it collects a critical mass of similarly biased individuals. These Patriots-fanatics/friends-of-Tom-cum-journalists have (1) blinded themselves to the world outside their bubble where Tom is not seen as Godlike or pure... he’s seen as an arrogant cheater, (2) they have excluded those who do not belong to the bubble, (3) they have convinced themselves that there is simply no proof of guilt by demanding that the report achieve an impossible standard (“absolutely certainty”), (4) they are passing around conspiracy theories and attacking the messenger and the victim, (5) they are blind to the horrible PR that the tantrum the Patriots are throwing is doing to their image, indeed, they have embraced it – one even called it “a well needed middle finger to the NFL,” (6) they are dismissing all evidence of which they don’t approve as bias and skewing the rest, and (7) they have chosen to defiantly defend their friend.

This is IDENTICAL to the way the MSM treats the Democrats. Isn’t it interesting that the same MSM is packed with former Democratic operatives and journalists married to current Democrats?

The coverage of Deflategate should be used as a model for studying how the reliability of journalists breaks down when they are biased. Those lessons should be used by conservatives as a means of demanding new rules of ethics from the field of journalism.

Thoughts?

[+] Read More...

Elections and Other Stuff...

I don't have much for today, but just a little about my assessment of recent elections. I am not sure that the Liberals really grasp how badly they lost in 2014. Not only did they lose the Senate badly, but, according to National Conference of State Legislatures, "Republicans gained 300-350 seats in state government and control over 4,100 of the nation’s 7,383 legislative seats." The last time this happened was in the 1920's.

That's great, but here is why I think they are even more clueless. Earlier this year, Obama's crackerjack election team went to Israel to help and advise Isaac Herzog on how to defeat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Herzog and his party lost badly.

David Axelrod, key election adviser to Obama along with our dear New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio traveled to England to advise Ed Millibrand and his Labour Party on how to defeat David Cameron and his Conservative Party. Millibrand and Labour lost badly.

They just don't get that the people are just not buying what they are selling.

Now, here is where it gets really fun. NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio is travelling the US to sell his version of the Liberal "Contract With America" that will be revealed soon. He is convinced that the Democrats can win in 2016 if they can just move sharply left. Now, Bill has never really understood that he won by only 18% of vote of NYC registered voters despite that the fact that he swears he has a "mandate from the people". This is his now-famous quote from his recent Rolling Stone Magazine interview:

"A lot of people outside New York City understand what happened in the first year of New York City better than people in New York City. But I´m convinced something very special happened here."

Yeah, real special - murder is up 20% including three dead cops and we just don't "get" his brilliance. [Full disclosure: I have not read his RS interview because I just don't want to.] Though he has already announced that he will run again in 2017, I predict that he most certainly he will not win. He is that unpopular.

Anyway, let's hope the Dems keep up their present election track record.

Oh, did I forget to tell you that yet another New York State elected official has been indicted for wrong-doing? Remember earlier this year, I told you about long-time Democrat Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's arrest. This time it is the Republican State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos who was arrested on federal corruption charges and after much wrangling, he finally stepped down today. I don't know the details and it almost doesn't even matter anymore. But at this rate, we may have to ask for volunteers to fill our state legislature simply because no one will be left who isn't already in jail.

[+] Read More...

Monday, May 11, 2015

Obama v. Warren

This is one of those interesting moments. Elizabeth Warren has gone on the offensive against Obama’s attempt to create a little free trade and Obama fired back. Let’s discuss.

Point One: Free Trade Is Conservative. Free trade is the most fundamental issue of conservatism. Why do I say that? Because free trade is the issue that began it all when Adam Smith opined about the power of the invisible hand to establish market prices. All of conservatism and its endorsement of the freedom of individuals to chart their own course flows from that. Hence, any true conservative should support free trade, both within our own markets/economy and in our dealings with other countries.

What’s more, the history of free trade has been a stunning success at bringing peaceful growth to the countries involved. Countries that engage in free trade grow faster, create thriving middle classes, and generally stop going to war.

Our history, however, hasn’t always been pro-free market. In fact, the GOP has often favored tariffs and other stupidity. But since the 1960s, when Milton Friedman came along, free trade has been a fundamental pillar of conservatism... at least until the populists showed up in 2010.

Democrats, on the other hand, hate free trade... or claim to. They whine about unfair trade practices and how free trade means shipping jobs overseas and how big evil corporations use free trade to weaken our labor and environmental laws.

Hence, it is interesting to see Obama in the position of defending free trade while the rest of the Democratic party seeks to stop him. So is he a secret conservative? Well, no. The truth is that there has always been a bit of fraud regarding free trade and the Democrats. By and large, the Democrats in Washington are fine with free trade. They understand the benefits. They just need to avoid being seen favoring it, so they rail against these treaties while letting the President take the heat... as he’s doing now.

Point Two: Obama v. Warren. Generally, I take Democratic fights with a grain of salt. And I would normally say that any fight between Obama and Elizabeth Warren is political theater. They are intellectual fellow travelers. This time, however, the fighting seems to have gotten rather personal. Indeed, Obama has made comments that sound like he’s suggesting her criticism is stupid. Specifically, he said:

“The notion that I had this massive fight with Wall Street to make sure we don’t have what happened in 2007 and 2008, and then I sign a provision to unravel it? I’d have to be pretty stupid.”

It sounds like he is offended. I also go back to the points that (1) Obama does not take criticism well and (2) he particularly does not take criticism from women well. What’s more interesting about this, however, it that usually in the past, Democratic presidents have avoided firing back on potential Democratic presidential candidates as they try to pander to the electorate by claiming to be more pure than the sitting president. Obama, however, just fired back. That makes me wonder if Obama isn’t going to be more interested in protecting his legacy than he will be in helping whoever is running to replace him. Could get interesting to watch.

Thoughts?

[+] Read More...

Friday, May 8, 2015

Kit's Friday Thoughts: UK Election, Charlie Hebdo

By Kit Well, this week this has been an interesting week with a big election and some nut jobs attempting to stop somebody's freedom of expression (Unfortunately they tried this in Texas) and a couple of people accepted an award on behalf of their friends who actually were killed by nut jobs trying to squash their freedom of expression.

Let's look at both, shall we?

[+] Read More...

At The Film Site: 2010 (1984)

Thursday, May 7, 2015

More On Pamela Geller

Okay, just one more time about Pamela Geller. I read an Op/Ed piece this morning in the New York Daily News written by Linda Stasi titled "With Pamela Geller's Prophet Muhammad cartoon stunt in Texas, hate rears its ugly face again". Oh, you can pretty much guess what she had to say. Shame on Pamela Geller for inciting Islamic terrorists to commit murder. She got what she wanted - dead terrorists. [In my mind, that is actually the big plus. But that's just me...]. Oh, yeah, Stasi was very careful to reiterate that trying to murder people over cartoons is really, really bad, BUT [there is always the "but" with liberals], Pam was asking for it.

[+] Read More...

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Open Thread

I must be missing something. After those ISIS morons in Texas decided to try to kill some Texans, a very stupid move as any American would know... do your killing in blue states, my friends... I assumed Obama would come out and warn us not to leap to conclusions, not to think this was terrorism just because it involved Muslim terrorists trying to kill Americans in the name of jihad, and to remind us that if so many Texans did not own guns then it's possible that no one would ever die anywhere. Instead, he called them terrorists. Huh. I wonder why. What do you think?

Monday, May 4, 2015

What I Did On My Vacation and other stuff...

Hi-ho, people of CommentaramaPolitics! I hope you didn't miss me too much. I just spent a glorious week in jolly ol' London and had a mahvelous time. London is a wonderful city of civilized people where autos actually stop for pedestrians crossing the street and the Underground runs like clockwork. If the New York subway system ran one tenth as efficiently, New Yorkers would have to find something else to complaint about! Seriously, London is great.

The most astounding was Westminster Abbey where I stood at the graves of the entire history of the British Empire. I paid homage to Henry V who was immortalized by Shakespeare in the "St. Crispin's Day" speech. I was walking through this glorious Abbey, I stopped to look around. When I looked down, I was standing on the grave of Charles Darwin! I admit that I wept at Poet's Corner where all of the greatest writers of the English language are buried - Keats, Shelley, Audin, Austin, the Brontes, the list was endless. And then there was Sir Isaac Newton. All of it was a breath-taking.

However, on a bitter note, I was disappointed that the Queen did not answer the doorbell at Buckingham Palace. I mean, really, I am about 6 millionth+ in line for the Crown. You'd think that she wouldn't be so ill-mannered to not receive me. But then again, with the pending birth of little Charlotte Elizabeth Diana, I can only assume that she and the other royals were otherwise occupied. But frankly, I thought it was really rude that they couldn't arrange for Kate to give birth while I was there. I suspect that they specifically waited until I was safely on the plane going back "across the pond" to announce the birth. Well, I will certainly return that baby gift!

All bitterness aside and as a complete non-sequitor to my vacation, I want to share something that I read before I left for jolly ol' England. It is one of the most elegant responses that I have ever read on the subject of "Religion v. Science". Of all places, it appeared on the Village Voice blog written by a young man who goes by the moniker of Andrew W.K. To look at his photo, one would suspect that he would not or could not be so elegant. To me this is the perfect example of why I strive to "never judge a book by its cover". I am copying his response to a question in its entirety because it is worth reading: Ask Andrew W.K.: 'How Do I Show Religious Freaks That Science Wins?':

Yo, Andrew.

How can anyone believe in religion? It's so ignorant and obviously fake. I've always backed science since I was a little kid, and now I'm proud to say that I'm studying to be a molecular biologist in college. The thing is, I'm surrounded by a lot of religious idiots at this school, and whenever I try to explain to them how believing in a man in heaven who rose from the dead and all that superstitious BS is literally causing the murder of millions of people, they argue back and tell me that "science is evil and is playing God," and that I should develop my "faith" before I blow up the world.

What is the best way to finally get through to these ignorant people and explain to them simply and finally that they're wrong? If they would just give in and accept the scientific future, they would see that they don't need religion to enjoy life.

Thanks for your feedback,
Enlightened Scientist

Dear Enlightened Scientist,

Science versus religion.

I've always found this to be one of the most unnecessary arguments in contemporary society. Why does it have to be one way or another? I may not be the most mature or educated person, but when I see highly esteemed academics twice my age arguing about this, on and on, it puzzles and concerns me. Arguing about whether science or religion is better seems about as futile as arguing about whether day or night is better. Both have their qualities and shortcomings; neither can (nor should) be expected to replace the other. They are two sides of the same coin, and they both emerged out of — and are aspects of — a fundamental search for reality.

Both science and religion came from mankind's desire to know. Both are striving for truth. Science wants to understand truth. Religion wants to experience it. Science wants to get at truth from the outside in. Religion gets at it from the inside out. Science gives us the how; religion gives us the why. Science gives us the means to an end, religion gives us the meaning of that end. Science wants to bring comprehension to the universe. Religion wants to bring tangibility to the intangible.

You say your argument is that science has never killed anyone like people have been killed in the name of religion. While people may not murder each other "in the name of science," we do know that nuclear bombs, chemical weapons, eugenics and biological experimentation can also contribute to death and killing in an endless variety of ways. Both science and religion can be used as a method or justification by those who want to cause pain and suffering and break the rules of common sense and humanity. And even if one has a more extreme body count than the other, it doesn't mean that one should exist and the other shouldn't. None of the crimes that humanity has committed against itself mean that science is evil or that religion is bad. All it means is that people can do horrible things to each other using all sorts of convoluted reasoning.

Ultimately, it seems that when people complain about the harm of religion, they're often simply complaining about people behaving badly. They're talking about their dislike of people behaving barbarically. As much as the truth of God may be beyond description and intellectual grasp, the truth of human cruelty and ignorance is all too familiar and measurable. And when people claim to talk about the evil of science, they're actually just complaining about those unfortunate scientists who lack the ethical tools or moral integrity to guide and refine the use of their discoveries. Both religious people and scientific people can behave badly. A closed-minded scientist can be a jerk just as easily as a devout religious person can be a fool. No mode of thought or set of beliefs should be blamed for the lack of character in a particular individual. Nor should the vast array of benefits found in both science and religion be thrown away just because some people behave poorly in spite of them.

So your complaint really shouldn't be with religion or people who are religious, but simply with the unfortunately all-too-familiar shortcomings of the human race. Any religion that promotes hatred is not really a religion at all. And any scientist who cannot live with the spirit of brotherly love in his heart has more problems to investigate inside himself than in the material world. Every person who feels it necessary to battle over the definition or location of truth is neither in possession of any truth to begin with, nor do they have the possibility of experiencing any truth while existing in a prejudiced, spiteful, and unloving state of mind. We must do better than this. We have to grow.

Out of all the principles we should tirelessly strive to live with, gentle kindness, flexibility of spirit, open-mindedness, and a type of pure and unconditional love are the most crucial — especially when we feel most compelled not to behave that way. We simply cannot claim to be real human beings until we can learn to live with the other human beings around us, no matter how religious or scientific they may or may not be. Learning to live with one another remains our first and most urgent challenge, and it starts with each of us honestly working at it from the inside. It's much easier and much more tempting to lash out and attack everyone else we think is wrong, but we must start much closer to home. We can't fix the world until we fix ourselves first.

Someday, maybe science or religion really will claim dominance and beat the other once and for all. But until then, it seems that we each have plenty of work to do personally and internally, in order to become more gracious, more tolerant, and more humane human beings.

Your friend,
Andrew W.K.

Please feel free to discuss...

[+] Read More...

At The Film Site: The Life And Times of Chief Martin Brody

Forget Our New Overlords...

I love disaster enthusiasts. If you listen to these people, the world is coming to an end at every turn. The sky is falling. Humanity is doomed. And there’s nothing we can do about it!! I find these people laughable. Let’s consider the latest problem: computers/robots.

[+] Read More...

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)