It’s the phones’ fault

Via Ed Brayton comes this report that “NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton is blaming the “epidemic” of cell phone videos of police officers committing misconduct and abuse for that misconduct.” Makes perfect sense to me, and it confirms a theory I have that I call “Schrödinger’s Cop.” See, there’s two waveforms present in any police interaction with citizens, and the act of observing this interaction, via a cell phone’s video camera, causes the waveform to collapse. It’s all quantum, right Commissioner Bratton?

Either that or else Bratton is just bullshitting to try and excuse police misconduct. Hmm.

Different, thus dangerous

According to a report on NPR, almost a dozen states have joined together to file a lawsuit seeking to protect bigotry and privilege against an onslaught of justice and equal rights for minorities.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, says the federal government has “conspired to turn workplaces and educational settings across the country into laboratories for a massive social experiment, flouting the democratic process, and running roughshod over commonsense policies protecting children and basic privacy rights.”

Yes, a “massive social experiment.” Those evil government officials, with their bubbling test tubes and unstable nuclear reactors, rubbing their rubber-gloved hands together and gleefully cackling, “Let’s take a bunch of innocent, harmless people and see what happens if we mind our own business and leave them alone, MUAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!”

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How to be “politically correct”

Since a lot of people seem to have trouble with the idea of “political correctness,” I thought I’d post a short guide to what it means to be politically correct. You know, so everyone can be on the same page as far as what people are complaining about. It’s a short list. “Political correctness” means simply that you

  1. Understand and agree that merely being different is not, in itself, doing anyone any harm, and
  2. Recognize that it’s wrong to punish people who are doing no harm, even if they are different.

And that’s it. That’s what all the fuss is about. When people complain about political correctness, as if it were some kind of horrible tyranny, what they’re saying is that they object to one or both of these elementary moral principles. [Read more…]

Why can’t conservatives discriminate too?

Writing for townhall.com, Christian apologist Frank Turek asks, “Can Bruce Springsteen Refuse to Play a Gay Wedding?”

I agree with Bruce Springsteen who cancelled his concert in my adopted home state of North Carolina because he objected to HB2 (the bathroom law). I also agree with Paypal, which cancelled their plans to expand in Charlotte because they think the law is “discriminatory.” Why? Because I believe that performers and businesses have every right not to do business with whom they disagree. In other words, they have the right to discriminate against the people of North Carolina.

But if liberals can deny services to people with whom they disagree, then why can’t conservatives?

And while we’re at it, why can’t you peel an apple the same way you peel an orange? Life is just so darn unfair!

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MAKE ’em fly it

A lot of people are calling for South Carolina and other southern states to quit flying the Confederate flag outside of government buildings. I’m not. I say make ’em fly it.

Make ’em fly it until they redraw their voting districts so that black votes have as much weight as white votes.

Make ’em fly it until black applicants are as likely to be hired as white, for jobs that white applicants want.

Make ’em fly it until the police are no more likely to stop and frisk a person of color than to do the same to a white person.

Make ’em fly it until schools with mostly black students are as well-funded as schools with mostly white students.

Make ’em fly it until they end the practice of railroading young black men into prisons under the pretext of a so-called “war on drugs,” release everyone unjustly imprisoned by this sham, and expunge their records so they can vote and hold decent jobs and live normal lives.

Make ’em fly it until they quit pretending not to be racists, and actually produce substantial, substantive improvements in civil rights and racial equality.

It’s a shameful, ugly, disgusting symbol for a host of shameful, ugly injustices. Fix the injustices, and then we can talk about removing the shameful symbols.

Caitlyn Jenner vs Tim Tebow

The “soldiers are brave” meme, as an attack on Caitlyn Jenner, pretty much flopped, so conservative evangelicals have come up with a new meme to spread the word about what a poor, persecuted majority they are.

The people applauding Bruce [sic] Jenner for “being himself” [sic] are the same people who condemned Tim Tebow and told him to “keep his beliefs to himself”. That’s what is wrong with America.

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The opposite of separation

If you want a cautionary tale of why it’s important to maintain a separation of church and state, look no farther than the Republican party today. Once they were liberal (no, really, they started out as liberals), and for a very long time they were secular. But then they decided, as a political move, to abandon separation of church and state, and embrace its opposite. I’m not entirely sure what the opposite of “separation” is—the phrase “incest of church and state” comes to mind—but they embraced it. And now look at them: paralyzed by internal divisions and bickering by leaders whose vision ranges from the intransigent to the hallucinatory, always sliding deeper and deeper into an agenda that none dare call fascist, promising “security” in exchange for liberty, and delivering neither.

And they want to make America Republican. Think about that.

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Life After Jesus: How to live with believers

I ceased to be a believer late in the year 2000, and in many ways the decade and a half since then has been a struggle to understand how to relate to my past. Or rather, how to relate to those who still hold the same beliefs and practices I did during all those years that started with “19–.” My first approach was nastily adversarial. Jesus, or his designated representatives, had deceived me for most of my adult life, and I was pissed. I made believers uncomfortable, and I made myself uncomfortable, and to be honest I was rather relieved when that phase passed. I wasn’t happy being the angry atheist.

And yet, neither could I be comfortable with the more tolerant alternative. I find it hard to hold my tongue when I hear people say things that I know are wrong and/or hurtful. I couldn’t just go to church and keep my thoughts to myself. Suffering in silence isn’t my thing. I’ve compensated somewhat by writing blog posts, which helps, but even that tends to get repetitive and unsatisfying after a while. And I still have to live and interact with believers, some of whom are in positions of authority over me.

I feel like I’m getting closer to a livable principle, finally, and it’s based on my understanding that religion is essentially a degenerate game of make believe.

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Is free college the answer?

According to Salon.com, plank number one in Bernie Sanders’ presidential platform is a plan to provide free college tuition at four-year public colleges and universities, funded by a tax on Wall Street stock transactions. I think overall that this would be a great thing, a great investment in America’s future, and an entirely appropriate use of government funds. That said, however, I have some reservations about whether this would really do as much good as we might hope.

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