Wow. More dreck from the Guardian. This time it’s not so much the “we must defend free speech but not really” brand of dreck as the making up their own facts brand. Let’s play Spot the Mistakes.
First two sentences of the piece:
The attacks were in different continents and on people of different faiths and of none, but in the North Carolina university town of Chapel Hill and the Danish capital, Copenhagen, it was freedom itself that was the intended target. On Tuesday, three young Muslim students were gunned down in their Chapel Hill flat, apparently by a neighbour, Craig Hicks, who claimed their faith was an affront to his atheistic principles.
Is that a mistake or deliberately deceptive wording? I don’t know. Anyway it makes it look as if Hicks explained his murder of the three student by saying “their faith was an affront to my atheistic principles.” I haven’t seen any reputable news sources that claim he said that, in fact I haven’t seen any that claim to know anything about what he’s said since turning himself in.
The Guardian seems to think it knows more than any journalistic outlets in the US know. It seems to think it knows that Craig Hicks killed his three neighbors because their religion was an affront to his atheistic principles. I don’t think the Guardian knows any such thing.
Then in the last paragraph:
The killing of the three Muslim students by a gunman whose Facebook page contained violent threats against all organised religion, including Islam, was initially described by local police as a dispute over a parking place.
Violent threats against all organised religion? I don’t think so. I looked at his Facebook page too, and it did make me very uneasy, it was full of very typical gnu atheist mockery and similar rhetoric, but violent threats? I don’t think so.
Nice job, Guardian.
Come on, let us make equivalences or there’s no article. Not just the text but the CON- text.
Guardian has surpassed itself in hideous indecency – actually, no, its Charlie Hebdo coverage was fairly unbeatable.
“full of very typical gnu atheist mockery and similar rhetoric”
You are acting just like the Guardian when you say things like that. Hicks was a vocal supporter of abortion rights, LGBT equality, religious freedom, and supported liberal social NGOs like the SPLC. He even…wait for it…spoke out against rape along the lines of rape culture theory.
To reduce him to his snarky attitude about religion is your profoundly misguided war on non-theists like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins who reject your specific brand of feminist politics (which I do to as a liberal feminist). In fact Hicks is so orthodox in his ‘progressive’ views, he could readily pass for the A+ if you ignored the deal breaker of gun ownership. Deal with it.
Katherine, do stop with the attempted mind-reading. It’s very irritating. That’s not what I was saying at all – what I said had nothing to do with Dawkins and Harris. I wasn’t saying Hicks wasn’t interested in other things too, I was saying he wasn’t making violent threats. You seem to have completely misread what I wrote, and then gone from that to Lecture From On High #7 million.
AND, in response to Sir Elton John’s call to “ban religion completely”, Hicks responded with:
I don’t agree with the first part of Elton’s statement, with banning religion. Not that I care for religion, as I most definitely do not, but banning it would be taking away a persons rights and I oppose that.
I’m seeing no acknowledgment of THAT in any of the hyperventilating “Look! It’s a murderous ATHEIST who hated teh MOOSLEMS!!” coverage.
The Guardian: Craig Hicks is an atheist monster whose Facebook page is filled with violent threats and who killed 3 Muslims because he hates their religion.
Ophelia: Actually, there has been no public release of information about Craig Hicks’ specific reasons for shooting his neighbours plus his Facebook page contains no violent threats, so the Guardian is wrong to report these things as facts.
Katherine: How dare you hate on Craig Hicks based on your illiberal feminist agenda?
Really, Katherine, WTF?
@Ophelia
“Katherine, do stop with the attempted mind-reading. It’s very irritating.”
If by “mind-reading” you mean building upon a previous discussion between us, specifically quoting you from this piece, and mentioning two “gnu atheists” with whom you have long-standing disagreements, then sure, I guess.
Meanwhile, Rebecca Watson was indeed smearing Dawkins and Harris (and Karuss) of being responsible on some level for this crime. I guess I missed you condemnation of that little stunt of hers.
@chrislawson
“How dare you hate on Craig Hicks based on your illiberal feminist agenda?”
This is such a shamelessly dishonest characterization of what I wrote, that it says you can’t muster a coherent rebuttal.
@Katherine Woo
As much as I can sort of see where you are coming from, Ophelia Benson isn’t Rebecca Watson’s keeper, and certainly isn’t responsible for everything Watson writes.
This is where the issue of mind reading comes in.
Maybe she finds what Watson wrote boring, or didn’t read it, or just didn’t have much to say that wasn’t said. There are a million and one reasons why she may not have covered Watson’s behavior and you can’t know them.
Criticize what there is, not what there isn’t.
2 Katherine
To reduce him to his snarky attitude about religion is your profoundly misguided war on non-theists like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins who reject your specific brand of feminist politics (which I do to as a liberal feminist).At the risk of wandering off topic, if you’ve bought into their version of feminism, you’ve been misled.
So, Katherine, how did I misrepresent your position? I’ve re-read Ophelia’s post and your comment, and my conclusion is that (i) my original representation is completely accurate, and (ii) you are puffing yourself up and attempting to manufacture a sense of outrage in order to pretend you didn’t say what you clearly said. Mind you, I’m more than willing to change my mind and apologise if you can explain to me how my representation was inaccurate rather than simply assert that it’s inaccurate.
American atheists have been engaged in a weird mea culpa all over social media.
The Gruniad thinks that social media is the news.
QED
Katherine, speaking as someone who does not recall your handle, and thus has no preconception about where you are coming from, I also interpreted your first comment precisely as chrislawson did. If that’s not what you mean, perhaps you should try rewording it to more clearly explain what you do mean, rather than shouting about how you’re being misrepresented.
Katherine, I echo what Johnny Vector at
#1611 says. I don’t recall reading or responding to you here previously, but I think your first comment here was a poor response to what Ophelia actually said in the OP. You realize that she, and many of us here, were part of the ‘Gnu Atheist’ thing, right? It’s not a dismissive characterization designed to lump Hicks in with Thought Leaders We Don’t Like. It’s apt.Deal with it.
Uh, whoopsie. On the off chance that Johnny Vector doesn’t say something I completely agree with at the yet-to-be-written comment #16, I was actually referring to his comment that preceded mine.
Heh. That comment is too droll to throw out, so I did a visible fix instead of an invisible.
The Guardian continues to demonstrate that it’s best use is wrapping fish or lining bird cages.