That’s not what persecution means

I have had a few back and forth discussions with Christians in the short time I have been an open and notorious atheist (open to everyone, notorious to only a select few) regarding the current clime of opinion regarding Christianity in North America. In a nutshell, Christians in the United States (particularly) and Canada (occasionally) complain that Christians are being ‘persecuted’ for their faith. It is a ridiculous claim, and a poorly-disguised attempt to re-brand themselves as victims of some kind of concerted effort to stamp out Christianity. Even the friggin’ Pope buys into this nonsense.

As “evidence” for this claim, Christians often point to the fact that secularists and atheists talk most often about Christianity, when there are a number of other perfectly bad religions to complain about. The response to this claim is so trivially easy to supply, it honestly makes me question whether or not the people who repeat it have put any thought into their argument whatsoever – it’s because Christianity has been the dominant religion in this continent for generations. It is deeply entrenched in our history and our culture, so much so that people try to claim that it is the foundation of our heritage (a ridiculous claim I have refuted before).

If you look to another country where there is a different religious tradition, you’ll find the same kind of whining:

One of India’s leading Muslim groups has appealed against a ruling over the Ayodhya holy site, where a Hindu mob destroyed a mosque 18 years ago. Two months ago, Lucknow High Court said the land should be divided, and that the razed 16th century mosque should not be rebuilt. Jamiat-Ulama-i-Hind says the judgement appears to be based not on evidence but on the professed belief of Hindus.

The whiners, in this case, are the Hindus, who have tried to bring their totally ridiculous beliefs to bear in a land dispute. The Lucknow court appears to consider superstition worthwhile legal evidence. I want to try that – break into someone’s house and when the cops come to arrest me say “but I really believe I live here!” I’d be lucky to escape a mental institution, let alone jail.

I’ve made this point before, but the so-called “persecution” of Christians in this country is essentially just a reflection of privilege. They (though surely not all of them) complain that they’re being “oppressed”, when what’s really happening is that people are not letting them get away with whatever they want anymore. You’re welcome to believe privately that homosexuality is a sin, or that abortion is murder. You can even go out in the public square and scream your head off about it. However, you’re not allowed to impose the consequences of your personal beliefs on others, particularly if there is specific legislation against it.

Some people on the other side of this conversation will reply with something ridiculous like “well if a Christian gets discriminated against, nobody says anything!” Nobody says anything because that never happens! It’s like when men complain about being the targets of sexual discrimination because they aren’t allowed to make sexist jokes at work or when conservatives say that universities are “intolerant” of conservative viewpoints. It’s only by stretching the definitions of those words beyond what any reasonable person would recognize that these become even passably accurate claims. Not being allowed to offend others is not “discrimination”, it’s politeness. Not tolerating opinions that are based on fallacious reasoning and intentional twisting and cherry-picking of facts is not “intolerance”, it’s logic.

Not having your personal beliefs (founded on unprovable assertions and easily-recognized logical fallacies) recognized as legitimate is not “persecution”, it’s fairness.

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Religion meets the courts

I would make a shitty judge. Don’t get me wrong – I look turbo-hot in robes. The problem I’d have is rendering a judgment that fits the law, rather than what I know to be right. After all, a skilled enough lawyer can make a case that a company that dumps toxic waste on baby seals has not broken the law, and my judgment must adhere to that principle.

The courts here in BC seem to be doing a better job:

Dissident conservative Anglicans in Vancouver and Abbotsford have no right to hold on to four church properties valued at more than $20 million, the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled Monday. As a result of the decision, more than 1,200 Anglicans who oppose same-sex blessings and reject the authority of Vancouver-area Bishop Michael Ingham are expected to have to vacate their church buildings soon.

Dismissing the main argument of a costly appeal by the conservative Anglican congregations, Justice Mary Newbury wrote that the dissidents “cannot in my respectful decision remove themselves from their diocesan structures and retain the right to use properties that are held for purposes of Anglican ministry in Canada.”

I read the decision (a fun exercise in legal thinking that I recommend everyone do from time to time), and the main point of the argument seems to be that while the congregation does hold the buildings in a trust, they do not have the right to divorce themselves from official church doctrine. The trust is held based on the assumption that the congregation is defending the official articles of faith – claiming to be “true believers” doesn’t grant them license to violate the official doctrine of the church.

Of course, this is a complete and total waste of time from my perspective. The whole undertaking is based on the belief that an invisible super-being cares who puts what in which orifice. I’ll simplify it for you, conservative Anglicans: nobody cares. There is no super-being, and the only people who are outraged by homosexuality are you. My advice: if it bothers you so much, don’t do it. But please don’t clog up the appeals courts with your superstitious nonsense – some of us are trying to build a society.

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Oh and by the way, religion is still crazy

If you were a new visitor to the blog this week, and didn’t bother to poke through the archives, you probably walked away with the impression that I am an even-handed and introspective commenter on race, history and education. I’m sorry for misleading you. I am actually a militant Gnu Atheist who gets his jollies lampooning the poor beleaguered faithful. As everyone knows, religious people just want to be left alone to practice their beliefs quietly outside the public eye, and we baby-eating fundamentalist  atheists keep trying to trample your rights to religious freedom. Well throw on a baby-eating bib folks, because I’m going for the jugular today.

Elizabeth Smart’s kidnapper used religion as excuse

Mitchell’s defence attorneys contend [Brian David Mitchell, kidnapper of Elizabeth Smart] suffers from an escalating mental illness and holds extreme religious beliefs that lead him to think he is directed by God. “He was his No. 1 priority, followed by sex, drugs and alcohol, but he used religion in all of those aspects to justify everything,” Smart said in a clear voice on her third and final day of testimony Wednesday.

Is this the face of the average believer? No. Absolutely not. This guy is a psychopath who has done unspeakable acts of evil to an innocent woman. The majority of believers (probably all of them) would repudiate this kind of action immediately as having absolutely nothing to do with their faith. However, his propensity for religious belief – his willingness to believe in a supernatural author for his perversion – was used as license to commit these acts. If religion was not available as an excuse for these kinds of things – if people didn’t have the idea in their minds that the voices they’re hearing are from a supernatural (rather than pathological) source, anyone reporting auditory hallucinations of the kind plaguing Mr. Mitchell would likely receive treatment rather than merely the wide berth you give the really religious among us.

His lawyers certainly wouldn’t be using it as a plea.

Capuchin Monks need young, tender males

Roman Catholic friars in Switzerland have placed a job advert in a newspaper as part of a recruitment drive. The Capuchin order says it is looking for professional single men like bankers or lawyers aged 22 to 35 to join its dwindling ranks. The community, which has 200 members with an average age of 70, hopes the ad will help recruit 10 to 20 men.

Yes, it is absolutely a cheap shot. Forgive me, I’ve been good all week. I have to scrub the stench of “reasoned dialogue” off of me.

Yep, the Capuchin monks (not to be confused with Capuchin monkeys which are much cuter, or with cappuccino, which is a delicious hot beverage) are looking for young professionals to bolster its aging and thereby dwindling population. Luckily they’re using tried and true recruitment offers that appeal to the average 22-30 year old:

“We offer you no pay, but spirituality and prayer, contemplation, an egalitarian lifestyle, free of personal material riches and the common model of a couple relationship,” it says.

Where do I sign up?

Gay bookstore gets letter from Jesus

David Rimmer of After Stonewall says that running a gay bookshop allows him to meet interesting people. But Rimmer recently received a letter from someone a little out of the ordinary: Jesus.

“Do not deceive yourself. I, Jesus The Christ, the Eternal God, with My Father and with My Spirit, will not be mocked by those who believe the lies of homosexuality. I will not be mocked by those who think My Last Supper is a joke. I don’t care who you are or what your so-called laws and policies are, I AM the final word and the Eternal Judge of all that lives and dies.”

Rimmer put the letter in his window.

Sorry Mr. Jesus, but you absolutely will be mocked by those of us living in the reality-based world. I’m not sure what kind of Christian would forge a letter from Jesus (that’s got to be against one of the commandments, surely), or why Jesus would resort to using the mail, or why he would focus on one bookstore in Ottawa, but surely an aspect of the Creator of the Universe has lots of spare time on his hands, what with the whole ‘omnipotence’ thing.

I can write a million satirical articles, I can post essay after carefully-crafted essay, I can work my entire life and I will never do as much to discredit the religious establishment as the believers can with a single “from Jesus” letter. Sigh, it’s almost enough to make me think I should just give up…

Just kidding, this shit’s hilarious.

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The scourge of “scientific” racism

As a scientist and a black man, I cannot describe to you how weary I am of having people throw “scientific racism” in my face. I don’t mean that people try to prove to me that black people are scientifically inferior; we’ve pretty much debunked that already. No, the thing I resent is when people say stupid things like “science used to say that black people were inferior – therefore everything that science says is suspect.” It is a wearying argument, because not only is it inaccurate, it is actually self-refuting.

First off, science never said that black people were inferior, at least not science in any way that I have described it in the past. Science is a process involving explanation based on observed data, controlling for alternative explanations. Scientists are people who purport to use that method. However, like all people, scientists are subject to human failings, and have been known to say some bullshit-stupid things. Luckily, we have a process for evaluating bullshit-stupid claims – it’s called science. The reason that we know that racial differences are largely sociologically-constructed (as opposed to genetic) is because of science. We didn’t use meditation or divine revelation or any of these “different ways of knowing” to figure that out – we used science.

As I said, the claim is both inaccurate and self-refuting. Scientists did, at one point, make claims about the inferiority of The Negro. They did not, however, base those claims on science. They made the claims, then looked for evidence to support their conclusions. That is not the scientific method; that is the religious method. The doctrine of white supremacy was not based on evidence, but on a supernatural belief in the manifest will of the Creator, who endowed white people with superior qualities. The doctrine absolutely did co-opt the scientific establishment into supporting its assertions, but when the shine was off the apple and real investigation was done, no differences were found. It didn’t have to be so – we could have found a great deal of genetic differences between different ethnic groups. The evidence, however, does not support any doctrine of supremacy (and yes, I have met actual black supremacists – they’re just as bereft of science as their white counterparts).

However, we cannot simply ignore the history that the scientific establishment played in the legitimization and mainstreaming of racism, as Ghana is teaching us:

The Council For Afrika, a UK-based think-tank has commemorated the third global campaign to combat scientific racism, reiterating its commitment to counter the marginalisation and dehumanisation of Africans. The council used the anniversary, which coincided with the first decade of the 21st Century, to draw attention to the escalation of afrophobia, attributed to the global recession. A statement issued to the Ghana News Agency in Accra, by Dr Koku Adomdza, President of the council, said: “Afrophobia has escalated based on discrimination against name, ascent, physical appearance, ethnicity and African ancestry in all spheres of life in the Global North.”

“Scientific” racism (I feel obligated to use quotations here, because it’s not scientific) is not a spectre of the past that we’ve thankfully moved beyond. The campaign started in response to bizarre comments made by James Watson (yes, that James Watson):

“[I am] inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa [because] all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours—whereas all the testing says not really.”

Dr. Watson said he hoped everyone was equal, but added: “People who have to deal with black employees find this not true.”

Stay classy, Dr. Watson.

Dr. Watson was making those claims based on “scientific” research that had been done into intelligence among different racial groups. Of course, like the phrenology studies of the early 19th century, this research was based on faulty assumptions and poor methodology. It has since been largely discredited. It becomes problematic when preeminent scientists start making recommendations about policy based on bad science, which is what happened here.

It is for reasons like this that I am a skeptic. Whenever someone tells me “well X and Y are true”, my first thought is “how do you know that?” Most of the time I ask out of genuine interest, particularly when it’s a topic I’m unfamiliar with. However, other times it comes out of a deep suspicion that the claim being presented is bolstered by nothing other than confirmation bias and anecdote. “Scientific” racism definitely falls under this category.

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Movie Friday: The Great Debate

My cup runneth over with frustration these days whenever I am drawn into debate with someone who trots out old, pre-debunked arguments, as though I’d never heard them before. It happens when discussing race, it happens when discussing gender, and it definitely happens with religion:

I wish life came with a moderator like this. Let’s stop with the old arguments. Let’s stop letting them clog the pipes. If we’re going to have a discussion, can we please start without me having to punch myself out of energy by carefully taking down each fallacy you’ve parrotted off of some website, particularly if they’ve been shown to be false again and again.

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This is NOT free speech

Some people are big fans of invoking ‘the line’ – “free speech is all well and good, but you have to do something when it crosses the line.” So where’s the line? Some of my friends think that the line is here, where free speech can be used to promote racism. Some think it’s here, when it’s used to promote hate. I have consistently said that those are not the line, for reasons that many people don’t agree with. We define racism and hate very poorly, and until someone can show me that criminalizing certain kinds of speech actually decreases hate (instead of just making people feel better), I’m not at all comfortable doing anything more than labeling it and speaking out against it.

There absolutely is a line, however. There is a line when it stops being speech, and starts being violence. There is a difference between criticizing ideas and attacking individuals based on group membership. There is a difference between speaking out against the actions of an individual who is harming someone and encouraging people to harm that individual. Once you are using speech to enact punishment on someone who is different from you, you’ve stepped outside the realm of free speech an into the realm of inciting violence.

Uganda provides us with an excellent illustration of this:

Several people have been attacked in Uganda after a local newspaper published their names and photos, saying they were homosexual, an activist has told the BBC. Frank Mugisha said one woman was almost killed after her neighbours started throwing stones at her house. He said most of those whose names appeared in Uganda’s Rolling Stone paper had been harassed.

Rolling Stone is not criticizing these people for decisions they’ve made. They are not making a political point, or exposing some kind of hypocrisy in elected leaders. They are dangling fresh meat in front of a rabid mob, made ravenous for the blood of gay people by a culture of hatred and persecution.

The excuses that the editor used to attempt to justify the publication are so flimsy as to be offensive:

Giles Muhame, editor of the two-month-old Rolling Stone paper, denied that he had been inciting violence by publishing the names next to a headline which read “Hang them”. He said he was urging the authorities to investigate and prosecute people “recruiting children to homosexuality”, before executing anyone found guilty. He also said he was acting in the public interest, saying Ugandans did not know to what extent homsexuality was “ravaging the moral fabric of our nation”, and he vowed to continue to publish the names and photographs of gay Ugandans.

This is one of the outcomes of the lie that gay people choose to be gay. If the abundance of psychological literature, the narrative of gay people, and simple logic (when did you choose to be straight?) wasn’t enough to put that ridiculous claim to the lie, Uganda is proof that people don’t choose. Why on Earth would anyone choose to be gay in a country where being gay is justification for assault, public exposure, and state-sponsored execution? Anti-gay bigots love to trumpet the “recruitment” canard, trying to make themselves out to be the victims of unjust ideological encroachment (can you say privilege? I knew you could…). Once again, this is confusing the attempt to reduce active hatred and systematic oppression with some kind of “homosexualist agenda” that will make kids gay. This is quite literally a life or death issue for gay people, particularly in Uganda. Nobody is going to be killed or targeted for violence because they don’t like gay people – and I swear right here and right now that if that happens I will be among the first to protest that. The vice, however, is not versa.

I can’t think of anything else to write. This newspaper disgusts me. That whole country disgusts me right now.

Here’s a picture of an otter:

She looks a bit disgusted too.

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Religious privilege writ large

When the Pope decried the “marginalization” of Christianity in Westminster Hall in England, I commented that this persecution complex that Christians have is simply based on their perspective; not a reflection of reality at all. Relativity teaches us that if you assume your frame of reference is fixed, it can appear as though you are moving toward something when in fact that thing is moving toward you – more specifically since Christianity sits high atop the heap (and has for a long time), the fact that it is moving toward the middle looks, to Christians, like they are being marginalized. It’s a phenomenon known in statistics as regression to the mean.

However, in sociology circles this phenomenon is known as privilege. This should not be confused with having privileges in the sense of freedoms to do stuff like leave your desk at work or the privilege of addressing an audience when giving an amazing speech. Privilege is what happens when you or your group have an undeserved level of power based not on your actual merits, but for historical reasons. There’s a lot of talk in anti-racist circles about white privilege – white people are at the top of the heap internationally because of the technological dominance of Europe in the colonial era, and since then have enjoyed a false assumed superiority over all other groups. In feminist circles, it is male privilege that is discussed – for reasons that I am not educated enough to speak on, men have dominated (and oppressed) women and have enjoyed a false assumed superiority over women.

One of the manifestations of privilege is the fact that the group in question is completely unaware that they enjoy it. Because these groups have built a system for themselves (through the selective interpretation of history, through in-group legislation, through behind-the-scenes social programs) that empowers its members from the moment of their birth. While you were reading that last sentence, you weren’t aware of the feeling of your pants/skirt against your legs; you weren’t aware of the background hum of fluorescent lights; you weren’t aware of the sound of your own breathing – when it’s there all the time, you don’t notice it’s there. Of course now that I’ve reminded you of these things, you may suddenly be aware of them. The other side of privilege is that those who have it are free to deny that it exists, and instead claim that those in the non-privileged groups are trying to rob the privileged of things that they deserve.

As an anti-racist and feminist, it’s no stretch for the anti-theist in me to see the exact same phenomenon happening in religious groups:

In her affidavit, a 24-year-old woman from the fundamentalist Mormon enclave of Bountiful says attending Cranbrook’s College of the Rockies was “going into what I see as a wild and unstable world. Out there people were behaving in ways that are not in accord with my beliefs — fighting, impatient, yelling, dating and breaking up, drinking, using foul language.”

In another affidavit, a woman identified as Witness No. 2 complains that Revenue Canada has cut back child-tax benefits to some plural wives. It says they are living common-law and must claim the father of the child’s income, regardless of whether others are already claiming it. “This has been a real hardship,” she says.

It has all the hallmarks of privilege: other people’s behaviour is not in accordance with my beliefs, therefore I am persecuted; the tax code doesn’t make exemptions for my religion, therefore I am persecuted; I am not free to live outside the laws of the country I live in, therefore I am persecuted. These are people who don’t understand what persecution looks like. Persecution is what happens when you are not given rights that other people have based on your group affiliation. Persecution is what happens when you are repeatedly told that the way you are born makes you somehow deficient or unworthy. Persecution is what happens when you must work twice as hard to achieve half as much as someone else because of superficial qualities that are completely unrelated to your job.

Privilege is what allows you to ignore all of those things and cry ‘victim’ when you are told that you can no longer behave outside the law based on your entirely-voluntary beliefs.

Before someone starts a mindless rebuttal of this point, saying that I’m describing the “homosexualist agenda” or “Islamification” or something else stupid, re-read the paragraph:

Persecution is what happens when you are not given rights that other people have based on your group affiliation. Persecution is what happens when you are repeatedly told that the way you are born makes you somehow deficient or unworthy. Persecution is what happens when you must work twice as hard to achieve half as much as someone else because of superficial qualities that are completely unrelated to your job.

If you still think you have a point, congratulations – you’ve got privilege!

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Update – White people: you still can’t dress in blackface

I want all of my white readers to repeat this phrase out loud:

No matter what my intention is, it is never okay to dress in blackface.

Never. Never ever. There is no circumstance in which it is okay for you to dress up in blackface.

Okay?

There, that should solve the problem…

Republican state Rep. Terri Lynn Weaver is facing criticism after posting a picture on the Internet that some are calling racially offensive. Weaver said that a picture that she took with her pastor in blackface dressed as Aunt Jemima was just Halloween fun and doesn’t understand why the photo is offensive.

Well, shit.

Hey, can we get a totally clueless quote to go along with the picture?

Weaver said she feels some Democrats are making something out of nothing and said, “I’m the least racist of anyone. Some of my greatest friends are black.”

I’m not making this stuff up, folks. She actually used the “I’m not racist, my __________ is a black guy” excuse.

Well that’s Tennessee. We kind of expect that stupidity down there, right?

Mark Andrade sat down at the Campbellford Royal Canadian Legion hall on Saturday night looking forward to a Halloween beer. Instead, he was treated to the sight of one man parading around in a Ku Klux Klan costume with a Confederate flag. The partygoer was leading another man in blackface around the room by a noose. Andrade left his beer on the bar and walked out. Friends told him later that the two men had won first prize at the Legion’s Halloween costume competition.


Oh… shit.

Really?

I will be hosting periodic screenings of Spike Lee’s film Bamboozled at my apartment. If anyone thinks it’s okay for anyone to dress in blackface, please come over and watch the movie. It will change your mind.

Fuck, REALLY?

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Win. So Hard. In the Face.

I have nothing but disgust for what I saw in these past U.S. midterm elections, particularly the fact that the voters responded to it. I don’t think I’m going to be able to speak to, or look in the eyes, anyone who votes conservative, or thinks that there is a single defensible policy in the pseudo-philosophy of conservatism. On any other day I’d be happy to discuss, debate, find common ground, whatever. Today, and for the next little while, I will rage-vomit on any conservative that comes within range of my spew. Fair warning.

However, I am going to thank my non-existent god for people like Tim Wise:

You have won a small battle in a larger war the meaning of which you do not remotely understand.

‘Cuz there is nothing even slightly original about you.

There have always been those who wanted to take the country back.

There were those who, in past years, wanted to take the country back to a time of enslavement and indentured servitude.

But they lost.

Writers like Tim Wise are the reason I will never stand idly by and watch some arch-liberal “accommodationist” talk shit about people who speak their mind unapologetically. Sometimes it’s not about “building bridges.” Sometimes the last thing you want to do is build a bridge. Sometimes you just want to go the fuck home and give up.

But then there’s Tim:

You’re like the bad guy in every horror movie ever made, who gets shot five times, or stabbed ten, or blown up twice, and who will eventually pass — even if it takes four sequels to make it happen — but who in the meantime keeps coming back around, grabbing at our ankles as we walk by, we having been mistakenly convinced that you were finally dead this time.

Fair enough, and have at it. But remember how this movie ends.

Our ankles survive.

You do not.

So if you’re feeling down in the dumps because it seems like the world is a very dangerous place for anyone who has the wherewithal to learn more than a soundbyte; because being smart is now considered a bad thing; because our democratic system means that the guy who wins is the one who is able to appeal to the crowd, not the one who has the best ideas, read this article. Read the whole thing – it’s just amazing.

Attention liberals: you’re racist too

I pride myself on being a liberal progressive. There’s a great line I heard in response to this Tea Party nonsense that’s been dominating the political scene recently:

Conservatives want their country back. Progressives want their country forward

I am proud to claim membership in a group that wants to adapt to the reality of the world we live in, rather than obstinately cling to ideology as a substitute for evidence. If the evidence says “privatize health care”, then we should do it; if it says “shut down welfare”, then we should do it; if it says “religion is a sufficient and useful basis upon which to build a society”, then by all means let’s have more of it. However, the evidence repeatedly comes down on the side of the progressive agenda, forcing conservatives to embrace positions that are more and more to the bizarre fringe.

However, liberals can be just as guilty of becoming mired in ideology. We’re not better people; we just have better ideas. However, occasionally we’ll do something so boneheadedly stupid as to make me question my allegience:

US broadcaster National Public Radio has fired news analyst Juan Williams for saying on Fox News that he gets nervous if he sees Muslims on a plane. Williams, who has written several books on the US civil rights movement, made the remarks last week on chat show The O’Reilly Factor. NPR said in a statement that Williams’s contract had been ended on Wednesday.

I’m sure some of you think that I’m referring to what Mr. Williams said as an example of liberals being racist. I’m not. It’s arch-liberal NPR that I’m disgusted by:

Williams: “But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations said before Mr Williams was sacked that such commentary from a journalist about other racial, ethnic or religious minority groups would not be tolerated. In its statement, NPR said Mr Williams’s comments “were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR”.

Here’s what I see – I see a guy who is openly and honestly recognizing his race biases and the prejudice that he sees within himself. I see a guy who is doing exactly what we are supposed to do, which is to confront our own privilege and investigate how much it plays into our decision making. I see a guy who said something impolitic, but in a self-reflective rather than hateful way.

What does NPR see? Someone saying something that isn’t puppies and rainbows about their interactions with a minority group! And as everyone knows, liberals aren’t racist at all. Therefore, he must be fired immediately.

The sad thing is not only the fact that a guy was fired in a Shirley Sherrod-like flurry of left-wing idiocy, it’s that the right (and particularly Fox News) is trumpeting to the skies that this is somehow some kind of vindication:

By midafternoon Thursday, more than 4,900 comments had been posted on NPR.org, including many from people who said the media organization was bowing to political correctness and unfairly punishing Williams for expressing his personal opinions.

“In one arrogant move the NPR exposed itself for the leftist thought police they really are,” read one typical post. “After this November elections I hope one of the first things the new Congress does is to defund this poor excuse for public radio.”

Okay, everyone write this down: Having idiots for opponents does not mean you are correct. Don’t get me wrong – it makes the process of demonstrating that your position is correct a hell of a lot easier, but you still have to explain why your ideas have validity. Yes, NPR was stupid, that doesn’t mean that Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin have somehow magically become smarter.

This is how left-wing ideological obstinacy manifests itself – nobody can say anything that even sounds remotely racist. Ignore the point that he was trying to make – he said something that sounded mean, so he’s got to go. I would completely understand if they demanded that Williams clarify his position on air, as it is fraught with potential grounds for misinterpretation. They didn’t do that though, they fired him, driving him into the arms of Fox News and giving conservatives more ammunition to claim that the real racists are liberals.

Racism is a plague on both of our houses, folks. We just show our symptoms differently.

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