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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Sweden doesn’t have a race problem

When I originally talked about Geert Wilders, the racist fuckhead who is on trial for being a racist fuckhead (which, while extremely objectionable, should not be a crime), I made a passing comment about Scandinavian socialist utopias. While it is undeniable that the quality of life is much better in those countries – due in no small part to the wide variety of the social programs available to the citizenry – they are not immune to the same brand of racist bullshit that is a problem everywhere else in the world:

Swedish police fear a lone gunman may be behind a spate of racially-motivated shootings in the southern city of Malmo. Detectives say they are linking up to 15 gun attacks in the city over the past year that have targeted people of immigrant background. The investigation comes amid growing tension in Sweden over immigration.

It appears as though Sweden is caught in the same fear-grip that allowed an asshole like Geert Wilders to gain political power in The Netherlands. And of course once you stoke fear to  a fevered level, and move the entire zeitgeist toward an anti-immigrant sentiment, eventually the nuts who were at the far right before find themselves embraced in the mainstream. With mainstream acceptance for stupid ideas comes a new re-drawing of where the fringe is. All of sudden, picking up a rifle and picking off a few members of the feared group no longer seems like such an unreasonable idea?

Don’t believe me? Ask Byron Williams, the so-called “progressive hunter“, who drew his inspiration to murder employees of an environmentalist philanthropic group from the implicit support of Fox News. When you stoke the fires of fear in the populace under the guise of “just asking questions”, you invite people to draw their own conclusions based on shitty evidence and innuendo. Invariably, people come to believe that they alone have pierced the veil of secrecy, and that violence is the only answer. That’s undoubtedly what’s happening in Sweden, a country that I otherwise have positive feelings about.

I have no such feelings about the Czech Republic, another country that clearly doesn’t have a race problem:

Four right-wing extremists in the Czech Republic have been jailed for an arson attack on a Roma family. The court in the eastern city of Ostrava handed down sentences of up to 22 years for racially motivated attempted murder. Three people were hurt when three Molotov cocktails were thrown into a Roma house in Vitkov on 19 April, 2009. One of the victims was a toddler who barely survived, suffering 80% burns on her body.

When we allow racist ideologies to take hold in our society, we pave the way for atrocities like this. When we soothe ourselves with the lie that racism isn’t a problem anymore, and that anti-racists are just whining about nothing, we lend tacit acceptance to those who think that there needs to be some kind of reprisal against racial minorities. The world has a race problem, and the longer we pretend it doesn’t, the worse it will get.

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Conservative bloggers call for Campbell soup boycott fearing Islamic terrorism

What would you do if you saw someone homeless, legless, begging for help or at least understanding? Obviously your human compassion would kick in and you’d go to that person’s aid.

Not me – I’d plant a swift kick and walk away laughing.

Well… not really, but sometimes it feels like that.

Conservative bloggers in the United States — the same ones behind opposition to the Islamic centre near Ground Zero in New York — are calling for a boycott of Campbell’s Canadian-made soups, alleging Islamic terrorists are linked to both. Pamela Geller, who runs a widely read anti-Muslim site called Atlas Shrugs, is calling for a boycott of some 15 soups made by the Canadian subsidiary of New Jersey-based Campbell Soup Co.

This story is just too delicious (or should I say ‘Mmm, mmm, good’) to pass by without mocking. It has all the ingredients for a hilarious level of crapitalism: conservatism, Ayn Rand worship, completely ridiculous accusations of terror links, religion, and underlying the whole thing is soup. To conservatives: when you complain that the “elitist liberals” think that you’re all a bunch of troglodyte morons, this is why we think that. Every time you see a clownish buffoon rail against supposed connections between international terror and a friggin’ soup company, or something equally ludicrous, it’s some “family values” or “small government” nutbag right-wing group.

By the way, for those of you who didn’t read the story – the reason they think Campbell’s is connected to terror isn’t based on any deals with shady companies or foreign sources of funding. No no no, nothing so superficially reasonable:

Sold in Canada, the soups are certified by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which has been certifying halal foods since 1988. But Geller claims ISNA has ties to terrorist groups, including Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

The other children on the playground are right to make fun of you, Ms. Geller – you’re a moron.

But my mean-spirited mockery doesn’t stop there; oh no, not even close:

“The Simpsons” just got a blessing from the Vatican. The official Vatican newspaper has declared that beer-swilling, doughnut-loving Homer Simpson and son Bart are Catholics — and what’s more, it says that parents should not be afraid to let their children watch “the adventures of the little guys in yellow.” “Few people know it, and he does everything to hide it. But it’s true: Homer J. Simpson is Catholic”, the Osservatore Romano newspaper said in an article on Sunday headlined “Homer and Bart are Catholics.”

The evidence for the assertion: prayer before meals, believing in God.

The evidence against the assertion: regular attendance at a “Presbylutheran” church, complete lack of Catholic doctrine, open mockery of Catholicism.

Ah yes, I keep forgetting. Using evidence with the Catholic Church is like trying to stop a buffalo stampede with road signs – they don’t understand it, and will completely ignore it. The Osservatore Romano based this on an analysis of a Simpsons episode in which God is discussed, the conclusion of which is that The Simpsons is the only kid’s show that discusses Christian faith and religion. Of course The Simpsons isn’t a kid’s show, it’s a cartoon sitcom for adults. Peter Griffin from Family Guy actually is Catholic, and is another popular cartoon sitcom that discusses Christian faith and religion on a regular basis, but almost never in a positive light. Hmm, wonder how they missed that? It’s the good old fashioned religious way of reasoning – come up with your conclusion first, then back-fill your explanation. Convenient!

Of course these are funny and light-hearted instances of when religious stupidity runs rampant. Sometimes it’s not a joke:

Sikh groups have urged US President Barack Obama not to avoid visiting the Golden Temple in Amritsar during his India trip next month, amid reports he is now unlikely to go there. A US official told the BBC there were “logistical” issues. Mr Obama would need to cover his head to enter the temple and there are reported concerns opponents would use this to show he is a closet Muslim.

It’s a sad reflection on all of us when we let the actions of idiots influence foreign policy. I mean, it’s bad enough that we play ‘accommodationist’ with these idiots, elevating their idiocy to the level of reasoned debate in some misguided attempt to appease people who have been left behind by the last century, but to allow people who can’t tell the difference between Sikhism and Islam, or even the difference between showing respect for another culture’s traditions and being a secret member of that culture… to allow these kinds of people to derail diplomacy with a potentially huge trading partner is an unbelievable tragedy.

So yes, I kick the homeless amputee, and walk away laughing. Religion deserves nothing but mockery when it pretentiously draws itself up and masquerades as something deserving of respect. Doing otherwise is to falsely pretend that it has some sort of merit and is above criticism.

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The joy of the godless (parte the seconde)

Last week I began a lengthy response to a commenter who accused me of having a dishonest brand of atheism because I am not a nihilist. Despite the fact that the accusation is wrong almost to the point of banality, I found thinking about it yielded some interesting fruit that I’d like to share with you.

When we last left our hero, he was in the throes of deep, soul-penetrating and unremitting existential angst, brought about by holding a cognitive dissonance closely to his chest. I could not seem to reconcile the facts of the world to the articles of my faith, a faith which warped and mutated wildly as I struggled valiantly to find books or movies or plays or songs to prop up the rapidly crumbling scaffolding of my belief in God.

Giving up my faith outright wasn’t an option for me. I was not lured by a siren song of atheism – there was no appeal to pretensions of godhood. To be completely honest, I didn’t know the first thing about the atheist or skeptic movement. I had no idea there was an entire community of people who had faced down the same demons I had. In my youthful arrogance I imagined myself uniquely plagued by questions of faith – those who believed were simplistic and naive, whereas those who disbelieved had never really believed in the first place.

After many years of failing to find spiritual satisfaction in any type of religious belief (I briefly toyed with the idea of converting to Judaism or going to an evangelical church, but quickly realized that I would only be trying to drown the doubts with noise rather than addressing the issue), I took a different tack. I remember vividly sitting in church in Toronto with my parents on Christmas Day, being berated by a priest for not being faithful enough – not me personally, but the handful of people who got up early on Christmas morning to go to church. I remember thinking “if there’s a God out there, this asshole definitely doesn’t speak for him.”

All of a sudden, the voices of doubt immediately quieted. The reason why there were no answers in religion or the Bible is because they are products of humankind! Of course we couldn’t know anything about the nature of God by looking at things that human hands had crafted – we could only learn about humans that way. This happy thought comforted me for a few seconds, until I thought about its implications. If we don’t know anything about God, if God is fundamentally unknowable, then all attempts to placate Him or curry His favour are a shocking waste of time and perfectly good treasure (yarr). Since God is, to all appearances, completely unmoved by prayers or other attempts to bribe Him, we should stop trying those methods – they just don’t work.

In a flash I realized that the existence of God was a completely unimportant question. If He does exist, then he’s clearly uninterested in helping anyone or making life tolerable, in which case worship is a foolish endeavour. If He doesn’t exist, then worship is equally meaningless. Spending years of my life wrestling with the question had been, sadly, a waste of those years and the emotional resources consumed in the attempt.

I felt a bit like Dorothy pulling back the curtain of the Great and Powerful Oz. But instead of finding a man who would guiltily admit to perpetrating the hoax, I instead found the man had recently fled. Some people looked at the absence of someone behind the curtain as evidence that Oz is real, but the existence of machinery that moves the head, the microphone that made the head speak, and the lingering odor of pipe smoke (suggesting that someone was recently behind that curtain) was sufficient evidence for me to become an a-Oz-ist.

Of course, this happened in church, sitting next to my parents. I didn’t bother sharing this insight with them. While I might spout off some rhetoric about being respectful of their right to believe what they want, my primary concern was that I might get browbeat back into the faith camp and lose the threads of what seemed like a very promising resolution to my problem. I wasn’t ready yet to defend the position, having arrived at it so recently. However, it was then that I was ready to start exploring the issue.

What you’re reading here isn’t the product of that exploration so much as it is a window of insight into the ongoing process. I’ve honestly and earnestly explored the multitude of so-called “reasons” why YahwAlladdha exists, and found them to be completely lacking in merit. They’re inevitably some combination of arguments from ignorance, garnished with varying degrees of linguistic sophistry. My reaction to these now is similar to when I was young and realized that I was a head taller than the school bully – all of a sudden the thing I had been so worried about seemed so petty and unimpressive that I was disgusted with myself for fearing it in the first place.

This is why I am so impatient with the faithful – not because I think they are stupid per se, but because they have compartmentalized their minds and refused to address the irrationality at the core of belief in God. The only honest form of belief I have found is that of Katie Kish, who says that she recognizes that it doesn’t make any sense, but she likes how it makes her feel – while this stance annoys me, that’s really my problem and not hers.

To return momentarily to the assertion, or rather accusation, that my atheism is dishonestly come by, or that atheists can only be happy if they delude themselves into believing themselves to be gods, it is (hopefully) abundantly evident from the above story that there is no merit to this view. It is a silly, spurious lie borne by a combination of ignorance and ready acceptance of propaganda. I am finally, after years of struggle, able to live a fulfilling and happy life without having to lie to myself, or hold beliefs that are contradicted by evidence in multitude. My mind can rest easy in moments of quiet reflection, no longer plagued by the need to find some kind of explanation of my place in the universe. I can develop personal moral positions and defend them without having to rely on faith-based beliefs that I do not really believe in.

Far from making me a nihilist, my divestiture of God was the most honest and liberating thing I’ve ever done.

TL/DR: After being haunted for years with the contradictions inherent in religious faith, I finally figured out that the question of the existence of God was meaningless either way. At that point I was ready to explore the issue without guilt, eventually granting me freedom from the question at all. Nihilism is far from the only or ‘most honest’ reaction to atheism.

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