When last we heard from Tom Willis, big-wig in the Creation Science Association for Mid-America, he was pondering whether evolutionists should be allowed to vote. Since Tom Willis is batshit insane, he decided that no, they should not, because they’re wicked godless atheists with no moral sense (you theistic evolutionists aren’t spared — you’re even worse).
Now he has upped the ante and is wondering,
Should Evolutionists Be Allowed to Roam Free in the Land?. I wonder what his answer will be?
After declaring evolutionists incompetent, unproductive, dangerous, at war with Christianity, and to have demanded the elimination of Christians (what powers of projection he has!), Willis finally explains what must be done with us.
Clearly then, “evolutionists should not be allowed to
roam free in the land.” All that remains for us to discuss is
“What should be done with evolutionists?” For the purposes
of this essay, I will ignore the minor issue of Western-style jurisprudence and merely mention possible solutions to the
“evolutionism problem,” leaving the legal details to others:
Labor camps. Their fellow believers were high on these.
But, my position would be that most of them have lived
their lives at, or near the public trough. So, after their own
beliefs, their life should continue only as long as they can
support themselves in the camps.Require them to wear placards around their neck, or perhaps large medallions which prominently announce “Warning: Evolutionist! Mentally Incompetent – Potentially
Dangerous.” I consider this option too dangerous.Since evolutionists are liars and most do not really believe
evolution we could employ truth serum or water-boarding
to obtain confessions of evolution rejection. But, this
should, at most, result in parole, because, like Muslims,
evolutionist religion permits them to lie if there is any benefit to them.An Evolutionist Colony in Antarctica could be a promising
option. Of course inspections would be required to prevent
too much progress. They might invent gunpowder.
A colony on Mars would prevent gunpowder from harming
anyone but their own kind, in the unlikely event they turned
out to be intelligent enough to invent it.All options should include 24-hour sound system playing
Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris
reading Darwin’s Origin of Species, or the preservation of
Favored Races by Means of Natural Selection. Of course
some will consider this cruel & unusual, especially since
they will undoubtedly have that treatment for eternity.
Kansas breeds attracts the most amazing kooks. (I have been informed that quite a few of the looniest creationists in Kansas come from elsewhere.)
Kantard.
Wow! That’s weapons-grade crazy.
I kinda like the last option, especially if they throw in the complete works of Twain, Voltaire, Bill Hicks, Carlin, Paine, Jefferson, and Patricia reading Pharyngula
Seems to me that this guy’s doing more to discredit creationism than we could have possibly hoped for.
-jcr
Wow.
Will he pay for me to go to Antarctica? I’d love to go to Antarctica.
Curses! He found us out! I guess we didn’t pretend to believe well enough.
Of course, Tom Willis can be relied upon to be sincere. As a lesson to others, it would be instructive to waterboard him in witness to his resolute faith. Even under the most drastic conditions, I’m certain he would never abjure his faith. It would inspire our Christian nation!
Disclaimer: The above comments are rendered moot and inoperative in the unlikely event that Willis breaks under pressure, begs to be freed, and denounces God while bargaining for his freedom. This disclaimer is included only as a formality, because everyone knows that sincere faith in God is indestructible.
As we used to say, back in the daze of wine and blotter acid. he ain’t in Kansas anymore, is he Toto?
Is it even possible to comment on this without triggering Godwin’s law?
Incredible. And I was having such a nice evening…
Wait, this is a joke right?
…
Stupid poe’s law.
I think we should make up placards that read “Warning: Scientist! Capable of individual thought – Potentially Dangerous.”
Talk about bad framing….
Yes, Catta, but what does this have to do with Hitler and Nazis?
For the purposes of this post, I will ignore the minor issue of Western-style jurisprudence and merely mention possible solutions to the “Tom Willis problem.”
Denounce him to the Homeland Security Department as a terrorist. Let them handle the imprisonment, waterboarding, etc.
Kidnap him and secretly send him to Iran with 50 Bibles. Tell the Iranian secret police that he’s in country and looking for converts to Christianity.
Tell Fred Phelps that Willis is gay.
OK, Bozo. I am 4th-gneration Kansan (in Florida the last 24 years) and DO NOT TAR US ALL WITH THAT BRUSH! I remember when Kansas had sane senators (Jim Pearson, Nancy Kassebaum, even on most things Bob Dole). Willis is a total idiot, and I am getting to the popint that, should I ever be told that I have contracted a fatal illness, I would seriously consider seeking him out and cutting his tongue out. The lunatic element may be alive and well in Kansas, but both expatriates like me, and many still there consider fools like Willis shitheads.
Batshit insane barely does this justice.
Please tell me it’s satire..
And the creos say Darwin leads to Hitler. Tom Willis has just taken the Nazis’ final solution, changed Jew to biologist, and added some torture fantasies.
Kansas, home of fred phelps and Tom “Adolph” Willis.
While it is disturbing that Willis is not locked up in a mental hospital for threats of violence (yet), he does make the creos look like practicing and ugly Death Cultists up close and real.
Rushdooney is still ahead in the “want to kill” contest. His proposals would have killed 297 million of the 300 million US citizens alive now. For those blissfully unaware, Rushdooney was the founder of Xian Dominionism and Pat Robertson’s mentor.
Teh stupid! It burns!
This is incredibly funny, and borders on the absurd. I’m very scared of people like this.
I think there already is one: Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station
A modest proposal, on how to dispose all
The Atheist garbage and haul it away–
Although it’s Tom Willis, I think that it still is
A decades-old tactic, the Klan used to play.
It may be that laughter is what he is after
It may be he thinks he’s a humorous guy
Or maybe some tumor deprived him of humor
He thinks it is funny…. I just want to cry.
Varlo
C’mon Varlo, we love Kansas in Texas.
Yall make us feel so……
rational
BWAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!
BTW, we gave the world GW Bush just to get even with Kansas for giving us Charles Koch
Cuttlefish, your comments are wonderful, as always.
I’m adding them to my post on this.
Umm, PZ, you might want to check on this . . .
It’s true that Willis was the ghostwriter of the infamous 1999 Kansas science standards. But I think he’s from Missouri and runs a blueberry farm there.
Hey, it’s understandable that you’d lump Willis in with Connie Morris, Steve Abrams,Fred Phelps, and Bill Shanahan, but please don’t blame us for the Missouri kooks, too!
That is not a bad idea!!!
He is clearly making threats of violence and mass murder against an identifiable (and important) segment of the US population. Chances are good Homeland Security would want to have a talk with him. Or two. Or more.
Dembski and another wingnut turned in Eric Pianka to HS for a lot less. Pianka said the world population is vulnerable to emerging diseases and mass epidemics. Which is true and the CDC and NIH spent a huge amount of time worrying about it and dealing with it, SARS, avian flu, nipah, rift valley etc.. HS did talk the Pianka but obviously found nothing since Pianka is still in Texas rather than Guantanomo.
How dare he try to deny us our inalienable right as human beings!!??
I’m literally angry with rage!
This is a bit off-topic and maybe PZ would like to make this a separate thread:
A Teacher on the Front Line as Faith and Science Clash
It’s an article from today’s New York Times about a biology teacher in Christian infested Florida who helped write Florida’s new science standards, and he now has the more difficult task of teaching the new standards to god-soaked students.
From one of his students: “I can see something else, too,” he said. “I can see that there’s no way I came from an ape.”
Some come armed with “Ten questions to ask your biology teacher about evolution,” a document circulated on the Internet that highlights supposed weaknesses in evolutionary theory. Others scrawl their opposition on homework assignments. Many just tune out.
The article also talks about Christians thugs who harass biology teachers, and even worse, creationist biology teachers who should be fired but are allowed to lie to their students about science.
This insanity is one of the reasons I’m for the complete eradication of all religious beliefs from this planet.
I am sure,(…hope to Apollo), he is joking. But I, like many people I know, have trouble getting a chuckle about people who find amusement in parroting the condition of the holocaust as a means to…do what ever the heck this guys is doing… :/
BobC,
I’m all for ridding the world of religion – though only through those suffering from it waking up and voluntarily rejecting it – but what more can be done to show the a) unlikelihood of the existence of gods or b) the uselessness of worshiping an almost-certainly-nonexistent god than what we already know?
As they say, you can’t reason someone out of something they weren’t reasoned into. So we’re kind of stuck with the exploitative woo-peddlers and their sheep.
Hey, sign me up for that colony on Mars! Let us have our own planet? Heck yeah!
At the risk of sounding decidely Brittish, is he taking the piss?
Hilarious! Willis missed his calling; he should do stand-up comedy in ‘Vegas.
Unless, of course, he’s over-doing those substances that are legally frowned upon, even the prescription ones if aquired through MD-shopping, in which case he should do a hitch in detox and get a job shilling for Limbaugh.
doov
like Muslims, evolutionist religion permits them to lie if there is any benefit to them.
…unlike good Christians who would never ever ever lie to benefit themselves. They only lie for Jesus.
I kinda like the idea of going to a colony in Antarctica. It may be cold and barren, but at least we’d be far away from the retards in Kansas.
This must be satire! (Let me have this delusion, please. Just this once.)
3 Words. Bat. Shit. Insane. (There’s really nothing else that can do this justice…hmmmm.. too much playing with mercury as a child in an old time hat factory perhaps?). In any case, the I don’t really mind the Mars colonization idea so much, but I’m afraid those “left behind” would totally demolish our lovely little biosphere more than it has already been. Oh yeah, Molly for Cuttlefish.
“An Evolutionist Colony in Antarctica could be a promising option. Of course inspections would be required to prevent too much progress. They might invent gunpowder. A colony on Mars would prevent gunpowder from harming anyone but their own kind, in the unlikely event they turned out to be intelligent enough to invent it.” Wait, so, let me get this straight. He’s saying that if we round up everyone who believes in evolution there wouldn’t be enough brains to create gunpowder? If we can set up a working colony on Mars, can we leave those who don’t believe in evolution behind and see who comes out best? I’ll settle for Antarctica.
Also, is his one idea basically to round up all of the evolutionists and throw them in concentration camps because belief in evolution leads to thinking like Hitler? Seriously?
Gunpowder? I think it’s more likely we’d invent nitroglycerin, considering the number of animals down there with huge layers of body fat.
Man sure doesn’t know his explosives.
#39:
That’s definitely a reassurance.
#35 at least we’d be far away from the retards in Kansas.
I think Cheryl @ 25 may be right, this is a Missouri wack-a-loon. A common mistake. Kansas City is in Missouri which leads to endless confusion. Hit the link in #25, it’s pretty funny, he has a Noah’s Park at his Berry Farm.
This guy is drinking his own home brewed bluberry kool aide by the buckets. What a freak.
and ummmmm
whisper There’s a phone number /whisper
WILLIS IS NOT FROM KANSAS. HE IS FROM MISSOURI.
A friend inadvertently took his family there for blueberry picking and saw first-hand the CSAMA literature sold in the gift shop.
See here:
“Tom Willis is President of Creation Science For Mid-America. . . . He is the father of two grown children, and lives on a farm in Cass County, Missouri with his wife Penny, where they raise blueberries and other small fruits.”
Yes, Kansas has its share of kooks. More than, even. Willis ain’t one of ’em.
Instead of alliterating on K, try M. Moron, Missouri, mental, whatever . . .
You guys laugh now. However, if anything ever goes drastically wrong with our society, this level of crazy very might end up in power. Curious to see a society Bill Donahue in charge? Look up the Ustasha movement in Croatia during WWII. The Ustashi were so cruel and crazy that historians have made note of the “civilizing and humanitarian” influences of Mussolini and the SS on that organization.
You have the Serbian Chetniks, the Iron Guard, the Blue Guards, Franco, the VRS in Bosnia, and other examples of religious nuttery running wild in Europe within the life times of many of the posters here. It can happened again.
From what you’ve posted it’s clear that he’s mentally deranged. Why highlight this though? The implication is that here is one lunatic who is sceptical about evolution; ergo, all who are sceptical of evolution are lunatics. By highlighting this you only give this sentiment some modicum of credibility and a platform from which it can fither take root in other slightly less unhinged people unlikely to become inflicted by his stupidity or ignorance.
I am reminded of JM Coetzee’s fictional argument in Elizabeth Costello in which the protagonist upbraids Paul West for “obscene” imagining; “Through Hitler’s hangman a devil entered Paul West.” Or to put it another way: it is said that the censor responsible for passing material as fit for publication is the one most likely to become debauched. What can possibly be gained from allowing even a granule of this absurdity to take root in our society by publicising this argument. Ann Coulter is similarly insane and yet her views seemingly resonate with people after the well intentioned horror and outrage most reviewers and pundits express give her traction. People like this should simply be ignored and the discussion consigned to obscure academic journals.
In the same way that it’s a mistake to forcibly take issue with only “kooks” (I’ve yet to see Dr. Myers challenge the likes of Plantinga or Hartshorne) like the one above and then equate his views with the entire state of Kansas (which has, as I’m sure you’re aware of, a firm Christian majority) it would be a mistake of mine to equate Peter Atkins with all Darwinists. Nuts on both sides should simply be ignored.
Wait, what?
I… just… I can’t even form WORDS.
#44
Needs more cowbell
Mars? Asparagus for all!
I have lived in Wichita Kansas all my life….Help…someone get me out of here! You can’t drive more than one mile without passing a church in this town.
Ooh! Mars Colony! Mars Colony! We’ll send for you PZ if we find extra-terrestrial life. Though you might have to wait until we get the Europa outpost up and running.
Cuttlefish, you’re back! Hooray!
Now’s your chance, PZ. Use your trip to Toronto to claim refugee status on the grounds of (a)religious persecution.
Then again, look at who’s running Canada these days…
Antarctica is starting to look pretty good.
My first reaction? “Did an atheist satirist successfully infiltrate the Creation Science Association for Mid-America to once and for all prove Poe’s law?” Still makes more sense to me.
You are looking into the face of freedom of expression.
Yes, our Constitution protects the batshit insane.
Long may it live!
. . . and while I’m on my soapbox . . .
PZ, you said “Kansas breeds the most amazing kooks.”
Connie Morris was born/raised in Kentucky. Fred Phelps was born/raised in Mississippi. Kathy Martin was raised in Arkansas (don’t have a link; heard her say this at a candidate forum earlier this summer). Even our infamous mooning professor is from the East Coast.
Kansas does breed some staunch science supporters. Despite the antics of those damn carpetbaggers, I’m proud to be a 7th-generation Kansan. There just aren’t enough of us.
I have to say, Wayne, you’re right. You can evade comparing this crap to something Hitler would approve of by hoping that it’s something along the lines of “a modest proposal”.
Sadly that’s pretty much the only way of avoiding the comparison. And it’s on shaky ground, what with this rant not even having a smiley face to go with the text.
Note the “lending library”. Might be a fun opportunity for a little mischief. Borrow A, return B…hmm.
I’ll let you know how it comes out.
ice
Everyone be sure to check out page 2 of the this guy’s newsletter where he answers the burning question, “Why Are Evolutionists Typically Socialists?”
How can this possibly not be a joke? How??
leave it to a “Christian” to imply that the power of judgment should be in his hands and not in his lord and savior…
that always drives me up the wall… why do they always get so involved? Why can’t they just leave it up to their sky god to take care of things?
A mistake in logic, yes. But how many Darwinists (AKA rational people) do you think would object.
I know this might be different from what this guy was attempting to elicit in his audience, but damn, that was awesome. The whole thing just made my day in the exact polar opposite way the writer intended. That actually makes it funnier.
This wold be the funniest thing I’d heard in a while if I wasn’t sure the guy was right.
How this brand of lunacy doesn’t fall under domestic terroristic threat I have no idea
Ok, here’s is where I draw the line.
I know that fundies do say the darndest things, but there is no frakking way in Hades that this is not a satire crafted to make creationists look bad.
Didja notice that he recognizes that atheists would be the ones to discover things (like dynamite or such)? Religionists do seem to recognize that the realists are the ones who have the imagination and creativity to discover and explain the world, but just can’t manage to condisder that a good thing.
Hi Cheryl! The Curmudgeon has some good news about Kansas today! ;-)
The evolutionist colony on Svalbard in the arctic seems to be doing pretty good. My guess that if all evolutionists in the world were sent to the ice desert at the “bottom” of the planet it would soon be the leading nation in scientific research and technological progress. I wonder if penguins make good livestock.
From his article:
“But evolutionism is totally contrary to the empirical facts of science”
This is the first I have ever heard of this guy, but clearly he is a walking, talking brain fart!!
Note he won’t actually DO anything to further his “final solution,” so he clearly suffers from a batshit insanity carefully curbed to keep him from being prosecuted.
He is simply another, very, very, very large bag of hot air likely only still able to remain on Earth due to the weight of a very, very, very, very large, filled colon.
At Willis’ sickest, he likely imagines some certifiable kook resorting to violence due to his inspiration. Certainly he thinks he annoys, even frightens, those who he wishes he could victimize.
He fails on all counts. He’s another stupid, sad, failed human being.
Whatcha talkin bout Willis?
There just aren’t words strong enough to express the disgust I feel after reading that trash. Can we please find a kind, legal way to stop these people breeding? Or perhaps just run a sawzall around the borders of ‘their’ land and set it as physically adrift as it is mentally and morally. Then when it’s out of swimming range, nuke it.
To hell with the rant – who let him near Microsoft Frontpage? That has to be the butt-ugliest creationist site anywhere. Hell, even Answers in Genesis has a better looking page – still tons of teh stoopid, but a better looking page.
Honestly, someone too dim to design even a decent looking web page is too dim to know how to initiate any kind of fundie “final solution.”
And for all those Kansans out there – you guys have the BEST BBQ!
– Posted from Nebraska
You guys, calm down. There is no way this is real.
A, I know it sounds extreme, but do you have any reason other than that it strikes you as extreme, to say that it isn’t real? I’d be interested to hear.
Not gonna lie, I think a colony of atheists/evolutionists in Antarctica would be pretty bad-ass. Everyone would be plump (I love plump people), there would be tons of snow (I love snow), and there would be good company, and presumably all our supplies would be flown in at the expense of fundi tax payers. Although it would have to be some futuristic dome metropolis to be awesome and not depressing…but I can dream.
“An Evolutionist Colony in Antarctica could be a promising option.”
“I think there already is one: Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station”
Yeah, that whole continent, really. I doubt any of the researchers who make Antarctica their temporary home really believe in scientific penguinism.
I’m sure Willis’s remarks sounded better in the original German.
“Can we please find a kind, legal way to stop these people breeding?”
-Tim Rowledge
Maybe we could start a new wave in Christianity with heavy, heavy emphasis on Matthew 19:12
Here in Kansas, we call him “Jonathon not-so-Swift.”
Anyone stupid enough to take this shit seriously deserves to live in Antarctica.
#2, Physicalist:
“Wow! That’s weapons-grade crazy.
Hahahaha, nail on the head! I tell you, I love these guys. It’s like stand-up comedy, Lewis Black from the opposite perspective.
Ummm…is this site for real? That is the most nauseating thing I’ve ever had the displeasure to read. Why do the religious harbor so much hatred when they’re supposed to be loving everyone?
A couple of other points. The voting issue was at PT back in June, and if you run a search on “Tom Willis creation” you’ll get a Washington Post forum where you can read for yourselves that this person is NOT engaged in even Borat-levels of satire: he’s real (as in weeeal Kwaazzy!)
Michael X, it isn’t obvious? Do you honestly think someone would seriously suggest shipping any group of people to Antarctica? Or Mars?
If this was real, he’d just suggest that we all be shot.
Sheryl,
Its ok. We know there are good people in Kansas. You sound like a high schooler singing the praises of her alma mater. Lighten up!
If this were the work of some nameless entity hiding in the interwebs, it would not be possible to convince me that this was not satire. Given his history, I have to assume that he means it – which scares the bejesus out of me.
I have to say, though, I’d sign up for the Mars Express in a heartbeat. I’ve pretty much given up on my setting foot on another planet – I’ll have to settle for inspiring some of the minds that will pave the way – but I’d jump at the chance to be exiled to Mars with a shipload of evolutionists. Here I was all jealous of folks who got to go sailing with PZ, but DAMN – Mars?
Sure, A. I think it’s certainly possible. And given the diversity of thought among the human race, I have no problem entertaining the possibility that someone would prefer to move us to Antarctica rather than have us shot. While this example may be rare, it is by no means impossible.
There are many stupid, pious people alive today A. Some of them apparently even know how to use a computer.
I am sorry, but there is no way on God’s green earth that could be serious. It must be a Landover, Jesus Hate’s Smut type of joke.
Gunpowder is made from ice? Are you guys getting this? He’s giving away their secrets!
If I were as threatening as this Blueberry Nut Bar, I’d keep a low profile. I sure wouldn’t put my phone number on my webpage at http://theberrypatchonline.com/pickrpt.htm
People might start calling him from Antarctica to complain about the weather.
I call Poe. The fact that this guy can hold such a ridiculous stance and still communicate in complete sentences is almost contradictory.
Turn the evidence over to the district attorney. There is obviously a conspiracy to mount a christofascist ‘final solution’ against nonbelievers.
HEY! Who you calling crazy, honky?
I really DO find this hilarious. Obviously it’d be scarier for me if I were nearer to the US, but luckily I’m not. I just find it odd that people like this are able to function in a public life with these opinions.
It disgusts me, but also provides me with endless entertainment. Keep it up America!
Congratulations, PZ. You’ve discovered a modern-day Martin Luther. (As in the German theologian of protestant reformation fame.)
On second reading, this final paragraph reads like a parodist’s wink.
People are able to function in society like this because no Christians hold their own accountable, no matter how radical the preacher is. Think about it, the only time we hear Phelps denounced is when he is picketing soldiers funerals…never when he is holding anti-gay rallies.
“This insanity is one of the reasons I’m for the complete eradication of all religious beliefs from this planet.” – BobC, #28
They seem to be well underway in doing this all by themselves:
“In Washington state, an unvaccinated child likely caught measles at a church conference attended by 3,000 junior high school students, some from foreign nations. That child infected seven other children in her household; they spread measles to 11 other people. Of the 19 cases, 16 were school-age children. Eleven of these kids were homeschooled; none was vaccinated because of their parents’ religious beliefs.
In Illinois, a teenager who recently returned from Italy — where there are ongoing measles outbreaks — seems to have infected four unvaccinated girls ages 10 to 14. Eventually, 30 people came down with measles. All but one of the cases were children or teens aged 8 months to 17 years. Cases included 25 homeschooled children whose parents held anti-vaccination religious beliefs.” – http://children.webmd.com/vaccines/news/20080821/measles-outbreaks-worry-cdc
They are — or mentally handicapped in someway.
Of course it is real. All fundies hate. They are very, very good at hating. Willis is a moderate compared to Rushdooney and some of the other leaders.
There are several reasons why they are called Death Cultists. The fond dream and hope of these fanatics is for god to show up, destroy the earth, and kill 6.7 billion people. You’ve all heard of the end times rapture monkeys. Unlike Bigfoot they are both real and plentiful, must be at least millions of them. If you haven’t, say hello to Tom Willis who is BTW, a big wheel in midwestern creationist circles.
I have contacted the FBI’s Kansas City (MO) office and told them about the kind of promises of physical violence contained in this creationism outfit’s newsletter. I’ll provide any followup.
I would actually buy a version of that placard on a tshirt. Only mine would read, “Scientist: Use in case of plague, illness, famine, asteroid impact, red giant expansion, war, poverty, and/or destruction. Do NOT break glass.”
What an utter fucktard. As for roaming free in the land, I have a suggestion: I’m building a spaceship that will take all reasonable people off to another planet so we can leave these people behind. Who’s with me?
Antarctica, huh? What’s the skiing like there?
I have a better idea, with good historical roots. Transportation to Australia! And we can ship our fundies over to you in exchange. You can keep Ken Ham already.
I hoped you emailed them with some cut and paste and/or a link to his hate website.
They investigated Eric Pianka at UT Austin for a hell of a lot less. And are after Michael Korn for more but not by much. Willis is over the line.
I would be surprised if HS doesn’t do a followup. After all they were formed to combat murderous religious fanatics.
Is there really such a thing as an “evolutionist”?
Does anyone really self-identify with that term?
If so, how could we identify them? Is there a blood test? Do they all where some big scarlet “E” on their foreheads?
I always thought that word was made up by the fundies. (It’s notable as the only one in their regular vocabulary with more than 2 syllables)
@Duff, #83, – okay, okay, I’m standing down! :) The one time a kook isn’t from Kansas, and we get blamed for it . . . . :P
#41 – Kansas City, Kansas and one of the city’s suburbs are the second and third largest cities in Kansas.
And, please, PZ, if Kansas does anything, it simply attracts these kooks due to the popular notion that the mild conservativeness of the state would embrace them, when in truth, most people simply ignore them, which could be considered doing more harm than good, but that’s how we deal with attention-mongers like these. We don’t purposely breed them >.<
Suffer not a scientist to live.
At # 22. Cuttlefish, you rock!
I think I’m going to draw up a modular arcology for an Antarctica atheist paradise in the next few days, I’ll post a 3D render of it on my blog.
It’s only funny til someone gets hurt.
I like The Chemist’s tee-shirt. I would amend it only this way: “Scientist: Use in case of plague, illness, famine, asteroid impact, red giant expansion, war, poverty, and/or destruction that threatens to destroy homo sapiens. As for homo fathiens – go pray and see how far that gets you. I’ve got better things to do.” A tad long, but tee-shirts are bigger than bumper-stickers.
I’ve noted, with amusement, the various comments of going to Antarctica or Mars, but at a certain point, I just have to say, “No.” Why should we have to go to those places? Rather, why not expel them? And without our godless, rationalist science (and all of the technology from which it derives), they wouldn’t last five minutes.
Problem solved.
The rest of us would get along very nicely.
A better idea: Put the most rabid of the fundies on the spaceship/Antarctica and fix up this lovely little planet for ourselves.
Rats! Beaten to the punch, by Greg.
Well, there goes 99% of all scientists.
@104 (amphiox )
Actually, my advisor told me at our first meeting that she was “one of only two evolutionists” at NCSU (as in, people actively studying evolutionary mechanisms). It was the first (and only) time I heard someone self-identify with that term, but I feel like there’s nothing wrong with it, especially as a short form of “evolutionary biologist” and I’ve used it myself since.
Hey, at least the voice of Richard Dawkins will be there. ^_^
To everyone that thinks this is some kind of Poe’s law thingy, you need to get out to rural Missouri more often and mingle.
Re A’s:
If this was real, he’d just suggest that we all be shot
That would most likely be crossing a line legally- as it is, his eliminationist rhetoric is probably skirting the limits of protected speech. At any rate, the Southern Poverty Law Center should probably be contacted, as well as the F.B.I.
Re Mr Rowledge:
Or perhaps just run a sawzall around the borders of ‘their’ land and set it as physically adrift as it is mentally and morally. Then when it’s out of swimming range, nuke it.
Ahh, I pine for the days of the Western Interior Seaway- to be sailing the Niobrara, mosasaurs spouting to starboard…
I like Cath’s transportation suggestion, and would love to sample some of that fine Antipodean cooking.
Finally, I think Cuttlefish should be awarded “Permamolly” status.
To give equal time to non-Christian creationists, here’s a post about a Canadian First Nations person who got a lecturer in trouble for teaching the “Out of Africa” theory.
Poe? Poe? Where are you, Poe?! Poe? POE!?!?!?
Wow. I’d like to believe this is fake, but I doubt many satirists would think to include Origin of Species‘s full title while still getting it wrong. It’s “On The Origin” or “The Origin”. Nope, this is the work of someone who didn’t just drink the Kool-Aid, but went back for thirds.
There’s just so much here. Thousands of years of legality, morality, and sanity are dismissed as “the minor issue of Western-style jurisprudence”. There’s his bizarre suggestion that non-creationists wouldn’t be able to create gunpowder. In Willis’s mind, there’s no overlap between evolutionists and scientists.
Oh, and he believes in the existence of “truth serum.”
Did anyone else go through and read the whole pamphlet? It is scary because I cant tell if he is joking? But, I really love how 2 of the 4 pages is devoted exclusively to advertising.
Here’s another man who may soon be calling for the elimination of evolutionists…and secularists and atheists of all stripes. Yikes.
http://www.creators.com/opinion/dennis-prager/if-there-is-no-god.html
@ Chris #99
Good idea, I did the same. There is just something with Willis that has the hair on the back of my neck upright. I don’t want to jerk around a fellow citizen by reporting them to the FBI, even if we are diametrically opposed in our beliefs.
What did it for me was the apparent normality of the guy (super-religious, so what): contrasting the vitriol of the article he wrote with the obvious pride and care he takes in his business and family *and* the fact that either he (or some follower) is well-educated (check out the grammar and spelling in the article) and technically astute (website, pdf format).
Potentially scary dude. I hope he is really innocuous and just letting all his frustrations out in his “CSA News” articles.
I would TOTALLY wear that placard!
“Warning: Evolutionist! Mentally Incompetent – Potentially Dangerous.”
As satire, it’s pure gold.
Is that chap for real?
Really real?
Mad as a spoon.
I can’t tell whether he’s purposely trying to evoke Hitler or not and what point he’s trying to make if he is. It’s too clearly an attempt to parallel Nazism to not be deliberate. Is it a Poe? Is it an attempt at satire? And if so, a satire of what exactly? Or is expecting that kind of subtlety and cleverness from a fundie stretching all credibility?
How can it not be a poe? “evolutionist problem?” Wearing placards or something to identify them as evolutionists? Not very subtle.
you can always spot a “secure” monotheist, they just as soon see you burned at the stake than have to be shown that they are delusional.
#100:
“What an utter fucktard. As for roaming free in the land, I have a suggestion: I’m building a spaceship that will take all reasonable people off to another planet so we can leave these people behind. Who’s with me?”
We just need to not forget phone sanitizers with us.
Subtlety is not something that this type of wackaloons is commonly accused of.
I would like to second the invite to Oz. Sane people are welcome, and I would gladly see how Kansians (?) do a barby over here, shrimp, ‘roo, your choice.
We should claim both Antarctica and Mars though (and use Australia as home base and for supplies until we get sorted). For sure we (sane ones) will be called on to clean up after the crazies wreak their havoc. All these places are fairly remote and slightly safer.
Answer: He’s conservative, christian, doesn’t believe in evolution – just like Mr W Bush.
Question: Why hasn’t this clown been arrested for making terrorist threats?
I’m sorry. Poe’s law aside, I don’t believe this guy is serious. There’s no way this guy can possible be serious. It reads too much like a caricature. Are we sure he isn’t doing this whole thing as one big joke?
Oddly enough, this is the statement which really has me scratching my pate:
But, my position would be that most of them have lived their lives at, or near the public trough.
In the U.S., religious institutions are tax-exempt, the damn fool Bush started the “faith-based initiative” taxpayer funding… WTF?
Off-topic, looking at the old thread really made me miss Etha. She’d better come back when school resumes. I hate to admit it, but I think I even miss Walton (as much as I’ve wanted to cudgel him at times)… but don’t ever let him know it.
Hey either Antarctica or Mars sound good to me too.
I’m the only member of the “Fossil Hunting on Mars” facebook group!
I’m starting to think that Willis is somewhat serious, but is using a tone that will allow him to later say that he was just joking and that there’s no way anyone should have taken him seriously and of course he isn’t for locking up/shipping off/killing evolutionists. I mean the title is “Should Evolutionists be Allowed to Roam Free in the Land?”. Plus if all else fails, he can say “it’s not like this stuff could be implemented, anyway” as he does to explain his article on denying the vote to evolutionists.
At least we know he doesn’t think Obama is the antichrist: “Even then, it will not be sane people (Christians) who will kill all the evolutionists, it will be the criminally insane folks who worship the antichrist, who will, incidentally, as the Bible predicts, be
an Assyrian.”
I kind of want to go through his article and rebut it point by point (part of the justification of slavery was that Africans were thought to be the descendants of Noah’s cursed son, for example, or evolutionary science is not a religion), but my brain is already bubbling with rage.
My theory as to why nobody gave him a satisfactory rebuttal last time around was that most people would realize it’s not worth it and if anyone tried, he’d just dismiss it all.
Gee, y’all must have never seen a fundie bigot before.
Willis, IIRC, also believes the sun orbits the earth because the bible says so.
He probably hates Catholics as the church headed by the antichrist, the Pope. His parallels with the Nazi Final Solution are no accident. A lot of fundies are vicious antisemites and he probably thinks Adoph Hitler was soft on the Jews.
It is common for these types to threaten to kill evolutionary biologists. PZ Myers has gotten dozens of such from various groups. The FBI is looking for one of them. They occasionally beat up scientists, try to get them fired, and one has already being murdered.
Willis means every word he says (this isn’t the first time he has said it either) and will be deeply disappointed when Homeland Security doesn’t round up biologists but instead wants to ask him a few question.
They investigated Pianka on false charges made by creationists in Texas including Dembski. Willis is way over the line here. This is pure terrorism.
This IDiot prooves that in SOME cases evolution does not work.
But people like this scare me – somehow they seem to get a lot of money, hence power, behind them. All you have to do is look at the leader of the free world.
Granted, Antarctica or Mars would be awesome, but wouldn’t it just be easier to send us to Scandinavia? They’re already overwhelmingly “evolutionists” anyway, so there’s a few dozen million people that won’t have to be relocated. Besides, penguins are cool and all, but personally I’d rather be surrounded by tall blonde women if I’m going to be exiled. Good beer too.
Man…..
Russell’s law REALLY applies itself here.
http://untravel.blogspot.com/2007/03/conservapedia-testing-russells-law.html
WAY to easy to parody.
Personally, I would love to go live on Mars, if it gets terraformed. And if all of us atheists relocate to Mars, there is also a good chance that an intelligent rational society can be built from ground zero.
Holy crap, I just checked out their site. This is hilarious. Scroll down from here till you see the box labeled “TRUTH.” Open the link for a great laugh.
Melior @110
You just made my day. “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds” should be required reading for every high school student, in their non existent “critical thinking” courses.
To dismiss Willis as crazy and harmless right off the bat is to ignore a great deal of history showing that just because something is crazy does not, in any way, take it out of the realm of possibility. Buy the book and read up.
Tulips, people. Read up on the Tulips.
@Dan #143:
Clicking on “truth” got me here:
So, what did it “reveal”? ;^)
maybe some day, Tom Willis will be in a zoo so that we all can point and stare at him.
Presumably, he will ape [sic] the chimpanzees and throw his feces at his peers.
Sounds like a good book @144, I’ll read it.
My reaction?
It’s Inquisition time again, after a long dry spell. Eeeeeeehhhh Haaaaawwwww!
PS Kansas City is in Missouri AND Kansas so it’s not hard to mix them up – KCMO and KCK is what the natives call the two halves of the city.
Huh? You serious about this? I call upon Poe’s Law, this is in all honesty waaay too retarded to be taken with even a minimal degree of seriousness.
P.
O.
E.
Hey Dan, your link didn’t work and I tried going to the homepage – found the “truth” again here:
http://csama.org/CSALOGOS.HTM
Just in case that link doesn’t work (I wonder if he will be adding the Mahābhārata version of creation in the near future):
@ self #150:
Rigveda not Mahābhārata. Sorry people. So many many ancient books with so many ancient opinions.
P.S. Why should we have to move to Mars/Antartica (despite both being pretty cool with respect to visitation possibilities). I agree with the person (whose comment above I can’t locate) who suggested that they move.
P.P.S.S. wrt Poe. Unfortunately, I think not.
You guys can ridicule this,call him insane and call Poe on him all you like,but fascism is not and never was an inherently german trait unfortunately.
And thoughts along these lines are probably not uncommon amongst fundamentalists at all.
If you follow Bush senior’s words from the “one country under god”to its logical conclusion,you dont land that far away from what this loon is saying.
It’s a rare Pharyngula thread these days that I have time to read all the way through (#153! woot!), so my apologies if this has been said already, but:
This is pretty clearly not a Poe, but a real fundamentalist who’s attempting sarcastic and hyperbolic humor. No, they’ve never been good at humor.
Pete Rooke #44
The evidence for evolution is overwhelming. The evidence against it is non-existent. Therefore, those who are sceptical of it are ignorant, lunatics or both.
“5. Largely, evolution is promoted simply by repetition and decibel level. Evolutionists gravitate to employment positions where knowledge, truth, character, logic, etc., are not needed . . . ”
WTF?! If you substitute ‘religion’ for ‘evolution’ this makes much more sense.
I was born in Kansas, but my parents had the good sense to hightail it outta there when I was but a babe. I don’t think I have thanked them enough for that…
I don’t understand why we need to wear special garments, placards, or stars to identify us. My “Scarlett A” is tattooed prominently on my ass so that creotards like this mentally deranged turdbag can see it clearly when they kiss it — my ass that is…
@156 Pimientita – Your parents are national treasures. It is unfortunate how many children get stuck in that hole and never leave. :-)
Here’s an idea for an experiment.
1.
Copypaste the whole article on your blog and replace all the “evolutionists” with “Christians”. Do not mention anything about the source of the text, just present it as if you’ve just written it yourself.
2.
Take out a stopwatch, and see how long it takes until you get sued by the Catholic League, kicked out of school/work, shunned out of your local community, etc.
And of course remember to report how it worked out. :)
It is people like Willis, saying exactly the kinds of things that he is saying, that made possible ‘the final solution’ to ‘the Jewish question’.
Hah, that littl’ modest experiment would end quite quickly…
And what hell is Tom Willis smoking? Because it may be the penultimate irony generator if this proposal of his is anything to go by.
For Evolutionist substitute Jew and we’re all back in the crazy days of 33-45.
Nice to see how scared the godfull are getting; but still I would recommend anyone under 30 learns Mandarin Chinese, I have a feeling it’s going to come in useful.
If this should ever come to pass, I guarantee I will convert to atheism immediately (by some definitions, I already am). I prefer to be in good company, and I expect we could make Antartica/Mars the place to be in next to no time.
These are no doubt the same people you mentioned the other day when we were discussing the “faith forum” nonsense; unless this is satire – it does have a smiley face!
The question from Rick Warren was “when does life begin”; McCain gave the answer “at conception”. I couldn’t help but think of this when I read the following. It’s longish, but worth the read and a good reason to keep them out of the only political party we have left.
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2005/12/4/193316/139
The role in dominionists actively working to limit choices and medical options is actually an old one, though increasingly out in the open, and increasingly one people are running into in “real life” (and it’s starting to be an area not just touching on women, either).
The first birth-control-related thing I heard of dominionists attempting to get banned (well, other than abortion and birth control in general) was with the IUD–dominionists have pushed the belief since at least the 60’s that the IUD is somehow an abortifacient because it prevents implantation. (The medical definition of pregnancy, according to practically everyone outside of the dominionist community, is once a zygote actually implants.) In fact, you can actually see an example of this at this pro-dominionist site.
(Dominionist groups, possibly uniquely, regard life as beginning when the egg and sperm meet–at conception–thus giving odd new life to Monty Python’s song “Every Sperm Is Sacred”. This belief in “Every Zygote Is Sacred” goes, at times, to the downright bizarre in dominionist circles–including zygote adoption schemes promoting adoption of spare in-vitro fertilisation embryos as “snowflake babies”.)
Partly as a result from dominionist pressure, and partly because of lawsuits over one particular IUD called the Dalcon Shield (of which a fair number of the lawsuits were at least supported by dominionist groups), there are presently only two IUD devices approved in the US for medical use.
Around this time, dominionist groups started pushing for “conscience clauses” in legislatures to allow doctors, nurses and religious hospitals to “opt out” of being made to perform or even learn about abortion. Most states were happy to go along with this, figuring that secular providers would “fill the gap” so to speak.
Dominionist groups next (and this actually started in the mid to late 80’s, to my recollection; I remember seeing this sort of stuff in the Kentucky Right to Life newsletters at this point) started targeting the birth control pill claiming both that it made women more promiscuous and that it, too, was an abortifacient because it can be used as a “morning after” pill. The same dominionist site claims this not only about the birth control pill but about every hormonal method of birth control, including NorPlant and Depo-Provera.
This is when it started being an issue to people even aside from the “birth control” thing.
Firstly, birth control pills are used for things besides birth control. One of the things birth control pills are used for is to regulate irregular periods; another is to deal with extremely heavy periods or extremely painful periods. Another reason is for management in polycystic ovary disease, which is an endocrine disorder that causes many of the regulatory hormones to be out of whack.
Depo-Provera is increasingly being used as a treatment for people with mild endometriosis–a disorder where you have bits of uterine tissue where you shouldn’t, and…well, everytime one is on the monthly, so to speak, those bits of tissue bleed, just like the rest of your uterine tissue. One of the nicer things about Depo-Provera is you don’t bleed for six months, and is a little less harsh than other medical treatments for endometriosis like, oh, Syntrel or having an ovariohysterectomy (both of which basically throw your body into early menopause).
Denying birth control pills to someone who has polycystic ovary disease can ultimately be life-threatening–among other things, diabetes and obesity are longterm consequences as well as, well, the ovarian cysts (which are incredibly painful, we’re talking gallstone/kidneystone levels of pain, and can get HUGE). Birth control pills are just about the only non-surgical option OUT there for polycystic ovary disease, and childbirth for people with polycystic ovary disease can itself be potentially life-threatening as well.
(Yes, I have a wee bit of a family history of PCS. Couldn’t you tell?)
A pharmacist has no way of really telling whether a script is for birth control or for another, legitimate, medical indication (such as PCS or for medical management of abnormal menstrual periods–some of which are precursors of PCS itself).
Dominionist pharmacists apparently–if the dominionists (including my family, who has a known family history of PCS, has had my sister hospitalised with PCS, has had an 80 pound ovarian cyst removed from my grandmother before) I’ve known are any judge–don’t care. They’re quite happy to let women live with the medical consequences, based on their actions.
A particular group of “pro-life” pharmacists, Pharmacists for Life International, along with other groups with names like Physicians for Life, are encouraging doctors to not write birth control scripts, and encouraging pharmacists not to fill them–even if for legitimate medical reasons.
Remember those “conscience clauses” I mentioned? Well, a lot of them were written quite broadly to begin with, and dominionist groups started pressuring for pharmacists to be included as well (an area which is still a major part of lobbying on these groups’ behalf). This Washington Post article explains how broad these have become.
It was probably inevitable that dominionist pharmacists would start refusing to fill prescriptions and claiming “conscience clause” exemptions.
This started really ramping up when Plan B (essentially a stronger version of the birth control pill designed as a morning after pill–essentially instead of taking the triple dosage recommended of stronger birth control, it’s in one pill) was approved for prescription by the FDA.
Plan B, much like the regular birth control pill, works by preventing the egg and sperm from meeting up in the first place. (Some docs say it may prevent implantation as well, but this is controversial.) The problem is, you have to take it within 72 hours for it to work, or you have to resort to actual abortifacients like RU-486 or traditional abortion (or methotrexate, which can also be used as an abortifacient–I’m actually surprised the pro-lifers haven’t gone after its use, even though methotrexate is a cancer chemotherapy drug as well).
Dominionist pharmacists started not only refusing to fill scripts for standard birth control and Plan B, but in some cases refusing to give them back or even tearing up prescriptions in the face of the people in question.
More reports started filtering in–from even cities as large as Milwaukee, Wisconsin–of women being unable to get Plan B prescriptions filled at all within the 72 hour window. (In fact, that case led to a lawsuit after the woman ended up becoming pregnant as a direct result.) A rape victim was denied Plan B by a dominionist pharmacist. One Missouri woman is going to court in regards to the problem after a Target pharmacist refused to fill a prescription for Plan B and refused to refer her–and Target defended the pharmacist. And so on.
In fact, the problem has become so common that the governor of Illinois passed an emergency executive order requiring all pharmacists in the state to either fill prescriptions or refer to pharmacists that will. (At least four dominionist pharmacists have been suspended by Walgreens Pharmacies as a result of this, and the dominionists in turn are suing.) Some states, aware of criticism, are requiring referrals in their “conscience clause” laws At least one site is now specifically focusing on the problem of “pharmacist refusal”.
The problem goes further. Multiple FDA advisory panels have recommended to sell Plan B over the counter (thus getting around the entire problem of “pharmacist refusal” by dominionist pharmacists), but no progress has been made; in fact, the head of the FDA committee on reproductive health has changed no less than three times in the past year over the issue of Plan B, including the forced resignation of at least one head who was linked to dominionist groups and the resignation of a second official regarding delays on Plan B.
A lot of people have expressed legitimate concern that the “conscience clauses”, taken to their ultimate extreme, could result in refusals of other products or even refusals to offer care to people whom dominionists disapprove of–gays, or non-dominionists, for that matter.
There are signs this is already happening.
Dominionists are even going further in some instances–one dominionist legislator has attempted to propose banning distribution of birth control on state college campuses under the old dominionist canard that the pill “increases promiscuity”.
There are dominionist judges now that–in almost identical manner to the dominionist pharmacists–are refusing to hear “judicial bypass” cases in regards to minors seeking consent for obtaining abortion services (or in some cases even prescription birth control); in some cases, these are the only judges in their county authorised to hear such cases. Reportedly this is also including legal emancipation cases, which has effects far beyond abortion (one common legal mechanism for kids escaping abusive households is to have a judge declare legal emancipation); of note, one of the judges in question is in Shelby County Tennessee, home of one of Love In Action’s facilities. (At least one person has successfully made a bid for legal emancipation on the mere threat of being sent by his parents to Love In Action’s facilities; another person was granted a hearing in Georgia for emancipation but may have been kidnapped (against the judge’s custody order) and transported back to the Love In Action facility after he had escaped. That case is under legal investigation and involves the one minor still at the facility.)
Also, “conscience clauses” are expanding to other medications that dominionists disapprove of solely because they “prevent consequences of sexual misbehaviour and might encourage promiscuity”.
A promising vaccine against human papilloma virus or HPV–which is the cause of not only nearly all cervical cancer, but nearly all penile cancer in men–has been shown to be highly effective–but may never make it stateside because dominionist groups like the Family Research Council are already coming out in opposition because they claim it could increase promiscuity.
There is legitmate fear that an HIV vaccine will probably be opposed on similar grounds, should one ever be developed that is effective, based on how funding of condoms for HIV prevention is already opposed by dominionist groups in Africa (where HIV infection rates often approach 40-50% even in the heterosexual population).
Not only are pharmacists refusing to fill legitimate prescriptions for Plan B and even monthly birth control (based on urban legends in the dominionist community promoted by groups like Pharmacists for Life International claiming they are a form of abortion), not only is approval of a vaccine for HPV (which, incidentially, would be the first effective vaccine for cancer, as 99 percent of all cervical and penile cancer is caused by HPV) being fought by dominionist groups even as it has completed phase III trials (because HPV is a cause of genital warts)…
…but per this livejournal entry there are now reports that dominionist pharmacists are refusing to fill scripts for (and occasionally destroying the scripts for) any prescriptions they feel may be for an STD (in this case, this was for Valtrex, a medication that is used for herpesviruses in general):
I know a young woman who has the misfortune to have contracted genital herpes.
She is on a daily regimen of Valtrex to prevent symptoms from manifesting themselves.
Recently she took her prescription to a pharmacist who was apparently a fundamentalist Christian.
Not only did he refuse to fill the prescription, but he tore it up and handed it back to her, saying, “God is punishing you for your sin.”
Refusals of prescriptions for drugs of this class can be potentially life-threatening–antivirals of the same class are used for herpesviruses besides herpes simplex II (which is genital herpes).
Genital herpes (herpes simplex II) is one of a family of anywhere between nine and twelve human herpesviruses, which include herpes simplex I (oral herpes–cold sores), herpes zoster aka varicella (cause of chickenpox and shingles when the varicella virus reactivates in adults), Epstein-Barr virus (aka mononucleosis–which has also been linked to Wilms tumour and Burkitt’s lymphoma), cytomegalovirus (a common complication in HIV patients which can cause blindness), etc.
A very common reason for prescription of drugs like Valtrex besides genital herpes is for kids who are leukemic or have depressed immune systems to prevent complications from exposure to chickenpox–most of those kids also cannot have the chickenpox shot, as it’s a live vaccine, and exposure to chickenpox can be life threatening; even adults who have never had the chickenpox who are exposed are typically given a course of varicella antiglobulin along with a course of Valtrex–in the hope that the VAB will prevent infection, the latter will hopefully make it less severe. (Chickenpox reactivating in adults can cause shingles, which is quite painful (and another reason why Valtrex is prescribed); in adults full blown chickenpox commonly hospitalises people and even kills them–Hawaii state legislature representative Patsy Mink died from chickenpox pneumonia as a result of catching it as an adult.)
Another reason that Valtrex is prescribed is–interestingly–cancer. (Yes, seriously.) As it turns out, Kaposi’s sarcoma is (much like cervical cancer and penile cancer) one of the few cancers definitely linked to a virus–specifically, human herpesvirus 8. Ironically, it was partly because of so many HIV patients getting Kaposi’s sarcoma that doctors realised it was a virally caused cancer, and we can now treat it using drugs that attack other herpesviruses (including Valtrex).
Valtrex is also prescribed to patients with particularly severe cases of mono or who are subject to severe complications from mono (for example, people who have had to have their spleens surgically removed).
Related drugs to Valtrex, and occasionally Valtrex itself, are also used in people who are exposed to non-human herpesviruses. (Generally herpesviruses that are not fatal to other primates are fatal to humans and vice versa; herpesvirus B, which occurs in macacques, is almost invariably fatal in humans without immediate treatment with anti-herpetic antivirals like Valtrex and ganciclovir. In fact, in many zoos and research facilities, it is standard procedure that if more than one monkey dies in a 24 hour period or if monkeys die after seeming ill all workers who worked with them go on immediate preventive courses of Valtrex in case the monkey had herpesvirus B. It’s considered that dangerous to people.)
Also, an increasing fear is that dominionists will start refusing to give antiretroviral drugs to HIV patients because they “disapprove of their lifestyle”. In fact, there are hints that the same dominionist groups behind “conscience clauses” are already linking birth control pills and HIV, and as dominionist groups are explicitly trying to expand “conscience clauses” in regards to funding related to HIV.
To those saying “Poe”, I call “deep cover rationalist”. I reckon he’s not meaning to parody creationists for lulz but to mess their cause up with some weapons grade crazy.
I just can’t believe how vicious and dangerous that diatribe is. This man needs to be locked away for everyone else’s safety.
The Chemist @100:
I’ve been raising funds for a spaceship to get away from all those religious nutters for fifteen years now. So far, I’ve collected €29.53; that’s about $43.66 – not much, but maybe if we pool our resources…?
I like him…. he’s silly!
@ 165
Could you please explain what you mean by dominionists?
I see you point on OCPs,but Im not sure I like the almost religious fervor of your post,it leaves one feeling a bit uneasy.
//In fact, there are hints that the same dominionist groups behind “conscience clauses” are already linking birth control pills and HIV//
Links?
Dancaban #162 wrote “For Evolutionist substitute Jew and we’re all back in the crazy days of 33-45.”
Specifically ’43. 1543
If you didn’t already know Pete Rooke was mentally deranged (look for his name on this blog for some seriously disturbing fantasies about rape and “books bound in human skin”), his comparison of Christonazi Tom Willis with the distinguished scientist Peter Atkins would surely enlighten you. With regard to Willis, it’s worth noting that the Nazis’ public discourse concerning the Jews was all about exiling them, rather than the mass murder they proceeded to when they got the chance.
A Bohr atom model at the intersection of the cross (the logo on the CSA website) is very corny.
Hey Clinteas, wazzup?
A Dominionist is someone who promotes a Christian Theocracy, in other words a revolution overturning secular law, replaced by Biblical Law.
i.e the Christian version of Islamicists
Pat Robertson and that gang are considered Dominionists.
I doubt any of the researchers who make Antarctica their temporary home really believe in scientific penguinism.
But what about Penguin Lust?
Opus/Bill ’08!
I haven’t read all the comments, but I’ve seen some wondering if this Willis thing is a parody. I know Tom Willis – he was heavily involved in the 1999 Kansas science standards – and he is as kooky a creationist as there is. He’s real, and he really believes the stuff he writes. There are years of back issues of his newsletter, which I used to subscribe to, at http://www.csama.org/CSA-NLTR.HTM#CSANWSBACK.
MaJEFF
Penguins are somewhat monogamous and male-male couples have been documented, but you already knew that, huh?
Just trying to ruffle some feathers?
Actually, scooter, the “penguin lust” was a reference to a Bloom County storyline.
OPUS/BILL ’08!
scooter,
ty for the definition,I just didnt like the vibe I was getting from 165’s comment at all.
I am increasingly amazed by the fascist undertones,openly or not,that you hear from “religious” people,clearly showing it to be a human trait,not that of any particular race or gender or country.
Wasn’t “penguin lust” a parody of the whole Gary Hart Donna Rice kerfuffle?
MAJeff, I didn’t think anybody remembered Bill&Opus! It’s been a looong time since Bloom County ACK!
In most states, pharmacists who refuse to fill a valid prescription have their license pulled. This has happened to a few here and there. This is practicing medicine without a license and it is highly illegal.
Since states started suspending these clowns licenses, it is happening less often. The Dominionists may have to go back to assassinating MDs and evolutionary biologists or something.
Most chain stores, Walmart etc. make pharmacists sign an agreement to do their job. They are in the business of making money not alienating customers.
Hilariously, he also says that the antichrist will be a Muslim because he will be ‘Assyrian’ the lands which were once Assyria are now all populated by Muslim people. This ignores the fact that the modern minority ethnic group who today identify as Assyrian happen to be Christian.
He has a strong grasp of modern geopolitics and culture, clearly.
I got the impression she was fiercely anti religious, and was committed to keeping Dominionists out of the “only party we have left”, implying the Dems.
I can vouch for a lot of the stuff referred to in the article she forwarded.
We’re a couple of years from Coat Hangers if we get any more Republican appointed Judges on the Supreme Court.
I’m contemplating an ‘explosives made easy’ seminar for women to pick up some extra cash if worse comes to worst.
Knowledge is power, especially when released very suddenly.
oops Clinteas forgot to address #184 to you
The fundie Death Cult Dominionists are losing power and people right now. They controlled the government for 8 years and left a pile of dead bodies, dead dollar, dead economy, and a lot of pain and suffering.
Like all extremist movements on a downward slide, it is likely they will become more shrill, violent, and destructive as time goes on in lieu of popular support. Willis is feeling frustrated because so far he and his band of theocratic nihilists have been unable to completely destroy science education in the midwest and every time they end up in court they lose. At this point in time, all he can do is threaten mass murder and hope some idiot takes him seriously enough to do it for him.
This is nothing new.
Presidential candidate Rep. Tom Tancredo some time ago proposed redeploying our evolutionist work force to (unairconditioned) camps on the southern border to build effective and attractive barriers to illegal immigration, including walls, fences and mine fields.
@ 186,raven,
youre probably right in that theyre losing power and people,one would hope so anyway.
The problem in the US as far as I see it tho,is the large number of so called moderates,the fundies of varying shades of moderation,that do not speak out against the theocratists,that will vote McCain,and will give those fascists a free pass.
A sign of a Death Cultist is their To Kill list. They all have one. They occasionally kill people on them.
Randal Terry is also in Kansas. He has threatened to kill MDs. His supporters have murdered 7, attempted to kill 17, and wounded 200. The feds have been after him for years.
There is one thought that makes me question evolution in this story. That this idiot, Tom Willis, has managed to survive this long without winning a Darwin Award. I guess a few slip through the cracks.
Kansas, huh? I hope Superman rips him in half like a phonebook.
i went to the link for that newsletter, in looking at the adverts for books and stuff its utterly amazing how much inane bullshit creationists can come up with, that whole denial thing is worth studying on its own. Maybe they really are simply that stupid, its a rather parsimonius explanation i suppose.
Sure. See comment 171.
Magnus @ #65 “I wonder if penguins make good livestock?”
According to Shackleton, they do: As March approached, the supply of food dwindled, and the men existed on penguins, seals, and their beloved sled dogs.
From here: http://www.antarcticconnection.com/antarctic/shackleton/patience.shtml
(Shackleton and crew’s story of survial is incredible!)
There is, after all, an element of random in evolution. Sometimes the deer with the biggest antlers gets hit by lightning…
@ MaJeff and Scooter – for you
Stacy ;-)
Sounds like he has been drinking from the Hitler cup on how to deal with the undesirables. I guess Christianity has morphed into the next great Thousand year Reich. If we spoke like this about Christians the Apocalypse would rise and gobble them up.
Tom Willis is from Missouri. Anywho, he’s the nut who wrote the first creationist standards. He said he isn’t sure whether or not the Earth revolves around the sun claiming scientists don’t know. But blame Missouri for producing him, he’s not a Kansas nut.
If Tome Willis ever came into power and banished biologists to Antarctica, how long would it take before America succumbed to a pandemic? It would probably be some stupid, easy to treat disease that did ’em in too.
“America decimated by disease” would be page one headlines. But on page 8 there would be a two paragraph story with the title, “Banished American scientists in Antarctica are healthy & productive”
The page 8 story would blame the scientific success upon devil worship.
scooter: Don’t blame our state for that abominable boob; that jerk was born, and spent most of his life, in Connecticut. I still can’t get over all those people voting for him instead of Ann Richards *grumble* *grumble*.
Woah baby, that’s some mad collection of crazy right there. I mean…. wow.
Batshit crazy kind of undervalues the contribution to society this paragon of Christian ethics brings…
Tis but passing odd that those values he seems so proud of in himself seem to imitate that which he disparages…presumably the red herring cheap shot comments on Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler etc etc…
The really sad thing is even if the lunatic thought he was being humorous there are folks out there that would wet themselves to swallow…encourage and obey anything coming out of the arse of any bunny that presumed themselves a spokesperson for Christianity…especially the creationist dipshits with no brains beyond sick sheep imitations…truly cretinism never scored so high…
Oh. My. Goodness.
Didn’t anyone notice that the thread statrts with a “KKK”? Maybe PZ is onto to something; are these right-wing nuts Klan members?
Sorry, I should always edit first. See above “Bo-bo” for a case and point.
Julian #200
After Bush graduated from Yale in 1968 at the age of 22, he moved to Texas. He certainly wasn’t AWOL from the Connecticut Air National Guard in the late 60s and early 70s. Sorry, Texans, but the boy is one of yours and has been for 40 years.
I dunno, I’ve flip-flopped a dozen times as to whether this is satire or not. But CSA advertises a ‘creation camp’ that has a picture of a T-rex eating watermelon. So I’m thinking hey, either Willis is for real, or they’re all in on the joke!
As Jack Krebs has already explained, this is no satire. Willis has been an active crusader against science for years — this is not just a funny front, but the work of a real, live, heartfelt, serious creationist.
As a guy who worked on Expelled… wow… This guy is totally f’d.
“A man who is convinced of the truth of his religion is indeed never tolerant, and he is unable to be tolerant. At the least, he is to feel pity for the adherent of another religion but usually it does not stop there. The faithful adherent of a religion will try first of all to convince those that believe in another religion and usually he goes on to hatred if he is not successful. However, hatred leads to persecution when the might of the majority is behind it.”
– Albert Einstein
Ah, PZ, but it IS satire. If it were not, my brain would free ee ee zz nn nn nn nnOW!
*(Reboots brain in safe mode)*
OK, seems like this Willis guy is real. Wow.
Just: Wow.
Advocating torture and the revocation of human rights for a clearly defined subgroup of the citizenry would be hate speech in Canada and warrant prosecution. I’ll make sure his name is on The List should he decide to visit.
Golly. Well, this atheist sure is glad she won’t be imposing her diseased self on Willis and his ilk anymore. I am starting a life in New Zealand and can’t remember being happier in the last ten years. My atheist husband and spawn will soon be here, too, supporting this economy…not the fundies’.
Texas loses a social worker…the Kiwis gain one.
To all my former clients who told me I was sent by god to help them…first, no, and second, sorry.
I’m not from Kansas. Yet I occasionally drive through or fly over it. I have friends who live there, or used to and one even plans to. The state and its inhabitant citizens figure along with the rest of the Union in contributing to the national vote. Some people who have never been residents of Kansas even watch that state – uh, “religiously” – to see how well or how badly they behave, depending on their biases…er, interests.
If after that preamble I am permitted to offer a positive observation about a sister state I don’t live in yet can significantly influence the country that I do live in, I would say this: as flat as you are, you sure do know how to raise hay. You’re just about the best at it.
It would be great to see that know-how applied to deciding whether your government and school curricula is to be dictated by the people or by religion. I’d hate to see you all regarded as fence-sitters on that issue.
In This Year of Our LDRO,
Dear Most Supreme Reverend Generalissimo,
Your Majesty, this most humble servant of TEH LORD begs to ask inform you that attached is the latest yearly report on the Mars evilutionist Re-Education Camp. A full list is given in the report (page 2), but in summary, over the last year, with the guidance of THE OLRD, we have have:
* Established a new leper’s colony, darwinist Isolation Camp #16432, at St Paris Hilton’s Crater. New supplies of inmates are being shipped daily to the camp. After long prayer, Sister Mary informs me the ash won’t fill the carter for at least ten years.
* Corrected by cleansing with fire slightly more than four thousand copies of The Protocols of The Insanity of darwin and numerous other fantasies and satanic works of evil, including thirty three First Folio and almost twenty two thousand Small Gods. Most of the owners eventually confessed, and with a few exceptions (both pardons in the name of our most merciful LROD) have been also been cleansed. Those who have not yet confessed are being seen to by the Committee for the Support of Faith and Reason.
* Distributed two hundred thousand copies of THE BABLE, most in the original Inglish, but approximately eight thousand forty one in translation, including two new heathen tongues, Grecian and Arabran. May THE LODR have mercy on our soles, for the translation, its’ diffecults.
Your Majesty, this most humble servant of THE DORL begs and regrets to report there have been some minor setbacks. A full list is given in the report (pages 3-7231), but the most notable are:
* The evilutionists somehow figured out how to fly a shuttle (Reverend Cheney thinks that, with the help of some daemons, the imbeciles captured the missing Reverend Day and first tortured him into learning how to fly, and then tortured him into flying the shuttle) and raided the Mars Holiday Camp for Young Boys, carrying off into slavery our young visitors. Could you please send a new supply of visitors? The reverends are starting to look at each other lustfully (Reverend Day was investigating if the evilutionists had released a homosexual daemon at the time he disappeared on his mission from THE LDOR).
* The latest shipment of gunpowder was not blessed by our DLOR, and failed to burn. We have been unable to implement the Spiritual Rebirth by Firing Squad program (hence the need to open more leper’s camps). Reverend Cheney says the evilutionists seemed to use explosives when they raided the holiday camp. I have asked him to pray more since we know that is beyond there feeble minds.
* Sadly, our prayers have not been answered, and we have had no conversions.
Finally, Your Majesty, may this most humble servant of THE ORLD offer congratulations on the successful deevilutionism of Europe. I got a chuckle out of the use of six six megaton bombs for six days on the home of antichrist. Strangely, though, since the thermonuclar deevilutionism, we have received no radio messages, nor have any of our inquiries been answered. Reverend Reagan says that, in his prayers, THE ROLD has said a daemon is in the radio. We are now praying for guidance on how to best exorcise the daemon.
May our most supreme kind and gracious RLDO bless all that you do,
Reverand Father Blair.
P.S. Please send a rocketful of visitors for the boy’s camp. It’s all repaired and we are desperate to show them the fun and exciting times we have on Mars!
I finished my little drawing of a nice “evolutionist” place…
Click my name to see it
I’m not originally from Kansas, but have lived here for over ten years now. It’s my observation that Kansas has about the same number of nutjobs as every other state, they just seem to attract more attention here. Maybe it’s because Kansas as a place is just so quiet most of the time.
I will say this, Kansans have done a good job of getting rid of wingnut school board people once they reveal their nuttiness. The next step will be trying to keep them from being elected in the first place. I think of the prevailing political attitude here as conservative pragmatism. Our governor (a democrat, BTW) is an excellent example of this.
Is this a joke, or did someone write this believing all that wrote.
^that they wrote
Let’s not frown on the pleasure of concentrating on a single, silly detail.
“Mid-America”? I didn’t really notice whether the man was from Honduras, Panama or Nicaragua. Can anybody hep me?
A colony in Antarctica containing the only remaining humans who have more than two brains cells to rub together? Wow man- that would be just like in The Marching Morons.
Except this time we already know what to do about PoProb…
So? The guy on my corner thinks he’s King George II. Should I post an article about him on reddit too?
design,
Unfortunately, many appear to share Willis’s particular brand of insanity. I would guess from your chosen handle that you share parts of it yourself.
@design #222,
The guy on your corner wasn’t the ghostwriter of the 1999 Kansas science standards. The guy on your corner isn’t good buddies with Steve Abrams of the KS state board of ed, who’s now running for the State Senate.
to #14 not bibles but 50 copies of The Satanic Verses (=
ouch, my brain just exploded. Oh wait, it seems to have had no effect!!
ive heard similar loony bullsh*t on beliefnet from creationists
scary buncha folks arent they?
they run the gamut from ignorant and/or unthinking to outright dangerous if allowed outside without supervision
IIRC, this dimwitted thumper has also advocated geocentrism.
And he has the temerity to host astronomical observing sessions.
I guess direct observations of the phases of Mercury and Venus are banned at these sessions.
Oh, and don’t watch Jovian and Saturnian moons orbiting their respective planets, or you’ll go to hell (especially transits).
And Lunar libration demonstrates that its orbit around the Earth is elliptical, not a godly perfect circle, so if you like to look at Mare Orientale or Gassendi, your soul is already forefit to Satan.
And, for the health of your immortal soul, never, ever, use any instrument sensitive enough to demonstrate stellar parallax! It’s a tool of the Dark One, and will send your damned shade screaming into eternal torment.
I wouldn’t know, but that stuff up there sounds like a parody. Are you sure it isn’t? God, or whatever, help us if it isn’t.
I’m with everyone who’s gung ho about the Mars colony idea. We need a new Mayflower to find a land where we can be free of idiocy. Let the dipshits destroy Earth while we watch from the observatory over our algae farms.
Dr. Strangelove FTW!!!
This bloke is Ray Comfort in a perpetual bad mood.
Geesh…well Willis ought to stay in Missouri and mind his blueberries.
*231
“This bloke is Ray Comfort in a perpetual bad mood’
Maybe cos he knows that we knows that he knows that he is an Idiot…
I’m starting to appreciate now that in my lifetime I will see the USA renamed to ‘JesusLand’.
When this happens (or even right now), I would like to extend an invitation to all you wishing to escape this to come on over to Australia (I’m keeping a few tinnies in the esky for ya!)
You’ll like it here, the theists are sliding backwards so fast here that they are starting to have to phone it in
We also have plenty of penguins down here in Melbourne – which is starting to look like an important critera, judging from the comments above…
A colony on Mars sounds like a goos idea. Now go vote some creationist to make it happend.
Charlie Foxtrot:
Funny. Did you know creationist kook Ken Ham is from Australia? He moved to the USA in 1987. I guess he felt more at home here.
(Recently he was accused of embezzling from the Australian creationist organization he created before coming here.)
@llewelly
Yup. One of our better export deals, that one. You are aware of our “No Returns/No Refunds” policy, I hope?
Religious people really frighten me sometimes. I just don’t know if I can honestly trust the judgment of those who believe in an all seeing, all knowing invisible man.
I love that:
I’m frickin’ soluble! Well. Partially.
I work in a psychiatric hospital. Seriously. I’m privy to many rantings, ravings, manifestos, etc. Many people think of people who have a mental illness as walking around talking to themselves or having disorganized and tangential thought processes. While that is true of some, it is not true of all. Some of my patients (involuntarily committed I might add) have similar delusional beliefs and “plans” such as the ones presented here.
For the sake of Mr. Willis’ family at the very least, I do hope that he has the opportunity to take advantage of a mental health evaluation and treatment as needed one day.
A perhaps unintended consequence of this legislation is a Jehovah’s Witness physician refusing to administer a blood transfusion.
Some deaths along this line will make people rethink their committment.
SG
I don’t think that this guy should be allowed to vote -_-
Lots of Christians do not really want the genuine religious liberty they pay lip-service to, but rarely does one reveal this about himself so clearly as does Tom Willis.
Just as the Ku Klux Klan’s unreasonably hate-filled rhetoric inherently contains its own rebuttal (easily discernible therein when read or heard by reasonable people), so too does this Kook in Kansas Tom Willis’ rhetoric inherently supply its own rebuttal. So in a way, we should be grateful to Willis for his ballsy candor, it can save us a lot of talking/writing whenever anyone inquires, “So, what’s wrong with this Willis guy and what he believes and writes?” — all we have to do is hand them (or direct them to the URL where they can find) his last two diatribes calling for depriving evolution-accepting citizens of our liberties and say, “Here, just read this.” If their reading of Willis doesn’t answer their question satisfyingly, then there IS NO answer the inquirer will find satisfying, and we then know to save our breath/time and just walk away.
wow these wackos just replaced the brain eating zombies in my nightmares
Hell, if his final solution is to send me off to Mars, that’s awesome. Who wants to go with me?
Mars? I’ll go! Where do I sign up? Heck, I’d go to Antarctica.
Do what now?
You know those camps don’t sound like a bad idea. A bunch of “evolutionists” in one place ought to be fun. Except for the whole we’ll die of starvation thing…
Lol.
I’d wear this version: “Warning: Evolutionist! Mentally Competent – Potentially Dangerous.”
subtext: “May investigate your evidence and find it wanting!”
Man, the Cretinists must be really getting desperate to squeal so loudly. That is good news that they are making such asses of themselves, but it stinks of McCarthyism. Is it legal to make these threats to other US citizens and threating to incarcerate them into “labour camps for not believing in their insanity?
Any lawyers here that could comment? Perhaps this buffoon can join Ken Hovind in a nice padded cell.
Creationism-because thinking makes Jesus cry.
Paul Decelles @232:
Hey, now! Some of us are trying to live here!
I’m thinkin’, maybe, drop him off in the middle of the Sahara.
The blueberries can stay.
What you have to realize here is that Willis is writing from the mindset that evolutionists caused the holocaust. So yes, he is deliberately attempting to parallel Nazism, but in an attempt to be ironic by reflecting our own methods back at us. However, the fact is that evolution has nothing to do with eugenics, so when we read his words, they just fall flat, making it all too easy to miss the point and think it’s just a bad satire, as your over-analysis shows.
@215:
Brian L. Foster, you rock! My monitors need to be cleaned. Release the hounds!
Batshit crazy. I can only hope that even cretards think this is too much. Otherwise I won’t visit the US ever – or only while riding a tank together with some hundreds of thousnads of our soldierboyz. (this is of course satire…)
I’ve just read Chris Hedges’ “American Fascists”, and now I’ve read this.
So now, I’m wondering when they’ve scheduled Kristallnacht.
Serious, is nobody else seeing the Nazi parallels here?
Holy Crap! He’s the one who sounds like a Nazi nutbag here. I like that he can show his ignorance so openly and forgets to mention all the religious groups that were supporters or eugenics and all that other good stuff. What an f’ing nutter.
I think we’ve just discovered the Fifth Reich. Willis is clearly dangerously insane.
Gas chambers will follow, I assure you.
Forced to listen to Richard Dawkins? Purrrrr…
WOW. The word Looney just doesn’t do justice to cover this bloke. We need a new word to define extreme unequivocal stupidity.
I’m reminded of a few words some clueless anarchist/punk rock-style idiots wrote on a wall in my city a few years back: “Throw all rich people out the country”. About equally idiotic.
Frederik Rosenkjær@261,
Yes, why waste them? Class War, a Brit anarchist group, had the much more sensible slogan “Eat the rich” ;-)
Ignorant creationist hate spew.
Anyone else chuckle at the fact that it was written in Comic Sans? Hard to take anyone (especially religidiots) seriously in Comic Sans.
oh yeah, this guy is definitely all there lol. what a wacko
Wait, what?
“like Muslims, evolutionist religion permits them to lie if there is any benefit to them.”
Islam does not work that way!
Seriously, Islam has most of the same rules of Christianity, just more strictly enforced. Just like Christians do not allowing lying, neither do Muslims.
This Tom Willis guy has got to be taking the piss. I would be willing to bet a substantial amount of money that this is a parody of some sort. No one could seriously be this deluded.
I’m reminded of a few words some clueless anarchist/punk rock-style idiots wrote on a wall in my city a few years back: “Throw all rich people out the country”. About equally idiotic.
Yet funnily enough, socialists advocate doing exactly this – albeit indirectly, through high income tax, corporate tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, and other powerful incentives for anyone with money or ambition to leave the country and go somewhere else – and then wonder why investors and businesses go elsewhere and the economy collapses. Strange.
So Walton,
You support the right of the rich to destroy the economy of an entire country in pursuit of their own selfish ends? We knew that, but it’s nice to have it from your own hand.
You support the right of the rich to destroy the economy of an entire country in pursuit of their own selfish ends?
I support the right of everyone to choose what to do with their own wealth and property (the proceeds of their economic activity), and to travel freely.
Are you saying that you would forcibly prevent the wealthy from leaving the country, or transferring their funds out of the country, in order to prevent the flight of capital? (And people wonder why socialism leads to dictatorship…)
Right, so you do indeed support the right of the rich to destroy the economy of an entire country in pursuit of their own selfish ends.
I would most certainly prevent the rich from taking their wealth out of the country. This was of course quite standard until recently, and such measures did not lead to dictatorship – that’s just another lie of Hayek’s. Incidentally, the country that best weathered the Asian crisis of 1998 was Malaysia – the only one which had resisted IMF pressure to remove controls on capital movements.
No-one’s wealth and property is “the proceeds of their economic activity” – this is a prime “libertarian” lie. Everyone depends on innumerable others, both past and present, just to stay alive, let alone accumulate wealth.
Actually Walton, would you like to list the instances in which socialism has led to dictatorship? (As opposed to instances of Leninist socialists seizing power and deliberately instituting dictatorship as soon as possible?) You might just make out a case for Cuba, but I can’t at present think of any others.
Oh, I suppose you could claim Chile – where an attempt to institute democratic socialism “led to dictatorship” because Pinochet – supported by the US government and your hero Friedman – overthrew democracy and instituted one.
I give up, Nick. We are going round in circles. I think you’re completely insane; no doubt you think the same of me.
A consequentialist argument from empiricism seems to be taking us nowhere. I can point to many examples of socialism failing catastrophically and producing massive poverty and deprivation – and indeed I have done so. I can also point to capitalist success stories, and have done so. You, in turn, can point to failures of the free market – which do undoubtedly exist, because there are externalities with which market forces simply cannot deal – and their impact.
But an ideological argument also takes us nowhere. I believe in a person’s moral right to acquire and own property and use it in such way as he pleases, providing he has not taken it from another illegitimately by force or fraud. I believe that free transactions between individuals are preferable to coercive force by governments. I don’t believe that governments have the authority or the wisdom to decide who is “deserving”, or to decide what should be produced or how wealth should be distributed and spent. And I believe that to take from the productive and successful and give to the unproductive and unsuccessful provides a disincentive to success, and subsidises failure. You clearly don’t have the same values; you evidently think that private property and private wealth are illegitimate, that what one person produces belongs to the collective, and that equality of outcome is a more important goal than opportunity or prosperity. I can’t argue with someone who, fundamentally, does not believe in individual freedom.
So we might as well abandon this discussion. How about a musical battle of ideologies instead? Which is a better fight song, The Internationale or Battle Hymn of the Republic? :-)
(The last part of this post is an attempt at humour, which, as I would concede, is not my strong point…)
Walton,
You are about 95% wrong about what I believe. I most certainly do believe in individual liberty – but unlike you, I believe in everyone having the real liberty that comes from having enough resources, not complete liberty for the rich at the expense of the poor as you do.
You are wrong, you have not given many examples of socialism failing catastrophically and leading to complete deprivation. Most of the places where attempts have been made at instituting “full-blooded” socialism have been made have already been in desperate straits: Russia, China, Cuba, etc. – and all have either been Leninist dictatorships, or have been quickly crushed from outside. At that, the Leninist dictatorships actually did pretty well in material terms. The nearest approaches to socialism within the capitalist system (not very near), such as Sweden, and WWII Britain, have very obviously not led either to dictatorship or to extreme deprivation, contrary to Hayek. I notice you cannot meet my challenge to provide examples of socialism leading to dictatorship – so I’d be obliged if you would retract that falsehood. Nor have you met the point that the current dire crisis comes at the end of decades in which your nostrums have been followed.
I think you “give up” because your arguments have been comprehensively refuted, but you can’t admit it, even to yourself. If you don’t wish to defend your positions any more, perhaps you should stop posting long “libertarian” screeds here?
The nearest approaches to socialism within the capitalist system (not very near), such as Sweden, and WWII Britain, have very obviously not led either to dictatorship or to extreme deprivation, contrary to Hayek.
Post-WWII Britain was quite a deprived and authoritarian place. Food and consumer goods were rationed, with long queues and scarcity. And the Attlee government’s reforms, while they came nowhere near dictatorship, did inevitably lead to more authoritarianism and government control. There was even an abortive proposal to control citizens’ choice of occupations! The Attlee government, while well-meaning and, I think, genuinely committed to democracy, fundamentally did not realise that freedom is incompatible with socialism. If every citizen has to carry a ration card, and can only receive the food and goods that government assigns to them, then they are not free. If a citizen is compelled to join a union in order to obtain work in a particular workplace (the “closed shop” system), he is not free. If a manufacturer has no choice of what he wishes to produce and in what quantity, or to whom to sell it, because the government imposes quotas, tariffs and price controls, then he is not free.
Fundamentally, if government controls the economy, you cannot have political freedom. Effective political dissent requires, for one thing, funding; and if most wealth is controlled by the government, and the wealthier people in society are all senior government employees, then their rational self-interest (in preserving their position) militates against the donation of money to dissenting political causes.
And, of course, the socialist policies of the “post-war consensus” in Britain led to the economy going to hell in a handbasket in the 1970s. Inefficient, bureaucratic nationalised industries could no longer compete in the competitive global market. You complain about the death of British manufacturing; but the reason for this was that it simply couldn’t compete with those countries which could manufacture things more cheaply, due to cheaper labour and less unionisation. State subsidies and protection of domestic industries are fundamentally wrong; why should we subsidise inefficiency and push up prices, just to protect a particular industry for the sake of its workers as if it were a social service?
So yes, I think I have established that the failed socialist experiment in Britain led to both deprivation and authoritarianism. As to Sweden, I’m no expert on Swedish history; but it seems to me significant that the EU, of all things, is now pressuring the likes of Sweden and Denmark to lower their oppressively high tax rates. And economic factors are also doing so; with the growth of the EU free trade zone, business is simply relocating to more favourable locations, where it can do business more efficiently and create more wealth and more jobs. The Rasmussen government in Denmark has now imposed a moratorium on tax rises, and is looking at ways to lower the country’s tax burden.
Post-WWII Britain was quite a deprived and authoritarian place. Food and consumer goods were rationed, with long queues and scarcity. – Walton
Of course it was you numbskull – the country had just poured as much of its resources as possible into a six-year war, during which it had been obliged to mortgage itself to the hilt to the USA. Do read a bit of history. Attlee’s Britain also saw the foundation of the NHS, to the enormous benefit of the health of the great majority. The rest of your blether about Attlee’s Britain is ludicrous – your claim was that socialism leads to dictatorship, and this is a clear counter-example.
If every citizen has to carry a ration card, and can only receive the food and goods that government assigns to them, then they are not free.
While if food is in short supply, as it unavoidably was, and the market decides who gets it, some of them starve – but they starve freely!
Effective political dissent requires, for one thing, funding
Quite so. So economic inequality automatically implies inequality of political power. But of course, you’re happy with that; so long as the rich are free, sod the rest.
You complain about the death of British manufacturing; but the reason for this was that it simply couldn’t compete with those countries which could manufacture things more cheaply, due to cheaper labour and less unionisation.
Right, so you’re in favour of lower and lower wages, less and less protection for workers, as companies seek the countries where they can extract the most profit. And of course, the most effective way to reduce wages is to crush unions altogether and murder trades unionists, as in Pinochet’s Chile, as in United Fruit’s central America, as in anywhere big business gets its untrammelled way. And the reason for the decline of British manufacturing was not simply inefficiency – as I’ve pointed out, other European countries, just as unionised or more so, took an alternative path, and kept far more of theirs. Thatcher wanted to smash the unions – and that meant destroying manufacturing industry and relying on “financial services”. We’ll see how that plays out over the next few years.
it seems to me significant that the EU, of all things, is now pressuring the likes of Sweden and Denmark to lower their oppressively high tax rates.
Walton, the EU is a capitalists’ club; of course it is trying to destroy Scandinavian welfarism. And you say these countries’ tax rates are oppressive – shouldn’t that choice be up to their citizens?
So, Walton, you still haven’t come up with a single example of socialism leading to dictatorship. So would you please retract that lie (as I must now call it)?
So, Walton, you still haven’t come up with a single example of socialism leading to dictatorship.
As I said, the Attlee government was on a path, albeit unwittingly, towards authoritarianism. It was the Conservatives of the day who, while accepting the inescapable trend towards socialism at the time, slowed the process of change and therefore retained some liberty.
I think we are working from different definitions of “dictatorship”, though; perhaps I’m misusing the word slightly. I should have said “authoritarian state”. For me, a populist government, which enjoys the support of a majority but rides roughshod over minority rights, and can arbitrarily deprive people of their property or their freedom of action where the majority wills it, is an authoritarian state. Chavez, for instance, is an authoritarian, even though he does for the time being enjoy broad popular support. The tyranny of the majority is still tyranny.
The incoherence of your view is this. You clearly do not trust people to manage their own private economic affairs individually; you appear to think that this will inevitably lead to exploitation of the weak and disadvantaged by the strong. And you have a point. But if you do not trust people individually to make decisions about their own lives, why do you trust people collectively – the majority – to make decisions about everyone’s lives? Why do you ascribe a wisdom to a mob of people acting together which you do not ascribe to individuals or corporations acting on their own? People will still act in their own self-interest, including where this is to the detriment of others – and all you’re doing is giving the majority unfettered power to act to the detriment of the minority. In short, you are right to highlight that the free market is not perfect because of human nature – but these problems are multiplied a thousandfold with populist control.
Furthermore, it is virtually indisputable that if the world followed “democratic socialist” ideas, our material prosperity, in terms of consumer goods and standard of living, would be significantly less – because of the lack of a supply-and-demand price mechanism, and therefore the lack of an incentive to produce consumer goods for which there is a demand. No serious economist disputes the benefits, in principle, of free trade and the supply-and-demand commercial mechanism.
It is true that left-leaning economists of today often argue – probably rightly – that pressuring Third World countries to immediately dismantle their system of trade tariffs and privatise major state assets, without reciprocal arrangements on the part of Western countries, does lead to short term misery and is unfair. (Not to mention hypocritical, since the US and EU maintain massive subsidies and substantial tariffs to protect domestic farmers and other producers.)
But I don’t think the likes of Krugman or Stiglitz would deny that free trade, when achieved bilaterally, leads to more prosperity in the long run – nor would they argue that nationalised monopoly industries can generally be run efficiently. Stiglitz does deny the “invisible hand” theory and argues that market failure, rather than being confined to specific and defined areas, is pervasive in virtually all markets due to information asymmetry; thus he sees a role for government intervention. But he is far from being a socialist. He doesn’t advocate nationalisation or “democratic” control of industry; rather, he argues, as I understand it, that some degree of government intervention can compensate for the failures caused by information asymmetry in an unfettered market. I personally disagree with him, and agree with Austrian School economists such as Russell Roberts; but Stiglitz is a brilliant economist who absolutely deserves to be taken seriously. In contrast, unreconstructed socialists do not deserve to be taken seriously, because their ideas are no longer founded on any serious economics, but on blind allegiance to a defunct ideology.
As I said, the Attlee government was on a path, albeit unwittingly, towards authoritarianism. – walton
Walton, you’re being highly dishonest. your original claim (repeated unthinkingly from whatever propaganda you’ve been reading lately, I don’t doubt) was that “socialism leads to dictatorship”. Your claims that the Attlee government was on a path to authoritarianism are in fact false – your support for them simply consists in repeating your “libertarian” prejudices – but in any case
1) It demonstrably did not lead to dictatorship, and
2) Your claim was a general one, yet you cannot identify a single instance of it.
Your weaseling about definitions of “dictatorship” is contemptible. You know and I know what a dictatorship is: there may be marginal cases, but Attlee’s Britain came nowhere near that margin. Walton, on this point, either you admit you were wrong, or you brand yourself a Liar for Hayek&trade.
Your point about the consequences of bad democratic decisions has this much merit: no system can eliminate bad decisions, or the possibility of disastrous ones. However:
1) Democratic decisions are only properly so called if they are openly debated, giving the opportunity for all sides to be heard. This is a powerful, although of course by no means infallible, corrective.
2) Capitalism concentrates economic decision making in the hands of a few people, wholly excluding the vast majority of those the decision will make. This is fundamentally unjust. Moreover, those people will tend to be those who are clever and hard-working, but also selfish and ruthless: the system selects those who don’t give a damn for others as its decision-makers.
3) Multiple independent decisions can have disastrous effects for all, just as much, if not more, than democratic decisions. We see this in the (misnamed) “Tragedy of the Commons” (it should be “Tragedy of the Open-Access Regime” – real, historical commons had elaborate systems of regulation and mutual surveillance). In your “libertarian” utopia, there is simply no way to deal with this.
4) I’m not suggesting wholly doing away with supply-and-demand mechanisms – they have their place. However, the dictation of investment decisions by market forces is disastrous: they can, for example, make it economically rational to “mine” forests and fisheries, destroying them but making profits that can be invested elsewhere; and uneconomic to develop energy-saving technologies. If this approach continues, environmental disaster is as certain as anything in the real world can be.
5)I agree with you that Krugman and Stiglitz, unlike idiots like Roberts, are worth taking seriously. I’m not an “unreconstructed” socialist; I take very seriously, for example, the evils of Leninism, the problems of “producer capture”, and the need to account for the evolved realities of human nature. Your idea of socialism is “the government runs everything”. Mine is “democracy is extended to the economic sphere, with all important decisions being taken by all those seriously affected, or their chosen representatives”. For some decisions, this means everyone in the world. For most, it would be far more local. And after the crash of 2008, I think you’ll find it’s your ideology that turns out to be defunct.
6) You really ought to spend some time reading up on history, before you poison your mind with any more ideological rubbish. Of course, if you know little about what has actually happened in the world, someone like Hayek can be convincing. If you spent a year reading up on how capitalism came about, and what its history has been, I very much doubt if you could continue to believe the rubbish you do. I wouldn’t expect it to convert you to democratic socialism – there is a serious case to be made for a regulated capitalism – but there is really none at all for your “libertarian” fantasies.
Gadzooks, Nick, does your patience know no bounds?
I’m beginning to think that Walton is on some type of dole. He has waayyyyy too much time to post here.
Why doesn’t Walton start his own blog. Dammit, he is rarely on topic and does his best to derail those he come on.
He’s a law student. It seems like he’ll make a very good lawyer since he’s both articulate and shows all the signs of having a fine legal mind: begin with the conclusion and reconstruct, interpret, or ignore the evidence to suit it — the very opposite of scientific reasoning.
IIRC, students in most European countries usually recieve a stipend while attending University. Is so, that would explain my observation.
Because he doesn’t have anything of his own to say. Here, he gets to play defence counsel for his ideology in a kind of virtual moot court. If he started his own blog, I suspect that he would find it difficult, if not impossible, to sustain regular posting without an opponent. Either that or it would degenerate into a vapid regurgitation of libcon apologetics.
So, in other words, Walton is a “flea”.
I’d tend to doubt that’s the case for “most”, since based on the 3 EU countries I know (Ireland, the UK, and Sweden), the general rule for funding maintenance is some combination of parent financing, loans (often preferential government loans), and part-time work. It helps greatly, of course, that the fees, if any (many European countries have no university fees at all), are generally very low.
IIRC, students in most European countries usually recieve a stipend while attending University.
To clarify, we don’t get a stipend in the UK, but we do get a government-funded student loan with controlled interest rates. Like most British students, my sources of income are the student loan, parental contribution and part-time employment (I’m in my university OTC – a military training unit – and also work in my college library).
I’m beginning to think that Walton is on some type of dole. He has waayyyyy too much time to post here.
I do have a fair amount of free time; but it really doesn’t take that much effort to post on a blog. If you’re really interested in what I do with my life: today I attended one lecture and one tutorial, went to the gym and completed a 3km run on the treadmill, and ate lunch. I’m now going to do some work. So Pharyngula has not yet taken over my entire life. :-)
It seems like he’ll make a very good lawyer since he’s both articulate and shows all the signs of having a fine legal mind: begin with the conclusion and reconstruct, interpret, or ignore the evidence to suit it — the very opposite of scientific reasoning.
I’m not sure whether to interpret this as a compliment or an insult. For the sake of harmony I’ll choose the former.
Why doesn’t Walton start his own blog.
I don’t have a public blog – there are plenty of conservative/libertarian blogs out there already – but I do write blog-style posts using the Facebook notes feature. Believe me, I’d start my own blog if I thought I’d get enough readers to make it worthwhile.
It helps greatly, of course, that the fees, if any (many European countries have no university fees at all), are generally very low.
We do have tuition fees, albeit capped by government and funded via the student loan. The standard rate is £3,070 pa (about US$6,000).
Ah, we’re back on Walton’s favourite topic: Walton.
Everyone else was talking about me. Why, I don’t know. I simply replied, and clarified some misconceptions.