Confederate Flag

This will certainly trigger most of you because y'all are not accustomed to thinking freely and considering ideas outside your dogma. Truthfully, just the sight of this flag has probably already triggered half of you. But what the hell, let's do a thought experiment, kids...

If the "N" word can be repurposed from the horrible racist slur that it is to a term of endearment by newer generations of black youths, is it at least possible that young southerners aren't using the #confederateflag as an open confession of racism?

And now I'll provide the 10,000 caveats required whenever one actually has an open mind and muses aloud about issues.

I, personally, would never display this flag because it does carry an extraordinary amount of symbolic pain that is rightly associated with this flag. And since I'm a fairly nice guy and have respect for other's opinions and feelings, I am accommodating in that way. I reserve the "Grow a sack" responses for the American flag.

I think that we can all agree that it is maddening that the swastika was placed off-limits because of its use by the Nazis. The Jains, Hindus, Buddhists, and anyone else who used this as a meaningful symbol in the past have had it forever stolen from them. Similarly, because of its use as a symbol for the KKK and white supremacists, I can understand the pangs of 'wtf' that someone might have associated with seeing the Confederate flag displayed.

But the left is equally as guilty on such matters. The difference is that the media just looks the other way because they are either cheerleading on behalf of or are quietly supportive of the left's agenda. "How so," you ask. Anyone walking around with a hammer and sickle, Mao or Che t-shirt is guilty of the same indecency or worse. In the case of Mao, millions were slaughtered in the name of socialism. And Che was a cold-blooded murderer. None of these traits should be aspirational but should we immediately assume that the wearer is broadcasting their love of slaughter and genocide?

But the left poo-poos the atrocities as minor inconveniences and cranes to see some thin sliver of shared ideology to justify their symbolic insolence. Why don't they do this with the southern cross? Because anyone they agree with gets the benefit of the doubt and all others are imputed the worst possible motives.

If a Che shirt is ok, would a Chauvin shirt be equally ok? Would you be satisfied with excuse-making like, "Well, he was for law and order. And I like that part but not those icky parts." I doubt it.

As for whether it should be displayed on government buildings, I say no. Just like I don't want a Christian flag atop the capitol, I don't want this either. Sure, Christianity was largely responsible for the formulation and implementation of many of the better aspects of the American political system, but I don't want the government facilities to be hijacked by any group. So keep the flags, rainbow spotlighting, and all other issue related expressions at your church, club, house, or wherever.

All things considered, I am sympathetic to those who would like to relegate the Confederate flag to museums. But if you want to fly it at your house or from your pickup, have at it - 1A says you can. And if you want to wear a Che t-shirt, giddyup. In both cases, you are sending purposeful messages and I am gleaning a snippet of insight about what you believe. I might wonder about such choices, but I'll carefully place that puzzle piece in the larger milieu of your life and behaviors and not dismiss you offhand as a racist or a murderous butcher.

I hope that everyone else will do the same.

Ouroboros

When they are eating their own.  #ouroboros

Hollywood Harassers

GMO Hate

Neil deGrasse Tyson says what every sensible person knows about GMOs.

Does this make those who are religiously hysterical about this "anti-science"?

ن

Christian genocide.

Atheist or Agnostic?

NDT on atheism:

Don't Wait To Immigrate

May The 4th Be With You

Forgiving

Legalized Prostitution And Morphed Values

A long article but interesting look at legalized prostitution by Nisha Lilia Diu.

It is also an example of where supporters of an issue will morph over time and eat their own tail - become the very people whom they used to seek to destroy. For example, feminists who at one time might have lobbied on behalf of legalizing prostitution as a women's rights issue in order to "improve working conditions" or to provide health and retirement benefits without judgement of the behavior transform to see the logic of banning the activity and conclude that it may not be the most psychologically/spiritually uplifting or liberating profession for women. (Of course they never seem to see their double standard of heaping copious amounts of judgment on the men in these transactions. 'Women are just pursuing their only means of making a living or fulfilling their desire' whereas men should be expected to control their carnal desires. The soft bigotry toward women of low or different expectations.)

[BTW, a belief system that teaches that we are children of a moral God who expects us to control desires and be holy goes a long way toward achieving the feminist objective of mutual respect and controlling a man's desire.]

Heck, the tail eaters might even seek a shorthand method to discourage the behavior, to establish social norms and to protect the dignity, health and well-being of women by labeling the behavior as, say, immoral, just as religious folk do. Callow and myopic vigor often shakes its fist at the establishment and seeks to undo perceived intolerance without fully grappling with the attendant nuance and difficulties of large and complex issues. Sometimes there are no great solutions but only imperfect trade-offs.

Be careful which fences you tear down.

[The Ouroboros is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail.]

Online Dates, Patriots & Racism

On a recent Freakonomics podcast, Alli Reed discussed how she created a fake dating profile as a test to see whether guys on an online dating service really read her profile or were only interested in looks. As she describes it in the resulting cracked.com article:

In making this profile, I made sure my creation touched on every major facet of being truly horrible: mean, spoiled, lazy, racist, manipulative, and willfully ignorant, and I threw in a little gold digging just for funzies. I maintain that there is not a human on this planet who would read this profile and think, "Yes, I'd like to spend any amount of the fleeting time I'm given on my journey around the sun getting to know this person." This profile is my magnum opus; it will be engraved on my tombstone. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair:

She used her model friend's photo and in her attempt to make her fake persona seem as awful as possible, included in her profile such things as "On a typical Friday night I am: knockin the cups out of homeless ppls hands, its sooooo funny to watch them try to pick it all up lolllllll" and "The most private thing I'm willing to admit: convinced my ex i was pregnant and he still pays me child support lolololol"

To cement her racist bona fides, she added "keeping america american" under the topic "The six things I could never do without." On the podcast she explained, "To me, the worst person in the world is definitely racist. And keeping America American, to me, is sort of code for 'I don't like people who don't look like me.'"

And therein lies an interesting distinction in American culture today.

It is noteworthy that Reed sees patriotism as the expression of racism. But for some - I would guess most - patriotism is just love on one's country and/or a perceived set of values. No nefarious secret societies. No hidden agendas.

But some first assume others are racist and therefore everything those others do and say is either overtly or covertly racist. That is how during the 2012 election such words as angry, Chicago, constitution, golf, privileged, crime, welfare and professor were identified as racist "code" words. (Here, here) One can only conclude that words such as these are racist code if one first concludes, with or without evidence, that whoever is using such words is racist. Certainly people that the finger-pointer agrees with, or maybe even they themselves, have used such innocuous words, but they are excused from racist code accusations. Why? Well, because they just can't be racist. Nobody ever bothers to explain why that is so.

Generally speaking, no evidence of racism was ever provided, but rather, it was just assumed or asserted that the person or group was racist, ergo everything they said was outright racist or racist code. And of course, denying the accusation was further proof of the racism. This idiotic 'reasoning' works for many because no evidence was brought to prove the racism to begin with so none is needed to further the claim.

So it seems this is the case with Ms. Reed. There is nothing about the sentiment 'keeping America American' that is necessarily racist. Can she imagine George Washington hoping that the values that formed the new republic endure? Or is it possible that somebody today might hope that the better aspects that are perceived to be uniquely American continue on? Americanism is not tied to people who look similar as she suggests, it is a set of shared values. People of all races can and do share American values.

It is difficult to understand how somebody can make such a ridiculous leap from a wish that a particular set of values be retained to disliking others because of their physical features. By Reed's way of thinking, would a newly naturalized Muslim American be guilty of racism if she were grateful for the blessings of liberty bestowed by Americanism and wished for 'America to remain American'? She would, unless, of course, Reed is willing to limit this racist "code" behavior to a single race or group. And what could be more racist than that?

One wonders whether or not she would suspect code if a like-minded person, a close friend perhaps, lamented a shift in an American value that they embraced. One suspects that because Reed would likely assume good will and decency on the part of her friend that the notion of racist code would be dismissed out of hand. But on what basis does she assume bad motive or indecency for others? For it is only by attributing bad motive that she can conclude that code is at play. And on what basis is that judgment made? Is it based solely on disagreement on certain issues? Is there any evidence to back up her simplified, bigoted assertion?

And, by the way, of course the men were primarily motivated by a pretty picture. The only shocking discovery there is that anybody would be shocked to discover that.

Power Corrupts

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.

John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron Acton

Jonah Goldberg notes that Lord Acton had something else in mind rather than how we normally interpret the quote as giving rise to moral weakness in the person who exercises power. Acton is not saying that power is corrupting of those who have it so much as he is saying power has a corruptible effect on the perceptions of the non-powerful. The paragraph from which the absolute power quote is plucked is from a letter that Acton wrote to Bishop Creighton:

I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.

David Henderson helps to explain: "If people think 'the office sanctifies the holder', then it's easier for the office-holder to get away with bad things." It is a version of Hans Christian Andersen's, The Emperor's New Clothes. Because those being swindled did not wish to offend or be seen as contrary to the Emperor, they acted in ways not becoming honest persons. This obeisance to power made the townsfolk in the tale powerless to resist the trickery of the swindlers who exploited other human characteristics such as the desire to fit in.

Goldberg continues, "Power corrupts the way that other people view the powerful. Acton was speaking about how, when historians write about popes, they tend to forgive all sorts of things that they would condemn in lesser men."

We see a variation on this altered perception when observing how the powerful are judged by others. Often, movie stars are 'cut slack' when they lead lives of debauchery or live with mistresses rather than a spouse. Those around them quickly explain why we should not judge, how it is just artistic quirkiness or that it is none of our business; that some indiscretions and oversights are permitted in support of genius. When under the influence of power's radiation, people stop judging powerful, famous and influential people in the same way that they judge their business associates, family members or friends. Dispensations are given in lieu of interventions.

Goldberg points to such things as Justin Bieber having a pet monkey as evidence of the resulting altered expectations. "If you had the kind of money where any wish could be granted and the job of everyone around you is to say, 'Yes,' you would get a monkey. And that is why you know things are going to go badly, because everyone is saying 'Yes' to everything." Prudence and discretion prevail among the non-powerful when they are not under the irradiating influence of the powerful. The setting aside of normal council and judgment of behavior by the non-powerful is just the very sort of corruption Acton was addressing. Lord Acton's observation instructs the non-powerful to be wary of the corrupting influence that power may have on their judgment and morality. The powerful are not the only ones susceptible to power's inveiglements.

This plays out in the political realm too. One might speculate on how this kind of obsequiousness played a role in President Obama not fully understanding that the Affordable Care Act's health exchange website's launch was doomed. The inevitable results are compounded when pride and arrogance of the powerful are coupled with 'honest old ministers' and 'trustworthy officials' who are vested in shared outcomes and are therefore even less likely to be well versed in critical appraisal of the actions of the powerful. Nobody wants to be the one to tell the Emperor that "he hasn't got anything on." Even less so if the powerful are enacting outcomes you agree with.

More and more, the press's ability to judge has conformed to Lord Acton's observation about the corrupting influence of power. But their shared ideology with the left causes them to swoon under the influence of leftist power while giving them extraordinary abilities to resist the deleterious effects of power on judgment when power is held by the right. The shared desire for specific outcomes further alters the Acton effect and they look less like the 'honest old ministers' and more like the old Hollywood fixers Eddie Mannix and Howard Strickling.

By way of the Amazon description of The Fixers: Eddie Mannix, Howard Strickling and the MGM Publicity Machine, some 'splainin':

Eddie Mannix and Howard Strickling are virtually unknown outside of Hollywood and little-remembered even there, but as General Manager and Head of Publicity for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, they lorded over all the stars in Hollywood's golden age from the 1920s through the 1940s--including legends like Garbo, Dietrich, Gable and Garland. When MGM stars found themselves in trouble, it was Eddie and Howard who took care of them--solved their problems, hid their crimes, and kept their secrets. They were "the Fixers." At a time when image meant everything and the stars were worth millions to the studios that owned them, Mannix and Strickling were the most important men at MGM. Through a complex web of contacts in every arena, from reporters and doctors to corrupt police and district attorneys, they covered up some of the most notorious crimes and scandals in Hollywood history, keeping stars out of jail and, more importantly, their names out of the papers. They handled problems as diverse as the murder of Paul Bern (husband of MGM's biggest star, Jean Harlow), the studio-directed drug addictions of Judy Garland, the murder of Ted Healy (creator of The Three Stooges) at the hands of Wallace Beery, and arranging for an unmarried Loretta Young to adopt her own child--a child fathered by a married Clark Gable. Through exhaustive research and interviews with contemporaries, this is the never-before-told story of Eddie Mannix and Howard Strickling. The dual biography describes how a mob-related New Jersey laborer and the quiet son of a grocer became the most powerful men at the biggest studio in the world.

When shared ideology and the Acton effect collide, morality appears to be whatever those in communion say it is. Because of the shared ideology of many in the media and the politically powerful left, today's 'news' media, reminiscent of the old Hollywood press, functions as the clean-up squad for the Democratic party. The fawning, equivocation and favorable interpretations on behalf of simpatico political luminaries induces fremdschämen in anyone who isn't a sycophant. The inclination toward moral weakness brought on by the Acton effect is, when combined with shared ideology, transmogrified to relativism that is morally hyper-vigilant toward those one disagrees with and morally indifferent to those with shared ideology.

So while Hillary assembles an elaborate defense of Bill's promiscuities and explains to Diane Blair why his affair might have been understandable and partially her fault because she didn't properly recognize his stress (victim blaming that would be excoriated by feminists the world around if uttered by any other), or while Bill and she haven't lived together for 15 years and largely live separate lives, we are treated to a sanitized contemporary hagiography that explains away behavior - that might be questioned if done by a close friend or relative - as the deep, sophisticated and complex actions of a modern woman pursuing lofty moral goals and that they are a deeply in love couple that have a happy marriage and home life.

The Fixers work diligently to present the story they want to present because aligned ideals and power conspire to corrupt the non-powerful's perceptions of the powerful. One expects this of the staff. But we should have higher hopes for a free and independent press.

Pro Choice: Transgender

The LA Times reports that transgendered could be switching it up in the future.

He cited the case of Eli Erlick, a high school student in Mendocino County who was born male but identifies as female. He said Erlick was prohibited from participating in girls' gym classes while in middle school and noted that Erlick's parents testified in favor of the bill.

He acknowledged that parents may be uncomfortable about their children sharing bathrooms with students of a different sex, but he said, 'It's also important to protect our children from prejudice.'

How long until whites self-identify as black? Before you go and get all snooty, hasn't this been the point made by same-sex marriage supporters? That denying marriage to gays is the same as denying marriage to blacks? I guess Elizabeth Warren was ahead of the curve when she identified as Fauxcahontis based on the incontrovertible evidence that "My grandfather had high cheekbones like all the Indians do," and a few purloined recipes in the "Pow Wow Chow" cookbook.

Watch out Olympics, you're next. Oops, never mind. Been there done that.

Transgendered bathroom use news:
Oregon HS
State of California
Massachusetts
Colorado

Same Sex Marriage Double Standard

HuffPost Live host Josh Zepps interviewed Jeremy Irons and one of the topics hit upon was gay marriage.

The lack of self-awareness is breathtaking. That Zepps is not able to self-reflect on his rejoinder that "Uh, well there are laws against incest" is stupefying. There are laws against all kinds of things and those laws can be changed. The presence of a law does not ensure that the law is just. I don't suppose he would support sodomy laws. Aren't the same sex marriage (SSM) supporters trying to undo laws that they perceive are unjust?  The reason the SCOTUS is considering SSM cases is precisely because certain laws and changes to a state's constitution is thought to be unjust.

You would think that that would be enough unconscious opining for one interview, but no, he doubles down.

Zepps: "No, that sounds like a total red herring. I'm sure that incest law would still cover same sex marriages."

Irons: "Really? Why?"

Zepps: "Because I don't think the incest law is only justified on the basis of the consequences of procreation. I think there's also a moral approbation that's associated with incest."

Astounding.

Zepps seems to be completely unaware of his own statements. Is he really making the case for moral approbation (I suppose he meant prohibition) of a behavior? Really? Tap, tap, tap. Hello Mr. Zepps. Are you aware that the moral prohibition argument is exactly what has been used to prevent SSM and the very activity that leads to SSM? Are you not aware of what the SSM crowd is fighting against?!?!?!?!?

Since the whole point of legalizing SSM is to remove the moral prohibition therof, what is the argument that can be made to prevent the removal of other moral prohibitions? Furthermore, to borrow the arguments on behalf of removing the moral prohibition of SSM, how does incest or polygamy or any number of other arrangements hurt the gay's marriage? Incest or polygamy wouldn't hurt their marriage or affect them in any way. And who are the gays to look down their nose and dictate who somebody can love? Why can't the polygamist and incest-amist (I know of no noun for those who commit incest...) love whom they want to love? Cannot a loving poly-amorous unit raise good and decent citizens just like hetero or gay couples? Why the bigotry?

But I get the "You can't expect me to believe that society would lift the moral prohibition of incest just because we want to lift a moral prohibition" argument all the time. You would think the self-reflective person would stop after hearing the double-standard and the absurdity of the argument and for the sake of intellectual honesty concede the point.

Of course, none of this argues for or against SSM. And conceding this obvious point does not necessarily negate other aspects of the argument. Discussion of such issues is just an honest, open examination of the penumbra of consequences that may result from this change. A good-willed gay or lesbian interested in open discussion rather than forcible imposition of dogma could just as easily conclude these things.

The honest broker would say, "Of course we intend to discriminate against certain of our fellow citizens and declare their behavior to be morally objectionable. We just want to move the fence far enough for us to get in while keeping those we disagree with out." And based upon what? At least polygamy and incest have the advantage of actually having been tried throughout history. SSM on the other hand is uncharted. Does that put those who support SSM on the wrong side of history?

What is ignored is that if these sea changes are based on the current social eros ethos, upon what are the guardrails for society based? The response is always a version of, "Well, you don't have to be religious to be moral." Sure. Just as being religious is no guarantee that one will be moral. But let's be honest, there is no discernible distinction between the one who allows SSM into the assemblage of morally acceptable behaviors while excluding polygamy, incest and many other variations on the theme and the one who disallows SSM for doctrinal reasons or because 'God told him so'. Your placement of the societal fencing to include SSM is no different than their placement to exclude it. It is belief based on a mysticism and current social doctrine. It is morality by committee and is about as good an example of arbitrary and capricious as one can find.

At the end of the day, the supporter of redefining the moral boundaries to include SSM is left with the identical argument as the religious person for why one activity is moral and another isn't: "Because I say so." The religious says that God informs his doctrine while the irreligious says that nature, his conscience or some other ethereal phenomenon is the source of morality and informs his doctrine. The religious are mocked for relying on their buddy in the sky by those who can identify no better moral source or even a reason for the existence of morality. The mockers like to believe that a dianoetic journey leads them to their conclusions about morality. But in the end they are left with the curt response of the religious – "Because God said so" – replacing the notion of God with logic or their version of a buddy in the sky. They are as powerless to prove the parameters of morality or the reason for its existence as the religious are to prove the existence of God. As with Zepps, it is almost as though they cannot hear themselves speak.

The Infinite Womb

An IEET article observes that Juntendo University researcher Yosinori Kuwabara "predicts that a fully functioning artificial womb capable of gestating a human fetus will evolve in the near future." Cornell University's Dr. Hung-Ching Liu who has successfully implanted and grown mouse embryos in a lab-created uterine lining says it could be as soon as 2020 for animals and 2030 for humans.

The article notes that "In an unusual twist, this technology offers justification to pro-lifers in the abortion debates." How so? A few weeks ago, a Facebook friend asked the following question:

Let’s say we build a machine that’s a perfect simulation of a womb. It can take a human egg and sperm and replace the need for a woman to carry it. However, the machine is scalable, so that it can carry the human through the entirety of its development, all the way to the point where the cells naturally break down and stop working (i.e., through adulthood, old age and death). If the human never leaves the womb, and goes through all the same phases of development that you and I do, at what point do we consider it alive? Do we ever consider it alive?

The current state of affairs is a strange moral place where the worth of the fetus is determined solely by the mother. If she wants to keep the baby, the fetus is infinitely precious and you can be prosecuted if you harm the "child in utero". However, if the mother decides she doesn't want the child, the fetus is determined to be no more important than a wart.

It is an odd thing that this one person determines the worth of another living thing. Even a dog's worth is not determined by its owner - just ask Michael Vick. Right, wrong or indifferent, this situation is certainly odd and unique.

But my FB friend's question calls attention to the 'magical birth canal' sophism - i.e., there is something magical about the infant leaving the birth canal and taking a breath that validates its sanctity or humanity or its life. This is presumably why some docs can perform partial birth abortions because so long as the face is not exposed and a breath is not taken the child is not considered fully human and the activity is not considered infanticide.

If this current way of thinking is applied to the artificial womb scenario, it would appear the object growing in an artificial womb would not be considered human or 'alive' unless and until it took a breath of outside air or the mother deemed it so.

Applying the current ethos to the artificial womb reveals how ridiculous the current thinking on this matter can be. Add to that the potential to more readily observe the fetal development - albeit maybe not as transparently as the womb galleries depicted in the image provided with the article - and the likelihood of earlier and earlier application of the 'life' or 'baby' moniker increases. Just as ultrasounds affect the way a mother now views the developing fetus within her womb, so seeing the developing human form would certainly affect future observers.

However, one suspects that abortions could become increasingly rare for those using artificial wombs as the purposefulness of the sans-sexual insemination process would move it ever closer to former Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders' wish that every child be a wanted child. If women could harvest eggs and store them for future artificial insemination in artificial wombs and be rendered functionally sterile with birth control, the need for abortions due to accidental pregnancy could theoretically be eliminated. And it is difficult to imagine a couple purposefully initiating the artificial womb process and then pulling the plug at some later stage of development - that is, those who were careful and purposeful.

One can just as easily imagine a world in which individuals desire the natural birthing process, careless partners not preventing pregnancy, or those without access to birth control still using the "dark and dangerous place" for gestation.

However, having the parallel option of artificial wombs would certainly bring clarity to the double standard that is debated even today. On the one hand it would be easy to understand that a vandal who removes the fetus from the life giving sustenance of the artificial womb could be easily charged with murder. What would not be so easy to understand is why the woman who separates the fetus in her womb from her life giving sustenance would not be so charged. If those two cases are not equivalent, then one is tacitly stating that an artificially produced child has more right to life than a naturally gestated fetus.

The Bigotry of Low Expectations

Weren't we told that the unrest in the Muslim world was the fault of George W. Bush and his ham-fisted foreign policy?

Since America has now adopted a posture of "leading from behind", deference to world bodies, appeals to the "international community" to do what America used to do and foregoing public interaction with the Israeli Prime Minister, why hasn't resentment toward America abated? Could it be that non-Muslims are reviled because of their infidel status and cultural openness?

Is anyone walking on eggshells around other religious groups? If not, is this an admission of having a different moral expectation of Muslims than for Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jews, Hindus, Confucians, etc., etc., etc.?

Is there any other religion/culture on the face of the earth for whom the response to violence and murder would be "We understand your pain and are sorry that it was caused" instead of "What the hell is wrong with your moral compass"? Doesn't this reveal that Muslims are not regarded as moral equivalents and therefore cannot be spoken to as moral peers?

Does anyone expect the autonomic response of American Christians to abortion to be rioting and murder? Does anyone expect the autonomic response of the black community to skinheads to be rioting and murder? Does anyone expect the autonomic response of the homosexual community to offenses to be rioting and murder? If the answer is anything approaching a no, doesn't this presuppose that their value system prevents this sort of behavior? Why doesn't this same moral expectation exist for those engaging in mayhem in the Middle East? Why is one group expected to act in a developed, advanced moral manner while the other is not?

Did culture and values (as opposed to politics and economics) have anything to do with informing a population that an appropriate response to a religious offense is to riot and commit murder? If yes, was the media wrong in its assessment of Mitt Romney's remarks vis-à-vis Israelis and Palestinians?

The left attempted to detach Nidal Hasan's rage from his values and culture and was left with blaming his actions on pre-post-traumatic disorder – yet another external influence that overwhelmed culture. No explanation was given for how yelling "Allahu Akbar" while committing murder may have played into the day's events or suggested a cultural mooring.

And yet, the media had no problem indicting culture - conservative culture - on behalf of Jared Loughner when they blamed his behavior on a culture of hate and provocative right-wing rhetoric. Of course, their premature musings were completely false, but hey, being in the media means never having to say you're sorry. Even if true, was Loughner somehow less responsible for his actions?

One wonders if the Uni-bomber, Code Pink, OWS, SEIU thugs who beat a conservative black, Bill Ayers, G20 protesters, Black Panthers and that guy who shot up the Family Research Council did what they did because of their personal culture and values. Or maybe they had a tummy ache or were externally provoked in some way. Would FRC be excused if they acted in riotous ways since they have been called a hate group? One supposes there would be excuses galore for Muslim violence if an American religious group called the Muslim extremists in the Middle East a hate group, and God forbid, posted it to the internet.

The left wants it both ways. Their darlings are relieved of personal responsibility for their actions and only do things as a reaction to some external stimuli. The left wants to pretend that certain behaviors are not informed by culture, values or even, as Jonah Goldberg has noted in his recent book, ideology. But when the right does anything, whether violent or not, it is from a culture of hate, corrupt values and warped ideology. The thing is, the right would agree – sans adjectives – that they operate from a learned culture that promotes certain values and leads to certain ideologies and that it is precisely that culture that elevates man above animals.

Does the left really believe that animalistic defensive response is equal to or better than culture? Do they believe that Muslims are cultureless animals that have not yet learned to control their reflexive impulses? Probably not, but the left gets to this tricky spot because they are unwilling to admit that some cultures are better than others. Calling Romney's comment about culture vis-à-vis Israel and Palestine a gaffe confirms their aversion to acknowledging western culture as better. So does their dismissal of the right's disciplined nationalism as xenophobia. (Although, listening to the Democratic Convention speeches, there was a lot of 'America is the best', 'no other country on the planet is as good as America' talk. Does that make them xenophobes too?)

The left treats Muslims like children – albeit violent children that can do great harm. Yes, we want to respect the beliefs of others and there is no reason to be overtly provocative or mean. (The Westboro Baptist jackasses come to mind.) But while disagreeing, everyone assumes that their opponents will act responsibly while battling over ideas. The left believes this about American Christians. They know without a shadow of a doubt that they can say anything about American Christians and not fear that their property, livelihoods or lives will be in danger. The left knows that the culture and values of the Christian community prevents them from acting in riotous and destructive ways.

However, the left does not maintain this set of assumptions about Muslims. Why? Because the left knows that Muslims either do not profess such a mitigating culture and/or do not act in ways that suggest they are constrained by a culture and values that eschews violent behaviors and respects the rights of their fellow man. The left's speech is stifled and they are constantly self-censoring in order to placate the hair trigger Muslim world.

But, to be fair, in certain areas the right also interacts with a particular group in the same manner that the left treats Muslims. Because of fear of financial destruction through boycotting (Chik-fil-A), losing their job (political correctness), poor grades in school (speech codes), character assassination and bullying (racist, bigot, sexist, homophobe, hater, etc.) physical occupation of parks and bridges and disruption of business (OWS), or being hauled off at midnight for a little, ahem, questioning (link) – just to name a few examples – the right often is bullied into not speaking freely for fear of retaliation from a group that seems to be unfettered by cultural and value driven ideology that would assure decent disagreement.

Existence of Israel

Lileks on Israel:

Okay then. Here’s something you might not hear; the BBC ran this a few days ago.

In post-occupation Iraq being gay, or even looking gay, can be a death sentence.

It's very difficult to determine how many homosexuals have died in so called "honour killings" by their own families or in the hands of the militias. But a BBC investigation has found that law enforcement agencies are involved in ongoing, systematic and organised violence against gay people, while the government refuses to acknowledge it.

Once targeted, most gay people in Iraq have nowhere to hide. There is only one safehouse in Baghdad which can house three people.

Aaaand I add that to the story about the Taliban killing a bunch of people because they danced, and think: forgive me if I add these anecdotes - isolated, non-representative, of course - to a large store of similar events, and draw some generalizations which may pop to mind when embassies are overrun. Again.

Forgive me if I note that one culture has a debate about allowing gays to marry, and another that seems to have concluded a debate about whether they should live.

And pardon the fargin’ hell out of me if I dare to note that the signature value of the West these days, Tolerance, is best exemplified in a tiny hangnail of a nation which stands apart in its neighborhood for letting gay people live lives, instead of gathering everyone else to watch their lives ended - and that this nation, according to a smart and cultured and Western-educated Huffington Post contributor who blithely tweeted disregard over the death of our ambassador, should just please STFU and die. She writes:

Israel has no right to exist. Break that mental barrier and just say it: “Israel has no right to exist.” Roll it around your tongue, tweet it, post it as your Facebook status update – do it before you think twice. Delegitimization is here – have no fear. Palestine will be less painful than Israel ever was.

Don’t worry about what will happen, though.

And no, nobody hates Jews. That is the fallback argument screeched in our ears – the one “firewall” remaining to protect this Israeli Frankenstein. I don’t even care enough to insert the caveats that are supposed to prove I don’t hate Jews. It is not a provable point, and frankly, it is a straw man of an argument.

She doesn’t hate Jews. How could she? Nobody hates Jews. She just wants their homeland dismantled and its residents scattered to - well, somewhere. Take it up with Germany, she notes. Fiddle-de-dee.

Read the comments, as the right-thinking folk of the West line up to applaud her. No doubt some of these people posted it as a Facebook update, leaned back from the keyboard, and felt that rush you get when you know you’ve finally shed some archaic inhibition that kept you from doing what you wanted to do.

It’s okay. You were fooled. You were misled. No one hates the Jews. As for the Yids, the Queers, the lower forms of life known as women - it'll all sort itself out once the millstone of Oppression is lifted from the breast of the Oppressed.

So that’s what we’re supposed to believe: good will abounds in the world. It flows from the human heart in unstanchable quantities, but now and then things happen. Bad things. Someone makes a movie. Someone dances in public. Someone sits with his wife in a Pakistan McDonald’s. The adults have to step in and make things clear. Calls have to be made. Speech has to be ceased; videos have to be blocked. If you don’t jazz the rabble they’ll come around. Any day now.

Any day.

Marriage For All

Isn't this the inevitability of redefining marriage?

Hollywood director finds it acceptable for people to commit incest.

In an interview with The Wrap, director Nick Cassavetes believes no one should judge a brother and sister being with each other if they are in love.

“I’m not saying this is an absolute but in a way, if you’re not having kids – who gives a damn? Love who you want. Isn’t that what we say? Gay marriage – love who you want?” Cassavetes told The Wrap. “If it’s your brother or sister it’s super-weird, but if you look at it, you’re not hurting anybody except every single person who freaks out because you’re in love with one another.”

If procreation is the singular barrier, one supposes that an incestual gay couple is the ideal. And if, as we are told, love is the only criteria for redefining marriage, how is Cassavetes' conclusion wrong? Certainly incestual marriage does not threaten traditional marriage.

If those in favor of redefining marriage do not include Cassavetes' view or polygamous relationships, are they not telling certain groups who they can love? Everybody is defining societal customs by defining marriage - Democrats and Republicans alike.

Akin's Offense

John Podhoretz makes a good point about the nuance and difficult nature of holding serious and deeply moral positions. The moral grappling by those who hold the uncompromising pro-life view is sincere and heartrending.

Those that mock the earnest pro-life position mistake certitude for imperfect principled struggle. Surely one can appreciate the pro-lifer agonizing with the two horrible conditions of pregnancy by rape and what they perceive is murder. Often the pro-lifer concludes that the sanctity of human life narrowly outweighs - not eliminates - the other considerations. Serious thinkers must wrestle with competing principles. One wonders if those who mock this view of human life ever give credence to the internal moral struggle of the pro-lifer.

What strikes me, though, is the offense Todd Akin has given—not just to victims of rape, but to his fellow pro-lifers. The most difficult moral issue when it comes to abortion comes with cases of pregnancy due to rape and incest. (These are, relative to all live births, extraordinarily small in number.) The pregnancy in such circumstances is not only unwanted but the result of a barbaric and traumatic criminal attack. And yet consistent pro-lifers argue such pregnancies should not be ended by abortion. This is usually held up as an example of their fanaticism, or their cruelty, or their desire to punish women, or some other charge.

In fact, though, it is precisely when it comes to these most difficult cases that the underlying philosophy of the pro-life movement finds its moral strength. They argue that the unborn possess an independent right to life, that one would and should not do to them in the womb what would never be done to them one second after they were born alive. Wanted or unwanted, conceived in love or in violence, they are ensouled and they are people.

This is not a conviction I share, but it is a conviction for which I have enormous respect.

And as an aside, how is it exactly that publicly repudiating a man and pleading with him to drop out of his race for the Senate comes to mean that Romney and Ryan are in “lockstep” with Akin?

Blame the Right

If a person of the left who "has strong opinions with respect to those he believes do not treat homosexuals in a fair manner," and "had been volunteering recently at a community center for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people," shoots innocents at a politically active organization of the right then the shooter is acting out frustrations and we should try to compassionately understand what may have driven a person to commit such a heinous act. Or he just "expressed a disagreement with the group's conservative views" during a "scuffle". For sure, it is "an anomaly, something very rare and very random." But you really can't know for sure if ideology motivated the shooter.

Similarly, if a man shoots fellow members of the military in cold blood while shouting "Allahu Akbar", then the shooter is possibly suffering from "secondary trauma", was sadly "swept up in patients' displays of war-related paranoia, helplessness and fury," snapped in advance, perhaps had a “toothache” that set him off and "It's unclear if religion was a factor in this shooting." But you really can't know for sure if religion motivated the shooter.

However, if we know nothing about a person and that person opens fire on innocents and nobody can figure out why he may have done what he did, the shooter must be a right-wing wacko who is deeply disturbed as the result of right-wing hate. Because "violent acts are what happen when [Republicans] create a climate of hate" and the fomenting and agitating by right-wing wackos like Palin, Limbaugh and Beck. Research consists of Googling shooter's name and the words "Tea Party" while forgetting to search for the name and "Occupy Wall Street". Tweets from those on the left tell us it is OK to score political points by connecting the Tea Party, Republicans and anyone close to the right to murder sprees, whether perpetrated by those on the right or not, because the "Bottom line is that policy decisions are driven by scoring political points."

I guess they didn't read the last paragraph of Michelangelo Signorile's, Editor-at-large of HuffPost Gay Voices, column wherein he admonishes, "What no one should be doing is exploiting this tragedy to make political points or to attack an entire group of people because of the actions of one man."

Strangely missing are the lectures about polarization, heated rhetoric or overdue conversations. No connections to those on the left who share the rostrum with the President and with fist-pumping fury tell the audience that "There can only be one winner", "And, let's take these son of a bitches out..."

The lack of self-awareness is breathtaking. The double standard is, well, standard. And all of this from those who fancy themselves to be psychologically sophisticated and uniquely able to see nuance.

Link, link.