None of this is really new. I know all of this has been debated, at one level or another, relative to one specific issue or another, both here and on innumerable other debate fora. But this specific issue on this specific day has inspired me to rant about the state of the world in general, so here I go.
Those two paragraphs are really the meat of the article, at least for me. It is possible to write off the radical as a nutter and ignore him but we all know that he isn’t that far out compared to others distributed throughout the world. People have run successful political campaigns based on views even worse than his. (David Duke is an example, and Buchanan got a significant percentage as well.) None of this is new.
Just to bring it into focus: The radical thinks people should burn in hell for reporting facts anyone can observe just by looking long enough. It’s entirely possible that you could see two male giraffes who are more than friends the next time you go to the zoo. This is simple, naked-eye observation, and the only specialized advance knowledge it requires is the ability to tell an intact male from a female.
This isn’t like global warming or evolution, where observation requires long-term statistical studies and unusual equipment. You can forgive people who don’t know the relevant field for being skeptical of the results in those areas. This is something beyond skepticism. This is something beyond having prejudices. This is saying that anyone who reports a specific fact is no longer worthy of the only thing you believe can possibly matter.
So what does this mean? Everyone is a politician, everyone is advancing an agenda. Nobody is innocent of their country’s actions once they have the capacity to do for themselves. Politics is defined by what the masses, or specific groups within the masses, do, think, and vote for, and there are people who will, I think it is safe to say, vote against whoever they think is responsible for speaking those facts in the Oslo Natural History Museum.
Actually, at some level, reporting of honest facts is a political act. Isn’t it? As is choosing to refrain from reporting them.
Of course, this would be more political if the facts being reported are ‘politically charged’, as opposed to, say, describing how to make a good PB&J sandwich, but even so.
Revtim, I think that was actually the Colbert Report, but anyway.
I once heard an argument that their are some animals that eat their young. Or maybe it was like, after the female gives birth, the male sometimes eats her. Something like that. And we would certainly call that unnatural. So, just because the animals do it, doesn’t mean it’s okay for us.
Not saying it isn’t okay for us. I just have never heard that argument refuted.
“When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.” - Jacob Bronowski
Obviously these animals have been captured and trained in gay perversions by gay animal trainers, who sell the video as gay bestiality porn – and to the Discovery channel. And then the gay-trained animals are released back to nature to spread the perversions to their unsuspecting brother and sister animals.
Well, I think the point is that natural =!= moral and unnatural =!= immoral. You simply cannot make any inference from the naturalness (or unnaturalness) of something to its moral status. If I hear one more goddamned argument about how gay sex is immoral b/c the plumbing isn’t right I swear I’m going to go postal.
The one I was thinking of was Stephen Colbert, but from his performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner, not his show. This link has a transcript, as well as links to video of the performance at various places online.
So we were sort of both right. But you were more right, I guess.
Colbert has built his entire show on “truthiness”, taking the concept much farther than Corddry ever has, so he deserves a big gooey glob of credit for it himself.
