I was already leaning in his direction but this one cinches it for me:

Recall that this is the guy who fought for Gay Marriage in court and showed definitively that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional. Judge Walker agreed and struck it down.

He’s also the guy who said this when pressed to defend his actions:

And here’s another clip from him on the same issue:

Dude. Ted Olson is pretty awesome.  If I ever said or thought a bad thing about him in the past or was ever tempted to, I take it all back.  If most of the Republican party were where he is, I might be tempted to be a Republican.

digby documented this video that played on Fox News:

Now I feel sick just posting that cuz giving it even one additional audience member it shouldn’t have would be a crime against human decency.  However, watching this lead me to a burning sense of curiosity, so I’ve got to post this and ask you my readers this burning question I have.

Is this your history?

I especially ask of those of you who grew up in the South or who grew up in heavily conservative towns or conservative areas. I’m not talking about various small factual details, most of which are undoubtedly true, if badly misinterpreted. I’m talking about the overall world view being expressed here. The value judgments being placed on the ways in which the history transpired. How much of this tracks with what you learned about the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Gilded Age? Was it similar?  Was Lincoln a dangerous tyrant in your history books? Was Cleveland a hero? Did blacks suffer because they were freed from slavery? Was laissez faire capitalism what brought about the advancement of human society?

Because this shares no resemblance whatsoever to the history I learned from my family and during my schooling. Not in grade school, not in high school, and not in College. I grew up and went to school in Delaware. While I wasn’t a history major in college I did take a few history classes one of which dealt with US history. Since then I’ve always remained a healthy curiosity for history and have read many books and online resources related to it. And I’ve watched my fair share of the history channel. I’m certainly by no means anywhere near an expert, but I’d like to think I have a bit better of a grasp than say Glenn Beck whom I know of at least one well respected history scholar and professor considers “doesn’t know anything” about American history.

But I’ve never before encountered a history quite like this one.

So if this is what you have always learned in school then we’re going to have to hash this out somehow. One or the other of us has a very very false notion of the history of the United States. And I’m going to have to try my best to explain to you, in excruciating detail, why I am confident that the person who was badly deceived is you.

But if you didn’t learn this in school then Good. I’ll trust that you and I both can agree that while the truth might not be exactly what we learned in school, it certainly isn’t this. I won’t have to go into detail explaining to you the obvious internal contradictions inherent in this presentation and the things that make me think it is a wholly opportunistic attempt to twist history to serve the whims of a few billionaires. I won’t have to describe all the details of misery and suffering conveniently left out of this account as if they don’t matter. I won’t have to dig out the accounts of real scholars of history and quote their analysis of primary sources that invalidate this total and utter BS.

Instead, I’ll just hope that this kind of twisted history story dies away and nobody sane or of any level of knowledge and intellect ever comes to believe it.

But if there really are these two vastly different conflicting histories already well known and believed by large swaths of the population, then I think I’ve finally come to a true understanding of why this world is so fucked up.  If you come from that tradition that had engrained in you this false history and you never were exposed to an alternative tale, well then I don’t see how it would ever be likely for you and I to come to common ground on anything. You’re simply basing your understanding of the universe in totally different terms than I ever will. 

Because if you believe in THIS history then you manifestly believe that ending the misery and suffering of millions people with my skin color who were living without rights as slaves is far less important than the right of States never to have a central government impose its will upon them.

That’s a contradiction I can’t accept. If you believe that at the core of your being, then I don’t even know how to begin to communicate with you.

And that’s why I find this video so terrifying. Because even if nobody currently believes this claptrap, there is obviously an effort underway to ensure that as many people as possible start to grow up believing this. Fox News has a huge reach. As do right wing radios. Those parents and grandparents teach their children. Those children attend schools like Glenn Beck University and are told not to trust anything they learn from anywhere else.  And soon…. we end up with a permanently divided society that can find no common ground on any point. Defeating that ingrained ignorance with the undeniable truth will be a slow and painstaking process that will take decades. That will leave us in a sad state indeed.

Propaganda is a very scary thing.

Is Obama a Muslim?

One Pew poll that came out before the whole mosque business showed that 18% of Americans now think President Obama is a Muslim. That was a doubling from the year before. A Time poll came out later showing that 24% of Americans now think Obama is a muslim. More Republicans think he’s a Muslim than think he’s Christian.

President Obama’s administration came out and replied with something along the lines of “he’s not a muslim, he’s a christian, he prays every day.”  If we ignore the part of that statement about praying every day (which you might have conflicting opinions about), it’s clear that that was the correct response. It’s true. It’s factual. Can’t complain about telling the truth.

But I wish he’d instead given the REALLY right answer.  For that, we have to go to our old friend retied general Colin Powell who got it right way back during the election campaign:

I’ll repeat that. THIS IS NOT THE WAY WE SHOULD BE DOING IT IN AMERICA!

Muslim is the latest created “bad word”. Like communist, socialist, liberal, lefty, progressive, black, atheist, secular, environmentalist, feminist, community organizer, etc.  And I really really HATE that.  There is no thing I hate more in the rhetoric of the conservative radio and television personalities than their tendency to pervert language to serve their twisted purposes. It would be as if liberals were like “Oh he’s just one of those despicable soldiers. Warmongering bastards out to destroy the country!”  Of course liberals don’t do that. Because it’s sick and wrong.

I’m thinking of converting to Islam just to spite them.

This topic is and always has been beyond idiocy to me. So the fact that I feel compelled to expend not one, but two whole posts on this fills me with a sense of deep revulsion for the state of our society.  I strongly agree with Peter Daou who tweeted:

Or similarly there is Ezra Klein’s take on why this controversy really ought not even be worthy of our attention.

Well, yes. I can’t imagine that world for unemployment, or financial-regulation reform, or the Afghanistan Wikileaks. But it absolutely could’ve been the case that Imam Feisel Abdul Rauf decided to build an Islamic community center and no one really noticed, or cared, and maybe a few local politicians from both parties showed up to help cut the ribbon. As it happened, a few opportunists went after it, which brought it to the attention of a few sensationalistic media outlets, and then some opportunistic politicians jumped on board, and then their colleagues felt compelled to comment, and then more legitimate media outlets had something to cover, and on and on. The story is a story because of the incentives of the people making it a story, not because there’s something about an Islamic community center a few blocks from Ground Zero that just screams out for national attention.

Don’t believe me? Then ask yourself why you’ve never heard anyone complain about the halal food carts parked outside the Ground Zero construction site. This didn’t need to become a polarizing national issue. It was made into a polarizing national issue. And now the only thing to do is to wait for it to pass.”

Only I don’t really agree with Klein. While Klein’s explanation of why this mosque non-issue became an issue is absolutely true, his belief that we shouldn’t talk about it now too so as to not feed into the media frenzy I disagree with. As much as I would love to leave this topic rest and never have to talk about it again, I think it’s become really important. Religious freedom really IS important. Not because religion has any special status of significance in our society. But because religious beliefs are just a subset of beliefs in general. And we must defend our freedom to come together and express our beliefs no matter what form they happen to take. That includes the psycho crazy beliefs. That certainly includes the beliefs of those who follow a mostly peaceful religion.

What’s more this anti-Mosque business has gotten and continues to get really really ugly. It has nothing to do with the so called “ground zero” mosque (in reality neither at ground zero nor really a mosque) itself. It’s about hatred. There is a deep desire by some to promote and continue this idea of a grand war of the religions. Islam vs Christianity! And they want to paint Muslims as the badguys. Evil. Dangerous. Scary. They’re engaging in a great global jihad determined to as one commenter on my blog suggests “destroy free society” itself.

So of course since those are the badguys, of course it’s fine for us to take away their rights. I mean they’re bad right? Who cares! Lock-em up and torture them!

And that’s the ugliness. It’s two fold. On one side it’s the tarring of anyone who practices or is associated with Islam as evil. On the other it’s saying that because we don’t agree with them we have the right to do whatever we want to them including take away their fundamental human rights.  They’re the other. They don’t matter.  Only WE matter.

To be fair, there are a lot of 9/11 families who are passionately against this Mosque (though there are others who oppose them). And I agree that we should be somewhat sensitive to their feelings but not to the point where we deny other people’s rights and freedoms.  Muslims died on 9/11 too. If someone who is ordinarily reasonable thinks that this mosque is a risk to free society, then it stands to reason that someone has been riling them up with lies and distortions. And there are. There are a lot of people who try to use people for their own gains and don’t give a damn about the truth.

Glenn Greenwald explains the sheer ugliness of this business well quoting an exchange on CNN here:

“Lemon:  I think that’s apples and oranges - I don’t think that black people were behind a Terrorist plot to kill people and drive planes into a building.  That’s a completely different circumstance.

That sums it up about as well as anything I’ve heard.  Nothing related to Muslims should be near Ground Zero, because it was Muslims generally — not the handful of extremists — who flew the planes into those buildings.  It’s just amazing that that last point from Patel even needs to be uttered, but it does.  This campaign is nothing different than all of the standard, definitively bigoted efforts to hold entire demographic groups of people responsible for the aberrational acts of a small percentage of individual members.  Congratulations to CNN’s Don Lemon for laying it all out in its naked clarity. This whole controversy is exactly that disgusting.”

Challenging this “disgusting” rhetoric is immensely important. We can’t afford to become a country wherein this kind of thing is considered “normal”. That’s why one of the most disturbing facts I’ve ever learned was the fact that this ridiculousness was compelling enough to convince some 64% of the population to oppose the mosque.

Which is why I and many others were pleasantly surprised when President Obama came out pretty strongly against this kind of hatred and villainy.

This was a powerful statement and it’s incredibly important to have a President going out there and saying something like this in spite of the extreme opposition to the mosque being whipped up by the dangerous hatemongers who oppose it. 

Of course, sadly this cannot be the end of this story with regard to Obama since later he “clarified” by specifying:

I’m honestly not entirely sure what that even means. But even so, I’m glad the President said something on the issue even if it could have been a lot stronger. 

His party, sadly, though has been even worse. Senate majority leader Harry Reid came out with this statement:

Glenn Greenwald again documents a number of other Democrats caving to majority will on this issue rather than trying to stand up for their principles.

Others have been better at truly challenging the spread of this hatred. The best, I felt was the Special Comment by Keith Olbermann on the issue:

Almost as good is Sam Seder’s That’s Bullshit video on the Ground Zero mosque here:

The best politician on the matter has been Michael Bloomberg who said:

“The simple fact is, this building is private property, and the owners have a right to use the building as a house of worship, and the government has no right whatsoever to deny that right. And if it were tried, the courts would almost certainly strike it down as a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

“Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here.

“This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions or favor one over another. The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan.

“Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11, and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values and play into our enemies’ hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that.

“For that reason, I believe that this is an important test of the separation of church and state as we may see in our lifetimes, as important a test. And it is critically important that we get it right.”

Another fairly detailed defense I found posted in the comments of my last entry by Christopher Hitchens:

Now Hitchens I’ve always found to be fairly interesting. His intellect and skill with language is clear but I don’t often agree with him completely. This case is no exception either. While I do agree with him that it isn’t the case that we should always automatically assume good faith and accept the idea that any project whatsoever should be considered acceptable. There probably IS a level of obnoxiousness that a project could reach that would even sicken me even if it were technically in line with the tenants of religious freedom. For example I would oppose someone creating a monument to the glory of the KKK just about anywhere in the United States. But I would not support creating any laws against it or any violence done to the perpetrators. I would simply find it appalling and would expect and want the people to protest such a project because it is offensive. But even so you shouldn’t necessarily decide a policy decision on whether or not to allow the KKK monument based solely on my or anyone else’s feelings on the matter. I simply would hope that enough pressure is brought to bear that the creators of such a project change their mind on the wisdom of it. Hence I agree with Obama in that sense.

Similarly, if this Mosque were built on the exact grounds of ground zero, were funded by and created by Al Qaeda and were a huge monstrous monument to terrorism, then I’d be opposed to it too.  Of course the reality of the project is vastly far from this as has been demonstrated again and again and again above. This is a made up controversy that exists because it is is some people’s interest to keep stoking the flames of anti-islamic hatred.

Which brings me to thing that I disagree with Hitchens on. Earlier in his piece he describes the Imam who is behind the Mosque as shady and adopts the right wing smears against him to show it.  I don’t know anything about this Imam person but Hitchens arguments, at least, are grossly unconvincing:

The refusal to designate Hamas as a “terrorist” group is not the least bit damming.  Terrorism is a term thrown around and over used in an immensely dangerous fashion. It is often used to denigrate people unjustly, to paint the many as guilty of the crimes of the few, and to create some sort of superior “holier than thou” attitude in the speaker.  Hamas is a complex organization that has done terrible, even horrible things. And we should condemn them for those acts. But so do a lot of organizations that we explicitly avoid using the “terror” designation for because they happen to be seen as our allies.

I believe in taking actions exactly as they are and not wasting time with ridiculous labels. The facts are that Hamas is the lawfully elected government of Gaza. The facts are that Hamas is responsible for kidnappings and rockets that have killed. Similarly the facts are that the United States is responsible for killing many civilians through drone attacks. And it is a fact that Israel has captured many palestinians and held them without charge or due process. Just as we have in the United States with people we accused of terrorism in Guantanemo Bay.

Those facts are what matter. Not whether or not someone uses the word “terrorism”.  Refusing to use the term “terrorism” is not at all “creepy”, especially when that McCarthyeque question “Is or is not organization X a terrorist organization” is so often used as a distraction from the issues of importance as a kind of “gotcha” politics. It is used to explicitly attempt to either force the debate into terms where the speaker can control or else failing that paint the speaker as a “terrorist sympathizer” on those grounds alone.

Unfortunately there’s no video on it up on youtube that I could find, but there was a fascinating interview where Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks interviews an adamant opponent of the so called ground zero mosque.  During this interview the interviewee does exactly as I’ve described here by demanding that Cenk answer the question of whether or not Hamas is or is not a terrorist organization! Cenk answers the question by talking about the facts of who Hamas is, not some capitulating to his opponents framing. Even though, by all rights he had no reason to answer at all since it manifestly has absolutely zilch to do with the issue at hand. But during the course of the interview Cenk had to deal with so many disturbing evasions and twisted manipulations of the facts that he became utterly frustrated with the interviewee that he totally lost his temper and finally just cut the guy off.  It wasn’t the most professional thing Cenk has ever done but it was genuine and understandable I thought, when dealing with this kind of manipulative testimony.  The interview was on the August 11th show of the Young Turks which you need to be a member to download at theyoungturks.com.

As for the other Hitchens points about the imam suggesting that US policy actually does have something to do with 9/11 I don’t see why people would be upset or disturbed by that. It should be, by now accepted fact. Indeed it’s the position of the CIA that blowback over US policy partially contributed to 9/11.

But the best answer to that comes, of course,  from Jon Stewart who tackled the whole Mosque controversy the other day:

Stewart nails it in so many ways.  The last part of that interview I thought was fascinating because it reminded me of this controversy described here, here, and here between Roger Ebert and the right wing over whether or not kids can wear American Flags to school on cinco de mayo without getting sent home by the school administration.

It’s sort of amazing that the same people who were outraged by the idea that this principle might dare to send a few kids home for a day over possibly offensive American flags are the same people who want to deny the muslim community their right to build a a community center with a place of muslim worship in it two blocks away from ground zero. So you’re free to wear American flags no matter who it offends, but political correctness has to come back enforce when it comes to muslims? How does that make sense.

Undoubtedly there are those who are equally hypocritical on the other side. Those who will defend the right of muslims to build their mosque but will not defend the right of the children to wear whatever close they’d like.

But most I think have a more rational and nuanced approach to the entire thing. The children on Cinco De Mayo were highly likely being deliberately provocative. Personally I think they were probably being dicks. But not knowing their motivations or even if they were aware of what day it was we can’t even say that with any certainty. Nevertheless, even if we could, they have every right to wear whatever they want in accordance with the school’s dress policy.But the school also has a right to try to maintain order and create a safe learning environment for their kids. Where you thread the needle on that issue depends largely on the conditions on the ground. Is wearing the flag shirts causing a big promotion, disrupting class, making it difficult for people to learn? Well then perhaps the school can ask that the kids change clothing just as they could if they were wearing any other offensive kind of dress. Or else separate the kids on both sides. Perhaps by sending any kids who make an issue of the clothing AND the kids wearing the clothing home. But if the dress is causing no  real harm, just upsetting people, then the administration has no grounds to send the students home on a mere whim or simply because they fear it might cause harm.

We thread the needle in ways like this all the time. We allow bigots and monsters to march and express themselves freely because it causes no direct harm and it is their right to freedom of speech and expression. But at the same time we do what we can to minimize any possible harm often by sending police escorts to ensure that the marchers don’t provoke or get provoked into a violent confrontation. And if a group marches with the intent to create a violent clash then that group would not be excused from the consequences of those actions simply because they claimed first amendment rights.

Similarly with the not quite a mosque formerly known as Cordoba. This is not a thing that would cause any real harm to anyone, nor is there any convincing or compelling evidence that I have seen that it was designed to do so.  The mere fact that some find it offensive is no grounds by itself to restrict their ability to build a mosque. If it were any of the things the critics were claiming it was, maybe it would be a different story. But its clearly not.

But let’s get back to what the REAL problem is. It’s not whether or not this mosque gets built. It’s the fact that this mosque is just a proxy for fundamental religious intolerance that some want to revel in.  Indeed when you look at the history of the mosque controversy you can see how clearly it was made up. In this time line by Justin Elliott he shows how the Cordoba project started getting press waaaay back in early December of 2009 but back then nobody cared. Indeed the project was praised as a stance against extremism in the early days of the press coverage, even on Fox News.  However, Pamela Geller a viciously anti-muslim blogger pushed it until it started to get traction. Soon, other right wing noise machines picked it up because they started to see a way to spin it in classic demagogic fashion to inspire people’s fear and distract people from the real and more pressing issues in the country. In short, you could win a few news cycles and get people to not talk about stuff that really matters. Like suffering. Like jobs. So suddenly it became a big deal and Fox started pushing the evil and scariness of the mosque, relentlessly.

It had its effect by creating outrage accross the country, not just at THIS Mosque, but at ALL mosques proving that it’s really an anti-Islam campaign, not just about this one issue.

The whole thing was best described in yet another Jon Stewart segment:

Do you see the pattern?  Hatred just spreads piece by piece, day by day. Fears are invoked and people become terrified of the “other” because it’s easier to be angry and afraid at them then to figure out what has really gone wrong in their lives and in this country and try to fix it.  Hint. It has nothing to do with this ground zero community center project.

To end off I’ll leave you with a segment from Cenk Uygur on MSNBC that I felt, also, correctly identifies why we should all find this hatred campaign so offensive and dangerous.

Dear Muslims,

Please understand. We’re not trying to FORCE you not to open a community center that contains a mosque two blocks from ground zero. You have a right to build a mosque anywhere you want. We totally believe in religious freedom and tolerance! We’re in favor of Islam! We love muslims! We only questioned the “wisdom” of you building it in precisely that location. 

And if, in so doing, we just happened to whip up so much anger, fear, hatred, and resentment directed toward muslims that you became downright afraid that if you did build a mosque you’d have a mob of people with torches and pitchforks knocking down your door… well that’s hardly OUR fault is it? I mean just because we said that Islam is our enemy and the muslim faith and the koran are totally to blame for 9/11… that obviously doesn’t make us anti-Islam. Any idiot with half a brain would know we’re talking about Osama Bin Laden and his crew! … and hezbollah…  and hamas…  and the entire muslim parts of the populations of Iran, Syria, and Pakistan… and members of the Nation of Islam… and any muslims working for Al Jazeera… and any other muslims we don’t like. But definitely not muslims in general. 

And of course the fact that people are enraged across the country at the very idea of building a mosque *anywhere* near them, well that can’t possibly have anything to do with our campaign against THIS mosque. How dare you even think to accuse us of that! Those protests are all independent actions. We can hardly control those people and for all we know they might have legitimate reasons to question the “wisdom” of building those mosques too! You have to look at it on a case by case basis.

All we’re saying is it’s like totally your constitutional right to build a mosque anywhere in the country if you own the property on which it will sit. Just make sure you decide where and when to build your mosques “wisely” And of course we’ll be the judge of what’s wise or not. If you choose wrongly we’ll just make sure everybody knows and that everybody rightfully hates you for it. And, although we won’t have anything to do with it, because we’re very peaceful people who never ever advocate or instigate violence… I’d still watch your back if I were you.

Sincerely,

The 70% of Americans who are against the ground-zero Mosque

A few questions for you. 

1.  What are the MBTI or Keirsey Temperament scores of various Awesome people in Literature, Fiction, and History?
Such as:  President Obama, John McCain, Gandalf, Frodo, Charles Xavier, Magneto, Batman, The Joker, Spiderman, Superman, Lex Luthor, Ironman, Sherlock Holmes, Professor Moliarty, Dumbledore, Grindwald, The Cast of Stargate Atlantis and SG-1, Captain Picard, Q, Harry Potter, Ron, Hermione, Snape, etc.

2.  For a particular hero of a particular type, what type makes their perfect villain?  Is a Mastermind best matched up against a Promoter? Or a Protector best matched up against a Champion? 

3.  If the 16 Types were all to get into a Gigantic WORLD WAR!!! Which type would totally PWN all the others?

These things and more we discussed the other day in Episode 2 of our new podcast (working title Getting Thinky). Which you can download and listen to and subscribe to here:   http://gettingthinky.blogspot.com/2010/08/episode-2-myers-briggs-type-indicator.html

Participants:  elvesdoitbetter, moonlitsage, the44thHour, and nephyo

Your thoughts are much appreciated.

(My extreme apologies in taking so long to post this. The podcast was recorded on 07/17/2010 but it took a long time for me to edit it and put it out there. I have no excuse for this. I just got caught up in other things. But I promise to attempt to do better next time.)

preview:  Episode 3 of the Podcast’s topic will be:  What Makes Music Great?

BTW you don’t have to listen to the entire podcast to comment to this subject here or answer the questions I’ve put forth.

Judge Walker lifted his Stay on his ruling to strike down Proposition 8 and allow gay couples to marry, but he gave the lawyers like a week to ask the 9th circuit to place their own stay pending a ruling.  So a long story short, we still don’t know with a certainty whether any gay couples will be able to be married in California yet.

However, assuming the 9th circuit doesn’t interfere now, then on the 18th gay couples will be able to be married again in California and continue to be married there until something changes either in the 9th circuit or the supreme court. As I believe firmly that both courts will side with reason and rationality and strike down proposition 8, it seems likely that August 18th might be the day that gay couples re-gained their right to marry. And since there are nowhere near the votes for a nationwide bigoted anti-gay constitutional amendment, it will, hopefully be a right they keep for good this time.

But it might not be.

One thing I’ve always wondered that a lot of people don’t talk about is what effect this anxiety about whether or not you’ll even be able to get married has on gay couples?  I mean you hear a lot about the people who have been in stable relationships for a long long time and have been just waiting to get married and how they’re suffering, but you don’t hear a lot about the couples who aren’t that certain about the whole “marriage” thing.

I wonder if it isn’t the case that a lot of these couples will rush to get married on and after August 18th simply because they fear that if they don’t, then in the future, if prop 8 is reinstated, they won’t be able to for God knows how long. 

Will this create a flood of somewhat less stable marriages, rushed marriages engaged in out of anxiety rather than a certainty that this person is the most suitable long term mate?

Or will it create the opposite effect? Will people simply, out of disgust, not bother to even try to get married rather than face the disappointment and hurt they would feel should their marriages in the future be struck down or rendered meaningless by some kind of stupid bigoted law or ruling the people or Judges chose to support?

Marriage has considerable benefit, so I would suspect that the former scenario is more likely. If I’m right then we’ll see an unnatural jump in the divorce rate amongst gay couples in future statistics that will directly correspond with this period of anxious prop-8 related uncertainty which instigated rushed relationships and marriages.

And if that’s the case, how much do you want to bet that some crazy anti-gay marriage zealots will try to use that statistic absurdly as proof that gay marriages are somehow unstable and less meaningful than the heterosexual ones?

The good news is it would take a gargantuan leap in divorce rates for gay couple divorce rates to exceed that massively high divorce rate that straight couples have.  So that line of attack will probably fall flat on its ass. As it should.

But it never hurts to be prepared. You have to be ready to answer whatever line of attacks bigots will use to attack your fundamental rights and freedoms. There will be people out there savvy enough to keep track of things like this.

But besides that, I just think it’s an interesting thing to consider from a social and economic perspective.  How much is marriage demand increased when the right of marriage is a scarce resource?  And how does economic uncertainty play into the equation?

I guess my overall point is that there are a lot of factors that go into determining whether or not or when a particular couple will get married that have little or nothing to do with that couple’s love and devotion to one another. Anxiety about the future is certainly one of those factors. It’s definitely a good thing for people regardless of their orientation, to keep in mind.

To understand who Glenn Beck is, only one anecdote is really required. This came from a detailed profile of Glenn Beck.

This is how Beck treats a family that were his friends.

But perhaps you think this was a long time ago and it was back in his “dark days”. Surely he’s evolved and grown a great deal since then right?

But just look at his TV and radio programs. He has attacked President Obama, Obama’s children, Obama’s wife, Obama’s father,  Obama’s grandfather and many members of Obama’s staff in nearly as cruel and baseless terms.

Here’s just one example:

Most recently he did a segment where he equated the Obama administration with Planet of the Apes! 

Do you really think he’d beyond saying something or doing something equally as vicious and cruel as he did back then today? Or worse? 

This is who Glenn Beck is. He delights in hurting people.  Surely even if you agree with some of his politics, surely you can see something fundamentally wrong with that careless cruel attitude toward people’s lives and emotions?

The popularity of Glenn Beck is the most terrifying thing I can think of that is happening in this country. Mark my words, he is one very dangerous entity.

I’ve prided myself on never banning anyone on this blog and never deleting anyone’s comments. I still believe in that. I believe everyone has a right to speak no matter how wrong, vile, hate filled, or repulsive their comments might be. I say let readers judge for themselves.

Moreover, I don’t like changing the historical record. It’s far too easy for someone to delete comments in such a way as to pattern an argument so that they seem smarter or in the right. I have no interest in doing that. I can’t stand it when others on other blogs do that to me.  And I never want to be accused of doing that myself.*

I don’t even delete the obvious spam comments. I mean those are just fun for everyone anyway.

But just because I don’t delete comments or ban users, doesn’t mean that I will always engage with you if you comment on my blog. I believe firmly in this one overriding principle: Never waste your time arguing with idiocy.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe comments are a great resource. You can learn a lot from the things that people say on your blog. Sometimes the readers have amazing insights. Sometimes the readers say things you meant to say in ways better than you could have ever said it.

What’s more, sometimes innocent comment discussions can lead to lasting valuable friendships, especially when you find like minded people whose opinion you respect.

But not all comments are created equal. Nor are all commenters worthy of an equal level of regard or consideration.

Now there are, in my experience four kinds of comments. There’s mild statements of opinion, mild factual statements, and discussion building comments. The opinion statements I don’t usually reply to except for maybe an equally mild response. The factual statements I’ll generally feel the need to respond to only if they are clearly false or need clarification. Discussion building comments I will almost always eventually reply to unless they are wildly off topic, in which case I will wait to respond in a separate blog entry.

And then there’s the fourth category. There’s the idiocy.

Now not all who leave idiotic comments start off with their idiocy. Sometimes they start off with interesting discussion topics which I engage in and then the discussion quickly devolves into idiocy.

What do I define as idiocy?  Largely it is comments that project something so utterly and obviously wrong that to take even a moment to refute it is to waste a moment too much of my life.

Usually it goes something like this:

Other Person:  I think X
Me: X is not true because of A and B
Other Person:  I still think X
Me: Why?
Other Person:  X has to be true because The sky is green, when you drop pens they always fly up, there is a half monkey, half unicorn cyborg living under my bed, and 1+1=29,423,177 in base 10.

Me: …

No really. Some things people say are really that stupid. And it’s usually not just one stupid false statement. It’s a whole stupidity story. An entire set of incoherent, irrational, blatantly false, ignorant, prejudiced and often just plain mean spirited ideas all wrapped up into one. When I read these comments it just makes me feel really tired. Like the very thought of what would be required to correct this complex web of idiocy drains me of energy and sometimes even my very will to live.

I don’t know where they get their stupidity and at that point I’ve stopped caring. I honestly don’t even care if other people believe their stupidity. At some point people have to be responsible for knowing or at least looking up the basic truth about things on their own. It’s not like we’re living in the stone ages. We have libraries. We have schools. We have telephones. That’s not even to mention the fact that if you are reading this then you’re on the internet, the greatest repository of knowledge in human history. It can’t be the case that I should have to walk everyone through every tiny little obvious detail of history or math or basic science that I thought everyone learned in grade school just because some idiot decided to challenge the most apparent truths for obviously self serving reasons.

That sounds really super arrogant, but really I’m an extremely patient person. It’s very rare that I feel that something is so intolerably stupid that I am so disgusted that I can’t even be bothered to comment. And honestly, I think everyone is entitled to a moment of absolute stupidity here and there. I’m not inclined to judge you if you say something stupid or wrong now and then. We all have.

But it does happen. Sometimes people say things that are just beyond the pale and I am left speechless. And it’s happening much more frequently lately over the last year or so than in the past even though I haven’t been posting very much.  Not just on my blog but on all the blogs I read too. It’s quite strange.

I got to thinking about this whole attitude I have toward blog comments and decided to write about it when I had a conversation the other day with a friend about the changes in the xanga community and how much less fun I have on here now then I used to. I mentioned the idea that idiots aren’t to be responded to.

Then, a few days later one of my favorite bloggers, digby, covered and explained this principle of not arguing with idiocy much better than I ever could.  She was responding to an absurd false “scandal” I noticed people talking about on my twitter feed.  Namely, people noted that Conservapedia, a repository of user generated lies, had content describing relativity as a liberal plot.  I’m serious. Apparently these people believe Einstein just made it up because he wanted to turn the country communist!

Here’s digby:

Personally I don’t like ridiculing people. I learned the whole, “if you don’t have anything nice to say” principle… What’s more I find it boring. I’ll laugh on the inside sure, and in private when talking to friends. But I have zero interest in publicly humiliating anyone, even my worst enemies. I’ll let that be someone else’s job.

But I do accept and understand that some comments really deserve nothing more. I might quible about the extent to which you should ridicule them or how helpful doing so is. But certainly we can all agree that arguing against that kind of idiocy is a total waste of time. Digby is dead on on that. So I won’t engage with those people. I’ve got better things to do. I hope that my readers have better things to do. I hope that everyone has better things to do. People who say such nonsense should be ignored by everyone until they disappear or die off. Or until they start saying different things.

Basically what I’m saying is that there really is a level of idiocy that stands on its own and warrants no further comment.

*The ONLY time I will ever delete a comment is when it is directed at another viewer of my blog and is extremely hateful, mean spirited or cruel. In particular a personal comment designed to hurt someone by exposing that person’s information to the public, that I will not hesitate to delete. And then, generally I will post a comment explaining that the entry was deleted and why I deleted it.  Basically if a comment causes measurable harm to someone, I will consider deleting it. But for the most part, I will let people say whatever they want and so far I’ve been lucky enough not to have to delete a comment. 

Step 1:  Plant the idea in the people that Government sucks and can’t do anything right. They are just taking and wasting your money. Taxes are teh evil!!!!!!!

Step 2:  Gain power. Cheat. Lie. Spy. Steal. Defame. Rig elections. Or do whatever else is necessary to achieve this. You only have to succeed at this once.

Step 3:  Once in power, make government ACTUALLY suck by hiring incompetent, idiot people and contracting out services to corrupt business people whose personal goals are completely contrary to the goals of government. Make sure you cover every branch of government from the lowliest to the highest level position.

Step 4:  Start a few wars. Or do something otherwise extremely extremely expensive. (wars on ideas like drugs and terror work just as well as wars on poor countries around the world)

Step 5:  Give away all the money so you can’t pay for those wars. Preferably through tax cuts and bailouts. Also cutting programs that help regular people like unemployment insurance and social security and public education are a great source for war funds.

Step 6:  Let someone else gain power. Doesn’t matter who just so long as it’s not you.

Step 7:  When those other people are in power, do whatever you can to prevent them from doing anything to fix your now increasingly sucky, broke, at war government. Obstruct. Obstruct. Obstruct.

Step 8:  Blame everything that goes wrong on the evil GOVERNMENT, hence validating everything you told people in Step 1. Stress that this is the fault of those people you let gain power who don’t realize how much government sucks like you’ve been saying all along.

Step 9: When the poor deluded people gratefully give you power again, REPEAT steps 3 through 8. Continue until the government is totally overextended and out of money.

Step 10:  If anyone starts to suspect what you are doing, make sure to refocus their anger on the Gays, Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, Atheists, “Illegals”, Poor People, Druggies, Criminals, Unions, ACORN, or Foreigners. Or anyone else who is an easy powerless target and is not you.

There you have it. It’s so easy a child could do it!