Giving no quarter

As of this morning, six explosive devices addressed to prominent critics of Donald Trump have been discovered, one of them (the one mailed to former CIA director John Brennan) found at the headquarters of CNN.  Fortunately, all of them were intercepted and rendered harmless.  As of the writing of this post, it is yet to be determined if any of the devices were capable of detonating, but officials say that they "contained some of the components that would be required to build an operable bomb" and the potential danger was being studied.

Trump was quick to disavow any responsibility for what happened.  In a speech given at the White House, he said, "In these times we have to unify.  We have to come together and send one very clear, strong, unmistakable message that acts or threats of political violence of any kind have no place in the United States of America."

Fine words from a man who has repeatedly vilified the men and women who were the targets, and done whatever he could to sow division, paranoia, and polarization.  Just last week he praised Montana Congressman Greg Gianforte for body slamming a reporter.   He initially condemned a neo-Nazi gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia that resulted in one death and nineteen injuries, but quickly backpedaled, saying, "I think there is blame on both sides.  You look at both sides.  I think there is blame on both sides."  He has called CNN and other members of the mainstream news media "enemies of the people" over and over.  Jeff Zucker, president of CNN, called it correctly.  'There is a total and complete lack of understanding at the White House about the seriousness of their continued attacks on the media.  The President, and especially the White House Press Secretary, should understand their words matter.  Thus far, they have shown no comprehension of that."

Then Trump's cronies joined in the fray.  CNN was just "getting what it deserved" for "spewing hate speech 24/7."  "Democrats are worse," one man on Twitter commented, then quoted Cory Booker's comment, "Get in their face," Maxine Waters's "No peace, no sleep," and Hillary Clinton's "We can't be civil until Democrats win."

Because this, apparently, justifies receiving a pipe bomb in the mail.

While other networks were covering the incidents, Fox News was discussing how outrageous it was that Mitch McConnell got heckled in a restaurant.  In fact, Meghan McCain equated getting heckled in a restaurant with receiving a pipe bomb in the mail, in a conversation with Joy Behar on The View.

"Every time [Trump] says things like the press is the enemy of the people, his entire party needs to stand up against him and say something," Behar said.  "Mitch McConnell, where is he?  He’s the leader of this party."

"He’s getting harassed and heckled when he goes out in public to have dinner with his wife," McCain responded.  "So are we."

It didn't take long for a bunch of right-wing talking heads to say not only that liberals were responsible for the pipe bombs because they encourage violence, but that the liberals sent the pipe bombs themselves to make the Republicans look bad.  Chris Swecker, former analyst for the FBI, said in an interview on Fox, "It could be someone who is trying to get the Democratic vote out and incur sympathy."  Pro-Trump media personalities John Cardillo, Ann Coulter, Michael Savage, and Bill Mitchell were quick to agree.

But no one is capable of throwing gasoline on a fire like Rush Limbaugh.  "Republicans just don't do this kind of thing," Limbaugh said.  "You’ve got people trying to harm CNN and Obama and Hillary and Bill Clinton and Debbie 'Blabbermouth' Schultz and, you know, just, it might serve a purpose here."

Okay, you get the picture.

Words matter.  This has progressed far past the usual fractious partisan rhetoric and posturing that has gone on as long as there have been elected offices.  This is a leader -- the President of the United States -- who has over and over used inflammatory rhetoric to stir up his supporters, leading the cry of "lock her up" against Hillary Clinton (who has never been tried for, much less found guilty of, anything).  Ted Cruz, who evidently thought it was a good idea to take a page from Trump's playbook, said that Clinton and Cruz's opponent Beto O'Rourke could "share a double-occupancy cell."

Apparently now it's a crime to be a Democrat.

It's taken a lot to get me involved in politics.  I've said before that I hate politics because half of it is arguing over things that should be self-evident and the other half arguing over things that probably have no feasible solution.  I'm the child of two staunch Republicans, with whom I sometimes disagreed but always respected.  Personally, I've always been kind of a centrist; one of my besetting sins is that I see most things in shades of gray.

But if you still support Donald Trump, you are aiding and abetting someone who not only lies compulsively, not only is a homophobic, misogynistic narcissist, but is appealing to the worst traits in the American personality -- the tribalism, the xenophobia, the racism.  Not only appealing to them, encouraging them, inflaming the fear and the hatred and the polarization.  I usually try to find common ground with people I disagree with, but I'm beginning to think there is no common ground here.

If you voted for Trump, I get it.  He's very good at telling people what they want to hear, convincing them he's got all the answers.  If you still support him, I have nothing more to say to you other than that I will fight what Trump and his cadre stand for with every breath I take.  I'm done with being bipartisan, with trying to be polite to folks who want people like me erased from the earth.

At some point, you have to stop being nice and say "enough."  If there's still dialogue to be had, if they're still convincible, it's still worth talking.  But if not?  The only thing left is to push back with everything you've got.  I'll end with a quote from William Lloyd Garrison: "With reasonable men, I will reason; with humane men, I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost."

***********************************

The Skeptophilia book recommendation of the week is a must-read for anyone interested in languages -- The Last Speakers by linguist K. David Harrison.  Harrison set himself a task to visit places where they speak endangered languages, such as small communities in Siberia, the Outback of Australia, and Central America (where he met a pair of elderly gentlemen who are the last two speakers of an indigenous language -- but they have hated each other for years and neither will say a word to the other).

It's a fascinating, and often elegiac, tribute to the world's linguistic diversity, and tells us a lot about how our mental representation of the world is connected to the language we speak.  Brilliant reading from start to finish.

Acting on absurdities

In C. S. Lewis's wonderful fantasy story The Magician's Nephew, he says, "The trouble about making yourself stupider than you really are is you very often succeed."  In the story, Uncle Andrew (the magician of the title) has convinced himself so completely that what he is seeing isn't real that in the end, he actually becomes unable to see it.

It's not so far off from what happens with conspiracy theorists.  When you have accustomed yourself to accepting an idea even if it has no evidence to support it -- or, in some cases, because it has no evidence to support it -- you're likely to fall for any damn fool claim that comes along.  And, if you'll allow me another quote, this one from Voltaire: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

We got an object lesson in these two principles last week when two men from Georgia, Michael Mancil and James Dryden, were arrested for plotting to go to Alaska with piles of weapons, with the intent of blowing up HAARP.  You probably know that HAARP -- the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Project -- has been blamed for everything from creating hurricanes to triggering earthquakes, when in reality all it does is study the ionosphere for the purposes of improving communication and navigation systems.  To be sure, it looks kind of creepy; a field of antennae sprouting up from the Alaskan tundra.

So the conspiracy theorists just love HAARP, and their fears were not assuaged a bit when the U. S. Air Force, which ran HAARP, basically turned it over last year to the University of Alaska - Fairbanks.  You'd think that people would say, "Okay, if HAARP really could be used as an ultra-powerful weather modification device, capable of spawning tornadoes on the other side of the planet, the Air Force would definitely not release their interest in it."

But that is not how the minds of conspiracy theorists work.  Of course HAARP is still being run by the government, and is still causing lightning strikes in Dakar, Senegal.  We couldn't be that far wrong, could we?

Of course not.

But as I pointed out before, people who (1) don't care about evidence and (2) are convinced that the government is in a huge conspiracy to wipe out the entire human race are very likely to do stupid stuff.  Witness Mancil and Dryden, who according to the Coffee County Sheriff's Department had amassed "[a] massive amount of arsenal seized [that] looked like something out of a movie, one where a small army was headed to war."

Apparently, besides HAARP's role in modifying the weather, Mancil and Dryden also thought that it was being used to "trap people's souls."  What the U. S. government would do with a bunch of souls, I have no idea.  Maybe they figured that there were some members of congress who could use a replacement, I dunno.  Be that as it may, Mancil and Dryden were apparently "told by god" that they were to go to Alaska, kidnap a scientist and steal his ID badge, and use that to gain access to the facility, after which they would blow it up and "release the trapped souls."

So here we have yet another example of why it's important for people to start paying more attention to facts, and less attention to crazy claims made by random wingnuts.  (Following this dictum would put Alex Jones out of business, which would be a step in the right direction.)  In any case, I'm glad the whole thing ended happily.  The would-be terrorists never made it out of their home county and are cooling their heels in jail, and the scientific facility is safe, at least for the time being.  So now we can turn our attention to worrying about other things, such as the outcome of next week's presidential election, which may well leave me wishing that HAARP could wipe out humanity.

Inaction adventure

There's a smug, snarky meme going around social media lately.  It's got a photograph of President Obama and the caption, "Faced with a terrorist crisis, Obama issued a stern statement about climate change."  The implication, of course, being that here we have this terrible crisis that is putting Americans at grave risk, and the president is dithering around talking about the weather.

Well, first, I doubt seriously whether he issued any statement about climate change in response to questions about terrorism.  But what this meme gets the most wrong is the fact that it would make sense for him to do so.

Because climate change is the single most serious threat to national security we are currently facing.

Let me make this clearer.  Terrorism in general, and Islamic terrorism in particular, gets a lot of media attention, and for good reason; ISIS and their ilk are horrible, bloodthirsty people, behaving in a fashion that defies comprehension.  They have brutalized their own people, and struck again and again in other countries with suicide bombs and guns.

But in terms of numbers at risk, there is no comparison.  According to the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism, 3,066 Americans have been killed in terrorist attacks since 9/11 (of which 2,902 occurred on 9/11).  Even if you factor in terrorist attacks worldwide, we come to a figure of an average of 20,000 deaths a year from terrorism.  Most of these occurred in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nigeria, and Egypt -- illustrating once again that the people most at risk from Islamic terrorism are other Muslims.

Contrast that with the estimate from the World Health Organization that the number of deaths from the combined effects of climate change in the coming decades is predicted to be upwards of 250,000 a year -- over ten times the number of deaths from all terrorist attacks combined.

Oh, but that's just a prediction, right?  Before you start scoffing about predictions, you might want to hear about a study by Kevin Trenberth, Lijing Cheng, and John Abraham published just this week in Ocean Sciences, which shows that the climate models of ocean warming have predicted with an accuracy within 3% of the actual measurements.

In other words, (surprise!) the scientists actually know what they're doing, and are not fudging the results because of some weird conspiracy to get funding (one of the most common jabs you hear aimed at climate scientists).  And the work of Trenberth et al. has been thoroughly vetted -- at the time of publication, its results were independently corroborated by two other teams.

[image courtesy of NOAA]

The ocean warmup is having effects here and now on the weather.  This year we've seen record highs all over the place, including a nearly unimaginable all-time record high of 129 F in Kuwait last week.  The problem is that predicting climate and predicting weather aren't the same thing; as demonstrated by the Trenberth et al. study, climate models are working brilliantly, but it still doesn't allow us to predict the day-to-day ephemeral fluctuations we call weather.  June was the 14th straight month of record heat, but here in the United States it's come with catastrophic flooding in West Virginia while only two states north, here in upstate New York, we're experiencing a record-setting drought that has completely dried up the area's famous waterfalls, and which -- if it doesn't abate soon -- will leave the city of Ithaca without drinking water and Cornell University without sufficient water for the 22,000-odd students who will be returning in the fall.

"Climate Inaction Figures."  Worth watching, even if painfully close to the truth.

So if the snarky little meme I referenced above actually was true, it would show nothing more than good sense on the part of our leaders.  But with the way the presidential race is currently shaping up, I'm not confident that addressing this catastrophic threat to the long-term habitability of our planet is going to be anywhere on the agenda.

The price of free speech

It's been kind of a grim week here at Skeptophilia.  The news over the last few days has been seriously depressing, what with the current political situation, the attack in Orlando (and the chest-thumping by ideologues that followed), and the ongoing turmoil in so many parts of the world.  And much as I'd like to return to my happy world of making fun of people who believe in Bigfoot, aliens, and telepathy, I'm afraid we have (at least) one more rather dismal topic to cover.

This one comes up because of Newt Gingrich, who (according to informed sources) is currently hoping to be chosen as Donald Trump's running mate.  And in what looks like a bid to align himself with Trump's "'Murica!  Fuck Yeah!" platform, Gingrich has proposed recreating the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

[image courtesy of photographer Gage Skidmore and the Wikimedia Commons]

You probably know that the original such committee was founded back in the 1930s, first to keep track of (and stop) any infiltration into the United States by the Nazis, and later to do the same thing with the communists.  The committee did nab a couple of Soviet spies -- notably Elizabeth Bentley and Whittaker Chambers -- but in the process blacklisted hundreds of people whose only crime was attending communist party meetings (or even being friends with someone who had).  Eventually, criticizing the government was all it took (as folk singer Pete Seeger found out).  Careers and reputations were ruined, and the gains in terms of national security were debatable at best.

Now, of course, the target is different; Gingrich wants to go after people with Islamist leanings.  "We originally created the House Un-American Activities Committee to go after Nazis," Gingrich said during an appearance on Fox and Friends this week.  "We passed several laws in 1938 and 1939 to go after Nazis and we made it illegal to help the Nazis.  We're going to presently have to go take the similar steps here... We're going to ultimately declare a war on Islamic supremacists and we're going to say, if you pledge allegiance to ISIS, you are a traitor and you have lost your citizenship.  We're going to take much tougher positions."

Which sounds like a credible position at first.  I certainly have no reason to defend people who have dedicated themselves to ISIS, or whose political and religious beliefs impel them to come over here and harm American citizens.

But the problem is, how do you find out who those people are before they act?  The FBI already monitors people who are suspected Islamists, not that such efforts are foolproof.  But Gingrich seems to be proposing further measures, taking legal action against people who have committed no crime, who have only subscribed to the wrong ideology.

Me, I find this troubling.  It's a slide toward imprisoning people for thought crimes, and one step away from abrogating the right to free speech.

And lest you think I'm overreacting, here; just two days ago, Donald Trump revoked The Washington Post's press credentials because he objected to perceived criticism by the media.  "Based on the incredibly inaccurate coverage and reporting of the record setting Trump campaign," he said in a statement, "we are hereby revoking the press credentials of the phony and dishonest Washington Post."

The Post's executive editor, Marty Baron, replied:

Donald Trump's decision to revoke The Washington Post's press credentials is nothing less than a repudiation of the role of a free and independent press.  When coverage doesn't correspond to what the candidate wants it to be, then a news organization is banished. The Post will continue to cover Donald Trump as it has all along -- honorably, honestly, accurately, energetically, and unflinchingly.  We're proud of our coverage, and we're going to keep at it.

Which is it exactly.  If free speech means anything, it must involve allowing citizens to criticize the government.

So the whole thing is moving in a decidedly scary direction.  Look, it's not that I don't appreciate how hard it must be to craft policies that will protect American citizens, insofar as it is possible, from outside threats.  I can't imagine being tasked with monitoring anyone who is suspicious, and making the right call with respect to when to move in and make arrests -- especially given the backlash either way if you're wrong.

But I do know that restricting the right to free speech, muzzling the media, and harassing Americans for perceived "un-American activities," is not the way to go.  We tried it once before, and it didn't work out so well.  The price of free speech is risk -- but it's a cost that is well worth what you gain.

Complexity, uncertainty, and motives

Humans are complex beasts.

I know, it doesn't take a Ph.D. to figure that out.  (Fortunately for me, since I don't have one.)  But I was thinking about this today with regards to Omar Seddique Mateen, the perpetrator of Sunday's slaughter of 49 men and women in an Orlando nightclub.  Mateen himself was killed in the incident, leading to speculation about his motives for committing such a horrific act.

Immediately after he was identified, his obviously Middle Eastern name fueled talk that he was acting on anti-LGBT beliefs that came from Islam.  This idea was bolstered by the revelation that in a 911 call he made in which he pledged himself and his actions to ISIS.

Then his father came forward, and said that his son had committed the crime because he was "angered over seeing two men kissing."  So for a time, it seemed like the origin of his violent acts was clear enough.

But the father added a comment that made a lot of us frown in puzzlement: he said that his son's actions "had nothing to do with religion."  Really?  If so, why would he be angry over two guys kissing?  It's not like rational secularism would give you the impetus to be so furious over gay guys showing affection that you'd shoot up a nightclub.

Shortly after that, Mateen's ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, came forward and said that Mateen had been physically and verbally abusive to her.  In her statement, Mateen comes across as not just angry, but mentally unstable.  "He was two totally different people," Yusufiy said.  "He would turn and abuse me, out of nowhere, when I was sleeping...  He was not a stable person.  He beat me.  He would come home and start beating me because the laundry wasn't finished, or something like that."  As far as his religious ideology, she said he was religious, but had never expressed sympathy with ISIS, terrorist organizations, or extremists.  "He wasn't very devout," Yusufiy said.  "He liked working out at the gym more."

Then things got even murkier when it was revealed that Mateen himself was a "regular" at Pulse himself, and "used gay dating apps."  This put yet another spin on things -- that Mateen was gay and leading a double life, pretending to be straight to keep the peace with his conservative father.  The image developed of Mateen as a tortured young man, steeped in self-loathing, who used the attack as a way of atoning for his own "sinfulness" through jihad against homosexuals.

Here's the problem, though.  It's always a losing proposition trying to parse the thoughts and motives of someone who died without leaving any hard evidence about what he was thinking at the time.  And even if he had -- left a note, called a friend, whatever -- there's still the problem that we'd only have his own words from which to draw a conclusion.

It's frustrating to say, "We don't know, and almost certainly will never know."  After a tragedy, we want to know the reason, to understand how such appalling things could happen.  Somehow, if we could just pin the cause on one thing -- Islam, availability of guns, mental instability, his anguish over being a closeted gay man, growing up in a narrow, judgmental household -- we could attain closure.

But in this case, it doesn't seem to be possible.  His motives could be any or all of the above, or something else we haven't even considered.  People seldom do anything based on one straightforward, clear reason, much as it'd make life simpler if that were so.  At this point, it's probably pointless to engage in further speculation; we need to be putting our thoughts and efforts into helping the survivors and the families of the victims, and -- most importantly -- taking steps to build a society in which such horrific acts never happen again.

I was a stranger, and you took me in

In troubled times, people forget that one of our core values is compassion.

Despite what you might have heard, it's not unique to Western society, nor to Christianity.  Christianity has its version, yes, but it shows up over and over, in every culture, every religion:

• From the Gospel According to Matthew: Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
• From Confucius's Doctrine of the Mean:  Tse-kung asked, 'Is there one word that can serve as a principle of conduct for life?'  Confucius replied, 'It is the word 'shu' -- reciprocity.  Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.
• From Islam's Forty Hadiths:  None of you [truly] believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.
• From Shayast-Na-Shayast, one of the holy books of Zoroastrianism:  Whatever is disagreeable to yourself do not do unto others.
• From the Tao te Ching: To those who are good to me, I am good; to those who are not good to me, I am also good. Thus I act rightly, and all receive good.
• From the Talmud: What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man.  This is the law: all the rest is commentary.
• From the Mahabharata: This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you.

You will notice that nowhere does it say, "This above all: make sure that you keep your own ass safe, warm, and well-fed, and to hell with everyone else, especially if they don't look like you."

A child in a Syrian refugee camp [image courtesy of photographer Mstyslav Chernov and the Wikimedia Commons]

It's why I find myself reluctant to go on social media in the last few days.  The posture that I see taken by some people I consider friends, and by many of our elected leaders, is so profoundly repulsive that I leave every single time feeling nauseated.  Contrast the above lines with some of the things I've seen posted lately:

• Taking in Syrian refugees is welcoming terrorist attacks into the heartland of the USA.
• Any government leader who lets these people into our country is guilty of treason.  Send the fucking politicians to Syria, along with the refugees!
• We put French flags all over Facebook, then turn around and invite the terrorists in.  I don't know what the hell is wrong with this country.
• Until every homeless veteran and hungry child is housed and fed, we should not allow one Syrian refugee into the US.  Not ONE.

I think it's this last one that makes me the most angry, because the person who posted this is a staunch Republican, and has more than once screamed bloody murder about the "welfare state" and "government giveaways," and supports a party that has in the past five years been responsible for killing five separate bills that would have provided aid to veterans.  What's the logic?  "We need to help veterans, before we help anyone else!  So let's not help anyone!"

So we sit here, smug in our comfortable houses and eating three meals a day, and turn away thousands of people whose only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  People who are fleeing ISIS, the extremist sect we ourselves are fighting against.  People who have nowhere to go home to.

These are not terrorists.  These are the victims of terrorists.

Governor Chris Christie said that he wouldn't allow Syrian refugees into New Jersey, "not even orphans under the age of five."  Apparently his conservative family values include the idea that a human being's rights begin at conception and end at birth.

And if you're not swayed by compassion, there's a purely pragmatic reason to take in the refugees.  The way to combat extremism is to put a human face on the target.  The terrorists who are responsible for the Paris and Beirut attacks and other atrocities have their followers brainwashed to think of their victims as evil, barely human, deserving of death.  It's far harder for that message to sell if those same people welcomed you into their homes, fed you and clothed you when you had nothing.  If we send these people back, the ones who are lucky enough to survive the ordeal will have every reason to hate us.

Our actions might just as well be a recruitment drive for ISIS.

Some of you might be saying, "But it's not safe!"   No, it's not.  It's possible that there might be ISIS members embedded in the ranks of the refugees.  Welcoming in the refugees might result in danger to ourselves; it certainly would result in inconvenience, difficulty, hard work.  But wherever did you come up with the idea that the prime goal of life is to be safe?  We just celebrated a federal holiday -- Veteran's Day -- wherein we laud the people who put themselves in harm's way to help others.  I would think that the hypocrisy of following that up with an outcry against putting ourselves in harm's way to help others would be obvious, but apparently it isn't.

And speaking of holidays, we've got two others coming up, remember?  One celebrates a legend in which the natives of a land welcomed settlers in and fed them, even though they looked different, had a different language, and practiced a different religion.  The other is about an event in which a poor Middle Eastern couple was turned away from shelter over and over again, until the woman was forced to give birth in a stable for animals.

Even the parallels there seem to escape people.

We have an opportunity.  We can give into fear, nationalism, and hatred, or we can show the world that the values we brag about and claim are so powerful actually mean something, and are not just a lot of empty, self-congratulatory talk.

It's been a temptation to unfriend or unfollow the people I'm connected to who post repugnant things. If I haven't, it's because that tendency turns social media into even more of an echo chamber, where we're surrounded only by people who shout the same empty slogans as we do, and never are challenged to think differently.  So as much as I would like to disconnect myself from the fear and rage talk I'm seeing, I won't do that.  

If I can get one person to reconsider the duty of compassion that comes along with the privileges we enjoy, it will be worth it.

Paris attacks redux

There's a fundamental rule I follow: if I make a statement, and people I trust take exception to it, I try to listen.

That happened today.  My earlier post (which I will take down as soon as this is posted) resulted in so many people whose opinions I respect taking exception that I have spent most of the day re-analyzing my thoughts regarding the terrorist attacks on Paris, who is responsible, and what our attitude should be toward Islam, ISIS, and the Middle East.

First:  I was beyond angry this morning.  I don't get that way often.  This is not meant as an excuse, merely a statement of fact.  In the grip of high emotion, it's all too easy to let yourself be carried away, to let logic, rationality, and compassion be swept off in a red haze of rage against people who could perpetrate such acts.

But on reading what people have written, both as comments on my blog, on Facebook, and in personal emails, here are a few things I have gleaned.

1. Blaming an ideology for the actions of a few is lazy thinking to the point where it is indistinguishable from being wrong.  No adherent to a religion, or any other belief system, follows it 100%.  If there are immoral commands in the ideology, and a person follows them, it is the person who is making the immoral choice, and theirs is the responsibility.
2. The situation in the Middle East is far too complex to place root causes for ISIS (or anything else) on one thing.  I should know better; I teach the Single-Cause Fallacy in my Critical Thinking classes.  The Middle East wouldn't be the miasma of poverty and oppression it currently is if it weren't for multiple causes -- not only fundamentalist Islam, but western colonialism, greed for oil, greed on the parts of the rich people in the Middle East itself who are desperate to quell dissent and stay in power (yes, I'm referring to the Saudi royal family here).  To lay it all at the feet of Islam is simplistic.  Once again, i.e., wrong.
3. It is probably impossible to do what I set out to do -- to tease apart the belief system from its adherents.  In leveling blame against Islam, I was coming dangerously close to aiming blame at all 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, law-abiding and lawless alike.  I object like hell when someone does that sort of thing to me -- "all liberals believe X, aren't they stupid?" -- and here I was doing it myself.  What's the biblical quote about casting the beam out of your own eye before trying to remove the splinter from someone else's?
4. Shutting down the rights of Muslims who are already peaceful residents (and/or citizens) of the United States, or any other secular democracy, is the road to becoming the same kind of oppressive dictatorship we rail against.  
5. I really shouldn't write blog posts when I'm furious.

I'm left with questions.  How do we stop the transmission of the ideology of hatred?  How can we eradicate such blind, senseless violence from the world, without becoming blindly violent ourselves? How can we criticize beliefs and ideas without it sliding into denying the freedom of speech and religious observance to the believers?

I wish I knew the answers.  Hell, if I did, I'd run for president.

In any case: thank you to all who took the time to respond thoughtfully, even those who were angered by what I said.  To be a true skeptic means to be willing to admit when you're wrong -- or at least, when you have cause for serious uncertainty.  And about the Paris attacks, at the moment I have no answers, just a deep sense of grief that such things could happen in the world.

The right to criticize lunacy

At what point are you allowed to say, "That may be your religion, but it's completely insane," without being accused of crossing the lines of propriety?

I ask the question because of a comment made by Pope Francis that many are interpreting as implying that the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists brought their deaths upon themselves. "You cannot provoke," the Pope said.  "You cannot insult the faith of others.  You cannot make fun of the faith of others."

Okay, I admit that it's not nice to do something deliberately that upsets people, but other than that, why should we place religious faith outside of the reach of criticism?  What if the "faith of others" is completely absurd?

For example, consider a story that appeared a couple of days ago in The Times of Israel, which describes a reporter who traveled in Algeria, asking people who they thought were responsible for the Charlie Hebdo massacre.  And apparently the response she got was:

The attacks were done by shape-shifting Jews.

Illustration from Goethe's Werke (1882) [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

"Many Muslims in north Africa," Dana Kennedy said, "are of the opinion that Jews staged the series of terror incidents to make Muslims look bad... (and) that they weren’t just regular Jews that were doing this, but in fact but a race of magical shape-shifting Jews that were master manipulators that could be everywhere at the same time."

Oh, those wily, wily Jews.  Creating such convincing personae as Cherif and Said Kouachi (the gunmen responsible for the Charlie Hebdo attack, who shouted "Muhammad is avenged" after killing the twelve staff members) and Amedy Coulibaly (the self-proclaimed member of Islamic Jihad who killed a policewoman and four civilians in separate attacks, and who deliberately targeted Jews).  

And their response to all of this is that the attacks were by Jews impersonating Muslim terrorists?  What, are the Jews also the ones who are beheading people in Syria right now?  Is it Jews who are responsible for flogging, hanging, or beheading people in public because they've been found guilty by a criminal justice system that would have seemed unfair to Tomás de Torquemada?

I dunno.  It seems to me as if the Muslims are making themselves look bad enough without any outside assistance, from the Jews or anyone else.

And to Pope Francis I would say: if you are not allowed to criticize ideas freely, then how are you supposed to combat ideas that are batshit insane?  Is anyone allowed to claim anything, free of repercussions, because it's under the aegis of faith?  How can he not see that treating "It's my religion" as a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card is tantamount to giving license to lunacy of all kinds?

So while Pope Francis has certainly met with my approval over some of his statements, that encourage dialogue and ecumenism rather than rancor and recrimination, I think this one is ridiculous.  We have to be able to point out the absurdity of beliefs.  Without that freedom, there is no filter for telling fact from fiction, reasonable claims from insanity.

Shape-shifting Jews, my ass.

I know I've said it before, but it's important enough that I'll reiterate: I'm all for treating people with compassion.  We all come to understanding by different roads and at different speeds, and most of us are striving to figure things out in whatever way we can.  But there is no such requirement that we treat beliefs as if they could have their feelings hurt by criticism.  Beliefs stand and fall by the same criteria as any other sort of claim; by their agreement with facts and evidence.  Without that standard for acceptance, you are adrift in a sea of wild conjecture, without a touchstone for reality.

Culture, criticism, and Charlie Hebdo

I'm certain that all of you by now have heard about the deaths of twelve members of the staff of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in an "apparent Islamic militant attack."

The cover of Charlie Hebdo following a 2011 firebombing of the magazine offices by Muslim extremists.  The caption says, "100 lashes with a whip if you don't die of laughter."  [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

The use of the word "apparent" is journalistic waffling, given that bystanders heard the gunmen shouting "Allahu akbar!" and "We have avenged the prophet Muhammad!"  The gunmen are still at large as of the time of this writing, and are the subject of a huge manhunt.

Leaders all over the world have responded to this atrocity.  Let's start with my favorite one so far, Ahmed Aboutaleb, the mayor of Rotterdam, himself a Muslim, who told the terrorists (and this is a direct quote) to "fuck off."  Here's the full quote, as translated by a friend:

It is incomprehensible that you can turn against freedom like that, but if you don't want that freedom, in heaven's name, take your suitcase and leave.  There might be a place in the world where you can be yourself and be honest about that to yourself, but don't go around killing innocent journalists.

That is so backwards, that is so incomprehensible -- disappear if you cannot find peace with the way we want to build our society here. Because we only want those people -- also all those Muslims, all those good-willing Muslims whom people are now looking to -- together, only those who are what I would call "our" society, and if you don't like this place because you don't like a bunch of humorists who are making a little newspaper, yes... how shall I put this...  how about you fuck off?

There has also, of course, been some opposite sentiment, and not just from Muslims in the Middle East.  Maori Party candidate Derek Fox of New Zealand said, basically, that slain Charlie Hebdo editor Stephane Charbonnier was himself responsible for the deaths:

The editor of the French magazine has paid the price for his assumption of cultural superiority and arrogance, he was the bully believing he could insult other peoples culture and with impunity and he believed he would be protected in his racism and bigotry by the French state. 

Well he was wrong.  Unfortunately, in paying the price for his arrogance he took another eleven people with him. 

Power cultures all like to use the old chestnut of freedom of speech when they choose to ridicule people who aren't exactly like them, and mostly they get away with it.

These guys liked the privilege but didn't think they'd be caught up in the ramifications - they were wrong. 

This should serve as a lesson to other people who believe they can use the power they wield by way of dominating the media to abuse and ridicule others they believe to inferior to them -- just like [in] this country.

Well, the backlash against Fox was immediate and vitriolic.  Fox was victim-blaming, people said.  National Party MP Chris Bishop said that Fox's comment was "horrific, ridiculous, (and) shameful," adding that supporting freedom of speech was not "cultural supremacy."

And people who are outraged by the murders have responded the way outraged people do; by drawing Muhammad in all sorts of vile ways and posting them on the internet, by offering insult and ridicule to Muslims of all stripes, by escalating the situation in every way imaginable.

I'm a strong believer in freedom of speech.  Words are words, and no one deserves to die for them.  However, I'm also a strong believer in the cardinal rule for human behavior, which is, "don't be an asshole."  The cartoons at Charlie Hebdo were largely banal, broad-brush attempts to ridicule an entire people, not just to lampoon particular acts that deserved lampooning.  In other words, they weren't even good political satire, they were mostly just childish barbs on the level of "Muslims are poopyheads."

Add to that the fact that my general opinion is that Islam is a counterfactual set of beliefs whose precepts suggest -- no, demand -- doing all sorts of things like killing apostates, subjugating women, and forcibly converting non-believers.  This sort of thing rightly should be intolerable to free-thinking rationalists.

It's possible to detest Islam as a belief system, to decry the actions of its adherents, to mourn the deaths of the twelve staff members of Charlie Hebdo, to support fully the right of every human to speak freely, and at the same time to wish that all people would simply treat each other with more respect and less deliberate provocation.  The world is a complex place, and humans are usually less motivated by logic than they are by emotion; trying to come up with one blanket response to any incident is bound to miss the reality by a mile.

So continue speaking out.  Continue to criticize worldviews that incite their adherents to do evil.  But also continue to treat each other with compassion, to err on the side of thinking kindly of people, to work toward understanding.  To do otherwise would be to fall into the very errors we are trying to eradicate.

The enemy of my enemy is... wait.

I'm sure that most of you have heard of Boko Haram, the group of Nigerian extremist Muslim nutjobs who hate the secular west's culture so much that they have started preying on their own people.  These are the loons who have, according to Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, killed over 12,000 people, and who were responsible for the kidnapping earlier this year of 234 girls who were students at a government-run girls' school.  As of the writing of this post, the girls have not been returned to their families; Boko Haram leaders promised that they would be married off to devout Muslims.  The "Save Our Girls" campaign, which attracted international attention, accomplished (unfortunately) nothing but allowing Boko Haram to gain a spot on the world stage.

Even the name "Boko Haram" means "Western education is a sin."

So these people are, by any conventional definition of the word, evil.  And anyone who opposes them, by whatever means, is to be lauded.

Even if it's...

The Association of Nigerian Witches and Wizards.

According to an article on the site Bella Naija, the Association (called, from its name in Yoruba, "WITZAN") has issued an ultimatum to Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau; knock it off or face the magical consequences.

"Witches and wizards in Nigeria are deeply worried by what is going on in the country, especially Boko Haram insurgency," said WITZAN spokesperson Dr. Okhue Iboi.  "As stakeholders in the Nigerian project, we can no longer afford to fold our hands while the nation burns.  Enough is enough."  He added that "our fellow brothers and sisters from the three northeastern states pleaded for the emergency meeting, to help cage Shekau and his blood-thirsty lieutenants."

And now that the magicians have gotten involved, Shekau's days are numbered.  He will be captured before December, Iboi said, and will be "paraded on the streets of Abuja and Maiduguri for the world to see."  As for the missing girls, their parents should smile, because "those girls are coming back home.  They will be rescued."

So... yeah.  This puts me in the odd position of being in support of a wizard and his woo-woo pals.  I mean, the WITZAN folks clearly aren't in very solid touch with reality themselves, but for pete's sake, they're preferable to Boko Haram.

On the other hand, maybe this is the right way to go about it.  The Boko Haram folks are themselves deeply superstitious.  The Nigerian government has been fighting these lunatics since at least 2002, using conventional tactics, without much success.  If anything, the radicals have gained strength and confidence; there have been 43 deadly attacks in 2014 alone, and over 2,000 dead.  Maybe if WITZAN can convince the members of Boko Haram that they're being ritually cursed, enough of them will get spooked that they'll desert.

Fight fire with fire, you know?  Maybe they should give it a try.  Nothing else has seemed to work.

Silencing Alex Jones

Okay, I'm not going to beat around the bush, here.  Let's cut right to the chase.

Alex Jones needs to shut the hell up.

Before the dust even settled after Monday's horrific bombing at the Boston Marathon, Alex Jones and his wacko followers were claiming that the government had planted the bombs.  Here's a direct quote of his tweet from Monday, shortly after the story broke:

Our hearts go out to those that are hurt or killed #Boston marathon – but this thing stinks to high heaven #falseflag

And immediately afterwards, the following was making the rounds on Facebook:

Man, Jones et al. must think these conspirators are idiots.  Can't you imagine it?  Evil, Boris-and-Natasha types, but from our own government, concoct this big secret plan to blow up people at the Boston Marathon -- and then they slip up and post about it on the internet three days early.

Oopsie! 

How dumb would you have to be?  And yet... to Jones, these are the ultra-intelligent supervillains who are running everything.

Oh, and why do Jones and his knuckle-dragging True Believers think the government planted the bombs on Monday?  Because (1) it was Tax Day; and (2) so that the Transportation Safety Authority and other government agencies would have justification to clamp down and Deny Us Our Rights.

Same as the Newtown Massacre.  Same as Jared Loughner shooting up the crowd in Tucson, Arizona.  Same as the theater shootings in Aurora, Colorado.  Same as the shootings at Virginia Tech.

Same as 9/11.

In Jones' bizarro world, bad things don't sometimes just... happen.  Crazy people don't sometimes get hold of guns and kill people.  Religious extremists don't just slaughter innocents because of their warped view of what god wants them to do.  No; it all has to be the Big Bad Government, who in Jones' mythological view of the universe has replaced Satan as the root of all evil.

Look, it's not that I'm some sort of apologist for everything our government does.  I am well aware that we've pulled some really shady stuff, sometimes, and our projected self-image as the Global Good Guy is frequently unwarranted.  But using a tragedy like Monday's bombing as fodder for your delusional worldview, and then to trumpet that worldview publicly in order to make money, is a slap in the face to the people who survived the bombing (many of them with dreadful injuries), and to the families of the victims who died.

And it's time that we stand up and tell Alex Jones, as the leader of the pack, to shut up.

Toward that end: here is a list of the sixty AM and FM radio stations that carry his show.  Take a moment to look through the list, and then send a letter or an email to the stations of your choice and ask them to drop their sponsorship of this asshole.  He needs to have his forum taken away.

Of course, if it happens, he'll just claim that the government is trying to silence him.  But that won't matter much if no one is listening any more.