The poisoning of an outspoken critic of Putin,Alexander Litvinenko, seems related to the assasination of an outspoken critic of Putin, Anna Politkovskaya. An italian man has turned emails over to Scottland Yard describing a well organized plot to kill Litvinenko by the Russian Mafia.
I'd put money on Putin being behing the whole thing.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Monday, November 06, 2006
Hitchens on Intelligence Squared
Hitchens was brilliant as usual on NPR's debate last night, Intelligence Squared. The topic of discussion was: Freedom of expression must include the right to offend. Hitchens and two others agreed, while another panell of three disagreed.
This topic was motivated, of course, by the uproar and the violence and the murder in the Muslim world following the publication of a handful of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed in a small Danish newspaper.
The stream is available here.
Hitchen's concluding remarks begin at minute 49 in the 53 minute version and at minute 140 in the 143 minute version.
I'm transcribing his comments here:
"The real question, or if you like the sub-text question, before us is this "Is nothing sacred?" What we've been discussing is the old question whether or not there is such an offense as blashphemy or profanity?" Now if I don't tell you exactly what I think about the simpering speeches that came from the other side, I'm not censoring myself, I'm just being polite, and civil and just saving some of your time.
What I will not prevent myself from saying, and will not let anyone else prevent me from saying is the following: It is wrong and it always has been for churches -- powerful, secular, human institutions -- to claim exemption from criticism, which is what really is being asked here. If there's going to be respect, it has to be mutual.
Does Islam respect my right to un-belief? Of course it does not.
Does it respect the right of a muslim to appostasize and change belief? Of course it does not.
I have had to have -- I can name now four or five friends, six or eight, maybe, if I had time, five or six of whom you would certainl have heard of, who have to live their lives under police protection for commenting on Islam, for having an opinion on it, and this is getting steadily worse all the time. And it's grotesque!
Here is an enormous religion with gigantic power that claims that an archangle spoke to an illiterate peseant and brought him a final revelation that supercedes all others. Its a plagarism by an epileptic of the worst bits of Judeaism and Christianity. That's obvious, it seems to me.
Do you think -- How long do you think I'm going to be able to say that anywhere I like? It would already be quite a risky thing to say in quite a lot of places. I did not come to the Uninted States of America 25 years ago to learn how to keep my mouth shut, and I'm going to reject all offers that I change that policy, however simperingly they are put."
This topic was motivated, of course, by the uproar and the violence and the murder in the Muslim world following the publication of a handful of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed in a small Danish newspaper.
The stream is available here.
Hitchen's concluding remarks begin at minute 49 in the 53 minute version and at minute 140 in the 143 minute version.
I'm transcribing his comments here:
"The real question, or if you like the sub-text question, before us is this "Is nothing sacred?" What we've been discussing is the old question whether or not there is such an offense as blashphemy or profanity?" Now if I don't tell you exactly what I think about the simpering speeches that came from the other side, I'm not censoring myself, I'm just being polite, and civil and just saving some of your time.
What I will not prevent myself from saying, and will not let anyone else prevent me from saying is the following: It is wrong and it always has been for churches -- powerful, secular, human institutions -- to claim exemption from criticism, which is what really is being asked here. If there's going to be respect, it has to be mutual.
Does Islam respect my right to un-belief? Of course it does not.
Does it respect the right of a muslim to appostasize and change belief? Of course it does not.
I have had to have -- I can name now four or five friends, six or eight, maybe, if I had time, five or six of whom you would certainl have heard of, who have to live their lives under police protection for commenting on Islam, for having an opinion on it, and this is getting steadily worse all the time. And it's grotesque!
Here is an enormous religion with gigantic power that claims that an archangle spoke to an illiterate peseant and brought him a final revelation that supercedes all others. Its a plagarism by an epileptic of the worst bits of Judeaism and Christianity. That's obvious, it seems to me.
Do you think -- How long do you think I'm going to be able to say that anywhere I like? It would already be quite a risky thing to say in quite a lot of places. I did not come to the Uninted States of America 25 years ago to learn how to keep my mouth shut, and I'm going to reject all offers that I change that policy, however simperingly they are put."
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Double Standard
From Sullivan's blog, I found a link to David Frum's reaction to the allegations that the prominent evangelical leader, Ted Haggard, has been employing the servies of a male prostitute while high on crystal meth.
Frum frames the left's uproar over the issue as: "See, he's no better than anyone else." The left's glee in this, he charges, is out of toppling a high-and-mighty man, exposing his weaknesses and therefore ridiculing the ideals he stood for. Something like: "This man had ideals that he himself could not live up to."
This straw man liberal that Frum has constructed looks like quite the fool when Frum turns the tables on him and suggests that a man who tries to lead a moral live and fails is better than the man who makes no attempt to lead a moral life. The "hypocracy" that liberals accuse Haggard of, of knowing the difference between right and wrong but being unable to choose right, that hypocracy is more admirable than the bandit homosexual who unclosets himself, chosing wrong with an open distain for right.
Frum misses the point, almost purposefully.
The glee that I feel (I guess I'm that evil leftist) over this revelation is based on two ideas:
1) The moral compass that Haggard has tried to steer his life by points the wrong direction. He is wrong in saying that homosexuality is evil. Frum's argument is first framed on the premise that homosexuality is evil; the rest of his discussion requires the reader accept the premise. I reject that premise.
2) Those who most loudly condemn homosexuality are those who feel its "evil pull;" those who feel confronted with the choice between doing the right thing and doing that gay prostitute. If you're loudly criticial of homosexuality, it's because you're gay.
It is in this second idea that the notion of hypocracy arises. The hypocracy is not in saying that gay sex is evil and yet having gay sex anyways; the hypocracy is in asserting homosexuality is a choice (as murder is a choice) while KNOWING that the pull he feels towards homosexual behavior is not under his control. Haggard knows he is a homosexual and that the behavior is a result of who he is; he cannot correctly assert that he simply enjoys the behavior and is drawn to the behavior despite being straight.
Unfortunately for him, he lives in an evangelical culture that condemns homosexuality so roundly that he has no choice but to resist his homosexual tendancies. He can't be who he was born to be without being ostracized. And so his resistance turns into rabid defiance. The only way to control his behavior is to speak out against its source constantly. And his rabid hatred produced his rise in the community that supported that condemnation. Eventually he feeds the fire of hatred and intollerance in the community whose hatred and intollerance pushed him in the direction he was forced to follow. In physics, this would be called a positive feedback loop. A community of hatred that produces objects of its hate will continue to formet its own hatred.
The only escape is a radical meltdown of that society. It's what I hope for, that some day the evangelicals will realize the lunacy of their precepts and finally reject them. Haggard's position of prominence in the evangelical society and his very public and very poorly timed meltdown may break the positive feedback loop.
But I doubt it. Haters like their hatred.
Frum frames the left's uproar over the issue as: "See, he's no better than anyone else." The left's glee in this, he charges, is out of toppling a high-and-mighty man, exposing his weaknesses and therefore ridiculing the ideals he stood for. Something like: "This man had ideals that he himself could not live up to."
This straw man liberal that Frum has constructed looks like quite the fool when Frum turns the tables on him and suggests that a man who tries to lead a moral live and fails is better than the man who makes no attempt to lead a moral life. The "hypocracy" that liberals accuse Haggard of, of knowing the difference between right and wrong but being unable to choose right, that hypocracy is more admirable than the bandit homosexual who unclosets himself, chosing wrong with an open distain for right.
Frum misses the point, almost purposefully.
The glee that I feel (I guess I'm that evil leftist) over this revelation is based on two ideas:
1) The moral compass that Haggard has tried to steer his life by points the wrong direction. He is wrong in saying that homosexuality is evil. Frum's argument is first framed on the premise that homosexuality is evil; the rest of his discussion requires the reader accept the premise. I reject that premise.
2) Those who most loudly condemn homosexuality are those who feel its "evil pull;" those who feel confronted with the choice between doing the right thing and doing that gay prostitute. If you're loudly criticial of homosexuality, it's because you're gay.
It is in this second idea that the notion of hypocracy arises. The hypocracy is not in saying that gay sex is evil and yet having gay sex anyways; the hypocracy is in asserting homosexuality is a choice (as murder is a choice) while KNOWING that the pull he feels towards homosexual behavior is not under his control. Haggard knows he is a homosexual and that the behavior is a result of who he is; he cannot correctly assert that he simply enjoys the behavior and is drawn to the behavior despite being straight.
Unfortunately for him, he lives in an evangelical culture that condemns homosexuality so roundly that he has no choice but to resist his homosexual tendancies. He can't be who he was born to be without being ostracized. And so his resistance turns into rabid defiance. The only way to control his behavior is to speak out against its source constantly. And his rabid hatred produced his rise in the community that supported that condemnation. Eventually he feeds the fire of hatred and intollerance in the community whose hatred and intollerance pushed him in the direction he was forced to follow. In physics, this would be called a positive feedback loop. A community of hatred that produces objects of its hate will continue to formet its own hatred.
The only escape is a radical meltdown of that society. It's what I hope for, that some day the evangelicals will realize the lunacy of their precepts and finally reject them. Haggard's position of prominence in the evangelical society and his very public and very poorly timed meltdown may break the positive feedback loop.
But I doubt it. Haters like their hatred.
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