I’m a Superball

2004 April 15

tags: Chinese government, federal government, Ku Klux Klan, Osama bin Laden, rubber, search result, Taliban

by thudfactor

“I’m rubber and you’re glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.”*

(Yeah, the meter on that bugs me too.)

Ever notice the social conservative comeback to a lot of criticism is “Intolerant? You’re the one who’s intolerant.” White people intolerant of Black people? No! Blacks are intolerant of whites! Christian conservatives intolerant of gays? Hell no! It’s gays intolerant of Christians! Or, as commentator Laura J. put it at the Frustrated Writer:

There is a gay agenda. An agenda to force people who hold strong religious beliefs to accept a lifestyle that goes against their faith. Now THAT’S intolerant.

See that? “Me intolerant? You are being intolerant.”

But intolerance is not the issue. Well, it’s a moral issue. But it’s not the legal issue. The legal issue has nothing to do with what you do or don’t like, it has to do with what rights people have and how they are protected under the law.

We are rightly intolerant of taking people’s rights away, even when that conflicts with religious beliefs. The Taliban holds strong religious beliefs. The Klan holds strong religious beliefs. The Chinese government has strongly-held anti-religious beliefs. Hitler had strongly held psychoses. All of these “strongly held” whatevers have at their base the right to revoke the basic human rights of whole classes of people for no reason other than personal predjudice sometimes dressed up as religious fervor. And we, proponents of freedom that we are, have repeatedly said that’s unacceptable. Sometimes we have even spoken with bombs.

When the issue is the right of Muslims to force Christians to live as Muslims, or Soviets to force Christians to live as atheists, or Nazis to tell Jews to live as dead people, we’re all about the “freedom.” “Hey you!” we say. “Stop taking away people’s freedoms! Not nice!”

But when it’s telling Christians the same thing—hoo boy! Can’t tell the Christians to stop hurting people! That would be intolerant of their religion! Christians should be allowed to force non-Christians to live as Christians because their Bible tells them they should! (Well, actually, it doesn’t. But that’s another post.)

Christianity, you see, is different. Because Christianity is true and all the other ones are false.

Frankly, anyone who thinks the Federal government should continue imposing their narrow religious vision on the world at large is only better than Osama bin Laden to the extent they find flying planes into buildings to get their point across distasteful.

Ideologically no different than Soviets, no different than Taliban, no different from the Klan. No difference, no difference, no difference—no freedom, no freedom, no freedom.

*I’m proud to say that Mind Pollution, hosted here at Thudfactor, is currently the ninth search result on google for “I’m Rubber and You’re Glue.”

Comments leave one →

2004 April 15

Jennifer permalink

Wonderfully written post. :) Stylish AND it has bite.

2004 April 16

Charles2 permalink

Why… why… you’re so intolerant!!

Great post; talking about these things to the fundies is like talking to a wall. Logic has no impact on them. Of course, as soon as you start believing in invisible sky people, it’s so easy to let the rest of your brain go to mush…

Oops. Sorry, there goes my atheist side again, being all intolerant.

2004 April 16

Nicole M. Sikora permalink

It just keeps getting better. I think your presence might be needed again this afternoon. :)

GREAT post by the way. You rock so much.

2004 April 16

Andrew permalink

Speaking as a (non-fundamentalist) Christian, my take on my religion is from reading the Book, specifically what the Big Guy said which is basically to care for people and to work for peace and reconciliation. Which is why I get so riled by conservative Christians who in my opinion are doing a noisy job of distorting a loving, caring way of life and turning it into a cult of intolerance and, frankly, hate. Seeing as they have such a big thing about quoting from the Bible, they would do well to ponder on “don’t judge other people, because you may be judged too”.
Then of course I get all tied up because I realize that in the name of my religion I’m intolerant of intolerance…

2004 April 16

Colonel Nikolai permalink

While I have solidarity with you in the general vector of your post, you have some very slippery logic that I’d like to address.

First of all, when you say that:

“… intoleran[ce] of taking people’s rights away, even when that conflicts with religious beliefs.”, lumping that together with “All of these ’strongly held’ whatevers have at their base right to revoke basic human rights …”

You seem to be saying “Intolerance of intolerance is intolerant”, which is just simply symantic babble.

More importantly, however, if my religious views are curtailed because they inpinge upon others’ human rights, this means that human rights take precidence over faith, which is a good thing. If I never place my faith over the human rights of others, I not only protect their persons, but I protect their faith as well as my own. This is, I think, the correct way to frame the epistemology of that argument.

Finally, the bible does, in fact, say that it’s OK to kill people who do not practise your religion, it’s OK to practise human slavery, to name a few Very Bad Things the Good Book says. Read Exodus for starters. There is a good reason why modern nations have a seperation of church and state: the Ten Commandments are not much to run a civil society on, let alone the stuff in Exodus, et al.

2004 April 17

John permalink

Hey, Colonel. Welcome to the blog.

As far as your slippery logic concern goes, it’s not as slippery as you think.

First of all, when you say that: “… intoleran[ce] of taking people’s rights away, even when that conflicts with religious beliefs.”, lumping that together with “All of these ’strongly held’ whatevers have at their base right to revoke basic human rights …”
You seem to be saying “Intolerance of intolerance is intolerant”, which is just simply symantic babble.

First of all “intolerance of intolerance is intolerant” is not symantic babble but logical fact. Any “intolerance of X” is a subset of intolerance in general. Just as a square is a subset of rectangle.

But I don’t think that fact (intolerance of intolerance is intolerance) is a useful one [Discussion here] and furthermore think it a red herring [Discussion here].

In any case, I don’t see how you’ve read that I am making that argument.

As to your biblical point, I take your point. But the Bible also says one should “render unto Caeser the things that are Caesers,” “turn the other cheek,” and that “he who is not against me is for me.” Which would all seem to suggest a far more tolerant approach. So I think you could say, at worst, that the Bible is ambiguous about the validity of killing people who disagree with you (since it contradicts itself later on).

2004 April 19

Colonel Nikolai permalink

Thanks for your considerate response. And I read those two previous discussions you linked as well.

I think what we have here is a blurring of the straight-out dictionary definition of intolerance and the variation of the meaning based on any critique of civil society. The latter definition is a specific application based on Enlightenment Humanism, which depends on that fundamental identification of each of us with all of us, with the sheer human being abstracted in the ideal from concrete contexts of history and tradition. That is, every human being, consulting what early moderns liked to call “natural reason,” would come up with something like those ideals we find in Aristotle’s Politics, given the opportunity. “Natural reason” just means what an unbiased person would hold to be the case, where “unbiased” means free of historical conditions and local attachments.

The dictionary definition which you blur this with is synonymous with a word like undiscerning or even feckless. This is not what is mean by the word intolerant in the context of the discussion we were having.

Finally, since when does something that may be considered logical fact preclude that it isn’t also symatic babble? I would think a cursory look at Gödel would answer that question.

2004 April 19

John permalink

And I think even a brief gander at Derrida would discourage anyone from looking at philosophers for answers. :-)

I’m afraid I miss your point. Let’s pretend, for the moment, that I have a bachelor’s degree in English with a focus on pedagogy of composition (as opposed to a modernized classical education) and try again.

2004 April 19

Colonel Nikolai permalink

My point is that the plain ol’ dictionary definition of intolerance is not the specific definition of intolerance we use when we are talking about civil society.

Websters first defintion of tolerance (you seem to be using an antonym of this definition when you say (paraphrasing) “intolarance is good”):

“deviation from a standard”

Tolarance of people polluting the world is not good, like you said earlier. But this is not the tolerance that we are talking about when we say “intolerance is bad” vis-a-vis society, diversity and the body politic.

That kind of intolarance is something much more specific, something rooted in the ideals of Enlightenment humanism, ideals articulated by Locke and Rousseau and Kant, and brought to bear on historical events in the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of the Rights of Man.

2004 April 19

John permalink

You are complaining that I am using multiple definitions of intolerance, then? I think that was my point.

Far too often the difference between being critical of a position and attempting to subjugate or suppress opinion is ignored in order to make the critical party feel self-conscious and appear hypocritical.

This works only because most people don’t have a sense of there being a more narrow philosophical definition of tolerance — they’re just taught that intolerance is bad.

The intolerance of which you speak is a very narrow philosophical definition bordering on academic jargon — far too fine a distinction, I think, for the armchair politicking we engage in here at Thudfactor. I am working with colloquial and common usage.

That said, I do appreciate the background on the philosophical underpinnings of my argument.

2004 April 20

Colonel Nikolai permalink

Hrm, I didn’t glean it was all about symantics.

Therefore, if you accuse me of wallowing in academic jargon, I accuse you of arguing the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin. (just to keep the gloves off and make the discussion lively! :P)

But seriously, I think to blend the two definitions (both of which I think are ordinary, normal definitions of the words “tolerant” and “intolerant”) might be a “bad thing”, since they are distinct for good reason, which was my ultimate point.

Move aside, and let the man go through.

I’m a Superball

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