My father is a staunch believer in free speech, but I remember him telling me as a teenager that the only problem with it was that people who are ill-informed or with little grasp of the topic in question get to use it too. As a result, I try to make sure that I understand what I'm talking about before I open my mouth. Can't say I'm infallible, but I think it's an affront to the concept of free speech to comment when knowledge or experience is obviously lacking. It's a shame everyone didn't get my father's advice.
I have read your comparison of yourself and Monkey Boy. Love it!
David, He raises some good points. I, of course, linked here because I read your point-by-point comparison to our Greatest of All Presidents as a checklist by which you could monitor your progress toward qualifying for the Rapture, but now that I see it was tongue-in-cheek, well, I just don't know.
Okay, I'm willing to go pretty far for a joke, but I nearly threw up a little at that GoAP thing. -c
Not do those people get to use free speech, too, they also get to put up Web pages and advertise their lack of knowledge to immensely greater numbers than before.
But that's a good thing, because the revulsion against their ignorance must inevitably result in a populace that well-informed, liberal, progressive, internationalist, scientifically minded, open to new ideas . . .
The guy is not only uneducated (What's all that stuff about Darwin and Einstein? Where did he get those ideas?) but also remarkably humorless.
I guess people at the extremes tend to be humorless. I have to admit that I run into it on the left end of the spectrum. The right does seem to be worse, though.
The right also has a disturbing wish for a king. They'll ascribe kinglike - or even demi-godlike - attributes to even the most unlikely creatures, such as the GoAP in question.
Say, maybe they didn't have adequate male authority figure role models while growing up! Maybe there were all mama's boys! Why, that's the seed of another sarcastic essay. Hmm.
I did love the bit about how evolution is the left's religion, and how apparently Einstein and Darwin are entwined in some sort of posthumous theological deathmatch.
I'm no biologist, but it seems to me that evolution may be "just a theory" on the macro level, but it's honest-to-Darwin FACT on the micro level.
Wait a minute. I AM a biologist. How 'bout that?
I'm not sure it's fair, though, to charge him with humorlessness. There is a very real possibility that that essay is the most startlingly sharp satire I've ever seen...
Since you are a biologist, I'll certainly take your word over his. If he's doing satire, it's the kind that's too well done. He needs to scatter some clues around.
I think he's clueless. E.g., Einstein's fudge factor having anything to do with God. That's another new one on me.
I'd say something intelligent about Adam Smith, but since I'm a Marxist, I'm not allowed to. It's part of the secret set of bylaws.
I visited your blog and read your post about America being involved in a number of wars all over the world. Coincidentally, that's a subplot in the novel I'm blogging about here, although in the novel there's a sinister organization behind it all. Fun to write, but in the real world, there seems to be more than enough sinisterness in Washington, without invoking any secret organizations.
He also says that it's not up to me, a liberal, to say whether Bakhtiar is good at her job or not. That's up to people. (I can't remember his exact wording, but that's the gist of it, I think.) That category excludes liberals, obviously.
9 comments:
My father is a staunch believer in free speech, but I remember him telling me as a teenager that the only problem with it was that people who are ill-informed or with little grasp of the topic in question get to use it too. As a result, I try to make sure that I understand what I'm talking about before I open my mouth. Can't say I'm infallible, but I think it's an affront to the concept of free speech to comment when knowledge or experience is obviously lacking. It's a shame everyone didn't get my father's advice.
I have read your comparison of yourself and Monkey Boy. Love it!
David,
He raises some good points. I, of course, linked here because I read your point-by-point comparison to our Greatest of All Presidents as a checklist by which you could monitor your progress toward qualifying for the Rapture, but now that I see it was tongue-in-cheek, well, I just don't know.
Okay, I'm willing to go pretty far for a joke, but I nearly threw up a little at that GoAP thing.
-c
helen,
Not do those people get to use free speech, too, they also get to put up Web pages and advertise their lack of knowledge to immensely greater numbers than before.
But that's a good thing, because the revulsion against their ignorance must inevitably result in a populace that well-informed, liberal, progressive, internationalist, scientifically minded, open to new ideas . . .
Hmm. There must be a flaw in my reasoning.
chris, ha!
The guy is not only uneducated (What's all that stuff about Darwin and Einstein? Where did he get those ideas?) but also remarkably humorless.
I guess people at the extremes tend to be humorless. I have to admit that I run into it on the left end of the spectrum. The right does seem to be worse, though.
The right also has a disturbing wish for a king. They'll ascribe kinglike - or even demi-godlike - attributes to even the most unlikely creatures, such as the GoAP in question.
Say, maybe they didn't have adequate male authority figure role models while growing up! Maybe there were all mama's boys! Why, that's the seed of another sarcastic essay. Hmm.
I did love the bit about how evolution is the left's religion, and how apparently Einstein and Darwin are entwined in some sort of posthumous theological deathmatch.
I'm no biologist, but it seems to me that evolution may be "just a theory" on the macro level, but it's honest-to-Darwin FACT on the micro level.
Wait a minute. I AM a biologist. How 'bout that?
I'm not sure it's fair, though, to charge him with humorlessness. There is a very real possibility that that essay is the most startlingly sharp satire I've ever seen...
chris,
Since you are a biologist, I'll certainly take your word over his. If he's doing satire, it's the kind that's too well done. He needs to scatter some clues around.
I think he's clueless. E.g., Einstein's fudge factor having anything to do with God. That's another new one on me.
ichabod noodle,
Welcome!
I'd say something intelligent about Adam Smith, but since I'm a Marxist, I'm not allowed to. It's part of the secret set of bylaws.
I visited your blog and read your post about America being involved in a number of wars all over the world. Coincidentally, that's a subplot in the novel I'm blogging about here, although in the novel there's a sinister organization behind it all. Fun to write, but in the real world, there seems to be more than enough sinisterness in Washington, without invoking any secret organizations.
He's only attacked your ideas and not you personally, yet you cannot be well-read because you're a liberal.
fsjl,
Good point.
He also says that it's not up to me, a liberal, to say whether Bakhtiar is good at her job or not. That's up to people. (I can't remember his exact wording, but that's the gist of it, I think.) That category excludes liberals, obviously.
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