Why Dont You Blog?

I often wonder about terms like “left” and “right wing” and how well they actually describe people. When you look at different nations the terms mean even less. For example in the US “Left of centre” is still reasonably “right wing” by (traditional) UK standards and weirdly we have a left wing government which is implementing more right wing policy than any in living memory. So I wonder, do the terms still mean anything?

It gets even more confusing when I apply them to myself. Personally, I exhibit left and right wing traits. More than that, I mix wanting to be filthy rich with wanting the general standards of society to be improved. Are these reconcilable? I have no problems with government taxation (I actually think tax is a GOODTHING™®) but the thought of government interference with my life is abhorrent. One area where I was concerned that I had strong left-wing tendencies was in the newspapers. Out of habit, I read the Guardian newspaper each Saturday, which is certainly a “leftie” newspaper. Fortunately, today I find myself seriously add odds with some of its other readership. Maybe I am still a “right winger..”

In the “Money” Supplement, there is a section where people write in with a problem and others give advice on how to solve it. It is normally pretty cheesy stuff about which fair trade presents they should buy for some wedding. Today it was about some one who was struggling to cope with the increased petrol costs and was asking for advice as to how others cope.

As you may have imagined (if you’ve ever read the Guardian), the responses were nearly all along the lines of “it serves you right for driving a gas guzzler” and “Stop whining, there are people worse off in Nigeria” (or where ever). One even suggested the questioner doesn’t “have to live 25 miles from [their] place of work.”

What self satisfying, smug, arrogant nonsense the answers are.

Infuriatingly, this is typical of a certain group of the UK society, most of whom are Guardian readers… They appear to be of the opinion that the massive fuel price rises are a GOODTHING™®© because it will combat climate change and (as most are well off enough to not actually be affected by the increased prices) any side effects are easily tolerable. This is not a “socialist” view point as the whole set up massively disadvantages the poor over the wealthy. Like most things, there is the assumption that a some of money which one person feels is insignificant must be insignificant for everyone else - yet at the same time it carries the idea that the increase will make other change their lifestyle to one the first person feels is “better.” It really annoys me.

Take an example of some one I know very well. This person is very hard working but, to be honest, not very well off. Earning low end of the average wage, this person has to pretty much accept any job offered to them. At the moment, they work 32 miles from where they live. The area is not well enough serviced by public transport to make that viable and, like most people, they own a car that is a few years old (and is used for family tasks at the weekend). Now, with today’s prices they are paying £1.19 per litre of fuel. The round trip journey is 64 miles, and is a mix of traffic. Their car is reasonably economical but, because of the nature of the journey, they rarely get better than 30mpg from it. As a result, each day they are using 10 litres of fuel per day. The simple journey to and from work is costing them nearly £3000 per year. Shocking. This is a only a £600 a year rise over last year, but when you live close to the margins, £600 means an AWFUL lot.

Now everyone has choices. My friend has choices. They could change jobs, but there aren’t any closer. They could move house, but being poor they cant afford one closer to work, they could cycle but it would take hours and they’d have no where to change at work, they could change cars to a more efficient one but (again) they are poor and cant afford a new car.

Switch the example to me. I am not rich (far from it, sadly), however I am better off than my friend. I drive a much more un-economical car to work (albeit a much shorter distance). I live a less environmentally friendly life and, to be honest, if you try to change me through taxation you will leave people like my friend destitute on the streets before it has any effect on me.

How, in the real world, do things like increase fuel prices have any real effect on changing people’s destruction of the environment?

In a similar manner to increasing alcohol tax, forcing shops to up the price of “party drinks” and the like, it has no real effect on the people clamouring for it. All it does is massively disproportionately punish the poor. You don’t even have to be rich to ignore these measures, because the poor will break before the middle classes begin to suffer.

Back to my rant about the Guardian. It is nice to think there is a whole swathe of supposedly “Left wing” Guardian readers who are happy to see poor people suffer even more because it massages their “climate change guilt.” No wonder the Labour party have become right wing neo-Nazis.

Popularity: 42% [?]

Popularity: 42% [?]

(Hat tip Pharyngula)

For all those sensible people infuriated by the claims that Hitler was an atheist…

The text reads:

“The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life” (’My New Order‘, Adolf Hitler, Proclamation of the German Nation at Berlin, February 1, 1933)

The Nazis burned books trying to teach evolution.

Does all this sound familiar?

Popularity: 46% [?]

Popularity: 46% [?]

Once again, I am trusting that something isn’t a spoof site. I am none too confident but conservapedia seems authentic. I mean it’s not THAT funny, if it’s a joke.

“A conservative encyclopedia you can trust. The truth shall set you free.”

Well, OK, that bit’s funny. It suggests legions of dodgy door-to-door salesmen trying to flog “untrustworthy” conservative encyclopaedias.

I have to share some of the gems, starting with its atheism entry:

Atheists often equivocate that they actually have a lack of belief in any God, as opposed to having the positive belief that there is no God. This equivocation stems from the fact that if they hold positive beliefs, then their worldview can be categorized as a religion.

(As I suspected, my standard Chambers dictionary defines equivocate as “to use doubtful words to avoid answering a question.” I am lost as to why they use the word here but I guess there is not yet a working conservictionary.)

See what I mean? It’s not really funny. But it can hardly be serious.

Don’t make me spell this out AGAIN….. (Bah, too late, I am wound up and impelled to do it.)

I am pretty positive that the coffee cup I am drinking from is not embedded in my PC’s hard drive (although the PC’s random behaviour might raise this as an acceptable explanation).
In fact, I could admit to being fully positive about this belief. But I am not going to build a religion round it.

I tried to find a topic to look. I was distracted by the debate over the front page Bible quote. It is indeed quite hard to understand why “Conservative” necessarily equals “Christian”. I guess Liberation Theology never made much headway in the MidWest.

It is interesting that the christian right seem able to hijack both Christianity and political conservatism to create a truly mind-numbing worldview. I would have to question my own bigotry if I found myself seeing all Christians as right-wing bigots and all political conservatives as fundamentalist nutters. But these people just seem to want to lie invitations to kneejerk bigotry on a plate. (Labelling theory in action, for any sociologists?)

When I say “mind-numbing worldview,” I am confessing my own inability to even focus on the rest of this stuff for more than a minute or two. Otherwise it brings on almost a panic attack relating to the future of the survival of the human race.

I can handle argument with people who disagree with me. That’s how we learn, surely, by questioning our assumptions. The Socratic dialogue, and so on. I would welcome reading arguments that were coherent and thought out and might make me reconsider my kneejerk “progressive” assumptions.

But there seems to be nothing there except repeating ideas that have handed down from one set of bigots to another, without any brain tissue being engaged at all, and with the folly getting concentrated over time.

There was supposed to be some sort of progression for our species, by the 21st century, surely? “Surely?”, she rages incoherently, shaking her fist at non-existent deity, in a Homer Simpsonesque way. Bah.

[tags]atheism, conservapedia, learning, logic, religion, religious-right, right-wing, society[/tags]

Popularity: 18% [?]

Popularity: 18% [?]

No, not the kind, sane, rational people who comment here! My post on “Writing from Ignorance” was largely based on having read the paper edition of the Guardian today. Out of curiosity I visited the online version to see what sort of comments people came up with. Wow. For a while, I had felt I was being harsh towards Marina Hyde and had tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. Not so some of the people who commented.

Now, there are zillions of comments and I read very few of them — mainly the first and last as I find that is the best way to get a feel for the debate when there are loads of comments. Here the majority of insane posts come from people claiming to be Americans. I truly hope they are either lying through their teeth or they do not present a representative sample. Some blasts of wisdom are:

Popularity: 48% [?]

Popularity: 48% [?]

The false authority fallacy is one which rears it’s ugly head on a regular basis. I used to labour under the suspicion that this was more a problem for the right wing extremists, religious zealots on the like. Sadly, I have had my eyes opened somewhat.

In the most basic form, the false authority fallacy is most often invoked when a person, an expert in one field, is used to provide expert testimony in an unrelated field. We get it on a regular basis in the UK news (and I assume this is a global phenomenon), when (for example) Surgeons from the GMC pass opinion on anti-crime legislation. They may be wonderful surgeons, but what do they know about criminology or social control? Note: They may also be excellent criminologist or sociologists — but this is not something which can be assumed by their status as a surgeon. This fallacy happens all over — although they understand the grief, what special insight do the parents of murdered children have into law? — and it often manifests itself in a variety of mutated forms (Creationists are specialists at this). Recently, I have seen a new variation.

Popularity: 42% [?]

Popularity: 42% [?]

Phew. I can regain the will to live.

The post on atheist humour about a fake right wing blog, plus a comment by Alun about another absolutely brilliant parody site landoverbaptist.org had me wondering how many more of these other extremist blogs were fake.

I somehow ended up browsing an anti-church forum by following links from landoverbaptist. I noticed that some of the sites that people were griping about really had to be blatant spoofs.

I suddenly had a flash of Road to Damascus insight.

There are no right wing fundamentalist blogs or websites. There are no real creationist blogs. Intelligent design is just a joke that got out of hand. They are all just made by just a load of people with wierd senses of humour. This knowledge will restore your faith in the human race.

No wait! The most obvious intuitive argument against ID was the all-too-evident lack of intelligence in so many human beings - as shown ironically by the way that a completely irrational alternative to evolution was allegedly believed by huge swathes of people.

But, now science - in the shape of my empirical investigation of the existence of fundamentalist blogs - has proved that human stupidity is a false premise. Humans are rational intelligent beings after all.

D’oh, so there COULD be an intelligent design behind the universe…..

Popularity: 20% [?]

Popularity: 20% [?]

Well, the latest entry to the ThisHasToBeSatire department is a blog post on a charmingly named website called “Liberals Must Die.” While I found this site by chance on Technorati (good old tags, oddly this was the result of an Intelligent Design tag search)

The post in question (Global Warming Proven False) has a picture of a snow storm and the following text:

I think this about sums it up.

The hearing on ‘WARMING OF THE PLANET’ had to be cancelled because of an ice storm.

And yet these Global Warming idiots don’t get it!

Global warming is just a lie!

I must admit that (possibly as a result of too long spent reading the blogs of the truly insane) it took some time for me to decide this site was satirical. The main clues I (eventually) picked up on were the link to the Drudge report (above) and some of the other posts. After reading the ones which at least looked overtly legitimate, I found more (eg. the Muslim Terrerists (sic) category) which I think are solid evidence the site is purely humour. Some examples:

Some say Obama is not a terrorist, and yet he has still not denied it!!Do you know he was raised in Hawaii??? That is practically a foreign country; half way to China, the original Pearl Harbor bombers! (read original)

and

This is so kick ass. When all is said and done, GWB could go down in history has being the President who waged the most wars of all time!! I say this… ran wants nukes, well lets give them an up close demonstration.How about a 50 Mega Ton Bomb right in the capital!! As the great Jerry Falwell said “Blow them away in the name of GOD!” (read original)

I had originally thought this was some ultra-right wing madman but on second reading, and assuming the humourous intent, it actually becomes funny. The real killer is the “Top Ten Lessons from 24” - it is hilarious.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Popularity: 21% [?]