This is just a quick note on stuff that borders on the bizarre.
#1) Lawyers, Guns and Money is one of my must-read sites. It’s second only to TPM in its first-must-read-in-the-morning, uh, ness. Imagine my dismay when I found this post from one of the regular contributors. To save you the pain of wading through the extended comment thread that included two more follow-up posts, basically Paul is arguing that the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision to allow gay marriage is nothing more than sophistry in support of a political, liberal agenda. Nevermind several other posts brilliantly crediting the decision.
It’s odd from a blog about law to hear that legal arguments are meaningless to the point of nihilism. Equal protection statues are not “vague” – they include very specific language which is undergirded by strong rhetorical traditions. Nevertheless, even if they are “vague”, they are no vaguer than the playground concept of “fairness” which even elementary school children can understand perfectly well. If you compose an argument that by virtue of “fairness” you should be able to take my lunch from me every day, then that doesn’t prove you are a legal genius. It proves you are a bully. And I don’t want any legislative policy, even my preferred policy, to be enforced by bullying.
#2) PZ has largely taken this one apart, but if you want to see a truly scary manifestation of religious logic, there’s nothing better than the argument that Bernie Madoff – of epic ponzi scheme fame – is morally superior to Chesley Sullenburger, the Humble Hero of the Hudson. Aparently this is because Bernie was Jew who gave some fraction of his 65 billion dollars in ill gotten dollars to charity, while “Sully” was just using his immense skill, long experience and expensive training to save his own life – the selfish SOB.
OK, the second one doesn’t scare me so much as make me want to laugh and point while holding my hand over my mouth. I can only hope that more religious logic will play itself out like this. The religious will hoist themselves with their own petars and we militant atheists will be able to carefully box up our deadly petars, dismantle our armor and play a relaxing game of pool instead.
I like pool – it has geometry. And what happens has some relation to reality.
- jack*
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