Violent words and the blood on your hands:

We’ve all heard it: sticks and stones may break my bones and whatnot. And, yes, we’ve all heard the twist (but words will hurt me!). But, I’d like to add another entry in the age-old sticks, stones and words volume, and that is this:

Sticks and stones will break people’s bones when you use your words to hurt them.

I don’t pretend to be overly clever; you probably get what I mean. But, if you’ll oblige me, I’d like to spell it out plainly, simply and crudely: violent words beget violent actions.

Always, you ask? No, not always—but usually. And the more violence is infused into certain semantics and the more widely accepted those semantics become, the more likely it is that those violent words will become violent action.

What am I talking about? Good question. Basically, this post was promised by my last. The last post, if you’d like to read it, talks about my frustration with the hateful language flooding Web 2.0, especially on comment boards. This post was supposed to be about anti-Muslim language (and it still is), but it hopefully serves a broader purpose: to remind us of the potential, if not inevitable danger hateful/violent language presents.

You may ask why I seem to be using “hateful” and “violent” interchangeably. It seems that way because I am. I’m hard-pressed to find a difference between language that is full of hate and language that is violent. When someone says they hate black people, for example, they hate them, they’re a cancer on society, etc., etc., it’s reasonable to infer that that person wishes black people would go away (either be eradicated through violence, legislated into servitude, sent back to Africa…whatever). And when the hateful speech of one person reaches someone who wishes to take that speech literally—hears “black people are a cancer on society, they should go away” and thinks, “They are literally a cancer. They literally are ruining people’s lives. I need to kill that cancer. I need to save people’s lives,”—violence is born. And so, to me, the hateful speech is violent speech because, even if the original speaker is not directly calling people to violence, when they tow that line of hate speech, they are (I think knowingly) inferring that violence is an acceptable reaction.

Maybe Frank Schaeffer, former user of hateful/violent speech and recent guest on the Rachel Maddow Show can put it more clearly:

“Like many writers of moral/political/religious theories my father and I would have been shocked that someone took us at our word, walked into a Lutheran Church and pulled the trigger on an abortionist. But even if the murderer never read Dad’s or my words we helped create the climate that made this murder likely to happen.

[....]

Angry speech has become the norm in American religion from both the right and the left. Words are spoken which — when taken seriously — lead directly to violence by the unhinged and/or the truly committed.”

He continues:

“And so people like me are responsible for what we said and what we did and the way we raised the temperature on this debate out of all bounds.

[….]

But I also think that pretending that you can call abortion murder and Tiller the baby killer, etc., etc., etc. and that these words don’t have an impact is crazy. So this is what helps unhinge a society, talking like that. And I apologize and I will apologize again. I am sorry for what I did.”

So, first of all, Schaeffer has a new book out, which is perhaps why he’s pushing this idea so hard. But, I think his argument is just as sound as it is self-serving: Pretending that you can say extremist, hateful things on a huge public scale and be innocent to the violence that ensues is “crazy.” Did Schaeffer pull the trigger on Dr. Tiller? No. Is he “responsible for they way [he] raised the temperature on this debate and…help[ed] unhinge a society, talking like that”? Yes. And so, in my opinion (and I think Mr. Schaeffer’s), speech that is hateful often incites violence, which is why I’d like to use “hateful” and “violent” interchangeably.

Whoo! You still with me?

Now to the meat:

I would like to use a few comments from a CNN message board as an example to the kind of hateful/violent speech that’s being used against Muslims. Keep in mind, like Mr. Schaeffer, these speakers of hateful/violent speech do not always understand the implications of what they’re saying. By “these speakers,” I mean lay people who post on CNN comment boards. By “these speakers” I do not mean the very public and powerful figureheads who preach this kind of speech from their pulpits, TV networks or radio shows. “Those people,” I think do know what they’re doing. “These people” may not, which is a major component of their danger. They do not recognize the violent rhetoric being used against them. They do not understand that they are a pawn being used to do the often anticipated, perhaps even intended dirty work of “those people”. And if they do understand it, then they just suck, I guess.

That being said, let’s dig in. These comments are from CNN’s newswire article called “World reacts to Obama Cairo speech” June 4, 2009.

This gem’s from “Dave”:

“Reminder, Candy 9-11 was caused by Islamic murderers who killed thousands of “innocent” decent Americans. Question, why did Obama hide his Muslim heritage during the election?”

By positioning “Islamic murderers” who killed thousands of “”innocent”, decent Americans” with the seemingly unrelated question: “Why did Obama hide his Muslim heritage during the election?” Dave is making a connection between 1.) Obama and Islam and, by association “Islamic murderers” and 2.) Muslim people and “Islamic murderers.” I don’t think it would be too much of a stretch to infer, as well, that Dave is pitting “innocent, decent Americans” against those with “Muslim heritage” (who are, being Muslim, easily associated with Islamic murderers somehow).

Of course, Dave could also simply be arguing that if Obama thought Islam was such a peaceful religion, why did he hide his Muslim heritage during the election? What, if being Muslim is not inherently tied to “Islamic murderers”, would Obama want to hide? If this is the case, though, Dave is overlooking the obvious reason Obama would need to (though I don’t think he did) “hide” his Muslim heritage: non-Muslim Americans like Dave are afraid of and often hate non-Juedo-Christian religions, immigrants and brown people. And, because of 9-11, as Dave seems to point out, the scapegoat of choice right now is the Muslim community.

But enough about Dave. Meet Dave the truth teller (wait, what? I don’t know if it’s the same Dave, but take a look):

“Muslims have shown that they are not willing partners in peace. They are little more than barbarians.” (Dave goes on to reference Star Trek, so who knows if this is a joke. Even if it is, it isn’t funny.)

So, this one is a bit more straightforward. “Muslims” are not willing partners in peace. “Muslims,” he says. Not “most governments of the Middle East”—Muslims. “They are little more than barbarians,” he scathes. Well, if we know a basic thing about war, it’s that in order to kill your human enemy, you need to make him less human. Saying that Muslims are “little more than barbarians” and “are not willing partners in peace” does just that. They aren’t human like you and I, so let’s kill them. (I’m sorry if this is getting upsetting. My stomach is churning, too.)

On that note, let’s stop. Anyone who has spent a decent amount of time on comment boards knows the examples could go on forever. People refer to Barack Obama as “Barry” instead of Barack or Obama, and they’re not just doing it to be cute. It’s an easy way to show disdain for him and, indirectly (though I feel it’s pretty direct) disdain for the brownness or Muslimness of his name. It’s disdain for his choice to return to his full name after using “Barry”—a passably white name—as a young adult.

Or when these commentators use the President’s middle name, Hussein. Again, they’re not being cute. They’re not all doing it because, “come on, it IS his middle name, isn’t it?”. They want to conjure up images of Sadaam Hussein on the one hand and Muslim names on the other. They want to “otherize” him, “otherize” the Muslim and make it easier to hate and incite violence against an entire group of people. (This isn’t supposed to be a defense of Obama, per say, it’s just another relevant example.)

In summation, this hateful/violent speech is a real bummer. While people have the right to free speech, they don’t, in my opinion, have a right to avoid responsibility for their words.

And on that note, I would like to say this to my fellow Americans, and my fellow Christians especially, who post these incendiary remarks: knock this shit off. Stop the hate speech, the bullshit, the inferred calls to violence. Look carefully at the words you type, understand their implications, and know your responsibility. The words you use are sticks and stones.

And eventually, you’ll have to answer for the blood on your hands.

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I don’t like your tone.

Yes yours. Okay, maybe not yours. But definitely that guy who came here before you. Okay maybe not his either…but someone’s. Many someones.

It’s been a long time since my last post. A very long time, indeed. I’ve been relatively silent for a few reasons: 1.) annoyance 2.) preoccupation with other things 3.) lack of anything truly interesting to say.

Let’s take annoyance. No, actually, let’s put annoyance last. Let’s start with preoccupation with other things. It’s quick. Basically, I’m preparing applications for graduate school and can’t think about anything else (and don’t want to). Quick—see?

Then there’s a lack of anything truly interesting to say. I think this blog post is obvious proof of that. Because of the preoccupation thing, and the studying for the GRE thing, and the working thing, I have been more or less uninspired. Yawn, right?

Okay, now to the annoyance issue. Number one reason, really, why I haven’t posted in a while: I have become increasingly annoyed with other Christian blogs. There are exceptions, obviously. My blogroll has a few, and I would like to give a quick shout-out to brgulker’s blog, which is fantastic (and which I have been reading regularly, though not commenting on). But the other Christian blogs have been bugging me. That and certain very vocal members of the Republican party—just bugging me (with a very emphatic “ugg”). I won’t name names. It’s futile, really; I don’t think that the people who are bugging me will read this post anyway. And, even if they do, they certainly won’t give it any merit or any thought and will come with just some pre-constructed sound bites to drop in the comment box and leave, never having experienced a damn new thing ever—EVER—in their lives, all the while telling everybody else what they should and should not be experiencing. UGG!

It makes me depressed, the kind of ridiculum I read on a daily—okay, hourly—basis on comment boards and blogs and news articles. (A quick aside: why on earth does CNN feel the need to let readers comment on everything? And, for that matter, why do I insist on reading those reader comments, even though they mostly bug the HELL out of me?) The kind of ridiculum, if you’ll afford me the phrase, that I’m talking about is the ridiculum that involves off-topic and, usually, hateful remarks about government, religion, politics, people who have 8 babies at once, etc., etc., etc. It’s annoying when people comment without thinking—even more annoying, and dangerous, when they comment without thinking and are very quick to hate.

I would like to tell myself that that catastrophic combination is just Web 2.0 hyperbole, but the recent political murders of an abortionist and a security guard makes me fear that it’s not. At least I can hope that the amount of people who will act on hate speech, ridiculous speech and ignorant speech in “real life” is much less than the amount of people who spout this bullshit on the web. There. Sorry for the rant, but come on. I am certainly not the only person annoyed (and saddened and frightened) by the tone many Christian blogs (and political blogs, as well as just plain old news articles) and their comment boards have taken.

My next post, which is related to this one in theme, I guess, will be about the very prevalent and widely accepted anti-Muslim rhetoric that’s being touted lately, especially in the wake of President Obama’s speech in Cairo. Hopefully I can calm down by then, but my disgust level is telling me otherwise.

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CNN: Religious Americans Support Torture (Oh, and by Religious Americans, we mean 400 white people)

See, CNN? I can make headlines, too. I usually try to avoid bandwagon things (note the lack of blonde beauty queen references on this blog), but I feel compelled to comment on yesterday’s CNN article about religious people’s views on torture.

 

The reason I feel compelled to comment is not because I’m sad that “the more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists,” but because CNN and the Pew Research Center absolutely screwed the pooch on this one.

 

Let’s read the article together, shall we? You can also find it here.

 

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.

The Washington Region Religious Campaign Against Torture rallied on Capitol Hill in March 2008. More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified — more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.

The analysis is based on a Pew Research Center survey of 742 American adults conducted April 14-21. It did not include analysis of groups other than white evangelicals, white non-Hispanic Catholics, white mainline Protestants and the religiously unaffiliated, because the sample size was too small.

The president of the National Association of Evangelicals, Leith Anderson, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The survey asked: “Do you think the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain important information can often be justified, sometimes be justified, rarely be justified, or never be justified?” Roughly half of all respondents — 49 percent — said it is often or sometimes justified. A quarter said it never is.

The religious group most likely to say torture is never justified was Protestant denominations — such as Episcopalians, Lutherans and Presbyterians — categorized as “mainline” Protestants, in contrast to evangelicals. Just over three in 10 of them said torture is never justified. A quarter of the religiously unaffiliated said the same, compared with two in 10 white non-Hispanic Catholics and one in eight evangelicals.

Okay, now let’s point out the very, very, very serious flaws.

 

First of all, note that the survey is of 742 American adults. That survey number is entirely too small. Seven-hundred and forty-two? Really, Pew Research Center? You didn’t want to beef up that number or wait a while before releasing these results? Also, where do the 742 live? Did you cast a wide net at least? Survey from coast-to-coast? Check the political affiliations of your survey participants? Come on.

 

Second, they surveyed people over a week-long period during heated “debate” about the issue of torture. While the timing is perfect for a poll of this nature (for media musings and what-not), I doubt that the right time to ask people what they believe (and get any meaningful or lasting results) is during the heat of battle. Give our current torture fiasco a chance to flush out, and then see how people really feel. At the very least, CNN should do a better job of emphasizing that these results may only be valid for this given period (the period of April 14-21, 2009).

 

Third, the survey “did not include analysis of groups other than white evangelicals, white non-Hispanic Catholics, white mainline Protestants and the religiously unaffiliated, because the sample size was too small.” Now this, to me, says a few things. First, that the survey is even more irrelevant, since it has not a single representative for the approximately 100.7 million American minorities (that’s about 1/3 of the American population, according to this 2007 U.S. Census Press Release). And second, that when it comes to cranking out quick stats about American sentiments to feed the talking heads, minorities don’t count. Yep, once again, minorities aren’t essential to the American political conversation.

 

Before you think I’m being overly sensitive, ask yourself this: do you really think that the Pew Research Center or CNN would post results from a survey of 742 minorities under the headline “Survey: Support for terror suspect torture differs among the faithful” with the first sentence reading, “The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey”? No, they would certainly qualify it upfront. The title would read, “Survey: Support for terror suspect torture differs among religious minorities” with the first sentence reading, “Let’s see what those quaint brown people are up to” (sorry). Or else, CNN wouldn’t have reported on it at all.

 

Fourth (that’s where we are now, right?), um…what about non-Christian religious Americans? Much like the race thing, this poll and CNN’s reporting of it (under the headline “Americans” with no qualifier of “only white Christians and white non-religious”) says Americans of other faiths aren’t really American either (by the fact that they need not one representative from this group to justify calling this survey a report on the American faithful).

 

That’s my beef with this article, basically. Jack Cafferty of CNN is already asking the public (on his blog) why religious people are more likely to support torture, as if this is fact, instead of stopping to question the validity of this survey in the first place.

 

And please don’t think CNN is doing their job of just reporting the news. The fact that they even published this article at this time, knowing full well that people rarely read past the headline and a quick blurb, means they care little about the truth and much about stirring up a political shit-storm.

 

But, then who’s really surprised about that?

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Is There Such Thing As A Conservative Atheist?

My question, I have to admit, comes from a particular definition of “conservative.” While conservative can mean many things, as “liberal” can mean many things, I’m operating with what I perceive to be a collective cultural definition of the term. By that I mean, when I think of “Conservative,” I’m thinking of an American political label adopted by people like Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, and, more unkindly, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly.

And, as I will explain more in a moment, I’m thinking more about social conservatism than fiscal conservatism.

Many hostile conservative pundits and politicians blame the “godless” liberal left for what they perceive to be society’s steady moral decline. They do this so much, one would wonder if they believe that “godless” and “liberal” are one in the same.

And, if these conservatives are calling liberals “godless,” it would suggest that they themselves are “god-full.” Which makes me wonder, ”Is there such thing as a conservative atheist?”

Now of course, I know there could be. The definition of “conservative” varies person to person, subject to subject. For example, one can easily be fiscally conservative and godless. Backing a particular economic philosophy doesn’t necessarily require religion. And for the most part, politicians don’t invoke God to defend their fiscal arguments.

I would guess that one could be socially conservative and godless as well, though this part gets a bit trickier for me. Conservative politicians (and ordinary citizens who call themselves conservatives) almost always back their social policy with religious beliefs. Banning gay marriage, promoting abstinence until marriage, and promoting “family values” (a term loaded with religious significance for most who invoke it) are just a few examples.

Of course, social conservatives usually defend the death penalty too, so who knows where that comes from.

I’m sure someone could argue each of these traditionally socially conservative tenants in a “godless” fashion, but the leaders and promoters of conservatism never really stick to it.

Sure, they may start out without a religious argument…”Teaching abstinence only is the best way to keep kids from having babies and getting STDs”…but when confronted with a bit more fact (studies show this style of “sex-ed” cuts down on neither of those things and can, in some cases, increase them), they ultimately appeal, either overtly or in a thinly veiled way, to the traditional religious belief that premarital sex is a sin.

Do conservatives appeal to religion because they believe conservatism is a political response to the belief in God? Is the heart of social conservatism truly Christian faith? Can you have conservatism without God?

And, if you can and conservative atheists do exist, are they embraced by the conservative collective or shunned as imposters?

I’d love to hear any further insight, especially if you are a conservative atheist. What’s your experience?

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Thank You, Bristol Palin, For Being An Honest Girl

Bristol Palin held an interview with Greta Van Susteren on “On The Record” Monday night. She said, among many things, that abstinence-only programs don’t work. So did her mother, Sarah Palin (wait, what?).

 

Please find the interview, as reported by Huffington Post, here. (You can also find it at Fox News, obviously).

 

Okay, there’s not much to say about this but, “Duh.” And also, Bristol Palin, you seem to be an honest and thoughtful girl.

 

But also, why does it take personal experience for politicians like Sarah Palin to understand the obvious: abstinence-only programs don’t work?

 

Are people like this that naïve and can only understand things that directly affect them?

 

Are they simply denying themselves the realization that what they want in a perfect world doesn’t (and maybe doesn’t have to) work for everyone else?

 

Or, are they simply dishonest liars who just want to feed other people what they want to hear, for fear that they’ll lose power or popularity or religious cred?

 

This is the entire reason why conversations like these need to be had on a regular basis. Do you realize how many girls, like Bristol, are religious but have had premarital sex? Lots! Can we please just be honest with each other about it?

 

And, if we are being honest with each other about it, can we also please stop marrying a religious argument with a political platform?

 

It may do us all some good.

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