Swanson Libertarian Blog Emergency!!

Read here and follow the advice to hook a brother up. Poor student Timmy needs a bit of financial help to keep his blog alive. I already gave him my two cents, so I think I'm covered.

Drizzle

I like the words meticulous (as in, that's a meticulously crafted argument, as an anonymous reviewer said about the early draft of my article Estoppel: A New Justification for Individual Rights, later published in Reason Papers in Fall 1992); glimmer (as in the great title to the stupid Steven Seagal movie The Glimmer Man); and especially drizzle (as on a menu when they say something is "drizzled" with chocolate or some sauce). In fact I think if I open a restaurant I will call it Drizzle.

I apologize for this post not having any apology in it. Waitasec. Now it does. I retract my apology. ... But.... if I retract it... then I have to apologize again. Damnit, now I'm in a fricking self-referential fugue state. For which I apologize.

Articulate

I apologize for even noticing that sometimes white people use "articulate" in a perhaps unwittingly condescending manner when they attempt to pay a compliment to a black person. For example the person will be speaking highly of a given black person, and then will mention, "and he's very articulate, too."

Wikinerds

Re my previous post: Well, they were successful in having my Wiki entry deleted. I think we should do what Pete Canning suggested, do a Wikinerd entry. I apologize for violating Wiki rules by editing a page that should not be edited with "WIKINERD!"

plagiarism and bigotry

I would like to apologize for pretending that Vache Folle's words on bigotry are my own:

Thursday, May 05, 2005

Bigotry

Wikipedia defines bigotry here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigot

In a nutshell, bigotry is defined as an unreasonable intolerance of opinions other than one's own.

This seems fair enough, but I sometimes observe the epithet of bigot used in cases where the accused is not necessarily intolerant. For example, one may be called an anti-religious bigot if one opposes religious teaching in government schools notwithstanding that one is himself an adherent of the religion in question. One may be called a homophobic bigot for opposing hate crime legislation involving crimes against homosexuals notwithstanding one's indifference to the sexual orientation of others. One may be called a racist bigot for criticizing rap lyrics and hip hop fashion. One may be called an antisemitic bigot for criticizing Israeli policy.

Some of my conspecifics appear to regard any position as intolerant which does not, in fact, embrace and celebrate the opposing position. It is not enough to accept homosexuality and advocate a society in which folks are free to be as homosexual as they care to be; rather, one has to be willing to declare that homosexuality is a positive good and that it is out of bounds to think otherwise. It is not enough to accept that others have differing religious views and to respect their right to hold and espouse them; rather, one must be willing to declare that one's own religious views are questionable and that all religious views are equally valid. It is not enough to accept differences in "culture" and to defend the right of others to engage in conduct and speech which one finds offensive; rather, one must be willing to declare one's admiration and love for cultural differences of every variety.

To me, tolerance and respect for diversity entail a willingness to live and let live, not an uncritical acceptance and affection for every other opinion or lifestyle. I can be a confessing Christian and tolerate the right of my neighbor to practice Islam without believing that Islam is as correct as Christianity. I can loathe rap music and oversized pants while recognizing that others are free to enjoy these things, and this does not make me intolerant. I can understand why some folks have bishops and a Pope without admitting that such institutions are a good idea. What is "tolerant" about accepting things that you like or agree with? Tolerance is living with things you don't necessarily admire.

On the other hand, some of my wingnut conspecifics insist that tolerance consists in adopting their position whole hog.

Either way, the epithet of bigot becomes a meaningless conversation stopper and is, in my experience, mainly deployed in lieu of reasoning. There should perhaps be something like Godwin's Law governing charges of bigotry in argumentation. Whoever makes the charge is deemed to have lost the argument unless it can be demonstrated that a) intolerance of a point of view has been exhibited, b) that intolerance is unreasonable, c) that the intolerance persists even in the face of valid refutation of the reasons, and d) the bigotry is not self evident.

posted by Vache Folle | 8:13 AM

I would also like to apologize for using the No Copy image from www.plagiarism.com without permission.