Happy Contrarian’s Day

By Dan Brooks in Public Discourse 1 Comment

This Darwinian valentine courtesy of defectiveyeti.com.

It’s Valentine’s Day, which means I will be taking even more opportunity than usual to discomfit others with jokes about how I will inevitably die alone. The best part about feeling incapable of normal social interaction is that it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy; you keep telling people that you don’t know how to get along, and eventually they are forced to concede your point. The power of such contrarianism is nowhen more evident than on Valentine’s Day, when smug assholes like myself are moved to observe that A) the holiday and probably the very concept of romantic love are blatant constructions of a society bent on making us buy stuff and/or have children who will subsequently buy stuff, and also B) we do not have a date this year. There are so many of us, and yet we are all alone. Contrarianism is a trap, and I submit as proof this amazing letter to the editors of The Economist refuting it.

Continue reading

Canaries: Rep. Jack Kingston derides evolution on Maher

By Dan Brooks in Public Discourse 11 Comments

God blows on Rep. Jack Kingston (R–GA)

Before we get into this, I should say that I do not like Bill Maher. He is an outspoken atheist and a vaguely mean-spirited liberal, which means he inspires in me that vague discomfort that comes from watching a person you do not like say what you would say. Those of us who believe that sarcasm is not a form of argument do not enjoy watching Maher snicker his way through our deeply-held positions, which made his discussion of evolution with Representative Jack Kingston (R–GA, net worth $2.8 million, 2009 reported income $507 somehow) a real opportunity to see both sides of a coin of suck. Video after the jump.

Continue reading

Sarah Palin releases spray of nonsense on Hannity

By Dan Brooks in Public Discourse 5 Comments

"In fact, Sean, everyone has moved to the right lately."

Pilloried in the press, maligned by the media and, I dunno, blamed by the blogosphere, Sarah Palin refuted allegations that rhetoric like hers contributed to the Tucson shootings by going on Sean Hannity Monday night and proving, once and for all, that words don’t mean anything. Like a pretty pretty octopus, she held still for a second, changed colors, and vanished behind a high-pressure jet from her word hole. Quote:

Those on the left hate my message and will do all that they can to stop me because they don’t like the message.

That little tautology is the most meaningful thing she said during the whole interview. For Sarah Palin, “because” means “and also.” All the other words mean the same thing as one another.

Continue reading

1) Fred Phelps sucks so much. 2) We have to let him do stuff.

By Dan Brooks in Public Discourse 4 Comments

Fred Phelps, pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church and relentless cockbag, seen here with a map.

Camus famously remarked that by age 40, every man has the face he deserves. Fred Phelps is considerably older than 40, and his face has been startlingly disfigured by constant, hateful yelling. He looks like evil Gerald Ford, or possibly the alien from Enemy Mine. Phelps is the leader of the Westboro Baptist Church,* a small congregation in Kansas that has drawn national attention for its protests at the funerals of Iraq War veterans, Elizabeth Edwards, and anyone else that might draw attention to their message, which is pretty much that God hates everybody. “You cannot preach the Bible without preaching the hatred of God,” Phelps is fond of saying. His essential contention is that, because the United States tolerates homosexuality and abortion, everything bad that happens is God’s punishment and should be praised. He’s what theologians call a complete asshole, and his indecent, message-free publicity-mongering embodies all that is worst in protest. Earlier this week, Phelps announced Westboro’s intention to protest the funeral of Christina Taylor-Green, the nine year-old girl shot by Jared Loughner during his attack on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. That’s why the Arizona legislature quickly passed a law yesterday banning protests at funerals. It’s also why I’m making this rueful face when I say that they shouldn’t have done that.

Continue reading

Trying to make sense out of Jared Lee Loughner

By Dan Brooks in Public Discourse 3 Comments

By now you may have heard about Jared Lee Loughner, the Arizona man accused of shooting Representative Gabrielle Giffords and 19 other people at a meet-your-congressperson even in Tuscon Saturday. Besides a slough of community college professors only too eager to talk about how weird he was in class, not much is known about Loughner. Or rather, a ton is known about Jared Lee Loughner, but it doesn’t really fit together. For example, he made this YouTube video. It’s constructed around formal syllogisms in which meaning flickers like those things you see on the periphery of your vision when you’re really tired, but it makes no sense at all. There are references to the Gold Standard and the Constitution, but there are also references to “conscience dreaming” and the US government trying to control the structure of English grammar. It doesn’t really hold together as an ideology, because Jared Loughner is a crazy person. That’s bad news for the people trying to triangulate his actions within contemporary American politics, and there are a lot of them. In the aftermath of his senseless attack, both halves of our fractured national discourse are scrambling to make Jared Loughner a charactering in some narrative they’ve been condemning all along.

Continue reading