David Mamet's Babbling Incoherencey

It's rare that I run across something so astoundingly wrong on every level that it just sort of lays there, like a dead fish rotting in the sun. And yet David Mamet has written just such a rambling, incoherent column as a defense of current gun law.

Karl Marx summed up Communism as “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”

...Actually he didn't. If you actually read the quote, in context, that is the end result of a very long series of other social actions. That's not summing up communism, but rather summing up what Marx viewed as the society that would naturally be created by communism. And that phrase predates Marx by over a century.

For the saying implies but does not name the effective agency of its supposed utopia.

Except it did. That's not even the whole sentence, that's just the last bit at the end where Marx literally says he is making a banner slogan. The effective agency are all the economic and social programs Marx listed in the first part of the sentence.

The agency is called “The State,” and the motto, fleshed out, for the benefit of the easily confused must read “The State will take from each according to his ability: the State will give to each according to his needs.”

No. Marx is very, very clear on this point. To quote the sentence itself, "...after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly—only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" There's some magical thinking here that leads Marx to conclude people will be helpful and generous and willing to fully develop themselves, but he is incredibly clear on the point that this motto is the result of individuals cooperating for mutual good out of their own innate desire to cooperate for mutual good.

All of us have had dealings with the State, and have found, to our chagrin, or, indeed, terror, that we were not dealing with well-meaning public servants or even with ideologues but with overworked, harried bureaucrats. These, as all bureaucrats, obtain and hold their jobs by complying with directions and suppressing the desire to employ initiative, compassion, or indeed, common sense. ThThe government, for example, has determined that black people (somehow) have fewer abilities than white people, and, so, must be given certain preferences.ey are paid to follow orders.

 Which, of course, is no different from the private sector. It's actually better than the private sector, as the private sector adds "maintaining profit" on top of all those other things.

The government, for example, has determined that black people (somehow) have fewer abilities than white people, and, so, must be given certain preferences. Anyone acquainted with both black and white people knows this assessment is not only absurd but monstrous. And yet it is the law.

Except it isn't. Mamet, in this piece, loves being vague because in being vague he could theoretically be talking about anything, therefore no one can fact check him. But let's just face the fact that he is talking about Affirmative Action. Most of the actual laws about Affirmative Action, are laws banning Affirmative Action. I'm not sure there actually are any Affirmative Action laws, virtually all Affirmative Action is merely institutional policy, policy designed to correct past injustices and disadvantages. And that's also why Mamet is wrong, Affirmative Action does not claim that black people have fewer abilities than white people, but rather that they have been systematically disadvantaged and redress to a level field.

But where in the Constitution is it written that the Government is in charge of determining “needs”?

It's all over the constitution. It's why there is a constitution. I don't understand how anyone could possibly read the enumerated powers clause in article I and actually ask "But where in the Constitution is it written that the Government is in charge of determining 'needs'?" But then I don't suppose I should expect Mamet of reading the constitution any more closely than he read Marx.

It is not the constitutional prerogative of the Government to determine needs.

It is...

“One-size-fits-all,” and that size determined by the State has a name, and that name is “slavery.”

No, David Mamet. Slavery is an actual thing. Slavery is when one person owns another person, not when the government treats everyone equal under the law.

The Founding Fathers, far from being ideologues, were not even politicians.

As usual, this is false. Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the Federalist/Anti-Federalist debate knows there were plenty of ideologues, and virtually all the founding fathers were career politicians.

Their struggle to draft a set of rules acceptable to each other was based on the assumption that we human beings, in the mass, are no damned good—that we are biddable, easily confused, and that we may easily be motivated by a Politician, which is to say, a huckster, mounting a soapbox and inflaming our passions.

Again, no. They made the assumption that the masses were a mob to be protected against, and that's why they created the Electoral College and had the states elect Senators. But they trusted the elite political and social class so much that they handed control over half the legislature and the presidency to them. They set up a representative democracy with many, many checks against representative democracy. All of which pretty much proves the next extremely long section about how the founders intended for the people to control the government to guard against the consolidation of power, (which I won't repost since it is quite dull) is wrong

This next part is so astounding I have to replicate it as is...

On a lower level of abstraction, there are more than 2 million instances a year of the armed citizen deterring or stopping armed criminals; a number four times that of all crimes involving firearms. 

The Left loves a phantom statistic that a firearm in the hands of a citizen is X times more likely to cause accidental damage than to be used in the prevention of crime...

No, seriously. He throws out that "2 million" and then complains about "phantom statistic." Seriously. Anywho, that "2 million" line actually seems to come from a report done by the Carter administration, and wasn't anything resembling an actual statistic, more like an inference made from interviewing prisoners. The fact that Mamet uses it here is just proof that he hangs out at Free Republic. As for the "accidental damage" (which is just a nice way of saying "unintentional shootings"), those aren't "phantom statistics"  but rather the results of actual police reports. Unlike many examples of social studies, these aren't even the result of sampling, but rather are every single incident that happened.

Lies, Lies, and Damnable Lies

The following statement is a lie. It comes from a blog post, but you will hear it repeated over and over.  It is a particularly pernicious lie, and one that leads into an ever deepening spiral of lies and articles, and articles about lies.

Stop blaming anybody but yourself. You are responsible for your own misery; you’re responsible for your own happiness, too.

No. You are not responsible for your own misery. You are not responsible for your own happiness. You might deserve some of the blame for your station in life, but for the most part you are blameless. These statements are designed to make you think you have control over your own life. You don't. No one does. That might be fatalistic, but it is no less true.

Your brain is a mass of tissue, chemicals, and electricity. Your body is a mass of organic compounds. You have little to no control over either. If you are depressed, it's because you have a chemical imbalance, if you are happy its because the chemicals are telling you that you are. That's simple neurology. You have no control over that, any more than you have control over being born with all your limbs. With a lot of education and a lot of excessive work, you can figure out partial control over your own brain. But if you ever actually experience depression, you'll quickly learn just how little control you really have over what your brain is doing. You might be autistic, you might be schizophrenic. You might be something that has no name yet, you might be something that no one has even thought to look for. You can try better living through chemistry, which is an abject admission of defeat to lack of control. In that case, doctors and pills and insurance companies and the government are now all in charge of your happiness and misery. Add to that complications and side effects, and suddenly your body reasserts its own control over your happiness and your misery.

You can claim that you are not autistic or in any way abnormal. But that's just the point. You had no control over if you were abnormal or not. You have no more control over your brain than anyone else. If you have no control over being autistic, then why would anyone ever believe that you have control over happiness or misery?

Now that we've already established that you are not responsible for your misery or your happiness, you really aren't responsible for your life either. In addition to all those chemicals and genes and electricity, you were also born temporally and geographically and economically and politically to particular parents with the entire weight of the history of the world crushing down upon you. You have, for your entire life, been buffeted around by large scale social pressures, some of which are incomprehensible, and all of which are out of your control. If you want the most stark indicator of just how out of your control the world is, here is an article on The National Review's post election cruise. These are the wealthiest and most powerful people in America. These are the legendary mega-financiers of SuperPACs. And the article is a eulogy of their hopes and dreams and illusion of control. These people are buffed around by large scale social pressures which they find incomprehensible and out of their control. If they aren't in control, with all the power and wealth imaginable, then you certainly aren't.

Which brings me to another quote...

That’s the thing: It’s easier to say that the system is aligned against you, or say that everything would work out if X were different, or say that you’ll just get around to whatever it is tomorrow. Change is hard. Personal growth is hard. Accepting that you are the only one who can do these things for yourself is hard.

No, it's not. That's just a lie. It's, in fact, vastly more more easy to say that everything is either your fault or your success, than it is to say the system is aligned against you. It's easier to believe that we live in a world where we have some sort of personal control, than that we live in a world that is horrible and fucked up and everything is random, meaningless noise. You can hope for a better tomorrow if you believe everything that happens to you is your fault.  You can believe that if you just did something, your tomorrow would be better. That's a comforting thought. What's not a comforting thought is the idea that your tomorrow might be better or worse, but you had nothing to do with it. Dumb luck had to do with it. A series of pointless, random circumstances stretching from the present to the dawn of time. People need to believe they have some sort of control, they have some sort of agency. But they just don't. Everyone is constantly being hammered by pressures both seen and unseen, and you can not untangle yourself from them.

Which brings us to another lie...

The thing that spoke to me in that Cracked piece is the idea that you only get out of the universe what you put into it.

No. That's the just world fallacy. Most people get far, far, far less from the universe than they put into. American's live in a capitalist society. The basic premise of capitalism is that most people get far less from the universe than they put into it. If people were not getting less from the universe (here represented by an economic system), then there would be no profit. The author can make that claim because he achieved,  from his own perspective, success. But the overwhelming majority do not achieve success. For every major success, there are thousands of unsuccessful people. No one pays attention to them because, to quote Strangers With Candy, "No one makes friends with a failure." The overwhelming majority can't achieve success. That is another basic premise of capitalism. Capitalism demands inequalities, and inequalities demand that the unsuccessful out number the successful. Capitalism also demands that some people be successful. A quirk of fate is all the divides the unsuccessful from the successful. There will always be unsuccessful people who worked harder and were more deserving than the successful. It all boils down to luck. And luck of all different kinds. Being born into the right family. Having a good day. Someone else having a good day. As Warren Buffet succinctly put it, "I personally think that society is responsible for a very significant percentage of what I have earned. If you stick me down in the middle of Bangladesh or Peru or someplace, you’ll find out how much this talent is going to produce in the wrong kind of soil. I will be struggling 30 years later." You can work as hard as you like, but in the end, luck is everything. All of which is why it is immensely comforting for the successful to believe they deserved everything they got, and for the unsuccessful people to believe they failed for lack of trying, rather than that the universe is weird, random and fucked up and decided to be against them.

And it really is all about luck. You can lie to yourself and claim you have some measure of control, but you don't. From social studies we know that proximity is still the leading cause of marriage. Even now, with the internet in full force, most people still marry someone who happens to live near them. That's purely weird, random, fucked up universe that we have no control over. We also know that most jobs are gotten by networking. Once again, purely weird, random, fucked up universe that we have no control over. Our lives are dictated by complete chance, that we retroactively add choice and purpose to.

Which brings us back to the lie, "It’s easier to say that the system is aligned against you." This is begging the question. We must first ask, "is the system aligned against you?" And the fact is the system is aligned against a great many people. The system is both designed, and loose chaos. Certainly there are powerful political and economic interests that arrange the system to benefit themselves. But there's also quite a lot of moving parts that aren't designed in any meaningful way but operate in order to align against people. We will always need more janitors than CEOs, so the system is aligned to produce more janitors than CEOs. The system is aligned against janitors in favor of CEOs. Any tracking of economic data shows that the system is aligned against the great majority of people. The common way this lie is told is by looking at the individual and not the society. An individual can become a CEO. And you can hold that individual up and say success is possible. But if you did that, you would be missing the larger context. First off, someone was going to be that CEO, the system demanded it. Secondly in order for that CEO to exist, there has to be a large number of janitors (or employees of any stripe). In order to create that singular success, there has to be vastly larger number of unsuccessful people. The system is aligned against those people. Those people have to exist or the system ceases to exist. This has been elegantly demonstrated in our ongoing recession. Since it began, there have been more people unemployed than there have been open jobs. At one point there were over ten people per job opening. Which meant that no matter what happened, there would always be nine people who failed and one person who succeeded. That's the way the system works. It is aligned against people, and it is aligned against most people.

That's also the way social interactions work. Social interactions are a complex dance requiring massive amounts of luck in order to come to fruition. You have interacted with thousands of people, and of those people only an incredibly small number actually developed into anything. Think about all the people that could have been your friend. You probably don't remember any significant portion of them, because, obviously, they were not important to you. For whatever reason events just did not align to allow anything to develop. But the potential of friendship existed. But you did make some friends, you could talk about a subject they found interesting, or you made a joke that they found funny, or you just saw they were lonely. It is the same thing with networking and relationships. The potentials out number the actual, and luck is what creates opportunity. And then we look backwards and claim luck was really skill.

So, when we obviously and overtly have no control over our lives, why do we spend so much time lying to ourselves by telling us we do? The answer is incredibly obvious. If we are focusing on ourselves, we aren't focusing on our weird, stupid, random, fucked up world. We aren't asking why it is weird, why it is stupid, why it is random, and why it is fucked up. And we aren't asking the forbidden question, "Does the world have to be like this?" The world is not just aligned against people, it is also aligned for people. And the people who it is aligned for are desperate to prevent it from changing. Remember the National Review Cruise? That is the perfect example of people the system is aligned in favor of, and how badly they want to prevent it from changing. The goal of the system is for it to become invisible. That is why the Democrats and the Republicans have no systemic disagreements, (it's also why things that are by definition not-socialism are now labeled "socialist," to give the appearance of systemic disagreement where there is none). When everyone focuses on the individual, no one focuses on the society the individual occurs in. No one notices that it is impossible to opt out of society. The system can't be threatened when everyone focuses just on themselves. And the system can't be overthrown when everyone thinks they are actually in control of their own lives, and that it is possible for anyone to be a success. The system can't be destroyed when people just accept the premises that the system is built upon.

If you only have yourself to blame for your fate, then you can be filled with hope. But the blackest despair is realizing that you control nothing, you are just a pawn of a weird, random system.

So do what you have to do, but don't lie about it.

The Worst Representations of Gay Men on TV in 2012

...And now for the worst. This was a truly terrible year, one completely cluttered up with just awful portrayals that combined bad TV with bad stereotypes. Watching many of these shows was just a painful exercise. They were self-indulgent messes, replete with awkward and horrifying characterization. They aren't complex, they aren't interesting, they aren't praise worthy. They're just bad. The worst part being that the shows could so easily have been good, but just consistently chose not to be. In fact, this year was so bad, I had to expand my normal half-list of five into a full list of ten just to cover everything that was horribly, horribly wrong.

Let the pain begin...

The Ten Worst Representations of Gay Men in 2012

10. T.J. Hammond, Political Animals

Political Animals was a show that I generally liked. I actually quite often liked T.J. the slutty, drug addict son. But most of the time he was just alternating between sleeping with just about anyone and doing copious amounts of drugs. There was nothing particularly complex or interesting about him, he was just poorly written and came off incredibly awkwardly. Inevitably the best episodes of the series were the ones that marginalized him as much as possible.

9. Oscar Martinez, The Office

"Gay Witch Hunt" is one of my favorite episodes of TV. Which really marks the stark deterioration of both Oscar and The Office over the course of its history. He used to be, like everyone else who worked in the office, a fairly normal guy, but one who happened to be gay and a little pompous. Now he's devolved, again like everyone else in the office, into his worst traits. He is an arrogant jerk and his plot-line for this season has been that Angela's boyfriend the state senator is cheating on her with him. How sad for a character that used to be on the Best list.

8. Smash... just Smash

NBC decided to rip off Glee and do it as a Broadway show. The result was, quite predictably, terrible, with more than one "what were you thinking?" moments per episode. It's almost impossible to nail down what was actively offensive as opposed to simply offensively bad. Nor is it possible to single out any one character in a show this aggressively  in-your-face bad. So, I'm just saying the entire show, and placing it on the low end since it was good enough, at least, to spread the misery around. The lowlights include the dance crew whose sole personality traits were "gay," the entire Tom dates a Republican arc, and pretty much anything involving Ellis.

7. David Murray, The New Normal

The New Normal is pretty much all around terrible. A screechy, self-indulgent, moralizing mess that is simply an excuse for Ryan Murphy to climb up on his soap box and pelt us with sermons. It is sloppy, inconsistent, and will be actively offensive one scene and then follow it with angry tirade about how we should not be offensive. David is, mostly, the straight man, but he is the exact same screechy moralizing jerk that everyone else on the show is, as well as generally being an arrogant dick. Mostly he is there to make Bryan look like someone a person could actually fall in love with.


6. Cameron Tucker, Modern Family

Oh Cam....this has not been your year, has it? Cam usually manages to just skate by based on farm stories. Having that one quality in addition to being gay normally saves him, in my opinion, from the truly terrible gay characters. But man, they really went over-the-top with his theatrics and neediness this season.

5. Patrick, Anger Management

Anger Management is a sitcom that could be, and should be, better than it is. And Patrick is a character that could be, and should be, better than he is. He's a gay guy with anger control issues. That could be something interesting. An angry character instead of a bitchy one. But he is a bitchy character. Just a stereotypically effete, bitchy guy. Setting a show in a therapy session should make delving into deep, complex characters easy, but no, everything about the show is incredibly superficial, including Patrick.

4. Kurt Hummel, Glee

Kurt has to be excited that this year features so many terrible characters, because it really makes him look better by comparison. Glee was a show that distracted its audience with bright colors and catchy songs, causing them not to realize just how awful a show it is. Kurt gets continuously saddled with horrible plots, often just to make a point. Which is something special in a show as utterly incoherent as Glee is.

3. Mitchell Pritchett, Modern Family

The former winner of worst gay guy on TV, has now fallen to third place! Mitchell is gay and... and... there's no "and" there. He's just gay. The worst part being that he's gay and in a completely sexless relationship. I always say that Modern Family is best viewed as a group of people who died and are now in Hell together, and that's no more evident than with Mitchell and Cam's relationship. They are just two awful people making each other miserable.

2. Louis, Partners

Partners was just awful. It would have been dated in 1990, an unfunny collection of stereotypes with jokes that would have been rejected from Will & Grace scripts. Louis was the worst aspect of the show, being a completely self-absorbed, narcissistic asshole utterly unattached to reality. And yet was supposed to be lovable. He would be terrible for the entire episode, and then we were asked to think he was adorable.

1. Bryan Collins, The New Normal

I could almost cut and paste my criticisms of Louis and put it here. It is amazing that a TV season would feature two such odious gay characters who are terrible in the exact same way. But Bryan was just so much worse as a transparent Mary-Sue of Ryan Murphy (so transparent that Murphy just stuck a "b" in front of his own first name). He's screechy and moralizing, and yet a complete jerk. He's completely untethered from reality, and yet treats everyone terribly. He's every bad gay stereotype without any attempt at creating an interesting character. He is a character with literally no redeeming qualities. Just an oil slick of awfulness. The New Normal is just Ryan Murphy's self-indulgent fantasy lie, and Bryan is who Murphy thinks he is. Murphy seems to think that he is charming and adorable, but he really is just an awful, awful human being.

The Best Representations of Gay Men on TV in 2012

This was quite the year for gay male representation on TV. We saw some of the most complex, innovative and daring portrayals in the medium's history.... but that was juxtaposed against some absolutely painful, awkward and stereotypical portrayals. In fact, there were so much in the way of awful representation, I had to expand my annual list of the five most odious characters to ten.

Just as a note, this is more of a list of non-heterosexual male characters, as "gay" does not accurately fit several people I am listing.


These are the best. The characters I enjoyed watching the most. They're interesting, innovative, exciting and complicated. They all have well-rounded lives. They are both gay (or rather, non-heterosexual) and interesting characters, with neither overshadowing the other, but instead having all aspects integrated into a fascinating whole.


The 10 Best Representations of Gay Men on TV in 2012

10. Mr. Wolfe, Suburgatory (Rex Lee)

When Suburgatory first started airing, Mr. Wolfe was just another aspect of its satire of suburbia as a place that prides itself on friendliness, but is really oppressive, repressive and demands secrecy. About half way through the season, Mr. Wolfe perfunctorily came out of the closet, and since then has become the rarest of TV creatures, a gay man who has a large number of stereotypical qualities, but is not offensive. He's well rounded, well developed, in an relationship that is fairly nuanced.

9. Ian Gallagher, Shameless (Cameron Monaghan)

Shameless is a show that is ambiguous at best. There are many, often confusing and contradictory, ways to interpret it. Depending upon which lens you utilize, it is either brilliant or terrible. The same could be said for how to interpret middle child Ian. I choose to look at him as an economically and socially marginalized figure who has an incredibly limited pool of potential romantic partners, and so makes due with what is available. Which just happens to be mostly older men. But I don't deny that there is a creepy subtext to it all.

8.  Dean Craig Pelton, Community (Jim Rash)

Dean Pelton is a happy, pansexual imp. Nothing is really known about his sexuality, other than it is strange. But he is a remarkably well developed character, a rare minor character that is able to hold up entire episodes. And the joke is never that he is behaving in a stereotypically gay way. The joke about his affinity for cross-dressing is the weird tangential connections between his outfits and the news he is trying to convey. That and the fact that he does such elaborate pageantry just to deliver news to seven very specific people.

7. Danny Mahealani, Teen Wolf (Keahu Kahuanui)

I unapologetically and unironically love Teen Wolf. It is such a wonderful show that almost feels like it is tailor made to appeal specifically to me. And one of the great elements of Teen Wolf is my beloved Danny. He's part of the popular clique, but also friends with everyone. He's a jock, but also a total nerd. He's the only person that resident jerk Jackson can muster up any human compassion for. And he's got a rich life that the show drops all sorts of hints about. Every season I get up my hopes he will be bumped up from fan-favorite minor character to the main cast... let's hope it happens this next season.

6. Sonny Kiriakis, Days of Our Lives (Freddie Smith)

It's always rather difficult to review soap operas. They have a byzantine complexity, with massive casts, and glacial pacing that inevitably ensures stories will fall into good, bad, and impossible to understand, and sometimes all three. Nevertheless Sonny is just a great character. A small business owner who is just all around nice and his slowly built romance with main character Will Horton has been enjoyable to watch unfold daily.

5. Nasir, Spartacus (Pana Hema Taylor)

A former sex slave that Spartacus freed during a brief stop over at a mansion, Nasir has evolved into one of the most interesting characters on the show. At first a traitor, attempting to asassinate Spartacus, he was enfolded into the slave rebellion. At first weak, he sought out someone more powerful to protect him, but eventually was trained into a strong warrior in his own right. Always independent  he stands up for what he believes is right. And he is in what is inarguably the best gay romance this year.


4. Ray Gillette, Archer (Adam Reed)

Gillette really started off as a one-off joke about a gay secret agent in the spy spoof Archer. But Adam Reed enjoyed doing the voice, and so they kept bringing him back until he was as essential to the cast as any other character. He's often the straight man to Archer's insane antics, and is one of the few Isis employees who actually has some degree of competence. There's a world weary exhaustion to Gillette and a frustration that he has to deal with endless antics of working at the worst spy agency anyone ever created.

3. Nolan Ross, Revenge (Gabriel Mann)

A year ago, I considered Nolan the best non-heterosexual male character on the TV. Sadly, a season of underuse and listless plots have pushed him a bit father down. Nolan, the campy, quippy bisexul right-hand man to sociopathic vengence-machine Emily Thorne was possibly the best element in the surprisingly delightful and addictive Revenge. Everything about him was just fun. His hilarious jokes, his magical ability to hack into any computer on the planet and get it to do anything, his affinity for disguises, the fact that he banged a psychopathic male prostitute. There's just nothing not to like about him (other than a romance with the dullest character Revenge has ever had...)

2. Max Blum, Happy Endings (Adam Pally)

Max is fat, poor, a slob and also hilarious. A combination that's pretty much every gay guy I know in real life, but unlike anything you will ever see on TV. Max is incredibly well developed, having an acerbic, con-artist personality that floats from odd job to odd job. In the second season of Happy Endings he was the only character that was given a romantic arc. Max's sexuality is completely integrated into a character where it is never marginalized, but also never centralized. Brilliant.

1. Agron, Spartacus (Dan Feuerriegel)

There really aren't enough good things to say about Agron on Spartacus. He's tough as nails, completely loyal to Spartacus and the slave rebellion's cause, and depending upon the day either the second or third in charge. He's complex and fascinating, and even when he is acting in a less than noble fashion, Spartacus always makes sure he has excellent and well justified reasons for doing what he does. On top of just being generally bad-ass, he had the only really excellent romantic relationship on the show. The slowly built love between Agron and Nasir was one of the highlights of the second season, and an excellent juxtaposition between their mutual love and the rest of the show's use of sex as a representation of power dynamics. Frell, now I am going to have to go rewatch Spartacus: Vengeance.




Well, those were the best... coming up next, the worst...

Take the Scorn

Timothy Dalrymple gives an almost perfect example of the tone argument in this post. For those of you not familiar with the tone argument, it is a logical fallacy of arguing over how something is said, rather than its actual content. Dalrymple relies incredibly heavily on the tone argument throughout his posting, mainly because he argues in blog post after blog post that conservative Christians have been made in "caricatures," but he does not actually disagree with any part of that caricature. In fact, the caricatures he rails against almost perfectly define him, something that he inevitably has to admit in most posts. So he's left complaining about the way people message, because he can't really argue with the content of it.

If You’re Selling Scorn for Conservative Christians, the Market is Hot

Right at the start of all this, Dalrymple is making the exact type of disingenuous and uncharitable statement that he will rail against in the upcoming post. He's literally claiming that the "scorn" conservative Christians receive is some sort of money making scheme, rather than an opinion that is honestly arrived at. Of course, he won't ever admit that vastly larger sums of money are vastly easier to acquire by appealing to those conservative Christians, rather than appealing against them.

But by accepting the caricatures coming mostly from secular critics, legitimating and perpetuating them, they themselves — acting out of concern for the damage done to the church and its witness — are doing great harm to the church and its witness. If we truly care for the public witness of the church, then we (liberal and conservative) need to stop slandering and caricaturing the other half of the church. Don’t throw your Christian brothers and sisters under the bus. Even if you disagree with them, you can provide a coherent, charitable explanation for what “those other evangelicals” believe.

Again, Dalrymple is being disingenuous. The "caricatures" are not coming mostly from "secular critics," but rather people with first hand experience, some of it extensive. Also again, the caricature Dalrymple is complaining about is something that accurately defines him. He's actually going to launch into just how accurate those caricatures are in this post, and his only complaint is that the "secular critics" state it in harsh, unflattering terms.

If that was all they wanted to say, however, they could have rented a billboard with the boards, “Our hearts are with you.” Given their beliefs on homosexuality and marriage, that would have been a fine thing to do. Yet that’s not what they did. Instead they called their fellow believers, who feel differently from them on this issue, ”narrow-minded, judgmental, deceptive, [and] manipulative.”

Of course, Dalrymple fails to mention their fellow believers, who feel differently from them on this issue, were, in fact, narrow-minded, judgmental, deceptive, and manipulative. Anyone who has followed the issue of marriage equality with any degree of closeness knows this is the case. It does not matter if you look at Protect Marriage, the National Organization for Marriage, or the American Family Association (or any others), they are all narrow-minded, judgmental, deceptive, and manipulative. This is just a matter of public fact. If we are to be extremely charitable towards them, their supporters (both supporting the organizations and co-supporting their causes), then those supporters are, at best, complacent in being narrow-minded, judgmental  deceptive, and manipulative.

(1) They’re perpetuating the worst images of conservative Christians who support traditional marriage.

Which also happens to be an image that is true. Acknowledging truth is not a bad thing, no matter how harshly worded that truth is.

(2) They’re holding themselves our as a better alternative. They are the good Christians, the more Christ-like Christians, who are not judgmental — even as they’re judging sixty percent of North Carolinians, a majority of Californians, over half of Christians in the United States and the great majority of Christians around the world.

They are, almost undoubtedly. a better alternative. And those Christians deserve to be judged for exactly what their participation was. For someone who complains about a lack of nuance, Dalrymple is ultimately using the multiple shades of "judge" for a quick, convenient point. Mission Gathering is judging people for their actions which demonstrably attack and harm others. Christians such as Dalrymple are judging people for existing in the first place. Two entirely different and mutually exclusive standards.

In other words, (3) they’re saying “our hearts are with you” in that “we feel the same anger and scorn in our hearts as you do.”

Good. Those people deserve all the anger and scorn they get. It is nothing less than a good thing to tell the victims of a rather heinous attack that you feel as righteously angry about that attack as they do.

Their intentions are honorable, but undermined by an incoherent strategy and by their deep-seated scorn for conservative Christians. They’re trying to encourage love — by being hateful (and no, I don’t think that’s too strong a word). They’re trying to encourage tolerance — but judging everyone who disagrees with them. They’re trying to improve the witness of the church — by legitimating the stereotype that the conservative half of the church is bigoted and deceitful. They hold themselves out as a better alternative — by throwing more conservative Christians under the bus.

Actually nothing is incoherent about it, and conservative Christians deserve all the scorn they get. They are trying to encourage love, by rebuking hate. There's actually nothing hateful about Mission Gathering's statement, it is just a statement of fact, one supported by a mountain of evidence. One supported by basically everything that occurred in the entire Proposition 8 trial. They're encouraging tolerance by rebuking the intolerant. Dalrymple here is just putting out the barest bones of the classic, "if you are so tolerant, why don't you tolerate my intolerance?" argument. That one is just a semantic word game that is logically false. There is nothing about that stereotype that is false. It is completely legitimate, and at no point does Dalrymple attempt to falsify that stereotype, mainly because he can't. And no one is throwing anyone under the bus, other than conservative Christians throwing themselves under the bus. Mission Gathering is simply pointing out that they did it.

And these are bumper-sticker arguments. I am for a family founded on the marriage of man and woman; I am for the defense of innocent human life even prior to birth. And I am not trying to advance the kingdom so much as I am trying to defend the innocent and defend social structures I consider sacred and valuable. The dead are not raised by politics, but the living can be protected and served by it.

Actually, Dalrymple is presenting bumper-sticking re-phrasings. Being for, "for a family founded on the marriage of man and woman" is simply being against a vast swath of alternative family structures. And it conveniently ignores actions. How does voting against marriage equality benefit or promote families founded on the marriage of a man and a woman? The truth is that it doesn't, hence why so many conservative Christians have to make the absolutely insane claims that if we allow gay people to marry, there will somehow be more single woman, who will then produce more criminals, and all of society will fall apart. Nope, actions prove that Dalrymple is just anti-gay. And, unless Dalrymple is radically different from the conservative Christian he presents himself to be, he is just anti-abortion. If we was really concerned for the "defense of innocent human life even prior to birth" then he would the contraception policy in Obamacare, as making contraception more available and cheaper would prevent abortions. He would also love Planned Parenthood, an organization that does more to prevent abortions than any other in America. He would also support universal healthcare, public housing, and a strong welfare state, as the lack of all those things contribute to why women have abortions. Most conservative Christians do not support anything to help ease the financial and social burden on pregnant women, which would reduce abortions dramatically. So we are left with the fact that they are just anti-abortion. In fact, they only care about the act of abortion, and could not possibly care less about either mother or child.

For conservative Christians, of course, there are not merely political victories. These are matters of fundamental moral and theological import, critical to the health of individuals and societies.

And that's the difference between Dalrymple and the progressive Christians. They do not view these issues as "political victories" or "matters of fundamental moral and theological import." Instead they view them as incredible hardships that directly affect specific people. When a gay couple is denied the benefits of marriage, it is not an abstract theological point. It is a specific hardship that couple has to live with their entire lives. It does real, calculable damage to them. To the progressive Christians the morality and the theology are derived from the harm to the vulnerable, they do not deduce that morality and theology demand they harm the vulnerable.

Evans never engages with how conservative Christians articulate the reasons for their actions. She never gives an explanation at all — much less a charitable one — for the things her brothers and sisters in Christ believe and do.

Which is just begging the question of if an explanation is even relevant. Certainly why people do what they do is an interesting psychological question, but really all that matters are actions. Beliefs are immaterial, easily lied about, and often forgotten. Actions are permanent and can be examined. By their actions, conservative Christians should be judged. And their actions show they deserve far more scorn than they actually receive.

I have many close relationships with gays and lesbians who do, indeed, find actions like Prop 8 and Amendment 1 hurtful. I do feel for them, and I genuinely wish for the sake of our relationships that I could agree with them on these issues.

Some of my best friends are gay! No, you actually do not feel for them. If you consider the demonstrable harm you are imposing upon them as less important than abstract theology, then you do not feel for them.

This is selling anger, not offering enlightenment.

It should be interesting how Dalrymple usurps the vocabulary of capitalism to apply to Christianity, but it really isn't.

But one would never know, from a post like Evans’, that there are loving and thoughtful and self-sacrificial people on the conservative side of the argument who are genuinely trying to do the right thing for all people.

Which begs the question, are there loving and thoughtful and self-sacrificial people on the conservative side of the argument? The answer, I think, is fairly obviously, "no." Let's start with "self-sacrificial." If their side is victorious, then they actually sacrifice nothing. They live exactly the same lives as before. You can argue that they have to deal with the justified scorn of society, but the truth is, they don't. They can simply not tell how they voted, or lie about their vote (which is exactly what they will do twenty years from now, just like the pro-segregationists did). They sacrifice nothing. Now let's look at "loving." Can you be anti-gay rights and still be loving? No, you can not. You are demonstrably harming people. You are making their lives more difficult. That is not love. So, now "thoughtful." Well, you can be thoughtful, but it is a nasty, spiteful  hostile form of thought that has no empathy for others. So, I think we can safely say there aren't loving and thoughtful and self-sacrificial people on the conservative side of the argument.

There is a growing genre — call it Progressive Christian Scorn Literature — about the scorn progressive Christians have for conservative evangelicals. It seems to be celebrated on the Left as a kind of righteous comeuppance for the Christian Right, and it wins the applause of the Left for the Christian Left. But it’s wrong and it needs to be called out. It’s neither winsome, nor loving, nor constructive, nor right.

Actually it is right, and it needs to be celebrated. conservative evangelicals deserve all the scorn they get. They actually deserve much, much, much, more. In fact, this paragraph comes after the following sentence,"Sometimes the best way to wash a person’s feet is to tell him those feed are striding down a self-destructive path," which neatly sums up Dalrymple's own lack of self-awareness. According to Dalrymple himself, Progressive Christian Scorn Literature would in fact be winsome, loving, constructive, and right, if it wasn't for the fact that it is directed at his own causes. When he tells someone they are striding down a self-destructive path, it is about love, but when progressives do it, it is about scorn.

They Will Call Us Bigots

The current struggles between liberals and conservatives are distinctly and irreversibly tied to racism and sexism. The modern manifestations of them seemingly are about taxation and government intervention, but that is just the evolved coding for the same racist and sexist ideology. Allow me to quote Lee Atwater, the man who, more than any other individual crafted the Republican Party's current ideology,

"You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, 'We want to cut this,' is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'Nigger, nigger,'" (Branch, Taylor (1999). Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963-65. New York: Simon & Schuster.

The Republican ideology of low taxes and  ending government programs was conceived to appeal to racism, was designed to operate in a racist manner, and it accomplishes exactly that. It is immaterial if white people get hurt by the ideology, just as long as black people get hurt more. And that is exactly what it does, it preserves the white power structure and oppresses black people by making success endlessly more difficult to attain. It feeds on white resentment by propagandizing that white people are paying for black people to have these mythically fantastic benefits, and propagates the stereotype of lazy black people. As much as the distinct issues might change, the basic problems are always rooted in unchanged racism dating back to this country's founding.

Which, in a roundabout way, brings us to the subject of marriage equality. If you follow gays gettin' their marriage on closely, you will hear an endless stream of variations on the phrase "They will call us bigots." You will pretty much find some form of the phrase in any article, speech or video about marriage equality, but just to make a point of it, here's National Organization for Marriage's Brian Brown...

If we do not stand up for marriage we will be treated under the law as bigots.

 Now, anyone with an understanding of United States law will be able to see that this makes no sense. The law doesn't treat bigots any differently than anyone else. The only meaning this could have is that Brian is arguing for the right to fire, or not hire people just because they are gay. But the reality is that this pervasive, extreme concern for the Religious Right originates from the fall out of segregation.

"Jim Crow enthusiasts took a terrible psychological thumping during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Men and women who had traditionally seen themselves as the conscience and moral heartbeat of America, suddenly found themselves denounced as bigots and haters, a loathsome cancer that should be excised from the body politic," (Alan Bean)

The overriding concern of the anti-gay lobby is to not be George Wallace while still advocating oppression.  They need, more than anything else to deligitimize the concept of bigotry. The Religious Right derives its justification and momentum from its own absolute and inerrant claim to morality. What it learned from being on the wrong side of integration was not a the cautious review oriented approach to morality that such a stupendous failure demands, but rather to ensure that none of its competition is able to claim the moral high ground on it.

Which means that racism, sexism, and homophobia can't be considered legitimate forces that shape our society, but must be rhetorical positions used to silence opposition. That's certainly a nice idea when you are advocating for those racist, sexist, and homophobic positions as it frees you from your moral culpability for supporting such objectively malignant social structures and makes the opposition sneaky rats usin' insults to shut up good folks.

And so this whole concern about being called "bigots" is directly tied to segregation. It's no small wonder that  an after-the-fact PR defense tied to segregation would show up all the way over in the marriage equality discussion. The anti-gay activists are the direct descendants (and in some cases not even descendants) of the pro-segregation movement. The talking points of the anti-gays are almost wholly lifted from the talking points of the pro-segregationists. Naturally they would respond like anyone who has been insulted and then thinks of a snappy comeback on the drive home. "Ha!" the segregationists say, "we should have said, 'they'll call us bigots!' that way we're the victims of those people mean smears!" And they waited until their first opportunity to use it...

Logic Has Left the Building...

Hey look! It's someone making an almost indistinguishable argument from the last guy. Before we get into this, I'd like to first revisit the doom and gloom scenarios that are always floated as reasons to deny gay people rights. First there was the claim that passing the Matthew Sheppard Act would result in pastors being arrested for preaching the bible, three years latter and not a single pastor has been arrested. Before the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell we were told that it would be disastrous for unit cohesion, troop retention and moral. Turns out it had absolutely no affect on any of that. So now we're being told, according to this article's subtitle,

Same-sex unions may not affect my marriage specifically, but it will affect my children.

So he better produce some fantastic evidence to show how this incidence is somehow different from every other example. But the conversation during the last few weeks on the subject of same-sex marriage has told a different story -- one that appears to be drawing a false connection between supporting true American values like free speech and the institution of marriage, our most fundamental and important social institution. Wait... is marriage not a "true American value?" This sentence is entirely convoluted and does not mean what Birk thinks it does.

I think it is important to set the record straight about what the marriage debate is and is not about, and to clarify that not all NFL players think redefining marriage is a good thing.

Oh, thank goodness we have Birk here to be the final arbiter of what marriage is about!

The union of a man and a woman is privileged and recognized by society as "marriage" for a reason, and it's not because the government has a vested interest in celebrating the love between two people.

No, love is entirely immaterial. At no point is love required in any aspect of the legal code, as proving love would be an impossibility. However, the government has a vested interest in providing a legal framework of rights and responsibilities for people who intend to form a mutually dependent familial connection between each other.

With good reason, government recognizes marriages and gives them certain legal benefits so they can provide a stable, nurturing environment for the next generation of citizens: our kids.

That's quite simply false on its face, from four different sides. Firstly, marriage does not, nor will it ever require procreation. Marriage does not even require sex (although lack of sex can be justification for divorce). Secondly, procreation does not require marriage. Frequently, two people procreate without becoming married. Thirdly, gay people can, and do have children via adoption, surrogacy, ect. Fourthly, anyone with even brief glace and marriage law would realize that much of it involves items that have absolutely zero to do with children, which means that marriage does not exist for procreation even just based on the law.

Children have a right to a mom and a dad, and I realize that this doesn't always happen.

Birk, Birk, Birk, you contradict yourself in the same sentence! If Children have a "right" to a mom and a dad, that would mean that they would always happen. That's what a right is. The right to free speech does not only apply to 1/4th of people, if that's the way it worked, it wouldn't be a right. Children have the right to pursuit of happiness, freedom, ect. but by the definition of what a right is, no one has a right to a mom and a dad. Parents die, which is just one example of how children do not, and can not have a right to a parent.

But recognizing the efforts of these parents and the resiliency of some (not all, unfortunately) of these kids, does not then give society the right to dismiss the potential long-term effects on a child of not knowing or being loved by his or her mother or father. Each plays a vital role in the raising of a child.

There is precisely zero science supporting this. We've actually looked at the "potential long-term effects" and found none. This has been studied multiple times at this point, and, consistently, there has been no actual negative effects found for being raised by two parents of the same sex. Traditionally the way the way around this little problem is for the right to discuss studies showing the children of single parents compared to children raised by two parents. Hence why both Birk and Riley keep bringing up single parents even though they are completely irrelevant to the topic being discussed.

Marriage is in trouble right now -- admittedly, for many reasons that have little to do with same-sex unions. In the last few years, political forces and a culture of relativism have replaced "I am my brother's keeper" and "love your neighbor as yourself" with "live and let live" and "if it feels good, go ahead and do it."

Yay! Fascism! First off we have a complete failure to understand what "cultural relativity" actually is. We also have a complete failure to understand what "love your neighbor as yourself" means. Instead all this is a kind of assholely way of saying "people have too much freedom, we need less."

The effects of no-fault divorce, adultery, and the nonchalant attitude toward marriage by some have done great harm to this sacred institution.

How? People are still getting married. In fact the sheer number of people who have serial marriages shows that we have a remarkable commitment to marriage as a concept. The people who actually are criticizing marriage as a concept are incredibly fringe in our society.

How much longer do we put the desires of adults before the needs of kids?

This has nothing to do with what is being discussed, nor is it properly supported.

Why are we not doing more to lift up and strengthen the institution of marriage?

Well then, I assume you would support the things that actually would lift up and strengthen the institution of marriage? Such as a wider, stronger social safety net?

Same-sex unions may not affect my marriage specifically, but it will affect my children -- the next generation.

How?

Ideas have consequences, and laws shape culture. Marriage redefinition will affect the broader well-being of children and the welfare of society.

How?

I am speaking out on this issue because it is far too important to remain silent.

But you haven't actually said anything. You've made some vague accusations, ones which you failed to even tie into the topic being discussed, let alone attempt to provide support for.

People who are simply acknowledging the basic reality of marriage between one man and one woman are being labeled as "bigots" and "homophobic." Aren't we past that as a society?

That does not even make sense. Objectively you are bigots and homophobes. Also, objectively, you are not acknowledging reality. Gay people are already married, which means that the basic reality of marriage is not between one man and one woman.

Don't we all have family members and friends whom we love who have same-sex attraction?

"Some of my best friends are gay..."

Attempting to silence those who may disagree with you is always un-American, but especially when it is through name-calling, it has no place in respectful conversation.

Ahh, the tone argument. When someone can't support their argument with facts, they have to go with complaining about the tone that other people use to address them. "Name-calling" is entirely irrelevant to the accuracy of someone's statements. Calling you, Birk, a mentally deficient fuckknob has nothing to do with whether I am correct in every single thing I have said before. Oh, and people who say things that are stupid, are stupid people, and should be called "stupid" so that they might make the choice to be smarter (and it is a choice, ignorance is a choice).

A defense of marriage is not meant as an offense to any person or group.

Logically false. We are discussing, specifically and particularly, excluding large number of people from thousand of rights and benefits. Which, by definition is an attack on them.

All people should be afforded their inalienable American freedoms.

Like the right to marriage? One which the supreme court has recognized as a "fundamental human right" a dozen times over the past century?

There is no opposition between providing basic human rights to everyone and preserving marriage as the sacred union of one man and one woman.

Yes, there is. What part of "fundamental human right" do you not understand, Birk?

I hope that in voicing my beliefs I encourage people on both sides to use reason and charity as they enter this debate.

Two things you have completely failed to use...

I encourage all Americans to stand up to preserve and promote a healthy, authentic promarriage culture in this upcoming election.

And the best way to be promarriage is to exclude people from marriage... wait...