After posting my explanation of why Kender got the facts completely wrong in his post about the ACLU and the Faith Leaders for Peace meeting at the Federal Building in San Diego, I checked to make sure the trackback went through and it did. Now it's gone. Apparently, Kender doesn't even want people to know that someone has dared to correct his errors. What is it with this crowd and their allergic reaction to facts? They react like the wicked witch to a bucket of water - Get the truth away from me before I melt! It's quite fascinating from a psychological standpoint. I think this tendency should have a name, and I'm nominating Reality Aversion Disorder (RAD for short).
- Log in to post comments
More like this
This time from Kender, who stopped by yesterday to accuse me of "attacking" Gribbit, despite the fact that A) Gribbit was the one doing all the attacking, and B) I was merely correcting Gribbit's inaccurate statements. So I was perusing Kender's blog and found this post, in the long line of…
Imagine you found a population in the US where the majority of the people believed that 2+2=5, and that attempts to correct them with the actual, correct result of adding two numbers were regarded as insults to their revered traditions. I think we'd all agree that they a) they were wrong; b) they…
Sadly, a crank has silenced another skeptic.
Many of you may know EpiRen, which is the Twitter and blog handle (and sometimes commenting handle here) of René Najera. René is an epidemiologist employed by the state public health department of health of an East Coast state and has been a force for…
I hadn't planned on writing about Suzanne Somers again so soon. After all, I haven't yet received the promotional copy of her book (Knockout: Interviews with Doctors Who Are Curing Cancer--And How to Prevent Getting It in the First Place) that a most generous reader has sent to me, and I didn't…
I second the motion. BTW - the acronym can also stand for Really Awful Decisions, which is also appropriate, as it is the direct result of Reality Avoidance Disorder. I am sure that some of the more mathematically inclined that read this blog could make something of the RAD = RAD symetry.
"Let Me Have It...Just Remember I am NOT Responsible for YOUR Therapy Bills!!! "
oh irony, thou art a sweet mistress...
"Feel free to post comments, rants, or even personal attacks. It simply shows your wish for taunting if you do the latter.
You can say anything you want here. But if you get stupid I reserve the right to point it out, call you lots of inventive names and laugh like hell."
Nice one Kender. Or you could just hide under a rock and cry.
It's getting harder and harder to follow this saga, with the decompensation of the aggressors serving as a particularly confusing (thanks to deletions and edits) variable. I see this as a "Twin Peaks"-style drama, with rough analogs to that series characters firmly in place:
ED BRAYTON: The Agent Cooper of the story, the quiet center of it all, the facts guy with insight, eerie compusure and a way with words.
GRIBBIT: The Leo Johnson analog, 95% angry scowl and 5% actual criminal. A mindless thug and laughingstock. Facing a lifetime of manipulation and humiliation by others should he continue confronting his betters.
CAPT. RATIONAL: The Deputy Harry S Truman in this, the support vehicle and stalwart do-gooder whose idealism is both and asset and, perversely, his only potential flaw.
MEATBRAIN: The Deputy Hawk. While crusading unabashedly and tirelessly on behalf of good, Meatbrain seems to float peacefully above it all, neither the victim nor the victimizer but only an envoy and a quietly triumphant one at that.
JAY STEPHENSON: The Josie Packard. Pretends to be doing good but has no concept of what the word even means. Has extreme difficulty with English.
BEAMING VISIONARY: Bobby Briggs. Profane and rebellious but in the end seems to side with the good guys, albeit via questionable mechanisms.
KENDER: The Jacques Renaud. Bloated and stupid, he's too set on offending "the left" to concern himself with whether people recognize he's honest or not. However, it's his own shameless lying that renders him incapable of actually offending anyone, for nothing sates the grinning opposition more than evidence of lying and cowardice.
Ha! Brilliant, kemibe.
My point of that post was that the ACLU would scream about a christian group leading prayers IN a federal building.
I really dont have teh time right now to deal with attacks from fanatics such as yourself, that's why you lost your TB...ask your little buddy meathead about my TB policy....you have no free speech on my site....and if you have a problem with it call the aclu.
Kender wrote:
Except that this meeting didn't take place IN a Federal building, it took place AT a Federal building, just like thousands of such meetings that go on all around the country virtually every day. It's a designated public forum where groups can hold rallies, vigils, protests and whatever else they like, they just have to apply for a permit to do so. The vast majority of such events are, in fact, held by Christian groups and include prayers, and the ACLU does nothing to stop them. Why? Because they strongly support equal access in public forums. What does all that mean? It means you were wrong.
Like your pal Gribbit, however, you won't correct your mistake, you'll just call people names and whine about "attacks from fanatics". That's much easier than actually caring whether your claims are accurate or not. It soothes the ego. In the meantime, it also makes you look extremely dishonest and without any intellectual integrity. It's your site, you can do whatever you want with it. But by doing everything you can to avoid honest and accurate criticism of your claims, you only reinforce the undeniable conclusion that you just don't care whether what you say is true or not as long as it feeds your agenda.
Teh point still is that the aclu has has sued groups for religious functions on federal property, and simply because muslims are involved it appears that they shut their mouth when that happens.
I don't care if it is considered open for all or not, teh point is that the aclu would oppose it if it weren't attended by muslims.
Who cares what your point was Kender. If you don't have your facts straight you don't have your facts straight. Repeating what your point was won't change that.
In fact, repeating your point even after you've been shown that it relies on falsehoods is not exactly helping your case.
Kender wrote:
All of this is absoluely false. They have sued to prevent government sponsorship of religious events on public property, and they've sued to prevent exclusive access to public property for religious groups, but they do not object to religious events on public property that is designated as a public forum (which means it's open to all groups that want to use it on an equal basis). Either intentionally or not, you're missing a very important distinction. The government cannot give preferential treatment to one religion in terms of access to facilities, nor can they use public money to pay for religious events, whether on public property or not. But if they allow community groups to use public facilities, then they must allow all groups, religious or not, to use them on an equal basis. That is the entire point of the Lamb's Chapel ruling, which the ACLU strongly supported (I have the brief they filed on behalf of Lamb's Chapel).
Now, let's compare that to the facts in this situation in San Diego. It's a designated public forum open to any group to use, all they have to do is apply for a permit. Faith Leaders for Peace applied for such a permit and used the public grounds on an equal basis with any other community group that wished to use it. No government money was involved in sponsoring the event. And, in fact, the event did include Christian prayers and teachings from the Christian tradition. And the ACLU didn't say a word about it, just as they don't say a word about literally thousands of such events that take place on public property every day all around the country.
Thus, you were wrong in every single facet of your claim: the ACLU did not object to it because they have never objected to any religious group using any public forum on equal footing with other non-religious groups. If it doesn't send a message of government endorsement - and it can't if all groups are able to use the forum for their own purposes - then the ACLU does not object to its use by religious groups, whether Christian, Muslim or any other. And history supports my position very strongly by the mere fact that such events take place every day without the ACLU saying a word about them.
So come on, why not just admit that you were wrong? It doesn't hurt, I promise. We've all had to do it on many occasions and our egos have managed to survive intact.
Ed, you might want to explain to Kender the fundamental distiction between establishment and free exercise. On the other hand, you might not. I doubt it would do much good.
Isn't the irony just breathtaking? At the same time his buddy Gribbit is using an instrumentality of interstate commerce to threaten to beat someone up, Kender is using that same instrumentality to mangle the First Amendment beyond recognition. Both of them should be thanking their gods that the ACLU exists, instead of railing ignorantly against it.
Hey ACLU, meet me for a fight in Cleveland...
Bwahahahahahahahahaha..
Is it wrong to laugh at them Ed? Does it make me a bad man?
Kemibe: I love it! Now I have to go rent the Twin Peaks DVDs and watch for the parallels.