Saturday, July 07, 2007

Mockery

The Outpost was delivered one day late because of the holiday, so my usual Thursday dose of talk radio came on Friday this week. The topic of the day was "Live Earth," and the tone was mockery.

I don't get it. Even if you think global warming is no big deal, it's hard to see why contempt is the appropriate response to a bunch of people getting together to encourage others to take better care of the planet. What do conservatives have against the planet?

The general argument was that the various talk show hosts and callers didn't want to be lectured to by rock stars whose lifestyles are less than perfectly earth friendly. That strikes me as willful nonsense. If anyone ought to be able to separate the message from the messenger, it should be conservatives. The Bible, a respectable conservative text, tells us we all sin and fall short. So if you are waiting for the stainless messenger, you will never get the message.

The whole thing reminded me of the fake outrage over John Edwards' haircuts. We all spend time and money on things that strike others as frivolous or silly. I buy my Shiner Bock; you buy your SUV. I piddle away an evening at the baseball game; you squander an hour on "American Idol." When did conservatives become the ones to decide what personal indulgences are socially acceptable? Isn't that supposed to be a left-wing malaise?

The standard reply appears to be, "But Edwards wants to increase your taxes to help the poor while he's wasting money on expensive haircuts." The message, I suppose, is that if Edwards wanted to lock poor people up in cages, then he could buy whatever haircut he wanted. But if he wants to help the poor, then he has no business being wealthy. The logical incoherence is staggering.

As for the moral argument that it is wrong to spend money on haircuts while poor people are suffering, we don't have to ask what Jesus would do. He already told us. When Mary washes his feet with expensive spikenard, Judas asks, "Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?" Jesus replies, "Let her alone."

Good advice, Republicans.

8 comments:

Chuck Rightmire said...

I notice an extreme lack of logic in a lot of comments on the net. Sometimes I'm even guilty of it. But I remind everyone of the third grade rule: When you start calling names, you lose.

Anonymous said...

Never heard tell of staggering "logical incoherence"! But I think Wulfgar the Philosophy Major could definitely be a practitioner, if I have any clue about what the term means.

But golly, David, going from rock concerts to planet hatred to talk radio to the Bible to haircuts to SUVs to baseball to TV shows--golly, now that’s staggering! I’m not sure if it’s logically incoherent or illogically coherent or what, but I really enjoyed it.

Keep up the good advice!

Andy B. Hammond said...

The point on John Edwards' $400 haircuts is one of hypocracy. He has his wealth, which I have no problem with, but he wants to redistribute mine through higher taxes. He's running for President and if he's going to preach about "Two Americas" he should, at least give a better public face. How about a $25 haircut and contribute the remaining $375 to a charity?

The point on Live Earth, is also one of hypocracy. These Liberals are gathering across the world to put on concerts to encourage awareness about humans causing global warming. Think about how much energy they are burning and the carbon they are releasing into the atmosphere! The only reason they are doing this is to make themselves feel better while not really doing any real good.

In both cases it's the classic Liberal mantra "Do as I say, not as I do".

David said...

Let he who is without hypocrisy cast the first stone.

Anonymous said...

Andy:

First, you have to realize there really are two Americas: There is John Edward’s America, and then there is everybody else’s America.

Second, the "2007 Amazing Roswell UFO Festival" (the 60th anniversary of the alien spaceship crash in New Mexico), kept more than 35,000 people from attending Al Gore’s show, which was good for the planet.


David:

If you dislike Christianity so much, why are you always making oblique references to the Bible? Now THAT’S hypocritical.

David said...

I'm not loaded ... ,
Please provide a shred of evidence that I dislike Christianity.

Anonymous said...

You don't seem to like rightwing talk radio, which is full of Christian morality and teaching.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of logical incoherency, thank you for the demonstration.