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Sat, 05 Apr 2014

Archives

Over on Twitter, @RussB (Russ Beattie) and @jzb ( Joe Brockmeier) are promoting the argument that you can tolerate everything but intolerance, and that is the only logical position to take.

No. That is baby thinking. Because intolerance is the combination of 1) disagreement and 2) action. Which part of intolerance is unacceptable? The disagreement part? Let us all hope that tolerant people tolerate disagreement, otherwise the word has no meaning. So is action unacceptable? "It's okay if you disagree with me, but as soon as you do anything about that disagreement, you are wrong and I am right and you must be stopped?"

Sorry, no, that is intolerance.

This is prompted, of course, by Brendan Eich's dismissal from Mozilla. I must of course (unless I want to be intolerated) note that I disagree with him, and that I support gay marriage. But I also support people's freedom to disagree with me and take action on that disagreement.

And (I think this is the crucial point) I support imperfect leaders. If you want to insist that every leader be perfect and without flaw, then you will have only liars and frauds as leaders, because nobody is perfect. I cannot see how having liars and frauds as leaders is a good thing.

posted at: 13:56 | path: /politics | permanent link to this entry

Sat, 01 Jan 2011

Mohammed as a dog

Without comment, I present to you this realistic image of Mohammed as a dog.

posted at: 20:54 | path: /politics | permanent link to this entry

Mon, 01 Sep 2008

Archives

So much for Troopergate.

posted at: 13:20 | path: /politics | permanent link to this entry

Sun, 16 Dec 2007

Government from our rights

I refer you to this Non Sequitur cartoon:

Note the wry observation: "government keeping us safe from our rights." I love it! I've never heard it put that way before, but it's perfectly right. We are born with rights, and only a government (or other band of thugs capable of greater violence) can take them away.

posted at: 21:59 | path: /politics | permanent link to this entry

Mon, 26 Nov 2007

Voting on what's for lunch

You may have heard that "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch." (It's not from Ben Franklin.) I don't think that's quite accurate. I prefer this one: "Democracy is one wolf and two sheep voting on what to have for lunch -- and lamb still ends up as the entree."

You don't change the nature of things merely by voting.

posted at: 20:59 | path: /politics | permanent link to this entry

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