Now that winter is over, I really need to cut back on posting here. I just don't have the time. And yet, and yet,... my problem has always been that there are too many things I really want to blog about, too many things I really need to blog about.
For example, here's Karl Rove who, after presiding over one of the most secretive presidential administrations in U.S. history, has now decided that he loves the Freedom of Information Act. How can I keep from blogging about a slimeball like that?
And speaking of slimeballs, there's Newt Gingrich, who demanded a no-fly zone over Libya up until the very moment when President Barack Obama imposed one, at which point he switched positions completely. In less than 24 hours, he went from complaining that Obama hadn't imposed a no-fly zone to complaining that he has.
Tell me how I can keep from posting about hypocrites like Gingrich? And this particular hypocrite, this defender of marriage who cheated on his first two wives (so far, I haven't heard if he's been faithful to his third), is actually running for president! How can I let this sort of thing go?
And then there are those right-wing nuts like Bryan Fischer, of the American Family Association, who claims that freedom of religion, as enshrined in the First Amendment to our Constitution, applies to Christianity only. Yeah, unless you're a Christian, forget about being free to decide for yourself.
How can I avoid blogging about that? How can I keep from posting my certainty that, as soon as these loons get religious freedom taken away from Muslims and Jews and Hindus and atheists, they'll decide that Mormons and Catholics aren't "really" Christians, either.
These days, it's just one thing after another. Which of these do I skip? Which of these do I let slide under the radar? As it is, I haven't been able to post about even half of what deserves my attention. Heck, far less than that, in fact.
And now I need to cut back even further? How do I do that?
But I really have little choice. So I'm going to try. (I've been trying, already, in fact.) I won't necessarily post every day. And when I do post, it might just be a "Quote of the Day" or a cartoon, since those take little time.
But it's not going to be easy. There's far too much crazy going on. Plus, I've got book reviews I'd like to write. And, well, just all sorts of things. I kind of hate to skip anything, but I've got to do it.
Well - heh, heh - at least it's likely to bother only me. :)
If you need to write a blog for every crazy thing in the news you'll be posting hundreds of blogs a day.
ReplyDeleteI'm reading The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris, where he's making a case for a scientific understanding of morality. But he points out the problems. First off, science shows us we have no free will. Second, it might be impossible to convince religious nuts they are nuts because of chemicals in their bodies. Supposedly, if we had the same levels of chemicals/hormones, we'd be religious nuts too.
Sam Harris does say that reason eventually prevailed in most western cultures to stomp out witchcraft. But I'm not so sure. I know a lot of wiccan.
You can't fight unreason with reason.
Well, Jim, if we can't fight unreason with reason, how can we fight it?
ReplyDeleteI'm not going to use unreason myself. And I have ethical objections - and practical objections, too, since the cure would be worse than the disease - against using force.
OK, I'll definitely use humor. I think ridicule is a valid and useful tool for the really crazy stuff. But I'm still going to rely greatly on reason.
Besides, I disagree. I think you can fight unreason with reason. You won't win all the time. Indeed, reason will seldom be effective. But it will work sometimes.
And with reason, you have the potential to convert an enemy into an ally - an ally who'll join you in spreading reason. It does happen. Some of our best people were once firmly on the side of unreason.
I was just saying you can't use reason on unreasonable people. Convert the reasonable people. Have you ever tried to talk to a Tea party member in person? It's like arguing with a recording.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes think we should let the Republicans have everything their way and lets see if they learn anything when their ideas don't work.
We already did that during the Bush Administration, didn't we, Jim? Democrats seemed to go along with everything the GOP wanted to do. Look how that turned out.
ReplyDeleteAnd as far as I can tell, Republicans learned nothing from it.