With Friends like these….
Hillary; before the fall.
It is universally acknowledged by those of us who would have people reject the inherent irrationality of religion, that mere dogmatic atheism would provide an entirely unacceptable alternative. It is a simple point to note that people can and do hold beliefs without having sufficient evidence for those beliefs, and that these beliefs are by no means confined to those which would be rejected upon careful examination and the application of critical thinking. The child who believes, for example, that slavery is wrong for the sole reason that his father tells him so is as justified in his belief as the child who believes the opposite for the same reason. It is only when critical thinking is applied, that we can hope to distinguish between these two judgments.
There are a myriad of circumstances we can imagine under which someone might come to hold an unjustified belief of any sort. It would seem to be a question of luck whether such people happen to acquire beliefs which are (upon examination of the evidence) actually justified.
While those who fall on the other side of the fence are more easily identifiable for obvious reasons, we cannot afford to neglect to encourage critical thinking amongst those we might consider safely ensconced within our own ideological camps. While such people will at the very least be more likely to vote for the better candidate, or endorse the better policies, they will be ill-equipped to engage in persuasive argument with those who oppose them, and, as will be seen from what follows, can go so far as to warrant embarrassment if not outright hostility from their more enlightened peers. If this language strikes you as elitist, consider that the fundamental point of this post is to call for nothing more than honest and open engagement of all issues, without resorting to blind dogmatism and downright wilful ignorance.
I present for your consideration, the denizens of http://www.hillaryclintonforum.net/ . A quick glance through the depressingly large volume of topics on the forum will reveal a coterie of sycophantic disciples whose bitterness is exceeded only by their astounding capacity for denial.
“I have made it very clear that I am supporting Senator Obama and we’re working cooperatively on a lot of different matters, but I think that delegates can decide to do this on their own. They don’t need permission. They can decide under the rules of the DNC, and so I think it would be better if we had a plan that actually we put in place and everybody knew what it was and then we executed it because I just think that would go more smoothly,”
Let’s begin with a relatively objective account of the situation. Both Senators Obama and Clinton were campaigning to win the nomination of the same political party. During the primary season under extensive media scrutiny and after more than twenty debates, the consensus was that both candidates shared extremely similar policy positions, with few exceptions. Obama, having wrapped up the Democratic nomination long before his achievement was acknowledged by Clinton (an achievement which still is not acknowledged by a majority on www.hillaryclintonforum.net but more on this later) now faces the Republican Party’s John McCain, a man who unsurprisingly advocates many policies which are anathema to the majority of Democratic voters. These are the facts.
If we gaze through the distorted lens of a small but statistically significant proportion of Hillary Clinton supporters as exemplified by those on the above forum, we arrive at a very different account of reality. A reality where it is acceptable for a woman to vote for Hillary for her sex, but not for a black person to vote for Obama because of his race. A reality where a commentator’s use of the phrase “tit for tat” equates to sexist language (seriously) and where racist anti-Obama graffiti is attributed to Obama supporters attempting to tarnish Clinton’s image, to cite but a few examples. A reality where Hillary’s “suspending her campaign” (language used by all of the contenders for nomination, including John Edwards) is taken as code for some sort of uprising at the Democratic Convention at the end of this month. Clinton herself has recently stoked these absurd notions by refusing to rule out having her name included on a ballot at the convention. Somehow, such a publicly divisive gesture is to help “party unity”, the current mantra of DNC bigwigs. The problem, however, is that the targets of such attempts at unity now proudly proclaim the acronym PUMA, or “Party Unity My Ass”, a fitting epitaph for their self-destructive mentality…
This is the logical conclusion of illogical practises. This faction of Clinton loyalists (which we must bear in mind are not by all accounts a fringe minority) intend either not to vote, or in many cases to support McCain in the general election. We might call this the ultimate act of taking one’s ball and going home, as it were. Despite the fact that, for example, McCain is a strong opponent of abortion rights (in contrast to the vast majority of Clinton supporters), these men and women are willing to endure a minimum of four years of policies they by and large oppose, for the simple fact that they feel (“feel” being the operative word here) that their candidate has been unfairly treated by the media and by her Democratic opponent.
If such people should provide the so-called “Nader-factor” of the 2008 election, in drawing enough votes away from Obama to cost him the election, a successful Clinton campaign for the oval Office in 2012 is by no means guaranteed, but there is at least one thing we can say for certain: Come the fifth of November 2008 those at www.hillaryclintonforum.net will have elected exactly the president they deserve.
Clinton prepares for a Pagan sex romp by donning ritualistic clothes she will wear while aborting foetuses in their second trimester.
