Thoughts on Iraq

A few months ago, I wrote that the US was out of Iraq, unlike it had been for much of my life so far, unless the government decided to launch airstrikes in response to the ongoing violence there. It’s no secret that our invasion was a key factor in creating the current conflict there—it helped install a sectarian Shiite leader and allow Shiites to commit an outright ethnic cleansing against Sunnis in Baghdad. Not surprisingly, in a region already rife with sectarian conflict, actions like these helped turn Iraqi Sunnis toward increasingly extremist responses, which explains a great deal of the increase in numbers of ISIS, or the Islamic State, as it’s now calling itself.

We then have some idea of how this current situation came about. US military intervention was enormously detrimental in Iraq the last time. What’s the current response of the government? Airstrikes and military advisors—i.e., more military intervention. Further, there’s no justification now that couldn’t have been used for our invasion and ousting of Saddam—ISIS is genocidal, but so was he; no one doubts the brutality of Saddam’s regime, nor the brutality of ISIS; and the US at least allegedly played a role in helping both come to power.

None of that is to say military action is therefore unjustified, just that we should exercise great caution in assuming that the cruelty and viciousness of the Islamic State demands US intervention, any more than Saddam Hussein’s cruelty and viciousness did (of course, there are still people who think we made the right move in our previous invasion, but those people are too far detached from reality to be worth spending much time on). Military intervention is not always an effective way to deal with problems like these; the US launched airstrikes against Kosovo in the late ‘90s, and the result was an enormous escalation of the violence there. We should be very wary in assuming that won’t happen here. The beheading of James Foley was done in retaliation for the airstrikes, of which ISIS has already vowed to avenge any and all; so, unless they significantly limit ISIS’s ability to harm and kill innocents, it ought to be very seriously considered whether such airstrikes run the risk of being counterproductive.

The fact that we’ve sent in hundreds of military advisors is also concerning; the Vietnam War started with military advisors. This isn’t try to draw any ill-thought-out parallels, but it should be clear at this point that Iraq is huge quagmire when it comes to any military intervention. It’s troubling that we seem to be gradually creeping toward doing exactly what Obama promised we wouldn’t—sending in combat troops. Even if Obama keeps that promise, he stays in office for only about two and a half more years; this situation doesn’t exactly show signs of blowing over in the near future, and who knows if whoever succeeds Obama will abide by the same standard. There’s good reason to think Hillary Clinton wouldn’t, for instance.

Then, of course, there’s the issue that everything that has so been done by the Obama administration has lacked congressional approval; that’s especially troubling when Obama has specifically said there is no end date for our current actions. One has to wonder exactly what we’re getting into, and question why the president doesn’t even seem inclined to have these actions—actions extending into the future indefinitely—approved by Congress, as they constitutionally should be.

It should also be noted that our current motive is less than pure, as usual. Once again, the oil fields in Iraq are an important motivating factor for the US government. Of course, if military action for oil can actually do good for the people in the affected region, then the impure motives should be no concern—but, once again, we have to be wary of what we’re told when we realize the powerful forces that may be backing action not to the benefit of either Iraqis or everyday Americans.

None of this is to say that the world should sit idly by while the mayhem in Iraq unfolds. On the contrary, the events there deserve the attention of the United Nations. There’s no reason that, pending a Security Council resolution or something similar, the United States shouldn’t be involved in taking appropriate action. However, any long-term intervention of any nature in Iraq should be both well thought out and approved by Congress. The United States cannot continue to pretend to be the world’s policeman as it takes military action serving the interests of corporate elites (but working much to the detriment of everyday people), nor can the executive branch continue to absorb powers reserved for Congress. All of us must bear that in mind as we contemplate what the appropriate way forward is in handling the Iraq situation.

Correction: This post originally stated that the US had deliberately helped Saddam Hussein come to power; I have deleted that claim and linked a new source to acknowledge that the reality was somewhat more complicated and qualified that this involvement is alleged. 

Why Hillary 2016 Will Suck

It’s pretty safe to say Hillary Clinton is running for president. She’s all over the place, putting in her two cents on whatever issue is getting attention, and next month, she’s heading to Iowa. At this point, it’s a matter of when she’ll officially announce her candidacy, not if. She’s also the frontrunner—by, like, a lot. Granted, that doesn’t mean too much yet, but if election season has already started for the 2016 Democratic primaries, we might as well start to evaluate the candidates that are out there. My evaluation for Hillary can be summed up in about three words: she is awful.

It’s hard to even figure out where to begin, Hillary’s such a hopeless old hack, to borrow Hunter S. Thompson’s phrase (not one he lived long enough to apply to Hillary Clinton, but one I think he’d agree applies to her pretty well). Let’s start with the economy—not exactly a really exciting topic, but an important one. Clinton seems perhaps a bit less bipartisan and a bit more aggressive than Obama, so maybe she could be good economically, at least. Or not. As it turns out, she’s pretty chummy with Wall Street—not exactly a good sign. They might even prefer her over some of the potential Republican candidates. And with an ever-widening gap between the rich and poor, Clinton’s approach seems to be every bit as weak as Obama’s, if not weaker—all you hear from her is talk about “consensus,” how we’re “in this mess together”—but that idea isn’t even coherent. Wealth inequality means some people are better off than others, and the only way to correct it is some form of redistribution—the rich have to get poorer for the poor to get richer; granted, that’s not true when there’s economic growth, but the benefits of that growth are currently going to the richest, so at least that has to change, which is obviously to the detriment of the richest. Good luck getting Hillary Clinton to say that—or act in a way that treats that as the reality.

What about social issues? Nothing too impressive there, either. Hillary came out in favor of gay marriage in 2013, so don’t expect her to exactly lead the way when it comes to promoting more tolerance and greater rights for persecuted groups. Her view on the drug war isn’t really anything to write home about—basically “maybe we can think about legalizing marijuana if it works in Colorado and Washington.” Even her rhetoric on medical marijuana is pretty lackluster. Obama had rhetoric that sounded better in 2008, and we all know how that turned out. She also supports the death penalty, not that that should come as a surprise for any Democrat at this point.

Clinton also doesn’t have much to say about how the government has shredded the Bill of Rights in the name of protecting us from terrorists. She’s another Snowden-basher, who mostly wants to focus on what a scumbag he is, etc., etc. Oh, and maybe we can reform the NSA or something like that. But first let’s talk more about how much Edward Snowden sucks. While in Congress, she was a supporter of the PATRIOT Act, and its renewal. Don’t expect any big change from the Bush-Obama “counterterrorism” policies if Hillary gets into the Oval Office.

Foreign policy is where things get really awful, though. Obama might not have made many changes from the Bush years, but Clinton sounds more like John McCain or Lindsey Graham than she does Obama. She’s a diehard defender of Israel, including of pretty much all of its recent actions—bombing a UN shelter for civilians was done in the “fog of war,” according to Hillary—and Prime Minister Netanyahu, a diehard right-winger, has actually done his best to be a broker for peace in the region. She’s even agreed with his remarks essentially ruling out a two-state solution. She’s big on getting involved in foreign conflicts—apparently, what helped the Islamic State gain so much power was that we didn’t sufficiently arm moderate rebels in Syria, despite all evidence that arming Syrian rebels has only helped groups like ISIS. She’s also a long-time defender of the drone war that continues to go on. Clinton is basically a neocon, as evidenced by the fact that she voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq, and was still refusing to call her vote a mistake in 2007.

She’s also a little on the fascist side when it comes to personal expression. While a senator, she introduced a bill to outlaw flag burning, punishing it with up to a year in prison. That’s a year in prison for burning a piece of cloth. Let that sink in for a minute. She also co-sponsored the Media Marketing Accountability Act, introduced by Joe “Marilyn Manson caused Columbine” Lieberman, which would have criminalized marketing “adult material”—in Lieberman’s own words, anything that contains “sex and violence”—to minors. Because teenagers aren’t already aware of sex or violence, or anything like that.

To be blunt, Hillary Clinton is an absolutely god-awful candidate. I may not always agree with Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, or Bernie Sanders, but I’ll take any of them over Clinton any day of the week. In fact, if the 2016 race comes down to Hillary Clinton or Rand Paul, I might find myself voting for Paul, in spite of all the issues I have with him. He at least makes good points about US foreign policy, the drug war, the drone war, the NSA, and a few other areas. Clinton makes good points on virtually nothing.

Note: Originally this blog stated that the Syrian rebels committed massacres, and linked to a source. However, I have judged that source unreliable, and have not been able to find a reliable source to back up the massacre it alleged. I apologize to everyone for the error.

Atheists' Real "Mistake:" Disagreeing with the Majority

Perhaps it’s criminally irresponsible of me to make my first blog post in over a week about a random article I found online, when the US has begun airstrikes against Iraq and is sending in more military advisers, but that’s what I’m going to do anyway (I will address the Iraq situation, in time). I guess this blog post is a response to a response, technically, because the article I’m discussing here (by Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie) is written as a response to an interview with Philip Kitcher. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Kitcher, and I haven’t read the interview, but the Rabbi uses it mostly as an excuse to attack atheists as a group, which is the only reason I’m writing a response.

The title of the article itself—“The Three Mistakes Atheists Make”—isn’t exactly indicative that we’re in for anything too brilliant. Contrary to what a lot of theists seem to think, atheists actually aren’t a uniform group, so it’s a bit dubious to imply that all of them, from Ayn Rand to Bertrand Russell to George Carlin, would make the same intellectual mistakes, but I guess that’s a nitpick. More noteworthy is that none of the things Yoffie lists are actually mistakes, just behaviors that he personally doesn’t like. But enough about the title—let’s launch into the actual content of the article.

 The first “mistake” that atheists make, according to the Rabbi, is that “[t]hey dismiss, often with contempt, the religious experience of other people.” This isn’t really a fair accusation—sure, some atheists dismiss others’ religious experiences, but the fact that a person ultimately doesn’t believe an incident proves anything doesn’t mean they dismiss it, let alone with contempt. Yoffie’s problem seems to be that atheists aren’t convinced God exists when other people think they’ve experienced Him. “[T]here is something both sad and arrogant about non-believers asserting with certainty that no one else is capable of a God encounter,” he posits. But many atheists—including prominent ones, like Richard Dawkins—don’t claim to know that God doesn’t exist with certainty, just to disbelieve He does due to lack of convincing evidence. And, ultimately, it’s far more rational to believe religious experiences are “psychiatric matter[s] or…general feeling[s] of uplift that [are] then related by the person involved to a religiously entrenched myth” (the “sad and arrogant” idea the Rabbi refers to) than that they have been chosen randomly to be briefly contacted by the invisible, omnipresent ruler of the universe.

“Mistake” number two is that atheists “assert that since there are no valid religions but that religions do good things, the task of smart people is to create a religion without God -- or, in other words, a religion without religion.” Apparently, the hundreds of millions of Buddhists in the world are, in Rabbi Yoffie’s opinion, following some sort of phony pseudo-religion, since Buddhism is nontheistic. The Rabbi goes on to make some equally absurd assertions, claiming that “Philosophy can do many things, but it cannot create deep loyalty, profound engagement, or a willingness to sacrifice for one's beliefs.” Has Yoffie not heard of Che Guevara—an avowed atheist—who spent numerous months leading a brigade through the Bolivian jungle to fight the oppressive government there until he was captured and killed? Or the revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin, another avowed nonbeliever, who suffered years of imprisonment and exile while fighting for his beliefs? What, aside from personal philosophy, could have motivated atheists like these to devote themselves so thoroughly to their chosen causes? Or do they just not exhibit “deep loyalty, profound engagement, or a willingness to sacrifice for [their] beliefs?” As someone with less than a glowing view of humanity, it strikes me as unbelievably pessimistic to think that no one could devote themselves to a cause unless they believe it’s what some supreme being wants them to do—and it’s a view that just doesn’t line up with reality.

The Rabbi then states that atheists’ third mistake is to “see the world of belief in black and white, either/or terms.” What follows is not just wrong, but utterly confused. Kitcher (and presumably most other atheists, in Yoffie’s mind) argue that there are so many religious views and traditions that the most reasonable view is that none of them are true. Okay. Then the Rabbi says that in Kitcher’s view, you’re either a believer or not one, essentially contradicting what he just said. He had just stated that Kitcher saw an “incredible diversity of religious doctrines.” How, then, can Kitcher see religious belief as a black and white matter? Because he doesn’t explicitly acknowledge that you can “kinda sorta” believe in a religious doctrine?

Furthermore, it seems to be Rabbi Yoffie who sees the issue of belief in black and white. He earlier cites the fact that eighty-five percent of people associate with a religious tradition, ignoring that many may hold to religious views nothing like his own—and it’s obvious from even the title that he sees nonbelievers as a uniform group who all make the same mistakes and think the same way. Yet atheists are the ones seeing the world in black and white?

Yoffie closes by stating that “most people instinctively reach out to God, and God in turn reaches out to them.” Obviously, a claim he doesn’t bother to back up with any evidence whatsoever, but rather a nice-sounding line that can make religious bigots feel good about themselves by reminding them that they’re normal, and all those atheists are just bitter, arrogant jerks who want to rain on their parade.

This article is character assassination masquerading as logical critique. Yoffie isn’t criticizing ideas or arguments that are inherent to atheism; he’s attacking atheists as a group, reinforcing the stereotype that they’re all a bunch of smug, conceited, selfish malcontents rather than just people who have examined the facts, applying the same logical standards to the question of God’s existence as they would to anything else, and concluded that they’re unconvinced. Sure, there are atheists who are smug, arrogant, selfish, etc., but that’s no reason to attack the whole group. Rabbi Yoffie has revealed himself to be kind of a self-righteous moron, but it would be unfair to blame all Jews for that fact.

Ultimately, the article is just another example of how it remains acceptable to slander and other-ize atheists in America. It’s an attitude as despicable as any other form of stereotyping and discrimination, and we’re at a point where no one—religious or not—should tolerate it. Anyone discussing Christians or Jews as if they were one homogeneous group that all thinks alike would be seen as bigoted and ignorant, rightly so (I leave out Muslims from that list because they’re another group it’s acceptable to other-ize and stereotype, even, sadly, on the part of atheists like Sam Harris and the late Christopher Hitchens). Why should it be any less wrong to do so against atheists?

Coup In America

There aren’t too many parts of our government that I have high regard for—there are some, which might come as a surprise to those who misunderstand me when I label myself an anarchist—but it’s beginning to become clear that some agencies pose a unique threat to maintaining anything like an open society. Not surprisingly, the CIA is at the top of the list—it’s an agency with a long, incredibly ugly history that includes coups, assassinations, human experimentation, and of course, more recently, torture.

It’s the last of these that, in a convoluted way, is at the heart of the most recent controversy involving the agency. The US Senate has been working on a report, soon to be released, that concludes that “enhance interrogation techniques” and the like were unnecessary and excessive. Even though the CIA is no longer authorized to practice those measures, its members apparently took serious issue with such a report, as it has now come out that five CIA employees searched computer files and read emails of Senate investigators.

This is after Director John Brennan had denied any wrongdoing on the part of the agency—probably a move he regrets, in retrospect. What’s troubling about this isn’t that it’s extraordinarily bad by CIA standards—let’s keep in mind the drone strikes they’ve executed and the innocent civilians that have been needlessly killed by them (and those are just some of their crimes in recent history)—but that this seems to indicate that, by the standards of those in the CIA, even the US Senate is so radical and anti-authoritarian that it has to be spied on to keep it in line.

I won’t bother pretending we have anything resembling democracy in the United States (or that we’ve had any such thing for at least numerous decades), but we’re getting into some particularly dangerous territory when even those who have gotten past the phony, corporate-run elections we hold are still not the ones who are really in charge. Furthermore, the CIA had no real motive for any of this—everyone knows they tortured people, and the Senate report is not that likely to cause some huge change. One almost has to conclude that the CIA abused its power here just because it could.

To many it might be unthinkable, but we need to abolish the CIA. It’s hard to come up with much of a cogent defense of the agency. It came about as part of the US’s absurd Cold War strategy; its historical role largely seems to have been the violent imposition of US interests on every country that threatens them; it’s committed numerous human rights abuses all throughout its existence, up to the present; and at this point, it’s gotten so out of hand that it doesn’t even respect Congress’s authorized powers, essentially defying the very branch that helped give birth to it. Whatever legitimate duties it performs, there has to be some better way to achieve them than to keep this radically anti-freedom, anti-transparency, anti-accountability cancer on both our society and the world at large, that calls itself the CIA.

Lawmakers have called for Brennan to be fired—appropriate, sure, but not something that will accomplish much of anything. Doubtless, if he’s fired he’ll be replaced by some other insider who can keep the CIA on the same dictatorial path it’s always been on. The only solution is to simply abolish the agency. The CIA has on more than one occasion displayed its lack of respect for Congress. It’s time for Congress to return the favor and display the ultimate lack of respect for the CIA by revoking its right to exist. But, of course, this is Congress we’re talking about. Even when their own powers are threatened, it’s hard to imagine they’ll actually achieve something worthwhile. That’s our system at work.

The Real Grounds for Impeaching Obama

Among Republicans, impeachment seems to be a pretty popular idea nowadays—supposedly, President Obama has overstepped his authority with excessive executive orders, for which Speaker of the House John Boehner is already suing him. This is all pretty predictable, given how the Republicans have behaved over the past years (or decades, even). Among mainstream liberals, the response is, equally unsurprisingly, that Obama has done nothing to deserve impeachment. While I never identify with either group, there are few issues where they both succeed in being so utterly wrong.

The charge against Obama, in regards to executive orders, is nonsense. He hasn’t issued an extraordinary number of executive orders by any stretch of the imagination, and they don’t really extend beyond the reasonable parameters of executive power. Further, even if Obama had overstepped his authority, it’s weak grounds for impeachment. The constitution states the necessary offenses for impeachment are “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” It’s hard to argue that Obama’s issuance of executive orders—at least those the Republicans are complaining about—honestly constitutes a crime. So even if the Republicans’ charge were true—and it isn’t—it wouldn’t be grounds for impeachment.

Contrary to what the mainstream liberals believe, however, there are plenty of entirely legitimate grounds to impeach Obama. There’s the NSA scandal, for starters, which constitutes numerous violations of the Fourth Amendment. Or there’s the fact that he’s authorized the extrajudicial killing of at least one American citizen—an offense probably far more extreme than what the Founders (specifically Benjamin Franklin, who championed the impeachment provision) had in mind. It’s hard to think of something that better constitutes a “high Crime” than murder, which is what Obama was, doubtless, involved in, when authorizing a drone strike against Anwar al-Awlaki—a man who had not been so much as indicted, let alone convicted, of any crime. Or, for that matter, there was the killing of Osama bin Laden in front of his family, violating norms of the law of war going back to Abraham Lincoln. In violation of US law, the Obama administration has also given aid to the Egyptian dictatorship, which quickly ended the nascent democracy there by coming to power through a coup, and has violently suppressed the population since.

And these are mostly just offenses that violate American law—if we take “high Crimes” to be applicable to international law, the issue becomes even easier. Obama’s enormous reliance on drone warfare has been criticized by foreign policy experts, human rights groups, and even the UN (to some extent) as being in violation (or at least, possibly in violation, depending on circumstances) of international law. Likewise in violation of international law was the Obama administration’s threat of force against Syria. Then, of course, there’s Obama’s continuation—escalation, even—of the war in Afghanistan, a war whose legality was always dubious, as it was neither UN-approved nor for self-defense, strictly speaking (the Taliban never attacked the US, after all). Certainly, there are grounds at least for impeachment, if not conviction, again assuming that war crimes count among the “high Crimes” mentioned in the constitution.

In fairness, there are Republicans who have criticized Obama on these fronts, but the leadership of the party seems rather disinterested. One can’t help but note the irony that the political party supposedly championing freedom from government intrusion overlooks these grave breaches of law to focus on trivial issues like the immigration reforms Obama promulgated, or his delay of his own healthcare law’s provisions. Unlike the impeachment the Republicans are calling for—which would be a political stunt and nothing else—an impeachment for the charges I mentioned would be enormously healthy for the country as a whole. It would demonstrate that we actually expect the president to obey the same laws the rest of us have to, and the international laws that our country has agreed to. Obama is anything but unique in his lawlessness—Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, and Truman were all similar, many of them much worse. But perhaps if Obama were impeached and convicted for his actual crimes, rather than his imaginary ones, it would send a message to all future presidents. Instead we’re stuck with the usual political games. Benjamin Franklin would be disappointed.

Why Israel's "Self-Defense" Argument Fails

Without a doubt, discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is entering into a subject area that is decades old and includes a great deal of hatred and ugliness on both sides. Nonetheless, it’s a topic I figured I’d address sooner or later, and the ongoing incursion into Gaza certainly provides ample opportunity. To some, I suppose my opinion may come off as a bit one-sided, but I would do no one any favors by inserting more uncertainty into a situation as confused and horrific as the current one.

The justification for Israel’s airstrikes on, and now ground invasion of, Gaza, is the continuing barrage of rockets from Gaza, shot off by Hamas. Because of Israel’s defense system, these rockets have largely failed to find their targets, and have an extremely low casualty count—certainly no excuse for Hamas’s actions, but something to keep in mind when realizing that Israel’s justification for its actions hinges on the idea that they are necessary for self-defense.

In contrast to the rocket strikes, Israel’s response has killed hundreds of Palestinians—and, ironically, far more Israelis (in the form of soldiers—who are often not serving voluntarily, given Israel’s mandatory military service) than the rockets—and has had ghastly effects on Gaza, leaving 1.2 million with little or no water, and the entire (badly overcrowded) population utterly terrorized. That would be the first problem with the self-defense justification; unless we value Palestinian lives vastly less than Israeli ones, we must see that the Israeli response has done far more harm than good.

That purely utilitarian calculation is far from the only problem with Israel’s self-defense claim. While supporters of Israel may make excuses for the large number of civilian casualties due to the fact that Hamas has located its members and supplies in close quarters with innocents, it’s hard to see how this would justify targets such as the recently shelled al-Aqsa hospital. This incident isn’t exactly an outlier either, since it’s at least the third such strike on a hospital since the ground invasion began. It’s hard to imagine that, even if these hospitals weren’t deliberately targeted, the Israeli forces are exactly taking great care to minimize civilian deaths. Given the areas that have been hit as well as the overall gross inequality between the Israelis killed by Hamas versus the Palestinians killed by the Israeli forces, it seems entirely believable that collective punishment is perhaps the real motivation.

Even a generous assessment must conclude that Israel is essentially enforcing its longstanding siege on Gaza—an area many have described as an open-air prison, as a result of Israel’s oppressive polices. Hamas’s refusal to agree to a ceasefire largely hinges on the blockade Israel has imposed against Gaza for years now—a blockade that has been widely criticized for its damage to everyday Gaza residents, and may very well be (in my view, indeed, with little doubt is) yet another example of Israeli collective punishment against the Palestinians. Israel’s justification for the blockade is partly in order to keep Hamas from acquiring rockets—I don’t feel the need to explain how profoundly nonsensical it is to allow rocket attacks to continue in order to keep such a blockade in place.

While Hamas and the Israeli government both seem to have adopted the appalling policy that any number of civilian deaths is permissible to achieve their goals, one can say in Hamas’s favor that at least some of their goals are reasonable. Hamas has previously offered a ten-year truce if Israel withdraws to pre-1967 borders—something that even President Obama (now busy assuring Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu that he supports Israel’s right to “self-defense”) has spoken out in favor of. According to recent reports, Hamas has presented a new offer for such a truce, on ten conditions, which largely ask for an easing of the blockade and greater freedom for Gaza. (Whether Hamas would really abide by such a truce is a different matter, but one would hope the Israeli government would see greater reason to respect the Palestinians’ basic rights rather than just to end the rocket attacks.) Israel’s goals, one can only assume, are to continue its blockade and general mistreatment of the Palestinians. There may be no good guy between the two, but it’s not hard to see which one is worse, when the facts have been laid out. Naturally, one’s sympathies should fall with neither, but rather with the general well-being of both the Israelis and the Palestinians—but it’s pretty clear which of those two is worse off, and why that is.

It’s time for the United States to completely end its support of the Israeli government. No more money, nor military equipment, nor diplomatic encouragement, should be given to Netanyahu and friends—the ones who most deserve to have the label “terrorist” applied to them, if not far worse labels. Israel has consistently demonstrated utter disregard for both the well-being of the Palestinians and for international law. It’s disgusting, if unsurprising, that they’ve so long enjoyed our support. It’s time for that to end. What should be demanded of them is obedience to the Geneva conventions (which they’ve consistently ignored) as well as all other elements of international law, such as the ban on chemical weapons—which they never ratified, and also haven’t obeyed. It’s time for Israel to withdraw to the borders it occupied before the Six Days’ War, as many have called on them to do—a pretty generous offer, considering from the early days they displaced Palestinians with little concern for the result. Israel’s government is a terrorist organization far more effective and sinister than Hamas; the people of Israel shouldn’t be made to suffer for that fact, but it’s time that terrorist organization at least lost our backing.

Nothing is Joke-proof

So, very recently, Jason Biggs—from American Pie and, more currently, Orange is the New Black—caused a predictable uproar because he made a joke about the Malaysian airline plane that was shot down. The joke in question? He asked if anyone wanted to buy his Malaysian airline frequent flyer miles. If you’re like me, that’s worth a brief smirk and pretty much nothing else. If you’re like a huge number of other people on Twitter, that’s some kind of hideous crime against humanity. It’s borderline exasperating that I honestly feel obligated to explain why that attitude is ridiculous, but at this point I think it’s an issue worth addressing.

No one would have cared if Biggs had made some unrelated joke that just happened to occur after the plane was hit. No one would care if Biggs had known about the tragedy before making said unrelated joke. But in effect, what’s the big difference? Either way, the goal would be to make you laugh when a tragedy had just occurred. And it isn’t as if Biggs’s joke makes people care less about what happened; it made a lot of people care far more, since they would have probably gone on with their lives as usual, had they not suddenly felt the need to raise some sort of moral outrage about how Jason Biggs is an insensitive monster.

So what’s so offensive about the joke in question, then? The fact that it reflects the fact that Jason Biggs doesn’t care all that much that a bunch of people he never met got killed? I don’t either. Neither do you. Sure, we all think it’s awful, but is anyone outside of the friends and family of the victims really going to do anything other than give some acknowledgment that it was tragic, and horrible, etc., and then move on? They shouldn’t—this event is no more tragic than the sort of things that happen every day. Just more unexpected. If you don’t spend a lot of your life mourning the fact that millions of children die each year of starvation—and again, you shouldn’t, because it accomplishes nothing to sit around and feel bad about it—then you have no right to expect anyone else to enter some mourning period for a couple hundred complete strangers on a plane somewhere thousands of miles away.

And let’s state the obvious here: the people who raised the moral outrage are no different than you or me in this respect. Had they not seen this joke, they would have gone on with their lives as usual, putting the thought of the Malaysian airline tragedy out of mind. Thanks to Jason Biggs and their own self-righteousness, one Tweet has caused them to focus far more on this tragedy than they otherwise would have. So why are they throwing a hissy fit about it? Who did the joke honestly hurt? The victims are dead. Their families probably weren’t paying attention to the Twitter feed of some random actor at the time. In fact, if the families of the victims are now aware of Jason Biggs’s joke, the bold moral crusaders who stirred up so much controversy about it have themselves to blame for that; it would have gone completely under the radar had they not chosen to act like some grave breach of human decency had been committed.

The people who have gotten outraged about this and a thousand other “tasteless” jokes live in a fantasy world where keeping grieving families “in your thoughts and prayers” actually achieves something and where humor is only acceptable for things that upset no one. That’s not the world we live in. We live in a world where every day is a tragedy for someone somewhere—many people, in fact. More than one philosopher throughout history has posited that life itself is suffering, and that view has a lot to back it up. With that in mind, drawing some sort of line between what is and isn’t acceptable to joke about is beyond senseless.

I’m not going to whitewash the reason I think it’s okay to laugh at—and make—jokes about plague, genocide, rape, or pretty much anything else. It’s not because “it helps us deal with tragedy” or something innocuous-sounding like that. It’s because all of those are part of human existence, and so when they happen to someone I never knew and who played no part in my life, I’m not deeply saddened, even though I sympathize with those who are. And even some things that have deeply saddened me, I’m willing to joke about. Humor is based on existence as we know it. As such, it can either be okay to joke about every part of that existence, or none of it at all. That doesn’t mean that every joke has to be funny, but it does mean that no jokes can rightly be offensive—only the message sent by a joke can be offensive. The message sent by Biggs’s joke is that all of us might want to avoid flying Malaysian airlines. I’d tend to agree. Those who want to act like the joke is insensitive need to admit to themselves that deep down, they’re really no more upset by the Malaysian airline crash than Jason Biggs is. If they really are, they might want to read some statistics on world hunger, disease, crime, etc. Then they might want to consider if they could find better uses for their time than getting outraged at a joke.