People vs. Principles

This will be a bit of a departure from my normal subject matter, but with the world in the shape it’s currently in, I know I’m ready to talk about something other than current events—hopefully, you are, too, whomever you happen to be. I’d like to address what I consider a pretty troubling, but sort of fascinating phenomenon: loyalty to people trumping loyalty to principles.

First, let me explain why this is a bad thing. After all, it doesn’t sound so bad—people are actually right here and now, and can suffer, be happy, flourish, languish, etc., so loyalty to people seems like a good thing, and to a point, it is. Principles, on the other hand, are abstractions, just ideas in our minds (unless you’re a Platonist, I guess, but I’m not). So it seems like being loyal to principles instead of to people is damaging and dangerous, and to an extent, that’s also true. Principles should be formulated at least partly based on their impact on other people, and if principles prove damaging to oneself or others, it’s often a good idea to rethink them. But what I’m talking about in terms of loyalty toward people is not some sort of devotion to the welfare of humanity itself, but loyalty toward specific people, or specific groups of people.

 The reason this is so dangerous is because it ultimately means that if a person you’re loyal to tells you to abandon what you believe in, you go along with it. In the abstract, virtually everyone agrees that doing something like that is terrible and indefensible, but that doesn’t keep them from doing it. For instance, the NSA programs under George W. Bush were highly unpopular among Democrats, with a 2006 Pew poll showing that 61% were opposed, and 37% were in support. In a poll from 2013, under Obama, polling showed an almost exact reversal from the Democrats—with 64% supporting it, and only 34% opposed. That’s a swing of 27%; granted, some people who were too young to be counted in polls like this came of age between 2006 and 2013, and some people certainly died in that timespan, meaning the pool of Democrats had altered—but younger voters were the least likely to be friendly to the NSA programs, and older voters were the most likely. So out of the people who were Democrats at the time of both polls, the percentage who changed their views is probably greater, not less, than 27%.

Of course, the Republicans were hardly any better—they supported NSA programs by a three-to-one margin in the 2006 poll, and were almost evenly split on the issue by 2013. What we’re witnessing here, in both cases, is like some twisted game of Follow the Leader, and this issue is just one example of a general rule. In fact, a recent-ish study showed that ultimately, liberals and conservatives have basically the same view regarding authority: when it agrees with their side, it deserves to be obeyed; otherwise, no. That sort of explains why liberals are all right with Obama doing things they would have shrieked about if Bush had (extrajudicial assassination of an American citizen, for one) while conservatives who approved of all sorts of expensive programs under Bush scream about how Obama will bankrupt the country. It’s okay for our guy, but we’ll be damned if the other side gets away with it.

I think it should be pretty self-evident why this is both reprehensible and dangerous, but in case it’s not, let me explain it briefly: when approval of policies is based on liking the person doing them, approval for any given policy can be obtained by finding a likable enough person. In case you can’t see where this is going, I’ll spell it out: have you ever watched a speech by Adolf Hitler? I don’t speak a bit of German, but there’s absolutely no doubting that his charisma was unbelievably compelling. And, sure enough, plenty of people who probably harbored plenty of doubts about his vicious, genocidal policies went along with them because they had a convincing enough spokesman.

I think the instinct to abandon principles in order to be in agreement with people you like exists for pretty much everyone, myself included. The trick is just to teach yourself to overcome it, and realize that liking someone doesn’t mean agreeing with everything they do or believe. I like to think I’ve achieved that—if someone I respect says something I disagree with, I’m certainly interested to hear their argument, and I might end up changing my view if I find it convincing, but I don’t immediately begin rethinking the stance I’ve taken. The people who I’ve generally seen most successfully stay true to their principles rather than follow leaders tend to have a good deal in common—a sort of apathy toward what others think of them, a tendency to form close relationships with a small number of people, and a great passion for what they believe in. I suppose this makes sense—for those who are less likely to feel some close bond with another person, there’s less temptation to abandon their principles because there are fewer people whose opinions really matter to them; and, often, those they truly admire they can continue to admire in spite of disagreements.

There’s not really any big conclusion or solution to this post. Ultimately, the only thing I can do is to warn whoever might read this against allowing yourself to follow people instead of principles. If someone you like or admire gives their opinion on an issue, don’t just decide you agree with it because it’s easier than doing the research and coming up with your own opinion. That sounds like obvious advice, but I can only assume a lot of people aren’t following it—and I know I’ve been guilty of following the people I like instead of really thinking out my own positions, as just about everyone probably has. But, although it can be an easy mistake to make, it’s not always an easy one to fix.

Pound the War Drums

I didn’t watch President Obama’s speech about ISIS on September 10, but by the time I got around to reading the text of it online, I mostly knew what was in it. Not much of it is encouraging. I wrote about my concerns about our involvement with the situation in Iraq (and now Syria) before, and, based on Obama’s speech, just about everything that I was concerned might happen is now going to happen. If you’ve both read my previous blog entry on Iraq and watched/read the speech, you probably know what I’m talking about. But for those who don’t and might stumble across this blog post, and just for the sake of putting my thoughts out there in a more thorough manner now, let’s go through the speech and see just what is so concerning.

The whole speech, when examined closely, is pretty incoherent, and that’s particularly obvious with the opening remarks. Obama first talks about how successful our counterterrorism strategies have been since he took office, and how we’re safer as a country. In the long run, anyway, that’s pretty doubtful. The drone war Obama has presided over is certain to breed more anti-American hatred, and likely more terrorism. The fact that we’ve succeeded in damaging al-Qaeda and killing Osama bin Laden does nothing to keep new terrorists from emerging when we’ve bombed and killed numerous innocents in Yemen and Pakistan. Supporting the military dictatorship in Egypt probably doesn’t help our popularity, either; nor does standing up for Israel in the UN. So the idea that the counterterrorism strategy we’ve pursued in the last few years is actually making us safer, at least in the long run, is enormously doubtful.

Obama then segues to talking about ISIS, and how they threaten American interests and Americans. Of course, intelligence experts have pretty much all concurred that ISIS poses no immediate threat to the American homeland, which Obama even kind of admits later on (“we have not yet detected specific plotting against our homeland”).  As evidence, he largely cites the fact that ISIS leaders have threatened America—but that proves nothing. To grain credibility, ISIS desperately wants us to see them as a threat and despise them; the fact that they make threats doesn’t indicate those threats will actually be carried out successfully. Not to mention their threats have been largely because of our intervention already, which makes the case for greater intervention a little dubious.

After stating that we need to “degrade, and ultimately destroy” ISIS (good luck on that front), Obama begins laying out a plan. Not a very good one, though. The first part is expanded airstrikes that go beyond defense and into offense. There’s pretty broad agreement that airstrikes are not enough to destroy ISIS, as even John Kerry has said. So why, if ISIS is such a big threat to us, are we limiting ourselves to airstrikes? They’ve already beheaded American captives in retribution for our current airstrikes; are more bombings really the answer? Moreover, Obama states that he intends to expand this air campaign into Syria if necessary. But aside from being dangerous (flying over areas of war has this vague possibility of having your plane get shot down, not that there’s any recent event to remind everyone of that), without either UN approval or the Assad regime’s assent, airstrikes in Syria would be illegal under international law. Not that American violations of international law are exactly anything new.

The second part of this master plan is to “increase our support to forces fighting these terrorists on the ground.” This essentially translates into pouring more military advisers into Iraq and providing more arms to the “moderate” Syrian rebels. Neither of these are particularly good ideas, to say the least. Sending more military advisers into Iraq basically paves the way to sending in actual combat troops—a step which Obama has promised repeatedly not to take, but which, even if he keeps that promise, his successor might be less reluctant about, particularly if we already have American troops in Iraq in a “non-combat” role.

As for arming the Syrian rebels, this seems a particularly counterproductive move. Obama rules out cooperating with the Assad regime, but if ISIS is really so crucial to eliminate, why don’t we try to negotiate some kind of agreement—even a purely temporary one—between Assad and the “moderate” rebels like the Free Syrian Army? Neither of them wants ISIS to take Damascus, and the fact that Assad is still in power after years of civil war is a testament to his army’s abilities. So why continue to aid those who fight that army, diverting it from fighting ISIS, particularly when the arms we provide could end up falling into ISIS’ hands anyway?

Further, Obama doesn’t even mention Iran as a potential ally, despite the fact that it, too, has demonstrated its opposition to ISIS. If ISIS really poses such a threat, why aren’t we turning to regimes that, while terrible, obviously don’t pose a real threat to us? No one with any credibility thinks Iran or Syria poses a threat to the United States, so if ISIS is really such a grave threat, we should be eager to cooperate with them. The fact that we’re not raises some important questions about what our real motivations are here.

The third part of the Obama plan is to “draw on our substantial counterterrorism capabilities to prevent ISIL attacks. Working with our partners, we will redouble our efforts to cut off its funding; improve our intelligence; strengthen our defenses; counter its warped ideology; and stem the flow of foreign fighters into – and out of – the Middle East.” All of that sounds fine in theory, but none of it really lines up with reality. As previously stated, there’s no credible evidence that ISIS is planning an attack on American soil—if their goal is really to create an Islamic caliphate, it’s hard to imagine why we’d be among their biggest concerns. Of course, the likelihood of their attacking us is significantly higher if we directly involve ourselves in fighting a war against them. And if Obama thinks that waging its third war in Iraq in twenty-five years is the best way for the United States to win the hearts and minds of those who hate us, his understanding of the situation is impressively bad.

Part four is to continue providing humanitarian assistance to those in the region. Fair enough. The United States should provide humanitarian aid, and as I’ve said before, there’s no reason it shouldn’t be involved in some broader plan to deal with ISIS—but the rest of this plan is incredibly badly put together. It’s after laying all of this out that Obama asserts that he has the authority to do all of this without Congressional approval. This is perhaps the most troubling part of this speech—I’ve generally disagreed with Republicans and right-wingers when they talk about Obama being arrogant, but if any move in his presidency shows hubris, it’s this one. This is the president telling us that he’s going to involve the country in a conflict overseas that may, in the words of his own Secretary of State, “take a year…may take two years…may take three years.” And that he’s going to do so without even trying to get Congress’s approval. Even Bush got Congress’s approval before going to war in Iraq. I’ll let that speak for itself.

When I wrote my last blog post about Iraq, I had some grave concerns, but I didn’t expect things to get this much worse this quickly. This is essentially the president unilaterally declaring war, and putting forward a plan that is a recipe for a conflict that will drag on for years, endanger American lives, and probably do very little, if anything, to create a more stable situation in the Iraq-Syria region.  ISIS poses a threat to Iraq, Syria, and other Arab nations in the region—so let them fight their own war. Sure, ISIS should be wiped out, and if we can help protect innocent civilians, great—but this strategy isn’t likely to do much of either. Instead, it’ll probably gain ISIS street cred among other anti-American jihadist groups, and ensure that ISIS will be more than happy to kill Americans when it gets the opportunity.

There are a number of things about this whole situation that are deeply troubling. One is that the president has basically announced that we’re going to war—which he’s unilaterally decided—and instead of being different from the norm, like it used to be, that barely elicits a response. Another is that Obama seems to have prepackaged the War on Terror in a way that has convinced most liberals to at least acquiesce to it. The most disturbing thing, though, is that essentially we’re playing right into ISIS’ hands—they wanted to get a rise out of us, and they did. This is not a good time to be an American. This is not a good time to live on this planet at all. 

Note: Originally this blog stated that the Syrian rebels massacred Christians, 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.

Don't Boycott Burger King

For those who regularly follow online news outlets like the Huffington Post (as I do), you’ve probably seen something about how Burger King is buying Tim Hortons, making Burger King legally Canadian, and thus allowing it to dodge taxes in the US. Understandably, there’s a lot of outrage about that—some, including people I like, like economist Bruce Bartlett, have even called for a boycott. And at first, I was on board with that. There’s not too much doubt about the motive here—pure corporate greed. And, obviously, it is pretty bad if corporations can get out of paying their taxes but average Americans can’t. But, the more I thought about it, the less it seemed reasonable to try to force Burger King into paying its taxes.

For everyone who’s outraged by Burger King’s tax dodge, I understand how you feel, but ask yourself an important question: where would the tax money go? Into military aid for Israel, or aid for Egypt’s dictatorship, maybe? For developing expensive new weapons systems that help us fight the ongoing, bloody war in the Middle East? To subsidies for oil companies that help make sure we get involved in any conflict in any oil-rich country, no matter the cost to our security or the people of that country? To enforcing the fascistic War on Drugs that’s been going on for decades? The answer is yes, to all of those. That is what the US government would spend Burger King’s tax money on.

Now, of course, there are good things the government would spend it on, too—education, social welfare, developing greener energy—but, first off, that spending is pretty paltry compared to a lot of the things I just listed. But, more importantly, shouldn’t we draw a line in the sand somewhere when it comes what the government can fund and still deserve tax revenue? Let it put it this way—would you donate to a charity that happened to, on the side, buy guns and arm inner city gangs? No? Then why is our government deserving of taxpayer money when it funds the atrocities it does? In fact, given the choice between taking an easy step to avoid paying taxes or willingly paying them, it’s the second option that seems more morally questionable when you consider just what those taxes are used for.

Now, obviously, Burger King isn’t avoiding its taxes to make some bold political statement. It is, like I said, raw corporate greed. But how is that any different than normal? There are tons of companies that could pay their workers better, or charge their customers less, and stay in business, but choose not to because of corporate greed. Corporations are entities that are essentially designed to make a profit. And, really, if Burger King has decided to increase its profits by avoiding paying taxes to the US government, we should be happy they didn’t do something much worse, like cut their employees’ already-meager pay or charge more for their food, which is often bought by people who probably can’t afford a whole lot better. (That’s not to sound classist—I eat at Burger King, too, but you get the point.)

“But the money has to come from somewhere!” Yeah, sure. But why don’t we demand that that “somewhere” is from the Defense Department, or from corporate welfare, or from ending the War on Drugs? It’s not like there aren’t areas the government could afford to cut spending from. The several million dollars in taxes Burger King is avoiding will barely make a difference to the government, but even if it did, we know where to cut from. So why act like the government just has to go deeper in debt or raise taxes on everyone else? Sure, ideally the government should take those dollars going into military spending or imprisoning non-violent drug offenders and invest it elsewhere, so spending as a whole wouldn’t decrease—but when the government actually shows some sign it’s going to do that, that’s when it’s time to think about boycotting Burger King if it continues its tax avoidance.

Some points I want to be clear on: I’m not saying it’s good that Burger King has done this. Realistically, I think the impact won’t make much of a difference. And, yes, as long as the government is funding horrible things, it’s better if it gets the tax money to do so from rich corporations than from the middle class. I do support closing loopholes and creating taxes that prevent this sort of thing from happening. But my point is simply that, with our current government, paying taxes is not something that should be seen as praiseworthy. With an ideal government, it would be, but ours is not ideal. If I could easily avoid paying taxes to it without legal penalty, I’d do so in a heartbeat—not out of greed, but out of principle. If Burger King does the same, not out of principle but out of greed, I can’t condemn its action, just its greed—and its greed is not unique. Unless you want to boycott every greedy corporation (which is the vast majority of them), then boycotting Burger King is pointless. If there’s an organization to boycott, it’s the government—but good luck on that front.   

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.