New Atheist Spokesmen Look Like Jerks, Part One Million

Perhaps I would stop bashing the New Atheist movement if only they would stop giving me so many reasons to do so. Let's start out with some background: Ahmed Mohamed, a fourteen-year-old Muslim in Texas, brought a home-made digital clock to school to show a teacher. He was treated with suspicion, as faculty thought it might be a bomb, and ended up in handcuffs even after it was determined not to be, on the grounds that it was supposedly a hoax bomb. Since then, people from President Obama to Mark Zuckerberg to the folks at NASA have come to his defense.

For many like myself, Ahmed's arrest is a reminder of the unfair prejudices against anyone brown-skinned and/or Muslim in the United States. Predictably, other people have had different reactions. The ever-vapid Sarah Palin and her equally brainless spawn have both weighed in with predictably idiotic responses that are not worth anything more than a brief mention here. No, my purpose here is to focus on a couple people who should know better.

Ahmed Mohamed (LM Otero/AP)

First, Bill Maher. We'll give him some credit: he says Ahmed deserves an apology, which is worth something. That's overshadowed a bit by the fact that he absurdly claims this has nothing to do with skin color and then justifies profiling Muslims on the basis that young Muslims all over the world are "blowing shit up." Maher states that "for the last thirty years, it's been one culture that has been blowing shit up over and over again." That's right, it's just one, apparently. Nevermind the fact that right-wing terrorists have actually killed significantly more people than jihadists in the US since 9/11, the person in the last thirty years who killed the most people in the US by "blowing shit up" was Timothy McVeigh, a lapsed Catholic, and the US government has been pretty busy blowing shit up in the last thirty years, too. Maher conveniently ignores (or is unaware of) the fact that Ahmed was arrested after it was clear his clock was not a bomb. 

More heinouswas Richard Dawkins's response. For starters, Dawkins accuses Ahmed of fraud for claiming to have "invented" the clock when, according to Dawkins, he just reassembled it from already existing parts. 

If the reassembled components did something more than the original clock, that’s creative. If not, it looks like hoax http://t.co/bBcaWoJpbd

— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) September 20, 2015

. @smenor @MhaskarChief He didn't only claim to have built it. He claimed, on Youtube, that it was his INVENTION.

— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) September 20, 2015

He also insinuates that maybe Ahmed was trying to get arrested. Right. Because clearly a fourteen-year-old Muslim in Texas would just think "Hey, I bet if I bring a clock into school, they'll mistake it for a bomb, arrest me, and then a bunch of people will rally behind me." Really, who hasn't had that thought before?

He then caps it off with this absurd pseudo-apology:

Sorry if I go a bit over the top in my passion for truth. Not just over a boy's alleged "invention" but also media lies about J Corbyn.

— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) September 20, 2015

 Gee, humblebrag much? Since I've started writing this post, he's doubled down with tweets like this one:

Cool invention. Send this genius an invitation to the White House. Brilliant short film, says it all. https://t.co/I2015I6We0

— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) September 21, 2015

And then, ridiculously, commented:

I'm amazed ever & anew by how the Internet fosters escalating levels of vitriolic, vicious abuse we'd never dream of inflicting face to face

— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) September 21, 2015

This shows how thoroughly anti-Muslim animus permeates Dawkins's and Maher's minds, and is yet another illustration of how farcical the claims that they're not Islamophobic are. To be honest, I don't know how much I can actually say here because I don't know what needs to be said. Sadly, though, if you look at the responses to Dawkins's tweets and the comments on the articles I've linked, many of them are supportive of Maher and Dawkins.

On a positive note, not every voice in the New Atheist community echoed these gross sentiments. Popular YouTuber TheAmazingAtheist put out a video supportive of Ahmed and criticized Dawkins and Maher via Tumblr:

Indeed. It's pathetic to see people tripping over themselves to justify how Ahmed was treated, and particularly disgusting to see an esteemed evolutionary biologist make a spectacle out of himself by accusing a fourteen-year-old of fraud for calling a clock his invention, and insinuating that he actually wanted to be arrested (I'm sure that was such a great experience for him and his family). 

And since I brought up Maher, I'll take the opportunity to make a note here that I've wanted to for a while. Several times I've said good things about Bill Maher: I've stated that "I like Bill Maher" and that "he's smart, and funny" and "witty and eloquent." I take all of that back now, as I've wanted to for some time. Bill Maher now strikes me as nothing more than a loudmouth who voices his ugliest and most unenlightened opinions in the name of comedy and political incorrectness. He might think he's George Carlin, but the dirt under Carlin's fingernails was a better comedian than Maher. 

Perhaps a bit of good can come out of this, in that intelligent and decent people recognize the shamelessness of Maher and Dawkins and recoil from them in disgust. They've gotten away with petty, immature behavior for a long time, but for Dawkins in particular, this tops it all. Honestly, if this doesn't turn people off of Dawkins and Maher, I don't know what will. But I'm sure they'll find some way to sink to a new low. They always do. 

Why I Oppose the Death Penalty

After a long period of time during which it was disturbingly uncontroversial, capital punishment in America is once again becoming a high-level issue. Opposing the death penalty is one of the few issues that I've been consistent on throughout my young life, though my rationale has varied. There are certainly religious and moral arguments against capital punishment, but I'd like to lay out as rational a case as I think can be made against it.

The most convincing argument in favor of capital punishment, in my view, is deterrence--that by executing murderers, we will save innocent lives by deterring future murders. So why doesn't this argument hold up? For one thing, because there's no evidence that the death penalty does actually have a deterrent effect any greater than life imprisonment. But, in my view, even if the evidence were that such a deterrent effect did exist, capital punishment would still be unjustifiable. 

There are certainly circumstances we can come up with where killing a person would be uncontroversially justified, such as in defense of the life of an innocent. Obviously, it makes sense for the government--or agents thereof, such as the police--to have the authority to kill a person in a situation like that, as we would give that degree of authority even to a private citizen. In the case of capital punishment, though, we are talking about killing a person who often poses no threat to anyone else (given that they're being held in prison and can be held in solitary confinement if they pose a danger to fellow inmates) and may even be genuinely contrite for the crime they committed. Why should the government have the authority to kill a defenseless person? To give the government such a right is fundamentally totalitarian; there is, in fact, no more totalitarian power the government could have than to decide who lives and who dies. Even if the death penalty did save lives, that would not justify giving the government this power; should we give the government the power to detain anyone who even looks suspicious if that, too, saves lives? Perhaps we should start executing traffic offenders; after all, highway accidents take lives, and after one or two executions no one would dare to go one bit over the speed limit.

An anti-death penalty protestor at St. Louis University College 

Church (CNS/St. Louis Review/Lisa Johnston)

Secondly, in order to have a genuinely good society--that is, a society that secures to the greatest extent general well-being--certain values are important. Unlike many social conservatives, I certainly don't support punishing anyone who acts contrary to these values, but the government should at least abide by them. One important value, in my view, is to wish at least a minimal amount of well-being for each member of society, no matter how despicable they are. The United States is one of the only First World countries to still have the death penalty, and it also takes exceptionally bad care of its citizens compared to other First World countries. One of the other First World countries with the death penalty, Japan, has an unusually high suicide rate and serious cultural issues when it comes to respect of women. On the other hand, countries like Denmark and Norway, which consistently rank very highly in all regards, particularly human happiness, not only have no death penalty, but Norway doesn't even have life without parole for murderers. 

I'm not saying that it's because of the death penalty that the United States and Japan have such serious issues, and because of the lack of it that Norway and Denmark rank so highly, but rather that Norway and Denmark have done a better job than the US or Japan when it comes to embracing the idea that everyone should be entitled to some level of decency in their existence, even if they're despicable people--and that embracing this principle leaves one no choice but to eliminate the death penalty, as it runs contrary to that idea. One cannot systemically kill defenseless people and maintain respect for the idea that everyone should enjoy some minimal level of comfort.

But, again, there is no evidence for the idea that the death penalty is an effective deterrent, so while theoretically significant, these arguments aren't even necessary to argue against the death penalty. Once we've set aside the deterrence argument--for either its lack of factual support, the reasons I put forward, or for any other reason or combination of reasons--we begin to come to arguments that are much less convincing, in my view. One of those is that the punishment fits the crime. I think that this appeals to a particularly crude sort of morality. If we want to be different than murderers, and have any grounds from which to condemn them, we cannot embrace a punishment for the very reason that it's just like the sort of thing they would do. And we shouldn't base criminal justice off of some mere instinct about what criminals "deserve;" there are certainly actions that one could fairly argue deserve some kind of punishment--betraying a friend, deliberately spreading misinformation, saying things just to upset people--that getting the criminal justice system involved with would be absurd. 

Then we have the argument that we should kill murderers so we don't have to use taxpayer money to support them. This is particularly offensive to anyone with any sort of respect for human life, considering that it argues that sometimes saving money is worth killing people over. Furthermore, given the appeals involved when a person is sentenced to death, it's doubtful that capital punishment even does save money.

The worst argument that I've heard, though, is that murderers should just be viewed as undesirables and killed because we have no use for them. We may have little use for murderers, it's true, but it's pure totalitarianism to think that it's the job of the individual to be "useful" to society and that they can be disposed of if they fail to do the job.

It's important to keep in mind that people are the products of both genetic factors and personal circumstances. No one who has committed a murder is the same both genetically and in terms of personal circumstances as a normal, murder-abhorring person; they've either been dealt a bad hand genetically, environmentally, or both. This isn't to try to stir sympathy for murderers or claim that they aren't responsible for their actions, but rather to emphasize that the factors that lead someone to choose to murder another person are largely out of their own control, and that none of us can honestly say that if we had the same genetic code and personal history as a murderer, we wouldn't make the same decisions he or she did. 

And, crucially, we have to recognize that we, too, are murderers if we kill defenseless people. That we think the people we kill are despicable and deserving of death means nothing; those are the exact justifications many murderers have had for killing their victims. And, of course, if we are murderers, we are in no position to declare that murderers deserve death, unless we plan on mass suicide.

NOTE: This post was corrected from earlier version, which stated Denmark doesn't have life without parole for murderers; in fact, it does. 

Ten Myths About Socialism

Bernie Sanders
(Nigel Perry/New York Magazine)

Without a doubt, socialism is one of the most slandered ideologies in the United States. It's commonplace for people to accuse policies they don't like of being socialist when it's clear that they don't even know what the term means. Now that Bernie Sanders, a self-described socialist, is running for president and even gaining on Hillary Clinton in the polls for the Democratic primary, it's as good a time as any to dispel some common myths about socialism. In no particular order, here are ten commonly believed "facts" about socialism that just aren't true.

Redistribution of wealth is socialism.
While socialism does necessitate redistribution of wealth, given that it's about putting resources into common ownership, by no means does that mean that any and all redistribution of wealth is socialist. The main idea behind socialism is that the people as a whole, rather than a small elite, should own and democratically manage the resources within a society, so it's inaccurate to describe a system as socialist just because it attempts to redistribute wealth. In the 1930's, the prominent populist Huey Long was planning to run for president (before he was shot) with a plan he called "Share Our Wealth," which proposed a one hundred percent tax rate on top earners. Socialists like Norman Thomas (the perennial candidate for the Socialist Party) attacked Huey Long's program, because Long claimed it would make socialism unnecessary. So just because someone wants to redistribute wealth by no means makes them a socialist.

Socialism is a big government ideology.
Despite the talk about "big-government socialism," as if socialism and big government go hand in hand, socialists' attitude toward the government is widely varied. Some want to get rid of it altogether (most anarchists, in fact, are socialists). Karl Marx, probably the most famous socialist in history and the man whose name is basically synonymous with socialism in many places, had a complex attitude toward the government, wanting to democratize it and eliminate some of its coercive elements (such as a standing army) so it could be used as a tool to transform society, but believing after that transformation was complete, the government would be obsolete, leading to a stateless society. Other socialists take a less radical approach, such as Bernie Sanders, who believes in making the government more democratic and less corporate-influenced, and expanding social welfare programs. While this does mean the government is "bigger" in some sense, Sanders (and many other socialists) also support eliminating programs like the NSA surveillance dragnet, because they see them as intrusive on individual rights. So even socialists who support the government running social welfare programs don't see "big government" as being some worthy goal, they simply think the government can do some good if it adopts the right approach.

Socialism is atheistic and/or anti-religion.
While some socialists, such as Marx, hold a negative view of religion, others are religious themselves; Norman Thomas, the Socialist Party of America's six-time presidential candidate, was also a Presbyterian minister. In fact, enough socialists have been Christian that Christian socialism is recognized as its own branch of socialism. There are other religious branches as well, such as Islamic socialism and Buddhist socialism. For many socialists, far from being opposed to it, religion is the justification for their socialism.

Only cranks and nutjobs support socialism. 
The right wing in particular would like to give people the impression that if you support socialism, you're either crazy, jealous of rich people, or some leech who won't go out and get a job. The facts don't support this. Not only are socialist parties exceedingly common in other countries, often as major parties (just look at this list of political parties that are members of Socialist International), widely admired historical figures like George Orwell and Martin Luther King, Jr. voiced support for socialist policies.

Socialism is un-American 
This idea is barely worth addressing, since un-American is basically just an epithet to be used against anything one doesn't like. But it's pretty hard to maintain that socialism could be un-American when one looks at all the Americans who have been socialists. Along with King--whom we have a national holiday for--there's Francis Bellamy, who wrote the Pledge of Allegiance; there's Helen Keller, who has been featured on a postage stamp and the Alabama state quarter; and, while Thomas Paine, whose pamphlet "Common Sense" helped start the American Revolution, didn't identify himself as a socialist (the term didn't really even exist while he was alive), he seems pretty socialist when you look at his actual ideas.

Socialism is based on "from each according to ability, to each according to need"
While this is more reasonable than many other myths about socialism, it's also wrong. The key tenet of socialism is that the people as a whole should democratically control the resources of society, rather than a capitalist class. Communism, as Marx promoted, operates on the principle of "from each according to ability, to each according to need" and while communism is certainly one form of socialism, it's by no means the only one; other systems reward people based on the amount of work they've done, and socialism like Bernie Sanders espouses mostly just aims to ensure everyone gets enough to have a decent living standard and not have to live in poverty.
 
Socialism doesn't work.
Bernie Sanders's brand of socialism, social democracy, is currently the system of the Nordic countries, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland, which are all countries that are ranked as having some of the highest standards of living on Earth. As for the more radical varieties of socialism, while they haven't been given too many opportunities to prove themselves, they've generally performed admirably. Take, for instance, during the Spanish revolution, when many areas were controlled by anarchists and socialists; rather than everyone becoming lazy, as is supposed to happen under socialism, productivity went up significantly, and, rather than collapsing by themselves, these areas had to be conquered by force in order to end the successful socialist experiment.

Socialism is undemocratic.
While I've heard plenty of people contrast democracy and socialism, and libertarian capitalist guru Milton Friedman claimed that capitalism was a necessary prerequisite for democracy, the idea of socialism as being incompatible with democracy is the literal opposite of the truth. Rather, socialism is based on subjecting the resources within society to democratic control, meaning it is an extension of democracy. In fact, without at least some degree of public control of a society's resources, any democracy would have to be considered incomplete. After all, it's of limited importance who we elect if they're not even able to ensure we have the necessary resources to live a decent life.

Communist countries represent socialism in action.
Despite the fact that, of course, Communist countries claim to be socialist, actual socialists tend to disagree. George Orwell, for instance, commented that "Since 1930 I had seen little evidence that the USSR was progressing towards anything that one could truly call Socialism." Noam Chomsky agrees with this critique, calling the idea of the Soviet Union as being socialist a "mammoth lie." In Communist countries, the state runs the economy, but this doesn't equate to socialism. As Friedrich Engels notes, "if [any state ownership] is socialistic, then Napoleon and Metternich must be numbered among the founders of Socialism." While Communist countries openly proclaim themselves to be socialist, they also claim to democratic and run for the benefit of the people, which are claims that we all can agree are false. The claims of the USSR (back when it existed) and other countries in its mold of being socialist are about as honest as the routine claims made by the US government that it's spreading democracy and freedom across the world.

And for the final myth:

President Obama is a socialist.
While I haven't heard it so much recently (though I don't doubt it's still routinely claimed in certain circles), it used to be popular among right-wingers to call Obama a socialist. This is pretty reminiscent of the situation in France that Karl Marx wrote about in this passage: 

Whether it was a question of the right of petition or the tax on wine, freedom of the press or free trade, the clubs or the municipal charter, protection of personal liberty or regulation of the state budget, the watchword constantly recurs, the theme remains always the same, the verdict is ever ready and invariably reads: "Socialism!" Even bourgeois liberalism is declared socialistic, bourgeois enlightenment socialistic, bourgeois financial reform socialistic. It was socialistic to build a railway where a canal already existed, and it was socialistic to defend oneself with a cane when one was attacked with a rapier. 

Norman Thomas said about the allegations of socialism against FDR: "there is nothing Socialist about trying to regulate or reform Wall Street...There is nothing Socialist about trying to break up great holding companies...There is no socialism at all about taking over all the banks which fell in Uncle Sam's lap, putting them on their feet again, and turning them back to the bankers to see if they can bring them once more to ruin." And Obama is no FDR. Probably the most liberal piece of major legislation he's signed, his healthcare law, keeps in place private health insurance companies and gives them taxpayer dollars to do the job they should have already been doing--providing health insurance. While it's nonetheless an improvement on the previous system, it's far from socialism, just like everything else he's done. In fact, he's avoided anything even remotely socialist even when the opportunity was ripe; he came in when we were facing an economic meltdown, and the economy is still as privately controlled as ever.

I will emphasize, in closing, that this is not a complete list. More lies and nonsense have been spread about socialism than almost any other ideology in America, and it would likely take an entire book to cover them all. But these are some of the biggest and most pervasive myths about socialism that I've heard, and while I'm no position to single-handedly erase them from the public consciousness, hopefully this post can do some small amount of good in that area.

The GOP Debate: A Spectacle of Depravity

Scott Olson/Getty Images

The first Republican debate of the primary season, held several days ago, illustrates very well why I barely bother to address the right wing in America. The utter detachment from reality that's increasingly happened among so-called conservatives in America and particularly within the Republican Party is so self-evident (or at least should be) that commenting on it feels superfluous. Accordingly, I'll simply be presenting here, in no particular order, several moments or aspects of the debate that illustrate how thoroughly, and disturbingly, the right wing in America has removed itself from rationality, sanity, and human decency. I won't bother to comment on each of the listed items one by one--they speak for themselves.

• Ted Cruz wants a president like Egypt's dictator. Ted Cruz openly praised the "courage" of Egypt's al-Sisi, whose regime has massacred protestors, detained political opponents, and received harsh criticism from  human rights agencies. Cruz applauded him for "call[ing] out" radical Islam. 

• Mike Huckabee's comments on the military. Mike Huckabee informed us that the purpose of the military is to "kill people and break things." Therefore, in his view, the military should not offer sex-change operations to those in its service. Presumably, he also opposes lifting the ban on transgender people in the military, as that was what he was actually asked about. 

• Scott Walker opposes a mother's life exception for abortion. Scott Walker, one of the more supposedly mainstream candidates, stated that he believes abortion should be illegal in all cases, including when the mother's life is at risk. He called this "a position that's in line with everyday America," despite Megyn Kelly having just stated that eighty-three percent of the American public disagrees with this view.

• Basically everything Donald Trump said and did. Donald Trump boasted about how he'd bought off politicians, expanded on his idea that the Mexican government is actually sending their undesirables here so we can take care of them, called political correctness the "big problem" in the United States, and lashed out at Megyn Kelly for asking him about disparaging comments he'd made about women. 

• Ted Cruz's solution to ISIS. Ted Cruz rejected the idea that jihadism can be combated through "chang[ing] the conditions on the ground so that young men are not in poverty and susceptible to radicalization" as "nonsense." His proposed solution was to make it clear that by taking up jihad against America "you are signing your death warrant." He did not address the fact that jihadists undertake suicide attacks (such as the 9/11 attacks) seemingly unfazed by the prospect of their own mortality. 

• Huckabee wants fertilized eggs to have constitutional rights. Mike Huckabee stated that a sperm and egg become a person entitled to constitutional rights "at the moment of conception." He followed this remark up by commenting that, because the Supreme Court isn't God, the policy set by Roe v. Wade should be changed, presumably unilaterally by the executive branch. 

• Walker attempts to tie Iran and ISIS. Scott Walker commented that the Iran deal that was recently finalized is "not just bad with Iran, this is bad with ISIS. It is tied together." Evidently, he sees some connection between the Shia regime and the radical Sunni militia it's actively fighting against, alongside the United States. 

• Jeb Bush accuses Obama and Clinton of dividing the country every day. Jeb Bush stated that "[w]e’re not going [to] win by doing what Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton do each and every day. Dividing the country. Saying, creating a grievance kind of environment." 

• Bush blames Obama for ISIS. While calling the the invasion of Iraq a "mistake," Bush also blamed Obama for creating ISIS when he "abandoned Iraq" by following the withdrawal timeline agreed to by Jeb's brother, George W. Bush. 

• Chris Christie attacks Rand Paul. Because of Paul's opposition to bulk collection of phone records by the NSA, Christie stated that he believes we can assign blame to Paul for future terrorist attacks. He also accused Paul of "putting our country at risk" by delaying the renewal of the PATRIOT Act. 

As I stated, each of these items speaks for itself. Frighteningly, Jeb Bush--the brother (not just by blood but by ideology) of the most right-wing president in recent history--came off as a voice of reason compared to many other candidates. John Kasich, the governor of my home state (whose legacy includes attempted union-busting and disenfranchisement of minorities), seemed like a warm-hearted humanitarian. From Trump, Huckabee, and Cruz, there was very much a feeling (in my opinion) of them having tapped into widespread popular discontent and attempting to harness it in very ugly ways, disturbingly reminiscent of fascist movements both in the past and present.

For purely entertainment value, the debate ranks highly. As a look at the high-level candidates vying for the highest office in the most powerful country on Earth, it's surreal in how unnerving it is. The Republican Party has abandoned any resemblance to a normal political party functioning within a parliamentary democracy. One can only hope it's sown the seeds of its own downfall.

A Response to Allen Clifton on Islam

I've written a few posts addressing articles written by Allen Clifton, where I criticized him for basically being a Democratic Party mouthpiece. Here's another rebuttal to one of his articles, but this time with a new twist: this time, I'm criticizing him for spouting right-wing/New Atheist talking points about Islam. That's right, the one area that Allen Clifton chooses to deviate from mainstream liberalism in regards to is Islam, where he's defended Bill Maher's error-filled attacks on the religion and praised that Islamophobe par excellence Sam Harris. To make things better, Allen Clifton is a Christian, which just plasters on another layer of hypocrisy (given the various awful things done in the name of Christianity, including quite recently) to this screed about the problems of Islam. 

Amusingly enough, he chose to call this article "I'm Simply Running Out of Ways to Defend Islam," which says little seeing as I've never seen Allen Clifton defend Islam. It would be a little like if I wrote a blog post called "I'm Simply Running Out of Ways to Defend Capitalism," for instance. His article is to a significant extent a rehash of a piece he wrote after the Charlie Hebdo attacks, which had the exact same title minus one word. I didn't bother responding to that one because I already had my hands full when it came to stupid reactions to the shootings, but this time around Clifton's piece has the good fortune of being one of the first reactions to the recent Chattanooga shooting that I stumbled upon.

Clifton begins:

As I sit here overwhelmed with feelings of frustration and sorrow following yet another tragic shooting in this country, there aren't words to describe my disgust. I refuse to believe that this is the "new normal" for us here in the United States, but it's also hard to deny that these shootings now seem to be happening more frequently.

I'm not sure who's asking him to accept regular mass shootings as the new normal, but aside from that, fair enough. He goes on, "One of the most frustrating aspects of this attack is, yet again, it was perpetrated by an Islamic radical." Frustrating, yes, but largely because it will inevitably lead to articles like this one. That's not to be insensitive to the victims; what happened was, of course, tragic. But my thought upon hearing that the shooter was Muslim was basically that, inevitably, we would just have to hear more of the sort of nonsense Clifton produces in this article.

Clifton goes on to quote from his Facebook post after the shooting, "At some point we have to come to the realization that Islam is a problem. It’s not a coincidence that the vast majority of terrorist attacks committed in the world are done by Islamic extremists." This statement is accurate, at least in terms of fatalities from terrorist attacks, if one only considers non-state terrorism. However, if Allen Clifton wants to actually focus on terrorism as a whole, he'd be well-advised to consider, for instance, Israel's massacre in Gaza a year ago that killed around 1,500 civilians, the drone war the US has engaged in (and whose civilian casualties the government has deliberately obscured), and, of course, the worst war crime of the century thus far, the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the US and UK. According to a joint study done by Physicians for Social Responsibility, Physicians for Global Survival, and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War--highly accredited groups--the US-led War on Terror has left a body count of 1.3 million in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. So, in short, the biggest terrorist threat does not come from the Muslim world.

As for the Islamic extremists Clifton has mentioned, their origin is a little more complicated than some sort of inherent problem in Islam. Rather, they often draw from Wahhabism, a radical (or, more accurately, ultraconservative) form of Islam popularized by Saudi Arabia--a close US ally whose regime we've supported for decades. Then, of course, there was the decision under the Reagan administration to arm the Mujahideen--Muslim fanatics--and organize them to fight the USSR in Afghanistan. Throw in a few more instances of Western interventionism and it becomes a bit easier to see how we got where we are. This isn't to gratuitously blame the West or the US, as Sam Harris might think, or to deny that any other factors came into play. But if Allen Clifton, an American Christian, is going to criticize Islam and talk about Islamic fanatics, he might as well understand how others of his ilk helped create this problem; in the words of his savior, to "first take the plank out of [his] own eye [so as to] see clearly to remove the speck from [his] brother's."

Continuing on in Clifton's diatribe:

I’ll use the South Carolina shooting as an example. While you can’t blame all white people for the act of one vile animal, you also can’t deny that racism is still a very real problem. Well, the same goes with this shooting. While not all Muslims are to be blamed for yet another terrorist attack seemingly carried out in the name of Islam, you also can’t deny that Islam, and the increasing (and growing) radical aspects of it, are very real problems.

This is a profoundly stupid comparison. Saying that racism is a problem does not in any way indict white people who aren't racist; saying Islam is a problem by definition indicts Muslims, given that it's saying that their religion itself is a problem. Being non-religious, and not particularly fond of religion, I'm fine with the idea that Islam is, in some respects, a problem; but it's certainly not fair to try to connect the religion of over a billion people who often overwhelmingly reject this type of violence with the actions of a minority. If, for instance, we were to say that Christianity is a problem given Bush's indication that he invaded Iraq under God's direction and top general William G. Boykin's explicit use of religion to justify the War on Terror, Allen Clifton would probably object, and fairly so.

As badly as I want to stand in the face of some right-wing radical who’s proclaiming that Islam is a violent, hateful religion and tell them that they’re an idiot and nothing but an ignorant jackass – I don’t know if I can say that and still honestly mean it. I used to – without hesitation. I’ve always stood against prejudice, bigotry and intolerance. But with the increasing violence in the Middle East (at the hands of Islamic radicals), Boko Haram slaughtering innocents seemingly every day all across Africa and the increasing number of “lone wolf” attacks we’re seeing carried out throughout the world – how can I honestly sit here, as someone who believes in facts over emotion, and continue to say Islam has nothing to do with it?

This is just another false dichotomy concocted by New Atheists and other Islam-bashers. There's a difference between claiming that something has "nothing to do" with Islam and not pretending that it's representative of Islam as a whole. Certainly, we can say that while Bush and Boykin's actions don't have "nothing to do" with Christianity, they don't represent Christianity as whole; likewise, while the actions of Islamic extremists don't have "nothing to do" with Islam, that doesn't mean that Islam itself (as if it were some monolithic entity) is the problem.

Clifton goes on, "The world is filled with various religions, and some people do in fact carry out horrific acts in the name of religions other than Islam. But it’s undeniable that the vast majority of terrorist attacks - for decades - have been linked to Islam." Again, wrong. Going back decades just allows us to find even more examples of non-Muslim terrorism, such as the Reagan administration's treatment of Central America.

So, what’s the “solution”? To be honest, I’m not sure if there is one. The only thing I can think of is Muslim leaders, and non-violent Muslims around the world (hundreds of millions of them), are going to have to start taking a bigger stand against these attacks. Simply condemning them publicly isn’t working, nor is it enough. (!) We need Muslim nations to take the lead against radical Islam – but they’re not doing that. At least not in ways that are making much of a difference.

The "us-and-them" mentality of this paragraph is so strong it's completely absurd. Clifton writes as if Muslims are all some interrelated group, and aren't largely people with their own lives to live. How would Clifton feel, one wonders, if someone told him he needed to counter Christian acts of violence in some way that goes beyond "condemning them publicly"?

And, of course, unsurprisingly, Clifton misses completely the fact that there are a lot of things the United States could do to curb the spread of radical Islam, such as no longer supporting Saudi Arabia, ending the drone war and other policies that destabilize the Middle East, and not backing Israel's aggressions toward Muslim countries and populations.

Muslims have to want – and demand – actual democracy. They have to build nations not ruled by the Quran, but by basic human decency toward everyone regardless of gender, religion or sexual orientation. As long as Muslims continue to flock toward nations founded, built and driven by Islamic rule – none of this is going to stop. Sadly, far too many continue to do just that.

Yes, of course. Muslims just don't want democracy enough. It's not that we've deliberately intervened to prevent democracy in Muslim countries or supported oppressive, dictatorial regimes, it's just that those darn Muslims don't seem to want real democracy. They've really got some soul-searching to do.

And we finish off with:

Before you start calling me anti-Muslim, just understand that I’ve reached a point where I really don’t know where to go or what to say anymore about this subject. It’s hard for me to keep saying “it’s not Islam, it’s just the bad guys” when these sorts of attacks are becoming more and more frequent and are almost always tied to the same religion. When I see videos of hostages being beheaded by ISIL, hear about 145 people killed (including 132 children) in a Pakistan school suicide bombing, read about hostages being murdered in Australia, a satire newspaper where writers were brutally gunned down because of a couple of cartoons, 28 people dying in Tunisia, the continued acts of violence all throughout the Middle East and the countless atrocities carried out by Boko Haram in Africa – all in the name of the same religion – how can I keep defending it from those who spew hatred toward it? I want to, I really do – I’m just not sure if I know how to do it anymore.

If you honestly don't understand how to defend a religion whose adherents widely oppose this sort of violence, you're probably too stupid to be helped. Clifton also conveniently neglects to mention that, by and large, the victims of Islamist terrorism are, in fact, Muslims. And what a good service to the memory of those victims it is to trash their religion and blame it for the very terrorism that killed them!

To reiterate, I have no problem with criticisms of Islam, but criticisms have to actually make sense to have any value, and Clifton's doesn't. It patently doesn't make sense to blame an entire religion for the violence of some of its members when that same violence is condemned by many others--strong majorities in many countries, even.

It's bad enough when atheists spout these absurd criticisms of Islam, but the fact that Clifton doesn't see the hypocrisy in doing it as a Christian is truly ridiculous, given the similar violence done in the name of Christianity (and, of course, the fact that you wouldn't have to look too hard in the Bible to find justifications for that sort of violence). But it's not exactly surprising, given his obvious and blinding ignorance on the topic of Islamic extremism. Truly, whether he's spouting anti-Muslim propaganda or just parroting the Democratic Party line, Allen Clifton brings the same level of insight to all that he discusses.

Thoughts on the 2016 Election

I know it's still early, but clearly the frenzy surrounding the 2016 presidential election has already started. First, I'll briefly note that I think it's ridiculous that election season for the highest office in the country really lasts this long, and I'll also point out how that's true in no other developed country in the world. US presidential campaigns are absurd, overlong circuses that we've become accustomed to because a lot of us don't know any better.

With that out of the way, since election season has started whether I like it or not, I'll go ahead and make some observations so far. We'll start with the Democratic side. We have, firstly (and most prominently), Hillary Clinton. I've pretty thoroughly detailed why I don't like her, and nothing has changed since then to make me like her any better. We've heard some economic populist sort of rhetoric from her, but, unfortunately, there's no reason to believe it's anything but rhetoric. Her record is not that of economic populist, it's that of a corporatist. In the speech launching her campaign, she cited her husband, Bill Clinton and President Obama as good examples of presidents who carried on the legacy of the New Deal and helped create an economy that worked for the middle class. This ignores the fact that the top one percent's share of the national income spiked under Bill Clinton, he repealed New Deal legislation (probably helping to lead to the financial crisis in 2009), and signed a welfare "reform" bill that essentially shredded the social safety net. As for Obama, I've already covered that.

So as I predicted, Hillary 2016 does, in fact, suck. But, interestingly, she has a competitor that has surged in some polls, and may prove more troublesome to her than originally expected. That competitor is, of course, Bernie Sanders, the self-described democratic socialist senator from Vermont. While I still have my disagreements with Sanders, he's certainly far preferable to Clinton, and does offer a platform that, if enacted, would take some major steps in the right direction, in terms of economic policy, social policy, and foreign policy.

Predictably, the shills for the Democratic Party mainstream (Allen Clifton, for instance) have offered up a thousand reasons why the Democrats should nominate Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders, and even implied he shouldn't be running. Supposedly, he'll weaken Hillary Clinton and make a Republican victory more likely (just like how the fiercely competitive 2008 primaries left Barack Obama weakened and allowed John McCain to win the election, unless I'm remembering that wrong). To them, Hillary's nomination is inevitable--and, to be honest, I still think it's what will happen in all likelihood. But it isn't inevitable, and no one should settle for a candidate like Hillary Clinton, for all the reasons I (along with many more prominent people) have pointed out.

"But he could never win the general election!" Well, yes, he could, if enough people voted for him. Again, I consider Sanders a longshot for the Democratic nomination, but if he manages to win that, it hardly seems impossible that he could win the general election. He does describe himself as a socialist, as noted, but 1.) almost half of Americans say they would be willing to vote for a socialist for president, and 2.) much of Bernie Sanders's platform is widely popular, given the general sentiment that the middle class are being screwed over as Wall Street rakes in huge profits, meaning that some who might have first been unwilling to vote for a socialist could be swayed once they understand what Sanders's socialism actually entails (which is to say, basically the social democratic policies of the Nordic countries).

"But even if he won, he couldn't get anywhere with Congress!" How far has Obama gotten with Congress? Unless the Democrats have majorities in both houses (and probably only if they have a 60+ supermajority in the Senate), no Democrat will be able to get much done. The president has far more power than many people realize, given his ability to take unilateral actions in terms of foreign policy, choose how to enforce the laws, and make appointments to various positions. Were Sanders to get elected, he would almost certainly not be able to do everything he's proposed, but he would still make a far better president than Clinton.

There are a few other candidates for the Democratic nomination, but they're honestly so low-profile that I haven't looked too closely at them, so I'll skip over them. We can then move onto the Republican field which is, well, a total mess. The last number I heard was thirteen candidates, and that's likely to keep going up. They usually include at least fifteen in the polls. There's really not a clear frontrunner, either. If I had to guess, I'd say the nomination will probably go to Jeb Bush or Scott Walker, both of whom are completely terrible. The others aren't much better, with the exception of Rand Paul, who, as I've noted, says some decent things on some issues, but is still pretty awful on a number of other issues.

Mostly, the Republican field is so big and includes so many absurd candidates (Santorum again, Trump for real this time, Jindal, Huckabee) that it promises to be entertaining, though sadly there won't be anywhere near as many debates as there were last time. I don't have much to offer in terms of serious thoughts on the field, other than that it seems to indicate a total disarray and chaos within the Republican Party itself, which is nothing new. Whoever they end up nominating, it will very likely be another right-wing authoritarian corporatist who would ramp up the "national security" state, the war on drugs, and military interventionism.

I will note a serious concern that I have, though. ISIS, even though we haven't been hearing too much about it recently, is still very much a serious issue, and not about to disappear. It seems hard to fathom that it will be gone by that the next president takes office, assuming we continue our strategy of refusing to partner with Iran and Syria in the fight against ISIS and supporting Saudi Arabia as it fights against militants in Yemen who are also engaged in the fight against ISIS. If Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, or Scott Walker get elected, there is real reason to fear that our intervention there will escalate and Iraq War III will go full-blown. We do have the opportunity to make a meaningful choice in this election. And the impact could be enormous.

We're Not So Bad

For all the differences between the devoutly religious and Ayn Rand-type social Darwinists, they seem to have a certain narrative in common: that human nature is selfish, unsympathetic, and downright cold. For the capitalist social Darwinists, this is the justification for sweeping away all sorts of social welfare programs and having an every-man-for-himself style free market--it's only natural, after all. For the fervently religious, it's why people need some kind of divinely sanctioned morality to live by, lest they succumb to their sinister inner nature and care only about themselves.

It's not just these two groups that have this conception, either; the popular consensus really does seem to be that human nature is pretty brutal. For liberals, it's why we need economic regulations. For conservatives, it's why we need to be tough on crime and value deterrence over rehabilitation. Even I've put out a couple blog posts that paint a less-than-glowing image of human nature.

And it's not that this conception is entirely wrong; sure, people can be selfish, cold, brutal, and downright monstrous. We see examples of that all the time in the news, from ISIS to Israel-Palestine to the chilling dispassion of those running large corporations to the lives of their workers and customers. But what we overlook is that we also see people working together for their mutual benefit, and even going out of their way to help others, on a daily basis. Often it's something small--holding the door for another person or letting them switch lanes in front of you in a traffic jam. But it's not insignificant.

And, although I've used the term "social Darwinist," it's really not quite appropriate seeing that Darwin himself called the human capacity for sympathy toward others "the noblest part of our nature." Zoologist and evolutionary theorist Peter Kropotkin also argued that mutual aid is the most important factor in evolution:

Peter Kropotkin (from Wikimedia)

"There is an immense amount of warfare and extermination going on amidst various species; there is, at the same time, as much, or perhaps even more, of mutual support, mutual aid, and mutual defense...Sociability is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle."

So it's not just some idealistic idea that the human species has a natural capacity for cooperating and sympathy with one another; rather, those things really are every bit as natural as competition and cruelty.

And, for that matter, people as a general rule do better for themselves when cooperating, rather than competing. That's why workers form unions and businesses form cartels--in each case, they understand it's better to cooperate with each other than to compete. Certainly, competition can drive people to do better; but cooperation actually enables them to do better.

The growing gap between the rich and everyone else can be traced, ultimately, to the fact that it's gotten increasingly easy for the rich to cooperate for their benefit and increasingly hard for everyone else to do so: while banks are allowed to become "too big to fail" and corporate lobbyists often find friends in Congress willing to make a deal with them, workers are forced to compete with each other for jobs without the benefits that unions used to offer. It isn't that the rich have simply come out on top through some grand competition; rather, they've stayed ahead by working together, while everyone else has had to compete with each other.

The point of all of this is that people do cooperate completely of their own accord all the time; so, no, the Hobbesian war of all against all is really not something that happens in real life, under normal circumstances. So the people who want to model the economy on that should understand that what they're proposing is not "natural" anymore than our current economy, or an entirely socialist economy, or any other. The people who are sure that without religion or morality we would all be murdering each other in the streets should ask themselves why, then, there are so many instances of people cooperating for their mutual benefit when morality and religion didn't come into play; or, for that matter, why there are so many examples of altruism among animals when they presumably have neither, at least in the human understanding of the words.

We do have the capacity to establish societies based on cooperation and mutual aid, rather than competition; they are not doomed to fail based on human nature, as so many have asserted. We also have the capacity to continue on our current course, where the few cooperate and the many compete, for the benefit of the former and detriment of the latter. Cooperation will continue either way; but who it will benefit is to be seen. The choice is ours.