The War On Bullshit

Recently, Barrack Obama argued that homophobia was unchristian. This is another one of these “New Stupid” things I’ve been talking about.

Here’s an analysis of anti-gay bible verses from the old and new testaments. It gives both pro- and anti-gay interpretations of each controversial verse. I think the anti-gay interpretations are clearly closer to the original meaning. A pro-gay interpretation of “You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; that is an abomination” is a bit of a stretch.

Homophobia is very Christian. Does that mean that homosexuality is immoral? NO. Christianity is immoral! Don’t believe me? Have you ever read the bible? Oh yeah, Jesus wanted everyone to love each other, but the old-testament God was a genocidal psychopath. Don’t believe me? Go READ the shit. And don’t give me any counter-arguments about those parts being wrong but the “basic teachings” being right. The basic teachings are just as crazy as the rest. To summarize:

Old Stupid Idea: Homosexuality is unnatural and ungodly because it says so in the bible
New Stupid Idea: Homophobia is unchristian
Intelligent Idea: Perhaps if the bible glorifies rape and murder, cheerleads for genocide, accepts slavery and demonizes women and homosexuals it’s a stupid book representing an immoral religion.

While I’m on the subject, I just finished reading Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope. One thing he brings up is the separation between supporting the troops and criticizing policy. I’ve dealt with this before. But let’s take it to a new level:

Old Stupid Idea: Criticizing the war is not supporting the troops, hence unpatriotic
New Stupid Idea: Criticizing war policies has nothing to do with the troops, hence not unpatriotic (Obama)
Intelligent Idea: What’s wrong with criticizing the military??? The military attracts all kinds of misfits and fuckheads!

Begin Tangential Rant.

And whether or not your darling son was one of the fuckheads before he got shot is irrelevant. I used to work at McDonald’s. You won’t hear my mother defending some idiot who works there just because I used to. Furthermore, if your son died while working for McDonald’s because General Ronald sent him to do something stupid and dangerous for no good goddamn reason, would you defend McDonald’s? NO! So why do you defend the military??? GET A CLUE.

End Tangential Rant.

Let’s review what we have on the US military to date. We’ve got rape and possibly murder of female soldiers by their male counterparts. We’ve got totally uncalled for cruelty to animals. We’ve got generally terrorizing kids and more specifically gang rape/murder of a 14-year old girl. Oh, and there’s been plenty of killing innocent people.

I could go on, but there’s already a comprehensive, well-cited list of atrocities and war crimes by american soldiers here.

So can we please drop this ban on criticizing the troops? And don’t give me any bullshit about them giving their lives for “our freedoms.” Message to Americans: in case you haven’t noticed, the people taking away your freedoms are not in Iraq, they’re in the White House.

In Obama’s defense, he may understand these points very well. He may simply be downplaying such controversial arguments for the very good reason that making them would not go over well with the (undereducated, brainwashed and delusional) voting public. It’s not like any of the other remaining candidates have this stuff figured out. I’m just saying, I hope it’s an act. The current US president is clearly part of the “Old Stupid” class. If the next president is part of the “New Stupid” class, he or she will just find new and exciting ways to fuck everything up.

Edit: I can’t help but throw in one more great reason to criticize the army: discrimination against atheists.

Further to last week’s list of 5 reasons not to trust the police (and the nazi-esque comments that ensued), I can’t help but provide a few more.

6. They can turn off the cameras. Apparently, if prisoners don’t cooperate, the police can turn off the security cameras before beating the living shit out of said prisoners. Take this woman in Louisiana, for instance, who’s denied her right to a phone call and a lawyer. The cop turns off the camera. Shortly thereafter the prisoner is on the floor in a pool of her own blood. She slipped, they say. Riiiiiight.

7. They can remove your clothes “for your own safety”. In this video, you can see 7 officers, male and female, pin a handcuffed woman to the floor of her cell and strip her naked. It wasn’t a strip search though, because male officers aren’t allowed to strip search a female prisoner. What the fuck is it then? If these weren’t cops in this video, they’d be on trial for attempted gang rape. I’m going to make this simple. If a gang of cops ever sexually assaulted my wife, girlfriend, sister, mother, etc, they’ll end up like this guy. Oh, and that woman in the video was left naked in her cell for six hours afterwards.

8. Your recourse to police misconduct is the totally screwed up legal system. Even in cases where the defendant gets the death penalty, cases where you would think the case is airtight, two thirds turned out to be screwed up in some serious way or other. Liebman’s study is just one indication of the increasingly screwed up legal systems in western countries. Good luck getting justice on anything, let alone police misconduct. Which brings me to:

9. Police treat tasers like water pistols. Seriously, the number of deaths by tasers is ridiculous. The taser is not a sensible weapon for police, as I’ve discussed before.

10. The Rampart Scandal. The Rampart Scandal proves two interesting things. 1) a conspiracy among a large number of police officers is possible (over 70 in this case). 2) Police are not punished for their crimes. Some of these motherfuckers SHOT people unprovoked. If I shoot someone, I go to jail. If a cop shoots someone, eh, he gets suspended.

Again, let me emphasize that there’s lots of good police officers out there. I’ve met several. But there’s also some real assholes. Therefore, it’s not wise to trust someone just because they’re in uniform.

Recently, a police officer has engaged me in a debate about whether police are justified in using Tasers on individuals who nonviolently refuse to cooperate. I think we all agree that anyone who attacks a police officer deserves the asskicking that follows (most of the time); however, the issue is murkier where the “perpetrator” gives no threat or indication of violence, but simply refuses to comply. The aforementioned police officer argued that police are totally justified in use of force were civilians are noncompliant; I disagree.

It seems a major assumption underlying this argument is whether or not John Q. Public should trust the police by default. A major tenant of the justice systems in western countries seems to be that the police are trustworthy. This is bullshit. Here are 5 good reasons civilians should not be expected to trust the police.

1. Rodney King. History speaks for itself. So do videos.

2. Legalized Entrapment. In New York, police leave purses with credit cards in them lying around and cart off to jail whoever picks them up whether or not he or she intended to return the purse intact.

3. “No-knock” warrants. Man hears someone break into his house. Man gets 18-month-old daughter down on the ground, hides behind bed. Man sees armed assailant break into bedroom, shoots and kills him in self defense. Assailant was actually officer who didn’t bother yelling “police!” upon busting in. Man is now on death row.

4. Extraordinary rendition. If the US government suspects that you might have information that could lead them to someone who might be a terrorist, they can kidnap you out of an airport, deport you to a secret location in another country and torture a false confession out of you. This is not a conspiracy theory: Washington has officially apologized to a Canadian citizen treated in this manner. Hello thought police.

5. Legal ignorance. Whether or not you support open carry laws, if the law says that you can walk around carrying a gun, the police should know that and not hassle you. In many places, you are not even required to give police identification but try telling an officer that.

Conclusion

Obviously, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t any good cops. All I’m saying is, at the group level, assuming that everyone should trust the police and always cooperate doesn’t make sense in the face of historical and current events. Why should I trust a group of people known for violating individual rights, not knowing the laws they’re supposed to uphold and inciting unnecessary violence?

Related Articles: 5 MORE Reasons Not To Trust the Police