Glenn Greenwald’s mysteries of logical reasoning
(1) Anyone who favors marijuana legalization just wants to get high without being hassled, and anyone who favors drug decriminalization generally is or wants to be a drug user.
(2) Anyone who opposes a return to alcohol prohibition is almost certainly an out-of-control drunk.
(3) Anyone who cares about gay marriage or advocates for equal rights for gay couples is a closet homosexual who just wants to have sex with people of the same gender. The only reason anyone would care about that issue is if one wants to have gay sex.
(4) Anyone who believes in free speech rights for Communists obviously opposes private property ownership and craves Stalinism. Anyone who believes in free assembly rights for neo-Nazis secretly admires Hitler.
(5) Anyone who believes abortion should be legal just wants to have reckless sex without consequences.
(6) Anyone who advocates habeas corpus rights for accused terrorists or who opposes torture harbors sympathy for Islamic extremism and approves of indiscriminate violence against civilians.
(7) Anyone who opposes unrestrained government surveillance must be doing bad things in private that they want to hide.
(8) Anyone who believes in the freedom to practice a certain religion is probably an adherent of that religion and is motivated by a desire to practice it without interference.
This Glenn Greenwald fellow sounds like a keeper! 🙂
Am with him on 1 and 2. Still don’t get the problem with 7. That’s just me. 🙂
No, wait, just looked up ‘prohibition’ and had it wrong. Don’t agree with 2. My bad! 🙂
Irony is lost on some people, LOLest.
1) Agree
2) prohibition just creates criminals… evryone who drinks now shall still drink. they shall just pay more, drink in the basement and get arrested for their indulgence.
3) Spot on… because HE is gay.
4) Anyone who blurs Communist Policy with Stalinism is a capitalist prick.
5) Glen should wake up female, get raped and pregnant by Masendeke then we see if he sticks by this opinion.
6) Debatable… until you’re innocent Ahab wrongfully detained for being “Arab-looking” in America.
7) If a government is in genuine public service then it should not fear the public. Unless of course…
8) Disagree – worship your little dolls, just dont try convert me.
Basically, all 8 are bullshit statements, products of warped blanket “reasoning” without analysis and consideration.
Greenwald’s point is that just because I demand that people have the right to march freely in the street, doesn’t mean I want to.
JB, that point was not obvious from that post. I thought the guy was serious. He IS American. And more often than not, Americans are frighteningly conservative.
Im lost…
Oh, me, me, I get it…!
He supports each of these issues, but, only on the basis of civil liberties, and not as an interested party to the issue!
Niiiiice one Beezy…
p.s. but screw you for suddenly getting intelligent after posting a series of brain-numbing bland Ruuurds topics.
Hmmm, it seemed to me it kinda was obvious. Hence the title “mysteries” of logical reasoning, because the reasoning isn’t logical at all, simply deductive.
For example, I don’t believe in God so I’m automatically a murderous cross-burning devil-worshipping bat-eating child-fucking heathen.
There are wierd types out there, thought GG was one of them; you know him being American and all…
We welcome back your return to form…
Actually, I regard Glenn Greenwald as one of the better minds of our time, and he’s a brilliant writer with a massive grasp on political and legal issues.
And, more importantly, common sense.
Actually, I used to hold that view, of America’s Great Unwashed, a bunch of Dumbericans blundering around the world with an M16 and a Coke.
It’s from reading people like Greenwald and Kos and Huffington (and Obama, nogal) when you realise there’s still hope.
Not big on contemporary literature, and less on
American literature – have only read Twain, Melville, Hemingway and, yes, Obama.
Would add Michael Moore to your list I think – talk about the coke-swigging unwashed look! Like his “Kill Whitey” essay.
Will look up the other three…
I’m not talking literature in the O-Level sense of the word. More like social / political commentary really. Besides, without access to Amazon or Kalahari, I prefer to read the short-form stuff, cos I’ve tried reading entire volumes of e-books and that shit don’t fly.
What about Jon Stewart. He seems alright. And funny! 🙂
Never read any of the aforementioned writers (but they all sound familiar). Probably never will unless they make a movie. They probably have Will lined up for Obama already. All he needs to do is lose a little weight (and add some prosthetic ears) and BAM! You got yourself an Obama.
Mos Nav, what were you thinking citing THOSE authors. Even I know they don’t fit in this. Idiot 🙂
But Jon Stewart is scripted though, remember THAT strike that paralysed all the shows. I can imagine he could hold his own in a conversation but I think you would need to thank the writers for the really good stuff.
Et tu Tara! 🙂
Let me defend myself;
All that classic “O” Level lit takes on a new dimension when you read the original unabridged versions later in life after one has lived a bit.
When one applies experience, those classic writings give you back some clarity on current events.
Platos Dialogues (BC) can clarify what any republic is going through right now, Fanon (1950s) gives one an understanding of the current political crises in SA and Zimbabwe (and most of the African continent), Keller’s “Catch 22” can sum up Americas current war efforts….etc…
Ive read contemporary political writing, mostly by SA residents, but also from some nutty Europeans and maybe a couple Americans; but what I find common is that all these guys merely apply classic political/social writings to current situations and crises. They cite and reference these old writings so much that most contemporary writing reads like a caricature of the real stuff.
I have decided, having a brain and all, to read those old writings and analyse contemporary events myself. If you go at it earnestly, you will find that after reading a piece by any contemporary writer, one can deduce who/what their influences are; and one can read these articles critically and not be easily or falsely led by misintepretation, pretence or agenda.
Point – classic old is contemporary.
On Jon Stewart … Tara, TV? The refuge of the unimaginative. But yes, Stewart is actually a genuinely funny guy. I assume Elle is talking about the Daily Show, which like any show relies on writers, but it seems Stewart writes most of his own stuff. Anyway.
Mos Native, I hereby propose you read The Iliad. All of it.
Way ahead of you Beezy, read The Illiad and The Odyssey – unabridged (in reverse order though) – been psyching up for War and Peace for about a year now…all 1400-odd pages…
And yes, I do have a life… well sort off 🙂
Mos Nav, defensive much? 🙂
And yes, T fucking V. Not the least bit ashamed (ish). It is my medium. I have a condition, still to be named, that means I prefer motion picture. Don’t get me wrong, I read. But nothing you’d wanna hear about. But great works none the less. Here’s something I read a few weeks ago. I may have got it recommended here. If so, sorry. But you get the idea.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/09/charlie-brooker
Below the belt Tara…
Ive read 1984,so up for some online what-what? 🙂
Where Ive been the last few years, women will look at you funny if you start talking books and stuff… unless you into over-fifties liberal white women…
So where yuo been Mos Nav?
Durban, now Cape Town…
actually, just remebered, met someone who was impressed, not at the book collection, but just simply that I (as a black, not-nerdy man) read.
Met her at The Cape Town Book Fair last year…hmmm…
Ooh. Hope you got her number! 🙂 She could be the one!
Focus Tara!
point is, against all odds in this what-car-do-you-drive/what-clubs-do-you-go-to/what-have-you-done-for-me-lately joint, I’ve actually met a lady who was impressed that a brotha flips pages.
p.s. my number is reserved for yah 🙂
That’s so sweet of you. And point taken!
8)
Get a room.
No way – you deleted my post
No I didn’t. Not my policy, you know that 🙂