The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘Vain in Their Imaginations’
God-Haters and the Tucson Massacre

Posted on | January 12, 2011 | 24 Comments

Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools . . .
— Romans 1:21-22 (KJV)

Vox Day quoted from that famous passage in describing the auto-beclownment of University of Minnesota biology professor Paul Z. Myers — a self-proclaimed “godless liberal” — who like a lot of other godless liberals was utterly wrong about the Tucson shooting:

“The scumbag who committed this crime has been caught; I’ll bet he’ll turn out to be a Teabagger who listens to a lot of AM talk radio.”

Professor Myers went on to call Sarah Palin “a vile creature” and accused her of ” inciting the deranged a–holes who follow her.” When called out for his malicious libel, Professor Myers doubled down:

This is NOT the time to back down and suddenly find it embarrassing to point out that right-wing pundits make a living as professional goads to insanity. . . .
Do not sit there cowering, trying to make excuses for teabaggers and violent morons. This is supposed to be the part where you stand up, look at the shouters on the other side, and tell them, “This is wrong, and this is the harm you bring to our country.”

In other words, no matter what vicious lies the “godless liberal” perpetrates, his comrades must defend his infamous falsehoods because . . . well, the Ends Justify The Means, and the road to a secular Utopia will necessarily be paved with the bones of the Enemies of Social Justice. This brutal logic, the demand that everyone must toe the line, that any tactic — even outright falsehood — is defensible so long as it advances the radical cause, is inherent to totalitarianism, which must silence dissent By Any Means Necessary.

That an arrogant fool like Professor Paul Z. Myers is a government employee, paid to instruct the impressionable minds of Minnesota’s young people, ought to give pause to citizens of that state.

Vox Day describes Jared Loughner as a “schizoid atheist,” which seems about right. And there is a twinge of tragic pain in the confirmation that Republican politicians, TV pundits, talk-radio hosts and those whom Myers derides as “teabaggers” played no role whatsoever in influencing Loughner’s madness:

He did not watch TV. He disliked the news. He didn’t listen to political radio. He didn’t take sides. He wasn’t on the left. He wasn’t on the right.


 
What hurts is to watch Zach Osler’s reaction to seeing the mugshot of his former friend, who turned into an antisocial loner after his high-school girlfriend broke up with him and slowly slipped off into hopeless insanity:

“I can’t look at that. Scares me. I wish I could have helped. I just forgot about him, y’know? Stopped talking to each other. I wish there was something I could have done or said to help him or try to get him help. I just didn’t. So that’s why it’s hard to look at the picture of him. It looks like a monster.”

And what turned Jared Loughner into that monster? The suspect’s friend Osler tells ABC News that Loughner was influenced by the 2007 Peter Joseph documentary Zeitgeist, which asserts that Christianity is a myth, and then goes on to push 9/11 “Truther” gibberish and conspiracy-theory stuff about “international bankers.”

Who shall we blame for this? Alex Jones and celebrity “Truthers” like Rosie O’Donnell? Does the fact that Loughner was influenced by anti-Christian propaganda implicate all atheists as co-conspirators in his massacre? Has anyone demanded that Richard Dawkins disavow Loughner’s heinous crime and “tone down” his anti-Christian rhetoric?

No, there is nothing useful to be gained by such finger-pointing and scapegoating. Rather, we need only point out the admonition of the old hymn that reminds us that if we step off the Solid Rock, “all other ground is sinking sand.” Truth endures, and facts are stubborn things.

There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
— Proverbs 14:12 (KJV)


Category: Arizona, Crime, Education, Liberals, Minnesota, Religion, Sarah Palin, Zeitgeist

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