Yesterday I posted a link to Jim Babka's essay about Ron Paul's reference to the Golden Rule. That post attracted a comment from a fellow blogger with issues. According to his blogs, he considered his grievance against a business to represent reverse discrimination against him as a White male. Such discrimination exists, but his way of expressing it was probably off-putting enough to result in more valid discrimination against him as a deliberately obnoxious person.
I like White males. This one, known to Google as Truthmonger, doesn't seem to like women, or at least not the ones mentioned on his blog. Hate is always an unfortunate thing. Truthmonger could be more effective if he studied the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense. (Since Suzette Haden Elgin has finally really retired, at 75, who's actually maintaining the web site? As far as I can tell, it's a White man.) In fact, there are ways Truthmonger could have expressed the ideas contained in his comment that would have caused me to defend his right to say what he was saying, instead of pulling the comment on the grounds that it could (arguably) be considered libellous.
I'd like to use parts of his comment to explain the kind of thing this web site is and is not willing to host or post. Warning: you probably won't enjoy reading it...but he does make some valid points.
He said: "How many Christians know it's illegal to hand out Christian literature in israel. AMERICA'S SUPPOSED MAIN ALLY!"
True fact, Gentle Readers. In the official Jewish territory, attempts to convert Jews to any other religion are banned. It's like their sanctuary from having to defend their religious identity, where everyone else is Jewish too or, if not, has to agree to be quiet.
Truthmonger continued: "Also, how many thousands of Palestinian Christians have the israelis murdered?"
Not only Palestinian Christians, but international charitable "volunteers" and even Jewish Israelis have tried going in among the Palestinians, presenting themselves as hostages, in efforts to stop the violence. And if this web site has to take a side in any conflict in the Middle East, that's the side we favor--the ones who think people ought to be able to work out some system of peaceful coexistence and stop bombing each other. But, fair disclosure: both Jews and Muslims have used bombs, thus proving that neither group is inherently saner or nicer than Irish people.
And, when bombs are used, innocent bystanders (including babies) get hurt. The case could be made that military strategies that kill civilians are a form of murder. I think the last well-known American who really took this ethical rule seriously was Robert E. Lee, but if Truthmonger wants to try to live by it I salute him.
Truthmonger continued: "Have the Muslims taken by subterfuge and war almost every economy on earth? No, the "jews" have."
Because the terms here aren't clear, it could be argued that this is an outright lie. The verifiable fact here is that, although the majority of bankers in the United States and allied nations aren't Jewish, and the majority of Jewish people aren't bankers, nevertheless Jews are disproportionately represented not only in the group "bankers" but in the group "successful, influential bankers." The Federal Reserve hasn't been chaired by a Christian in my lifetime. The chairman of the Federal Reserve Board represents himself, not American or international Jews as a group; for example, in Locked in the Cabinet Robert Reich represented himself as having disputed several points with Alan Greenspan (and also admits several things about the Federal Reserve that had recently been considered antisemitic when discussed by Pat Robertson). So, is the story of Jewish male bankers a "takeover" story, or a story about the role of personal relationships in success through hard work? I don't claim to know. I'd like to ask commenters to stick to the verifiable facts when they want to make historical or political points.
What about Muslim strategies to convert non-Muslims, now that some form of democratic government is operating in most countries, by immigrating in large enough numbers to constitute a local majority and then trying to establish Sharia law in their communities? It's nonviolent, morally unobjectionable, but it's a deliberate strategy that's being used today.
Truthmonger continued: "Do Muslims control America's economy, legal system, media, politicians, elections, schools, institutions, and military apparatus? No, "jews" do."
If he's objecting to the excessive influence of a minority of people whose actual substitute-for-religious identity is Socialist, some (not all) of whose parents or grandparents were Jewish, he has a point. If he's claiming that Jews control America's economy, etc., in the way they do Israel's, he's mistaken. Morally this may not be so much an outright lie as a misstatement made by reacting hastily to an emotion...but it's not true, and since its intention is inflammatory more than informative it does not belong on this web site.
Truthmonger concluded: "Will the "jews" be exterminating all of us "pagans" when they take over the world? Of course, if their talmud is any indication." When they take over the world? ??? I don't see much evidence that this is something we need to worry about right away.
The last time I heard anything about a deranged radical Jew trying to take over the world, it turned out to be a mouthy, barely literate, pot-smoking gunsmith who'd taken a vow to share his home with anyone who needed it, and lived to regret his vow, and had in fact tried training his housemates to shoot targets just to get enough of them out of the house so the others could walk around. His name was David Koresh. He was, on examination, about as sorry an excuse for a martyr-in-the-cause-of-freedom as he was for either a Jewish scholar, a Christian preacher, or even a rock singer...but he was definitely not a threat to the rest of the world. In fact he wasn't even much of a threat to the morals of his teenaged female housemates. His story became our national story of how panicking and rushing to help, without understanding a situation, kills more innocent people than it could possibly protect.
It's possible that Truthmonger is thinking about facts of which I'm not aware. In fact, it's likely, since I've never attempted to understand the internal affairs of any other country or sort out the facts from the war propaganda that reach us from the Middle East. If he has facts to share, he's welcome to post them on his own web site and report them here.
I think this guy's central problem is that he's generalizing too quickly. As I read his blog I noted over and over again "All of them, or only some of them?" and, of course, the facts supported "only some of them." He bashes the entire "Negroid" race when he could be making a valid complaint about racist, or otherwise unacceptable, behavior on the part of the individuals A, B, and/or C. He insults all women when he's posting a valid complaint about one woman. He bashes all Jews when he's not even making a complaint about one or more individuals; there's probably some reason for this, since it's such an unpopular strategy these days that nobody would be likely to choose it without some reason, but he doesn't share that reason with readers. He bashes Mormons. He bashes most elected officials, including his own, as "the traitors."
It goes on and on, and I suspect even White male readers of his blog will find themselves thinking, "This guy doesn't have a good word to say to or for anybody. If he wanted to be in a car pool, you wouldn't want to let him drive, because at any minute he might have a heart attack. Actually, if you let him be in a car pool, you'd have to ban talking, because listening to him would raise everyone else's blood pressure."
That may of course be Truthmonger's intention. His whole online identity could be some sort of graduate school study of haters and hate groups.
If, however, he's seriously trying to share his experiences and ideas with readers, I recommend that he study psycholinguistics, even if he has to go all the way back to Dale Carnegie and Robert Bolton's People Skills.
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