After the gay nightclub massacre in Orlando last year, Roger Jimenez, pastor of a small Baptist church in California, gave a sermon proclaiming that he’s “upset” the gunman “didn’t finish the job,” and that the government should have all the “sodomites” lined up against the wall and “blow their brains out.” In the ensuing backlash, Jimenez complained that […]
On self-driving cars and the “Trolley Problem,” buttons that kill random Chinese people, Sam Harris, and The Twilight Zone.
Political speech, as George Orwell has noted, is often not speech in the fullest sense of the word. “Duckspeak” is tribal signaling, half-consciously discharging from the speaker’s oral cavity, meant to be received in the same unthinking stimulus-reflex manner.
Public discourse is exploding with expressions of panic and a kind of solidarity in resentment. But underneath all the scorn and anger, few substantive arguments figure into the discussion, while many of the endlessly repeated conventional points are misguided and offensive.
In the US, it’s irrelevant whether jokes about politicians are made by comics or politicians. In Europe, the wrong joke can land you in jail.
Following these steps, you, too, can easily transform a news story into John Oliver material!
Breivik was declared “not criminally insane”, fit to stand trial, and convicted. His stated motive: to oppose “cultural Marxism” and Islam, and to bring attention to his far-right militant political manifesto. But is Breivik a terrorist?
