Yesterday’s post was essentially my script for a YouTube video. I wanted to do a response to a video done by one of my favourite YouTubers who goes by the user name of JustA11en. In his video, Allen asked why so many anti-religion, pro-science people on YouTube were so aggressive and hateful.
Allen is a politically conservative christian from the southern USA. He’s also a damn decent individual. Open-minded, thoughtful, intelligent and always willing to listen. He’s also usually quite engaging and charming and quite often incredibly funny. No, I don’t want to have his babies.
I haven’t made any secret of my politics on this blog – it’s fair to say that I’m the polar opposite of Allen politically. Long time readers with good memories might remember that in the early days of this blog I went looking for some right-wing blogs that were also intelligent, even-handed and thoughtful.
I came up dry.
It seemed all the right wing bloggers I could find were loud-mouthed, ignorant, braying, hateful jackasses. Yes, I know many left wing bloggers are too. As a result I tend to not spend much time on overtly political blogs.
As an aside, if anyone thinks they know of some intelligent right wing blogs that don’t spend all their time spraying hate and bile, feel free to tell me about them.
Anyway, this is one of the reasons I like Allen. He’s conservative and I disagree with him on just about every substantive political issue. But I respect him. I respect his very human way of relating his views while rarely going for cheap shots. I’m quite a fan of cheap shots myself so I don’t mind that he indulges himself occasionally.
YouTube is renowned as a cesspool of the worst, most hateful behaviour on the internet. And that’s saying something. So the fact that this is where I found the first conservative commentator that I could respect is mildly ironic. It restores my faith in human nature somewhat that in the midst of the most juvenile morons on the planet I can find someone I disagree with, yet still respect.
Here’s the video version of yesterday’s post where I respond to Allen (warning: it’s about 10 minutes long):
Angry 365 Days a Year 
Not really a blog, and not sure about his political stance, but: http://www.timharford.com/ is highly entertaining and quite to the point.
I’m a socialist myself, and after reading his ‘The undercover economist’ (twice), I’ve come to a ‘Capitalism (ma non troppo)’ stance. Meaning that businesses need supervision to prevent them from abusing; their employees, the environment, their customers or even their shareholders.
As a socialist, I’m still in favor of having good social security, public health care and public education. These can be improved by letting people save for their own needs. This way you can combine social improvements with market mechanics. According to Hartford, this can result in overall savings in health care, for instance, with good results.
Really nice Angry video. I have to agree with about 98% of it. I am rather disappointed that Scientologists still weren’t mentioned though….
. . . religious institutions really don’t hold up very well against close scrutiny and questioning . . . but I also think that scientific zealots can be more deluded than religious zealots.”
Exactly! Why is that fact so illusive to zealots on the whole, no matter what their beliefs? The things they despise about each are the very the same traits they themselves are guilty of. It’s so clear, yet they’re all seemingly blind to this. I wish I could be that oblivious to such major failings of my own. I think I’d be happier, I suspect that ignorance really is bliss.
Also, where did you get that T-shirt? I want one.
I think the key phrase is “can be more deluded”. Of course it’s possible, and I’ve seen it first-hand as a previous employee of a research lab. But just because it can occur, shouldn’t lead you to believe that both sides are equally bad.
look, no offense but your anger sucks. it’s not inherantly funny – and really only appeals to people too dull to understand their fixation on stuck angry people.
GUI: Thanks for the link, I’ll check it out
Goatsoup: scientologists will be mentioned when I do a video on outright freaks
Buck: Yeah, I’m a fan of passion, not zealotry. And the t-shirt is custom made – you can get one, all you need is a shirt and some fabric paint!
Shard: I myself am a follower of science so I agree the “can be” part is very important.
G: wow… how many ways are you fucked? You make a cretinous comment that’s demonstrably incorrect (i.e. the number of readers shows you’re wrong) and then you top it off by making your cowardly attack anonymously. Well done, you have provided everyone with a sterling example of a fucked up worthless excuse for a human.
Oh, and no offense, but your mother blows truck drivers for 50c a throw. Fuck you and your gutless, worthless attitude you piece of shit.
Well, that’s nice. But your tirade doesn’t change the fact that pure anger, contrived or not, without levity, drains.
Have a lovely day.
You know what? I have great days. Partly because I know you’re a fuckwit and I’m not.
It always bothers me when people treat faith and science as mutually exclusive things. In the end, they’re tools that do different jobs. Science deals with the hard, physical aspects of life, and faith deals with emotions and the intangible. They are both used to solve different problems. Why zealots have decided that people have to choose one is beyond me. Many people need to believe in God, but pretty much everybody needs antibiotics.
Apparently g’s vote vetoes the other 99.99% of people polled regarding how funny this blog is because he believes that whatever he says is the complete and undeniable truth because he says so, despite the unsurmountable evidence against it.
No wonder you have trouble respecting politicians.
…And I know that should be “insurmountable” but let’s leave my proficiency in the English language out of this…
E0157H7: I agree with what you say about insisting the two are separate. You can choose to follow one or the other but I don’t get forcing people to agree with you.
Chocolatefan: Some people just don’t care how obvious they make it that they’re an idiot. Nice save, BTW 🙂
What, you mean that it is possible to have intelligent talks with those who do not believe as we do? (insert exaggerated shock). LOLs. Seriously, I do wish that more people would see things that way, but even fuckwits have their uses. They add a little spice, and quite frankly, without them, I am not sure you would still be “Mr. Angry.” You might have to change to Mr. Friendly, and quite frankly, that is just not as interesting. On another topic, I do believe that creationism does have it’s place in school…in a social studies or theology class. But yeah, not in science class (although it was a great excuse to watch “Inherit the Wind” in science class, instead of doing actual work;) ).
I agree – creationism belongs in social studies!