Anonymous prejudice

Anonymous contributor demonstrates thinly veiled prejudice. 

I’m surprised anyone reads this blog and honestly few people do. Its concept was just to record my ‘intellectual’ musings and mirror some of the contributions I’ve made to other sites. A journal would be just as good at this but there is the advantage that other contributors to those sites can engage with me more directly here and bypass any moderation and I will be able to link back to common themes.

I calculate that there have only been about three or four contributors to comments but it is impossible to know as comments can be anonymous, so all anonymous unsigned comments could be from one or several people.

However I believe that at least one anonymous commenter is responsible for most of these comments and they have perhaps unwittingly revealed a prejudice against non-believers by their comments even while they accuse me of racism because of a joke I posted.  I thought that this chap deserved their own post because of what their comments revealed about them and because they are one of my few ‘fans’.

Ann Coulter - Thou Shall not kill - except heathens.

Mr Anonymous (it could be Ms for all I know) made comments on a post about Ann Coulter anAmerican conservative Christian, social and political commentator, and columnist who frequently appears on television, radio, and as a speaker at public events.

Among many of her fundamentalist statements, she publicly said of Muslim countries like Iraq; "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."

Which I think is not only wrong but dangerous coming from a fairly influential public figure.

Mr Anonymous agreed but with some conditions it seems. To criticise her for that statement I must also criticise Christopher Hitchens' because he supported the invasion of Iraq, ‘kill it's leader and impose democracy’, and that the two positions could be equated or ‘judge people by the same standards’.

Nothing could be further from the truth in my opinion. While it is well known that Hitchins’ politics are American conservative in nature and he did support the invasion I’m pretty sure he did not publicly call for Sadam to be killed.

But to look at each case in point;

Scenario 1

Coulter is publically calling for the murder (unless she can justify that ‘thou shall not kill’ doesn’t apply to heathens), and the imposition of her Christian fundamental values on the rest of the populace.

Scenario 2

The invasion of Iraq was to remove a leader and leadership responsible for genocide (It was an Iraqi peoples court that imposed the death penalty), and bring about a secular type democracy.

But Mr Anonymous seems to wrongly believe that secularism equals atheism. Secularism means freedom of religion as much as freedom from religion. So in the second case there is no attempt at imposing belief.

So can the two really be equated? With explicitly implied murder and imposition to a faith present in the first and not in the second, I think not.

Christopher Hitchens - politically a conservative

 But none of this looks at my prejudice claim. The prejudice is because Mr Anonymous used Christopher Hitchin’s as an alter Coulter. Hitchens never called for the invasion of Iraq he just supported the political arguments made for the operation. But so did most other American conservatives and many liberals as well, who felt it was needed in the aftermath of 9/11. Probably much more than half of Americas 300 odd million people initially supported the invasion. This included many notable people, congress men, the press including editors and journalists, TV news and many, many more influential groups and individuals unsurprisingly including Ann Coulter herself.

So why single out Hitchens as the one who should be criticised for supporting the invasion of Iraq? What makes this writer and journalist different from most of the millions of others who thought the same? Did he order the troops in? The only thing that sets him apart from most of those other millions is that he is a notable atheist.

Mr Anonymous incorrectly associates atheism with secularism and puts Christopher Hitchens in the frame as someone who should be derided for it. Pure prejudice rising to the surface.

But hang on, if I’m saying Hitchens wasn’t responsible for calling for an invasion or sending in troops who ultimately is? If Coulter's call for a Christian invasion and a secular one can be equated who should be criticised along with her? Who said an invasion was necessary for protection? Who signed the order for a military operation and sent the troops in? It was George Bush and his administration.

Is Bush an atheist? No he is a Christian and as a fundamental one in his own way as much as Coulter is. Most if not all of the power in his administration, the Congress men and Senators all claim to be Christian.

So does Hitchens deserve to be criticised for his support of the invasion of Iraq? Since his politics conflict with mine, from my personal point of view I would criticise him on this point. But there is a queue, a very long queue in front of him, composed mostly of professed Christians with Ann Coulter near the top of that queue as well.

So any comments from Mr Anonymous might be interesting. Will he accept that murder and religious conversion can’t be equated with deposing and a secular democracy allowing freedom of religion? Will he accept that they only reason for singling out Christopher Hitchens from all the other supporters of invasion was because of his non-beliefs? Will he accept that if criticism is due there are a lot more prominent and deserving people than Hitchens and most of those are not Atheists? That some of those would have supported Ann Coulter as well?

Probably not.