Revisionist history, GOP style

The other night, Lawrence O’Donnell, on MSNBC, did a segment on the right wing’s selective memory about terrorism in light of the Boston Marathon attack. Lawrence featured Tom Cotton, a freshman Republican Representative from Arkansas. Now before going into this, it should be noted that Tom Cotton, became a lawyer and in 2004 signed up for Officer Candidate School and requested the infantry.

As a second Lieutenant, he took advanced infantry training, went through paratrooper and Ranger school and was sent to Iraq as a platoon leader in the 101st Airborne. So I commend him for his service to our country and say thank you.

BUT it seems that his view of history is slightly skewed. In his remarks on the House floor he ripped into President Obama saying that under Obama we’ve had five jihadists attacks. He listed the underwear bomber, the shoe bomber, the Fort Hood shooter, the Arkansas recruiting office shooter and of course the Boston Marathon attack.

He also said the “from September 12, 2001, we did not have any attacks under Bush”, conveniently glossing over the worst terrorist attack in our history when 2977 people were killed. Idiots over at Fox News thump their collective chests extoling the fact that after 9/11, under Bush we had not attacks until Obama took over. I’ll take Obama’s record on terrorism over Bush’s any day. The GOP can’t seem to remember September 11, 2001.

First of all, look at the ones Cotton spoke about under Obama. The Fort Hood shooter was a lone gunman with, probably some mental issues but since he was a Muslim, therefore he’s a terrorist! The Arkansas shooter was also a lone gunman and of course he was a Muslim, therefore a terrorist. Ever wonder why Muslims are pissed at us since we invaded a country of theirs without any real good reason?

Moving on, the shoe bomber was stopped, the Times Square bomber was stopped and the underwear bomber was stopped. Nobody died! The latest attack was by two individuals who may have been Muslims and were pissed at the U.S.and really did a crude attack. Now they did kill people and the surviving brother will spent the rest of his life in prison if not executed. Do we need to now invade Chechnya?

Further more, Obama has an outstanding record in killing terrorists including Bin Laden, which Bush couldn’t get. Maybe the Middle East is mad at us by our use of drones but terrorists know that Obama will use what ever means to wipe them out.  And Al-Qaida is weaker now than it’s ever been thanks to Obama.

What really bothers me is the fact that the Republicans get their panties in a bunch when it comes to anything resembling a terrorist attack but forget about the 26 people, including 20 children, who were killed by a gunman in Newtown Connecticut, or the Aurora Colorado theater shooting, or the shooting in Tucson Arizona, that almost killed Gabby Gifford, or any of the other mass shootings. To my mind Adam Lanza was a terrorist along with the others that killed people. He may not have been a Muslim but to wantonly kill 20 children for no reason makes him a terrorist in my book. Why aren’t the Right Wing nuts getting upset about that? Sorry I forgot they are in bed with the NRA. GOP = Guns Over People

Debate about nothing?

On April 18, 2013, American Atheists’ Dave Silverman debated Christian apologist Dr. Frank Turek at the Broadmoor Baptist Church in Shreveport, Louisiana. The topic: “What Better Explains Reality? Theism or Atheism?” You can see the entire debate at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/ and search to the April 21, 2013 entries.

The debate was good but I struck by Frank Turek’s speaking style which was fast paced and tossing out many, many expressions that, I suspect, went past the heads of the audience who, I’m guessing, were mostly Christians. Reminded me of a used car salesman’s ad on TV. Dave Silverman held his own and was deliberate and specific to the debate topic. I think he did a good job against a slick salesman. Who won? Watch the video and decide for yourself.

I want to focus on Turek’s use of “immaterial, timeless and spaceless” to describe his God. I’m guessing that many in the audience didn’t pick up on what that really meant. This was an example of how Turek tossed out things as a way of baffling the audience with his bullshit.

Now towards the end of Turek’s opening remarks, he had a slide that had the following –

“None of these can be explained by Atheism

CRIMES = Cosmos, Reason, Information, Morality, Evil, Science

All of these realities have an immaterial source or foundation. Therefore when Atheists cite anyone one of them to support Atheism, they are stealing from God in order to argue against Him (and stealing is a crime!)”

I found it interesting that Turek used the acronym CRIME to buttress his argument against Atheism. Framed this way, Atheism is seen by the audience as BAD. So right off the bat, Silverman was cast, not directly, but by inference as a criminal in some sense. I wished that Silverman would have addressed this head on.

Under the heading of Cosmos for example, Turek proclaimed that his God was immaterial, timeless and spaceless without offering any proof or further explanation. How does an immaterial (has no matter) timeless (no constrained by our concept of time) and spaceless (occupies no space) being be and how can this thing exist in the first place? Secondly, how does He, She, or It have the powers that Turek ascribes to it? And just how does Turek know this? But at the same time this thing that Turek talks about loves, hates, forgives and causes things to happen here on Earth. Pretty good for basically nothing thing.

Turek also spent a lot of time talking about how everything must have a cause. This is an old tired argument. I guess he has to bone up on the latest thinking by cosmologists, such as Lawrence Krauss, who says that nothing CAN create something all by itself. In fact nothingness is very unstable. So if Turek’s argument is that this universe could have ONLY happened by his immaterial, timeless and spaceless God, he doesn’t offer any explanation how that can be. Science doesn’t need a cause for the Universe. It just happened!

I guess his whole argument came down to there has to have been some cause to the universe and unless science can show something else, God did it! Ta Da! Sometimes these old tired arguments that Christians keep trotting out, are getting wearisome. But, hey, they really can’t come up with anything new. Think about it.