More perplexing to Ms. Hirsi Ali is the hostility leveled at her by some on the left for her efforts to challenge Islamic law and teachings. These critics profess to care about women’s rights but cannot bring themselves to criticize those who trample on them as long as the misogynist possesses an address in the Muslim world. At a recent panel held at the Women in the World summit in New York, the moderator accused Ms. Hirsi Ali of “picking only on Islam.” She countered: “I embrace Muslims but I reject Islamic law … because it’s totalitarian, because it’s bigoted and especially bigoted against women.” The anger she stirs on the left confounds her. “You have to ask yourself why anyone would align with proponents of Islamic law,” she says with wonder.
It’s pretty simple. They’re totally down with totalitarianism. And they feel an affinity with other enemies of western civilization and liberalism.
I would note that while I disagree with Carolyn Porco on a lot of things politically, she absolutely gets this issue right.
At the end of the day, Americans everywhere will realize that the rule of law applies to Hillary Clinton, and that honesty and integrity will propel Bernie Sanders to the presidency. The FBI’s reputation is at stake, both globally and at home, and I explain why in this YouTube segment. James Comey and the agents who’ve devoted endless hours to Clinton’s email investigation will soon disclose their findings to the American people; to think nothing will result from this year-long probe is naive. Remember, the FBI doesn’t give parking tickets.
I sure hope this is true (other than President Bernie). I fear it is not.
This used to be the insane position of people like Catherine McKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, but the American Law Institute is now proposing to codify it into law.
Since Tuesday, I have been asking communications officials in NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate for clarification on what this extra funding will be used for and whether it’s needed. I haven’t received a response.
Because they don’t have a response. It is programmatic insanity to just throw hundreds of millions of dollars at a manager and expect them to spend it sensibly in a single year.
My two cents: 1) As always, they keep using that word “liberal.” I don’t think it means what they think it means. 2) The demonization of Kim Davis (including her appearance) reminded me very much of the way Linda Tripp (the only person who told the truth in the Lewinsky affair) was treated. So this is nothing new.
It’s possible that with a lot of work, some extreme corner of the behavior spectrum could be isolated via specific criteria, which then merits labeling as ‘denialist’. But in truth the characteristics of our ‘proto-denialists’ above are radically different to expectations from the current framing, a framing which may have tainted the term beyond redemption. Nor is this approach a great plan even without that taint, because it tends to mask uncomfortable yet crucial truths, especially those in f) and g). So along with other errors we may end up fooling ourselves that there’s a nice clinical division between skeptics and ‘denialists’. Via naïve assumption of cause from a basic categorization of rhetoric, this is exactly the trap I believe Diethelm and McKee have fallen into. Hoofnagle goes further, dishing out labels of ‘dishonest’ and ‘crank’ yet without proper theoretical grounds; despite his noble motives many of these are bound to stick onto the wrong people. Some dishonesty and crankiness will ride any cultural wave, or backlash to such a wave, or backlash to an evidential cause that is perceived as cultural encroachment. But this does not mean that cranks and liars drive the main action; they do not. Nor can the touted methods reliably distinguish crankiness from cultural influence, or skepticism from either.
I would note (as always) that “denial,” and “denialism,” and “denialist” are not scientific terms. They’re religious ones.