{"id":13232,"date":"2008-09-09T11:21:01","date_gmt":"2008-09-09T17:21:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/?p=13232"},"modified":"2008-09-09T11:21:01","modified_gmt":"2008-09-09T17:21:01","slug":"q-whats-the-difference-between-dr-juan-cole-and-a-pitbull","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/?p=13232","title":{"rendered":"Q: What’s the difference between Dr Juan Cole and a pitbull?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A: You don’t generally point and laugh<\/a> at a pitbull. <\/p>\n

— Oh, and maybe lipstick, too — though that’s just me speculating. Cole, writing for Salon:<\/p>\n

[…] the values of [John McCain’s] handpicked running mate, Sarah Palin, more resemble those of Muslim fundamentalists than they do those of the Founding Fathers. On censorship, the teaching of creationism in schools, reproductive rights, attributing government policy to God’s will and climate change, Palin agrees with Hamas and Saudi Arabia rather than supporting tolerance and democratic precepts. What is the difference between Palin and a Muslim fundamentalist? Lipstick.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wow. So much disingenuous idiocy packed into such a tiny paragraph, one hardly knows where to begin — though just to state the most obvious problems with Cole’s borderline insane indictment, Sarah Palin has rarely if ever financed suicide bombings, has not to my knowledge demanded that women be regarded as second class citizens, has never refused to allow other religions practiced inside her icy snow kingdom, and has never promoted the eradication of the Jews (though she did once wear<\/a> a Buchanan button).<\/p>\n

Add to this the fact that she was democratically elected — running against an entrenched old boy network and winning on a reform platform — and it becomes clear that, to believe Juan Cole, one must really believe that he believes Hamas to be a “reform movment” fighting against those entrenched government leaders who don’t kill Jews fast enough, and that Saudia Arabia is a free country run in a style that protects Constitutional liberties.<\/p>\n

— Which, like, you know: cuckoo<\/i>!<\/p>\n

But Cole, bless him, was required to pad his “argument” a bit, providing us with the good fortune of a few extra chuckles — as well as the opportunity to take a closer look at the rhetorical strategies of the academic left, of which Cole is a member in good standing.<\/p>\n

Argues Cole:<\/p>\n

McCain pledged to work for peace based on “the transformative ideals on which we were founded.” Tolerance and democracy require freedom of speech and the press, but while mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Palin inquired of the local librarian how to go about banning books that some of her constituents thought contained inappropriate language. She tried to fire the librarian for defying her. Book banning is common to fundamentalisms around the world, and the mind-set Palin displayed did not differ from that of the Hamas minister of education in the Palestinian government who banned a book of Palestinian folk tales for its sexually explicit language. In contrast, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

All so flowery and patriotic, Dr Cole. <\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the facts tell a different story<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The worst one could infer is that Palin raised the censorship issue in an ill-advised effort to appease some constituents, met resistance and let the matter drop to pursue more mundane city business. Emmons and Palin\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s political enemies are free to speculate and impugn motives all they want. But results matter. And the bottom line is, Palin didn\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t ban anything. Not in 1996. Not in 1999 after the librarian resigned. Not in 2006 when she ran for governor.<\/p>\n

\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cWe have no records of any books being \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00cb\u0153banned or censured\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2 ever,\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d said current Wasilla Mayor Dianne M. Keller in a written statement last week. In fact, a review of city records found that just two books have been challenged in Wasilla since 1996 \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009d America (The Book) by Daily Show host Jon Stewart, and The Abduction by Mette Newthe. Both books remain on the library\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s shelves.
\n<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[my emphasis]<\/p>\n

Concludes NRO’s Ben Boychuk:<\/p>\n

It\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s a fantastic leap from \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cno books ever banned\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d to \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201clittle regard for the Constitution.\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d The Palin book-ban imbroglio dovetails nicely with the Left\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s habit over the past eight years to claim the Bush administration is the most repressive and intolerant in U.S. history. Much like the mass round-ups of political dissidents, the widespread closures of opposition newspapers and TV stations, and the relentless prosecutions of anti-war spokesmen under the Espionage Act, Sarah Palin\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s contempt for the First Amendment exists only in the fevered imagination of partisans.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For his part, Cole takes the false indictment<\/a> one step further and connects a book banning that wasn’t with Islamic fundamentalists. Which, not to put too fine a point on it, is rather like comparing a hair cut to a videotaped beheading.<\/p>\n

Rhetorically, Cole’s trick is to ascribe to Palin motives that he knows his readership, who’ve been conditioned to believe that Christian boogymen are out to replace the Constitution with the New Testament, will believe uncritically; from there, it is but a small step to suggesting a sinister cause\/effect relationship — the suggestion<\/em> being all that matters, else the facts would have received a place of prominence in Cole’s “investigation.” <\/p>\n

But then, because the facts undercut the suggestion, and because the suggestion is what Cole hopes will have lasting power, Cole merely omits the facts. Academic rigor at its finest!<\/p>\n

What Cole also fails to acknowledge is that, when it comes to book banning or bowdlerization, the real problem lies with PC progressives, who have, in recent years had problems with the “ageist” “Old Man and the Sea,” the “racist” works of Faulkner and Twain, the “insensitive to the differently abled” title, “Hunchback of Notre Dame,” and on and on and on — to the point where textbooks themselves are being “cleaned” of anything that might give “offense” or be construed as “hate speech” — foregoing historical context and intent for a more sanitized and “diversity-friendly” world of literature and learning.<\/p>\n

The irony, it practically dazzles<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Continues Cole:<\/p>\n

Palin argued when running for governor that creationism should be taught in public schools, at taxpayers’ expense, alongside real science. Antipathy to Darwin for providing an alternative to the creation stories of the Bible and the Quran has also become a feature of Muslim fundamentalism. Saudi Arabia prohibits the study, even in universities, of evolution, Freud and Marx. Malaysia has banned a translation of “The Origin of the Species.” Likewise, fundamentalists in Turkey have pressured the government to teach creationism in the public schools. McCain has praised Turkey as an anchor of democracy in the region, but Turkey’s secular traditions are under severe pressure from fundamentalists in that country. McCain does them no favors by choosing a running mate who wishes to destroy the First Amendment’s establishment clause, which forbids the state to give official support to any particular theology. Turkish religious activists would thereby be enabled to cite an American precedent for their own quest to put religion back at the center of Ankara’s public and foreign policies.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

All very sinister sounding, until one finds out — and here, Dr Cole is baffling silently — that Governor Palin’s actual views on the teaching of “creationism,” which is the more religiously-charged, fundie-sounding iteration of what I’m assuming is Intelligent Design (as opposed to Biblical literalism) are perfectly consistent with the law. In fact, had Dr Cole bothered to do a quick Google search, he’d have doubtless stumpled across this<\/a> from the AP:<\/p>\n

Palin said during her 2006 gubernatorial campaign that if she were elected, she would not push the state Board of Education to add creation-based alternatives to the state’s required curriculum, or look for creationism advocates when she appointed board members.<\/p>\n

At a GOP presidential debate in May 2007 in Simi Valley, Calif., McCain said he believed in evolution.<\/p>\n

“But,” he added, “I also believe, when I hike the Grand Canyon and see it at sunset, that the hand of God is there also.”<\/p>\n

Palin’s children attend public schools and Palin has made no push to have creationism taught in them.<\/p>\n

Neither have Palin’s socially conservative personal views on issues like abortion and gay marriage been translated into policies during her 20 months as Alaska’s chief executive. It reflects a hands-off attitude toward mixing government and religion by most Alaskans.<\/p>\n

“She has basically ignored social issues, period,” said Gregg Erickson, an economist and columnist for the Alaska Budget Report. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Just so we’re clear: though Palin (and McCain, and a substantial percentage of the population of the US, including, if we’re to believe him, Barack Obama) believe in a diety that put into motion the material world, what Palin expressly did not do<\/i> — despite her own personal beliefs in a higher power<\/i> — was try to use government to insinuate those beliefs into the public school curriculum.<\/p>\n

Contrast this to the beliefs of those who promote the secular magical “science” of global warming (or is it now climate change — and their efforts to equate those who remain skeptical over claims made by those who argue for the evils of AGW with Holocaust deniers — and it becomes clear that, should one really<\/em> be interested in exploring the forced incorporation of “religious” beliefs into the public school system, one should be looking more closely at the Green movement; which, unlike proponents of ID — but much like the fundamentalists in Turkey and the middle east Dr Cole is fond of invoking — includes its very own fringe groups who engage in bombings, arson, and domestic terrorism. <\/p>\n

Whereas the specter of a person who believes in Intelligent Design planting explosives in a gymnasium to “protest” the separation of their beliefs from the public school curriculum are not quite so well documented.<\/p>\n

Nor have Governor Palin or Senator McCain ever tried to normalize those whose engaged in domestic terrorism — that honor going to the Democratic nominee for President, a fact quite studiously ignored by Dr Cole in his desire to tie Palin to extremists.<\/p>\n

Curious that. Unless, of course, Dr Cole doesn’t find the Weather Underground to be an “extremist” group. After all, their methods may have been a bit gauche<\/i>, but their hearts seemed to be in the right place. At least, from a “progressive” point of view…<\/p>\n

Which, while all this may have occurred to Dr Cole, he decides, as a good doctrinaire academic is wont to do, that such trifles will only “problematize” his narrative — and so he carefully “brackets” it, preferring instead to aim his keen intellect at the supposed transgressions of the biblethumping hick Governor from Alaska, transgressions that, in the first two instances, he has been unable to prove, and so has relied solely on the suggestion of impropriety<\/i>. Such a move is, as I’ve noted here often, a rhetorical staple of leftist attack — and so Cole is just doing what any good leftist does: attempting to attack the character and beliefs of a political opponent without having any evidence available to substantiate the attack.<\/p>\n

And so he continues, again by carefully omitting facts, to weave his narrative without any concern whatever for its truth:<\/p>\n

The GOP vice-presidential pick holds that abortion should be illegal, even in cases of rape, incest or severe birth defects, making an exception only if the life of the mother is in danger. She calls abortion an “atrocity” and pledges to reshape the judiciary to fight it. Ironically, Palin’s views on the matter are to the right of those in the Muslim country of Tunisia, which allows abortion in the first trimester for a wide range of reasons. Classical Muslim jurisprudents differed among one another on the issue of abortion, but many permitted it before the “quickening” of the fetus, i.e. until the end of the fourth month. Contemporary Muslim fundamentalists, however, generally oppose abortion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As does, eg., Ron Paul. And Dr Jerry Pournelle. And roughly half the country. As for Governor Palin’s ability to “reshape the judiciary to fight” abortion, what, precisely, does Dr Cole think that entails? Putting Muslim extremists on the Supreme Court?<\/p>\n

The fact is, many of those who are quite adamantly pro choice recognize that Roe v Wade<\/em> was bad law. And even were McCain (not Palin) able, as President, to assign SCOTUS justices willing to forego stare decisis and overturn Roe<\/em>, abortions wouldn’t suddenly become illegal. In fact, such liberal luminaries as Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Susan Estrich<\/a> have even gone so far as to speak heretically on Roe from the perspective of liberal orthodoxy.<\/p>\n

As I noted yesterday <\/a>— though my own views differ substantially — Governor Palin’s views on abortion, based as they are on the idea (shared by Joe Biden) that life begins at conception, are completely consistent: if one is pro-life, and one believes that abortion is the killing of an innocent child, then it follows that killing an innocent child for the sins of its mother or father is wrong. Which is why Palin’s position is perfectly logical from her initial assumption. The one case in which she supports abortion — it being the one case where she is not forced to elevate “life” over “choice”, is in cases where the life of the mother is threatened. In which instance, she is then dealing with hierarchy of claims to life, giving preference to the claimant who first held the claim.<\/p>\n

Again, I don’t believe as Palin does — but then, there is nothing logical about my position, either. The question of abortion is a difficult one, even for those of us who are not religious; and from a libertarian perspective, I’m not convinced, as many libertarians are, that “liberty” supercedes “life” in a country that claims its rights from natural law. Making the question of when does life begin an important one to consider before taking any intellectual position with respect to abortion. What the overturn of Roe<\/em> would do would settle the abortion question in state legislatures, where the question legally belonged in the first place — at least, according to one widely held view of the decision.<\/p>\n

I was yesterday chided for describing myself as reluctantly pro-choice — meaning, I support early term choice with a number of restrictions, and oppose late term abortion — by a libertarian who declared that I was carrying water for the religious right<\/a>, an accusation that, to my longtime readers (particularly those who remember the battles I went through with social conservatives during the Schiavo affair<\/a>) must have sounded quite nutty. But then, the abortion question — and more generally, questions of policy that redound to morals — tend to generate the most heat, so I’m willing to live with such simplistic indictments. <\/p>\n

For her part, and as was noted earlier by economist and columnist for the Alaska Budget Report, Gregg Erickson, “Neither have Palin’s socially conservative personal views on issues like abortion and gay marriage been translated into policies during her 20 months as Alaska’s chief executive. It reflects a hands-off attitude toward mixing government and religion by most Alaskans.” In fact, she vetoed a Republican bill<\/a> that would deny benefits to same sex partners, concerned that such a bill would be unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

Hardly the calling card of a zealot. In fact, what is shows me is that Palin can govern in accordance with the Constitution — even when she happens to have personal<\/em> disagreements on some of the issues protected by law.<\/p>\n

Which, if anything, has the effect of sticking a finger in the eye of all those on the left AND right who have tried to make personal opinions on certain controversial issues a kind of litmus test for fitness to govern.<\/p>\n

For her part, Palin is honest about her beliefs — and yet she is able to govern in a way that refuses to foist her personal beliefs on those she governs. In that respect, she governs from libertarian<\/a> and federalist<\/a> principles.<\/p>\n

And it is this — more than the misdirection and scare tactics people like Cole like to raise about Palin’s “fundamentalist” religious convictions — that truly<\/i> scares progressives, particularly those that recognize in Palin a walking rebuke to the idea of a “Living Constitution.”<\/a><\/p>\n

In fact, so frightened are they by Palin that professors like Dr Cole, writing for prominent online journals in an effort to advance a progressivist cause, are willing to append their names to poorly sourced lies and smears with the hope that somewhere, someone<\/i> might actually be fooled.<\/p>\n

And if that one misinformed vote<\/em> gains the progressives power, well, all for the greater good. Which, in Cole’s mind, makes him a hero to the commonweal — rather than the academic sellout and ideological hack he nearly always proves himself to be.<\/p>\n

(h\/t<\/a> Carin)<\/p>\n

****
\nBECAUSE OF THE HYPOCRISY update<\/i><\/b>: Writes<\/a> Salt Lick in the comments:<\/p>\n

Palin wants to ban books? Cole is more ambitious<\/a> than that:<\/p>\n

\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cI think it is outrageous that Fox Cable News is allowed to run that operation the way it runs it,\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d he said in summarizing his view that Fox \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cis polluting the information environment.\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d He went on to claim that \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cin the 1960s the FCC would have closed it down. It\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s an index of how corrupt our governmental institutions have become, that the FCC lets this go on.\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

See the clarification at the WSJ link. Evidently, Cole smells libel everywhere — well, except in his own articles.<\/p>\n

Priceless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A: You don’t generally point and laugh at a pitbull. — Oh, and maybe lipstick, too — though that’s just me speculating. Cole, writing for Salon: […] the values of [John McCain’s] handpicked running mate, Sarah Palin, more resemble those of Muslim fundamentalists than they do those of the Founding Fathers. On censorship, the teaching of creationism in schools, reproductive rights, attributing government policy to God’s will and climate change,<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":9196393,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9196393"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13232\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}