Sunday, February 11, 2007

Activists who damage their causes

Example 1:
According to this story, John Gravois of Los Angeles and Karl Neilsen of Perth, Australia, two anti-whaling activists, got lost in the fog and radioed for help.

A Japanese whaling ship came to the rescue and picked them up.

Once they were on land, they threw foul-smelling acid on the ship, getting it in one crew member's eyes.

Nice.

Example 2:
A state senator who is against gay marriage recently spoke at King Philip Regional High School. According a local paper, he read off a bunch of comments that students had posted on Facebook.com sites about him He read comments, including nasty snipes at his daughter, and read aloud the names of the students who had made those comments, inciting an uproar. Of course, the students' parents consider this really unfair and are making all sorts of fuss about it, but if you're going to be hateful in accusing other people of hate, I'd say you have it coming.

Also, the man supports civil unions. When those kids get out of Massechusetts, I bet they will miss him.

CC

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps this is one side effect of the schools no longer teaching kids how to think clearly and logically?

Robin Edgar said...

Well I hate to have to say so but I read the whole article about Senator Scott Brown's run in with apparently hateful high school students and don't see that he is guilty of doing anything particularly hateful himslef. It seems that some high school students, and possibly even one of their teachers, directed some "insulting and defamatory language" at the senator and he directly confronted them about their hateful behavior but quoting the actual internet posts and naming the students who made those posts. What is "hateful" about that? The senator named and shamed a few students who were apparently deserving of being named and shamed for genuinely hateful attacks on him, one of which even suggested that he should be dead. If the student who suggested that the senator should be dead had said something similar about President George W. Bush he or she might well find themselves having a little chat with Secret Service agents. Not that I condone the Secret Service construing such "hateful" statements as actual threats against the President but they have been known to do so. . . I could go on but I am genuinely curious as to why you describe the senator's naming and shaming of students who posted genuinely hateful messages about him as being "hateful". Care to explain yourself CC?

Robin Edgar said...

Oops. I am realizing now after having read your post a thirdv time that perhaps you are *rightly* accusing the students of being hateful in which case I agree 100%. I do not believe that the senatoer did anything terribly wrong or hateful himself. It seems that the oh so 'PC' school got a bit upset by the fact that, in fully quoting the students hateful internet messages, the senator used the 'F' word in his package that was distributed to students. That 'PC' idiocy reminds me of a good number of the U*Us I know who have accused me of "hate speech" and "hate crime" and, believe it or not. . . even "terrorist acts" because words like "cult" and "Solar Temple" appear on my picket signs that protest against the genuinely hateful labeling of Creation Day as a "cult" by Rev. Ray Drennan, Frank Greene, and John Inder etc.

PG said...

I think state senator Brown was right to ask to counter the history teacher's presumably off-topic rant against Brown, and alluding to the Facebook site and the comments made about Brown's daughter *because* she's his daughter also was appropriate. But there's something odd about a grown man and politician naming the students who insulted him on a page to which he theoretically ought not have access -- my understanding is that you only can see the Facebook pages for your own school because they are meant for that community. I'd call out someone for posting insults about me on a wholly public website, but a high school Facebook site? It looks immature and pathetic. Hell, most of the posters can't even vote against Brown.