Category Archives: Rant
It was 20 years ago today…
Terror has reduced our rights and freedoms and given the ruling classes power over dissent. So says the Guardian opinion piece by Julian Borger. And…
Posted by in Freedom, Philosophy, Politics, Race and politics, Rant
I wonder how non-Christians will be less than human this Easter?
Every time religious leaders give Easter and Christmas sermons, they are reported as saying something like “only with Christ can one truly love” or “non-Christians…
Phobosophy
As everyone knows, philosophy comes from the two Greek words philo and sophos, and means, roughly, the love of wisdom, although as everyone also knows, Socrates declared his wisdom was his knowledge that he knew nothing. In recent years (by which I mean increasingly since the 1970s), there has been a drop away from knowledge Read More...
Posted by in Freedom, Journalism, Philosophy, Politics, Pop culture, Rant, Religion, Sermon
The Abstract and the Concrete, or, the Road to Fascism
I was thinking about the way in which the anti-abortionists justify their views. I have always said that “Pro-Life” is a misnomer. Instead of being pro-life, they are pro-potential life. In order to protect potential lives, they ignore the needs and rights of those who have actual life – the women who cannot for whatever reason carry that Read More...
Posted by in Freedom, Philosophy, Politics, Pop culture, Race and politics, Rant, Religion, Sermon, Social dominance, Social evolution
Why is politics failing?
In a way this is a silly question: politics is politics, and always has been. The real question is why liberal democratic politics is becoming unrepresentative and generating cynicism, extremism and alienation among the supposedly represented. The answer is, I think, a loss of the social contract that made representative democracy work. In the US, Read More...
Posted by in Australian stuff, Journalism, media, Politics, Rant
On rights
I am as shocked about Orlando as everyone else, but I am shocked about a lot more. So I must declare my stand. I stand for homosexuals, intersex, asexuals, and all other kinds of sexual orientation. I stand for males, females, and everything in between. I stand for every ethnic and social grouping. I stand Read More...
Posted by in Freedom, Politics, Race and politics, Rant
The place of religion in democratic secular countries
There is a religion which oppresses women, which is enthusiastically adopted by marginalised groups, which hates democracy and which has declared the modern world to be a heresy they call “Americanism”. This religion, which is run entirely by men, demands of its adherents loyalty to a small group of clerics overseas, in a pseudostate set Read More...
The Muslima problem in atheism
A while back, Richard Dawkins said some very silly things on PZ Myer’s blog Pharyngula [see this discussion at the time for details]. He wrote, in response to justified claims of sexual harassment of women at supposedly progressive skeptical conference, the following: Dear Muslima Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your […]
Posted by in Race and politics, Rant, Sermon
Begging that damned question
Something that bugs the hell out of me, literally, is the misuse of English. Of course, I was trained as a subeditor in the days when such things mattered even to journalists, so I am a fossilised dinosaur in this respect. I even try to use adverbs correctly. One thing that literally makes my head […]
Posted by in Humor, Logic and philosophy, Rant