Last night I was all worked up over those who conflate anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Today I noticed this article that deals with another of ONAF's frequent issues: immigration. Seems that the recent flap over illegal immigration has energized the crazies. This is worth knowing, but it feels like the article implicitly associates honest opponents of illegal immigration with right-wing bigoted nutcases. This is falling into the same trap as Mr. Rosenfeld from the last post; Tom Tancredo may be the most infamous of the sodomites, but I doubt he's an egregious bigot.
But these two related incidents raise an interesting point: to what extent must reasonable people dismiss the actions of extremists who often share their arguments? My immediate reaction is "absolutely none," but even so I feel like my criticisms of Israel are generally better taken when I mention that I file Hamas under "asshat." And I'm more comforted when proponents of closed borders mention their Latino friends. Why do people discredit arguments because of actions taken by some of their proponents? And do we always have to reassure our interlocutors that we're not associated with the lunatic fringe when we express controversial views?
Floor's open, kids.
(Aside: the article mentions a Houston teen who was beaten and "sodomized" by "White Power"-screaming asshats. I thought for a brief moment that my recoining of the word "sodomy" had finally been adopted before I realized that the reporter probably didn't live in my little world. Alas.)
(Also adding to a recent posts, it looks like we'll be bringing Dempsey, Howard, and Bocanegra across the pond for our match against Mexico tomorrow. The Mexicans will be bringing Borgetti, which worries me because we won't have a big guy like Gooch to take care of him, leaving Bocanegra and Conrad to team up on him. Looks like it'll be a fun game.)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment