Wednesday, 27 May 2009

• Logical issues with TheTheologiansCafe Controversy

  Note: this post is rated C and touches on mature content such as rape.
  
  Normally I refuse to post any disagreement with individual Xangans on here. After all, they aren't getting paid, and they are just trying to have some fun and express themselves on here. And I HATE Xanga drama, sigh, and try to avoid it desperately. But I really was perplexed and disappointed with the latest posts at TheTheologiansCafe, and so I thought it worthwhile to see if anyone else felt the same way. Let me point out my complaints, and then please tell me if you agree. People clearly seeking drama or looking to pick an all-out fight with either me or TTC should go elsewhere. Hopefully I kept this fair; here goes.
  
  In case you missed it, Dan decided to use the time around Memorial Day to point out that rape is a problem in the military. This is a rather odd move to begin with, similar to say, believing that Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a great time to point out how many black males are in prison for committing crimes. It already seems shady to single out a particular minority in aggressive fashion and then force its members to defend themselves. However, if his post was well-defended, than I would agree with Dan using a holiday to raise awareness of an important issue.
  
  But what makes it worse is that Dan's logic for highlighting this isssue is flawed. He claims that a woman is more likely to be raped in the military than be killed in action. This is his entire point to his post. But this is a laughably cheap statistic. You know what else is more likely than dying in combat? Nearly everything you can think of, because very few soldiers have recently died in combat! Yes, it's more likely you'd be a victim of theft, or aggravated assualt, or shaving cream smeared on your nose while sleeping, or being tickled by your bunkmate, or served pickes for lunch, or raped, or pretty much ANYTHING other than being murdered in combat. The same is true in civilian life; murder is one of the rarest crimes. I could pick any issue and highlight it in the same way. So why does Dan so excitedly tell us several times about this when the same comparison could apply to many things?
  
  Dan had a follow-up post crying about being censored on the topic. "How dare some people be offended about his post about rape?!" "How dare Xanga rate his post C and thus lower his page views?" However, he wrote a post soon after anyway to make up for it, so was he really that disadvantaged? Dan has no problem getting page views anyway.
  
  As evidence of how unfair it was, he complains that two other posts were not taken down. This is similar to the thief in jail complaining that "Other people who steal didn't get sent to prison." Sure, he has a point. Posts about porn and penis cakes perhaps also should be censored, and I suggest you not click those links. But does it change what he did? Of course, Dan fails to note that those other entries were not ranked as high as his entry in top blogs and thus were less noticeable. Once again, a logical failure that way too many people failed to notice.
  
  But let's take on Dan's point that censorship is done via "emotional appeals." Ok, so if emotional appeals is a bad idea, what is the alternative? Would Dan prefer that censorship instead be done according to some lengthy list of rules? The Bible? Who would create such a list? And wouldn't it create more problems to apply this list? We already have enough problems with the word c*****ship being automatic. Yes, censorship should be done according to what people say, not according to some list of rules or doctrine.
  
  Censorship done right means that when a large portion of the community is offended and hurt by something, one weighs the rights of this large portion against the rights of everyone else. Someone has to make the judgment call on this, and the Xanga team did so. That's how it should be done. Dan admitted that several people were upset and angry about his post.
  
  Who do you think should have more rights? People who have suffered rape themselves and/or were in the service and don't think it's a matter for joking or sarcasm, or Dan? The way I've asked that question is one-sided and biased while pretending to be open-minded and make a logical comparison. It should be familiar to readers of TheTheologiansCafe .
  
  Finally, let's get to the final part of Dan's defense on censorship. He says "and catch the larger point that it is odd that we honor those who have died in war while ignoring a larger problem such as rape in the military." So in other words, your relative and the other 50,000+ dying on the battlefield in Vietnam is less important than rape in the military. It's sad to see someone so obsessed with trying to prove his point that he has lost touch with rationality. What could be more important than life itself? I think that makes it pretty clear how Dan truly views veterans while trying to shield himself behind the covering of  "sarcasm." Or would he like to claim that this too was sarcastic?...
  
  This was quite a waste of my time. I'm just tired of seeing so much careless writing, followed by emotional rhetoric not grounded in any sort of sensible logic. I deliberately rated this "C" so it won't appear on the Top 50 list. But I felt I needed to make my point and see if anyone agreed.
  

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