Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
I thought about finding some more dignified or intellectual way to say it, but the title of this post just expresses how I feel perfectly when I read crap like this:
Recently Hitchens appeared at a "secular Christmas party" thrown by the libertarian magazine Reason. Many libertarians are basically conservatives who are either gay or druggies or people who generally find the conservative moral agenda too restrictive. So they flee from the conservative to the libertarian camp where much wider parameters of personal behavior are embraced. To the sensible idea of political and economic freedom many libertarians add the more controversial principle of moral freedom, the freedom to live however you want as long as you don't harm others. Hitchens, needless to say, is at home in this group.
I could make a more eloquent and detailed response, I'm sure, but my initial response really sums up the perfect response: fuck you, Dinesh D'Souza. And your little god too.
Comments
I can't tell if Dinesh believes what he says or not. He seems smart and articulate. Makes better points than his conservative compadres, but he always ends up with a moronic conclusion. Either way, I'll join you. Fuck you Dinesh. Damn, that felt good.
On a side note, can we take Darwin's birthday off?
Posted by: Ilya | December 25, 2007 11:09 AM
We always knew Dinesh D'Souza had as much class Moe Syzlak. And as much forethought.
The libertarians will take it from here, I expect.
Posted by: Flying Fox | December 25, 2007 11:17 AM
I'll second that - fuck Dinesh and his ilk and fuck their little god too.
It's a perfectly beautiful Xmas morning with snow and a warm fire and presents and soon a nice dinner with friends. Why do I have to ruin it by reading teh internets. At least I feel better now; once again, fuck Dinesh D'Sousa and his little god too. Why is there so much hate from these people?
Posted by: mike | December 25, 2007 11:20 AM
Well, I'll take issue with that "seems smart and articulate" bit. Check out the "debate" between D'Souza and Dan Dennett at Tufts. Dinesh took the topic of God's [non]existence and turned it into a shrill harangue for intelligent design. He was about as "articulate" as a used car salesman. So yes, fuck D'Souza and his egomania.
Posted by: Geoff Arnold | December 25, 2007 12:01 PM
Three years out of Bombay, attending college here in the cradle of liberty as a result of the kindness and tolerance of Americans, the ungrateful Dinesh took it upon himself to out several gay students at his college. He came to this country as a guest and felt so confident in its freedoms that he decided he could abuse his hosts.
I don't see any evidence that anything has changed about him in the past thirty years. He is still abusing the kindness and tolerance of the strangers who gave him a life he could not have had in his politically and socially backward homeland. The America I value, the one that took in an ungrateful kid from India, is apparently beyond D'Souza's
Posted by: Dr X | December 25, 2007 12:50 PM
...The America I value, the one that took in an ungrateful kid from India, is apparently beyond D'Souza's comprehension.
Posted by: Dr X | December 25, 2007 12:51 PM
What a fucking hate-filled tool.
Posted by: PalMD | December 25, 2007 12:52 PM
@flying fox
they did: http://www.reason.com/blog/show/124066.html
Posted by: yoshi | December 25, 2007 12:53 PM
D'Souza has lived his entire adult life in the hermetically sealed world of movement conservatism. It has rotted his brain out.
This is a man, after all, that thinks that people who attempt to put a stop to tribal revenge killing and/or gang rapes in Islamic countries are part of a domestic insurgency at least as dangerous as Bin Laden's sleeper cells.
He's a vile monster of a human being. Talking polite and pretty don't change that.
Posted by: Hume's Ghost | December 25, 2007 1:07 PM
The trouble with the off-key D'Souzaphone is that he, like his ex-girlfriend, has stolen a technique from their hero, Tailgunner Joe. If you, somehow, become a 'celebrity' or an 'important political figure' and if you are a 'conservative' you can say any outrageous thing you want, and you know it will be covered. You have (self-)defined yourself as 'important,' so if your statement isn't covered, or if it is prefaced by a list of the last ten idiocies you've come up with, then the 'media is showing it's "liberal bias."'
And you are fairly sure, if you are loud enough and your statement is particularly stupid, even for you, that people will jump all over you -- which only increases your 'celebrity' and makes sure your next statement is covered.
And the trouble with Ed's approach -- which I am sympathetic to -- is that if you don't stomp out idiocy, it becomes 'common wisdom.' Look at Rush Limbaugh. He spent years bleating, and he was so absurd, unfair, and stupid that he didn't get the debunking needed, and now it's a fight against his repeated 'Government is bad, useless, Bad, corrupt, BAD, working conspiritorially against you and B*A*D!!!" mantra that has hooked itself into the American consciousness.
(For that matter, creationism did the same thing. To quote Stephen Law, "Take the young earth creationists back in the 60's. A tiny band of crackpots. Who would have predicted that this weird little belief system would, within the space of a half century or so, infect the minds of 100 million Americans, including smart, college educated people?"
http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2007/11/is-religion-dangerous.html
We are so used to the noise of creationists that we forget -- or, if you don't have my approaching decrepitude, never knew -- how few they were in the 50s and early 60s, and how idiotic they appeared to most of us.)
One final comment from Sara Robinson on the "sensible idea of ... economic freedom" (and the Limbaugh mantra)-- speaking of "Santa's Sweatshop":
"Blame those E. Coli conservatives, big time. These people take it as a matter of religious dogma that the "common good" -- the reason, according to the Constitution, that people institute governments in the first place -- does not exist. At all. And therefore, there's no reason for government to exist, either -- certainly not to protect people from criminal manufacturers whose products will cause permanent cognitive and behavioral problems in their children. (Just gives a whole new meaning to "dumbing down America," doesn't it?)
If we needed any proof that conservatism was, forever and always, a venal, inhuman, and deadly ideology, the way these Grinches stole Christmas 2007 from American families should close the case for good."
Merry Christmas
Happy Kwanzaa
Happy Newtonmas
Splendid Solstice
and
Belated Beethoven's Birthday Blessings
to you all.
(Chanukah, Eid, and Diwali came too early to mention them this year.)
Posted by: Prup aka Jim Benton | December 25, 2007 1:33 PM
The way D'Souza puts it is indelicate, to say the least, but he actually doesn't seem too far off the mark. "Embraces conservatives' economic agenda but rejects their social one" does in fact capture the functional role of most libertarians. The fact that the economic agenda does seem to overshadow the social one (even though the latter has more to do with actual liberty) does seem to cause more libertarians to align with the Republicans than with the Democrats when it matters. From a left-libertarian perspective, the vast herd of right-libertarians is in a very practical sense indistinguishable from the conservative herd. The fact that so many right-libertarians' fingers are itching to tell me that left-libertarians can't be taken seriously, or perhaps can't even exist, only shows how deeply such misunderstanding of liberty and libertarianism runs. Libertarian (the philosophy) need not mean anti-liberal or economic-right, but libertarian (the identity) usually means both and D'Souza is not wrong to say so. He might be a total jerk, and he certainly is wrong on too many other issues to count, but that's a different issue.
Posted by: Jeff Darcy | December 25, 2007 2:44 PM
D'Souza and many others in the religious right talk alot about "moral relativism". Their notion is that liberals & non-religious people have abandoned a basic belief in right and wrong. It is this attitude that lies at the heart of D'Souza's idiotic statements. His logic is that if you are a libertarian then you are probably gay, a drug addict or maybe both.
I would propose that the whole idea of "moral relativism" is a myth. Everyone believes in wrong and right. The difference is that as human beings we often disagree as to what is right and what is wrong. So some would say that sex outside marriage is while others would say that it is immoral. Some would say that the War in Iraq is wrong and immoral while others would defend is an a moral imperative. A more intelligent approach to this issue is to discuss the origin of these differences. What is the source of one persons moral beliefs versus anothers.
Posted by: Cheddar | December 25, 2007 3:01 PM
D'Souza sounds like someone who has run out of rational arguments and, in a bizarre example of play-ground name calling, has put forth the notion that those of us who have no predisposition to worship the ineffable have cooties.
Yeah. Logged and noted.
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | December 25, 2007 4:03 PM
Yep. Simple minded people really like rules, equating them with morality just as they equate lists of facts to science.
Posted by: decrepitoldfool | December 25, 2007 4:19 PM
I was most disgusted by the comments about what a lush Hitchens is. I wouldn't care if the man's a crack smoker; he's obviously more logical than Dinesh.
Posted by: Richard | December 25, 2007 4:58 PM
The accusation of "moral relativism" basically has very little to do with having no morals. It has a lot to do with rejecting authoritarian sources of morals.
We so-called "relativists" frequently actually have very concrete, objective moral standards. Libertarians, for instance, all agree on a die-hard moral principle against the initiation of force. That's an objective morality right there.
But we reach these morals through reason and observation of the world, by trying to understand the world and what makes life better or worse. We don't base our morals on what some priest or president tells us.
Conservatives don't really have moral principles, or what philosophers would call ethics. What they have is obedience to authority. This is a fancy way of saying "might makes right", and it is the foundation of Catholicism, Nazism, Stalinism, Bushism, and every other doctrine out there that puts following the leader ahead of following the rules.
Posted by: Frater Plotter | December 25, 2007 5:55 PM
( I bet this post gets stuck in teh moderation queue )
Posted by: T_U_T | December 25, 2007 6:02 PM
T_U_T:
I subscribe to that belief to a certain degree. The reason being that morality really isn't objective. The universe does not have morality - it is completely amoral. Every one of us could be extinct tomorrow and the universe really wouldn't care - it would move on just like it did yesterday and like it will tomorrow. Animals don't have a morality either - at least not one that matches our own. I mean, look at how a cat plays with its prey. That is certainly not moral according to human standards, but cats don't care.
Because of that, I believe that morality is simply an extension of our evolution and is nothing more.
In fact, I have a saying that I'm sure people will pick apart but it's food for thought and is all mine: Morality is logic applied to instinct.
So for me, moral relativism is a perfectly rational belief. I choose to live a "moral" life, but I do that because I'm human and make no pretense that those "morals" are nothing more than instinctual. For example, when I am on the freeway and someone cuts me off, I feel justified in getting a little angry over it, but I also understand that there is no rational reason for that anger and it's just my primate instincts kicking in. I'm OK with it, but I understand it.
So that people like us scare you says more about you than about me.
Posted by: Russell Miller | December 25, 2007 8:31 PM
Conservative morals aren't just authoritarian in source: they are almost exclusively concerned with repressing sexual behavior. Conservatives don't seem to exhibit any more concern than anyone else about theft or murder or dishonesty, and they often seem to have less concern than others about the abuse of power, disparities of class, race, and gender, and the relief of pain. The idea that they are the ones who uphold a rigorous moral code and that the rest of us are all loosey-goosey is quite wrong. The difference is in their obsession with sex.
Posted by: Bill Poser | December 25, 2007 8:34 PM
Ah, D'Souza's just bitter that he wasn't invited.
Posted by: Gretchen | December 25, 2007 9:03 PM
Since the universe is just a thing, it has no morality.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | December 25, 2007 9:54 PM
We are things too. No different than anything else in the universe, made up of the same thing. Everything that "distinguishes" us is just a made up distinction.
Posted by: Russell Miller | December 25, 2007 10:31 PM
I posted Dinesh my own fervent Holiday prayer:
"The Lord is my shepherd, and sometimes he gets lonely..."
Posted by: TikiHead | December 25, 2007 10:33 PM
Dinesh D'Souza is rapidly becoming just another Ann Coulter.
Posted by: keiths | December 25, 2007 10:56 PM
It's certainly true that conservative "morality" is obsessed with sex: teenage sex, non-marital sex, homosexuality, cheating, and so on. I think a lot of this has to do with defending the authoritarian family structure. People need sex, and if the only legitimate way to have sex is with an authoritarian husband or submissive wife, then that's what people have to do. But of course that's frequently unsatisfying, and so people in conservative society end up sneaking around, fucking boys in toilet stalls, hiring and mistreating prostitutes, cheating on their spouses, and so on.
But there's another aspect to conservative sex politics: a deep suspicion of pleasure. You'll see this in the works of people like Robert Bork, Anita Bryant, or Antonin Scalia. People choosing what to do based on what feels good and doesn't hurt anyone are deeply condemned: it is assumed that all pleasure is ultimately both false and corrupting. People are supposed to do what the Good Book (or Party) says, not what feels good and doesn't hurt anyone.
"What feels good and doesn't hurt anyone" -- a far more objective standard of morality than "what the Authority says" -- is condemned as "relativism". Because, of course, the dictates of the pope, the president, or the preacher are objective, and a rule worked out by reason and observation of the world is subjective.
To the conservative of this sort, pleasure is to be delivered by Authority only on Authority's whim -- and ideally in the next life, not in this one. Pleasure in this life is only a reward for successfully becoming Authority: being a husband, a senator, an Alpha Male of some sort. Women's pleasure is deeply suspicious: there's a reason certain southern states have banned dildos.
Posted by: Frater Plotter | December 25, 2007 11:31 PM
>>>>Dinesh D'Souza is rapidly becoming just another Ann Coulter.
That's just it.
Dinesh wishes he were Coulter, but cannot get as much free airtime to throw rhetorical firebombs as she does.
I can only guess the reason is that various media morons (particularly at Fox) are under the impression that Coulter is attractive and politically articulate (e.g. "Oh, look at the hair-flipping blonde and her saucy tongue! How exciting!")
Posted by: CHV | December 25, 2007 11:43 PM
T_U_T :
You do make the valid point that some people do declare themselves to be "moral relativists". But I have a hard time taking those people seriously. If a a gang of thieves showed up at their home one morning, stole all their belongings and murdered their family...would they respond with a shrug and say "well I take no moral position about what just happened"? I think not.
Posted by: Cheddar | December 26, 2007 1:17 AM
Cheddar -
I think you are misunderstanding moral relativism. It is not that I would shrug and say; "well I take no moral position about what just happened." It is that I would not assume that the perpetrators of the crime felt what they did was immoral.
A better example is someone like the wrong reverend phelps. I find his actions reprehensible and absolutely immoral. I have no doubt however, that he and his clan believe full well their actions are not only moral, but guided by God.
Or to make it more dicey, I am entirely of the opinion that allowing someone who desires to be removed from lifesupport, to die of the consequences of said removal to be immoral. I believe that the only truly moral thing to do, is to help them along painlessly. However, the vast majority of society finds my beliefs on this subject to be the immoral one.
Likewise, there are people in Sudan, for example, who probably don't think it the least bit immoral to break into someone's home, steal all their belongings and kill the family - as long as it is the wrong sort of family. Do I think they're immoral, certainly. But I have no illusions about their own feelings about the morality of their actions.
What I accept as a moral relativist, is not that I haven't a moral stance. What I accept is that my moral stance and someone else's are not always going to be the same. I accept that their exists absolutely no universal moral axioms. None. There are many that come close. Few people are very keen on crimes against children, for example. Rape is pretty nasty work that few are going to attempt to justify. But even these are not universals
Posted by: DuWayne | December 26, 2007 3:34 AM
"To the sensible idea of political and economic freedom many libertarians add the more controversial principle of moral freedom, the freedom to live however you want as long as you don't harm others. Hitchens, needless to say, is at home in this group."
Um, why should this be controversial for secular people? Seems pretty reasonable to me, and a lot more moral than conservative Christianity (or Judaism, or Islam, or Hinduism etc).
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | December 26, 2007 6:50 AM
Duh ! Of course morality is objective, then. It is the product of evolution, and is thus objectively better than any alternatives ever tried. Universe does not need to care about humans to enforce morality upon them. For example, the force of gravity does not care about you, but if you jump off the cliff, it will kill you anyway. Simply, because of the way the universe works, some behaviors are better and some worse. So, morality is not relative at all.
Posted by: T_U_T | December 26, 2007 11:25 AM
then your "moral stance" is merely a fancy way of saying " I don't like it", and thus not moral stance at all...
Posted by: T_U_T | December 26, 2007 11:43 AM
( interesting thing .... My previous post got stuck in the moderation queue and this one came thru, I have no clue why the first one was deemed suspicious and the second one was not )
Posted by: T_U_T | December 26, 2007 11:47 AM
I have no idea why some posts get stuck in moderation and some don't. For some reason, it's not notifying me when that happens anymore either and I don't typically check those things. I just moved a bunch of comments that were moderated.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | December 26, 2007 12:16 PM
I read somewhere that one of the universal values is "purity" or "non-contamination." All individuals -- and all cultures -- are somehow concerned with reducing, avoiding, or prohibiting what is disgusting (such as people defecating where other people eat.) Religion often exaggerates this value, and will label behaviors which are secularly neutral as "impure." They invent sacred things which cannot be "defiled."
Therefore, with religion, when you "live as you want but don't harm others" you may really be causing an invisible kind of harm -- you're contaminating what should be kept pure.
Posted by: Sastra | December 26, 2007 1:26 PM
TUT -
Supreme over simplification, but that is ultimately what morality is.
If you disagree with me, then pray tell, what is a universal moral axiom. Name one. Or perversely, explain what morality really is, if it doesn't boil down to dislike. Keeping in mind that was your wording not mine. My sense of morality cuts much deeper than mere distaste, being the sorts of things that I cannot imagine myself ever doing and if faced with the necessity of doing anything that I believe to be immoral, I am thus faced with profound crisis of conscience.
But ultimately, morality does boil down to things we don't like, no matter how profound that distaste may be. So pray tell, what is the difference, as you seem to claim there is one.
Posted by: DuWayne | December 26, 2007 1:46 PM
BTW, TUT, you would do well to be more civil. People would be inclined to take you more seriously, if you didn't feel compelled to be such an asshole.
Posted by: DuWayne | December 26, 2007 1:48 PM
There's actually not a lot of practical difference between moral absolutism and moral relativism. Both of them make distinctions between "easy" moral questions ("Can I steal everything that's not nailed down?") and "hard" moral questions ("Can I steal bread to feed a hungry child?")
A simple-minded relativist would say, "Well, all moral codes are equal, so I might as well pick whichever moral code is most convenient for me." But there are hardly any people like that. Sensible relativists would say, "People make moral decisions based on their subjective beliefs about the kind of society they want to live in. Everyone agrees about the answer to the "easy" moral questions, but people will come up with different answers to the "hard" ones because they value different things. In that case, we just have to agree to disagree and hope we can work out a good compromise."
A simple-minded absolutist would say, "There are no 'hard' moral questions. All you have to do is apply the absolute moral standard and see what the answer is. Anyone who comes up with the wrong answer is being willfully evil." But hardly anyone thinks like that, either. A sensible absolutist will say, "Well, there's an objective moral standard, but humans can't fully understand it...because our judgment is flawed, and because we have incomplete information. Sometimes we have to just agree to disagree and hope we can work out a good compromise."
That said...In modern political discourse, "moral relativism" isn't used to describe a moral philosophy. It's a phrase that simple-minded absolutists use to attack everyone who isn't a simple-minded absolutist.
Posted by: chaos_engineer | December 26, 2007 2:08 PM
Thank you very much for showing us how deep your relative sense of morality is. If I insult you because you don't agree with me, I am a bad person. because, you see, to be insulted does indeed feel very bad. But to insult me just because I disagree, man, that feels good, doesn't it ? So you are a good person to give me what I deserve.
.
Again, thank you for demonstrating what a relative morality really amounts to ;-)
.
And now the more serious part. I have no clue what do you mean with " moral axiom". Axioms exist only in mathematics, and, you see, ethics is not mathematics. But if you want me to tell what morality is, what about "evolutionarily stable strategy"
Posted by: T_U_T | December 26, 2007 4:29 PM
Unfortunately, there are times and places where all questions moral become hard, included the question what counts as a good compromise. And then even sensible relativists will fail. Because, it is said, all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
.
Posted by: T_U_T | December 26, 2007 6:26 PM
Interesting that someone like TUT would appear on a post about Dinesh D'Souza, because TUT's rhetorical style is quite similar, particularly the half-thoughts and "gotcha" mentality.
Btw, morality is not about what one likes and dislikes. There are plenty of things I consider immoral for which I have no personal distaste.
Posted by: Science Avenger | December 26, 2007 10:52 PM
The only thing I've done is to argue that 1. there really are people who think that morality is relative. 2. They are seriously wrong. And what I got ? One says I am an asshole, and the other says I am D'Souza himself !
I have abso-fuckin'-lutely no clue why I am getting insulted here.
Maybe it is just a mistake. Maybe DuWayne maybe misinterpreted my post about "no moral stance at all" as if I implied that he has no morality. He insulted me in turn too. I, not knowing he felt insulted first, returned the favor by accusing him that he is really amoral, and then comes Avenger and avenges DuWayne promptly by calling me Dimegaasshole D'Souza himself.
Hey guys, you've got it wrong !
Du wayne, I wanted to say, that your moral stance is not merely your personal distaste, and you err when you think it is. Not that you lack morality at all. I apologize that I didn't write it explicitly and thus made such ambiguous interpretation of my post possible.
Avenger, none of my posts was "gotcha", I merely reacted to Du wayne calling me an asshole. I hope that his is all one big misunderstanding, and this post of mine will clear it for good. Or, alternatively, could someone tell me please, what I've done to deserve all the insults ?
Posted by: T_U_T | December 27, 2007 6:26 AM
T_U_T:
It has to do with insult relativism. See, what is an insult to you isn't necessarily an insult to others - so insults are in the eye of the beholder.
That sounds a bit flippant, but there's actually quite a bit of truth to it. I'm not entirely sure whether or not you are an asshole or not, but I can say that if someone truly is an asshole, it's the *moral* thing to call them one, because that's being honest. Or are you really for relativism after all?
:)
Posted by: Russell Miller | December 27, 2007 4:47 PM
Profound . . .
Posted by: Reinhold | December 28, 2007 10:20 PM
For anyone who has read this far down the comments, and still thinks that D'Souza's a bright fellow, I urge you to check out some of his videoed "debates" (perhaps on Fora.tv). Given time for a short monologue, yes, he can appear (relatively) bright and articulate. But get him into an actual discussion, and he's exposed for the sloppy (and mendacious) fellow that he is. I'll never forget his coming to our law school peddling his End of Racism crap (this was the mid-90s), and getting absolutely vivisected by bored 3Ls on the subject (the majority of whom were probably even sympathetic to his impulses on the subject). He's not really worth the time. It's like beating up a kid.
Posted by: MB | December 29, 2007 9:15 AM
TUT -
I hope you see this, I have been a couple days without a 'puter, waiting for a friend to repair from a crash.
First, I called you an asshole, because you are using language like, duh, in response to people that pretty much agree with you. That is, in my opinion, an asshole sort of thing to do. It is very condescending and rude.
As for the discussion on morality, it is you who are very much mistaken. Morality is in the eye of the beholder. You have yet to make a response other than to say this is not true. If it isn't, then please answer the very simple question I asked before; What would you describe as immoral? Why is what you describe as immoral, that I might disagree with, immoral, excepting that you believe it to be so?
Evolutionary stability is not a well reasoned descriptive. It is little to no different than claiming that morality is given us by the gods. Indeed, I know many liberal religionists who believe in very much the same notion you seem to describing, a rather ambiguous, amorphous notion of morality, but ascribe it's source to the divine, as much as to evolution.
In other words, if morality is not relative, then who decides what is moral? And what value then, does morality have for me, if I happen to disagree?
If you do see this, I would welcome you to visit my blog and peruse a post I put up a few months ago about morality, in support of moral relativism. My argument is, that morality has no value if we do not own it. Depending on external moral frames just reduces the ability of morality to be a governor of our behaviors.
And I use the term axioms very deliberately.
Posted by: DuWayne | December 31, 2007 2:12 AM
Appreciate other’s thoughts. Don’t blame anyone without a valid reason. Think who you are and what you know about god, morality, wisdom and science before you blame.
Posted by: DC | September 7, 2010 10:53 AM