Okay, I'm back in the office and I just had to join in the chorus against one Alec Rawls. I first encountered him when Brian Leiter wrote about his screed against Eric Muller's debunking of Michelle Malkin's book on Japanese internment camps during WW2. Then PZ Myers posted some of his absolutely ridiculous (not to mention misogynistic and sexist beyond belief) ruminations on evolutionary psychology. Just look at this bit of mental dystrophy:
European males and females both see the world in the instinctive female way, as the Spanish displayed last month. By choosing not to fight for their survival, the Spanish are, at the biological level, seeking to survive by making babies for the invader. Here in America, our women (or at least our Republican women), grow up thinking of themselves and their men as armed. Thus their rational faculties grasp that it makes sense to fight. Faced with an attacker, it is the female instinct that gets overruled.Such good girls, even helping out behind the lines while our boys methodically stuff the Jihadis into the meat grinder. There is a long way to go, but women, don't worry. We will never let the vermin take you. You can go to them if you want, the flakes amongst you. We allow you your weakness. What we love is your strength.
If I ever wrote something that mind-numblingly idiotic, I think my father would die of shame. Which brings us to the question of Alec Rawls' father. Leiter asked in his original post:
Is this really the son of John Rawls, famed for his generosity and gentleness, as well as his rigorous and careful philosophical mind? If so, how tragic.
Sadly, yes. I am as stunned as my compatriots are that Alec Rawls really is the son of John Rawls, the justly venerated philosopher. Go read his stuff, follow the links from the two posts linked to above, and you will be as astonished as we are that someone as brilliant and eloquent as John Rawls could have spawned such a third-rate mouth breather. When PZ refers to his spewings as "venomous nonsense", he's being too kind.
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while our boys methodically stuff the Jihadis into the meat grinder.
Oh!!!
He and Alan Keyes must be in the same club.
I got this from the Chicago Tribune:
The child who is willing to line up his toy soldiers and not merely admire them but swat them down and "put them into the meat grinder" will be a great general, the sources said Keyes told the group.
I took a class in college that spent half the semester reading John Rawls' "A Theory of Justice."
I hope, of course, that I never disgrace my father; but please let it never in any case be like this.
E
In my mind, nothing can be done by the son to tarnish the greatness of the father. I'm glad John Rawls isn't around to have to endure this embarrassment. The poor man must be spinning in his grave. As for the son, he's living proof that evolution is, indeed, random.
lucia: I saw that article (albeit in Red Eye, the Trib's attempt to appeal to Twentysomethings), and this comment of Keyes' seems particularly funny:
"The way you win wars is that you start fires that will consume the enemy."
Why does the image of an arsonist who ended up getting killed by the fire he started immediately come to mind?
I quoted the enemy/fire on at my article at "Alas, a blog" too!
Unfortunately, while Keyes promised daily inflammatory comments until the election, he doesn't seem to be following through.
I can't help but wonder though: Did Alec get the appetizing "meat grinder" image from Alan? Or vice versa? Or, is this becoming a well used metaphor in theocon circles? Or, is this just a case of "great minds" think alike?
I've been rather lax in my coverage of Keyes' looniness the last couple weeks, so I hope he starts saying crazy things again too. I find him endlessly amusing. I really do think he must wake up some mornings and read the paper and think, "I said THAT???"