Sunday, October 4, 2009

Palouse whale sightings, pt. 3: Moby Dork, a whale of an Intolerista

Picture of Joe Campbell from his faculty page at the WSU website (used without permission)

It turns out that Andreas Shou was just a sideshow act; it took Joe Campbell to really demonstrate the degree of idiocy required for someone to be an Intolerista of the first rank. As you read his comments, remember that these are the words of a professional philosopher who claims to be able to speak with authority about epistemology and logic.
I don't think you'll get very far with the "I'm not a racist" theme if you can't see that jokes about African-Americans being monkeys are not funny. Suppose a joke began with the following. "Darwin was walking with some monkeys -- and by the way, all the monkeys were Christians . . . " I'm sure you'd be offended. And rightfully so. And we're not even mentioning why it might be even more offensive to blacks, given the history of racism in America. So I don't think you are going to convince many people that you're not a racist by defending those monkey jokes. To anyone but your white friends (and maybe your wife), those jokes are clearly racist. That you defend them only shows that you are either racist or clueless. If I give you the benefit of the doubt, I'll have to suppose you're an idiot.

And it won't help if you say that anti-Christian jokes don't bother you. Of course they don't. You want liberals to be offensive, for in your sick little mind they only justify your own insults. But of course that's just the fallacy of two wrongs make a right. Nothing justifies your insults.

Give it up. If you're not a racist, you might as well be since you certainly look like one. Go up to Spokane and run around telling those jokes and we'll see how far you get. Let's test your confidence.

Wwjd? He'd tell black monkey jokes!?! Holy crap!
The multiple layers of beetle-browed arrogant stupidity manifested in virtually every sentence of the above rant are the sign of one deeply imbued with the Intolerista spirit.

Who said Roy Blunt's joke was about African-Americans being monkeys? That "fact" is purely a fabrication of Mr. Campbell's mind. The example Mr. Campbell offered to elaborate his point is simply ridiculous: 'Suppose a joke began with the following. "Darwin was walking with some monkeys -- and by the way, all the monkeys were Christians . . . "' That bears ZERO similarity to Roy Blunt's joke. I'll tell you what would have been analogous to the situation surrounding Roy Blunt's joke: Roy Blunt's joke. If we had just elected a conservative Christian to the White House, and some politician had stood up and told Roy Blunt's joke, word-for-word the same, and Christians took offense at that as being an insult to Christians, that would be exactly analogous to actual situation. For a scholar who claims to be well-informed about epistemology and logic to offer a radically different example in an analogy, and for him to simply assume as fact that which needs to be proven, is nothing short of amazing. And it is equally amazing that from beginning to end, nothing Mr. Campbell says in his entire exchange with me is able to rise above that level. How on earth did he manage to get a Ph.D. in philosophy? Based on what he has shown me, the guy would deserve to flunk out of entry-level college courses on epistemology and logic. And yet he's teaching such courses. With such gross incompetence manifested even among college faculty, is it any wonder that many college educations in America today are so substandard that they would be a poor value even if they were given away for free? Life is too short to be wasting four years of it on such junk.

Mr. Campbell writes, "To anyone but your white friends (and maybe your wife), those jokes are clearly racist." First of all, we are not talking about "those jokes." We are talking about ONE joke told by Roy Blunt -- a joke that he was fond of telling even before Obama was elected president. Second, monkeys are probably the type of animal most commonly used to razz politicians in general. A Google image search on the words Bush and monkey turns up more than 2.7 million hits! There is absolutely NO reason to assume any sort of a racial slur was intended by that joke. So contrary to Mr. Campbell's baseless assertion, I would suggest that anyone who hears racism in that joke is seriously in need of spiritual counseling.

As utterly ridiculous as Mr. Campbell has been up to that point, he manages to make things still worse:

"And it won't help if you say that anti-Christian jokes don't bother you. Of course they don't. You want liberals to be offensive, for in your sick little mind they only justify your own insults. But of course that's just the fallacy of two wrongs make a right. Nothing justifies your insults."

How about that? He doesn't even need me to say anything in order to engage in a "conversation," because he already knows what I'm thinking. And he has the nerve to tell me I'm guilty -- based on words that HE stuffed in my mouth -- of committing a logical fallacy! Is this guy a piece of work or what? And he harps that "Nothing justifies your insults"; note also that the insults he's referring to are insults that exist only in his mind -- they are insults that he imagines me saying and he excoriates me for them. And this guy is teaching a college course in logic? The mind boggles.

He says, "If you're not a racist, you might as well be since you certainly look like one." In other words, I'm a racist because he thinks I'm a racist.

He concludes his tirade with "Wwjd? He'd tell black monkey jokes!?! Holy crap!"

It's not very holy but it sure is crap. Repeat, for the benefit of college professors with bullet-proof skulls, THE BLACK MONKEY EXISTS ONLY IN YOUR MIND, BOZO.

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