Things That Piss Us Off About This Morning's Guardian Article (5) - The Total Lack of Any Thought About Anything. Ever. They Don't Even Know The Consequences of Their Own Stupid Moral Equivalence.
So in order to really demonize Benedict, the Guardian tries to rope in the Jews:
Pope Benedict has managed to antagonise two major world faiths within a few months. The current anger of Muslims is comparable to the anger and disappointment felt by Jews after his visit to Auschwitz in May. He gave a long address at the site of the former concentration camp and failed to mention anti-Semitism, and offered no apology - whether on behalf of his own country, Germany, or on behalf of the Catholic Church.
We remember that and we thought it was overblown, but what-evs. At first, this looks just like any old moral equivocation or distinction-denying flattening: "The current anger of Muslims is comparable to the anger and disappointment felt by Jew". But think about this for a second - if the Jews felt exactly as angry as the Muslims feel, then... yeah, we won't insult you by finishing the thought. You see the obvious conclusion. We will lay out the alternatives two of three steps down the line, as an exercise if nothing else. One of the following must be true:
(1) Jews didn't riot and Muslims did because Muslims are actually angrier right now than the Jews were. In which case, the Guardian would once again have been caught making a glib but false comparison between Muslims and another group in an effort to deny that there's anything going on in Europe that anybody needs to worry about
(2) Jews didn't riot and Muslims did because Muslims tend to be more violent at the same level of anger. This is what you've got if you conclude that the Guardian isn't lying to you.
So according to the Guardian, either they're lying to you or Muslims tend to be more violent when provoked than other religious groups. Now obviously, the Guardian will say that this is a misprint and Muslims are actually angrier (with whatever cause they make up) than Jews, which is why they just seem more violent. And the Guardian will totally fail to admit that the reason that they got in trouble in the first place is because they are so automatically and totally used to just using the moral equivalence template that they didn't realize that this time it pretty much admitted that Muslims are the most on-edge people on the planet.
Pope Benedict has managed to antagonise two major world faiths within a few months. The current anger of Muslims is comparable to the anger and disappointment felt by Jews after his visit to Auschwitz in May. He gave a long address at the site of the former concentration camp and failed to mention anti-Semitism, and offered no apology - whether on behalf of his own country, Germany, or on behalf of the Catholic Church.
We remember that and we thought it was overblown, but what-evs. At first, this looks just like any old moral equivocation or distinction-denying flattening: "The current anger of Muslims is comparable to the anger and disappointment felt by Jew". But think about this for a second - if the Jews felt exactly as angry as the Muslims feel, then... yeah, we won't insult you by finishing the thought. You see the obvious conclusion. We will lay out the alternatives two of three steps down the line, as an exercise if nothing else. One of the following must be true:
(1) Jews didn't riot and Muslims did because Muslims are actually angrier right now than the Jews were. In which case, the Guardian would once again have been caught making a glib but false comparison between Muslims and another group in an effort to deny that there's anything going on in Europe that anybody needs to worry about
(2) Jews didn't riot and Muslims did because Muslims tend to be more violent at the same level of anger. This is what you've got if you conclude that the Guardian isn't lying to you.
So according to the Guardian, either they're lying to you or Muslims tend to be more violent when provoked than other religious groups. Now obviously, the Guardian will say that this is a misprint and Muslims are actually angrier (with whatever cause they make up) than Jews, which is why they just seem more violent. And the Guardian will totally fail to admit that the reason that they got in trouble in the first place is because they are so automatically and totally used to just using the moral equivalence template that they didn't realize that this time it pretty much admitted that Muslims are the most on-edge people on the planet.
