Drive-by insults
Andrew Brown does love to yank the chain of non-believers.
Judges are paid to discriminate among prisoners before them, and to distinguish those for whom prison is the right treatment from everyone else. Defendants of otherwise good character should obviously get different sentences to habitual recidivists. The real disagreement is whether being a devout Muslim (or Christian) is in itself a sign of good character. Cherie Booth seems to be arguing that it is, though less important than his previously spotless record.
Right, Cherie Booth seems to be arguing that it is, and by implication that its absence is a sign of bad character, or else why mention it at all? She didn’t say ‘you have a spotless record and you drink Ribena’ or ‘ ‘you have a spotless record and you wear trainers’; she didn’t make a random observation that no reasonable observer would construe as a claim about his character; she said ‘you are a religious man.
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For Sanderson and those who think like him, being a devout believer is quite the opposite. It’s evidence of bad character. For Sanderson and those who think like him, being a devout believer is quite the opposite. It’s evidence of bad character.
Interesting, except that Sanderson said nothing like that (and much less did ‘those who think like him’) so one is left wondering how Andrew Brown knows it. No one isn’t, one is left marveling yet again at Andrew Brown’s fondness for the truculent and untrue passing insult.
In Sanderson’s world, judges should say things like “Although you have no previous convictions, you are none the less a follower of Pope Benedict XVI and so unable to tell right from wrong. I therefore find myself compelled to impose a custodial sentence.”
There’s another one. Not true, not pleasant, not justifiable.
I say this, of course, with the utmost affection.
An arrest record or a list of complaints (restraining orders, etc.) or a criminal record is all that should matter in this type of case.
Which religion or lack of one, hair color, weight, height, politics, etc. are irrelevant.
There was a time, not that long ago, that I thought that Andrew Brown made at least a little sense. Now he is absolutely off his chump! Who has changed, I wonder?!
At least the comments overwhelmingly condemn this dishonest line of argument.
Tu quoque. Andrew Brown is just using school playground level argument because the only real response to Terry Sanderson’s complaint about Cherie Booth is ‘it’s a fair cop guv’.
Booth’s willingness to impose a lesser sentence on a convicted thug because he ‘is a religious man’ demonstrates that she applies prejudice rather than reason in making her sentencing decisions. I wonder if she would impose a lesser sentence on a Catholic priest convicted of sexual abuse of children on the grounds that he must have greater moral awareness than non-believers because of his religious faith.
What makes this sad is that on topics away from religion he is a well-informed and intelligent commentator. Something about religion makes the red mist come down, which makes him a good illustration to back up Christopher Hitchens arguments, and I speak as someone who doesn’t actually agree with Hitchens. I now avoid reading his articles on the Guardian site as more hits will make the editors think he is doing something right. I do occasionally dip into his personal blog, just to prevent me from slipping. It might be argued that if Dawkins and Grayling and Dennett actually believed some of the things that Brown ascribes to them his antipathy towards them would be reasonable.
He seems to suffer from a combination of Gray and Eagleton syndrome, in that he confuses attempts to make small improvements to society with fanatical utopianism that will lead to concentration camps, and also takes theologians at their own estimation.
This “Cheria law” piece is one of the reasons I rarely bother to read anything by Brown these days. Sometime ago it dawned upon me that many of his articles are little more than low grade shit-stirring and a waste of print and my time.
And yet, and yet, he has the good sense to occasionally ask me to write an article! Puzzling, innit.
I like to confound his expectations by writing in a terrifically calm, reasonable, see-all-sides way, which contrasts nicely with the shit-throwing of people like Bunting and Ruse and Hobson and and and – all the people who have terrible trouble being accurate about what atheists actually say.
Brown is a terribly confused person (he is atheist? really?) but so passive aggressive that it beggars belief. This article plumbed new depths and there is even a commenter who has started a petition asking for him to be sacked as Cif Belief editor. There are complaints to the Guardian editor as well as threats to complain to Ofcom. This is one Brown thread I am enjoying hugely.
Mirax, all such things will merely add to his appeal to the guardian. Controversy is what keeps people involved and committed – and the graun (online anyway) is past master at balancing a broadly liberal appeal with just enough contra bullshit to keep their core readership engaged (while also bringing in extra readers from outside the natural catchment). Their recent coverage of climate science has been following much the same formula. It’s a proven technique, and it works…
And here I am falling into their trap! Oh well, I sort of knew that; did it anyway.
Is anybody ever going to get around to suing these guys?
Libel laws exist for a reason after all, and while the old argument of “it just keeps it in the public consciousness” is often employed, frankly these lies are getting repeated in public enough that I don’t think a court case would make much of a difference.
For my full response to the reaction to the reaction to Cherie’s Blair’s decision, you can read it on my Blog!
http://blogs.timeslive.co.za/expensive/2010/02/09/cherie-blair-and-equality-before-the-law/#more-129
Okay, I know that is cheating. The gist of it is: “Why are they defending what really is legal discrimination on religious grounds?”