I'm Not Saying That Steven Crowder Condones Racism... [New Youtube Video]

I've mentioned Steven Crowder here before. He's... well, this is how I usually put it: "Steven Crowder, budding conservative pundit/'comedian,' ostensible journalist, professional-troll-in-the-making, and all-around closet-case..." (just kidding about the "closet-case" part... he has a girlfriend. No, really! He told me himself! And we all know that every guy who has a girlfriend is totally, completely, 100% straight, right? Yeah... anyway...) I just caught him, let's say, not being very careful about the comments on his videos or his replies to them. Keep in mind, I'm always very [but reasonably] cautious about accusing people of racism, and I'm not accusing him of racism here. I'm not even accusing him of condoning racism, but... that's not the only thing going on here. But let me be clear in stating that I unequivocally condemn any hate directed at anyone, including [especially] people who are guilty of it themselves. I'm pretty sure I'll make an in-depth, follow-up blog/video on this issue soon.

Video: "Does Steven Crowder Condone Racism?"


[contents of description bar below for those of you who'd rather not click your mouse more times than absolutely necessary]

IMPORTANT: I do not hate Steven Crowder. I have no ill will toward him. I give no indication of that anywhere in this video. Please do not use this video as "justification" for threatening him or his family, friends, associates, or anyone else he might care about!

Update: Any questions about authenticity should be cleared up by the fact that Steven Crowder admitted that this video and the screenshot were authentic. Also, Steven asked me to take down the video. He confronted me about it on facebook chat. Without giving me enough time to consider, and because I'm such a nice guy, I indicated that I would remove the video, or at least wasn't going to keep it up permanently, because this question isn't even relevant to whether or not Steven Crowder is an accurate reporter, a demagogue, a liar, or anything else. But after conferring with others more experienced than myself, I've realized that this isn't just between him and me. For his part, he claims that he wasn't paying attention well enough and didn't see the racist parts of homertalk's comment. (Ron Paul Newsletter, anyone?) I would grant him that I see his case as highly plausible. I mean, it's difficult to comprehend the monumental stupidity that would have been required for him to have done this *intentionally.* But even assuming he's telling the truth, you could still say, "That's what you get for being the kind of act that racists happen to like," or "You made your bed, now sleep in it." It's even possible that this could be a distraction from "the real issues." But I'm pretty sure he still doesn't get it... you know... what the "real" issues are... one who asks for compassion and fairness when he seems to have such trouble showing it himself...

Steven Crowder's video

We already know Steven Crowder doesn't really care too much about facts or objectivity...

Steven Crowder video comments pages (the comment in question should be on the last or next to last page. As of 8:09 pm GMT, 22 December, 2009 Steven has deleted his own comment but not homertalk's)

Screen capture

Audra Shay

Orygyn's video

Obviously, the word "nigger" can mean different things in different contexts. Homertalk was obviously using the word as a slur. I'm not saying that Steven Crowder *noticed* the use of that slur or the slur right after it... [in fact, I, personally, would say it's most likely that he didn't]. I'm just putting this out there as a public service.

On a final note, again, I'd like to point out that even if Steven Crowder does condone racism, that doesn't have anything to do with whether or not his reporting is factual. Those are two distinct questions.

[short link to this post: http://bit.ly/7YsXPA ]

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"It's the End of the World As We Know It!"

...and I feel fine. Anyway... in case you didn't know, twitter is down. Everybody panic. As a public service, I typed "twitter" into my google search engine for you all. According to the almighty interwebz, some "Iranian Cyber Army" has apparently hacked the world's most [potentially] superficial social networking/media site. Updates at 11... please stand by... I got my radar up and my finger on the pulse of the universe... right...

I should mention that before I typed "twitter" into the google search field, I typed in my twitter handle, "AderalApocalyps." I thought one of the results was quite amusing. You see, it was about two months ago that I had my first discussion about atheism on twitter with JohnJ (who I've mentioned several times here). It seemed as though, at the time, he had some misconceptions about atheism. Somehow, Austin Cline of atheism.about.com became aware of the twitstorm and contributed his two cents. This is the "amusing" search result I mentioned. Enjoy!

By the way, please leave a comment letting me know how you're coping with the "twit-apocalypse." Thanks.

I'm Speechless [New "Infomercial"]

I don't know if you've seen a lot of infomercials lately, but many of the newer ones contain some not-at-all-veiled sexual references. I mean, you can't even call them "double-entendres" anymore! I think this might be the most blatant example I've seen thus far. There's nothing wrong with this, but I guess I'm just used to some level of subtlety. It seems like the current trend in this variety of marketing is to [continually] explore [new frontiers in] how anti-subtle a commercial can become. It's like an arms-race of anti-subtlety! I'm not sure whether or not I think it's funny, though. Maybe I'll get back to you on that...



Seriously: "I need a handjob dot com". Mind-boggling. Not that I don't need a handjob... but I digress.

[h/t: Martin Pribble. thanks! :-D lol.]

EDIT: ok... I think I get this now. This type of product used to be called "as seen on TV," and because the commercials were played on tv, they had to conform to certain FCC standards of propriety, but the standards on teh Interwebz are much looser, so it's not surprising that the manufacturers of these products have since been trying so hard to "see what they can get away with." ...but I'm sure you already had that figured out.

New YouTube Video: "Thoughts on Slavery and the Bible"

For your convenience, here's the "script" I was loosely working from:

Hey! Adderall Apocalypse here! The other day I was in TogetherForPeace/Jack's blogtv room and one of the things we were talking about was the Bible's stance on slavery. Basically, what he was saying was that the Bible (NT) does provide a basis for the abolition of slavery. But he says that the New Testament writers who talked about slavery weren't very concerned with the political activism; they weren’t very concerned with telling the governments of that time that slavery was wrong and they should abolish the practice. They were more concerned with "freeing peoples' spirits." Well, first of all, I don't believe that people have "spirits" the way Jack believes that we do. Secondly, it doesn't really make sense... if God exists and is all-powerful, I would think he’d be able to free slaves, but instead, all he decided to do was, what, make them feel better, in effect? I think that if I was a slave, I’d rather be not a slave than just be made to feel like Jesus loves me or whatever, but that’s just my perspective... what do I know?

So it seems fairly clear that if God exists, he cares a lot more about "cosmic justice" than actual justice here on earth. Obviously, I don’t believe in God or "cosmic justice." I suppose it makes sense that if God and the afterlife is eternal, this life would be less significant—but don’t you see how logically unworkable this is? That God created an entire universe so that 13.7 billion years later, he could insert souls into some monkeys living on a rock in the middle of nowhere so they could live for 70 years, if that, and then, afterwards, face eternal judgment? And then either be with him forever or be tormented forever for their so-called sins? Isn’t it obvious that the afterlife is an idea people made up to combat their fear of death!?
(anyway)
Another thing he said (and I find that a lot of Christians think this) was that the abolitionist movement was largely Christian; [and] they were inspired to become abolitionists largely because of the Bible. But I think that almost everyone back then was a Christian, right? So there were just as many people who were pro-slavery who could use the Bible as justification for owning slaves as there were who were using the Bible to support their opposition to slavery. So I think it would be more instructive to look at the effects of the enlightenment on the views of the people back then regarding slavery because that was an important period of time for the development of the concept of rights. Now, I don't necessarily believe in "rights," but that's a completely different video. The point is that you're not going to see rights being mentioned or discussed anywhere in the Bible. What you'll see in the Bible is, for example, "THOU SHALT NOT STEAL," because God said so, but the real reason for the law against stealing in the Bible is that it’s disruptive to a society, especially above certain levels. This should be obvious to you. So that's as far as the Bible goes: "don't steal." Maybe from that, you could extrapolate that if you can't steal another person's property then maybe a person has a right to their own property, and you can go from there, and I suppose you could do the same with other "rights" like life and liberty, but it seems to contradict the idea that God is the one who wrote the book when, (I’d assume that) he knew all that stuff, but we had to figure it out for ourselves. It’s almost like we didn’t need God or the Bible to come up with those ideas. I would, of course, suggest that this is the case. [links on what the Bible has to say that could be interpreted as being relevant to the issue of slavery]:

Does God approve of slavery?

What the Bible says about slavery

The infamous religioustolerance.org page on slavery in the Bible

You’ll notice that you can use parts of the Bible to argue either way. You might be tempted to say that this is a paradox. But as I’ve said in my blog, I have proposed that there is no paradox, only contradiction. We can argue about that later, I’m sure...

My point is the main verse that Jack was emphasizing in his blogtv room says that in the kingdom of God "there is neither slave nor free, male nor female," etc., so from that verse, the next logical step is that we are all equal in the eyes of God, and the next logical step FROM THAT would be that slavery is wrong. Ok. Fair enough. I would think that if God really were against slavery, he would have just come right out and said it, but we can go with your explanation... but if slavery is wrong and the Bible is opposed to slavery, it just seems unfortunate that nobody figured that out until 1700 years after the Bible was written.

That reminds me: another thing people like to say is that there are absolute moral laws and, therefore, there must be a moral law giver, and that moral law giver is God. But if you look at history, you’ll see that culture dictates morality, not the other way around (not that I necessarily believe in morality, but again, different video). The system of morality in the Old Testament, for example, says that eating shellfish is an abomination (The NIV says, "you are to detest" shellfish, but whatever). But then, later on, some other people came along and tried to figure out what Old Testament laws they were still supposed to follow and which they could ignore. They split them up into three different categories: moral, civil, and ceremonial laws, but just from reading the Bible, how can you tell that there needs to be three different categories? There doesn't seem to me [to be] any obvious way to distinguish between them. But even if there were, it still seems inconsistent. Did God change his mind? Does he do that? I thought he was perfect, right? Again, you can find parts of the Bible to support either side of that argument. [links]:

Does God Repent?

"does god change his mind?"

Thanks for [reading]...

Fuck You, Twitter!!! [Or: Fuck You, Humanity!!!]

Twitter is down right now for scheduled maintenance? Are you fucking kidding me!? It's the middle of the day in all parts of the U.S.! But, hey, don't worry! They should be back within 30 minutes... which is only a motherfucking eternity in terms of twitter time!

EDIT: 12:54 PM MST. And we're back! ok. 3 minutes. not so bad... (no, I'm calm... I've been calm this whole time, what's wrong with you...)

RE-EDIT: 12:31 AM MST ["the next day"]. I've decided to take a short break from twitter. In all likelihood, this will merely mean that I'll just end now instead of being on there for another 4 hours before falling into bed. Whatever. But who knows. The reason for this is that the person I talk to the most on twitter (and the internet in general), with whom I disagree about a lot of things, but still usually enjoy talking to (JohnJ, who you might remember from a previous blog) mentioned "Palin Derangment Syndrome" tonight, which I granted exists. But then I showed him this essay by Cenk Uygur titled "The Irrefutable Stupidity of Sarah Palin" (ouch! Obviously, Uygur wasn't going for subtlety!). This was John's reaction to the essay:

That's an excellent example of Palin Derangement Syndrome. Thanks.

To be fair, I suggested that he send me a full-length message detailing why he believes Cenk suffers from PDS. I'll let you know if he responds.

I'm considering... well, I don't know. The fate of humanity is starting to look pretty bleak if two seemingly/supposedly¹ rational people can operate from two completely different conceptions of reality. I'm almost too stunned to be able to speak right now. Anyway, I'll let you know my next course of action. Thanks for reading, MOTHERFUCKAZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!!

---

¹Look: John is supposed to be one of those "sane" conservatives. Maybe I should just stop giving him "the benefit of the doubt." I don't know. I feel like I can actually discuss many of "the issues" with him intelligently. But that's not the point! The point is that he seems more intelligent and rational, let's say, than your "average" conservative. So if (emphasis on "if"!) I were to conclude that he were "crazy" and it wasn't worth discussing certain issues with him, then I'd also have to conclude that there are tens of millions more Americans who may be even crazier and even less "worthy" of discussing those issues with whoever among us is sane. I'll remind you: I'm not intending to be dismissive. I'm only using this language because John basically called Cenk Uygur crazy, at least in that one area, by "accusing" him of having "PDS." So John is the one who was being dismissive (or if you wanted to be more gracious, you might say that he was being dismissive, "too," since he might have thought that Uygur was being "dismissive" of Palin). But is it really such an either/or thing? Could there exist a reality in which neither of them were crazy? or both of them were crazy? OK! This is starting to drive me crazy! Anyway! This is the bottom line: I find Palin (let's say) unimpressive in many areas. As far as I can see, she still has a lot of work cut out for her if she wants to be a serious "contender" in the political "arena." (OMFG! I can't stand the sports analogies that have crept into our political language!) My experience listening to Cenk Uygur is that he usually has a firm grasp on/knowledge of the issues. Maybe I could say the same thing about John, but the problem remains that we're seeing two different things when we look at reality! How can we overcome that!?

"What's Wrong With Me!?"

Hello, readers! If you follow my twitter or youtube activity, you'd know I'm majorly addicted to the "fringeelements"¹ (real name: Ryan Faulk, I guess) channel on youtube. For those of you who are unfamiliar with his work, I'll provide some background. He could be classified as an anarchist, but it would be more accurate to say (and he says this himself) that he supports an "emergent" government. I'm a lover of ideas. I want to hear as wide a variety of ideas and viewpoints as I can. It doesn't matter how "out there" they are as long as they're not ideas that I've heard before and have seen enough relevant evidence to conclude that they're stupid/wrong. So I don't necessarily agree with everything Ryan says,² but a lot of what he says is new to me (relatively, at least). However, a lot of other people on youtube (TheAmazingAtheist, Thunderf00t, HowTheWorldWorks, etc...) don't seem to like what Ryan has to say or they casually dismiss him or whatever. Anyway... because of this, I've been asking certain people who are critical of Ryan, "what's wrong with me?" Here's the exchange that occurred when I asked this of twitter/blog "friend" JohnJ (who I believe agrees with Ryan about a lot of things, although I'm not sure). I've found that a major source of disagreement I usually have with John is that he seems to be culturally conservative, whereas I'm basically culturally "liberal," I guess. No, wait. That's not a very meaningful way of putting it. (Not to sound condescending, but) what I really mean is that I prefer solutions to social problems based on evidence rather than tradition and that although I recognize the importance of individual/personal responsibility, I also realize that there are a lot of things that are beyond the control of the individual.³ Anyway... without further ado, here's the transcript of our "conversation":

AderalApocalyps hey, @johnj2427. I can't stop watching fringeelements (fka confederalsocialist) on youtube. what's wrong with me? lolz...1 day ago from web

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps What's wrong with you? Well, I could start with your blind faith in government to solve all our problems.1 day ago from TweetDeck

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps And then there's the tendency to group everyone who doesn't think like you do under one label.1 day ago from TweetDeck

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps Also, there's your belief that if something isn't the way you think it should be, it's because people are stupid bigots.1 day ago from TweetDeck

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps And there's your arrogant refusal to acknowledge that no one is good enough to rule another without their consent.1 day ago from TweetDeck

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps And lest we forget, there's your belief that you know everything and people not as smart as you are idiots.1 day ago from TweetDeck

AderalApocalyps @JohnJ2427 ok... 1st of all (to paraphrase Dara O'Briain), I don't think I know everything. If I did, I would stop...1 day ago from web

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps And how could I forget your insistence that ppl aren't responsible for their choices b/c we're all just chemical reactions?1 day ago from TweetDeck

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps Then there's the juvenile tone you adopt when you mock someone because you don't understand them.1 day ago from TweetDeck

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps If you want a more detailed list, it's going to have to wait.1 day ago from TweetDeck

AderalApocalyps @JohnJ2427 um... I'm looking forward to that(?) btw... I'd like to see quotes in your analysis too (in context would be a plus...)1 day ago from web

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps But I really should include your belief that Christians are the only group in history to have never suffered persecution.1 day ago from TweetDeck

AderalApocalyps @JohnJ2427 for the record, that's not what I believe. I believe that right now, in the US, Christian persecution is less common than "avg."1 day ago from web

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps I don't disagree there. In fact, I think I demonstrated that on my blog recently.1 day ago from TweetDeck

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps Right now, in the US, Christian persecution is less common than average: http://is.gd/5bIjh1 day ago from TweetDeck

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps But what does that have to do with Peter being crucified on an upside-down cross?1 day ago from TweetDeck

AderalApocalyps @JohnJ2427 um, 1st off, I don't think I claimed it did (2ndly... he wasn't. but I digress...)1 day ago from web

AderalApocalyps @JohnJ2427 idk ur experience growing up, but churches I went 2 put alot of (I'd evn say "excessive") emphasis on James 1:2 & Matt 10:22, etc1 day ago from web

AderalApocalyps @JohnJ2427 did I do/say something wrong? Do I hafta sleep in the doghouse tonight? Can't understand why ur mischaracterizing me like this...1 day ago from web

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps Well, you asked. If I made a mistake, I apologize for it and want to correct the record.1 day ago from TweetDeck

AderalApocalyps @JohnJ2427 I mean, let's keep in mind... you were responding to my admission of partiality toward videos made by a guy who's an anarchist!1 day ago from web

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps Oh. I thought you were asking more generally. Silly me.1 day ago from TweetDeck

AderalApocalyps @JohnJ2427 ultimate:-P... anyway, yeah, srsly... I'm addicted... ha-ha-ha...1 day ago from web

AderalApocalyps @JohnJ2427 just blindsided me... not fair bro... (I'm still a little dazed... but maybe that's because I haven't eaten really...)1 day ago from web

Ok. Still there, boys and girls? Was that intense, or what!? I don't even have to respond to most of John's "statements" in this exchange as, like I said, [many of them] were rather obvious and blatant mischaracterizations. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was trying to have fun or make a point or something. Another explanation is that he might have been slightly upset at a comment I made on a video by conservative, um, "comedian," Steven Crowder,⁴ in which he propagated the myth that the peace symbol was a representation of the Apostle Peter hanging from an upside-down cross (not to mention the myth that Peter was actually hung on an upside-down cross... or the myth that there was an Apostle Peter, but, anyway, "that's neither here nor there"...). One thing I said in my comment was, "This video wasn't so bad until you went full-throttle with the Christian Persecution Complex bullshit." Oops! I don't know. That might have hit a nerve. But I was quick to clarify what I meant by that when given the opportunity! In any event, I'm going to try not to think that he really sincerely [literally] believes what he was saying about me. That would just be too ridiculous.

Thanks for reading! Happy trials! Especially, have a good time really trying to understand the positions of people you have discussions with! ;-D

---

¹He used to make videos as "confederalsocialist," but that account was suspended, for some reason. So, file another one in the "fuckyoutube" section!

²This is, of course, not even that important! Can we as a society please get over the idea that "I like you" means "I agree with you" or "I agree with you" means "you're smart"? For example, I usually find twitter/blog "friend" JohnJ, who I will bring up again later on in this post, personable, and think he's probably smart in a lot of areas, even though I'm sure I disagree with him well over half of the time. I think, if there are any significant conflicts between us, it might be over our views of science, which is important, but I think that's something we can work on. Of course, regarding Ryan, something that might be a major caveat is that he was at one point, unfortunately, a "white nationalist," or at least claimed to be one. But I think that he can be forgiven for that because he has since renounced white nationalism, and explained his reasoning behind doing so to my satisfaction, at least. As I said in an earlier blog, I don't like to jump to conclusions that people are racist. For example, I wouldn't assume that John is racist just because of the baggage of the loaded wording of the title of his blog: "A Johnny Reb in a Yankee World [Subtitle: Bearing Witness To The End Of America Because Someone Has To Do It.]" Why do I find that title so disconcerting? I honestly don't care about political correctness.

³Oh, well excuse the fuck out of me for trying to have a little fun at the expense of fairness. I hope I'm not offending anyone reading this and I'm certainly not directing this at John himself, but you have to realize that one of the dangers of playing at the beach is that you risk getting sand in your vagina. So my characterization of John here was unfair. At least I'm doing him the service of admitting it now and attempting to explain his actual position: I'm sure John would say that he's very much a proponent of pragmatic, evidence-based solutions to social problems. He merely happens to believe (on faith, no less! *gasp*!) that more freedom is always the best way to solve problems (although that might be an over-simplification). I would tend to agree, but one area of contention might be in regards to what "more freedom" actually means. Then there's the complicating factor of "conflicting freedoms," which I don't even want to get into right now. What I gather from what he's written on the topic is that what John actually believes about tradition is that a practice or belief or policy becomes tradition because it has "stood the test of time" and "works" in some way, in the pragmatic sense of the word. I would say that what I believe about tradition is exemplified in "Weird Al" Yankovic's brilliant holiday jingle, "Weasel Stomping Day." Incidentally, as a side note, I would also say that what I believe about social norms is exemplified in the Twilight Zone episode, "Eye of the Beholder."

⁴I'm not going to provide a link to this video. You can find it yourself if you care so much. I don't care if you think Steven Crowder is funny or whatever. I don't. It's fine with me if you're a fan of his, but I just can't take him seriously... or comedically (right, not a real word, I know). A lot of humor has to do with making accurate observations. Hence the phrase, "it's funny 'cause it's true." It's hard for me to laugh at a guy's jokes who I believe consistently makes (I'll be nice here) inaccurate observations. But I was planning on writing more on that later...

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