The Rough Beast Slouches

John Gruber commenting at Daring Fireball about Facebook allowing “climate deniers” to post “disinformation” without their content being “fact checked”:

Facebook can’t have it both ways. They can be a haven for right-wing disinformation or they can be a part of civil society. Zuckerberg seemingly thinks they can have it both ways, but it can’t hold.

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I used to admire Mr. Gruber because he valiantly defended Apple from all those who maligned and misunderstood it. Yes, Apple is just a technology company, but at least under Steve Jobs it was, in it’s own small and imperfect way, dedicated to what is true, good, and above all beautiful.

But Mr. Gruber has, in the Age of Trump, become increasingly political, and my own views have developed into something he, no doubt, would consider execrable. So I don’t much like reading him any more, or listening to his podcasts. No one likes tromping through the jungle undergrowth in enemy territory when there are ideological landmines about the place.

But he still provides some of the best commentary on Apple, so at this time of year (when Apple holds its annual developers conference, WWDC) I risk it.

And today, I found on his blog that jewel of bigotry and intolerance quoted above.

A man who so dedicates himself to defending the maligned (Apple, and its fans), is yet so guilty of the same injustice, when it really matters, namely, when he regards his fellow citizens.

He appears to have no awareness of the fact, nor could he even imagine, that there are intelligent, thoughtful people—including, yes, scientists—who have evidence-based disagreements about climate predictions. Are they right? Perhaps not. Perhaps they are disastrously wrong.

But is it not right and just for Facebook to regard as opinion a stance about which, it turns out, reasonable people disagree?

According to John Gruber, no. No. Because it is not merely a different view of a difficult and complex subject; it is “right-wing disinformation.” And the people who hold that view are not fellow citizens with a right to express their viewpoint in a public forum like Facebook without fact-checking that nullifies, even if it does not outright silence, their views.

Such people are not, according to Mr. Gruber, “part of civilized society”.

Where, I wonder, does Mr. Gruber—and progressives like him—think that it will lead when they persistently and obnoxiously brand anyone who disagrees with them beyond the bounds of civil society?

If progressives like him keep pushing this line, then, I fear, society will become quite uncivil indeed. And they will pine for the golden days when their world view, destructive and disgusting as it is, was so generously and peacefully tolerated that they mistook our temporary malaise for their total victory.

No, John, it cannot hold.

Culture War Crimes

Leftists expressed disapproval that President Trump threatened to destroy Iranian cultural sites, pointing out that such acts are considered war crimes, according to international and federal law. Such acts, if carried out, would indeed be reprehensible. But Trump, I doubt, would ever actually do what he threatened, as his pattern of exaggerated threats followed by measured—if somewhat unpredictable—actions ought to demonstrate to those who are paying attention.

But the criticism is interesting coming from those who, for decades, perhaps even centuries, depending on how you reckon it, have been engaged in destroying, if not the physical buildings of our civilization’s heritage, but the culture that produced those sites and that through them is embodied and preserved for future generations.

Such cultural destruction is far worse a deed than material destruction. Which is more important: a glorious church built to worship God, or the worship itself, of which the church is only the first fruits? And which is a greater sin: the destruction of a beautiful old building, or the destruction of the faith that should have filled that building with praise of the Creator.

The building is important, as an incarnation of the culture that made it, as a reminder of what has come before, and as a tether connecting past, present, and future generations across time.

But a beautiful building that no longer means anything to anyone is a husk, a mere curio. Nice to look at and wonder what sort of people built it. But little more.

We are now living in a civilization filled with such curios, where every day the monuments, both material and immaterial, that our ancestors built mean less and less to their inheritors. Churches stand largely empty, especially in Europe; universities teach students not the tradition that is their birthright, but deconstructionist Marxist propaganda; popular culture is rife with vulgarity and degradation that undermine traditional values, and corrupt rather than edify; even the Catholic Church is filled with Judases more interested in conforming to progressivism and the spirit of the age, than in handing on the faith that they themselves received.

As a result, even when we build, that which we build is ugly and mean, because the culture that trained the builders, and artists, and thinkers is ugly and mean.

How rare and wonderful it is when someone somewhere produces something truly beautiful!

Instead we are confronted daily with ugliness in art, architecture, literature, entertainment, and inexhaustible mediocre consumerism—all in the pursuit of a progressive, modern world.

The left is guilty, by their persistent and systematic efforts to undermine and denature our civilization, of decimating our cultural heritage. The right is guilty of letting it happen, of not mounting a strong enough defense of that which is noble and sacred in our inheritance, and of appeasing decade after decade the destroyers.

Of course, no one is likely to be held accountable for such crimes. Killing a culture is a rather abstract affair. And, after all, we did it to ourselves.

Lies About Abortion and White Men

Alabama’s lawmakers are doing their part to protect unborn children from the abortionists’ poisons, suction tubes, and forceps, but as anticipated they are receiving no end of calumny and hate for their efforts. One lie that is particularly popular is that this law is another example of white men trying to end abortion as part of their “war on women”.

Never mind the fact that the governor who singed the legislation into law is a woman. Or the fact that many pro-life leaders, like Abby Johnson, are women. No—the members of the Alabama Senate who voted for the law are all white men, which is more than enough fuel for the calumnious fire.

On “The Daily” podcast, in soft and troubled tones, the NYTimes host asked the Alabama lawyer instrumental in crafting the bill if he was concerned that only white men voted for the legislation. CNN ran with the headline “25 men voted to advance most restrictive abortion ban in the country. The female governor signed it.” Leslie Jones on SNL, scowling, expressed her anger about the makeup of the senators who voted for the legislation: “Look at em. ALL MEN”—to which the audience compliantly booed loudly. “When women have a choice, women have FREEDOM,” she said, “This really is a war on women.” CBS reported: “Alabama just criminalized abortions – and every single yes vote was cast by a white man.”

Except it’s not true that only white men voted for the legislation. Yes, the Senators who voted for the law are all men. But before the law came to the Senate, it was passed by the Alabama House of Representatives. While most of the Representatives who voted for the bill were men, no fewer than 6 women also voted for the bill.

It just so happens that all the women on the Alabama Senate are also Democrats. It is not that they are women, but that they are Democrats that is the reason they did not vote yes to save unborn children from oathbreaking doctors who would tear them limb from limb.

It is not being female that determines one’s willingness to end unborn life. It is not being a man that predisposes one to protecting the unborn. Rather it is recognizing that the unborn are human persons worthy of protection. And, for all sorts of historical and philosophical reasons, one is far more likely to be able to see the humanity of the unborn, a fact provable by medical science and natural law without recourse to divine revelation, if one is a conservative Christian, which almost invariably means your name will be followed by an R, not a D.