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So I guess it’s okay to stop hating Indiana now?
A few additional observations from here:
1. In a sense the whole sorry episode illustrates how disconnected political leaders can be from reality. Mike Pence not only had no idea how different the Indiana law is from the federal RFRA he thought it was modeled after, but also seemed genuinely baffled that anyone could possibly interpret it as a way for religious business owners to, say, refuse to send pizzas to gay weddings.
Regardless of how you personally feel about conservative Christians or gay marriage, you'd have to be living in a cave to not know that at least some people will use religious freedom to do not-so-nice things. Unless you just assume – as Pence has done in the press – that those things never happen because liberals just make shit like that up.
Which brings us to:
2. The Memories Pizza incident, which may not be a case of making shit up but it’s almost certainly a case of being set up by a TV reporter looking to start an argument.
Or not. Both sides are spinning this for maximum impact. But personally I found it suspicious that right after the RFRA passed, some reporter found one business in one small town in an entire state to go on record stating they wouldn’t cater a gay wedding – which suddenly became “proof” that the RFRA law is resulting straights-only policies across the state.
Which wasn’t even close to true.
But what is truth? Everyone has proof that the story is made up, or that the O’Connors exaggerated or made up the death threats they received over the interview, or that the resulting GoFundMe campaign that earned them $800k is astroturf.
But there is one fact in the midst of all this: thanks to the extreme wing of the Left going ballistic, the owners of Memories Pizza are now close to $1 million richer than they were before. Therefore, if the objective of harassing Memories Pizza was to force them to either close or change their catering policy, I’d call the result a big fat epic fail.
But then I was never a big fan of the “Boycott Indiana” meme, not least because it punished businesses whether or not they supported the law. Why boycott everyone when you can marginalize the businesses who do discriminate against certain patrons?
That’s why I thought the proper response would be for businesses in Indiana who didn’t support the law – or had no intention of taking advantage of it – to put signs in their windows saying “Hey, we’ll take yr money, we don’t care who you sleep with.” And indeed a number of businesses did just that.
It’s a moot point now, of course, but I think that would have been a far more effective (and fair) response than an all-out boycott or online hate blitzes against the likes of Memories Pizza. That was stupid and wrong.
3. And now no one has to admit it because Pence “fixed” the law, which means many in the Left will come away from this thinking, “Well that worked, so we'll go apeshit every time another state passes a law we don't like.”
That’s what really bugs me about this, and it’s the reason I’m trying to channel all this into a post that makes a modicum of sense. I understand why people were upset over Indiana, but I think the response was the kind of overblown shrill batshit hysterics usually deployed by certain conservative radio shows and news channels. Those tactics make them look dumb irrational people, but it gets results. Now both sides are doing it because it gets results.
So the overall lesson from Indiana is: why be rational when overblown shrill batshit hysterics work just as well, possibly better?
Which is a good excuse for me to post this great interview Patton Oswalt did for Salon. If you didn’t know, Oswalt has been highly critical of Salon for taking progressive journalism into shrill hysterical batshit territory, and he makes a good case for how that is not helping the cause, and the proper response to extremists and racists and homophobes et al isn’t outrage, but pity and humor:
To that I’d add that outrage is easy. It’s kneejerk emotion that takes no intellectual effort whatsoever. Which is okay if you just want to vent. As a strategy for change, it’s the equivalent of screaming until you get yr way. It might work, but it’s uncool, immature, and no one really respects you for it.
Keep calm,
This is dF
A few additional observations from here:
1. In a sense the whole sorry episode illustrates how disconnected political leaders can be from reality. Mike Pence not only had no idea how different the Indiana law is from the federal RFRA he thought it was modeled after, but also seemed genuinely baffled that anyone could possibly interpret it as a way for religious business owners to, say, refuse to send pizzas to gay weddings.
Regardless of how you personally feel about conservative Christians or gay marriage, you'd have to be living in a cave to not know that at least some people will use religious freedom to do not-so-nice things. Unless you just assume – as Pence has done in the press – that those things never happen because liberals just make shit like that up.
Which brings us to:
2. The Memories Pizza incident, which may not be a case of making shit up but it’s almost certainly a case of being set up by a TV reporter looking to start an argument.
Or not. Both sides are spinning this for maximum impact. But personally I found it suspicious that right after the RFRA passed, some reporter found one business in one small town in an entire state to go on record stating they wouldn’t cater a gay wedding – which suddenly became “proof” that the RFRA law is resulting straights-only policies across the state.
Which wasn’t even close to true.
But what is truth? Everyone has proof that the story is made up, or that the O’Connors exaggerated or made up the death threats they received over the interview, or that the resulting GoFundMe campaign that earned them $800k is astroturf.
But there is one fact in the midst of all this: thanks to the extreme wing of the Left going ballistic, the owners of Memories Pizza are now close to $1 million richer than they were before. Therefore, if the objective of harassing Memories Pizza was to force them to either close or change their catering policy, I’d call the result a big fat epic fail.
But then I was never a big fan of the “Boycott Indiana” meme, not least because it punished businesses whether or not they supported the law. Why boycott everyone when you can marginalize the businesses who do discriminate against certain patrons?
That’s why I thought the proper response would be for businesses in Indiana who didn’t support the law – or had no intention of taking advantage of it – to put signs in their windows saying “Hey, we’ll take yr money, we don’t care who you sleep with.” And indeed a number of businesses did just that.
It’s a moot point now, of course, but I think that would have been a far more effective (and fair) response than an all-out boycott or online hate blitzes against the likes of Memories Pizza. That was stupid and wrong.
3. And now no one has to admit it because Pence “fixed” the law, which means many in the Left will come away from this thinking, “Well that worked, so we'll go apeshit every time another state passes a law we don't like.”
That’s what really bugs me about this, and it’s the reason I’m trying to channel all this into a post that makes a modicum of sense. I understand why people were upset over Indiana, but I think the response was the kind of overblown shrill batshit hysterics usually deployed by certain conservative radio shows and news channels. Those tactics make them look dumb irrational people, but it gets results. Now both sides are doing it because it gets results.
So the overall lesson from Indiana is: why be rational when overblown shrill batshit hysterics work just as well, possibly better?
Which is a good excuse for me to post this great interview Patton Oswalt did for Salon. If you didn’t know, Oswalt has been highly critical of Salon for taking progressive journalism into shrill hysterical batshit territory, and he makes a good case for how that is not helping the cause, and the proper response to extremists and racists and homophobes et al isn’t outrage, but pity and humor:
I always go for mocking and laughter before outrage. The reason that Ann Coulter gets away with the shit that she says is because the people responding spend half their energy going, “I can’t believe it! Why would you?” She should say shit, and then you should just go, “Aw, Ann. OK.” I never get outraged at shit. I just don’t. You come back with jokes, they don’t know what to do. There has to be way less outrage, more fun and mocking and irreverence.
It just feels like being outraged puts you in a position of not being powerful. You’re so much more powerful when you’re laughing and being forgiving and taking pity on someone.
It just feels like being outraged puts you in a position of not being powerful. You’re so much more powerful when you’re laughing and being forgiving and taking pity on someone.
To that I’d add that outrage is easy. It’s kneejerk emotion that takes no intellectual effort whatsoever. Which is okay if you just want to vent. As a strategy for change, it’s the equivalent of screaming until you get yr way. It might work, but it’s uncool, immature, and no one really respects you for it.
Keep calm,
This is dF
