Tastes Like Chick

...aside from my usual annoyance at the religious, there are some people for whom I have to reserve a special measure of dislike. One such is Jack Chick, a comic artist who has elected to ply his trade as an evangelical. You may be familiar with his work, his little palm sized comics turn up in many, many places. Just now I found one sitting in a public toilet, on top of the paper dispencer...admittedly this is where I have, almost without exception, found his "Chick Tracks"...I won't go quite so far as to say that this is the most appropriate venue for his...work. I will happily suggest it indirectly however and let you reach your own conclusions.

Obviously I have a bias. I personally find his work offensive, chiefly because the man is quite happy to deride the beliefs of others and cite archeological, anthropological or historical data to support his attacks...yet never seems willing to provide any sort of similar evidence as to why his own particular brand of primitive superstition is immune to such arguments. Additionally, his work universally depicts any person not firmly and vocally in his camp as being either deranged, possessed or themselves an evil and diabolical villain.

I wouldn't even bring this up but I did, as I said, just find another of Chick's skreeds in the toilet.

I think possibly the worst part of this whole enterprise is the fact that the comic art form generally appeals most to children, who are least able to reason for themselves or identify the fallacies in the work. For instance, in this particular...I hesitate to use the word "publication" but nervertheless, Chick has a fatehr and son coming across a group of Muslim men engaged in their prayers at a Mosque. The child inquires about the prayers, the father tells us they are praying to a "moon god" which, no great surprise, motivates one of the men to approach him and address the insult. This of course winds up witht he Muslim being portrayed as a dangerous, threatening fanatic. fear not though, as the good Christian Father now procedes to enlighten us further about a questionable archeological finding (no reference info, of course) and a completely unsupported story about a power hungry Mohammad. Unsurprisingly, after this "revelation" the Muslim man in question abandons his faith, becomes a Christian on the spot and procedes to run back to the Mosque proclaiming this revelation and his intent to evanglize among them.

Vascillation

At some point in the last two weeks an odd thought came to me; have I been drifting too far to the left? Did I unwittingly drink the Kool-Aid and turn into a Commie-bot while ripping on the RNC and conservatives in general? How could I answer this question in an objective manner?

Well it hit me fairly quickly, as I was also bemoaning the basic lack of programming on POTUS, that I could cast my net into new waters and sample the channel which specifically labels itself as "Liberal Radio", on XM 167. I took the waters, as it were and I can only say one thing in all honesty.

Holy shit. Any suspicion that my enthusiasm for Obama and his overall administration thus far qualified me as being a "liberal" was blown completely out of the water. I mean wow. Just over a weak of listening to Mike Malloy and Alex Bunnett has cured me of any such illusions. Listening to Malloy reminds me of the old joke about what happens when you play country music backwards; substitute Limbaugh for Hank Williams. Apparently, according to Micky here, everything wrong in life can be laid at the feet of capitalism; frankly, if you listen to this lefty loonie tune, you can figure out he's a hold-over hippie who is still carrying a torch for communism. Bleeding hell I am tired of "-isms".

So what have I learned? I am hated at both ends of the spectrum and while I still have to politely (or not so much) disagree with both the loonies and the wing-nuts I can at least understand while they both hate each other. I have to return to my earlier position that letting these to waring camps hold the reigns of power is a hideously bad idea. Massive Left-Right political shifts in our national policies are going to tear this country apart and the only way to cure the affliction is the one thing we can't get people to do; we can't get them to actually reason and compromise with one another. This in the age of instant, real-time communication...the irony could gag a goat.

Throughout human history, numerous figures have cautioned against extremes in society. From Taoism to Aristotlean ethics we are again and again advised to avoid extremes...yet the dramatic nature of such draw followers like moths to a flame and even as they are immolated the followers of extremes hurl invective at we more moderate persons for our refusal to abandon our control and grasp of the mean.

If it wasn't for the fact that modern candle flames include nuclear energies, I would be tempted to ask these fools to hurry to their fate a bit faster.