Friday, April 13, 2007

they make you say "hmm"

Great points from Tim Blair. He's Australian, hence the focus, but most of his contradictions are fairly universal. The highlights:
We all know people whose passionate beliefs stand in direct opposition to their other passionate beliefs. Here's a handy list of 30 contradictory concepts.

1 The same people who claim to worry most about future generations surviving climate change have no objections at all to abortion – which kills thousands of future Australians every year.

2 The same people most likely to vote Green are also most likely to live in Australia's least natural environments – our crowded, paved, stupid-filled inner-city suburbs.

6 The same people who've spent more time than most of us flying around the earth are proportionately more likely to insist fossil fuel consumption is a very grave problem.

9 The same people who are the loudest in support of drug-free "natural" childbirth are remarkably silent on the matter of drug-free "natural" dentistry.

10 The same people who demand price controls on petrol would scream like a goth in the sun if the sale of their own goods and properties were subject to price controls.

11 The same people who believe Americans have no sense of humour laugh their heads off at The Simpsons.

12 The same people who want to restrict cigarette smoking are invariably inclined towards decriminalising marijuana.

15 The same people who were offended by George W. Bush meddling in Australian politics are absolutely fine with Al Gore meddling in Australian politics.

16 The same people who thought anti-terror fridge magnets were a pointless tokenistic gesture nevertheless supported Earth Hour, during which they saved the planet by turning off their lights for 60 whole minutes.

18 The same people who protested against UN sanctions in Iraq later claimed Iraq shouldn't have been invaded because the sanctions were working.

19 The same people who fear nuclear power in Australia don't give nuclear power a moment's thought when they holiday in nuclear-powered France.

20 The same people who publish images of crucifixes in urine don't dare print even a single cartoon making fun of Mohammed.

21 The same people who were ultra-nationalistic during the republican debate these days decry the ugly nationalism of displaying the Australian flag on Australia Day.

22 The same people who fought for women's rights in the '60s and '70s are oddly silent today on the issue of women's rights forf emale Muslims.

23 The same people who denounce creeping US influence in Australian culture often make a great deal of money appearing in US films and speaking in American accents – particularly a person named Toni Collette.

24 The same people who demand every last detail on the location of any planned Australian nuclear power plants decline to identify any of the industries they would prefer to see removed in order to reduce Australia's alleged greenhouse pollutants.

26 The same people who complain most about globalisation seem unusually alert to views expressed on international anti-globalisation websites.

27 The same people who demand reductions in energy use in order to solve global warming will turn up in huge energy-munching numbers at June's energy-guzzling Live Earth concert – which aims to solve global warming.

30 The same newspaper columnist – me – who is such a psycho on law-and-order issues has just one point left on his licence due to repeated speeding offences.


HT Wizbang!

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3 Comments:

At 4:24 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

He Chic(k)pilot - thanks for your service to our country.
God bless you.
M. Walker

 
At 2:04 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

There are some great ones in there in there. Right on the mark!

 
At 2:41 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes indeed there are some little contradictions - we find the favourite tools of crooked and manipulative thinking all over the place here: mixing different categories and lump them together, hoping nobody would be smart enough to notice, and then hiding behind sweeping and divisive generalisations to make unproven and unsubstantiated allegations against anybody who doesn't quite fit the 'right' agenda. It must be truly frustrating to fight those 'intellectuals' all the time not with really intelligent and convincing arguments but with tiring and forced polemic and sometimes thinly veiled aggression .... for instance, using this kind of logic one could argue that the 'same' people who oppose abortion don't give a damn about climate change and an increasingly endangered and polluted environment their (and your!) children and grandchildren will have to live in. Sorry I forgot: 'glowball warmening' is just sooo funny ... really?

 

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