Statement 1: One study showed that children without fathers in the home, and in neighborhoods with a high percentage of single moms, are more likely to engage in crime.
Statement 2: Oh, so you're saying single moms are to blame for high rates of teen crime.
...
WHaaATttT?!!
How did we get there?
I call this the evolution of ridiculous. Here's another one.
Statement 1: Hobby Lobby doesn't want to be forced to pay for drugs that they disagree with morally
Statement 2: Hobby Lobby is preventing their employees from accessing birth control.
Also ridiculous. That's not what's happening at all. But the tweet version of the story is shorter, simpler, and... more inflammatory, which makes for more clicks. All kinds of assumptions are baked into this, but the impatience of society refuses to wait for them to be identified and then challenged or refuted:
Every evolution of ridiculous requires someone to take an action, a study, a comment, and then swallow huge amounts of unquestioned assumptions in order to spit out a completely unfounded and absurd conclusion.
It reminds me of a fourth grader realizing that your name "Daisy" rhymes with "crazy" and then extrapolates: "You're crazy Daisy! Ha ha - (add sing-songy voice here) You're a cra-zy Dai-sy, you're a cra-zy Dai-sy..."
Why do we put up with this?
I think we're scared. We've been in fourth grade, and we know that it doesn't matter which side logic favors. What matters is who says it louder.
Statement 1: I think marriage should be defined as between a man and a woman.
Statement 2: You hate gay people.
What, what? No! Of course not! It has nothing to do with that...
It doesn't matter. Everyone has already stopped listening and are now plugging their ears and singing. "You are a bi-got, you are a bi-got..."
But, but, if you keep acting like fourth graders, how can we possibly learn anything from each other! You're stifling civil discourse! You're creating a straw man! You are completely misrepresenting science! You're misrepresenting me!
"I can't heeeear you....la la la la...."
Statement 2: Oh, so you're saying single moms are to blame for high rates of teen crime.
...
WHaaATttT?!!
How did we get there?
I call this the evolution of ridiculous. Here's another one.
Statement 1: Hobby Lobby doesn't want to be forced to pay for drugs that they disagree with morally
Statement 2: Hobby Lobby is preventing their employees from accessing birth control.
Also ridiculous. That's not what's happening at all. But the tweet version of the story is shorter, simpler, and... more inflammatory, which makes for more clicks. All kinds of assumptions are baked into this, but the impatience of society refuses to wait for them to be identified and then challenged or refuted:
- Why do companies have to pay for birth control to begin with?
- How did private companies get forced to be involved with paying for health care?
- If women do have a right to birth control, couldn't we make it someone else's duty to provide that, like the government?
- If we just decided that women have a right to birth control in 2008 via Obamacare, shouldn't someone's right to freedom of religion supercede that, since that was codified in the Constitution in 1791?
- Couldn't disgruntled employees petition for a change of policy, or change their job?
- Is Hobby Lobby really preventing their employees from accessing birth control if it costs $10 to buy themselves? Couldn't we say that Hobby Lobby is also preventing their employees from accessing free day care, or subsidized college tuition?
- Isn't forcing a company to pay for something they morally disagree with kind of like forcing a gay baker to make a "faggots suck" cake for a hate group party?
Every evolution of ridiculous requires someone to take an action, a study, a comment, and then swallow huge amounts of unquestioned assumptions in order to spit out a completely unfounded and absurd conclusion.
It reminds me of a fourth grader realizing that your name "Daisy" rhymes with "crazy" and then extrapolates: "You're crazy Daisy! Ha ha - (add sing-songy voice here) You're a cra-zy Dai-sy, you're a cra-zy Dai-sy..."
Why do we put up with this?
I think we're scared. We've been in fourth grade, and we know that it doesn't matter which side logic favors. What matters is who says it louder.
Statement 1: I think marriage should be defined as between a man and a woman.
Statement 2: You hate gay people.
What, what? No! Of course not! It has nothing to do with that...
It doesn't matter. Everyone has already stopped listening and are now plugging their ears and singing. "You are a bi-got, you are a bi-got..."
But, but, if you keep acting like fourth graders, how can we possibly learn anything from each other! You're stifling civil discourse! You're creating a straw man! You are completely misrepresenting science! You're misrepresenting me!
"I can't heeeear you....la la la la...."
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