While I sat and listened to a radio show dissecting Mel Gibson’s racist rant, I fell victim to the machinations of my imagination – wondering if Gibson would allow his children to drink chocolate milk. I imagined his racism manifesting itself over the breakfast table as he derided his kids for not drinking milk of the two-percent variety. I was rudely interrupted from my reverie by the radio show hosts’ attempt to explain Gibson’s actions.
We have all tried to explain why actions we find deplorable or immoral require some sort of moral reasoning. But moral explanations fail because the actions in question are not, themselves, rational displays.
I think the same argument can be made when rational arguments are used to validate, explain, or extrapolate emotional positions. Inner conflict can lead to irrational thoughts, but trying to explain irrational thoughts with rational arguments should be viewed with antipathy.
Opposition to the ground zero Mosque is emotional, and I do understand the emotion behind it. I follow the train of thought that leads from the 9-11 Muslim terrorists to the 2011 Mosque opposition. I have been known to make stops on similar thought trains when my nerves kick into high gear. But explaining these thoughts with rational arguments, like Newt and his right-wing brethren have been recently makes me all the more certain that China will take us over not by might but by distracting us with a Soduku puzzle or a Jersey Shore marathon. Masquerading emotion as rationale is the defense abusive husbands use; it cannot be the rationale used to violate a constitutional tenet. Masquerading emotion as rationale cannot be used to violate the constitution so those in compliance with the constitution are stopped. Masquerading emotion as rationale on both sides of the argument should not be accepted; the terrorists do not win or lose with the erection of this Mosque.
“I think we ought to be honest about the fact that we have a right — and this happens all the time in America. You know, Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington. We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor. There’s no reason for us to accept a mosque next to the World Trade Center.” ~ Newt Gingrich
Newt makes my stomach turn with one short statement as he manages to both fan the flames of racism and exhibit an incredible level of stupidity and lack of respect by equating not only Muslims to Nazis but by equating the holocaust of six million Jews to a renovated Burlington Coat Factory. How does a statement like this not wake the rational Newt followers out of their blind allegiance? This makes me sad more than anything else. It makes me sad that people might actually buy the notion that all Muslims are terrorists. It also bothers me because it highlights a disturbing level of ignorance. When former Bush Press Secretary Dana Perrino had no clue what the Bay of Pigs was, I was simply annoyed. But this scares me. I am scared that Newt and his followers seem to lack an understanding of the holocaust; I am scared that they use it as political prop to advance a stance.
Evoking memories of 9-11 and Ground Zero to exploit emotion as a means to a political ends is fucking disgusting. September 11th is not the property of those in opposition to the Mosque. Supporting the Mosque does not diminish love of country. Supporting the Mosque does not invalidate me from the sadness I felt on September 11th. It does not mean that my pain was less important. My support of the Mosque does not mean that the nights I spent crying alone, with my family, or with my girlfriend are any more or less impactful than the emotional ties everyone else felt and still feel. Politicizing Ground Zero as opposition to a building you find disparaging to Hallowed Grounds is in itself disparaging.
The worst thing about rationalizing emotion is that it elicits emotions from the opposition. Both sides in this debate are growing so emotional that they are obfuscating the issue. The debate is growing into something far removed from the original issue. Tragedies are disparaged as part of political gamesmanship, discourse is losing out to emotion, and we are losing out to irrationality.
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