Using idiots’ own words against them = assured win

I came across this recent bit of irrational stupidity from Vox Day yesterday, but wasn’t in any sort of a blogging mood. Well, I’m back, so here it is: Vox, desperate as ever to seize any tiny opportunity to jump at atheists and depict them as opportunistic scoundrels, commenting on the joint Non-Believers Giving Aid charity project headed by the Richard Dawkins Foundation, intended to encourage nonreligious folks to send donations to secular charitable groups (such as the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders), and once again reverting to his habit of making an utter ass of himself without even realizing it:

Dawkins is such an unmitigated and self-centered ass that he can't even permit a natural disaster to take place without attempting to turn it into a statement about atheists. If you want to help someone, then just shut up, do it, and spare the press release. Let not your right hand etc etc. The point is: it's not about you or your godless ideology, you narcissistic wanker.

*ahem*

Vox is such an unmitigated and self-centered ass that he can’t even permit a perfectly sound charitable service to be set up without attempting to turn it into a smear against atheists. If you want to help someone and also disprove silly and unfounded notions about how atheists and nonreligious folks are somehow less compassionate than others at the same time, then it’s a great idea that both helps those in need and helps to silence unfair preconceptions against godless people, thus killing two birds with one stone. Let not your left^[1] hand etc etc. The point is: stop saying stupid shit, you narcissistic wanker.

Funny how that fits so perfectly.

Of course, it’s interesting to note how this ignorant rant comes from a guy who constantly proclaims that any and all government help is utterly useless and that sending money to Haiti is nothing more than slacktivism (my paraphrasing). His argument is that the money is sent to the corrupt and stupid government that allows such catastrophes to happen in the first place. It therefore becomes apparent that Vox really has no clue how this “donation” stuff works, does he? You see, Vox, when you send your money to the likes of the Red Cross or Doctors Without Border and so on, you’re sending them the cash they need to procure stuff like, say, food and blankets and medical equipment and so on. You’re not paying the freakin’ government. Unless the Red Cross is somehow in charge of the politics at Haiti. Which I doubt.

He also brings up that tired old argument that sending money to help Haitians dig themselves out of this catastrophe only renders them more dependent on international aid and charity, as opposed to forcing them to help themselves and so on. Of course, anyone reading this – who’s not Vox Day and his ilk of similar-minded goons – realizes both how heartless and mind-numbingly stupid such an idea is. We’re not talking about sending them money for long-term sustenance. We’re talking about helping them recover from the quake. Is that really so hard to comprehend? The entire country was devastated and their infrastructure (whatever there was to begin with) wiped out. If you even plan to have them survive for the next few years, much less indefinitely, then they need lots of support, and they need it now.

Frankly, Vox is using the same sort of illogic as did Rush Limbaugh when he stated that Americans shouldn’t donate to Haiti because they already did, in the form of their tax dollars. Truly, how anyone fails to see the immense illogic behind such words eludes me.

^[1] Tiny nitpicking, I know.