April, Come She Will

Or how she painted herself into a corner by re-defining "bigot".

Some of what the followoing is based on came after I cut off the conversation from a couple of posts ago, where April is played by "Joy Behar".  I had pointed out that Islam is not a race but an ideology, and that we must be allowed to take issue with ideologies, and ideologies can be shown by the data to be overwhelmingly disparate in the dangers they pose, and that it is rational to be leery with people who subscribe to such ideologies.   But, she chose to ignore all of that and go straight to the "bigot" card again ... because I think that's all she's got.  So here's my final analysis:

April goes around publicly disagreeing with people whose ideologies that disagrees with hers.

Publicly disagreeing with someone else's ideology, however, she has demonstrated to equate to intolerance which transitively equates to bigotry. Which of course would make her a ... yeah. Bigot.

But wait. She gets an exemption, presumably because HER ideology is "right".

Now when we go look Webster's definition of a bigot we see: 

big-ot: (n) a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance ; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance.

Now since she has not demonstrated partiality pro or con to a specific race, one might assume she could duck out of the charge over the "especially" clause here, which leads the more traditional and widely used definition.

But of course, since there is no possibility that her ideology is wrong, one might say that this demonstrates " a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance".

Apparently based on this she has declared me a bigot because I have publicly disagreed with tenets of the Islamic faith -- which we all know does not equate to a racial or ethnic group. How could it? There are Arab Muslims, Black Muslims, Polynesian Muslims, and I work with a red-haired freckly faced one with a Scottish last name.

Unless, of course, April DOES equate religion, a non-racial trait, with an ethnic group. But she wouldn't reflexively equate a non racial trait with a race or ethnic group! Not her! Because that would be racist. Right? To presume because a person believes "A", he must be "B" ethnic group? Does that not fit the very definition of prejudice? Which is racist. Which is ... "hate".

Now there are certain ideologies outside of hers that her ideology clearly believes should not be criticized by people outside of her ideology, and one of them is apparently Islam. Which demonstrates that she thinks some ideologies, even other than her own, are more deserving of respect than other ideologies. Because she clearly has no problems criticizing other ideologies, such as Christianity. See as long as SHE'S the one doing the criticizing, it's all ok.

So April does this bit, going around publicly disagreeing with ideologies that disagree with hers, likely because ....

A) She doesn't believe these ideologies of others with whom she disagrees are dangerous, but feels said public disagreement will win her kudos from her peers and it feeds her sense of self-worth even if it comes at the expense of others

or

B) She actually believes that these ideologies of others with whom she disagrees ARE dangerous, and she is either warning people about this fact or trying to convert the disagreed to one of the agreed. Or both.

But of course, the first is a callous disparaging of ideologies she disagrees with just for self gratification, and the second, is -- from the sentence she has handed down to me, intolerance. Which is bigotry. Which is hatred. And she's totally against that.

So any way you slice it, April, according to April, is a bigot. Only she's not. Because she's April. Which makes her a ... no, you see you really can't get out of this logic trap she's built for herself.

April is one confused young lady.

I'm afraid I cannot help her.