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Drooling on the Pillow

Friday, March 04, 2005

Daily Dose 

The letters in the Times are always good for a jolt in the morning. I think of them as my double frappe, three shot, fuel injected latte. Double whip.

Yesterday we looked at the 'appeal to false authority' argument. This morning the bien pensant are all het up about the Ten Commandments lurking in the public square like some dodgy salesman waiting to unload his $20 Rolexes on an unsuspecting populace. What's involved today is not a logical fallacy, merely garden variety disingenuousness.

To the Editor:

I am an agnostic. If I were to walk past a clearly
religious display like the Ten Commandments on
my way into a courthouse for trial, I would have
grave doubts about the ability of that court to treat
me with impartiality and an absence of religious bias
if my lack of belief were to become known.
Many adherents of non-Judeo-Christian religions
would probably feel the same way. For that reason
alone, such displays should be removed and barred
from courthouses.

Walter J. Maslowski
Forest Hills, Queens


Mr. Maslowski wants us to pretend along with him that because he is that most rare and embattled creature, an agnostic, his ability to get a fair trial would reasonably be endangered by the display of the Ten Commandments in or around the courthouse.

The mere fact that he was apparently able to get his envelope sealed and the stamp in the right corner shows that, in reality, he is not that stupid. Mr. Maslowski's relationship with agnosticism is that of a 15-year old's with sex. He thinks he invented it.

It happens that I am an agnostic, as well. The only circumstance I can think of where that would be a liability is if I attempted to join the priesthood and, with the problems the Church has these days, I'm not so sure about that.

What Mr. Maslowski is talking about is the feeling he has that the God-boys are waiting to take him out for that parking ticket. He wants the constitution to protect him from circumstances that might give him that feeling. Well, that's not so much a slippery slope as a verticle drop. There's nothing in the Constitution protecting you from being uncomfortable. In order to raise it to the level of harm a certain amount of play-acting is necessary.

What would it take to make Mr. Maslowski comfortable? Well, if the government was agnostic. Like him.
Posted by: Sluggo / 9:56 AM
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