Silly Right Wingers

Okay, I have finally found something worth making fun of on the right wing blogs. Thanks guys!

First, the Volokh Conspiracy (he of the famous "torture is good" postings") argues that we should abolish the bar exam. His reasoning is that it serves as a credential that inflates attorney salaries by limiting access. In other words, the ABA is a guild. Now liberalizing the requirements might have some reasonable arguments to support it, but doing away with the bar is just a stupid idea. Do we really want a bunch of incompetent lawyers running around?

Second, the Belmont Club has made a couple of embarrassing errors. Apparently one of the leading candidates to succeed John Paul, Francis Arize, is from Africa, which would make him the first black Pope. Arize is also the point man on relations with Islam.

Belmont Club claims that there have in fact been a number of black Popes in the past. His evidence? Some of the early popes were from Africa. This is very much the same reasoning that says that the ancient Egyptians were black, or that Cleopatra was. Look, there is a gigantic difference Africa north and south of the Sahara. North we find barbers and Arabs (and in the old days, covets). They are essentially of Semitic ethnic stock. Sub-saharan Africa is what we think of in America as "African," i.e. black. I'm all for having blacks in positions of prominence in the world, but can we please not falsify history?

Also, in the same post it is claimed that the Catholic Church has long had relations with Islam. Yeah, if by "relations" you mean "destruction." That's like saying that I have good relations with my brother-in-law because I just punched him in the face yesterday.

Last, check out the comments section in the Belmont Club post. There are some seriously anti-Muslim people on the right. So it doesn't surprise me that they think that "conflict" equals "relations."