Patterico's Pontifications

7/2/2015

George Takei Does Not Understand That Human Dignity And Inherent Worth Come From God – Not From Government, Nor From Man

Filed under: General — Dana @ 12:44 pm



[guest post by Dana]

As I am seriously pressed for time today, I will just throw this up here.

George Takei grossly misread Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s dissent to the ruling in Obergefell. And based on his own utterly ridiculous (mis)understanding of it, he threw an ugly racist hissy fit.

From Thomas:

Human dignity has long been understood in this country to be innate. When the Framers proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” and “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” they referred to a vision of mankind in which all humans are created in the image of God and therefore of inherent worth. That vision is the foundation upon which this Nation was built.

The corollary of that principle is that human dignity cannot be taken away by the government. Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved. Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them. And those denied governmental benefits certainly do not lose their dignity because the government denies them those benefits. The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it away.

Takei, in full ignorant meltdown mode:

He is a clown in black face sitting on the Supreme Court. He gets me that angry. He doesn’t belong there. And for him to say, slaves have dignity. I mean, doesn’t he know that slaves were in chains? That they were whipped on the back. If he saw the movie 12 Years a Slave, you know, they were raped. And he says they had dignity as slaves or – My parents lost everything that they worked for, in the middle of their lives, in their 30s. His business, my father’s business, our home, our freedom and we’re supposed to call that dignified? Marched out of our homes at gun point. I mean, this man does not belong on the Supreme Court. He is an embarrassment. He is a disgrace to America.

Facepalm.

Anyway, the whole thing is just more muddle-headed nonsense from the usual corners. For a patient and painstaking analysis, check out Sean Davis.

–Dana

UPDATE BY PATTERICO: Alternate headline: George Takei Says Slaves Lacked Dignity.

38 Responses to “George Takei Does Not Understand That Human Dignity And Inherent Worth Come From God – Not From Government, Nor From Man”

  1. Hello.

    Dana (86e864)

  2. Hello Dana.

    I like George Takei. He was a badass captain of the Reliant in the final Star Trek movie featuring the original cast, and he is a pretty witty guy most of the time. Unfortunately, he suffers from the conceit that his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in theater arts along with his millions of Facebook and Twitter followers somehow make him a public intellectual. Add to that the fact that he suffered from internment during World War II and his status as America’s Favorite Gay Guy, and you end up with a pretty shrill and self-righetous scold who thinks his banalities are an advanced form of wisdom.

    But I still really liked him as captain of the Reliant.

    JVW (05e1e2)

  3. The captain of the reliant was a character created by someone else, speaking lines written by someone else and directed by someone else.

    Takei is a putz, and a professional victim.

    gahrie (12cc0f)

  4. Concur with gahrie. So does Ace:

    http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=357645

    Space Retard George Takei Has More Stupid S*** to Say

    … Hit the link for Allah’s explanation as to the “willful misunderstanding” of Thomas’ point.

    But is it willful? George Takei has alway struck me as a stupid man. He was always a terrible actor — he could barely convince me he was really pushing up a lever when he was actually pushing up a lever on Star Trek — and his major claim to fame is being an idiot people make fun of to his face, without him actually knowing they’re making fun of him.

    … One of my favorite interviews on Stern was with William Shatner, who tried to explain why Sulu hated him. Sulu’s — let’s call him Sulu; let’s not pretend we know this failed actor from anything other than pushing some buttons on Star Trek — main beef with Shatner was that Shatner thought he was the star of Star Trek, well, him and Nimoy and Kelley, and to a lesser extent Doohan.

    Which… well, Shatner was embarrassed at trying to defend himself against this charge, but ultimately his defense really consisted of: Well yes, Idiot, in fact I was the star.

    The other thing Shatner talked about is how Sulu was always angry that Sulu was not promoted to Captain (until the last Star Trek movie). Sulu wanted to be promoted to captain ages ago. He wanted his own command.

    Shatner tried to put this delicately to Stern: Did Sulu not understand that if he got his own command, on his own ship, he was off the show and out of the movies?

    …But this braying jackass really did think that if Sulu got promoted, somehow, there would in fact be a new movie franchise called Sulu: That Guy Who Used to Sit Next to Checkov.

    Steve57 (4c9797)

  5. Unfortunately, he suffers from the conceit that his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in theater arts along with his millions of Facebook and Twitter followers somehow make him a public intellectual. Add to that the fact that he suffered from internment during World War II and his status as America’s Favorite Gay Guy, and you end up with a pretty shrill and self-righetous scold who thinks his banalities are an advanced form of wisdom.

    I see politics in his near future. He has all the necessary qualifications.

    Dana (d85ff0)

  6. I only saw this rant about 72 times on FaceBook today, almost universally from Leftists praising his ignorance.

    JD (3b5483)

  7. Even people growing up in the poorest sections of America — areas so poor that sharecroppers seemed rich — even they had dignity. Even a young man who is turned away from job after job because he is black, despite a degree from Yale, even he has dignity. Even a nominee for the Supreme Court, subject to a high-tech lynching on national television by dishonest politicians and the original mattress carrier, even he has dignity.

    Who doesn’t have dignity? Perhaps a ranting actor whose first and last real role was 50 years ago, who cannot take Yes for an answer. Perhaps he doesn’t have dignity as the spittle bathes his listeners who dare not fail to nod in agreement.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  8. It wasn’t Reliant, it was Excelsior.

    And government certainly CAN remove dignity – ever heard of Auschwitz???

    JEA (fb1111)

  9. @#4
    He has dabbled in politics a few times. He ran for LA City Council in ’72-73 and forever ruined the original Star Trek series for me: because of the FCC’s equal time rule, all re-run episodes featuring him weren’t allowed to be aired in the LA area til after the election. I saw the same few episodes over and over again. Later in the 80’s he ran for State Assembly but that same pesky law was in effect and he was getting his acting career going again so he withdrew.

    Angelo (ff88c3)

  10. I see politics in his near future. He has all the necessary qualifications.

    He sure does. For a democrat community organizer cum president.

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27)

  11. Once-upon-a-time, it was understood that Bad Things Happen, and that looking around to find someone to blame for one’s misfortune doesn’t help cure the unhappy situation. It was considered a sign of Adulthood that a person would “pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again”. ((I *do* have a fondness for the oldies!))

    Obviously this poor man has internalized the Left’s “Foundational Beliefs” (and to be fair, a LOT of putative “victims” have used these assumptions to successfully “guilt” their fellow Americans into AMAZING concessions over the last several decades):
    (1) Life Is Supposed to be Fair
    (2) Everything Should Be Easy
    (3) and even if I kinda know, intellectually, that the above two aren’t always true, THEY *SHOULD* BE TRUE FOR ME. And if they’re NOT —-> THERE’S AN EVIL ‘SOMEBODY ELSE’ OUT THERE WHO IS PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR MY UNHAPPINESS AND I’M GONNA BLAME HIM/ HER/ IT/ THEM. That ‘Evil Other’ should be held responsible for fixing my life.

    Mr. Takei is correct in one thing; he has lost his dignity.

    A_Nonny_Mouse (00d4ca)

  12. Oh. My.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  13. Actually, Takei indirectly is touching upon a basic difference between the secular left and the right. If you view human beings as special because they are created in the image of God, then every human being, whether a slave or the king, has inherent dignity.

    If you view human beings as nothing more than intelligent monkeys who, in short order, will be dead and rotting in the ground, then there is nothing inherently dignified by a suffering person, any more than there is anything dignified by watching a whipped dog whimper down the street.

    Bored Lawyer (d869b1)

  14. 10. Mr. Takei is correct in one thing; he has lost his dignity.

    A_Nonny_Mouse (00d4ca) — 7/2/2015 @ 2:40 pm

    I’m not one for citing Eleanor Roosevelt. In fact, this is the first time in my life. But she had something to say about George Takei losing his dignity.

    No one can take that without your consent.

    Steve57 (4c9797)

  15. I don’t think he misread it. I think he knows exactly what was said but figured he can
    fool the unwary.
    He’s not the only one.

    Richard Aubrey (f6d8de)

  16. Greetings:

    Mr. Takei has tweeted a clarification that all men are certainly not created equal and many are not well endowed at all and that his sphincter is still working fine.

    11B40 (0f96be)

  17. #SuchRacist #ManyBigot #DowntwinklesGet #OhMy

    PCachu (5376c0)

  18. George suffers from delusions of adequacy.

    this is just another example of why people should not listen to actors if they aren’t reading from a script, and, if they are, to not take them seriously.

    redc1c4 (cf3b04)

  19. 11.Actually, Takei indirectly is touching upon a basic difference between the secular left and the right. If you view human beings as special because they are created in the image of God, then every human being, whether a slave or the king, has inherent dignity.

    And when you understand that government is his, and the left’s, god, then you can understand the belief that government can grant and take away human dignity.

    Walter Cronanty (f48cd5)

  20. Takei makes much of his family having been interned when Americans of Japanese ancestry were excluded from potential battlefield states, but that is misleading. His father was not American; he was a Japanese citizen, so he was quite properly interned, just as all enemy aliens were. It was also reasonable to suspect his mother’s loyalty, as the wife of an enemy alien.

    (There are two popular misconceptions that have to be cleared up:

    1. The internment that the Supreme Court upheld but which is now widely considered to have been wrong, and for which the USA has apologised and paid compensation, refers to Americans of Japanese ancestry. The federal government questioned their loyalty, while it did not do so with Americans of German or Italian ancestry, unless they were politically active in support of their ancestral countries. However, most people seem not to realise that there was another internment, of all enemy aliens — Germans, Japanese, and Italians — who were in the USA at the time. There was never any legal challenge to this, because there was no question that it was perfectly legal and proper.

    2. The vast majority of people seem to think that Americans of Japanese ancestry were actually interned; even I used the term above, because it’s how people speak of it. But it’s not true. They were not interned anywhere; they were banished from the three coastal states which would be battlefields in the event of a Japanese invasion, but they were free to go anywhere they liked in the other 45 states. Temporary housing was provided for them, since most of them had nowhere to go, and conditions in those camps were bad, but they were not prisoners. If they wanted to try settling somewhere they were free to do so; if they failed they could come back to the camps.)

    Milhouse (a04cc3)

  21. Takei seems completely unaware of the entire literature that has grown up about the Holocaust, much of which focuses on life in the slave- and death-camps, and how the inmates held on to their dignity even when they had nothing else. Even on their way to the gas chambers they held their heads high and sang of their faith that the messiah would come. Facing the firing squads they sang “We will outlive them”. Rooting in the garbage for half-rotten potato peels to eat, they did not bow their heads to the enemy. And that is why those who survived came out of it so mentally healthy, and did so well in their later lives despite the PTSD and nightmares.

    Milhouse (a04cc3)

  22. I wonder who his scriptwriter was for that.

    nk (dbc370)

  23. he is bring proof of a historical statement from a movie ?!?!?!?

    seeRpea (181740)

  24. — Phasers set on screech, Captain.
    — Fire moron torpedoes, Mr. Sulu.

    nk (dbc370)

  25. The captain of the reliant,played by Paul Winfield vaporized himself.

    narciso (2c05aa)

  26. I don’t think he misread it. I think he knows exactly what was said but figured he can
    fool the unwary.
    He’s not the only one.

    Richard Aubrey, you give him far more credit than I do. I just don’t see him as that savvy and clever, rather an hysterical fool.

    Dana (86e864)

  27. He is a clown in black face sitting on the Supreme Court. He gets me that angry

    You’re a leftwing idiot, Mr Sulu. Moreover, avoid saying anything about dignity. After all, you were on the Howard Stern show several years ago, a willing dolt for the “shock jock,” talking about your long-time partner (I guess “husband” in today’s lingo) while kissing a male guest and playing with his penis.

    Deranged liberalism and homosexuality go together like bees and honey. You can’t have one without the other.

    Mark (a11af2)

  28. Dana. Which of our interpretations is the most charitable? I always endeavor to be kind.

    Richard Aubrey (f6d8de)

  29. he knows what he’s doing, he might even think it’s payback for Manzanar,

    http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/02/state-silences-bakers-who-refused-to-make-cake-for-lesbian-couple-fines-them-135k/

    narciso (ee1f88)

  30. while we’re amusing our selves,

    http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2015/07/01/southern-flank/

    narciso (ee1f88)

  31. Takei subscribes to the notion that if he’s angrier than anyone else, he’s better than anyone else.

    Jeez, I’m sick of their frothing anger.

    Patricia (5fc097)

  32. Patricia,

    Drama queens.

    Dana (86e864)

  33. there’s been some comment, at nutroot hives like Addicting Info, but they’ve been keeping it on the down low,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  34. Just one problem: There is no “god”.

    M. Bouffant (070142)

  35. Then humans are the measure, M. Bouffant, and 97% (vs. 3%) define what is dignified and what is not.

    nk (dbc370)

  36. “UPDATE BY PATTERICO: Alternate headline: George Takei Says Slaves Lacked Dignity.”

    They could certainly get punished for showing it.

    Abe (4aae12)

  37. Yes. So what? How is that relevant?

    Milhouse (a04cc3)


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