Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens Threaten Cheap Publicity Stunt

From the Sunday, London Times:

Richard Dawkins: I will arrest Pope Benedict XVI

RICHARD DAWKINS, the atheist campaigner, is planning a legal ambush to have the Pope arrested during his state visit to Britain “for crimes against humanity”.

Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the atheist author, have asked human rights lawyers to produce a case for charging Pope Benedict XVI over his alleged cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

The pair believes they can exploit the same legal principle used to arrest Augusto Pinochet, the late Chilean dictator, when he visited Britain in 1998.

Whatever one thinks of the merit of Dawkins’ case, this smacks of a cheap publicity trick. I am a fan of Hitchens’ work, though I more often than not disagree with him. It saddens me to see him involve himself in an endeavor that appears to be more about ego and self-promotion than justice.

The children who have been abused under the eyes of the Catholic Church deserve justice and some measure of closure. Neither is to be found in a stunt. Dawkins and Hitchens, both known for their heavily inflated egos are acting out of religious hatred and self-promotion while trying to appear to have noble intentions. I would suggest that both should take a deeper, more honest look at their motivations before they continue.

Chistopher Hitchens Misses the Mark on "Populism"

Via Memeorandum:

Christopher Hitchens doesn’t like Sarah Palin. Hitchens has a penchant for unmasking charlatans and in the Newsweek article Palin’s Base Appeal, he appears to be unmasking Palin but it is those that he perceives as “her base” that he has taken aim at.

Populism is a political ideology based on the perceived interests of ordinary people. Reading the article, it struck me that Hitchens considers “ordinary people” to be nasty little uneducated beings whose interests don’t interest him nor in his estimation should they interest anyone else of substance. In Hitchen’s view, if Palin has had any measure of success it lies in her ability to pull the wool over the eyes of the way too gullible unwashed masses.

They say a good writer writes about what he knows and Hitchens is altogether unacquainted with ordinary people. He does not have a clue why people are angry and if truth were told, he probably believes the anger is caused by the mundane nature of their small lives. But such people are too far below his station to grant any consideration or thought.

Should Hitchens care to actually research the subject of ordinary people before he opines on them again I would be happy to clue him in. But that would most likely bore him.