(Cross posted at The Uncredible Hallq)

Somewhere in the synoptic gospels, Jesus tells a parable of a widow who goes daily to beg a less-than-principled judge for justice, and eventually gets it just because the judge gets tired of listening to her. This may be my favorite parable in the entire Bible: on the one hand, the stated moral is dubious (as this is supposed to be a model for how prayer works), but on the other hand, it does provide a memorable statement of the fact that sometimes, whining will get you what you want.

The fact that whining sometimes works, however, doesn’t mean it’s a good strategy (that’s what makes the moral of the parable so dubious). First of all, you’re working from a position of weakness. The fact that your target sees it lowers the chances of success vs. other methods, and means you’ll look contemptible even if the target gives in. Furthermore, whining is a technique which has no inherent tendency to favor the person in the right. True, it’s a useful tool for the little guy, but sometimes the little guy is wrong. In our modern society, full of special interest groups struggling to manipulate the media and public opinion to their advantage, too many people live in avoid speaking freely for fear that they will be hit by an attack of concentrated whining.

For example, I once heard a story involving one of Bill Richardson’s political campaigns, in which his opponent attacked him as not being a real Hispanic. This was obviously a silly idea, and it happened that Richardson went on a talk show where the host thought to set up a joke where Richardson would poke fun at the idea by insulting his opponent in Spanish. Richardson went with it without missing a beat, and it was funny. The catch? The host decided to use the word “maricón,” which happens to be a derogatory term for homosexual.

Gay rights groups, naturally, were furious, and demanded an apology. Now, granted, it might have been nice if some other insult had been used for the joke–say, if Richardson had called the guy’s mother a puta or some such. But really, so what? Obviously, Richarson’s comment had nothing to do with denigrating homosexuals, it had to do with poking fun at something stupid someone else had said. When the gay rights groups got upset about it, it wasn’t because any great harm had been done. On some level, they knew that they were just trying to show that while a minority, they were numerous enough to whine a politician into submission.

Keeping on the gay rights track, another example: when I was in high school, high school students started using “that’s so gay” to mean “that’s so stupid,” and I recently read an article in a local magazine celebrating attempts by high school students to stop it. Here, I’m somewhat more sympathetic to the protests, because I’ve seen first hand that high school can be a pretty crappy time for students who differ from the norm. However, the problem of weakness remains, insofar as just insisting people not use the phrase is whiny. I seriously doubt loudly insisting on the point has actually done much good. At best it would turn casual disrespect into focused, if muffled, resentment.

You know what I have seen work, though? Ridicule. When students started saying “homophobia is so gay.” It poked fun. It got laughs. It deflated blowhards. It was a hell of a lot more effective than whining.

I was prompted to write this post when I saw this at the blog of Hemant Mehta, of e-bay atheist fame. You see, someone paid to put up a bulletin board with the words “why do atheists hate America,” and someone got the bright idea to send a whiny letter. Hemant thinks it’s “fantastic blueprint if you wanted to write one of your own.” I think it’s one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen. Five paragraphs full of stock, emotionally charged phrases with little substance. They range from a knee-jerk appeal to patriotic sentiment (the bulletin board is said to be “un-American”) to a dubiously-sincere closing (”Wishing only the best for you”).

I’ve written before about how atheism is becoming more like a movement. I really do find that thrilling. However, I hope we don’t become another whiny special interest group. We want to win because we’re smarter and funnier than the opposition, not because we can out-whine them. And honestly, I’m not sure we can out-whine them: Bill Donahue of the Catholic League has proved a masterful whiner, to the point that his Wikipedia page is dominated by a list of twenty-one things he’s whined about. Of course, Donahue doesn’t always have the effect he wants, but that’s because of his deficit in the smart & funny department, not a lack of an ability to whine.

Back to what I said about ridicule. Ridicule is really a wonderful tool, because like whining it can let the little guy level the playing field, but unlike whining, you have to have a point if you’re going to avoid looking like a jackass yourself. The fact that a well-aimed bit of ridicule will have a point means it can earn you some real respect. With this in mind, I decided to send the following message to the people behind the bulletin board Hemant was talking about:

Dear Rev. Nedd and In God We Trust,

I recently heard about the bulletin board your are sponsoring, which asks, “Why do atheists hate America?” This made me wonder: when is Rev. Nedd going to stop beating his wife?