I have written about Roxeanne de Luca a few times. She’s an annoying little creature who has a tendency to abuse science and logic. For instance, she once read a CNN article which clearly pointed out that while condom use amongst certain groups was on the rise, it was not yet high enough to offset the rates of various infections. From that she concluded that condoms are ineffective and that the best solution is to encourage abstinence. It was clearly an embarrassing thing to say, but she held her ground. She commented on my post and said that efforts to discourage condom use and encourage abstinence had resulted in lower HIV rates in South Africa. I said that was not true, supplied her with a source, and even broke down the information for her. The fact is, higher rates of condom use have been amazing for much of Africa, including South Africa. She then babbled something about me not supplying any sources (which would have been risible had it not been so awesomely mind boggling). She also said, apparently oblivious to her own unsourced statements about South Africa, that I had made the positive claim and I still needed to support it. Maybe she doesn’t know what “support” means? I’m not sure. Then she called me a liar about my age and ran away.
Fast forward and we have two more encounters with the creature. First, I recently wrote about the need for basic philosophy courses at the high school level because Roxeanne hasn’t the skill set necessary to participate in ethical issues that involve people other than herself. For example, she recently said it would be good to allow employers to force women to disclose whether they need birth control for contraceptive purposes or some other medical purpose. This would be a solution to the current Republican-created issue about mandating that insurance companies cover contraceptive care for women. Since both sides of the aisle at least agree that there is no moral issue in forcing insurance providers to cover non-reproductive related care, this seems to superficially work. But that’s where the problem is. If Roxeanne had the critical thinking skills that come with philosophy, she would know to look deeper. Namely, she would have asked if it was ethical to force patients to disclose their medical information to a third party in this context. Unfortunately, it didn’t even cross her mind that she needs to examine the consequences of her ‘solution’ in order to make sure it can actually work. As I said in my original post, it’s as if she’s playing chess without looking beyond her immediate move.
Second, she recently left a comment on one of the Doonesbury cartoons I posted. She contended that since an abortion is generally an invasive procedure, women shouldn’t have a problem with first having other invasive things put inside them. That is, women should be okay with trans-vaginal ultrasounds if they’re going to have other medical tools placed in their vaginas anyway. This was another embarrassment for Roxeanne. She may as well have said that men who have prostate exams (something which is voluntary, just like most abortions) should be okay with any state-sponsored device going up their anuses since they’re going to have a doctor’s fingers up there anyway. This is yet another example of why basic philosophy needs to be offered as early as possible.
Now to shift away from FTSOS, let’s look at Roxeanne’s blog. In the process of making my recent post about her here, I decided to also leave a comment on her site (which is what prompted her to sneak over here). I’ll keep the details short: She is contending that a couple which would abort a child under certain conditions (such as when the child has Down’s Syndrome) cannot later love that child. She believes these two things are mutually exclusive. Of course, she’s assuming that the couple views abortion as murder. Moreover, she’s assuming that if a person has a preference in their future child that love cannot later overcome it. It would be as if she wanted a house-trained dog, ended up getting one that pees all over the floor, and then when she keeps it and loves it anyway, some angry Internet personality came by and tells her she doesn’t really love it. Why, if she loved it, she would have always preferred a non-house broken dog! Once again, Roxeanne has embarrassed herself.
But let’s get to the really angry part. I mean, just steaming mad. It came in the form of an email this past Friday:
You obviously have no idea what an arrogant and ignorant little shit you sound like. Please, get out of school (you aren’t learning anything), get into the real world, and get a job.
Take, for example, your “only in college” idiocy from your latest trolling of my blog. Here’s the situation: two parents would have killed their baby girl if they had known that she had Down’s Syndrome. They missed their window of opportunity to have her ripped limb from limb, so they sued the hospital. Legally, they have no case unless (a) she already existed and (b) they would have killed her within that legally-allowable baby-killing window. Missing this very obvious point, you tell me that I need to: “Is this couple saying they want to now kill their child? Where did they say that. Please provide some quotations.”
Then I’m the annoying little creature who abuses science and logic. Well, from your perspective, that might be true, but from my more educated, more rational, real-world and academic perspective, you’re dead wrong.
Yeah, I played that card. Stop belittling your betters. You’ll get along in life more easily.
I still don’t see where Roxeanne is able to produce a single quote where the couple says they love their daughter now yet would kill her today if it was legal. And, of course, that quote doesn’t exist. Unfortunately, Roxeanne has no idea that it is the only way she can actually make her case.
Anyway. I’ve run across plenty of angry people on the Internet. I’ve even become angry plenty of times. But what I’ve never seen is a person get this angry this quickly. It isn’t like she isn’t responding to me on her blog. Despite doing that ever-so-annoying bullshit where comments are kept in moderation (thereby forcing me to copy them for future reference in case she makes alterations), she is allowing my posts. And she is replying; that apparently isn’t enough to quench her anger, though. For Roxeanne de Luca, it takes comments on not one blog, not two blogs, but on two blogs and in an email. “LOOK AT ME, MICHAEL! LOOK AT ME! I’M MAD AT YOU! YOU MUST KNOW THIS!”
I’m not sure which is more pathetic, the fact that she is so incredibly quick to anger or the fact that she’s so constantly trying to play up that she’s smarter than I am. First of all, she isn’t smarter than I am. Not by a long shot. I realize that’s an egotistical statement, but it’s factual. Look at the evidence: She concluded something incredibly stupid about condom usage, she doesn’t understand what constitutes a source or citation, she is unsure of what a positive claim is, she is unable to consider ethical issues beyond a superficial level, she thinks people who get elective procedures can legally be subjected to similar procedures as a consequence, and she believes that every single couple that would abort a fetus cannot, by definition, ever love their child in the future. I mean. This has to be embarrassing.
Second, her rhetoric reeks of desperation. It has been successful in getting a response from me (which, considering how much she craves my attention, is probably all she wants), but a mosquito on my arm can also get me to take short notice. Annoying things do that from time to time, I suppose. However, that isn’t an excuse for such superficial, amateurish rhetoric. It may match the level to which she is able to extend her logic, but it’s very much below what I expect from someone so willing to claim the mantle of intelligence.
You know, I’ve gone after a lot of different people in my time. A lot. But I don’t think it has ever been this easy.
Filed under: Humor, Philosophy | Tagged: Embarrassing, Philosophy, Roxeanne de Luca, Trouble with logic | 33 Comments »
For the Sake of Science 