Stulta est enim huiuscemodi interrogatio

Rarely do people just ask questions for the sake of gaining information. And even when they do, there is always a purpose behind the information. Knowing just what the person’s intent is with a question helps us answer him better. And sometimes, if one is particularly clever, one finds that the real answer to the question may not be in the form of a verbal response at all. A woman who asks her date about how cold the air is does not want to hear a response about the weather: she likely wants her date to give up his coat.

Nowadays, many questions get thrown around and it is important to recognise the intent behind the question. Does the asker only want information? Does he have a hidden agenda? Why is the information important to the asker? What does the question reveal about the asker himself? This last question is the one I particularly want to deal with, because so many times people decide to answer questions that really should not be answered – and if they should not be answered, they should not have been asked either.

You see, many times questions show a person’s true colours. I once heard somebody ask, “How many Palestinian civilians have been killed in the Israel/Palestine conflict?” Now, this may appear to be an innocent question: something that one might be able to look up on Wikipedia, for instance. But just because said information might be available on the internet does not mean that we should answer this question. Why? Because the person asking this question was not concerned with how many accidental deaths have occurred due to the IDF’s endless battles against terrorism. What the person was doing was using an “innocent question” as a vehicle for criticism of Israel, which is basically just hatred. This is unacceptable.

First of all, to ask such a question assumes from the very beginning that Palestinians are not terrorists who have been firing rockets into Israel for the last forty years. Notice the subtle placement of “civilians” right after Palestinians. Also notice how the asker paired up Israel, an established democratic nation who has every right to exist, with Palestine, which does not even exist. Clearly, the question shows the asker to be what he is: a hate-filled anti-Semite. And once we can decipher what is really happening with the question, we realise that the question should not be answered, nor should it even be asked. As such, it is our responsibility – instead of dignifying the question with an answer – to call out the person for what he is.

To answer the question, and all of its absurd assumptions, is to play in the hands of people who are fuelled by hate. To pretend that the question is in any wise innocent is to accept the anti-Semitic beliefs of the asker. The only proper response is to state loudly and clearly that the asker is an anti-Semite. Shout it from the rooftops for all to hear so that that will be known firstly that you will not accept the asker’s reprehensible beliefs, nor will you participate in his hate. Questions about Israel foreign policy almost always boil down to anti-Semitism. If you see a person who is critical of Jewish people, and tries to cover up his criticism by asking a question, you can rest assured that anti-Semitism lies behind the question. Indeed, anti-Semitism is at the bottom of their heart as well. Criticism of Israel cannot be tolerated. It’s hate, and everybody knows it.

But that is just one example. Questions like this are quite common in this day and age. For instance, when people say, “Where was Obama born?” They are not asking for information on the location of his hospital delivery. Far from it. They are asserting – in a loud and clear way – that they are racists. And since they won’t come out and say it, we have to take it upon ourselves to do so. Contrary to popular belief, this sort of name-calling is the only way to deal with this as it gets right to the heart of the matter. You must refuse to be taken aside with red herrings and such. You must be willing, hard as it may be, to stand firmly, point your finger, and identify who that person really is. Because what that person is, is what the question is all about. And you have to be the one to take the mask off and reveal what’s underneath.

Another example can be found in people who ask questions about current events and tragedies. Frequently, they will disguise their intents by pretending to be about the “truth” but looking closely at their questions you can see very quickly that these people are actually completely crazy. When the FBI released the tapes of the Oklahoma City bombing, news reports declared that four or five minutes had been erased from all the tapes just before the bombing occurred. No sooner had this story about such a horrific tragedy been released that loonies started coming out of the woodwork, asking, “Why were all the tapes edited in exactly the same way?” Questions like this are a dead giveaway that the person is a conspiracy theorist. Even to give any sort of response to these idiotic questions is to accept the ridiculous assumptions that lie behind the question.

But these people, not cowed by the fact that they are exploiting a horrible tragedy, will not stop at anything to push their hate, their racism, or their love of planting seeds of doubt in the American people. As if 9/11 wasn’t enough of a tragedy, these senseless cowards continue to ask questions in the name of “truth”. But we can see right through them, and it’s high time that somebody called them out for what they are. Asking questions about the official story of 9-11 is basically an attack on the brave men and women who risked their lives to pull people out of the rubble. Calling for another investigation into the events that led up to that harrowing day is an attack on the 9-11 Commission, who devoted so many hours to get to the bottom of it all. Asking why WTC7 fell down is an attack on America itself and all the ideals she stands for.

When you hear questions like this, do the right thing. Pretend the questions never got asked, point your finger at the asker, and call that person a name. It will do wonders to dish out a dose normalcy to this nation of haters and crazies.

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