Inversionism

Max Publius of Brave News World explains:

Inversionism is a process in which an ideological group finds to its horror it has allied with or even become the "boogyman" it has assailed previously. In full panic mode, rather than reassess its situation, the group attempts to "invert" reality. This phonomena is everywhere these days.

No doubt, regular readers here will be able to cite numerous examples of inversionism.
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In his first posting about inversionism, Max Publius cited this July 13, 2008 article from the Daily Mail:

A BBC drama has triggered a barrage of complaints after it showed gruesome images of a Muslim being beheaded.

Bonekickers, about a group of archeological sleuths, depicted an extremist Christian decapitating a man with a sword.

The bloody scene has prompted 100 complaints since it was broadcast on BBC1 on Tuesday evening.

[...]

The show, watched by 6.8 million, also sparked new claims of anti-Christian bias in BBC programmes.

One viewer wrote on the corporation's website: 'If it had been another religion portrayed in that manner, the PC police would have been up in arms about the nastiness and their rights not to have their religion ridiculed - as it was Christians, it was apparently OK.'

Last fall, in the season opener, the popular CBS television series Cold Case presented a similar case of inversionism. In that episode, a group of Christian high-schoolers stoned a wayward member of group. That's right — a stoning, in a modern American high school in 1998.

Additional reading: World Net Daily has two stories about the above episode of Cold Case, one here and one here.

(Hat-tip to Nanc for the photo here)

Today, in the Twenty-first Century, who is carrying out stonings? Consider the following excerpt from this source:

Stoning is a brutal and outdated practice that is kept alive only by Muslims under Sharia rule. Although it has been practiced since biblical times, every other culture has systematically ceased the practice in favor of more humane forms of punishment. The torturous sentence leaves the victim in agony.

[...]

Typically, a stoning victim is first wrapped in cloth and buried up to the waist for men, or up to the chest for females. Then the crowd is to throw stones at the victim. However, it is very important that, “… no stone should be thrown that should kill with the first or second blow, or so small as a pebble to do no injury to the condemned.” (Hulagu's Web, 64) Stoning is a unique form of punishment in that there is no single executioner. The simplistic act of gathering the victim’s peers around him creates killers out of everyone.

Today, stoning is only practiced in Islamic culture in order to maintain the submission of its women and those in the lower cast.

[...]

Among the countries that still practice stoning are Afghanistan, Iran, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates. Other Islamic countries denounce the practice as inhumane and indicate that the Qur’an provides no grounds for such a vicious practice. Those who practice stoning claim that it is demanded by Islam and have gone so far as incorporating it into their countries penal codes.

Read the rest.

For some time, I've been saying, "I feel as if I'm living in an alternate universe." Max Publius's term, inversionism, however, better expresses the surreality with which we are confronted every day.

As ever, commenters are invited to share their own observations as to various manifestations of inversionism.