Posted on 07/09/2011 12:33:40 PM PDT by neverdem
Whittaker Chambers was an interesting person with a difficult life, and his story is fascinating. His conversion is very interesting, and this was the thing that gave him the courage to break with totalitarianism. In a sense he had only become involved with Communism in the first place because it was trendy, he was looking for a spiritual home, and many of his friends were involved with it or admired it. Also, they were very aggressive recruiters.
Yeah but today it’s actually acceptable to be a commie.
Poor Whittaker Chambers. Great book.
BFLR
One of the finest and most concise (even given its length) pieces I’ve ever seen posted on FR.
It’s impossible not to ‘notice’ the symmetries between historic Communism, and nascent Islam, not to mention the common cause Islamic ‘leaders’ made with Hitler during the 3rd Reich and WW2.
Today’s Left finds itself historically trapped in a long history of anti-Americanism, and has no alliances and associates to reach out to except America’s enemies. It has few cards left to play to distinguish itself from its “opposition”,and its opposition up to now, has obliged by always meeting it more than halfway. The Left continually sounds and behaves both like Soviet apparatchiks, and wimpy brothers-under-the-skin of Mao’s Red Guards-—the “re-education” process of America’s youth, and the millions who are adults but apparently developmentally disabled, has gone all for decades, and we’re now in a race to see who will get to the finish line first.
Turns out, our latest Messiah, wasn’t kidding, or just repeated the high-sounding phrases we’re all used to from politicians, when he asked our help in “re-making America”.
That he should have been taken at his word is a lesson all those who voted for him are learning too late.
[to] the challenge God or Man? they continue to give the answer: Man. Their pathos is that not even the Communist ordeal could teach them that man without God is just what Communism said he was: the most intelligent of the animals, that man without God is a beast, never more beastly than when he is most intelligent about his beastliness. "Er nennt's Vernunft," says the Devil in Goethe's Faust, "und braucht's allein, nur tierischer als jedes Tier zu sein"--Man calls it reason and uses it simply to be more beastly than any beast. Not grasping the source of the evil they sincerely hate, such ex-Communists in general make ineffectual witnesses against it. They are witnesses against something; they have cased to be witnesses for anything."
Economics is not the central problem of this century. It is a relative problem which can be solved in relative ways. Faith is the central problem of this age. The Western world does not know it, but it already possesses the answer to this problem--but only provided that its faith in God and the freedom He enjoins is as great as Communism's faith in Man.Witness if from another century.
What you said.
Excellent essay! Thanks for posting.
Bostom’s book “The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims,” is a magisterial review of the doctrine of jihad and dhimmitude through the entire history of Islam, and all major schools of Islamic jurisprudence. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Bostom is a Professor of Nephrology at the Brown University School of Medicine.
http://www.andrewbostom.org/loj/
http://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Jihad-Islamic-Holy-Non-Muslims/dp/1591023076
And of course Witness is one of the greatest books of American letters.
Best,
One of the finest and most concise (even given its length) pieces I’ve ever seen posted on FR.And your post#5 is right up there with the best comments posted on this site. Seriously. An excellent, concise summary of what the Left is all about.
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The fact that there is only 9 comments on this article speaks volumes about the forum that we all love. What has happened to us?
Thanks for posting. BTTT for morning read.
Agreed. It ain’t what it used to be. “Back in the day” there would have been a lengthy and erudite discussion of the topics raised in the article from a learned and eclectic crowd. Now, not so much. But the only thing permanent is change.
Placemark.
The Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939 was a watershed event for Chambers, who realized that much of the confidential information about the U.S. that he had forwarded to the Soviet Union could now be passed to Germany. Thus Chambers decided to divulge his prior activities for the Communist underground to the federal government.more sidebars:
bump
bump
Thanks for the ping!
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