Why Liberals Refuse to Admit the Reality of Islamic Fascism

Human Events ^ | August 15,2006 | Rabbi Aryeh Spero

[Reagan Man]

Blind animus for President Bush is insufficient to explain liberals' refusal to acknowledge the reality of a cruel and imperialistic jihadist push worldwide. Nor is it simply liberals' unwillingness to work with Republicans and conservatives that render them incapable of serious and active participation in the War on Terror. It is that by so doing, liberals would be forced to upend the world view and social philosophies that have animated them since the early '60s.

At stake is their identity as individuals, what they do, what they believe, the need for their journals, indeed their sense of moral superiority and their hierarchy in society and policy making. Worse for them, their whole social milieu is dependent on maintaining the artificial and cocooned world they have created for themselves. The philosophic underpinnings of “their world” are frontally challenged by this new jihadist reality, one that cannot be controlled, maneuvered or finessed by their propositions of how life works. It is much more convenient to deny jihad’s eagerness to kill us all, including them, than to deconstruct the ersatz world they have built for themselves.

As with those in the mid-1800s unwilling to accept the transformation from an agricultural era to the new era of industrialization, most elitist liberals refuse to admit the reality of the new jihadist era since it makes irrelevant the entrenched ideas upon which they have grown rich and sassy for the last half century. At stake is their status. It is similar to the advent of the early automobile period when buggy-whip manufacturers would not reconcile themselves to a new reality rendering what they did outdated and unnecessary.

Jihadism is not a reaction to American, Israeli or Australian foreign policy. It is organic, a conventional and historic reading of the Koran as understood by many imams. Jihad is one of Islam’s authentic traditions, predating the birth of America and Israel. They seek to conquer, to create a global Islamic caliphate. Our survival depends on their defeat, total defeat. This will be accomplished not by the professional negotiators and liberal sociologists but by the force of an army, a courageous and unfettered military.

Those schooled in the liberal “it’s society’s fault” outlook when pontificating on domestic crime have for decades proclaimed “it’s America’s fault” when evaluating every atrocity found worldwide. Liberals “understand”!

To acknowledge the peculiarity of the jihadist reality undermines those in the “understanding” business. They are, now, antiquated and counterproductive, since it is not their assumptions that anymore matter but the generals and the fighting man. Liberals would rather deny truth than forfeit their heretofore prominent position at the decision table.

The fanciful and “smart” musings of Thomas Friedman and the New York Times set are valid only if jihadists are morphed into your routine troublemakers placate-able with a concession here and there. There is no serious place for liberal negotiators such as Judith Kipper and some of the smarmy know-it-alls at the Council of Foreign Relations unless the true unyielding nature and goal of Islamofascism is denied. Their journals, writings, royalties, and center of attention among the chattering class depends upon treating jihadism as something “to be reasoned with,” when it is clearly not.

Many of today’s powerful and boisterous liberals are wealthy and university schooled and consider themselves “the nice people,” sensitive, morally superior, smarter, and above such things as war. This is their identity, the passport to their social fraternity. They have constructed above-it-all lives, fashioning a sub-culture beyond the reach of life’s messiness. They live as if everything were predictable and within their control. Through negotiation, life is risk-free.

To acknowledge the true face of Islamofascism and its aims would mean having to concede the necessity of phone surveillance, tough interrogation, common sense profiling, a reliance on the CIA and a strong military -- all things they were taught to disdain. Better to deny reality than relinquish the badges and accoutrements of their internalized identity as “superior.” Besides, how un-cosmopolitan and un-transnational to be in the corner of America, especially when anti-Americanism is cool and fashionable, indeed today’s facile path to liberal “worldliness”.

Some of this crowd are, by nature, cowards and appeasers, brazen only when taking on people and institutions they know will never harm them, such as Bible-believing Christians, President Bush, and the American military. Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch, for example, and other “human rights” imposters have grown celebrated and well-funded by establishing a set of official guidelines for what is permissible for Western powers during war. But their central motivation is to emasculate the strength of the West to win an armed conflict.

Everything, if carried out by the forces of freedom, constitutes, in Roth’s view, a human rights violation. In an article he published two weeks ago, he unearthed an international law “interpretation” that made illegal just about anything Israel chose in defense of its territory and citizens -- as he has done all along in America’s War on Terror. His message to Israel and America: Lose.

As with the Nazis and Communists before, Roth and cohorts are using an elaborate set of legalities to outlaw and subdue those wishing to remain free when fighting those wishing to rule over them. They are outlawing our defense of ourselves. Many “enlightened” liberals wishing to control our fate quote him because it provides them the “moral” tools with which to stymie our efforts. This is made possible only by minimizing the true threat of jihadism and accusing America of being the creator of and fueling the jihadist movement. No doubt, CBS’s Mike Wallace, Ahmadinjad’s new admirer, falls in this category.

Anti-Semitism also plays a role. Those on the left not wishing the state of Israel well, and those who do not like Jews, are reluctant to side with the anti-jihadists. To do so, they must first cast them not as jihadists ideologically and theologically hell-bent on destroying the West and Christians but simply as an aggrieved group of Moslems whose grievances should be redressed and placated. I am sure that Father Coughlin and Charles Lindbergh loved America, but their dislike for Jews was overriding and made them declare that Hitler could be reasoned with.

Deliberate delusion born of self-interest; ignoring reality out of self-importance; the inability of relics “in the know” to renounce what is no longer true; selfishness over love of country: All of these are reprehensible character traits. When practiced by too many, a civilization dies.

[little jeremiah]

Try to read later - looks really good.

[hsalaw]

I agree, and I have no idea how they can't see that Iraq and Afghanistan ARE part of the war on terror.

[nathanbedford]

A couple of days ago I published the following comments in response to a Mark Steyn column in which I tried to grapple with the why of it, why do liberals willfully turned their faces from the reality of the Islamic fascist threat and court a new dark age if we succumb?

The rabbi and I both agree on the symptoms of the disease. I put the label "cultural Marxism" on the collection of symptoms which are crippling us in our efforts to fight this expert global, generational, war for existence. I also distinguish between the liberal elitists and their useful idiots, the latter class consisting of unwitting dupes who exhibit the same symptoms but for reasons that are passive rather than aggressive. The elites I see as driven by reckless ambition.

Here's my take:

All of this is a direct result of the lethal legacy of THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL which gave birth to cultural Marxism which renders the elites of the left incapable of dealing with Muslim terrorists as Muslims. This disease has infected Europe where it has spread on the continent and, as Melanie Phillips pointed out in her book, LONDONISTAN, even Great Britain suffers from a severe infection. In America, the virus is most obvious in the blue states. Nevertheless, we were only a few electoral votes in Florida and 60,000 popular votes in Ohio away from slipping down into the swamps of multiculturalism (Cultural Marxism). If that should happen, we will be hopelessly vulnerable to Muslim terrorism and perhaps even ultimate rule as a Muslim caliphate.

I am of the opinion that when Marc Steyn wrote the following it could have as aptly applied to The Cultural Marxism of the left:

"Absent a determination to throttle the ideology, we're about to witness the unraveling of the world."

We are in world war against 1.2 billion Muslims or some fanatical fraction thereof. They are maniacal, suicidal, and homicidal. They are not amenable to diplomacy, blandishment, reason, bribery or Western Enlightenment. It is a very formidable enemy.

To have any hope of winning a global, asymmetrical, and generational war with these people we must have our own house in order. We do not because we are undermined by the lethal legacy of THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL: Cultural Marxism.

Pan nationalism (which really means the absence of nationalism), anti-Americanism, feminism (anti-paternalism), atheism (anticlericalism), extreme environmentalism (especially extreme global warming), anti-racism (group victimology), homosexual activism (anti-family hatred), etc. are all excressences of Cultural Marxism. This doctrine was explicitly fashioned to break down the resistance of Western civilization to communism.

It was designed to pave the way for the acceptance of the Russian Revolution in Germany in the 1920s. In doing so it carved out areas against the Western culture which it saw as bulwarks against communism: the family, the Church, the school. Thus it was perfectly positioned at the time of the ostensible and apparent failure of communism at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall to convert the left fully from an economic Marxism to a Cultural Marxism. That is what we have today.

I am coming to the conclusion that the elites in the left are not purblind, not the misguided victims of their own worldview, but cynical high-stakes gamblers who risk plunging themselves and us into a new dark age if it will enhance their own chances to rule. Unless one believes that the top elitists on the left genuinely do not see the threat to Western civilization posed by a Muslim theocracy, there is no other plausible explanation. After all, Muslim fundamentalists stand for everything repugnant to the left-at least on a superficial level: the belief in God; rule by theocracy; the virtual enslavement of women; repudiation of the scientific method; superstition, etc. life in such a society should be utterly insupportable to leftists. Yet they undermine the war against terrorism at every turn, they oppose the Patriot Act, they oppose international telephone surveillance, they oppose vigorous interrogation, they oppose incarceration, to list just a few. Why?

How did Lenin behave as he was taking over power in Russia? He negotiated a sellout deal for peace through appeasement with imperial Germany. Mao behaved even more scurrilously. Because of biased reporting of it is commonly believed in America that it was the Communists in China, rather than the Nationalists who were believed to be corrupt and passive, who were aggressive in fighting the Japanese in World War II. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact Mao betrayed his nationalist allies quite often to the Japanese and otherwise exploited the war to defeat the Nationalists while virtually undertaking no action against the Japanese.

At the time Mao was fully aware of the rape of Nanking and brutality which the Japanese had visited upon his people. He deliberately courted the defeat of China and subjected his fellow Chinese to further brutality in order to advance the interests of communism and especially his own personal lust for power. This was the pattern of Mao's life, Lenin's life, and Stalin's life.

I believe that the elitists on the left, not the useful idiots, are playing the same game.

[top 2 toe red]

They ALWAYS blame the US and Israel for driving the peaceful muslims into terrorizing:

Remember when the "Blame America First" crowd starts in with their blaming...it is REALLY just the conservatives, Republicans they are blaming.

If only they could purge the country of all of us...they truly believe they could just click their self righteous little heels together and no pageant contestant would ever again have to wish for world peace...because they would have already achieved it!

I live in a suburb of the ultra liberal Seattle...almost every day some ultra liberal fool has written an ultra liberal letter to the ultra liberal editor of the ultra liberal Seattle Times...saying, "I'm ashamed to be an American!"

ALWAYS! ALWAYS, this ultra liberal idiot does this {{{drumroll}}}referring to someone, something, anything conservative, Republican...George W a good 90%++++ of the time!

[hardworking]

This long article could have been greatly shortened to: Liberals do not believe in the existence of evil. They believe that anyone who does bad things is simply not in touch with their inner self and that inner self is fundamentally good. Therefore, to state that Islamofascists are evil is to ignore the 'fact' that all people are good and the only reason some people do bad things is because they have not been given enough love and if all of us love enough and reach out to the people who do bad things then the people who do bad things will get in touch with their inner selves and stop doing bad things.

[JasonC]

First, you overrate the importance of the frankfurt school, which had some cultural influence among pinhead socialists certainly, and helped peddle various ideologies to the contemporary left through the 60s or so, but was just one type out of many that all shared a complete unwillingness to blame anything about hard left thought for the disasters of the 20th century, which were systematically somebody else's fault. That somebody morphs gradually into a loose association of all capitalism (or moralism, for that matter) with fascism, that becomes more and more conspiracy-nutty-paranoid as time goes on.

"there is no other plausible explanation."

Sure, there are about a dozen. I'll give you some reports from the front about what the elite left actually thinks and believes.

"After all, Muslim fundamentalists stand for everything repugnant to the left-at least on a superficial level:"

True, but they also fight the same oppressive capitalist fascists that the left dreams it is on the point of losing to (that's the rest of us, for those in Rio Linda), which will of course plunge us into the endless dark night of fascism.

Contemporary leftists think George Bush is Hitler, that the war on terror is the new politics of fear, that mankind is being manipulated by shadowy corporate and cynical political cabals into endless war in order to perpetuate the power of those cabals, raves about the military industrial complex, diligently researches the history of Germany and the rise of fascism and reads tea leaves looking for signs it is happening here (in the US, not Iran), expects near term total economic collapse and/or hyperinflation, about half think capitalism has never actually worked and must be rotten at the bottom, another third think freedom to print money and a spread of non profit enterprise can smash the corporate oligarchy, etc.

And I am talking about hundred millionaire dot com tycoons, movie stars, full professors adn brilliant researchers - not muttering bums down at the Greyhound terminal. This is what they talk about over dessert on Nantucket after a day out on their boat, or at scientific conferences when they are unwinding in the bar after the lectures etc.

You cannot possible overrate their simple paranoia, driven by political pessimism and a pomposity that can capture light by gravitational pull. The left experiences short term loss of power to the likes of Bush and Cheney as something on the order of the fall of Rome.

[JasonC]

Oh and I left out the best part. None of this is controversial. All of it may be assumed as a matter of course, and to be agreed on by everyone in polite company. It is terribly important and deeply insightful, but everyone earnestly agrees and already knows it, yes, yes, it is just like that.

[RBroadfoot]

Excellent article. However, I think the modern Left's attachment to the idea of "multiculturalism" is also largely to blame.

The Left position on multiculturalism dismisses the possibility that one culture can be inherently superior to another and insists that all cultures are compatible. This is obviously nonsense, but the Left's belief in multiculturalism blinds its adherents to reality.

[Redcloak]

Another reason liberals refuse to see the danger of Islamofascism is that they would have to deal with the first part of that word: Islam. The idea that a group of people takes their religion seriously is absurd to a liberal. It can't be possible! And thus to a liberal, it must not be so. It must be true that the Islamofascists are simply another aggrieved group seeking recompense for America's imperialistic misdeeds.

The same is true when they look at "right-wing Christians" at home. It simply can't be possible that they take their religion seriously. It must be true that they have some other nefarious motivation for the policies they seek; or they're merely "simple". (A charge that the racially sensitive liberal cannot bring against non-White Muslims!) The liberals' hostility toward religious people blinds them to the idea that religion really can motivate people and guide their actions. And since this is, at its heart, a religious war, the obvious end to such a conflict is anything but obvious to a liberal.

[demonrum]

Can a "good" Christian be a good American?:

Theologically - no. Because his allegiance is to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost--not to a government, a leader or to "the Flag" (see: idolatry).

Religiously - no. Because no other religion is accepted by his God except it direct all reverance towards the Father, the Son & the Holy Ghost.

Scripturally - no. Because his allegiance is to the Ten Commandments (Thou Shalt not Kill for instance) & Gospel: "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment." (Matthew 5:21) vs. an order from a commanding officer to do otherwise, for example).

Geographically - no. Because his allegiance is to the kingdom of Heaven, which is open to all who accept God, regardless of temporal location, citizenship, or language--further, the land occupied by the United States isn't even mentioned in the Bible.

Socially - no. Because his allegiance to the Old Testament forbids him to make friends with those of a different faith, lest they attempt to convert them from the True Faith,--even to kill them.(Exodus 22:20;& others--google bible intolerance)

Politically - no. Because he must submit to their preachers (spiritual leaders), who may not agree 100% with the policies or actions of the administration in charge (be it Bush, Clinton, Reagan or Carter), or the Pope, who isn't even an American.

Intellectually - no. Because he cannot accept the American Constitution since it was drafted by many who considered themselves philosophers & freethinkers.

Spiritually - no. Because to declare "one nation under God," in a pledge of allegiance to a flag amounts to idolatry.
Therefore after much study and deliberation.... perhaps we should be very suspicious of ALL CHRISTIANS in this country.

They obviously cannot be both "good" Christians and good Americans."

..still reading?

The point I'd like to make here is that Christians aren't monolithic--all marching to the same step, saying & believing exactly the same things. (I could also have written that it's impossible to be a good Jew & a good American because primary loyalty is always to Israel, which is equally as absurd)

Islam isn't a cartoon drawn in broad strokes in primary colors any more than Christianity or Judaism is.

[jonrick46]

"their whole social milieu is dependent on maintaining the artificial and cocooned world they have created for themselves."

This is the central truth about liberals. Examine the Left's hatred for those who embrace the Greco-Judeo-Christian heritage of Western Civilization. And examine their purpose. Is it not to institute a new faith; a new religion of moral relativity with the Cult of the State as its Übermenschen? Such relieves them of the complex duty of sorting out the morality of human behavior. Do not judge is their first commandment. Instead, they confer that function to the state while life for them is a world of fantasy and make believe--and narcissistic hate.

The Mother ship to Armageddon is boarding at the end of the Santa Monica Pier. The Liberals are lining up like lemmings with their long sleeve shirts, lip balm, spiral notebooks and $5.75 in case they need to make a phone call or catch a taxi in their Utopian world through the looking glass. They are on a course of self-destruction that may take an entire nation down with them. They embark on a course to a Brave New World where the state provides the means for pleasure as a substitute for freedom.

[Cacique]

btt

[Reagan Man]

>>>>>We are in world war against 1.2 billion Muslims or some fanatical fraction thereof. They are maniacal, suicidal, and homicidal.

People of the Middle East, whether they be Arab or Kurd, have a long history of being cutthroats of one kind or another.... murderers, thieves and liars. Its been a way of life for several thousand years. Mohammad came along and created Islam. Islam unified the people of the Middle East behind a religion that promotes jihad, violence and death to all non-believers. Death to all infidels.

In the 20th century, the discovery of great oil reserves in the ME gave these followers of Islam, these religious fanatics and jihadist killers, huge monetary gains and a pathway to the best education money could buy. Many of them took advantage of every opportunity that came along. Osama Bin Laden is the perfect example. These Islamofascists don't just want the west out of their homelands. They want to take control of the entire world, spreading their religious fanaticism to ever corner of the globe.

Its true, right now western civilization led by the USA is unprepared for prosecuting a long term war against these warriors of Mohammad. The people of the free world have grown complacent, lazy and are far too easily intimidated. Instead of wasting time attempting to understand every detail about these terrorist barbarians, we need to realize, its kill or be killed. You can't negotiate with people who dwell in a religious and spiritual world of the 8th century, and who have no respect for human life, whatsoever.

Muslim radicals want the west to fight a long protracted war against the forces of Islam, in the hope that this will wear down the worlds democracies and make it easier to conquer the infidels. They've made a good start over the last 25 years. I doubt they'll be ending their hostilities and aggressions anytime soon. If the democracies of western civilzation don't face this enemy head on, in the end, the Islamofascists will be the victors and we will be under their jackboot of totalitarianism.

We can't afford to play this war by their rules, we need to start fighting this war using OUR rules. Some of the same rules we employed against the nazi's, imperialists and communists from wars past. We can't wait until the Islamofascists nuke a European or US city to understand that either we kill them, or they'll surely kill us. Maybe that's what it will take for America's anti-war left and the anti-war Eurosocialists to finally get off their butts and join in the fight. Freedom is under attack from the forces of evil.

As President Ronald Reagan once said:

""Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

When someone asked Ronald Reagan, what his strategy was for fighting the Cold War, he gave a simple answer: “We win; they lose.” I like that strategy.

[Uncle Vlad]

It's quarter to midnight, and these leftist clowns still aren't on board.

[Lumper20]

The author has nailed them, and; they will not reply. The only replies I ever got from any Lib were- we hate so and so. Then I ask them about their plan? Well I hate this and I blame X for this. Let me tell you how our party was hijacked. OK, now, please tell me your plan and how your party was hijacked? Well,I hate X,Y,and Z. Well we know you hate X.Y. and Z, so please what is your plan? I hate. Well I seem to get it now. Did ya miss anger management 101? Oh, and; I am a real victim. Please tell me your real problems-I mean how much cash do you need? Please tell me what I owe you? Well that welfare check did not help me, and; I got a loan from my mom's neocon hubbie. He does not like us. You said loan? Did you get a loan? What loan. That SOB owes us. He can take my mom to Vegas, buy her anything. but; he will not buy us a trailor.

[nathanbedford]

Jason:

I think we are on the same wavelength. If you accept the distinction which I draw between leftist elites and their useful idiots, you, me, and the rabbi are in accord. The bulk of the left are as you described, self deluded, arrogant, petulant, and in deep denial. They are the dupes of The Frankfurt School whose baleful influence is far more persuasive than you accept and, paradoxically, so much harder to recognize because it has become the very fabric of our society.

Whether one examines radical feminism, hatred of religion, hatred of America or any of the other excressences of the left which were explicitly contrived by The Frankfurt School as tools for the destruction of Western democracy, one is forced to the conclusion, "there is no other plausible explanation" apart from a cold-blooded willingness to risk the caliphate (just as Mao was willing to risk Japanese victory and perpetual occupation of his country) for a greater chance to rule.

[GiovannaNicoletta]

bookmark

[justa-hairyape]

Fundamentally, they are fleeing the responsibilities of it all, because fleeing responsibilities and calling on others to flee from their responsibilities, termed "liberation" by those peddling it, is what they have been about for - oh about 300 years.

Exactly right. That entire sentiment (including physical properties) is summed up in one phrase stated by one of their more modern Idols, Janice Joplin.

'Freedom just another word for nothin left to lose....'.

And as tragedy would no doubt have it, she was another one of their Idols that died early.

[HarmlessLovableFuzzball]

What a 'delightful' and satisfying read. The author's right on.

[nathanbedford]

We can't afford to play this war by their rules, we need to start fighting this war using OUR rules.

I could not agree more in my lament is that so long as we are bamboozled by the Doctrines of the Frankfurt School we cannot wage a successful war.

We can't wait until the Islamofascists nuke a European or US city to understand that either we kill them, or they'll surely kill us.

But that, of course, is just exactly what we were doing. The Bush doctrine of proactive response died with the absence of WMD's in Iraq. We are now powerless to deal with Iran. When Iran gets the bomb, America will face a mortal peril. If the nuke goes off in an American city, placed there by some shadowy sleeper cell, whom do we bomb? The answer is not easy. It will be much easier to listen to the sirens of the left and give in to appeasement and submit to the caliphate. That is far more likely to happen than most people who post here realize.

The Frankfurt School will have had its victory.