Looking for love in all the wrong places (Mark Steyn)

OC Register ^ | September 15, 2007 | Mark Steyn

[yorkie]

This year I marked the anniversary of Sept. 11 by driving through Massachusetts. It wasn't exactly planned that way, just the way things panned out. So, heading toward Boston, I tuned to Bay State radio talk-show colossus Howie Carr and heard him reading out portions from the official address to the 9/11 commemoration ceremony by Deval Patrick, who is apparently the governor of Massachusetts: 9/11, said Gov. Patrick, "was a mean and nasty and bitter attack on the United States."

"Mean and nasty"? He sounds like an oversensitive waiter complaining that John Kerry's sent back the aubergine coulisagain. But evidently that's what passes for tough talk in Massachusetts these days – the shot heard around the world and so forth. Anyway, Gov. Patrick didn't want to leave the crowd with all that macho cowboy rhetoric ringing in their ears, so he moved on to the nub of his speech: 9/11, he continued, "was also a failure of human beings to understand each other, to learn to love each other."

I was laughing so much I lost control of the wheel, and the guy in the next lane had to swerve rather dramatically. He flipped me the Universal Symbol of Human Understanding. I certainly understood him, though I'm not sure I could learn to love him. Anyway, I drove on to Boston and pondered the governor's remarks. He had made them, after all, before an audience of 9/11 families: Six years ago, two of the four planes took off from Logan Airport, and so citizens of Massachusetts ranked very high among the toll of victims. Whether any of the family members present Tuesday were offended by Gov. Patrick, no one cried "Shame!" or walked out on the ceremony. Americans are generally respectful of their political eminences....

[raccoonradio]

Could be our next AG if Hillary gets elected (which would
leave MA in the hands of Tim “Lefty” Murray as Acting Gov.
come early ‘09; known as such not just for his politics but for the fact that when asked to raise his right hand to take the oath of office, he raised his left. “No, your RIGHT
hand!”)

http://www.humanevents.com/rightangle/index.php?id=24665&title=chaos_aamp_disorder&tb=1&c=1

[Gritty]

[ClaireSolt]

I had a teacher who said that only 5% of the people think. Another 10% think that they think. but, 85% would rather die than think. The last group are the believers.

Note that Hillary talks often about belief, as in , "I am going to keep saying that because I believe it." or "WILING SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF." Don't bother her with facts, because she has a right to believe whatever she wants and to use propaganda to spread her beliefs among those who would rather die than think.And don't dare to question her patriotism because she has a right to debate, though she is really hiding under the desk, and sending out Wolfson.

[Tolik]

Mark Steyn:

...We should beware anyone who seeks to explain 9/11 by using the words "each other": They posit a grubby equivalence between the perpetrator and the victim – that the "failure to understand" derives from the culpability of both parties.

...This isn't a theoretical proposition. At some point in the future, some of us will find ourselves on a flight with a chap like Richard Reid, the thwarted shoe-bomber. On that day we'd better hope the guy sitting next to him isn't Gov. Patrick, who sees him bending down to light his sock and responds with a chorus of "All You Need Is Love," but a fellow who "understands" enough to wallop the bejesus out of him before he can strike the match. It was the failure of one group of human beings to understand that the second group of human beings was determined to kill them that led the crew and passengers of those Boston flights to stick with the obsolescent 1970s hijack procedures until it was too late.

Unfortunately, the obsolescent 1970s multiculti love-groove inclinations of society at large are harder to dislodge. If you'll forgive such judgmental categorizations, this isn't about "them," it's about "us." The long-term survival of any society depends on what proportion of its citizens thinks as Gov. Patrick does. Islamism is an opportunist enemy but you can't blame them for seeing the opportunity: In that sense, they understand us far more clearly than Gov. Patrick understands them.

...Why do radical imams seek to convert young Canadian, British and even American men and women in their late teens and twenties? Because they understand that when you raise a generation in the great wobbling blancmange of Deval Patrick-style cultural relativism – nothing is any better or any worse than anything else; if people are "mean and nasty" to us, it's only because we didn't sing enough Barney the Dinosaur songs at them – in such a world a certain percentage of its youth will have a great gaping hole where their sense of identity should be. And into that hole you can pour something fierce and primal and implacable.

A while back, I had the honor of a meeting with the president, in the course of which someone raised the unpopularity of the war. He shrugged it off, saying that 25 percent of the population is always against the war – any war. In other words, there's nothing worth fighting for. And I joked afterward that some of that 25 percent might change their mind if Canadian storm troopers were swarming across the 49th Parallel or Bahamian warships were firing off the coast of Florida. But maybe not. Al-Qaida's ad hoc air force left a huge crater of Massachusetts corpses in the middle of Manhattan, and Gov. Patrick goes looking for love in all the wrong places.

How many people in any society think like Deval Patrick? That's the calculation to make if you want to figure out its long-term survival pros

Nailed It!
Moral Clarity BUMP !

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[Rummyfan]

Everytime I see one of those “Coexist’ bumper stickers

I hate those too! Along with the 20 January 2009 ones, very popular around here, for when President Bush leaves office. Libs are truly deranged.

[Rummyfan]

I had a teacher who said that only 5% of the people think. Another 10% think that they think. but, 85% would rather die than think. The last group are the believers.

I think your teacher's numbers are dead-on.

[DuncanWaring]

...“Coexist’ bumper stickers...

The curious thing is that all the "oexist" folks probably could coexist just fine ... it's the "C" that's the turd in the punchbowl.

[MNJohnnie]

I would like them to coexist with my softball bat.

[PGalt]

Another OUTSTANDING article by this GRRRREAT writer AND FReeper comments!

Life is good BUMP!

[Lurking in Kansas]

He flipped me the Universal Symbol of Human Understanding.

ROFLAMO! Steyn is great.

[Calvin Locke]

I'm glad to see Steyn pick this up. The Boston press generally ignores the idiocy of Coupe DeVal because he's a Dim.

The Patriots videotaping gave them an excuse not to highlight the absolute insulting stupidity of Patrick's remarks to the victims' families of Islam's terrorist attacks on America.

[Old Professer]

BALLOTINE D’AGNEAU ET D’AUBERGINES, COULIS DE POIVRON ET TOMATE

Sounds like there should have been a space between aubergine coulis and again.

“Mean and nasty”? He sounds like an oversensitive waiter complaining that John Kerry’s sent back the aubergine coulisagain[sic].

[Diana in Wisconsin]

America was raped six years ago and we need to stop blaming the victim.

You’d think even those addle-brained lefties could understand that! They love nothing more than coming to the aid of a “victim” to show their compassion and caring nature. *Rolleyes*

There. I said it. :)

[Rummyfan]

You would think those idiots would realize you can't coexist with someone who wants you dead. But then again, no one ever accused them of being overly smart!

[LexBaird]

Anyone who thinks terrorism can be solved by peace and understanding has no understanding of terrorism, and therefore will never have peace.

[Edgerunner]

I believe the COEXIST bumper sticker is used to mark naive victims for later extinction

[George W. Bush]

9/11, said Gov. Patrick, "was a mean and nasty and bitter attack on the United States."

What a juvenile description. MA is in big trouble if this guy can't even write an appropriate description of 9/11.

[yorkie]

>>America was raped six years ago and we need to stop blaming the victim.<<

Perfect analogy!

[Billthedrill]

I think a lot of us understand the Islamists perfectly well. Certainly we cannot blame them if we do not - they've been perfectly candid about their aims and intentions. What I can't quite grasp is folks like the Guv who stubbornly insist that they mean something else; that they're just wonderful guys in search of a little respect and understanding and that it's all our fault they hate us. That is little more than a desperate clinging to an easily-understood and emotionally attractive frame of reference that has practically no relation to the real world.

It is the luxury of a wealthy and powerful society to be able to afford certain of its members to be so self-deluded and still draw breath. It may not be an affordable luxury forever.

[GOPJ]

Why do radical imams seek to convert young Canadian, British and even American men and women in their late teens and twenties? Because they understand that when you raise a generation in the great wobbling blancmange of Deval Patrick-style cultural relativism – nothing is any better or any worse than anything else; if people are "mean and nasty" to us, it's only because we didn't sing enough Barney the Dinosaur songs at them – in such a world a certain percentage of its youth will have a great gaping hole where their sense of identity should be. And into that hole you can pour something fierce and primal and implacable.

Steyn tells it like it is...