Posted on 11/21/2015 5:48:19 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Dear Reader (Including those of you stunned by the news that Charlie Sheen has a sexually transmitted disease. Not since Jim J. Bullock announced he was gay have I been more shocked),
If you Google "Christian terrorism," you're probably a jackass to begin with. But if you do -- bidden not by your own drive to jackassery but by the natural curiosity inspired by this "news"letter -- you'll find lots of left-wing trollery about how the worst terrorist attacks on American soil have been committed by Christians. Much of it is tendentious, question-begging twaddle. But I really don't want to waste a lot of time on whether Tim McVeigh was a Christian or not (he really wasn't).
What I find interesting is that many of the same people who clutch their pearls at the mere suggestion that Islamic terrorism has anything to do with -- oh, what's the word again? -- oh right: Islam, seem to have no problem making the case that "Christian terrorism" is like a real thing. Remember how so many liberals loved -- loved -- Obama's sophomoric and insidious tirade about not getting on our "high horses" about ISIS's atrocities in the here and now because medieval Christians did bad things a thousand years ago? They never seem to think that argument through. Leaving out the ass-aching stupidity of the comparison, it actually concedes the very point Obama never wants to concede. By laying the barbaric sins of Christians a thousand years ago at the feet of Christians today, he implicitly tags Muslims with the barbarism committed in their name today.
Now, I see no need to wade too deeply into the theology here, but I think I am on very solid ground when I say that Islamic terrorism draws more easily and deeply from the Koran than Tim McVeigh drew from the Christian Bible. Of course, you're free to disagree. In a free society, everybody has the right to be wrong in their opinions. (But don't tell anyone at Yale that.)
THE BIG LIE
Yesterday, Hillary Clinton said: "Let's be clear, though. Islam is not our adversary. Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism."
Now, unlike some people who e-mail me in ALL CAPS, I have no problem with politicians saying, "Islam is not our adversary." In fact, I think it would be disastrous if our political leaders went around saying anything like "Islam is our enemy."
It's the second part of that Hillary quote that I have trouble with. Yes, some -- most! -- Muslims are peaceful. And while peacefulness and tolerance don't necessarily go hand-in-hand (just look at opinion polls in the Muslim world on questions of sharia, homosexuality, women's equality, free speech, and, of course, the Joooooooz), let's stipulate that a great many Muslims are tolerant in their own fashion, too.
But it is simply a lie -- an obvious, glaring, indisputable, trout-in-the-milk lie -- that Muslims have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.
Simply put, this is nonsense. But it's not just nonsense. It is highly refined nonsense. If nonsense were radioactive, you could dump a barrel of it in a centrifuge, wait a few weeks, and out would come the claim that Islamic terrorism has nothing to do with Islam. Just off the top of my head is my hair. But figuratively speaking off the top of my head: The jihadists say they are motivated by Islam. They shout "Allahu akbar!" whenever they kill people. "Moderate Muslims" in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere have been funding Islamic radicals around the world for nearly a century. This morning in Mali, terrorist gunmen reportedly released those hostages who could quote the Koran. The leader of ISIS has a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies and openly talks about restoring the Caliphate.
Oh, one other thing: The Islamic State is called the Islamic State. I used to eat at a restaurant called "Burrito Brothers." Saying the Islamic State has nothing to do with Islam is like telling someone eating a burrito they bought at Burrito Brothers that Burrito Brothers has "nothing whatsoever" to do with burritos.
And like many other highly enriched radioactive substances, this nonsensical notion is weaponizable. It is dangerous. I would like to think that if you had an honest conversation with Hillary Clinton away from the cameras, she would say something like, "Of course, Islamic terrorism has a lot to do with Islam. But we can't say that publicly because we have to isolate the radicals, not radicalize the moderates."
That is an entirely defensible position intellectually. But that doesn't make the "This Isn't Islamic" claim any less of a lie. And what makes the lie dangerous -- very dangerous -- is the possibility that, to borrow a phrase from Barack Obama, these people believe their own bullsh***. The danger is twofold. On the one hand, if you engage an enemy without actually understanding its motivations and ambitions, you will inevitably screw it up because you'll be constantly surprised by the facts on the ground. As Irving Kristol once said, "When we lack the will to see things as they really are, there is nothing so mystifying as the obvious."
On the other hand, if you are trying to rally political support for your strategy, while at the same time giving the public every reason to believe you're operating from a home-base in fantasyland, only fellow bullsh***ers and fools will rally to your banner. And, you'll lose the confidence and trust of those people who see through the fog of bovine excrement.
SILENCE, BITTER CLINGERS!
It's a little like liberal media bias. It's the refusal of so many smug and self-righteous liberals to simply admit the obvious that drives a lot of conservatives crazy. As I wrote years ago:
If they'd admit they have a problem and move on, lots of conservatives would just give up on the topic. It's the infuriating denial that bugs many of us. It's like the friend who swears he didn't drink your last beer. You don't care about the beer, but you just can't stand him not admitting it. (You took my beer! Say it!! Say it!!!) By denying the obvious, so many pompous elite journalists drive us batty by acting as if we're imagining things.
So there are two things at work here. The first is the lie itself, which I don't think is worth spending a lot more time on because no remotely intelligent or informed person would deny it's a lie. The second thing is the ideology that drives so many people to tell it.
IDEOLOGY AS COMFY SLIPPERS
After 9/11, big swaths of the Left immediately wanted to talk about censorship and the threat to Americans' First Amendment rights. Censorship is a worthy topic, of course (on both sides of the issue). But the Left's retreat to censorship was the intellectual equivalent of racing to a bunker, to go play Shoots and Ladders as the plaster dust falls down around you or like Hitler in his last days going over his architectural plans for the New Berlin, even as the tanks were rolling toward the old Berlin. It was an ideological "safe space." It is a natural human tendency to want to just go and play with your toys when the world is crashing down around you. The campus Huns pillaging higher education these days only want to talk about "white privilege" -- unimpeded by debate, facts, reality, or anything smacking of an opposing point of view -- because it is psychologically comfortable and politically empowering. Contemplating that your problems don't have all that much to do with systemic bigotry is discomfiting. So they want safe spaces to play with their conceptual Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys.
This is why so many liberals are far, far, far more comfortable calling tea-partiers "terrorists" than they are talking about actual, you know, terrorists. This is why in the wake of the Paris attacks we hear so much about "Christian terrorism" and why so many lefties have raced to arguments about gun control. That is why the supposedly smartest argument among the supposedly smart set these days is to build a time machine and stop Bush from invading Iraq.
I DIDN'T DO IT
And that is why, as I argue in my column today, Barack Obama is so eager to respond to the Paris attacks with a rhetorical fusillade against Republican bigotry. It is a ploy as brilliant as it is disgustingly cynical. Obama is a co-author of this refugee crisis. As Walter Russell Mead writes, "No one, other than the Butcher Assad and the unspeakable al-Baghdadi, is as responsible for the humanitarian catastrophe in Syria as is President Obama." Somewhere deep inside Obama's supposedly Niebuhrian conscience even he must suspect there is some truth to this. And even if his denial is total, he must understand that a great many historians will side with Mead in this appraisal.
Rather than face this unthinkable truth, Obama seeks to change the story line so that he is the noble and besieged martyr fighting the forces of reaction at home, rather than the hapless and bumbling nutty professor who let the world go to Hell on his watch. "Sanctimony over refugees is Obama's way of restoring his own moral superiority over people who've been complaining for years, entirely correctly, that his Syria policy is FUBAR and has contributed to the disaster," as Allahpundit writes.
But it goes further than that. Obama never tires of telling us that he was elected to end wars, not start them (how's that going?). His real ambition was transformation at home, and that was only possible if foreign policy stayed out of the headlines. His entire foreign policy has been geared towards that goal -- not safety, and certainly not what he considered to be the risible concepts of "American leadership" and "American strength." That's why he announced a withdrawal date the same day he announced the Afghan surge. That's why whenever there's a terror attack, the White House works assiduously to deny it was a terror attack for as long as possible. That's why were are drenched in the Orwellian sludge of terrorism euphemisms -- "overseas contingency operations," "man-caused disasters," "workplace violence," etc.
RELATED: France's No-Go Zones: Assimilation-Resistant Muslims Are the Real Refugee Problem
When Obama does talk about terrorism, he's only comfortable when he frames the issue in a way that puts the blame on America. That's why we are constantly hearing that ISIS is inspired by Gitmo. I wonder: Is there a jihadist anywhere in the world who will pause in his desire to behead an infidel, never mind drop his scimitar mid-swing, upon the glorious news that a prison in Cuba has been closed? When John Ashcroft warned Americans that conjuring false fears of lost liberties helped the enemy, the entire New York Times editorial board got its dress over its head. But when Obama and his fans routinely say that "Republican rhetoric" is a recruiting tool for ISIS, they all nod like a crate of bobbleheads in an earthquake.
Acknowledging that the threat is still real only empowers those bitter-clingers who don't want to transform our country. (They don't want to transform our country, by the way, because they actually like our country the way it is -- or was. And it is now a given among most of the Left that this is a racist and bigoted desire.) Obama subscribes to the mainstream liberal view that there's nothing wrong with America that making us more like Europe won't fix. That's why terror attacks in Europe are so cruelly inconvenient.
I should say that I am perfectly willing to concede that Obama has some good points on his side in the debate over Syrian refugees. Tourism rules, visa waivers, and homegrown radicalism will likely deliver more terror attacks to our shores than the refugees currently in the pipeline. But that doesn't make the concerns about refugees unserious, illegitimate, or bigoted. Obama has complete confidence in the screening procedures. Well, okay. He also had complete confidence in the IRS, the VA, and the team building Healthcare.gov. When Obama declares complete confidence in a government agency, that's a good time to buy gold.
But his remarks this week should remove all doubt that he's not interested in persuading anybody. He's interested instead in propping up the walls of his comfortable ideological bunker, where he's a hero beset by irrational, cowardly, and evil men. I for one am sick of seeing this country go down the tubes just to salve the ego of this vain and cynical man.
As I read the other day:
If islam is a religion of peace, why aren’t islamic extremists extremely peaceful?
At the core of every liberal position, there is a great lie. Political correctness is willful self delusion. Engaging leftists with logic is futile. Their mindset is inherently irrational. They believe the lies.
because medieval Christians did bad things a thousand years ago?”
Moreover...if you look at why they did all those bad things...you will see that it is b/c they were defending themselves from ....Islam....
Jonah, Jonah, Jonah,
Really? You know the answer to “Why does the Left Continue to Insist that Islamic Terrorism Has Nothing to Do with Islam?” as well as I do. One little five letter word.
V O T E S
Muslims are as reliable Democrat voters as blacks. But really, you knew that long before you started to compose this column.
Lot of politicians are beholding to Saudi Arabia or Kuwait or whatever cause they be bought and paid for.
Hey Jonah, Why do you still support RINOs?
The real question: Why is the Left so sympathetic to radical Islam? Answer: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
See here for a good explanation of this mindset.
http://www.scifiwright.com/2015/11/the-four-cs/#more-14912
Most inciteful response.
because they are racists and haters...oh wait, that is suppose to be us.
I think the reason the left uses the term “radical extremism” intsead of Islamist terms is because it doesn’t preclude “right-wing extremists” in their narrative.
Jonah wrote a truly great and insightful piece
——tendentious, question-begging twaddle——
now there is a wonderfully accurate string of words.
—— and openly talks about restoring the Caliphate——
This Caliphate business is at root, evidence of the Islamic Counter Reformation. The radicals are in fact reformers intent on returning Islam to some purer form in an idealized past. There can be no question that Islam has evolved to accommodate the modern world. That change is hated and the root cause of the radicalization.
To amplify this thought it is noteworthy to segregate the Islamic population into groups. The current war making radicals are mostly Arab. Like their initial leader Usama Bin Ladin, they are frightened and disgusted by the change that has rather suddenly enveloped their small part of the world. The change seemingly has no limits on daily lives and eons old ways of doing things and everyday living.
To make a positive separation, the radicals reformers are not all or even a major part of the total Arab islamic population.
To bring about change that reverts to the good old days it is necessary to bring about the reformation of Islam to the days when modern ways did not conflict with all held to be sacred. It is the west that brought, perhaps even forced the change. It is therefore logical to strike out at the heart of the West to force history backward.
In Egypt we learned that cooler heads finally prevailed. Business and a relatively good life predominated over the sour puritanical counter reformers.
Correct, and because of many factors, most of the time the Christians lost. Except for good fortune and a handful of skilled generals, we would have all been muslims since 1500 AD.
The Left protects Islam like this because they are on same side. If the Left and Islam are not defeated they will end up destroying America and every other country.
Why does the right insist on using the phrase “extremist” or “radical, islam?” There isn’t anything extreme or radical about what these devil worshipers believe in compared to what mohammhead himself believed.Islam IS extreme. Islam IS radical. ALL of it. We need to call a spade a spade and stop pretending that there is a “moderate” version. The only difference in the so called moderate ones is that they want someone else to kill you, they won’t do it themselves. Would we ignore or coddle a moderate cancer? Hell, no!
Romans 1:20 For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen,
being perceived through the things that are made, [even] his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse:
21 because that, knowing God, they glorified him not as God,
neither gave thanks;
but became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened.
22 Professing themselves to be wise,
they became fools,
23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.
24 Wherefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts unto uncleanness,
that their bodies should be dishonored among themselves:
25 for that they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature
rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile passions:
for their women changed the natural use into that which is against nature:
27 and likewise also the men,
leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another,
men with men working unseemliness, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was due.
28 And even as they refused to have God in [their] knowledge,
God gave them up unto a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting;
29 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30 backbiters, hateful to God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, unmerciful:
32 who, knowing the ordinance of God, that they that practise such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but also consent with them that practise them.
Because they want to think Islam is better than Christianity, that it is better than their native culture.
That’s why discussion of violence in the modern day by Islam is readily countered by “Christians did it too!” while ignoring the fact that was centuries ago.
They both want to destroy western society.
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