Category: Leftism and Political Correctness

The New Jim Crow Again

Daniel M. writes:

Coincidentally, I'm currently a TA for a class in which significant portions of this book have been assigned (a philosophy of law class, focusing on legal punishment).  Alexander's main focus in the book is not incarceration (and related phenomena) in general, but the War on Drugs in particular.  An important part of her case for the racially discriminatory nature of "mass incarceration" (a phrase by which she means (a) the entire system of state-control over offenders, whether prison, parole, probation, etc., as well as (b) the post-punishment effects on offenders such as barriers to voting, employment, public housing) in the U.S. is the claim that black Americans are no more likely to use/deal illegal drugs than are white Americans, and yet law enforcement have disproportionally targeted black Americans.  She thinks that this discrimination largely results from the great procedural discretion which law enforcement have in prosecuting this War (both at the level of police forces and individual officers in deciding where/whom to search, and at the level of prosecutors in deciding what kind of sentences to seek).  This discretion, along with the need to be proactive in order to bust people for drug offenses, creates the opportunity for racial biases, whether conscious or unconscious, to shape how the War is prosecuted.

When I read the bit you did, my first thought was that it was ridiculous to compare Cotton's political "disenfranchisement" to his KKK-killed great-grandfather's political disenfranchisement.  I still think that about this case (homicide/robbery…), but I did become more sympathetic to the idea that there were interesting connections between Jim Crow and "mass incarceration."  The main difference is that the "New Jim Crow" is officially "colorblind," not a result of overt racism (at least by and large).  The official aim is to maintain "law and order," not to sweep black Americans into the state's control.  The alleged parallel is that you have a class of people largely characterized along racial lines who are shut out of mainstream society in various ways (voting, public housing,employment).  The new reason, having a felony on your record, is very different – and, one might think, much more justified than the old reasons.  But I was struck by (a) the claim that black Americans are not more likely to be guilty of drug crimes and yet are more likely to be targeted by law enforcement for them, and (b.) the severity of punitive measures attached to drug offences (including the felony label for many such offences, with all the ensuing ramifications).

Thank you for that, Dan. A few brief remarks:

1.  Are black Americans no more likely to use/deal illegal drugs than are white Americans?  I rather doubt that.  We know that blacks commit proportionately more crimes than whites in general, so one would expect that to be true for drug dealing in particular.  This is of course an empirical question, but it is exceedingly difficult to get to the truth of the matter because of the 'hot button' nature of the question and because fields such as sociology and criminology are heavily infected with ideology.  For example, how many conservative sociologists are there in universities as compared to leftists?  A very small number.  What does that say about universities and about sociology?  Given the leftist bias of most sociologists, it is reasonable to be skeptical about anything they claim is a result of 'research.'

2. Leftists conflate the world with the world as they wish it to be.  And they wish to believe that we are all equal.  And so they cannot accept the notion that blacks have a greater natural propensity to commit crimes than whites. This leads them to think that blacks are disproportionately 'targeted' and 'labeled' felons.  The truth, I suspect, is that blacks commit more crimes proportionately, which is why their rates of incarceration are proportionately  higher. 

3. This is consistent with a frank admission that there is plenty of injustice in the criminal justice  system.  There are corrupt judges, vicious cops, and ambitious prosecutors willing to sacrifice human lives to their careers. Needless to say, I am against all that.

4.  Why would anyone want to single out blacks for especially harsh treatment?  This is a question that needs answering, and 'racism' is no answer to it.  That word is well-nigh meaningless: it is is used by leftists as an all-purpose  semantic bludgeon to beat down conservatives.  It means anything leftists  want it to mean.  What is racism?  If I argue against ObamaCare, leftists call me a racist.  But ObamaCare is a policy, and policies, last time I checked, have no race.  So for leftists 'racism' and cognates mean everything and nothing.  Do people dislike blacks because of their skin color?  Perhaps a few do. But dislike of blacks is not for most people based on skin color but on black behavior. This brings us back to the empirical question whether blacks as a group behave worse than whites as a group.  If they do, then this would explain why they are incarcerated in greater numbers.

5. Should felons have the right to vote?  First of all, how many criminals want to vote?  The typical criminal is someone whose only concern is himself and the immediate gratification of his basest desires.  Such people have contempt for civil society.  They are not interested in participating in it.  For them it's a joke.  These are not people who think about the common good.  If you mentioned civic duties to them they would laugh their heads off.

So we need to ask: who is it that wants felons to vote?  Not felons for the most part.  But leftists!  Leftists want felons to vote to expand their base.  Leftists have a an exceedingly casual attitude toward criminal behavior.  They are by nature lenient and forgiving.  So if criminals are allowed to vote, they will of course vote for leftists, in the USA, for the Democrats.

That is why leftists want to extend the franchise to felons.

Whether or not they want to vote, should criminals have the right to vote?  Of course not.  Criminals can't even order their own lives, why should have a say in how society is ordered?   Furthermore, removal of the right to vote is part of the punishment that they deserve for raping and drunk driving and drug dealing and murdering and for being the generally worthless individuals that they are.

6. Finally, I am open to the idea that drug laws need to be carefully examined.  I am opposed to draconian 'zero tolerance' laws that make a felon of some harmless hippy who grows marijuana for his own use.  But if he drives while stoned, or sells the stuff to school kids, then I want the law to come down on his shggy head like a ton of bricks.

Are Blacks Labeled Felons to Keep Them from Voting?

This from a reader:

I have been a fan of your blog for a long time. In fact you helped to establish my first wary steps into the discipline of philosophy. I struggled through your entries, persistent and confused, ultimately rewarded for my efforts. Your scathing, surly, incisive political commentary is a great alternative to my usual news consumption habits. Now, I admit that I am left-leaning, and so your perspective is refreshing. I understand that you have a particular interest, but your motto, "Study everything, join nothing," as led me to believe that you might approach my book suggestion with an open mind: "The New Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness."  Alas, the title is sensational but the information and research seems solid. I suggest the work in hopes that you might begin a running critique or dialogue upon the subject.

I thank the reader for his kind words and I find it gratifying that letters like his roll in at regular intervals, suggesting to me that my pro bono efforts are of some value. 

If I were to find the book the reader suggests at the local library I would check it out and read at least portions of it.  But I am not inclined to go out of my way to acquire it based on the following description from the Amazon page which I quote verbatim:

"Jarvious Cotton's great-great-grandfather could not vote as a slave. His great-grandfather was beaten to death by the Klu Klux Klan for attempting to vote. His grandfather was prevented from voting by Klan intimidation; his father was barred by poll taxes and literacy tests. Today, Cotton cannot vote because he, like many black men in the United States, has been labeled a felon and is currently on parole."

As the United States celebrates the nation's "triumph over race" with the election of Barack Obama, the majority of young black men in major American cities are locked behind bars or have been labeled felons for life. Although Jim Crow laws have been wiped off the books, an astounding percentage of the African American community remains trapped in a subordinate status–much like their grandparents before them.

In this incisive critique, former litigator-turned-legal-scholar Michelle Alexander provocatively argues that we have not ended racial caste in America: we have simply redesigned it. Alexander shows that, by targeting black men and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control, even as it formally adheres to the principle of color blindness. The New Jim Crow challenges the civil rights community–and all of us–to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America.

Before commenting on the above description, let me say that, first of all, like many conservatives, I didn't start out as one.  My background is working class, my parents were Democrats and so was I until the age of 41.  I came of age in the '60s.  One of my heroes was JFK, "the intrepid skipper of the PT 109" as I destribed him in a school essay.  I was all for the Civil Rights movement.    Musically my heroes were Bob Dylan and Joan Baez.  I thrilled to "Blowin' in the Wind" and other Civil Rights anthems.  As I see it, those civil rights battles were fought and they were won.  But then the rot set in as the the party of JFK liberals became the extremists and the leftists that they are today. For example, Affirmative Action in its original sense gave way to reverse discrimination, race-norming, minority set-asides, identity politics and the betrayal of Martin Luther King's dream that people be judged "not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."  As liberals have become extremists, people with moderate views such as myself have become conservatives.  These days I am a registered Independent.


Jarvious-Cotton_mugshot_140x140Now let's consider the first paragraph of the above description.  Mention is made of one Jarvious Cotton.  His mugshot is to the left.  This dude was convicted of two offenses, homicide/murder and armed robbery.  According to Michelle Alexander, author of the book in question, Cotton "has been labeled a felon."

So he was merely labeled a felon but is not a felon?  Or was the label properly applied?  Alexander is suggesting the former.  The suggestion, from the context of the first paragraph, is that blacks get 'labeled' felons to prevent them from voting.

But that is absurd.  Apart from the occasional wrongful conviction, blacks who are labeled felons are correctly  so-labeled because they have committed felonies.  Now should felons have the right to vote?  Of course not.  First of all, if you commit a felony, that shows you are pretty stupid: you don't know your own long-term best self-interest.  It shows that you have terrible judgment.  Murder and armed robbery are not elements in a life well-lived. A person like that should not be given a say on matters of public concern.  That should be obvious.  Second, part of the punishment for being a felon is removal of the right to vote.

No one is interested in disenfranchising blacks by 'labeling' them felons, but some blacks disenfranchise themselves by committing felonies.

There is also the misuse of language in the title of the book.  The New Jim Crow?  Nonsense.  Jim Crow is a thing of the past.

Does the U. S. criminal justice system "target black men" and "decimate communities of color"?  Is Atty Gen'l Eric Holder — who is black — in on this too?  What motive could they have?  The antecedent likelihood of this claim is so low that I cannot take it seriously.  It is on a level with the wild claims of the 9/11 'truthers' and the allegation that the CIA in the '80s dumped cocaine into South Central Los Angeles.

Left, Right, and Debt

A reader writes, " I enjoy your philosophical and theological views, but unfortunately disagree with your political and economic views.  I recommend large doses of Paul Krugman, beginning with Nobody Understands Debt. "

I got a kick out of that because I should think that the febrile Krugman  is absolutely the last person to convince me of anything.  I tend to see him as living proof that the Nobel Prize, except perhaps in the hard sciences, is a meaningless accolade bestowed by the politically correct upon their own.   I consider the man a fool on the level of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Joe Biden.

The column cited is one I read when it first appeared.  Now, thanks to the reader,  I have an opportunity to comment on it.  But first we need to back up a step for a wide-angle view.  Why is the national debt such a big deal to conservatives, but of relatively little concern to leftists?  Dennis Prager provides a cogent answer in his new book, Still the Best Hope (Broadside 2012, p. 29, emphasis in original):

The Left's great fight is with material inequality, not with evil as normally understood.  Thus, the Left has always been less interested in fighting tyranny than in fighting inequality.  That is why Leftist dictators — from Lenin to Mao to Pol Pot to Ho Chi Minh to Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez — have had so much support from Leftists around the world . . . .

This explains the Left's relative disinterest in creating wealth.  The enormous and unsustainable debts facing the individual American states and the United States as a country from 2009 on have disturbed the American Right far more than the American Left [. . .] The reason is that the Left is not nearly as interested in creating wealth as it is in erasing inequality.

Prager's explanation fits Krugman well.  The latter thinks that the focus on deficit and debt reduction is "misplaced."  I disagree vehemently.  Not only is this a very serious matter if we want to survive as a nation, but also one on which we all ought to agree.  Left and Right will never agree about abortion, capital punishment, gun control,  and a host of other issues, but one would think that when "money talks, ideology walks." Unfortunately our leftist pals will hold to their ideology even unto fiscal doom.

Krugman's 'argument,' if you want to call it that, consists in an attack on an analogy between individual and government debt:


Deficit-worriers portray a future in which we’re impoverished by the need to pay back money we’ve been borrowing. They see America as being like a family that took out too large a mortgage, and will have a hard time making the monthly payments.       

This is, however, a really bad analogy in at least two ways.

Krugman's first reason is that families have to pay off their mortgages, but governments don't have to pay back what they borrow.  First of all, it is false that mortgage holders have to pay back their loans.  One can easily structure a mortgage in such a way that it is held indefinitely and passed on to heirs.  One pays interest month by month without reducing the principal.  There are also negative amortization loans in which the borrower digs his hole deeper month by month.

Ready for Krugman's second reason?  It's a real winner: "Second — and this is the point almost nobody seems to get — an over-borrowed family owes money to someone else; U.S. debt is, to a large extent, money we owe to ourselves."

That's bullshit, which is presumably why nobody gets it except him of the simian countenance. It makes no clear sense to say that the debt  is money we owe ourselves.  So each of us owes a portion of the debt to every other one of us? 

Suppose I decide to invest in treasuries, T-bills, say.  I buy 10 at $10,000 a pop.  What I have done  is loaned the government  $100 K.  In return I get two things; a safe haven for my money and a bit of interest.  There is probably no safer place to park your cash since it is, as they say, "backed up by the full faith and credit of the U. S. government," a phrase that means rather less than it used to, but still means something.

It is the government that owes me the money I lent it.  The government, which is not to be confused with the citizenry.  Furthermore it owes these debts only to those who loaned the government money by buying T-bills and T-bonds and such.  It is simply not the case that we owe that money to ourselves.  The government owes it to some of us.  Only some of us get a return on that investment, and only some of us help the government out by loaning it money.

Now the interest paid by the government to foreign and domestic bond holders is money that is pissed away and can't be used for constructive purposes.  The analogy with the homeowner is apt: money one spends on mortgage interest can't be used for constructive purposes.  The truly foolish home buyer overextends himself and ends up losing his house to foreclosure.  The U. S. does not of course face foreclosure, but it faces something analogously dire: turning into Greece — or California.

The homeowner analogy is pretty good.

No analogy is perfect, of course.  A perfect analogy would be an identity, and you can't compare a thing to itself –except vacuously.

Krugman is a hate-America leftist whose fetishization of material equality blinds him to obvious realities.

Chris Mathews, Unhinged, Shamelessly Plays Race Card

Does Mathews really believe what he says here?  If he does then he is mentally unhinged.  I'll assume he's unhinged just to be charitable.  If he doesn't believe what he says,  then he is a scumbag.  But he seems like a nice guy!

Note also the psychological projection.  Unwilling or unable to face the hatred that animates him, he projects it into his opponents.  It is also projection when he claims, absurdly, that conservatives are more political than liberals.  That's delusional.  For libs and lefties politics is their religion, which is certainly not the case for conservatives.  Conservatives don't  seek their meaning in the political sphere; they enter it mainly to counteract and undo the mischief of liberals.

In fact, we conservatives are at a considerable disadvantage because we are not 24/7 political activists.  'Conservative activist' borders on an oxymoron.  There are a few, though, David Horowitz being one.  But don't forget that he was a red diaper baby who imbibed activism with his mother's milk.

Ron Radosh on the Woody Guthrie Tribute Concert

Good music, dreadful politics.  Excerpt:

Unfortunately, the entire event was marred by the hard Left narrative particularly voiced in the most offensive manner by two artists, Tom Morello and Ry Cooder. At least Cooder is a real musician, but that does not excuse his behavior and his leftist rants delivered both in asides and in the rewriting of Guthrie’s lyrics. Cooder sang a little known Guthrie song written towards the end of WW II about how the fascists would all lose. Cooder commented, to great applause from the leftist audience, that we won that fight, but the fascists were still here, and he knew they would be defeated on election day. Singing Guthrie’s “Vigilante Man,” about hired thugs of the coal companies in the early 20th Century, Cooder changed a lyric to make it about the Trayvon Martin case.  He could have grown up to be President, he said, “but he was killed by a vigilante man.” Then he sang a new verse about how those in the audience should not tell anyone that they attended the concert, or they too might be killed!

Does Ry Cooder really believe that paying an average of $100 for a Kennedy Center concert could lead anyone to be harmed, not to say murdered? Doesn’t he know that by now, Woody Guthrie is a celebrated national hero, honored and revered by many, and no kind of danger to anyone who sings his songs?

How Cooder could be such an idiot is beyond me, but then he is not atypical.  Artists, actors, and musicians hang with their own left-leaning ilk and are never exposed to conservative or libertarian points of view.  They reinforce each others' prejudices.  Denouncing bigotry in others, they exemplify it in excelsis.  Masters of psychological projection, they cannot face what they project into others.  They can emote in all sorts of creative ways, but they cannot think.

Play Ry, play.  But shut up about politics until you learn something.  Two favorites of mine: Yellow Roses. He'll Have to Go.

Radosh reports that Arlo Guthrie is a registered Republican and libertarian.  At least he has his head screwed on Right.  City of New Orleans.  A great piece of Americana.

Obama, the Imaginary Man

Outstanding analysis by Andrew Klavan. Excerpts:

The mystery Obama—the hollow receptacle of out-sized fantasies left and right—is not a creation of his own making, political chameleon though he may well be. It emanates instead from a journalistic community that no longer in any way fulfills its designated function, that no longer even attempts the fair presentation of facts and current events aimed at helping the American electorate make up its mind according to its own lights. Rather, left-wing outlets like the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, and the like have now devoted themselves to fashioning an image of the world they think their audiences ought to believe in—that they may guide us toward voting as they think we should. They have fallen prey to that ideological corruption that sees lies as a kind of virtue, as a noble deception in service to a greater good.

It is the nature of the Left to conflate the world with the world as leftists want it to be.  Whereas the conservative stands on the terra firma of antecedent reality, the leftist trades in nebulous hopes and dreams, many of them impossible.  (it comes as no surprise that the late Edward Kennedy's favorite song was "Impossible Dream.")

Theirs are largely passive lies and lies of omission. The active frauds—NBC’s dishonest editing of videos to reflect a leftist worldview, ABC’s allowing Democratic operative George Stephanopoulos to masquerade as a newsman, the Los Angeles Times’ suppressing even the transcript of the video in their possession that shows candidate Barack Obama at a meeting with a PLO-supporting sheik—these are only egregious salients of the more consistent, underlying dishonesty. The real steady-state corruption is revealed in the way Obama scandals like Fast and Furious, Benghazi-gate, and the repeated breaking of federal campaign laws have been wildly underplayed, while George W. Bush’s non-scandals, like the naming of Valerie Plame and the firings of several U.S. attorneys at the start of his second term, were blown out of all proportion.

And it is revealed in Obama’s blankness, his make-believe greatness, and the suppression, ridicule, and dismissal of any evidence that he is not the man this powerful media faction once wanted so badly for him to be. No other modern president could have associated so intimately with lowlifes like Wright and Ayers and the now-imprisoned Tony Rezko and not had those associations exposed in every detail. No other president could have made the radical remarks he’s made—about wealth redistribution, religion, and the federal government’s alleged ill-treatment of blacks—and not had them headlined all over for weeks. No other could have presided over such a crippled economy and such universal failures at war and in foreign policy and escaped almost without mainstream blame.

The Delusional Left and ‘Voter Suppression’

Here is a TNR piece that proves once again that lberals live on a different planet.  I call it the planet Unsinn and I sometimes speak of the 'planetary' difference between left and right.  The difference is between nonsense and sense.  The author asks why principled conservatives won't denounce 'voter suppression.'

'Voter suppression' is leftist code for 'photo ID.'  Here's the short answer:  we won't condemn it because common sense demands it.  Longer answer and arguments here.  It shows how far we've fallen that this needs to be argued at all.

I am of course against voter suppression while being all for 'voter suppression.'

I am also against voter fraud, unlike liberals.  They welcome it knowing that it can only redound to their benefit.  That is the plain motive behind their opposition to photo ID.  If voter fraud worked to the benefit of conservatives and libertarians, leftists would be screaming in protest.

Buckley’s Axiom: The Intolerance of Liberals

As reported by George Will (emphasis added):

Barack Obama, knight of the peevish countenance, illustrated William F. Buckley’s axiom that liberals who celebrate tolerance of other views always seem amazed that there are other views. Obama, who is not known as a martyr to the work ethic and who might use a teleprompter when ordering lunch, seemed uncomfortable with a format that allowed fluidity of discourse.

Similarly with liberal inclusiveness: it does not include conservatives or anyone who questions the wisdom of total inclusiveness or the wisdom of unlimited toleration. 

Ditto for liberal anti-bigotry: it does not prevent them from playing the bigot vis-à-vis conservatives. 

Leftism: The World’s Most Dynamic Religion?

Dennis Prager answers in the affirmative:

For at least the last hundred years, the world’s most dynamic religion has been neither Christianity nor Islam.

It has been leftism.

Most people do not recognize what is probably the single most important fact of modern life. One reason is that leftism is overwhelmingly secular (more than merely secular: it is inherently opposed to all traditional religions), and therefore people do not regard it as a religion. Another is that leftism so convincingly portrays itself as solely the product of reason, intellect, and science that it has not been seen as the dogma-based ideology that it is. Therefore the vast majority of the people who affirm leftist beliefs think of their views as the only way to properly think about life.

While I agree with the rest of Prager's column, I have trouble with his characterization of leftism as a religion. 

It is true that leftism is like a religion in certain key respects.  But if one thing is like another it does not follow that the first is a species of the other. Whales are like fish in certain key respects, but a whale is not a fish but a mammal. Whales live in the ocean, can stay underwater for long periods of time and have strong tails to propel themselves. Just like fish.  But whales are not fish.

I should think that correct taxonomies in the realm of ideas are just as important as correct taxonomies in the realm of flora and fauna.

Leftism is an anti-religious political ideology that functions in the lives of its adherents much like religions function in the lives of their adherents. This is the truth to which Prager alludes with his sloppy formulation, "leftism is a religion."  Leftism in theory is opposed to every religion as to an opiate of the masses, to employ the figure of Karl Marx.  In practice, however, today's leftists are rather strangely soft on the representatives of the 'religion of peace.'

Or you could say that leftism is an ersatz religion for leftists. 'Ersatz' here functions as an alienans adjective. It functions  like 'decoy' in 'decoy duck.'  A decoy duck is not a duck.  A substitute for religion is not a religion.

An ideology is a system of action-guiding beliefs.  That genus divides into the species religious ideologies and nonreligious ideologies.  Leftism, being "overwhelmingly secular" just as Prager says, is a nonreligious ideology. It is not a religion, but it shares some characteristics with religions and functions for its adherents as a substitute for religion.

You might think to accuse me of pedantry.  What does it matter that Prager sometimes employs sloppy formulations? Surely it is more important that leftism be defeated than that it be fitted into an optimal taxonomy!

Well yes, slaying the dragon is Job One.  But we also need to persuade intelligent and discriminating people.  Precision in thought and speech is conducive to that end.  And that is why I say, once more:  Language matters!

The Schizoid Left: OK to Bash Mormons and Christians but not Muslims?

Many liberals in the West have become, and many more are becoming, radical leftists out to subvert the very principles that they as leftists supposedly support. Thus arises the phenomenon of the schizoid Left. For example, from the time of the French Revolution on, the Left has been anti-clerical and ever more anti-religious. But now we witness the bizarre spectacle of leftists aligning themselves with, or at least not opposing, the most extreme type of religious fundamentalism on the face of the earth.
They never miss an opportunity to bash Christians and Mormons, but are deeply offended by the amateurish Innocence of Muslims.  Bret Stephens:

The film, the [Obama] administration says, is "hateful and offensive" (Susan Rice), reprehensible and disgusting" (Jay Carney) and, in a twist, "disgusting and reprehensible" (Hillary Clinton). Mr. Carney, the White House spokesman, also lays sole blame on the film for inciting the riots that have swept the Muslim world and claimed the lives of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three of his staff in Libya.

So let's get this straight: In the consensus view of modern American liberalism, it is hilarious to mock Mormons and Mormonism but outrageous to mock Muslims and Islam. Why? Maybe it's because nobody has ever been harmed, much less killed, making fun of Mormons.

For a second example of schizoid leftism, consider that lefties traditionally display a prominent libertine and bohemian wobble. Why then do they cozy up to, or at least not resolutely oppose, Islamic fanatics who murder homosexuals, stone adulterers, and circumcise females?

Third, the Left, as part of the Enlightenment project, supposedly champions science over superstition. Yet, in the last 400 years or so, scarcely anything of any scientific value has emanated from the Islamic world. (Bernard Lewis is the man to read on this. ) The same goes for philosophy. Tiny Israel in the mere 64 years of its existence has cranked out more genuine philosophy that the whole of the Islamic world has in 400 years. So what does the Left do? It waxes anti-Semitic and pro-Islamic.

The nihilism of the hard Left — its denial of value and true being to anything that actually exists and provably works — may be turning in upon itself. Unable to destroy Western civilization under its own steam, it aligns itself with Islamists, who, were they to attain power, would of course mercilessly
exterminate all leftists. A curious sort of Selbstaufhebung.

For a leftist, the end justifies any and all  means, including ignoring the very real threats of militant Islam while demonizing Christians who pose no threat to speak of.  For  full documentation, see David Horowitz, Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left, Regnery 2004. 

Why There Cannot Be a Decent Left

Ronald Radosh ends his piece as follows:

The truth is that the Left in the West, including our own Left, is largely anti-American, favorable to extremist radical social movements, and sees any one or group who is not on its side as not only incorrect, but morally evil. The answer to Michael Walzer’s own query is still the same: it would be nice if there was a decent Left, but its small and ineffectual numbers prove that its creation is something that will never take place.

Cf. Michael Walzer, Can There Be a Decent Left?

Shysters of the ACLU At It Again


ACLU"Following a complaint filed by the ACLU, school officials in Cranston, R.I. have ended gender specific activities like father-daughter dances and mother-son ballgames to comply with state gender discrimination laws."  Story here.

I've often wondered about the etymology of 'shyster.' From German scheissen, to shit? That would fit well with the old joke, "What is the difference between a lawyer and a bucket of shit?' "The bucket." I am also put in mind of scheusslich: hideous, atrocious, abominable. Turning to the 'shyster' entry in my Webster's, I read, "prob. fr. Scheuster fl. 1840 Am. attorney frequently rebuked in a New York court for pettifoggery."

According to Robert Hendrickson, Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, p. 659: 

 

Shyster, an American slang term for a shady disreputable lawyer, is first recorded in 1846. Various authorities list a real New York advocate as a possible source, but this theory has been disproved by Professor Gerald L. Cohen of the University of Missouri-Rolla, whose long paper on the etymology I had the pleasure of reading. Shakespeare's moneylender Shylock has also been suggested, as has a racetrack form of the word shy, i.e., to be shy money when betting. Some authorities trace shyster to the German Scheisse, "excrement," possibly through the word shicir, "a worthless person," but there is no absolute proof for any theory.

A little further research reveals that Professor Cohen's "long paper" is in fact a short book of 124 pages published in 1982 by Verlag Peter Lang. See here for a review. Cohen argues that the eponymous derivation from 'Scheuster' that I just cited from Webster's is a pseudo-etymology. 'Shyster' no more derives from 'Scheuster' than 'condom' from the fictious Dr. Condom. Nor does it come from 'Shylock.' It turns out my hunch was right. 'Shyster' is from the German Scheisser, one who defecates.

Companion posts: 

The ACLU and the Second Amendment

The ACLU and Mardi Gras

 

 

The Unholy Alliance With Islamism: Does the Left Have a Death Wish?

Mike Liccione's name came up over dinner with John Farrell, who has met Mike.  Small world.  (It also turns out that John now lives on the same street only a few doors down from where I lived for part of my time in Boston. Small world again.)  Mention of Mike put me in mind of an old post from 6 November 2009 in which I link to him, a post that is particularly relevant in the light of recent events.  The post follows.

………………

Something that has long puzzled me also puzzles Michael Liccione. Mike puts it like this:

Shouldn't liberals be the most concerned about Islamic fundamentalism, given that the things they profess to value are the first things they would lose under Islamist pressure? It's hard to avoid the conclusion that this sort of liberal hates political conservatives and
orthodox Christians more than he loves his own liberty. And he wishes to cling desperately to his own self-image as a defender of the poor, oppressed minorities, even when some of those poor, oppressed minorities would just as soon see him and his kind swinging from the gallows.

Substantially correct. But if I may quibble, 'Islamic fundamentalism' may not be the right term. Better would be 'militant Islam' or 'radical Islam' or 'Islamism.' A fundamentalist, as I understand the word, is one who interprets the scriptures of his religion literally, as God's own inerrant word. Thus Islam, if I am not mistaken, holds that the Koran was literally dictated by God to Muhammad in Arabic. Whatever one
thinks of fundamentalists in this sense, it seems obvious that they should not be confused with militants or terrorists. Although fundamentalists and terrorists are sets with a non-null intersection, there are fundamentalists who are not terrorists and terrorists who are not fundamentalists.

It is important to try to think as clearly and precisely as one can about these issues, distinguishing the
different, and forging one's terminology in the the teeth of these differences.   And the more 'hot-button' the issue, the more necessary is clear and precise thinking.

Addendum 19 September 2012:  I have always been careful to speak of 'militant Islam' or 'radical Islam' or 'Islamism' as opposed to 'Islam.'  But now I am wondering whether this distinction is not perhaps a snare and a delusion.  The problem may well be with Islam itself and its basic values or lack of values.  See Diana West's post to which I linked yesterday.

It is becoming painfully obvious that the values of Muslims qua Muslims are simply incompatible with our Western values, and that to allow them to immigrate is a recipe for suicide.  Islamic culture is inferior to ours, the proof being the sad state of the countries Muslims come from – which is of course why they don't stay in their own countries. 

Liberals of course support wide-open immigration, legal and illegal, along the lines of 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.'  These liberal  fools hate Christians and conservatives more than they hate the enemies of their own liberal values.  I call that contemptible stupidity, stupidity  that is morally  censurable.

Bill K. comments:

I think it is far more pathological than simply the enemy of my enemy is my friend.  I believe the kind of liberal that wants the government to control everything (as opposed to the fuzzy-headed do-gooders that simply want problems to go away and people to be happy) actually admires and approves of Islam, because of its program of total control.   They also fail to understand that they will be the first to go when the Umma arrives.  They are so used to talking their way into what they want, that they won’t understand the use of force even when they face the beheading sword.  Look at our foreign policy.  BO actually thought he could talk the Muslims into world peace.

I suspect that our delusional leftist pals think that they can use Islamism to beat back conservatism and Christianity and then dismiss the Islamists once the job is done.  But they are pussies compared to the Islamists and they may be in for a big surprise.