Leftism and Political Correctness – Page 57

The Climate Science Isn’t Settled

Three questions: Is global warming occurring? Is is anthropogenic? Is it sufficiently serious to warrant massive action? There is no good reason to think that all three questions have an affirmative answer. Here is an article by Richard S. Lindzen, professor of meteorology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

What is truly disturbing in all this is the extent of leftist ideological infiltration of science. But this is nothing new. See Stalin on Philology.

To put it polemically, the gas bags of global warming are CO₂mmies. The point of this bit of invective is to highlight the anti-free market, totalitarian, and politically correct ideological nature of this so-called 'science.'

Toleration and its Limits

Henry V. e-mails:

I have a question. Is there a technical philosophical term for the case when a principle, applied consistently, leads to its own negation? I have in mind the example of the principle of civic tolerance, that when consistently applied to groups such as Muslims who wish to see Sharia law instituted in the West, would lead to the destruction of tolerance. Many other examples can be found in contemporary politics.

This is a good question, Henry, and while I thank you for it, I am not sure of the answer, though 'fallacy of accident' is in the ball park as I explain below. You don't tell me what you mean by 'civic tolerance,' or how the principle of civic tolerance should read, and without a statement of the principle, it is hard to have a disciplined discussion. So let me extract a principle from the following UNESCO paragraph:

Continue reading “Toleration and its Limits”

The Danger of Appeasing the Intolerant

Should we tolerate the intolerant? Should we, in the words of Leszek Kolakowski,

. . . tolerate political or religious movements which are hostile to tolerance and seek to destroy all the mechanisms which protect it, totalitarian movements which aim to impose their own despotic regime? Such movements may not be dangerous as long as they are small; then they can be tolerated. But when they expand and increase in strength, they must be tolerated, for by then they are invincible, and in the end an entire society can fall victim to the worst sort of tyranny. Thus it is that unlimited tolerance turns against itself and destroys the conditions of its own existence. (Freedom, Fame, Lying, and Betrayal, p. 39.)

Continue reading “The Danger of Appeasing the Intolerant”

Can a Black Man Vote Against Obamacare?

If a black congressman were to vote against a Democrat health care reform proposal, could he call himself a black man? According to this source:

The Rev. Jesse Jackson on Wednesday night criticized Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.) for voting against the Democrats’ signature healthcare bill.

“We even have blacks voting against the healthcare bill from Alabama,” Jackson said at a reception Wednesday night. “You can’t vote against healthcare and call yourself a black man.”

Brother Jesse apparently thinks that it is somehow inscribed into the very essence of being black that one be a leftist.

When we conservatives label libs and lefties as loons, it is this sort of preternatural idiocy that we have in mind.

Travesty in New York

Will there be no end to the idiocies perpetrated by the Obama Administration? The latest is the absurd decision to give Islamic terrorist Khalid Sheik Mohammed a civilian trial in New York City. As usual, Charles Krauthammer cuts to the nerve of the matter:

So why is Attorney General Eric Holder doing this? Ostensibly, to demonstrate to the world the superiority of our system where the rule of law and the fair trial reign.

Really? What happens if KSM (and his co-defendants) "do not get convicted," asked Senate Judiciary Committee member Herb Kohl. "Failure is not an option," replied Holder. Not an option? Doesn't the presumption of innocence, er, presume that prosecutorial failure — acquittal, hung jury — is an option? By undermining that presumption, Holder is undermining the fairness of the trial, the demonstration of which is the alleged rationale for putting on this show in the first place.

See also Mona Charen's Holder's True Motive for some incisive analysis.

Good Old Eric Hoffer

Eric Hoffer, The True Believer, p. 161: "In the eyes of the true believer, people who have no holy cause are without backbone and character — a pushover for men of faith."

The True Believer was published in 1951. I read chunks of it in the '60s and returned to it in December of 2003. Hoffer had Osama bin Laden and his fatal mistake pegged fifty years before the events of 9/11/01. The prescience of this autodidactic stevedore is truly remarkable. Has there ever been a more independent independent scholar?

Proof that I am a Native American

A while back, a front page story in the local rag of record, The Arizona Republic, implied that one is either a native American, a Black, or an Anglo. Now with my kind of surname, I am certainly no Anglo. And even though I am a 'person of color,' my color inclining toward a sort of tanned ruddiness, I am undoubtedly not Black either.

It follows that I am a native American. This conclusion is independently supported by the following argument:

1. I am a native Californian
2. California is in America
3. If x is native to locality L, and L is within the boundaries of M, then x is a native M-er.
Therefore
I am a native American.

Note that (2) is true whether 'America' is taken to refer to the USA or to the continent of North America.

Political Correctness Can Be Deadly: The Case of Nidal Malik Hasan

A militant Muslim lets out with the jihadist battle cry Allahu Akbar! (God is great!), mows down 43 unarmed fellow soldiers, and liberals and leftists refuse to call him what he is, an Islamist terrorist. The Left stands revealed in its moral cowardice and political correctness for all to see. Charles Krauthammer's Explaining Away Mass Murder nails the essential.

Liberal Dreckmeisters and Their Decadent Drivel

How is that for a polemical title?

The first decades of televison were comparatively wholesome compared to what came later. An example of outstanding TV was Rod Serling's Twilight Zone, which ran from 1959-1964. Comparing a series like TZ with trash like The Sopranos, one sees the extent of the decline.

Serling knew how to entertain while also stimulating thought and teaching moral lessons. Our contemporary dreckmeisters apparently think that the purpose of art is to degrade sensibility, impede critical thinking, glorify scumbags, and rub our noses ever deeper into sex and violence. It seems obvious that the liberal fetishization of freedom of expression without constraint or sense of responsibility is part of the problem. But I can't let a certain sort of libertarian or economic conservative off the hook. Their lust for profit is also involved.

What is is that characterizes contemporary media dreck? Among other things, the incessant presentation of defective human beings as if there are more of them than there are, and as if there is nothing at all wrong with their way of life. Deviant behavior is presented as if it is mainstream and acceptable, if not desirable. And then lame justifications are provided for the presentation: 'this is what life is like now; we are simply telling it like it is.' It doesn't occur to the dreckmeisters that art might have an ennobling function.

The tendency of liberals and leftists is to think that any presentation of choice-worthy goals or admirable styles of life could only be hypocritical preaching. And to libs and lefties, nothing is worse than hypocrisy. Indeed, a good indicator of whether someone belongs to this class of the terminally benighted is whether the person obsesses over hypocrisy and thinks it the very worst thing in the world. See my category Hypocrisy for elaboration of this theme.

Malcolm Pollack at the Gates of Vienna

Or rather, at the gates of Gotham. Malcolm writes,

Upon reading your post The Left's Death Wish, I thought you might find this interesting: A Genealogy of Radical Islam.

I've been contending with the liberal mindset regarding Islam over at my own place, where, for suggesting that the massacre at Ft. Hood was most likely an example of jihad, and of why an increasing Muslim presence in the West might not be such a good idea, I was tarred, as usual, as a vile Islamophobe.

It's often tempting, as my own shadow lengthens to the East, to withdraw to a quiet life of reading and contemplation. But scribble I must, it seems.

1. Well, Malcolm, I hope you don't succumb to the temptation to withdraw from the fray. To paraphrase Plato, the price the good pay for their indifference to politics is to be ruled by the evil. Not that I don't understand the temptation to withdraw. To quote from an earlier post:

Why not stick to one's stoa and cultivate one's specialist garden in peace and quiet, neither involving oneself in, nor forming opinions about, the wider world of politics and strife? Why risk one's ataraxia in the noxious arena of contention? Why not remain within the serene precincts of theoria? For those of us of a certain age the chances are good that death will arrive before the barbarians do.

[. . .]

The answer is that the gardens of tranquillity and the spaces of reason are worth defending, with blood and iron if need be, against the barbarians and their leftist enablers. Others have fought and bled so that we can live this life of solitude and beatitude. And so though we are not warriors of the body, we can and should do our tiny bit as warriors of the mind to preserve for future generations this culture which allows us to pursue otium liberale in peace, quiet, and safety.

2. I don't know whether to commend you or criticize you for the restraint and tolerance you have shown in the comment thread to your 11/5 post. One of the cyberpunks calls you a "xenophobe" while the other removes the 'crypto' from your ironic self-characterization as a "crypto-Nazi." Me, I DELETE and BLOCK the minute that sort of behavior is manifested. Why waste your time with abusive cyberpunks who hide anonymously behind their 'handles' while spewing their PeeCee nonsense?

The answer, I suppose, is that by responding you demonstrate to others, if not to the punks, how to rebut the charges. So perhaps I should commend you for your toleration. I suspect you will agree with me, however, that toleration has its limits.

3. We agree on the substantive point that, as you put it " the massacre at Ft. Hood was most likely an example of jihad. . . ." There is plenty of evidence for this, and it is most disconcerting that so many, blinded by their political correctness and moral cowardice cannot see it.

Blog on!

Liberty-Conscious Investing

It is not clear to me why liberals have proprietary rights in the phrase 'socially-conscious investing.' Someone whose investment choices reflect a concern for individual liberty is of course also interested in the nature of the society in which he lives, and is therefore also 'socially conscious.' A champion of individual liberty wants a society in which there is more individual liberty and less government interference. To this extent, such a champion is also 'socially-conscious.'

Continue reading “Liberty-Conscious Investing”

Postscript to The Real Culture War: The Schizoid Left in Cahoots with Islamists

A reader thinks I was "too charitable" in The Real Culture War. I wrote:

But this minor culture war, as heated as it has become recently, is, despite its importance, as nothing compared to the major war between the West, with its Enlightenment values, and militant Islam.

The reader responds:

Since the Enlightenment side of this culture war has taken sides with militant Islam, it can hardly be the case that our war with the Enlightenment is less serious than our war with militant Islam.

Speaking for myself, I don't consider myself at war with the Enlightenment, nor do I consider a sound conservatism to be anti-Enlightenment; what I oppose is the exaggeration and perversion of Enlightenment ideals by contemporary liberals and leftists. But the reader has a point, and in an earlier post, I took a harder line. What follows is a slightly redacted version of part of that earlier post. I hope my reader finds it sufficiently harsh:

Continue reading “Postscript to The Real Culture War: The Schizoid Left in Cahoots with Islamists”

The Real Culture War

Please study the following photographs. They depict adherents of the 'religion of peace' making such statements as: Behead those who insult Islam; Freedom go to hell; Be prepared for the real holocaust.

There is a sort of 'culture war' going on between liberals and conservatives in the West. But this minor culture war, as heated as it has become recently, is, despite its importance, as nothing compared to the major war between the West, with its Enlightenment values, and militant Islam. To put it roughly, we in the West are all or most of us liberals, classical liberals. The touchstone of classical liberalism is toleration, as I recall the famous CCNY philosopher Morris R. Cohen writing somewhere. Along the same lines, savor this admirable passage from Bryan Magee's Confessions of a Philosopher (Modern Library, 1999, p. 183):

Continue reading “The Real Culture War”

The Left’s Death Wish

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.

Political Discourse as Unavoidably Polemical: the Converse Clausewitz Principle

A regular reader writes:

I would urge some caution withyour recent political cartoon. This is only because you may unjustly be treated with less seriousness than your blog deserves if someone wants to peg you in a certain way. I'm certainly not being PC or suggesting that political satire is problematic — it's primarily a tactical point.

I couldn't agree more, of course, that liberalism (and, in particular, it's diseased and mutated zombie baby of multiculturalism) is attempting, even if unwittingly, to destroy its host body. The cartoon is a very powerful one, indeed!

Point taken. It's a tricky issue. But I think it is important to let our opponents know that we will oppose them. There is no way not to be unfairly pegged by the nimrods and numbskulls of the Left. So conservatives shouldn't worry about it. Janeane Garofalo's comment that the 'tea-baggers' as she derisively refers to them are racists and rednecks is, I am afraid, representative of the scum-baggery widespread on the Left. We should stand up to them and speak the truth with courage.

Would that I could avoid this stuff. But I cannot in good conscience retreat into my inner citadel and let my country be destroyed — the country that makes it possible for me to cultivate the garden of solitude, retreat into my inner citadel, and pursue pure theory for its own sake.

Political discourse is unavoidably polemical. The zoon politikon must needs be a zoon polemikon. ‘Polemical’ is from the Greek polemos, war, strife. According to Heraclitus of Ephesus, strife is the father of all: polemos panton men pater esti . . . (Fr. 53) I don't know about the 'all,' but strife is certainly at the root of politics. Politics is polemical because it is a form of warfare: the point is to defeat the opponent and remove him from power, whether or not one can rationally persuade him of what one takes to be the truth. It is practical rather than theoretical in that the aim is to implement what one takes to be the truth rather than contemplate it. 'What one takes to be the truth': that is the problem in a nutshell. Conservatives and leftists disagree fundamentally and nonnegotiably.

Implementation of what one takes to be the truth, however, requires that one get one’s hands on the levers of power. Von Clausewitz held that war is politics pursued by other means. But what could be called the converse-Clausewitz principle holds equally: politics is war pursued by other means.

A political cartoon like the one I posted surely won't convert any leftists. How could it, when the 281 patiently argued pages of David Horowitz's Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left (Regnery 2004) made no impression on them? The Left cannot be persuaded; they must be opposed.