Monday, May 07, 2007

The Secret Chord

Caroline Glick at the Jerusalem Post describes the radical Islamic challenge to the humanity of women: where girls may be killed rather than educated and wonders if there's a man among us who will stand with Hirsi Ali, who has been sounding the warning for years. Glick writes :

A series of incidents this week placed the forces she battles in stark relief. Sunday Muslims shot up the Omariyah elementary school in Gaza. One man was killed and six were wounded in the onslaught. The murderers attacked because the UN-run school in Rafah had organized a sports day for the children, in which little boys would be playing with little girls.

The idea that that boys and girls might play sports together was too much for the righteous believers. It was an insult to Islam, they said. And so they decided to kill the little boys and girls.

On May 3, in Gujrat, Pakistan, Muslims detonated a bomb at the gate of a girls' school. Their righteous wrath was raised by the notion that girls would learn to read and write. That too, they felt, is an insult to Islam.

On April 28, US soldiers in Iraq discovered detonation wires across the street from the newly built Huda Girls' school in Tarmiya, north of Baghdad. They followed the wire to its source and discovered the school had been built as a deathtrap. The pious Muslims who constructed the school had filled propane tanks with explosives and buried them beneath the floor. They built artillery shells into the ceiling and the floor. To save the world for Allah, they decided to butcher little girls.


These sound so extreme and outlandish that they actually help to conceal the extent of the philosophical challenge. By engaging in horrors so vicious that they border on the absurd, radical Islam can persuade the average Western newspaper reader that it is fictional; something made up, like Freddy Kreuger. But Nicolas Sarkozy is apparently rising to the occasion and the very matter-of-factness of his response reminds us that, no, it is not all made up.

Question: What do you think of polygamy?

Answer: I respect all cultures throughout the world, but so that it is quite clear: if I am elected President of the Republic, I will not accept women being treated as inferior to men. The French Republic holds these values: respect for women, equality between men and women. Nobody has the right to hold a prisoner, even within his own family. I say it clearly, that polygamy is prohibited in the territory of the French Republic. I will fight against female genital mutilation and those who do not wish to understand that the values of the French Republic include freedom for women, the dignity of women, respect for women -- they do not have any reason to be in France. If our laws are not respected and if one does not wish to understand our values, if one does not wish to learn French, then one does not have any reason to be on French territory.

Maybe the reason why the Left hates Sarkozy and that renegade "woman of color" Hirsi Ali so much is not because of what they stand for as much as because both remind them of the principles they have betrayed. This secret guilt may stand at the center of the inexplicable hysteria with which the Left regard the neocons and President Bush in particular. Recently a Ramussen poll showed that "only four in ten Democrats will commit to the idea that George Bush did not know of the 9/11 attack in advance. Sixty-one percent of them either believe he did or are unsure." What could account for such a widespread belief in a bizarre conspiracy theory? Why do otherwise intelligent people insist, in the face of incontrovertible evidence that "fire does not melt steel" and embrace all kinds of ridiculous fantasies?  I think the extreme demonization of George W. Bush and the neocons is psychologically necessary in order to restore a feeling of moral superiority to the Leftist universe. They would be guilt stricken without it. The more intelligent Leftists must be subconsciously aware of how monstrous the enemy is and secretly cognizant of how great is the betrayal of their own ideals. They can't confront this fact; cannot accept that they are delivering children, as Caroline Glick's example above shows, to cruel murderers. And in order to obtain some kind of solace and to have the effrontery to march in support of "freedom fighters" who are nothing but sadistic thugs, it is necessary for them to invent something worse; to make a caricature devil of GWB to place them once again, if not upon the side of angels, at least in the camp of the lesser evil. George Bush must be made nothing less than the moral equivalent of Hitler or else their ethical universe would collapse.

But George Bush is not Hitler. And one day the better men among the Left will face up to the fact that they have failed a huge moral and historical test. And from that memory, there will be no redemption.

28 Comments:

Blogger George Atkisson said...

You are far more generous to the Left than they deserve.

The better ones have already become independents. Those who remain will never fail any tests, because they concede no ethical or moral standard that would allow judgement.

All that matters to them is utility and power. The abuses of women, children, gays, and non-Muslims are literally of no concern. If praising President Bush could be spun into helping the Left gain politiical power, they would drop the BDS tomorrow and demand that statues be erected across the nation to commemorate the moment when Bush "saw the light".

Consistency, logic, and honor are all "White European societal constructs" and therefore can be dismissed by the enlightened and progressive mind.

Sorry to be so cynical, but this seems to be the only working explanation I have of how the Left can sleep at night.

5/07/2007 06:53:00 PM  
Blogger 3Case said...

'...showed that "only four in ten Democrats will commit to the idea that George Bush did not know of the 9/11 attack in advance. Sixty-one percent of them either believe he did or are unsure." What could account for such a widespread belief in a bizarre conspiracy theory?' Transference.

Second point: They are not intelligent.

5/07/2007 06:58:00 PM  
Blogger Jewish Odysseus said...

When the Leftist sees a film like this from the 1930's Germany, his blood boils...But tofay he sees these vids of brainwashed Jihadi-Jugend, and he cheers for the revolution of the Noble Savage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syUOIARPKs4

5/07/2007 07:01:00 PM  
Blogger Das said...

re: the better men among the Left...

I'm not sure the Left will ever acknowledge their shame. They haven't shown much remorse over their fuzzy apologetics for Stalin, Mao, the USSR, the North Vietnamese, Pol Pot, Castro, Kims, et al. The Left's real investment is in the destruction of the West; and with those who seek the same - we've seen the grwoing love-fest between the left and the rabid jihad at every anti-war rally since 2001.

5/07/2007 07:11:00 PM  
Blogger Pierre said...

The better ones have already become independents. Those who remain will never fail any tests, because they concede no ethical or moral standard that would allow judgement.

We musn't overlook sheer cowardice as a motive for a good portion of the left. In my day to day life I am constantly struck by how cowardly most leftists are...they are simply in denial about the danger of the Muslim Fanatics.

They truly are the sort of folks who would stand on your head to feed you to the alligator first.

5/07/2007 07:19:00 PM  
Blogger amr said...

How anyone can have BDS and still believe that an al Qaeda attack can not happen here. The fact that nothing has happened in these many years should tell them that their conspiracy theories are wrong. The best way for President Bush to become the dictator they imagine is to have an attack on the US to get the “security over freedom” cry going. The atrocities being performed in the name of Islam somehow can not be believed to be possible in on our soil; just as those in gun free zones can’t imagine that they are the natural targets of cowards. Unfortunately, those who suffer from BDS and other related diseases don’t seem to realize that if it wasn’t for Bushitler, al Qaeda might believe that the US is one large free fire zone. As one security expert has said, al Qaeda is waiting for Bush to leave office to being anew its attacks in the US. He may have a good point.

5/07/2007 07:34:00 PM  
Blogger allen said...

Unless President Sarkosy, Chancellor Merckel, and the incoming Prime Minister create a great working relationship, this may be the future of the EU. Oh, despite media stories, PC is not firmly rooted yet, as the film makes clear. La France est en Péril !
Why Wagner?

5/07/2007 07:36:00 PM  
Blogger lugh lampfhota said...

The Left in the West, the Russians , the Chinese and the Islamists all want to destroy the West.

And that is why the West will have to reach a desperate situation before it can win this war.

To survive, the West will have to exterminate the Left within.

I reached this conclusion with great sadness, but the truth is right there before us.

5/07/2007 07:42:00 PM  
Blogger Alexis said...

wretchard:

What would you call a leftist who does not see Bush, Sarkozy, and the neocons as devils but who does feel horribly betrayed by most of the Left when it refuses to fight against the Islamists but instead insists upon acting as a fifth column against liberal democracy?

5/07/2007 08:37:00 PM  
Blogger lugh lampfhota said...

Joe Leiberman?

5/07/2007 08:56:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

The West is hardly in a position to exterminate the Left because the West invented it. It's Europe's only indigenous religion. That doesn't mean its doctrines aren't dangerous, but it its fabric is woven deep, very deep into the civilization from which it sprang.

5/07/2007 09:17:00 PM  
Blogger unaha-closp said...

15 girls burnt to death in a school fire behind locked doors. They were trapped on the orders of the Saudi religious police who thought their state of undress might offend Islam. Any condemnation of this Saudi brutality by George W Bush was not particularly loud. And subsequently Tony Blair has decided to not pursue any investigation into the rulers of Saudi accepting bribes.

Morals do not enter into the equations of global politics, it is self interest and economics. The Left prefer to work through negotiation and the Right through aggression which makes me a Rightist, but I do not feel the Right has any greater claim to moral strength whilst it sups with evil.

5/07/2007 10:19:00 PM  
Blogger Kevin said...

Wretchard.

You have quoted Mr. Sarkozy on polygamy and then stated that Ms. Royal (and the Left in general) support it as well as female genital mutilation.

Please provide some evidence to support this very serious charge. Perhaps a link that shows where Ms. Royal is on record or any other major Western political figure for that matter as supporting polygamy.

The debate in France in 2005 was not about polygamy, which everyone is against, but whether polygamy itself was to blame for the riots. I'm sure most, if not all Belmont Clubbers would agree with the socialist in France that polygamy itself was not to blame for the riots. In the US there are large polygamous societies in Utah that get on quite well without roiting all the time and burning a hundred automobiles a night. Of course BC'ers would say that it was a global Jihadi consiracy at work while socialists would say it has the same reasons that cause US roits in poor areas are at play.

So it is highly dihonest and really just shallow propaganda to accuse a political group of supporting polygamy and female mutilation without offering a even hint of proof. I expect better from a Harvard graduate.

As for the 9/11 the problem is the meaning of the word "know". Obviously Bush had several warnings that Al Qaida was going to strike. Does that mean he knew? The question becomes whether knowing means the exact targets, time and names of the hijackers or a general knowledge that an attack was on the way.

By the way, how many Republicans would say the know for a fact that Hillary had nothing to do with Vincent Foster's death? Not many? Oh my gawd, the right belives in conspiracy theories too!

5/08/2007 01:15:00 AM  
Blogger lugh lampfhota said...

kevin,

Proof? A policy statement? Perhaps accomodation in the banileues? Maybe a no-go zone with it's own sharia law. Some acceptable number of burned out autos, rapes of infidels or torture/murder of apes and pigs. How big of a welfare/jizya check each week to prevent more of the above? After all, with dialogue, one could live with a nuclear armed Iran!

Royal was walking down the path toward further accomodation. And yes, polygamy and female genital mutilation were not out of bounds.

The Left think they can manipulate these muck savages as a tool for change. Just as the Roman Britons thought that they could use the Angles and Saxons for coastal defense.

And the US Leftists are on the same path, just back a bit. Pre-emptive foot baths. More dialogue. Living with a nuclear Iran and Al Qaeda Iraq. Just focus on global climate change. Everything is fine.

Meanwhile barrister kevin is seeking evidence for a court filing before the prestigious ICC. THAT will keep the West safe for the next millenia.

5/08/2007 02:53:00 AM  
Blogger PeterBoston said...

To save the world for Allah, they decided to butcher little girls.

That says about everything worth knowing about Islam.

5/08/2007 03:35:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Nice article. For me, the understanding comes within a study of Narcissism; both individual and collective. As to the Muslims who insist on creating a world for women that we find so objectionable; I am reminded of a neighbor who kept his German Shepard chained up to a tree most of the day, letting him into their house at night. Once that dog got free during the day: It bit a few people while running away...

5/08/2007 04:58:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wretchard,

Your post explains better for me than anything I've read so far the insane and inane 'Bush-Hitler' obsession of liberals, who one would think would stand up for the liberal values of supporting democracy, women's rights, and so on.

5/08/2007 08:17:00 AM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

Some short anecdotes:

I was writing a scene for a film set in 1930s Vienna. Yada, yada, yada...an elderly professor (Moritz Schlick) gets shot on the steps of the University for teaching the wrong things. Perp: a young National Socialism true believer.

Well, I wanted something more visceral, something more primal, than a gunshot. I decided on a knife thrust to the solar plexus (you'll see why in a second). The producer was very pleased with this, thought it would film very well. But then I told him the rest of the scene.

In the next line of the script I wrote, "Attached to the knife is a note." He read that line and looked up sharply. "We can't do that," he said. Why not, I asked. It makes such a larger point, perhaps even a necessary point. "I don't want to get killed." He said the last with half a laugh, self-consciously, as if he knew how cowardly it sounded. But he meant it. Deep down in his soul, he was terrified. I tried to explain, but to no use. The benoted knife gave way to the original gun. (This same guy praised "Jesus Camp" as unfathomably brave.)

Another:

Was at a soiree a few weeks ago, and I found myself in a conversation with a handful of recent Ivy Leaguers. With furrowed brows and borrowed anger they accused Bush of planning (or allowing, or lying about) 9/11. This is par for the course at these events, and while I've become quite good at destroying their arguments piece by piece, "You can't argue someone out of a position that, in the first place, they were never argued into."

I now use a line of attack borrowed from Buddy Larsen. I asked these guys, "Do you really believe that. I mean truly believe it?" Some of them shrugged, but two of them said yes, challengingly. "Hey, what are you doing tomorrow?" I asked innocently. Not much, they said, confused about the change of subject.

Not much. They profess to believe that our Government is not only capable of but actually committed one of the most diabolical crimes in all of history. It conspired to murder thousands of innocents and destroy $1 Trillion in assets, all to manipulate its credulous citizenry into a ruinous war-for-oil. And what are my brave colleagues doing about it? Not much.

Sucking the fat, they are content to talk. (By the way, walking away with a knowing smile which they don't understand is a stake in the heart to these types.)

Last one:

At another event, talking to two or three self-described intellectual types. We were all lamenting the drive to push Intelligent Design into our nation's science curriculum (it's not science, get over it). I brought up a Daniel Dennett essay which analyzed the attack on science from the opposite direction, from the Left and post-modernism. I related how, in this essay, Dennett describes all the problems scientific relativism causes to poor nations -- i.e. by defining science as a Western cultural phenomenon, no better or worse than other cultural approaches to the world, these postmodernists did extreme harm to those people still geographically caught in "other approaches."

I thought it was a good point, but after a while I realized I was talking to myself. I stopped, and waited for a response.

"That's neocon bullshit," said the intellectual. Serious nod from Intellectual 2.

I'm sure Dennett would be as surprised as I was.

5/08/2007 08:37:00 AM  
Blogger Reocon said...

Wretchard, you show some admirable disdain for the Left. Why then, do you embrace their policies? Do you really believe that Wilsonianism (Democratic Globalism) is a conservative tenet? Can you defend it using Burke and Hayek? Or has the democratic crusade to put Shiite Islamist terrorists in charge of Iraq simply been slid down the memory hole? Those child-murdering Gaza thugs that you describe . . . how many of them do you think voted for Hamas?

5/08/2007 10:48:00 AM  
Blogger Matt said...

"And from that memory, there will be no redemption."

You're making the assumption that we win. If they successfully sabotage the war, there won't be much in the way of history written anymore, and the only way in which they are remembered will be with the contempt of our conquerors.

5/08/2007 10:53:00 AM  
Blogger allen said...

aristides,

Thanks for the comments.

re: The President knew of the 9/11 attacks in advance [!!!!]

What does it mean, “The President knew of the 9/11 attacks in advance”?

___It could imply that his precognition should have led to preemption.

___It could imply that his preemptive failure demonstrates complicity.

___It could imply that his preemptive failure shows cowardice.

___It could imply that his preemptive failure shows apathy.

___It could imply that his preemptive failure demonstrates ignorance.

Is there some positive spin missing?

The Left really owes the country some explanation of what it means when they say, “The President knew of the 9/11 attacks in advance.”

If the President is guilty of any of the implications above, then, a Democrat controlled Congress should have drawn up a bill of impeachment long ago, including an article for treason. There should be fighting in the streets, led by patriotic Leftists. The MSM should publish and broadcast nothing else until Mr. Bush is removed, tried, convicted, and sentenced.

Of course, genuine traitors can hardly be expected to undertake the saving of their nation. And that explains everything, doesn’t it?

5/08/2007 11:07:00 AM  
Blogger Chavo said...

Wretchard said: "I think the extreme demonization of George W. Bush and the neocons is psychologically necessary in order to restore a feeling of moral superiority to the Leftist universe. They would be guilt stricken without it. The more intelligent Leftists must be subconsciously aware of how monstrous the enemy is and secretly cognizant of how great is the betrayal of their own ideals."

Cognitive Dissonance at its most extreme.

5/08/2007 12:02:00 PM  
Blogger Chavo said...

Alexis said "What would you call a leftist who does not see Bush, Sarkozy, and the neocons as devils but who does feel horribly betrayed by most of the Left when it refuses to fight against the Islamists but instead insists upon acting as a fifth column against liberal democracy?"

Christopher Hitchens

5/08/2007 12:06:00 PM  
Blogger allen said...

“Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?”

Hallelujah
Leonard Cohen

Lyrics

Music

***

5/08/2007 06:03:00 PM  
Blogger Utopia Parkway said...

Augean Stables has a post on Finkielkraut on Why the Left has “Chosen” the Palestinian People. His post references this article, a couple years old, The Religion of Humanity
and the Sin of the Jews
.

FWIW, the last presidential election was won by a few percentage points. I don't think there is a major number of leftists in this country, or in positions of authority in the US. Most Americans are pretty close to the center, or at least not that far from the center. Liberal is one thing, leftist is another.

Allan, thanks for that youtube link. Leonard Cohen is terrific, even if he is Canadian.

5/08/2007 08:55:00 PM  
Blogger allen said...

utopia parkway,

re: Cohen

Cohen’s song “Suzanne” contains a section suggestive of Hirsi Ali, I think. Of course, with Cohen one can never be entirely certain. ;-)

“And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said "All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them"
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone”

Suzanne

5/08/2007 09:37:00 PM  
Blogger allen said...

utopia parkway,

Pardon me. Thanks for the links.

5/08/2007 09:39:00 PM  
Blogger ouestmaman said...

Allen, thankyou for the link to Leonard Cohen. Didn't realize he was a poet and author of such note. Here is a link to his first appearnce in 20 years. It is in Toronto March 13th 2006 at Indigo on Bay St. www.danforthreview.com/features/
special/leonard_cohen.htm
And there is also a video at youtube by TOOTON Films, titled LC on Bay Street. Thank you to all who
so generously contribute at the
Belmont Club. Please know that there are many, many of us who are "silent readers" learning what our
schooling would not teach.

5/09/2007 12:00:00 AM  

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