tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625076107995960519.post1020247399845708580..comments2024-01-26T03:40:32.465-05:00Comments on Breath of the Beast: The Biggest Honor Killing of AllYaacov Ben Moshehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16711165551258127500noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625076107995960519.post-15496526003050535252009-02-11T15:37:00.000-05:002009-02-11T15:37:00.000-05:00Yaacov,Impressive piece, and I agree with it.My on...Yaacov,<BR/><BR/>Impressive piece, and I agree with it.<BR/><BR/>My only part is your use of the word left.<BR/><BR/>In my opinion, there are three kind of leftists (I am not one of them).<BR/><BR/>1. The economical leftists. These people genuinely want to help people who are down. Also, these people have no problem with western values, or even, they appreciate it very much, and they *DON'T* want to destroy it. In fact, they possibly think that Western civilizacion is a huge asset (albeit not perfect) instead of a liability. I guess more or less social democrats fall into this category.<BR/><BR/>2. The ideological leftists. These are the people who use the ideas and the language of the economical leftists but only to further their own ideological bent. I call these people the communists. (in the sense that communism wanted to destroy the Western civilization). These are the guys you are talking in this article, I guess. These people are dangerous since they use words like "help the poor", "equality", "fairness", etc. but they have a hidden agenda. Just enough to think the disconnect between the word "multiculturalism" and the reality, for example, in the UK.<BR/><BR/>3. The third group is, as Lenin described them, the useful idiots. Or ignorants... These are people who disagree with the ideological leftists but fall for them since they don't see beyond the aforementioned nice words. They like the slogans (on the surface they are nice) but were never *REALLY* forced to think about them. These are the people who go to anti Iraq war protests worldwide but don't question who organize these worldwide events. (I am not talking about if the Iraq war was right or wrong but about the protests and the organizers).<BR/><BR/>So in all, I think the people you are talking about is the ideological leftist.<BR/><BR/>Vilmos SotiAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625076107995960519.post-19142110072808728082009-02-11T14:21:00.000-05:002009-02-11T14:21:00.000-05:00The connection is that the Left is fixated on crit...The connection is that the Left is fixated on criticism of the West, of their own countries, of America as representative of the West.<BR/><BR/>Such criticism is the Left's tradition, going back to Voltaire. It has been of immense value at times; it's how slavery and racial and religious discrimination were abolished, and many other reforms achieved. It's made possible the West's current relations with China, Japan, and India, which by <I>historical standards</I> are extraordinarily peaceful and friendly; also the peaceful acceptance of non-whites and non-Christians (e.g. Jews) into Western societies.<BR/><BR/>But in the 20th century, it mutated into an autoimmune disorder - a reflex attitude that says the West, whites, the U.S. (formerly Britain) are by default wrong, and rebels, critics, outsiders, "natives" are right. Only criticism has value. Dissent is not just "the highest form of patriotism", it becomes the only form of "patriotism".<BR/><BR/>This explains, for instance, the career of Ward Churchill, a charlatan whose lush 30-year career in academia was sustained by little more than his continual recitation of anti-white-American tropes.<BR/><BR/>It explains why Australian historian Keith Windschuttle was excoriated for showing that the supposed genocide of Tasmanian natives never happened.<BR/><BR/>It explains such bizarre incidents as Susan Sontag's declaration that "the white race is the cancer of history"; it explains why the Boston <I>Globe</I> front-paged alleged photos of American soldiers committing rape in Iraq that were fairly obviously from a p.o,r_n site.<BR/><BR/>And it explains why the Left finds common cause with the Islamists. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." They cannot acknowledge the abominable nature of the jihadists because that would require giving up their oppositional status.<BR/><BR/>Israel has become the enemy because it has become "white".Rich Rostromhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13262703348236110420noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625076107995960519.post-11294129664320133172009-02-10T08:17:00.000-05:002009-02-10T08:17:00.000-05:00Diane,So when I hear my rabbi talking about workin...Diane,<BR/><BR/><I>So when I hear my rabbi talking about working toward "social justice" as a religious duty, I cringe a little.</I><BR/><BR/>I can't talk for your rabbi but I hope he means the Jewish version of charity. Devoting some of your resources - material or spiritual - to less endowed persons or to improving the community's well-being derives from the individual's choice to live/act in a just manner and strive for a just society (vs. the compassion principle). Tzedaka (charilty, in Hebrew) is rooted in Tzedek (Justice). And it's according to Halachic law, not a theory/ideology.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625076107995960519.post-57115494194566335202009-02-09T16:27:00.000-05:002009-02-09T16:27:00.000-05:00I might also add that there are all kinds of pragm...I might also add that there are all kinds of pragmatic reasons for leftists in control of institutions like the academy and the media to need scapegoats, like Israel, to help enforce their authority adn group cohesion. And this pragmatic need speaks to a truth just as powerful as any more fundamental truth one might attempt to articulate about the nature of humanity and/or Islamofascism. In fact postmodern leftists don't like smart alecks too interested in fundamental truths. The quest for universals is for them oh so kitsch. <BR/><BR/>But everyone has trouble reconciling pragmatic and fundamental truths and we all fail to some degree. If the failure of the postmodern left is all the more scandalous because of its blaring hypocrisy, well that is only all the more reason for the hardcore dogmatists to get their way in enforcing pragmatic group think. For practical reasons, the dogma must win, unless, again, one is willing or able to undergo some kind of fundamental conversion in beliefs.truepeershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16401984575637492845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625076107995960519.post-5084303379435281572009-02-09T15:46:00.000-05:002009-02-09T15:46:00.000-05:00On one hand they have declared themselves the defi...<I>On one hand they have declared themselves the definitive authorities of a new “post-modern methodology” to understand the world and at the same time, they declare that there is nothing to investigate or understand.</I><BR/>[...]<BR/><I>Those who pretend to know what is good for us in academia, the media and politics have somehow convinced us that the status quo is a cursed state, that they will show us the way to a better, more equal, secure and peaceful future.</I><BR/><BR/>-I think you are very close to the mark here. If I could add something it would be that the reason the "progressive" left is able to make alliance with the Islamofascists is because the left has come to know on some level that, in its present paradigms, it really does not believe it can "show us the way to a better future". In other words, it is hanging on to the weakest (but in some sense strongest) form of Utopianism (compared to the socialist dreams of the past) which is simply the "belief", the need for the dogma, that somehow the better world will come about if we endlessly deconstruct the world of the powerful. The need for a Utopia, the compelling imperative to believe in it beyond all reason, is paradoxically all the more powerful in its delusions the weaker one's vision for the future. One no longer has to be accountable for one's own plans. One can thus be even purer in rejecting all that is wrong.<BR/><BR/>In this the left has a lot in common with the Caliphascists. Does your average maniac who has nothing to say but "Islam is the only way; Islam will dominate; kill the kaffir" really believe that Islamic brother will live in peace with all Islamic brothers in the new Utopia of universal Islam? Somehow I doubt it: it is just the realization that it will never work out, that Muslim will still fight Muslim, that justifies his eternal denouncement; it is the realization that nothing is going to be great in this world that drives him to make the sacrifice that will somehow get him access to the heavenly bordello. Similarly, what motivates the European antisemites is a desire not to actually save Europe, to build a plausible future, but to claim some kind of post-worldly cosmic righteousness, as if somewhere in the distant future there will still be a leftist historian that remembers their deeds. In other words, we expect to lose but it is just this that guarantees we will be remembered as righteous because there will always be leftists opposing whatever new world order comes about.<BR/><BR/>The fundamental fact of the postmodern left is that they declare there is nothing to investigate, that they will make no serious contribution to building, as opposed to deconstructing, a shared reality. This is a response to the Holocaust and the revelation of how every element of the modern state/professions (not least their own leftist ones) can be immersed in the greatest evil. They interpret this to mean that they shouldn't have any projects for building a future, since any such projects will create new kinds of victims, but that they should be endlessly on guard to denounce any risks, any acts that might create new victims, in the practical bourgeois world they have put under endless suspicion. In claiming for themselves the truth of the "nazi/jew" revelation of some unquestionable victim status they enter into rivalry with Jewish historical priorty in the actual revelatory event (why wasn't it the Armenian or the Namibian genocide that proved the world-changing event, the start of the post-colonial era? why hasn't Israel leaned the lesson?); this is just a new form of antisemitism, of course.<BR/><BR/>Anyway, it is in their inability to consider any project for the future that is not about redeeming victims of the present illness that leads them to a nihilistic madness that positively needs the Palestinians and the like to serve as guarantors for a world view that has an incredibly tenuous but fierce grasp on reality, on the means by which ordinary non-conspiratorial people build the future. We don't have to explain why the left doesn't oppose the Islamofascist take on reality because the left is no longer interested in reality as anything but a potential scandal for them to denounce. They need a role as the eternal denouncers. As long as the Islamofascists and the leftists can help each other in their nihilism, they will; maybe one day they will have to fight over whose "weak" Utopianism will prove the more open to eternal suspicion and denouncing of everything, but right now their common cause gives each side a greater sense of righteousness. It's a kind of confirmation of at least some of what each believes. At least we can all agree on the evil of America and the Jew and thus keep a pragmatic peace between us.<BR/><BR/>In other words, both the pomo left and the pomo Islamofascist know on some level that they are history's losers. But, because they cannot access a religion that would allow them to be born again, they have no choice but nihilistic war.truepeershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16401984575637492845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625076107995960519.post-68118657639576999122009-02-09T11:02:00.000-05:002009-02-09T11:02:00.000-05:00lgude wrote:What FEELS instinctively like a progre...lgude wrote:<BR/><BR/><I>What FEELS instinctively like a progressive goal of equality and social harmony is actually a regressive impulse toward a romanticized, non existent 'golden age' which in reality was was characterized by hunger, violence and vulnerability.</I><BR/><BR/>Your observation reminds me of something I recently read in a Q&A with Matthias Küntzel, who studies the links between Islamism and Nazism. Talking about his early leftist political views In Germany, he says:<BR/><BR/>"One of the events that particularly affected me was the Palestinian terrorist attack on the Munich Olympics in 1972. It forced me to look for an explanation – how could this kind of massacre happen? As a young idealist, I wanted to believe in the good in people, which meant there could be only one possible answer: such terrorism was indeed appalling, but it had social roots, in this case in the Middle East conflict. So, as a young leftist, I took much the same attitude to Arafat and the PLO as the left I now oppose does to Hamas and Hezbollah, in the <B>naïve belief that mass movements are intrinsically progressive, so that terrorism can only be a response to oppression.</B>"<BR/><BR/>See http://www.matthiaskuentzel.de/contents/islamism-antisemitism-and-the-political-leftAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625076107995960519.post-33347119246036163712009-02-09T09:04:00.000-05:002009-02-09T09:04:00.000-05:00Yes, you have put the spotlight nicely on the grea...Yes, you have put the spotlight nicely on the great peculiarity of our times - the alliance between the Western left and the Islamists. I believe one of the factors that contributes to this absurd phenomena is our instinctive make up which evolved during the long hunter gatherer lifestyle period which preceded the rise of agriculture. What FEELS instinctively like a progressive goal of equality and social harmony is actually a regressive impulse toward a romanticized, non existent 'golden age' which in reality was was characterized by hunger, violence and vulnerability. Steven Pinker in this TED talk for example exposes how hunter gatherers are orders of magnitude more violent than the West in the 20th century and its world wars. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.htmllgudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12774491337993415578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625076107995960519.post-90807529320135485552009-02-09T04:20:00.000-05:002009-02-09T04:20:00.000-05:00A new agenda item on the utopian progressive wish ...A new agenda item on the utopian progressive wish list has recently caught my attention. "Social justice." I suspect it is cover for a collectivist nightmare of world-wide massive redistributive efforts (e.g global rationing of resources, food, water, medicine, education, technology, work and leisure, etc.) I think it also entails reparations and possibly repatriations for "wronged indigenous groups" (be they Palestinians or American Indians). So when I hear my rabbi talking about working toward "social justice" as a religious duty, I cringe a little. We really need to define our terms.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625076107995960519.post-51418209212053469372009-02-08T19:33:00.000-05:002009-02-08T19:33:00.000-05:00Excellent post, my friend. People are such strange...Excellent post, my friend. <BR/><BR/>People are such strange critters. We say we aspire to perfection, but we hate for anyone to be better than we are. We say we want to hear the truth, but despise those that tell the truth. We are in essence, liars.<BR/><BR/>Why is it so counter intuitive to achieve a position of power through acts of righteousness than by oppressing others? As much time as is spent in conniving and scheming, a leader could just do what is honorable and then go enjoy watching the sun set or play with a child or grandchild. It seems so easy, but is evidently the hardest thing in the world.<BR/><BR/>Who can fathom the depths of the human heart?Nancy Coppockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01938274161807178689noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625076107995960519.post-75692812142186905812009-02-08T17:43:00.000-05:002009-02-08T17:43:00.000-05:00Wow! What a post! You have nailed it.You probably ...Wow! What a post! You have nailed it.<BR/><BR/>You probably already know this but the battered wife syndrome of the left wing weenies is also called Stockholm syndrome.<BR/><BR/>The captives fall in love with their captors in a desperate plea for mercy. The progressives are forced into this by their love of non-violent passivity, cowardness and tolerance (synonym for spinelessness.)<BR/><BR/>The Christian response to this is either patience or the just war.Thomas Coolberthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18006353689817752538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625076107995960519.post-84258461653846617042009-02-08T17:34:00.000-05:002009-02-08T17:34:00.000-05:00It is the path of least resistance for too many, a...It is the path of least resistance for too many, as Gail says they might actually have to do something and that may make them, God Forbid, "Unpopular".Blazingcatfurhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05260488914265052543noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625076107995960519.post-64263456820991705942009-02-08T17:20:00.000-05:002009-02-08T17:20:00.000-05:00Good point Gail-It makes me think... The self impo...Good point Gail-<BR/>It makes me think... The self importance is not just unsubstantiated, it is irrational- smacks of compensatory megalomania.Yaacov Ben Moshehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16711165551258127500noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1625076107995960519.post-52604327122671468302009-02-08T17:16:00.000-05:002009-02-08T17:16:00.000-05:00Well said. One of the things that I have noticed ...Well said. One of the things that I have noticed about liberals is that no argument has any merit because everything is the same. There is not point in discusion...it is a desire to eliminate freedom of speech. They don't want to know the truth, because then they might be obligated to do something. Both of these ideologies serve up self indulgence, shallow self interest, unsubstantiated self importance and ignorance as the ne plus ultra of sophistication.<BR/><BR/>Best regards,<BR/>Gail SGailhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00687566216115736416noreply@blogger.com