Michael L.
I very much appreciate this ongoing conversation with Jon Haber.
If I am reading him correctly - and I believe that I am - Jon has three major grievances with my views.
1) He thinks that my lone, sole example of Obama administration support for the Muslim Brotherhood is insufficient grounds for condemnation.
2) He argues that Obama Administration policy concerning Egypt is entirely consistent with American foreign policy for decades.
And
3) He finds my arguments to represent a "contemporary partisan fight."
.
I disagree and will explain why this coming Sunday at the Elder's joint.
I think that this type of conversation is important because it is necessary to periodically question central assumptions.
As always, it's a Hound of the Baskervilles scenario; the dog that didn't bark. We don't really object to obsessive compulsive scolding and complaining about Jews and Israel generally. Not really. Feel free. The problem is when that kind of thing becomes so absurdly tunnel-visioned as to be unquestioned hate speech. What we never hear is anything about anything or anyplace else from the haters. I think this is where the 'left' either lost its way or finally showed its cards. Either you stand for principles or you don't either you have the courage of your own convictions or you don't. If something is noble and just it simply is and not colored by situation or personality or place and if something is a crusade one embraces either you pick the place where your own principles signify something useful and noble or you simply sit down and admit you're lazy and you complain a lot and you're a dunderhead who just likes to pick on people because all your equally dull deluded friends do too and you know that whatever you say there won't be an angry mob of scimitar waving lunatics at your door. Otherwise leftism is just another name for bullying.
ReplyDeleteI don't generally like comparisons or analogies because different things, are, well, they're different. But without those comparisons you lose a sense of scale or this much heralded 'proportionality' Jew haters are so fond of. Ok then let's see this proportionality. ISIS has this week executed, raped and tortured thousands of people not hundreds not 10's not 5 or 6. Thousands. That is on pace with the mass deaths in eastern Europe by the Einsatzgruppen. That is what an accountant would call the 'run rate' of the Holocaust. That, is reality. And yet the Jews are the bad guys. Harvard food service bans Sodastream, Brandeis throws out black female ex Muslim Sudanese Zionist speakers for being 'racist', Ferguson protestors are coopted by the PSM, Hamas is no longer a terrorist organization and not a single 'lone wolf' (gee there's a hell of a lot of lone wolves out there) attack in Paris, Sydney, Ottawa or anywhere else rises to the level of 'Islamic terrorism'. Not a one.
One would think that the doyens of proportionality would see hypocrisy in that. Because there isn't any notion of reasonable-ness or proportionality or the principles that they claim to stop for. None of it. It's all nonsense and sweet sounding angry words they can easily spell and stuff on a protest sign. Boycott the Jews - it has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? It rolls off the tongue unlike "Boycott Guatemala" (you know because of the military dictatorship and human rights abuses. Or "Boycott China" for a hundred reasons or boycott any number of horrific car crashes we call countries.
The fact is that leftist disgust falls into the category of bigotry because it defies facts, it defies reality. It is never subject to revision or change, its proponents never adjust their views and they never change their tune no matter the circumstances. If Israel gave into to 100% of BDStards demands tomorrow they would not accept that as victory or even progress. That really IS the dictionary definition of prejudice. So if leftists want to make a case that they're not bigots then then have to show us how they're no longer bigots.