There is no transcript for this one because I did it pretty much off of the top of my head. That is, I just spoke the damn thing rather than writing it up and reading it.
There are two inspirations for this bit. The first is that I've been pondering how, or if, to respond to Stuart's comment on my Facebook page in which he rejects the premise of the question.
The second is pyrrho314 who reminds me a little of a mad scientist. pyrrho is an acquaintance from my old Daily Kos days, as well as Maryscott O'Connor's defunct blog, My Left Wing. If you listen to his stuff - and I have only rediscovered the guy after many years - he's either discussing the nature of subatomic particles or left-libertarian politics. In either case, he comes across just as himself and I respect that.
I haven't listened to this so I'll plod on with my own theory. The left is reluctant to discuss jihad because it embraces jihad but isn't ready yet to say so openly. Like in the good old RSA when the ANC was being funded and run by the KGB (and this is a verified matter of record), the ANC could not afford to admit it and embroil themselves in the other Marxist Wars of Africa. And it was a very good approach because if they had been open, it would have crushed the anti apartheid movement.
ReplyDeleteThe left sees jihad as a weird kind of counter colonialism or even a splinter from the various indigenous people's movements that are exploited for different purposes. And of course it's fundamentally anti western which is never a bad idea to the left.
I don't believe it's ignorance or embarrassment or being coy or cowardly. I believe it's intentional.
I think that you're wrong.
DeleteWe don't want to broad brush, but I would argue that a primary reason is a feeling of fellowship with ethnic minorities of the non-white variety.
I would wager that most of the people that you speak with on the Left have a very sincere open-heartedness to people coming from war-torn parts of the world.
Many educated people look back to the second wave of immigration into the US and consider people like myself, who want tighter oversight on Arab-Muslim immigration, as like the white-anglo racist American motherfuckers from the end of the Civil War to WWII, who wanted to keep our greatgrandparents the hell off of Ellis Island.
It's not that they're pro-Jihad.
It's that they're righteously anti-racist and for excellent reasons and have, thereby, put themselves upon the horns of a dilemma.
One horn to choose from is the Racist Horn.
Anyone who raises the question of limitations and oversight runs the immediate risk of being branded a racist.
The other horn is the Non-Racist Horn, but that means letting lots of potential jihadis into the country and simply hoping for the best
So, you get to choose.
Are you, or are you not, a racist?
What is racism anyway?
DeleteRacism is the belief in an outmoded 19th century theory of biological hierarchy within the human species.
DeleteOr, at least, that's what it used to mean.
Now it means whatever SJWs decide it means on any given month according to the political winds of the moment.
There is the racist mind set that sees bad actors like jihadists as caused by Western values, rather than by their own cultures and beliefs.
DeleteThere is also an unrealistic mind set that universalism will solve human suffering, but is that actually possible without good faith consensus to make it happen?
Shall we settle for the mean?
Do these people that expect perfection from our system, would they prefer life under the other systems? Would they be able to act as fools similarly?
As for the wholly naive and unprepared, those that cannot bear the election result or a Horowitz or Milo on campus because of the "harm" that will occur, once the rude awakening sets in, they will adapt and once day see how easily they were misled.
And right on cue:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4049442/Terror-attack-fears-lorry-ploughs-Christmas-market-Berlin-leaving-two-people-dead.html
I would attribute this to Alexi's comic/tragic timing, but for the fact that the German Polizei have been dealing with and exploding in controlled explosions bombs that were planted in other attempts to murder people at Christmas markets, so when I heard the news I though to myself, "that's the one that got away." And there will always be the one who gets through unless we get serious and stop playing PC footsie and leveling charges of racism using secret codes and microagressions.
DeleteAccording to Mark Steyn it took us more time to prosecute Major Hassan than to defeat Imperial Japan in WWII. And that's with Hassan admitting to everything the first day of his trial. It took just 3 years to militarily and ideologically defeat Japan and turn their "Sun God" Emperor into just another constitutional monarch. Notice how neither Japan nor Germany have gone warring since we defeated them unconditionally.
I think you might be missing something here. Sure people on the left are especially afraid of being called racists. But anyone who actually thinks this thing through can't seriously attribute opposition to the jihad as a racist endeavor. People do not want to think. The left, the Chomskyite left, specializes in wooing people and lulling them to sleep by appealing to the biased assumptions they've been fed.
ReplyDeleteRadical Islam must be ideologically defeated, and you can't do that by indulging it.
Your Facebook friend seems only to have confirmed your thesis. The left does not want to talk about this in any serious way. They want to tell us bs like to thoroughly grind our enemy into dust is simply to be playing into his hand. This is the kind of garbage talk emanating from the current crop of progressive lefties that contradicts thousands of years of human experience with war. But, you know, anyone who came before them can be summed up as primitive neanderthals.
Does George Sonos' BLM believe earnestly in the rights of black people?. Is ISM taking money from Hamas to create SJP on college campuses honestly interested injustice and peace and fellowship?
ReplyDeleteIs every Jew hating tweet from HRW and AI and EI really a misguided effort to hug another poor miserable 'palestinian'?
It's a good question. My wife and I agree about something about my brother-in-law, and it is this; when he tells us a story we later have a debate about where the facts ended and the bullshit began.
Deleteyou forgot one of the biggest reasons: Muslims are easy new voters to convince of their victimhood, if they're not convinced already. They then can be milked for votes for politicians (of course if those politicians aren't blown up)
ReplyDeleteMaybe yes maybe no. But at the least, at the very rock bottom least, Muslims in the US are being played AS victims FOR political reasons. For votes.
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