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The NYT Speaks: Osama Listens

Back during the Cold War, and especially in the 1980s, you could pick up the editorial page of the New York Times and the news/editorials of Pravda, and you couldn’t tell the difference. (Sometimes Pravda would save its own writers the bother and just quote the western press for denunciations of the United States.) And Soviets always seemed to take their talking points for summits with Reagan from the American left. Gorbachev, for instance, in his first meeting with Reagan tried out the feminist chestnut that "by law" women in the U.S. could only make 60 cents for each dollar a man earned. This should have been embarrassing to the left, but wasn’t of course.

So now we have Osama, channeling the Daily Kos, the Huffington Post, and the American left. Should be embarrassing to someone, shouldn’t it? I’m just saying. . .

Discussions - 17 Comments

You'd think. But they felt no shame or embarrassment back then, and they won't now.

The left has the luxury of being unconstrained by logic or reason. They may say whatever they wish, and simply say something different later. They see nothing wrong with this. If the words suit their needs, then the words must be correct.

I agree with Don. That is why there are so many lefties in the Attorney General's office these days.

Steve Hayward must be near exhaustion from overwork. Perhaps he'll restate his point with a bit more precision.

Wow, it's hard to have anything but contempt for this post. Maybe I'll just have to start comparing you to fascists and other murderers, Steven, just to fit in around here.

Or maybe you're saying that the loyal opposition should never criticize the government when it makes a big error, because that might embolden foreign enemies to appropriate that criticism. Of course, the fact that bin Laden's first big public tirade basically quoted from the Starr report presents some difficulty there. I don't suppose that the folks pushing impeachment should have been "embarrassed" by that fact, though. (They never are.)

There's one little problem with all of those taking umbrage at Steve's post, nothing they've said detracts from the stark reality that Osama is jiving his critique of the United States with that of the hard left.

Of course some prefer some Olympian level of abstraction, which enables them to suggest that those backing the war effort bridle at ANY critique of the war effort. Comforting themselves so, they needn't ponder why some dirtball like Osama parrots their criticisms of this country for the last 75 years.

Anyone who has frequented this site, knows that I won't hesitate for half a heartbeat to rip this administration's foreign policy. But I've never wandered so far afield as to find myself in bed with dirtballs, genocidal maniacs and religious supremacists.

I think it was Professor Genovese who said that every intellectual had to face and solemnly answer the question "What did you know about the Soviet Union, and when did you know it." Today the Left knows or has constructive knowledge of the agenda of islamic totalitarianism. And instead of ameliorating the unhinged radical nature of their TOTAL critique of the United States and Western Civilization, they continue as before, without a thought to the real world consequences of their over the top criticism.

Osama and his ilk present a somber choice for every single person left of the political divide. You can either choose the West, built and maintained on Judeo/Christian values, without which it ceases to exist and have meaning, or you can continue the war against Judaism and Christianity, against the West itself. Marxism has failed, in all of its morbid variants. So why not choose the victorious West, instead of finding yourself in a vulgar and morally repugnant alliance with islamic totalitarians, {who also happen to be fond of female mutilations...}.

Help me out here, Dan.

Republicans criticize Clinton over the Lewinsky affair.

Bin Laden picks up the critcism of Clinton and repeats it in his "declaration of war" against the west.

Therefore, ??????

It's the last step that's a little hard to figure out.

Or how about this one:

Republicans like lower taxes.

Bin Laden touts the low tax rates that seem mandated by his view of Islam.

Therefore, ?????

. . . profit???? Call it the underpants gnome theory of foreign propaganda.

Hayward's post is an echo of other charges bouncing around this week. What's disturbing is that it comes from HIM.

But Brett, was that all there was?

Was that the only overlay between the criticism offered by the Left for the last several decades, and that of the terrorist du jour, bin laden?

There was more to the story, wasn't there?

This is a quaint, little game of gotcha". It's a parlour game. The Left pretends that there is nothing to conclude from the fact that MANY of their criticisms of the West for the last several decades find an eerie echo in the ravings of a mass murderer and religious supremacist.

As for the issues you mentioned, you got it wrong. The lower taxes that bin laden touts obtain only for muslims. We only get the lower tax rate if we "submit" and "make the profession" "that there is no God but Allah, and Mohammad is his prophet." Lower taxes don't exist for those that haven't made "the submission." If you're a dhimmi, you're expected to pay the upkeep for muslims. It's as they say, "if you're in my house, you pay me rent." And their "house" is the planet Earth. And that's what the dhimma contract is, rent; it's the process of making sure that the infidel "feels himself subdued."

As for the Lewinsky affair, bin laden doesn't confine his criticism of Western decadence to one or two notables. Such as Clinton for instance. It's the ENTIRETY of the West that is in the dock for him. It's an "arrogant" and "blasphemous" West that has heretofore failed to make their "submission" when they've been repeatedly asked to do so. To the extent that bin laden has used Clinton's actions, it's offered in support of the indictment of the overall West. It's not as if bin laden picked a side in the impeachment drama of the previous Presidency.

But these observations are irrelevant.

What's relevant, what's more, what's MATERIAL is that the supremacism of our enemy forces upon all a choice. Are you for the West, or against? Id est, are you for the war, or against?

So is the Left, the Left of Moore, {who branded our enemies "the minutemen"}, the Left of Chomsky, {whose every book is a bizarre, nonfactual rant}, the Left of Howard Zinn, the Left of ten thousand Marxist academics, is that Left at war against the enemies of the West? And we all know what the answer is. It's not a mystery.

So no more parlour games. They're boring.

No more little demonstrations of how clever you can be.

Cut to the chase! Do you desire victory against islamic totalitarianism, or do you prefer defeat?

Dan - Moore, Chomsky, Zinn, and all those Marxist academics: are they what Hayward is referring to? If so, the Republic is safe after all, and he should fix his over-the-top rhetoric. The ideological stereotypes are tiresome.

That said, I wish it were not the case that many people on the "left" have at least temporarily lost their minds.

About one third of the Democrat Party is convinced that the sitting President of the United States had advance knowledge of the events of September 11th. That's not speculation on my part, that's what the polling indicates.

President Bush made the mistake that you're making Steve, brushing off the pet theories of Zinn, Moore and Chomsky. But those men, and many more who share their attitudes, are NOT fringe figures. Bush didn't bother answering some of the most scurrilous charges ever made in this country. And now those charges have found traction beyond the Liberal Pale of Settlement.

I'm sure that Steve Hayward would have preferred not noting the parallel between the positions of bin laden and domestic critics of this administration.

But what are we to do, overlook it. As the President has repeatedly since 9/11. Ignoring what's circulating on the Left is no longer prudent.

It needs exposure.

It needs the disinfection provided by ample sunlight.

But even that won't be enough, ........ now will it? It's not about facts, it's not about the melting point of tempered steel for instance. It's religious; it's their creed; it's about their a priori, radical rejection of the West. It involves their unhinged loathing of Christianity, their equally unhinged detestation of the West. And of course their supreme loathing of the finest distillation of everything superior within the West, that is, Anglo-Americana. Thus they have no problem concurring with bin laden because he hates as much as they do. In fact, they respect him. He puts his hate into action, while they merely take to the streets and the blogs.

It won't do to pretend that there aren't some sick, sick people amongst the American Left.

Dan,

I'm sure that Steve Hayward would have preferred not noting the parallel between the positions of bin laden and domestic critics of this administration.


There I disagree altogether. I think the note was taken with full gusto. The sad thing is that note can be taken of such parallels and that Democratic rhetoric can be so so used, and yes, I also can agree with others here, that Democratic rhetoric can be abused and the meaning perverted. However, for the right the contrast between parties can begin to seem like this

I’m just saying. . .

Of course, the Ramirez cartoon glosses over the real difference between Churchill's situation and ours--he was talking about fighting at home against an enemy invasion (literally). He understood the value of withdrawing forces from untenable situations abroad--hence Norway and Greece. Had Churchill continued the fight in those places--"stayed the course," if you will--it would have only been at the cost of further stretching the United Kingdom's military resources. An overall German victory would have been a distinct possibility.

What bothers me is that Hayward sounds like an ideological hack, which I believe he is not.

I can say with confidence that Steve Hayward would much prefer a Democrat Party whose talking points aren't echoed by a mass-murdering dirtball.

It isn't a question of Democrat rhetoric being "abused." The true abuse occurred when Democrats began subscribing to such nonsense. It's not that bin laden has jumped on board that's the problem, it's that the Democrats ever floated such a raft of degenerate ideas for a creature like bin laden to piggy back his ideology on.

The blame lies with the Left. The radical, all-embracing critique of the West is the problem. Not just the uses that bin laden tries to make of that unhinged critique.

John Moser, I did not reference the cartoon because of parallels in the historical moment, but merely to indicate the rhetorical distinction. Am I wrong or had Churchill been arguing for a strong stand against the German threat for long before the real war ever began? If Great Britain had taken a more aggressive posture against Hitler, they might not have been facing invasion at all.

That's true, but the speech quoted in the cartoon was from 1940, expressing his desire to fight for the finish in defense of British soil. By this time he had already authorized retreats from Norway and France.

I suppose neither are we fighting terrorism on very possible front. We, too, would be stretched, maybe too far, and so we do not go after North Korea, Iran, Syria, or even concern ourselves to deeply with affairs in Pakistan, where I sometimes hear bin Laden might be hiding. Is this a matter of running away from those confrontations or prudently marshaling resources?

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