April 04, 2007
Examining why they hate us
This is a rough transcription of a tremendously thought-provoking speech given last month by Evan Sayet, a writer and humorist, at a conservative think-tank.
You can watch the video -- it's quite long -- or you can read the transcript in a few minutes; either way, it's well worth your time.
Sayet offers a mediation on his awakening in the days after 9/11, his growing realization that Western culture -- or at least a portion of it -- truly hates itself.
He begins with a story.
I'll tell a story. It's not a true story, but I think it clarifies what happened to me. Imagine being in a restaurant with an old friend and you're catching up, and suddenly, he blurts out: "I hate my wife." And you kind of chuckle to yourself because he says it every time you're together and you know he doesn't hate his wife -- they've been together for 35 years. He loves his daughters, and they're just like her. "Ah, no," he doesn't hate his wife.
You're having some dinner and you look out the window and you spot his wife, and she's being beaten up and you grab your friend and say, "Come on, come on, let's help her!" and he says: "Naw, I'm sure she deserves it." At that moment it dawns on you, he really does hate his wife.
Well, that was what 9/11 was to me. I would hear my friends on the left say how evil and horrible and racist and imperialistic and oppressive America is, and I'd laugh to myself: "Oh, they always say that; they love America." Then on 9/11 we were beaten up and I grabbed them by the collar and jumped up and said, "C'mon, let's help her, let's help America", and they said: "No, she deserves it." At that moment I realized they really do hate America.
Sayet examines a recent phenomenon in the West: the inability -- the unwillingness -- to distinguish between right and wrong, to choose a side, to choose our side.
The Modern Liberal will invariably side with evil over good, wrong over right, and the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success.
Give the Modern Liberal the choice between Saddam Hussein and the United States, he will not only side with Saddam Hussein, he will slander America and Americans in order to do so.
Give him the choice between the vicious mass murderer and corrupt terrorist dictator, Yassir Arafat, and the tiny, wonderful democracy of Israel, he will plagiarize maps, forge documents, engage in blood libels (as did our former President, Jimmy Carter) to side with the terrorist organizations and to attack the tiny state.
But it's his discussion of terrorism that I found the most compelling, including the inability of Modern Liberalism to recognize the difference between terrorists and freedom fighters, let alone the possibility that one can actually distinguish between the two.
Once you belong to this cult of indiscrimnateness, there is no other conclusion you can come to other than that good is evil and that evil is the victim of good.
We all know what standard practice is, in fact, it's official policy at the leftist media outlets to never call Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Asqa Martyrs Brigade, or any of the other Islamic fascist terrorist groups around the world "terrorists."
And you know why, you've heard it a million times. In fact, it's even in one of the official memos -- I forget the news organization, probably the Times -- to the reporters, ordering them not to use the appropriate word. And that reason is "Hey, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Who are we to employ critical, rational judgment?"
But if one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, see, you and I can tell the difference. At least, at a very minimal standard can't we at least agree that in order to be called a freedom fighter you have to be fighting for ... Freedom?
We know what Osama bin Laden is fighting for; he's told us. It's not freedom. It's an oppressive theocracy in which women are covered from head to toe, and unless we all change to his religion, we are considered the offspring of pigs and monkeys.
Quite literally being indiscriminate leaves people like Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore -- they will call Osama bin Laden a freedom fighter -- because quite literally being indiscriminate leaves them unable to tell the difference between freedom and having your head hacked off. That is quite literally how sick this mentality is.
[...]
See, you and I ... think George Washington risked his personal fortune to personally lead his troops into battle. Battles fought nobly against other uniformed warriors, for the purpose of creating the finest nation in the history of the world. Pretty noble, pretty heroic stuff.
Yassir Arafat , on the other hand, stole his people's money; sent 14 year olds out to fight his battles, battles fought against kids and women and civilians at pizza parlors and at Passover ceremonies and what not -- all for the purpose of maintaining his corrupt dictatorship. Pretty villainous stuff.
But to the folks of the New York Times who have established as official policy that there is no objective difference between the terrorists and freedom fighters, why do we teach our children that George Washington is a hero? The only possible explanation is because he's a white Christian of European descent.
If there is no difference between the behaviors of the terrorist, then why do we teach that Yassir Arafat and Saddam Hussein are villains? There can be no other reason then that they're dark skinned Muslims of Middle Eastern birth.
So when push comes to shove, after 18 United Nations resolutions and ten years of having our airplanes shot at (in direct violation of our very clear agreements), after Saddam Hussein had invaded Iran and invaded Kuwait, bombed Saudi Arabia, and bombed Israel, committed atrocities against the Kurds in the north, and committing genocide against the Marsh Arabs in the south, we finally, reluctantly go to war to liberate those poor people.
You and I know why, because we think. Because we make critical, rational, moral judgments. But to the Modern Liberal, to the mindless, to those who cannot discriminate between these behaviors, the only possible explanation for us going to war is some nefarious "cause" -- because we're evil and Saddam Hussein therefore is a victim. And they will rush there as we've seen, and act as human shields to protect his rape rooms and his torture chambers, because they won't judge rape rooms and torture chambers -- that requires a judgment.
And if you listen to the chants of the mindless minions who march down the streets at their anti-America rallies, which the forged document users and the leftist press euphemistically call anti-war rallies, you can hear their chant: "1-2-3-4 we don't want your racist war."
What race, exactly, comprises Iraq? What are they talking about? They don't know; they have not a clue; it's not a factual statement; it's not an accurate statement.
Wait a second, didn't we just recently go to war to protect Muslims in Kuwait? Didn't we bomb the Christians of Europe to protect the Muslims of Europe? What is this based on?
It's based on the reality that once you subscribe to indiscriminateness, anything other than indiscriminateness is the evil of having discriminated.
I'm trying to find the flaw in his thesis, but it seems to hang together, and meshes with a criticism I've long held about the Left, one that is apparent in the language favored by my ideological opponents: the preference for feelings over thought.
In any given arena, in any forum, one can hear people discussing the most contentious issues -- war, terrorism, crime, politics -- and I can tell you with better-than 80-percent accuracy if the speaker is a liberal or conservative without hearing more than the first few words of whatever they want to say.
How is this possible?
It's easy. If the statement begins with, "I think that X," they're probably a conservative. Conversely, if the argument begins, "I feel that Y," they're probably a liberal. Feelings over thought, emotion over analysis.
Sayet's entire speech is worth hearing (or reading), even if you don't agree with what he's saying. Why? Because it's raises questions that must -- must be answered, because the survival of all that's good and worthwhile in the West depends on an ability to recognize that some things are worth fighting for.
Feel free to leave a comment explaining why Sayet's wrong.
Posted by Mike Lief at April 4, 2007 11:11 PM
| TrackBack