“We’re liberals! We’re liberals. We’re not crazy tea-baggers,” Bill Maher protested after his televised argument with Ben Affleck about Islam.
“We are not bigoted people. On the contrary, we’re trying to stand up for the principles of liberalism!” Maher added. “I think we’re just saying we need to identify illiberalism wherever we find it in the world, and not forgive it because it comes from [a group] people perceive as a minority.”
But despite Maher’s protests, the majority of liberals would agree with Affleck that criticizing Islam is racist. Liberals claim that the Islamic State is Un-Islamic. It would be more accurate to state that liberals are illiberal. Liberalism, even the form that was in common usage not too long ago, is as dead as Lenin.
Ben Affleck isn’t a liberal. He’s an enthusiast of revisionist Communist historian Howard Zinn. The modern liberal of today is uninterested in identifying “illiberalism” since he is an illiberal man of the left. The most significant difference between the two is not simply political, but psychological. Liberals used to think about issues. Leftists respond to ideological cues while operating on a purely tribal wavelength.
Affleck’s assertion that criticizing Islam is racist is impossible to argue with. It’s completely wrong on multiple levels, but it’s not an argument. It’s a denunciation. It doesn’t advance an argument; it rejects the argument and the arguer as illegitimate. And it’s an ideological cue telling everyone else to follow.
Leftists don’t debate issues. That would be a liberal thing to do. Instead they seek to affirm a consensus. The consensus is reinforced by in-group flattery which convinces members that they are empathetic and enlightened people, while those outside the consensus are subjected to constant contempt and abuse. The denunciation places the target outside the consensus. Calling Maher a “racist” makes him a Tea Party member no matter how much he clings to a liberal identification. It makes him an outsider.
The USSR was every bit as “illiberal” as ISIS, but critics of it were damned as “red-baiters” and McCarthyists. Now critics of Islam are denounced as racists even though Islam is not a race.
Why are Stalin and Mohammed part of the consensus, but their liberal critics weren’t? The answer tells us a good deal about what the consensus really is and what it isn’t.
The things that Maher and Harris criticize Islam for, a lack of freedom, sexism and homophobia are not part of the consensus. Not when the flagship party of liberalism was also the party of segregation, the leading members of the golden family of liberalism were serial abusers of women and Bill, Hillary and Obama were against gay marriage before they were for it. Islam is sexist, bigoted and totalitarian, but so was the Soviet Union. Their liberal defenders are utterly unconcerned, no matter how much they run their mouths about Republican racism and sexism.
Nearly every Muslim country locks up gay men, but so did nearly every Communist country.
Do you think that Ben Affleck is bothered by the fact that Doha and Dubai, whose film industries he has become entangled with, are built and run by slave labor? Or that homosexuality is criminalized? The same Hollywood leftists who put on their indignant faces over Proposition 8 shut up when they’re partying in one of the pleasure cities of the Gulf Muslims who do a lot more than refuse to recognize gay marriage. They’re not just hypocrites; they were never committed to gay rights.
Gays, feminists and Muslims are a means to the left. They are not the reason why the left does things.
The left builds coalitions of disruption with interest groups. It doesn’t care about those groups. It’s just using them to get what it really wants which is a totalitarian state in which the consensus can implement all of its horrible ideas without any interference. Muslims are the newest coalition member and their disruption skills are impressive. Just look at how they managed to turn the Bush Administration around.
That doesn’t mean that the left cares about Muslims. It would toss them under the bus before they could shout “Allah Akhbar” if it suited the consensus. The liberal defenders of Islam have chosen not to read the Koran. They know next to nothing about Islam except that it’s a minority group. And that’s how they like it. That way they can shout down any criticism with cries of “Racism” because they’re too lazy to even bother stringing enough letters together to shout “Islamophobe”. That’s how little they care.
All of this has as much to do with liberalism as Obama has to do with Andrew Jackson. There’s nothing liberal about the honor killing and the hijab, but there’s also nothing liberal about trying to turn America into a totalitarian state. Maher, who has been known to identify as a libertarian, doesn’t seem to have grasped that the liberals who defend Islam do so because they share its totalitarian mindset.
Lenin wasn’t fighting so that the peasants would have land, bread and peace. Today’s liberals aren’t fighting for equality of income, gender, race or any other kind. They are fighting to suppress any and all opposition to their policies by disrupting and destroying the existing American system at every level.
That’s exactly what Islam is doing.
Leftists don’t value equality, they value disruption. If they can disrupt by promoting equality, they will do it. If they can disrupt by promoting inequality, they will do that. If they can disrupt by promoting gay marriage, promoting Islamists, promoting the environment, promoting unregulated industry, promoting freedom of speech or promoting hate speech laws, they will do those things in order of opportunism.
Their underlying goal is to replace existing ideas and systems with their own. Anything that serves that purpose is good. Anything that maintains the existing order is bad.
The very concept of universal standards that Maher is appealing to is foreign to the modern liberal. He doesn’t believe that there is a universal standard. He views the world as tribally as a Taliban. He can’t see behaviors as good or evil in isolation, but only in relation to ideological cues. He derives his heroes and villains from the tribal affinities of the left, not from the things that they actually do.
That’s why he wears a Che t-shirt while calling Rush Limbaugh unpatriotic for opposing Obama. Or why he thinks that liberal billionaires underwriting political campaigns is a good thing, but conservative billionaires doing it is bad for democracy. He has no concept of standards. He only understands power.
This isn’t liberalism. It’s a leftist Jihad that has displaced and hijacked liberalism. The modern liberal has nothing to do with liberalism and it’s useless to expect him to be upset by Islamic illiberalism. – See more at: http://sultanknish.blogspot.co.il/2014/10/liberal-islamophiles.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+FromNyToIsraelSultanRevealsTheStoriesBehindTheNews+(from+NY+to+Israel+Sultan+Reveals+The+Stories+Behind+the+News)#sthash.QYpGILU2.dpuf
the phoenix Said:
Read Jewish history and you will see that there was never a period of more harmony between Jews than what exists today.
@ yamit82:
Unfortunately it’s like reading any random article headline in the Israeli newspapers…
🙁
@ yamit82:
Who ever suggested to you that you knew the meaning of that word?
Yes, I was, as a matter of fact. (Why?)
No RATIONAL human chooses to be an insider OR an outsider
— for its own sake.
But then, most of us aren’t rational, and are instead still playing the same, dumb-assed clique games we learned in high school.
@ yamit82:
You just can’t make up your mind whether to be consumed by sour grapes or wishful thinking, can you?
— Serves your arse right.
As for what “most” readers take note of, you are hardly positioned to know.
No matter how much you shake and dance, you can’t refute the SUBSTANCE of what I say; all you can do is strive (strenuously but unsuccessfully) to ridicule the fact that it comes from me. If you were an honest man, that realization would give you pause.
— You really are pathetic.
EVERYBODY who reads the Bible is a biblical literalist about something in it.
— And PresentCompany, sure-as-blazes, is no exception to that rule.
Sounds like a most accurate assessment of Yamit’s OWN approach to the subject.
Not built-in. Comes from God (that’s why it’s called ruach elohim), like sunlight. Comes to everybody, but the minds of many are enshrouded in heavy clouds — yet that’s not because the sun isn’t always there doing what it does.
Nope; never said that — nor ever suggested anything of the kind
— as you know quite well.
Nu, bli ayin hara, is THAT why they released you?
Unless, of course, you want to get a handle on why you were put here.
Oh? — and why would that be?
@ dweller</a
True dat
@ dove:
Judea was not depopulated of Jews during the Roman period. That is mythology popularized by Augustine et al. for self-serving reasons — to boost the fledgling religion of Xty, and to suggest that haShem was through w/ the Jews, etc.
But while Hadrian put the city & district of Jerusalem off-limits to all “circumcised persons,” Jews remained in numbers throughout Judea, the Galilee, etc.
Depopulation of the Jews from the area would not happen till after the death of Mohammad, when the Arabs burst out of the Arabian Peninsula and colonized the Land of Israel. Jews were gradually squeezed out.
@ Laura:
I was talking with Ted and i realized you and I are the longest posters left on this blog. All the others have come and gone and you were here before me.
Have you stopped maintaining you blog? Not current.
@ dove:
@ dove:
He is correct!!
The Jews of Europe had a narrow window to get out. Jabotinsky traveled all over Europe telling them that a fire is burning and it was heading for the Jews. They laughed-at him and mocked him. BenGurion called him fascist and did everything to stop Jabotinsky and to malign hm before the Jews of Palestine and Europe.
Not a single Jew who got out of Europe in time to Palestine died at the hands of the Germans.
The rabbis of Europe told the flocks to stay put and it would all blow over. How’d that sage advice work out? They were complicit in the murder of other Jews and the Irony in most cases they were complicit in their own murder too.
@ yamit82:
Then I guess you don’t want to know what the ex anti-semite had to say. He said that we should have had our homeland back in our hands a long time ago. The holocaust probably never would have happened. It is man that tries to keep it out of our possession.
Comment to dove in moderation
dove Said:
Absence of riches is not poverty, and absence of arrogance is not humility. One need not be humble in order to avoid arrogance. Self-respect is a positive attitude.
Corruption, exploitation of the weak by the strong nd the wealthy usually collaborators with Rome. Dishaarmony between different sects. A divided nation all all issues. Jew against Jews and Jew against Rome and Jew collaberting with the enemy against fellow Jews. Priesthood appointed by Rome and had lost the faith and confidence of the people. a Pharisaic propensity to accomodae with Rom to avoid bloodshed.
People were starving and Jews were being taxed off their lands and left destitute with no means of financial support and disease was rampant, it was Terrible time.
Rabbis emphasized humility for a reason: stiff-necked Jews could be extinguished. Given the weakness of Jews compared to the imperial powers and the host nations of the Diaspora, it seemed to make sense to accept humiliations in order to survive, rather than be killed outright in unequal struggles. Though logical, the argument might not be correct. From the Babylonians to the Germans, hostile nations have almost annihilated weak Jews many times in our history. Desperate resistance could have saved more Jews than humility by deterring the aggressors from pressing too far. In the war of 66-70 C.E. Jews mostly hid from the Romans in town fortresses—a tactic which likely provoked the Romans to further depredations. After the defeat of 135 C.E., when Jews under Bar Kochba fought the Romans valiantly, the victorious Romans left the remaining Jews alone to such an extent that Talmudic rabbis praised Roman justice. Jewish strength in 132-135 allowed for the survival of a larger part of the Jewish nation than when the Jews met their killers with humility. In terms of social evolution, humility cannot be a beneficial trait. Jewish weakness provokes anti-Semitism.
Nor were the Jews humble. In fact, they were commanded to be proud. The blue thread in tassels, which every Jew must attach to fringes of his coat, is a symbol of royalty. Only the upper classes wore blue clothes in antiquity, leading the Romans to eventually monopolize the trade in blue pigment. The entire Jewish people were commanded to behave as a royal nation. Ashkenazi rabbis abrogated the requirement for the blue thread on the pretext that the necessary blue pigment was unavailable.
Repeated assertions of humility and submission to slavery led the Jews to the gas chambers; why defend something which professes itself lowlier than a worm? G-d calls Jews his workers, not slaves; that epithet is wildly exaggerated in rabbinical literature. A mob of slaves is easy to lead; the smallest rabbi is like a king compared to the humble slaves Jews profess to be in hundreds of prayers. G-d doesn’t need slaves, mindless instruments; Jews must be decent people, conscious of their worth, in order to be the beacon to nations.
Rabbis tried to make Jews nice, to make us “more pious than G-d.” Guess what, Jews are not nice. From those who fought under Abraham to those who robbed the Egyptians to those who knocked down the towns of Canaan to Dir Yassin —the Jews are anything but nice. Jews must serve G-d and their moral principles zealously, and how could humble people be zealous? Zeal is about certainty of one’s right and willingness to establish that right in the Land of Israel.
Don’t be afraid to say that the Jewish way of life is inherently better than any other. Jews are more ethical because we adhere to more ethical prohibitions. Judaism is about strength—social and moral. Only a strong society can expel deviants for every moral offense. Only a strong society unrelentingly executes and otherwise punishes those who threaten its moral integrity and ritual purity. Only a strong society exterminates Amalek.
@ yamit82:
What was our sin 2000 years ago? If we had of stayed we would voluntarily or by force been involved with idol worship with the Romans or been killed. What options did we have?
@ dove:
Stock reply and of course they can’t answer it.
Jews since the time of Moses have attributed everything to G-d. If some good happened it’s because G-d willed it and if something bad happens it’s our fault and G-d”s punishment for some sin usually attributed to straying from Judaism and some form of idol worship and or Idolatry.
I don’t buy the reason’s he gave not totally anyway. In a national sense if that reason holds true the G-d may be correct but he ain’t merciful a Million.2 Jewish children perished in the Holocaust and no rabbi can explain that or justify that on punishment for our sins.
Read the hole argument I supplied you with link see if you can understand it and confront the rabbi.
European Jewry had 3 sins. 1 they were anti returning to the land of Israel 2. making Judaism into a cult like chritianity 3 -assimilation. Even if the Nazis didn’t murder them in a couple of generations they would have in most cases abandoned Judaism. They were moving in the opposite direction of where G-d wanted them to be and to go. They chose death over life in their choices.
When G-d makes his moves on a national scale there are no second chances.
A rabbi who violates mitzvot??? If they say returning and settling the land is not an obligatory mitzvah then question them because it goes against almost all of our sages and Poskim…
@ yamit82:
This is the response I got my Rabbi.
honeybee Said:
I have met many Polish Jews in Israel from that time and have never heard any say they miss Poland or wanted to return.
@ dove:
This might help in your research
@ yamit82:
As Jews we are to value life….INCLUDING our own. After the Second Temple was destroyed if the Jews had not fled they probably all would have been killed.
This is what I am researching.
@ yamit82:
” Europe, Europe,!!!!! Never so glad to live a place” My Great-Aunt Annie Winter Lodz, Poland
dove Said:
Hald\f million Jews massacred by Cossacks, 6 million by Nazis and European helpers, I believe would disagree with you. Jews of Germany thought like you before Hitler. life was pretty good for most of them. Till!!!!!!!! In a twinkling of an eye all changed.
@ honeybee:
Long time ago!! A lot’s happened since. 😉
yamit82 Said:
xxxxxxxxxxxxooooooooooooooo
@ the phoenix:
Hi Diaspora friend! I am not convinced that our exile for the past 2000 years is G-ds punishment. I am doing some research and will let you know my findings.
@ the phoenix:
Phoenix this song was identified with the residents of Yamit and Sinai before we were thrown-out. For me a very sad and traumatic time in my life which besides the trauma it also led to my divorce….. Beautiful song but I won’t listen to it.
honeybee Said:
Mis sinceras disculpas Abeja de la miel. 🙁
@ honeybee:
@ yamit82:
Enjoy!
http://youtu.be/U354ihAExLw
@ yamit82:
Did you forget the sting !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@ honeybee:
buenos días mi amor
yamit82 Said:
Such a overly use of language, what a turn on.!!!!!!!!!!
yamit82 Said:
Be still my heart!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yamit82 Said:
Say what !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
dweller Said:
No compassion either!!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
Never on an in-group where ya?
No rational human chooses to be an outsider for it’s on sake.
the phoenix Said:
Have you noticed that more and more commenters and readers are beginning to see your friend in the same manner they see the Ebola Virus. Ebola Does not effect everybody because fortunately most avoid reading his in-erudite boring pseudo-pedagogic comments.
Your orthonormal friend (HWSNBN) is a Biblical literalist and will tend to reject any conclusions not based upon his puerile literal understanding of just about everything in the real world. like all brain dead true believers. Facts and their truth will never get to first base if they challenge in anyway his silly literalist “true faith-based understandings” or shall I say lack there off. His built-in RUACH HAKODESH (Hears voices)????? Little tiny voices in his brain is what counts for his truth…..Our mental institutions are quite full to overflowing with such “schizoids”
The only thing I can advise is to avoid his presence (Isolation/Quarantine) and keep your little boys out of his reach.
@ the phoenix:
Encroaching rationality.
But don’t let word get out.
— The practice could acquire contagion, and then where would you be?
In-group, out-group.
Some games don’t change, no matter WHO plays them.
@ honeybee:
lol…check this out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=YGD0LkP1ViE
and this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Hd9Xr4iHa2Y
the phoenix Said:
Over exposure.
@ honeybee:
Not quite hb. There are Haitians, Senegalese, and North African musloids by the shovelful…
She is absolutely right!
We walked yesterday in the forest for three hours (me, myself and I)… You wouldn’t believe the discussions we were having….
Try “queues de castor” … You sure she’s from quebec?…. Hmmmm
Well at least THAT. (Tarte au sucre)
… I find that lately, when I DO post, I tend to dwellerize my comment….
There must be an explanation I’m sure!
🙂
the phoenix Said:
All Canadians are racist cause they live in the North were there are only White People. I visited with my Quebec friend, she said the Laurentian Mts are beautiful and I should go there to paint. She did not know what a Beaver Tail was. She made a Sugar Pie for the party.
@ Laura:
https://scontent-b-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/10418964_753671098022921_254266129438589194_n.png?oh=e7c4278dee6b117494ab7bbe2a9297c7&oe=54B3E152
honeybee Said:
Why thank you honeybee, 🙂
yamit82 Said:
Ft. Worth Stock Show and Rodeo coming in Jan.. Road trip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–fOruzPN-o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b79x6veQ4M4
@ dove:
Good point but if your a leftist Liberal anything they don’t agree with they label racist a catchall .
dove Said:
Not even a religion it’s a Creed more than a religion.
honeybee Said:
Not everything?
@ honeybee:
@ dove:
Fort Worth
dove Said:
EVERYTHING IN THE WHOLE WORLD IS RACIST.
How can it be racist when Islam is not a race? It’s a religion!!
the phoenix Said:
Canadian racist!!!!!!!!!! Quebec bigot!!!!!!!!!!! Male sugar darlin!!!!!!!!!!!!
@ Laura:
Laurale we all miss you. I miss you. You don’t post enough here. I see your comments other places and Think here is better.
We need your liberal voice and input. 😉
@ the phoenix:
They are using language to change cultural definitions. Sme words different meanings and contexts.
Liberals must be confronted with their absurdities.
Take same sex marriages: Why does society offer benefits and privileges to families? Not because families tend to have sex often—otherwise extra-marital relations would be similarly protected. Not to encourage warm feelings—otherwise the companionship of good old buddies who spend evenings in pubs would be protected too. Societies protect families because God said, Be fruitful and multiply. Societies support families because families produce children who form societies. That’s why single mothers are also supported. Unlike Lettuce, same-sex pals do not reproduce and cannot claim subsidies and tax cuts intended for families. Gay couples are not oppressed; they do not receive benefits which were not intended for them in the first place. Bereft of children (and gays should be positively prohibited from adopting and debauching children), gay unions produce no personal, inalienable rights. As such, gay unions need no statutory regulation like the institution of marriage; gays who wish to have sex on a regular basis could regulate their committed relationship via contract.
People are neither ethnic- nor culture-blind. Xenophobia is a natural, necessary trait that builds boundaries and cements societies.
Non-reproductive incest is a private business. Societies have no reason to prohibit a father having sex with his adult daughter. In the age of contraception, that sex is not likely to produce and thus negatively affect the progeny. Civilized societies do not prohibit sex between mentally challenged people who may produce mentally challenged progeny. By the same token, liberal societies cannot prohibit incestuous marriage. Yet they do. Societal values are developed through centuries and myriad interactions. Values are neither explicable nor formally provable. One option is to accept them as is, the other is to question them all. When questioned, values always fail.
The fact that the ethics is indispensable but impossible to formalize opens a way to oppose the leftists. Two millennia ago, the Sophists developed an approach that won them debates with philosophers who, like modern leftists, tried to formalize ethics. The Sophists logically extended their opponents’ views to the apparent absurdity.
If gay marriage is permitted, there is no formal reason to prohibit other non-conventional marriages. Why can’t a father marry his daughter? Why can’t three—or ten, for that matter—people enter into a marriage? Why can’t a person marry his lovely sheep?
People are equal regardless of sex but then also regardless of number. Ten people are free to marry into one big happy family. A man is free to marry four women, or to heck with the sharia: even ten women! A person who does not find a human soul mate is still equal to everyone else, and society must protect his right to marriage—even to a dog. Homosexuality is ostensibly a natural urge, but so are zoophilia and necrophilia. Hey, we have a world of marriage opportunities!
Bizarre as it may sound, file the papers with your local court to marry your adult daughter, a few female pals, and a dog. Drive the leftist ideas over the edge. Let formal justice face the consequences of its silliness.
Brilliant as always from Greenfield.
Could someone explain to me what is such a big deal if somebody calls you a “racist” or a “bigot”
or any other ridiculous name that a leftard would attach to someone that calls a spade a spade?