The following was written by the Progressive blogger, James Bouie, in the Amerian Prospect.
The subject is the book, "The American Taliban," by Moultisas of KOS. Bouie makes the correct argument the overheated attacks on the Right by the Progressives is self defeating. He makes several obvious comparisons:
Now, it's true that certain tendencies on the American right have analogues in fundamentalist Islam; for example, and as Moulitsas points out in his chapter on sex, right-wing conservatives share a hatred of pornography with fundamentalist Iranian authorities. Of course the similarities end there; conservatives boycott pornography, Iran punishes it with death.
But, this gets to the huge, glaring problem with American Taliban; ultimately, any similarities are vastly outweighed by incredibly important distinctions and vast differences of degree. I'm no fan of the right wing, but the only possible way it can be "indistinguishable" from the Taliban is if conservatives are stoning women for adultery, stalking elementary schools to throw acid in girls' faces, and generally enforcing fundamentalist religious law with torture and wanton violence. The chapter on women becomes a joke when you realize that Moulitsas can't distinguish between the odiousness of right-wing sexism and the vicious amorality of permanently disfiguring "immodest" women. Likewise, there are magnitudes of difference between executing gays (the Taliban) and opposing a hate-crimes bill (Republicans).
He also makes this rather obvious observation on truthfulness:
Now, to be sure, American Taliban is clearly meant for activist consumption. Unlike myself, Moulitsas isn't a journalist, and his job isn't to be an honest broker for ideas; no, it's to rally progressives and score points against conservatives.
When even fellow progressives can see what the Lefties are doing you would think they would catch a clue.
But they won't. They think winning is more important than the truth and demonstrate it daily, if not hourly.
Hat tip to BTD in TalkLeft.
OnTwitter I am Lesabre1"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper
“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt
"Logic. There is little logic among the cultural elite, maybe because there is little omnipresent fear of job losses or the absence of money, and so arises a rather comfortable margin to indulge in nonsense." - Victor Davis Hanson
No comments:
Post a Comment