Love The Liberal, Hate Their Political Correctness

(Kindly note, in advance, that I use ‘liberal’ here as in the modern parlance of self-described liberals. I am aware there are other — more or less archaic — definitions, and am not interested in disputing those. OK? Thanks.) ๐Ÿ™‚

Both Vin and I grew up as east coast liberals, and thankfully we each outgrew the indoctrination, having eventually recognized it as such. Many decent people with good hearts and smarts just don’t. Not because they’re “totalitarians at heart,” as some say — they’ve simply been immersed in liberal ideology since birth, like the proverbial fish in water. Parents pass their biases and beliefs along to their kids; schools as well as the media reinforce that liberal ideology. With political correctness, they go too far in trying to silence debate and smother criticism — criticism, after all, (especially when it comes to bad ideas) is sometimes warranted, and debate or open discussion is indispensable to a free society.

Similarly, conservatism has its flaws to the extent it can also manifest as an ideology. Even Libertarianism, if it’s clutched too zealously in a person’s mind, can begin to resemble a religion — the foundation for a pulpit where some feel they possess a sort of higher authority, and feel a self-imposed duty to badger others whose views don’t align completely with their own. (And no, I am NOT referring to any particular individual here — in case that’s what you’re thinking — but a syndrome of sorts, that manifests particularly poisonously where ideologies are concerned.)

Generally, American people don’t hate Jews, or Christians, or Muslims on account of their religion — or African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans on account of their origin. The very idea is largely anathema to the American mind, as it should be to any thoughtful person. So why hate the east coast liberal, or the right wing conservative, on account of the environment into which they were born, and has shaped their thinking? Hatred of THE OTHER is what gives birth to war, divisiveness, and renders us highly manipulable by forces that exploit it . . . if I can’t remember that the other fellow is first and foremost human, despite our differences, how can I reasonably expect his reciprocal respect?

‘Hate speech’ is an absurd and dangerous construct. After all, speech is a product of thought (except perhaps in cases of Tourette’s Syndrome or other forms of involuntary speech), and do even the PC people seriously want thought police? Anyone who harbors genuinely ‘hateful’ thoughts should be free to speak their mind — how else is one going to debate them, or otherwise identify their reasoning (or lack thereof), to bring to light their basis for being ‘hateful’? Maybe that person’s anger and resentment IS legitimate — if so, silencing speech simply because you don’t like the message is unjust. Sometimes it’s silence that is hateful — failing to object to injustice done to others, for example. Forcing silence upon people for the sake of ‘Political Correctness’ (PC) is hateful, and socially destructive.

Maybe I’m weird, but I truly appreciate people who challenge me to re-examine my biases, or to re-think and investigate issues I might be peripherally aware of, especially where I realize I may not fully grasp what’s at stake. Wouldn’t you rather know the truth too, even if it makes you uncomfortable?

I’ll leave you with two recent examples — my hat is off to these two guys:

Steven Crowder tackles some Black Lives Matter propaganda (video approx. 14 min.)

My comments on this: I LIKE this guy. It takes grit to play Devil’s Advocate on behalf of the cops, as he does here. Not necessarily because he’s a fan of police, but because he’s after the truth, and some of these shooting victims apparently aren’t as blameless and innocuous as the media makes them out to be. And he’s FUNNY. He’s not afraid to tackle controversial subjects, it looks like he does some serious research to support his statements, and as he points out — THE FACTS MATTER. ๐Ÿ˜‰

Eric Allen Bell: Counter Jihad is About Human Rights (video 4 min, 5 sec.)

My comments on this: Personally, as a fellow former disenfranchised liberal, I felt Eric’s message here is so important that — not finding a link to a text version — I took the liberty of transcribing it, to the best of my ability (which I hope is OK, as I mean to fully attribute the message to him and will do so in the links below.) I’m aware that not everyone is as likely to click on a video link as they might be to read text, and people with hearing disabilities might appreciate being able to read it, as there’s considerable background noise in the video.

Here’s the Eric Allen Bell transcript . . . (Skip the transcript if you prefer the video, of course.) Any mistakes in transcription are naturally my own, and apologies in advance if I’ve made any. (I tried to be very careful to avoid errors, but I’m human.) ๐Ÿ˜‰

Q: is (unidentified) questioner; EAB: is Eric Allen Bell.

(Begin transcript)

Q: When liberals hear about jihad in America, counter jihad, they instantly knee jerk react that it’s racism.

EAB: That’s right.

Q: What have you learned, as coming from the liberal left of center, what have you learned about jihad that’s different from what the Huffington Post thinks?

EAB: Uh, the tendency I think even of your most well meaning moderate liberal is to look at the world through a collectivist lens. So when I say Islam, they hear Muslim. If I say I’m against Islam, they hear, ‘You’re against Muslims.’ The tendency then is to, um, identify with, protect, sympathize with whoever you perceive to be the minority, or the victim. So if I say I’m against the belief system of Islam, a collectivist is hearing that I’m against an individual. And so they say, ‘You must be a hate monger, a bigot, an Islamophobe,’ and why not throw in right winger. So what we have is a perceptive disability, If we’re to succeed in the counter jihad movement, instead of saying they should think differently, we need to speak their language. And we need to explain, that counter jihad is about human rights. If you’re a real liberal, you’re against Islam. If you’re a real liberal and you care about women’s rights, and gay rights and free speech and religious freedom, you must be against Islam. If you’re against xenophobia, nothing is more xenophobic than Islam. So to truly be a liberal, you have to be counter jihad. Or you’re just a complete phony.

Q: But what’s the distinction between counter jihad, and counter Islam?

EAB: There is no distinction, at all, because Islam and jihad are inseparable. There’s no such thing as radical Islam, it’s a complete myth. Thank God the majority of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims are not devout. Thank God. Because the devout ones are the terrorists.

Q: (Hard to make out precise wording, the questioner asks if Islam has not been hijacked.)

EAB: No, Islam has not been hijacked by radicals; the ideal man in Islam, the highest moral example, is Muhammad. He married a six year old girl, had foreplay with her for three years and then had sex with her when she was nine. He beheaded poets who offended him. He killed an entire Jewish tribe. He was a slave owner. He was a bloodthirsty tyrant — and this is the ideal man, who all Muslims are supposed to emulate. Now, how do you find a moderate Islam in there? It doesn’t exist.

Q: Is there some liberal postulate that criticizing another religion immediately makes you illiberal?

EAB: No, unfortunately liberalism is, uh, you know, connected at the hip with multiculturalism. So, you know, you have to believe that there’s no such thing as superior or inferior, not races, but belief systems or cultures. And it’s a lie. And, you know, we have one or two generations who have been educated and indoctrinated into that lie through our public education system and our culture and our media. So that’s a problem. Also, you know, to so many liberals, to think to yourself that the minority group could possibly be in the wrong, I can’t even have that thought. No one is more victimized by Islam than Muslims. Hundreds of millions of Muslim women live under Islamic gender apartheid. So when we talk about human rights, first and foremost, the people who are victimized by Islam are Muslims. And we’re standing for their humanity, and for their rights, and for their dignity inย  counter jihad.

(End of interview.) Then the following text appears on the screen:

Liberty and Islam cannot coexist.

Free speech and Islam cannot coexist.

Women’s rights and Islam cannot coexist.

Human rights and Islam cannot coexist.

Critical thinking and Islam cannot coexist.

Weapons of mass destruction and Islam cannot coexist.

The future and Islam cannot coexist.

www.EricAllenBell.com (site redirects to his facebook page, here: https://www.facebook.com/EricAllenBell

* * * * *

With that, I’ll conclude by wishing everyone a safe weekend. Events of the coming days are likely to prove historic, for better or worse. It feels odd to be posting this on a so-called “Day of Rage” with so many bizarre currents swirling around us. Please be cautious, once again, and prayer probably can’t hurt if you’re so inclined. I’m not religious, per se, but I expect I’ll be praying anyway . . . ๐Ÿ™‚

Love to all!

6 Comments to “Love The Liberal, Hate Their Political Correctness”

  1. Bob Ashman Says:

    Well-written; and beautifully said.

  2. Vin's Brunette Says:

    Thanks, Bob! ๐Ÿ™‚

  3. Bill St. Clair Says:

    You have made a common mistake, conflating Middle Eastern Islamic CULTURE with the Islamic religion. The CULTURE may well be the result of a narrow interpretation of the Koran or the life of the Prophet. But that interpretation is not unique.

    Are you Christian? Do you stone adulterers? The Bible commands you to do so. If you don’t that means that your culture does not accept such behavior, even though your religious text demands it.

    A few years back, I spent two years doing five times prayer and silently intoning “la ilaha ilalala” (there is no God but Allah) on every breath. I did it with a small group of American sufis. They were very devout Muslims, but their cultural upbringing was American. They did not consider women to be property, nor were they proponents of cutting off hands for stealing or beheading for religious “crimes”. They were normal, peaceful people.

    Rail all you want against the culture of Islamist extremists, but please don’t confuse that with the Islamic religion. If a billion Muslims meant you harm, you wouldn’t stand a chance.

  4. Vin's Brunette Says:

    Bill, first — no, I don’t consider myself a Christian. The closest thing my family really had to a religion was/is liberalism, I’d say, though they”d disagree. ๐Ÿ˜‰ If anything, they’re anti-religious — I lean that way too, with the caveat that I can respect an individual’s faith insofar as it’s peacefully practiced and freely chosen.

    Secondly, it appears you’re criticizing me for a “mistake” I do not think I’m guilty of making. Further, it appears you’re mainly responding to the Eric Allen Bell transcript, in which he clearly says:

    Quote: “Thank God the majority of the worldโ€™s 1.6 billion Muslims are not devout. Thank God. Because the devout ones are the terrorists.”

    I have spent a lot of time listening to the words of former Muslims, many of whom left Islam — at great peril to themselves — after actually READING the Quran. Have you read it? Do you grasp the concepts of ‘taqiyya’ and ‘abrogation,’ for example? Here’s an 8 minute video that explains the trouble with Islam as an ideology, and why we should ALL be concerned, including your normal, peaceful Muslim friends:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8c38_46W5c

    I sadly suspect you’ve missed my point . . . and Eric’s too. But feel free to get back to me once you’ve watched that video, and maybe re-read this post more carefully too. If I failed to make my point clearly, however, that’s a mistake I can apologize for. ๐Ÿ˜‰

  5. Bill St. Clair Says:

    I haven’t read much of the Koran, and I haven’t watched that video. And I won’t bother, because they’re immaterial to my point.

    My point is that the Christian holy book, the Bible, contains many violent edicts. I mentioned one explicitly, the command to stone adulterers. Yet very few Christians consider those edicts to be anything but historical curiosities.

    I’m saying that the Koran is the same. The bulk of Muslims consider its commands to commit violence to be historical curiosities, not a necessary part of being a devout Muslim. There are whole countries that DO enforce Sharia Law, and they’re a real problem, as you said. I agree with you there. But the problem is their literal interpretation of their holy book, not the entire religion.

    I consider Islamic five times prayer to be a very potent spiritual practice. I find it very unlike Christianity in that regard. It has juice. Most Christian services I’ve attended are devoid of grace. But I no longer practice Islam. Too MUCH juice for me. And I won’t try to explain spiritual juice to you, though if you seek it, you will probably find it. There are plenty of people on the planet who can channel it.

  6. Vin's Brunette Says:

    Bill, I appreciate your being thoughtful and civil in your disagreement here. If it’s truly a disagreement of substance at all — but since you consider any sources I might link to as “immaterial,” it feels silly to engage in much further debate on the subject. I will say, though . . .

    Even though I am not a Christian, it does concern me that so often when one brings up the subject of Islam in particular, the typical response seems similar to yours, in pointing to the historical record of Christians and Jews — it’s so popular to criticize Judeo-Christians, these days. They’re fair game to PC folks. They’re not going to cut your head off for criticizing their religion. Or murder you for abandoning their faith, or stone you for failing to convert to it. The vast majority of modern Christians and Jews are peaceful too, but they don’t get much credit for it. Instead, they get bashed. ๐Ÿ™

    You say, “But the problem is their literal interpretation of their holy book, not the entire religion.” Fair enough . . . except from what I understand, the Quran (Koran, if you prefer) IS intended to be taken literally. So do you think your “devout” friends would be considered sufficiently devout in the eyes of Muslims who DO interpret the book literally? (A book you admit to not having read much of?) There’s the danger.

    Sure, the vast majority of American Muslims may be “normal” and “peaceful.” I’m not saying they aren’t. But if you see no danger in living under Muslim rule (i.e., Shari’a Law) that many of those peaceful Muslims probably came here to escape, to enjoy the freedoms life in America presented them — then I hope you’ll think again. It CAN happen in America if Americans don’t rise up, wise up, to prevent it.

    Look at what’s happening in London, Germany, and other parts of Europe. Look at what the Obama administration’s nonsensical immigration policies are allowing . . . and Hillary would continue . . . then tell us there’s nothing to worry about. Seriously, I’d like to believe you — but I can’t un-see what I’ve seen; it’s not a pretty picture.

    Complacency, which is distressingly common, is liable to cost us dearly at some point in the future. A lot of people are fed up with Political Correctness, I think that’s a large part of the Trump phenomenon. I’m no fan of Donald Trump, but I can see why a lot of people think he’s the only real hope for America right now. (A false hope perhaps, and it’s scary to think they might be right, but I hope they are in case he gets elected.)

    Religion for me does not equal spirituality, BTW. I agree that a spiritual practice can be powerful, but I’d rather not have any forced on me, thanks very much. Not to mention bulky garments that offend my fashion sensibilities, but that’s a subject for another day. ๐Ÿ™‚