By Any Other Name

Assist me in creating the proper mood by first watching this video from Slate.

Walking the Earth in a soft and pulpy mass are large herds of Humans who actually believe in things. Such a mental state is difficult for the educated liberal to fully accept or grasp, as a background rife with nuance and history impedes the North Easterner’s ability to fully commit. The liberal is frustrated at the very notion of unwavering belief, and his forehead wrinkles and eyes narrow over thoughts such as:

“How can one suspend one’s faculties in favour of an ideology?”

The attendance figures for the Restoring Honor rally in Washington DC are in dispute, but the most conservative estimate is 78000. A frightening figure if one takes time to consider those in attendance represent only those both willing and able to make the trip.

18% of Americans are self-identified Tea Party Supporters. That’s 55260000 (55 million, 260 thousand) folks teeming with bromide laced talk of a socialist America tinkering on the edge of gleeful destruction at the hands of Kenyan Muslim. Take some time with the notion. The sober and secular Liberals, well armed with cautionary tales and measured responses, do not represent *the rest*.

“Yes yes,” says the secular liberal, “extremists are bad.” Explore the word for a moment, what is an extremist? Is it the view held or the number of followers who hold the view? One might make the argument that as society changes, our attitudes that define “extreme” from “moderate” change as well. However, from a political (or religious) standpoint, well defined poles of behavior exist independent of culture. Ayn Rand thought that government should consist of nothing more than cops, courts, and the army. A view very far right of, say, Marxism, and regardless of what lens you look through, or cultural prejudices inherent in your society. The natural inference, is that an extreme view is independent of the number of adherents

Mass protest by Muslims during the Danish Cartoons controversy (which, if nothing else, points to a large body of people who believe their religion trumps the secular value of free speech) is another example of a mainstream value system than cannot in good conscience be called moderate.

The “few bad apples” argument, aside from being simply incorrect, leads to all kinds of outrageous and evil apologizing and self hatred on the part of left leaning westerners. The September 11th attacks were almost instantly characterized by vast tracks of said leftists as “America’s chickens coming home to roost.” What such complete nonsense assumes is that Islamic Extremists are responding to American imperialism, and not to (oh this should be so very obvious) their own Islamic Extremism. Duh.

Let’s return to the thesis of the argument: the educated liberal does not understand what it means to really believe in something. Whether it be the ideals of the founding fathers of America, Jesus or Muhammad, Trotskyism, or what have you. For this lack of empathy with the true believer, the liberal is subject to all kinds of fallacious assumptions, most obvious being “they don’t *really* believe.”

They do.

Robin Lindsay

rockrobinoff[at]gmail.com