Then again, there are a lot of people who think having been graduated from college makes them educated.
Technically, they are “educated”…though I get what you mean. I would say that there are a lot of people who think that graduating from college makes them more intelligent than other people, thus bestowing upon them some sort of magical understanding of any number of issues. It’s a completely ridiculous proposition. And invariably, it’s Leftists who try to propulgate it. And on cue, AJ and Javelin show up to denigrate everyone for not being “nuanced” enough to understand the infallable greatness of the Times.
I have my Bachelor’s in English. And while, in comparison to the rest of the public, that degree gives me a somewhat specialized knowledge of the English language and English literature, it in NO WAY confers upon me some sort of unique insight or special understanding of ANYTHING ELSE WHATSOEVER. The other core curriculum classes that I took in college were no more difficult or challenging than those I completed in high school. Basically, finishing college means that you have a better than average understanding of one particular subject than the rest of the general public.
Does that mean I think that I’m more intelligent than other people? No, not at all. Even Leftists? Nope.
Do I think that I’m better informed than most Leftists? Most definitely. Mainly because when I’m considering a topic, I try my best to start from a position of intellectual neutrality, rather than simply jumping to an emotional investment in one side of an argument or another. I ask myself questions…What are the pros? What are the cons? Are there historical precedents/parallels? What are the legal ramifications? Societal ramifications? Geopolitical ramifications?
The only thing the vast majority of Leftists are well-versed in is in perusing leftist newspapers, visiting leftist Web sites, reading books written by other Leftists, then regurgitating what they’ve read ad nauseum.
Islam in not our enemy…
Tell that to the 9/11 victims…or the Spanish railcar victims…or the London subway victims…or the Bali disco victims…or the Darfur animists and Christians…and on and on and on.
but many of our enemies are terrorists who are Muslims.
And what is the ideology that drives their violence?
Platitudes, song lyrics, and poety are nice, Trey, but they have nothing to do with reality. That statement is akin to saying “AIDS doesn’t kill people, it’s the diseases that the body can’t fight off because of AIDS that kills people”…technically, that’s correct, but ignoring the HIV virus because it’s not “technically” killing anyone is only going to result in dead people. And your confusion actually serves as a perfect example of the problem that Bawer is trying to illustrate.
The leftist orthodoxy that dominates at the Times (and thoughout Western Civilization’s so-called “elites”) holds that deep-down inside, all human beings are really the same and that conflict between groups doesn’t arise out of any inherent differences or antipathy, but rather are simply the results of “misunderstandings”, “failures to communicate”, and “economic disparities”. It’s a suicidally dangerous world view, one whose logical end result is best foreshadowed by the killing of Theo van Gogh, where the Western liberal realizes – when the horrible finality of the truth is standing in front of him with a gun in one hand and a knife in the other – that not everything is an intellectual exercise in flippancy…and he’s reduced to frantically screaming “Stop! Let’s talk about this!” just before his head his almost severed from his shoulders.
Islam has been our enemy for nigh 1,400 years…an enemy that only stopped its OVERT aggression towards the West following the Ottoman Empire’s defeat at Vienna in 1683. And the only reason they stopped then and in subsequent centuries is because they were beaten into submission BY FORCE and were kept there BY FORCE…by European powers who didn’t have the same moral confusion about who their enemies were nor about how best to ensure that those enemies weren’t allowed the leeway to threaten them. And it’s precisely that – moral confusion in the West – that has brought the Islamist wolves out of their dens after hundreds of years. They can smell the blood in the water.
The best way to think of people like bin Laden is to view them as the “tip of the spear” of Islam – they are testing the resolve of their enemy – i.e. the West – to see what the response will be. They use indirect attacks that are extremely difficult to tie to state sponsors, but make no mistake – IT’S ALL STATE SPONSORED. They want to see how far they can push…and what they’ve seen from the West so far is nothing to be all that worried about. For proof, google “Iran nuclear”.
Look at Muslim countries that border non-Muslim countries…then look at countries that have sizeable Muslim and non-Muslim populations (where either makes up at least 25% of the population)…in just about every instance, Muslims are involved in or fomenting violent conflict with their non-Muslim neighbors. How do you explain that without bringing Islam into the calculation?
Trey, you are typical of Westerners: good-hearted people who, due to a pampered life-style that only kings could have dreamed of just a few generations ago, desperately want to hold onto the illusion that the world is populated by a “human brotherhood” that has put it’s violent past behind it. Unfortunately, over the next few decades, you and the vast majority of the Western world are going to be thoroughly disabused of that notion.
AJ, keep up the good work, your insight is awesome.
Hmmm, let’s see…
AJ’s post doesn’t address or refute a single point…doesn’t contain a single fact…and consist of sophomoric sarcasm.
Yup! It certainly does qualify as an “awesome” example of Lefty “insight”!
