This interview over at Townhall is pretty amazing.
Columnist/douchebag Jonathan Garthwaite chats with author/bigot Dinesh D’Souza about his book, The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9-11. Says D’Souza:
“The Islamic radicals and the American left are polar opposites in the kind of society they want. One wants sharia and the other wants a libertine society with abortion on demand and gay marriage.”
So, one wants to impose its fundamentalist ideals on everyone, and the other wants to let people decide for themselves who to marry and when to have children. Huh. Sounds like the difference between neo-cons and progressives to me.
“It might seem at first glance that the cultural left should be in the forefront to fight radical Islam. The reason is that Bin Laden and the Islamic radicals are so illiberal. They despise women’s rights and gay rights. I think we all know what they would do with Hillary Clinton or Barney Frank. Even so, the cultural left has shown itself extremely reluctant to support Bush’s war on terror. They aren’t just against the Iraq war, they are against the Patriot Act, and the telephone surveillance program, and the invasion of Afghanistan, and the sanctions proposals against Iran’s nuclear program.”
So, even though the “cultural left” opposes fundamentalist extremism, they won’t get behind the invasion of a secular country that had nothing to do with 9-11? WTF? And as if that weren’t bad enough, they’re also against the erosion of our civil liberties, warantless wire-tapping, and other war-mongering activities!
“The radicals are telling them that America is a fount of global atheism, that America fosters family breakdown, that American values corrupt the innocence of children. I think it is foolish to dismiss these concerns entirely, because there is a grain of truth to them. Not all of America is like this, but it is the America that has been promoted by the cultural left, and it is the America that most Muslims see through the images of our popular culture. I think America could improve its image among people in traditional cultures, including Muslim cultures, if we showed them “the other America”: the people who go to work every day and look after their families and abide by traditional values and go to church on Sunday.”
And that’s the root of it. Jerry Falwell famously blamed the 9-11 terrorist attacks homosexuals, feminists, and abortion providers. Said Falwell:
“I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America — I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.’ “
The truth is, conservatives have more in common with Islamic extremists than they might care to admit. They both oppose feminism, gay rights, abortion and a secular society. D’Souza, like Falwell, is saying that liberals provoked the terrorist attacks of 9-11 by flaunting the freedoms that the terrorists despise. That means, I guess, that we should have been living according to the terrorists’ ideals all along. If we’d only criminalize abortion and outlaw homosexuality and send all the women in the workforce back home then they wouldn’t have any reason to attack our country. I think it’s this idea that’s really behind the rolling back of our civil rights and the renewed vigor with which conservatives try to pass bans on gay marriage and abortion. If only the terrorists realize that we hate freedom as much as they do, they’ll leave us alone!
In the Garthwaite interview, D’Souza tries to draw the conclusion that liberals oppose the “War on Terror” because withdrawal will destroy the public perception of Republican policy. He says that liberals opposed Vietnam for similar reasons. When it became apparent that Vietnam was a disaster and the American people wanted a change, a “flurry of liberals” got themselves elected and set about their sinister plans to extend human rights to women and gay people. D’Souza’s point, I guess, is that liberals want to make it clear that the war is a failure in order to use the political leverage to stop the rolling back of our freedoms. He seems to believe that if we go around taking advantage of the freedoms we have, then we deserve to be attacked by terrorists.
In response to public concern, Richard Nixon got us out of Viet Naam. The result was the killing fields. Pulling out of an insecure Iraq will have a similar effect. Iran will have free reign to further it’s expansionist policies and an easier time of developing a nuclear arsenal. The region will destabalized even more than it is.
EVERYONE agrees that the situation in Iraq is atrocious, even Bushie. We need a concerte plan to turn a stable Iraq over to an Iraqui government that can protect the country. I think everyone agrees on that too. I have heard nothing from the Democrats but “It won’t work.” I have heard no concrete, Demnocratic plan to stabalize Iraq. Maybe Bushie’s plan won’t work. But, what’s the alternative. The Democrats simplistic answer is to pull funding form the Iraqui government. That was one of the aspects of Bush’s speech. What new do the libs propose.
Your simplistic statement that conservatives are anti-gay, anti-feministst and anti-abortion is a bit of a generalization, isn’t it. Some are anti-all, some anti-none, ands some anti-some. But that’s the way of the world isn’t it?
My post has nothing to do with the Democrats’ plan for peace in Iraq. Since Pelosi has already said she won’t block funding for the surge, I don’t believe that Democrats really even WANT us to get out of Iraq. As long as Bush continues to mishandle the war, their positions are secure. Democrats can be self-serving and useless, and I don’t make excuses for them.
But that’s not what my post was about. I’m drawing similiarities between Christian fundamentalists and the Islamic fundamentalists and the way they view social issues that many progressives feel are important.
So, why the digs at conservatives. Are they all fundamentalist christians?
Those are the type of conservative that most concern me. Groups like Focus on the Family and Moral Majority advise many of our conservative politicians, so to me, they are inextricably linked. Having your faith inform your decisions is one thing–making discrimination against gay people the law of the land is quite another.
Then your comment “The truth is, conservatives have more in common with Islamic extremists than they might care to admit. They both oppose feminism, gay rights, abortion and a secular society.” was an overgenerlization! Most of us do not share the beliefs of the radical, fundamentalist right. Most of us don’t support nor do we condone extremist dogma of any kind.
I do think you’re being a bit pedantic, but I shouldn’t use words as shortcuts. As a writer, it pays for me to be a bit pedantic about language myself.
Daddio, when conservatives stop voting for people who nominate or vote to confirm anti-choice judges, it’ll stop making sense to tar them with the faults of the religious right. As it stands, the conservatives who are considered reasonable are those who are racists instead of fundamentalists, like Heather MacDonald, or her hero Rudy Giuliani. I know Giuliani is pro-choice and pro-gay, but apparently that didn’t prevent him from stumping for Santorum.
The Democrats have enough for pro-choice, pro-gay conservatives that even if you don’t want to support them for foreign policy reasons, you can still scare the Republican Party by threatening to vote Democratic if it doesn’t boot the Pat Robertsons.
Alon, Alon, Alon. Lumping, lumping, lumping. Get real, get real, get real. You lose credibility when you throw around radical, leftist diatribe then apply it to a broad term such as conservative. At least have the sense to use some type of qualifying language.