A Reluctant Proposal for a Thought Experiment

On our part no attempt will be made to put it better than the woman in the white coat does, except to clarify that in Postmodernism, truth does not exist. This has the added advantage - when confronted with reality - it can be plied into any definition that happens to be expedient to the moment.



- Filed on Articles in "The Political Pathology Asylum" -

When Reason Fails (II): the Left's Narrative

Continued from Part I: Bush Derangement Syndrome

A number of polemics on the Bush legacy force postponement of the post on Obama Derangement Syndrome. Which is just as well, as it is somewhat of a precarious subject.

After the article linked in part I "The Party of Defeat's Top Five Lies about Iraq," Front Page Magazine author Ben Johnson has another compilation, "The Left's Fairy Tale," a shortlist of the main delusions the Dems and the Leftist world at large have convinced themselves of. Both articles are the subject of book which is co-authored by David Horowitz: "The Party of Defeat."

The 'narrative' of that fairy tale reads as follows:

“President Select” George W. Bush stole the 2000 election after his daddy’s Supreme Court justices stopped the Florida election boards from counting all the votes. When he got into office, he did not make terrorism a top priority but immediately began dividing the nation along political lines. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the entire country came together in unity to get those who perpetrated this atrocity, and we stayed united as we fought al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. But soon Bush and his neocon allies took our eye off the ball and used the attacks as a pretext to invade Iraq based on lies. Administration officials pressured CIA analysts, twisted intelligence, and insisted Saddam Hussein was an “imminent threat” who had sponsored 9/11. Bush lied that Saddam had WMD stockpiles and invented a story about him trying to buy nuclear material in Niger. But there were never any WMDs; Iraq had no ties to terrorists at all, much less al-Qaeda; and our presence in Iraq is drawing these terrorists to Iraq. (The CIA did not misinform him, because it is an instrument of ruling class hegemony and probably puts manganese into the crack it sells in black neighborhoods, when it’s not blowing up levees in New Orleans. The administration’s perpetual campaign mode had them slur anyone who got in their way, questioning the patriotism of anyone who opposed the war and revealing Valerie Plame’s identity when Ambassador Joseph Wilson told the truth about them. Bush even declassified sensitive information in the NIE to punish his political enemies. Ultimately, a jury convicted Scooter Libby of fixing Iraq intel to get us into war. Our soldiers – who are too poor and uneducated to help getting stuck in Iraq – are caught in the middle of a civil war. Even though the American people overwhelming want an immediate withdrawal from Iraq and voted for it in 2006, the cowardly Democrats keep passing funding bills and ignoring the will of the people. The Surge has failed, and our best option is to redeploy within six months, even if genocide follows.

Ann Coulter has excelled herself this week in "Bush's America: 100 Percent Al-Qaida Free Since 2001." "In a conversation recently, I mentioned as an aside what a great president George Bush has been and my friend was surprised. I was surprised that he was surprised." I know the feeling ... the admission of a pro-Bush stand invariable triggers catatonic shock and disbelief. Nobody musters the critique of self for an introspection resulting in the question: why am I consumed with hatred for a man I do not even know? The answer might have revealed some pretty putrified psychic artefacts rotting away in the remoter crevices of the subconsciousness.

Blogger-psychologist Dr Sanity has explained the mechanism of projection like this: if you think of yourself as a nice, peaceful person (which all Leftists do since they are the party of 'ethics'), while actually you are full of wrath and hatred (this would be a typical blog dedicated to hatred), the psychological devise of projection as by miracle turns your opponent into someone who is full of wrath and hatred, the origin of BDS.

Update:

John Hawkins over on Townhall also explodes a few alternative truth stories in "Tackling Five Modern Myths Created by Liberals":

- Part I
- Part II

Update:

Pajamas: "Critical Times for Critical Thinking" - "(...) Hiatt — that page’s editor — made the mistake of actually quoting passages of this report, which claimed that a host of “lies” of which President Bush has been accused since 2003 were “substantiated by intelligence.” Vituperation and ad hominem attacks were left as commentary at the paper’s website, with calls for Hiatt’s immediate firing, for — apparently — his treason in quoting a report, written by a Democratic majority, that dared to depart from a narrative that has become conventional wisdom. (...) >>>

- Filed on Articles in "The Political Pathology Page" -

Progress Report (I): the Simple Truth

Author and blogger Leon de Winter is exhausted. The day after Christmas he let the Elsevier blog readership know that enough is enough. It is I think, a good opportunity for many to re-think strategies. De Winter - who focused on multicultural issues and counter Jihad - writes:

After 11 September 2001 I got a bit crazy. Crazy of concern over the future, and madly loving my wife and children. (...) The first bout of madness incited me to write a novel, "God's Gym", which was nothing less than a process of mourning.

The second waive spurned me on to study Islam and the phenomenon of the various forms of extremism and justification to violence that go with it. For the first time in my life I was uncertain if my children's generation would experience the security and prosperity that characterised the way of life in the West since the eighties of the last century, so boundlessly enjoyed by me."

I admit I might be hypersensitive over security issues - or lack thereof. Eleven years before I was born the entire families on both sides were murdered, two relatives excepted (the father of my mother died just before their deportation (to the German death camps), one of her sisters was baptised). These people had done nothing that might have made their deaths comprehensible in the slightest - they just died because some powers deemed it necessary."

Sitting in my study I am surrounded by tome after tome on Islam, book-shelves full of treatises on the innumerable aspects of Islamic mythology. I have read them all, and I can say with some confidence that I have become somewhat of a lay expert on the subject - because I want to understand what moves the enemy, what drives his hatred and love of death, why the antisemitism, and why are so many Muslims so ambivalent towards our astonishing modern values."

I think by now that I understand; I also think however, that it is not all that complicated: a religious tradition with global ambitions, fired on by a Utopian vision of world domination - which is not borne out by the actual course of history, which for centuries has been determined by infidels - feels humiliated and offended to the core."

I agree with De Winter. While his study of what moves Muslims may have helped him dealing with his family history and the events on 9/11 - as it did so many - as far as the conclusion is concerned he could have saved himself the trouble. Former leader of the Dutch Liberal Party VVD and former Euro Commissioner Frits Bolkestein came to the same conclusion as early as the mid nineties and was vilified for it. He also wrote tomes in detached, academic terms so the truth would not offend, but to no avail.

Writing on the site of Masada 2000.org Dr Farrukh Saleem in "Why Are Jews So Powerful?" doesn't mince words: "Over the past 105 years, 14 million Jews have won 15-dozen Nobel Prizes while only three Nobel Prizes have been won by 1.4 billion Muslims (other than Peace Prizes). Why are Jews so powerful?" He lists count after count of inventors, scientists, industrialists and artists, and answers the rhetorical question himself: "Education". Allow me a specification ... an education that is- in the Judeo-Christian tradition in which the transfer of knowledge and the scientific-empirical approach to epistemology - are central. (More reading by Dr Farrukh Saleem.)

As said, the disappointing facts on the ground do not match the high expectations. Human psychology being what it is the discrepancy must somehow be dealt with. Dr Sanity's take on it in her post of 5th January "The Paranoid Delusions of the Left" speaks volumes and is worth a quote or so:

"The first is an example of a series of bizarre conspiracy theories emanating from anxious leftists as they attempt to keep the holes in their ideology plugged; thus preventing any reality from washing over them or flooding their cognitive processes. Every time a leak in that ideological dike appears, the paranoid brand chewing gum is brought out to stop it up."

Leaving the first example aside as not immediately pertinent to the present story, we move on to the second example in which a Muslim government official expertly deflects the blame for a contemporary genocide elsewhere: "Sudan's defense minister, Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein, has accused "24 Jewish organizations" of "fueling the conflict in Darfur" last week in an interview with a Saudi newspaper." Read the usual twisted yadayada for yourself >>>

Dr Sanity explains it: "If only Israel and the Jews could be "wiped off the map"; or, if only those evil capitalist companies could be "torn up into a thousand pieces and scatter[ed] to the wind" then Islam/Progressivism would be more successful. Everything can be explained by this kind of paranoid logic. In fact, paranoia is really nothing more than the use of reason and logic in the service of the irrational and bizarre.

- Are you poor? Someone must have robbed you of what you are entitled to!

- Are you angry and experiencing hatred, but like to think of yourself as a loving, compassionate sort of person? Then the object of your hatred magically becomes the one who hates ... you! (N.B.!)

(...) The above mental gymnastics allow the paranoid person to externalize blame and avoid responsibility (...) Reality is always redrawn in order to pump up their own righteousness and virtue. Anyone who opposes their policies is automatically branded as racist, sexist, homophobic, islamophobic-- take your pick, depending on the circumstances. Hell, anyone who offers ANY new ideas in these areas are automatically branded with one of the "isms". (...)

In the example above where the Darfur Minister of Defense lays the blame for the genocide on the Jews, he is just drawing from a similar tradition that runs through the most dysfunctional threads of Islam. The Jews are responsible for the misery of the Palestinians (it is never the Palestinians own fault); the Jews ritually eat the blood of Muslim babies; plot to destroy Islam; and are guilty of all sorts of atrocities and convoluted plots to take over the world (reference the Protocols of the Elders of Zion).

It is useless to point out the truth (...) It is inconceivable to paranoid persons that people actually exist who view the situation differently from them. (...) Con men always think others are out to con them. (...)

Muslims suffer from this perpetual cognitive dissonance over the fact that the results on the ground don't match the religious and ideological expectations and are dealing with it through psychological mechanisms that distort reality. It is obvious this stands in the way of rational solutions to the innumerable problems and renders them needlessly intractable.

The sooner Islam comes to terms with the gaping discrepancy, the sooner everybody can get on with their lives - except of course those who have already paid the ultimate price for the denial.

~ To be continued in Part II: "Plugging the Holes Against Reality" - "In order to avoid lumping the innocents with the terrorists the political Left have instead reversed the logic, lumping the terrorists with the innocent. This perversion of logic is a two-edged sword. They provide the radicals with a free pass, while at the same time avoiding making a moral choice. " ~

- Filed on Articles in "Progress Report: Summary", cat. Balkans/E.Europe, GWOT, Moral Legislation, Neo Totalitarianism, Terrorism -