Despite what D’Souza thinks, I really can’t say that I’m startled in the least. When a conservative pundit thinks up another way to demonize liberals, that is not startling. It is anti-startling. It is the product of the mathematical expression (startling)(-1).
It COULD be startling, on the other hand, in that episode of the 1980s revival of The Twilight Zone starring Robert Klein where the definitions of words suddenly got all jumbled up.
[QUOTE=Scylla]
Were pitting this?
Are we playing slow-pitch softball, today?
I understand about picking the low-hanging fruit, but D’souza, who? The stuff on the ground usually has worms.
[/QUOTE]
Folks like you and duffer keep saying this, as if D’Souza is some sort of marginalized crackpot who has never been taken seriously by mainstream conservatism in the United States.
This is a guy who is currently a fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, who was a policy adviser in the Reagan White House, who has regularly written op-ed pieces for major conservative newspapers and journals, who has made dozens of appearances on major TV current affairs and political shows, and who has written a bunch of books, some of which (like Illiberal Education and The End of Racism) were important conservative contributions to the major cultural battles of the 1990s and early 2000s.
I tend to agree with John Mace that he doesn’t really have much new to say. And, having read both Illiberal Education and The End of Racism, i think D’Souza is a writer who revels in the confrontational and the simplistically controversial, at the expense of intelligent analysis and cogent argument.
If you guys, Scylla and duffer, feel the same way about him, then i think that’s great.
But you conservatives don’t get to rewrite history now. You don’t get to pretend that this is just some marginalized whack-job that has never enjoyed any influence in conservative circles, that D’Souza has just emerged from nowhere and that he isn’t really one of you. This is a guy who has been smack in the powerful mainstream of conservative intellectual life and policy debate for the last twenty years, a guy whose work has set the tone for much public discussion of important issues in America. And, truth be told, his new book is offering arguments that plenty of conservatives agree with, and that more than a few have made since the events of 9/11.
By all means, reject him as individuals. I applaud you for it. But the conservative movement as a whole should also own him, because he’s one of your bastard children.
You know, it wasn’t that long ago when the right treated any effort to understand what the terrorists were so pissed off about as tantamount to treason.
Eh, I dunno. I’m lefty as all get out, but I don’t feel a need to adopt a dick, just because said dick has a lefty tilt. There’s a new one of these every once in a while, Bork’s Slouching Towards Gomorrah is pretty hard to beat when it comes to rending one’s garments and shrieking of doom and judgement.
I wonder if this might be the first one not to mention Timothy Leary?
This D’Souza guy is recycling a 5 ½ year old “idea” espoused by Jerry Falwell on Sept 11th or 12th of 2001. Remember Falwell saying the Islamic world did this because of America’s lenient attitude toward gay/lesbian issues, feminism, atheism, etc? Falwell sure back-pedalled fast on that one didn’t he?
This D’Souza is a nutcase. (Or a shrewd nutcase trying to make a buck off of a tragedy). :mad:
And thanks to duffer and Mr Moto for offering the conservative view on this subject. This shows that whether your ideologies are conservative or liberal, you have to admit D’Souza is totally full of shit.
And welcome back Mr Moto.
Don’t forget that Limbaugh agreed with Falwell’s comments as did millions of his listeners who called the show to rally around Falwell. I am really taken aback by the all out hatred the right has for tens of millions of fellow citizens who believe themselves liberals. If you listen to talk radio, short-wave, conservative pundits, the religious right it is always the same: liberal, liberal, liberal. You may just as well substitute liberal and conservative with good and evil. I saw an outfit on line selling conservative T-shirts with a picture of Hillary Clinton and Joe Stalin on the front, or liberals equal the hammer and sickle.
D’Souza does have a point though if you take the religious leaders of the Middle East and list what they believe are any different from mainstream religious and conservative leaders in the U.S. I remember Muslim leaders and Catholics supporting each other against the women’s rights conference in China some years ago.
Given that Islamofundamentalists hated 1950s American values, I’m sure D’Sousa is even now working on a book documenting the evils of the Leave It To Beaver culture.
[QUOTE=elucidator]
Eh, I dunno. I’m lefty as all get out, but I don’t feel a need to adopt a dick, just because said dick has a lefty tilt.
[/QUOTE]
Absolutely. That’s why i said i was happy for conservatives to disavow D’Souza’s arguments.
But if said lefty had been an important figure in left circles for the past two decades, had written books that were central to much left-wing thought in America, and held prominent positions in left institutions, would you come out in wide-eyed astonishment and claim to be shocked that anyone would even think he was an important lefty?
Because that’s what some of the conservatives in this thread have been doing.
[QUOTE=Steve MB]
Nonsense. The pretense that such a “point” has any validity is a foolish (and, frankly racist in a soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations sense) coddling of barbarism.
The root cause of Islamofundamentalist hatred of Western civilization is simple resentment against achievement.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t think that resentment against achievement is the root cause of their hatred, and I don’t think that making the point that their hatred is based on our value system is a foolish collding of barbarism.
Religious fundamentalism is, to a large extent, a revolt against modernity, and the values of modernity (even though it has managed to absorb modernist values, and it’s a basically modernist movement). Check out Karen Armstrong’s “The Battle for God”, where she discusses the evolution of fundamentalist movements in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Or, check out the link posted by Steve MB, discussing Qutb’s images of America. So, at root, there is a clash of values.
Now, obviously, this isn’t enough. There are a lot of fundamentalists out there, and most aren’t violent, most aren’t terrorists, and there are a lot of other factors that turns somebody from a run of the mill fundamentalist into somebody who’s hijacking airplanes. But still, D’sousa has a point.
Where he goes off the rails, of course, is on the points mentioned by previous posters. Bin Laden’s problem isn’t only with the values of American liberals, but the values of all Americans. The us vs them isn’t American liberals against American conservatives/al Qaeda. It’s Americans, conservative and liberal, against al Qaeda. The things that conservatives and liberals have in common vastly outweigh what seperate us.
The second problem with D’sousa is that his solution is to let the terrorists win. That is, of course, an easy way to avoid conflict. We could have ended the Civil War if we let the South secede. We could have ended World War II if we became fascist. I’m sure that he wouldn’t have said those were preferable options.
I think D’sousa’s ultimate problem is that he doesn’t understand al Qaeda and groups like that, and so he doesn’t fully appreciate just how evil they are.
Dinesh D’souza was on The Colbert Report this morning. It was beautiful. While Colbert pretended to be totally on his side and agree with him he went way way over the top to ridicule D’souza. The whole bit clearly said, “I think you’re an idiot” while pretending to agree. Loved it.
[QUOTE=ArchiveGuy]
Hmmm, let’s see.
(1) They hate us because of our liberal values
(2) They hate us because of our freedom
Therefore (3) Liberal Values = Freedom.
Right?
[/QUOTE]
And, if that’s right, then he’s also saying
(1) Terroristic Fundimentalist Muslims ideology(approx.) = Conservative American ideology, with differences approaching zero.
leads to
(2) Conservative American Agenda = Agenda of Terrorism, at home and abroad.
leads to
(3)a {Domestically} Conservative American governmental control = Americans ruled by Terror/Fear since 2000.
(3)b {Internationally} Conservative American governmental control = Export of Terror/Fear throughout the world since 2001.
Possible examples: Iraq, Iran, the bullying of “Old Europe”, withdrawl from the UN processes of conflict resolution.
D’Souza was big in the early 90s among a certain set-- he spoke at my college (1992? '93?), which divided the campus badly, the Young Republicans being thrilled by it and the liberal kids being irritated by it and the faculty divided and not sure what to make of it all, like what it all meant in terms of what it might communicate about the school but still in favor of open discourse. I think there was some yelling from the margins at the talk.
I wish I was known enough that I could take money from folks too stupid to think for themselves simply by vomiting up some controverted controversial screed. He’s not writing for the thinking conservative, he’s writing for the dittohead with money in his pocket. And they will stand in line bleeting for the chance to swallow it whole.
He may have been a leading commentator at one point, but I see this as the common “selling out for a paycheck since my previous fame is fading” that we’ve seen so many times before from all corners of our society.
[QUOTE=duffer]
And did someone actually cite a person’s own wiki page?
[/QUOTE]
No, I cited Wikipedia.
If you can’t even manage to keep up with who the players are on your own side, why should we take anything you say seriously?
[QUOTE=NurseCarmen]
I wish I was known enough that I could take money from folks too stupid to think for themselves simply by vomiting up some controverted controversial screed. He’s not writing for the thinking conservative, he’s writing for the dittohead with money in his pocket. And they will stand in line bleeting for the chance to swallow it whole.
He may have been a leading commentator at one point, but I see this as the common “selling out for a paycheck since my previous fame is fading” that we’ve seen so many times before from all corners of our society.
[/QUOTE]
I suspect he checked his book sales figures against Coulter’s, and decided how to slant his new work. Clearly whackjob books sell these days, among conservatives at least.
I do love the “no true conservative” argument we’re seeing here though.
Depending on which one’s talking, the ilk of the 9/11 attackers claim to want either:
An Islamic theocracy stretching from SE Asia to the Iberian peninsula; or
A reduction/cessation in western influence in international affairs in the middle east.
If D’Sousa is right, these Islamic extremists could also have been placated if we’d simply replace Baywatch reruns and Mariah Carey videos with John Wayne movies and The 700 Club.
I doubt D’Sousa believes this. But give him a break – he’s a conservative trying to sell books in 2007.
[QUOTE=cosmosdan]
Dinesh D’souza was on The Colbert Report this morning. It was beautiful. While Colbert pretended to be totally on his side and agree with him he went way way over the top to ridicule D’souza. The whole bit clearly said, “I think you’re an idiot” while pretending to agree. Loved it.
[/QUOTE]
And from my observation, he also went way over D’Souza’s head-was it just me, or was he taking Colbert seriously?
This is what I don’t get. Didn’t Osama’s fatwa give specific reasons for the attack (i.e. the US’s support of Israel and our presence in Saudi Arabia)? Why speculate about the possible motivations of the attackers when they have already explicitly given us the reason themselves? Do they not like aspects of our culture? Of course, but that’s not the reason they attacked us. I suspect he/they earnestly wants us to get out of Saudi Arabia, wants Israel to be dissolved, and could give two flying fucks about Paris Hilton.
[QUOTE=guppy]
This is what I don’t get. Didn’t Osama’s fatwa give specific reasons for the attack (i.e. the US’s support of Israel and our presence in Saudi Arabia)? Why speculate about the possible motivations of the attackers when they have already explicitly given us the reason themselves? Do they not like aspects of our culture? Of course, but that’s not the reason they attacked us. I suspect he/they earnestly wants us to get out of Saudi Arabia, wants Israel to be dissolved, and could give two flying fucks about Paris Hilton.
[/QUOTE]
Because then we’d have to start examining the repercussions of our foreign policy, and what effects that it has had on the world. And we don’t want to do THAT!
[QUOTE=guppy]
This is what I don’t get. Didn’t Osama’s fatwa give specific reasons for the attack (i.e. the US’s support of Israel and our presence in Saudi Arabia)? Why speculate about the possible motivations of the attackers when they have already explicitly given us the reason themselves? Do they not like aspects of our culture? Of course, but that’s not the reason they attacked us. I suspect he/they earnestly wants us to get out of Saudi Arabia, wants Israel to be dissolved, and could give two flying fucks about Paris Hilton.
[/QUOTE]
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” – Sun Tzu
The willful ignorance of our leaders about the motivations and goals of our enemies is dooming us to defeat.
They talk as though “understanding the terrorists” is a sign of weakness. They act as though it is enough to strike with overwhelming vigor, without first discussing why.
It’s a stupid way to fight a war.