Conservative hypocrites attack liberals for their hypocrisy

I see this article on the front page of FrontPage Magazine:

Harems and Hypocrites
By: Stephen Brown
Liberals ignore Muslim imam’s performing 30 polygamous
marriages in Toronto. More>

I think it ought to be changed to:

Harems and Hypocrites
By: Stephen Brown
Conservatives ignore 20 million polygamy- and sharia-believing Muslims
immigrating into the West, while the same conservatives
attack liberals for ignoring Muslim polygamy. More>

The first sentence of Brown’s article is:

It is just one more example of liberal cowardliness leading us to Sharia hell.

I think it ought to be changed to:

It is just one more example of conservative cowardliness leading us to Sharia hell.

—end of initial entry—

I sent this blog entry to Stephen Brown, along with the following note:

Mr. Brown, don’t you think it’s ridiculous to allow the mass immigration of polygamy- and sharia-believing Muslim into the West, to remain utterly silent and accepting of the fact that they are mass-immigrating into the West, and then to complain about the fact that once the polygamy- and sharia-believing Muslims are here, they are—gasp—seeking to practice polygamy and sharia?

And don’t you also think it’s ridiculous to complain about the fact that the increasing numbers and political clout of these polygamy- and sharia-believing Muslims—made possible solely by the mass immigration of Muslims that you do not oppose—lead liberal politicians increasingly to yield to the desires of these polygamy- and sharia-believing Muslims?

Has the thought of the absurdity and hypocrisy of this position EVER ONCE occurred to you? Even once?

* * *

Terry Morris writes:

Amen! Everytime we find an example of this kind of hypocrisy on the liberal right we need to call them out on it in the strongest of terms as you’ve done. Whether they’re complaining about Muslim footbaths in public restrooms or Muslim flagellation rituals or Muslim honor killings or Muslim conspiracies to attack part of our infrastructure or the raising of mosques next to churches or the infiltration of Muslims into our military and intelligence agencies, or whatever.

LA replies:

Thanks. The charge of hypocrisy seems strong and may be impossible for its neoconservative targets to understand. From their point of view, how can their position be hypocritical, since their belief is that all people can assimilate, and therefore if polygamy and sharia becomes a problem, it’s solely our fault (or rather the liberals’ fault), for not insisting that Muslims assimilate.

But in reality (as distinct from the neoconservative fantasy), people whose religion justifies polygamy and commands sharia are, in the natural course of things, going to seek to practice polygamy and sharia, and the more of them there are the harder it will be to stop them, and pretending otherwise is rankest falsehood. Therefore when these neoconservatives attack liberals for normalizing the same Muslim customs that the neoconservatives themselves have allowed to enter and gain power in this country via mass immigration, that is rankest hypocrisy.

But again, one can only see it as hypocrisy if one is outside the false neocon assumption that everyone can assimilate.

Terry Morris replies:

You wrote:

“From their point of view, how can their position be hypocritical, since their belief is that all people can assimilate, and therefore if polygamy and sharia becomes a problem, it’s solely our fault (or rather the liberals’ fault), for not insisting that Muslims assimilate.”

Indeed. I followed your link to Brown’s FrontPage article and read it quickly, and my impression is that you’ve summed up his right-liberal position nicely. But I’m not even sure he wants them to (or expects them to) assimilate. My impression is that he just wants them to begrudgingly obey our laws.

LA replies:

I’m not sure that there’s any functional difference. Dennis Prager, who has never uttered a syllable against allowing Muslims to mass-immigrate into America (and probably thinks people are racist if they are against it), was hugely outraged that a Muslim congressman wanted to be sworn into office on the Koran. Prager wants Muslims to be here, yet he expects them not to express their religion publicly once they are here. Whether he expects mere external conformity with our customs or inward assent, it comes to the same thing. He expects Muslims not to behave like Muslims. Which means, he expects Muslims not to be Muslims. He will never admit this fact to himself, as it would reveal the absurdity of his position.

Terry M. replies:

I don’t understand people like this. Instinctively they know that Muslim customs are incompatible with the West, and yet the Pragers and the Browns of the world somehow cannot make the connection between Muslim customs and … Muslims.

LA replies:

Well, now you know what’s been obsessing me these last three years or so, since I began writing about the Usual Suspects phenomenon. But the Usual Suspects syndrome is just a specific application of what I’ve been writing about since the early 1990s: neocons who think the problem is not immigration, but our loss of will to make immigrants assimilate. (As though you can “make” people assimilate who don’t want to assimilate, or who are simply too different to assimilate.)

Mark K. writes:

“Prager wants Muslims to be here, yet he expects them not to express their religion publicly once they are here.”

Liberals can never be logical. Believing in progressivism and (in most cases) evolution, their ideas are formulated on “advancing” away from traditional concepts and beliefs. They will be forever coming up with ideas that have no roots in what is traditionally human and logical. The liberal mind has to move “forward” by the psychological equivalent of “genetic mutations.” They will always have mental contortions and expend huge amounts of effort to go against the grain. Liberals do their best to make acceptable what human beings have found to be repulsive. Mental mutations work as well as genetic mutations…

LA replies:

Hmm, very good.

In your analogy, liberalism is seeking to “evolve” toward the state of perfect equality and inclusiveness. (Liberal evolution, unlike Darwinian evolution, is strictly teleological, directed toward a desired end.) But the “environment” where this liberal evolution is to take places, i.e., reality itself, which is constituted of the natural world, the social world, and the transcendent, presents insuperable obstacles to this liberal evolution toward equality. So liberals, to keep advancing toward greater and greater equality, must keep undergoing “mental mutations,” consisting of complex rationalizations and other mental constructs, that enable them to get around the limits of the natural, social, and spiritual environment. Unlike Darwinian evolution, which involves chance genetic mutations leading happily to an ever more efficacious adaptation to the environment, liberal evolution involves the purposeful adoption of false beliefs leading to an increasingly radical and systematic denial of the environment. The end result of Darwinian evolution is a perfectly “adapted” species. The end result of liberal evolution is a perfectly insane liberal society at war with reality.

Terry Morris writes:

In relation to this phenomenon, are you aware of the term MEGO, an acronym meaning “My Eyes are Glazing Over?” It’s a term commonly used to describe people who exhibit certain negative characteristics such as an inability to be consistently rational, an inability to maintain focus during times when clear focus is absolutely vital and even imminently life threatening, inability to connect the dots and to follow simple orderly steps in problem solving, and etc. Drug abusers, as an example, are sometimes described as being afflicted with the condition of MEGO. In extreme cases MEGO afflicted persons can be brought back to reality by addressing them loudly and pointedly and threateningly, but this, in my experience, is only temporary as the underlying cause of their condition (drug use or whatever) ultimately controls their ability (or inability) to maintain focus and etc.

It seems to me that the “conservatives” you’re describing also exhibit the characteristics of persons afflicted with the condition of MEGO. Liberalism in all its wonderful manifestations is like the mind-altering, hallucinogenic and addictive drug that is the common denominator which causes them to show all the signs of having MEGO. That said, I can think of none but radical solutions to this problem.

Mark K. writes:

“The end result of liberal evolution is a perfectly insane liberal society at war with reality.”

Notice the enormous cost and resources it takes to implement liberal social programs. Because the liberal universe is at odds with God, nature and the essence of man, it takes an enormous mental and financial effort to surmount the natural obstacles. Think of the cost of education as it involves teaching children to think against their instincts. Think of the enormous media machine (from films to news)—the amount of time it takes to keep the liberal engine and agenda going. There is a high cost to implementing a liberal society (welfare as an example) because it goes against the human grain.

LA replies:

Not just to institute liberal social programs, but to re-make the whole society.

As Obama said in his victory speech last week:

Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment … when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals.

It’a a great nation, but he’s going to remake it. It’s hard enough to remake a bad nation. But he wants to remake a great nation. Meaning he’s got to convince us that the great things about America are really not great because they don’t live up to our highest liberal ideals. He’s got to convince us that the great is really bad and disposable and that we should adopt his view of what America ought to be. Apart from its falseness and destructivenss, think of the expenditure of energy this will entail.

Ken Hechtman writes:

Funny you should say that about MEGO.

When I wrote for the Montreal Mirror, the in-house style guide included a list of banned leftist jargon. Words like “oppression,” “repression,” “normalize,” “marginalize,” “imperialism,” “capitalism” and so on could not be used in Mirror news stories. Even “corporation” was banned, you had to say “business.”

The name of this list was “The MEGO Words.”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 08, 2008 06:28 AM | Send