The left’s perverted moral lens

Paul Nachman sends this, from Dennis Prager’s current column:

Little has changed regarding the Left’s inability to identify and confront evil. And its moral equation of good guys and bad guys was made evident again in recent weeks by hosts on three major liberal networks—ABC, NPR and PBS.

First, on May 25, PBS host Tavis Smiley interviewed Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the ex-Muslim Somali writer and activist for human, especially women’s, rights in Islamic countries. After mentioning American Muslim terrorists Maj. Nidal Hasan (who murdered 13 and injured 30 fellow soldiers at Fort Hood) and Faisal Shahzad (who attempted to murder hundreds in Times Square), this dialogue ensued:

Ali: “Somehow, the idea got into their (Hasan’s and Shahzad’s) minds that to kill other people is a great thing to do and that they would be rewarded in the hereafter.”

Smiley: “But Christians do that every single day in this country.”

Ali: “Do they blow people up?”

Smiley: “Yes. Oh, Christians, every day, people walk into post offices, they walk into schools, that’s what Columbine is—I could do this all day long. There are so many more examples of Christians—and I happen to be a Christian.

“There are so many more examples, Ayaan, of Christians who do that than you could ever give me examples of Muslims who have done that inside this country, where you live and work.” …

Prager continues:

So how did Smiley, Martin and Cuomo make such morally egregious statements?

The answer is not that these are bad people, let alone that they are not repulsed by terrorist violence.

The answer is leftism, the way of looking at the world that permeates high schools, universities, news and entertainment media. Those indoctrinated by leftist thinking become largely incapable of accurate moral judgments: They regarded America and the Soviet Union as morally similar. And today, they claim that people they call “extremists” within Christianity (who are they?) and Islamist terrorists and their supporters pose equal threats to America and the world.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 03, 2010 09:48 AM | Send