A Fight, Not An Argument
NRO's Lisa Schiffren writes at the Corner:
This entry prompted me to write the following email to Ms. Schiffren, which makes a point about the key line dividing today's mainstream conservatives and those of us who have realized, against our wishes in many cases, that the nature of the current crisis does not allow for mainstream anything:
More and more lately, as I'm reading the Corner, I've begun to feel like one cynical, reactionary radical. Steyn complains about the human rights commission's actions in Canada and asks why no liberal/left folks are worried about the opressive precedent and I think "of COURSE they're not worried Mark, they exist to shut you up and criminalize rightist thought, of COURSE this doesn't worry the left." Mark Kirkorian says that people are trying to make a distinction between free speech and "hate speech" and points out how dangerous to free discourse this is and I think "yes, that's the point. See Steyn, Mark, Legal Troubles Of."
And then I read your above-entitled post in which it appears to me that you are under the misguided impression that feminism has something to do with the legal rights of women. It does not. It was, is and will remain a club upon which to strike certain European political and legal traditions and nothing else.
I am sure you have noticed--have you not?--the profound silence in the official feminist movement regarding the status and treatment of women by the Taliban. I am positive you have remarked upon the absence of stories in the New York Times about the targeting of young, female students in Iraq. I know you are intelligent enough to have realized that the treatment of women by men in the Sudan is not nearly on the same scale of importance as how women are treated on U.S. college campuses.
There are only two possibilities here: either the feminist movement has simply over-looked matters central to them to which conservative writers need only to bring to their attention to get the press releases humming, or they don't give a good god-damn about women in any of these places and, in any case, they're probably about cultural traditions that we, as Westerners, are not well-placed to criticize.
Again, at the risk of sounding like a radical, I think the time has long since passed that NRO and other conservative journals of opinion begin recognizing that we are not engaged in a debate, but a fight. Human rights law is all about criminalizing alternative points of view. Victim's groups and other race-and-gender based organizations are about tearing down the West, not criticizing Muslims.
Until we stop acting like our adversaries are merely misguided people who need to be argued to their senses and start fighting as if they mean to take our liberties away from us, we're nothing more than sheep who bleat a bit more than most as the wolves circle.
Hillary and the Newest Immigrants [Lisa Schiffren]
Given Hillary's feminism — it would be clever to keep on highlighting the all too true consequences of escalating Islamic immigration. Hispanic immigration may just look like new votes to her. But what about the story Kathryn linked to below, about the powerlessness of the British welfare state to deny benefits to second and third wives? No feminist of Hillary's generation will find that bigamy tolerable — even if they want to increase the reach of the welfare state. Indeed, no woman of Hillary's marital history will find that tolerable either. Hillary is bound to react with extreme disgust — as all right-minded people do — to the importation of nice rituals like genital mutilation and honor killing. Keep the focus on the next immigrants rather than the last ones, and she will want to slow it down too.
This entry prompted me to write the following email to Ms. Schiffren, which makes a point about the key line dividing today's mainstream conservatives and those of us who have realized, against our wishes in many cases, that the nature of the current crisis does not allow for mainstream anything:
More and more lately, as I'm reading the Corner, I've begun to feel like one cynical, reactionary radical. Steyn complains about the human rights commission's actions in Canada and asks why no liberal/left folks are worried about the opressive precedent and I think "of COURSE they're not worried Mark, they exist to shut you up and criminalize rightist thought, of COURSE this doesn't worry the left." Mark Kirkorian says that people are trying to make a distinction between free speech and "hate speech" and points out how dangerous to free discourse this is and I think "yes, that's the point. See Steyn, Mark, Legal Troubles Of."
And then I read your above-entitled post in which it appears to me that you are under the misguided impression that feminism has something to do with the legal rights of women. It does not. It was, is and will remain a club upon which to strike certain European political and legal traditions and nothing else.
I am sure you have noticed--have you not?--the profound silence in the official feminist movement regarding the status and treatment of women by the Taliban. I am positive you have remarked upon the absence of stories in the New York Times about the targeting of young, female students in Iraq. I know you are intelligent enough to have realized that the treatment of women by men in the Sudan is not nearly on the same scale of importance as how women are treated on U.S. college campuses.
There are only two possibilities here: either the feminist movement has simply over-looked matters central to them to which conservative writers need only to bring to their attention to get the press releases humming, or they don't give a good god-damn about women in any of these places and, in any case, they're probably about cultural traditions that we, as Westerners, are not well-placed to criticize.
Again, at the risk of sounding like a radical, I think the time has long since passed that NRO and other conservative journals of opinion begin recognizing that we are not engaged in a debate, but a fight. Human rights law is all about criminalizing alternative points of view. Victim's groups and other race-and-gender based organizations are about tearing down the West, not criticizing Muslims.
Until we stop acting like our adversaries are merely misguided people who need to be argued to their senses and start fighting as if they mean to take our liberties away from us, we're nothing more than sheep who bleat a bit more than most as the wolves circle.
