Pearls From the Goldberg File
21st November 2015
Jonah Goldberg is always worth reading.
Dear Reader (Including those of you stunned by the news that Charlie Sheen has a sexually transmitted disease. Not since Jim J. Bullock announced he was gay have I been more shocked),
If you Google “Christian terrorism,” you’re probably a jackass to begin with. But if you do — bidden not by your own drive to jackassery but by the natural curiosity inspired by this “news”letter — you’ll find lots of left-wing trollery about how the worst terrorist attacks on American soil have been committed by Christians. Much of it is tendentious, question-begging twaddle. But I really don’t want to waste a lot of time on whether Tim McVeigh was a Christian or not (he really wasn’t).
What I find interesting is that many of the same people who clutch their pearls at the mere suggestion that Islamic terrorism has anything to do with — oh, what’s the word again? — oh right: Islam, seem to have no problem making the case that “Christian terrorism” is like a real thing. Remember how so many liberals loved — loved — Obama’s sophomoric and insidious tirade about not getting on our “high horses” about ISIS’s atrocities in the here and now because medieval Christians did bad things a thousand years ago? They never seem to think that argument through. Leaving out the ass-aching stupidity of the comparison, it actually concedes the very point Obama never wants to concede. By laying the barbaric sins of Christians a thousand years ago at the feet of Christians today, he implicitly tags Muslims with the barbarism committed in their name today.
Now, I see no need to wade too deeply into the theology here, but I think I am on very solid ground when I say that Islamic terrorism draws more easily and deeply from the Koran than Tim McVeigh drew from the Christian Bible. Of course, you’re free to disagree. In a free society, everybody has the right to be wrong in their opinions. (But don’t tell anyone at Yale that.)
Smitty at The Other McCain chimes in:
Modern politics grew more coherent, if not rational, when I realized that discussions like terrorism or the Syrian refugee crisis are all hormone-flinging directed at the flesh. Your Progressive overlords think you’re stupid, and will attempt to herd you with guilt, fear, and bribes to Do What They Say.
Conversely, there is shag-all interest in rational discussion, analysis, and a dispassionate effort at finding an optimal overall solution. “They never seem to think that argument through” because #ShutUp. There is power to be protected here, and allowing any sort of intellectual exchange is a direct threat to that power.
Obama is what you get when kids grow up without a father on hand to smack the silly notions out of their heads when necessary.