I think the following is absolutely true regarding liberalism:
Editor’s note: Dr. Terri Murray’s new book Identity, Islam & the Twilight of Liberal Values is a critique of the Left and its ever-growing collusion with totalitarian ideology, including political Islam (Islamism). The following is a summary of the book’s central themes that Clarion Project asked Dr. Murray to write for our readers.
The last years have seen a host of neologisms introduced into the political discourse. At the same time, old terms were resurrected with new meanings. This “newspeak” has suddenly gone mainstream – and not only with millennials. Words like “intersectionality,” “the AltRight,” “cis gender,” “trans kids,” “TERFs,” “Antifa,” “
Islamophobia” and “populism” all have made their way into our everyday language.
Yet, many of these terms contain unstated assumptions or conclusions that have not been argued for. But the reality is that once the words are treated as meaningful, the point has already been conceded. This peremptory use of words begs important questions that effectively short-circuit and supplant critical thinking and debate with cheap rhetoric and victimhood claims. In fact, much of what is now being peddled as liberal, left-wing policy in fact
erodes key aspects of classic liberal political philosophy. Simultaneously, this new labeling is being used to “sell” the regressive contents of these political “products” to the next generation of would-be liberals.
The primacy of the individual and the protection of his or her civil rights (classic liberalism) have given way to collectivist social arrangements. These arrangements give importance to social hierarchies that ironically constrain individuals to a subordinate status vis-à-vis cultural traditions and customs.
These arrangements sound nice, though, when packaged as “multiculturalism.” Yet in Britain, for example, due to multiculturalism, Muslims were made to interface with the government as communities. Due to money (and the influence it buys), leadership roles in those communities were assumed by Salafi-Wahhabists (backed by Saudi Arabia). These ultra-conservatives did not represent Britain’s large secular Muslim constituency but rather served to drown out their voices and colonize whole communities.
In the United States, there is the
Muslim Brotherhood-linked group
CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations). CAIR represents itself as
the voice of American Muslims. For example, in June 2018, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Trump’s travel pause for a number of majority-Muslim countries, at least seven Democrats from the House and Senate shared a platform with CAIR’s executive director Nihad Awad and spoke in harmony with him.
However, a closer look at the organization’s history, activities, statements and causes suggests that its primary goal is to silence and delegitimize its critics (including secular Muslim critics) and to redefine what it means to be a “moderate” Muslim.
In general, in the last years, tolerance for intellectual dissent and diversity of opinion on moral and social norms has been replaced by a state-sponsored demand for “diversity.” This demand (to “respect” non-Western religious ideology) replaced the neutral state with a top-down mandate to show deference and positive esteem for difference (that is, difference from the West). Any refusal to do so is now punished as a thought crime.
At the same time, a new demand for “tolerance” emerged, this time for aggressions
against the West. As we have seen, each new act of Islamist terror is quickly followed by apologetics explaining why these acts were the inevitable consequence of legitimate grievances against the West and its imperialism.
Typical of this was
Glenn Greenwald’s apology for the Boston bombers, in which he explained,
“As the attackers themselves make as clear as they can, it’s not religious fanaticism but rather political grievance that motivates these attacks.”
This “wicked West” mantra plays on the truth that Western governments and their agencies have indeed waged overt, covert or proxy wars in foreign lands, including in the Middle East. But opposing Western foreign policy does not require one to “buy-in” to the grievance narrative of Islamists (which, to no small degree, serves to obfuscate the extent to which Western superpowers have actually colluded
with Islamist repression and its leadership). Liberals are now told they must adopt an
either/or stance between condemning
either U.S. foreign policy
or Islamist terror, when in fact we can and should oppose
both. This false dilemma glosses over the fact that Islamism is itself a colonizing force that seeks to impose a global
caliphate and impose universal
sharia law — hardly a democratic antidote to imperialism.
Defending Islamism as though it were the only option for leftist opponents of U.S. foreign policy overlooks the fact that violence and censorship are not justifiable means of redressing grievances. Doing so merely replaces one form of repression with another, rather than taking the moral high ground.
It also spins the fiction that Islamism has no inner ideology of its own that it wishes to impose. Meanwhile, in the West’s universities, moral relativists disseminate the view that ideologies that respect self-determination are on an equal footing with authoritarian, theocratic or fundamentalist ideologies (that do not respect self-determination). These moral relativists reject “Western” understandings of ethics and human rights, claiming that there can be no “master discourse” (meaning, objective moral judgments are impossible). Ironically, they simultaneously presuppose that
Western colonialism should be seen as an objective moral evil.
Further, liberals are now being told they must either
oppose racist speech or
defend freedom of speech, not both. This false dilemma obfuscates the fact that this type of censorship has been used primarily to shut down the
most progressive Muslim voices by the fundamentalists (and their Leftist enablers) who wield the charge of “Islamophobia” as a
de facto blasphemy law.
Identity, Islam and the Twilight of Liberal Values unpacks many fallacies that were pedaled in 2017 and 2018 and offers readers some helpful suggestions for how to recognize and counter these misleading political ploys.
Some good comments there Dixie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LIE-berals LOVE their jargon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For one thing it marks you as being one of the club- somebody to be trusted if you can understand and use the jargon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And of course it is a deliberate insult to those wh odo not understand the jargon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LIE-beral reasoning is such that if you do not understand their psycho-babble then you ARE NOT ENTITLED TO SPEAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
|it is of course a DELIBERATE ABUSE of free speech- but then LIE-berals prefer such a dishonest approach because it helps protect their arguments from attack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sadly George Orwell predicted the rise of this politically charged psycho babble when he spoke of the dictator "Big Brother" and the climate of "duck speak" that existed in the Orwellian nightmare world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Consider:
Here is a nice little story from Toronto Sun explaining why and how LIE-berals are making the ugly political climate of the infamous George Orwell novel 1984 come true for us. And I have included a few comments of my own in brackets):
The 'duckspeak' of climate change. Tom Harris, Guest columnist in Toronto Sun. First posted: Friday, June 03, 2016 05:44 PM EDT
Wynne’s climate change strategy rewards big business while punishing average Ontarians We hear it all the time: “Climate change is real”, “97% of experts agree”, “we must increase our use of green energy to reduce carbon pollution”.
But it is all “duckspeak”, precisely what George Orwell warned us about in his novel 1984. Duckspeak was a form of speech consisting entirely of words and phrases approved by the controlling party in Orwell’s disturbing vision of a dystopian future.
Someone who had mastered duckspeak could fire off ideologically pure assertions like bullets from a machine gun, without thinking, their words emanating from their larynx like the quacking of a duck.
Being called a duckspeaker was a compliment in 1984 since it indicated one was well-versed in the official language and views of the state. We are now in an era of climate change duckspeak.
Rather than being merely ridiculous or social satire, the purpose of climate duckspeak is ominous: To convince opinion leaders and the public to think about climate change only as the government and eco-activists want. To support alternative points of view is “climate change denial”, today’s version of thought crime, punishable by excommunication from responsible citizenry.
(I point out that the LIE-beral `carbon crap and trade` program is exactly like the now disgraced European `crap and trade` model! The E.U. crap and trade allowed for shameless price gouging, rigged stock markets with insider trading of valuable carbon `credits` given out for free by govts to their pals, left fiscal loopholes that were exploited by unscrupulous stock traders working with organized crime-AND failed to clean the air as those people and industries that had the biggest carbon foot prints were EXCUSED from cutting back by govts seeking to curry favour!)
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sets the stage for climate change duckspeakers by repeatedly asserting, “climate change is real.” Trudeau’s claim is correct but trivial. It is the duckspeak equivalent of proclaiming “sunrise is real”. But Trudeau is employing a strategy right out of 1984.
His statements imply that experts have concluded that unusual climatic events are happening because of humanity, and that government must save us.
U.S. President Barack Obama does the same, asserting in the Cutting Carbon Pollution in America section of the White House web site: “I refuse to condemn your generation and future generations to a planet that’s beyond fixing.”
Referring to greenhouse gases (GHG) as “carbon pollution,” as both Obama and the Canadian government do regularly, is pure duckspeak.
“Carbon pollution” conjures up subconscious images of dark and dangerous emissions of soot.
But what they are almost always discussing is carbon dioxide (CO2). But were they to call it that, most people would be unconcerned, remembering from grade school that CO2 is a trace gas essential for plant photosynthesis.
So government and climate campaigners mislabel it as “carbon” to frighten the public and discourage critical thinking, closely following Big Brother’s strategy in Orwell’s classic.
Similarly, Trudeau and Obama err when they refer to low CO2 emitting energy sources as “clean” or “green” since CO2 isn’t unclean.
But the label promotes an image of environmental wholesomeness, hiding the ineffective and damaging nature of many alternative energy sources.
(I point out that here in Ontari-owe where LIE-beral govt has committed to buying every volt of green energy produced in the province-AHEAD of any other form of generation-we now MUST keep a pack of natural gas fueled generating plants fired up and ready-24 hours a day-seven days a week to be ready at a moments notice to take over from green energy when the sun goes behind a cloud or when the wind does not blow as planned. The grossly costly LIE-beral green energy plan has NOT cleaned our air-but it HAS cleaned our wallets and provided windfall profits to those mostly civil service Hogs and great LIE-beral pals that own wind mills and solar farms-while at the same time subjecting people in the countryside-farmers and such to towering eye sores that emit irritating noises that can make people ILL!)
(Govt has turned rural people into lab rats with this noise issue-and a TVO documentary has illustrated the probable scale and scope of deception regarding that noise-TVO played a documentary from England re a wind farm that was sued and the medical information used to dismiss the claims of the frantic neighbouring land owners was based on readings from a wind tower ONE THIRD the size of the one planted near their house! Yes-the test model used by researchers was MUCH SMALLER AND FARTHER AWAY than the unit being complained about-and judge IGNORED these incorrect measurements and dismissed the complaints- talk about the GOVT FIX being in! One wonders if the judge had stock in that wind farm?)
Finally, the “97% of experts agree” phrase is designed to suppress debate. After all, who would dare contest experts about such a complicated issue?
But appealing to authority or consensus is a logical fallacy that proves nothing about nature. Regardless, the surveys used to back up the consensus argument are unconvincing.
They either asked the wrong questions, or asked scientists who don’t research the causes of climate change, or polled mostly those who would obviously agree with the government.
It is not surprising, then, that language tricks like Orwell’s duckspeak are being used today to justify the unjustifiable in the war of words over global warming.
Tom Harris is executive director of the Ottawa-based International Climate Science Coalition, which opposes the hypothesis carbon dioxide emissions from human activities are known to cause climate problems.
(I say Harris makes some good points about LIE-beral duck speak on the subject of environment and I point out that for most people the debate on climate change has MUCH MORE to do with how to cut back on green house gases-and the great majority of us recognize that NONE of the current LIE-beral initiatives will do ANYTHING to clean the air-it will ONLY BE OUR WALLETS that are cleaned! LIE-berals are treating climate change issues as a grand excuse to set up a HUGE CARBON SLUSH FUND they can dip into as necessary for MORE GRAVY!)
(The quickest way to cut back on green house gases is to cut back on Hog gravy! IN the 9 months after the 9/11 terror attack-during which time 25 percent of the worlds airline fleet was grounded-there WAS a MEASURABLE IMPROVEMENT IN AIR QUALITY! Airplanes produce 75-85 percent of ALL pollution related to transportation-that means that ALL the pollution emitted by cars, trains, trucks buses and ships represents ONLY a FRACTION of the filth spewed by airplanes! Cut back on Hog gravy and they will fly less-AND CLEAN THE AIR while we balance our govt books in the process!)
(It seems obvious that we need to burn less fossil fuel-the problem is how to get it done WITHOUT destroying our economy and rendering millions of people homeless and unemployed! Radical environmentalists use duckspeak just as much as LIE-berals because the radical environmentalists are loons who don’t care that their `solutions` to climate change may force us into miserable lives shivering in mud huts in the forest and eating our daily meal of Dandelion greens raw because the trees around us are sacred and NOT to be used for burning, cooking OR for building! Its an ugly set of selfish LOONS quacking at us-LIE-berals on one side seeking to set up a huge carbon slush fund for selfish reasons and radical environmentalists seeking to destroy our economy because they figure we humans do not deserve to dominate the environment as we do!)