Shorter Dinesh D’Souza
Get the women back in the kitchen (preferable pregnant), stuff those gays back in the closet, prohibit divorce, outlaw birth control methods, ban pornography and there will never be another 9/11 attack again.
D’Souza shows that liberals—people like Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Barney Frank, Bill Moyers, and Michael Moore—are responsible for fostering a culture that angers and repulses not just Muslim countries but also traditional and religious societies around the world. Their outspoken opposition to American foreign policy—including the way the Bush administration is conducting the war on terror—contributes to the growing hostility, encouraging people both at home and abroad to blame America for the problems of the world. He argues that it is not our exercise of freedom that enrages our enemies, but our abuse of that freedom—from the sexual liberty of women to the support of gay marriage, birth control, and no-fault divorce, to the aggressive exportation of our vulgar, licentious popular culture.
Yeah! How dare people abuse their freedom by doing, you know, what they want to do. What an outrage. I tell we need to clamp down on all this perverted nonsense.
What idiocy.
Via Radley Balko.
Sadly much of the rightwing feels this way or at least allows these words to represent them. Of course if they hate us for our freedoms and rethugs cave in to their demands then they have won…why do republicans hate america and everywhere else?
So, Steve. Does freedom come without responsiblity? You make freedom sound like it eliminates all moral restraints. I think Steve, you are a closet liberal, infact I am sure of it I think we should bring back the duel. You know, pistols at 10 paces. I assure you, there would be fewer liberals.
Thank you for making sense. D’Souza doesn’t understand that liberty goes beyond political freedom. Shays Rebellion was the right to make whiskey and drink it! (They keep trying to take that away)
Zelsdorf,
I never said there is no responsibility associated with one’s actions, nor did I imply that there shouldn’t be any moral restraints. However, unlike you I don’t think being gay is immoral. Nor is it immoral for women to be sexually liberated. Call me a liberal, but I think it is wrong to shoot a woman in the head for having sex with somebody she finds attractive and loves, but to whom she isn’t married. In fact, I’d say its immoral.
Dumbass.
Wow Steve, yet more dismissal of your opponents’ positions! Is this be number 100? I’m sure you’ll get there soon.
Because you know your libertarian arguments are just so innately correct they don’t even have to be proven.
Does Freedom = freedom of any kind? Say if we had a freedom for universal beastiality, other countries would maybe disrespect you just a little?
Likewise in the early 20th Century US, there wasn’t as much ‘absolute’ freedom given to individuals and yet it seemed satisfactory to draw countless migrants?
There is an ideal level of freedom somewhere and the balance has to be debated. Dinesh D’Souza merely had the GALL to point out what primary reason Islamists have for hating Western Society – its excessive ‘freedoms’ (freedoms for gays, women etc.)
You are the weakest link of the bloggers Steve.
Dumbass.
Steve,
Get a grip.
There is a difference between wanting to keep women barefoot and pregnant, and decrying widespread promiscuity. (Though I do find it inappropriate to single out only promiscuity by women and not men.)
There is a difference between wanting to shove gays back in the closet, and not wanting to give official sanction to their relationship.
There is a difference between wanting to prohibit divorce, and wanting to prohibit divorce without some show of cause.
The excerpt doesn’t state just where D’Souza stands on birth control and pornography. I suspect birth control is the only point on which your paraphrase comes close to being a fair and honest one.
I frankly don’t know enough about the psychology of jihadists to know how much the perception that we are all libertines plays into their hatred of the West. My suspicion is that it is not as great as D’Souza appears to believe. However, your paraphrase of his conclusion is as unfair and dishonest as your paraphases of his talking points.
Kent,
I don’t think it is me that needs to get a grip. Think about it, I write a completely ridiculous and over the top summary of D’Souza’s completely ridiculous and over the top argument…you don’t see the connection?
Or do you really think that what has pissed off OBL all these years is that women can go out and get jiggy wit it vs. oh I don’t know…U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia?
Apparently, the thesis that Osama was perfectly justified in the 9/11 attacks, due to low-rise jeans and gays holding hands in public, will find many adherents amongst OTB readers.
Steve,
I doubt D’Souza claims that our moral failings justified the attacks, except in the minds of radical Muslims. If I’m wrong, if that’s really what he’s claiming, then he is indeed very much over the top.
I think you have unfairly grouped him with Pat Robertson, of whom there is real reason to think that he thinks this way. And, yes, Pat Robertson is way over the top. Has been for quite some time now.
I can’t be sure, but I think what D’Souza is attempting to do is counter the attempts by some on the Left to equate social conservatives with radical Muslims. You know, “American Taliban” and all that. On the present evidence, I’d say he has a point. I don’t think his claim that the moral climate in this country is repulsive to reasonable religious believers, not just fanatics, is all that ridiculous.
Of course, on the present evidence, he also hasn’t made the distinction between himself and Pat Robertson as clear as it should be. Or, at least, the summary you quote doesn’t make that distinction as clear as it should.
Kent,
I disagree, at least based on the book preview that we’ve seen.
The culture war and the war on terror are one and the same? As Radley Balko has written, right after 9/11 some on the Left and from other political view points have argued that 9/11, OBL, and Al Qaeda were “blowback” from our Afghanistan operations against the Russians. Not directly in the sense of we armed, trained, and broke bread with the Taliban, but we helped the Afghans kick out the Russians and then we left them to their own devices. Afghanistan degenerated into chaos paving the way for the Taliban (with the aid of Pakistans intelligence service, ISI if I recall correctly). The Taliban made use of the Afghans the U.S. did train and the result was Afghanistan became the “Club Med” for terrorist training. The typical response was that this was not a serious response/view to take.
Now D’Souza is saying that a crucial part of the War on Terror (WoT) is that we curtail exercising the freedoms we have. Further, that if we do exercise these freedoms that we actually impede the WoT and lend a sort of aid and comfort the the terrorists.
Then there is this part of the summary,
Please read that a couple of times. How do you spin that so that it isn’t the fault of gays, women having sex when they want too, birth control, porn, and Paris Hilton? I’d really like to know how that connection works.
As Balko notes, it could be read that D’Souza is even implying that we should make our society more palatable to moderate muslims and quite possible more like moderate muslim societies…talk about your freaking Dhimmitude!
I’m dying to here how you can spin that summary of D’Souza’s book so that it all sounds much, much more reasonable. To me it looks very much like D’Souza is laying at least a significant chunk of the blame for 9/11 on our “permissive culture”.
So this idea that it is D’Souza trying to counter the notion that social conservatives are the “American Taliban” sounds positively silly to me. By suggesting that we should be more like moderate muslim societies he is playing right into the Left’s hands. Not too mention that he is eviscerating what it means to have freedom. You can have freedom, just don’t act free.
That is just it, this is precisely my point. This is what D’Souza is saying is hampering the war on terror. I think it is utterly ridiculous to think that moderate muslims are worried more about a gay couple in West Hollywood vs. worrying about the radical nutjob islamists who want to kill their daughters for not wearing a burkha, turn their son’s into walking bombs, and think that popping off a few nukes in Israel is a good idea. Maybe the gay guys in West Hollywood do repulse them, my guess though is that it is way donw their on the list of worries.
Steve,
Now you’re speaking more reasonably. Yes, I think the hypothesis D’Souza presents (that the moral climate in this country directly led to 9/11) is very weak. I think other factors were far more important in motivating the jihadists.
And I agree that his attempt to distance social conservatives here from the Taliban abroad in this manner is likely to backfire. I say this even though I agree with D’Souza that one need not be a religious fanatic to be repulsed by much of our moral climate. I find much of our present moral climate repulsive. (I don’t think that should be an invitation for anyone to pull a reverse “no true Scotsman” argument on me.)
What distressed me was the sequence of false equivalences you started your post with. You were throwing out red meat rather than launching a thoughful discussion, as many of your commentators promptly demonstrated. I think we’re now having the thoughtful discussion that this should have been from the start. (At least, I hope.)
And I’m mostly agreeing with you, though with caveats.
Well I was trying to use D’Souza’s own rhetorical style (so to speak) in an attempt to show how foolish his hypothesis is.
Anderson said: Apparently, the thesis that Osama was perfectly justified in the 9/11 attacks, due to low-rise jeans and gays holding hands in public, will find many adherents amongst OTB readers.
True, but very few contributors think that way.
D’nesh sees this as an opportunity to talk about rolling back no-fault divorce and putting gays back in the closet. If nothing else, his opportunism is grotesque.