Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Ichabod: the Departing of Former Glory

Picture: Official portrait of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

This is a picture of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, president of the United States of America from 1933 to 1945. He led America through the hard years of the Great Depression, and then presided over America’s participation in World War II, at first through the Lend-Lease agreement with the Allies, and directly after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

He was a Democrat. A left-winger.

[...]

So how did this man, made rich by the (and I’m echoing left-wing thought-patterns here) manifestly unjust factor of the luck of the draw, the birth lottery, become today’s Left bright new hope, overthrowing the hated Lieberman? No need to do any psychological analysis, for the Kossacks and Huffingposters have made no bones in revealing the reason: his anti-war position, in comparison to Lieberman’s backing of President Bush’s foreign policy.

[...]

If the legacy of the 18th-century Enlightenment consists of the idea that religion is a force for tyranny, then why does today’s Left side against two religions that have thrown off what theocratic excesses they had—Judaism and Christianity—with the one religion that has not undergone any reformation in that regard—Islam, the most tyrannous, supremacist, totalitarian and invasive religion on the planet? If the Left has always claimed to stand for women’s rights, then where are the left-wing feminists crying against female genital mutilation, rather than celebrating it as part of cultural diversity? Among the ones who cry “Racism!” loudest, and scream against “cultural imperialism”, where are the ones calling against a religion that demands that all nations abandon their native heritages in favor of an Arab one?

[...]

So this last hint of left-wing glory from the FDR days, the idea of standing up to human freedom, including freedom of speech, which means freedom to say things people don’t want to hear, has petered out. No time for civil liberties when the aptitude of a former left-wing president is being questioned. No, we can’t be like the Republicans on Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, protesting but letting it be aired, or like the Republicans during World War II, setting aside whatever issues they had with the Democrats after Pearl Harbor. Nope, you see, we’re the New Left, not the Old.

[...]

In full on Our Children Are The Guarantors »

2 comments:

ziontruth said...

I fully agree, Demosthenes. As do Cox and Forkum:

www.coxandforkum.com/archives/000923.html

The problem with Christian Theocons (actually, their formal name is Christian Reconstructionists) is they're like most Muslims in believing that the imposition of religious law by humans over all the planet is a precondition to the coming of the Messiah. Orthodox Judaism, in contrast, although centered on a code of law, has it that the institution of G-d's law upon all people (the 613 mitzvot for Jews, the 7 commandments of the sons of Noah for non-Jews) will take place only after the coming of the Messiah, and by divine influence and not through human force. Christianity, except for this aberration of the Reconstructionists, holds to such a view too.

Pastorius said...

I just want to say, I am a Christian and i agree with Demosthenes.