Old news, new ire

From an old Manifesto by the occasionally interesting, but frequently cranky, Eric S. Raymond:

WE REJECT the idiotarianism of the Left — the moral blindness that refuses to recognize that free markets, individual liberty, and experimental science have made the West a fundamentally better place than any culture in which jihad, ‘honor killings’, and female genital mutilation are daily practices approved by a stultifying religion.

Ok. Um, how about, instead, you could reject the “idiotarianism” of people who attribute to “the Left” positions, policies, and ideas that have roughly as much to do with the actual positions, policies, and ideas of the left as a ham sandwich has with the Magna Carta?

The “left” doesn’t believe in individual liberty? The “left” doesn’t believe in science? The “left” enjoys and condones religious oppression? Mr. Raymond—I know the left. The left is a friend of mine. That’s not the left. That’s John Ashcroft.

Listen: all that bad stuff you tell me that the left doesn’t care about? Until the guys doing that stuff added blowing up American buildings to the list, the only people who cared about it at all were us nutty wackos on the left. Ok: us, and Jay Leno’s wife.

On the other hand, I wholly agree with this:

WE SHALL REMEMBER that the West’s keenest weapons are reason and the truth; that we must shine a pitiless light on the lies from which terrorist hatred is built; and that we must also be vigilant against the expedient lie from our own side, lest our victories become tainted and hollow, sowing trouble for the future.

"Indeed."

Filed under: politics