It is now a list of at least one.
(relevance of kitten pic at end of story, read on)
Little Green Footballs has this gem, a Columbia University official explaining the decision to invite Ahmadinejad to speak-- said explanation made in the manner of an intellectual speaking to dolts. He says-
"It should never be thought that merely to listen to ideas we deplore in any way implies our endorsement of those ideas, or the weakness of our resolve to resist those ideas, or our naiveté about the very real dangers inherent in such ideas. It is a critical premise of freedom of speech that we do not honor the dishonorable when we open the public forum to their voices. To hold otherwise would make vigorous debate impossible."
But here in the real world, hosting a despot to speak as if he were a respectable foreign leader causes great celebrations amongst our enemies, who rightly see it as a sign of great internal weakness.
And they are encouraged by it. They recruit heavily from the publicity surrounding American weakness such as this.
And yes, successful terrorist recruitment because of Columbia University's newest guest speaker means more American lives will be lost. In fact the act of hearing these ideas we supposedly 'deplore' does SPECIFICALLY imply endorsement of them, at least by some of us.
Leftists around the world share this blindness; they can never see the real world results of the things they say and do. None of them thinks that communism causes starvation and mass murder, in spite of the fact that everywhere it is tried, these things happen.
And none of them can see that their condescending attitude, their visible inability to make moral distinctions, their 'openmindedness' and 'intellectual superiority' are all seen by radical Islam as weakness, cowardice and looming surrender.
Islam says "our culture is superior, to be desired over all others, made by God and to be forced upon the world for its own good. Any who resist us are evil, working against God, unwilling to recognize the superiority of our culture, and must be enslaved or killed."
The American left says "all cultures are equal in terms of moral value, and difference between one and another doesn't mean one is good and another is bad. (Except of course for our own culture, which is usually bad, but that's another story)."
So in fact the radical Islamist is already dramatically at odds with American liberalism; while the liberal believes no culture is superior to any other, the Islamist believes that one is, specifically his. And the left's inability to address the obvious problems with Islamic society (its treatment of women and gays foremost on my mind at present) is another sign of weakness in the eyes of radical Islam. The left claims to be against such things, but when given a clear opportunity to speak out, they prefer to attack Bush again instead. It's almost as if they're... afraid.
And if it looks that way to ME, then it looks that way to Osama and to Ahmadinejad.
This moral ambiguity, this inability to make moral distinctions, is not only a philosophical disagreement with Islam as to the nature of man and society; it is a death sentence for American culture. Liberals do not believe it is worth defending and will not do it. Radical Islamists do EVERYTHING they do in defense (best defense is a good offense) of their culture.
Can half of us defend our culture, fighting the other half of us as well as our enemies?
We are, sadly, in the process of finding out the answer to that question. It is not looking particularly hopeful at present.
Meanwhile, conservative blogs are attempting a last-minute organization of an anti-Ahmadinejad mass protest at Ground Zero next week, which they hope will generate enough of a press of human bodies to block the dwarf's visit to the site.
And since this is New York, and since this dwarf likely paid for and supported in some measure the destruction of the towers and the murder of thousands in this city, it is entirely possible they will rally and make their point. I hope so.
If I had not recently adopted a sick kitten, I'd fly up there and join them.
But the little guy needs me. :-)
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