Elevated Thought And Argument
October 11, 2007
On October 9th, in London, Ibn Warraq debated Tariq Ramadan and he won the high-profile debate hands-down. The debate, known as Intelligence Squared, and sponsored by the Spectator, demands that the audience vote before the debate and again at its conclusion.
The subject was: ‘We Should Not Be Reluctant to Assert the Superiority of Western Values’. Ibn Warraq was joined by Douglas Murray and David Aaronovitch. Opposing them were Tariq Ramadan, William Dalrymple, and Charles Glass. At the end of the dramatic two-hour debate, the 700 audience members cast their votes.
The podcast debate is nothing short of extraordinary. Links to the podcast can be found here.
We will have our own follow up post.
Another example of elevated thought is Dr Sanity’s Ammunition For The War Of Ideas At Home.
In other words, even if our efforts succeed in Iraq (as they finally appear to be doing), this coalition of defeat will not be appeased or comforted. They had the same defeatist attitude towards Afghanistan, and are unwilling to acknowledge the remarkable success that has occurred there and are not-so-secretely gratified that the Karzai government is still battling the Taliban in its various reincarnations. The freeing of millions of people and enabling Afghanistan to have the first democratic government in its history was not enough. Freeing millions is not enough. Liberating the women of two countries is not enough. Enabling Democracy and planting the seeds that is not enough. Preventing attacks on the homeland for 4 years is not enough.
Dr Sanity’s ideas and words do not originate in a vacuum. From The Lefts’ Theory Of Relativity:
As a group that wholeheartedly subscribes to moral relativity and subjective ethics, it makes perfect sense that they have no problem with any “moral authority” as long as that authority just happens to agree with and justify their beliefs.
After all, if morality is relative; if truth is subjective and there is no objective “good” or “bad”; then why bother to look any further?
Thus we must conclude that the moral relativism that characterizes the left’s equation of terrorism with America; deliberate targeting of innocents with herculean efforts to spare innocent life; Bush with Hitler; Iraq with Vietnam; and the use of the global warming debate (and it is still a debate) to morally impugn their critics, while exhibiting the most obvious hypocrisy themselves–all this suggests that these issues are are simple rhetorical devices that are used to manipulate and forward their socialist / totalitarian agenda.
The truth is that the postmodern leftists don’t need to believe anything that they say. In fact, they can easily ignore evidence that contradicts their arguments; never acknowledge that their arguments (or more precisely, their beliefs) have been debunked and; and ultimately they can simply redefine words or resort to word games (the various meanings of “is” for example); or move the goalposts (those aren’t the WMD’s we were looking for) when convenient.
The fact remains that there isn’t really any war of ideas. The real war is between the grand idea and work in progress that is western civilization and the highly developed psychopaths that are representative of broken and failed ideologies, ideas and political systems that abhor the freedom western values embrace.
Those who hate us want to measure freedom and democracy by our failures and stumbles along the way. They deliberately obfuscate the reality that free people get up, dust themselves off and make every effort to get it right. Those who hate us refuse to acknowledge our progress and they refuse to see how democracy, freedom and the free market and exchange of ideas have elevated the individual and society.
Democracy has created the environment where generations of people have been blessed by never knowing freedom or the violent overthrow of government. Generations of people have never known what it means to be persecuted for their cultural identities or their religious beliefs. Generations of people of people have no idea what it means to be persecuted for their political beliefs and associations.
Democracies have made mistakes- more than can be counted, but in the end, free nations always self correct and elevate the meaning and value of freedom.
The same cannot be said for those that hate us and those who defend them. Those nations that hate freedom and those people who defend them only descend into ever greater hate, repression and oppression.
Just listen to them.
Off The Mountain: Matt Sanchez’ Birds Eye View
October 11, 2007
Do you believe you have the whole picture when it comes to Afghanistan? Do you think you know what’s going on Iraq? Well, chances are you don’t- and we’re going to fix that.
Last night, Fausta hosted Matt Sanchez and ourselves in a terrific BlogTalk Radio podcast. Notwithstanding that Sanchez had some technical difficulties and called in late, the podcast was extended and turned out to be noting less than a terrific and eye opening examination of the realities in Iraq- realities that the MSM are not reporting.
Sanchez is one of only 33 reporters in all of Iraq- a nation that is geographically the size of Utah with a population that is equal to the states of New York and New Jersey combined. To put that another way and in perspective, there are more network news staff in Billings, Montana than there are in all of Iraq. Further, the majority of the reporters in Iraq are huddled in Baghdad hotel rooms, with no first hand experience in the field.
Not so Matt Sanchez. Unlike most of his journalist ‘colleagues,’ Sanchez is embedded with fighting troops and reports from the battlefront. He is as comfortable in remote regions along the Syriam border as he is walking down the streets in Baghdad or Basra. He has been in Afghanistan and has seen remote villages where the Taliban are welcomed and others, we they are scorned.
Sanchez puts the pictures broadcast from Iraq into the proper focus. His is a wide angle and panoramic view, unlike the deliberately cropped, and edited images and ideas that are the mainstay of the MSM menu.
We discussed how Iraqis regard the Americans and the little mentioned real cooperation between the Iraqi Army and our own troops. We talked about the missing WMD’s- a subject most Iraqis want to avoid and we talked about Al Qaeda in Iraq.
We also discussed the Shia/Sunni rift and Iran. Matt’s take on that will upend everything you think you know about Iraq.
Fausta’s BlogTalk Radio podcast with Matt Sanchez and ourselves is one of the best we’ve ever done.
