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Published on The Brussels Journal (http://www.brusselsjournal.com)

All People Are Good, Except You

By The Brussels Journal
Created 2008-05-15 09:48

A quote from Lawrence Auster at his blog, 15 May 2008

The key to the [Ontario Human Rights] Commission's thinking is in its labeling, as wrongful "Islamophobia," the view that Islam is a threat to the West. The assumption underlying such a judgment, whether about Islamophobia or bigotry generally, is that all people are good (except for people who don't believe that all people are good), and that no people can be a threat (except for those people who believe that some people can be a threat). Since all people (that is, all people who don't hate nothing except hatred) are good, and since no people are enemies (except for the people who believe that there are enemies), any negative statement about a group (except for negative statements about the society's own majority group) is by definition a false, vicious, dehumanizing attack on that group.

The core error of this liberal view is that it never considers the possibility that some people and groups (other than the majority peoples of the West) may indeed be enemies. Specifically, it never entertains the possibility that Islam is in fact a threat to the West. If Islam is a threat to the West, then saying that Islam is a threat to the West is not an act of bigotry but a statement of truth and part of a legitimate effort to protect the West from a real enemy. By condemning and punishing such defense as illegal bigotry, modern liberalism prohibits the West from defending itself.

In short, liberalism has taken group conflict, a normal feature of human history, and turned it into an immoral act, with the further twist that only the West is capable of exhibiting such immorality against other groups, while other groups are incapable of exhibiting the same immorality against the West.

How does liberalism get away with seeing only Westerners' negative statements about Islam as wrongful, but not Muslims' threatening statements about the West? Very simple. Under liberalism, there is no society "here" to be attacked. Under liberalism, Canada is not a substantive entity--not a nation, not a culture, not a people, not a "group." Canada is, instead, a system for the promotion of human rights. Not being a concrete group or culture, Canada cannot be an object of bigotry. But Muslims and other immigrants, who are concrete entities, can be objects of bigotry. Muslims are a group and therefore deserve to be protected from discrimination. Canadians are not a group and therefore do not require protection from discrimination.

In short, Western peoples do not need protection under the modern liberal order because modern liberalism, in its very premises, has already defined the Western peoples out of existence. This is why it's a waste of time looking for liberals and mainstream conservatives (who accept the premises of liberalism as much as the liberals do) to protect us. Under modern liberalism, the Western peoples have already in principle ceased to exist, and all that's left is the mopping up operation.


Source URL:
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3255