Mark Steyn argues that Major Nidal Hasan had an enabler to his slaughter:
Still the old refrain echoes through the corridors of power: vigorous honest free speech will lead to mass murder unless we subject it to “reasonable limits.”
Actually, the opposite is true: a constrained and regulated culture policed by politically correct enforcers leads to slaughter. I’m not being speculative here, as Commissar Lynch is about my murderous prose style. It’s already happened, just a couple of weeks back. Thirteen men and women plus an unborn baby were gunned down at Fort Hood by a major in the U.S. Army. Nidal Hasan was the perpetrator, but political correctness was his enabler, every step of the way. In the days that followed, the near parodically absurd revelations piled up like an overripe satire, but a two-panel cartoon at the Toronto blogger Scaramouche’s website provided the pithiest distillation:
“This is your brain. This is your brain on political correctness”—a small and shrivelled thing.
Actually, political correctness is not the cause but instead a symptom of thoroughgoing moral equivalency.
And what’s the cure for that?
Wow! Good find, and right on point. Thanks for posting it.
Lex, out of curiosity have you ever read Allan Bloom’s “Closing of the American Mind?”
If anyone on this blog hasn’t I would highly recommend it. It’s, unfortunately, a very difficult and extremely hard to understand read, but it goes straight to the heart of moral equivalency and its effects on societies. Not surprisingly it’s no good. But the book was written in the early to mid ’80’s and is looking more and more prescient and haunting by the day.
instead a symptom of thoroughgoing moral equivalency.
I got hit between the eyes with that yesterday. Got to talking with a relative about PTSD. As part of conversation, mentioned some of the horrors of the battles of Fallujah that I’ve been told, including one about a child being killed in order to make a booby trap of their body. My relatives response was a serious, “Yes, that’s war” that in context seemed to be just a bit of moral equivalency, as the topic was the brutality of the enemy and how that made some soldiers have zero problems ending the life of an enemy combatant. I couldn’t help but blurt out, “Well yes, but you don’t find American soldiers doing that!” The relative’s response was a non-committal, “One would hope not.” (no ironic tone, but it bothered me).
I let it go because it was too subtle. It’s been bugging me ever since, though. I’ve been resisting the urge to email her and explain that she may not have a picture of the enemy the allied forces in Iraq were fighting…
Yeah, moral equivalency.
One of the more curious features of Windows is the rollback feature, allowing one to set the system back to a point where things function properly again. Would that we could roll back society to a point where candor and integrity went unimpeded by rationalization.
In regards to free speech, I am a strict Taftian. William Howard Taft, as Supreme Court Chief Justice, remarked that, ” We must afford the greatest protection to the speech we find most offensive, for if that is banned, where will it stop “? What other view could an intelligent life form have?
Does that mean we can’t tell the likes of Rosie to STFU?
“Actually, political correctness is not the cause but instead a symptom of thoroughgoing moral equivalency. And what’s the cure for that?”
Isn’t the cure for moral equivalency the conviction that some things are objectively and forever right, and others are wrong? Isn’t conscience, “the law of God in their hearts”, strengthened by courage without which we are in C.S. Lewis’ phrase, “men without chests”? Soviet dissidents didn’t have the problem of moral equivalence. But then, they had faith – the belief there were some things worth dying for. Isn’t faith the cure for moral equivalency?
“So then, each one of us will give an account of himself…” In the battle between Hasan’s faith and his superiors’ apparent lack thereof, why should we be surprised at the result? I’m a physician, not a military man, but isn’t it true that the greatest danger in battle is not when you face the enemy, but when you turn and run?
“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.” H. L. Mencken
Those who intend to create an earthly utopia are often willing to set up guillotines in the public square to hasten its arrival. As long as they are in charge (some pigs always being more equal), they care not one whit for the condition of their charges. Their motto is hurray for you, hurray for me, and if we ever disagree…hurray for me.
Yes, Gray, anything in the name of the public health and safety–it’s all for the children, dontcha know.. As I’ve commented here before on this general topic, it’s no accident Robespierre’s deux ex machina was named “The Committee On Public Safety.”
Yeah, they always do it for our own good. Those are the people to truly fear. It also pretty much describes the left in this country.
Some comments on things done for our own good, or the general welfare:
I think I got the C.S. Lewis quote here.
Also, check out: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig4/ellis1.html
How often does Rahm Immanuel check in with his Uncle Screwtape, anyway?
Joe, don’t bother faxing and/or e-mailing those three quotes to Obama, lefties avoid historical reality like Dracula avoids the cross. Remember when Rush was playing those audio quotes of JFK about low taxes being the secret to economic growth? Dead Ted and much of the left went bezerk about the “improper” usage of his brother’s utterances–as if JFKs public statements were somehow exclusively the domain
of the left to do with as they, and they alone, saw fit. ANYTHING that challenges their version of the way the world works is forbidden territory.
SO TRUE. Think of the crime reports you hear on the radio these days. Tell me, do you recall the description of the ’suspects’ being sought to include anything to do with race / ethnicity?? Doesn’t happen too often in my experience and I am a radio listener. Similar with security checks at whatever venue. PC has been the death of open discourse; it might be the actual death of a lot of us over time, too.
Do not abide, no matter what The Dude says.
There are a few simple clues. If no race is mentioned, the thug is black or hispanic. Whites are almost always called white or caucasion.
If no weapon was mentioned, it was not a gun. Guns always get mentioned. And any semi-auto is an “assault weapon.” In some areas, any repeter is an assault weapon.
See, now, Lex and friends … This is why I officially gave up on Political Correctness and Multiculturalism a few years ago. And, amazingly, the skies cleared for me, since I didn’t have to tiptoe around trying not offend the Religion of Perpetual Outrage and other hypersensitive folks. If we are going to be accused of racism for holding opinions [which are *not* racist] anyway, let’s go for the gold and say what we believe, in as firm and courteous a way as possible. Yes, indeedy, Hasan is a self-absorbed illogical Muslim Terrorist. And I wouldn’t let him psychologically counsel my pet cat, much less any human being I cared about. And yes, Mr. Obama, you need a backbone transplant, indeed you do, as well as a crash course in American history and world history before you make any more disastrous errors which reflect poorly on your constituents, who are far, far better people than you give them credit for.
If these reasoned and reasonable conclusions mean that I should be shunned as a racist and all-around mean person — too bad. The death panels have already stamped my ‘pull date’ on my forehead, and it’s every man and woman for himself/herself.
As my grandmother always said, “if someone insults you, consider the source.”
There! I already feel better.
Marianne
What part of the Army’s failure to discharge then-Captain Hasan or at least not promote him to Major may be ascribed to “politically correct” instruction from the Pentagon? The Army is woefully short of medical professionals. Almost everyone gets promoted; Christian, Muslim, White, Brown, Green.
After a recent tour counseling soldiers at West Point, I could not help but notice how little some things had changed since my last time there on exchange weekend from USNA, many decades before. When the Services are short of manpower, it becomes politically correct to promote the less deserving. When I was serving as an instructor pilot, the Maintenance Officer confided in me one day that the only reason he got promoted to O-5 was due to his combat tour in Vietnam.
It’s always been thus, and can’t be attributed to PC. Men going into the military right after Pearl Harbor were shocked at the low quality of the NCOs that rose during the depression.
The problem with Hasan, OTH, was PC. With the paper following him, he should have been cashiered years ago. That he wasn’t is a demonstration of the cowardice of the Officer Corps.