Thursday, November 03, 2005

Peters Tells It Like It Is

Ralph Peters sums it up exactly:
“Global intellectuals and Islamist terrorists share common enemies — the United States, Israel and the West in general. They're unified by a disdain for freedom, capitalism and democracy — especially the latter. … Islamist fanatics are willing to kill millions to fortify and purify their religion — just as intellectuals excused Stalin's purges and Mao's mass slaughters in the name of building communist utopias.”
Of course, they’d like to forget the 100 million killed by Communism as they romanticize Stalinists who temporarily lost their jobs in the 1950s. Ralph is just getting started:

“After destroying their communist-socialist dream-world, perhaps the cruelest thing Americans have done to intellectuals is to ignore them when things get serious.”

Wait, here’s another:
“[They] let countless others die, if only the theory holds. Excuse genocide, if it frustrates Washington. Paint faith-maddened murderers as freedom fighters, if it somehow embarrasses America. Deny that the wretched of the earth might desire human rights and freedom. Betray the weak. And vilify anyone who takes America's side.”
And that’s only a sample. I knew our military guys were tough in the field, but this retired Lieutenant Colonel and son of a coal miner, takes no prisoners in print. And it is rewarding to finally see this expressed in a print and in a major daily newspaper.

8 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Forty years ago Ayn Rand characterized this phenomenon as "an unholy alliance between savagery and decadence."

The more things change...

11/3/05, 2:57 PM  
Blogger Jason Pappas said...

Excellent quote from “Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal” (page 190) I had long forgotten that particular essay. Here’s the full quote:

“With most of the world in ruins, with the voice of philosophy silent and the last remnants of civilization vanishing undefended, in an unholy alliance of savagery and decadence, bloody thugs are fighting over the spoils, while the cynical pragmatists left in charge and way out of their depth are trying to drown their panic at Europe's cocktail parties, where emasculated men and hysterical, white-lipped women determine the fate of the world by declaring that socialism is chic.”

That’s an interesting quote. Substitute “socialism” with “Islam” and you see the odd sight of those who normally shun religion and absolutism, now championed poor misunderstood Islamists. These same intellectuals, who normally posture as pacifists (or something infinitesimally close), have empathy for the savage suicide bombers that deliberately target civilized people. Dissolute, effete, and so-sophisticated, the faux-intellectual wallows in relativism but stands in awe of the brute force of the Islamic enemy. That last apparent paradox is actually the major thrust of Rand’s “For the New Intellectual.”

My excitement at Peters clear hard-hitting rhetoric, reminded me of how much I miss such moral and intellectual clarity. And your reminder that Rand was a master of resolving the connections between seeming opposites, reminds me of how much I miss that woman's hard-hitting no-nonsense logic.

Thanks, Grant.

11/3/05, 9:54 PM  
Blogger gandalf said...

Such refreshment, it almost goes to your head.
Alas our politicians on both sides of the pond would choke on these words, they do not have the moral fibre to make such a stance and we may all suffer the consequences of such weakness.

11/4/05, 3:11 AM  
Blogger beakerkin said...

The problem at hand is these intellectuals do not have to do real work and are detached from reality. I would love to see a book by Cuban , Cambodians etc called thank you lefties for the horrors they unleashed.

11/4/05, 5:52 AM  
Blogger Always On Watch said...

Yes, Gandalf, Jason's site is full of "refreshment."

And our politicians are consumed with trivial matters, for the most part.

the last remnants of civilization vanishing undefended
Let it not be so!

11/4/05, 2:17 PM  
Blogger Benjamin said...

Boy, intellectuals have come a long way since the days of the European Enlightenment. Now it is more like a European Benightedment, if that is a word.

11/4/05, 6:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Colonel Peters is a prolific writer; he knows what he's talking about and government leaders should be taking notes.

11/5/05, 8:56 PM  
Blogger Cubed © said...

Peters for President! It would be great if someone with his recognition of the "situation" were in a position of setting policy.

Bush's numbers are dropping not because he initiated military action against Afghanistan and Iraq, but because he's losing the wars. Nobody loves a loser, especially when the price you pay for losing is very, very high.

And Jason, thank you for your quote; we MUST stop letting the collectivists have their way with our kids, and teach our kids philosophy so that they can understand why Islam is the bad guy, and why the Founders were the good guys.

I'm giving serious thought to developing an online course for parents and kids, a la Sylvan tutorial centers, to attempt an end run around our government schools and the Postmodernists running them.

Keep your fingers crossed; the current system is the road being taken by Islam, thanks to the Postmodernists, to destroy our country.

11/6/05, 9:51 AM  

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