Moral Retardation & Islamophobia

You will have to excuse a somewhat longish introduction but I think it necessary to set the tone for the whole post.

One of the smartest people on the web today, a blogger par excelance is Gagdad Bob who writes One Cosmos and who's banner proclaims:

Circumnavelgazing the Whole Existentialada of Lumin Development with a Seer's Prattleogue of Joycey Jimgnostics, Verticalesthetics, Dilettantric Yoga, Stand-up Cosmology, Wide Angle Pneumography, Extreme Seeking, Freevangelical Pundamentalism, Darwhiggian Evolution, and Buddhaflaw Correcting, all in a Reluxing Atmasphere of Omade Jehovial Witticisms

Bob's site never ever under any circumstances ceases to amaze me at both his insight, and his love of punny stuff. For who else could string together such a lengthy list of puns and gags? But, I digress. I always feature one of Bob's brilliant pieces in my series "Brief Politico-therapies: A Tour of the Psychbloggers." Today, I was scanning both an email from the indescribable Larwyn and a post from Gagdad Bob and I came across the term "Moral Retardation," and it struck me what a profound term that is, because it so well describes o much of what we call the left and the cult of islamofascism. Bob stated:

The moral retardation of so many leftists just astonishes me. And it is literally retardation, for just as one may be mentally retarded but a decent person, one may be intellectually brilliant but a moral imbecile, as so many leftist professors prove (not that they're so brilliant, either). Violence is good or bad, depending entirely upon the uses to which it is put."

[...]

Yes, fighting fascists will only create more fascists! Until we kill all of them.

At a particularly dark time of the war, "when Germany's panzer divisions turned west, Allied armies collapsed under the ferocious onslaught, and British ships were streaming across the Straits of Dover from Dunkirk, [Gandhi] wrote furiously to the Viceroy of India: 'This manslaughter must be stopped. You are losing; if you persist, it will only result in greater bloodshed. Hitler is not a bad man....'" [by the bye, read the whole thing]

So, Gandhi was, except for who he was willing to bow down to, a early modern dhimmi.

And, the suggestions that Gandhi made for European Jews was morally reprehensible in suggesting mass suicide as a "moral" response. As Bob notes, after the war when the extent of the holocaust became known, Gandhi was alleged to have said "that the Jews died anyway, didn't they? They might as well have died significantly."

Moral Retardation! That is what we are going to talk about when it comes to the islamofacist and their supporters. I'm sure you are as tired of being called an Islamophobe as I am, but when you get right down to it, it is a meaningless term used by morally retarded individuals who wish to see only one side of any dust-up involving Muslims. Let's get at least one thing straight, a phobia is a real disorder involving an irrational fear of a person, place, thing or situation. And the fear is such, that it interferes with normal day to day living/functioning. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 4th ed. (text revision) (DSM-IV TR) has a diagnostic code of 300.29 for any given specific phobia. Thus, Coulrophobia (a fear of clowns) is given a diagnosis something like this:

Axis I: 300.29 Coulrophobia

Don't laugh, people who have true phobias are in many ways quite miserable in their fear. But again, I digress, so the term of islamophobia is a fauxphobia if you will. If someone is out to kill you (oh, not you specifically necessarily, for example they are not out to kill GM Roper, that I know of) but out to set bombs and other devices designed for mass death it is not an irrational fear.

If I believed, in spite of all available evidence that Islamists were out to kill me, the appropriate diagnosis might be paranoia. If I tremble and exhibit fight or flight symptoms in the presence of a Muslim, that might well be a case of islamophobia. But being angry at Muslims for not standing up to the islamofascists in their midst is not islamophobia, it is plain old anger, and not misplaced anger.

In the past, when Christians have trespassed the bounds of decency such as bombing abortion clinics, or a certain well known TV Evangelist saying that the tragedy of 9/11 may be God's wrath being visited on sinful America, the backlash against this was immediate and pronounced and most often, dealt with swiftly and succinctly. That has been almost universal. Even the bloodshed in Northern Ireland was denounced by a majority of Christians. Not so the trepidations of the islamofascists by other "moderate" Muslims. At least not more than a few.

Which brings us right back to the concept of Moral Retardation. There can be no response to the violence of the islamofascists other than to beat it back swiftly and harshly. To do otherwise is to embrace their tactics at worst, and at best a reprehensible bow to inhuman tactics. The Democrats (and others) who inveigh against the war in Iraq (or, if you are an avid reader of the New York Times inveigh against fighting Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia or as James Taranto says in the Wall Street Journals "Best of the Web Today:"

"al Qaeda Which Has Nothing to Do With Iraq in Mesopotamia Which Also Has Nothing to Do With Iraq Even Though It's Another, More Poetic Name for Iraq Which Has Nothing to Do With al Qaeda, a Homegrown Iraqi Group That Has Nothing to Do With Iraq Even Though It Is Mostly Iraqi, Albeit With Some Foreign Involvement Which Has Nothing to Do With Iraq."

Convoluted to say the least. Yet, we can see in the left and in the Democratic party specific signs that indicate that there is no belief in this war, that it was a mistake, that it should have been a "police action" at most and preferably we would have negotiated with our enemies. Although they do not say how you negotiate with people that are actively trying to kill you.

If one cannot see that the reaction to a bunch of cartoons and ink drawings that call for beheading and death for the artist is over the top, the moral retardation is profound. What ever happened to the stalwart fellow who used to say "I don't agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it?" What happened to liberalism? I'm old enough to remember when the staunchest anti-communists were part and parcel of the Democratic Party, that their willingness to tolerate a despotic and violent system was close to zero. Where did those people go? Have they all died out? Have they been replaced by those who say that islamofascism is just another belief just like Christianity and Judaism or Hinduism and Buddhism?

The chorus from the left is almost non-existent, except to say "Get out of Iraq," or perhaps a plea to "negotiate" with Iran or Syria. Cannot those people see the ultimate aim of the islamofascists? Cannot they tell that the tactics used by islamofascists and their supporters, those who hold up signs saying "Behead those who insult Islam" are beyond the pale? Is the moral retardation that profound?

I cannot help but wonder where and when there will be another strike of unimaginable proportions. Is that what it will take to wake up these people? Does the multiple arrests worldwide of would be terrorists complete with finding the ingredients of explosive devices not convince you that this is indeed a war of belief? If it doesn't, count yourself in with the other moral retardates, for you see, but you do not believe, you see, but you do not understand what is laid out before you in simple black and white.

So, the Diagnostic Criteria for Moral Retardation can be stated fairly easily:

An inability to comprehend the evil of islamofascism that occurs prior to the age of 100 and is pervasive in all or almost all of political thought and the presence of two or more of the following:

A belief that western values and traditions are a direct cause of increasing violence by the islamofascists.

An inability to roundly condemn the tactics of beheading, explosive devices set off among non-military targets.

A belief that George Bush is an evil greater than any other.

A belief that all cultures are morally equivalent.

An inability to understand that the very values that allow one to condemn the west, would be silenced should the islamofascists take over any political organization.

Others may be able to add to the criteria, but for now, and for arguments sake, these are posted for your consideration.

Update: A great example of Moral Retardation here.

Posted by GM Roper at September 6, 2007 08:32 AM | TrackBack