Via Julian Sanchez, I find James Wolcott’s scathing review of Dinesh D’Souza’s upcoming book, The Enemy at Home. I love a no-holds-barred book review, especially of a book as dishonest and freedom-hating as this one seems to be.
This, though, made me do a double-take:
“I am saying that the cultural left and its allies in Congress, the media, Hollywood, the nonprofit sector [profiteers are always patriots, of course], and the universities are the primary cause of the volcano of anger toward America that is erupting from the Islamic world.”
[...]
“Thus without the cultural left, 9/11 would not have happened.”
I like that “Thus,” as if he’s actually proven something.
“I realize that this is a strong charge,” D’Souza writes, “one that no one has made before.”
But wait. That argument sounds awfully familiar. Didn’t somebody say that at the time? A quick google shows that yes, somebody did. Jerry Falwell in mid-September 2001:
“The ACLU has got to take a lot of blame for this. And I know I’ll hear from them for this, but throwing God…successfully with the help of the federal court system…throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools, the abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked and when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad…I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America…I point the thing in their face and say you helped this happen.”
So he’s not even original. On the other hand, even Falwell apologized.
October 17th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
Well, to be fair, Falwell said “evil liberals made God smite us, using crazy Muslims as a tool” and D’Souza said “evil liberals pissed off crazy Muslims.” Same motive, different means, different perpetrator.
But I agree with both of them, actually. I’m sure that all the cool secular society stuff we do DOES in fact piss off Falwell’s God and crazy Muslims. And I’m sure that’s part of (it would be hard to objectively dissect exactly what % of what American actions influenced which terrorist motivations, much less grasp the Will of God Himself!) what pissed off 19 stupid, murderous thugs. I’m just glad it does, and proud of it If Jerry Falwell’s god and D’Souza’s medieval Muslims are angry at me, then I’ve got to be doing something right.
October 17th, 2006 at 12:07 pm
I’ve also pissed off the God of proper punctuation and typographical errors, apparently.
October 17th, 2006 at 5:34 pm
Brian, that is a good point. I guess Falwell’s version is creepier, postulating that his own God engages in regular smiting.
I do agree with you that anything that makes the crazies angry can’t be that bad!
October 18th, 2006 at 1:26 pm
Yeah, more creepy, since it obviously seems to accept that God views America as a nationalist entity, rather than as individuals. If God were really trying to smite the evil liberals, one would think that he would be more precise — every Democrat in the country should have suddenly developed terminal cancer. But instead, we’re asked to accept that God just thought “eh, I’ll just pick 3000 people in….*waves finger*… THIS building” to pay for the crimes of millions of other Americans. I’m sure there were probably some devout, good Christians who died, why were they slaughtered as well?
God is supposed to be omnipotent and all-knowing. If 9/11 is his retribution, then he is either catastrophically careless or incomprehensibly malevolent.