Atlas Shrugged: The Mocking

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Be Careful What You Wish For

Poor, stupid Jonah Goldberg. Here (via) Jonah congratulates himself for being the rock and the altar on which democracy is built, because he believes in a god. He is moral because he believes in a god, his culture is moral because it believes in a god, and his nation is a nation of god-believing, moral people. (Goldberg forgets about the other argument regarding religion, that it is needed because man is inherently sinful and must be watched every second lest he lapse into sexual abandon, but no doubt it will arise anew when it's needed.)

Somewhere in our discussion, I raise the point that most people don't
subscribe to their political views out of a serious and deep understanding
of political philosophy and policy. They believe what they believe because
that's how they were raised, not just by their parents but by their society.
The constitution may be an intellectual backstop against tyranny, but the
first line of defense is the heart and conscience of the average American.
Ours is a democratic and constitutional culture and the social capital
imbedded in culture is often far more valuable than written law. The
importance of this insight is no less formidible because it is so widely recognized, from Burke and Hayek to de Tocqueville to Samuel Huntington and countless others. So parents install belief in a god and society reinforces that belief. Belief in God leads to developing a conscience and a good heart. These, in turn, lead to a democratic and constitutional culture. If you were to jettison belief, you would also reject everything else that is good in society and mankind.

What a moron. What a crock. Although it is nice of him to admit that he's hopelessly authoritarian. Goldberg approving quotes Charles Kessler, who says:

Unfortunately, [Samuel Huntington's] Anglo-Protestant culturalism, like any
merely cultural conservatism, is no match for its liberal opponents. He persists
in thinking of liberals as devotees of the old American creed who push its
universal principles too far, who rely on reason to the exclusion of a strong
national culture. When they abjured individualism and natural rights decades
ago, however, liberals broke with that creed, and did so proudly. When they
abandoned nature as the ground of right, liberals broke as well with reason,
understood as a natural capacity for seeking truth, in favor of reason as a
servant of culture, history, fate, power, and finally nothingness. In short,
Huntington fails to grasp that latter-day liberals attack American culture
because they reject the American creed, around which that culture has formed and
developed from the very beginning.

Which are many more words that also say belief in their god is the basis for everything good in the world. Liberals use reason, not belief. They are without gods and morals. They dare to choose what they want to believe, which leads to horrors like multiculturalism. They are not One Of Us. And since they are not Us, they are weak and will not be able to defend us.

Not that Goldberg's conservative, moral strength gave him enough bravery to join up and fight the infidels in Iraq that attacked us on 9/11 because they hate our freedoms.

But let's say Goldberg gets his wish and magically (for isn't that how all things happen in ConservativeLand?) liberal influence ends, by the grace and favor of God. Who will conservatives defend themselves against? There must be an enemy, for God and the US always have enemies who envy and hate them. Who better than the infidels who reject Jesus Christ as their personal savior, thereby going through life without the magical love of Jesus in their hearts? And we all know that if you don't love Jesus, you can't be moral, or even American.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Belief in God leads to developing a conscience and a good heart. These, in turn, lead to a democratic and constitutional culture. If you were to jettison belief, you would also reject everything else that is good in society and mankind."

There are no words in the English language, which is what I'm equipped wiv, to express the opaque, self-servingly smug idiocy of this statement.

All one can say is, "Jonah, you clod: history is replete with murderers and tyrants who believed in God. They were at peace with their consciences and slept like a log every night. The very Islamo-fascists you get such a kick out of deploring believe in God a bazillion times more than you do.

"Don't you ever ask yourself if something you write is true, defensible, and sensible, before you publish it? Or would that violate the Terms of Use for Contributors at The Corner?"

I'll stop now.

Anonymous said...

I see our lad has excised the three sentences I quoted, off SOT's quote, from The Corner. I'd love to know why.

Anonymous said...

Belief in God leads to developing a conscience and a good heart? Well, I'll be damned. And here I thought belief in God was the lazy man's (or DoughBoy's) way to argue from authority in support of whatever actions or positions one wishes to take. Learn something new every day.

Anonymous said...

That Charles Kesler article contains this gem of a paragraph:

'Though not inevitable, the disorder that he discerns is fueled by at least three developments in the culture. The first is multiculturalism, which saps and undermines serious efforts at civic education. The second is "transnationalism," which features self-proclaimed citizens of the world—leftist intellectuals like Martha Nussbaum and Amy Guttman, as well as the Davos set of multinational executives, NGOs, and global bureaucrats—who affect a point of view that is above this nation or any nation. Third is what Huntington terms the "Hispanization of America," due to the dominance among recent immigrants of a single non-English language which threatens to turn America, in his words, into "a bilingual, bicultural society," not unlike Canada. This threat is worsened by the nearness of the lands from which these Spanish-speaking immigrants come, which reinforces their original nationality.'

(puts on some sunglasses I found lying around, looks at paragraph again)

'Problems: 1) Blacks 2) Jews 3) Mexicans'

Susan of Texas said...

Jonah threw his baby brain out with the reality bathwater.

CaptBackSplash, one of the most amusing aspect of Jonah's career is his willingness to get in bed with anti-semites to further his idiotic ends. He genuinely seems to have no clue that he's doing this, either. I know he is that stipid, but it's still dumbfounding to watch.

Mr. Wonderful, I wonder why he did that. It's not like the COrner has a problem with foisting religion on others.

LA Confidential Pantload, you forget that all society based on the Hebrew god are peaceful and moral. Jonah says so.

aimai said...

Good thing parents "install" instead of "instill". Sounds like a plug in.

aimai

Tommykey said...

I'm a 39 year old atheist who hasn't raped or murdered anyone yet, and I have voted in every presidential election since I became eligible. Gosh, what is wrong with me?