Another mainstream conservative opinion leader who refuses to think—and resents being asked
Last week the following exchange occurred between me and one of America’s best-known social conservatives, Gary Bauer of the Campaign for Working Families, concerning a column of his (copied at the bottom of this entry) in which he wrote that “we are a nation at war [with radical Islam].”
I wrote:
Dear Mr. Bauer,
In any community of belief, there is a tendency for people to adopt phrases because they are generally believed and used by other members of that community, without thinking whether these phrases are true or not. Among conservatives in America, one such phrase is, “We are in a war,” or, as you put it in this column, “We are a nation at war.”
Thus you write in your column:
As the saying goes, every one is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own set of facts. And the fact remains that we are a nation at war, fighting an enemy that turns babies into bombs, hides in hospitals, decapitates its prisoners and does it all “in the name of Allah.”
How can you say that we are a nation at war with radical Islam, or Islam, or whatever term you want to use, when we freely allow Muslims including radical Muslims to immigrate into and travel within the United States; when we allow hundreds or thousands of radical Muslim mosques to keep functioning in this country; when our government makes alliances with radical Muslim groups and invites them into the councils of our government; when our government prohibits any language that would imply any negative facts about Islam, radical Islam, Islamofascism, or what have you; when our leaders celebrate Islam as a religion of peace; and when we are deeply involved in helping Afghanistan, a sharia country that kills apostates? I could keep going, but I’ll stop.
Further, is it really necessary to explain that surveilling, arresting, and trying terrorists in our country (which of course I support) is not an act of waging war, but an act of enforcing the law?
“We are at war with radical Islam” is a phrase, a slogan, that does not describe reality. I think what you really mean to say is that radical Islam is at war with us, but that we are not at war with it, and indeed, are not even adequately defending ourselves from it. That would be a true statement. “We are at war with radical Islam” is not a true statement.
I ask you, please stop using this thoughtless cliché that leads people to believe in the existence of a non-existent reality.
Thank you.
Lawrence Auster
Gary Bauer replied::
Dear Mr. Auster, Thank you for your unsolicited advice on how I should write my daily commentaries. Since young Americans are fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan in combat against radical Islam, I think I will continue to describe what they are doing as “waging war.” Gary
I normally would not have directly quoted an e-mail of this nature. But the fact that a prominent figure in the conservative movement such as Bauer bristled at an “unsolicited” criticism is worthy of note and deserving of being published, as it shows how impossible it is to get our elites to reply thoughtfully to any challenge to their orthodoxy.
I replied to him:
I’m astonished at your annoyed reply to my polite and reasonably argued letter.
Questions for you:
1. Do you as a matter of practice rebuff all critical letters that come to you if you have not invited such letters first? Is it your position that commentary and the expression of opinion must be solicited by its recipient in order to be acceptable? This is certainly a new principle in opinion writing. Perhaps people should only write letters to the editor and letters to public figures if the editor or the public figures have first invited them to do so.
2. Of course, as you point out, our forces are involved in two counterinsurgency operations in two Muslim countries. But does that constitute the “war” against radical Islam that you were referring to when you wrote, “the fact remains that we are a nation at war, fighting an enemy that turns babies into bombs, hides in hospitals, decapitates its prisoners and does it all ‘in the name of Allah.’”? Clearly that sentence is referencing not only our enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan, but radical Muslims as such. So, is it your position that our nation is at war against radical Islam as such, beyond the counterinsurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan?
3. Similarly, you write, “Rest assured, friends, there are many patriots in Washington who recognize the danger we are confronting.” The entire context of your column makes it clear that by “the danger we are confronting,” you mean radical Islam as such. So, once again, is it your position that we are currently waging a war against radical Islam as such?
4. Finally you write: “We will be working closely with allies on Capitol Hill, including leaders like Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC), co-chair of the Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus, and sponsor of the ‘Wake Up America’ agenda to combat radical Islam.” This introduces a new note into your article. If you are supporting a “Wake Up America” agenda to “combat radical Islam,” the implication is that we are NOT at present combating radical Islam but that we NEED to do so. If that is your position, then you are in agreement with me that we are not at present at war with radical Islam.
So, what is your position: that we ARE at war with radical Islam; or that we are NOT at war with radical Islam, but NEED to be at war with it?
The problem with telling people that we are at war with radical Islam when we are not, is that they will think that the problem is already being taken care of, when it is not, and that our country is already being defended from radical Islam, when it is not.
As the great 1920s literary critic Irving Babbitt said, if leaders do not define the terms they are using, they may think that they are involved in a great enterprise, while in reality they are only “swimming in a sea of conceit.” You are a leader in our society. The words you use influence other people. I hope you will view my unsolicited questions as to the meaning of the words you are using as worthy of your thoughtful consideration and reply.
Lawrence Auster
Based on Bauer’s curt and non-responsive reply to my first e-mail, it is highly unlikely I’ll get a reply to my second. But at least I’ve given him a chance to show that he’s willing explain and defend his position.
Here is Bauer’s article:
Guilty
A New Jersey jury yesterday found five immigrants guilty of conspiring to murder U.S. soldiers stationed at Fort Dix. A sixth man in on the plot had already plead guilty. Thus all of the “Fort Dix Six” have been convicted of, or confessed to, plotting to commit mass murder and acts of terrorism on U.S. soil. Prosecutors in the case said the men planned to kill “as many American soldiers as possible.”
What would motivate these men to commit mass murder? During his closing arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Hammer quoted one of the defendants, Mohamad Shnewer, who said, “This religion has to prevail and we have to support it with the sword until it prevails.”
Another defendant told an FBI informant of the planned attack on Fort Dix, “I’m gonna do it… It doesn’t matter to me, whether I get locked up, arrested, or get taken away, it doesn’t matter. Or I die, doesn’t matter, I’m doing it in the name of Allah.” Like all jihadists, they were inspired by their Islamic faith and obsessed with death. Hammer also said the men were motivated, “in part by militant videos showing the beheadings of prisoners.”
Sadly, however, some “moderate” Muslim groups that purport to speak for American Muslims have adopted a very hostile tone about the convictions. Rather than praising the government for thwarting this planned terrorist attack, a spokesman for the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said, “Many people in the Muslim community will see this as a case of entrapment.”
As the saying goes, every one is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own set of facts. And the fact remains that we are a nation at war, fighting an enemy that turns babies into bombs, hides in hospitals, decapitates its prisoners and does it all “in the name of Allah.”
Rest assured, friends, there are many patriots in Washington who recognize the danger we are confronting. We will be working closely with allies on Capitol Hill, including leaders like Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC), co-chair of the Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus, and sponsor of the “Wake Up America” agenda to combat radical Islam. And we will work to defeat liberal politicians who want to gut our military, undermine homeland security and return to a pre-9/11 mindset.
- end of initial entry -
Kidist Paulos Asrat writes:
I meant to reply earlier, but this is a very disappointing response by Bauer.
It reminds me of the recent post on Dennis Prager where your commenter wrote about, as you described them, “mainstream conservatives, neoconservatives, and, in Prager’s case, conservative-leaning liberals”:
“I don’t believe Prager has ever allowed anyone, to the right of him, speak on his radio program.”
It sounds like the perennial female who doesn’t like a woman more beautiful than her to be near her.
So, in the end it is all about vanity, is it?
LA replies:
I have to say frankly that in the virtually total refusal of so many prominent mainstream conservative writers over the years to reply to my thoughtfully stated if very direct criticisms and questions on their positions, they reveal what I would call a lack of intellectual manhood.
I cannot imagine receiving a thoughtful criticism or challenge from a reader that goes to the heart of an issue, and refusing to reply to it. But this is what these mainstream conservative opinion writers do as a matter of course. They close out any question challenging them from their own right.
One particularly disappointing case was Tony Blankley. He used to reply courteously to my e-mails and even complimented me on a few occasions. Then he wrote a column in which he expressed great enthusiasm over Bush’s use of the term “Islamo-fascism” and arguing in support of the term. (In fact, Bush only used it once, but his supporters were ecstatic about it for a month before they realized he had dropped the term.) I wrote to Blankley challenging the Islamo-fascist term, showing why it is wrong, and asking him a direct question that went to the heart of the issue (“Were Muhammad and his followers Muslims, or Islamo-fascists”?), and got no reply from him. I wrote to him again, got no reply. From that moment I’ve seen him, not as a conservative writer I could respect, but as just another team-player and cheer-leader of Bush.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 28, 2008 03:45 PM | Send