Wednesday, July 9, 2008

'Dehumanizing our opponents'

From The Macho Response:

"'The Iranian regime epitomizes evil,' you say. While we may rightly abhor and condemn the archconservative social policies of that regime, surely we should reserve extreme terms like "evil" for the genuine monsters of history, like Nero, Vlad the Impaler or Hitler. Calling every petty regional dictator 'evil' is ultimately counterproductive by coarsening our political discourse and dehumanizing our opponents."

-- Camille Paglia, being extremely relativist - as a way to defend herself against the charge of being a relativist - for Salon.com"

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Heh.

I wish relativist types could explain a few things to me, though.

Feminists: You're okay with that whole virtue police thing? You know, stopping women on the street who don't dress in baggy stuff? How about that whole wives-must-submit-to-their-husbands thing? You hated that in Christianity; how 'bout Shi'a?

Free-speech-claimers: You're okay with "Let's assassinate Bush," and not "let's wipe Israel off the map?"

Ms. Paglia sez: "Calling every petty regional dictator 'evil' is ultimately counterproductive by coarsening our political discourse and dehumanizing our opponents."

You don't think enriching uranium to create a weapon to wipe out an entire country is evil? You don't think Iran could possibly be "dehumanizing (its) opponents?"
No, I guess not. "Coarsening our political discourse" is a far greater crime. Sorry. I must have missed my last Newspeak class.

Sheesh.

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