Peter Smith A Fog of Generalised Imbecility
Many of what pass these days for mature adults believe the views of sixteen-year-olds are worth taking into account, and why wouldn’t they? Their own views are baseless invocations of ideas blowing in the wind, therefore no more valid than those of callow youths.
I am glad to say that when I was sixteen I had no views at all. My recollection is that having views was not encouraged. Every mature adult knew that the views of a sixteen-year-old were worthless. Now views have supplanted building blocks. They are, if you like, anchorless views. Accordingly, the new breed of mature adults thinks that the views of sixteen-year-olds are worth taking into account. Why wouldn’t they? Their own views are baseless invocations of ideas blowing in the wind and therefore no more valid than those of callow youths.
The manifestation of this trend towards generalised imbecility is what I call foggy thinking. I was in quite a few ‘pea-soupers’ when growing up in England. You simply couldn’t see a metre in front or behind you. I can only assume that pea soup has crept into commentators’ cranial cavities.
The number of deaths from guns dwarfs deaths from terrorist attacks in the US we are regularly told by left-wing commentators. Juan Williams on Fox News is the latest I have heard spouting this guff during a discussion of the Islamic massacre in Berlin. Quite honestly, what are we supposed to take from this kind of comment?
Anthony Daniels (aka Theodore Dalrymple) spoofed it brilliantly in Quadrant a little time ago. I recall he suggested that Britain in WWII might have been better served concentrating on reducing heart attacks than on countering the blitz, which took far fewer lives.
A related topic that generally has me weeping in frustration is the thought, often propagated by conservative commentators, that it is extremely difficult to identify the few among Muslim migrants who might do us physical harm. The implication is that if ‘extreme vetting’ worked it would be fine to allow Western societies to be inundated by ‘peace-loving’ Muslims. No, it wouldn’t, dummies!
The Devil is a novice. His biggest trick is to convince us that he doesn’t exist. In the face of survey after survey showing religious and social intolerance among Muslim communities most everywhere and in the face of supposedly democratic Muslim countries like Indonesia and Pakistan wanting to punish and execute their citizens for insulting Islam, apparently the vast majority of Muslims are fine and dandy. And this narrative gains strength after each horrific Islamic terrorist massacre. What a trick!
Here we have subscribers to a supremacist, intolerant and violent creed being given a pass because only a relative few (tens of thousands, or is it more?) of their number out of 1.6 billion are monstrous literalists. Well, these monsters could not and do not emerge from a vacuum. They are a product of their creed; a vile excretion from the mass of subscribers.
The trick goes on. The Bible is violent too, say the foggy brains. Oh well, that is alright then, are we are meant to retort? Really, where in the world does this lead? It leads nowhere of course. But if your mind is addled nowhere is as good as anywhere else.
The Bible is certainly violent in part. Unfortunately I am not a biblical scholar. However, the violence in the Old Testament is, to my knowledge, almost all concerned with the Jews battling and killing people in their way of reaching the Promised Land, thousands of years’ ago. No continuing imprimatur is given to killing or enslaving or subjugating non-believers, as in the Koran. But this aside, we do not have a problem with Jews or Christians wantonly enslaving and killing those of different beliefs, or of thousands of clerics preaching hatred. If we had that problem it would be a problem. But we don’t, so it isn’t. Why am I saying it like that? In the faint hope that even addled brains might catch on.
I will switch tracks while staying among foggy brains. The DNC and John Podesta’s emails were ‘hacked’ during the US presidential campaign. I don’t know exactly what took place or who did it. However it is widely thought to be the result of a phishing attack. This is where people are emailed and encouraged to reveal their log-on details through some subterfuge. We need stronger cyber security and firewalls, I often hear from talking heads.
Stronger cyber security and firewalls might be required. I have no idea. But what the foggy brains on both side of the aisle didn’t explain to me is how cyber security can prevent people from giving away their log-on details. If I give away my Gmail password people will be able to see my emails and send out salacious Weiner-type emails as though they came from me. This won’t require Vladimir and the apparatus of the Russian state to mount a full frontal computer attack on my firewall. These people who talk about this simply don’t connect dots – not for people like me who were educated before post-modernists took over schools and universities.
I will switch tracks for the last time – though, of course, I could go on and on. Donald Trump exhibited classic racism, we were told by fair-weather Republican ally, Speaker Paul Ryan. Gonzalo Curiel is in the frame as presiding judge. Curiel was appointed by President Obama, is a member of a La Raza Lawyers Association whose members act for illegal migrants. A class action was brought against Trump University by a legal firm which gave large sums of money to the Clintons. Trump argued that his side of the case was being treated unfairly in court. He believed that the case had taken on a political dimension and commented that his own strong stand on illegal Mexican immigration may have affected the judge’s ability to act objectively.
Time and time again, I heard the muddled, addled and fogged brains say that Trump had said that Curiel’s Mexican heritage should disqualify him from hearing the case. The problem is that he didn’t say that. He said that Curiel’s Mexican heritage might be influencing his judgment in this particular case. This is no more racist than a black defendant claiming that an all white jury might be biased against him. For rare sense among the nonsense, read Patrick Buchannan.
Buchannan is obviously old school. He is part of a dying breed. Pretty soon everyone will be wandering around in the fog. Pea-soup brains will prevail. At question is whether Western civilisation will survive it.
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