RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/11/the_catastrophic_death_of_fairness.html

Some social psychologists believe that humans are biologically wired to seek “fair” relationships with others.  Some theologians believe that the soul’s capacity for distinguishing right from wrong leads a moral person toward the same result.  Whether genetically or spiritually inclined to prefer fair outcomes, we humans are not comfortable around those who cheat and prosper from duplicity.  Cheating is ugly and therefore despised.

Systemic cheating, however, now dominates Western life.  Elevating “diversity for diversity’s sake” over all other metrics for gauging achievement has reduced merit and hard work to second-class virtues.  Rewarding illegal aliens with amnesty has cheapened the sacrifices of those lawful immigrants who have struggled to integrate into their new home countries.  Allowing delusional men to dominate women’s sports has cheated female athletes of a fair playing field for pursuing excellence.  In ways big and small, “woke” governments, corporations, and academic institutions cheat Western citizens of the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of their own labors.

Of course, systemic cheating is disguised in language that sounds noble.  “Woke” Marxists use “fairness” jiujitsu to force disingenuous and unprincipled change. 

Unfairly promoting a less talented person over a more talented person because of his respective skin colors is celebrated as a victory for “diversity” — a reminder that in the twenty-first century, racists are still obsessed with how a person looks at the expense of what thoughts occupy his mind.  Without any public debates or votes, governments have replaced “equal treatment under the law” with “equitable” redistribution — or, in layman’s terms, “special treatment under the law” — so that certain classes of people can benefit at the expense of others.  

In an amazing instance of Orwellian “doublespeak,” the State categorizes those classes that are unfairly rewarded as “underprivileged” and the people against whom it discriminates as “privileged.”  Never in human history have people with “privilege” felt so marginalized.  All this cheating is done for the stated purpose of “including” many different kinds of people, but it depends entirely on “excluding” people to obtain fraudulently manufactured and prejudiced results.  

https://www.frontpagemag.com/still-delusional-after-all-these-years/

Recently Barack Obama opined on Israel’s war with Hamas, and predictably reprised all the received wisdom that our politicians on both sides of the aisles have indulged since 9/11. One comment in particular evoked one of the more dangerous takes on the conflict with modern jihadism––that this venerable doctrine of Islam is some sort of heresy or extremism that doesn’t represent Muslims worldwide.

In the context of the current war with Hamas, according to ABC news, Obama said of Israel’s campaign,  “‘There are people right now who are dying who have nothing to do with what Hamas did,’ Obama said, making the distinction between Palestinians who live in Gaza and the militant group Hamas, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization.”

We’ll pass over the mendacious euphemism “the militant group Hamas,” and the implication that the accurate description “terrorist organization” is merely a prejudiced slur by U.S. security agencies. More important is Obama’s variation on the cringing and dishonest phrase “nothing to do with what Islam,” an echo of the Western apologists after 9/11 who regularly chanted this lie.

The use of this duplicitous formula transcends political party. After 9/11, the Bush administration no doubt thought that such rhetorical distortions would pacify Muslims and show them that we’re “not at war with Islam.”  Verbal preemptive cringes abounded in Bush’s speeches, such as the following: “Our enemy [al Qaeda] doesn’t follow the great traditions of Islam. They’ve hijacked a great religion . . . All Americans must recognize that the face of terror is not the true face of Islam . . . It’s a faith based upon love not hate.”

Anybody even vaguely familiar with traditional Islamic doctrine and history knows that this flabby ecumenicalism is at best well-meaning wishful thinking, at worst a talking-point for malignant apologists. Listen to Ibn Khaldun (d.1406), one of Islam’s most significant and revered historians and philosophers: “In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the [Muslim] mission and [the obligation to] convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.” So too, Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 1328), another important Muslim theorist of jihad: “Since lawful warfare is essentially jihad and since its aim is that the religion is God’s entirely and God’s word is uppermost, therefore according to all Muslims, those who stand in the way of this aim must be fought.” Are these titans of Islamic thought “hijackers” or “heretics”?