RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://quillette.com/2020/07/13/in-defense-of-reactionary-liberalism-a-reply-to-osita

I am a liberal conservative, or as the New Republic‘s Osita Nwanevu would have it, a “reactionary liberal.” I lean right-of-center and, as I have argued before, I believe that many of the West’s most cherished values—individualism, due process, free speech and inquiry, and the rule of law—are imperiled by radical progressivism. So, I was delighted to be challenged by Nwanevu’s recent article entitled “The Willful Blindness of Reactionary Liberalism.” Although the piece is highly tendentious, it is a vigorous defense of progressive identity politics and an attack on liberals like me.

Nwanevu’s basic thesis is that progressives are actually the modern champions of the liberal tradition and that those who oppose and criticize them from the Left (Matt Taibbi and Jonathan Chait) or the Right (Andrew Sullivan) or both (the members of what was once known as the Intellectual Dark Web) are actually fighting a reactionary battle against an expansion of freedom. Therefore, Nwanevu argues, it is progressivism’s enemies who are illiberal. He describes liberalism—correctly, so far as it goes—as “an ideology of the individual⁠. Its first principle is that each and every person in society is possessed of a fundamental dignity and can claim certain ineradicable rights and freedoms. Liberals believe, too, in government by consent and the rule of law: The state cannot exercise wholly arbitrary power, and its statutes bind all equally.”

However, reactionary liberals, he argues, do not appear to understand or appropriately value an important liberal freedom: Association. “Controversial speakers,” he notes, “have no broad right to speak at private institutions” and senators such as Tom Cotton have no right to appear in whatever magazine or outlet they desire. Reactionary liberals, it seems, are confused about these issues, and that is why they (incorrectly) condemn universities for restricting the range of acceptable opinions on campus and deride newspaper staffers for protesting the publication of an op-ed with which they disagree.

https://mailchi.mp/e7eb45e31b93/krd-news-a-take-down-of-peter-beinarts-outrageous-ny-times-piece?e=9365a7c638

https://www.jns.org/opinion/understanding-the-collapse-of-liberal-zionism/?fbclid=Iw

YESTERDAY, Peter Beinart published an outrageous piece in the New York Times (where else?) entitled “I No Longer Believe in a Jewish State”.

In response, Jonathan Toubin wrote, “Understanding the Collapse of Liberal Zionism”:

There’s a reason why most Israelis find it difficult to listen patiently to lectures from liberal American Jews. For Israelis, their country is a real place filled with real people and perplexing dilemmas that have no easy solutions. But for all too many American Jews, Israel is a dreamland—a place for intellectual tourism where we can project our own insecurities and anxieties on the Jewish state while expressing our moral superiority over the lesser beings who live there and lack our wisdom.

Which brings us to the problem of Peter Beinart.

Beinart, the former editor of The New Republic and columnist for The Atlantic, sought to carve out a place for himself as the leading liberal critic of Israel with his 2012 book The Crisis of Zionism. The book was as spectacularly ignorant as it was arrogant in its refusal to acknowledge the reality of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

The conceit of the work was that Israelis needed to rise above their fears and recognize that a two-state solution was within easy reach. Anything that contradicted his assumptions—like the nature of Palestinian political culture or the continued rejectionism and obsession with the fantasy of Israel’s destruction—was either rationalized or ignored. Too immersed in their unseemly quest for security and profit, Israelis could only overcome the “crisis” of the title by listening to the wisdom of Beinart, a righteous American pilgrim, whose manifest good intentions should have generated respect and deference from his recalcitrant Israeli pupils

https://mailchi.mp/139e127f2279/krd-news-american-jews-come-close-we-need-to

The toughest thing about being an American Jew right now is other American Jews.

The toughest thing about being an American Jew right now is other American Jews. No, wait, hear me out. Imagine being part of any minority group in the US in the 60’s and 70’s and rather than showing solidarity with one’s own minority, you’re met with large members actively working against your minority’s own self-interest. How would the gay movement have fared if a large number of gay people themselves stated “Well, you know, the straights do have a point about us.” But that didn’t happen, nor did that happen with the black community. And it didn’t happen because both communities were educated, proud and determined. They didn’t read a story about one of their own doing bad things and yell “Let’s scrap this because he is representative of us all!”

So, what’s up with us Jews? A group of people who delight in levels of self-deprecation. A group of people who can’t defend the actual definition of Zionism because our enemies have so skillfully bastardized its meaning that there are those among us who actually utter this word in hushed voices. A group of people to our credit would bend over backwards to call out the plight of any minority on the planet but when it comes to our tiny little population, at less than 0.2% of the world’s total population, we feel we need to apologize for wanting basic human rights?