Horowitz: We have a medieval enemy with twenty-first century technology aimed at us, they’ve infiltrated our government. If you wondered how it’s possible that Obama and Hillary would not know or would pretend what was happening wasn’t happening in the Middle East or how they could turnover Egypt as they have to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the fountainhead of Al Qaeda and all of these terrible Islamic Nazi organizations, the answer is not really hard to find: the chief adviser to the American government on Muslim affairs, Hillary Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, Huma Abedin, is a Muslim Brotherhood operative and she has been all her life, and her whole family is. This is worse than Alger Hiss, for those in your audience who are old enough to remember, Alger Hiss is a Soviet agent who was right next to Roosevelt at Yalta…. [T]he Republican Party has also been infiltrated. Grover Norquist is a Muslim, he is a practicing Muslim.
- David Horowitz, 10.1.12
I generally try to give people the benefit of the doubt. I realize that may not always seem to be the case, but I really do…and, yes, sometimes I fall short. VERY short. Hey, I’m a fallible human being, and I make no claim to perfection or anything even closely resembling it. Such is the cross I bear.
That said, there are those in public life so crazy, so mind-bendingly “out there,” that there’s really nothing charitable that can or should be said about them. In the case of David Horowitz, a man who has dedicated his life to fighting the scourge that is “Leftist indoctrination,” this is doubly true. Raised by parents who were members of the Communist Party USA, one can only surmise that the political experience of his childhood thoroughly fried his synapses and left him an angry, embittered hater of all things Liberal. How else could one explain someone who so fervently holds such patently absurd beliefs? Anyone who seriously believes that Grover Norquist is a practicing Muslim is in serious need of professional help…and some powerful medication. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the idea of Norquist praying to Mecca five times a day, and…well, I can’t stop snickering. You might as well tell me that Mark Sanford is hiking the Appalachian Trail.
Wait…what???
The problem is that Horowitz is hardly the only seriously unbalanced personality on the Rabid Right. Nor is he even the worst example of where reason and logic go to die. It makes me wonder how in the world we’re going to be able to move forward when people like Horowitz believe that people like me are Satan’s minions and unworthy of continued existence…or worse. Horowitz’ vision of a Dominionist Theocracy would have no place for those who dare call themselves Liberals.
….and then they came for the Liberals, and there was no one left to speak up for us….
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
- Voltaire
There’s always been a strain of Teh Crazy in the American body politic (John Birch Society, anyone?), so no one should be pretending that this sort of thing is a new phenomenon. What makes it different now is the pervasiveness and reach of the Internet. Where in past generations publishers and news directors acted as gatekeepers, today’s Information Age means that EVERYONE gets a seat at the virtual table. Liberals, Conservatives, Fundamentalists, conspiracy theorists, racists, homophobes, anti-Semites, the angry, the unmedicated, Packers fans…the list just doesn’t end. Everyone with a laptop and an Internet connection can put their own personal brand of intellectual/philosophical gymnastics on the World Wide Web for everyone to see. Hell, I’m proof of that theorem. Eleven years ago, I discovered that I had access to the world via my blog. That I’m still at can be taken as proof of how addictive that access (and the absence of editorial oversight) can be.
The downside of the Internet is that with all the Sturm und Drang, it’s often difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff. It can be difficult to escape those who use their platform to scream at, harangue, insult, demean, and/or belittle those who happen not to share their own particular brand of Enlightenment. While I admire passion and conviction, when it’s not closely paired with tolerance and understanding, it’s just shouting and meaningless, pointless noise.
I’ve occasionally been guilty of my own share of intolerance and lack of understanding, but I’m hopefully improving and growing in that regard. What I fail to understand is how so many with such public profiles can see their way clear to being so absolute, intolerant, mean, and just plain hateful. David Horowitz is hardly alone; the list is a long and not particularly honorable one, and the problem only seems to get worse. Reason and measured discussion gets little if any attention. Screaming and rage increase one’s odds of getting noticed.
And so I come back to my question: How in the world can we move this country forward when so many are screaming their arrogance, intolerance, and hatefulness to the four winds? How can we find anything resembling common ground when there are those whose sole purpose in life seems to be turning America into a Dominionist Theocracy which guarantees free speech and expression- except if you’re a Liberal, happen to believe in gay rights, marriage equality, a woman’s right to control her own body, religious tolerance, etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum….
It’s not for nothing that I fear for the future of our Republic, and the problem is only getting worse.
When reason, intelligence, logic, and tolerance are shouted down by those who care little for any belief system save their own, the demise of our democracy feels imminent. When intolerance, ignorance, fear, prejudice, and hatred rule, democracy- at least the American version- can’t survive for long.
WE DESERVE BETTER.
