Useless Battles over “Liberal” and “Conservative”

This morning we received an email from someone name Beverly Hills — not, one suspects, her real name — who took us to task for writing liberals out of the Counterjihad narrative.

The entire email is reproduced without alteration below, followed by my response.

And no, I don’t know what the “Holger Dansk” blog is, so don’t ask.

Dear Dymphnia and Baron,

I very much enjoy your work and writing with this blog. It’s a great service to thos world — no exaggeration. I frequently visit it as well as Brussels Journal, Dhimmi Watch, Jihad Watch, LGF, Fjordman, Holger Dansk. You all do GREAT work.

One V-E-R-Y B-I-G PROBLEM, however. EVERY time you identify this movement of fighting the Islamicization of the West and the related demographic suicide of the West as something only “conservatives” see or something that is based in “the right” or “conservatism” — YOU ALIENATE H-U-G-E numbers of people who otherwise share the same ideas and beliefs as you do.

I myself am a LIBERAL. Does it matter? Absolutely NOT. The criticisms (e.g. “political correctness” and dhimmitude and lack of understanding of Islam AND their own Western culture…) you level at so-called “liberals” and the “left” are FULLY valid. But, you know what? Most people who consider themselves to be Conservatives in this world are also hindered by exactly those same things (e.g. “political correctness” and dhimmitude and lack of understanding of Islam AND their own Western culture…).

The Brussels Journal, for example, identifies its site as “The Voice of Conservatism in Europe”. See this google search.

And I’ve seen many bloggers on sites who go fully unchallanged (not my job…I already spend enough of my time writing about these issues. I don’t need to spend it in a useless battle over “liberal” “conservative”. Anyway, as a “liberal” myself, any “conservative” is far more likely to listen to another “conservative” or the editor of one of these otherwise EXCELLENT blogs when that “conservative” tells them this is N-O-T “conervative” or “liberal” issue.)

Take this September 11th meeting EU protest coming up in Brussels. Read the website and they understand that people involved and concerned about these things come from ALL stripes — politically, nationally, religiously, etc. The time now in Europe and the US is critical. We are A-L-L going over the edge. If you and the core group that met in Denmark actually want to do something to gather critical mass you need to do two (2) things: 1) you need to stop (and revise or remove…) your comments in you websites that identify any of this as some exclusively “conservative” movement; 2) you need to relabel and change the way you address the left and “liberals” — instead of using “liberals” or “left” use the words “Marxist” or “Socialist” or “Communists”.

The problem here is “political correctness” and ALL of the ways that “political correctness” pervades ALL of our entire decision making processes — whether for “conservatives” or for “liberals”. The problem here is the indoctrination we have all received over our Western lives that causes us to put away “freedom of expression” whenever it concerns someone not like us and offers economic reasons for lack of development and poverty (as opposed to RELIGIOUS and the cultures that arise from each religion…) and then which, at the same time, is also hostile to religion…most specifically Christianity. Yes, those “economic reasons” arise in the left in Marxism, but, NO, after 150 years, these ideas even determine how an average “conservative” thinks.

Europe, the West, and the Anglo-American countries are truly about finished. I just spent two hours reading Swedish newspapers and press releases. They’ve taken in 95,500 immigrants this year. It’s a record. You read the articles and there is ABSOLUTELY NO DFEBATE…and NONE ALLOWED in Sweden. Everything in the papes is ROSY stories that are self-imposed propaganda. That country is really lost. Meanwhile the average person there (as anywhere) is fed up with immigration…yet the politicians and human services people call anyone who gives their opinion a “racist” or “xenophobe”. It’s really horrible. That country — along with many others — are LOST.

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So the point is this. We who care about these things come from ALL stripes. Hell, there are even immigrants who are saying SHUT the damn doors. All of the sites I named above REALLY MUST remove things and also challenge bloggers who want to paint “liberals” and the “left” as idiots. Personally, I’m not offended, because I know what you are trying to say; but I can say most “liberals” would NOT take the same view. You need us. We need you. We ALL need each other if we are to even COME CLOSE to closing the door. Remove the language in your headers and titles that claim things like the “voice of Conservatism”. When bloggers on your page hammer “liberals” or the “left” take them to taks ALWAYS and point out that there are many liberals (like me) who visit and write on your websites — and teach them to focus their blasting of “liberals” instead on “Marxists”, “Socialists”, “Communists”, etc. Use those words instead. If you don’t, 50% of people out there will never take your websites or writing …OR THIS IMMENSELY IMPORTANT ISSUE… seriously. You M-U-S-T quit characterizing “conservatives” as the people who have all the answers or who are the only people “in the right” on this. If you can’t do that simple thing…and make sure it is reflected in your blog and your responses to bloggers’ comments, well, what we all know and see is happening right now…is, in fact, far, far worse than done.

Please make sure to pass this on to your colleagues at all of the above named websites. This really has to be addressed in an organized and methodical fashion and be paid attention to EVERY day. Otherwise, as I said, it is TRULY finished. People who call themselves “conservative” CAN NOT and WILL NOT be able to do this alone. Merely by playing the “convervative”/”liberal” and “right”/”left” cards you IMMEDIATELY discredit EVERY issue of concern here AND then alientate the support of HALF of the people we A-L-L WILL AND DO NEED. Thank you.

B. Hills
USA

Here is my response:

Ms. Hills,

I think that you may not have been reading Gates of Vienna very long. There are some peculiar factual errors in your note — for instance, nowhere on our blog do we say that we are the “voice of Conservatism”. I presume you’re confusing us with one of the other blogs you mention.

Putting such inaccuracies aside, however, I’ll address your objections.

Even though we ridicule the left and take it to task, we don’t view it as a monolith. Although I am a conservative, I have often said that the Counterjihad is not — or shouldn’t be — solely a conservative project.

Take, for example, a Gates of Vienna post from last December, in which I featured the anti-jihad comments of an Anarchist. After quoting my Anarchist colleague, I wrote this:

I’ve been saying for a while now that it’s wrong — and counterproductive — to write off the entire Left. Christopher Hitchens and Nat Hentoff are not the only ones who understand what’s important.

Anti-jihad leftists are in the same bind as “moderate” Muslims — they are vilified, ostracized, and threatened because of their heresy. A heretical leftist may get to keep his head, but he will likely find his property destroyed and his career ruined because of his apostasy.

So it’s important to extend a hand to anyone who — without any socialist taqiyyah — genuinely wants to defeat the Great Islamic Jihad.

The problem for the Left is not that it is reviled by conservatives — which it is, often with good reason — but what it does to itself. The core of the Left has made opposition to Islamism a heresy. This is not something that conservatives made them do; they chose to do it themselves. Look at Joe Lieberman if you want an object lesson in how the Left treats its apostates.

And I’ll remind you that if you work for the media, or in education, or in Social Services, and if you want to keep your job and your friends, it would be a good idea to keep your Counterjihad opinions to yourself.

And that is the fault of the Left, not the Right.

“Liberalism” has lost its original meaning, and modern conservatism is what used to be known as “classical liberalism”.

Modern liberalism — the ideology that calls itself “liberalism” in the United States today — supports separate and unequal rights for women under Islam in the name of Multiculturalism. This liberalism is now undercutting our support for democracies overseas, arguing against supporting resistance movements in Iran, for example.

Again, liberalism supports fascism as long as it is Islamic.

This isn’t Marxism or Communism then that is masked as liberalism; it is the fascism of the Left.

When today’s “liberalism” cut its moorings with classical liberalism and became relativistic (not on religion, but on the rights of the individual), it lost its intellectual foundation.

And this makes it vulnerable to any tyranny, masked as the rights of oppressed people, that opposes the United States.

But it seems that you’re becoming a conservative, and we like you for that.

Fortunately, an individual moral revulsion against the fascism of Islam is having the same effect around the world.