Controversial Common Sense

Jens Tomas Anfindsen of the bilingual website Honest Thinking sends this reply to yesterday’s post about their manifesto:

In response to some of the comments to this post, I would just like to underline how much I agree with those stating that the manifesto is using many words to convey something simple. We too, its authors, consider the manifesto as expressing plain, common sense; something which we consider a good thing.

To appreciate why we are setting out our case in such a formal style one has to consider who we are up against, and I will place this in a European context.

America is lucky to have so many Christian fundamentalists. Christian fundamentalists normally have a strong sense of conservative values and are, generally, far more aware of the dangers of Islam than most others. In Europe there are few Christians altogether, and most Christians of public influence adhere to some sort of watered-down, Marxist interpretation of it. Most fundamentalists around here are either Islamists or UN fundamentalists. In the liberal, secular European elites, most people are UN fundamentalists. Not by conscious reflection, of course, but through some kind of socially instilled, quasi-religious prejudice. When dealing with this segment of society, it is actually necessary to point out that it is philosophically possible to embrace the idea that all human beings are endowed with certain inalienable rights, on the one hand, while at the same time refusing to commit oneself to the belief that any specific formulation of those rights has managed to pin down their true essence, once and for all. Simpler and more specific put: It is possible to believe in the universal dignity of mankind while at the same time rejecting UN’s charter of human rights.

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Just stating the obvious? Well, yes. But in Europe, if you use the concept “human rights”, most people will not think of the humanist or Judeo-Christian principle that all men possess an inviolable dignity; they will think you mean those sentences dotted down in the UN charter of human rights. That is precisely how sick UN fundamentalism is.

So in a situation where unconditional adherence to the UN inspired scheme of banning just about any kind of discrimination on the basis of ethnicity or religion is about to wreak havoc to the entire Western civilization and probably will plunge our societies into unprecedented depths of mayhem, Islam critics and immigration critics like ourselves have to employ all powers of conviction to enlighten the public of the philosophical possibility of maintaining a humanist stance on the inviolable dignity of man, while also claiming the right to subject our immigration policies to demographic measures, have the UN say what it will.

Just common sense? Yes, that’s what we think! Uncontroversial? No way!

— Jens Tomas Anfindsen