Not Anti-War, On the Other Side

A telling example of Bush Derangement Syndrome and the effect it has on the angry left:

Outrage over religious fascism ought to be the province of American liberals. But in Hashemi's case it has been almost entirely trumpeted by Fox News, the Wall Street Journal editorial page and right-wing bloggers. A friend of mine recently remarked that part of his and his peers' nonchalance (and in some cases, support for) Hashemi has to do with the fact that the right has seized upon the issue. Our politics have become so polarized that many are willing to take positions based on the inverse of their opponents'. This abandonment of classical liberal values at the expense of political gamesmanship has consequences that reach far beyond Yale; it hurts our national discourse.

In a bold declaration that she will, with any hope, one day come to regret, Della Sentilles '06 wrote on her feminist Weblog, "Broad Recognition," "As a white American feminist, I do not feel comfortable making statements or judgments about other cultures, especially statements that suggest one culture is more sexist and repressive than another." While I cringe at the implications of this, I applaud its honesty. It lays bare a method of thinking that is quite pervasive on our campus, and that many, if not most, students claim allegiance to. It is at once racist -- for holding non-Westerners to a lower standard of behavior -- and dangerous in its cold abandonment of those who suffer under totalitarian and theocratic regimes. "They shamelessly defer to oppressive religious and cultural norms in the name of respecting diversity, betraying the victims of oppression in the process," British gay-rights activist and self-described "radical, left-wing Green" Peter Tatchell wrote of his comrades on the left who refused to condemn barbaric practices in Muslim societies. Joya has no problem saying Taliban Afghanistan was "more sexist and repressive than" the U.S. Why can't Sentilles?

The simple answer is that if liberals agree that the Taliban were an extremely repressive regime, they would then be on the same side as Bush. They would rather be on the side of people who murdered homosexuals by toppling stone walls upon them, believed that women who were raped were at fault and allowed genital mutilation as common practice than be on the same side of an issue than the president.

What a sad place that must be. Another classic example of neoliberalism.
H/T: James Taranto