An Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto

Armed And Dangerous ^ | October 17, 2002 | Eric S. Raymond

[fporretto]

WHEREAS, the year since the terrible events of 9/11 has exposed the vacuity and moral confusion of all too many of the thinkers, politicians, and activists operating within conventional political categories;

WHEREAS, the Left has failed us by succumbing to reflexive anti-Americanism; by apologizing for terrorist acts; by propounding squalid theories of moral equivalence; and by blaming the victims of evil for the act of evil;

WHEREAS, the Right has failed us by pushing `anti-terrorist' measures which bid fair to be both ineffective and prejudicial to the central liberties of a free society; and in some cases by rhetorically descending to almost the same level of bigotry as our enemies;

WHEREAS, even many of the Libertarians from whom we expected more intelligence have retreated into a petulant isolationism, refusing to recognize that, at this time, using the state to carry the war to the enemy is our only practical instrument of self-defense;

WE THEREFORE ASSERT the following convictions as the basis of the anti-idiotarian position:

1. THAT Western civilization is threatened with the specter of mass death perpetrated by nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons placed in the hands of terrorists by rogue states;
2. THAT the terrorists who perpetrated the 9/11 attack, and its lesser sequels, are motivated by a combination of religious fanaticism and a smoldering resentment of the West's success and Islam's failures;
3. THAT no adjustments of American or Western foreign policy, or concessions to the Palestinians, or actions taken against globalization, or otherwise worthy efforts to alleviate world poverty, are of more than incidental interest to these terrorists;
4. THAT, upon their own representation, they will not by dissuaded from their violence by any surrender less extreme than the imposition of Islam and shari'a law on the kaffir West;
5. THAT, as said terrorists have demonstrated the willingness to use civilian airliners as flying bombs to kill thousands of innocent people, we would commit a vast crime of moral negligence if we underestimated their future malice even without weapons of mass destruction;
6. THAT they have sought, and on plausible evidence found, alliance with rogue states such as Iraq, Iran, and North Korea; states that are known to have active programs working towards the development and delivery of weapons of mass destruction that would multiply the terrorists' ability to commit atrocities by a thousandfold;
7. THAT Saddam Hussein poses a particularly clear and present danger through his known efforts to develop nuclear weapons, his use of chemical weapons even on his own population, his demonstrated willingness to commit aggression against peaceful neighbors, and his known links to the Islamic terror network in Palestine and elsewhere.

WE THEREFORE AFFIRM that both the terrorists and their state sponsors have made themselves outlaws from the moral community of man, to be dealt with as feral beasts are.

WE FURTHER AFFIRM that the `root cause' of Islamo-fascist terrorism lies in the animating politico-religious ideas of fundamentalist Islam and not in any signicant respect elsewhere, and that a central aim of the war against terror must be to displace, discredit, and destroy those animating ideas.

WE REJECT, as a self-serving power grab by the least trustworthy elements of our own side, the theory that terrorist depredations can be effectively prevented by further restrictions on the right of free speech, or the right of peacible assembly, or the right to bear arms in self-defense; and we strenuously oppose police-state measures such as the imposition of national ID cards or airport-level surveillance of public areas;

WE REJECT the theory that `fairness' requires us not to notice the dominant gender, age range, ethnic character and religion of our terrorist enemies; and we urge the systematic use of such profiling to both make anti-terrorist screening more effective and reduce the overall intrusiveness of anti-terror measures on the majority of the population.

IN GRAVE KNOWLEDGE that the state of war brings out the worst in both individual human beings and societies, we reject the alternative of ceding to the world's barbarians the exclusive privilege of force.

WE SUPPORT the efforts of the United States of America, its allies, and the West to hunt down and and capture or kill individual members of the Islamo-fascist terror network;

WE SUPPORT speedy American and allied military action against the rogue states that support terrorism, both as a means of alleviating the immediate threat and of deterring future state sponsorship of terrorism by the threat of war to the knife.

WE SUPPORT, in recognition of the fact that the military and police cannot be everywhere, efforts to meet the distributed threat with a distributed response; to arm not merely airline pilots but ordinary citizens, and to recognize the citizen's right and obligation to respond to terrorist aggression with effective force.

WE SUPPORT, as an alternative greatly preferable to future nuclear/chemical/biological blackmail of the West, the conquest and occupation of Iraq and other nations that combine sponsorship of terrorism with the possession of weapons of mass destruction, until such time as the root causes of terrorism have been eradicated from their societies.

WE DEFINE IDIOTARIANISM as the species of delusion within the moral community of mankind that gives aid and comfort to terrorists and dictators operating outside it. WE REJECT the idiotarianism of the Left -- the moral blindness that refuses to recognize that free markets, individual liberty, and experimental science have made the West a fundamentally better place than any culture in which jihad, 'honor killings', and female genital mutilation are daily practices approved by a stultifying religion.

WE REJECT the idiotarianism of the Right -- whether it manifests as head-in-the-sand isolationism or as a Christian-identity chauvinism that all but mirrors the Islamo-fascist fanaticism of our enemies.

WE ARE MEMBERS OF A CIVILIZATION, and we hold that civilization to be worth defending. We have not sought war, but we will fight it to the end. We will fight for our civilization in our thoughts, in our words, and in our deeds.

WE HAVE AWAKENED. We have seen the face of evil in the acts of the Bin Ladens and Husseins and Arafats of the world; we have seen through the lies and self-delusions of the idiotarians who did so much both to make their evil possible before the fact and to deny and excuse it afterwards. We shall not flinch from our duty to confront that evil.

WE SHALL SHED the moral cowards and the appeasers and the apologists; and we shall fight the barbarians and fanatics, and we shall defeat them. We shall defeat them in war, crushing their dream of dominion; and we shall defeat them in peace, using our wealth and freedoms to seduce their women and children to civilized ways, and ultimately wiping their diseased and virulent ideologies from the face of the Earth.

THIS WE SWEAR, on the graves of those who died at the World Trade Center; and those who died in the Sari Club in Bali; and those who died on the U.S.S. Cole; and indeed on the graves of all the nameless victims in the Middle East itself who have been slaughtered by terrorism and rogue states;

YOU SHALL NOT HAVE DIED IN VAIN.

Eric S. Raymond
16 October 2002

[fporretto]

The above comes from The "Armed And Dangerous" blog of Eric Raymond, and is a fine statement of my own views, except for one thing -- I take issue with his characterization of criticism of Islam the "religion" as somehow bigoted. I'll be posting a coda to this at the Palace this evening.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com

[steve-b]

WE REJECT, as a self-serving power grab by the least trustworthy elements of our own side, the theory that terrorist depredations can be effectively prevented by further restrictions on the right of free speech, or the right of peacible assembly, or the right to bear arms in self-defense; and we strenuously oppose police-state measures such as the imposition of national ID cards or airport-level surveillance of public areas

I think ESR is being overly charitable here.

[steve-b]

I take issue with his characterization of criticism of Islam the "religion" as somehow bigoted.

???

[fporretto]

I guess I should have avoided that involute syntax. Mr. Raymond made a statement about "Christian-identity chauvinists," which seemed to me to imply that he found criticism of Islam as such, rather than of "fundamentalist Islam" or the violent Muslims we've taken to calling "Islamists," to be unacceptable.

I disagree with him. I think the notion that all religions are morally interchangeable is erroneous and dangerous. Jews and Christians who feel -- and who say openly -- that they consider Islam to be inherently flawed have my complete approval and support. Check the Palace this evening for the full treatment, including news of any fatwas issued against me!

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com

[bassmaner]

bump for common sense!

[steve-b]

Er, you do know what sort of people are described by the label "Christian Identity", right?

ESR is right on target.

[fporretto]

Well, no, actually, I don't. Does it refer to an unsavory group? KKK or Father Coughlin-type? I'm quite sincerely in the dark about this.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com

[steve-b]

"Christian Identity" types would make the KKK and Father Coughlin look like Mister Rogers -- they're the (few, thankfully) people who actually fit the leftist stereotype of the hateful redneck gun nut.

I do think that ESR could put the criticism better, to make it a bit broader (e.g. to cover the sort of people who bleat "deport all the Ay-rabs to Camelstan and then NUKE the place" screeds rather than advocate firm but rational response to the Islamofascist threat).

[fporretto]

Please see also:

Mythos And Ethos

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit the Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com

[steve-b]

ESR has posted another revision; the main change is the addition of this item to the list of numbered points:

3. THAT the terrorists have declared and are pursuing a war not against the vices of Western civilization but against its core virtues; against the freedom of thought and speech and conscience, against the life of reason; against the equality of women, against pluralism and tolerance; against, indeed, all the qualities which separate civilized human beings from bestiality, slavery, and fanaticism;

[subsequent items renumbered accordingly]

[Bob J]

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[lainde]

BTTT

[fporretto]

Yes, he's clearly taking this quite seriously, putting a lot of thought and effort into it. I'm pleased to see it; it's well in keeping with the times and the needs of the times.

Of course, there are a lot of Idiotarians out there, so this will be only the first salvo in a protracted campaign. But hey, if the anti-terror war is important, so is this. If you take a long view, maybe even more so.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com

[B Knotts]

ESR BUMP!

[steve-b]

There was another revision; the document is now in the final stages.

One change to the above-quoted list point was to change "bestiality" to "savagery" -- we couldn't care less if they hump camels, but we do insist that they conduct themselves in a manner acceptable to civilized humanity.

[Poohbah]

One change to the above-quoted list point was to change "bestiality" to "savagery" -- we couldn't care less if they hump camels

So you're condoning cruelty to animals :o)

[skeeter]

WE REJECT the idiotarianism of the Right -- whether it manifests as head-in-the-sand isolationism or as a Christian-identity chauvinism that all but mirrors the Islamo-fascist fanaticism of our enemies.

This assertion is complete over-the-top anti-Christian hyperbolic BS & discredits what would otherwise be a pretty reasonable screed.