Sobran: My Obsession with Jews [for all who mistakenly think he is a valuable contributor]

Federal Observer ^ | maybe 10/30/03 | Joe Sobran

[Steve_Seattle]

"I would not tar and feather all Catholics with the views of Sobran and Buchanan. I am certainly not going to accuse an entire religious group in America of anti-Israel or anti-Semitic views based on the statements of two political pundits."

I said "traditionalist Catholics like Sobran and Buchanan," not "all traditionalist Catholics."

[anotherview]

Mr. Sobran probably overdid it somewhat, but it should not be an unspeakable statement in this country to point out that the interests of allied countries, including Israel, do not always match our own.

I think many, if not most, educated Americans and Israelis would certainly agree with what you just said regarding allies. Sobran goes way, way beyond that into anti-Semetism, and that tends to invalidate anything else he may have to say. When hatred is obvious anything he said is contaminated by our knowledge of his hatred.

Our connection with Israel often has much of the quality of an "entangling alliance".

I think the reason it seems that way is because our interests ARE so directly intertwined at the moment. From an Israeli perspective it often seems that we are way too dependent on America when we don't have to be and way too responsive to any and all criticism emanating from Washington. My point is that it cuts both ways. I honestly would like to find a way for the two countries to remain great friends but not be so politically entangled, to use your choice of words. I think, though, during the current war on Islamic radical terrorism that is unlikely to happen.

We had better have better intelligence than a few Debka articles if we decide to invade Syria to find the WMD.

I will point out that Israeli intelligence claimed that Saddam Hussein was "contained" and that Iran was the real threat several times about 6-9 months before the U.S. went into Iraq. While I certainly support U.S. efforts in Iraq and supported the Bush administration to go in I do think that the U.S. would be doing far better in the war on terrorism if it listened to Israeli intelligence a bit more.

[anotherview]

I agree. Look at Ron Paul's voting record for a very good example of someone who always votes against Israel no matter what.

[inquest]

Anti-Semetism or racism can't be tolerated in any form.

One interesting thing I noticed about this article is that you could take out the word "Jewish" and insert "Arab" or "Muslim" and it would actually come across as rather mild for FR.

[Lazamataz]

What makes the Holocaust different is that the German people were leaders in the arts, science, culture, etc... They were as civilized as any people on the face of the earth. The genocide of the Jews, Roma (gypsies), and anyone else the Nazis decided to eliminate was systematic, mechanized, and meticulously organized and recorded. That, it seems to me, is different than any other genocide in history. We tend to think of genocide as barbarism, but the Holocaust happened with all the elements of modern civilized society in place. That, I believe, is unique.

Before I become very angry, please tell me you are not trying to hold up the extermination of your relatives as superior, more meaningful, or more heinous than the near-extermination of my grandfather and the successful extermination of ALL his relatives -- except his wife and his children!!!

Furthemore, the Soviets view(ed) themselves as vastly superior in the arts to all other nations. They had a term for all foreigners: Nekultura. Not cultured.

What I have read of their literature, seen of their ballet and heard of their music is impressive, but I am most impressed with the Russian common man, who is vastly more well-read than any average German.

And as far as record-keeping of the purges and the extermination of Kulak in particular and Ukranians in general, no record-keeping is needed for starvation. However, Stalin was quite careful to outline the propaganda necessity of 'eliminating' Kulaks, of which my grandfather was one. His farm was visited by the Russian security forces but he escaped with his family by mere hours, thanks to the fact that the local police chief was his friend and warned him.

[Right Wing Professor]

One interesting thing I noticed about this article is that you could take out the word "Jewish" and insert "Arab" or "Muslim" and it would actually come across as rather mild for FR.

I can think of, oh, about 3000 reasons why you can't simply switch 'Arab' for 'Jew' and have it come out the same.

[ambrose]

Wasn't he dumped by the National Review for being an anti-semite?

I guess William F. Buckley is a part of the Jewish conspiracy for world domination... </ sarcasm>

[tpaine]

One of the chief ways the addiction protects and strengthens itself is by a psychology of personal exceptionalism which permits the addict to maintain a simultaneous double-entry bookkeeping of addictive and non-addictive realities and to reconcile the two when required by reference to the unique, special considerations that àat least in his own mind- happen to apply to his particular case.

The form of the logic for this personal exceptionalism is:


--- Under ordinary circumstances and for most people X is undesirable/irrational;

--- My circumstances are not ordinary and I am different from most people;

--- Therefore X is not undesirable/irrational in my case - or not as undesirable/irrational as it would be in other cases.


Armed with this powerful tool of personal exceptionalism that is a virtual "Open Sesame" for every difficult ethical conundrum he is apt to face, the addict is free to take whatever measures are required for the preservation and progress of his addiction, while simultaneously maintaining his allegiance to the principles that would certainly apply if only his case were not a special one.

---

The form of the logic for this personal exceptionalism by Sobran is:


--- Under ordinary circumstances and for most people anti-semitism is undesirable/irrational;

--- My circumstances are not ordinary and I am different from most people; --- I can see that Israel is leading the USA into total war in the middle east.

--- Therefore Israeli based anti-semitism is not undesirable/irrational in my case - or not as undesirable/irrational as it would be in other cases.

---

The form of the logic for this personal exceptionalism by Chancellor Palpatine is:


--- Under ordinary circumstances and for most people charging ones political opponents with anti-semitism is undesirable/irrational;

--- My circumstances are not ordinary and I am different from most people; - I have a gift for smelling out the uncomastatituotioal jooo haters..

--- Therefore baiting/hate mongering is not undesirable/irrational in my case - or not as undesirable/irrational as it would be in other cases.

[B-Chan]

...Sobran and Buchanan... are very sour on contemporary American/Western society, view it as apostate, vulgar, and morally corrupt...

A view I share. I am a good deal more than sour on contemporary society, possessed as it is by the Culture of Death.

...and therefore have a secret admiration for Islamic societies in which traditional religious values remain dominant.

I admire Moslem culture insofar as it correctly refuses to acknowledge the secular ideal of government and society that has infected our own culture since the so-called Enlightenment. Those followers of Mohammed that proclaim through their actions the virtues of cleanliness, piety, respect, and charity are certainly to be admired by any moral person. The individual probity of the pious Moslem and cultural respect for the natural law present in Islamic societies, however, do not negate the disorder inherent in their culture that stems from its foundation, the heretical and anti-christian cult of Islam; a house built upon sand will surely fall, even if the sand is the sand of Mecca.

If it is true that Sobran wishes to inhabit a society in which traditional religious values remain dominant, then I agree with him in that desire: I, too, despise the corruptions of modern, secular society. But hatred of Jews is neither a Christian value nor a defense against decadence. Decadence is the result of hatred — the hatred of God — and those who harbor hatred towards Jews or any other group of people only contribute to its spread.

[Rushian]

But some think that Sobran, like Scalia, has been captured by the Orthodox Jew conspiracy. Since there are those to the 'right' of Sobran, shouldn't that establish his position as 'mainstream.'

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/futurefarmersofamerica/message/75

[Steve_Seattle]

You provide an interesting personal and psychological profile of Sobran, up to and including the greasy hair and rumpled suit. I was the one who suggested he might eventually convert to Islam. He is a purist and an absolutist, unable to accept that the Church is relegated to a secondary and often ineffectual and compromised role in modern society. The theocratic rule of a Muslim state might very well appeal to him. A man who runs a futile presidential campaign as a fourth-or-fifth party candidate has clearly given up hope that his values in all their purity will ever again find widespread acceptance in mainstream American society.

[SJackson]

I guess William F. Buckley is a part of the Jewish conspiracy for world domination... </ sarcasm>

Clearly. As Sobran explains:

As I told Bill Buckley at the time, the Jewish- Zionist interest amounted to an unacknowledged third party in American politics...You couldn't really feel the power of the Jewish Party until you ran up against it. With amazing speed it had thoroughly satellized the largely Christian conservative movement, thanks in large part to Buckley. He wasn't about to let me imperil his position.

Buckley's just one of the many Christian conservative front men bought off by the Jews.

[Steve_Seattle]

A lot of Christian conservatives view contemporary society as "apostate, vulgar, and morally corrupt," which it clearly is, but we don't all feel a need to blame the Jews for this situation. Nor are we willing to cast our lot with the Muslim absolutists in an effort to regain some imagined lost purity, or to impose a future reign of God upon the unwilling. As Christians we will accept the world as a mix of good and evil, do what we can to improve it, and leave our ultimate destiny in the hands of God.

[anotherview]

Before I become very angry, please tell me you are not trying to hold up the extermination of your relatives as superior, more meaningful, or more heinous than the near-extermination of my grandfather and the successful extermination of ALL his relatives -- except his wife and his children!!!

Huh? Not for a minute. Mass murder is mass murder is mass murder. It is evil and totally repugnant no matter who does it and who the victim is.

Regardless of how the Soviets saw themselves, the rest of the world did not see that way. The Germans were revered by many in the U.S., if not for their advances in optics and physics in general then for Beethoven and Bach and Wagner. Yes, I can name great Russian composers, but the point is how the world looked at Germany even after Hitler came to power. Time never made Stalin their "Man of the Year".

Stalin's purges were every bit as evil as what Hitler did. If Hitler has the blood of 45 million on his hands compared to Stalin's 40 million it doesn't mean that they were not both as evil as evil can be and when the murder is on that sort of mass scale it boggles the imagination regardless of where it happens. No, I don't think that many in your family perished at the hands of only the second greatest mass murderer in history instead of the greatest is at all qualitatively different.

What makes the Holocaust different is the methodology, not the end result. The lives lost in the Holocaust are no less or more tragic than the lives lost in Stalinist purges. The lessons learned from the Holocaust, though, are somewhat different.

FWIW, part of my family came from what is now Russia and Belarus. There is a Yiddish saying about a baby that goes something like this (in translation): Who cares if it looks like the Cossack so long as it lives. I suspect both our families endured pogroms and persecution and I suspect our heritage isn't all that different.

[Lazamataz]

Okay. That's why I reserved my anger until I understood your meaning.

Time never made Stalin their "Man of the Year".

Um, you are incorrect twice.

Stalin was named Time's Man Of The Year TWICE: Once in 1939, and again in 1942.

[anotherview]

OK, I stand corrected. I've seen the infamous 1936 Time cover many times, but not the others.

I'll reserve my anger for Time, not for you :) Why anyone would revere a mass murderer when all the world already knew who and what Stalin was is amazing and sick to me.

[ambrose]

As suicide bombings alternate with disproportionate yet unavailing retaliations, the daily news from Israel is so painful that we all yearn for a solution.

Can there be any doubt as to what his "solution" might be...

[Chancellor Palpatine]

It would be a final one.

[inquest]

So you believe in collective guilt? That would then mean this "anti-Semitism" canard isn't about principle at all. It's just about degree.

[philosofy123]

You are correct. I was saying the same thing, that we should have considered Saudi Arabia and Iran the most immediate enemies of the US. They fund, support, recruit, and provide ideologies to all the Islamic terrorist movements around the world.