A defence of Muslims from a Leftist elitist
I very rarely bother to fisk Leftist articles. It is much more interesting to spend my time looking at articles that endeavour to consider all the facts of a matter rather than looking at the very selective attention to the facts that characterizes Leftist writing. A reader has however drawn my attention to a typical bit of Leftist hate by Australian columnist Amanda Blair and offered some comments on it. I reproduce both the column and the comments on it elsewhere. I thought however that I might make a few comments in passing on the column myself:
Our wonderfully caring Amanda is unhappy with the way senior members of the Australian government have repeately told Australia’s Muslims that they should shape up or ship out (See e.g. here). In response to that, dearest Amanda puts forward the hoary argument that since not all Muslims are the same we should consider them only as individuals and not as a group. That most Leftist discourse consists of NOTHING BUT talk about groups (“The poor”, “Minorities”, “Women”, “Zionists” etc.) does not of course embarrass Amanda one bit. And according to Amanda’s logic we should all in fact be struck dumb — since all words in our language are words for categories. There are for instance large dogs, small dogs, black dogs and white dogs, tame dogs and fierce dogs so obviously we should not talk of dogs — right?
Allowance should of course always be made in official policy for the characteristics of individuals (something that Leftists seem to find extraordinarily hard to do) but Prime Minister Howard has repeatedly done just that — stressing that the problem lies with a minority of Muslims only, not with all Muslims. And yet it is of Mr Howard that sad Amanda is most critical.
What would you say about someone who was careful to speak slowly and clearly to someone who appeared to be of immigrant origin? Would you describe them as polite, considerate etc.? Amanda does not. When Mr Howard did that she made the very large leap of saying that it showed him to be a “little Englander”. Since he is Australian, not English, that would appear to be a snide accusation of racism. The irony of the fact that the original little Englanders of the 19th century were radical opponents of imperialism is of course quite lost on our Amanda. She appears to be one of that fortunately rare but very amusing ilk who like to use big words and expressions without really knowing what they mean. She is, most probably, the product of a modern journalism education.
She also seems to be claiming that Australians are much less happy with their immigrants than are Americans. Since Australia has had for around 60 years now a policy of deliberately encouraging immigration — something that only Israel could rival — that is as fact-free as the rest of her diatribe.
To say any more about her pathetic outburst would, I think, be to take it far more seriously than it deserves. I have however interpolated into her text a few more comments in italics here. Note that the “caring” Amanda turns into the arrogant Amanda when she starts to talk about working-class Australians.
(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here.)
Email This
Posted by Stop The ACLU Special Contributor on September 28, 2006 2:22 am
Trackback URL:
- The Thunder Run: Web Reconnaissance for 09/28/2006
Comments
2 Responses to “A defence of Muslims from a Leftist elitist”
-
-
-
Affiliations
The Giants
Advertise
-
-
Our Store
- Click the design to visit our store and help Stop the ACLU!
-
- More blogs about the ACLU
Syndicate Me
and in six months, she’ll be saying that the Australian government should be making special allowances for this ‘group’, and want them to be considered a ’special minority’.
She has a point that individuals should be treated as individuals and not part of the group, but that point fails to address the politicians’ argument as they may be addressing a problem that is widespread among the society of Australian Muslims.
There have been riots by the non Muslim Australians against the immigrant Muslims. These riots may well be tied to a widespread problem in the immigrant Muslims that is affecting the non Muslims feeling of peace and security. Whether this problem is real or imagined or a combination of the two I can not say.