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Most dangerous totalitarian ideology

Reader comment on item: The American Withdrawal from Syria

Submitted by Keith (United States), Dec 31, 2018 at 12:21

I disagree that islamism is the most dangerous totalitarian ideology. It is liberalism.

Liberalism appeals to all the baser appetites. It says you can..

  • Have sex with anyone, anytime, without consequences; liberalism denies that such behavior a) debases us b) contributes to a crass view of sex c) costs women disproportionate emotional heartache d) and reduces men to mere sexual animals with a compromised ability to make sacrifices for their wives and families.
  • Believe that consequences like undesired pregnancy and STD's need not be accepted any more - hence the "birth control mandate" in Obamacare, support for (and from) abortion providers, and the destigmatization of STDs.
  • Not have to work and yet be cared for. Hence limitless unemployment "benefits." The benefits of a good work ethic are rarely praised. Cradle to grave entitlemens are the goal or, more precisely, the strategy by which to obtain votes and cultivate dependency upon government.
  • Believe your failings are not your fault. Alcoholism becomes a disease, all kinds of crime become the product of a "disadvantaged upbringing." Everything must eventually be normalized including pedophilia - the final frontier of liberalism is to normalize sex with children. Liberals will deny this, but this repugnant viewpoint, while nascent, is indeed gradually skulking out of the closet into the public square of debate.
  • Rely on government. They maintain this no mater what, abundant past and present evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.
  • Believe that some people are better, are of higher moral fiber, and can be trusted with your rights, your care, your safety. Hence the lockstep cult of personality that is built around all leftist leaders in the modern age. The truest liberals do not merely like or applaud their leaders, they worship them. In this they are beyond the reach of reason.
  • Do without any absolute or external measure of right and wrong. Right and wrong are only meaningful in the context of advancing liberalism. If it retards or opposes liberalism, it is wrong. If it complies with or advances liberalism, it is right. But we must not speak in those terms lest we cause people to believe in absolutes.

The list goes on. Liberalism appeals to immediate gratification, and it is a religion unto itself. It offers people everything their baser impulses desire. In almost all these things it is the children, the most defenseless members of our society, who are harmed the most. Rotherham should stand as an example of what liberal tolerance permits, and although the perpetrators were muslims, those who permitted it to go on for years were part of the liberal establishment, which permits such atrocities in exchange for power.

Conservatism asks (or used to ask) people to look farther down the road, past what our flesh may crave in the short run, and asks a different set of questions: What actually works? What encourages people to rise to their fullest potential? What is good? But who wants to think about such things any more? Who even believes the message? Few, and fewer all the time.

I do not share your assessment of the threat from islamism as the highest. The global homogenization of culture around liberal ideas brought about by fast media and domination of institutional ideologies is creating a water control empire of thought that struggles to find an adequate challenger. Try standing up as a climate change critic in the public square. Observe the increasingly brazen censorship on the social media platforms. Liberalism is fundamentally opposed to western civilization and the foundational principles of free speech and freedom of religious expression and content. It is more potent for its appeals, and more deeply entrenched than Islamism. It has a long head start and far more momentum.

Liberalism is winning. Its end point (wittingly or not) is the eventual enslavement of us all and the complete intolerance of any dissenting view. All is to be the state, and the state is to be all, with one man at the top holding life or death over anyone he pleases. Liberals desire that all kiss the ring of state and make obeisance to it first. It is a path of blood, evidenced by the increasingly violent and intolerant left, and we have seen where it leads. It is not a pretty place.

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Daniel Pipes replies:

I oppose liberalism but it's not totalitarian.

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Reader comments (6) on this item

Title Commenter Date Thread
The Arab Spring? What Arab spring! Syria and the future! [432 words]dhimmi no moreJan 5, 2019 12:18246983
syria [16 words]martin potashnerDec 31, 2018 18:36246913
2Most dangerous totalitarian ideology [711 words]
w/response from Daniel Pipes
KeithDec 31, 2018 12:21246894
It's starting to look like it is [209 words]KeithJan 2, 2019 14:15246894
The Approaching Riddle - Does Totalitarianism Rule the Middle East? [464 words]MToveyJan 2, 2019 16:31246894
Multiphasing The Paradigm - Keeping an Eye on Damascus From a Russian View [243 words]MToveyFeb 25, 2019 13:25246894

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