A more cunning infiltration or Partners in hatred

Submitted by Reuben Horne (Australia), Jan 24, 2006 at 14:26

Dr Pipes,

Self contained philosophies have powerful means of propagating themselves. The extent to which the left have been able to seize and dominate the media and academia is astounding. But then conservative values have been on the slide since the 1960s. In an effort to redefine itself Marxism simply rearranges its parameters along certain lines. Now the working class who must overthrow the evil that is capitalism are extra territorial - they are the impoverished of other countries rather than the working people of our own (who have not been impressed enough by communism to adopt its radical solution to distributional inequity). From the perspective of Karl Popper this shows the reasoning process of the idealogues who embrace far left solution to be inherently unscientific (in that their ideas are not falsifiable).

It is instructive to consider Latin America as a test bed for the propositions so readily thrown about by the far left. Venezuela's President would agree with the leftist proposition that the US has been a negative influence on the countries of the continent. For a contrasting view go to someone like Hernando de Soto who whilst not explicitly (to my knowledge) deals with the US and it's particular policies glorifies the role of the sweat shop owner in Latin America. This is a strange position indeed to westerners who are themselves up to their eyeballs in labour legislation despite all the recent "right to work" deregulation etc etc. It is understandable when you take into account the political, social and economic context of this commentator's remarks. Left wing overregulation of the economy constricted the amount of workers that industry would hire. So instead of being working poor the people were just plain poor. This coupled with the inadequacy of the welfare states in quite a few countries made it difficult for people to survive. So it was the Informal economic agent or the black marketeer who eschewed formal regulation to engage in a pure form of capitalism and consitituted the hero in De Soto's works. The left winger was the retrograde neomerchantilist. But returning to an earlier point Venezuala's future prosperity or lack thereof is the best litmus test of whether this anti-US policy has any merits. My guess is that the countries who have not embraced such a course of action in foreign policy and trade will do manifestly better than Venezuala and the countries who have.

Few ideological tribes bear so unreasonable and irrational a hatred of the west than the ones we shelter and support within our own countries. Islamists and neo-Marxists stride hand inexorably towards victory having tied the hands of those who'd stop them with all forms of semantic mischief (multiculturalism, racism, misinformation). The logical extension of this mutual hatred is the alliance of said factions. Dr Pipes is right in highlighting this.

Cordially,
Reuben Horne.

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