Radicals Justify Their Evil by Invoking Their Presumed Moral Superiority

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“This could happen to you. It could happen in a context utterly unrelated to politics as you understand them. . . . Crazy stalking can happen to anyone for any reason.”
— Popehat, “Brett Kimberlin and Aaron Worthing: Censorship And Retaliation Through Lawfare”

FROM AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
In my Thursday account of the connections between Neal Rauhauser and Brett Kimberlin, I noted that within half an hour of Judge C.J. Vaughey’s ruling in Tuesday’s Maryland court hearing — which resulted in the arrest of Aaron Walker — a photo image of the ruling was Tweeted by @AnonyOps. This is a Twitter account “Rauhauser is suspected of using,” I reported, and @AnonyOps subsequently denied this suspicion.

Very well, then — yet we have no explanation of how @AnonyOps obtained that photo first, and this still demonstrates a connection that seems more than coincidental. Selah.

Not content merely to deny being Rauhauser, however, @AnonyOps then put up a blog post denouncing Aaron Walker as “Islamophobic” and calling me a “white supremacist.”

Such accusations, you see, are part of the belief system by which the far Left justifies its lawless radicalism: Because their enemies are all, in one way or another, guilty of political ThoughtCrimes (a category that the Left is always willing to expand and re-define as necessary), the Left need not be scrupulous as to the means by which it advances its goals.

If you buy into the premises of their argument, then the conclusion logically follows that any outcome other than the complete triumph of the Left — the extermination of all resistance — is unacceptable, and whatever foul, unjust and illegal actions are necessary to accomplish that triumph can be justified.

Thus, the infamous radical slogan, “By Any Means Necessary,” which is ultimately a totalitarian formula. David Horowitz, who saw through the Left’s amoral nihilism, once mentioned the humorous sign that a Berkeley businessman put in his shop window after radicals gained control of that city’s municipal government: “That which is not mandatory is prohibited.”

This is the ambition of the Total State — to control every word, action and belief of its subjects — and the proclamations of altruistic purpose by which the Left justifies that ambition must be recognized as excuses and pretexts. The ostensible and publicly declared goals of radicals vary, but never their methods.

“In obtaining and securing their power, the Assembly proceeds upon principles the most opposite to those which appear to direct them in the use of it. An observation on this difference will let us into the true spirit of their conduct. Everything which they have done, or continue to do, in order to obtain and keep their power, is by the most common arts. They proceed exactly as their ancestors of ambition have done before them. Trace them through all their artifices, frauds, and violences, you can find nothing at all that is new. They follow precedents and examples with the punctilious exactness of a pleader. They never depart an iota from the authentic formulas of tyranny and usurpation. But in all the regulations relative to the public good, the spirit has been the very reverse of this. There they commit the whole to the mercy of untried speculations; they abandon the dearest interests of the public to those loose theories, to which none of them would choose to trust the slightest of his private concerns. They make this difference, because in their desire of obtaining and securing power they are thoroughly in earnest; there they travel in the beaten road. The public interests, because about them they have no real solicitude, they abandon wholly to chance: I say to chance, because their schemes have nothing in experience to prove their tendency beneficial.”
— Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

The tendencies that Burke observed in the French Revolution might easily be discerned in events nearer and more recent. The “artifices, frauds, and violences” of the contemporary Left in America are tediously familiar, and the “loose theories” to which they would “abandon the dearest interests of the public” have not gained any additional credibility by the passage of more than two centuries.

Understanding the logic of radicalism, and examining at close range the tactical application of this logic, we know the Left’s opponents cannot win by playing according to the Left’s rules.

@AnonyOps presumes that it is sufficient to cite Aaron Walker’s writings about Islam as proof of Walker’s moral inferiority — for this sort of politicized “morality” is the only standard the Left recognizes — and the argument is over: Everyone must choose between either endorsing “Islamophobia” or else assenting to Walker’s destruction as a fate he justly deserves. The traveler is waylaid on the road to Jericho and who will dare come to his assistance?

The anonymous accuser wishes to intimidate Walker’s would-be allies by making them fear that if they defend him, they’ll be targeted with guilt-by-association smears. But how stupid does @AnonyOps think we are? If the entirety of the Left’s opposition can be condemned as “racists, homophobes, hatemongers, and bigots,” then what have we to fear from such accusations?

America is still a free country, liberty is not yet dead, and innocent citizens need not tremble at imprecations from @AnonyOps, who speaks on behalf of an international criminal conspiracy — which is what “Anonymous” is. There was  a huge bust last July, former “Anonymous” spokesman Barrett Brown got raided by the FBI in March, and several members of the “LulzSec” cell are now under federal indictment.

The proud boasting of @AnonyOps is ill-advised, considering that the feds may come knocking at his door any minute. There is an ongoing investigation and, while I have no specific reason to believe that @AnonyOps is complicit in any actual felonies, he is almost certainly under surveillance by the FBI’s Cyber Crime Unit. Perhaps @AnonyOps should ask Brett “Not a Racist” Kimberlin what federal prison is like.

— Robert Stacy McCain, Whereabouts Unknown

 




 

 

UPDATE (Smitty): Welcome, Instapundit readers!

UPDATE II (RSM): Linked by The Lonely Conservative, That Mr. G Guy, Doug Hagin at Daley Gator, Dyspepsia Generation and The Camp of the Saints — thanks!

As to Bill Quick’s concerns that the Right might sometimes be guilty of bringing a knife to the Left’s gunfight — well, yes, often this is a problem. The Republican Party has a few too many people enslaved by the Culture of Niceness, as we might call it. Some people cannot distinguish between “niceness” — a superficial adherence to the rules of social etiquette — and the fundamental principles of morality. Conflating the two things results in a sort of polite savagery. 

That is perhaps a discussion we can take up later, when we are not in the heat of battle. My point is that honorable causes cannot be advanced by dishonorable means, and the Left’s constant accusations that the Right is motivated by bad faith — that conservatives are all about greed and hate and war, etc. — constitute a pre-emptive excuse for the Left’s own wickedness. The Left does not hesitate to lie or cheat because they have convinced themselves that their Cause imparts to them a mantle of moral superiority that frees them from any obligation to respect the law or to obey ordinary codes of morality.

Ted Kennedy was an obnoxious drunken fool, and yet a hero to the Left. Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment.

Point out that the Occupy encampments are full of monstrous criminality, and the Left eloquently replies: RAAAAACIST!

THE KIMBERLIN FILES:

47 comments

  1. Interesting. My answer yesterday, to the question I asked of the clerk of the court regarding my sentence, was similar to the sign in the shopkeepers window. “Unless it is expressly stated you can do something, that is a prohibited act and would violate your sentence.” I read it over and over … no where does it state I am allowed to breathe, so I’m waiting for the Marshals to kick in my door at any moment … a dangerous criminal, breathing without the express permission of the court!

  2. Dead solid perfect.

    -Mr. Burke, I think, knew, by citing the example of French Revolutionaries, that he was making a general point about the Leftism he had witnessed rising all throughout his life.  This is one of the reasons his Reflections remains an essential read today if one is to understand how the Leftists we are dealing with think.  [I think a lot of people make an attempt at Burke, but break it off because of the floridness of the style – Russell Kirk’s philosophical biography may be the place to start (it’s working for me).]

    –Understanding the logic of radicalism, and examining at close range the tactical application of this logic, we know the Left’s opponents cannot win by playing according to the Left’s rules.

    Exactly.  We have to come up with a set of rules that follow Right Reason.  Otherwise, we will be subject to the same ridicule that we heap on the Left.

    -WOLVERINES!

  3. @rsmccain I contend that radicals presume the nihilism first, last, and always. The moral superiority is merely a device for attacking those with morals.

  5. Leftists are also engaged in a milder form of opinion suppression. We’ve heard about Youtube videos getting flagged. Well they also flag any opinion they find they don’t like and claim it’s inflammatory or biased or any of the other terms of use violation.

    Even in commentary on conservative blogs it seems.

    I made a comment on WaPo ridiculous claims about Romney’s school years 2 weeks ago. It got over 600 likes by viewers but it also got removed by Breitbart.com.

    I have yet (I don’t really care to fight it) to ask Breitbart why but we can assume they have a trigger number and if enough folks flag a comment then they automatically pull it out of concern for possible legal problems.

    I also assume that the number to get a comment pulled is less than the over 600 readers of Breitbart who agreed with what I had to say.

    For your enjoyment and judgment, I happened to have copied the comment when I found out it reached 655 likes. (I rarely do this but maybe I’ll start)

    Here it is:

    Got lost on your way to #OccupyMyMom’sBasement?(note: this comment was to someone whining about Romney being such a meany)

    Please go somewhere else where your ignorance and childish petulance is lauded and applauded by like minded (I use that term loosely) commenters.

    YOUR golden boy is a pandering felonious liar who hates America, hates it’s people and is too arrogant to realize he’s the failure. He’ll be gone in November and we’ll be working hard to repair the damage he and his ilk have done but we’ll never forget the media’s calumny and borderline treasonous lies that they promulgate for the sole purpose of getting the crypto-marxist re-elected.

    They will pay and so will the left.
    655 likes about wapo story.

  6. Anonymous, Occupy and Democrat campaign strategist Rauhauser all joined at the hip?  With a convicted domestic terrorist? I am totally surprised by this!

  8. […] Radicals Justify Their Evil by Invoking Their Presumed Moral Superiority : The Other McCain If you buy into the premises of their argument, then the conclusion logically follows that any outcome other than the complete triumph of the Left — the extermination of all resistance — is unacceptable, and whatever foul, unjust and illegal actions are necessary to accomplish that triumph can be justified. […]

  10. There never really was anything substantive to fear from the left’s accusations it’s just that we allowed it to be so.

  11. sheesh – ‘logic of radicalism’ ? They hate your guts and that is all the logic they need to do whatever they think they can get away with. I bet their hero is Kim Philby. Burke is ok, but the creeps have advanced a lot since then. 

  15. Snort. Snicker.

    Walker’s going to end up better off for his experiences, and Kimberlin will hopefully be found in violation of the law again.  I suppose this hope so stated means I am an Islamophobic, fascist, sexist, Really Bad Person.  Drat, I forgot I was a Raaaaacist as well, which is rather Raaaaacist of me.  Oh, the horrors.  I feel like I maybe having the vapors.  Someone catch me before I faint.

  17. ‘Florid’ is the way writing from the 18th and early 19th Centuries is described.  Sentences are quite long and oddly structured, both as far as were spare moderns are concerned.  It has rhythm that is foreign to us in many ways.

    I did not mean the word in the sense of a rosy or elaborate handwriting style.

  22. David Horowitz wrote a brilliant booklet that explains the Left. It is titled “Obama’s Rules For Revolution”. The booklet fits into a pocket, and can be purchased from the Freedom Foundation. Best $3.00 ever spent. Get your high lighter out.

  23. […] Read it. Such accusations, you see, are part of the belief system by which the far Left justifies its lawless radicalism: Because their enemies are all, in one way or another, guilty of political ThoughtCrimes (a category that the Left is always willing to expand and re-define as necessary), the Left need not be scrupulous as to the means by which it advances its goals. […]

  24. Pah. You just fear what’s underneath Guam.  I’ll tell  you what’s underneath Guam–no horrible humans, with their environment-destroying, carbon-belching machinery.  It’s a paradise, I tell ya.

    In fact, let’s start a fund to send all the “Green” enthusiasts under Guam.  I’m sure they’ll thank us for it.  And it will be green.  Sea Foam Green.  Like the new Green Lantern.

    “In brightest day, in blackest night,
    with a yummy latte and pink flashlight,…”

  26. Also, “Grammar” as we know it didn’t match the style of Burke’s day.

    An interesting comment made by Issac Asimov in his study of Shakespeare was that the English language was constantly shifting and altering in style, pronunciation, spelling and vocabulary up until Shakespeare became popular.  It has changed amazingly little since.

    I brought Asimov’s idea into a correspondence with David Allen White (the always excellent guest scholar on Shakespeare on the Hugh Hewitt radio program), and he agreed:

    I am in agreement with Asimov’s comment. I do find it sad that as
    Shakespeare is studied less and less (even by English majors — only 27%
    of recent ENGLISH LIT majors had read a Shakespeare play during their
    college days), the verbal skills of many are disappearing and the
    language is being debased.

    Reading older books like those by Burke and John Stuart Mill is a real treat into better understanding English, since they were remarkably gifted writers.

  28. Modern day Manichaeism. They consider their path to be holy, therefore by opposing their goal you reveal yourself to be evil, thus justifying any action used against you.

  31. Today’s Democrats would have been jailed a hundred years ago, and hunted with dogs and shot dead on sight two hundred years ago.  

  32. sign that a Berkeley businessman put in his shop window after radicals gained control of that city’s municipal government: “That which is not mandatory is prohibited.”

    That was a cop from Steward Edward White’s book “The Once and Future King”, from the chapter where young Arthur visits the militarized, totalitarian ants and finds that ‘Everything not Compulsory shall be Prohibited’.

  34. It’s all about power…who has it, who wants it, and what they intend to do with it.  Socialist ends, Chicago means.  Pray for the Republic.

  35. Indeed. People require some sense of morality and those who reject traditional morality will substitute something else in its place — generally, a moral code that justifies them in whatever they want to do. Such people are often the most self-righteous of Pharisees, constantly congratulating themselves on how “environmentally conscious” they are, or celebrating their own devotion to “human rights,” as if these political commitments free them from any obligation to deal righteously in their day-to-day lives. Al Gore, Alec Baldwin, et al.

  36. This is not new, as any watcher of the political scene will realize, but it is unusual for being so candid about itself. In the usual case, Leftists will “swallow the elephant” to avoid confronting their own transgressions. These two seem to glory in them. Perhaps they hope to attract imitators with their brashness.

  38. “America is still a free country, liberty is not yet dead.”

    Such cockeyed optimism from one smoking in all weathers outside his own property. 

    America won’t be free again until the last progressive parasite is detached from the body politic and educational.

  39. “their enemies are all, in one way or another, guilty of political ThoughtCrimes”: well, what’s Bloomberg’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene for if not to evaluate people’s mental health based on their politics?

  40. This is one of Stacy’s best essays yet.  It well describes the ruthlessness of the Left in pursuit of its goals, and its totalitarian nature, its use of force, its criminality.  Not to mention its burning hatred for anyone who opposes leftist goals, tenets and practices. 

  42. Pretend it’s religion and you have Islam; pretend it’s political and you have the Progressive Left.  

    Dress it up however you want.  It’s “Submit or Die”, either way.

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