Reply #18: those are not very good points, IMO [View All]

[hfojvt]

First: "Given the degree to which religious ideas are still sheltered from criticism in every society, it is actually possible for a person to have the economic and intellectual resources to build a nuclear bomb — and to believe that he will get 72 virgins in paradise. And yet, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, liberals continue to imagine that Muslim terrorism springs from economic despair, lack of education and American militarism."

It is pretty tanjed hard for a PERSON to have the economic and intellectual resources to build a nuclear bomb. A society can have those resources, and yet that same society can have a large strain of economic despair, lack of education and anger at American militarism. Although lack of education is not so much of a key as lack of a 'non-ideological' education.

Second: "Such an astonishing eruption of masochistic unreason could well mark the decline of liberalism, if not the decline of Western civilization."

Pretty hyperbolic there. Instead of giving a rational argument against LIHOP, he dismisses it as "an astonishing eruption of masochistic unreason" and then makes the leap from that to "the decline of Western civilization".

"Phantasmagoria" and "debilitating dogma that lurks at the heart of liberalism". That's some fancy prose there but also seems to me that he is trying to prove his point by name calling. Can he cite some sources that show that this "dogma" is at the heart of liberalism or is that supposed to be obvious? Can he prove that this postulate (that Western power is not as benign as advertised) is false and is believed dogmatically? Can he prove that it is 'debilitating'? Or does he just like to create clever alliterative aspersions instead of making logical arguments?