‘The Enemy At Home’

September 9, 2006

Honestly, I sometimes think right-wingers have gotten together and created a simple strategy from which they will not waver: trying to drive me insane. For example, Michael Berube highlighted a new book from, your friend and mine, Dinesh D’Souza.

In THE [tag]ENEMY AT HOME[/tag], bestselling author [tag]Dinesh D’Souza[/tag] makes the startling claim that the 9/11 attacks and other terrorist acts around the world can be directly traced to the ideas and attitudes perpetrated by America’s cultural left.

D’Souza shows that liberals — people like Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Barney Frank, Bill Moyers, and Michael Moore — are responsible for fostering a culture that angers and repulses not just Muslim countries but also traditional and religious societies around the world. Their outspoken opposition to American foreign policy — including the way the Bush administration is conducting the war on terror — contributes to the growing hostility, encouraging people both at home and abroad to blame America for the problems of the world. He argues that it is not our exercise of freedom that enrages our enemies, but our abuse of that freedom — from the sexual liberty of women to the support of gay marriage, birth control, and no-fault divorce, to the aggressive exportation of our vulgar, licentious popular culture.

The cultural wars at home and the global war on terror are usually viewed as separate problems. In this groundbreaking book, [tag]D’Souza[/tag] shows that they are one and the same. It is only by curtailing the left’s attacks on religion, family, and traditional values that we can persuade moderate Muslims and others around the world to cooperate with us and begin to shun the extremists in their own countries.

Keep in mind, this description of the book isn’t a parody. It’s the official description from D’Souza’s publisher, not a mocking tribute from Berube.

And who is that publisher? It’s not Regnery — it’s Random House.

As Kevin Drum put it, we’re practically looking at an environment in which conservatives are “in a contest to see who can write the most moronic [tag]book[/tag].” Given the above description, I’d D’Souza is the odds-on favorite.

Thanks CB. I guess we can’t misunderestimate the size of the moron market.

The answer to religious extremism is not more religion.

  • “He argues that it is not our exercise of freedom that enrages our enemies, but our abuse of that freedom — from the sexual liberty of women…”

    So he’s arguing we should be a bit more like the Taliban and the Saudis? Peachy.

    And what exactly is sexual liberty? And why is it a bad thing for women and not men? And if it is OK for men to be sexually liberated, but not women who exactly are the men supposed to be liberated with? And then what’s his beef with same-sex relationships? Or is he suggesting the men can be liberated not with women OR men, but should turn to non-human animals? I don’t like that. I’ve got three cats you know. Both of my neighbors have really sweet dogs. Yuck.

    And what’s his solution? Put all the Liberals out on a big target?

    And in what chapter does he call Jihad against the Left?

    And am I alone in thinking that if this book were written by a Muslim in America about the evils of America, NSA would be sitting on his ass and heating up the needles? And the cretins who will buy this thing would be fine with that, because after all, Religious Radicalism is fine. So long as it’s MY religion.

  • curtailing the left’s attacks on religion, family, and traditional values

    Now that’s a sobering sentence. I suspect they don’t mean some voluntary system of “curtailing”.

  • Hey, I think I’m starting to get it!! So, if the U.S. will simply become an obedient Christian theocracy, this will dovetail nicely with an Islamic Crescent in the Greater Middle East, right? Never mind that their religious philosophies have about as much in common as chalk and cheese; Islam will be much happier coexisting with an infidel superpower than it previously was with a superpower that favoured gay marriage and short skirts, and entire decades on the runways of Fifth Avenue in which not a single spring ensemble features a burqua.

    I’m still having trouble reconciling this with the stated aim of exporting democracy so theocratic regimes elsewhere will loosen up a little, but I expect that’s because I’m slow to grasp concepts. I suppose it’s entirely possible that George Bush is much smarter than he seems (he’d pretty much have to be); Jeez, maybe he’s supercrafty, and this has been his plan all along – to make us all more religious for our own good, and then present America as a theocratic republic to Islamic nations, a theocratic republic whose values are almost…well, maybe a little…all right, not at all like theirs. Break out the candy and flowers!!!

    Seriously – the Islamic world could care less if America collapses into a fornicating stew of gay marriage in short skirts with multiple partners, all to the beat of obnoxious music: just as long as it doesn’t attempt to export its values and distract Muslim youth from the path of righteousness. What’s so hard to understand about that? America is youth, and the Islamic world is adults. I can’t stand my kids’ music, don’t like the way they dress or their generation’s disrespect for adults. I’m not crazy about their work ethic, and think my generation took the world WAY more seriously. There is not a shadow of doubt that my parents thought exactly the same of me and my friends.

    Stop fucking with the Muslims, and leave them alone except for such trade as both nations will tolerate. There is as much chance that they will follow retreating American troops to continue the mayhem over here as you seeing an Elvis comeback concert.

  • Sorry for the fragmentary nature of my posts, but who is it exactly that “hates our freedoms”? Is it the Islamists or is it our religious right?

    Will the poster who coined the phrase Theofascists please step forward and take a bow.

  • My wife’s family tends to speak of any distant relative who’s “got religion” in the same way they’d speak of someone who’s become mentally unstable or infirm. Having tried a somewhat wider gamut of religious experience than most, I heartily agree.

    Rather than thinking of someone “getting religion”, though, I’m inclined to reverse the causal agency: religions get victims, much the way a flu virus does. Once the religious meme attacks a human brain, it can lead the victim to all kinds of self-sacrifice (martyrdom, surely, but also just making a fool of oneself) … just as long as the victim spreads the virus to others before cashing in.

    The only cure for religion, I think, is what the educationists used to call “innoculative learning” — exposure to it in early childhood, with the hope that having survived it, it isn’t likely to return.

    For the life of me, I can’t see any difference between religious belief and belief in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, except that the former does so much more harm.

  • The piece de resistance – so far (feel free to cross your fingers, hold your breath) – of D’Souza’s career, “The End of Racism: Principles for a Multiracial Society,” was published in 1995. Campus Progress, Know Your Right-Wing Speakers.

    Had only we followed their advice this latest book could have been avoided. The article is good for a laugh. Here are some D’Souza quotes from the article.

    “The American slave was treated like property, which is to say, pretty well.” (from D’Souza’s book, The End of Racism)

    “If America as a nation owes blacks as a group reparations for slavery, what do blacks as a group owe America for the abolition of slavery?” (from The End of Racism)

    “Am I calling for the repeal of the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Actually, yes.” (from The End of Racism)

    “…within the United States, black males have (you may be surprised to discover) the highest self-esteem of any group. Yet on academic measures black males score the lowest. The reason is that self-esteem in these cases is generated by factors unrelated to studies, such as the ability to beat up other students or a high estimation of one’s sexual prowess.” (from D’Souza’s book Letters to a Young Conservative)

    “[f]or many whites the criminal and irresponsible black underclass represents a revival of barbarism in the midst of Western civilization.” (from D’Souza’s book The End of Racism)

  • I think we’ve finally found Bush’s “some” who think we can “appease” terrorists. Shoulda looked at conservative wingnuts first.

  • “He argues that it is not our exercise of freedom that enrages our enemies, but our abuse of that freedom — from the sexual liberty of women…”

    This pretty much fits with theFamily Research Council’s Tony Perkins’ call for instituting the death penalty for “unchaste women.”

    Actually, these guys are all afraid of women, because none of them really know what to do when their clothes are off – di you ever notice that you never see prominent left wingers advertising Viagra? It’s always righties. There’s a good reason for that.

    Dinesh D’Souza has been a fucking fascist idiot since he was at Dartmouth 25 years ago. The quotes from End of Racism show exactly where he is. That he – and Cyrus Nowratseh – are in the country at all is proof we really do need immigration reform.

  • As revolting and absurd as I might find books like this, they’re interesting in that they provide a window into how some people really do think. It’s scary, but it’s also part of America.

  • Nathan up above makes the good point that I had seen earlier at Americablog. This screed is nothing but a call for appeasing the terrorists.

  • Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, American ayatollahs, said essentially the same thing in a lot fewer words just 2 days after 9/11. God must be very confused by these humans that he designed in his image.

    Jerry Falwell: “The ACLU’s got to take a lot of blame for this. And, I know that I’ll hear from them for this. But, throwing God
    out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools.
    The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40
    million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the Pagans, and the abortionists, and the
    feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU,
    People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and
    say, ‘You helped this happen.’”
    On the reason for the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America, Sept. 13, 2001 “The 700 Club,” Christian
    Broadcasting Network

    Pat Robertson:
    “We have a court that has essentially stuck its finger in God’s eye and said we’re going to legislate you out of the
    schools. We’re going to take your commandments from off the courthouse steps in various states. We’re not going
    to let little children read the commandments of God. We’re not going to let the Bible be read, no prayer in our
    schools. We have insulted God at the highest levels of our government. And, then we say, ‘Why does this happen?’
    Well, why it’s happening is that God Almighty is lifting his protection from us.”
    On the reason for the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America, Sept. 13, 2001 “The 700 Club” program,
    Christian Broadcasting Network

  • Tom’s ugly nativism aside (seriously, is there any non-white, non-Cauc group you don’t have a problem with? At least you haven’t bashed the Jews lately… but I’m sure that’s coming back), D’Souza is a piece of garbage whose ideas don’t deserve to be taken seriously.

    To believe his hypothesis is both to hate and fear the “secular left” (i.e. all of us) much more than one hates the Muslim “evildoers,” and to adopt a post-materialist worldview that might play in the relatively affluent U.S., but probably doesn’t hold for people who worry about feeding themselves and their families, and blame the West for that problem.

    In other words, it’s not the corrupt US-supported regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and elsewhere–the real “Islamofasicsts”–that enrage the faithful and spur them toward Jihad, but Kim Cattrall and Ellen DeGeneres. And it’s not the Bush-voting imbeciles who watch “Desperate Housewives” and order pay-per-view porn in midwestern hotels who are to blame, but the Bush-supporting corporations who market and profit off all the filth.

    It’s a wonder these assholes’ heads don’t explode from all the cognitive dissonance.

  • Screw you Dajafi, and the horse you rode in on. Where were you in the civil rights movement? I happen to have been there, and still am. So stick your head back up your fat ass. As far as “bashing the Jews” is concerned, there is a difference between Judaism and Zionism, not that a moron like you would know that, and the interests of the far right in Israel are not the interests of the United States. I’ll stand with “Jew haters” like Albret Einstein and his bashing of the same sort of crap I point out, over mindless morons like yourself.

    As to people being surprised by Random House publishing D’Souza, it’s not so surprising when you consider that the company is owned by News Corporation, the owner of Faux news.

  • If they hate us for our freedoms, just take away our freedoms, and they’ll leave us alone.

    Bring back the Burha! Saudi family values are our values.

  • Wow! Someone does blame America First. It’s just not a Democrat.

    Sort of confirms my belief that all Boy George II’s ‘strawmen’ are actually Repulican’ts and Conservatives talking to him in private.

  • Lance, thanks for pointing out the perfect irony embedded in the publisher’s blurb. Those well-known blame-America-firsters, like Hillary Clinton, Bill Moyers, and (the hard to believe he is still “walking free”) Michael Moore are – well – to blame for the world of crap we find ourselves in now. Undoubtedly the writer of the blurb was blind to the irony because he / she does not view any of the listed individuals as American or part of America.

    This book seems to be yet another version of the “I know you are, but what am I?” defense to which ideologues on the right must resort. What else have they got? They have controlled the White House and both houses of Congress and, and have to know that the state of affairs in Iraq and Afghanistan and the stature of the US in the world is the product of their own beloved policies. How to reconcile this disturbing reality? Move the blame marker (again) to pre-Iraq and even pre 9/11. Point the finger at Bill Clinton and for good measure assign blame to liberals for any aspects of US culture that theocrats and religious fanatics of all stripes find offensive. Suddenly the failures of policy and execution by the Bush administration and its supporters receive contextual absolution. Who could have foreseen that terrorists might hijack planes and fly them into buildings? Why, no one. Who could possibly devise and implement policy that could overcome the depravity condoned, practiced, and forcibly exported by liberals? Why, no one. And since no one is capable of succeeding, American voters might as well stick with the Republicans because they won’t give up until the failure is completed.

    PS: Tom, you may wish to dismiss me as you did dajafi, but I think that sometimes the points you wish to make are diminished by the (to this reader) gratuitous insults you sometimes hurl at entire groups of individuals. It occassionally gets offensive. Do you really think the final sentence of your post at #10 added any value? I do not.

  • I was beginning to believe Rush L. and Mike S. were crazy, always blasting you democrats as nuts but after reading a few of these blogs I realize they are telling the truth. You guys really are nuts and either can’t or won’t see the truth.

  • We the Sheeple, hope you die soon and improve the gene pool in America.

    This book could be summed up as “Bin Laden was Right! Lets Appease Him.”

  • Yes, the intellectual capacity and thought-process of the wing-nuts shine through once again, as those two last posts prove.

    It’s like arguing with a six-year-old

  • mark,
    I apologize, I didn’t mean to include you, I have a problem of typing faster than I can think in the morning.

    Your book title is correct. Still, I don’t think we should wish our fellow Americans, however stupid, to die an early death. I’d be happy with just gelding them.

  • Actually he does have a point. Radical Muslims don’t like the Liberal Agenda being forced on them via the Foreign Policies of Clinton, Carter, JFK and LBJ which lead to the Iranian Hostage crisis of the 1970’s, the attacks on the WTC in 1993 and 2001, the attack on the US Cole, the attack of the US Embassy in Lebanon, and many other terrorist attacks.

    When Conservatives were in office, they did not force the Liberal Agenda on the Muslims, instead Reagan helped Muslims fight off the Russians, George H. W. Bush liberated Kuwait, and the number of terrorist attacks on the US were lower during the time the Republicans were in office.

    911 Happened on George W. Bush’s watch, but it was planned during the Clinton years. Clinton had a fascist foreign policy against Afghanistan, Iraq, and other nations that did hard economic hardships.

    Do the Islamic Terrorists hate our freedoms? Maybe they just hate the freedoms we give to women, homosexuals, minorities, all religions, and want to force us into Islamic Law which takes away freedoms from those individuals but gives Islamic Tribes the freedoms instead. When Conservatives are fighting the Islamic Terrorists, they fight for the freedoms for all, not just selected groups. Both the Conservatives and Radical Muslims are Fundamentalists, but the similarities end there. The Radical Muslims take up terrorism and then anyone is a target, while the Conservatives are trying to target Terrorists, but the Terrorists use innocents as human shields. Instead of teaming up with the Conservatives to defeat the Terrorists, the Liberals would rather attack the Conservatives instead. That makes no sense because if the Conservatives lose, the Terrorists will take control, and they won’t allow Liberalism like the Conservatives allow it. Another difference between Terrorists and Conservatives, is that you can reason with a Conservative, and a Terrorist is more like a mad dog that cannot be reasoned with.

    In conclusion, the war on terror has to fight the Terrorists in foreign lands, as well as fight the Liberals back at home trying to take away the ability to fight the Terrorists.

    It comes down to this, would you rather fight the terrorists in a foreign land, or withdraw troops and wait until we fight them on our own native soil?

    Sure we can argue over freedoms and rights and how to fight terrorists, but all that does is work in favor of the terrorists and when the terrorists are in control with Islamic Law, what happens to the Liberal Agenda then? What happens to people who do not have religion? What happens to women and homosexuals? What happens to people who have a religion other than Islam, or an Islam religion that does not agree with the Terrorist version of Islam?

    If the Terrorists do take over the USA and the free world, or even Iraq or Afghanistan, I will blame the Liberals for sabotaging the war efforts which allowed the terrorists to do those things.

    Feh, you people think George W. Bush is bad? What do you think will happen when an Islamic Terrorist leader like Osama bin Laden is running your government or else someone like Saddam Huessien. The more you attack Conservatives, the more likely it will happen, you Benedict Arnolds!

    As for me, I am a moderate, I am neither a conservative or liberal, and I am sick of the two of you fighting all the time and not getting anything good done as a result.

  • I am troubled that for so many on the left (and enough on the right) seem to think the ‘argumentum ad hominem’ constitutes a valid method of reasoning and refutation. The thrust of your complaint about D’Sousa is that his claims are “moronic”. Any thinking person knows this is a reflection of your opinion but it carries no real analysis. It simply means you disagree with him but provides no basis for validation of the legtimacy of you critique.

  • Its a great book and its an honest look at the problems we are facing today. The librial left is going to be the downfall of America and it has already started. I agree with Orion Blastar, “If the Terrorists do take over the USA and the free world, or even Iraq or Afghanistan, I will blame the Liberals for sabotaging the war efforts which allowed the terrorists to do those things.

    Feh, you people think George W. Bush is bad? What do you think will happen when an Islamic Terrorist leader like Osama bin Laden is running your government or else someone like Saddam Huessien. The more you attack Conservatives, the more likely it will happen, you Benedict Arnolds!”
    Well said I agree!

  • haha wow you guys are so defensive, stupid fucking liberals, so did you hear about D’Souza absolutely ripping the boston college guy a new ass hole?? yeah he did… fucking liberals haha

  • In his book he defines a conservative as someone who gets morals from an external source and a liberal as someone who get morals from inside them self. Look up where he defines the fundamental differance between liberals and conservatives. I for one am glad to know that conservatives don’t have a conscience and that communism and facism are conservative.

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