A Voice in the Wilderness In Defense of "Mere Conservatism"

Nonsense On Stilts

Tavis Smiley is a liberal television talk show host on, shockingly, PBS.  Let the surprise of a Left-leaning commentator being the host of a show on publicly-funded television sink in.  Take deep breaths.

Better?

In what the late British philosopher Jeremy Bentham would have described as "nonsense on stilts," Mr. Smiley tries to convince a Somalian former Muslim woman named Ayaan Hirsi Ali that, "...more Christians (than Muslims) blow up people everyday."  Hear it for yourself:

I don't even know where to begin. Well, that's not true: Tavis Smiley is probably a good man, loving husband, and doting father...but he is an utter fool if he really believes what he said in this clip.  If his only point is that people who call themselves "Christian" commit crimes every day of the week, then he is right.  But Ms. Ali is talking about attempted (and successful) mass-murder, perpetrated by men who believe that their religion compels them to end the lives of "infidels."

The reason I know that Smiley is not simply pointing out that people from all faiths and cultures commit crimes is, well, because I listened to his own words.  He sees moral equivalency between American Christians and the irreconcilable wing of Islam.  This is because he is a liberal, and the bizarre and instiable desire for "multiculturalism" trumps the truth on the political Left in this country.  It's sad, and I wish it were not so, but I also wish LOST had another season or two.

The priceless moment of the exchange came when he tried to link the Columbine massacre to Christian terrorism.  Now for someone to be totally unaware that the Columbine killers were not religious, and in fact executed one of their victims specifically for refusing to renounce her faith in Christ in front of them, is hard to believe.  Especially when that person is a supposed cultural commentator on publicly-funded television (PBS...your tax-dollars at work!).

This is why I stress the importance of History on this blog so often.  Here is a classic example of someone using a past event to try to make his ill-advised point, but since neither he nor his guest (Ms. Ali only recently moved to the United States and would understandably be unfamiliar with the specifics of the Columbine incident) knew the facts of the event in question, he was able to get away with an egregious intellectual error (that fundamentally contradicts his point).

So why would Tavis Smiley, himself a self-described Christian, be so gun-ho about defending the indefensible actions of radical jihadist Muslims?  Because he is really more interested in attacking his political opponents here in America.  He is really talking about "right-wing" Christians.  The kind that form weird militias and cults.  The kind that chant "God hates fags" at the funerals of American soldiers.  The kind that "cling to their guns and religion" instead of embracing the socially-engineered arms of the State.

In short, the (largely incorrect) caricature liberals have of the typical religious conservative in "Red-State" America.  Never mind the fact that all leading conservative voices in the country denounce the actions of any even loosely-related-to-the-conservative-movement crazies, such as the loons at the Westboro Baptist Church.

But it doesn't matter that Christian conservatives denounce things like the abortion doctor killing last summer.  Bill Clinton blamed the Oklahoma City bombing on Rush Limbaugh's anti-Clinton rhetoric in the mid-1990's.  Liberals in the media insist on naming Timothy McVeigh as a "Christian" terrorist.  The Left consistently over-looks foreign enemies and true evil to try and crush their political enemies here at home.

You can make your own further assessments of this interview, but just know that the "thinking" employed by Tavis Smiley is not rare on the Left.  It is all-too-common and must be refuted.  The truth matters, my friends.