"Whom the gods destroy, they first make mad." -
Euripides, 5th Century B.C. Greek tragedian
No, we are not all
descending into madness. Just our political leaders, our news media, our
schools, and assorted loose human cannons who are plumbing the depths of
insanity and institutional irrationality to see when their and our craniums
crack. And they seem to want the rest of us to go berserk and take up residence
with them in their loony bin where we can all tiptoe through the tulips and have
huggy-bear sessions with our killers. They are mad, and they wish to make us
mad. Insanity is the new norm.
1.
Persistent mental disorder or derangement. Not in scientific use.
2.
Unsoundness of mind sufficient in the judgment of a civil court
to render a person unfit to maintain a contractual or other legal relationship
or to warrant commitment to a mental health facility.
3.
In most criminal jurisdictions, a degree of mental
malfunctioning considered to be sufficient to relieve the accused of legal
responsibility for the act committed.
In a sane world, men would not, for example, protest the
right of Israel or any other sovereign nation to defend itself against attacks
by its neighbors or by terrorist groups like Hamas. Instead, they would urge
the Israeli government to wipe out its enemies and uproot them, or at least
spray Hamas with a root-killing chemical (shall we call it "DDT" -
Deter Deranged Terrorism?) and leave their former subjects and human shields to
fend for themselves.
Another mark of madness is the spectacle of Jews opposing
Israel's existence and blaming Jews for anti-Semitism, and even accusing them
of racism. Daniel Greenfield, in his August 8th FrontPage article, "J Street Accuses Jews of Racism,
Blames Jews for Anti-Semitism," noted another form of
madness:
After Hamas violated yet another ceasefire, anti-Israel
group J Street stepped up to do what it does best. Attack Jews and Israel.
Jeremy Ben Ami [a spokesman for J Street] then launched
into a pitch for letting Hamas smuggle as many weapons as it wants
"Occupation, Blockade, Frustration, etc...), accused Israel of racism,
warned Israel to "heed to the advice of its friends in the White House and
the State Department and at a minimum should show them the respect that the
country's closest ally deserves."
Then Jeremy Ben Ami claimed that the conflict was
promoting anti-Semitism and ranted about "growth and extent of hatred of
the other, intolerance and outright racism in our own Jewish community."
For example, one would have thought that the virulent anti-Semitism that
as a rule in the past expressed itself Nazi-style in murders, fire-bombings,
attacking Jews, and in loud and noisy demonstrations against Jews and Israel
was a disease that had been eradicated or at least suppressed, like polio or
malaria. There was a time when, if one was an anti-Semite, one kept it to
oneself. There was a time when it was at the risk of social embarrassment and
even ostracism to blurt it out. Now tens of thousands of people are flaunting
it, boasting of it, spitting out their venom under the pretence of
"freedom of speech." It is a form of Kristallnacht,
practiced by Muslims and their allies on the Left in demonstrations and by
roving mobs. Douglas Murray, in his August 13th Gatestone Institute article
"Are ‘Integrated Muslims' Integrated?"
writes:
The Gaza War has produced flagrantly anti-Semitic
protests, attacks on Jews and the burning down of Jewish buildings. Those
protests have come as a surprise to parts of the European public - nowhere more
so than in Germany, where a hatred thought to have been disgraced for all time
has found its way back onto European streets under a new guise....
Most noticeable was that the protests across Western
European cities have overwhelmingly been led by Muslims - not Islamists - just
normal, "integrated" Muslims, who stay at home when any other war
occurs. (Where were their protests against Qatar for funding Hamas?)
Where were they? Whatever advances the imposition of an
Islamic caliphate is justified, even when it's a violent imposition, and not a
candidate for protest. It's nothing to shout about, not an opportune time to
carry signs that say, "Islam will dominate" and "Kill those who
insult the Prophet." The Koran permits
latitude of discretionary protesting. To wit, one of many, many instances:
Sura 8:38-42 (Keep fighting them until they stop
persecuting believers and until Islam is established. If they stop fighting
then stop. Now, a fifth of all the booty belongs to God and His leader.)
"Say to the unbelievers, if (now) they desist (from
unbelief), their past would be forgiven them, but if they persist, the
punishment of those before them is already (a matter of warning for
them)." And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and
there prevail justice and faith in God altogether and everywhere. But if they
cease, verily God doth see all that they do. [YA: "If they cease from
fighting and from the persecution of truth, God judges them by their actions
and their motives, and would not wish that they should be harassed with further
hostility."]
There are 164 such verses in
the Koran, each as bloody
minded as the next.
And what is the policy of the mad men who know what a
global Islamic "world order" would entail, which is slaughter,
rapine, destruction, and legalized looting? To submit peacefully and without
prejudice to Islam, for otherwise there would be "violence."
Notwithstanding the mountains of data and evidence about
the fundamental means and ends of Islam and Islamic terrorist organizations
such as Hamas, our political culture is poisoned with the Kantian/Hegelian
imperative that the West must, in the name of "peace," negotiate and
tolerate our executioners. These urgent supplications have come from such
demonstrable fools and professional altruists, and gadflies for
"peace" such as Jimmy Carter, former U.S. president, and Mary
Robinson, former president of Ireland in their Foreign Policy article , "How to Fix it,"
of August 4th :
This tragedy results from the deliberate obstruction of a
promising move toward peace in the region, when a reconciliation agreement
among the Palestinian factions was announced in April. This was a major
concession by Hamas, in opening Gaza to joint control under a technocratic
government that did not include any Hamas members. The new government also
pledged to adopt the three basic principles demanded by the Middle East Quartet
comprised of the United Nations, the United States, the European Union, and
Russia: nonviolence, recognition of Israel, and adherence to past agreements.
Tragically, Israel rejected this opportunity for peace and has succeeded in
preventing the new government's deployment in Gaza....
There is no humane or legal justification for the way the
Israeli Defense Forces are conducting this war. Israeli bombs, missiles, and
artillery have pulverized large parts of Gaza, including thousands of homes,
schools, and hospitals....
There is never an excuse for deliberate attacks on civilians
in conflict. These are war crimes. This is true for both sides. Hamas's
indiscriminate targeting of Israeli civilians is equally unacceptable. However,
three Israeli civilians have been killed by Palestinian rockets, while an
overwhelming majority of the 1,600 Palestinians killed have been civilians,
including more than 330 children. The need for international judicial
proceedings to investigate and end these violations of international law should
be taken very seriously.
According to Carter and Robinson, Israel is guilty by the
fact that regardless of Israel being attacked by Hamas, and its rockets
deliberately pointed at Israeli citizens, hoping to inflict as many deaths as
possible, especially of Israeli children, it had no right to retaliate with all
the force it could muster, and regardless of Hamas's using Palestinians as
human shields, including men, women and children, Israel is more guilty than
Hamas because more Palestinians died than did Israelis. This is topsy-turvy
thinking, if can be called thinking at all. It is lunacy. It defies reason,
logic, and all measures of morality. Carter and Robinson must know down deep -
or perhaps they don't, and that is a measure of their insanity - that if Israel
meets all of Hamas's demands, it would be signing its own death warrant. Andrew
McCarthy, in his PJ Media article of August 6th, "Carter and Robinson: The Hamas
Jihad's Useful Idiots," noted that:
Carter and Robinson are desperate to derive or otherwise
manufacture Hamas's purported agreement to the Quartet conditions because Hamas
has made quite clear that it will never actually agree to renounce the jihad
and accept Israel's right to exist. The authors would cut Hamas slack on this
score because, they say, the organization cannot be expected to "cooperate
in its own demise."
Even by loathsome Carter-Robinson standards, the
assertion is breathtaking. The operating assumption of their op-ed is thatIsrael must cooperate in its own demise by
ceasing to defend itself and abandoning the blockades absent which Hamas would
quickly acquire even more deadly mass-destruction weapons. Furthermore, Hamas' raison d'être is the annihilation of Israel by
terrorist jihad; so by the authors' reasoning, it could never be expected to
agree to non-violent coexistence with a Jewish state since that would amount to
the demise of Hamas. Without the demise of Hamas, there is no chance for peace
in the Middle East. It will require tuning out terror's useful idiots.
In his FrontPage article of August 6th, "Jimmy Carter: The Only Way to Fix
Gaza is by Giving Hamas Everything It Wants,"Daniel
Greenfield notes that:
Carter skips over that by claiming that peace will only
come from a PLO-Hamas agreement (what's more likely to bring peace than a unity
agreement between two terror groups?) and urges a lifting of the blockade and
replacing Egyptian and Israeli border monitoring with the UN.
"The international community's initial goal should
be the full restoration of the free movement of people and goods to and from
Gaza through Israel, Egypt, and the sea. Concurrently, the United States and EU
should recognize that Hamas is not just a military but also a political force.
Hamas cannot be wished away, nor will it cooperate in its own demise. Only by
recognizing its legitimacy as a political actor - one that represents a
substantial portion of the Palestinian people - can the West begin to provide
the right incentives for Hamas to lay down its weapons."
Carter presumes that Hamas wants to lay down its weapons.
There is no evidence of that whatsoever. Hamas is an acronym for "Islamic
Resistance Movement". The goal of terrorist groups is to take power, not
put down their weapons. Hamas deals with dissent by shooting dissenters.
Hamas, if Israel is foolish enough to empower it with
concessions, means to commit genocide, just as the "Islamic State or ISIS
is committed to the genocide of the Yazidis, by kidnapping Yazidi women and
girls for rape and sex slavery. An unsigned Catholic Online article of August
14th, "300 Kurds kidnapped for rape: The
Islamic state plans to breed out the blonde Iraqis,"
reports:
There are fears that the 300 Yazidi women who have been
kidnapped by militants from the Islamic State last week will be used to bear
children in order to break up the ancient community's bloodline....
Referencing the kidnapping of the Yazidi women, Adnan
Kochar, chairman of the Kurdish Cultural Center in London told MailOnline:
"The Kurds and Yazidis are originally Aryans. But because the Yazidis are
such a closed community they have retained a fairer complexion, blonder hair
and blue eyes. They don't marry non-Yazidis. Kochar continued: "ISIS have
taken around 300 women from Sinjar to give to jihadists to marry and make
pregnant to have a Muslim child. If they can't kill all Yazidis, they will try
to smash the blond bloodline."
This story was also carried by the Daily Mail and
other sites. Well, there's Islam's tolerance and absence of racism for you.
Meanwhile, in Europe and other places, anti-Semitism is
raising its ancient and ugly head. H ere is a photo gallery of
the cities in which anti-Israel (and anti-Semitic) "protests" took
place, with the Gaza War, which Hamas was losing, being the excuse to vent
one's hatred. Or madness.
The U.S. has seen its share of anti-Semitic and
anti-Israel demonstrations. But the Metropolitan Opera has committed the most
outrageous and contemptible expression of anti-Semitism by going ahead with the
production of an "opera" that decidedly blames Jews for their murders.
Surely this is a sign of troubling derangement. The opera is The Death of Klinghoffer. The New York Post
reported on June 16th in its article, "Metropolitan Opera romanticizes one NYer's
murder":
In 1985, New Yorker Leon Klinghoffer, 69, and his wife
Marilyn took a cruise to celebrate their 36th wedding anniversary. Leon never
came back: Four members of the Palestine Liberation Front hijacked the Achille
Lauro, shot him in the head and threw him overboard in his wheelchair.
Starting in October, The Metropolitan Opera in Lincoln
Center plans to show a mockery of this brutal murder - the long-dormant
"The Death of Klinghoffer." The title gives away the show's agenda:
Klinghoffer didn't "die": This World War II vet was murdered by
terrorists.
The show has widely been denounced as anti-Semitic and
sympathetic to the hijackers. Performances planned in Boston and elsewhere were
cancelled shortly after 9/11. If it wasn't then, what makes it acceptable now
for Lincoln Center to glorify the murderers of a disabled New Yorker?....
The Metropolitan Opera receives local, state and federal
funding. Will taxpayer funds support anti-Semitism? What is the artistic value
in celebrating the murder of innocents?
The Met cancelled its lucrative simulcast of the show
which would have reached perhaps thousands of paying subscribers in the U.S.
and across the word when it was broadcast in local theaters. Fox News, in its
June 24th article, "Met Opera stands behind decision to
cancel ‘Klinghoffer' simulcast amid anti-Semitic concerns,"
reported the cancellation of the simulcast and revealed the depraved state of
its general manager, Peter Gelb. If the opera is not anti-Semitic, it is in the
worse possible taste. The cancellation of the simulcast was a reaction to the
severe criticism the opera received.
The Metropolitan Opera is standing firm in its decision
to cancel plans for a global simulcast to cinemas of John Adams' "The
Death of Klinghoffer" despite receiving criticism for shifting their plans
once concerns rose that the show could stir anti-Semitic sentiments.
The Met's press director, Peter Clark, acknowledged the
criticism when reached by FOX411, but said there are no plans to reconsider the
decision, despite the harsh reactions [from those accusing the opera's critics
of censorship].
"I'm convinced that the opera is not
anti-Semitic," Peter Gelb said. "But I've also become convinced that
there is genuine concern in the international Jewish community that the live
transmission of ‘The Death of Klinghoffer' would be inappropriate at this time
of rising anti-Semitism, particularly in Europe...."
Jewish advocacy groups immediately lauded the move to
cancel the simulcast.
The ADL praised the decision,
noting that "while the opera itself is not anti-Semitic, there is a
concern the opera could be used in foreign countries as a means to stir up
anti-Israel sentiments or as a vehicle to promote anti-Semitism."
Put another way, staging The
Death of Klinghoffer is tantamount to staging an opera, complete
with atonal singing and music and an absurdist script, about the shooting of
Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman during the Ferguson, Missouri riots
over the shooting of Michael Brown, a thug, by a city police officer. It, too,
would also be elevating criminality and unreason to a high art, and celebrating
insanity.
The gods are not destroying us and Western civilization.
We are destroying ourselves and it.
Edward Cline is the author of the Sparrowhawk novels set in England and
Virginia in the pre-Revolutionary period, of several detective and suspense
novels, and three collections of his commentaries and columns, all available on
Amazon Books. His essays, book reviews, and other articles have appeared in The
Wall Street Journal, the Journal of Information Ethics and other publications.
He is a frequent contributor to Rule of Reason, Family Security Matters,
Capitalism Magazine and other Web publications.
Read more: Family Security Matters
Read more: Family Security Matters
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