RUTHFULLY YOURS

Ryszard Legutko is a philosopher and politician, Member of the European Parliament, professor of philosophy at Cracow University, and a former Polish Minister of Education. His book on the post-communist evolution of liberal democracy will be published later this year by Encounter Books, New York.

The modern left loves and worships such words as ‘debate’ and ‘deliberation’, but their use is mostly for ornamental purposes. Why should anyone seriously debate with an opponent who represents what is historically indefensible and moribund?

My theme is the similarities between communism and liberal democracy. The idea that such similarities exist started germinating timidly in my mind back in the 1970s, when for the first time I managed to get out of communist Poland to travel to the so-called West.

To my unpleasant surprise, I discovered that many of my friends who classified themselves as devoted supporters of liberal democracy, of a multi-party system, human rights, pluralism and everything that every liberal democrat proudly listed as his acts of faith, displayed extraordinary meekness and empathy towards communism. I was unpleasantly surprised because it seemed to me that every liberal democrat’s natural and almost visceral response to communism should be one of forthright condemnation. A possible hypothesis came to my mind that both attitudes—the communist and the liberal-democratic—are linked by something more profound, some common principles and ideals.

At the time, however, this thought seemed to be so extravagant that I did not have the inner strength or knowledge to explore it more deeply. But I experienced the same budding thought for the second time in the period of post-communist Poland, right at the very beginning of its existence in 1989.

None of my liberal friends like to talk politics anymore. They have nothing to say and it’s obvious why. Liberalism… or progressivism — people who wish to make the distinction can go ahead, but I find it trivial — they’re just different degrees of a self-serving lie…. liberalism, in the immortal words of Preston Sturges, “is not only dead, it’s decomposed.” (Sturges was referring to chivalry.) Not only is there no there there (as Gertrude Stein said of Oakland), there’s no there there there there to the tenth power. I asked a liberal the other day what liberalism was, what exactly it was he supported, and he was stunned that I asked, and then he was just stunned. He didn’t know how to answer because he didn’t have one. It was just a habit. (Oh, I forgot. He said he didn’t like Republicans, which of course is no defense of liberalism, just contempt… with a soupçon of habit.)

While often dismissed as just a troublesome voting bloc in the United Nations, the 57 member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) are posing an ever greater threat to the West. As Leslie Lebl of the Foreign Policy Research Institute notes, the OIC is far from a benign, peace-seeking group of nations. Rather, “the [Muslim] Brotherhood and OIC see Europe as part of a future global Caliphate, an Islamic empire governed by an Islamist version of traditional Islamic law, or sharia. This competition extends to the United Nations where the OIC is seeking to enforce global prohibitions on criticism of Islam.”

And by the West, we now mean the United States of America. The “rest of the West” has largely turned away from the fundamentals of Western civilization, choosing instead to either seek detente with the range of threats against it (Russia, China, the OIC, etc.) or to even submit.

Back in the 1980s, the West’s attention was elsewhere — namely, on the Soviet threat. Groups such as the OIC could be dismissed as a lesser problem that could be dealt with sometime in the future as needed. That “future” is now, as the following charts illustrate.

Based on President Obama’s actions of the past seven years, one can surmise that his worldview is based on three major premises. His economic perspective is deliberately aimed at weakening the United States. Thus, despite the disastrous past history of mandated government directives that forced banks to provide sub-prime loans, Obama and company are at it again forcing banks to engage in risky loans. In “separate new reports to Congress, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reveal Obama regulators are pressuring them to back high-risk home loans for ‘very low-income’ borrowers.” Both mortgage companies are being “forced to accept mortgages with as little as 3% down.”

And most telling, they must “[y]ield disparate results based on the race of the borrower.” If that were not enough, one learns that the government is allowing “lenders to use unemployment benefits as source of income.” And these mandates will not expire until 2019.

Hundreds of people just died because of Obama and Hillary’s illegal Libyan war.

The Libyan War was based on a lie about genocide that is turning out to be real as ISIS beheads African Christians captured in Libya, as migrants claw their way abroad boats out of Libya, killing each other along the way, as a civil war between the legal government and the Muslim Brotherhood drags on.

The strange thing about left-wing wars is that we don’t talk about them. The UK is debating the Libyan War, with Cameron under attack from UKIP [1] and the left for his part in it, but in the US, it’s the forgotten war. The left has done its best to turn Benghazi into a contemptuous meme and the murder of four Americans into a joke. And there’s bound to be a meme for hundreds of migrants drowning as well.

Libya was never paradise, but Obama opted for regime change, while lying about it, and then took no responsibility for the consequences. The CIA backed Jihadist rebels, allowed Qatar, a state sponsor of terror, to smuggle weapons to terrorists [2] right past NATO, then it made a futile effort to get them back.

Daniel Mael, a senior at Brandeis University, is a fellow at the Salomon Center.

The idea that upholding free speech should require “spine” is a scary indication of the world that academia is nurturing.

Censorship, for some, might prevent intellectual or emotional discomfort — but sometimes these are as essential to a real education as professors.

The thought of blocking a speaker on campus should be abhorrent to anyone who values academic freedom, free speech and the courtesy of at least listening to statements with which one might — or might not — agree.

Who should be allowed to speak on a university campus? This question has been the subject of debate during the last few years, especially as a growing sector of college students, faculty, alumni and other stakeholders have begun objecting to commencement speakers they say they find offensive. As that trend continued to rise, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has renamed the commencement period “Disinvitation Season.”

In 2014, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice withdrew her acceptance of an honorary degree from Rutgers University in the face of protests from both students and faculty, while Brandeis University rescinded the offer of an honorary degree to women’s rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Last fall, students at the University of California at Berkeley objected to the comedian Bill Maher receiving an honorary degree after hearing his reservations about extremist Islam.

As this article was going to press five more people were hanged in the Central Prison of Karaj.

“Terrorism is not only achieved by bombs but also by terrorizing citizens for generations through executions. Is the hanging of 700 persons since the beginning of the ‘moderate’ Mr. Rouhani’s presidency… not a form of terrorism?” — Mina Ahadi, Founder, ICAE.

“During the P5+1 nuclear talks there was absolute silence with regards to the high rate of executions and human rights violations in Iran. Because of this silence, this matter has taken a turn for the worse.” — Mina Ahadi, Founder, ICAE.

“We would like to request that the Islamic Republic of Iran be held accountable by the International community and… sanctions to be placed on the regime for the high rate of executions.” — Mina Ahadi, Founder, ICAE.

As this article was going to press five more people were hanged in the Central Prison of Karaj.

After Iran’s “nuclear talks,” and after it was comfortably removed as a terrorism threat from the “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Communities,” the International Committee Against Executions (ICAE) reported approximately 55 executions in fewer than three weeks across Iran.

Foreign governments can continue donating to an outfit controlled by the former First Family and friends.

This week the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation announced that it will continue accepting donations from six foreign governments. Other governments can continue to pay the Clinton Foundation, but only to attend meetings. A related enterprise, the Clinton Health Access Initiative, is leaving the door open to accepting large donations from any government on the planet. Given the potential conflicts of interest that donations are sure to create for Hillary Clinton as she runs for President—and especially if she wins—the obvious question is why.

The Clinton Foundation’s website features a helpful series of questions and answers on its new policy. Here’s one that addresses the issue: “Since Secretary Clinton is running for President, why don’t you ban foreign government contributions altogether?” The answer, according to the foundation, is that “Secretary Clinton resigned from the board of the Clinton Foundation when she announced that she is running for President.” The foundation elaborates that it does great work around the world, including helping farmers in Malawi and Rwanda, and notes that many of its programs “are funded by multi-year government grants.” The lucky six governments that can continue to write checks for these programs are Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom.

Mrs. Clinton may have resigned from the board, but of course her name remains on the door and her husband and daughter remain on the board, along with other family friends and associates. If the former Secretary of State’s resignation really solved the conflict problem, there would be no reason to limit donations to just the big six.

But more fundamentally, the question is why the Clinton Foundation is an essential conduit for government aid from large industrialized nations to the Third World.

Mr. Haqqani, the director for South and Central Asia at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., was Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S., 2008-11.

Past behavior indicates Islamabad won’t use the Viper and other U.S. weapons against jhadists.

The Obama administration’s decision this month to sell almost $1 billion in U.S.-made attack helicopters, missiles and other equipment to Pakistan will fuel conflict in South Asia without fulfilling the objective of helping the country fight Islamist extremists. Pakistan’s failure to tackle its jihadist challenge is not the result of a lack of arms but reflects an absence of will. Unless Pakistan changes its worldview, American weapons will end up being used to fight or menace India and perceived domestic enemies instead of being deployed against jihadists.

Give Ayatollah Ali Khamenei credit for knowing his opposition. Two weeks ago the Supreme Leader declared that Western sanctions had to be lifted immediately as a condition of a nuclear deal. And sure enough, on Friday President Obama said Iran would get significant sanctions relief immediately upon signing a deal.

The Ayatollah knows that Mr. Obama wants an agreement with Iran so much that there’s almost no concession the President won’t make. So why not keep asking for more?
***Keep in mind that the talks began with the U.S. and its European partners demanding that Iran dismantle its nuclear program. But to persuade the Ayatollah to accept the recent “framework” accord, Mr. Obama has already conceded that Iran can keep enriching uranium, that it can maintain 5,060 centrifuges to do the enriching, that its enriched-uranium stockpiles can stay inside Iran, that the once-concealed facilities at Fordow and Arak can stay open (albeit in altered form), and that Iran can continue doing research on advanced centrifuges.