In doing so, the Left has abandoned women in the Muslim-Middle East, gay people in the Muslim-Middle East, all non-Muslims in that part of the world, as well as freedom of speech even in Europe. As a direct consequence, as I have argued ad nauseum, they have flushed adherence to the ideal of universal human rights directly down the toilet.
In this way, the progressive-left has abandoned its very reason to be because it has abandoned the heart of its movement in favor of the multicultural ideal.
When I think of the joyous escapades of our friends in the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) - such as, for example, burying Yazidis alive in mass graves or using young non-Muslim prepubescent girls as sexual slaves or the mass chopping off of "infidel" heads or the destruction of ancient antiquities, such as we recently saw in Palmyra - one word comes immediately to mind:
Enemy.
The thing about the western-left, in general, and the American-left, as well, is that it recognizes no such category of human being - beyond Republicans, Evangelical Christians, or conservatives - as an enemy. They may actively and loudly despise people such as former president George W. Bush, but they can live with the Muslim Brotherhood or Islamic Jihad or Boko Haram. This is because they tend to have little, or no, sense of ethical proportionality. Sure, Boko Haram might kidnap hundreds of young girls for the purpose of raping them and selling them into sexual slavery but, aghghg!, George W. Bush is a Texas Republican!
The Left knows who their real enemy is and it is definitely neither Boko Haram, nor the Islamic State.
I understand, of course, that the concept of "enemy" is not a pretty one. When a people or a nation have an enemy then their leadership is obligated to defeat that enemy. This requires a willingness to stand up, put oneself forward, and actually do whatever is necessary to win the war. People on the Left, however, have no such inclination unless they are spitting hatred at the likes of Dick Cheney or that heinous
The rise of political Islam represents the single most significant geopolitical event since the downfall of the Soviet Union. The crazed and vicious denizens of organizations like ISIS or Hamas despise essential western values such as the equality of women, freedom of speech or, even, freedom of thought, and they are perfectly happy to use even the most horrendous forms of violence to prove it.
And, needless to say, political Islam is the most violently anti-Semitic political movement that we have seen in the world since the Nazis were pulling gold out of Jewish teeth. This makes them unequivocally my enemy and they should be the acknowledged enemy of anyone who believes in western-liberal values... which the Left no longer does, if it ever did.
There are at least two important reasons why the progressive-left finds it difficult to acknowledge groups like ISIS as an enemy. The first is because the United States is a powerful, largely white country, and people "of color" in the Middle East are considered underdogs and the natural instinct is to protect the underdog even, apparently, if the underdog is burning people alive in cages.
The second reason is because most progressives blame the West for the rise of political Islam due to unjust material factors imposed by Europe for centuries and by the United States since early in the twentieth. That is, they believe that western and American imperialism destabilized traditional societies, subjecting them to war, poverty, and thereby encouraged a rational hatred of the West.
There is only one major problem with this analysis. It infantilizes Arabs in an exceedingly bigoted and prejudicial manner and it fails to acknowledge the linkage between strongly held religious beliefs and behavior. ISIS, whatever else it may be, is a religious-political movement drenched in the Salafist form of Islam. When they say that they wish to carry out the violent Jihad for the purpose of establishing the Caliphate, they mean it. When they say that head-chopping is the pleasure of Allah and that if they die in Jihad they will go to paradise, they mean that, as well.
They act on their beliefs and those belief are not due to the fact that sometimes Jewish people build housing for themselves beyond the Green Line. Their beliefs are grounded in their religious faith and the primary sources of that faith are the Qur'an and the hadiths.
Drop Sam Harris a line.
He will have a few words.