Carter-ing Swine Before Pearl

For years now, I have been saying that one of the major causes of our culture’s downfall is the lack of logic and reasoning skills instilled in our younger generations. But a hours-old story about ex-president and current National embarrassment Jimmy Carter is forcing me to review at least part of my theory.

Here’s the pith of the story, according to Al-AP. Emphasis is mine.

BOSTON (AP) — Former President Carter has decided not to visit Brandeis University to talk about his new book "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid" because he does not want to debate Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz as the university had requested.

"I don't want to have a conversation even indirectly with Dershowitz," Carter told The Boston Globe. "There is no need ... for me to debate somebody who, in my opinion, knows nothing about the situation in Palestine."

“The debate request is proof that many in the United States are unwilling to hear an alternative view on the nation's most taboo foreign policy issue, Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory, Carter said.

Carter, who brokered the 1978 Camp David peace accord between Israel and Egypt and who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, has said the goal of his book is to provoke dialogue and action.

"There is no debate in America about anything that would be critical of Israel," he said.

But it's Carter who is unwilling to debate his own best-selling book, controversial because the title's inclusion of the word "apartheid" appears to equate the treatment of Palestinians with the state-sanctioned racial segregation that once divided South Africa.
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In this case, the contradiction is so macroscopic that even the gallinaceously-brained staff writers for Al-AP couldn’t afford going on the record without noticing it. Good job, Al-AP, for once: see, it wasn’t too hard, even if you had to soften it with your own editorial qualification.

Of course, I don’t need to point out exactly where the contradictions are—and I’m avoiding the term “hypocrisy” on purpose (read on). So, it appears, it is not only the young generations that are affected by a lack of reasoning and logical skills that I find (frankly) borderline-offensive. But this incident also corroborates another theory I’ve been chewing on for a while.

What this incident shows is also this: it is not that the Liberal elites are afraid or unwilling to debate their ideas; rather, it is that they see themselves immune from the obligation to do so. In their mind, they are an absolute oligarchy with a natural right to govern by virtue of their self-bestowed nobility of character. Therefore, by definition, they do not need to persuade about their ideas—they merely need to rule by them. Louis XIV did not need to debate farmers and merchant when he imposed a new tax; Torquemada did not need to debate the Lutherans when he further tightened the squeeze on his definition of “orthodox.” That would have been demeaning to their absolute right to exercise power absolutely.

Likewise, I’m sure in Carter’s mind, it would have been demeaning for that Nobel Price winner to have to throw the pearls of his wisdom before a common Swine like Derschowitz. Therefore, he can state with perfect honesty and composure that turning down a debate is compatible with the goal of his book, which was provoke dialogue. Which brings us to the Left’s definition of dialogue, which is “I tell you what to think, you actively think it,” but that’s for another post.

So, next time you wonder why Hillary, Obama, Kennedy, or any other major or minor deity on that Mount Olympus Of The Poor that is the American Left gets out of explaining or debating their ideas, know that it may not be for fear. It may be for sheer disdain for their intellectual subjects—a category that comprises the President, the Pope, Joe the Truck-drivin’ Deerhunter and everybody in between.