June 16th, 2011
Over the last few months, I’d say that Jonah Goldberg has probably been one of the two best columnists working in print, but his piece on the “Gay Girl in Damascus” is exceptional, even by those standards. Goldberg writes with real, not recycled, funny and then nails a deep point that everyone else somehow missed. You need the set up to get the hammer-close:
CNN interviewed “her” — by email — for a story about gay rights and the Arab Spring. “She” said things were going great for gays. The feedback, even from Muslims, for her blog was “almost entirely positive.”
But the CNN story troubled her. The outlet encouraged the sin of “pink washing” — a term used by some anti-Israel critics to decry any attempt to compare Israel’s treatment of gays with that of Arab states. Israel is tolerant, even celebratory, of gay rights (Israel recently launched a gay tourism campaign with the slogan “Tel Aviv Gay Vibe — Free; Fun; Fabulous”). Syria punishes homosexual activity with three years in prison (In Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Iran, the punishment is death).
Who cares, Amina angrily responds. In fact, how dare “advocates of war, occupation, dispossession and apartheid” use Arab and Muslim hostility to gays as “‘evidence that the primitive sand-people don’t deserve anything other than killing by the enlightened children of the West.”
Besides, “she” has never been harassed by Arabs for being gay. But in America, “she” has been “struck by strangers for being an Arab” and “had dung thrown at me” for wearing the hijab.
Except that is a lie.
Worse, it’s propaganda. McMaster’s fake-but-accurate lesbian was perfectly pitched to Western liberals desperate to alleviate the pain of cognitive dissonance. No longer must you think too hard or make tough choices if you’re, say, anti-Israel and pro-democracy or pro-gay rights and in favor of the self-determination of Muslim fanatics. Heck, you can even stop worrying and love a lesbian feminist who sees no big deal in wearing a religiously required sack over her head.
That’s an upper-deck shot.
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This entire incident is the greatest indictment of the liberal obsession with “identity” that I can remember. Two white guys feel so inadequate with their own identity that they craft alternate identities so their opinions have “authenticity” that white-guys lack. According to the liberal worldview, it is not enough to be a white guy and have an opinion. That opinion is not valid unless it comes from an authentic source.
I suspect that these men loathe their straight-male identities so much they believe that the ultimate expression of passion and love for a woman cannot come from a straight man, but from a lesbian woman. The classic “lesbian trapped in a man’s body” view. You have no idea how many times I’ve heard liberal straight males tell me they are lesbians trapped in a man’s body.There is no hope for our society.
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FH:
I don’t think it is about watching too much porn. That is the kind of vulgar cunnilingus joke I would make (and have made, on more than one occasion, to my wife).
No, I think that in the minds of some liberal straight males, the “truer” or more “authentic” expression of love and passion for a woman can only come from a lesbian. These men view straight male love and passion for women as inherently flawed, misogynist at its core, and therefore “inauthentic”. These are the type of straight men who happily join NOW and light candles across American campuses at “Take Back The Night” rallies.
These are the kinds of men who impersonate lesbians online.
Now of course there are plenty of men who impersonate lesbians as a means to get naked pictures or engage in Weiner-esque conversations. But you’d be surprised at how man liberal straight men, to put it bluntly, hate their manhood. And it is the byproduct of the liberal cult of identity and authenticity. -
“These are the type of straight men who happily join NOW and light candles across American campuses at “Take Back The Night” rallies.”
I just felt a disturbance in the force.
The “liberal cult of identity and authenticity” is scary and confused. Why don’t these liberals ever think to themselves, “gee, it might be interesting to study my [European] heritage and embrace my masculine identity, given that this is how I was created”.
I listen to Michael Savage here in Chicago on the drive home, because I get a kick out of him like a crazy uncle at your cousin’s wedding — 90% of what he says is flat out wrong or hyperbole, but when he’s right, he is hits it out of the ballpark. One of his classic sayings is “liberalism is a mental disorder” and I’m beginning to think he might be on to something…
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Pretty lavish praise for Mr. Goldberg coming from you, Mr. Last … I”m impressed.
🙂
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FH: Hilarious you mention the liberalism/mental disorder angle. Every year or two a scientist puts together a psuedo-scientific study that finds that conservatism is a mental disorder. It usually gets some play in the media. What I’d really like to see is the correlation between liberalism and psychological projection. I’ve never met a liberal who didn’t suffer from projection.
Fake Herozg June 17, 2011 at 11:47 am
SkinsFanPG,
“You have no idea how many times I’ve heard liberal straight males tell me they are lesbians trapped in a man’s body.”
Maybe they just watch too much porn?
Either way, perhaps this is a sign of the impending apocolypse.