Haters
Go After The `Ground Zero Mosque': Intensity Winding Up In
Naked Bloody Violence
31 July 2010By Justin Raimondo
Nothing illustrates the utter craziness of our society
in the post-9/11 era than the controversy over the
"Ground Zero mosque." To begin with, the proposed
Islamic center not a mosque, but the Muslim
equivalent of the YMCA a nonprofit foundation wants
to build in New York City isn't at "ground zero," it
is four blocks from the site of the World Trade
Center. But that doesn't deter demagogues like Newt
Gingrich and various other unsavory opportunists from
making it into a political issue.
Never mind the fact that there is already a mosque
four blocks away from the site of the World Trade
Center (see here), which has been there for many
years. If we follow the "logic" of Newt and his fellow
crusaders, then this should be torn down along with
all the other hundreds of mosques in New York City.
And don't forget Washington, D.C., the site of the
attack on the Pentagon: surely symbols of the "enemy"
religion must be banned there, too.
Of course, that would suit the haters, like Pamela
"Shrieking Harpy" Geller, fuehrer of the "Stop the
Islamization of America" movement, just fine. Geller
is a self-proclaimed "Objectivist," a follower of Ayn
Rand's philosophy, whose blog "Atlas Shrugs" is
named after Rand's famous novel. It's a case of
intellectual expropriation both obscene and absurd,
since Geller's style of "argumentation" is as
emotion-laden and out of control as Rand's was cool,
objective, and rational. Geller's "argument" is that
all Muslims are inherently and irredeemably evil, and
out to destroy America: there are no "moderates," and
those who pretend to be so are merely biding their
time until the day they can reveal their true colors
and impose Sharia law on the rest of us. Reading her
tracts is kind of like perusing the Protocols of the
Learned Elders of Zion, only with Muslims taking the
place of Jews as the sinister, all-powerful Forces of
Darkness.
Geller herself is a nobody, a publicity-seeker with no
real arguments to make, so I won't burden my readers
with too much of her incoherent shrieking, but here's
a sample:
"Another stab in the eye of America
.'Muslim Family
Day' on September 12th. Vile. Six Flags hosts the
annual Muslim Brotherhood front, I.C.N.A., for Muslim
Family Day on September 12. `This event offers fun for
the entire family and will also offer halal food
stalls.'"
Had enough? I thought so.
Geller's "intellectual" mentor, Leonard Peikoff, the
founder of the Ayn Rand Institute, and Rand's
"intellectual heir," however, is a different story. He
does make arguments, if you want to call them that.
Asked if he supported the right of the builders of the
mosque to their own private property, this alleged
advocate of reason and property rights answers with an
emphatic no:
"Let's start with property rights. Property rights are
limited and they are contextual. You cannot do
anything you want with property even though it is
yours, not if its ramifications objectively entail a
threat to the rights of others. You can't build a bomb
in your home. You can't even build a big bonfire in
your backyard legitimately because the principle of
rights is that property rights are a derivative of
life as the standard and there can be no right to
threaten anyone's life nor indeed to threaten anyone's
property."
How does a mosque, or, more accurately, a Muslim
community center, "objectively entail a threat to the
rights of others"? According to Peikoff, all
manifestations of Islam the very idea of Islam is
"objectively" a threat to the United States.
Therefore, by his "logic," it's okay to violate the
property rights of Muslims any and all Muslims.
Indeed, killing them all would be a good thing,
according to his sick perversion of Objectivism. Not
that he has the intellectual honesty to follow his own
murderous "logic" to its "rational" conclusion
.
"Second," Peikoff continues,
"Rights are contextual. In any situation where
metaphysical survival is at stake all property rights
are out. You have no obligation to respect property
rights. The obvious, classic example of this is, which
I've been asked a hundred times, you swim to a desert
island you know, you had a shipwreck and when you
get to the shore, the guy comes to you and says, `I've
got a fence all around this island. I found it. It's
legitimately mine. You can't step onto the beach.'
Now, in that situation you are in a literal position
of being metaphysically helpless. Since life is the
standard of rights, if you no longer can survive this
way, rights are out. And it becomes dog-eat-dog or
force-against-force."
Peikoff's example has nothing to do with the reality
of the issue: indeed, it is so far removed from it
that his answer seems completely unhinged. Unless one
assumes the premise of his argument, which is that
Islam and, specifically, this Muslim community
center four blocks from Ground Zero represents such
a grave threat to the US that our "metaphysical
survival" is at stake. Given this demented and
demonstrably untrue premise, his diatribe makes a kind
of Bizarro World "sense" but of course it isn't
true, and so what comes out of his mouth is the
intellectual equivalent of vomit from a drunk.
"Rights are contextual." "You have no obligation to
respect property rights." "Rights are out"! Where have
we heard this before? Wesley Mouch is that you
talking?
So much for Peikoff and his misnamed "Ayn Rand
Institute" as defenders of capitalism, property
rights, and the sanctity of the individual.
If you thought Peikoff couldn't get any wackier, you
didn't anticipate this:
"Now, let's apply this to the foreign relations issue.
The context today is that we are at war and not a cold
one. A real one. We are facing widespread terrorism
sponsored by a number of governments with tremendous
popular backing in virtually every Mid-East Islamic
country. Even Turkey, the one priding itself on its
secularism, has now gone Islamic."
(Note how he seems to have gotten the neocon memo that
Turkey once one of Israel's few allies in the world
is no longer kosher, and must be vilified. Okay,
back to Peikoff:)
"Now, the United States' response, the western
response to this is a continuation of the appeasement
that was started back in the '50s with Eisenhower when
Iran seized western oil companies. The Americans, the
British, and the Israelis, as I remember, launched an
attack to try to reclaim it and or at least the
British and the Israelis did and Eisenhower vetoed
it."
Say what? When a senile old hater says "as I recall,"
the result, as in this case, can be unintentionally
funny. What Peikoff is "recalling" here isn't a joint
US-British-Israeli assault, or an assault vetoed by
Eisenhower, but the CIA-sponsored overthrow of the
democratically elected Iranian government of Mohammad
Mossadegh, who was making noises about nationalizing
British and American oil interests. As anyone who
knows anything about the history of the region can
tell you, this led to the imposition of the Shah Reza
Pahlavi, whose tyrannical regime slaughtered
thousands, jailing and torturing many more.
What gets me is that this self-proclaimed
"philosopher," and advocate of the "supremacy of
reason," doesn't even bother to get his facts
straight: Peikoff's ignorance of the history of the
Middle East, and specifically Iran, is monumental
and he knows it. But history, knowledge, and facts are
unimportant to him, as they are to all haters and the
vicious demagogues who want to make use of them. If
history won't conform to Peikoff's ideological
delusions, he simply makes it up, to wit:
"Since that point there's more and more and more
craven appeasement by the west and across 50 years the
audacity and scope of outrage of the Islamic world I
mean by that, the activists, the militants, the
terrorists, and their countless followers they have
continually upped the deaths, the assaults, the
horror, while the US has continually upped its
appeasement."
Yes, the overthrow of the Iranian government,
unconditional political, military, and financial
support to the occupiers of the West Bank and Gaza,
two invasions of Iraq, support to Arab dictatorships
(as long as they're "pro-American," i.e. Mubarak in
Egypt) this was a policy of "appeasing" the Muslim
world. Those Made-in-USA bombs falling on the
factories and churches of Lebanon, disgorged by
Israeli planes that was "appeasement," too.
What planet is this "philosopher" living on?
Peikoff then launches into an inchoate rant about how
American soldiers are having their hands tied, because
they aren't killing enough civilians: if you think I'm
exaggerating, please read this, and this. George W.
Bush is denounced by Peikoff for averring that bin
Laden represents only Islam's lunatic fringe, and the
result, says Peikoff, is that we have a "non-policy,"
and "there's no enemy," while the authorities "excuse"
and "downplay" the terrorist threat.
Now to any normal person, the idea that the government
is downplaying the danger represented by jihadist
terrorism is a joke: indeed, ever since 9/11, our
policymakers have been obsessed with this issue, and
our politics have been dominated by it. But when one
believes the existence of a Muslim community center
represents a "metaphysical threat" to our very
existence as a nation well, then, yes, I suppose the
expenditure of multi-billions of taxpayer dollars, two
major wars, and a continuing war at home on our
constitutional liberties is indeed a craven
"non-policy" of "appeasement."
So how will it all end? Peikoff warns:
"Now, it should be obvious that there is no end to
this, no final result, and not too far from now in
time before there will be Islamic devastation or even
take over of a paralyzed United States."
Of course, no one is better at devastation than the
United States government, but then, according to
Peikoff and his tiny clique of foaming-at-the-mouth
followers, the killing of innocents is the only
"moral" way to fight a war. Yes, you read that right:
that's what they believe. If the US goes to war, it
must never take into account the innocent lives of
bystanders, since, according to them, there can be no
such category of persons. Rand herselfopined, back in
the cold war days, that it would be "moral" for the US
to invade and conquer the Soviet Union, since the
Soviets were bloody dictators and the US the
fountainhead of freedom in the world: furthermore, she
"reasoned," the citizens of the Soviet Union allowed
their rulers to continue to rule the gulags, the
secret police, and the apparatus of repression
notwithstanding and therefore it would be okay to
pulverize them too, if it came to that. A thoroughly
nutty conception of a rational
foreign policy, but Rand's epigones, including Peikoff,
have taken this insanity a few steps further into
complete lunacy by universalizing Rand's original
formulation.
As for the alleged possibility of a Muslim takeover of
a "paralyzed" United States: that's about as likely as
Peikoff becoming a rational human being.
What makes Peikoff's views and those of his
"Objectivist" comrades even creepier is their pretense
at "objectivity," "reason," and "logic." They worship
at the shrine of an author whose early disciples
called her "Mrs. Logic" and yet they are so far from
being logical that the distance can only be measured
in lightyears. Indeed, there is an emotional ferment
obvious in the tone and content of Peikoff's diatribe,
which originated as a podcast: you can hear the hatred
bubbling up from the very depths of his being as he
chokes out his prescription for mass death and massive
rights violations. By his "logic," it would be
"rational" to lock up every Muslim in a concentration
camp, or to save money simply liquidate them, as
the Soviets used to say. In the Peikoffian worldview,
applied to the realm of military strategy, anything
less than genocide is appeasement. His is the foreign
policy of the Borg.
Peikoff is honest enough to recognize where all this
murderous hatred is going, and to his credit he comes
right out and says it, his voice shaking with anger:
"Give notice and bomb Tehran as a beginning but, we
can't do that. But right now the question is: What
should we do in this case?
"Now, my view in this context, any objective sign
not what could be subjectively taken one way or the
other, but any objective sign sign of our weakness, it
is immoral and catastrophic for Americans to permit it
insofar as they could stop or weaken the effort to it.
And the mosque is absolutely a textbook example of
this. There is only one objective message.
"Now, let me give you an analogy if it's not
self-evident. Japanese strike pearl Harbor. We declare
war. Japan, the Japanese, are then given a large
spread of land in Pearl Harbor to build a temple
celebrating I don't care what. The Japanese
superiority or Shinto peacefulness or I don't care
what. Now, if you can even conceive of that as
justified because of `property rights,' then I say you
haven't a clue what property rights, or individualism,
or Objectivism is saying. Because what permitting that
amounts to is `Roll over. Kick me. Kill me. I have
nothing to say.'"
To begin with, what does Iran have to do with it?
During the Iraq war, the Bush administration
assiduously cultivated the myth that Saddam Hussein
organized the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon, although that was a patent lie (Bush
later admitted it wasn't true, but by then the legend
had taken root in the public subconscious). Is Peikoff
saying Iran was behind 9/11? It's hard to say, but, as
Peikoff would put it, "I don't care what." His
fact-free form of "objectivity" surely allows him not
to care.
Secondly, let's dispense with the pretense of
Peikoff's alleged devotion to "individualism." There
are lots of ideological labels one might affix to
someone who advocates the indiscriminate killing of
innocent civilians in wartime, or at any time, but
"individualist" isn't one of them. One who treats the
members of an entire religion as an undifferentiated
mass, to be treated like vermin, is only an "invidualist"
in Bizarro World, where it appears Dr. Peikoff has
taken up full-time residence.
Thirdly, it's interesting that Peikoff should pick up
on the example of the Japanese in World War II,
because the logic of his position justifies the
internment camps set up by Roosevelt that precursor
of Peikoffian "individualism" into which
Japanese-Americans were forced to relocate. It's clear
from his remarks that he would fully endorse a similar
fate for Muslims in the US yes, that`s how crazy he
is.
I have to say that I am appalled really disgusted to
the point that it makes me want to throw up that a
moral monster of Peikoff's sort is sullying the name
of Ayn Rand with his certifiable craziness. I was
inspired to become a writer by her example, I loved
her novels when I read them as a very young teenager,
and I am not one of those tired old Boomer types who
"got over her" I admire Rand, as a novelist and a
person, today more than ever, in spite of her flaws.
As I have written elsewhere, Atlas Shrugged is not
only a work of literary genius, it is a work of almost
preternatural prescience: we are living that novel
today. I couldn't have survived my adolescence without
The Fountainhead, and my favorite movie of all time is
the Italian film adaptation of We the Living, Rand's
first novel. (Buy it here: Alida Valli as Kira, the
heroine, is fabulous!)
That said, the takeover of her legacy by her
self-proclaimed "intellectual heir," the monstrous
Peikoff, is an obscenity, and a truly sinsister
development. If you think I'm exaggerating, read what
Peikoff is exhorting his followers to do, since "we
can't bomb Iran," and are otherwise constrained by the
spinelessness of the "appeasers":
"Now if you ask me, in conclusion, `Well, what, then
should properly be done?' Obviously war, but I mean in
regard to this issue I would say: Any way possible
permission should be refused and if they go ahead and
build it, the government should bomb it out of
existence, evacuating it first, with no compensation
to any of the property owners involved in this
monstrosity. You know, a nice little example would be
Howard Roark is relevant here.
"I want to just conclude by saying that I'm doing
these podcasts for nothing but the enjoyment of
talking to young people about important issues. I am
not here to have a heart attack, so please don't send
me any more questions like this. I will not answer
them."
Readers of The Fountainhead will be familiar with this
reference to Howard Roark, the main character, an
architect who, in the course of the novel, blows up
one of his own buildings because its design has been
altered and perverted. In no way is his example
"relevant here," except in Peikoff's senile mind.
Roark was defending his own work against the
depredations of a contemptible parasite, and, needless
to say (except when one is talking to "Objectivists"),
The Fountainhead is a work of fiction: Roark's act was
symbolic. Rand certainly did not advocate that
admirers of her work should go around blowing things
up.
At the end of Peikoff's podcast, someone other than
Peikoff appends a note at the end, averring:
"Dr. Peikoff has asked me to state, in case anyone
misinterpreted, that the blowing up of a building
mentioned near the end is an action, which like all
foreign policy issues, can properly be taken by a
government. He in no way suggests or condones private
action in this issue."
Peikoff is a liar: having stated that Roark's blowing
up of a building is "a nice little example" of "what,
then, properly should be done," he cannot then back
away from the implications of his own words. After
all, wouldn't this same principle of letting the
government take care of the bombing apply to Roark?
And it can hardly be said that the building of the
mosque/community center is a "foreign policy issue,"
since we're talking about a building in the heart of
New York City. The builders aren't applying to the UN
for a building permit: it's up to the city government.
Which is why the leaders of this crazed "stop the
mosque" movement are putting pressure on local
officials to violate property rights and make bigotry
the official policy of the Big Apple.
No, it's clear from the context what Peikoff is
advocating, or, rather, inciting: he is telling his
followers a thoroughly nutty bunch, by any measure
that it's okay for them to blow up the "ground zero
mosque." That's where hatred of this intensity always
winds up: in naked bloody violence. In this sense,
Peikoff is an intellectual criminal.
Peikoff has said some pretty nutty things in his
career as Rand's "heir," but this one takes the cake.
This latest hate-filled diatribe even has some of his
followers shaking their heads (albeit ever so
tentatively and politely), which is a sign that the
Objectivist "movement" or that part of it Peikoff
hasn't long ago purged for alleged ideological
impurities is nearing yet another in a seemingly
endless series of splits.
It's interesting that he starts out his tirade by
honestly proclaiming the hate and rage roiling inside
him:
"Isn't it private property and therefore protected by
individual rights and no one has a right to interfere?
Now, I don't take concrete political issues like this,
but in this case it is an issue of such ramifications
that I just can't ignore it. I also am going to lie to
or deceive you in this way: not in the content of what
I say, but in the manner. left to my own devises, I
would be enraged and spout off all the way through my
answer on the wickedness of the people who believe
this or the non-knowledge of the people who agree with
them. But I asked for questions and therefore if I
take it, well, nobody forced me, I gotta be calm, just
as if it was any other question. So, do not let my
manner deceive you as to my opinion, my evaluation."
Don't let his manner deceive you. That skinny little
guy with the comically high voice, and the pencil thin
neck, is a potential mass murderer, whose followers
are entirely capable of violence incited by his
murderous "philosophy" a philosophy that might be
described as Bizarro "individualism," i.e. the
complete opposite of everything that Rand and any
other individualist worthy of the name ever stood
for.
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