Homophobia, Islamophobia and Other Perversions of the Left

The greatest task on the right, therefore, is to rescue the language of politics: to put within our grasp what has been forcibly removed from it by jargon. It is only when we have found again the language that is natural to us that we can answer the great accusations that are constantly thrown at our world from the left.  And it is only when we have found that language that we can move on from the one-dimensional left/ right, with us/ against us, progressive/ reactionary dichotomies that have so often made rational discussion impossible. (Scruton, Roger (2015-10-08). Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left (Kindle Locations 6036-6039). Bloomsbury Publishing.  Kindle Edition.)

The current language of dichotomized politics, as the eminent philosopher Roger Scruton states above, demands a great deal of “rescue” work. We must aggressively dispute the use of the jargon that the left has insinuated into our political conversations and polemics, words that both distort reality and give the ideologues on the left undue power to manipulate, worse, to dominate the discussion of issues of great moral, political and social import.  With their jargon they exert their pernicious influence and constantly aim to impugn the motives of those who disagree with them.  Built into the language of the left is the ammunition for an insidious, sustained and long term campaign of nullification and character assassination.

Let us begin our rescue of political language with a repudiation of two of the most odious and egregious pieces of jargon now foisted on us (“thrown at our world from the left”) on a daily basis – “homophobia” and “Islamophobia.”

What in today’s common parlance is a homophobe?  For the polemicists and their censorious patrons on the left a homophobe is anyone and everyone who voices disapproval of homosexual activity and disputes the concept and legitimacy of homosexual marriage.  This disapproval often has religious grounds and, of course, because it is argued from sources and convictions of religious belief, authority or scripture it is considered by the secularist oriented Left as beneath serious moral and political consideration. Certain kinds of moral concepts are off-the-table, so to speak. Religious traditions, practices and values, that have for millennia shaped and informed our morals and social practices now with a with a snap-snap of a finger from these nouveau Jacobins are supposed to be discarded as we suddenly realize how unenlightened we’ve been, how virtuous they are and how much better the world will be with them in charge. 

The neologism “homophobe” was coined to make it sound objective and “clinical”, the sort of jargon used by psychologists and various “experts” to show that they have penetrated the fog and demystified the prevailing superstitions. They understand what the rest of us may at some later time hope to comprehend.  Thus, those unfortunate enough to be in the grasp of homophobia are, well, sick, sick in the sense of psychological aberration or derangement. Phobias are by their nature irrational, unfounded in reality, overreactions to fear, insecurity or anxiety. 

Phobia:  a type of anxiety disorder, usually defined as a persistent fear of an object or situation in which the sufferer commits to great lengths in avoiding, typically disproportional to the actual danger posed, often being recognized as irrational. 

There you have it: this is pretty much a common understanding of what a phobia is – in more parochial terms, phobic people are crazy. You don’t reason with crazy people.  Only trained professionals take what crazy people say seriously but only as it is symptomatic of mental aberration.  You do not have rational conversation and respectful exchange with a homophobic individual about homosexuality because he has no standing as a normal, thoughtful person. He is immersed in bigotry or “hatred” as the left prefers to describe the disapproval of behavior they condone. 

Where, however, is the phobia to be found in the so called typical homophobe? What is asserted does not match reality. They neither fear nor hate homosexuals and they don’t wish to interfere in their lives and punish them. Their aversion to homosexuality is not irrational: it is philosophical and theological. “Homophobia” is not a description of anything real: it is a label contrived to smear those who disagree: it is nothing more than an ad hominem argument in shorthand posing as received social science wisdom.

Homophobes, however, are not just sick: they are “intolerant”. Here is a word kidnapped by left and given a completely distorted meaning, that being: toleration = approval.  So, if you don’t approve of something, ergo, you must be intolerant. But if one considers the logic that should apply to the use of “tolerant” it follows that one can be only be tolerant of what one disapproves of: if you already approve of a behavior, creed or habit, you don’t need to tolerate it. There is considerable irony with all of this because the left disapproves of (despises and excoriates, actually) conservatives, right-wingers, and traditionally religious people (“bitter clingers” as Barack Obama refers to them) but regard themselves as the most open minded and tolerant people around. 

The fact that the “gay lifestyle” has been normalized in our increasingly secularized culture and that homosexuals live openly and prosperously, in some places proudly as “gay” would suggest that toleration is at least moderately in place and relatively widespread. However, the left, despite what they say, do not want toleration of homosexuality: they demand, and are intent on coercing, approval of it. Their dishonest and coercive strategy is to place anyone who does not embrace the complete normalization of homosexuality as a “lifestyle” outside the moral and political boundaries of American life. In our diverse multi-cultural society, since when, it seems fair to ask, does someone have the right to coerce someone else into approving of their morals?

Toleration is giving moral and physical space to someone you disagree with. “You leave me alone (with respect to our differences); I’ll leave you alone, and we’ll agree to disagree and go about our separate business.” The huge advantage of real toleration is the buffer of time that it offers.  Over time, toleration with its norm of respectful live-let-live disagreement helps to soften people on all sides and make them more understanding of each other. The gradual development of the norm of toleration beginning in 17^th century Europe over time enabled initially very hostile Christian sects to reduce their hostility and accept, though not necessarily approve of their differences. But of course for the left, if you disagree, you are to remain silent while your intelligence and character are impugned and your religious freedoms are extinguished. 

In moving from homophobia to Islamophobia similar ideological motives are masked by the use of language that, again, as Roger Scruton notes, attempts “to change reality by changing the way we describe and therefore the way we perceive it.” (Scruton, Roger. Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left (Kindle Locations 4916-4917).

“Islamophobia” deserves a great deal of scrutiny as it is an attempt to change reality by the way we describe it.  The term has a short history, probably not more that 20 or 25 years.  Did Islamophobes suddenly come into existence a couple of decades ago?  If not, what were they and where were they before?  If so, what suddenly gave rise to yet another phobia the left loves to lecture us about? And, in light of what the militant followers of Islam have been about in the last few years, perhaps the fear that they have generated of Islam is not completely irrational.  Is it mere coincidence that Islamophobia emerged about the time followers of Islam, in the name of Islam, were engaged in horrific acts of terrorism all across the globe – the U.S., Middle East, Europe, Africa, Asia. Is it also coincidental that during this time we have no record of Buddhists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Mormons or Mennonites crashing airliners into sky scrapers, mass kidnapping and force-marrying young girls, making You Tube videos of beheadings and immolations and establishing by conquest a theocratic state? There are reasons why the word “Islamophobia” has been invented and not “Christanophobia”, “Mormonophobia” or “Buddhophobia” which have nothing to do with what those who coined and use this word want us to believe.

Just who are these Islamophobes who suddenly have sprung into being? Here is how the folks who know all about these things at UC Berkeley’s Center for Race and Gender explain it:

Islamophobia is a contrived fear or prejudice fomented by the existing Eurocentric and Orientalist global power structure.  It is directed at a perceived or real Muslim threat through the maintenance and extension of existing disparities in economic, political, social and cultural relations, while rationalizing the necessity to deploy violence as a tool to achieve "civilizational rehab" of the target communities (Muslim or otherwise).  Islamophobia reintroduces and reaffirms a global racial structure through which resource distribution disparities are maintained and extended.  (http://crg.berkeley.edu/content/islamophobia/defining-islamophobia)

So, this particular phobia is the product of a “global power structure”, which of course makes it all crystal clear if you are content with sheer vacuity.  And, what kind of a global power structure?  The “existing Eurocentric and Orientalist” one, which I guess is more menacing than one that doesn’t exist.  This is stated as if we are all supposed to know what precise meanings to attach to “Eurocentric” and “Orientalist” but these terms, like “Islamophobia”, are recent constructs, only intelligible to the ideologues who invented them and like the way they sound. They are vague terms of disapprobation rather than description. One can discover almost any kind of global power structure that readily fits one’s imagination and will bare the blame for the world’s many disparities – International Jewish bankers, the Tri-Lateral Commission, etc. The Berkeley “experts” are sloganeers, and here above is a medley of tropes that fill the left’s lexicon of agitprop designed to arouse those already indoctrinated. Nothing concrete, real or identifiable is doing the “fomenting” of fear and prejudice.  Even more preposterous is the claim that Islamophobia “reintroduces and affirms a “global racial structure …” etc.  How does an abstraction like Islamophobia bring a “global racial structure” into being? (Note the contrived parallelism of vacuous phrases: “global power structure” – “global racial structure”) What IS a “global racial structure, and what does Islam have to do with race?  It is a religion!

Any one of any race can be a Muslim.  This purported definition is a masterpiece of verbal smog and incoherence.  

      

“[T]he first concern of revolutionary movements on the left,” again to quote Roger Scruton, “has been to capture the language, to change reality by changing the way we describe and therefore the way we perceive it. Revolution begins from an act of falsification, exemplified equally in the French and the Russian Revolutions, as in the cultural revolutions of the contemporary campus.” (Scruton, Roger (2015-10-08). Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left (Kindle Locations 4916-4917).

“Homophobia” and “Islamophobia” are not words that accurately describe people or capture any of their distinctive attributes or conditions.  They are perversions, means of falsification, as Scruton notes, language designed not to reflect reality and speak the truth, but to serve ideological purposes and the acquisition of power.  Anyone who wishes to participate in an intelligent, serious conversation on homosexuality and contemporary Islam should vigorously resist the efforts of anyone who uses these words as if they are anything other than the vehicles of their ad hominem attacks and obfuscation in the service of cultural revolution.   

Wordnapping: The Totalitarian Left's Subversion of Language

Kidnapping: The crime of unlawfully seizing and carrying away a person by force or Fraud, or seizing and detaining a person against his or her will with an intent to carry that person away at a later time.

                                                          http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/kidnapping

Criminality is the modus operandi of the Left.  Stalin in his early Bolshevik days robbed banks to help finance the Leninist power grap.  Later when in full-satrapy the Great Oarsman stepped up his game to mass-murder (by the tens of millions), ethnic cleansing and war crimes.  The resume of any A-list Marx-inspired chieftain you care to name – Lenin, Mao, Castro, Pol Pot – will be a document of extensive criminality.  

American Bolshevik, Bill Ayers in the early 1970s busied himself with bombing public buildings. His spouse, Bernardine Dohrn, was a capo in the Weather Underground, a Marxist, terrorist cell that bombed police stations and advocated killing “pigs”, aka policemen. She remained on the FBI’s most wanted list for three years.  In that same era the Red Army Faction (Rote Armee Fraktion, aka, the Baader-Meinhof Gang, in Germany and the Red Brigade (Brigate Rosse) in Italy bombed, kidnapped and murdered their way across central and southern Europe. 

Bill Ayers, as noted in Wikopedia, now passes himself off as “an American elementary education theorist” which suggests that the meanings of the words “education” and “theorist” have been mutilated beyond recognition. Unlike some other infamous American criminals like John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and Bonnie and Clyde, the Pentagon bomber managed to coast into a comfortable retirement as a “professor” from the University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Education. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ayers). Bernardine Dohrn from 1991 to 2013 was a Clinical Associate Professor of Law at the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University School of Law.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardine_Dohrn).  So much for the old saw, “crime doesn’t pay” – tenured sinecures, hobnobbing with future U.S. Presidents, and basking in the glow of ex-radical celebrity-hood are the perks for leftwing terrorist seniors.

And so with at least a hundred years of criminality embedded in the molecular structure of left-wing politicking and governance, the  pathetic grand finale of the 2016 Democrat primary for the White House should not have been a surprise.  It turned out to be a rigged contest between a simple-minded Marxist crackpot like Bernie Sanders, who captured the affection and votes of millions of (particularly young) Americans, and a corrupt, colorless harridan who promised to turn the U.S. into a Peronist-style dictatorship where the rule of law gives way to the 3-Cs of Clintonism, corruption, collusion and coercion.  Her campaign, in the crudest, reductionist terms, was a constantly expanding quest for “clients” who in exchange for their votes get more of the government favors and loot she will dole out.  She referred to the bribes she offers as “investments.”

The descent of American politics into an abyss inhabited by the likes of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Al Sharpton and Black Lives Matter thugs is made possible in part by the corruption of language.  The left resorts to what I call, “wordnapping”, seizing and detaining a word and distorting its meaning to serve as a propaganda tool.  It is now possible to compile a dictionary of words that the left has stripped of their clear, original meanings and are now used exclusively to smear opposition and eliminate dissent.  Below, a few of the hostages they have taken.

Racism: Racism was once simple, clear and straight forward. A racist was anyone who believed that members of his race were superior to those of a different race.  The left, however, in a consummation of Orwellian-style word corruption, has now turned the meaning upside down: “racism” for the left is the recalcitrance of white, European-descendant peoples to acknowledge their unique moral inferiority, i.e. their continuing responsibility for the oppression and exploitation of “people of color” and their refusal to atone for “white privilege”, the vehicle and cause of the continuing pathologies that plague the black community.  To be racist today is to be a white person who is reluctant to engage in the ethno-masochism that is de rigueur in the universities and popular culture.  From “Yes, All White People are Racists and Let’s Do Something about It”, here is the typical braying from one of the many race baiters, a shakedown laced with the usual strains of condescension, calumny and abuse.

What if Americans changed the way they talk about race? What if white people tried to confront their own shortcomings, and accepted that the default presumption should probably be "implicitly racist"? Maybe then, whites would start to work harder, collectively and individually, to show their alliance with (and acceptance of) people of color — through their words, their actions, and their deeds. After all, wouldn't it be better to live in a world where white people made a constant, concerted effort to overcome implicit racism? Particularly when it lurks within themselves.  http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/yes-all-white-people-are-racists-now-lets-do-something-about-it

It should be fairly obvious from this that what we used to understand as “racism” is now a main staple of black “activism” and its extortionist methods.  (See: http://fosterspeak.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-left-masters-of-extortio.html) 

“Racism” is the left’s greatest agit-prop triumph of our time, one that even a master of “the big lie” like Joseph Goebbels would be proud to own.  It is increasingly difficult to remember what a “racist” used to be before the invention of “micro-aggressions”, the professionalization of race hustling and the reign of the “diversity” inquisitors. Racism the left wants us to believe has burrowed into every crevice of American society. Which means that its pervasiveness and insidiousness must be comprehended through the mediation of self-appointed experts who unfold its complex taxonomy and illustrate its constantly expanding mutations: “structural racism”, “systemic racism”, “institutional racism”, “individual racism”, “environmental racism”, “economic racism” “covert racism”, “subtle racism”, etc., ad infinitum.  Zeba Blay in a Huffington Post article jumps off the deep end with 11 kinds of racism including such gems as “free speech racists”, “hipster racists” and “voyeuristic racists”, an indication that the word no longer possesses any recognizable boundaries and that those who make a living charging others with it should not be taken seriously, or taken very seriously as twenty-first century versions of Der Stürmer publisher, Julius Streicher, the raging Nazi anti-Semite hanged by the Allies after WWII.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/11-types-of-racists-who-need-to-stop_us_563786e0e4b0c66bae5d088a

Recently President Obama, presumably after perusing the pages of abstruse genetics journals, announced that “racism is a part of our DNA.”  By “our DNA” I assume he means the DNA of the descendants of white slave owners.  Not clear is whether those “white folks”, as he likes to refer to that inferior race, whose ancestors were not slave owners are likewise contaminated by this moral blight, and, by having a white mother, whether his DNA is implicated.  Perhaps further research in genetics will clarify this. 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/US-not-cured-of-racism-its-a-part-of-our-DNA-Barack-Obama-says-citing-legacy-of-slavery/articleshow/47773999.cms 

Twenty-first century “racism” emulates twentieth-century “fascism” – it has become a word empty of specific meaning, used to condemn a critic as, well … a very bad person.  In its routine applications, “racism” is the favorite big club of today’s social justice warriors, to beat up on whatever opposition they encounter in their efforts to limit free speech, rationalize and defend minority criminality and destroy traditional American institutions.  “Racism” is a broad brush assault, perhaps unique in its smearing capacity in that, unlike with other kinds of allegations of moral or legal culpability, once charged, there is no way to demonstrate that you are not a racist. It is possible to prove that you are not a liar, a fool, a rapist, a robber, and a plagiarist; you can never effectively dispute the claim that you are a racist.  No protest or evidence counts. Name one person who has ever been successful in doing it?  Being a racist now is sort of like it was to have “cooties” back when you were in fifth grade.  There was no remedy for the mysterious virus of cooties and you were deemed infected because someone decided that they didn’t like you.   

Hate: “Hatred” is another favored smear of leftwing propagandists, one they employ to remain immune from criticism. “Hatred” for them is the not the usual word one uses to describe that visceral often irrational emotion of loathing one may feel toward someone or some group.  “Hatred” for the left means disapproval. Nothing less than affirmation and approval for their programs and policies for  the 21^st century utopianists can only mean hatred.  If you object to gay marriage, you hate gays.  If you oppose affirmative action, you hate black people. If you favor lower taxes, you hate the government.  If you support the deportation of illegals, you hate Mexicans.  Leftist opponents are not reasonable or considerate, not individuals who have a different, arguable view or perspective about a controversial issue.  They are morally defective, irrational, purple-faced “haters”.  Republicans are now routinely pilloried as “haters” in contrast to Democrats who are all about compassion.

The persistent hate smear in contemporary leftist politics, however, should be understood as a stunning display of psychological projection.  When it comes to frothing-at-the-mouth emissions of visceral loathing and detestation for those of different political persuasion no one can match an aggrieved leftist. Here is New Republic writer, Jonathon Chait, completely unhinged, when having to think about George W. Bush.

“I hate President George W. Bush. There, I said it. I think his policies rank him among the worst presidents in U.S. history. And, while I'm tempted to leave it at that, the truth is that I hate him for less substantive reasons, too….  And, while most people who meet Bush claim to like him, I suspect that, if I got to know him personally, I would hate him even more…. There seem to be quite a few of us Bush haters. I have friends who have a viscerally hostile reaction to the sound of his voice, or describe his existence as a constant oppressive force in their daily psyche.” https://newrepublic.com/article/67136/mad-about-you

During the Presidency of George W. Bush, writers from the “party of compassion” were offering their readership these models of dispassionate political discourse:

The I Hate George W. Bush Reader: Why Dubya Is Wrong About Absolutely Everything (The "I Hate" Series, 2004, Clint Willis, editor);

The I Hate Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice... Reader: Behind the Bush Cabal's War on America (The “I Hate Series, 2004, Clint Willis, editor); 
The I Hate Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage... Reader: The Hideous Truth About America's Ugliest Conservatives (The "I Hate" Series, 2004, Clint Willis, editor)

Hatred for the entire field of Republican, conservative scumbags in 2004 was so popular with Democrat readers, that a publisher series was dedicated to poring out scorn and contempt.  But as we are constantly reminded, the Republicans are the party of hatred – as Chait or one of his colleagues might say, following the lead of Groucho Marx:  "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?"
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/grouchomar128465.html

Intolerance: to continue with the practice of psychological projection, leftists love to talk about how intolerant their critics and opponents are on the right.  Once again, a word has been wrenched from it moorings and turned into reflexively-used smear.  “Intolerance” in its corrupted usage mirrors “hatred”.  Anything less than affirmation and enthusiasm for the leftist-defined march of “progress” makes one into a knuckle-dragging bigot.  Recall Presidential candidate, Barack Obama’s condescending sneer in 2008 about those “white folks” who “get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them….”  Of course!  The only reason why a white, rural voter would not vote for a black Marxist demagogue who mocks and demeans them is racial bigotry.  No other possibilities exist.

The problem is that the practice of toleration is a tricky business.  A genuinely tolerant person is someone who, even though he finds the beliefs, perspectives and life-style of another objectionable, treats that person in a way that conveys basic human respect and a live-and-let-live attitude.   No one has to be tolerant around people he esteems and approves of: it is only required for someone who confronts people who he in some way or aspect disapproves of, an accommodation of sorts, peaceful coexistence.  Of course, no one is or should be tolerant of everything and everyone, and finding those boundaries is what makes toleration such a tricky affair.  The irony that seems to complete escape the leftists is that they disapprove of conservatives and Republicans (see Jonathan Chait above) but cannot tolerate them.  President Obama and Hillary Clinton refer to them as their “enemies”.  http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/3439-obama-calls-his-critics-enemies   You do not tolerate your enemies, you eliminate or destroy them whenever you can.  Intolerance is the inevitable stance of leftist ideology because leftists, believing that they are uniquely virtuous and enlightened, view their competitors for power as corrupt and heartless, atavists submerged in bigotry and ignorance. 

In doing battle with our enemies, “the left” it is extremely important to know their “dictionary”, to recognize their subversion of language.  This will help us to resist the intimidation, refute the falsehoods and expose the hypocrisy.

Toleration, Attitude or Latitude?

That the corruption of the best things produces the worst….

                                                                                     David Hume

Banish the word “Intolerance.”   It is crudely and stupidly used. Those so fond of throwing it around are the worst offenders. What exactly is it that makes a person intolerant and, whatever it is, should we tolerate it or him?

Everyone is intolerant.   No one tolerates everyone or everything, nor should they.  Even Unitarians who pride themselves on their tolerant, open mindedness would not likely tolerate wife beaters, Hummer owners or members of the Mara Salvatrucha in their midst.   Consider, as suggested above, the paradox arising from:  “I will not tolerate intolerance.”   Tolerance by itself doesn’t go far.  Tolerance is less about attitude than latitude, that is, giving space to someone who advocates something you do not like or has beliefs that you disapprove of.  Being tolerant doesn’t mean that you cannot strongly disapprove of someone else’s politics, religion or moral views or that you cannot say that you disapprove.  It means that you must observe certain limits when you engage someone with opposing views or perspectives.   You attempt to separate your opponent as a person from his views.  You doubt his ideas, not his character.  You question his logic, not his reputation.   Ad hominem attacks and character assassination attempt to cut that “space” of toleration away.  They disqualify the critic as a person so that he or she cannot be taken seriously.   

The practice of toleration arose in the West as a way for individuals in competing and antithetical religious sects and denominations to live in proximity without violent conflict or attempts at subjugation.  It was understood that the competing sectarians disapproved of the religious ideas of each other but agreed not to attempt to infer with their mutual practice.   This initial sectarian “cease fire” over time evolved into an elaborate set of norms gathered under the umbrella of a “practice of toleration” that provided social space and compatibility for individuals with irreconcilable religious and philosophical views of reality. So, while rival sectarians might disapprove, strongly even, of each others ideas and views, they could still do business with each other and agree to rules of governance and order, including rules that governed dispute.

Over time two things emerged that shaped this practice of toleration.  First was a sense of intellectual fallibility – a realization that one’s ideas and interpretations might be flawed.  Second was the necessity to accord an appropriate level of respect to those with whom one disagreed.  Intellectual humility and a willingness to accord respect are closely linked.

Unfortunately, “being intolerant” is now widely confused with “disapproving” of someone, which is perverse.  You only tolerate what you disapprove of.   If you approve, toleration does not even come into play.   One of the greatest achievements of American political culture is that is that has made room for individuals from enormously diverse religious, ideological, political and social worlds to operate and compete in relative peace. Competing for influence and a voice are fundamentalist Christians, secular, humanistic atheists, Communists, free-market libertarians, survivalists, and so on across the entire social-political spectrum.  No one should be naive enough to think that individuals from such diverse and sometimes antithetical perspectives will be rhetorically gentle with each other.  

The Left, however, has come to embrace the equation of “disapproval equals intolerance” which they apply selectively, that is, to their critics, not to themselves.  For themselves they require admiration; for their opposition, contempt.  A few short years ago when they routinely called George W. Bush “stupid,” “a war criminal,” and a “Fascist,” they were simply stating facts and exercising their right to dissent.  After they won, the bar was suddenly lifted very high for the opposition: respect, civility, loyal opposition.  

How did this happen?  Long ago the Left lost any sense of fallibility and with it any tolerance for criticism.  For them, criticism equals intolerance and bigotry. Because they are infallible, their ideas cannot possibly be wrong or flawed. Anyone who disagrees must be defective, either intellectually or morally.