{"id":99,"date":"2002-10-18T09:35:00","date_gmt":"2002-10-18T14:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=99"},"modified":"2002-10-18T09:35:00","modified_gmt":"2002-10-18T14:35:00","slug":"draft-for-an-anti-idiotarian-manifesto-version-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=99","title":{"rendered":"Draft for an Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto (version 4)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Substantive changes from version 1 to 2 are <font color=\"red\">marked in red<\/font>; changes from 2 to 3 are <font color='blue'>marked in blue<\/font>; changes from 3 to 4 are <font color='purple'>marked in purple<\/font>.<\/p>\n<p>Counting email, this now reflects approximately 200 comments from<br \/>\nacross the blogosphere.  Thanks for the feedback and suggestions.<br \/>\nSince this process has to close sometime, I&#8217;m declaring that there<br \/>\nwill be at most one more pre-publication draft.<\/p>\n<p>I will post a fair copy of the final version.  For legal purposes,<br \/>\nthis work is &copy;2002 by Eric S. Raymond.  Email me for distribution<br \/>\nterms &#8212; I&#8217;m not especially interested in making money from it, but I<br \/>\nwant some artistic control of how it&#8217;s used.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>WHEREAS, the year since the terrible events of 9\/11 has exposed<br \/>\nthe vacuity and moral confusion of all too many of the thinkers,<br \/>\npoliticians, and activists operating within conventional political<br \/>\ncategories;<\/p>\n<p>WHEREAS, the Left has failed us by succumbing to reflexive<br \/>\nanti-Americanism; by apologizing for terrorist acts; by propounding<br \/>\nsqualid theories of moral equivalence; and by blaming the victims of<br \/>\nevil for the act of evil;<\/p>\n<p>WHEREAS, the Right has failed us by pushing `anti-terrorist&#8217;<br \/>\nmeasures which bid fair to be both ineffective and prejudicial to the<br \/>\ncentral liberties of a free society; and in some cases by rhetorically<br \/>\ndescending to almost the same level of <font color=\"red\">bigotry<\/font> as our enemies;<\/p>\n<p>WHEREAS, even many of the Libertarians from whom we expected more<br \/>\nintelligence have retreated into a petulant isolationism, refusing to<br \/>\nrecognize that, at this time, using the state to carry the war <font color='purple'>back to the aggressors<\/font> <em>is<\/em><br \/>\nour only practical instrument of self-defense;<\/p>\n<p>WE THEREFORE ASSERT the following convictions as the basis of<br \/>\nthe anti-idiotarian position:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>\n<p>THAT Western civilization is threatened with the specter of mass death<br \/>\nperpetrated by nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons placed in the<br \/>\nhands of terrorists by rogue states;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>THAT the terrorists who perpetrated the 9\/11 attack, and its lesser<br \/>\nsequels, are motivated by a combination of religious fanaticism and<br \/>\na smoldering resentment of the West&#8217;s success and <font color='purple'>by their own culture&#8217;s failures;<\/font><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><font color='blue'>THAT the terrorists have declared and are<br \/>\npursuing a war not against the vices of Western civilization but<br \/>\nagainst its core virtues; against the freedom of thought and speech<br \/>\nand conscience, against the life of reason; against the equality of<br \/>\nwomen, against pluralism and tolerance; against, indeed, all the<br \/>\nqualities which separate civilized human beings from<\/font> <font color='purple'>savagery,<\/font> <font color='blue'>slavery, and<br \/>\nfanaticism;<\/font><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>THAT no adjustments of American or Western foreign policy, or<br \/>\nconcessions to the Palestinians, or actions taken against<br \/>\nglobalization, or efforts to alleviate world poverty,<br \/>\nare of more than incidental interest to these terrorists;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>THAT, upon their own representation, they will not by dissuaded from<br \/>\ntheir violence by any surrender less extreme than the imposition of Islam<br \/>\nand shari&#8217;a law on the kaffir West;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>THAT, as said terrorists have demonstrated the willingness to use<br \/>\ncivilian airliners as flying bombs to kill thousands of innocent<br \/>\npeople, we would commit a vast crime of moral negligence if we<br \/>\nunderestimated their future malice <font color='red'>even<br \/>\n<em>without<\/em> weapons of mass destruction;<\/font><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>THAT they have sought, and on plausible evidence found, alliance<br \/>\nwith rogue states such as Iraq, <font color='red'>Iran,<\/font> and<br \/>\nNorth Korea; states that are known to have active programs working<br \/>\ntowards the development and delivery of weapons of mass destruction<br \/>\nthat would multiply the terrorists&#8217; ability to commit atrocities by a<br \/>\nthousandfold;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>THAT Saddam Hussein poses a particularly clear and present<br \/>\ndanger <font color='purple'>in combination with them,<\/font> a danger<br \/>\ndemonstrated by his known efforts to develop nuclear weapons, his use<br \/>\nof chemical weapons even on his own population, his demonstrated<br \/>\nwillingness to commit aggression against peaceful neighbors, and his<br \/>\nknown links to the Islamic terror network in Palestine and<br \/>\nelsewhere.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>WE THEREFORE AFFIRM that both the terrorists and their state<br \/>\nsponsors have made themselves outlaws from the moral community of man,<br \/>\nto be dealt with as <font color=\"purple\">rabid dogs<\/font> are.<\/p>\n<p>WE FURTHER AFFIRM that the `root cause&#8217; of Islamo-fascist terrorism<br \/>\nlies in the animating politico-religious ideas of fundamentalist Islam<br \/>\nand not in any signicant respect elsewhere, and that a central aim of<br \/>\nthe war against terror must be to displace, discredit, and destroy<br \/>\nthose animating ideas.<\/p>\n<p>WE REJECT, as a self-serving power grab by the least trustworthy<br \/>\nelements of our own side, the theory that terrorist depredations can<br \/>\nbe effectively prevented by further restrictions on the right of free<br \/>\nspeech, or the right of peacible assembly, or the right to bear<br \/>\narms in self-defense; and we strenuously oppose police-state measures<br \/>\nsuch as the imposition of national ID cards or airport-level<br \/>\nsurveillance of public areas;<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"red\">IN GRAVE KNOWLEDGE that the state of war brings<br \/>\nout the worst in both individual human beings and societies, we reject<br \/>\nthe alternative of ceding to the world&#8217;s barbarians the exclusive<br \/>\nprivilege of force;<\/font><\/p>\n<p>WE SUPPORT the efforts of the United States of America, its allies,<br \/>\nand the West to hunt down and capture or kill individual members<br \/>\nof the <font color='red'>Islamo-fascist<\/font> terror network;<\/p>\n<p>WE SUPPORT speedy American and allied military action against the<br \/>\nrogue states that support terrorism, both as a means of alleviating<br \/>\nthe immediate threat and of deterring future state sponsorship of<br \/>\nterrorism by the threat of war to the knife.<\/p>\n<p><font color='red'>WE SUPPORT, in recognition of the fact that the<br \/>\nmilitary and police cannot be everywhere, efforts to meet the<br \/>\ndistributed threat with a distributed response; <\/font><font color='blue'>to arm airline pilots, and to recognize as well the<br \/>\nordinary citizen&#8217;s right and obligation to respond to terrorist<br \/>\naggression with effective force.<\/font><\/p>\n<p>WE SUPPORT, as an alternative greatly preferable to future<br \/>\nnuclear\/chemical\/biological blackmail of the West, the forcible <font color='blue'>overthrowing of the governments of Iraq and of other<br \/>\nnations that combine sponsorship of terrorism with the possession of<br \/>\nweapons of mass destruction; and the occupation of those<br \/>\nnations<\/font> until such time as the root causes of terrorism have<br \/>\nbeen eradicated from their societies.<\/p>\n<p>WE DEFINE IDIOTARIANISM as the species of delusion<br \/>\n<em>within<\/em> the moral community of mankind that gives<br \/>\naid and comfort to terrorists and dictators operating outside it.<\/p>\n<p>WE REJECT the idiotarianism of the Left &#8212; the moral blindness that<br \/>\nrefuses to recognize that free markets, individual liberty, and<br \/>\nexperimental science have made the West a fundamentally better place<br \/>\nthan any culture in which jihad, &#8216;honor killings&#8217;, and female genital<br \/>\nmutilation are daily practices approved by a stultifying religion.<\/p>\n<p>WE REJECT the idiotarianism of the Right &#8212; whether it manifests as<br \/>\nhead-in-the-sand isolationism or as a <font color='purple'>a<br \/>\nChristian-chauvinist political agenda that echoes the religious<br \/>\nabsolutism of our enemies.<\/font><\/p>\n<p>WE ARE MEMBERS OF A CIVILIZATION, and we hold that civilization<br \/>\nto be worth defending. We have not sought war, but we will fight it<br \/>\nto the end.   We will fight for our civilization in our thoughts, in<br \/>\nour words, and in our deeds.<\/p>\n<p>WE HAVE AWAKENED.  We have seen the face of evil in the acts of the<br \/>\nBin Ladens and Husseins and Arafats of the world; we have seen through<br \/>\nthe lies and self-delusions of the idiotarians, who did so much both to<br \/>\nmake their evil possible before the fact and to deny and excuse it<br \/>\nafterwards.  We shall not flinch from our duty to confront that<br \/>\nevil.<\/p>\n<p><font color='purple'>WE SHALL DEMAND as citizens and voters that<br \/>\nthose we delegate to lead pursue the war against terror with an<br \/>\nunflagging will to victory and all means necessary &mdash; while<br \/>\nremaining always mindful that in the process of fighting the enemy we<br \/>\nmust not stoop to the enemy&#8217;s level of contempt for human rights and<br \/>\ndignity, must not become what we fight;<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color='purple'>WE SHALL REMEMBER that in this struggle more<br \/>\nthan previous conventional wars, the West&#8217;s keenest weapons are reason<br \/>\nand the truth; that it is our obligation as citizens to insist on<br \/>\nreason and the truth; that we must shine a pitiless light on the lies<br \/>\nfrom which terrorist hatred is built; and that we must also be<br \/>\nvigilant against the expedient lie from our own side, lest our<br \/>\nvictories become tainted and hollow, leaving root causes unaddressed<br \/>\nand sowing trouble for the future.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color='purple'>WE HAVE FAITH that we are equal to these<br \/>\nchallenges; we shall not be paralyzed by fear of the enemy, nor<br \/>\nyet by fear of ourselves;<\/font><\/p>\n<p>WE SHALL SHED the moral cowards and the appeasers and the<br \/>\napologists; and we shall fight the barbarians and fanatics, and we<br \/>\n<em>shall<\/em> defeat them. We shall defeat them in war, crushing<br \/>\ntheir dream of dominion; and we shall defeat them in peace, using our<br \/>\nwealth and freedoms to <font color='blue'>win<\/font> their women and<br \/>\nchildren to civilized ways, and ultimately wiping their diseased and<br \/>\nvirulent <font color='red'>ideologies<\/font> from the face of the<br \/>\nEarth.<\/p>\n<p>THIS WE SWEAR, on the graves of those who died at the World Trade<br \/>\nCenter; and those who died in the Sari Club in Bali; and those who<br \/>\ndied on U.S.S. Cole; and indeed on the graves of all the nameless<br \/>\nvictims in the Middle East itself who have been slaughtered by<br \/>\nterrorism and rogue states:<\/p>\n<p>YOU SHALL NOT HAVE DIED IN VAIN.<\/p>\n<pre>\r\n\t\t\tEric S. Raymond\r\n\t\t\t17 October 2002\r\n\r\n\t\t\t____________________\r\n\t\t\t(your signature here)\r\n<\/pre>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/enetation.co.uk\/comments.php?user=esr&amp;commentid=83175091\">Blogspot comments<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Substantive changes from version 1 to 2 are marked in red; changes from 2 to 3 are marked in blue; changes from 3 to 4 are marked in purple. Counting email, this now reflects approximately 200 comments from across the blogosphere. Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. Since this process has to close sometime, I&#8217;m&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=99\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Draft for an Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto (version 4)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-terror","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=99"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=99"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=99"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=99"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}