"American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character" - Diana West

Posted by Wonky 10 years, 5 months ago to Books
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Has anyone read this yet? I'm getting ready to...


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  • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years, 5 months ago
    No. How goes it Wonk?
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    • Posted by 10 years, 5 months ago
      Well, thanks.

      I've been reading non-fiction like a fiend lately. I'm really struggling to understand how socialism got such a foothold in the US. Everything points to the FDR days, but the "how" and "why" seem to be missing. Did they get away with the New Deal government expansions on depression and war fears alone?

      I’m hoping this book will have some answers. It appears to be very well researched and yet highly controversial.
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      • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years, 5 months ago
        Read Ominous Parallels by Peikoff.
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        • Posted by 10 years, 5 months ago
          I'm about 9% into it... Bouncing around a bit. Love that Kindle keeps bookmarks and allows highlights & notes.
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          • Posted by 10 years, 5 months ago
            Can't decide if I hate Hegel or Kant more. I'm also 85% through "The Story of Philosophy" by Will Durant (published 1926) for pre-Rand philosophical context. I really despise Plato too. It is bizarre how so many influential "philosophers" were unashamed to use their own faculties to discredit human faculties and then have us believe that those same faculties led them to divine knowledge of universal truths.
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            • Posted by khalling 10 years, 5 months ago
              you're in good company wonk. my sentiments exactly. the metaphysics of Plato and Christianity align. read TSOP in college for my Aristotle/Plato/Locke philosophy class
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              • Posted by 10 years, 5 months ago
                Here's the first big challenge in the book that is the topic. Islam as a whole is collectivist and totalitarian. The Big Lie that we are being sold is that, in Bush's words, "Islam is a religion of peace". The democrat-media complex is being compelled to repeat this lie. The baton was handed off to Obama, who has adopted the furtherance of the lie dutifully. It is all likened to our infiltration by and eventual alliance with Stalin. Credible, or conspiracy theory?
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                • Posted by 10 years, 5 months ago
                  Quote
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                  Don’t just take my word for it. Back in 2003, the man who used to be described as Osama bin Laden’s “spiritual guide” castigated President Bush along similar lines, and rightly so. In response to Bush’s repeated slander of the religion of jihad as the “religion of peace,” Abu Qatada said, “I am astonished by President Bush when he claims there is nothing in the Koran that justifies jihad or violence in the name of Islam. Is he some kind of Islamic scholar? Has he ever actually read the Koran?”

                  If Bush, or McChrystal for that matter, ever did crack the book, he read only the “good parts”— the 124 verses of tolerance— that are rendered meaningless according to the rule of “abrogation.” The rule of abrogation is the key that Islamic scholars use to resolve contradictions within the Koran. By means of this doctrine, Koranic passages are “abrogated,” or canceled, by any subsequently “revealed” verses that convey a different meaning. In other words, when there is a contradiction (e.g., don’t kill the infidel vs. yes, kill the infidel), whatever was “revealed” to Islam’s prophet, Mohammed, more recently trumps whatever was “revealed” before it. This technique comes from Mohammed himself at the Koran’s sura 2:105: “Whatever verses we [i.e., Allah] cancel or cause you to forget , we bring a better or its like.”

                  It’s a simple concept, unforgettable once taught— but our elected officials, our military and other security providers, our pundits and other public voices seem never to have learned it, much less explained it to the rest of us. Or worse, they are ignoring it on purpose. In this ignorant morass, then, We, the People are left on our own to make sense of misinformation and disinformation. Why? Why haven’t they sought and told the truth?

                  There are reasons. In his book What the Koran Really Says, Ibn Warraq explains that while abrogation resolves the abundant contradictions to be found in the Koran , it “does pose problems for apologists of Islam, since all the passages preaching tolerance are found in Meccan (i.e., early) suras, and all the passages recommending killing, decapitating and maiming, the so-called Sword Verses, are Medinan (i.e., later).” His conclusion: “‘Tolerance’ has been abrogated by ‘intolerance.’” Just to be clear: Islamic tolerance in the Koran has been canceled by Islamic intolerance in the Koran.

                  West, Diana. American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation's Character - St. Martin's Press. Kindle Edition.
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                • Posted by khalling 10 years, 5 months ago
                  wonky. I think when you first came into the gulch you had trouble with a few posts or comments by uncommonsense. please consider going back through his posts
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                  • Posted by 10 years, 5 months ago
                    I looked through quite a bit. Took quite a few detours as well... Good stuff. I didn't see one that I recall having trouble with. Of course, I've crammed a year's worth of education and self discovery into the last several months on top of my 9-5 job. Do you remember a context?
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      • Posted by $ Mimi 10 years, 5 months ago
        Hi, Wonky. You are right, the New Deal was about something entirely different than war. Many believe it was the result of the decades of corrupt politics centered in Tammany Hall, in New York City being confronted with newly formed unions made of mostly Eastern Europeans and Italian immigrants, Try reading, Triangle: The Fire That Changed America by David Von Driehle. It is the story of the Triangle Shirt Waist Factory fire of 1911 that claimed over a hundred workers (mostly young women) and the aftermath as it shook up New York politics. Many of the players who responded in the aftermath of the fire ended up later in FDR’s cabinet. Very well researched book.

        We took in immigrants who were socialist in two large waves. Western europeans in the late nineteenth century, and Eastern Europeans and Italians in the early twentieth century.

        It’s why I am against open borders just so people can come here to work. They don’t have a problem with their politics back home, they don’t make the connection that that’s why they don’t have jobs, and they are prone to organize.

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        • Posted by 10 years, 5 months ago
          Thanks for the reference. I'd read that "Critical Theory" (tear down all science and logical positivism through unrelenting criticism) was ushered in with a wave of scholarly immigrants from the Frankfurt School of sociology, and that they were welcomed into institutions. That wasn't until 15-25 years later.

          I think I picked that up from "Righteous Indignation" by Andrew Breitbart.

          I'm inclined to agree with your assessment of open borders in light of all of this new (to me) information. The political issue as presented seems to be dumbed down to a question of whether to allow low wage Mexican immigrants. Scholars immigrating to intentionally spread collectivist/totalitarian ideologies from within our institutions is a much more insidious problem that appears to be completely overlooked.

          Adding Triangle to my reading list ;)
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          • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 5 months ago
            I've experienced the harm done by the flood of the worst of the societies south of our southern border into the U.S., and my idea of comprehensive immigration reform is building two walls, not a fence, across our southern border, with an alligator preserve built between, and a moat filled with toxic chemicals inside the interior wall (in case the alligators get out... ahem), with motion controlled 50 caliber machine guns posted along the top.
            For those already here, remove them from the protection of law, as they are not *under* the jurisdiction of the U.S. and are as much invaders as Cuban mercenaries would be. Only a lot more harmful.
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          • Posted by $ Mimi 10 years, 5 months ago
            I’m not talking about Mexicans, specifically. I’m talking about Venezuelans, Columbians, Haitians, several African nations, Brazilians,Chinese and the list goes on. They don’t necessarily have to be from a socialist country to come away with a collective world view unique to their culture.
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            • Posted by 10 years, 5 months ago
              Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you were specifically referring to Mexican immigration. I meant that the political debates in the media seem to center mostly around Mexican immigration, southern border patrols, and so on. That seems to be the distilled issue that we're given to vote on, while the real issue, as you say, is so much more complex.
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