New kid in town

[Douglas <dougwils@moscow.com>]

Morning visionaries!

Carl Westberg identified my subtle and nuanced discourse as a "nice
rambling response" and pointed out that I did not answer his
question directly, which is true enough. So here is my direct answer.
People who would not choose one another for fishing buddies can
nonetheless tolerate one another and live in blissful co-existence. I
affirm this heartily, and without mental reservation, yea and amen.
Having made this affirmation, I will now begin counting all the posts
from the progressive sector that identify me as the "tolerant
Douglas Wilson." You see, if this is tolerance, then we are all
equally tolerant. If it is not tolerance, then your question was a
red herring designed to keep the progressives from having to define what
their tolerance really is. But I know what it is--it is Nice People
United. Progressives, for all their sweet and inclusive rhetoric, are
really out to demonize any substantive opposition to their agenda.

Ted Moffett returned to his question about a "lowest common
denominator" approach to a shared human ethic. My answer is that, on
the basis of a common Creator, we are in fact living in the same
universe. But because of human sin and rebellion, we find regular,
systematic, and ongoing attempts on the part of mankind to create various
hellish alternative ethical systems, attempts to create other universes
than the one God gave to us. I do not want to boil these rebellions down
to the bone in an attempt to find out that larceny laws in Nazi Germany
were very similar to ours. That may be, but it would be to miss the
central point.

The lowest common denominator approach will not work because 
of:

1. Nazi hatred of Jews;
2. Muslim hatred of women;
3. Aztec hatred of prisoners of war;
4. American hatred of the unborn;
5. Dutch hatred of the elderly;
6. Palestinian hatred of Jews;
7. Israeli hatred of Palestinians;
8. Muslim hatred of New Yorkers;
9. IRA hatred of the English;
10. English hatred of the Irish;
11. Ad nauseam.

Common ground can be found between all these groups. But I don't
care that individuals in all these groups brush their teeth, thus
emphasizing the importance of dental hygiene. Who is against dental
hygiene? Not me! But that is hardly the point. The so-called common
ground ethic of liberal progressives is based on a myth that is quaint
and entirely insular. The central problem with it is that it is so damned
provincial. Some people need to get out more. The Saudi hijackers did not
derive their ethical marching orders from the Cosby show.

Cordially,


Douglas Wilson