The things people are saying in college today. Even presidents.

Today, moralistic absolutism powers radical Islamic fundamentalism and North Korea’s paranoid self-reliance and is on the rise again in this nation in the troubling form of a cluster of unexamined moralistic concepts including “the sanctity of life,” “liberty above all,” “axis of evil,” “anti-affirmative action,” “intelligent design,” and “family values,” which are exerting increasing influence on American social attitudes, scientific and legal practice, and domestic and foreign policy.

So “liberty above all” is moralistic absolutism that is on par with terrorism. That is, after all, what radical Islamic fundamentalism means.

“Family values” equal people who blow up fathers, mothers, children. Sometimes waiting to blow up lots of children. Oh yeah. I can see the equivalence there.

“The sanctity of life,” believing that everyone should have a chance to live, is the same as “radical Islamic fundamentalism,” which believes that everyone who is not specifically one of them should die.

Unfortunately I am not surprised. When you teach that only what you believe matters, then they are equivalent. But beliefs bring about actions and while some, like the president of Swathmore, might believe that no actions are better than others, it is not true. Swathmore, and its president, don’t want students who will bomb the school. If someone did that they wouldn’t be at school anymore. So, if all actions are not equally good, neither are the beliefs from which they come.

I’m not a debater and I’m not sure that argument doesn’t have flaws, but it seems to me a reasonable argument. Which is more than I can say for Alfred Bloom’s remarks.

The time will come, and may already be upon us, when such remarks are accepted as inevitable or accurate. But they aren’t.

Once the consensus of the world was that the world was flat. Did that flatten the world? No. What we believe doesn’t change the facts.

via Ticklish Ears

[In case you think that I am not arguing persuasively about blowing up children and civilians, perhaps the word of terrorist Abu Musab Al Zarqawi will let you know that I am not mistaken. “In Islam, making the difference is not based on civilians and military, but on the basis of Muslims and infidels.” via Jihad Watch]