The other great phase our fearless leaders continuously use during a crisis is, "Those responsible will be held accountable", even though of course, they never are.

That to me is unacceptable.

Bleah.

Unacceptable used to mean we would do things...I suppose the definition of doing things has shifted to going out for 18 holes with this Administration

Which leads to the next phase, "Which some knuckle draggers still find totally unacceptable..."

Because as we know, in Canada murder is frowned upon.

Oh Justin, don't you feel that the phrase "absolutely unacceptable" is a bit too intolerant? How about "Double Plus Ungood" instead.

Yes, this is an example of international liberal/left wing piety again. And the reason it offends is for the same reason ALL liberal piety offends: it is narcissistic, i.e. it is meant to tell the listener about the moral righteousness of the speaker. It says nothing about the object of derision. To say, "this practice is barbaric!" is to say something one can argue with about the practice itself. But to say "this is absolutely unacceptable" is not something that can be discussed. It is a statement about what the speaker will tolerate, or how the speaker feels. Problem is, it sounds a lot more like "sharing your feelings" or "getting ready to puddle up and quiver". Unfortunately, we are all now well tutored by experience to expect liberal hypocrisy and inaction to follow, which hardly makes "unacceptable" very acceptable as a designation for anything.

What a powerful (and tragic) post Mark. You have captured here something that as an American living in Europe for almost 15 years, I have watched with growing alarm. I can offer a few details to this observation, which while clearly offering insight into the phenomenon, are yet pieces of a puzzle.

First, I can tell you that the correlation between the various pseudo philosophies of the left (multiculturalism, “diversity”, social justice etc) and Jew hatred is extremely high. This is no surprise to you I know, but as I observe the world, I can say with utter conviction that this is simply true. So whatever that implies about the nature of the left, and about anti-Semitism, is implied, period. Whether “leftism” attracts those with a proclivity for Jew hatred (for reasons that are probably related to the same impulses for class hatred, group identification, cult of personality and other leftist characteristics) or imposes it as part of a basket of subtly conformist ideas, I can’t say. But I am personally convinced it is both, and that what we call leftism, is a push-pull strategy that preys on the widespread weaknesses of individuals, to diminish the collective, and empower the few.

It is certainly nothing new.

Consider a defining trait: Adherents to the Left are invariably offered some sort of “security” by the Sophists that inevitably rise to the top of the “masters of social justice” pyramid. (Hayek new precisely what he meant when he described how in this broad framework - “The worst always rise to the top”.) Promises that can never be kept, must be buttressed by hate objects. This has always been the case. Security can never be delivered, so authority must be imposed, and its depredations projected on a target. Jews have always been thus scapegoated by every tinpot thug that ever veiled his loathsome self in a robe of “office”. In modern and more “sophist”icated times… they have created more subtle (and convenient) groups to hate. The impulses behind that group hatred, remain ancient and unchanged however.

Its worth noting that you can confirm the above within the impressive body of work in fields such as social anthropology... which has in recent times taken to showing this indeed to be an issue... for everyone who is not an adherent to progressive thought (the implication being that their tribe is innately superior). I will leave it to others with more subtle minds to sort out the frightening depth and speed into which man invariably falls into travestyt that the above actually proves. But I should take a moment to hat tip the character of the Founders for their unprecedented paranoia at the corruptability of man as they sought to hitch a society to liberty.

Second, I can also say that while I observed these disconcerting characteristics from when I first arrived (the class hatreds, all manner of pseudo-intellectual Marxist claptrap, and yes, anti-Semitism) it was only AFTER September 11th that it truly metastasized. That might seem surprising (it no longer is to me because I think that code is cracked) or counter-intuitive, but it isn’t at all. Much of what the most passionate purveyors of various lefty gobbledygook spew is all about, is “screaming full” the yawning nihilism that comes with meaningless and upside down values. I am (having engaged in quite a few debates with university students and academics) convinced that most people “know” when there is a profound disconnect between what we adhere to and support, versus what our guts and soul says about what really is. In short, when people scream that self-evident up, is in fact, down, and white is black and love is hate… they do not scream because they passionately believe and are brave, but because they do not believe, and are cowardly. How we love to feel morally superior… and how the left has institutionalized this desire, and turned it into something worse than nothing (where the image is far more “valued” than the substance). If you threaten the edifice of that moral superiority (by for example, questioning how one can be marching for “Peace”, by advocating yielding to clearly malevolent groups who will advance hatred and murder) you will be labelled a threat.

A threat to what? In truth, as a power base, this is brilliant, because of course threatening the foundations upon which the ever twisted narrative of “social justice” stands, is a threat to the worst of the worst I referred to above and about whom Hayek spoke… but by the useful idiots swelling the ranks of the left, it will be labelled a threat to tolerance, diversity or whatever other vague and almost meaningless palliative that said idiots use to justify their moral cowardice with (by odiously, relabeling it “courage”…. see: “profiles in”).

So since 911 there has been a steady escalation of malevolent rhetoric against Israel, and an almost openly bizarre “blind spot” (that has reached the ideological equivalent of being legally blind) when it comes to the depredations of Islam. It is seen for example I think, almost as a necessary civic duty on the part of journalists now, to self-censor and recast news so that it suits this ever truth crushing narrative. Presumably, this is because the great “whatever IT is”, that comes from being on the side of “social justice” (whatever that is… but note that for over a generation so called “journalists” have had academic accreditation imposed on them which entails a whole lot of Derrida and Foucault etc.), trumps all else including pursuit of the “truth” (who are we to judge that… see Derrida et al) … as we might expect to be at the heart of a journalists job description.

I can tell you Mark, the number of theoretically “educated” young people who angrily (and often viciously) take positions that are absurd on their face, and advocate obvious mayhem while clinging to notions of being for Peace and Justice, is truly chilling and profoundly depressing. I have confronted such young demonstrators wearing their Keffiyeh and passing out pamphlets comparing Israel to Nazi Germany and the Fence to Apartheid, and numerous other false equivalencies that over exposure to the clever but masturbatory nuances of moral relativism enables. I have confronted them by pointing out some of what I cite above, and noting that not only are they worthy of wearing any mantle of moral virtue in the name of peace or any other virtue, but they are enablers of, and complicit to, the most horrendous types of human depravity, because such things happen in the shadows, and their actions do not permit the light to shine on that reality. When possible I go further and point out that in the most boring, predictable and pitiful irony, they do the greatest disservice of all to Muslims, who by not being encouraged even to face the truth of their own true oppressors, are forced to submission to them. I have pointed out that all throughout history, it is always the most evil people in the world, that love the nuanced arguments of ironically self-labelled “freethinkers”, because the etymology of “nuance” is fog, and since the very worst things happen in mist and shadows, nuance is ever the friend of the ruthless (who are always ALWAYS, very clear eyed).

This I have managed to do a few times… and the reaction is always the same, it is only the time that varies (which dictates how far I might get). Longer, if the young people have a self-image that includes being unafraid of open discourse. This image quickly dissolves when it is clear that an open discourse does not serve their internal master. It ends ugly… hatred twisted faces, invective cursing and more. I am a big and fairly intimidating looking fellow, otherwise I would never have been able to get as far as I have in these instances, and emerge unscathed. (Never forget that one of the left’s affections is noble savagery… they demonstrate it well).

The reaction to this story is not a surprise. The only thing I can say is that we have passed some tipping point where the disconnect between narrative and reality is becoming unsustainable and once again, the hairs on the backs of the necks of a large number of people is on the rise. Something is going to break… and I don’t know where it will lead. Probably to blood and fire as is humanities’ wont when it deceives itself for extended periods of time.

Anyway, I feel the emotions you have in your post, even as you struggle to keep them in check and shine a light. I share them. It was disturbing once… then disconcerting… now it is chilling and fills me with a terrible sense of foreboding. The West may not need a demographic collapse to, for all intents and purposes… be lost.

The reason honour killings are 'absolutely unacceptable' is because the practice is barbaric.

Trudeau's argument is 'absolutely unacceptable' because it is stupid.

Hopefully there is a rather thickish line between barbaric and stupid behaviour, otherwise a lot of stupid people are going to find themselves lumped in with the clitoridectomists.

Not just unacceptable, but inappropriate as well.