… it’s a long clip, so save it for when you have time … it is well worth it. Source
94 Replies to “Hirsi versus CBC”
Who can listen to 45 minutes of the CBC, even with the wonderful Hirsi as a guest?
Another anti-Christian CBC host….he cannot stand the idea of her standing up for Christianity, it’s driving him nuts
Jian got biatched slapped as bad as little Commie Lewis did.
He’ll be at aljazeera in no time.
All of my liberal friends berate me for my ideology. I hold Hirsi as my #1 hero and they dont even know who I am talking about most of the time.
She is beautiful, poised and inspirational and she scares the bejeesus out of ignorant Marxists.
I wouldn’t be able to hold it together as calmly and politely as she did. She is a wonderful, intelligent, and courageous woman.
I watched her brilliant, polite and firm smack down of Commie Lewis and then watched her do the same to this clown. It would seem that she enjoys it. Probably in the back of her mind she is wondering “Ok which one of you clowns wants it next?” She is amazing.
Holy smokes, Cjunk. Your posting had been up here for only a few minutes and my sitemeter recorded three times as many hits as I normally get all day. SDA gets results. LOL! More please, sir.
Is that available on podcast?
Louise: Welcome to the power of SDA. I’ll let you in on a little secret … in the past, my site Celestial Junk, has been linked to by Malkin, Steyn, Frontpage, TownHall, Five Feet, a number of major Israeli News orgs, and Gateway Pundit … none, yield as many hits as SDA. I don’t think most people realize just how many readers Kate has.
I liked Jian when he was with Moxy Fruvous.
Since then..yeah, not so much.
As for Hirsi: In one word, amazing.
A really great discussion about Ayaan’s political bent vs her insistence that she is more concerned about ideas starts at about 30:30.
The whole interview was excellent.
Thank you for posting it, Cjunk.
Cjunk @ 12:05 PM, it’s Kate’s pin-point precision in pointing out the hypocrisy of the left that does it. No one does a better job than Kate and in so few exquisitely chosen words.
Lewis, like so many liberals, has to pin her down on the political spectrum – the easier to dismiss her once she’s been tarred with the “right wing” brush. Anyone who knows Ali well should be aware of how difficult that is, and that her position at the AEI is a marriage of convenience, so to speak, and one that Ali probably wouldn’t have taken if the left wasn’t so keen to repudiate her.
(Sorry – Ghomeshi, not Lewis.)
Jian Go-Mushy tried every angle, with absolutely no success, to slip in the PC cultural relativism excuses for the intrinsic islamic barbarism that most people are too cowardly to confront. Jian played the pseudo-intellectual water pistol to Hirsi’s calmly pragmatic fire hose. Picking up on one of the questions posed, I would like to see a debate on “What good things can Islam teach the West” with Hirsi and Mark Steyn on one side and anyone else on earth on the other.
Ghomeshi looked like he was trying to swallow broken glass during that entire interview.
I liked it.
I could listen to her all day. An amazing person.
Hirsi is a great lady. My wife just read her book and read excerpts to me. Jian Go-Mushy and Lewis are Marxist scum bags and their hate for anything on the right blinds them to the danger that radical Islam poses to western democracy.
The cultural left has so corrupted our society that radical Muslims are striking out to keep this moral rot from infecting their society and moderate Muslims keep quiet as they agree with the radicals in this regard, but are not yet ready to embrace the radical war.
I hope Louise doesn’t mind but I’d like to repost a comment I just left on her site:
Thank you for posting the video, Louise. Coincidentally, an L.A. columnist named Amy Alkon just posted this other interview of her. As I said there, what Hirsi Ali is saying is of course true for anyone who has any semblance of Common Sense. But her views are diametrically opposed to the Left’s “great” narrative that all cultures are absolutely equal. But dare question why cultures that support honour killing and female genital mutilation are equal to ours and you are deemed a bigot by the Left.
Which, by the way, raises an interesting side point: I fully agree with Dennis Prager’s theory that most people who identify themselves to be “on the Left” or “liberals” actually are NOT. For if you were to discuss individual issues like this with them, they would adamantly disagree with the official Leftist position.
Therefore, what percentage of our population are actually truly Leftists? If it’s more than 2 – 3% I’d be shocked. Will historians 100 Years from now look back and wonder how such a tiny minority of the population was able to seize control of the reins of power (political, academic, media) and steer it in such a destructive direction?
The modern liberal malaise in a nutshell: You cannot say that classical liberalism is better than sharia (or words to that effect). That’s so … ya know … offensive; so provocative; so … false!
At the 41 minutes mark Hirsi is asked if there is anything that can be learned from islam… It’s all summed up there for the west, that she needs time to consider her response, that she needs to search for an answer for that one. I personally doubt if anything useful can be found in islam, perhaps as only a warning to the west, a lesson as to what may happen if this road is taken and that this road must be avoided at all costs.
Well worth the minutes Louise and Cjunk!!
Robert W. (Vancouver) at 12:55 PM, I don’t own your comments, Robert. Feel free to take ’em anywhere you want. It’s a good one, after all.
Whatever his own views, he asks her the “hard” questions that the liberal needs answered and allows her to make everyone of her points. I thought it was excellent. AHA is a treasure!
I thought I was too old for hero worship but this lady totally impresses me. I think of a young girl, not well-educated, simply leaping out of a culture she found oppressive even before she was able to articulate what what wrong with it. She simply didn’t want to live her mother’s life. I’m amazed at the learning and wisdom she has achieved. The interviewer really wasn’t up to her weight. He thought he had the slap-down question and it fizzled before her cool, articulate and reasoned response. I’ve read Infidel and will be seeking Nomad.
Thanks for posting this.
And besides, a lot more people are going to see it here. LOL!
Another thing, I believe the phenomenon that you cite in your last paragraph explains the need the Liberal Party and their cronies feel they have to accuse conservatives of being unable to read or not owning books, and assorted other non-sense. I’d be willing to bet that man for man, woman for woman, conservatives are better educated that liberals, certainly the current crop in any case. IMHO, the Liberals have delivered themselves a real blow by posting that on their website.
Thanks, Louise. I don’t often repeat such things but I do feel I made some important points, expanding out the subject much wider than just what Hirsi Ali is talking about.
One of the biggest problems I see in our society is that too many people don’t own up to their views and are not held accountable for their views.
Example: Recently I got in a rather heated exchange with a Facebook “friend” about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. She essentially was saying that all offshore drilling should be stopped. I asked her where she would prefer the oil come from should that happen. Her response: “All oil drilling in the world should be immediately stopped.” This woman does not live in a cave. She’s raising a family in Colorado, heats her home, drives a vehicle, and has lots & lots of items made out of plastic. Therefore such a statement is both irresponsible and hypocritical. I told her this and then removed her as a friend from FB. A little act on my part to be sure but at least I was doing my part to hold her responsible for her views.
I’ve long thought that public shunning is highly underrated! 🙂
She is correct, islam has NOTHING to offer the West.
Robert W.@ 12:55
Nice comment; especially the insightful remark that the (post)modern left’s notion of equality is driving their policy and practice.
But I think Prager’s percentage wildly underestimates reality, unless he means by “true left” classical Marxism. The modern left—the postmodern left—is not your father’s left: not classically Marxist. They are, instead, an unselfconscious, inconsistent brew of relativism and subjectivism on all important matters—from truth, to morality, to justice, to their conception of persons—, and they are politically of the totalitarian Marxist stripe. They dominate our most important institutions: our schools, our universities, our media, our bureaucracies, thanks to Gramsci. That explains, for example, AliBama.
She works for a ‘right wing’ think tank? Isn’t he rather blatantly showing his bias?
Alberta he works for a leftwing toughtless tank but that’s not obvious to him.
She’s awesome, yes we can learn from Islam-never surrender never cede to their Supremacists demands.
Nick, the 2 – 3% estimate I cited was mine, not Prager’s. It’s based completely on people in my life I’ve spoken with. Admittedly it’s not a random sample but I really would be shocked to learn that it’s more.
For example, imagine you & I were polling Canadians over the telephone:
Question #1: Do you believe that all cultures are equal?
a. Very much agree
b. Somewhat agree
c. Neutral or not sure
d. Somewhat disagree
e. Very much disagree
To this initial question I have no idea how most Canadians would answer but I bet there’d be a pretty high number answering ‘a’ or ‘b’.
Question #2 (only ask if the respondent answered ‘a’ or ‘b’ to Question #1) : Since you agree that all cultures are equal then would it be correct to conclude that you also believe that female genital mutilation and honour killings are perfectly acceptable in those cultures that have them and Canadians should not be critical of such practices?
a. Very much agree
b. Somewhat agree
c. Neutral or not sure
d. Somewhat disagree
e. Very much disagree
This is where I believe that there’d be a long pause amongst a huge majority of Canadians as they fully understood, perhaps for the first time in their lives, what it actually meant to support the notion that “all cultures are equal”.
Pollster instructions: If the respondent pauses for a long time or answers ‘c’, ‘d’, or ‘e’ to Question #2 then ask them if they would like to change their response to Question #1.
If a poll were conducted properly, allowing the respondent to indeed go back and change their earlier answers then I do believe that 97 – 98% of Canadians would state that they do not believe that all cultures are equal.
But since I have little faith in the motivations of polling clients, I doubt we’ll ever know the actual figure!
Well into Hirsi Ali’s book, Nomad, and it is another excellent read on her life and how she sees islam in America now that she lives there still under 24/7 guard. I feel that she is like a Cassandra in Troy with her warnings of how islam and its followers are becoming increasing more militant.
This is mostly due to Saudi money funding mosques throughout Europe and North America and stacking them with young firebrand imams. She reminds us that muslims are brainwashed since birth in their unchanging religion and it is an easy step to radicalism.
She writes: “I believe it would be a grave mistake to be complacent about islam in America.”
Couple of paragraphs. Here she is writing about the difference of between the muslims coming to North America and the leftists/liberals that welcome them:
“One side wants change in their circumstances without letting go of tradition; the other, overcome with guilt and pity, want to help newcomers with the material change but cannot bring themselves to demand that they excise traditional, outdated values from their outlook.”
This one covers how the young muslims through the mosques are taught the hardline islam that joins muslims of all countries into a fifth column and how they relate to American patriotism:
“Can you be a Muslim and and American patriot? You can if you don’t care very much about being a muslim. If you squint and look away, you can avoid thinking about the very basic clashes between the submissive, collectivist values of islam and the individualist, libertarian values of the democratic West. Almost 50% of muslims consider themselves muslim first, American second. Only 28%, little more than a quarter, considered themselves Americans first.
Asked whether suicide bombing can be justified as a measure to defend islam, 26% of American Muslims age 18 to 29 said yes. With estimates between 2-8 million that is a lot of people.”
Just a brilliant lady and a giant in reminding us of our hard fought for freedoms and how easily we can lose them. I would love to see her address our parliament.
Robert W. @ 2:47:
Right. Your two clever questions would indeed catch out the unsophisticated pomo liberal—probably a majority of them. And that would show the contradictions at the heart of their views.
But the clever pomo liberals—those who dominate our institutions—would not be troubled for an instant by your survey. They would say that your second question cannot be answered because it presumes an objective measure for cultures that does not exist. They might admit that WE, or many of US, would not approve of genital mutilation in Somalia, for example, but our (dis)approval is entirely subjective—culture-centric; merely an expression of our preferences, which themselves are based in nothing but our own psychology—and so cannot be used to measure another culture. Cultures are, as they like to say, incommensurable. So, it is not that all cultures are straightforwardly equal—that is, not all equally good. Rather, it is that there is no way to measure them, since the required objectivity is impossible (They, like most in the media, help themselves to the idea of the death of objectivity: that explains a lot. If no objectivity, then each of us is licensed to prefer our own views to others’, irrespective of “evidence” or “logic” to the contrary.); and to think otherwise is myth, dangerous because it can be used by the imperialism-inclined among us—the unenlightened—to oppress others, to impose what are purely subjective preferences on others. Something like this is surely on the “minds” of all those pomo feminists who refuse to criticize the barbaric treatment of women in sharia-run countries.
Cheers,
What this blog could learn from Gomeshi is how not to be a snearing twit when speaking to somebody who you may not agree with 100%. Remember… his job is to challenger her to explain her views.
I know that’s hard to wrap your heads around, since you think the purpose of news and commentary is to simply allows the people you support to spread their views, but that’s why conservatives are taken in by snake oil salesmen like Palin who afraid of answering real questions.
John @ 3:31:
P*ss off!
Dear John,
Welcome from your cozy world of CBCNews.com. Though you’ve decided to smear every commenter prior to you with one brush, all I can do is respond for myself.
I agree that an interviewer should challenge his guest as best s/he can. But what became very clear is that Gomeshi’s brain seemed ready to explode as he tried so desperately to get Ali to change her views simply because said views were inline with those of many conservative pundits. She did not and I applaud her for that.
If she wanted to be mean she could have asked Gomeshi why he provides de facto support & cover for those kill innocent women and mutilate the genitals of other women without any consent.
Which brings to mind an obvious question: Being a Proud Member of the Left that you’ve implied you are, why do you support such cruelty in the world?
John at 3:31 PM: “What this blog could learn from Gomeshi is how not to be a snearing twit when speaking to somebody who you may not agree with 100%.”
===============
Actually, what “this blog” (sic) could learn is:
1) How to spell “Ghomeshi”
2) How to spell “sneering”
# 2 is particularly curious, seeing as how the little box where you write your comments actually highlights the misspelled words, giving the writer the opportunity to correct them.
So, Jian Ghomeshi is a Muslim? Interesting. He quickly makes a disclaimer that it’s only the fact that it’s the family he was born into that makes him a Muslim, and seems to have nothing useful to say about the very serious claims Ayan Hirsi Aly makes about the mistreatment of women on the part of many Muslims and how this abuse is justified by Islam/the Koran. ‘Talk about slipping under the wire. ‘Not an impressive display.
It was instructive, and not at all surprising, to see the knots Hirsi Aly tied him in! He started out oh, so sure of his snotty self and his condescending opinions of his “right wing” guest, and ended up being lassoed by Hirsi Aly’s calm, her coolness, and her reasoning skills — neither “left” nor “right,” as she was at pains to point out) which left him hog-tied with a stupid, lop-sided grin on his face.
It’s ironic, though, isn’t it: that it takes a young Somali woman, with no prior experience in the West, to be able to see, and have the courage to say, that the anti-Christian Emperor/Empress of the Western Chattering Class has no clothes?
It is not lost on her that it is Christianity (a “developed religion” which is “enlightened” and “friendly”!) that stands in the gap between Western Civilization and barbarity.
Would that those of us who have for centuries been the beneficiaries of Christian largess could be as clear-seeing, as clear-thinking, and as courageous as Ayan Hirsi Aly.
Hey there John, could it be that you also could learn from Gomeshi is now not to be a “snearing twit when speaking to somebody you may not agree with 100%”? Anyhow, Gomeshi, like most modern progressives, doesn’t realize that he is a fundamentalist. So Hirsi Ali pretends not to understand his objections to “what if THEY” (i.e., your friends and colleagues at the AEI and their kin) exploit your ideas? Who, do you mean, she says, the KKK? So what? Wouldn’t that be good since my ideas are liberal? Poor pitifully and badly educated Jian. If he had a clue he’d be fired.
John at 3:31 PM: “Remember… his job is to challenger her to explain her views.”
==========
His job, John, is to toe the CBC Liberal Leftie line by completely misconstruing and misrepresenting what it is to be conservative. His assumption that the American Enterprise Institute = a bastion of evil is right from the Little Red Liberal Leftie Book.
I’ll bet you not more than a tiny handful of Little Red Liberal Leftie Book readers have ever even visited the AEI’s website, let alone read any of their literature or watched any of their videos. They have no idea what conservative principles are and that pretty much applies to most of the talking heads at Mother Corpse, too.
Moxy Fruvous… that takes me back.
John, do grow up. A clever commentator or reporter is able to absorb ALL the facts and deal with them. As many here have pointed out, Jian Ghomeshi appeared uncomfortable the whole time Ayaan Hirsi Ali spoke. She is articulate, gentle-spoken and- well- right. Muslim and leftist apologists have difficulty dealing with people like Miss Ali because she is so spot-on and unafraid.
She’s a very special person, that’s for sure…a true champion of the individual. Somalia, and in fact all nations, certainly needs more people like her. What courage to stand up for new ideas and to challenge deeply re-enforced culture.
I think she ignores, or is ignorant of, the influence that western nations have, historically and presently, on middle east social, political, financial institutions, and thereby misses the fact that while western nations have allowed their own culture/religion/social structure to progress, they have stalled and sometimes reversed the same progress in other nations, namely in the middle east and africa.
I don’t agree with her stance on Christianity in regards to being an ‘enlightened’ alternative for Islam…religion PERIOD is a problem and outdated human creation. It is certainly not christianity that supports western societies enlightenment.
I think some would do well to listen to her stance on left vs right…that it ignores ideas in exchange for grouping people.
I don’t understand how anyone can think Jian got his ‘ass handed to him’…it was a very relaxed interview for the most part.
What an asshole interviewer! Oh yeah. It’s CBC. He couldn’t care less about the women she was talking about who are beat and murdered on a daily basis. All he wanted to do was make her look like a “right wing” pawn or some kind of a traitor to her past. She was wonderful. I would not have been so kind to this shithead.
Now I have to go shower. That much CBC will take a while to wash off.
The CBC announcer dork can’t wrap his head around Hirisi’s contention that you can -measure- the success of a society. Every time she says it, he looks like his brain is going to explode.
That’s why I cave up on Anthropology back in 1979. Every time I suggested we might want to measure something, guys would get this glassy look and start arguing with me.
His mind is completely trapped in a box. I should pay money to employ people like that? I’m thinking NO.
I agree that we should expose Muslims to Christianity. A Muslim friend and I have been reading the NT together, and that friend loves it… and has remarked, “Everybody should be reading the Bible”
A few thoughts – Ayaan Hirsi Ali – so calm, so cool, so smooth, so rational, God I could never do what she does, – apparently specializes in handing to themselves the balls, such as they are, of spoiled smirking Canadian lefty CBC-type brats.
Ali is wonderfully brave. She lives under a genuine threat of death 24/7.
Ali is ridiculously beautiful (it’s just true. Somali cheekbones are one of the great achievements of the human genome).
Ali scored poorly on an IQ test. I can’t find the link, or be bothered, but it’s findable. Just in case you idolize that kind of thing. She doesn’t strike me as dumb.
She is (largely) correct – i.e. agrees with me – about the definition of the Left/Right divide re. conservatism etc. @31:25-36:10 – it’s important.
Listen to 12:20-12:40 again – also important.
Ghomeshi giggles/snorts/smirks like an insecure nerd. He’s the Jimmy Fallon of the CBC (to whom he bears a physical remarkable resemblance BTW). I’ll give him this: I do prefer him to Avi Lewis.
…remarkable physical?…
Bold
Brave
Brilliant
BTJ @ 5:26 P> M.: ” … religion PERIOD is a problem and outdated human creation ,,,”
OH. GIVE. ME. A. BREAK.
When I totally rejected Christianity, G*d came knocking at my door. I didn’t create my relationship with Him, and I wasn’t high on anything. No drugs. No alcohol. But, I started walking down a different road away from the me-me-me fork in the road I’d been travelling into the how-can-I-help roadway.
A world without “religion.”
Hmmm. Let’s try to picture it: All of our museums and art galleries 3/4s empty; all of our opera houses and concert halls, more than half empty; hospitals and schools built only for those who believe what you believe; and who would feed and clothe the hungry and poor? You, BTJ?
If we relied on the government, rather than clothing depots, food banks, in from the heat/cold programs run by volunteers in Christian churches, we’d run out of bureauacratic resources. Government-run programs cost ten times what church-run outreaches cost.
If the Church WAS a “human creation” it wouldn’t/couldn’t have lasted over 2000 years. Let me assure you, BTJ, that Holy Spirit power exists (even if Ali doesn’t believe it!). It’s the energy the Church runs on. To say that religion is an outdated human creation reveals a rather breathtaking naivety, ignorance, and arrogance, all at once.
Aayan Hirsi Ali, even though she is a non-believer, recognizes the benefits of Christian belief and believers to the world and doesn’t denigrate them. In fact, she applauds them. She is clear that no moral equivalency exists between Christianity and Islam and the cultures they have cultivated despite what our multi-culti, equality czars insist on telling us.
Who can listen to 45 minutes of the CBC, even with the wonderful Hirsi as a guest?
Another anti-Christian CBC host….he cannot stand the idea of her standing up for Christianity, it’s driving him nuts
Jian got biatched slapped as bad as little Commie Lewis did.
He’ll be at aljazeera in no time.
All of my liberal friends berate me for my ideology. I hold Hirsi as my #1 hero and they dont even know who I am talking about most of the time.
She is beautiful, poised and inspirational and she scares the bejeesus out of ignorant Marxists.
I wouldn’t be able to hold it together as calmly and politely as she did. She is a wonderful, intelligent, and courageous woman.
I watched her brilliant, polite and firm smack down of Commie Lewis and then watched her do the same to this clown. It would seem that she enjoys it. Probably in the back of her mind she is wondering “Ok which one of you clowns wants it next?” She is amazing.
Holy smokes, Cjunk. Your posting had been up here for only a few minutes and my sitemeter recorded three times as many hits as I normally get all day. SDA gets results. LOL! More please, sir.
Is that available on podcast?
Louise: Welcome to the power of SDA. I’ll let you in on a little secret … in the past, my site Celestial Junk, has been linked to by Malkin, Steyn, Frontpage, TownHall, Five Feet, a number of major Israeli News orgs, and Gateway Pundit … none, yield as many hits as SDA. I don’t think most people realize just how many readers Kate has.
I liked Jian when he was with Moxy Fruvous.
Since then..yeah, not so much.
As for Hirsi: In one word, amazing.
A really great discussion about Ayaan’s political bent vs her insistence that she is more concerned about ideas starts at about 30:30.
The whole interview was excellent.
Thank you for posting it, Cjunk.
Cjunk @ 12:05 PM, it’s Kate’s pin-point precision in pointing out the hypocrisy of the left that does it. No one does a better job than Kate and in so few exquisitely chosen words.
Lewis, like so many liberals, has to pin her down on the political spectrum – the easier to dismiss her once she’s been tarred with the “right wing” brush. Anyone who knows Ali well should be aware of how difficult that is, and that her position at the AEI is a marriage of convenience, so to speak, and one that Ali probably wouldn’t have taken if the left wasn’t so keen to repudiate her.
(Sorry – Ghomeshi, not Lewis.)
Jian Go-Mushy tried every angle, with absolutely no success, to slip in the PC cultural relativism excuses for the intrinsic islamic barbarism that most people are too cowardly to confront. Jian played the pseudo-intellectual water pistol to Hirsi’s calmly pragmatic fire hose. Picking up on one of the questions posed, I would like to see a debate on “What good things can Islam teach the West” with Hirsi and Mark Steyn on one side and anyone else on earth on the other.
Ghomeshi looked like he was trying to swallow broken glass during that entire interview.
I liked it.
I could listen to her all day. An amazing person.
Hirsi is a great lady. My wife just read her book and read excerpts to me. Jian Go-Mushy and Lewis are Marxist scum bags and their hate for anything on the right blinds them to the danger that radical Islam poses to western democracy.
The cultural left has so corrupted our society that radical Muslims are striking out to keep this moral rot from infecting their society and moderate Muslims keep quiet as they agree with the radicals in this regard, but are not yet ready to embrace the radical war.
I hope Louise doesn’t mind but I’d like to repost a comment I just left on her site:
Thank you for posting the video, Louise. Coincidentally, an L.A. columnist named Amy Alkon just posted this other interview of her. As I said there, what Hirsi Ali is saying is of course true for anyone who has any semblance of Common Sense. But her views are diametrically opposed to the Left’s “great” narrative that all cultures are absolutely equal. But dare question why cultures that support honour killing and female genital mutilation are equal to ours and you are deemed a bigot by the Left.
Which, by the way, raises an interesting side point: I fully agree with Dennis Prager’s theory that most people who identify themselves to be “on the Left” or “liberals” actually are NOT. For if you were to discuss individual issues like this with them, they would adamantly disagree with the official Leftist position.
Therefore, what percentage of our population are actually truly Leftists? If it’s more than 2 – 3% I’d be shocked. Will historians 100 Years from now look back and wonder how such a tiny minority of the population was able to seize control of the reins of power (political, academic, media) and steer it in such a destructive direction?
The modern liberal malaise in a nutshell: You cannot say that classical liberalism is better than sharia (or words to that effect). That’s so … ya know … offensive; so provocative; so … false!
At the 41 minutes mark Hirsi is asked if there is anything that can be learned from islam… It’s all summed up there for the west, that she needs time to consider her response, that she needs to search for an answer for that one. I personally doubt if anything useful can be found in islam, perhaps as only a warning to the west, a lesson as to what may happen if this road is taken and that this road must be avoided at all costs.
Well worth the minutes Louise and Cjunk!!
Robert W. (Vancouver) at 12:55 PM, I don’t own your comments, Robert. Feel free to take ’em anywhere you want. It’s a good one, after all.
Whatever his own views, he asks her the “hard” questions that the liberal needs answered and allows her to make everyone of her points. I thought it was excellent. AHA is a treasure!
I thought I was too old for hero worship but this lady totally impresses me. I think of a young girl, not well-educated, simply leaping out of a culture she found oppressive even before she was able to articulate what what wrong with it. She simply didn’t want to live her mother’s life. I’m amazed at the learning and wisdom she has achieved. The interviewer really wasn’t up to her weight. He thought he had the slap-down question and it fizzled before her cool, articulate and reasoned response. I’ve read Infidel and will be seeking Nomad.
Thanks for posting this.
And besides, a lot more people are going to see it here. LOL!
Another thing, I believe the phenomenon that you cite in your last paragraph explains the need the Liberal Party and their cronies feel they have to accuse conservatives of being unable to read or not owning books, and assorted other non-sense. I’d be willing to bet that man for man, woman for woman, conservatives are better educated that liberals, certainly the current crop in any case. IMHO, the Liberals have delivered themselves a real blow by posting that on their website.
Thanks, Louise. I don’t often repeat such things but I do feel I made some important points, expanding out the subject much wider than just what Hirsi Ali is talking about.
One of the biggest problems I see in our society is that too many people don’t own up to their views and are not held accountable for their views.
Example: Recently I got in a rather heated exchange with a Facebook “friend” about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. She essentially was saying that all offshore drilling should be stopped. I asked her where she would prefer the oil come from should that happen. Her response: “All oil drilling in the world should be immediately stopped.” This woman does not live in a cave. She’s raising a family in Colorado, heats her home, drives a vehicle, and has lots & lots of items made out of plastic. Therefore such a statement is both irresponsible and hypocritical. I told her this and then removed her as a friend from FB. A little act on my part to be sure but at least I was doing my part to hold her responsible for her views.
I’ve long thought that public shunning is highly underrated! 🙂
She is correct, islam has NOTHING to offer the West.
Robert W.@ 12:55
Nice comment; especially the insightful remark that the (post)modern left’s notion of equality is driving their policy and practice.
But I think Prager’s percentage wildly underestimates reality, unless he means by “true left” classical Marxism. The modern left—the postmodern left—is not your father’s left: not classically Marxist. They are, instead, an unselfconscious, inconsistent brew of relativism and subjectivism on all important matters—from truth, to morality, to justice, to their conception of persons—, and they are politically of the totalitarian Marxist stripe. They dominate our most important institutions: our schools, our universities, our media, our bureaucracies, thanks to Gramsci. That explains, for example, AliBama.
She works for a ‘right wing’ think tank? Isn’t he rather blatantly showing his bias?
Alberta he works for a leftwing toughtless tank but that’s not obvious to him.
She’s awesome, yes we can learn from Islam-never surrender never cede to their Supremacists demands.
Nick, the 2 – 3% estimate I cited was mine, not Prager’s. It’s based completely on people in my life I’ve spoken with. Admittedly it’s not a random sample but I really would be shocked to learn that it’s more.
For example, imagine you & I were polling Canadians over the telephone:
Question #1: Do you believe that all cultures are equal?
a. Very much agree
b. Somewhat agree
c. Neutral or not sure
d. Somewhat disagree
e. Very much disagree
To this initial question I have no idea how most Canadians would answer but I bet there’d be a pretty high number answering ‘a’ or ‘b’.
Question #2 (only ask if the respondent answered ‘a’ or ‘b’ to Question #1) : Since you agree that all cultures are equal then would it be correct to conclude that you also believe that female genital mutilation and honour killings are perfectly acceptable in those cultures that have them and Canadians should not be critical of such practices?
a. Very much agree
b. Somewhat agree
c. Neutral or not sure
d. Somewhat disagree
e. Very much disagree
This is where I believe that there’d be a long pause amongst a huge majority of Canadians as they fully understood, perhaps for the first time in their lives, what it actually meant to support the notion that “all cultures are equal”.
Pollster instructions: If the respondent pauses for a long time or answers ‘c’, ‘d’, or ‘e’ to Question #2 then ask them if they would like to change their response to Question #1.
If a poll were conducted properly, allowing the respondent to indeed go back and change their earlier answers then I do believe that 97 – 98% of Canadians would state that they do not believe that all cultures are equal.
But since I have little faith in the motivations of polling clients, I doubt we’ll ever know the actual figure!
Well into Hirsi Ali’s book, Nomad, and it is another excellent read on her life and how she sees islam in America now that she lives there still under 24/7 guard. I feel that she is like a Cassandra in Troy with her warnings of how islam and its followers are becoming increasing more militant.
This is mostly due to Saudi money funding mosques throughout Europe and North America and stacking them with young firebrand imams. She reminds us that muslims are brainwashed since birth in their unchanging religion and it is an easy step to radicalism.
She writes: “I believe it would be a grave mistake to be complacent about islam in America.”
Couple of paragraphs. Here she is writing about the difference of between the muslims coming to North America and the leftists/liberals that welcome them:
“One side wants change in their circumstances without letting go of tradition; the other, overcome with guilt and pity, want to help newcomers with the material change but cannot bring themselves to demand that they excise traditional, outdated values from their outlook.”
This one covers how the young muslims through the mosques are taught the hardline islam that joins muslims of all countries into a fifth column and how they relate to American patriotism:
“Can you be a Muslim and and American patriot? You can if you don’t care very much about being a muslim. If you squint and look away, you can avoid thinking about the very basic clashes between the submissive, collectivist values of islam and the individualist, libertarian values of the democratic West. Almost 50% of muslims consider themselves muslim first, American second. Only 28%, little more than a quarter, considered themselves Americans first.
Asked whether suicide bombing can be justified as a measure to defend islam, 26% of American Muslims age 18 to 29 said yes. With estimates between 2-8 million that is a lot of people.”
Just a brilliant lady and a giant in reminding us of our hard fought for freedoms and how easily we can lose them. I would love to see her address our parliament.
Robert W. @ 2:47:
Right. Your two clever questions would indeed catch out the unsophisticated pomo liberal—probably a majority of them. And that would show the contradictions at the heart of their views.
But the clever pomo liberals—those who dominate our institutions—would not be troubled for an instant by your survey. They would say that your second question cannot be answered because it presumes an objective measure for cultures that does not exist. They might admit that WE, or many of US, would not approve of genital mutilation in Somalia, for example, but our (dis)approval is entirely subjective—culture-centric; merely an expression of our preferences, which themselves are based in nothing but our own psychology—and so cannot be used to measure another culture. Cultures are, as they like to say, incommensurable. So, it is not that all cultures are straightforwardly equal—that is, not all equally good. Rather, it is that there is no way to measure them, since the required objectivity is impossible (They, like most in the media, help themselves to the idea of the death of objectivity: that explains a lot. If no objectivity, then each of us is licensed to prefer our own views to others’, irrespective of “evidence” or “logic” to the contrary.); and to think otherwise is myth, dangerous because it can be used by the imperialism-inclined among us—the unenlightened—to oppress others, to impose what are purely subjective preferences on others. Something like this is surely on the “minds” of all those pomo feminists who refuse to criticize the barbaric treatment of women in sharia-run countries.
Cheers,
What this blog could learn from Gomeshi is how not to be a snearing twit when speaking to somebody who you may not agree with 100%. Remember… his job is to challenger her to explain her views.
I know that’s hard to wrap your heads around, since you think the purpose of news and commentary is to simply allows the people you support to spread their views, but that’s why conservatives are taken in by snake oil salesmen like Palin who afraid of answering real questions.
John @ 3:31:
P*ss off!
Dear John,
Welcome from your cozy world of CBCNews.com. Though you’ve decided to smear every commenter prior to you with one brush, all I can do is respond for myself.
I agree that an interviewer should challenge his guest as best s/he can. But what became very clear is that Gomeshi’s brain seemed ready to explode as he tried so desperately to get Ali to change her views simply because said views were inline with those of many conservative pundits. She did not and I applaud her for that.
If she wanted to be mean she could have asked Gomeshi why he provides de facto support & cover for those kill innocent women and mutilate the genitals of other women without any consent.
Which brings to mind an obvious question: Being a Proud Member of the Left that you’ve implied you are, why do you support such cruelty in the world?
John at 3:31 PM: “What this blog could learn from Gomeshi is how not to be a snearing twit when speaking to somebody who you may not agree with 100%.”
===============
Actually, what “this blog” (sic) could learn is:
1) How to spell “Ghomeshi”
2) How to spell “sneering”
# 2 is particularly curious, seeing as how the little box where you write your comments actually highlights the misspelled words, giving the writer the opportunity to correct them.
So, Jian Ghomeshi is a Muslim? Interesting. He quickly makes a disclaimer that it’s only the fact that it’s the family he was born into that makes him a Muslim, and seems to have nothing useful to say about the very serious claims Ayan Hirsi Aly makes about the mistreatment of women on the part of many Muslims and how this abuse is justified by Islam/the Koran. ‘Talk about slipping under the wire. ‘Not an impressive display.
It was instructive, and not at all surprising, to see the knots Hirsi Aly tied him in! He started out oh, so sure of his snotty self and his condescending opinions of his “right wing” guest, and ended up being lassoed by Hirsi Aly’s calm, her coolness, and her reasoning skills — neither “left” nor “right,” as she was at pains to point out) which left him hog-tied with a stupid, lop-sided grin on his face.
It’s ironic, though, isn’t it: that it takes a young Somali woman, with no prior experience in the West, to be able to see, and have the courage to say, that the anti-Christian Emperor/Empress of the Western Chattering Class has no clothes?
It is not lost on her that it is Christianity (a “developed religion” which is “enlightened” and “friendly”!) that stands in the gap between Western Civilization and barbarity.
Would that those of us who have for centuries been the beneficiaries of Christian largess could be as clear-seeing, as clear-thinking, and as courageous as Ayan Hirsi Aly.
Hey there John, could it be that you also could learn from Gomeshi is now not to be a “snearing twit when speaking to somebody you may not agree with 100%”? Anyhow, Gomeshi, like most modern progressives, doesn’t realize that he is a fundamentalist. So Hirsi Ali pretends not to understand his objections to “what if THEY” (i.e., your friends and colleagues at the AEI and their kin) exploit your ideas? Who, do you mean, she says, the KKK? So what? Wouldn’t that be good since my ideas are liberal? Poor pitifully and badly educated Jian. If he had a clue he’d be fired.
John at 3:31 PM: “Remember… his job is to challenger her to explain her views.”
==========
His job, John, is to toe the CBC Liberal Leftie line by completely misconstruing and misrepresenting what it is to be conservative. His assumption that the American Enterprise Institute = a bastion of evil is right from the Little Red Liberal Leftie Book.
I’ll bet you not more than a tiny handful of Little Red Liberal Leftie Book readers have ever even visited the AEI’s website, let alone read any of their literature or watched any of their videos. They have no idea what conservative principles are and that pretty much applies to most of the talking heads at Mother Corpse, too.
Moxy Fruvous… that takes me back.
John, do grow up. A clever commentator or reporter is able to absorb ALL the facts and deal with them. As many here have pointed out, Jian Ghomeshi appeared uncomfortable the whole time Ayaan Hirsi Ali spoke. She is articulate, gentle-spoken and- well- right. Muslim and leftist apologists have difficulty dealing with people like Miss Ali because she is so spot-on and unafraid.
She’s a very special person, that’s for sure…a true champion of the individual. Somalia, and in fact all nations, certainly needs more people like her. What courage to stand up for new ideas and to challenge deeply re-enforced culture.
I think she ignores, or is ignorant of, the influence that western nations have, historically and presently, on middle east social, political, financial institutions, and thereby misses the fact that while western nations have allowed their own culture/religion/social structure to progress, they have stalled and sometimes reversed the same progress in other nations, namely in the middle east and africa.
I don’t agree with her stance on Christianity in regards to being an ‘enlightened’ alternative for Islam…religion PERIOD is a problem and outdated human creation. It is certainly not christianity that supports western societies enlightenment.
I think some would do well to listen to her stance on left vs right…that it ignores ideas in exchange for grouping people.
I don’t understand how anyone can think Jian got his ‘ass handed to him’…it was a very relaxed interview for the most part.
@grok
If you want it as a podcast, use this link:
http://www.video2mp3.net/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D4jisYWdj_HU%26feature%3Dplayer_embedded
it will give you the audio as an mp3 file. I got the link from the Firefox plugin ‘Youtube to MP3’, it puts in video and audio download links automatically for youtube videos. Home page for plugin here:
http://www.video2mp3.net/
What an asshole interviewer! Oh yeah. It’s CBC. He couldn’t care less about the women she was talking about who are beat and murdered on a daily basis. All he wanted to do was make her look like a “right wing” pawn or some kind of a traitor to her past. She was wonderful. I would not have been so kind to this shithead.
Now I have to go shower. That much CBC will take a while to wash off.
The CBC announcer dork can’t wrap his head around Hirisi’s contention that you can -measure- the success of a society. Every time she says it, he looks like his brain is going to explode.
That’s why I cave up on Anthropology back in 1979. Every time I suggested we might want to measure something, guys would get this glassy look and start arguing with me.
His mind is completely trapped in a box. I should pay money to employ people like that? I’m thinking NO.
I agree that we should expose Muslims to Christianity. A Muslim friend and I have been reading the NT together, and that friend loves it… and has remarked, “Everybody should be reading the Bible”
A few thoughts – Ayaan Hirsi Ali – so calm, so cool, so smooth, so rational, God I could never do what she does, – apparently specializes in handing to themselves the balls, such as they are, of spoiled smirking Canadian lefty CBC-type brats.
Ali is wonderfully brave. She lives under a genuine threat of death 24/7.
Ali is ridiculously beautiful (it’s just true. Somali cheekbones are one of the great achievements of the human genome).
Ali scored poorly on an IQ test. I can’t find the link, or be bothered, but it’s findable. Just in case you idolize that kind of thing. She doesn’t strike me as dumb.
She is (largely) correct – i.e. agrees with me – about the definition of the Left/Right divide re. conservatism etc. @31:25-36:10 – it’s important.
Listen to 12:20-12:40 again – also important.
Ghomeshi giggles/snorts/smirks like an insecure nerd. He’s the Jimmy Fallon of the CBC (to whom he bears a physical remarkable resemblance BTW). I’ll give him this: I do prefer him to Avi Lewis.
…remarkable physical?…
Bold
Brave
Brilliant
BTJ @ 5:26 P> M.: ” … religion PERIOD is a problem and outdated human creation ,,,”
OH. GIVE. ME. A. BREAK.
When I totally rejected Christianity, G*d came knocking at my door. I didn’t create my relationship with Him, and I wasn’t high on anything. No drugs. No alcohol. But, I started walking down a different road away from the me-me-me fork in the road I’d been travelling into the how-can-I-help roadway.
A world without “religion.”
Hmmm. Let’s try to picture it: All of our museums and art galleries 3/4s empty; all of our opera houses and concert halls, more than half empty; hospitals and schools built only for those who believe what you believe; and who would feed and clothe the hungry and poor? You, BTJ?
If we relied on the government, rather than clothing depots, food banks, in from the heat/cold programs run by volunteers in Christian churches, we’d run out of bureauacratic resources. Government-run programs cost ten times what church-run outreaches cost.
If the Church WAS a “human creation” it wouldn’t/couldn’t have lasted over 2000 years. Let me assure you, BTJ, that Holy Spirit power exists (even if Ali doesn’t believe it!). It’s the energy the Church runs on. To say that religion is an outdated human creation reveals a rather breathtaking naivety, ignorance, and arrogance, all at once.
Aayan Hirsi Ali, even though she is a non-believer, recognizes the benefits of Christian belief and believers to the world and doesn’t denigrate them. In fact, she applauds them. She is clear that no moral equivalency exists between Christianity and Islam and the cultures they have cultivated despite what our multi-culti, equality czars insist on telling us.