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Bruce Bawer on the 'Anti-Jihad' Meltdown

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AlexM5/06/2009 3:03:16 pm PDT

re: #250 Killgore Trout

The problem is that the Belien is also fighting against secular humanism which is very important to personal liberty and freedom. It’s why people like Geert have a warped understanding of American style freedom. A lot of Euros can’t seem to understand this. I think importing defective European ideas to America is a very bad idea.

Okay, but isn’t part of “American style freedom” the right to fight against secular humanism? It all depends on what’s meant by fighting.

Any preacher, for example, is fighting against secular humanism. There’s nothing wrong with that until it really starts creeping into the country’s legal framework, a legal framework which actual defines the terms according to which secular AND religious types can fight against each other like cats and dogs. It’s all good until it crosses certain lines—and either side could be responsible. If somebody like Belien is crossing those lines in fighting secular humanism, then he deserves to be attacked for that—but for the line-crossing, not merely for the airy notion of being one who “fights” secular humanism.