It came and went without notice.April 6th was the tenth anniversary of the Euston Manifesto, the declaration of left liberal principles by British academics, journalists and intellectuals spearheaded by the late Norman Geras and co-written, signed and promoted by a coterie of principled lefties, Marxists and liberals.The most vocal proponent and signatory besides Geras was the original first principles left opposition writer, Nick Cohen.Now, after a decade of regressive masochism spreading through the left like termites on PCP, it is impossible and inexcusable for liberals and anti-totalitarian leftists to ignore the mass felones de se of the anti-West reactionaries commonly mistaken for the liberal left these days.
The Euston Manifesto is an excellent statement and I hope it is rediscovered over time since it, sadly, made few waves in 2006.There is another document which is more widely known and available to every person in any somewhat free society.In fact: your country is probably a signatory of it.The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December of 1948. This Declaration is an excellent guide for deciding where you stand as a human.If we distill it just a bit, we can make these complicated political and ideological questions simple for folks.
If you believe that tolerance of different cultures, regardless of how brutal and oppressive they might be, is more important than recognizing equal rights, equal protection under the law, inherent dignity and inalienable rights of each and every member of the human family, then there is no need to read on.You can proceed to the Intercept, the alt right message board, the ISIS twitter feeds, or join whichever orthodox collection of paranoiac righties, regressive lefties or Putin blog trolls you engage in victim group therapy and rage boner Saturnalia with this month.
If you are willing to tolerate theocratic fascism, female genital mutilation, antisemitism, racism and genocide in the name of political correctness, moral relativism and your anti-capitalist fantasy, then grab your Cliche Guevara t-shirt and your issue of adbusters.That'll be $50.
If you really believe that barbarism is subjective, that freedom of speech and belief are not paramount to justice, that the collective interest of identity groups trumps individual liberty, then grab a number and wait to receive your privilege score.Be prepared to apologize to people you've never met.
If you believe that all geopolitical, ethnic and religious conflicts are always to be blamed on colonialism, western imperialism and/or Israel, that acts of terror can be only attributed to the foreign policy of the United States despite the assertions of the terrorists themselves, then pass along your resume. I hear the chief British lobbyist for the Islamic Republic of Iran, Jeremy Corbyn is hiring a new Minister of Truth.
If you believe that we need to maintain separate standards of ethics based on culture, race, religion and nationality, and that freedom of speech is a scourge that only serves to hurt fee-fees, if you embrace moral equivalence rather than distinguish orders of magnitude when peering through the lens of history, if you can no longer pretend to support fundamental rights and freedoms, if you place a higher value on aesthetic frippery and ideological orthodoxy than on intellectual honesty and objective truth, if you are ready to sever any commitment to common standards of freedom and equality and abandon the notion that truth is sacred and noble, or that all people are created equal and derive inherent and inalienable rights, if you are ambivalent or hostile to the preservation of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness........
You are not alone.There are millions of these masochistic regressive cuckolds out there.You can join them in the bacchanalia of cultural self loathing at your nearest University or wherever regressive leftists, antisemites, Chomskyites and social justice worriers congregate near you.
