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January 5, 2005
Moral Clarity
I started reading Natan Schransky's new book The Case for Democracy recently, and I'm already struck by something he said in the preface. Sharansky is talking about moral clarity, and why it is important as a reference point in order to create a better world:
But today, detached from the concept of a free society, human rights have no reference point. The concept of human rights has come to mean sympathy for the poor, the weak, and the suffering. To be sure, this sympathy is essential if we want to live in moral societies and should be encouraged and cultivated by families, faiths, schools, and governments. yet without moral clarity, sympathy can also be placed in the service of evil.Amen.A world without moral clarity, is a world in which dictators speak about human rights even as they kill thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, and even tens of millions of people. It is a world in which the only democracy in the Middle East is perceived as the greatest violator of human rightrs inthe world. It is a world in which a human rights conference against racism, such as the one that took place in Durban, South Africa a few years ago, can be turned iinto a carnival of hate.
No democracy in Cuba? But they have free healthcare! Che Guevara was a murderer? But he cared about the poor! Palestinian terrorists kill thousands of innocent civilians? But the Israelis build a wall and Palestinian workers are inconvenienced!
It is not only left-wing ideologues like Noam Chomksy who make these arguments, as even Washington Post columnist William Raspberry crossed that line the other day.
Are the United States and Israel perfect? Of course not. But it is moral idiocy when Ted Kennedy compares Saddam's torture chambers to Abu Ghraib. It is moral idiocy when those on the far left accuse us of "mass murder" every time a civilian is killed. And it is moral idiocy when they equate Bush with Hitler. But there are lots of moral idiots out there; just read some of the left-wing blogs.
Bill Bennett spoke a lot about this in his book Why We Fight: Moral Clarity and the War on Terrorism. He saw clearly the result when moral clarity was abandoned:
“You should never be violent”Most leftists, unless they are completely in outer space, will concede that sometimes war and violence are necessary. But they then set such strict conditions as to reveal that they live in a fantasy land.…teaching children this lesson does an unforgivable injury both to them and to the adult community of which they are about to become a part. It renders them vulnerable to abuse and injury, and leaves them without moral or intellectual recourse when abuse and injury are inflicted upon them. If no distinction is made between kinds of “peace,” children are deprived of the tools they require to distinguish a just from an unjust peace, peace with honor from the peace of the grave. They are robbed of the oldest and most necessary wisdom of the race, which is that some things are worth fighting and dying for.
Are we to tell our children that, because “you should always find a peaceful way to solve your problems,” the brave men who fought in the revolutionary War, the Civil War, the two World Wars, and every other conflict in history were acting immorally? That way lies a generation prepared only for accommodation, appeasement, and surrender.
In a future post I will discuss Just War theory. Moral clarity is required in order to discuss what constitutes a Just War, and Sharansky and Bennet set the stage perfectly.
(P.S. if you want a good laugh, read some of the lefties who try to attack these two books in the Amazon.com reviews section. Their venom is a testament to the effectiveness of Sharansky and Bennett)
Posted by Tom at January 5, 2005 4:42 PM
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