Shark Jumped

Since the election, the NYT seems to have gone off its meds, and gone on a bender. My browser is getting swamped with staggering inanities that pass for journalism at that once august, and now expiring, institution.

Yet even that standard, such as it is, is nothing compared to its latest revel in blinkered foolishness: A Cruel Test for Germany, and Europe:

The populist right has wasted no time waiting for facts to emerge about the identity of the attacker in Berlin or a motive to slam Chancellor Angela Merkel for her humane asylum policy and to push its xenophobic agenda. This dangerous — if predictable — reaction plays directly into the hands of the Islamic State, which would like nothing better than to start a war between Christians and Muslims in Europe.

Shortly after the attack on Monday, Marcus Pretzell, a member of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, viciously tweeted, “These are Merkel’s dead!” On Tuesday, Geert Wilders, the leader of the Netherlands’ Party for Freedom, tweeted an image of Ms. Merkel spattered with blood; Nigel Farage, of Britain’s U.K. Independence Party, tweeted that such events “will be the Merkel legacy”; and Marine Le Pen, the French nationalist, issued a statement on the “Islamist” attack in Berlin and called for reinforcing Europe’s national borders there.

It is worth remembering that the NYT has in the past wasted no time waiting for facts. While that comes with a nose-wrinkling stench of hypocrisy, that was then. This is now.

Without bothering to make any affirmative argument, it simply jumps to more vocabulary abuse. Pro-tip, thinking that essentially unrestricted Muslim immigration might not, after all, be a very good idea isn't a "phobia" of any kind. Resorting to "xenophobic" is, just like its nasty relations "homophobic", "islamophobic" and "racist", is nothing more than demonization en route to ostracism: shut-up, the NYT explained.

The problem lurks within the loaded term "humane". As a first order effect, letting in nearly a million Muslim immigrants is humane; after all, it is near as certain that many would have died had they been forced to remain in Syria and Libya. But the reason they would have died is the second order effect. Among the refugees are bound to be a number who deeply hope to wreak as much havoc in Europe as they can possibly manage.

This is the argument that the NYT -- evincing what is thoroughly rotten about progressivism -- avoids by resorting to language abuse instead. Let's take it as read that many refugees are alive that wouldn't have been otherwise. How many refugee lives saved balance the European dead, maimed, and traumatized? Having not offered that bargain up to its citizens, or that argument to its readers, Merkel and the NYT are claiming a moral superiority they haven't demonstrated, or earned.

There is a joke with the punchline "I know what you are; now we are haggling over the price." That applies just as well here. The NYT considers Pretzell's tweet vicious. Perhaps, but it can hardly be considered fake, can it? Letting in 800,000+ refugees is humane; to oppose it xenophobic. I have heard that conditions in Mosul are quite bad, and lots of people there will die as a result.

So why doesn't Merkel let the remaining 5,000 or so Mosulians in to Germany? Why doesn't the NYT advocate doing so? Because to do so, by haggling over price, would reveal the rottenness at their core.

Beyond this is a broader question. Western civilization is built, in large part, upon freedom of conscience, which is another way of saying putting up with others' patently ridiculous notions, particularly in the realm of religion. But that raises a conundrum: tolerating the intolerant. At some point, failing to return the favor cancels any obligation to offer it. Islam is epically intolerant, and absolutist. What obligation do we in the West have to people who won't disavow Islam? If it is greater than that owed to communists a generation ago, it seems an explanation of why would be in order.

Interestingly, the comments section, ordinarily an echo chamber for leftist shibboleths, largely excoriates the NYT for their vapid nonsense. Perhaps this might serve as a lesson, as if the election wasn't already lesson enough, that relying on insults in place of an argument is a danger sign the argument itself is bankrupt.

As something of a postscript, it seems that waiting for the self evident would indeed have been a waste of time, ignoring for the moment that reality is even worse:

Amri [the name of the suspect], who is variously reported to be 23 or 24, arrived in Germany in July 2015 as an asylum-seeker. He was able to remain because of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s suicidal open-door policy for refugees from the Muslim Middle East and North Africa. Prosecutors in Berlin attempted to deport Amri back in June, after learning three months earlier that he was planning “a serious act of violent subversion.” He is reportedly a follower of Abu Walaa, an Iraqi sharia-supremacist firebrand who was recently arrested on suspicion of being a top ISIS leader and recruiter in Germany.

His terrorist activities aside, Amri has also been involved in narcotics trafficking, theft, and the torching of a school. That last felony occurred in Italy, where the “refugee” was sentenced to five years [of which he served 17 months] in prison before being welcomed into Deutschland. All that baggage, and still the Germans allowed him to remain. Reportedly, officials felt they could not deport him because he did not have a passport and the Tunisian government would not acknowledge him (despite the fact that the Tunisian government had convicted him in absentia of a violent robbery). That might explain a brief delay in repatriating him; it does not explain a legal system that permits a suspect with a lengthy, violent criminal record to remain at liberty while he is suspected of plotting mass-murder attacks.

Also, I seem to remember some brou ha ha over assertions there are "no-go" zones in Europe: only deplorables think such deplorable things.

Considering where I live, reading that isn't exactly heartwarming entertainment.

So, NYT editorial board, any chance you will rethink that whole xenophobia thing?