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| The day reality hit home |
| 2007-08-20 |
| Posted by:anonymous5089 |
| #21 Good add-on, Excal. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-08-20 18:46 |
| #20 Sid: That is really well said. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2007-08-20 16:12 |
| #19 You have to loose the sandals when starting into rough terrain. His new shoes will feel tight and uncomfortable for a while. |
| Posted by: Sid 6.7 2007-08-20 15:29 |
| #18 Too little, too late. |
| Posted by: Total War 2007-08-20 14:59 |
| #17 No credit from me whatsoever. This is a free man raised in an open society bought and paid for by generations of blood, tears and sweat. He should know better. To add to Zenster's thought: The writer acknowledges honest and inescapable refutations of his worldview without so much as alluding to, let alone crediting, conservative views that take his every agonized revelation to be self-evident. And he remains unrepentant for attempting to subvert the defense of the West through his pre-9/11 record of "protest", as febrile as I presume those efforts to have been. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2007-08-20 14:54 |
| #16 It's a first step we should at least welcome before pouting out its flaws. Agreed, Angie, except that he leaves his poisonous indefensible liberal memes hanging in midair without acknowledging the honest and inescapable refutations that have finally sprung to his attention. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-08-20 14:13 |
| #15 I think you're all being a little hard on the guy. He's having an epiphany, and as self-indulgent and hesitant as his is, still it's a necessary step in changing his opinions -- and, hopefully, those of others. He says, of the attack outside the liquor store:
It's very hard to say, to even think, things for which you have no vocabulary. It takes a great deal of mulling and sifting to be able to construct one from whole cloth. And it took a small amount of courage to publish this; as Seafarious says, the man's about to be outcast from "decent" society. I don't want to overplay this guy's insight, but it is rare in Guardian-land. It's a first step we should at least welcome before pouting out its flaws. |
| Posted by: Angie Schultz 2007-08-20 14:01 |
| #14 This is a guy "guessing", "assuming", "wishing", not someone who has had an epiphany. He is like a gay guy who wants to go straight but still has those "feelings" and just can't finally let go. His rhetoric says it all. He just can't help himself. Plus he can longer live like this, not in Islington, at least. |
| Posted by: Jack is Back! 2007-08-20 12:35 |
| #13 This man could barely bring himself to intervene in a vicious gang assault on a young girl and still agreed some evil smirking Eloi was right to think him "pompous" for doing so. Thank you for catching that one, Excal. I meant to include that startling bit of self-loathing twaddle in my own assessment of this assclown. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-08-20 12:33 |
| #12 I think this is actually a very good snapshot of 2007 Britain/Europe, not just of this man's epiphany. Read it beyond his own "journey" (which you should approve, by the way), it's damning in its own way. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2007-08-20 12:12 |
| #11 To take it even further... his step daughter gets beaten up and given the lack of police action he doesn't even consider that means there is no recourse to government so he's in an "everyman for himself" state. That being the case.... his re-actions are wrong. It was right to rescue the other girl but it is still pretty whimpy. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2007-08-20 11:38 |
| #10 Self-indulgent confessional is exactly right. I expect he understands he will be pilloried by his "sophisticated" friends and will enjoy that too. This man could barely bring himself to intervene in a vicious gang assault on a young girl and still agreed some evil smirking Eloi was right to think him "pompous" for doing so. Nietzsche called it the will to decline. Freud called it the death drive. Might as well call it suicide. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2007-08-20 11:37 |
| #9 Looks like they need the right to bear arms including concealed. Too many random beatings of folks around that guy. But... he doesn't have the guts to connect the first part with the next 2 or note how the US waded into the punks... |
| Posted by: 3dc 2007-08-20 11:35 |
| #8 Written as if basic decency, duty and responsibility were and continue to be shocking revelations. For some people, these things are alien concepts, quaint remnants from a bygone era. |
| Posted by: Natural Law 2007-08-20 11:30 |
| #7 But it is heartening in its own way to read someone has actually opened his eyes and begun to see what the fallacies of liberalism hath wrought. Conspicuously absent in this chap's burbling-on is any genuine refutation of the choice liberal nuggets he parades. As in: For all of them this was an issue of the powerless striking back at the powerful, the oppressed against the oppressor, the rebels against the imperialists. So, where is the final reorientation towards understanding that some people just plain hate everyone else who is different and want to kill them? In the end I reached the conclusion that 11 September had already brutally confirmed: there were other forces, far more malign than America, that lay in wait in the world. So—now that he has purged the bolus of indigestible liberalism from his upset tummy—exactly what are those "forces" that are "far more malign than America"? Does he feel no need to go beyond his endless hand-wringing and begin to address issues of substance? Methinks this bloke is still clinging to his liberalism despite having had it demolished before his eyes. I certainly hope that Mr. Anthony will begin to use his journalistic pulpit towards better ends than such an inconclusive and self-indulgent confessional. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-08-20 11:21 |
| #6 It's a true miracle the day a liberal starts to think instead of feel. One of the rarest occurrences in the world. Welcome, Andrew Anthony, to the world of the living. |
| Posted by: mcsegeek1 2007-08-20 10:38 |
| #5 Send him an invite to join us here at the Burg. He's about to be written out of polite society. |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2007-08-20 10:04 |
| #4 It is sad to say that my immediate reaction was to be glad I left England. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2007-08-20 10:03 |
| #3 It is sad to say that my immediate reaction was to be glad that my ancestors left England to come to America. But it is heartening in its own way to read someone has actually opened his eyes and begun to see what the fallacies of liberalism hath wrought. |
| Posted by: DanNY 2007-08-20 09:51 |
| #2 Revolting from start to finish. Written as if basic decency, duty and responsibility were and continue to be shocking revelations. "If I were Robert Fisk I would throw rocks at me too." So much for England. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2007-08-20 09:35 |
| #1 Leftist, meet reality. Reality, meet Leftist. "Charmed." "Likewise." From the excerpts, This guy sounds like someone who would like to be like Norman Podhoretz, but lacks the courage (and potential income, and talent) to do so. Also, it gives an interesting view from the inside of how a Euro-moonbat thinks. Its not pretty. |
| Posted by: N Guard 2007-08-20 06:00 |