Changing the subject - Liberalism and human rights

In a recent blog, Ezra Levant writes [responding to a blog by Luiza Savage, for Maclean's]:

"But the smart folks Savage referred to initially are probably sophisticated thinkers who are genuinely perplexed by the conflict between their politically correct, liberal values and applying those values to a scenario where the oppressors are foreign, Muslim, visible minorities, and the oppressed person (well, they're trying to oppress me!) is a white male (Jewish doesn't count as a minority when compared to Muslims. It does when compared to WASPs. I didn't make up the rules of politically correct poker, I just know which poker hands beat which)."

Couple of things here - one, I think Levant gives these so-called "sophisticated thinkers" too much credit - they're actually too naive and simplistic to be sophisticated, and two, the clue lies in the second part of that statement.

The fundamental problem for the liberal left is their basic laisssez-faire attitude toward cultures not their own (ie liberal white christian/secular tolerants). In that simplistic view, its ok to trash catholic priests, guys like Levant and Steyn and others of their tribes, because they're family. The Catholic priests are their Catholic priests.

But, for them, its not ok to trash members of other tribes, because those other cultures are not their cultures, and if you believe in the God of multiculturalism, then if racism and bigotry as the cultural norm is ok in that culture, its ok for the liberal left. That's multiculturalism in action. Its an oddly twisted way of embracing the concept of "I don't agree with what you do and say, but will defend your right to do and say it."

But it also means that the Liberal left does not, and cannot, believe in the universality of human rights, or put another way, each tribe must be able to define human rights as it suits their local culture, because that preserves who they are.

When viewed against the backdrop of their insistence on demonstrating against human rights violations in other places, it becomes paradoxical. On the one hand, they believe that they should embrace the violations that define many cultures when invited into a pluralistic society - on the other, they are critical when these same cultures practice these cultural "values" in their own places.

It also explains why they are blind to these cultural abuses outside of their own "white" group. They have to be, or their whole belief system collapses. None of the liberal left's community leaders and politicians can provide them with an answer to this paradox, and so the liberal left shrinks away from the both the intellectual and the physical conflict.

This paradox is demonstrated daily in Canada in their responses to the Afghanistan mission, "islamophobia" tagging, HRCs, and a myriad of other ways. There is no way out for them - they've painted themselves into an intellectual corner, and the paint won't dry.