Who Do You Blame?

The great question of our time that defines the great moral boundary between those who are interested in the survival of their countries and those who knowingly or unknowingly want to destroy them, is simply this. "Who do you blame?"

There's certainly plenty of blame to go around but the hallmark of liberalism and of the left, of the appeasers and the defeatists is to blame ourselves rather than the terrorists.

You see this same pattern cropping up after every terrorist attack. You see it in every discussion about anything from genital mutilation to mass murder. It begins with some thin excuse for the atrocity that quickly turns into an attack on us and shifts the blame for it over to us , e.g. "It's their culture, who are we to judge", "They've been so oppressed that they have no choice", "It's Western capitalism that's to blame", "They're only reacting to our foreign policy".

This behavior has become the Friend or Foe recognition system of the great issue of our time. There are many reasons why people parrot this rhetoric but the overall reason is because they have been programmed to do it. They have been programmed to do it by a media and academic culture that presumes that anything wrong is inherently our fault or rather the fault of those "reactionary" conservatives who refuse to listen to the professors and pundits who will be happy to tell them how to fix everything.

This same mindset has wormed its way into the political culture under a facade of patriotism. The most anti-nationalist politicians know that all they need to do is pay some sort of lip service to the idea of national greatness or uniqueness, like a visiting rock star shouting, "What's the rockingest town around?", at election time and national ceremonies, before going back to the same hatefilled rhetoric.

When 9/11 happened liberal politicians and pundits lined up to blame our foreign policy, after an appropriate 5 seconds of mourning. The left wing and the paleocons went even further embracing 9/11 Denial and claiming that the whole thing had been done by us in the first place.

The interesting thing about 9/11 Denial is how ubiquitous it is and how commonplace a part of Terrorism Denial it is. From India to Israel to Russia to the United States, wherever Muslim terrorists attack, local and international conspiracy theorists quickly claim that governments were behind it. The impulse behind Terrorism denial is a more extreme version of the one that this post discusses. It's a need to shift the blame from the terrorists to ourselves.

In the liberal lexicon the original sin is national existence. A sin that can never be atoned for. America is forever damned for stealing land from the Indians. Israel is forever damned for displacing the Arabs. Europe is forever damned for its colonialism. The idea of "Original National Sin" is so embedded in the left that it has made liberal nationalism all but extinct. Like a virus that devours its host, the progressive ideologies hollow out the will of a country to exist.

In the wake of the terrorist attack at Mercaz HaRav, the media and the police quickly went on the attack... not against the terrorists mind you. Channel 2 silenced Yitzchak Dadon, the hero who shot the terrorist, when he blamed Olmert and Peres for arming the terrorists. The media implied that the police had actually shot the terrorist. A reporter claimed falsely that the students at the Yeshiva were killed because they didn't serve in the army. Channel 1 falsely claimed that students at the Yeshiva had gotten approval from a Rabbi to carry out an attack on Arabs. The media reported that the police were on alert against retaliatory attacks against Arabs, despite the fact that no such attacks had occurred or will occur. Story after story emphasized the nationalistic character of the Yeshiva's philosophy, justifying the attack. The blame had once again been effectively shifted.

That is why it is vital to stand up and say that shifting blame from Muslim terrorists is the same as exculpating them. Someone who fails to blame terrorists is engaging in propaganda on their behalf and aiding in their crimes. Treason does not come any clearer than standing on the wrong side of the question, Who Do You Blame?