The Imperative of Praising Heroes like Pamela Geller
by
Eric Paul Nolte
I continue to be appalled by the refusal of Americans, both liberals and conservatives, to name and condemn the naked evil that is sweeping much of the world in the name of Islam.
Much blame has been heaped upon Pamela Geller, Fleming Rose, and other heroes who publicly dare to condemn the Islamists who threaten anyone with death for the “crime” of drawing Mohammed or otherwise offending their, oh, so delicate feelings.
The right to free speech is as fundamental and precious as the rights to life, liberty, and property, and to condemn those who draw the public's attention to the need for this most basic right is comparable to blaming the rape victim for being raped.
But there is something else that needs to be said to those cowards in the West who will not reprint the “offensive” cartoons, and who scorn brave idealists like Pamela Geller:
You who piously repeat the lie that Islam is “a great religion of peace,” you who fail to stand up and righteously condemn the absolute evil of Islamism, you are an accessary to the Islamist crimes of murdering innocents, you are guilty of aiding and abetting the evildoers of Islam, and you thereby make yourselves as loathsome and evil as the Islamists!
This view derives from a crucial observation that Ayn Rand makes in her writings on ethics: that one who will not condemn an evil is an accessary to the crime, and is therefore morally little better than the perpetrator of that crime.
With all my talk about evil here, perhaps I should underscore, in a thumbnail sketch, this aspect of the ethics I believe: that the Good consists of everything that supports rational human life and flourishing, and the evil amounts to everything that threatens the well-being of such peaceful, rational people.
All attempts to appease the Islamists are doomed. There is no placating them. In the end there is only outright surrender or principled opposition to them, backed by appropriately lethal force, in the name of self-defense.
To those who blame Pamela Geller, I say: shape up and recognize what is going on in the world, and realize that it is not yet too late to reclaim your moral virtue and stand up against this Islamist evil, this terrible threat to the great values that have created every wonder and comfort of the modern world! It not yet too late to stand up in such an act of self-defense. I’m not sure how much longer we have before it is indeed too late.
E P N
2015.0731
rev. 2015.0801
and 2015.0828
rev. 2015.0801
and 2015.0828
