Radical

I went to Georgia Tech the other night to listen to Dr John Lewis talk about the need for a war with political Islam.  In the lecture he proposed two responses to an attack on American soil and compared the results of these responses.

The first was the response to the Pearl Harbor attack and the second to 911.

He showed how one led to victory in about 3 years followed by 60 years of peace and how the other has no end in sight.

It was interesting, though obvious, stuff and I'm glad I went.  The real interest was in the "question and answer" period after his hour-long lecture.  The first person invited to ask a question got up and gave a 15 minute speech on the value of Islam.  He started this tirade by questioning Dr. Lewis's mental state and then went on a mostly incoherent ramble through the wonderful additions to civilization that Islam provides.

The next person called Dr. Lewis "criminally insane" before launching into a 15 minute speech on the value of Islam.

Then the next.  And the next...

After nearly three hours of this I, and several others, just got up and left.  I mean, it was interesting to observe this sort of pathology first hand but it really gets tiresome in a hurry.  I only stayed that long because I wanted to see how Dr. Lewis handled it.

It didn't take too long for me to see that he was, in effect, appeasing them.  He wanted to appear "fair and balanced".  He didn't want to be accused of "stifling debate" etc.  But, this wasn't a debate.  Each of the goons that gave a speech had obviously not listened to a single word Dr. Lewis has said.  They'd prepared their speech and their conclusions to his before they'd even set foot in the building.

As an aside, it was interesting to see how each of them said the same things.  It was obvious they'd all been spoon-fed the same talking points.  Even more interesting is how these anti-American tirades (which I've also been subjected to in Oslo by white leftists) all share the same language - the language of the American left.  They can't even originate ire.  Irony, anyone?

There is absolutely nothing to be gained by engaging such people in a reasonable conversation.  They abandoned reason years ago and all you're doing is wasting your time by going through the motions with them.  Well, there is something to be gained.  The need for armed guards to be present at a lecture on a university campus.

Instead of sitting on a stool and listening thoughtfully while some parrot spouts phrases it has been taught I'd recommend Pat Condell's approach:

It's quite frightening that what he says is considered radical today.  We need more of this, not "dialogs".  There is no dialog with barbarians from the 7th century.

Comments

[Col. Hogan]

Barbarians is an aptly descriptive word, not to say, savages.

[Burgess Laughlin]

>"I only stayed that long because I wanted to see how Dr. Lewis handled it. // It didn't take too long for me to see that he was, in effect, appeasing them."

You are making an extremely serious charge. What proof do you have for your assertion? I have known Dr. Lewis for 20 years, and I have never seen a sign of appeasement. But I do know he is very diligent about following rules that are part of the contracts under which he works.

> "He wanted to appear 'fair and balanced'. He didn't want to be accused of 'stifling debate' etc."

What is your evidence for claiming to know what Dr. Lewis's intentions were?

You might want to consider other possibilites. One example might be allowing ranters to expose themselves through their own behavior. Another example might be egalitarian or multiculturalist restrictions placed by the university on lecturers to prevent them from squashing students' "free expression of their feelings." (That is the phrasing I heard a few years ago at a local university.)

[Michael Stone]

Evidence? How about the fact that no one got to ask a genuine question in more than two hours of 'question and answer'?

I thought he was simply letting them hang themselves with their own rope when he let the first person rant for more than 15 minutes. That was sufficient to get such a point across. When the 5th and 6th person did the same it was way past enough.

I have no idea what Dr. Lewis's intentions were during all this. Maybe he should have voiced them rather than allowing audience members who were genuinely interested in his ideas be marginalized by thugs.

[Michael Stone]

Also, from your own blog:

"A few of the questioners do not merely ask a question. Instead, after Dr. Peikoff's answer, they persist in trying to discuss or even debate his answer. The error here is an instance of context-dropping. In particular it is dropping the law of identity as applied to the Q&A sessions. A question-and-answer period is a question-and-answer period. A question-and-answer period is not a discussion period. A question-and-answer period is not a debate forum. Dr. Peikoff rightly refuses to allow individuals in the audience to draw him into either discussion or debate."