I don’t agree with Christopher Hitchens on many issues, but this line from a profile in Frontpage Magazine hooked me:
Because of September 11, his mission now is “to defend the enlightenment, to defend and extend the benefits of rationalism. By all and any means necessary”. [my emphasis -R]
The interpretation of this line, the actualization of the intent, is problematic & disputatious, but there are those on the Feudal Right and Relativist Left who would would hestiate or dissent from advocating the values of the Enlightenment. Those of us who draw inspiration from the Enlightenment project, its intent if not execution in all the details, often lack the zest and zeal that neo-Feudalists and hard-Leftists bring to their revolutions & reactions. Perhaps we can never equal the irrational rage and fury on the margins of the political spectrum, but we can name them, and we can brand them, and we can know them to better battle them. They are the enemy, of that I have no doubt.
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