Oscar Jr. Was Here

Crazy Arrogant Stuff

Via Random Jottings, I found a transcript of a speech given last Wednesday by Yale professor, Weekly Standard contributing editor and domestic terrorism target David Gelernter on the Power Line blog. Excerpt:

But our goals in Iraq go beyond protecting our country; and if self-defense were our only goal, we could have blown the regime apart far more easily than by waging the kind of war we're waging today. We have another goal: to save the Iraqi people from misery and murder.

We know it's a strange, radical idea, because the world keeps telling us so. What an honor to be told by France and by Germany -- the symbolism, the historical resonance is so perfect, it's almost unbelievable -- what an honor to have France and Germany tell us: drop it, forget it, it's not your problem! Torture and mayhem and murder visited by a brutal dictator on a helpless population...it's not your affair.

After all, these things happen. Sophisticated nations shrug it off. Where do you Americans get the arrogance to believe that no man is an island entire of itself? Who ever gave you the crazy idea that each man murdered, each man tortured, each woman raped diminishes you because you are involved in mankind? Who ever told you that crazy arrogant stuff?

Here's a portion of the "Editorial Review" on Gelernter's book, Drawing Life, linked above:

In 1993, Yale computer science professor David Gelernter opened what he thought was an unsolicited doctoral dissertation. It exploded, destroying his right hand and eye and making his torso resemble a construction site. Gelernter, bleeding and "royally annoyed," walked to the local hospital, keeping his feet trudging along in time with "an old Zionist marching song with a good strong beat." When he got there, his blood pressure measured zero and surgeons barely saved his life. "Music is useful," Gelernter observes.

While doctors rebuilt Gelernter, he published three books. In this one, Gelernter talks about getting blown up and sewn up and vehemently argues that society is losing its lifeblood--its belief in moral authority. He blames this on the takeover of the national mindset by the liberal intellectual elite, whose anything-goes ethic has silenced the drumbeat of tradition that used to keep us all in line.