This is what you may have seen, perhaps:
Normal circumstances would allow me to oppose any attempts to silence free expression at public places such as a soccer stadium. Despite their terrible human rights record, I am siding with the Qataris in this instance. Grant Wahl would have been far more sympathic if he wore a t-shirt that showed solidarity with the plights of the migrant workers being exploited in Qatar. This kind of action is not possible back home. This is 100% Western virtue signaling. It’s something Western liberals seem to only care about when it comes to LGBT matters.
Living outside of the Western liberal bubble it doesn’t take much to see how much hatred America is generating for its cultural imperialism regarding LGBT. Two women from Uganda who are Catholics were speaking to me in summer 2021. They told me how the US is trying to push Africa into the hands of Communist China because it insists that Africans accept LGBT as a condition of aid. The Ugandans claimed that we are religious people and that this is against our culture. This is an example of imperialism.
Based on my conversations, I can see that the hatred of the US (and western Europe in general) is growing in Eastern Europe’s conservative countries. This is not the case in Africa, which saw rejection of LGBT often lead to horrific and even deadly violence against LGBT persons. People are generally quite tolerant. They don’t want their children to be forced to learn LGBT ideology in school, and they don’t want other countries to follow the West’s lead and make LGBT a subject of public worship, especially during June. The West assumes that the rest of the world is ignorant about its backwardness in regard to transgenders and homosexuals. One of our readers, a Fulbright scholar , told us years ago how the US State Department under Obama trained outgoing scholars to advocate for LGBT in their host country— even though it is against the values of local society.
Liberals and progressives are free to ignore any obligation to show respect for those who disagree with them because the LGBT issue is so important. We all know the way leftists tell us at Thanksgiving that we have a moral responsibility to educate our racist and other bigoted relatives about their evil. This is how they view the rest of the globe, at least in terms of homosexuality and transgenderism. But not racism, which, I think, is too difficult for them to understand, especially in countries that don’t have white people. When it comes to LGBT issues, the totalitarian principle that The Personal Is Political is doubleplus for the left.
As with all societies, there is much to be critical of Qatari society. You can write about how oppressive they are to LGBT people, but that’s okay. Get out of here. The Gulf Arab countries are not ideal examples of liberal classical society. Basic principles of respect dictate that you should treat your hosts with respect when you visit another country, such as for a sporting event. Your hosts should expect you to behave respectfully when you visit their country. While the Chinese are some of the worst violators worldwide of human rights, it would be wrong to visit the Beijing Olympics and insult them for their ways. We all know that American liberals (especially rich ones) won’t do that. Some think there’s too many Chinese jobs and others know that the Chinese will not tolerate that. They will put you in jail. Please understand that I am not advocating Qatari policies regarding LGBT or any other issue. I am simply expressing disgust at the way Westerners behave morally and lecture their hosts.
I subscribed to this guy’s twitter thread, but he seems shadow-banned. I haven’t been able to see his tweets for a while. This one was only forwarded to me from a reader.
That’s 100 percent accurate. The United States is a country that castrates young males and cuts the breasts of young women, calling it liberation. It is morally progressive to allow deviant men to dress as women and read to children fairy tales that teach them about their bodies and sexual identities. An elite class treats LGBT culture as sacred and rules our country. They celebrate their way of life in commerce and advertising and education. The ruling class and dominant value system celebrate racism and call it diversity, equity, inclusion. The mental health crisis facing our young people is terrible. Millions of people, particularly those of working and poor backgrounds, are suffering from the “deaths in despair” caused by drug and alcohol addiction.
Our youth will live in a world with less material, social and emotional security than their grandparents and parents. Meanwhile, liberals are cutting down any solidarity other than radical politics. Conservatives don’t seem to care. The United States is busy degrading its higher education system. It used to be an international envy. For the sake of DEI ideology, we are also destroying our ability to excel in science and almost every other field. The wealthy are becoming more prosperous, while the number of economically disadvantaged people is increasing daily. Washington hasn’t seen a war that it didn’t want to wage over the past 20 years, even though the woke war machine understandably struggles with convincing young Americans that the armed forces are worth the effort. American youth are losing respect for God. Violent crime is on the rise. Violent crime is on the rise. American pop culture promotes what is most violent and sexual and exports that degraded experience globally. As I travel across Eastern Europe, I am repeatedly told the same thing by beleaguered parents, teachers, religious leaders, and others: there is no way to stop American pop culture and its effects on their children. Polish high school teacher once said that Western pop culture is more powerful than any other in shaping the moral sensibilities and values of young Poles. We are teaching the next generation of young people in other countries what we Americans have done to our country.
You could go on.
You can be a normal conservative outside the US bubble and you will see that America, once a beacon of hope for others, is now seen with hostility by those who see how America is trying to export its corruption overseas. Listening to people from the former Soviet bloc asking you questions about the Shining City on a Hill they once loved is a difficult way to love your country.
It was probably always this way with the United States of America and its cultural imperialism. I don’t see it now, but I live overseas and oppose the dominant ideology back home. Liberal Americans’ moral arrogance really irritates me. Many of us behave like know-it alls, as though we have nothing to learn from others. We only respect them in the extent that they reflect our enormous self-regard.
I have nothing to say about Arab Islamic autocracy, particularly one that exploits migrants. However, the disgusting arrogance displayed by Western liberals, who treat diverse peoples around the world like they’re wombs to be civilized, is what motivates me. Because they are willing to defend exploited migrants from Africa or Asia, the Grant Wahls of the World won’t be denied access to World Cup venues. Even if they did, I wouldn’t say it was right to use sporting events to insult your hosts. But at least you can credit protesters for choosing a cause that won’t earn them woke credit back in their homeland. They do this solely for the benefit of fellow liberals and progressives back at home who love moral self-righteousness as much as heroin addicts love heroin.
I get it. In 2002, I was one of those people. I knew that the United States was on a mission to civilize backward Arab Muslims and drag them into liberal democracy. I felt a deep disdain for the Arab Muslim societies that had been responsible for the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center. I didn’t want to hear the comments of my countrymen when they said that it was impossible to simply jump into traditional societies and infuse liberal democratic culture with force of arms. Critics would argue that this is not human nature and we will be in trouble if we act like that. These were either weaklings or idiots, I thought. They didn’t have enough respect for the ability of Arab Muslims to see the truth of liberal democracy. They were a weakling or idiot, and we had to bomb them.
My moralism was really a disguise for my contempt for these people’s way of living. It was something I didn’t realize at the time. You know what? I wouldn’t have much to say about Iraqi society and culture today. I do hope that I have learned something about how self-centered and morally blind Americans can be. You don’t need to affirm that the traditional Arab Islamic society can be emulated. It’s enough to admit that Americans don’t know all the answers, that there are serious down side to our way, that our mission to spread our values overseas is often a cover for contempt and the desire not to control people who look and think like you.
True, foreign tyrants resort to accusatory rhetoric of “cultural imperialism” in order to defend their cruelty. It is not morally healthy to condemn the arrogant Western campaigners. Sometimes, Westerners resort to the same criticisms of their own societies — people such as me — to avoid having to take a hard but necessary stand for the persecuted. This isn’t a simple issue. It is quite ugly for Western liberals to project their culture-war beliefs onto civilizations that are vastly different from ours. Muslims routinely kill Christians in Nigeria. Yet, Western governments, including those of the USA, are unable to condemn these mass killings. Perhaps if Christian villages started flying Pride flags, it would encourage the formerly Christian West towards caring.
Simply put, Western liberals are quick to universalize moral innovations and act with extreme arrogance toward people around the globe who don’t agree with them. Want to find out why so many people hate America around the globe? It is a big part of the fault of Grant Wahls’ missionary armies. It’s one thing to say that someone’s country is morally lacking — in LGBT, religious liberty or any other area — but it’s quite another to go to a country as a guest and pretend to lecture them about their backwardness and dare them to act. This kind of person is not liked by anyone. As a student, my liberal views clashed with those of my conservative parents. My family and I reached an agreement that we would both respect each other’s sensibilities when we get together. Because it was humanly right and decent, it worked. We decided to use family events and holiday meals to emphasize what unites us, rather than what divides us. They may have rolled their eyes at the liberal college student; I remember rolling my eyes at the conservative knotheads back then.
It was right for us all to let go of our moralism and show love and respect to each other. This is normal behavior. People don’t like the guy who comes to a social event and uses it to force people to accept a liberal or conservative religious or political belief. Even though I am politically on the opposite side of the issue, I recognize that this type of tolerance is necessary in order to maintain access to the common good and family love. The same is true for families and communities, but it is also true for the whole community of nations. It is difficult to say whether Qatar should have been awarded the World Cup hosting rights. It did and foreign guests to Qatar should behave respectfully to the hosts. Fine, if you don’t want to do this, no problem. Because of my disgust at the behavior of the Chinese government, I wouldn’t have been able to go to the Beijing Olympics. If I had been there, I would have treated others with respect because I was visiting another country. Liberal Westerners think they have the right to and the obligation to make fun of Qatari hosts. They don’t want to stop until they are. The West’s left can allow Qataris to wear their headdresses and Islam, but they must be Western liberals underneath the surface. Otherwise, they will be forced to change their ways through public insults and other methods. The Left is all for diversity, as long as people are open to it.
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Maajid Nawaz also said that Americans are morally able to lecture anyone. I would prefer to live in the USA than Russia, China, and Qatar. However, America is not a paradise. This is especially true when it comes to sexuality. The Qataris are accused of using the state’s institutions to seperate their children from their parents in order to sexually abuse their bodies and minds. Regardless of the wrongs that the Qataris may be guilty of, they don’t do this kind of evil to their children.
UPDATE Tucker Carlson’s monologue from last night is well worth the effort. The Left believes that it is the savage Qataris with their traditional Islamic values who are the problem.
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