The Wit & Wisdom of Dinesh D'Souza

He fascinates me, because he seems like such an incredibly bad thinker in really basic ways. And yet obviously he's not actually dumb, and so it's interesting to try and divine what kinds of self-deception and willful wrongness are leading him to his most mixed-up conclusions. And I almost feel bad for him when some of the planks of his logic seem like they could be part of something genuinely interesting. (E.g., I actually don't think it's stupid to say that the Sunni/Shia conflict isn't so much theological as cultural -- the word "religion" doesn't make that fine distinction -- if you're able to draw any genuinely helpful conclusions from that.)

oh there's no point arguing is there? anyway, good thread.

xposts

but isn't there a final turn where he actually argues that a true-blue square-jawed rosary-carrying spartan america could and should eventually make COMMON CAUSE with the jihadis to wipe out secularists and other losers?? the slate review said as much. treasonous, frankly.

Geoff I don't think he argues that Moral America would ally with terrorists -- more that whatever bridge of International Traditional Values gets built here would marginalize the left. (Which isn't necessarily treasonous, wanting to marginalize and defeat your socio-political opponents.) But I'm giving him the credit of actually trying to sort out his arguments for him here, and pretend they're not just an incoherent mess of railing in all directions. (The funniest bit, really, is that thing so many academics do where he pretends like academic leftists have anything to do with anything he's talking about -- seriously, like TOM FRANK is part of the culture of moral depravity being critiqued by terrorists shaking their heads over back issues of The Baffler.)

The “domestic insurgents” who, in D’Souza’s view, constitute the cultural left want “America to be a shining beacon of global depravity, a kind of Gomorrah on a Hill.”

Oh and bin Laden sent hidden messages to the Left in those 2004 videotapes and McCarthy was "largely right."

For the brave, here's the first chapter of the book.

xp: He names TF on his list of "enemies at home"

Michael Moore’s radical ideology — the insurgents are the Minutemen, they are the freedom fighters, and they will prevail! — has now come to center stage, where it is guiding the actions of the Democratic leadership.

a lot of anti-american feeling IS in a tabloid/vulgar/paranoid/cultural mode, akin to britain's ongoing paedo freakout or, well, america's hatred of muslims. flip thru memri.org for a little while, and yeah, a lot of people do "hate our freedoms" insofar as they have a big problem with a crazy-ass nation filled with trannies, jews, shaved vaginas, fad psychology, collagen injections, etc, etc, etc. this position is not a caricature.

...and it's simultaneously the country producing cadre after cadre of bible-carrying GI's with unstoppable hardware showing up anywhere there's a resource worth having or a gov't threatening "instability" of any kind! you can't point to just one half of the mix (the one you don't like, either) to explain the situation.

So the Righteous will be Saved and the rest of us get nuked. What's the problem?

what a bozo

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/6559/gaymarriage6as.png

In Iraq we’re getting into a religious war that’s lasted for centuries. This theory, espoused among others by John Murtha, holds that the Sunni and Shia are fighting in Iraq because these two groups have been fighting everywhere since the seventh century. So who wants to get into the middle of an ancient conflict that shows no signs of abating? This would seem to be an argument for America to get out of a religious quarrel that it has no way to settle, and that shows no sign of abating.

But the Shia-Sunni conflict in Iraq is not a religious conflict.

See how he did that? The main point behind Murtha's reasoning is that this is a deep-seeded cultural conflict that we've waded into the middle of. But by making the heart of his argument the statement that the Sunni-Shiite conflict is religious, D'Souza can refute it without admitting that he's wrong. It's a nice bit of Sophistry. He continues:

How do I know that? Because there are no substantial religious differences between the Shia and the Sunni.

Which is a subjective and suspicious (at best) statement that the townhall.com readers will never question.

Finally:

And these two groups have not been fighting for centuries. In fact, they haven’t been fighting at all.

Which is flatly untrue. In any case, he'd still be wrong even if he had these facts right (which he doesn't) - because even if the conflict in Iraq isn't religious or centuries-old, it's been going on since Saddam took power nearly 40 years ago, which is long enough for these tensions to heat up. He keeps obscuring the central issues at play, which works if your goal is to confuse a bunch of ignorant right-wingers, but it fails utterly as a history lesson or a rebuttal to any policy suggestions for Iraq.

Um is he kidding?

I’m not suggesting that Clinton did not want to protect America from Bin Laden.

Oh yeah, and Ken Starr puts in an appearance, too.

...Rather, D’Souza raises the alarm that the anti-religious, sexual liberationist, anti-natalist and feminist thrust of American foreign, cultural, and free-speech global Internet policies threaten and estrange all the traditional cultures of the third world, whether Muslim or Christian, Hindu or Buddhist. Poor people cannot afford the epidemics, abortions and divorces of Hollywood liberalism, and uphold a monotheist God as the foundation of their moral codes and worthy of respect.

The American global cultural campaign pushes a billion non-militant Muslims to condone the jihad and thus threatens the existence of Israel and the survival of vulnerable American cities like New York. Perhaps your readers would be intrigued with a discussion of the argument rather than anathemas against its expression. To call the book McCarthyite and a “national scandal” will neither stop the jihad nor save Israel in a nuclear age.

I'm sure the Hindus and Buddhists mentioned there have some thoughts about that.

Who the hell is George Gilder and why he be so crazzzy?

FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!

1. It wasn't any of these people (or ANY leftists) that got us involved in this retarded war.
2. How do any of these people have any control over whether the USA "loses" in Iraq? Bush doesn't even pay attention to the 3/4 of the American people who want out of Iraq, let alone luminaries of the left.
3. Can any of these numbskulls fucking get it through their thick skulls that MAYBE, the way to "win" the WOT is not through violence and torture? That running around the middle east and threatening and slaughtering people is not a way to win friends and influence people? Seriously! Why is this common-sense argument so hard to grasp?
4. Is there anything more pointless than arguing with this fuckwit in a posting he will never read?

Probably should amend that a small group of secular bloggers and message board posters are watching and laughing. The rest of the world doesn't give a shit about what Dinesh does with his free time.

Oh Dinesh, when it rains, it pours:

One lawsuit, filed in San Diego Superior Court over the past week, contends that Dinesh D’Souza, a conservative author, activist and Rancho Santa Fe resident who was one of three executive producers of the film, has tried to wrest control of the company away from two partners and violated an agreement among them.

A separate lawsuit from a group of investors in the film says that D’Souza breached their agreement with him by writing a best-selling book that drew heavily on the film and not sharing the profits with them, as they claim he was obligated to do.

The plaintiffs in each of the suits are seeking temporary restraining orders against D’Souza to get him to follow what they say are the terms of the agreements and stop exceeding his authority. Court hearings were scheduled for Tuesday but were postponed after lawyers for D’Souza objected to the judges who were assigned to hear them. The cases were then transferred to other judges and are expected to be heard this morning.

You know, there just aren't enough Nelson laughs.

http://politicker.com/2014/01/dinesh-dsouza-indicted-for-campaign-finance-fraud/

whoa

It's so stupidly petty too! It's amazing! Basically he got other people to contribute to Wendy Long's go-nowhere Senate campaign against Gillebrand in 2012 and then reimbursed them so he could evade contribution limits. It wasn't even that much too! You'd think after Citizens United he could have done something else.

"Let's see, I'll do something illegal on a cheap level in a campaign that's going to fail anyway, so I'm doubly throwing my money away and exposing myself to the law." Good job, guy.

have the cancervatives made a martyr of him yet? i mean, surely the arrest is payback for this, amirite?

http://www.amazon.com/Obamas-America-Unmaking-American-Dream/dp/1596987782

Yeah but read upthread. After the whole adultery thing he REALLY burned a lot of bridges, and the whole start of this thread talked about how the National Review en masse went "You are too goddamn goofy even for us." He has his supporters but I suspect a lot of the reaction will be similarly incredulous and mocking.

my heart bleeds for poor dinesh

D’Souza’s co-producer in “2016” Gerald Molen told FoxNews.com he believes the charges are politically motivated and D’Souza is being singled out by federal authorities for a “selective prosecution.”

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/01/23/conservative-filmmaker-behind-anti-obama-documentary-indicted-for-violating/

So it turns out that the only thing D'Souza's done in a while before the indictment was this.

http://www.dineshdsouza.com/archives/news/dsouza-introduces-fliptree-christmashome-com/

Use coupon FRIENDOFDINESH at checkout to receive an additional $50 off current tree price. Only one coupon per tree purchase.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/01/24/this-is-like-nazi-germany-dsouza-allies-see-con/197729

D’Souza’s co-producer in “2016” Gerald Molen told FoxNews.com he believes the charges are politically motivated and D’Souza is being singled out by federal authorities for a “selective guilty plea.”

fixed

the funny part about that link is how outsized a belief in their own influence they must have to think they constitute any kind of "threat" to the established order. quite a self-serving case of paranoia.

The Grand Unified Theory of Dinesh!

http://gawker.com/did-dinesh-d-souza-use-his-mistress-to-break-campaign-l-1509310440

"...though it’s not clear why Louis Joseph, a doctor who lives in Michigan, would risk donating an illegal sum of money to an out-of-state candidate publicly supported by the man with whom his wife was cuckholding him."

I try to use "cuckold" at least a month

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/dinesh-dsouzas-america-trailer-released-674121

In America, D'Souza -- who wrote and produced the film -- makes the claim that 1960s radical leftism is more or less indistinguishable from current mainstream liberalism, a doctrine that he says preaches the United States is the product of "stealing and plunder" from Native Americans, Mexicans and African-American slaves.

"I want to take this progressive, leftist critique head on," D'Souza says in the trailer. The movie will include re-creations of some of the major events in American history.

with finger puppets

And a kick line

Meanwhile:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2014/01/27/ted_cruz_wants_you_to_know_that_the_government_might_be_targeting_dinesh.html

http://photos.vanityfair.com/2015/04/09/5526a246c55e0f53330befdc_dinesh-dsouza-campaign-finance-fraud-obama.jpg

Stealing America: What My Experience with Criminal Gangs Taught Me about Obama, Hillary, and the Democratic Party

In the fall of 2014, outspoken author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza found himself hauled into federal court for improperly donating money to an old friend’s Senate campaign. D’Souza pleaded guilty and was sentenced to eight months in a state-run confinement center. There he lived among hardened criminals—drug dealers, thieves, gangbangers, rapists, and murderers. Now the bestselling author explains how this experience not only changed his life, but fundamentally transformed his view of his adopted country.

Previously, D’Souza had seen America through the eyes of a grateful immigrant who became successful by applying and defending conservative principles. Again and again, D’Souza made the case that America is an exceptional nation, fundamentally fair and just. In book after book, he argued against liberalism as though it were a genuine movement of ideas capable of being engaged and refuted.

But his prolonged exposure to the criminal underclass provided an eye-opening education in American realities. In the view of hardened criminals, D’Souza learned, America is anything but fair and just. Instead, it is a jungle in which various armed gangs face off against one another, with the biggest and most powerful gangs inhabiting the federal government. As for American liberalism, it is not a movement of ideas at all but a series of scams and cons aimed at nothing less than stealing the entire wealth of the nation, built up over more than two centuries: the total value of the homes, the lifelong savings of the people, the assets of every industry, and all the funds allocated to health and education and every other service, both public and private. “The thieves I am speaking about want all of it.”

And who are the leading figures in this historically ambitious scam that has turned the federal government into a vast and unprecedented shakedown scheme? Why, none other than Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton – the current leaders of the Democratic Party. This pair of smooth-talking con artists, trained in the methods of radical activist Saul Alinsky, have taken his crude but effective political shakedown techniques to a level even he never dreamed of.

As the nation approaches a crucial election in 2016, Stealing America is an urgent wakeup call for all Americans who want to prevent this theft from being completed by eight more years of Democratic rule.

he should rly write fan fiction

This was totally reading as his allegiance-swapping story until the point was revealed as...Obama and Clinton still suck?

also hrc is trained by alinsky is radical politics, that was an interesting twist, didnt see it coming

*in rad pol

whats the deal with this guy

Peter Sobczynski (from RogerEbert.com):

“Hillary’s America” may well be the single dumbest documentary that I have ever seen in my life—nearly two hours of poisonous bluster and anti-historical rhetoric that comes across like the desperate ravings of someone trying to make a few more bucks by rehashing the same nonsense before his gravy train finally leaves town. The closest thing I can compare it to are the strange and highly speculative documentaries that Sunn Classics used to crank out in the late Seventies—movies that breathlessly promised viewers that they would reveal the existence of life after death or the Bermuda Triangle or Noah’s Ark but only gave people clumsy reenactments, interviews with highly dubious experts and wild speculation without ever actually offering any of the concrete proof that they promised.

And from the AV Club:

That a film already busy with historical reenactments, interviews, and conspiracizing of the wildest sort should end with three consecutive musical numbers suggests a kind of vaudeville structure to D’Souza’s work. As the MC of this show, D’Souza places himself in the unwise position of sometimes having to act: The film’s prologue finds him incarcerated in a detention house, where a charismatic inmate, Roc (Corey Cotten), explains for him how crime works, and how the government is the biggest criminal of all. D’Souza’s facial expression never varies from sour nonplussed; complex emotions aren’t a possibility. There is a shot in one of the final montages, amid all the farms and fields, of D’Souza standing in a sunset-lit prairie, looking like a Terrence Malick outtake. This determinedly uncharismatic figure has now made himself the star of three consistently lunatic productions; this attempt to give himself a moment of poetry is one of Hillary’s America’s final and biggest inadvertent laughs.

http://www.newsweek.com/judge-orders-dsouza-receive-psychological-counseling-353554

judge berman getting cute there imo. can't shrink away ideology

Dinesh now penning paeans to Nazi sex practices, a development that doesn't really surprise anyone

https://twitter.com/spookperson/status/902257553026965504

Have you been told that the Nazis were uptight moral puritans? Coming tomorrow--my Oped on the Nazis as bohemian sexual revolutionaries pic.twitter.com/KGvWxrTSfa

— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) August 28, 2017

iow, Nazis as hypocrites, posing as moral puritans, just like at least a half dozen mega-famous evangelical preachers exposed as such in the past couple of decades?

all of whom afterward came crying to their followers citing repentance and asking for forgiveness?

Adults 1, kids 0 https://t.co/24iqKtnTxy

— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) February 20, 2018

Worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs https://t.co/Vg3mXYvb4c

— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) February 20, 2018

Motherfucker ain’t got hit by a bus yet; what a pity

grown-up behaviour: insulting gun massacre survivors on social media

kids get slaughtered while dinesh d'souza still walks the earth

there is no god

Pardoned.

kids get slaughtered while dinesh d'souza still walks the earth

there is no god

gabbneb is that you?

You went to a less distinguished college than I did. You weren’t a Stanford U scholar as I was. What makes you more “informed” than I am?

— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) August 13, 2018

looool

an Elite, get him!

If he passed with really good grades, then why isn't he spending his time helping struggling businesses?

Good to see that even Stanford U scholars are willing to make time to school-shame Twitter randos.

Dinesh somehow has all the worst properties of both Trumpites and NeverTrumpers. He’s both extremely racist and unconcerned with intellectual honesty AND a credential-fetishizing nerd who longs for mainstream validation. A primetime asshole.

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) August 15, 2018

self-clowning oven

This is actually the correct pronunciation. Most Americans say it wrong. Thailand is pronounced phonetically. It’s “Thighland,” not “Tai-land.” https://t.co/kiQI7FveEM

— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) August 6, 2020