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Sam Harris Declares ‘Osama bin Laden is Far Less Reprehensible than Trump’

Nov 4, 2020 5:00 pm By Robert Spencer 26 Comments

My latest in PJ Media:

The Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is cresting as the election approaches. In one of the most reprehensible statements to come from the Left in this Year of the Left Behaving Reprehensibly was spoken on Friday by the famous atheist Sam Harris, who claims to be a “rationalist.” During an episode of his Making Sense podcast, Harris said: “Osama bin Laden, as a person, is far more understandable to me and far less reprehensible, personally, psychologically, than Trump.”

This was no gaffe or momentary slip-up. As outrageous as it is, this is a statement Sam Harris has said before. In a February 18 audio clip, Harris declares: “I find Trump more despicable than I found Osama bin Laden… With Osama bin Laden, it’s just obvious to me that he could have been a mensch in some sense, right? He’s making serious sacrifices for ideas that he deeply believes in. He’s committed to a cause greater than himself.”

Harris, apparently oblivious to the fact that he was making a world-historical ass of himself, continued: “I don’t doubt he” – that is, Osama – “had real ethical connections to the people in his life that he cared about. He’s a real person, right? And in some ways, he is kind of a moral hero in a very bad game. And so therefore, he’s kind of prototypically evil when viewed from my game. He’s a person of actual substance — he’s just committed to the wrong ends, whereas Trump is the negation of all those things.”

Harris here demonstrates that the Left’s hatred for Trump can race far beyond all the bounds of rationality and become cultlike in its perfervid intensity.

There is much more. Read the rest here.

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Filed Under: Featured, Leftist/Islamic Alliance, moral equivalence, Robert Spencer Tagged With: Sam Harris


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Comments

  1. Michael Reidy says

    Nov 4, 2020 at 5:13 pm

    It is important to defend Christianity. Arguably the Bible is historical metaphysics in the form of story The fourth gospel says God is love. The dictionary says love is two persons; noun and verb. Another word for noun is name, and another word for verb is Word or Act; Ok laugh at me; Look up my book ‘Handbook of Existence’ on Kindle.

    Reply
  2. RichardL says

    Nov 4, 2020 at 5:28 pm

    he wants to make money. He is not an academic, but presents himself as a thinker. I am not sure whether I am more embarrassed about people who fall for this scam or for the moron himself.

    Reply
    • mortimer says

      Nov 4, 2020 at 11:26 pm

      Anyone who cannot understand that the jihadists are totally lacking empathy is amoral.

      OBL was so twisted by jihadism that he thought murdering Americans was a ‘kindness’ to them.

      Reply
    • mortimer says

      Nov 4, 2020 at 11:27 pm

      Atheists don’t realize that Islam would murder them first.

      Reply
      • Savvy Kafir says

        Nov 5, 2020 at 9:17 pm

        Some of us get it! Just one more reason we need to make the West Islam-free.

        Reply
    • Jerry says

      Nov 5, 2020 at 12:42 am

      Thinker he is not.
      Stinker, much more likely.

      Reply
  3. gravenimage says

    Nov 4, 2020 at 5:42 pm

    Sam Harris Declares ‘Osama bin Laden is Far Less Reprehensible than Trump’
    ……………………

    Utter moral insanity. That Harris is doubling down on this is even more despicable.

    More:

    Harris declares: “I find Trump more despicable than I found Osama bin Laden… With Osama bin Laden, it’s just obvious to me that he could have been a mensch in some sense, right? He’s making serious sacrifices for ideas that he deeply believes in. He’s committed to a cause greater than himself.”
    ……………………

    Does it matter that this cause is completely evil? Not to Sam Harris, apparently…

    More:

    Harris, apparently oblivious to the fact that he was making a world-historical ass of himself, continued: “I don’t doubt he” – that is, Osama – “had real ethical connections to the people in his life that he cared about. He’s a real person, right? And in some ways, he is kind of a moral hero in a very bad game. And so therefore, he’s kind of prototypically evil when viewed from my game. He’s a person of actual substance — he’s just committed to the wrong ends, whereas Trump is the negation of all those things.”
    ……………………

    Couldn’t you say the same about Hitler or Pol Pot? Being committed to something ‘greater than oneself’ is only a good if that cause is itself good. Not so in this case.

    TDS at its most unhinged.

    Reply
    • mortimer says

      Nov 4, 2020 at 11:29 pm

      Sam Harris is using a variant of the Argumentum ad Hitlerum … that means he has lost his the debate by appealing to this fallacy.

      Reply
  4. Keith O says

    Nov 4, 2020 at 6:51 pm

    GI, that’s kinda what I was thinking. there are lots of people out there who are totally devoted to their cause and are on some level, kind, family orientated people, but that does not mean they are not following an absolutely evil cause or that they are not f**ked in the head.
    Trump is at heart a businessman, and he has transferred those talents to running the country.
    Bin Laden turned his talents to murdering thousands.

    Reply
  5. James Lincoln says

    Nov 4, 2020 at 7:41 pm

    Any word on how Sam Harris “felt” after United States Navy SEALs of Team Six took out Osama bin Laden?

    Reply
  6. Cornelius says

    Nov 4, 2020 at 7:50 pm

    ROBERT: Harris held out, but he was clearly stung by the tidal wave of negativity he received from people whom he had previously counted as friends and allies.

    Robert couldn’t be more right here. I heard Sam say – I believe as a guest on Dave Rubin’s podcast (though I’m not positive it was there): “I lost a year of my life dealing with it” [i.e., the backlash over his remarks about Islam].

    It’s clear Sam was not just “clearly stung”….one might suspect from this admission that he was in fact profoundly disturbed over the episode. What is certain is that he subsequently became much more circumspect in his criticism of Islam. He would continue to engage in it, but almost always in an oblique fashion.

    I once had great admiration for Sam….but I watched him morph from a courageous soul into someone prone to the excessive use of qualification in order to timidly argue a point. He was a man who had been burned by his honesty….and unlike Robert, he was terrified at being burned again. So he embraced the method of diluting the truth….in order to make it more palatable to polite society. In the process, it lost all its medicinal value. Sam Harris will never change the world. And whatever splash he once made, it’s now barely a ripple.

    Reply
    • James Lincoln says

      Nov 4, 2020 at 9:57 pm

      An excellent and accurate post Cornelius, my compliments.

      Reply
      • Westman says

        Nov 5, 2020 at 2:58 am

        Second that. It’s confusing to recall that Harris uttered the famous accurate phrase, “Islam is the motherload of bad ideas.” Now it seems that Harris trying to avoid needing a security team. Threats work?

        Reply
        • mortimer says

          Nov 5, 2020 at 10:24 am

          According to Cornelius, Sam Harris lost his nerve. He is a godless communist who has joined ranks with the others. He has silenced his valid critiques of Islam. He’s a coward.

  7. Patrick White says

    Nov 4, 2020 at 8:34 pm

    Sam Harris has a history of making genocidal wish-lists, but he is less forthcoming with inventive philosophy. He drily plagiarises the work of real academics, who have long condemned HIM as being reprehensible. He’s an abject fraud, and we wouldn’t even have heard about him had his mommy not been a successful TV sitcom hack back in the 1970s.

    Reply
    • mortimer says

      Nov 4, 2020 at 11:31 pm

      Sam Harris is saying that he doesn’t understand the Islamic attitude to atheists, namely, that they are much worthier of execution than religious non-Muslims.

      Islam makes it a crime to be godless. Would Harris be a martyr to atheism at the hands of Muslims? Or would he pretend to convert to Islam as many others have done?

      Reply
      • Patrick White says

        Nov 5, 2020 at 2:42 pm

        He hasn’t thought it through, and the boorish drunk Christopher Hitchens is no longer alive to write excuses for him to ‘borrow’.

        Reply
  8. Felix Katz says

    Nov 4, 2020 at 9:03 pm

    I remember Phil Harris and this guy is no Phil Harris………….???

    Reply
  9. Andrew says

    Nov 5, 2020 at 12:19 am

    I just deleted Sam Harris from every Social Media Platform I watched him on.
    I can understand he may not care much for President Trump for whatever reasons, surely not the great policy moves of the President, unless Harris actually wants War, but to mention he thinks Trump is even worse than a man who wants to kill Harris, for being an Atheist, it truly amazes me that he can say such garbage on a public forum… Im done with that prick.

    Reply
  10. Jerry says

    Nov 5, 2020 at 12:54 am

    If you examine carefully Islam and Jihad you ought to realise that they represent feeble faith if not blatant blasphemy of the adherents, for they proclaim faith in an allegedly almighty creator and giver of life who, by their implication, requires the protection of the Islamic (sub) humans to defend him and kill for him.

    Reply
  11. cohenite says

    Nov 5, 2020 at 3:30 am

    I used to have some time for Harris and his anti-Islam books but this is nuts. What a dickhead. At least he didn’t compare Trump to Hitler; maybe that’s next week.

    Reply
  12. eduardo odraude says

    Nov 5, 2020 at 7:31 am

    Harris on Islam: “completely delusional to call Islam a religion of peace”:

    Reply
    • Cornelius says

      Nov 5, 2020 at 10:42 am

      10 years ago

      Reply
  13. Nick Dolgy says

    Nov 5, 2020 at 4:29 pm

    Anyone who has heard and read Sam Harris understands that Sam Harris is one of the biggest critics of Islam and Islamism as a backward reprehensible political ideology. Sam Harris makes a point that Islamists are not cowards, that they sincerely believe in what they do, including Bin Laden. Sam Harris explains that phrases like “Islam is a religions of peace” and “Islamists are not real Muslims” are false. Sam’s point in the given audio clip is not to glorify Bin Laden or to defend Islamism. Sam’s point is that Trump does not believe in anything deeply, he does not have serious convictions, Trump in Sam’s view (as well as in the eyes of very many former Trump associates who parted ways with Trump) is a pathological liar, narcissist, opportunist, a person totally lacking any moral character.

    Reply
    • gravenimage says

      Nov 5, 2020 at 4:39 pm

      Harris makes it quite clear that he considers this savage Jihadist less reprehensible than the President. To consider this a condemnation of Islam is simply bizarre.

      As for the supposed bravery of Jihadists, they targeted mostly unarmed civilians on 9/11. Then, one of bin Laden’s stooges used a pregnant woman as a human shield. No civilized person considers this courageous.

      Reply
  14. OLD GUY says

    Nov 5, 2020 at 10:30 pm

    Sam Harris is a total idiot

    Reply

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