--- title: "16 Leftism Quotes By Christopher Hitchens" description: "16 Leftism quotes by Christopher Hitchens. Plus more from Christopher Hitchens and more Leftism sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/70e/christopher-hitchens-117_leftism_there-is-a-tendency-on-the-left-to-think_1917676.jpg" --- > [“There is a tendency on the left, to think if someone in any way disagrees with the left it must be for…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/there-is-a-tendency-on-the-left-to-think-if-someone-in-any-way/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/70e/christopher-hitchens-117_leftism_there-is-a-tendency-on-the-left-to-think_1917676.jpg) > [“There is a noticeable element of the pathological in some current leftist critiques, which I tend to attribute to feelings of guilt…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/there-is-a-noticeable-element-of-the-pathological-in-some-current/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8f1/christopher-hitchens-117_antiwar-movement_there-is-a-noticeable-element-of-the-pat_1793098.jpg) > [“If the counsel of the peaceniks had been followed, Kuwait would today be the nineteenth province of Iraq. Bosnia would be a…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/if-the-counsel-of-the-peaceniks-had-been-followed-kuwait-would-today/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/82b/christopher-hitchens-117_anti-war_if-the-counsel-of-the-peaceniks-had-been_1489738.jpg) > [“He is in many ways quite a right-wing isolationist. It's because some people are naïve enough to confuse this with anti-imperialism that…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/he-is-in-many-ways-quite-a-right-wing-isolationist-it-s-because-some/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/96c/christopher-hitchens-117_anti-imperialism_he-is-in-many-ways-quite-a-right-wing-is_1011479.jpg) > [“The friends of Galtieri, Saddam Hussein, Mullah Omar and Milosevic make unconvincing defenders of humanitarian values, and it can be seen that…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/the-friends-of-galtieri-saddam-hussein-mullah-omar-and-milosevic-make/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/156/christopher-hitchens-117_anti-war_the-friends-of-galtieri-saddam-hussein-m_333575.jpg) > [“Question: Which Mediterranean government shares all of Ronald Reagan's views on international terrorism, the present danger of Soviet advance, the hypocrisy of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/question-which-mediterranean-government-shares-all-of-ronald-reagan-s/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/992/christopher-hitchens-117_1980s_question-which-mediterranean-government_1897354.jpg) > [“The last time that I consciously wrote anything to 'save the honor of the Left', as I rather pompously put it, was…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/the-last-time-that-i-consciously-wrote-anything-to-save-the-honor-of/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e74/christopher-hitchens-117_alger-hiss_the-last-time-that-i-consciously-wrote-a_2363151.jpg) > [“Not long ago, having expressed some disagreements in print with an old comrade of long standing, I was sent a response that…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/not-long-ago-having-expressed-some-disagreements-in-print-with-an-old/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/73a/christopher-hitchens-117_dissent_not-long-ago-having-expressed-some-disag_2907938.jpg) > [“The neo-cons, or some of them, decided that they would back Clinton when he belatedly decided for Bosnia and Kosovo against Milosevic,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/the-neo-cons-or-some-of-them-decided-that-they-would-back-clinton/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/621/christopher-hitchens-117_a-long-short-war_the-neo-cons-or-some-of-them-decided-tha_487673.jpg) > [“As to the 'Left' I'll say briefly why this was the finish for me. Here is American society, attacked under open skies…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/as-to-the-left-i-ll-say-briefly-why-this-was-the-finish-for-me-here/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a1a/christopher-hitchens-117_afghanistan_as-to-the-left-i-ll-say-briefly-why-this_1455099.jpg) > [ “Some readers may have noticed an icy little missive from Noam Chomsky \["Letters," December 3\], repudiating the very idea that he and… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/some-readers-may-have-noticed-an-icy-little-missive-from-noam-chomsky/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0d5/christopher-hitchens-117_2001_some-readers-may-have-noticed-an-icy-lit_2701880.jpg) > [“You might think that the Left could have a regime-change perspective of its own, based on solidarity with its comrades abroad. After…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/you-might-think-that-the-left-could-have-a-regime-change-perspective/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/31b/christopher-hitchens-117_al-anfal-campaign_you-might-think-that-the-left-could-have_1737794.jpg) > [“George Bush made a mistake when he referred to the Saddam Hussein regime as 'evil.' Every liberal and leftist knows how to…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/george-bush-made-a-mistake-when-he-referred-to-the-saddam-hussein/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d14/christopher-hitchens-117_absolutism_george-bush-made-a-mistake-when-he-refer_162150.jpg) > [“My quarrel with Chomsky goes back to the Balkan wars of the 1990s, where he more or less openly represented the "Serbian…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/my-quarrel-with-chomsky-goes-back-to-the-balkan-wars-of-the-1990s/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/454/christopher-hitchens-117_anti-americanism_my-quarrel-with-chomsky-goes-back-to-the_355888.jpg) > [“Long before it was known to me as a place where my ancestry was even remotely involved, the idea of a state…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/long-before-it-was-known-to-me-as-a-place-where-my-ancestry-was-even/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e10/christopher-hitchens-117_19th-century_long-before-it-was-known-to-me-as-a-plac_1968305.jpg) > [ “That war \[Bosnian war\] in the early 1990s changed a lot for me. I never thought I would see, in Europe, a… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/that-war-bosnian-war-in-the-early-1990s-changed-a-lot-for-me-i-never/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/872/christopher-hitchens-117_anti-war_that-war-bosnian-war-in-the-early-1990s_3077861.jpg) ## Other authors on Leftism - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b008/author-dennis-prager-28755.jpg) Dennis Prager 11 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/leftism/dennis-prager/) ## More by Christopher Hitchens > [“The spirit of our accurate and exact philosophy is outraged by conclusions that contradict each other so glaringly.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/the-spirit-of-our-accurate-and-exact-philosophy-is-outraged-by/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [“Many governments employ torture but this was the first time that the element of Saturnalia and pornography in the process had been made so…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/many-governments-employ-torture-but-this-was-the-first-time-that-the/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [ It's \[Los Angeles\] mostly full of nonsense and delusion and egomania. They think they'll be young and beautiful forever, even though most of them… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/it-s-los-angeles-mostly-full-of-nonsense-and-delusion-and-egomania/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [To be against rationalization is not the same as to be opposed to reasoning.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/to-be-against-rationalization-is-not-the-same-as-to-be-opposed-to/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [ \[Religion\] attacks us in our deepest integrity - the core of our self-respect. Religion says that we would not know right from wrong, we… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/religion-attacks-us-in-our-deepest-integrity-the-core-of-our-self/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [“In the very recent past, we have seen the Church of Rome befouled by its complicity with the unpardonable sin of child rape, or,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/in-the-very-recent-past-we-have-seen-the-church-of-rome-befouled-by/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [It's surprising to me how many of my friends send Christmas cards, or holiday cards, including my atheist and secular friends.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/it-s-surprising-to-me-how-many-of-my-friends-send-christmas-cards-or/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [Suppose there were groups of secularists at hospitals who went round the terminally ill and urged them to adopt atheism: 'Don't be a mug…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/suppose-there-were-groups-of-secularists-at-hospitals-who-went-round/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [There are, after all, atheists who say they wish the fable were true but are unable to suspend the requisite disbelief, or who have…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/there-are-after-all-atheists-who-say-they-wish-the-fable-were-true/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [“It isn’t so long since a test of Anglican orthodoxy was applied to anyone seeking to study or teach at Oxford and Cambridge universities.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/it-isn-t-so-long-since-a-test-of-anglican-orthodoxy-was-applied-to/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [Gullibility and credulity are considered undesireable qualities in every department of human life - except religion ... Why are we praised by godly men…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/gullibility-and-credulity-are-considered-undesireable-qualities-in/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [It's much worse to see a woman drunk than a man: I don't know quite why this is true but it just is. Don't…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/it-s-much-worse-to-see-a-woman-drunk-than-a-man-i-don-t-know-quite/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [It's true that obscenity is a matter of taste and in the eye of the beholder.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/it-s-true-that-obscenity-is-a-matter-of-taste-and-in-the-eye-of-the/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [I worked out early on to give up things I couldn't do well at all.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/i-worked-out-early-on-to-give-up-things-i-couldn-t-do-well-at-all/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [Writing is what's important to me, and anything that helps me do that - or enhances and prolongs and deepens and sometimes intensifies argument…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/writing-is-what-s-important-to-me-and-anything-that-helps-me-do-that/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/leftism/christopher-hitchens/#itemlist", "name": "16 Leftism Quotes By Christopher Hitchens", "numberOfItems": 16, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“There is a tendency on the left, to think if someone in any way disagrees with the left it must be for the lowest possible reason and if you found the lowest possible motive you have found the right one. Theres this whole culture of no one would leave us or quarrel with us if they weren't a sellout. 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Not an attractive combination, because it results in self-hatred.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Christopher Hitchens" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/there-is-a-noticeable-element-of-the-pathological-in-some-current/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8f1/christopher-hitchens-117_antiwar-movement_there-is-a-noticeable-element-of-the-pat_1793098.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8f1/christopher-hitchens-117_antiwar-movement_there-is-a-noticeable-element-of-the-pat_1793098.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8f1/christopher-hitchens-117_antiwar-movement_there-is-a-noticeable-element-of-the-pat_1793098.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“There is a noticeable element of the pathological in some current leftist critiques, which I tend to…” — Christopher Hitchens", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“If the counsel of the peaceniks had been followed, Kuwait would today be the nineteenth province of Iraq. Bosnia would be a trampled and cleansed province of Greater Serbia, Kosovo would have been emptied of most of its inhabitants, and the Taliban would still be in power in Afghanistan. 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Question: Which Mediterranean government is Ronald Reagan trying, with the help of George Shultz and Caspar Weinberger, to replace with a government led by a party which professes socialism and which contains extreme leftists? If you answered 'the government of Israel' to both of the above, you know more about political and international irony than the President does.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Christopher Hitchens" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/question-which-mediterranean-government-shares-all-of-ronald-reagan-s/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/992/christopher-hitchens-117_1980s_question-which-mediterranean-government_1897354.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/992/christopher-hitchens-117_1980s_question-which-mediterranean-government_1897354.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/992/christopher-hitchens-117_1980s_question-which-mediterranean-government_1897354.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Question: Which Mediterranean government shares all of Ronald Reagan's views on international terrorism, the…” — Christopher Hitchens", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 7, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“The last time that I consciously wrote anything to 'save the honor of the Left', as I rather pompously put it, was my little book on the crookedness and cowardice and corruption (to put it no higher) of Clinton. I used leftist categories to measure him, in other words, and to show how idiotic was the belief that he was a liberal's champion. Again, more leftists than you might think were on my side or in my corner, and the book was published by Verso, which is the publishing arm of the New Left Review . However, if a near-majority of leftists and liberals choose to think that Clinton was the target of a witch-hunt and the victim of 'sexual McCarthyism', an Arkansan Alger Hiss in other words, you become weary of debating on their terms and leave them to make the best of it.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Christopher Hitchens" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/the-last-time-that-i-consciously-wrote-anything-to-save-the-honor-of/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e74/christopher-hitchens-117_alger-hiss_the-last-time-that-i-consciously-wrote-a_2363151.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e74/christopher-hitchens-117_alger-hiss_the-last-time-that-i-consciously-wrote-a_2363151.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e74/christopher-hitchens-117_alger-hiss_the-last-time-that-i-consciously-wrote-a_2363151.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“The last time that I consciously wrote anything to 'save the honor of the Left', as I rather pompously put…” — Christopher Hitchens", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 8, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“Not long ago, having expressed some disagreements in print with an old comrade of long standing, I was sent a response that he had published in an obscure newspaper. This riposte referred to my opinions as ‘racist.’ I would obviously scorn to deny such an allegation on my own behalf. I would, rather, prefer to repudiate it on behalf of my former friend. He had known me for many years and cooperated with me on numerous projects, and I am quite confident that he would never have as a collaborator anyone he suspected of racial prejudice. But it does remind me, and not for the first time, that quarrels on the left have a tendency to become miniature treason trials, replete with all kinds of denunciation. There's a general tendency—not by any means confined to radicals but in some way specially associated with them—to believe that once the lowest motive for a dissenting position has been found, it must in some way be the real one.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Christopher Hitchens" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/not-long-ago-having-expressed-some-disagreements-in-print-with-an-old/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/73a/christopher-hitchens-117_dissent_not-long-ago-having-expressed-some-disag_2907938.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/73a/christopher-hitchens-117_dissent_not-long-ago-having-expressed-some-disag_2907938.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/73a/christopher-hitchens-117_dissent_not-long-ago-having-expressed-some-disag_2907938.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Not long ago, having expressed some disagreements in print with an old comrade of long standing, I was sent…” — Christopher Hitchens", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 9, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“The neo-cons, or some of them, decided that they would back Clinton when he belatedly decided for Bosnia and Kosovo against Milosevic, and this even though they loathed Clinton, because the battle against religious and ethnic dictatorship in the Balkans took precedence. This, by the way, was partly a battle to save Muslims from Catholic and Christian Orthodox killers. That impressed me. The neo-cons also took the view, quite early on, that coexistence with Saddam Hussein was impossible as well as undesirable. They were dead right about that. They had furthermore been thinking about the menace of jihad ism when most people were half-asleep. And then I have to say that I was rather struck by the way that the Weekly Standard and its associated voices took the decision to get rid of Trent Lott earlier this year, thus removing an embarrassment as well as a disgrace from the political scene. And their arguments were on points of principle, not 'perception.' I liked their ruthlessness here, and their seriousness, at a time when much of the liberal Left is not even seriously wrong, but frivolously wrong, and babbles without any sense of responsibility. (I mean, have you read their sub-Brechtian stuff on Halliburton…?) And revolution from above, in some states and cases, is—as I wrote in my book A Long Short War —often preferable to the status quo, or to no revolution at all.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Christopher Hitchens" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/the-neo-cons-or-some-of-them-decided-that-they-would-back-clinton/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/621/christopher-hitchens-117_a-long-short-war_the-neo-cons-or-some-of-them-decided-tha_487673.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/621/christopher-hitchens-117_a-long-short-war_the-neo-cons-or-some-of-them-decided-tha_487673.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/621/christopher-hitchens-117_a-long-short-war_the-neo-cons-or-some-of-them-decided-tha_487673.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“The neo-cons, or some of them, decided that they would back Clinton when he belatedly decided for Bosnia and…” — Christopher Hitchens", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 10, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“As to the 'Left' I'll say briefly why this was the finish for me. Here is American society, attacked under open skies in broad daylight by the most reactionary and vicious force in the contemporary world, a force which treats Afghans and Algerians and Egyptians far worse than it has yet been able to treat us. The vaunted CIA and FBI are asleep, at best. The working-class heroes move, without orders and at risk to their lives, to fill the moral and political vacuum. The moral idiots, meanwhile, like Falwell and Robertson and Rabbi Lapin, announce that this clerical aggression is a punishment for our secularism. And the governments of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, hitherto considered allies on our 'national security' calculus, prove to be the most friendly to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Here was a time for the Left to demand a top-to-bottom house-cleaning of the state and of our covert alliances, a full inquiry into the origins of the defeat, and a resolute declaration in favor of a fight to the end for secular and humanist values: a fight which would make friends of the democratic and secular forces in the Muslim world. And instead, the near-majority of 'Left' intellectuals started sounding like Falwell, and bleating that the main problem was Bush's legitimacy. So I don't even muster a hollow laugh when this pathetic faction says that I, and not they, are in bed with the forces of reaction.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Christopher Hitchens" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/as-to-the-left-i-ll-say-briefly-why-this-was-the-finish-for-me-here/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a1a/christopher-hitchens-117_afghanistan_as-to-the-left-i-ll-say-briefly-why-this_1455099.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a1a/christopher-hitchens-117_afghanistan_as-to-the-left-i-ll-say-briefly-why-this_1455099.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a1a/christopher-hitchens-117_afghanistan_as-to-the-left-i-ll-say-briefly-why-this_1455099.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“As to the 'Left' I'll say briefly why this was the finish for me. Here is American society, attacked under…” — Christopher Hitchens", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 11, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“Some readers may have noticed an icy little missive from Noam Chomsky [\"Letters,\" December 3], repudiating the very idea that he and I had disagreed on the \"roots\" of September 11. I rush to agree. Here is what he told his audience at MIT on October 11: I'll talk about the situation in Afghanistan… Looks like what's happening is some sort of silent genocide… It indicates that whatever, what will happen we don't know, but plans are being made and programs implemented on the assumption that they may lead to the death of several million people in the next—in the next couple of weeks… very casually with no comment… we are in the midst of apparently trying to murder three or four million people. Clever of him to have spotted that (his favorite put-down is the preface 'Turning to the facts...') and brave of him to have taken such a lonely position. As he rightly insists, our disagreements are not really political.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Christopher Hitchens" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/some-readers-may-have-noticed-an-icy-little-missive-from-noam-chomsky/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0d5/christopher-hitchens-117_2001_some-readers-may-have-noticed-an-icy-lit_2701880.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0d5/christopher-hitchens-117_2001_some-readers-may-have-noticed-an-icy-lit_2701880.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0d5/christopher-hitchens-117_2001_some-readers-may-have-noticed-an-icy-lit_2701880.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Some readers may have noticed an icy little missive from Noam Chomsky [\"Letters,\" December 3], repudiating…” — Christopher Hitchens", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 12, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“You might think that the Left could have a regime-change perspective of its own, based on solidarity with its comrades abroad. After all, Saddam's ruling Ba'ath Party consolidated its power by first destroying the Iraqi communist and labor movements, and then turning on the Kurds (whose cause, historically, has been one of the main priorities of the Left in the Middle East). When I first became a socialist, the imperative of international solidarity was the essential if not the defining thing, whether the cause was popular or risky or not. I haven't seen an anti-war meeting all this year at which you could even guess at the existence of the Iraqi and Kurdish opposition to Saddam, an opposition that was fighting for 'regime change' when both Republicans and Democrats were fawning over Baghdad as a profitable client and geopolitical ally. Not only does the 'peace' movement ignore the anti-Saddam civilian opposition, it sends missions to console the Ba'athists in their isolation, and speaks of the invader of Kuwait and Iran and the butcher of Kurdistan as if he were the victim and George W. Bush the aggressor.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Christopher Hitchens" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/you-might-think-that-the-left-could-have-a-regime-change-perspective/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/31b/christopher-hitchens-117_al-anfal-campaign_you-might-think-that-the-left-could-have_1737794.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/31b/christopher-hitchens-117_al-anfal-campaign_you-might-think-that-the-left-could-have_1737794.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/31b/christopher-hitchens-117_al-anfal-campaign_you-might-think-that-the-left-could-have_1737794.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“You might think that the Left could have a regime-change perspective of its own, based on solidarity with…” — Christopher Hitchens", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 13, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“George Bush made a mistake when he referred to the Saddam Hussein regime as 'evil.' Every liberal and leftist knows how to titter at such black-and-white moral absolutism. What the president should have done, in the unlikely event that he wanted the support of America's peace-mongers, was to describe a confrontation with Saddam as the 'lesser evil.' This is a term the Left can appreciate. Indeed, 'lesser evil' is part of the essential tactical rhetoric of today's Left, and has been deployed to excuse or overlook the sins of liberal Democrats, from President Clinton's bombing of Sudan to Madeleine Albright's veto of an international rescue for Rwanda when she was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Among those longing for nuance, moral relativism—the willingness to use the term evil, when combined with a willingness to make accommodations with it—is the smart thing: so much more sophisticated than 'cowboy' language.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Christopher Hitchens" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/george-bush-made-a-mistake-when-he-referred-to-the-saddam-hussein/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d14/christopher-hitchens-117_absolutism_george-bush-made-a-mistake-when-he-refer_162150.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d14/christopher-hitchens-117_absolutism_george-bush-made-a-mistake-when-he-refer_162150.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d14/christopher-hitchens-117_absolutism_george-bush-made-a-mistake-when-he-refer_162150.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“George Bush made a mistake when he referred to the Saddam Hussein regime as 'evil.' Every liberal and…” — Christopher Hitchens", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 14, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“My quarrel with Chomsky goes back to the Balkan wars of the 1990s, where he more or less openly represented the \"Serbian Socialist Party\" (actually the national-socialist and expansionist dictatorship of Slobodan Milosevic) as the victim. Many of us are proud of having helped organize to prevent the slaughter and deportation of Europe's oldest and largest and most tolerant Muslim minority, in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Kosovo. But at that time, when they were real, Chomsky wasn't apparently interested in Muslim grievances. He only became a voice for that when the Taliban and Al Qaeda needed to be represented in their turn as the victims of a \"silent genocide\" in Afghanistan. Let me put it like this, if a supposed scholar takes the Christian-Orthodox side when it is the aggressor, and then switches to taking the \"Muslim\" side when Muslims commit mass murder, I think that there is something very nasty going on. And yes, I don't think it is exaggerated to describe that nastiness as \"anti-American\" when the power that stops and punishes both aggressions is the United States.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Christopher Hitchens" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/my-quarrel-with-chomsky-goes-back-to-the-balkan-wars-of-the-1990s/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/454/christopher-hitchens-117_anti-americanism_my-quarrel-with-chomsky-goes-back-to-the_355888.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/454/christopher-hitchens-117_anti-americanism_my-quarrel-with-chomsky-goes-back-to-the_355888.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/454/christopher-hitchens-117_anti-americanism_my-quarrel-with-chomsky-goes-back-to-the_355888.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“My quarrel with Chomsky goes back to the Balkan wars of the 1990s, where he more or less openly represented…” — Christopher Hitchens", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 15, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“Long before it was known to me as a place where my ancestry was even remotely involved, the idea of a state for Jews (or a Jewish state; not quite the same thing, as I failed at first to see) had been 'sold' to me as an essentially secular and democratic one. The idea was a haven for the persecuted and the survivors, a democracy in a region where the idea was poorly understood, and a place where—as Philip Roth had put it in a one-handed novel that I read when I was about nineteen—even the traffic cops and soldiers were Jews. This, like the other emphases of that novel, I could grasp. Indeed, my first visit was sponsored by a group in London called the Friends of Israel. They offered to pay my expenses, that is, if on my return I would come and speak to one of their meetings. I still haven't submitted that expenses claim. The misgivings I had were of two types, both of them ineradicable. The first and the simplest was the encounter with everyday injustice: by all means the traffic cops were Jews but so, it turned out, were the colonists and ethnic cleansers and even the torturers. It was Jewish leftist friends who insisted that I go and see towns and villages under occupation, and sit down with Palestinian Arabs who were living under house arrest—if they were lucky—or who were squatting in the ruins of their demolished homes if they were less fortunate. In Ramallah I spent the day with the beguiling Raimonda Tawil, confined to her home for committing no known crime save that of expressing her opinions. (For some reason, what I most remember is a sudden exclamation from her very restrained and respectable husband, a manager of the local bank: 'I would prefer living under a Bedouin muktar to another day of Israeli rule!' He had obviously spent some time thinking about the most revolting possible Arab alternative.) In Jerusalem I visited the Tutungi family, who could produce title deeds going back generations but who were being evicted from their apartment in the old city to make way for an expansion of the Jewish quarter. Jerusalem: that place of blood since remote antiquity. Jerusalem, over which the British and French and Russians had fought a foul war in the Crimea, and in the mid-nineteenth century , on the matter of which Christian Church could command the keys to some 'holy sepulcher.' Jerusalem, where the anti-Semite Balfour had tried to bribe the Jews with the territory of another people in order to seduce them from Bolshevism and continue the diplomacy of the Great War. Jerusalem: that pest-house in whose environs all zealots hope that an even greater and final war can be provoked. It certainly made a warped appeal to my sense of history.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Christopher Hitchens" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/long-before-it-was-known-to-me-as-a-place-where-my-ancestry-was-even/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e10/christopher-hitchens-117_19th-century_long-before-it-was-known-to-me-as-a-plac_1968305.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e10/christopher-hitchens-117_19th-century_long-before-it-was-known-to-me-as-a-plac_1968305.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e10/christopher-hitchens-117_19th-century_long-before-it-was-known-to-me-as-a-plac_1968305.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Long before it was known to me as a place where my ancestry was even remotely involved, the idea of a state…” — Christopher Hitchens", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 16, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“That war [Bosnian war] in the early 1990s changed a lot for me. I never thought I would see, in Europe, a full-dress reprise of internment camps, the mass murder of civilians, the reinstiutution of torture and rape as acts of policy. And I didn't expect so many of my comrades to be indifferent - or even take the side of the fascists. It was a time when many people on the left were saying 'Don't intervene, we'll only make things worse' or, 'Don't intervene, it might destabilise the region. And I thought - destabilisation of fascist regimes is a good thing. Why should the left care about the stability of undemocratic regimes? Wasn't it a good thing to destabilise the regime of General Franco? It was a time when the left was mostly taking the conservative, status quo position - leave the Balkans alone, leave Milosevic alone, do nothing. And that kind of conservatism can easily mutate into actual support for the aggressors. Weimar-style conservatism can easily mutate into National Socialism. So you had people like Noam Chomsky's co-author Ed Herman go from saying 'Do nothing in the Balkans', to actually supporting Milosevic, the most reactionary force in the region. That's when I began to first find myself on the same side as the neocons. I was signing petitions in favour of action in Bosnia, and I would look down the list of names and I kept finding, there's Richard Perle. There's Paul Wolfowitz. That seemed interesting to me. These people were saying that we had to act. Before, I had avoided them like the plague, especially because of what they said about General Sharon and about Nicaragua. But nobody could say they were interested in oil in the Balkans, or in strategic needs, and the people who tried to say that - like Chomsky - looked ridiculous. So now I was interested.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Christopher Hitchens" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/that-war-bosnian-war-in-the-early-1990s-changed-a-lot-for-me-i-never/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/872/christopher-hitchens-117_anti-war_that-war-bosnian-war-in-the-early-1990s_3077861.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/872/christopher-hitchens-117_anti-war_that-war-bosnian-war-in-the-early-1990s_3077861.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/872/christopher-hitchens-117_anti-war_that-war-bosnian-war-in-the-early-1990s_3077861.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“That war [Bosnian war] in the early 1990s changed a lot for me. I never thought I would see, in Europe, a…” — Christopher Hitchens", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } } ] }, { "@type": "CollectionPage", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/leftism/christopher-hitchens/#webpage", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/leftism/christopher-hitchens/", "name": "Leftism Quotes by Christopher Hitchens", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/leftism/christopher-hitchens/#itemlist" }, "primaryImageOfPage": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/70e/christopher-hitchens-117_leftism_there-is-a-tendency-on-the-left-to-think_1917676.jpg" }, "description": "16 Leftism quotes by Christopher Hitchens. 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