A fair hearing for Satan ... or the much maligned "anti-Semite"

From Comments to "Anti-Israelism and Anti-Semitism: The Invidious Conflation" 9/2/2018

Comment by ATM

If the same logic were applied uniformly and if Nazi Gernany still existed we would be prevented from criticizing their policies, because criticizing the Nazi government would be racist against the Arian race.

And so we are cooped into enabling fascist ideology which is not Israel, Judaism, or Zionism but extreme right nationalism moving in the direction of fascism, hiding behind labels that should not protect it."

And my response:

Exactly, and here's a bit of edgy irony. We hear the term anti-Semitism and anti-Semite bandied about promiscuously by people who declare with puffed-up moral outrage that ***THEY*** are not anti-Semites. Fine. But isn't it at least a little bit presumptuous to have someone who declares most strenuously that they are not one of ***THEM*** to be the authority on the nature of ***THEM*** -- to control the definition of those they condemn. That is, to never allow one of ***THEM*** -- a declared anti-Semite -- to offer their own self-definition?

Mark Twain once wrote the following:

"I have no special regard for Satan; but I can at least claim that I have no prejudice against him. It may even be that I lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show.

All religions issue bibles against him, and say the most injurious things about him, but we never hear his side. We have none but the evidence for the prosecution, and yet we have rendered the verdict. To my mind, this is irregular. It is un-English; it is un-American; it is French. Without this precedent Dreyfus could not have been condemned.

Of course Satan has some kind of a case, it goes without saying. It may be a poor one, but that is nothing; that can be said about any of us. As soon as I can get at the facts I will undertake his rehabilitation myself, if I can find an unpolitic publisher. It is a thing which we ought to be willing to do for any one who is under a cloud. We may not pay him reverence, for that would be indiscreet, but we can at least respect his talents.

A person who has for untold centuries maintained the imposing position of spiritual head of four-fifths of the human race, and political head of the whole of it, must be granted the possession of executive abilities of the loftiest order. In his large presence the other popes and politicians shrink to midges for the microscope. I would like to see him. I would rather see him and shake him by the tail than any other member of the European Concert."

So I say, "Shall we not hear the other side of the matter from a bona fide "anti-Semite", or at least his "unpolitic" advocate? Not, I fear, on AW.C.