What Peter Beinart Argued for in 1992

We will not let destroy our country today

In 1992, the year of the first Clinton presidential victory, I was a freshman (though we called them “frosh” to be what was then called PC) at Yale and Peter Beinart was a senior. He was a respected elder of the Liberal Party of the Yale Political Union, of which I was an up and coming frosh, soon to be Chair.

I will caveat this all by saying that Peter was always personally very kind to me. He may have even supported me in my tortured run for Chair. But he held some political positions that at the time seemed a bit wrongheaded but now I can see prefigure a whole career dedicated to destroying western civilization.

The Libs would have debates once a week, as did all the parties, on our own, aside from the full YUP meetings. Other parties had a full bar at their debates, leading to many fond memories of someone saying, “Get the lady a drink!” But the Libs had pizza and soda at ours cause, well, Libs. Each week, the Executive Board, which met at Dakota J’s (I remembered that place, wow) would decided on a topic.

I clearly recall when the topic was female genital mutilation. Is it like okay or something is how the resolution was worded. Peter argued that it was cultural practice that should be respected.

At the time most of us took that as an anti-feminist position. We were all big feminists back then, when being a feminist meant wanting equal pay, being pro-choice and wanting to wear what we wished and date or sleep with or marry whomever we wanted. We read Peter’s okay-ness with this barbaric practice as a sign of not being pro-woman. I don’t think I had any clue how deeply it represented an animus towards western values and standards, as well as a pathological need to affirm and uplift anything that is considered brown, black, non-western or somehow oppressed.

I still found it creepy at the time. How can you call the removal of a part of a woman’s body, without her consent, at the hands of her family, and usually in unsanitary conditions, anything but criminal? But he did. And he grew up to be the Peter Beinart Jill knows and skewers.

This morning as I was waiting for my schedule at work I read a post by one of my new favorite Substack authors, Beyond the Narrative. An Israeli woman shares her adventures on the dating scene in the US, including this one, A Date with a Woke Criminal Lawyer Taught Me Everything About the Elephant in the Room. Do take the time to go read it now. I love her work so much that I became a paid subscriber at the monthly rate even though funds are tight.

You must read her backed-by-statistics discussion of Muslim Arab violence in Israel, most of it violence against women. Her overall observation that one is called a racist simply for stating facts is important for us all to recognize. We have to stop shrinking from saying what is true simply because we wish it weren’t true and it doesn’t fit the left’s narrative.

If you grew up a liberal or a progressive, you probably want to believe the best of people. You want an open society where cultures blend together to be a beautiful reality (funded by tax dollars.) The product of generations of a high trust society where hard work, individual liberty, religious freedom, and the rule of law are taken for granted, you assume that deep down everyone wants to operate under these same principles and that everyone (except the white Republicans whose homes you have have driven past on your way to a vaca spot somewhere far from the deep blue city in summer) has the best of intentions and deep down wants to be a tolerant, open-minded liberal/progressive like yourself.

My dear progressive/liberal friends: please either wake up or shut up before you kill us all. Or rather, before your terrorist friends jump off of Greta’s flotilla and do it for you. We know you would not pull the trigger of a gun you would not own yourself, but progressives stand aside when all manner of atrocities are committed by their favorite designated oppressed people. From DeCarlos Brown in Charlotte to the rape gangs in Great Britain to honor killings going on in this country, too many so-called nice people are fine with rape and even murder as long as the people committing the crime do it in the name of a religion that isn’t Christianity and have the color of skin that wins them instant approval.

Of course there is nothing wrong with law abiding persons of any faith and any color practicing their religion. As long as they abide by the laws of this country, including laws that protect women from forced marriage, child rape, and mutilation of any kind. Isn’t it kinda crazy that I have to write that in 2026?

Peter Beinart led the way in 1992, with his tacit endorsement of female genital mutilation. Thanks Peter. Leading us to hell for almost 35 years!

It’s enough to turn someone who was previously as blue as a Smurf into a red-blooded American. Red light saber too,.