text:
Ironically, tolerance between faiths was best ensured in societies where the dominant culture insisted on sects living in civic peace. Real multiculturalism was only possible under the framework of a kind of monocultural tolerance. Some such societies briefly flourished at the end of the 20th century. Some such nations, like Britain or the United States, had a predominantly Christian value base. But that did not matter for so long as the consensus reflected ideas roughly consistentw with the spirit of the First Amendment.
But such "dead white men's cultures" were deemed evil. And they have since been under continuous internal demolition, in favor of "multiculturalism" which has set everyone at each other's throats. One of the side-effects of the Left's attempts to fragment society into victim groups has been the destruction of the consensus culture which made tolerance possible and its replacement by all kinds of extremist groups, each posing as victims, whose goal is not to live within the decaying consensus but to establish a diktat of their own. The consensus today is that we should tolerate intolerance. It is both a measure of decay and replacement that Western governments can hardly bring themselves to pressure their "allies" into observing the basic standard of what would be called "human rights."
One can hardly blame the enlightened Left for not knowing up from down. Jay Schalin describes the president's new appointee to the National Council of the Humanities. Cathy Davidson described the kind of activities she'd like to support in a speech to the American Studies Association.
Turkish pants and Tiffany hoods; Japanese Elvis impersonators; Shamu the Whale; the lesbian subject in Arab culture; … the "white" problem in American studies; Pueblo figurative ceramics; low-rider cars in northern New Mexico; Haitian Rara celebrations; American Orisa worship; Spiderwoman Theatre; … "The Boyz in the Hoods: Academy Bashing as a 'Popular' Culture" and another on "Discourse and Dat Course: Postcoloniality and Afrocentricity."
Pehaps she believes that if that entire menagerie were set to dancing in the streets they would live in Peace and Harmony for as long as the "married, white, heterosexual males" who are the source of all malice were suppressed. The reality is that all those colorful cultures would probably be at daggers drawn if they didn't all live under the Constitution. Shamu the Whale would simply be the Japanese Elvis impersonator's next meal. But logic has never been the strong suit of those who have difficulty distinguishing between vision and hallucination.
"Those who the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad." And the craziness is now manifest. People who call themselves "liberals" are now in the odious position of apologizing for the murderous persecution of minorities, be they Jew, Christian, Druze, or Baha'i. Do you want to be "cool"? Attack Israel. Would you like to be tagged a bigot? March or speak out in support of the Copts. Never bring up the question of the Filipina maid chained to the sink in polite Leftist circles. It can't be made into America's fault.
The degree to which the Western left has been ideologically disarmed is reflected in its twisted support for the establishment of a trophy mosque near the site of the World Trade Center attacks. They are so afraid of being labeled "intolerant" that they will go to any extent of bigotry to prove it.
Recently the Australian reported that Saudi Arabia, another American ally, had arrested a vulture for spying for Israel. According to the Toronto Sun, "officials are accusing Israel of sending a specially trained vulture into their airspace near the city of Hayel." Why of course, why didn't everyone see it coming?
First there was the killer shark that Egypt said Mossad had dropped in its coastal waters to scare off tourists from its Red Sea resorts. Now Saudi Arabia has "arrested" a vulture on suspicion of spying for the Israeli intelligence agency. The offending bird, which had apparently been tagged by researchers from Tel Aviv University studying migration patterns, was captured in a rural area of the Saudi kingdom, which is officially still at war with the Jewish state.
Liberals should worry. Not simply because they may be next after the Christians, the sharks and now the vultures (here shown training for the spy mission in Little Italy). They should also worry because without quite realizing it, they've turned out the lights; and now they should rightly fear what lurks in the shadow.
Link to Wretchard's novel "No Way In" print edition
Link to Wretchard's novel "No Way In" Kindle Edition"
128 Comments, 128 Threads
1. Morton Doodslag
Wretchard threads the needle. Again. Excellent analysis.
January 6, 2011 - 12:21 pm Link to this Comment -
2. Vanguard of the Commentariat
I have to admit, the left's unholy alliance with radical Islam is a complete mystery to me, and has been since about 10 am eastern time on 9/11/2001. I am certainly no Ivy League grad, but I cannot find any common ground between the two besides a rabid hatred of George Bush, and he is long out of power. Our own Muslim US congressman, Keith Ellison is a left wing Democrat, and how he reconciles the Democrat party stance on abortion, gay rights, minorities' and women's rights with those of Islam would keep normal people up nights. I notice nobody in the brave truth speaking to power media has asked him about it either, no doubt to avoid the appearance of "intolerance". It would seem to me that if the left's caricatures and ad hominems about conservatives were even remotely accurate, then Tea Partiers should be the ones courting radical Islam based on their shared interests of keeping women, gays and minorities down, not "liberals".
And of course, Islamist governments ascribing the behaviour of animals to Zionist coercion is Life of Brian stuff, but everyone is reporting it as if it were a serious matter. Strange times indeed.
January 6, 2011 - 12:37 pm Link to this Comment -
3. Tamquam
That's Maronite Christian, not Maronie, Wretchard.
January 6, 2011 - 12:41 pm Link to this Comment -
4. stoicheion
I keep telling people "Fair is a weather report". It is not a description of life. Life is unfair. It mostly is short and brutish and you never get out alive. The best one can do is work to make it not so short and brutal for your children. Those that think life should be 'fair' create all sorts of problems with their expectation. They need to just get over them.
What is droll is that those willing to fight and die are not fighting for fairness but to get to the top of the heap. Except for the US Military. They fight for each other.January 6, 2011 - 1:01 pm Link to this Comment -
5. wretchard
Spelling fixed.
Samir Geagea, the Maronite Christian "warlord" exuded an almost palpable charisma when he spoke to us at a bunker in his hilltop redoubt. I remember thinking how colorless the average diplomat seemed beside these warrior/mystics.
Afterward I came to the conclusion that The Life assigns a high survival value to leadership and inspirational qualities. If you don't have "it" then you are not going to last long in the high intensity world of conspiracy. In a world without rules, where courts mean nothing and life is only as good as trust, you have to inspire loyalty in your followers. This comes in part comes from being larger than life.
The West may be one of the few places where you can rise to the top by being a literal nothing. That's good in one way but bad in another. On the one hand, a man can rise to the pinnacle by simply doing his job, not by inventing a movement. On the other hand, those at the summit of power in the West, the Julia Gillards and the Barack Obamas of the world, are far less formidable individuals than the Putins or even Samir Geageas of history.
The Western margin of superiority comes from the quality of its society, not the brilliance of its leaders. Lately the problem has been that Western leaders have sought to remold the society whose floors they were hired to sweep, in their own image, which they've mistaken for excellence. Most Presidents are rarely worthy of America. In the past they knew it. Maybe things have decayed to the point where the least intelligent of them now believe America is unworthy of them.
January 6, 2011 - 1:02 pm Link to this Comment -
6. stoicheion
2. Vanguard of the Commentariat
Both are 'statist' systems, in that a despot rules them all. That makes any politic that is self ruled the enemy. A whole lot of Americans don't understand that tyranny, monarchy and despotism in all their forms are natural enemies of the USA and always will be. That is why those types always look for a reason why America is under attack. Our enemies need no reason besides America being America.
As a shining example of humanities ability to rule itself, we are a constant threat to the despots.January 6, 2011 - 1:11 pm Link to this Comment -
7. 49erDweet
Is this the time we're supposed to hear "moderate Muslims" speak out? If not now, when? If not them, who? Or are they akin to unheard trees falling in the forest? Inquiring minds would like to know.
No? Thought so.
January 6, 2011 - 1:17 pm Link to this Comment -
8. wretchard
Former Spook has an interesting post describing a minority-majority situation: the case of Captain Owen Honors, the former commander of the USS Enterprise. Former Spook argues that the crews defense of Honors indicates that he was an effective leader and that what is "morale boosting" inside the Navy subculture is not necessarily acceptable in the wider civilian political culture which sailors serve.
it appears that few among the carrier's crew took offense to the videos. In fact, a number of Enterprise sailors, current and former–men and women–have rallied to Captain Honors' defense. As Sara Sorcher of the National Journal reports:
In solidarity with Honors, Facebook groups with titles like "We Support Captain O.P. Honors!" have garnered thousands of members. Nearly 1,000 have signed a petition to keep him as commander of the carrier, and many have swapped out their Facebook pictures for images of Honors in uniform.
Before Honors became XO of the Enterprise, the mood on board was "awful," said Kimberly Wooster, 32, who served as an electronics technician from 2001 to 2005 and left because she was so unhappy.
Former Spook describes the clash between subculture and parent culture. As I've pointed out before, multiculturalism has not so much abolished value judgments so much as substituted alternative moral standards for the old ones. The problem (as I've also pointed out) is understanding what rules apply in a particular situation.
We're guessing that the brass viewed Honors as an effective leader. Unit morale is one of the responsibilities of a ship XO (executive officer), and it looks like Captain Honors inherited a very unhappy crew on Enterprise. Apparently, most of the sailors appreciated his efforts and we're guessing that the "Big E's" efficiency improved under his watch. So, the brass was willing to look the other way.
Incidentally, we are not trying to condone Captain Honors morale efforts. But the videos that have found their way into the public realm also remind us that the Navy has its own, unique culture. Bawdy skits and offensive humor have long been used to relieve the monotony that sets in after months at sea. It was in this tradition that Honors produced his videos, and judging by the comments on various Facebook pages and other on-line forums, his efforts were appreciated.
But even if his motives were focused on crew morale and mission accomplishment, you still have to ask the essential question: what was Captain Honors thinking? We assume that the former carrier commander was aware that his videos were making their way around the fleet. And surely he knew it was just a matter of time before they showed up on YouTube. The fact they weren't on-line (until the Virginian-Pilot got hold on them) is another testament to the popularity and respect that Honors earned from his sailors.
They understood that on-board "morale videos" were intended for the crew–and no one else. It was one more shared experience that bonded them together during months of training and long periods at sea. It's a concept that is almost alien to anyone who hasn't been a sailor, or part of the wider military community.
In fairness, this kind of context shifting damnation happens with increasing frequency. Jeremiah Wright found what is said in a certain context would travel poorly in the outer world. Julian Assange found that the new rules are harder to negotiate than a complex network topology. There is pressure on everybody to talk in code. Maybe you can still "swear like a sailor", but not so you can give offense to whoever it may concern. The new multicultural, politically correct world may not be noticeably more tolerant than that which came before, but it is more 'nuanced'.
January 6, 2011 - 1:37 pm Link to this Comment -
9. Uncle Jefe
#2 Vanguard…
It is simply this: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
They both think that after their alliance has destroyed America, then they will rule supreme, the muslims by murdering all opposition, the leftists by eroding the muslim faith, and leaving the only true 'god', The State.
Up until now, the plan has worked well for both, with islam violently bullying its way through the East, and socialism destroying faith and family in Europe, and now the US.January 6, 2011 - 1:49 pm Link to this Comment -
10. Blast From the Past
Egypt is beginning a "massive security operation," How good does that make you feel when it is the security people who may be doing the killing? Some Muslims did volunteer to stand with their Christian neighbors and the police sent them away. The First Intifada started when the PA selected and Western trained guards turned the guns the Israelis had given them on their patrol partners.
When we conquered Afghanistan we should have treated them as they expected us to. We should have announced that anyone who harms an American or a religious minority or a foreign missionary will die after seeing their family home or village destroyed. Then we should have flooded the places with troops and missionaries, Christian Buddhist or Parsi and nice warm sympathetic liberal American schoolteachers. We should have made clear that for at least 15 years we would control their education.
In primitive cultures people only obey the rules because of external force. In Russia if there is no man with a gun people turn into a mob on the subway. In civilized places people help each other. Islamism is a distillation of every primitive and barbaric trait. All the vices that anti-semites falsely attribute to Jews are in fact part of Islamic doctrine. If you are not part of the tribe you get treated like dirt. In fact if you are part of the tribe you get treated like dirt too but may not know it because you are told that there are others you can really despise.
January 6, 2011 - 1:56 pm Link to this Comment -
11. 49erDweet
Re: the Enterprise incident, I'm thinking the smug, mindless twerps at the Virginian-Pilot who uncomprehendingly outed the story are now wetting themselves in happiness for striking a blow for . . . just what? Unraunchiness? Being totally unconscious of what it takes to lead a team? What smallish and closed minds liberals must have.
January 6, 2011 - 2:15 pm Link to this Comment -
12. Tamquam
As for poor Capt. Honors, clearly he is a product of the Old Navy. In my day Bosun's Mates could peel paint by vigorous application of sulfurous language. Nobody minded except the one he was looking at. Pansy a$$ admiral that won't stand up for his subordinate doing the right thing. Pandering to the political masters, no doubt. Part of the general pu$$ification of the Navy.
January 6, 2011 - 2:21 pm Link to this Comment -
13. Gordon
49/D–no sympathy for the Virginian-Pilot and WADR to Capt Honors, but he made a bad mistake, ie trying to be one of the boys when you're a full bird senior officer. I know his motives were the best but you just can't do that at his level. You want to let your hair down, goof off a little–do it amongst your peers when you have the chance.
My colonel was one of the greatest guys I've ever known (Col C.H. Schmid, USMC, may he RIP)–warm, friendly, relaxed. But when he held court for the junior officers in the regiment every Wed afternoon at the O Club, he'd have two drinks, go home, and leave us to our business.
January 6, 2011 - 2:25 pm Link to this Comment -
14. LarryD
All of the US Military needs to understand, the MSM are not your friends, in fact they should be regarded as hostile foreigners. Because that is what they are.
January 6, 2011 - 2:38 pm Link to this Comment -
15. Patriot Front
To VoC #2, "I have to admit, the left's unholy alliance with radical Islam is a complete mystery to me…"
Coincidentally, "Unholy Alliance" is the title of David Horowitz's book that explains that very connection; a must-read. Anti-Americanism is the root.
January 6, 2011 - 3:05 pm Link to this Comment -
16. Josh
I dunno, the Shiites oppress the Sunni, the Sunni oppress the Shiites, even where either is the minority they "oppress" each other with bombings and whatnot.
I think this "minority" talk is off-target.
January 6, 2011 - 3:22 pm Link to this Comment -
17. 49erDweet
13. Grdn/ Agreed if the good Capt. had been on base or in port where civilians and/or dependents had been in the mix, but he was at sea in a different environment. Wouldn't Col Schmid, mhrip, have used different leadership techniques when the regiment was under arms and sequestered for an extended period in a foreign land? I ask this because of the example of my own wing commander, Col. Wm Smith, USAF, mhrip, when he flew as second-in-command on a air crew. He had two distinct personae; at HQ he was strait-laced and proper, on the flight line he was a team player. [Of course I realize the AF wasn't really a proper military branch],
January 6, 2011 - 3:36 pm Link to this Comment -
18. Habu
I would like to associate myself with the sentiments expressed by Mr. Morton Doodslag in the #1 post.
Very ,very nice piece of work.
Now, lets get on with nuking the tribal areas in Afghanistan.
January 6, 2011 - 3:47 pm Link to this Comment -
19. Eggplant
LarryD @ 14 said:
"All of the US Military needs to understand, the MSM are not your friends, in fact they should be regarded as hostile foreigners. Because that is what they are."
During the Civil War, William T. Sherman absolutely hated the press. He regarded journalists as little more than traitors and enjoyed learning that they had been killed in combat. Of course, it was a civil war and many of the journalists really were traitors to the Union cause. However I find myself wondering if this is the nature of the beast and not simply an MSM thing. The counter-argument to believing this are people like Michael Yon and Bill Roggio, who are excellent war correspondents. They both report directly to the Internet and are not beholden to some moonbat narrative required by an MSM editor.
January 6, 2011 - 3:50 pm Link to this Comment -
20. wretchard
The Black Legion is perhaps best known as the film that should have made Humphrey Bogart. I was surprised to discover it was based the factual story of a renegade faction of the Ku Klux Klan based in Detroit.
The Bogart confession scene, where he breaks down and identifies his co-conspirators, is on YouTube. Listening to the judge's discourse on the Constitution now ("that incomprehensible document more than a hundred years old" as some regard it now) one is struck by how little difference there was between the Black Legion and fatwas or sentences of death passed by small groups upon those who dare defy them.
Certainly Qadri, the Pakistani who saw fit to punish anyone who dared oppose his vision of "Islamism" would fit the profile of night rider. What makes him invisible to the Left is the inability to believe that bigotry can be found among their own sacred cows. The usual presumption by the Left is that rule by intimidation is the province of the "right". In point of fact it is the province of conspiracies and once that becomes understood, Bolshevism stands accused just as seriously as anything else.
January 6, 2011 - 3:56 pm Link to this Comment -
21. Habu
Piss me off time.
Pentagon to cut spending by $78 billion, reduce troop strength
The Pentagon will have to cut spending by $78 billion over the next five years, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday, forcing the Army and Marine Corps to shrink the number of troops on active duty and eventually imposing the first freeze on military spending since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The surprise announcement from Gates was a reminder for the military establishment – which has benefited from a gusher of new money over the past decade – that it will not remain exempt from painful austerity measures that federal lawmakers say will be necessary to control the soaring national debt.More http://tinyurl.com/2b4od45
I've said it many many times. Obama is a clear and present danger to this country. Having had his minions destroy the value of our currency under suspicious reasoning and scare tactics, and then nationalizing the auto industry if he isn't a Communist agent then I'm not a live breathing human. The man is a POS.
We need a reduced Armed forces like ahole in the head. We are under assault from every degree on the compass and he, in his "I hate America fashion " gives trillions to foreign governments through the back door and now turns on our security.
Did I say the man was a traitor, well I should have.
January 6, 2011 - 4:06 pm Link to this Comment -
22. dan
the left supports anyone who can damage, as Wretch calls it, the western consensus. that's pretty much it. they don't support the islam so much as the destruction, in islamic form.
January 6, 2011 - 4:20 pm Link to this Comment -
23. Gordon
49D/17–it's a good point but I can't say as we were in the US the whole time. Whole books have been written but I still can't define "leadership" but I know some examples:
1) my colonel was unhappy about something in my area of responsibility and he said, without smile or frown, simply: "That's got to improve; understand?" and I was ready to kill myself.
2) while briefly on loan to another command I made an honest mistake in judgment, knowing nothing about the CO, only to get a huge, vicious ***-chewing from him, Navy four-striper, in front of a bunch of enlisted, who loved it. I've had worse on the sidelines of a tight game but to this day I still resent it.
To be fair to #2, nobody could stand this comparison and I was a big boy. The regimental adjutant, a mustang capt, loved it and told everybody (thanks, pal!!).
January 6, 2011 - 4:29 pm Link to this Comment -
I cannot find any common ground between the two besides a rabid hatred of …
You typed George Bush, but I think you really mean America. The Left will ally with, support, and provide cover for anti-Americans wherever they can find them. Stupid of them, but that's what you get with lefties.
I think Leftists fall into two categories. One group is too stupid to realize they're part of an authoritarian movement, they think oppression is something only White Male Christians can do. These people are quite simply idiots, and they're a big problem because anything you try to do to smarten them up just reinforces their biases.
The second group is just plain evil, though also stupid in their own way. This group knows they are authoritarians, and want to destroy liberty so they can lord it over everyone else. Their stupidity comes in not realizing every authoritarian revolution eventually produces its Bolshies and only one faction can have true power. Or maybe they do realize that, but, being among the most racists, bigoted people you can find, probably think the Muzzies will be easy to get rid of when the times comes. The thougth that they themselves might be easy prey for violent fanatics doesn't occur to them, at least not often enough.
I find myself frustrated by the two groups. I hate the second group because they threaten my liberty, but I hate the first group too because they misuse their liberty in a way that threatens my own. Argh.
January 6, 2011 - 4:43 pm Link to this Comment -
25. 49erDweet
23. Grdn: Let's not get start on bad leaders. Shudder. In my view good leaders read their troops and adapt as necessary. Bad leaders are like the example set by the responding Metro PD unit's supervisor in Las Vegas at the Erik Scott-Costco tragedy last fall. All the action took place at the front doors, but from what I heard the supervisor was self-assigned to "guard" the rear loading dock.
January 6, 2011 - 5:13 pm Link to this Comment -
26. Forgotten Man
Excellent Richard!
I think that the US Government looks at the "big picture" and missed all the detail the make the picture. How can we defend gays and women, and not defend religious minorities? Don't we spend billions of dollars in some of these countries? Egypt, Pakistan, Iraq? Maybe we should stop providing aid on a national level and work directly with sub-groups. Maybe Kurds, Christians, and all 110 Jews left in Iraq. Maybe some of the northern groups in Afghanistan along with the small groups of Christians and secular groups there and in Pakistan.
Giving money to the UN or UN programs is a waste of money in all cases. The UN does not care about freedom, honesty, fairness, or human rights. Units within the UN actively work against US and European interests and takes no action against tyrants. UN troops watch murder and rape take place and sometimes UN troops participate in these activities.
Out Executive Branch and State Department refuse to see reality, and if reality kicks them in the teeth they act surprised and then take some action that does not address the problem.
It it realistic to think that is a decade there will be no Christians or Jews in the Middle East with the exception of Israel, and maybe Turkey, if we support Turkey's secular government.January 6, 2011 - 5:15 pm Link to this Comment -
27. steveaz
Thanks for this one, Richard.
'Thought I'd pose a partial solution that'll sort out this global culture clash, explode the dodgy EU, and perhaps help out our own economy at the same time.
Last I checked, the US still has the freedom to choose which nations we trade and exchange with. We can use that freedom to segregate the globe along very simple, distinct lines. I think W said it first, but I'll sling it here with a little more finesse: you're either a classically liberal, transparent, capitalistic republic, or we do not recognize you.
Let's put the globe's cons, both inside and outside our nation on the prick of this pin, and make them choose. Do you want access to our markets? Do you want our military protections? Do you enjoy our patent laws, our flush media markets, and our protections from libel? Our technologies, our real estate? Then get with the program.
Overnight, fence-sitters like Malaysia, India (yeah, India), China south of the Huang, and Indonesia will make their fateful choices. Some hold-outs like Pakistan and Iran, the Han, and Russia might get a face-saving period to set their people free, say, maybe twenty-four months, but then they're cut off. They can sell their gew-gaws and distilled fuels to an economically stagnant Barnettian "Gap."
An adjunct move will be made in the UN. After its dismal record enforcing it's own security council resolutions, the only thing standing the UN up is our participation in it. We should outline a gradual (so as to appear moderate about it) defunding of this body so as to create an alternative "Union of Democracies." This could begin as a caucus of real US allies within the UN demanding audits and reviews of UN actions, then progess to rational threats of disbanding, while we quietly rebuild our real alliances for good.
The EU, in my opinion, could not withstand our selective trade policy. Britain is one of America's tried and true allies…Spain's been a bit dodgy of late, though. Our citizens' freedom to associate in different ways with both of them will obviate the EU's homogenizing forces, and its facade will fall under this new, unforeseen push.
I'll end this here to keep it short. I put this to paper because I think it's an idea that has silent popularity right now. I rub elbows with a lot of blue-beard legal types from both American political parties, and they're all saying this same thing.
CheersJanuary 6, 2011 - 5:27 pm Link to this Comment -
28. Walt
Alcohol is forbidden to the devout muslim, and while a drink will make the faithful a bit belligerent, intimidation does not always work.
I do not like thee or thy smell
I do not like thy faith as well
And this I know to thee I tell
You die today and rot in hell
I do not like the stinking Jew
I do not like him nor I you
To kill him is the thing to do
Till there are none or very few
The Christian is a parasite
He clings to land that's ours by right
My friends and I come in the night
To catch him in the act of flight
The Hindu now we save for last
His death will rectify the past
We kill him and entire caste
We laugh to see him run so fast
I tell you this so you should know
That Allah is the way to go
All others we see as the foe
We strike in Allah's name the blow
You infidel are past your time
Your weakness shows you're past your prime
And now you pay for every crime
Your clock of death is now to chime
We'll treat you like the dung you are
As slaves of the Islamic Dar
Yes you may run but not get far
Please put up gun I out of carJanuary 6, 2011 - 6:38 pm Link to this Comment -
29. Josh
g @ 23: I've never been in the military, but all over the corporate world. There I'd say there are as many types of leaders as there are people. Only – in the last decade, very very few, nearly zero. I haven't seen senior level *leadership* in ten years, but part of that is, it doesn't show itself to the troops anymore. The suits I *have* seen in big companies and small, have all sucked. I mean, not just failed to impress, but impressed by their cluelessness, offended by and scared of the worker bees, and uninterested in whether results are achieved. Where have all the flowers gone?
How'd we get on leadership, as a positive alternative to coercion by terror?
January 6, 2011 - 6:42 pm Link to this Comment -
30. hallmonitor
"the Western margin of superiority comes from the quality comes from the quality of it's society…." #6
That one paragraph sums up the political blight that infects New York City and every voting age resident who chooses to vote or not vote. The Billionaire's sandbox (snowbox), that is Michael Bloomberg's deathly yet deft grip on a society that crumbles like a stale cookie filled with our misfortune that these citizens sought a Caesar and his empire ( 3rd largest media org.) and all they got was a midget Caesar without a profile.
The arrogant rule due to our blindness of our own arrogance. Freemen don't cast vote for billionaires or emperors.
January 6, 2011 - 6:47 pm Link to this Comment -
31. toadold
As has been stated here before the dangerous time will come when those abused by the "elites" expectations start to outpace the actual improvements in their situation. Right now the policies of the infantile "elites"are getting people killed. People freezing to death England because the Met office was so ate up with AGW it predicted warm weather and fools believed them. Deaths caused by agents being outed by security leakers. Women and girls killed in Western countries in the name of Islamic law. More and more the realization is growing that it is a death match. Not just between Islam and the West but between the adults and the wienies of the left.
January 6, 2011 - 7:08 pm Link to this Comment -
32. Gregg
RE: "They should also worry because without quite realizing it, they've turned out the lights; and now they should rightly fear what lurks in the shadow."
Which provides us with the ultimate response to modern liberalism's failure to support true liberty: "you are likely to be eaten by a grue."
January 6, 2011 - 8:49 pm Link to this Comment -
33. dick
10. Blast Past noted "primitive cultures people only obey the rules because of external force"
We let Muqtada al Sadr loose in 2004 after he organized the killing of dozens of coalition troops in Sadr City and supported resistance in the fighting in Fallujah. Because we what? Were afraid of offending Shiites?
Last week Shiite Al Maliki announced he wants us out of Iraq, and lo and behold, a week later, Mookie Green Teeth reappears on the scene, a member of Iraqi government. Just how long before our troops'sacrifice will go for naught as Iraq becomes a theocracy?
Tiptoeing around, fearing to offend some folks who desparately deserve offense resolves nothing at best and wastes time, treasure and gets good people killed at the worst.January 6, 2011 - 9:11 pm Link to this Comment -
34. westerncanadian
The left acts like the tame rabbits in the book "Watership Down". The tame rabbits were well fed by a local farmer and had no need to forage for themselves. They had become liberal and made decorative art on the walls of their warrens. They danced. The price for their state of unearned welfare was the regular execution of a few tame rabbits by the farmer for his own food supply. Living under constant intimidation and defending their indefensible lifestyle, the tame rabbits became neurotic and mentally unstable.
Like the tame rabbits, the left has bamboozled itself into defending the indefensible. By doing so it has become a supplicant to the intimidators and by some twisted logic imagines supplication to be both a demonstration and a defence of civilized liberalism.
The examples of intimidation that Mr Fernandez gives are of one religious tribe attacking another, but it's really just one tribe intimidating another simply because it can. The religion thing is just a cloak used to cover the underlying barbarity.
Barbarity is the problem, not the cloak.
January 6, 2011 - 9:36 pm Link to this Comment -
35. wretchard
Barbarity is the problem, not the cloak
And that is why, despite the fact that Islam has structural problems, Islamism is the problem. Islam without Islamism would lack the menace. All barbarisms have a core library in common. They tend, like Tolstoy's happy families, to resemble each other in some way. Islamism is to barbarism as strawberry is to an ice cream soda. It's a flavor, but it shares the same essence with other ice-cream sodas, whether they are chocolate or vanilla. The other types of ice-cream soda are well known. The 20th century barely beat their Western counterparts back — the barbaric mutations of the old continent's culture.
The fizz that holds these things up is power. It precisely because the totalitarianisms are so much alike that they insist they are so different. Marxism hates to be compared to Nazism and alike they would reject any comparison to Osama bin Laden's credo, but they are ideological first cousins. They are alike compleat kingdoms of this world. They are collectives with an answer to everything, which by necessity means the individual is nothing in their reckoning; expendable for the sake of the race, the future or the ummah. Strawberry, chocolate or vanilla.
Their main problem is with people who don't want to buy what they're selling. They are a problem greater than competition. These are people who've seen through or have no inclination for their marketing message.
"My Kingdom is not of this world" is one way of saying there is nothing in their totalitarian store that the free individual wants to purchase. Such non-customers are a problem because their earthly systems are either all inclusive or self-evidently false. But such individuals — the people who don't want to buy the totalitarian ice-cream soda — are at a disadvantage. They cannot reject the sale in an organized way. They lack the mindless cohesion that these belief-systems confer.
When leading Doubting Thomases — free men — against True Believers of any stripe there is always the temptation to think that the true believers will prevail. For how can the doubters prevail against the fanatics? The fanatic's boast is that you cannot change his mind. The free man's boast is that his mind may change at any time.
But the advantage is not always with the fanatic because freedom, or faith founded in doubt if you will, carries with it an advantage of its own. An openness to the truth.
What the free individual can do which the Collective Vanguard often can't is listen directly to the voice of reality. He can see what works without disbelieving the evidence of his eyes. Or if you prefer, he can hear the Creator because he has no earplugs. He can do this because he has no gods on earth and therefore looks to the right place.
Free men are a far more creative and chaotic force than the legion of True Believers. You have to convince them; show them reasons, indicate the payoff. It's not possible to indicate the basin of Kool-Aid and give them a cup. That's for the fanatics, though they account this a strength.
But what is interesting to consider is that freedom isn't something that exists in a fully developed form among people. Individual wills, like collective decisions, grow and are formed in the crucible of experience and challenge. The War of Independence was necessary to make men free in part because the development of their freedom was contingent on the recognition, declaration and struggle for independence. They came to their inheritance. It did not fall into their laps.
It is therefore not oxymoronic to speak of organizing free people. But it means something different from regimenting the True Believers. It means creating conversations between them in the context of shared difficulties.
However the first thing to understand is that all barbarities are alike. Totalitarianisms are 99% DNA compatible and sterile. They have long been in competition with the notion of freedom for the future of mankind. As to which shall prevail, well place your bets.
January 6, 2011 - 10:18 pm Link to this Comment -
36. Kirk Parker
We should outline a gradual … defunding of [the UN]
A splendid idea. Whadda ya say 25% per week? A month ought to be gradual enough for most reasonable people…
January 6, 2011 - 10:46 pm Link to this Comment -
37. stoicheion
10. Blast From the Past
It's a numbers game. to pacify Afghanistan how you want requires about 700,000 troops. That does not count the guys back at base moving supplies. Counting them doubles or triples that number. The US Army numbers about 800,000 counting REMF's. So we would have to re-start the draft. Nobody wants that, especially the Army. So COIN was invented to try and do the job cheap. I don't think it will work. Most of those who study military history don't think it will work either. We will see. Us military historians have been wrong before. Sometimes in wholesale lots. The biggest single problem with Afghanistan is there is no political reason to be there. Without a reason to be there, we cannot win. There has to be a mission before it can be accomplished.January 6, 2011 - 10:49 pm Link to this Comment -
38. Fletcher Christian
#37 stoicheion – Pacifying Afghanistan would not require 700,000 troops. It would require maybe 100, if done in the right way and using the right equipment.
Of course, the fertile valleys of that hellhole would be blasted, poisoned wastelands for centuries afterwards but them's the breaks – and it's their "culture" that started it.
One answer to the problem of militant Islam:
January 6, 2011 - 11:23 pm Link to this Comment -
39. Blast From the Past
My original post was meant to refer to Iraq, where I agree with President Bush that there are strategic benefits to changing the culture worth a serious commitment, as well as Afghanistan. The armed forces of the US should be significantly larger, maybe three times their present size. Gates is now punishing the USMC and Army for resisting DADT repeal by chopping 70,000 slots during wartime, and keeping the civilians.
While I see a reason to be in Afghanistan I think that it needs to be viewed, as most things do, in context. In this case that means the surrounding or peripheral nations of Iran, KSA, China, Russia(n proxy -stans) and Pakistan. If we end the troubles caused by the ulcer that is Pakistan then Afghanistan reverts to a controllable annoyance. My expectation is that around 100,000 troops would be needed for the Karachi – Quetta – Kandahar (Baluchistan) region and a similar number for Afghanistan and the Pushtan regions. The Punjab and Sind I would leave to India. Iraq deserved a commitment of 250,000 troops for 15 years.
AgreedJanuary 6, 2011 - 11:35 pm Link to this Comment -
40. Mike_W
Give the world's non-muslim minorities priority immigration status in the West, as well as incentives and the means to move.
Wait until they all arrive.
Nuke the entire Uhmmah from orbit.
"It's the only way to be sure".http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=aCbfMkh940Q
January 7, 2011 - 12:29 am Link to this Comment -
41. Ivan
The Democrats share less of the blame for appeasing Islam than Republicans. Two of the worst Islamic states, Pakistan and SArabia were mollycoddled by the Reaganites as alleged shields against Communism. Thoughtful Democrats were pointing out that the ultimate outcome of Iraq war may well be a strengthening of Iran which is what has transpired
January 7, 2011 - 12:47 am Link to this Comment -
42. wretchard
The Democrats share less of the blame for appeasing Islam than Republicans. Two of the worst Islamic states, Pakistan and SArabia were mollycoddled by the Reaganites as alleged shields against Communism.
How did it go? "If Hitler invaded hell the devil would get a favorable mention in the House of Commons." Roosevelt allied with Stalin and then US spent 40 years facing off against the USSR. That was of course after finding the Germans really weren't anywhere near building the A-bomb.
During the Cold War the alliances went the other way. If the devil invaded the USSR he would certainly get good mention in the foreign aid bill. Politics makes all kinds of strange bedfellows.
Back in 1983 Rambo fought the USSR alongside the Muj and the real he-man thing to do was send Stingers to Afghanistan. Maybe Jimmy Carter was right all along. Nah.
The more likely probability is that history is a choice between lesser evils. Who remembers the fact that Iran was once America's bulwark against Russia, that is, before Jimmy Carter did whatever it is the Republicans don't do. Or is it the other way around? The Shah was so evil he didn't deserve support. Now fast forward to today. How smart was it really to bet that Khomeini was a "moderate"?
It makes your head spin. Today the orthodoxy is still better the devil you know than the one you don't. So Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt, Yemen are supported because they are our "allies" in the War on Terror. You know, the war that doesn't exist now that we can hold trials for Khalid Sheik that will never happen? They are at least where you can send prisoners now that you can't hold them in Guantanamo. They're the good guys because they're better than the bad guys. Or that's the theory anyway.
Colonel Jessup where are you? Can we handle the truth? Maybe every generation has to make its own set of calculations; that evil doesn't inhere permanently in one set of nations or another but travels like a ripple across the face of history. Perhaps about all one can do at any given time is one's best. That at any rate,friends and enemies have a way of turning into each other. Japan was an ally in World War 1, the enemy in World War 2 and an ally again today. Who do we nuke from orbit in 50 years? The answer may surprise us.
But sufficient unto the day are the days evils. Tomorrow is another square on the calendar.
January 7, 2011 - 1:03 am Link to this Comment -
43. toadold
So in effect Islam reinforces tribalism and one could say it has brought civilizations back to tribalism. It destroys national governments and people can only rely on their family and related kin groups in a small geographic areas. What passes for government is just a group of tribal leaders squabling over the spoils. Hence the corruption, lack of scientifc progress and etc. A Pakastani once told me. "We are not really a country, we are just a few cities in the midsts of some tribes. I'm Punjabi more than I am Pakastani. While I'll remain a Moslem I can't but think with some sorrow about the Punjabi's across the border who are Hindi. We will never reconcile despite a common language and cultural traits."
January 7, 2011 - 1:14 am Link to this Comment -
44. Matthew
Actually reading the content of those articles tends to downplay the crazy paranoid headlines. The vulture was declared to be a spy by unidentified locals – officially, saudi arabia didn't say that. And a single regional governor says (of the sharks) basically "we can't rule out israel, but we should wait and see" (i.e. a polite brush off to a stupid question) and that becomes "egyptian officials say …"
This is more tabloid journalism than it is a serious claim by saudi officials.
Skeptics. Yeah.
But I agree with most of the rest of the article. There are a lot of violent, unhinged people in the middle-east.
January 7, 2011 - 2:20 am Link to this Comment -
45. Pork Rinds for Allah
And you wonder why I have been advocating the world wide movement of humiliation of islam?
Ridicule, Mocking and Insulting all things Islam is the plan…
Everyone one ELSE in the world has to be able to take it… jews, Poles, Christians, hell even the Mafia gets mocked…
Time for Islam to get over it'sself…
If it outrages 1.2 billion people? So what? They already hate us. What will they "really" "really" hate us?
January 7, 2011 - 4:29 am Link to this Comment -
46. Vanguard of the Commentariat
@24 JMH (and others)
Thanks folks, that's why I come here. Not only for inspiration but also for edification.
I get the whole "anti American" thing with regards the left. Well, I don't, but I reckon its "cool and chic and oh so progressive". But it is only a pose, because they never leave for some reason. I said "George Bush" and I meant it only because Obama has continued or enhanced all of the Bush protocols for fighting terror. The libs railed against Gitmo and the Patriot Act and NSA phone taps for as long as Bush was in office, then when they had a veto proof majority for 2 years, they did nothing about it. Furthermore, in the last two years, the "anti-war" movement has gone the way of the woolly mammoth. I have not seen a "Free Tibet" or "Save Darfur" bumper sticker in forever. Joe Biden has claimed that Iraq is one of "The Won's" crowning achievements. So I have to conclude that all those things that were fierce moral injustices under Bush are now apparently acceptable conversation subjects at tony Upper Left Side dinners. And of course the media is silent about it.
It is for that reason that, while their anti American pose is useful because it attracts Soros money for one thing, the real reason they cozy up to radical Islam is because it is the fastest route to their own power. Yes, totalitarians do flock together.
To tangentially mix in Wretchard's redirect here on Capt Honors, I believe it is the sole reason why many senior military officers become political Democrats when they retire (Clark, Sestak, Crowe to name a few). They recognize there is a dearth of leadership skills on the left (it not being a system that develops leaders among its many failures) and that it is the quickest way to enhance their own power and influence. Because I cannot believe that any senior officer who came up through the military system believes any of that Democrat class warfare and victimology hooey. And part of that path to power is to parrot the PC nostrums of the day while still in uniform, to wit, the Army Chief of Staff who defaulted to bemoaning the threat to "diversity" when commenting on the Ft Hood shootings. Capt Honors must have been sick the day they taught that in Senior Officer school and therefore he must go, his popularity with the troops and ability to lead and inspire and accomplish the mission notwithstanding.
January 7, 2011 - 5:13 am Link to this Comment -
Vanguard #46:
When senior military officers become Leftist politicians after retirement I can see in them a reflection of a military man's opinion of politicians:
a. Contempt for their lack of honesty
b. Disgust with their stupidity
c. Envy for their power
d. Astonishment at the hidden, criminal nature of their organization
e. Wonder at their leadership skills in view of the fact they do it all wrong
f. Admiration of how they bring it all off and only rarely end up in jail
g. A degree of respect for their officesWesley Clark clearly is "acting like a politician" in that he is a military man's caricature of a politician, one containing all of these viewpoints.
They prefer the Left because it is the place where all of these characteristics are welcome.
January 7, 2011 - 5:46 am Link to this Comment -
48. Habu
I have in the past recommended that we nuke Islams in the hundreds of thousands if not millions. I have lately modified the position not only to kill those who have not hesitated to do their best dark ages barbaric scene on the world stage but also to send a signal to the the gathering menace of a renascent, aggressive Soviet Union and a growing belligerent China.
Mankind is not going to escape war and the nuclear genie is out of the bottle and spreading like ebola. Do we wait? Hell no. It is as inevitable as the sunshine that a nuclear war is going to occur. For obviously totally solipsistic reason I would prefer it took place after I'm gone but the gathering storm is here and we must act or end up enslaved.
Islam has attacked all over this globe, hoping to gain the new Caliphate. I say lets cut down on their birthrate and pure numbers. No one will grieve for them except other Islamists and who gives a damn how much more they hate us…they've pegged that meter.
So, arm the boomers, the bombers the ships at sea and let's get at 'em .
Regarding Afghanistan we would not kill hundreds of thousands but the geography is ideal to make "hot" and deny a sanctuary for the ragheads going forward. Iran should be annihilated. We should also get out of Afghanistan. Alexander the Great came the closest to controlling it but after six years of failure even he moved on. All we're doing now is eating up our young men for reasons that are so vacuous as to be criminal. Get out and nuke 'em. We might even F-up Pakistan while we're at it.
And no, it's decaf.January 7, 2011 - 5:56 am Link to this Comment -
49. Hangtown Bob
This thread brought to mind a witty song from the Sixties by the Kingston Trio. Things haven't changed so much in the last 50 years. The lyrics from "The Merry Minuet" follow:
They're rioting in Africa.
They're starving in Spain.
There's hurricanes in Florida….. and Texas needs rain.The whole world is festering with unhappy souls.
The French hate the Germans. The Germans hate the Poles.
Italians hate Yugoslavs. South Africans hate the Dutch…. and I don't like anybody very much!But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud…. for man's been endowed with a mushroom shaped cloud.
And we know for certain that some lovely day.. someone will set the spark off and we will all be blown away.They're rioting in Africa. There's strife in Iran. What nature doesn't do to us will be done by our fellow man.
January 7, 2011 - 6:58 am Link to this Comment -
50. SueDinNY
We must face the fact that in Muslim countries radicalism and intolerence of those religiously different is getting worse. It's scary to see the denouncement and mocking of Christianity here in the U.S. I wonder how the people with ideals of a One World Government would handle these third world countries' one sided views while the OWG redistributes wealth to those same less fortunate people. If only we could be in on these elites' conversations. I thank God that I live in a country that (currently) allows it's people religious freedom. As Americans we should denounce these radicals but instead our President is silent.
January 7, 2011 - 7:00 am Link to this Comment -
51. Paul of Alexandria
Vanguard of the Commentariat
I have to admit, the left's unholy alliance with radical Islam is a complete mystery to me,It's really rather simple: a common hatred of Christianity. Islam has the interesting property of complete justification so long as you obey the "5 Pillars" (http://www.jihadwatch.org/islam-101.html). Murder, pedophilia, abuse of women, an unquenchable thirst for power: all can be excused, so long as you pray 5 times a day, pay your tithes, and make the Shahadah. (In Christian terms, Islam is all Law and no Gospel).
The essential goal of those on the "Left" is to be their own gods with no restraint on their actions. The Constitution is "living and breathing" or "dead" (take your pick), therefore all laws based on it are equally flexible, and we have a rule of (liberal) man instead of a rule of law. The left claims to care for the environment, but takes no notice of fact or actual consequence – only of what they feel and desire to be true (and with no requirement to constrain their own actions, thank you Mr. Gore, only those of others). So long as they say the words and can feel that they are doing the right thing, they are justified in their own eyes and, therefore, in the eyes of their god.
January 7, 2011 - 7:04 am Link to this Comment -
52. exhelodrvr
44) Matthew,
Your viewpoint might be believable if not for such things as official school textbooks with no Israel on the maps.January 7, 2011 - 7:32 am Link to this Comment -
53. Habu
49. Hangtown Bob,
That's the spirit HB.
I mean when you really get down to it who is going to miss a few million Muzzies? I truly believe the entire world would give a giant exhale knowing the message is clear….quit F'ing with us. There would still be plenty of Islams around so it's not like we're wiping out the Native American Indian tribes.
Indian, Russia and mucho other countries would silently applaud while vocally condemning, but that's called "international relations". I have zero interest in having "international relations with an Islamic philosophy that clearly states that killing all non believers is a duty. Why have we temporized in our attacks…we need those mushroom clouds. I thought "shock and awe" was going to be akin to carpet bombing Baghdad but it turned antiseptic and perhaps somewhat effective lacked real "shock and awe" Real "shock and awe" would have at minimum been five or six MOAB's or better yet le cloud de mushroom. Women and children killed? Yes indeed ..it's happened in every war ever fought. I saw pre teens in Vietnam kill GI's and Marines. It just won't be their day if we incinerate them.
I was knee deep in the '73 Arab-Israeli War and I have no use whatsoever for any living Muzzie, but we're allowing them to hang around blowing up this and that while they work on the bomb.
Why hasn't the CIA assassinated A.Q.Kahn? Why haven't we acknowledged that Pakistan as well as Iran are enemies, and do we honestly believe that once we withdraw from Iraq that country won't revert to tribalism? They all stink like camel dung. Let's ratchet up our activity on the way out and have a trifecta or a daily double by throwing in Syria…. nuk'em.And one more time the ancillary benefit is that China and Russia would begin to believe that MAD is back and that the USA is not to be intimidated.
January 7, 2011 - 7:32 am Link to this Comment -
54. maineman
Paul @ 51 has it right. Secularism is a theology, and liberals are as fundamentalist as anyone on the planet. Metaphysically, the difference between them and Islam is the difference between 1)projecting your own impulses and wishes onto reality because all you see is the natural world, which you can delude yourself into thinking is all that exists and which you can manipulate pretty well, and 2)projecting your own impulses and wishes onto reality because your god is doing whatever gets done on earth, which means, for example, that your wish to blow people up must be what he wants.
Seeing Islam as okay and Islamism as the problem is kind of like saying that alligators are only dangerous because of their teeth. At bottom, Islam is a collectivist ideology, just as is the ideology of the left: a bunch of codes for living, an emphasis on groups at the expense of individual freedom, and an unquenchable thirst for power and control.
All human efforts at multiculturalism must end in failure, farce, and tragedy, just like that "sandbox of dictators" (Krauthammer) that defiles NYC. The template for real multiculturalism was laid out two thousand years ago, is spiritual in essence, and must eventually will out on pains of reality being something its not.
And that's the problem both the left and Islam have with America: Americanism is a religion itself and is predicated on Judaism and the New Israel, Christianity. This is a fight to the finish, and the enemy is not so much America as what it represents,Christianity, and the only possible path to a universal brotherhood of man.
The problem for these guys is that such a true multiculturalism cannot be tolerated because they can't be in charge. Which they really aren't anyway, so their rage must come to naught no matter how destructive they manage to be in the meantime.
January 7, 2011 - 7:38 am Link to this Comment -
55. Ari Tai
Perhaps we should spend some time thinking about how to change honor-based societies (which are quite different than our rule-of-law enabled civil societies).
If every martyr (or just the enlistment of a son) raises the status of a family (and results in what to us would be otherwise unimaginable monetary rewards – orders of magnitude greater than, say, a bride price), there is no reason to expect other sanction (either religious or personal) to have an effect. Once death is an acceptable choice, we have no lever.
If every family's personal loss resulted in a loss of prestige and family rank (seen in the costs/benefits of marrying above their class – perhaps the only earthly goal of these people) the feed stock that sustains the totalitarians will evaporate.
I don't know how to do this. Ideas?
January 7, 2011 - 7:40 am Link to this Comment -
56. Habu
Here this will cheer you up….
Think it can't happen …it will if we don't take charge of this world.
Our responsibility? Save that for another day for that discussion will not solve one of our problems.
January 7, 2011 - 7:48 am Link to this Comment -
57. Peter Boston
Islam, of every variety, sect or school cannot exist in the same space and at the same time with human beings who are not open, willing subjects of Allah.
It is the nature of the beast. Nothing has changed for 1,300 years and nothing will change tomorrow.
Western politicians who ignore this reality are criminally negligent. People who ignore this reality are fools.
January 7, 2011 - 7:53 am Link to this Comment -
58. Eric R.
Wretchard (I still like calling you that from the good old blogging frontier days of the early aughts):
Your thinking and writing is rather reminiscent of Bruce Bawer's, who, living as an American with the delusional leftist elites in Norway, has a rather unique view of this.
As Bruce is an outspokenly gay writer, what I really don't get is why gay leftists, especially in Europe (from what I understand, they basically control the BBC) do not at least make an attempt to attack Islam for its homophobia – not only is it attacking one politically correct shibboleth by defending another one, but for God's sake, these people (gay European leftists) are going to DIE if they don't stop this PC crap.
I know that to European leftists, an appeal to stopping anti-Semitism is laughable, since they hate Jews every bit as much as the Islamists, but I thought gay rights was one of their holy of holies.
Do they really have a death wish?
January 7, 2011 - 7:54 am Link to this Comment -
59. Vanguard of the Commentariat
Yes and Sestak ultimately got fired from his 3 star job (Comptroller of the Navy) and had to retire at 2 stars because he treated his staff so poorly they couldn't get anyone to go work for him. That is not the official reason I am sure, but it is the one everybody "knows". Now the Comptroller shop is one of the most 24/7 miserable and thankless places to work in the entire service, but normally people will go there because it can be a great career boost. And under the right leadership, it can actually be fun. The whole Dem regimen is (falsely) advertised as "taking care of the little guy" (well, except the littlest). Sestak has a documented record of treating the "little guy" like crap, but has the temerity to call himself a "liberal" and is now a Dem politician. I think your point is proven.
I was not a rote "senior officer hater" like some. I knew several who if they called me and said they were going to be the CO of Hell and they wanted me to work for them, I would have said: "let me go set up my household goods move". Others, not so much. Of course I am a guy who never matured past the "I like to fly too much to worry about rank" stage, so I am hardly a reliable source.
January 7, 2011 - 8:18 am Link to this Comment -
60. Sherab Zangpo
Liberals should worry….They should also worry because without quite realizing it, they've turned out the lights; and now they should rightly fear what lurks in the shadow.
Only idiot liberals should worry.
The true liberals, the hard core nihilists and subversives, have always known that all the talk about "human rights", "women's rights" etc. was TACTICAL.
The STRATEGY was and is aimed at destroying capitalism.
Islam is the perfect ally for the subversive: ruthless and ferocious, nihilist in its pseudo-theology (fatalism), determined to destroy the West and Freedom.
The monster lurking in the shadow is EXACTLY what the left has always been: hate.January 7, 2011 - 8:24 am Link to this Comment -
61. Kinuachdrach
Habu @ 48: "Mankind is not going to escape war and the nuclear genie is out of the bottle and spreading like ebola."
No disagreement there. Although we should not let the unique circumstances of the end of WWII mislead us — nuclear exchanges will probably not be the end of the next war, only one of the stages. The likelihood is that once all the high tech weaponry has popped off, the survivors will pick up swords & stones and keep right on fighting; or at least enough of them will do this that everyone else still has to choose whether to fight or submit.
It is tempting to think of a nuclear exchange as a giant effective version of Hillary Rodham Clinton's "Reset" button. But we need to fix our own society first. Get rid of Islam to make the world safe for Obamanism? Don't think so!
January 7, 2011 - 8:30 am Link to this Comment -
sa@27: I put this to paper because I think it's an idea that has silent popularity right now ["Union of Democracies"]. I rub elbows with a lot of blue-beard legal types from both American political parties, and they're all saying this same thing.
That's a relief. I thought the western world was being run by chinless wonders.
Insistence on 'playing by the rules' is not equivalent to regulation, but the latter is rapidly becoming the only tool for civil enforcement, which is rapidly becoming a matter of criminal enforcement that teases and wraps itself around the legal periphery.
"The Outsider" needs to be redefined as the one who won't/can't play by the rules. Speaking for the livid-white-beard demographic, we can tolerate the various nefarious behaviors, some of us still residing in acknowledgment of our human origins; but not the glaring absence of punishment and consequences, some of us still having faith in the power of hurt to change behavior. This Money Walks thing has got to stop.
That's a great place to start.
January 7, 2011 - 8:53 am Link to this Comment -
63. Habu
Today the Guvment published the employment figures which THEY claimed were an improvement.
I placed this site on BC several days ago. It's entitle Hiding a Depression;How the US Government does it
If you read it you will gain a full understanding of the absolute hoax being perpetrated on the citizenry.
January 7, 2011 - 8:54 am Link to this Comment -
64. Habu
61. Kinuachdrach
The body of you work is good. Your conclusion totally incorrect.Yes our society needs fixing but you have your priorites confused. First we kill the Muzzies and send the world a message.
If we waited to fix our society, well lets just say we don't have that kind of time. But what we still have are nuclear bombs and military power but as I have said that window is rapidly closing. Nuk'em NOW.
January 7, 2011 - 9:02 am Link to this Comment -
65. Bill in NC
Thanks for no. 35. It reads like an epilogue to your book, which by the way, I enjoyed very much.
January 7, 2011 - 9:09 am Link to this Comment -
66. westerncanadian
#51 Agreed that a big part of the link between leftists and Islamists is a common hatred of Christianity; at the moment
Unfortunately barbarians were intimidating anyone they could, long before Christianity came along. The underlying phenomenon is barbarianism, not just barbarity towards one particular group at one particular time.
To illustrate my point, consider that well known group of unclean barbarians – the IRS. They don't care who you are, but they know they want to intimidate you.
January 7, 2011 - 9:10 am Link to this Comment -
67. Andrew X
Hey Western, you really blew me away with #34. Watership Down was probably the first book of any size and maturity that I ever read. I was eleven, maybe? I loved loved loved it, and re-read it buku.
And I voted for Ronald Reagan a couple days after turning 18, never looked back, and looked on with utter bemusement and a healthy dollop of contempt at the simple headed netwitted lefties of the UC I attended for four years.
I don't think it ever occured to me that Watership Down is conservative to the core! From the destruction of their Warren by rapacious outside forces, to the decision to seize their own destiny with both hands and strike out for new lands, their total self-reliance while doing so, to the creepy warren you mention of rabbits who have essentially chosen slavery and ritual sacrifice in exchange for food and a (false) sense of security (liberalism personified), to the natural ceding of leadership to Hazel, based apparently for the first time in rabbit history, not on his being the strongest, but rather on his merits and capacity to lead, to the final infiltration of and battle with a monstrous tyrant bent on their destruction, and ended with Hazel's ascension to a higher plane, leaving behind a warren full of the children whose lives and future he battled so mightily to create.
My God, Watership Down is arch-conservative. And I now wonder if it made me one! Wow. I just never thought of it before. I haven't read it in decades.
Thank you! A lot. Now, I think I need to go buy a copy.
Everyone else, if you haven't read it, well, I really don't need to say much more, do I?
January 7, 2011 - 9:45 am Link to this Comment -
68. Josh
w @ 42 commenting on: The Democrats share less of the blame for appeasing Islam than Republicans. Two of the worst Islamic states, Pakistan and SArabia were mollycoddled by the Reaganites as alleged shields against Communism.
yeah but that was before 9/11. ancient history. heck, Saddam was our buddy back then too.
it's not just that we backed the lesser of two evils, none of those even *was* "evil" at that point, we were in the peaceful interregnum of Islam and the west, we can date, oh, from the fall of the Ottoman empire until a fuzzy period between 1979 and 2001. Not to mention the fall now of Soviet communism. Not that we haven't backed lesser evils, but offhand it's hard to think of when we did that on a big scale.
January 7, 2011 - 10:03 am Link to this Comment -
69. Insufficiently Sensitive
Certainly Qadri, the Pakistani who saw fit to punish anyone who dared oppose his vision of "Islamism" would fit the profile of night rider. What makes him invisible to the Left is the inability to believe that bigotry can be found among their own sacred cows.
A brief diversion from Muslimity:
One can learn much from Juan Williams's interview on Fox yesterday, after NPR's announcement of the firing of Ellen Weiss and the de-bonusing of Vivian Schiller, arising from NPR's summary ejectment of Williams for blasphemy. His insider's description, of the ideological 'corporate culture' and its perfect vacuum where opinion diversity ought to reside, is priceless.
Liberals should indeed worry. Williams embodies the minority insider who is suddenly found to be the 'wrong sort of person', and finds his job publicly assassinated.
January 7, 2011 - 10:05 am Link to this Comment -
70. Dr. Frank Lippenheimer
"The [left wing] consensus today is that we should tolerate intolerance."
Perfectly stated.
January 7, 2011 - 10:21 am Link to this Comment -
ARI @ 55 – "Perhaps we should spend some time thinking about how to change honor-based societies…"
Islam was Mohammad's response when he pondered your question. There was no nation/state existent in the Arab world that could transcend tribal loyalty, leaving the Arabs susceptible to the vagaries of their neighbors.
One of Islam's enduring strengths is the lack of a hierarchical structure; a nation state can be toppled precisely because there is someone to hold accountable for its actions.
Western civilization is now loath to force compliance with civilization as it understands civilization to be. Barring another successful prophet, a stalemate will endure until one or the other civilization changes.
January 7, 2011 - 10:41 am Link to this Comment -
72. wretchard
I think any belief system can turn virulent, even Christianity, and such mutations are called cults. So for that matter, can the modern political forms. The Second World War was proof of how the most "advanced" societies of the day, Germany and for its admirers, the Soviet Union, could turn into the worst wrecking balls in all tragic human history.
Both Nazism and Communism were widely admired by the intellectuals of their day, probably because they were explanatory systems. They had a structured narrative; and the jaded and lost alike sought solace in them.
What percentage of those attracted to Islamism are pulled in by its call to absolute submission? What role do public displays, regimentation, gigantic ritual and the manifestations of wealth and power have to do it? Why is it that Western intellectuals, those we hear about at least, are attracted to Islamisms most radical forms and not to Islam's most gentle?
There is significance in the fact they seem to feel a need to out-Herod Herod, if you pardon the mixed metaphors. Perhaps it isn't Islam they're attracted to so much as the militancy, the marching, the chanting, the hate. Had they lived in the 1930s, many of the celebrity converts to Islamism might have been like the Mitford sisters, who could not choose between Communism or Fascism. Old-fashioned conservatism was never in the running.
The viewer of the movie "Remains of the Day" only belatedly discovers that the butler's urbane, kindly and well-meaning employer is really rooting for Fascism. It comes as a shock. But it shouldn't. Because Communism, Fascism and perhaps Islamism all consist of self-appointed vanguards who are going to set the world and the heavens to rights. That is aristocracy by another name. As Kim Philby put it when asked why he joined the KGB: you don't think twice when being asked to join an elite.
We can become Islamists too. But what would be the point if our interests lie in making a living or playing baseball on a Sunday afternoon? We might as well be Mormons. No. In order to really be an Islamist, and not a mere Muslim, we must appoint ourselves to a mission and let its visions gnaw at us daily. We must charge out into the public square and compel people to this transcendent goal. We must, on no account, retire to our lives as men and leave history to God. But the real point is that we're going to make God redundant.
The things that Fascism, Communism and Islamism alike banish from the earth are those which they claim to love the most. Fascism, with its obsession with the collective nation, cannot resist the urge to remake the nations. Communism, the servant of history, remanufactures it constantly. Islamism, which claims to serve Allah has really set itself up as Allah's mouthpiece. But if you would have your people, God and History back, then you must really relinquish the reins and leave part of its unfolding to faith. You must let go and not attempt to control everything. The vanguard are really faithless men, these devotees of control. Nothing must escape their grasp and in the end they will find that it all runs through their fingers. Islamism is not a name derived from Islam. It is an "ism" which springs from all the other "isms" that have plagued the world.
January 7, 2011 - 10:47 am Link to this Comment -
73. Habu
The real US unemployment rate is not 9.8% but between 25% and 30%. That is a depression level of job losses – so why doesn't it look like a depression for many people? How can so large of a statistical discrepancy exist, and how is it that holiday shopping malls are so crowded in a depression?
The true devastation is hidden by essentially placing the job losses inside three different "boxes": the official unemployment box, the true full unemployment box, and most importantly, the staggering and persistent private sector job loss box that has been temporarily covered over by a fantastic level of governmental deficit spending. The "recovering and out of the recession" cover story is only plausible when nobody connects the dots and adds all the boxes together
Please do not read the remainder of the article that begins with the above. You'll only increase your understanding of how bogus the employment numbers are and golly geee whiz we sure don't want to think our guvment is lying to us.
For those reading rebels out there who want to know…go for it..others please remain uninformed
(That Habu guy is a real pain sometimes)
January 7, 2011 - 11:04 am Link to this Comment -
wretchard@72 — "We can become Islamists too. But what would be the point if our interests lie in making a living or playing baseball on a Sunday afternoon?"
This is the bane of conservatives. Progressives exploit this most civilized of behavior to no end and conservatives repeatedly fall prey to its siren song.
January 7, 2011 - 11:08 am Link to this Comment -
RE: Juan Williams and Capt. Owen Honors, USS Enterprise.
The cowboys are being rounded up and – removed to calmer pastures. Ellen Weiss and Owen Honors can trade war stories. That should be interesting.
Both developments being a net positive for the country.
January 7, 2011 - 11:18 am Link to this Comment -
76. mariner
Habu @ 21,
The Pentagon will have to cut spending by $78 billion over the next five years, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday, forcing the Army and Marine Corps to shrink the number of troops on active duty …
Isn't it funny how when the Defense budget is cut, the cuts are at the lowest levels? Are there ever cuts to the Pentagon bureaucracy?
January 7, 2011 - 12:01 pm Link to this Comment -
77. Peter Boston
Islamism is not a name derived from Islam. It is an "ism" which springs from all the other "isms" that have plagued the world.
If you ask 100 rabbis the meaning of the Book of Job you will get 100 different answers. Other than unanimity on the central figure of Jesus, Christianity is an amalgamation of the thought of hundreds of minds.
Islam is the Koran, the biography of Mohammed, the sayings of Mohammed. Period. Nothing can be added nor can anything be subtracted. A reading of the chronological biography of Mohammed in conjunction with the chronological and contemporary sections of the Koran will reveal his cunning use of those "revelations" to advance his personal quest for power, sex and money.
Islam was, and is, an effective tool to recruit and control gangs of young men to advance the interests of the chieftain. If there is anything spiritual about Islam it is entirely accidental.
Islam is the most anti-human ideology to ever afflict the human race.
January 7, 2011 - 12:07 pm Link to this Comment -
78. Paul of Alexandria
I think any belief system can turn virulent, even Christianity, and such mutations are called cults.Some faiths are more susceptible to this than others. If a Christian group were to do this, than they could be rightfully condemned by Jesus' own words and teachings. They would be acting against the tenets of their proclaimed faith. Violent jihad and subjugation of non-Muslims, on the other hand, is fully within the teachings of Islam and it is actually those Muslims who wish to live peacefully with their neighbors as one subset of many – and not in domination of their neighbors – who are going against the teachings and practices of the prophet.
January 7, 2011 - 12:16 pm Link to this Comment -
79. Eggplant
Off Topic — The following link is a marvellous example of MSM journalism:
A classic example of an Op-Ed masquerading as news. I can see someone teaching a university course on media propaganda dissecting this Washington Post article line-by-line.
January 7, 2011 - 12:19 pm Link to this Comment -
80. Flatus
73. Habu
WOW dude. I read that article and my name came out.
Our government really tries to hide the truth.January 7, 2011 - 12:26 pm Link to this Comment -
81. maineman
It's worth emphasizing that, while all fundamentalism is problematic, it is simply not the case that any old belief system can lead to violence. Christianity, as the most obvious example, cannot become aggressively violent without also becoming not-Christian. Islam, like leftism for that matter, cannot become nonviolent without becoming not-Islam. (Or what Paul said, as it turns out.)
January 7, 2011 - 12:28 pm Link to this Comment -
82. Habu
76. mariner
Shocking as it may be EACH and EVERY Pentagon bureaucrat
is VITAL to our national security. The actual fighting men and women are secondary, and DADT's tertiary.January 7, 2011 - 12:36 pm Link to this Comment -
83. Habu
80. Flatus
I knew once you gained that knowledge you'd be relieved. What was you favorite part?
For me the entire article was a mind blower. I mean how many ways can the government hide the truth? A free Chia obama for anyone with the answer.
January 7, 2011 - 12:42 pm Link to this Comment -
84. SpeakEasy
8. wretchard :The fact they weren't on-line (until the Virginian-Pilot got hold on them) is another testament to the popularity and respect that Honors earned from his sailors.
Perhaps, and perhaps not. I have to wonder, given the close proximity, if Capt Honors was an outspoken critic of repealing DADT. This could be an object lesson in going along with the program. I have no information either way, I just have to wonder.
33. dick: I agree re Sadr; He should have been a faint memory about 5 years ago. The orders to the Joint Chiefs should have been pithy: "Win."
41. Ivan: Yeah, just like Iraq was "Bush's War" when the Democratically controlled congress voted unanimously for waging it. Strange bedfellows.
48. Habu: It would only probably take one example for the others to change their tunes. Nuke Afghanistan and allow Iraq and Pakistan to straighten up. If not, stand by.
I always go back to one image on Islam and Western Democracies, that of a classic western. Everyone knows who the bad actors are but there is much innocent blood shed until the final showdown on main street. In this version many of the town folk (moderate Muslims) are caught in the cross-fire. The town merchants (liberals) prolong the suffering by insisting the Desperados can be reasoned with and/or placated. High noon approaches.
January 7, 2011 - 1:04 pm Link to this Comment -
85. Eggplant
Habu @ 83 asked:
"I mean how many ways can the government hide the truth?"
Anyone who is paying attention can see that the government is lying about the economy. The following chart removes all doubt:
The bogus unemployment statistics are just part of the problem. A bigger problem is the market manipulation through money printing. It is obvious this will end badly.
So now the $64,000 question: Why is the government using deception rather than actually trying to solve the problem? Why aren't the insolvent banks being forced into Chapter 11, the bad debt defaulted on and responsible criminals in the banking/financial industry sent to jail? The glib answer is that our government and MSM have been captured by the oligarchs. The argument continues that this is simply corruption on a massive scale.
I don't believe this.
What I think has happened is that successive honest men have peaked into the "pandora's box" and recognized that we are screwed, i.e. there is no viable alternative to full economic collapse. After realizing this, these formerly honest men snap the box closed, and join the chorus of people saying that "everything is fine" and "we're in the midst of a global economic recovery".
There maybe no alternative to economic collapse.
So at this point, I find myself wondering: Why can't someone in a position of authority simply say that we're in checkmate and we need to prepare for economic collapse. The counter response is that this would cause panic and be irresponsible. But wasn't that the mindset of the people running the Titanic, i.e. don't tell the passengers that the ship is sinking because they'll panic. I mean there is actually an appropriate time to panic. If the Titanic's passengers had been informed, they could have fully loaded the life boats whith women, children and the infirm while able bodied men put themselves to work making flotation devices. It's possible that no one would have died after the Titanic sank if enough flotation devices had been constructed.
The government needs to treat us like rational adults and stop lying to us. We also need to start making "flotation devices".
January 7, 2011 - 1:13 pm Link to this Comment -
86. Alexis
It may be fashionable in some quarters to think that the Left will be defeated by bullets and in other quarters by ballots. Yet, one of the key insights of Ronald Reagan was his understanding that Communism would be defeated through education; he used his bully pulpit to educate people about the evils of Communism.
Has anyone ever considered the creation of a "Museum of Communism", which would catalogue the atrocities and repression of Communists and Anarcho-Syndicalists for the past 150 years? Such a museum would provide free materials to schoolteachers on how they can integrate an honest appraisal of Communism into their curriculum and provide policy makers an archive of materials about the history of Communism. For example, such a museum might produce a biography of Che Guevara that goes into gruesome detail on how he tortured and murdered prisoners. And create an exhibit about the mass starvation Stalin inflicted upon Ukrainians during the 1930's.
I hope such a museum is built. And yet, I wonder how much teaching future generations about horrors committed in the name of the Communist Party and Anarcho-Syndicalism would merely give future bullies ideas on how to forge their own vanguard. Be that as it may, I still think the rise of Communism and its sibling movements Anarcho-Syndicalism and Fascism (and Nazism and Rexism and Qutbism) ought to serve as a cautionary tale.
January 7, 2011 - 1:14 pm Link to this Comment -
87. Doug
46. Vanguard of the Commentariat said…
"It is for that reason that, while their anti American pose is useful because it attracts Soros money for one thing, the real reason they cozy up to radical Islam is because it is the fastest route to their own power. Yes, totalitarians do flock together. "
The same dynamic employed by guys in the 70′s when targeting an attractive brainwashed lady:
The hair, clothes, revolutionary rhetoric, etc…An "I'm more radical than thou" competition
might even break out in pursuit of a hirsute braless wench.
The Vanguard of the Communitarians…
Alexis said,
"And yet, I wonder how much teaching future generations about horrors committed in the name of the Communist Party and Anarcho-Syndicalism would merely give future bullies ideas on how to forge their own vanguard."
The more things change…
January 7, 2011 - 1:28 pm Link to this Comment -
88. Eggplant
Alexis @ 86 asked:
"Has anyone ever considered the creation of a "Museum of Communism", which would catalogue the atrocities and repression of Communists and Anarcho-Syndicalists for the past 150 years?"
There is something sort of like that in Budapest, refer to:
It's a cute idea. After Budapest was freed from the communists, someone collected all of the communist propaganda statues, paraphernalia and monuments into one place and then charged admission. Don't miss the section about life as a communist secret policeman, refer to:
January 7, 2011 - 1:37 pm Link to this Comment -
89. Doug
85. Eggplant…
It's not either/or, Eggplant:
The corruption of Crony Capitalism runs deep,
while fighting off collapse becomes the cause for more of the same.A Japan style malaise being preferable to true change.
…to those "in the know" who prosper and profit by pulling and pushing strings.—
The Great Debate: Will Housing Be A Drag On The Economy In 2011 (Part 2)
A World Guided by Low Interest Rates
January 7, 2011 - 1:49 pm Link to this Comment -
90. gokart-mozart
Eggplant @ 85: "we are screwed, i.e. there is no viable alternative to full economic collapse"
Well, the economic collapse has already occurred. It's been covered up with unpayable debt and the hollowing out, and subsequent sale of, productive capacity.
So, in that sense, there's nothing to be done.
However, I object to your "we are screwed". Fiat money has never worked before, the collapse of fiat systems has occurred many times, what will happen is clear, as well as what is to be done.
The longer we put off doing it, the worse the pain, but, after all, we are an ingenious people living atop a continent with wealth beyond imagining. We grow our own food and we need nothing from overseas to live and to prosper.
The nation can be up and running with Constitutional money within 6-12 months of the renunciation of the debt (including FRNs), the closure and liquidation of the Federal Reserve Banks, and the dissolution of all the unConstitutional entities making up the administrative state.
Let's git 'er done. Time's a wastin"
January 7, 2011 - 1:54 pm Link to this Comment -
91. Larry in the Silicon
Richard, you are a brilliant writer with an acrobatic verbal ability. Your intuitive understanding of the realities of the Muslim ME are also great. What is lacking, just a bit, is a willingness to ease off a bit on the cynical cool and moral relativism that, to my eye, stops you from seeing the inherent evil in Islam. 'Isms' are not all bad, and 'Islam' has no 'ism' in the word. 'Islamism' is a made-up concept by Westerners, including or esp. intellectuals, to deny the profoundly threatening nature of Islam to others, and to forestall confrontation and conflagration. We all do the same thing, but we should all do it less.
January 7, 2011 - 2:02 pm Link to this Comment -
92. Doug
Nancy Pelosi in the role of Augusto Ramón will ensure that the high speed bullet trains to nowhere run on time.
(suprised you needed to ask about Pinochet, gokart!)
January 7, 2011 - 2:10 pm Link to this Comment -
93. mariner
Alexis @ 86:
Has anyone ever considered the creation of a "Museum of Communism", which would catalogue the atrocities and repression of Communists and Anarcho-Syndicalists for the past 150 years?
If such a museum could be built, I'd give it about a week before it would be blown up (by those violent right-wing extremists, of course).
January 7, 2011 - 2:22 pm Link to this Comment -
94. Habu
84. SpeakEasy
Well, I believe the "moderates" have chidren and also provide sub rosa support to the action muzzies. My position is that we erase several countries and several hundred thousand hostiles who would kill us simply because we are who we are and won't convert. If the rubble bounces high enough then we might get a couple million dead,sick, and mangled. No more half measures, no more jawboning, no more winning of hearts and minds….those are totally discredited approaches and simply prolong the problem.Don't go for the capillaries when the jugular is the target.
Ok, before the bombing we send leaflets and SPF900 and ham sandwiches.January 7, 2011 - 2:56 pm Link to this Comment -
95. Kinuachdrach
Habu @ 64: "Nuk'em NOW."
I like the cut of your jib, sir! You got me thinking about the practicalities.
Classical figures for the effect of the bombing of Hiroshima are about 130,000 killed out of 340,000 people present — i.e., survival rate from a nuclear attack on a fairly dense city of about 60%. Figures for Nagasaki seem more suspect, but suggest a lower survival rate in the range of 50% down to 20%.
So let's take the lowest figure and assume that the survival rate from a nuclear attack on Afghanistan would be only 20%. Population of Afghanistan is about 29 Million, with a median age of only 18. 20% of that would be nearly 6 Million really pissed-off survivors, at least some of whom would want to continue the fight — rather as individual Japanese fighters did in the jungles of the Philippines for years after Nagasaki.
But Afghanistan is not a dense city like Hiroshima. It is fairly comparable to Texas, in both population and area. The survival rate from a nuclear attack would be much higher — that many more pissed-off teenage Muslims with a personal score to settle.
Personally, I am all for the smart use of military power. But there is also the dumb use of military power (e.g. Obama in Afghanistan). I fear that a one-time assault on Islam would be as counter-productive as Japan's assault on Pearl Harbor, or as Billie Bob Clinton's random missile attacks on foreign aspirin factories. And let's not assume that any use of military force would yield rapid results — remember Europe's Hundred Years War.
Bottom line is that, respectfully, I have to disagree with your assessment. We need to get our own house in order first. Only then would we have the enduring consensus, fixity of purpose, and clarity of objectives necessary to prevail.
January 7, 2011 - 3:10 pm Link to this Comment -
96. Habu
"Museum of Communism". Hmmm
Winning through education…hmmm
Sorry but I fought the hot and cold war againt communism and education isn't going to eradicate the theory or it's mutations.
The Soviet Union never really expired, it just had a hiccup, some fresh paint, and a very slight hiatus.It's similar to what Allegany Airlines did in the 70′s. Rated a horrible airline to fly it remarketed itself after doing research on the most respected air carriers. People were asked about AA. Braniff.TWA, etc, and thrown into the survey was US Air, a non existant carrier. US Air was rated 4th out of the field of 10. Allegany simply change paint schemes and their name and overnight gained greater market share.
Well Ivan went from the USSR with hammer and sickle to Russian with their REd, White and Blue and the West exhaled and began arguing over how to spend the peace dividend. It was all bogus, a charade and far too many bought the show.
The old saying..A little powder, a little paint, make a woman what she ain't seems apropos.
January 7, 2011 - 3:12 pm Link to this Comment -
97. Habu
95. Kinuachdrach
Recalculate using Iran,Syria,Pakistan as I mentioned. The tribal areas and Afghanistan would simply be the amuse-bouche (An amuse-bouche [amyzbuʃ] or amuse-gueule [amyzɡœl] is a single, bite-sized hors d'œuvre. Amuse-bouche are different from appetizers in that they are not ordered from a menu by patrons, but, when served, are done so according to the chef's selection alone. ) We are the chef.
Nuk'emJanuary 7, 2011 - 3:19 pm Link to this Comment -
98. wretchard
I could never see any justification in "nuking" any group of people as policy. But history shows that when a nuclear power is sufficiently motivated, it can nuke anyone. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were responses to Okinawa and Iwo Jima.
The Three Conjectures recognized that reality; it argued that unless something was done to counteract Islamism in a targeted, selected way, nonstate actors eventually would acquire nuclear weapons and the situation would run away from politicians. Things would become "blunt".
I grew up in a tradition where the whole point of strategy was to prevent the use of unlimited force by its limited application. That meant above all preventing escalation because once you get on the treadmill all the bets are off. Any strategy that did not effectively prevent the emergence of rogue weapons of mass destruction accepted escalation, and implicitly the resolution of escalation.
That's a fancy way of saying that the US was willing to nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki to keep down troop losses, it would be willing, as a practical matter, to nuke anybody to any extent if cities were going up one after the other. Whoever says liberals won't do this ignores the historical fact that Roosevelt built the bomb and Truman used it and that JFK nearly sent the world to the edge.
Idealism ends when physical hurt begins. The worst sort of idealism is the kind that believes physical hurt can never happen.
The argument was and remains, that a failure to engage and defeat Islamism on the ideological level, coupled with a policy of appeasement would sooner or later lead to genocide of the worst degree. That is not an argument for genocide. It is an argument for its avoidance.
Interestingly things could happen exactly this way in a regional setting. One real danger is that an Iranian bomb would create a Sunni bomb. But the same dynamic applies. Once the match is lit, the fuse goes and goes unless it is cut. But who's going to cut the fuse?
The last few years have shown that politicians have no appetite for engaging totalitarianisms on an ideological level. They'd rather kick the can down the road on the theory that the consequences will happen on somebody else's watch. Yet inevitably it happens on somebody's watch. The can can't be kicked anywhere and the day of reckoning comes. Nuking people from orbit is no substitute for mental strife. And it is irrational besides. In reality no politician who is unwilling to engage totalitarianism mentally will sign off on a bomb. But the same politician may use a bomb in an act of desperation when the can eventually reaches the end of the road.
In sum, the point of strategy is to avoid nuking anyone from orbit. The best way to do this is to vigorously push back now rather than wait, as we have done in all the bubbles that have burst, for the meltdown. Otherwise the day will come when that which we would not do in earnest we will do in despair. And the greatest tragedy would be that it was totally avoidable.
Naseem Taleb argues that most of the catastrophes that befall us are White Swans. We see them coming from a long way off. Yet predisposition to folly in us makes us visually filter them out. But they come all the same. And we delude ourselves at the last by arguing that we never saw what we saw coming, coming. Whatever the color of the swan, our goose is ultimately cooked.
January 7, 2011 - 3:47 pm Link to this Comment -
Yes our society needs fixing but you have your priorites confused. First we kill the Muzzies and send the world a message.
If we waited to fix our society, well lets just say we don't have that kind of time.
I don't think the two things can be separated out as Step 1 and Step 2. To defend itself against murderous fanatics, a society needs enough self-confidence to think it's worth defending. A society only allows the sort of problems we have to continue when it doesn't have any self-confidence.
January 7, 2011 - 3:53 pm Link to this Comment -
100. James May
There is indeed a self Balkanization of minorities in the United States and it is far advanced, too far to go back at least for a couple generations.
Once bureaucracies of any kind are created they rarely pack up, say, "Mission accomplished" and fade away. Unfortunately in the case of minorities, this requires keeping the spectre of racism alive even when it is institutionally defunct.
There are too many people who like the National Council of La Raza, the Black Congressional Caucus, black journalist associations, market vendors, police chiefs and on and on ad nauseum.
The only ones who haven't got on board are the rank and file whites who built this country and there are disturbing signs of this changing with the Tea Party Caucus which is a clear challenge to the debauched Black Congressional Congress.
America can hold together longer than Lebanon because of its institutions but for how long? All the old movies that used to hype the worth of all while at the same time asking minorities such as gays to subvert their identities behind closed doors in the name of the greater good have been subverted by 3 generations of new film makers.
America is now basically a party with cursing and nudity in mixed company and that doesn't work, especially when the most offended are the most lewd and vulgar.
January 7, 2011 - 4:02 pm Link to this Comment -
101. Mr. Lucky
A tour de force Richard Fernandez. Without a doubt, touching the very soul of man's cry for freedom.
January 7, 2011 - 4:05 pm Link to this Comment -
102. Habu
95. Kinuachdrach
I left out a few items."really pissed-off survivors, at least some of whom would want to continue the fight — "
"— that many more pissed-off teenage Muslims with a personal score to settle."Now Im saying to myself that you just have to know that as I pointed out the muzzies "hate-the-world" meter is already pegged. Been that way since old mohammad-man gave them the word….you know "convert orkill" The old mo-man didn't build in alot of wiggle room did he?
So what I'm trying to convey is that we nuke the pissed off people..known worldwide as Islams. The others who might be leaning toward pissed off will start making origami toys in the hope we don't go off on them.
Time to go for the jugular.
January 7, 2011 - 4:10 pm Link to this Comment -
103. Habu
I think we just need a President to give the order.
Our citizenry, God help them , are so far in the dark (recent light has been spotted) and so pushed to simply get by that they need our republican form of government to do the right thing and …..nuk'em.
January 7, 2011 - 4:16 pm Link to this Comment -
104. Andy
The pact between islam and the left is a modern day Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. They are using each other to accomplish their end goal which is world domination. They both think they have the upper hand. One of these days this pact will fall apart…..
(Admin: Where is the reply link?)January 7, 2011 - 4:21 pm Link to this Comment -
105. Habu
98. wretchard
Masterful.I prefer an economy of words. The world has been fighting off Islams aggression since it's inception, no exceptions. The can has been kicked so many times it's now a be-be shot. Time to nuk'em.
January 7, 2011 - 4:26 pm Link to this Comment -
106. Anti-Statist
The Progressives' goal should by now be abundantly clear: they want everyone to sacrifice themselves to everyone else. It's gang warfare made global. Happiness in life is not the goal; the hoped-for eternal bliss of the afterlife is.
When people reject reason as Progressives have done, they are left to dealing with each other as animals. The outcome should not be surprising.
January 7, 2011 - 4:27 pm Link to this Comment -
107. westerncanadian
#67 Andrew X. You're welcome. I first read "Watership Down" when my kids did and recognized its general drift. I have wandered around the actual place years before and then after the book was written. It's a classic book.
January 7, 2011 - 4:33 pm Link to this Comment -
108. Hangtown Bob
As an addendum to my #49 and dedicated to Habu, I present for your listening pleasure "The Merry Minuet", written, I just found out, by Sheldon Harnick, who also wrote "Fiddler on the Roof" and "Fiorello".
January 7, 2011 - 4:57 pm Link to this Comment -
Vanguard #59:
The same thing is said about Wesley Clark, and if you ever thought he had any redeeming characteristics left, be advised that he is now pimping for the ethanol fuel industry.
I am not a senior officer hater either. I know a number of them personally, but frankly I thought that in the most important aspects most of them were lightweights. Some of them I think were lightweights because they realized that acting like anything else was hopeless.
As for me, I never matured past the "After O-4 there ain't much fun and even less integrity" point, so what's the point of filling squares and not calling a spade a spade to make O-6?
January 7, 2011 - 5:31 pm Link to this Comment -
110. SpeakEasy
Habu, I hate, HATE the term "winning hearts and minds." Stupidest idea ever conceived for war. It is like saying, to win an argument you have to first punch someone in the face. As far as nuking them all, I have no problem with that as I also see Islam as incompatible with all other ideologies, self-confessed to be so even. So the only end to war with Islam is the end of Islam. Of course once we were willing to truly embrace this reality we could kill them just as easily with conventional means. Think of our drive to Baghdad only this time everyone we encounter gets a trip to see Allah. As a bonus we get to use the existing, meager as it is, infrastructure to keep drilling oil and shipping it home. Just sayin'.
January 7, 2011 - 6:40 pm Link to this Comment -
111. Unsk
I agree with Wretchard that indiscriminate nuking is to be avoided. However, we may be at that point where some nuking is necessary.
A. It is appears that the Norks are beyond salvage, and are spreading nuclear technology to people we cannot let have that weaponry. Got to Nuke em.
B. We cannot let the Iranians go further with their nuke program for similar reasons. Their populace likely is salvageable over time. But we must take out their nuclear program, their military and their major crazies and leave that regime with no ability at all to reconstitute their military or terrorist activities. And it would be nice and profitable to take their oil fields and Kharg island, while we are at it. If tactical nukes are necessary to do the job, so be it.
Once we have demonstrated we will, if pushed, obliterate our adversaries, fear may rein in the others. But if not, Pakistan, Syria, Saudi, the Hizzies, the Stan and Venezuela need to be dealt with in a similar fashion
I don't agree with Kin that we need to worry about retribution. Muslims are always called to retribution and murder of the infidel no matter what. A muslim is called to violent jihad unless he or she is forcibly restrained and unable to practically do so. From here on in, we must keep muslim society down, under our thumb, forever. We have no choice.
January 7, 2011 - 6:47 pm Link to this Comment -
All I know is the 'peace sign' buttons and tee shirts the Lefties are 'standing behind' when they protest AGAINST America and FOR Radical Islam are not going to save the lefties from Radical Islamics/Hesbolla or '?' who are 'hell bent' on killing American infidels…PEACE SIGNS OR NOT! Denouncing America on poster board, or professing their 'cause' on posters against Israel and 'for' Palestine won't help either. I shake my head and wonder – how stupid are the Lefty/Liberals?? Some posters I've seen don't even make sense.
A good sight to browse some pictures – many are from the San Francisco area protests and the "Ultra Liberal" School of "Berkley" protests as far back as 2001 is "zombietime.com" it gives the viewer some real insight as to the insanity and indoctrination of the left and the 'leftover 60′s left'. Pretty scary stuff…
January 7, 2011 - 7:21 pm Link to this Comment -
113. Curmudgeon
17. 49erDweet: "Of course I realize the AF wasn't really a proper military branch."
This thread is discussing how it comes to be that a majority decides it can pick on another class of its own citizenry with impunity. Anyone catch the irony in 49erDweet's offhand comment?
I'm a long-time lurker here at Belmont, and I've noticed this from time to time. I realize there are a fair number of vets posting here, and bashing the Air Force seems perfectly acceptable.
January 7, 2011 - 8:36 pm Link to this Comment -
114. Matthew
52. exhelodrvr
In palestine, yes. But we're not talking about palestine.
In any case I'm not sure how it's relevant – these stories are clearly tabloid-style beatups. They've found some goose on the street who reckons the moon is made of cheese and they've presented it as official state policy.
January 7, 2011 - 8:46 pm Link to this Comment -
115. Bob
@72. wretchard said: "Both Nazism and Communism were widely admired by the intellectuals of their day, probably because they were explanatory systems."
I think it's simpler than that. Leftism is the natural home of the control freak. For folks who think they know better and have all the answers, the Left awaits. I also think that's why some senior military officers join the Democrat's ranks (something a few commenters were musing about further up the thread).
January 7, 2011 - 8:55 pm Link to this Comment -
116. blert
As the food riots show…
If we would merely STOP feeding the muslims with anti-rational aid…
EVERYONE would be better off.
When you provide ANY assistance to a muslim — he presumes: allah wills it. Absolutely NO Christian sentiment is involved — in their eyes.
It's worse than wrong: it's a mistake.
WE have created and fed this monster. STOP food aid. STOP all aid.
ALL such aid is interpreted as being not from our humanity but from allah and his powers.
Our Quangos are considered dupes. ( Who could blame them for THAT opinion? )
Oxfam: I'm talking about you!
NO WAY is China prepared to proffer food aid to Pakistan… or any other 'stan.
America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Russia are the great food export powers.
( France exports food to the ECC — mostly, and is in the second rank WRT exports to the third world.)
By comparison the Maghreb has completely reversed its food status from that of the Roman Empire. An examination of the population trends there is shocking. Forget India and China: this is the food crisis.
Unlike China and India – ZERO efforts are made to control population growth.
And then there's Somalia, Yemen… good grief — it's a disaster. A mother of SEVEN is the norm, seven survivors, that is. All of that and abject poverty, water crisis and despotic rule: what could go wrong?
It is insanely risky to permit any more immigration from these AQ heartlands. But the Resident permits it.
And then there's the absolute insanity of Putin & Co. Like Churchill, Putin just can't accept Russia's true place in the world, and, no, she can't make it by shaking down the planet.
And then there's the insanity of China. She figures that she can run the most protectionist hyper-mercantilist trade in all history: and it's ALL good. What can go wrong?
Whip those slaves… Cheat… Steal… Rob… Screw the globe: no won will notice….
It matters not that you've stabbed friend and foe in the back, the face, the backside.
The Han are sooo special.
Hence, they can imitate the follies of EVERY major power to make a play in the last 500 years.
What could go wrong?
January 7, 2011 - 9:55 pm Link to this Comment -
117. Richard
We need to recognize that "tolerance"–the conscious and deliberate act of accepting physical, cultural, religious, and social differences–is a product of Western civilization and exists hardly anywhere else.
January 7, 2011 - 11:56 pm Link to this Comment -
118. exhelodrvr
No, actually, that occurs in much of the Muslim world. Pay attention to what comes out of the government-sponsored newspapers, television and radio networks about the Jews. That kind of ridiculousness is quite common. ANd many of them believe it, as shown by their actions.January 8, 2011 - 12:22 am Link to this Comment -
119. Matthew
118. exhelodrvr
"Matthew, No, actually, that occurs in much of the Muslim world. Pay attention to what comes out of the government-sponsored newspapers, television and radio networks about the Jews. That kind of ridiculousness is quite common. ANd many of them believe it, as shown by their actions."
I'm sorry, but which nutbaggery are you talking about – the textbooks without israel shown, or the mossad sharks/birds/mammals?
January 8, 2011 - 1:16 am Link to this Comment -
120. Matthew
115. Bob
@72. wretchard said: "Both Nazism and Communism were widely admired by the intellectuals of their day, probably because they were explanatory systems."
I think it's simpler than that. Leftism is the natural home of the control freak.
Er … huh? Are you saying that "the left" supported nazism in the 30′s? I think a little bit of historical lernin' might be in order. The support for nazi germany most definitely did not come from the left. It was the conservative, pro-business world who wanted good terms with hitler – and on both sides of the atlantic. The appeasement strategy belonged to the british conservatives. That chamberlain guy? He was a conservative leader. Churchill's biggest problem was his own conservative party. It's why he had no trouble forming a unity government with labor after he got the reins – because they "got" it. Trade unions and socialists absolutely despised hitler.
Want to reformulate your theory?
January 8, 2011 - 1:41 am Link to this Comment -
121. Bob
"Want to reformulate your theory?"
No. I think it's been made abundantly clear by now that Nazism (National Socialism) was another Leftist phenomenon. Different folks like different flavors of ice cream, and that's why different groups of Americans sympathized with the various flavors of statism, pre-WWII.
The old Left/Right political spectrum used to have Communism at the far left and Fascism at the far right. That no longer holds (and the notion that Fascism was right-wing was a meme perpetuated by Stalin after WWII to help distance himself from his pre-war close association with Germany). The more correct graph of the political spectrum has statism (in all its various flavors) on the left, and individual freedom on the right. All the various "-isms" (communism, fascism, etc.) do is describe how power is shared among the ruling elite.
My theory stands. Free and open markets are messy to behold, and are a natural target for control freaks who think they can improve things, somehow make things "fairer."
January 8, 2011 - 6:46 am Link to this Comment -
122. Bob
Also, my spectrum model, with statism on the left and individual freedom on the right, describes the current tension between the Democrats (left) and the Tea Party (right).
January 8, 2011 - 6:49 am Link to this Comment -
Bob@121: Free and open markets are messy to behold, and are a natural target for control freaks who think they can improve things, somehow make things "fairer."
Reasonable points on the mutated political spectrum.
Except for fascism, which is corporate-dominated statism and I see no 'invisible hand' or 'efficient market' theory that constrains the evolution of concentrated power centers among market participants; the theory being that fascist control can't develop under (truly) free markets. I doubt that very much, but one cannot discount the correlated growth between private and public sector institutions, such that we are now cornered in a Too Big Too Fail stasis point of disequilibrium in which the center may not hold.
I would also disagree that leveling the playing field is equivalent to controlling the game, although in reality things get messy. In fact, a level playing field helps to constrain size.
To repeat what others have suggested in different words, the capitalists co-opted the role of government as referee and turned it into partner, bought and paid for. How to prevent that from happening again is, imo, a matter of controlling size, which markets alone cannot be proven to accomplish – surmise and theorize, but not proven.
(I will go so far as to say that I agree with some of the conspiratorial intent theories, as per buddy larsen et al, which are predicated on market manipulation as a means of re-balancing the global power relationships, which I believe to be dominated by corporate interests rather than political ideology. In fact, the absence of intent would be a bizarre assumption.)
January 8, 2011 - 8:04 am Link to this Comment -
124. Doug
The housing bubble-bust, bogus mortgage scandal was initiated and promoted by the government, initially resisted by banks until resistance became futile:
ie they were prosecuted by Clinton "justice" department.
A cascade of fraud and abuse followed.
January 8, 2011 - 12:17 pm Link to this Comment -
The MERS clearinghouse and the oil spike were both manufactured to take advantage of circumstances. It is my opinion that the real estate bubble – a market phenomenon aided and abetted by government – accounted for about half of the 50% DJIA drop, and the financial 'fraud and abuse', all of which was manufactured, some carefully, some not, the other half.
January 8, 2011 - 4:00 pm Link to this Comment -
126. Matthew
121. Bob
"No. I think it's been made abundantly clear by now that Nazism (National Socialism) was another Leftist phenomenon."
It wasn't. It really, really wasn't. Only somebody who has chucked away actual history books and instead rely on people who just make stuff up could possibly believe that. Yes, the political party that hitler inherited had "socialism" in its name, but there the similarity ends. By that reasoning, north korea is a people's democratic republic – and it clearly ain't.
I'm actually getting really depressed at having to argue with people who have decided, for reasons only they truly understand, that black is white.
So I'll just sum it up in a way I usually try to avoid:
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
Now, I'll point out just a few of your errors:
"Different folks like different flavors of ice cream, and that's why different groups of Americans sympathized with the various flavors of statism, pre-WWII."
Whatever the sorry truth of that, it wasn't the left or trade unions who admired hitler. There really was a political divide on that one. You might reason, 80 years later, that they were both the same, but western observers at the time sure as heck didn't think so.
Just for a lark, go on you tube and find the old movies of the pre-crash hindenberg. You can find footage of it flying proudly over american cities … with ruddy great swastika on its tail. It's a bit creepy. Now – show me a similar demonstration of america embracing stalinism.
"The old Left/Right political spectrum used to have Communism at the far left and Fascism at the far right. That no longer holds"
I agree. It's too simplistic. What it shows is that a single dimension is inadequate. For one thing, it tries to lump libertarians and anarchists into the same category, which is obviously wrong. Add a second dimension indicating centralization of power and you get a much better picture. Have a look at http://politicalcompass.org/
"and the notion that Fascism was right-wing was a meme perpetuated by Stalin after WWII to help distance himself from his pre-war close association with Germany"
Erm, no. Stalin was not "close" to germany – he saw trouble coming, figured he'd be on the losing side and signed a non-aggression deal. He was terrified of hitler.
"The more correct graph of the political spectrum has statism (in all its various flavors) on the left"
Righto. So monarchy is left wing – is that correct?
"and individual freedom on the right. All the various "-isms" (communism, fascism, etc.) do is describe how power is shared among the ruling elite."
Anarchy was one of the left-wing philosophies at the turn of the last century – some leftists (including marx) predicted that the state would eventually become unnecessary and be abolished – and saw this as a desirable end-goal. Anarchists were just lefists who didn't want to wait for marx's predicted sequence of events to play itself out.
"My theory stands. Free and open markets are messy to behold, and are a natural target for control freaks who think they can improve things, somehow make things "fairer.""
There's no such thing as a free and open market. Not in a world which uses paper money and has borders. Sorry to disappoint you.
January 8, 2011 - 4:27 pm Link to this Comment -
127. blert
It's a running gag now and always has been that the best Soviets were ex-Nazis…
And vice versa.
When you pull quotes on economic structure, the state's role, and the nature of society and present them from both Nazi and Soviet sources — no one can tell which goes with which — BECAUSE THEY ARE THE SAME.
It was the Soviets who labeled the Nazis as being Right Wing. That term was NOT used by Americans in the thirties. You just don't find it. Instead, the term of art was always authoritarian, totalitarian, despotic, dictatorial, etc.
Matthew, you show every sign of being overwhelmed by Leftist memes — and young.
The only significant difference between Communists and Nazis is that the Communists murdered twice as many souls while being 'led' by a paranoid maniac. The Nazis aped the Communists time and again and were led by a drug addled maniac who was so high on uppers it's amazing he lasted as long as he did. That, and his crazy diet made him the fartingest dictator on record.
And, of course, in a bizarre way, they had mutual admiration. When Hitler wiped out his generals: Stalin approved. As Stalin schemed his way West, Hitler marveled at his foresight! Neither held high opinions of either Churchill, De Gaul or FDR. All were held in contempt.
In more general terms, your belief system is infected with First Directorate memes.
You should check out Bezmenov
I say that because your belief structure shows every manner of First Directorate programming. I mean you are absolutely loaded to the gills with it.
January 8, 2011 - 10:44 pm Link to this Comment -
128. blogstrop
Marxism hates to be compared to Nazism and alike they would reject any comparison to Osama bin Laden's credo, but they are ideological first cousins. They are alike compleat kingdoms of this world. They are collectives with an answer to everything, which by necessity means the individual is nothing in their reckoning; expendable for the sake of the race, the future or the ummah.
Islamism is like a super Mafia, with extra attitude.January 9, 2011 - 2:07 am Link to this Comment
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