Go read Mark Steyn, now, on the horror in Rotherham: The Reformation of Manners
And have a vocabulary word: "immiscible". Example: "The free, democratic, civilized West and Islam are immiscible."
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
RIP journalist James Foley, killed by ISIS, the Islamic State
I remember the 2002 videotaped murder of Daniel Pearl like it was last week. I remember how enraged I was by it, and I wish I wasn't quite so numbed now, so I could be suitably furious now.
Instead, let me expand on a few things I've said elseweb, in answer to proggs and their endless blaming of the U. S. for terrorism. After all the atrocities we and others have endured from jihadists over that time, proggs have learned nothing except new terms of abuse for conservatives. "Taliban wing of the Republican Party", and so forth.
Further, one of the big lessons of 9/11 was this: There is nothing, literally nothing, that could befall the U.S. which would induce progressives to float down from their presumed higher moral plane and stand together with those icky fellow Americans. Instead, they bitterly cling all the more tightly to their exploded yet still treasured memes: poverty causes terrorism, the straight white male conservative middle class taxpayer is the root of all evil, to be brown, foreign, and angry at America is to be in the right by definition, etc. How ridiculous their beloved "world citizenship" looks now.
And they continue to conflate crime and terrorism. Poverty most assuredly does not cause Islamic terrorism. The Saudi millionaires funding it, and the middle class "Britons", "Australians", "Germans" and so forth going abroad to commit it, are not doing so because their welfare payments are inadequate. They are fired by religious and political zeal--which in Islam are the same thing--and long to fulfill The Prophet's command to "make wide slaughter" among infidels and apostates.
Liberal self-flagellation, Christian or otherwise, is no good guide to this challenge. Nor is cheap parallelism. I could tick off a dozen similarities between the Jihad and the Western Left, to match your list. But what good would it do? Despising America, the Right, and whatever else is not going to put us in the jihadists' good graces. They're not going to eat you last!
Islam is a religion of peace. [Insert today's outrage here] has nothing to do with Islam. Why? Because Islam is a religion of peace!" This circular alibi only fools people who want to be fooled, for fear of having their heads explode from considering the wider implications. Yes, most Muslims are not out there setting bombs and slitting throats. Most of us Christians are not out there giving our possessions away to the poor, either. They and we are just not committed enough to follow our respective religions' Call to the hilt. But plenty of people are, and so we have scenes like the Taliban's execution of Christian aid workers in Pakistan. The tree is known by its fruit.
Have some quotes:
Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is working to destroy it. ~Jean-Francois Revel
I think people have spoken much rubbish about that event[9/11]. The poor revenging themselves on the rich! It's nothing but an aspect of religious hatred. And that is so hard to deal with, or even contemplate. You can deal with the poor striking out, but you can't deal with the threat of a universal religious war.
-- V. S. Naipaul
We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you. -- former Hezbollah leader Hussein Massawi
Instead, let me expand on a few things I've said elseweb, in answer to proggs and their endless blaming of the U. S. for terrorism. After all the atrocities we and others have endured from jihadists over that time, proggs have learned nothing except new terms of abuse for conservatives. "Taliban wing of the Republican Party", and so forth.
Further, one of the big lessons of 9/11 was this: There is nothing, literally nothing, that could befall the U.S. which would induce progressives to float down from their presumed higher moral plane and stand together with those icky fellow Americans. Instead, they bitterly cling all the more tightly to their exploded yet still treasured memes: poverty causes terrorism, the straight white male conservative middle class taxpayer is the root of all evil, to be brown, foreign, and angry at America is to be in the right by definition, etc. How ridiculous their beloved "world citizenship" looks now.
And they continue to conflate crime and terrorism. Poverty most assuredly does not cause Islamic terrorism. The Saudi millionaires funding it, and the middle class "Britons", "Australians", "Germans" and so forth going abroad to commit it, are not doing so because their welfare payments are inadequate. They are fired by religious and political zeal--which in Islam are the same thing--and long to fulfill The Prophet's command to "make wide slaughter" among infidels and apostates.
Liberal self-flagellation, Christian or otherwise, is no good guide to this challenge. Nor is cheap parallelism. I could tick off a dozen similarities between the Jihad and the Western Left, to match your list. But what good would it do? Despising America, the Right, and whatever else is not going to put us in the jihadists' good graces. They're not going to eat you last!
Islam is a religion of peace. [Insert today's outrage here] has nothing to do with Islam. Why? Because Islam is a religion of peace!" This circular alibi only fools people who want to be fooled, for fear of having their heads explode from considering the wider implications. Yes, most Muslims are not out there setting bombs and slitting throats. Most of us Christians are not out there giving our possessions away to the poor, either. They and we are just not committed enough to follow our respective religions' Call to the hilt. But plenty of people are, and so we have scenes like the Taliban's execution of Christian aid workers in Pakistan. The tree is known by its fruit.
Have some quotes:
Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is working to destroy it. ~Jean-Francois Revel
I think people have spoken much rubbish about that event[9/11]. The poor revenging themselves on the rich! It's nothing but an aspect of religious hatred. And that is so hard to deal with, or even contemplate. You can deal with the poor striking out, but you can't deal with the threat of a universal religious war.
-- V. S. Naipaul
We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you. -- former Hezbollah leader Hussein Massawi
Thursday, August 07, 2014
Very bad news out of Iraq and Syria
I know it's all been bad lately. But these bits prefigure a general catastrophe:
First bit of bad news: ISIS may be getting the better of the Kurdish militias in northwestern Iraq. The Peshmerga stiffed the jihadists' original offensive, but if these jihadists roll up the Kurdish militias, then Iraq is done for. I hope we are supplying the Kurds with weapons, over the objections of Turkey if need be. Your go to site for Kurdish news is Rudaw, although their battlefield dispatches seem rather rosy to me. Meanwhile, persecution of Iraq's Christians is turning to outright massacre. Death Toll on Shingal Mountain Rising by the Minute. That's in Erbil, in Kurdistan.
Meanwhile, ISIS is moving into Lebanon, by some reports having captured a city and nabbed some soldiers of the Lebanese national army. Hezbollah, that viper pit, is standing off for now, but says that they will fight if ISIS muscles in too far. So, we may find ourselves supporting Hezbollah in extremis--did I mention what a viper pit they are?
Terrible times....
First bit of bad news: ISIS may be getting the better of the Kurdish militias in northwestern Iraq. The Peshmerga stiffed the jihadists' original offensive, but if these jihadists roll up the Kurdish militias, then Iraq is done for. I hope we are supplying the Kurds with weapons, over the objections of Turkey if need be. Your go to site for Kurdish news is Rudaw, although their battlefield dispatches seem rather rosy to me. Meanwhile, persecution of Iraq's Christians is turning to outright massacre. Death Toll on Shingal Mountain Rising by the Minute. That's in Erbil, in Kurdistan.
Meanwhile, ISIS is moving into Lebanon, by some reports having captured a city and nabbed some soldiers of the Lebanese national army. Hezbollah, that viper pit, is standing off for now, but says that they will fight if ISIS muscles in too far. So, we may find ourselves supporting Hezbollah in extremis--did I mention what a viper pit they are?
Terrible times....
Saturday, August 02, 2014
Two more celebrities raise their voice against Israel
One is legendary music producer Brian Eno. No surprise there; anti-Zionism is rife among British entertainers, judging by what appears in the press.
The other is more unexpected: the Lebanese mathematician, investor, flaneur and Black Swan author Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
I can't presume to know what he's thinking, as he is so fearsomely learned that I could never hope to hold up my end of a serious conversation with him. I've never heard him say a bad thing about Jews. Elsewhere he's written about growing up in Lebanon during that unfortunate nation's civil war, which was caused in part by the Palestinian Liberation Organization setting up shop there after they were kicked out of Jordan. He is certainly aware of Hamas' charter to eliminate the Jews. He is also surely aware of the tried and true human shield ploy, the credulity of Western news media in areas they don't understand, and the cynicism endemic in Arab ruling circles. So what is he thinking? I don't know. My guess is just that this is his gut feeling, no analysis involved. I hope he realizes that he's being played, along with the rest of Western celebrity-hood.
The other is more unexpected: the Lebanese mathematician, investor, flaneur and Black Swan author Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
You can assess kindness & mental clarity at one's compassion for Palestinians; vicious ignorance, heartlesness at his demonizing/casuistry.
— Nassim N. Taleb (@nntaleb) July 31, 2014Tonight, a thought for Palestinians who, since 1948, have been dispossed, beaten, uprooted, demonized, & humiliated. #Gaza
— Nassim N. Taleb (@nntaleb) July 30, 2014I can't presume to know what he's thinking, as he is so fearsomely learned that I could never hope to hold up my end of a serious conversation with him. I've never heard him say a bad thing about Jews. Elsewhere he's written about growing up in Lebanon during that unfortunate nation's civil war, which was caused in part by the Palestinian Liberation Organization setting up shop there after they were kicked out of Jordan. He is certainly aware of Hamas' charter to eliminate the Jews. He is also surely aware of the tried and true human shield ploy, the credulity of Western news media in areas they don't understand, and the cynicism endemic in Arab ruling circles. So what is he thinking? I don't know. My guess is just that this is his gut feeling, no analysis involved. I hope he realizes that he's being played, along with the rest of Western celebrity-hood.
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