The great Tom Van Dyke (below), as ever, goads the lazy Western mind into firing up some of its dormant synapses. He calls our attention to an absolutely brilliant point (and I hope that it does not lose wattage in my paraphrasing). How can the Judeo-Christian world create a civilizational bridge to the Muslim world - one which the secularists call for the loudest - when the erosion in our own belief base makes our putative value system seem sickly and/or insincere?
Truly an irony. The religionists have a chance for a meeting-of-the-minds with Islam, based on the shared belief in the One God despite the debate over details of His program. But they are too passionate about the details and won't bend.
The secularists are only too glad to bend but the Muslims are certain to scoff at such a self-serving pragmatism-masquerading-as-idealism.
So if you won't sell out you're an enemy who may not be shown any mercy. And if you will sell out you're a spineless loser who's not worthy of mercy. How do you win? There is no secular way to win. The only hope is religious, if the shared belief in monotheism mediates and moderates a modus operandi.
Something like the founding in 1776, eh what?
13 comments:
The bankruptcy of the left-wing opposition to the war is easily revealed in the conversation we're having. The uber-secular lefties can't tolerate conservative Christians but they are outraged at offensives aimed at the most virulent strains of Islam. I cannot help but insist that leftist opposition to the war is truly premised upon preventing the GOP from becoming too popular and effecting real re-alignment. If this war were being captained by Bill Clinton and run in EXACTLY the same way, there would be nary a peep from his fellow travelers.
Wonder why I'd be addressing myself to li'l ole you, JFE? Maybe you're a special case. Maybe you're deluding yourself.
By the way, JFE, aren't you the one who thought it would be the warmest fuzziest thing in the world to strangle the last prelate with the entrails of the last priest? If we had a lefty pres. who pursued the current policy while talking about dangerous religious extremism and the need to contain it, you'd be jumping up and down applauding.
Hunter, Bill Clinton crafted the Liberal motto for the ages. The Conservatives always said: "You made your bed, now lie in it." The Clintonian Liberal says: "You made your bed, now lie about it."
Sorry, T. I thought it was JFE, but I was mistaken. Sorry, too, to JFE.
By the way, JFE, aren't you the one who thought it would be the warmest fuzziest thing in the world to strangle the last prelate with the entrails of the last priest? If we had a lefty pres. who pursued the current policy while talking about dangerous religious extremism and the need to contain it, you'd be jumping up and down applauding.
Actually, I pointed out that Jefferson agreed with Diderot on this point during a discussion of the so-called religiosity of the Founding Fathers, but thanks for trying to confuse the issue.
More to the point, it's quite funny for Baker to make such a comment as the need to contain and destroy religious opponents in a thread about "religiosity being the one true hope for peace" with Muslim extremists.
You're the one confusing the issue, JFE. You did state that the entrail strangling remark gave you an incredibly warm feeling in your tummy, as you put it. And the remark about contain religious extremism was an example of the rhetoric a Democrat GWOT president would use to gain your allegiance.
Actually, a Democratic president would gain my allegiance because he or she would presumably stand for things like intellectual complexity, a social safety net, and civil liberties over illusory safety.
You really don't get it, do you Hunter? My problem with Iraq and the War on Terror has always been one of tactics and motiviation. I do not believe that the manner in which this struggle has been conducted is either effective or in any way moral. I did not buy the rationale for invading Iraq and deposing Saddam, and subsequent evidence has proven me right. This was never billed as combatting religious extremism. It was always about revenge, both in Afghanistan and Iraq. Had Bush said "We're going in to Iraq to depose a tyrant and then, when that country's stable, we're moving on to the next tyrant" I'd have been cheering him on. But he didn't say that, not until it was clear his original rationale was wrong. This was never a struggle against extremism until it became convenient to label it so.
My position has always been consistent.
Welcome, BamaDoyle. Nice presentation.
I would be worried about the U.S. being the last stand of the West, but we've converted the Asian Rim to our economics and much of the Third World to Christianity. The cultural and spiritual legacy seems poised to continue whether Islam dominates Europe or not.
All of this "Last stand of Western Christian Culture" stuff misses one salient detail: The clash needn't be.
That said, BamaDoyle, that was a nicely written presentation of thought.
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