All bending over backward tells moderate Muslims is that the American political elite will abandon everything — even Ground Zero — to the radicals. It tells the Muslim world that the American elite, from cowardice or moral vanity will sell out anyone. And that doesn’t breed Muslim respect; it breeds universal contempt. Then they will turn to each other and say, “if you were thinking of fighting by America’s side, don’t”. With a guy like Obama as your shield, who needs a sword?
Or, to put it another way…
Pleasing your enemies does not turn them into friends-INDEED!
Fuggin’ Idiots.
What do you call a Hispanic that is “RAAAAAAAAACIST!” ? And I don’t mean La Raza racist, but you know, Republican racist. Expect the left to coin a term by the end of the day.
The Obamosque flip flop on the weekend demonstrates what the progressive Tranzis have in store for us. It is no different than Islamofascism; they both want to control us.
The creep of the progressives into the MSM and academia has been distressing to conservatives but until now we have had a hard time to set out the necessary images to fight the slippery slope we’ve sliding down for a couple of generations. The progs have had the gatekeepers of information on their side and it has been difficult to out their Orwellian doublespeak. But with the democratization of the media, Fernandez can get the information to us with “Now after being for the mosque, he’s against it. Maybe tomorrow he’ll be for it”. Obama can no longer make a statement to one crowd and then make the opposite statement (thus a lie) to another and get away with it like he did in his Community Organizer days.
The Obamosque fiasco is a turning point, a Dhimmicrat Disaster!
Here (http://www.israpundit.com/archives/26352) is an excerpt from Andy Bostom’s Israpundit post, “Ibn Warraq Defends the Western Values Barrack Obama Defiles With His Obeisance to Totalitarian Islam”:
[Warraq] denounced the kind of self-loathing apologetics that have become pathognomonic of President Obama and his administration, and their inability—or unwillingness—to defend Western values, “intellectually and culturally.” Warraq passionately advocated the opposite approach:
“Be proud, do not apologize. Do we have to go on apologizing for the sins our fathers? Do we still have to apologize, for example, for the British Empire, when, in fact, the British presence in India led to the Indian Renaissance, resulted in famine relief, railways, roads and irrigation schemes, eradication of cholera, the civil service, the establishment of a universal educational system where none existed before, the institution of elected parliamentary democracy and the rule of law? What of the British architecture of Bombay and Calcutta? The British even gave back to the Indians their own past: it was European scholarship, archaeology and research that uncovered the greatness that was India; it was British government that did its best to save and conserve the monuments that were a witness to that past glory. British Imperialism preserved where earlier Islamic Imperialism destroyed thousands of Hindu temples.
“On the world stage, should we really apologize for Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe? Mozart, Beethoven and Bach? Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Gogh, Breughel, Ter Borch? Galileo, Huygens, Copernicus, Newton and Darwin? Penicillin and computers? The Olympic Games and Football? Human rights and parliamentary democracy? The west is the source of the liberating ideas of individual liberty, political democracy, the rule of law, human rights and cultural freedom. It is the west that has raised the status of women, fought against slavery, defended freedom of enquiry, expression and conscience. No, the west needs no lectures on the superior virtue of societies who keep their women in subjection, cut off their clitorises, stone them to death for alleged adultery, throw acid on their faces, or deny the human rights of those considered to belong to lower castes.”
Warraq argued that absent such honest, rational Western criticism of these dehumanizing practices—fully sanctioned by Islam’s totalitarian religio-political governing code, the Sharia,
“…Islam will remain unassailed in its dogmatic, fanatical, medieval fortress; ossified, totalitarian and intolerant…Islam will continue to stifle thought, human rights, individuality; originality and truth.” [End quote]
I altogether agree with this assessment. As long as the West repudiates the truths and glories of its (in Canada, Judeo-Christian, British) past, we’ll not have the grit and the will to vanquish the very aggressive and wily enemy that is Islam. We in the West are already behaving like dhimmis: it’s about time we stopped the self-flagellation and started to punch back—hard.
It’s a refusal to accept normative ethical standards and an insistence instead on cultural relativism and identity politics.
That is, accepting a ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ is a rejection of ethics. Why?
First- to accept a mosque in its nature as an isolate, Muslim-only centre is an attribute of religious freedom. That criteria would be followed with all religions and is an aspect of the Constitution with its freedom of religion. This is ‘interaction-in-the-abstract’. It’s the theory.
Then, to move out of the first stage of normative behaviour into the actual practice, one must consider context: time and space. This second step moves you out of ‘thought’ and into hard reality. From the idea of building a bridge to realizing that the tides and rocks and etc mean that it can’t be built here but must be built two miles away.
This second step with the Ground Zero mosque must ackcnowledge the reality of that space as a hallowed ground to the memory of over 3,000 people killed by Islamic terrorists. How does this mosque acknowledge this?
Does it – as Rex Murphy in his column in the NP ask – have a room set aside as a museum to the memory of these 3,000?
He writes: “For example, a mosque in deliberate proximity to the scene of the Ground Zero slaughter will surely — unavoidably — have a section, a room, or a display, perhaps a miniature museum, on the events of that horrible day — giving some interpretation on what happened and why: what that day said, and did not say about Islam.”
And “Underneath, there could be a statement of categorical condemnation: These were a band of betrayers and corrupters of Islam, who did perverse deeds in Islam’s name. We Americans, Muslims all, in this holy place condemn and scorn their deeds and motives.
Maybe this could be accompanied by some work of art to commemorate the dead — those who died in the attacks themselves, and those who died during the attempt to rescue people within the towers.”
Does it, as I might suggest, focus on examining radical Islam and attempting to reduce its power among Muslims. Are its doors open to debate and dialogue and critiques of Islam? Or is it an isolate, self-referential institution for Muslims only and closed to such interaction? If this latter is the case – the mosque is an insult. Its imam is himself a radical, someone who refuses to acknowledge the reality of Islamic terrorism.
Again, the Golden Rule, with its simple axiom of treating others only as you consent to be treated in the same situation is the normative standard to be followed. Not political correctness. Not cultural relativism. And most certainly, not ignoring ethics and focusing only on whether the building is ‘legal’ or not.
The GR focuses on our nature, not as machines but as humans who can and must evaluate within the standards of ethics. Would Muslims permit a church to be built on their sacred ground in Mecca, devoted to and only to Christianity? We know the answer.
Should Americans permit a mosque devoted to and only to Islam (or any religion) on ground that is sacred, not to any religion, but to all Americans?
The answer has to be: No.
Would
You know there is a 7-11 and a Macdonalds at ground zero in Nagasaki
At Pajamas Media, on the same topic, “The Enigma of our Age” by the estimable Victor Davis Hanson:
. . . What are the lessons? Privately, the hardest leftist knows that millions of Mexican nationals or Muslims want to enter the U.S. But then why that is so is never voiced. Does anyone simply tell the truth? The combination of private property, free markets, transparency, personal freedom, limited government, meritocracy, and a singular constitution makes life here good. And rather than appreciate such an exceptional system, much less defend the idea of it, we beat each other up that we are mere mortals, not gods, and, my God, we can find a supposed misdemeanor here amid rampant felonies abroad. This is the most tolerant society in the world, the most multiracial and richest in religious diversity — and the most critical of its exceptional tolerance and the most lax in pointing out the intolerance of the least diverse and liberal.
It is market capitalism, unfettered meritocracy, and individual initiative within a free society that create the wealth for Al Gore to live in Montecito (indeed to create a Montecito in the first place), or for Michelle to jet to Marbella, or for John Kerry to buy a $7 million yacht. We know that, but our failure to occasionally express such a truth, coupled with a constant race/class/gender critique of American society, results in an insidious demoralization among the educated and bewilderment among the half- and uneducated.
In short, the great enigma of our postmodern age is how American society grew so wealthy and free to create so many residents that became so angry at the conditions that have made them so privileged — and how so many millions abroad fled the intolerance and poverty of their home country, and yet on arrival almost magically romanticize the very conditions in the abstract that they would never live under again in the concrete.
A final thought: given what we know of collectivism now and in the past, government in places like Mexico or Syria, multiculturalism in nations as diverse as the Balkans and central Africa, and the role of religion in most locales of the Middle East, how exactly could critics of the U.S. gain the security to protest, the capital to travel, and the freedom to criticize should the system that they find so lacking erode or even disappear?
The income for a Rangel or Geithner to hide on their taxes, the leisure to visit Martha’s Vineyard, and the tolerance to break a federal immigration law or offend the majority — all that had to come from somewhere.
From time to time, we should pay homage to that somewhere — and those in the graveyards who created it. [End quote]
’Time to stop our stupid, self-imposed dhimmitude.
The main reason to appose any mosque being built is that Islam has a negative effect on every other type belief system known to man.
Islam is not only a religion. It is a religion intertwined with a set of laws to govern how people interact with eachother. Without getting into how absurd and barbaric these laws seem to the rest of the West, the fact that they are there, embedded into their religion, makes it something more. I think it is a political movement. As such it cannot make any claim under the “freedom of religion” aspect of the constitution of the U.S. or any other country. That is where Obama’s logic fails in an epic manner.
The other major issue is that this mosque is not being built by American Muslims. Everyone knows that is being built by the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia.
But, the U.S. is free and private organizations can buy land and do whatever they want with it. What sort of atrocities happened there before 9/11? Who knows. I think that if Americans want to stop this from happening, then a bunch of rich dudes should get together and build a corporation whose sole purpose is to thwart the construction of this mosque at ground zero. Buy up the land and lease it out for income to those who will not run a mosque there.
Kate, that is so true. There are so many voices warning the people of the West, such as those articulated by lookout, ET above,but these warnings seem to largely ignored.
Are we witnessing the death of the West in one generation?
Not killing our enemies is sounding more and more like a failed policy.
You know Karl Marx is at “ground zero” in ‘right of centre’s’ brain.
“You know there is a 7-11 and a Macdonalds at ground zero in Nagasaki”
Right of Centre
Last time I checked, it was’nt Ronald Mcdonald on his flying golden arches that dropped a uranium package, nor was it a slush puppy operator…If a bronze statue of a B29 bomber named “Boxcar” was displayed there, you might have a point.
Nobody would complaint if muslims set up a…uh…What do Muslims do, manufacture, sell other than Islam???…Lets just say a date and fig stand at ground zero.
As far as Barry goes:
The President spoke “stupidly” and no beer summit will fix this one.
Alot of people have stated here and elsewhere that Obama’s mission is to simply destroy or cripple the US either economically or by raising divisions; racial or ideological or a combination of both…I always thought that this was too simple an explanation which had to be based on pure hatred and/or misplaced partisanship. Afterall, no commander in chief could be this “evil” towards his country. Right?
With one dissapointment after another,
I’m starting to believe the man might have a certain sulphuric smell to him afterall…Nobody can be this politically stupid can they?…Paging Hugo Chavez.
Check out Kathy Shaidle’s “Genius: Let’s start calling it ‘the Obama Mosque'”:
http://www.fivefeetoffury.com/
There’s a great interview on Fox News with Andrew Sullivan, a (very articulate) New York City construction worker who’s started a movement among construction workers (and supply and services providers) to not lay one hammer to one nail in the construction of a mosque at Ground Zero.
His blog: http://www.bluecollarcorner.com/blog/
‘Great links, BTW, lookout.
We’ve got to start articulating what we know to be true; we’ve got to remind people of the chattering class’s historical amnesia, a concept that makes pc dhimmis very uncomfortable. But, like lookout says, and I’ve been saying it too, we’ve got to start pushing back hard against the lies that have been told about the European/Judeo-Christian foundations of Western democracies. Far from being the villains, we’ve provided freedom to the oppressed peoples of the world. False humility, aka, becoming doormats in our own home, is suicidal.
Why are we letting recent immigrants from tyrannical regimes oppress us?
As one of the commenters said to the article, bigot has replaced racist as the favoured term of the left to stop any debate. They realized that they had overused racist and now they will throw out bigot. Sick, sick, sick.
“the American political elite will abandon everything — even Ground Zero — to the radicals.”
I disagree. I think America’s elite (I mean the real elite, the transnational super class who buy parties, presidents and agendas) GAVE the concessions to America’s internal enemies on purpose. They cede US sovereignty every where they can – to Reconquista politics, radical environmentalism, global crisis management, race baiting usurpers of law and order like the SPLC and black panthers, Muslim brotherhood formenters, any foreign anti-American economics. Placating these hate America factions does 2 things: A) it causes internal civil chaos and B) it chips away at US sovereignty over its borders, constitution and economy.
Once you realize the superclass who orchestrate or finance much of this turmoil, (through funding or ownership of NGOs or direct government influence), have vested interests in a failed American republic/economy,the seemingly random chaos makes sense.
Whenever you see civil/social/economic upheavals, think about the ‘grey men’ who make profits on such events – like George Soros or Mo Strong and their pals at the IMF. Other nations have become failed states from internal strife and been bankrupted by debt financing, then bought up at 10 cents on the dollar with IMF credit bailouts, why not America?
Couldnt the law of “eminent domain” be used to acquire the land for safety purposes, as I suspect safety may become an issue if this”Obomanation” is built?
Pres Obama, acceding to his ‘inner Islam’, just voted ‘present’ on this issue.
In reference to the topic of this thread, ET writes, “It’s a refusal to accept normative ethical standards and an insistence instead on cultural relativism and identity politics”.
I agree (and I’ll bet batb does too). ET also references the Golden Rule: this ethical system is laid out in the Ten Commandments and, in Christianity, in the Second Great Commandment, which is, “Love thy neighbour as thyself”.
As we in the West have turned our back on the religion that has sustained us for centuries—e.g., the EU bureaudhimmies whitewashed God and Christianity right out of their constitution: poof, history gone!—we’re losing our backbone. What an irony that we’re now facing a religious enemy that has no such “scruples”. I fear that the West is full of hollow men: such poor excuses for humanity are easily duped and easily overcome. Kyrie eleison.
I think the name ‘Obamamosque’ is perfect.
Remember that Obama has no allegiance to anyone other than himself as Himself. He has no intellectual interest in any issue, no ethical standards – nothing. His only focus is on his ability to manipulate YOU to be in his control. That’s the extent of his focus. So, he’ll tell one audience one thought and one promise, and two hours later, he’ll tell a different audience thoughts and promise that totally contradict those of the first audience. Obama has no problem with this, for he has NO connection to reality. His words are his reality.
Plus, he’s not only anti-American but his wife Michelle is deeply anti-American and anti-white. This influences Obama who has always required a dominant woman close to him.
Obamamosque. Exactly right.
Sometimes the three religions of the world Christianity, Islam and Secular Humanism reminds me of the old Rock, Paper Scissors game made popular by the Monkeys on TV. The Rock of Secular Humanism is busy grinding the Scissors of Christianity even as the Rock of Secular Humanism is being covered by the Paper of Islam. Scissors to Rock we are not your enemy!
The “bigots” are the ones who won’t invite us to build a Methodist Church in Mecca as new signal of openness and remorse for political, radical Islam. But instead they build a Victory mosque which is now officially Christened (whoops) by ET: Obamamosque
Regarding batb’s comments about the need to assert ourselves, if I were a moderate Muslim in the USA, I’d hedge my bets. Why bet against the Dhimmicrats?
The link in the Fernandez post to the Zogby poll indicates: for the first time in the past two years, more Arabs surveyed said they identified as Muslim rather than as citizens of their country. The feeling was strongest in Morocco, where 61 per cent identified primarily as Muslim, and in Saudi Arabia, where 47 per cent did.
OK so given that identification; isn’t it pretty clear that radical Islam is more than a religion? It is a political, economic, and religious movement that intends to impose Shari’a by non-violent means while commemorating 9/11 with an Obamamosque. How stupid do they think we are? And isn’t it pretty clear why the tranzi Dhimmicrats see eye to eye with that?
“It tells the Muslim world that the American elite, from cowardice or moral vanity will sell out anyone.”
That only applies to that “useful idiots” element but not to the hidden clique of manipulators such as Soros who thrive and prosper on chaos. These manipulators are not cowards, but in a manner are resolute, and but lack any moral aspect.
ET … I want to know why we dance around obvious examples of a blatant racist attitude and use euphamisms like “Michelle is deeply anti-American and anti-white.” She is as racist as the clown who wears a hood and a white sheet. Let’s cut the crap and tell it like is is.
No, nomdeblog – the name of Obamamosque is not mine. You referred to it and I’ve read it elsewhere. But it’s a perfect name for it. Link it to Obama – who actually came out in public in support of it.
He, the President of the people who were killed on 9-11, came out and supported the idea of a mosque on this hallowed ground. In the name of the rule of ‘religious freedom’. He totally and utterly ignored the ethical base for approving or rejecting it.
Because it was ‘the law’ in Germany to take all property from Jews – was it ethically just?
Because it is ‘the law’ in Iran to stone a woman to death if she’s been accused of adultery – is it ethically just?
Because it is ‘the law’ in Islam to kill all infidels – is it ethically just?
No human society – not one – can function by a legal set of rules alone. The very nature of what defines us as human rather than a machine, is our ethical nature. Ethics requires that we evaluate our actions as to their results – not their adherence to a rule – but their results. These results focus around ‘what is good’ and these are based around the Golden Rule.
ET “Ethics requires that we evaluate our actions as to their results – not their adherence to a rule – but their results.”
I wish! But not according to cultural relativism rammed down the throats of 2 generations students at all levels of education. Thus we don’t have a society that debates ethics, the progs want to impose rules, their rules.
Ethics was what a, separated from government, church and other religious institutions were supposed to be for; but the progressive, secular extremists have shut us down from having a moral stance on anything; because that would obstruct their goal to “control” us.
The progressive Tranzis, as we can now clearly see in their Messiah created in their own likeness, have had incredible success using their weapon of mass political correctness. PC says every culture is equal, therefore it is OK to bring their tribal rules here and impose whatever set of rules is in vogue regardless of the failed “results” in the culture they left. As batb said “We’ve got to start articulating what we know to be true”. Otherwise we’re propping up failure.
[…]Remember that Obama has no allegiance to anyone other than himself as Himself[…]
– ET,
Wrong!
Obama pledges allegiance to anti-Americanism, “anti-Whitism” and anti-Capitalism. ( and this is the short list )
His personality “defect” helps him feel detached but it is not the root cause of his trying to destroy the USA by manufacturing crisises.
No more than Bush’s personality was the cause of 9/11 or the cause of of leftists acting weird.
The problem is far more bigger than a president personality.
You are over simplifying a very complex issue.
Electing an anti-USA, anti-capitalism and and anti-White far leftist is – among other things – a consequence of decades of degeneration in Western Civilization.
Obama’s personality is not a cause but a contributing factor.
But ET
please,
just ignore me as you did yesterday
and/or
throw at me ad hominems such as “inane”, “blabbering” and “non valid arguments”
It is so classy of you.
Well, either way, the Messiah has dug a hole even he can’t dig out of this time.
If I didn’t know better it was almost as if the fix was in, remembering back when ObamaCare was almost certain to be defeated, only to see legislative trickery with a 51-49 vote. Barry doesn’t give a flip what he says, or who he insults, or what he cuts, or who he cuts, it’s almost as if he has a finger on the switch that will declare martial law and make him King.
I say this because he just doesn’t look worried.
Friend of USA Agreed Oblamebush is the symptom not the disease. What kind of sick society would put such a person in power?
I don’t think the US should suspend the rule of law arbitrarily for these “good” reasons anymore than they do for raw, racially profiled, political pandering as is the case of border/immigration non-enforcement. The essence of liberty is the ability to discriminate with your private property and labour. The state does not have the legal nor moral right to do so. However, adding to what BC stated above, given that Islam transcends mere religion and incorporates governance, I believe that there is a case to be made for withholding and or suspending citizenship for any Muslim who hasn’t sworn, in writing, an allegiance to the Constitution which specifically renounces those parts of Islamic faith that support Shariah. Islam and Islam alone, as it exists, should be declared an affront to the Constitution. The ACLU will naturally take the Imam’s side arguing that such action is in violation of the First Amendment. However, looking at the many precedents from the removal of even trivial symbolic Christian features from the public realm, all in the name of Church and State separation, I think its feasible to do at least the same for Islam. Europeans and Canadians may want to consider something similar if their Constitutions are robust enough. That unreformed Islam ultimately means an Islamic state, non-Islamic states that espouse freedom of religion, which in the case of the US (Constitution) was also intended to mean freedom FROM religion, can consistently demand a specific targeted Islamic reformation as a condition of citizenship. The alternative is eventual Shariah thanks to demography and democracy.
nomdeblog – yes, the very concept of ethics and morality has been viciously rejected by the ‘progressive left’.
By ethics and morality I mean the individual act of reasoning about the results of one’s actions. The reference point for this reasoning is the GR-‘treat others only as you consent to be treated in the same situation’.
Notice that this puts the onus on the individual and locates that individual in concrete, actual time and space – not some abstract generalization.
The progressive left, on the other hand, removes this individualism – which is, by the way, the basic axiom of the US identity and instead, moves the idea of ‘what is good’ into a group and defines the value of ‘the good’ as whatever that group itself decides it likes.
The ‘good’ is whatever the group decides is good for itself, and the group can never be wrong. Furthermore, this group-based concept of ‘what is good’ is moved from the concrete evaluation of the results of one’s individual actions to the abstract. The good is whatever forms of belief and behaviour the group declares defines itself.
This rejection of the requirement for reasoning about the results of one’s individual concrete actual behaviour (groups don’t think) means that ethics is no longer an act of actual evaluation but an act of self-affirmation according to the group’s cultural beliefs. ‘I’m a Muslim and all Muslims live within the religion of peace therefore my killing someone was done in the name of peace’.
Progressivism therefore rejects free will and reason, for if you operate only within the abstract ‘moral’ axioms of your group then you are unable to critique and evaluate your specific actions. All you can do is affirm whether or not they copy the abstract Group Rule. This is the rejection of reason – and the rejection of the individual right of resistance to tyranny.
The progressive insistence that NO evaluation can be made of any group, and that all groups are equal in their societal and political values is a pure abstract ideology. If we were allowed to think in actual concrete reality, for one second, and consider whether or not stoning a woman to death is ‘just’, or defining a woman as ‘half the value’ of a man is reasonable – we could hardly come up with the conclusion that all forms of belief and behaviour are equal in value.
For the progressives, every form of belief and behaviour is closed to critique and analysis. Furthermore, one’s own actions are closed to individual self-critique. Your self-assessment is not the GR but whether or not you acknowledged the ‘rightness’ of all other types of behaviour WITHIN THE CONFINES of their group – and your own behaviour WITHIN THE CONFINES of your own group.
So, the progressives attack Sarah Palin because she dared to enter their group (political leadership) BUT did not behave within the ideological confines of their group. She had several children, one of them disabled – which she kept rather than aborted!!; she was against abortion; she was pro-life; she was pro-gun -on and on. She moved into their terrain of political leaders but did not accept the ideological values of their group. The progressives went berserk.
Now, how can a world, made up of isolate groups, each adversarial with others, each unable to and not allowed to not only critique others but critique themselves….how can such a world function? It’s reduced to physical Will and Power. And that’s where the Trojan Horse of the Obamamosque moves in.
“sworn, in writing, an allegiance to the Constitution”
In Islam such an oath isn’t worth the paper its written on. Please don’t try to apply an occidental mindset to an oriental mind.
There are some catch 22’s that admittedly have been tripping me up for years. Boogey men that were created by the progressive Tranzis knowing most of us poor sods were working too hard paying taxes to articulate a sound argument against their plot to control us.
-There has been a lot of confusion about the difference between people being equal before the law versus cultures/groups being equal. ET is trying to clarify that problem with a focus on “ethics” which is different than “the law”.
-That Islam is a religion only and therefore we must tread carefully because to do otherwise means we aren’t holding the separation of religion and state on a high enough pedestal. John Chittick and batb are warning about the dangers here if we don’t assert “the truth” and that we must quit falling for the malarkey that political Islam separates mosque and state…it does not, the Mad Mullahs are ruling and they are getting a bomb.
-Our political class of elitists have managed to convince many that they know what they are doing. They perhaps did in an agricultural age when everyone was more or less doing the same thing. But in a complex society we are so specialized some don’t even know how to bundle the garbage without the government help. So we kept letting government grow to “help us”. Until Palin came along and threatened to field dress the elitists and hence they were reacting rationally to immediately attack her as toxic to their agenda.
Thou shalt not feed the trolls. I know but the leftoid analogy logic of “You know there is a 7-11 and a Macdonalds at ground zero in Nagasaki” has me thinking of a Mcbomb. Or, to put it another way, they are three fries short of a Happy Meal.
“leftoid analogy logic of “You know there is a 7-11 and a Macdonalds at ground zero in Nagasaki”
I love a good analogy, however comparing the Twin Towers to Nagasaki is simplistic, inaccurate and just plain stupid. This is a perfect example of left-wing ignorance of history.
Most interesting thread and comments in a long while.
Here’s the incomparable VDH
“The president weighs in on a local issue (cf. the Professor Gates/Officer Crowley mess), deliberately misrepresenting it and inflaming passions quite gratuitously by suggesting critics wanted to ban by law the mosque rather than pressure the organizers to reconsider. Surely Barack Obama knew the issue was one of decorum and taste and reverence, and surely Barack Obama tried to obfuscate all that by demonizing opponents as awful sorts of un-Americans without tolerance of religious diversity (revisit the clingers riff of 2008).
Then there was the question of reciprocity. To build a church in Mecca would mean death on the spot (to visit Mecca as a Christian or in general as a non-Muslim is a suicidal act). Why would not reform-minded Muslims seek first to change the hearts and minds of bigots in the Middle East, before testing the patience of liberal-thinking Americans?”
Exactly. The issue has nothing to do with freedom of religion or First Amendment rights or the law, and everything to do with ethics. Namely the evaluation of ‘what is a good result of my actions’ – or ‘decorum, taste and reverence’.
It isn’t even so much the issue of reciprocity, for no American would consider it ethical to demand to put a Christian church in Mecca. It’s the ethical decision of the Islamists who are insisting on this mosque on that site, and the progressives who, in their eagerness to show off their relativism and thus (they assume) their superiority – support it.
And VDH continues about Obama’s role in ‘supporting America’: “Mexico, with an awful record on illegal immigration to its south, lectures Americans about its ethical shortfalls up north. Millions of illegal aliens are angry that the state wishes to enforce federal statutes, but not quite to the extent of being too angry to quit residing illegally in the United States. The federal government sues a state for enforcing federal law, and ignores cities that subvert it. The president weighs in again, unnecessarily so, and once more misrepresents the issue, by suggesting the innocent on their way to buy ice cream will be profiled and deported.”
This adamant refusal by those on the left, to ethically evaluate, to reduce all issues to the notion of ‘group identities’ – which identities are all equal and equivalent is destroying our ability and duty and right as individuals to reason, judge, evaluate, and take action based on that individual reflection. Instead, we are told by these pompous elitists, that ethical values are inadmissable, that each group is, by law, free to do whatever they want without judgment.
But once you define a group as a Will, i.e., with a self-defined unquestioned set of beliefs and behaviour, each understood as a mini-sovereign state, then, we set up a system of moral nihilism where Power is the only judge. Whoever has the most money, the most political friends, the most threats – is the Winner.
Bravo, Victor Davis Hanson (VDH)! He’s a must-read.
ET writes, “This adamant refusal by those on the left, to ethically evaluate, to reduce all issues to the notion of ‘group identities’ – which identities are all equal and equivalent is destroying our ability and duty and right as individuals to reason, judge, evaluate, and take action based on that individual reflection. Instead, we are told by these pompous elitists, that ethical values are inadmissable, that each group is, by law, free to do whatever they want without judgment.”
With respect, this left-wing code is, as usual, relative. The “all groups are equal” ruse is only used to promote the agendas of favoured groups: visual minorities, feminist women, homosexuals, etc.—and ANY religion other than Christianity. (Judaism’s sort of out in the cold too. Melanie Phillips posits that that’s because of its most definitely NOT morally relativistic Ten Commandments. How DARE some uppity religious group—except, of course, for the Muslims, who also hate America—dictate how people are to live moral lives?) Trudeau’s Charter codified this fraud, which has been used by our Human Rights (sic) Commissions to harass and even ruin the lives of which group? Mainly white, Christian males.
The selective lenses through which our pompous elites view the populace is the absolute opposite of the rule of law. And, as most of us here agree, the results are likely to be catastrophically horrendous—and that’s even IF we start really fighting back, which we aren’t doing. I wonder what it will take for us to get serious about the threat of Islam. One would have thought that the events of September, 2001 would have done the trick. But no: it`s like we’re under some evil, fairy tale spell.
lookout
As I commented elsewhere, it’s the enemy within that is the issue. Without a mechanism to deal with those that wish to “remake” America (or western society) from within, we are very susceptible to shenanigans. It seems we’ve long passed the point where we can assume that our political foes have similar goals, if only different methods. IMO, without the internal threat, the external threat would be manageable.
With friends like that, who needs friends?JMO
lookout – yes, you are absolutely right. I neglected to point out that the ONE group which the progressive relativists refuse to accept as ‘equal’ is their fellow members of the western civilization who are NOT progressives.
That is – Christians but not exclusively Christian, white but not exclusively white, male and female, who are above all conservative, who support the axioms such as those of the Tea Party, i.e., small non-intrusive govt, individual freedom, the ethics of personal responsibility, fiscal responsibility and a respect for the Constitution.
These people are vilified and denigrated by the progressives.
Right of centre, I’ve been to Nagasaki. I stayed near the epicentre of the bomb. There is a park, a museum, Urakami Cathedral, Nyoko-do, a Catholic cultural centre, a nursery school, any number of sushi places but- to my knowledge- no McDonalds.
The proposal of a mosque anywhere near Ground Zero is offensive. It is an attempt to inspire Islamic triumphalism. I’m not surprised why Obama would back it. He is a vain man who looks after himself.
Even the brilliant VDH isn’t perfect with his “Surely Barack Obama knew the issue was one of decorum and taste and reverence”
Actually Obama “knows” nothing and cares about nothing but himself. Until a majority agree on that, we can’t move onto phase 2 which is to clean out the stables. The stables are full of progressive Tranzi elitists who are the “enemy within” embedded in the MSM, academia, even the State Department with CIA Valarie “the desk jockey” Plames…on and on.
But the good news is the Obamamosque fiasco tangiblizes this nightmare so that America can grasp the image of the enemy within more clearly. In short what the progressives have done by hurling Obama at Tea Party Americans is déjà vu 9/11, which the Islamofascist did not anticipate would wake up the sleeping giant.
lookout: ” … it`s like we’re under some evil, fairy tale spell.”
And, lookout, you and I know (as well as posters here like larben, Ken Kulak, etc.) that our Achilles Heel in the West has been the wholesale trashing (and acceptance of same by those who don’t know their history — which is pretty much the majority in the West now) of the faith of our forebears.
“Without a vision the people perish.”
What’s the West’s “vision” been in the past 50 years? Consumerism, hedonism, socialism, humanism, secularism. ‘Replace Judeo-Christianity, which gave us the foundational tenets of our democracies, with the isms I’ve mentioned (and how about Communism?) and the people perish.
It’s happening and it’s pretty clear what’s going on. We’re just too sated and self-indulgent — the opposite of the life a practising Christian, or a practising Jew, is called to — to recognize what’s happening to us, like the lobster in the pot of boiling water. And, our “Ism Overlords” — who’ve blindly been co-opted by Islamist extremists — have made sure that any practising Jew or Christian is routinely ridiculed, bullied, and persecuted, aided and abetted by the useful idiots in the media. (Christianity-Lite, BTW, goes along with the Ism-Zeitgeist and also persecutes Bible-believing Christians: Take a look at what’s going on in the United and Anglican Churches in Canada.)
This lobster will stay in the ocean, thanks! ‘No boiling water for me!
“…One would have thought that the events of September, 2001 would have done the trick.”
Sadly – very sadly – there will have to be much more violence before the leftists – or at least enough of them – come to their senses.
There are way too many explosive ingredients in the pressure cooker and the left keeps adding more heat ( amnesty for illegals, a mosque on ground zero, injustices on white males, et cetera…)
A civil war or a world war? who knows? but it will happen again.
History shows Humans always end up waging wars.
Sad – very sad – but true.
And when 8 % of babies born in a country are “illegals”…
and the president is taking the sides of the illegals…
something is about to blow up!
read it at,
http://news.yahoo.com/s/atlantic/study8percentofbabiesborntoillegalimmigrants4684
Hope* vs Fear*: The O’Sisters.
Coming soon to “Ground Zero [>>>] community center” near you.
Starring the O'”reaper”.
“Obama has settled on his message”.
…-
“Obama pleads to voters: ‘Don’t give in to fear’
Flying thousands of miles to reap millions of dollars, President Barack Obama is dashing across the country to help his party retain power, essentially offering one familiar argument: Republicans don’t solve problems.
“Don’t give in to fear,” Obama said Monday in his latest ominous vision of a country led by the opposition party. “Let’s reach for hope.””
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100816/ap_on_re_us/us_obama
…-
Hope* vs Fear*:
“Charles Lamb:
“Hope* is charming, lively, blue-eyed wench, & I am always glad of her company, but could dispense with the visitor she brings with her, her younger sister, fear*, a white liver’d-lilly-cheeked, bashful palpitating, awkward hussey that hangs like a green girl at her sister’s apron strings & will go with her whithersoever she goes.”
(Letters of Charles and Mary Anne Lamb)
…-
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2010/08/16/row-on-row/#comment-119352
“Row on Row”
“* Sen. Harry Reid Says Mosque Should Not Be Built Near Ground Zero
* Muslim leaders reportedly abandon plans for Ground Zero community center
There’s a point in every movie when the characters realize that their efforts are having a visible effect on their seemingly invincible antagonist. This is usually the dramatic turning point of the film.” (more)
I remember when the challenger shuttle blew up. I knew at the time that the Space program was dead. At least in my lifetime.
It was horribly depressing. Watching America fall is like that, only worse. Like watchinbg a family member die. Canadians know the feeling having watched ours decay slowly under another socialist. Named Trudeau, & an East enamored of European decadent oligarchy. Its the end of any light left in our Civilization. The motor of freedom on Eath has been sabotaged with the sand of Marxism.
We did it to ourselves by allowing this. Once you read imaginary rights into any Constitution without popular consent. It renders the document useless.
We already see the hordes prepared to loot us, as our Elite is doing now hoping to escape the disaster they have engendered.
JMO
Obama: The low spark of the High Heeled Boy…