Melanie Phillips writes a great piece today titled Preventing National Suicide - Tips on conserving and protecting from across the pond. Here is the closing half:
... Obama believes America has to expiate its sins: both its original, Founding sins of slavery and racism, and its latter-day sins against the world of Islam. Britain likes the sound of that. It wants America to be humbled. Nations, it thinks, cause wars. Arrogant, hubristic, imperial nations like Bush’s America cause big and horrible wars. By contrast transnational institutions — such as the sacred UN or EU — promote civilised “engagement” with the enemy to discuss grievances and reach compromises. So it is thrilled that Obama will get out of Iraq and talk to Iran and may even force wretched Israel (which Britain blames for Everything Bad in the World) to give away the disputed territories and half of Jerusalem to the Arabs.
The fact that such actions would leave Iraq in chaos, empower Iran still further, destroy Israel’s security and imperil the free world doesn’t trouble it at all. And if Obama, under the responsibility of office, should change from an appeaser to a war leader in America’s national interest, then Britain’s new found love for America would revert once again into rage and disdain.
Of course. transnational progressivism, multiculturalism, victim culture, pacifism. and all the rest of it do amount to a national suicide note. The reason Britain has embraced them is because, for the past several decades, it has lost belief in itself as a nation and so has been systematically hollowing out its values and its defences.
The result is a cultural vacuum which is steadily being filled by radical Islamism. Paralyzed by its “universal” value system of multiculturalism and minority rights, Britain is failing to assert its own civilisational principles against the cultural onslaught being mounted by Islamists. Accordingly, it is permitting the spread of Muslim enclaves governed by a parallel jurisdiction of sharia law — the steady creation of a “state within a state” — encouraging the development of sharia finance, and permitting Saudi money to fund British universities and other institutions.
Millions of Britons are appalled by the implosion of British culture, identity, and values. But they find themselves politically disenfranchized, because the Conservative party does not understand that British values are under attack. And Republicans should take careful note of this in order to recognize a similar danger and dilemma facing them following their defeat.
The British Conservatives think that, to regain power, they have to show they have broken with cultural conservatism and go instead with the way society has changed — gay rights, green politics, anti-racism. What they have failed to grasp is that such change has turned values such as right and wrong, good and bad on their heads and has produced a sentimentalised, cruel, oppressive and perverse society — one where burglars go scot-free but householders are prosecuted for putting the wrong kind of garbage in the trash can, and where people are too frightened to protest at the erosion of British, Christian, or Western values because of the opprobrium that will follow.
The Conservatives don’t realize that by embracing such “change” they are endorsing a kind of enslavement. They don’t realize that the first duty of a conservative is to conserve that which is precious and protect it against attack. The result is that millions feel betrayed and abandoned by the absence of conservatism, and yet more still think the Conservative party is just a bunch of opportunists who don’t have any principles. Why vote for the progressive wannabes, after all, when you can have the real thing?
The challenge for conservatives on both sides of the pond is to find a way of conserving the essential values of Western Civilization and defend them against the onslaught being mounted against them both from within and from without — but to do so in a way that is generous and big-hearted rather than narrow and sectarian, and embraces rather than repels.
Very well-done, I think. It won't be easy, as anything conservative is often painted as hateful and mean by the U.S. media. Is a humbled, apologetic United States really a good thing for the rest of the world? I don't think so, but I guess we'll see.
Dan Abrams: 'CNN should have called it what it was, a defense of Islamic fundamentalism and the worst type of moral relativism.'
The video to the right (click it to watch) speaks to the title, but consider this a small round-up on CNN's three-part miniseries "God's Warriors" hosted by Christiane Amanpour.
Video of the three shows are up on YouTube. There are a numerous clips, so it's best to search for them by specific show. Here's the first set on God's jewish Warriors. Here's the second set on God's Muslim Warriors. Here's the third set on God's Christian Warriors.
If any part of Christiane Amanpour’s piece were accurate and objectively representative of the truth, then her bruised and bloated body would have been found in a dusty, filthy alleyway, headless, and her hooded head would be found a mile away on a pike.
Muslims = terrorists and murderers, thousands of examples, sickening even to read about. Theocrats with religious imperial dreams of a worldwide caliphate.
Christians = peaceniks with an ancient and checkered history of governmental excesses, and a present day reality of universally positive outreach to poor people in communities all over the world. Some hilarious and widely reported incidents of sexual hypocrisy and abuse.
Jews = a small tribe of ancient peoples with roots in the cradle of civilization near Jerusalem and an astonishing history of persecution, the forefathers of the Christian religion, and a present day that is largely secular and wildly diverse, but also religious and sometimes orthodox faith, hunkered down in a UN-created nation surrounded by Koranimals. They are supported militarily by the hyperpower U.S., and willing to defend themselves to the death.
One of these days, CNN will have to dispense with the ominous music it uses for Christian documentaries and go for the full effect, using the Jaws soundtrack.
Last night, in the third segment of a six-hour series called God’s Warriors, CNN served up a two-hour, heady brew of fear, distortion and manipulative media techniques to paint a scary picture of conservative Christians in America.
[...]
If all this comes to pass, the public schools might have to start admitting that they break for “Christmas” in December, and stop teaching kids that promiscuous sex is inevitable and as wholesome for them as Cheerios.
Amanpour devotes much of the program to grassroots Christian political activism, leaving the impression that conservative Christianity is all about politics. In fact, politics is a side issue to most Christian believers. At one point, she opines: “God’s Christian warriors know where they want the country to go. And they’re not going to stop fighting until their battle is won.”
The takeaway message? Secular-minded Americans, you had better do something, because these Christian warriors are power-hungry and coming for your freedoms.
Not surprisingly, NewsBusters has been all over it. Here are some of their posts to check out:
And here's a finishing quote from Amanpour herself back in June:
You know, it's really nice, but I really strongly feel -- and I feel more and more -- that our job is simply to stick to the basics of what this profession is about. It's about reporting without fear nor favor. It's about recognizing the serious in this world and going out and telling the stories, giving a voice to those who don't have a voice, and just simply trying to tell the truth, because our viewers really want it, they really deserve it. And, you know, whether it's against dictators, or whether it's in elected governments, we must always remember that our job is not to be part of the propaganda campaign, but to report without fear nor favor, because if we don't, we can get really into a big disaster. And I, as you know, feel very strongly that that's what happened in the lead-up to the Iraq war.
Doug Giles and Robert Spencer on Spencer's latest book: Religion of Peace: Why Christianity is and Islam Isn’t...
Doug Giles always has his own brilliant twist to add, and it's usually not subtle.
His latest column titled Christianity Sucks and Islam is Awesome? is no exception, and it pairs up perfectly with Michelle Malkin's latest Vent - an interview with Robert Spencer about his latest (7th) book.
Click the image or the link above for Michelle's interview with Spencer over at HotAir.
Listen, 21st century truth reconstructors . . . you’ve gotta relax. Please do us all a favor and go get healed from your bad Sunday school experience and lay down your church grinding axe. Thinking people aren’t buying the “Christianity = Islam” smack.
Get real, Goofy. You and I both know that regardless of what a few loopy CINO’s (Christians in name only) have done via violence in the name of the Father that it is not in the body of Christian doctrine to hack off the noggin of the obstreperous. There’s not even an obscure passage in the Book of Revelation that some demented clod could twist like your Gumby doll to make the Christian scripture green light your demise or anyone else’s. Additionally, Christians aren’t longing for TBN to replace DC as our nation’s headquarters.
So chill, you shrill shredders of Christianity.
On the flip side, it is within the pages of the Koran to convert, conquer or kill non-Islamic people. And I’m a thinkin’ that no matter how much you work to besmirch Christianity and misinform on behalf of militant Islam, that if they had it their way, you, the secularist, would be a deceased grease stain on God’s green earth.
Therefore, gay guy, loosen that neckerchief and relax on the anti-Christian rhetoric, okay? Atheists, dial down and go back to studying monkeys (or whatever you do) and secularists, switch to decaf and exhale because you guys are barking up the wrong tree in trying to paint Christians as a coercive, could-be-violent, cabal like, militant Islam.
Radical Muslims, on the other hand, are the ones you need to sweat—because their book has zero tolerance for the likes of Sully and Jay—or anyone for that matter, who doesn’t lock step. You can bet your backside that if uncut Islam were in charge, Christopher Hitchens would be history, Drew Barrymore would be nevermore and Andrew Sullivan would never be seen again.
The Judeo-Christian worldview (and subsequently, the great western traditions it under girds) is the only powerful cudgel in existence to ward off militant Islam. That’s what makes the Left’s lies about Christ’s Church and the Left’s desires to diminish it so diabolical. If the church’s presence and power gets marginalized via these secularists’s anti-Christian propaganda, then all I’ve got to say is, “I hope everyone is cool with wearing burkhas.”
... Back in the 1930s, the governments of the democratic countries knew what Hitler was doing -- and they knew that they had enough military superiority at that point to stop his military buildup in its tracks. But they did nothing to stop him.
Instead, they turned to what is still the magic mantra today -- "negotiations."
No leader of a democratic nation was ever more popular than British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain -- wildly cheered in the House of Commons by opposition parties as well as his own -- when he returned from negotiations in Munich in 1938, waving an agreement and declaring that it meant "peace in our time."
We know now how short that time was. Less than a year later, World War II began in Europe and spread across the planet, killing tens of millions of people and reducing many cities to rubble in Europe and Asia. ...
Ayaan Hirsi Ali interview on the Dennis Prager show..
The former Dutch member of Parliament and now a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute defends America on a CBC news program. Her defense, calm and devastating, left the interviewer nearly speechless.
Something is rotten in the state of England. A series of recent decisions and proclamations by prestigious English institutions reveals an indifference to its own English way of life and a submission to brazen demands made by domestic Islamic groups which could forever diminish the historic English culture. In addition, British organizations are issuing alarming statements telegraphing an official loathing of America and Israel. In fact, a German author has aptly entitled a recent book warning of the pervasive obsequiousness weakening today’s England and Europe: "Hurray, We are Capitulating."
A highly vocal Islamic group in England is demanding that British public schools reshape entire curricula and school activities to conform to Islamic beliefs and attitudes so that Moslem students feel comfortable. In effect, English schools may begin looking and acting more like Islamic schools than what has been the traditional English one. Infected by political correctness and multiculturalism, many top British officials and its Department of Education seem ready to begin testing the "plan", though it will probably result in the discomfort of the millions of majority students who are not Moslem and impose behaviors that effectively sideline British ways in Britain itself.
Schools may soon be required to have separate swimming for boys and girls and require that girls and boys wear swimsuits covering from the neck to the knee. If such a request had come from the Church of England it would have, for certain, been summarily shot down. Certain sports, such as tennis, alien to many Islamic countries, as well as other recreational activities may soon be prohibited. There will be times set aside for prayer, with designated Islamic prayer rooms and rugs; no meat will be served during the month of Ramadan and pork will be prohibited in school throughout the entire year. There are many more demands. ...
Ann Coulter celebrates France's spectacular return to Western civilization... (updated)
Since the last post showed some sanity coming from Germany, I'll follow it up with Ann Coulter extolling the even more shocking indications of sanity coming from France.
...In Germany, pro-American Angela Merkel crushed the mincing anti-American chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in 2005.
Last year, conservatives swept Canada, making Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper the prime minister. I haven't loved Canadians this much since the New York Rangers won the Stanley Cup.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard is both the longest-serving Australian prime minister and -- by his own account -- the most conservative. As The New York Times rooted for his defeat in 2004, claiming Australians were furious with him for his support of the Iraq war, he won a historic third term.
Along with Howard, Bush's staunchest ally in the war on terrorism has been Britain's Labor Party leader Tony Blair. He's about to leave office -- only to be replaced by a leader from the even more pro-American Conservative Party.
American celebrities who threaten to move out of the country every election rather than live under a conservative leader are running out of countries to move to.
Only Spain remains a nation of women. As long as Spain exists, it will not outlive the shame of its gutless capitulation to terrorist bombings in 2004. It is worse than Sweden's neutrality toward Hitler.
But France! Until this week, France seemed a less likely place to find someone who supports America than a meeting of Democrats.
Apparently, even the French prefer Western civilization to clitorectomy-performing, car-burning savages.
The Democratic Party is now officially the only organization on Earth that does not take the threat of Islamic fascism seriously. Between the Democrats and the media, America has gone from its usual position as the world's last hope to radical Islam's last hope.
Amazing, isn’t it, how the conventional wisdom that holds sway among many sophisticated — i.e. liberal — Washingtonians and New Yorkers is often so completely divorced from reality.
These folks have come to take it as a given that America’s involvement in Iraq has inflicted severe damage to our nation’s image abroad, especially in Europe. But the most recent national election results from France and Germany demonstrate that this “truth” about George W. Bush’s America is about as credible as the recurring rumor that Elvis is actually alive and well flipping hamburgers in happy obscurity somewhere near Seattle.
... Men and women may be morally equal, but they are not functionally equivalent. They need to nurture their separate identities, and must be treated differently in law and culture to ensure that little things like law and culture have future generations to be passed down to. It is not just major issues of ideology preventing action either, sheer incompetence and lack of vision comes into play as well. The U.S. Congress cannot even eliminate the marriage penalty and seems to think that it costs about $3400 per year to raise a child -- and this crack force is supposed to reverse the deepest demographic decline since the Black Death? Government is a lost cause on this issue.
The churches are perhaps the only forces that can reverse our demographic decline and re-center a large part of society onto the idea of family and sacrifice, rather than career and wealth. The churches of America and Europe must begin to preach the gospel of family and to teach again that part of the mission to which the faithful are called is parenthood. And no, I’m not talking about encouraging a program of breeding by fanatics.
The whole difference between a Christian civilization in decline and one in growth is simply having three kids per family
The whole difference between a Christian civilization in decline and one in growth is simply having three kids per family become the standard for your average imperfect Christians (like the kind that go to church every few weeks), rather than the two per family that has been sold to society by the mental duds that sought to defuse the “Population Bomb.” One need not have so many children that the TLC channel starts making documentaries about your laundry needs and grocery shopping. The path to a better world, filled with sufficient people of shared philosophy to maintain, defend and expand our civilization is simple:
1. Have kids before one’s ovaries require pharmacological starter fluid, and
2. Have three or four instead of one or two.
Churches can encourage this small, but potent change in our mores, by not only teaching that a kid is a better use of funds than a bass boat or a BMW (and more fun some days), but by focusing on the centrality of family in their ministry. The leaders of the church need to live the example of the ministry of parenthood as well. What sort of shepherd has no time for his own lambs? ...
"An ideology of bigotry and intolerance spreading through Britain".
Britain is screwed: Part I of III from Kasper1062:
This investigation into Britain's mosques, by Channel 4's respected Dispatches programme,has revealed worrying evidence of just how rife Islamic extremism is among Muslim preachers.
The undercover TV inquiry, conducted over ten months, reveals some religious clerics urging their congregations to start preparing for jihad (holy war) against infidels or non-Muslims. Another is caught on camera telling families to hit their daughters for not covering their heads with the veil or hijab.
One imam from a Derby mosque, called Dr Ijaz Mian, was filmed calling for the creation of an Islamic 'state within a state' in Britain before the country is taken over by Muslims.
Addressing a group of youths, he said: 'King. Queen. House of Commons ... if you accept it, you are part of it. If you don't accept it, you have to dismantle it. So you being a Muslim, you have to fix a target. There will be no House of Commons ... Muslims just grow in strength ... then take over.'
The programme paints an alarming picture of how preachers, even at what are regarded as the most moderate mosques, urge their followers to reject Britain's legal system in favour of shariah law and its radical rulebook.
The investigators spent four months filming undercover at one mosque, Green Lane in Birmingham, which caters for thousands of worshippers.
The main preacher is Abu Usamah, an American convert to Islam, who studied at Medinah University in Saudi Arabia, before coming to Britain. He is seen telling worshippers not to believe that Islamic terrorists are operating in Britain, as all non-Muslims are liars.
In another sequence, he is heard saying that Christians and Jews are 'kuffaars' (non-believers) and the enemies of Islam. 'No one loves the kuffaar, not a single person loves the kuffaar,' he rants. 'We hate the kuffaar!' Then he adds, triumphantly: 'Allah has not given those people who are kuffaar a way over the believer. They shouldn't be in authority over us. Muslims shouldn't be satisfied with anything other than a total Islamic state.
'I encourage all of you to begin to cultivate ourselves for the time that is fast approaching - where the tables are going to turn and the Muslims are going to be in the position of being uppermost in strength. And when that happens, people won't get killed - unjustly,' he promises.
As for women, he says they are 'deficient, even if they have a PhD. Her intellect is incomplete. She may be suffering from hormones that will make her emotional. It takes two witnesses of a woman to equal the one witness of a man.'
He goes on to say that gays deserve to die. 'If I were to call homosexuals perverted, dirty, filthy dogs who should be murdered ... that's my freedom of speech, isn't it?'
The TV investigators also bought damning videos and DVDs of speeches by Muslim preachers from a shop at the London Central Mosque in Regent's Park.
The mosque has always been hailed by the Muslim Council of Britain and the Government as a symbol of reason and mainstream Islamic life in this country.
But the programme's team found copies of films of preachers decrying the equality of women as a 'bunch of foolishness' and claiming that Christian missionaries put the Aids virus into medicines in order to poison the people of Africa.
The TV exposé, like the Mail's own investigation in Surrey, shows that the systematic brainwashing of Muslims by their religious leaders is now commonplace. And it appears to be producing results.
Twenty-eight per cent said they believed Britain should be an Islamic state. In another worrying sign, one in three young Muslims said that the London bombings were justified because Britain had joined America in the 'war on terror'.
Iran is supporting both Sunni and Shiite terrorists in the Iraqi civil war, according to secret Iranian documents captured by Americans in Iraq.
The news that American forces had captured Iranians in Iraq was widely reported last month, but less well known is that the Iranians were carrying documents that offered Americans insight into Iranian activities in Iraq.
Iran is working closely with both the Shiite militias and Sunni Jihadist groups
An American intelligence official said the new material, which has been authenticated within the intelligence community, confirms "that Iran is working closely with both the Shiite militias and Sunni Jihadist groups." The source was careful to stress that the Iranian plans do not extend to cooperation with Baathist groups fighting the government in Baghdad, and said the documents rather show how the Quds Force — the arm of Iran's revolutionary guard that supports Shiite Hezbollah, Sunni Hamas, and Shiite death squads — is working with individuals affiliated with Al Qaeda in Iraq and Ansar al-Sunna.
One, we can withdraw ground troops and return to punitive and conventional bombing — tit-for-tat retaliation for each attack in the future. That way, the United States stays distant and smacks the jihadists on their home bases below. Few Americans die; terrorists sometimes do. The bored media stay more concentrated on the terrorists' provocations, not on our standoff response from 30,000 feet in the clouds.
Prosperity, security and liberty are the death knell to radical Islam. It's that elemental.
Or American forces, at great danger, can continue to change the political and economic structure of the Middle East in hopes of fostering constitutional governments that might curb terrorism for generations. This current engagement demands our soldiers fight jihadists on their vicious turf, but by our humanitarian rules. For this, we must pay the ensuing human and materiel price — all broadcast live on the evening news.
He concludes:
Imagine this war as a sort of grotesque race. The jihadists and sectarians win if they can kill enough Americans to demoralize us enough that we flee before Iraqis and Afghans stabilize their newfound freedom. They lose if they can't. Prosperity, security and liberty are the death knell to radical Islam. It's that elemental.
That's as good an analysis as I can find.
Update: Glenn Beck discusses the gathering storm with Winston S. Churchill...
The failure to define what is “evil” is causing us to capitulate to the apex (or nadir, I guess) of political correctness in a “No %$@&” time of crisis. Go ahead; ask someone at the next Winter Solstice office party to define “evil.” You’ll get the typical “it’s all relative” slop, or “there is no objective standard of right or wrong”, or “all absolute truth claims are nothing more than powerplays, man.” Y’know, the same emblematic drivel your pot smoking, liberal prof taught you at the University of You-Just-Wasted-A-Ton-Of-Your-Parent’s- Cash-And-Got-Brain-Washed-In-The-Process.
The few who do have the cojones to say something is evil will be called evil themselves because judging something as wrong has become the sin of the 21st century—unless, of course, you’re a liberal; then you can judge, bring up Foley, Delay, Ted Haggard, other GOP inadequacies, evangelical inconsistencies and call a spade a shovel all you want.
If you want to keep away from the heavy stuff, here's Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan joined by Jim Carrey in this great SNL skit. YouTuber DarthFloydian then ingeniously dubs with El Mudo's "Chacarron".
Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to the United States Congress, has announced that he will not take his oath of office on the Bible, but on the bible of Islam, the Koran.
He should not be allowed to do so - not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization.
First, it is an act of hubris that perfectly exemplifies multiculturalist activism - my culture trumps America's culture. What Ellison and his Muslim and leftist supporters are saying is that it is of no consequence what America holds as its holiest book; all that matters is what any individual holds to be his holiest book.
Forgive me, but America should not give a hoot what Keith Ellison's favorite book is. Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress. In your personal life, we will fight for your right to prefer any other book. We will even fight for your right to publish cartoons mocking our Bible. But, Mr. Ellison, America, not you, decides on what book its public servants take their oath.
Devotees of multiculturalism and political correctness who do not see how damaging to the fabric of American civilization it is to allow Ellison to choose his own book need only imagine a racist elected to Congress. Would they allow him to choose Hitler's "Mein Kampf," the Nazis' bible, for his oath? And if not, why not? On what grounds will those defending Ellison's right to choose his favorite book deny that same right to a racist who is elected to public office?
Prager is on the money again. Read more from him here.
Update: A commentor made a good point about Lindle that is further illuminated by Eugene Volokh in his recent effort called Oh Say, Can You Swear on a Koran?:
... This argument [Pragers] both mistakes the purpose of the oath, and misunderstands the Constitution. In fact, it calls for the violation of some of the Constitution’s multiculturalist provisions.
To begin with, the oath is a religious ritual, both in its origins and its use by the devout today. The oath invokes God as a witness to one’s promise, as a means of making the promise more weighty on the oathtaker’s conscience. ...
Bonus: "Prager talks to a young college student who re-considered her heterosexuality after being influenced by various media and cultural pressures". Homosexualization and political correctness are ruining our country. By the time we pick our collective heads out of the feed trough and realize that this isn't what we want for ourselves, it may be too late.
It has caused a national discussion - actually, more hate-filled attacks on me than civil discussion - and has been covered by just about all major American news media. To their credit, CNN and Fox News both gave me ample time (in television terms anyway) to express my views on two of each network's major shows: "Paula Zahn Now" and Headline News on CNN, and "Hannity & Colmes" and "Your World with Neil Cavuto" on Fox News. And many American newspapers have covered it.
In addition, there was widespread coverage on left-wing blogs, which, with no exception I could find, distorted what I said, charging my column and me with, for example, racism (see below), when race plays no role at all in this issue or in my column. For the record, because I deem this a significant statement about most of the Left, I found virtually no left-wing blog that was not filled with obscenity-laced descriptions of me. Aside from the immaturity and loathing of higher civilization that such public use of curse words reveal, the fury and hate render the leftist charge that it is the Right that is hate-filled one of the most obvious expressions of psychological projection I have seen in my lifetime.
Clearly, many Americans, including some conservatives and libertarians, have no problem with the idea that for the first time in American history, a person elected to Congress has rejected the Bible for another religious text when taking his oath of office (whether ceremonial or actual - more on this below). This includes some thoughtful colleagues in conservative talk radio (intellectual life on conservative radio is far more diverse than intellectual life at most American universities). ...
[conclusion]... I am for no law to be passed to prevent Keith Ellison or anyone else from bringing any book he wants to his swearing-in, whether actual or ceremonial. But neither I nor tens of millions of other Americans will watch in silence as the Bible is replaced with another religious text for the first time since George Washington brought a Bible to his swearing-in. It is not I, but Keith Ellison, who has engaged in disuniting the country. He can still help reunite it by simply bringing both books to his ceremonial swearing-in. Had he originally announced that he would do that, I would have written a different column - filled with praise of him. And there would be a lot less cursing and anger in America.
Let's say this same type of swearing-in ceremony were occurring elsewhere and not in the U.S.
Regardless of what the actual swearing-in ceremonies are like (I have no idea), let's say these ceremonies occur using a Quran in a Muslim country such as Kuwait, or with an Orthodox Bible in a country like Russia, or with a Tanakh in Israel (take your pick). Again, these are not religious ceremonies, these are civil, swearing-in ceremonies wherein the otherwise "sacred text" has long and traditionally been used during swearing-in ceremonies, where the text is used representationally, not to denote theological content, but to reflect deeply rooted moral/ethical and cultural content which had long been formative for the nation/state in question.
Now imagine a white, anglo-saxon Protestant or Catholic has, for whatever reason, gained acclaim and renown in the country in question (Russia, Israel or Kuwait) and that this person in fact has, either via election or via appointment by the ruling elite, gained a high office in this country. Let's also say this news is being reported on back in the U.S. And again, this is a WASP (or WASC) we're using as an example.
Now let's imagine this WASP (who is also a male), knowing the swearing-in ceremony is imminent (and who is also aware the text is not being used for its religious significance but rather for what it represents morally/ethically and culturally), announces that he refuses to use the Orthodox Bible or the Tanakh or the Quran and instead insists on using the King James Version, the very version G-d gave to Moses (or was it King Arthur?) on Sinai.
Imagine what the news reports would be headlining back in the U.S. A WASP, a male WASP, was being so impudent, ungracious and presumptuous as to insist upon using the KJV instead of the Quran or the Orthodox Bible or the Tanakh (depending)! "Ungracious" would be among the kinder terms used; he'd be described as being boorishly insensitive, an ingrate, insensitive boor, etc., desrespectful of another peoples' culture and traditions. Harrumph!
Initially I only very tentatively agreed with Dennis, but Dennis Prager has it right. What Prager most poignantly has right is that this reflects the insinuating and corrosive Multiculturalism, writ large, which allows this particular tradition to be stepped on even though no religious or theological meaning per se inheres to this swearing-in ceremony, that instead the meaning is cultural and moral/ethical, much as it would be in an analogous situation in Israel, in Russia, in Kuwait, etc.
The office in question is not a religious office, it's a civil office, reflecting an organ of government, the state, not a church or theological office. Likewise the swearing-in ceremony has no religious significance per se, rather the "favorite book" used carries moral/ethical and cultural content and representational value. Only in the U.S. and other parts of the West has the Left taught us, in Pavlovian style, to so denigrate or be embarrassed by our very own culture and traditions that it takes someone with sufficient moral and social courage such as Dennis to point out the blindingly obvious: the degree to which the Left has us cowed to the point where we're self-blinded.
We are the enemy of those who would add Iraq to the list of countries dominated by Islamic Extremists who want nothing less than to 1) propagandise their people to hate the west (Israel and the U.S. specifically), 2) rule under Sharia Law, and 3)... kill you and your family, along with the rest of us who won't submit completely to Muhammad's and their authority.
Liberals who always opposed the Iraq war, or who have decided to oppose it after either supporting it or even voting to put the troops into the field, have constructed this myth surrounding both Iraq and Hussein that defies all facts and recitations of the facts. He had no WMDs. Bush lied us into war (but for some reason didn’t see far enough ahead to plant a few WMDs to keep the game going). Saddam was too secular to work with those crazy Islamist terrorists. Etc, ad infinitum or until we lose the war, whichever comes first.
What the liberal mind is passionate about is a world filled with pity, sorrow, neediness, misfortune, poverty, suspicion, mistrust, anger, exploitation, discrimination, victimization, alienation and injustice. Those who occupy this world are “workers,” “minorities,” “the little guy,” “women,” and the “unemployed.” They are poor, weak, sick, wronged, cheated, oppressed, disenfranchised, exploited and victimized. They bear no responsibility for their problems. None of their agonies are attributable to faults or failings of their own: not to poor choices, bad habits, faulty judgment, wishful thinking, lack of ambition, low frustration tolerance, mental illness or defects in character. None of the victims’ plight is caused by failure to plan for the future or learn from experience. Instead, the “root causes” of all this pain lie in faulty social conditions: poverty, disease, war, ignorance, unemployment, racial prejudice, ethnic and gender discrimination, modern technology, capitalism, globalization and imperialism. In the radical liberal mind, this suffering is inflicted on the innocent by various predators and persecutors: “Big Business,” “Big Corporations,” “greedy capitalists,” U.S. Imperialists,” “the oppressors,” “the rich,” “the wealthy,” “the powerful” and “the selfish.”
The liberal cure for this endless malaise is a very large authoritarian government that regulates and manages society through a cradle to grave agenda of redistributive caretaking. It is a government everywhere doing everything for everyone. The liberal motto is “In Government We Trust.” To rescue the people from their troubled lives, the agenda recommends denial of personal responsibility, encourages self-pity and other-pity, fosters government dependency, promotes sexual indulgence, rationalizes violence, excuses financial obligation, justifies theft, ignores rudeness, prescribes complaining and blaming, denigrates marriage and the family, legalizes all abortion, defies religious and social tradition, declares inequality unjust, and rebels against the duties of citizenship. Through multiple entitlements to unearned goods, services and social status, the liberal politician promises to ensure everyone’s material welfare, provide for everyone’s healthcare, protect everyone’s self-esteem, correct everyone’s social and political disadvantage, educate every citizen, and eliminate all class distinctions. With liberal intellectuals sharing the glory, the liberal politician is the hero in this melodrama. He takes credit for providing his constituents with whatever they want or need even though he has not produced by his own effort any of the goods, services or status transferred to them but has instead taken them from others by force.
They're the same ones who can't figure out what could possibly make me a conservative when I'm also clearly an "oppressed...exploited, victimized" "woman" who needs liberal philosophies and government programs to keep her head above water.
The irony, of course, is that creating a victim mentality out of compassion, creating dependence as a path to deliverance, very seldom truly helps or delivers anyone for whom liberals have such compassion. Dependence on government is a shame when America offers so much more to those who are inclined to go out and get it. Why encourage them not to? It does honor neither to the "victims" nor the opportunity and freedom our country offers.
... In the cases of women and children recruited to be suicide bombers, the media often delve deeper into the story to see why they would want to die. Male suicide bombers are so common that their deaths are usually accepted at face value as the macho acts of sacrifice professed in their “martyrdom” videos. But I suspect that many of these men do not fear death simply because they just don’t have that much of a life. They are the insecure, the insignificant, the unloved, and the ambitious but unsuccessful. Were they born in Poland or China or Illinois, they would be reassured and told to keep trying if they were despondent. They would dream of being a rock star if they craved fame. They would dream of riches if they craved success. They would dream of finding acceptance and even love if they were lonely and isolated.
But they were born in Fatima-land. So they are told to land on a Jew … or an American, or a Hindu, or a Shiite, or a Russian, or a whomever.
It's easy to characterize religion as a blood - thirsty enterprise. History seems to be strewn with the wreckage of witch hunts, crusades, and religious jihad. If God does exist, a caller to my radio show offered, He ought to be tried for crimes against humanity.
The recent terrorist attacks have added a new twist: Our battle is not against terrorism per se, but against any religion that claims to be true. Thomas Friedman writing in the New York Times called it "religious totalitarianism."
Friedman’s solution: pluralism, the idea that "God speaks multiple languages." No one faith is exclusively true. Instead, all faiths are legitimate paths to God and anyone who claims otherwise is the enemy. Friedman’s call to arms, however, is misguided for three reasons. ...
There's too much good stuff to copy and paste here, but read the whole article at Townhall.com.
I'm glad to see Greg publishing at Townhall.com. You can find more information about him and his apologetics ministry at Stand To Reason.
"It is an object of vast magnitude that systems of education should be adopted and pursued which may not only diffuse a knowledge of the sciences but may implant in the minds of the American youth the principles of virtue and of liberty and inspire them with just and liberal ideas of government and with an inviolable attachment to their own country." - Noah Webster (1790)
"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him." - G. K. Chesterton
"It should be the highest ambition of every American to extend his views beyond himself, and to bear in mind that his conduct will not only affect himself, his country, and his immediate posterity; but that its influence may be co-extensive with the world, and stamp political happiness or misery on ages yet unborn." - George Washington
"Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late." - Thomas Sowell
"It’s getting close to the point where Osama bin Laden could deliver the keynote speech at the Democrat National Convention." - Rush Limbaugh
"Contemporary politics is all about phony energy, about running around slamming doors for the sake of it—or, more to the point, opening them and tossing through a huge sack of taxpayer dollars." - Mark Steyn
"In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution." - Alexander Hamilton
"You cannot slander human nature; it is worse than words can paint it." - Charles Haddon Spurgeon
"Without gratitude, it is hard to appreciate, or be satisfied with, what you have: and life will become an existential shopping spree that no product satisfies." - Theodore Dalrymple
"It is only the warlike power of a civilized people that can give peace to the world." - Theodore Roosevelt
"If we can’t enforce our laws inside the building where American laws are made, where can we enforce them?" - Tom Tancredo
"Just about every generation has some horrific evil that it must fight. For the Democratic Party today that evil is carbon dioxide emissions. For the rest of us, it is an ideology that teaches that its deity is sanctified by the blood of innocents." - Dennis Prager
"Men will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them are the maddest of all." - Voltaire
"It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong." - Thomas Sowell
"The firm basis of government is justice, not pity." - Woodrow Wilson
"Not everything you may care about is in the Constitution. It is a legal document that had compromises in it. What it says it says; what it doesn’t say it doesn’t say." - Justice Antonin Scalia
"Liberals believe in burning the American flag, urinating on crucifixes, and passing out birth control pills to 11-year-olds without telling their parents -- but God forbid an infidel touch a Quran at Guantanamo." - Ann Coulter
"A community that allows a large number of young men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any set of rational expectations about the future - that community asks for and gets chaos." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checked by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt
"Though God alone is competent to judge the heart, we can and must judge whether objective behavior is bad or good, right or wrong." - Dr. Marcellino D'Ambrosio
"While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader." - Samuel Adams
"If any group of citizens is uniquely unqualified to tell someone else how to vote, it’s those of us who live in the sheltered, privileged arena of celebrityhood." - Pat Sajak
"The believer in God has to account for the existence of evil and suffering. The atheist has to account for the existence of everything else." - Dennis Prager
"Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid" - Ronald Reagan
"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." - Barry Goldwater
"Appreciate the good in your life, and the good will appreciate." - Tal Ben-Shahar
"The dustbin of history is littered with remains of those countries that relied on diplomacy to secure their freedom. We must never forget... in the final analysis... that it is our military, industrial and economic strength that offers the best guarantee of peace for America in times of danger." - Ronald Reagan
"It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere." - Voltaire
"But America can still survive, prosper, and defend its freedom only if it continues to believe in itself, in the sturdier virtues of self-reliance (not government), in the centrality of family, and in the conviction that our country really is the world's last best hope." - Mark Steyn
"Compassion should be applied in the personal (micro) arena, but standards should be applied in the public (macro) arena. Too often compassion is applied in both." - Dennis Prager
"If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism. " - Thomas Sowell
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." - John Stuart Mill
Melanie Phillips writes a great piece today titled Preventing National Suicide - Tips on conserving and protecting from across the pond. Here is the closing half:
