Bonum Diffusum Sui

The following essay is a response by our guest blogger, Zenster.

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In a recent video Frank Gaffney said: "Bad behavior rewarded begets more bad behavior.".

This adage remains partially true, but it is no longer adequate to the task of pushing back against Islam. Time, along with technological progress and the development of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) have forever changed this once apt equation.

We claim that the only requirement for evil to succeed is that good people do nothing. Letting evil go unpunished ipso facto becomes the equivalent of rewarding it.

There is a theological principal known as: " Bonum diffusum sui *." Namely, that "good diffuses itself." This is the supremely magnificent aspect of positive intent or good will. Many would attribute a Divine character to it and not be at all wide of the mark.

Evil has no such beneficent characteristic. Much to the contrary, left unhindered, evil tends to concentrate in both power and force. It is neither benevolent nor compassionate. The ability for evil to grow relies upon the very worst attributes of human nature. Its lack of transparency, its need for furtiveness and a generally menacing disposition obliges evil to capitalize upon human weakness, fallibility and every shortcoming or deficit present in mankind’s makeup.

Throughout the vast majority of history these various negative aspects of evil have been self-limiting.

In the past, criminal conduct tended to be censured by a large portion of humanity who recognized its predatory nature. What’s more, immoral and unethical behavior usually carried with it numerous intrinsic penalties. Among them were more frequent exposure to bodily injury or lethal force, infighting and conspiracies, illness or disease, poverty, and deprivation. There were many other side effects of living as outlaws. The extrinsic consequences of apprehension, prosecution, imprisonment and physical punishment or execution only increased the negative effects.

The advent of modern technology has imbalanced the many pivot points in the workings of our ancient Social Contract. While modern medicine improves existence for good people it also extends the life of principal bad actors and the healing of their wounded accomplices. It equally enables the continued existence of unresisting human prey. These people – ill-suited to survival – might once have perished long before marauding forces could profit from looting or enslaving them.

These same refugees from reality – often in the form of liberals and socialists – bypass evolution’s normally unforgiving genetic obstacle course, managing to obtain an unprecedented degree of influence over political and economic systems. These same systems, once robust, would have had them yanked from the stage long ago. It is precisely this survival of the unfit that most imperils modern civilization.

Worst of all is the way in which an unfit yet active electorate is capable of steering democratic functions in order to affect larger geopolitical mechanisms. It is difficult to imagine a better example of evolutionarily unfit hands on the political tiller than – no, not Obama – the Gaza Strip. There, a totally dysfunctional Palestinian culture has empowered the retrogressive and parasitic Hamas regime. This has placed the entire population at risk of perishing from well-deserved Israeli retaliation against constant terrorist attacks committed by the ruling Hamas party. Illegal activities and the diversion of civil resources have resulted in deadly sewage floods, structural collapses and the untimely detonation of mishandled explosives, which only serve to jeopardize them further.

Palestine's existence is wholly dependent upon the poliltically driven lifeline of foreign aid. Without such an infusion this evil hybrid could not long survive. Thus does a dysfunctional culture continue in place because of external forces that artificially sustain its otherwise unsustainable pseudo-economy. The Palestinians are a micro-model of a much larger entity that has proven itself to be of a similarly dysfunctional nature. This is survival of the unfit writ large.

In its past and present manifestation, Islam is a pluperfect example of the way evil concentrates and does not diffuse. While good works unavoidably distribute their positive influence by increasing the overall quality of life, Islam can only spread itself by the sword. I doubt there exists a single historic example of a non-Muslim culture spontaneously and voluntarily abandoning its original belief system in favor of Islam.
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While this coercive and malign force has wrought unceasing damage throughout its nearly fourteen centuries of existence, nowhere has it ever been the threat it currently poses towards modern civilization. This emergency is due to a conjunction of Middle Eastern petroleum deposits and an exceptionally tolerant Western multicultural credo, both conjoined to Islam’s ability to survive through violent repulsion of external influences. This survival is due to Islam’s petroleum wealth, which gives it access to modern technology and thereby, ingress into Western culture.

High technology has brought even more efficient oil extraction methods and advanced medical treatment, but it also has facilitated the ease with which Weapons of Mass Destruction are produced. These factors have created a new sense of urgency to our interactions with Islam. Our global economy continues to reward the Middle East with unimaginable wealth even as Islam’s destructive barbarity increases in scope and dimension.

Despite periodic interventions by the West over the last several decades, much of the foreign policy of the West toward Islam has been a course of benign neglect. We have left Islam alone and – due to its persistent impoverished state – it was unable to impinge significantly upon Western civilization. A sea change in transatlantic pseudo-progressive political climate, along with the also noted conjunction of resources and technology, has changed all that. These changes are irrevocable without a revolutionary change in petroleum-based technology.

Islam has entered yet another aggressive cycle of expansion, this time driven by oil wealth and the reinvigorated puritanical sect of Wahhabism. The current manifestation is so predatory and hostile in nature that ignoring it has increased our own peril. We are assuring the survival of an entirely unfit entity. It is here where the original axiom of rewarding bad behavior breaks down.

Weapons of Mass Destruction facilitate and magnify Islam’s malicious aspect to such a degree that inaction is no longer an option if the West is to survive. Inaction does nothing to prevent the success of evil; it merely hastens its arrival. Concomitantly, reaction also proves to be of little use against the suicidal and violent constituents of Islam. Those Muslims who have overtly declared war on Western civilization justifiably interpret our passivity as weakness. Continuing to merely react to terrorist attacks is a passive response that will beget new attacks of greater magnitude and frequency.

The nature of Qur’anic doctrine is so intolerant and virulent that it cannot simply be starved out of existence through trade embargoes or economic boycotts. Sufficient wealth has been concentrated in the MME (Muslim Middle East) whereby Islamic jihad now can be carried on for decades without pause. During these same coming decades, the slow jihad of demographic invasion will see accomplished those assaults that could not be achieved through a direct application of force.

A soupçon of genuine wisdom lays concealed in the humorous adage that says:

“Friends come and go but enemies accumulate.”

The nature of friendship is such that it can be abandoned or lost without necessarily propagating any malice. Thus—"Bonum diffusum sui”—the goodness of amity diffuses but does not invert to any form of evil. No such process applies to good’s counterpart. Evil has a difficult time digesting goodness. Its appetite is upset by the conflict necessary to consume and destroy such a foreign body. Wickedness usually prefers a vector of hosts whose lax ethics and morals more easily propagate and spread its malignity. In this way, evil agglomerates the dregs of humanity and empowers those who would usually never merit recognition or attention from worthy people.

So it is that while Western nations dally part ways, our enemies inexorably gather on our borders and within what were once our fortresses. The inability of Western nations to cohere and provide a united front against Islam’s onslaught is the equivalent of indivdual inaction when confronted with evil. We are trilling upon diplomatic violins even as the inferno rages outside our windows.

Western inaction is upping an already hideous butcher’s bill. As members of America’s republican and democratic parties quarrel over the privilege of looting their nation and while the EU bickers over the exact methods to be used to neuter an increasingly restive indigenous European citizenry, our common enemy proliferates.

The West’s enlightenment and scientific supremacy was once a force for good that diffused throughout the world. Now our internecine squabbles distract us from the need to address with one voice those who would end the opportunities or freedoms to deliberate upon our future course. Islam intentionally steers against time’s current. It is determined to return us to the gloomy caves from which we emerged so long ago. Our collective inaction only speeds us towards the darkness.

Again, while once it was true that rewarding bad behavior only begat more bad behavior, we are now in an era where not punishing bad behavior is a form of furthering its evil intentions.


*With loving recognition and profound gratitude to Father Rex Alarcon of Naga City’s Metropolitan Cathedral in the Philippines for our lengthy discussions and the generous sharing of his immense knowledge that provided me with some of the deepest theological insights I have ever experienced.