Wednesday, April 30, 2008

What Is to Be Done?

Gates of Vienna commenter Ioshkafutz has taken up the postion of volunteer poster with the following treatise. He says:

This essay originated in a comment on last night’s post, referring to El Inglés’ recent scandal.

As it is pertinent to the discussion in “Cassandras,” the original essay apeared as a comment on Little Green Footballs, where it was deleted while I was silenced for eternity for my sin of saying out loud what others think.

And may a flock of pigeons poop in both my eyes if I have changed anything but some spelling and punctuation. [Though your editors may have made changes for the sake of our readers. Send the pigeons our way - Editors ]

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Charles Johnson said: “What is to be done is to continue educating people and exposing the agenda of the jihadists.”

Exploding commentI, in my identity as “Mammamia”, responded:

Please allow me to dissent. And please bear with my long post.

You say: “What is to be done is to continue educating people and exposing the agenda of the jihadists.”

Well, creating awareness is certainly a form of “doing,” but obviously, it is not enough. In fact, seen from another perspective it is doing nothing at all.

For example, I can denounce malaria, describe everything science knows about malaria and wax extremely eloquent about the harms of malaria, but unless I or those influenced by me actually go out and spray DDT (or whatever they do these days), I’ve done nothing, or rather, despite all my good intentions and hard effort, I have failed to get anything done.

No, I am not suggesting that Muslims are vermin that need to be sprayed with poison. They are men, women and children with first names and last names and personalities. Islam is an old and majestic belief system, strong and complete enough to survive 1400 years, through the likes of Mongol invasions, colonialism(s), modernism(s), etc.

When I read the term “Islamo-Fascism,” I chuckle. We WISH it were Fascism, which only lasted twenty years! Today in my Italy, (the country that invented Fascism), there are very few real, honest-to-badness Fascists. In “liberated” Iraq instead, a girl was just religiously murdered by her father for falling in love with an Englishman. If one is to believe reports, this has also happened (and gone unpunished) thousands of times in the UK itself!

So despite defeat and exposure to freedom and superior Judeo-Christian and/or Secular values, Islam is as strong as ever and posits itself as an alternative system, with its own charter of Human Rights, its own complete set of values, which though perhaps abhorrent to some, has certainly proven its ability to successfully weather the ages.

Many of us laugh at these Bedouins, calling them “rag-o-heads” and “camel-riders,” but the way things stand, one way or another (through their merit and our demerit and perhaps through the way petroleum collected under the earth’s surface); the green oriflamme flag seems destined to fly triumphantly over huge swathes of Europe. And who knows? Even the next American President might have three Islamic names and the full support of Farrakhan!

Where was I?

Oh, right: I was expounding on the difference between denouncing and “doing.”
- - - - - - - - -
There are certain things to be considered, certain questions to be asked.

Do Muslims have a conscience? Well yes, of course they do. They are men, women and children. Anybody (perhaps not openly Jewish or Danish) who has traveled to the Middle East or Pakistan can vouch for the incredible graciousness of the people. They, the Muslims, have an Islamic form of conscience, resulting from an ethos derived from their religion. They don’t seem to get upset so easily about their own wrongdoings, whereas they are easily offended to paroxysms of rage by perceived slights from others.

For us this is the very definition of lack of conscience, for them it is simply being a good Muslim. It’s the old story of tribalism trumping ideals. “The worst of ours is still better than the best of yours… and that is why one of our terrorists can walk around our sacred rock, whereas one of your saints who has spent the best of his boogie years spoon-feeding the starvelings of the Sahel cannot.”

I certainly don’t like the word genocide, nor am I a Fascist, but I think back on the Aztecs and underneath it all, honestly, I’m glad that their culture of human sacrifice was obliterated from the face of the earth by those Christian invaders. Is one permitted to say that? Admittedly, the Spaniards (and others) didn’t go about it too nicely. They were Fascists, Nazis, Pinochetists, and worse. They were Ponce de Leonistas.

But wait! Did I say “culture of human sacrifice?”

You know something, Mr. Charles? The Muslim culture of human sacrifice is even worse than was the no-longer-extant Aztec one. The old Aztecs would at least hold grand ceremonies at appointed times and places and pluck the throbbing heart out of designated victims (captured enemies). Today, forty percent of British Muslims openly admit (though if silence is consent - and I think it is - then it is closer to ninety-nine percent of Muslims) prefer random, helter-skelter slaughters. These are “kaboom” splatter orgies (any time, any place and whoever is there is there). with, of course, that quintessential Islamic touch of the perpetrator’s suicidal participation. This act of sneaky self-sacrifice is to be rewarded by instant matrimony with 72 fawn-eyed virgins possessed of self-repairing hymens. Being a Frank Zappa fan myself from way back - I bet even before you - we can say that the suicidal heroics of Islam appear to be intimately entwined with plooking privileges.

Wow! Imagine having so many of these worse-than-Aztec people in your country!

Millions of them, as in the Netherlands and the UK and Belgium and Sweden and France!

Millions of people who consider your country “Dar ul Harb” - “Land of war”, and whose men of God defend terrorism in a day and age when the goods to kill an entire city the size of Paris can handily fit inside a briefcase and the technology to do such a dastardly deed is available on the Internet.

Now into this comes characters such as me, and - no doubt - the dreaded El Inglés. Big Isaac Asimov fans, wanna bet? Ever read the Foundation Trilogy, Harry Selden and the psycho-historians? We think we’re geniuses, but all we’re really saying is the ultra-obvious “something’s gonna break… and it’s gonna get very ugly.”

What does it take to imagine a dirty bomb going off in Birmingham or a water supply poisoned in Padova or a mega-train accident arranged in Barcelona? What does it take to imagine twenty Jumbo jets with thousands of passengers simultaneously dropping into the ocean? Why is it so easy to imagine a huge bomb killing tens of thousands of people somewhere in Israel with alternate / parallel images of ululating women, Kalashnikovs joyously firing into the air and candies handed to children?

CANDIES TO CHILDREN - to celebrate SLAUGHTER!

CELESTIAL VIRGINS - to reward suicidal SLAUGHTER!

You, Signor Charles, accuse us of toying with Genocide. But give it a bit more thought.

  • Isn’t Ken Livingstone toying with genocide when he invites his sheik friend?
  • Isn’t the BBC toying with genocide when it hides the truth?
  • Isn’t the Storting of Norway, the organism that gave Arafat a peace prize and now finances Hamas, toying with genocide?
  • Isn’t Jimmy Carter toying with genocide much more than a Northern League Umberto Bossi type regionalist who has a Fiamma Nierenstein in his Berlusconi coalition?

You might call Bossi a Fascist or a Nazi, dear Mr. Charles, because he’s like that Belgian guy you’re not fond of (the one who supposedly thinks that Belgians are the superior race). Check out who Fiamma Nierenstein is. What is she doing in a government with Massimo Fini ex Movimento Sociale - that is to say, Fascist?!

Who are you jiving with your political debris, Signor Charles?

Anyhow, what’s gonna happen when the Lincoln Tunnel explodes, or Seattle suddenly finds herself poisoned to death? Why not? The spiritual leader of the man who might just rule the USA howls “God Damn America!” Isn’t the Reverend Wright - and by extension - Obama toying with Genocide?

Okay, never mind the rhetoric. Here’s the question:

Let’s say America is hit in a big way again by the Muslims. Everybody in Topeka, Kansas writhes and moans to death because of a light dust that a passing glider drops. It’s traced to the Muslims, an organization called, say, Habibi el Mahmoud Shabaam. As happened after 9/11, candies are handed out, there’s dancing in the street and there are lame apologies and freaky excuses. What’s the right reaction? Should only Habibi el Mahmoud Shabaam be punished or is all of Islam to blame? If all of Islam, how is this so? Wouldn’t it be more or less what El Inglés would do if he were dictator (in the last part of his infamous essay)?

Out of this you might imagine me to be a genocidal fascist-hugging freak. But instead, I’m an ex-hippy, Jew-loving, Catholic and full of Kumbayah. I even like multi-culturalism… that is, I liked it until the Muslims came along. What’s wrong with Chinatown and Little Havana?


Yes, dear members of GoV, and should any of you be here, dear Pajama People (supposedly the defenders of free speech and grassroots’ opinionating), this comment at LGF was deleted and my person banned from the premises by Charles, who reasoned:

“Disgusting. The fascist sympathizers and genocide spouters always seem to show up in dead threads two days later.

This one will not be back.”

[Ah, but who knows if that will be the case? There is many a crooked lane to the crooked house, where lives the crooked mouse lizard.

And so-called fascist sympathizers are legion. They are just not necessarily fascists. -- Ed.]

47 comments:

Unknown said...

Spelled original wrong.


I dont see why mass deportation or temporary containment camps are so wrong. In the face of a common enemy, you can't have people in league the enemy in your own forces.
Can't take the chance...

Muslims subjected to this treatment if it happened should not be mad at the captors, they should be mad at the others of their kind who misrepresent their peoples.

Diamed said...

I love the malaria comparison. No matter how much you decry malaria, if you are not willing to cure it with DDT or whatever else, because the 'cure is worse than the disease,' than you are in fact a supporter of malaria and a champion of malaria against malaria's enemies. This is no different from Churchill saying democracy is the worst government ever, except for all the others. If CJ says Islam is a curse and muslims are awful, but any possible solution to Islam and muslims is yet worse--what is he saying except we must accept Islam? What am I missing here?

The truth is Islam has killed over 200 million people in its various jihads and enslaved billions more, particularly their women, to a subhuman life. It now threatens to conquer the entire world via immigration/birth rates, shariah financing, UN hate speech codes, terrorism, and separatist insurrections, or just destroy it in a nuclear Armageddon (their suicidal tendencies and belief in an afterlife make them the most dangerous holders of WMD imaginable) Islam has never stopped being a world menace ever since its founding when it destroyed the much greater Persian and Byzantine empires. Islam has been nothing but disaster and devastation, followed by stagnation wherever it goes. It could be the worst meme to ever infect humanity--could be? Heck, it is, objectively, by any standard.

The idea that mass deportations are too harmful/meanspirited to fight Islam with is ludicrous compared to the laundry list of harm they're doing and have done us. For people who know and understand exactly how evil Islam is, but are unwilling to shoot a single spitball in defense against it, there's only one word for them--cowards! If you aren't willing to do anything at all to fight an evil this great, then what are you willing to do? Are your hands too pure to ever think of dirtying them? Is this a pissing contest where we try to one-up each other with how morally pure and perfect we are back and forth? "I'm willing to put up with one in three women being raped in broad daylight without ever hurting a single muslim's feelings." "Oh yeah? Well I'm okay with giving them trillions of dollars in tax money just to give them a 'fair chance' in life." Or is this perhaps a gossip corner where you talk about that silly Islam like that silly Brittney, what is she up to next, what a loon. Or is it, finally, a rallying point that says enough is enough, A is A, and war means war?

eatyourbeans said...

Get to know your cops. Soldiers too, if you live near a base. Buy them a drink when they're off duty. Lead the conversation to you know what. Assess/raise their political consciousness. Recruit.

Conservative Swede said...

Dymphna,

The way I see it the angle by Ioshkafutz here is the same as the one presented recently by you about the 1st and 2nd generations of counterjihadism, when Ioshka talks about what it means actually "doing" something, illustrated with his malaria example.

What is seen as doing something in one phase, in a later phase "seen from another perspective it is doing nothing at all" (as Ioshka said so well).

Here's another example:
Up until the 19th century the doctors didn't wash their hands. They went between autopsies and deliveries of babies without washing first. A high percentage of the babies died. Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis made a research investigation. He had a theory of the reason. One control group had to wash their hands in a special solution before delivering babies. The other group went directly from the autopsies to the childbirths. With today's eyes this would seem like deliberately killing babies. But the knowledge was not there. And it had to be proved by Semmelweis to make a change happen. However, once this was established as irrefutable knowledge, the very same action will mean deliberately killing babies.

This illustrates well the different phases of "doing something", and how a purely educational/investigative effort becomes the same as passivity (or in some cases worse) at a later phase.

We are not there yet, and the 1st generation is definitely still needed. But it becomes utterly strange the degree to which the 2nd generation is fiercely denounced by the 1st generation.

Bezzle said...

All this talk of "genocide" (and internment camps, etc) is nonsensical for the following reasons:

1) Islam isn't a racial-subtype; it's a political ideology. There is no such thing as a "Muslim baby" any more than there is such a thing as a "Communist baby" or a "Capitalist baby".

2) The way Islam will be destroyed is in the same way that historical psychotic death-cults (like the Aztecs or the Thuggee) were destroyed: The priests are killed and their temples and other iconic symbols are razed. Everyone else is "assimilated" (liberated) into the replacement culture. -- It isn't necessary to wipe out millions of what essentially captive populations, only to eliminate the proponents and practitioners of totalitarianism.

Note also that assimilation doesn't require learning new languages any more than Aztec populations were required to suddenly begin speaking Spanish.

-- Necessary to this is the identification that Islam is a totalitarian culture whose practice must be destroyed. It cannot be "moderated" for the simple reason that we must not endure "moderate amounts" of jihad, honor-killings, etc.

Conservative Swede said...

Ioshka,

And may a flock of pigeons poop in both my eyes...

In a travesty of Enoch Powell I cannot help thinking that by saying this you might very well cause this trouble, and possibly desire it. Why would you want to cause pigeon poop into your eyes? I saw the movie, it looked horrifying.

"If only people wouldn't talk about it, it probably wouldn't happen..."

Conservative Swede said...

I think I meant to write "to the degree to which" two steps above. But got lost in grammar.

. said...

Instead of scaremongering and anecdotal data ("thousands" of honor killings in Great Britain), let's look at some facts: http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=329.

Facts are difficult things to overcome. Especially with hysteria.

Jungle Jim said...

Great post, Mammamia.

One small point: Obama's election as US president is looking less and less likely by the minute.

costin said...

I read a lot of good posts here at GoV but yours, I can say, is one that really touched me with it's modesty, insight, thougtfulnes and candid observence of the current events in present day Eruope

Whiskey said...

I do believe things are reaching to a crisis point, but the response is more likely to be a series of strong men with terror/counter-terror than anything else.

To add to the essay, the Welfare State is running out. Of money. To pay for social peace. What happens when Muslims in Europe collide with the demands of out-of-work blue and white collar workers? There is only so much money to pay for welfare.

So, we can expect great conflicts. To boil over into outright acts of terrorism. That will inspire counter-terror. What would be the reaction to a mass-terror attack in Europe killing thousands/millions?

Counter-mass terror, un-organized, not controlled by the police, who would do little to protect an unpopular minority hated by the majority, excepting elements of police and military siding with co-religionists or more likely co-tribalists (same Pashtun tribes from Pakistan, say).

I do not think that likely in the US. Instead I would imagine some relatively un-PC measures and elements of WWI/WWII would come into play -- more akin to subversive hunting from those times.

Ironically, I would argue that European states are weaker and withering since they totally depend on transferring money from productive people to unproductive people. Whereas American governments are assumed to produce basic public safety and people are denied re-election when they do not provide that safety.

Thus I would argue, we will see a decentralized mob approach in Europe and eventually, a strong man (out of weak, degenerate chaos where Welfare accountants have no clue to respond to crises). Whereas the dynamism of America will allow a more robust response initially and little mob action.

Anonymous said...

Whiskey_199:American governments are assumed to produce basic public safety and people are denied re-election when they do not provide that safety.

On the contrary, 9-11 happened on President Bush's watch, and he was re-elected three years later. During those three years, the Amerithrax terrorist killed five people, terrorized millions and shut down the entire postal system, but was never caught. The first attempt to take down the WTC happened in 1993, and Bill Clinton was re-elected three years later. During those three years, a federal building in Oklahoma City was destroyed.

Zenster said...

mike18xx: The way Islam will be destroyed is in the same way that historical psychotic death-cults (like the Aztecs or the Thuggee) were destroyed: The priests are killed and their temples and other iconic symbols are razed.

A succint encapsulation of why I maintain that Islam must be eradicated. As always, the Muslim aristocracy of clerics, financeers and scholars needs to be eliminated first.

Everyone else is "assimilated" (liberated) into the replacement culture. -- It isn't necessary to wipe out millions of what [are] essentially captive populations, only to eliminate the proponents and practitioners of totalitarianism.

If Western civilization can make the tremendous conceptual leap required—i.e., to understand that Islam and shari’a law constitute ongoing crimes against humanity—then we might be able to move towards forced assimilation and avoid the intermediate phases of internment camps and mass deportations. This would be a much less bloody alternative to reverse immigration or genocide.

One way or the other, Islam must be expunged from the free world. It is totally incompatible with all concepts of liberty and freedom. Even given the foregoing, there still remain many cogent issues. Some of them are:

1.) Dealing with hard core Islamic fundamentalist immigrants who refuse to stop prosyltizing or halt open worship of Allah. Barring the travesty of “re-education camps”, simple prison time—most likely in the form of solitary confinement—would be the only alternative to flat-out execution. Expensive solitary prison space—being so limited, as it is—automatically suggests near-summary execution for offenders. The following should make clear why.

2.) Item # 1 also demands recognizing how deportation of non-assimilators to a Qur'antined (pun intended) MME (Muslim Middle East) is not an option. If Islam is intolerable to the West, it must be equally unacceptable in its countries of origin. Agreeing that Islam and shari’a law are abject violations of human rights makes them untenable everywhere. Thus, eradication of Islam must be on a global basis. What’s more, this is the only alternative to a Qur'antined MME along with concomitant mass deportations and internment camps. Either there is forced assimilation or isolation but not both. Any middle ground including the two would be blood-soaked to saturation.

3.) All of that said, how to detect and detain any relicts of the now defunct Islam? Forced assimilation literally guarantees false conversion or simulated apostasy—to some degree—under the auspices of Islamically condoned taqiyya. Short of case-by-case individual polygraphs or fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scans, how can these interlopers be identified? This issue demands attention due to these dissemblers launching further terrorist attacks, whose elimination is a main objective.

Due to the intracacies presented above, I find my own hopefulness tempered by a cynical aspect bordering upon pessimism. Being an eternal optimist, this is not good news. None of this changes my own firm belief that eradication of Islam on a global basis is the only alternative to a prolonged and devastating form of—Politically Correct—proportional conflict that will see vast swaths of our world laid to nuclear waste and untold millions or billions dead.

The following quote by mike18xx: makes clear why:

Necessary to this is the identification that Islam is a totalitarian culture whose practice must be destroyed. It cannot be "moderated" for the simple reason that we must not endure "moderate amounts" of jihad, honor-killings, etc.

Again, eradication is the only answer. Be it through forced assimilation or re-concentration, Qur'antine and gradual extinction. Western civilization’s squeamish preference for gradual measures all point towards incredible bloodshed.

Timbre said...

As a reader and poster at LGF, I've noticed that Charles is fastidiuous about not allowing comments which even have a .0001 percent chance of inciting violence. He deplores the use of the "genocide" word, and I can understand why. Like idle talk about the Jihadist problem, the "g" word offers no solution--only mass murder.

I think Charles is sometimes so proud of LGF's national recognition, he sometimes becomes a bit schoolmasterish. But it is his blog, his time, his resources, just as GoV belongs to Baron and Dymphna.

I think highly of both sites. And I don't want to have to choose which "child" I love more. LGF is comment-oriented and GoV is idea-oriented. And I need to exit stage left.

livfreerdie said...

From ex-Gordan's link:

"The Pew Research Center conducted more than 55,000 interviews to obtain a national sample of 1,050 Muslims living in the United States."

Don't know statistics but isn't this a little skewed? Does that mean they interviewed 55,000 Muslims and picked 1,050 who answered the way they wanted?

Tom

Bezzle said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
crawdad said...

Timbre said:
As a reader and poster at LGF, I've noticed that Charles is fastidiuous about not allowing comments which even have a .0001 percent chance of inciting violence.

I know that this claim is frequently made, but I say it is quite simply untrue.

Before I was banned from LGF, I regularly saw comments advocating violence.
It is a question of who says it, to whom it is said, and about whom it is said.

The favorites at LGF can and do advocate violence, and do so with impunity.

KGS said...

Crawdad:"The favorites at LGF can and do advocate violence, and do so with impunity."

I remember a WMD analyst who works in a foreign policy think tank as a reasearcher in Finland telling me how amused he was about LGF's comment section. He observed that ,after CJ posts something about a major act of terrorism, he only needs to scroll down the first few comments from the top, to find "NUKE MECCA" and other similarly worded threats.

So.....CJ has indeed allowed violence....when he is in agreement. Perhaps he "no longer" allows it for present political considerations.

Whiskey said...

Ah but Teresita, 9/11 was understood to be (accurately understood) a plot hatched under Clinton's term, and the result of the US government not doing anything.

We had during the 1990's the first WTC bombing, various other attempts, which were treated as Law Enforcement actions, various impotent missile strikes, and other stuff designed to do nothing more than publicity by the Clinton Administration.

GWB for his many faults, acted. He invaded and overthrew the Taliban. Something Clinton would not have done. He then acted to get rid of Saddam once and for all, unwilling to take the risk any more of an unstable dictator plus terrorists. That was also his high water mark. But it was the reason we did not have further attacks. Going out and killing jihadis on the foreign battlefield instead of at home. Plus some rational fear by various governments, particularly Pakistan's.

That residual fear and action is probably all used up. I'm sure we will see another attack. This dynamic can last for centuries, the last great Jihads (AD 600 or so to 1700) lasted 1100 years. And only ended with the crushing superiority of Western technology against Islam. Muslims have been at Jihad against the West since well, they became Muslims. It is their natural state -- being tribal they can only find unity by attacking the Infidel.

However in the wake of another mass casualty attack, we are more likely to see strong government action, not the least of which will be seen to be politically popular. Ala Rudy. Mob action in the US is unlikely.

Bezzle said...

However in the wake of another mass casualty attack, we are more likely to see strong government action

-- That is *exactly* why you're not going to see anymore, and also why the Saudi Wahhabist network was opposed to OBL spilling the can of beans prior to their complete control of Europe.

No, they'll wait until they have nukes the next time.

Dymphna said...

@KGS

So.....CJ has indeed allowed violence....when he is in agreement. Perhaps he "no longer" allows it for present political considerations.

Sometimes people send us snips of the comment sections at LGF. Evidently the other day there was a report of an Israeli attack on a terrorist house - In Gaza, I think. At any rate, they destroyed the house and in the attack a 14 y.o. girl was killed. Comment after comment on that LGF thread were completely callous about her death. The email was so disturbing I deleted it. And if anyone were to say those things here, I'd delete them too.

Charles doesn't delete violent or racist things. He simply deletes the ones that don't fit in with his world view. And he has a problem distinguishing between normative and descriptive statements, or between words and actions.

A lot of multiculturalists are like that. It's one of the reasons Charles has a large following.

PapaBear said...

There is an important difference between what Charles tolerates and what he does not (and CAN NOT tolerate, for legal reasons). He CAN tolerate talk which advocates having the US (or Israeli, or whatever) government commit acts of state violence against named groups.

He CANNOT TOLERATE, or even give the appearance of tolerating, talk which advocates, encourages, or condones private acts of violence against named groups, if such talk could conceivably include members of his group. To do so would open him up to possible civil suits, or even criminal prosecution, if a registered member were to go out and commit an act of violence against that group.

There are a lot of precedents, for example Robert Shelton, where a group openly encouraging violence has the group and each of its individual members held liable for any acts of violence carried out by any individual member.

You really should get yourself some competent legal advice on this area and your possible liability

Steven Luotto said...

Thank you Baron and Dymphna for posting up my rant.

In my long internet career I've only been banned by Democratic Underground and Islam-on-line. The former just placed a tombstone in my profile page and the latter sent me a note saying that my heart wasn't pure. Charles Johnson went a step further, he accused me of fomenting genocide, liquidated me AND THEN even canceled what I had written. I guess he's made of even sterner stuff than the DU gang and Yusuf al-Qaradawi!

Well wouldn't you know that wearing pajamas is no guarantee of democracy!

Conservative Swede's "medical handwashing" analogy is superior to my malaria approach. When you KNOW (as far as it is given us to know) that Inaction to Danger X will bring dire consequences then just mere awareness rousing while blocking actual action is immoral.

(I realize the issue is more complicated. With the Muslims involved everything is! But that's the gist of it and seeing as Charles Johnson has dedicated his life to denouncing the evils of Islam, well certainly he must be aware that his denunciations haven't made even a microscopic dent in the Islamic community or in the Muslim Brotherhood that gives the western world's muslims their direction and marching orders). It's not like they have the sort of self-correcting conscience of reasonable people... or else - and forgive my circular reasoning - a Charles Johnson wouldn't have dedicated his life to denouncing Islam!

Well now that poor "mammamia" is out of LGF, the world is just that much safer from genocide... even though it seems that Rome's Jewish neighborhood - still called "il Ghetto" - overwhelmingly voted for Alemanno (the post-Fascist who wears the dreaded Celtic cross around his neck).

Probably they saw Party Leader Fini kneeling at Yad Vashem whereas they caught sight of Italian Democratic Party leader and outgoing foreign Minister D'Alema hobnobbing with Hamas. Being smart people, the Jews all gathered (instead of each just reasoning for himself) and the great bearded one who controls both the David Horowitzes and Noam Chomskys of the world (as well as the price of shallots in Bulgaria) decided that he preferred Genocide B to Genocide A. Why? Because Genocide B is staunchly pro-Israeli, promises "pork" - that is, to build a synagogue in Ostia (Rome's seaside satellite city where many Jews live). And yes, a large majority of these genocidal Jews, like a large majority of their genocidally Catholic and Secular Italian cousins, were fed up with surging immigrant crime and the Naples-garbage-crisis incompetence of the left.

And so they voted for a coalition too impure for LGF! A coalition of the kind that LGF would never ever ever ever ever and I MEAN EVER sit at the same table with, not even at an anti-jihad conference!

It would seem that we Europeans are incapable of learning from our mistakes and bettering ourselves. Somehow we are permanently condemned to reason in terms of genocide. Because of our past we are no better than the Tutsi and Hutus... and yet this is the Europe in which Germans and Poles knocked down their borders and where I can go yodeling (like a loon) into the same Austria where my grandfather would've been shot on the spot.

For a genocidal bunch of people stuck in their atavistic ways, we're amazingly forgiving and innovative. Or put it this way, the LGF view of Europe might be wrong, just a bit skewed enough to allow the likes of a Fjordman or a Baron or an El Ingles and even a hapless Mammamia to get a word in edgewise at the comments pages of America's premiere anti-Islamic site.

But now Signor Charles Johnson even has psycho-analysis on his side. The famous Shrinkwrapped wrote and CJ posted in prominent view:

"A second assumption (on the part of El Ingles) is that Europe has specific cultural and ethnic attributes that must be preserved at all costs."

This - believe it or not - is the central bone of contention. According to Herr Doktor Shrinkwrapped, all of Holland or Portugal or Slovenia (it matters not) must be able to become Chinese or Arab or African or Italian or German or Mexican with no one complaining, because anything lost would be "merely" ethnic and cultural. And anyone who thinks otherwise is a genocidal nazi.

So I guess, the trouble with some of us Italians here in Italy is that we want to imagine our hills covered with vineyards for many years to come (you know... a "continuity" - one of the reasons we still foolishly rejoice when we have children and grandchildren), and some of us would like our towns forever famous for their pork products and other "haram" specialties.

Others yet have the audacity of wanting women fashionable and flirtsome and flashing their "madonna santissima" smiles (as opposed to burqas and arranged marriages with first cousins); a few of us knuckleheads love our language which seems covered with vaseline allowing for concepts such as "paralleli convergenti" (converging parallels)! And what about our Christian forgiveness in which the nastiest strife almost invariably ends in "taralucci e vino?"... (wine and cookies - kiss and make up).

For the likes of Shrinkwrapped it is a crime to love ones country, heritage, language. Ones home! Love, as in warts and all...

One wonders if Professor Shrinkwrapped's criticism applies just to white people, who, if I am to believe the mentor of the next president of the United States, are limited to learning from the right side of their brain pans or if it applies to all of humanity. I mean when the world is attacked by hostile aliens will Dr. Shrinkwrapped say: "the trouble with those pesky earthlings is that they have specific cultural and ethnic attributes that must be preserved at all costs?"

If you demand such universality for defending things, you might just discover that you've become a nihilist and nothing is worth defending at any cost! I mean sausages and flirting, and Chardonnay, and la-la-la and house pets and forgiveness... why bother to defend them against the culture of death when we are all gonna die anyway and even our tombstones will one day go crashing into the sun?!

Dr. Shrinkwrapped's got a point. Why get hot and bothered by specific cultural and ethnic attributes? Who cares if the rape statistics shoot up in the city where he lives (and might have a daughter or two) and who cares if the local imam blames the girls and the local government advises the local girls to dress more modestly? That's just ethnic cultural stuff!

The truth is that we should not only love and defend our countries but also our regions, provinces and neighborhoods... and principally, we should love and defend them not against others but for the benefit of others. But in some cases, for example when the Muslims are involved, we must defend "against." I say that not a shred of Sharia should affect a single of our neighborhoods. And by nature I'm a kumbayah multi-culturalist. But the Muslims have made the illogical, wrong-minded but "fun" experiment of multi-culturalism suicidal, just as they have made air travel a couple of hours longer than necessary.

Thanks again and ciao a tutti!

Afonso Henriques said...

Now there is an Italian who does understand Islam!!!

I pretty much agree with all you say about islam.

The thing I didn't like was your pro-multiculturalism assertions:
I could show you how to "hate" multiculturalism and how it is in fact "evil".

You said:

"instead, I’m an ex-hippy, Jew-loving, Catholic and full of Kumbayah. I even like multi-culturalism… that is, I liked it until the Muslims came along. What’s wrong with Chinatown and Little Havana?"

First of all, I don't know what a "Jew-lover" is, it is too frightening close to "Jew-hater" so it can not be a good thing. And about the ex-hippy, I can only praise the evolution... but now seriously:

Have you noticed what made the Chinese and the Cubans immigrate? By acepting multiculturalism, we are not solving the problems over there. Can't you see that by each Cuban or Chinese there, there are still many more suffering in their homelands? And the families of the expatriates? They are not here because they like it, they are here because they can not be at home, with their loved ones and that for me is, say, sad.

So, grab all this suffering, put it a smile on it and call it Multiculturalism is, at least, sickening.

Baron Bodissey said...

mike18xx --

Gates of Vienna's rules about comments require that they be civil, temperate, on-topic, and show decorum. Your comment violated the last of these rules. We keep a PG-13 blog, and exclude foul language, explicit descriptions, and epithets. This is why I deleted your comment.

Use of asterisks is an appropriate alternative.

--------------------------

mike18xx said...

Zenster replied to me thusly: If Western civilization can make the tremendous conceptual leap required—i.e., to understand that Islam and shari’a law constitute ongoing crimes against humanity....

(Gawds....I *hate* the ambiguous-collective logical fallacy -- everybody Google it up, and STOP doing it right yesterday.)

I am pretty convinced that a majority of persons are already well aware of this, and have been for decades.

then we might be able to....

Who is this "we" acting as a singular volitional entity when the pronoun involved refers to collectives? (See above rant. Almost everyone talks like this these days, and it's enough to make me gouge out my ears.)

move towards forced assimilation and avoid the intermediate phases of internment camps and mass deportations.

Bah. Not necessary in the least. TREAT ISLAM LIKE CRIME: Kill the monsters -- and otherwise leave everybody alone.

Deportations? Camps? -- Stupidity. Cowardice. Impotence. Insanity. What is this? The f***ing Third Reich?

"Forced assimilation"? Unnecessary. -- Suck the poison out of the wound, and it heals naturally.

VinceP1974 said...

"Suck the poison out of the wound [on a Muslim], and it heals naturally."


Um... I'm not sure i want this image in my head

Conservative Swede said...

mike18xx,

The way Islam will be destroyed is in the same way that historical psychotic death-cults (like the Aztecs or the Thuggee) were destroyed: The priests are killed and their temples and other iconic symbols are razed. Everyone else is "assimilated" (liberated) into the replacement culture. -- It isn't necessary to wipe out millions of what essentially captive populations, only to eliminate the proponents and practitioners of totalitarianism.

Amen to that! This has been precisely my point for some years now. Killing people is pretty pointless, since Muslims do not care about human lives anyway. It's the core symbols and the top of the hierarchies that need to be obliterated. It's as simple as that, and it's not such a big task once we've found the political will to do it. Muslims can surely be reformed, indeed, if Islam is crushed first.

Conservative Swede said...

Afonso,

I guess I'm something of a hippy too. I'm also thrilled by Chinatowns and Little Havannas. Whenever I met a Jew when I'm travelling there always this special connection. Jews are often exciting people and there is something like a brotherhood of the outcasts between us. I'm mentally prepared for my own people to live like Jews in the future.

I'm a hippy in many ways, and been called so by others. No TV, no car, alternative life-style. Extremely cosmopolitan. Always curious about other people and learning about their culture.

But politics is not about personal attitudes. To preserve a world of flourishing diversity, we cannot have hippies as politicians. Politicians must act as rulers. As Machiavelli pointed out: what is a virtue in private life is often a vice as a politician. E.g. generosity. When a politician is generous he's giving away other people's money.

For me it's simple. It's about being able to keep two thoughts in your mind at the same time. Personal attitudes should not be mixed with politics. To govern a country is a profession, an art. I don't have that job, but I can see how it needs to be done (a knowledge that is virtually gone among politicians today, but exists in our historical memory).

So no, I wouldn't use the word multiculturalism (as Ioshka did) to describe my personal affection for diversity. Multiculturalism is a politicized concept. And as such must be discarded. What I am is a cosmopolitan, with an affection for the diversity of this planet. And multiculturalism is destroying this diversity and steamrolling conformism upon the nations.

Why do I call myself 'Conservative Swede'? Because politically I'm conservative. Only (truly) conservative politics can save and defend the liberal life-style I prefer.

Profitsbeard said...

The Koran is the root from which the sanctified terror spreads.

It needs to be shown for the fraud and plagiarism and mass/mess of intolerant, superstitious claptrap that it is.

Disillusioning its followers about the Koran's cobbled-together historical development and its clear non-"perfection" will allow Muslims to see through their imams' bogus claims about the "Recitation" being the "pure, unchanged word of Allah", and to thereby become apostates and leave Islam's spiritual and literal deathgrip.

We need to war against the dismal ideology, not the pathetic symptoms.

(Militant Jihadis excepted.)

turn said...

Yah, Conswede-
Funny how the word 'liberal' has morphed. The Founding Fathers were, at the time, liberal. Employing ideals spawned by the reformation and enlightenment they forged a new possibility. That possibility is always threatened.

This GoV is the only site I know that recognizes the twin threats of Islam and socialism as being the challenges of our time. Crucial to meeting these challenges are coming to grips with some fundamentals.

I can only speak to the American side of this.

1. Is it even possible to declare that Islam is not a religion?

Yes, yes... I and most of you know that it is and it's more... but within the confines of our (suicide pact) constitution can we ever make that declaration?

I don't think we can.

2. Educating true believers? How? Could I educate you to believe in socialism when you've lived your life as an unrepentant capitalist?

3. By legal precedent we can pursue remedies if we have the political will to do so as we did with the 19th century Mormons.

Promotion of sedition, treason, incitement to violence, etc. are still crimes; in the past these were taken quite seriously. There's no reason I can fathom that they cannot be today. Freedom of speech and religion do not trump criminal acts, ACLU be d*mned.

OK. Define the problem. Offer solutions. Find the hang ups.

There lies the 'rub'.

Persons with mushy morals are being bought. Others with agendas not in our common interest find other common cause.

Sorting out our own house needs to happen before we can sort the Islam problem.

Decatur said...

Here's the problem with eliminating Islam from the West or from anywhere else for that matter.
We have become squeamish when it comes to self defense. We would rather roll over and accept domination by an evil cult rather than aggressively defend ourselves. This is how half a century of Marxist indoctrination about peace 'n love, flower power,International Brotherhood,anti-gun propaganda etc, plus numerous Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution programmes at colleges,have altered our attitude toward Warfare and self defence. War is how we have successfully defended ourselves for the past few thousand years, but the last 50 years of Leftism have made this tactic obscene. (The Leftist's agenda to destroy successful western nations will shortly be exposed as suffering from a fatal dose of blowback). Being a product of this propaganda myself, I find my fingers typing the following: "of course finding peaceful ways to end conflicts are much better and we should avoid war/fighting/violence at all costs". You see what I mean. I know what the answer is but I can't say it without a rider.
Back to the problem of what to do about the Islamic takeover. How about proscribing Islam as it contravenes humanitarian law, deportation, 100% banning of Islamic immigration, removal of our presence from the Middle East which means we must ignore the Marxist lackey's Environmental Propaganda and drill for our own oil in friendly nations.
Or how about we talk to them? discuss our differences, see if we can find common ground,make concessions, find consensus, offer them ...
Pacifism will be the death of us.

Bezzle said...

Decatur wrote:

"We...."

Ambiguous-collective fallacy in the process.

See: http://tinyurl.com/28cbw

People? *Stop* doing it!

Afonso Henriques said...

Mike18xx,

I couldn't read your comment and sit quiet. You speak and advice strongly against an holocaust and favouring integration.

Do you know what you're talking about?

"Islam isn't a racial-subtype; it's a political ideology. There is no such thing as a "Muslim baby" any more than there is such a thing as a "Communist baby" or a "Capitalist baby".
Islam will be destroyed is (...) The priests are killed and their temples and other iconic symbols are razed. Everyone else is "assimilated""

I am strongly against destroying a people's culture, a people soul.

The Holocaust was much more human than if we were to stop the Jews of being Jews.

Taking the soul of the people and not killing them is transforming them into ghosts. It is a terrible think to do. I think muslims have the right to be muslims and bear their culture... but in their own lands back to the desert!

I wouldn't like to see this or that people to get its culture destroyed and become "assimilated".

Today the muslims, tomorrow the African-Americans, the day after Europeans, the next day the Russians and so the song continues.

In the end, all you want is that homegenious little world where everybody is equal and the differences are not tolerated.

It reminds me of a ideology that was popular before the fall of a certain wall in the capital city of the III Reich.

Better a global Holocaust from where five different comunities can escape. At least, something of the world will be presented.

"Note also that assimilation doesn't require learning new languages any more than Aztec populations were required to suddenly begin speaking Spanish."

Then you mention Mexico as somehow a model of assimilation.
Mexico?
Ethnically speaking Mexico is 30% indigenous, 10% invaders and 60% mixed. I prefer an holocaust to see Europeans being only 30% of Europe, being hunted and raped as the real Mexicans were.
Linguistically they speak Spanish, maybe you want us all to speak Arabic. Neither in almost 800 years of muslim domain in Southern Al Andaluz (Spain) did Arabic became the first language but...
Religiously, the vast majority of them is Catholic. Great model, ah?

And I won't even mention their culture that is more Western, or at least, heavily influenced by Spain and Europe as a whole than by their native american traditions...

If this is the fate of Europe, I do prefer an holocaust.

Sorry for not being so "tolerant", Mike.

Afonso Henriques said...

"even though it seems that Rome's Jewish neighborhood - still called "il Ghetto""

I read this and wanted to give to the Gates of Vienna this wonderfull sight:

Here in Lisbon, we still have a muslim neighbourhood. It is still call Mouraria, from the worde mouro that means moor, being muslim.

But that neighbourhood is now overwhelmingly Christian. And 30 years ago it was 99,5% Chrisitan Portuguese...

Afonso Henriques said...

Ioshka Futz,

I've already noticed your comment on the Italian elections.
But this too has to be highlited.

""A second assumption (on the part of El Ingles) is that Europe has specific cultural and ethnic attributes that must be preserved at all costs."

This - believe it or not - is the central bone of contention. According to Herr Doktor Shrinkwrapped, all of Holland or Portugal or Slovenia (it matters not) must be able to become Chinese or Arab or African or Italian or German or Mexican with no one complaining, because anything lost would be "merely" ethnic and cultural. And anyone who thinks otherwise is a genocidal nazi.

So I guess, the trouble with some of us Italians here in Italy is that we want to imagine our hills covered with vineyards for many years to come (you know... a "continuity" - one of the reasons we still foolishly rejoice when we have children and grandchildren), and some of us would like our towns forever famous for their pork products and other "haram" specialties."

I'll translate this and both yours sayings will be passed over to some other 5 Portuguese young men, of which, maybe half will show to another friend. That's my little contribution. You know, this young men are moved by that will to continue the vineyards...

You speak eloquently!

May said...

http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/020857.php#comments

May said...

"According to Herr Doktor Shrinkwrapped, all of Holland or Portugal or Slovenia (it matters not) must be able to become Chinese or Arab or African or Italian or German or Mexican with no one complaining, because anything lost would be "merely" ethnic and cultural."

I really thought it was against human rights to deny a person's ethnicity.

Bezzle said...

Alfonso: "I am strongly against destroying a people's culture, a people soul."

-- When I wrote the words "ambiguous-collective logical-fallacy" upstairs, did *anybody* Google it (as I suggested)?

Anybody?

Bueller?

...The Holocaust was much more human(e) than if we were to stop the Jews of being Jews....

Since the Judaism isn't a totalitarian political-philosophy insistent upon subjecting the world to its rule by force inevitably, this follow-up sentence is a false analogy fallacy.

Bezzle said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Baron Bodissey said...

mike18xx ---

Gates of Vienna's rules about comments require that they be civil, temperate, on-topic, and show decorum. Your comment violated rule #2. I know what you meant, but the powers that be might not, and what you seemed to recommend could get us shut down.

See this post for more information about the rules.

--------------------------

1. Civil: No name calling, gratuitous insults, personal slurs, denigration of someone’s intelligence, etc.

2. Temperate: No exhortations to commit violence or foment insurrection, etc.

3. On-topic: We generally don’t delete off-topic comments, but reserve the right to if they are excessively long. A brief OT mention of something you think we should know is perfectly fine.

4. Decorum: We are a PG-13 blog, because the parents of homeschoolers allow their older children to come over here to further their education. Please make your point without resorting to foul language or explicit descriptions.
These guidelines have encouraged comment threads that are a delight to read, even when I disagree with some of what’s said. We are blessed with intelligent and well-informed commenters, and a distinct lack of trolls.

Steven Luotto said...

Ciao Afonsinho,

I use the diminutive because I just discovered that my favorite Portuguese (and fellow) graphomaniac is only 18 years old. I had to completely rethink my image of you!

I have an answer in the works about your comment on multi-culturalism, though Conservative Swede pretty much answered it and even earned a new thread dedicated to one of his concepts here at Gov.

Anyhow, when I read this from you:

......."Here in Lisbon, we still have a muslim neighbourhood. It is still call Mouraria, from the word mouro that means moor, being muslim....."

I had to tell you - for laughs - that here in Rome instead, we STILL call those who sneak into theaters or soccer games without paying "Portoghesi".

Despite appearances, the expression, relating to an historical fact that took place in the Rome of the 18 hundreds, in no way refers to the Portuguese people themselves: the Portuguese ambassador to the Holy See had invited all of Rome's Portugese residents to a theater show. There was no need to show a formal invitation, all one had to do was to declare ones Portuguese nationality.

Many Romans tried to take advantage of the opportunity by palming themnselves off as Portuguese, hence the warning "non fare il portoghese" to caution people not to try and tricks to take advantage of a service they are not entitled to.

Poveri portoghesi, innocenti! And so typical of the rotten stinking Romans!

I guess with today's political correctness there would be no chance of such thing happening again.

Well as a member of Rome's delegation here at the Gates of Vienna, I formally apologize for the suffering this might have caused your people!

SPQR - (sono porci questi romani)

Afonso Henriques said...

Mike18xx,

Well, I didn't google it. Yet...

But really, I am predicting what is to come and I am warning you: You can not live alone... You will need, if not friends and family a women, than children, than...

a comunity and then a Nation... We don't need the world, just our own kind. And because I am an elitist bastard, I think we need our own and the "superior" other. That's why I ain't mad for what the Romans did to our indigenous peoples, because we needed to be civilised. Comparing to Romans, Celts suck...

Afonso Henriques said...

Well, thank you Ioshka Futz.

No suffering.

Here the Italians are more romanticised... people here see the Italians as gentlemans, I don't know why.

I would say that here men romanticise with Swedish women and the girls romanticise with Italian men.

I think I would prefer the Italian girls over the Swedish ones though.

Concearning Rome, you're not pigs are you? I can only see Rome as the centre of Europe and the European Union being centred in the (what the hell is that? Is that a really important city?) ville of Brussels instead of being centred in Rome shows how anti-European it is, really...

I see Rome as the creator of Europe and, from all those nasty people who invaded my country, the only ones I'm still gratefull to are the Romans.

Regards.

PS- "Ciao" doesn't mean just "good bye"? Here we say ciao as good bye. So, I previously thought you were being arrogant to using it right in the beggining, discarting the persons to whom you talk to. Ignorance must be fighted, stupidity ignored.

Also, "A alma do ser Português é ser-se labrego".

I was forgetting! I hope going to Rome any time in the future but, if you come to Portugal, you better never use the diminutive when talking to men. It's for your own sake!

Afonso Henriques said...

Well Ioshka Futz, it seems I lied to you.

The truth is, I almost never go to Mouraria, at night it is deserted and at day light the majority of the population there one can see from the other neighbourhoods is almost all poor old Portuguese people.

The truth is, and I know this because I went to check out some Portuguese blogs, that according to "Diário de Notícias" A early XIX century newspaper, one of the olders here and that has been more or less to some extent the newspaper of the government (leftist mass media) the Mouraria is not majority Portuguese any more. Main Ethnicities of Mouraria (Nationality):

35% Chinese
25% Muslim Pakistanis
15% Indian
10% Portuguese Speaking Africans

So, I am revolted, I am a racist and I want to see all those expelled from Lisbon.

Reconquista, we made it once, we will make it again.

I got demoralised...

Decatur said...

Mike18xx,
Thankyou for your comments. I've searched for the fallacy in my post but to no avail, so I'm going to have to leave it up to you to point it out. I'd appreciate you're explaining it as simply as possible because I have a real problem with logic, I'm a tad dyslexic, but I'm ok with standard Venn diagram-type explanations.
My aim in writing my post was to point out that we have become so indoctrinated with the idea that war cannot bring peace, that we are close to becoming unable to engage with the idea of fighting for our right to exist anymore. I'm generalising of course, so perhaps that's what bothered you. I notice that you are using a lot of philosophical terminology, but that you are failing to indicate the precise usage that causes you such distress, it would be helpful to point out more precisely what you mean. Do you know that there are people who haven't studied formal logic?
As for the use of the word 'we', I use it all the time, it's a great little word and most folks have no problemos with it. I've used it here in the sense of 'us', more precisely "us - infidels,non-Muslims". I don't know why you have such a problem with that term; In all my 50 plus years of writing, you are the very first person ever to become so overwrought and fretful by its usage when referring to oneself and ones fellow countrymen/believers,associates etc. I'm sorry if it causes you distress but I shall continue to use the term because I find it useful. But please don't gouge out your ears.

Steven Luotto said...

Ciao Afonso,
(Ciao in Italian is okay both for "hi" and "bye" and derives from the word "schiavo" - slave - or rather the Venetian dialect word "schao." It seems that in the old days people would greet each other saying "I am your slave."

Anyway, ciao and thank you for your kind comments and I'll now try to answer your objections. Starting (and probably ending) with this:

........."The thing I didn't like was your pro-multiculturalism assertions:
I could show you how to "hate" multiculturalism and how it is in fact "evil".......

I'm a Catholic, Afonso and at a certain point logic ends, or rather, one type of logic ends and another takes its place.

Merely in passing, I called multi-culturalism illogical, wrongminded, but "fun," so obviously I am in contradiction... But it is precisely this sort of lack of stringent, to-the-bitter-end logic which I both defend and love and consider one of the Judeo-Christian world's greatest legacies. You came close to saying it yourself (in so many words) the other day when you said that ours is a culture of excellence and even our great failures were experiments (often with mixed, unfortunate or even disastrous results)... in other words "heresies."

Multi-culturalism was one of these heresies because life doesn't get better or more real (nor can it) than just plain old right and wrong... with notions of personal integrity and responsability. Far from merely keeping things simple, this approach also keeps them properly rich and complicated. Generally speaking heresies are heresies because they oversimplify. It is only fashion which makes multi-culturalism seem like the nuanced and sophisticated approach, but in truth it makes us treat friends and foes alike. It creates automatic responses. It over-simplifies! Why should I consider Gypsies the same way as Czechs and Slovaks and Romanians who are in the process of overcoming their 50 year jinx of Comunism? I should consider Gypsies as Gypsies! Why should I lump Muslims into the same category as Hindus or Mexicans or Filipinos?

Multi-culturalism can be many things, from Frankfurt School of Gramscian Marxism (a long-term intellectual conspiracy) to old-fashioned compassion, a way of bringing the less fortunate up to speed... (also because compared to some cultures, our operating systems can seem to spin frightfully, (and oftentimes idiotically) fast... and so it was in everyone's interest in certain limited situations to lend a helping hand, to cut some slack, to slow down a bit and perhaps even increase ones vocabulary and acquire a new taste or two. I can imagine the Australian Aborigines needing special consideration, just as I can imagine a white man trying to enter Aboriginal society also needing special consideration. It's got little or nothing to do with the multi-culturalism and the moral relativism of today... and it's not quite cosmipolitanism either.

Moral relativism is possible and can even be absolutely wonderful as long as there exists a dominant morality, that is, a morality to be relative to, otherwise it's just a fancy word for chaos, like a game with no rules. Juventus or Benfica might play soccer with the kids of the St. Don Bosco oratory and they might decide that one of the kids' goals is worth twenty times that of one of the professionals. The rules of soccer remain... and the relativism is absolutely harmless and wonderful... But when the UN at a meeting in Durban South Africa accuses Israel of genocide and the first signatory is Sudan... well, never mind.

If one is to judge by the world's military orgaanizations, with their tradition of "hazing" the recruits, there might even be a good argument for giving newcomers a harder time! Which is still special treatment!

Anyhow, I started out by saying: "I'm a Catholic, and at a certain point logic ends, or rather, one type of logic ends and another takes its place."

This might seem insane, but for me it's true and in the spirit of what Conservative Swede said about being able to hold two opposing views (i.e. an appreciation for both destiny and free will, of personal good and the common good, etc). Dear Afonso, except for medical "pathological" cases, fanatics are logical. Spiritual people far less so. Fanatics start with a premise and then follow up on it, not knowing when to stop, They are not content with "banana," and not knowing when to stop they go on to "bananananananana," that is, even beyond the absurd and into the murderous.

Following logical patterns instead of striving for pretty and balanced pictures, they can do unspeakable harm: i.e. what our politicians are allowing to happen to Europe: cultural suicide in favor of zombie barbarians. They treat friends and enemies alike in the name of a certain logic. They create huge and "perfect" constructs until what needs to be said loudly and clearly becomes not only unfashionable, but illegal. Conversely there are the so-called "realists" who despite the wonderful spectacle of civilization and palpable progress, are afraid to hold anything resembling a "soft" ideal, a slight surrendering or compromise. That too is being purely logical. We need to both hang on and let go, to lead and follow... Sure living means following the rules, but it's also an art. The Judeo-Christian tradition of the law and love is about as good as it can get. There is no freedom without orthodoxy and no orthodoxy without freedom.

Islam is by far the most logical of religions. It has an earthly goal and absolutely everything about it is geared towards power and expansion. It is entirely purposeful whereas all other religions have elements of craziness! There's hardly anything in the world more logical than a suicide bomber: the use of human beings as ordinance delivery systems. Islam is always calculating and never questing. We dream of landing on Mars (probably in the grand scheme of things - though who knows? - perfectly useless) while they instead plan a very real and possible "reconquista" of your very own Iberian peninsula. We drink and let ourselves go, they are sober and calculating. We make a truce and cross our fingers praying it will hold, they make hudnas. We turn the other cheek, forgive and forget, they remember, pickle and salt wounds and take revenge. Christ stopped the raaging mobs with difficult questions, Mo stabbed pregnant women, gouged eyes. Through misinterpretation (heresy) we've allowed fashion (which has taken the place of religion) to turn us into wimps, while through the shifting-dunes "orthodoxy" of the strongest and richest, Islam has created powerful masses of united and purposeful idiots, proud despite little or no achievement: the same kind of pride as L.A. gang members.

Ciao for now. I'm sure we'll have an opportunity to carry on the discussion across the threads.

willy said...

mike18xx,

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/020852.php#comments