Islamists declared war on the US and much of Western civilization a couple decades ago.
I used to think that was because they actually saw our very existence as a threat to their survival.
I was wrong.
I’ve since come to understand that our existence provides Islamic totalitarianism its means to survive in a modern world (and I’m not even talking trade and technology, as critical as those may be).
Without an Infidel (the totalitarians’ “other”) to dominate that culture’s threat set, Islamic societies would focus inward, knowing what they now know; and that would be disastrous for the Islamists. An Islamic Reformation would be inevitable (no, not the delusional “Arab Spring” nonsense, the kind that almost happened in Iran). Life would become more important to their people than martyrdom. True progress in the existential interests of self, family, community, and future generations upon the Earth would occur. Their individuals would emerge. Their history would actually advance. Reason and learning would overpower Sharia and barbaric tradition. The Islamic Dark Age would end. They would, as Christiandom did, … grow up.
Yeah, now that they’ve “seen Paree“*, only the existence of The Great Pumpkin Satan can justify Islamism.
Islamism will be much harder to defeat than the 20th-C totalitarianisms; because, even in the Western -isms, they actually had something to live for; and hardly anybody actually believed the Sorelian myths they were based on.
* Other analogies might work, too: “touched the monolith,” for example.
Perhaps you have some to offer.
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An interesting perspective!
“Former Navy journalist Joe Ciokon of Poway was sleeping next door to the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, that were hit by a suicide bomber 25 years ago today. After scrambling to locate survivors, he was ordered to take up his camera and record the scene.
Twenty-five years ago today, a suicide bomber steered a truck loaded with the equivalent of six tons of TNT down the airport road in Beirut, Lebanon. He plowed into the four-story barracks where more than 300 U.S. troops from a U.N. peacekeeping mission slept and detonated what the FBI called the largest non-nuclear bomb in history.
The explosion and fireball pulverized the concrete fortress, killing 241 U.S. service members, most of them Marines. A second blast minutes later at the compound of the French peacekeeping force killed 58 more Western troops. Three months later, President Ronald Reagan pulled the Americans out of Beirut. “
Just a note to the above post, the anniversary of the Beirut bombing of our Marines barracks is October 23rd…this year it will be the 29th anniversary.
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty. {…Tommy Jefferson`s former buddy, Johnny Adams...As the Porch`s main man, DougM, would say, “What? Noooo, not Johnny from the Adam`s Family”…..} // What the main man would think, but not say, is likely, ” Jesus, Mary & Harrison Bergeron, take your fucking bands off, Airheads of Nimnos!!!”//
Islamic fanatics use the same fear tactics all criminals use. Without fear, they appear as they really are: throwbacks to a barbaric past, with ruthless overlords abusing the population.
I just finished watching today’s interview with Netanyahu.
This country needs a President of that caliber.
Doug: Kinda like how there is always some impending doom that people believe will destroy the world (cold war, global warming, etc.).
Keeps them focused on anything but what they need to be paying attention to.
As per my post the other day– we may have come out ahead on some but it’s the price we’ve had to pay that makes me sick. I can’t stand to think we’ll have pay that again.
The US is to Radical Islam what Rich people are to Obama; a means to retain power.
OR – Obama is Bobby Brown & America is Whitney.
Imagine how many lunatics we would have in this country if the Westboro Baptist Church was in charge of our schools. Since WWII, Saudi oil money has set up a world wide network of Wahabbi schools preaching Islamist radicalism. Since the 1970s, the Iranians have been funding a small but just as radical network of Shia schools.
One big difference in our cultures: we marginalize extremists while they empower them.