Why the Muslim menace exists

My Indian correspondent living in the West writes:

I have been thinking about the Muslim menace and the means to combat it. It is obvious to me that the menace is the creation of Liberalism. Without Liberal “tolerance,” the menace could not exist. Islam has tried several times to take on the West and it has been defeated resoundingly. And today the technological gap between the Muslim world and the West is nothing short of breathtaking.

So, if the West had a healthy attitude towards the Middle East, sort of like the Europeans of the 19th century, Islam would be fundamentally impotent because Islamic societies are utterly mired in wretchedness. A military confrontation would be a joke. The US could decimate the entire Middle East with conventional weapons alone.

So, the menace as we see it today is one of Muslim numbers and Muslim presence in the West. Neither of those things are “natural”—Muslims have never existed in the West (outside of Spain) and were defeated in Eastern Europe centuries ago. If the West had a healthy attitude towards Islam (seeing it in the proper context) and towards itself (with a certain conviction in its superiority—which I think is not a matter for serious argument), Islam would be utterly and completely impotent against the West. The only reason it is a menace is because suicidal Western tolerance demands that the West not only tolerate it but encourage its growth here.

It goes without saying that if a man (no matter how powerful) is bent upon destroying himself, the most pathetic of opponents can defeat him.

In conjunction with these observations, I’d like to mention the following conjunction of facts: the firing of radio host Michael Graham by ABC for making a reasoned argument that Islam is a terrorist organization, and the indisturbed continuation of the broadcast career of Bill Maher, who has repeatedly called Christianity a mental sickness and much else besides.

The West is out to destroy itself. Our enemies are attacking and harming us, only because we have actively enabled them to do so.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 23, 2005 09:55 AM | Send