What to call them

Clifford May at The Corner had wondered what we should call our enemies. I wrote to him with a couple of simple suggestions and he has replied. I’ll try to have a further reply to him later tonight.

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Karen writes from England:

This fellow’s remarks just confirm the ignorance of Islam which is prevalent in “Conservative” groups and their continued delusion that the violent ones are “extremists” whilst the remainder are “moderates.” An Egyptian Christian friend of mine said that 80 percent of Moslems should be considered to be fundamentalists with the remaining 20 percent largely secular apostates. He said that the West was always underestimating the success Moslem organisations have in brainwashing their populations and the majority are fundamentalists because of that brainwashing. However he added that there is little that non Moslems can do to change Moslems or their educational and religious systems and they should, therefore, be isolated and left alone to sort out their own problems.

On another note, the report by Sven was thoroughly depressing. Similar things are happening to London.

James N. writes:

Clifford May wrote to you: “ … Your strategy appears to include declaring war on 1.2 [billion] people around the world. I don’t see where that is either justified or wise.”

There’s a difference between “your strategy” and recognizing the embedded reality of our world. Reality testing is not a strategy, it’s a required mode of interaction with the external environment (if you’re not crazy).

The world of Islam is at war with us. Saying that this is so is not your strategy, or my strategy, it simply reflects our ability to apprehend the world outside of our heads.

“War” is a name for a state of affairs, but it is a name which represents a reality, one which does not bend to our desires, one which cannot be changed by wishes, hopes, or dreams (what a psychiatrist would call our fantasies).

When one nation is at war with another, it is true that not ALL members of the nation are hostile or dangerous. But it is also true that when we are at war, behaving as if all of them are hostile or dangerous appears to be necessary in order to bring about their conquest and subjugation.

Eventually, the enemy breaks and those within the enemy culture who are amenable to peace come forward. The fact that there are Fouad Adjamis and Amir Taheris is not really very meaningful as long as the enemy continues to produce Mohammed Attas by the score.

The President and his brain, Dr. Rice, appear to like the “fascist” appellation. To them, it’s a useful label to sell something (rather like using “low-fat” to describe “high carbohydrate”).

But our enemies are much more like Shinto Japan (except with much lower IQs). There IS a hive-like aspect to what they are doing. But this is typical of war in its early stages—the young men are excited, there’s something (finally) for them to do that doesn’t involve agriculture or making babies with Fatima, their “blood is up”—and they will have their way unless they are beaten back by superior force.

To fail to deploy that superior force because you are a nominalist—because you believe that wishing can make it so, or worse, because you believe that your people are a bunch of saps who will elect you only if you ACT like you believe it—is strategic malpractice on a grand scale.

Shortly after 9/11 I wrote a “vanity” article at an internet site titled “Should We Surrender?” The premise was that, if we would not now rise up and conquer, then subjugate, our enemies (as I predicted we would not), that it would be better if we did not do a half-assed job and wind up just pissing them off.

Your idea of containing them is a good one—better than hemi-planetary conquest in the sense that we can keep the malls in business if we isolate, rather than destroy, them.

But none of this involves us “declaring war on 1.2 billion people.” The war’s already declared—and not by us. Our job is to win, surrender, or find a way out.

Cindy L. writes:

How about something that incorporates their goal of establishing Sharia? Jihadi Shariists? Kind of awkward, but maybe something along those lines that would specifically name those Muslims who believe in waging war for the purposes of establishing Sharia. Just a thought.

Kevin O writes from England:

I am sure Cliff May is an honourable gentleman, but his reply to you is both arrogant and defeatist. I have observed the same characteristics among the leadership of the pro-life movement in Britain. Three years go I wrote on this subject in a traditionalist publication:

“When pro-life issues are debated in a “secular” forum, we seem to collude with our atheist opponents in removing God from the universe of discourse. We look for an anthropocentric justification for our opposition to euthanasia, etc. But by so doing we remove our most powerful argument—the argument from Natural Law. Nor is this a compromise on our part. By excluding God from the universe of discourse we are not reaching some middle ground with the atheists, we are surrendering the whole ground to them. A godless universe is their actual universe (or so they would wish). Consequently, in every such debate they frequently appear more sure of the strength of their position which in turn aids the viewer’s perception of their holding the moral high ground. With no God, prohibitive injunctions such as a ban on consensual murder can be portrayed as an arbitrary imposition.”

The arrogance of the pro-life leaders lies in their speculative, cynical and ultimately immoral assumption that by being as non-Christian as possible they can save “some” lives. Being intellectually honest, they say, merely serves to get one’s opponents’ backs up and will achieve nothing. Cliff May exhibits this same arrogance. He is wrong. It is plain and simple that one cannot win an argument by being intellectually dishonest, one can only hope to manipulate and defraud. As a man once said, however, you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

On the subject of your discussion of “two universalisms,” one reason why Westerners fail to be apprehensive of the universalist claims of Mohammedanism, I suspect, is that Liberals have become complacent about the almost total destruction of another universalist religion—Catholicism—as a principle of social organisation. (As an example of the latter reality I would point to the failure of the Church to excommunicate pro-abortion politicians.)

In Britain at least, the final blow to Catholicism was achieved by politicians’ unleashing of a “permissive society.” I believe Liberals are subconsciously confident that, given time, the children of immigrant Mohammedans will also succumb to the Government-backed temptations of the flesh. (They are only human after all.) The problem is that, with the constant threat of violence hanging over them, Liberal artists are unable to produce the kind of corrupting pornography featuring Mohammedan characters that, mutatis mutandis, they have employed with such dexterity against Christians.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 01, 2006 08:31 PM | Send