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This isle of wimps set in the silver sea
Britain’s newly installed prime dhimmi, Gordon Brown, has ordered his assistant dhimmis not to use the word “Muslim” in connection with the terrorism crisis in Great Britain (last night I suggested that the British government were up to something just like this). He has also told them to drop the Bush-Blair phrase “war on terror” as too confrontational. This is most ironic, as “war on terror” is already a cowardly euphemism designed to avoid mentioning Islam. If “war on terror” is too rich for Brown’s blood, what will he call this … thing, this, uh, situation that he has to deal with? A “joint effort by all of Britain’s communities to find ways to avoid sudden disruptions to our shared values”? That indeed is the sort of wording suggested by Brown’s spokesman, who said: “There is clearly a need to strike a consensual tone in relation to all communities across the UK. It is important that the country remains united.” So the idea is to oppose Muslim terrorists, who, moreover, perform their terrorist acts explicitly in the name of and according to the tenets of Islam, without offending Muslims in general. A bit like squaring the circle, wouldn’t you say? Maybe there are some conflicts that can’t be smoothed over.
American Cassandra writes: You wrote: “Hmm, to oppose Muslim terrorists, who, moreover, perform their terrorist acts explicitly in the name of and according to the tenets of Islam, without offending Muslims in general. A bit like squaring the circle, wouldn’t you say? Maybe there are some conflicts that can’t be smoothed over.” How very true! And in some ways, this is the essence of liberalism: pretending that conflicts can be smoothed over: pretending that things that are different and disunited are the same. Israelis and Palestinians will just wake up and realize they love each other, we shall overcome, we’ll walk hand in hand, etc. (See this, for instance.) How strange that is—for all that liberalism claims to love unity, it touts diversity qua diversity as the best thing a society can possibly have. Diversity doesn’t lead to good things, diversity is a good thing. Doesn’t it ever occur to liberals that diversity does not lead to unity? This couldn’t possibly be an accident. I don’t think liberalism just mistakenly aims for impossible things, I think it deliberately aims for impossible things. If it aimed for the possible, there would no longer be an excuse for totalitarianism and infinite social engineering. I understand why liberals in power love liberalism. It gives them such an excuse for more and more power. I’ve never understood why ordinary people, students in the universities, school teachers, etc, are so seduced by it. They don’t have any power, why does it thrill them so to give the state power over them? I suppose it must be that they are enjoying it vicariously. You once used the term spiritual greed, and I really liked it. The most liberal ordinary people I know personally have often struck me as people who yearn to fill an emptiness inside. Brown’s statement, his excessive reliance on “a consensual tone,” also reminds me in a way of Obama, although I might be linking two things that shouldn’t be linked. I don’t know if you heard his famous speech at the Democratic National Convention, but he talked a lot about unity. He is always talking about how we need to put aside our differences. How he himself transcends differences, and is nice to Republicans though he doesn’t agree with them. But I seem to invariably find myself thinking when I listen to him, some differences shouldn’t be smoothed over. Some differences should be battled out. Sometimes compromise is impossible and one side simply needs to win. Gordon Brown is talking about a situation where compromise is impossible—there is no compromise in the religion of submission. The things that Obama is talking about are not like that, for many differences in policy are things that the right and the left should be compromising on. But there are things that cannot be compromised, there are things where no middle ground is possible. We won’t know which are which unless we allow them to be fought. It seems to me that Obama isn’t seeking to compromise—he is seeking to shut down debate with all this talk of unity, and rising above politics. A politician is not supposed to rise above politics. I’ve never understood why people act like negative campaigning is a bad thing. What is wrong with pointing out your opponent’s flaws? Wouldn’t the public be well served to know them before making a decision? It is this scary side of Obama, coupled with the fact that he is black and a lot of white people seem to feel that it is simply inappropriate to point out flaws in a black person’s thinking, that make me hope even for Hillary (a national nightmare) over him. The last thing we need is an ultra liberal president who cannot be criticized. I do think there is a time for putting aside our differences. If Obama said: there are people out there who are trying to kill us. Americans should put aside our differences and work together to stop this—I would have a different take on the matter. We should never refuse to see differences between ourselves and other groups, but we shouldn’t refuse to see our similarities either. The most unifying thing to a group is coming across a group with even greater differences. So I am sure we will all happily put aside our differences when space aliens come down and threaten to destroy all of human society with death rays, but till then I’m not holding my breath. LA replies: That’s what happened in the movie “Independence Day.”
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