Posted on 11/20/2005 10:06:23 AM PST by Frank T
Last week I wrote that the riots in France were more about the culture of 50 Cent than bin Laden and that to blame the violence solely on Islam was a gross misreading of the situation.
The neo-con web world had a fit, reminding me that when it comes to abuse and stupidity the right and the left are similarly gifted. In fact, neo-conservatives increasingly resemble the left in their simplistic and formulaic analyses and responses to complex situations. The world abounds with nuances, yet nuances are something with which absolutist ideologies simply cannot deal.
The equation is absurdly facile but awfully comforting to some. There is rioting in France. There are Muslims in France. Fundamentalist Islam can be violent and hateful; therefore, the French riots are caused by Muslims.
Part of the cause of this childish approach is that the focus of neo-con foreign policy in the Mideast has always been the security of Israel and Washington's attitude towards the Arab states is coloured by passing through the prism of this obsession.
Not that a commitment to Israeli security is in any way a bad thing, but when it becomes a fetish it obscures greater truths. It also, by the way, plays into the hands of every anti-Semite and conspiracy theorist who sees collusion every time he leaves his bed-sit.
In the French context, too many columnists have embraced a caricature fuelled by their own fears and hatreds. Let me emphasize that I am totally opposed to the notion of an Islamic Europe and wish that Catholic Christendom still ruled that continent.
But dishonesty about cause and effect and sheer racism will not help the situation. Remember, some of us have been warning for decades that abortion and artificial birth control, aside from being immoral, will destroy the very cultures that the pro-choice zealots of the left and the neo-con right so revere.
The current assumption concerning France is that Muslims from North and sub-Saharan Africa went to Paris and Marseilles and Lyon because of the largesse of the French people and because, as Muslims, they wanted to eventually become the majority population.
As I said, the world is a little more complex than that. France colonized various parts of Africa and often treated their colonial subjects appallingly. When their empire collapsed, Muslims who had been force-fed with the French language and lies about French superiority wanted to live in the country they had been told was their motherland.
Once in France, they were marginalized, ostracized and oppressed. The great French soccer player, Zinedine Zidane, put it so well when the national team was asked about the rioting. "I was raised in one of those suburbs," said the gentle genius. "They built a supermarket in the town, but nobody who lived there and bought there was allowed to work there."
Many of the French players, half of them products of these areas but still proud Frenchmen, made similar comments. When, by the way, the French team won the World Cup they were celebrated as national icons. Now their cousins and friends in the suburbs are "scum."
The parents of the rioters tend to be far more religiously conservative than their children and often speak Arabic rather than French. They complain that their sons are secular, western, refuse to speak Arabic and that the French state prevents them from using corporal punishment on their unruly teenagers.
Once again, the paradigms of left and right become redundant. It's as much about the failure of liberalism as about the closed-mindedness of conservatism. The rioters have often lived through years of neglect, yet so many of them refuse to be self-reliant and relish the life of the thug.
The political picture cannot be improved by a painting-by-numbers response and Europe, in spite of what some would have us believe, is not the Mideast. There, e-mail your worst.
Coren likes to pose as a conservative. Indeed, if he was in Europe, he would be one. But living and working in an Anglo country (Canada), his journalism indicates he doesn't share the English speaking world's kind of conservatism.
He is of the continental, pre Vatican II, school of thought, which means he hates us and our culture in a fundamental sense. There is no notion that a country like Canada, or the U.S., has gone astray from its roots, rather such countries were wrong to begin with. At least, that's the kind of vibe that I get from these Catholic conservatives who like to point out that they are "the real conservatives," and not those jewish neocons.
(The irony here being that Coren is a self hating jew who converted to catholicism, then to evangelicalism, then became a Catholic again. Anything but being jewish. Perhaps he can become muslim next? Heaven knows, that option might be forced on him, and us, some day.)
On issues like racism, the environment, the role of government in defining morality, the scope of government power, and so on, these paleocons appear to share more with The Left. Throw in sympathy for jihaadist Islam, and what's left to form a coalition with? If the Left goes whole hog for bringing down Israel, they can expect to have some new friends. These Buchananites already sold us out by introducing and pushing the term "neocon" to cloud the debate on foreign policy. Apparently "war hawk" no longer exists.
Anyways, this is a long way of saying this: when you hear people lamenting the Left and what they are doing to our common values and culture, some of these voices don't care much for either the new values or the old ones. They brought their ones as refugees, from the European Left Vs. Right wars. Wanting to live an a free Republic means being on neither side of the European conflict. What's sad is that they have brought their politics into our world, and there no end in sight in getting rid of it.
You know, it's okay for conservatives to come up with different ideas and even be wrong once in a while. It doesn't kill you to hear a different opinion. Maybe he's right to some degree, maybe the culture of ganga rap really has been underestimated as an influence behind the rioting, so what.
You don't have to go after the guy with the crazy "phony conservative" and "self hating jew" talk, it's a bit unhinged.
Many paleos do indeed apologize for Islam at every opportunity. ....most likely because of their near-hysterical anti-Israel/Jewish sentiments.
He seems to have a much more realistic grasp on the roots of the rioting than many writers I've read in the last few weeks, whether you agree with his conclusions or not.
Fiddy-Cent muslim ganstas using islamic jihad to justify their attacks on the repressive nonbelievers.
OK I'll bite. Do you have reason to accuse the author of "near-hysterical anti-Israel/Jewish sentiments", or is that an unfair smear?
Does disagreeing with someone's opinion mean it is good to savage and demonize them in the worst way you can conceive?
Your analysis of his blindness is accurate. The only thing I would part company with you on this is the easy use of these labels, "paleocon" and "neocon." I'm Catholic, and I think things started going badly wrong in the West around the time of Descartes, which must make me a paleocon.
But I also think that the American ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are basic. I think a good society is one where the people have the kind of moral training that prepares them to discipline themselves, so you don't need a lot of state discipline to preserve order.
But I don't see how being a paleocon, or even antideluvian as I am, would prevent one from seeing that Islam is the enemy. Islam has been the enemy for more than 1500 years, with a few respites, the longest of them being the most recent. But that respite is now evidently over.
Sure, these kids are also punks. But they are punks partly because they are unassimiliated, and they are unassimilated partly because good Muslims don't assimilate with infidels.
American pop culture is very strong and appealing. It crosses cultural borders. What it does to Arabs is to make them misbehave, and then feel bad about themselves, and then go out and kill Infidels because they blame them for making them feel bad about themselves.
And "nuance" is a word that lost all meaning thanks to the the Kerry campaign. Stopped reading after seeing the word twice in the same sentence.
Conservatives blamed the French riots on BOTH the welfare state and Islam. I didn't hear any blame it on gangsta rap, sounds like lazy logic to me.
It also sounds like the author doesn't know economics and history all that well.
I understand your point about the gun and violence culture promoted by that kind of music.
The question then becomes, who's fault it is? Once that is determined, by what mechanism will action be taken?
For example, it is the federal government of the United States' fault that they allow this undefined thing called "gansta rap" to be sold as compact discs, into vulnerable countries like France. Arguable, but it's fair to make the point.
What then? Well, if you don't care about protecting individuals' rights and free speech, if you want to undermine the Constitution, how about advocating that the United Nations get involved? How about the U.N. drafting laws for American to deal with this "obvious" problem? Or advocate "liberal" supreme court justices who will adopt European jurisprudance to crack down on what music we can and cannot produce and sell?
Coren might have a point, but I'm afraid to think of what his solution would be. If he's not coming from a position that tries to respect restrained government, wouldn't the paleo way be to "fix" America into the image of the "regime ancien"?
Cicero, what do you think of FrankT saying that Jews who convert to Christianity are "self hating"?
So tell me, Mikey, how many French Christians took to the streets to throw bricks and set things on fire? I don't remember Baptist preachers and Catholic priests being brought out to call for peace. (In that environment, they would've been hanged from the nearest lamp post.)
His arguments seem to be: 1) it's the fault of Washington's middle east policy, and 2) imperialism. That's not reality, it's politics.
Unless he mentions the role of statism in France, and it's highly burdened private sector in hiring and firing workers, I believe he is missing the point.
Socialism was the root cause. All that separates paleos from the Left is which groups of people deserved to be discriminated against by the government.
Nuance is often used by weasels as another name for lies.
"when it comes to abuse and stupidity the right and the left are similarly gifted"
What conservatives have endangered the United States like Bill Clinton?
There's no comparison. You're deviating from good sense, logic and simple observation.
This feels kind of like a joke on "Family Guy".
The Left: this isn't about Islam.
The Right: But they're chanting "God Smite the West".
The Left: No, no, they're saying "God likes us best".
The Right: But what about that sign saying "Jihad against the West"?
The Left: They just mispelled "We love you". That's what you get for not spending enough on education in Arabic.
The Right: But what about that sign that says "No, we're serious this is a religious crusade"?
The Left: You're just a racist, sexist, homophobic American.
pretty much, i agree it is ridiculous to dismiss the influence of Islam. I disagree with the author. But I don't have patience for the way he was savaged here, either. Can't we disagree without resorting to trashing him for converting to christianity and calling him a self hating jew?
I didn't make that general statement. But in Coren's case, I think it's true.
He's a free man, and can choose whatever faith he wants. But ask yourself, why would a former jew, who converts to another religion, and who is conservative (at least on abortion and gay marriage), feel the need to be anti-Israel?
Isn't helping out Israel to survive hostile neighbors a "conservative" cause, in the sense of saving a western nation from falling?
Like other paleos, he seems to want Israel to go down, even it if means that the Islamic Ummah expands. Why stab conservatism in the back like that? Are old school Catholics *that* spiteful against jews to this day?
Unfair smear. I was responding to the threadmeister, not the article, and I specifically said "many" paleos, not all. Coren could very well be anti-Israel, but it's certainly not evident from this particular article.
He does have his head buried in the sand regarding Islam, though.
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