Posted on 05/19/2004 2:54:18 AM PDT by Theodore R.
What do we offer the world?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: May 19, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern
"So, how do we advance the cause of female emancipation in the Muslim world?" asks Richard Perle in "An End to Evil." He replies, "We need to remind the women of Islam ceaselessly: Our enemies are the same as theirs; our victory will be theirs as well."
Well, the neoconservative cause "of female emancipation in the Muslim world" was probably set back a bit by the photo shoot of Pfc. Lynndie England and the "Girls Gone Wild" of Abu Ghraib prison.
Indeed, the filmed orgies among U.S. military police outside the cells of Iraqi prisoners, the S&M humiliation of Muslim men, the sexual torment of their women raise a question. Exactly what are the "values" the West has to teach the Islamic world?
"This war ... is about – deeply about – sex," declaims neocon Charles Krauthammer. Militant Islam is "threatened by the West because of our twin doctrines of equality and sexual liberation."
But whose "twin doctrines" is Krauthammer talking about? The sexual liberation he calls our doctrine belongs to a '60s revolution that devout Christians, Jews and Muslims have been resisting for years.
What does Krauthammer mean by sexual liberation? The right of "tweeners" and teenage girls to dress and behave like Britney Spears? Their right to condoms in junior high? Their right to abortion without parental consent?
If conservatives reject the "equality" preached by Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, NARAL and the National Organization for Women, why seek to impose it on the Islamic world? Why not stand beside Islam, and against Hollywood and Hillary?
In June 2002 at West Point, President Bush said, "Moral truth is the same in every culture, in every time and in every place."
But even John Kerry does not agree with George Bush on the morality of homosexual unions and stem-cell research. On such issues, conservative Americans have more in common with devout Muslims than with liberal Democrats.
The president notwithstanding, Americans no longer agree on what is moral truth. For as someone said a few years back, there is a cultural war going on in this country – a religious war. It is about who we are, what we believe and what we stand for as a people.
What some of us view as the moral descent of a great and Godly republic into imperial decadence, neocons see as their big chance to rule the world.
In Georgia, recently, the president declared to great applause: "I can't tell you how proud I am of our commitment to values. ... That commitment to values is going to be an integral part of our foreign policy as we move forward. These aren't American values, these are universal values. Values that speak universal truths."
But what universal values is he talking about? If he intends to impose the values of MTV America on the Muslim world in the name of a "world democratic revolution," he will provoke and incite a war of civilizations America cannot win because Americans do not want to fight it. This may be the neocons' war. It is not our war.
When Bush speaks of freedom as God's gift to humanity, does he mean the First Amendment freedom of Larry Flynt to produce pornography and of Salman Rushdie to publish "The Satanic Verses" – a book considered blasphemous to the Islamic faith? If the Islamic world rejects this notion of freedom, why is it our duty to change their thinking? Why are they wrong?
When the president speaks of freedom, does he mean the First Amendment prohibition against our children reading the Bible and being taught the Ten Commandments in school?
If the president wishes to fight a moral crusade, he should know the enemy is inside the gates. The great moral and cultural threats to our civilization come not from outside America, but from within. We have met the enemy, and he is us. The war for the soul of America is not going to be lost or won in Fallujah.
Unfortunately, Pagan America of 2004 has far less to offer the world in cultural fare than did Christian America of 1954. Many of the movies, books, magazines, TV shows, videos and much of the music we export to the world are as poisonous as the narcotics the Royal Navy forced on the Chinese people in the Opium Wars.
A society that accepts the killing of a third of its babies as women's "emancipation," that considers homosexual marriage to be social progress, that hands out contraceptives to 13-year-old girls at junior high ought to be seeking out a confessional – better yet, an exorcist – rather than striding into a pulpit like Elmer Gantry to lecture mankind on the superiority of "American values."
Private schools would be fine. Why do we have public schools in the first place? Wasn't it so that even the poor could get a rudimentary education? Why does religion or morals have to come into academics at all? Isn't that for your church to handle or do you need it everywhere?
In practice the vacuum gets filled as human beings are moral/spiritual creatures. They cannot be pure scholars, they have hearts and souls. You remove God from their hearts and Satan takes His place.
First of all, it is not everyone's belief that some supernatural force called "Satan" causes evil.
Second, it's your job as a parent, and your clergy's job to take care of the religious side. It's not everyone else's job.
Sorry, you're wrong on that, too. Read the thread. Petronski got into it after I clarified because racists on this thread immediately concluded that I was a racist.
I expect the full Gibson treatment.
Yeah sure. And the schools are to be the tool for secular/libertine indoctrination.
See the FR: thread:
The Gay Agenda in Public Schools: Parents Have No Rights To Know of Childs Activities
I wish I could get into this thread, but I have no time.
One thing is for certain, Buchanan is pretty poor at trying to figure out President Bush's motivations. For him to write, "But what universal values is he talking about? If he intends to impose the values of MTV America on the Muslim world in the name of a 'world democratic revolution,'", is clearly being intentionally obtuse, as an honest Buchanan would state when quoting the President's excellent West Point speech. ( http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020601-3.html ) It is disingenuous at best to argue that the President was lobbying for an MTV world. Buchanan knows that.
I'm truly astounded at this man, who I honestly totally respected years ago. I still respect the stance he has on many issues, and even agree almost totally with his moral stance in this article, but for him to use this type of argument to denigrate President Bush is way out of line.
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Only in America can you start a factory in ANOTHER country at American taxpayer expense--another complaint raised by PJB.
And PJB is not the only beneficiary of US election laws.
Without religion you will not have any morality and after a while you will not have schools or science. But before that happens, people of more primitive religions will replace us.
Thanks for posting!
The correct term, in my mind, is Judaeo-Christian.
pat used to be a valuable contributor to the conservative cause, but he never amounted to anything greater then a speech writer. When he was rejected by Conservative America he became a very bitter person with a grudge.
I have no problem with defeating "radical Islam," and I suspect that a lot of Moslems agree with that objective.
Nation-building and imposing democracy are not proper to military ventures.
And a society that enjoys economic freedom also allows for people to have other freedoms. Of course you can lecture your kid on how bad the local strip club is, or how saying profane words will send them to hell. Just don't tell everyone else that they must do the same. Then you don't have freedom at all.
I have no problem with defeating "radical Islam," and I suspect that a lot of Moslems agree with that objective.
Now that Saddam's out, we should find the WMDs remaining in Iraq, knock off the remaining violent resistance, and get the hell out of there.
Afghanistan, Kosovo--Pakistan, Iran--they await our ministrations. Let Turkey run all of them.
Yes, the sky is falling, the sky is falling. Isn't that the perfect way for a petty little tyrant to scare the populace into thinking their brand of tyranny was what is best for them?
The America of 1917 or 1941 might have been able to pull off a great transformation of very different cultures, but today the contrast between the ideal, intellectual, ideological America and what one sees everyday on television is too great. That's not to say that television's decadent, hedonistic America is the country we live in or that our country's not worth living and dying for. But the mass media picture of our world isn't wholly distinct from current realities, and it does make it hard to convince outsiders that we are sincere about moral progress or that our road is right for them.
The question isn't whether we should defend our view of the world. It's whether we can impose or convince others to adopt it. And it's not enough to say that foreigners with a very different view of the world ought to abandon cruel or brutal customs. Of course they should, but can we really "sell" other countries on modernity, when they see many of its bad consequences in our media every day?
Defending our nation is and our troops are doing just that.
Judaeo-Christian is a redundant term. Christianity is based on both Old Testament Judaism and on the New Testament (which was written down by the Jews). And America was founded and built on Christian principles. Jews came late at the end of XIX and beginning of XXc and those who got involved in politics were mostly secular.
On the other hand you could say that Israel is Judeo-Christian as its founders were not very religious and raised in Christian Europe.
Yours, works in my mind too, but not Pats.
Though it's none of my business, you might consider other proponents of positions you agree with. Myself, I like Michelle Malkin on immigration for example. *crew Pat, imo he's a bigot.
Add in "try to put something together such that it doesn't collapse into anarchy the minute we leave", and you'll really be on to something. Of course, you'll have left Pat far, far behind in that case ;)
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