Why Liberals Refuse to Admit the Reality of Islamic Fascism

Blind animus for President Bush is insufficient to explain liberals' refusal to acknowledge the reality of a cruel and imperialistic jihadist push worldwide. Nor is it simply liberals' unwillingness to work with Republicans and conservatives that render them incapable of serious and active participation in the War on Terror. It is that by so doing, liberals would be forced to upend the world view and social philosophies that have animated them since the early '60s.

At stake is their identity as individuals, what they do, what they believe, the need for their journals, indeed their sense of moral superiority and their hierarchy in society and policy making. Worse for them, their whole social milieu is dependent on maintaining the artificial and cocooned world they have created for themselves. The philosophic underpinnings of “their world” are frontally challenged by this new jihadist reality, one that cannot be controlled, maneuvered or finessed by their propositions of how life works. It is much more convenient to deny jihad’s eagerness to kill us all, including them, than to deconstruct the ersatz world they have built for themselves.

As with those in the mid-1800s unwilling to accept the transformation from an agricultural era to the new era of industrialization, most elitist liberals refuse to admit the reality of the new jihadist era since it makes irrelevant the entrenched ideas upon which they have grown rich and sassy for the last half century. At stake is their status. It is similar to the advent of the early automobile period when buggy-whip manufacturers would not reconcile themselves to a new reality rendering what they did outdated and unnecessary.

Jihadism is not a reaction to American, Israeli or Australian foreign policy. It is organic, a conventional and historic reading of the Koran as understood by many imams. Jihad is one of Islam’s authentic traditions, predating the birth of America and Israel. They seek to conquer, to create a global Islamic caliphate. Our survival depends on their defeat, total defeat. This will be accomplished not by the professional negotiators and liberal sociologists but by the force of an army, a courageous and unfettered military.

Those schooled in the liberal “it’s society’s fault” outlook when pontificating on domestic crime have for decades proclaimed “it’s America’s fault” when evaluating every atrocity found worldwide. Liberals “understand”!

To acknowledge the peculiarity of the jihadist reality undermines those in the “understanding” business. They are, now, antiquated and counterproductive, since it is not their assumptions that anymore matter but the generals and the fighting man. Liberals would rather deny truth than forfeit their heretofore prominent position at the decision table.

The fanciful and “smart” musings of Thomas Friedman and the New York Times set are valid only if jihadists are morphed into your routine troublemakers placate-able with a concession here and there. There is no serious place for liberal negotiators such as Judith Kipper and some of the smarmy know-it-alls at the Council of Foreign Relations unless the true unyielding nature and goal of Islamofascism is denied. Their journals, writings, royalties, and center of attention among the chattering class depends upon treating jihadism as something “to be reasoned with,” when it is clearly not.

Many of today’s powerful and boisterous liberals are wealthy and university schooled and consider themselves “the nice people,” sensitive, morally superior, smarter, and above such things as war. This is their identity, the passport to their social fraternity. They have constructed above-it-all lives, fashioning a sub-culture beyond the reach of life’s messiness. They live as if everything were predictable and within their control. Through negotiation, life is risk-free.

To acknowledge the true face of Islamofascism and its aims would mean having to concede the necessity of phone surveillance, tough interrogation, common sense profiling, a reliance on the CIA and a strong military -- all things they were taught to disdain. Better to deny reality than relinquish the badges and accoutrements of their internalized identity as “superior.” Besides, how un-cosmopolitan and un-transnational to be in the corner of America, especially when anti-Americanism is cool and fashionable, indeed today’s facile path to liberal “worldliness”.

Some of this crowd are, by nature, cowards and appeasers, brazen only when taking on people and institutions they know will never harm them, such as Bible-believing Christians, President Bush, and the American military. Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch, for example, and other “human rights” imposters have grown celebrated and well-funded by establishing a set of official guidelines for what is permissible for Western powers during war. But their central motivation is to emasculate the strength of the West to win an armed conflict.

Everything, if carried out by the forces of freedom, constitutes, in Roth’s view, a human rights violation. In an article he published two weeks ago, he unearthed an international law “interpretation” that made illegal just about anything Israel chose in defense of its territory and citizens -- as he has done all along in America’s War on Terror. His message to Israel and America: Lose.

As with the Nazis and Communists before, Roth and cohorts are using an elaborate set of legalities to outlaw and subdue those wishing to remain free when fighting those wishing to rule over them. They are outlawing our defense of ourselves. Many “enlightened” liberals wishing to control our fate quote him because it provides them the “moral” tools with which to stymie our efforts. This is made possible only by minimizing the true threat of jihadism and accusing America of being the creator of and fueling the jihadist movement. No doubt, CBS’s Mike Wallace, Ahmadinjad’s new admirer, falls in this category.

Anti-Semitism also plays a role. Those on the left not wishing the state of Israel well, and those who do not like Jews, are reluctant to side with the anti-jihadists. To do so, they must first cast them not as jihadists ideologically and theologically hell-bent on destroying the West and Christians but simply as an aggrieved group of Moslems whose grievances should be redressed and placated. I am sure that Father Coughlin and Charles Lindbergh loved America, but their dislike for Jews was overriding and made them declare that Hitler could be reasoned with.

Deliberate delusion born of self-interest; ignoring reality out of self-importance; the inability of relics “in the know” to renounce what is no longer true; selfishness over love of country: All of these are reprehensible character traits. When practiced by too many, a civilization dies.

==So you think the Nazi Party should be legal in Germany ?

Of course I do--that's what democracy means, ya silly.

I don't know how that fits in with the point that I was trying to make, but I'll play--

Democracy means--(ahem)--government by the people. Period. Some of the people have views that are, well, kinda stupid, & they may call for the deaths of many of the other people. With Posters! Fingerpainted with Tempura! Because of their religion, or that they may be darker in color than others of the populace, or who they sleep with, or whatnot.

But they are still part of the people, right?

So do you consider them legal? People in a country saying what they think about other people in the country?

I don't concern myself with Germany. I'm not a German.

(anticipating your question)
Should the Nazi party be legal in America?

Yes!

(Although if you you know of a better way to keep an eye on these idiots, I'd like to hear it.)

I thought I made my point, but let me try again---

I don't believe that you made any points.You cut&pasted a racist, idiotic email. I responded with my own personal opinion that believing that Islam = Islamofascism (or Islamonazism or whatever is current) is the same as pointing out that Christianity=Crusades, or =the Inquisition, or =Manifest Destiny.

& it's counterproductive & is dragging us backward.

I did read the article. Thank you for saying that it sounded like me. It was very well well-written.

Of course I do--that's what democracy means, ya silly.

No. That is what is silly about Democracy without minority protection. For example, after the French Revolution occurred, the Rule of the Mob led to the 'Reign of Terror'. Mobs can be ugly things at times. Very emotional. They turn on a whim. Just watch the 'rioteers' during the next French riots. Surely you have heard the joke that Democracy is 3 wolves and a sheep voting to decide what is for dinner. You need checks and balances to prevent the wolves from voting to eat the sheep. Our fore fathers used their religious based morals. Over time, America came to respect minority rights more then just about any other country. Hey, perhaps that helps to explain our immigration problems.

Perhaps a lack of respect for minority rights is what will make it almost impossible to bring long term democracy to the Middle East. Their problem may actually be their particular 'religion' (Islam). It is a closed religion that is not very Democratic. People who are not Islamic are called Infidels and they end up losing rights. Just try opening a Christian Church in Saudi Arabia for example.

So obviously not every religion is compatible with Western style democracy. For example, we would have a problem if the Aztecs down in Mexico starting sacrificing hundreds of people to their Ancient Gods once again. In the end the key to a successful long term democracy appears to be the moral conduct of the people participating within the Democracy. Otherwise, totalitarians will vote for totalitarians (Putin) and terrorists will vote for terrorists (Hamas).

Sir,

I have a somewhat abnormal question, but I've been following your posts for a while. To be sure, I am not anyone's sycophant, and there are things that you say to which I both agree and disagree, but and I am still generally awed and interested by what I read, especially with regard to historical and modern leftism. Military history is also a big interest.

Are there any books in particular that you suggest I should read? Classics or contemporary? I too am a vivacious reader, putting down a few books a week (luckily I speed read at up to 5,000 wpm), and would be grateful for any suggestions.

Thanks, and sorry for the bother.

You make some excellent points. We(speaking as an American here) are consider by many, if not most, of the world as a beacon of Democracy (& I firmly believe that we have the best game going), but all the same we've been tinkering with it for 200 plus years & are still working the bugs out. (Although it could be said that the only system without any "bugs" is true totalitarianism.)

Democracy can't be imposed. We have what we have because it grew organically from within & we're still, to use Sec. Rice's phrase, having "birth pangs" to this day. Minority protection IS one of those things that make us great, even if that "minority" is more than half the population (women, who weren't granted the right to vote until after more than a hundred years of "tinkering".)

What's going to happen in the Middle East? I don't know.

But it's going to take a long time & the dead will continue to pile up while we & they & the world figures it out.

Leo Strauss for starters. And other Straussians - Allan Bloom, Thomas Pangel, Joseph Cropsey, Harvey Mansfield, Nathan Tarcov, Ralph Lerner, etc. Not on contemporary events, on political philosophy generally. They will point you to the classics of political thought, which contain more wisdom about current events than all the periodicals combined.

On the background of the present war and the logic of the enemy's strategy, read Paul Johnson's Modern Times (all of it, but particularly the Algeria war treatment and the mid cold war generally) and Alastair Horne's A Savage War of Peace. Others useful on the deeper issues with Islam are Lewis, Fazlur Rahman, Mushin Mahdi, Charles Butterworth (particularly for translations), DB MacDonald, and Goldhizer.

Others to read on principles and modern times - Lord Acton - Gertrude Himmelfarb edited a fine edition of his essays. Burke. GK Chesterton. Jose Ortega y Gasset. Miguel de Unamuno. Raymond Aron. Hannah Arendt on totalitarianism.

It is also worth knowing the sound political economists particularly the Austrians - Bohm-Bawerk, Mises, Hayek. The economic historian Charles Kindelberger is also highly useful, and is right on a number of points the Austrians miss or can't admit ideologically.

A fine contemporary thinker on modernity and political thought is Pierre Manent. Others worth reading but taken with salt among contemporary commentators are Lee Harris, Robert Kaplan, JL Gaddis, WR Mead.

There are others important for more purely philosophical issues, like Stanley Rosen (an ex-Straussian, basically) and Karl Popper. And there are critical matters of history and the roots of civilization scattered in places like Fustel de Coulanges' the Ancient City and the less read late chapters of Hobbes and Montesquieu.

As for military history, Glantz on WW II in the east, Bernard Fall on the French in Vietnam, Horne, Esposito on Napoleon, the US army green books and Korean War histories, South African WW II histories about North Africa (Sidi Rezegh), British official history for WW I, also a little book on the eastern front by Norman Stone, all of Churchill's stuff, memoirs of Grant and Ridgeway, the histories of Alexander and Caesar by JFC Fuller, everything by the early modern historian Geoffery Parker - there are plenty of important items.

I hope this helps. Flattered that anybody cares to ask, incidentally.

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