[Gritty]

This is the second depressing article today by a man who has been bold and with a clear vision in this fight.

The first was by Mark Steyn

[hershey]

A sad piece indeed. VDH should have faith that the American public won't give up the fight. Leftist elitists dismiss them/us as flyover country. We don't count. We're nothing, a bunch of nobodies. The nobodies who keep the world economy humming and invent things to make life easier, who lead quiet lives, raise kids, grow old, and get down on their knees and thank God for another day. And remember, we're not in this fight alone -- God's on our side. If He wanted us mired in the eighth century, we'd be there.

VDH is dead on about Muslims' obsession with envy and victimhood, which the Left and MSM pander to every chance they get. Well, they jumped the shark with that long ago, and I have a hard time praying for them. I suspect we'll be attacked again, alas, and God willing, GW will take care of business. No more Mr. Nice Guy.

[montag813]

And dear Pope: clarify, contextualize, express sorrow over the wrong interpretation of your remarks, but please don’t apologize for the Truth—not now, not ever.

Too late.

[VOA]

bump for publicity

[GreyFriar]

Thank you for posting this.

The payoff line is:
"...the Pope failed to grasp that under the tenets of radical Islam of the modern age, context means little, intent nothing, learning less than zero.

"If a sentence, indeed a mere phrase can be taken out of context, twisted, manipulated to show an absence of deference to Islam, furor ensues, death threats follow, assassins load their belts—even as the New York Times or the Guardian issues its sanctimonious apologies in the hope that the crocodile will eat them last."

[bvw]

The Brave? Not just so -- there is a better word in these times ...

The RESOLUTE.

[goldstategop]

Victor Davis Hanson gets it. Islam is a faith that demands much of others but little of itself. And the West is too frightened to hold Muslims up to the highest standards as though that was unfair to them. It is unfair to the victims of Islamic terror to countenance Muslim violence as in not demanding Muslims grow up to live in our time might well end the War On Civilizations. If don't have the courage to press ahead with the latter, we will assuredly get more of the former. The die for the West is cast.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[Tolik]

Oriana Fallaci, RIP, the Pope, and a Sad Age

    Victor Davis Hanson Ping ! 

       Let me know if you want in or out.

Links: FR Index of his articles:  http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson 
His website: http://victorhanson.com/     NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp

[metesky]

And by quoting from the emperor rhetorician Manuel Paleologus—whose desperate efforts at strengthening the Morea and the Isthmus at Corinth a generation before that awful Tuesday, May 29, 1453 all came to naught—the Pope failed to grasp that under the tenets of radical Islam of the modern age, context means little, intent nothing, learning less than zero.

All I need to know about Islam.

[kabar]

The most disturbing effect of militant Islam and its lack of tolerance for any criticism, real or imagined, is the self-censorship that now prevails in the MSM and among our political leaders. I doubt we will ever hear Bush say Islamofacism again.

[Pirate21]

And dear Pope: clarify, contextualize,...

The radicals and liberals will never hear this...whether the words reach their ears or not.

[tpaine]

Some observations on Hanson's message:

"-- Muslims who leave the Middle East to live under the free aegis of the West have a moral duty to support and protect the civilization that has welcomed them, rather than romanticize about what they have forsaken; --"

Everyone in the USA has an actual legal duty to support, protect, & defend the US Constitution, not just a 'moral' duty.

"-- Christianity is more than a religion, but also a powerful emblem of the force of reason, in that it seeks to spread belief by rational thought as well as faith; --"

And those who defy the rational thought inherent in our Constitution should be treated as our enemies, foreign or domestic..

"-- and that affluent and leisured Westerners, bargaining away their honor and traditions out of fear and for illusory security, have only emboldened radical Islam that seeks to liquidate them. --"

And thus they have earned themselves the label of domestic enemy, and should be treated accordingly.

[okie01]

...a horde of other false grievances that so shook the West, traumatized in fear of having its skyscrapers, planes, trains, buses, nightclubs, and synagogues blown apart or its oil cut off.

The Western left has no fear of having "its skyscrapers, planes, trains, buses, nightclubs and synagogues blown apart or its oil cut off". No fear whatsoever.

Instead, they quake at simply being called "racists". They will appease the radical Islamists until they are separated from their heads -- all so that the dread word won't be used against them.

[Zack Nguyen]

And few Christians in positions of influence and respect have publicly defended their faith and the civilization that birthed it.

I love Victor Davis Hansen and he makes good points here, but it's worth pointing out that no civilization "birthed" Christianity.

[Zack Nguyen]

And few Christians in positions of influence and respect have publicly defended their faith and the civilization that birthed it.

I love Victor Davis Hansen and he makes good points here, but it's worth pointing out that no civilization "birthed" Christianity.

[Cuttnhorse]

"In short, no modern ideology, no religious sect of the present age demands so much of others, so little of itself."

Hanson always manages to get right to the heart of every issue.

[Cuttnhorse]

BTTT

[litehaus]

Her incisive/sharp wit writing will be missed by many............