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Victor Davis Hanson: The Postwest. A civilization that has become just a dream
NRO ^ | April 13, 2007 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 04/13/2007 4:52:50 AM PDT by Tolik

I recently had a dream that British marines fought back, like their forefathers of old, against criminals and pirates. When taken captive, they proved defiant in their silence. When released, they talked to the tabloids with restraint and dignity, and accepted no recompense.
 
I dreamed that a kindred German government, which best knew the wages of appeasement, cut-off all trade credits to the outlaw Iranian mullahs — even as the European Union joined the Americans in refusing commerce with this Holocaust-denying, anti-Semitic, and thuggish regime.

NATO countries would then warn Iran that their next unprovoked attack on a vessel of a member nation would incite the entire alliance against them in a response that truly would be of a “disproportionate” nature.

In this apparition of mine, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, in Syria at the time, would lecture the Assad regime that there would be consequences to its serial murdering of democratic reformers in Lebanon, to fomenting war with Israel by means of its surrogates, and to sending terrorists to destroy the nascent constitutional government in Iraq.

She would add that the United States could never be friends with an illegitimate dictatorship that does its best to destroy the only three democracies in the region. And then our speaker would explain to Iran that a U.S. Congresswoman would never detour to Tehran to dialogue with a renegade government that had utterly ignored U.N. non-proliferation mandates and daily had the blood of Americans on its hands.

Fellow Democrats like John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, and Harry Reid would add that, as defenders of the liberal tradition of the West, they were not about to call a retreat before extremist killers who behead and kidnap, who blow up children and threaten female reformers and religious minorities, and who have begun using poison gas, all in an effort to annihilate voices of tolerance in Iraq.

These Democrats would reiterate that they had not authorized a war to remove the psychopathic Saddam Hussein only to allow the hopeful country to be hijacked by equally vicious killers. And they would warn the world that their differences with the Bush administration, whatever they might be, pale in comparison to the shared American opposition to the efforts of al Qaeda, the Taliban, Syria, and Iran to kill any who would advocate freedom of the individual.

Those in Congress would not deny that Congress itself had voted for a war against Saddam on 23 counts — the vast majority of which had to do with weapons of mass destruction and remain as valid today as when they were approved in 2002.

Congressional Democrats would make clear that, while in the interests of peace they might wish to talk to Iran, they had no idea how to approach a regime that subsidizes Holocaust denial, threatens to wipe out Israel, defies the world in seeking nuclear weapons, trains terrorists to kill Americans in Iraq, engages in piracy and hostage taking, and butchers or incarcerates any of its own who question the regime.

In this dream, I heard our ex-presidents add to this chorus of war-time solidarity. Jimmy Carter reminded Americans that radical Islam had started in earnest on his watch, out of an endemic hatred of all things Western. I imagined him explaining that America began being called the “Great Satan” during the presidential tenure of a liberal pacifist, not a Texan conservative.

Bill Clinton would likewise add that he bombed Iraq, and Afghanistan, and East Africa without congressional or U.N. approval because of the need for unilateral action against serial terrorism and the efforts of radicals to obtain weapons of mass destruction.

George Bush Sr. would in turn lecture the media that it was once as furious at him for not removing Saddam as it is now furious at his son for doing so; that it was once as critical of him for sending too many troops to the Middle East as it is now critical of his son for sending too few; that it was once as hostile to the dictates of his excessively large coalition as it is now disparaging of his son’s intolerably small alliance; that it was once as dismissive of his old concern about Iranian influence in Iraq as it is now aghast at his son’s naiveté about Tehran’s interest in absorbing southern Iraq; and that it was once as repulsed by his own cynical realism as it is now repulsed by his son’s blinkered idealism.

I also dreamed that the British government only laughed at calls to curtail studies of the Holocaust in deference to radical Muslims, and instead repeatedly aired a documentary on its sole Victoria Cross winner in Iraq. The British, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, and Spanish foreign ministers would collectively warn the radical Islamic world that there would be no more concessions to the pre-rational primeval mind, no more backpeddling and equivocating on rioting and threats over cartoons or operas or papal statements. There would be no more apologies about how the West need make amends for a hallowed tradition that started 2,500 years ago with classical Athens, led to the Italian Republics of the Renaissance, and inspired the liberal democracies that defeated fascism, Japanese militarism, Nazism, and Communist totalitarianism, and now are likewise poised to end radical Islamic fascism.

Europeans would advise their own Muslim immigrants, from London to Berlin, that the West, founded on principles of the Hellenic and European Enlightenments, and enriched by the Sermon on the Mount, had nothing to apologize for, now or in the future. Newcomers would either accept this revered culture of tolerance, assimilation, and equality of religions and the sexes — or return home to live under its antithesis of seventh-century Sharia law.

Media critics of the ongoing war might deplore our tactics, take issue with the strategy, and lament the failure to articulate our goals and values. But they would not stoop to the lies of “no blood for oil” — not when Iraqi petroleum is now at last under transparent auspices and bid on by non-American companies, even as the price skyrockets and American ships protect the vulnerable sea-lanes, ensuring life-saving commerce for all importing nations.

I also dreamed that no columnist, no talking head, no pundit would level the charge of “We took our eye off bin Laden in Afghanistan” when they themselves had no answer on how to reach al Qaedists inside nuclear Pakistan, a country ruled by a triangulating dictator and just one bullet away from an Islamic theocracy.



And then I woke up, remembering that the West of old lives only in dreams. Yes, the new religion of the post-Westerner is neither the Enlightenment nor Christianity, but the gospel of the Path of Least Resistance — one that must lead inevitably to gratification rather than sacrifice.

Once one understands this new creed, then all the surreal present at last makes sense: life in the contemporary West is so good, so free, so undemanding, that we will pay, say, and suffer almost anything to enjoy its uninterrupted continuance — and accordingly avoid almost any principled act that might endanger it.


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Philosophy; United Kingdom; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: england; greatbritain; postwest; uk; unitedkingdom; vdh; victordavishanson
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1 posted on 04/13/2007 4:52:53 AM PDT by Tolik
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To: neverdem; Lando Lincoln; quidnunc; .cnI redruM; SJackson; dennisw; monkeyshine; Alouette; ...


    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
                Pajamasmedia:
   http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/

2 posted on 04/13/2007 4:53:24 AM PDT by Tolik (If you don't agree with me 102% of the time, then you're a RINO)
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To: Tolik

Wow! Great article. Too bad it’s just a dream.


3 posted on 04/13/2007 4:59:11 AM PDT by jwparkerjr
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To: Lando Lincoln; neverdem; quidnunc; .cnI redruM; Valin; King Prout; SJackson; dennisw; ...
Sorry for the double ping if you are on both ping lists.


Nailed It!
Moral Clarity BUMP !

This ping list is not author-specific for articles I'd like to share. Some for the perfect moral clarity, some for provocative thoughts; or simply interesting articles I'd hate to miss myself. (I don't have to agree with the author all 100% to feel the need to share an article.) I will try not to abuse the ping list and not to annoy you too much, but on some days there is more of the good stuff that is worthy of attention. You can see the list of articles I pinged to lately  on  my page.
You are welcome in or out, just freepmail me (and note which PING list you are talking about). Besides this one, I keep 2 separate PING lists for my favorite authors Victor Davis Hanson and Orson Scott Card.  

4 posted on 04/13/2007 4:59:29 AM PDT by Tolik (If you don't agree with me 102% of the time, then you're a RINO)
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To: Tolik
life in the contemporary West is so good, so free, so undemanding, that we will pay, say, and suffer almost anything to enjoy its uninterrupted continuance — and accordingly avoid almost any principled act that might endanger it.

In the meantime, the islamic wolves of terror circle and bite to weaken, waiting for the kill.

5 posted on 04/13/2007 5:00:50 AM PDT by TADSLOS (Islam is the non-dissolving flavah bomb in the melting pot of civilization.)
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To: Tolik

A fever dream for sure. When the fever breaks Nancy will be in Tehran, the Brit sailors will be on the cover of the Enquirer and Hillary and Obama will be calling for Bush’s impeachment.


6 posted on 04/13/2007 5:08:21 AM PDT by saganite (Billions and billions and billions----and that's just the NASA budget!)
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To: saganite

This mans dream is a liberals nightmare.


7 posted on 04/13/2007 5:18:39 AM PDT by sgtbono2002 (I will forgive Jane Fonda, when the Jews forgive Hitler.)
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To: Tolik

Absolutely right. Such a west would be moral and standing up for its principles instead of the cowardly appeasement one sees today that is guaranteed to make my children’s lives one of continued bloodshed.

Thanks a lot for ruining our world liberals and leftists!


8 posted on 04/13/2007 5:19:40 AM PDT by Edward Watson (Religious conservative social libertarians need love too!!!)
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To: Tolik

We are living in a NIGHTMARE where black is white, good is bad, up is down......disgusting times.


9 posted on 04/13/2007 5:21:19 AM PDT by Suzy Quzy (Hillary '08...Her Phoniness is Genuine!!!)
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To: Suzy Quzy

May God have mercy upon us.


10 posted on 04/13/2007 5:24:13 AM PDT by Halgr (Once a Marine, always a Marine - Semper Fi)
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To: sgtbono2002

I wisj Hanson was required reading in all schools . He KNOWS what is really going on . I give the USA 5 to 8 years tops.


11 posted on 04/13/2007 5:25:51 AM PDT by sonic109
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To: Edward Watson

Agree. The principal standing would be the best deterrence, and safer, and cheaper. Just from pragmatic point of view and not going into the high policy matters, the Left’s mushy appeasement is counterproductive.


12 posted on 04/13/2007 5:31:34 AM PDT by Tolik (If you don't agree with me 102% of the time, then you're a RINO)
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To: Tolik
Excellent!
13 posted on 04/13/2007 5:31:56 AM PDT by Valin (History takes time. It is not an instant thing.)
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To: Tolik; sgtbono2002
Just a dream, just a dream
All our plans and our all schemes
Jimmy Clanton, 1959

14 posted on 04/13/2007 5:33:03 AM PDT by metesky ("Brethren, leave us go amongst them." Rev. Capt. Samuel Johnston Clayton - Ward Bond- The Searchers)
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To: Tolik
no more concessions to the pre-rational primeval mind

What a wonderful and accurate description.

15 posted on 04/13/2007 5:33:30 AM PDT by Bahbah (Regev, Goldwasser & Shalit, we are praying for you.)
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To: Tolik

Damn. Now I’m sad.


16 posted on 04/13/2007 5:34:52 AM PDT by CharlesWayneCT
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To: Tolik

I sent a copy to my congressman, the surrender monkey Tom Davis.

I reiterated that I was not supporting him anymore, and told him I hoped that it made the staff person who read it cry like I did.


17 posted on 04/13/2007 5:44:03 AM PDT by CharlesWayneCT
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To: Tolik

Let me on the ping list.

bcsco


18 posted on 04/13/2007 5:44:30 AM PDT by bcsco
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To: Tolik

Amen! We’re in for some rough times ahead.


19 posted on 04/13/2007 5:49:42 AM PDT by alicewonders (I like Duncan Hunter for President in 2008!)
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To: bcsco

Added to the VDH ping list. Thanks


20 posted on 04/13/2007 5:55:57 AM PDT by Tolik (If you don't agree with me 102% of the time, then you're a RINO)
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