Posted on 05/05/2008 6:35:30 PM PDT by rmlew
I invite the reader to a thought experiment. Imagine that it is the late 1930s, and "conservative" intellectuals in Western Europe and the United States formulate an ideology which says that their countries should be open without discrimination to all people of all political persuasions. Then imagine that large numbers of immigrants of all political persuasions begin entering and settling in those countries, including many Nazi immigrants from Germany and Austria. Then imagine that the Nazi immigrants, following the Nazi ideology as laid out in Hitler's Mein Kampf, begin promoting the spread and institutionalization Nazism in their new countries, while also using verbal intimidation, threats of violence, and actual violence to silence critics of Nazism.
Now further imagine that "leftist" and "liberal" intellectuals in those countries support the Nazis' campaign to suppress all truthful statements about Nazism, and that these "leftists" and "liberals" construct a vast media and government propaganda machine that whitewashes Nazism. Meanwhile the "conservative" intellectuals, who had eagerly let the Nazis into their countries in the first place, begin to attack the "leftist" intellectuals for coddling the Nazis. The "conservatives" write an endless number of articles in munificently endowed "conservative" magazines and deliver an endless number of speeches and panel discussions at "conservative" conferences held in luxury hotels and resorts where they unburden themselves of the profound outrage, alarm, even panic they feel about the growth of the Nazi menace in Western society, foaming at the mouth against the "leftist" intellectuals for promoting the policies of "multiculturalism" and "political correctness" that have made it impossible to do anything about the Nazi menace. Furthermore, imagine that the "conservative" intellectuals never once let on that the Nazis are only present in these countries because of the immigration policies that the "conservatives" supported and still support.
That is the current situation of the "conservative" intellectuals of America and Britain with regard to Islam. For the latest example of this massive intellectual fraud, see Bruce Bawer's article, "An Anatomy of Surrender, "in the Spring 2008 City Journal. In this 4,000 word article Bawer only uses the words "immigrants" or "immigration" twice in passing. The West's Islam problem, Bawer informs us, is due solely to the left, not to the fact that millions of Muslims reside in Western countries, solely as a result of immigration. As he shows through numerous examples (and the article is a useful and disturbing catalogue of the phenomenon), the left has disseminated a wholly positive picture of Islam and suppressed critical speech about Islamic extremism. Here he introduces his argument:
Motivated variously, and doubtless sometimes simultaneously, by fear, misguided sympathy, and multicultural ideology--which teaches us to belittle our freedoms and to genuflect to non-Western cultures, however repressive--people at every level of Western society, but especially elites, have allowed concerns about what fundamentalist Muslims will feel, think, or do to influence their actions and expressions. These Westerners have begun, in other words, to internalize the strictures of sharia, and thus implicitly to accept the deferential status of dhimmis--infidels living in Muslim societies.In short, the Western leftist elite has taken Islam's side against the West. Any Western resistance to--or even honest speech about--Islamic extremism is attacked as bigotry, while leftist-dominated government agencies, schools, and TV paint Islam in glowing colors.Call it a cultural surrender. The House of War is slowly--or not so slowly, in Europe's case--being absorbed into the House of Submission.
Furthermore, according to Bawer, it is ONLY the left that is the problem, not conservatives, and certainly not President Bush. Here is the only time in the article that Bawer mentions Bush:
When, years after September 11, President George W. Bush finally acknowledged publicly that the West was at war with Islamic fascism, Muslims' and multiculturalists' furious reaction made him retreat to the empty term "war on terror."Painting Bush as a victim of leftist and minority political correctness, Bawer hides the fact that Bush himself from 9/11 onward has been the West's leading promoter of Islam as the "religion of peace," and the West's leading censor of criticism of Islam. For Bawer, only the left--the big, bad, evil left--is the problem, not the "conservatives" who, in the name of non-discrimination, have done just as much as the left in letting Islam into the West and prohibiting any meaningful opposition to it.
The subtitle of Bawer's piece is: "Motivated by fear and multiculturalism, too many Westerners are acquiescing to creeping sharia." But could it not be said of Bawer, and of legions of right-liberals and neocons like him: "Motivated by fear and by belief in the non-discriminatory inclusion of all mankind, too many Westerners are acquiescing to creeping Islamization"?
Is Bush suppose to represent the “conservative” acquiencence? ‘splains a lot. Wrong premiss.
DRAT! “acquiescence”
The entire article is based on a false premise. The first sentence above is the culprit.
Islam is NOT a political persuasion.
At worst it is a hate cult. At best it is a religion.
Either way, no rational human would want it in their midst....given its adherents predilection for misogyny and violence against anyone who is different.
Lawrence Auster tries real hard but he has missed the point.
It looks make-believe because we can’t do anything yet.
For the muslims, who are my sworn enemies but who I in some ways respect more than the cowards and ignoramuses that comprise the Western masses, for them I agree, it is religious.
it’a a metaphor — substituting the political Naziism for the religion of Islam.
3. The CIA and FBI hired not just Muslim, but Islamist officials for sensitivity training.
I'm now up to November 2001. Should i continue?
The fact is that if Al Gore had done this we would all be screaming. But because a self-proclaimed conservative did, we rally around him for partisan reasons and define conservatism down.
Our enemies, power seekers all, use our openness and freedom to destroy both.
Another time-honored name for them is thugs. Most thugs are cowards so they use deception until they are firmly in control and then they are 100% thugs.
Islam can't even keep peace among it own tribes. Right.
The day is near when Sunnis, Shiites and others will be at one another’s throats, right here in America. Probably wouldn't be a moment too soon.
ping
ping
You can ask any member of the DC Chapter what I think of Bush and when I started thinking it. Try reading my tagline for instance.
Islam is an invasion NOT a religion.
I do not fear Islam, I despise it ! I despise its false prophet, its adherents and all that it represents.
This is more faux conservative writing that so infuriates me.
A few clues:
1. The Nazis had a rather narrow view of immigration and were rather concerned about maintaining the German ethnic integrity against the IMMIGRANTS. There, does that help the shoe fit a little better.
2. Mexicans did not bomb the World Trade Center. Despite all the nonsensical conspiracies that blame everyone but the Saudi perpetrators, to my knowledge, the Mexican mafia story has yet to find legs. But that does not prevent the Faux conservatives from demanding the building the WAll or else they will start responding to threats in a rational manner.
3. President Bush is the intrinsically credible leader in the War on Terror. No one has lead more decisively or effectively on the question. All others are pretenders and hypotheses in waiting.
4. The rhetorical division of Islamic radicals and Islam is a shrewd and necessary gambit. If Islam cannot differentiate itself from these radicals then it will surely die. But to so thoroughly discount the hundreds of thousands of Muslims who have died resisting these radicals in places such as Iraq is profoundly disrespectful, immoral, and inaccurate.
5. Faux conservatives like this author have thoroughly backstabbed our President and given aid to our enemies. David Duke gives speeches in Damascus because his contempt of immigration and his radicalized affiliation with Republican politics. He and Buchannan are the kind of dangerous ideological drift among confused conservatives who think building a wall will protect them from a radicalizing world. It was a lie in the 1930s Charles Lindberg and it is a lie today.
Try supporting the President of the United States, the commander in chief, the foremost voice and authority in our war on terror.
2. Mexicans did not bomb the World Trade Center. Despite all the nonsensical conspiracies that blame everyone but the Saudi perpetrators, to my knowledge, the Mexican mafia story has yet to find legs. But that does not prevent the Faux conservatives from demanding the building the WAll or else they will start responding to threats in a rational manner.
No one has blamed the Mexicans for 9-11. Although our failure to control immigration and the ability of the 9-11 Hijackers to use pathways and IDs set up for illegal aliens did help them.
You can't defend America without securing our borders, any more than we can "win" in Iraq without keeping out the Iranians and their proxies.
But that does not prevent the Faux conservatives from demanding the building the WAll or else they will start responding to threats in a rational manner.
Actually, what we have here is someone who is willing to sell out national security, to ensure taht we conserve nothing of our heritage and culture all for the ersatz immanentization of the eschaton known as Globalism.
3. President Bush is the intrinsically credible leader in the War on Terror. No one has lead more decisively or effectively on the question. All others are pretenders and hypotheses in waiting.
John Howard of Australia did a better job. Next.
4. The rhetorical division of Islamic radicals and Islam is a shrewd and necessary gambit. If Islam cannot differentiate itself from these radicals then it will surely die. But to so thoroughly discount the hundreds of thousands of Muslims who have died resisting these radicals in places such as Iraq is profoundly disrespectful, immoral, and inaccurate.
I differentiated between Islam and Islamists. George W. Bush invited ISLAMISTS and pretended taht they were peaceful Muslims. you need to work on reading comprehension, or you are ignoring my point and that of Auster to lie.
. Faux conservatives like this author have thoroughly backstabbed our President and given aid to our enemies. David Duke gives speeches in Damascus because his contempt of immigration and his radicalized affiliation with Republican politics. He and Buchannan are the kind of dangerous ideological drift among confused conservatives who think building a wall will protect them from a radicalizing world. It was a lie in the 1930s Charles Lindberg and it is a lie today.
You and the Paleocons traitors deserve each other, creating a Manichean wasteland devoid of conservative thought. You ignore my argument and attack a position neither i nor Auster hold, because you find it easier or lack the ability to refute what was written.
Try supporting the President of the United States, the commander in chief, the foremost voice and authority in our war on terror.
Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president. Theodore Roosevelt 26th president of US (1858 - 1919)
“, to ensure that we conserve nothing of our heritage and culture all for the ersatz immanentization of the eschaton known as Globalism”
Ding ding ding. That is your position in its essence— the preservation of the American identity polluted by illegal immigration.
Illegal immigration played no meaningful role in 911. So like the America Firsters of the 1930s, you appeal to nativism to protect you from the ugly confrontation that must be had with the world. The Nazis were nationalists. And you would also probably be delighted to have an influx of Swedes and Norwegians. Just as long as we keep the Mexicans out we will probably be safe.
Howard is no longer Prime Minister— He lost. Australia while noble lacks the will or resources to do nearly the preponderance of work done by President Bush.
President Bush is a a good leader of a good nation so for me patriotism is no compromise. The faux conservatives have back stabbed a good man and added animation to our enemies.
You make a good try on linking me to paleocons and manicheanism but again, I think we can see where those shoes fit best.
Illegal immigration played no meaningful role in 911.
And the 9-11 Hijackers who used fake ID didn't exist. And none of them over staid visas. And, yes I'm mocking your transparent lie or ignorance.
So like the America Firsters of the 1930s, you appeal to nativism to protect you from the ugly confrontation that must be had with the world.
Go check my positing history or blog.
The Nazis were nationalists.
Assertion, not refutation. You lose.
And you would also probably be delighted to have an influx of Swedes and Norwegians. Just as long as we keep the Mexicans out we will probably be safe.
I'm confused. If you are talking about Nazi immigration policy, you should be aware that I am a son and quadruple grandson of Holocaust survivors, many of whom took arms against the Nazi.
As a son of a Swedish Jew who emigrated, I have difficulty opposing all Swedish migration. I have relatives and friends in Malmostan. However, the last thing Scandinavia needs is an exodus of indigenous populations.
Rome didn't lose to Persia. It lost to the grandchildren of the Goths it allowed to cross the Danube.
Howard is no longer Prime Minister— He lost. Australia while noble lacks the will or resources to do nearly the preponderance of work done by President Bush.
And Bush never had the will or intellectual resources to do what was needed.
President Bush is a a good leader of a good nation so for me patriotism is no compromise. The faux conservatives have back stabbed a good man and added animation to our enemies.
The man who created discord by trying to shove through an amnesty and who signed McCain-Feigold is the conservative. LOL
You make a good try on linking me to paleocons and manicheanism but again, I think we can see where those shoes fit best.
No, you can't. I'm neither a neocon nor paleocon, but you live in those terms.
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