Posted on 09/10/2010 2:10:45 PM PDT by nickcarraway
I remember growing up in a conservative movement that, reacting to the rampant permissiveness of the 1960s and '70s, stressed the virtue of civility. Sure, you have the right to flagrantly offend your neighbors and your community. But should you? Conservatism used to answer "no."
It was one of the cultural demarcations between the right and the left. If you were on the right, you generally thought it unacceptable to excuse boorish behavior with the utterance, "but it's my constitutional right!" Conservatives understood that self-restraint reduced the pressure for government-imposed restraint. We understood that with our civil rights came civic responsibilities. We understood that the United States of America was a land of tremendous religious, ethnic, and cultural diversity and that the peaceful coexistence of all of these people of such varying backgrounds and beliefs required tolerance, and tolerance meant treating others as you would have them treat you. In short, the republic itself relied upon civility.
Most conservatives still get this, I think. But sometimes I wonder how much the self-indulgence of the left has seduced our side. In the last few days, we've seen many on the right come out in defense of a proposal that once would have been almost universally considered indefensible, at least on the right -- the burning of hundreds of Korans in a deliberate attempt to anger and provoke Muslims around the world.
How can we condemn the constant and never-ending anti-Christian provocations of the radical, secular left and then rise to Terry Jones' defense on the lame excuse that he has the right to free expression? Or worse, that not going through with his planned incitement amounts to somehow giving in to the terrorists? No, it doesn't. It amounts to a belated display of common decency.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Indeed, I find it hard to accept this extremist conservative view of civility.
If conservatives had to follow what many here espouse as civility, I wonder if we would still be British?
The civility this author espouses is one that was found in a culture based on faith in God. That culture was wiped away in the 1960’s onward. What is left is a vacuum and all of nature and God’s creation despises a vacuum.
Where there once was God, seven demons rush in.
“Surely Christians are able to show concern and decency for those who don’t show it back ...”
Yep—that’s really worked well for all of those in Eurpean countries who had compassion on muslim immigrants.
Waitaminnit. Uh-oh. Now I'm questioning myself as to why I was (am) for Oriana Fallaci and against Terry Jones. Does that make sense? I ask myself.
Hmm. Maybe because Jones is an ally of the cretinous Fred Phelps, which is to say, vicious, anti-American, snake-mean and turkey-stupid? Why does Jones think the worldwide media are throwing this thing on the front-pages from Gibraltar to Jakarta? Because it hurts Islam?
Flipping back to thoughts of Fallaci.
I just decided to reprint this article here, since I see it disappeared from the Associated Press archives (!) (!) although it's still in the Washington Times archives:
Oriana Fallaci had described the pontiff as an ally in her campaign to rally Christians in Europe against what she saw as a Muslim crusade against the West. As she battled breast cancer last year, she had a private audience with Benedict, who was elected only a few months earlier, at the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo.
In one of her final interviews, Fallaci told The Wall Street Journal: "I am an atheist, and if an atheist and a pope think the same things, there must be something true."
Benedict was surprised by the gift of the books, which dated back as far as the 17th century and included volumes about the formation of modern-day Italy, American history, philosophy and theology, said Monsignor Rino Fisichella, rector of the Pontifical Lateranense University in Rome.
Make of it what you will.
They are asking what Catholics-of-a-certain-age would recognize as the first questions in the Catechism --- Who made me? Who is God? Why did God make me?--- questions which in some form occur to all rational beings as soon as they become aware of themselves.
The ardent murderous jihadis have wrong answers, which constitute transcendant motivations for which they are willing to kill and die. These transcendant motivations cannot be replaced by the consideration of earthly self-interest. ("Schools - Hospitals - Money! Whisky - Sexy - Democracy!") and their wrong answers are weirdly appealing to way too many of the billion+ Muslim people who are not active jihadis but tend to see murder-suiciders as devout and not as perverts.
How to respond to that?
I am no pacifist, and I see the rightness of responding to military aggression with overwhelming force that destroys the aggressors. But underlying that hugely, as an ocean underlies a floating cork, is the metaphysical crisis: the billions of people who have garbled, fragmentary, or just plain wrong answers to the basic questions; and who, without the right answers, will fall, not into the brutal, but into the demonic.
I do not oppose burning Korans because I’m afraid of what Muslims might do. I’m opposed to it because I don’t think it’s an appropriate way to express my disagreements with Islam. And I am NOT afraid to express those disagreements.
If it makes you feel good to burn a Koran, go ahead and do it. But don’t imagine that you’ve taken a courageous stand for anything.
So you are going to become the thing you supposedly are against? Great strategy.
You are SO right - we should never stand up to bullies, lest we be like them.
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