Mark Steyn: The Facebook Caliphate

National Review Online ^ | May 26, 2012 | Mark Steyn

[neverdem]

So how’s that old Arab Spring going? You remember — the “Facebook Revolution.” As I write, they’re counting the votes in Egypt’s presidential election, so by the time you read this the pecking order may have changed somewhat. But currently in first place is the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi, who in an inspiring stump speech before the students of Cairo University the other night told them, “Death in the name of Allah is our goal.”

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In second place is the military’s man Ahmed Shafiq, Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister and a man who in...

--snip--

No one should begrudge Mark Zuckerberg his billions, and decent people should revile in the strongest terms thug-senator Chuck Schumer’s attempts to punish Zuckerberg’s partner Eduardo Saverin for wishing to enjoy his profits under the less confiscatory tax arrangements of Singapore: It is a sign of terminal desperation when regimes that can’t compete for talent focus their energies on ever more elaborate procedures to prevent freeborn individuals voting with their feet.

But it is also a sign of desperation to talk up amiable diversions for pampered solipsistic Westerners as an irresistible force of modernity. One of the basic defects of the Bush administration’s designation of a “war on terror” was that it emphasized symptoms (bombs and bombers) over causes (the underlying ideology). In the war of ideas, the West has chosen not to compete, under the erroneous assumption that the ever more refined delivery systems for its sensual distractions are a Big Idea in and of themselves. They’re not. If you know your Tocqueville, they sound awfully like his prediction of a world in which “an innumerable crowd of like and equal men . . . revolve on themselves without repose,” a phrase which nicely distills the unending busy-ness of our gaudy novelties...

[neverdem]

Ping

[EEGator]

Mark Steyn is always a pleasure to read...witty too.

[Doctor 2Brains]

Dude has a way with words, yes?

[EEGator]

Sure does.

[douginthearmy]

“Death in the name of Allah is our goal.” Like

Literal LOL.

[The_Reader_David]

Steyn spot on as always, well almost: he perpetrates the annoying mistake of comparing market valuation (measured in dollars) with GDP (measured in dollars per year). I’ll be impressed when a corporation has revenues approximating even a small developed nation’s GDP (both measured in dollars per year) or a market valuation approximating the total value of all real estate and other assets held in (again even a small) developed nation.

[BwanaNdege]

I just purchased the Kindle edition of his “After America: Get Ready for Armageddon”.

I expect it to be very interesting reading!

Is he using “Armageddon” in the current sense of “a BIG mess!” or in the Biblical, prophetic sense?

[Albion Wilde]

Sowell for President. Steyn for Secretary of State.

[nathanbedford]

One of the basic defects of the Bush administration’s designation of a “war on terror” was that it emphasized symptoms (bombs and bombers) over causes (the underlying ideology). In the war of ideas, the West has chosen not to compete,

True enough, but at least the Bush administration aimed at real solutions, regime change and democracy, while the Obama administration indulges in appeasement and assassination. I am less inclined to criticize assassination than I am to find fault with appeasement.

Nevertheless, I think Marc Stein is on something in this column as he brilliantly skewers our tendency to substitute anything for unpalatable reality. We will prattle on inanely like Maureen Dowd about cultural phenomenon like Facebook rather than recognize blood in the streets and rape in broad daylight, or we will declare war on a tactic (terrorism), or we will pretend we are not at war while waging murder from the skies.

When will we have a President who stands before the world and says, "Western Christian civilization is superior to Islamic barbarism and we will defend our higher way of life against the forces of medievalism, female mutilation, and authoritarianism; it is Islam which must reform and not America and the West which must apologize or submit"?

[Albion Wilde]

...decent people should revile in the strongest terms thug-senator Chuck Schumer’s attempts to punish Zuckerberg’s partner Eduardo Saverin for wishing to enjoy his profits under the less confiscatory tax arrangements of Singapore...

Dubya's opinion of Schumer:

[EEGator]

That is a great pic. W looks like he’s going to knock him out.

[BwanaNdege]

Mike Rowe for Secretary of Labor/Education!

[9YearLurker]

He didn’t compare the two because they were equivalent in nature, but because they were near in size.

[GOPJ]

In the course of the election campaign, the Muslim Brotherhood has cast off the veil of modernity and moderation that so beguiled the U.S. State Department and the New York Times: Khairat el-Shater, the deputy leader, now says that “the Koran is our Constitution” ...

Years ago it seemed the nightmarish outcomes of liberal ideas was a 'mistake'...

Liberals acted surprised at painful "unintentional consequences"... And we believed them. Believed the myth of the bleeding heart. It was a lie. They're not even bothering to pretend on this one - it's just 'move-on to the next lie'.

The Egyptian end game - with the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Islamists in charge - flags waving as they march backwards into horror - is what democrats wanted. I repeat, it's what democrats wanted. There's no 'patrick moynihan' types to provide cover for the goons... no one believes dems feel anyone's pain - it's hunger and greed now. Illusions long past...

It works for them.

Making blacks childlike and dependent wasn't a 'mistake' of theirs either - it secured 90%+ of the vote. This horror will be the same. Don't know how they'll do it, but we'll see dems 'cash in' on what's to come.

[MarkL]

Charles Schumer: A cross between a used car salesman and a mob lawyer, without the integrity or fashion sense of either.

Mark

[Albion Wilde]

LOL! But we digress...

[lentulusgracchus]

Charles Schumer: A cross between a used car salesman and a mob lawyer, without the integrity or fashion sense of either.

Wonder if Chucky's living room looks like it fell off a truck? </Michelle Pfeiffer>

A truck headed for Donald Trump's condo, maybe, but still, a truck.

[mykroar]

Brilliant as always.

[Shannon]

Dude has a way with words, yes?

He also has a way with using words I've never even heard of before. I rarely get through a column without going to the on-line dictionary to look up at least one new word. It's fun; kind of like my lesson for the day.

I'd venture a guess that Steyn has an eidetic memory and remembers everything he's ever read.