Posted on 05/19/2004 2:54:18 AM PDT by Theodore R.
What do we offer the world?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: May 19, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern
"So, how do we advance the cause of female emancipation in the Muslim world?" asks Richard Perle in "An End to Evil." He replies, "We need to remind the women of Islam ceaselessly: Our enemies are the same as theirs; our victory will be theirs as well."
Well, the neoconservative cause "of female emancipation in the Muslim world" was probably set back a bit by the photo shoot of Pfc. Lynndie England and the "Girls Gone Wild" of Abu Ghraib prison.
Indeed, the filmed orgies among U.S. military police outside the cells of Iraqi prisoners, the S&M humiliation of Muslim men, the sexual torment of their women raise a question. Exactly what are the "values" the West has to teach the Islamic world?
"This war ... is about – deeply about – sex," declaims neocon Charles Krauthammer. Militant Islam is "threatened by the West because of our twin doctrines of equality and sexual liberation."
But whose "twin doctrines" is Krauthammer talking about? The sexual liberation he calls our doctrine belongs to a '60s revolution that devout Christians, Jews and Muslims have been resisting for years.
What does Krauthammer mean by sexual liberation? The right of "tweeners" and teenage girls to dress and behave like Britney Spears? Their right to condoms in junior high? Their right to abortion without parental consent?
If conservatives reject the "equality" preached by Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, NARAL and the National Organization for Women, why seek to impose it on the Islamic world? Why not stand beside Islam, and against Hollywood and Hillary?
In June 2002 at West Point, President Bush said, "Moral truth is the same in every culture, in every time and in every place."
But even John Kerry does not agree with George Bush on the morality of homosexual unions and stem-cell research. On such issues, conservative Americans have more in common with devout Muslims than with liberal Democrats.
The president notwithstanding, Americans no longer agree on what is moral truth. For as someone said a few years back, there is a cultural war going on in this country – a religious war. It is about who we are, what we believe and what we stand for as a people.
What some of us view as the moral descent of a great and Godly republic into imperial decadence, neocons see as their big chance to rule the world.
In Georgia, recently, the president declared to great applause: "I can't tell you how proud I am of our commitment to values. ... That commitment to values is going to be an integral part of our foreign policy as we move forward. These aren't American values, these are universal values. Values that speak universal truths."
But what universal values is he talking about? If he intends to impose the values of MTV America on the Muslim world in the name of a "world democratic revolution," he will provoke and incite a war of civilizations America cannot win because Americans do not want to fight it. This may be the neocons' war. It is not our war.
When Bush speaks of freedom as God's gift to humanity, does he mean the First Amendment freedom of Larry Flynt to produce pornography and of Salman Rushdie to publish "The Satanic Verses" – a book considered blasphemous to the Islamic faith? If the Islamic world rejects this notion of freedom, why is it our duty to change their thinking? Why are they wrong?
When the president speaks of freedom, does he mean the First Amendment prohibition against our children reading the Bible and being taught the Ten Commandments in school?
If the president wishes to fight a moral crusade, he should know the enemy is inside the gates. The great moral and cultural threats to our civilization come not from outside America, but from within. We have met the enemy, and he is us. The war for the soul of America is not going to be lost or won in Fallujah.
Unfortunately, Pagan America of 2004 has far less to offer the world in cultural fare than did Christian America of 1954. Many of the movies, books, magazines, TV shows, videos and much of the music we export to the world are as poisonous as the narcotics the Royal Navy forced on the Chinese people in the Opium Wars.
A society that accepts the killing of a third of its babies as women's "emancipation," that considers homosexual marriage to be social progress, that hands out contraceptives to 13-year-old girls at junior high ought to be seeking out a confessional – better yet, an exorcist – rather than striding into a pulpit like Elmer Gantry to lecture mankind on the superiority of "American values."
What an utterly stupid statement.
Buchanan needs to get back on his med.
What an utterly stupid article. Too many questions from the author, too little answers. Little to no facts to support anything. This should never have been published simply for being so poorly written.
uhhhhhhhhhhhh.
"What some of us view as the moral descent of a great and Godly republic into imperial decadence, neocons see as their big chance to rule the world."
I had to re-think our ability to nation-build when I saw Hollywood's immorality rise up in that prison. Been thinking about it for over a week. Here is my conclusion:
If not us, then who? We are the best ones to liberate Iraq. We are far from perfect. And Buchanan, using his brilliant mind to side with the left on this issue, is one reason why we are far from perfect. He calls us neo-cons. He is a pseudo-con, running off to join the Reform Party and split the ticket, clearly helping Al Gore. Then HIS party endorses Ralph Nader. Buchanan is brilliant, but if ever a person were called a 'cocktail conservative', it's Buchanan.
He is sounding an alarm and you must look at what he is saying in the larger context. We are embroiled in a cultural war here at home and our culture is rapidly becoming more dominated by the values of the entertainment/porn industry and by the gay-lesbian movement than by Conservative Judeo-Christian values. So the question becomes "which culture are we exporting and is it worth exporting?". Freedom, yes, that's a God given right but in the process are we polluting other cultures with our own decadent one?
His message is also a "call to arms". We need to fight the battle for our culture here at home with as much intensity as we have the global war on terror. The sins of Abu Grahib are only a symptom of the sickness that is pervading our own culture. We have lost the moral high ground abroad because we failed to keep it here in America. Until we regain it, the goodness that the world once saw in America will be only a memory. Again, freedom yes, but why would any country want the kind of sick culuture that we are evolving into?
Pat at it. "We should stand beside Islam on this" I deplore the slutty dress and actions. He wants us to make a law? I wish we had higher standards.
The answer is to boycott movies ,shows and singers that act or portray this.
I will not be standing WITH Islam on this when they proclaim nudity is worse than murder.
I gave up on Buchanan since he became the GOP "hitman" who helped to "whack" the Reform Party....
GOOD GRIEF!..Nudity in films...slutty dress and child pornography were produced first in Europe,the ones raising cain on these "atrocities"
...Sex was portrayed first in Europe on film and child sex slavery exists in Muslim countries. I wish Hollywood and TV would police itself and young singers didn't try to outdo Cher and Madonna. I wish teenagers didn't undress and do porn over the internet.
I wish parents would raise their children with good foundations.
The nation's morals are portrayed as atrocious. We have always had the immoral..just not on film and on the internet. We used to be laughed at by the world for being Puritans..now we are the seat of all evil?
We have always had the immoral..just not on film and on the internet.
** People forget that little fact.
Go Pat Go!
(Far Away!)
That's a strictly cultural phenomenon, and it occurs throughout Africa (including Egypt) whether it's practitioners are Moslem, animist or Christian!
I, for one, would not lift a finger to stop them.
BUMP
I guess it was only "neocons" who died on Black Tuesday.
How any American can continue to support Patsy after reading statements like these is beyond me.
Hey, go easy on Pat. His father died in a concentration camp, you know.
He fell out of the tower.
/old joke
I cannot believe this. He is openly supporting the enemies of America because he doesn't like risque' entertainment? I'm no fan of Britney Spears, but she, and all of us, do not deserve murder for it, or any of the things Patsy now supports.
I guess now he'll go over to Iraq or Afghanistan and join the Terrs. His thinking will earn him a place in their hearts.
You get a hi-five from me simply for recognizing this undoubted truth. He does it over and over.
Buchanan is brilliant, but if ever a person were called a 'cocktail conservative', it's Buchanan.
I wouldn't say he's a conservative with how I understand conservatism. He is a populist, through and through. Populism and conservatism are not the same.
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