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."
The public schools were NOT created so that "the poor could have an education." "The poor" included Abraham Lincoln, who did OK, as did many others.
The public schools were begun specifically to make all those immigrants learn Americanism. Ask John Dewey.
Oh, and by the way--that included specifically excluding denominational differentiation; thus, Jewish children were specifically NOT instructed in Judaism, Catholics specifically NOT in Catholicism.
As long as the public schools stuck to the universal moral code, that was OK, within its limits. But then, the public schools went off the moral code.
It's not a coincidence, by the way, that only 50 years after prayer in schools was forced out, that we have mayhem, violence, and orgies therein.
Don't tell George Washington that, he knew a Jew or two, as did Jefferson Davis.
Sorry. Education cannot take place in a moral vacuum. EVERYTHING is colored by a religious point of view, even if that religion is secularism, or atheism.
Whenever you're ready, it would be perfectly fine to re-direct all the monies spent at ALL levels on 'education' and re-direct it to denominational schools.
So, you want to set up Hollywood's behavior as a barometer for American morals?
OK, I'll play.
Let's examine Hollywood's behavior during your "Golden Years"...shall we?
My parents never whined about what was on tv, they just locked out certain stations on the cable box so we couldn't get to them.
Are you saying that parents are turning into a bunch of pussies that cannot parent and need HILLARY'S VILLAGE to help them out?
Actually I think some hate Pat because he worships a Jew, asks Mary his Jewish mother to pray for him, believes in the Bible written by Jewish authors, and follows the Church whose first leader was a Jew. He just doesn't worship Sharon so that makes him anti-Semitic to the 'free Pollard' crowd.
That'd be fine by me. Jewish schools are among the finest.
The truth is religious-based social policy types are ultimately at their core, both ANTI-LIBERTY and ANT-FREEDOM, if it in any way offends their religious based list of do's and don'ts. Their multi-faultline definitions of lawful liberty is pretty much constantly being redefined as was Bill Clinton's definition of words like "is" and "alone."
LIBERTY as you and I might understand and interpret it... must of necessity be changed to mean something entirely different...
And it changes with each sampling of the religious socialist movement... as their standards differ from group to group. It doesn't surprise me that they can find lots of "common ground" socially with Islam.
It's actually almost funny to watch christian socialists align themselves regarding social morality issues, with the very folks who are planning on cutting THEIR heads off at the earliest opportunity.
Truth is I would rather live in a nation of sexually liberal people, than in one with no OPEN immorality... that practices head chopping of jews and christians. Funny that pat and company wouldn't. But not surprising.
So, does Pat live as a Jew as well? I mean, you say he worships one, so wouldn't he live that way too?
*ull*shit. Show me the posters who hate Pat because he likes Jews. And remember, the bible, at least as it relates to PJB's view of American Culture is JudeoChristian.
Me ignorant?
You call Playboy "pornography"?
Playboy displays the nude human figure.
Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Is God a pornographer then?
I cannot talk to him yet :). Either way, political correctness and desire to please everyone will end up some day in calling America a Islamo-Judeo-Christian country.
America is a Christian country and to be precise a Protestant country. Sorry.
At this point we are cut-and-pasting some sort of Gummint there. Delivery date is June. But our military stays until March 05, right? Hmmmmm.
But we have three distinct nations: the Kurds, the Baathists, and the Shiites; exactly how long will our military be required to keep those factions apart? And WHY is it OUR military, and Britain's (and a few stragglers)?
The alternative, of course, is simply to admit that we intend to keep a large garrison in Iraq forever, to replace what we lost in Saudi, as a power-projection necessity.
But nobody's admitted that, yet.
You're a mind reader?
Not at all. Anyone can read your reply at #79, - then the comments made to you in return, - and be their own judge.
I missed that in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Would you point it out to me.
I don't like him just because he's a bitter old crack pot; his anti-Jewish thing is only part of his problems.
This is a very grim perspective. Is it the only choice we have? Or maybe that the first will lead to such weakening of our civilization that the second will follow as a natural result?
There have been a large number of social sea-changes since 1950. The majority of mothers now work outside the home--that's perhaps the single most significant change.
I don't have the empiricals on this but I am willing to concede that perhaps THAT change was more significant than the 'no prayers here' change in the schools.
Parental controls work best when parents are actually present.
There are many facts not mentioned in the law. For example America is located on the Western Hemisphere and the English is dominant language. Can you find it in the Constitution?
Another real big problem with PJB is that he deals with facts of history and applies no PC varnishes.
That earns hatred, too, and quickly.
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