[SquirrelKing]

We may be only 30 years behind Europe, but we are not quite there yet. And so Europe has done us a great favor in showing us not the way of the future, but the old cowardice of our pre-Enlightenment past.

Beautifully put. [Of course.]

[alarm rider]

Well, this is sure to ruffle some feathers, but over all, I like it just the same.

This should be read by every American once, and every European twice.

[Dumb_Ox]

Europe became much more flattering towards Islam during the Enlightenment because brave "fanatical" Christian soldiers had defended the continent against Islam. Gibbon and Voltaire, among others, often preferred Islam to Christianity and are responsible for much of the pro-Muslim, anti-Christian romanticized gobbledegook in discussion today.

Somehow Europeans have ever-so-insidiously given up the promise of the Enlightenment that welcomed free thought of all kinds, the more provocative the better.

"No God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet" is just the kind of provocative statement that would tick off Hanson, but Leftist captiulations before Islam are driven precisely by this "free thinking." Conversion to Islam is the current form of the juvenile "shock the bourgeois!" mentality that Hansen, for some bizzare reason, has kind words for.