Posted on 08/31/2009 8:40:07 PM PDT by jazusamo
Britain's release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi — the Libyan terrorist whose bomb blew up a plane over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, killing 270 people — is galling enough in itself. But it is even more profoundly troubling as a sign of a larger mood that has been growing in the Western democracies in our time.
In ways large and small, domestically and internationally, the West is surrendering on the installment plan to Islamic extremists.
The late Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put his finger on the problem when he said: "The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of barefaced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles."
He wrote this long before Barack Obama became President of the United States. But this administration epitomizes the "concessions and smiles" approach to countries that are our implacable enemies.
Western Europe has gone down that path before us but we now seem to be trying to catch up.
Still, the release of a mass-murdering terrorist, who went home to a hero's welcome in Libya, shows that President Obama is not the only one who wants to move away from the idea of a "war on terror" — as if that will stop the terrorists' war on us.
The ostensible reason for releasing al-Megrahi was compassion for a man terminally ill. It is ironic that this was said in Scotland, for exactly 250 years ago another Scotsman — Adam Smith — said, "Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent."
That lesson seems to have been forgotten in America as well, where so many people seem to have been far more concerned about whether we have been nice enough to the mass-murdering terrorists in our custody than those critics have ever been about the innocent people beheaded...
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
tagable
Very powerful and so true.
Amen and Amen, Dr. Sowell !!!!!
He hit every salient point with a minimum of words. Great writing, greater thinking.
Thanks for the ping jaz.
“But getting other people killed so that you can feel puffed up about yourself is profoundly immoral. So is betraying the country you took an oath to protect”
Typical of the Leftist mental disorder which is based totally upon themselves, and their power.
Were you a con, would you want the pickens limited to your City, State, Nation, or the World? These sorts have their eye on the prize now. They think they have the Nation, and now they are working on the World.
Hopefully we can pull the rug out from under their dreams.
Not only that,but also: The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of barefaced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles.” Wow. Love his stuff!
Well said and with Zer0 it’s him and the degenerates he’s surrounded himself with, he really is reminiscent of the little corporal.
“He hit every salient point with a minimum of words. Great writing, greater thinking.”
Sowell is a national treasure. But do to the perverseness of our culture, appreciated by far too few.
DUE TO, THAT ARE ;-)
I have an imaginary list of who I would like to run the country, and he’s on it, along with John Bolton.
Nice shootin’, Thomas.
I tried to get interested in Mark Steyn’s book, *America Alone*, but I couldn’t buy the premise that we might stand firm when the rest of the West folds. European nations with muslim minorities at or above 10% of their poulations are in for hellacious civil wars or Sharia law. With our mid-east imports plus our home grown black muslims, we’re not in much better shape.
I encounter frequent “rumors” of Obama working to import jihadists intentionally. I’ve seen no credible documentation, and I can’t believe *anyone* would be crazy enough to bring in psychopathic killers, but I’ll listen to any rumors, however nutty.
the West is surrendering on the installment plan to Islamic extremists.
In classic Christian political theory, the leader or governor of a state or group of people has the responsibility to defend his people, not to forgive attacks on them (which is not his to do, anyway...) and tell them to lie down and wait for the enemy to overrun them.
But Obama knows that. What nobody wants to admit is that he goes one step further: he’s actually on their side. Why do you think his first televised address after inauguration was to the “Muslim world” and not to the American people? Why did it consist of apologies and the attempt to make it sound as if the US was a Muslim country?
It’s not simply misguided niceness or even leftwing naivete that makes him want to let these people go. It’s hatred of us, the people of the United States, and our political structure, majority religion, and freedom.
Brilliant article, Sowell nails it. ‘Barefaced barbarity’ of the enemy to the concessions and moral preening’ of the PC crowd. We’re living in a Monty Python movie, and it’s horrible.
But FIRST ya gotta get BORN!
We murder our OWN citizens - 45,000,000 and counting - so why should we complain if other folks do then same thing?
10 Lockerbie planes, EVERY DAY, need to fall from the sky to equal what our women do from CHOICE! in this once great country yearly!
But old lord McCain sure has plenty to say about our own (CIA&military) protecting this nation.
A serious MUST READ.
Self-indulgence is exactly what it is. To satisfy some inner need of the liberal, we are all put at risk. It's time to boot the liberals out of D.C. I hope the voters will do so next year.
How is it that one person like Thomas Sowell can see this so clearly and correctly, and another person like Barack Obama sees it so differently.
I can only think that Barack Obama understands the implications of what he is doing completely, and the fault is with a large number of Americans who don’t understand HIS motivations and actions.
I posted this a month or two ago in response to whether I though Barack Obama was deliberately trying to destroy the USA.
I agreed that I was of that opinion, and here is one of the reasons why:
Joseph McCarthy gave a speech on the Senate floor in 1951, and later wrote a book that expounded on and backed up his points that he made on the floor, called “America’s Retreat from Victory”.
Like many people, I was unwilling to attach any negative aspirations or actions to someone like George Catlett Marshall who was hailed as a war hero and one of the greatest men of the 20th century.
McCarthy was not so shy, and was willing not only to say what he thought publicly, but to back it up with documentation, which he did in his book mentioned above (A copy of which I purchased a couple of years ago)
It is a stunning book, but how it relates to this subject here is this: In his analysis, Joseph McCarthy made the point that if some of the things that were done by Marshall that helped the communists were simply the result of a poor analysis or choice on his part, someone with his intellect would be likely to choose correctly at least SOME of the time, as a matter of averages. And that rarely happened. Without fail, nearly every choice and action in which Marshall was part of, they all were to the advantage of both the Soviets and the Chicoms.
The same can be said of Obama, in my estimation. If the appalling cumulative negative bulk of his actions were due to his stupidity or inexperience, at least some of his actions would be helpful to our country, simply as a result of the laws of averages.
None are.
And that tells me something.
Sowell is living proof that the best and brightest won’t serve in public office. He shied away from political appointments, so as to stay clear of partisan affiliation. Next year he will have been at Stanford for 30 years.
Or hellacious civil wars followed by Sharia law.
“The self-loathing of the white American liberal is as well-established and documented as Einstein’s Special Relativity theorems. A typical example is writer Susan Sontag’s denouncement of the white race as “the cancer of human history.”
A racist hatred of one’s own race – auto-racism – has become a defining characteristic of the liberal mind. Yet the source of such suicidal guilt remains a mystery. “
It is NO mystery. It is very simple. The vast majority of left wingers are born into wealth, in the teaching profession, or government workers(local and national). They have never struggled. They produce NOTHING! They have never made a payroll, only to have been unable to pay themselves. They are leeches. No wonder they become self-loathing. What is there to like?
bttt
This is most easily seen in the children of wealthy parents. Successful businessmen, for example, who have made it on their own normally have a respect for the effort and the economic system that makes success possible.Their children, who have not had to work for it, are easier targets for guilt-mongering by the envious. So they assume a posture of liberal compassion as an envy-deflection device: "Please don't envy me for my father's money -- look at all the liberal causes and government social programs I advocate!"
Teddy Kennedy is the archetype of this phenomenon.
Wow. Love his stuff!
You're right, Mama - that was a great one...
There is a bit of the transcendent in Obama, a man apart from what he shares on the flowing current as though he is a catamaran of a man riding the crests of hope while avoiding the troughs of doubt; this hope of which he often talks, invokes and cries in chorus is not just a campaign slogan it is his personal salvation.
He is the rising tide and, like Neptune he calms the surging seas of dissent while sweeping all obstacles before him to embrace the shivering shores of an imperiled world — a superheroes’ hero.
Excellent post and agree.
BTTT
“How is it that one person like Thomas Sowell can see this so clearly and correctly, and another person like Barack Obama sees it so differently.”
Different assumptions. For some, the most important is people equality. It’s “not fair” if your (more expensive) medical insurance covers more expensive procedures, it’s “not fair” when shareholders pay the company manager a few millions dollars bonus; it’s “not fair” if you can send your kids to a private school.
When you start with different assumptions, then logic dictates that you *have to* do something to *make it more fair*. It was a philosophy of French revolution, Bolshevik revolution and many others: to forcefully remove inequality as they understood it. America had chosen, in it’s time, a different philosophy - when equality under the law and the individual freedom are the most important. It’s different equality: of opportunity, not the result. No matter that the path of seeking equality of result was shown to be bloody and fruitless, the philosophy is alive and well.
Read Sowell's excellent book A Conflict of Visions and you'll understand.
Thanks for the link. It’s excellent!
Well said.
The only thing is, they inflicted a mass casualty event on us, and we went over and kicked their asses back into the dark ages so they haven’t been able to inflict another one. Now, we have a weak sister in the WH and another 535 weak sisters in Congress, so they will probably inflict another one. But, if we continue to pound their @sses after that, we show that they are really very, very weak.
I have read a bunch of his books, so that is one to add to my list.
Great viewpoint summary in your last paragraph. Especially the last line of the last paragraph...
Good job and thanks for that insight.
The reason such attempts are fruitless at best and catastrophic at worst is that they are nothing less than attempts to subvert the laws of nature. It's like trying to contravene gravity.
Consequences flow from choices. It's the choices people make -- and hence their consequences -- which cause them to become unequal. Trying to artificially make people equal in outcome is to deny their choices, in effect rendering choice irrelevant. Too many people want to be able to make poor choices and still get good results.
This is exactly what causes the failure of socialism/communism. If the outcome is the same whether you choose to achieve and learn and create and grow, or lounge around, eat and sleep, then that choice simply doesn't matter. If there is no benefit to putting forth the extra effort, it will not be done.
The effect is the same, regardless of the "market". Grade inflation results in less-educated students. Wage inflation (read: unions) results in greater inefficiency and lower quality.
The examples are endless.
Consequences must be tied to choices, or freedom is destroyed.
Tom Sowell is an irreplaceable national treasure
He is and I honor him
Michelle Malkin seems to be the likely heir to his mantle.
An incredible education can be obtained by reading his books by publication date. I have done it and it has provided me with a worldview like no other...
Agreed, many people including myself have said his books should be required reading in high school and college and I truly believe that.
Sowell BTT. A lot of the liberal commentators on the topic have called for the end of the war on terrorism approach and a return to the law enforcement approach. The difficulty with that is that once they’ve found and imprisoned a terrorist they let him go. That’s essentially no approach at all.
Yup. Your combination is the most likely outcome. Muslims are more willing to die than most of us are.
Correct, if they’re let go they go right back to killing. They have to be killed or locked up for the duration and if they’re tried in a court and found guilty of killing someone due to their terrorism they have to be executed.
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