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."
Would you join forces as well with the terrorists when they go after Hollywood or Massachusetts?
Bet you consider yourself a patriot too.
I am not sure about Muslims or Jews, but a good Christian is a repenting sinner - a man who knows that the struggle between Good and Evil goes inside of his heart.
People who see themselves as good and who divide individuals and nations into good and evil are enemies of the Gospel.
"If only there were evil people somewhere, insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" (Alexander Solzhenitsyn in Gulag Archipelago)
"This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief." (Saint Paul in his letter to Timothy)
America is a land of myth. Not myth as in a sense of falseness, but myth as in a land that never quite has realized what people imagine it to be.
The Founding Fathers were myths in their own times and have been boiled down to simplistic descriptions.
The Civil War has as many mythical stories and interpretations as the story of the Trojan War, and just as many interesting and flawed characters.
The American GI became a mythic icon during both World Wars.
The 50's have a mythic sense of morality while the 70's have a mythic sense of depravity.
But we know that ascribing a mythic standard to everyone or everything in a group or time period is nonsensical. We have never been the model Christian nation that Pat tries to convince us we once were. We are not now the lost, wayward runaway that he believes we have become.
The sexual depradations that shown in those videos would have been condemned by Cotton Mather as well as Gloria Steinem. But Cotton Mather would have condemned female circumcision as well, let's not forget that. Just as the most radical feminist finds repulsive the idea of denying education to women so do Christians. But Pat doesn't see that. He sees Brittany Spears as a danger to Western Civilization, just as many saw the Beatles, or Elvis, or Glen Miller, or Al Jolson.
Western Civilization, and indeed sincere Christian existance within Western Civilization, has survived fine without heeding the warnings of the worrywarts and naysayers of every generation. It will do fine ignoring Pat Buchanan as well.
Maybe I need some sensitivity training or anger management counseling, but when people destroy human life by flying airplanes into buildings, I want to start blowing someone's head off. Thankfully we have great Marines and other soldiers who will take up the task for me so I can go out and earn some more money to help pay for more bullets to place between the eyes of those who want to kill all of us.
Yeah. Sure you would.
If not us, who - that's easy, no one else would have done it if we hadn't; but we did it because we had a man in the whitehouse with a moral compas pointing at what God's word says is right. You're proud of his moral and unmoving stand on the one hand; but, the moment you're faced with specifics, you call Bush a kook by attacking others with the same beliefs .. is that essentially it. Buchanan is right on this one, whatever you think of his politics. Or did we forget conveniently that people can be right on any number of issues and still belong to another ideology.
You mean this one?
Wrong.
"Morals" are defined by the Judaeo-Christian tradition, principally the 10 Commandments.
"Traditions" and "disciplines" involve eating, drinking and some conventions regarding dress, attitude, speaking, etc.
"Ethics" is the science of applying universal moral norms to practical situations.
You have a nice healthy survival instinct....;)
WE WILL NOT TIRE...WE WILL NOT FALTER...WE WILL FAIL
I don't think so. I picture St. Michael, the archangel, with his sword in hand ready for any battle with Satan's best storm troopers. I wouldn't call St. Michael an enemy of the Gospel.
IIRC the classical definition is that "Liberty is the freedom to do what is RIGHT."
There is some truth to this, but are you trying to say that the culture is no better or worse than it was 50 years ago? Our cultural exports are far more depraved than ever before in our history. Something like gangster rap would not even be permitted to exist a few short decades ago, and not because of racism.
What an utterly stupid bit of trash. The sexual revolution in the US started much earlier than the 60's. It started late 19th century at least with women drs and layers, suffrage, business women, etc.
Sometimes Pat's thought seems to be deliberately provocative just to make waves. The sexual revolution he is talking about is the cultural descent into decadence.
vaudine
We don't as a nation protect terrorists, we coddle them. Try espousing freedom to a lot of individuals in the inner city with bars on the window, deadbolts on the doors, and a loaded thirty eight on top of the dresser. This country has ignored a lot of problems of our own while becoming the leading advocate of reform overseas. Do as I say, not do as I do, is responsible for a lot of misunderstanding in the world.
You know this with moral certainty because....?
My first thoughts after 9/11 were to load up every B-52 and B-1, and send `em over a city with a heavy Taliban presence - and FIREBOMB it. Think what Sir Arthur Harris (aka "Bomber" Harris) did to Dresden.
Note that Germany has behaved itself since Dresden was firebombed.
It's all about the Jews! *Yawn*
Buchanan is clearly not trying to imply that immoral elements never existed in this country before the 60's; but what is celebrated as mainstream in the popular culture has definitely taken a nosedive in recent decades.
Very good job on this thread, thank you.
Ah.
So if PJB and Co. are Marx/Lenin/Socialists, that makes you a what? Libertarian tramp?
Get serious. Your lines are really beneath your usual level of discourse.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.