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."
Your rant sounds about right to me! Good work!
Cueing up the "Final Jeopardy" theme music...
Buchanan and his marks are doing the exact same thing, Meg. For God's sake, he wants us to "stand with Islam" against...Hollywood?
Last I checked, neither Hollywood nor Hillary Clinton, as loathsome as she is politically, were threatening to blow up cities. They weren't swearing death upon "infidels".
One does NOT have to be "more" or "less" socially conservative to see that as insanity.
If they didn't worry you, they wouldn't get any flak. Pat gets flak because he is for America first and is right about illegal immigration, NAFTA equals job loss, abortion, homosexual practices and foreign entanglement will bring war to our shores. Which one bothers you?
And when they get more than six votes or so, that disagreement will have some teeth, won't it?
pat has been for pat first for many years...that is why pat gets deserved flak.
Alex, I'll take buchanan politics for $500.
Yeah, and next why don't you simply send a bill for Damages suffered during the Civil War? After all, my ancestors arrived here in the early 1900's.
You are an accusatory mouth. I did not state that segregation is right, nor can I condone race-based discriminatory practices.
But the FACT is that it existed, right, wrong, or otherwise. That's what PJB said. It existed.
Many people did not like it, for all kinds of very good reasons, based on moral law.
Thurgood Marshall made a BIG DEAL of it.
And if you look at the post, that's exactly what I said.
But since you are willing to draw the conclusion that I am a racist, what makes you better? You can throw the "R" word very well. Calumnification is a great instrument, as PJB has found.
Conservatives are forever digging themselves out from under the slime of these jerks.
Amen.
Your take is correct. In Wisconsin, segregation did NOT exist, except by virtue of "local schools." We had only one set of bathrooms in public buildings, etc., etc.
For the vast majority of Americans segregation was not an issue--they never SAW it.
1. Free market/free trade fundamentalism. Worship of wealth.
So, you will just have to make sure that those who succeed and produce in America pay their fair share, eh? Not to mention redistributing it so that those who you approve of get their cut.
2. Neo-wilsonian globalist post-Trotskyite interventionism, rejection of patriotism.
Where do YOU want to fight it out with al-Qaeda, Najaf, or New York? I personally prefer Najaf.
3. Secular hedonistic permisive libertinism. Godlessness.
As determined by you. Me, I think people are free to make their mistakes, but they had better be willing to accept the consequences for their actions.
4. Pseudo-messianic hubris, self-righteousness and lack of self-restraint.
You might want to discuss that with the various prudes who try to yank Howard Stern off the air because they are offended by his show. Last I checked, every radio came with a tuning dial and an OFF switch. Many come with tape players or CDs. Rather than self-righteously running to the FCC to yank Stern off the air, why not exercise some self-restraint and either change the station, turning off the radio, or putting on a CD or cassette tape of music you enjoy (or an audio book)?
Anyone who says that segregation "was not a big deal" qualifies with flying colors.
Your ability to read racism into every historical fact is astounding.
Next you'll be reading racism into a weather forecast which places hurricanes ONLY in Florida.
My first post was against "stand with Islam" against Hollywood....They think male nudity is worse than murder. I will not say all Muslims are evil..but the use of that religion against us and the "rules" of that religion preclude any standing with Islam.
Yes, Hollywood promotes viewpoints that undermine our fight against Islamofascists,socialists,communists and they promote hedonism...I don't have to go to the movies and as dangerous as the left wing dems are,they aren't going to bomb us...Their policies may invite others to.
NAH! If they did that, they wouldn't get to impose their views and "morality" on others, would they?
And don't you purely LOVE it when some mark sets himself up as the arbiter of what is and is not conservatism? Ahh, Lockstep Marching...something Patsy himself would love, polished jackboots and all.
Ohh, I don't know.
Terrorists are based in Germany, France, England, and in several more-or-less democratic countries in Central and South America.
There. That took 30 seconds from the time I hit reply.
You’re right, mostly just bothered the black folk. Besides, like Pat says, they got their own restaurants, theatres, clubs, schools, what’s so bad about that?
Personally, I’m glad a Thurgood Marshall was able to emerge, MLK too.
Nope. We are not retarded. But THEY have "enlightened self-interests," as long as it is OUR children who are in the Armed Forces.
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