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."
First off, neither PJB nor I in any way, shape, or form, endorse the activities of Hitler--at ALL. Thus my comment that "there are no lies here" referent the specific paragraph you cite. PJB points out the obvious.
I am WELL aware of the descendants of Balaam. They are quite busy persecuting Roman Catholics, and more specifically, orthodox Roman Catholics; and B's boyzzz are quite successful, as they are against the children of David, (again) particularly against the Orthodox children of David.
At the same time, it has been observed that the sturm/drang over the Gibson movie backfired against ADL, which actually managed to create ill-will by its incessant, unfounded whining and carping about NOTHING.
One can find insults and racism anywhere one wishes to, and it is clear that some people have developed this to a highly-refined art (see 11EarlMarmena's attempt to find racism in a fact-statement I made earlier in this thread.)
In the end, however, such will only alienate friends and establish another Babylon--where NO ONE speaks their mind.
If that's what you seek, we're almost there now.
Agreed.
We must part if you wish to maintain that morality is NOT a part of right order--and if you wish to argue that one can 'unweave' the moral fabric successfully.
I argue that 'laws' that infringe upon our rights to life, liberty, & property are unconstitutional.
(for example, arguing that prostitution is not immoral.)
Fine, you see it as immoral. --- But its not illegal, according to our constitution. -- Can you understand that distinction, and agree with that principle?
Your argument that 'prostitution is not illegal under the Constitution' makes me think that the discussion will be fruitless.
My statement is a fact, not an "argument". Your inablity to understand is pitiful.
The Constitution does not forbid murder, either.
Daft. -- Murder is illegal under our constitutional rule of law.
Let's agree not to bother any further.
Sorry, but I cannot agree to let bashing our constitution stand unrefuted. -- It bothers me.
Obviously, in pure brute-force terms, if we decide to permanently base ourselves in Iraq, there isn't a damn thing the Iraqis can do about it. But the planets need to be in alignment here at home, and I think that one of the best ways to start that happening is to persuade the Iraqis that such a thing is also in their best interests.
Of course I'd love to.
That may be the plan, but unfortunately I don't think it's politically sellable here at home if the Iraqis are violently opposed to a permanent presence - such a base simply wouldn't survive the next Democratic administration, unless it looked like the Iraqis (at least) didn't completely hate the idea.
Facts of life don't need to be 'sold'. -- If/when a demo administration gets in, - they will change their tune about leaving. Excuses will be found to avoid a pull out.
It probably wouldn't survive a Kerry administration in any case - Ketchup's big idea is to pull out and send the blue helmets in, so that they can count the number of shells the Iraqis expend on each other while turning the joint into New Somalia.
Let the UN 'administer' iraqi warlords as they kill each other off, who cares?
We will have our base. -- Let them have the rest of their pitiful country.
Obviously, in pure brute-force terms, if we decide to permanently base ourselves in Iraq, there isn't a damn thing the Iraqis can do about it. But the planets need to be in alignment here at home, and I think that one of the best ways to start that happening is to persuade the Iraqis that such a thing is also in their best interests.
That's fine with me.
Well, I've got the "windowless office" part because of a space crunch -- now, how do I get the "no responsibilities" part? I promise to quit in, oh, fifteen years or so.... :-)
No, the government's most important (and, properly, sole) job is maintaining the peace by suppressing assault and fraud and adjudicating disputes in the absence of other resolution. Permitting it to select and enforce a "right order" over and above that is the route to utopian totalitarianism.
(Oh, and what's with the capitalization? I can't find anything in the list of noun capitalization rules to account for it, unless "Government" is the deity you worship -- which would be the natural corrolary to believing that it has the secret to the "right order".)
That wet outfit Kirsten Dunst wore in Spider-Man didn't look much like a burqa to me, and there was a shameless nekkid woman with no clothes on in Titanic.
I'm pretty sure that the Quran doesn't mention space aliens, so that pretty much establishes Star Wars, ET: The Extra-Terrestrial, and Star Wars: Phantom Menace as anti-Islamic.
As I recall, CAIR et al found anti-Arab stereotyping in some of the villain depictions in Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
As for The Passion of the Christ -- well, DUH.
"Self-restraint" taken as a result of government censorship threats doesn't count. (That's one reason why your form of nanny statism destroys all true morality.)
Germany, to an extent (though its political order was indeed greatly changed). As for Japan: at what time in Japanese history prior to 1945 did it have a political and social order similar to the one it has had since the US occupation?
You've done a reasonable job of defining Right Order.
Learn capitalization rules on your own.
No, it was self-restraint as a result of popular pressure. The result was great movies that have stood the test of time, not schlock filled with profanity, sex, and violence. And the result of the sewer that is our popular culture is the anecdote I mentioned yesterday: junior high students needing to read on sex-segregated buses to stamp out the epidemic of oral sex on the school bus. This may be your idea of the perfect society, but it sure as hell isn't mine.
I hope you're right, but the dems are kind of unreliable, which is why I prefer not to rely on them ;)
I hope you're right, but the dems are kind of unreliable, which is why I prefer not to rely on them ;)
Face up to the fact that they are the other wing of our glorious rinocratic socialist 'party'..
Their turn at the White House will come all too soon.
This is a very grim perspective. Is it the only choice we have?
Seriously, with third world immigration, womens strides in equality have been compromised, but Hillary doesn't care as long as she has her rights. Nor does Hollywood.
If it's not in the Constitution it's not a fact.
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