What’s Wrong with the World

The men signed of the cross of Christ go gaily in the dark.

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What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

Link round-up

I've accumulated several things to note which require little comment but which readers may find interesting, so I've decided to put these heterogenous elements into a post together.

Item 1: The last lecture in the apologetics series by Timothy McGrew, my husband, is now up at Brian Auten's Apologetics315 site. This is "Alleged Contradictions in the Gospels, Part 2." Apologetics 315 has links to the handout and Powerpoint, but if you just want the Youtube, here it is:

Item 2: I've just been notified that there is a lot of information about the 19th century physician and anti-abortion crusader Horatio Robinson Storer at this web site. It looks like a lot of interesting material, and if you are interested in the history of the pro-life movement, you should definitely have a look. Also, here is Dr. Dyer's article on Storer from the Human Life Review some years back.

Item 3: Today is the anniversary of 9/11, in case anyone didn't notice. I have nothing profound to say, except perhaps that I remain utterly intolerant of the disgusting notion that we Americans were remotely to blame for the evil actions of evil terrorists in stealing planes and murdering thousands of people. Nor anything at all like that disgusting notion. Readers, please, please don't try to peddle that nonsense in the thread. You know who you are. I may yet regret having said anything about 9/11, but since this is a hodge-podge post...May the unrepentant evildoers receive the just reward of their deeds, and may our duly appointed governments have their backbones strengthened to capture those planning such actions, to punish them, to refuse to allow them into our country in the first place, and in all just ways to prevent such evil in the future.

Item 4: I didn't want to let pass the good news of Youcef Nadarkhani's release from prison. It seems plausible to me, though no one is mentioning this in the stories, that he could face further persecution later. It appears that he may have been actually convicted and sentenced to time served for the crime (in Iran) of proselytizing Muslims. So if he continues to share his faith, this could presumably happen again. See my earlier post on Nadarkhani here. I think at that point we sufficiently hashed over the question of the status of modalists. I would urge that we pray that now that he has a reprieve, Pastor Youcef will have the opportunity to come to believe in the Trinity as well.

Comments (82)

Re 9/11: Looks like I'm "one of those people." I absolutely hate the "chickens coming home to roost" attitude, and I don't share that sentiment one bit. Still, it does seem clear that US foreign policy was one major cause of 9/11. That's what Osama bin Laden said, anyway. I'm sure that the people who ran that foreign policy believed that they were acting to protect America and that they intended only good. But I think that at the highest level of policy-making, there's a moral dimension to intelligence and prudence. Basically, there's a moral imperative not to be stupid.

"Blame" is an emotional word, but I think US policy makers were culpably stupid, and that stupidity was one major cause of 9/11. As I've said before, I don't believe in any law of conservation of blame. To "blame" some Americans is not to reduce the blame of the nineteen hijackers who actually did that, and it's certainly not to compare the vastly different magnitude of "blame." The two kinds of "blame" or responsibility or whatever you call it are qualitatively different, as well. But I don't think US government officials should be let off the hook entirely.

Well, I utterly disagree, because I think that jihad is jihad, and has been going on since long before U.S. policy was what it is. One of the earliest things we spent out tariff tax money on was redeeming our sailors from Muslim pirate states, and when we sent envoys to ask them why they were doing this (we being a pretty darned inoffensive small new country and all), they expressly told us it was what was commanded in their holy book. Bin Laden was a Muslim terrorist, and Muslim terrorists shouldn't be considered rational actors who do what they do because we have somehow provoked them. I find it unpleasantly laughable that people say, "Oh, this is what this murderous terrorist maniac said was his reason, so we all have to ponder this and apportion some kind of blame accordingly and maybe consider how we can avoid provoking such people in the future." You want to talk stupid? _That's_ stupid.

But, y'know, that's why I almost didn't mention 9/11 in this post. Because I knew we had commentators like that. But I thought it would be someone else, Aaron.

I think there's a lot more evidence of causality besides bin Laden's words. To those who think 9/11 was caused by Muslim "hatred of our freedoms" or something else unrelated to US policy in the Middle East, well...

Obviously, jihad itself is not caused by US foreign policy. I'm aware of the Muslim corsairs and of jihad in the 18th century. US merchant ships were attacked because they were non-Muslim and because they were there, in the region - where they had every right to be, I'll add. Similarly, in the 20th century, even if the US had been totally neutral and non-interventionist, al Qaeda would still have been committing mass murder in the name of jihad. But probably closer to home, not in America.

But probably closer to home, not in America.

Baloney. Unsupported and counterindicated conjecture. America is the elephant in the room, an obvious target of opportunity, a great place to make a big splash and a noticeable and prestigious "Score!" against the wicked infidel. We're impossible not to notice, we're big, we're easy to demonize (for all kinds of reasons unrelated to any specific foreign policy), we're symbolic of a lot of things jihadists find it very useful to attack. And our immigration policies make us a sitting duck. Indeed, why _wouldn't_ jihadi terrorists try to carry out terrorist acts on American soil? I would, if I were in their shoes. But not because I would have any sort of reasonable grievance.

Tim's series is brilliant; I've used some of the material in my own lessons, and I'll be using as many as I can with students who want to go deeper.
Personally, I found Tim to be particularly helpful on Quirinius' census.

Graham

Thank you so much, Graham! That's wonderful to hear. One of the things Tim is especially good at, I've found, is listing a variety of possible solutions to a difficulty. This sort of disjunctive approach gives the listener a sense of both the resources available for answering a question and of the flexibility of mind necessary for evaluating alleged difficulties fairly.

America was a target of Islam since the early days of the Republic. Remember the war against the Barbary Pirates, and raise a toast to the first American hero to fight back against The Jihad, Commodore Stephen Decatur.
http://alanjheavens.blogspot.com/p/biography-of-stephen-decatur-1779-1820.html

In 1785, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams formally met with the pirate ambassador in London. Jefferson asked why they would make war against a faraway nation who had done them no injury. The ambassador replied:

It is written in the Koran, that all nations which do not acknowledge the Prophet are sinners, and it is the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave them; and every muslim who is slain in this warfare is sure to go to paradise. The man who is first to board a vessel deserves one slave over and above his share, and when they spring to the deck of an enemy’s ship, every sailor holds a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually strikes such terror into the foe that they will cry out for a quarter at once.

Did they ever call America Great Satan in 18C?

From their perspective, America embodies Satanic Pride. It is precisely as Bush said-they hate America for its freedoms which they interpret as license. They look at America and see easy women and proud homosexuals. They see humbling of husbands and the raving of pro-choice.

If you, yourself, talk of the Culture of Death then why you object to them calling it the Great Satan?

Sayyid Qutb saw the Great Satan in square dancing in rural Colorado in the 1940s. Square dancing.

In other words: knock it off, Gian. Just knock it the hell off.

Gian has a point. Conservative Muslims don't hate America because it is prosperous, or good, or free; they hate America for three reasons. America meddles in the affairs of other nations, like having troops in Saudi Arabia. America is the patron of Israel. America is exporting secular liberal values especially feminism. It is the export of American secular liberal values that has the man on the street in Indonesia and Saudi Arabia up in arms.

No, Thomas, I totally agree with Paul. They hate America for all _kinds_ of reasons, and I *could not disagree more strongly* with the implication that we should chop off some of these reasons and characterize the hatred of America as some kind of justified objection or rational objection. It is neither. Notice that I did not say that they primarily hate America for her virtues. Nor do they primarily hate America for her vices (not that we are likely to agree among ourselves on this thread as to what America's "vices" are, particularly in public policy). It is sufficient for Muslim terrorists to attack us because we are big, infidel, and the most powerful and leading representative of the non-Muslim world. It's always been difficult for me to see why people can't see this, since even a tiny bit of imagination should make it clear that these would be sufficient reasons for Muslim terrorists to make us a target of their attacks. As I said above, were I a Muslim terrorist, those would be sufficient reasons for _me_ to make attacks on American soil. I cannot see why they should not be sufficient, *unless* one views Muslim jihadis in a sympathetic light as rational actors who _must_ dislike us only for vices or bad behaviors.

So, yeah, let's retire the excuse-making.

Lydia says,

It is sufficient for Muslim terrorists to attack us because we are big, infidel, and the most powerful representative of the non-Muslim world.
Would the Muslim become a terrorist and attack America if she had not departed from her core isolationist values. If America said to Europe, Asia, & Africa, in line with the Monroe doctrine, 'stay out of our backyard and we will leave you alone' who would be interested in attacking us? President George W. Bush insisted on imposing women suffrage on Afghanistan. Does America have the right to expect anything other then hostility from conservative Muslims?

Yes, they would *overwhelmingly likely* have done so.

Moreover, I will go farther: There are things we should be doing much more of, which would be virtues if we did more of them (in other words, the only reason I don't describe them as "our virtues" is because we don't do them enough). These include "insulting Islam" by publishing and promulgating the truth about Islam and Mohammed more widely and with more courage and restricting if not ceasing Muslim immigration to America. I have had readers expressly warn, as an argument against restricting Muslim immigration, that it would lead to more terrorist acts on American soil. That's not an argument against it but an argument for it!! And if we did so, it would certainly be a _virtue_, and one for which we would be much hated.

Very recent events show that appeasement and sympathy for jihadis does not work. Our ambassador in Libya, murdered just last night, was (I gather) sympathetic to the Arab spring, and his murder took place because Muslims took offense at a movie published in the United States. Nor were they appeased by condemnatory statements towards that movie published by American officials _before_ the attack on the embassy.

America certainly does have the right to expect that "conservative Muslims" not engage in acts of evil terrorism against us. But as a matter of fact, they will continue so to engage, because jihad is their imperative. Frankly, I cannot disagree too strongly with your evident sympathy for "conservative Muslims."

As someone said in the early going after 9/11, the enemy has his reasons. But, they are his reasons, not ours.

I almost laughed out loud at this sentence from a news report on the assassination: "The President urged that the world 'stand together' to reject the violence."

Bad violence. Very bad. Go sit in a corner.

Our ambassador in Libya, murdered just last night, was (I gather) sympathetic to the Arab spring, and his murder took place because Muslims took offense at a movie published in the United States.

U.S. sources say they do not believe the attacks that killed Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya, were in reaction to the online release of a film mocking Islam, CNN's Elise Labott reports.

"It was not an innocent mob," one senior official said. "The video or 9/11 made a handy excuse and could be fortuitous from their perspective, but this was a clearly planned military-type attack."

This meshes with information recorded earlier in this post, including that U.S. sources told CNN that the Benghazi attack was planned, and that perhaps a protest against the film was used as a diversion. Also, a London think tank with strong ties to Libya speculated Wednesday that Stevens was the victim of a targeted al Qaeda attack "to avenge the death of Abu Yaya al-Libi, al Qaeda's second in command killed a few months ago."

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/12/u-s-ambassador-to-libya-3-others-killed-in-rocket-attack-witness-says/?hpt=hp_t1

Step2, obviously, we can speculate on both sides. But it's a darned silly argument from the "senior official" that begins, "This was not an innocent mob." Say, what? Perhaps the one in Cairo _was_ an "innocent mob"? Or something. But let's face a few facts: There were all sorts of riots and attacks because of the pope's previous quite mild criticism of Islam, there were riots and attacks when Jones (gasp) burned a Koran, and we get told all over the place that we should be more respectful of Islam or else there will be attacks. OTOH, when someone like me says, "Actually, no, let's _not_ be dhimmis, and the fact that they attack because we won't talk about them in respectful tones just shows that they are not rational actors with rational grievances (if we needed more evidence to that effect)" we're now hearing, "Oh, no, I'm sure it was Al Qaeda and had _nothing_ to do with criticism of Islam."

That hardly bolsters the "rational actors" case anyway. Unless one takes Al Qaeda carrying out military-style attacks on a 9/11 anniversary to be prima facie an example of "conservative Muslims" just responding to some sort of nefarious American behavior, poor fellows.

Andy McCarthy was the lead prosecutor against the Blind Sheik; he knows Islam in and out. I read portions of this article he posted at the Corner at NRO this morning to my students:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/316633/no-its-ishariai-and-assault-us-missions-andrew-c-mccarthy

When the goal is world domination, nothing we do will keep us from being attacked; appeasement merely reveals weakness, which makes the fall that much faster.

God have mercy on us all, and may He comfort the families of our newly fallen.

Perhaps the one in Cairo _was_ an "innocent mob"?

They didn't show up with rocket launchers and other weaponry. So they were clearly vandals, but that isn't even in the same ballpark as intending to kill.

Unless one takes Al Qaeda carrying out military-style attacks on a 9/11 anniversary to be prima facie an example of "conservative Muslims" just responding to some sort of nefarious American behavior, poor fellows.

Terrorists are now conflated with conservative Muslims? You must be joking.

Step2, I could have a _lot_ to say of my own on the connection between "conservative Muslims" and terrorism, but as it happens I was quoting the phrase from commentators upthread who were purporting to explain terrorist actions (by al Qaeda, as it happens) by reference to alleged American sins and acts offensive to "conservative Muslims." You can argue with Islam's defenders/America's critics on that linkage in this particular case, unless you want this to be one of those "we can say it but you can't" things.

When a woman is a battered and abused wife, she knows that there are certain actions that she might stay away from because they will trigger further abuse. Not because the abuse is justified by her actions - no, the abusive responses are wrong and evil and unjustified - but because her actions may act as triggers.

If radicals in the shape of Muslims hate us for the sheer fact that we are not Muslim, and they are ready to abuse us upon any available trigger, it isn't because our doing something that is a trigger justifies their irrational response. It doesn't. We can go around walking on eggshells (and still be abused when the go off on rampages without any specific trigger, but we cannot walk around on eggshells because of irrational Muslims AND live as Americans. We are not in the same boat as a battered wife, whose husband outdoes her 2-1 in weight, 3-1 in muscle, and 50-1 in violence. We can meet Muslim aggression with forceful response of our own. And there is no reason not to, except to the extent we should plan our force for best effect and most worthwhile strategy.

You can argue with Islam's defenders/America's critics on that linkage in this particular case, unless you want this to be one of those "we can say it but you can't" things.

You can say whatever you want and I can respond to it. You cannot recruit me to argue with other people, even when they are wrong.

Sayyid Qutb saw the Great Satan in square dancing in rural Colorado in the 1940s. Square dancing.

I didn't know it was when he saw square dancing, but what an illustration of the wider point. How could it be any clearer?

Notice that I did not say that they primarily hate America for her virtues. Nor do they primarily hate America for her vices (not that we are likely to agree among ourselves on this thread as to what America's "vices" are, particularly in public policy). It is sufficient for Muslim terrorists to attack us because we are big, infidel, and the most powerful and leading representative of the non-Muslim world.

I struggle with this. Lydia, if what you say were true, then I think radical Islamic terrorists groups would be as anxious to attack China as the US. They're not. It is what we believe.

Andrew McCarthy says:

Understand that Islam, particularly as Islamic supremacists interpret it, is not merely a religion; it is a totalitarian ideology that has some spiritual principles, which make up a small subset of the belief system. . . . That’s what causes the rioting and murder.

McCarthy is exactly right. Since I believe that this is the view of GW Bush, what McCarthy objects to about the Bush view is what to do about this state of affairs where we're at war with a totalitarian ideology. Some of us agree on the cause but disagree on what should be the response, and the overheated absolutist chest thumping that "I was against the Iraq War!" only obscures the matter. We'd do well to separate causes and proposed responses, and argue for each separately. Many people have more in common than they're able to admit.

*rolls eyes*

Mark, we're not only non-Muslim, we're the leaders of the FREE world. Not China. Us. Nobody ever called China a "shining city on a hill."

Exactly Masked One. You're making my point. I guess it's hard to read while rolling your eyes. :) Or maybe I misunderstood Lydia? I took her to be saying that our non-Muslimness was sufficient to cause them to attack us. Strictly speaking theologically that would be true, but it is in fact as McCarthy says a "totalitarian ideology that has some spiritual principles, which make up a small subset of the belief system". As such Muslim theology gets trumped by politics, and in fact in the false religion of Islam there is no clear dividing line between them to begin with.

And on the "US foreign policy" as a cause of 9/11 meme, the only complaint in Bin Laden's post 9/11 rand that had any connection whatever to reality was this:

The compliant that the US government propped up dictatorships in the ME that denied to its citizens the freedoms that US citizens enjoy, and these regimes oppressed and imprisoned their citizens for political disagreements. This in no way justifies murdering anyone, but it is nonetheless true that it is a bad thing to do that.

Regardless, Lydia's point was that the main reasons the Muslims are attacking us are things that aren't bad in and of themselves.

India is infidel too, and is also occupying their territory but they don't hate India the same way they do America.
They have mandate to make war on infidels. That goes without saying. But America provokes them extra and as President Bush repeated so often, they hate America for her freedoms.

So their extra hate is extra-Islamic, something like the righteous anger of Old Testament, something a Christian ought to have at the Culture of Death.

"What some private citizen in America may say to hurt Christian, or Jewish, or anyone else’s religious feelings is absolutely no business of the United States government"
Mario Loyola at The Corner (NRO)-They Attack Us for Our Freedoms Again.

I submit that this is not the traditional Christian understanding and is irrational and in its own way, a fanatical position.

Regardless, Lydia's point was that the main reasons the Muslims are attacking us are things that aren't bad in and of themselves.

Well I certainly agree with that.

But it still is useful to break down the reasons for the hatred. Someone above said it wasn't because of our prosperity. Actually it is in part. The entire region is backward and in the age of mass communications it is a source of deep shame and resentment. It is by no means the only reason, but it's a fact that we can't deny. So I don't know why it is that people just refuse to believe that they hate us for a reasons --none of them good or justified-- but reasons that we can't change about ourselves, and shouldn't try.

India is infidel too, and is also occupying their territory but they don't hate India the same way they do America.

164 people butchered in the Mumbai Massacre could not be reached for comment.

I can just Gian whispering sweet lullabies in the ears of some dying hotel guest at the Taj Mahal: "don't worry, they don't hate Indians quite like they hate Americans."

Well, I nominate Gian's comment here for the most disgusting one on this thread:

So their extra hate is extra-Islamic, something like the righteous anger of Old Testament, something a Christian ought to have at the Culture of Death.

Yeah, let's definitely sympathize with Muslim terrorists, which Gian has been doing throughout this thread, because their hatred of America is Old-Testament like righteous anger at America's Culture of Death.

I've been pretty darned tolerant on this thread for a person who said in the main post that I'm intolerant, but that's sickening. Gian, you're pushing a line and risking getting comments axed. In a way, I almost wish you'd keep pushing and justify me in axing and then get up in high dudgeon and go away. Maybe if I'm lucky you'll get in high dudgeon and go away now. You've been becoming more and more annoying as a commentator for a few months now, and you certainly aren't a "poor little" picked-upon fellow. This really pushes the envelope.

Mark, you have an interesting point about China, but to tell you the truth, I don't think we'd know if China were continually finding and crushing Muslim terrorist plots, because they are a rather secretive country. Also, China _hardly_ has an open immigration policy, so I'm pretty certain they are careful about both letting Middle Eastern Muslims in and, being Communist, controlling them once they are in. Not that I recommend Communism, just that Communists have little tolerance for terrorism. The various Muslim attacks against Russia (and there's plenty of Muslim hatred for Russia), which isn't as prosperous as the U.S., would certainly argue that prosperity isn't a _necessary_ condition for Muslim terrorists to target a country. But I'm quite willing to agree that our prosperity is part of what makes our country "big, noticeable, and symbolic."

By the way, Step2, please note Gian sympathizing with Muslim anger over this movie. You can say that I can't recruit you to argue with other people, but don't bug me with "none of this has anything to do with our speaking out in criticism of Islam" as long as Islam's own apologists say that it does. And while we're at it, the Libyans want to blame us for allowing "insulting" movies as well:

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/09/12/High-Ranking-Libyan-Official-Still-Contends-US-At-Fault-in-Attacks?utm_source=bigtweeting&utm_medium=twitter

This sort of thing could convert me entirely to the "they hate us for our virtues" position just any day now. Stay tuned.

America is the elephant in the room, an obvious target of opportunity, a great place to make a big splash and a noticeable and prestigious "Score!" against the wicked infidel.

Gee, I wonder why that is? Nothing to do with foreign policy, for sure. Move along, nothing to see here.

Right, Matt, because we couldn't possibly be a target of opportunity or a great place to make a big splash and a prestigious score against the infidel unless we had a foreign policy of some sort or other with which leftists disagreed.

Right at this very moment, all over the world, Americans are being warned and embassies are being attacked over something done *on American soil* that Muslims chose to get offended over. Drudge has a "Rage Against America" headline front and center, and it's about something that was done on American soil. Our ambassador was just murdered in Libya, and all Obama can do is apologize for some damn movie. And all the rest of you lefties and paleo-leftists can do is blather about American foreign policy.

Go to hell, you apologists for Islam. I don't usually get quite this obviously infuriated against my commentators. I prefer facetiousness and devastating wit. But I'm done with devastating wit. If you are here to be an apologist for Islam, you can go to hell with my blessing, because you're risking going there already if you don't start seeing evil for what it is and stop making more-than-stupid excuses for a devilish religion. On this day, right after more Americans have been murdered by the Religion of Peace (TM), I've had enough of all of you weirdos and paleos and lefties who for some reason think W4 is a great place to comment. Bag it N.O.W.

Hillary Clinton's State Department gives us a fitting illustration of the type of policy our apologists for Islam would recommend: send the Marines to defend our sovereign embassies without lives ammunition.

http://www.redstate.com/2012/09/13/marines-told-not-to-carry-live-ammo-at-cairo-embassy/

It's Aliens all over again. "What are we supposed to use? Harsh language?" Which might be funny, if people weren't even allowed to use mildly critical language.

Lydia,
I am certainly no apologist for them.In fact, I would prefer a VERY hard line against them which is not possible from the progressive perspective.
OK I was definitely wrong about the OT. I accept that.
Where the progressive perspective is interfering is
You say that if a Govt lets a terrorist operate in its territory then the Govt is in league with the terrorist or is not much of a Govt.
They equally validly say that if a Govt lets a blasphemer operate in its territory then the Govt is in league with the blasphemer or is not much of a Govt.

That suppression of blasphemy is not a Govt job is simply a progressive idea that has unfortunately taken over American conservatives too.

Paul Cella,
You can have very little idea of the complexity of inter-religion relations in the subcontinent. Have you ever read how many millions of THEM were evicted 65 years ago, and not peacefully either, more like Sudetenland evacuation. So there they certainly have a reason, not fully rational though, since they also evicted millions of the Other Party as well.

I'm one of those paleo, weirdo leftists who Lydia invited to visit Hell, but I'll just add another respectful (albeit weird, paleo, and leftist) comment. Feel free to delete it if it's out of bounds, no hard feelings.

Let's take it as given that Osama bin Laden was a liar, and you can't believe anything he said just because he said it. But why would he lie about his motives here? The only answer I see would have to do with his potential supporters. Most Middle Eastern Muslims who hate America do not lie about the reasons, and their reasons are almost always American foreign policy: support for Israel, support for secular Muslim dictators, and just plain intervention in the Middle East. Taking these sentiments as true, maybe that could be a motivation for bin Laden to lie, I guess: that he wasn't motivated by US foreign policy, he just said he was because he knew his potential supporters were. That seems like a pretty shaky hypothesis to me, but even if it's true, it means that the "they hate us because we're a large and visible target" explanation is only partly true, explaining only the motivations of a few leaders and not the majority of Muslims, including the ones who support or sympathize with terrorism.

I'm talking about 9/11 here, not the recent riots. The two shouldn't be conflated. I say that 9/11 was mostly about US foreign policy, while I think the current mob really was incited by propaganda against the movie. It would have happened if the movie were produced in Denmark or any other country.

I understand that this comment is going to read as inflammatory, but I'm really not trying to incite anyone. There's plenty of that going around as it is.

Who cares whether bin Laden was a liar, or why he and his many millions of Islamic sympathizers hate us? He was a fanatical murderer who bathed in the blood of innocents. He needed to have his brains splattered, and thankfully some brave American soldiers were able to do that for him. End of discussion. I'm not interested in theorizing about why the Devil does his thing.

There must be numerous abortionists with body counts exceeding Laden's but there is no seething anger against them. They are respected pillars of society and their enablers are even more respected. They get engaged, the fanatical murderers, in polite debates.
So it is not a matter of blood of innocents, merely.

Gian, you're really not a serious commenter. Can you imagine our Congress today undertaking to write a bill proscribing blasphemy? (If your comment is rather more general, as in, "there is nothing in principle which precludes government from outlawing blasphemy," then what of it? There is nothing in our Constitution establishing such a principle. It's just hand-waving by you.)

Your Subcontinent "complexity" point is also a non sequitur. You brought up India in order to show, supposedly, how despite ample provocations, that country is not hated by Islamists like the US. I'm betting there are Indians in abundance who would beg to differ strongly, taking the view that India has suffered more Jihadist raids than the US, though nothing so singularly spectacular as September 11th.

But of course the literature of Jihad abounds we this idea of the great and terrible razzia that stupefies the enemy with fear without ever really aiming at sustainable military objectives. September 11th falls obviously within this historical pattern. The particular grievances shift but the Jihad remains.

I strongly endorse both Bill Luse's and Paul Cella's comments. They have done a better job here than I could do.

At least Aaron is capable of talking on-topic, though I endorse both responses to him. Gian is all over the map and just feels like he has to find something to say, usually something that makes little sense and could be easily replaced by, "The Muslims always have a grievance that I can see the point of the Muslims have a grievance America is bad abortion has something to do with this blahblahblah."

Also, darn! I'm supposed to be so scary, and I hoped if I got really rude that that, in combination with the horrors we have most recently seen against us by Muslims, would have a more awe-inspiring and silencing effect all by itself.

Btw, the other items in this link roundup are also worthy of attention. I really hope people will check out the Horatio Storer site and the talk on the Gospels.

Don't worry, Lydia, you're still plenty scary to me. William Luse by comparison seems like a nice, cuddly puppy, so I'll respond to him.

The important thing isn't whether bin Laden was lying, but rather what motivated him (and other anti-American terrorists). I'm saying that bin Laden's own words are a pretty good indication of his motives; Lydia says no. I was trying to follow the logical implications of her hypothesis - the falsity of which, by the way, is not immediately obvious, unlike the "they hate us for our freedoms" hypothesis. The question of lying is secondary, but important to the primary question of motivation.

If you don't care "why the Devil does his thing," that's fine, but I hope you at least agree that it's an important question to those who are trying to protect America from the Devil.

Along with Obama, Mrs Clinton, and that dhimmi ambassador to Egypt, I have always been deeply interested in praising Islam and being deeply deeply sorry for being American; just as in other contexts I have always been deeply sorry for my white privilege, my male privilege, and so on. Some people hate me because I'm conservative. Some despise me because I don't appreciate The Who or Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

In each of these instances of grievance, I know what to apologize for, and I know whom to apologize to, and I know how to atone. Chemical castration so that my former masculinity is no longer as offensive to feminists, subscriptions to The Nation and Mother Jones so that my former conservatism is no longer as offensive to educated people, and so on.

It's not clear to me exactly what facet of my existence is cause for grievance in this case, so along with Aaron I am sitting on the edge of my seat, wondering how to un-hurt the feelings of those poor hurting folks over there. I just hope I can get away with paying a jizya tax and don't have to saw off my own head on camera. Which is undoubtedly what we all deserve for hurting those poor people's feelings.

David is turning Clint Eastwood's performance art (cranky old guy argues with empty chair) into a meme.

However, I'm equally impressed with Lydia's position: She argues for an absolute right to provocative speech by threatening to censor anyone who doesn't agree with her. Amazing.

Yeah, because the First Amendment gives everyone the right to Step on over 2 anyone's private property and be a braying horse's ass as long and loud as he wants to. Because the First Amendment is all about eliminating property rights.

but I hope you at least agree that it's an important question to those who are trying to protect America from the Devil.

No, I don't. Their job is to identify the devil, find him, and kill him.

There must be numerous abortionists with body counts exceeding Laden's but there is no seething anger against them. They are respected pillars of society and their enablers are even more respected.

Well, Gian, whaddya say we take up arms along with our seething anger and kill a whole bunch of them? Then we can all be terrorists.

Aaron, I don't think you grock the concept of a pretext. Here's an example, borrowed shamelessly from Tony, but spelled out a little more in response to you: Imagine that an abusive husband knocks his wife around when she burns the supper. Now, one can say, "He wasn't lying, he really _was_ motivated to knock her around because she burned the supper." And in fact, he really was angered by the fact that she accidentally burned supper. That was the trigger. But if it hadn't been that, it would have been something else. If the wife internalizes the idea, "I must not do x. I must just add x to my list of things not to do, and maybe then I'll finally be okay and he'll stop beating me," she's approaching the entire thing in the wrong way. She's "enabling" his abuse of her and his control-freak impulses, to use what I believe is the correct current jargon phrase.

So is Osama bin Laden, or are his followers, really able to work themselves up into a lather over our having troops (with the consent of the Saudi government) in the country of Saudi Arabia? Sure, I guess so. They can get angry over a whole heck of a lot of stupid and irrational things, and use them as pretexts for committing evil acts of murder. But once we realize that what underlies this whole thing is the jihad, that, as Paul said, "The particular grievances shift but the Jihad remains," and that if it weren't one thing it would be another, just as with the wife beater, then we can stop thinking that we are going to protect ourselves from evil terrorists by deliberately molding our policies in line with their desires. We will realize that we should evaluate our policies on other grounds, independently, and try to protect and defend ourselves from them in other rational and effective ways, because trying to avoid triggers for abuse *doesn't work*. We will avoid behaving like an abused wife and, hopefully, start behaving like an intelligent sovereign nation. You may think there are other reasons for our not having soldiers stationed in Saudi Arabia, but we should stick to those other reasons. Because I have news for you: Al Qaeda isn't going to close up shop and quietly disappear if we just humbly go over a checklist of present foreign policy grievances and reverse course on the ones presently listed in an attempt to please them, aka "protect ourselves" from them. It ain't going to happen.

And meanwhile, far more relevant ways of defending the innocent on our soil, such as reexamining our immigration policies and our screening policies at airports, are being not only neglected but positively taken in the wrong direction. You may not be aware of this, Aaron, but a few years ago (summer 2009, I believe it was), a well-known philosophical bully attempted to cause problems for someone extremely close to me (because he had no way to get at me directly) because I had dared to write a post suggesting that we should stop or restrict Muslim immigration. I haven't the slightest doubt that that same philosophical bully would be only too happy to suggest that we alter our foreign policy with the aim of appeasing the successors of Osama bin Laden. How sincere he would be is a rather interesting question. You, I assume, are sincere. I urge you to argue (though not on this thread) for your preferred foreign policy objectives on other grounds. Preventing the jihad by policy appeasement is a fail, always.

Because the First Amendment is all about eliminating property rights.

I didn't challenge Lydia's property right to censor speech, I challenged her consistency in expecting Muslim toleration of provocative speech while threatening to punish speech she considers heretical (i.e. speech related to policy differences, not for being a jerk).

Um, Step2, when I start recommending murdering people for saying things I disagree with, you can accuse me of inconsistency. The terrible swift sword of a delete key, which I have not, in fact, used once in this thread, is a very mild weapon by comparison with the things these Muslims are doing. Or, for that matter, by comparison with the criminal sanctions for saying things Muslims don't like with which liberals apparently would like to censor us. It's actually pretty doggoned offensive for you to talk about my recommending Muslim toleration when all that means is, you know, not rioting, not killing people, not burning things, and implying that this is inconsistent with my making rumblings about possibly deleting a comment or two. Do absurd moral equivalence much?

The important thing isn't whether bin Laden was lying, but rather what motivated him (and other anti-American terrorists). I'm saying that bin Laden's own words are a pretty good indication of his motives; Lydia says no. I was trying to follow the logical implications of her hypothesis - the falsity of which, by the way, is not immediately obvious, unlike the "they hate us for our freedoms" hypothesis. The question of lying is secondary, but important to the primary question of motivation.

Oh come on Aaron, your way of approaching this question is from some sort of defensive crouch. Who said you get to ask all the questions? We know that some sorts of people do certain things. Sometimes we can explain it in greater detail than others, but that doesn't change the fact that sometimes we know motivations are evil. Can you tell me what motivates the radical misogynist such that they'd kill family members of school girls? Or why do some fathers in many Islamic countries kill their daughters if they don't approve of her behavior? I'd love to hear your explanation for that. Myself, I think I might be able to put on a psychologist hat to some degree and offer some sort of stab at an explanation but you know what? I don't need to and it doesn't matter whether I can or not. People who believe and do such things are evil, or under strong evil influence at the least. This concern for why evil people are evil isn't a healthy thing. Evil people have their own irrational reasons. There could be no justification for what is involved in terrorism.

Paul gave a great answer already to your question. Why don't you tell us, what evil do you think Sayyid Qutb, the spiritual father of some of the Islamists, saw in square dancing such that he hated American culture? Let's see how well you can answer these before we give any more consideration to your questions. Deal?

For those who are dismissive of those who say "they hate us for our freedoms," I'd say they aren't wrong to say it. Is it not a fact that freedom is opposite is domination and control?

To repeat merely one example, is it not a fact that in Bin Laden's culture and those he claims to speak for fathers kill their daughters for displaying freedom from her parent's wishes, which are based on their own oppressive honor culture? Is it not a fact that there re repercussions for things as trivial as men not wearing a beard where the Taliban dominates? We could go on and on this way.

Is is not a fact that the most extreme levels of domination and control have always played a role in the most evil human regimes, institutions, or even individual criminals? And isn't it true that in these things you'll find an incitement to violence to violate the freedom of others? The most chilling things I've ever heard are eyewitness testimony of life under such circumstances, and these things are uncomfortable and people don't want to remember or think about them. What reason do we have to dismiss the idea that the commonsense wisdom contained in the expression is justified? History and even many unfortunate person's life experiences offer examples that easily justify this judgement. I don't think it is that hard to explain, but whether I can explain it or not it is more important to acknowledge a behavior that can be plainly observed than to explain the psychological or spiritual motivations for it.

Lydia, I understand the concept of a pretext. Please give me credit for that, at least. I think your answer is wrong for a couple reasons.

The more pedantic reason is that "pretext" implies concealment, whereas I think bin Laden was truly motivated by the reasons I listed.

The more serious reason was already given in my comment above. I'll quote myself:

Obviously, jihad itself is not caused by US foreign policy...even if the US had been totally neutral and non-interventionist, al Qaeda would still have been committing mass murder in the name of jihad. But probably closer to home, not in America.

I understand that you don't agree, but there's no reason for you to argue against straw men like expecting al Qaeda to "close up shop." There will continue to be "pretexts" - superficial causes - for Muslim terrorism no matter what America does. Since we agree on this, let's not argue about it. My view of a correct foreign policy is based on that very serious joke with the punchline, "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you."

By the way, I'm not a theologian, but I think there's even legal support for what I say. There's a collective obligation of jihad at all times, but when the ummah is attacked by infidels, there's a more urgent, individual obligation of jihad. I wouldn't normally give so much relevance to Muslim law as an explanation of Muslim behavior, but in this case (1) al Quaeda is very concerned with juridical support for their tactics, and (2) al Qaeda has appealed to this law many times. That said, I still think the stronger argument against your position is the words of Muslims themselves, those who (unlike possibly Osama bin Laden) have no reason to lie.

Finally, your story about Brian Leiter (if that's who we're talking about) is an excellent illustration of my point. He's going to be bullying people who express traditional views on immigration, homosexuality, etc. for as long as he and his "enemies" exist. He'll always be finding "attacks" by traditionalists on human rights that have to be fought. Now, he probably does hate you for what you are - a traditional Christian - just as mujahadin are, technically, at war with all of us for what we are (non-Muslims). But this bully tried to attack you for what you did - write a blog post - not for, say, expressing your views in private.

He now knows what your views are. If you wanted to be safe from future attacks, you could refrain from posting on those subjects. (Obviously, I'm not saying you should do that!) Then, even though he knows "who you are" and considers you the enemy of equality and human rights and all that, he would bully others, not you.

Mark, where'd you get the idea that I think I get to ask all the questions? I welcome questions.

And here's my answer to yours. I haven't read Qutb, but I'd guess that the evil he saw in square dancing was the same as the same evil that, for instance, traditional Jews and some Christian churches would see in it: sexual impropriety and a violation of God's commandments. Maybe Qutb did "hate us for who we are, not for what we do," I don't know.

You seem to be implying one of two arguments: (1) Qutb was motivated by X, and today's terrorists are like Qutb, so they must be motivated by X; or (2), same as (1) but with "are like" replaced by "are ideological descendants of." I don't think either argument is compelling. The differences between Qutb and his descendants, not least of all in the political environment in which they live, are great enough to make a simple analogy like that invalid. Regarding (2), that's like looking for explanations of the Soviet invasion of Hungary in the writings of Karl Marx.

Lydia might suggest a further counter-argument to your claim. If we can't trust anything bin Laden says about his motivations - and according to her, we can't - then why can we trust what Qutb said about his motivations? Maybe the whole thing about square dancing was a clever lie, a pretext.

Aaron, I don't think you really are _taking_ the point about an abusive husband. He has *so many* pretexts for what he does. What makes no sense to me is that you shd. think that somehow "having troops in Saudi Arabia," and maybe some other things that you see no problem with our stopping doing, is so specially linked to attacks *on American soil* that if we stopped those particular things the other pretexts would apply only to attacks "farther from home." You don't seem to have any good argument for that at all. And then there's the fact that as long as we are not isolationist to an _extreme_ degree, in the sense of having not just no troops but also no embassies anywhere within the Muslim world, there will be a little bit of "American soil" (in a sense) "farther from home," and as we've seen, that gets attacked as well. But if you want to waive that and say that all Americans should just stay right here on literal "American soil," you still have to deal with the fact that we have many Muslims among us and invite still more all the time and that there are many, many things they will consider "grounds" for attacking us, like the abusive husband. I find it implausible that you will consider _all_ of those to be things we should and can just stop doing. For example, should we also outlaw criticism of Islam? Ban Fitna? Tell Geert Wilders he can never come to America? Throw Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer in jail? Allow Muslims to behave as they please, including disrupting Americans with unreasonable sharia demands? I'm sure you wouldn't say so. It's astonishing and...really weird the way you treat Al Qaeda as quite explicable and predictable and think that you have discovered some pericopated, readily identifiable set of things that it's no problem for us to stop doing and that would stop them from planning terrorist attacks here on America. And that wasn't a straw man. I'm quite happy to replace "closing up shop" with "leaving America alone." That ain't going to happen either. It's utterly unreasonable to think that it is.

Which answers your quite odd point about Leiter: Not only should I not give in to such bullying. It's also a heck of a lot easier for one private individual to avoid the negative notice of another private individual than for America to avoid the negative notice of Muslim terrorists! This should be self-evident.

Bill, your theory must be wrong. Surely more intelligent people are more effective killers.

Perhaps a good general would think that it would be better in some circumstances that the enlisted men be discouraged from understanding the motives of the enemy, but surely it's very important that the generals, the commander-in-chief, those who advise the commander-in-chief and the generals, legislators, those who are politically active and influence who get elected and appointed to positions of authority and power, people who thoughtfully enter the voting booth, etc. have intelligence and understanding.

I think something has gone terribly wrong in a bright person's mind or philosophy when he thinks that judgment, understanding, and reason are things to be avoided. Reason and judgment are good things in people of good will. Maybe that's an overly catholic way of viewing things but I don't think so. Anti-intellectualism is one of the vices that evangelicals are in danger of falling into, it is not one of the characteristic strengths of Protestantism.

Aaron, my point was that you are asking for an argument when you don't accept the phenomenon in question as it is. Offering an argument in that case is a fool's errand. To state it bluntly, you don't accept that the impulse towards the totalitarian in the forms of various ideologies is a feature of human history. Radical Islam is a type of totalitarianism, and you don't grasp that. As long as you deny it and its basic desire as a radical control of others by a denial of their freedoms there is no point of asking for an explanation because the disagreement is deeper than that. Argument would only be fruitful if we agreed on the basic character of the phenomenon, and we don't.

The inhumanities of our day, which modern tyrannies exhibit in the nth degree, are due to an idealism in which reason is turned into unreason because it is not conscious of the contingent character of the presuppositions with which the reasoning process begins, and in which idealism is transmuted into inhumanity because the idealist seeks to comprehend the whole realm of ends from his standpoint. --Reinhold Niebuhr

Lydia might suggest a further counter-argument to your claim. If we can't trust anything bin Laden says about his motivations - and according to her, we can't - then why can we trust what Qutb said about his motivations? Maybe the whole thing about square dancing was a clever lie, a pretext.

Well Aaron, you won't trap me in any liar's paradox. With apologies to anyone here with whom I have political differences (least of all Lydia so I'm certainly not referring specifically to anyone in particular), my political views don't force me to deny that there was any truth whatsoever in Bin Laden's rant. But I don't with to intentionally take a thread off course either --and believe me arguing this out now would-- so I'll put it thusly. Bin Laden, among his shifting and incoherent reasons in his original post 9/11 screed --and I fully endorse Lydia's analysis of how the Islamic reasons always shift into something else-- made a salient point that I think landed a blow. In fact it has been made by many Americans such as myself before 9/11. And that point has to do with the two opposing poles of American foreign policy since WWII: the realist and the idealist schools of thought in foreign policy. This is a very old debate. As with any two opposing poles, no one is a purist and some course between the extremes must be found. But still the poles frame the debate, and the problem the US has had (and may always have) is that the position often changes radically when a new president is inaugurated so US foreign policy is whipsawed.

I could be wrong, but I've never seen this foreign policy issue elucidated in these terms at W4 in any clear way, and I think this is one of the reasons that certain debates revolving, explicitly or not, around foreign and war policy tend to shrill and absolutist declarations that have assumptions about the two poles merely baked in unconsciously. The temperature would lower a good bit if these issues were discussed within its proper idea framework. Such an understanding is fundamental to academic debate because it requires paraphrasing in terms one's opponents could accept. That doesn't happen here on this issue and I'm telling you why. So Aaron, all to say, there is no liar's paradox that I'm worried about and above I already acknowledged some truth in Bin Laden and the Islamicist rants. He's still a totalitarian Islamicist inveterate liar, and we should be sceptical of his reasoning, but that isn't to say he can't have any legitimate reasons for why we should be hated by foreigners. But even in this reason he isn't very truthful or fair about it, and there is no way that it in any way justifies murder.

Bill, your theory must be wrong. Surely more intelligent people are more effective killers.

I'm not sure what comment of Bill's you're responding to, but yes, I think you're right about that, assuming the confidence, ability, and such are baked into the understanding of intelligence.

Regarding confidence, if you want a fascinating discussion on the inferiority complex that plagued the Northern side in the run-up and during the CW, and the self-doubt that the "shopkeepers and merchants" taunts of the Southerners might not turn out to be true that this way of life made them unfit for warfare, see here.

I tried to put this claim that I'm treating bin Laden as a liar into context: Is the husband really angry that the wife burnt his dinner? Is he lying about that? No, he's really gotten himself into a rage that his wife burnt the dinner. In some sense, that might be said to figure as a "motive" in that particular instance of wife beating. But since the abusive husband lives in a perpetual state of willingness to take out any anger or any trumped-up grievance on his wife by beating her, since if it weren't one thing it would be another, since the specific trigger the husband chooses to name is not the real underlying problem, to call the burnt dinner his "motive" in some heavy sense and to say, "Oh, let's explain to his wife that she needs to be more careful not to burn the dinner if she wants to be safe from being beaten" would be _extremely_ bad advice.

Lydia's analogy is a good one. Perfect even in my opinion. Any fool knows that the husband's real motive is to take out his anger on his wife for his own perceived failures. We see it throughout life and it is ugly in all forms, and none of us doesn't know some form of it from the inside and can't identify with it. This replacement object for anger is so basic it boggles the mind that some reject it out of hand. This is exactly what is happening in the Islamic world as they are ashamed of their own backwardness, the starkness of which modern communications has put on full display. At least that is the major political aspect of it in my opinion.

Might the wife have exacerbated or made worse the problem? Possibly, but the point is there was nothing she could have done to remove the root cause of her husband's anger, because it lies within himself and cannot be satisfied within the context of the husband's current belief system about his own inadequacies or disadvantages. It isn't rational. But the husband's reasons are a complete system within his mind that makes sense from within, and not without. The same supposed internal coherence for the true Islamicist holds whether on a purely theological understanding or a political-theological (I would say totalitarian) one. The latter is a complete belief system as well, as the Niebuhr quote above implies. Might US policy have exacerbated some aspects for the Islamicists? Possibly, and I think a reasonable view is actually closer to definitely since many including myself have long been critical of the realists (exemplified well by the Skowcroftites) well before 9/11. Many of this view make a connection back to the Yalta conference. But it doesn't change the fact that there is nothing we could have done to avert the Islamic rage because for all our policy problems, we didn't cause their backwardness nor could we have in any way nullified the disadvantages of the religion the Islamicists have labored under for centuries.

That's me, Steve, anti-intellectual evangelical. Ask anybody.

...when I start recommending murdering people for saying things I disagree with, you can accuse me of inconsistency.

As a bit of background, the only time Paul has ever explicitly warned me of going too far in my rhetoric was for stating that Confederate apologists have an appointment in hell. So it isn't as though I'm the only person who understands it to be crossing a line. Although Muslim clerics may be explicitly be calling for blood, I would expect most of them simply condemn us infidels to the fires of hell and call upon the faithful to defend the honor of their nutty "prophet".

It's actually pretty doggoned offensive for you to talk about my recommending Muslim toleration when all that means is, you know, not rioting, not killing people, not burning things, and implying that this is inconsistent with my making rumblings about possibly deleting a comment or two.

Americans have a huge historical advantage in that we rarely have riots anymore, we have occasional protest marches or demonstrations with heavy police oversight. If only there was a conservative faction named after a Boston Harbor riot against the King, then it might not seem so barbaric.

As for the murder of the ambassador and others, every indication is that it involved a known terrorist group. So they did take advantage of the circumstances but they were acting with a completely different agenda from the rest of the crowd. This will sound odd, but I'm asking you to discriminate here. Separate Muslims in general (let's be witty and call them cafeteria Muslims) who just shrugged off the movie as idiotic, the conservative Muslims who were outraged but didn't participate in the protests/riots, the conservative Muslims who did participate, and finally the terrorists who showed up with military weapons to kill Americans.

I wasn't worried about the action of deleting a comment, big deal. I was very worried about the motivations behind it, which is too similar to the motives you are opposing.

Bill,
"So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.
If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.
If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself." - Sun Tzu

William,

Sorry, I meant "anti-rational" and did not mean to imply anything about your personal religious beliefs. I started talking to you and ended up talking to myself, "thinking it through" aloud (being catholic and/or being evangelical is a question important to me personally and one I'm working through).

It cannot be a good idea to draw a line around a particular issue of import to say "it is better that we not understand this." It is better to understand, especially for those who are responsible to act. Perhaps it is better for you, personally, not to understand, and as long as you are not responsible to act and in no way try to influence who will be responsible to act or how they will act, that's OK.

Pastor Youcef is in good company, the Apostle Paul for example. Even if he's a modalist I'm willing to call him a "confessor" for the Christian faith (is that the right word?)

Mark, thanks for the book recommendation. I've put it on my list.

The reason I ignored Lydia's wife-beating analogy is that it totally misses my point. A wife-beater will beat his wife on some "pretext" (superficial cause). Al Qaeda will wage terrorist jihad on some "pretext." No one's disputing that.

The analogy would be a little more apt if there were four wives instead of one. Why does the wife-beater beat one particular wife a lot, another wife a little bit, and the other wives not at all? Clearly it can't be anything about the wife-beater himself. Granted, he'll beat some wife or wives no matter what the case, but not necessarily this or that one.

So, contra Lydia, advice to the most victimized wife to stop burning her husband's dinner might be excellent advice indeed. It depends on the relationship between them, what triggers the beatings. Or maybe it's bad advice, and her husband just beats her because of her personality - who she is - as opposed to what she does. But if we can rule out that latter case on some grounds, then not burning the husband's dinner might solve the problem: he'll beat the other wives when they burn his dinner.

It cannot be a good idea to draw a line around a particular issue of import to say "it is better that we not understand this."

What is it you want to understand? Re bin Laden, I mean.

Mark, Aaron, and Lydia,

I don't endorse everything in this particular post, but it caught my eye given your discussion here (especially the first half) and although "Whiskey" can be a little crazy (he's sort of like Moldbug's less sophisticated cousin), I think he has some smart things to say that are relevant to dynamics of Islamic jihad"

http://whiskeysplace.wordpress.com/2012/09/16/why-muslims-hate-hate-hate-us-they-are-failures-we-are-weak/#more-1036

The Americans of the Right are actually rejoicing in the freedom that lets in Piss Christ. They argue since we can blaspheme Christ and His Mother, we should blaspheme others. IS this the hill the conservatives should die upon?.
Was this the understanding Christendom had?

They pose no existential threat to West whatsoever while the Progressive America fully intends to BURY Christianity. Also the Progressive America had long declared War upon the rest of the world, even before 1979 and 1953 and the world now sees that the American Christians connive fully with the Progressives and thus are complicit in the American War upon the World.

Now, as the homosexual rights have been declared to be a concern of American foreign policy (with no protest from Christians), perhaps we may soon see America launch a war upon the World to advance the recognition of American homosexual marriages in Third World, and again the Christians would cite American Constitution.

For Christendom, the Catholic Church must carry greater weight than the 1st or 2nd Amendment, and the Catholic Church says clearly that blasphemy must be discouraged by Govts.

Whiskey is mistaken. The bigger reason is that they see in West the end of their patriarchy. This is the hill THEY will die upon.
They have seen the collapse of marriages, families, and the paternal authority and they HATE it. The Christians have accommodated themselves to the lose of honor but they CAN NOT. Their religion can not accommodate itself to Modern Age.

And they see America as the Modern Age in arms, personified.

Yeah, Gian, it's because Muslims are so pro-life and so pro-family that they murder their daughters when they refuse arranged marriages, kill pregnant women suspected of adultery, and so forth. You are so blind and confused that sometimes it's almost impossible to be annoyed with you. You've written your own "heroic Muslims defend conservative values" story in your mind and are going to impose it on the world no matter what. Al Qaeda as the guardians of social conservatism and wholesomeness, filled with justified righteous anger at the evil of the leftist West. Even Dinesh D'Souza doesn't get _quite_ this bad, though he's said things in that direction.

Gian did not say that Islam is pro-life and pro-family. Gian said that Islam is intractably hostile to some aspects of modernity, especially feminism and hostility to patriarchy. That is, in part, why many Muslims hate the west and will not join their governments in a crusade against extremism/for moderation. It is not so much that they see Al Qaeda as heroic Muslims defending conservative values; as that they see Hillary Clinton, and Youtube, and the rest of the Internet as enemies of their core values.

Every man with a sword get behind Gian against the armies of Progressive America.

Will it possibly help to note that no defense or vindication of any particular policy was included by Lydia in the post? Doubtful. Gian is chasing phantom neocons and interventionists, and supping on his own rhetoric of decline.

The one point of strong principle is that of "we Americans" [living then, before or now? does generation even matter to the critic?] being "to blame" for the greatest razzia carried out by the Jihad in modern times, September 11th. Lydia says emphatically that the contrary is true, that Americans may not fairly be blamed for the treacherous raid. The blame well and truly falls elsewhere than Americans.

Dispute that principle at your will, lose my respect at least if you do. Lydia has showed her hand on this as well. Do not count unlimited toleration.

Paul Cella,
Who is to blame for a raid, is not a very interesting question. Are we libertarians obsessed with Non-aggression principle?.
And in any case, you forget
1) More than a century of Western imperialism in Near East
2) Decades of Progressive propaganda against traditional norms in Near East.
3) Establishment of Israel.
4) Influence of Nazi and Communist ideologies throughout Near East.

Only yesterday Mario Loyola of NRO wrote that Muslims oppress women and homosexuals. So the way wind is blowing is clear. The American conservatives are going to add tolerance of homosexuals to the litany of civilized virtues.

As a matter of fact, they do not particularly oppress homosexuals-the homosexuals have their traditional niche in Near Eastern societies. But they do mind homosexuals that cross the limits.

The English imperialists wore their ideology lightly and could enter into the spirit of other cultures. And so have written authoritative books that illuminate even now. One of them had observed that passing the Attock (a frontier town on Indus that separates Punjab and Pashtun lands) one feels like one has come home. The people here boldly look into one's eyes (unlike the servile Hindustanees).

Lydia,
Pro-life, pro-family, conservative are American categories and do not extrapolate straightforwardly elsewhere.

What they are is Pro-themselves as they are. The Americans now have little notion of Family Honor. A respectable woman does not dance AT ALL in public and does not consort AT ALL with a strange man. Europeans used to have similar notions in not too remote past.

It is the West that has moved away from the human norms, not THEM.
if they are Shame cultures, then are Americans Shameless ones? Where men are proud to call themselves wives?.

With America fighting multiple wars in Muslim lands, with complicated alliances with Muslim nations, with the safety and wellbeing of troops dependent upon Muslim public opinion, it is at least a questionable act for an American to jeopardize all that, along with the native Christian populations.

Are we sure he is not a provocateur?. Conservatives, instead of automatically rallying behind 1st Amendment (progressive reading of), should have considered the situation from other angles too.

Do you realize how Lincoln or Roosevelt would have dealt with provocateurs?

And the stupid criticism of current administration-Didn't President Bush dealt with Cartoon Riots in exactly the same way-part-apology-part-defense of freedom?.
Those that do not have a country to run, wars to fight and people's safety to consider can well grandstand on 1st Amendment.

The Christians have accommodated themselves to the lose of honor but they CAN NOT. Their religion can not accommodate itself to Modern Age.

Gian, either their religion is the true religion, or not.

We Christians believe it is not.

If their religion is not the true religion, there is no principle keeping it "pure," so-called, from change by learning new ways of ordering society. What you throw together under the term "Modern Age" includes both abominations such as "respect" for gay lifestyle, and respect for others of different races. But you can hardly accuse a web-site called "What's Wrong With the World" for thinking that the Modern Age is all A-OK.

And you can throw into the group of things they CANNOT accept such things as bi-racial marriage, but inter-racial marriage as a possibility for society is a natural and unavoidable consequence of truly holding all races to be equal children of God, of being color-blind with respect to the quality of a person's character.

Real patriarchy comes from God the Father. Muslims don't believe in the Trinity or in God explicitly as Father. Don't be too surprised if what the Muslims have is something that only bears to real patriarchy the same relation as "peace" did to real peace in Europe after Chamberlain's "peace in our time." You won't get much headway here in talking about "family honor" from a culture that promotes "honor killings" for family honor. That's not honor, it's tyranny and bigotry and rank possessiveness.

A respectable woman does not dance AT ALL in public and does not consort AT ALL with a strange man.

And if she does "consort" (meaning, y'know, have a cup of coffee with) someone to whom she is not related, she can be beaten or killed. To keep her in her place. But we're all a bunch of liberals if we dare to say that Muslims oppress women. Even though it's true. Gah! Gian, you're making me so sick with your Islam defenses (I notice you haven't even _bothered_ to say how evil Muslim terrorism is, not once, in this thread), that I'm closing the thread.