Decline and Revival of Western Civilization
I used to assume that decline of Western civilization was manifest in the unwillingness of elites to discriminate. The idea of “the discriminating man,” the one who weighs concerns and assets, has been transmogrified into “the sensitive man,” the one who resists criticism.
Of course arbitrary discrimination based on superficial concerns, e.g. skin color, should be opposed. But this is rarely the case. We live in an era in which any attempt at judgment is cause for arousal. To suggest that the willful integration of homosexuals into the military services will destroy morale and the very spirit needed to maintain discipline is regarded as hogwash, the view of some antiquated past without universal understanding. A collapse of monumental proportions has been engineered and there is scarcely a word of protest across the land. Is that because almost everyone buys into the prevailing judgment or is it because so many do not want to be the target of opprobrium?
Whatever the proposition, discrimination has suffered yet another blow. But while an unwillingness to take a stance is one dimension of civilizational decline, it does not compare in passion or intensity to preemptive capitulation, a desire to support the very movements that exist to undermine the West. In fact, the more extreme the movement, the more you find ardent defenders. For example, jihadists in the United States and Europe state without equivocation a desire to create caliphates across the globe and to introduce sharia as legal precedent.
Remarkably those on the left, who once renounced orthodoxies of any kind, now embrace the totalistic dimensions of Islam. They insist that the full panoply of civil rights provisions be given to foreign combatants (read: terrorists). They contend that the Islamic faith promotes peace, even when every school boy knows Islam is designed to place the non-believer in a position of submission.
The Danish government that once stood up to Islamic intimidation has seemingly collapsed. Now one minister after another finds some justification for Islamic violence; a rationalization that makes defense of Western traditions untenable. And this is rapidly becoming the European defense model as judicial officials opt to maintain order rather than confront extremists.
When Alaric sacked a decadent Rome, when the huns raped every Roman woman, Rome did not wake from its pacific decadent self satisfied slumber. Not only was the fall of Rome completely unthinkable before 410AD, it remained completely unthinkable even after the Roman empire in the west had in fact fallen.
Rome failed to pull itself together, because it denied that anything had changed.
Yet Rome survived. Her laws and her language are alive today. The Roman order, literature, and art are all around us. We have more in common with Caesar and Cato than with Alaric and Attila. Order always survives although we may be on for a great upheaval that will clean up the stupidity of our leaders. Gone are Nero and Caligula the lucky idiots that were put in power by the winds of fortune. But the spirit of Rome survived even their idiocy.
In a thousand years Islam and Liberalism will be remembered like the sicknesses they are. Those are the symptoms of decline but not the cause. The cause of our decline is spiritual. When we have the courage to foster character and duty in our institutions and future generations then all will begin to heal.
See the parallel?
In God we trust.
Rome as an idea did survive of course, as so did Classical Greece.
But Rome’ Empire (and Athens as the metropolis of the Mediterranean World) didn’t.
America as an idea will survive; but America as the most powerful nation on Earth (during the 20th century that is) won’t.
Look at the Soviet Union: it will survive as an idea, but won’t be back again as a superpower.
“In a thousand years Islam and Liberalism will be remembered like the sicknesses they are.”
Not without the accompanying social upheaval, civil war and breakdown in our institutions. Which we all see will have to be rebuilt from scratch.
The odds are against your optimistic scenario. I can’t think of any civilization before ours that has collapsed predominantly from a mawkish lack of confidence, and a self-pitying failure to stand up for itself. We are the first, and hurtling towards destruction at breakneck speed.
We have let a bunch of grubs and crooks in tinpot countries acquire nuclear weapons. we have just shuffled our feet and looked sideways while it has happened. Did we have any right to interfere? Probably not, but a civilization that that sees an existential threat and wants to survive does something about it, right or not.
Oddly, in spite of the cold war being over, nuclear armageddon is a real possibility. If it happens there will be no monasteries to keep alive the light of learning during the dark ages – assuming they ever end.
No, we are like the first class passengers on the Titanic as the ship pitches ever more steeply, drinking brandy, being brave, and making light, amusing conversation.
Thank you for this article Mr London!
I once read your book on American decline in the Clinton Years, and find a lot of similarities there to your present essay!!
Again, thanks!
“Can the West withstand this dual attack? My answer is “yes,” if the West awakens from its ideological slumber and attempts to slaughter the dragon of intimidation.”
I may be the only one around here that feels this way, but I think that when the Europeans feel scared enough, feel threatened enough, and feel angry enough, they will do what they always do best, and that’s start slaughtering people. You may not believe that it can happen in modern-day Europe, but trust me, European history is filled with examples of pogroms and exterminations of religious groups the Europeans just have had enough of.
Most recent example is what happened to the Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo. If the United States did NOT step in to stop that slaughter, do you honestly think the Serbian forces would have stopped killing Muslims? No, not at all. If I were a radical Islamist in Europe I really, really, wouldn’t push my luck. All it would take is one 9/11 in Europe, something much bigger than the Madrid bombings by al Qaeda, to send Europe over the edge and start slaughtering Muslims. It has happened before and, trust me, times may change but people don’t. The French and the Germans would be prime candidates for a major backlash, especially the people in the eastern part of Germany. All that would be needed is a major spark, like 9/11, to set them off.
As for America, we have a lot of patience here, but Islamists also shouldn’t push their luck. If we suffer a nuclear attack by an Islamic group where thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of Americans die, Americans may just go over the edge, too. Remember, Franklin Roosevelt put Japanese Americans in concentration camps after Pearl Harbor, and he was a liberal Democrat! True, none of them were killed, but who’s to say the next time won’t be different? Pearl Harbor was an attack against a military base, not a direct assault against the American public with the sole purpose of killing innocent civilians. If we lose Chicago or New York City or Los Angeles to an al Qaeda nuclear bomb, all bets are off.
I don’t really think the radical Islamists know who or what they’re dealing with. Everybody has a limit of what they will endure and I think the radical Islamists are rapidly approaching it in Western Europe and, possibly, the United States as well.
I think your analysis is correct. America works best in response to crisis. Internecine bickering is the norm. But woe to those who misjudge it for weakness.
Unfortunately, it takes a calamity to wake the sleeping giant. Sigh.
“Internecine bickering is the norm. But woe to those who misjudge it for weakness.”
One problem. This time, it IS weakness. We’re not asleep. We’re in a coma.
“One problem. This time, it IS weakness. We’re not asleep. We’re in a coma.”
Perhaps you are right; sometimes it does seem like a coma. But I’d like to believe that a significant portion of our population does not subscribe to the insane self-loathing on the left. Unfortunately, it might take another major calamity to stir these folks up to the point where they say “Enough! Let’s roll.”
I happen to think America is unique. The American experiment as a constitutional republic was the first in history. Our willingness to stand up for our principles is what makes us unique. Since WW2, we have indeed lost most of our ways. Hopefully, with Islam re-emerging in concert with the old left, America will awaken again. There is only one America , and the world needs us.
Your theory only works IMHO if the Europeans kill their own elites first, reason enough for hope. I believe your assessment that those in the Eastern Countries are better equipped intellectually, socially and emotionally altho this difference between east and west will wane with each generation.
I am inclined to agree with you. Germans and Austrians are reaching their limit. I was in Austria recently and watched a popular television show, wherein I saw a cultural/national affirmation of a sort not seen in this country. They are not going quietly into the night with the strength of national identity that I saw. It is only a matter of time. And with the declarations of Merkel, Sarkozy and Cameron on the death of multiculturalism, I do believe the worm has begun to turn. Now, if those European girls will just embrace motherhood as a fulfilling life…
Libertyship46
I think that when the Europeans feel scared enough, feel threatened enough, and feel angry enough, they will do what they always do best, and that’s start slaughtering people.
I have been reading the writings of the old colonialists: Slaughtering people comes from confidence, and a well founded sense of one’s own rightness. The colonialists could kill because they rightly believed themselves superior.
Today’s Britons, when a burglar breaks into their house while they are in it, cower in fear, and give him whatever he wants. Their behavior on the small scale reflects their behavior in the large scale, for example their humiliating and shameful defeats in Basra and the Persian Gulf.
They are terrified to defend what they have, and so, sooner or later, someone will take it away.
A high-standing confederate general said of the british, “They talk like ladies and fight like tigers.” Sadly, only the former, not the latter, fairly assesses the current status of british fortitude. And the rest of the west is close behind. We do not possess the political will to defend ourselves. When the next “good” war comes along, see how many of America’s youth flee to Canada. This is the result of 40 years of Bill Ayers’ writing our history textbooks. As for those youth who stay, well, they’re too fat and lazy to fight.
Mission accomplished Code Pink.
Common sense has been relegated in America to being an ideology, reality a dogma.
Reality is racism and profiling. To see a thing and call it out for what it is is met with a type of fascist policeman there to see that semantics and actions toe the politically correct line. That policeman is in the media and schools. Innocently saying the word “retard” on TV brings out the full force of the politically correct while the racists sermons of Jeremiah Wright are themselves portrayed as innocent and just and no liberal who decries the word “retard” will touch Wright.
The success story of America is portrayed as a failure but a failure those who dislike that story still come in their millions to participate in, even illegally, which makes them hypocrites and liars. They lie to play the system that they know is great but gain rewards from portraying it as otherwise and play the Constitution against us.
End immigration now; the pork barrel approach is proving that 300 million people is simply too unwieldy a number to govern effectively, especially with so much litigious and organizational fragmentation among minorities. In real terms, our new immigrants bring nothing to the table America needs other than overweening arrogance in light of their failures in their own polities and a similar arrogant insistence on ‘rights’ they have not a clue about except as those rights relate to them. They are Johnny-come-lately’s who have no right to anything other than to stay where they are and fight to make their own countries a place to not escape from.
I’d rather take some of the immigrants and kick out some of the bums who were born here! Just lure them onto buses filled with marijuana from the streets of San Francisco, drive them to the border or port, and trade them for some bright young Indians or Koreans or Poles with engineering degrees who want to work hard and seek opportunity.
“I don’t really think the radical Islamists know who or what they’re dealing with. Everybody has a limit of what they will endure and I think the radical Islamists are rapidly approaching it in Western Europe and, possibly, the United States as well.”
‘Copy and paste’ and well said.
The Mussulmans won’t know what hit them.
Physicists understand vectors. Vectors of velocity and acceleration. Vectors of available thrust and braking force. We also understand that all things are constrained by time: time past, and time remaining.
Let’s postulate that at some point before total collapse, Americans do awaken to the approach of the precipice and recover their vision and resolve. Isn’t there some point in the degeneration process at which that reawakening would come too late? At which we could no longer reverse course, or deflect onto another that offers a prospect of survival and renewal?
The answer is “Of course, dummy.” A physicist will tell you.
Our social-economic-political devolution is embedded in time. It’s been going on for awhile. It’s achieved a certain velocity and acceleration. We’re nearer to the terminus of that trajectory than we’ve ever been, and getting nearer every second. If we awaken now and dig in our heels as hard as possible, we might yet avert ruin. But what if we wait a year or two? Will it still be possible? Do we command that much in the way of vectors of reversal?
This is the question of ultimate import: not whether we might still come to our senses, but whether we’ll do so in time.
Sorry to say, but that train has left the RR station some time ago.
Although you might not, but some still feel that time travel is possible, and talk about “undoing” things, like “defunding” the HC Bill or “erase” the national debt. They don’t say it, but they imply rewinding the clock.
However, 11/4/2008 won’t be back to be undone. The 1960s won’t be back to be re-lived again. The mid 19th century, when “The Origin of the Species” and “Das Kapital” were written won’t be back, to erase for humanity the fateful actions by two Siren-morons that swept the World.
Like it or not it will be two years (at least) before Americans will “do” anything. We are awake – we proved that in November – but we’ve been conditioned to respect our laws and our laws call for us to wait until the next election cycle to finish cleaning house. Will it be too late? Possibly. It is truly in God’s hands.
Decline and Revival of Western Civilization
‘History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.’ – Mark Twain
The last stanza was in the 1930s, in the run-up to WWII, when
the educated opinion was that democracy was dying, and Communism
was the wave of the future; Things turned out rather differently,
but did _not_ involve a return to pre-war norms.
The next incarnation of western civilization will be different;
There is no way back to the future through returning to the past.
I once spoke of ‘the West’ also when speaking of my civilization but really this is inaccurate. There is an even greater division between us and Europe than the Atlantic ocean. The US is truly, to the core, a revolutionary nation. I don’t mean revolutionary in an off-hand manner. Revolution is at the core of us. At least those of us not traitorous to our founding and spirit. Europeans understand little of living free.
The Left are counter-revolutionaries. They want to take us back to some form of totalitarian rule our great ancestors freed mankind from in the war that gave us our life. This is the easiest and most succinct way to understand the division that splits our society. Darkness and Light. Freedom and enslavement. Truth and lie.
However a people wishing to live free must be willing to give up the group’s desire to control. Once you create a bureaucracy the end is in site.
It’s my belief great civilizations commit suicide through a process of demoralization. By banning the greatest inequities from their realm, and isolating themselves against the greatest misfortunes a false sense of security is created in which it seems that evil does not exist. Amoralism ensues. Relativist mental rot is setting in, leading to the suicidal conclusion of multiculturalism, that “all cultures are equally valid”. It happened in Greece, as it did in Rome. Some people are waking up to this poisoness mental diet we’re on, but no one in the ruling class has seen the light that I can think of.
I’d like to be as optimistic as the author, but when my otherwise intelligent friends start parroting lefty talking points, I fear for them. We’re all of the age where our skepticism should be front and center when presented with the foreign concepts of a large theocracy with unlimited powers or anyone telling us how to live. We appear to be in real danger of forgetting what it was like when we were free. Of course, that’s the goal of the power-hungry, to make us think that it has always been that way. The battle beween the individual and those who seek control is as old as mankind.
I wish I could recall the sage who said, “People believe what they wish to be true instead of what is true.” I’ll be encouraged when I see less wishing…
4. Libertyship46
Close!
Christmas Box!
Oh, and the antidote: the difference between good and evil! Learn it or history will correct the omission.
The problem is that western civilization has forgotten who they are and what they once stood for in the world. We have allowed liberal elites to rob us of our identity and to make us ashamed to be men of the west. Liberals have cut their ideological moorings with the west and embraced theories without foundation. Since they have no moorings to anchor them, they have no problem with Islam.
I am reminded of Tolkien and the decline of the west as portrayed in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Unless we can recapture what was lost and reground ourselves in the values and institutions that made western civilization great, we will fall. Perhaps not all at once and only in certain areas but collapse is certain.
There is this endless lecture of sincere exuberence on the left of how we must leave the Arabs and Muslims in the middle east alone to figure out their own destinies. AFter all, in this mindset, we caused all of their problems (actually the Brits and French caused a lot of them after WW I, but the Muslims in fact have caused most of their own problems, note the success of Hindu India and the abject failure of Muslim India, now called Pakistan and Banglasdesh, same people opposite outcomes)
In any event if we stand mute in aiding them while cheering them on in their revolutions then let me predict that a functioning Arab representative Democracy/Republic will not be the outcome as one has never existed and it is doubtful that one will suddenly pop up through altruism and reasoning. Turkey (not Arab) had a so-so go at it for 90 years or thereabouts, but even they are now turning toward Islamist doctrine.
In the end I suspect that most of these revolutions will either be put down and/or a new strongman will arise after an initial ‘free’ election. Could we help them? Yes. Will the left or they allow us? I doubt it.
Most likely there will be a war in the mideast and we will be drug into it. Europe may or may not engage. There will be nukes either here (Chicago, NY, London, Paris, etc.) or there, but there will be nukes (Israel won’t go down without considering that option).
We, the U.S., will rise and fight, Europe might or not (The EU countries really don’t have any armed forces anymore as much as we delude ourselves into thinking so and their will is highly questionable). Who knows what China and Russia will do, probably support anyone fighting us, I would guess (Unlike the West they look out for their own, no Hillary we did not reset anything).
The economy of the world will take a hit. Islam will be subdued for the time being. Yes they have the manpower but NO not the technology or discipline in their armies to take us down, Yet.
When the smoke clears we start re-building hopefully with some new wisdom about human nature (No Obama it doesn’t and won’t change and you can’t make it so)and the renewal of political leadership that is sorely lacking in the West today.
Life goes on until the next event rises up, as it always has and always will. So to that extent the author has it right, we will survive and possibly even regain our former exceptionalism that we are fast losing.
But what a price to pay just so we can feel good today. Hope I’m wrong and I will be the first to say so if this all ends in a brand new middle east full of democracy and feel good/caring/sharing/tolerant governments.
I have no facts to support my opinion, but I believe China and Russian will be our allies in this fight.
Not unless it is in their best interest to do so. Likewise, if they see us take a hit and it’s in their best interest to crush us they WILL deliver the killing blow.
From the comments I believe that many readers will assume that our longstanding policy of multiculturalism is responsible for the decline of the West. Presumably, evacuating Muslims is the remedy. But that is the wrong diagnosis. It is true that we have been infiltrated by jihadists, but it is the financial policies of the progressive movement that will have brought us down; the same applies to the European social democracies. It is pseudo-Keynesian economic policies that have already turned our finances into a disaster. Only political defeat of the social democrats (who are not Marxists, by the way) will save the West, and it may already be too late. On defeating multiculturalism, see http://clarespark.com/2011/02/11/undoing-multiculturalism/. On dealing with the debt read anything recent by Niall Ferguson.
Observing commentaries on the Internet and talk radio I see a pattern when a pessimist or a cynic gets a veneer of respectability, of seriousness, a gravitas when an optimist is seen as a lightweight and labeled as Pollyannaish. In both cases the judgment is freely given without regards to the validity of a specific argument. An optimist can be wrong, or a pessimist can be wrong, but very rarely I’ve seen a pessimist called on the skies that did not fall, and a dire prediction gets more respect by default every single time. (I abused this myself a number of times, getting respect from the friends with grim analysis).
We know that the history is not moving in a straight line. Look at the last 3 – 4 hundred years. How much more individual freedom we achieved. Through the wars, civil wars, brutal dictatorships, genocide, and democide. There are still lands of abject misery and murderous ideologies. And yes, it is easier to break than build, and we’ve seen civilization been overrun by barbarians in places of disaster even here (New Orleans anyone?). But we also have seen people banding together to help those in need (the same Katrina as example).
Yes a Maugli without humans is an animal (fairy tales notwithstanding). But let’s not sell ourselves short. The western civilization is resilient. Americans might overindulge in luxuries, but when the situation calls on, there is always somebody who says “Let’s roll!” Over the celebrations of Reagan’s 100th birthday did you notice one of the most often sited triumphs of his: he restored optimism and confidence, that yes, we can. No wonder that 0bama was so successful riding on this motto “yes, we can” – because it’s already ingrained so much into our understanding of who we are; and he continues to fashion himself as a new Reagan (he wish!) – Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But back in 1979, did not public treat all those who said “We already lost” with more respect than Reagan who believed that we are the Shining City on the Hill and did everything to prove it?
All that postponing an inevitable battle does it make the battle worse than it would have been if faced early on.
Eliminate the Cuddle Bunny marxist/statist/RulingClass and there will be no desire whatsoever by the west to abandon the culture that has made the west the most successful civilization of all time.
I don’t know about you, but living in mud huts and using wooden plows dragged by humans doesn’t appeal to me at all.
I read the article and came out of it asking myself, what did it have to do with the “decline of Western Civilization”?
Apart from a snide remark on “racism” “homophobia” and “islamophobia” addressed at those who are prevented from openly criticizing the non-whites, the non-homosexuals and islam, by censorship and institutionalized “hate speech” provisions in law, within the region of the World once called “The West,” I failed to see any relevance to the alleged subject matter.
Western Civilization (as it has been pointed out by a number of posters in the blogs of PJM) was based on three pillars: Democracy, Capitalism and Christianity. All three of them have been swept away over the past half century or so by the global forces of marxism/communism/statism (undermining Capitalism), atheism, homosexuality and islam (undermining Christianity) and election fixing by state sponsored fraud and public opinion manipulation (undermining Democracy).
The West as a distinct cultural, social, political, economic, and demographic entity is no more. What has replaced it is an appalling amalgamation of the above listed elements, an anti-Western skeleton of its past.
Just take a look at who’s in the Oval office.
Replace the “non-homosexuals” with “homosexuals” in the first paragraph: mea culpa.
Homosexuality, through the ages, has been an indication of social decadence.
Partly true. Heterosexual decadance had played its role in cultural destruction. Eat and drink (and have lots of sex) for tomorrow we die has driven many societies into oblivion.
And now it’s our turn. Over 50% of births are out-of-wedlock and the government has assumed the role of the father. We are at the brink and much of the problem relates directly to lack of personal responsibility, regardless of sexual orientation.
We kicked God to the curb so we deserve what we get.
Hmmm. I thought the three traditional pillars were Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem.
Democracy (universal suffrage in fair elections) and capitalism are purely instrumental. They are means and are neither ends nor foundations.
Universal suffrage, incidentally, is an extremely recent development. And it must be noted that the broad expansion of the franchise, begun in the mid 19th century at the peak of the West’s powers and continuing through the 20th century, has accompanied the West’s decline. This may or may not be a coincidence.
Jerusalem???
Athens and Rome were necessary but not sufficient; it was when Christianity and Capitalism merged (read Max Weber’s the “Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”) that Western Civilization flourished. Before then, it was nothing much.
Libertarians, together with radicals on the left, have done their fair share of destroying Western Civilization; their lack of Christian morality has been a core cause for this decline.
As for the “revival” of Western Civilization, who is kidding whom here?
Did the Assyrian, the Minoan, the Egyptian, the Maya civilizations ever come back? Has the British, German, French, Spanish Empires ever come back? Has Athens or Rome ever come back?
All these are unique, non-replicating, life-cycle events.
Gee, thanks for slandering libertarians, Bubba.
I’m a libertarian. I have my faults and shortcomings, but I don’t make collective allegations of immorality against people who disagree with me on policy. Nor does any other libertarian I know.
You might want to study up your humility a bit.
Humility?
We’re well past that stage where we let polite manners allow the leftist scum that’s now in power to get hold of a nation and destroy it.
Humility?
We’re well past that time, my friend; when libertarians’ lack of any moral standing, them being advocates of a lawless social system where almost anything goes from paedophilia to prostitution, to drug use, to homosexuality to a total disregard for national security and them calling for isolationism abroad, leads this Nation to disaster it’s high time for libertarians to be called out and to be confronted for what they really are: accomplices to the decline of this great Nation.
Humility?
Enough is enough.
For once, I agree with Francis. Tarring all libertarians in that manner accomplishes nothing. There are good people in every ideological faction; and worth noting that the recent revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt were largely secular in nature.
And how is a lack of Christian morality important; that means nothing given Christians’ history of “eating their own.” One need look no further than the sack of Constantinople in 1204 by the 4th Crusade that served to remove the 600 year old barrier that had kept militant Islam out of Europe.
I’ll grant you your good point about “Christians eating their own” and your example of Constantinople.
I’m not arguing that libertarians aren’t “good people” – for what I know there may be “good people” in what they professionally do; and Mr. Porretto may be an accomplished physicist. However, it is the social ideas they espouse that I have a problem with; and it’s those ideas and their toxic side effects to society, that I called to the attention of the readers in my original post (along with some other posters here.)
That type of immorality pushes some Western men/women to islam, example Lauren Booth Tony Blair’s sister-in-law.
Libertarians did not destroy Christianity. It suicided.
Look at today’s Christian right. They are more Unitarian than Christian. They evasively slither away from the biblical position on marriage and divorce, are horribly embarrassed by a Bible that proposes to treat men and women in ways that are fundamentally different, and claims that men and women are fundamentally different. By the standards of the 1950s, let alone the 1830s, today’s Christian right are a bunch of naked dope smoking hippies all having sex with each other in a great big pile. If we instituted a theocratic Christian right regime tomorrow, in a few decades they would be progressives – indeed as Mencius Moldbug argues, this is where today’s progressives came from – yesterdays Calvinists.
Progressivism does not arise from libertarianism, rather it is what is left when you take the Christ out of Christianity.
The ludicrous progressive belief that all people are equal in ability and virtue and so forth, which is what remains of the Christian belief that all people are equal in the sight of God, after God and Christ have been removed from the belief system
The proposition that men and women are literally equal, that races are equal, leading to the conclusion that they are interchangeable, that women can be soldiers and firemen, men can marry other men, can only be understood as proposition about souls, rather than bodies, and when this doctrine is doubted, the reaction is religious rather than empirical. Understood as a species of Christian belief, it makes sense, because the Christians believe that the most important part of the self is immaterial. If it’s immaterial, then material differences have nothing to do with it. So Christians are free to believe pretty much anything they want about this most important part of the self, unconstrained by material evidence of any sort. They are free to believe that deep inside everyone, there is a core, an essence, that is not the slightest diminished by bodily infirmity etc. etc. I.e., the soul. The progressives jettison God, replacing God with, presumably, Nature. So “equality before God” becomes “equality before Nature”. That is, natural equality (of some unspecified sort). And this could be how the progressives manage to believe in some unspecified “natural” (biological or whatever) equality even though no evidence backs them up. Their belief is derived, not from evidence, but from the Christian heritage of progressivism. Their belief looks superficially like a scientific hypothesis because all the terms in it could be interpreted as referring to natural things, but it doesn’t really have any empirical content, because “equality”, while it could refer to something measurable, does not actually refer to anything measurable.
Central to Christianity is sin and redemption. Christians are held to a standard so high that they cannot possibly attain it, and even if they attained it, they are condemned by original sin; we are all sinners and should be ashamed and guilty. But the preacher offers us a way out. Accept Christ as Lord, Christ will forgive you, Christ loves you, Christ will shoulder the load. Yes, you are a sinner, but Jesus loves you. And thus, central to progressivism is sin. Progressives are held to a standard so high that we cannot possibly attain it, and even if we attained it, we are condemned by original sin in that we are beneficiaries of colonialism slavery racism and blah blah blah. But the sensitivity trainer cannot offer us a way out, since God is dead and Jesus never existed. And so progressives are required to hate themselves. And they do.
The Progressives, the Left, the Cathedral, does not hate non Jewish whites because it is disproportionately Jewish; it hates all whites because it is white and hates Jews disproportionately because it is disproportionately Jewish. It hates America and Americans because it is primarily American.
As for the West vs. Islam, it’s been said before:
They have the will, but not the means;
We have the means, but not the will.
If Islam continues to blow up people and stuff we will get the WILL, and when that happens they still won’t have the means.
Those crazy muslims DID blow things up be it embassies, American warships and the World Trade Center. And do you know how long us Americans remained “united?”
All of three weeks before the left went off on Bush and began to formally announce their surrender to radical islam.
Why do you think the Chinese are working on a carrier-killing missile? They know sinking just one American carrier and the resulting loss of 6,000 sailors, airmen and marines and America will be waving the white flag of surrender while the bodies of our few remaining warriors are still floating in the ocean.
I hope I’m wrong, but this isn’t the America of our fathers and grandfathers. They may have been imperfect in many ways, but they didn’t hate their country. Too many of our youth today HATE their country and have no reason or desire to fight for her survival. Like I said, I hope I’m wrong.
History has a way of being pliable and unpredictable, stretching out before us unimagined scenarios of replenishment just as the hour is darkest. That is the condition that offers hope amid the sundry examples of contemporary despair.
It would help if we (alleged bastion of liberty) weren’t in the hands of incompetents, political, economic, you name it…
Video: Incompetence, the 800 pound gorilla in the room
I think competance is a bit of a red herring.
NOBODY and no group of people are competant to manage a 14T economy. Einstein could be in charge and it wouldn’t be any better. The only entity that has a chance of avoiding economic disaster is free markets.
This is also true for most social issues. With rare exceptions, when justice or freedom is a factor, government should get out of the way.
But competance counts in justice and foreign affairs…if the leadership is working in the best interests of the country. When the leadership is working against the country, incompetance is a good thing. (I may have just convinced myself that things could be even worse than they are.)
I wish people would stop using the work “incompetant.” If you’re intent is to destroy not only America but western society as a whole then the folks in charge are doing a bang up job. All western countries are included for the last 70 years. No incompetance there.
Nigerians line up at midnight to be in the line for the possibility of visas to the U.S. in the morning. Our failure is the inability to define, although based on a written Constittution that the world understands, the actions to enhance freedom the world over. Anti-toxin? The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. If visas, aid, free trade were all subordinate to a country proclaiming support of the First Amendment then the battles would rage withing their borders because NO PEOPLE of any insight can NOT believe in freedom. It draws the line between freedom and all others. A people and country too blinded by ideology or stupidity to support the First Amendment certainly canNOT be counted as friends of freedom and should be shunned, attacked if violent, and allowed to fade from history without any of our support.
What? save a “culture” that used science to enable mass murder,greed, and totalitarianism? A culture that has slaughterd millions to impose whatever criminal and demented illusion ,hapened to justify the rapaciousness of whatever ruling elite happened to be in control? A culture that perpetrated intermittent massacres needed to force its dementia on its own and foreign populations.Consider the products of Western “culture” feudalism,christianity(think of the hecatombs of the religious wars)absolute monarchy,nationalism,communism, nazism;and now progressivism, and the frauds that are globalism and multiculturalism( (conduits for impoverishing its productive classes, while infecting the world with its moral rot). Finally: a cultural moral relativism that has made the west synnonymous with pornography:think madonna,made hyper rich by simulating masturbation on stage as a cynosure for Western culture. In short, western so -called civilization is not worth saving,and is , in fact,INHERENTLY self destructive.Mercifully, the West will implode in a COMWEC event due to the economic chaos that will follow the collapse of that most revolting western idea:that virulent amalgamation of greed,crony capitalism, enervating welfare dependency,and hatred of all moral and cultural standards and abuse of the truly productive I mean the western welfare state.I intend to laugh myself silly!
It’s so much easier to forgive your own crimes and perversions if you work up a good mad against the people you intend to steal from.
Agree 100%. It’ now the shi’ites vs. the sodomites, the average person no longer can sympathize with such a pervert country.
Especially living abroad now, we see what a stream of filth the USA exports in its movies and TV programmes… and now the army will be the den of the homos… well, enjoy
The “West” includes New Zealand too, you know.
But I must agree – when we were exporting Shirley Temple and the Wizard of Oz nobody bothered us. Now that it’s Brokeback Mountain……well, nuff said.
They surely have something in common, paedophilia, and thus they’re sympathetic to one another.