Bigotry-Baiting

Bigotry is obviously wrong but so is bigotry-baiting. What is bigotry-baiting? Like race-baiting, it is a form of manipulation. Race-baiting relies on the inflammation of passions relating to racial prejudice—generally hate, loathing, and fear. Bigotry-bating seeks to induce guilt generally by intimidation, innuendo, and baseless accusations; all in an attempt to manipulate guilt-prone individuals. Bigotry and bigotry-baiting both undercut rational analysis by emotional manipulation and thus poison the atmosphere required for a healthy public debate.

During the late 1980s, Japanese corporations went on an international buying spree that included American corporations and landmark real estate, such as Rockefeller Center. Critics, generally Democrats but also some conservatives, expressed concern over foreign ownership of American corporations and real estate. Often these concerns were dismissed by playing the race card, i.e. bigotry-baiting. Democrats were generally cowered by such tactics.

It became clear to me, while I was arguing for foreign investment with one Democratic opponent, that such bigotry-baiting was cheap and unfair. He was concerned with labor issues given distinctive Japanese management practices. While I disagreed with his argument, dismissing him as a bigot would have been an evasion unworthy of either of us. I was embarrassed to see some of my libertarian friends playing the race card on this issue. Of course, this momentary lapse is far cry from the perennial “racial hucksters” constantly in the media. Bigotry-baiting on the national stage undermines public debate.

It’s happening again today.

Stunned by the public’s objections an Arab/Islamic country’s interest in port management, editorial writers, media talking-heads, arm-chair pundits, academic bloggers, and chattering sophisticates are all playing the bigotry-card. (I discuss the port issue specifically in the previous blog entry and comments section.) And this includes many people I respect. Here’s Larry Kudlow. Both Tom Palmer and Charles Steele seem to agree. These libertarians have valid concerns but when they slip into bigotry-baiting that worries me. (To their credit it is not the gist of their argument.) But they are not alone; conservatives express much the same. Rich Lowry mentions in passing that Congress is “worried at being portrayed as anti-Arab” and James K. Glassman calls objections to the port deal “rank racist nonsense.” The eclectic uber-blogger, Andrew Sullivan, is yelling “xenophobia and paranoia.” Oh, please! Let's get some perspective.

Let’s see how we got here.

After the 9/11 attacks, Americans wondered what kind of people could commit such vicious acts. Beyond those directly involved, bin Laden, the leader of the operation, was considered a hero through out the Islamic world and Pew polls showed that he remained a hero to the majority of Muslims for years after. As America looked for reasonable answers all they got was instant clichés: “it’s the act of an evil one” who has “hijacked” a “peaceful religion.” Any thought to the contrary was deemed bigotry: don’t dare think such thoughts.

The President’s critics agreed: don’t disparage “the other.” But they added: we brought it on ourselves. If there is widespread hate in the Islamic world, it is an understandable reaction to our policies. For the left, it is unthinkable to disparage another culture (unless one administers an equal or greater dose of self-flagellation.) Negative generalizations specifically about Muslims or Islamic culture are strictly verboten.

But reality refused to conform to these ideas.

Islamic hatred of the Jews was explained away. Islamic hatred of America was considered understandable. But it didn’t end there. What about Islamic-driven violence against Buddhist monks in Thailand? Surfers in Bali? Hindus in India? Commuters in London and Madrid? School children in Beslan? And who could blame the Islamic uprising in France on their foreign policy? And why are they shouting: “Death to Denmark?” Who could hate the Danes?

Clearly excuse-making was wearing thin both for the critics of America’s policy and for the President himself. The Hamas victory puts a lie to “it’s just a few.” The theocracy growing in Iraq and Afghanistan refutes the notion of universal innate ideas and desires. The revolution in Iran to overthrow the mullahs hasn’t materialized. The problem is deeper than the administration originally thought.

If one is to understand and integrate all of these events, one needs to make generalizations. But there is a standing order that damns embryonic negative generalizations as bigotry before they are fully formed; this prevents the integrations required for conceptual understanding and leaves a sense of confusion in its wake.

The public has been ill-served by our writers, intellectuals, and political leaders who’ve defaulted on providing conceptual guidance. If the public must form crude generalizations, don’t damn them as bigots; damn the intellectuals for their betrayal. I’ve argued on this venue that one can distinguish between the ideology, Islam, and demographic group, Muslims. There is room for debate about an appropriate measured generalization about a foreign culture, but not in an atmosphere of guilt-manipulation and bigotry-baiting where debate is strait-jacketed by bigotry-baiting tactics.

This isn’t the first time that intellectuals have failed America. Back in the Red Decade, it was popular to praise the Soviet Union as a noble experiment and dismiss critics as exhibiting bourgeois prejudice. Religious critics were dismissed a prejudiced against an atheistic philosophy. Russian refuges were considered disgruntled losers, biased against the new order. The spirit of Pragmatism brushed aside time-worn principles as antiquated dogma while urging an open disposition to the brave new world.

After WWII, Communism swallowed the eastern part of Europe and half of Asia. Americans were shocked and angry—shocked at the grave threat that seemed to suddenly appear and angry at the betrayal of our intellectual leaders. There were too few intellectuals who could lead an intelligent opposition based on a fundamental understanding of Communism’s nature. If the first generation of anti-Communist warriors seemed crude to some, so be it. It takes several iterations to get an idea right.

Today we are as blind to the Islamic threat as we were to communism 70 years ago. Few understand Islam’s fundamental nature or the vast and disparate demographic group, Muslims. Public debate is stifled by a political correctness that permeates our culture. The public’s ability to respond to a major catastrophe in a measured manner is slim to none. An overreaction is most likely. Whenever the public is told a lie that paints an idyllic picture, disillusionment will lead to embracing its anti-thesis instead of an accurate measured generalization. Knowledge takes time, rational deliberation, and extensive dissemination.

The credibility of today’s intellectual leaders is at a low. A well deserved low!

Update: Michelle Malkin

The Arab Mindset

Pim’s Ghost explains how we fail to understand Arab/Islamic mindset and as a consequence our policies backfire. Our posture is self-defeating; our generosity only brings contempt; etc. Read it all!

The Enemy of our Enemy

So far this is the best criticism of Bush’s plan to allow the UAE to guard our ports.

Almost all articles evade the questions of philosophy, values, culture, and tradition. We differ from Arab/Islamic nations (such as the UAE) by having diametrically opposing value systems stemming from deep cultural differences. If we cooperated with the UAE against Islamic terrorists, it is because of a common enemy, not common values. If we trade with Arab countries it is a tit-for-tat transaction that has nothing to do with friendship. The vast sympathy for the jihadist cause in Arab and Islamic nations implies that they are materially and/or morally our enemy. If we need to cooperate with a particular Islamic regime to deal with a common threat, that does not make them a trustworthy friend—only an enemy of our enemy.

Write to your representatives in Washington.

Update: Alex Alexiev on the UAE: "With Friends Like This ..."

Flemming Rose - Man of the Hour!

Flemming Rose discusses why he published the cartoons of Muhammad in an Washington Post editorial (reprinted here). Money quote: “But if a believer demands that I, as a nonbeliever, observe his taboos in the public domain, he is not asking for my respect, but for my submission. And that is incompatible with a secular democracy. … one should not be tolerant with the intolerant..”

The International Herald Tribune has a story about the man himself. According to the IHT, Flemming learned to despise censorship during his 13 years as a journalist stationed in Moscow during the communist era. “His worldview changed, Rose said, when he went to Russia in the 1980s and saw firsthand the repression of the Soviet regime. He befriended dissidents, devoured books by Solzhenitsyn, Hannah Arendt, and Ayn Rand, and traveled throughout Asia and the Middle East, eventually covering the fall of communism in the Baltics and the war in Chechnya.”


The above cartoon is one of the originals published in the Danish newspaper but with text added by ROR (hat tip Dougout), suitable for posting in public venues: lamp posts, bulletin boards, etc.

Update: Flemming Rose in his own words. Hat tip: Katy.

Dying by the Post-modern Sword

We, who support the struggle of our brave Danish compatriots, are fighting with one hand tied behind our backs—and we are unaware of this handicap. Our side, in this battle, has failed to use our most important weapon: we are fighting for the truth. This isn’t incidental to the debate; this is the whole purpose of the debate! Freedom of speech isn’t irrelevant to the truth; it is a means required to establish the truth. The cartoons depict Mohammad as a violent man and that is the truth.

But you don’t hear the ‘T’ word. Conservatives, libertarians, and liberals, who support the right to publish the cartoons, have yet to deploy this mighty and noble word. It’s as if the truth is irrelevant. In this post-Modern world, it has become irrelevant to the debate. And we must accept some of the blame by our default.

Let’s take the example of one articulate conservative. Charles Krauthammer, in a much praised article, does not once mention the word but instead talks about how Arab countries are hypocrites for allowing the depiction of Jews as “sons of pigs and monkeys.” These Arabs obviously perpetuate a vile lie; the Danish cartoons may be crude but they are the truth: Mohammad was violent! Krauthammer gives it away here: “Had they not been so hypocritical, one might defend their refusal to republish these cartoons on the grounds that news value can sometimes be trumped by good taste and sensitivity.” Is he not setting up the debate for mutual censorship: if Arabs censor vile lies, we’ll censor the honest-to-goodness truth! That’s being “fair to both sides” in the post-Modern world.

“What is the truth?” postmodernists skeptically ask but quickly answer: “There is no such thing as truth, only perceptions dependent on one’s demographic group. You have your perceptions and they have theirs. The very notion of ‘truth’ is a tool of the powerful to oppress the powerless.” Even those who wouldn’t agree with these statements have adopted an “our prejudice vs. their prejudice” posture. This denies the possibility that the cartoons might be true before they’ve even been debated. And that’s a major concession in this war.

There are those who mistakenly base their whole argument for liberty on skepticism. It is only the inability to know the truth that permits all views, according to this line of argument. “You can’t be sure who’s right so let them talk.” But if freedom of speech is only to express subjective unverifiable sentiment, why is it so important? If ideas can’t make a difference in reality why not limit them if others perceive them as insulting? Indeed, freedom of speech, opponents will argue, is just another prejudice that has no more right to prevail than multi-cultural sensitivity.

Imagine for example, if we discussed the authoritarian suppression of Galileo’s scientific work by the 17th century Catholic Church in a matter that regarded his truth as ancillary to the discussion. Here’s how a post-modernist would discuss 17th century Church policy: “Let’s remember that Galileo wasn’t the only person persecuted by the church. Science suffered but so did astrology and sorcery. Indeed, the vast majority who suffered weren’t scientists but alternative thinkers outside the scientific tradition. It’s time we correct the historical imbalance by featuring, first and foremost, the vast majority of those persecuted.”

Don’t laugh! While that’s not how you and I remember learning about Galileo’s plight, don’t be surprised if books aren’t being rewritten to embody just such a “narrative.” Of course, it is important that other people also suffered persecution! But the fact that a scientist of the stature of Galileo was persecuted dramatizes that policy. And it shows the harm to the truth! What could more elegantly illustrate that liberty is a potent requirement for understanding reality?

Historically, liberty didn’t arise as a superfluous fringe benefit of civilization. Liberty is the crucial element; it is a prerequisite for the establishment of the truth and maintaining the ongoing health of a flourishing society. The fact that it doesn’t guarantee the truth in a case by case basis, and the fact that we must endure the expression of falsehood, doesn’t change the core of the rationale for maintaining liberty as a right.

If we are to win this battle, let’s remember that we are fighting for the truth and the process (liberty) required for the growth and maintenance of a society where the truth can ultimately prevail; and by so doing we may flourish in a society where dignity, mutual respect, material progress, and self-fulfillment are possible. The threat to liberty is both internal and external to our culture; and only the truth will "set us free" and keep us free.

Update: I have an expanded version here.

Let the Truth Ring Free

When freedom of speech is under attack, as it clearly is, I believe we need to express precisely those thoughts and ideas that others want to forbid. If it is art, than we need more of it. I wouldn’t exaggerate, since the truth is too important to distort even for a righteous cause. I’d argue for the truth: Mohammad was a violent man who plundered, slaughtered, terrorized, and conquered. He ethnically cleansed Medina of Jews.

Let’s remember that we are fighting for the truth. Let’s shout it loud and clear. And anyone who wants to suppress our message is seeking to suppress the expression of the truth. Don’t let them forget that fact! We can point out that laws should respect the expression of any ideas, true or not. But when they are true, we shouldn’t allow that to recede to the background.

The cartoons are essentially true. Sure they are caricatures but political cartoons express the truth in such a stilted manner. I prefer straight hard-hitting prose. But whether it’s polished prose or rough sketches, the truth should be respected. What is offensive is the ideology that preaches supremacist hate and irrational dogma. Islam offends … not the cartoons. Mohammad is offensive … not the cartoons.

A lie by omission is still a lie. To be silent or to suppress the publication of these cartoons perpetuates a lie. Our political leaders should stop lying, the media should stop lying. Let the truth ring free.

Cross posted a JihadWatch.

Our Founders' Worldview Vs. Today

Cultural Commentary in Colonial Times

The vast changes in our culture since the American Revolution make it hard to understand the worldview of our founding fathers. For most people the differences are insurmountable and consequently modern sensibilities are projected onto the words and deeds of colonial writers. The aspirations to principles of equality of rights—the rights of life, liberty, and property—appear perplexing to contemporary writers on the left that see equality in terms of outcome and liberty in terms of access. But let’s focus on one radical difference in the ethical discourse of our founders applied to the critique of a nation’s culture.

Aside from specifically political and legal principles, colonial writers had a distinctly different manner of talking about the health of a culture. While they were pluralistic, they were anything but multi-cultural. As a consequence it is enlightening to glimpse their manner of viewing the world, its cultures, and its history. To get an idea of the worldview of the colonial patriots, I’ll quote several passages from Bernard Bailyn’s classic, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. (All quotes and page numbers refer to the first edition of Bailyn’s book unless otherwise noted.)

A central concern was the character, disposition, and the constitution of a people, of which they spoken in terms of health, vigor, growth, decay—indeed, terms distinctly biological in nature. We can best start with John Adams who said, “Liberty can no more exist without virtue and independence than the body can live and move without a soul …” And it is can scarcely be expected in England where “luxury, effeminacy, and venality are arrived at such a shocking pitch.” [P135] Such language was not unique to Adams. Colonial writers would describe England and Europe’s culture in a manner similar to the decay of the late Roman Empire with terms and phrases such as “corruption,” “effeminacy,” “languor,” and “decay of virtue.”

This distinctive manner of expressing virtue is apparent in Franklin, when he says of England, “I consider the extreme corruption prevalent among all orders of men in this old rotten state, and the glorious public virtue so predominant in our rising country, I cannot but apprehend more mischief than benefit from a closer union. I fear they will drag us after them in all the plundering wars which their desperate circumstances, injustice, and rapacity may prompt them to undertake.” [P135]

While England was decaying, the rest of the world was far gone. “Throughout the whole continent of Asia people are reduced ‘to such a degree of abusement and degradation that the very idea of liberty is unknown among them. In Africa, scarce any human beings are to be found but barbarians, tyrants, and slaves: all equally remote from the true dignity of human nature and from a well-regulated state of society. Nor is Europe free from the curse. Most of her nations are forced to drink deep of the bitter cup. And in those in which freedom seem to have been established, the vital flame is going out. Two kingdoms, those of Sweden and Poland, have been betrayed and enslaved in the course of one year. The free towns of Germany can remain free no longer than their potent neighbors shall please to let them. Holland has got the forms if she has lost the spirit of a free country. Switzerland alone is in the full and safe possession of her freedom.’ And if now in this deepening gloom, the light of liberty went out in Britain too.” [P138] (This passage is also on the web.)

For colonial writers, the complete epitome of tyranny, the antithesis of virtue, the bottom of the moral/ethical heap, was the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish rulers were “cruel, sensuous, vicious,” and “reigned unchecked by right or law or in any sense the consent of the people.” Turkey had “a government fierce and inhuman, founded in blood, supported by barbarity.” As ultimate despots and supreme example of absolutism, the Turks were the exact opposite of to a virtuous and healthy culture. [P63-4]

Speaking of ethics in terms of growth and decay, health and degeneracy, robust spirit and impaired capacity, all showed an integrated ethical/biological manner of understanding, which was the norm prior to the 19th century but almost completely gone by the 20th century. Forrest McDonald writes “The process of corruption and decay was clearly understood: it took place when a people lost its virtue—virtue, in the original Latin sense, meaning manliness and being closely related to virility. The opposite of virtue was effeminacy, a term that was used interchangeably with vice, corruption, softness and love of luxury.” (Literature of Liberty, Vol. 1, No. 1)

America, by comparison, was in robust health, full of youthful strength, fit to take over from Europe. “‘[A]ll the spirit of patriotism or of liberty now left in England’ was no more than ‘the last snuff of an expiring lamp,’ while ‘the same sacred flame … which once showed forth such wonders in Greece and in Rome … burns brightly and strongly in America.’” [P141] Or as Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense: “And so let every lover of mankind, every hater of tyranny, ‘stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia and Africa have long expelled her. Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.’” [P143]

A major shift in ethnical thinking.

Since the time of our Republic’s founding, we should note several subtle but major shifts in ethical thought—not so much in terms of content or specific ethical principles—but in the very manner in which ethical knowledge was debated and expressed. It is worth briefly mentioning these changes although they each deserve extensive discussion in separate essays.

Contemporary ethical debate, both secular and religious, is act-focused instead of character-focused. From stealing a loaf of bread to the use of torture, committing a single act, in isolation, is the focus of analysis. A character-focused approach looks at life as a whole; it aims at the cultivation of an ethical disposition and establishment of a moral practice to create a character worthy of handling the challenges of life and living in a civilized society. Diligence, self-reliance, and temperance, are not something done in a moment but traits developed and sustained over time. The virtues of fortitude, courage, and justice, aren’t achieved in a single act but cultivated with practice.

Closely associated with an act-focused approach is the consequentialist/deontological dichotomy. Either an act is evaluated by the effectiveness of achieving a narrow concrete result or the act is mandated by a categorical imperative despite the consequences. In the extreme case, the “end justifies the means” or “do the right thing” no matter what may come. Either the results overrule all other considerations or the results don’t matter, i.e. obey the rule! Indulgence vs. duty! When made explicit and clear, most people sense the false alternative; but it is operative in a tacit manner harming are culture in myriad ways.

In a character analysis, developing ethical capacities enhances one’s ability to handle the challenges of life. One becomes more worthy in both senses of the word: as a human being and as a person materially fit for life’s challenges. The ethical virtues worth cultivating bring into being the capacities to act when others falter, to triumph over time when others dissipate, and grow by building on past strengths as others spiral downwards. This is a completely different approach to ethical analysis than the college textbook case study method of analyzing moral dilemmas, often tangentially related to the character traits required to survive and flourish in life.

The focus on the cultivation of a virtuous character, in the sense of a well-functioning self-actualizing process, goes back to Aristotle. Aquinas writes extensively on Aristotle’s approach in Part Two of the Summa and embeds it into Christianity. But monumental changes in worldview move at a glacial pace virtually undetected by those involved. At the time of the Enlightenment, the Aristotelian mindset became common sense, so much so that it seems to have always been part of our way of thinking. The changes wrought by Machiavelli, Hobbes, Bentham, and Kant, were slow to infuse the culture. At the time of the founders, virtue, in the Classical sense still permeated the culture.

The last clue of this monumental change in focus, is given by the phrase “the pursuit of happiness.” Happiness was central to Aristotle’s Ethics; today ethics is inherently “other oriented” to the point that self-interest is seen as the antithesis of the very concept of morality. Neither the founders nor Aristotle could conceive of such a complete antagonism. They would certainly shun hedonism but at the same time neither could conceive of blind submission to the state, the people, or the nation that is required by a fundamentally altruistic ethos that became common place in the writings of the 19th century and embodied in 20th century political practice.

Re-reading the literature of the American Revolution brings new insights each time. The founders seem so close to us in their orientation that we are tempted to believe we understand them. Yet, a comparison with Classical, Renaissance, and the British Enlightenment, shows how they are closer to the past than to the world today. For our culture, the path back to health will also be a major undertaking—and a revival of the spirit that was theirs and can be ours again.

Freedom & Islam

This guy says it all:

The cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten raise the most important question of our times: freedom of expression. Are we in the west going to cave into pressure from societies with a medieval mindset, or are we going to defend our most precious freedom -- freedom of expression, a freedom for which thousands of people sacrificed their lives?

A democracy cannot survive long without freedom of expression, the freedom to argue, to dissent, even to insult and offend. It is a freedom sorely lacking in the Islamic world, and without it Islam will remain unassailed in its dogmatic, fanatical, medieval fortress; ossified, totalitarian and intolerant. Without this fundamental
freedom, Islam will continue to stifle thought, human rights, individuality; originality and truth.Unless, we show some solidarity, unashamed, noisy, public solidarity with the Danish cartoonists, then the forces that are trying to impose on the Free West a totalitarian ideology will have won; the Islamization of Europe will have begun in earnest. Do not apologize.

This raises another more general problem: the inability of the West to defend itself intellectually and culturally. Be proud, do not apologize. …

And he’s just started at this point of the essay. Read the rest. The above author, Ibn Warraq, was raised as a Muslim and treasures the liberty he has found in the West. Sometimes it takes a new American to remind us of what we take for granted. Hat tip AOW.

Update: Daniel Pipes applauds Europe but find the Anglo-sphere's response lacking.
Update2: Tony Blankley Takes on the cowardly American press, excuse-making, and appeasement. Money quote: "The failure of the people to speak small truths leads to the victory of the big lie."

American Press: AWOL

The Danish Cartoons of Mohammad

Have you seen the above cartoons in your town’s newspaper or your local news broadcast? How can a news report about a picture not show the picture? These are not images that have to be shielded from the eyes of children. They are typical political cartoons the skewer their subject matter. And Islam is a political ideology even if it is in religious form (standard for a 7th century philosophy.)

Remember Abu Ghraib? Prior to the pictures this story languished on the hidden back-pages of most newspapers. The military, concerned with policing its own, had already started an investigation and reported it to the press. When pictures became available, the same story was repeated for 45 days on the front pages of major newspapers. Even though one could convey the content in words, the same few pictures were constantly shown for weeks on end. Thus, the press doesn’t shy away from insensitive images when it suits their agenda. They slam it in your face over and over.

Reporting a story or conveying the words of others isn’t an endorsement of the content. We’ve seen every Al Qaeda propaganda video even though a simple statement would suffice: “terrorists make standard threats and damn America, again.” At one time it was feared that these tapes had specific words to trigger Al Qaeda cells. Still the actual footage was used. In fact, these tapes are often part and parcel of the terrorist attack intended to add humiliation after the physical attack. When broadcasting the actual footage does one not become a moral accomplice helping to complete the attack? Radio networks would never have broadcasted Tokyo Rose during WWII. Giving an excerpt is expected but disseminating the enemy’s propaganda word for word, again and again, serves little purpose except to give them a platform.

However, when it comes to propaganda or editorials against the enemy, a paraphrase or mention in passing is considered enough … for those few newspapers, networks, or internet venues that have even reported this story. Most failed to give it any attention! The cowardly press, in its Dhimmi stance, has failed at a time when its Danish colleagues are under attack. Here are the pictures from non-Dhimmi venues.

Update: The New York Post has an editorial, "Bushies Betray Free Speech," and an article, "Going Atomic Over a Comic." Compared to the Washington Post's article or articles, the NYP's report shows little sympathy. The NYP notes that "Islamic law holds that even a positive depiction of the prophet is wrong." All newspapers, except the New York Sun, refuse to print the pictures. The NYP editorial rightfully places free speech at the center of the debate.

Update2: Good editorial, in Human Events, on the hypocrisy of the press.

Newsflash: Europeans Fight Back

Newspapers through out Europe reprint the satirical cartoons of Mohammad (these) in solidarity with their Danish colleagues. (Hat tip IBA) Right on!!

Internet Articles On Islam

Andrew Bostom Interview

Didn’t have the time to read Andrew Bostom’s treatise on Jihad? Read his interview on Front Page Magazine. For some, it will be a review. In that case, give the link to an uninformed friend.

“George Mason’s” Introductory Articles +

George Mason has a comprehensive analysis of the Islamic threat starting with a summary of Islam, continuing with a philosophical expose, and finally reducing Islam to the absurdity that it is. His review of The Arab Mind, explains the vast cultural differences between them and us. When it comes to our culture, he rightfully points out our weakness in dealing with the Islamic threat. The failure of the left is exposed in noteworthy book reviews of Unholy Alliance and Explaining Postmodernism. The right’s pre-disposition to view religions in a positive light has kept some from facing the Islamic threat. And there are more quality articles there (not to mention the rest of the 6^th column team, but today’s George’s day.)

Of course, I’ve written my own critique of the left that’s included reviews of Unholy Alliance, and Explaining Postmodernism. Had I known George's work existed, I could have been drinking Margaritas in the Bahamas. On second thought, I wouldn’t have missed this fight for the world; and it never hurts to reiterate important points. Today, there exists an underground current of writers exposing the Islamic threat; it is fuelled by independent scholars, journalists, essayists, humorists, and the rest of us who cheer them on. So let’s cheer George on, he’s doing a great job.

Alter of Democracy

Dewi Sudarsono and friends at Alter of Democracy have extensive coverage of Islam’s threat to Europe. Her site highlights some of the heroes in this fight: Bat Ye’or and Oriana Fallaci, most prominently. Of course, the prevalence of courageous women intellectuals on our side reminds us of the Islamists’ misogynist handicap. Just another reason they will lose.