Sunday, March 11, 2007

Hell NO, Don't Stop the War

I really, really hated to see my country go to war in Iraq. I had liberal friends that decided that it was a good idea way before I did. Of course, they were raised in privilege and protected from the outside world their whole lives, and I doubt that any of them ever had a callous, let alone been shot at. I like my lefty pals, but in my opinion, they can't understand that there are societies out there that don't respect life nearly as much as our society does. Yes we have problems, but we aint exactly the worst group of humans on the planet.

I'm not saying that we are any better than anyone else on the overall societal goodness scale... it happens that different cultures have different ways of measuring such things, and who is to say which is best. In the end, the most successful society will flourish on the earth and will write history books outlining how terrible the vanquished societies were.

Unlike the self-loathing wing of the left (you know who you are), I happen to like my society. I don't see it as any better than the others, and it's certainly no worse. I like America and I like most Americans. I like things the way they are... well, winning the Powerball could make the house a little warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. I am not your enemy, my fellow American, but you have an enemy.

Which brings me to my point. If you think that our society is worth preserving, maybe its time you got off your ass and started saying that, and started doing something productive in that direction. I believe that we have something here worth preserving... worth fighting for, and I believe that there are millions of Islamic people calling for either our conversion or our death. Their religious zealots are much more dangerous than our religious zealots and they have no respect for you, or me, or even their own people. We are in a war whether you like it or not. Leaving Iraq will not stop it and someday soon you or your children will either be fighting or kissing the assess of these people. They have proven their bravery and determination. They have told us to our faces what they plan to do. Will our privileged, smug, well-educated society be able to answer the challenge, or will our young country become a footnote in a Muslim history book?

That's my opinion, and you're certainly entitled to yours (for the time being, at least). For another valid opinion, read some of the short writings of Ayaan Hirsi Ali for a woman's view of Islam. Ms Ali is somebody who knows more about these things than Delaware Watch (yes there are other people who know stuff). In, Faced with Radical Islam, Europe is in Danger of Decay, she writes:

When I was a child in Somalia, under the tree where she braided, my grandmother told us stories and asked us questions, in order to know if we had understood the concept: being able to recognize the enemy, in particular. She told me: “It’s a very useful instinct. If you don’t know what you have to fear, you will not survive.” And when she caught me in flagrante delicto of incomprehension, she called me doqon! This word means two things: being foolish and naïve. We said, in Somalia: “Stupid like a date palm tree!” Dates from that tree are treasures, and the one who loses them is an imbecile.

No, Europe is not traumatized by Islam, but she is like a date palm tree which despoils itself, foolish and naïve. Things fall. She remains inert. Worse, she gives freedom to the enemies of freedom. At the heart of your beautiful West, it is the right-thinking people with a socializing tendency who do this the most, in the spirit of pacifism, voluntary blindness and conformism, when confronted with the rise of fundamentalism, when confronted with the aggressiveness of radicals, when confronted with the dangers of communitarianism. Stupid. Like the date palm tree. Please: don’t be doqon.

No comments: