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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

Suicidal liberalism

"Suicidal liberalism" is something of a catch phrase. It's old news that liberalism is suicidal. But I'd like to highlight a couple of examples here so that we conservatives can look soberly at the very real possibility that our liberal leadership and their liberal followers would prefer that we die, that they die, that large numbers of people die, rather than that anything be done that goes contrary to their first and greatest commandment: Thou shalt not discriminate.

I already mentioned in Part I of the Disinviting Islam series a rather amazing statement by a liberal blogger: "[I]t is more important to you to preserve an open and tolerant society than to survive this trip."

By this time we should know that this is not all that atypical. It has resonances in General Casey's shocking statement, a statement that should have lost him his job and made him a pariah with all patriots, "[W]hat happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here."

And now, in the wake of the Portland attempted Christmas tree bombing, we have more examples.

The Mayor of Portland of course rushed to tell everyone that this has nothing to do with Islam, another case of "Let's be sure not to learn anything from this."

“Bad actions by one member of any group does not and should not be generalized or applied more widely to other members of that same group,” he said.

That is in itself an example of suicidal liberalism, since if we do not allow our diversity to be a casualty, if we don't start learning something, we will have a lot more casualties, and the mayor obviously doesn't really care much about that. Lawrence Auster says it well, in response to the mayor's statements:

The Liberal Prime Directive is: Thou shalt not make negative judgments about, discriminate against, or exclude people who are different from us. So, when people different from us attempt to mass murder us, what the liberal sees is not the threat to us, but the threat to liberalism. His immediate response therefore is not to defend us from those who are attempting to kill us, but to defend and reinforce liberalism from the truth which threatens liberalism.

In the Portland case, suicidal liberalism goes even farther. As readers may already be aware, Portland made a deliberate decision not to allow Portland's finest to cooperate with FBI investigations into possible terrorist activity because they were afraid that such investigations might involve religious profiling. The former mayor of Portland, Tom Potter, explicitly noted that "something" might "happen" as a result of this decision, but that was clearly a risk he and the city council were willing to take. In other words, it was more important to them to preserve their version of an open, tolerant, and diverse society than to survive the trip. No thanks to the suicidal local rulers of Portland, a terrorist attack was averted.

It wouldn't perhaps be so bad if the only people who were to get blown up in terrorist attacks were the exact individuals who have stated their preference for preserving a diverse society over surviving the trip. If that were all, we could say that they asked to be martyrs for the cause of diversity and got what they wanted.

But of course it doesn't work that way. They're willing to be suicidal on behalf of everyone else, including all the innocent, normal Americans who wanted to go to see a Christmas tree lighting or all the innocent, normal Americans who want to travel on airplanes (preferably without being groped) or in other ways live their lives. And the liberals are willing to sacrifice us, too.

I have practically gotten to the point of despairing of any sort of reality check making any sort of dent here. When we see that, in response to facts, the would-be diversity martyr just states fervently his commitment to his religion, we see that what should be reality checks are just going to make him all the more fervent.

The only hope is for those who aren't really to that point yet. Maybe, even if they are secularists and not particularly conservative, such members of the "middle ground" can be awakened. (The TSA insanity may help here.) I suppose we can but try, but more and more examples indicate that, for all too many, it is too late.

Comments (38)

Great post, Lydia.

From the Examiner article,

"Last Friday, that nearly happened."

No, it didn't. With that obvious untruth and the omission of much of the story, one has to wonder why anyone would use the Examiner as a primary source for anything other then an inquiry into the unreliability of any part of the conservative media.

As with the underwear bomber, Mr. Mohamud's father turned him in to the FBI. I'm sure the attitudes towards Islam put forth hereabouts, should they prevail, would do wonders to increase such cooperation.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2033372,00.html

Oh, for those of you who are information challenged (because you get your information from sources like the Examiner), there was never any real bomb; the FBI caught the guy on a sting.

For another view of the FBI's joint task force and the political abuses in the Bush years that prompted Portland's withdrawal check out Source Watch (warning, lefty site so double check),

http : // www. sourcewatch. org/index. php?title=FBI%27s_Joint_Terrorism_Task_Force#California

(needs to be fixed)

Just a thought but strange that some aspects of security theatre are seen through and others still dazzle? Anyone who is aware of the past abuses when local police agencies got involved in intelligence (Red Squads) would be wary of those abuses being repeated.

As with the underwear bomber, Mr. Mohamud's father turned him in to the FBI.

Which underscores the point I made in September: it is impossible to separate the "moderate" Muslims from the jihadists because they typically exist in the same household. I lived in one such a household myself for a couple of years, in college with three Muslim roommates (two brothers and their mother). One of the brothers was a "moderate" who reveled in the freedoms of the West (though he thought, rightly, that our freedoms went too far), and his brother was a fanatic who defended terrorism and told me "Hitler should have finished the job".

Oh, for those of you who are information challenged (because you get your information from sources like the Examiner), there was never any real bomb; the FBI caught the guy on a sting.

No!!! Really???

I had _no idea_.

Al, I don't live in a cave. Thank goodness this young jihadi was deflected by people who had the chance to give him a fake bomb. Otherwise, y'know, maybe he might just have managed to get hold of a real one.

Guess I am an odd duck. No, I know I am.

I see no problem without blatantly outlawing Islam and closing the borders. No modernist am I.

On the flip-side, I don't see how anyone can see the Portland incident as anything but an FBI plot which used a moron to spread fear.

The evidence says otherwise, Chris. He wanted to kill infidels and was determined to do so. Calling such a murderous young Muslim a "moron" is irresponsible downplaying of the truth.

But you do read the Examiner. Why use a source that left a distorted picture especially if you knew better? After all, there are still folks who believe Saddam had WMDs and this is how that happens.

You will tell us why using tax payer funds to put local police on a federal task force is such a good idea given the abuses in the past?

"Which underscores the point I made in September: it is impossible to separate the "moderate" Muslims from the jihadists because they typically exist in the same household."

Yes it is. Tomorrow, Mohamud's father will go to his job at Intel and he will still be sitting in jail (likely for the rest of his life). Sounds pretty separate to me.

"One of the brothers was a "moderate" who reveled in the freedoms of the West (though he thought, rightly, that our freedoms went too far), and his brother was a fanatic who defended terrorism and told me "Hitler should have finished the job".

Did you go to school in Idaho? Oh yeah, they were Muslim; sounded like Christian families I've known.

Did you go to school in Idaho?

CSU Sacramento, '93.

Oh yeah, they were Muslim; sounded like Christian families I've known.

Me too, Al. Every religious family has its "moderates" and its zealous members. Christian and Muslim "moderates" are remarkably similar creatures - muddleheaded, lukewarm, comfort-seeking and willing to compromise just about anything for worldly gain. But the similarity between zealous Christians and zealous Muslims ends with the zeal.

sounded like Christian families I've known.

I didn't catch the malice in this remark the first time. Do tell me, Al, how many Christians you've known who think Hitler didn't go far enough.

al: there was never any real bomb
No, just a fake bomb that the guy thought was real and hoped would kill thousands of people, women and children included, when he really dialed the cell phone number he thought would detonate the bomb.

I guess Al's comfortable with guys like that running around free.

Of course, I live in the Portland area. I know people who were at that Christmas tree lighting. I'm not comfortable with people like that running around free. Not in my neighborhood!

Thank God for FBI stings!

"I guess Al's comfortable with guys like that running around free."

Lydia, this hysterical response makes my point as to being exact, doesn't it?

Daniel, take a deep breath and get a grip. Now, why don't you point out just where I said he should be free. You can't, can you? Fear is a terrible thing. And Daniel, Saddam didn't have any WMDs.

Jeff, I actually have heard that a few times over the years plus a bit of lower level anti-Semitism from folks who would identify as Christian. Given the way you worded your comment, I couldn't resist my construction but I didn't mean to imply anything other then a few encounters which are a minority of my total encounters with Christians.

Every once in a while one encounters posts from Christians justifying terrorism. I'm sure you have seen them too.

How did Saddam gas the Kurds, then, Al? (Nota bene: I opposed the Iraq war. I actually wrote a column voicing that opposition that ran two days before the bombs began falling.)

Let me also state that I too am a bit troubled by these sting operations; as I am by the extremely vague "material support" statutes. I am very glad this Jihadist is incarcerated and will likely remain so restrained for many, many years, but I would much prefer a straightforward prohibition on the Islamic warmaking doctrines. This would reduce the need to string things out by having law enforcement provide the resources to make "aspirational" razzias into "operational" ones.

Police stings have their place, no doubt, but there is a better way to use the law against the Jihad, and it involves making direct statements about what we will and what we will not tolerate by way of doctrinal promotion and recruitment, and then backing those statements with force of law.

I hate the fact that they had to use all that time and manpower. If we could keep people like that outta here in the first placew, it would be a lot more efficient.

Al, maybe Daniel was confusing you with Chris, above. Chris apparently _is_ comfortable with having people like that running around, because they are just "morons" and non-dangerous, and the FBI just went to all that trouble to "cause fear" (because they've got nothin' better to do).

Al, I don't "read" the Examiner like someone opening a newspaper at the breakfast table. I _linked_ the article by Byron York because it looked like a useful description of Portland's withholding itself from cooperation with the FBI *and the reasons for it*, which were relevant to the point of my post. ("[R]esidents worried the task force might violate state anti-discrimination laws by targeting Muslims for their religious and political views.") I could have linked the story elsewhere instead, but this was as extensive a treatment as I had seen.

Jeff, I actually have heard that a few times over the years plus a bit of lower level anti-Semitism from folks who would identify as Christian.

I've heard it, too, just once, from a vile person who would probably identify as Christian if asked, but who was far from zealous - just a nominal, non-church-going type whose motives were racial rather than religious.

Having been accused (falsely) of anti-Semitism myself, I wonder what qualifies as "lower level anti-Semitism" in your book.

Paul, remember Rice's "nuclear cloud" and so forth. He used chemicals in the !980s and it seems he didn't have much left. Whatever was left over was inconsequential and they had no delivery systems beyond artillery and short range missiles

The sting thing is unproblematic to me as long as entrapment isn't involved as it was (IMO) with Weaver. According to accounts he was given all sorts of chances to back out and he just kept digging.

Having been accused (falsely) of anti-Semitism myself, I wonder what qualifies as "lower level anti-Semitism" in your book.

No, really, please, could we not do that discussion?

Thanks, gentlemen.

Yes, I do remember it, Al. My point is that someone making fastidious demands for exactitude ought to be a bit more careful with knock-off taunts that are pretty muddy as well.

Looks like (according to the FBI's court filings) this Portland Jihadist did indeed "just keep digging." My comments were more general in nature.

No, really, please, could we not do that discussion?

Of course. Sorry about the thread-jack.

Paul,

Excellent point about the Kurds, although I suspect al is talking about Saddam post-Kuwait, in which case Wikileaks has turned out to be useful for something:

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/10/24/wikileaks-documents-show-wmds-found-in-iraq/

Lydia,

I wonder if liberals are really suicidal or just delusional? In other words, they think their liberal values won't end up killing them off completely. Yes there will be sacrifices here and there (sort of like Lenin or Stalin quip about one death is a tragedy but a million are a statistic), but these sacrifices are necessary to preserve diversity, or multi-culturalism, or whatever ridiculous liberal value you want to plug in. Of course, I agree with you (and Paul and Jeff C.) that these liberals are dangerous and their ideas are going to get us all killed. That's why despite my reservations here and there, I know I'm going to be on board with your substantive recommendations for how to disinvite Islam.

If the Koran were the Bible, Christians would be accused of hate speech.

"Excellent point about the Kurds, although I suspect al is talking about Saddam post-Kuwait, in which case Wikileaks has turned out to be useful for something:"

Not so excellent, and Hot Air is simply being disingenuous. That isolated stores of old and deteriorating chemical weapons were found isn't news in 2010; we have known that for years. First, lest we forget,

"--Donald Rumsfeld, on Powell's UN speech, Feb.8, 2003
"The people who now doubt whether or not Saddam really has WMD programs, chemical and bacteriological in particular, are really two types. Either they work for Saddam or they're doing human imitation of an ostrich. They really are, I think, no other possibilities."

and,

""There is already a mountain of evidence that Saddam Husseion is gathering WMDs for the purpose of using them. And adding additional information is like adding a foot to Mount Everest."
--White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer, Sept. 6, 2002"

and,

"We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
--Condoleezza Rice, Sept. 8, 2002"

and,

"Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof--the smoking gun--that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
--George W. Bush, Oct. 7, 2002"

and,

"We know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."
--Dick Cheney, March 16, 2003"

and,

"As this operation continues, those WMDs will be identified and found, along with the people who produced them and who guard them."
--Gen. Tommy Franks, March 22, 2003

"We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad."
-- Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003

"We know that the regime has them; we know that as the regime collapses we will be led to them."
--Tony Blair, April 8, 2003

"We have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. This is what this war was about and is about."
--Ari Fleischer, April 10, 2003

"We are learning more as we interrogate Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some. And so we will find them."
-- George W. Bush, April 24, 2003

"We will find them. It'll be a matter of time to do so."
--George W. Bush, May 3, 2003.

"I expected them to be found. I still expect them to be found."
--Gen Michael Hagee, Marine Corps commander, May 21, 2003"

and, for old times sake,

""I don't believe anyone that I know in the administration ever said that Iraq had nuclear weapons."
--Donald Rumsfeld, May 14, 2003"

Now this is from your Hot Air "scoop",

"Nearly three years later, American troops were still finding WMD in the region. An armored Buffalo vehicle unearthed a cache of artillery shells “that was covered by sacks and leaves under an Iraqi Community Watch checkpoint. “The 155mm rounds are filled with an unknown liquid, and several of which are leaking a black tar-like substance.” Initial tests were inconclusive. But later, 'the rounds tested positive for mustard.'"

-It is clear from the administration quotes above that we weren't being sold the war based on the fear of what a relatively few decades old and deteriorating artillery shells using WW I technology could do to the continental United States (nothing, nada, BTW). I assumed I didn't have to spell out the difference between six inch, eighty pound chunks of iron that require a delivery device weighing several tons and having a range of a few miles with WMDs like biological and nuclear weapons. Hope this helps.

Sacks and leaves, wow.

"I wonder if liberals are really suicidal or just delusional?"

Only when we aren't choosing to devour each other.

The need to slow Islamic immigration is apparent to everyone save those who benefit from it. An insidious internal menace keeps the State's enlarged hands in our pants and the citizenry distracted, docile and compliant.

Liberals vocally ashamed of their own civilization, and indulgent consumers quietly ashamed of their role in sustaining a bloody supply chain, receive a vital psychic uplift. The business lobby relishes the global composition of its wage slaves.

Should those obstacles be overcome, a provision for those thousands of Moslems who aided America's failed occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan would be required. To abandon them to the same horrific fate the Harkis of Algiers faced after the French retreat would produce a moral stain of paralyzing proportions.

Just throwing something out there. Liberalism is suicidal because it is based on nihilism. Beginning with William of Occam, who established nihilism under the umbrella of an irrelevant God, the modern world has been slowly realizing a nihilistic society. Nihilism is suicidal because it is the end of all un-truth. Yet, the world will never reach nihilism because man cannot be nihilistic. I can believe that a donkey is God and worship a donkey, and in a way my spiritual desires will be fed, if only by poison. But if I believe nothing is God (therefore nothing is good), I will intellectually reject the poison that I must eat anyways by my own nature. Man's nature becomes split between his intellect and his will. This is the death of man because it does more than pervert man; it makes him no longer man. Liberalism is suicidal because it is nihilist; it rejects reality, and reality responds by rejecting it.

This is not really relevant to the thread, but as a philosopher and historian of mediaeval philosophy, it's hard to let this pass:

" Beginning with William of Occam, who established nihilism under the umbrella of an irrelevant God, " . . .

I'm no big fan of Ockhamist nominalism, but this is a calumny against Ockham and historically false. Modernity and its problems did not start in the early 14th century.

Dismayed, but not surprised, to be impugned so by Lydia. I am not a fan of combox discussions. Was merely stating, succinctly, what Mr. Cella expressed much more eloquently.

If "I don't see how anyone can see the Portland incident as anything but an FBI plot which used a moron to spread fear" reads as insulting, I apologize. I don't suggest that anyone who sees it as something else is degenerate or irresponsible, merely beyond my comprehension at this time. It is not a wish for the young man to be at liberty, either.

Oh, well. Thanks, again, to Mr. Cella for putting it better.

Geez, uhoh.

William of Ockham was not a nihilist. Nor was he the father of nihilism. Further, nothing at all in his theology either says or implies that God is irrelevant -- nothing. He insists upon the sovereignty and freedom of God, on the one hand, and upon the severe limitations inherent in philosophizing your way to any sure and certain knowledge of God, on the other -- neither of which which in any way implies, or leads to, nihilism and Divine irrelevance.

I generally agree with this article but your ideology is clouding your common sense. Millions of people, on finding out the details, literally or metaphorically gaped in disbelief that the controlled media failed to use an accurate headline for their news stories, something like "FBI foils its own plot." Don't believe the propaganda. The government wants us to think the people are the threat, that WE are the threat. That is the purpose of terrorism in this country, to persuade us to give up our freedom for security. Consistently and unrelentingly distinguish your ideas from the neocon "war on terror" propaganda if you want to be persuasive.

Well, then, those millions of people are wrong. This young man was looking to kill lots of people. He was given multiple opportunities to bail out. He's a terrorist. A real one. I'm glad he's behind bars.

Portland's stated reasons (anti-profiling) for refusing to cooperate with the FBI are scandalous and show a religious (in the bad sense) willingness to sacrifice innocent lives for an anti-profiling ideology.

If Weaver is right about the triumph of nominalism over realism being at the root of modernity, and if Bouyer is right about the Reformation being fundamentally nominalist, then a case might be made that the Reformation was the "delivery system" for the spread of nominalist thought out of academia and into the wider world. If this is the case then the Reformation bears some measure of responsibility for modernism. Does anyone know if somebody has written on this at any length? I've seen similar arguments mentioned in passing in various places but never in any sort of sustained way.

In one of his books the Lutheran theologian Heiko Obermann grants the premise (albeit w/o any reference to either Weaver or Bouyer, if memory serves), then comes to the conclusion that nominalism isn't really bad, thus nullifying Weaver's argument. He did admit, however, that the influence of nominalism on Luther was irrefutable.

Perhaps these "suicidal liberals" are disposed to deontological thinking from time to time -- such that even if "something might happen" without the use of some policy, the wrongness of such-and-such policy rules out its use.

In fact, since people are generally disposed to discount risks when important values are at stake, it is very likely that liberals (being people, after all) are similarly disposed to discount risks when they think important values are at stake. [Probably, they are also disposed to take a different view of the relevant probabilities than theocons... so that's a factor in what's going on here.]

This is a much likelier explanation than that liberals are nominalists and therefore nihilists and therefore committed to their own extinction.

"Portland's stated reasons (anti-profiling) for refusing to cooperate with the FBI are scandalous and show a religious (in the bad sense) willingness to sacrifice innocent lives for an anti-profiling ideology."

Which is why taking at face value anything written by anyone who writes for NRO, regardless of the particular venue, is risky.

1. Signing an agreement to join the task force and cooperation are two different things. Opting out of the former doesn't preclude the latter; it's a bit more nuanced then that. Either Byron knows this, in which case he's dishonest or he doesn't, in which case he incompetent. This is from the City Council's April 28, 2995 resolution,

"BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that this resolution does not prohibit the cooperation and collaboration between the Portland Police Bureau and Federal Government on specific cases or investigations; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that with respect to the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the Mayor and the FBI have agreed that the Portland Police Bureau officers currently assigned to the JTTF will be removed from JTTF and reassigned to the City's Criminal Intelligence Unit (CIU) with direct oversight and supervision of City officials within 90 days after passage of this resolution;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that to ensure Citizen Security and Safety

# Portland Police Bureau officers will continue cooperating with all federal partners to insure the security and safety of the city,

# Portland Police Bureau/CIU officers will contact the FBI immediately with any information regarding possible terrorist threats,

# The Police Chief will remain a member of the JTTF Executive Group, which is briefed on the work of the JTTF.

# The Police Chief will brief the Mayor immediately after each Executive Group meeting, and

# The FBI Special Agent in Charge has agreed to immediately contact the Mayor and Police Chief for briefings regarding terrorist threats."

This is from the ACLU statement back then,

"April 28, 2005 - PORTLAND, OR Citing the need for greater oversight over its own police officers, the Portland City Council voted 4-1 in support of Portland Mayor Tom Potter’s revised resolution that will end Portland’s participation in the local FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF). Potter and FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Robert Jordan have said the two agencies would continue to cooperate in terrorism investigations and that the Mayor will be seeking secret clearance to allow him access to some classified information."

2. There was far more at issue than racial profiling. Again if Byron did his research he knew this and omitted it to fit his desired spin or he didn't bother to do much research. As I mentioned in a comment above, having local formally involved in intelligence gathering has been extremely problematic. In the past (dating back to the century before last) such squads have been used for union busting and blackmail. You might also recall the problems with the OLC and several U.S. Attorneys during that time. Again from the ACLU statement,

"“There is now ample evidence that several FBI task forces elsewhere have targeted individuals because of their political or religious affiliations,” Fidanque said. “Almost a year after Portland lawyer Brandon Mayfield was cleared of any involvement in terrorism, Portland officials still don’t know what, if any, involvement Portland police had in that investigation.”

"In the months preceding the 2004 Republican and Democratic Conventions, JTTF agents in the Midwest monitored the daily activities of various anti-war and political activists they believed were planning to attend counter-demonstrations, and made "visits" to the homes of several activists as well as their friends and family members. In December, the ACLU of Oregon and the ACLU national legal office filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests on the behalf of several local organizations and individuals who believed they were being unjustly targeted."

You've recently posted on some civil liberties issues around the TSA and this is good but I also understand that, coming from the right, you are likely to be unfamiliar with past problems that are well known on the left. Byron and his ilk also know this and are happy to take advantage of others relative inexperience.

One can have different opinions on this but the facts are the facts and there are reasons to be leery of involving the local police in intelligence matters especially if there is little or no oversight. There is only so much real terrorism and idle hands will get into trouble, finding other inappropriate areas in
which to meddle. Assigning all opposition to some PC category in order to fit in with the "suicide" theme is simplistic.

Another lefty mag in 2002,

http://www.counterpunch.org/mercier1031.html

Al, the profiling angle is _right there in the ACLU document_. This isn't something York made up. And it's ridiculous. Also wrong. It shouldn't be relevant _at all_.

Alex H., I'm not into the heavy metaphysical "explanations." I tend to think such things (nominalism, etc.) are rather pseudo. I'm right on board with the explanation that the liberals are being deontologists here. And you know what? I think that's totally insane. The idea that it is an _intrinsically wrong act_ to "racially profile" and that instead we should grope up people randomly and/or "not survive the trip" shows a complete dislocation of the moral faculties.

Which you can put in your pipe and smoke, if you have a mind.

Sorry this is absurd. The blogger is absolutely correct. There is no law of physics that says terrorism can only be done by one group. You can make terrorism more difficult to accomplish. You can disrupt *known* terrorist cells, groups and individuals. You can make some areas almost perfect terrorist proof (say by super-screening all airline passengers), but you cannot and will not make everything immune to all possible terrorist attack. The only problem is the blogger goes a bit too far back in history to illustrate his point (anarchists at the turn of the century, radical leftists in the 60's). Let's just look at these different attacks easily within living memory of most of us:

* Anthrax mail attacks. Motivated by what seems to be a pro-lifer....or possibly a scientist who wanted to 'demonstrate' how vulnerable the mail system is.

* Unabomber attack. Motivated by incoherent rambling by a mathematical genius who seemed to turn against technology....but more likely suffered from some type of mental illness.

* Columbine School Shootings. Motivated by nothing in particular, just teenagers with a morbid faschination with violence.

* Tokoyo Subway bombings. Motivated by a relatively obscure Buddhist fringe cult that nevertheless managed to score an impressive membership rooster of highly educated experts in multiple countries around the world!

* OK City Bombing. Motivated by a critic of how the gov't handled the Waco Raid (which, BTW, if they never had happened would we have been wondering a few years later why didn't someone stop the Waco crew from staging some mega attack of their own? Would we be talking about the potential of fringe Christian groups undertaking dangerous terrorist attcks?)

* In the 80s I believe Osho cultists tried to sway a town election by poisening salad bars at various fast food outlets. Some people got food poisening but if they had used somethin a bit more dramatic we might be talking about hundreds of people dead.

What all this has in common is:

1. None of it is about Islamic terrorists.

2. Almost all of it came entirely from left field. Tomorrow a building can blow up in the middle of Chicago and maybe it would be the work of Islamic terrorists, but it could just as well be the work of someone or some group no one has ever heard of before fighting for something no one would have imagined.

But this is not suicide, just a fact of living in the modern world. The idea, quite popular these days on the fringe right, that some type of mass profiling of Muslims or restricting the freedoms of Muslims who have done nothing wrong will somehow 'fix' the problem of terrorism is simply selling snake oil. It simply doesn't work.

Liberalism is suicidal because it is based on nihilism.
No it did not start out as nihilism, but it did end there. Once it was cut off from its source, it lacked a core conviction it could draw on. It was no longer capable of of giving an account of itself, let alone rising to its own defense.

"Liberalism as a doctrine implicitly presupposed, what contemporary cultural pluralism destroys or diminishes, a single cultural tradition as undergirding the institutions of civil society. Those who welcome cultural diversity (as I do) must be ready to confront the task of maintaining civil society without much help from the resources of the cultural tradition which gave it birth and sustained it to maturity"
John Gray

In retrospect, Liberalism's inner-logic was the seed for its own destruction.

Sorry this is absurd. The blogger is absolutely correct. There is no law of physics that says terrorism can only be done by one group.

Of course there isn't. The examples you provided were both ideologically and geographically diverse. They are also spontanous and don't fit any pattern except perhaps for the school shooting. The Unabomber was apprehended and was a nut, the Tokyo attack was also once off, the entire organisation was closed down and the leader executed.

The Columbine kids were nihilistic and recurrences are possible hence it would be prudent to limit guns and weapons at school and screen some children who exhibit certain anti-social traits. It would also help to limit bullying in some way or at least take it more seriously. There are things which can be done and certainly being aware of kids who exhibit similar nihilistic patterns of behaviour and perhaps referring them for psychological assessment may help.

On the other hand jihadist threats are a common recurrence. There are many Al Quada offshoots in the Middle East, Pakistan/Afghanistan and Africa. Stratfor.com regularly publishes articles about them. As far as I know there is no other terrorist movement which has led to so many casualties in modern times as the Jihadi movement. It is motivated by an obvious ideology and attacks are still going on all the time, as are foiled attacks where information is kept secret to avoid compromising further investigations. There is an obvious common thread here. The groups carrying out these attacks are either related to Al Quada or are franchises or spontanous offshoots of it. They are motivated by common ideology and share a common goal i.e. jihad against the 'Crusaders' wherever they may be. Now, cultural profiling may not be a 100% effective method but when combined with intelligence and already established methods it will lead to better prevention.

Cultural or national profiling is already employed by the State Department to grant and refuse visas to citizens of countries who have a high degree of visa application rejections. Here the worry is more economic but somehow no-one cries racism or xenophobia when some EU member states are not given the VISA waiver but other nations are.

Of course there will always be terrorism. However, at present time most of the danger comes from one particular ideology. It is silly not to employ that in an effort to protect the innocent while at the same time doing it in a diplomatic and dignified way.

I don't see why a self-purported Christian cares about dying. He will go to Heaven. In fact, maybe someone should do him a favor and replace him with an enlightened conservative. We need rational people to beat this Liberal menace.

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