Yesterday I was on the Gathering Storm Report blogtalk radio program put on by Always On Watch. You can find it via clicking on the title of this blog. It was a great show as their extended format really allows deep exploraton of ideas. The format allows you to go deeper into ideas than the typical 15 minute slot allows. But still, there was one line of reasoning in which I don't think I responded to the host, W.C., well enough.
At the top of the show, W.C., Always (the co-host) and I discussed my biggest disagreement with almost everyone else who writes about Islam; I do not spend any time vilifying other cultures in other countries. I do not support Islamic Fascism Awareness Week. I do not decry what muslims do in muslim countries.
People that decry other nations for not being like us utilize the same globalist thinking that the open borders crowd does. It holds that all can come here because everyone in the world basically agrees that being an American is the future or shortly will agree. I don't think that China agrees that democracy is good or that Islamic nations agree that the separation of church and state is good. As pockets of no-go areas in France testify, people who immigrate to the West do not naturally assume our ideals or assimilate. Diversity exists. Challenging Islamic countries to hold up Western ideals is like asking a pig to walk on two feet.
This globalist thinking also justifies our forays into other nations. Our trying to turn Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan into progressive democracies is based on the idea that all people basically agree in our human rights, democratic, individual conscience fostering, vision. But as soon as democracy came to Palistine they voted in Hamas. The popular vote does not automatically lead to Enlightenment-based policies. Democracies result in such only when the people in the countries in question believe in them. Diversity exists, our nation is special.
W.C. put me in the most difficult spot of the night when he asked me what should be done about Islamic expansion. My first response was to find a point of agreement. All who worry about such things recognize that we should stop muslim immigration to Western nations immediately. What I did not mention is that culturism does not respect nation's rights to have nuclear weapons. It is totally Kosher, from a culturist perspective, to go in and bomb Iran's nuclear facilities; to kill Osama for attacking us; to invade and dismantle Pakistan's nukes. What is not legitimate is to then occupy the country and try to reprogram its culture to where it can support a democracy. This denies the existence of diversity or the importance of culture. It, again, is the same thinking that justifies open borders. It assumes there is no diversity and it is like trying to get a lion to be kind to zebras.
Ah, but I still had not answered W.C.'s great and challenging question. What to do about Islamic expansionism. The strategic practicality answer is the one I should have emphasized. Is it affordable or practical get militarily involved in country after country where the Western notion of rights is being violated? We might get into enforcing other's borders, but we often do so to stave off one Islamic foe from another. We then end up sending money to support an Islamic nation. Why on earth do we send money to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine? Are these our friends? NO!!! At best they might vote for a couple of years, then they revert to being our enemies. We should protect and back Western nations only. If we want Western values to survive, to remain a possible light upon a hill for others, our money is best spent protecting Western borders and economies.
That is my best answer to the most challenging question I was asked. It went to the very heart of my disagreement with others who write on this issue. I'd utilize any means to protect us, whatever is practical. I just think that we get better bang for our buck defining, protecting and promoting our culture domestically - being culturist - than spending our money in and on Islamic nations in the hope of turning them into Western ones.
Thanks to WC. and Always for having me on The Gathering Storm Report.
3 comments:
John,
Our show yesterday--with you--was an excellent discussion.
Though we might not agree on all points (Who does?), the exchange of ideas was a critically important one.
Thank you so much for being on the show!
BTW, you are blogrolled at my site.
Censorship As A Weapon Of Jihad.
From Sultan Knish:
"How do you keep nearly a billion people quiet while everything they value about their countries and their civilization is torn apart, sold off and gradually destroyed?
The traditional method involves the old carrot and stick routine. The carrot provides you with incentives to ignore what is going on. The stick is there for anyone too stubborn to take the carrot and keep his mouth shut.
The carrot comes in the form of the manifold benefits of the nanny state that promises to feed, clothe, educate, heal and otherwise take care of everyone from cradle to grave. To get these things you of course have to accept the rise of an increasingly authoritarian social and political system and despite swallowing the bulk of your income, the nanny state has trouble delivering decent results and its bureaucratic arrogance inevitably makes life unpleasant-- but the carrot offers benefits in exchange for compliance and complacency.
The stick is censorship.
The first tier of censorship is self-censorship, in which a person censors himself and is careful to avoid saying or even thinking what is 'outside the lines'.
The second tier of censorship is indoctrinational censorship which covers the range of institutions from school to university to the media to the government's press agencies which set the tone for "acceptable" and "unacceptable ideas. This indoctrination usually involves repeating and promoting a simple concept or idea.
For example the following Indoctrimeme has been broadcast at full volume since 9/11 by every one of the above mentioned institutions;
"Islam is a religion of peace. Terrorism is practiced by a small number of extremists."
Modern indoctrinational methodology is extremely sophisticated and diverse, the same message can be repackaged and delivered in any number of ways, from documentary to comedy to leaflet to blog to press conference to history textbook to op ed page. In successful indoctrinational censorship, every single possible format and outlet is exploited to promote a message.
The "Islam is Peace" Indoctrimeme can be found across the full spectrum media from music to sitcoms to movies to books to newspaper articles to sermons to billboards. Thus elements as diverse as Aliens in America, the evening news, a Spider-Man comic book and the Archbishop of Canterbury's sermon combine to broadcast the same idea.
Indoctrinational censorship so successfully blankets every medium with a single message that there is no longer any room for opposing points of view. Any opposing point of view that does get through must compromise itself to acclimate to the Indoctrimeme. Indoctrinational censorship is seemingly passive but it sets the stage for the third tier of censorship.
The third tier of censorship is social censorship, the goal of indoctrinational censorship is to create and enforce the social consensus of what the acceptable view is.
When indoctrinational censorship is successful, social censorship crystallizes by making it impossible to say certain things out loud.
After the indoctrimeme that Islam is a religion of peace and terrorism is only practiced by a small number of extremists has reached critical mass, expressing the view that Islam itself is the cause of terrorism becomes a view that most people have coded and modeled as "false", "ignorant", "objectionable" and so on and so forth.
The popular entertainment subset of the indoctrinational phase teaches this modeling and coding by in our example
1. Identifying people who hold a "Wrong' view and aligning them with a negative stereotype, e.g. Rednecks, Flag Waving Patriots, Ignorant
2. Teaching people to model 'Right" behavior by rejecting their views as bigoted and ignorant using a fuzzy rote response that has no real meaning
Wrong Thinker: "I think the roots of terrorism may be inside Islam."
Right Thinker: "It's wrong to hate billions of people for what only a few extremists did."
The goal of social censorship is to create a high barrier to expressing unacceptable ideas.
The fourth tier of censorship is police censorship. Despite social censorship, some people will have contrary opinions. The approach to managing unacceptable opinions is the steel behind the velvet glove, the stick itself, censorship by law enforcement and legal action. Currently British blogger Lionheart has been targeted but he is merely part of a larger situation.
In times of crisis and chaos, both the carrots of the nanny state and the velvet glove of social censorship will begin to prove insufficient without real fear behind them. The response of the authorities is to actively intimidate and terrorize dissenters using police and the courts.
In Israel boys and girls as young as 13 and 14 have been indefinitely detained for participating in peaceful protests against the government surrender to terrorism and the ethnic cleansing of Jewish populations. Across Europe the laws are tightening on dissenters on everything from home schooling (resistance to the second tier of censorship) to a grab bag of laws against inciting hatred that are never used against Muslims but only against their critics. In America, far more non-Muslims were jailed after 9/11 than Muslims for expressing various forms of outrage against Islam, little was heard about those cases except backpatting by public officials at their success in restraining the backlash.
It is axiomatic that the worse the failures of government become, the more ruthless the abuses of judicial and police censorship become in order to silence any public outcry against them. That in part is why Europe and Israel are the scenes of a much harsher crackdown on opposition to the Jihad. If the Jihad bears down more severely on the US, expect America to go the same route.
Finally we come full circle to the fifth and the first tier of censorship, self-censorship. The end result of this Orwellian tangle of indoctrinational, social and legal censorship is to induce self-censorship, to keep people from not only speaking out but to prevent them from even thinking about those things. To create an atmosphere of fear and guilt at the very thought of dissent itself.
The greatest victory of evil is in the silencing of the truth. Keep speaking out.
From
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2008/01/shhhh-quiet-censorship-in-progress_09.html
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