Blog up, life down. So why did I start this blog? Because I felt like it, that's why. Screw you guys I'm going home.
No, really, the real reason I started this blog is because I found myself reading a whole bunch of garbage about the RoP and thought I'd at my .000097% of two cents into the cesspool that is cyberspace.
The question for me is this: How dangerous is the Islamist movement?
In my view the answer is: Very dangerous.
This is no small matter and I think it is one that divides the country. In some ways the division between Cold Warriors and the Dovish libs were largely differences of perception. IF communism was a REAL threat to the US, THEN the investigations into communist party members in the State Department were a good thing. However, IF communism was NOT a very large threat to the US, THEN we should let commies, or democrats, or whoever work in the State Department. Liberals did not really believe that communism was such a large threat while conservatives generally saw it as such (forget the left, to them communism was GOOD, or at least better than bourgois capitalism).
Today, we must ask ourselves if the Islamist movement threatens our nation, its interests, and the world. In my view the answer is YES, YES, YES. Islamists wish to replace friendly regimes with hostile ones. They wish to replace secular law with Sharia. They wish to take back lands once ruled by Islam (from Spain through India). In the long run they envision a world ruled by Islam. Yes, it is true that they would allow Christians and Jews to privately worship, but would ban conversions and religious free speech. Christians and Jews are to be ruled as second-class citizens. If that isn't bad enough, they also wish to vanquish Buddhism, Hinduism, and animism from the world--totally.
With that in mind, we need to dig deeper and ask, Q:What is the ideological source of those that wish to create the world-wide Caliphate? A: Islam.
Another way in wich our war against Islamists is similar to the Cold War is the way in which liberals and conservatives disagreed on the role of Marx. Many libs and lefties were always so eager to diss the Soviet Union but wished to somehow shield Marx from any culpability in Stalin's crimes. The kind of standard answer to any one blaming Marx was to say something like, "Well, Marx didn't want it to be this way." or "Marx never came up with a good plan for the transition from Socialism to Communism." Which of course is all well and true if not totally irrelevant because in Marx's writing we find the ideological justifications for the crimes of Stalin and Mao, Lenin and Castro. Think about it, if the capitalist class really was exploiting the proletariat than what is the big deal with killing those who are the oppressors? And what is the big deal if reactionary forces are sent to reeducation camps? Since Marxism is "science," those people who don't beleive in it are under false consciousness and ought to be reeducated. Right?
Many political scientists and historians look at Stalin's crimes as somehow seperate from Marxist ideology. For them, Stalin didn't really beleive in Marx but just used communism as a way to further his own personal ambitions. Have these people actually ever read Stalin's writings? Are they unaware of Stalin's devotion to Marx? In my view it is a lazy view of history that begins with an assumption of individual motives and never looks beyond that.
In our day, this intellectual laziness is even worse than during the Cold War. The intellectual elite wishes to blame certain extremists in Islam without blaming Islam itself. It is simply too difficult to beleive, for this crowd, that other human beings might actual perceive the world in a way that is totally inconceivable to Western sensibilities. To them, Stalin was just after power--it is inconceivable that Stalin might have done the things he did because he thought it was the RIGHT thing to do. To them it is similarly inconceivable that terrorists do the things they do because they think it is the RIGHT thing to do. Ok, some of them will admit that Islamic terrorists are religiously motivated, but that somehow that is not rooted in mainstream Islam. Have these people ever read the Koran? Do they know nothing of the example of Muhammed?
So far I have ellaborated two assumptions that go into writing this trifle of a blog:
A) The war against Islamists threatens the short-term security of the US and the long term survivability of Western culture.
B) The root cause of Islamism is Islam. Not poverty. Not oppression. Not Zionism. Islam.
Last, and really the gist of this blog is this:
C) In a real war, against real enemies, we need some good old fashioned, sweet down-home, funny, bigotted propoganda. Tell me, what would the "greatest generation" think of liberal wusses cringing at words like "kraut" and "nip"? Remember all those great bugs-bunny cartoons demonizing the Nazis? "Nazis is zee craziest people!" Rip-roaring fun with a message: the enemy is real and we are better than they.
So, poke fun at Islam. Make fun of Muhammed. Paint our enemies in the worst light possible. Tell jokes about them. Create art that ridicules them. Sing songs not suitable for prime-time. Offend people that need offending.
We will have no WILL to fight if we do not beleive that are cause is right and no STOMACH for the horrors of war if we do not beleive that our enemies are real.
