Spencer on losing the war of ideas

Yes! Yes! YES! Ideas! It's ALL about IDEAS!

Too many of us are like Plato--if you can't touch, see, feel, or smell it, it just isn't "real," and therefore we consider it harmless or unimportant.

Too many of us grant ideas the same importance that we grant a cartoon figure with a lightbulb over its head.

WRONG! Ideas are the motive force of mankind's progress--or of evil, such as that promulgated by Islam.

An idea is a concept or mental image held in the mind. From there, it can become anything, from a Nobel Prize winning discovery leading to things that benefit all humanity, or to the destruction of the Twin Towers.

Where do we get our ideas? We should be getting them from courses in formal philosophy, beginning with kindergarten (remember Aesop's Fables? They were children's lessons in philosophy) and going through high school.

Unfortunately, PC began just about the same time as our government school system was established in ernest, because that's when the sons of prominent American families began to return from (especially) Germany after finishing their educations.

In Germany, as well as in other European universities, they learned the philosophy of Hegel, Kant, Marx, and Engels. When they returned, these American sons went into every profession there was, including politics, the press, and all levels of education. You don't have to wonder any more where the troubling biases you often see are coming from.

That was the starting point, and we see its result today, with overt PC that has all but acquired legal status, with open borders, with wishy-washy security measures in our ports and airports, with refusal to hire Arab-speaking Jews to translate documents and interpret, and on, and on, and on.

Thank you, Robert Spencer. You are presenting us with the facts that are beginning to fuel the thoughts--the ideas--of many people.

It's too late to begin the process where it should have begun, with formal philosophy courses in the schools; they have graduated generations of Americans without the intellectual means to understand the difference between good and evil (ethics), who don't have a clue as to why an "untouchable" idea is real and important (epistemology), who think that "metaphysics" is the priestess of some cult chanting under her breath and holding little musical instruments in her hands, and who haven't the foggiest notion of what esthetics is all about, or why they should care.

We have been taught that it isn't "polite" to pass judgement, and we feel somehow immoral if we dare to do so.

With any luck, there is enough of the Great American Subconscious left over from the era of Thomas Jefferson and his kind to stem the tide of bad ideas.

Thanks again, Robert Spencer. If we learn quickly, we can use the remnants of reason we have left to combat the danger successfully.

Robert, Last night I met with Imam Abdul Haqq Sazonoff, Islamic Supremem Council of America, in a dikhar Prayer meeting) in Irving, Texas. I was very impressed. We talked very openly about the Wahhabi threat in the USA. The ISCA was invited to the Iftaar dinner (CAIR and ISNA were excluded). My impression that the Sufis understand the threat from the Wahhabis, and they're Muslims that are compatible with the US system of free-enterprise. Tonight in the mosque where I study I raised for discussion Shura 5 verse 51 (don't take Jews and Christians as your friends), the discussion leader had a hard time with that one. What do you think of Sk. Hisham Kabbani's Islamic Supreme Council of America? El Colombiano

Sufis are considered to be heretics to Sunni, Shi'ite and Wahhabi Muslims. Sufis believe that one can have a personal relationship with Allah and that one can merge with Allah -thus the dervish to take one into a transcendental state for such an experience. These beliefs are considered heretical for orthodox Islam.

jihan