Canada: Muslim website calls Hurricane Sandy "a divine slap on the face of U.S. arrogance"

Helpful advice, liberty or death. . .after a panicky 48 hours getting rejected by Moveable Type, I figured out that they had changed the layout like you explain.

I used to log in with Facebook but that isn't working any more either.

Robert has already noted that many commenters are having trouble with access.

Bullseye

Nice analysis, Gravenimage.

Bang on, when you said: "The fact is that any natural disaster is much more severe in Dar-al-Islam, since the "believers" generally have such a low standard of living, weak infrastructure, and—most importantly—almost no traditon of helping their neighbors in the wake of disaster".

Exactly. I speak as an Australian: vast areas of my country, both urban and non-urban, were inundated by floods in the past two years or so (and there was, too, Cyclone Yasi).

We lost a lot of crops and infrastructure but remarkably few lives were lost (and if one reads the accounts of the horrifying flash flood that swept through a large regional town called Toowoomba, and the even worse one that simultaneously roared through a quite thickly populated rural area, a place called the Lockyer Valley, obliterating rural hamlets and people's homesteads, one realizes that the number of dead was only so low because a great many of those who did survive were plucked from the raging waters, in the nick of time, by the intelligent and courageous action of perfectly ordinary neighbours and strangers who - in order to conduct the rescues - were improvising with whatever they found to hand).

A massive individual, group, private and public clean-up-and-fix-it effort began the moment the wind stopped blowing and the water started to go down. We're still at it, (and yes, we are having to pull our belts in, so as to afford the huge public repair job for roads and rail and bridges galore). And in the process we are reflecting on how we did, and figuring out how to do better, next time we get hit by something like that.

I am quite sure that NYC and New Jersey will be seeing something similar.

One of the United State's most heavily populated urban regions took a massive hit from a major storm, and a storm surge higher than anything previously recorded; and the total number of dead, all things considered, is very low indeed; considering that some 20 million people, just under the total population of Australia, are crammed into NYC alone.

The society and much basic infrastructure seems to have held together pretty well, all things considered - no irreparable damage has been done - and I am quite, quite sure that New Yorkers and their neighbours will pitch in to pump out the water, sweep up the rubbish, and get their city and its hinterland up and running again in short order.

Hi Chick!

Here's a comment from Traeh on Oct. 28th:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/10/tanzanias-vice-president-warns-muslim-clerics-to-cut-out-the-hate-speech.html

He's still around ...and I'm not sure if that's his most recent comment, or not.

Take care :)

Thanks, Champ!

I missed that one. Glad to see he's not MIA and I'm just PFT (pressed for time).:)

QUOTE

The actual web site this was posted on

http://www.crescent-online.net/2012/10/hurricane-sandy-delivers-slap-on-us-face-crescent-onlinenet-3385-articles.html

The degree of arrogance, supremacy, and utter hatred one will find there is impressive.

ENDQUOTE

Which is why these flakewits are going onto my Surveillance list. This kind of islamist gobflobbing is a threat to Canada, America, and the citizens of the Sibling Nations as I like to call them.
America & Canada, hurt one, and watch out for the other.
NOT crazy about America's current gov't--but the gov't is not American People, and we stand with Americans. Yes, Canadians like Americans--shocking, I know. LOL :-)

One move they make that's out of line, and I'll be making sure they feel the consequences of it via the media and anti-islamification bloggers like myself and so many more important ones like Robert Spender, Pam Geller, BNI and others.
Frankly, I'd like very much to see them shutown for espousing anti-democratic and anti-western incitement.
There's freedom of speech, and there's Incitement to Insurrection, and I'll be watching them closely.

Dumbledore's Army wrote:

A massive individual, group, private and public clean-up-and-fix-it effort began the moment the wind stopped blowing and the water started to go down...

...and I am quite, quite sure that New Yorkers and their neighbours will pitch in to pump out the water, sweep up the rubbish, and get their city and its hinterland up and running again in short order.
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This is very true, DDA. The first thing I heard on news radio today—and keep in mind that I live 3,000 miles away from the path of Hurricane Sandy—was an interview with Massachusetts' Governor Deval Patrick.

As soon as Massachusetts realized that they were going to be less hard hit by the storm than was feared, the state set to work deploying their fire and rescue resources to New York and New Jersey to help out their neighbors.

As the philosophical synthesis of Christendom was breaking down and reconfiguring in the early modern period, Leibniz felt it necessary to revisit the problem and to try to defend God anew -- though this is entirely unnecessary, as orthodox Christian theology already adequately did so long before Leibniz.

… Enlightenment thinkers as well as Christian thinkers to one degree or another corrupted by Enlightenment axioms (cf. Kierkegaard) scrambled around, either trying to salvage God from the earthquake, or pronouncing Him more or less dead or ineffective.

LemonLime,

What you are referring to here touches on a vital point in the grand scheme of things, and I have a few further thoughts. (They are wildly OT, and have nothing to do with natural disasters, but I beg the readers’ indulgence. Also, this post is a bit down-page now, so what the heck.)

As Robert Spencer has said so well so many times before, we are never going to win this war unless we recapture a sense of what it is we’re fighting FOR – Western Civilization, Judeo-Christian culture.

Part of what is necessary on that front is, to put it bluntly, getting atheists under control. Bringing them back down to Earth, and reminding them of their roots. Because presently, they are having an incredibly destructive impact on our efforts. They hinder our ability to fight Islam with civilizational unity, and even denigrate and oppose Western Civilization more broadly.

Contemporary Western atheism is a mutation of Modernity. Modernity was a great thing, that brought us many gifts, but not every idea arrived at through reason is a good one. One can reasonably arrive at a bad idea. (Not that I’m necessarily saying that atheism is a bad idea – one can’t be forced to have a religious feeling. But it can be taken to destructive extremes.)

If one considers Descartes sort of Modernity’s philosophical “kick-off,” there was nothing atheistic whatsoever about his epistemological scheme. In Descartes’ epistemology, reason and the belief in God marched forward hand in hand.

Unfortunately, as time wore on (and one can perhaps think of, for example, the Leibniz period as a point where things started to get shaky) the process of Modern reason led people to question various aspects of Christianity, and ultimately, certainly by the 20th Century, reject the existence of God altogether.

Thus, contemporary atheism in our society is a kind of hyper-rationality, a kind of hyper-empiricism. The idea is that nothing can be known unless it can be proven scientifically. It’s kind of Descartes on steroids, with the steroid use leading to a rejection of God.

But far more important in the context of the global jihad is the fact that present day Western atheists not only reject the idea of God based on empirical thought, but they view atheists and atheism as wholly distinct from, and mightily superior to, the Judeo-Christian tradition. They look down on Judeo-Christianity as an inferior relic of a bygone era. This reflects a false understanding, and it is one of the worst and most civilizationally destructive unfortunate byproducts of Modernity. It is something that we must urgently redress.

If atheists properly understood the grand historical philosophical trajectory of our civilizational development, they would correctly recognize that present day atheism is not distinct from, much less superior to, the Judeo-Christian tradition, but is rather a sub-set of it. Their particular brand of atheism would not exist were it not for Christianity.

As I say, these people need to be brought back down to Earth. They need to get over themselves and recognize where they come from, and understand this grand historical timeline. If we continue to allow atheists to get away with their hyper-empirical supremacism unanswered, it will be one of the things that cost us victory over Islam.

Fiqh Al-Matter wrote:

Part of what is necessary on that front is, to put it bluntly, getting atheists under control...
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Hey! You know what's *great* for "getting atheists under control"? Islam!

That's right—under Islam, atheists are too terrified to admit they are atheists, and if they dare to utter any atheistic sentiments they can be charged with "apostasy" under Shari'ah Blasphemy laws.

That's the ticket! sarc/off

Your screen name is quite amusing; I hope you don't suffer from low self-esteem. When I say it out loud, I think of islam and most muslims.

Your screen name is quite amusing; I hope you don't suffer from low self-esteem. When I say it out loud, I think of islam and most muslims.

Fiqh,

You raise an issue of great complexity. For brevity's sake right now, I'd just suggest that

1) atheism per se is not the only feature of the kinesis of Modernity: there are many shades, ranging in a spectrum including agnosticism and varying degrees of religious passivity or indifference;

2) the profoundly prevalent detachment of the sociopolitical realm from religion which has occurred throughout the modern West is not likely to be reversed:

a) how would it be reversed? the sheer numbers of modern Westerners who are either atheist, or agnostic, or religiously passive or indifferent in various degrees, and the overwhelming cultural consensus that tends to relegate religion to one lifestyle among others, reflects a paradigm shift too massive to expect reversal, it seems to me

b) and secondly, this paradigm shift also has a silver lining, in that it reflects a profound readjustment of the, for want of a better term, "Church/State" relation.

If there were only one definitive Religion by which to order society, there wouldn't be that much of a problem, once that Religion was persuasively proved to everyone to be salutary for man. The problem is that there is a multiplicity of Absolute Truths out there -- and the best way to adjudicate this in the realm of society and laws, as our Founding Fathers realized, is through a kind of "Neutral Umbrella" so to speak, by which all the Absolute Truths (and their representatives and followers) may live in relative harmony together, without any one of them arrogating to themselves the right to compel others to submit to their version of the Absolute Truth.

(I leave out the complicating factor of the distinction between sectarian representation of the Absolute Truth, and the philosophical determination of Abolute Truth and its factual concretion in laws and social morals blended into culture in a generalized way and thus ummoored, so to speak, from any denomination that would establish apodictic authority to it -- thus remaining more or less suspended in a limbo between "relativists" and "absolutists" whereby either faction can arguably derive justification for their position.)

This silver lining is, to put it simply, both good and bad. But there doesn't seem to be any other choice -- as long as people insist on having different opinions about what the Absolute Truth is.

As far as the problem of Islam goes, from my study of the situation over these past 12 years, it seems evident that at least a slim majority of Jews and Christians are PC MC, and are thus enabling, through their starry-eyed illiteracy about Islam and their good intentions (informed both by their interpretation of their own religion and by their politically correct multiculturalist ethos), the advance of the revival of Islam going on around the world. And many of these Jews and Christians are quite religious -- it's just that their religion is heavily saturated with PC MC values (if not, at times, frankly Leftist values).

So our problem is not so much atheism or religion, but PC MC. Since PC MC is a recent fashion (only in mainstream dominance for about 60 years), there is good reason to hope that it will not last forever.

The bad news, however, is that PC MC's undoing may only be hastened by horrific multiple attacks far worse than 911 on various Western locations by Muslims over the coming decades. Otherwise, without that kind of tragic jolt to their senses to wake them up to reality, PC MCs could well settle into their Fukuyamish NPR-radio-listening IKEA-furnishing Tully's-espresso-sipping Whole-Foods-shopping bourgeois liberal mentality for a good 100 or 200 more years if not longer.

''Part of what is necessary on that front is, to put it bluntly, getting atheists under control. Bringing them back down to Earth, and reminding them of their roots. Because presently, they are having an incredibly destructive impact on our efforts. They hinder our ability to fight Islam with civilizational unity, and even denigrate and oppose Western Civilization more broadly''

You certainly ascribe a tremendous amount of power to atheists. What about agnostics ? Do we need to be ''brought under control'', as well ?

And just how do you propose 'controlling' us ?

As gravenimage noted, **islam** would appear to be just what the doctor ordered.

Or would you prefer heresy trials ?

Oh relax. I was very clear in my post. If you can’t understand basic English, that’s not my problem.

I’m not religious either. I have no religious feeling whatsoever. Most people would probably categorize me as an atheist. (Although I think of myself as more of a Post-Modernist, which I don’t really see as the same thing.)

My only point was that we need to have civilizational unity if we’re going to fight this war effectively, and right now most people who consider themselves pure atheists are an obstacle to that. There are many other obstacles, but I decided to focus on atheists in that particular post only because the trend illustrated in the Modernist philosophical period that LemonLime referred to in his post evoked it.

In other words, again, to use myself as an example, even though I am not religious, it would be idiotic of me to deny that I am a product of the Judeo-Christian tradition. I am very proud of that, and I wish to fight on its behalf. In our attention-span impoverished society, people think they just popped out of the womb thinking the things they think. In reality, in almost every instance, they only think the things they think because someone else earlier in our civilizational history thought them first. We are all products of this great tradition, and there needs to be a renewed appreciation of that.

That’s all I’m saying. Thanks for providing a perfect example of why today’s atheists are problematic though.

Fiqh Al-Matter, I do agree with you and LemonLime that atheism—I would, perhaps, use the term secular rationalism—in the modern West is intellectually very much an inheritor of the Judeo-Christian intellectual tradition.

I would also agree that this is not always acknowledged.

But I would disagree with your assertion that agnosticism and atheism in the West is a major obstacle to fighting Jihad, and I would disagree even more with your claim that atheists need to be "controlled".

Certainly, PC/MC sentiments present a problem in the form of moral equivalence and a frequent inability to take *any* threat to our freedoms really seriously—but many religious Christians and Jews have the same propensity for this that agnostics and atheists do. It is, in fact, more generally a problem of modern Western culture.

You wrote, replying to Jan:

That’s all I’m saying. Thanks for providing a perfect example of why today’s atheists are problematic though.
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Jan is an absolutely staunch Anti-Jihadist. She does not present any sort of "problem" in standing against Islam.

In fact, there are many atheists and agnostics who passionately stand against Jihad, including many JW commentators such as Wellington and Hugh Fitzgerald. Christopher Hitchens was an atheist who was also *very* clear-eyed about the Jihad threat, and wasn't afraid to say so.

I look forward to your posts, but I believe you are way off base here—especially in your response to Jan.

Fiqh Al-Matter, I do agree with you and LemonLime that atheism—I would, perhaps, use the term secular rationalism—in the modern West is intellectually very much an inheritor of the Judeo-Christian intellectual tradition.

First of all, that was well phrased, except that I don’t know that I would have used the word “inheritor.” It makes it sound like the Judeo-Christian tradition is a fossilized relic that is now in the hands of “secular rationalist” museum curators. (“Secular rationalists,” who often are often, frankly, wrong). The Judeo-Christian worldview is very much alive.

Secondly, yes, the PC/MC mental disease is indeed one of our major obstacles. In my view, it overlaps with the Modernist-mutation atheist problem, but is also distinct from it, and I was strictly addressing the Modernist-mutation atheist problem.

Thirdly, I’m sorry if I sounded a bit surly and sounded out of line in response to Jan. In fairness though, Jan freaked out first, and I’m kind of fast on the draw.

Sorry Jan. I’m sure you’re a fine person.

Having said that, the tone of Jan’s post conveyed to me that her staunch anti-jihadism, admirable as that is, was founded more in a belief that we have a common enemy (which we do), rather than an appreciation for the Judeo-Christian tradition and the need for ideological unity. The “common enemy” motivation, I would argue, is not going to be sufficient for us to win this war. I’d rather have someone like that then someone who isn’t an anti-jihadist at all, but ultimately, that’s just not going to cut it. That means you have reluctant fighters and internal division, and that’s when things get sloppy. The only way we are going to win this war is if everyone is fervently on the side of the Judeo-Christian tradition because they believe in it. (As well as the Greco-Roman track, and whatever else people might reasonably consider the lineage of Western Civilization.) Rather than ridiculously ranting about “heresy trials,” Jan should be thanking me for making an important point that can help strengthen our movement. (Or at least it would if anyone other than one or two people read it.)

Maybe my use of the expression “brought under control” is throwing some people off. I simply meant “brought into a corrected understanding that present day Western atheism is a subset of the Judeo-Christian tradition, not something which is distinct from it.”

Seems pretty clear to me.

Fiqh Al-Matter wrote:

Fiqh Al-Matter, I do agree with you and LemonLime that atheism—I would, perhaps, use the term secular rationalism—in the modern West is intellectually very much an inheritor of the Judeo-Christian intellectual tradition.

First of all, that was well phrased, except that I don’t know that I would have used the word “inheritor.” It makes it sound like the Judeo-Christian tradition is a fossilized relic that is now in the hands of “secular rationalist” museum curators.
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Well, you're quite right—I was *in no way* intending to imply that Judaism and Christianity are relics of the past. Indeed, nothing could be father from the truth, especially in the United States, where they represent a vibrant and *very much ongoing* tradition. I certainly might have phrased that better.

And "secular rationalist" doesn't describe every agnostic and atheist, either—certainly you find secular strains of irrationality, as well.

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Thirdly, I’m sorry if I sounded a bit surly and sounded out of line in response to Jan. In fairness though, Jan freaked out first, and I’m kind of fast on the draw.

Sorry Jan. I’m sure you’re a fine person.

Having said that, the tone of Jan’s post conveyed to me that her staunch anti-jihadism, admirable as that is, was founded more in a belief that we have a common enemy (which we do), rather than an appreciation for the Judeo-Christian tradition and the need for ideological unity. The “common enemy” motivation, I would argue, is not going to be sufficient for us to win this war. I’d rather have someone like that then someone who isn’t an anti-jihadist at all, but ultimately, that’s just not going to cut it. That means you have reluctant fighters and internal division, and that’s when things get sloppy. The only way we are going to win this war is if everyone is fervently on the side of the Judeo-Christian tradition because they believe in it. (As well as the Greco-Roman track, and whatever else people might reasonably consider the lineage of Western Civilization.)
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"Ideological unity"? I think you're going to set yourself up for sore disappointment if you insist on *that* before you fight Jihad. In fact, one of the hallmarks of the West is its openness to a wide variety of ideas.

Do you remember those WWII movies, where the unit was made up of a wet-behind-the-ears southern farm boy, a fast-talking, wise-cracking Jewish guy from Brooklyn, a slow-talking Western cowboy, an upper-crust Manhattan heir to a Wall Street fortune, and the salt-of-the-earth older Mid-Western family man, all held together by tough-as-nails career military Sarge?

These things could be pretty corny, but they also told an important truth as the guys put aside their differences of class, faith, and region, in order to fight for freedom and against fascism.

And not every member of that unit had to have a full understanding of history and the tradition of freedom in order to defend it.

One could make an even broader case for Anti-Jihadists, who come from an enormous range of faiths, nations, cultures, and political backgrounds.

I simply don't believe you are going to be able to "control" any group of Anti-Jihadists. In fact, as I see it, the whole point is that you appeal to their decency and intelligence and make your case. This is the *exact opposite* of what Islam does, which forces a single point of view and backs it up with unspeakable savagery.

I don't believe you are ever going to be able to eliminate differing points of view among Anti-Jihadists—nor do I believe that this would necessarily be a desirable thing.

Robert Spencer, a devout Melkite Catholic, has allied with all sorts of Anti-Jihadists with whom he may have certain differences: including Hugh Fitzgerald, who is an atheist; and Pamela Geller, who is ethnically Jewish and philosophically an atheist Objectivist. He has also allied with people of diverse religious and political beliefs.

It is possible to have certain differences—some even quite pronounced—and still regard each other with respect.

Despite the knocks it has taken in recent years, though, I would contend that the West in general—and, perhaps, the Anglophone world in particular—has a deep-seated love of freedom. I believe that many Westerners can be shown the Jihad threat and roused to a commitment to defend that freedom.

I believe, in fact, that this is *already happening*—although I have been as frustrated by its slowness as anyone here.

Does this necessitate our all agreeing with each other on every point, including the history and origin of those freedoms? I don't believe it does. Sometimes a recognition of a common enemy and the holding of a few crucial values in common *is* enough.

I'm afraid I have to disagree with you quite pointedly that Anti-Jihadists like Jan are "not going to cut it". She has been posting at JW for years, and I consider her one of the very strongest Anti-Jihadists here. If you don't want to stand with her, it is, in my opinion, your loss.

As always, though, I look forward to reading your posts—whatever our differences.

Graven, thank you **so** much for your defence of me, it is much appreciated.

Your response to Fiqh Al-Matter is eloquent, and masterly. You say all the things I would have wished to say, but not half so well.

As for Fiqh Al-Matter, I think he was gratuitously and unneccessarily rude, so I shan't bother replying to his comments. I don't need to, anyway, as you did so brilliantly !

Graven,

First of all, let me stress that I am enjoying our exchange, and I respect your intelligence immensely. I know you are a dedicated freedom fighter, and we are just hashing out some particulars.

And with regard to Jan, I didn’t mean anything personal by it. What is the quote from Hunter S. Thompson? Something like, ‘a man who is on a search for truth should expect no mercy … and give none.’

With all of that out of the way, let me get to the crux of your post, which I take to be this:

"Ideological unity"? I think you're going to set yourself up for sore disappointment if you insist on *that* before you fight Jihad. In fact, one of the hallmarks of the West is its openness to a wide variety of ideas.

Do you remember those WWII movies, where the unit was made up of a wet-behind-the-ears southern farm boy, a fast-talking, wise-cracking Jewish guy from Brooklyn, a slow-talking Western cowboy, an upper-crust Manhattan heir to a Wall Street fortune, and the salt-of-the-earth older Mid-Western family man, all held together by tough-as-nails career military Sarge?

These things could be pretty corny, but they also told an important truth as the guys put aside their differences of class, faith, and region, in order to fight for freedom and against fascism.

There are many parallels between today’s pitch and World War Two, but there are ways in which those cases differ as well. The Nazis, as evil as they were, were nonetheless Westerners. They had Western values. Certainly badly warped ones, but they were Western nonetheless. The scope of the ideological element of the conflict was much narrower. In the case of Islam however, we’re talking about a religious foe, and, as you know very well, Islam falsely attempts to co-opt the entire Judeo-Christian tradition, and even tries to falsely place itself at the beginning of time. Therefore, in order to fully grasp the scope of what it is we need to be fighting against, we need to define this conflict in terms of the entirety of Western history. This is why I paraphrased Spencer in my original post: We are never going to win this war unless we recapture a sense of what it is we’re fighting FOR.

I disagree with your defeatist tone. This CAN be done. The problem is that currently, no one is even trying (except Spencer and a few others.) This isn’t Word War Two, and half-measures, again, aren’t going to cut it. One is either on-board with Judeo-Christianity or they are aiding the jihadists. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but it’s true.

I don’t mean this in a personally negative way, but you strike me as a staunch Modernist who desperately doesn’t want to relinquish his “secular rationality.” (As if such a thing ever really existed.)

This was the whole point of my original post. I was making a PHILOSOPHICAL point, not an operational one. I was speaking in the abstract. Please consider it on that level.

Give it a rest, sweetie.

Hi Jan! I'd consider myself lucky to find you sharing the proverbial foxhole with me any time!

Fiqh Al-Matter wrote:

First of all, let me stress that I am enjoying our exchange, and I respect your intelligence immensely. I know you are a dedicated freedom fighter, and we are just hashing out some particulars.
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I largely feel the same.

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And with regard to Jan, I didn’t mean anything personal by it. What is the quote from Hunter S. Thompson? Something like, ‘a man who is on a search for truth should expect no mercy … and give none.’
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Well, maybe. I do respect Hunter S. Thompson in some ways, but there are other ways in which I would hardly hold him up as a model.

There's something to be said for approaching your allies with respect, as well, since we are all in this together, and face a terrible and ruthless foe.

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There are many parallels between today’s pitch and World War Two, but there are ways in which those cases differ as well.
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Of course. No reference to the past ever presents a perfect parallel. Every new situation has both similarities and significant differences.

For one thing, I don't believe the fight against Jihad is likely to be primarily military—although this certainly presents one aspect of the fight.

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The Nazis, as evil as they were, were nonetheless Westerners. They had Western values. Certainly badly warped ones, but they were Western nonetheless. The scope of the ideological element of the conflict was much narrower.
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Well, yes and no. Fascists claimed to be embracing both modern "efficiency" and many of the ideals of a pagan past—one that could, perhaps, be described as "pre-Western".

And to the extent that Fascism can be considered a part of the Western tradition, it is a very ugly part, and *not* what I refer to when I talk about Western values.

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In the case of Islam however, we’re talking about a religious foe, and, as you know very well, Islam falsely attempts to co-opt the entire Judeo-Christian tradition, and even tries to falsely place itself at the beginning of time. Therefore, in order to fully grasp the scope of what it is we need to be fighting against, we need to define this conflict in terms of the entirety of Western history.
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I will *always* advocate for a full understanding of history—both of our own, and of those who present the threat we face.

That being said, you could stand solidly against Fascism without ever having read Mein Kampf or having a full understanding the Nazi elements based on a not-entirely-historic revival of Teutonic ideals. My mother and aunt as very young women both joined the service in England during that war, and they certainly didn't have this in-depth understanding of the foe. But they recognized a threat to British freedoms, and faced it down, like so many of their countrymen.

One need not be a scholar of Islam to recognize its evil.

As for the threat of Islam being completely different from Fascism, I would argue that this is true mostly in the particulars. Both represent a terrible threat to freedom, and both aspire to a global reach.

Winston Churchill said, "Tyranny is our foe, whatever trappings or disguise it wears, whatever language it speaks, be it external or internal, we must forever be on our guard, ever mobilized, ever vigilant."

I believe he is correct. He also recognized the evil of Islam, though it certainly didn't threaten the West so directly then as it does now.

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This is why I paraphrased Spencer in my original post: We are never going to win this war unless we recapture a sense of what it is we’re fighting FOR.
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This is true—and it is a major issue. All too many Westerners, of all faiths and none, have learned how to be critical of their culture—which is important—but are often discouraged from realizing how special the West is, and to respect its great achievements and values.

This is part of the PC/MC problem I mentioned previously.

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I disagree with your defeatist tone. This CAN be done. The problem is that currently, no one is even trying (except Spencer and a few others.) This isn’t Word War Two, and half-measures, again, aren’t going to cut it. One is either on-board with Judeo-Christianity or they are aiding the jihadists. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but it’s true.
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Actually, I'm not "defeatist" at all—I just disagree with you here. I personally *greatly* respect the Judeo-Christian tradition, which I do indeed recognize as one of the major fonts of Western freedom.

But—with respect—I believe it is a grave mistake to reject every Anti-Jihadist who lacks what you consider "ideological purity". In fact, I believe refusing to stand with Anti-Jihadist Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, animists, pagans, agnostics, and atheists can *itself* be defeatist, because it robs us of many of our allies, and potential allies.

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I don’t mean this in a personally negative way, but you strike me as a staunch Modernist who desperately doesn’t want to relinquish his “secular rationality.” (As if such a thing ever really existed.)
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Actually, there is a whole venerable tradition of Christianity and Judaism encompassing reason. The neo-Platonists of the Renaissance and St. Thomas Aquinas' appreciation of Aristotle come immediately to mind.

Many Jews and Christians—including many theologians—consider reason entirely compatible with their faith.

And I have to laugh at the idea of my being purely a modernist. You have no reason to know this, but my background is in history and art history, especially of the late Medieval and Renaissance period.

I appreciate *many* aspects of the modern age—especially given my understanding of the past—but I have a very good sense of the traditions and history from which the modern age developed.

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This was the whole point of my original post. I was making a PHILOSOPHICAL point, not an operational one. I was speaking in the abstract. Please consider it on that level.
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I'll take your comments in that light.

Incidentally—per my own ideals—I don't believe that you have to agree with me, either. Nor do I consider it my place to attempt to force you to do so.

This has been an interesting exchange, but I believe by this time that this thread has well and truly fallen into the archives.

Feel free to reply—I will check back here to see if you do. Right now I am way behind in my reading at JW, though, and it may be time for me to move on.

No doubt these issues will come up again.

Yeah, you’re probably right. This thread is getting so archived now that we should probably just drop it at this point, even though it’s taking me a great deal of willpower, since I have a few more thoughts.

But I’ve enjoyed this exchange, and enjoyed getting to know you better through it, Graven. You are clearly a highly intelligent individual. I look forward to future exchanges.

JW really needs to develop some sort of comment system that allows for threads to be more prominent if people are still kicking around ideas after a long time. Just an idea.