Tuesday, July 3, 2007

The Original Liberalism Vs Islamism

When I was young I was a JFK "liberal". That is, I believed in the concepts of liberalism. Most "liberals" today do not know or understand what liberalism really was and today's liberals are really Marxists, or at the least, hard core socialists. Melanie Phillips writes an erudite article about classic liberalism and what radical Islam is trying to do to destroy it.

Islamists have no room for a liberal society and are intent on imposing Sharia law onus. Meanwhile, our PC liberal elites are so bent on imposing multi-culturalism on our society that they ignore the reality of good and evil to worship the god of tolerance.

This elite class of people feel that the problem of radical Islam is new and will go away if we just reason with these people. But history shows differently. One hundred years ago Winston Churchill wrote these words in the original edition of "The River War":

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.

The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property-either as a child, a wife, or a concubine-must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die. But the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proseltyzing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science-the science against which it had vainly struggled-the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.


Two hundred years ago Jefferson fought the Barbary Wars against the same Islamists. Here's what he heard from the Ambassador to Tripoli:

"Let us not call this view reductionist. Jefferson would perhaps have been just as eager to send a squadron to put down any Christian piracy that was restraining commerce. But one cannot get around what Jefferson heard when he went with John Adams to wait upon Tripoli’s ambassador to London in March 1785. When they inquired by what right the Barbary states preyed upon American shipping, enslaving both crews and passengers, America’s two foremost envoys were informed that “it was written in the Koran, that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon whoever they could find and to make Slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.” (It is worth noting that the United States played no part in the Crusades, or in the Catholic reconquista of Andalusia.) "


Those calling for us to withdraw from Iraq are woefully mislead about this religion and the consequences of a withdrawal. The irony is that it is the same people that think themselves superior thinkers that are willing to sacrifice our liberal society to terror and Sharia Law. Nothing has changed as to Islam's intent since its founding and certainly not in the past two hundred years. We are in a war that will not end no matter the battle field and Iraq is just one of many fronts in the war.

If you doubt my words, read those of a former jihadist.

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