Saturday, August 12, 2006

Calling For Moderation Against Fascism Is A Very Strange Thing To Do

The Anchoress is calling for moderation in response to the latest thwarted terror plot:


The news is serious…so why is so much that is being written and spewed forth so wretchedly unserious? Why am I getting such a strong sense that - for some, note, I say some on both the left and the right (and in the media) - this event is an excuse for extraordinarily reckless, demented and self-interested excess?

Go to the righty forums and you find a lot of this talk (paraphrased):

- When Oh When will Bush take a page from FDR and inter all Muslims and Middle-Easterners into concentration camps, or totally deport them all? All Muslims are evil! This will wake up those idiots who voted out Lieberman, though, maybe! President Bush is captive of the globalist PC one-worlders or he’d be doing the right thing!

- This just proves that we’ve been too soft in Iraq and we need to just bomb the hell out of everyone! The war on terror won’t be won until we make Mecca a wasteland!

- This is why we need sealed borders, even though these terrorists were Brit CITIZENS and the cell phone sellers are US CITIZENS, that doesn’t matter. Close the borders now! Impeach Bush. Impeach Cheney. Go Tancredo!


I have to wonder why the Anchoress bothers reading such crapaola writing, much less reporting on it. The opinions she is parodying there are straight out of central casting from the latest Bushitler movie. There are no such people within the credible right-wing.

So, who is she parodying? It isn't satire, if it doesn't have a target.

Of course, there are loonies at blogs who do say such things, but they are not part of the national discourse, whereas the lefty voices she parodies in her post (go to the link and click if you want to see them) are clearly the mainstream of the Democratic party at this moment.

Now, in a comment over at Lumpy's blog, the Anchoress writes:


I do think the murderous fiends of Islam are a too-visible minority who have cowed even the “silent majority” of Muslims who are decent people. I am frankly getting leery of the “all Muslims are evil” mindset and think we should tread around that very carefully.


I love the Anchoress, but with all due respect, all her post, and her comment here is serving to do is to position herself as a moderate, which is a fruitless exercise when one is positioning oneself with regards to Islam. It’s like saying, “Not all of Hitler’s followers were evil.” So what?

The thing is, the world view put forth by the Koran is evil. The face put forth by Islam in the political arena is evil or filled with deceit. There is no substantial Islamic political voice for moderation. All the major political groups which represent Muslims are radical in nature.

Like the Anchoress, I believe there are huge numbers of what I would call moderate Muslims. These, from my experience are Muslims who follow the good things the Koran says. They wish non-Muslims well. They are interested in giving and receiving love within their families, and within the larger world.

However, these Muslims are like decent Germans under Hitler. They are a completely unrepresented political body. They do not make their voices heard. Therefore, they are insubstantial, and they are ignored by the Islamofascists who control the Islamic voice.

It may not be The Anchoress’ intent to position herself as a moderate out of a sense of self-agrandizement, but the fact is, that as long as she is not dealing with Islam as it presents itself, the only person her words serve is her own self. It makes her look cool, but it doesn’t move the debate forward.

It is important that we say, “We hate the Islam of Jihad, strict-Sharia, and the burqa. If you are not that kind of Muslim, then you are my friend. But, please, for our sake, and for your own sake, stand up and be counted as being against this fascist form of Islam. Because if you don’t, then we are all going to have a big problem come the time when the West is hit really hard by Islamic terrorists.”

Instead of urging moderation in the public discourse about Islam, the Anchoress ought to be urging Muslims to show us their moderation. Muslims must help themselves. Their population is represented by adult human beings. They need to be responsible for what they put out in the public.

Thus far, moderate Muslims have not begun to be responsible for themselves. I think the Anchoress was off target, and it would seem time for a clarification and perhaps an apology to the right-wing she has lampooned.

Let me be clear, I am not a right-winger. I am a lifelong Democrat. (The fact that the Democratic party has become something more akin to the anti-Semitic isolationist right of the 1930's and 1940's does not make me any less of a liberal.) So, my reaction to the Anchoress is not one of personal offense. Instead, I simply think we need less calls for moderation, and more urgent calls for moderate Muslims to stand up and be counted.

The longer we wait to get serious, and the longer moderate Muslims wait to stand up and be counted, the worse the weaponry of the Islamofascist regimes will become.

3 comments:

Frank said...

The problem is not Islamic weaponry; the problem is that unless the so-called 'liberal' (and I use that term very circumspectly) West is willing to stop this now, by taking what may seem to be drastic steps, the extreme right (and I use that term very carefully too) in the West WILL do something to cure the problem, and then it will be drastic by ANY measure.

And Islam is just the immediate problem, not the larger problem.

I have argued for years against unfettered immigration; not just of Muslims, but of ethnic immigration in general, for precisely this reason. Slow steady streams of ethnic immigrants might assimilate, but what is happening now is a critical mass buildup leading to ghettoization. It will, if left as it is today, blow up in our face someday. It may well be too late.

We ought not make a category error and lose sight of the larger problem. To focus on Islam and ignore the ethnic immigration problem would be like responding to Pearl Harbour by attacking heavier-than-air flight instead of attacking Japan.

Kiddo said...

I'm going to make a straight up call, a response to the videos put out by the terrorists. I want everyone to do it. Just a straight up message of "We oppose you". From anyone, even Muslims who want to, left, right, doesn't matter. Just so that their little video messages get a response, if only in writing, of a straight response. I've written much on what they're all about, what should be done, but I think people worldwide need to throw this stuff on the internet, written or otherwise. Or videos where a picture is shown and titles added. I think we need to start a movement in this way. I have already gotten one moderate to respond on YouTube. He was responding to both mine and Atlas' videos, but posted his video response to one of my videos.

My account, I have just learned, is possibly being hacked. Don't know if they managed it or not. Seems not, but if my blog vanishes and my videos do too or suddenly turn into jihadi videos, that's why. But I'm backed up and I have TWO shitty computers to work with (actually 5, but the Apple IIc isn't much for going online with...LOL....I just keep everything). But I'm going to do it, and I will post it here once I figure out this hacking nonsense.

Epaminondas said...

"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

A fella once said this when represented as an extremist in the midst of an election campaign... today we can see how 'right' he is.

Anchoress, we part on this one.
5:82, 2:61, 9:29, 5:60 and Sahih Muslim Book 026, Number 5431 make it clear that there is very litle room in the middle unless those who believe that the immutable is mutable make of themselves apostates to save the world from what appears to me to be inevitable.

"I was commanded to fight the people until they accept....."