The "tragic decadence of American liberty."

Our title is from Mr. J.R. Nyquist who writes about some unpleasant truths about the U.S. We've quoted briefly from his article and expand on it now.

We have remarked on this blog about America's penchant for combating fleas instead of doing something about the dogs they come from. Mr. Nyquist focuses even higher than we have. We've advocated going after Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. Mr. Nyquist says the real sources of our difficulties are much, much more dangerous and that as a society we are operating without basic knowledge of this fact.

Addicted to a devil theory, the totalitarian regime always demonizes and dehumanizes its intended victims (directly or subtly). Hitler did this to the Jews, blaming them for World War II. The communist bloc demonized American capitalism for wrecking and undermining the workers’ paradise. The totalitarian regimes of the Muslim world, taking Hitler and the communist bloc as models to be emulated, currently blame both the Jews and American capitalism for their problems. Every totalitarian system justifies its crimes and denounces its victims according to a delusional system of thought. Every totalitarian regime is determined to spread its delusional system as if it were a contagious disease – easily caught and transmitted by the stupid, the ignorant and the thoughtless.

In the West, the party of appeasement doesn’t like to admit that certain regimes are totalitarian. . . .

* * * *

. . . [T]he main enemy of the United States isn’t headquartered in Tehran or Pyongyang.

It is a soothing mythology to imagine that one’s enemies are small and stupid. . . .

. . . The truth be told, the United States has become a hollowed-out, ill-disciplined country headed for financial, diplomatic and military ruination.

* * * *

The United States has been undermined from within. Its educational system is anti-patriotic. Its media elite is oriented toward consumer products and entertainment.

One of the great literary images of the Cold War era was in Joseph Heller's novel Catch 22. The hero Yosarian is in Italy and witnesses a GI throw another GI out the window killing him. The MPs race up the steps, burst into the room, and declare to Yosarian, "You're AWOL!!!"

We appear to be like those MPs: vigorous, able, aggressive, faithful in the performance of their duties, and . . . completely clueless when it comes to gradation of threat.

Mr. Heller's scene is surreal but so is the current political climate.

John Kennedy probably inflated the "Missile Gap" in the course of his campaign for the presidency for his personal benefit. Yet you will search far and wide for any subsequent condemnation of this that bears any kind of a resemblance to the outpouring of vitriol that has occurred around the issue of Mr. Bush and the issue of pre-war WMDs in Iraq.

The least hesitation on the part of any intelligence agency analyst or other official on this issue becomes an unimpeachable source on the order of video of a mugger at the ATM machine with a victim's debit card.

And good luck finding any recognition of the possibility of ton after ton of suspect materials' being taken to Syria (with Russian help) before the eventual U.S. takeover.

The Democrat strategy has been to beat this dead horse and pile on with an intergalactic inflation of the so-called Plame outing. Both work toward the generation of an obscuring political dust cloud. It's like the eventual transformation of our sun. It will expand from a white dward into a giant red fur ball consuming the closer plants of the solar system, ours included.

This . . . while we are faced with a vastly changed international system in which we are busily engaged in:

• funneling huge amounts of petrodollars to regimes that are even more backward even than Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson (widely regarded by liberals as lacking opposing thumbs and possessing prehensile tails),


• funneling huge amounts of other dollars to the one remaining communist giant (a for-damn-sure future strategic competitor), and


• trying (and failing) to get some kind of a handle on just what the worldwide Islamic threat is and how to deal with it.

In the U.S., it's common sense that's AWOL. We're not a nation that values liberty. What we value is the calming apparition of Nebraska niceness installed in Peshawar, Qom, Mecca, Darfur, Beijing, Moscow, W. Timor, and like places.

"The Fatal Befuddlement." By J.R. Nyquist, Financial Sense Online, 7/14/06

Soviet fighter pilots in Korea.

Our attitudes towards the American pilots were complicated. During the Second World War, we had been allies against Hitler. Therefore, in Korea, we did not view the Americans as enemies, but only as opponents. Our motto in the air was "Competition - with whomever."

* * * *

My opinions about the relative abilities of Soviet and American aircraft and pilots were as follows: I thought the American pilots were very good. This opinion was shared by other Soviet pilots including my friends Vladimir Voistinnych and Pete Chourkin. However, the MiG-15 was a very good aircraft. It had only one big problem - the engine would stop abruptly during a sharp turn. As for the American aircraft: the F-80 Shooting Star was not very good, the F-84 Thunderjet was average, but the F-86 Sabre was very good.

Contrast this generous attitude of a member of the Soviet military with the splenetic views of the jihadis.

Pissants all.

"Soviet Air Aces of the Korean War." By Igor N. [M?] Gordelianow, Small Air Forces Observer vol. 17 no. 1 (65) January, 1993, republished on The Korean War.

Terrorist-free zone (TFZ).

. . . Democrats would have us believe that there were terrorists in the UK, Germany, Russia, Israel, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, France, Switzerland and San Diego and south Florida, but somehow they managed to stay out of Iraq.

"Do Democrats remember 9-11 as an act of war or as just another day?" By Steve Yuhas, OpinionEditorials.com, 9/12/06.

The peckerwood vision of Sayyid Qutb.

I was introduced to the writings of Matthew Arnold when I was an undergraduate. I was probably tied to a chair at the time and forced to read him. My pursuit of knowledge was never much at a white heat, except for relatively rare moments where something of particular interest fell across my path or violence was threatened. Dreams about appearing for final exams completely unprepared were quite unremarkable to me for their amazing resemblance to real life experience.

Notwithstanding, at that time and since I've always been drawn to Arnold. He illuminated for me the fundamental separateness that is man's lot. His "Dover Beach" and "Isolation. To Marguerite" are wonderful examples of this insight. Marcus Aurelius also resonated with me for the solitary inner life he too seemed to lead.

I especially remember this passage from Arnold about a too-narrow vision in life and having one's focus cranked down too short on the breakfast toast instead of Andromeda, Draco, and Corona Borealis:

But men of culture and poetry, it will be said, are again and again failing, and failing conspicuously, in the necessary first stage to perfection, in the subduing of the great obvious faults of our animality, which it is the glory of these religious organisations to have helped us to subdue. True, they do often so fail: they have often been without the virtues as well as the faults of the Puritan; it has been one of their dangers that they so felt the Puritan's faults that they too much neglected the practice of his virtues. I will not, however, exculpate them at the Puritan's expense; they have often failed in morality, and morality is indispensable; they have been punished for their failure, as the Puritan has been rewarded for his performance. They have been punished wherein they erred; but their ideal of beauty and sweetness and light, and a human nature complete on all its sides, remains the true ideal of perfection still; just as the Puritan's ideal [28/29] of perfection remains narrow and inadequate, although for what he did well he has been richly rewarded. Notwithstanding the mighty results of the Pilgrim Fathers' voyage, they and their standard of perfection are rightly judged when we figure to ourselves Shakspeare or Virgil, -- souls in whom sweetness and light, and all that in human nature is most humane, were eminent, -- accompanying them on their voyage, and think what intolerable company Shakspeare and Virgil would have found them! In the same way let us judge the religious organisations which we see all around us. Do not let us deny the good and the happiness which they have accomplished; but do not let us fail to see clearly that their idea of human perfection is narrow and inadequate, and that the [Puritans'] Dissidence of Dissent and the Protestantism of the Protestant religion will never bring humanity to its true goal. As I said with regard to wealth, -- let us look at the life of those who live in and for it; -- so I say with regard to the religious organisations. Look at the life imaged in such a newspaper as the Nonconformist; -- a life of jealousy of the Establishment, disputes, tea-meetings, openings of chapels, sermons; and then think of it [29/30] as an ideal of a human life completing itself on all sides, and aspiring with all its organs after sweetness, light, and perfection!^[1]

This way of making an initial assessment of something is often in the back of my mind for one of the great mysteries to me is, What is it that makes someone a big person, a person with a greatness of spirit, a person with an impulsive magnanimity or generosity of outlook? If I ever write a novel -- and the thought intrigues me -- I think it will be with this question in mind.^[2]

In particular, when I read some of the Muslim websites devoted to discussions of ablutions, diet, conduct, transformation of najis things into pak things, and the like, I am struck by the cramped vision of the people who write in for advice and the grown men who spend actual moments of their lives to concern themselves the most pedestrian details of life that could be figured out in an instant by someone with some common sense AND a mind free enough to exercise that sense.^[3]

I was struck by this cramped vision all the more when I read about Sayyid Qutb's views on jazz (hat tip to Marcus at Harry's Place^[4]) and all that they conveyed about the small mind that resided in that man's head.

Mr. Qutb was an Egyptian teacher and Islamicist theoretician who spent time in Colorado in the late 1940s. He wrote some of the seminal works on Islamic fundamentalism and the need for Muslims to take over the world, a world then in a state of grand funk like unto the days before the arrival of Mohammed himself. An A Number 1 Fruitcake with Oak Leaf Cluster, Mr. Qutb proved to be the intellectual inspiration to that great bunch of kidders, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

Here's a small peak into Mr. Qutb's mental wasteland:

Qutb believed the Quran (Surat al-Nisa, 4:32) taught women that `Men are the managers of women's affairs ...' Qutb lamented to his readers that he was never able to find a woman of sufficient "moral purity and discretion" and had to reconcile himself to bachelorhood.

Qutb was extremely critical of many things in the United States, its racism, materialism, individual freedom, its economic system, poor haircuts, triviality, restrictions on divorce, enthusiasm for sports, "animal-like" mixing of the sexes (which went on even in churches), and lack of support for the Palestinian struggle. In an article published in Egypt after his travels, he noted with disapproval the sexuality of Americans

the American girl is well acquainted with her body's seductive capacity. She knows it lies in the face, and in expressive eyes, and thirsty lips. She knows seductiveness lies in the round breasts, the full buttocks, and in the shapely thighs, sleek legs -- and she shows all this and does not hide it.

... and their taste in music

Jazz is his preferred music, and it is created by Negroes to satisfy their love of noise and to whet their sexual desires ...

Qutb concluded that major aspects of American life were "primitive" and shocking. His experiences in the U.S. partly formed the impetus for his rejection of Western values and his move towards radicalism upon returning to Egypt.^[5]

All that seductiveness! In the face, the eyes, the thirsty lips (yes), the round breasts (doubleplusgood), the full buttocks (yum), the shapely thighs (kisskiss), the sleek legs . . . . If the internet had been around in the 40s he would have been half way to a pretty good profile on Matchdoctor.com. "Repressed Eqyptian visitor seeks lucious lady with thirsty lips."

It was a sad moment in human history when Sayyid Qutb came to be the intellectual Lord High Pissant of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and inspired them and countless other rudderless Muslims to head straight for the sewers and garbage dumps of existence, there to plot misery and death for thousands and thousands of their fellow beings.

Both Arnold and Qutb were educators but the things that were fascinating to them and the influence they sought to have in their lives were polar opposites. What inspired Qutb was neither sweetness nor light. It was something bitter and rank and it threatens a long, dark night for decent people everywhere.

Of the two, we'll wager that Shakespeare and Virgil would have welcomed the company of Arnold on a voyage to Staten Island or Tierra del Fuego, one . . . but reached for the barfbag while on a one-story escalator ride with Qutb.

Notes
^[1] Culture and Anarchy (1869)(emphasis added). <-- Alfred J. Drake, Ph.D.
^[2] I initially thought that it would be better to come at the issue by starting with what the quality of smallness (possible title Invasion of the Pissants) but that would guarantee that my focus would be cramped and limited from the start. I have a much finer title in mind.
^[3] E.g., "Ruling on putting flowers and plants in the bathroom." Islam Q&A, Question 85345.
^[4] "Don't Mean a Thing if It Ain't Got That Swing." Marcus, Harry's Place, 9/13/06.
^[5] Sayyid Qutb. Wikipedia (footnotes omitted).

Border Patrol guys.

Update on the unjust prosecution and conviction of the two Border Patrol agents who shot a fleeing drug dealer:

"Doing The Right Thing." By American Daughter, 9/9/06.

Guard the Borders Blogburst: Gutless political leadership.

by Heidi at Euphoric Reality

This week’s Blogburst is available as a Podcast.

In the days and weeks leading up to the fifth anniversary of 9/11, I have been musing how the overall impact of that single days' terrorism has affected our nation. Some people have felt their initial shock and horror fade away to something sadly benign - a quiet relief that it hasn't happened again, and a determination to "do their part" going on with their lives. After all, if they didn't, then the terrorists would've "won" that day, they aver. Others like me, felt that same shock and horror harden into a stone cold fury and an implacable resolve to fight this burgeoning evil that hides behind the facade of religion.

The question on everyone's minds is, "Are we safer today than we were on 9/10?" With our wide-open borders, and our government's refusal to crack down on illegal aliens, my answer is a resounding "NO!" There is no way any politician or civic leader can claim that we have gotten tougher on evicting people who should NOT be here. In fact, they are competing over how many millions of illegals we can let in each year without identification, without background checks, and without any knowledge of where they are or what they are doing. In fact, our "leaders" are racing to see who can squash any meager attempt at controlling our borders or enforcing our immigration laws the fastest! It has become a feather in their cap to deny to rule of law and leave our borders defenseless.

There is no doubt that illegal immigration is the gaping hole in our tenuous national security. President Bush narrowly defines the issue of our national security as a matter of success in Iraq. The House - heeding the overwhelming demands of the constituents who elected them to office - has refused to grant amnesty to over 20 million illegal aliens inside our borders. And with the Senate's obstinate refusal to physically safeguard our border, Congress has reached an impasse. What a solution! When the swiftest and most decisive action is called for...they do nothing.

Third World County says it best:

...every single one of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers was in this country illegally at the time of their terrorist act.

Every. Single. One.

So, for all those political poltroons pimping amnesty (yes, you too, Mr. Bush), remember this: failure to enforce immigration laws, crack down on forged and hijacked SS documents, etc., cost American lives on 9/11.

__________________________________________

This has been a production of the Guard the Borders Blogburst. It is syndicated by Euphoric Reality, and serves to keep immigration issues in the forefront of our minds as we're going about our daily lives and continuing to fight the war on terror. If you are concerned with the trend of illegal immigration in our country, join the Blogburst! Send an email with your blog name and url to euphoricrealitynet at gmail dot com.

A most eloquent remembrance.

I highly recommend Francis W. Porretto's eloquent piece on 9/11 to you.

It is excellent.

"The Task." By Francis W. Porretto, Eternity Road, 9/11/06.

What to do about sharia in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dr. Andrew Bostom highlights the necessity for us to know basic Islamic doctrine and history and argues that we should not fight on behalf of people who will vote in the sharia:

But to invest unlimited blood and treasure which effectively gives electoral sanction to more Shari'a . . . is a tragic and dangerous delusion. And we have failed miserably in this regard in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Specifically, we should have refused as Paul Bremer did refuse initially . . . , to give our imprimatur to constitutions that are subservient to the Shari'a, rendering them incompatible with universal human rights. . . .

* * * *

We have a moral obligation to oppose Shari'a, which is antithetical to the core beliefs for which hundreds of thousands of brave Americans have died, including, ostensibly, 3000 in Iraq itself. There has never been a Shari'a state in history that has not discriminated (often violently) against the non-Muslims (and Muslim women) under its suzerainty. Moreover such states have invariably taught . . . the aggressive jihad ideology which leads to predatory jihad "razzias" on neighboring "infidels" . . . .

That is the ultimate danger and geopolitical absurdity of a policy that ignores or whitewashes basic Islamic doctrine and history, while however inadvertently, making or re-making these societies "safe for Sharia)"—as in Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza, and now, likely, an Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon.

It would have been gratifying to have had Mr. Bremer obstruct an Iraqi constitution that recognizes the sharia as the supreme law. Even had he done so, we think the constitution would have had little legitimacy in Iraq because the imams still carry too much clout and the hue and cry against the constitution would probably have killed it.

Our contrary thought is that allowing the sharia to take hold in these various countries is not an incorrect strategy. We have heretofore argued in favor of the Sharia Enjoyment Strategy (SES), which essentially allows people who choose the sharia to enjoy its full ferocity and soul-sapping retrograde effect. They can have all the eyeball plucking, adulterer stoning, homosexual hangings, and hand chopping they can stand while they read magazines about people in infidel countries leading tranquil productive lives.

Maybe Colonel Bunny can be the new "X" to articulate a new containment strategy against the Islamic menace . . . . There is evidence that SES is working in Iran, where the youth appear to have had their fill of the radical Shiite clerisy. All without our having to lift a finger. (Iran's nuclear activies do require us to lift a finger, of course.)

A clear enunciation of the strategy might go like this:

People of Iraq and Afghanistan. In your countries, we have destroyed enemies of ours who were enemies of yours. We have given you the gift of representative government. You are now free to use that gift to make your government what you want it to be. May God grant you the wisdom to make the right choice.

You even have the right and the power to choose to live under a government whose laws are inferior to the sharia. If that is your choice, enjoy it and may it give you the blessings of a vibrant, free society.

We think to choose Sharia as your ruling principle is to choose to live as slaves, subject to the commands of fanatics and priests who have no understanding of mathematics, medicine, economics, technology, or any other aspect of modern life. Under it, you are guaranteed arbitrary law. Wherever the sharia has prevailed there has been backwardness, poverty, oppression, and death. Now you can experience all the glories of Islamic rule if that is what you want.

Knock yourselves out.

We will not return to alter your choice. We will return only to destroy any government that dares to send soldiers or terrorists against us.

However, if your government chooses to live in peace with us, we will leave you alone.

But -- and this is a big "but" -- it is clear that historically Muslims have had contempt for infidels. If you choose to retain that contempt for us and cling to all the words of the Koran and the sharia that counsel war against infidels and show contempt for infidels, do not expect us to be your friends.

Thus, the SES and the Rogue Regime Decapitation Strategy^TM (RRDS) (discussed here and here) should be the cornerstones of our policy toward the Islamic world.

We can implement it forthwith after giving our present effort in Iraq and Afghanistan a chance to play out while killing several thousand more jihadi fools in the process.

Viva Bush!

" Making the World Safe for Shari'a?" By Andrew Bostom, The American Thinker, 8/16/06 (emphasis added; footnote and links omitted).

Humongous, gargantuan, pretty darn massive instance of hyperbole.

Two gents have just published a book about Karl Rove's "Master Plan" for absolute power.^[1] Absolute power, mind you. Which is so, like, on the brink of success that the Repubs may lose control of the House in November.

Some master plan.

We might get around to reading this book when it hits the dollar table at KMart. Until that happy moment, however, we thought it would be interesting to read some reviews of it on Amazon. Publishers Weekly's^[2] says the book shows how Mr. Rove sought "to engineer nothing less than the assertion of a long-term Republican hegemony and the complete dismantling of the Democratic Party." According to PW, the Jovian Rovian objective was "a complete realignment of American politics" which began to derail with:

• the failure of Bush's Social Security reform plan (no doubt helped along by the as-yet-undismantled Democrat Party);
• the Bushian response to Hurricane Katrina;
• the nomination of Harriet Miers; and
• the "implication of" Mr. Rove in the leak of CIA employee Valerie Plame's identity.

So far as we know, the only people within a 25-mile radius of Washington, DC, who haven't been "implicated" in the Plame outing are mid-level managers of area Starbucks.

But, . . . we grant the point. "Implicating" anyone in Washington is the media equivalent of conclusively branding them as a lying, low-down, vicious, guilty, mothertrucking weasel, which unhappy happening would necessitate putting plans to take over even the condo association on indefinite hold.

Notwithstanding, there seems to be some slight disconnect between the masterful plotting needed to realign American politics and the ineptness of the decision to nominate such a nice but unsuited lady for a slot on the Supreme Court. Maybe it's just we. To the book's authors a peek at the Rovian "to do" list on this point would surely have revealed the entry, "Master Plan Objective III -- Take over judicial branch: Bush nominate Harriet Miers stat."

Furthermore, if the authors think the failure of one policy initiative like Social Security reform and such events as those listed just above are enough to derail this Master Plan you gotta axe what kind of a plan might it be? "Bad news, Mr. Bush! Our plans for absolute power are in the tank over that Miers nomination and the wide publicity given to the metaphysical, nuanced vagaries of the Valerie Plame affair."

The American Library Association's "Booklist" review^[3] says that Mr. Moore and Mr. Slater show Mr. Rove as a person "bent on maintaining Republican political dominance for generations to come." Apparently the fact that a political adviser has a plan for winning elections for his party that is a long-term plan is a matter of some note to these observers. We ourselves note the complete absence of long-term planning on the part of The Yaaaargh Man, Howard Dean over at the DNC, as evidenced by the Dems fixation on the ho hum issues of:

• Katrinagate, the means by which Bush intended to dechoclify destroy life in New Orleans as we know it;
• Bush's supposed lies about WMD in Iraq; and
• Republican Senator Rick Santorum's regular employment of a babysitter who is the cousin of Jack Abramoff's plumber's up-line Shacklee distributor.

All this breathless, stratospherical, Chicken Little haruspicy is enough to wear a body plumb OUT!

For a more relaxing and more balanced view . . . what better book to pick up than Sidney Blumenthal's How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime?

Hat tip to Hatless in Hattiesburg for the "Bush lied" deal.

Notes
^[1] The Architect: Karl Rove and the Master Plan for Absolute Power. By James Moore and Wayne Slater.
^[2] Id.
^[3] Id.

Islam and democracy.

You see . . . they're incompatible.

If you call yourself a Muslim, your belief system simply does not encompass regular elections and the myriad other ways that free people govern their affairs free of the curse of theocracy. Islam is theocracy and cannot be anything but:

In Islam there are no elections. From where do you bring this democracy? There is no democracy in Islam! Islam is bay`a to an amir. When you give your hand to the amir, he takes care of you. From where do you get this "board of trusties!?" And these "directors" and these other flashy names? But you are nothing but small children -- sitting and thinking you are pharoahs. Allah (swt) is taking everything into account.

Out of the mouths of babes . . . .

If there are elections in a place where Muslims are the majority, it is because the relevant doctrines of Islam are being ignored and people like this joker, As-Sayyid Hisham Muhammad Kabbani, are kept from exerting any influence.

Ergo (we can get to ergo, can we not?) anyone who is a Muslim in a Western country and calls himself a true Muslim is someone who is not with the program and a threat to democratic government.

"Who are we, Ahl as-Sunna wal-Jama`at? A Talk by As-Sayyid Hisham Muhammad Kabbani, Chairman of As-Sunna Foundation of America ."