Mark Steyn looks at what happens when the West expects Facebook to civilise the barbarians instead of admitting that there is such as thing as civilisation and barbarism and that it's up to the civilised to do the civilising and failing that, keeping the barbarians at bay.
3 comments:
"Whatever one feels about the sharia-enforcing, Jew-hating, genital-mutilating enthusiasts of the Muslim Brotherhood, they do accurately reflect a significant slice — and perhaps a majority — of the Egyptian people."
Actually, they seem to reflect a significant majority of the Arab peoples, in toto.
And therein lies the problem. One of my favorite aphorisms regarding criminal rehabilitation back in the day when I was in the trade was, "It's difficult to 'rehabilitate' someone who was never 'habilitated' to begin with." This invariably incurred the wrath of "enlightened", "progressive" types who despised imprisonment and were wont to go manic over capital punishment. Trouble is, I was right more often than they were.
Similarly, how do you go about modernizing an entire culture which is proud of its most barbarous, anti-modern attributes?
More to the point, we've put the cart before the horse. Specifically, in trying to separate the "good Muslims" from the "bad Muslims" while the shooting continues. We didn't worry about figuring out which Germans weren't Nazis until after we'd taken Berlin. (Hi, Sergej!)
Similarly, the best time to decide which are the "moderate" elements in Islam (if, indeed, any truly exist), is after we are sure they no longer have the ability to harm us.
Of course, none of this appeals to our enlightened, multicultural leaders. They would be perfectly willing to lose, if they were sure they could rule over us after the Islamists ran out of people they wanted to kill. The fact that they are probably pretty high on the Islamists' "To-Do" list, just on grounds of their lifestyles alone, apparently simply does not register with our "enlightened elite'".
As for realizing that the Arab Spring has become an Islamist Winter, forget it. To them, this is "authentic Islam" and is thus not to be questioned. In the name of "multicultural sensitivity", aka "all cultures are equal- except Western culture, which must be destroyed because we think it's icky."
Our present crop of leaders are proof of both the Peter Principle, and Parkinson's Law. At a time when we can ill afford either one.
cheers (I think...)
eon
Well, since eon mentions my name... (And yes, I had an ancestor at the fall of Berlin. Could not understand, to his dying day, how the Germans could go from the most cultured and sensible people in Europe to what they had become. The one time the USSR was on the right side; Finland, well, if you've got a drunk Russian bear (pro tip: he's always drunk), and he takes a swipe with his paw in the right direction, if he steps on only one or two of the wrong places you pretty much call that a bull's eye.)
(Anyway.)
Not that my opinion matters, but I think that Bush's greatest mistake was starting on a Marshall Plan before actually breaking the countries he was trying to rebuild. Of course, in my more cynical decades, I would say that he'd have had to build something there first, so there'd be something to break other than a bunch of warring tribes of savages (Afghanistan) or pretty much the same thing, but with a lid held on by a brutal dictator (Iraq). I'm thinking now that this neo-conservative assessment of humanity, that if shown a better and more peaceful way to live, even if they didn't think of it themselves, people will naturally recognize it as good and adopt it, is perhaps a bit optimistic.
As for our friends the lefties, don't be too harsh on them. I think their conception of the world is, that they're not part of it, and bad things can not reach them here in America/in the Big City/at the university. Why they're so genuinely shocked when bad things do just that. I work with a bunch of these people, and as long as they're kept behind glass like delicate scientific instruments and consulted about difficult problems, they can bring much that is good to the world. But let them tell you how the world needs to be run (or worse, put them in the White House... oh, dear...), and on average, a random name out of the phone book will spout less nonsense.
Sergej;
Agree 100%.
Three of my uncles were in Thuringia when Berlin fell, two with Patton's 3rd Army, the other with the USAAF (LtCol, in charge of building and/or repairing airfields). Two were of German descent, and even met people who had the same last names as they did, or very close (and their last names weren't anything like as common as "Muller", etc.)
Nobody could adequately explain the war. Or even try. In many ways, they had come to regard their leaders as though they were from another planet. They didn't try to figure out what drove them; they just followed orders, by that time mainly to avoid being shot.
One did tell one of my uncles (the LTC) "I think we all went a bit mad."
I'm wondering if, fifty years from now, somebody who cheered as the towers went down on 9/11 won't be saying the same thing.
cheers
eon
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