Deja Boyz

With the recent election of the boys in the hoods to replace good ol' Yassir, you might want to go back and read this to remember how boys will be boyz. Did I mention that Hitler was elected too? And more recently as a Palestinian terrorist as well...

Oh, and by the way, this is what an actual critique of what's going on in Iraq looks like rather than all this wholly risible puerile fascifism we get slimed with by the EneMedia...

Did I mention that my wife is now an art blogger? Pretty good except for that geek husband post atrocity, huh?

Aggregate all their taboos and you have a vast herd of sacred cows. Let the frightened nanny state enshrine all those taboos in new laws or bureaucratic prohibitions, and you have a drastic loss of freedom. That, I think, is what is happening to us, issue by issue.

WRETCHARD AGAIN: "I think the real reason for the reluctance among Anglospheric publications to print the Danish cartoons was less timidity than the fear of tacitly repudiating the underlying assumption of the President Bush's War on Terror, that the West is not at war with Islam but only with a small group of extremists who have corrupted "the religion of peace". The Danish cartoons threatened to convert this limited war into a more general confrontation between the value systems of the West and Islam. Why, one might ask, should the media, with no love lost for President Bush, care at all about protecting the key assumption of his limited war? The reason I think, is that the Left in their reflexive opposition to President Bush since the invasion of Iraq had not bothered to create a war strategy of their own."

Today's "Islam Means Submission" Lesson

“Hurriyya”, Arabic for freedom, and the uniquely Western concept of freedom are completely at odds. Hurriyya “freedom”, as Ibn Arabi (d. 1240) the lionized “Greatest Sufi Master”, expressed it, “being perfect slavery”. And this conception is not merely confined to the Sufis perhaps metaphorical understanding of the relationship between Allah the “master” and his human “slaves.” The late American scholar of Islam, Franz Rosenthal (d. 2003) analyzed the larger context of hurriyya in Muslim society. He notes the historical absence of hurriyya as “a fundamental political concept that could have served as a rallying cry for great causes.” An individual Muslim “was expected to consider subordination of his own freedom to the beliefs, morality and customs of the group as the only proper course of behavior…” Thus politically, Rosenthal concludes, “…the individual was not expected to exercise any free choice as to how he wished to be governed…In general, …governmental authority admitted of no participation of the individual as such, who therefore did not possess any real freedom vis-à-vis it.”

Today's Jewish History Update

FP: In American terms, Evatt was a liberal. So were a number of significant supporters of the Jewish state idea. Many of its opponents, in contrast, were conservatives. This is largely the opposite of the situation today. What do you see as the reasons?

Mandel: It might surprise people today, but the most viscerally pro-Zionist major publication in America at the time was the Nation, then under the editorship of Freda Kirchwey. Kirchwey and Evatt were very close and Kirchwey's papers, now deposited at Harvard, show that she interceded often and strenuously with Evatt to support Zionism at different points. Liberals were not tepid in their support for Zionism, which they saw as a righteous cause for a small, endangered people trying to build a state on egalitarian principles in the face of reactionary Arab hostility. In contrast conservatives, whether isolationist or not, tended to see Zionism as a tiresome complication for American foreign policy.

Today, many conservatives have recoiled from isolationism and adopted a muscular form of liberal internationalism. This has meant that spreading and supporting democracy has become a conservative idea. It is therefore unsurprising that conservative 'realists' like Brent Scowcroft are far cooler towards Israel than conservative leaders today. Without doubt, there is a liberal influence to be found in today's conservatism. Conversely, that heritage still means something to some liberals – Tony Blair's support for removing Saddam could be described as Wilsonian internationalism revisited. Unsurprisingly, he is better disposed towards Israel than many liberal leaders today and certainly more so than much of his party.

Geographically Challenged

Huntington's "bloody borders": the movie. Now that's real Academy Award material.

"It's interesting how odd it seems to read accounts of President Bush that are written by people who don't hate him."

Meanwhile, Theo Van Gogh remains dead.

Tim Robbins attempts a witty comment at the expense of the religious right. He remains mum on Muslims and cartoons.

Meanwhile, Theo Van Gogh remains dead.

Hitch notes the end of Fukayama. Like only Hitch can...

More Gramscian Damage: The Yale leftist / Taliban alignment. This is just risible with bells on top. Did I forget to mention Suicidalism while I was at it?

Looks like the left may have to boycott French Fries...

More Eurabia

"millions in aid, but not a penny in salary."

...

"Islam, we're often reminded these days, means "submission" in Arabic. Enlightenment, we should equally remember, means replacing half-baked notions and myths with facts."

And What Resulted

"We reject « cultural relativism », which consists in accepting that men and women of Muslim culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of "Islamophobia", an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of Islam as a religion with stigmatisation of its believers.

We plead for the universality of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all continents, against all abuses and all dogmas.

We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of Enlightenment, not of obscurantism."

RTWT.

Eurabia In Play -- NOW

At first, this seems way better than average for the NYeT. Then you realize that they still have not printed the cartoons -- unlike this blog -- and are actually just a bunch of fascifists simpering in the corner.

And Denmark's future IS at stake.

The Netherlands has only a slight lead:

Since the assassinations of Fortuyn and, in 2004, the film maker Theo van Gogh, numerous public figures in Holland have received death threats and routine intimidation. The heroic Somali-born Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her equally outspoken colleague Geert Wilders live under constant police protection, often forced to sleep on army bases. Even university professors are under protection.

Europe is shuffling into darkness. It is proving incapable of standing up to its enemies, and in an effort to accommodate the peripheral rights of a minority is failing to protect the most basic rights of its own people.

The governments of Europe have been tricked into believing that criticism of a belief is the same thing as criticism of a race. And so it is becoming increasingly difficult and dangerous to criticise a growing and powerful ideology within our midst. It may soon, in addition, be made illegal.

I had planned — the morning after my speech — to see Geert Wilders, but instead spent the time catching up with his staff. Their leader had been called in by the police to discuss more than 40 new death threats he had received over the previous days.

As I left the Netherlands I once again felt terrible sorrow for a country that is slowly being lost. A society which should be carefree and inspiring has become dark and worried. The jihad in Europe is winning. And Holland, and our continent, takes one step further into a dark and menacing future.

RTWT -- you are guaranteed to get the shivers. (HT Brussels Journal via Pajamas)

It Doesn't Seem Like It To Me...

"Tehran has a formula for success in Iraq; Washington does not. Victory will require U.S. diplomats to recognize that any successful policy must include strategies not only to promote U.S. and Iraqi interests, but also to derail our adversaries' strategy. Iran's methods are clear. Less clear is U.S. resolve. The stakes in Iraq are high, and one side is playing for keeps. Are we?"

RTWT. It's not long at all...

Joe Rocks One Out

"Precisely two things have made flying safer since 9/11: sealing off cockpit doors and passengers becoming aware that they will probably have to fight back against would-be hijackers. The rest has been a net negative."

People fly a lot in America, and most of them know this. That affects their perception of legitimacy, and also of the justice of the measures being applied. The resentment is real. As one RedState.org commenter put it:

"Big government has just been caught rubber stamping for Big Commerce at the ports while leather-booting the rest of us at the airports. The national wound has just had the scab ripped from it. Nobody should be surprised that it's bleeding."

That's in a GOP blog, folks, not Atrios' Eschaton.

RTWT. And follow the link to Brown's 10 points about them cowboys and injuns ... I need to get busy and start reading my copy of "Imperial Grunts"...