Thursday, February 28, 2008

The Enlightened And The Sharia

JG: Rousseau says the government is there, that our rights come from the government, that come from the collective. Locke says our rights come from God, and that we only create a government to protect our interests. The Rousseauian says you can make a religion out of society and politics, and the Lockean says no, religion is a separate sphere from politics. And that is the defining distinction between the two, and I think that distinction also runs through the human heart, that we all have a Rousseauian temptation in us. And it’s the job of conservatives to remind people that the Lockean in us needs to win.


This exchange captures the link between the 20th century struggle against Communism and Fascism and the 21st century's epic battle against radical Islamism.

Both liberal fascism and Islamic fundamentalism put God on earth
In the first case the Deity takes the form of an enlightened vanguard; in the second case Allah rules through the Caliphate via Sharia law.