Much has been made, in recent days, of the fact that most Muslims are not terrorists. This is true: the percentage of the world’s Muslims who engage in the active slaughter of civilians is so small as to be a rounding error. But in an open and generally unarmed society, in which the default stance is trust in the ‘social contract’, they punch, as President Obama is fond of saying, above their weight.
Back in 2008 I wrote the following, about a creature that punches far above its weight:
About forty years ago I read a science-fiction book called Wasp. I remember it only dimly, but as I recall it was a corking good read, and the central metaphor of the book has stayed with me: that a small insect, buzzing around the inside of an automobile, can so distract the driver as to cause an accident. A tiny animal weighing less than a gram can cause the destruction of an enormously massive machine and the deaths of its vastly more powerful occupants.
The context was a link I had followed from our pal Mangan’s place, to a lecture about asymmetrical warfare. The speaker had this to say:
By the nature of its violence and drama, for terrorism is nothing more than an organized spectacle of violence, it is certain to stir emotions. Understanding the logic of terror, it is best to keep the attacks unpredictable, seemingly random. The first seed is sown by unbalancing the mind of the opposing commander. The terrorist act seems to warrant a strong response. In this case, strong replaces intelligent. To find this small group of radicals requires an oversized police force. The chain reaction effect is inevitably set in motion by the harsh reprisal. By entering their space with police or military presence, there are now more targets to hit, more waves of publicity to garner, making them seem larger, feeding their capacity to create the spectacle. Everything becomes imbalanced”“society is polarized, disproportionate fear is stirred, more impatience and need for reprisals is manufactured. The desired avalanche is set off.
Returning to the present, it appears that the desired avalanche has indeed been set off once again. From today’s Times:
PARIS ”” Seeking to reassure a jittery and unsettled population after last week’s terrorist attacks, the French authorities said on Monday that thousands of police officers and soldiers would be deployed to protect Jewish schools and other “sensitive sites,’ in one of the country’s biggest peacetime security operations.
The defense minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said that 10,000 soldiers would be deployed by Tuesday evening, in what he called “the first mobilization on this scale on our territory.’
My friend Paul Sheehan, columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald, posted an excellent piece about this yesterday. We read:
Surveys have found that between 16 and 21 per cent of respondents in France hold positive views of Islamic State. Given that France has more than five million Muslims, the social catchment of sympathy for jihad is about one million people.
This explains why France has 751 special security zones, an endless sequence of violent incidents involving young Muslim men, anti-Semitic incidents have become routine and Muslims represent 60 per cent of the prison population. Two of the three jihad killers in Paris had served time in prison.
…Obviously, if 220 Australian Muslims are known to have engaged in jihad or supported jihad, it follows that 500,000 Muslims, or 99.95 per cent, have not.
Equally obvious, the diverse Muslim diaspora cannot be treated as a dangerous monolith, given that Muslims are the primary victims of oppression by Muslims and the overwhelming majority of Muslims either prefer the peaceful precepts of the Koran or are not highly religious.
But the calculus of terrorism relies on the leveraging of small numbers. It only took three jihadists to occupy 90,000 French police and military personnel, at enormous cost to the state, with enormous global publicity. That will have been duly noted by jihadists.
The late Lawrence Auster understood this very well indeed. (If you aren’t familiar with Mr. Auster’s work, he was best known in recent years for daily social and political commentary at his blog, View From The Right. Since his death in 2013, his website has been preserved and carefully archived; if you would like to read some of the sharpest traditional-conservative commentary and analysis of the first decade of the 21st century, you should spend some time over there. His magnum opus on the topic of immigration was the widely disseminated pamphlet The Path To National Suicide, which you can read here.)
I cited one of Larry’s posts in the comment thread of our own post on the Paris massacre, but it deserves to be quoted again here:
This is the unchangeable reality I pointed to in my 2004 article, “How to Defeat Jihad in America.’ We will have terrorist attacks and threats of terrorists attacks and inconvenient and humiliating security measures and the disruption of ordinary activities FOREVER, as long as Muslims are in the West in any significant numbers. The Muslim terrorists are part and parcel of the Muslim community. According to a survey reported in the Scotsman, 24 percent of Muslims in Britain (I never describe them as “British Muslims’) believe the July 2005 London bombings were justified. Imagine that. Not only do these Muslims in Britain support terrorism against Britain, they’re not afraid to say so openly to a pollster! The unchangeable fact is that wherever there is a sizable Muslim community there will be a very large number of terror supporters and therefore””inevitably””actual terrorists as well.
This is our future, FOREVER, unless we stop Muslim immigration and initiate a steady out-migration of Muslims from the West until their remaining numbers are a small fraction of what they are now and there are no true believers among the ones that remain. Travelers from Muslim countries must be tightly restricted as well. Muslims must be essentially locked up inside the Muslim lands, with only carefully screened individuals allowed into the non-Muslim world.
The enemy are among us, in America, in Britain, in the West, and will remain so until we remove them from the West and indeed from the entire non-Muslim world. As extreme as this sounds, it is a no-brainer. There is no other solution. All other responses to this problem add up to meaningless hand-wringing. The hand-wringing will go on FOREVER, along with the terrorist attacks and the threat of terrorist attacks, until we take the ONLY STEPS that can actually and permanently end the threat.
How realistic is this? It depends on two things.
First, it depends on our ability to keep before us the fact that no matter how large the percentage of Muslims who are docile and well-assimilated members of Western society, there will always be a significant fraction who hew to Islam’s literalist, expansionist, and totalizing traditions, and who consider Mohammed himself the perfect example — the sacred holotype, as anointed by God Almighty — of not just a religious, but also a political leader. To paraphrase remarks I made in a comment thread back in 2010:
In the view of much of the Muslim world, and of a great many influential Muslim scholars, such “moderate”, “Westernized” Muslims are heretics and apostates.
The problem for the West, and for “moderate” Muslims living here, is that Islam has a perpetual, self-renewing wellspring of fundamentalism at its core. That there may always be some more liberal and secular Muslims at the fringes of the Ummah, and rifts within Islam itself over who is an apostate and who isn’t, is irrelevant.
What matters is that due to the unique nature and origins of Islam there has always been, and will always be, a powerful and persistent gravitational pull away from modernizing reforms, and toward fundamentalism — and this will always be a source of tension and conflict wherever there are large communities of Muslims living in the West.
We must not overlook the essential fact that to stress the importance of bringing the entire world under submission to Allah is not some sort of fringe viewpoint held only by “radical Islamists” but is in fact the overarching, central mission of Islam, explicitly stated again and again and again throughout the Koran. (Indeed, the majority of the Koran is dedicated not to the practice of the faith, but to how to deal with the kuffar.) An expansionist attitude regarding the Muslim faith isn’t “Islamism”: it’s just Islam.
As made clear above by both Auster and Sheehan, what matters are the absolute numbers, in any Western society, of Muslims who understand Islam in this way. If a mere 5% of Muslims are of this kind (and the number is almost certainly higher), a population of five million Muslims living in your country means that you have within your borders a quarter of a million potential recruits for jihad. We have just seen how disruptive the actions of one group of four or five can be; their actions threw all of France, and indeed much of the civilized world, into a paroxysm of horror. That large Muslim populations jeopardize the peace and security of any non-Muslim nation is, therefore, simply an inescapable arithmetic truth.
Second, it depends on an awakening of our crippled ability to discriminate: to understand that of all the world’s religions and political ideologies, Islam, for now at least, poses a unique threat (not least because it is both of those things at once). That it does present a unique threat, and therefore requires a unique response, should be, one would imagine, almost completely self-evident at this point in world history — but so deeply infected are the good people of the West with what I have called the “cultural immunodeficiency” mind-virus that nothing short of a terrible, existential shock will make this happen. As bad as recent events have been, we have not yet received such a shock, I think.
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Nothwithstanding the fanciful videos released of the Paris shootings, its worth considerign the following.
Islam is a Christian sect, it asserts, with some validation from the Cath. Ency. see Ebionites, that they espouse a strictly monotheistic 1st century CJudeo-hristianity untainted by both Roman Pauline saved by grace Calvinism, and Judaic Pharisee-ism ( as critisized by Jesus as a reformer of Judaism). Moreover its politics is rule by a local elders council ( a tribal board of directors under natural law ).
Its political economy is anti-democracy, laws coming from the creator not being able to be changed by mob vote, eg gay marriage, partial birth infanticide, male plural marriage, usury, etc. This is Old Testament law mitigated by strict judicial restraint ( no claims of rape without trustworthy witnesses).
Islam s everything the Cathedral despizes, hence it is true in some sense there is a ‘clash of civilizations’.
The clash is between a preserved human tradition of the middle east millenia old, and an experiment in human morality and governance which is decades old, and rapidly evolving further towards the wall of complete human degradation.
Recall Islam was born as a slave revolt against Byzantine and persian corruptio by the most despized of all worlds peoples at that time, the dwellers of the desert , the wasteland, the A-rab. caravan traders and raiders.
Flip on the Hollywood, or consult the cartoons of je suis Charlie: the despized today are not just the Muslims, but the Christianss, and religious jews.
Neoreaction would then be to unite with a fertile ally in the war against progressive-ism, if victory over that foe is desired.
The alternative is splinter with the 1 billion plus natural allies to try to convince the aging eurotrash elites to forgo sodomy for procreation. Unlikely under pagan or christian calls to action. But what would be a pink washed unity with the polymorphs be abyway? surely not neo-reaction, rather..
austerism, zio-reaction.
oh well no direct reply
@natural allies
I do appreciate the description of islam as the last truly old testament ideology outside of orthodox judaism.
I am in a similar boat with malcom in a sense. I have known a few pleasant mulisms with a strong sense of community, faith, industry, and rationality. Very pleasant as long as you stay away from the religious and thoroughly westernized (in the 1950s middle america sense)
However there is a key saying that I have found to mostly be very wrong:
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend”
its most optimistic realistic rephrasing is:
“the enemy of my enemy is a strategic tool to be used with great caution.”
Consider that Islam has been a greater threat towards the West for a far longer time than the Demons Hive (the term I’m using as a catchall for the cathedral,progs,liberals,elves, sjws, bureaucrats, corrupt elites, communists etc etc) ever has.
Now this did change once technological and resource disparity reached a point where islam has neglible capacity to wage old school war on the west.
Now the Demons Hive has acted as a very real threat in the physical sense throughout the 20th century and as the 21st kicks in it has shown its colors has a massive systemic cancer in the west. A slow killer but still a deadly foe.
We could use a chemotherapy approach to the Demons Hive hopefully salvaging something from whatever organs are still functioning at that time. This has 2 risks.
1. Radiation could outright kill someone if dosage is done wrong.
The islamic groups has they gather wealth and technology end up applying their large populace to being a threat in a warfare sense. Get rid of the internal enemy and the barbarians raid.
I’m not sure how plausible this is but there is no reason to suspect that once the Demon Hive is purged that the islamic world wont be forcing people to have conversations about soverighty.
2. Radiation itself can cause new tumors to form of a different variety. (keep in mind this analogy isnt strictly keeping with medical science and is merely illustrative)
There is already a 4th generation warfare going on with islam on the wests weakened memetic immune system. Many converts who desire a more masculine and traditional form of society. Especially with an alternative to the current form of legislative law and a massive population of adherents to join it sounds very appealing to many who dont know any better and who are inherently poisoned against anything smelling like Christianity.
If the demons hive is killed and a proper memetic immune system is not instilled it is very problematic to have that ideology be seen as an ally. Many people would not be able to understand why we consider islam a friend and yet at the same time disparage their actual beliefs.
There is ofc the possibilty that westernized muslims slowly purge themselves of their islamic beliefs systems and the AIDs progresses backwards toward the centers of islam. However since their memetic immune systems are heavily fortified with such a powerful religion it doesnt strike me as a plausible possibility.
I also dont see islam as being useful against prog society except in the sense that it turns their latent fascistic sentiments into real ones or it forces the Demon Hive to Moderate slightly for a time on one issue by turning the muslims into the same class as the white man. Islam basically has the same goal as reactionaries but from a radically different moral and cultural standpoint (prime difference being conversion to alien ideology rather than seeking the roots of your own society to find out how to deal with the challenges of the future) and thus making most reactionary sentiment itself anti-thetical to the goal of purging the demons hive and leaving the options on the table as they currently stand. More of the same.
Now, since I am very much a fan of intellectual honesty, I will engage with what you actually said instead of my initial quick view (with little analysis or historical recount of the vast topic of islam vs the west)
>ts political economy is anti-democracy
indeed. I mean most sane political movements through history avoided that trap but being anti-democracy to the core (especially as the youth of those countries try their damndest to do so) helps out.
>laws coming from the creator not being able to be changed by mob vote
being anti-legislative law. Now I dont think that everything anti-legislative is necessarily promoting Justice but at least shariah isnt falling into that trap any time soon.
>Neoreaction would then be to unite with a fertile ally in the war against progressive-ism, if victory over that foe is desired.
fertile? well even if they are an ally they are an arid one as total conversion really is the only way to be their friend.
However they are fertile ground of research especially in context of opening the box for what the overton window contains. Mostly its raw barbarism and immorality but it gets the job done so thats something.
>The alternative is splinter with the 1 billion plus natural allies to try to convince the aging eurotrash elites to forgo sodomy for procreation
I wouldnt say the only alternative is to ‘convince’ the fags to breed. I would say another alternative is to find those who are already actually willing to found a moral civilization and do it in their daily lives. There are many.
There is still a splinter. You dont get to pretend you arent real enemies for awhile. You basically make islam regard you more and more as the real enemy if you end up making the Demons Hive hurt. They probably will not care until you gain some military power and certain factions enact a real crusades mark deux.
>Unlikely under pagan or christian calls to action. But what would be a pink washed unity with the polymorphs be abyway? surely not neo-reaction, rather..
austerism, zio-reaction.
made me laugh. Pretty funny.
A topic comes to mind when discussing this.
WWII and who to root for.
You have Communist Russia, The increasingly Demonic West, and Fascistic Germany-austria/Italy/Japan.
Many people talk about the need for allying with russia to defeat the evil germans from destroying the european west. Obviously the war was mostly won by russia. Now if we had allied with the fascists (like the islamic ally) we would have had a fighting chance of strangling communism as an adolencst. The result is merging with the facists and exacerbating the Demon Hive tendencies in The West and Fascism of making the state a God. This isnt really any different,unless youre jewish, than allying with russia in that respect.
This is A MASSIVE OVER SIMPLIFICATION but the more and more I read the topic I find that I really end up only empathizing with the german conservatives in WWI. That the treaty of versaille was a travesty and that if I wanted a better outcome for WWII I would have destroyed russia while at the same time purging the Demonic Hives of the west and fascism.
In this sense its the opposite order with islam vs progs. Purge the Demonic Hive than fight islam. Both groups have vastly different morals than my people and end up being enemies in that regard alone let alone competition over resources and sovereignty.
This conversation becomes VERY interesting if we substitute islam for modern russia. Especially if modern russia becomes more orthodox and more of a true enemy of the west.
At the end of the day neoreaction has very few unique analyses but one that I do rather enjoy is that different groups have different governments that work best for them. Islam may be decent for arabs but its rabid conversion instinct and total war mentality make it something that non arab populations should be wary of.
I do wish I could spend the time to research and make a really well thought out response to your idea in a book form but I do not have the time so I accept the low quality of this thought. Best to you and yours.
Because neoreaction is partly an intellectualized form , or secularized expression, of Judaized Protestantism , ie reform Judaism without a Sky Daddy; it eventually rejects Law , choosing Paul’s way to salvation over Jesus’ brother James , in other words a pseudo christian antinomian Kabalist attempt to bring goog via evil. How else to characterize the crowning achievement of human rights being in animal abuse ( New Yorker magazine making animal love the next gay marriage initiative). So this is a biological sickness, a protestant -reform turning away from natural law ( the biological instructions on how to prosper as a people) towards the opposite, how to grow sick and depraved and fall into endless nursery home beds administered by phillipino nurses. This is its future, hence the call for euthanasia for the old in both portland and amsterdam. ‘The West’ as an idea is dead, wants to be dead, and celebrates its death instinct in ritual child murder, eg 500 last month or so in Gaza .
Embedded in this Judaic Proestantism is the notion of a chosen people, a DNA right, a blood entitlement (because virtue no longer defines Gods people under kabbalah, quite the opposite, anti virtue).
So a million french liberals grasped hands with al sisi of egypt and netanyahu of occupied palestine to celebrate press freedom, no one mentioning the blood of journos dripping from their claws, nor any mention of Soral or Diedonne, shackled for satiring the wrong religion.
But the West will survive as a humansub species, race, it is all over the world. The race realists know it will survive , even if France goes from less than 10 percent Muslim now (?) to 30% later, the real threat here is not from bombs, but from Love Jihad. They want to marry your sluttly nutty spinster sister. Let them keep her off the streets. So be it.
The Catholics have caught onto this, see Pat Buchanan and E. Michael Jones, leave them alone, and they will corrupt just as quickly as a Saudi in a London casino, or so their elites. Their working poor and middle class are the only active bulwark against kabbalist hollywood media usury Kulture, they are our natural allies ( First Things):
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/02/muslims-our-natural-allies
Ally with Islam against the corrupted West? No thanks. To imagine that “any tradition is better than no tradition” is a grotesque perversion of traditionalism itself.
Defining ‘neoreaction’ is a contentious affair, but if there is one idea that is, or ought to be, common to all conceptions of it, it is that cultures and traditions are organic expressions of a common people. To suppose otherwise is to fall into the same naive universalism that got us into this mess. My aim is to preserve and defend Western civilization against a wasting memetic illness, not to drive a stake through its heart.
The only way to ally with Islam, as should be obvious by now, is to submit to Islam. I’ll pass.
Today we face the same choice as the Jews of Iberia, submission to the pagan polymorphs and their religion of child sacrifice, or an in-gathering of all the spiritual peoples (regardless of color, why seek union with tatto pierced white barbarians in trailer parks , when like minded co-devoteees live elsewhere). No , reject the Visigoths for alliance with the Muslims, pseudo mMuslims (eg Mormons) against the polymorphs and the nihilism of Chinese-Indian Chindia expansion.
“Returning to Cordoba immediately after the slaughter, Mughith established a precedent of historic political and religious impact. He assembled all of the Jews in the city and left them, “together with willing Christians and a small detachment of Muslims,” in charge of Cordoba’s defenses. Mughith’s precedent established the conditions for the vaunted Muslim-Judeo-Christian interdependence that was to distinguish Islam in Iberia for several centuries. His collaborative precedent was also, to be sure, an astute response to the numbers on the ground–a Muslim force of infinitesimal size pragmatically manufacturing auxiliaries from the local population. King Egica’s insensate proscriptions casting all unconverted Jews into slavery and confiscating their property had driven these people to save themselves by reaching out to the conquering Arabs. After so many years of living under the Damoclean sword of property expropriation, forced conversion, and expulsion, Jews throughout Hispania welcomed the Muslim invaders as deliverers.”
By “submit”, I refer to dhimmitude as well as conversion. The Jews of 8th-century Iberia might have been glad to exchange “property expropriation, forced conversion, and expulsion” for dhimmitude (which was a far better deal back then than you’d get these days, if the fate of Christians and Jews under Islamism nowadays is any guide), but I’m not so inclined. Sorry.
Malcolm is right on practice versus theory. submission dhimmitude in al sisi’s egypt, or BP Aramco’s Arabia is radically different than in yesterdays Muslim Iberia. Moreover ISIS Syrian rebels allied with Israel / Kurds show an entirely different set of facts on the ground. Christian subjugation apartheid in Egypt , Arabia is akin to Christian occupation in Palestine yet without the unruly settlers occasionally burning your children alive, thankfully. Yet the same fate may occur in ISIS Iraq.
None of this perhaps matters in a multicultural Europe merged with North Africa ( the so called EU Euromed plan). In such a EU implementation the best to hope for is a respect for Old testament values that limits the in the face profocations of the pussy riot polymorphs defecating in the churches. Actual free speech would lmit the sanctions on pastors who espouse Christian values. And now that all the witnesses are dead, it may be time to discuss the reality of allied war crimes allegations during ww2.
This plus regulation of gender activism, non universal racial set asides, would make the EU a more bearable place for traditionalists reactionaries; especially with a reaffirmation of the right to free association on ethnic lines.
Yet all of the above would be a major setback for zioreaction’s attempt to create a racial civilwar with europe’s brown neighbors. Hence the need for continued support for Red Brigades type units to destabilize european politics and society.
[ Italian officials: Massad co sponsors
Red Brigades ]
All in all dhimmitude to talmudic secular zionism has cost the west greatly, co-equal alliance with the religious opponents of the same seems a better option.
Nice pen-name there, but no thanks.
Look, we are where we are and fulminating about past errors by our political leaderships (for whom we voted!) achieves nothing.
There is not even the slightest possibility of organising a mass expulsion of Muslims – where would we send them, who would want them? So we are stuck with what we have and the question is how to deal with it.
First of all we should remain calm even in the face of the occasional atrocity which, in the case of the Charlie Hebdo incident, was piffling in comparison to very many others – it coincided with a report (not yet confirmed) that over 50 civilians were killed by an American air strike in Syria!
What we do in the face of this threat is two things. First, we maintain our belief in, and support for, our democratic and judicial institutions. Part of the ferocity from extreme Islamists stems from their understanding that our western notions (some good, some bad) are enormously attractive to Muslim people. In fact, it’s obvious to me that in a modern secular world Islam is doomed to the same fate as Christianity.
Second, we should learn to ‘box clever’. Our security services are not perfect but they have the ability and the means to exert increasing pressure on active Jihadists in our population. Yes, they will make mistakes and incidents will occur but in the long run we will prevail – provided we avoid the heavy fists and instead deploy our brain-power.
In the meantime, pay heed to the wise words of Cpl. Jones in “Dad’s Army” – “Don’t panic!”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lance-Corporal_Jones
http://annaraccoon.com/2015/01/14/sacranie-values/
JK,
From the linked post:
Hm. Might have to send this along to Bill Vallicella; I’m not sure he’d agree.
Well Malcolm, at the risk of sounding like Lloyd Bentsen I freely state Gildas is a mere, whatever a lawyer is titled in the UK.
Don’t bother Bill. Hopefully he’s enjoying a cigar.
(And I’d rather – if something I’ve linked comes under his gaze – it be on some other subject.)
In the UK they are called barristers, especially if they rail against stair-cases.
Ah yes Henry, now I recall
Staircase To Heaven.
I’d wondered why they’d wailed to no effect.
Same for the Frogs I’m supposing which, makes it the more explicable our O made no such HebdO?
David,
Do forgive me, but I’m afraid I must disagree with nearly all of what you’ve said here.
We are where we are, to be sure — but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make it very clear that we have made a terrible mistake, and try to understand how we could ever have been so reckless. Only if we do that can we even begin to understand what, if anything, we must do in future.
I agree that “mass expulsion” is not likely, for now at least. But history is full of horrifying examples of what can happen when “diversity” goes wrong, and demographic pressures and tensions are artificially held in check. Perhaps there is some way to incentivize non-assimilatng Muslims to return to Muslim lands. Will you agree that, at the very least, a moratorium on Muslim immigration is something we should seriously consider?
I think you grossly underestimate the enormously destabilizing and corrosive psychological effect of terrorism. If you think that, as these attacks continue, and the expanding presence of a profoundly alien and implacably malevolent fifth column becomes more and more evident to all, there will not be a deepening hatred on the part of most ordinary people for all things Islamic — a hatred that, if history is any guide, may ultimately be released with a terrible fury — then you have a very optimistic view of human nature.
But that is exactly what is being eroded, day by day, as people see themselves defied and slandered as ‘racists’ by their leaders for wanting to address the problem — the very leaders who got them into this terrible mess in the first place. (Meanwhile, the government shelters sex-slavery rings to avoid seeming ‘racist’ themsleves.) Trust in ‘democratic and judicial institutions’ is at an all-time low, and with good reason. (I won’t go off on a reactionary screed here, but the combination of democracy, universal suffrage, open borders and a lavish welfare state is a lethal one, and we are looking at the late stages of the disease.)
Spoken like a true, modern, secular Westerner. If you were importing millions of those to live in your country, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. Alas, what you are actually getting is a very different sort of people indeed, and — cover your ears, ye of faint heart, because I am about to utter a heresy — people are not all the same. And the more of them you bring in, the more at-risk your modern, secular world becomes. Why not have our modern secular world over here, and let them have their Islamic world over there? Wouldn’t that have saved us an awful lot of trouble?
As life gets nastier and nastier, and more and more contentious, and less and less free, for everyone else.
Right. Maybe not this evening, but surely tomorrow. So sit tight, Estragon.
Er … no, JK. It’s an elaborate pun on the word “banister”.
[img]https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSS-44Pa7PLl4Q2H2sZBuNA5obr2Jb4fYHcQ7db4PBvSEPdFxRS[/img]
Probably too elaborate … Can’t win ’em all, I guess.
The only people who can remain calm are those on the receiving end of the atrocity — they’re dead. Everyone else should be enraged.
“Too elaborate” Henry?
Hmmm. A Stair-Case my esteemed Friend is not, A Stair-Way. I again, freely admit, my own ignorance as regards yours. Such being the case our individual puns – inside jokes – don’t very apparently always connect dot to dot.
For instance I note your pictured route features “landings” … or stops along the way. My mind on the other hand conjectures a spiral of a sort – a pole un-subject to “normal gravity” as Big Al might imagine it connecting and intersecting all and each different level.
Yours Henry (and correct my metaphor as you see fit) implies the “stepper” has some finite set of levels at which a singular decision is made. The switchbacks (indicated by the abrupt change of direction of the “banister” a clear indication some specific *this is my floor.*
________
A Stair-Case being the province for the legalistic .. Stair-Way for the not so much .. and there’s the rub.
The former goes either/or – the latter a greased pole unaffected by gravity as observed from Earth and is solely affected by the nearest mass.
We’ve all individually come to something … & Can’t win any I’m of the opinion.
Then again. I’ve ticked off years enough I don’t know I’ve concluded anything.
But I enjoy muddling.
Carry on muddling JK. I used to think that you were incomprehensible but I have become accustomed to your style. These new commentators have me flummoxed. What are they talking about? Has Malcolm invited the lunatic fringe to share his vision? I wouldn’t know, but obviously when you express extreme views you can end up with unpredictable allies who you didn’t see coming.
David Duff, I’m with you. Mass expulsion is not possible, and if it was attempted with any degree of success, who would then enforce the next inevitable exodus/repatriation? I guess, not very nice people, (except for Malcolm) who would almost certainly next set their sights on Jews, blacks, or anyone else whose lineage didn’t pass muster.
One of the greatest thing about the internet is that it gives a platform to the craziest people. I am totally enthralled by lunatics stating their case on forums or mad blogs. Malcolm, I don’t mean you, because although you have the daftest ideas you articulate them so well that you make me think….maybe.
Then I come to my senses.
“David Duff, I’m with you.” Sound fella’ that Musey chap!
Malcolm, I worry about you. In your almost inchoate fury I fear lest you lash out in directions which not only will you regret but perhaps will live to be ashamed of!
‘Over here’ we lived through 25 years of Irish terrorism and we applied a security policy which, more or less, remained within the spirit of our laws. Of course, sometimes things went wrong – shit happens, as you say rather wisely ‘over there’ – but we learned as we went along. By the end of the campaign I think it is fair to say that the IRA was riddled with informants, their homes and bases were bugged top to bottom and their leaders could not fart without our people hearing it, or even smelling it! They were losing and they knew it which is why they entered into talks.
What I’m saying is that you have to be very patient and think long term. Also, and equally important, you have to try and keep your operations within the spirit of the law of the land. If that is broken too often and too far then what on earth are we fighting for? We might as well set up the concentration camps and the extermination centres!
Forgive this link to a post of mine written back in 2012:
http://duffandnonsense.typepad.com/duff_nonsense/2012/07/a-surreptitious-cheer-for-14-intelligence-company.html
Oh yeah, sound. Thanks David.
Those Irish bastards, I can’t stand them either!
JK,
There are multiple allusions in my pun:
barrister (lawyer) — banister (railing)
railing (noun) — railing (verb)
lawyer’s case — staircase
The pic is of a banister railing for a staircase.
David: you have cut me to the quick, my friend. “Inchoate fury?” “Extermination camps”? Heavens, no. Surely you know what a gentle, thoughtful chap I am. All I am doing here is looking at a deteriorating situation — which, even you must agree, is not an unfair description of the civil, social, economic, and political life of Europe and the U.K. these days — and trying to understand what went wrong, what might go even more wrong in the future, and what might be done to keep things from getting worse.
I agree with you, John Derbyshire, Musey (who, by the way, is not a “fellow”, but a charming and intelligent woman from the Antipodes), and any other clear-headed observer, that mass expulsion of Muslims from the West is, politically, ideologically, culturally, practically, and arguably even morally, a non-starter. My point, and it is a sad and unfortunate one, was simply that throughout history, when tensions between incompatible and immiscible populations sharing the same patch of land escalate without end, the result — again and again and again — has been an explosive and bloody disaggregation.
It’s tempting to imagine that this can never happen again, but history gives us scant cause for optimism. The examples are simply too many, and too recent, and already emotions are rising sharply. As things get worse, and the displacement of traditional European peoples and cultures accelerates — as it will — the pot will almost certainly begin to boil. I worry about what may happen when it does, and so I think we must look at the problem now, with an unflinching eye, if we are to avoid far worse troubles in future. And one thing we must get past in order to do this is to set aside the kind-hearted, but dangerously naive, progressivist universalism and dogmatic denial of essential realities of human nature that got us into this predicament in the first place.
To compare Britain’s fight with the IRA to what is happening now overlooks some very important distinctions. The English and the Irish are two closely related and geographically proximate people, deeply intermarried, with profound commonalities of language, religion, history, and culture. Even the intra-Christian schism that divides them, for all its sanguinary bitterness, is historically very recent; England itself was a Catholic nation until fairly recently, and even today there are more church-going Catholics than Anglicans in England and Wales. So this was, in many ways, an internecine or intramural struggle, and it is not surprising that it has largely been resolved. For you, that resolution is an argument for optimism. Let me stand that argument on its head.
Consider all that I’ve just said about the many commonalities between the English and the Irish. Despite that, though, consider how bad those troubles were, and for how long. If that’s how destructive such tensions can be between two peoples with so much in common, imagine how much worse it can get between peoples who have almost nothing to bind them together — no shared language, ancestry, religion, history, folklore, traditions, rituals, art, music, philosophy, politics, or culture. Shouldn’t the lesson, then, of the Irish difficulties be that the West has had quite enough to deal with just in managing its internal tensions and frictions, without importing new ones? England was Catholic for centuries, yet the Catholic/Protestant schism caused enormous suffering and bloodshed. It has never, however, been Muslim (and let us not forget that Islam has bitter internal divisions of its own). How, then, can this possibly go well? Wouldn’t it make obvious sense, at the very least, to hold off on further Muslim immigration to the West until we have shown that we can assimilate those who are already here?
Musey: I don’t moderate comments. I’ve been fortunate not to need to; I’ve only screened a dozen or so comments over the years. That may change, but so far I’d rather not.
You wrote:
I know exactly how you feel. It’s the same process I went through myself, over many years. Then I gradually came to understand, after much study and reflection, that some of these “daft ideas” weren’t daft at all, and that it was only a recent, collective daftness, in which I had been marinated since childhood, that had made me think they were — and that I was, at last, “coming to my senses”.
It’s very hard, and often very painful, to swim against the current, especially a dominating social, intellectual and ideological current that rises almost to the level of religion. Indeed, if one has been drifting in it all one’s life, one doesn’t even realize that there is such a current until one tries to swim against it, and suddenly feels its tremendous power. That “…maybe” you mentioned was the beginning — a very important beginning. It gladdens my heart to know that by writing about it all in these pages I may have gotten you to take those essential first strokes as well. There are great cataracts ahead, and we need to swim for shore.
Oh, and by they way, David, looking at your linked post:
“…virulently Catholic”?
You’d better mind what you say, my friend, or you’ll end up in the jug. It isn’t 2012 anymore.
Bear in mind as well that acts of terrorism are usually just the most extreme form of violence; a community that produces a larger-than-normal percentage of terrorists is also almost certainly going to produce proportionally more murderers, pimps, gangsters, thieves, brawlers, obnoxious neighbors, street-corner soapbox ranters, concert hecklers, and generally unpleasant and aggressive people (Islamic radicals are quite comfortable using their religion to justify any of these lesser activities, I’m sure).
The first use of the phrase “mass expulsion” in this thread is in DD’s comment, which I quote above. Therefore, to imply that this is what Malcolm is proposing is what is known as a strawman logical fallacy. Such a fallacy serves to misrepresent somebody’s argument so as to make it easier to attack.
I think we can all agree that the present situation is fraught with dangers for everyone. All I sought to do was to offer a word of warning to anyone who might think that there are drastic measures which can be implemented in the belief that they will lead to an early end to the situation. By “anyone” I exclude, of course, our “gentle, thoughtful” host who anyway is too bright to fall for that sort of thing.
We are at war of a sort not seen on this scale ever before. It will be long, it will be bloody, but it is essential that we do not lose sight of what it is we are fighting for and that we have a realistic assessment of exactly what and who it is we are fighting. ‘Know your enemy’ is an old adage and our leaders need to know in detail the history and current state of affairs in the Muslim world. It is not enough to simply write them all of as the same bunch of ‘towel heads’.
@ Big Henry: Not guilty, m’Lord! Our host quoted – with approval – the following quote from another blogger with my added emphasis:
“This is our future, FOREVER, unless we stop Muslim immigration and **initiate a steady out-migration of Muslims** from the West until their remaining numbers are a small fraction of what they are now and there are no true believers among the ones that remain.
True, we could spend time quibbling on the meaning of “out-migration”, er, but only if you buy the drinks!
@DD:
I specifically said “mass expulsion”, which indeed misrepresents anything Malcolm has advocated or, I believe, anything he had even implied to have advocated. You, sir, are weasel-wording.
And you needn’t refer to me as m’Lord. “Your Excellency” will do. Drinks are on me; but spare me the quibbling. It would be, quite clearly, a waste of time all around.
Cheers …
Where? When? The why I won’t quibble.
_______
My ‘allusion’ Henry had to do with a singular thing … recall that Turk saying something along the lines of, “Secular Democracy is a train we ride, and choose where we get off”?
A staircase architecturally, offers to the many traversing it, opportunities to change direction. A stairway however, does not.
Oh. And “wailed”
Looney Tunes. Elmer Fudd.
Wascally Wabbit.
Rascal Rabbit.
Too *elaborate* …
“Wrought by labor” from Latin elaboratus, past participle of elaborare “to exert oneself” via notion of “produced with great care and attention to detail.”
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
Depends “I guess.”
Musey? Took me some minutes somewhere else before I realized the import of
True Musey, I didn’t see you coming along for the ride on whatever the subject was (I remember you doing so, can’t recall what that post’s subject was though I’m sorry to say) but I distinctly remember we two striking up quite the chummy … and fond recollection it remains.
I expect we’ll do so again.
(I almost joined in on the post where you reminisced your honeymoon sharing a room with the hooker and her John but was afraid I might end the fleeting alliance masturbating and since I’ve only recently put out quite a sum getting my vision corrected … well, I’m certain you understand.)
I see our Host has acknowledged directly to you your concerns which I’d not been able to respond to anyway but I didn’t wish to leave you thinking I’d not paid your due.
Anywhere within 100 miles from my home (I don’t travel much these days). Anytime for you, dude.
I’ve got 12-year-old Glenfiddich (couldn’t find the 40). Let me know if you can travel beyond the states surrounding Arkansas.
h
Of that you can be sure Henry. I’m invited to be in Las Vegas April. Virginia in July (which, unless Henry we can manage attendance by the originally invited David Duff I’ll under no other circumstance be anywhere near where specified … unless that is, where you’re to be buying)
At some point of [nearly] every year MD, GA and Ft Pierce FL. If any of those points via AR overflight your location, I’m certain you can arrange my “drain e special” [no, no sexual favors … well, dirty jokes and Musey’s honeymoon in mind a requisite]
So if, Henry, any of those spots – origination point Arkansas overflights your location … Yes, I can put in there.
Henry. Ever heard of this fairly near to the Father of the US Navy [& of course you Henry being you, fully cognizant of Honor & Tradition]
http://warontherocks.com/2014/06/somewhere-between-gorgeous-and-car-chase-the-laphroaig-cairdeas-series/
I’ll honor you Sir with a toast of Thanks.
Maybe Seventhrice. And if it comes to that (if you can manage it) twenty-twooo..ice.
If we could, for once, stay on topic in here…
David,
There is, of course, a difference between “out-migration” and “expulsion”, and I’m sure that Larry Auster chose his words carefully. If, for example, we could reduce the Muslim population in the West by offering to cover resettlement expenses, that might be well worth the cost. But of course there wouldn’t be many takers, given how sweet the deal is here, especially in the munificent welfare states of Western Europe. (One could hardly blame those already here for sticking around; I’m sure I would too.) Also, if expansion of the dar-al-Islam is part of the agenda, any who left would be shirking their responsibility to the Ummah.
You asked “Where would we send them? Who would want them?” But that, of course, raises the question: if even Muslim nations don’t want them, why on Earth did we want them?
Which brings me back to the questions you haven’t answered: do you agree that allowing mass Muslim immigration to the West has been a mistake? (To put that another way: if you had it to do over again, looking at Europe and Britain today and knowing what you know now, would you?)
Do you agree that it would make sense, at the very least, to curtail further Muslim immigration until we can demonstrate that we can successfully assimilate those already here? That is something we actually can do, if we have the will.
For many people, giving an honest answer to these questions is still something, as you put it, “to be ashamed of”. It shouldn’t be. These questions are of existential importance — and as the stewards of our civilization for generations yet unborn, we have a duty to answer them truthfully.
Malcolm, I just wrote a lengthy piece which disappeared into the ether. Very annoying because it’s irretrievable, but looking on the bright side it saves you time, because this will be brief. It seemed churlish not to respond to you and thank you for your compliment. A very rare compliment for me because I am not, in any way, an intellectual but I’m surrounded by clever people. It’s easy to feel a bit retarded around here.
I am familiar with David’s blog although I don’t comment. His “Monday Funnies” are often rude but always hilarious. Anti-Irish rhetoric is to be expected from those who have served in the British Army and I take it in my stride. My husband has several members of his extended family who have been in NI and they feel as David does. It’s tribal and it’s bitter, but you already know that.
JK, our first exchange was something about monkeys or little people who set out to look for something to cover up their bits and pieces. Or something like that. I think I was engaged in a less than friendly exchange with Henry at the time, and you butted in to pour a bit of oil on the fire. Just for fun. I didn’t have a clue what you meant. I still don’t, but at the time I thought that my lack of comprehension was unique.
Our night in Salinas is unforgettable. I can’t remember how we ended up in that situation, but I’m sure it was his fault! I do remember being awake at five in the morning and whispering about getting out of there but we were scared to waken these people. As it turned out, we were worried about nothing and that couple didn’t mean us any harm. We had led such sheltered lives!
Henry, can I come to your party? I don’t like whiskey but I’ll bring wine. Can Malcolm come as well?
Musey, if JK and I can arrange a meeting, you and Malcolm would be welcome to join us.
JK, I will contact you by email tomorrow.
All y’all be cool …
Musey?
Best I recall the word “tennis” entered into our equation.
I can hit the Waka archives myself (as I’m somewhat remembering) but I figure it better served you do.
Just me acknowledging ‘stay OT’ but then again here is you Musey.
“Unpredictably Allied” in this matter at hand? I expect probably not.
Tennis as I recall Musey.
Oh Shit Musey.
We spent a night in Salinas?
That was you? [!!!]
Malcolm, I would love to change my grammatical errors, but to do so risks losing the whole comment. Which has happened before, so much as I appreciate being able to look over what I have written and spot the mistakes, it is irritating when an amendment causes everything to disappear. Which it does.
Henry, I can’t wait. This is an eagerly anticipated invitation. I can’t wait to meet you. And JK. And Malcolm. Let me be a little bit sycophantic here and admit that I want to meet Malcolm, most of all.
I await your email, Henry.
JK, if it was you I would remember. Maybe it was Malcolm?
So, now I am talking to myself because you’re all asleep.
Sweet dreams, everybody.
Nope Musey, I’m not.
Remember. We two’ve been through this before at almost this precise hour.
May perhaps.
2014
Sorry JK, I don’t recall the hour.
2014, is so last year.
JK, I really do like you because you’re interesting and different. Have a nice sleep.
http://malcolmpollack.com/2014/06/14/egalite/#comment-532752
“You asked “Where would we send them? Who would want them?” But that, of course, raises the question: if even Muslim nations don’t want them, why on Earth did we want them?”
If the current example of Sweden is an indication, the “who would want them” is the current governing class because they want the votes. Never mind the rising tide of radicals.
Musey, Ma’am, I apologise for assuming you were of the male persuasion but it’s all so damned masculine around here! Anyway, I am delighted to learn that you are a visitor to D&N – ‘an ill-favoured thing, ma’am, but mine own’.
Alas, Malcolm, ‘She Who Must Be Obeyed’ has summoned me for chauffeuring duties so I will reply to your two questions on my return.
@ Henry:
You say ‘initiate a steady out-migration of Muslims’, I say “mass expulsions” – let’s call the whole thing off!
@David:
I had already called the whole thing off. And yet …
I never actually say either of those things. I was merely quoting what others have said, using real quotation marks and everything.
Peace.
Do you mean “peace” – and quiet, Henry?!
Alas, our host has posed me two critical questions which I will try my best to answer as succinctly as possible. The first is as follows:
“do you agree that allowing mass Muslim immigration to the West has been a mistake? (To put that another way: if you had it to do over again, looking at Europe and Britain today and knowing what you know now, would you?)”
That is a ‘dagger to the heart’ and I haven’t really thought about it before because I have worked on the basis that what is – is! I do not wish to overburden this comment thread with too much detail but the straight answer is ‘Yes’ to the main question, and ‘No’ to the subsidiary question. To avoid over-staying my welcome here, I will during this weekend lay down my reasons over at my place and, if I can, I will precis them down for inclusion here.
The second main question was as follows:
“Do you agree that it would make sense, at the very least, to curtail further Muslim immigration until we can demonstrate that we can successfully assimilate those already here?”
No, and again, my reasons require some space to elucidate so I will do so over at ‘my place’ and then try to give you the essence later on.
In the meantime, I would *urge* you all to read this absolutely excellent article in this week’s ‘Speccie’. It reminds us all that the ‘war’ is not just fought on the streets of Paris or London or Boston but in the ‘Umma’ itself where we do have Muslim allies who desperately need our support. Please read this article and – ponder well:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9416462/how-to-save-islam-from-the-islamists/
No, David, not quiet. Peace as opposed to quibbling. It’s Malcolm’s salon; it’s his rules.
So, in the spirit of staying on topic, I agree that it is important to consider the desperate needs of our allies, potential allies, and just about anyone who deserves it. But, in the spirit Talmudic wisdom, our top priority must be to our own desperate needs. And, I think it goes without saying, you don’t have to be Jewish to benefit from Talmudic (or any other source of) wisdom.
Thanks for your responses, David. It surprises me that you can agree that allowing mass Muslim immigration was a mistake, and would decline to do it over if you had a second chance, yet want to keep doing it now — but I look forward to reading your forthcoming posts.
Do forgive me for getting out the bright lights and the rubber hoses there — I hope it won’t keep you from coming back!
Like you Malcolm I await with interest David’s explanation for his eagerness or, at least, willingness to carry on bringing more Muslims in to western countries.
With due respect David, I think living as you do in rural Somerset you fail to appreciate the rage and insecurity that is felt by those who find themselves under siege. Whole towns have been taken over and many areas are difficult to safely navigate. My old aunty lived in Luton. Lovely place! When she finally moved out of the area every single house on the road was occupied by Pakistani families. As she said, they’re lovely people really but I can’t talk to them and I feel like a foreigner.
I lived in Cambridge for many years, and the liberal intellectuals there would surely shoot you down if you suggested that you were fearful of minorities, but it didn’t impact on their lives. The people of Bradford, Rotherham, Bolton, Luton..I could go on, have had as much as they can take and right now they are furious. Allowing more and more immigrants to come in will bring things to a head more quickly which is possibly the only good thing about this horrible situation.
The schools cannot cope. The hospitals cannot cope. My son did two years in A&E, one year at a flagship hospital in London, the other in a regional hospital. You can guess which one didn’t work. In order for the hospital not to be fined, patients were stuck in a separate area upstairs after the briefest of triage, so that technically, they hadn’t had to wait for more than four hours. He said it was enormously stressful because the resources simply weren’t there, they were short staffed, and morale was shockingly low. Obviously, immigration is not the sole reason for this mess but it doesn’t help.
I was rather hoping that someone would come in here and couch my indiscreet comment, but I’ve checked back a few times and everybody has gone quiet. I nearly replied to you a while back, Malcolm, when you spoke of NHS problems, but it really isn’t my story to tell and I am mindful that my son could possibly be identified by my blabbermouth, and he wouldn’t dream of putting stuff out there, and furthermore, he has no idea that I have been outspoken.
If David is still tuned in, let me say that I had an Irish father and an English mother, grew up in the midst of all the outrage and terror, and for that reason, I do feel empathy with those Muslim people living in the UK who are peaceable, reasonable and good. We all acknowledge that this means most of them, but these days that is not enough. Let people learn English, embrace the culture of the country that they have chosen as their home.
My father did serve in the British Army during the war. He was horrified by the actions of the IRA over the years and he had to put up with a lot of rubbish because of his Irishness. And believe me, he did put up with it, stopping just short of accepting personal responsibility. That is why I feel so much for Muslim people taking the blame for stuff that has nothing to with them, but is done in their name.
I have just watched Dave Allen, “God’s own comedian”, on youtube. It makes me laugh so much because I remember my parents tut- tutting but watching it anyway. And I remember my father laughing. He even went to the same school, but what upsets me is the extraordinary physical resemblance, the same gestures, and the same irreverence.
My mother was English, my father was Irish, and I am so proud of both of them.
I don’t see the point of preserving the new antidemocratic progressive Europe, a degenerate infertile old slag Whats left of its beautiful and noble past will do better under the respect of a foreign spiritual system rather than under the contemporary antichrist polymorph debasement, stated better here:
A Radical Traditionalist Critique of the Anti-Islam Movement – J Olafson Radix Journal
http://www.radixjournal.com/journal/2015/1/15/primary-diversion
Dear Musey, I confess to my innate dislike and distrust of the southern Irish who during my lifetime attempted to blow up me and mine for 25+/- years. Well, not me personally, but if I had happened to have been in Regents Park, a short cut I often took on business trips to London, then, er, my parts might have been part of the parts of horsemen and guardsmen blown to smithereens whilst undertaking their harmless ceremonial duties.
We can only ‘know’ (NB: inverted commas!)people either individually or collectively and the results will frequently be contradictory. I served with individual ‘Paddies’ in the Parachute Regiment – happily long before ‘The Troubles’ broke out but be it pub fight or real fight I would have been delighted to have them alongside.
Even so, and returning to ‘The Troubles’, once the British government woke up to the fact that the ‘Proddies’ had stitched up Ulster against the ‘Fenians’ and began measures to correct it, there was absolutely no excuse for murderous thugs like Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness to attempt their take-over by force.
Nor was there any moral excuse for (my guess) a *majority* of the southern Irish public to sympathise when not actually supporting the PIRA despite the atrocities they executed in my country which, incidentally, make ISIS look like rank amateurs! The same, condemnation goes to all those dopey, soppy, sentimental ‘stoopids’ in America, mostly in the Boston area, who did the same and which makes their moaning and wailing when nasties blow their arms and legs off particularly nauseating!
Part of my distrust is the undoubted fact that the southern Irish are by and large hugely and delightfully charming. But like ‘Gloucester’ (later Richard III):
“Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,
And cry ‘Content’ to that which grieves my heart,
And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,
And frame my face to all occasions.”
Am I prejudiced? Yes, of course I am. Would I enjoy sinking a pint with your Dad, almost certainly. That’s the muddle of human nature.
Musey, you have no reason to apologize for your ‘indiscreet’ comment. That you feel the need to do so shows how deeply ingrained are the present-day multiculturalist taboos against speaking plain truths that everybody knows, but dare not utter in public. (David felt the power of these taboos too, as revealed by his initial aversion to the questions I asked, and then his calling them a ‘dagger to the heart’ when he finally, and bravely, answered.
The power of these taboos — of the current we must swim against to face forbidden truths — is terrifying. But face them we must. If they are not in fact truths, then we have no need to fear them — and if they are indeed truths, then we ignore them at our peril.
As Churchill said:
“You have to look at the facts, because the facts look at you.”
So: “good on you”, Musey, and you too, David. A great many people see plain, evident things before their eyes, yet are terrified to speak of them. We often need to see others being brave before we can be brave ourselves.
That is human nature’s muddle, indeed, as well as an impediment to its perfectibility. I also can point to a “there but for the grace of God” fate (actually 6 million of them). So, I may harbor a prejudice or two. I suspect most people do, to varying degrees.
But I question the wisdom of specifying one’s own prejudice in a public forum, especially if the prejudice rises to the level of hatred. What is to be gained by it, besides an urge to clarify that certain individuals are to be excluded?
I’m just askin’.
Well, Henry, there’s “prejudice”, and then there’s judgment. (Pre vs. post.) And whether it’s wiser to obey a taboo than defy it depends on the taboo, and the consequences.
Let’s also not be too quick to see ‘hatred’, as so many are so quick to do these days, wherever we see a lack of fulsome appreciation. There is a very broad area in between, which used to be called ‘tolerance’.
As I wrote the other day:
Thank you everybody, and particularly David for his kindness. It was my fathers anniversary yesterday so he was on my mind. I’m not in the habit of watching ancient re-runs of the Dave Allen show.
Of course there is, Malcolm. And I am well aware of the difference. That is why I referred specifically to “prejudice” (which includes hatred as an extreme form), not to “judgment” nor “taboo”. In point of fact, I wasn’t referring to anything that you said.
What makes you think I see, let alone “quickly see”, hatred in judgement or taboo? Why would you infer from my comment that I am against tolerance?
Well, I wasn’t sure just what you were responding to, Henry, and was really just reiterating my more general point. Forgive me if I misread you.
Malcolm,
Suppose “X” represents a nation or a people, some faction of which “Y” is waging terror against our own people. Would you say that a statement such as, ‘Those X bastards, I can’t stand them!’ was “a lack of fulsome appreciation” for X or an expression of (a form of) prejudice for X? I think the latter. But if you replace the X with a Y in that statement, I submit it would become “a lack of fulsome appreciation” for X, or what I would call justifiable hatred for Y (but not necessarily for X).
OK then, without malice aforethought, and strictly for my own enlightenment, I ask:
What is there to gain from any unambiguous (and public) expression of a hateful nature toward an entire geopolitical (and possibly racially heterogeneous) entity such as a nation or a people? I am just asking, because it is not clear to me whether or not there is one.
In my latest comment above, the last word “one” refers back to the word “gain”.
Henry, you asked:
I will answer twice: first in objective terms, as a student of history and human nature, and then from my own subjective preferences.
The first answer: the social cohesion and unity of action and emotion that flow from the identification and depersonalization of an external enemy. Particularly useful in order to deflect attention and energy from internal difficulties and divisions.
The second: Nothing.
But who in this thread was making such an expression? I don’t think any of us were.
Don’t know the Anniversary’s subject has come up before Musey. Perhaps, though probably specifically, not.
These times they are attenuated.
Today, the 17th would’ve been my youngest sister’s 36th birthday. Your Father’s?
Thirty-six years either in the one or the other direction either or all, an eternity yesterday or, away’s off.
Anniversaries tend to focus the mind. At that hour.
Forty-sixth.
A matter of time I suppose.
Henry, people don’t express hate for an entire group of people in order to gain anything. It’s just emotion, and hate is pretty powerful. When we express our doubts about Islam and the latest crop of lunatics there is an inclusiveness about it, which terrifies the average person who is unfortunate enough to adhere to that faith. That is why I feel sympathy for the average Muslim who resides in a western country. They don’t harbour violent thoughts, and they don’t agree with terrorist jihadi idiots, or hold extreme views, but we don’t differentiate.
My eldest son worked in Russell Square when the bombs went off in 7/7. My middle son was locked in his building a few weeks ago because of a lone wolf mad man holding up a cafe. Knowing how I would immediately fear the worst he did send an email telling me that he was not in the Lindt Cafe, and he was right, I was relieved.
I don’t know what the chances are of having two brushes with terrorist outrages, as a civilian family living in supposedly peaceful countries, but obviously the threat is real and it is coming closer to home. It may soon touch all our lives.
What I do know is how much fury is generated by these attacks and the backlash is always going to hit the innocent who are identified, wrongly, as being part of the problem.
My father was Irish but he was also from a fairly affluent, educated background, and furthermore, as a doctor he commanded a certain amount of respect. (Not these days but back then, yes). He was very clever which was not consistent with the English view of “thick paddies” and he had a way with words, a degree of personal charm, and a way with women that shielded him from the worst abuse. In the holidays, I sometimes acted as a receptionist at his group practice and it always amused me how many women (in particular) would wait longer to see him rather than see another doctor, earlier.
And in the spirit of “Sunday Funnies” here’s a true story. My father was often asked if he was the comedian Dave Allen, but everybody who ever pointed out the resemblance thought they were the first person ever to notice. One rather eccentric person decided that it would be funny to ring up our house just as the Dave Allen Show started and my father would go to the phone, only to be told “your brother’s on the telly, Doc”. This happened a couple of times and the joke was wearing a little thin. The third time it happened my brother was instructed to answer the phone and tell the guy to “bugger off” and being very literal about these things, that is exactly what he said. Unfortunately, the person on the other end of the line was the headmistress of the local primary school wanting to know if he would open the school fete.
Malcolm,
Thank you for your honest response, with which I personally agree, but with two reservations: (1)I might hesitate (unless I felt that my own interests stood to benefit) to say publicly what I wouldn’t hesitate to say in private. (2)I don’t think that an “external enemy” necessarily (not in all cases) extends to an entire nation or a whole people. For example, in what you referred to as “Britain’s fight with the IRA”, Britain’s “external enemy” was the IRA, not the Irish people as a whole, nor even all the Irish of (South) Ireland, and not even all the Irish who happen to be Catholic.
Also, if you substitute “Irish” for my symbolic “X” you can easily spot the comment in this thread that contains the phrase “Those Irish bastards”.
And I will answer your latest with a spontaneous couplet (apologies to the Wicked Wasp of Twickenham):
If enough of X are always Y,
We may look at X with a wary eye.
Musey,
That is what I think, too. And the reason I asked my question was to find out if someone could persuade me that my own interests might benefit from such a public pronouncement. I didn’t think it was likely, but I might be overlooking something.
I am not sure that conjecture is accurate. I doubt there is any reliable data to support your characterization of “the average Muslim who resides in a western country.” Moreover, I am of the opinion that it is just plain wrong in France.
Let me state that I was trying to avoid calling you out directly about your emotional outburst concerning the Irish. I have been known to make similar outbursts about Germans, when in a calmer state of mind I would have specified Nazis instead. As you once told me, emotion or passion is not always a bad thing (or words to that effect). I agree.
Lastly (because I am getting sleepy), I will suggest some food for thought: My wife is part Irish (born in the U.S. to a Catholic family). No one in her family has ever supported the IRA. I am sure you would have no reason to express any hatred for her. She is really a lovely person.
Henry, to answer your question: as I said above, we often need to see others being brave before we can be brave ourselves.
When all are afraid to speak, it becomes necessary for someone to go first, even if it puts his or her own interests at risk.
I hear your couplet, Malcolm, and I will answer you despite my sleep deprevation:
A wary eye doth not a hatred equate!
You may have the last word for now. I am off to bed. Tomorrow is another day (I hope).
Buenos noches amigos and muchachos!
[Not sure about the spelling but I don’t give a f*ck at this point in time.]
Henry, I never did like X and Y type questions and so when I saw your exhortation to substitute X with Y earlier in this thread I was confused, because to me, it made no difference. Or was that the point?
But I do notice you drawing attention to my use of the phrase “Irish bastards”, which believe it or not, I have heard many times, and I’m sure David has too. Obviously, I would have thought, this was not an anti Irish slur on my part, just a bit of irony, a touch of baloney and all in the spirit of banter. Anybody born in England, to an Irish parent has to have a thick skin and a sense of humour because if you don’t, life can be pretty miserable. You know, things are getting better but some people find it hard to forgive, and being a mongrel with a foot in both camps, I can see fault on both sides. I honestly think that Tony Blair (who is loathed in England these days) was able to negotiate a peace because he had an Irish mother, and these Irish people are a completely different animal to the English and he understood that. I mean, listen to the guy talk. Is he English?
Oh, and Henry, do check out David’s blog where a commentator talks about “Oirish scum” when the subject is Islam. That is what I lived with for many years and despite the fact that I feel more English than Irish because I was brought up there, I never lose sight of that Irish part of me, neither do I deny it when it would be easier to do so. That is how bad things still are.
My MIL told my son not to mention, or more precisely deny, if asked, that he had any Irish relatives. In the course of his interview in Oxford he was asked whether any of his family were medical people. Yes he said, my grandfather, UCD. He got in anyway.
UCD?
University College Dublin.
He was offered Trinity but decided to go against the establishment! Apparently they had only just started to admit Catholics and he was happier to go with UCD.
Henry, I have not been paying attention. So what’s new?
I have only just noticed your remark (12.52am). I’m sorry, sometimes sarcasm isn’t obvious, but believe me, that’s what it was intended to be…I am half Irish. Of course I don’t hate your wife. Neither do I hate any reasonable person.
My father never supported the IRA either, but he did have some sympathies with the Irish cause which is not surprising, and David did suggest that this was likely. He wasn’t wrong, but maybe he underestimates how assimilated into British society an Irish man can become when married to an English woman, whose family are all living in close proximity. My father had many English friends. When he died the church was so packed, Catholics mainly at the front, Protestants in the middle and Muslims standing at the back. The largest wreath was from the local Muslim community who had all clubbed together to buy the largest arrangement of flowers, so big that it wouldn’t fit in the hearse. I don’t know whether that could still happen today, if Muslims would step over the threshold of a Christian church, or not. Honestly, we have gone backwards.
Our Mafia (US) competed to to see which “family/clan” presented the more ostentatious floral arrangement. The “most roses” in other words.
Had to do with “Honor” I’m informed.
Reliably, I’m of the opinion, marking that which was the more worthy opponent.
Well, I finally managed to attempt a response over at my place to Malcolm’s original questions to me up above, under the heading of “The war with no name”. Alas, matters escalated and there is no way I can precis the long-winded, rambling post I have finally produced. Suffice to say that if you are not sleeping well it should see you off in no time. Before you nod off you will quickly realise that I really hadn’t thought through the intricacies of this problem of Muslim immigration and that even now I remain hesitant and confused. Even so, thinking is good, panic action is bad! Come and visit if you wish but as Malcolm began the conversation it might be polite to comment here.
http://duffandnonsense.typepad.com/
[img]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cfGfIUmy778/UsHFVQfGYHI/AAAAAAAAQuA/FkOXvJgRjxM/s1600/thanks+Dept+of+Educ.jpg[/img]
(Not to worry, though: We Be Far Tomorrow)
NFL Conference Championships
Malcolm,
I think you have misread me once again. When I was asking “what is there to gain …” I did not mean to imply “gain for me personally”. What I meant was “gain for my/our cause”. Nevertheless, I can understand that this may not have been obvious from my comments as I wrote them.
In any case, consider me back in the fold, so to speak, though I hadn’t really left it.
That’s fine, Henry. It’s the same answer either way.
Thomas Sowell concurs:
‘Diversity’ in Action
Still checking in Musey?
http://20committee.com/2015/01/21/the-west-islam-and-the-last-stand-of-the-weird/