Green Energy
Caroline Glick calmly sums up what should be common sense:
- If The Majority Of Muslims Are Peaceloving People, Do We Really Have Anything To Worry About?
Something to share with your as-yet-unenlightened friends and family: If the Majority of Muslims Are Peaceloving People, Do We Really Have Anything to Worry About? ON ONE SIDE of the debate, we have people who say, "The majority of Muslims are peaceloving...
- Culturist Liberals Unite!!!
Gays, feminists and the liberal intelligentsia should adopt “culturism” as their motto. There is a misconception that culturism is only a “right-wing” philosophy. And culturism does advocate immigration restriction and does seek to unify western...
- Islam Versus Civilization
Islam vs. Civilization: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Written by Raymond Kraft Friday, August 25, 2006 To those Muslims, the silent and invisible majority, who truly are peaceful, or moderate, or liberal, and tolerant of others unlike yourselves,...
- This Is Our Civilization - It Belongs To The People
Fjordman has written yet another epochal essay; a clarion call for the citizens of the West to take back control of our democracies: ... when I look at Europe today, I see democracies under threat because of an elaborate Eurabian bureaucracy and Islamic...
- Liberal Like Me?
I am a registered Democrat. I never voted for a Republican, until Swarzeneggar and Bush in just the past few years. Around April of 2002 I realized that my party had left me. Since then, I have been a staunch supporter of the Bush Administration. Why?...
Green Energy
The Totalitarian Impulse
Caroline Glick calmly sums up what should be common sense:
That is, leftist writers whose works have been admired by terrorists have not been held accountable for the acts of terrorism conducted by their readers.Glick reviews the histories of "totalitarian democracies" going back to Rousseau. She exposes the hypocrisy of the left in its excuse-making for jihadi terror and "understanding" of eco-terror. The left's exploitation of Breivik to shut down all discussion of immigration, Islam, and patriotism will undermine the discussion that a liberal order requires:
Nor should they have been. And to understand why this sort of guilt-by-readership is wrong, it is worth considering what separates liberal democracies from what the great Israeli historian Jacob Talmon referred to as totalitarian democracies. Liberal democracies are founded on the notion that it is not simply acceptable for citizens to participate in debates about the issues facing their societies. It is admirable for citizens in democracies to participate in debates - even heated ones -- about their government's policies as well as their societies' cultural and moral direction. A citizenry unengaged is a citizenry that is in danger of losing its freedom.
One of the reasons that argument and debate are the foundations of a liberal democratic order is because the more engaged citizens feel in the life of their societies, the less likely they will be to reject the rules governing their society and turn to violence to get their way. As a rule, liberal democracies reject the resort to violence as a means of winning an argument. This is why, for liberal democracies, terrorism in all forms is absolutely unacceptable.
Whether or not one agrees with the ideological self-justifications of a terrorist, as a member of a liberal democratic society, one is expected to abhor his act of terrorism. Because by resorting to violence to achieve his aims, the terrorist is acting in a manner that fundamentally undermines the liberal democratic order.
Liberal democracies are always works in progress. Their citizens do not expect for a day to come when the debaters fall silent because everyone agrees with one another as all are convinced of the rightness of one side. This is because liberal democracies are not founded on messianic aspirations to create a perfect society.
In contrast, totalitarian democracies - and totalitarian democrats -- do have a messianic temperament and a utopian mission to create a perfect society. And so its members do have hopes of ending debate and argument once and for all.
And it is this tendency that most endangers the future of liberal democracies. If the Left is ever successful in its bid to criminalize ideological opponents and justify acts of terrorism against their opponents, their victory will destroy the liberal democratic foundations of Western civilization.I'd add to the above that this is what Breivik wants. They are playing right into his hands.
- If The Majority Of Muslims Are Peaceloving People, Do We Really Have Anything To Worry About?
Something to share with your as-yet-unenlightened friends and family: If the Majority of Muslims Are Peaceloving People, Do We Really Have Anything to Worry About? ON ONE SIDE of the debate, we have people who say, "The majority of Muslims are peaceloving...
- Culturist Liberals Unite!!!
Gays, feminists and the liberal intelligentsia should adopt “culturism” as their motto. There is a misconception that culturism is only a “right-wing” philosophy. And culturism does advocate immigration restriction and does seek to unify western...
- Islam Versus Civilization
Islam vs. Civilization: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Written by Raymond Kraft Friday, August 25, 2006 To those Muslims, the silent and invisible majority, who truly are peaceful, or moderate, or liberal, and tolerant of others unlike yourselves,...
- This Is Our Civilization - It Belongs To The People
Fjordman has written yet another epochal essay; a clarion call for the citizens of the West to take back control of our democracies: ... when I look at Europe today, I see democracies under threat because of an elaborate Eurabian bureaucracy and Islamic...
- Liberal Like Me?
I am a registered Democrat. I never voted for a Republican, until Swarzeneggar and Bush in just the past few years. Around April of 2002 I realized that my party had left me. Since then, I have been a staunch supporter of the Bush Administration. Why?...