Winds of War: Why the West Needs to Grow a Moral Backbone

An interesting article titled Pope Benedict, Islam, and the European Death Wish prompted me to post a blog that I have been meaning to write over the last few weeks. The thought for this blog came from a conversation with a close liberal friend of mine.

It seems even though her family does not watch TV or read many newspapers, the thought had entered her mind that there was something not right with the way the non-Muslim world was interacting with Muslims. In particular, the Muslim rage over the Mohammed cartoons and now the Pope’s remarks. I assume even the most jaded liberal can’t ignore certain world events even though their response may not be what we hoped wit would be. But in t is case, it was.

She was concerned that Europe just may be committing cultural suicide and wondered why? For the record, her and her husband in particular, are devout multiculturalists.

The article mentioned above gave a clue to why the secular West and Europe in particular where secularism is the most advanced, could not find the moral backbone to oppose the advances of a Muslim ‘cultural jihad’. The article states:

Pope Benedict XVI's lecture at the University of Regensburg on September 12 now joins a litany of other ginned up slights that apparently illustrates just how deeply the West hates Islam. What is astounding is that the West takes this seriously, and allows the Muslim outrage industry to frame the debate, even to the extent of internalizing the Islamic conceit that the Regensburg speech was all about them. It wasn't. The Regensburg speech was largely about Europe; in fact, the papacy of Benedict XVI is turning out to be all about Europe…..Benedict surely understands that Nazism and communism were ailments of the European mind. As he put it in his Regensburg address, this was the triumph of reason above religious faith, and it so twisted European thinking that a kind of religious faith developed in these conceptions of reason, themselves, a faith that justified the worst acts of barbarity the world had ever seen.

Now here’s the key point.

Now Benedict understands the challenge he faces. First, Europe lost its faith in the Christian balance between faith and reason. Next, Europe lost its faith in reason without faith. This is the continent that Benedict inherited, a postmodern wasteland.

But it’s more than that. It’s a ‘moral wasteland’ ruled by the Left who sees everything in relative matters. All views, all values, all philosophies are equal. I’m OK. You’re OK. Moral equivalency reigns in the Leftist world.

And that’s the problem and why Europe, and the US if we don’t watch it, will be overcome by a stronger moral philosophy encouraged by the Left because Muslims believe in absolutes while the West does not.

Islam is a complete way of life. It embraces the spiritual, social, moral, economic and cultural life of its followers, as well as their belief in God. This all encompassing system is similar to the Rule of the Holy Roman Empire and the Popes who headed it up in the Middle Ages. Just as Christian morals, ideals and ideas permeated the society of the Middle Ages to its core as ruled by the Holy Roman Church, so did Islam at the beginning of the 21st Century.

A secular culture without absolutes – no right or wrong, no good or evil, cannot stand up to an absolute believing culture with finely defined lines between what they believe and don’t believe, what is advantageous to is and what is not, what they find good and what they find evil, and what behavior is appropriate and what is not. A cultural moral equivalency where everything is equal can not muster the will to stand up for some absolute morals and beliefs. It becomes a culture not worth defending. The belief in self-preservation is lost.

The relativistic culture is not worth preserving because in accepting in everything, it believes strongly in nothing.

Am I talking the need for religion here?

No. A secular value system can include the difference between good and evil, right and wrong. Exercising common human values of common decency, common courtesy and common sense is a good foundation for such a society. And from these common human values can come a philosophy of what it right and what is wrong, what needs to be encouraged and what needs to be discouraged in a society. The common human values can help its participants ‘take a stand’ and oppose attempts from other strong societies who seek to undermine and overturn those values instead of using the concept of diversity to strengthen all aspects of a society and not some at the expense of others.

How does a society assimilate using these ideas? What would be a logical and beneficial result?

Perhaps this letter to the editor from a friend’s wife that was never published by a MSM outlet has the clue.

Dear Editor:

So many letter writers have based their arguments on how this land is made up of immigrants. Ernie Lujan for one, suggests we should tear down the Statue of Liberty
because the people now in question aren't being treated the same as those who passed through Ellis Island and other ports of entry. Maybe we should turn to our history books and point out why today's American is not willing to accept this new kind of immigrant any longer.

Back in 1900 when there was a rush from all areas of Europe to come to the United States, people had to get off a ship and stand in a long line in New York and be documented. Some would even get down on their hands and knees and kiss the ground. They made a pledge to uphold the laws and support their new country in good and bad times. They made learning English a primary rule in their new American households and some even changed their names to blend in with their new home.

They had waved good bye to their birth place to give their children a new life and did everything in their power to help their children assimilate into one culture. Nothing was handed to them. No free lunches, no welfare, no labor laws to protect them. All they had were the skills and craftsmanship they had brought with them to trade for a future of prosperity.

Most of their children came of age when World War II broke out. My father fought along side men whose parents had come straight over from Germany, Italy, France and Japan. None of these 1st generation Americans ever gave any thought about what country their parents had come from. They were Americans fighting Hitler, Mussolini and the Emperor of Japan. They were defending the United States of America as one people. When we liberated France, no one in those villages were looking for the French-American or the German American or the Irish American. The people of France saw only Americans.

And we carried one flag that represented one country. Not one of those immigrant sons would have thought about picking up another country's flag and waving it to represent who they were. It would have been a disgrace to their parents who had sacrificed so much to be here. These immigrants truly knew what it meant to be an American. They stirred the melting pot into one red, white and blue bowl. And here we are in 2006 with a new kind of immigrant who wants the same rights and privileges. Only they want to achieve it by playing with a different set of rules, one that includes the entitlement card and a guarantee of being faithful to their mother country.

I'm sorry, that's not what being an American is all about I believe that the immigrants who landed on Ellis Island in the early 1900s deserve better than that for all the toil, hard work and sacrifice in raising future generations to create a land that has become a beacon for those legally searching for a better life. I think they would be appalled that they are being used as an example by those waving foreign country flags.

And for that suggestion about taking down the Statue of Liberty, it happens to mean a lot to the citizens who are voting on the immigration bill. I wouldn't start talking about dismantling of the United States just yet.

'nuff said.