More posts like this please FPR.

D.W.: [...] “When you stop respecting your enemy , you mistake hubris for self-respect and in the fullness of time, your chief antagonist will be yourself and the most efficient execution is always suicide….. a frequent resort of the Godless. [...]

Well now, D.W..

I “respect” those who embrace Islam. I am not fool enough; nor am I prideful enough, to believe that I am superior in any way to any race, ethnicity or class of people. I happen to love the freedoms in this country, as outlined by our Constitution. I don’t want myself or my fellow citizens forcibly required to either (1) convert to Islam (2) die or (3) to live in a state of “dhimmitude” while paying “jizya” to a theocratic state. (I dislike paying tribute to our current “Warfare/Welfare State” !!!)

D.W. and to All….I belong to a privately owned bb that is open to the public. To post on the political thread; one must register (it’s free) and then sign into the site. Anyone reading this is welcome to join and “flap their gums” about any topic.

http://www.thefauxboards.com/index.php

All we ask at the above site is:

Please, Please, Please…Be civil and respect each others’ viewpoints. TIA

GETTING BACK TO THE TOPIC OF MR. DENEEN’S ARTICLE………..

The word “liberalism” seems to be a pejorative term when used by many “conservatives” to describe the far left (and maybe even those viewpoints left of center). Wouldn’t the word “Progressivism” be a more descriptive term? I don’t believe that the “classic liberalism” of the Enlightenment sought to overturn all of society’s orders.. The Jacobins sought the destruction of the French social order; but they were radicals.

Doesn’t labelling the views of the left as “liberalism” rather than something like “radical progressivism” give credence to their cause? (As well as diminishing the credibility of “conservatives.”) After all, the views of our Founders were considered “liberal.”

This is one of the many reasons we are so lost in a haze of confusion at present . We have blurred the lines and definitions of conservative and liberal thinking to such an extent that there are few boundaries and so knowledge becomes, at best, a hunch, at worst, simple propaganda. Thought comes in a pre-mixed package, we add water, blast it in the microwave and voila…out comes a thought cake but it verges on a simulacrum of thought. It is aptly demonstrated by our Secretary of State throwing around the latest buzz-phrase regarding Pakistan or any other Nation State in the throes of crowding and geopolitical pressures. One would think our State Department Bureaucrats are Channeling Sartre: Existential Threat. This phrase was bandied about in the last days of the bush Administration and it continues to be carted out to demonstrate some notion of sophistication today. We cheapen philosophy and confuse meaning and slouch in our explanations to such an extent that meaning becomes indifferent…..catch-all……meaningless. This, to be more accurate is the real “Existential Threat.

I think the lapsed Republic is uniquely capable of successful life if it were to rediscover the distinctions of classical liberalism and conservatism and use this knowledge …in a profoundly energetic discursive manner to unleash a potential that still remains obscured by an overburden of popular conceits.

This is why I tend to call liberalism an “anti-culture” – because it is the great destroyer of cultures wherever and whenever it encounters them. That said, it is supremely capable of replicating itself – of shaping people, and new generations, in its own image, and thus possesses that central aspect of culture. So, it is a sort of paradox, a shaper of humans that seeks the destruction of any competitor shaper of humans. Its greatest strength – and weakness – is that it believes itself to leave people free to shape their own destinies, even while it is shaping people to value certain sorts of destinies above others. It claims indifference toward ends, even as it does have a definitive view about human anthropology. Its purported indifference tends to convince people that it does not impose its views upon people; and that belief makes it supremely difficult for liberal citizens to see exactly the way in which it powerfully influences the beliefs of liberal humans. For this reason it is particularly powerful, and for this reason above all the ways that it does indeed shape people needs to be articulated loudly and repeatedly.

As far as my own answer to Ms. Pearl, in the anti-politically correct manner: The God of Muhammad has bloodthirsty and petty mortal humans in common with the God of Moses and Jesus. A full accounting of victims on both sides would produce less than a clear victory for either side. This is what happens when one attempts to resolve religious distinctions through war…irony breaks out all over and the dead pile up faster than the saved.

Are there stonings of rape victims in the town square of Biloxi? Perhaps not but there aint no wedding parties bombed by a drone decorated with a green crescent in Modesto either. Sure, the Terrorists used civilian transports to scuttle the World Trade Center and crunch the Pentagon while killing thousands. This was a Grade A Rope-A-Dope delivered by a sociopathic crank once funded by our own government and this government has responded in spades….staggering around in a blind rage, using it’s own Constitution as a door mat and making any discussion of ethics entirely beside the point. It is the new Raw Deal, the only thing we have to fear is not fearing….and hating….enough.

When you stop respecting your enemy , you mistake hubris for self-respect and in the fullness of time, your chief antagonist will be yourself and the most efficient execution is always suicide….. a frequent resort of the Godless.

[..] Oil has allowed us the illusion of complete independence from the older practices and traditions, and particularly the belief that we could abandon a whole set of ancient hard-won virtues – especially thrift and care for the future. [...]

Cheap oil, while it appeared to be a blessing, has become our master. We continue to imbibe hydrocarbons as if the supply was eternal. We are hydrocarbon addicts and will do almost anything for a “fix.” We send our sons and daughters to die and be maimed in faraway places to secure supplies of our needs (Afghanistan, Georgia, Syria and Turkey are all about oil and pipelines.)

It isn’t a wonder that one of our presidents (GWB) holds hands, like a child, with the King of Saudi Arabia. Our current “leader” (Obama) bows low to greet him. God-given Liberty genuflects to an Arab moon god!

(Think about it…What does the god of Muhammad have in common with the God of Moses and Jesus…Nothing, except that both claim to be the only god. One is a God of love and justice; the other…Well, we’ve seen the results of Sharia law and “Pure” Islam.)

P.S.
As you may have noticed; I am not a person who believes in Political Correctness at the expense of Free Speech!

Money quote:
“With high energy consumption goes a high standard of living. Thus the enormous fossil energy which we in this country control feeds machines which make each of us master of an army of mechanical slaves. Man’s muscle power is rated at 35 watts continuously, or one-twentieth horsepower. Machines therefore furnish every American industrial worker with energy equivalent to that of 244 men, while at least 2,000 men push his automobile along the road, and his family is supplied with 33 faithful household helpers. Each locomotive engineer controls energy equivalent to that of 100,000 men; each jet pilot of 700,000 men. Truly, the humblest American enjoys the services of more slaves than were once owned by the richest nobles, and lives better than most ancient kings. In retrospect, and despite wars, revolutions, and disasters, the hundred years just gone by may well seem like a Golden Age.”

Of course, the figures here are antiquated. I don’t know what the updating would be, but surely we each command the equivalent household labor force of at least 100 people, if not more… The problem is, they are starting to die off. And none of us remember how to do the jobs that we’ve forced them to do for the past 60 years….

Great post though.

Picking up on a small point from your post, the idea of the small plastic stirrer which is thrown away lasting for centuries in some landfill somewhere, I can’t recommend more highly Alan Weisman’s excellent thought-experiment, The World Without Us. He charts exactly what kind of “monuments” (of plastic coffee stirrers, and other things too) our disposable world is building, and what that building has done to the environments we have inherited.