Cal Thomas
Thursday July 27, 2006
Cal Thomas writes that the conflict between the West and the Islamic world is not open to being solved by politics as usual:This is a religious divide. The president thinks people we see in bondage want to be as free...
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Advertisement
Advertisement
Search This Blog
Recent Posts
About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
Subscribe
Archives
Blogs Worth Reading
- Front Porch Republic
- The American Conservative
- Patrick Deneen
- Conventional Folly
- The American Scene
- First Things
- Andrew Sullivan
- The Plank
- Eunomia
- Get Religion
- Postmodern Conservative
- Alex Massie
- The Corner
- Contentions
- Sharon Astyk
- Barry Ritholtz
- The Oil Drum
- Mere Comments
- First Principles (ISI)
- Brian Kaller
What is your solution Mr. Dreher? Back to the days of supporting people simply because they are our SOBs? How many times in our country's history have we been burned by that?>
We do not have to patronize nations whose way of life is antithetical to our own.>
Scott, that is true. However, by ignoring the threat of Islamic fascism are we not enabling its rise? Sure, it may not burn us immediately but it will soon enough.>
They have taken up the sword and they must be made to die by the sword in sufficient numbers that even they will see the futility of their ways and be forced to engage in less warlike pursuits.
In other words, kill all of them.
That is what he's saying. That's what it would take, to solve this problem with the sword. Every time the US (or Israel) kills one, they fan the flames of hate in the hearts of the rest. Every time they kill a civilian, they make more terrorists.
That's what happens when you fight a hydra.
I wish he would just come out and call for genocide and be done with it.>
Scott,
You are correct, just as soon as we learn how to live within our domestic energy budget.>
Jonathan,
Absolutely. Didn't realize we are on the same page.
Brent,
I believe we should make every effort to cultivate oil usage from South America. Why Bush is picking a fight with Chavez is beyond me. We should be buying more of their oil. We should also be buying more oil from the former USSR.
All the while cultivating domestic energy.
I try only to buy from Sunoco as I have read they do not get their oil from the Middle East. Why should my money go into bin Laden's pocket so he can try to kill me?>
What is Israel supposed to do - let them blow themselves up on buses and shoot rockets into their cities?
If this were happening in this country, we wouldn't put up with it for even a day.>
BrentEubanks, the US and the UK and the USSR between them killed a hell of a lot of Germans not too long ago. Funny thing, but that hydra died and stayed dead. Same thing between the USA and the CSA in the Civil War. Sometimes, not always, the winners really win. Now, let's be clear. "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" is not a solution. Unfortunately, I have no idea what is a solution. Long-term, kicking the oil habit is THE major national security problem for this century, and the sooner we get on it, the better. Short and middle term, beats me. We are fated to live in interesting times.>
"It is difficult for these fanatics who have never invented, discovered or created anything but chaos and bloodshed..."
Perhaps you've forgotten that the Arab world was the center of all things scientific, medical, and mathematical while Europe was languishing away in the Dark Ages, occupied with witch hunts, the plague, and the Catholic church promising absolution to anyone who would kill Arabs in Jerusalem.
The leaders of the Arab world who have pocketed oil money without redistributing it have done so with American support. A rising class of prosperous Arabs would create a domestic market for their own oil - why would we support that when we need that oil, and need it cheap?
Cal Thomas takes an extremely nearsighted perspective that can hardly stand up to in-depth criticism.>
"I believe we should make every effort to cultivate oil usage from South America. Why Bush is picking a fight with Chavez is beyond me. We should be buying more of their oil. We should also be buying more oil from the former USSR."
The problem is that oil supplies are tight, tight, tight (which is why prices have skyrocketed with minimal accompanying rises in production--everyone who can is pumping flat-out). As long as we continue buying oil, we're going to be buying from the Middle East. And as long as we need that oil, there will be zero support for any sort of total war in the Middle East a la WWII or the U.S. Civil War (to say nothing of the hideous moral problem such a war would be).>
Mason-- terrific, terrific post.
The West has been at the forefront of technological advancement and advances in governance and economic organization for quite some time. But there's nothing intrinsic to the West taht makes that truth an eternal one. Thomas's views are mere triumphalism, mere chauvisnism. Someone get him a slingshot & drop him in Damascus, and let him start his war.>
But the problem, Mason, is that the days when the Islamic world was the leader in science and technology ended a long time ago. The people who live there now are no more responsible for the glory days of the Islamic world than the people who live in present-day Greece and Italy are to be credited for the artistic achievements of the ancient Greeks and Romans. (And I say this as a classicist who loves Greece and Italy.)
I've mentioned this before, in another context, but I think it's worth repeating:
There is a scene in the 1970s TV miniseries The Holocaust, where the friends of one of the Jewish main characters are urging him to get out of German with his family while they still can, because they can see ominous signs of what is to come. The gentile wife of one of the Jewish characters (played, if memory serves, by Meryl Streep), objects, "But such a thing could never happen in the country of Goethe and Schiller!" One of the other characters replies, "Unfortunately, madam, neither of those gentlemen is in office at the moment."
The fact that the Islamic world was once far advanced of the Western European Christian world is irrelevant today -- except for the fact that when many Muslims search for a reason why they have fallen so far behind in the last few centuries, they blame everyone but themselves.>
I agree with most of what Cal Thomas has to say in the quote. Freud would have had a field day with the symbolism of 9/11, flying planes into some of the world's tallest buildings in order to knock them down. This is all about potency vs. impotency.
I've believed for a long time that it is the creative, existential and spiritual impotency of the Islamo-facists that motivates them. They destroy because they cannot create, they have been robbed of their ability to be creative, generative, or productive in any satisfying sense.
Even their dreams of the afterlife reveal their obsession with potency. What are the fantasies of 72 virgins but the yearnings of unhappy men who feel robbed of all efficacy in life?>
David J. writes: "The fact that the Islamic world was once far advanced of the Western European Christian world is irrelevant today -- except for the fact that when many Muslims search for a reason why they have fallen so far behind in the last few centuries, they blame everyone but themselves."
It's not 100% irrelevant-- it indicates that there is nothing _intrinsic_ to Christianity that makes its practicioners better, moral, and more powerful than Muslims. History, its progress & degeneration, don't stop today. It's plausible that in 200 years, the Middle East will once again be the center of world civilization.
Now, I'd bet $10, at least, against that happening, but it does mean that we can't just be all, "our culture kicks your culture's ass! Let's exterminate the brutes!" That's what I'm getting from Loud Cal in this column.>
Good point about the Greeks and Romans, David. And I don't mean to give present-day Arabs credit for their achievements 1000 years ago - what I'm trying to say is that world leadership moves in cycles, and currently its home is the United States (though China is on the horizon, if not nearer). In addition, corrupt and extreme religious factions are nothing new and nothing unique to Islam.
As you say, (and again, I agree) Arabs are not to be given credit for past achievements. But who are we to take credit for the achievements of our country, MOST of which have arisen as a result of European immigrants (who today would be labeled "illegal immigrants") who stole land, exploited, enslaved, and killed, at least partly in the name of Christ.>
In the past couple of years, a U.N. report on why countries in the Arab world have fallen so far behind the rest of the world suggested that it was because those countries were not utilizing the talents of nearly half their populations - namely, women.
Can't help but wonder if that relates to what I said above about the impotence of Islamo-facists who use terrorism as a weapon, and their inability to create, produce or generate anything. But they have an undeniable talent for destruction.>
the US and the UK and the USSR between them killed a hell of a lot of Germans not too long ago. Funny thing, but that hydra died and stayed dead. Same thing between the USA and the CSA in the Civil War.
True, we did these things, but we did them in the context of absolute, total no-holds-bar war for survival. We used nuclear weapons and tried very hard to create firestorms in the civilian cores of enemy cities, so that we could kill them most efficiently. At the time, given what we faced, we were justified in doing so. Do you think we're justified in resorting to such tactics now?
Now, let's be clear. "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" is not a solution.
No, apparently not.>
The solution appears to be allowing the IDF to blast Hizbollah (unfortunately, along with the civilians they hide among) followed by aid to rebuild Lebanese infrastructure. Hopefully, the message is that the U.S. stands squarely behind Israel as they defend themselves against incursions, kidnappings and rocket attacks. If Hizbollah can be marginalized, Iran loses face.
As to tight oil supplies- don't crude & gasoline inventories keep rising as a general trend? At least $20 of current crude prices is factored in due to current instability in the Mideast. If the region calms down, crude should drop back into the $50s, and gasoline should fall into the $2-$2.50 range. Maybe this will happen after some exploration in alternative sources, new drilling offshore, and maybe even refinery expansion.
We can only hope.>
Demography is destiny.
Notice how Muslims weren't even on our radar a few decades ago, yet they are somehow a big deal today? Fast forward 50-100 years and imagine a majority Muslim Europe, a voting block in charge of nuclear arms.
Cal Thomas is whistling Dixie past the graveyard. For all the very great accomplishments of the West, our culture simply has lost the will to live and cannot even breed enough to sustain our population base, let alone fight a real cultural war.
Yes, Muslims have a messed up (and even sometimes wicked) culture, yet they still don't deny God as our culture does and have the will to breed and grow and live for more than a big house in ths suburbs and an SUV.
Argue and pout all you want, Cal. Think about 1453. Nobody seems to remember that Constantinople used to be called Istanbul. I wonder what they will call Paris?
Some points to meditate on in the West between arguing about gay marriage and reading good-old Cal:
TFR (Total Fertility Rate per woman)
Germany: 1.3
Yeman: 6.2
(2004 UN Data)>
In addition, corrupt and extreme religious factions are nothing new and nothing unique to Islam.
An important question, however, is "is it inherant to Islam?" The combination of its claim to be the final relgion for all mankind and its intensely legalistic nature, with an explicitly second-class role for non-Muslims (e.g. no building non-Muslim religious buildings, no repairing existing ones, no non-Muslim can hold authority over a Muslim, etc) suggests it might be.
The times when the Arab-Islamic world was the center of civilization corresponded to the period after it had conquered the highly advanced (but militarily weakened) Byzantine and Persion civilizations. They also sat on some of the most important trade routes. Some of the greatest thinkers of the time (e.g. philosopher Moses Maimonodes) were forced to adopt Islam (in name only) in order to survive!
I'm not of the "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" school of thought, but I do think Islam is fundamentally incompatible with any culture I would want any part of. Individual Muslims are often swell (especially the relatively well-educated ones we find in America), but they should be well aware that we have no intention of submitting to Islam.
Demography is destiny
That may be true, but 6.2 kids/woman is not necessarily an advantage. They'll be eating up all their resources soon enough. If our western governments would just make some adjustments to our social-safety net and work practices that encourage productive people to not retire for the last 20 years of their life then 2.1 kids/woman who are educated, technologically advanced and carefully raised should be able to hold out against the uneducated, backward, half-starved 6.2 kids/woman in any fight over resources. (but yeah, the Germans and others do need to get breeding).
I think some day we'll recognize that any group of people who breeds far beyond the capacity of their resources has committed an implicit act of agression on its neighbors.>
Argue and pout all you want, Cal. Think about 1453. Nobody seems to remember that Constantinople used to be called Istanbul.
I think you mean the other way around. And plenty of us do remember it.
At the time, given what we faced, we were justified in doing so. Do you think we're justified in resorting to such tactics now?
Yes, perhaps even more so. Given the demographic realities, we need to kill more of them than they kill of us. A lot more.
I really think this is shaping up to be a war for survival. Them vs. us. And I vote "us".>
Yes, perhaps even more so. Given the demographic realities, we need to kill more of them than they kill of us. A lot more.
I really think this is shaping up to be a war for survival. Them vs. us. And I vote "us".
Demographic realities = they might outbreed us into cultural dominance in 100 years. So we have to exterminate them now.
Such wonderful, kind, ethical Christians on this board...
I'm thoroughly disgusted.>
Leaving aside the inhuman recommendations made by people like David J. White on this thread, why is it that he and others love to get all charged up about birthrates?
It's one thing to pay attention to it in Israel, where everyone's next door to one another, but why on Earth will it affect civilization if, say, Yemen has 3 times as many people in 50 years? There's loads more people in subsaharan Africa than there were 40 years ago, but it doesn't make much difference to my life.
I mean, I love alliteration as much as the next guy, but "demography is destiny" is just not a sound basis for orienting your whole approach to geostrategy. This goes double for advocates of ethnic cleansing and genocide like David J. White and Joe of Hippo (thanks for the link, Mark Shea, to Joe's asserted willingness to go be executed in order to kill dozens or more Muslims in New Jersey in response to a beheading in the Middle East-- it's a terrific insight into the suicide bomber mentality).
Let me reask, though, Mark S.: if just war theory doesn't account for the situation faced by Israel, why must common sense, reason, experience, and philosophy yield to just war theory?
(Please note that I'm not advocating mass murder of anyone, here, just asserting that, due to the nature of the threat posed by terrorism to a tiny little country, Israel can be justified in "overreacting" vs. Hezbollah in pure number terms. Now, this also says nothing about whether the killing of hundreds of _civilians_ in Lebanon is justified, or wise).>
...why is it that he and others love to get all charged up about birthrates?
Tom, I believe you are referring to me here...
TFR is a quick number that tells us future numerical values of a culture. The political concern? Two reasons:
1) Population migration into democracies changes their politics and thus their policies.
2) TFR gives a quick view of the natural health of a culture. Ours is sick and declining.
Why care?
An example of case 1): Muslims are about 10% of France right now. You ever wonder why France, one of the original supporters of the creation of Israel, suddenly hates Israel so much? And why they oppose the US on Iraq now, but not 10 years ago? Demographics, not politics.
Birthrates also tell us which cultures are inferior via Darwinian natural selection. Remember a TFR of 1.3 (with aging birthrates for first-time mothers) cuts the population in half nearly every generation. Think: 100k, 50k, 25k. Each person generally lives through 3 generations. Now that is death far exceeding any major war, and you must have young people to fight a war Now imagine a TFR of 4 along side them: 50k, 100k, 200k.
Note that the countries of the West's populations won't fall much, though, as Muslims and Hispanics will move in to fill the gap, and bring in their big birthrates. This happened with Europe's domination of the Americas over the Indians, and now it will with Muslims and Hispanics in Europe and North America. Forget a wall, ain't gonna be effective. Never has been.
Bottom line: war doesn't work in the battle between civilizations unless you are willing to use genicide - kill the entire culture. We will not do that (rightfully so). So we will lose the 'war' on terror by default. They will move in and take over. That is why Cal's article is so weird, worrying about this and that as if we even stand a chance. Our culture is history unless we somehow regain the will to live.
Basically, the 'war' on terror has nothing to do with Muslims, and everything to do with us. We are simply feeling the push of a growing culture against our self-absorbed, declining one. If we were a healthy civilization, we would be exporting Christianity over there, not the other way around.
Demography is destiny is not some weird saying. It is simply reality.>
M_D: Thanks for clarifying your views for me. I don't think that your assertions are self-evidently true, but I also am in no position to reject them out of hand. Let me set out some thoughts, and let's see where we get. I realize I'm bombarding you with questions, here-- I certainly don't expect you to go look up the answers to all this, but, if nothing else, it'll give you an idea of why I'm not on board with you.
(1) The numbers you cite are, for the most part, forward-looking. What does history have to say about this? Has some academic somewhere done a study of TFRs through history?
Was England's world conquest fated by its ability to grow more quickly than India and all those other places? Was it one of a number of factors, like economic growth and quality of education of the elite? Can it be shown that TFR was even a factor at all? If high TFRs are generally associated with military/economic gains, are there exceptions to that rule? Doesn't, say, South Africa, or Bangladesh, have higher TFRs than us? Did they 50 years ago? 100 years ago? If so, where's their destiny? Maybe you are of the view that high TFRs are a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for world powere status?
(2) It is not clear that, even if our population does not increase at the same rate that it has in the past, we will be unable to defend ourselves. Obviously, if our population drops by 20%, that's bad. But it's not self-evident that our not reproducing as fast as agrarian cultures, or at least less productive countries economically, will leave us at a disadvantage, economically or militarily. After all, there are disadvantages to population booms-- ie, more young mouths to feed, oftentimes too few job opportunities.
(3) I don't think that TFR rates remain constant for generations. If our TFR dropped to .5, it wouldn't necessarily remain there till everyone died out or till Muslims moved in to replace us. If a country is faced with underpopulation, it can take measures to increase birth rates.
(4) Immigration is (a) not inevitable, and (b) when it occurs, not guaranteed to alter political views. I don't agree with your statement that France didn't support the Iraq invasion b/c it's 10% Muslim. France has resisted many US foriegn policy positions over the years, long before Muslims lived there. Anne Appelbaum wrote about this in Slate in the late 1990s, during the NATO bombing of Serbia (which they supported, b/c it was perceived as altruistic). The reasons the French offered in not supporting the war-- ie, unclear what the WMD threat was, unclear that overthrowing Saddam would bring stability-- have proven to be well-founded, not just ethnicity-based.
It's also not clear to me that higher immigration is inevitable. Incidentally, why mention Hispanics? They're super Christian, so it should be no problem, right?
Also, even if there _is_ a whole pile of Muslim immigration into America, it might not be your average suicide-bomber-loving family in Gaza that sends people here. At least as to coming here to study, it'll be, by and large, middle class plus people.
Odds & ends:
You wrote: "Birthrates also tell us which cultures are inferior via Darwinian natural selection."
Natural selection takes place over hundreds of generations, not 20, 50, or even 1000 years. If I'm reading too much into this, and you're just making an analogy, it's not clear to me what your standards are for inferiority. Are you arguing that simply having more people makes your culture higher, nobler, and better? I'm not sure that's the case. When England conquered India (and all those other places), was England's population larger or smaller than India's? I suspect England's was higher, but I don't know.
You wrote: "Demography is destiny is not some weird saying. It is simply reality."
That's an assertion. Does history bear it out?>
(1) Maybe you are of the view that high TFRs are a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for world powere status?
Yes. Everything you wrote under (1) falls under this comment: without at least a replacment TFR, you will not grow and export you culture.
(2) It is not clear that, even if our population does not increase at the same rate that it has in the past, we will be unable to defend ourselves.
This is a common mistake. We are not talking war here, we are talking about cultural decline and subsequent cultural invasion. For example, England is still undefeated in war since her great empire, but she is now a minor force and her culture is vanishing. Downtown London is Muslim.
there are disadvantages to population booms-- ie, more young mouths to feed, oftentimes too few job opportunities.
No. Each young mouth has two hands. Job opportunities are created, not some limited resource. Granted, many areas with large populations have no jobs, but that is a cultural problem (Africa, Middle East) not a population one.
3) If our TFR dropped to .5, it wouldn't necessarily remain there till everyone died out or till Muslims moved in to replace us. If a country is faced with underpopulation, it can take measures to increase birth rates.
You have a common error here; no culture in the world has ever been able to force birth rates up willy-nilly. Rome tried and failed. Having a multiplying culture is not just breeding - it is making a culture selfless and family focused and living for the future. Not easy. Over and over again in the world, one culture has dominated another and won as the other either will not or cannot breed. This is natural selection; humans are not immune to it.
(4) Immigration is (a) not inevitable
Yes it is, if you leave any resources unused. This is natural selection, and it has happened in every culture all over history.
(b) when it occurs, not guaranteed to alter political views.
Ever wonder why the US is so supportive of Ireland, England, and Israel? Why political types won't challenge Mexico or illegal immigrants here? Or why in in Southern Cal they cheer for Mexico not the US in the world cup? Demographics, not political 'views'. Politics follow culture and creed, not the other way around.
It's also not clear to me that higher immigration is inevitable.
See natural selection above. If you don't breed, someone else will, and you can't keep them out forever. No culture in world history has been able to do this - not even the mighty Roman Empire.
Incidentally, why mention Hispanics? They're super Christian, so it should be no problem, right?
You seem to think I have a Christian bias here. My arguments are all based on reality, not 'problems'. My point is simple: if your culture has a low TFR, you are going extinct. Hey, you might be replaced by someone more 'Christian' than you, or not. My point was and is that if you do not breed, don't even think about winning a long cultural war.
Also, even if there _is_ a whole pile of Muslim immigration into America...it'll be, by and large, middle class plus people.
As long as they find a way to keep that TFR up when they do. If they don't, they will have lost their culture and again be replaced.
You wrote: "Birthrates also tell us which cultures are inferior via Darwinian natural selection."...it's not clear to me what your standards are for inferiority.
Survial here is my standard for superiority.
Are you arguing that simply having more people makes your culture higher, nobler, and better?
No, only alive and passing on their culture to the next generation. This is the only standard that matters if the opposition (the West in this case) is not willing to compete and fades into the dustbin of history.
You wrote: "Demography is destiny is not some weird saying. It is simply reality." That's an assertion. Does history bear it out?
Yes. Every living person is a reflection of which cultures have breed and which have failed. This is a fact, not an assertion.>
M_D, your arguments remain plausible, but unproven. You have yet to offer any specific evidence for your claims, instead resting on assertion.
As I wrote before, "Was England's world conquest fated by its ability to grow more quickly than India and all those other places? Was it one of a number of factors, like economic growth and quality of education of the elite? Can it be shown that TFR was even a factor at all? If high TFRs are generally associated with military/economic gains, are there exceptions to that rule? Doesn't, say, South Africa, or Bangladesh, have higher TFRs than us? Did they 50 years ago? 100 years ago?">
Tom:
You have your logic backwards. Let's go over this slowly:
TFR is a prerequisite for cultural growth. This does not mean that high TFR alone means cultural success. It does mean that is mandatory for success - without it, you are going down.
All of your questions show you do not understand this. You think I'm saying that high TFR means you will necessarily be successful. Not so.
Your arguments are like me saying "you need at least one arm to play basketball" and you saying "prove it to me using stats!" I reply: You cannot prove a negative. Show me one culture that is growing and taking over other cultures that has a TFR below 2. You can't - it hasn't in all of human history.
The burden of proof here lies with folk like you who think you can do the impossible: prevent a culture from being taken over without a growing TFR. How can you? You will be shrinking and vanishing.>
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.