England and Europe reaching the end of Civilization?

Reading this account of how, not only unpleasant but plainly dangerous life for an American has become in Britain (Britain of all places! Not France or Germany, but the cradle of modern Western Civilization) is a depressing reminder of how close the end seems to loom for Europe, which for several months I've been referring to, with the greatest heartache, as the Tomb of Civilization.

I used to think that the moral depravity and intellectual decay that the "Old Continent" had been experiencing for the last decades would be something from which Europe would bounce back, but more and more I am convinced that the birthplace of my ancestors is in the last and final stages of its existence, before it ceases to be and its empty carcass is taken over by Muslims to be turned into a 21st century version of Al Andalus.

Of course, the underlaying feeling is one of utter puzzlement about how a people (the Europeans) can go from being masters of the world to willfully committing collective suicide. What kind of sinister transformation took place in Europe that turned a once proud and lively culture into a spineless pile of decaying mush?

Are civilizations like individuals, destined to have a finite existence, reaching a peak and then unavoidably fading into oblivion? Maybe so, but it still pains me to see the cradle of my civilization going down the drain --and being driven there by its very keepers, who are none other than my kin.

Paul Johnson on George W. Bush and the 2004 election

As it was to be expected, Paul Johnson is superb on his analysis of what is at stake during the upcoming presidential election in the U.S.

About Dubya, he says:

There is something grimly admirable about his stoicism in the face of reverses, which reminds me of other moments in history: the dark winter Washington faced in 1777-78, a time to "try men's souls," as Thomas Paine put it, and the long succession of military failures Lincoln had to bear and explain before he found a commander who could take the cause to victory. There is nothing glamorous about the Bush presidency and nothing exhilarating. It is all hard pounding, as Wellington said of Waterloo, adding: "Let us see who can pound the hardest." Mastering terrorism fired by a religious fanaticism straight from the Dark Ages requires hard pounding of the dullest, most repetitious kind, in which spectacular victories are not to be looked for, and all we can expect are "blood, toil, tears, and sweat." However, something persuades me that Bush — with his grimness and doggedness, his lack of sparkle but his enviable concentration on the central issue — is the president America needs at this difficult time. He has, it seems to me, the moral right to ask American voters to give him the mandate to finish the job he has started.

Victor Davis Hanson on postmodernism

On The Perfect Storm of Hating Bush, Victor Davis Hanson disects as only he can the failures of postmodernism to cope with reality. In the four-part essay one finds gems like this:

Nuance is the essence of relativist interpretation. Manichean notions of barbarity and civilization, Western culture juxtaposed to eighth-century Islamic fascism, good versus evil—these “reductionist” and “simplistic” notions of the present Bushworld simply cannot stand. If such clear polarities were to be valid, the entire foundation of postmodern thinking would collapse under the weight of reason’s ability to gather data, make informed decisions, and pass judgments that cut across culture, race, and sex—and thus to conclude that a Taliban Afghanistan or Saddam’s Iraq was a uniquely evil example of self-induced misery.

Perhaps Washington Senator Patti Murray is ignorant of the source of her own recent intellectual heritage, but we know the ultimate dividend of years of inculcating cultural relativism, when a U.S. Senator such as herself lectures Americans on their need to emulate the purported public works program of an Osama bin Laden, the feminist pioneer. “For decades [Osama has been] building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day-care facilities, building health-care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful,” Murray pontificated, before concluding that “We haven’t done that.”

Read Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IV

Oh, happy day, Derrida is dead!

Derrida, French Father of Deconstructionism, Dies

Finally, the nefarious sixties generation begins to fade away into what can only be hoped will be a very small footnote in history.

Western Civilization may never fully recover from the damage done by parasitic un-intellectuals such as Derrida; he and countless others from his generation, sunk into the most dysfunctional form of nihilism the world has ever seen, set the foundations for the moral and intellectual relativism that has so viciously eroded more than 10,000 years of Civilization.

Question of the day

"Do female suicide bombers get 72 virgins?"
"No. They get 72 headscarfs, each in a different shade of black."

Courtesy of the unsurpassable John Derbyshire.

Shedding light on the beheadings

The Civilized World (saddly, apparently this does not include most of the Western Intelligentsia or the Europeans) has been shocked by the beheadings of hostages that have taken place in Iraq, a practice whose motives are as hard to understand as they are revolting.

Michael Ledeen offers keen insight on the matter. The monstruos acts are not addressed to us, but to them; they are recruiting tools, not attempts to make us cower:

This is not about us -- it is about them. The beheading films are recruitment tools. They've been around for a long time, part and parcel of the first generation of "jihad" home movies, circulated mostly in North Africa to excite homicidal fanatics and lure them into the Islamist bands. The main difference between then and now is that their marketing and distribution have improved, thanks to their comrades at al Jazeera and al Arabiya, and the Internet.

[...]A movement that draws its foot soldiers from people who dream of beheading one of us is clearly a barbarous phenomenon, one that puts the lie to the notion that our enemies in this terror war are human beings driven to desperation by misery and injustice. Not at all: The recruiting films are aimed at subhuman homicidal maniacs who revel in bloody brutality. Given the human capacity to rationalize most any ghastly behavior, some of the killers' supporters ? even in the Western intelligentsia ? include misguided souls who are so confused they can accept and even justify barbarism in the name of the cause of the moment. There is nothing new in invoking ends to justify dreadful means. But in this case, the means ? the beheadings ? define our enemies and their followers.

[...]It follows that there is no policy that will successfully end their jihad against us short of total surrender and mass conversion to their brand of Islam. They see us, quite explicitly, as animals who deserve slaughter. The terrorists' recent response to Tony Blair's statement that he would not negotiate with them was eloquent: We are not interested in negotiations, they said. Either the British withdraw or we will slaughter the hostage.

Do not think for a moment that the beheadings are a unique form of viciousness aimed only against Americans or American allies. Beheading has been a common form of execution of Islamic (and Christian, and Bahai, and Zoroastrian) enemies, and I have no doubt the jihadists have beheaded more of "their own" than of ours. It is not about us, it's about them.

Clearly, as it was the case more than sixty years ago with the previous form of Fascism the world faced, compromise, dialogue and "nuance" will only embolden the enemy; uncompromised, total war is the only way we have to confront the death-loving Islamofascists of today.

I'm back

I haven't posted for way too long, but have the firm intention to correct that. The reasons for my absence are too many (and some too petty) to mention, but let's just say I intend to revive and keep this small space alive and kicking as much as I can.

Oh, and my website has been updated (yes, one of the petty things that kept me busy); added a bunch of new photos, in case someone cares to check it out: www.aukeramen.com

eTalkinghead

I was recently invited to become a contributor at eTalkinghead, a political news, discussion and commentary ezine. It's a relatively new venture, but one that looks very promising, and I'm happy to be a part of it.

Charles Krauthammer on the Clinton legacy

"His greatest achievement was an act of brilliant passivity -- he got out of the way of one of the largest peacetime economic expansions in American history.

[...]

"Clinton never could have been elected during the Cold War. In the 1990s, history produced the president perfectly suited to the time -- a time of domesticity, triviality and self-absorption.

[...]

"What appalled me then, a feeling that returns as Clinton has gone national revisiting his own presidency, is the smallness of a man who granted equal valence to his own indulgences on the one hand and to the fate of nations on the other. It is the smallness that disturbs. It is that smallness that history will remember."

Brilliant!

How to be a good liberal

This has been making the rounds for a long time, but it's always good to read again (and yes, it saves the day when you don't have the time to post anything else). So, for those too young to remember, here are some basic guidelines on how to be a good liberal:

· You have to believe that nicotine is a highly addictive, dangerous drug, but marijuana and cocaine are not.

· You have to believe that killing unborn children is ok, but executing convicted killers is bad.

· You have to believe that gender roles are artificial but being homosexual is natural.

· You have to believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens are more of a threat than nuclear weapons technology in the hands of Islamic terrorists.

· You have to believe that businesses create oppression and governments create prosperity.

· You have to believe that the same teacher who can't teach 4th graders how to read is somehow qualified to teach those same kids about sex.

· You have to believe that global temperatures are less affected by cyclical, documented changes in the earth's climate, and more affected by yuppies driving SUVs.

· You have to believe that standardized tests are racist, but racial quotas and set-asides aren't.

· You have to believe that the only reason socialism hasn't worked anywhere it's been tried, is because the right people haven't been in charge.

· You have to believe that homosexual parades displaying drag, transvestites and bestiality should be constitutionally protected but manger scenes at Christmas should be illegal.

· You have to believe the AIDS virus is spread by a lack of federal funding.

· You have to believe that anyone who beats you in intellectual arguments is a bigot.


Have a good day everyone!

The Clinton Book

This cartoon says it all.

Victor Davis Hanson on Europe

As usual, Victor Davis Hanson's column is a brilliant exposé of the world's follies. His latest ("Let Europe be Europe") once again dissects European hypocrisy and decadence like no one else can. A few excerpts:

The ethicists of Europe don't want to see success in Iraq, since it might be interpreted as a moral refutation of their own opposition to Saddam's removal. So let us in turn stop begging old Europe, NATO, and the EU to participate in the rebuilding or policing of the country. To join or help, in the collective European mind, would be to suggest that an emerging democracy far away was worth our own sacrifice to rid the world of Saddam Hussein. Liberating Iraq, shutting down Baathist terror, and establishing consensual rule, after all, was a dangerous — and mostly Anglo-American — idea, antithetical to all the Europeans have become.

Understandably, they do not want to be lumped in with the "missionaries of democracy" who evoke the ire of terrorists or the disdain of oil-producing grandees. They do not wish to forgive the debts run up by Saddam Hussein for their overpriced junk. And they most certainly are not willing to do any favors for Texas-twanged George W. Bush, whom they hope will be gone in less than six months. All this is not their world, which operates on self-interest gussied up with the elevated rhetoric of the utopian EU — appealing to an Al Gore's Earth-in-the-Balance mindset rather than to serious folk who worry about genocide and mass murder.

[...]
Well before George W. Bush assumed office, America and the Europeans split over differing ideas about liberty, free markets, class, race, and religion. And these shards are not going to be simply glued back into their proper places to reconstitute the fragile trans-Atlantic whole. As Europe addresses its demographic time bomb — with ever-increasing entitlements, less and less defense spending, and ever greater schizophrenia as it vacillates between paranoid repression and dangerous laxity — its angst about the freewheeling and upbeat United States will only grow.

[...]
I fear that we should expect over the next 50 years some pretty scary things coming out of Europe as its impossible postmodern utopian dreams turn undemocratic and then ugly — once its statism and entitlement economy falter; Jews leave as Arabs stream in

[...]
We all like the Europeans and wish them well in their efforts to create heaven on earth. But in the end I still think we Americans are on the right side of history in Iraq — while they are on no side at all.

Point masterfully taken. The Europeans, sunk on their wishy-washy can't-we-all-get-along? miasma, are too afraid to take any position, as that would by definition mean having to alienate someone somewhere --and well, we know just how "unsophisticated" that is.

Shedding light on the Inquisition

A very interesting piece on National Review by Thomas F. Madden on the Inquisition, and on a report made available last Tuesday:

In 1998 the Vatican opened the archives of the Holy Office (the modern successor to the Inquisition) to a team of 30 scholars from around the world. Now at last the scholars have made their report, an 800-page tome that was unveiled at a press conference in Rome on Tuesday.

Engaging reading, especially to those with an interest in History and the role that propaganda can play on what is written down as fact, despite little or nil evidence to support it.

The Goldberg File is back!

Haven't had time to post for several days, as I'm really busy with a ton of things, among others the much-needed update to my website --it's almost ready, so hang on.

I'm glad to report that the Goldberg File on National Review Online is back, after a hiatus of two months or so. Jonah Goldberg is one of my favorite columnists, a clear-thinking Conservative who is able to mix deep and thought-provoking subjects with edge-cutting humor --if you're a Simpsons fan, you'll fall in love with him in a second.

Anyway, in his latest column he mentions something that I'd already read somewhere, but which is worth commenting on: A rare case of guilt-admission from the Liberal Media. I haven't watched CNN (The Communist News Network) for a long time, so I missed this interesting exchange between retired CNN anchor Bernard Shaw and Wolf Blitzer during their coverage of the Reagan funeral; it is a keeper:

SHAW: Can I say something that touches on a very sensitive issue?
BLITZER: Of course.
SHAW: The news media and how we failed to thoroughly cover and communicate the very essences we're talking about possessed by Ronald Reagan. What I've been reading and what I've been hearing I did not get during his two terms in office, or did I miss something?
BLITZER: I think you're on to something, Bernie.
SHAW: I think we failed our viewers, listeners, and readers to an appreciable extent. I can't quantify it, but I'll put it there. Because I certainly missed a lot.

Yes you did, Bernie! And worst of all, most of them still do, not only about Reagan, but Bush and the war on terror. Which I guess only goes to prove that history not only repeats itself, but more and more it looks like a bad spinoff of "Ground Hog Day".

The funeral

Vicente Fox could not bother to attend the Reagan funeral; of course I'm not surprised. Fox has proven to be a spineless appeaser (Mexico's is, after all, a European society, not an American one), and with everyone from Congress, the media, and a sizable chunk of the population against him, he may believe it's too much of a political risk to appear "pro American".

I don't know, maybe he knows this country better than I do. Anti-American rhetoric has always won votes here, and Mexicans are, on the overall, more anti-American than pro. Still, the mark of a leader is to lead, not sail behind the popular wind. But as I said I'm not surprised; after 9-11 (when even the French were supportive of the US) it took Fox several days to issue a statement condemning the attacks.

As for the funeral itself, I thought it could not have been more magnificent. Who said Americans were incapable of such pomp and circumstance? There was one thing that infuriated me though. At the cathedral, I was able to spot a Muslim who was sitting on the front row to the right of the pulpit. I say he was a Muslim not only because he was wearing the characteristic diaper in the head, but because of the arrogantly disrespectful manner in which he behaved during the entire ceremony. At numerous times he had one leg crossed on top of the other; and when he was not slouching on the bench, this lovely character was using the kneeling pad as a resting place for his sandaled feet. Thoroughly disgusting, but again not surprising after tens of Muslims used the Nativity Church in Bethlehem as a kitchen and latrine last year. Another telling example of tolerance and good will from the "religion of peace"....

A giant is gone

Ronald Reagan was, undoubtedly, the greatest US President of the second half of the 20th Century, and one of the greatest leaders the West has had the privilege of experiencing. Watching the magnificence of the ceremonies these past days has left me wondering whether, along with President Reagan, the world has said goodbye to its finest hour, and all we can expect on the road ahead is the slow death of the West that Reagan so dearly loved.

But then I remember how Reagan was (much like George W. Bush is today) fiercely opposed by a decadent and cynical Europe who could not accept the back seat of history that its own failures had earned it; that self-appointed "elites" and "intellectuals" worldwide looked down on him, unable to recognize his bold statesmanship.

And so hope still lingers. We've been that road before. In 1980, a delusionary Europe believed one could negotiate with an evil empire; in 2004, a fearful and deviant Europe believes Islamofascism can be appeased. In the former, history proved that courageous action (not cowardly accommodation) was the way to victory. Facts are showing that it is also the proper answer to the latter.

One thing is certain: America remains the Shining City over the hill, and as long as it is a Reagan (not a Carter), or a Bush (not a Kerry) who sits in command at number 1600 of Pennsylvania Avenue, Civilization will continue to enjoy the promise of a hopeful tomorrow, where the dawn is always brighter, much brighter than the sunset of today.

First Blog

Well, after careless consideration I've decided to begin blogging. Having enjoyed writing for quite some time (had some things published in various Mensa journals), I thought I'd embrace the blogging revolution head on.

After all, like any opinionated bigot of worth, I believe that if dimwits like Michael Moore and Gerhard Schroeder (what about Jacques Chirac, you say? Well, he's not much a dimwit as a whore; remember all those thugs and dictators he has so happily gone to bed with...) can rant about all things geopolitical, my venting could only be an improvement.

So, in the immortal words of Al Bundy, let's rock.