Pursuing praxis

Tuesday, June 20, 2006
It’s Religion and Altruism, Stupid

Posted by Craig Biddle at 11:57 AM

In an article titled "It’s an Islamic jihad [posted below], stupid," Diana West wonders why the Bush administration "keep[s] things vague and indirect," pursuing a "war on terror" rather than a war on "Islamic jihadists." Ms. West notes that

"without understanding the religious nature of jihad (holy war), along with its sister institution of dhimmitude (inferior status of non-Muslims under Islam), there can be no triumph over jihad and no avoiding dhimmitude. There can also be no understanding of the religiously rooted attitudes toward jihad movements among even non-violent Muslims, generally ranging from a tacit ambivalence to wild adulation."

This is true, and it points to a deeper fact that Americans need to face. Either faithâi.e., the acceptance of ideas in support of which there is no evidenceâis a valid means of knowing the truth, or it is not. The Islamists have faith that they are right and good and that Americans are wrong and evil. If faith is a valid means of knowing the truthâas many Americans continue to believeâthen how can anyone say that the Islamists are wrong? What Americans need to face is the fact that faith is invalid. Man’s only means of knowledge is reason. The true and the good and the right can be known only by means of observation and logic and recognition of the requirements of human life on earth. If Americans want to name and defeat their actual enemy, they must lose religion; they must embrace reason.

Ms. West further wonders why "we repeatedly send our military on dangerous house-to-house missions with restrictive rules of engagement rather than using air power." The cause of this insanity is another sacred cow that Americans need to reject: altruism. Either being moral consists in being selfless, or it does not. If it does, then such policies are perfectly moral. After all, what could be more selfless than sacrificing our sons and daughters to the enemy? If sacrifice is moral, then losing loved ones is virtuous.

Being moral does not consist in being selfless; it consists in being selfishâi.e., acting in a rational, life-promoting manner as a matter of unwavering principle. Accordingly, acting morally with regard to the Islamist threat means swiftly eliminating the regimes that support the movementâespecially those in Iran and Saudi Arabiaâusing the full force of our military. It means destroying these regimes, not by sending soldiers into close-range combat, but by launching big bombs from high altitude and long distanceâas we are perfectly capable of doing. But in order for Americans to see the morality of taking such action, they would have to be willing to challenge the dogma of altruismâsomething that few Americans today have the independence or courage to do. Thus, we relentlessly engage in acts of blatant stupidity and court our own destruction. As Ms. West notes:

In a war in which an interrogation could save a city, we rewrite our interrogation rules to make sure that it won’t. "If this debate were limited to what’s best for interrogation purposes, the decision (about whether to soften interrogation techniques) would be pretty easy," a senior Defense Department official told The New York Times. "But then you have to look at what we lose diplomatically.’"

Why? What are we, Liechtenstein? We sure act like it. The Washington Times’ Tony Blankley recently noted the defeatism in America’s about-face with jihadist Iranâthe looming front in the war. By offering non-military nuclear technology or else threatening non-military sanctions, the Bush administration seems to have acquiesced to what Blankley describes as "the only ‘respectable’ position" among both European and American elites: namely, "the absolute exclusion of a military option."

If true, this would mean that the already inadequately titled "war on terror" would no longer refer to "war" at all. And that would leave onlyâ�.

Indeed, it would. So long as Americans embrace religion, faith, and altruism, we will suffer the consequences. What will it be, America?

It’s an Islamic jihad, stupid
Jun 19, 2006
by Diana West

Discussing the "war on terror" has been endlessly awkward. Terror — like a blitzkrieg, sneak-attack or disinformation — is a tactic, not an enemy. But in our politically-correct era, we dwell on the tactic, never defining the enemy. Drop 500-pound bombs on his head if we must — and we must — but don’t describe him as an Islamic jihadist in the age-old tradition of Islamic jihadis going back to Muhammad. Such historical precision might be hurtful and insensitive, and we wouldn’t want that.

Indeed, as a matter of American foreign policy, we don’t want that. Better to keep things vague and indirect, much as the Victorians are reputed to have done to avoid giving offense in the drawing room. Once upon a time, We the People were crass enough to have repelled a German blitzkrieg, defied Japanese sneak attack, and even, some of us, combated Soviet disinformation. Now, We the Peoples are "enlightened" to the point where we send armies out for years to fight generic "terror" — no matter how specifically Islamic that it is.

There are many reasons why this matters, not least of which is that, without understanding the religious nature of jihad (holy war), along with its sister institution of dhimmitude (inferior status of non-Muslims under Islam), there can be no triumph over jihad and no avoiding dhimmitude. There can also be no understanding of the religiously rooted attitudes toward jihad movements among even non-violent Muslims, generally ranging from a tacit ambivalence to wild adulation.

Even as we fight our war against "terror," we simultaneously fight against any such understanding. Maybe the reason goes beyond reflexive PC manners. Maybe the West simply doesn’t want an "enemy" at all; maybe we simply want to safeguard ourselves against "terror." Maybe our elites believe that, in targeting only terror, the enemy will learn to like us, and terror will go away.

This mindset may explain why the United States exhausts itself trying to disclaim a connection between Islam and jihad, opening Islamic centers on U.S. military bases (most recently at Quantico at the behest of a Wahhabi-educated cleric). Thus, as Paul Sperry writes at frontpagemag.com, "facilitating the study of the holy texts the enemy uses, heretically or not, as their manual of war"; treating those same holy texts reverentially by military order at Guantanamo Bay; and even sending in the Marines to donate prayer rugs to an Iraqi mosque.

Such tactics suggest we no longer seek a military triumph over Islamic jihad — if we ever did. Had we prosecuted such a war, it would be over by now. The president would have directed the military to eradicate, freeze or neutralize jihadi threats where they exist, from Iran to Syria, from Gaza to Fallujah. Concurrently, we would have closed our own borders as a post-Sept. 11 security precaution, and implemented an immigration policy designed to avoid repeating the European example of Islamization through massive Muslim immigration or, as some are calling it, "reverse colonization."

But no. Such a war on terror long ago gave way to the Struggle to Make Everyone Think We’re Swell. In this no-win fight, we must watch what we say — as when the government "distances" itself from an official’s frank characterization of three suicides at Guantanamo Bay as a jihadi "PR stunt." And we must watch what we do — as when we repeatedly send our military on dangerous house-to-house missions with restrictive rules of engagement rather than using air power. In a war in which an interrogation could save a city, we rewrite our interrogation rules to make sure that it won’t. "If this debate were limited to what’s best for interrogation purposes, the decision (about whether to soften interrogation techniques) would be pretty easy," a senior Defense Department official told The New York Times. "But then you have to look at what we lose diplomatically.’"

Why? What are we, Liechtenstein? We sure act like it. The Washington Times’ Tony Blankley recently noted the defeatism in America’s about-face with jihadist Iran — the looming front in the war. By offering non-military nuclear technology or else threatening non-military sanctions, the Bush administration seems to have acquiesced to what Blankley describes as "the only ‘respectable’ position" among both European and American elites: namely, "the absolute exclusion of a military option."

If true, this would mean that the already inadequately titled "war on terror" would no longer refer to "war" at all. And that would leave only ….

Diana West is a contributing columnist for Townhall.com.

They fit on my shelf, but not in my schedule. This is the becoming.

Politics and economics - what is the relation? The association of men. And, as Aristotle pointed out so many years ago, the first, irreducible, irreplacable and unforgettable reason that men associate is in order to trade goods - to exchange value for value, each in pursuit of his own life, his own ends, his own purposes. And the ultimate, civilize medium of human interaction is: money.

"For it is not two doctors that associate for exchange, but a doctor and a farmer, or in general people who are different and unequal; but these must be equated. This is why all things that are exhanged must be somehow comparable. it is for this end that money has been introduced, and it becomes in a sense an intermediate; for it measures all things, and therefore the excess and the defect - how many shoes are equal to a house or to a given amount of food. The number of shoes exchanged for a house [or for a given amount of food] must therefore correspond to the ratio of builder to shoemaker.

"For if this be not so, there will be no exchange and no intercourse. And this proportion will not be effected unless the goods are somehow equal. All goods must therefore be measued by some one thing, as we said before. Now this unit is in truth demand, which holds all things together (for if men did not need one another’s goods at all, or did not need them equally, there would be either no exchange or not the same exchange); but money has become by convention a sort of representative of demand …" (Nicomachean Ethics, 1133a17-b)

With this in mind (retrospectively), I visited Wall Street in NYC, and saw the New York Stock Exchange,

with some great sculptural detail of Men at work:

And of course, the greatest bovid of them all:

(Although, as a bovid afficionado, I must point out two major anatomical flaws: our dear Market Bull basically has horse hooves, and to my knowledge no bovid (or cervid - deer - which are very closely related) has upper incisors. Most certainly not Bos taurus, the standard cow, which this is presumably based on. Ah, the license of art :o). Without the horns, who knows where a cladist would classify this critter!)

In the vicinity was Federal Hall, the place where George Washington took the Oath of Office: