Friday 28 November 2008

Mumbai mass murder [updated]

These were terrorists who make no serious concrete demands.  They’re not after riches.  They don’t genuinely want prisoners released or captured revolutionary leaders handed over. They don’t want to be flown to Cuba.

All they truly want is blood.  American and British blood.   Western blood.  The cold, calculated and cowardly slaughter of innocent, prosperous people enjoying their lives, and the collateral killing of anyone who gets in the way of that goal.  All the training of these killers was evidently directed towards death: their ideology, their outlook and their ingenuity in putting together a coordinated city-wide assault was all directed to that end. 

A religion that began in violence has become a culture that now sees violence as their major message to the world.

“This is how Islam solves its problems, with violence. This is not an ‘isolated incident’ or the product of a ‘few extremists.’ One bombing is isolated, two is the work of a few extremists ...”  What do you call this litany?

New York.  Washington.  The USS Cole. Embassy bombings. Rabbi Kahane.  Pim Fortyn. Theo Van Gogh. Daniel Pearl. Luxor. Madrid. Beslan. Jaipur. London. Sharm el Sheikh. Cairo. Bali.  Mumbai, 2006 and 2007. Karachi. Mumbai, 2008.

The ‘religion of peace’ now has over a hundred new victims to add to its ‘glory’: new sacrifices to a culture of barbarism and the failure to take this threat seriously enough.

Like it or not, but the west is still at war.  Barbarism declared war on civilisation decades ago, yet civilisation has still not truly woken up to it.  “We” didn't start this war or encourage the threat, but a litany of appeasement has ferociously fanned its flames, encouraged the attackers, emboldened the growth of violence.  And in the litany of attackers is a common thread: Islamo-totalitarians who by their own admission "worship death" as we in the west worship life; who want the prosperous, freedom-loving west dead, as dead as their own dark souls; and who see the cowardly west as easy prey.

On this last point at least, they're right.

I’ve said this before more than once: the war we are in is as much an ideological war as it is an actual hot war. The blood-soaked voices from the stone age like this one know it:

“no we do not apologize … i'm happy they were attacked and i don't feel a bit sorry for them… Those who disbelieve and who wrong muslims, they will get something similar to it. because what goes around comes around… mumbai is one of the most shaytanic places on earth. all that bollywood crap is there, and maybe this is a sign for them to take heed.”

To barbarians like these,the free and prosperous west is a personal affront; their war on the west is the last gap of the Dark Age they've submitted to themselves and wish to impose on the rest of the world. Their own ideology has failed at everything but the production of penury and death, and now it's all they have left. In the words of their chief spokesman, we in the west know how to live, but they “know how to die.”  And don’t they just.

Meanwhile, the ideological war on behalf of the west has still to be fully engaged, and in most of the west is still resolutely undercut by the voices of "useful idiots" from the academies who use the freedom of the west only to attack and undercut it.

A principled, rational, consistent, philosophical defence of the ideas that support freedom and western civilisation is long overdue; the barbarians themselves know their enemies -- the ideas of reason, of individualism, of property rights and freedom and capitalism: but who among those who enjoy these boons will lift a finger to seriously defend them.

UPDATE: Coinciding with Thanksgiving in the States, historian Scott Powell lists those thinkers who built and defended western civilisation -- to whom it’s never more appropriate to to turn and say “Thank you.”  See: Those to whom I would like to offer my thanks.

8 comments:

Rich said...

Awesome article

I've never really understood why Islam is called a religion of peace. Ever since its humble beginnings in a cave in Mecca in 570ad, it has spread throughout the world not by peaceful means, but by converting the local population through its ideology of covert non believers or kill them if they don't
Those liberals that appease Islam in the west because of political correctness now have it knocking on the west's door in Europe, with Islam's express intention of taking over the world. Those ideas of freedom we take for granted will disappear immediately once Muslim majorities take control of countries like France due to population growth. I don't think those liberals really understand what it means to really believe in a God. It will make rational people do very irrational things.

KG said...

"I don't think those liberals really understand what it means to really believe in a God. It will make rational people do very irrational things.'
A fanatical belief in anything will make rational people do irrational things.
Belief in most things is just fine,if tempered with tolerance. But when it becomes fanaticism, you breed a different kind of animal entirely.
And I suspect islam is merely a vehicle for a bunch of dimwitted, dysfunctional assholes who get off on violence.
That said, this problem isn't going to be fixed until the West grows a pair and deals with it ruthlessly--and for libertarians, that includes looking at their immigration policy too.

Anonymous said...

Rich and KG

Let's clear something up.

Believing in God is not rational. Belief in God is irrational. People who are into this kind of irrational nonsense ultimately commit irrational acts. They do this as they believe in irrationalities... Rational people don't.

LGM

Anonymous said...

Nonsense LGM. I've met plenty of rational people who believe in irrational things. If a professional tennis player misses an easy shot, it does not mean he is a bad tennis player (though it may indicate he is heading that way). Provided a person is rational far more often than not, they are rational.

KG said...

"Let's clear something up."

Very kind of you lgm, but I already had it "cleared up"--all by myself.
As my comment demonstrated, had you read it more carefully.
The real issue--I'll say it again--is the difference between a tolerant belief and fanaticism.

You also said "People who are into this kind of irrational nonsense ultimately commit irrational acts".
Well, there are plenty of eminent scientists who belive in a God and I very much doubt they're any more prone to committing 'irrational acts' than most non-believers.
Your unsubstantiated claim is in itself an irrational act.

Anonymous said...

Hanso

If your tennis player were to believe that he missed the ball due to his opponent's black magic spells and went off to hire a witch doctor of his own (and kidnap an African albino for human sacrifice), that would be irrational. It would not matter that he was otherwise a reasonable player. Sure, he may well appear rational and reasonable in other areas of his life. In that he believed something irrational and acted on it, he is irrational.

On the other hand, were he to analyse the situation and conclude he missed the shot because he was a little slow, or he was in the wrong place on the court at the time (should have been two steps closer to where the ball was headed) or he'd given his opponent an easier return then he should have or that his opponent was playing to a weakness in his game etc., that would be rational. In that case he'd likely discuss the problem with his coach and so forth. They'd devise some exercises or practice methods to minimise or eliminate the problem. In other words, he'd find out the facts of reality and deal with it. That would be rational.

Human beings are not omniscient. They can make errors. Nevetheless it is important to make a distinction between someone making a mistake and someone who is irrational. The final test is what they do when they realise that they have made a mistake or that reality does not correspond with their idea/s. Do they suppress the facts an keep believing in a falsity? Do they employ a trick of intellectual compartmentalisation? Or do they confront the error, admit to it and try to locate the facts of reality?

One method is irrational. The other is rational.


LGM

Anonymous said...

KG

On this occsaion, you are wrong.

It is irrelevant whether a "scientist" is eminent or famous or tall or fat or has bad breath. If he believes in irrationalities and acts upon those ideas, then he is irrational. Certain global warming "scientists" come to mind. So do certain "intelligent design" advocates. Irrational.

What often occurs is that people compartmentalise. They can appear to function rationaly in their day to day living, yet scratch the surface and there be irrationalities and stupidity. Ultimately those irrationalities limit them, restrict their choices and cripple their view of reality. Allowing that to occur to oneself is irrational.

LGM

Elisheva Hannah Levin said...

Well said.

I would like to add only one thing more. It seems that these barbarians not only wish to destroy the West, but also anyone who wishes to imitate the West.