American Democrats and Europeans are committing cultural suicide

Cultural suicide by Europe and the Democrats (long)
renewamerica.us ^ | 3/11/06 | Fred Hutchinson


Posted on 11/03/2006 7:57:08 AM PST by Jakarta ex-pat


This essay asks two questions: Are Europeans in the throes of passive
cultural and political suicide as they ignore the threat of fanatical
Muslims in their communities? And if so, have the leaders of the
Democratic Party in America joined the Europeans in sleepwalking
towards a precipice?


My main source for answering the first question is a book review titled
Suicide of the West, by Theodore Dalrymple which appeared in the
Clairmont Review of Books, Fall 2006. Dalrymple reviewed three books in
pursuit of his theme of the "Suicide of the West" - namely, Why the
Continent's Crisis is America's Too, by Claire Berlinski; While Europe
Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within, by Bruce
Bawer; Menace in Europe: and Londonistan, by Melanie Phillips.


Decadent societies unwilling to survive


Author Clair Berlinski probes the deepest into the psychological and
existential problems of Europe. She believes that the European
inability and unwillingness to honestly face the growing danger of
Muslim fanaticism in their midst is caused by a hidden pathology or a
deep psychic disturbance. According to Dalrymple, these pathologies are
suicidal. Berlinski's insights offer important clues to the question of
whether the European pathology has crossed the Atlantic and taken root
in America.


The unwillingness of a decadent civilization to defend itself is
nothing new to history. When Germany invaded France in 1940, the French
and Germans had armies that were roughly equal on paper in manpower and
weaponry. The French defenders had fabulous, state-of-the-art defensive
fortifications that should have worked if used correctly and
vigorously. However, the French lacked intelligent, aggressive,
courageous leadership and the moral fortitude to give the Germans a
good fight. The stern qualities the French exhibited when they resisted
Germany in World War I were gone, and an indecisive, self-indulgent
moral flabbiness remained.


I recently viewed French films made in the thirties through the fifties
to brush up on my French. (Recent French films are unwatchable.) In
every French film I watched, the protagonist died in the last frame. In
one film there were four protagonists, and they all died. None of the
deaths had meaning. All those who died were frustrated in their
purposes and desires. None had a higher purpose or meaningful hopes and
dreams beyond financial gain or desires for romantic love or lust.


The cynical French film-makers were obsessed with death. They
dramatized life as a cruel trick played on hopeful, naive fools. Death,
as the only victor, soon comes to crush the wishful thinkers and to
bring their vain hopes to nothing. The depraved cultists of death
behind the camera mock life itself as a vain and foolish pretense. The
drama comes to an end with a camera close-up on the lifeless face of
the dead man who dared to hope. "How dare you live and hope?", the
film-maker seems to ask the dead man.


The bitter irony and despair of atheistic existentialism poisoned these
French dramas. The rejection of life - as an ordeal that is not worth
the effort - was regularly fed to the French public as popular
entertainment. It is no wonder the French lost their will to fight in
WWII.


The French pathologies have gotten worse since then. When Muslim
teenagers burned thousands of cars throughout France in October and
November of 2005, the French exhibited a shocking unwillingness to
defend themselves, or to be honest about the threat that stared them in
the face.


A replay of the fall of Rome


he French are repeating the Roman cultural suicide of sixteen hundred
years before. The Romans at the time were in pusillanimous denial of
the barbarian threat.


The barbarian tribes of the fifth century had nowhere near the numbers,
training, weaponry, or supplies to overcome a major civilization of 200
million people. Yet they overran the Western half of the Roman Empire.
The famous military valor and discipline of the Roman legions was gone.
The decadent Roman citizens avoided military service, and they paid
mercenaries from other nations and inducted barbarians from the marches
of the empire into the "Roman army" to defend them. Great civilizations
die when they lose the will to fight for their survival.


Is Europe ready to collapse in the face of radical Muslims who have
immigrated to Europe? Not just yet. But the trends look very bad.


A post-Christian culture


According to Berlinski, Europe has a "post-religious" culture. They
have no source of transcendence to replace religion or to give meaning
and purpose to life. Before we proceed to Berlinski's insights, let us
consider the difference between a post-Christian culture and a
post-post-Christian, or, in Berlinski's words, a "post-religious
culture."


The intellectuals of Matthew Arnold's nineteenth-century England deeply
regretted the retreat of faith in Christ and sought alternative sources
of transcendence. Their substitutes included Romantic literature,
poetry, patriotism, tradition, nostalgia, and the quasi-Christian
trappings of liberal churches stripped of faith and doctrine. Arnold
sought transcendence through the romance and mystique of a
quasi-Christianity cut free from biblical teachings, and stripped of
the cross and the resurrection of Christ, except as a vague metaphor.


This was a post-Christian culture that should not be confused with a
post-post-Christian culture.


Great Britain makes a stand


Segments of Britain regained a measure of Christian transcendence from
the Welsh revival, the Keswick Movement, the Oxford Movement, and the
preaching of C.H. Spurgeon in the Victorian era. Therefore, Britain's
spiritual and cultural decline was slower than that of other Europeans.
Unlike the French, the British had not yet slipped into a post-post
Christian culture when they fought World War II.


In contrast to the French, the Brits had the grit to fight stubbornly
against the Germans in the air, at sea, and in apocalyptic land
battles. Their greatest general was Sir Bernard Law Montgomery, who was
an Evangelical Protestant. Their heroic national leader was Winston
Churchill. Churchill was a throwback to the ideals, moral earnestness,
and high drama and grandiloquence of the Victorian age:


I have, myself, full confidence that...we shall once again be able to
defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive
the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. That
is the will of His Majesty's government - every man of them. That is
the will of Parliament and the nation....


Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous states have
fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and the odious
apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to
the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and
oceans, we shall fight with growing strength in the air, we shall
defend our Island whatever the cost may be.


We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds,
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the
hills; we shall never surrender; and even if... this Island, or a large
part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the
seas, armed and guarded by the British fleet would carry on the
struggle....


(Winston Churchill, June 4, 1940, speech to the House of Commons)


Spiritual amnesia and nihilism in Europe


Continental Europe is further removed in time from the vestiges of
faith than is Great Britain. The passage of two and a half centuries
have elapsed since the beginning of the general retreat of faith in
continental Europe. Europe has a collective amnesia of the nostalgic
romanticism and poetry of a post-Christian culture that characterized
England during World War II. Europe has entered the nihilism of a
post-post-Christian culture - or what Berlinski calls a
"post-religious culture," where even the vague consolations of a gutted
liberal Christianity are gone in many places.


Berlinski wrote that many Europeans have forgotten what it is to
believe in something and are skeptical about whether anyone else
believes in anything. Therefore, they reject the idea that the Muslim
fanatics in their midst have gone crazy because of their twisted
beliefs. They assume that Muslim misbehavior must be driven by
socioeconomic root causes, social injustice, and real or imagined
Western malefactions.


Here we must pause and reflect on how many times we have heard American
liberal Democrats say much the same things.


Those who cannot believe that anyone else believes in something
obviously are going to misconstrue the sincere Christian faith of many
Americans. If they look upon true Christianity as something
inexplicable and mysterious, they might attribute dark and sinister
motives to American Christians. To verify this liberal paranoia about
Christianity, one need only recollect how many times he has heard
liberal Democrats say that the Evangelicals are trying to build a
theocracy.


Having no conception of faith, such liberals misconstrue the
Evangelical movement as a grand conspiracy to grab power while wearing
the cloak of religion. People who can no longer remember or conceive of
what it is to believe in God are reduced to believing conspiracy
theories and crackpot myths.


The Authoritarian personality


Berlinski wrote that some Europeans associate faith with fanatical
totalitarian movements such as Fascism and Communism. Thus, they tend
to attribute authoritarian or totalitarian motives to those who believe
in God. It is quite true that Fascism and Communism involve a warped
faith in tainted ideals. Such "faiths" came to Europe to fill the
vacuum left by the retreat of the Christian faith. The folks in a
post-post Christian culture cannot distinguish between Christianity and
the counterfeits that developed to replace Christianity.


Some liberals brand Christians of orthodox doctrine who are politically
conservative as Nazis. This has been going on for a long time. A
liberal friend of mine in college regularly called me a Nazi. My social
friends called the leader of my campus conservative organization "der
Fuhrer." When I returned home from politicking, they played tapes of
the German army band. The games of these rubes were not entirely in
jest.


In 1968, a high school friend of mind was back from college for the
summer and sporting a particularly ugly beard. I tugged at the beard
and asked, "What's this?" He said "You have a regimented mind." I knew
that he got that line from a college professor, but it was years before
I found out where the professor got the line. He got it from the book,
The Authoritarian Personality, by Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969).


Adorno was curious about what kind of man became a Nazi. He developed a
method of psychological testing that produced an "F-Score." The F-
score measured the degree to which one has an authoritarian
personality. If one is socially conventional, has old-fashioned moral
values, likes traditional culture, is submissive to authority, honors
his father, and is religious, he gets a high F-score. Careful studies
have found no statistical correlation between F-scores and
authoritarian tendencies or political affiliations. Those who have
totalitarian allegiances do not necessarily have high F-scores.


In spite of scientific proof that Adorno's theory is false, the idea of
the authoritarian personality seeped into the stew of liberal ideas and
became an enduring liberal myth.

In 1968, a conservative Christian who votes Republican was sometimes
called a Nazi by liberals. In 1968, Gore Vidal called William F.
Buckley a Nazi to his face on television. I cannot number the times I
have heard liberals call President Bush a Nazi.


Liberals tenaciously believe this nonsense because the post-Christian
West traumatized the world with its counterfeit substitutes for
Christianity such as Marxism and Fascism. The traumatic memories of
those days have conjured up an imaginary bogeyman, one which scares
many Europeans when they are confronted with someone who has an
authentic faith in God.


Forest fears


People traumatized by nightmares and delusional terrors are blind to
true evils and dangers all around them. Those who are beset with forest
fears and struggle against the bogeymen of the night will fail to
protect themselves from the authentic dangers of the forest. Many
Europeans are afraid of the Christian bogeyman and are blind to the
true dangers of fanatical Islamic terrorists living in their midst.
Fear itself is not the danger. Being afraid of the wrong things is the
danger.


I had a college professor of world history, appropriately named Dr.
Faust, who somehow had come to believe that Martin Luther was
responsible for breeding Hitler. This fantasy brings to mind G.K.
Chesterton's maxim that "A man who won't believe in God will believe
anything."


Dr. Faust found out that I had conservative ideas. He asked about my
denominational affiliations, whether I approved of a denominational
merger, and whether I preferred blondes to brunettes, among other
strange questions. I later realized that he was probing to see if I had
an "authoritarian personality" according to Adorno's theory. Very much
later, I came to understood that his inexplicable hostility towards me
was rooted in the forest fears of liberal mythology. I am glad I don't
have his nightmares.


European self-hate


As the sources of transcendence have dried up in Europe and the people
find no meaning or purpose in life, they have turned to health,
security, comfort, pleasure, and personal peace as their sole reason
for living. Berlinski deftly explained how this empty way of life has
transmogrified into a colossal case of collective self-hatred.


Believing nothing and living for no higher cause than mere comfort and
security, the Europeans are haunted by a vague collective guilt and
anxiety. They gradually have come to think that they have no right to
pass judgment on anything. A totally selfish being is allergic to the
very idea of moral judgment. In Europe, it has become a taboo to
condemn any non-European culture. This taboo is intensified by a
lingering guilt about European colonialism.


The relative vitality of non-European cultures makes the pale and
passive nihilism and the pampered hedonism of post-post-Christian
Europe look like the ghost of a culture in comparison. European culture
and civilization - which was given birth by the mother church during
the 1050-1100 A.D. period - is now perishing as the last faint
links to Christianity are severed.


Berlinski wrote that European Multiculturalism is "self-hatred writ
large." The abdication of every duty in the pursuit of self-pampering
indulgence leaves the human creature with a colossal case of
self-hatred. During the 1970's, the cult of self-esteem was based on
the assumption that every human insecurity was caused by self-hate and
the cure was teaching people to feel good about themselves.
Unfortunately, this approach encouraged people to pamper themselves,
which led to a more intense self-absorption. At some level of
consciousness, self-absorption leads to a feeling of worthlessness and
a deeper self hate.


Collective self-hatred has engendered an anti-European culture among
Europeans. This phenomenon is not far from the Multiculturalism of
American liberal Democrats, who invariably look for a way to blame
America for every problem abroad and make excuses for foreign cultures
no matter how perverse and malicious they may be.


The death of patriotism


National patriotism is dying in Europe as the Europeans extinguish
their national identities in favor of a European identity and a
European union.


Contrary to their outraged protests to the contrary, some liberal
Democrats also no longer understand patriotism. If one has forgotten
what it is to have faith in God and instead lives solely for affluence,
personal peace, and comfort, the bugle call of country is but a faint
echo from afar. One must be alive to a greater world above and beyond
the petty self to awaken with joy to the sweet bugle call of one's
beloved country.

The Democrats are not as far gone as the French, but they sound an
uncertain trumpet. As Paul wrote, "[i]f the trumpet give an uncertain
sound who shall prepare himself to the battle?" (Corinthians 14: 8).


The restless, impatient bickering by Democrats while the country is at
war - if that war lasts longer than is convenient to one's personal
peace and comfort - is a very European trait. The maelstrom of
complaining and carping criticism about our present war against Islamic
fanatics abroad gives us a clue about the European kind of policies we
might have if the Democrats come to power.


Transplanting the bad seed


Patriotism cannot coexist with the national self-hatred of
Multiculturalism. Multiculturalism appeared in Europe among men who
could no longer remember what it is to believe in God, and who
suspected that no one really believes in God, whatever they may
profess. Multiculturalism with self-hatred at the core leads to a
culture of nihilism. One cannot be nihilistic and patriotic at the same
time. A nihilistic friend once responded to a patriotic line of mine
and said that I am "slipping into madness." Quite to the contrary, my
friend, nihilism is madness and patriotism is sane.


Multiculturalism migrated from Europe to the United States and found a
home in the left wing of the Democratic Party. Disillusionment with
Marxism and economic determinism created a vacuum in the Democratic
left during the late 60's and early 70's. The bad seed was planted in
America and produced some bitter souls who rose to the top of their
party, including Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean. These blind
guides sometimes seem almost as impervious to the threat of radical
Islam as the leaders of Europe.


Fortunately, American and British liberals don't usually fall as far
into denial and moral oblivion as their counterparts in Europe.
However, Britain is now in worse shape than America.


Londonistan


Melanie Phillips - as paraphrased by Theodore Darlrymle - said in
Londonistan, "[T]he British government and intellectual elite has been
complicit in allowing the dangerous ideology of Islamism - which
threatens not only the security of the British state, but of Europe and
North America - to take deep root in Britain.... [A]n amalgam of
cowardice, moral frivolity, lack of conviction, political
correctness...has ensured that almost every policy decision taken by
the government, has worsened the situation rather than ameliorating
it." Phillips said that the situation would be comical if it were not
so typical of the pusillanimity of the British establishment.


What can we expect if the Democrats take power in Congress this
November? Complicity in "allowing the dangerous ideology of Islamism to
take deep root" in America? Will the Democrats rule with "an amalgam of
cowardice, moral frivolity, and political correctness?" Will the
American establishment become as pusillanimous as the British
establishment? We can find a possible answer if we recall the
pusillanimous and feckless leadership of Jimmy Carter.


Hopefully, not all liberal Democrats have a spine of Jell-o as Carter
did. Berlinski reassures us that there is some moral backbone left in
America.


The moral backbone of America


Authors Claire Berlinski and Bruce Bawer agree that the survival of
religion in America imparts a moral backbone to Americans that is
mostly absent in Europe. (Liberal ideas, however, can trump faith, as
in the case of the self-contradictory Jimmy Carter.) Faith in God
imparts courage, engagement with a larger world outside the self, and a
hatred of evil.


As America continues to emerge as the sole economic, political, and
military superpower of the world, periodic waves of spiritual renewal
continue to replenish the ranks of believers. America has escaped
sliding into a European-style spiritual extinction.


Conclusion


The war against terrorism and Islamic fanaticism is a war for the
survival of the West. Even so, Americans are getting restless and
impatient about having their Army stuck in Iraq. No sooner do the
troops clobber one set of opponents than new insurgents seem to spring
from the cursed ground - as when the mythical Cadmus sowed dragons'
teeth and a race of fierce armed men emerged from the ground.


Patience and perseverance can win through to victory in this kind of
war, however, and the American people are being tested as to whether
they are determined to sustain their opposition to evil and persevere
in the noble cause of saving Western civilization from extinction. The
post-post-Christian Europeans may be too far gone in their inner
pathologies to save themselves from a satanic Muslim fanaticism. The
burden must fall upon Christian America, with a little help from
Britain to save the West.

Stop worrying about Europe for which you do not care at all.
No need to crosspost either, go wave your political slogans at the corner of
your street instead.



"PJ O'Donovan" a écrit dans le message de news:
...[i]
Cultural suicide by Europe and the Democrats (long)
renewamerica.us ^ | 3/11/06 | Fred Hutchinson


Posted on 11/03/2006 7:57:08 AM PST by Jakarta ex-pat


This essay asks two questions: Are Europeans in the throes of passive
cultural and political suicide as they ignore the threat of fanatical
Muslims in their communities? And if so, have the leaders of the
Democratic Party in America joined the Europeans in sleepwalking
towards a precipice?


My main source for answering the first question is a book review titled
Suicide of the West, by Theodore Dalrymple which appeared in the
Clairmont Review of Books, Fall 2006. Dalrymple reviewed three books in
pursuit of his theme of the "Suicide of the West" - namely, Why the
Continent's Crisis is America's Too, by Claire Berlinski; While Europe
Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within, by Bruce
Bawer; Menace in Europe: and Londonistan, by Melanie Phillips.


Decadent societies unwilling to survive


Author Clair Berlinski probes the deepest into the psychological and
existential problems of Europe. She believes that the European
inability and unwillingness to honestly face the growing danger of
Muslim fanaticism in their midst is caused by a hidden pathology or a
deep psychic disturbance. According to Dalrymple, these pathologies are
suicidal. Berlinski's insights offer important clues to the question of
whether the European pathology has crossed the Atlantic and taken root
in America.


The unwillingness of a decadent civilization to defend itself is
nothing new to history. When Germany invaded France in 1940, the French
and Germans had armies that were roughly equal on paper in manpower and
weaponry. The French defenders had fabulous, state-of-the-art defensive
fortifications that should have worked if used correctly and
vigorously. However, the French lacked intelligent, aggressive,
courageous leadership and the moral fortitude to give the Germans a
good fight. The stern qualities the French exhibited when they resisted
Germany in World War I were gone, and an indecisive, self-indulgent
moral flabbiness remained.


I recently viewed French films made in the thirties through the fifties
to brush up on my French. (Recent French films are unwatchable.) In
every French film I watched, the protagonist died in the last frame. In
one film there were four protagonists, and they all died. None of the
deaths had meaning. All those who died were frustrated in their
purposes and desires. None had a higher purpose or meaningful hopes and
dreams beyond financial gain or desires for romantic love or lust.


The cynical French film-makers were obsessed with death. They
dramatized life as a cruel trick played on hopeful, naive fools. Death,
as the only victor, soon comes to crush the wishful thinkers and to
bring their vain hopes to nothing. The depraved cultists of death
behind the camera mock life itself as a vain and foolish pretense. The
drama comes to an end with a camera close-up on the lifeless face of
the dead man who dared to hope. "How dare you live and hope?", the
film-maker seems to ask the dead man.


The bitter irony and despair of atheistic existentialism poisoned these
French dramas. The rejection of life - as an ordeal that is not worth
the effort - was regularly fed to the French public as popular
entertainment. It is no wonder the French lost their will to fight in
WWII.


The French pathologies have gotten worse since then. When Muslim
teenagers burned thousands of cars throughout France in October and
November of 2005, the French exhibited a shocking unwillingness to
defend themselves, or to be honest about the threat that stared them in
the face.


A replay of the fall of Rome


he French are repeating the Roman cultural suicide of sixteen hundred
years before. The Romans at the time were in pusillanimous denial of
the barbarian threat.


The barbarian tribes of the fifth century had nowhere near the numbers,
training, weaponry, or supplies to overcome a major civilization of 200
million people. Yet they overran the Western half of the Roman Empire.
The famous military valor and discipline of the Roman legions was gone.
The decadent Roman citizens avoided military service, and they paid
mercenaries from other nations and inducted barbarians from the marches
of the empire into the "Roman army" to defend them. Great civilizations
die when they lose the will to fight for their survival.


Is Europe ready to collapse in the face of radical Muslims who have
immigrated to Europe? Not just yet. But the trends look very bad.


A post-Christian culture


According to Berlinski, Europe has a "post-religious" culture. They
have no source of transcendence to replace religion or to give meaning
and purpose to life. Before we proceed to Berlinski's insights, let us
consider the difference between a post-Christian culture and a
post-post-Christian, or, in Berlinski's words, a "post-religious
culture."


The intellectuals of Matthew Arnold's nineteenth-century England deeply
regretted the retreat of faith in Christ and sought alternative sources
of transcendence. Their substitutes included Romantic literature,
poetry, patriotism, tradition, nostalgia, and the quasi-Christian
trappings of liberal churches stripped of faith and doctrine. Arnold
sought transcendence through the romance and mystique of a
quasi-Christianity cut free from biblical teachings, and stripped of
the cross and the resurrection of Christ, except as a vague metaphor.


This was a post-Christian culture that should not be confused with a
post-post-Christian culture.


Great Britain makes a stand


Segments of Britain regained a measure of Christian transcendence from
the Welsh revival, the Keswick Movement, the Oxford Movement, and the
preaching of C.H. Spurgeon in the Victorian era. Therefore, Britain's
spiritual and cultural decline was slower than that of other Europeans.
Unlike the French, the British had not yet slipped into a post-post
Christian culture when they fought World War II.


In contrast to the French, the Brits had the grit to fight stubbornly
against the Germans in the air, at sea, and in apocalyptic land
battles. Their greatest general was Sir Bernard Law Montgomery, who was
an Evangelical Protestant. Their heroic national leader was Winston
Churchill. Churchill was a throwback to the ideals, moral earnestness,
and high drama and grandiloquence of the Victorian age:


I have, myself, full confidence that...we shall once again be able to
defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive
the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. That
is the will of His Majesty's government - every man of them. That is
the will of Parliament and the nation....


Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous states have
fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and the odious
apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to
the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and
oceans, we shall fight with growing strength in the air, we shall
defend our Island whatever the cost may be.


We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds,
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the
hills; we shall never surrender; and even if... this Island, or a large
part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the
seas, armed and guarded by the British fleet would carry on the
struggle....


(Winston Churchill, June 4, 1940, speech to the House of Commons)


Spiritual amnesia and nihilism in Europe


Continental Europe is further removed in time from the vestiges of
faith than is Great Britain. The passage of two and a half centuries
have elapsed since the beginning of the general retreat of faith in
continental Europe. Europe has a collective amnesia of the nostalgic
romanticism and poetry of a post-Christian culture that characterized
England during World War II. Europe has entered the nihilism of a
post-post-Christian culture - or what Berlinski calls a
"post-religious culture," where even the vague consolations of a gutted
liberal Christianity are gone in many places.


Berlinski wrote that many Europeans have forgotten what it is to
believe in something and are skeptical about whether anyone else
believes in anything. Therefore, they reject the idea that the Muslim
fanatics in their midst have gone crazy because of their twisted
beliefs. They assume that Muslim misbehavior must be driven by
socioeconomic root causes, social injustice, and real or imagined
Western malefactions.


Here we must pause and reflect on how many times we have heard American
liberal Democrats say much the same things.


Those who cannot believe that anyone else believes in something
obviously are going to misconstrue the sincere Christian faith of many
Americans. If they look upon true Christianity as something
inexplicable and mysterious, they might attribute dark and sinister
motives to American Christians. To verify this liberal paranoia about
Christianity, one need only recollect how many times he has heard
liberal Democrats say that the Evangelicals are trying to build a
theocracy.


Having no conception of faith, such liberals misconstrue the
Evangelical movement as a grand conspiracy to grab power while wearing
the cloak of religion. People who can no longer remember or conceive of
what it is to believe in God are reduced to believing conspiracy
theories and crackpot myths.


The Authoritarian personality


Berlinski wrote that some Europeans associate faith with fanatical
totalitarian movements such as Fascism and Communism. Thus, they tend
to attribute authoritarian or totalitarian motives to those who believe
in God. It is quite true that Fascism and Communism involve a warped
faith in tainted ideals. Such "faiths" came to Europe to fill the
vacuum left by the retreat of the Christian faith. The folks in a
post-post Christian culture cannot distinguish between Christianity and
the counterfeits that developed to replace Christianity.


Some liberals brand Christians of orthodox doctrine who are politically
conservative as Nazis. This has been going on for a long time. A
liberal friend of mine in college regularly called me a Nazi. My social
friends called the leader of my campus conservative organization "der
Fuhrer." When I returned home from politicking, they played tapes of
the German army band. The games of these rubes were not entirely in
jest.


In 1968, a high school friend of mind was back from college for the
summer and sporting a particularly ugly beard. I tugged at the beard
and asked, "What's this?" He said "You have a regimented mind." I knew
that he got that line from a college professor, but it was years before
I found out where the professor got the line. He got it from the book,
The Authoritarian Personality, by Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969).


Adorno was curious about what kind of man became a Nazi. He developed a
method of psychological testing that produced an "F-Score." The F-
score measured the degree to which one has an authoritarian
personality. If one is socially conventional, has old-fashioned moral
values, likes traditional culture, is submissive to authority, honors
his father, and is religious, he gets a high F-score. Careful studies
have found no statistical correlation between F-scores and
authoritarian tendencies or political affiliations. Those who have
totalitarian allegiances do not necessarily have high F-scores.


In spite of scientific proof that Adorno's theory is false, the idea of
the authoritarian personality seeped into the stew of liberal ideas and
became an enduring liberal myth.

In 1968, a conservative Christian who votes Republican was sometimes
called a Nazi by liberals. In 1968, Gore Vidal called William F.
Buckley a Nazi to his face on television. I cannot number the times I
have heard liberals call President Bush a Nazi.


Liberals tenaciously believe this nonsense because the post-Christian
West traumatized the world with its counterfeit substitutes for
Christianity such as Marxism and Fascism. The traumatic memories of
those days have conjured up an imaginary bogeyman, one which scares
many Europeans when they are confronted with someone who has an
authentic faith in God.


Forest fears


People traumatized by nightmares and delusional terrors are blind to
true evils and dangers all around them. Those who are beset with forest
fears and struggle against the bogeymen of the night will fail to
protect themselves from the authentic dangers of the forest. Many
Europeans are afraid of the Christian bogeyman and are blind to the
true dangers of fanatical Islamic terrorists living in their midst.
Fear itself is not the danger. Being afraid of the wrong things is the
danger.


I had a college professor of world history, appropriately named Dr.
Faust, who somehow had come to believe that Martin Luther was
responsible for breeding Hitler. This fantasy brings to mind G.K.
Chesterton's maxim that "A man who won't believe in God will believe
anything."


Dr. Faust found out that I had conservative ideas. He asked about my
denominational affiliations, whether I approved of a denominational
merger, and whether I preferred blondes to brunettes, among other
strange questions. I later realized that he was probing to see if I had
an "authoritarian personality" according to Adorno's theory. Very much
later, I came to understood that his inexplicable hostility towards me
was rooted in the forest fears of liberal mythology. I am glad I don't
have his nightmares.


European self-hate


As the sources of transcendence have dried up in Europe and the people
find no meaning or purpose in life, they have turned to health,
security, comfort, pleasure, and personal peace as their sole reason
for living. Berlinski deftly explained how this empty way of life has
transmogrified into a colossal case of collective self-hatred.


Believing nothing and living for no higher cause than mere comfort and
security, the Europeans are haunted by a vague collective guilt and
anxiety. They gradually have come to think that they have no right to
pass judgment on anything. A totally selfish being is allergic to the
very idea of moral judgment. In Europe, it has become a taboo to
condemn any non-European culture. This taboo is intensified by a
lingering guilt about European colonialism.


The relative vitality of non-European cultures makes the pale and
passive nihilism and the pampered hedonism of post-post-Christian
Europe look like the ghost of a culture in comparison. European culture
and civilization - which was given birth by the mother church during
the 1050-1100 A.D. period - is now perishing as the last faint
links to Christianity are severed.


Berlinski wrote that European Multiculturalism is "self-hatred writ
large." The abdication of every duty in the pursuit of self-pampering
indulgence leaves the human creature with a colossal case of
self-hatred. During the 1970's, the cult of self-esteem was based on
the assumption that every human insecurity was caused by self-hate and
the cure was teaching people to feel good about themselves.
Unfortunately, this approach encouraged people to pamper themselves,
which led to a more intense self-absorption. At some level of
consciousness, self-absorption leads to a feeling of worthlessness and
a deeper self hate.


Collective self-hatred has engendered an anti-European culture among
Europeans. This phenomenon is not far from the Multiculturalism of
American liberal Democrats, who invariably look for a way to blame
America for every problem abroad and make excuses for foreign cultures
no matter how perverse and malicious they may be.


The death of patriotism


National patriotism is dying in Europe as the Europeans extinguish
their national identities in favor of a European identity and a
European union.


Contrary to their outraged protests to the contrary, some liberal
Democrats also no longer understand patriotism. If one has forgotten
what it is to have faith in God and instead lives solely for affluence,
personal peace, and comfort, the bugle call of country is but a faint
echo from afar. One must be alive to a greater world above and beyond
the petty self to awaken with joy to the sweet bugle call of one's
beloved country.

The Democrats are not as far gone as the French, but they sound an
uncertain trumpet. As Paul wrote, "f the trumpet give an uncertain
sound who shall prepare himself to the battle?" (Corinthians 14: 8).


The restless, impatient bickering by Democrats while the country is at
war - if that war lasts longer than is convenient to one's personal
peace and comfort - is a very European trait. The maelstrom of
complaining and carping criticism about our present war against Islamic
fanatics abroad gives us a clue about the European kind of policies we
might have if the Democrats come to power.


Transplanting the bad seed


Patriotism cannot coexist with the national self-hatred of
Multiculturalism. Multiculturalism appeared in Europe among men who
could no longer remember what it is to believe in God, and who
suspected that no one really believes in God, whatever they may
profess. Multiculturalism with self-hatred at the core leads to a
culture of nihilism. One cannot be nihilistic and patriotic at the same
time. A nihilistic friend once responded to a patriotic line of mine
and said that I am "slipping into madness." Quite to the contrary, my
friend, nihilism is madness and patriotism is sane.


Multiculturalism migrated from Europe to the United States and found a
home in the left wing of the Democratic Party. Disillusionment with
Marxism and economic determinism created a vacuum in the Democratic
left during the late 60's and early 70's. The bad seed was planted in
America and produced some bitter souls who rose to the top of their
party, including Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean. These blind
guides sometimes seem almost as impervious to the threat of radical
Islam as the leaders of Europe.


Fortunately, American and British liberals don't usually fall as far
into denial and moral oblivion as their counterparts in Europe.
However, Britain is now in worse shape than America.


Londonistan


Melanie Phillips - as paraphrased by Theodore Darlrymle - said in
Londonistan, "[T]he British government and intellectual elite has been
complicit in allowing the dangerous ideology of Islamism - which
threatens not only the security of the British state, but of Europe and
North America - to take deep root in Britain.... [A]n amalgam of
cowardice, moral frivolity, lack of conviction, political
correctness...has ensured that almost every policy decision taken by
the government, has worsened the situation rather than ameliorating
it." Phillips said that the situation would be comical if it were not
so typical of the pusillanimity of the British establishment.


What can we expect if the Democrats take power in Congress this
November? Complicity in "allowing the dangerous ideology of Islamism to
take deep root" in America? Will the Democrats rule with "an amalgam of
cowardice, moral frivolity, and political correctness?" Will the
American establishment become as pusillanimous as the British
establishment? We can find a possible answer if we recall the
pusillanimous and feckless leadership of Jimmy Carter.


Hopefully, not all liberal Democrats have a spine of Jell-o as Carter
did. Berlinski reassures us that there is some moral backbone left in
America.


The moral backbone of America


Authors Claire Berlinski and Bruce Bawer agree that the survival of
religion in America imparts a moral backbone to Americans that is
mostly absent in Europe. (Liberal ideas, however, can trump faith, as
in the case of the self-contradictory Jimmy Carter.) Faith in God
imparts courage, engagement with a larger world outside the self, and a
hatred of evil.


As America continues to emerge as the sole economic, political, and
military superpower of the world, periodic waves of spiritual renewal
continue to replenish the ranks of believers. America has escaped
sliding into a European-style spiritual extinction.


Conclusion


The war against terrorism and Islamic fanaticism is a war for the
survival of the West. Even so, Americans are getting restless and
impatient about having their Army stuck in Iraq. No sooner do the
troops clobber one set of opponents than new insurgents seem to spring
from the cursed ground - as when the mythical Cadmus sowed dragons'
teeth and a race of fierce armed men emerged from the ground.


Patience and perseverance can win through to victory in this kind of
war, however, and the American people are being tested as to whether
they are determined to sustain their opposition to evil and persevere
in the noble cause of saving Western civilization from extinction. The
post-post-Christian Europeans may be too far gone in their inner
pathologies to save themselves from a satanic Muslim fanaticism. The
burden must fall upon Christian America, with a little help from
Britain to save the West.

On 4 Nov 2006 04:45:59 -0800, "PJ O'Donovan" wrote:

Faith in God
imparts courage, engagement with a larger world outside the self, and a
hatred of evil.

Amen, Brother Peejay.

http://www.landoverbaptist.org/

See you on Sunday.

Keith, Bristol, UK

Email: usenet[dot]20[dot]keefy[at]spamgourmet[dot]com

A spamtrap - but I'll get your mail

cretin is out again today

"Martin" a écrit dans le message de news:
...
On Sat, 04 Nov 2006 13:32:39 +0000, Keith Anderson
wrote:

On 4 Nov 2006 04:45:59 -0800, "PJ O'Donovan" wrote:

Faith in God
imparts courage, engagement with a larger world outside the self, and a
hatred of evil.

Amen, Brother Peejay.

http://www.landoverbaptist.org/

See you on Sunday.

You are going to have to stop doing this Keith
http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news1000/ghost.html

Otherwise no Christian Halloween card for you next year.
http://www.cafepress.com/content/products/img-bleed

Satan's birthday and here's me thinking it was the feast of all souls.
--

Martin

On Sat, 04 Nov 2006 13:32:39 +0000, Keith Anderson
wrote:

On 4 Nov 2006 04:45:59 -0800, "PJ O'Donovan" wrote:

Faith in God
imparts courage, engagement with a larger world outside the self, and a
hatred of evil.

Amen, Brother Peejay.

http://www.landoverbaptist.org/

See you on Sunday.

Keith, Bristol, UK

Email: usenet[dot]20[dot]keefy[at]spamgourmet[dot]com

A spamtrap - but I'll get your mail

Thanks for the link. Loved the letters. Check them out.
http://www.landoverbaptist.org/mail/0906.html




Cheers, Alan, Australia
--
http://loraltravel.blogspot.com/
latest: The Vatican
http://loraldiabetes.blogspot.com/