Islam Is Not Islamism

I take Krauthammer’s side in this debate with Mark Steyn regarding Geert Wilders.  In simplified terms, Wilders believes that there is no distinction between Islam and radical Islam.  Or, perhaps the difference for Wilders is between Islam and fake, watered down Islam.  I’m no scholar of Islam, so I cannot engage the debate at the level of discussing what “true” Islam is.  But I have spent a good deal of time studying what it means to have a consistent worldview, and the conclusion I’ve reached is that few if anyone has a truly and thoroughly consistent one.  And we are often faced with examples of where strict adherence to a worldview may lead to grisly results.  Christianity, or certain variations, for example, view abortion as murder, and thus might justify or even compel violence in preventing it. Obviously, most of us are thankful that adherents to such worldviews decline the urge to practice strict consistency.

Similarly, as I have suggested before (e.g., here and here), a consistently practiced purely secular worldview would lead to absolute relativism—not only on moral issues, but on every other kind of truth, be it abstract or concrete.  Now, secularists certainly don’t agree with me about that.  And this is a somewhat lofty, metaphysical debate, still carried on hopefully in good faith, and usually in the context of debates in universities or in academic journals or, ahem, in blogs.  At any rate, I certainly wouldn’t go around insisting that the rest of the world treat my position on the debate as a foregone conclusion.

I suggest the same goes for Geert Wilders.  He’s entitled to his view, but his is not a foregone conclusion, or a widely accepted conclusion, or even much of a respected conclusion.  It is still in the R&D stage, so to speak.  It may be the topic for stimulating discussion and debate on university campuses and whatnot, but one should tread awfully lightly before using it as a launching-off point for crafting new legal or social policy.

Mark Steyn on Obama’s “Monarchical Theater”

My favorite commentary on the state of the union speech came from Mark Steyn, on Hugh Hewitt’s show Thursday:

BHO: But if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and stop insurance company abuses, let me know. Let me know. Let me know.

HH: Let me know, let me know, let me know, just trash talking, sneering, almost sinister…

MS: You know, I hate this occasion. I mean, I don’t want to become the unassimilated Muslim on your show, but I never feel less American than when I’m watching the State of the Union, because it’s monarchical theater. It’s a rip-off of the Throne speech in London or Ottawa or wherever, but without the underlying parliamentary reality. The one thing I like about the Throne speech is that the Queen, there’s a lot of back and forth between the Crown and the government over what the Queen will read out. In other words, she wouldn’t, she obviously wouldn’t say hey, if you’re so clever, come and see me if you’ve got a better idea, Mr. Smarty Pants. She wouldn’t do all that cheapo talk that Obama did. And so what you have here, I think, is the worst of all worlds, because the president gets to have a monarchical occasion, in which he indulges in sort of cheap, parliamentary sneering without the leader of Her Majesty’s loyal opposition being able to yell across the aisle, nuts to you, which is what would happen if he was doing that at Westminster or in Ottawa or in Canberra, or any other self-respecting parliament. So it’s unbecoming to this Republic, because it’s the worst of all worlds. It’s monarchical theater without the parliamentary tightrope walking that a real parliamentarian has to do.

Palin? Don’t Worry, Sir, We’ve Got Our Best Men Working to Take Her Down

I’m no big Sarah Palin fan, but she did manage to make 11 AP reporters look silly without even trying. That has to count for something.

If Only “The Road to Serfdom” Could Be Reduced to Syllogism…

Mark Steyn and Jonah Goldberg highlight some key passages from Thomas Friedman’s recent NY Times piece:

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.

Goldberg remarks:

So there you have it. If only America could drop its inefficient and antiquated system, designed in the age before globalization and modernity and, most damning of all, before the lantern of Thomas Friedman’s intellect illuminated the land. If only enlightened experts could do the hard and necessary things that the new age requires, if only we could rely on these planners to set the ship of state right. Now, of course, there are “drawbacks” to such a system: crushing of dissidents with tanks, state control of reproduction, government control of the press and the internet. Omelets and broken eggs, as they say. More to the point, Friedman insists, these “drawbacks” pale in comparison to the system we have today here in America.

I cannot begin to tell you how this is exactly the argument that was made by American fans of Mussolini in the 1920s. It is exactly the argument that was made in defense of Stalin and Lenin before him (it’s the argument that idiotic, dictator-envying leftists make in defense of Castro and Chavez today). It was the argument made by George Bernard Shaw who yearned for a strong progressive autocracy under a Mussolini, a Hitler or a Stalin (he wasn’t picky in this regard). This is the argument for an “economic dictatorship” pushed by Stuart Chase and the New Dealers. It’s the dream of Herbert Croly and a great many of the Progressives.

Jonah is right.  Of course, for an even more thorough analysis of how “enlightened autocracy” leads inexorably to weeping and gnashing of teeth, there is no shortage of copies of The Road to Serfdom available.  But what’s the use?  There is a segment of humanity that will damn the torpedoes and  insist that life be planned by the government.  There is no cure for such an ailment.  The task is left to those with the fiber to do so to scar them with ridicule.  Ah, the Great Society.  Isn’t that just the next town over from the Land of Chocolate?

Yes, Mr. President, Some People Really Do Still Think Big Government Is A Bad Thing

In pushing his health care agenda, Obama responded to Republican opposition as follows:

“Right now a number of my Republican friends have said, ‘We can’t support anything with a public option,’ ” he said. “It’s not clear that it’s based on any evidence as much as it is their thinking, their fear, that somehow once you have a public plan that government will take over the entire health care system.”

Two thoughts: First, perhaps folks wouldn’t be so worried about Obama’s government “tak[ing] over the entire health care system” if he wasn’t already taking over everything else.

Second, Obama is right to note that the question is not whether the government can provide a viable, universal health care solution. We already seem oddly comfortable after having jumped from one paper trap (mortgage-backed securities, credit default swaps, Gaussian copula functions, etc.) into another (massive federal borrowing leading to impending hyper-inflation). So I doubt we will have have trouble finding the stomach to print the money it will take to make Obama’s government health care utopia happen. At least until the bottom falls out.

But the critical objection is not that we are losing sight of economics principles, but of first principles–of self-determination, hardiness, individualism. I quoted this bit from Mark Steyn a few weeks ago, but it is worth the repetition:

But forget the money, the deficit, the debt, the big numbers with the 12 zeroes on the end of them. So-called fiscal conservatives often miss the point. The problem isn’t the cost. These programs would still be wrong even if Bill Gates wrote a check to cover them each month. They’re wrong because they deform the relationship between the citizen and the state. Even if there were no financial consequences, the moral and even spiritual consequences would still be fatal.

Health care is indeed a problem. And unchecked human greed is at the root of much of it. Greedy people are the source of a lot of the world’s problems (and a lot of the world’s successes). Of course, government is nothing more than the legitimized exercise of will by a small group of people. And while we at least know that CEOs are in it for the money, we can never be quite sure what in the world a politician has his eye on. In that way, while greedy, unscrupulous individuals are bad, we can be certain that politicians are much, much worse.

Thus, why do we believe so easily that the solutions to our problems lie in government? Of course we should “fear” your creeping government, Mr. President. That is the natural order of things.