Saturday 26 December 2015

Clash of Civilizations, or War of World-views? - Part 2

Part 2

It is easy for Western people to let themselves be fooled into thinking that Islam and Muslims are the cause of many of the problems in the world today. For, indeed, the regimes in many Muslim countries have become more conservative and Islamist in the last twenty years or so. And some extreme Islamists – partly provoked, it must be said, by the actions of Western governments – want to unleash a holy war on Western people, to force us all to become Muslims. These Islamists like to use a nasty tactic called terrorism. That is to say, the violent and essentially random targeting of people who are merely going about their daily business.

Now, of course we should condemn this terrorism, this targeting of innocent people. And we should condemn those that do it, those that support it and those that condone it. Yet, before we start to condemn Muslims in general, should we not consider how those that claim to be our own Western leaders are behaving? How well do they uphold our Western values and our Western civilization?

No interference with privacy or correspondence… or filming us everywhere we go, and tapping our e-mails? Freedom of movement… or no-fly lists? Trial of accusations without undue delay… or long detention without trial? No torture… except when Bush authorizes it? Freedom from arbitrary search… or stop and search on any excuse? No double jeopardy… no, Blair destroyed that one already. The rule of law… or battering us with more and more bad laws, more and more strictly enforced, so that none of us are safe?

How about recognizing our natural human dignity and goodness, and letting us live as we wish, as long as we don't harm others? Not a chance. Just about everything Blair and co do is treating us as if we were the bad guys. They behave towards us human beings with ever increasing harshness and arrogance. They treat us like animals to be broken to their wills. And they want to reduce us to even less than that – to numbers and DNA samples in a database. Similar things are happening, too, in Bush's kingdom on the other side of the Atlantic.

But, some may say, isn't terrorism such a big problem, that we should accept some loss of liberties in order to beat it?

Well, that depends. First, should we not be very, very suspicious of anyone that wants to give away others' liberties? Second, is terrorism really as big a problem as it's made out to be? Could it not be dealt with like any other serious crime, without damaging civil liberties? And where is the objective, rational analysis of the risks from terrorism versus the costs to human beings of lost liberty?

Third, how can we be sure that, if we did accept any suspension of liberties, it would be temporary, not permanent? Fourth, do Bush, Blair and co really want to end terrorism? Or might they just be using it as an excuse for their own agendas – including trampling on our rights? Fifth, can we be sure that they would not use powers given to them to deal with terrorism, against people who have nothing to do with terrorism? Well, can we?

Sixth, isn't Bush and Blair's condemnation of terrorists a case of the pot calling the kettle black? Isn't their starting a war in Iraq – legal niceties apart – just as bad as what the terrorists do? If not many times worse?

All this is bad enough. But terrorism isn't the only excuse the political classes today are using to bully and squeeze us down into subjection. Health, safety, the environment, climate change – all these they have set up like idols to give apparent justification to their harmful policies. Not to mention that old chestnut, Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

I will give you what I call the Law of Political Explanations. If politicians give you one single reason for a policy or policies, it's probably a lie. But, if politicians give you two or more reasons for something, particularly if it's at different times, you can be damn certain they're all lies.

Come on, are there really any thinking people out there who actually believe any excuse any politician trots out any more?

No, it is plain that Western politicians today don't care a damn about Western values. They claim to be our leaders; but in reality, they are traitors to our values and to Western civilization. It is plain that in the real war today, the war of world-views, the politicians and the terrorists are on the same side – the side of subjection thinking, of intolerance, of hatred of the individual. They are not on the side of us human beings.

And what of democracy, the system which is supposed to give all of us a say? What is the value of a vote, if all those that frame the major parties' policies, and practically all of their candidates, are traitors to our Western values? And how can the consent of 22 per cent of people – and a largely deluded 22 per cent at that – be enough to endow a gang like Blair and co with authority to rule tyrannically over everyone in Britain?

When you understand all this, it becomes hardly surprising that we aren't winning the war of world-views. We haven't even been allowed a chance. Imagine, if you will, what would have happened in the Battle of Britain if Churchill and his cabinet had been closet Nazis.

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