Andrew, ever since I ran into a spot of bother in Canada, I’ve found myself giving speeches in defense of freedom of expression in Toronto, London, Copenhagen, etc. I did not think it would be necessary quite so soon to take the same stand in the land of the First Amendment against craven squishes of the political class willing to trade core liberties for a quiet life. I have no expectations of Harry Reid or the New York Times, but I have nothing but total contempt for the wretched buffoon Graham.
A mob of deranged ululating blood-lusting head-hackers slaughter Norwegian female aid-workers and Nepalese guards — and we’re the ones with the problem?
I agree with the Instaprof: Lindsey Graham is unfit for office. The good news is there’s no need for the excitable lads of Mazar e-Sharif to chop his head off because he’s already walking around with nothing up there. And, as for his halfwitted analogy with World War II, he’s too ignorant to realize it but he’s singing the dhimmi remake of an ancient Noel Coward satire.
The reason we’re losing this thing is because of a lack of cultural confidence, of which the fetal cringe of this worthless husk out-parodies anything Coward could have concocted. When I’m speaking on this subject, I often get asked to reprise the words I quote in my book, from Gen. Sir Charles Napier in India explaining to the locals his position on suttee — the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Napier was impeccably multicultural:
You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows.You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.
In the absence of cultural confidence overseas, we are expending blood and treasure building an Afghanistan fit only for pederasts, tribal heroin cartels, and the blood-soaked savages of Mazar e-Sharif. In the absence of cultural confidence at home, we are sending the message that the bedrock principles of free, pluralist societies will bend and crumble in a vain race to keep up with the ever touchier sensitivities of the perpetually aggrieved. Claire Berlinski has it right: The real “racists” here are not this no-name pastor and his minimal flock but Reid, Graham, and the Times — for they assume that a significant proportion of Muslims are not responsible human beings but animals no more capable of rational behavior than the tiger who mauled Siegfried’s Roy. If that is true, certain consequences follow therefrom. The abandonment of the First Amendment is not one of them.
In Trafalgar Square, there is a statue of General Napier. I would urge any visitors to London to see it before it’s taken down, as it surely will be one day soon. Imagine what our world would look like if it were Lindsey Graham up on that plinth. A society led by such “men” cannot survive, and does not deserve to.
Mark, you are too kind.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDon't kid yourself: Patronizing attitudes about Muslims exist on both the Left and the Right where they serve different purposes.
There are some regular columists at NR who oppose intervention in Libya and elsewhere with a barely disquised attitude that amounts to "they don't derserve any better".
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGraham has moved from useful idiot to dangerous idiot! When 7th Century barbarians kill people because of a book being burned the emphasis should be upon the backward, tribal killers and how wrong they are, not on the guy who burned the book. Why are we trying to help these barbarians?? Why do we have so may idiots like Graham in politics??
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGraham has moved from useful idiot to dangerous idiot! When 7th Century barbarians kill people because of a book being burned the emphasis should be upon the backward, tribal killers and how wrong they are, not on the guy who burned the book. Why are we trying to help these barbarians?? Why do we have so may idiots like Graham in politics??
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"There are some regular columists at NR who oppose intervention in Libya and elsewhere with a barely disquised attitude that amounts to "they don't derserve any better"."
The use of 'deserve' in this context is meaningless. You don't 'deserve' a functioning country. You either have it or you don't, as a result of your behavior. If Libyans 'deserve' better, than they will have better, and we don't need to get involved.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFrank,
I'll hold Libya to the same level I held Kosovo. "All the Balkans are not worth one American life."
The same holds for Libya.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"There are some regular columists at NR who oppose intervention in Libya and elsewhere with a barely disquised attitude that amounts to "they don't derserve any better"."
I don't see how that's patronizing.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFrank 1914, it's not that "they" don't deserve any better - I believe all men and women deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. The problem is within Islam itself - it is used to crush its own adherents' right to these values. And, that is a problem those believers will have to address within their own cultures.
We have learned that we can't impose our values onto Islamist societies; we also have a right to ensure they don't impose their values onto ours. We need to have confidence in our own values - something the left here has worked very hard to erode.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell Mark Steyn, you may want to cut ties with NRO and be featured on another site because there is a 95% chance that when Graham runs in his next GOP Primary National Review will be right there at his side endorsing him because his opponent ran an infomercial telling people how to get govt. money or something.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMuslims must have a mighty low opinion of their god's powers and abilities, if they believe that he needs the likes of them to defend his honor.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseQuite right Mark, and the rare shout out for General Napier is well appreciated. As a fine example of the British ruling class of the day, he was also responsible for the only recorded military report comprising a one-word trilingual pun. On conquering Sindh, he reported "Peccavi", "I have sinned".
We will not soon see a US military report like that. Nor, nowadays, a British one.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf we cow ourselves to meet Muslim sensitivies, we will adopt dhimmitude, which appears to be the direction that we are heading. If not, we will arouse anger from the some Muslims. After all, how dare those infidels resist Islam. This will mean war with Islam or some portion of it. It is inevitable, sadly, and our leaders only tie themselves in knots, literally, trying to square the circle. Read the Qu'ran and Hadiths. The idea that Islam in a "religion of peace" is laughable. Or would be, if it didn't get you killed.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"What are you going to do, Wyatt?"
"Kill 'em all."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI agree entirely that free speech in the free world needs to be defended, even restored, and that includes "Pastor" Jones' free speech. No government or court should impede him.
His "protest" also in no way justifies the behaviour of the Afghan crowds.
I am well aware, whether or not Jones is, that the Koran has a status in Islam far above that of the Bible in Christianity, more akin in some ways to the status of Christ himself. So what he has done is more akin to burning Christ in effigy, or perhaps a life-sized crucifix, than burning a Bible.
Nonetheless, I am also well aware that Christians in the West put up with just such abuse fairly regularly. And Christians in the Muslim world put up with such abuse, plus the burning of their churches and the murder of their fellows.
So no, Jones' activities do not justify assaults on international compounds by mobs of howling barbarians fired up with frankly ridiculous bloodlust.
I found the comments on this site External Link
illuminating. Some of the international-worker set took the view that Jones is worse than the Afghan mobs, because they are [I paraphrase but the paternalism of the original is clear ] ignorant peasants and Jones had the benefit of growing up in the US and should know better.
They do seem to know their marketplace, as events have demonstrated. But I am not about to endorse treating the sensibilities of foreign maniacs as the standard of free speech in civilization.
Having said all that, I certainly wish Jones and his followers would now choose to exercise their right to voluntary discretion. He has made his case. Now he can shut his mouth at will.
His "protest" has achieved its goal of getting his stupid mug on TV repeatedly and his blatherings repeated again and again. He has now gone ahead with what he damned well knew would most likely mean the death of better people than him [a low bar].
I for one have heard enough from him, and I would like to add I have not seen any 9/11 survivors, war veterans or their families, or any other decent, mentally-unchallenged Americans burning Korans to get themselves on TV.
Usual disclosure from me- I am a Canadian as Mr Steyn is. So here is a question to my American fellow NRO readers. Allowing that the American Founders would have defended Jones' right to free speech all the way, would they then have refrained from calling him a dangerous j*ck*ss nonetheless?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI hope it doesn't come off as sycophantic puffery, but from the bottom of my heart, Mr. Steyn, I am *really* glad you're here, and on our side.
Thank you, and thank you to NR for giving you the forum.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf anyone is just now coming to the conclusion that Graham is an idiot, they, too, are a bit slow thinking. Graham's policy of "they love me, they really love me" panders to no side. Hell, last June, the NYSlimes reported that [while Obama had no time for members of his own cabinet] Graham has been a visitor to the White House 19 times in less than 14 months. Makes you wonder if he shared a bedroom with Andy Stern.
Graham is the purest defination of the word "opportunist". He opens his mouth only after sticking his finger in the wind. Now he wants to bomb the hell out of the Gdaffy compound. Nevermind it won't be HIS boots that hit the ground. If we are to try to appease the alligator, may I suggest we feed it Lindsey Graham?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseKarzai would do well to realize that American soldiers are dying in order to prop up his corrupt administration, and he's in no position to make any demands on how American citizens act. Freedom of speech, including speech that is hateful, is the cornerstone of any free society. Until the Muslim world wraps its collective brain around the concept of free will (i.e., we are free to reject God's commandments and blasphemy should be punished by God at the time of judgement, not an earthly court) they'll never truly have security.
When I was a kid, my father told me that kids picked on me because they liked to see my reaction. That's all that Terry Jones, Fred Phelps and the rest are doing. Ignore them, and maybe they'll go away. But react to them, and they'll keep doing it, because you just made it fun.
Curtailing American freedoms because some radical hothead might get mad is exactly what the radical hotheads want. Why don't we just impose Sharia and call it a day?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGraham's voting record is pretty solid conservative. His problem is his sustained determination to "find the middle," to be the GOP-contrarian to cozy favor with the MSM and the RATS in the Senate.
Graham is not up until 2014. His MO, like McCain, is to tack hard right in the two years leading up to his re-election to obfiscate past transgressions. On this Graham has been validated: people have very short memories.
That said, Graham is reaching the tipping point where conservatives have had more than enough. I can't imagine how DeMint can stand working with him.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI hope Lindsey Grahamnesty the RINO gets primaried in 2012. What a horrible human being.
It's impolite to burn what somebody holds as 'holy'. But let's be realistic here, the cries of intolerance coming from the mobs over there is RICH in the face of Islam being the only legal religion and sharia law being enshrined in their US funded constitution.
And why, for the love of John, are leaders of the most powerful nation in the history of the planet begging forgiveness and apologizing to Troglodytes?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt would be helpful in the foreign policy context if congress, if not on the same page, could at least be reading from the same book.
This is not the case, and hasn't been for at least the past 4 decades - most likely longer. Whether Ted Kennedy was assuring Soviet leaders, Clinton exchanging military technology for campaign contributions, or the current opportunist in chief simply selling us down the river for his own self-gratification.
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