A Week's Revelations

This past week has told us more than we wanted to know about ourselves and about our enemies.

There was far more controversy over remarks made by the Pope than over the violence unleashed by Muslims against people who had nothing to do with what the Pope said.

That our enemies do not understand the significance of free speech in a free society, where things that offend us can be denounced without indiscriminate violence, is bad enough. But that we ourselves seem headed further down the slippery slope of self-censorship is chilling.

Tolerance has been one of the virtues of western civilization. But virtues can be carried to extremes that turn them into vices. Toleration of intolerance is a particularly dangerous vice to which western nations are succumbing, both within their own countries and internationally.

Double standards are being wrapped in the mantle of morality. The drive to extend Geneva convention protection to terrorists who are not covered under the Geneva convention is one of a number of dangerous self-indulgences by people who seem to think that being morally one-up is the ultimate and survival is secondary.

Thomas Sowell

I was going to offer this as counterpoint to Vox Day's article, but it occurred to me that it is more exemplary of the current state of political discourse in this country. Each side talks past one another, driven by the need to pull down the winning sound bite. For example, Vox never once offers ideas on what to do if we are indeed in a survival situation, and Dr. Sowell doesn't even attempt to address the slippery slope of casting away morality and liberty in the name of security. So, while the pundits representing each team shout over one another, the political class, wearing interchangeable uniforms, slips in under cover of chaos and steals the keys to the kingdom. Joe Sixpack just waits for the next election so he can vote in the clown with the best stand-up routine, who will immediately contribute to making Joe ever more helpless and clueless.