Muslims Return to Sacrifice

What is the meaning of sacrifice? Frederick Turner defines it this way.

[Every] sacrifice is an act of impurity that pays for a prior act of greater impurity... without its participants having to suffer the full consequences incurred by its predecessor.

But sacrifice, like anything else, can be abused. In particular, rulers have a way of making their people sacrifice for their own acts of impurity. In the story of Iphigenia in Tauris the king of Tauris (in the Crimea), agonized by his crimes, decides to sacrifice to the gods the next stranger that arrives in Tauris.

In its extreme abuse, sacrifice becomes a blood frenzy. You can see this in the Ghost Shirt movement in the US among the young warriors of the Native American tribes on the western plains, and you can see it in the young men of the Boxer Rebellion at the turn of the 20th century in China.

So when Ralph Peters talks about the orgy of self-sacrifice among Muslim terrorists, you can get some perspective on what he is talking about.

The big thing about the three Abrahamic religions is that they stopped the blood sacrifice. It starts with Abraham, about to sacrifice his son Isaac when God tells him to sacrifice a ram instead. Then in Christianity, God sacrifices his Son so human fathers don’t have to sacrifice their sons. The same thing happened in Islam, according to Peters.

The Prophet sought to purify the idolatrous devotions of his people, to do away with heartless desert cults...

But now the young men of the Muslim faith are returning to the barbarities of the days before the Prophet.

What’s the meaning of those beheading videos and suicide bombings, the slaughter of fellow Muslims and the exploitation by pagan cults, such as Hamas, of masses of the faithful as human shields? Why stone 13-year-old girls to death? What’s this celebration of blood lust all about?



It’s about the threatened collapse of the Middle East back into an age of human sacrifice - the precise sort of gruesome travesty the Prophet inveighed against.

The thing is: this is not unexpected. When a culture is failing, when everything is going wrong, that is when a society reaches back into the past for the old ways.

After the defeat of World War I, the people of Germany, “the most advanced country in the world,” felt utterly humiliated. It seemed that the new ways that had been developed in the 19th century had failed them. So they found it easy to return to the old ways of Blood and Soil offered to them by Hitler. They were willing to sacrifice in order to find the right way forward.

One of the old ways is human sacrifice. And the greatest sacrifice of all is for a young man to sacrifice his own life. So it’s not surprising in the tumultuous Middle East, reeling from centuries-long humiliations, should turn to the ancient way of human sacrifice.

WattsUp, Pharyngula and Robbers Cave

It’s a nip and tuck battle today between Watts Up With That, run by independent businessman Anthony Watts and Pharyngula, run by P.Z. Myers. They are finalists in the 2008 Weblogs Awards for Best Science Blog that ends today. But it looks as though WUWT will win.

There’s a big difference between the two blogs. Let Pharyngula proprietor P.Z. Myers tell why:

"I want my commenters to be uncivil. There is no virtue in politeness when confronted with ignorance, dishonesty, and delusion.”

Myers, by the way, advertises himself as “a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.”

One commenter on WUWT had this to say about Pharyngula:

I used to subscribe to Pharyngula, but unsubscribed from it due to the excessive frequency of posts and excessive percentage of political and anti-religious posts.

There’s a reason why WUWT is the “nice” site and Pharyngula is the “naughty” site. You can read all about the phenomenon at The Robber’s Cave Experiment performed on a group of boys back in 1954. The concept is simple. When you have two groups of guys in proximity they immediately form into warring gangs, and they immediately differentiate themselves to sharpen their differences. If one group likes to swear, the other group will decide not to swear.

If you want them to stop warring you have to get them to cooperate on a common project. That’s what they did with the two warring tribes at Robber’s Cave, and it worked.

Joe the Plumber Asks a Question

Joe the Plumber goes to Israel and insists to a flock of media that he is not the story.

Ask this chap (pointing to his handler), if you want a story, says he, as the Pajamas Media camera rolls.

Then Joe the Plumber asks a Reuters guy whether he thinks that Israel has a right to defend itself. The reporter responds, yes.

“Have you said it on air,” asks Joe the Plumber?

I’m just a reporter, is the reply.

It’s the liberal way. Don’t look at me, I’m just a reporter. Nothing I can do about it, old chum.

Yeah, you won’t want to do anything to risk your career in media would you?

It’s easy to be a liberal media guy and file sob stories about the latest fashionable victim. It’s easy to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted when you are runninga story using the standard liberal template on a certified liberal protected class.

But when the subject is the hypocrisy of liberalim, then our brave liberal media guy runs for the exit.

That means that our liberal media friends, day by day, miss the great story of our time: the cruelty, the corruption, and the injustice of our liberal political power.

Pelosi's Politics

I often like to say that the Democrats have learned nothing from the last 30 years of Reagan/Bush economic policies. But I have to admit that, privately, I don’t believe it. Surely they must have learned a thing or two about the economy, and twigged onto the 140 year old notion of marginal value that was invented in the single year of 1870 by about three different economists in three different countries.

But when you read Nancy Pelosi in the Washington Post saying, according to Paul Kane:

"Put me down as clearly as you possibly can as one who wants to have those tax cuts for the wealthiest in America repealed[.]"

Well you have to wonder. Doesn’t she get that income tax collections on the wealthy have soared over the Reagan Bush years as marginal tax rates were decreased? Doesn’t she get that when the government increases marginal tax rates as she wants to do then economic growth will be reduced and less jobs will be created?

I know why she doesn’t get it. It’s the politician’s version of reality. Nothing really exists except reelection. That means that nothing exists except having more money with which to buy votes. So why would anyone give up revenue with tax cuts?

Well, the absolutist monarchs of the Enlightenment loved revenue as much as anyone, but they came to realize that you got more revenue with a healthy economy. In their day, they wanted the lovely lolly for their armies. Today, of course, politicians want the money to pay their armies of entitlement beneficiaries. But the principle is the same. Bigger economy equals more revenue equals more money to slosh around among your supporters.

According to Larry Kudlow the Obama people seem to get this. Sort of. His “stimulus” package is still full of pork, of course.

However, it’s interesting just how much the Obama plan has changed since the election. The size has been roughly constant. But the mix of tax cuts and spending increases is now totally different.



Instead of $100 billion worth of tax credits, there are now $300 billion worth of tax cuts. This includes a big new piece for business, more cash-expensing for small-business investment, and a restoration of the five-year tax-loss carry-back, which will especially help banks and homebuilders. It might even result in tax refunds for businesses, and might also allow banks to rid themselves of toxic assets, since the losses will now be spread over many years.

And the Obama people are talking about keeping the Bush tax rate cuts until 2011. Unfortunately the Obama guys are still living in the pre-1870 world. “The problem is that they’re not reducing marginal tax rates on large and small businesses or individuals.”

I say, chaps. How about getting with the consensus on marginal tax rates? The science is in on this, you know. And anyone who is holding out on Marxian labor theories of value, or the prior notions of “exchange” value and “intrinsic” value is really dealing in superstition.

You might even call them “deniers.”

RU Sophisticated?

Time was, Paul Johnson writes, when “sophisticated” was a pejorative—as in “sophist” and “sophistry.” But now it means that you are the cat’s pajamas.

Given that we all now want to be “sophisticated” how do we know if we are?

Not to worry. Doctor Johnson is in, and he will advise you. Here is his ten-point test. Passing grade is 7 out of 10.

1. “Can you remain truly indifferent to what people say or think about you?” If you can (be honest now) you are sophisticated.
   
2. “A sophisticated person knows all, or a very great deal, but rarely chooses to display knowledge.” This is too hard. Who amongst us can resist the temptation to display knowledge and scatter pearls before swine?
   
3. “[I]t is vital to be able to command behind-the-scenes knowledge.” Johnson uses an example: “Did Benjamin Britten first lose interest in choirboys when their voice broke or when pubic hair sprouted?” Hmmm. Maybe I don’t want to be sophisticated after all.
   
4. Then there’s the amusing anecdote. “A sophisticated person ought to be able to make you laugh.” But they would never go on and on and make you bored. Oh no! That would be the worst!
   
5. Then there is behavior. “[A] sophisticated man never inflicts pain except in an attempt to extract information in a good social cause.” The sophisticate is, of course, a gentleman, but more.
   
6. You must never ask to go to the bathroom. Particularly important for women. That means, of course, that you must limit your input of adult beverages.
   
7. “Granted only one moderate-sized suitcase, what do you pack for a weekend at Highgrove or Sandringham?” Oh dear. Don’t have a clue.
   
8. “After such an event, which servants do you tip, and what, and how exactly do you do it?” Worse and worse.
   
9. Finally, if you call on the President, how do you avoid politics? “And how do you decide when it is time to leave?” OK, I know the answer to that one. Keep an eye on the president’s aide.
   

When you think about it, who needs to be sophisticated? It sounds like too much work.

If Ann Coulter Didn't Exist...

Exactly. We’d have to invent her. And if liberals didn’t have such pompous thin skins, Ann Coulter wouldn’t have a job.

The flap over Ann Coulter and her new book, Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America is par for the course. Liberals cannot help getting all riled up when Coulter comes into the room.

Did NBC “ban” Coulter from its airwaves? Or did they put her off for a day because of the important Gaza conflict? Who knows; who cares?

But we do know that liberals hate everything about Ann Coulter and everything she writes.

Oh yes, of course. Her humor is “sophomoric.” No doubt that’s why she is so popular with college conservatives. Someone has to do the sophomoric humor. There’s a market for that sort of stuff, you know. With liberals it involves a lot of f-words and s-words. For conservatives it makes much more sense to make fun of liberals.

You have to say that Harry Smith’s pompous interview of Coulter on CBS was iconic, as media critic Brent Bosell demonstrates.

Harry Smith hosted Maher on CBS just months ago on his faith-mocking movie "Religulous" and didn’t say one discouraging word to him about his caustic remarks about Cheney or his hateful anti-Christian bigotry. Not one word.

But with Coulter, it’s another tone completely.

[Smith] called her "goofy," "simplistic," "sophomoric" and a "whiner." "You should have a cross," he said dismissively. "You should put yourself up on a cross."

And on Hannity and Colmes when Coulter indicted liberals for attacking the nuclear family and encouraging single-parent families, Alan Colmes asked her why she wasn’t married.

Warning to conservatives: Don’t you try that. Conservatives aren’t allowed to make sexist comments like that: “Why aren’t you married?” It could be career ending for you. And not just in the liberal media.

While we are at it, let’s put up Ellwood and Jencks 2004. It tells you what liberals have done to America.

Never forget. Liberals did that. Liberals deprived millions of children of the right to have a mother and a father. At home. With them where they live.

Why the Culture War Matters

Why is it that performers at cultural events seem to think it is ok to make politicized comments, as Jay Nordlinger notes?

The indefatigable Mark Steyn takes a stab at it.

Liberalism is the default mode of the culture — to the point where the left-of-center position is so pervasive it’s no longer a position at all, but rather something uncontentious, received wisdom, part of the air we breathe.

Yes, he says, people from Hollywood sidle up to him and say “how much they agree with my book but please don’t mention it to anyone.” But so what?
The trouble is that there is no payoff from people sidling up to you. Crypto-conservatives are just that: hidden. When the culture is default center-left then you can expect most people to be default center-left.

If the non-political sphere is permanently left-of-center — the movies, the pop songs, the plays, the sitcoms, the newspapers plus the churches, schools and much else — it’s simply unreasonable to expect people to walk into a polling booth every other November and vote conservative. The culture is where the issues get framed and the boundaries set.

There’s a good argument to make that there is a pretty substantial rejectionist front out there, people who are disgusted with the cultural liberalism and determined to do something about it. Then there are those who are naturally conservative in their habits and who just do not like the rude, crude culture of Hollywood and liberal politics but just sit there and do nothing.

Right now the conservative orientation is a subculture and doesn’t look to be making much progress any time soon. If you are a kid in college, the default youth culture is the licentious liberal culture of the hookup and girls gone wild. If you are a women working in government the default culture is feminist multiculturalism that celebrates Halloween but mumbles about “holidays” during the Christmas season.

It won’t change until we do something about it.