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]]>Our civilized world is in a different kind of war, aimed at dragging it back to the 8th century. Our values are the enemy’s main weapon against us. We must adapt if we are to survive.
Forget “religion.” Forget “nation” and “geography.” Don’t even think about “ideology” or “economy.” The enemy in this war includes our citizens, our co-religionists, people on the other side of the world, and our next-door neighbors. The civilized world, regardless of race, religion or region is in an apocalyptic conflict, aimed at dragging the world back to the Dark Ages, and the old categories are keeping us from fighting back.
Forget the meaning of war. Forget the Geneva Convention, the Hague Convention on the rules and regulations of war. Those are for armies, countries, civilized people. This is a different kind of war
Some combat takes place on the battlefields of Iraq and Syria. Other battles are on the streets of Ottawa, Paris, Boston and Montreal. Some involves the execution of soldiers; some, of shoppers. The aggressor in this war wants to browbeat his opponents into acquiescence; this doesn’t always entail killing. Sometimes the threat of violence is enough to cancel a lecture, silence a critic. The police are among the first to advise compliance in order to avoid trouble. They certainly don’t want to appear Islamophobic.
Cops are good for dealing with criminals. They are not equipped for war. Our legal system is not equipped for this different war. And so, we are losing.
We lost on 9/11.
We lost in the Madrid, the London bombings.
We lost in the Boston Marathon, at Parliament in Ottawa, in the relentless barbarism in Nigeria.
…and countless more.
We lose every time we go to the airport and give up an hour or so to have our bags and bodies scanned.
We lose every time we use a phone, send an e-mail or look at a web page, because these are no longer private acts. They must be scanned by security, looking for plots by our enemies.
We lose whenever an organization fears to publish its address, when security guards or even soldiers have to protect religious institutions. When we can’t go into certain areas of our cities, because they are under control of the enemy.
We lose when dissenting opinions are shouted down or their speakers beaten up. When those opinions can’t be given voice, for fear of offending vengeful, violent people. Free speech is good and we are all Charlie Hebdo, but we don’t want to end up like Charlie Hebdo.
It will get worse unless we prepare to fight back. We need different tactics, for this different war. Here are some suggestions:
“Civil rights” are the rights of individuals to receive equal treatment (and to be free from unfair treatment or “discrimination”) in a number of settings — including education, employment, housing, and more — and based on certain legally-protected characteristics.
construction of national infrastructure. The anonymous donors who fund such activities through Tides must be held accountable for the damage they cause.
The economic success of Western civilization is premised on capitalism, i.e. the free flow of capital between economic entities. Any interference with the flow is bad, in principle. However when the entities have another purpose beside economic advancement or are trying to gain a surreptitious advantage, they must be controlled. When a CNOOC, a Chinese company bought a large stake in a Canadian energy company it gave the tyrannical Chinese Communist Party a direct hand in Canadian energy development. It didn’t take long for it to start reneging on the commitments it made to get regulatory approval.
Petronas, owned by the government of Malaysia also has significant stakes in Canadian energy companies, including infrastructure. Malaysia is sixty-one percent Muslim. This in itself need not be a problem, but the country is quickly sliding towards fundamentalism and violence. A past Prime Minister was a vicious anti-Semite, and the current one has praised the strength of ISIS fighters.
In Saudi Arabia and the gulf Emirates, the governments, the energy producers and the worldwide wealth they control are essentially the same entities. The Saudis are the second largest shareholder in Fox News. They have a growing influence in the American press and entertainment industry, and they are not shy about using it. When environmentalists oppose North American energy development, when they create obstacles that delay projects and add costs, the Saudis gain a competitive cost advantage. Sometimes the environmentalists know who is funding their work, sometimes they are clueless. Either way, they are serving the regime that has funded the worldwide spread of radical Islam.
By funding North American environmentalists, by engaging in an energy price war, the Saudis are trying to gain a surreptitious advantage. Petronas, the Saudis and CNOOC are not simply foreign capitalist entities. The former two are connected to those who have undertaken the different kind of war against us. The latter two are part of aggressive, anti-democratic regimes with no respect for the values of Western civilization. They must not be allowed to influence us in our battle.
All voting control of subsidiaries of state-owned entities must be firmly and clearly separated from the regimes that own them.
In previous world wars, populations related to the enemy were placed in internment camps, to make sure they weren’t working to destroy us from within. Loyal Canadians and Americans were rounded up, and treated horribly. We don’t want to do that again. It’s more than probable that the vast majority of Muslims are loyal citizens of the Western countries they now inhabit (there is no way to properly quantify this). But we can’t ignore the many radicals dedicated to our destruction. We must make sacrifices, such as suspending some of our values— the ones that are being used against us. We must fight back. Pretending that a different kind of war is not really a war is the path of appeasement on the road to surrender.
You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.
– Ayn Rand
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]]>The post Once We Were Warriors appeared first on Quantum Cannibals.
]]>The recent Sabbath murder of a rabbi in Miami, the sucker-punching of Jews outside a kosher restaurant in Montreal, and many similar incidents around the world do not point to a rise in Jew hatred. Rather, they show that anti-Semites (whether neo-Nazi or Muslim) feel more comfortable expressing their contempt, whether through insults, vandalism, or physical assault. The Miami police immediately declared there was no evidence the rabbi’s murder
was a hate crime, even though the nearby synagogue had recently been defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti. In Montreal, the police tried to discourage the victim from filing a police report, and then drove off. A member of Hatzoloh, the Jewish Emergency Volunteer Service, rushed to help the injured man in their stead.
In Calgary, as reported in a previous post, the police were out of sight when Jews were assaulted by Muslim demonstrators. In Paris, pro-Palestinian demonstrators armed with rocks, glass, axes and knives advanced on a synagogue as police lost control. Jewish youth became warriors, defending the synagogue. Some were injured, mostly at the hands of gendarmes supposedly keeping the peace. And there are many places in Europe where the police fear to tread. The authorities, to put it simply, cannot be relied upon.
An ancient Jewish teaching (Sotah 49b) asks “On whom shall we rely? On our Father in Heaven.” This can be interpreted as a denial of nature, of cause and effect. For example according to this interpretation, if someone swings a baseball bat at your head, ducking is not going to make a difference. All that matters is whether or not God wants you to get hit. Getting a good job will not be more financially rewarding than studying Torah or playing X-Box, if God doesn’t plan for you to do well.
This is not the traditional Jewish approach, but rather a twentieth century innovation. The Bible teaches that when Jacob was about to meet his brother Esau, he was afraid that he and his family would be killed in revenge for Jacob’s
having stolen their father’s blessings many years earlier. Jacob did three things to protect himself. He sent Esau gifts to appease him, to make peace. He prayed to his Father in Heaven. And he prepared for war.
The historic slaughters of Jews are well-known: the Holocaust, the Chmielniki pogroms, the Crusades. Many times, Jews went silently to their deaths. Many times, such as in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, they fought to the death.
Once Jews were warriors, from their entry into Canaan under Joshua, through the kings of Judea, the Hasmonean rebels and the Roman military. The Emperor Vespasian appointed an Alexandrian Jew named Tiberius Julius Alexander to spearhead his effort to crush the Judean rebellion of 69 CE (a precedent for modern assimilated Jews attacking Israel). Jews were valued members of the Roman military for centuries before and after.
Jews should definitely rely on the “Father in Heaven.” But Jewish teachings also specify not to rely on miracles. The Patriarch Jacob didn’t: he prepared for war.
In Israel, the IDF must always be prepared, or the country will be wiped out. On Yom Kippur, 1973, it wasn’t prepared. Some attribute Israel’s survival to God’s intervention. Others credited it (at least in part) to President Richard Nixon’s insistence that Israel must be saved, no matter what it took.
And in the diaspora? Must individual, civilian Jews be prepared for war? They can’t rely on the police. Sometimes the police can’t intervene, sometimes they won’t bother to. Will hiring a few security guards protect Jewish institutions from vandalism or assault? When a Palestinian or neo-Nazi wants to terrorize Jewish children, is the proper response to cower or hide? To wear a baseball cap instead of a skullcap?
In nineteen-sixty, John Howard Griffin wanted to understand the black experience in America, and undertook medical treatments to change his skin color. He was shocked at the extent of prejudice, oppression and hardship he went through.
In two thousand fourteen, Ryan Bellerose, a Native American, wanted to understand the Jewish experience, and wore a kippa, a Jewish skullcap for a week. He was shocked by the glares, by the ignorance, and outright bigotry. He was shocked at being called “Genocider, Jew baby-killer.” Bellerose, a physically intimidating man, considered that if he was treated this way, what happened to Jews who did not look like they could defend themselves?
Jews can’t all be a Steven Seagal or a Ryan Bellerose, but they must develop a reputation as civilized warriors, slow to anger, but capable of defending themselves. Cowardly attackers should not be able to assume that it’s safe to strike. Anti-Semites should not feel it’s
safe to physically express their hatred. It’s time once again for Jews to be physically intimidating.
It’s time for Jews to once again pick up their warrior mantle, to learn to fight, to injure those who would hurt them. It’s time for self-defence to become a compulsory subject at Jewish schools. Jews can still rely on the “Father in Heaven,” but not just through prayer and supplication. It’s not the kind of world we want to see, but it’s what’s the world’s becoming; not just for Jews, but for any non-Muslim living somewhere with a significant Muslim population. The Jews are the prime target of Jihadis, but certainly not the only one.
As George Washington said, “To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.” Let’s drop our old assumptions, and preserve the peace.
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