A thorny Rose responds....
Der Spiegel has published commentary by Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that lit the fire of Muslim rage by publishing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed. (No genuflecting, or that "peace" saying, please!)
Rose tells us he once was a seeker of "the utopian state of multicultural bliss." Rose didn't find the Land of Bliss, as a student or as a reporter, in the Soviet Union. Later, Rose was "cured of [his] wooly dreams of idealistic collectivism."
Amusingly, Rose scorns John Lennon's silly song Imagine, for Lennon's false notion that a world without property would be an earthly paradise. (Put away the Bics, Stop swaying, and save our ozone layer!) Sadly, Yoko Ono became a very, very wealthy widow.
Rose is right: Imagine was "stupid" because it ignored a fundamental element of human nature. If a caveman spent hours fashioning a rock into a cutting tool, he was not going to relinquish his new knife to a lazy schmuck that sat there chewing his cud, watching, and waiting for the tool to be given to him, like Gollum expecting to be given a newly discovered ring.
Therein lies the grand fallacy of communism, the notion that a person will freely surrender or relinquish things once they have established by their hard labor that it is theirs. (Locke's 2nd treatise spells this out clearly.) Property of self, family, and things is engrained into our very existence, yet communistic (and to a lesser extent socialistic) creeds pretend this immutable fact is not so. Anyone with a baby, not yet a toddler, has experienced this truth when a sibling tries to remove a valued possession -- the screams do not diminish with age, either. Yet there are many that pretend this isn't true for other, while clinging to those things they possess ever more dearly.
Back to our friend in Denmark: Rose tell us Europe has failed to "grapple realistically" with its immigrant population. Rose points to the false notion of "left wing commentators" who believe that Denmark, and by extension Europe which goes unsaid, is "both racist and Islamophobic."
Rose tells us a "cult of victomology arose" which has been "exploited" by radical European Muslims. Rose asserts Europe may now be the "breeding ground for Islamic terrorism." For he notes that the prophetless Atta (a killer of thousands) and Bouyeri (a killer of one) became "born-again" Muslims after moving to Europe.
Rose points to two problems with Europe's approach to assilimation of their Muslim immigrants: Europe's cultural basis of nationality and its welfare state.
Rose tells us he published the Muhammed cartoons as an "act of inclusion," for Muslims are not above satire, criticism, or reproach.
Rose believes two things must happen in Europe. Without irony, he recommends drawing lessons from the Colonies. (Imagine that? ) Rose says their immigrants need to learn the language and learn to respect Europe's political and cultural traditions. (I assume this is a nice way of saying, "Stop burning Paris and knifing people on the street!") And Europeans must "jettison entrenched notions of blood and soil." (Harken? Do you hear the refrains of Hegel's dogma stamped into the soul of Europe 200 years ago -- that tune will not be easily silenced.)
Viewing Europe's troubles with their immigrant population from afar, we find unsettling things here with our immigrant population.
Recently, we've seen ethnic Hispanics (native-born and otherwise) marching for rights for illegal immigrants in our country. They've been demanding amnesty for those that violated our laws by entering our country illegally. They proudly marched, before the cameras of the world, carrying Mexican flags, which was disrespectul of the average American citizens, and foolhardy in the extreme. Not quickly enough, their public affairs officers told them they should carry a different flag, but that image will not soon fade from our collective conscious as American citizens.
Recently, we've heard about a brawl breaking out in a nail salon in the Boston area. (Perhaps, Teddy Kennedy may want to "grapple" with this reality!) We read one patron became irate because two women were speaking Spanish. Years ago, an irascible old Senior Chief yelled at two young Filipino sailors, "Speak English in my engine room!" What the one nail salon patron felt was what the Senior Chief felt. Summed up nicely as, "You're in this country, so speak the language of this country, or go the f*** back home!"
Rose may point to America as an example for Europeans, but many here point to Europe for so many solutions, most particularly the adoption of Europe's welfare-state approach.
Today, we read in the Washington Times an editorial telling us Google has removed a few conservative websites from its news service, which is the 5th most popular news website, for "hate speech." The Times' editorial tells us Google News cited "articles critizing radical Islam and Islamists" as their reason for dropping these sites, one of which has been restored. The Times speculates that it is Muslims that are complaining about these sites; Google then bows to this political pressure and cowardly drops the sites. (A very plausible explanation.)
But not to worry, Google News will point you to plenty of sites that criticize Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and Jews; they're just afraid of knifing wielding Muslims that burn things that can not be slashed.
Uhmm.... Perhaps, Google will whack my blog....
Rose tells us he once was a seeker of "the utopian state of multicultural bliss." Rose didn't find the Land of Bliss, as a student or as a reporter, in the Soviet Union. Later, Rose was "cured of [his] wooly dreams of idealistic collectivism."
Amusingly, Rose scorns John Lennon's silly song Imagine, for Lennon's false notion that a world without property would be an earthly paradise. (Put away the Bics, Stop swaying, and save our ozone layer!) Sadly, Yoko Ono became a very, very wealthy widow.
Rose is right: Imagine was "stupid" because it ignored a fundamental element of human nature. If a caveman spent hours fashioning a rock into a cutting tool, he was not going to relinquish his new knife to a lazy schmuck that sat there chewing his cud, watching, and waiting for the tool to be given to him, like Gollum expecting to be given a newly discovered ring.
Therein lies the grand fallacy of communism, the notion that a person will freely surrender or relinquish things once they have established by their hard labor that it is theirs. (Locke's 2nd treatise spells this out clearly.) Property of self, family, and things is engrained into our very existence, yet communistic (and to a lesser extent socialistic) creeds pretend this immutable fact is not so. Anyone with a baby, not yet a toddler, has experienced this truth when a sibling tries to remove a valued possession -- the screams do not diminish with age, either. Yet there are many that pretend this isn't true for other, while clinging to those things they possess ever more dearly.
Back to our friend in Denmark: Rose tell us Europe has failed to "grapple realistically" with its immigrant population. Rose points to the false notion of "left wing commentators" who believe that Denmark, and by extension Europe which goes unsaid, is "both racist and Islamophobic."
Rose tells us a "cult of victomology arose" which has been "exploited" by radical European Muslims. Rose asserts Europe may now be the "breeding ground for Islamic terrorism." For he notes that the prophetless Atta (a killer of thousands) and Bouyeri (a killer of one) became "born-again" Muslims after moving to Europe.
Rose points to two problems with Europe's approach to assilimation of their Muslim immigrants: Europe's cultural basis of nationality and its welfare state.
Rose tells us he published the Muhammed cartoons as an "act of inclusion," for Muslims are not above satire, criticism, or reproach.
Rose believes two things must happen in Europe. Without irony, he recommends drawing lessons from the Colonies. (Imagine that? ) Rose says their immigrants need to learn the language and learn to respect Europe's political and cultural traditions. (I assume this is a nice way of saying, "Stop burning Paris and knifing people on the street!") And Europeans must "jettison entrenched notions of blood and soil." (Harken? Do you hear the refrains of Hegel's dogma stamped into the soul of Europe 200 years ago -- that tune will not be easily silenced.)
Viewing Europe's troubles with their immigrant population from afar, we find unsettling things here with our immigrant population.
Recently, we've seen ethnic Hispanics (native-born and otherwise) marching for rights for illegal immigrants in our country. They've been demanding amnesty for those that violated our laws by entering our country illegally. They proudly marched, before the cameras of the world, carrying Mexican flags, which was disrespectul of the average American citizens, and foolhardy in the extreme. Not quickly enough, their public affairs officers told them they should carry a different flag, but that image will not soon fade from our collective conscious as American citizens.
Recently, we've heard about a brawl breaking out in a nail salon in the Boston area. (Perhaps, Teddy Kennedy may want to "grapple" with this reality!) We read one patron became irate because two women were speaking Spanish. Years ago, an irascible old Senior Chief yelled at two young Filipino sailors, "Speak English in my engine room!" What the one nail salon patron felt was what the Senior Chief felt. Summed up nicely as, "You're in this country, so speak the language of this country, or go the f*** back home!"
Rose may point to America as an example for Europeans, but many here point to Europe for so many solutions, most particularly the adoption of Europe's welfare-state approach.
Today, we read in the Washington Times an editorial telling us Google has removed a few conservative websites from its news service, which is the 5th most popular news website, for "hate speech." The Times' editorial tells us Google News cited "articles critizing radical Islam and Islamists" as their reason for dropping these sites, one of which has been restored. The Times speculates that it is Muslims that are complaining about these sites; Google then bows to this political pressure and cowardly drops the sites. (A very plausible explanation.)
But not to worry, Google News will point you to plenty of sites that criticize Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and Jews; they're just afraid of knifing wielding Muslims that burn things that can not be slashed.
Uhmm.... Perhaps, Google will whack my blog....
posted by Tony Harrison at 7:42 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home