Category Archives: Politics
In a boat without paddles…..
Why is always the question I ask. Visual images hold the power to impact us in ways that words never will. The image above is from a postcard I bought in Germany in 1980. In a blog post, I had mentioned that I went to the border, near a town named Hof, and I saw the “Iron Curtain” in person as a young soldier on a trip arranged by the Army. That trip, and of course being assigned to a Pershing missile battalion, set me on this path of studying military strategy and trying to understand, “Why war?” Assuredly, I am not some closet 60s peacenik, but I do search for better answers to the world’s most difficult mountain to move, which is “finding a path to Peace?”
The huge displacement of people from Syria, Libya, Iraq and other areas in the greater Mid-East, an exodus that has been in progress for several years, I might add, has now captured the amnesiac public’s attention in the West. A photo of a drowned Syrian boy, lying face down on the beach, where he washed ashore in Turkey after drowning when the overcrowded boat his family was on capsized in the Mediterranean Sea, will become the iconic image of this war, just like the photo of the naked Vietnamese girl a generation ago. The boy’s family was fleeing Kobani, the sight of an ongoing battle between Islamic State fighters and the Kurds.
I listen with interest to the simplistic answers to resolve this refugee crisis and also to the simplistic answers as to what caused this crisis too. The answers range from British actress, Emma Thompson declaring the problem is because British people are racist and don’t want to help these refugees. Across the pond, GOP presidential candidate, Marco Rubio, placed the blame squarely on President Obama for failing to act sooner and intervening in the Syrian civil war and dealing with the Islamic State. The prime minister of Hungary, Victor Orbán invited angry cries of racism and outrage, when he criticized EU policy. The UK news site, The Guardian reports:
“Everything which is now taking place before our eyes threatens to have explosive consequences for the whole of Europe,” Orbán wrote in Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “Europe’s response is madness. We must acknowledge that the European Union’s misguided immigration policy is responsible for this situation.
“Irresponsibility is the mark of every European politician who holds out the promise of a better life to immigrants and encourages them to leave everything behind and risk their lives in setting out for Europe. If Europe does not return to the path of common sense, it will find itself laid low in a battle for its fate.”
The president of Turkey, Tayyip Erdogan, lashed out at the EU. The UK’s Daily Mail states:
Mr Erdogan, the Turkish president, today insisted Europe had to act to save refugees dying.
He said: ‘European countries, which have turned the Mediterranean, the cradle of the world’s oldest civilisations, into a cemetery for refugees, shares the sin for every refugee who loses their life.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3220885/EU-draws-emergency-plan-relocate-160-000-stranded-refugees-continent-Britain-ZERO.html#ixzz3kmSeOoZD
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This same Daily Mail UK story includes the response to this refugee crisis by British prime minister, David Cameron:
“The Prime Minister told reporters: ‘Anyone who saw those pictures overnight could not help but be moved and, as a father, I felt deeply moved by the sight of that young boy on a beach in Turkey.
‘Britain is a moral nation and we will fulfil our moral responsibilities.
‘I would say the people responsible for these terrible scenes we see the people most responsible are President Assad in Syria and the butchers of ISIL and the criminal gangs who are running this terrible trade in people.’
Asked why Britain won’t take more refugees, Mr Cameron said: ‘We are. We are taking thousands of refugees and we have always done that as a country – running our asylum system properly and giving a proper welcome to people and helping them when they come here.”
My primary care doctor pulled out his cell phone a year or so ago and showed me photos of his parents’ home in Syria, where the neighborhood had been bombed in recent days. His parents are here in the US with him, having been displaced by the civil war in Syria. My doctor, a wonderful doctor and usually so calm and measured in speech, angrily stated that it was all because of one man trying to stay in power, placing blame squarely on Syrian president, Bashar al Assad.
And so it goes, each response, points a finger at who is to blame for the problem. Each response carries some truth, but none answers the big question of “why” this situation reached this point, nor do any responses bring us any closer to resolving the larger problem. The real answer is people accept ineffective leaders around the world and people look for little picture scapegoats to resolve complex problems, which require international answers and more importantly international leadership.
One country, not even those who believe in the US as the global hegemon, can resolve the ongoing collapse of Islamic civilization. And what the leaders in The West don’t quite grasp is simultaneously Western civilization is on that downward civilizational spiral too. As I stated in a previous post, we are facing two large civilization collapses at the same time. The West has set up a house of cards financial scheme that could fold without hurricane force winds. Yes, it is that precarious!
The post card at the top of this post set me on a journey searching not only for a better national security framework, but a better international security framework. Everyone, from Emma Thompson, horrified by that photo, to Victor Orbán, fearful of the collapse of western civilization, is right and yet, none captures the larger truth.. The larger truth is no one leader or country can resolve this crisis. Only many leaders working in good faith can end the fighting in the collapsing Islamic civilization and only many leaders can stabilize the collapsing Western civilization. In May, I wrote:
Now, how I started thinking about all this was because long ago, I was a young woman assigned to a Pershing missile unit in 1980 and trying to wrap my mind around “mutually assured destruction” scared me. I have been reading and thinking about our national security strategy almost every day since 1980 and asking myself “Why?” I am seeking a different path forward to provide, not just a national security framework, but an international security framework for ALL of us. Yes, quite an insurmountable obstacle, a pipe dream perhaps, but there you have it – that is my personal mission and I’ll keep studying, reading history, and considering new ideas unto that end. I am a nobody homemaker, but I am an American and no one ever told me I can’t succeed. I started writing my thoughts and ideas here and welcome other ideas.
“I believe too much effort is directed toward extremes of “kill them all” or “bow down in submission to Islamist nuts intent on killing all of us“. Hopefully, my determination to explore other avenues, than the extremes, doesn’t make me a quisling, an armchair expert or naive. I’m a mother and a grandmother wondering about the future for them and I believe, we need to explore new ways of bolstering an international security framework and that demands LEADERSHIP.”
I’ve written many of my thoughts about military strategy, war, and the complexities of understanding civilizations on this blog. I like to consider and analyze problems from a little picture/ big picture perspective. At the heart of war and all conflict lies the human heart and a break down of trust:
Then there are larger issues like:
Global Zero: Another Nothing-Burger Plan
Paving the path to Peace
So, after thinking about “Why war?” since 1980 and reading endlessly about military strategy, history, and geopolitics. I’m going to just repost my blog post from May and you can laugh, dismiss it out of hand, or consider it, but truly the answer boils down to “all of us”, not pointing fingers at another world leader or group:
If we build it; we can fix it
I want to write this post, which assuredly most people will dismiss out of hand. This is my explanation of why I think Peace is possible and the fall of civilizations remedied. I’ve been an adherent of a “God does not give us impossible missions belief” my entire life. I believe God gave us FREE WILL. We can choose to do or not to do, to soar or to sit on our butts whining that life isn’t fair and wait for others to do for us, We can choose to live in FEAR or we can dare to stand up and say, “I don’t care if that’s the way it’s always been, I am going to think for myself and see if I can think, invent, build something better.”
As far as I can tell, the only human unit that is vital is the husband/wife combo, because without them reproducing , the human race will perish. For a child to survive, requires both the mother and father. Of course, living in groups – the “it takes a village” idea, definitely makes it much easier for humans to flourish. So, most people live in groups.
I like to analyze systems, even though I have had no formal training to do this. One of my sons works for a large aircraft manufacturer as a software engineer. He tells me about his travels to go diagnose and fix problems for customers, whose planes have something not working right.
Now, imagine if their planes had some fatal flaw where, say, inexplicably their most popular deluxe model of planes started suffering engine failure after hitting around the 20,000 mile mark. The company would not accept the 20,000 mile failure of their planes nor would they want to have to rebuild engines, over and over or replace the ones that died. They would send someone to do a systems analysis and try to detect what design flaws or equipment failure are leading to this problem.
I never accepted either the “belief” that civilizations are doomed to this endless “rise and fall” cycle, nor do I wander off into utopian pipe dreams. My observation is that civilizations are built and deconstructed by man, just like planes – they are a man-made invention. We find on earth some societies that remained content to settle for living in small groups and fighting to survive at bare subsistence level. Others seek to live in a fancier deluxe model grouping, thus the most advanced civilizations are built to please those customers. These deluxe model civilizations rely on several complex sub-systems to operate.
My mother used to get frustrated with my unwillingness to accept answers that began with, “that’s the way it’s always been”. Accepting that premise dooms us to wasting a lot of, not only material wealth, but more importantly human lives and potential (often large portions of an entire generation), because lots of people perish when we have multiple sub-set systems failures.
So, far we’ve got most of the best geopolitical systems analysts (world leaders, scholars, statesmen, soldiers) not working on finding ways to fix the multiple, simultaneous, sub-system failures that lead to a collapse of a civilization. They study the various sub-set systems and do some disparate diagnostics, then shrug and say, that’s just how civilizations are – “they rise and they fall”. Some try to design quick-fix patches. Some recoil in fear and are content to be passive spectators to the collapse and murmur, “It’s always been that way”. Brilliant geopolitics experts, almost to a man, say “that’s the way it’s always been and I have seen nothing in history to indicate it can ever change.” Of course, if you accept it can’t change, very few people will even bother trying to change it.
In fact, they invariably insist that when one of those sub-set systems, one intended to safeguard the entire system, runs amok and helps destroy most of the frame and body of the entire civilization, we’re just supposed to accept that these most complex advanced civilizations have some fatal flaw – it’s either that’s how God made the world, accept it, quit being a daydreamer and shut up about “utopias”.
I refuse to accept that belief. I believe that if we build it, we can always improve on the design and come up with better sub-systems to build a newer, better performing model. If your best systems analysts don’t ever even really try to find the design flaws and fix them, but instead wander off, halfheartedly fixing, only bits and pieces of some of the sub-system design flaws, of course the system will continue to reach the point where these sub-systems start falling apart and down the chute into the dustbin of history goes all that work that went into it. In the process usually many, many people perish, because most of these sub-set failures happen in midair, resulting in spectacular crashes, although some do implode and burn slowly on the runway too, so to speak. Cleaning up the wreckage from civilizational collapses can take centuries, sometimes those people that survive don’t even bother, they wander off into the wilderness.
The known history of man provides us a great deal of information to study the various sub-sets, how they work together, which models work better and the flaws in the various systems. For instance, we know that in governmental systems there are good kings and bad kings, dependent on one thing – the king. For that system to work long term, relies on the accident of birth and hoping the genetic lottery of life works favorably for your kingdom, because all it takes to wreck a good kingdom is one bad king.
Others, say, in America, sat down and studied history and analyzed government systems throughout history and tried to select components that would provide a safeguard against the one bad king, as they had just got done ditching one of those bad draws in the genetic pool kind of kings. In America, some men gathered together and said, even though no one in the known history of man has tried this first, we are FREE to come up with a better system. We started with the premise that ALL MEN ARE FREE and constructed a governmental system that we thought would best safeguard individual freedom. Many people in the world get sick of hearing Americans blabber on about our Constitution. Lots of countries have constitutions, but none of them starts with the bedrock BELIEFS that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL and ALL MEN ARE FREE.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, we tried to transplant democracy, but democracy isn’t what leads to a better life for people; FREEDOM does. A Constitution is just a piece of paper. Napoleon was one of the world’s premiere constitution writers in history. As soon as Napoleon conquered a place, he wrote another constitution for those conquered people to obey. Selecting a good governmental system, in my opinion, is the most important sub-system in a group’s organizational structure, because that sub-system determines how well any other component sub-systems you design will work. We shouldn’t be telling the world that democracy makes us different, we should teach the world that the BELIEF IN INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM does.
Many other governmental systems work, and all governments are subject to engine failure (where America is at now) and a host of other sub-system failures, because any government relies on many other complex sub-systems to work too, just as civilizations do. Being willing to do the diagnostics and taking the corrective actions to prevent a total breakdown determines the fate of more complex groups, who rely on a more advanced organizational structure than a simple group, like a tribe or religious commune.
My son recently lamented to me that he doesn’t understand why some, way more experienced, software engineers he knows settle for creating sort of patches to fix problems, instead of trying to figure out what’s causing the problem to occur in the first place and fix that. He asked why people are like that and I told him, that in my opinion, lots of people prefer to take the easiest road – believe me, growing up in PA, our pothole-patched roads attest to that. Because throwing a patch on is easier than repairing the entire road. And I should know, because my father built roads for a living.
Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, History, Islam, Military, Politics
A Minority Faction
Robert Tracinski at The Federalist penned a very good read: “Donald Trump vs. James Madison”. He delves into the faction issue and states:
“Politically speaking, the conservative “base” is a minority faction. Our views—and I certainly include myself among the most radical small-government advocates—are shared by somewhere between 10% and 40% of the public, depending on the issue. But a lot of the base is bitter that we haven’t been able to dictate policy as if we command upwards of 60% of the vote.
Their beef isn’t with the Republican Party, it’s with the whole American system of government. Their enemy isn’t Mitch McConnell. It’s James Madison. If you’re the sort of person who uses “cuckservative” as an epithet for anyone who settles for less than what you imagine the right kind of strongman could deliver, then I’ve found your ultimate nemesis. James Madison is the original “cuckservative.”
The Father of the Constitution wrote the rulebook for the American political system, and he specifically wrote the rulebook for what’s supposed to happen to political factions. He explained this in The Federalist No. 10. Everyone should read this essay and thoroughly understand it, and almost no one does. But you can’t understand politics and can’t do politics until you do.”
Tracinski points to The Federalist No.10, so let me add the title of No.10 -“The Same Subject Continued: The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection”. I mentioned in a recent post that there is no excuse for failing to understand the basics of our own governmental structure. If you’re online, you can access fathoms deep sources of history, literature, science – all for free. Hillsdale College put together a series of short lectures on The Federalist Papers earlier this year. You just sign-up and watch them at your leisure.:
http://online.hillsdale.edu/courses/federalist-papers/home/course-schedule
Filed under American History, General Interest, Politics, The Constitution
Could the drips become a deluge?
Here’s an unconfirmed report, so let me say it’s internet gossip at this point:
Update: The Smoking Gun states that the person claiming to have Clinton emails is a scam artist – http://thesmokinggun.com/buster/guccifer/hillary-clinton-email-scammer-890452
Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, Politics
The email scandal might reach other Obama officials
John R. Schindler, who writes at his XX Committee blog, published an article at The Daily Beast:
Will Hillary Clinton’s Emails Burn the White House?
Schindler reports that counterintelligence officials suspect that Hillary Clinton is not the only Obama administration official with email problems. The other day, more details emerged about classified and sensitive data being relayed via personal email accounts at the US embassy in Japan, by not only embassy staff, but also the ambassador, Caroline Kennedy. Schindler explains:
“EmailGate has barely touched the White House directly, although it’s clear that some senior administration officials beyond the State Department were aware of Hillary’s unorthodox email and server habits, given how widely some of the emails from Clinton and her staff were forwarded around the Beltway. Obama’s inner circle may not be off-limits to the FBI for long, however, particularly since the slipshod security practices of certain senior White House officials have been a topic of discussions in the Intelligence Community for years.
Hillary Clinton was far from the only senior Obama appointee to play fast and loose with classified materials, according to Intelligence Community insiders. While most counterspies agree that Hillary’s practices—especially using her own server and having her staffers place classified information into unclassified emails, in violation of Federal law—were especially egregious, any broad-brush investigation into security matters are likely to turn up other suspects, they maintain.”
Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, Politics
Has Hillary’s security clearance been revoked yet?
Since the news of Hillary Clinton’s private email server came to light, her narrative has evolved to cover her designer pant suit clad butt. Let me just be blunt and to the point, she is a deceitful, bold-faced liar! The FBI continues to investigate, her enablers in the media continue to run interference and damage control for her and the damaging information and leaks continue to pound her pathetic denials of any wrongdoing into dust.
All we know just leads to more questions, which I will toss out some of mine and if you have more, please just toss them into the comments section.
With about a third of the emails she had turned over to the State Department released, hundreds contain classified information and a couple contain top secret signal intelligence, which possibly exposed ways and means of our most sensitive intelligence-gathering. Don’t forget she deleted tens of thousand of her “personal” emails, the yoga schedules and Chelsea’s wedding stuff, which are not part of these being released by the State Department. Due to her mendacity, those tens of thousands might be many more. She mentioned a “careful process” to produce her work-related emails that she turned over to the State Department (some 55,000 pages). Who assisted in that sorting and copying process and did all of those involved have the proper security clearance to handle that information? She gave her lawyer a thumb-drive(s) of the emails, which the State Department rather than securing, they delivered a safe for the lawyer to keep in his office. What sort of security did that provide in his law office?
Her loyal spin doctors, whom I have referred to as sewer rats, since 1998, continue to dodge and deflect to obfuscate with lame lines like, “other Secretaries of State used personal email too, but that’s a flimsy lie. They used personal email at times, but none used personal email exclusively to do all of their State Department business and NONE set up some insecure, home-brewed server, from which to run their own personal email account, which she had other close aides use too. She unilaterally made this decision to avoid following the FOIA rules and to hide her email activity. She took no precautions to safeguard her private server in a manner consistent with requirements for classified and sensitive information.
The Server – knowns and unknowns:
When did this home-brewed server actually come into existence, because initial reports state 2010, but a report in recent days states her server was added to a server system President Clinton already had? When did the Clintons acquire that server system, who maintained it and where was it located? Were these servers on the same system during her entire tenure as Secretary of State and housed in their home in Chappaqua or were they in an office in downtown Manhattan, as some reporters deduce? Who set this server system up and who maintained it?
Everyone has an IT person they turn to fix computer stuff. I turn to my son who is a computer software engineer for a aeronautics corporation, so why did Hillary Clinton turn to some start-up IT? With experienced security and IT personnel right in the State Department, why didn’t she consult them? After Sidney Blumenthal’s email was hacked in 2013 according to news reports she turned to Platte River Networks.
Then there’s a myriad of questions of when was her server wiped clean, who wiped it clean, where was that done and who all had access to her server throughout it’s existence? All of these people had access to unsecured top secret information. Did Hillary Clinton do anything to make sure those people were cleared for access to this information? She set up this private server, so she is ultimately responsible for classified information, to include top secret signal intelligence being passed on that server.
The bigger picture:
We’ve heard endless concerns about the NSA storing meta-data on every email sent and received in the US. Can’t they find her missing emails and aid the FBI in gathering that missing information? Of course, the Russians and Chinese (among other countries) intelligence services, assuredly have every last email from her server and the Russians and Chinese most definitely are better record-keepers than the US, so her emails will come back to haunt US intelligence for years to come. That top secret signal intelligence contained information that could expose intelligence assets and methods to our enemies too.
It only gets worse as information dribbles out. She would have been far better to own up to her private server and admit she made a terrible mistake, but instead she will brazen her way through and lie, lie, lie. But I want one simple question answered;
Has her security clearance been revoked yet?
http://www.nationalreview.com/classified-rules-hillarys-disregard-for-them
http://20committee.com/2015/08/26/hillarys-mounting-emailgate-troubles/
http://20committee.com/2015/08/24/emailgate-gets-worse-for-hillary-clinton/
Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, Politics, The Media
The “girl power” club in America reaches puberty
For a completely different take on the Donald Trump vs Megyn Kelly dust up, G. Murphy Donovan penned an amazingly blunt assessment of “tampon politics”, “Rosie, Megyn, Carly and Hillary”, at New English Review. Being a very sparse TV viewer or tabloid reader, I learned the details of the long-running Trump vs Rosie feud and was presented a New York perspective too. GMD writes:
“You are more likely to encounter misandry, not misogyny, on the daytime chat circuit. Indeed, the daylight airwaves and audience are dominated by shallow girls and girly men. Real men and women are usually busy at real jobs between nine and five.
Maybe somebody needs to explain the “New York way” to Megyn too. If a bully gives you a fat lip in Queens, you respond with a bloody nose. And if you behave like a “pig” in the Bronx, no one treats you like a lady. And if you are loud and rude in Manhattan, you might get a network chat show, but you are not a victim. There are enough real victims in NYC like the now iconic Kitty Genovese, without squandering compassion on misandrist misanthropes.”
GMD wins bonus points just for using the word “misanthropes”, as he lays out the truth about the girl power club in America, yet I still disagree with him on Trump. The man who brags about writing, “The Art of the Deal”, should have been able to deftly disarm Kelly and her stink bomb question, much like Reagan often did, with calm aplomb and humor. Instead, Trump reacted in anger, then ran to CNN to whine about being treated unfairly on FOX, like a wussy. Later, he retaliated on Twitter, like a petulant 12-year-old boy. None of Trump’s responses though speaks to the hypocrisy of the feminists’ reaction, from Carly to Hillary, who closed ranks in feigned outrage nor answers why Kelly threw that stink bomb question in the first place. Very likely GMD called it correctly:
“Having it both ways is a time-honored American double standard, a kind of behavioral Title IX for politics. Hat tip to Orwell!”
Filed under Culture Wars, General Interest, Politics
Trump is no Reagan
Here’s a must read from PJ Media on the comparisons of Donald Trump to Ronald Reagan:
“Comparing Trump to Reagan Should Be a Slappable Offense”
Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, Politics
IRS: Lois Lerner had second secret personal email account (in addition to “Toby Miles”)
Account had no name designation. IRS refuses to identify email address.
Source: IRS: Lois Lerner had second secret personal email account (in addition to “Toby Miles”)
Filed under General Interest, Politics
Where have all the gentlemen gone?
“I always thought it was so very American, when we were back in the days when Americans were known to be brash and bold. But I want to point out something while I’m thinking about Shane and the Virginian—both of them had impeccable manners. It was actually pointed out in the books, not by saying it, of course, but by having someone notice it and be shown thinking about it. It was a part of each man. Polite, filled with decorum toward actions and other people. Decent. Even knowing which fork to use—I loved it. Because the books set out the best of all worlds.”
– Minta Marie Morze
My friend, Minta, serves not only as a trusted friend, she’s also part cheerleader and part muse to keep me writing. When she sent me her critique on my blog post the other day, where I had mentioned the 1902 novel, “The Virginian”, my thoughts turned to dissecting what it is about Donald Trump that bothers me the most. The answer has nothing to do with Trump’s political views or flip-flops. What bothers me is not just the brashness nor the bragging, it’s about his ungentlemanly behavior. His supporters cheer that he isn’t bowing down to PC, but here’s the truth, he isn’t offering an example of behavior that is any better. Going on Twitter and bashing Megyn Kelly as a ‘bimbo” doesn’t come across as “presidential”, but it also shouldn’t be acceptable behavior for any man. Yes, I mentioned the Kelly/Howard Stern interview in a previous blog post and I find her behavior questionable too. This all leads to the much larger topic of this post: “Where have all the gentlemen gone?”
It seems that almost daily we are assaulted by more left-wing social-engineering insanity, accepting every sort of sexual disorder and deviancy as just a lifestyle choice, the expansion of imaginary gender categories too freakish and numerous to keep track of, and on to the angry racial animus tearing at the very seams of American society. At the center of this turbulent storm swirls a core of rage and violence. We have a lot of angry people in America, especially young men. Across the seas lies another culture that has promised death to America, and the one thing they have in common with America is they have a lot of angry people too, especially men. So, here we go as I ponder the history of gentlemen. In a 2013 blog post, I delved into, “Why America needs gentlemen…. and ladies too”, but decided it’s time to revisit this topic.
In a 2013 column, Mark Steyn wrote about the groups of young black men engaged in knock-out crimes attacking innocent white passers-by. He wrote:
“As things stand, if white youths target a black guy it’s a hate crime, but vice versa is merely common assault. I doubt this would make very much difference. “No justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous,” wrote Lewis — and, likewise, no law can prevent a thug punching an old lady to the ground if the thug is minded to. “A society’s first line of defense is not the law but customs, traditions, and moral values,” wrote Professor Walter Williams a few years ago. “They include important thou-shalt-nots such as shalt not murder, shalt not steal, shalt not lie and cheat, but they also include all those courtesies one might call ladylike and gentlemanly conduct. Policemen and laws can never replace these restraints on personal conduct.””
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/364659/knockouts-high-and-low-mark-steyn
The Islamic State nutjobs (more out-of-control young men) claim to be building a new Caliphate, as they crucify, behead, and topple every vestige of civilization, both modern and ancient. These barbarians apparently read about as much history as the New Black Panthers, the thugs rioting in Baltimore, Dylan Roof and all these other violent young men. Since 9/11 I’ve heard Charles Martel hailed for stopping the spread of Islam in Europe at the Battle of Tours in 732 AD. He stopped the Moors, who had conquered Spain, but it wasn’t until the late 1400s when the Moors were driven out of Spain. What followed was the Spanish Inquistion, where the Muslims and Jews were driven out of Spain and heretics (those who were not Christians) were rounded up, judged, then sentenced to extremely brutal punishments.
Most Americans, due to our lamentable education system, have no clue that the Moors(Muslims) in Spain had built an advanced civilization that far surpassed the rest of Europe at that time. I came across a passage in the 1943 book, “The Discovery of Freedom”, by Rose Wilder Lane, describing where the European code of chivalry originated. It came from the Muslim world. The Moors brought that code to Spain and during the Crusades, Lane notes the knights observed it in the Saracens’ world during their travels to the Holy Land. “Saracen” is an archaic term for Arabs/Muslims during the Crusades. Lane writes:
But the returning Crusaders brought back to Europe the first idea of a gentleman that Europeans had ever had. Until they invaded the Saracens’ civilization, they had never known that a strong man need not be brutal. The Saracens were splendid fighters when they fought, but they were not cruel; they did not torture their prisoners, they did not kill the wounded. In their own country, they did not persecute the Christians. They were brave men, but they were gentle. They were honorable; they told the truth, they kept their word. This ideal of a gentleman especially impressed the English. It is still producing perhaps the finest class of human beings on earth today, the men and women of the British ruling class. It is an ideal that permeates all of American life. This is what surprises so many people in many parts of the world, when they see and meet the common American soldiers and sailors.
Lane, Rose Wilder (2012-05-02). The Discovery of Freedom (LFB) (Kindle Locations 2118-2125). Laissez Faire Books. Kindle Edition.
So, I looked for some more history to back up this notion of Muslims in the medieval world being the inspiration for European codes of chivalry and the development of the gentleman and here’s a passage from a 1900 history book, “A Short History of the Saracens: Being a concise account of the Rise and Decline of the Saracenic Power and of the Economic, Social and Intellectual Development of the Arab Nation” (a Google book page 519):
“But Cordova was not merely the abode of culture,of
learning and arts, of industry and commerce; it was
the home where chivalry received its first nourishment.Chivalry is innate in the Arab character, but its rules
and principles, the punctilious code of honour, the
knightly polish, the courtliness, all of which were so
assiduously cultivated afterwards in the kingdom of
Granada, came into prominence under an-Nasir and his
son. “It was at this period that the chivalrous ideas
commenced to develop themselves, joined to an ex-
alted sense of honour and respect for the feeble sex.”1
Another competent writer states that chivalry with all
its institutions, such as came later into existence among
the Christian nations of the West, flourished among the
Saracens in the time of an-Nasir, Hakam, and al—Mansur.2
Here came foreign knights under guarantee of peace and
protection to break lance with Saracen cavaliers.”
Now, back to Minta’s astute observation that started off this post, well, here’s a passage from, “The Virginian”, where the Eastern visitor describes his first encounter with the Western cowboy, who happens to be the Virginian:
“As we went, I read my host’s letter–a brief hospitable message. He was very sorry not to meet me himself. He had been getting ready to drive over, when the surveyor appeared and detained him. Therefore in his stead he was sending a trustworthy man to town, who would look after me and drive me over. They were looking forward to my visit with much pleasure. This was all.
Yes, I was dazed. How did they count distance in this country? You spoke in a neighborly fashion about driving over to town, and it meant–I did not know yet how many days. And what would be meant by the term “dropping in,” I wondered. And how many miles would be considered really far? I abstained from further questioning the “trustworthy man.” My questions had not fared excessively well. He did not propose making me dance, to be sure: that would scarcely be trustworthy. But neither did he propose to have me familiar with him. Why was this? What had I done to elicit that veiled and skilful sarcasm about oddities coming in on every train? Having been sent to look after me, he would do so, would even carry my valise; but I could not be jocular with him. This handsome, ungrammatical son of the soil had set between us the bar of his cold and perfect civility. No polished person could have done it better. What was the matter? I looked at him, and suddenly it came to me. If he had tried familiarity with me the first two minutes of our acquaintance, I should have resented it; by what right, then, had I tried it with him? It smacked of patronizing: on this occasion he had come off the better gentleman of the two. Here in flesh and blood was a truth which I had long believed in words, but never met before. The creature we call a GENTLEMAN lies deep in the hearts of thousands that are born without chance to master the outward graces of the type.”
Throughout America, gentlemen still exist, although they are definitely an endangered species. The US military used to be a bastion of fine gentlemen, but the Obama transformation marked them for extinction, under the guise of progress, where sexual orientation and progressive nostrums neuter gentlemen and turn them into parsing, mincing PC cheerleaders. The ones who want to wear the skirts are being given top attention before being separated from the military, as it seems the Secretary of Defense spends more time working to make sure transgenders can serve openly than he does trying to make sure we defeat ISIS.
There are still glimmers of hope, like the young American men, who charged ahead unarmed to deal with an Islamist terrorist on a French train recently. so let’s hope across America, some Moms and Dads are still teaching their sons to be gentlemen, because they are sorely needed!
Filed under American Character, Culture Wars, General Interest, History, Islam, Military, Politics
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