Mercer as the Nihilistic Usual (Ultimate) Suspect

The Siege of Antioch, from a medieval
miniature painting, during the First Crusade.

[Image from my post "Significance of the cross."]

I was brought to the attention of this blog entry posted by the libertarian pundit Ilana Mercer (about whose inadequacies I have written about here), who says, "Immigration is the reason the Islamization of our societies is underway." This is well and good, and a correct observation. But then she links to her critique of a 2006 article by Mark Steyn who writes about the eventual necessity of a "swift, massive, devastating force that decapitates the [nuke-building Iranian] regime." She calls Steyn's  edict a "confrontation of biblical proportions with Iran" and questions the "philosophical basis to wage war on a belligerent Muslim country."

Of course, it goes without saying, and from reading Steyn's essay, that Iran is gearing itself up for a confrontation of koranic proportions with the West. So what’s Mercer point? She simply has an anti-war agenda to fulfill.

The libertarians’ famous "if it doesn't harm us, let them get on with their lives" is rampant in Mercer's writing. In this case, what are harming us (or could potentially harm us) are the Muslims in our countries. What cannot harm us are the Muslims in faraway countries. No, those real, live nuclear weapons, which reduce the proximity of nations into mere inches, are of no consequence. Consider Iran with a nuke as Iran within, or very close to, your border. So, that position alone is absurd.

But, the bigger crime from Mercer is her argument about no "philosophical basis" (she means religious, and specifically Christianity here – but being an atheist cannot quite come up with that word) for going to war against the Muslims.

Well, here is my rebuttal.

Who is she to say that the West’s current crop of insipid and liberalized "leaders" are really the backbone of Western people? It is like saying the leaders of the pro-immigration movement in the U.S. (and Canada) are speaking for the population at hand, when every statistic shows that isn’t true – ordinary people are generally against immigration, and there are leaders who are rising up carrying the truth with them.

Back to Iran and Muslims. Since our current crop of leaders don’t, or won’t, follow Christian tenets for war, her argument, in a smug way, seals her position that there should never be any wars fought that don’t hold some kind of "philosophical" basis. The interesting thing is that she never comes up with a "philosophical" reason why wars (or at least, this war with Iran) should not be fought, other than to say that Iran cannot harm us. But then, look at this typical contradiction (Mercer's articles are full of them): she calls Iran, in her philosophical query, "a belligerent Muslim country." What will a belligerent country do, but act on its belligerence?

Anyway, first, wars are fought to defend one’s nation. Just like a bully is stopped in the school play ground for pure survival/defensive reasons. No philosophical inquiry required here, the truth is staring us in the eye. 

Secondly, if we refuse to fight an apocalyptic koranic war because of a lack of "philosophy", there will no longer be any West to come up with philosophical tenets for war, let alone for life. The West would truly be dead and gone.

But how contemptuous of Mercer to have already decided that the West has thrown out religion and God for good, and thus the reason to fight (and live through) this approaching Armageddon! Cannot God Himself drive these anti-God elements away from our lives and fill us with His presence, so we can fight this most challenging evil with conviction? Cannot man find it in himself, at a moment of despair, to turn to God to give him meaning to go on, and to fight? Mercer’s position is so nihilistic, that she doesn’t give any of these possibilities a chance: the chance to bring back Christian civilization, the chance for redemption, the chance for God’s intervention.

"The Crusaders we are not" writes Mercer, in that finalized, dogmatic way which leaves her with no room for a leap of faith (or even a leap of imagination). She ignores the small, ridiculed crusaders that are all over the world. She has not invested in the possibility of these crusaders. She has no interest in joining their movement. As insightful as Mercer thinks she is, she is really no better than those "Usual Suspects" who sit and wring their hands, and write their columns, about the horrors facing us, but who will not join the movements to stop these horrors from happening.

Usually, I don’t get bothered with the inadequacies of the "Usual Suspects." But Mercer’s smug, ultimately anti-West and anti-Christian stance, as I’ve delineated above, is worth untangling because it meanders into her writing in such subtle ways that I don’t think she’s even aware of it. Which means that others are falling for it as well.

The Canadian Bar Association a Legitimate Form of the HRCs?

I've always said that the Human Rights Commissions are a bigger problem than, well, the Human Rights Commissions. Part of the problem is that the kinds of people that Canada is admitting into the country are people who are ripe for the snagging by the HRCs, lulled into doing all the kangaroo suing that they want in the name of their human rights, civil rights, and other phoney complaints.

Well, Ezra Levant has expanded on this theory (observation, actually) of mine, when he writes about the HRC-type behaviour of the Canadian Bar Association (but he never makes that link).

Here's what he wrote at his blog, via an article of his at the Canadian Lawyer website (Levant is a lawyer himself):

In Canada, the bar associations are on the cutting edge of human rights and civil rights, relentlessly badgering Canada’s government on everything from gay marriage to racial quotas to outlawing spanking. Canada may be one of the freest countries in the world, but that’s never enough for the CBA.

This article is about the Ontario Bar Association being gifted an expensive tourism trip to Burma (spouses included) by the Burmese government, in exchange for its act of solidarity with the government via such things as "legal meetings" (which I think means a type of legal consultations). The Burmese leader/activist Aung San Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest, has specifically requested that foreign tourists boycott Burma in order not to give credence to the government.

Similarly, the CBA has had friendly relations with China which, according to Levant, is to help downplay the Chinese human rights atrocities in exchange for expensive holidays, or other lucrative deals. Some of these deals include "teaching" the Chinese about criminal defence trials. "Nice" says Levant, "but China isn’t governed by Canadian law."

As Levant writes, the CBA is "on the cutting edge of human rights and civil rights" in Canada. But its shameful lack concern for human rights abroad makes it a hypocritical advocate for these very human rights in Canada. So phoney human rights concerns by the CBA, or manufactured human rights cases by the HRCs, kind of puts them both on the same level.

Levant needs to disentangle the root of these problems, both in the HRCs and now in the legitimate CBA, before he thinks he’s done with the whole thing. Something bigger than both is at play, and it’s not just the hard cash or fun holidays that these lawyers are getting.

My take is that high immigration and institutionalized multiculturalism makes these kinds of behaviors surprisingly easy in legitimate or illegitimate courts. If their national clientele is reduced, then the CBA's other phoney international activities (such as paid-for tourism trips to Burma) might garner the attention and outrage of the Canadian public. So far, both the HRCs and the CBA are seen as the good guys defending the humble, down-trodden victims who have lost their various rights.

Levant also writes that he is writing another book, and will be on a hiatus until the end of August. That gives me plenty of time to prepare for him my modest thoughts and blogs on the HRC debacle, to give him my take on the problem and the possible solutions. I hope to send him that email in September.

The Trouble with William Gairdner's Canada

William Gairdner is one of the first conservatives to have analyzed the problems of multicultrualism and mass immigration in his 1990 book, The Trouble with Canada. He writes in his book, about immigration and multiculturalism:

Can this be good for Canada? Can Canada survive the aggressive, government financed creation of hundreds of competing cultures on its soil, especially when so many are drawn from Third World nations that are either Marxist in orientation or fatalist in their economic ways?…What happens when [these immigrants’] associations and lobby groups, government funded and full-time professional lobbyists [become militant] and proceed against the majority culture for their "rights" under our (discriminatory) Charter? I predict that our judges will be juggling one culture’s rights against another until doomsday.

Evidently, there wasn't the Muslim problem then, or I'm sure Gairdner would have boldly included that in his book.

But, here is the disappointing part. In his "solutions" section, the only remedy he has for the mass influx of immigrants is to hold a nation-wide poll - an opinion poll, in effect - to ask Canadians what they think about all this. If their response is overwhelmingly negative, Gairdner then says that the government should act accordingly.

I'm not sure why Gairdner, in an otherwise bold book, should have backed away at this point. I don't think it was fear of being called "racist." Maybe it was his way of getting the whole country, and not just the corrupted leadership, to be invovled in the thoughts and decisions of such important events.

How Our Landscape Changes in Subtle Ways

My last post was about the subtle ways in which divided loyalties cause individuals to behave against the best interests of their "host" countries. It was somehow symbolized for me by the bow Euna Lee made as she exited the plane that brought her and Laura Ling back to safety from North Korea. 

As I was reviewing my posts on "Action" [see Topics listed alphabetically on side column] against the Islamic incursion, I remembered this video of Supna Zaidi, who is a Muslim herself, and who was advocating rallying up the (non-existent) moderate Muslims for the counter-jihad movement.

A very short section of her speech caught my attention then, and I thought it would be a good time to reproduce it here.


Near the very end of her 34 minute presentation, Supna Zaidi says:

I have a nephew who's one years [sic] old. He's growing up in New Jersey. His Dad's a doctor. They aren't rich yet - my brother is paying off his loans. He's going to grow up middle class, at least. He has no reason to think of himself as a marginalized inddividual by the time he's twenty.

So far so good, sounds like an all-American toddler with the future ahead of him.

Then Supna says this:

But, when he grows up, and he will grow up Muslim...

What struck me was the absolute ease and confidence with which she said this. It is of course natural for her to say this about her religion and her family. But imagine a few decades ago: would any non-Christian individuals, including Jews who were changing their names to fit into the white Christian country they immigrated to, speak so boldly and uninhibitedly about their religion?

I think this is how indoctrinated we are these days that we talk about, and accept, foreign religions as though they were American as apple pie (or Canadian as maple syrup).

I think we need to start voicing discomfort with, if not abhorrence for, these foreign intrusions into our societies. Korean bows, Muslim upbringings, Asian Americans who put America in danger.

Our world is changing in front of us so subtly, yet so radically, that we are hardly alert to the dangers.

Two Asian American Journalists Were A Danger To The U.S. How About Somali Canadians? Tamil Canadians? Etc.

Euna Lee bowing Korean style. We've already had a Muslim-style bow.

The first thing that struck me about Laura Ling and Euna Lee, recently released from prison in North Korea, was their ethnicity. Laura Ling is of Chinese background and Eune Lee was born in South Korea and came to the U.S. to attend university – and stayed.

Now, why were they interested in going to North Korea, and why did they make that alleged illegal entry? Why is an American of Chinese origin interested in what goes on in North (or South) Korea?

Ling is "Asian", so I presume that she is interested in all things Asian, including trying to penetrate the North Korean dictatorship and help the Asian North Koreans in her journalistic capacity. Lee, of course is more of a South Korean than an American. Plus, she’s a documentary filmmaker, and this story is closely related to the country she recently left behind.

But what does this mean in our global world?

We are seeing Somali men from Canada and the U.S. return to Somalia to get jihad training. In fact, two in Australia were recently arrested for planning terrorist activities there.

In Toronto we had thousands of Tamils blocking a busy highway to protest the Sri Lankan government's military maneuvers against Tamils living in Sri Lanka, and to get the Canadian government to intervene on their behalf.

Are we going to see Indians born in the U.S. or Canada with more interested in what goes on "there" than "here?" I’ve already said that Indian writers certainly do. How about those of Mexican background, Nigerians, Muslims?

Ling and Lee, in their attempt to connect their stories with their ancestral continent, actually put the U.S. in jeopardy. I will go out on a limb and say that this was an aggressive move on their part, like the Tamil protestors on the Gardiner Expressway;

“If you’re not going to do anything about it, since your diplomatic and international relations are opportunistic and don’t save people, we’re just going to precipitate the process,” they seemed to be telling the American government.

One other thing caught my attention. Here are two women, who were obviously taking a big risk in their journeys across (or near) borders to make things better for their fellow-Asians, who are married to white Americans. I wonder how their children grow up – Lee has a daughter? Where will their loyalties lie?

I have already written an article titled, "Ethnic stories, divided loyalties" on Indian writers.

Why Immigration Is A Dangerous National Strategy

Oz Conservative has a post up about an "Ethiopian" living in Candada, who savagely murdered his girlfriend.

Oz Conservative's analysis, on the liberal world view of the reporters of the story, is well worth reading. I've posted a comment under KPAsrat, two comments actually, but the second is a continuation of the first. I  go into the background of the murderer and explain why immigration is a dangerous national strategy.

Why Is Robert Spencer Telling Imams To Stop Believing What They Believe?

I spent a bit of time trying to understand Robert Spencer's latest article at Frontpage Magazine. It took me three trials, as well as going to his website Jihad Watch, to try and figure it out.

Please read Lawrence Auster's elucidation, after the comment I sent him describing my confusion over (and partial understanding of) Spencer's article.

Awan's Victory

Here are some of Canada's conservative pundits and bloggers commenting on the Ezra Levant lawsuit.

From Right Girl:

His Steynship is hosting a fundraiser all day today to deal with the pernicious problem of Khurrum Awan and his hilarious suit against Ezra, wherein Ezra calls the incompetent Awan, er, incompetent.

Kathy Shaidle writes:

Make no mistake: this is not personal. This is another case of SOFT JIHAD.

Beligerent Muslims are using our own societal structure and institutions (like the legal system) to silence their critics.

The soft jihad will not succeed -- but ONLY if we don't weary of the fight, and help each other out.

I KNOW, from personal experience, that this stuff gets depressing and exhausting after a while. So along with giving any money we can, we also need to contribute to keeping each other's morale up.

Jay Currie says:

While the Mohammedan Legal Midget’s threatened lawsuit is sure to provide months of entertainment it all costs money.

Kathy Shaidle is the only one who gets the serious implications of this; the others think it is a combination of entertainment and nuisance. But, Shaidle cedes to depression and exhaution, and group help to boost morale. That's all. This alone shows that Awan has won, unlike her later blog post which Shaidle simply titles: "Mark Steyn: 'We're winning.'"

Of course, she now has to start thinking about alternatives to this "depressing and exhausting" battle, and illuminating her fellow-bloggers on the steps to prevent further Awan-style disruptions from occuring.

One clear-cut and practical way is simply to reduce and reverse Muslim immigration. The fewer Awan's, the fewer lawsuits and other disruptive activity by Muslims that I've been blogging about since the inception of this blog. See the side column under "Action" for well-thought out proposals for these changes in Muslim immigration.