It seems to me that it is a mistake to take this line, no matter how justifiable our bitterness at the way things are going in our country. I think this idea understates just how crazy our Islamist enemies are. Islamist texts written in the 1940s and 1950s already wrote off the United States as hopelessly decadent. The Bin Ladens already hated the America of Truman and Eisenhower. Their diagnosis of “decadence” is based on standards fundamentally different from ours.

Our Arab enemies are murderous and driven by the more barbaric tenets of their false religion. That does not mean that everything they say about us is wrong.

They ridicule us for being a flaccid society. Our tactical victories in Afghanistan and Iraq notwithstanding, there is much to that. Any society that reacts to attacks as murderous as those of September 11th by increasing immigration and tolerating illegal entry is flaccid - unwilling to defend itself in the most fundamental way.

They despise us for our libertinism. Our society is disgracefully libertine and, again, most Americans are powerless to do anything about it - if they are inclined to do anything about it at all, which most are not. Since September 11th, we have become more, not less, libertine. Ours is a government that tells us to stand up for our country by … going shopping.

If the Wahhabi terrorists’ characterization of modern America is “decadent,” then, much as I disagree with them about everything else, I have to agree with them about that. HRS

I can’t laugh off Howard Sutherland’s comments. In my view, “flaccid” is an overly complimentary description of our society. I merely wished to make the point that the basis for the Muslim fanatics’ view of “decadence” is totally different from ours.

I can’t claim to be an expert on what the Arabs think, but I lived in Israel for a while in close promixity to a lot of them. I believe that a great deal of Arab hostility is simple envy at having to face the overwhelming material wealth of the West.

Beyond that, the Arabs also understand that Western culture is pursuing an agenda that will result in the destruction of the family.

To an Arab, family is the most important thing in the world, it is the sole source of identity.
In most Arab countries, when you meet a person, you say: Who is your family? NOT: What do you do?

Arab culture is incapable of transitioning to Western individualism. People who are familar with Arab culture know this, but it will never be reported in Western media because the Marxist
Feminist powers that be won’t allow the subject to be raised.

I have to object to the label “libertarian” here, because, whatever the weaknesses inherent in that philosophy, it is clearly intended for adults. There is absolutely nothing adult about Western popular culture!

The true libertarian wants every man to do as he wishes, as long as he covers his costs. On the contrary, the libertine, very illibertarian modern American has adopted the motto of the corrupt and the infantile: privatize the gains, socialize the costs. You see this everywhere— business, health care, sex, ballparks, etc.

(Marriage has the opposite dynamic, by the way. It privatizes the costs and socializes the gains. Someone should explain this to the pederasts in our midst.)

As far as Araby is concerned, there’s a lot of confusion over who is nuts, them or us. This is especially true in matters of sex. It’s best to think of this in terms of a seesaw, on which neither rider is sitting at the fulcrum. Yes, they lie at one extreme, but we are at the other. They beat their women (who adore them). We spoil our women (who despise us). They’re a corrupt patriarchy, we’re a decadent matriarchy.

(I don’t know where to place the fulcrum— 1950, 1850, 1750— but it ain’t anywhere near 2004!)

If libertarianism means that “every man may do as he wishes, as long as he covers his costs,” then extreme libertarianism can be taken to mean that “every man may do as he wishes, period.” Extreme libertarianism is a libertarianism that has thrown off any limits. And that was the idea I wished to convey.

I’m surprised Mr. Auster hasn’t alerted VFR readers to the three-part interview with Jim Kalb, with exchanges in the comments section, at the website 2blowhards:

http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/001259.html#001259

This is a generally apolitical arts and letters website with a large readership and Mr. Kalb has done a brilliant job of putting forth traditionalist conservative views to an audience that would not otherwise be exposed to them.

I hadn’t linked it yet because I hadn’t yet read it myself. It looks good though.

There is another way we could be said to be a “flaccid” society. Namely, the policy of recruiting large numbers of foreigners into the US Military, which goes with overextending our military commitments. This is how it was with Rome on it’s way down.

I agree that we do not need to become the decadent, self-absorbed society that recognizes no God-ordained limits on man’s behavior. But let’s not forget these people thought we were decadent polytheists that needed to be killed at the height of Christendom. I think there are still some reserves of strength in this country—esp. in rural areas, in the South, etc.—and I’d be happy to let the Islamofascists think that we’re weak when we seem to repeatedly wallop their asses whenever they act up.

I agree with Ron Caesar’s point that we and the Arabs are both nuts on the subject of relations between men and women, and it might even been said that we have nothing to say to each other on that issue. The Arabs, however, have arguably been much crazier for much longer!

Not sure the Islamists have any problem with the War against Christmas. What seems to lash them into foam-flecked frenzy is not homosexuality but the idea that we are Crusaders - I mean, that’s what they call us, “Crusaders,” not “Nancy-boys.”

In any case, let’s not do even a little what many in trembling Europe did in the Middle Ages, when they blamed their own moral failings for the insane slaughters that the Mongols were visiting upon them. The Mongols slaughtered Russians and Poles because the Mongols were merciless barbarians and the Russians and Poles were in the way, and that was all there was to it.

No doubt the Islamists will grasp at any rhetorical angle they can find in order to convince themselves and weak-minded Westerners of the sanctity of their motives, but what they’re really about is murder and nothing else but murder. Their supposed faith would be more plausible if they spent as much energy on that as they do in hatching their bloodthirsty schemes to kill everybody they don’t like today.

As an aside to a point made by Shrewsbury about Islamists and the War on Christmas, I’ve not really seen or heard any remarks from them about the WOC on the USA. In the UK, Muslim groups have commented on the Waffen PC’s program to abolish any vesitige of Christianity there (last year’s hot-cross bun incident being a perfect example). The UK Muslim groups find the liberals’ campaign - whose stated purpose is to keep minorities like them from being offended - absurd and ridiculous. In many, many ways, the enemy within is far worse than the one outside.