Meet Larry Ratzinger

Just in from Yahoo:

VATICAN CITY—Pope Benedict XVI has invited Muslim envoys to meet with him at his summer residence Monday for what the Holy See says is urgently needed dialogue following the crisis ignited by his remarks on Islam and violence. Turkey

So, what’s ol’ pappy gonna do? Earmark $50 million for a diversity program on Muslim issues? Institute sensitivity training for the College of Cardinals and affirmative action for Muslims in the priesthood? How about an inclusive liturgy?

This is what I’ve been talking about all along, and what virtually all mainstream conservatives in their kneejerk total defense of the pope have been blind to. This is what always happens when a person makes a too-rough statement about a minority or non-Western group that the person is not prepared to defend—he ends up surrendering completely. Yes, strong statements are needed, but only if you are prepared to defend them and absolutely stand by them. To issue a provocative conservative or anti-liberal or anti-PC utterance, and then retreat from it ignominiously, is a disaster. No one should even call himself a conservative or traditionalist who does not understand this.

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A reader writes:

Maybe I am setting the bar really low, but until the Pope starts traveling around with a Vatican paid Muslim envoy, I won’t call it capitulation…Plus, he has unleashed grass roots forces beyond his control within the Catholic and larger Christian community…These folks may have no desire to capitulate

LA replies:

You may be right about the larger effects, but my focus has been on him and his actions.

Reader writes back:

I agree he’s disappointed, but given the state of dhimmitude all around him he’s still better than most non-Muslim religious leaders…Perhaps he’s gaming the Muzzies ? I know, probably just wishful thinking…

From: Jeff in England
Subject: TRYING TO PROVE THAT (Y)OUR CONCLUSIONS SHOULD BE MORE DRASTIC

The Pope’s groveling and apologetic tone is very harmful to the West and gives the world of Islam much encouragement to continue their war against it. It is part of a deeper problem with the West: it doesn’t really want to “win.” It doesn’t really want to stand up for itself. It will rail all day long about Muslim this or that and then continue to allow Islamic immigration. It will moan about extreme Muslims and then continue to allow various Muslim preachers and leaders to rail against it in the most despicable ways. Even its conservative commentators (Larry Auster is an exception) like to come on as tough on Islam but are unwilling to support the complete stopping of Islamic immigration. Like a woman who really wants to be taken, (and I am not saying all women are like this) the West will initiially produce a tough facade with a desire (unconscious perhaps) to submit after a period of sexual interplay. This is just what much of the West is doing. Playing a sick game with itself and the world.

The Pope “scenario” is just one sad variation of this. In competitive sports the second your opponent knows that you don’t really want to win he springs into action to achieve his victory.

The same applies in war. But the West doesn’t acknowledge it is in a war against Islam; instead it plays a game with itself in saying Islam is peaceful and it is only radical Islam that is bad. This is an extremely deslusory game for the West to be playing and one which ensures its defeat.

Islamic culture loves the fact that the West can’t even bring itself to see that Islam itself is an enemy. It is encouraged by that blindness.

The West saw Soviet Communism implode and reacted as if it had defeated it. In fact the Soviet implosion took place despite the best Western efforts to grovel to Communism, despite the hype about Reagan’s toughness. Even the West’s greatest victory, its defeat of Hitler’s Nazi fascism, was accomplished with much Russian help. France capitulated far too quickly. England fought on but morale was low and despite all the propoganda war films we have seen to the contrary, many in Britain were not keen for the fight. America delayed against fighting Hitler to the very last moment and may have delayed even further if we weren’t attacked by Japan. Many in the West had admired or were at best apathetic to Hitler. Despite the fact that Hitler was at war with the Christian West and desiring to destroy it.

The same syndrome applies now. The West does not realise nor want to acknowledge it is in a war against Islam which wants to destroy it. Instead it easier for the West to condemn “Muslim fundamentalist extremists” to reassure itself that some identifiable enemy is being fought.

For the West, it is hard for it to grasp that this is a much tougher war than that against Communism as many more people believe in Islam than ever believed in Communism. Plus the fact that many Muslims are ready to die for Islam.. In addition, Islam has a far more solid foundation than Communism and its roots are far deeper. The Pope perfectly reflects the West’s mentality. Despite his deepest instincts he doesn’t want to acknowledge we are in a war against Islam and Islamic culture. He doesn’t really want conflict. He is too scared truly to confront the enemy. Ditto for Bush despite the bravado, ditto for almost all Westerners. One can debate whether this is the fault of Western liberalism or other factors. It is a debate we need to have: why we grovel, why we do not want to win, why we won’t save our own culture. But more important than that debate is the need to clarify the real enemy and start doing something about it.

LA replies:

I think the answer is simple: if you don’t really believe in your own country, people, civilization, then you won’t have the instinctive reaction to defend it from destruction. You may make moves toward defending it, but they are not whole-hearted. This includes the “neoconservative” form of patriotism, which is a patriotism toward an ideology rather than an actually existing society or nation. Then there are people with no patriotism at all, but anti-patriotism. Melanie Phillips in the Introduction of Londonistan says that for the British, the nation is a source of shame. Once people feel this way, I don’t know what can turn them around.

LA continues:

The thing that is most needful is an instinctive love of Western civilization and Western man. That is the common denomininator of traditionalism.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 22, 2006 06:08 PM | Send