Quick Roundup 64

Theodore Dalrymple on Islamic Imperialism

In a blog review of Islamic Imperialism: A History, by Efraim Karsh, Theodore Dalrymple makes quite a few very good points. Among them is the following.

Karsh seems to oscillate between believing that Islamic imperialism is just a variant of imperialism in general ... and believing that there is something sui generis and therefore uniquely dangerous about it.

I hesitate to rush in where so many better-informed people have hesitated to tread, or have trodden before, but I would put it like this. The urge to domination is nearly a constant of human history. The specific (and baleful) contribution of Islam is that, by attributing sovereignty solely to God, and by pretending in a philosophically primitive way that God's will is knowable independently of human interpretation, and therefore of human interest and desire -- in short by allowing nothing to human as against divine nature -- it tries to abolish politics. All compromises become mere truces; there is no virtue in compromise in itself. Thus Islam is inherently an unsettling and dangerous factor in world politics, independently of the actual conduct of many Muslims.

...

The fundamental question is whether Islam as a private faith would still be Islam, or whether such privatization would spell its doom. I think it would spell its doom. In this sense, I am an Islamic fundamentalist. The choice is between all and nothing.

In short, benefit to man's life is not the standard upon which the Islamic politics is built. Not even partly, as it was even for unreformed Christianity. And there is no room in Islam, when push comes to shove (which it always does), for anything but faith (aka "God's will").

Mitt Romney: Marriage Amendment "For the Children"

Borrowing a page from Hugo Chavez, who rationalizes censorship of the news by claiming he does so to protect children from seeing violence, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has sent a letter to the Senate urging its approval of a proposed "defense of marriage" amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In fact, citing a story I blogged about before, in which children in public schools were told -- without parental knowledge of consent -- a fairy tale that ended in a gay marriage, Romney explicitly asks the Senate to ignore the small issue of the rights of the adults who would be affected by this amendment.

Your vote on this amendment should not be guided by a concern for adult rights. This matter goes to the development and well-being of children. I hope that you will make your vote heard on their behalf. [bold added]

I don't condone the state teaching children things against parents' wishes, either, but this is (yet another) reason to get the government out of education. It is most certainly not a reason for even more government intrusion into the private lives of its citizens!

And I could be mistaken in my view that young children should not be exposed to the concept of homosexuality. So what if I am? The government has no business imposing any ideology (even a correct one), be it a theory of psychological development, a political ideology, or a religion. This necessarily means that the government has no business being involved in education.

For even the theories on such things as how best to educate children, what constitutes proper subject matter, and how best to arrive at knowledge in the first place are all based on some ideological perspective by their very nature.

I should not be forced to endorse any of these, have my children used as guinea pigs for any of these, or be involved in making children captive audiences to ideas I oppose.

Romney, then, isn't just asking the Senate to disregard the rights of some adults. He also wants them never even to consider those of children or their parents.

Every time this man opens his trap, he sounds worse than before.

Private Property and Funerals

Recently, the Gaijin Biker reported the passage of federal legislation to stop the odious Fred Phelps and his goons from harassing the funerals of United States servicemen. Today, PigBoatSailor reports that Phelps's church is being sued by the father of one of the deceased, and comments that:

Sadly, I will venture a guess that this probably won't fly, as the Phelps crew, being peopled by a large percentage of lawyers, was probably on public property and therefore will more than likely be safe from the invasion of privacy charge.

I'm afraid that he's right on that count. This looks to me like just another case in which a far smaller government -- in the form of fully privatized roads, parks, etc. -- would make it far easier for ordinary citizens to live their own lives in peace.

Why would we need a law especially to stop Phelps (And I'm not completely sure we do, even now.) when he could get arrested or deterred by good old-fashioned trespassing charges instead? Heck, nobody would even know who Fred Phelps is!

World Cup Predictions

In the spirit of the season, I pass on some World Cup predictions I learned about via Isaac Schrodinger. Things look bad for the Yanks in that set of predictions, but I already expected that.

-- CAV