Redstate

Paul,

would you define, either in a comment or expand upon length in a diary, what your definition of the West is?

You mention the torch of Democracy in this piece, but surely as a (Federalist-paper wielding) conservative you would prefer a Republic over the mere process and mechanism of the voting process (I suspect that your discomfiture at the outcome of the Palestinian elections exceeds mine, though mine is not negligible).

I will make my bias plain; I distrust raw democracy. I prefer checks and balances, with equal balance between the will of the people and the wisdom of the elites. I have long argued and agreed that the 17th Amendment is the root source of the corruption of our Republic, which may surprise you given my ostensibly "Liberal" leanings.

But your wider thesis is about the West, as a civilization that exists separate and apart from Islam, and my own thoughts have recently turned towards that construct as well, because I so often see "The West" invoked as the source of many principles which I understood to be universal; there is clearly a disconnect and to understand it I must know just what, specifically, you are laying claim to.

So, I ask: What is teh West: Who is the West? What are the West's founding principles? What qualities are neccessary AND sufficient to classify a people or a nation as Western?

Regarding your point about the "unity of culture" present in the U.S. when The Federalist was written--doesn't the fact of slavery somewhat undermine your point about cultural unity? There were at least two cultures present in the U.S. at the time.

I'm glad to hear that you are on-broad with repealing the 17th.

And yes: you are right in guessing that I am a republican more than a democrat, but as I have admitted elsewhere, the term Democracy has acquired a whole mass of other concepts that attach to it in the American mind. That's why I capitalize it.

But even in a republic, where the power of the demos is channelled and checked, the preponderate majority must eventually prevail, unless we prefer the philosophy of John Calhoun (and let us not plunge into folly and dismiss that philosophy as mere apologia for slavery) to Lincoln.

As for your tremendous question, What is the West? I can hardly offer a satisfactory answer in a comment, a diary, or probably even a book. Instead I'll defer to Lawrence Brown, who in his unjustly neglected masterpiece The Might of the West, defined the West as the descendents of the Roman Catholics of 1500. I think that a sufficiently functional and provocative definition as to encourage fruitful discussion.

In truth the fact of slavery strengthens my point, for slavery was indeed the original sin of America, and a poisonous rupture in our unity. Many of the founding fathers knew this. In the end, it required a bloody war of brother against brother to extirpate.

Slavery and the Civil War only demonstrate the importance of unity, and the prescience of those who sought to achieve it for us.

"descendents of the Roman Catholics of 1500"

Paul, this will not suffice to encourage discussion at all. Geneaological descendents? Intellectual? Theologic? All of the above?

The definition is so broad as to be useless. I have come to respect your views as a man committed to defending his nation; but if you cannot define the West in your own words, you will cede the argument to those who will define it for you.

You must define the West for your arguments - taken as a collective whole, not piecemeal - to have significance.

I request that you take the time to reply in detail on this matter - a diary would be most appropriate. I have and will take you seriously enough to spend not inconsiderable amount of my own free time responding to your own queries (for example, my email to you on the matter of the Qurayzah), and I hope that I have earned the right to be taken in equal seriousness by you. If not, then say it plainly so that I may stop wasting both our time.

and Yankees and Southerners both were overwhelmingly English-speaking low church Protestants of British extraction.  

I did not intend to be glib. I think Brown's definition a good one. I have used it in published writings. Another way he formulates it is to ask, What is the relationship of the Roman Catholic Church of 1500 to Western Civilization? The relationship is one of absolute identity. As I wrote (linked above), "The Roman Church of 1500 was Western Civilization. That the West subsequently diverged from the Church is both indisputable and irrelevant, for the great bulk of the groundwork had been accomplished, and even what had not yet been was quite inconceivable without what had."

Another question to be considered is when the West began as a separate unity. For a very long time the West was sort attached, like child to parent, to the Classical civilization, especially since that civilzation had become Christian. Augustine stands as the central figure marking the initial break with Classical (i.e., Greek) civilization, for his historiography constituted a complete break. Aquinas figures prominently, for absorbing Aristotle into Christianity. But the adulthood of the West was not achieved until the casuality of Classical civilization was finally abandoned, beginning in the high Middle Age. Thus, 1500 becomes a good date to designate the full maturity of the West, before the inevential decline has begun.

As for your further question, "Geneaological descendents? Intellectual? Theologic? All of the above?" -- the answer is indeed all of the above.

I'll note that the phrase "the West" does not even appear in this essay; its subject is more precisely America. So I don't think I can give much credit to your demands for my own definition of the West.

This is an excellent entry, and covers the domestic negligence well. Profiling is one example of the lack of seriousness exhibited in 'Homeland Security.' But even abroad, the same weakness is on display. The fear of collateral damage to innocents means that too many of our warfighters must die or live with permanent damage. There is no political will to fight an agressive campaign with victory as its objective. Instead, we are trying to 'win the hearts and minds'. This is not a winning strategy.

However, it is unclear to me how much of this is attributable to the failure of the Right to think clearly, and how much is a product of the ability of the Left to set the national agenda. How much is truly possible? If we were to 'cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war' would public support for the war wane?

In Blogdom, it is easy to forget that those who influence both policymakers and policy implementers are leftist not only in political philosophy (salvation through government), but in culture (multiculturalism), economics (redistributionism and state intervention) and religion (material fundamentalism).

There are two facets of this problem. One is that many Republicans, including the President (and his adminstration), are contaminated by this worldview because it dovetails with the zeitgeist. For GWB, it appears to him to be compassionate. Never mind the injustice institutionalized by the government.

The second facet is that even when policymakers adopt improvements, implementers can thwart those reforms. The bureaucratic empires of, e.g. the State Dept., and others in DC are not about to relinquish their imperial prerogatives just because the American people vote for the wrong person or party.

The difficult questions are: Can we restore the health of our system? How do we deal with a Left for whom honor and duty are pejorative terms?

And what about Republicans like McCain? McCain has done more damage than the combined efforts of all the Democrats in the Senate. Who would have guessed that we would see McCain betray the Constitution with CFR, or spearhead the extension of Constitutional rights to the ruthless butchers of Al Qaeda?

How do we return patriotism to public school curricula? How do we drain the Marxist fever swamps in Academia? Is our national disease amnesia, or Alzheimer's? Do we have a model of anyone in all of history accomplishing this kind of reorientation? If so, we ought to study it and apply its lessons immediately.

That would be CAUSALITY.

...slave culture and white culture.

I think your original statement might have been inaccurate.  Specifically, there were very few restrictions on immigration prior to 1921.  No Asians were allowed, but essentially everyone else was (the only exceptions were for disease, and these standards were notably lax, with only 2% of potential immigrants turned away).  So in truth, immigration policy was only shaped by "cultural unity" since 1921.

...of George MacDonald Fraser's comment that (I paraphrase) the Civil War was the natural result of two distinct groups of people waking up one morning and discovering that they had wildly differing opinions of what, precisely, the United States was to be.

No real comment otherwise; I was just struck by the thought and it seems relevant enough to the general discussion.

Then the decline roughly dates from the Protestant Reformation. And since the American political tradition essentially emerges from the Reformation, there is a suggestion in which the founding was a consequence and a contributor to that decline.

I do recognize that your essay does not mention the west. But your narrative either ignores or erases the Enlightenment heritage of the American Founding. In so doing, I think you ignore the one thing that makes the US and the West worth defending from its enemies, who are, make no mistake, enemies of that Enlightenment and understand themselves that way.

I don't see why the position you seem to take doesn't succumb to raw identity politics based on irreducible difference, and thus does inevitably lead to a clash of civilization. I fear this as well, but to me the sides are aligned differently. Marxists, fascists, post-modernists (Western ideologies, of course) and fundamentalists all deny the relevance of reason, and thus oppose modernity in all its manifestations, including its political ones.

Interesting post, and I think I share your general sentiment, but I am not so sure it is as philosophical as all of that.  One comment hit on perhaps a better word: zeitgeist.

Most politicians don't do what they do because of philosophy per se but rather because of concrete interests combined with perceived notions of what the reaction to their actions will be.  On immigration issues, and those dealing with Muslims, most on the right are not thinking within a right-wing liberalism so much as acting in fear of big business and the media.

There isn't a embedded theory, I don't believe, that prevents those on the right from calling for a moratorium on Muslim immigration so much as a belief that any such proposal would cause a hellacious media backlash that would poison GOP advances in minority communities for years.

It is worth pointing out that much of this speculation is wrong or could be skillfully handled in such a way as gain ground or at least minimize damage, but perception is key in politics.

Maybe the folks at the Wall Street Journal have some sort of right-wing liberalism going, but IMHO a great many others on the right just want to avoid ugly media battles on seemingly intractable issues.

The Reformation was the first explosion that augured decline, though we should not discount the failures of the Roman Church, which provoked the Reformation.

And since the American political tradition essentially emerges from the Reformation, there is a suggestion in which the founding was a consequence and a contributor to that decline.

The American political tradition owes much to the Reformation. But how much it owes to the Enlightenment has been, in my view, vastly overstated. For example, the man who most obviously embodied the Enlightenment in America -- Jefferson -- had little to do with the Constitution itself. And the Revolution that most obviously embodied the Enlightenment -- the French -- was repudiated by Americans, and its agents subjected to fierce legal prohibitions.

Marxists, fascists, post-modernists (Western ideologies, of course) and fundamentalists all deny the relevance of reason, and thus oppose modernity in all its manifestations, including its political ones.

I certainly don't deny the relevance of Reason, but I also recognize that Reason alone gave us the slaughter of the twentieth century.

I will ask no one to fight and die for so mixed a blessing as modernity.

Like Aziz, I'm interested in your definitions. What is "moral law"?

The existence of such a thing strikes me as a profoundly suspect premise.

While Jefferson is most associated with the Enlightenment, I would certainly add Franklin, Hamilton, and Madison to the list of important founders who ought to be considered Enlightenment figures.

I think the role of the Enlightenment in the American founding is a pretty big debate in academic circles that has a lot to do with how one defines "Enlightenment". If we have a broad understanding of that term (to include its Scottish and German elements in addition to the French ones, and we also include Locke, Trenchard and Gordon, Montesquieu and even Shaftesbury and Edmund Burke, it would be difficult to find any non-Enlightenment figures who were prominent influences.

The one thing that makes our society worth defending?  

I'm interested in defending the west not because it fathered the so-called Enlightenment or because it embodies the Enlightenment more fully than other civilizations.  Even without the contributions of a few philosophers and agitators, there would still be much to defend:  Bach, Palestrina, French food, Shakespeare, Chartres, the saints and spirits and languages, and all the millions of people and hundreds of societies that made what we loosely refer to as the west, or preferably, if archaically, Latin Christendom.  I would defend it because it birthed me.  I'm not so openminded that I refuse to take my own side in an argument, and I care nothing for some Jacobin project of ideological homegenization that must encompass the entire world to avoid self-contradiction.

Them's a lot of big words.

I have some questions, so that I might come to a mutual clarity on your subject.

I am confused slightly by your term "unity". The gist of your post would seem to indicate that allowing tax-paying, business-owning Arabs to remain in the country would be done with some reluctance. When you speak of "unity", are you speaking of the expectation of immigrants to assimilate to the cultural hegemony, which I can't say I'm necessarily against, or do you mean it more in the sense that we should expel non-European/Western-types completely? I would assume that the more rational point would be the former, but there is that undercurrent of tone that seems to indicate that you might disbelieve in the non-Europeans ability to assimilate themselves into a western society at all, and because of their tendencies to form non-integrated communities, they should be expelled. Or do you believe this only for Arabs? I realize that my words here might sound like I'm pulling the racist card, but let me clarify that it's not my intention at all. I believe that RACISM requires an actual dislike or intolerance for particular groups of individuals, and that harboring a belief that a group may or may not fit into a particular community or system is not inherently racist. I can't pretend to have insight into your underlying mindset. I'm just trying to clarify.

Additionally, I would enjoy seeing reports on how many individuals in the United States have been killed in our country BY Arabs, as opposed to the numbers by other groups of immigrants that come into our country, illegally or otherwise. I will admit that 9/11 gave us a spectacular singular example of Arabic murder. Nearly 3,000 people were  killed overall in those attacks. But oddly enough, in 2001, we managed to kill 16,037 of our own people outside of crashing planes. Perhaps Arab violence would have been more palatable had they simply engaged in a more measured and personal method of killing 3,000 people? Except for the statistical anomoly, we might not have even noticed.

Personally, I work with a number of Arabs who have immigrated to this country, from Iraq, Syria, and Palestine. And I work with even more Muslims, like Persians, Pakistanis, Indians. I don't fear for my life, but I do fear for their lost opportunity, and the positive exposure of our culture that they bring home with them. Last I checked, we weren't in the business of blaming an entire people for the sins of a few. After all, you're well-educated, and probably white, and you're not in jail for embezzlement. And neither am I.

But your vision of the West is one of nostalgia more than one that recognizes its current realities and triumphs. And if so, what are you defending other than a memory or a hollow tradition?

Believe me, I know defending the Enlightenment is not fashionable in this day and age, and perhaps I too am defending little more than a memory. And I recognize the way in which the skepticism of the Enlightenment generates its own excesses. Even so, I find either the mysteries of medieval world view or the various barbarisms of the post-modern world have much less appeal than the fundamental Enlightenment claim that the world is comprehensible.

claim that all, or perhaps "merely" most, of human existence is rationally comprehensible just isn't true ?  

the 'left' with the 60's era radicals on the fringe of the Democratic Party. In this mindset, the 'liberals' are 'cheese eating surrender monkeys' in terms of foreign policy. They are appeasers whose first reaction is to surrender.

The Republicans/conservatives, on the other hand, are the muscular nationalists who are seeking to protect America.

As you pointed out in your article, this dichotomy is false. Standard liberals were at the root of almost every American war of the 20th Century. Wilson in WWI, FDR in WWII, Truman in Korea, Johnson in Vietnam, and Clinton in the Balkans. Republicans either inherited existing conflicts (Eisenhower and Nixon) or engaged in very minor conflicts (Grenada). Only Bush I substantially departed from this model with two major actions, one in Panama and Desert Storm. But, then again, I don't know anyone that would confuse Bush I with a conservative, so may be his wars are Standard Liberal wars, just with a different party affiliation.

Standard liberals have traditionally been pro-war, and unafraid to play the nationalism card. In fact, as many writers including Hayek have pointed out, nationalism is the last phase of socialist thinking.

What has happened in the past 10 years, is that the Republican Party and its current 'big government conservatism' has actually begun to sound like Hubert Humphrey Democrats. Hawkish on foreign policy, pro-immigrant, and into big, expensive programs at home to cure all that ails you.

I don't care much for this transition. Unfortunately, the charicatures present in our political debate prevent Republicans from seeing how far we have slid from being a small government, conservative party. Hawkishness and nationalism alone do not prove that one is not a 'liberal.'

Thanks for this post. May be it will attract some positive debate.

Paul,

I am generally a pro-immigration conservative, and I do believe that part of what makes us strong as a country is the fact that we are a melting pot. (I use the term "melting pot" in the sense that it has been used historically in American culture until recently, a concept that assumes that there will be assimilation of immigrants.  Your post seems unwilling to acknowledge a difference between a "melting pot" and the "diversity for diversity's sake" multiculturalists.)

At the same time, I have no problem whatsoever discriminating against Muslim immigrants, for two reasons:  (1) we are in a war against radical Muslims, and we still don't completely understand the nature of our enemy (e.g. are the truly moderate, peace-loving Muslims 10% of the Muslim population or 90%), and (2) there is very little doubt that it is harder for Muslims to fully integrate into a culture that is still (thankfully) predominately characterized by Judeo-Christian values.

My problem with your post is that you do exactly what you accuse liberals of -- you make the "glib assumption that [your view of conservatism] constitutes the only reasonable voice."  You overstate your case, unfairly brand anyone who disagrees as a closet "Liberal" and insult many sincere and deep thinking conservatives in the process.

Furthermore, your philosophical premise scares me to death!  Who is supposed to define who is a "subversive" in order to limit their free speech.  And if Islam itself is our enemy (not just radical, violent Islam), why not deny freedom of religion as well?  And why stop with just illegal Muslim immigrants or even legal Muslim immigrants?  Why not kick out (or put in concentration camps) all Muslims?  I'm not saying you are proposing to go that far, but your philosophical premise could lead to such a result.  I'm all for a more forceful security posture in our country, but I'm not willing to throw out the First Amendment, which I consider to be the bedrock of our freedoms and an indispensable part of the culture you clearly love.

I suppose you are trying to shock a segment of the conservative blogosphere into taking seriously the problems of Muslim immigration.  But the effect (at least for me) is the opposite.  Instead of drawing me into an honest conversation about the issue, you make me defensive from the get-go.

The thing I have liked the most about RedState is the rational discussion of issues in a way that acknowledges legitimate differences among conservatives, without unfairly demeaning those conservatives who disagree.  Your post struck me as a violation of this principle.

I suspect I am not alone, even among the editors of RedState.

It leads us, I think, back to the horrors of relativism. But what are the reasons for believing that human existence is not comprehensible? What would an answer to the question look like?

I do find it interesting that the place to look for the revival of medieval mysticism (though of course not in the same form) would be in the post-modernism of Derrida, Foucault, and Rorty.  

however, it is up to the United States to decide who can immigrate to this country and who can not. It is also up to the United States to decide who can study here, and who can not, or who can work here and who can not.

First of all, I think you overstate the case of exposure to America having a positive impact on non-Americans. I am a citizen of the U.S., but I have spent much of my adult life living in Europe. I have met tons of Europeans and Muslims who did educational or work stints in the U.S. who came back home rabidly anti-American.

Why? Our culture can be inhospitable to those from traditional backgrounds, and our society is frequently offensive for religious traditionalists. I have met more than one Muslim in Europe who never hated America until he attended Princeton. The fact that anti-American imans and college professors are more than happy to preach radicalism to them doesn't help the situation, either.

So, to keep the gates open as a kind of 'outreach' is unlikely to have much impact. The question is - what benefit does the U.S. derive from Muslim immigrants as opposed to non-Muslim immigrants?

I would argue that the risks of Muslim immigrants are simply too high. As seen in Europe, Muslim immigrants have a history of non-assimiliation and of violence against the majority. They also have a history of intolerance for others, and when an area goes predominately Muslim, non-Muslims see their rights severely restricted. In addition, the religion of Islam does not see a separation of religion from state, meaning that even if your friends are well-meaning, their children may end up campaigning for the Sharia to be imposed on Muslim areas.

All in all, I don't see an upside here. If we need more workers, then we can draw from the entire non-Muslim world. If we draw from Latin American or European sources, we can have workers whose religious and cultural presuppositions are at least close to those of our own, in many respects.

This is not to say that Muslim citizens or legal residents should be stripped of their rights. This only says that as a people, we can control our borders.

When I am in Poland (the country where my family came from in the 60's and the native country of my wife), I make the same argument (in Polish, of course) only from a perspective of Polish national rights.

this doesn't pass the laugh test on a lot of levels and we've argued enough for me to know that you know better.

Are you seriously contending that FDR as at the root of WW II? That Truman had any option in Korea? I'd further argue that Johnson's only sin in Vietnam was in its prosecution. So from this menagerie we're left with Wilson and Clinton fighting elective wars.

We're also ignoring the rampant use of the US military under that noted liberal Teddy Roosevelt, the essential occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934, the non-stop intervention in Nicargua between 1909 and 1933.

So I am at a loss, if that is a criteria, to find a single "conservative" president in the past century.

to which I cannot devote the attention it merits.

First, I would not state that abandoning the myth of the complete intelligibility of existence casts us back upon the shoals of relativism.  To abandon that myth is only to abandon the idea that a disincarnate reason, abstracted from the particularities of the experiences of a given culture, or modelled after the fashion of the methods of the sciences, is the sole, or pre-eminent discourse by which we may approach and apprehend the truth.  

Second, the answer to the question of what an incompletely comprehensible human existence would look like is that it would look rather like the world we live in: a world in which a totalizing explanation, which would, of necessity, be reductive at some point, can only be experienced as in some respect dehumanizing.

Third,  I demur from the idea that postmodernists have revived, in some sense, the mysticism of the medievals, whatever that is taken to mean.  Postmodernists have merely completed an epoch in the history of Western thought that began when nominalism posited will as the supreme attribute of God, and was extended over the centuries in various doctrines related to human nature, until, at last, in the Enlightenment, we are told, "Dare to Know!"  Know what?  That we are autonomous, and must will this autonomy as the badge of our maturity.  All postmodernism did was remove the subterfuge from the Enlightenment, which assumed that autonomous men would all think largely alike.

the West (i)s the descendents of the Roman Catholics of 1500.

So from the West we should exclude Einstein, Freud, et al? Hitler was a descendant of the Catholics of 1500. And is Brazil part of the West, being a descendant of Roman Catholics of 1500? How about Angola?

and I mean that seriously. So, I have little to say about your third comment, except to say that my ambitions for human understanding are a bit more modest and of the shopkeeper variety. I don't believe that human reason is capable of comprehending God, nor can it disprove God's existence. It is, though, I think capable of understanding its own existence, of knowing what is good and what is the good life. It is from position that various cultural practices can be criticized as inhuman, or anti-human.

I do not mean to identify all opponents of the Enlightenment as like one another. But there are signficant continuities between the nihilism of Islamo-fascism and the nihilism of post-modernism.  And there are also links between the medievalism of contemporary Islam and our own medieval past.

The continuities between post-modernism and western medievalism center on the claim that knowledge is all in our head. Frankly, it isn't medievalism that I have a real problem with. Rather, it is the reactionary nostalgia that I find troubling.  

As to your first comment, I do think this human comprehensibility is not the product of pure reason, or that what it means to be human can be abstracted from what, for lack of a better word, is called culture. Nevertheless, science, in the broad sense of the term is the best tool we have telling us what is.  

On your second comment, I think that observation is important for all of us to keep in mind, since we know that the totalizing path is worse than any conceivable alternative. My account of the Enlightenment is a plural, though not relativistic one.

What I am trying to say is that you can't really be said to be defending the West unless your are willing to defend its Enlightenment.

...but not necessarily commenting (yet, at least) on Paul's post:  saying that we should tailor immigration based on generalizations of the country/area of origin is, I think, quite a far cry from some of the other things you mention: concentration camps, regulating religion, etc.   I think the point was made that tailoring of immigration limits was done for at least a period of 1920-ish to 1965, was it?  I don't think there was massive internments and religious persicution due to the immigration policy thereof.

Yes yes, WWII internments.  However, I think we can agree it's not a de facto result of immigration policy?

I think Paul raises a very valuable discussion -- there merits of which I, again, am not yet prepared to discuss directly, but in-line with the self-censoring of Press from Islam, is there an invalid (and that's a big part of the discussion) self-censoring going on with respect to the aims of liberalism -- have the "conservatives" drifted along for the ride so far as to be right-of a much "lefter" center?

Immigration policy is more of a sort of "second derivative" -- affecting rate of change -- rather than, as I would see it, interments being the function itself.

The question could be put, perhaps, more succinctly: (Classical) Liberalism to what end?  Liberalism for liberalism's sake?  Or because there's something valuable in it.

Despite your hectoring tone, I will try to answer your questions.

Lineage can me more than simple generics. For example, I count myself in the lineage of the American founders, though most of my ancestors came to these shores long after the generation of the founders had passed away.

Yes we do count Einstein and Freud. The former was a key though late participant in one of the greatest achievements of the West: the development of a true science of causality based on observation; while the latter was among the great rebels against the West, and part of the greatest rebellion in thought against the West -- the rebellion against Saint Augustine.

Hitler? What can be said about Hitler? The most wicked of all revolutionaries, the cruelest of tyrants, wildest of delusionals. All are true and more.

Brazil certainly retains a connection to the West, though it may one day be that it joins in the succession of the West, much as, say, Gaul joined the succession of Rome.

It is, though, I think capable of understanding its own existence, of knowing what is good and what is the good life.

That is, as you have the grace to admit, rather nostalgic in its own right, for the 18th century.  What is the Enlightenment account of the good life known by pure reason that does not rest either on unacknowledged traditions or simple assertions of will?

The continuities between post-modernism and western medievalism center on the claim that knowledge is all in our head.

Unpack this a bit, please.  I think I know what you mean, but the choice of the word "knowledge" seems inapposite.  Of course knowledge is in our heads.  Do you mean the impossibility of direct knowledge of things-in-themselves?  That's not a position one typically associates with the middle ages, but with Kant and his successors.  But perhaps I misunderstand.  

Frankly, it isn't medievalism that I have a real problem with. Rather, it is the reactionary nostalgia that I find troubling.

How so?

The fear of collateral damage to innocents means that too many of our warfighters must die or live with permanent damage.

The Bush Administrtion recognized early on that the small number of terrorists had to be separated from the vast majority of non-terrorists in order to create a democracy.  Too much collateral damage would create lots of dead civilians would create lots of terrorists would create lots of Coalition casualties.  By minimizing collateral damage we give our troops the best possible chance of survival.  And by any standard, the military casualties have been miniscule in historical terms, seeming to justify the policy.

Twice at least you have referred to the "mysteries" of the mediaeval world. Yes, there were mysteries, as there are mysteries today, though we being possessed by some of them, do not realize it.

But the Mediaeval world had reason to. I am often astonished by how men talk about the mediaevals as a bunch of irrationalists or even savages, as if a society of savages could have produced Aquinas. To read Aquinas is to be held at attention by one of the great masters of human reason.

In truth men forget about Aquinas because they know he was also a real saint, and thus one who knew and loved the Lord Jesus; thus they reveal that, to them, God must be the enemy of reason when in fact He is the author of it.

Paul, I'm with your tortured expose of neo-conservatism (right-wing liberalism) until you indict the Founding Fathers with the original sin of slavery. It's the trip wire for modern conservatives who while they respect Washington, Jefferson and Hamilton, yet place an astoric before their names out of some sort of placation to modernity. Shame on you.

I see it differently. Slavery in America was a tutalage for a specific group of Africans. In less than 300 years (and less than 100 for the United States proper) the net effect was 4 million emancipated blacks were transported through 6000 years of civilization  to "the greatest nation on Gods green earth" to quote neo-con Micheal Medved. In short, slavery is a net gain to any black "American". 750 thousand whites who perished in the US civil war notwithstanding.

Slavery was not an "original sin". It was a "gift" lest you think the Ivory Coast is historically more beneveloent than George Washington.

And any black American today when asked if he/ she would go back in time and stop the slave trade is faced with the proposition of truth.

"But the Mediaeval world had reason TOO."

I'm butterfingers on the keyboard today.

Props for being able to say such an absurd thing with a straight post.  This is the craziest ends-justify-the-means argument I've ever read, and that says quite a lot.  Slavery was a gift, eh?  So I suppose if we put shackles on you with the promise that eight generations later your descendents will be better off than they would otherwise, that's alright by you?

The gist of your post would seem to indicate that allowing tax-paying, business-owning Arabs to remain in the country would be done with some reluctance. When you speak of "unity", . . . or do you mean it more in the sense that we should expel non-European/Western-types completely? . . . there is that undercurrent of tone that seems to indicate that you might disbelieve in the non-Europeans ability to assimilate themselves into a western society at all, and because of their tendencies to form non-integrated communities, they should be expelled. Or do you believe this only for Arabs? . . . I can't pretend to have insight into your underlying mindset. I'm just trying to clarify.

Well after that amazing little tissue of innuendo, let me clarify it for you: A Muslim is not necessarily an Arab, and it is simply a mistake (and a foolish and dangerous one at that) to even imply otherwise. I have not raised the issue of race; not once; for the rather strange reason that I think it irrelevant to the question posed in my essay.

Islam is a religion; and its members include men of a great many races. As a demographic fact, a majority (I believe) of the Arabs in America are Christians -- descendents of those driven from their own countries by Muslim rulers.

In addressing "right-wing Liberalism" you assume the existence of "left-wing Liberalism", and your discussion is focused on the difference between the two.  Your premise is flawed, big time.

American radicals and socialists began calling themselves "liberals". - F.A. Hayek, 1960.

If you go back through your post and substitute the phrase "radicals and socialists" everywhere you wrote "Liberal", you will be much closer to the truth, but your post no longer makes any sense to you, just as it makes no sense to me.

Socialists and radicals recognize no "moral law", and are more interested in promoting "a wicked or tyrannical majority" than not.  "Abuse of ... rights" is characteristic of socialists and radicals, while "enthusiasm for liberty with an appreciation for order" and "virtue" are not.

We cannot define ourselves in terms acceptable to radicals and socialists, nor should we define ourselves in terms opposed to radicals and socialists.  But the values of the Republican Party are much closer to the liberal values of the Enlightenment, and that is where we should seek our definition of ourselves.  

Jaszkowski makes some interesting comments, but they are ancillary to the point of my essay.

... can view slavery as anything other than one of the biggest abominations of the human spirit (secondary only to genocide to my mind) is simply beyond my comprehension.

There was nothing redeeming about slavery. No bright side. No mitigating factors. No shades of gray. Only the abyss.

Men are fallen creations. We sin individually and collectively. As such, I do not look at our country as deserving more shame than others. The founding fathers, despite this monstrousity that they bought off on (and in some cases participated in), were great men who accomplished great things, and many were much more enlightened about the liberty of all men than was the norm in the world of the day.

So perhaps I too am guilty of "indicting" the founding fathers for their complicity in the abomination of slavery. I still wouldn't trade them for any other country's founders.

But they screwed up with slavery. And the country has paid for the screw up deeply. Paid in the blood of slaves and of soldiers. Paid in unbelievable financial costs. Paid in the cost of turbulent racial relations. And that is beyond the betrayal of our founding principles of liberty.

Yes, indeed it is.  It seems pretty tough for a modern conservative to bring it up without verbally shooting themselves in the leg.  It is sometimes a visibly labored task.

Slavery may have ended a long time ago, but there are still many survivors of the cross burnings, police beatings, segregation, lynchings, and church burnings.  Their direct descendants have no doubt been told the stories.  Memories don't die so quickly.  Taking the approach that it was ancient history can be very offensive to people, and understandably so.

And worst thing you can do is try to gloss over it as your post did.  It's just plain insulting.

But it does seem that all our 20th c. Presidents would qualify as liberal in your sense in one way or another.

I'm certainly no expert on St. Thomas Aquinas or Thomism, but I would certainly include him in a narrative of what I would consider the development of Western Modernity.

To say the least, was a revolutionary figure, and it is difficult to imagine a West or an Enlightenment without his influence.

Furthermore, your philosophical premise scares me to death!  Who is supposed to define who is a "subversive" in order to limit their free speech.

SOMEONE has to define it. There must be a sovereign in any polity. As I said above to Aziz, I am a republican. I believe that in the end, the people should rule. There are wise checks on the passions of the people, but in the end they must rule.

My problem with your post is that you do exactly what you accuse liberals of -- you make the "glib assumption that [your view of conservatism] constitutes the only reasonable voice."

That is probably a just criticism. I wrote polemically, no doubt. But I do think that an American Conservative must be a republican, and that on the issues of national identity the republic has settled against the liberalized immigration regime we live under. Furthermore, I think that the best way that pro-immigration Conservatives could show us some seriousness is on the specific point of Muslim immigration; and therefore I content myself to cheer your statement here:

At the same time, I have no problem whatsoever discriminating against Muslim immigrants, for two reasons:  (1) we are in a war against radical Muslims, and we still don't completely understand the nature of our enemy (e.g. are the truly moderate, peace-loving Muslims 10% of the Muslim population or 90%), and (2) there is very little doubt that it is harder for Muslims to fully integrate into a culture that is still (thankfully) predominately characterized by Judeo-Christian values.

...haven't gotten to the place where, in the past, our country decided to bring things back into balance.

Under Liberalism -- and only under Liberalism -- we might. Liberalism hypothesizes that diversity is, in the end, of greater value than security or liberty; and the right-Liberal, while perhaps not expressly subscribing to such a dogma, is, in virtue of his tincture by Liberalism, quite insufficiently prepared to refute it. We could draw out similar analyses of right-Liberalism on other specific policies questions. The question of free speech for subversives. The question of toleration of an alien religion penetrated by some significant faction of madmen. The related and uncomfortable question of a plausibly threatening minority. In all cases, it is latter-day Liberalism and not the authentic American tradition of political thought that hampers our efforts. Thus the right-Liberalism of today, much like the anti-Communist Liberalism of the twentieth century, while firm and even aggressive in pursuing our enemy abroad, is negligent in confronting the domestic agents of this enemy.

I think back to the days of McKinley (ah, yes, I remember them well. Not really, but I have read a lot about the era). It was a period of turmoil in quite a few places in the world. And then, bang, our President assassinated by, essentially, an anarchist terrorist. There were other infamous murders committed by anarchists, too. It seemed to be a disease of the mind which was spreading. It seemed to be growing, and attacking from uncoordinated cells (of perhaps just lone individuals, or pairs) sharing a common creed.

Sounds familiar to me.

I believe it was Teddy Roosevelt who basically had our laws changed so that anarchists could not even enter the country (and made it a crime for them to lie about it to gain entry-- punishable by jail, or deportation).

I think that that prohibition might even still be on the books, even if not enforced any longer. Or maybe it was removed sometime subsequent. I do not know.

But what I do know is that the country decided, after a while of watching what was happening and perhaps not quite grasping the threat at first, to protect itself. And it did so. Not without some difficulty, but not extremely difficult either.

In my opinion, the ideal form of government is the tried and true "nation-state." The only problem is the "nation" part, which implies a strong bond between its citizens.

The further away we go from that, the more impossible it becomes to operate an effective state.

Not all immigration is equal; someone from Britain can adapt pretty easily to the US and already will share much culturally. A Mexican peasant or Muslim fundamentalist might not.

I must confess that it isn't as if I have all this worked out--a full defense of the Enlightenment is a project beyond my current abilities. And I'm probably guilty of hyperbole when I said that it was the one thing worth defending. I do want to suggest, however, that in our conflict with Islamo-fascism, the Enlightenment is what we our defending. Our ability to share the earth with Islam will depend on whether or not Islam can make its peace with modernity. As many in the West have their own problems with this, I am not optimistic. I find it curious that this defense of the West seems at best reluctant to include modernity, so what we seem to have is a kind of medieval conflict with nuclear weapons.

What is the Enlightenment account of the good life known by pure reason that does not rest either on unacknowledged traditions or simple assertions of will?

I would begin such an account with an account of what a human being is. It isn't as if we have no idea--and of course our culture is a part of that story. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness  is part of it. I think the assertion of the individual will, as you describe it might be part of it as well, though I would instead describe it as an individual choosing from among a finite set of accounts of the good.

Unpack this a bit, please.  I think I know what you mean, but the choice of the word "knowledge" seems inapposite.  Of course knowledge is in our heads.  Do you mean the impossibility of direct knowledge of things-in-themselves?  That's not a position one typically associates with the middle ages, but with Kant and his successors.  But perhaps I misunderstand.

I didn't put that well. I don't mean the impossibility of direct knowledge of things-in-themselves. I probably should have used reason--and the idea I'm trying to get across (again, this is far from worked out in my own mind) is that the post-modernist refusal to privilege reason as a way of knowing seems rather close to a medieval view. I think Paul's point of considering Aquinas is well taken, however, and I may need to reconsider this point.

How so?

I don't think we can blame medievals for being medieval. I do think we know more than they do, and while the move to modernity comes at a price, it is a price worth paying. It certainly doesn't do to romanticize the past. I think the view that the west has declined is based on a romanticized view.

the Holocaust was a net benefit for the Jews since rather than a continued existence as a marginalized, (probably) persecuted diaspora they are now a viable, stable, etc. state.  While there may be a debatable point for some preternaturally objective, dispassionate philosophers you'll just end up looking like a bigot regardless of anything else.  And rightly so in my opinion since this line of reasoning is the basis for some of the more noxious conspiracy theories.  

I mean I can sit back today and say:

the world west of the Indus can thank* Athenian hegemony for the Hellenizing of their cultures since they intervened in Macedonian affairs that led to wandering sympathies and fledgling alliances with Sparta and Athens.  Less than a century later Philip was in the proverbial catbird seat looking down on the exhausted superpowers.  And his baby boy made the most of his inheritance.

All of that may be true and I doubt anyone would bat an eye even if I noted the piles of corpses but (humongous but) I'm at a distance of 2500 years.  If someone is going to formulate the slavery calculus it isn't going to be either you or me.  But if you just can't resist you'd probably be better off going to Freedom House and getting the figures for the U.S., Liberia(since there is a direct line from U.S. to slavery to the founding of the nation), and some random coastal or sub-Saharan African countries.  I think the rankings would be intuitive and generally predictable in spite of Liberia's tumultuous recent history.  Then you can knock yourself out explaining why you think that is.  I'd pass though or at the very least try it out somewhere else.  If you're going to undertake some Stoic mental exercise of "which is better" about some highly charged political topic, a political BBS would probably be the worst place to do it.

I will throw you a bone though.  I agree with you that it is silly(chauvinistic even) to try to ascribe modern sensibilities(sentimentalities?) to historical figures/events.  One decent paragraph out of three...good for baseball but little else.

I won't do a compare and contrast between the other replies and the cartoon controversy but the objectionable/offensive speech and the hackneyed emotional responses...ok, I said I wouldn't do it!  Anyways, shaming someone into silence isn't exactly on par with decapitating(or burning if you're not into hyperbole) someone into silence.

* No, I don't want to argue whether Hellenism was good or bad.  Luckily (for me) "thank" has two meanings...pick whichever you prefer.

is always an interesting proposition, since it is generally agreed that there was a high degree of diversity in the outworking of enlightenment in different nations, a fact which, in itself, should serve to puncture the pretenses of certain Enlightenment schools of thought.  If we are talking about the Enlightenment of the philosophes, characterized by the morbid obsession with abstract reason, an unholy and unhealthy dread of the particularities of national experience, a penchant for rationalistic, a priori political theories, and belief in the perfectibility of man and the promise of a future age of quasi-utopian Reason, then no, this is not worth defending, as it is both contrary to too much else that is constitutive of the Western tradition and historically productive of lurid amounts of bloodshed.  No thanks.  If we are talking about the Oh-My-God-Hume-just-showed-us-for-the-fools-we-are-so-let's-play-transcende
ntal-idealism Enlightenment of Kant, then no thanks, either.  The first Critique completes the alienation of the major halves of the tradition from one another, engendering philosophical and cultural schisms that endure to this day; the second Critique produces an ethic that is either unrelated to reality or nothing more that warmed-over late eighteenth-century Lutheran pietism with a pretense to universality; and the third Critique - well, let me just say that the whole thing about the sublime is one of the principal vehicles for the reintroduction of lame pagan myths of the unrepresentable chaos into Western thought, after Christian philosophers had banished them to the outer darkness.  And let me say, further, that the legacy of idealism as a mode of philosophy is pretty thoroughly blood-soaked.  

On the other hand, if you are referring to, say, Hume's puncturing of the idea of rationalistic politics and the myth of the social contract, as well as Burke's defense of the wisdom of inherited custom, along with The Wealth of Nations, well, those things are eminently worth defending, as is the rather moderate enlightenment of our own Founding.

Your other points have been addressed well already, so I will content myself with observing that the nihilism of postmodernism is the consequence of a heady brew of things as divergent as pagan myths of the sublime, rationalism run amok (what could be more rationalistic the Foucault's mythos of omnipresent power: the essence of social existence is just power-relations?  This is as much a rationalistic, reductive scheme as Hobbes.), and, seemingly ironically, the shipwreck of reason upon the furthest extension of the logic of nominalism.  Postmodernism is rather more than a refusal to accord reason its due; it sometimes uses reason and sometimes spurns it.  It is willful.  What postmodernism, therefore, has to do with medieval Christianity, or with Islamic nihilism, is something shrouded in great obscurity.

Unfortunately, I accidentally deleted a brilliantly composed defense of same that combined the plot and lessons of the best Star Trek episode of all-time, ie The City on the Edge of Forever

in which time travelers saved a persons life only to see her lead a peace movement that allowed Hitler to conquer the world

but some bums were fed some food during the west disarmament

joan collins was beautiful beyond belief!!!

and Booker T. Washington's identical observation in his

Up From Slavery.

I'm sure that if we go back far enough in time, we would discover that humans today are either better off due to injustices in the past or are worse off due to justice visited upon their ancestors

and thats all BR said

value judgements would require a look at the numbers and the quality of justices and injustices

more later

God's will be done

I must confess that it isn't as if I have all this worked out--a full defense of the Enlightenment is a project beyond my current abilities. And I'm probably guilty of hyperbole when I said that it was the one thing worth defending. I do want to suggest, however, that in our conflict with Islamo-fascism, the Enlightenment is what we our defending.

It's part of what we defend.  Not the whole, nor even the most important part of it, though.  I would echo Maximos's comments - much of what is known as Enlightenment thought is simply not worth defending.  Our homes, religion, and our families are.

Our ability to share the earth with Islam will depend on whether or not Islam can make its peace with modernity. As many in the West have their own problems with this, I am not optimistic. I find it curious that this defense of the West seems at best reluctant to include modernity, so what we seem to have is a kind of medieval conflict with nuclear weapons.

Why not just keep the hostile parts of the world at arm's length?  Are we really threatened if someone in the sands of Araby doesn't believe in the social contract?  Are we in fact that threatened when we have all these modern weapons?  

I would begin such an account with an account of what a human being is. It isn't as if we have no idea--and of course our culture is a part of that story.

That sounds like the natural law approach of the Catholic theologians.  Enlightenment accounts of what a human being is and what constitutes human flourishing are radically defective.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness  is part of it. I think the assertion of the individual will, as you describe it might be part of it as well, though I would instead describe it as an individual choosing from among a finite set of accounts of the good.

What limits those accounts of the good?  Whence comes the validity of those limits?  How are any such limits compatible with the good of the assertion of individual will?

I didn't put that well. I don't mean the impossibility of direct knowledge of things-in-themselves. I probably should have used reason--and the idea I'm trying to get across (again, this is far from worked out in my own mind) is that the post-modernist refusal to privilege reason as a way of knowing seems rather close to a medieval view. I think Paul's point of considering Aquinas is well taken, however, and I may need to reconsider this point.

Who knows what post-modernists believe or think?  It's the sort of phenomenon that tends to fade into nothingness the more closely you examine it.  But yes, look into Aquinas.  Reason was hardly unknown to our medieval predecessors.  Neither, for that matter, was technological progress.  What was unknown, or at least unrecorded, was the purportedly unmoored reason of Descartes, et al.

I don't think we can blame medievals for being medieval. I do think we know more than they do, and while the move to modernity comes at a price, it is a price worth paying. It certainly doesn't do to romanticize the past. I think the view that the west has declined is based on a romanticized view.

We've surely passed our peak period of artistic creativity, to name one, or of self-confidence, to name another.  

It is true that "radicals and socialists" have captured and altered irrevocably the word Liberal. That was accomplished decades ago. Jacques Barzun talks of the "great switch" of Liberalism beginning before the turn of the twentieth century. This is all an interesting discussion, but it hardly demonstrates that there is no such like as left-wing Liberalism. There has always been a left and a right wing to Liberalism, even as the philosophical structure of Liberalism itself gradually shifted left over time.

I don't oppose restrictions on Muslim immigration.  The point of my comment was that I believe that the basis of Paul's argument leads to something much more extreme than that.

He said, "The question of free speech for subversives. The question of toleration of an alien religion penetrated by some significant faction of madmen. The related and uncomfortable question of a plausibly threatening minority. In all cases, it is latter-day Liberalism and not the authentic American tradition of political thought that hampers our efforts."

This is why I said Paul was overstating his case.  His rationale and his philosophical basis would seem to justify something much more than merely limiting immigration.  He says that it is OK to limit free speech (for those here legally? -- we don't have to limit anyone's free speech if we simply expel all illegal Muslim immigrants).  He wants to not "tolerate" an "alien" religion (abolish freedom of religion for Muslims???)  And what does he propose to do with a "plausibly threatening minority" if some of those in this "minority" are already here legally, or already citizens, or native born Americans?

I might come to a very similar conclusion to Paul on the specific issue of Muslim immigration, but with a much more modest rationale.  I remain fearful of a rationale that can lead to the restriction of our freedoms that we have fought so hard to preserve.

As to your question about Classic Liberalism (by which I take it you to mean the philosophical underpinnings of our Founding Fathers) -- I say that it is worth preserving both because it is true and because it is utilitarian.  There are certain liberties we are given by our Creator, that no government should be able to take away (not even a government chosen by the majority).  And the best way to protect those liberties is to have limited government, chosen by the people.  Must we be willing to fight those (even those in our midst) who seek to destroy this?  Yes, absolutely.  But we can do so without throwing away the very freedoms we seek to protect.  

This is, by definition, a balancing act (which is why our Founding Fathers placed limits, for example, on searches and seizures, but did not prohibit them altogether).  My concern is that we not use either the rhetoric of modern liberalism (which considers diversity, toleration and a broad definition of "civil liberties" as the highest of all values, without regard to security) or the rhetoric of fascism (which considers "unity," rejection of those who are different and security as the highest of all values, without regard to liberty).  I'm not acusing Paul of being a fascist, but I would appreciate him not accusing those of us who tilt the balance more in favor of liberty of being modern (or in Paul's words "latter day") liberals.

Paul,

I have a feeling we would really enjoy each other over a beer.  And I have a feeling that we would agree more than disagree if we were speaking in person instead of in the blogosphere (there are advantages and disadvantages to this forum).  But your polemic and incendiary writing style drives me crazy.

I have a question concerning your statement "I am a republican. I believe that in the end, the people should rule. There are wise checks on the passions of the people, but in the end they must rule."

Do you believe the checks on the majority are merely "wise" and utilitarian checks, or are they a function of Natural Law (i.e. "certain inalienable rights endowed by our Creator")?  If the former, what protects us from fascism imposed by the majority?  If the latter, then isn't there an external (i.e. Natural Law) check on the majority?

Given your statements about the nature of the West, I would have assumed you to be a believer in Natural Law, but maybe I'm mistaken.

is how to minimize our casualties? I do not see the evidence for that.

This is an exercise in nation building, where the desired outcome is a Democracy which is an ally in the GWOT. I understand the argument that we must suffer more dead and wounded to achieve that goal. I do not subscribe to that position, but it is consistent with the war's prosecution. I see no evidence that we value our guys more than additional collateral damage.

Whether this is due to compliance with 'Just War' doctrine, an attempt to retain support at home, garner support abroad, or playing to the left is unclear. The results, however, are clear. They are that we have more casualties than necessary, and fewer resources.

This is a unproven and costly approach. Its duration puts us in a weaker position to deal with Iran and Syria. How much more difficult is a preemptive strike in either country now? This is an instance of the self-referential problem writ large. Expecting Iraqis to respond with actions which improve American self-interest is not a likely outcome. We should crush the insurgency now, and include incursions into Syria and Iran to do it.  

Jacques Barzun talks of the "great switch" of Liberalism beginning before the turn of the twentieth century.

Probably not, since M. Barzun was born in 1907 and lives today in San Antonio.  (Just kidding, I know what you mean.)

Barzun also speaks of "the reversal of Liberalism into its opposite", but why then do we allow these socialists and radicals to define the terms of the debate?  The term "liberal" has a noble lineage, but socialists and radicals are among the most degraded and unenlightened people on the planet, right along with their fellow terrorists of the Islamist variety.  

We err in allowing radicals and socialists to debate on their own perverse terms.  Radicals and socialists encompass great swathes of the antique media, academia, contemporary religion, and the Democratic Party.  It is foolish to allow them to degrade our language in pursuit of their corrupt and inefficient goals.

In terms of the ideals upon which this country was founded, John Kerry and Michael Moron are radicals and socialists.  Stand up and say so, and clarify the terms of the debate.

Then the primary war focus... is how to minimize our casualties?

I did not state, hint, imply, or contemplate that the primary war focus is how to minimize our casualties.  You want to be frivolous, go somewhere else.  Try Daily Kurse.

Do you suppose we may have reached or are reaching a similar point in history?

to refer to such a thing as a unified slave culture, separate from that of whites and freedmen?  Did such a thing exist?  Given the restrictions on the movement and education of slaves, and their disparate places of origin in Africa and the New World, it would seem their only unity would be their common plight, and whatever they had picked up in the way of language, religion, and customs from their masters.  They would seem to be people whose history and culture had been taken from them.  

It is difficult to respond to this without taking up the `us' and `them' words that the author so artfully avoided. Not having his writing skill I do not even attempt it.

"Right wing liberalism..."

"...only on occasion turns around, with impatience and annoyance, to haughtily dismiss its non-Liberal critics. In this it looks suspiciously like standard Liberalism, not least in its inclination to narrow the field of debate.

Every system of thought, including yours, has its ideas which are going to be held as fundamental and thus subject to criticism as haughty. I am not ashamed to admit that the mythology I have tried to construct aims at approaching universal truth. Others seem to take as fundamental that that endeavor is just plain stupid. To answer the criticism I am willing subject my mythology and its bootstrapping to scrutiny, and to let it stand on no more than its merits. But I am determined to avoid the pit of failing to have faith in what I believe to be true.

And since a man who doubts the wisdom of Democracy in principle, perforce marks himself as non-Liberal, his view is really not taken seriously.

It depends on what you have to say and how you justify it. And it should be no surprise that anyone who is bucking the conventional beliefs and institutions that have proven practical merit has a steep hill to climb. It is a responsibility called `burden of proof.'

The attempt at guilt by association (between Left and Right Liberalism) betrays you. And I'll answer the accusation of commensurate `prejudice' only glibly (with due apology) since that seems so fashionable here. Show me the Rorty.

And your `tangled accretions,' though prevalent in `folk' attitudes, are actually only associated with our creedal ideas in much finer form. To correct course, one mainly needs to chip from the core truths the accretions to the core truths that entered in the mid twentieth century through the Standard Social Science Model, i.e. cultural relativism.

Is it wrong to read `domestic security through immigration control' as the primary motivation behind this essay? To that extent I am happy to argue that such a course correction may be achieved without throwing overboard the universal truths that still motivate the less parochial among us. And in doing this I refute your assertions regarding the instincts of Classical Liberalism; those perceptions are, I think, flawed.

We choose not to discriminate against Muslims because it violates our principles to discriminate against people based on their religion (as we understand the word). Since that is the well-received status quo it ought to be up to you to prove that principle wrong, but if you want to put that onus on me by claiming it is haughtily unfair to assert it... like I said before, I'll bootstrap it.

Your argument for such discrimination doesn't justify overthrowing that principle. In fuller development it works out to throwing out the universal for the sake of `unity,' i.e., the parochial. Others have critiqued the account of history you offer as justification. So...

Back to the `big philosophical question,' and the `enervating' problem with Classical Liberalism, a refutation is here offered as sufficient.

There is a principle to be followed, no mere parochial opinion. Those ideas which would dethrone the universal truths in our creed are seditious; they are wrong and they must be vigilantly quarantined; our goal is to emasculate them. The practice of Islam as religion should be protected even though we may believe that scrutiny and time will show it does not emanate from the divine. The Political component of Islam is another matter. It is hostile to the liberty that we practice.

It easy to see as a matter of principle that one who wishes to take away freedom of religion, and freedom of speech, should not be permitted to insist on those rights in the course of a campaign to subjugate us to a political system that does not honor them. War is the right analogy here and it applies in the realm of ideas as well as in the realm of military statecraft. This conclusion and its policy implications is a consistent derivation of principles. It maintains honor and respect for religion (as we understand it) and targets hostile political ideas.

Thus one should be able to, in full consonance with the principles of Classical Liberalism, enact immigration policies hostile to adherents of Political Islam;  and furthermore to engage in other manners of law and war on adherents of Political Islam, with no neglect of such adherents in our midst. To do so, this distinction between the religious and the political must first become part of the national dialogue and win the support of the people. The precise nature, strength and life-span of this threat needs to be formed in consensus.

Muslims who accept liberty, et al, and consequently reject Political Islam are in our fold. In the broad sweep of your policy you do them an injustice. Thus you needlessly make me rise to their defense against you whom I am allied to by heritage. It is as if you want to make me choose between the universal truths and our heritage because the only confidence you can muster is in your heritage. Y'all seem to me to be victims of the relativism, failed confidence in reason springing from the Standard Social Science Model. What I read between the lines is: a lack of confidence in our ability to comprehend the universal which has produced a slide in to a peculiar brand of culturalism and an esoteric epistemology which has an aroma of mysticism.

At any rate, whether what I read in is right or wrong, I maintain confidence in our ability to approach universal truth by use of the facilities nature and god has provided us and thus cannot throw this project over for a claim that it is opposed to the interests of our heritage. The heritage is valued and will be defended but within the scope set by the universal principles. The principles will be defended vigorously and there is nothing in them which enervates this defense.

This conception of mine is more distant from left wing liberalism than the one you have staked out. Where they lack confidence in the universal, they invest themselves in the RBC. What I read between the lines suggests a nearly parallel step.

was not intended. Perhaps I misunderstood your line of reasoning. You asserted:

By minimizing collateral damage we give our troops the best possible chance of survival.

I inferred that the best possible chance of survival would minimize our casualties. Morover, you go on to claim:

And by any standard, the military casualties have been miniscule in historical terms, seeming to justify the policy.

This seems to use minimizing casualties to justify the Administration strategy. However, based on your reaction, I conclude that this must be the source of my misunderstanding. Please accept my apology for that.

Your Parthian shot was unwarranted, but it is an interesting variation on the ad hominem argument.

We choose not to discriminate against Muslims because it violates our principles to discriminate against people based on their religion (as we understand the word).

But if our understanding differs from theirs, and we are unwilling or unable to acknowledge that their understanding differs, what then?  Shall we let them in by the million, then be surprised when they march in the tens of thousands demanding redress for their humiliation, and the curtailm