OK, This is Really Why They Hate Us !

I am a little overwhelmed by the reception that this first chunk of the promised Big Post has received. A lot of you have linked it and commented in various ways. While I am grateful for the response, I feel that one of those strains of commentary needs a clear answer. Many of you have written strongly worded responses saying things like: Islam is hateful and that, in essence, hate is what Islam and the left have in common. One of the reasons I find this disturbing is that I am always tempted to agree with it.

It is too simple and easy, though. I see hate as more of a symptom than a cause. The whole thing with Islam and the left is pretty complicated and hate is so simple. Let me try to summarize how I explain their relationship.

The problem is that hate usually grows out of a conflict that appears not to be resolvable. In the case of the Caliphate Muslims, they see much more clearly than westerners can that co-existence is not a possibility. Even if they wished it, which some of them might, it has to be clear to them that the vitality, openness and power of the west will eventually cause their totalitarian controls to disintegrate. This is why they feel humiliated. They know that the simple fact of our existence is fatal to them. This is why the lack of humor is so striking.

In the same way, the left feels kinship with them because they share that same doomed feeling of futility and humiliation. The Modern Left knows that with the fall of the Soviet Union, the Capitalization of China, successful modernization of India, Mexico and much of the old Soviet block and the defection of the best minds (Hitchens, Podhertz, Kristol, et al) they are no longer the “Modern Left”, they are merely “What’s Left”. It has never been more apparent that their ideas are mawkish, cheap and unworkable.

Both the left(overs) and the Caliphate Muslims hate us out of their envy, stubbornness and hurt pride. We don’t humiliate them- they humiliate themselves and that infuriates them.

This is not to say that the battle is won. If we cannot wake up our felloe westerners who have been put to sleep by the excess of power and safety that we have had since WWII, we can lose. We need to stop getting into futile shouting matches with the progressives and socialists and find ways to talk meaningfully to the parts of the liberal left and center that is as yet unaware of the monstrous evil at the gate. Our survival depends on it.

I have many more thoughts about the underlying cause of the hatred and I’ll be posting them soon…