The interior of the horse-riding school at the palace gardens in Paris -- la salle du Manège des Tuileries -- where, beginning in October of 1789, those who had concerns about the new and precipitant Revolution sat on the Right (le Droit), while those supporting the Revolution sat on the Left (la Gauche).
Introduction:
A recent headline from Jihad Watch tells us that --
Texas Congressman calls for "hearing on the radicalization of Christians".
On closer inspection, we see that the Texas Congressman, Al Green, has a telltale "(D)" to describe his political affiliation; which should come to no surprise to us any longer. It seems invariably to accompany the denotation of any American
politician solidly and naturally rooted in PC MC stock when it comes to the problem of Islam and related issues; unlike the various "(R)"s who
are unnaturally grafted in.
Discussion:
Think Bush, Giuliani, Rumsfeld, Huckabee,
McCain, Romney, Beck, O'Reilly and Hannity (and this is an incomplete list).
Thus we have George W. Bush:
“Islam brings hope and comfort to millions of people in my country, and to more than a billion people worldwide….
“Islam is a vibrant faith. Millions of our fellow citizens are
Muslim. We respect the faith. We honor its traditions. Our enemy does
not. Our enemy doesn’t follow the great traditions of Islam. They’ve
hijacked a great religion.”
(No need for any citations for Bush on this; such asinine bromides -- and there were many, repeated ad nauseam over years -- were as plentiful and widely publicized as George Washington's famous confession about his cherry tree.)
And then we have the former New York City mayor Rudolf Giuliani, a conservative every anti-Islam person loves to love:
I have great respect for the Islamic religion. I have great
respect for the Arab world, for the Middle East... and on the evening of
September 11, 2001, the day my city was attacked, I got on television,
and I said to the people of my city, “We’re not going to engage in group
blame. This is a small group of people. This does not typify a great
religion and a great people.”
And Republican Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee:
“This isn’t an Islamic problem. This is a jihadist problem.”
And Bush’s Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld (how conservative can you get?):
Summing up our overall problem with Islamic terrorism:
“It's a struggle between... there's an entire belt... it's a relatively small number of violent extremists, against a large, overwhelming majority of Muslims who are not extremist -- that are moderates!”
And McCain:
“I admire the Islam. There’s a lot of good principles in it…”
And Mitt Romney:
“I spoke about three major threats America faces on a long term
basis. Jihadism is one of them, and that is not Islam. If you want my
views on Islam, it’s quite straightforward. Islam is one of the world’s
great religions and the great majority of people in Islam want peace for
themselves and peace with their maker. They want to raise families and
have a bright future.”
“…by no means [is Jihadism] a branch of Islam. It is instead an
entirely different entity. In no way do I suggest it is a part of
Islam….”
Then we have that staunchly conservative news pundit, Glenn Beck:
"I have read the Koran and can tell you that I unequivocally that Islam is a religion of peace."
(Not to mention this Jihad Watch story reporting that "Glenn Beck calls Geert Wilders a fascist, endorses ban on his entering the UK".)
Bill O'Reilly fares little better, as a perusal of this list of Jihad Watch articles suggests.
Nor does Sean Hannity seem to show sufficient progress on the learning curve with regard to the problem of Islam, as this 2009 notice from Jihad Watch reported.
Conclusion:
Notwithstanding the tendency for nearly all conservatives throughout the West
(not just in America) to have various facial tics and twitches and elbow spasms of PC MC
concerning Islam, they do nevertheless pull through on certain issues more often than
do Democrats and other Leftists. A recent notice on my blog called the reader's attention to an appallingly vivid demonstration of a divide between D's and R's in a recent Congressional roll call concerning whether or not the New York police program to surveil Muslims should continue to be funded -- with D's overwhelmingly opposing such funding, and R's overwhelmingly supporting it. This seems to show a higher degree of rationality resident in the subculture of modern Western conservatism
than is cultivated in more Leftist groups.
Still, as my litany on warm and fuzzy-headed Conservatives above ought to show us, we have no good reason to draw a hard and fast line separating Us
and Dem; for such a delineation obfuscates the more important problem -- that PC MC would not exert the sociopolitcal traction and influence it does in fact enjoy, were it not for the co-dependently mushy acquiescence of Conservatives along with that large and influential demographic largely ignored, the Comfortably Apolitical, who if prodded from their pleasantly irresponsible comfort zone would prove to be pro-Western since it is the West which supports their comfortable lifestyle.
