Pre and Post Nationalism--Two Sides of the Same Coin?

Daniel Greenfiled of Sultan Knish makes some excellent points in discussing the similarities between Islam and the Left:

The Muslim immigrant does not trade one national identity for another. What he does is bring along his local ethnic identity and his global religious identity, and unpacks them both in Sydney or London where he is a member of an ethnic community and a religious community. On top of that he may be an Australian, but he is an Australian in the same way that Sunnis and Shiites are Iraqis or Syrians. All that means is that he will pay taxes, fill out forms and curse the local government officials for being incompetent blockheads, instead of the ones back home. And when his religious identity is at odds with his national obligations, he will do exactly what Sunnis in Syria or Shiites in Iraq have done. He will choose religious identity over national identity.

This concept should not be a particularly foreign one to Gillard. It is likely that she feels a similar identification with fellow progressives in Europe and America, that Hassan feels for his fellow Muslims. Like Islam, progressive politics provides a shared transnational identity based on common goals for an ordered world ruled by an ideal system. Gillard may even feel a greater identification with European Socialists than with more conservative Australians.

As Greenfield notes, it comes down to pre-nationalism and post-nationalism resulting in the same conclusion:

Gillard subscribes to a post-national identity, and Hassan to a pre-national identity. This is only a technical difference that matters as much as the location of the endpoint of a circle, but in the practical sense they are members of dramatically different identity groups with their own incompatible forms of multiculturalism.

The left's post-national identity is based on a secular political multiculturalism. Islam's post-national identity is based on a religious theocratic multiculturalism. The left has heresies that it prosecutes as hate crimes and Islam has heresies that it prosecutes as blasphemy. Gillard would understand, though condemn, a riot based on some offense to gay rights or aboriginal rights, as an offense against her brand of multiculturalism. The Mohammed riots may be more understandable to her as an offense against Muslim multiculturalism.

And therein lies the dilemma.  In a post-nationalist world, Progressives expect to be ruled by laws that are no longer tied to any nation or tradition because we've 'outgrown' all of that.  Unfortunately, they face the reality of a culture that could care les about their laws as God has already given all the laws necessary.

The left destroyed Western national identity and brought back the holy war, but due to Christian and Jewish secularism and Muslim immigration, instead of Catholics and Protestants fighting each other in Paris and London, it's Muslims rioting in the streets and demanding an Islamic theocracy to rule them. And why not? If rule no longer derives from the people or the nation, but panels of judges and rooms of bureaucrats, then the Islamic version is as legitimate as the Socialist version.

Exactly.  And that is the crux of the problem facing the rest of the world--how do you coexist with a culture and religion that has no interest in coexisting with yours?  "Behead those who insult Islam" is not an encouraging sign that the holder of that view is interested in dialogue.

Read the whole article here. 

Future Middle East Trends

The author known as 'Spengler' writes in the Asia Times that the Middle East will eventually end up in regional warfare.  His contention is that we might as well get it over with.

If a contrarian thought might be permitted, consider the possibility that all-out regional war is the optimal outcome for American interests. An Israeli strike on Iran that achieved even limited success - a two-year delay in Iran's nuclear weapons development - would arrest America's precipitous decline as a superpower.

Absent an Israeli strike, America faces:

A nuclear-armed Iran;

Iraq's continued drift towards alliance with Iran;

An overtly hostile regime in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood government will lean on jihadist elements to divert attention from the country's economic collapse;

An Egyptian war with Libya for oil and with Sudan for water;

A radical Sunni regime controlling most of Syria, facing off an Iran-allied Alawistan ensconced in the coastal mountains;

A de facto or de jure Muslim Brotherhood takeover of the Kingdom of Jordan;

A campaign of subversion against the Saudi monarchy by Iran through Shi'ites in Eastern Province and by the Muslim Brotherhood internally;

A weakened and perhaps imploding Turkey struggling with its Kurdish population and the emergence of Syrian Kurds as a wild card;

A Taliban-dominated Afghanistan; and

Radicalized Islamic regimes in Libya and Tunisia.

Not a pretty picture, is it?  Given the recent death of an American Ambassador in Libya due to terrorist action (and not due to some stupid Youtube video), we are facing a very grim future.  But we may not be in the worst position directly: take Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia is the biggest loser in the emerging Middle East configuration, and Russia is the biggest winner. Europe and Japan have concluded that America has abandoned its long-standing commitment to the security of energy supplies in the Persian Gulf by throwing the Saudi monarchy under the bus, and have quietly shifted their energy planning towards Russia. Little of this line of thinking will appear in the news media, but the reorientation towards Moscow is underway nonetheless. 

It seems to me that our current foreign policy trajectory is somewhat problematic.  Whoever wins in November is going to inherit quite a mess.

Read the whole article here.

Hat tip: Instapundit

 

Important Reading To Do

For those of you planning to vote in our upcoming Presidential election in November, there is some studying you need to undertake in order to have the requisite understanding to make an informed choice.

 

Doug Ross has an enlightening post at his blog regarding the current and potential policies of the Obama Administration.  One place where Obama's cultural outlook is on display is in California, where supporters are about to have Proposition 31 passed.  Prop 31 will rape the suburbs to support the cities.  The book cited below has more detailed explanations for what this policy will entail.

 

Spreading the Wealth



 

As the author, Stanley Kurtz, noted in his article in National Review Online: 

California’s Proposition 31 is the project of a collection of “good government” groups, in particular, California Forward. California Forward says its goal is “fundamental change.” They’re right about that. The change they have in mind, unfortunately, is creating a collection of de facto regional super-governments designed to undercut the political and economic independence of California’s suburbs. The goal is to redistribute suburban tax money to California’s failing cities. Instead of taking on the mismanagement that is breaking California’s cities, Prop. 31 lets failing cities bail themselves out by raiding the pocketbooks of California’s suburbanites. In the process, Prop. 31 will kill off the system of local government at the root of American liberty.

How does Prop. 31 work? It allows local governments to join together to form “Strategic Action Plans.” Supposedly, this pooling of local municipal services into a kind of de facto collective regional super-government would be voluntary. In fact, Prop. 31 deploys powerful incentives to effectively force the creation of these regional super-governments.  

To begin with, municipalities that join regional collectives–and only those municipalities–can effectively waive onerous state laws and regulations by creating their own more lax versions of those rules. Next, Prop. 31 channels a portion of state sales tax revenue to municipalities that join regional governing collectives–and only those municipalities. Finally, Prop. 31 authorizes local governments participating in the regional collectives to pool their property-tax receipts.

The result will be the effective redistribution of suburban tax money to the cities, and second-class citizenship for Californians who live in municipalities that refuse to pool their tax money by joining regional collectives.

Think about that attitude, and then you will understand the attempts to push mass transit (like building trains to nowhere) and destroy the automobile with extreme CAFE standards as part of the war on the suburbs and removing the mobility of the populace (i.e., you will live and work and, more important, pay taxes where we want you to).

 

A second book you will find of interest is:

Fool Me Twice

 

If you are considering re-electing the current Administration, then it would behoove you to understand what a second term could entail for America.  The President himself has stated that Global Warming/Climate Change will be one of his primary priorities in the next four years.  Understanding what exactly that means (i.e., the effect on the energy industries, transportation, economic growth, etc.) should be your goal.

 

If you are comfortable with the President's current and future policies, then your choice in November is obvious.  If you are still undecided about who you will vote for, then information is your best friend.

 

 

There is a reason the Democrat Party is not running on their record for the last four years.

 

Hat tip: Doug Ross@Journal

 



Brand X

Daniel Greenfield of Sultan Knish has penned another insightful article.  This time it's about how the election in 2008 demonstrated that our current electorate was swayed not by issues but by a 'brand:'

Obama did not have an aspirational candidacy, he had an aspirational brand. A brand that people wanted to be a part of, because it made them feel good about themselves. And so we learned that there is indeed something worse than Bread and Circuses. An electorate that votes on that is at least somewhat capable of using self-interest to make judgments, but one that votes for the brand that feels good has abandoned even the vestiges of reason and self-interest. Such people are no longer exercising their power over government, instead they have become customers, buying a product that they have no say in how it gets made or what goes in there. Not because they need it, but because they have been programmed to feel good when buying it.

Read the entire article here. And then ask yourself if the past four years will have been enough of a reality check to keep people from buying Brand X again.