Sunday, August 20, 2006

COMMON SENSE AND ORDINARY PEOPLE

I found this information fascinating (hat tip: Rand Simberg):

The fringe mentality which now dominates the Democratic Party may not realize it yet, but America is coming to grips with the reality of the threat posed by radical Islamo-fascists. Proof came from a poll conducted for Investor's Business Daily last week and is being buttressed by several movies and television presentations in advance of the upcoming fifth anniversary of the Sept.11 terror attacks.

The Investors Business Daily poll found: A majority of Americans, 51 percent, believe that "militant Islamism is no less a threat in the 21st century than Nazism, fascism and communism were in the 20th century," 63 percent are "very concerned" about the desire of Islamo-fascists to establish a worldwide Muslim rule, and 58 percent doubt that diplomacy or negotiation will work in dealing with Islamic fascists.

And Americans are now most aware of the Iranian role in promoting fascism: 58 percent in the poll think Iran is now the "main promoter of Islamic fascism in the Middle East," and 76 percent believe Iran must be prevented from obtaining nuclear weapons "at any cost."


And, in this context of American's waking up to the threat that Iran and Islamic fascism, Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs thinks that many are finally starting to realize that they cannot trust their governments to protect them from these religious terrorists. He cites this news story of a passenger mutiny while boarding an airliner. The flight remained on the ground due to the demands of passengers who were not comfortable with two strangely dressed Arab men boarding.

Ed Morrissey observes the phenomenon and calls it "market-based profiling":

These incidents have started to spike in the wake of the successful exposure of a massive plot in the UK against the airlines. British travelers have decided, ironically, that the government has not done enough to screen for terrorists and have lost confidence in air service as a result. This will lead to dramatic market reactions; either people will stop flying, or they will take security into their own hands. The perceived lack of security will make it harder for Muslims to travel (the British reference to "Asians" usually means Pakistanis or Arabs).

...Common sense dictates that people will act in their perceived self-interest in any case, and that means people will remain highly suspicious of Arabic men traveling together -- and more so when they act strangely. In Malanga, the two wore heavy clothing despite the heat and kept checking their watches. That was enough to make them unwilling to risk a flight with the two men, and they applied the pressure necessary for the airline to eject the two.

Is that fair? Hardly. However, the unwillingness of the governments in both the UK and the US to provide systems of screening that instill confidence in the flying public has led to these incidents. They will continue and increase while screening systems insist on playing political correctness games instead of focusing on real threats as the Israelis have done for decades. (Emphasis mine)


What's most interesting to me is the observation that, not only are citizens in the west waking up to the reality of the threat, but that they are clearly beginning to realize that their governments' desire to protect them from harm is not quite as strong as their governments' desire to follow the dictates of political correctness and multicultural foolishness.

It is this political insanity that prevents the enemy from specifically being named; interferes with focusing resources on the specific problem; diffuses and invalidates most of the preventive measures; and encourages the happy multiculti talk that permeates the halls of political and media power.

Those who should be dedicated to protecting us, instead seem more dedicated to being perceived as "fair" and "tolerant". It does not take a genius to figure out that neither of these qualities could be applied to the religious fanatics who blow themselves up in crowded markets; fly planes into buildings; and crow about the number of people they have murdered for their god.

Most people--even many who identify themselves as Democrats--would much rather remain alive than perish in a terrorist attack, secure in the knowledge they are morally superior beings, infinitely more fair and tolerant than the enemy. This may be a peculiar attitude for the antiwar left to appreciate, since they appear to value this kind of suicidally narcissistic idiocy above all else.

Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense wrote in that pamphlet a direct statement to the misguided pacifists and antiwar activists of his own era:
Our plan is peace for ever. We are tired of contention with Britain, and can see no real end to it but in a final separation. We act consistently, because for the sake of introducing an endless and uninterrupted peace, do we bear the evils and burdens of the present day. We are endeavoring, and will steadily continue to endeavor, to separate and dissolve a connexion which hath already filled our land with blood; and which, while the name of it remains, will be the fatal cause of future mischiefs to both countries.
We fight neither for revenge nor conquest; neither from pride nor passion; we are not insulting the world with our fleets and armies, nor ravaging the globe for plunder. Beneath the shade of our own vines are we attacked; in our own houses, and on our own lands, is the violence committed against us. We view our enemies in the character of Highwaymen and Housebreakers, and having no defence for ourselves in the civil law, are obliged to punish them by the military one, and apply the sword, in the very case, where you have before now, applied the halter—Perhaps we feel for the ruined and insulted sufferers in all and every part of the continent, with a degree of tenderness which hath not yet made it's way into some of your bosoms.


Rather than understand that the entire purpose of any sane government is the protection of its own citizens, today's motley crew of pacifist leftists seem hellbent on ensuring that the government's priorties during a war are focused instead on protecting those who wish to kill us.

That is why I think that in the end, the takeover of the Democratic Party by this strain of thinking is doomed to failure. No matter how condescendingly the left treats the average person on the street, when it comes to common sense--particularly about life and death issues--the average American, indeed the average human being, has always had an abundance.

When rudimentary common sense awakens, tied as it is to the instinct of self-preservation, then we will begin to see more instances of ordinary people taking responsibility for their own lives in the vacuum created by the PC left, and acting as they see fit to decrease their vulnerability to the threat .

And when that happens, the political fate of the Democrats will be sealed; as will the fate of all of Islam's many apologist groups. What those groups now disparagingly call "islamophobia" will suddenly become simple, ordinary common sense--in the same way that sensible people are "phobic" about being infected with the plague or other deadly diseases.

Political correctness simply won't fly under those circumstances.

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