Islam, the West and the Blinded Giant

The current struggle between Western nations and Islam is a primarily one sided struggle reminiscent of the usual historical pattern of friction between a declining civilization and the barbarians at the gates.

The West is heir to great technological, industrial and military achievements, which it has built on. It also heir to great political, intellectual and cultural achievements, which it has thoroughly degraded and warped. The result resembles a bodybuilder who builds up a powerful physique only to put it all at the service of an insecure and undeveloped mind. The West achieved its practical accomplishment through its intellectual accomplishments. With the intellectual accomplishments decaying badly, the practical ones will follow too.

For now there is simply a lack of guidance. The infrastructure and technology exists to do great things, but not the will. The United States which went from nearly unarmed to unchallenged superpower in a handful of years during WW2, could end its dependence on foreign oil, secure its borders, update its infrastructure, and for that matter destroy any combination of enemies, land on the moon again and meet any challenge. But as it stands, the United States can hardly build an airport without spending a decade negotiating with unions, environmentalists, random activists, and coping with endless graft and government regulations. Like Samson Blinded, the United States is tied down by chains and its eyes have been put out. The giant staggers and has become a laughingstock for its enemies.

And where the United States is, most of the rest of the West already was. Where Europe is today, is where the United States will soon be. Physical decay follows moral decay. The giant in chains soon becomes the midget in chains. Act timid and afraid long enough, and you can easily go from a giant to a midget.

That is the state of civilization, a staggering blind giant, bedeviled by his own demons, his legs hacked at by swarming masses of savages, afraid and guilt-ridden of his own strength until he has convinced himself that he is weak and helpless.

But if the West is a success at everything but faith in itself, the Islamic world is a failure at everything but believing in itself. Where the West has an Inferiority Complex, Islam has a Superiority Complex. Both are deluded, but where the delusions of Western Civilization are destroying it, the delusions of Islam are giving it the power to conquer the West. Thus it is better to be a dwarf who believes he can kill a giant, than to be a giant who believes he cannot kill a dwarf. Given time both will be proven right, and the dwarf will be the one left standing.

Leveraging its sole two assets, oil and the malaise of the West, Islam has made a great deal of progress across not only the Middle East, Asia and Africa-- but in Europe, Australia and America as well. But the true asset of the Islamic world is human.

The low economic level of the average citizen of the Muslim world, combined with the low status of women, has boosted the birth rate. And the upper classes, particularly in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates, have funneled the potential social crisis of a large birth rate into Islamic fanaticism and terrorism.

The Islamic World is not unique in reacting to Western superiority with violence and hate. It has however managed to consolidate that violence and hate into a global movement, a culture of inferiority giving way to massacres, atrocities and conquest on a large scale. That is the Jihad being conducted against the Dar Al Harb, the non-Muslim nations of the world around the globe. It is a relentless campaign backed by propaganda and the fanatic faith of people who have no sense of cultural or national worth outside of Islam.

The excess birth rate has served both to lead the conquest of non-Muslim countries using emigration abroad, and to create a disposable male population available for all sorts of violence and mischief locally. By contrast the falling Western birth rate, in line with falling morale and self-worth, opens up "free space" in the tax rolls and employment rates that can be filled by Muslims. Conquest is rarely quite so easy except in the dying days of empire.

Westerners question whether they should reproduce, drive a car or drink from a disposable cup. Muslims have no such questions. While the West plays Hamlet, Islam plays Richard the III. While the West asks, "To be or not to be", Islam proclaims, "And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover, To entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain. And hate the idle pleasures of these days."

The Mullahs and Imams scowling and railing against the pleasures of the West represent one side of the coin. A West that has lost itself in a foul mixture of decadence and guilt, hedonism and self-despite, is the other side. Like the hunchback usurper king, the Islamic world both hates and envies the West for its pleasures, and is keen to see how to use them as weaknesses. And the West, like the Danish prince, who sees murder around him, but remains too dissolute and fixed to a stolid code, until the end to stand and fight-- only to have the battle end in mass tragedy, dithers and delays the inevitable confrontation.

The ending is tragic either way. Islam's victory will only usher in a dark age and the technologies and medicines of the West that made life so much the better will soon pass away. And few but the most fanatical clerics will relish the world that will be made. Meanwhile if the West delays too long, it will have the choice between willingly donning its own chains, or engaging in a final confrontation that will leave no survivors standing.