Dear friend and sagacious writer/thinker John Jay has written an extraordinary post over at his jewel of a blog Summer Patriot, Winter Soldier. It is stunning in its logic, clarity and reason. Yes, read it all. This is a fine mind. Heed his warning.
demise of democracy? of the nation state?
the demise of the democratic nation state?
introduction.
democratic states, free market economies and free speech are under a two pronged attack waged by islamic jihad for the last 50 years or so, and unrelentingly so by the radical left and the communist ideology since the advent of marxist thought and organizations, such as the com-intern and the various popular front revolutions since the time of lenin, trotsky and stalin. as to the latter, the west has largely successfully resisted overt and militaristic attacks in europe, in austria after wwi, and in greece and the entirety of south east asia and the pacific rim after wwii: the attack in this whole area was blunted by american efforts in viet nam, in my estimation. but the democratic states have been either oblivious to or unresisting of the attacks of the theories of the left and communism upon those values which form the basis of the free market democratic states, and this unrelenting attack carried out over the breadth of the 20th century, has been so successful that many otherwise supporters of free society are just about entirely ignorant of the values which underpin our society and culture and politics. concomitantly, the west is under unremitting terrorist attack, most of it stemming from the islamic jihad’s attempt to kick the west from the middle east, and lately, as an open and avowed attempt to conquer europe, within the context of social and demographic and religious values, and to impose sharia, or islamic law, upon the west.
it is the thesis of this little paper that these attacks are coordinated by the left and islam. the left very consciously uses the tensions in western political systems caused by islam and islam’s application of jihad, especially via the mechanism of hate speech laws to restrict and destroy free speech traditions to advance its leftist political agendas the world over. the islamic jihad uses the over complicity of euro and ameri leftist thought to provide legitimizing social justification for its terror, and receives direct financial subsidies from organizations like the united nations to subsidize and support it terror campaign, and to promote islamic immigration into the west to advance is demographic campaign to institute sharia. the left is, in short, complicitous with the jihad in its attacks, and supports the legitimacy of the jihad’s attacks upon western business interests and institutions, precisely to aid the imposition of its agenda antagonistic to the very institutions attacked by the jihad.
in order to advance this thesis, i am going to examine the various assumptions and values which have held societies and human groups together since time immemorial, and posit those which are also subsumed under the modern nation state. in other words, what beliefs and values make the constituent parts of democracy what they are together in sum, and which of these values are absolutely necessary to support the continued vitality and function of the modern democratic nation state, founded, as it is, upon free market economies and free speech. you might ask, why go to this bother? this is a good question, especially as some of these matters are not mentioned again in the course of the paper: but, think, if you will, as you read this paper, how many of these ancient values are assailed by the left and by jihad, even as the main pillars of western institutions, free market economics and free market thought, come under the direct attacks of the leftist and jihad agenda. (this requires some participation on your part.) then, i will look at the left and the jihad, with a view toward how its attack is very precisely focused on these bedrock assumptions and intellectual premises of the free market, so as to understand the very real danger that these attacks pose on the very existence of democratic states.
finally, i will try to look at the relative danger posed by the partnership of the left and the jihad. it is a very complicated situation, and very fluid, and not without some subtle ironies. for there is no less inherent antagonism between the left and islam as there exists between democracy and islam, and at some point, a reckoning will come between islam and the left as well, as islam will neither brook nor tolerate the rule of the left, and will break from the left and seek to conquer it as well. and, the euro and american left are no better at comprehending the animus that drives islam than their rightist brethren, who they seek to topple by using islam. given the inherent fluidity of this situation, i will still attempt to point towards what i consider the greater long term threat to our institutions, and our very survival as free people.
as the title to the paper suggests, i am not horribly sanguine that america and the west will survive, not because the jihad and the left are so strong, but because we as the adherents of freedom have become enfeebled, and lost our way, having forgotten the basics of what made us great in the first place. we are, in short, no longer true believers in the values that gave us our wealth and our liberties. we do not defend them jealously, to the death.
