Calling For Moderation Against Fascism Is A Very Strange Thing To Do

The Anchoress is calling for moderation in response to the latest thwarted terror plot:


The news is serious…so why is so much that is being written and spewed forth so wretchedly unserious? Why am I getting such a strong sense that - for some, note, I say some on both the left and the right (and in the media) - this event is an excuse for extraordinarily reckless, demented and self-interested excess?

Go to the righty forums and you find a lot of this talk (paraphrased):

- When Oh When will Bush take a page from FDR and inter all Muslims and Middle-Easterners into concentration camps, or totally deport them all? All Muslims are evil! This will wake up those idiots who voted out Lieberman, though, maybe! President Bush is captive of the globalist PC one-worlders or he’d be doing the right thing!

- This just proves that we’ve been too soft in Iraq and we need to just bomb the hell out of everyone! The war on terror won’t be won until we make Mecca a wasteland!

- This is why we need sealed borders, even though these terrorists were Brit CITIZENS and the cell phone sellers are US CITIZENS, that doesn’t matter. Close the borders now! Impeach Bush. Impeach Cheney. Go Tancredo!


I have to wonder why the Anchoress bothers reading such crapaola writing, much less reporting on it. The opinions she is parodying there are straight out of central casting from the latest Bushitler movie. There are no such people within the credible right-wing.

So, who is she parodying? It isn't satire, if it doesn't have a target.

Of course, there are loonies at blogs who do say such things, but they are not part of the national discourse, whereas the lefty voices she parodies in her post (go to the link and click if you want to see them) are clearly the mainstream of the Democratic party at this moment.

Now, in a comment over at Lumpy's blog, the Anchoress writes:


I do think the murderous fiends of Islam are a too-visible minority who have cowed even the “silent majority” of Muslims who are decent people. I am frankly getting leery of the “all Muslims are evil” mindset and think we should tread around that very carefully.


I love the Anchoress, but with all due respect, all her post, and her comment here is serving to do is to position herself as a moderate, which is a fruitless exercise when one is positioning oneself with regards to Islam. It’s like saying, “Not all of Hitler’s followers were evil.” So what?

The thing is, the world view put forth by the Koran is evil. The face put forth by Islam in the political arena is evil or filled with deceit. There is no substantial Islamic political voice for moderation. All the major political groups which represent Muslims are radical in nature.

Like the Anchoress, I believe there are huge numbers of what I would call moderate Muslims. These, from my experience are Muslims who follow the good things the Koran says. They wish non-Muslims well. They are interested in giving and receiving love within their families, and within the larger world.

However, these Muslims are like decent Germans under Hitler. They are a completely unrepresented political body. They do not make their voices heard. Therefore, they are insubstantial, and they are ignored by the Islamofascists who control the Islamic voice.

It may not be The Anchoress’ intent to position herself as a moderate out of a sense of self-agrandizement, but the fact is, that as long as she is not dealing with Islam as it presents itself, the only person her words serve is her own self. It makes her look cool, but it doesn’t move the debate forward.

It is important that we say, “We hate the Islam of Jihad, strict-Sharia, and the burqa. If you are not that kind of Muslim, then you are my friend. But, please, for our sake, and for your own sake, stand up and be counted as being against this fascist form of Islam. Because if you don’t, then we are all going to have a big problem come the time when the West is hit really hard by Islamic terrorists.”

Instead of urging moderation in the public discourse about Islam, the Anchoress ought to be urging Muslims to show us their moderation. Muslims must help themselves. Their population is represented by adult human beings. They need to be responsible for what they put out in the public.

Thus far, moderate Muslims have not begun to be responsible for themselves. I think the Anchoress was off target, and it would seem time for a clarification and perhaps an apology to the right-wing she has lampooned.

Let me be clear, I am not a right-winger. I am a lifelong Democrat. (The fact that the Democratic party has become something more akin to the anti-Semitic isolationist right of the 1930's and 1940's does not make me any less of a liberal.) So, my reaction to the Anchoress is not one of personal offense. Instead, I simply think we need less calls for moderation, and more urgent calls for moderate Muslims to stand up and be counted.

The longer we wait to get serious, and the longer moderate Muslims wait to stand up and be counted, the worse the weaponry of the Islamofascist regimes will become.