This afternoon I had a skype discussion with one of our German translators (listed as “A” in the transcript below) about the categorical misrepresentation of the nature of Islamic jihad by the authorities in Western countries:
| A: | Baron, I think that once, when some talking head or politician was telling us that one is more likely to die from a fishbone than from terrorism, you explained the difference between these two events. I think you used a mathematical or scientific expression. | |
| B: | Hmm. It might have had to do with intentionality and agency; I don’t know. Struck by lightning is one of the comparisons they like to use: “You’re more likely to be struck by lightning than to experience a terrorist attack.” | |
| As if jihad were an act of God, rather than the act of Satan let loose upon the Earth. | ||
| They always compare terrorist acts with things people have no control over, like tornados and lightning and earthquakes and so on. I think it’s to try to subliminally wipe out the idea among the public that jihadists act with agency and intentionality, and instead make them into something akin to a natural catastrophe, something that can’t be predicted or prevented. | ||
| A: | One of the fundamental flaws in the arguments they always make, I think, is that they ignore it is not either-or; it is one more risk added. As my friend who smokes tells me: “So what? You have a risk too; you could be run over by a car!” | |
| Duh. | ||
| B: | The tornado just touches down; lightning just strikes; the bomb just explodes. No one can stop it. No one can say why it happens. | |
| A: | Right. | |
| B: | As if jihad were an accident, right? | |
| A: | In Germany they like to compare it to people choking on fish bones. Which annoys me, because I choose to eat the fish (or not). Or, I choose to wear flip-flops when I get on a ladder to clean the window, so I know the risk and I take it and it is my fault when I break my neck. |
An afterword: Propagandistically speaking, our political leaders are currently attempting to mould popular perceptions to remove the idea that there is any discernible cause behind Islamic terror attacks. If the process is completed successfully, we will be unable even to think about the causative agents that unleash jihad upon us.
From the point of view of the Powers That Be, this is a necessary manipulation of public awareness, because (a) millions of Muslims must be imported into the West to make up for the population shortfall, and to act as lytic agents breaking down national identity; and (b) the nature of Islam — i.e. its imperative to wage jihad — is useful to employ as a conditioning agent, thereby producing a docile population.
We are meant to see jihad as something inexplicable and irresistible. It may be possible to placate Muslims somewhat to improve our chances, but the idea that jihad can be prevented, resisted, opposed, or stopped must remain impossible to contemplate.
For each and every single muslim on the planet…….the U.S. firearms industry produces a dozen or so rounds of ammunition (various calibers, and ALL for the CIVILIAN MARKET) each and every year.
How’s that again about our inability to deal with the “muslim problem” ON OUR OWN exclusive of gummint??
Don’ need no steeeeeeeeenkking guverrment.
If only there was some comparable industry that manufactured backbones and gonads…
All the firearms and cartridges ever manufactured are absolutely useless without the will to use them.
That is exactly my focus here: the systematic and deliberate (and thus far successful) attempt to sap the collective will to protect one’s culture and one’s people from destruction.
I would argue that our culture as presently constituted, also deserves to go the way of the dodo. I believe that Western culture reached it’s zenith at the twilight years leading into the First World War, and everything since has been a desperate holding action as one cultural barricade after another has been successfully breached by the forces of the nihilistic far left masquerading as progress and modernism.
Now, we are reduced to fighting over whether or not children should be allowed to have sex change operations, and whether or not perverts can use the bathroom of the opposite sex. The whole rotten edifice deserves to be discarded, and those who advocate and agitate to suck the soul and confidence from the people of the West should be rounded up and purged wholesale.
Our people and identity as Westerners deserves to be defended, but what sorry shadow of a great culture that existed at the dawn of the 20th century deserves to be discarded as well, and a new, confident, civil, and refined society be created from it’s ashes.
I can sympathize with the sentiment that our culture “deserves” this. However, when I think of what this means in practical terms, I don’t want it. If your vision comes true, there will be heaps of corpses in our streets, mass death and suffering, untold misery, the disappearance of all that is fine and good about us, and the suffering of millions of people who do not “deserve” it at all, not in the slightest.
For that reason I will continue my struggle, futile though it may be, to shore up the battered and shaky remnant of our great civilization.
I believe, Baron, that the worst-case scenario will materialise. The only satisfactory reason to resist the jihad and to sacrifice everything we have for final victory is that Jesus Christ is Lord and the fullness of divine truth; and that Muhammad is an impostor and his followers are blasphemers who are guaranteed eternal damnation.
Europe isn’t coming back to its Christian faith, and that is why I agree with Father Boulad that it will become Islamic within 30 years.
Yes, it will mean heaps of corpses in our streets, mass death and suffering, untold misery, the disappearance of the very memory of what Christian Europe was, and the assimilation of western Europe to Saudi Arabia as Europeans convert to Islam just to put an end to their suffering.
After that, Islam will be stoppable only by nuclear war.
You know, I tend to agree with your assessment. This is the most likely future for Western Europe and Canada, and possibly for Australia, New Zealand, and the USA as well. The work we do is probably in vain.
However, as you say, Christ calls us to it. Here I stand; I can do no other.
Moon, you usually have some pretty good comments on topics raised here that I generally appreciate.
But, your latest contribution doesn’t seem to reflect your fair thinking.
I would add to your comment, that we are not yet done in this Western culture that has so far survived for two thousand years, and which is 600 years older than Islam. And I would remind you that it is us that is under attack from within that presents the gravest danger, because our enemies throughout history have always been from without.
So, we are in a new paradigm as a culture to which we must gird our loins and take to fighting our enemy as Christ has told us to perceive them.
En garde, mon ami!
On the issue of statistics, look up Nassim Taleb’s Twitter feed. He was laughing at the statistics of lightning strikes and their comparison with statistics of terrorism. These come from different probability distributions.
Not just different probability distributions, but different causes. And further, different categories of causes. Lightning strikes are stochastic; jihad is not. At least, not if we pay close attention to what’s going on around us.
If automation is going to lead toward the displacement of workers, why do we need more workers?
The workers are needed as consumers. The elites derive their wealth from the small percentage extracted from each transaction made by the peons. Without a critical mass of consumers, their income declines.
That’s right, and the Ummah are the world’s ultimate mass of consumers.
They do not maintain, take care of, or repair anything. They wear out, wreck, or destroy things, thus generating the need to buy more things!
https://youtu.be/9dKiLclupUM. Nassim Nicholas Taleb explains very well why you can’t compare deaths from fish bones vs terrorism: one has a very predictable number of deaths each year, one does not. The second paragraph may have alluded to this.
Yes, fishbone-choking is a stochastic phenomenon. Jihad is not. It is no more stochastic than, say playing football.
Thank you for that video.
Western societies were able to successfully prevent terrorist attacks for hundreds of years, using armed forces, border control and upholding the law. The only change I see, is that the moral backbone has somehow vanished from all the western leaders.
Civilization is said to have three stages: 1. Barbarism, 2. Civilized phase where everything is kept at balance, 3. Decadence.
Judging from the state of affairs all over world, I would say the western world is already very deep in phase 3.
I don’t know a single time anywhere in history where that cycle is reversed or stopped.
Maybe it’s time to reboot, smash the old and build something better.
But we have no way to consciously reboot, smash the old, etc. Would that it could be designed or planned ahead of time…
Very large ‘events’ will overtake us, and “history” will suffer another irruption. But we can’t will it or plan it. Jung, et al, were correct in intuiting a wide-spread Unconsciousness that moves in large waves to bring about change. We can only hope it will be “better” for the large swaths of humanity. But we have no way to foretell what will be the flashpoint for widespread change.
It’s not just the deadly acts of terrorism. In a way, they don’t concern me as much as the Taharroush, the Rotherhams and the fact that Western nations have imported an alien demographic that regards itself as superior and has no intention of integrating into or co-operating with the culture–add to those the attitude of the Western governments, who bend over backwards to appease this alien demographic and set about changing conditions for the rest of us in the process. And then, they bring their families, they keep arriving, and they breed. I believe we have a right to vote now for the Australia, America, France, Germany, or Wherever that we want to see in another one, two or three generations. I’m sure there’ll be some virtue signallers who’ll say,
Well, if the majority votes for sharia, shouldn’t they have it? My answer is that we should be able to determine now whether we want to consign future generations to such a fate. I know what my answer is.
One other aspect of this phenomenon, I suggest, is the assertion that the Muslims who commit terrorist acts are not “real” Muslims.
I was in a car once with someone who tried to make this argument, shortly after the Tunisian terrorist attack where some Mohammedan with a machine gun had slaughtered innocent holidaymakers. (It’s difficult to keep track of all the different Islamic terrorist attacks, I know …)
I quickly responded: You say that fellow was not a “real” Muslim, but he actually did exist. He really did walk along that beach with a machine gun made of steel and wood, that existed in this reality. Those bullets were made of real lead. They tore into actual human beings, who really died. You say that the terrorist was not a “real” Muslim? Let me assure you, that Muslim was real!
Of course they are trying to say that somehow he was not following the teachings of Islam in a proper way (as if they were in a position to judge) but I think that this wordplay serves another, insiduous purpose – it suggests that the perpetrator of the act did not exist. That is to say, it was just an uncontrollable and unpredictable event, like the rain. So it was entertaining – and effective – to turn their wordplay round on them and hit them with the above response.
As you would expect, they had no answer to it.
Good comment. Whenever I hear someone suggest that Islam is a peaceful ‘religion’ or that not all Muslims are terrorists etc, etc, I always ask them what they know about Islam and Muslims in general.
Very rarely do I come across anyone who holds those views and who know anything at all about Islam.