Has the West Lost the Will to Live?

CAFE SIEGE SITUATIONWhen it became too obvious to deny that the hostage crisis in Sydney, Australia was an act of Islamic terrorism, Prime Minister Tony Abbott asked Aussie citizens for calm, saying, “The whole point of politically motivated violence is to scare people out of being themselves. Australia is a peaceful, open and generous society – nothing should ever change that. And that’s why I would urge all Australians today to go about their business as usual.” That’s what a politician is expected to say. But what he should have said is that the time for business-as-usual is over.

Recently my friend Doris Wise Montrose – founder of Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and its related site for self-defense instruction, Jews Can Shoot – brought to my attention something she found disconcerting. It was a Facebook post by a very popular Israeli news blogger, a brief update on the knife attack perpetrated by a young Arab on shoppers in a Jerusalem supermarket. This update was accompanied by mention of the blogger’s own mundane shopping trip to a different supermarket, and a photo of the contents of his cart.

Doris commented to him that connecting the two experiences in the same breath, in the same tone, seemed oddly cavalier. The blogger replied that it was simply an acknowledgement that this is the way of life in Israel – her citizens refuse to be cowed; they proudly carry on even with terrorism in their midst. Business as usual.

Last month novelist Jack Engelhard, who writes a weekly column for Israel’s Arutz Sheva, wrote an op-ed questioning precisely this attitude of proudly taking terrorism in stride. He noted that in the wake of four rabbis being hacked to death in a Jerusalem synagogue, for example, Israeli life went on as before. Engelhard wrote: “Hurray for Jewish bravado,” but

are Israelis getting too used to this? Is this a case of Israelis proving that nothing can stop them, or is this a case of Israelis accepting their fate as sheep doomed to be slaughtered? When will it end… how can it end… when no matter what happens ‘everything is back to normal’?

You often hear the cliché that if we let the terrorists change our way of life, change who we are, then they win. But they have changed our way of life and who we are as a culture. Look at what has become of air travel in the wake of 9/11 and the bungling Shoe Bomber: passengers shuffling along like cattle in long security lines, removing our shoes and laptops, submitting to invasive scans by the useless TSA, etc. This is but one example of our “new normal,” and as incidents like the Boston Marathon bombing and the Jerusalem synagogue butchering and the Sydney hostage-taking become more and more common, they too will become our new normal.

The jihadists need not carry out another 9/11 or a nuclear strike in order to ultimately prevail. Terrorism is a war of attrition, a strategy of death by a thousand cuts. That means we live with the subtle but ever-present expectation that a so-called “lone wolf” like the Sydney gunman, or a suicide bomber, or a well-trained team of merciless slaughterers like the Mumbai or Nairobi terrorists could strike anywhere at any time: a mall, a café, a market, a school, a synagogue, a subway, anywhere.

For the victims of terrorism life doesn’t go on at all, and it is forever altered for the surviving family members and friends. The rest of us live with the knowledge that next time, it could be us or our loved ones. The psychic attrition is incalculable, and it sits in our consciousness like a cancer no matter how much we tell each other that we must not live in fear.

In an address to the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust earlier this year, J.J. Goldberg of the Jewish Daily Forward praised those Jews during the Holocaust who “fought back by surviving another day in the face of the inhuman killing machine, and then another day and another. They fought back by maintaining their humanity and dignity in the face of utter depravity.”

But that is not fighting back; it certainly is not victory. It’s simply a dignified surrender. To accept living under the cloud of terrorism while declaring stubbornly that it won’t change us is a terrible self-delusion. It is a fatal misconception to believe that simply denying terrorists the satisfaction of terrorizing us is any kind of a victory at all. Our humanity and dignity mean nothing if depravity wins, if our civilization succumbs to a hungrier, more ruthless one, if the world enters a Dark Age under a totalitarian theocracy. The only victory worth having will come when we bring the terrorism to an end.

The West is in decline for a number of reasons, one of which is its cultural capitulation in the face of an ascendant Islamic fundamentalism. It is as if we, or at least our leaders and elites, have lost the cultural will to live. We need to get in touch with a sort of cultural rage, a fierce determination to crush threats to our culture, our values, and our liberty. We need to demonstrate that our tolerance has reached an end, that there will be no more coexistence with an ideology openly dedicated to our destruction. “Never mind normal,” as Jack Engelhard put it. To paraphrase his wish for Israel, for once let our blood “be exceptional and cause for nausea and trembling” among our enemies. Show the jihadists that there will be no more business-as-usual capitulation, and that they can expect us to unleash hell in retaliation for a single drop of Western blood.

We have a President who actually announced to the world that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” At the rate we’re going, it won’t. One thing is certain: the future will belong to the culture that is not hamstrung by cultural self-doubt, that is not mired in apologetic self-abasement, that is not burdened by historical guilt induced through decades of politically correct indoctrination, and that burns with a will to win, no matter how long it takes or what it costs. The future will belong to the lions, not the lambs.

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  • herb benty

    “We won’t let terrorism change us”…..”But it has…” And so it goes. That lefty or jihad denier is just cementing political correctness in even further into our lives, And those who point this all out will be called, “Islamophobes”. The BS will continue…..which is what happened to Europe.

    • GinoMachiavelli

      Islamophobia is akin to Agateophobia, sane and healthy …

  • LastmaninEurope

    H G Wells’ book The Time Machine features the sinister yet symbiotic Eloi and Morlocks relationship.

    Attacks like the one in Sydney is the equivalent of the air raid siren moment.

    A bit of excitement, a few victims lost, then the herd returns to its quotidian and culturally vacuous existence.

    • SCREW SOCIALISM

      europeans are the spineless Eloi – walking to slaughter at the hand of the Islamofascist Morlocks.

      • Rosasolis

        Perhaps Europe is no longer so spineless as you may think.
        After the recent Islamic Jihad riots in The Hague, our Netherlands
        government has passed several new laws to control these
        terrorist groups. Recently folks have been joining together and demonstrating in Amsterdam, Dresden, and other cities to
        demand immediate action from the governments to prevent
        Islamic terrorism from growing in Europe. If you are interested,
        there is a Netherlands site, which sends out daily news in
        English: http://www.dutchnews.

  • http://JudeoChristianAmerica.org Alexander Gofen

    These are profound thoughts which ought to be voiced out non-stop decades ago. The title is a rhetoric question, because the West did lost the will to live, while islam has made numerous inroads into all echelons of power in the West – a perfect storm outlined here: http://JudeoChristianAmerica.org/Imminent.htm

    The only way to survive is to set a goal to completely rid of islam in the West: no mosques, no moslems! And the only party setting such a goal in America is http://JudeoChristianAmerica.org/Platform.htm Items 8-10
    http://JudeoChristianAmerica.org/Islam/

  • http://gerardjackson.com/ gerard jackson

    The apparent weakness of the West is entirely due to the activities of the cancerous left. That means that we have to fight on two fronts.

    • DowntotheBone

      I say repeatedly, and have for some time, that our domestic enemies are at least as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than our foreign enemies.

      • pupsncats

        I have as well. The terrorists of the left in this country who control all of our institutions are even more dangerous than the Islamic terrorists because they terrorize the mind, body, and soul so that if you are alive, you are as dead as if your body was destroyed.

    • http://JudeoChristianAmerica.org Alexander Gofen

      Not only due to the left, but also due to the rights of Ron Paul types, negating our exclusive Judeo-Christian identity no less than the lefts ,and embracing every mosque… And due to repoobcs like Chris Christie.

      • nimbii

        Agree with you all, the Left owns the MSM and the Left is successful because the MSM promotes their subterfuge and has for decades.

        Our faculty lounge driven breeder campuses provide an endless supply of hard Lefties for the MSM and their useful fools to keep the ball rolling.

        • Lightbringer

          And they’ve had one of their own in the Oval Office for six years.

    • Lightbringer

      If you have not already read Diana West’s AMERICAN BETRAYAL, you should. The author traces the Soviet infiltration of the US government and culture that began with FDR’s recognition of the USSR in 1933 and how that infiltration destroyed our critical thinking abilities in a number of ways. She then goes on to show how Islam is using similar tactics, while taking advantage of that void in the American mind. “Islamophobia” is the new “Red-bating”, a thing to be ridiculed as the foolish ravings of some marginalized idiots. The book is a long slog and a grim topic, but quite worth reading.

    • Kingscairn

      That’s total bullshit…..”the apparent weakness of the West is entirely due to the” LACK OF ACTIVITIES of the cowardly Right. That means that we have to fight on THREE fronts.

  • montlasky

    So well put! Is anybody listening????

  • MattBracken

    Yes, it has. Our so-called leaders are merely arranging surrender terms and their own future protection.

    • pupsncats

      They think they are protecting themselves but history proves that after the totalitarian comes into power, he eliminates everyone who he believes might be able to topple him or dissents from any part of his rule. Lots of supporters of revolutions were exterminated. There is no reason to think anything would be different.

      • MattBracken

        Very true, but it never stops the Quisling traitors from trying.

  • Hard Little Machine

    Yes of course. This is late 5th century imploding Roman empire. One more strong push and it topples and you better crack that Koran and get to ululating.

  • http://johnnyangeladvocacygroup.net JohnnyAngel Advocacy Group

    Continue to let the academics(ObaPutin types)run “things” and we won’t have a free country very soon.

  • Rosasolis

    I think that most people in America and Europe, are tired. Tired of having to face
    too many problems forced upon them by incapable leftist governments, and tired of wondering how they will be able to pay their bills, and get through the month without
    having much left over in order to survive. Tired of hearing daily news about
    the growing Islamic terrorism, which is spreading all over the Middle-east and
    Africa, by groups such as Isis, Boko Harem, Al Qaira, El Shabat and the Taliban.
    A few days ago this reached Australia, a day later the massacre in Pakistan…..
    and our Netherlands news service just announced a few minutes ago, that a
    village in Nigeria was attacked this morning by El Shabat terrorists. They shot
    all the men and boys, and captured over 150 women and girls. This is the 2nd.
    time this has happened to Nigeria this year. I have often wondered how medical
    and aid workers are able to cope with the suffering they see daily amongst the
    thousands of refugees from Syria and Irak, who are now living in tents along
    the Turkish border, under terrible conditions. Perhaps when a person is
    burdened with so many problems, and when the media also cannot not provide
    much good news, a state of ” quietness” takes over which can protect a person
    from facing health problems. The people who are alert, and will not tolerate
    corruption or terrorism, are the heros in our modern civilization….
    But most people are not heros, they just try to cope, and hope for better times.

  • http://www.clarespark.com/ Clare Spark

    Look for structural causes and strategic alliances as Bat Ye’Or did here: http://clarespark.com/2014/06/28/bat-yeors-eurabia-more-relevant-than-ever/. “Bat Ye’Or’s Eurabia more relevant than ever.”

  • DowntotheBone

    “Is returning to business-as-usual after terrorist attacks a sign of strength or giving up?”

    It is certainly not a sign of strength.

    It is a sign that those in power are dangerous (because they are in power) idiots (because…well, they’re idiots); who think that one should use the “sticks and stones will break my bones etc.” approach when dealing with savage barbarians who are at war with you.

  • pupsncats

    Finally, someone who gets it and speaks out.
    I can’t imagine the world if, when the whole of Christendom was under attack by Islamic terrorists, the Popes and the people had simply encouraged “business as usual.” But that was then. Now, the whole of Western Civilization has succumbed to a suicidal Progressive liberalism that not only destroys the mind by denying there are absolute truths and all opinions have the same value, and a “social justice” mindset that pits one against the other for economic advantage and selective privileges, but one where its governments are promoting, endorsing and helping to advance the world domination of Islam.

  • johninohio1

    That is a terrific statement. Bravo!

  • pupsncats

    Watch the video. Mark definitely gets it. He understands that the left has worked for decades to control the culture and conservatives have simply refused to believe those who control the culture, control everything.
    I would also suggest that the culture war is a spiritual war. We are up against the powers of evil which dominate the minds and hearts of the left (and some on the right) which has evidently made them incapable of seeing or hearing the truth about anything. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The American identity was formed through Judeo-Christian principles and values but as they have been discarded, the war against the truth which is a war against humanity itself, has been waged and evil is winning.

  • Stinky

    If we have lost our will to live it’s because we have been nertered by the law. We are not allowed to defend ourselves with weapons without goint to jail. The only people allowed to carry weapons are Muslims and illegal thugs. They kill thousands and the law looks the other way. If they go to court they are usually put in jail where they are supported on the taxpayers dime. Enough is enough. Either we are allowed to take out the filth when they do the crime or we are victims.

    • kiwi41

      The PC MC enforcers , i.e. the Police, th UK@ own reincarnation of the Gestapo, should become victims themselves, as they are allies to the mores lime scum, and therefore legitimate targets, either from random attacks or in the execution of their ” duty ” as rag head protectors.
      NO MERCY should be shown to either.

  • tom_billesley

    As a meaningful expression, “Coexist” is in the same class as “Arbeit Macht Frei”

  • http://www.glitternight.com/liberals-and-conservatives Balladeer

    One way of engaging on the cultural front is to counter every whiny wallow in America’s role in the slave trade by pointing out that the Muslim world was involved in that slave trade long before the West was and that Muslim “colonialism” in Africa PRECEDED European “colonialism.”

    Personally the “colonialism” I’m the most tired of is the colonialism imposed by the repulsive 1960′s generation of liberals.

  • nimbii

    We must not take the I’ll ride with you” option. It further obscures terrorists hiding in our midst. We must demand Muslims act and make a point of public engagement at every opportunity so they fear us and must choose to either act to stop the terrorists in their midst of face this as their future.

  • GSR

    Yes, the West has lost the will to live. No question.

  • http://www.stubbornthings.org NAHALKIDES

    This may be the best piece I have seen from Tapson. Exactly so – simply “going on” in the face of terrorist attacks, for now made with explosives and soon to be waged with WMD, is no victory – killing the terrorists and their client states is. Only then can we live in peace and security.

    The people still have virtue, although the corruption of the welfare state has ruined many. As for our elites, the Democratic leadership is dishonest and evil, the Republican leadership is corrupt and complicit with the Democrats. We need to change our leaders before we can change our country.

  • Lightbringer

    THE WRATH OF THE AWAKENED SAXON
    by Rudyard Kipling

    It was not part of their blood,
    It came to them very late,
    With long arrears to make good,
    When the Saxon began to hate.

    They were not easily moved,
    They were icy — willing to wait
    Till every count should be proved,
    Ere the Saxon began to hate.

    Their voices were even and low.
    Their eyes were level and straight.
    There was neither sign nor show
    When the Saxon began to hate.

    It was not preached to the crowd.
    It was not taught by the state.
    No man spoke it aloud
    When the Saxon began to hate.

    It was not suddently bred.
    It will not swiftly abate.
    Through the chilled years ahead,
    When Time shall count from the date
    That the Saxon began to hate.

    ——————————————————————————————–

    When will that happen, do you suppose?

    • http://www.stubbornthings.org NAHALKIDES

      When Conservatives get control of a political party and that party takes control of the government.

      • Lightbringer

        From your keyboard to God’s “eyes”!

    • camp7

      Excellent choice, always liked Kipling.

      When will that happen? –

      ‘Till every count should be proved,’

      ‘It was not suddently bred.
      It will not swiftly abate.
      Through the chilled years ahead,
      When Time shall count from the date’

      I’m guessing we’re pretty darn close.

      Always liked Kipling. Thanks for that.

  • popseal

    Until the West recognizes the problem is with Islam and not us, this dangerous attack on us will continue until we are defeated. Multiculturalism is our worst enemy inside our gates.

  • Yusuf S. Ghazzali

    THE WRITER OF THIS ARTICLE SAYS: “When it became too obvious to deny that the hostage crisis in Sydney, Australia was an act of Islamic terrorism……..”

    BUT I SAY: it was an act of individual terrorism, not Islamic terrorism! When will Zionist propaganda against Islam end?

  • Yusuf S. Ghazzali

    THE WRITER OF THIS ARTICLE SAYS: “The West is in decline for a number of reasons, one of which is its cultural capitulation in the face of an ascendant Islamic fundamentalism………”

    Hahaha….I thought the capitulation of the west has already happened but to Zionists!
    Do Zionists now feel threatened from the Master’s seat? Forget it, Muslims are too disorganized to take on the Zionists! Rest easy brother. Hahaha

  • Yusuf S. Ghazzali

    “We need to get in touch with a sort of cultural rage, a fierce determination to crush threats to our culture, our values, and our liberty. We need to demonstrate that our tolerance has reached an end, that there will be no more coexistence with an ideology openly dedicated to our destruction.”

    These words by the writer reminds me of the zionist bloodlust, always inciting people to war. But be sure he himself nor his family would not be anywhere near the battlefront. He will enjoying the cozy seat at his office punching “tough words” into the computer.

    Quran 5:64 says: “As often as they ( a section of Jews) light a fire for war, God extinguisheth it. Their effort is for corruption in the land, and God loveth not the corrupters.”

    • Mladen_Andrijasevic

      Zionist bloodlust? And what and Hamas’s?

      Article 7 of the Hamas Charter reads:
      http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp

      The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.

      Article 7 is taken from Hadith Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 177
      and quotes the Prophet Muhammad:
      http://www.hadithcollection.com/sahihbukhari/85/3715-sahih-bukhari-volume-004-book-052-hadith-number-177.html

      Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah’s Apostle said, “The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. “O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.”

      Article 13 of the Hamas Charter reads:
      There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad

  • Mladen_Andrijasevic
  • Kingscairn

    White West has anyway !

  • Chris Oliver

    Strewth this is silly. The fact that the gunman, who seems to have shot one hostage only – big jihad that – was a Muslim may be irrelevant to his crime. He was mentally unstable and in trouble with the law. His demands reflected his nuttiness: he wanted an ISIS flag, since he hadn’t thought to purchase or make one before the siege began; he wanted a phone conversation with the prime minister. The same week as the siege, a woman in Cairns, Queensland, stabbed eight of her children to death. So far we don’t know, and seem not to care, what her religion was.

    If you think I’m naive in resisting your Islam = murder equation, let me point you to the Facebook page of Zohar Zuarets. Not so long ago, he posted this status update:

    “Oh my God, what a dream I had! I enter the hospital nursery with all the cradles with babies inside. I draw out my butcher knife and go to every baby and if it’s Arab, I decapitate it. By a Jewish baby I place a sacred book [“Tikun Klali”–a book of ten Psalms recited when a man has a nocturnal emission!]. The rosiest dream I’ve ever had!”