The war within the west

Another great piece on The American Thinker, this time from Christopher Chantrill, about what he calls "the real long war" - not between the west and Islam, but within the west between conservatism and progressive liberalism.

He starts by noting the difference in the way US conservatives respond to "setbacks" and the way British conservatives have behaved in recent years.

It would be easy in this situation to get discouraged, but we are conservatives and we are better than that. This is a point worth making because right now the Conservatives in Britain are having a total meltdown over a couple of minor political setbacks.

The Conservatives in Britain have been in meltdown since around 1945. Unlike the Greenland Ice Cap, though, their meltdown has accelerated over the last 20 years to the point where Conservative conservatism has been dissolved and merged into the ocean of liberal left progressive politics.

But if we are not to panic like our formerly stiff-upper-lipped cousins across the Atlantic we must "do something." I recommend we "do" some strategic thinking. As we retreat from Iraq we should think about the big picture.

To be fair to the Conservative Party, they did do some strategic thinking. And the strategy they came up with was to abandon conservatism and join the enemy. Well it worked for Italy in WW2. Chantrill's "big picture" is something other than surrender, though.

The left always seems to be swooning over the latest gang of designer thugs. Right now university book stores are featuring dozens of earnest attempts to understand Islam. Back in the 1980s the lefty Sandalistas were flocking to Sandinista Nicaragua. In the 1970s the left was busy understanding the rage of well-born terrorists in the Weathermen, the Italian Red Brigades, and the Baader-Meinhof gang. A decade before that it was Castro and the execrable Che Guevara. All of those thugs would have got nowhere without the fawning of the luvvies on the left.

Many of those on the left still swoon over those old thugs. They still miss old Mao, Guevara, Lenin and the way they wet themselves over that dear old murdering, terrorist scumbag, Yasser Arafat with BBC reporters weeping openly was cringeworthy in the extreme. Chantrill uses a term coined by Roger Scruton to identify these "luvvies on the left".

Oikophobes.

It's a fancy Greek neologism for "educated derision at... national loyalty," always siding with "'them' against 'us,' and the felt need to denigrate the customs, cultures, and institutions that are demonstrably 'ours.'" In short, as Scruton writes, it is "the repudiation of inheritance and home."

Yep, just about sums them up.

The "oikophobic" alliance presents a Janus face to the world. It claims to be the very highest and best in human evolution, committed to equality, sharing and caring. In pursuit of this ideal it advocates constantly for inclusiveness and against divisiveness. Yet it conducts its politics according to the crudest techniques of the demagogue, setting worker against boss, renter against owner, woman against man, poor against wealthy, secularist against believer, black against white, gown against town.

All very true. The left like nothing more than to claim the moral high ground and cite their commitment to "inclusiveness" and "diversity" as demonstrable evidence of their moral superiority - but when push comes to shove they're amongst the most discriminatory and divisive people around. You only have to think of the way Hizzonner Red Ken refuses to accept nomination of white men to certain posts, or the abundance of black, ethnic, homosexual or female only organisations which exist without criticism. Compare that to the way the BNP is attacked for having a whites only preference!

And the lefties promote their "oikophobia" through the various institutions -

--the schools, universities, foundations, arts communities, and newsrooms of the world--are the most exclusive and divisive around.

Not forgetting the dear old EU - oikophobic to the extreme.

But for all their faults you would think that the "oikophobes" would be willing to help conservatives defeat the homophobes, the racists, and the patriarchs of the Middle East.

You'd have thought so, wouldn't you? But they don't for some reason. Instead they back those who would wish to destroy our way of life against those of us who wish to preserve it. No one should be surprised of a group who, as Scruton said, denigrate the customs, cultures, and institutions that are demonstrably 'ours.'