RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16732/pope-francis-encyclical-fratelli-tutti

The Pope, for instance, implies that the twilight of the planet’s centuries old diplomatic nation-state system has arrived, prompting the need for a more globalist political system. Regrettably, that usually brings with it no transparency, no accountability and no recourse. Think of the United Nations, the UN Human Rights Council, the International Criminal Court or the European Union.

In the Pope’s encyclical, the “stranger” is always a desperate, impoverished refugee seeking solace, never an aggressor with the will to conquer.

Although Francis may have been especially aware of his Muslim guests, Catholics must wonder if they, too, were included as part of the intended audience. There was simply little or no mention in the encyclical of core Catholic beliefs.

In truth, however, “Fratelli Tutti” seems more a contrived, secular attempt to fashion a model for the governance of humankind that could attract the support of believer and non-believer alike. Unfortunately, it may also rally those hoping to bring down Judeo-Christian civilization to assume that the West is unfurling a flag of surrender.

The Pope’s Encyclical “Fratelli Tutti” (“Brothers All”) sadly seems more a massive and unwieldy political document than a religious guide to the Catholic faithful. The encyclical’s intended audience appears to be secular world rather than people of faith. The 43,000-word tome contains almost no discussion of Catholic dogmas. Although the Pontiff’s diagnosis of the world’s ills seems accurate enough, unfortunately his proposed antidotes — equality of result rather than equality of opportunity and individual liberty, the bedrocks of Western democracies — would seriously threaten freedom.

The Pope, for instance, implies that the twilight of the planet’s centuries old diplomatic nation-state system has arrived, prompting the need for a more globalist political system. Regrettably, that usually brings with it no transparency, no accountability and no recourse. Think of the United Nations, the UN Human Rights Council, the International Criminal Court or the European Union.

The Pope denigrates the concept of nationalism by referring to it as “local narcissism.” His support for “open borders” would deny nations the right to sovereignty over their national territories. Pope Francis, a lifelong priest of the Jesuit order, appears to be calling for a system of international organizations that would possess the power to override the will of individual states and have the potential to become a global despotism.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16731/turkey-return-of-demons

Though Empire-builders of the first order, the Ottomans were always careful not to bite more than they could chew. Erdogan, however, is leading Turkey into empire-building adventures which it does not want and cannot afford.

It has… launched a war of words with the European Union as a whole. Ostensibly, Turkey’s beef is about old maritime demarcation lines that deny it the right to tap underwater oil and gas resources. What Erdogan does not realize is that the potential market for those resources is the very European Union he is now casting as enemy. In any case, the disputed resources cannot be tapped without massive investment from the West, not to mention the technology needed.

By promoting a strategic break with Europe, Erdogan is leading Turkey into the unknown, with demons whispering in his ears.

“Our past was in Asia but our future is in Europe!” This was how Mesut Yilmaz portrayed his vision for Turkey in a panel debate in Davos in the 1990s.

At the time, Yilmaz, who died last week at the age of 73, was one of the rising stars of Turkish politics and a generation that seemed destined to complete a revolution that had started in the 1880s in the Ottoman Empire. That revolution had aimed at transforming the moribund empire into a modern Western-style state capable of reversing more than a century of decline that had earned the caliphate the sobriquet of “Sick man of Europe.”

By the start of the 20th century, however, it had become clear that building a modern European-style state, based on the Westphalian principles, required the existence of a nation also in the European sense of the term; an impossible task as long as the Ottoman state remained a multi-national empire whose legitimacy was based on religion which, by definition, excludes the very concept of a nation-state.

https://lawliberty.org/treating-evil/

The ease with which Kujtim Fejzulai, the young North Macedonian terrorist responsible for the recent terrorist outrage in Vienna, was able to deceive psychologists, police, and other supposed experts into believing that he had abjured Moslem extremism, would have been funny, even hilarious, had its consequences not been so terribly tragic and deadly.

Fejzulai, a citizen of both Austria and North Macedonia, was released early from a prison sentence, imposed because he had tried to cross from Turkey into Syria in an attempt to fight for ISIS, with which he sympathised. He was released early from prison for two reasons: his youth (he was 20) and because he claimed to have seen the error of his extremist ways.

On statistical grounds, his youth might more sensibly have been a reason for detaining him in prison for longer, even for much longer, because it is precisely during their youth that young men such as he, who are attracted to violence, are most likely to commit it. A sentimental view of youth, however, prevailed over a more realistic one.

But the second reason for his release was even more absurd, and revealed the arrogant technocratic mindset of so many western authorities and governments, which suppose not only that there is a technical solution to all human problems, but that they have found it. They imagine that, since they are representatives of the richest and most advanced societies in the world, they must have techniques to change the “primitive” mindsets of Moslem extremists. Surely it is not possible for people with a world outlook that belongs more to the seventh than to the twenty-first century, to fool people with doctorates from reputable and even venerable universities, who have access to the latest technology and all the information in the world?

The fact is, however, that any ignorant and stupid seventh century-minded extremist is more than a match for any number of psychologists, criminologists, sociologists, computer scientists, etc. While I cannot sympathize with his outlook to the slightest extent, in a sneaking or convoluted way, I am glad that he is up to the task. His ability so easily to deceive means that technocracy is still not triumphantly successful—as I hope that it never will be. Our humanity is preserved by the fact that so-called deradicalization is a charade. What Fejzulai needed was not a technical procedure, with a technical assessment as to whether or not it had worked, but thirty years or more in prison to cool his heels: for society’s sake, of course, rather for than his, though it is probable also that it would have saved his life.