RUTHFULLY YOURS

Many years ago I read a thought-provoking science-fiction short story about a sociologist who specialized in the important field of bureaucratic expansionism. I can’t recall the story’s title, and I haven’t found the story on the Web, but a colleague better schooled in sci-fi can probably identify it.

Through my hazy memories, however, it goes something like this. The sociologist is excited because he thinks he has gone farther than anyone else in discovering the sociological laws of organizational success. But how can he be sure? Inspired by a blend of scientific curiosity and a sense of fun, he makes friends with his mother’s sewing circle and persuades its members to reorganize it along his scientific lines.

At the close of the story the sewing circle has got three Senate seats, 55 House seats, and a credible contender for the presidency.

Which brings me not to Donald Trump but to the New Year’s riots in Cologne and two other German cities, in which one woman was raped, about 90 others grossly assaulted sexually, and New Year revelers of both sexes jostled, attacked, robbed, and threatened by an estimated 1,000 men of North African and Middle Eastern appearance in “organized” criminal gangs.

Whatever Mohammed’s virtues or defects as a prophet, he was one helluva practical sociologist.

When cultural relativism flowed from university campuses to the broader society and venturing unpopular or unfashionable opinions began to incur a certain risk, many found it easier to shrug, scoff and do nothing. That was a huge mistake, perhaps a fatal one
Western civilization is adrift in the world of ideas. Uncoupled from religion for over a century, the Judeo-Christian ethical tradition which endured—albeit, once it had been absorbed into a secular, modernist rationale—is under existential threat from within. The Twitter-lynching of Chris Gayle, the asylum seeker crisis in Europe and connected sexual violence in Cologne and other cities on New Year’s Eve, and the increasing frequency of attacks by Islam-inspired jihadists are all in their own and disparate ways symptoms of the same ailment.

Although perhaps well intentioned, the groupthink of Left orthodoxy is accelerating the demise of liberal values on which Western culture was built. While the Left may be more purposeful in severing the links that tie the West to its philosophical and religious past, the ‘right’ is not without fault. Its silence as liberal values become corrupted and discredited implies complicity; its retreat to behind the walls of neoliberal economics concedes defeat as fiscal short-termism is prioritised at the expense of reflecting on the the power and importance of ideas.

The dilution of Western values can be seen most prominently in the mainstream media and its role as a censor, rather than facilitator, of public debate. Pick any contentious topic — from gay-marriage and abortion to the role of Islam in terrorism or issues of race or gender — and you will hear only one side of the story, the politically correct angle. Dissenters beware, presenting an alternative view, or even questioning why the dominant view is dominant, will result in outrage and judgement. There is no such thing as truly free speech under such circumstances — no dialogue, no alternatives to the impulsive and dogmatic Left’s cause du jour, whatever its promoted crusade of the month might happen to be.

The Directorate for Religious Affairs, or Diyanet in Turkish, enjoys an annual budget bigger than those of more than 10 other ministries combined — and its president, a government-appointed cleric, enjoys a $400,000 chauffeur-driven car.

Turkey accuses those who protest lusting for one’s daughter of hating religiosity.

“[G]ossip and holding hands, not allowed in Islam.” — Fatwa from Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs.

Turkey has a government agency that regulates “religious affairs” [read: Sunni Muslim Affairs]. It is run by the country’s top Muslim cleric and reports to the prime minister. The Directorate for Religious Affairs, or Diyanet in Turkish, enjoys an annual budget bigger than those of more than 10 other ministries combined – and its president, a government-appointed cleric, enjoys a $400,000 chauffeur-driven car.

Among its duties is to issue “fatwas,” or to tell Muslim Turks what is religiously permissible and what is not. Its current president, the top cleric, also enjoys making long, doctrinaire speeches. Sometimes they sound reasonable, sometimes not.

Merkel once again exposed her seemingly incurable madness when she made a series of asinine, stupid, absurd, ridiculous, insulting, threatening, idiotic, dangerous, misguided, off-the-mark, lying, crazy remarks

More and more news is pouring out of Germany on the coordinated violence that Muslims perpetrated on New Year’s Eve, as the scale of what unfolded slowly comes to light. (For prior coverage see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

The number of cases that have been reported in Cologne has passed 500 and is climbing by the hour. Nearly half of the reports are for sexual assault. The police have confirmed the focus of their investigation is on people from North African countries and that the majority are “asylum seekers” and people who are in Germany illegally.

Information continues to emerge regarding the coordination of these attacks that brought colonizers from outside Germany to partake in the violence. Jihad Watch, reporting on an AFP article, writes:

Germany’s Justice Minister Heiko Maas said Sunday that the shocking spate of sexual assaults during New Year festivities in Cologne was organised.

“For such a horde of people to meet and commit such crimes, it has to have been planned somehow,” he told Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

“No one can tell me that this was not coordinated or planned. The suspicion is that a specific date and an expected crowd was picked,” he said, adding that if confirmed, that would “take on a new dimension”.

Quoting confidential police reports, Bild am Sonntag said some North Africans had sent out calls using social networks for people to gather in Cologne on New Year’s Eve.

Young men not only from Cologne, but as far as France and Belgium responded to the call to travel to the western German city, the newspaper said.