Re: "Bin Laden as Patrick Henry? Confusion reigns five years after September 11."
Hat tip to Laura Ingraham for linking this Wall Street Journal article by Daniel Henninger.
posted by Consul-At-Arms at 9:09 PM
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
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- Name: Consul-At-Arms
- Location: Port Plaisance, Sunshine Island, Barclay Islands Dependent Territories
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1 Comments:
Interesting attempt to draw parallels between Islamofascism and Communism. It's not a perfect analogy, for the following reasons:
1. Communism in the USA was defeated by market forces more than by any law: our economy in the critical 1950s was going like gangbusters, so the ordinary working stiff saw a better chance in obeying the current rules rather than picking up the red banner. Not so in postwar Europe, which is why all those countries still have active PCs and even their "conservative" parties are varying shades of pink.
2. The USSR was not trying to destroy the US by direct violence. Its espionage activities were mainly directed at weakening our military capabilities so that we would lose WWIII, which the Sovs honestly believed WE would start! Another goal was gradual infiltration of our institutions, culminating in an almost bloodless revolution (in the case of Europe, there was always the hope of a CP winning an election - the ultimate bloodless victory of the proletariat). The anti-Commie laws were directed against these threats by trying to keep Commies out of trusted gov't positions. In contrast, the Jihadis do not seem to be using espionage or institutional infiltration as their major tools. How could 1950s-like laws work against people who have no interest in integrating themselves into our system?
3. Finally, how can you distinguish between the Jihadi and the average Muslim in any practical way? We will not apply a blanket rule to all Muslims in the same way we did with all Communists.
Probably the closest historical analogy is not to anti-Communism, but to anti-Catholicism in the US. This was born from actual British experience of fighting off the allies of Popes who cared at least as much about temporal power as they did about spiritual power. Most of Britain's enemies in the 17th and 18th centuries were Catholic monarchs who could include re-poping England in their rallying cries. Even though one of those Catholic monarchs was a Revolutionary ally of ours, on the whole we retained the British wariness of all things papal. It's no coincidence that anti-Catholicism in America decreased with the popes' temporal power.
But anti-Catholicism in America was mostly extralegal, and it 'succeeded' (i.e., we hold elections every four years instead of waiting for white smoke at irregular intervals) mainly because of extraterritorial events (e.g. Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel confining the popes to quarters).
So I don't think that analogy is too instructive, other than to point out that a legal structure for combatting Islamofascism will look a lot like a legal structure for combatting Islam.
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