The revolution from above and militant Islam

[fpb]

On the early morning of Sunday 25 July, I saw a long (half-hour) BBC interview with Eileen Gittins, the founder of the print-to-order company Blurb. (Print-to-order companies are internet-based businesses that allow anyone to publish a book and make as many or as few copies as they can sell or pay for. The best-known is Lulu.) The interviewer was

Comments

[shezan]

What can I say to this except that I concur with every one of your arguments?

[3secondfish]

Neither can I add anything but flattery to the esteemed author.

[fpb]

Not that I am not grateful, but I hope that in time you will have your own comments and disagreements to present. The last thing I want is to silence people, and besides, "Whenever everyone in a room agrees, someone is not thinking". (This quote is ascribed to General Patton, which I find hard to believe. He was not famous for openness to the ideas of others.)

[jordan179]

The politics of outrage and constant claim, backed by the occupation of institutions by a single ideological group, are resulting in an anti-democratic revolution from above. Elections will increasingly become an empty ritual - unless somewhere a political leader emerges who can not only break the stranglehold of the culture of offence, but also have the nerve to impeach and send to jail those judges and civil servants who have used their position to rewrite the laws and oppress opponents, and to demand that the laws and the will of the people be respected in every area.

Indeed none of the likely outcomes save that created by a charismatic and competent democratic leader are good ones. If the institutional leadership wins, you'll have lost meaningful democracy in Europe; if no charismatic and competent libertarian democratic leader succeeds, you'll see the rise of a charismatic and comptent authoritarian leader, who will be supported by a people sick and tired of domination by left-wing bureaucrats, which is to say you'll see the

[fpb]

Actually, what prompted this article was the decision of Judge Walker, in the United States of America.

[affablestranger]

Excellent post, as always.

I could not agree with your points more.

[thefish30]

The reason why the elites are so committed to contrasting goals such as feminism, gay rights, and the promotion of Islam in its most militant and folkloric fashion, is that they are not really goals. They are means. In one way or another, they are intended to limit the space of public debate, of free deliberation, of citizen intervention. What radical Islamists and gay rights activists have in common is their commitment to the politics of offence, to demanding that anyone whose views they find offensive should be silenced by force, and ultimately that any law whioh offends them should be suppressed. This places power in the hands of minorities and away from the mass of the people.

This is the sound of a key turning in a lock. I will want to bring this up in conversation with my family.