Justification of Cowardice

Mark Steyn's latest piece on the Islamist terror attacks and the response by the politicians and newsmedia is an absolute must read.

That line he quotes from Barbara Amiel's column; "They convert the base notion of being scared into a noble weapon of seeing someone else's point of view." really got me thinking. This behavior of claiming the moral high ground as a justification for appeasement and surrender is nothing new to the Left. They have done this from the end of World War II all the way to the present. The American Left sought to appease the Soviet Union at every turn. Part of this was due to their shared ideology. Both were working for the same goal; just with different tactics. But the Soviets were much more willing to use force to achieve their goal. This scared the American Leftists. They knew that to oppose Soviet expansionism involved danger. Rather than accept that danger as the price of freedom, the American Left came up with any number of justifications for why we should not oppose the Soviets.

This cowardice raised it ugly head again in the Vietnam War. Throughout their entire lives, the baby boomers had enjoyed a standard of living never before seen by any nation on Earth. Their parents struggled through the Great Depression and sacrificed mightily to win World War II. They passed on to to their children world leadership, safety and prosperity. And like spoiled children, the baby boomers ignored the lessons of their parent's sacrifices and thought only of themselves. When came their time to defend freedom and our interests around the world, the baby boomers refused. Evidently their precious asses were more important than the needs of the nation. Oh, they came up with all sorts of moral objections to the war. I guess that's just easier than admitting that you are afraid to fight for your country. So we got lots of books, scholarly papers, movies, poems and songs about the immorality of war and the injustices of fighting non-Caucasians. Anything to justify not having to put themselves in danger.

The Reagan era brought about new heights in rationalizing why we shouldn't confront the Soviet expansionism. Throughout the 70's the Leftists around the free world made all sorts of excuses as to why we should not fight for our freedom. They created all new narratives to support their position; alternate histories, really. Anything to provide some sort of rational for doing nothing to preserve our way of life. As the excuses piled up, so did the nations falling to the scourge of communism. Millions of people around the world had lost their freedom. But the Western youth stayed safe and sound once they retreated up to the moral high ground. Reagan terrified them, because he wasn't willing to appease the Soviets. He knew the dangers of communism and was willing to fight to prevent its spread. The Western Leftists were so invested in their justifications for appeasement, they came to view Reagan as more of a threat than the Soviets. As it turns out, Reagan was right. He challenged the Soviets, using the strength of free markets and free peoples. The communists were unable to match our power and the Soviet empire fell apart.

When it was necessary for us to restore freedom to Kuwait, the American Leftists again came up with rationalizations against military action. New excuses were trotted out. "No blood for oil" was a common refrain. Somehow, the leftists came to the conclusion that fighting for economic necessity was not morally defensible. All industrialized societies are dependent on cheap energy and petrochemicals. That is a fact of life. You can bitch about materialism and consumerism all you want, but it doesn't change the basic facts of life. All the enviro-socialist wet dreams about renewable energy don't help us maintain a modern industrial society. We are dependent on cheap oil. That is a fact. We have to make our energy, national security and foreign policy decisions based on facts; not wishes, hopes and fears.

The rise of the Islamist threat is being met with the same fear and appeasement as the earlier threats of communism. When it comes right down to it, the Left would rather surrender or acquiesce to any foreign threat than have to stand up and fight. Better red than dead was their earlier mantra. Now it appears that they would be willing to pay the Jizziya tax, condemn women to the status of chattel and accept Muslim subjugation to fighting for our freedom. If these craven appeasers remain in power you better learn the shahada. Or maybe we just learn to ignore them and stand up and fight for freedom ourselves.