Ideas have consequences

That’s at the heart of historian Christopher Dawson’s teachings (see below) about moral order at the center of civilization.

It’s also at the heart of a post my friend Carmen Russo put up on his blog a couple of days ago about history and war.

The history of the world is the history of civilizational clashes, cultural
clashes. All wars are about ideas, ideas about what society and
civilization should be like, and the most determined always win.

Right now, one of the big ideas causing cultural clashes is ‘tolerance.’ Look down a few posts for an account of how Britain is grappling with that definition, in its own culture war. Then look at George Weigel’s account below of what ‘jihad’ really means, because it’s used in radically different ways, sometimes with violent threats.

Carmen makes the point that the ideas at the center of the war on terrorism are…

a world dominated by representative governments with civil rights, human rights, and personal freedoms

or one dominated by jihad.

It’s difficult to understand why the American left does not grasp this.
They favor human rights, civil rights, liberty and freedom, but evidently
not for Iraqis. “Peace Activists” always seem to demonstrate here in
America, where it’s safe.

Why don’t we see Peace Activists demonstrating in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Sudan,
North Korea, in the places that really need peace activism the most?

Because they can’t. Freedom of speech doesn’t exist there. It’s a good point, and I’d like to hear both opponents and supporters of our presence in Iraq have a civil debate about points like that, with intellectual honesty instead of political agendas.

The liberal mentality is supposed to favor human rights, civil rights,
democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc., but if the Jihad wins,
wherever the Jihad wins, it is the end of civil rights, human rights,
democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc.

But then, the liberal mentality that supposedly favors human rights also actively agitates for abortion on demand. That’s incoherent, because abortion takes human life at its weakest, most vulnerable stage.

So these are the ideas in opposition in the upcoming election. The consequences will be living with the set of values we elect to determine law and order for the foreseeable future.