Three Videos

The British Prime Minister, Theresa May, has tried to take President Trump to the woodshed for retweeting three videos from the Britain First group depicting radical Muslims in a bad light. Let me see ... depicting radical Muslims in a bad light is bad? The rationale for the Left's hysteria over Trump's action has two prongs: one, Britain First is a "radical" right-wing group ... and, two, the authenticity of these videos is questionable.

To deal with the validity of these videos and what they depict ... are they any more incendiary than the videos that radical Muslims themselves produce: the beheadings of dozens of  kneeling Christians dressed in orange ... or the drowning of heretics in steel cages? If Trump had retweeted these radical Muslim-produced videos, would he still be accused of inciting Islamophobia any worse than the radical Muslims themselves? Do people not see this clear paradox?

And secondly, why is not just as bad for PM May to stir up spittle-producing prejudice against the "radical" Britain First group as it is for Trump to incite push-back against radical Muslims. Has the Britain First group driven a lorry into a crowd of London Bridge pedestrians? Or killed dozens of passengers with nail bombs in the London Underground?  There is radical and then there is RADICAL!

Please, my (mostly liberal) readers, help me understand this upside-down thinking by answering these two troubling questions?

Nastiness

Are women second-class citizens in the Muslim world? Except for a few non-Arabic locals like Pakistan and Iran, generally they are. Yet, women's issues were not anywhere near the top of her agenda when Hellary was flying around this world as our SecState. But, in a country where women have voted for almost one hundred years and make up almost half of the workforce, suddenly women's issues are now paramount for this "nasty" woman. Of course, moving the battle of the sexes to center stage is a political calculation ... as is just about everything these days in the Clinton campaign.

If Hellary was showing the kind of outrage over Trump's "pussy" comment or his "nasty" aside as she (and Elizabeth Warren) should have been directing at radical Muslims and rap artists for how they treat women, then their current gnashing of teeth might have some credence. As it is, it rings as hollow as Obummer's promises about his Affordable Care Act.

It appears to this writer that selective outrage is one key facet of nastiness (another might be calling half of Americans "deplorable" and "irredeemable") ... and both Hellary and Tizzy Lizzy have had their tanks topped off on this character flaw.

By the bye, and to be fair ... Donald Trump also clearly carries a surfeit of nastiness ... and even I have bared my horns from time to time.

A Difficult Recipe

How will the world (mainly the U.S., Russia, China and India) suppress the radical Muslim movement before it becomes too large to deal with within their criminal justice systems? Whatever the answer, I don't believe it will be accomplished with "containment" and half measures. The brutality being displayed by these jihadis will need to be matched and even exceeded by the rest of the world to cause this existential evil to be squashed. This will not be pretty. It will cause outrage and gnashing of teeth within the pacifist class ... those naive ones who choose to believe that they could not be touched by this metastasizing menace.

I can't predict exactly what measures might be required to  effect this ultimate victory over the caliphatists ... but, be assured that, if it were here known, it might turn the stomachs of the squeamish. Just as the incredible brutality of the last days of the Second World War finally humbled the Axis aggressors, such mayhem will realistically need to be repeated or even exceeded to triumph over these radical Muslims. I would wish this need not happen, but the flaming fanaticism now being displayed by the jihad movement does not give me much optimism.

Can all this bloodshed be avoided? Yes, I believe that it might ... but only through a radical reformation of Islam ... one equivalent to what occurred in Christianity in the 1500's. This would require the zealots within the jihadi movement to adopt modernity from a world that is itself rotting from within ... rife with sinfulness, self-indulgence and sloth.

This is a  very difficult recipe with lots of bitter herbs.

Afterward: Russia's Putin has already suggested using atomic weapons against ISIS ... see: UK Express Story. I realize it is uncomfortable to discuss or even think about such solutions to this Islamic extremism ... but when Iran goes nuclear or if the crazies take over in Pakistan, then the apocalyptic desires of the jihadis need to be reckoned with realistically. Then the Putin solution may be the only answer.

What if ...

the 2016 presidential race were to be between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump? In order to assess this disturbing choice, I have developed the following comparisons:

As president.                                         Hillary                                   Donald
he/she would:                                       Clinton                                   Trump    

Keep us safe from                               Unlikely                              More likely
radical Muslims

Keep us safe                                        Unlikely                                   Likely
from Russia

Keep us safe                                        Unlikely                                  Unsure
from China

Be liked by.                                             Yes                                            No
Western Europe

Be liked by                                               No                                             Yes
Eastern Europe

Fix immigration                                      No                                            Yes
problems

Reform taxes                                   No ... more taxes                        Possibly

Reform entitlements                          No ... more                                  Yes

Reform regulations                                 No                                         Possibly

Strengthening our military                  Unlikely                                     Yes

Fix Obamacare                                        No                                            Yes

Reduce deficit                                          No                                          Likely

Demagogue                                              Yes                                            Yes

Self-serve                                                  Yes                                             Yes


I think this is enough to distinguish between these two candidates. If Trump is hopefully not the Republican choice, then I suggest that you repeat this exercise for that one that is ... I know I will.
                  

Clues

It seems to this observer that there are key indications to the breadth of the radicalized Muslim fifth column in Europe, at least. And one is that Salan Abdeslam, the eighth Paris attacker, has now evaded capture for a week and a half after the original attack despite a massive manhunt by both French and Belgian police. There must be dozens, if not hundreds, of Muslims there who know where this terrorist is ... and yet they are not coming forward with this information.

Also, we recently have seen, at a soccer game in Turkey, where, when a moment of silence was requested to memorialize the Paris attacks, many in the stadium started booing and shouting "Allahu Akbar." This is another clear indication of the depth of support for these terrorists.

These both events are damning indictmens against the notion that the Muslim religion has not been  seriously infected with this radicalizing cancer. And so the fact that many of our politicians are ignoring these clues does not give me comfort.

Afterward: See also: Breitbart Article.

Render unto Caesar …

Pope Francis is taking a left turn for the Catholic Church.  He is attacking Capitalism as being exclusionary and depraved.  And mostly he is right.  Capitalism does pick winners and losers … just like any other economic system. And Pope Francis, with his huge Christian heart, is railing against the winners and gushing angst for the losers.  In a way this is his duty as the leader of the church whose founder taught us to “love thy neighbor as thy self.”

However, Capitalism has one thing going for it that Pope Francis doesn’t deem to acknowledge … it is a wealth-creation engine nonpareil.  And lots of wealth creates lots of largess.  I know that the Pope’s message dismisses “trickle-down economics” (probably a politically-inspired mistranslation), but, in fact, a capitalistic society such as the United States defines “poverty” at a level of possession that someone in the Sudan could only dream of achieving.  For more critical discussion on the Pope’s teaching see: UK Telegraph Opinion Piece.  I wish I could reliably quote the original source, but some wag once said that all other economic systems create as their objective “trickle-up poverty.”

Although there are world problems that I would think Pope Francis might have moved up his list of concerns … such as the wave of Christian killings by radical Muslims … and the depravity that exists within the walls of the Vatican … the injustices of Capitalism do need some attention.  This is particularly true when capitalists form an unholy alliance with the secular state and winners are not picked by the marketplace but in the White House.  Christ did say, when asked about paying taxes (and noting whose visage was on the coinage), “render unto Caesar what is Caesar's.”  But in my mind, it is often the reverse flow of this pelf where the real corruption occurs.