Barrel Strength

I am not a climate warning alarmist. As readers will know, I am an Islamic jihad alarmist. Our very occasional correspondent Oban and I dined last night.  The outline of the conversation goes as follows. I will leave it to Oban to correct the record.

It all started with listening to Iris Dement singing confessional protestant hymns. Her religion is a deeply personal encounter with Jesus. She sings in an accent so hillbilly it seems unchanged from when her ancestors left the lowlands of Scotland in the 1730s. She is an artist of surpassing power, and ranks with the best female artists we listen to, not excepting opera stars. This led us to a discussion of religion,and the difference between this highly personal encounter with Jesus religion and what Oban calls “state atheism”, namely, the Anglican Church.

Oban – Whenever you go into a real church, you see plaques listing the war dead on the wall. I don’t look at the cross. I look at the plaques commemorating the war dead. That is my religion. Real religion teaches you that you may be called upon to die in the defence of your country, for the maintenance of civilization.

Dalwhinnie – (accompanied by table pounding) – Oban, that is the most Tory thing I have heard in my life! Bravo! But clearly that is what religion is for those of us raised in institutional and establishment religion. But how are we going to deal with the Islamic thing, in that case, because according to them, any ten guys who haven’t been laid in six months have a right to wage war against the surrounding society? Not just go out and get drunk and puke in the streets, but to plant bombs on buses and kill lots of people.

Oban – I agree that this war-making tendency is a fact of Islamic life. But if they make war without the authority of the state, the result will be so disorganized that it is a recipe for societal failure. And indeed, their propensity to wage ceaseless war on all concerned is why they are so backward.

Dalwhinnie – Agreed. But, what if societal failure were a self-reinforcing state? What if a society could function at the Islamic dysfunctional level forever? I see no sign that Islamic societies are reforming out of their dysfunctionality after a thousand years of Islam. In fact the dysfunctionality seems to be intensifying.

Oban – The overwhelming attraction of Western society is that it gives vastly greater pleasure to its participants. At the basic level of sex, western men have more orgasms with better partners. Islam cannot offer this. All it can offer is repression.

Dalwhinnie – The attraction seems to be highly resistible. Children of Islamic immigrants tend to wall themselves off from the outer society more than their parents.

Oban – I think you are underestimating the huge and overwhelming attractiveness of Western society for all people. It is so much better than anything Islamic societies have developed for themselves. And if the young jihadists do become a problem, I think we can roll over and crush them.

Dalwhinnie – Nothing I have read about the invasion of Europe by Muslims, the increasing presence of no-go zones for police and firemen, the use of human rights law to prevent any free expression of distaste for Muslim social practices, the supine passivity of European political leadership, the use of welfare to support a stagnant population of slackers, the sexual self-isolation, the attacks upon European Christian women, suggest that there has been any change in Islamic behaviour. Any tens guys who feel pissed off have the right and duty to wage war against the surrounding infidels, and they do.

Oban – I think you underestimate the assimilating powers of western civilization. It is a much better offer.

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And that, folks, was what I can recall to tell you. Debate continued until it was time to go home. An excellent exchange was had.