Are Conservatives Waking Up?

Jack Wheeler, talking before Accuracy in Media on C-Span, discussed why the left-liberal can’t be trusted with defense: their deeply held fear of envy leads them to policies of appeasement. They are constantly apologizing for our achievements and virtues. Feeling fundamentally unworthy inculcates in the left-liberal feelings of guilt for our wealth given the vast poverty in the world. This guilt leaves left-liberal open to moral blackmail by those that envy our success, blame the West for the world’s problems, and demand constant self-sacrifice. (If you don’t subscribe to Jack’s e-zine, catch him on the C-Span replay and see what you think.)

Jack suggests we hold our head up high and make the appropriate moral judgments of others:

We need to go on the moral offensive. The moral currency of Islam is debased. Islam is infected with a moral virus that has rendered it a morally inferior religion as it stands in the world today. It no longer deserves our respect and if Moslems want our respect back they must earn it by disinfecting their religion of moral poison.

Such a moral offensive requires moral confidence. Not only are liberals are incapable of moral confidence … they are terrified of it …

Refreshing!

The good news is that some conservatives, like Jack, talking before mainstream conservative groups are raising the important moral issues of the day instead of getting sucked into the moral relativism and politically correct taboos that makes others – including most intellectual conservatives magazines – unable to address today’s greatest threat.

Here’s another good sign that conservatives are starting to wake-up. I recently received a subscription-offer to the venerable conservative publication Human Events that included a bonus of Robert Spencer’s Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades. Spencer has had trouble keeping his book on the National Review online book service after complaints by the Saudi-funded group, CAIR. At least some mainstream conservative organizations are starting to look beyond the clichés about Islam.

Finally, even the President is starting to talk differently. His past method of dealing with the Islamic threat failed to convey the fact that this is a broad ideological movement. Instead, like President Clinton, his misconceptions about Islam have allowed the public to believe we are chasing a small criminal group aided by one or two rogue states. I’ve talked about the consequence of this misconception. It’s finally become obvious to the administration that the public is confused and disillusioned over the execution of the war. A large part is the failure to convey the nature and extent of the threat.

This President isn’t suited to an intellectual fight that requires extensive explanation of ideas, refutation of criticism, and fire-side chats. However, had fellow conservatives undertaken such an intellectual assault as they did during the Cold War, the President would have been able to cash-in on the groundwork without playing the central role in the education of the public. It is here that I believe conservatives have fallen down on the job. Last year I’ve written extensively on this issue. Thus it is good to see some signs, noted above, that conservatives are waking-up.