Kit's Thoughts: Holy Week in Retrospect; Open Thread

by Kit

Well, it is now Good Friday and what an adventure this Holy Week has been. Again, there is little central theme to this, just a collection of thoughts that have occurred to me over the course of the weekend.



Over the past 6 years of the Obama presidency, especially since the Republicans grabbed the House in 2010, we have heard much from Progressives about the insanity of the American system of dividing power into separate branches because, according to them, it slows down and impedes laws necessary for the public good —like a disastrous healthcare law or Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran, which may be the biggest negotiations-breakthrough with a belligerent nation since Chamberlain’s achievement at Munich in 1938.

Of course, the events in Indiana should be proof to progressives of the importance of legislate “looking before they leap” when making the law as the controversy over the state’s poorly-written, overly-broad, and hastily-passed Religious Freedom Restoration Act hit a fever pitch. A fury of animadversions hit the state, the charge led by Tim Cook, the openly-gay Apple CEO who does business in China (which outlaws gay marriage) and Saudi Arabia (which outlaws gays). This law was followed by what may be another poorly-written, overly-broad, and hastily-passed law supposedly barring discrimination of gays resulting in a deluge of attacks from the Religious Right.

Suffice to say, we can expect this evidence to go over the heads of those who will demand their needs or causes be immediately fixed and rectified by the law at once by any means necessary without regard to damage it may cause to the fabric of the law by either laying a dangerous precedence that gives far too much power to a certain branch of the government (Obama’s immigration edict) or being too broad or vague and thus creating confusion among the citizenry about what they can expect from the law (see, above).

Then, as if to remind us of the ease at which we in America still live, a group of gunmen belonging to the Islamist terrorist group Al-Shabaab, illustrating the sort of nihilism associated with ISIS, attacked a Kenyan teaching college at Garissa, specifically singling out the Christians for execution while freeing the Muslims. They also did this at the mall attack in Nairobi two years ago.

The message of the attack is clear. It is the same message sent by groups like ISIS and Boko Haram when gay men are thrown off the roofs of buildings, school girls are kidnapped and forced into marriage, hostages are beheaded, POWs burned alive, villages are razed, moderate Muslims are crucified, and Christian and Yazidi men are executed while their wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters are sold into sexual slavery. It is the same message sent by Radical Islamists when they murdered the people inside Charlie Hebdo.

Everything must burn to make way for their twisted vision of the world. We can’t be negotiated or reasoned with because there is no need for us to negotiate or reason with you. You will lose and either convert or die and we will triumph because God is on our side.

And the danger is not that they might achieve their aim and conquer the world, there is no chance of that. They are unlikely to even conquer half of it, as the Soviet-backed Communists did for a time in the 20th century. The danger is in the damage these nihilistic sociopaths and those inspired by them might do before their ideology is sent into the dust-bin of history. Just because Hinkley was delusional in believing he could win Jodie Foster's affections by killing President Reagan did not make him any less of a threat to President Reagan.

And that might depend upon the Right and the Left of our body politic and culture recognizing that (1) moderate civilized Muslims exist, a key issue for American Right, who is obsessed with searching for something to replace communism as a Global Threat to Freedom and Democracy, and (2) for the Left to understand that excusing the actions of extremists because of some Marxist-influenced theory of oppressor/victim dichotomy where the most depraved and violent actions of the “victims” must always be “understood” (and therefore pardoned) in the context of their victimhood and the hands of their oppressors, that sometimes the “underdog” is actually the bad guy.

It is something that should unite all Americans, be they an agnostic gay interior designer in San Francisco, an evangelical Baptist construction worker in Georgia, and a Muslim cab driver in New York because these murderers would kill all three if they had the chance without batting an eye.

And on that somber note, I wish you a Happy Good Friday, a Happy Passover, and a Happy Easter.

Consider this to be an Open Thread. Discuss what you wish, be it the depravity of Al-Shabaab, the amorality of Harry Reid, or what you plan to do this Easter weekend. I intend to do some homework and, if I get the chance, watch Ben Hur and Easter Parade.