{"id":12239,"date":"2009-11-09T13:00:49","date_gmt":"2009-11-09T13:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/11\/09\/malcolm-pollack-at-the-gates-of-vienna\/"},"modified":"2009-11-09T13:00:49","modified_gmt":"2009-11-09T13:00:49","slug":"malcolm-pollack-at-the-gates-of-vienna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/11\/09\/malcolm-pollack-at-the-gates-of-vienna\/","title":{"rendered":"Malcolm Pollack at the Gates of Vienna"},"content":{"rendered":"

Or rather, at the gates of Gotham.  Malcolm writes,<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Upon reading your post <\/font>The Left's Death Wish<\/font><\/a>, I thought you might find this interesting: <\/font>A Genealogy of Radical Islam<\/font><\/a>.<\/p>\n

I've been contending with the liberal mindset regarding Islam over at <\/font>my own place<\/font><\/a>, where, for suggesting that the massacre at Ft. Hood was most likely an example of jihad, and of why an increasing Muslim presence in the West might not be such a good idea, I was tarred, as usual, as a vile Islamophobe.<\/p>\n

It's often tempting, as my own shadow lengthens to the East, to withdraw to a quiet life of reading and contemplation. But scribble I must, it seems. <\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

1. Well, Malcolm, I hope you don't succumb to the temptation to withdraw from the fray.  To paraphrase Plato, the price the good pay for their indifference to politics is to be ruled by the evil.  Not that I don't understand the temptation to withdraw.  To quote from an <\/font>earlier post<\/font><\/a>: <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Why not stick to one's stoa and cultivate one's specialist garden in peace and quiet, neither involving oneself in, nor forming opinions about, the wider world of politics and strife? Why risk one's ataraxia<\/em> in the noxious arena of contention? Why not remain within the serene precincts of theoria<\/em>? For those of us of a certain age the chances are good that death will arrive before the barbarians do.<\/font><\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/font><\/p>\n

 The answer is that the gardens of tranquillity and the spaces of reason are worth defending, with blood and iron if need be, against the barbarians and their leftist enablers. Others have fought and bled so that we can live this life of solitude and beatitude. And so though we are not warriors of the body, we can and should do our tiny bit as warriors of the mind to preserve for future generations this culture which allows us to pursue otium liberale<\/em> in peace, quiet, and safety.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

2.  I don't know whether to commend you or criticize you for the restraint and tolerance you have shown in the comment thread to your 11\/5 post.<\/a>  One of the cyberpunks  calls you a "xenophobe" while the other removes the 'crypto' from your ironic self-characterization as a "crypto-Nazi."  Me, I DELETE and BLOCK the minute that sort of behavior is manifested.  Why waste your time with abusive cyberpunks who hide anonymously behind their 'handles' while spewing their PeeCee nonsense?  <\/font><\/p>\n

The answer, I suppose, is that by responding you demonstrate to others, if not to the punks, how to rebut the charges.  So perhaps I should commend you for your toleration.  I suspect you will agree with me, however, that toleration has its limits.<\/font><\/p>\n

3.  We agree on the substantive point that, as you put it " the massacre at Ft. Hood was most likely an example of jihad. . . ."  There is plenty of evidence for this, and it is most disconcerting that so many, blinded by their political correctness and moral cowardice cannot see it.<\/font><\/p>\n

Blog on!<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Or rather, at the gates of Gotham.  Malcolm writes, Upon reading your post The Left's Death Wish, I thought you might find this interesting: A Genealogy of Radical Islam. I've been contending with the liberal mindset regarding Islam over at my own place, where, for suggesting that the massacre at Ft. Hood was most likely … Continue reading “Malcolm Pollack at the Gates of Vienna”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109,32,163],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging","category-current-affairs","category-leftism-and-political-correctness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12239\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}