One need not be an isolationist to believe that Islam and Christendom are different, and in some important ways, irreconcilable. Seeing as we have 1400 years worth of warfare, with various lands changing hands innumerable times, between us, the prudent response is to say with Kipling, "East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet."

Paul:

That's exactly right--which is why we've made the East Western. The irony, of course, is that so little of the West remains Western.

OJ:

We cannot make the East West. We might be able to make it democractic, possibly make it free (the two are not the same: Conservatives used to know that), conceivably make it decent and stable. But the twain shall still not meet.

In your Armstrong review you say, a la Bishop Spong, "Islam is going to have to change in order to survive." Consider how such a statement by Spong is taken by orthodox Christians: as an invitation to apostasy.

Not a particularly inspiring message to men (Muslims) who understand far better than we do that at the foundation of any civilization is religion.

Paul:

Yes, the Europeans have followed the Spongs into oblivion. The West was pretty easy to radically alter.

So is the East turning out to be. As witness the fact that Japan and India are more reliable and important allies than the Germans and French. Sadly, they don't have the religious basis that true Westernism requires so their futures are sketchy--Muslims, especially Shi'ites do.

And you would have the Muslims follow your Spong-like siren's song into oblivion. "Islam needs a jihad (struggle), but a peaceful, inward looking one," you say, and of course all of us on the target end of violent jihad would welcome this, but can't you see that to an orthodox Muslim it is exquisitely similar to what Spong says about Christian doctrines he dislikes?

"Christianity needs a Christ, but as a wise man, an itinerant teacher of simple earthly status."

You are peddling the kind of secularism that is destroying us to Muslims, because you do not want to face that Islam might be incompatible with Western liberal democracy.

(For my money, the fact that Islam might be incompatible with, or at least resistant to, Western liberal democracy [a diseased system ever since it became attached to secularism] is something Islam has going for it.)

I suspect Islam really needs a counter-counter-counter-counter-reformation. It needs several cycles of authoritarianism vs. individual fanaticism.

Paul:

Yes. It will be important to help the Islamic world stop short of the kind of secularism that has destroyed the rest of the West. Fortunately, we are in good position to do so having rejected Reason ourselves. That the Islamic Reformation comes after the Enlightenment has failed is the greatest cause for hope in its future.

islam is a fragile and ineffective form of government and so will be restricted in its role just like christianity is. it will inform its adherents political choices, but it will not define the overall form of government. people everywhere want the same things, have the same concept of good and bad. keep in mind your view, my view, the view, of most places has been provided by the same corrupt filtering mechanism. europe has some good people, as does every country. gwb is becoming the central figure of hope for these good people all over the world, he is giving them the courage to fight back and speak up -- even to die if necessary -- in order to break free. i am sorry so many comfortably off people find this struggle tiresome, but they will just have to get used to it.

Secularism defeated, Reason rejected? All we have to do is import a few million more Dem voters and we're Europe-lite.

Yes, but we're importing conservatives instead and the Democrats are dying off, just like Europe, because of their secularism.

Like hell we are. We are importing some conservatives, but we are importing more Democrats.

Ah, back to the obsession...

Yes, the "obsession" with character and destiny of my country. What sane man would concern himself with such trivia?

once the irish were let in, it was all down hill from there :)

We just can't let in all those Spanish-speaking Catholics. It just ruins the neighborhood. LOL!

The reality of the demographic pattern for American Hispanics is that for the bulk, i.e. non-Puerto Rican, Hispanics, the trajectory is very similar to that of Southern Italians. Like Southern Italians, they come from a poor place with a rapacious local government, rampant illiteracy or semi-literacy, a paucity of modern skills, a tradition of strong family values and of people who operate on both sides of the law because survival made it necessary to do so. However, that immigration appears to have worked out pretty well. In income, in educational attainment, in intermarriage with 'Whites', Hispanics have within a generation advanced to levels far in excess of the American Black community.

The Islamic Community has had neither a Reformation nor an Enlightenment, but it is still mired in the Dark Ages.