Category: History

In church a few days ago, the preacher bemoaned the “increasing violence” of modern Western society. I sat flabbergasted. Today’s Western civilization is indisputably the least violent culture in history. The ideas of police and street lights and safely walking around after dark are less than 200 years old.

Compare the current enemies of that civilization: beheading innocents on television, shooting women in the head in front of packed stadium crowds for the crime of walking in the street without a male escort…

Even one hundred years ago the level of violence in Western society would make today’s poncy liberals faint right away. Did you ever read the Little House on the Prarie books? In one of them, Laura’s Pa and his friend fight to keep their place in a land claims lineup. Admittedly, this was on the frontier. But in another, set in upstate New York, I believe, the senior boys of a one-room school boast of “breaking” the school: trashing the building and hospitalizing the teacher. So the most respectable man in the neighborhood teaches the new teacher how to use a bullwhip, and he whips the students bloody when they try to take over. This is all seen as admirable.

On the S. M. Stirling mailing list a few days ago, Mr. Stirling related the following:

In the 1880’s, there was a saloon near what’s now Yellowstone, named the “Bucket of Blood”, and the proprietor was a woman known as “Madame Bulldog”. (I’m not making this up, honest.) A cowboy and a sheepherder got into an argument, and it got lively. Madame Bulldog pulled a shotgun from under the bar and said: “This is a friendly place, boys, so if you can’t keep it friendly, take it outside.” They did. Shortly thereafter, the cowboy came back in, dripping bowie knife in one hand, the other guy’s head (also dripping) in the other. He put the head down on the bar, and said to Madame Bulldog: “I’d like to buy a drink for my friend here.” Evidently everyone considered this to be a hoot and a half. The frontier was, indeed, a rough place.

Many have observed that much of the difficulty the US is having in Iraq stems from its restraint — the occupation has been insufficiently harsh to keep down the troublemakers. It has been clear from ancient times how to deal with terrorists and insurgents. If one of our soldiers is killed, we destroy a random village and slaughter its population. Oderint, dum metuant.

But when Israel ups the notch just a smidgen, after thousands of missiles rain down on it from territory it gave back, the Western world erupts in protest. Note the response of Arab leaders: basically, Hezbollah had it coming.

The supreme irony is that the whole saga of the state of Israel is ultimately caused by the fact that the Romans knew what to do about “insurgents”. In AD 70 and 132, the Jews revolted against Roman rule. The Roman response: fire and slaughter and 2 millennia of exile for the few who survived.

Note that I think that our modern sensibilities are a good thing. I applaud the restraint of the US in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the noble attempt to bring democracy to their people, who’ve suffered under tyrrany for decades. But if the enemies of modernity continue to whittle away at our patience, as Victor Davis Hanson says in his latest essay, they might not like what they get when it wears thin.

Here‘s an interesting twist to those who think that Israel’s response to years of rocket attacks on its civilian areas is “disproportionate” and indiscriminate with respect to civilian casualties:

The IDF has found that Hizbullah is preventing civilians from leaving villages in southern Lebanon. Roadblocks have been set up outside some of the villages to prevent residents from leaving, while in other villages Hizbullah is preventing UN representatives from entering, who are trying to help residents leave. In two villages, exchanges of fire between residents and Hizbullah have broken out.

Hat tip: Israellycool.

And what Arab beligerants have ever dropped leaflets warning civilians to leave areas that are targeted, as Israel has consistently done this past week?

Youssef M. Ibrahim offers an open letter to the Palestinian People:

Dear friends, you and your leaders have wasted three generations trying to fight for Palestine, but the truth is the Palestine you could have had in 1948 is much bigger than the one you could have had in 1967, which in turn is much bigger than what you may have to settle for now or in another 10 years. Struggle means less land and more misery and utter loneliness.

The “Right of Return” is an impossible pipe-dream.

Things are rapidly heating up in the Levant. There are reports that among the Hezbollah missiles striking Israeli targets are Iranian long-range Fajers, launched by Iranian personnel.

And of course the press sees no reason why the dastardly Jews would blockade Lebanon’s ports and destroy Beirut’s airports — the possibility that the peace-loving happy-go-lucky Hezbollah folks might want to import weapons — to replace the hundreds of missiles and artillery shells they’ve launched at Israel in the last few days — is obviously ludicrous.

(Note that I’m not an impartial observer here — I have good friends in Lebanon right now).

Israel says it intends to “break” Hezbollah. Good riddance, I say.

There are some bemusing and unusual factors: uncharacteristically, Egypt and Saudi Arabia (!) are blaming Syria for exacerbating the situation. Maybe Bush’s tough stance on terror states is making Mubarak uneasy about harming the American golden goose. Note that Egypt had already brokered a prisoner exchange when Hamas and Hezbollah upped the ante.

And over it all rises the specter of the Iranian bomb. Ahmedinejad has been promising for a while now an “explosion” and a “wave” that will finally wipe the Jews off the map. Through its clients it’s now involved Israel in a two-front war that could quickly grow to three, if Syria becomes openly involved. It’s a small step to a pretext for testing out its nice shiny new “peaceful” nuclear program.

And of course the Leftosphere is letting its anti-Semitism all hang out.