A Personal Comment About Bravado & Chest Thumping

(from a discussion thread at www.timebomb2000.com)

Of late, with all that is going on, with especial reference to the indignities and outrages being perpetrated around the world against the United States by the followers of Islam, which seem poised to envelop the rest of us, emotions and tempers have been running a little hot around TB2K and elsewhere.

While entirely understandable, and certainly merited under the circumstances, I have been thinking about the flavour of some of the responses to various threads that I have made and that have been echoed by others of the Membership.

One comment that has really struck me was one that made reference to the bravado being thrown about with abandon. I wish to explore this idea briefly, and offer some clarification of a personal nature.

It is natural, I think, for persons feeling threatened or unjustly persecuted to react with a certain hostility. Of course, such hostility can take many forms, but on these pages it seems to (for now) be confined to comments suggesting a favourable reaction should any of a number of horrible fates be visited on the sources of those threats or persecutions, preferably messy and public ones.

I have repeatedly made reference to my desire to see to it that grave consequence be brought to the doors of these foreign dogs, and vowed a stern response should they ever arrive at my door.

These are not the aspirations of even-tempered, pleasant, educated, well-read, erudite persons! One does not wish ill of ones' fellow man! Ill-favoured brutes, who know nothing of the study, the drawing-room, the lecture theatre or the stage, these are to be found among those who would gleefully visit death upon others!

And yet, I am finding that many persons, myself included, would do just that.

And we are not ill-favoured, nor uneducated, nor unrefined or without manners or deference, and we are certainly possessed of the basic decency that is accorded all people who have had it bestown upon them at one time or other.

Why, then? What is the meaning of these calls to arms, these heedless rushes toward war, the many and manifold desires to crush, to expel, to defeat, to meet without preamble or question, those most unworthy who would be our lords?

I can only speak for myself henceforward.

Be it known to all and sundry: I bear these people no ill will, except in concept. While I despise their values, scoff at their notions of fairness and equality, spit on their definition of faith, and reject without hesitation their designs for mankind, they are only people, flawed and corrupt in their fashion, and as such it is my duty to understand their meaning and plumb the unspoken aspirations they are sworn to.

These things I will do, to be sure, provided they touch not my shores.

They can have all the 7th century hells they want, if they keep them close.

Sharia law is theirs for the asking, if it remain a local custom.

Their women and children may be treated according to pretext, if I can be excused.

All of these, and more besides, are not my bailiwick, nor am I to judge.

But they will not do it here. They shall not do it, here.

And this is where my sense of decency, my desire to be a good and peaceful person, diverges from my innate sense of morality, my perception of right and wrong, and my sworn duty to defend and keep from harm my family and community. Here, then is the division between simple, adolescent bravado, that bravery-at-a-safe-distance that causeth good men to blush, and a quiet, firm, inexorable determination to ensure the security and well-being of those I love, and the land I hold dear.

I have no issue with different ways of life, of varying custom and creed, of divergent views and free opinion oppostional. But I expect to be treated in kind, with equal deference for my choices, my ways, my thoughts and conclusions, which no person, regardless, has the right to gainsay, unless I have been so ungentlemanly as to cause harm or hurt to another.

This, say I, is fair and just.

I certainly expect, also, that my way of life shall not be questioned nor adjusted to meet the wishes of others, from outside, who do not share my values, who only desire conquest, and that by their own admission, who would have me submit in fear of reprisal, the moniker of 'racist' or 'intolerant'.

These things I will resist, if they are brought to my door.

There are many things about my culture that the muslims find objectionable. In many ways, I agree, and I want nothing more that to have the burdens of democracy and free will lifted from the shoulders of my bearded brothers, for they are not capable of the weights thereof.

I would also ask that they not follow my soldiers and businessmen and bureaucrats back to this land, seeking its riches, but to stay in their own, now that it has been made bereft of infidel and international aid worker alike, and apparently more worthy.

In sum, then, I have no problem with the mullah and the muj, the imam and the intifada, provided that they remain in their countries of origin, among friends. My ire will be considerably roused, however, should these things be visited upon me and mine in any considerable fashion, for then the way forward will be clear, and it will be littered with unsavoury things that used to be jihadis.

That is my vow, and these are the bounds of my choices.