What's that Sucking Sound?

Maclean's Magazine is on trial this week before British Columbia's Human Rights Tribunal. Coverage of the proceedings can be found at Andrew Coyne's blog. The complaint centers around an issue of Maclean's that discussed the future of the West in relation to Islam and Muslims. At the heart of the complaint is the work of Mark Steyn, in particular his book, America Alone.

Opponents have declared that Steyn's book is "Islamophobic", an attack on Muslims, an attempt to portray all Muslims as terrorists. But the book is not firstly about Muslims or Islam. The key point of Steyn's thesis is that many Western nations have become cultural, moral, and demographic vacuums. European nations, as well as Canada, are unwilling to defend the fundamental values and freedoms in and for which they were constituted. They are committing societal suicide. Thus, America Alone is first an indictment of the West.

Steyn reasons this way: The West does not have a strong cultural will or demographic strength and longevity. This creates a vacuum. What fills the vacuum? The easy answer is radical Islam, which has both demographics and cultural will aplenty.

I agree with Steyn's assessment of the West's predicament. But the root of the problem is deeper, as Steyn hints with many references to multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is a mindset that is part of a larger worldview - that of moral relativism. In this worldview, there are no absolutes; thus, no basic standards by which to judge anything; thus, no judgments. It is moral relativism that simultaneously causes the West's general reluctance to confront real enemies, and inability to defend its own freedoms and interests.

The issue of freedom of speech and the HRCs is far from unrelated. When there are no absolutes, what is your standard for testing people's thoughts, words, actions? In our times that standard has become feelings. If thoughts, words, or actions cause feelings to be hurt - or, in the case of Canadian Human Rights Acts, if they can potentially remotely possibly cause feelings to be hurt - then forget about truth, fair comment, and other inconveniences; these must be stopped.

The same vacuum that is giving the upper hand of the future to radical Islam is blinding many Canadians to the HRCs' egregious assault on real human rights that are based on timeless absolutes. That sucking sound? That's the vacuum created by a lack of absolutes.

Far Beyond Moral Equivalence

Jihad Watch reports on a recent episode of one of the Law and Order shows: Law and Order shills for Islam. In summary, the episode is about a Christian woman stoned to death for having a Muslim boyfriend.

We need not mention that God does not call for the stoning of adulterers - or, as Robert Spencer points out, that Jesus forgave the woman caught in adultery (John 8).

Spencer observes:

And the subtext of it all, of course, is that those who oppose the global jihad and Islamic supremacism are just another flavor of fanatic, not someone who actually cares about preserving Western (and other non-Muslim) culture and civilization, and safeguarding the equality of dignity and rights of all people. Nope. The two sides are completely equivalent and interchangeable.

Spencer is right that those who oppose the advance of Islamism in the West are painted as fanatics in their own right. But the writers are far beyond moral equivalence here. In fact, the two sides are not being treated equivalently and interchangeably. If that were so, the writers for Law and Order would just flip a coin to determine who would be carrying out the stoning - "Will it be the Christians or the Muslims throwing rocks this time?"

But we are quite unlikely to see an episode telling the story of a Muslim father who kills his daughters because they are dating non-Muslims - even though this very thing has happened and can't even be considered anomalous anymore in the West, including Canada. And we are quite likely to continue to see Christians being painted as dangerous fanatics - even though this depiction is contrary to the theology and practice of the vast majority of Christians.

There are two sides to the coin that is being flipped by writers such as those for Law and Order: on the one hand you have their unwillingness to confront - much less portray - the crimes against Muslim women and non-Muslims that actually happen, continually; on the other hand you have their willingness - even eagerness - to denigrate Christians and Christianity by imagining things that do not happen. 

These are the actions of a suicidal society: attacking the values that established it, and submitting to the values that threaten to destroy it.

Culture of Victimhood

Western culture has become a culture of victimhood. Many people see themselves as victims of injustice and insensitivity - they've been wronged or offended by someone. Many even claim to find the remnants of Christian culture oppressive. But it is all a strategy for selfish gain or to shut down debate. Is it any wonder that our enemies are using the same tactics against us? Mark Steyn hits the nail on the head again:

But the point is that the right not to be offended is now the most sacred right in the world. The right to freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of movement, all are as nothing compared with the universal right to freedom from offense.