All along, there have been convincing reasons to be skeptical about the future to which Arab resistance has opened the door. Earlier, some aspects of these concerns had already been elaborated in this column.

Revolutions are not to be measured by the detail that subsequent commemorative national holidays emphasize. That celebrated component of the revolutionary process is the overthrow of the “old régime”. Granted, there is no revolution if the old system is not ousted. However, crushing the old system of government does not guarantee the ultimate success of the upheaval. At least not by the standards of the terms by which it defined its goals during the upheaval’s first and violent phase. The analogy is a sailboat race. To become a participant you have to get the vessel’s hull wet. After that comes the crucial part which includes manning the boat and holding it on course.

It seems that out of hatred for Bush, the Powers That Be have decided to wait for The Big One, the pure massacre. It is not only appalling and shameful, it is revealing of the status achieved by the conservatism of the left and the right who return to realpolitik when it suits them.

The revolt from Islamic autocracy throughout North Africa and the Middle East have put Western cognoscenti at a dear disadvantage.  For decades, Western intelligentsia have treated the region and its peoples to the soft bigotry of low expectations embodied in belief that stability was superior to liberal democracy.  

We are now witnessing an Arab secular revolt unhinged from the geopolitical moorings of any Western agenda.  Our anemic response embodies a betrayal worthy of Julien Benda!  Western liberals cannot bring themselves to defend the very liberty that informed the cry that has now consumed so much Islamic soil.  

Some of us have the habit of filing just about anything that is suspected to be of subsequent interest. Those that cling to items that are devoid of any immediate usefulness, tend to experience marital problems. What is rated as junk by tidy wives has bad consequences. One is that, just by laying around, the mess takes space. The other one is that these forgotten memories gather dust. The objections of spouses can be overcome by pretending to “file” the pile “soon”. In translation that means that, the obnoxious material is reluctantly stuffed into boxes in which the mess is perpetuated. Such containers reproduce in the manner of unsupervised guinea pigs. Out of control, they are stored until the packages hiding the earlier disorder become a new obstruction.

If you write and read a lot then you will probably run into frustrating pieces. These are the ones that compel you to exclaim, “I wish I would have written this one”.

Below follows the English version of an article that scores above this writer’s level. The subject is important enough to be shared with the reader.

The piece’s significance comes not only from its content but is also a consequence of the venue of its conception and its author’s record. Mr. Jeszenszky seems to display only one negative. That is that he is an old and appreciated acquaintance of your correspondent. To some this circumstance might make even Mother Theresa suspect. However, there are qualities to be mentioned that redeem the author while they also add significance to the piece in which he speaks his mind.

I think it would be useful to begin this article with a brief statement of the facts. Eunice and Owen Johns are an elderly couple from Derby, who fostered a number of children in the 1990s, and who recently offered their services again to Derby City Council. Their offer was rejected on the grounds that, as fundamentalist Christians, they might teach any children in their keeping that homosexual acts were sinful. They took legal action against the Council, arguing that their beliefs should not be held against them. On the 28^th February 2011, judgment was given against them in the High Court. The Judges ruled that, where the laws against discrimination are concerned, sexual minorities take precedence over religious believers. Because Mr and Mrs Johns might not remain silent about sexual ethics, there was a danger to the “welfare” of children taken from their homes by the Council.

During Pope Benedict XVI’s trip to London this September, Cardinal Walter Kasper noted two things about London: it’s secular and parts of it resemble a Third World country. While the politically correct were quick to condemn Kasper and the Vatican was even quicker to exhibit its pro-Third World, anti-racism bona fides, Kasper’s two statements taken together are noteworthy in that they demonstrate two antagonistic aspects of the modern world. The First World is secular; the Third World is religious.

Sometimes, a small, in itself insignificant or seemingly anecdotal event can shed light on details of the “big picture” that would otherwise not be comprehended. Through such a case, the road to the title’s subject will take a detour.

Several years ago, your correspondent had a remarkable experience. After years in Switzerland, I discovered that even as a foreigner I could get a permit to purchase a pistol. As a very good marksman –my teacher had Olympic golds- I went after it. My resumed hobby, along with by motorcycling and photography, completed my happiness. That condition provoked a mention about owning arms and related matters in a lecture to “William Tell’s” grandchildren. A few days passed and our bell rang. One of “my kids” stood there holding a longish object.

From the EUobserver (via Fjordman):

France and five other south-lying EU members have said the Union should give less money to its post-Soviet neighbours and more to Mediterranean rim countries in the context of the Arab uprisings.

Howard Schwartz chooses to begin Society Against Itself (Karnac 2010) – a book that belongs on the shelf with Allan Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind (1987) and Paul Gottfried’s Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt (2002) – with an epigraph from Euripides’ tragedy, said to be his last in order of composition, The Bacchae. In the twilight of the polis-phase of Greek existence, in the aftermath of the catastrophic wars between Athens and Sparta, and under the looming shadow of Macedonian hegemony, Euripides draws a picture of a state in precipitous dissolution, gripped by a combination of religious mania and petulant rebellion against the limitations of civic life. The source of the crisis is the siren-call of a wandering stranger who urges the women of Thebes to renounce civic order as the equivalent of unbearable tyranny and to desert their city for the sake of orgiastic Amazonism in the surrounding countryside. In the scene that has piqued Schwartz’s imagination and which forecasts his argument, Agave, daughter of Cadmus and mother of Pentheus, the reigning king, has just murdered her son under the mad delusion that he was a lion, and she is displaying the trophy of her kill, a severed head, for her sire to see.