Conservatism threatened by a different kind of Red...

Come gather 'round people,
wherever you roam,
and admit that the waters
around you have grown,
and accept it that soon
you'll be drenched to the bone.

If your time to you
is worth savin',
then you better start swimmin'
or you'll sink like a stone-
for the times they are a-changin'.

Yeah, I went there.

Let's talk about duty, boys. Get a little noblesse oblige goin' here.

There's a problem- it's called the GOP.

Whatever the despair of the Bush years, conservatism does not come saddled with the hardened negatives that centrists and independents tend to associate with liberalism. For many, it still represents sensibility and practicality, as well as success, dating back to the presidency of Ronald Reagan. The Bush years have in fact not discredited conservatism, a point made suggestively--if, one senses, accidentally--by, of all people, Michael Dukakis.

"'What's conservative about invading Iraq?" he asked in a Washington Post story. "What's conservative about a $400 billion deficit?" Though Dukakis went on to say, shades of 1988, that "The terms have lost their meaning," his rhetorical questions underscore that even liberals don't connect the Bush administration's failures to traditional conservative principles. They criticize Bush by holding his policies up to conservative standards--and finding him lacking. What Bush has discredited is not conservatism, but the Republican Party. The number of Americans answering to that party identification has slipped markedly since Bush entered the White House.

What Paul Beston fails to point out is that to many Americans, conservative/Republican is a false dichotomy. Conservative is definitely a dirty word where I come from, and I have the Republican Party to thank for that.

Even when our President tries to be conservative, his own party holds him back:

Through a complicated and overlapping system of government-sponsored insurance, counter-cyclical assistance, disaster aid and legacy payments tied to nothing, the five-year, $307 billion bill lavishes cash on wealthy farm households, the main restriction on collecting it being a means test that applies to couples making more than $1.5m a year. And even that can be avoided by employing a reasonably competent accountant.

...

Mr Bush vetoed the measure on May 21st. But the bill won so much support in Congress that the legislative branch has enough votes to override him, thanks to Republicans voting with the Democrats against their own president.

I'm not the only one who's angry about this:

The decision by the Republican Party elite, as proven by their vote Wednesday (May 23, 2008), to disentangle themselves and their party from the “onerous” burden of supporting the policies and beliefs to which Conservatives adhere (small government, low taxes, restraint in spending, strong national defense, and belief in the value of every life) in favor of the Democrat-light policies of the Liberal elitist “Country-Club Republicans” of the early 20th century, leaves little choice for Conservatives but to abandon the Republican Party to its eventual and inevitable death and (hopefully) eventual rebirth.

A-fucking-men.

I'm angry with the GOP for claiming, then ignoring, then wantonly defaming the principles and traditions that direct not only my life, but the lives of my brothers, friends, and idols. I am furious with my fellow intellectuals for not standing up and doing something about it.

Conservatism has no home in the current American political system. It is our duty to carve one out- from walls of diamond with our sherry-stained molars if need be- we must shape the movement now. We talk about the Yale Man, the Great Man, leadership, passion, intellect; we worship in the Temple of Buckley, we tear up at the mention of Reagan, we canonize Goldwater and squeal for Paul- but I'm really fucking tired of all this masturbation, if at the end of the day we're going stay home on November 4th, or, worse yet, complacently cast a ballot for McCain.

Leaving the Republican Party is the first step- one I'm glad to see many people making. The next step is to delegitimize Republican authority, and to make it clear to politician and voter alike that the banner of conservatism is in new hands.

The blogosphere is good, and helpful, as are conventions, journals, and magazines. But we also need to get the message across more directly: we have to change our party registration, we have to vote for third party candidates, we have to confront these problems, and live our fucking philosophy. There's more than one way to be actively engaged in American politics- we need to distance ourselves from the Republican Party, yes, but we still have to be at the forefront of political discourse- embracing pragmatism is distinct from affiliating with that aging pachyderm.

The GOP is a brand, and one that you'll soon find "in the back in the discount rack, like another can of beans." Conservatism is a philosophy, a movement, a tradition, a lifestyle- and she needs a new dress. Pick up a goddamn needle.

Well-Deserved Recognition

So I just got home from a week's vacation which included, among other things, watching two YFP staff, including the Editor-in-Chief who directly preceded me, getting wedded in holy matrimony. Congratulations!

As I was checking my backlogged e-mail, I was pleased to discover that Blogged.com, a website whose job I can only assume it is to rate blogs all over the world, has rated the YFP blog an 8.2/10. I can only assume this is alright, because it puts us at 22nd out of 299 blogs in Higher Education and 7th out of 129 blogs in the subcategory University. Congrats, YFP staff. Also, when I went to edit our site profile on Blogged, I found that "Profokiev" was one of our tags (along with "free", "press", and "Yale"). I can only assume that I should just blame TKБ.

A link to Blogged.com voting is now in the sidebar, so you can continue to give the YFP the rating it deserves (no, they don't let you vote 11).

Share your toys, or you won't get to watch Howdy Doody!

"Of course," said Keating. "I studied your buildings, and I tried to think of what you'd do, and if it's good, it's because I think I know how to catch your ideas."

Francon smiled. And Keating thought suddenly that Francon did not really believe it and knew that Keating did not believe it, and yet they were both contented, bound tighter together by a common method and a common guilt.

The more Rand I read, the more I'm convinced that she really didn't get much of anything right- but she does a decent job here in The Fountainhead illustrating the importance of gesture and shared illusion- something modern governments are embracing increasingly in their foreign relations strategies.

Start with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe cracking down on anti-union drug warlords to appease American Democrat Congressmen, skip over to the EU-pleasing election of Boris Tadic in Serbia, Bush's unhelpful lipservice while on a gratuitous Israeli playdate... it becomes quickly apparent that the focus is anywhere but the homeland, where ever that may be.

The rise of the "international community" in the guise of organizations like NATO and the EU has forced diplomacy into stilted, scripted interactions a la Leave it to Beaver.

"Well gosh, Al, those drug lords of yours sure are causing a ruckus... what'll the boys down at the lodge think?..."
"Aw heck, if it means that much to ya I'll tell 'em to quiet down..."

The focus has definitely shifted outward: everyone's busy trimming their lawns and painting their fences, while no one seems to care that the wastebasket in Pop's study hasn't been taken out in two weeks, and the fruit laid out on the kitchen table went bad and has started attracting flies.

Some conservatives have a certain nostalgia for the archetypal 50s ("So the idea is to get rid of the state and just have people coercing each other individually"), but really, as the daughter of a man who grew up in that era, I can tell you... the yield isn't what you were expecting.

That said, shifting domestic politics in a certain direction to make a good impression on the "international community" is certainly nothing new- but what is is that there's no consensus on who needs to be impressed. The US? The EU? NATO? It's not just the would-be westernizers and capitalist culture seekers coming across as sheepish and insecure anymore; a clean nose is awfully hard to find... so why can't we pin down the colossal ass responsible for so many snout stainings?

Maybe (reluctant) PoR alumnus Fareed Zakaria has the answer.

The world's tallest building is in Taipei, and will soon be in Dubai. Its largest publicly traded company is in Beijing. Its biggest refinery is being constructed in India. Its largest passenger airplane is built in Europe. The largest investment fund on the planet is in Abu Dhabi; the biggest movie industry is Bollywood, not Hollywood. ... The largest Ferris wheel is in Singapore. The largest casino is in Macao, which overtook Las Vegas in gambling revenues last year. America no longer dominates even its favorite sport, shopping. The Mall of America in Minnesota once boasted that it was the largest shopping mall in the world. Today it wouldn't make the top ten. In the most recent rankings, only two of the world's ten richest people are American. These lists are arbitrary and a bit silly, but consider that only ten years ago, the United States would have serenely topped almost every one of these categories.

Don't worry, children. It's not "the decline of America", it's "the rise of everyone else"- just like elementary school, where everyone gets a special ribbon for participating in Field Day.

Womb, cervix, monopolize immortality market

If I keep going on like this, I'll lose all my misogynist cred, but I just have to take issue with Melissa Clouthier's piece on "Feminism's Fallout".

We've all heard the saying that "the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world". Ironically, feminists forgo rulership to be bit players on the world stage. Their artistic contributions will fade in memory. In Alice Walker's case, though, her gifts will carry on because she became "enslaved" by motherhood. Her child is an artist. And the blood that runs through her daughter's veins now runs through her grandchild's. She would forgo this piece of immortality for her own passing glory? Well, she gets her reward and it will only last as long as she walks the earth. Lucky for her, she made the mistake of having a baby. With another generation, there is hope.

Because the only way to immortality is to produce children? Is she really suggesting that the lives of Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Wagner, etc, amount to nothing more than "passing glory"- their 15 minutes of fame- because they begat no children?

I get it, it's wrong for feminism to encourage careerism to the exclusion of family- but motherhood is not the sole route to power, and honestly, looking at it that way seems [WFB moment] recreant and perfidious. Maybe it's just the Roman historian in me speaking, but rare is the person more worthy of contempt than the meddling mother, emasculating her son and pulling strings behind the scenes. Surely that isn't the sort of immortality and power Dr. Clouthier suggests women should aim for?

Motherhood can be an amazing thing for some, maybe even most, women. But it really isn't the sole path to fulfillment, and some women, honest to God, were not meant to be mothers- implying that we all are has led to many a tragedy (more than one in my own family, mind you).

As friends of mine have already pointed out, feminism has made such great strides in such a brief time span that it's easy to forget how bad things once were- family/career actually was a dichotomy once, with most women feeling obligated towards the former; conservatives are now worried that it's still a dichotomy, except that the default option has switched. We need to focus not on redefining the value and benefits of motherhood, but on making this false dichotomy much more apparent and livable.

Homosexuality, Maternity, Power Fetishism, and Russian Pop Songs

So, with all the gay marriage hoopla floating around the interwebs, I thought it'd be interesting to look at the state of the family in other countries... or, well, in Russia.

Russia's having a hell of a time meeting its quota for their spring army recruit- and that's with a draft. Their goal: 133,000 boys (eligibility starts at 17). 51% of Russians support universal military service, and their reasons aren't shallow, either: 41% of those in favor say it's a "rite of passage", 37% say it makes young men into real citizens. Given all that, it shouldn't be hard for the 9th largest country in the world by population to scrounge up 100 thousand or so, right?

Except that in '91, when this year's newly eligible young men were born, birth rates were at a record low: 10 births per 1000 (to compare: the US is currently about 14/1000). You can say a lot about Russians, but career-driven individualists they're not- so how is a country full of such people (who are less likely to want children) out doing them in baby making?

I said several years ago that it's not enough just to have the slogan, "Women, give birth!" Because the issue is not with women, but men.

So says Valentina Petrenko, Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Social Policy- and I believe her (someone write this down: I'm not blaming the women).

Russians are absolutely in love with former President/current PM Vladimir Putin (full disclosure: so am I)- why? Examining the lyrics of Такого как Рутин isn't a bad place to start:

My boyfriend is in trouble once again:
Got in a fight, got drunk on something nasty
I've had enough and I chased him away
And now I want a man like Putin

One like Putin, full of strength
One like Putin, who won't be a drunk
One like Putin, who wouldn't hurt me
One like Putin, who won't run away!

In case you missed the allegory there, the boyfriend is the typical Russian male: drunk, lazy, stupid, and a perfect foil to the wise, temperate, and powerful V. V. Putin. Russians love him because he represents what they think their society lacks- and what their society lacks is what this society thinks it will lose when gay marriage is legalized.

Miss Eve Tushnet [all emphasis mine]:

Same-sex marriage... would say that the ideal marriage is gender neutral – not a way for boys to become men by marrying and pledging to care for women. It would say that the ideal marriage includes children only when they have been specially planned and chosen – children would become optional extras rather than the natural fruit and symbol of the spouses union. It would say that the ideal family need not include a father – a message that is especially pernicious in a country where one-third of births in 2000 were to unwed mothers. And it would say (because who can imagine that most homosexual couples would wed?) that marriage itself is optional, not the norm – that marriage is for heroes, and since you and I aren’t heroic, we must not be called to marry. Any one of these changes would be destructive. Put together, they are a recipe for disaster...

Marriage has taken a beating. Americans cohabit, we divorce, we remarry, we split our resources between several sets of children. But we still have hope that we may recover the true meaning of marriage, because we still know the ideal: the lifelong, fruitful union that makes boys into husbands and fathers, and reconciles the "opposite sexes" to one another. Same-sex marriage would mean losing that ideal and losing our best hope for marriage renewal.

Bolded are the bits I think are relevant to Russia (which, by the way, has pretty much always been more religious in nature than the US, even considering the suppression during the Soviet era and disillusionment thereafter... the resurgence of faith in modern Russia will get its own blog post soon enough, no worries).

So the US and Russia have similar cultural problems- but they come from entirely different places, and the ways the respective populaces acknowledge, rationalize, and cope with these problems also differ dramatically.

So I guess I'll leave you with this:
1. As my good friend BHD is so fond of saying, "Nothing is monocausal." Implications for multiplicity of both restorative and destructive factors?...
2. Young conservatives and old Russians have at least one thing in common: deification of the past.
3. As defenders of libertarian paternalism point out: having a default option available (oh, civil unions) to the masses doesn't inhibit those better informed from making a choice more ideal for them (scripted, highly gender conscious marriage?).

That Cancerous Hellcat

The Democrats can see daylight ahead. ... You see it when you talk to them: They're busy being born.

The Republicans? Busy dying. The brightest of them see no immediate light. They're frozen, not like a deer in the headlights but a deer in the darkness, his ears stiff at the sound. Crunch. Twig. Hunting party.

Peggy Noonan over at WSJ accurately describes at least how I'm feeling about American politics right now, and I'm not even a Republican.

Many are ambivalent, deep inside, about the decisions made the past seven years in the White House. But they've publicly supported it so long they think they . . . support it. They get confused. Late at night they toss and turn in the antique mahogany sleigh bed in the carpeted house in McLean and try to remember what it is they really do think, and what those thoughts imply.

And those are the bright ones. The rest are in Perpetual 1980: We have the country, the troops will rally in the fall.

And that, right there, is why.

So what now- whither conservatism? The GOP's test results came back, and things are looking bad- but is she a beloved pet cat not worth costly surgery, or a woman we'll bankrupt ourselves to save?

Jim Vandehei writing for Politico has come up with six steps to salvation for the Republican party, which I'll summarize here:

1. Get a clue: "Republicans desperately need to cook up some new ideas and craft an attractive agenda to have any chance of success."

2. Cut the crap: "It has to purge scandal-stained members [emphasis mine], swear off boondoggle spending projects and promote — and more importantly adhere to — strong ethical standards, GOP officials say.
Democrats are likely to control Congress for several years, so if Republicans can clean up their act, they can put the focus back on the members of the governing party and their behavior."

3. Beg for help: "The GOP needs to somehow cajole its big donors to fork over millions of dollars to counter Democrats and then achieve a competitive edge."

4. Burn the Bush: "But under no circumstances should they stand by their man in the White House. It won’t be easy, because so many marched obediently to the Bush tune for so long. But voters have short memories — exploit that."

5. Change the pitch - and your face: "Several well-known Republicans said the party needs fresh, reassuring packaging and a more diverse crowd to deliver it."

6. Fan the fear: " Ignore the critics, Republican wise men say — there is still no better way to win than to stir up concerns about Democratic patriotism and their commitment to national security and killing terrorists. It often remains the best call in the GOP playbook, especially with McCain atop the ticket."

Goodnight, Whiskers.

(A little something to rinse your mouth out with.)

New York Blogger blogs about... New York!

In the United States today, public behavior is ruled by a kind of compulsory cheer that people probably picked up from television and advertising and that coats their transactions in a smooth, shiny glaze, making them seem empty-headed. New Yorkers have not yet gotten the knack of this. That may be because... they live so much of their lives in public, eating their lunches in parks, riding to work in subways. It's hard to keep up the smiley face for that many hours a day.

Amen, Miss Acocella, amen. When I went to Canada a few years ago, I couldn't get over how nice everyone there was- all smiles and inobtrusive courtesy, polite small talk, the whole deal. It was pleasant at first, but after a while felt like one of those fudge brownies you get in ice cream sundaes at Applebee's- way too heavy, too sweet, too thick... too much. You eat a quarter of it, bemoan the $4.79 it cost you, and wish you'd just waited until you got home, where a cheap box of fig newtons was waiting on the kitchen counter.

At the root of all this saccharine nonsense is fear, ladies and gentlemen. Most of us are afraid to be found out- we're different. These social cues- discussing your latest purchase with the cashier, complaining about the heat or the cold, regurgitating dialogues that were written before we were born and will be performed encore ad infinitum after our deaths- signal to those around us that we get it. We understand this culture, we know what's expected of us, we know we're supposed to blend in and play along and gosh if we aren't doing it fine.

It's the same reason I see groups of three and four sitting together silently in dining halls over lunch, the same reason freshmen anxiously crane their necks about Commons trying to find a familiar face before sitting- it's not about companionship, it's about proving to everyone else we're not alone.

Maybe this is just the bitter perspective of the girl who always sat by herself on the bus ride home from Wenonah Elementary, but I think this is indicative of an undiscussed weakness and insecurity in small communities. You don't see people ashamed to eat alone in cities, you don't see people going out of their way to make a good impression, you don't see people covering up bruises and hiding scars- they don't care, and they don't expect you to, either. The freedom of anonymity! The lost burden of expectation!

So despite all this, you long for closer relationships- and the closer you get, the more careful you're expected to be, because it's now assumed that anything you show is up for grabs- nothing passes by without comment. Your friends and family, unlike the girl working the 24 drug counter, unlike the guy you sat next to on the bus, unlike the couple behind you in line at Leaf & Bean, expect a show from you. Everything is interpreted in the framework of performance: well if he didn't want us to think this, then why did he such-and-such? well she could have kept that from us, but she didn't, so that means...

And as bad as that is, it's even worse if you overlook someone else's cues- my mother is famous for this- no matter how subtle they seem, or what a non sequitur their desired response from you is, they will be mortally wounded if you don't react to the slightest aberration from their routine, because damnit, they're reciting The Rape of Lucrece over here, and you should be paying attention!

But in New York, in the public sphere, at least, there is no routine. No eyebrow raising behavior, no worrying looks in your direction, no "are you okay, sweetheart?" s from random passers-by, if you don't smile sweetly or giggle at a bad joke or commiserate over the rain. There's room to breathe. Woe to them from small towns, who know no such freedom from the stage.

Of course, some lack the strength for such authentic existence.

Alaskan Blogger blogs about ... Alaska!

So, I'm a new blogger for the YFP. Sweet. Anyway, I'll probably largely be blogging about science in journalism and legislation, as it always seems to get bastardized in the worst way possible. So, to begin:

As the Anchorage Daily News recently reported, the Alaskan state legislature has allocated $2 million to try to hire scientists who disagree with the current consensus on the role of climate change in the arctic on polar bear populations. From the article:

A $2 million program funded with little debate by the Legislature last month calls for using state money to fund an "academic based" conference that highlights contrarian scientific research on global warming. Legislators hope to undermine the public perception of a widespread consensus among polar bear researchers that warming global temperatures and melting Arctic ice threaten the polar bears' survival.

***

Legislative leaders said they are frustrated that researchers skeptical of the doomsday scenario get marginalized as crackpots or industry shills by the media and scientific agencies.

And obviously, the best way to up their reputation is to offer them millions of dollars to get together and talk about why the polar bears are doing fine and will continue to do so in the face of overwhelming evidence against them.

This seems to me so typical of the way scientific debate is so often framed by the media and our leaders, as if there are no right answers, and if we can find someone with credentials who disagrees, then that automatically means that the other side needs to come back. It's a simple and ridiculous appeal to authority rather than science.

Now, I'm no fan of the Endangered Species Act as an assault on property rights, but right now the oil companies run the Alaska legislature, and its willingness to pour millions of dollars into "science" that has to support certain, already agreed upon conclusions for the specifically stated goal of helping the oil companies is a stark example of the corruption in the state government. It just goes to show that even a supposed "libertarian" state with a mostly Republican legislature has gone far down the big government slide. This isn't about protecting the state's economic interests or protecting the people from the nasty federal government, as much as they might cry about it: it's about protecting the oil companies so the Alaska state and national legislators can continue to get their houses remodeled and receive stock options and bribes from the companies they help out. Bread and circuses, anyone?

(Finally, that second tag on this post is for you, Matt.)

Prokofiev scorned their masses teeming, and their traitors' scheming...

Via The New Statesman:

It would seem that Prokofiev, like other members of the Russian intelligentsia, had far more quarrel with the chaos and popular energies of revolution than he would with the "stability and order" promised by Joseph Stalin. Revealingly, when asked in a (hilarious) interview with US customs whether he was in sympathy with the Bolsheviks, he replied: "No, because they took my money away."

Also, rather predictive of the modern Russian attitude.

Final point: Prokofiev said listening to Mahler's 7th Symphony was "like kissing a stillborn child." Take that, Yale Symphony Orchestra (1st, 7th, it's all the same).

Libertarianism/Paternalism: False Dichotomy?

"...human beings are lazy, busy, impulsive, inert, and irrational creatures highly susceptible to predictable biases and errors. That's why they can be nudged in socially desirable directions."

In The Chronicle Review this week, Evan R. Goldstein tackles "libertarian paternalism", which advocates "nudging" people along towards the right decision, instead of letting them flounder in their own stupidity or mandating specific action through legislation. The progenitors of this new philosophy are Professors Richard H. Thaler (Behavioral Science/Econ) and Cass R. Sunstein (Law/PoliSci), coauthors of Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness.

Sounds fishy to me. Sure, coercive legislation is bad... but these "nudges" they're talking about are crafted specifically to escape notice: exploitations of the ways in which human perception is flawed. With coercive legislation, at least you know what you're getting- the government's cards are on the table. This is a lot more subtle... and therefore a lot more dangerous.

"Sunstein argues that understanding human irrationality can improve how public and private institutions shape policy by increasing the likelihood that people will make decisions that are in their own self-interest."

Does that reek of an oxymoron to anyone else? These "nudges" don't eliminate choice, sure- but those crafting them are the ones deciding what's in the public's self-interest, not the individuals. With simple things like getting children to eat fruit and minimizing urinal spillage (examples mentioned in the article), it's hard to argue- but what about when "self-interest" isn't so clear cut?

Sunstein gets this much right: "For too long, the United States has been trapped in a debate between the laissez-faire types who believe markets will solve all our problems and the command-and-control types who believe that if there is a market failure then you need a mandate." Congrats, Professor Sunstein, you know as much about American politics as any half-brained freshman here at Yale.

I remain skeptical of any "paternalism". The whole point of libertarianism is to admit how much we don't know. I wrote about how easily this backfires back in March; what happened to epistemological modesty, people?

Besides which... I want to see the stupid people fail.

Taking a Stand Against Radical Islam

Bruce Bawer, writing in the Manhattan Institute's City Journal, sounds a long overdue alarm: "Motivated by fear and multiculturalism, too many Westerners are acquiescing to creeping sharia."

Europeans and North Americans are increasingly self-censoring art when Muslim groups take offense, afraid that their free speech will elicit the same violence it has in recent history: the 2005 wave of riots protesting the "Muhammad cartoons" depiction of Islam as inherently violent (which angry Muslim fanatics rebutted by torching Danish embassies around the world), and the 2004 assassination of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh for his film decrying Islamic oppression of women

Even worse than this chilling effect is the wave of intellectuals and public officials explicitly calling for accommodation to shari'a law, whitewashing the statements of Islamic radicals, and demanding that artists refrain from publishing "disrespectful" material lest it offend Muslims.

Bawer's account is shocking and horrifying, and I can't do it justice with a short summary. Read it.

My own $0.02: Freedom of speech is of course one of the cornerstones of liberal society, and it is unconscionable that Western politicians and intellectuals are falling all over themselves to kowtow to Islamic radicals' demands that everyone follow the dictates of their religion.

But beyond that, the accommodationists who whitewash radical Islam are committing one of the same mistakes made by the inflammatory Jyllands-Posten cartoonists who depicted Muhammad with a bomb in his turban: sweeping radical Islam under the same carpet as its more moderate strains.

The millions of Muslims who do not demand jihad against the infidels, oppression of women, death to homosexuals, or stoning of adulteresses are rightly frustrated and enraged when artists, politicians, and intellectuals paint all of Islam as inherently violent. This perception is in part what bolsters the racism and discrimination many Muslims face in European countries, to an extent that we can't imagine here in America. Moreover, arguing that Islam is by its very nature incompatible with Western society makes each and every Muslim an outsider unless he is willing to completely renounce his faith, while leaving politicians no option but to call for Islam to be completely stamped out.

Interpretation of Islamic doctrine is an ambiguous and hotly contested exercise (there are hundreds of thousands of hadith, accounts of the Prophet Muhammad's words and deeds, and many verses of the divinely revealed Qur'an itself contradict each other), and there are many scholars out there advancing interpretations of Islam compatible with a free society.

Rather than ignore the fact that Islamic radicals preach stomach-churning ideas, politicians and intellectuals must emphasize that a free society will not tolerate these radical strains, but that it has nothing against peaceful, law-abiding Muslims. Letting radical Islam in under the Trojan Horse of multiculturalism not only surrenders the best of Western civilization to torch-wielding lunatics; it gives moderate Muslims a bad name.