The Thin Veneer

Victor Davis Hanson has a powerful piece up over at Real Clear Politics that really should be read. Regardless of your particular political inclinations, this one should resonate. It is about that thin veneer we call civilization.

There is only a thin veneer that separates civilization from man's innate barbarity. Some 2,500 years ago the historian Thucydides once warned us about the irony of revolutionaries and insurrectionists destroying this fragile patina of culture, as if they themselves might be exempt from ever wanting it back again.

Yet no sooner, he warned, have such outsiders torn down the system of law than they are in need of it themselves when they assume power and the responsibility of governance. Even the worst terrorist apparently wants his wife and kids to be safe–and able to drink clean water when turning on the faucet. The trick apparently is to blow up the neighborhood's electric pylon while still finding enough light and power to assemble an IED device.

When the United States toppled Saddam Hussein, a number of Baathists and Sunni militant groups turned to terrorism to thwart a democratic government that would leave them as a minority without their accustomed and inordinate privilege and influence. Suicide bombing, roadside mines, and kidnapping were all welcomed tactics–along with alliances with savage al Qaeda terrorists to torture and behead innocent civilians.

But then radical Islamists in their newfound zones of control began even to butcher their erstwhile Sunni allies in horrific ways. And when they destroyed power, water, and sewer services, suddenly such nihilism seemed a bad idea. Too late–since Sunni Iraq is now a miasma of random killing, open cesspools, and abject lawlessness. Only belatedly have Sunni tribes at last come forward to join Americans and Iraqi government forces to rid Iraq of the primordial al Qaeda terrorists in their midst– and restore the civil society that they once helped to destroy.

"The Palestinian people will never forgive the Hamas gangs for looting the home of the Palestinian people's great leader, Yasser Arafat," Palestinian authority spokesman Abdel Rahman recently exclaimed. "This crime will remain a stain of disgrace on the forehead of Hamas and its despicable gangs."

So Fatah is suddenly enamored of the rule of law. Now, despite having done their level best for decades to undermine it. Because now they need it. So, too, is the Mexican government insisting that America open it's borders while it closes its own border to the South. And so it goes. Tear down the West by applying impossible standards and give a pass to the third world to try to live up to the same standards. Until it all falls apart. Then beg America to save them. Beg for that rule of law to be reinstated.

Hanson says what I have said here many times: make the standards the same and ignore the screeches from those who want a double standard. Jimmy Carter wants to play great white father to the Palestinians and excuse their butchery, their sadistic death cult and their complete inability to function in a non-nihilistic world. And he wants to blame America for the Palestinian's failures. He has the gall to denounce the country that gave him his soapbox. (Biting the hand that feeds you comes to mind here.) And he wants to give a pass - hell - he wants to admire - the thuggish behavior of Hamas. Who just performed an armed insurrection against their own government.

What, then, to do? Stop feeling guilty, apologizing, and trying to rationalize barbarity. Instead insist on the same uniform standards of humane behavior from our critics that they now demand from us.

Finally, remember that there is a reason why millions flood into Europe from the Middle East and to America from Mexico–and not vice versa. There is a reason why Democrats and Republicans don't shoot each other in the streets of Washington, or why blue-state America does not mine red-state highways. And there is a reason why a Shiite mosque in Detroit is safer in the land of the Great Satan than it would be in Muslim Saudi Arabia. It's called civilization–a precious and fragile commodity that is missed even by its destroyers the minute they've done away with it.

Stop the apologies, stop the enabling, stop listening - and giving attention to - slimy apologists like Carter. Hold everyone accountable to the same standards - or wait until you need that rule of law, that thin veneer, that civilization you worked to undermine and destroy. And pray someone can come help.

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  By Anthony (Los Angeles), Wednesday, 20 June , 2007 @ 4:05 pm

  Good article. VDH has become one of my favorite commentators over the years, and this piece reminds me why.

Other Links to this Post

1. Blue Crab Boulevard » Temper Tantrums And Thin Veneers — Thursday, 21 June , 2007 @ 6:26 am