Kill their leaders and convert them to … progressivism

Ann Coulter famously said “Kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity”.  Regrettably, all the versions of Christianity that once upon a time would have been capable of implementing such a program have replaced the worship of Christ the Redeemer with Jesus the community organizer.

The “Arab Spring” was the Cathedral deluding itself that it was installing progressive “Muslim” regimes in the Middle East – only to discover what was obvious to everyone else, that it was installing “progressive” Muslim regimes in the Middle East.

For a long time the Cathedral has been promoting a transformation of Islam, promoting progressive Islam, which I parody as “There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet, and Mohammed, rightly understood, was a feminist and gay rights supporter who only commanded killing Zionists, not killing Jews as such, and furthermore opposed terrorism, except when conservatives and Jews who won’t get with the program get terrorized.”

They believe they are succeeding, but this belief is deluded.  They think that they defeated Christianity by persuasion, by the self evident truth of progressivism, and don’t realize that they crushed Christianity by theocratic state power.  (Any Christian commenters who think their Church is still doing fine, how is your church treating divorced women who want to remarry?  If your church has yielded on several major points, it will soon be yielding on several more, until Christ the Redeemer becomes Jesus the community organizer, and the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost become the spiritual force, so as not to discriminate against parishioners who believe that Jesus gay married Buddha and visits earth from time to time in a flying saucer.)

Progressives gravely underestimate the amount of violence required convert Muslims to progressivism, because they gravely underestimate the amount of violence they used to convert Christians to progressivism.

Progressives think that sincere Muslim believers are rural rednecks, people living in mountain compounds, and that is where they send the drones to blow up terrorists.  They think that people like themselves – urban, privileged, affluent, highly educated in all the correct elite schools – must be progressives and cannot possibly be terrorists, cannot possibly take religion seriously, but, in a Muslim country, that is exactly where you find the Muslims, aka “terror”. In a theocratic state, belief in the official theocratic beliefs is strongest among the products of the elite schools, and affluent people living close to the center of power, such as, for example, Barack Hussein Obama and Osama bin Laden. We are a progressive atheocracy, the Middle East is full of Muslim theocracies.

The reason that in America, the Christians tend to be in the backwoods and away from the center of power is that the official religion, progressivism, dominates and is more passionately believed, the closer you are to the center of power.  Obviously, in a theocracy, faith is centered on the capital, the government bureaucracy, the elite schools, the privileged, the powerful, the wealthy.  School attendance is church attendance at the official church.

There are moderate Muslims but there is no such thing as moderate Islam.  Moderate Muslims are Muslims who don’t take Islam seriously. And you find them in the backwoods and rural areas, in the same sort of places as in America you find Americans who don’t take progressivism seriously.

If you want to make war on “terror”, you are going to have to make war on Islam, which means you are going to have to start by blowing up the leading schools and think tanks where the children of the privileged hang out.  Progressives are losing against Islam because they are blowing up the wrong Muslims.

When Sunni Muslims are in power, they persecute Alawites in the same way they persecute Christians and Jews, since they don’t believe the Alawite claim to be Muslim.  To avoid persecution, Alawites seized power in Syria.  The Cathedral perceived this as soldiers snatching power from priests, or, as they phrased it, “undemocratic”, though Alawites are Muslim enough that the distinction between soldiers and priests is small, thus the distinction between democracy and military dictatorship is small. Alawites claim to be Shia Muslims, a claim barely tolerated by Shia Muslims and generally rejected by Sunni Muslims. Alawite ruled Syria allied itself with Shia Iran, allowing Iran to project force against Israel and hostile Sunni Muslim powers, whereupon Iran found it convenient to give credit to the Alawite claim to be Shia Muslims.  Because Iranian aid to Hezbollah and such was channeled through Syria, the Cathedral defined the Syrian regime as “terror”.

And so, the Cathedral set to overthrowing the Syrian government, intending to replace “terror” with progressive “Islam”

The Alawites fought back with unexpected ferocity, knowing that if the Sunni majority gained power, they would be enslaved, and so the war went on inconclusively.

Syrian Christians support the Alawites, and are fighting beside them, which tells me that Alawites are less dreadful than most Muslims, which is probably the reason that Sunnis don’t count them as Muslims.

Indeed, the fact that there are a reasonable number of Syrian Christians still alive tells me that Alawites are less bad than most.  America should not be fighting on the other side from middle eastern Christians.

After the murder of America’s Libyan ambassador, the Cathedral suddenly realized that in a genuinely free and fair Syrian election, an al-Qaeda franchisee would likely be elected.

Moderate, which is to say insincere, Muslims seem to be in short supply in Syria.  So now, in Syria, we have a three cornered war, the Cathedral versus the Alawites versus the Sunnis, the Cathedral versus just about everyone in Syria.

Kissinger said of the Iran Iraq war

“It’s too bad they both can’t lose.”

Whereupon Reagan proceeded to make sure they both did lose.

I hope that in the Syrian war, all three of them will lose.  Indeed, chances are, all three will lose.  The Alawites have their backs against the wall, and no alternative but to hang on to power, so in the end, will probably do so, but pay a very high price for doing so.  Everyone says that the Assad regime, which is to say Alawites, are on their last legs.  Perhaps they are, but they have been on their last legs for a long time.  The next most likely outcome is that Al Qaeda gets Syria, while progressives continue to piously pretend that progressivism is winning.

The Syrian government, which is to say the Alawites, agreed to hold free and fair elections, under supervision of China and Russia, but with the Alawites organizing the election. This was of course entirely unacceptable to the Cathedral, which wanted the Alawites to first be thoroughly removed from any power, and then elections held under the supervision of the Cathedral.

The Cathedral proposal resembles the “election” whereby it installed Aristide in Haiti. Not only are the Alawites unlikely to fall for that one, the Sunni majority are not going to fall for it either.  If the Sunnis win, there is going to be a genuinely democratic election, one man, one vote, once, and then an Al Qaeda franchisee will be in charge, while New York Times optimistically rationalizes that Al Qaeda franchisees contain moderate elements.

24 Responses to “Kill their leaders and convert them to … progressivism”

  1. RS says:

    I think you are being charitable about the ten thousand . . . after just a few days march, during which they could have been guarded, women might have faced a harsh outlook as peregrines.

    Also I think as a woman you cheer for whatever men have their back to you . . . one army overruns another, a simian aggro frenzy cannot be considered super-unlikely . . .

    But I don’t really admire those boys the less for it ; I don’t live in their malthus land with a thousand years and a thousand miles of malthus rules on every side of me.

  2. RS says:

    I’m sure the Yano women are adapted to that, since on the order of 5-7% of them have been abductee/rape-married. That’s probably a point prevalence so the lifetime prev will be a little higher.

    But again, unless the situation is novel, they will be somewhat bioadapted. So it’s not enough reason to forcibly civilize them — not when they are evidently, in modern context, ghastly incompetent immunologically. I’m sure the same is true of the uncontacted Andamanese.

  3. RS says:

    > The left has always viewed Iran as a muslim version of themselves.

    Persia is the home of more urbanity than most of its neighbors. It’s also a proud heritage if you look to masters like Hafiz (14th C.) and the sculptors of Persepolis. And of course the empire.

    • RS says:

      But of course, a distinguished heritage or dignified present earns no points from the left, rather it earns demerits, as in the case of the appealing Tutsi. In my experience, the Northeast Africans are appealing in general. So are Pashtuns. But they’re appealing as brutal wolf people with a noble and fatalistic bearing, not as people I want to live with.

      It’s the literacy-urbanity that makes them like Iran, not the excellence.

      • jim says:

        It’s the literacy-urbanity that makes them like Iran, not the excellence.

        Exactly so. Affluent educated urbanites simply have to be progressive, so progressives think.

        • RS says:

          In Turkey I think they kind of are, on average, though I bet they don’t anywhere near “have” to be.

          But I understand those urbans have bred poorly for generations, hence the twilight of pure Khemalism.

          Your words remind me of the Onion article of approximate title “Local Educated, Articulate Racist Somehow Far Creepier than Normal Racist”.

          Anyway yeah there are plenty of Muslim ‘Brahmins’ (in the sense that you and I are ourselves scholars) who are extra reacto. And I think they have pretty considerable audiences.

          I would disagree that you have to wage violent jihad or something to be a sincere muzzie in a meaningful sense. Everyone distorts or adapts their traditions. As Pinker has pointed out, Jewish scriptures describe genocide on enemies, sparing only the virgin girls “so you can rape them” — I would say rape-marry, which I assume is what happened to most of them, and is obviously a lot less evil on average (especially in a malthusian context) than putting women to prostitution.

          I don’t know if the orders came from God or Moses or what, but the (original, uncommented) tradition basically condones this, while modern Jews will disagree hysterically with this act — or, if they actually understand the historical world, simply consider it outmoded (malthusian).

          Yanomamo gang-raped women before forcing marriage. Maybe some of them still do. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Hebrews were more civilized. I have only read a little of the Illiad but it seems that those women captured as concubines were seized by a single man, as far as comes to mention anyway — though what’s-his-face later pirates Achilles’ concubine by superior political power, this is portrayed as seriously pushing his luck in life.

          That doesn’t mean that’s what really tended to go on, but it furnishes weak evidence.

          • jim says:

            I would disagree that you have to wage violent jihad or something to be a sincere muzzie in a meaningful sense. Everyone distorts or adapts their traditions. As Pinker has pointed out, Jewish scriptures describe genocide on enemies,

            It is non trivial to distort or adapt your traditions. To get out from under the old testament needed either a new prophet with extra special divine authority (Jesus) or else generations of elaborate pious legalistic white anting (the Talmud).

            Any Muslim who tries to do the Koran what Jews did to the old testament gets his head cut off.

            If you simply blow off your traditions, as modern “Christians” do, you wind up with empty churches. People see the priest does not believe, so pretty soon no one believes, and you see all these beautiful old Church buildings that have become museums.

          • jim says:

            I have only read a little of the Illiad but it seems that those women captured as concubines were seized by a single man, as far as comes to mention anyway — though what’s-his-face later pirates Achilles’ concubine by superior political power, this is portrayed as seriously pushing his luck in life.

            In The Anabasis, the only incidents of indiscipline that Xenophon mentions are when men abandon their posts to do something heroic, and when they abandon their posts to protect their women.

          • RS says:

            Well, who were these random floozies dragging across Mesopotamia with the ancient equivalent of Blackwater? Did they all really get there voluntarily?

            Nevertheless, she’s a classic. Some decent readings on librivox. Definitely just the thing for all you boys if you ever get any of these indulgent modern feelings going on in your head.

            • jim says:

              Xenophon is a bit evasive on the extent to which the women volunteered initially, but he refers to them as comrade women, and mentions them singing battle songs to encourage troops. I would guess that they were initially seized, but women are adaptable, and the ones disinclined to adapt wandered off.

          • RS says:

            “Get out from under” the incomparably-greatest book ever written . . . lol. As I have remarked, only Heraclitus can really rival it, but his text was half-destroyed, probably by perfidious Zionist agents.

            Yet I see your point, or your three points.

  4. Ian says:

    Brilliant post. Thank you.

  5. ErisGuy says:

    Clinton famously praised the Iranian regime as progressives like himself. I believe him.

    • fnn says:

      He probably said the same thing about Moammar Gadhafi at some point.

      • red says:

        The left has always viewed Iran as a muslim version of themselves. Going back to the carter days, they kept praising them, trusting them, and kept trying to nudge them back on the right path of world progressivism.

        I think they soured on Gadhafi because he got into bed with GWB. Most of what I saw directed his way looked like the response of a spurned lover.

        • jim says:

          On the one hand, the left is always pursuing Islamic interests, as for example installing the Ayatollah in Iran. On the other hand, Obama has blown up considerably more Muslims than George Bush.

          This seeming contradiction is explained by their deluded belief that all affluent urban Muslims who went to the best schools must really be progressives, must be Muslim the way Obama is Muslim.

  6. Eric says:

    What is “the Cathedral”? Is there a previous post defining it?

    • jim says:

      See a definition of the Cathedral

      Government applies state power to ensure political outcomes – for example it makes broadcasters toe the line by direct regulation of the airwaves. The print media get access to the extent that they play along with those they seek access to, hence the New York Times. The schools teach the government line on the great depression, and scientists and economists know that if you scientifically prove what politicians and regulators want to hear you get ahead, and what politicians and regulators want to hear is always that regulators are doing good, except that they need a lot more power because they are not doing nearly enough – hence the noise about financial “de regulation”, when all the supposed examples of financial de-regulation are financial regulation, financial regulation that happens to be highly favorable to Goldman and Sach, who are connected to the regulators by a revolving door.

      At the same time, those seeking political outcomes, seek backing from state power. A marriage naturally ensues. Following the terminology and analysis of Moldbug, let us call this happy marriage and its numerous morbidly obese children “the Cathedral”. The Cathedral is almost the same thing as the left and the progressive movement, or rather it is the left in power, the established left, the professoriat, the mainstream media, the lawyer lobby, the judiciary, the senior public servants, the management of numerous supposedly non governmental quasi private organizations, and so on and so forth.

  7. RS says:

    > so as not to discriminate against parishioners who believe that Jesus gay married Buddha and visits earth from time to time in a flying saucer.)

    What? Recanting gay saucerism practically overnight, and you top it off with salt in the wound? I told you to call me Jim if your faith was weakening. Everyone knows I try to be really available, and really open about questioning.

  8. Steve Johnson says:

    Does the cathedral really care if they’re fake Islamic or real Islamic? Real Islam suits the ends of the Cathedral anyway – which is to ensure that a government fully hostile to non-Cathedral America rules every country.

    If Islam is hostile to the Cathedral in addition to being hostile to non-Cathedral Americans well so what? It’s not like Syria is Germany which will demonstrate by contrast how bad Cathedral government is. The Cathedral is only really interested in stopping orderly governance by people who count – whites and to some extent NE Asians.

    • fnn says:

      The govt of USG is completely hostile non-Cathedral Americans-what else is needed? The myth of a “red government” within the American Empire should have exploded by the passive acquiescence of the Pentagon to repeal of DADT. That, and the fact that for some time the US military has adopted the same anti-white, feminist , pro-muslim policies as the rest of the USG.

  9. Lemniscate says:

    Surely there are progressive/cathedral aligned elites in countries such as Egypt. The indigenous elite may well be aligned to the Islamic ‘cathedral’ equivalent, but the western cathedral is more powerful and must have allies, otherwise they wouldn’t have been so optimistic about the Arab Spring. Perhaps they were just too optimistic about the relative strength of genuine cathedral allies versus fake cathedral allies and Islamic ‘cathedral’ opponents.

    • jim says:

      they were just too optimistic about the relative strength of genuine cathedral allies

      Because they do not see themselves realistically, they cannot see their Islamic equivalents realistically.

      know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.
      If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.
      If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.

      Muslims know that they are theocracy, and recognize the Cathedral as a theocracy, thought they tend to think it is Christian (crusader) or Jewish, rather than the heretical spawn of Christianity. But as far as they are concerned, does not matter much whether Christian, Jewish, or post Christian.

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