Monday, February 13, 2006
Elder of Ziyon
It is worth reading in full. Here are my comments:
The West has sacrificed its ideals and thrown democratic, liberal Denmark under a train to try to mollify people who want us dead anyway. It is a disgrace and it is against our own deeply-held convictions.
In the end, everyone does what is in their self-interest. Sometimes the self-interest in money, sometimes it is human lives, but too rarely does self-interest easily coincide with ideals, except for those who truly can think long-term.
I once worked for a major telecommunications company who proudly spoke of its ideals, and how it would stand up against discrimination in its own policies as well as when dealing with others. When we were being told this spiel, I asked a simple question: If Saudi Arabia wanted a billion dollar contract with the company but says that no Jews may come and work on it, would they turn down the contract? The hemming and hawing answer made it clear that ideals only go so far.
Denmark does not have the market share of many products that Arab countries do. Denmark does not threaten the lives of those who do things that it disagrees with. Therefore, Denmark gets shafted.
Newspapers that pretend to have lofty standards suddenly forget their own slogans when faced with either economic or physical harm. If they would be honest about it, that wouldn't be so bad, but when they cloak their fear in high-minded concepts like "respect for the feelings of others" they are just hypocrites.
It is not only newspapers; but it is countries as well. The lack of vehemence in supporting Denmark's free speech and the amount of scraping and bowing to irrational demands of a few members of a religion is telling.
It is understandable that nations and companies and media outlets will want to act in short-term self-interest, but what they are not seeing is that in the long term, this is not self-interest - it is slow suicide before the onslaught of radical Islam in its desire to take over the world. Apologizing to would-be mass murderers will not make them like you; all it does is make it easier for them to crap on you next time.
