Up the creek (But is there a paddle?)
By Greg Strange
web posted July 24, 2017
If your mind is untainted by the contemporary madness of political correctness and you are therefore still able to appreciate the monumental and singular achievements of Western civilization – especially as compared, for instance, to the backwardness of the expanding Islamic world – you have to be asking the question: Does Western civilization have even the slightest interest in preserving itself?
By all appearances, the answer to that question is no. In fact, so mired in decadence, stupidity and passivity is the West that it seems oblivious to any threat other than that allegedly posed by a bug-eyed climate forecast for decades out. Of course, anyone who isn’t down with that particular perceived apocalyptic threat is branded by the left as “anti-science.” Amazingly, to prove their progressive allegiance to science, they’ve latched onto the most laughably inexact and untestable science, wildly fraught with inaccuracy and open to manipulation, and declared it “settled.”
On the other hand, what’s not settled, we’re told, is the biological science of sex and gender. That particular science is being ripped to shreds in order to push the left-wing fantasy that what we always thought of as biological gender differences is nothing more than a patriarchal social construct designed to keep women, gays, trannies, etc., under men’s thumbs. Having given that oppressive pseudoscience the heave-ho, liberated people can now self-identify as pretty much anything they want and it’s all perfectly legit, even praiseworthy. Next stop on this crazy train will be to try and wipe out the distinction between humans and animals.
Such is the idiocy of our time. While technological progress continues at breakneck speed, there can be no doubt that Western Civilization is in severe decline on almost every other front. Think of virtually any standard of behavior, appearance, decorum, manners, speech, artistic expression, education, morality, patriotism, religious faith, even some science, and they have been degraded and/or politicized to the point that an adult from fifty years ago would stand in heartbroken horror at the collapse of everything he once cherished.
Tragically, for young people today, this is all they’ve ever known. If that’s not bad enough, they’re being encouraged on almost every college campus to jettison what little is left of our Western heritage and national sovereignty. Shakespeare is being rejected by English departments, the Constitution is considered archaic and irrelevant, national borders are frowned upon, the American flag is seen as a symbol of oppression, and whiteness itself is being vilified as the worst thing to ever happen to the planet. Universities are awash in every imaginable strain of destructive identity politics as students are taught to believe that our history has been little more than an uninterrupted parade of crimes against indigenous peoples and people of color. Anyone who doesn’t believe in white privilege, open borders, homosexual marriage and 57 flavors of gender is considered a fascist.
In the meantime, while bratty and sometimes violent social justice warriors run amuck on campus and elsewhere, Islamic jihadists, whose avowed purpose in life is to kill infidels and set up an oppressive caliphate, are running amuck all over the planet and it’s yawnsville from the left. This year’s recent Ramadan festivities were particularly rough-and-tumble, racking up casualties in the thousands. But like burglaries or muggings, random Islamic slaughters in Western cities are now being accepted as “part and parcel of living in a big city,” as the Muslim mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, so eloquently put it. To the left it’s a small price to pay for the inarguable magnificence of diversity.
One might think that the merchants of tolerance would balk, or at least raise an eyebrow, at the idea of pointlessly bringing into Western countries great hordes of the world’s most intolerant people whose belief system is utterly incompatible with their liberal ideals. But for fire-and-brimstone multicultural fundamentalists, it doesn’t matter how backward, intolerant, violent or incompatibly illiberal an immigrant culture is. The only thing that matters is that it’s different from ours – and that makes it good! The more alien and unassimilable the better!
On the economic front, even the thoroughly discredited concept of socialism refuses to go away. It seems that no amount of negative historical evidence can dampen the enthusiasm on the left for this blight on human initiative and economic dynamism. And so in the year 2016 our very own homegrown curmudgeon socialist, Bernie Sanders (who honeymooned in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), was able to make a serious bid for the presidency. Meanwhile, oil rich Venezuela was busy falling into a state of near barbarism because of . . . wait for it . . . imposed socialism. But all the cool kids went gaga over Bernie!
So, into this civilizational morass of stupidity and misplaced priorities, strode Donald Trump. The boorish businessman/reality tv star, who sports an inexplicable haircut and often obsesses over trivial slights, managed to get himself elected president by a fed-up coalition of folks who were sick of ineffectual career politicians and saw America as they knew it slipping away.
The same guy who lowered the dignity of the presidency by going off on a couple of lame MSNBC talk show hosts has also done something magnificent, something that we desperately need and something that President Obama wouldn’t have been caught dead doing. He lavishly praised Western civilization while speaking in Poland. Here are a few excerpts:
There is nothing like our community of nations. The world has never known anything like our community of nations.
We write symphonies. We pursue innovation. We celebrate our ancient heroes, embrace our timeless traditions and customs, and always seek to explore and discover brand-new frontiers.
We reward brilliance. We strive for excellence, and cherish inspiring works of art that honor God. We treasure the rule of law and protect the right to free speech and free expression.
We empower women as pillars of our society and of our success. We put faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, at the center of our lives. And we debate everything. We challenge everything. We seek to know everything so that we can better know ourselves.
And above all, we value the dignity of every human life, protect the rights of every person, and share the hope of every soul to live in freedom. That is who we are. Those are the priceless ties that bind us together as nations, as allies, and as a civilization.
Left-wing reaction was swift and predictable with references to white supremacy, Nazis, nativism, chauvinism, nationalism, “white nationalism,” “blood-and-soil nationalism,” white grievance, “racial and religious paranoia,” and on and on. And all because Trump dared to defend and praise the one civilization without which the world would fall into darkness.
You know Western civilization is up the proverbial creek when large portions of it (mainstream media, educational system, Democrat Party, half of general population) equate praise of it with the aforementioned slurs and slanders. When people who enjoy the benefits of the greatest civilization in history have no particular appreciation for it and what it takes to preserve it – and no thought for what might replace it (hint: it ain’t gonna be pretty) – well, let’s just say that for the West, the hour is getting late.
Suffice it to say that no civilization that becomes completely unmoored from the principles that allowed it to flourish in the first place can possibly survive intact. No civilization that refuses to be proud of its own magnificent accomplishments, but instead denigrates its past, can possibly survive intact. No civilization that is either too passive, too self-loathing or too stupid to defend itself from the most obvious threats can possibly survive intact.
And, oh yeah, no civilization that refuses to reproduce itself can possibly survive intact. The bottom has fallen out of European birth rates. America isn’t quite as bad, but the trajectory is the same. It doesn’t say anything good about civilizational confidence.
In his Poland speech, President Trump said, “The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive.” Yes, exactly, that is the question. But the left finds this question both preposterous and provocative (“blood-and-soil nationalism”), even as it actively seeks to undermine virtually everything that made the West great. And what do they want to replace it with? A utopian fantasy world of harmonious diversity where whites are a minority, people choose whatever gender they prefer, the global climate gets put at some perfect setting and the government provides everyone with a fabulous standard of living and free healthcare.
And they have the temerity to ridicule religious people for irrational beliefs.
Can Trump help prevent the West’s improvident decline from becoming irreversible? It’s a tall order and impediments include feckless politicians, virulent and mainstreamed leftism, and a citizenry that is now so severely degraded as to be incapable of seeing the big picture and what is at stake.
How could Trump or any other president, no matter how great, fix all that? 
Greg Strange can be reached at gpstrange30341@yahoo.com. (c) 2017 Greg Strange.