Bells are ringing....

I saw a story today in the Dallas Morning News (I don't have it with me) about Russian church bells.

In 1930, these 18 bells were saved from Stalin by an American. He had them transported to the States so Joe couldn't melt them down and make guns out of them.

Stalin, you see, was on a rampage, destroying churches and mosques and temples and monasteries across all 11 Soviet time zones, mass-murdering priests and monks and religious folk of all stripes. And the American industrialist couldn't bear to see these great 200 year old bells destroyed for the sake of modern fanatical leftism.

Now the bells are going to be returned to Russia, and both nations are celebrating. The first has already gone back. Can you imagine thousands of churches destroyed and thousands of priests and monks murdered across an entire nation? It wasn't that long ago, you know.

And it struck me again-- lately the rhetoric from Osama and the Islamists has been virtually indistinguishable from that of the modern leftist Democrat party. Even though 'religion' is supposedly anathema to them, they are in a real way allied, politically, with Muslim fundamentalists, on account of having the same enemies.

Us.

But in the end, if the leftists succeed here and Judeo-Christian tradition is wiped out as a political and social force, will what's left for us be any different than what Islamic fundamentalists will leave us?

Stalin had religious people murdered by the thousands (for the good of the state), and he did not stop there. Perhaps 30 million Soviets died at his hands.

And one need look no further than Iraq and Afghanistan to see how cavalierly the Islamic fundamentalist treats human life, even that of his fellow Muslims. I remember a suicide bombing of a schoolyard a few years back, killing dozens of children, and then the following week another bomber was caught on his way to the funeral proceedings-- to finish off the parents of those children. Politics through bloodshed, the definition of terrorism, and the sign of a complete disregard for the sacredness of human life.

It is the Judeo-Christian tradition that gives us the concern for life that is a mark of Western civilisation. "Thou shalt not murder" is a fundamental principle of the Jew and the Christian. The abandonment of these traditions spells the end of the pricelessness of human life, and introduces the specter of mass murder and genocide. It always has, and always will.

Nazi Germany was the most advanced, most intellectual, most high minded society on the face of the earth, and from its lofty perch at the pinnacle of human achievement it gave us the 'showers' of Auschwitz. High human achievement is not only no barrier to savagery, it can even move people in that direction purposefully, for some 'higher cause'.

And Islam?

I can see almost no value there. Every principle of Islam appears to be either lifted from the Judeo-Christian tradition or put in place deliberately to refute such a principle.

Note how Islam states its case about God-- "there is only one God, and Mohammed is His prophet". This is a blunt refutation of what they perceive to be the Christian insistence on 'three Gods' (but is in fact a more nuanced proposition, the Holy Trinity).

They might as well say "Christians are wrong, there aren't three Gods, there's only one, and Jesus isn't THE prophet".

Not much of a foundational statement. "The other guys are wrong!" It is, in fact, the mark of a derivative, something which owes its existence to something else which was there first.

Like the shadow on the table, thrown by the lampshade. No lamp, no shadow. Islam is a second thing, not a first thing. It was invented for motivational purposes by a warlord who needed his thugs to fight harder and kill more people.

So, leftism or Islamism, the result is the same. Millions dead or enslaved. No hope.

Think about this future the next time you hear Democrats bloviating about how evil Bush is or about how Petraeus betrayed us. These men are fighting for western moral traditions, and the rest of the world is trying to exterminate those things. Including the Democrat party right here.

Do you want to live in a world like that?