It's as though our modern liberal democracy is so porous and malleable, so rife with insecurity and uncertainty, that we aspire-perversely-to the fascist certainties of our Jihadist adversaries. The victim takes on the jailor's persona. We worry more about sleep deprivation for the 241 hardened terrorists at Guantanamo than we do about the two million innocents butchered recently in the Congo. We rail against humiliating self-admitted murderers by-gasp!-handling Korans without gloves; by using loud noises, isolation or cramped confinement; and by holding faces immobile. In other words: by using the same intense interrogation techniques employed by our British and French (and certainly many other) allies without tortured (pun intended) public discussions.
We flagellate ourselves and prostrate ourselves before those who call for our destruction, apologizing for these indiscretions and justifying our own murder. We hold ourselves (but none others) to standards no civilization before us has considered even remotely possible.
We pledge to negotiate as equals with Iran and Syria, two medieval autocracies that stone women (Iran), incarcerate children (Iran and Syria) and eliminate opposition (Syria)--no Geneva Convention anywhere in sight. We bow before the Saudi king, whose regime allowed female students to burn to death rather than let them escape the flames inappropriately dressed, which beheads disbelievers and amputates the limbs of everyday thieves.
The world is rife with genocide, with indiscriminate torture of the innocent and the young.
Yet our human rights movements, women's rights movements, and our ACLUs spend their time and resources railing against every transgression by our military and those who make us safe-as imperfect as that process may be?
Why are we emasculating ourselves?
Do we believe that if we defang ourselves, make ourselves vulnerable, weak and fearful, we will engender understanding and support from those who wish us ill? Will emasculation reduce their jealousy and their hate? If we berate ourselves, humiliate our defenders publicly in court, weaken our defenses and our interrogation techniques, will we gain the love and the admiration of Ahmadinejad, of Al Qaeda, of the Taliban? If we continue to hate ourselves enough, to belittle our culture of freedom and individualism, will we sufficiently reduce our hard-won differences, our unique and ennobling values, to pacify the radical Islamists?
Such is our 21st century sociology of capitulation: we must beat our swords into ploughshares and validate Shariah law in every court before we can be prideful as Americans. Are we compulsive lemmings rushing leftwards into the suicidal sea? When will our emasculation end?