The Washington DC-based "Center for Security Policy" has put out a report entitled Shariah: The Threat to America. Apparently the fact that you don't see too many Muslims around and don't see too many courts imposing Shariah is mere proof of the effectiveness of the conspiracy. Among the bizarre things about the report is that it glories in a self-comparison with the "Team B" analysis commissioned by the CIA about the USSR in the 1970s -- the analysis that got wrong everything about the economy and defence capabilities of the USSR. Anyway, here's an incidental sentence from the report --
In a civilized society, though, such a “neutral” position amounts actually to taking sides. Treating terrorism with the same even-handedness accorded to competing tax plans, for example, creates an atmosphere that is amoral to a point of immorality ... On some level, such behavior is the latest incarnation of the age-old encounter between the West and the rest – specifically, the non-Western “Other” encountered during various periods of Western exploration, conquest and colonization. Age-of-Exploration Europeans created the image of the Noble Savage, projecting a nobility onto the primitive peoples of the New World that canceled out, or at least compensated for, their obvious savagery. (p126)
This would be comic stuff until one remembers the kind of savagery to which the indigenous people of America (and everywhere else) were subjected. But the comedy strand continues when one looks into where the Noble Savage concept comes from. There appear to be no political philosophers among this crew. Or English lit types. Because the original usage comes from a John Dryden play with a subplot about a Muslim who turns out to be the son of a Christian but he fights for the Muslims anyway. That's so meta.
Co-author Andrew McCarthy reveals that at least 3 Republican House representatives are reading the report, including Michele Bachmann. There'll be more about this.
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