Buchanan, Collins, Chesterton

One of the running themes here at Thoughts and Ideas is the aproach of what Pat Buchanan called The Death of the West. His book should be read by anyone who cares about the preservation of Western culture and society.

Heading over to the Drudge Report, I caught a flash from Joan Collins. Set to splash tomorrow in the UK Daily Mail, it sounds quite Buchanan-esque.

A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within, said the American historian Will Durrant about ancient Rome. This self-destruction of values is exactly what is happening in England today.

Insert "America" for England and the same holds true. Still, you've got to hand it to the Brits. In our duel to the suicide, we just can't seem to keep up.

Even though the Welsh are proud to call themselves Welsh, as are the Irish and certainly the Scots, woe betide the Briton who calls himself 'English' -- a much-frowned-upon no-no.

Well, we're still allowed to call ourselves "Americans" although identifying oneself with the greatest country in the world--in my humble opinion of course--is one sure fire way to warrant a dirty look, in Britain or most anywhere else for that matter.

I believe that when a country loses so much respect for itself that it can no longer even be identified by its historically correct name, insecurity and lack of respect filter down to its inhabitants.

To illustrate her point I offer, exhibit A: Michael Moore. This laughable curmugeon is adored by the left of this country, as evidenced by his place of honor at the 2004 Democratic Party national convention, right next to fellow curmugeon Jimmy Carter. Moore plainly does not like America one bit. He loves Canada, but Americans are "the dumbest people on earth." We're certainly not the brightest, but if I were Moore, I wouldn't blast the clientele who have made his "documentaries" box-office smashes.

But that's me, and I am not a self-loathing liberal. At the risk of stereo-typing, most liberals do not at heart like this country. True, modern neo-conservativsm, per Bush, is light on ideas and high on flag-waving, but at heart it is obvious that conservatives love this country, perhaps even to a fault.

The same cannot be said of modern liberals. Yes, we had slaves here. Yes, we slaughtered the "native Americans". We also freed the slaves, and I challenge anyone to show me a single country that did not use warfare to acrue land. Such is the way of the world, but not to the self-loather.

Further evidence is liberal disrespect for the principles this country was founded on. I may have a slightly unhealthy love-affair with the Jeffersonian ideal, but liberals show no such love for any of those slave-owning founding fathers. America is--or is supposed to be--a capitalist republic. Liberals do not care for capitalism, or many of those other rights the founders in their wisdom knew God have given us. The second amendment is but one example.

A particular incident demonstrated the lack of respect and manners that is but a small example of the horrible, encroaching decay of the country that I love dearly.

My husband Percy and I were at a ball at the Grosvenor House Hotel -- a black-tie event attended by the socalled 'elite' of the city.

As Percy held the door open to let me through, a 6ft tall, middle-aged, horse-faced male pushed past me, trod on the hem of my dress and rushed outside to climb into the taxi that the doorman had waiting for us.

This was a person who should, or at least looked like he should, have known better. The cause of his behaviour? The awful pervasive disregard that we have for civility today.

"Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God," the British Chesterton once wrote. The government has not taken a stance on common civility and removing the reverence of Judeo-Christian values has left us as the pagans we are.

There is another point here as well. Antiquated Christians like myself believe that God created men and women separately. While equal, we should treat the gentler sex with respect. Opening a door for a lady was once common courtesy, but that too seems to have died with the gods. What a lovely utopia modern feminism has wrought.

We've become the 'Whatcha lookin' at?' culture. Why do young people consider it cool to be arrogant, swaggering and rude? Why do so many people in England seem so cynical and self-centred?

I think I may have the answer. Do away with God, and there is nothing left but ourselves. Others are there for our amusement and pleasure. Again Chesterton comes through with some wisdom, "The sceptic ultimately undermines democracy (1) because he can see no significance in death and such things of a literal equality; (2) because he introduces different first principles, making debate impossible: and debate is the life of democracy; (3) because the fading of the images of sacred persons leaves a man too prone to be a respecter of earthly persons; (4) because there will be more, not less, respect for human rights if they can be treated as divine rights."

The critic generally has a goal in mind. My goal, for example, is the renewal of Christianity and the values that it espouses by the vehicle of the Roman Catholic Church. The modern cynic can find faults all around him, it takes little more than a brain to do that. What he cannot do is find a viable alternative to the mess we've landed in. Thus the prevalence of cynicism. Chesterton steals the day one final time, "Progress is a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative."

There are certainly a hand full of liberals who have a superlative in mind, but most, like Moore, are wandering around screaming about what is wrong. We get it Mr. Moore, would you kindly tell us how to fix it? What's that, modernism has killed with it the absolute and with it the standards necessary for the vision necessary for this progress? That is interesting.

After all, a lack of manners and politeness in a society can only be a reflection of what the society thinks of itself.

It's frightful how being told that you are no good makes you hate yourself, and hate others. And it's frightful how quickly a whole country of self-loathers can be bred.

Jane Collins is absolutely right. When the UK falls, maybe that will serve as a wake-up call. Until then, and probably even after, count on liberal cynics of all sorts to purvey a lack of civility and a general aura of self-loathing.