I have no doubt that where there is much love, there

will be much to love, and where love is scant,

faults will be plentiful. -Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) _John Ploughman's Talk_ [1880]

There's always been a market for self-loathing in free societies:

after all, the most effectively anti-western idea of all was itself an

invention of the West, cooked up by Karl Marx while sitting in the

Reading Room of the British Library. The obvious defect in Communism

is that it's decrepit and joyless and therefore of limited appeal.

Fascism, likewise, had many takers in those parts of the cultural West

that were politically deficient - i.e., continental Europe - but it

had minimal support in the heart of the political West - i.e., the

English-speaking world. So the counter-tribalists came up with

something subtler and suppler than Communism and Fascism - the

slipperiest -ism of all. The great strength of "multiculturalism" is

not that it's an argument against the West but that it short-circuits

the possibility of argument. If there's no difference between English

Common Law and native healing circles and Tamil Tiger fundraisers and

gay marriage and sharia, then what's to discuss? Even to want to

debate the merits is to find oneself on the wrong side - for, if the

core belief of multiculturalism is that there's nothing to discuss and

everything's equally nice and fluffy, then to favour honest argument

puts you, by definition, on the extremist side.

-- Mark Steyn, The Slipperiest Ism, http://www.steynonline.com/4527/the-apathy-of-defeat

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear

bright until you hear them speak.

You're never too old to learn something stupid.

When tempted to fight fire with fire, remember that the Fire

Department usually uses water.