NOVAE MILITIAE

Thus conservative political theorist James Burnham dubbed liberalism in the face of the Communist threat of the 50s and 60s. Were it not for the arrival upon the world scene of people such as Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II, Burnham's worst fears may have been realized. We're still not immune to that threat, as the saber rattling of Communist countries such as North Korea and China would indicate.

Lawrence Auster has made something of the same argument with respect to the liberal West and Islam. His musings on the matter can be read here: http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/002990.html .

But is it only liberalism that has proven to be an ideology of national suicide? Blogger Huw Raphael points us to a BBC production about the parallel between the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the East and neoconservativism in the West.  One sees in this thesis something akin to Auster's:

This film explores the origins in the 1940s and 50s of Islamic Fundamentalism in the Middle East, and Neoconservatism in America, parallels between these movements, and their effect on the world today. From the introduction to Part 1:

"Both [the Islamists and Neoconservatives] were idealists who were born out of the failure of the liberal dream to build a better world. And both had a very similar explanation for what caused that failure. These two groups have changed the world, but not in the way that either intended. Together, they created today’s nightmare vision of a secret, organized evil that threatens the world. A fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and authority in a disillusioned age. And those with the darkest fears became the most powerful. " The Power of Nightmares, Baby It's Cold Outside.

(See Huw's blog entry at: http://raphael.doxos.com/comments.php?id=P2286_0_1_10 )

Could it be that neoconservatism's idealism poses a different but equally dangerous threat to Western survival?  Liberalism softens the West, but neoconservatism hardens our enemies or potential enemies with its quest to impose democratic ideals globally.  Sooner or later that's going to make someone overseas angry enough to do something desperate.  And as liberalism has made us weak from within, a desperate act won't be so hard to pull off.  We may come to rue the day we cast off the Founding Fathers' belief that the American republic should have "no foreign entanglements."