What Would Churchill Say?

Depressing. Now I know what Israelis must have felt like when one of their citizens opened fire in a mosque in 1994, murdering 29 Palestinians. The difference is that in America there is no us and them, except in the sense that the left wishes to force us to think in this debased and destructive way, instead of just thinking in terms of good and evil, decent and indecent. No doubt doing so would be considered an offensive microaggression toward indecent people who can't help doing evil.

Not to politicize the matter... In fact, not doing so is my whole point, because any decent person recognizes that nine of ours have been senselessly murdered, not nine of theirs. And not to in any way excuse the murderer -- indeed, I would like to see the monster hanged tomorrow after a thorough trial lasting for at least 15 minutes -- but I'm afraid such despicable actions are a mirror image of six years of relentless us-them thinking toward law enforcement and toward racial matters more generally.

Here again, the difference is that none of "us" will condone the actions of this depraved assoul, whereas the entire media-academic complex both condones and encourages race-motivated violence in the other direction. But once race wars are underway, I have been given to understand that they are difficult to stop.

Like I said, depressing. I need a lighthearted subject. Must everything be of cosmic significance, Bob? Why so serious?

One thing that comes through in reading this compendious compendium of Churchillania is his largeness of soul. Magnanimity. Broadmindedness. Not to mention incredible courage. As I mentioned in a comment yesterday, he makes me suspect we are well past Peak Leadership.

As an aside, I am also noticing an odd resonance with one of our favorite authors, P.G. Wodehouse. They were born within seven years of each other, and it is as if they draw upon the identical sources and deploy the same rhythms of speech, except of course in very different ways.

But interestingly, while Churchill was known to be a world-class wit in public, Wodehouse was said to have been utterly boring. Fans who bumped into him expected a stream of lively conversation and sparkling witticisms, but he was a bit of a flatliner.

Example.

When Churchill declares war on Japan, he cites their "wanton acts of unprovoked aggression, committed in violation of international law."

But then he signs off the communique with I have the honour to be, with high consideration, Sir, Your most obedient servant, Winston S. Churchill. While some questioned the appropriateness of his gracious manner, he explained that "after all when you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite."

Wodehouse was able to take such high-flown rhetoric, and by tweaking it slightly, turn it to comedic effect. But in order to tweak it, he had to be totally familiar with, and comfortable in, that domain. Like Churchill he could effortlessly quote Shakespeare and other lumiaries. Both had huge literary accounts to draw upon.

One thing the Arab-Muslim world excels in is outlandish rhetoric about the enemy -- i.e., Jews and infidels -- that is so over-the-top, it's funny. But thanks to political correctness, we are not even permitted to name our enemy, much less describe him. Churchill was under no such restrictions, so his descriptions of the enemy provide a torrent of fine insultainment.

Remember how the left wetted itself over Reagan's crack about the "evil empire," or Bush's about the "axis of evil"? Churchill would never be so restrained. Rather, we were at war "against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime." Our task was to "rescue mankind from the foulest and most soul-destroying tyranny which has ever darkened and stained the pages of history."

And not only was he permitted to name and describe the enemy, but name what we were defending and why: "Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation." Should we fail, "then the whole world... will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science."

He just described Iran.

You can't mention Christian civilization because CRUSADES. Besides, the left supports the enemy of its enemy, since they share the common enemy of Christian civilization. Leftism and Islamism are both motivated by hatred of precisely what Churchill so courageously defended. Now we have to apologize for it, which again goes to the symbolism of Obama exorcising the White House of that bust of Churchill. Al Sharpton? Bueno. Winston Churchill? Adios.

This would be fun. Take some of Churchill's statements about Germans or Japanese or communists, and insert "Islamists" or "jihadis" or "mullahs."

"We shall never descend to the [Islamist] level, but if anybody likes to play rough, we can play rough too. [Al qaeda and ISIS] gangs have sown the wind: let them reap the whirlwind."

"In spite of all their brains and courage, they worship Power..." "They do not value freedom themselves, and the spectacle of it in others is hateful to them. Whenever they become strong they seek their prey, and they will follow with an iron discipline anyone who will lead them to it."

Let's be fair: "All [the mullahs] ask for is the right to live and to be let alone to conquer and kill the weak."

You can't make nice with an Iranian tyranny "which spurns Christian ethics, which cheers its onward course by barbarous paganism, which vaunts the spirit of aggression and conquest, which derives strength and perverted pleasure from persecution, and uses... with pitiless brutality the threat of murderous force." "Never forget that the [mullahs] are crocodiles.... I cannot feel the slightest trust or confidence in them."

"There is nothing they admire so much as strength, and nothing for which they have less respect than weakness." "You can only deal with them on the following basis... by having superior force on your side on the matter in question -- and they must also be convinced that you will use -- you will not hesitate to use -- those forces, if necessary, in the most ruthless manner."

In an arresting image, Churchill characterized Nazis as sheep, but carnivorous sheep. Could the same not apply to the ravenous sheeplings of Islamo-nazism? Although they are religious robots, they've forgotten allahbout the First Law.

In any event, this "gang of bandits.... shall themselves be cast into the pit of death and shame, and only when the earth has been cleansed and purged of their crimes and their villainy shall we turn from the task they have forced upon us..."

As to our contemporary leadership, "My parents judged that the [circus] spectacle would be too revolting and demoralising for my youthful eyes, [so] I have waited 50 years to see the Boneless Wonder sitting in the [White House]."

Advice to President Jello: "To try to be safe everywhere is to be strong nowhere." "Weakness is not treason, though it may be equally disastrous."

But why should America be the policeman of the world? "I answer: 'If we left off [policing it] you would soon find out.'" For "The victory of [America] means the welfare of the world."

The left? Its philosophy "has not one single social or economic principle or concept... which has not been realised, carried into action, and enshrined in immutable laws a million years ago by the White Ant." "The strangling of it at its birth would have been an untold blessing to the human race."

"One might as well legalise sodomy..."

Or better, one might as well redefine marriage. At this point what difference does it make?