Global insanity

As America looks back at the 9-11 of 2001, as we watch the death-toll of our soldiers in Iraq mount and wonder what outrage lies ahead, we must know that the world has entered a period of insanity. We should have known it well before 9-11. Some of us did. In that, those of us who were commentators (the modern watchmen on the wall) failed our fellow citizens.

But perhaps as commentary's biting edge has sharpened along with the world's shrill discourse, rational thought and argument no longer have effect upon those in the grip of insanity?

TRENDING: SCOTUS can end big tech tyranny – and should

Our national insanity emerged from the ashes of 9-11 with a vengeance. Northeastern elite leftist (once liberal) culture simply assumed that America "had it coming." The bulk of their intellectual energy was spent recycling popular "grievances" against America: We're too rich, we consume too many resources, we export our trashy culture to the rest of the world and, of course, we continue to believe that Israel has a right to exist.

Moreover, we bullied the former Soviet Union out of existence, leaving our academic communists without a motherland. Whatever disagreement the elite had among themselves focused on which particular grievance actually caused a group of "peace-loving" Muslims to attack the world's financial center, its military and the seat of its democratic government.

While 9-11 should have – and in a rational world would have – caused wide-ranging debate, political correctness quickly erased any opportunity to hold an intelligent 9-11 discussion. Nowhere was this more true than on our nation's college campuses, where diversity of opinion is now measured solely by skin color. Opposing viewpoints in academia are no longer met with the classical liberals' questioning attitude, thoughtful rebuttal or even quiet introspection. Opposing viewpoints are now foreign antibodies, savagely attacked by those who should be nurturing the life of the mind.

Perhaps it's a social metaphor of today's autoimmune diseases, whereby the body's defenders come to view the host as the problem, and seek to destroy it? In a very real sense, we got what we paid for: academics living in a leftist fantasyland of their own creation, lavishly maintained at taxpayer expense, without adult supervision. A classical liberal education no longer exists. In its place, we have leftist indoctrination. Whatever threatens the leftist intellectual monopoly must be destroyed. So what if the host culture dies? Hence, it is not the terrorists murdering the innocent who must be restrained, but America.

Many of us like to boast that we "think for ourselves." It's rarely true. Old Media has exploited our herd instinct to set the quality, tone and range of public debate for decades. As the 9-11 debate shows, they failed miserably. Now FOX News, Internet newssites like WorldNetDaily, private blogs and online communities threaten to erode what remains of Old Media's public airwave monopoly. Government gives this valuable resource to broadcasters, while cell-phone companies pay a hefty fee for accessing those same airwaves. Both are profit-making ventures. It makes one wonder what "public service" the broadcasters have been providing all these years?

My gift to you this 9-11 is the truth. The world has entered a period of insanity. This is the beginning of a religious war. You are not mad for thinking so. Furthermore, we may not win. The West is beset by traitors within, and ruthless enemies without. The same traitors who have worked so diligently to destroy our culture from within have now embraced the conflict: Their treason has blinded them to our enemies without.

They see Allah amidst the freedoms they have enjoyed as a gift from the God of the Bible. History paints another picture, but madness begets blindness, and there is none so blind as he or she who will not see.

The West will continue to reassure itself that Islam is not the enemy, even as the next terrorist outrage takes shape, and the perpetrators give thanks to Allah for their success. Is it not possible that God – who has been booted out of American culture, and now its legal system – will take His leave of the place altogether?