Russia is not the enemy

What do conservatives do when the institutions they are fighting to defend join the other side? Unfortunately, the American right has an answer to that question – fight harder than ever to save their enemies.

This is especially true in our foreign policy. As American conservatives lurch from defeat to defeat on cultural and economic issues, they seem to become more militant and aggressive against other countries, even when it means attacking the people on our side. So it was that the American right leapt to the defense of the P---y Riot activists because it meant attacking the regime of Vladimir Putin of Russia.

Generally, when the likes of the Huffington Post are telling me I should be outraged about something, I tend to be suspicious.

The "Western" (actually anti-Western) media reported that these plucky activists sang a pro-democracy song. Actually, in February, they burst into the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, which had been destroyed by the Communists and rebuilt in the 1990s, disrupted services and screamed the following:

Holy s---, s---, Lord's s---!

Holy s---, s---, Lord's s---!

St. Maria, Virgin, become a feminist ...

Patriarch Gundyaev believes in Putin

B----, you better believed in God

Other activities by the group include public orgies, shoving chicken into their vaginas at a supermarket and overturning police cars (with officers inside). These are the kinds of things we might expect at Occupy Wall Street, except I think those protesters might actually have something to say. Other actions by the group's supporters, such as topless women cutting down a cross at a monument for victims of Communism in Ukraine, speak for themselves.

American conservatives have rushed to defend the group. John O'Sullivan at National Review called them "virtuous as well as brave" and hailed them as Christian martyrs. Jim Treacher at the Daily Caller suggested Putin was "scared of girls," while Sam Sorbo hailed their activism as something for Americans to aspire to because "political correctness has made many people too shy."

This is literally the opposite of the truth. A group claiming to support P---y Riot actually performed an identical action in Western Europe – specifically in the cathedral at Cologne, Germany. Not surprisingly, even in countries free of tsarist despotism, randomly breaking into places of worship and shrieking is frowned upon, and the glorious democracy of Germany is looking to sentence the protesters to three years in prison – one more than what their heroes received in Russia. One hastens to add there is far less media attention.

As for the critiques by American conservatives, O'Sullivan should note there are plenty of nations where church and state are united – such as Great Britain. Of course, since the archbishop of Canterbury endorses Shariah law, the Church of England is a far less popular target for the likes of the Huffington Post. Regarding free speech, let's not pretend that Europe is free. After all, people have been imprisoned for what they say on Twitter, well respected journalists have been put on trial for what they say in books, and political parties with vast public support and democratically elected officials have been banned. Of course, those countries in Europe are the United Kingdom, France and Belgium, respectively.

Putin may or may not be "scared of girls," but movement conservatives are terrified of liberals posting mean things about them if they actually touch controversial issues like immigration or traditional marriage. It's far easier to sneer at bearded clerics or elderly babushkas with the temerity to want to worship without having obscenities screamed at them. We don't want to get the Huffington Post upset at us.

As far as political correctness, we have places where the likes of P---y Riot are in charge – they are called college campuses. The band's ideology is typically boring leftism, which American conservatives seem determined to misinterpret. The reason is because it might get in the way of bashing Russia. Romney has identified Russia as America's No. 1 "geopolitical foe," and his advisers still think we are fighting the Soviet Union.

I can certainly understand Cold War nostalgia and am as guilty as anyone else on the right of enjoying "Red Dawn" a little too much. However, to think modern Russia is some kind of international base for anti-American leftism is as farfetched as the "Red Dawn" remake with a North Korean invasion.

Russia is targeted precisely because it is conservative. The vast majority of Russians were outraged at P---y Riot's stunt. As Putin himself noted, there's a reason they didn't target a mosque. The real audience was the left-wing American and European media, which never misses an opportunity to promote degeneracy when it is directed at Christian or Western targets.

Putin is not perfect, and Russia is certainly corrupt, though it was far worse before Putin's takeover. Putin is simply a Russian nationalist, doing his best to strengthen his own country's interests. Perhaps used to our own leaders deliberately sabotaging us, this may appear threatening to Americans. If anything, Putin has not gone far enough, making concessions to Islamists in a shortsighted attempt to try to hang on to Russia's Muslim southern territories.

It's probably not surprising that American conservatism has been reduced to defending free speech only for leftists and concealing its own powerlessness with swaggering bellicosity against media-approved enemies. The problem is that's not where the enemy is anymore.

There actually is an imperialist, left-wing power that interferes with other countries. It pushes mass Muslim immigration on Western nations. It tries to displace traditional values in Christian countries. It hands over former American allies to the Muslim Brotherhood. It supports progressive activist organizations with millions of taxpayer dollars in collusion with far-left activists like George Soros. That country is the United States.

American conservatives should be angry about the subversion of their own country, not following the left's orders yet again by bellowing attacks against the Third Rome.