We are a great civilization, Carlos, there is no doubt about it. We have an organized system whereby great wealth, opportunity and benefit abound. Capitalism works. What makes it work is the dichotomy between generally two consensuses. Not to wax philosophically, but there are always (at least) two valid arguments to make. The fact that we make them without killing each other defines our civilization. That power can pass between the Democrats and Republicans without the assassination of the leaders of the ruling party is the difference between us and our enemies. And I think it is this lack of understanding of our great advantage that puzzles liberals.

We are a country founded upon these great principles. We believe in freedom to do what you want, where you want, and with whom you want. But, we have chosen, to live by the rule of law. Your freedom ends somewhere between your shouting “fire!” in a crowded theatre, and my not getting trampled to death in the resultant stampede to the exits. There’s a lot that can happen between those two events, and it is that ongoing debate about just how far you can go towards shouting before I have to stand up and say “there’d better be fire or you’re going to be held accountable.”

In Islamic cultures, under the rule of Sharia, your throat would be ripped out, depending on who owned the theatre and who was sitting inside, before you even approached the building. They cannot understand how we can allow people to go about shouting “fire!” as though everything were ablaze when it is not. They cannot understand freedom, civil rights, equal treatment under the law… all of the things that this country was founded upon, enshrined in our Constitution, and debated about, daily.

It is these values for which we fight, whether the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq I and now, Iraq II. Mr. Parks seems to be advocating that we give up everything we stand for, and become just like our enemies. President Reagan (yup, gonna use this example) stood before the country and apologized to the Japanese-Americans interned during WWII. Apparently, Mr. Parks thinks we should not learn from our mistakes.

The underlying principle is best exemplified by the introduction to contract law that all business majors must examine. There are (at least) two sides to every contract. You are bound to abide by the terms of a contract to which you are a signatory. It doesn’t matter that the other party doesn’t abide by the agreement. It is a difficult concept to grasp. Just because the bad guys don’t do what they’re supposed to — whether its pay rent or not wear uniforms — doesn’t mean that we should, or can, dismiss our commitments. Again, this is the difference between civilization and anarchy. Which do you want to have?

The first word that jumped out at me was suggesting that Bill Keller was selected and not elected. Interested word, selected. It implies that somebody, other than the majority of people through democratic process, put (in this case) Keller at the helm. Well, Keller was selected. That’s the way business works in our Capitalistic society. If the shareholders of the New York Times deem Keller unworthy to lead, they’ll deal with it.

But our current president finds himself in the very same predicament. He wasn’t elected bu the majority of the people. In fact, his opponent was. By fluke of our system, W garnered more electoral votes than Gore, through clever manipulation of a situation that may or may not have been engineered. So I guess you could say that literally from the get-go, this president disregarded our Constitution, which has a formal process already in place to deal with such circumstances, and ran to a Supreme Court — activist judges if there have ever been any — and got them to step in and stop all that madness of vote recounting and certification, blah, blah, blah. Meanwhile, Congress has gerrymandered the system such that 98% of the time, they get to keep their jobs. It seems the only way to get removed from Congress is to get caught red handed. And judges, in large part, are appointed for life.

You’d think, after two of the closest elections in the history of our nation, that the winners would rule from the middle, try to unite the Country, and work for the common good. We were given the ultimate opportunity to make really change the world on 9/11; we could have stood up and said “We’re not going to put up with this!” and come together and worked towards that end. Instead, we have plain political pandering from the likes of Karl Rove, suggesting that liberals would not be effective fighting the war on terror. Osama must have laughed and clapped his hands when he heard that one, watching the figurative wedge get driven in just a little bit deeper. “They will soon fall, praise Allah,” he prayed.

Where does it end? Are we going to annihilate ourselves before we get a chance at Al Qaeda? I agree, Mr. Parks, terrorists aren’t stupid. They knew that flying airplanes into our buildings would set off a firestorm that will last decades, if not longer. They know that beheading people in front of us enrages us, bringing us one step closer to giving in and becoming beasts just like them. That’s what they want. Because then we can fight on their territory, where they have the advantage. They want one of our parties to crush the other ruthlessly, and then that ruling party can descend to their level, where they can fight more effectively. They are using our values against us, and the sooner that the right wakes up to this fact, the sooner the war on terror will end.

So we have a choice to make. We can destroy the free press in order to silence it. We can let our soldiers do whatever it takes on — or off — the battlefield, just so long as we win. We can toss our rule of law when we find it inconvenient to put enemy combatants on trial for their crimes.

Or not.

Either the Islamofascists will win, and every win will be because of the “hand of Allah.”

If civilization wins (yes, that’s a direct slam at Islamofascist “society”), historians will look at the appeasers and the talkers and those who would believe the Islamofascists honor their own word by keeping it, and wonder how on earth the appeasers were sucked in to such blatant perfidy?

Islamofascists lie. End of discussion. Their word is not even good to another Muslim. What’s so hard to understand about that?