Moral Fog

When do moral ends justify immoral means? What is the Right Thing to do?

This is the subtext of the current dispute that has shaken the growing alliance standing against the creeping islamization of the western world.

At what price, victory? At what cost, strength? At what sacrifice, allies?

To vainly attempt a summary of the "blog wars" dispute to date: a rupture emerged among allies in the wake of the counter-jihad conference held in Brussels this past October. The dividing fires were sparked by the contention that certain groups participating at the conference, notably the European political parties Vlaams Belang (“Flemish Interests”) of Flanders/Belgium and the SD (Sweden Democrats) of Sweden, have at their core a narrowly pro-white, rather than broadly pro-west, leaning; and that their past actions discredit them sufficiently to deny them a welcome place alongside those standing up for the preservation of western freedoms and values, today.

Charles Johnson, of the prominent US-based anti-jidadi blog Little Green Footballs, is leading the prosecutorial charge against these European groups. Gates of Vienna, with its more European focus, might be said to be serving as their defense counsel. Back and forth go the allegations and subsequent clarifications.

I think the only area of agreement remaining might be to admit how complicated a story this is to follow. What is a conscientious person to think? Are these European parties racist in their anti-immigration policies? Are they nationalistic to the point where they can be accurately described as neo-nazi in their stridency, denying even the possibility of assimilation, and change?

The answer is: it depends. It depends on your personal definitions of "racist", "nationalist", and "neo-nazi"; it depends on whether you believe people can change or moderate their views over time; and it depends on whether you accept that actions speak louder than words.

If we study this complicated story too narrowly, we can easily come to the wrong conclusions, and if nothing else the detailed context required to make an informed opinion reminds us not to presume a jump into instant expertise, just because we may have read one single source’s account on the issue. (A fault I confess I see in myself, and work to overcome)

After spending an obsessive, preposterous, amount of time researching the controversy, I come away with only the obvious perspective that since nobody is perfect, the issue becomes a measurement of what it means for someone to be “good enough” to enter into an alliance with them.

What is the character of our allies? Do judgments on character even matter, when the stakes are so high?

These are the two questions being batted around, but the important one, the one that establishes our right to victory, is the second one, as far as I’m concerned. Character matters.

It establishes our merit, it renews our strength, it sanctifies our sacrifice.

It is not only important to strive to Do The Right Thing, it is surely the whole point of the struggle, it is why the West’s current struggle against the unholy alliance of the far left and islamist fundamentalists is a struggle worth undertaking.

Our opponents find no problem in aligning themselves with forces which, in an honest accounting, they should be seeing instead as an irreconcilable enemy. To their side, clearly, ends do justify means. It is a characteristic moral compromise for them. It is the dark secret of the political left’s history, that they have repeatedly justified unconscionable crimes against humanity, because these were seen as in service towards such irrefutably “noble” ends; the professed nobility in the absolute end is then used to cleanse the conscience of any odious individual step taken towards it. Pillage, starve, kill, no sin stains their soul or stays their hand, as long as it is seen as helping bring about a “paradise” on earth. (A fair reading of history is that every group has done this to some degree, the left merely being the more recently guilty of the highest body counts resulting from their immoral behavior.)

Moral justification for immorality is horrible when the left does it, because it is horrible in itself, not merely because it is the left doing it. If we decry the tactic when our opponents use it, how dare we defend it when we do it? That’s the kind of tribal thinking which, surely, Western civilization is trying to overcome in this current clash against civilization.

Can we afford to be absolutely moral, at all times, in all occasions? As I grow older, I realize: No. There is a tipping point, tragically, at which short-term needs may outweigh long-term standards, and we settle for pragmatism. This compromise counts for nothing, however, if it is not based on a moral foundation, following a moral compass as it navigates through a moral fog. At such ethical setbacks we need to remember our moral foundation more than ever, to ensure we atone for our temporary fallen standards. Means ennoble ends. If a starving man steals bread, should he later come by the money for it he better go back and pay for what he stole. Otherwise, maybe the right thing to do would have been to go on starving.

Have we reached that tipping point in our defense of our precious western civilization? Maybe that’s what the debate should be focusing on: have we reached the point where, in order to defeat the enemy, we must become no different than the enemy we fight? Must we adopt tribal attitudes to morality, and lump people indifferently into categories, announcing that anyone in one group is identical to everyone in that group? When we do it to them, is that to be pronounced okay; it is only when they do it to us that we can object? That is what our civilization's self-declared enemies believe; are we to look to them now for our moral example?

As distasteful as the argument raging in the anti-jihadi blogosphere has become, it is a vital and timely reminder of our moral duty to retain a civility worth preserving, to remember the distance our civilization has traveled, as we have risen so far above the moral stain of our earlier tribalism, foolishly dividing the world into an "us" and a "them", forgiving any trespass we commit against the "other", and seeing them as cursed for not being born as one of "us".

We are not good because of what we are, we are good because of **how we are** what we are. We are defined by our choice of actions, our attempt to find the lesser of evils, and our heartfelt atonement for when we stray from the right path. Our cause is ennobled only so long as we continue our ongoing search for what it means to live an increasingly Good life... to progress.

We should, therefore, be prepared to hold out our hands to potential allies, hopeful that interaction will surely bring about more positive change in them than would the isolation of quarantine. Maybe the erstwhile ties to the VB and SD will, eventually, be revealed as improper; if that proves to be true we can admit sincere error of judgment, and move on. For we do not believe in permanent defilement; that we leave to our current enemies. We believe in a second chance, in repentance... in progress.
If we honestly believe in the righteousness of our values, we will continue to live by them, and by doing so, perhaps persuade less-than-perfect allies to change for the better... holding them, in fact, to the self-same standards we hold for ourselves.

So that together, the Righteousness of our Covenant may send a guiding light to pierce through the fog of uncertainty that has seemingly fallen, like a curtain, around us.