I read Dave's letter twice to learn from it.

Submitted by Prashant (India), Jan 9, 2023 at 04:19

Dear Dr Pipes,
I have read Dave's letter 'Ideology and Victory' a couple of times so far. I was very impressed by his very first sentence and came back to read the letter again. In this day and age of smart phones, I have learned to read things in small segments.

In this particular reading, I need to comment on two things.

First, Dave gave examples of Hindus, Jews, and Christian places of worship being attacked by Muslims throughout history. When Islam brought its brutal sword to us, we had already lived with Jewish rule of law, Hindu/Buddhist doctrine of non-violence, and the Christian doctrine of love and forgiveness for centuries. Islam found people in the east, west and north to brutalize with ease. I shudder to think about the plight of Buddhist and Jain monks in front of merciless Muslims when their first encounters took place. Only God would know what must have happened in those temples and ashramas (monasteries). Likewise, in the West and North with the Christians and Jews.

We cannot kill as brutally as Muslims do -recall the killings of westerners on live TV-. But we need to realize that wisdom and cowardice go hand in hand. Sometimes cowards talk like wise. There is nothing wrong in organized self-defence against Islam's franchised violence. Courageous speech against the defects in Islam should definitely be encouraged.

My second reaction is to Dave's following statement, "The globalist Left is fundamentally opposed to value judgements based on race, culture or nationality which could be in a any way construed to discriminate against anyone. These ideas of extreme equality, sometimes referred to as cultural relativism, are becoming ever more prevalent in the West.". I will not glorify the Leftist position as 'ideas of extreme equality'. If these guys were even remotely interested in equality, they would have been protesting in front of the embassies of the Islamic republics. The Left's positions are at best intellectual laziness and at worst selfish calculations to win elections. They day the left also starts protesting against China, North Korea, Russia, and the Islamic republics, planet earth will start moving toward unprecedented peace and prosperity.

But, all said and done, Dave's letter is instructive and I will come back for a third reading.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".