THE ENEMY WITHIN (AND WITHOUT)

I want to be upbeat and positive. It's my natural inclination.

Trouble is, I have eyes to see with, ears to hear with and a brain to think with. I do my best to use them all and what I see, hear and perceive is not all that conducive to optimism.

I want the human race to move forward, grow in knowledge and understanding and reach for the stars -- literally. When my own nation is stymied in doing any of that by the lies, hate and stultified thinking of ages past, it's hard to be upbeat.

Religion and politics have always been our main problem and enemies. For generations now, we have pretty well succeeded in keeping the two somewhat separate, but that separation has been pretty much nullified. Once the two madnesses get combined they become a runaway train on an ever-increasing downhill slope.

We used to have only the insanity of christianity to fight against, and that's still mostly the case here in the USA. Not so in Britain and Europe. They've been dumb enough to let the insidious fifth column of islam gain an ever increasing foothold.

Just like with christianity, islam tries to get you to focus on the "good" platitudes in their holy book and hope you won't read it any farther. Only the leaders spend any time on the extreme bloodthirsty stipulations which make any unbeliever instant sword and rock fodder, but those leaders have ultimate control over the brainwashed masses under them. Cross them in any small way, and here comes the vitriol to inflame the dumb masses into "jihad."

Even when we were concentrating on the communist menace, I realized in full measure that our greatest enemy was going to come out of the Middle East and the arab world. All religion breeds insanity of one degree or another, but the insanity engendered by islam is more potent than any other.

Most other religions center their devotion around a casual acqaintance with sacred texts and a round of enjoyable holidays. Islam saturates the adherents life with a constant round of praying, fasting and memorizing that totally takes over every waking and dreaming moment of their lives. It's brainwashing to the ultimate level. No other thinking has a chance to gain a foothold in all but a few cases.

We made a big mistake in invading Iraq and carrying on a protracted war in Afghanistan, but I think I know what lay behind it. Those in control recognized the threat coming from that part of the world and thought defeating them militarily would allow us to convert them to a democratic and reason based way of life.

Total pipe dream!

You can't democratize a people who have been flopping on their faces five times a day since infancy and getting their education from religious madrassas by militarily destroying their country and killing thousands of their loved ones in military ventures. They will only hate us more, and that is what has been happening.

I could go into many more aspects, but the facts are that we are in much the same position as ancient Rome. They tried to stem the tide of the barbarian hordes through military action and letting them come into the empire to be romanized. It didn't work! It won't work for us either, and I see the terrifying prospect of a muslim generated new dark age descending on the world as we squander our wealth and power on military adventurism and misplaced tolerance toward an implacable enemy that's now inside our borders.