What Can I Do?

This question pops up often.  It almost always means:  I now see the Islamic menace, but I cannot figure out just how I can join the war to do my part.  In fact, answering this question is both easy to answer and very tough.

100% of the people who write are appalled by Islamism and read the threat very clearly and correctly.  They know they are not professional writers, speakers, or motivationalists.  All seem to think that the answer lies beyond their grasp, if not their means.  Their “What can I do?” is a call both for existential guidance and for the moral cavalry.

I want to put in my 2¢s’ worth, and I know that what I write will be at best only a partial answer.  However, I think that my 2¢ is urgently and chronically needed, and it makes possible the cultural changes being sought by those who so admirably ask, “What can I do?”

1.  The Easy Part

The easy part to deal with is the arming of oneself with intellectual ammunition.  Back on 12 September 2001, we didn’t have the resources we have now.  Since then, dozens of excellent books and DVDs have come out.  Except for those who want to obfuscate and work pro-Islamic agendas, most of the new publications tell of Islam and its followers with 100% fidelity to the truth.

On our website, we feature some of those resources on our Recommended page.  Another outstanding resource is The Truth Project.  And, while we are citing sources pointing to very good material, check out Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch.

There simply is no substitute for knowledge, i.e., facts and principles which correspond to reality (i.e., truth).  Certainly there is plenty of untruth.  There are plenty of people trying to summon fog to paralyze learners’ minds with what they want to program these minds with.  No, not distortions, but lies—from “scholars,” “media,” to politicians.  Some of these liars get excused as “apologists,” meaning literally, those who “explain” a subject.  As you can see, these apologists working their untruthful agendas do not explain Islam.  They simply lie.

A number of deniers lie through minimization.  They do not want to believe the truth or face it, so they downplay the meaning and impact of Islam.

Knowing invokes a lot more than just learning about Islam, but “Islam 101,” from numerous sources, is an absolutely terrific place to start, and to stay for a long time.  Being against Islam is terrific, as far as it goes.  However, it simply does not go far enough.

Any of us must know what we are for and why.

Being “American” or “Western” by themselves put no bullets in one’s mental guns.  It is necessary to drill deeper.  What does being “American” mean, for example?  Rather than trying to answer that here, I will only indicate some of the big components.

One has to know what, for example, “being American” really means.  “Motherhood, flag, and apple pie” are too unfundamental to be of much utility.  Each of us has to be able to articulate what it means in terms of principles as well as specifics.  Believe me when I say that jihadists and their apologists speak fluently to their nefarious principles and specifics.  Even citing details from the Constitution will not be sufficient without citing the Rights of Man as its basis, which means knowing what “rights” are.  Fortunately, these data are readily available.  Some reading gets it done.

Why is it so essential to become so “learned”?  Because American and Western defenders must develop and use MORAL CERTAINTY.

What is killing us internationally and at home is lack of moral certainty.  Before Islam and Muslim aggressors, our leaders act tentatively, uncertain, and guilty.  President Bush has been groveling before Muslims at home and abroad since September 2001.  Secretary of State Rice acts utterly irrationally sycophantic before Muslim terrorists and their states in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, as well as all the rest of the Muslims abroad and at home.

Part of Secretary Rice’s problem as well as that of President Bush comes from their complete ignorance about Islam, Muslims, and Arabs.  Tragically, they seek to maintain ignorance.  They do not want to know.  They go with preconceptions, which they consider “pragmatic” and “practical.”  Besides, they just “know” that any religion is, by definition to them, something good and never to be criticized or opposed.  They are morally uncertain, by choice.  Because of it, they are passive enemies of America, compared to the active enemies of Islam.

Americans would move like Banshees from Hell against jihadists were they sufficiently morally certain.  Few politicians, bureaucrats, intellectuals, and journalists have ever read a koran or any factual book about Islam.  Few have ever visited websites like Brushfires of Freedom, Sixth Column, Always on Watch, A New Dark Age Is Dawning, Pedestrian Infidel, Liberty and Culture, and many others (see Brushfires of Freedom for links).  So many of these people, along with rank and file citizens of America, seem so willing to settle for living with assumptions versus knowledge, and their assumptions are seldom right.

The principles of Americanism are right—MORALLY RIGHT.  Our nation is right.  Western civilization is right.  Islam is wrong, totally wrong.  One, however, must be on solid ground intellectually to know this and be able to articulate why.  One must have NO uncertainty, NO tentativeness, and NO embarrassment about the principles and their application.

Anything less takes our survival as Americans and Westerners as too trivial to defend.

The foregoing is really the “easy” part of “What can I do?”  It is necessary, but it is not sufficient.  Another step must be taken.

2.  The Harder Part

This next step is actually harder for many people.  It need not be, but it is because of a mental block so many people have but seldom recognize.

When so many people ask, “What can I do?” they almost invariably mean, “What ACTIONS can I take, right now?”  They think that action is the next step.  “Let’s DO something!” they insist.

Indeed, action is called for, but not just any action and not just at any time, like “right now.”  Needed patience comes from grasping solidly some vital fundamentals first.

Taking action before being ready is worse than futile.  It actually sets back the whole process.  Read what John Adams said:

"The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations ...This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution."

John Adams, (1735-1826) Founding Father, 2nd US President
February 13, 1818

Adams knew that revolution—or even just cultural change—requires that enough people be ready first.  Anything else is premature and aborts well-intended efforts.

I call this readiness reaching critical mass.  Critical mass manifests when enough people develop moral certainty and use it to command change.  Their numbers and assertiveness scare politicians into doing the right thing.

A more current example comes from the state of Tennessee.  The governor, a few years ago, reversed his promise and sought to ram a state income tax through the state legislature.  Enraged citizens arose in opposition.  With “torches and pitch forks,” so to speak, they descended on Nashville, the state capitol, while the legislature was deliberating the proposed income tax.  They formed road-clogging brigades of cars, pickups, tractors, combines, trucks of all descriptions, which they drove around and around the state house, blowing their horns and flashing their lights continuously, for hours and hours.  They scared the legislature into bloody flux, and the legislators backed off that income tax proposal pronto.

Two aspects of critical mass building are hard for some people to buy into.  First, critical mass building takes time.  How much time?  For this kind of cultural change, a lot more time is needed than, say, for the Tennessee state income tax prevention.  The kind and amount of time needed simply cannot be shortened by rushing, not and get the correct result.

The base building toward critical mass goes person to person.  As people learn what they need, they become morally confident.  It takes enough people of like mind to effect change—but it takes many fewer than people suppose.

Sam Adams, early American Revolutionary, and a true founding father of America, said: 

“It does not take a majority to prevail…but rather an irate, tireless minority, who keep on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”

In short, as few as 10% of motivated people can form critical mass and change a culture.

In order to provide the proper time and effort to build critical mass, each person must overcome a thinking block.  The block is so subtle that most people do not even recognize that it is at work in their minds.  To get to it, one must recognize that good actions require good ideas first.  That has to be the correct order:  good ideas before good actions.

That requires developing a deep sense of value for ideas.  Not regarding ideas as of critical importance is the big block standing in the way.

Developing a “deep sense of ideas” means for many people developing a brand new attitude about the importance of ideas in every aspect of their daily lives.  “Public,” i.e., government, schools do not teach the importance of ideas as comprehensive and integrated means to understand one’s own life, one’s society, history, other people, other nations, and the like, and an endless chain of events and knowledge.  Lord Bolingbroke, in 17^th century England, famously stated something seemingly incomprehensible to victims of government school “education”:  “History is philosophy teaching by example.”  Yet, that is the meaning of reverence for ideas.  

Most people never get told or taught how important ideas are personally, in their daily lives as well as on national and international stages.  Most people grow up absorbing a mish-mash of good, bad, incomplete, and often contradictory ideas.  They absorb them passively, like a sponge sucking up water.  When asked, adults tend to say that their “philosophy” is something like “Start the day with a good breakfast.”

What I am really emphasizing is the need for an active attraction to, use of, and implementation of ideas and principles along with lots of factual details.  Each of us must come to a comfort level with ideas and let them open our minds.  We can take them using the services of reason to direct our actions effectively.  We can take control of our lives and our destinies, including our culture.

Valuing ideas cannot be overstressed.  People who just absorb, just coast through life, make no more difference than the sponge sucking up water.  Active minds embrace ideas and change their worlds.  If not for today, they set in motion the means to own their tomorrows.

Ideas involve self-education.  That education covers Islam, the problem, and rational Americanism, the answer.  One must become solidly sure of both.  Morally certain men and women know what to demand and from whom and why.  Chicken-livered politicians see the “torches and pitch forks” of the morally certain, and they quake before them.  So do Islamists.

One person influences six to ten others.  Properly intellectually armed and morally certain people become force multipliers.  Each of the people they influence in turn influences 6 to 10 others.  The power of the prepared individual is profound.  Individuals united in common cause become unstoppable.

Ø  Ideas power people.

Ø  People power cultures.

Ø  Cultures power civilizations.

Ø  Civilizations make history.

Ø  The ideas of people power it all.

Trying to take actions first is like trying to use a gun without bullets.  Proper intellectual arming makes every shot count, and it will save that which we hold most precious.