Sunday, January 21, 2007

Numbers and Humanity





I was emailed this piece, and expected another joke, but was surprised to find something more important, and more moving.

The Peaceful Majority
(from "Why The Peaceful Majority Is Irrelevant" by Paul Marek)

I used to know a man whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War Two. They owned a number of large industries and estates. I asked him how many German people were true Nazis, and the answer he gave has stuck with me and guided my attitude toward fanaticism ever since.

"Very few people were true Nazis "he said," but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories."

We are told again and again by "experts" and "talking heads" that Islam is the religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace.

Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam. The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at
this moment in history.

It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. The hard quantifiable fact is that the "peaceful majority" is the "silent majority" and it is cowed
and extraneous.

Communist Russia comprised Russians who just wanted to l ive in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China 'S huge
population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.

The average Japanese individual prior to World War 2 was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet. And, who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were "peace loving"?

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:

Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.

Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, becaus e like my friend from Germany , they will awake one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.

Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it
was too late.

As for us who watch it all unfold; we must pay attention to the only group that counts; the fanatics who threaten our way of life.

[This last paragraph was added by the emailer] Lastly, I wish to add: At the risk of offending someone, I sincerely think that anyone who rejects this as just another political rant, or doubts the seriousness of this issue or just deletes it without sending it on, is part of the problem. Lets quit laughing at and forwarding the jokes and cartoons which denigrate and ridicule our leaders in this war against terror. They are trying to protect the interests and well being of the US and it's citizens. Best we support them.
All too true, my friends, and something most of us recognize. And it got me to thinking about the immense numbers of people, many of them like you and me, who have been slaughtered in the past century in the name of one ideology or another, and in the name of a Death Cult in the latter half of the past century. Take a look at the estimates. Remember that every death which occurred during World War II was the responsibility, ultimately, of the Fascists of Germany, Italy, and Imperial Japan. Any quibbling about Dresden or Nagasaki is pointless: they would not have suffered a single war-related death had the Fascists been silenced by their own people. Read on.

Deaths during Lenin era of Russian Communism (including Russian Civil War): 9,000,000 (est.)
Deaths due to European Fascism: 42,000,000 (est.)
Deaths to Asian Fascism: 15,500,000 (est.)
Deaths due to Stalinist Regime in Russia (including Ukrainian Genocide): 20,000,000 to 50,000,000 (est.)

Deaths during Chinese Civil War: 2,500,000 (est.)
Deaths during Communist China (Mao's Regime 1949-1975): 40,000,000 (est.)
Deaths during China's Nationalist Era (1928-37): 3,100,000 (est.)
Deaths during Korean War: 2,800,000 (est.)
Deaths during North Korean Regime (1948 - present, not including Korean War): 1,633,000 (est.)
Deaths during Vietnam War (1960 - 1975): 3,500,000 (est.)
Deaths during Cambodia's Communist Khmer Rouge Regime(1975-1978): 1,650,000 (est.)

And don't forget Sudan. This Civil War between the Arab, Muslim north and the Christian & Animist south, has been ongoing since 1983. Estimated deaths, through 2005, number around 1,900,000. The recent sensitivity of the American, indeed world, press to the suffering of the people of Darfur, has been annoying to those of us who have been asking about it since the 1980s. By the time of the Clinton Administration the US had descended into navel gazing and cigar antics. Looking at Muslim atrocities in Africa simply didn't fit the agenda of the "Peace Dividend" generation of politicians. A dividend few of those who sucked it up ever healped to create, I might add.

I did not include the Armenian Genocide by the Turks, or the Cuban Communist atrocities under Castro, or many others. I simply put together these few glaring examples. And the numbers are staggering, aren't they? Beyond human comprehension. Truly. I can't wrap my head around numbers this high. Can you? Yet those gargantuan numbers each represents human beings. Millions upon millions of humans, snuffed out, slaughtered, wiped off the face of the earth. For the sake of Communism, or Fascism, or, of late, Islam.

These were men, women, children, old and young. Gone forever. Because of power-hungry, zealous fanatics, whose philosophies they don't even try to hide.

Remember these numbers the very next time some "expert" tries to explain how irrational it is to worry about the peace-loving Muslims. None of us worries about them. We worry about the Death Cultists who rule Islam today. And we worry about American politicians who refuse to see the bloody evidence before their eyes. And we worry about a Media and Educational elite who care nothing for their fellow citizens, but believe themselves above such mundane things.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Thanks, Paul, for the inspiration!

19 comments:

camojack said...

Those who fail to learn from History...

Gayle said...

Yes, Benning, it's all to easy to see that it's being attempted right here in our own country by the liberals, and may Americans are just too busy with their own personal life to open their eyes and ears to take notice. Apathy is every bit as dangerous as fanaticism. Without apathy fanaticism gains no foothold.

I'll be posting about the brainwashing going on in the name of Islam tomorrow and will link you to that post. Great job!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for that great article!

Brooke said...

Great read! I'm going to have to link you! (As soon as I get done making my rounds!)

WomanHonorThyself said...

Peace-loving Musssssssslims have been made irrelevant by their silence...What a brilliant piece Benning..Bless u!

American Crusader said...

"Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence."

The numbers are staggering but they are so large, it's almost too much to comprehend at one time. The amount of needless deaths is only going to rise and I think dramatically so in the next decade as this war progresses. Sooner or later, a nuclear device will be used and then all hell (literally) will break loose.

Eric said...

Adding all those numbers together I get 172,583,000. Consider America sitting at little over 300 million. Now imagine every other American lying dead in the street... more, actually.

That's a huge number in only 100 years... less, actually.

I'm getting tired of all the namby pamby pacifistic bull-squeeze coming from the Left and similar nutcases at my place.

Thanks for the sobering post.

Always On Watch said...

History has shown us that a small majority of violent people (i.e., terrorists) control the majority relatively easily. The majority have a way of saying to themselves, "This, too, shall pass." But that's not necessarily so, particularly if the violent minority control communications (media) and political parties.

Another facet to consider....All Muslims strongly believe that the will of Allah will be fulfilled. As they see the strong ones, the terrorists, go largely unchallenged, the ummah may well say to themselves, "This is the will of Allah. Who am I to challenge it?"

Lastly, radicals and moderates worship in the same mosques.

Have you ever seen Not Without My Daughter? In that film, we clearly see that a modern Muslim can be revived to fundamentalism.

Excellent post, Benning!

BTW, I bought those copies of your book and handed them out yesterday. Maybe I can get one of the two students to review your book. ;)

Jack Steiner said...

Good post.

Anonymous said...

Excellent post!

You could have added the United States; Roe v. Wade has cost 43,000,000 (est) American their lives. The moral majority sat back and said nothing to right a bad judicial decision; consequently, 43M Americans have been summarily slaughtered without regard for the 5th Amendment.

I cannot fathom the willful blindness exercised daily by our leftist politicians. They refuse to even acknowledge we have an ideological enemy who is committed to our destruction.

defiant_infidel said...

Tremendous post, Benning. The e-mail was incredible, but your follow-up observation and facts were the true frosting.

Anonymous said...

As late as 1905 the Japanese fought more honorably or with less fanaticism; respecting the laws of war. Somewhere in between there and WWII this attitude changed.

“...navel gazing and cigar antics...” BRILLIANT!!!!!

Thanks for sharing the e-mail and all the additional research. It truly is mind-boggling and incomrehensible (was that, was that, redundant redundant?).

The Dems don't want the "Iraq Civil War" but they're all for the one in Darfur...why do you suppose that is?

Anonymous said...

History is Human Nature, and it has ingrained within us the instinct to fight for what we believe in and what on this planet we lay claim to by evolution.

"History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:

Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence."

All peace loving people are silent, but basically and universally accept that millitant power is an essential, albiet horrific, necessity to preserve the perception of "peace".
This perception is achieved at a tremdious cost of life. Often fanatic zealots are given the trust to carry forth this task.
God bless the troops past, present and future who have given it all in these conflicts to allow us to rationlize the justification for same.
Can we ever evolve past planetary cultural expansion to the majority acceptance of all?
If so,how?
And will that abolish "liberals" and "conserervatives" and the numerous other labels we give to fellow humans.
The strong will survive.
Such is the lesson of history.
Be strong of Faith.
Semper Fidelis

Thx for the good post.

Anonymous said...

you people are all f***ing nuts!
wake up and perhaps travel out of the country and get a non-xenophobic perspective. you people would have freedoms taken away and that scares the hell out of me.
and, as i'm sure you all know but are unwilling to admit to yourselves, fundamentalist christianity is almost as scary. we'll never move forward until all religions are gone.

benning said...

Anonymous: I'm not sure what you're trying to prove. The subject wasn't Isolationism or the reduction of Rights. It was the refusal to recognize those ideologies that do demand the reduction of our Liberties. Xenophobia has been a hallmark of radical Islam for a very long time. It has also been a guiding principle of Fascism and Communism - outsiders are to be feared and hated; unltimately they are to be subjugated.

It is the foolishness of ignoring those core principles of our enemies that endangers all of us, and threatens to see our Liberties destroyed.

I have been in other countries, and so have many of my visitors and commentors. What that has to do with this post is beyond me.

Anonymous said...

That was an excellent post. If you don't mind, I'm going to send it along to my friends and relatives. My father in law, who grew up in Switzerland during WWII, would second the opinion that apathy and inaction aid the spread of fanaticism.

Anonymous said...

dont forget the killing of the first tribes/native americans/indians in the states....

Paul said...

Thanks for posting and discussing essay. I wrote it back in 06, but somehow it has suddenly popped up again under another person's name, with an added paragraph.

The original was posted here:

http://cjunk.blogspot.com/2006/02/why-peaceful-majority-is-irrelevant.html

Thanks, and good luck!

benning said...

Thanks, Paul! I will update, and link to you, on a post today. Great writing, man!