I was reading the blog of Daniel Greenfield, undoubtedly a great writer and an acute analyst of what is wrong in today's world. But, the more I was reading, the more I felt a sense of dissatisfaction, as you may have when drinking doesn't quench your thirst but paradoxically increases it. Then I discovered what it was. There was something missing: a conclusion. We -- the counterjihadists, the "Islamophobes", the conservatives, the "right wing" -- have many excellent thinkers and commentators (of whom Greenfield is an example) who are good in the pars destruens, the critical, negative part, of our arguments; but not enough who develop a pars construens, the constructive part that builds the positive alternative to what we are criticising. This dearth of a firm propositive aspect in our positions is common to all Western countries. The reason, I dare say, is simple. There is among us a widespread fear or unease in proposing a kind of society...(Read Full Post)