August 21, 2011

Martial Virtues and the Survival of Civilizations

By James G. Wiles
It's the Silly Season. Yet, in the midst of America's earliest presidential campaign ever, the sultry air is filled with talk of Western societal decline. And our TV screens and the Internet are filled with the reality of it. The British riots have sparked the question: what happened to Great Britain? It is a fact of history that the English (and the Scots) used to be -- like the Germans, the Arabs and the Japanese -- one of the most pugnacious people in the world.  Now, as Frank Miniter wrote in a piece this week entitled "England Used to Be a Country of Men," Brits meekly hand over the clothes on their backs (and backsides) to rioters who request them. The same humiliation happened, at an earlier time, to the French and the Spanish.  Europeans once spoke of the "Spanish fury," and the "French fury." There was even "Gaelic fury." No more. What happened? Where did the martial spirit which created, first, the Spanish Empire (the original "empire on which the sun never sets")...(Read Full Article)