"No dhimmi or person living in dhimmitude functions as a free citizen -- a fully developed adult human being. His speech is censored according to Islamic law; his beliefs, particularly critiques of Islam, must be kept to whispers or altogether private. As a non-Muslim (or female), he is treated unequally before the law. He pays the jizya -- Islamic protection money -- for continued sufferance. Always, he lives under threat of Islamic violence or attack, and always, there are more and more places where he dare not go as they become Islamic -- "no go zones" in public spaces and also the mind. His religion, culture, traditions, history, even his cuisine become subject to Islamization...

And not just Jews. By now, the same fearsome risk extends to whole populations, in houses of worship and the public square alike. After reading Bat Ye’or, I realized that the now-familiar strategies of fearsome-risk management—guns around the synagogue, for example--represents a significant capitulation. The security ring around the synagogue—or the airport ticket counter, the house of parliament, or the Winter Olympics--is a line of siege, not a line of counter-attack. The threat of violence has become the status quo, and, as such, is incapable of sparking outrage, and is certainly not a causus belli. Guns at the synagogue door—or St Peter’s Basilica, or the Louvre--symbolize a cultural acquiescence to the infringement of freedom caused by the introduction—better, the incursion—of Islam into Western society. Thus, dhimmitude--institutional concessions on the part of non-Muslim populations to Islam—has arrived in the West.

And it’s here in the U.S. of A., as well. Brandishing automatic weapons, police and soldiers patrol our cities, our buses, our banks, our institutions, our subways, our trains, our stadiums, our airports to prevent specifically Islamic violence. This, lest we forget, is a situation unparalleled—unimagined--in our history. Official Washington has become an armed camp. No longer does traffic stream down Pennsylvania Avenue past the White House; the historic street is now a cement-dump-lined “plaza” blocked off by retractable security stumps. The Capitol, meanwhile, sits behind a hamster-cage Rube Goldberg might have designed, its grand staircases blocked, and metal posts—called “bollards,” I recently learned--bristling down the sidewalks. The fact is, we are living in a state of siege. After 9/11, the United States embarked on an open-ended, war against Islamic terrorism, with varying degrees of foreign cooperation. But even as we fight abroad, we simultaneously assume the status of victims at home, surrendering our bags and purses for security searches, erecting aethetics-destroying metal detectors, transforming our ennobling vistas and public halls into militarized zones under 24-hour-surveillance. This is necessary, we understand, for public safety: But is it the new “normal”? Or do we ever get Pennsylvania Avenue back? Do we ever get to make that mad dash down the airport concourse onto a plane just pushing off from the gate again? (This was an odd, if recurring point of pride of a family friend who used to time his drive from Kennebunkport, Maine, to Logan Airport with perilous precision). Don’t hold your breath; these homeland defenses sprouting up across the country look and feel like they’re here for good...

Take Cartoon Rage 2006, the cultural nuke set off by an Islamic chain reaction to those 12 cartoons of Mohammed appearing in a Danish newspaper. We watched the Muslim meltdown with shocked attention, but there was little recognition that its poisonous fallout was fear. Fear in the State Department, which, like Islam, called the cartoons unacceptable. Fear in Whitehall, which did the same. Fear in the Vatican, which did the same. And fear in the media, which failed, with few, few exceptions, to reprint or show the images. With only a small roll of brave journals, mainly in continental Europe, to salute, the proud Western tradition of a free press bowed its head and submitted to an Islamic law against depictions of Mohammed. That’s dhimmitude.

Not that we admitted it. Resorting to delusional talk of “tolerance,” “reponsibility” and “sensitivity,” we tried to hide the fear that kept the Danish drawings out of the press. We even congratulated ourselves for having the “editorial judgement” to make “pluralism” possible. “Readers were well served…without publishing the cartoons,” said a Wall Street Journal spokesman. “CNN has chosen to not show the cartoons in respect for Islam,” reported the cable network. On behalf of the BBC, which did show some of the cartoons on the air, a news editor subsequently apologized, adding: “We’ve taken a decision not to go further … in order not to gratuitously offend the significant number” of Muslim viewers worldwide. Left unmentioned was the understanding (editorial judgement?) that “gratuitous offense” would doubtless lead to gratuitous violence. Hence, the capitulation to fear--not the inspiration of tolerance but of capitulation--and a condition of dhimmitude. In calling these cartoons “unacceptable,” in censoring ourselves “in respect” to Islam, we brought ourselves into compliance with a central statute of sharia. As Jyllands Posten’s Flemming Rose noted, that’s not respect, that’s submission."

http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/E...rous-Place.aspx [all emphasis in original]

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This is necessary, we understand, for public safety: But is it the new “normal”? Or do we ever get Pennsylvania Avenue back? Do we ever get to make that mad dash down the airport concourse onto a plane just pushing off from the gate again? (This was an odd, if recurring point of pride of a family friend who used to time his drive from Kennebunkport, Maine, to Logan Airport with perilous precision). Don’t hold your breath; these homeland defenses sprouting up across the country look and feel like they’re here for good...

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Umm, yeah. I am pretty sure that they're here for good... And that is because we have no one with any real power in the whole of Western Civilization that is willing to:

1. Acknowledge what the real threat is,
2. Resolve to take actions against it, and,
3. Take the necessary steps.

But that is only part of the story. The rest of the story is the those that do have the real power, like it just as it is. At least for now. In time we will see more and more infringements on our liberties take place. This is a patient bunch, and they understand that conditioning takes time. It took a 9/11 event on US soil to get to this point. Prior to 9/11, who among us would have ever imagined that Americans would be willing to be herded around like sheep and stripped of not only our rights to privacy on many levels, but our dignity as a free people, in order to make use of what had become a very routine and almost nonchalant mode of travel, i.e., an airplane flight?? And of course we have all read the stories about the "VIPER" teams that are roaming the country to implement transient levels of TSA security at train stations and bus stations, even the reports of numerous forms of road "check points" that pop up in the various States.

Conditioning takes time.

We recently attended a professional sporting event in Tampa. To gain entry we had to subject ourselves to continually wanding by an electronic scanning device and the almost complete disclosure of the entire contents of our pockets (which BTW for me included a great deal of the contents of W's 4" x 6" micro purse which was deemed "too large" to enter the stadium since it was not made of transparent plastic!). At this point these intrusions remain at the level of "inconveniences," but I am sure that after the next terrorist event they may become enhanced to the point where we may have to pre-register with the TSA to attend such an event (and hope that we are not on any lists that would preclude our entry!!), and show government approved identification to gain entry.

Conditioning takes time, and fear.

From the end of the article:

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There is something weak and underdeveloped in this unprotesting submission—something that strikes me as cultural immaturity. Of course, it would, given my premise about the death of the grownup. Still, the act of cartoon submission—the quick and easy surrender of a hard-won, core liberty to an implacable religious demand—is not an act to associate with a muscular and robust cultural profile. Revealing infinite give and no take, it is the childlike act of the uncertain minor, not the behavior of the worldly guardian; it is the passive act of the victim, not the take-charge response of the hero. It is the directionless act of the follower who lacks any civilizational orientation--and the follower, here, is following Islam.

This should begin to explain why a world without grownups is such a dangerous place....

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While I agree with West about the lack of grownups in our culture, I do not believe that this has come about by accident, nor through some understandable organic societal and cultural de-evolution. It has been planned and patiently executed for decades. It takes a LOT of:

- removal of critical thinking skills and any historic grounding via several generations of mal-education and propagandization,
- deliberate weakening of the brains of the populace via food & water additives, completely unwholesome and harmful diets, and highly addictive <non,>prescription drugs,
- almost 24 hour by 7 day a week mindless entertainment and distraction by the media and entertainment industries,

to change a population of serious mature Adults (grownups) that fought against all odds for 7-9 years to throw off the tyranny of King George, to a population lacking the grownup characteristics that West laments. Nope, this did happen by chance. The fact that there are virtually no grownups to speak of within Western Civilization took a lot of planning and patience, and they are just getting us softened up to the point where the real tyranny will be rolled in..... hang on to your hats, my fellow remaining grownups!!

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