Destructive Designers
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The Taliban had a blast blowing up non-Islamic icons.
Iconic footage (pun intended) of pre 9/11 Taliban tanks blasting ancient and historically significant Buddha statues demonstrate the demonic desires of those who deign to design societies (a.k.a. politicians and terrorists, if I may be redundant). Their goal was to obliterate knowledge of competing religious beliefs, which pretty well summarizes jihadist ideology. There is nothing new in this tactic, for it has been tried by warriors and mighty empires for as long as humans carried clubs or Colts.
It always fails in the long run.
For destruction to work, it has to be complete. Leave any trace of a competing government, tribe or religion and the seeds for resentment and resistance are planted. People hold grudges against oppressors, to which anyone from Scotland or Atlanta will attest. Eradication is the only sure way of achieving dominance through destruction, and nothing short of planetary nuclear annihilation assures the destruction of an enemy (and this elaborate suicide has undesirable side effects, though I find oddly calming the thought of Ayman al-Zawahri offing himself).
One reason social engineering through destruction never works is that people have deep associations and long memories, and the deeper the former the longer the latter. The lower Appalachian Mountains are littered with folks who forefathers limped over from Scotland after the forty-five. Modern day descendants may have never seen the highlands, can’t spell Culloden and may not even sip single malt scotches (which I classify as a top-shelf sin). But they know what happened at Culloden, retell handed-down tales of salted fields from the 1700’s, and have a deep loathing for all things English. Ask any Tennessee McAnything about the English, especially the royal fam, and spittle will fly. Bullets might too.
The Queen never visits eastern Tennessee.
Find a lingering Soviet and he’ll tell you the same. Brutal repression and destruction of Gawd throughout the former empire was a primary mission. Yet nyet did it work. For 70 years religion survived underground and in tiny, officially permitted places, then exploded into rebirth once the Iron Curtain rusted apart. People had deep connections with their faith, which led to long memories and everlasting resentment of government.
Which brings us to Barack.
Americans generally are wary of government, having started a new country by shooting soldiers of the original one. Any attempt by government to mold American society raises neck hairs on your average citizen who resents being manipulated. When Obama promotes his “vision” for America he sounds eerily like one former community organizer who had a less attractive exit than will Barack. When Obama spends a trillion dollars failing to create that vision people openly rebel, for their roots are deep and their memories of days less molested by government remain.
The parallels between the Taliban destroying statues and Obama attempting to destroy American individualism are enlightening, as will be the terminal result.
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