Daniel Greenfield

The Battle is Over, the War Begins

Today I unpacked my winter clothes in preparation for a long winter, and a long winter is coming if not of the thermometer, then of the soul. A man that represents not simply an opposing view but the view of those who oppose America and all it stands for, will sit in the Oval Office.

The Jihad We Made

There is one thing that the Jihad has reliably depended on in the late 20th century, it isn't a technological or a strategic factor, but us. Because the Jihad could not be what it is without the passive collaboration and active cooperation of the civilized world.

Where is All That Liberal Anger Coming From?

It's a bit of a paradox, but in politics it's hard not to notice that the angriest people are not small town folk "clinging" to guns and religion or racial minorities in the inner cities, but upper middle class white liberals.

Appeasement and Democracy are Incompatible

Appeasement carries its own simple logic with it, the logic of the squeaky wheel getting the grease. Except with appeasement it is the knives, rioting mobs, machine guns, bombs and rockets that make the squeaking sound.

What is the West Without Religion?

Nature abhors a vacuum. So does human nature. Atheists pride themselves on thinking that by rejecting "theism" they become free. On the contrary for the most part the absence of conventional religion simply breeds less conventional forms of worship.

...From the Ashes

Last night as I walked home I saw two beams of pure light piercing the sky. Like a dream or vision, after a fiery sunset on the first chilly day of September they shone through the sky across the river and I thought of Ezekiel, I thought of Jeremiah and I thought of ashes.

The Trojan Mosque

There are two kinds of cultures that can co-exist with a majority culture 1. Those cultures willing to integrate to a significant degree within the majority culture and as a result gain equal decision making powers, e.g. the classic immigrant melting pot. 2. Those cultures who choose to preserve their unique culture intact through isolation by refusing integration, e.g. the Amish.

The Environmentalists’ Greatest Trick

If the devil's greatest trick was convincing the world that he doesn't exist, arguably the Environmentalist' Greatest Trick is convincing the world that they really stand for conserving, rather than spending flagrantly.

The Humanitarians’ Greatest Trick

After Russian bombings that killed thousands of civilians and after Russian tanks trod their way across sovereign Georgian territory, most of the usual suspects who had wailed about the American violation of "Iraq's Sovereignty" and Israeli bombings in Lebanon had little to say on the subject, when they weren't actively taking Russia's side.

The 4 Stages of Appeasement

For some nations and individuals, appeasement is a station at the end of the line that they reach right away, after some traumatic cultural or national event, for others it is a journey of stages along the line, stop after stop marking a point at which values and morals are surrendered for ephemeral things until they reach the end of this dark journey and the end of their national existence.

Georgia’s Banquet for a Russia’s Table

Russia has made its first move to invade a former USSR Republic sending over 50 tanks and fighter jets into Georgia and bombing a Georgian city.

Why Gandhi was Wrong – Non-violence Doesn’t Work

Gandhi's tactic of non-violence is often foolishly credited with the peaceful liberation of India. This claim would be more impressive if the British Empire hadn't expired but was still around with a large retinue of colonies, instead of having disposed of its colonies, many around the same time as India. And considering the bloodshed of Partition, despite Gandhi's best attempts at appeasing Muslims it was hardly peaceful. Yet despite the hypocrisies that have dotted Gandhi's life, his ideas continue to have a powerful hold on the Western imagination.

Being Green – A Waste of Human Energy

Recently I visited a chain supermarket that had implemented a policy against double bagging in the name of being "Green". The cashiers were dissatisfied as they hounded customers about double bagging. The customers were dissatisfied as they struggled to tote around heavy purchases in thin plastic bags. I loaded up each item to a bag and then repackaged the items outside into double bags. I noticed then that in terms of bags expended, instead of double bagging, I had actually tripled bagged or quadruple bagged. The final total of the supermarket's green experiment was that I wound up using almost twice as many bags and everyone in the process from the customers to the cashiers wound up expending a great deal of excess to promote a policy that in sum total was simply wasteful.

There Can Be No Peace with Terrorism

The Israeli cabinet's deal with Hezbollah once again reminds us that the price of peace is surrender to terrorism and that negotiation with terrorism is nothing more than a prelude to that surrender. Sixteen years after Oslo the same pattern is being followed, terrorist attacks give way to negotiations which lead to concessions which in turn produce renewed terrorism.

American Liberalism and the Cult of the Oppressed

Justice for the oppressed, is at the heart of liberal, progressive and socialist morality. And while it is a noble enough cause, it has become the solo cause of liberalism, the one fundamental pillar to which all others must bow. In the process the definitions of both "justice" and "the oppressed" have undergone various changes bringing us to this point.

Perpetual Victimization for Perpetual War

There's nothing more self-centered and dehumanizing than the insistence of Western liberals on atoning for their forebears' desire for cheap coffee and tea by conceptually transforming billions of people into automatons whose every thought and deed is a direct consequence of Western imperialism.

The War on Western Free Market Economies

Change. How do you create a demand for change? You portray things as being so ugly and miserable that change, any change, is the preferred option.

Why Conservatives are Losing the Ideological Wars

While most people may still identify as loosely conservative and while conservatives continue to win elections often enough, it's hard to miss that conservative politics continues to get watered down and compromised while liberal politics continues to intensify its ideological orientation.

The Deafness of Identity Politics

Identity politics with its accompanying distortions of reality has come to rest at the center of our culture. And at the heart of identity politics is selfishness, the ego. Identity politics is the banner of the self-centered giving rise to a culture of perpetual victimization in which everyone can aspire to the identity of a victim, a martyr of their own narrative.

Don’t Pity the Polar Bear, Pity the Endangered Liberal

Unlike the Egyptian Copt, the Iranian Bahai, the Kashmiri Hindu, the Kosovo Serb, the moderate Muslim or the Gaza Jew-- the Polar Bear is not an endangered species. Unlike even the native Londoner or Parisian who still speaks his or her native tongue and attends a church rather than a mosque, the Polar Bear isn't even threatened.