Should ISIS Have Put Its Faith in Local Political Campaigns First?

Some logic-minded Americans might have wondered why ISIS didn’t first try to work its way up the civic pyramid by establishing a grassroots base to win local elections, perhaps starting with volunteers on local boards, including charities.  Those already in power, higher up, would be glad to help the lower-echelon apprentices properly fit in.

      It’s just a matter of seeking ever higher office as time goes by.  The process will weed-out those without long-term political stamina, team-playing skills, or the ability to achieve compromise.  Eventually a comfortable niche will be found, hopefully a lucrative one in the moderate middle.  The Establishment has staying power, with peace as the status quo.  But this long-established version of democracy must never have occurred to ISIS.

      The dominant Sunni in Iraq, used to wielding power, just didn’t warm up to the US-sponsored seating of power in the hands of the Shi’a.  After all, elected Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had reassured US presidents of both parties that Equality and Fairness would make oblivious any contentious notion of political division.

      In the US, no one has challenged the common sense wisdom of media heroes like Rodney King.  So it was fitting that the minority Shi’a in Iraq be empowered, a form of affirmative action on steroids some would say.  This was the strategy of Abolitionist Republicans right after the US Civil War.  Reconstruction* might have seemed unfair to the Confederates (read “Sunnis”) but eventually the political give-and-take would result in a social equilibrium with Equality as the lynchpin.

       The Iraqi Sunnis also failed to learn the other lesson of American democracy, the one involving religion.  Like the Shi’a and Sunnis, Christians in the West had once fought to the death over fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible.  Millions perished in countless wars.  If only Islam could wait until secular forces prevailed throughout the Muslim world.

     Then one version of Islam would be just as good (or ridiculous, according to secularists) as any other.  Get religion out of the public square, since it’s a private “superstition” only.  The “acceptable” version of the Islam would espouse a secular morality based in the here-and-now, not in centuries-old dogma.  Extreme tolerance would guarantee that anything-goes religious liberty had arrived. 

       Mosques could even have advertising and rock bands.  Hatred would be outlawed, unless directed at fundamentalists and the political right.  Start by getting the local dog catcher and city council elected.  Utopia Now!

     *Take a moment to compare the Reconstruction Era (1865-1877) with the present media monopoly that is still punishing the “colonial” culture for its historical dominance.  Glutting the FTC-controlled airwaves with minority diversity is, again, race using one-sided diversity to punish now-powerless others of the same race.  

        No wonder that so many within the GOP feel disenfranchised by their own party.  No wonder that conservative watchdogs for the GOP establishment (like Cal Thomas, George Will, and Charles Krauthammer) want to maintain political decorum and quiet politeness above all else.  And if this should fail, then make sure that any rebellious candidate gets sidetracked endlessly in detailed numerical explanations of how each aggrieved point is to be achieved.  Thomas, Will, Krauthammer (and other such media conservatives) have a vested role in maintaining the two-party establishment monopoly.