My colleague at The Remedy, Ryan Williams, is not much younger than me — he was eight when Reagan left office, and I was thirteen — but the age difference is enough, I trust, that I may remember with some greater clarity one of the key features of Reagan’s anti-Communist rhetoric: it did not buy into the basic premises of the enemy. It did not concede, at least rhetorically, the commanding role of the state, nor the Hegelian/Marxist march of history, nor the forced perfectibility of man, nor the founding nobility of the Communist enterprise. Reagan’s genius was to recall the American people, and to a lesser extent the West, to the need to proceed from the premises of America’s Founders: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as the inalienable rights of man, and government as existing merely to secure their just exercise. One did not win arguments with Communism when accepting Communist starting-points for those arguments. They led inevitably to the Communist end, and appeals to humanity were steamrolled by appeals to inexorable logic.

I am off to the United States and Central America until 12 November, while Luc, our webmaster, will be in the U.S. as well in early November. I am going to give a lecture at a (renowned) university, attend a conference, visit old and new friends (most of them journalists), pay a family visit and try to raise some funds for this website. I do not know whether I will have time to write much, but I will try to post articles occasionally. Until mid-November this website will, however, be posting less than you have come to expect from us.

During the past 15 months The Brussels Journal has become a voice which many of you read on a regular basis. It is, however, something which Luc and I do on a voluntary basis, in addition to our other work.

Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
(Bertolt Brecht)

I have warned earlier, especially (in the essay Electing a New People: The Leftist-Islamic Alliance), against Islamic infiltration of Leftist parties in the West, most recently demonstrated in Belgium, and the threat this poses to Western democracy. This is part of the reason why I advocate containment of the Islamic world and an end to Muslim immigration. Pundit Ohmyrus makes some of the same observations. But there is also another way in which Muslim immigration threatens our Western society.

Not content with picking up the support of Chris Perry in Hampshire, David Cameron has now got the approbation of that paragon of British politics, the far-left MP George Galloway.

In an interview with the Scotland on Sunday, George Galloway lends Dave a hand: “Looked at objectively, I would have to say I can see his appeal. It will play – it is playing right now.” He adds: “He is doing and saying the right things. His job is to slay the ghost of Margaret Thatcher.”

Yesterday night, a police officer was hospitalised after being hit in the face with a stone in the Parisian suburb of Epinay-sur-Seine. According to the police union, the officer and a colleague fell into an ambush and were surrounded by about 30 youths, some wearing masks. The youths blocked the police vehicle with their cars and sprayed the officers with tear gas. The two officers escaped after firing their pistols into the air.

Similar incidents occur regularly. Already 2,500 policemen have been wounded so far this year. The taboo of attacking officers on patrol has indeed been broken. It looks as if some want to kill at least one policeman during this year’s Ramadan. The French police also registered 10 to 12 anti-Jewish incidents per day in the past 30 days throughout the country.

A quote from The Daily Telegraph, 14 October 2006

[British Airways] Heathrow check-in worker Nadia Eweida claims she was effectively “forced” to take unpaid leave after refusing to remove the Christian symbol, which is about the size of a five pence piece. […] Miss Eweida, from Twickenham, West London, said she wears the cross because of her deeply-held religious beliefs. She said: “I belong to Jesus – one body, one spirit, one baptism.” Miss Eweida is from an Egyptian background and attends Pentecostal as well as Arabic churches. [...]

A BA spokeswoman emphasised today that  “[…] Our uniform policy states that these items can be worn, underneath the uniform. There is no ban. This rule applies for all jewellery and religious symbols on chains and is not specific to the Christian cross. Other items such as turbans, hijabs and bangles can be worn as it is not practical for staff to conceal them beneath their uniforms.”

A quote from The Daily Telegraph, 14 October 2006

A boy aged 10 has been banned from his school dining hall because his packed lunch broke the government’s healthy eating guidelines. [...] Ryan’s lunch consisted of a sandwich, fruit, fromage frais, cake, mini cheese biscuits and a bottle of water. The cake and the biscuits broke the snack limit. They were discovered when a teacher checked his lunch box.

[...] Malcolm Goddard, the headmaster, said: “We take healthy eating very seriously and everyone is aware of our new policies.”

A quote from NIS News Bulletin, 14 October 2006

The CNV trade union federation [Christelijk Nationaal Vakverbond, one of the largest unions in the Netherlands] feels that a Muslim feast should be introduced as a bank holiday in the Netherlands. The Christian trade union federation is willing to sacrifice a Christian holiday.

CNV vice chairman Rienk van Splunder wishes “to offer Muslims the freedom to practice their faith.” The federation is prepared to sacrifice Whit Monday or Easter Monday for a free day during the Sugar Festival. This is the feast day held to celebrate the end of Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting. […] By introducing official holidays on such feast days, he hopes to create “freedom and respect for one another.”

How left wing is David Cameron? Just ask Chris Perry. It appears that Cameron’s charm offensive and policy contortions are paying off. That is if the defection of Labour veteran Chris Perry in Hampshire is anything to go by.

“Perry is so disillusioned with the party that he has decided to lend his support to the Conservatives,” writes The Hampshire Chronicle. Sounds good for Cameron so far, but it all starts to go down hill. Mr Perry it seems has been invigorated by the promise to feed the bloat that is the NHS. He is also old Labour, and I mean very old Labour, and pompous to boot, “politics is about changing your views to meet changing circumstances, as the late Bertrand Russell once said to me in a letter about nuclear weapons.”

The fellow stood for Labour in Winchester in 1970, so I suppose he fits the Tory age profile.

A quote from Dick Armey at freedomworks.org, 12 October 2006

Freedom works. Freedom is a gift from God Almighty, and we have a responsibility to protect it. Christians face a temptation to power when we are fortunate enough to have a majority of support in Congress. But government can never advance a faith that is freely given, and it is corrosive to even try. Just look at Europe, where decades of nanny-state activism – including taxpayer support for churches and for religious political parties – have severely eroded the faith. In America today, too many of our Christian leaders fail to recognize the temptation to power and the danger it holds for our society and our faith.