Why the West matters: Buried alive in Syria, sex with the dead in Egypt

They are two different tales, but they belong to one culture. In Syria, Assad’s thugs are burying men alive. In Egypt, the “moderate” Islamist parliament seeks to pass a law that would allow men to have sex with their wife for up to six hours after her death. Meanwhile, in college classrooms across the United States, liberal students are scratching their head after the prof just spent the last two hours explaining that all cultures are equal.

First, to Syria:

Video footage uploaded to YouTube shows what appears to be Syrian soldiers burying a rebel activist alive.

The video, which went viral Thursday, shows a blindfolded man buried up to his head as armed soldiers call him an “animal” and a “dog,” ynetnews.com reported.

And then, to Egypt:

Egyptian husbands will soon be legally allowed to have sex with their dead wives – for up to six hours after their death.

The controversial new law is part of a raft of measures being introduced by the Islamist-dominated parliament.

It will also see the minimum age of marriage lowered to 14 and the ridding of women’s rights of getting education and employment.

Take a stroll onto any college campus and strike up a few conversations. It won’t be too long before you find someone who’s willing to lament the “American Empire” or perhaps the bygone colonialism of our dear, dear British friends. It is my contention that Syria and Egypt would actually benefit from a Western power that moved in and set up shop. The rule of law is a grand thing, and the last time I checked the American military wasn’t burying its own citizens alive and British chaps weren’t clamoring in large numbers for legislation only a necrophiliac could love. (The British equation might change in the near future, since they have a weird predilection for letting radical Islamic clerics run roughshod over their customs and traditions.)

When your liberal next door neighbor tries to engage you with some foreign policy chit-chat this summer he’ll eventually mention the need to respect the United Nations. Ask him why he would put so much faith in an organization that is composed largely of Junior Syrias and Egypts. The U.N. is a joke, in large part because it gives dysfunction junctions of the world a seat (and a voice) at the adult table. Western nations really should split off and form a new organization composed of countries that respect freedom and liberty. Since we’re able to walk and chew gum at the same time, the United States and its allies would obviously have diplomatic channels available to deal with the dregs of society…if necessary.

The bottom line is this: Western Civilization is something special, but people have a way of taking the special things in their life for granted. For a long time now the United States—and more broadly Western Civilization—has been a beacon of light in a really dark, really weird world. The guys who are burying their countrymen alive and the ones crafting laws that would make it okay to defile a dead body—they play for keeps. If we don’t find our moral compass, speak up, stand up and fight for our culture then they’ll take that too.