He Tried to Make Us Go To Rehab, We Said, "Yes! Yes! Yes!"

Mark Steyn, who appeared at Rabbi Jon Hausman's Ahuvat Torah's synagogue outside Boston the other night, has a four step program for the recovery of our beleaguered civilization, currently under attack from forces both internal and external. (Thanks to local blogger Right Wing Granny for recording them and the New English Review for posting them):

1. Stop out-of-control spending now and roll back government regulations and intrusion into our lives.

2. Put an end to one-way multiculturalism. It is amazing that a pastor in Florida who threatened to burn a Koran drew a visit from the FBI and a call from President Obama. President Obama has never spoken out about either honor killings or female genital mutilation. Why was burning the Koran worth a comment and not the other items? We need a President willing to stand up and defend Western Civilization.

3. We need to regain our individual liberty. Our government's response to Islamic intimidation has been to find ways to limit the free speech of people who are telling the truth about Islam. Islam wants to use hate speech rules to make it a crime to criticize Islam. Public discourse can be controlled and limited by setting up the state as the sole arbiter of acceptable discourse. The group who applies the most muscle to the government will be the group who wins the concessions.

4. We need to spread the risk of speaking out against Islam. It is time for an "I am Spartacus" moment. If an artist who drew a cartoon or the newspaper who published a cartoon is threatened, that cartoon should be on the front page of every newspaper in the country. Until we are willing to share the risk of speaking out, we will lose our freedom incrementally.

You will note that these points are the opposite of Alcoholics Anonymous-style rehab in that, first and foremost, they call for us to refuse to submit to a higher power (the "intelligentsia," the government, "experts," Islam/Islamists, "human rights" Commissars, the UN, Official Jews, Thomas L. Friedman, etc.); to rage, rage against the dying of the light.