greater and lesser crusades

I found this at the christian political blog Enchiridion Militis (which is run by The Christian Soldier) to be very interesting:

My Right Reason blog colleague Bill Vallicella has argued on his personal blog, Maverick Philosopher, that there are two culture wars–one against the American Left and one against Islam. According to Bill, the former is the “minor” war and the latter is the “major” war.

I think Bill is incorrect in his characterization of these two conflicts as major and minor. Instead, I think they are incommensurable–more colloquially, a case of apples and oranges. The one is a conflict over the national charcter of the United States and the other is a conflict over its survival in anything remotely resembling its present form.

she goes on to describe a horrible case where an abortion worker threw a living baby in the garbage!

then i see over at The Mujahid's blog the following piece about how muslims need to take sides on the "center left" of politics because the Republicans have done more damage to american muslims.

Now I am glad that the Christian does not agree with her colleague that the "threat" of Islam is a "major" one relative to the threat of leftism (which I think is not the same thing as what the Mujahid means when he talks about the center-left! progressivism left is not the same as liberalism left). However she still thinks that Islam is an existential threat to the US. Ironically it is her own compatriots who pose a threat to the US in their own way. Because as long as they see muslim americans as a threat, or the fifth column of global Islam and not their countrymen and women, then they are going to try and prevent muslims (and liberals alike) from expressing their values.

Ultimately I think that the problem is that the "left" has its wackos and that the "right" has its wackos. Today the right is in charge so the wackos have a lot more influence. But if the left is in charge wont they also have their wackos get more power. So what we need is to keep both in check by using them against each other so that both look at muslims and try to be moderate and win our vote. We have to be like the cubans in miami, fickle and never afraid to vote the other way.

also the Mujahid is right that the only vote is not the president but also we have to get out and vote at all levels including downstream all the way to school board and such. It is dumb to make stupid things like foreign policy towards israel the basis for our support. We should tailor it. School board? no creation, just teach them science so they score well on SAT and get into college. State government? dont tax too much but make sure services are provided. We should also make a distinction between senate and house at federal level. The Shayk said something about this a while ago and how divided government is best at his politics blog but I do not remember the link. Why not divide the vote then of muslims?

Muslims need to be smart and decide what our issues are and what are principles are. Then we can tailor the vote. I dont think we are left or right. Both directions are scary ones.