Cultural Confidence

den Beste points out the difficulties of the islamists in their reliance on the MSM to propagandize for them:

When publicity and mind-share are your only real weapons in a war, you eventually become caught between the Scylla of boredom and obscurity and the Charybdis of nearly universal aversion for you and your cause. This is often how terrorist campaigns begin to wind down.

We've begun to see that in Iraq. Revulsion for the terrorists among the Sunnis has led to more and more tips as to where the terrorists are hiding and more and more captures/killings of high level people. Between "clean out the snakes" operations like the current one in the upper Euphrates River region, and ongoing low level operations based on tips in places like Mosul, the terrorists have been suffering severe attrition.

It's true.

Ultimately, poll numbers don't matter, if you're dead.

But the ever-eloquent Aristides comments,

The danger is an admixture of Al'Qaeda's propaganda by deed with the feeling of Western guilt propagated by a cannabalistic media. Our narcissism is unusual in that, while we cannot pull ourselves away from the looking glass, it is a self-immolating fascination with abomination that keeps us rooted. Such self-disgust, reinforced by a media and academia that trade in it, are the only actors that can create the necessary environment for Western defeat. We may be periodically disturbed from our trance, through rioting or the occasional attack, and we may lash out in annoyance, but pulling ourselves away from self-obsession for any length of time is now almost impossible. How long before the roots take hold permanently? How long before our guilt, and the timid intertia it causes, transitions into decline?

Islamist terror is but one manifestation of rejectionist ideology--the most obvious and most visible (and therefore least problematic). The real danger comes from within. To withstand the inevitable viral assaults on our society indefinitely, we need to be bolstered by self-confidence and purpose--unfortunately, these are the virtues that are slowly being stripped away by our elite.

The cause in fact of a potential decline will be our academia, but the proximate cause will be an irresponsible and undiscerning media. Therefore, the media is a clear and present danger and must be engaged.

Emphasis mine.

As an example, we have the vile, disgusting, Jimmy Carter -- worst President ever!!!

Dr. Sanity analyzes,

Jimmy Carter is a very very dangerous human being. He is the very worse sort of pacifist; the kind that gives people who truly desire peace an extremely bad taste in their mouth. Because the foundation of his pacifism is a determined and incalculably cruel passivity and tolerance toward genuine evil in all its manifestations.

His is that deluded brand of pacifism that not only does not actually advance the cause of peace; but encourages, advocates, and even legitimizes the very leaders and thugs who are responsible for the oppression and enslavemust of millions of people all around the globe.

We must regain our cultural self-confidence.