The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match up.
What is peace between nations? What does it consist of and how does it happen? This week’s winner, Joshuapundit’s: What Does Peace Mean Anyway?, decided to examine that very timely question, with a glance at how it applies to the Middle East. Here’s a slice:
Peace is said to be a high priority, no matter whom you talk to.People crave it and pray for it, and rightly so.
This is a much more important issue, I think, than most of us realize, especially in these days when people use terms like ‘The Long War’ and ‘the peace process’ .Yet few of us, especially in the West actually stop to think of what we really mean by peace, and what you can’t define clearly is frequently illusory.
The Bible provides one definition, with the prophet Isaiah talking of a time of peace so profound that men will not only transform the arms of battle into implements of peace but cease to study the arts and strategy of war.
That’s obviously an unrealized ideal in the immediate future.
Islam is much more direct about the matter. Westerners are confused when Muslims say that Islam means peace (actually, it comes from the Arabic aslama, which means submission). To Muslims, who divide the world into dar Islam, the part of the world where Islam rules and the non-Muslim world, referred to as dar harb ( literally the house of war), peace is much simpler. It’s a condition where the entire world is dar Islam, exactly what Mohammed ordered his followers to strive for right before his death in 632 CE, according to the Hadiths.
If some Muslims talk of peace when they actually mean a time of dar Islam, it’s understandable that something gets lost in translation – sometimes deliberately so.
So, is peace then simply an absence of war and conflict? It ain’t necessarily so.
In our non-Council category, the overwhelming winner was The Other McCain with Brett Kimberlin Saga Takes a Bizarre Turn, Forcing Me to Leave Maryland submitted by Rhymes with Right.
In his piece, Robert Stacy McCain writes an account about he and his family being harassed by a convicted domestic terrorist named Brett Kimberlin who just happens to have a wealthy and well connected family, after McCain wrote an article about his depredations. We here at the Council chose to make this week’s contest part of a blogburst going on around the ‘sphere at a great many sites. A number of the Council members have written individual stories about what’s going on or are linking to other stories about what’s going on – to show Stacy he’s by no means alone and we stand with him. You should do the same.
Yeah, we got your six, Mr. M. Stand your ground, in every sense of the word.
Here are this week’s full results. New Zeal and The Mellow Jihadi were unable to vote this week; neither was affected by the 2/3 vote penalty:
Council Winners
- *First place with 3 2/3 votes! – Joshuapundit – What Does Peace Mean Anyway?
- Second place with 2 2/3 votes – The Razor – Geert Wilders: A 21st Century Canary in a Coal Mine
- Third place with 1 2/3 votes – The Right Planet – Marx Is For Hippies
- Fourth place with 1 vote – Gay Patriot – Is there anything Barack Obama doesn’’t politicize?
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Noisy Room – The Fiction of Barack Obama
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Simply Jews – Tombstone and Mexican spotted owl
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Bookworm Room – Is Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, a 1978 case rejecting academic racial quotas, the smoking gun behind Obama’s Kenyan identity? *UPDATED*
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Colossus of Rhodey – Still More Narrative Fail
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Mellow Jihadi – The Biggest Loser, Navy-style
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Rhymes With Right – Professional Malpractice By North Carolina Social Studies Teacher
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Glittering Eye – The Enforcement Deficit
- Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Political Commentator – It’s 8:00 AM, do you know where your tax money is going?
Non-Council Winners
- *First place with 4 2/3 votes! – The Other McCain – Brett Kimberlin Saga Takes a Bizarre Turn, Forcing Me to Leave Maryland submitted by Rhymes With Right
- Second place *t* with 2 votes – Mark Steyn – Eternally shifting sands of Obama’s biography submitted by The Noisy Room
- Second place *t* with 2 votes – Andrew McCarthy – Western Sharia submitted by Joshuapundit
- Third place with 1 vote – Melanie Phillips – The BBC Is Using Taxpayer’s Money To Spread An Ancient Racial Libel submitted by The Razor
- Fourth place with 2/3 vote – Israel Hayom – A Worthless Piece Of Paper submitted by The Political Commentator
- Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – PJ Media/Roger Kimball – Who Is Barack Obama? The Question that Won’t Go Away submitted by The Right Planet
- Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Texas Scribbler – Lynching A Black Man submitted by Simply Jews
- Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Paul Miller/Shadow Government – Obama’s legacy on Afghanistan submitted by The Glittering Eye
- Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Center for Defense Studies – Rushing for the Exits: The Wrong Lesson of Afghanistan submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
- Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – FrontPage – Chicago Braces for Leftist Violence and Mayhem submitted by The Independent Sentinel
- Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Publius Forum – VIDEO: Violent Union Thugs Using Ball Bat on Effigy of SC Gov. Nikki Haley! submitted by VA Right!
- Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Gatestone Institute – Apartheid: The Big Lie submitted by The Watcher
See you next week! Be sure to tune in on Tuesday for the Council Forum Question and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter… ’cause we’re cool like that!
