Rick Perry is in England, Germany, Poland and Ukraine this week, with major speeches Tuesday at the Royal United Services Institute in London and Thursday at University of Warsaw. In London today, as Jennifer Rubin reports, Perry spoke of the world’s oldest hatred:
The hatreds of unassimilated radicals only draw further attention to anti-Semitism in general. It’s a familiar problem in a new time. In Europe it ranges as in times past from thuggish abuse to desecration to commentaries on Israel that cover crude dislike in the veneer of respectable opinion. There is a way to deal with anti-Semitism, and it’s not by smiling politely and hoping that it goes away. The full force of law, when people and property are harmed, is only the most obvious response. Just as important is what Chancellor Merkel did a few weeks ago, to her great credit, when she called this sin by its name. She has stated in confident, unmistakable terms that tolerance ends where anti-Semitism begins. It shaped Europe’s past, in ways that everyone regrets and no nation can afford to let it shape Europe’s future.
But to every extremist, it has to be made clear: We will not allow you to exploit our tolerance, so that you can import your intolerance. We will not let you destroy our peace with your violent ideas. If you expect to live among us and yet plan against us to receive the protections and comforts of a free society while showing none of its virtues or graces then you can have our answer now: No, not on our watch! You will live by exactly the standards that the rest of us live by. And if that comes as jarring news then welcome to civilization.
If he can keep talking like this he will be, IMHO, the next President of the United States. A man born and raised in a place like Paint Creek, Texas is likely to be a better leader of the free world than anyone from a charmed and privileged Ivy-League existence, such as our current president.
Perry’s words seem to echo much of what has been heard from nearly all of Australia’s prime ministers from John Howard to the present, who have warned Islamic militants that if they want to live in Australia they are going to have to accede to Australian laws and values. If they don’t want to do that they have been told that they might want to go somewhere else, where they can practice the values with which they feel more comfortable.
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