Feste...a foolsblog

"Initial reports of the looting of the Iraqi National Museum sparked a frenzy of outrage.... It turns out, though, that...the looting was an inside job, orchestrated by museum staffers.... If this is true, then there is a striking—and deeply ironic—similarity between the looting of the Iraqi National Museum and the equally brazen vandalism of American museum holdings—committed eagerly by their curators in full compliance with federal law. "

"This explains the left's hysterical outrage against the loss of a few dozen artifacts in Iraq, from some of the same people who abet the destruction of artifacts at home. It was just another excuse to denounce the West."

Ancient artifacts—whether Mesopotamian or North American—are not valuable as the crude leftovers of the past. They are valuable as objects of rational study, to help us understand mankind's origins and provide guidance for his future. The Code of Hammurabi, for example, is not valuable merely as cuneiform scratchings on ancient clay tablets. Its value derives from its role in the formation of the concept of law, which reached its culmination in the U.S. Constitution. But the multiculturalists want to tear down this living legacy of Western Civilization, for the sake of the dead superstitions left over from man's primitive beginnings.

This is an assault on Western ideas and values that makes the Iraqi museum looting seem innocent by comparison."