Tucker Carlson on Collective Punishment

“So the idea of getting up and being like, all Muslims are bad, is literally no different at all from all Jews are bad, or all Christians are bad, or all Filipinos are bad. It’s all the same. It’s all unacceptable. And that worldview, that is the actual enemy of Western civilization, of the West.”

Tucker Carlson 
After Party with Emily Jashinsky

Well, actually, that is NOT the actual enemy of Western civilization or of the West. In point of fact Christianity, which created the West has always embraced an anthropology that teaches that all Muslims, all Jews, all Hindus and all Humanists are bad being fallen. Further, consistent Christianity teaches that one can’t build a successful social order via mixing Tucker’s “good Christians, and good Muslims, and good Jews, and good Hindus, and good Humanists” as all jumbled together into some pretended whole. Good Muslims, and good Jews, and good Hindus, and good Humanists are not good precisely because the gods they serve and the religion that shapes them are in rebellion against the God of the Bible. What Tucker says above flattens out the distinctions that Christendom taught in making the West, to be the West. It is a non-Christian anthropology.

Now, Tucker may have been saying in the quote above that because Christianity has never taught holding whole people groups responsible for the actions of the individual terrorists in their midst it is not acceptable therefore for the West to now incriminate whole people groups and punish them collectively. Tucker may be saying that Israel, for example, should not punish Palestinians as a whole because some terrorist individuals among them do what terrorists do. This is something that may be more true in peace time than during war. If you look at the propaganda by the Allies against the Japanese during WW II, for example, you’ll see all kinds of examples of Japanese as a whole being punished for the sins of Hirohito’s Japan. Just consider the Japanese interment camps in the US. These were camps that are still held, by some, to have been necessary during war.

What is true in all this is the observation that there are plenty of enemies that seek the destruction of the West and that Christians should be wary of all these enemies (Jews and Muslims etc.). We should perhaps be disgusted by Israel’s ongoing genocidal treatment of the Palestinians but at the same time we should be disgusted by the Muslim’s constant chants of “Death to America.” Neither Israel nor the Muslim world are friends of the West. To paraphrase a famous movie line,

“The US does business with both Muslims and Jews, the US respects both Muslims and Jews… but the US should never trust Muslims or Jews to be American citizens.”

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him. View all posts by jetbrane