Whenever I see liberals gloating over the chaos that is the Republican primary, I think of the Battle of Lepanto. It’s a good reminder that it’s better to be a member of a quarreling, splintered beehive of free people than a member of the mindless Borg ship that is liberalism.
The Battle of Lepanto took place on October 7, 1571 in the Gulf of Patras off of western Greece. In it, a ragtag collection of massively outnumbered Christian soldiers and seamen decisively defeated a force of Muslim Turks. The Christian forces were led by 22-year-old John of Austria, also known as Don Juan, and they were not easy to organize. Even though the Ottomans had begun attacking the Christian Mediterranean in the 1560s — Islam was the religion of peace even back then — nobody in Europe would be roused to the defense. England’s Queen Elizabeth and Spain’s Philip II were busy, and France’s Charles IX was sick and unreliable. Fortunately, Philip II sent his half-brother, Don Juan of Austria, and dozens of ships.
When it became clear that the Turks intended to take Europe via the Mediterranean, Pope Pius V did the best he could. “The enormity of his task in 1566 was self-evident,” Roger Crowley observes in “Empires of the Sea,” his great book about Lepanto. “Europe was a ferment of violent passions, torn apart by different interests, imperial dreams, and religious tensions.” The men he did get argued with each other, and at one point there was a mutiny. While Selim, the Turkish sultan, promised freedom for his 10,000 Christian slaves if they fought well, Don Juan was blunter: “There is no heaven for cowards,” he told his men before the battle.
In 2012, liberalism resembles nothing so much as the arrogant leviathan of the Turkish fleet in 1571. While the conservatives tear each other apart in the primary much like the crews on Don Juan’s ships the weeks before the big battle, Barack Obama calmly aligns his overwhelming forces. Except on Obama’s crew there won’t be any freedom for slaves. It will be the same seemingly inexorable march to the Great State and Politically Correct Thought Control: high taxes, endless welfare, and Christians getting fired from jobs, even if they are Catholics working in Catholic hospitals, because they don’t want to perform gay weddings or abortions. Coercion and intolerance are woven into liberalism’s core.
This is why the internecine battles on the right only make me smile. I love the fact that every day I can get emails and tweets from: urban conservatives who read City Journal, libertarians who condemn the Catholic Church, orthodox priests, gun nuts, evangelicals, pro-life activists, and right-wing atheists — and we can have a free and free-flowing argument about, among other things, the New Deal, God, immigration, drugs, the Second Amendment, rock and roll, deficit spending, and where to find the best local Indian buffet. The cacophony says to me that we are a free people whose reading, thinking, and consciences have led us to conclusions about the best road to happiness, or at least the best road to sanity. We have different ideas but generally agree on what constitutes the good life: family, friends, a government that leaves us alone while protecting the most vulnerable, and, most of all, the absence of those who would coerce us into violating our consciences. Yet within those core values is room to debate how best to get to those things (diversity is indeed our strength).
On the other side are Obama and his fleet of bootlickers who are ready to drive the sword through you if you oppose taxes, universal health care, the fairness doctrine to censor conservative radio (trust me, they’ll bring it back), or gay marriage. And if you think I’m exaggerating, honestly answer this question: If Keith Olbermann was the king of a country, do you seriously think he would resist the urge to put dissenters to death? How do you think Sarah Palin would fare in the Kingdom of Andrew Sullivan? Would you rather live in a country run by Tucker Carlson, or one run by Dan Savage?
Don Juan’s forces won the Battle of Lepanto. They freed the slaves held by Selim. Many people consider it the most important naval battle in the history of Christendom. Pope Pius believed that the Blessed Virgin Mary had intervened. It would be nice to have her on our side again in 2012, but it might not come to that. The right may be able to convince Americans that President Obama and liberalism in its totalitarian 2012 form threaten our freedom.
Which brings us to one of the most startling passages in “Empires of the Sea,” Roger Crowley’s book about Lepanto:
The idea of conquest was central to the sultanate, intricately interwoven with its leader’s position as leader of the Muslim world. Conquest was expressed repeatedly in the visible trappings of power; the high-sounding titles proclaimed dominion over the earth. The elaborate campaign tents and banners, the jeweled swords and ceremonial helmets decorated with the victory suras of the Koran, emphasized his role as an Islamic warrior. … War was not dependent on personal volition; it was an unceasing imperial project, authorized by Islam.
There’s no heaven for cowards. I vote Romney.
Mark Judge is the author of A Tremor of Bliss: Sex, Catholicism, and Rock ‘n’ Roll.