MASON K. writes:

Two Italian college students flew to Syria, against their parents’ wishes, and have now been captured by militant Islamists. I don’t like to contemplate what is happening to them now.

As gruesome as this is, I thought it fits your current theme of “summer victims” and your perennial theme of the Eloi tax.

By the way, I’m a first-time commenter, but I’ve been reading your blog, on and off, for some time. I am a relatively young man at 29, and I had never encountered any thoughtful conservative opinions until just a few years ago. I appreciate the work you’re doing, and think the availability of your criticism is extremely important for people like me, who have no living friends or family with a conservative bone in their bodies. Wisdom takes many years to accrete and, in the absence of proper transmission, only a single generation to dissipate; thus transmitting the wisdom of tradition is necessary if the society is to be wise.

Laura writes:

Thank you.

Sad story, isn’t it?

In all probability, these women are being held for ransom and thus are probably still alive. European governments have paid many tens of millions in ransom money for recent kidnappings by Muslim organizations. According to The New York Times, Al Qaeda and its affiliates have taken in $125 million in revenue from kidnappings since 2008.

Note this bit of information about Vanessa Murzillo from the article you linked:

While studying Linguistic and Cultural Mediation at the University of Milan, her interest in activism grew – as did her desire to travel to Syria and help.

 Poor girl. Her indoctrination seems to have been all too successful.

— Comments —

William writes:

Those poor girls have become victims of their unwillingness to think clearly. It is a sign that the educational system is failing many.

Like the many, these girls repeat and believe in slogans – as goals. Freedom! Democracy! These words have become slogans.

But are they ends in themselves? Or are they means to some end? If one asks “why do you want freedom, or why do you want democracy?”, does one expect an answer that is not circular? If yes, then they are not ends.

Many bandy about these words without thinking out their consequences. If one gets freedom, does something magical and good automatically happen? Or rather, does one have to have some end that is a good in order to strive to achieve that good. One wants democracy, which one gets; then what does one do with it? If the outcome is one man, one vote, one time, is that a good end? If the outcome is that the majority become tyrannical over the minority, is that a good end? If one gets freedom, then what does one do with it? Does it become license to do whatever one desires? Is that a good end?

When one bleats out slogans such as Freedom and Democracy, they should be confronted with the question, “Are those means or ends? If they are means, then what are the ends?” That would be evidence of clear thinking. It appears to me that those who are pushing blindly for Freedom and Democracy believe that, fundamentally, man is perfectible if left to his own devices, unencumbered.

Laura writes:

Very good.

True freedom is a means to an end, not an end in itself. It allows us to conform to the natural order and God’s will.

As the Rev. Donald Sanborn puts it, “Liberty cannot be defined, then, as the ability to choose between good and evil, for if that were its definition, we would have to say that God is not free, since He cannot choose evil.”

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