For those of you who know me, you might think I must be under the influence of something very strong to write such a title, but I can assure you I am quite sober, especially after reading an enlightening column by the Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens. The title of the piece makes his point, “Lady Gaga Versus Global Jihad: The West needs a countercultural strategy against radical Islam.”

It seems that radical Islam is pretty much taking over every Islamic country, including Indonesia.

So here’s the latest news from Planet Gaga: Last week, the star announced she was canceling her June 3 Jakarta concert date, disappointing the 52,000 ticket holders who had sold out the show in days. The reason? A group called the Front for the Defense of Islam, or FPI, had threatened to “wreak havoc” at the concert. Their reason? She brings “the faith of Satan to our country and thus will destroy the nation’s morals,” according to an FPI leader.

Indonesia used to be considered a “moderate” Islamic country, but in the age of Jihad that has become an oxymoron.

Those of us who embrace or appreciate the role of religion in the formation of virtue and character, or who have any taste, don’t much care for Lady Gaga. Yet I love living in a country where Lady Gaga can perform or speak her mind and no one would dare try to censor or threaten her, and if they did they would be held accountable by the law.

There are some traditionalist conservative types that have a real ambivalence about America’s freedom and liberty, yet the only other option for a society is coercion, and that would have to come either directly from the state or with the blessings of the state. The beauty of Christianity and Judaism as contrasted with Islam, is that liberty of conscience is at their heart. And it was this Judeo-Christian worldview, along with the moderate enlightenment views many of America’s Founders that gave us our Constitutional protections, the first coming before all the others:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I just read a fascinating book called God of Liberty, which points out that much of the drive to enshrine the freedom of religion into the Constitution came from the evangelicals of the day working with the Deists. In fact it was to a group of concerned Baptists in Danbury, Connecticut that President Thomas Jefferson wrote about his famous “wall of separation” between church and state, and which I might add has become completely distorted by the secularists of our day.

This highlights something the Founders knew was critical to the success of this experiment in republican government: culture. A country’s moral foundation is reflected in the culture of its people, and a country founded on liberty and a government of limited power must depend on its people to govern themselves to a very large degree. That is way the Deists among the founders not only appreciated but actively encouraged the practice of the Christian religion. They didn’t fear it as modern secularists seem to.

Which brings me back to Lady Gaga: we should be proud to live in a country where entertainers like her are free perform and people are free to be entertained by her. This really is the point Stephens is making about the moral superiority of the West over that of the cultures of Islam. Modern left group-think believes that the West is corrupt and not superior to any other culture or way of life. They don’t live their cultural relativism of course, but they want to impose their ideology upon the rest of us (no one every accused the modern liberal of being consistent). So even though the so called “war on terror” doesn’t get many headlines 10 years after 9/11, Stephens has an important message for those who appreciate our liberty:

Thinking about the threat of radical jihadism isn’t fashionable these days, with unemployment at 8.2%. But the threat hasn’t vanished simply because we don’t like to think about it. Countering that threat will require not just drones or boots on the ground, but also moral confidence. For that, there is Ms. Manji—and also (swallow hard, conservatives) Lady Gaga.