A Strategic Admission, Not a Concession

A recent statement by British MP Iqbal Mohamed on cousin marriage offers a revealing window into how the modern left actually understands politics and why the right so often loses ground without realizing it.

Mohamed acknowledged that close-family marriage carries real health risks, particularly in some Muslim communities where the practice is more common. He conceded the dangers plainly. Yet he argued the state should not prohibit the practice. Instead, he suggested education, genetic screening, and cultural sensitivity, insisting that the law should step back.

On the surface, this sounds cautious and compassionate. In reality, it is strategic.

The left understands something many conservatives still refuse to grasp: law is not just about enforcement. Law is about formation. And removing law is just as powerful as passing it.

The Left Knows Law Shapes Culture

The modern left does not view politics primarily as a way to “solve problems.” It views politics as a way to shape people. That means shaping norms, expectations, and moral memory over time.

When Mohamed argues that the state should not prohibit a practice it knows to be harmful, he is not conceding defeat. He is playing a longer game. By removing legal prohibitions that once reflected biblical moral assumptions, the left ensures that culture slowly forgets why those prohibitions existed in the first place.

This is not neutrality. It is subtraction.

And subtraction works.

When the law no longer says “this is wrong,” society does not remain undecided. It gradually learns to say, “this must be acceptable.” What was once unthinkable becomes debatable. What was debatable becomes normalized. What was normalized becomes untouchable.

This is how moral revolutions actually happen, not through sudden force, but through deliberate silence.

Why the Right Keeps Falling for It

Much of the right responds to arguments like Mohamed’s by asking the wrong question: Can the state really enforce this? When the answer is imperfect, as it always is, the right retreats.

But no serious civilization has ever made law contingent on perfect enforcement. Laws against theft do not eliminate theft. Laws against abuse do not eliminate abuse. Laws regulating marriage have never required total compliance to be effective.

Their purpose is not perfection. Their purpose is direction.

By conceding that the law should step back whenever enforcement is difficult or culturally sensitive, conservatives surrender the most powerful tool of moral leadership. They confuse restraint with wisdom and neutrality with humility.

The left does not make this mistake.

Removing Biblical Law Is Not Accidental

The practices now being “sensitively tolerated” are not random. They are precisely the areas where biblical morality once formed Western law: marriage, sexuality, family structure, life, and authority.

The strategy is consistent:

1. Remove legal norms rooted in Christianity.
2. Frame the removal as compassion or freedom.
3. Allow culture to forget the moral logic behind the old law.
4. Replace the vacuum with new norms framed as progress.

This is not speculation. It is observable pattern.

Once the culture forgets that marriage was ever regulated for moral reasons, it becomes impossible to defend regulation at all. And once regulation is impossible, replacement becomes inevitable.

Law and Culture Move Together, or Collapse Together

Law and culture are not rivals. They are partners. Culture limits what law can realistically enforce, but law teaches culture what matters.

When the law speaks clearly, culture orients itself around those boundaries, even imperfectly. When the law withdraws entirely, culture does not hold its ground. It drifts toward whatever vision is most aggressive, most confident, and most intentional.

The left understands this. That is why it focuses as much on repealing laws as it does on passing new ones.

Why Moral Clarity Requires Moral Rulers

For most of history, it was obvious that Christian nations were governed by Christians. Not because rulers were flawless, but because law inevitably reflects what rulers believe about truth, human nature, and the good life.

The myth of a morally neutral state serves only one side, the side that is already prepared to impose its values once the old ones are forgotten.

If law is a teacher, then rulers must believe something worth teaching.

If we want laws that preserve moral order rather than manage decay, we need rulers with moral clarity, rulers willing to say that some things are not just risky or unfortunate, but wrong.

Until the right understands politics the way the left already does, it will keep losing ground it never realized it was surrendering.

Because in politics, silence is never neutral.

It is instruction.

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