Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses loyalty to the umma and loyalty to the United States in light of the recent case involving Muslims praying in a restricted area at a football game:
"I'm as American as apple pie..." -- a Muslim in America, under suspicion, from this news itemThis self-confident assertion, presented both as self-evident and as immune to criticism, needs to be examined. Many will be reluctant to do so. They will find it churlish even to think that people who live in America, or who are born in America, may be defined as incapable, because of their belief-system, of sharing in any way in what makes America America. But if one's belief-system is the most important thing in one's life, and if that belief-system insists not on pluralism but on the dominance of Islam, and instructs Believers that the main division in the world is that between the Believer (in Islam) and the Infidel, and that the loyalty of Believers is owed only to the umma al-Islamiyya, and certainly not to any Infidel nation-state or to one's fellow citizens should they be Infidels, then any hesitation in discussing this matter should be overcome.
No one wants to be like the hideous Martin Dies or hideous-er Joseph McCarthy; the idea of defining "American" so as to exclude seems so -- un-American. But fear of evoking the idiots of yore on the House Un-American Activities Committee should not permanently paralyze.
In 1943 the War Board called up the writer E. B. White to ask if he could define "democracy." Prompted by this, he wrote a little essay for The New Yorker that at this moment may seem a little too sentimental for some, but did not sound that way to readers in 1943.
Here is what E. B. White wrote:
"Surely the Board knows what democracy is. It is the line that forms on the right. It is the don’t in don’t shove. It is the hole in the stuffed shirt through which the sawdust trickles; it is the dent in the high hat. Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. It is the feeling of privacy in voting booths, the feeling of communion in libraries, the feeling of vitality everywhere. Democracy is a letter to the editor. Democracy is the score at the beginning of the ninth. It is an idea which hasn’t been disproved yet, a song the words of which have not gone bad. It’s the mustard on the hot dog and the cream in the rationed coffee. Democracy is a request from the War Board, in the middle of a morning in the middle of a war, wanting to know what democracy is."How can the spirit of this E. B. White piece from 1943 (in the middle of the greatest war in history) ever be properly conveyed to those would-be Muslim "reformers" and "democrats" who are now busy avoiding the issue of Islam, and concentrating on the outward and visible signs of democracy instead of the real thing?
Before World War I, at the turn of the century, some horses in Elberfeld, Germany caused quite a stir. They were believed by the credulous public capable of performing arithmetic calculations. By beating their hooves, they seemed able to calculate even cube roots. In reality, they were merely beating their hooves to the barely perceptible nods of their unscrupulous trainers von Osten and, later, Krall. Americans in Iraq are not unscrupulous. In fact, American foreign policy makers are far too naive and idealistic, and one often wishes they would be just a little less absurdly scrupulous. But as one sees those Iraqi politicians dithering in Baghdad, and beating their figurative hooves to show that they can perform simple calculations about "democracy," one is put in mind, involuntarily and momentarily, of those Elberfeld horses.Muslim "reformers" bandy about not only the word "democracy" but, all of a sudden, the word "pluralism" as well -- as in, "Islam believes in 'pluralism.’". Though of course Islam does not permit real "pluralism," Muslims know it has something to do with the recognition of group rights, and that is a conception that they find both useful for their own purposes (in protecting and promoting Islam in Infidel lands) and not terribly threatening at present (for there is no chance that non-Muslims in Muslim countries will ever enjoy full equality, legal and societal).
But what is almost beyond the comprehension of all but the most advanced in the Muslim world is the emphasis in the West on the rights of the individual -- on the whole idea that the collective or "umma" is suspect.
If one thing must be asked of so-called Muslim reformers in and out of the Middle East, and in the United States and other Infidel countries, it is this: not where do you stand on women (Shirin Ebadi fights for women's rights, and claims absurdly that their denial "has nothing to do with Islam"), not where do you stand on "democracy" (head-counting might be just fine with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt), but where do you stand on the right of an individual born into Islam to leave Islam for whatever he chooses -- another religion, or no religion -- without any consequences whatsoever?
Any Muslim presenting himself as the face of a New, Improved Islam who does not answer that question in straightforward fashion -- and also in a way that does not show mental reservation (i.e. well it is ok in the West, but not for Muslims in Muslim countries) -- can simply be dismissed as a fraud.
Those who insist on remaining devout Believers in this particular belief-system, and not merely describing themselves as merely "cultural Muslims" (as a way to acknowledge a certain background, and yet to express one's distancing from the belief-system of Islam" without necessarily going into why one insists on the continued identification, or what it is about Islam that proved, in the end, to be impossible to accept) have the burden of proof.
Those who have bothered to look into or study Islam, its tenets, and the attitudes to which those tenets naturally give rise, have reason to be alarmed by anyone who claims to be a Muslim, for that implies a host of attitudes towards non-Muslims that cannot be denied -- well, yes, actually they can be denied, and are denied by apologists for Islam every day. But that is all based on the hope that the listeners will know little about Islam and be fooled, or want to be fooled. If a Muslim who is Muslim enough -- i.e. not a "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslim, but one who wears the regulation beard, and prays even at a football stadium -- tells us that he is "as American as apple pie," we should not be afraid to ask him some questions. Does he believe in "pluralism" – and not just as a temporary measure to ensure the safety of Islam until such time as Islam becomes powerful enough to dominate? Does he believe that non-Muslims should be treated in Muslim-dominated places as inferior, i.e. as dhimmis? Does he believe in freedom of conscience for Muslims who might wish to abandon Islam? Does he think that women should be given precisely the same legal rights as men? Does he think that Muslims who are "as American as apple pie" should owe an allegiance to the American nation-state that is superior to any felt loyalty to fellow members of the umma al-Islamiyya? He should be asked a whole series of questions which, if answered truthfully (vaste programme!), would quickly show that the tenets of Islam flatly contradict the rights of the individual that are part of the American system, that make America America. Someone born and raised in the United States, and yet in 1943 (the year in which E. B. White wrote that essay) harbored a secret desire for a Nazi victory and felt his true loyalty to be to the armies of Nazi Germany, threatening liberal democracy everywhere -- well, that person might be called an "American citizen," but no one in 1943 (or later) would have accepted his own designation of himself as "American as apple pie."
Those interested in finding out about the pro-Nazis within this country who kept proclaiming their all-Americanness on every occasion, even as their beliefs showed that they could not possibly be loyal to what America is all about, should find a copy of John Roy Carlson's Under Cover. It was a bestseller and was read by many hundreds of thousands in the middle of the same mornings, in the middle of the same war, as the one in which E. B. White got his phone call from the War Board, and wrote his reply.
Yep, just like my Lebanese neighbor who had been in the states for 20 years...who was familiar with jazz and blues greats...who understood our politics...who liked American football...and who in the last conversation we ever had, informed me how the Jews were trying to dominate the Middle East "from the Euphratees to the Nile."
He was trying to get a job as a translator for Homeland Security. Needless to say, he'd get no reference from me.
Cornelius:
Doubtless, however, his POV on Israel would qualify him as an expert in the eyes of the State Dept. Arabists.
No doubt Waterdragon
I saw some of those "American as apple pie" guys on television, all playing the tried and true role as helpless victims of American "racism" to the hilt. It appears to be a set-up, just the "all Americans" who, a few years ago, in Georgia talked about blowing up things in a Denny's and were overheard by another customer and picked up somewhere in Florida by the authorities. They, too, were helpless victims, just stopping by the restaurant for coffee and...some apple pie, perhaps. My son is a police officer in a large city. Shortly after the London bombings, as extra police were assigned to to some significant buildings, he noticed a number of young Arab men, on bikes with backpacks, slowing riding by his parked patrol car. He definitely felt that they were trying to provoke an incident. After a week or so, their drive-bys stopped.
maryrose right you are. They want to upset us by playing on our multicultural sense of fairness and political correctness. Provoke, provoke, provoke until we are afraid to say anything, afraid to point a finger lest we be accused of "racism" or "profiling". Then they go before the liberal media crying about how they are discriminated against, all the while laughing at us. Wonder what would happen to their schemes if some of those young agent provocateurs wearing backpacks started having "accidents" or simply disappearing, hmmmm?
Perhaps nobody remembers several incidents in the direct aftermath of 9/11 -- In addition to that designed to provoke Denny's incident -- 3 beanie wearing bearded pious Muslim "students" ran a toll booth in Florida -- they were finally arrested on suspicion after a lengthy manhunt -- the job they did of the doe eyed "Who ME!? -- I'm just a pious Muslim youth minding my own business in this racist Islamophobic infidel country" made me want to puke -- Definitely attempting to provoke an "Islamophobic" reaction -- Clearly they conspired to glean profits from the 9/11 windfall -- while the buildings still smouldered they already had their silly plans to take full advantage -
Also remember the second wave of London bombers whose bombs failed to go off (the same species used by their pious brethren a week prior, by the way, in the same kinds of bottles...) claimed that it was only an innocent "prank" -- And we thought the Muslims didn't have a sense of humor!
Q: What kind of mindset allows someone to attempt to concoct provocative actions, hoping for reprisals, solely with the purpose of generating pretexts to claim victimhood after some of their brethren have committed a religiously inspired atrocity?
A: The Islamic mindset does... 9/11 -- Bali Bombing -- Madrid bombing 7/7 -- they relish the opportunigy to take advantage of their brother's bloody deeds --- they JUMP at the opportunity to trangress, blame the victim, and start the process over again instantly before the victim has the chance to see what's happening...
Hugh, educate yourself. McCarthy was largely correct. Basically, what he said was that America faced a communist threat, the threat was among us, the threat was even among members of our own political institutions. He was correct.
McCarthy was (still is) reviled by the left precisely because he was hitting close to where they lived.
Off topic, or is it?
From the Asian TimesBritish Arabism and the Bombings in Iran
Read all, but an excerpt
Interestingly it is claimed, especially from Iranian Dissident sources that the Aytollah Khomeini's father was British (Williamson) and that his mother was an Indian Muslim, in fact the town from which Khomeini hailed (Khomein) is or was predominantly populated by Indian Muslims.
Khomeini : The God father of Islamofascism, A British Agent?
A list of "Distinquished" British Muslims A lamentable consequence of Britains Imperialist adventures into India, and Iraq. A lot "Sirs" and "Lords" amongst them, including the famous Marmaduke Pikthal.
It follows then that I am as Muslim as al-Taqqiya???
"Hugh, educate yourself. McCarthy was largely correct. Basically, what he said was that America faced a communist threat, the threat was among us, the threat was even among members of our own political institutions. He was correct.
McCarthy was (still is) reviled by the left precisely because he was hitting close to where they lived."
-- from a posting above
Was Joseph McCarthy good, or bad, for anti-Communism? He was terrible. At the very moment when the Soviet Union, its agents, and its sympathizers, were at their most menacing, along came McCarthy. Stalin had captured the countries of Eastern Europe; Cardinal Mindszenty was in his self-exile; Masaryk, in the Third (not the Second) Defenestration of Prague, had been thrown out of a window by the NKVD; Czeslaw Milosz was already making his plans to defect. Meanwhile, the largest political parties in the Western world were those of the Communists in France (under Maurice Thorez) and Italy (under Palmiro Togliatti, ably assisted at the Botteghe Oscure headquarteres by his redoubtable girlfriend Nilde Jotti). One might have thought that American prestige would be at its height. American armed forces had liberated France (even if they allowed the French to enter Paris a day ahead of schedule, to keep up the fiction of De Gaulle that France had liberated itself). They had liberated Italy, with help from Australians, British, and others. But what was that compared to the Communist smoke curling up from the mouth of frog-faced Sartre at Deux Magots (or "Megots") or at La Coupole (or am I now in Boris-Vian territory?), what is it compared to the mythology that turned all of the Italian partigiani johnnies into Communists when, as we know now, so many were not communists at all, and Bella Ciao does not require a full-throated Marxist to sing.
Both political parties in the United States were, in the late 1940s and 1950s, that is in McCarthy's hey day, resolutely anti-Communist. Who prompted the Marshall Plan to create prosperity in Western Europe, and dampen the appeal of Communism or, more importantly, Soviet Communism? Truman and the Democrats. Who supported the British aid in the suppression of the Greek Communists, or the Malayan guerrillas, if not the administration of Truman? There was no need for Joseph McCarthy. It was not Joseph McCarthy who caught Klaus Fuchs, or the Rosenbergs, or anyone else. Joseph McCarthy gave a lease on life to those who wanted to pooh-pooh Communism and Communist subversion. It would make more sense to think of McCarthy as an unwitting agent, a useful dupe, of the NKVD or whatever the KGb was then called. He was not only easy to hate -- he was perfectly despicable.
The best view of McCarthy, the one that sums him up exactly, is the figure in "Pogo" of Simple J. Malarkey. That was McCarthy: Simple J. Malarkey. His equivalent are the kind of people who start ranting about "wiping out Islam" as if that will win anyone over, cause anyone ill-informed to begin to study, and then to worry about, Islam.
I can't think of a single spy, a single threat, caught by the antics of Joseph McCarthy.
I can think of one thing McCarthy left as his legacy -- the word "McCarthyism." And that word is now invoked, often, quite wrongly, and quite dangerously, to perfectly sensible measures that are undertaken, or proposed, in order to deal with what is a different kind of fifth-column, one that needs no spies, no secret messages put into pumpkins, or Underwood typewriters (google "Underwood" and "Jihad Watch" for some pre-Thanksgiving fun) typing out those Pumpkin Papers.
McCarthy was a brother under the skin of Andrey Vyshinsky, with whom, come to think of it, he shared a certain forensic style.
Forunately, in what was surely the finest hour for the kind of bow-tied Brahmin still thrown up, though less frequently and more self-consciously, in Boston, that Hale & Dorr partner Joseph C. Welch was there at the Army-McCarthy Hearings to ask, on television, about McCarthy's attempt to destroy one young man's career: "Have you no decency, sir? At long last, have you no decency?"
Despite the fact that the intolerably smug Anthony Lewis, who has gotten everything wrong, liked to quote those lines of Welch, they remain good lines, not to be sullied by the higher-banality likes of Lewis.
You won't persuade me that Joseph McCarthy was anything but a los-de-abajo rabble-rouser, a blend of Huey Long populism, with Father-Coughlin nastiness.
It didn't Joseph McCarthy to persuade Americans that Stalin, that the Red Army, that Communism was a threat. China had been lost. Eastern Europe had been taken over. What more did one need? Save for the permanently, sweetly-sillily-sinister Pete Seeger, and Rockwell Kent, and a few other holdouts from some pre-Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact era, everyone sensible knew what Communism was all about. McCarthy simply got in the way. He gave anti-Communism a bad name -- or would have, if he hadn't finally had his comeuppance from such well-known Bolsheviks as Dwight David Eisenhower and Joseph Welch and Edward R. Murrow and James Bryant Conant. As for the House Un-American Activities Committee, well -- it was the beautiful Paulette Goddard, in her finest moment (well, her second finest, her first finest being the scenes with Chaplin toward the end of "City Lights"), who replying to a question said that "If anyone calls me a Communist I'll throw my diamond bracelets at him."
Now, with Islam, the situation is far more worrisome, because it is not true that "everyone sensible" understands the menace of Islam. It isn't as obvious because there is no Red Army. There is no Comintern. There is no NKVD. And the ideology in question happens to be called, and is accorded all the respect appertaining thereto, a "religion." No, most people in the Western world don't. And they won't. For so many reasons, including the violence they would have to do to so many cherished articles of their own, quite contemporary, faith.
And that's the problem.
hugh,
I think your piece is particularly important and sage. The fact is that this guy had a muslim beard and was praying at a Giants football game and that alone guarantees that he is absolutely NOT as American as apple pie. And I for one will say that I do not want such people admitted to my beautiful and amazing country. Sorry.
The muslim beard implies and nearly guarantees a few things. First, that this man probably has some sympathy for terror worldwide. At the very least he would likely say - "one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter". and, he would likely harbor deep anti-semetic feelings- my experience has been that even "nice" muslims usually do. His view on women's "rights " is also immeadetly thrown into qestion by his muslim beard. As his loyalty to our sacred democracy.
I say deport the F$^%er. By the way, I was a "Free Palestine" liberal on September 10, 2001.
Defeat Jihad!!!
"I was a "Free Palestine" liberal on September 10, 2001.
Defeat Jihad!!!"
Hear Hear!!! That's more like it!
I wasn't nearly so bad as that -- but the veil was ripped from my eyes too -- and I don't need to see another lesson to get the message!
Jihadis must be ANNIHILATED adn WITHOUT MERCY!
I agree with Hugh's overall analysis of McArthyism; it was a detriment in the fight against Communism and in many ways effectively discredited the cause of anti-Communism.
But there was something in his response I thought I'd take issue with...(albeit with kid gloves because the issue is nothing but minutia in the greater scheme of things and besides, I'm on probation).
He clearly states that the French and Italian Communist Parties were in the late 40s "resolutely...anti-Communist." I believe he meant to say that they were anti-Soviet, but even this is not factual...at least not to my knowledge. Euro-Communism was a phenomenon of the 70s, and even then, France's George Machias was a loyal Brehznevite.
I don't think anyone can seriously believe that had 'Tail Gunner Joe' not burst on the scene in '49, the French and Italian Communist parties would have sided with the West in the Cold War. Hugh himself points out that Stalin's subversion of Benes in Czechoslovakia and his rejection of the Marshall Plan had already brought down the Iron Curtain. The Cold War was in full swing and the Communists throughout the West were dutifully doing Moscow's bidding, whether using bullets in Greece or at the ballot box in France and Italy.
When watching the lawyer for the muslims at the stadium, he said " We do not want war with the Giants." Well guess what Mohammed, we want war with you!!!!
And you know what else, if the security professionals at Giants stadium had allowed a cadre of bearded muslim men to "pray" in front of the main air vent, while president George Bush was in the stadium, there would be a few words to describe that - TREASON...COWARDICE....RESPONSIBILITY (for any resulting terror attack).
Hey, MUSLIMS!!!IF you don't like being profiled then maybe you should take on the extemist elements of your religion and force a religious reformation. Until then, I will DEMAND, yes DEMAND that my government racially profile you. And if airlines won't , then I won't fly. Or, I'll just fly EL Al. Hey, theres an idea.. can we get EL AL to run domestic American flights. I will pay extra to know that those who have the bearded muslim look get strip-searched regularly.
McCarthy's witchhunt was not so thinly veiled antisemitism. And the consequence of that witch hunt lives on in the references to "Hollyweird" liberals, and the demonization of liberals, in fact in many circles the words liberal and left equates to Jew.
Hop over to National Vanguard or Stormfront if you don't believe me or lurk on LIberty Forum for awhile, you'll see what I mean.
Cornelius, to flesh out Waterdragon's statement, strongly suggest that you read Paul Sperry's Infiltration: How Muslim spies and subversives have infiltrated Washington (especially the FBI) and while at look over his webite http://www.sperryfiles.com
I'll check it out Nariz...but am well aware of the extent to which the bureaucracy has been subverted with political correctness and outright infiltration. The eggheads at state are notorious for their "vision"...(they certainly foresaw the coming of the Soviet collapse didn't they).
And you're right, the FBI is particularly culpable. Director Muller is such an uninspiring dullard he makes the likes of Bush seem magnetic and articulate in comparison.
The FBI compromises the identity of its agents by attending CAIR-run "sensitivity training" (the phrase alone makes me nauseous). But the clincher is the refusal of the bureau and Homeland Security to employ Arabic Jews to translate documents and wire-tap conversations. Blatant discrimination, not to mention utterly foolish.
Cornelius--
I didn't realize when I wrote "both parties" that someone might think I was referring to the Italian and French Communist parties discussed in the paragraph immediately above. That would make no sense to describe two "Communist parties" as being "resolutely anti-Communist." I may have adolescent-onset senile dementia, but as far as I know its progress is still rather slow.
What I should have written instead of "both parties" is "both political parties in the United States" and I will do so -- right now.
Sorry for any confusion.
Nariz said: McCarthy's witchhunt was not so thinly veiled antisemitism. And the consequence of that witch hunt lives on in the references to "Hollyweird" liberals, and the demonization of liberals, in fact in many circles the words liberal and left equates to Jew.
Can anyone tell me what the hell is wrong with the jews? It is UNIMAGINABLE to me that Jewish people could get so comfortable on the
Israel-hating, "blame the Israeli" left. To my jewish brothers (who are still by and large to the left of left): Wake up!!Don't you see that you belong on the political right? Don't you see that support of Israel has moved to the purview of the right wing worldwide!!!It is mind boggling that still, even in post 9/11 America, so many jews really are liberals.
GasBag -
(Hugh, I know you're out there, burning ...)
Where were you when they passed out the history books? It is well established that FDR had Soviet agents among his closest advisors. Further, the democrats were no more resolute opponents of Marx in 1940 than they are opponents of islam today.
Educate yourself. (And, please, don't bother to regurgitate, verbatim, whatever reading you do in the process.)
Cao - Havoc
PS: The Scribe said, "Brevity is the soul of wit". And, I would add, conversely.
Oh, what the Hell. I intended to say, "Ciao". (I ain't Italian).
Ciao - Havoc
PS: Hugh, "ciao" means something like, "at your service", or "your servant". Try not to let it go to your head.
Hugh,
You clearly did write "both parties in the USA." It is my own dementia - dementia pugilistica, dementia cerveza, dementia cannabis, dementia t&a, dementia de jour - that prevented me from seeing as much.
Once again Hugh, forgive me...(why do I get the creeping feeling that those words are going to become my mantra here?)
Cornelius -- no need to make amends; it was in the original unintentionally ambiguous. Robert changed, at my request, the phrase "both parties" to read, as I said I would have it read, "both political parties in the United States." When I originally wrote "both parties" without thinking that in the prevous paragraph I had been discussing the Communist parties of France and Italy, and in the new paragraph was discussing something else -- that in the late 1940s and 1950s (and still later), the members of both parties were in agreement that Soviet Communism, was a threat that had everywhere to be countered. Today, alas, there is no such agreement even within the two parties -- but rather, much confusion about what Islam is all about, and many are perfectly content with that dangerous phrase "a war on terror."
As for the Reds-in-the-Beds Harry Dexter White stuff about Soviet spies on Roosevelt's staff, I am perfectly willing to agree that Alger Hiss was probably a spy. Why? Because I am inclined to agree with the KGB dossiers that have been made public. But what does that have to do with the life and times of Joseph McCarthy, who did nothing to uncover any spies that I know of (can you think of any whose discovery is owed, in any way, to McCarthy?). Since the matter under discussion was whether McCarthy was good or bad, a discussion prompted by my brisk dismissal of him and those akin to him, I fail to see how he is rescued by a diversionary appeal to those who may have been Communists in the Roosevelt or any other administration.
The question was another: did McCarthy do more harm than good to anti-Communism. I suggested that he did more harm, was easy to mock, and therefore it became easier for a few (only a few) to pooh-pooh the real threat posed by real Soviet spies, and real Soviet aggression. In my private pantheon, McCarthy doesn't make up. His net effect was not to make the world safe for anti-Communism, but to make it possible, both in this country by a few, and in Europe by many more, to blithely refer to "McCarthyism," a word which entered the language as a synonym for a witch hunt, and has been used with effect ever since, not least by such groups as CAIR when they charge (they seldom hint) that there is a "witch hunt" against Muslims going on. And of course that is nonsense -- everyone is bending over backwards not to do anything like that, bending over entirely too backwards to make sense. I suggested that Walt Kelly's character, Simple J. Malarkey, summed him up perfectly. I see no evidence presented -- references to real spies, whether they are Klaus Fuchs or Alger Hiss, in any way justify the works and days of Joseph McCarthy. He was a godsend to Soviet propaganda, especially but not only, in Western Europe. And his spirit remains a godsend for all who are trying to stymie perfectly justifiable security measures as, for example, the provisions of the Patriot Act.
"Ciao" is a quick form of "il vostro schiavo" --"your slave." But of course, in this country slavery has been outlawed so neither you nor I would likely agree to be the other's slave. So let's simply -- not even beg to, but merely -- differ.
Cornelius:
"Yep, just like my Lebanese neighbor who had been in the states for 20 years...who was familiar with jazz and blues greats...who understood our politics...who liked American football...and who in the last conversation we ever had, informed me how the Jews were trying to dominate the Middle East "from the Euphratees to the Nile.""
And that belief alone is enough for you discount the man's "Americanness"?
Well, I suppose there was nothing in that little EB White piece about respecting difference of opinion, so I guess you still qualify as a "democrat".
"the belief alone is enough for you discount the man's "Americanness"?"
-- from a posting above
If all of a sudden, under the outward and visible (and essentially) trivial aspect, one suddenly reveals a political theory that is not merely bizarre, but likely prompted by a world-view, a belief-system, the one called Islam, or possibly in this case the Islamic world view of an islamochristian Arab from Lebanon who long ago internalized the Islamic world-view, then one is not wrong to draw certain conclusions. And the piece itself, which did not offer any exhaustive list of what would be required to be a believer in American democracy, but pointed out that the conviction that Islam should
"dominate and is not to be dominated," that pluralism was merely to be supported temporarily (as long as it was useful), that the very idea that legitimacy of a government should derive from the consent of the governed, that individuals had certain inalienable rights, including the right of freedom of conscience (i.e., the right to jettison this or that belief for another, or no belief at all), the kind of individual rights to be found in the Bill of Rights (or rather in the first 8 amendments) and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but distinctly not to be found in the deliberately much-modified "Islamic" version of the latter.
Since Islam sets out quite clearly how it is that Believers are to regard Unbelievers, or Infidels -- conversion, killing, or in the case of those deemed to be "People of the Book" (ahl al-kitab) possible survival, and even continued practice of their own religions, under conditions that many would, and obviously many over time did, find intolerable -- which explains how vast areas of the world, once entirley inhaibted by Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians became largely Muslim, and why in those areas of Asia inhabited by Hindus (and some Buddhists), they had been granted a kind of informal "People of the Book" status so as to preserve them as a source of revenue for the Muslm rulers, and not merely Muslims who, in their own long history of conquest and subjugation, many of them too succumbed to Islam, not because it was so naturally wonderful, but because life as a non-Muslim under Muslim rule was so onerous, full of humiliation, degradaton, and physical insecurity.
The objection is wrong. The neighbor who came from Lebanon, and who all of a sudden revealed a crazed view that the poster (Cornelius) justifiably took as a sign of other attitudes, was -- as is suggested -- not the kind of person to be regarded as fit for employment with any agency having to do with Homeland Security.
And this would be true not necessarily because the man would himself be a Muslim (if he were in the Fouad Ajami vein, a "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslim); he might be one of those Christian Arabs who out of both a nearly-innate desire to please or appease his more powerful Muslim neighbors in Lebanon, or out of misplaced ethnic identification with "Arabness" identify with Islam as being so inextricably linked to that "Arabness," or for both reasons, might end up as what is now called, tellingly, an "islamochristian" -- the result of a lifetime of repeating, accepting, believing, making his own those attitudes, conspiracy theories, rumors, wild charges, a generally crazed view, that is not unexpected when one is fed, from an early age, a view of the universe in which the only division that matters is that between Muslim and non-Muslim, Believer and Infidel.
This is a facinating discussion. Another of my one woman campaigns began last night in Walgreen's. I was approaching the checkout when a Muslim man, complete with long coat and cap, asked the checker a question. After he moved on, I walked up to checker and said with a smile, "Did you check him for bombs?" She burst out laughing and said, "Right!". Why did I do this? I'm trying to get people used to speaking out without feeling frightened or intimidated. We whisper about immigration, we whisper about Muslims. This is the United States! We don't have to whisper. American as apple pie? Muslims aren't anything but Muslims, shackled to a religion that demands prayers during football games. Wait until I walk up to a shrouded woman and say, "Idiot! Why would you let a man do this to you. Protection my mini-skirt. It's population control."
"It's population control."
Do you mean "Mind control?" If so, I agree, otherwise I'm not sure what this last part means...
Anyway, I tip my hat to you for your one woman campaign -- It is IMPERATIVE that we shift our culture sufficiently to comfortably and freely discuss this menacing enemy in our midst without being tarred as "bigots" and "racists".
For quite some time I've been trying to explain to people the jujitsu being performed on us by Islam... Think about it -- they're exploiting our freedom of religion, association, and speech clauses to undermine those very same rights... Their endless use of the terms "Islamophobia" "racism" and "anti-Islamic" are fashioned make us recoil and be silent -- they're piggy backing their seditious Islamic cause on top of the sad legacy of racism and bigotry in order to slip past the censors -- to slip their cuckoo egg into the American nest, to force us to protect their vile religion, to "celebrate" their intentions at Eid Feast in Washington -- the mindlessly and endlessly repeat the mantra "Islam is a religion of peace" despite what our eyes and ears are seeing and hearing...
Muslims are the bigots. Muslims are the hatemongers. Muslims come here and use our own technology against us. They use our airplanes against us. They use their Western educations to figure out ways to destroy us. They use our cell phones against us. They use our computer technology against us. They use our currency against us. They use our very freedoms, our precious rights of association, religion, speech, to undermine those same rights and privileges -- We know what would happen to tolerance, plurality, association, religion, wealth, technology, if they ever gain ascendancy over us -- All would be lost -- all would cease to be...
Muslims are using our tolerance as a weapon against us...
This must be said and repeated loudly and clearly -- this must be understood by all non-Muslims to prevent more Hamtramcks, to prevent more Lodis, to prevent more Lackawannas, to prevent riots like those we see in Paris, and to prevent more 9/11s or worse -- We know this is what they crave... We know that they only wish to use the advantages and privileges afforded by the Western culture and economy to DESTROY the Western culture and economy -- Why do they crave this? To spread the pall of their filth stained blood stained religion over the planet, as their false god "Allah" has decreed --
Spect8or,
Yes, that comment about Israel was sufficient to tell me that this man was extremist in his world-view.
If you look at a map of Israel, you'll notice how dramatically it has contracted in size over the last 3 decades: how Israel surrendered the Sinai for peace with Egypt; how the Israelis withdrew from Southern Lebanon to mollify Hazbollah; how they pulled out of population centers on the West Bank and from Gaza in its entirety in the desperate hope of inducing the Palestinians to opt for peace.
For someone to insist that Israel is trying to dominate the Middle East "from the Euphratees to the Nile" in the face of such overwhelming evidence to the contrary...reveals a mindset that can only be described as extremist...
...at least in my humble opinion.
jsla --- I enjoyed your commentary. My "population control" comment wasn't too clear. The covering of the Muslim women is, in my opinion, a means to control and suppress a large percentage of the population. The men, in turn, must be spending lots of time controlling and repressing their women. So, both sexes waste time and energy. Why? Because Islam is a religion that doesn't want its populace to progress --- except for a chosen few at the top. Five prayers a day? That's a dandy little bit of busy work, too. There's mention earlier in this discussion of disliking Muslims. Well, I dislike Muslims and look upon them with distaste and distrust and disrespect. I know they want to kill us and our culture. I am not ashamed or intimidated by the way I feel. I will continue to comment in public whenever I choose. I frankly don't care who doesn't like it. We're in a fight, boys, and it's high time that American women step up and help. Defeat Jihad!
Another one woman campaign: thanking service workers for speaking my language and telling them what a pleasant experience that is. Try it. You'll get knowing smiles and thanks in return.
that was Hezbollah of course
About ten or eleven years ago I was in a Jerusalem shopping center and I noticed four men, two of them with Hamas beards, standing on the top floor at the balcony looking down onto the first floor court [or atrium] of the shopping center. My impression at that time --and there had been several bombings already after the Oslo accords-- was that they were "casing the joint" for a possible bombing. After all, why would four men together be looking down at the crowd of shoppers below? And then two had Hamas beards. So I went to the shopping center security room and reported on this. They sent somebody up to look and the four men quickly went down the steps and left. In any case, that shopping center has not been bombed, although many buses have been bombed here, and there was a stabbing outside of another, larger shopping center. By the way, Arabs freely go to the shopping malls here, and they have money to spend.