In FrontPage today I discuss the larger implications of the felony charges against Qur'an-flusher Stanislav Shmulevich (news links in the original):
A 23-year-old student at Pace University, Stanislav Shmulevich, was arrested Friday and charged with two felony counts of Criminal Mischief in the Fourth Degree as a Hate Crime. Numerous analysts have been quick to recognize the cruel irony of these charges. Mark Steyn quipped that instead of flushing the Qur’an, “obviously Mr Shmulevich should have submerged it in his own urine, applied for an NEA grant and offered it to the Whitney Biennial. But to that Michelle Malkin responded with the grim truth: “Actually, no. The NEA would have turned Shmulevich in to the police, too. Now, if he had submerged a Bible in urine or coated a Torah in cow dung and submitted it for a federal grant, he’d be sitting pretty–and facing rave New York Times editorials instead of time behind bars.”And that’s why, as Christopher Hitchens said, “This has to stop, and it has to stop right now. There can be no concession to sharia in the United States. When will we see someone detained, or even cautioned, for advocating the burning of books in the name of God? If the police are honestly interested in this sort of ‘hate crime,’ I can help them identify those who spent much of last year uttering physical threats against the republication in this country of some Danish cartoons.”
Indeed, it has to stop. For all the examples of the double standard that he, Malkin and others have brought forth – from Piss Christ to Chris Ofili’s Turner-Prize-winning, elephant-dung and pornography-bedecked Virgin Mary and the rest – emphasize the fact that the real agenda of today’s dominant politically correct culture is certainly not tolerance, or even anything-goes moral relativism. Some things most emphatically don’t go, as Stanislav Shmulevich’s two felony charges indicate. As a cultural movement, political correctness and multiculturalism are emphatically anti-Western and anti-Christian. And they are also suicidal.But it is not going to stop. As mad as the felony charges against him are, Stanislav Shmulevich most likely is not the end of anything, but rather the beginning. We are unlikely as a society to become a place in which disrespect or even hatred of Christianity comes to be regarded as just as dangerous to the social order as disrespect or hatred of Islam, and we are just as unlikely to return to a saner time when one could not be prosecuted for disliking someone else’s beliefs (in which case Shmulevich would have to pay for the books, and for any necessary plumbing work, but that would be all). We have become a society of sacrosanct protected classes whose victim status places them above all criticism. Those individuals and groups who do not enjoy victim status can be shredded with impunity in the public square, and the shredders are hailed as “courageous,” “iconoclastic,” and “irreverent.” But if the protected group is criticized in any way, we are told that the criticism creates a climate of “hostility” and “hate” that can culminate in yet more victimization.
The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has worked assiduously for years to claim this protected victim status for Muslims, and its reaction to this incident has allowed them to articulate how they want Muslims in America to be regarded. CAIR-NY Civil Rights Coordinator Aliya Latif said: “We must all be concerned when any actions cross the line from protected free speech to acts designed to intimidate. Just as there is a difference between someone burning a cross in their own backyard and burning that same cross in the yard of an African-American family, there is a difference between desecrating a religious text in a private setting and doing so in a setting that will create a hostile learning environment.” Muslims are the new blacks, and CAIR is the new NAACP; this statement is of a piece with CAIR’s annual hate crimes report, which attempts, often in quite imaginative ways, to project an image of Muslims as bravely going about their daily lives in an American society that is inveterately hostile, racist, and on the verge of breaking out into open violence against them.
Yet this is nothing more than a myth. A potent one, to be sure, but a myth. Muslims are not being lynched, or persecuted, or discriminated against in America. Time and time again breathless media-amplified fears of “backlash” against Muslims prove unfounded, and Muslims continue to practice their faith here with more freedom than they enjoy in most of the countries from which they came. That’s why Stanislav Shmulevich and his flushed Qur’ans are a windfall for American Muslim advocacy groups: he has now validated the victim status they so doggedly claim. And until the American public discourse can dare to break away from the protected-victim model and its subtext of white Christian guilt, these groups will experience many more such windfalls, whenever someone acts obnoxiously or boorishly toward any Muslim or Islamic object. The American public square today simply has no apparatus for dealing with the possibility that the protected victims might be perpetrating evil themselves. The cognitive dissonance regarding Muslims since 9/11 is ultimately what has given birth to 9/11 conspiracy theories, Reichstag fire analogies, and the like. Muslims can’t be responsible, because they are non-white, non-Christian, non-Westerners. It must be something we have done.
Most ominous of all is the fact that policymakers at the highest levels assume this. Western leaders routinely assume that money will defeat terrorism: that alleviating poverty in the Islamic world will end the jihad. This assumption rests on a further assumption: that the jihad imperative doesn’t arise from anything within the Islamic world that would still be present even if the West somehow began to treat Muslims better. For Muslims are victims, and Westerners are the guilty party.
That is the West’s guiding myth. It is why desecration of the Bible will continue to be celebrated as art, and desecration of the Qur’an as a “hate crime.” So also is an objective examination of the elements of Islam that jihadists use today to incite to violence, for that violence is all the fault of the guilty post-Christians of Europe and America.
If the West is to survive the challenge of the global jihad, this foundational myth must be brought out into the open, repudiated, and decisively rejected.
One of your best...it should be posted everywhere.
I was going to say the same thing. You've exceeded your usual very high standards. How is that possible? Looks bewildered
"And until the American public discourse can dare to break away from the protected-victim model and its subtext of white Christian guilt, these groups will experience many more such windfalls, whenever someone acts obnoxiously or boorishly toward any Muslim or Islamic object."
Robert, if you're reading this, I wonder of you have any idea of what it would take to force these issues into the public discourse. My take on it is that unless something horrific takes place, such as a major terrorist attack or a permanent intifada on European soil, this will stay on the fringes, i.e., the blogosphere, primarily. A major disaster, or perhaps a crisis in Europe becoming a permanent feature, would cause all PC barriers to crumble, and to stay in the public discourse from then on, would it not?
We should start a Koran-flushing movement. Everyone go to public places in there nearest city. Like bathrooms in the library or the local cinema. They can't arrest us all, they will be overwhelmed.
Cross burning is a practice widely associated with the Ku Klux Klan. There is no equivalence between desecrating a koran in a public toilet and a cross burning on an African American's property.
Ms. Latif obviously is following CAIR's agenda as displayed in yesterday's CNN report with Ibrahim Hooper who stated a similar ridiculous analogy.
At marker 2:52 on the first video clip Hooper states:
If you take Hooper's analogy and apply it to the PACE incident, dunking a koran in a commode is the equivalent of throwing a desecrated koran at a house of worship. When did a university commode become equivalent to an exclusive house of worship?
I am a resident of dhimmi India. Hurry up and do what is needful to save your freedom otherwise you may end up a with a moron similar to mad manmohan singh as your president who will not have the courage to say the truth instead he will repeat the tiresome old cliche of "terrorism has no religion"?
Well, we can start by purging political correctness, as it has spread its poison into every facet of western society...and since poison, like cancer and other diseases, must be eradicated.
Better to eradicate poisonous ideas/ideals than to wait too long, only to have to eradicate the armies of those ideas/ideals who've gained a foothold and require another world war to accomplish it.
How quickly we forgot the lessons of WWII.
http://www.terrorismawareness.org/islamic-mein-kampf/
Why didn't Marilyn Manson get arrested for a "hate crime" he ripped Bibles on stage, after all according to CAIR ripping a "holy Book" in public is *not* the same as doing it in the privacy of one's home?
Oh by the way...new coined term of the day:
ISLAMOJUGEND
(pron: IzLA`moYOO`gund ;
def: coined phrase used to describe a group or groups of children and adult minor students actively practicing the age-old tactics of islamism, but with a twist reminiscent of hitler's brownshirted sturmabteilung used effectively during the nazi germany era that their predecessors also happened to have allied themselves with during that time as well)
Let's see which gasket douggie the druggie hoopty, ooops, I mean hooper, blows on THIS one, since it's obvious he does watch this site carefully.
There was no plumbing work required. He just dunked it. Didn't flush it.
They got him because New York State has this crazy law that allows even a very minor crime of damaging property (the Koran, in this case) to be charged as a feloney if it was motivated by hate based on "a person's" race, gender, religion, blah, blah. It remains to be fought out in court whether "the person" has to be in any sense a victim of the crime. In this case it wasn't, as the Koran belonged to the university. Hopefully that will be the loophole on which the student will be acquitted.
Meanwhile, what should be asserted is that they still haven't managed to make it illegal to "desecrate" a Koran that is one's own property. There still has to be at least some extremely minor "underlying crime" for a hate crimes charge.
While I do not endorse vulgarity, what would be probably a useful gesture would be lots of filmed and You-Tube-posted "descrations" of some sort or other of Korans that are _unambiguously_ not stolen and where there is _unambiguously_ no underlying crime. Get a copy of your own, film yourself with the receipt, and then write all over it, "Mohammed was a creep" or something like that in large, black, letters. Film that.
At least we need to show that we still, barely, retain the right to treat the Koran per se anyway we like, as long as we don't commit any itsy bitsy crime in the process. No doubt forbidding that is CAIR's next step.
Shmulevich would have to pay for the books, and for any necessary plumbing work, but that would be all
The picture of this "hate crime" showed the Koran in a toilet bowl of clear water. It looked like it wasn't even completely submerged. No attempt was made to flush it. This suggests that no plumbing work would have been required. The ONLY damage was to soak the book and Shmulevich should be responsible for its replacement and perhaps an apology, nothing more. Given that Muslims don't consider an English-language version of the Koran to be holy, they should not have cared. Somehow, CAIR's hurt feelings make it a felony.
Last year in Australia, Muslim students desecrated a Bible and authorities at their school claimed they were "just pulling a prank".
OT but not really:
People, go to D'Souza's blog today and comment on "Who's afraid to criticize Islam?" You won't believe his stupid blog entry (followed by comments, including mine).
I agree...this essay is one of the best that Mr. Spencer has written, and he has written many great ones. It is difficult to control media interviews at times. But, I hope that those on our side would, when doing TV or radio interviews, inform listeners that severe punishment, sometimes death, is the norm in Islamic countries for defacing or destroying the Koran. It is also a reliable reason to punish and jail non-Muslims on such charges. Everyone who can say it in public must repeat over and over that this is a mild form of what happens in Muslim countries on a daily basis. Muslims in the West are wanting what they have in the weird, cruel world of Islam. It is important to argue for first amendment rights. It is also important to remind listeners about the truths of Islam and take an interview on another direction, if necessary. After all, CAIR and Co. do that all the time.
Today the USA - and tomorrow the world.
One of the commonest "complaints" used against non-moslems in the moslem world is "taking allah's name in vain" or "desecrating the koran".
We see these charges used all the time to settle e.g. land disputes in Pakistan - where the accusation of "insulting islam" is enough to send innocent people to jail while the accusers steal their land.
When this process arrives in the western world - we are all doomed
It wont stop,Islam speaks softly and carries a big stick," The terrorism stick" ,that it has earned over centuries.
I printed off a copy of the photo of the "Quran in the can", and glued it to the inside of my toilet lid. That way I can admire the "work of art" while I'm whizzing.
I printed off a copy of the photo of the "Quran in the can", and glued it to the inside of my toilet lid. That way I can admire the "work of art" while I'm whizzing.
I printed off a copy of the photo of the "Quran in the can", and glued it to the inside of my toilet lid. That way I can admire the "work of art" while I'm whizzing.
I'M SORRY!!!
For the multiple entries, that is.
A marketing opportunity for Kimberly-Clark.
Uh, beg to differ, KAOSKTRL - Islam does not "speak softly." Are you kidding?
Danish Cartoon rage was "speaking softly?" Signs held up outside Finsbury mosque In London proclaiming beheading for all those who "insult Islam," the call for Rushdie's murder, Farfur the Palestinian Murder Mouse calling for death to all Jews, Ahmadinejad stating publicly his desire to destroy Israel...etc...etc... are "speaking softly?"
No, Islam speaks LOUD AND CLEAR AND WE ARE FOOLISHLY LETTING THEM. Yeah, they also carry the big stick as 9/11, 3/33, 7/7, murder of Theo Van Gogh, Darfur genocide etc etc.... testifies to.
We must start speaking back as loudly and as clearly.
One of Robert's best essays.
I immediately emailed it to those on my family & friends JihadWatch e-mail list.
The unfortunate corollary of this is that as more and more "aid" is funneled to these groups and governments, in the hope of quelling the Islamist flame with money, all that is getting accomplished is that they have more money that they can give to their mujahideen.
I'm an atheist and I find it offensive when I see "art" depicting a Bible in urine or the Virgin Mary made of dung. But we live in a free society. As I've stated before, why more Christians and other theists fail to stand up for their religion and faith is beyond me. As I've also stated before, especially for Christians, they are more afraid of me the atheist than Muslim whackjobs who want you to convert or die. I guess it's better in their eyes to have a belief, even as misguided as Islam, than none at all. Just look at George Bush and his approach to anyone who believes....
PMK -- Just FYI, the photo that you saw of the clean Koran in the clean toilet was not a photo of the "crime scene" in question.
Hot Air or Michelle Malkin and LGF have links to some paperwork that describes the real one.
At some point there needs to be a massive public demonstration about the double standard that Islam is creating, and our officials who are aiding and abbeting, through hate crime laws, and thier 'unequal' protection under the law. Just marching somewhere wont get it. Thousands of people dunking thier own Qurans in public, would go a long way toward neutralizing this phenomena. Hooper wants to complain about one Quran in the outhouse, how about thousands. The American people need to wise up to this Islamic BS, and collusion by some officials. Large public demonstrations by those who have already wised up, will aid others in 'wiseing up'.
We need to demand the termination of employment, for any offical who promotes, advocates, or impliments a double standard in favor of Islam. This includes the Pace administration and, the police and DA, who bring these PC, dirty charges...
Thank you for this excellent article, Robert Spencer.
"Myths are things that never happened but always are." -Salustius.
And they're the hardest things to snake out of the system.
The time to demythologize Islam's claims- and its dismal dogmas- has finally come.
Flushed out by the Koran in a Can.
Defense for Shmulevich: "I never intended to insult any Muslims. I had no idea they would see it(the Koran)in the toilet. It was meant as a joke for us infidels alone. I saw no little piles with odd numbers of rocks. In fact, I saw no rocks at all. There was no indication that using that bathroom would adhere to the Sunnah."
Josephine,
I was misinformed. Thank you.
If the koran were worth even a smidgen more than the unfortunate paper it is printed on, these hateful, islamofascists would not have to work so hard to defend it. Or the so called ‘prophet’ Mohammed and his vengeful, rioting defenders who take to the streets each time his precarious 'dignity' is called into the least bit of question. Conversely: as neither Christianity nor it’s predecessor, Judaism, is faced with perpetuating such a contrivance as a ‘final prophet’, neither is in the least harmed when confronted with ‘piss Christs’ or ‘dung covered Torahs’ - revolting as these acts are. Not so with allah defenders who zealously guard the lie being perpetuated and thus the whole ‘religion’ is predicated upon whether its manual, the koran, is placed upon the top shelf of a book store or, in this case, the toilet.
Folks, without addressing the specifics of this case, I do believe the general issue is more complex than as has been characterized here.
A neo-nazi march is perfectly legal in this country. Getting one's house covered in random graffiti is vandalism. But what about a Jewish family's house getting swastikas spray-painted on it. Hate crime? I think we'd all be comfortable saying "yes."
Similarly, a public burning or shitting-upon of a Koran can't be a hate crime. But what about shitting on a Koran and leaving it on a Muslim family's doorstep? Hate crime?
I think these are the key differences to get clarity on... Maybe the point is that "hate crime" as a legal concept is hopeless, as Hitchens and Malkin have pointed out.
"We are unlikely as a society to become a place in which disrespect or even hatred of Christianity comes to be regarded as just as dangerous to the social order as disrespect or hatred of Islam..."
I suspect that for certain individuals (say those of the Christopher Hitchens variety), they would argue that hatred of Christianity and Judaism is a "good thing." And what needs to be done is to allow the open expression of hatred of Islam also (just as with anyone expressing hatred toward Christianity or Judaism does not face sanctions, so it should be with Islam). I believe this is Christopher Hitchens' position.
I personally don't buy the Hitchens' argument.
Like someone said, (PMK, was it?) Muslims claim that a translation of the Koran can not be considered as the authentic scripture. That is the argument they bring foreward against comments on the hateful texts in that book. Only the Arabic version of the Koran is the real thing, their holy scripture. Still, they say it is a hate crime to mistreat a translation.
It does not make sense, except to prove once more that the fight is not about religion at all, but about dominance. They expect us to be dhimmies, to treat their symbols with a reverence we do not show for our own. Our scriptures, our flags can be desecrated, theirs can not.
It is a stupid thing to destroy a library book - it was paid for by the taxpayers, after all. But to call it a hate crime ... Are they out of their senses in New York?
Greetings:
CAIR, and similar "protected victim group" advocates have an interesting psychological advantage that rewards their efforts at intimidation.
Behavioral science recognizes various categories of behavior, one of which is referred to as "avoidance" behavior. This is behavior where the an organism has learned to respond to a stimulus before it is delivered. In the classic example, a rat is put into a two section box with a light bulb and a metal grid floor in each section.
The subject is put into one section, the light is lit, and an electric shock is delivered to the section's grid. The rat quickly learns to leap to the other section when the light goes on and before the shock is delivered to the grid. The rat thus avoids the shock.
Avoidance behaviors are the most difficult to extinguish as the trained subject responds without the delivery of the noxious stimulus.
I believe this is the underlying behavioral advantage of victims advocacy groups. Most people prefer to avoid confrontation or fear of confrontation so they are trained, often subconciously, to avoid members of victims groups or to quickly yeild to their demands.
America, where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now?
We can't fight alone against this Monster.
As depressing as it is, I am convinced that JS is dead right on this.
This stuff is going to get worse.
Enormous and very aggressive effort will be needed to even slow it down.
The fifth columnists will be exploiting a deeply entrenched prejudice in the American mind-set. So they will have an easy time of it.
The resistance, by contrast must counter not only the absurd claims about mohammedan victimhood, but also the underlying prejudice that casts most of the world as victims of the allegedly terrible Americans, Christians and capitalists etc ...
Islam may be the spark that ends the ‘West’. The actual failure mechanism will be an electorate that has become dependent on a government that has made promises it can’t keep.
The question is what comes next. Looking at the Presidential candidates, we will definitely have a concentration of power for security purposes. Read the Communist Manifesto linked below, it is stunning how much the world has changed in just 160 years. I didn’t realize that Orwell’s 1984 was an update to Marx and Engels.
It is unlikely that a left-wing government will emerge because the diversity of the proletariat will prevent any cohesive movement. More likely a right-wing Dictatorship. With any luck, the military takes over and reinstates a Founding Fathers-type government.
Those working in Medicaid administration may be in trouble. Those who are productive members of society will be fine.
http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html
The Koran in the toilet appears to be the official Saudi one you can get FREE any time you show an interest. So much for destroying valuable property. I noticed local ultra-lefties in my college town befriending Muslim students who stuck them with Korans. The free ones usually have green and gold fake-cloth covers.
PMK -- You're welcome. ; )
I'd like to second what the poster "Maryrose" stated above-
"severe punishment, sometimes death, is the norm in Islamic countries for defacing or destroying the Koran."
There have been a number of reports on Jihadwatch dealing with alleged Koran desecrations in muslim-majority countries and the violence that followed- usually involving mobs whipped up by the local Islamic religious authorities.
The following link is a report detailing an alleged Koran-desecration and the mayhem that ensued which resulted in the mass destruction of Christian dwellings and houses of worship, and the ethnic-cleansing of 400 Christian families from the Sangla Hill district near Lahore, Pakistan in 2005.
http://www.franciscansinternational.org/news/article.php?id=928
Apparently, two muslims and a Christian were gambling one day in a park. It seems the Christian relieved them of 6000 rupees and insisted on keeping his winnings even after much cajoling and arm-twisting. Whereupon, one of the muslims ran to the town square and accused the Christian of desecrating a Koran.
Below is just a glimpse of what happened next-
"...people started to hear announcements from nearly every mosque loudspeaker informing every Muslim that a Christian had desecrated the Qur’an and that because of that Christian houses should be burnt and every visible Christian should be killed."
In light of such stories, this act of Stanislav Shmulevich should be seen as healthy and lawful protest. And as a response to our government's granting to Islam a Most Favoured Religion status, it could be seen as an act of civil disobedience.
I think this guy Shmulevich has a bright future. As a matter of fact, if I were Javier Solana, I'd probably nominate him to be the EU Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy.
Please do not contaminate our sewer systems with korans.
Why not cop an "insanity" defence?
You know...
"I read the Koran and OH MY GOD it says the most horrible things about ME and my family and my loved ones!!! It made me go crazy to read those threats of first-degree murder!
I will show you examples where the Koran threatens to kill me and my family, crucify us, cut our limbs off, if our actions offend muhammedans in any way. Yes it does sir! Here let me show you some examples..."
interestinly enough no one here has made the burning flag issue, hwile no religon is invovled many here know the high sacred value that is put upon our flags. and since in the USA we can burn our flag in public then why not any other form of desicration? In fact in my mind it is more dangerous to burn than drown a object.
the end point is: if i can burn the flag that happens to be held in high respect to some people in this world i can definatly burn(or drown) a random book that happens to be held in high respect to some people in this world.
Urinal Rage! Urinal Rage! Lets go on a rampage, burn embassies and kill some people!
Heresy, blasphemy, insulting the Madonna! Where is the outrage??!!
Kill kill kill!
http://sheikyermami.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/china_toilet.jpg
Urinal Rage! Urinal Rage!
Lets go on a rampage, burn embassies and kill some people!
Heresy, blasphemy, insulting the Madonna! Where is the outrage??!!
Kill kill kill!
http://sheikyermami.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/china_toilet.jpg
Someone help me out here. To whom should our warth over this injustice be directed?
I can understand the non-muslim defendant being charged - at worst - with petty theft of university property (the korans) and/or vandalizing university property (both are misdemeanors where I come from).
Who was RESPONSIBLE for the filing of FELONY charges? Was it solely the muslim cop (detective) that investigated the case...what's his name...Khan?
Who APPROVED the filing of felony chages against the non-muslim by the muslim cop? Was it the muslim cop's superior officer? Was it the NY District Attorney's Office? Was it both? The answers to these questions are not clear, but important nonetheless.
I want names and contact information on the idiots that gave their approval to the muslim cop charging the non-muslim with a felony hate crime. That's who I want to take to task in writing.
Another thing that is important: Any cop can charge any individual with a felony but it is up to the discretion of a GRAND JURY to okay such a charge. Has a grand jury convened and said...yeah...go ahead and charge the non-muslim with a felony hate crime because WE approve? Only a grand jury can say ...yeah...go ahead and charge this person in our name. When THAT happens it becomes a "felony indictment". It does not become "a felony indictment" simply because a muslim cop says it's a crime rising to the level of a felony.
Does anyone recall their civics class from high school? I think this is how it works. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
At the time of the Rushdie affair, a group of Muslims in Bradford made a great show of burning a copy of the Satanic Verses in public. Apparently they made a lot of money charging for rights to show film of the incident on newscasts around the world. While Rushdie's book was hardly a sacred text, its author was under a threat of death serious enough for the Brutish government to keep him in hiding for a lengthy period of time. Dramatic footage of someone's book being burned, meant to be broadcast as widely as possible, in such circumstances, was an inflammatory act designed to stir up hatred and violence - that was a real case of book destruction as a hate crime.
The book-burners were British citizens and partake in the political process in this country: the effect is to vitiate the entire system - and is degrading for the rest of the population who, in a democratic state, have to come to some sort of composure of differences with a sizeable minority population.
Kamala...In reality a crime is a crime. There are a jillion laws against jillions of types of crime.
Hate crimes open the door to every kind of abuse.
Not only that, but they are hard to prove. As in the case of the Jewish house you mentioned, maybe the culprits were teenagers thinking they were being funny. 'Hate' crimes are 'thought' crimes. The cost of repainting that house is the same cost, no matter what the culprit was thinking. What difference does it make what the man who shoots you is thinking when he shoots? No one really cares what we think, but they do care what we do. There are laws already in place to deal with any crimminal 'doings'. We dont need additional 'hate' laws to punish people for abberated thoughts, or unpopular ideas, that may or may not be in their heads when they commit the original crime.
The feds passed hate laws and its already out of hand. Soon, the same people will sponser a 'hurt someones feelings, go to jail, bill. These are 'gag orders' forced on the public to styfle decent, and are a slap on the face of free speech.
At least for the moment, the struggle against Jihad is really a struggle against our own PC culture. In the absence of a PC culture, it would be like the pre-WW II era--no more than a handful of Jihadists would dare to implement violence against a strong western nation.
I even view the war in Iraq primarily from the framework of how this influences the PC culture of the U.S. People here are learning lessons about Islam or at least forming impressions about Islam as a result of the U.S. military being in Iraq.
Defeat PC-thinking so we can push Jihad back into the shadows before it is too late.
Why is it that Americans can't seem to grasp the simple and obvious fact that "hate crime" laws are not intended to protect anyone's Constitutional rights. Just the opposite: they are intended to intimidate and punish persons harboring thoughts that are not approved by the ideologues and social progressives that dominate the cultural and political institutions of this country. And, at the same time, hate crime laws are intended to indorse other thoughts that, in their view, are the only ligitimately protected thoughts under our constitution.
By their very nature, Hate Crime laws will always be enforced selectively. Politically incorrect thoughts will be punished. Politically correct thought will never be punished, no matter how odious they might to other segments of society.
The case of Stanislav Shmulevich is a superd example of the selective enforcement of Hate Crime laws.
Mr. Shmulevich throws a Koran in a toilet, and is charged with intimidating Muslims on the Pace university campus. No one really believes that Muslims are intimidated, but they do know that Mr. Shmulevich doesn't like the Koran and its teachings, and is willing to demonstrate his dislike. The later is the the real reason he's being prosecuted. He's the one being intimidated into keeping his mouth shut and not expressing his thought on Islam.
If Mr. Shmulevich is guilty of intimidating Muslims by throwing a Koran in a toilet, then why aren't demonstrators who attend a KKK march and hurl insults and obcenities at KKK members, also charged with hate crimes for intimidating the KKK while in the process of exercising their constitutional rights? The answere is simple, the KKK doesn't think correct thoughts. The demonstrators do.
If someome throws a copy of Mein Kampf into a toilet bowl, isn't it prosecutable under hate crime laws? After all, those who share the same beliefs as Aldoph Hitler might feel intimidated by desecration of their sacred text, so why shouldn't their constitutional rights be protected? Same as above: Their thoughts are not officially approved, and therefore not protected under the constitution.
How many copies of "The truth about Mohammad" have been spit on, stomped on, thrown into toilets my Muslims, since its publication. If someone can identify an incident like these, can Robert Spencer prosecute under a hate crime law? After all, for those of us who have read the book, and consider it a sacred text, might very well feel intimidated. So can we prosecute?
The prosecution of Mr. Shmulevich is not an attempt to protect anyone's constitutional rights, nor are the plaintiffs interested in protecting Muslims from intimidation. They only recognize such rights and protections for those who they think deserve them.
What Pace university and the Muslim student council are doing is endorsing Islam as a respectable belief system, deserving the same respect as any other set of approved beliefs, and if it takes intimidation to force others to be silent about the true nature if Islam, than intimidation it will be.
Get rid of all hate crime laws!!!!!!!!!!
"Why is it that Americans can't seem to grasp the simple and obvious fact that "hate crime" laws are not intended to protect anyone's Constitutional rights"
WTF??? What do you think we're screaming about?
WTF??? What do you think we're screaming about?
atheling,
If enough people screamed when these laws were enacted, they wouldn't be on the books, and if enough people screamed now, they'd be recinded.
It's only a select few doing the screaming. The vast majority of Americans aren't saying a thing. They accept them as natural and normal.
Ridding your home of garbage is a hate crime?
'The Law is not justice'-
Australian talk show nutbag Richard Carlton has a meltdown with conservative radio jock and QC Peter Faris
http://sheikyermami.com/2007/08/01/the-law-is-not-justice-richard-carlton-meltdown-on-radio-2ue/
I personaly prefer we start with calling for our schools to treat islam as they do any other religion. In other words as unacceptable.
If muslims can't be taught the truth and facts about history then why are they here?
Why do we have to rewrite history and teach our children lies?
Our children are having crimes committed against them by thier schools daily.
In fact maybe thats why there are so many molestations and rapes in schools now days is because the people they employ and who can so easily lie about the facts of history,set double standards and so on.
Lieing to the children of all faiths and ethnicities to appease them is more hurtful than telling them the truth.How would they be able to see the errors of thier latter generations?
For Gods sake ours (the U.S. )is an open book,we take the lions share of the blame,we take the beating.Even for things we haven't done.
For what purpose do we teach lies?
To empower hateful and hurtful ideals?
We are breeding and teaching the next generations of self blamers.How many more generations will there be after those?
And that purpose was what again?
For what?
Hi All,
A few years ago, the New York State Board of Regents did some house cleaning at one of the private colleges in the State. The close business relationships between the school President and members of its Board of Trustees, and internal rancor, necessitated an intervention. The result was that a new Board was put in place. (I doubt the President lasted very long after that.)
Would it be possible for the NYS Board of Regents to independently look into the disturbing reactions of Pace University administration to this two-bit student prank? A review by the Board of the activities of the Pace administration may help clarify the nature of academic freedom for all of us.
The point is that Pace administration is answerable to higher authorities, whether they like it or not.
Magooey
Hi All,
And oh yes! Thanks to Robert for an excellent essay.
Despite all the protestations that the art of writing was in decay due to the advent of TV, we appear to be in the midst of a Renaissance of the Written Word. This is clearly due to the rise of the Essayists, such as Robert, Hugh, Fjordman, Malkin, and so many others.
Magooey
duh_swami,
A simplistic analysis, no? Thought always has been a part of criminal punishment. Punishment for manslaughter is not the same as punishment for 1st degree murder.
It is time that the concept of hate crimes be seens as what is really is, a concept that is only usefull in rare instances. In our modern squeamish legal culture in which a crime is not in an of itself seen as important enough to punish someone for. We have created a weasel category 'hate' crime. If I tie a man to my car and kill him by dragging him along the street, does it matter whether or not I hated him or not?
The Koran is in many ways a strange book, in my reading I find it as much ludicrous as hateful (I tend to read it in the voice of the great and wonderful oz which give it the right flavor). There is nothing criminal in seeing it as a hateful book and saying so. Unless the dumping of one in the can is a threat, I don't see how it can be a crime at all.
Kamala...since the thought is the father of the crime, and indeed all actions, other than relex, we can safely say, that some people are thinklng bad thoughts when they commit a crime. But we cant guarantee it, and it is difficult to prove. The whole subject is a slippery slope, which is why it should not be in law.
Manslaughter and first degree murder are two different crimes. Murder requires malice. Malice may or may not include hate, or anything spacific the murderer may have been thinking at the time. Your way of stating it sounds like all murders are hate crimes. If I shoot the clerk in a store robbery, or murder some people in a home invasion, I will get the same punishment I would recieve if I used racist terminology the whole time. Hate laws are useless except to keep lawyers paying their car and boat payments. Just strongly enforce the laws we already have.