What would happen if we heeded the Left’s claim that there is no terror threat? From FrontPage (news links in the original):
Abdullah Al-Muhajir, also known as Jose Padilla, was convicted on Thursday of supporting terrorist activity and, according to Associated Press, “conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim people overseas.” At the Leftist website Daily Kos, Padilla was hailed as an “American Martyr to ‘War on Terror,’” and his trial was compared to the witch hysteria: “As was the case during the witch trials of yesteryear, only the socially unpopular, the mentally ill, and the politically dangerous end up at the end of a noose or in yet another bonfire of political vanity.” The barely literate posting went on to complain that the case against Padilla “hinged on one piece of papar [sic]: an application with his fingerprints.” No mention was made of the fact that this “one piece of papar” happened to be an Al-Qaeda application.The Kos entry was just one small example of the Left’s tendency to see virtually all defensive efforts against the global jihad as manifestations of an encroaching Bushitler police state. Michael Moore said it a few years ago: “There is no terror threat in this country. This is a lie. It’s the biggest lie we have been told.” This has become conventional wisdom on the Left, coalescing neatly with a notable solicitude toward Islamic jihadists: one notorious example was radical feminist lawyer Lynne Stewart who became a water-carrier for the blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, now in prison for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The activities of various members of the “nonviolent” International Solidarity Movement have given rise to numerous questions about its ties to violent jihadists.
So what kind of a world will it be for Leftists who turn a blind eye to the jihad, if the jihadists achieve their objectives? Writing in the entertainment paper TimeOut London in June, TimeOut editor at large Michael Hodges imagined an Islamic London. London under Sharia law, Hodges wrote, would be healthier: “the Muslim act of prayer is designed to keep worshippers fit, their joints supple and, at five times a day, their stomachs trim.” It would be sober: “Forbid alcohol throughout the country, and you’d avoid many of the 22,000 alcohol-related deaths and the £7.3 billion national bill for alcohol-related crime and disorder each year.” It would also be ecologically sound, and Islamic education would raise “general levels of discipline and self-respect among London’s young people.”Meanwhile, “application of halal (Arabic for ‘permissable’) dietary laws across London would free us at a stroke from our addiction to junk food, and the general adoption of a south Asian diet rich in fruit juice, rice and vegetables with occasional mutton or chicken would have a drastic effect on obesity, hyperactivity, attention deficit disorders and associated public health problems.” Religious bigotry would disappear as Jews, Christians, and – probably -- Hindus became protected dhimmis under the benevolent rule of Islamic law.
Unfortunately for future dhimmis, however, and for like-minded liberals, Hodges left a few things out of his Islamic Leftist paradise. He didn’t mention that in exchange for the “protection” they would receive from their new Islamic overlords, religious minorities would have to accept a humiliating second-class status that institutionalized their humiliation and denied them equality of rights with Muslims in numerous ways – ensuring that they “feel themselves subdued” (Qur’an 9:29). Nor would life be any more comfortable for trendy liberal atheists.
An Islamized country in the West, meanwhile, would be filled with liberal bugaboos: prayer in schools; abortion made illegal (except, most likely, in cases involving the life of the mother); punishments (varyingly draconian) for homosexuals; and even legalized polygamy (Qur’an 4:3) and wife-beating (Qur’an 4:34). Freedom of speech would also probably disappear, at least where discussion of the elements of Islam that incite to violence are concerned -- but given their propensity to smear rather than answer their opponents, Leftists probably wouldn’t miss it much.
Nonetheless, there is no doubt that a world in which Jose Padilla’s activities continued unhindered, and the jihadists finally succeeded in imposing their will on the rest of us, would hardly be comfortable for liberals. Evidently they believe that there is no real challenge to the West from the Islamic world, and that Christianity (as I detail in my new book Religion of Peace?) represents the real theocracy threat to Western pluralism and non-sectarian government. The multiculturalist anti-Americanism from which this delusion springs may be more lethal to the American Republic in the short run than the jihad itself; but in the long run, the two threats coalesce quite easily.
Socialism is a mental disorder.
It is a cargo-cult mentality. In the belief that some kind of Santa Claus will come and distribute goodies amongst the poor and downtrodden. But most revolting is that the socialists are unashamedly accepting of dictatorship, of totalitarianism. Socialism is deeply rooted in envy, in the belief that a dictator like Castro, Chavez, Pol Pot or the likes of them would somehow re-distribute wealth (how exactly?) by driving the rich (or the middle class) from their homes, to summarily execute them, to make everybody equally poor and therefore ‘equal’-:
Well I have news for you: It failed.
The train left the station.
It failed before and it will not happen unless we let it.
But the imagined eradication of the ‘elites’ in the minds of the self-perceived underdogs reassures each and every one of them to be some kind of cigar-chomping Che Guevara, like some of the Pali-apes with an Ak-47, shooting holes in the air when not killing the ideological enemy. This is the 'dream' that keeps them alive, it is what assures them in their lunacy, and they hold on to their mental wankfest as if it was a tangible commodity.
Che is dead. Get over it!
"Abdullah Al-Muhajir, also known as Jose Padilla, was convicted on Thursday of supporting terrorist activity and, according to Associated Press, “conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim people overseas.”
....what is it that Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations strive to do?....oh yeah... "murder, kidnap and maim people overseas.”
...something the dhimmicrats, leftists, and assorted moonbats continue to ignore....
Ban Muslim Immigration...
What do ya expect from the "dailykook"?
They're part of the 5th columnists (or is that communists)...
Hmmm...they're the same ones who sponsored that yearlykook political rally masquerading as a "presidential" debate recently (which actually hurt the participants far more than it helped).
While most there are willful accomplices, some are just suicidally naive' and don't realize what suckers they've been, or just what they've allied themselves with...and won't...until it's too late for them. Just more proof,
hedonism breeds narcissism,
untreated narcissism breeds paranoia,
untreated paranoia breeds schizophrenia,
untreated schizprenics with computers breed dailykook fans...
...and they're still allowed to VOTE...
God help us all!
lol
The extreme left think that they can use the Jihad for their own ends: to destroy their hysterically imagined "imperialist America".
Failing to see that the theocratic tyranny which they fear from the "Christian fundamentalists" will thereby be brought into existence by the actual theocratic tyranny (now in action for 1350 years under the crescent banner) whom they mistake for poor, Third World underdogs.
(As former members of this familiar anti-Western folly aided the Soviets... to attempt the same end.)
Luckily, that idiocy failed, but only because Communism was not clever enough to invent an afterlife (promise of posthumous Paradise) by which it could manipulate its victims into literally sacrificing themselves for the ideology.
Islam has promised its terrorists instant heaven. Making them absolutely irrational and unstoppable by any form of earthly argument.
Russia could collapse of its internal contradictions and worldly failings.
Islam can not.
The extreme left, if they were successful, would find themselves losing more than their illusions.
Heads would follow.
They attack their own guard dog to aid an idealized rabid wolf.
Dreaming that wolves are "more noble", but forgetting that they are also wild predators.
Both the Jihad and its delsuional Western enablers must be fought.
Both threaten our liberties and survival.
What the hell does the left stand for these days anyway? Take a look at the socialist mayor of Brussels! He refers to the SIOE demonstrators as 'criminals', you know a group of ordinary people who don't want their societies turned into divided, multicultural psuedo-islamic hell-holes.
Come on lefties, please explain yourselves, I'm willing to listen. I'll try to understand.
I still tend to believe that the TimeOut piece was Swift-style tongue in cheek. If not, if was a rare glimpse into what exactly constitutes the leftist wet dream. I never visit leftist sites, but I have never met anything but slippery evasion as to what exactly they dream of. Surely they meet the same people going on buses or at shopping malls, notice the growing number of burkhas and prams, notice the stories in the media relating to gang violence and rape, etc.? Don't they ever reflect on this as an indication of the kind of society in which they will grow old, and their children will grow up? How can one be so blind as to not only ignore the warning signs, but at the same time be so confident that things will turn out fine that they only want people like us to be silenced?
If we heeded the Left's notions that there is no terrorist threat the West would by now resemble the moon-lots of craters where once great cities stood thanks to the "peaceful" use of nuclear power by the religion of peace.
Earlier this year, a BBC survey on emigration attitudes found the number hoping to leave in the near future had doubled since 2003.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6210358.stm
The combination of universal voting rights, airplanes, and globlization will end liberal democracies. Wherever the productive are taxed to provide benefits to those unable or unwilling to provide for themselves; two things happen. The productive move to lower tax areas and the benefit seekers move to higher benefit areas. Everybody loses, but Islam and the Daily Kos bozos will lose more than most.
Robert, although I consider myself to subscribe to about 95% of everything that I read on your site, I have to quibble with you about this latest posting. Maybe I am a rare bird in these parts but I am a “leftist” (whatever that actually means) or perhaps to call myself a liberal democrat is more helpful, who agrees with the existential danger posed by Islam and jihad to our civilization. Clearly I don’t think the two thoughts are contradictory. Indeed, as many here have pointed out, if liberal policies are motivated by freedom (as I believe they are) then even the most cursory examination of what Islam decrees for our freedoms should make you shudder.
Having said that, here is my problem with your comments and other things that I often read here: we (the anti-jihad community) need to educate our fellow citizens, and stand together against this threat. Although I concede that there are morons on the left, who spout stupid stuff and some who are reflexively anti-American in their outlook, these people should not be equated with the left, as if it is some monolithic block with identical thoughts. Just like there are people on this website who post things that are stupid (forced expulsions of all Muslims in America, banning Islam, etc.), your hosting these opinions does not mean your endorsement of them. In a similar fashion we should be careful before we leap too far when we read a posting on the Daily Kos as reflective on all left leaning people.
Attack the idiots by all means, whether left or right, but don’t take the next step and generalize about the “left.” I feel strongly that I am on the same side as you, regardless of whatever differences we may have about politics. In the fight against the s, there was no Democratic or Republican position; it was a united country against a common foe. That is the outlook that we should be striving for.
esquared-
It should be "the extreme Left".
The regular "left" is too broad a critter for this brush.
The mere "left" may just want things like "universal health insurance" and a "living wage", while "the extreme Left" believes that "Bush is Hitler" and that "the Adminsitration engineered 9/11 as a fascist grab for permanent power to establish a right wing Christian fundmanentalist theocracy".
A Socratic definition of terms is always useful.
esquared,
Robert is referring to the far-left ideology, I believe, without being ultra descriptive in his writing. I do not believe Robert thinks in terms of Dem or Rep, for each party has its strengths and weaknesses in his opinion.
The far-left does not recognize, either through ignorance, whether it be honest, willful or both, the danger that Islam poses to the West.
There is no quibbling about that.
I have to force myself to visit sites like the Daily Kos and read the pure lunacy that prevails there, but it is imperative to understand the twisted minds on the far left. I will never figure out why the certifiably insane are allowed to remain free and untreated. They all appear to have the potential to go postal at any given moment, some more than others but they're all lunatics. They remind me of people in mental institutions who believe that they are perfectly normal and sane, and everyone else is crazy.
I suppose there are several reasons that some would defend terrorists like Padilla and deny the existence of a terrorist threat, but those who actually believe this crap are motivated first by their hatred for America. That hatred has to be there for these delusions to develop in the first place. They probably also hate themselves for being born American, so they become advocates for anyone who would attack and punish evil, imperialistic America. The vision these psychos have for this country is indeed frightening. I know that their destructive, irrational aspirations have already escaped the confines of their hate-mongering website and their confused, sick ethos because I see them pursued by people like Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and many other people in powerful positions. That is terrifying.
I wonder how many people sharing the Kos Kids' moonbat views died in the 9/11 attacks, or when Islamist terrorists hit London, Madrid, or Bali?
As for Michael Hodges' vision of London as a Muslim utopia... now you guys can see what we in Britain are up against. Our mainstream media is dominated by wealthy metropolitan liberals who live far away from Muslim dominated areas, and whose only contact with Islam comes in the form of the occasional Pakistani mini cab driver, Bangladeshi restaurant waiter, or else the latest fabulous Westernised Muslim musician or conceptual artist.
Glenn Greenwald is one of the left/DailyKos top thinkers and ideologists and here's his thinking on Islam. Like most leftists he's as superficial and glib though.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/08/13/simon/index.html
And this guy is taken seriously by the liberal blogosphere.
Along with DailyKos both will give a window into the mind of the hard left.
And you won't find anyone over there who will take anything that Spencer or Hugh says seriously. If anything they will label Spencer a xenophobe, islamophobe and all around bigot.
Greenwald is a top thinker all right. At the top of a a rotting pile of bovine fecal matter.
Whats amazing is that these top of the pile liberals, not only don't listen to knowledgeables like RS, but they don't listening to the loud mouth clerics either. They would rather listen to experts like Michael Moore. Both RS and the clerics tell the truth of Islams intentions, but the top leftists turn a deaf ear. They can't manufacture an agenda out of the truth. So like Islam, the left uses its own forms of taqiyya, to trick the public.
This guy is really off when he says that Sharia once instituted will apply mostly to gays ect. And Islam may very well take over in the US. Multiply, get the vote , elect congressmen and senators and presto Sharia law. Its the American way...soon to be replaced...
I'm amazed how so many in the Left ignore the realities of Islam. The denial of women's rights, the extermination of homosexuals, the lack of freedom of consience, the complete mixing of mosque and state and so many other things central to Islamic rule. Everything they falsely accuse us on the Right of being is standard operating procedure for Islam. Yet they defend Islam while attacking and defaming those trying to raise awareness of what Islam is really all about.
The Left is the Achilles heel of the Non-Muslim world.
Just as some of the posters here are without a shadow of a doubt right-wing nutjobs, some of those posters on KOS are without a doubt left-wing sanitarium candidates, but this does not make every registered democrat a "dhimmicrat". However, this GOP hubris is exactly the thing that is causing this huge left and middle-wing tidal wave to hit it in 2008. So, rethink your words before describing all dems as dhimmis. I am a dem and am in no way a dhimmi. So, get over it!
And don't forget, it is a right-wing administration that has utterly screwed up a war and has gotten into bed with Saudi Arabia, not the dems.
"So, rethink your words before describing all dems as dhimmis. I am a dem and am in no way a dhimmi. So, get over it!
And don't forget, it is a right-wing administration that has utterly screwed up a war and has gotten into bed with Saudi Arabia, not the dems."
Not all Dems are dhimmis, but the Democrat Party sure is acting that way. The Democrat Party is working hard to secure defeat and appease Islamic radicals. You may not be a dhimmi, but the party you support is.
And by the way, bonncaruso, Clinton and other Democratic presidents have laid in bed with the Saudis long before GW Bush and his gang did. This particular disease has affected both Dems and Repubs.
Leaders of both the Democratic and Republican parties share many of the same beliefs. 1.) Government is the solution, not a part of the problem. The more government the better 2.) Multiculturalism is going to be successful here, even though it has never been successful in the long term anywhere else. Just take this one on faith 3.) It is the responsibility of the United States to be the policeman for the world 4.) Globalization is good/Nationalism is bad. We are part of the global village and are responsible for trying to solve any problem any where. 5.) Unfettered immigration provides both cheap labor and a refreshing influx of intersting people who will prop up the ponzu scheme that is the Social Security system - obviously a win-win.
/that's ponzi scheme - Sorry can not type or spell.
These leftist slugs forget that it was a group of Christians who wrote and ratified the US Constitution. Certainly they don't want anybody to remember that little fact. It was Christians who finally erased slavery from North America. It was Christians who managed to bring their religion from the dark ages of stake burning and witchhunts. Can Islamic reformers ever do something similar?
So that I can keep this post balanced: On the down side it was Christians who crammed Prohibition down the collective throat of the population.
Islam is the Proof that the equation of Multi-Culturalism is wrong. The Left has a vested intrest to keep this fact unknown. Name calling has never been a way of winning a debate. Unless, of course, a fight is the intended outcome.
Communism never died when the Berlin wall fell. It just let a lot of people go to sleep while its name was changed. The Propaganda and dissinformation remained the same. Now we deal with progressives.
Utopia is a myth of the Totalitarian Mind, Minds that are really small, where room for facts and reality is non-exhistant.
What would happen if we listened to the leftists and their claim that there is no jihadist threat?
Probably the same thing that would have happened if we had listened to the left during the 1950s when they were claiming there was no Soviet Communist threat.
We would have gotten obliterated and North Americans would be speaking Russian. Updated that translates to North America being obliterated and repopulated with Islamozoids who speak Arabic.
Pelayo:
re: you queried in your post "Can Islamic reformers ever do something similar?"
The short answer is absolutely not. Islam is predicated on a (vastly) different moral paradigm from anyone else's and one in which the concepts of good and evil as we understand them do not exist. In fact, almost anyone outside the Islamic countries holds concepts of good and evil that are diametrically opposed to and irreconcileable with those of Islam.
Rendering Islam non-homicidal would involve a total transformation of Islamic theology and not just a mere reformation, as homicide is built into the foundations of Islamic law, whereas with Judeo-Christianism homicide is outlawed except in self-defense. (The Islamic deity 'al-lah' would find a non-homicidal form of Islam abhorrent).
It is therefore not possible to take the homicidal element out of Islam. This so-called 'religion' isn't referred to as the "death cult" for nothing!
TimeOut editor at large Michael Hodges imagined an Islamic London. London under Sharia law, Hodges wrote, would be healthier: “the Muslim act of prayer is designed to keep worshippers fit, their joints supple and, at five times a day, their stomachs trim.”
......................................................
This is simply beyond parody. Does this idiot think that Muslim prayer is some sort of stretching exercise--perhaps a form of yoga? The idea that a society is "healthier" under sharia is simply ludicrous--the "Muslim world" is seeing a resurgence of polio, high incidents of untreated AIDS, overall poor hygiene, and in many places women do not have access to health care of any kind, are beaten by their husbands and male relatives, suffer from the health affects of so-called "female circumcism"--genital mutilation. Things would be even worse were it not for the presence of Western aid workers. I could go on, but this should be self-evident.
More disturbing than this, though, is the writer's love of compulsion. He does not suggest that Londoners consider getting more exercise or eating better, but that they be *compelled* to do so.
I consider myself liberal in many ways--I believe in equal rights for minorities, women and gays. I believe strongly in the separation of church and state. I am a near First Amendment absolutist. I do realize that there is a great spectrum of political points of view on JW, and I respect that.
One thing I have *never* understood, though, is the strain on the extreme left that is very authoritarian--that excuses--no, embraces--brutal dictatorships like Stalin's USSR and Mao's cultural revolution. You find the same sorts today, apologists for Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro and even total nutjobs like Kim Sung-il. And, of course, extreme Islam.
How is it possible to honestly consider the modern West more repressive than these totalitarian societies? Don't these people realize that in many cases these "activists" would be the first to be persecuted under these regimes? And yet they continue to believe, or at least act as if they believe, that nothing could be more dangerous or repressive than Modern America under well-meaning but ineffective old W?
As much as they talk about doing away with all "repression" (indeed, all rules of any kind in many cases), there is a strain of longing for authoritarianism in the worst of them. They would have no problem with "feeling themselves subdued". You see this in the example of people like John Walker Lynn, raised in liberal Marin County. This is terribly dangerous to *anyone* who loves freedom.
The Left has always turned a blind eye to the honor killings and such in order to foster this "can't we all just get along" attitude. For them, it is worse to disturb the air of comfort and complacency than for men to stone a girl to death for being raped.
This hearkens back to the old story about the sheep, wolves, and sheepdog...
The sheep (most folks) are nervous with the presence of the sheepdogs (those who see the threat of Islamic imperialism) because a sheepdog's presence reminds them that there are wolves (Islamists) outside the pasture. If the sheepdogs leave or turn into sheep, the flock will not see the wolves coming until it's too late. Sometimes the sheep think the sheepdogs are provoking the wolves, but the only aim of the wolves is to eat the sheep - they will do whatever it takes to remove the sheepdogs so they can eat the sheep.
Gungnir, excellent post.
The metaphore of the sheep, sheepdogs and wolves is very apt.