Mark Steyn responds to his accusers. "In rebuttal: Squashing debate like mosquitoes," in the Calgary Herald (thanks to Kathy Shaidle):
They and their friends at the Canadian Islamic Congress are seemingly not interested in stimulating debate, but only in shutting it down, by making it more trouble than it's worth for editors to run articles on one of the central questions of the age: Islam's relationship with a dying West. In using quasi-judicial coercion to squash debate, they make one of the central points of my argument -- that a proportion of Islam is inimical to western traditions of freedom -- more eloquently than I ever could.
Ain't it the truth. Again and again and again and again I have seen jihadists and their allies charge me with all variety of evil thing, in order to compel people of good will to turn away from what I am saying. But never do they deign actually to refute what I am saying. They can't do that, in fact, so they try to shut me down instead, or claim that what I have written is "total BS," but refuse to explain how or why -- because we are all such evil folks we won't listen anyway.
Westerners who understand the need for and value of free speech need to stand up for and with Steyn and Savage and all the rest -- before it's too late, and we can't stand up for them, because we will be imprisoned or worse for doing so.
I thought it funny that their reaction to what Steyn said just supported Steyn's point so well.
and thanks should go to you, Mark Steyn and others for keeping up the good fight until the rest of the west awakes to what we face. I know just 2 years ago I was highly uneducated when it came to what Islam really is and I am still learning. Your sites and those of other highly respected educators and writers helped open my eyes.
"Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself"
-from an Eric Clapton song.
Come to think of it, there isn't a lot of introspection in the Qur'an.
Steyn points out that these suppressors of freedom of expression appear to hide behind two clueless human rights organizations who in many cases operate on a knee jerk level, jumping to the first person who cries foul or plays the victim game of which Muslims are masters at.
Steyn points out that their apparent chief complaint was from a comment that he attributes not to him but another Muslim ,Scandinavian Muslim, Mullah Krekar. However there came no debate but then 5 months later they come to complain to the magazine about what was written and seeking what else but money while trying to suppress debate or freedom of expression through every avenue but the legal system--what slime balls these suppressors are.
My my, the crapulous roots of Marxim and the coercion in operates on have plunged deep, and has now found, finally, its natural ally.
re "The imam . . . boasting at how Islam would outbreed Europe: 'We're the ones who will change you . . . Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes. Every western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same countries is producing 3.5 children.'"
Some time ago--it seems years, was it seven?--someone made a modest proposal as how to correct this imbalance. If I recall, it concerned not being sexist as regards the obliteration of the enemy, whenever appropriate. Not to flog a dead horse, nor to upset anyone again, the solution--that is, the modest proposal--dealt with how to keep the ratio from overwhelming the Free.
Loud, high screams from a Liberal European (sort of, he came from the East of that continent) brought swift vengeance on the proponent, who himself was far from modest, but whose proposal was as modest as that of Jonathan Swift of yore, but in a dead serious vein.
Still, it is something to keep in mind, to think about again and again, as the plague of mosquitoes becomes more and more unbearable.