Hamas-linked CAIR declares jihad against McDonald's

'THe Muslims could start their own business...."Mullah King" and hire all the Muslims they desire....'

Nice idea. And preferably in their own country, too.

I doubt if MacD are short of applicants for their jobs; and as far as I know they don't really need to give a reason for not accepting someone. They should take the route of saying, at the end of the interview, 'Thanks for applying, we'll be in touch' followed by the letter that simply says 'Sorry, we are unable to employ you at present.'

Some employers don't even both with the letter; they simply say that they have other applicants to see before they make a decision, and will be in touch only if they want to hire you.

@applebowl
Yeah, you guys are so cool, so multicultural.
Dr John Boersig , the Assistant Secretary of the Human Rights Branch even states publicly that the Government recognises the strong, positive contribution made to Australian cultural and public life by Muslims, and the peace and tolerance that is central to the observance of Islam.
How swell.
You appreciate them so much that you let them in by the boatload. On the boat from Indonesia they even call the Australian Navy by cell phone when they want to be picked up.
You progressives have the Lakemba Muslim girls soccer team from Sydney all covered up in hijabs. Must have been the positive message from that Australian Muslim cleric who claimed that women who do not wear the hijab are like 'uncovered meat'.
The food you eat in Australia is halal certified. From Bega cheese to Kit Kat bars and from Cadbury chocolate to Vegemite and the Federal Government is looking at the implementation of Sharia compliant finance in Australia.
Oi, you are so "progressive" there down under.
Progressing to the 7th century, back to the future.

Orwell's "Down and Out In London and Paris" was bad enough.

Examples of a particular kind of food preparation, by Muslims with non-Muslims in mind, have been discussed here:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/04/fecal-jihadist-gets-nine-years-print.html

@countrygirl
Ahhh
What would any good hot blooded muslim do?
Sue and screw of course!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1180561/Muslim-chef-refused-cook-sausages-bacon-police-breakfasts.html

I don't fear the hijab'd lady at the McDonald's so much as I fear what might come next. Will there be attempts to introduce halal food? Or, an attempt to create "halal only" franchises, as we've seen with KFC? Where the halal does it all end??

English is dying,
DefenderOfIslam is killing it.

(my new sig, with props to AlaskanInfidel for the inspiration!)

"Where the halal does it all end??"

That is a bus-worthy slogan, Eleanor!

I agree, Wellington; and reading your post reminds me of a time when my husband and I were invited to dinner by a muslim couple about 9 years ago -- LONG before I knew anything about muslims and islam. My husband met him through work, so we naively accepted their invitation to dinner. They invited us to a restaurant that we had never been to before where they served lots of lamb, including lamb BRAIN; something neither of us had eatten before. So they ordered the lamb brain, but it isn't called that on the menu, so we had no idea what they were ordering. Anyway, before the entrees came the wife asked us if we had ever eatten lamb brain before -- and I quickly said No, and that I had no desire to ever try it, thank you! My husband, however, was totally game, but then of course he'll eat anything: squid, oysters, you name it. But I did not care to try the "lamb brain", and I thought that I had made this perfectly clear to them.

Anyway ..long story short, the wife ended up tricking me into eatting it and I was horrified -- but they both thought that her tricking me was funny, and they actually broke out laughing right there in the restaurant. Well, hubby and I didn't think it was funny, and neither of us were laughing; and that was the LAST and only time we ever accepted an invitation to go to dinner with them.

I mean who does that? Who tricks someone into eatting something they don't WANT to eat? That was just so rude. But now that I've gotten to know the muslim culture a little better over the past 5 or 6 years, then that awful experience with that muslim couple makes complete sense to me now. Who does that sort of thing? Well, muslims do, of course. And to further your point, Wellington ..NO, I wouldn't want to eat anything served by a muslim either. No thank you. I do not trust them, not AT ALL.

Gee, thanks! It's really not me, though. It's all the COFFEE!! LOL ;)

Teena - You should realize that an Orthodox Jewish woman, or a Christian woman who wears a head covering, does so of their own free will. They do not have to worry about death threats and harassment for "immodesty ", if they choose not to.
As far as the McDonald s issue, this yet another example of an alien culture that refuse to assimilate into American society.
Recently, there was an issue about female Muslim doctors in the UK, who had an issue with exposing their ( GASP !) forearms while treating patients, infection control be damned.
Even in the 21st century with modern medical science, the 7th century is alive and well.

...a "McHijab" ..lol!

...yeah something with all the Ronald McDonald's characters printed on the fabric:

http://www.lizandlaura.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/mcdonalds-characters.jpg

A much younger Marisol than this once worked very briefly in a fast-food setting (if you're of a certain age in a certain town, I may have made you a sandwich).

I was required to wear my hair up, and wear a hat -- not my preferred look, but it's a dirty job with lots of hot oil, sharp objects, and of course a searing hot grill, in a relatively small space with lots of people racing around.

Hijabs enclose the face snugly, and cover the head, shoulders, and chest. Take all of the hazards and general ickiness of loose hair in this setting (if it didn't start the shift icky, it'll get there), and add the generally synthetic fabric of hijabs, and the safety and hygienic concerns should be obvious.

CAIR did a poorer job than usual in choosing its battles in this case. The high-profile opportunity to twist the arm of one of the most iconic American chains was clearly too much to resist.

"I have been in a lot of fast food places where employees wear hats and hair nets. Particularly in the case of the hat, I can see little difference from wearing a headscarf."
-------------------------------------------------------
There is a difference. The hats or hair nets you see employees wearing are part of the required uniform - supplied by the company, with the rest of the required uniform. Do you see employees at McDonald's swapping the required cap, for, say, a real pimpin' fedora? Or, how about a tricorn, with ostrich plume? Or maybe a ten-gallon cowboy hat? An Amish hat? Bandana? Shower cap?

The "religious" angle really makes me laugh. Islam does not require women to wear the hijab! Ask any Muslim if women are FORCED to wear it, and I assure you, they will fall all over themselves telling you that it's the woman's choice - that she wears it only because she loves the feeling of "respect" being covered gives her! It separates her from the sleezy kuffar women! Many Muslim women will tell you loudly that it's their "right" and "an honor" to wear it.

In fact, they protest too much... there are other factors involved, that help these women make the "correct decision" to cover.

It's true that Muslim women can choose not wear the hijab, but these women usually do change their minds, after overwhelming pressure and force that will make her realize very quickly that compliance is actually a lot better for her health.

Her decision, right?

"Should Orthodox Jewish men have to shave their beards? I think not."
---------------------------------------------------------
Well I think SO!
Yes, of course they should, if they want to work there. You have never seen a man with a long scraggly beard working at McDonald's, neither Jew, nor Muslim, nor ZZ Top, because it's not in accordance with the uniform or personal neatness code.

Bottom line - uniforms are required to work at McD's. That includes personal grooming, too.

This is just more whining from the Mo cult. It's what they do. I'm hating it.

"...99.9999% of the muslim woman in the america wear the headscraft willing and 0%..."

Let me guess, you learned percentages at the same place that taught you English, right?

I think that you missed the point of my last post. Why are we ( individuals, and corporations ), being forced to accommodate anyone's religious beliefs - whether it's clothing, shaving, etc ?
It seems pretty simple to me - this is the job, and here are the requirements.
If you do not like the jobs requirements, you are free to seek employment elsewhere. That is what I was told when I was a teenager, and had a hard time getting a haircut ( still do ! )
Now, why should McDonald's,or any entity, bow to her, when they would not bow to me ?

"I was required to wear my hair up, and wear a hat -- not my preferred look, but it's a dirty job with lots of hot oil, sharp objects, and of course a searing hot grill, in a relatively small space with lots of people racing around."

Marisol, I read this paragraph and I had a nasty flashback! You've described my McD's job environment(when I was 17) exactly :(

English is dying,
DefenderOfIslam is killing it.

Teena H Blackburn: I would cover my head all the time

Why?

Teena H Blackburn: I might remind you, however, that modesty and headcoverings are an ancient and respectable habit among Christian women as well.

Oh, so we're using the 'stupid repetition because that's what we've always done' or 'tradition' as an excuse.

Now, in your own words, if you're not so indoctrinated you are unable, why, do you wear what amounts to a disguise? I'm genuinely interested as it seems as sensible as throwing salt or crossing yourself.

Everyone, if you haven't already, please do take a look at the PDF link attached at the bottom of the original story. It's the CAIR provided "Employment Guide" for muslims. It explains everything that is "expected" of employers.

IMO it basically seeks to turn every business into a shari'a compliant workplace. NLOL :(

English is dying,
DefenderOfIslam is killing it.

Defenderofislam said:

"Huge and other poster who donot like the headscaft are just than bunch of bigot makeup excure for they bigotery. First the headscraft isnot than part of any uniform. 99.9999% of the muslim woman in the america wear the headscraft willing and 0% are threaten with force to wear it."

May I send you a dictionary? Or did you spill pop all over your keyboard?

Teena H. Blackburn : We accommodate people's religion for a lot of reasons-we are a country that guarantees religious freedom, and in some cases (not just Islam), religious belief entails a certain appearance.

Yes and it needs to stop. Make religion a personal choice, keep it to yourself in the privacy of your own home.

It's absolutely ridiculous that in 2010 we're still living by unsubstantiated fairy tales.

Again, why do you feel covering your head makes you more 'modest' than the next woman?

What's a "headscraft?" Can I make one out of cheese singles and call it a headsKraft?

Being a bigot against Islam is like being a bigot against Nazism. Understand and understand well that Islam is a totalitarian ideology that crushes freedom, disallows criticism of it, disallows true equality under the law, is replete with violent tendencies, is rampant with intolerance and overall is a very disgusting belief system. Every year more and more people come to despise it and with good reason. Moreover, do you have any idea how repulsive Mohammed is to millions upon millions who have studied his warped, perverted, fraudulent, violent life? One more thing: Try learning English better before posting here again. You're an embarrassment to yourself and, of course, you're clueless about this.

Champ, muslims need all the brains they can get but I'm with you, I couldn't eat offal. It is just repugnant to me.

McDonalds and all other U.S. employers should be aware of the innumerable problems associated with muslim employees by now. They all better wise up fast and avoid hiring muslims without any mention of dress codes, hijabs, beards, or islam. Employers don't have to give reasons for not hiring applicants and they're crazy if they think their company dress codes or sanitation rules will overrule a muslim's "religious freedom". The EEOC will rule in favor of muslims every time if it goes that far and not only will they ruin employee morale by being forced to hire a contemptuous muslim, they will be fined thousands of dollars for their alleged discrimination. Any way you look at it, muslims are not worth the trouble and expense they cause.

DefenderOfIslam:

Huge? Huge Fitzgerald? Or Rosie O'Donnell? I too like a donot, and we can get you some antibiotics for your "headscaft." I'll bet your scalp is itchy all the time, huh?

Some Catholics go to Seminary, but where to muslims go? The Bigotery!

99.9999% of than muslim woman in the america have the "headscraft."

Damn! Sounds like a whole world of "itch" ya got going there.

English is dying,
YOU are killing it.

"...muslims are not worth the trouble and expense they cause."

You are right, SusanP! No they are not worth the trouble they cause. And I have many more horror stories that I could share about that SAME muslim couple, because my husband had to work with him for over 4 years. They were horrible to be around, so that dinner out with them was only the beginning of other serious problems. They were the #1 reason WHY we sold our business!

Perfect -- you mean lamb brain is called "offal" ..yeah it was AWFUL alright, lol ...

Teena H. Blacburn:

Let's cut to the chase: The issue here is not a sartorial one. Recently I posted about my experiences with the Amish in my hometown in Pennsylvania. They dress very differently but they are people without an aggressive agenda, which makes their "differences" truly benign comapared to muslims.

Please understand: The "hijab" or veil or burqa is not offensive in and of itself, it is the aggressive, supremacist ideolgy that the "covering" represents that is the issue: That is the ENTIRE issue.

We can sit around all day and argue about whwhether or not coverings are appropriate in the workplace and whether or not we like them. And we can debate about whether or not they affect the work or are a safety issue, but we'd be missing the point entirely. Once again: The covering of a muslim woman, in and of itself, is NOT the issue. What that covering represents -- the Islamic Supremacist ideology -- is the issue.

English is dying,
DefenderOfIslam is killing it.

I'm now waiting for these.

Hugh, as an additional help to Mickey D's, why don't you and Robert volunteer to be expert witnesses and or advisors to their legal team?

Azov, I agree with you about TypePad. Intense Debate is far superior.

Anyone know why this site switched?

ID is far superior - **WHEN IT WORKS!!**

The problem JW had with ID was frequent lock-ups, missing posts, and other unacceptable bugs. ID was not able to remedy, so they went bye-bye.

Young Muslim girls and young Muslim women have been murdered in America by their Muslim male relatives simply because they wanted to dress more modern and to shed the Muslim garb...I submit that Muslim women wear the Muslim garb more out of fear than not....

Teena H.Blackburn sez:

" I can see why a woman couldn't wear a hijab and work in certain jobs (and I don't agree that a full body cover is necessary), but why knock the head-scarf? Sometimes valid criticism on this blog does just lapse over into prejudice."

There is a problem when Muslim women defy company dress codes and insist on wearing religious mandated garb....note that the Muslims who post here from time to time will tell you that the Qur'an has no mandatory rules for wearing Muslims garb...that it is a voluntary thing...By insisting on wearing Muslim Garb in all manner of employment where there are health and safety rules...i.e. fast food restaurants, hospitals, construction sites, hazardous areas and so on...not only does the Muslim garb construe potential health and safety issues but it is also an attempt to force their Islamic religion upon you...forcing to submit....which is the main reason they insist upon wearing the Muslim garb at all times and in all places...

Of course you can wear any head covering you choose, and if you are not a Muslim, you can safely know that your religion will not kill you if you don't...and Islam is the only religion where wearing the Muslim style garb in the workplace is an issue...

The issue is not the wearing of the garb, the issue is the underlying message and threats being delivered by the wearer of the Muslim garb...Islam thrives on threats...witness all the lawsuits and violence administered by Muslims when their people are either forced to abide by company dress codes or are not hired because they refuse to abide by company dress codes...

Muslim try to force you to submit to the rule of Islam in any way they can...the issue of the Muslim head garb in the workplace is just one of many ways the Muslims attempt to do this...

Are you sure you're not Muslim?..

I agree, ID had better features but was was a train wreck in terms oof missing posts, dropped posts, and so on. maybe it could never catch up to the intensity of this site. typepad works well,, just give it time after you hit submit button to post your reply. It will be posted.

I agree, ID had better features but was was a train wreck in terms oof missing posts, dropped posts, and so on. maybe it could never catch up to the intensity of this site. typepad works well,, just give it time after you hit submit button to post your reply. It will be posted.

"Teena H. Blackburn" writes:

I am asking the people who post here to be very clear about what they are protesting, and what the point really is, as opposed to just being nasty about people who look differently.

None of us, from what I can tell, and knowing most of the commenters well from often years of reading them, is "just being nasty about people who look differently". Thus "Teena H. Blackburn" managed to build her objections -- which has supposedly prompted her to enter this discussion in the first place -- on both a straw man and a red herring.

No, we are not "just being nasty about people who look differently". What we are expressing, in a variety of ways, reflects our knowledge of Islam, and of the Muslims who follow it; a knowledge based on the veritable mountain of data that Jihad Watch (and many other sources) provides -- an ever-growing mountain or volcano that would alarm, disgust and horrify (when it does not here and there arouse tears of laughter) any reasonable human being who assimilates it intelligently.

One part of that knowledge, that self-education we have had to embark upon over this last decade -- mainly because our academics, political representatives and news media have failed to do their job informing us -- that self-education that has opened up for us 1,001 details about Islam and about Muslims that all interweave into a diverse, yet coherent warp and woof of a texture that continues to cover, like a veil, the eyes of most Westerners in their myopia about the evil, the injustice and the dangers of Islam -- has been the fact that the hijab is not merely an innocuous cultural artifact of a particular "religion": it is an expression of the intolerant and violent supremacism of an ideology that is much more than a "religion". Islam is not merely a "religion" -- it is a totalitarian ideology that embraces everything in life and centrally, as part of that obsession with controlling everything, has a geopolitical blueprint for conquest by hook and/or by crook.

The hijab is one of the many supremacist flags of Islam, an overt symbolism of the intolerant hatred of us that is directly stated in the Koran and is repeated in their daily prayers, weekly sermons, and other demagogic harangues by clerics (not to mention Islamic media and the Internet itself). This particular symbolic "flag", the hijab, is related to the same xenophobia and misoxeny that motivates the Muslim ghazian and mujahideen and shuhada to become the front-line soldiers of Islam and try to mass-murder us and otherwise sow terror amongst us. This is why we object to the Islamo-jingoist ostentation of the hijab: not because we are "just being nasty about people who look differently".

"The hijab is one of the many supremacist flags of Islam, an overt symbolism of the intolerant hatred of us that is directly stated in the Koran and is repeated in their daily prayers, weekly sermons, and other demagogic harangues by clerics (not to mention Islamic media and the Internet itself). This particular symbolic "flag", the hijab, is related to the same xenophobia and misoxeny that motivates the Muslim ghazian and mujahideen and shuhada to become the front-line soldiers of Islam and try to mass-murder us and otherwise sow terror amongst us. This is why we object to the Islamo-jingoist ostentation of the hijab: not because we are 'just being nasty about people who look differently'."

Hear, hear, Hesp; and "Teena" is totally missing the point, perhaps intentionally. Good catch, btw :)

Thanks champ -- speaking of "flags", it's become a red flag for me whenever I see a new commenter anxious to raise the "other side" of the issue. Of course, it's not always wrong to call attention to all sides of an issue, but isn't it funny how these types of commenters usually seem to follow the same pattern? --

1. Their "other side" seems off-topic, unless their point is Tu Quoque, in which case it is no longer a legitimate "other side" of the issue.

2. When other commenters at JW object (invariably intelligently and maturely, unless the person gets nasty first) to various aspects of the apparent argument this person is bringing forth, this person then will do either of four things (sometimes in combinations):

a) misrepresent the positions of the objectors

b) fail to answer the more important questions and challenges, while fixating on less important ones

c) generate long-winded and multifarious comments that tend to have the effect of obfuscating the important points

d) degenerate into nasty insults (sometimes preceded by condescending arrogance).

3. At this point, especially after a few JW commenters respond with persuasive intelligence, the person does either of two things:

a) continues for many days, weeks, even months inundating the comments fields with more of the same useless crap from #2a-d (though usually only picking threads they think they can exploit and avoiding those threads which unmistakably shine a light on the malignant evil of Islam)

or

b) leaves in a huff because we're "not understanding" them and because we're simple-minded "bigots" and they don't want to waste their time with us, etc.

To Teena Blackburn --

Come back, little Sheba. Not everyone here is quite as ready as you assume to happily wave you forewell. For example, I would not be happy to see you go.

And here are two previous pieces about the difference between the Articles and the Comments, which are -- nota bene -- unmoderated.

#1.

Recently Jihad Watch has been embroiled in controversy over the comments field. Not only did CAIR try to trump up a case against me using not my words, but those of unmoderated commenters here, but also I have been receiving a series of emails complaining about various commenters who have been banned and various comments that have been erased, and others that have not been -- with the complaint made that we favor one side of an alleged debate.

That is, of course, false. Comments, as I have said many times, are unmoderated. Anyone is free to take whatever side and to disagree with or criticize me or Hugh, as anyone who reads the comments for an extended period can attest. One can easily find in the archives many, many dissenters from our positions and even apologists for violent jihad. And, pace CAIR, I have also said many times that comments that are abusive, genocidal, paint all Muslims with a broad brush, etc., are unwelcome. Off-topic rants, politically motivated baiting, etc., are unwelcome also.

However, as I actually spend my days tracking jihad activity and writing about it, I don't have time to monitor the comments. I remove posts that are brought to my attention. Since I don't see most comments and this is an unmoderated forum, no fair-minded person can draw any conclusions about what I believe from those that remain -- although I am aware that there are many people with agendas reading the site (Hi, Hussam! Hi, Ibrahim!).
Do we ban people with whom we disagree? As Hugh wrote to me this morning, "Then we'd have to ban everyone in the world, and then you'd have to ban me, and I'd have to ban you, and the page would be blank, blank, blank, beneath the blaze of noon."

Why do we continue to allow comments at all? Because we believe that the antidote to bad speech is more speech, and that a free and open discussion of issues relating to Islamic terrorism is needed now more than ever, and is increasingly difficult to come by.

Anyway, Hugh recently had an encounter with a commenter who represented himself as a Roman Catholic and parroted many lines, as longtime readers can see, of apologists for Islamic terror. Of course, he doubtless was who he said he was, as there are useful idiots in every camp, but in any case, after receiving many substantive replies, he responded indignantly that he thought this was a place for the free exchange of ideas, and stalked away. Hugh asked me to post his rejoinder as an article, and I am happy to oblige:

"I somehow mistakenly believed that this was a forum for trading ideas/facts/arguments back and forth." -- from a posting by a wounded and disillusioned poster here

You were mistaken. This is in the main a pedagogic site, with occasional time out for paronomastic play and musings on language. Postings cannot be patrolled, though egregious examples of a lack of decorum will be removed when brought to the attention of the bouncer in the back, the one chatting up the hat-check girl. That some choose to trade insults with one another, to crudely or rudely emote, or to bite at the proferred bait of those trolling invitingly for unwary fish in McElligot's Pool, is not part of the site's intent, is not encouraged, is actively discouraged. And not only by the bouncer and that fetching hat-check girl.

There are many sites where people can "trade," as you put it, "ideas/facts/arguments" -- in short, all that Internet equivalent of the late-night discussion of such fascinating freshman dorm-room topics as "Is there a God?" and "Free Will and Determinism" and "Why Bad Things Happen to Good People" and "Why Good Things Happen to Bad People," and "Whether Pigs Have Wings." These are sites where no one really rises beyond a certain level. The cretins come to dominate, because they have the most stamina, while the intelligent, if they ever showed up in the first place, often drop out dismayed. True equality in the Great Democracy of the Internet is as much to be deplored as Democracy and Equality in any school or classroom, from that of the first-grade teacher in the hopelessly progressive school who has his charges vote on whether the next unit should be on dinosaurs or on Greek mythology, to the college teacher who glows as he tells you about how his students acquire the "Learning Experience" and complacently assures you that "I don't teach my students -- my students teach me. I learn so much from them."

Give me the sober atmosphere of the series of lectures on "Our Debt to Antiquity," delivered in 1903 by Dr. Zielinski of the University of St. Petersburg to the highest classes of that city's secondary schools, or Professor Nikolai Trubetzkoy in 1934 delivering lectures on Slavic phonology at the University of Vienna, or Dr. Yuri Lotman in 1977, in his Tartu exile, speaking on "Literature and Literariness in Pushkin" to rapt listeners who had arrived by train from Moscow and even Siberia in order to hear him speak. In each case, however passionately divine the icy intellect, human warmth heaved behind the glinting glasses. And a perfect internal thermostat, to be adjusted as needed, between that human and that divine. No nonsense, no sentimental "democracy in the classroom" or "learning" through trading of "ideas/facts/arguments," no voting by students as to whether they'd like to build models of a Triceratops this month or would prefer to draw pictures of Hercules killing the Erymanthian Boar. Spare us, please, all that yearning for earnest freshman-year exchanges of "ideas" and "arguments" -- as you optimistically call them.

There are many websites where you can engage, ad libitum, in those Yankee-swapmeets of "ideas/facts/arguments" in which you express such an interest. Your own postings offered little in the way of fact, or cogent argument, so one wonders. Exaggerated attention was given to such matters as the religious affiliation of your best friend, and the ethnic and religious identification of those to whom you are related by marriage, and you took great care to identify yourself (who cares?), more than once, as a "Roman Catholic." All of these inconsequential details -- conservative Jewish best friend, Lebanese Christian in-laws, Roman Catholic faith -- are apparently supposed to place your youth-wants-to-know disingenuous apologetics for Islam, no matter how lame or inane, as beyond criticism, because of that best friend who davens, that sister-in-law who cooks such fabulous kibbeh, and your own unforgettable if largely forgotten memorizing of the Baltimore Catechism when you were a kid and what you really wanted was to watch the Baltimore Colts on television. You have been semaphoring that not only are you most definitely not a Muslim (who cares?) but that you are surrounded by those who are most definitely not Muslims either, and that it must follow, therefore... -- therefore, what must follow?

At those thousands of sites where you can trade "ideas/facts/arguments" with the like-minded or unlike-minded, the kind of thing you have offered by way of ex-ungue-leonem sample would fit right in. And at the same sites, at no extra charge, you may exchange thoughts and feelings with others about what you think and especially what you feel, to your heart's content.

This site is not one of them.

[Posted by Hugh on November 12, 2005]

#2.
Fitzgerald: Call Us Prudes (Two Notes on Verbal Decorum)
We are trying to retain the comments section, and have increased policing efforts, although comments still remain largely unmoderated. The usual caveats still apply: no one can assume that we endorse any particular comment because it remains on the page.

Nevertheless, we are doing what we can to make this a cleaner, better-lighted place for rational discussion. This requires the elimination of trolls intent on distracting the unwary. This further requires that free-and-easy-riders be asked to dismount from their hobbyhorses and tether them firmly to the bollard outside the saloon’s swinging doors. And finally, this requires that posters be urged to heed the rules of verbal decorum.
Two examples of the problem were discussed recently in the comments section by Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald, and we thought it useful to post them as a separate article here so as to drive the point home more firmly:

1. "the strong comments of this Bish..." (in reference to the Melkite Archbishop)

Once upon a time, and a very good time it was, nicens little boys not only did not refer to a Bishop as "this Bish," but if in doubt when writing or addressing a letter to a high-ranking cleric of a particular church, they would ask their mothers on what page of Emily Post's Book of Etiquette could be found the precisely proper mode of salutation to be employed, for all kinds of excellencies and highnesses. And their mothers would tell them, and they would look, and they would learn. Never would it have occurred to those nicens little boys to refer to a Bishop, whether Melkite or Nestorian or Roman Catholic, as a "Bish."

Would Evelyn Waugh, or a dashing Englishwoman trying to track down the exact place in Ethiopia from which Pushkin's great-grandfather might have come, after having been granted an audience with the Abuna of the Ethiopian Coptic Church (not to be confused with the Coptic Church of Egypt), in a letter intended for a friend still at home, back in Blighty, on Primrose Hill, in Hampstead, in old Londinium, have scribbled such a phrase as "I met with the Bish today"? Of course not.

2. "did Vice Pres Cheney put the shit in there himself…” (in a posting here)

Some may remember George Carlin's "Seven Little Words You Can Never Say on Television" routine, and the banning of that routine by the FCC, and the resulting case which went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Court affirmed a lower court's upholding the constitutionality of the FCC's banning words that it considered "patently offensive."
It would be good, since such "patently offensive words" seldom convince, and always lower the tone, if attempts were made to suppress the urge to use them at this website.
If you wish, you can smuggle all kinds of things in through a poker-faced pun, so as not to outwardly disturb public morals.

An example from a comment posted in October 2005, commenting on some magazine’s listing of the "20 Most Important Intellectuals":

"No Tariq Ramadan? No Cornel West? No Jeffery Sachs? This list is not nearly as completely 100% awful as it should be; the presence of Umberto Eco at #2 throws one off.
But nothing takes the cake like having Thomas Friedman, the man who uses his fingers to "make" "quotation" "mark" "signs" "around"

"words" when he talks, on any list of "intellectuals."
The world is flat, famously says eager never-doubting-for-a-minute Thomas Friedman. Platitudes, plongitudes.
Le monde est bien plat. Quant à l'autre, sornettes. Put that in your pipe (ceci n'est pas une pipe, as the dissatisfied customer complained loudly to the management of the maison close on rue Chabanais), you compilers of such idiotic lists -- and smoke it."

One of those Seven Little Words hovers hidden amid the smoke (but not the mirrors, which remain demurely inside the maison close) of the last sentence. Those who came across that posting, would thus not have been offended by that hard to discern, smoke-wreathed wraith. A matter of phrasing. A matter of tact.

The failure to observe the rules of verbal decorum could drive away visitors. In the past such a problem would not have arisen. The line between the seemly and the unseemly, le cru et le cuit, would have been clearly demarcated. But unseemly language can now be encountered at every stratum of society. It can be heard in the speech of the grasping stock market racketeer in his home office, next to his home gym, in New Canaan, Connecticut. It can be heard in the lecture of the tie-less, suit-less, sock-less professor on Morningside Heights who, wishing to demonstrate to his students just how with-it he can be, delivers himself of phrases that fail to impress, his crude quotes left to haunt him when they appear, unexpunged and unexpungable, in the next edition of the Student Guide to Professors.

Unseemliness can even be detected on the lips of the non-native speaker of English. Just imagine a well-bred and fetching French agronomist, winsome and wayward, deeply involved in an irrumation project in Mentula, Mississippi, who has learned from the locals to reproduce an expression the meaning of which she, in her innocence, does not fully grasp. Under the circumstances, one would naturally forgive her lapses of langue and parole.
In order to keep the site presentable and accounted for, one has to be a little less forgiving here.

As the raspy-voiced referee with the cigar stub jammed in the side of his mouth always says in the old movies, just before the opening bell sounds to signal the first round of the bout in Madison Square Garden: Got that, boys? Just make sure you keep things clean. No hitting below the belt. Now get out there and fight.

[Posted by Hugh on March 18, 2006]

I have read over all the posts to you on this thread and your posts too and can only conclude that you are somewhat touchy. If what I read above bothers you, I can't imagine your reaction when things really heat up here at Jihad Watch. There is a very well tacitly understood rule at JW and that is that no quarter is asked for and no quarter given. Come back if you wish but develop a thicker skin. Much serious discussion goes on at this site and it has proven to be an invaluable learning tool for folks all over the world. You have, I would maintain, significantly underestimated the value of Jihad Watch for combatting Islam's supremacist designs. Folks like Eleanor, pulsar 182, Question_Everything and champ engage in spirited debate, not mere insult. There is a difference you know. You actually made some valid points, some of which I agree with and some of which I don't, but know full well that this is a site where the meek should not visit.

It isn't fundamentally about the clothing. It is about moslem use of countless seemingly minor issues like this as a concerted suopremacist jihad. You have to draw a line in the sand at some point.

Teena H. Blackburn writes:

I'm not putting forth a red herring-I teach philosophy, thank you very much. If you noticed, I'm not even suggesting that CAIR (which I despise) is right to sue McD's. I used the issue of headcovering per se to bring up an observation that I have had about this blog. I will repeat, I have read people on this blog who ridicule appearance, separate from morally problematic actions. I have read people who name-call and suggest getting up in the faces of Muslims and asking them why they dress the way they do. I see a ridicule that often has nothing to do with the real problem, which is that Islam can justify attacking non-believers, which it can and does.

The red herring involves taking out of context all those comments which Blackburn describes as being ostensibly separate from that context. And that context is what I already articulated at length in my previous post replying to Teena H. Blackburn, who prejudicially assumes that those particular comments she objects to are not connected to the knowledge those particular commenters have been, to their growing horror, learning about Islam -- including the precisely pertinent piece of knowledge about the hijab inextricably partaking of, and promoting, the very same intolerant, unjust and evil supremacism that is endangering us all more and more.

And then comes from Teena H. Blackburn the obligatory "not all Muslims are bad therefore ________ (fill in the logical fallacy of your choice)":

However, no matter how vile a system of belief may be, anyone who knows Muslims knows that all Muslims do not follow the logical conclusions of their faith (thank God), that many of them are as nominal as many Christians (a good thing for us that they are).

"all Muslims do not follow the logical conclusions of their faith"

Not all could still mean hundreds of millions do. Even a few million, with the obsessive fanaticism we have already seen from innumerable terrorists, could wreak horrific mayhem and mass-murder upon our societies. If we could tell with sufficient reliability which ones are dangerous and which are harmless, this would be less of a problem than it is. But we have no way to tell, sufficiently for the purposes of our #1 priority -- the safety of our societies. And the reason why our ability to tell that difference is so impaired, Blackburn should know by now. It involves numerous factors, including:

1. Taqiyya
2. The experience Western societies have had of innumerable "moderate Muslims" turning out later to have been extremist all along, but pretending not to be; or of Muslims who without our knowing it begin to get "more religious" and go down a path toward terrorism.
3. The sociological phenomenon among Muslims to tend to "circle the wagons" to protect fellow Muslims, which can lead to such behaviors as not telling authorities about suspicious Muslims in their midst (the London police have been having many problems with this since the Tube bombing); agitating for grievances about non-existent "backlash" against them rather than coming out to criticize the extremists among them; participating in the general atmospherics of promoting lies about Islam and denying anything bad about Islam when challenged; the enabling of terrorist networks in many ways that do not require actual perpetrating of violence -- such as allowing one's nephew Rasheed to hold late-night meetings with his "friends" in the back of the uncle's store and to receive mysterious packages in the mail, and never to ask questions or alert the police; etc.

"many of them are as nominal as many Christians"

How many? As many? Only a person who has not been assimilating the mountain of data from around the world about the behaviors of Muslims -- cartoon riots,
mass demonstrations in various cities in favor of killing a writer for blasphemy, polls that indicate extremely high numbers of fanaticism (e.g., over 70% of Pakistani Muslims favor the death penalty for blasphemy), violence all over the world --

from the Philippines to Morroco,
from Moscow to New York City,
from Argentina (yep, Argentina: two suicide bombings in the 80s and 90s) to London,
from Madrid to Jerusalem,
from Nigeria to Mumbai,
from Norway to Turkey,
from Jerusalem to Amsterdam,
from Bali to Texas --

(and everything I've listed is just the tip of the ghastly iceberg not only in the 21st century, but in the last 14 centuries straight back to the man all Muslims revere the most in all the world, that caravan-robbing mass-murdering sex-slave-owning supremacist imperialist, Mohammed) --

i.e., only a person who has been living in a cave for the last decade could proffer the bromide that "many of them are as nominal as many Christians" as though that helps to countervail the mountain of horrible and alarming data about Muslims.

Mary Esterhammer-Fic (another fascinating name!) writes:

Hijab is not religiously mandated. It is a cultural preference. The only dress code imposed by the Qur'an is that women cover their breasts and dress modestly--modesty is wholly subjective.

How long will people keep claiming that Muslims only follow the Koran? The vast majority of Muslims world-wide also follow the Sunnah (including the sayings of Mohammed preserved in the Hadiths) -- and the Sunnah is therefore part of their religion. Hijab therefore is religiously mandated for Muslims, because it is in the Sunnah.

Thus Mary Esterhammer-Fic's illiteracy about Islam leads her to that very popular mechanism by which to explain Islamic extremism:

I have watched hijab become politicized over the past decade.

Ah, the problem is only a recent manifestation of "politicization"! Probably caused by the West "meddling" and "interfering" in the Muslim world over the decades post-Colonially, and for centuries Colonially!

No: the problem is Islam, the whole Islam, and nothing but Islam.

Hugh writes:

There is one category of Muslim women -- very different from the ingrid-mattsons or any Western convert -- who may wear the headscarf out of simple unthinking custom. Think of village women in Somalia, say, or parts of Afghanistan -- or those who end up, their faces dulled by the lives they lead as semi-chattel at home, who perhaps appear in public (say, as checkers or baggers at a chi-chi and ostentatiously "diverse" Whole Foods, where the clientele, it is felt, tends to like, tends to silently congratulate itself, on such things). They are not making a statement, but merely conforming to custom.

1. Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing, with reliability sufficient for our #1 purpose -- the safety of our societies -- of telling the difference between these two categories.

2. Even the category of women who are merely unthinkingly conforming to custom are, by doing so, helping to aggrandize the Islamo-jingoism of their more consciously supremacist sisters and brothers.

3. Finally, the very distinction Hugh makes, if translated into attitudes in our heads and/or concrete policies in our societies, has the effect of enabling the stealth jihad, by reinforcing the notion that innumerable multitudes of Muslims exist who are probably harmless. (See #1 for the problem with this)

Stuart Parsons : I am certainly no supporter of Islam,

Riiiiight.......

but I cannot see what objection McDonalds would have to a Hijab......

Then you didn't read or failed to understand the article and comments here.

...unless there is some health, safty or hygeine reasons. Please let us not take a page out of Islam's book and become totally intolerant

Epic Fail.

The hijab represents in microcosm a supremacist ideology that, if it had its way, would destroy Western notions of freedom and equality under the law. What if someone wanted to wear a swastika as an employee of McDonalad's? Would you also say we should tolerate that? If not, then how exactly in your opinion does Nazism differ from Islam, other than singling out non-believers as worthy of death or pure second-class status rather than ethnic groups?

Wake up. Islam is a totalitarian ideology as much as Marxism and fascism are (see Winston Churchill's and Bertrand Russell's assessments for confirmation of this) and a free society does not have to be so tolerant that it is prepared to lose its freedom in the name of tolerance. Islam is evil. Grasp this and everything else falls into place. Don't grasp this and you are doomed to remain in the dark.

Great comment, NikTorn.

Does it boil down to : "their word against mine"? Oi, are we more "progressive" here down under? LOL!

More like more gutless...

islam is a lie and
Truth is killing it.

Same old crap we've heard over and over. You won't be missed one bit.
Another one of you will pop up and spout the same crap.

islam is a lie and
Truth is killing it.

Hugh, did you read that "I went there ONCE?" Once was enough.

I may return and order a sandwich with triple bacon and a side of bacon fries, just for fun.

Hugh raises food for thought that makes the impatient pause. Still, I have a nagging feeling that a discussion padded with euphemistic circumlocution seems curiously un-adult, particularly about matters of sociopolitical import. For us to maintain an artful and gingerly dance in our concern lest we might step on the hypersensitive toes of our interlocutors strikes me as lowering a vital sociopolitical issue down to the level of discourse of the kinds of white lies one feels obliged out of politeness to parlay in order to avoid hurt feelings. Not only that, it seems to me those whom we feel we have to "feed with milk, and not with meat, for hitherto they were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able" more often than not are highly suspicious even of the milk they are given. Daniel Pipes sweetens his message with milk-sugar considerably more than nearly any other Islam-critic, and yet it seems he is suspected of bigotry by the lactose-intolerant approximately as much as the stronger critics. I think these PC MCs who by and large remain suspicious are only detecting the logic of the criticism -- namely, that a criticism based on a condemnation of Islam cannot remain suspended in a Geertian "Islam is bad, but I have nothing against Muslims" or its many variants, such as "some Muslims are dangerous, other Muslims are not". Once the genie of condemning Islam comes out of the bottle, one has only two choices:

1) condemn all Muslims who support and enable Islam

2) find a way to persuasively argue that most Muslims don't follow Islam.

#2 is of course a variant, on our side, of the Bush Doctrine of the Tiny Minority of Extremists.

Being irrationally hypersensitive about defending Muslims as the PC MCs are, however, if we use any language that hints of veering toward #1 rather than #2, they will leap upon it as implying #1. Even this may not be enough for many PC MCs, for their logic mandates a principle of in fact defending Islam itself, since so many ostensibly good and decent Muslims seem to love Islam so much and since it obviously seems to be an important part of their cultural life. To impugn Islam is to impugn Muslims. It seems on one level silly to keep up a charade where we pretend that we are not in fact impugning Muslims.

Teena is a college student in Kentucky and is probably having her little head filled with the usual liberal crap that fills our institutes of higher learning.
She is a victim of the muslim PR program and just needs to be educated.
Being a good Christian has an entirely different meaning to her than to you or I.
She is young and might be able to get past the BS she is fed on a daily basis.
She jus' doan know squat about islam and is trying to be, what she thinks is a good Christian.

islam is a lie and
Truth is killing it.

"Islam has no place in America. PERIOD!"

Right on. Agree 100%. Islam is destroying America - just as it has destroyed every other place it invades.

For example, the formerly Judeo-Christian Middle East. Utterly destroyed. Now an Islamic hell-hole. Except Israel.

"This is my last post because you guys are just ridiculous."

Yay! This is our lucky day!!! Bu-Bye!

Teena

IF you are who and what you say you are (and do please bear in mind that, in this forum, for obvious reasons, namely, the bloody example of Theo Van Gogh lying dead in the sunlight on a street in Amsterdam for having had the temerity to help an ex-Muslim woman make a short film critical of Islam, people do not necessarily use their real identities, and also, that we have had a lot of experience with Mohammedans who pretend to be what they ain't, exploiting the unique possibilities of the online nom de plume) I advise you to learn a little more.

Start with the film whose making cost Mr Van Gogh his life: Ayaan Hirsi Ali's 'Submission'. Watch it. Take it seriously: a man was murdered because he made it. Ayaan used to be a Muslim. She experienced Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and life within the Muslim 'community' in Ethiopia and Kenya, before defecting to the West and, ultimately, apostasising from Islam.

Then read her book 'Infidel'. Pay particular attention to her description of the Muslim Brotherhood revivalist - female - who brainwashed her into wearing the abaya; and then, also, to Ayaan's hilarious description of how a group of Ethiopian Christian refugee girls, in the Netherlands, managed to undo that programming, persuading her - little by little - to shed the slave rag and, along with it, much that was, frankly, irrational and destructive.

Read Marjane Satrapi's 'Persepolis' and watch the film. See what that book, and that film, tell you about the female slave rag, in Islam.

Read Geraldine Brooks, 'Nine Parts of Desire', the chapter entitled 'the holy veil'. Look at how much coercion is involved in getting Muslim women to adopt more and more strict forms of covering. There are no inherent 'brakes' in the process that begins with a hooded slave in the oh-so-innocent nun's wimple-like headscarf and finishes with a masked slave, covered from head to foot in black, even her eyes hidden behind a screen of mesh.

And, last but not least, read Wafa Sultan, 'A God Who Hates', and Nonie Darwish, on sharia, 'Cruel and Usual Punishment'.

Darwish makes the point that in Arabic - the Arabic of the Qur'an, as also in modern everyday Arabic - the word commonly used for 'woman' is linguistically, in terms of its connotations, equivalent to the four-letter English word that begins with c and ends with t. She explains that in the thought-world that informs Islam - and sharia is Islam, and Islam is sharia - a woman's entire body, her entire self, is visualised as, basically, nothing but 'c--t', an exposed genital area; which is *why* she is totally covered up.

Her *face*, her hair, her hands, everything she is, is... c**t.

It's not about 'modesty' as we understand it. It is about the sharia-driven male contempt for, and absolute control over, women.

A woman in Islam is a slave, an owned object: her condition of being c**t, the absolute property of this or that Mohammedan man or men, is signified by the slave rag, whether she wears it as a hood or as a mask. Indirectly, that slave rag indicates the Islamic system which intends to reduce ALL women to slaves.

If she takes it off, refuses to wear it, in a Western land, she may be killed by a sharia-enforcer, because the act of taking it off (unless she has chosen to identify with Jihad and has temporarily doffed her slave rag, her Ummah badge, in order to lull Infidel sensibilities) can be interpreted by her male 'owners' as potential or actual rebellion against sharia and Islam, i.e. apostasy, for which the penalty is death.

Hesperado:
"Once the genie of condemning Islam comes out of the bottle, one has only two choices:

1) condemn all Muslims who support and enable Islam

2) find a way to persuasively argue that most Muslims don't follow Islam."

Your condensed logic. I see the sence in it. It is great! You also rightly say that the PCMC-people do NOT accept or see through any Pipesian or Geertian distinction between being against Islam but not against (all) Muslims or even all Islam.

My idea of our prime purpose is to let democratic rules and values win sufficiently over Islamic rules and values in a worldwide way. And THEN when that is succeeding to provide safety in society, from those who now only are just another variant of criminals, no longer capable of coup d'etats so to speak. And I speculate that we, the democratically minded people, do this, by looking and organising ourselves worldwide, in a pro-democratic worldwide group, union. Looking only with a local or national focus gives the enemy Ummah the advantage, as it keeps us democratic humans terribly divided.

But otherwise maybe I and others merely differ from you in strategy. Maybe if you just let Wilders et al make some headway in their quest to get Islam, say "indicted", as a totalitarian ideology, in opposition to democracy in democratic countries, blockading democracy in Islamic countries.

To let them make it accepted that it may be an extreme view to "demonize" Islam, "tar all Muslims with the same brush", but it is also an extreme view to exonerate and protect Islam at all costs. With all sorts of alternative causes for bad behavior which could very well be motivated by Islam. We could argue to the PCMC's or "neutrals" that the truth lies in the middle of these 2 extremes. That it is sensible to build up a huge knowledge about both Islam and Democracy to come to a responsible conclusion and that conclusion may well be that: At least in part and in potential Islam has a very dictatorial and detrimental influence.

Once the PCMC's are forced to THAT conclusion, by more & more people who can see the reasonableness of it we can begin to take to task ALL MUSLIMS and their accountability by following a potential totalitarian, anti-democratic ideology, even if only a part of it is that.

In sum; we need time, intermediate steps, for more influence and knowledge and clarity about the positions of both democratically and Islamically minded people on state-organisation worldwide. Everything now is too unclear for all-out campaigning.