Another American against the Ground Zero mega-mosque. "If We Were Really Who They Say We are, We Would All be Liberals," transcript of the Rush Limbaugh Show, July 27 (thanks to Anne Crockett):
Let's take, at face value, the template that the partisan political hacks spew at me. I am, according to them, anti-women's rights. Equal rights for women is no concern of mine, right? I'm the guy that came up with the name "feminazi." I'm not a friend of women's rights, they say. If that were true, I would be pushing for the mosque at Ground Zero. If I were anti-women's rights, I would be all for Sharia law. Sharia law is a not-so-stealth way to undermine women's rights in this country. It would be a perfect cause if I was who they say I am.Anti-women's rights is a cause of the left. That's who's pushing Sharia in this country: The left. It's the left that wants a mosque at Ground Zero. It's left who thinks "America's chickensssss came home to roost" on 9/11. It's the American left that thinks we got what we deserved on 9/11. It's the American left that wants the mosque at Ground Zero. No one can be pro-women's rights and remain silent about the metastasizing cancer that Sharia law is on women's rights.
Not a fan of Limbaugh, but he's on the mark here.
I don't think these left vs. right polemics are going to get us anywhere. I wish people would just cut it out and focus on the issues.
I saw an item on Megyn Kelly's "America Live" on Fox News yesterday that said that Newt Gingrich was giving a speech at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in which I believe he went further than most politicians in saying that (in my words) it is not just fundamentalist/radical islam that is the threat to us but that being a political, economic, social and a judiciary system, that islam itself was a challenge to our way of life.
I don't know, I was busy and didn't get whole of it but I think it is streamed here:
http://www.american.com/archive/2010/july/america-at-risk-camus-national-security-and-afghanistan
Is there a transcript somewhere? Can't access the video on my computer at the mo.
The phrase "women's rights" stands for not only the freedom of women, but also a lot of moral corruption in the West, such as abortion. However very few in the West are willing to take a hard look at anything with that label. The result is a defense of "women's rights" which is just as dogmatic and inflexible as a Wahabi defense of Sharia.
Yusef, you are amongst the informed on these pages and your scant defence of Shariah based on one issue of abortion is risible.
We don't honour kill our women. That's a good start, wouldn't you agree?
Here is a statement by Newt:
http://www.torenewamerica.com/gingrich-ground-zero-mosque
He seems to be pulling no punches.
Thanks for that Jimmy Bones. Yes, he has said some right words about the Ground Zero mosque. I've seen his interviews on that.
But yesterday in his speech to the AEI he went much further and knocked on the door of islam itself.
In the link I gave above, I can see him (intermittently) but no sound – computer/slow speed broadband (I am in the UK after all) playing up.
I'm dying for a transcript before the thing gets pulled down.
Let us never forget that human sacrifice and ritual murder are integral aspects of Islam, and this 'mosque' abomination at Ground Zero is in reality a Satanic sacrament celebrating the mass burnt offering of kuffars to Allah (aka Moloch).
Newt is not the only one speaking out.
Rep. Peter King (R. NY) the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee weighed in on the Ground Zero mosque.
CNSNews Service
From the article:
"I think we should investigate the imam who is going to be at that mosque,” King said. “He is portrayed as being a moderate, a bridge builder. The fact is he was on television after 9/11 saying the U.S. brought this on themselves.
"To me, there are enough questions here. If those questions are raised, examined and explored, you could build up enough public opinion to stop the mosque,” said King.
bhigr,
You can't fight the anti-Jihad without an honest exposition of Left-wing complicity in the growing Islamization and dhimmitude of the West. Multiculturalism and political-correctness are the principle mechanisms ushering in this tragic process,...and they are without a doubt Left-wing constructs.
If you happen to be a Lefty, I confidently predict that over time, you will either abandon the anti-Jihad...or abandon the Left. The two have become mutually exclusive.
YusefYK mentions the west unwillingness to address "women's rights".....What about "womens rights" under Islam?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OCGUwZmrCM
It is fine to criticize political correctness and naive multiculturalism. But it is not right to insinuate that "the left" - no matter who is meant - are against women rights. It is not right to insinuate that "the left" are for shariah law. A single self proclaimed liberal - so called left - proves this wrong. Check out
Sam Harris: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCKPccOqTa8
We must unite against this threat and this kind of branding is absolutely counterproductive. Most so called liberals wont listen if they are attacked in this manner. Don't put a potential ally into the enemies camp. You wont persuade them in this manner. Do you want to persuade liberals or do you want them as allies?
Rush is than drug addit who abuse painkiller. He said on his racist show lock up drug addit and throw away the key when are they going to lock up and throw away the key on this low life drug addit.
Well, it's about time.
I only listen to him here and there (he get's on my nerves after a while). In my own opinion, Rush (along with many other popular hosts) has been VERY LATE in voicing that this is not a peaceful religion, and that Islam's main cause is world domination and Sharia law - - - especially in the West.
When people would bring up the subject early on, I noticed he evaded the premise and only discuss terrorist attacks. I could never understand it . . . it's not as if people haven't called him a bigot, racist, and drug addict before, so why would he hesitate in voicing the truth?
I guess better late than never.
I am on Mr. Gingrich's mailing list. I got a copy of his full remarks. He wrote in part:
"Radical Islamism is more than simply a religious belief. It is a comprehensive political, economic, and religious movement that seeks to impose sharia--Islamic law--upon all aspects of global society."
"Many Muslims see sharia as simply a reference point for their personal code of conduct. They recognize the distinction between their personal beliefs and the laws that govern all people of all faiths."
Like Daniel Pipes and others, Gingrich makes a distinction between "Islamism" and true or authentic Islam, in which "many Muslims see sharia as simply a reference point for their personal code of conduct" rather than an all encompassing code that applies universally, throughout time, to all peoples, both Muslim and non-Muslim alike; one "that seeks to impose sharia--Islamic law--upon all aspects of global society." For Gingrich, it is not simply Islamism but "radical" Islamism that is the problem. Gingrich believes authentic Muslims "recognize a distinction between their personal beliefs and the laws that govern all people of all faiths."
I am not convinced Gingrich is right in his assessment of Islam or Muslims in general.
Defender, you need to take a course in basic English or resort to using a grammar checker. As it stands now, your writing matches the level of your ideas.
Islam has always been at war with the US. Its only after 9-11, that 50% of the US population realizes it. Unfortunately, I suspect many liberals welcome it.
Here is my proof:
In a joint message to their superiors in Congress, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson described the audacity of these terrorist attacks, pirates leaping onto defenseless ships with daggers clenched in their teeth.
They had asked the ambassador from Tripoli, Adams and Jefferson explained, on what grounds these outrageous acts of unbridled savagery could be justified: "The Ambassador answered us that it was founded on the laws of the prophet, that it was written in their koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their [islams] authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners...."
This event occurred between 1784-1789 while Jefferson was ambassador to France and Adams (2nd president) was ambassador to England.
-- From AMERICAN SPHINX The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph J. Ellis
PS Rush is a Great American Patriot.
I think it was Pamela Geller who said, All muslims are moderate, until they aren't.
Like the moderate muslim in Buffalo, NY, who started a moderate islamic TV station to show New Yorkers how moderate islam is. Then one day, he decapitated his wife because she wanted a divorce.
You wrote: "Not a fan of Limbaugh, but he's on the mark here."
While this is a positive step, Rush Limbaugh lost much credibility - as well as my confidence in him - during the post 911 years of the George W. Bush administration. Limbaugh carried water for Bush even as President Bush repeatedly lied about Islam and Israel; egregiously so. I believe this complicity on the part of Limbaugh and other prominent conservatives is in large part responsible for this nightmare we've got in the White House.
'''Most so called liberals wont listen if they are attacked in this manner. Don't put a potential ally into the enemies camp. You wont persuade them in this manner. Do you want to persuade liberals or do you want them as allies?'''
I have never been able to convince a liberal of much of anything, and I'm not sure I want them as allies...If it 'bothers' them to be accurately described...too bad...A little self examination would help, but they are highly resistive to that...I would never trust a liberal with my money or my wife, which at the moment I have neither so I am safe...
I got link to a NY Times piece entitled: "Tennessee Official Says Islam May Be a ‘Cult’
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/tennessee-official-says-islam-may-be-a-cult/
The imam of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, TN, Ossama Bahloul, posted a reassuring statement, that read in part:
"We believe in Islam, the message of peace toward all of mankind. We look to all people in our community as our neighbors that we love and care about. We are against any kind of violence, emotional, physical or any other kind. We believe that all people are equal regardless of their gender, financial situation or the color of their skin. It is also part of our religion to obey the Constitution of the U.S.A. and to respect the laws of the land we life in....."
I wrote my ACT chapter member the following answer to Imam Ossama Bahloul:
I have a simple couple of questions for Imam Osama Bahloul or any other Muslim (male or female) who claims: "We believe in Islam, the message of peace toward all of mankind....we are against any kind of violence," etc.
These are the questions. What does he think about Israel and the Jewish people's right to all of the land of Israel, according to the covenant God made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? Does he support the Jewish peoples right to this tiny piece of land and does he support Israel's right to self defense in the face of on going Islamic (jihad) terror? If he questions the Jewish peoples right to the land of Israel (any part of it) and / or if he questions Israel right to defend herself, he or she is not a peaceful Muslim.
I have learned over the years, having read and spoken to several Muslims, there is no better question that will 'cut to the chase' than a question about Israel. There is no other issue that will bring out a Muslim's true feelings than Israel, the land of Israel and Israel's Jews.
Nonetheless, Cornelius makes a sound point. The twin idiocies of political correctness and multiculturalism are the creations of the Modern Left. Yes, by cultural osmosis they have infected some conservative thinking, but in almost every instance where Islamic barbarism is attempted to be understood as evidence of socio-econmic deprivation, this explanation being a ludicrous one, it's the Left which drives this nonsense, the video you provided notwithstanding.
As Whittaker Chambers observed long ago, modern liberalism is a prescription for Western suicide. Prescient prediction I would argue. The Modern Left (not to be confused with old-fashion liberalism) has been only too prepared to throw the baby out with the bath water, regularly trashing tradition and fostering a victim-oriented mentality (which feeds very nicely into excuse making for Muslims). Personally speaking, it has been my overwhelming experience that those who continue to make excuses for Islamic terrorism are invariably liberals and not conservatives. The vast portion of the continued stupidity about Islam is driven by Leftthink I would argue.
@wildjew
Many thanks for you help.
Yes, reading your precis, I'd concur with you that there is a shorfall in his understanding of the problem vis-a-vis Islam and Muslims in general.
Cheers!
I agree with your sentiment. Every "liberal" Congressman and Congresswoman who supports President Obama and his agenda, I've got to view as my (political) enemy and vote them out of office this coming November. I cannot afford to waste my vote on a third party candidate that has no chance of success. I must vote for Republicans who will oppose this dangerous man in the White House, even moderate Republicans. There is no room for compromise. There is no alliance with an enemy.
Hi bhigr
I'm an old-style (Kennedy-Humphrey) liberal Democrat. I don't listen to talk radio. But I think that you are wrong in defending "the left". Cornelius is correct in his assessment.
The fact that you and I and Sam Harris are anti-Sharia and against the Islamification of the West does not prove your argument.
Neither is it proved by the fact that there are conservatives such as Grover Norquist who are on the other side.
These examples are what are called outliers. In the aggregate, it IS "the Left" that is opening our society to Sharia, and who shout down those of us who wish to defend it.
This low life drug addit at leest nose how tu spreel...And he nose how tu torn on tha sprel chekar...
Since you have been told numrerous times to turn on your spell checker, I think you sprell like dat on paproose as an atenshun geting Mekkanism...
I concur with Cornelius. It is predominantly the modern liberal thought indicative of the left that is aiding and abetting Islam...starting with the current Ham-Hander-In-Chief himself.
From above...the modern liberal thought indicative of the left that is aiding and abetting Islam...
And the root cause of that...self loathing and guilt...
People who suffer from this 'mental illness' should never be in charge of much of anything...
If you'd like to know what a regular Muslim thinks of Sharia, this is it:
I think many of the laws themselves are beneficial to society as a whole. This include prohibition of alcholic beverages and the illegality of zina (sex outside of marriage) which is two large contentious issues for Westerners.
However, if it comes to punishment, most Muslims I know have the view that presecribed punishment in the Hadith or Koran is the upper limit. Allah (SWT) shows great mercy to humans, and humans should show great mercy to other humans as well.
For example, a Sharia court could under that system, proscribe mutilation for the offense of theft, but almost certainly would not, instead proscribation of a retribution fine and maybe time in jails.
There's too much to describe so I will wait for a thread about Sharia law to discuss some more.
Oh about "defenderofislam", I am 95% certain he is trolling. He often uses idioms and rhetorical devices, in this case " lock up and throw away the key ", but then spells wrong simple words like "addict." It is highly unlikely for him to know such idioms and then have such poor grammar and spelling. Sometimes my students have the same problem if they copy something off the internet - a good phrase as an island surrounded by poor grammar. It seems obvious.
Maybe Rush, Newt, and other conservatives are beginning to see the truth about islam from sites like this and people like R.S., Pam, and others. This is a very hopeful signs that the repubs may actually turn out to be our allies in pushing back the tide of islamisim. We just have to convince them that Islam itself needs to be opposed not just radical islam.
"Maybe Rush, Newt, and other conservatives are beginning to see the truth about islam from sites like this and people like R.S., Pam, and others."
Yes, and the general population. But, unfortunately I think it's going to take a few more mass-murder Islamic Jihads before any real and well-deserved backlash against Islam/Muzlims occurs.
You miss the point. What's germane is not that Sharia dictates are often not carried out. Such dictates (e.g., amputation or requiring a woman to produce at least four male witnesses to substantiate a rape charge) shouldn't exist in the first place.
... it IS "the Left" that is opening our society to Sharia, and who shout down those of us who wish to defend it.
Well, if "the Left" includes you as you say, then this assertion is wrong. Because - as you say - you don't support shariah. q.e.d.
Thanks Hermit. Often I wonder if there is a shortfall in his understanding of Islam or outright fear of Muslims. How can a man like Limbaugh plead ignorance on such an important and relevant subject as Islam, particularly in today's dangerous world?
"...it IS "the Left" that is opening our society to Sharia, and who shout down those of us who wish to defend it...."
One more remark, wasn't it Mr. Bush who branded Islam as the religion of peace? Wasn't it the conservative bishop of canterbury, the leader of the anglican shurch, who stood up for shariah courts in Britain? What about the tory leader of Britain promoting turkey membership in the EU? ... There are many conservatives who are also naively or willfully promoting the spread of Islam in the west.
Another reason why this is untrue.
Why should it be so unthinkable {if NON-U.S. people, unaided by the U.S. are responsible for 911} that a few of the U.S.'s chickens came home to roost. Right, Left, Issues, anyone who has even a clue as to what the U.S. has been up to for the past 100 years can't have deluded themselves into thinking that the impunity would never end.
The so-called War on Terror cannot be won by the U.S., and the War Without End which America and her dupes are both prosecuting AND trying to extend to Iran and North Korea, possibly even Syria will be the doom of America, not a few teenage Palestinians with boom vests.
WAKE UP PEOPLE, you can't fight THIS fire with more fire. There are over a BILLION Muslims in the world, MILLIONS of whom were born and raised right here in the good ole U S A. The US does business and is allied with PLENTY of nations which represent Ideas opposed to ours, and even with Islamic Nations, so the rabble rousing about "deport them all" "Nuke them all" is just vitriol, why not bend your collective minds toward a more practical solution?
And, if there isn't one which allows the US to continue it's current course, oh well! Why should we be different from any other civilization? Change is the only constant in nature, no?
Manifest Destiny, indeed!
Allah Bless America!
"I would never trust a liberal with my money or my wife, which at the moment I have neither so I am safe..."
lol
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
-Kipling
"Well, if "the Left" includes you as you say"
But I didn't say that. I said I'm an old-style liberal. The modern left would see me as someone it left behind on it's march to Utopia.
My argument stands
No sir, you are now redefining the meaning of words. In this context, in American politics, liberal is identified with the left. And it is not only you, I could point out to numerous so called liberals or leftist who reject shariah law. Therefore, saying that "the left" is for shariah law is false.
Oh, shut-up - We know you're a Truther Islam-loving Nutjob.
I brought this same issue up in a "multicultural" course I am required to take for my BSN. I have been an RN almost 20 yrs but I am trying to finish.This particular college BSN completion degree is very strong in multiculturalism. I bought this up to my professor when she said " Muslim Women in America should NOT be banned from wearing the Burka" I also think she shrugged when I bought up honor killings. This professor has silenced students with intimidating looks and comments. I spoke up ! daring her to kick me out or fail me because I am against Sharia Law!
I said ,didn't America fight for Women's rights? Isn't that what they stand for!! Why are we allowing and supporting the abuse of Women here? The class was so quiet and shocked that I had went against this professor. She congratulated me for speaking my mind, later the students whispered their support to me! If I was younger I might have been brainwashed by her view. I can't change colleges , I can't speak out against so many multicultural classes that are required but I will speak when I feel I am right!
You wrote: "The US does business and is allied with PLENTY of nations which represent Ideas opposed to ours, and even with Islamic Nations, so the rabble rousing about "deport them all" "Nuke them all" is just vitriol, why not bend your collective minds toward a more practical solution?"
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
What is a more practical solution?
I don't give a damn that there are a billion Satan worshipping, sharia loving, Islamic snakes in the world. I just don't want their venomous selves spewing their Islamic poison here in the west. We will fight every attempt to impose sharia or build their temples of Satan worship or any imposition of the Islamic lifestyle.
Why would the make believe Allah bless the USA? I don't want its blessing. It can go bless all the Islamic hell holes that really need to be blessed by it.
I don't give a damn that there are a billion Satan worshipping, sharia loving, Islamic snakes in the world. I just don't want their venomous selves spewing their Islamic poison here in the west. We will fight every attempt to impose sharia or build their temples of Satan worship or any imposition of the Islamic lifestyle.
Why would the make believe Allah bless the USA? I don't want its blessing. It can go bless all the Islamic hell holes that really need to be blessed by it.
"in American politics, liberal is identified with the left". This is not universal. Certainly among political operatives and among the mindless media it is true though.
Remember too, by the original "classical" definition of liberalism, nearly all Americans are liberals - though by this definition liberals who engage in PC/MC and who support sharia in some way are not liberals at all. I consider the current definition to be a debasement.
The meanings of words do get redefined with time. I am doing nothing wrong to point this out, or to express my unhappiness this a stifled political language.
or to express my unhappiness with a stifled political language
"in American politics, liberal is identified with the left". This is not universal. Certainly among political operatives and among the mindless media it is true though.
Remember too, by the original "classical" definition of liberalism, nearly all Americans are liberals - though by this definition liberals who engage in PC/MC and who support sharia in some way are not liberals at all. I consider the current definition to be a debasement.
The meanings of words do get redefined with time. I am doing nothing wrong to point this out, or to express my unhappiness this a stifled political language."
Oh, I completely agree with this analysis of traditional liberalism. The founding fathers Washington, Jefferson,... were liberals. The American constitution is based on the liberal ideas, mainly Locke, Montesquieu,...
But, we are talking about the journalist Mr. Rush. When he talks about "the left" he means everybody who is not a conservative Republican.
"But, we are talking about the journalist Mr. Rush. When he talks about "the left" he means everybody who is not a conservative Republican."
So this is what this is about? Rush is partisan, so therefore we have to be? When I have read comments from Rush or other commentators (including the defunct Air America) I find I agree with the substance of some comments and disagree with others. Their politics won't matter in a hundred years. It is the substance of their views that will matter.
BTW, Rush is no journalist. He is a highly informed entertainer.
Echoing the first comment above by Allah Snackbar, I, too, am not a fan of Rush (big transmit button always stuck in the "on" position, small receive button), but he is on the mark about Shariah and I am glad to see him devoting time discussing it on his radio show. Considering that just a few years ago virtually no one even knew what this word meant but now it is the subject of public discussion, I consider this progress.
Cornelius, in his reply to bighr, is correct in his assessment of the complicity of the Left in fashioning the politically correct, multicultural environment and its accompanying narrative in which Islamic supremacism finds refuge and can thrive. I am continually amazed at the intellectual contortions apologists go through in making excuses for Islamic violations of modern concepts of human rights. Quite often the excuses are expressed in abstract terms of imaginary or artificial moral equivalence/tu quoque constructs involving some aspect of Western culture, particularly Christianity. But a growing and more sophisticated understanding about Islam that goes beyond the childish Religion of Peace mantra is slowly seeping into the public consciousness. The Left is increasingly being forced to confront the practical consequences of the naive application of policies fashioned around the PC/MC paradigm. Bighr, I hope you understand who the intended target is here.
The term "liberal" as used today means "progressive". "Progressives" have been in lock step with socialists, communists, and Islamic societies for a very long time. It is good to see the debate regarding Jihadists and militant Islamists going mainstream with big league players in the conservative media. Robert needs the help and I am sure he will provide excellent direction for the big league conservative media players. Conservative media players are not normally too PC or arrogant to use common sense and listen to the folks. They will learn to listen to Robert (and Pamela) because Robert (and Pamela) are right. That's what the folks want.
Yusef YK,
"For example, a Sharia court could under that system, proscribe mutilation for the offense of theft, but almost certainly would not, instead proscribation of a retribution fine and maybe time in jails."
We have a system that does that already. It's called American justice, it is derived from the Constitution. And we don't need Islamic shari'a to figure out what's just.
Also..."proscribation"? "retribution fine" and "jails"? You were saying about your students?
And what do you have to prove that such sharia laws is "beneficial"? What did your "prophet" and his band of hoodlums achieve with his "laws" other than murder and mayhem? None of these state enforced sharia laws have had any effect on the human mind and heart. Even your prophet lusted after his adopted daughter in law. Did his laws teach him self control or true piety?
Adultery still happens in sharia enforced societies which is why we hear of all these stonings and canings.
"So this is what this is about? Rush is partisan, so therefore we have to be? "
No, why are you putting words into my mouth?
This is the title of the article by Mr. Rush limbaugh: "If We Were Really Who They Say We are, We Would All be LIBERALS"
Here are some more quotes:
"The LEFT is closer to the politics of NAZIS than I will ever be.... Here is a LEFTIST LIBERAL, a person who believes that people should be treated differently according to their gender, the color of their skin, and their religion."
"That's why if I was the person they say I am, I would be a LIBERAL. If you, as a CONSERVATIVE, believed what they say you believe -- if you were the person they say you are -- we would all be among THEM. We would all be LIBERALS."
Anybody familiar with the standard American political discourse knows that liberals and leftist are considered synonymous. Conservatism (the right) is regarded as the opposite of liberalim (the left). Mr. Limbaugh has this same understanding just like anybody else.
Here is an analogy as is see it:
Suppose we are back in school. We have two parents who we love and who love us. Let's call them [lamely] Conrad and Libby.
Libby has an addiction, which is endangering the family. The problem is we can't admit it. We tell the counselor at school that "our parents have an addiction". Sure, Conrad is no angel, he likes to kick back a few beers and talks a bit too much about money [OK, lots of stereotyping]. And his younger brother Uncle Rush is always spouting off, right or not. But it is Libby who has the addiction which causes her to associate with some truly dangerous people.
Telling the truth is not an attack on Libby, though it feels that way. Telling the truth is the only way to start a recovery.
Modern liberalism is addicted to the PC/MC drug; it is sick, and it is not partisan to say so. It is the truth. We have to speak the truth.
Allah (SWT) shows great mercy to humans, and humans should show great mercy to other humans as well.
I agree with the second part, but could you explain just how Allah (SWT) shows great mercy to anyone? I looked everywhere for Allah's great mercy, upstairs, downstairs, in the back of the fridge, I even looked under the rug in case someone swept it there...I couldn't find it...Can you tell me where Allah hid it?
"Modern liberalism is addicted to the PC/MC drug; it is sick, and it is not partisan to say so. It is the truth. We have to speak the truth."
We are not talking about modern liberalism, whatever that is supposed to mean. We are talking about the left as opposed to the conservatives according to Mr. Limbaugh.
"No, why are you putting words into my mouth?"
My apologies, I didn't mean to. It's just that you have an animosity towards Rush that I don't share. In fact, I truly dislike only about three or four people across the political spectrum, and none are in media or the national government.
They are all lawyers, though.
WAKE UP PEOPLE, you can't fight THIS fire with more fire. There are over a BILLION Muslims in the world...
That's true enough, but most live deep in the jungle and have not the bus fare to get to town much less the US...The bus only comes once a month...
No, we are talking about the worldwide ambitions of Islam and all that it fortells for liberal democracy, and about what is aiding and abetting it, and what is in opposition. Rush and you and I are insignificant by comparison, unless we stand up for what is right.
A pretty smart person posted"
"I don't think these left vs. right polemics are going to get us anywhere. I wish people would just cut it out and focus on the issues."
I agree. and I stand by what I have written
I don't have a grudge on Mr. Limbaugh. I actually support is opinion with regard to shariah law. It is antidemocratic and unconstitutional.
I don't like the way he is turning this into a cheap partisan topic. The left are Nazis and anti-women-rights... He should tone down his rhetoric and treat the liberals with respect. They are not our enemies. The islamists are and we need liberal support.
This is far too important for creating strife between "democratic" parties.
And Dank...The millions of Mahoundians who live in the US are not going to fight anyone...They are all peace loving American citizens, who just want to co-exist with kufr...
Are you insinuating that Mahoundians who live in America are jihadists, just waiting for a signal to attack? How can you believe such a thing about the 'religion of peace'?
The Left is a political movement in the same sense that sharia is. There is a better, more perfect way, and we're going to see to it that you all subscribe to the methods of getting there.
You are all right about definitions. The point is, the end of the spectrum that is most fascist, the uber-Left, is the one driving the liberal/Democrat Socialist agenda these days. Not all of its members hold the same views, but always end up going along with and voting for its methods.
These people, the ones who vote and enable, the same useful idiots Marx describes, are the ones who ultimately enable mosques to be given tax-exempt status (why should they when they're funded with foreign dollars?) and don't stand up when washrooms for Muslims are made at public community colleges.
The "Left" uses these people, and the fervent ones become the "Left."
Also, Rush's monologue was not about Islam per se. It was just an aspect of his speech. The speech was about having criticisms leveled at him that were untrue, and that if everything people ascribed to him were true, he would be a Leftist. (If I were a fascist, if I were racist, if I was against women's rights....hence the comment about shari'a)
This fixation on the Left is correct in terms of degree, but significantly inaccurate when one sees how many on the right and in the center also effectively support and defend Islam and (if this isn't a redundancy) do nothing to condemn Sharia.
rush limbaghu is a dispacable doooosh b...
who the hell is he that accuses the left of being anti women, pro sharia or wanting to build a musque in ground zero and why is allowed to be published for spewing this hatred? I was born and raised in a conservative muslim house hold.
I hate Islam
I hate Shari laws
and guess what rush, I am a leberal!!!!
I do not want a musque built here in NYC. i work here.
So rush: there you would have. get over your self.
TROLL is a good name for you and defender if you want to morally equate womens rights in the West to womens rights in Islamic countries. Just look at the cover of Time Magazine. The fact that Limbaugh took so long to speak out shouldn't be a surprise. If the focus is not on him he's not so interested. For a man who once had so many cogent things to say he has become no more than a powerful stool pigeon for the right. People like him and the liberal bed wetter Chris Matthews make me feel I need a shower.
Multiculturalism and political-correctness are the principle mechanisms ushering in this tragic process,...and they are without a doubt Left-wing constructs.
1) PC MC derives much of its substance from Leftism, but to say it is simply a Left-wing construct is to over-simplify the long process (over the past 200 years) that has come to fruition in the mainstream dominance of PC MC throughout the West in the decades after WW2 (and still going strong, unfortunately, as we type).
2) PC MC could not have become mainstream and dominant throughout the West without two sociopolitical factors:
a) the majority of conservatives and centrists became more or less true believers in many of the tenets of PC MC as well as in the overall paradigmatic vision of PC MC
b) the majority of ordinary people, in addition to those dastardly "Elites", also became more or less true believers in many of the tenets of PC MC as well as in the overall paradigmatic vision of PC MC.
3) Many individuals can be selectively PC MC -- i.e., PC MC about some issues, but "conservative" about other issues. About the one issue revolving around the anxious need to defend Islam (and to defend Muslims) from Western "bigotry", however, there is the greatest consensus among Westerners of all stripes -- conservative, centrist, liberal, leftist, Christian, Jewish, atheist, agnostic, New Age pagan, whatever.
4) PC MC is thus the single most important reason why the West remains irrationally stubborn about waking up to the menace of Islam (and of Muslims). Indeed, one demonstration of the insidious strength of PC MC is the presence of a tendril or two (if not a suction cup or two) of its tentacular influence even within the still inchoate anti-Islam movement -- evidenced, for example, by the clause in the recent legal document defending the right of trademark registration of the new anti-"Islamisation" organization, SIOA, a clause which clearly implies that "Muslims and Islam" are not properly in the ambit of what SIOA seeks to "stop" (improperly and too generally defines 'Islamisation' as referring to Muslims and Islam...).
Like Daniel Pipes and others, Gingrich makes a distinction between "Islamism" and true or authentic Islam, in which "many Muslims see sharia as simply a reference point for their personal code of conduct" rather than an all encompassing code that applies universally, throughout time, to all peoples, both Muslim and non-Muslim alike; one "that seeks to impose sharia--Islamic law--upon all aspects of global society." For Gingrich, it is not simply Islamism but "radical" Islamism that is the problem. Gingrich believes authentic Muslims "recognize a distinction between their personal beliefs and the laws that govern all people of all faiths."
I am not convinced Gingrich is right in his assessment of Islam or Muslims in general.
What Gingrich articulates through your quotes is more or less indistinguishable from what most Jihad Watchers believe, and what Spencer believes. (The only difference between Spencer and Gingrich here is Spencer's willingness to advert to normative Islam as part of the problem in terms of its central texts and legal tradition; as well as, of course, Spencer's consuming interest in and advocacy of the problem: but Spencer steadfastly, if incoherently, maintains just such a distinction between Islam and whatever it is one could describe the thing he is condemning.)
Even many otherwise tough-sounding Jihad Watchers who may seem to be bolder than a Pipes nevertheless tend to recoil back into a more or less Pipesian posture when I unfold for them the logical consequences of a comprehensive condemnation of Islam.
Thanks for giving us a billion reasons why we need to continue fighting this filth with even more fire ...
hesperado: Gigrich is correct tha t Sharia laws are for personal conduct. I was born and raised in a conservative house hold. many muslim who go by the book per se, like my dad was one, ofter when they embark on a major decisions, the would go and seek advice. In y dad's case believe it or not was Ayatollah Khmeini, that he would go to before he was exiled by the Shah! questions about marrage, investments, food, land, etc... the reason they would go to them wich in farsi they would call these holly people "Marja Taghlid" meaning a person with guidance..
they would want to make sure these decision they were making was not unislamci. that is that. I amy let me give you another example: right after the revulotion, a man by the name freydoo who then was in his early 30"s went to Khomeini, and told him that although im in a man's body, but I feel like a women. Khomeini, then told him that is ok it has nothing to do with homosexuality!!! Iran now has become the center of univers for sex exchange. long and short of is that there hudereds of million of mulims who rather live under conentianal laws like our, but the are living under sharia laws, which is forced down their throat. Since I was raised a muslim I am very familia with its ritual. one thing that Mr. gingrich siad and I think we should all invest, our time, money, and energy is that we should pass a law or even a new amenment to the costitution
that no shair laws will be respected or argued in our court systems
Hope you are well
He always hits the nail on the head. Good Old Rush!! or maybe better to call him Gold Rush!
what? are you kidding? dude, I was raised in a very cinservative mulim home and for the first 18 years of my life to get my ass out of bed before dawn to pray! until I got here and threw all that bull out. Look they are mutilating and beheading people every f....ing day!! it is people like you who are denefding these bs.. instead you should really study the sharia laws very carefully and you will see how f....ing oppressive it is.. what are you smoking? where are you from? obviously you are enjoing our laws here since you can see you are bloggong freely and no one is bothering you. under that sharia laws they would cut your fingers so you would not be able to blog agaig, under that same law, they would also take your tongue out if you spoke. get real., I here as former muslim expirirences thos laws an that way of lige and there is no.... f....ing way I am allowing it here in NYC. they f....ed us over in 9-11.
no more
Good for you!
What issue would you like them to focus on? Is not, in your mind, women's rights an important issue? Do you read Jihad Watch on a regular basis? What do you know about Sharia? If you know little, as I think you must, then you owe it to yourself and the rest of the Western world to dig in and learn. Like him or hate him, Mr. Limbaugh is right on target.
I know more about Shariah law than you will ever know.
You wrote: "....and guess what rush, I am a leberal!!!!"
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Maybe you are a classical liberal as opposed to what some conservatives call a contemporary liberal.
I get the impression, Spencer believes Islam is Islam (like G. Wilders); that there are no qualifiers, such as "radical" Islam or distinctions between Islamism and Islam or Islamists and Muslims. You think he does indeed make these distinctions?
Later, when I have a little time, I will quote directly from one of his earlier chapters on the Muhammad.
Hesperado wrote:
"What Gingrich articulates through your quotes (Wild Jew) is more or less indistinguishable from what most Jihad Watchers believe, and what Spencer believes."
Patently false. not only false but erroneously and egregiously applied to "most" of the JW community here. Yourtotal straw-man caricature of everyone's position on Islam, comparative to your own, is now complete and I expect you have nearly rendered yourself as completely irrelevant to this discussion.
I never thought that you would resort to baseless assertions, intended solely to mock an opposing opinion, while trying to pass them off as an argument. You actually managed to contradict yourself in a single sentence, when you wrote:
"The only difference between Spencer and Gingrich here is Spencer's willingness to advert to normative Islam as part of the problem in terms of its central texts and legal tradition",
so therefore, Spencer and Pipes disagree in that Islamism according to Spencer is identical to traditional normative Islam, whereas Pipes feels that their is a distinction.
You then immediately refute the existence of that difference when you wrote:
..."but Spencer steadfastly, if incoherently, maintains just such a distinction between Islam and whatever it is one could describe the thing he is condemning.)"
Two points here. First, you assert that Spencer does have a distinction between Islam and this "phantom other" that he actually condemns which is not Islam. Second, it is condescending and disingenuous to try to portray Spencer's position as muddled to the point of incomprehension.
Since I will assume that you are not alluding to a cognitive defect of your own, it must imply that Spencer is incoherent, even if the sole reason for his incoherency is not being manipulated by the lone voice of a disrerspectful, yet wholly inconsequential pompous ass like yourself. it is just another example, in a long line, of cheap shots aimed at Spencer solely for not agreeing with your position in totality.
Once again, just for readers here, feel free to review Hesperado's criticisms on this blog he just can't seem to extract himself from. Read how he relentlessly criticized Spencer for over a year on a blog of his dedicated wholly for that purpose, with disrespectful dismissives like "Robert Spencer should keep his day job"... as a reporter of Islam and leave tha analyst stuff and solutions to the learneds like Heperado. Laughable.
In typical Auster fashion, all Hesperado needs you to do is to accept his constant criticisms and agree with him in totality. This, mind you, coming from a man who has a very lightly visited blog, and spends most of his time here at JW, criticizing the author of this site.
Spencer has written acclaimed books and is gaining influence in mainstream circles, has actively formed groups which are protesting the mega-mosque, travels and speaks routinely to have his position known.
...What does Hesperado do? Yep, you guessed it...absolutely nothing. Not a fucking thing, nothing except sit here and whine, just like his ideological doppleganger, Auster. Auster criticizes Spencer in the same way, but it appears that the erection of a mega-mosque at ground zero is just not enough of an imptetus to get Auster out of his comfort zone on the uper East side. Two armchair quarterbacks they are, if I've ever seen one.
Hi Win:
I'd agree that "The Left [can be a religious-]political movement in the same sense that sharia is. There is a better, more perfect way, and we're going to see to it that you all subscribe to the methods of getting there." I don't think the left is a monolith, though.
I think that analysis of modern liberalism as a pseudo-religion have a lot of validity. So many of my friends have an almost religious fervor toward their politics. I have met some conservatives who use politics as a religion, but they are rare. Most conservatives have a real religion, and those that don't are usually libertarian.
Conservatives tend not to be a threat to the body politic. Most liberals aren't either. They are only an electorial threat to each other and to the economy. But I am sure you would agree that anyone - regardless of other political views - who espouses PC/MC to the extent that it excuses sharia or uncontrolled immigration IS a threat to us all.
BHIGR: "It is fine to criticize political correctness and naive multiculturalism. But it is not right to insinuate that "the left" - no matter who is meant - are against women rights. It is not right to insinuate that "the left" are for shariah law."
RESPONSE: Indeed, very few Leftist-feminist professors in academe overtly champion the oppression of women in Islam or the restrictive tenets of Sharia, but their silence is deafening. The same can be said of MSM.
BHIGR: "We must unite against this threat and this kind of branding is absolutely counterproductive. Most so called liberals wont listen if they are attacked in this manner. Don't put a potential ally into the enemies camp. You wont persuade them in this manner. Do you want to persuade liberals or do you want them as allies?"
RESPONSE: By turning a blind eye to the complicity of the Left in fostering creeping Sharia and dhimmitude, we would ourselves become complicit. When the Left begins to acknowledge the profoundly totalitarian and misogynist essence of Islam, we will by all means welcome them into the fold. Until then, we will continue to denounce their civilizational betrayal.
Mr. Wildjew, you know what solution the muslim mental-midget Dank will give you: SUBMIT!
Well, I'll submit something. The solution is to make this country an unwelcome and unpleasant place for muslims:
1. Accept the truth; declare islam seditious
2. Halt ALL muslim immigration NOW
3. Prohibit new mosque construction
4. Increase surveillance on existing mosques
5. No judicial consideration for islamic-
related crimes
6. Immediate deportation for breaking our laws
7. No "special" exceptions for islam in our
schools, workplaces, finances
Send the message: Either you come here to be Americans...or you DO NOT come here. And if you are here and refuse to integrate into OUR society and live peacefully by OUR ways... you will be shown-out. No exceptions. Period.
Well, a guy can dream...
HESPERADO: "PC MC derives much of its substance from Leftism, but to say it is simply a Left-wing construct is to over-simplify the long process (over the past 200 years) that has come to fruition in the mainstream dominance of PC MC throughout the West in the decades after WW2..."
RESPONSE: Regardless of the extent to which Conservatives have embraced PC/MC, it IS a Left-wing construct.
HESPERADO: "...the majority of conservatives and centrists became more or less true believers in many of the tenets of PC MC as well as in the overall paradigmatic vision of PC MC."
RESPONSE: Please prove your assertion, that "the majority" of conservatives are "true believers" in PC/MC. Most conservatives I know reject these tenets outright.
Such an assertion is - to me - as fallacious as your statement that "ALL" Muslims have the "disease of [fundamentalism]" or "extremism", or whatever word you used. Even if the word used was "Islam", I'd reply it is still patently false...millions if not tens of millions of Muslims to NOT adhere to the tenets of their religion. This makes them what Hugh refers to as "Muslims-for-identification-purposes only" or what I refer to as "nominal Muslims". The reality of their existence in no way validates Islam as a belief system, it merely reveals the extent to which you are prone to hyperbole.
"Eastview" Well said, I totally agree.
"George" I fervently hope your dream comes true.
George, at first glance I cannot argue with any of your points. Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, I urged that deportation would be an appropriate response for any Muslim who it could be proven (by witnesses) celebrated the atrocities.
Allah and all--
BECOME a fan of Rush Limbaugh!
Don't believe the left-wing liberal Islam-apologizing media what they say about Rush. They hate him because he exposes the ugly truth about liberalism.
Rush IS Right.
Tune in and listen.
Give it 6 weeks.
I think you'll be suprised how much you AGREE with the Maha Rushie....
Liberalism allies with Islam and socialism and DOES destroy our country.
So, yes, liberalism is also our enemy.
Ah, another day, another opportunity to read the autobiography of miriam rove...edited by DefenderofIslam.
I have listened to Rush Limbaugh since 1988. As a rule he does not discuss religion. Ever.
Like many of you, I believe Islam to be more of an all-encompassing lifestyle-imposition rather than a religion.
Having Obama in the WH, wildly dictating social, economic, and foreign policy with the buttressing of his synchophantic media whores, has moved Rush into a keenly focused critique.
It is becoming difficlut to separate our "Christian" president from Islam because from NASA to financial markets, Islam pervades his administration.
Well if conservative America wants to win the global fight against liberals, socialists and islamists - who form on single enemy according to mary - then you shall loose. That's a safe prediction.
By turning every non-conservative into a foe your mindset is on par with the islamic division of the world into the house of islam and the house of war....
Liberalism allies with Islam? what are you exactly smoking here?
You wrote: "Rush IS Right."
He is right about Obama. He was wrong about Bush.
wildjew:
I get the impression, Spencer believes Islam is Islam (like G. Wilders)...
Yes and no (hence the fundamental incoherence).
...that there are no qualifiers, such as "radical" Islam or distinctions between Islamism and Islam or Islamists and Muslims. You think he does indeed make these distinctions?
Well, one indication that Spencer does comes from the text of his laywer's document defending Spencer and Geller's SIOA organization's right for a trademark registration:
"My client objects to these two grounds for the following reasons: (1) the Office Action improperly and too generally defines 'Islamisation' as referring to Muslims and Islam..."
You read Cornelius incorrectly, bhigr. He does not look upon liberals as foes but "merely" individuals who don't, speaking in the aggregate, grasp the menace which Islam poses to all of us in the West. Far more conservatives, by contrast, do comprehend what we're up against. Cornelius himself has written about welcoming liberals into the fold if only liberals would stop making excuses for Islam or turning a blind eye to it. I'm with Cornelius here. I too welcome liberals alongside conservatives in opposing Islamic supremacist designs, but the fact of the matter is that most liberals have been far more PC/MC than conservatives on Islam. Surely, you're not arguing that liberals have understood the Islamic threat to date as well as conservatives have. Or are you?
Politics being (usually) the lesser of two evils, I'd say Rush was right about Bush. The choice of Gore or Kerry in the WH would have sped up the current situation. Sometimes it is difficult to imagine how much worse things could have been considering the idiots and liberals that Bush kept around.
I don't think Bush was wrong to engage the Islamic world in a war, but the tactics chosen have been abysmal.
Quoting you: "My client objects to these two grounds for the following reasons: (1) the Office Action improperly and too generally defines 'Islamisation' as referring to Muslims and Islam..."
Yes, I read this yesterday:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/07/does-the-sioa-name-disparage-muslims-no.html
You raise an interesting point. I do not know where these two attorneys David Yerushalmi and Robert Muise are going with this. I hope they are being honest and truthful. I hope they are adhering faithfully to Spencer's viewpoint. I would have to let Mr. Spencer address it.
To my comment -- "What Gingrich articulates through your quotes (Wild Jew) is more or less indistinguishable from what most Jihad Watchers believe, and what Spencer believes."
-- awake responded:
"Patently false. not only false but erroneously and egregiously applied to "most" of the JW community here. Yourtotal straw-man caricature of everyone's position on Islam..."
Didn't take long for awake to contradict himself -- In the space of his first two sentences gliding effortlessly from my most to his "everyone".
awake continued:
You actually managed to contradict yourself in a single sentence, when you wrote:
"The only difference between Spencer and Gingrich here is Spencer's willingness to advert to normative Islam as part of the problem in terms of its central texts and legal tradition",
so therefore, Spencer and Pipes disagree in that Islamism according to Spencer is identical to traditional normative Islam, whereas Pipes feels that their is a distinction.
You then immediately refute the existence of that difference when you wrote:
..."but Spencer steadfastly, if incoherently, maintains just such a distinction between Islam and whatever it is one could describe the thing he is condemning.)"
First of all, we can untie the knots awake gets himself into tthrough clarifying his mischaracterization of what I wrote. He described what I was saying as "Islamism according to Spencer is identical to traditional normative Islam". However, I never said that. I said that Spencer shows a "willingness to advert to normative Islam as part of the problem in terms of its central texts and legal tradition." That doesn't mean Spencer is willing to say that Islam is the problem. That's where Spencer's incoherence comes in. Spencer simultaneously says things that logically should lead to him make that equation and thus to oppose and condemn Islam itself -- yet he never quite does so (and indeed in the past, when this subject came up among comments sections at Jihad Watch and when Spencer was more inclined to engage in debate with commenters here, Spencer went out of his way to avoid baldly condemning Islam). Awake's instincts are thus correct when he translated my quote into his own mischaracterization of it -- for that would be the logical equation. Unfortunately, Spencer consistently fails to actually say "Islam is the problem" and "I am anti-Islam" and -- horror of horrors! -- "I condemn Islam".
Indeed, as I pointed out to Wild Jew above, the text of Spencer's laywer's document defending Spencer and Geller's SIOA organization's right for a trademark registration features the following position as #1:
"My client objects to these two grounds for the following reasons: (1) the Office Action improperly and too generally defines 'Islamisation' as referring to Muslims and Islam..."
As for most of the rest of awake's commentary, the little of worth left to note:
In typical Auster fashion, all Hesperado needs you to do is to accept his constant criticisms and agree with him in totality.
Though of course it would be nice if the world agreed with me, I have never said I "need" it nor that I expect it in "totality" from everyone. What I have said numerous times in general, and with regard to specific people, as well as to Spencer for example, is an engagement of argument/counter-argument -- where argument, needless to say, does not include arrogant asides, mockery, disingenuousness, incoherence, and the like.
This, mind you, coming from a man who has a very lightly visited blog...
Irrelevant to whether what I say is cogent or not.
...and spends most of his time here at JW, criticizing the author of this site.
If anyone racked up all my comments here in the last 12 months and weighed what could be reasonably termed a criticism of Spencer vs. a hundred other perspectives I have focused on unrelated to Spencer, it would be seen that awake is egregiously exaggerating.
If people would actually read what they are responding to, a lot of time and typing space could be saved.
HESPERADO: "...the majority of conservatives and centrists became more or less true believers in many of the tenets of PC MC as well as in the overall paradigmatic vision of PC MC."
Cornelius's RESPONSE: Please prove your assertion, that "the majority" of conservatives are "true believers" in PC/MC. Most conservatives I know reject these tenets outright.
I didn't say that conservatives are "true believers" in PC/MC; nor did I say, as you imply, that they accept all PC/MC tenets. Re-read what I wrote (including much of what you didn't reproduce in quotes), and respond accordingly.
"I do not know where these two attorneys David Yerushalmi and Robert Muise are going with this. I hope they are being honest and truthful. I hope they are adhering faithfully to Spencer's viewpoint. I would have to let Mr. Spencer address it."
What do you mean you "hope"? It's a done deal. Spencer hired the attorneys, they drafted, finalized and submitted this legal brief, Spencer read it, approved it, and published the excerpts from it, from which I got the quote I quoted. There's no ambiguity here.
Hesperado wrote:
"Didn't take long for awake to contradict himself -- In the space of his first two sentences gliding effortlessly from my most to his "everyone"."
Conceded. I should have said "nearly" everyone, which is consistent with my comment referring to your use of the qualifier "most", when I initially wrote:
"Patently false. not only false but erroneously and egregiously applied to "most" of the JW community here."
That's not quite the smoking-gun you think you have here, Hesp.
Hesperado wrote:
"First of all, we can untie the knots awake gets himself into tthrough clarifying his mischaracterization of what I wrote."
Knots? I didn't mischaracterize your comment, I simply failed to include a qualifier in my comment that is consistent with what I quoted you as maintaining.
"most" (quoted by you) should equal "nearly" everyone.
The point was already conceded and was an honest oversight.
Hesperado then goes on to comment:
"He (awake) described what I was saying as "Islamism according to Spencer is identical to traditional normative Islam". However, I never said that. I said that Spencer shows a "willingness to advert to normative Islam as part of the problem in terms of its central texts and legal tradition."
First, when my comment does not contain quotes, it is my paraphrasing. Did you say those exact words? No. You would have a point if I presented my paraphrase of your comment in quotes, but I didn't.
That is peripheral however. The point is that there is a stark difference between Pipes' Islamism and Spencer, who as far as I can tell, does not use that particular phrase, and never has. Do you have written proof otherwise?
Hesp continues:
"That doesn't mean Spencer is willing to say that Islam is the problem."
Well, Hesp, I put it to you then. If Spencer does not say that Islam is the problem, then what is the problem according to Spencer, in your estimation? Also, what specifically is the crux of this "incoherence" that you speak repeatedly of?
Hesp then writes:
"Spencer simultaneously says things that logically should lead to him make that equation and thus to oppose and condemn Islam itself -- yet he never quite does so..."
OK, so are you saying that Spencer is an apologist for Islam? Or are you saying that Spencer puts forth mixed signals about Islam, because you claim that Spencer to date has not yet officially "condemned" Islam, and consistent with your comments, in totality?
Hesp, again:
"Awake's instincts are thus correct when he translated my quote into his own mischaracterization of it..."
Mischaracterization? One missing qualifer by me of "nearly" is the entire foundation of your counter-argument to my comment, from where I sit.
Hesperado concludes about Spencer:
"Unfortunately, Spencer consistently fails to actually say "Islam is the problem" and "I am anti-Islam" and -- horror of horrors! -- "I condemn Islam"."
What Hesperado wants to compel from others is irrelevant. He is allowed his opinion here. The consistent failure by Robert Spencer, and Jihad Watch in Hesperado's estimation, who ironicly, continue to give Hesperado a free platform to criticize both this site and the author, is quite telling in my opinion.
The facts are what they are. Hesperado criticizes from a position of complete personal inaction, those who he purports to support, who actually do act in the anti-something-or-other, that Hesperado will surely define in short order.
Hesperado continues on:
"As for most of the rest of awake's commentary, the little of worth left to note:"
That is your opinion.
Hesp again:
"What I have said numerous times in general, and with regard to specific people, as well as to Spencer for example, is an engagement of argument/counter-argument -- where argument, needless to say, does not include arrogant asides, mockery, disingenuousness, incoherence, and the like."
Your personal desire does not compel compliance from others, and that request, in and of itself, is not an argument. It is a plea. You have not supported your assertion as to why Spencer must do that, or what damage he is causing by not doing so.
Finally, Hesp blathered:
"If anyone racked up all my comments here in the last 12 months and weighed what could be reasonably termed a criticism of Spencer vs. a hundred other perspectives I have focused on unrelated to Spencer, it would be seen that awake is egregiously exaggerating."
Ahh, the "he used to cut my lawn as a PC-suffused attempt at an empirical off-set to he raped my daughter" argument. So, because more comments by Hesperado were not direct criticisms of Spencer or JW here over the last 12 months, in Hesperado's recollection, all criticism that did occur during that time are obviously correct and warranted due to their minority status?
That is not a counter-argument. Your personal obsession with Spencer, from your former "Jihad Watch Watch" blog, and anyone who cares to do a modicum of research to see that your current blog now criticizes Spencer in your articles about a third of the time, recently, fills in the blanks nicely.
"Knots", indeed.
bhigr,
Of course not EVERY liberal is an enabler of Islam, but there is sufficient symmetry that a couple of years ago, I felt compelled to coin the term "Islamo-Left". The alliance exists, whether you want to acknowledge it or not. It is de facto, and it is this very moment impacting the way Islam being is portrayed in our schools and universities, how Islam is reported on in our media, and how we are pursuing foreign, defense, immigration and national security policy.
Are you at all familiar with the Iranian revolution in 1979? The Tudeh (Communist) Party, the Marxist Fedeyeen, and the socialist Mujaheddin-el-khalq all joined with Khomeini in his Islamic revolt against the Shah. After the revolution, one by one, these groups were purged from society and destroyed.
The Tudeh - who had defiantly celebrated their persecutions by the Shah, were quickly broken by the new regime. They openly and contritely admitted their treason in Islamic show-trials that would have impressed Stalin. Their testimonies were likely extracted by a combination of torture and promises of future leniency...and after their confessions, they were promptly executed.
The Mujaheddin took a different track and decided to fight back. They organized large public demonstrations against the regime, but unlike the Shah, Khomeini had no reticence about ordering his shock troops to fire on the demonstrators. After hundreds of deaths, they went underground.
In the end, the Leftists who had so enthusiastically supported the Islamic revolution were entirely erased from Iranian society. Should Islam capture the West, your fate and that of your fellow liberals will be no different.
As you suggest, the other side may indeed triumph, but that will be BECAUSE of the complicity of the Left, not because conservatives had the audacity to point it out. Better give it some more thought, my friend.
Hesp,
You overlook the power of the elite and its ability - even in a democratic country - to censor and/or censure dissenting voices. Yes, conservatives and moderates are afraid and so they self-censor...and that makes them complicit to a degree, but its not a willful complicity, as it is among liberals.
And as we've discussed so often in the past, you yourself hide behind the cloak of anonymity. Does that make you PC/MC? Of course not, it just means that the prevailing ethos in this country, that racism is the fount of all evil, is quite powerful and intimidating, even to someone like yourself.
I certainly wouldn't mind Cornelius and Wellington emailing Robert their respective email addresses.
I would love to converse offline with both of you.
I have given my email address to Robert already, which he will provide to you both at my behest, but not the other way, if you so desire. If either or both choose so, Robert will not betray your anonymity and give me yours'.
Robert will provide, if asked, by either of you. The public request is offered, by me.
Hesperado wrote:
"Didn't take long for awake to contradict himself -- In the space of his first two sentences gliding effortlessly from my most to his "everyone"."
Conceded. I should have said "nearly" everyone...
While "most" can mean "nearly everyone", it can also mean as low as 51%. Instead of asking me how many I mean by "most", you just press the gas pedal of your rhetoric in pursuit of your straw man.
Hesperado then goes on to comment:
"He (awake) described what I was saying as "Islamism according to Spencer is identical to traditional normative Islam". However, I never said that. I said that Spencer shows a "willingness to advert to normative Islam as part of the problem in terms of its central texts and legal tradition."
First, when my comment does not contain quotes, it is my paraphrasing. Did you say those exact words? No. You would have a point if I presented my paraphrase of your comment in quotes, but I didn't.
You don't need to use quote marks (i.e. you don't need to quote someone verbatim), to characterize their words or to mischaracterize their words. To characterize (or to mischaracterize) someone's idea is to describe it, not to quote it verbatim. If you describe my idea or statement, and you get it wrong, the responsibility is yours.
That is peripheral however. The point is that there is a stark difference between Pipes' Islamism and Spencer, who as far as I can tell, does not use that particular phrase, and never has. Do you have written proof otherwise?
No -- hence my choice of the vague word "thing" to denote what it is he refers to whenever he adverts in a framework of critical or condemnatory language to various "elements" of Islam.
Hesp continues:
"That doesn't mean Spencer is willing to say that Islam is the problem."
Well, Hesp, I put it to you then. If Spencer does not say that Islam is the problem, then what is the problem according to Spencer, in your estimation? Also, what specifically is the crux of this "incoherence" that you speak repeatedly of?
In order for me to pin down what Spencer defines as the problem, I would need more coherence from him. His incoherence at present is a kind of ambiguous non-positional suspension between two positions -- 1) a clear delimitation of the problem to a truncation of Islam (which can be called any number of things besides "Islamism"); or 2) a clear condemnation of Islam itself -- Islam, the whole Islam, and nothing but Islam.
Hesp then writes:
"Spencer simultaneously says things that logically should lead to him make that equation and thus to oppose and condemn Islam itself -- yet he never quite does so..."
OK, so are you saying that Spencer is an apologist for Islam? Or are you saying that Spencer puts forth mixed signals about Islam, because you claim that Spencer to date has not yet officially "condemned" Islam, and consistent with your comments, in totality?
Not the former. Sort of the latter. One function for something like the latter would be to save innumerable Muslims from our condemnation, since we could then say that the Islam they follow is not bad Islam, it's "misguided Islam" or it's "Islam ignorant of bad elements of Islam" or it's "relaxed Islam absent most of its jihadist impulses"; etc. This function, however, would run into a snag given Spencer's repeated, and logically accurate, observation that we can't tell the difference between harmless Muslims and dangerous Muslims. Another incoherence, again resolvable in one of two ways astride the ambiguous middle point of non-position.
Hesp, again:
"Awake's instincts are thus correct when he translated my quote into his own mischaracterization of it..."
Mischaracterization? One missing qualifer by me of "nearly" is the entire foundation of your counter-argument to my comment, from where I sit.
The mischaracterization referred to the passage in my comment that immediately followed my introduction of the topic of mischaracterization -- "He (awake) described what I was saying as "Islamism according to Spencer is identical to traditional normative Islam...", etc.
Hesperado concludes about Spencer:
"Unfortunately, Spencer consistently fails to actually say "Islam is the problem" and "I am anti-Islam" and -- horror of horrors! -- "I condemn Islam"."
What Hesperado wants to compel from others is irrelevant.
In this context, of the arena of the arguing, defense and exchange of ideas, I don't want to "compel" anyone to do anything. I am articulating, arguing and defending what I think is right. Just because you don't like it and because I am in your eyes hurting your leader, that is not license for you to twist what I am doing and thinking into a straw man.
Cornelius,
"You overlook the power of the elite and its ability - even in a democratic country - to censor and/or censure dissenting voices."
I don't deny its existence as a factor, but I think you (and many others) exaggerate it. Among many otherwise sober and intelligent people in the still inchoate anti-Islam movement, this view of Elitistics functions as a kind of "soft conspiracy theory".
"Yes, conservatives and moderates are afraid and so they self-censor...and that makes them complicit to a degree, but its not a willful complicity, as it is among liberals."
Among many if not most conservatives, certain key aspects of PC MC with regard to the problem of Islam reflects their willing complicity: they really have come to believe in the virtue of striving not to be "bigoted" and have emotionally and intellectually lost their sense of the difference between bigoted without the quote marks, and "bigoted" with them. This is acutely evident with regard to Muslims as a perceived ethnic category and their need to be defended from our "bigotry". According to this mindset, which most conservatives subscribe to, this need increases, rather than decreases, the more that certain Muslims do bad things; and concomitant with this perverse anxiety to avoid "bigotry" are many irrational measures to interdict from their attention and consideration data that would lead the attentive and intelligent observer to see that Islam and that Muslims present a much broader demographic, sociological, global problem than a mere "tiny minority of extremists".
"And as we've discussed so often in the past, you yourself hide behind the cloak of anonymity. Does that make you PC/MC? Of course not, it just means that the prevailing ethos in this country, that racism is the fount of all evil, is quite powerful and intimidating, even to someone like yourself."
That's not why I remain anonymous. I remain anonymous because I don't want Muslims to kill me.
Hesp,
Your last comment was salient and I accept it without reservation.
Meanwhile, you travel from "many if not most" to "most" in the span of two sentences...and this is the essence of our disagreement. I concur that PC/MC has certainly influenced and effected conservative circles, but I don't believe for a minute that "most" conservatives subscribe to it. Now you can claim as you did earlier that this is not exactly what you're saying, but yo my mind, it's clear that it IS.
Whatever short-comings exist in conservative thought vis-a-vis Islam, I'd like to believe we can both agree that the best and really only hope for the West rests with the conservative movement and our love of liberty.
Awake,
I'll think about it. I'm not really big on email discourses with internet acquaintances. Hell, I consider Wellington a bona fide friend...and we've never exchanged email.
For the record, I've always valued your contributions here and - as with Wellington - there is very little in your comments that I ever disagree with.
Have a great weekend, amigo.
All you need to do is give Robert your address so he can forward mine to you. There is no reciprocation, I assure you, for Robert is an honorable man.
The choice to use that venue going forward, is solely your own.
Peace.
awake, it's not difficult to set up private email communications with someone. All you need to do is the following: (1) You set up two temporary email accounts on gmail. The first one, call it eurydice@gmail.com, you publicly advertise, say in a comment on JihadWatch. (2) Each person who wishes to communicate with you privately sends an email to eurydice@gmail.com letting you know their email address, which could be a similarly anonymous account with gmail. (3) You reply to those with whom you wish to communicate confidentially with the email address of your second account, call it orpheus@gmail.com. (4) Once you have collected all the email addresses of those with whom you wish to communicate, delete your first account, eurydice@gmail.com, which you established only for the purpose of initiating the process. Voila, you now have your own private and secure chat network. I have used this method on several occasions and it works like a charm.
Susan
you wrote - "This particular college BSN completion degree is very strong in multiculturalism. I bought this up to my professor when she said " Muslim Women in America should NOT be banned from wearing the Burka" I also think she shrugged when I bought up honor killings. This professor has silenced students with intimidating looks and comments. I spoke up ! daring her to kick me out or fail me because I am against Sharia Law!
I said ,didn't America fight for Women's rights? Isn't that what they stand for!! Why are we allowing and supporting the abuse of Women here? The class was so quiet and shocked that I had went against this professor. She congratulated me for speaking my mind, later the students whispered their support to me!"
I will second another poster above, and say to you - Well done! Keep going! Wake them up!
May I ask when and how you discovered this forum? When did you start finding out about Islam, jihad, and sharia? *I* found jihadwatch via Bat Yeor's 'dhimmitude' website, late in 2006, but remained a lurker until April 2007, before deciding to join the discussions.
Pussy. Spencer is not anonymous, yet you want him to declare war on Islam, and deem every single Muslim as an enemy, like you do, but without the affordation of anonymity, lest you continue to criticize him.
You're lucky that you are anonymous. Otherwise I might have to look you up and teach you some basic manners, myself.
Oh, and threats too?
Ban this guy.
I will add that it is people like Susan who dare to raise awkward questions not in an anonymous internet forum but in actual-factual classrooms, on actual campuses, challenging sharia, burqas, honor murders etc. (another major Human Rights violation, in Islam, that people in Susan's position may care to flag, is the rule that says apostates must be executed, whether by the Islamic state or by any Muslim vigilante who appoints himself one of allah's Enforcers), who are doing a very great deal to bring about the paradigm shift that has to happen if we in the non-Muslim world are to defend ourselves and all of human civilisation.
There may be a good many more 'Susans' than we know about, in classrooms and churches and workplaces all across the western world and beyond it, too.
I myself in a women's group in our church recently presented a no-punches-pulled description of what mainstream Islam does to women. I then published the same piece in the parish magazine so that all 100+ parishioners might read it. At least two parishioners have requested a digital copy of my article, so that they can pass it on to friends and family; one lady is going to give it to her daughters, daughters-in-law and grand-daughters...Who knows how far the Bad News About Islam will spread, along the Gossip Networks of the Anglican Mothers' Mafia?
Word is spreading. The wind is changing.
Rush did say on his TV show many time that all illegal drug user could be lock up for life you far rightwinger are too supid to hear that. In my option than hollywood star who have than problen with heron is said to have than suband abuse problen while than poor perso with the same problen is call than addit to drug. Rush was abuseing painkliller by buyingt then from drug dealer that sell illegal drug too.
Suesan you just prove to me that you you are than Islamistprobic Hater by saying you didnot want muslim woman to wear Islamist clothing. First who gave you the right to express just than racist option in the first place. That prof have very right to fail than racist like you for not understanding than other culture. I donot consider you than valid america citizen at all with the full right of citizenship.
Robert Spencer,
I have been avidly and unapologetically opposed to Islam ever since I bothered to research it myself. I actually felt like I was the only sane person on Earth until I stumbled upon your site--everyone around me seemed to be oblivious to or willfully ignorant of Islam's need for a major reform. I've followed your site almost daily since discovering it, and although I generally like what I see, I am truly disappointed by these posts in which you propagate this utterly silly Left versus Right "war".
One doesn't need to be aligned with the Right in order to be against Islam, and every time you suggest otherwise, you alienate nearly half the nation. My political views are so varied that I was once called a hippie liberal and a fascist all in the same sentence. What use are terms like Right and Left for me?
A major problem in our country is that everyone jumps to slap asinine labels on themselves. Too many people don't research topics and developed an informed, educated opinion. Instead, they adopt a label, and whenever an issue arises, they have an automatic position. A self-proclaimed "Liberal", for instance, might automatically dismiss the fact that Islam is violent, simply because their label suggests unflinching tolerance. And don't for a second think that people on the "Right" aren't just as guilty. We all need to move past this obsession with group membership.
Robert, I understand that you have a problem with the current administration, but there's no need to use divisive political labels. Our goal is to promote immediate Islamic reform, isn't it? We should be working to garner as much support as possible, and that simply isn't going to happen when you disparage such a broad group as "the Left".
Finally, as a side-note, I would suggest that you be more selective in who you openly support on your site. Regardless of your personal opinion of Rush Limbaugh, he's a controversial figure that many regard as a nutcase. When you support him--even if he is with us on the issue of Islam--you run the risk of instantly turning people away from the site, or even getting yourself lumped into the "nutcase" category.
Food for thought, and I hope you'll strongly consider it.
Awake,
No offense, but your last two posts to Hesperado are precisely the reason I don't like getting involved with strangers on the net...one never knows who might have a propensity for flying off the handle.
I submit to you, John, that far more on the Right in America are prepared to oppose Islam's supremacist designs than are those on the Left. It's just a matter of percentages. Like Cornelius and others who are conservative, I welcome liberals to the fight, but it has been my experience time and time again that those Americans who make the most excuses for Islam are invariably modern liberals.
As for Rush Limbaugh, anyone who considers him a nutcase is not a person whose opinion should be valued very highly. Limbaugh's political and economic philosophy differs virtually not at all from that of the Founding Fathers. It's a creed of self-help, limited government, democracy, the rule of law, the efficacy of the capitalistic system and the importance of a solid moral order. Limbaugh emphasizes liberty over equality. Unfortunately, the Modern Left places equality above liberty and thus is inimical to traditional American values. For the conservative, New Hampshire's motto is right on target---Live Free Or Die. By contrast, the modern liberal's motto could be Live Equal Or Whine. And let's not forget that it's the Modern Left that has given us the twin idiocies of political correctness and multiculturalism, though I readily concede these dual liberal stupidities have infected conservative thought over the last few decades. Nonetheless, any liberal who really does grasp all the awfulness of Islam is more than welcome to join in the fight against man's worst religion of all time. My best to you and yours.
John,
Like Wellington, I'm trying to help you understand the political/cultural paradigm in America vis-a-vis Islam. I'm not asking you to abandon your liberal beliefs, only to acknowledge that multiculturalism and political-correctness, the principle impediments to an effective public refutation of Islamic intolerance and supremacism, are LIBERAL/LEFT constructs. Validation of Islam is strongest in the two most liberal institutions in America, the university and the newsroom.
By all means, continue despising Rush Limbaugh and any other conservative who rubs you the wrong way, but please, don't delude yourself into thinking that the liberal/left is no more culpable than any other reference point on the political spectrum in enabling creeping Sharia and other facets of dhimmitude in America and Europe. The facts prove otherwise.
You have two options in championing the anti-Jihad: galvanize your comrades on the Left into abandoning their obsequious validation of Islam...or abandon the Left yourself. I know from experience the former is veritably impossible. So there you have it, you're either with the Left or the anti-Jihad. Doesn't mean you have to embrace the Right, just repudiate the Left.
1) I personally don't know much about Limbaugh, but I do know that a substantial amount of the public thinks he's a loon. Peddling that "death panel" nonsense would be enough in and of itself to earn him that title. Also, I'm not sure which particular views of the Founding Fathers you're referring to, but just because they believed something, that doesn't necessarily mean it's best.
2) Back to the Left/Right issue, let's first clarify what you mean by Left and Right. When I use such terms, I'm referring to how someone identifies himself. Is blind multiculturalism part of your definition of being liberal? If so, I fully agree your position--indeed, blindly tolerant multiculturalists are the problem. Regardless, since we MUST bring these people over to our side, we have to refrain from disparaging and alienating them. Do you think a Liberal will stumble upon the site, read the insults, have an epiphany, and immediately see the error in his ways? It's not going to happen. He'll become defensive, he'll assume we're out of our minds, and we'll have lost a potential ally.
Cornelius,
I concur that PC/MC has certainly influenced and effected conservative circles, but I don't believe for a minute that "most" conservatives subscribe to it.
To what does the last word in your sentence, the "it", refer?
If your "it" refers to PC MC without qualification (and therefore with implicit monolithic understanding), then you haven't been reading me carefully.
I suggest you re-read my comment to you a while back --
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/07/rush-anti-womens-rights-is-a-cause-of-the-left-thats-whos-pushing-sharia-in-this-country-the-left-it.html#comment-692180
-- and pay particular (but not exclusive) attention to #3.
Limbaugh is no loon. One knows this or should know it. Those who consider him a loon are virtually without exception on the Left and the Left has those seven or eight code words like "racist," "bigot," "loon," "Nazi," "sexist," "homophobe" and "Islamphobe" they pull out whenever they don't want to treat with a conservative's ideas. Why don't you try listening to Limbaugh for a while and make up your own mind?
As for which views of the Founding Fathers Limbaugh embraces I already told you----limited government, a proper moral order, self-reliance, the excellence of the capitalistic system and so on. Disagree with Limbaugh and you, in effect, disagree with Jeffersonian liberalism, concerning which there is little difference between the Sage of Monticello and Ronald Reagan's political and economic philosophy. As Jefferson observed, most bad government results from too much government. Modern liberals are clueless about this.
By Modern Left, I mean a position which values equality over liberty, wants more government and not less, does not comprehend that tyrants only understand force and look upon diplomacy as a sign of weakness, does not understand the peace through strength doctrine, looks upon all cultures as equal, tends to throw the baby out with the bath water respecting tradition and cannot grasp that having citizens of the state, rather than wards of the state, is a way a polity should be run. On all these issues I have major disagreements with modern liberals. I do not insult such people but neither will I pretend that such differences don't exist.
You will find that most conservatives here at JW are not insulting. Cornelius is a fine example of this. But neither will most, myself included, simply ignore all the errors which we think modern liberals are beholden to, including embracing, far more than conservatives do, those twin monuments to the Age of Nonsense we now live in, political correctness and multiculturalism. Once again, I welcome any liberal to this fight we're in against Islam's nefarious, freedom-crushing designs, but I always like other folks to know exactly where I stand. As Dennis Prager has often observed, it is not agreement that should be sought but clarity. If a liberal can't deal with this and is easily hurt, this says far more about the liberal than that liberal realizes.
Cornelius and Wellington and Eastview,
Eastview wrote:
"awake, it's not difficult to set up private email communications with someone."
Um, I had email communications with awake a while back. I don't know why awake seems to be implying that one cannot have private email communications with someone and not remain anonymous. In fact, during my private email correspondence with awake (and what kind of email correspondence is not "private", anyway?), both awake and myself remained anonymous, as far as I know.
I fondly recall an intense week during which both awake and Robert Spencer himself barraged me with a snowstorm of emails in which they nipped at my heels like furious chihuahuas -- both of them behaving like sophomoric children, calling me names, resorting to stupid jokes, mocking me -- and when they did take time out (twice or thrice amid this snow flurry) from the fun of indulging these childish tactics, their attempts at more serious counter-argumentation were riddled with mischaracterizations of my position (which I had to repeat patiently more than once each time to them -- to no avail, of course) and specious non sequiturs and just about every other logical fallacy in the book.
Aside from this fond memory, I've had innumerable other email exchanges with awake which more or less reduplicate the kind of irrational hostility he has been demonstrating here in this thread.
I have a hunch awake suddenly wishes to email Cornelius and Wellington in order to "prove" to them that I am their enemy. While I am sometimes frustrated by their seeming inability to actually read their interlocutor's argumentation in order to adequately respond to it, on this other level of character and basic reason, I think I have a good sense of the intelligence and maturity of both Cornelius and Wellington, which will render them inoculated from the scurrilous and obtusely rabid slander of awake. I thus have no qualms if awake engages them in a "private" "off line" email correspondence (what the heck is an "off line" email?).
John,
"I would suggest that you be more selective in who you openly support on your site. Regardless of your personal opinion of Rush Limbaugh, he's a controversial figure that many regard as a nutcase. When you support him--even if he is with us on the issue of Islam--you run the risk of instantly turning people away from the site, or even getting yourself lumped into the "nutcase" category."
You're right that Limbaugh has a PR image problem -- and, like others (e.g., Ann Coulter), he seems rather clueless about the extent of it and how his brand name has become in certain respects a laughingstock. However, he does have one fat foot in the mainstream, and I think Spencer with this thread is mainly merely adverting to the fact of Limbaugh's decision to position his generous behind behind the anti-mosque sentiment as one indication among others that this sentiment is growing beyond the confines of the non-mainstream and beginning to seep into the mainstream: on certain levels, always a good sign.
Although I completely agree that awake's egregious remarks should not be tolerated, I do not think that he should be banned -- since awake is generally a good contributor. Instead, he should simply take his grievances before Robert and leave the other posters out of the 'war' he wants to start. We need to stick to fighting the real enemy: islam and company, not one another. Hope you are well :)
Hesp,
I happen to think #3 is wrong. I guess the difference between us is a matter of extent. I think there is a problem of PC/MC on the RIGHT, but I don't think it's as pervasive as you do...or better put, if it IS pervasive, it has no real depth.
Let's focus on where we agree, which is that PC/MC is a MAJOR problem in our overall society. I even agree that Robert Spencer constrains himself TO A DEGREE in order not to go too far in violating the PC/MC ethos, but this is so that he might continue to function as effectively as he does in our society. I don't begrudge him this in the least, and I don't feel it compromises the effectiveness or veracity of his over-all argument.
On balance, when measured against the societal norm, Robert Spencer is about as un-PC as a scholar can possibly be...and the attempt to indite him of the "sin" of being PC/MC is really rather silly when you think about it. I think you ought to let go of your obsession with ideological purity and wish well any and all efforts to defeat the challenge of Islam in the world.
Wellington,
Do you see how complicated this becomes when you link it to politics? I disagree with conservatives on many issues (generally speaking, I disagree with liberals on most issues as well), and yet here I am, in complete agreement with you on the issue of Islam. I would recommend keeping politics out of this religious fight as much as possible, because it just creates an additional barrier to overcome. Ideally, we should only have to show people the abundant, easily verifiable facts about Islam. Instead, we have to do that and convince them the their entire political orientation (ie. part of their psychological identity) is wrong. It's an absurdly unrealistic goal.
He crossed a major line with his last couple of posts, which have since been deleted. I know I have had some dust-ups with you and Kim, but those skirmishes were nowhere close to what awake spouted off against Hesperado.
Somebody who can't win an argument without launching into a expletive-laden tirade and threatening physical violence has no place here, in my opinion.
Wellington wrote:
"I submit to you, John, that far more on the Right in America are prepared to oppose Islam's supremacist designs than are those on the Left. It's just a matter of percentages."
There have been certain defining "moments" in my life with regard to this problem of Islam -- epiphanies of a sort. These epiphanies have been apportioned out along a bifurcation: In one direction, teaching me along a learning curve about the horror of Islam and the danger of Muslims. In the second direction, teaching me along a learning curve about the baffling, exasperating, infuriating retardation of the West in waking up to the aforementioned horror and danger.
With respect to the first direction, the cold-blooded murder by Muslims in Mogadishu of the sexagenarian nun Leonella Sgorbati -- who had devoted her life to helping Muslim children in Somalia -- was one such epiphany; the beheading of Christian girls in Indonesia by Muslims (one of whom confessed after his capture that he participated in this ghoulish atrocity because he "wanted to do something good for Ramadan"), was another: these two being merely grotesque peaks piercing their monstrous horns out from a veritable mountain if not a mountain range of similarly horrible data that damns Muslims and their infernal Islam.
With respect to the second direction, I first began to be disabused of my rather tunnel-visioned focus on Leftism as the problem after hearing Bush repeating his drivel about how great Islam is, and how great most Muslims are. This particular epiphany took a while to sink in -- but one crystallizing moment was when I saw his Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, whom up to that point I admired as being no-nonsense, point his finger at Charlie Rose and declare that "the vast majority of Muslims are moderate!". At that moment, my brain went BOING! and I took stock of my paradigm that Leftism is the problem explaining why the West remains retarded about the danger of Islam. That explanation no longer sufficed. I then embarked upon the following years of analyzing the problem to come up with a better explanation. Dozens of lengthy essays on my blog, The Hesperado, are the fruit of that process. In a nutshell, I realized that a new term had to be developed to describe this sociopolitical phenomenon where the majority of conservatives are ostensibly more or less as clueless as Leftists are about Islam (and "PC MC" was the best I could come up with, the I'm always open for a better one). The only difference, it seemed to me, between most conservatives and Leftists on this issue was the added relish with which Leftists liked to skewer their own West in this context. (Ironically, way back in my anti-Leftist phase I bugged Spencer and Fitzgerald in comments here to the point where they banned me for being too persistent and, in their minds apparently, a "nuisance" with a "hobbyhorse". What makes this ironic is that Spencer in the last year or so has more and more emphasized the Leftist character of the problem, often using that epithet in his adversions.)
Make no mistake: Most conservatives today think the internment of Japanese was a "shameful chapter" in American history. And that is one piece of evidence among many that certain aspects of PC MC have infiltrated into their hearts and minds to make them true believers -- not in PC MC as a whole, necessarily, but in enough of it, or in certain key aspects of it, sufficient to render them persistently clueless about Islam in the name of an anxious need to defend Muslims against white Western "bigotry" -- a need which PC MC has successfully implanted into the conscience of most conservatives. This successful implantation is far more than a mere coup d'etat, of compelling conservatives to do something they don't really want to do, out of sociopolitical peer pressure: this is a coup de state of mind -- where conservatives sincerely agree.
And make no mistake: the heart & mind that believes the internment of Japanese was a "shameful chapter" in American history is the same heart & mind that now sees Muslims as an endangered class vulnerable to white Western "bigotry".
Note to sophomores with challenged reading comprehension skiils: I offer this example of internment of Japanese as an emblematic example among many others, not as the sole be-all and end-all linchpin of my argument.
You might notice I've been through on my industrial-strength, John Deere comment-mower. I hope I got everything.
Civility is a must. Let's not lose track of the fact that we're all in this together, and there comes a point where we have to agree to disagree among ourselves.
Keep your eyes on the prize: The satisfying clang of Sharia landing in the dustbin of history with the other totalitarian systems that have gone before it.
Cornelius,
I happen to think #3 is wrong. I guess the difference between us is a matter of extent. I think there is a problem of PC/MC on the RIGHT, but I don't think it's as pervasive as you do...or better put, if it IS pervasive, it has no real depth.
You still don't seem to understand my #3 point. PC MC is not a monolithic solid block, it is a complex paradigm of interlocking axioms, along with a more or less emotional "glue" that holds the axioms together. A person can believe in one or some of the axioms, without believing in the entire paradigm (even though he may well be tending to enable that paradigm -- an interesting parallel, by the way, with the supposedly "lax Muslim" who continues to enable the more virulent Islam of his jihadist brethren). I have noticed among conservatives -- and this is particularly evident among the "tea party" ones -- that their political indignation gets very exercized over some issues, but curiously they remain rather muted about Islam itself. The march on Washington by tea party conservatives was conspicuous for its absence of Islam on their agenda. Why is that?
I agree that statistically, when we look at the composition of types of people who are more or less anti-Islam in the West, more are conservatives and fewer are to the Left. While that is indicative of a higher residue of rationality in the sociopolitical culture & psychology of conservatives, it by no means should deflect the responsibility which the vast majority of conservatives have for egregiously ignoring or downplaying the problem of Islam to date. There is no excuse for that, and trying to pass the responsibility of that off on Leftists as somehow Macchiavellianly controlling society is lame.
On balance, when measured against the societal norm, Robert Spencer is about as un-PC as a scholar can possibly be...and the attempt to indite him of the "sin" of being PC/MC is really rather silly when you think about it.
I have never said Spencer is PC MC. What is going on here -- and one would have to read a few of my essays to do my argument justice -- is that PC MC has tendrils of influence that extend into the still inchoate anti-Islam movement (most notably evident in the Pipes and Glazov, then in varying degrees detectable in other analysts of the movement).
Hesp,
Then by all means, point out examples where PC/MCism is truly impeding the efforts of the anti-Jihad. But acknowledge that not EVERY PC/MC utterance is a reflection of ignorance or betrayal...often, it is a tactical consideration.
Robert's court brief is being fought in a prevailing cultural atmosphere. I'm more interested in him winning...than displaying a rigid fidelity to ideology. Shouldn't you be?
There's a difference, you know, Hesperado, between Republicans and conservatives. Many Republicans, including Bush 41 and 43, do have some conservative tendencies but I, for one, would not call them conservatives. They're "compassionate conservatives" or moderates who happen to be Republican or something along these lines, but they are not true conservatives. Ditto for Rumsfeld. Among pure conservatives, there's a much higher percentage who see Islam for what it really is than among the type I just described, not to mention that wish-washy pure moderate out there, your standard liberal and, of course, the Far Left. Does every conservative "get" Islam? No. But my point all along has been that a greater percentage of pure conservatives do (as they get so much else about how the world really works). I have seen no evidence whatsoever to change this conviction of mine. As I already wrote to "John," it's all about the percentages.
I don't think it becomes that complicated at all, John. My OVERWHELMING experience has been that conservatives understand the nefarious nature of Islam in far greater percentages than do moderates or liberals. Yes, you can have an exception to the rule here or there, for instance the liberal Christopher Hitchins "getting" Islam and the conservative Dinseh D'Souza pretty much clueless about Islam's wicked doctrines, but I would argue I have a right to hold liberals and wishy-washy moderates to greater account than conservatives for continuing to put up roadblocks to combatting Islam effectively.
Once again, I welcome any liberal or moderate to the fight, and decry a conservative like D'Souza who remains obdurate, but a person has to know whom he can count on and whom he can't, and, just doing the numbers, I know I can count on my fellow conservatives to a much greater extent than I can others. Just a fact. Here's another fact: In the West, those running interference for Muslims are invariably liberals, be they the ACLU, Democrats as opposed to Republicans, left-wing academics, your standard banal left-wing media type and so on. I have every right to note this and to hold these people responsible. They are, with Muslims, in the forefront of the ongoing attempt to destroy Western freedom. Damn 'em.
"Then by all means, point out examples where PC/MCism is truly impeding the efforts of the anti-Jihad."
That depends on what you mean by "efforts". It has been my position that any efforts that tend to enable the continuing presence in large numbers of Muslims within the West are worth criticizing.
Robert's court brief is being fought in a prevailing cultural atmosphere. I'm more interested in him winning...than displaying a rigid fidelity to ideology. Shouldn't you be?
I'm wall for "winning" in this regard. But what's wrong with constructive criticism of what "winning" entails?
HESPERADO: "I'm wall for "winning" in this regard. But what's wrong with constructive criticism of what "winning" entails?"
RESPONSE: Because there is every possibility that if Robert took your advice and didn't pay a degree of lip service to the prevailing culture of "tolerance"...he might lose.
Listen Hesp, you're an intelligent guy, no doubt about it....surely you can see past ideology to understand the nuance involved in the art of political warfare. Robert and Pamela are doing all the heavy lifting for the anti-Jihad, not you. Why don't you get off your high-horse and at least periodically show some appreciation for their efforts. Then you can return right back to your self-anointed role as guardian of ideological purity.
I'm getting back to my next rum and sprite and the Marquez-Diaz fight. You can have the last word.
Somebody a while back mentioned that the anti-Islam movement is like driving a car. You don't go from 0 to 5th gear right away.
Maybe Robert, Pamela, and Geert can't come right out and tell the whole truth at this point in time, for fear of being relegated to the status of a radical fringe. Perhaps once the movement gains some more speed, everybody can tell it like it is.
I'm looking over my shoulder to see whether anyone is going to catch me agreeing with Mr. Limbaugh, but seriously, how on earth can one deny the truth?
I completely fail to understand today's self identified "feminists;" haven't they read mein koranf? Haven't they taken a serious look at the lot of Saudi women? Haven't they viewed the readily available graphic pictures of the perverted, misogynist and disgusting practice of female genital mutilation? Apparently not; they seem more concerned about my weakness for occasionally sneaking a peek up the dress of an attractive woman - you know, the really important stuff.
I'm 70, and I clearly recall the great hope which was pinned upon the emerging feminist consciousness of the early 'sixties. Sadly, the movement almost from day one split into two competing and mutually exclusive factions.
That with which I am intimately acquainted has travelled the path which I and so many others have followed: we protested, sat in, smoked dope, had sex with each other and then got serious, went to work and established families. Our erstwhile yoke-fellows have never stopped dumping on us for having "sold out."
Still, what have these effete people ever contributed to the improvement of our society, and in particular to the legitimate cause of women's equality? The women with whom I shared my blue collar working life tended to be single mothers, eschewing the welfare system in favor of putting in an exhausting eight hours on the evening or midnight shift, paying taxes and being contributing assets to our society and to our country. Somehow, they still managed to find the time to be active and eloquent union members who, through their dedication and sacrifices, brought about much which we now take for granted, such as equal pay for equal work, maternity leave and advancement through merit rather than sex (no, I'll never use that stupid word "gender".)
By contrast, the doctrinaire, "cut the nasty things off" faction has over the decades become increasingly removed from reality, yet, distressingly, ever more powerful. To our eternal shame, we have, through our weakness, cowardice and political correctness permitted it to hold sway over the university campus and government bodies, thereby conceding to it the right to cause to be implemented policies which are at once retrograde and anti-woman.
Sleepers awake!!! We must forthwith restore the campus to its former, traditional rôle as "a community of scholars engaged in the free exchange of ideas."