In my latest at PJ Media I discuss what is at stake in the global jihadist challenge to freedom:
Another Independence Day is upon us, and it always bears repeating that the struggle for freedom has not changed, and will not change. It is the eternal struggle over whether human beings will live free, or willingly submit to slavery.
I see slaves seeking slavery, and slaves defending slavery, all over the world today. As those who are standing against tyranny are increasingly branded as “enemies of the people,” demonized, and marginalized, the avoidance of slavery will be harder than ever, and not coming solely from jihad. Nonetheless, the enablers of one are the enablers of the other. I see people defending oppressors and carrying water for bullies and tyrants, and thinking all the while that they’re serving the cause of freedom.
In reality, this is what it is all about. You are either fighting for one thing, or the other. It is always useful to check one’s daily efforts against this, for if you’re not working to advance the cause of one side of this comparison, you’re working to advance the other.
4. Governments deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
What we must defend:
“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…” — Declaration of Independence
What we must defend it against:
Non-Muslims have “absolutely no right to seize the reins of power in any part of God’s earth nor to direct the collective affairs of human beings according to their own misconceived doctrines.” If they do, “the believers would be under an obligation to do their utmost to dislodge them from political power and to make them live in subservience to the Islamic way of life.” — Syed Abul Ala Maududi, founder of the Pakistani political party Jamaat-e-Islami
3. Equality of rights before the law.
What we must defend:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” — Declaration of Independence
What we must defend it against:
“The indemnity for the death or injury of a woman is one-half the indemnity paid for a man. The indemnity paid for a Jew or Christian is one-third the indemnity paid for a Muslim. The indemnity paid for a Zoroastrian is one-fifteenth that of a Muslim.” — ‘Umdat al-Salik, o4.9
“Thus if [a] Muslim commits adultery his punishment is 100 lashes, the shaving of his head, and one year of banishment. But if the man is not a Muslim and commits adultery with a Muslim woman his penalty is execution. … Similarly if a Muslim deliberately murders another Muslim he falls under the law of retaliation and must by law be put to death by the next of kin. But if a non-Muslim who dies at the hand of a Muslim has by lifelong habit been a non-Muslim, the penalty of death is not valid. Instead the Muslim murderer must pay a fine and be punished with the lash. … Since Islam regards non-Muslims as on a lower level of belief and conviction, if a Muslim kills a non-Muslim, then his punishment must not be the retaliatory death, since the faith and conviction he possesses is loftier than that of the man slain…Again, the penalties of a non-Muslim guilty of fornication with a Muslim woman are augmented because, in addition to the crime against morality, social duty and religion, he has committed sacrilege, in that he has disgraced a Muslim and thereby cast scorn upon the Muslims in general, and so must be executed. … Islam and its peoples must be above the infidels, and never permit non-Muslims to acquire lordship over them.” — Sultanhussein Tabandeh, A Muslim Commentary on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights…
Read the rest here.