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Last night I spoke at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. There were few disruptions during the talk itself, although there was a loud group of louts toward the back, one of whom during the question period told me angrily that he didn't want to listen to what I was saying. I assured him that no one was forcing him to listen at all, and that he was quite welcome to leave.
The question period was full of the usual self-righteous lecturing by thoroughly propagandized students who have no training in critical thinking and quite obviously feel deeply threatened when their cherished ideas, which rest on such shaky intellectual and evidentiary foundations, are questioned. I see that one of the fundamental weaknesses of the Left, and their Islamic supremacist allies, is that they believe their own propaganda, and don't even have the conceptual apparatus required to help them recover when its inaccuracy and dishonesty is exposed. Even at their best the questioners were clearly playing "Gotcha," trying to get me to say something they could use against the Week and the perspective I represent, rather than engaging in real intellectual give-and-take. This too is a function of how thoroughly they have been propagandized, for they have been taught that those who oppose them are morally evil, and can't even conceptualize the possibility that people of good will might disagree with them and thus should be engaged with ideas, not rants and attempted traps.
I didn't expect anything else at the beginning of the Week, and of course I have not been greeted with anything like the reception that Nonie Darwish and David Horowitz have received at other universities. In general, the hysteria, the lies about the Week and the intentions of its organizers, and the attempts to silence us all indicate how much the Week is needed, how threatened the Left and its jihadist allies are by our shining this light upon them and pointing out the hypocrisy of their "bigotry" talk, and how vitally important it is that we keep up this kind of pressure.
Here is a report from the Brown newspaper about the event, supplemented with bogeyman photo, although all in all the article is not nearly as bad as it could have been. There are a few inaccuracies and distortions: no mention is made of my explanation of the term "Islamofascism" as having originated by Algerian pro-democracy Muslims fighting against the exponents of political Islam, and being buttressed by the pro-Nazi sentiments of Hasan Al-Banna (founder of the Muslim Brotherhood), Hajj Amin Al-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and others. Instead, we get the impression that it's something non-Muslims like Horowitz have cooked up.
A Muslim student, Osman Chaudhry, is referred to as saying "that he thought the lecture unfairly cast suspicion on the entire Muslim community," which suggests that he was reading from his prepared notes from before the talk, not reacting to the talk itself -- in which I spoke repeatedly and at some length about the need for peaceful Muslims to confront and resist the jihadists.
The College Republicans President Mark Frank is quoted as saying of me that "where he was very provocative, he largely backed his arguments with solid evidence."
Largely? Memo to Brown students: wherever you may have thought evidence was lacking for points I made (and I can see how you might have missed some of the evidence I gave while attempting to talk over me), contact me at director@jihadwatch.org, and I will supply it.
Posted by Robert at October 26, 2007 4:01 AM
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"In general, the hysteria, the lies about the Week and the intentions of its organizers, and the attempts to silence us all indicate how much the Week is needed, how threatened the Left and its jihadist allies are by our shining this light upon them and pointing out the hypocrisy of their "bigotry" talk, and how vitally important it is that we keep up this kind of pressure."
My hat's off to you, Robert, for your bravery in the face of this onslaught of mindless hysteria. There is a long fight ahead for all of us, and your courageous and dignified example is a real inspiration.
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at October 26, 2007 8:52 AM
Given the predictable reaction of Islamania's lapdogs to the attempts to bring forth logic one could have called this week "Shrieking Idiots Week". In a way I am rooting for a world victory by the Destroyers so that I may enjoy watching such useful idiots being given the usual Islamaniac "thanks" for enabling their victory.
Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS at October 26, 2007 8:57 AM
Someone who attended your Brown presentation reported to me just after that you were indefatigable, unflappable and, in your good-humored, and detailed responses, convincing to those who came to listen and possibly to learn. And for the hissing and scowling and bitter contingent that came to disrupt and denounce, not to listen and learn, much less to begin to bethink themselves about the texts and tenets of Islam, the evening proved most unsatisfactory, a bitter disappointment, as your answering cascades of detailed knowledge simply swept their criticisms away.
I trust my informant. He is very hard to please.
at October 26, 2007 9:28 AM
I tried to get to Brown U. for last night's lecture. My drive from Hartford, CT, took longer than I expected and I missed the meeting.
Slightly OT but I attended High School in suburban Boston, MA, from 1971 to 1974. Those were the days of McGovern for President and the Watergate fiasco. When I took the required US History class, certain disruptive students wanted to discuss the latest Watergate conspiracy theory every day. I was turned off to US History at the time because we didn't get any *History* lessons in class.
In 1974, I started college in upstate New York. For a Liberal Arts (Comprehensive Education) elective, I chose Sociology. The professor and future chairman of the Sociology Department made sure we learned all about the writings of Karl Marx.
All this was before the Baby Boomers' coup of the US educational system!
--
Bob in Connecticut, USA
at October 26, 2007 9:43 AM
"Don't confuse me with the facts" must be the new student motto in Academe.
Wouldn't want to scare them with actual quotes from original Islamic sources.
Or with the evidence of 1350 years of imperialistic Islamic expansion by Mohammad's "holy warriors", nor their misogyny, homophobia, religious intolerance and terroristic behavior, from assassinating the woman poet who mocked Mohammad (Asma Bint Marwan) to the "holy" death decree issued against the Afghani guy who had to flea the Afghnaistan to Italy for dearing to convert to a faith different from Mohammed's.
Islam gets a free pass from these "students", while remaining unexamined.
Intellectual derelection of duty seems to be the common trait of their kneejerk protesters.
Read the Koran, then try to defend it, O'yoot.
Posted by: profitsbeard at October 26, 2007 10:00 AM
"This too is a function of how thoroughly they have been propagandized, for they have been taught that those who oppose them are morally evil, and can't even conceptualize the possibility that people of good will might disagree with them and thus should be engaged with ideas, not rants and attempted traps."
Kudos once again Robert. I think you cannot really measure the affect that your decorum, calm, and intellectual mastery of which you speak is really having on many, many people who come to these lectures with any sense of open mind, the ranting spoiled neo-Marxists notwithstanding.You too would seethe and rage if your delicate and carefully constructed fantasy of rationalizations, excuses, and infantile self-preservation came under the lamplight.
You are doing courageous, desperately needed work.
Posted by: JohnAdams at October 26, 2007 10:01 AM
Once again, Robert enters the belly of the beast and speaks the truth. I admire you, man.
Posted by: Bingo at October 26, 2007 10:20 AM
Islam and the left have many commonalities, one is their beliefs are absolutes, another is dividing the world in two parts, the half that joins them in their absolutes, and the other half that do not. 'Them' and 'Us'. Still another is to view people who think their absolutes as not so absolute, as enemies. And treat them as such. An absolutist is a supremacist.
But Islam is smarter than the left. Islam has Allah, and every good muslim knows that in the end, Allah will swallow both the right and the left, so the only real advantage the left has with Islam, is that jihadi's will kill them last. The left does not seem capable of grasping that concept, but jihadis do.
So the left is playing patsy for Islam to their own detriment, and are too blitzed out to see it.
Reminds me of when the light was showing in the darkness, but the darkness could not comprehend it.
Leftists are like drunks in a dark room full of cardboard boxes trying to find the light switch.
Muslims actually do quite better than that, which is why it is the leftists who are the useful idiots, and not muslims...Expect more abuse from the Islamic/leftist, thats all they have to offer...
at October 26, 2007 10:22 AM
Kudos to you Mr. Spencer and to all the other speakers who took the time to present their important message. On the basis of the videos, it seems all too often to have resembled walking into a snake pit rather than participating in a balanced, reasoned debate. One can only suppose the inner resolve necessary to overcome the demoralizing slander and vitriol. Despite the difficulties of the IFAW, I hope that it will mark the beginning of regular public awareness events of like kind. The public needs to awaken to the danger that faces it.
Posted by: Chatillon at October 26, 2007 10:29 AM
swami:
Yes, the Jihadis are using our own neo-Marxists to do their heavy lifting in this country (and does anyone else notice that we are forced to re-defeat Communism? Or that, for all intents and purposes, the Communists already have a death grip on the throat of Europe?).
But by comparison, defeating communists and fascists is a cakewalk when confronted with Islamism. What makes Islamism so sinister is the virulent strain of "religion" that drives its motor. When you have hundreds of millions who actually cherish death above life, you have a potent first wave of attackers. Of course, ALL of them will find their heads on a bloody block when the mullahs achieve their power. All will be expendable but slaves, whores, and breeding mares.
Posted by: JohnAdams at October 26, 2007 10:49 AM
"They have been taught that those who oppose them are morally evil, and can't even conceptualize the possibility that people of good will might disagree with them and thus should be engaged with ideas"
Robert, you're getting to be such a good writer: you've said so much, right there.
Posted by: Matt A. Moros at October 26, 2007 10:53 AM
Students for Critical Thinking mobilized for the lecture and asked students to “Turn Your Back on Horowitz” and “Wear Orange Arm Band for the color of victims of torture in Guantanamo.
--- from FrontPageMag.com article about last night at Emory
Hmm. Lemme get this straight. Critical thinkers critize the speech of anti-Dhimmi David Horowitz for daring to criticize actual mass murderers, Moslem activists all, who in their critical thinking regard as heros in their struggle against perceived attacks by America, the imperialist monster.
* 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 *
Two things the spoiled rich kid pseudo intellectuals must answer to:
1) All observant Moslems worship mass Murder in the Koran, the Hadiths, and the sacralized biographies of you-know-who.
2) Back in the 60s students were agrued with straight faces (in their Marxist analysis) that America was in Vietnam to steal the tin reserves there; now they're agruing that we're in Iraq to steal that forlorn country's oil.
Just how much tin and oil has imperialist America stolen? None.
* 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 *
The numbers in Marx's Das Kapital are fraudulent; the spoiled children brown shirts at the way overrated Emory are frauds.
Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at October 26, 2007 11:16 AM
Robert,
Kudos to you for speaking at Brown, a university desperately in need of a real exchange of ideas rather than the blind acceptance and "debate" around leftist ideology.
I myself am a Brown alum, attending the university between 2000-2004. I entered Brown as a self-described "liberal leftist", with definite communist tendencies. Over the next four years, however, after witnessing countless infantile protests and truly understanding just how intolerant most leftists are of any opinion other than their own, my personal politics began to change.
Many of my friends from Brown would now consider my politics downright right wing, since I no longer follow the party line. I support Israel. European dhimmitude worries me. Bush needs to stop pretending that Saudi Arabia is an ally against terror.
Anyhow, just wanted to send you a quick note to say that I support you and that your website has been an invaluable learning tool for me. I strongly encourage you and other articulate "conservative" speakers (please no fire starters like Anne Coulter) to visit traditionally liberal school, like Brown, to express your opinions. Your receptive audience is larger than you might realize.
Posted by: MattH at October 26, 2007 11:20 AM
People, check out this article from the LSU Reveille.
On the second page the columnist admits, "I have not read the Qur'an."
Posted by: darcy at October 26, 2007 11:24 AM
Students for Critical Thinking mobilized for the lecture and asked students to “Turn Your Back on Horowitz” and “Wear Orange Arm Band for the color of victims of torture in Guantanamo.
--- from FrontPageMag.com article about last night at Emory
Hmm. Lemme get this straight. Critical thinkers critize the speech of anti-Dhimmi David Horowitz for daring to criticize actual mass murderers, Moslem activists all, who in their critical thinking regard as heros in their struggle against perceived attacks by America, the imperialist monster.
* 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 *
Two things the spoiled rich kid pseudo intellectuals must answer to:
1) All observant Moslems worship mass Murder in the Koran, the Hadiths, and the sacralized biographies of you-know-who.
2) Back in the 60s students were agrued with straight faces (in their Marxist analysis) that America was in Vietnam to steal the tin reserves there; now they're agruing that we're in Iraq to steal that forlorn country's oil.
Just how much tin and oil has imperialist America stolen? None.
* 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 *
The numbers in Marx's Das Kapital are fraudulent; the spoiled children brown shirts at the way overrated Emory are frauds.
Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at October 26, 2007 11:44 AM
I live in Chicago ,and most people I speak with on this subject are total appeasers and whimpy liberals. Check out some of the comments on the Chicago Tribune blog. One guy says that we cause terrorism. That it is caused by American Christian Fascists. What does that mean even? I hope this link opens.
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/religion_theseeker/2007/10/islamo-what.html
Posted by: MagnaCharles at October 26, 2007 11:47 AM
Darcy, I thought the article in the LSU Reveille was quite good (at least far better than most of the tripe published in school newspapers). The columnist was explaining why the term "Islamo-fascism" was the correct way to refer to the jehadists. One doesn't have to read the Koran (though it helps to understand better the mindset of muslims) to realize that there is nothing wrong with the use of the term. Common sense is good enough for that.
at October 26, 2007 11:48 AM
” The question period was full of the usual self-righteous lecturing by thoroughly propagandized students who have no training in critical thinking and quite obviously feel deeply threatened when their cherished ideas, which rest on such shaky intellectual and evidentiary foundations, are questioned.
This is absolutely true, which is why I think elementary logic should be a mandatory freshman university course everywhere (in high school even). If nothing else it disciplines the mind to recognize non-sequiturs & common logical fallacies.
Look at the nonsense responses to Oklahoma Rep. Rex Duncan’s refusal to accept the “gift” of a Koran:
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=071023_1_A1_spanc46170
This was a slick propaganda tactic to get the decliners to look like bigots, but so many of the comments where just awful. You see a lot of what I call the Divert-To-Other-Evils (DTOE) tactic that Robert Spencer & others constantly encounter. You try to expose some pertinent & threatening evil going on and some moron objects “What about such & such evil, or what about what Christians have done, you never mention… etc …” as if the absence of addressing every evil or even every vaguely similar wrongdoing vitiates the speaker’s points about the problem under discussion. DTOE comments and other errors of argument widely employed reflect the poor level of education in our universities today.
at October 26, 2007 1:19 PM
There are a few inaccuracies and distortions: no mention is made of my explanation of the term "Islamofascism" as having originated by Algerian pro-democracy Muslims fighting against the exponents of political Islam, and being buttressed by the pro-Nazi sentiments of Hasan Al-Banna (founder of the Muslim Brotherhood), Hajj Amin Al-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and others. Instead, we get the impression that it's something non-Muslims like Horowitz have cooked up.Robert
In that case, why does Horowitz and others not only use the term 'Islamo-Fascism' liberally, but also append it to the headlines of your articles as they appear on FrontPage Magazine, even though you don't use them yourself? Even saying that you are opposed to Jihad isn't adequate: do those who oppose 'Islamo-Fascism' or even Jihad also oppose Muslim footwash basins, which are neither 'fascistic' nor Jihadic in and of themselves, but rather symbolic of a greater malaise that pervades the West - Islam.
As the video: Islam: What the West needs to know points out, Islam is a complete way of life - basically a cultural conversion to Arabic on top of a cultic conversion to Mohammed. So why look like you are endorsing a perceived subset of Islam when what you actually oppose is far larger in scope?
Posted by: Infidel Pride at October 26, 2007 2:29 PM
Seconding Hugh's remarks above, and also JohnAdams who wrote - "kudos once again Robert. I think you cannot really measure the effect that your decorum, calm, and intellectual mastery of which you speak is really having on many, many people who come to these lectures with any sense of open mind" - seconded, though I am going from Robert's books and articles, not from hearing him speak. (I have just finished reading, for the first time, my brand-new copies of 'Religion of Peace?' and 'The Truth About Muhammad'; great books, though I think Robert's masterpiece is 'the PIG to Islam and the Crusades').
I wish Pope Benedict XVI would give Mr Robert Spencer a Papal audience. Just going from the published work, I see in Mr Spencer - who is, let us not forget, a practising Catholic - an inspiring exemplar of that union of Faith (indeed, Faith expressing itself in Charity) and Reason which Benedict discussed in his Regensburg speech.
I am reminded of Chaucer's "verray parfit gentil knyht" and of Chaucer's Clerk - "and gladly would he learn and gladly teach".
Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at October 26, 2007 5:40 PM
@FM,
My thinking must be twisted or something. I put in my two cents' worth, voted strongly disagree with their actions in not accepting the Qur'ans.
I didn't read the comments of other voters, but the thinking behind my vote was: "What? Do they think Islam will go away, if they don't learn about it? Do they think they won't be held accountable because they deliberately fostered their own ignorance? Are they unwilling to admit the political component of this crazy-quilt text, and its equally insane "religion"?
They should all have to sit in the corner and write 500 times, "Islam is not a religion."
Posted by: Abscedere at October 26, 2007 10:10 PM
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