D'Souza is conservative in the sense of being in favor of traditional social norms, with its emphasis on conformity and the restriction of individual freedom. I prefer to think that American conservatism is more libertarian, with an emphasis on less government and more individual freedom, in a framework of Judeo-Christian ethics.
Islamism not only supresses individual freedom, but it also advocates violence against unbelievers in order to subjugate or kill them. That fits neither category. D'Souza ought to know that.

Posted by: jewdog at December 30, 2007 8:08 AM

I like Dinesh better when he debates atheists. when he steps into islamo-fascism he is a total disgrace for Christians, and for conservativies in general.

Dinesh, please, limit yourself in debating the likes of Hitchens or Dawkins. Islamo-nazism is another soccer game. (Hey! I am in europe!)

Posted by: Crusader at December 30, 2007 8:15 AM

Moslem democracy. Now that's funny.

Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at December 30, 2007 8:19 AM

Dinesh, try living as a Christian under sharia and then get back to me latter. Be thankful that there are Jews and Christians who want nothing to do with it and stand up to the Muslims bigtime for true freedom. God Bless our armed forces people.

Posted by: bigcatgirl13106 at December 30, 2007 8:22 AM

If they want Sharia, let them have it. There is but one problem: Sharia doesn't protect the rights of minorities. It expunges them. First it expunges their rights and then, in time, it eliminates the minorities. However, if we want the will of the people to carry the day, so be it. If they want Sharia they can have it, but with a codicil:

No Muslim from any country that practices Sharia can be allowed even to enter a Western country. "The huddled masses" of non-Muslims "yearning to breathe free" will be. Call it reverse isolationism. Isolate all populations that seek sharia. Let freedom live.

Posted by: PMK at December 30, 2007 8:54 AM

"No Muslim from any country that practices Sharia can be allowed even to enter a Western country. "The huddled masses" of non-Muslims "yearning to breathe free" will be. Call it reverse isolationism. Isolate all populations that seek sharia. Let freedom live.

PMK, I'm with you. I don't give a fast flying fart what muslims do in muslim countries. Just don't bring it here! And deport any muslims who will not sign an oath that they will peacefully integrate into our society, and accept our laws and values.

Posted by: ImNoDhimmi at December 30, 2007 9:06 AM

PMK

I too dont care what Muslims do in their own Islamic countries. If they want shari'a they can have it. It is none of our business, as long as they dont come to Western countries and want to have shari'a over here. It is not our business to
force secular liberal democracy on people who do not want it, or are not ready for it. It is this messianic attitude of the West, that all people subscribe to the idea of a liberal democracy, that is quite unnecesarily causing all the problems. This attempt to foist liberal democarcy on people who do not want it, as Islamic law forbids it, is destroying reasonably functioning Islamic states, and creating turmoil elsewhere.

As Muslims, even the moderate ones, are obliged to demand shari'a, the best we can do is to not allow Muslim immigration as a first step, and then encourage Muslims to go back to where their customs are acceptable.

For instance, I find burqas wandering around our streets, Islamic calls for prayer, Halal slaughter etc, deeply offensive to my way of life. Why should I have to put up with this barbarism. I cant recall the political elite asking the people if we wished to see such wonderful cultural traditions in our own back yard.

Posted by: DP111 at December 30, 2007 9:40 AM

I oppose sharia even in moslem countries...or moslem enclaves of other countries...under all circumstances because it requires those living under it to expand the reach of sharia. Apparently the only way to have an area under sharia to be safe for non-moslems is to kick them out, as did Spain, or to place them under a strong-man as we saw in Iran under the shah. Looking back at history, I see no other real options.

Posted by: eve_anne_gelical at December 30, 2007 9:42 AM

Hate to say it, but I agree with D'Souza.

Posted by: Goob at December 30, 2007 10:03 AM

If Sharia were like keeping kosher, i.e., an individual decision to follow a religious law, I would agree with the Dinesh D'douglas. However, sharia enshrines as a permanent good one of the humanity's nastiest impulses, the urge to mind everyone else's business.
Would Dinesh think that there was nothing wrong with Nazi genocide if the majority voted for it? How about China's one child policy along with its forced abortions? If it were approved by vote instead of imposed from above would it be ok in his book?

Posted by: AnneCrockett at December 30, 2007 10:18 AM

Say, will women get to VOTE about shari'a, or will they be denied the opportunity since they can't drive to the polls?

Will they have a say in the "dress codes"?

Will they have a voice in government?

Will they be able to stand for office in the same election in which they (supposedly) vote for shari'a?

Dinesh is, of course, a great defender of patriarchy, a case for which he makes in advocating the

In fact, it's not Christianity OR Islam that Dinesh is **principally** defending. It's male authority. And all this business about Islam and Christianity is completely incidental to that primary quest.

So, of course, he has no objection to the imposition of shari'a, by the vote or not.

It's where he's always been heading, unnoticed by almost everybody. Why else is does his Chapter 6 discuss the loss of patriarchy as being entirely to blame for divorce, homosexuality (yeah? how's that Dinesh), and all other evils in the Western world.

Or, males should have all the power, and the problem is that they've lost it. Or so Dinesh would have us think.

In fact, the criminalization of the female voice and form since the early decades of the 20th century when Western-styled constitutions gave them rights then overturned by the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taleban, Al Qaeda, and Wahhabism, has directly led to what forensic psychiatrist Dr. Jerrold Post calls the juvenile-genital obsession of radical Islamsts. That should come as a shock to no one who understands radicalized male totalitarianism, as all cultures that go there MUST subjugate their female population.

Get the little woman in line, eh Dinesh? And Shari'a is JUST the way to do it, eh Dinesh?

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at December 30, 2007 10:47 AM

Is Robert some kinda D'Souzaphonophobe?

This is sadly an area where many aspects of Western anti-jihad frays into factionalism. I think D'Souza's formulation of solidarity with "conservative" Muslims is repugnant, misguided, and utterly malignant. The sinister Muslims have exploited such formulations ruthlessly in their Jihad against us. They've read the hearts of various gullible Western Puritans like him and whispered in their ear "See how much like you we are!", and those Puritans have fallen for it all. D'Souza has fallen for it. Bush has fallen for it. And even the Westerm media, the media which cannot tell the dofference between a Baptist and Shiite has fallen for it. The moronic lesbian Rosie has fallen for it. The parsing of Islam and the confusions derived therefrom is a debate that needs having desperately.

Parsing Islam into its constituent parts is a dangerous bog for the West. As long as Muslims successfully peddle their "Don't judge Islam by the acts of a few!" theme, (which even Mr. Spencer subscribes to), non-Muslim will fall into their trap. D'Souza falls into this trap by seeing aspects of Islam which cleave so closely to his own Puritanism, that he's completely unsuspicious of the supremacist impulse which accompanies Islam's Puritanism.

I believe the only way to successfully beat back the Islamic marauder is to tell the simplest truth about Islam. We must relentlessly equate Islam with Jihadism and Jihadism with the supramacist impulse of Islam, and never let Muslims off the hook by parsing these facts too finely. The Muslims are perfectly willing to do most of the lifting in this arena, for they cannot help but act like Muslims and wage Jihad to spread their vile faith. Islam must become linked permanently in the Western mind with Jihad, Jihad must be linked permanently with the act of spreading Islam and the spread of Islam must be understood to bring with it violence and Jihad and all the unpleasantness of Islam.

Ironically it's the kindly impulse in us to not jump to conclusions about an entire people, and to refrain from making overbroad assertions, that allows the true Trojan Horse of Islam to penetrate our defenses so insidiously.

All Jihad is not violent, for the bake sale at the local Mosque to raise funds for Da'wa is also Jihad. The birthing of another Muslim mouth is Jihad. So is the lawsuit to silence criticism of Islam. But the exploding bomb vest is Jihad too, as is the DVD of a beheading. A Muslim in the Chemistry 101 class is also Jihad, if it somehow furthers Islam(use your imagination). If it furthers Islam, perpetuates Islam, obscures Islam to her enemies, it's Jihad.

So by spreading Islam and funding Islam and believing in Islam and parsing Islam all perpetuate Islam, and forestall the day of its repudiation.

Let's shove Islam down the Muslims' throat. Let's hoist them on their own Jihad. Their faith itself is the best tool our enemy offers us to destroy him. As he destroys us with our inventions and our openness and our freedoms and our beliefs, so should we with his inventions and his beliefs. Shove Islam down their throats until they choke on it.

Posted by: jsla at December 30, 2007 11:01 AM

DP111,

You say it's not our business to "force secular liberal democracy" on people who don't want it.

I agree, but that comes at a price. Imagine a president making such a speech at the General Assembly:

People living under a dictatorship will have to free themselves. The United States of America is a nation-state like all the others. You want your sovereignty respected, that means you have to free yourself. We will remain silent as long as you sit behind a line on a map that our authority doesn't extend to.

We're damned if we do and damned if we don't. The same people who condemn Bush's policy of encouraging democracy in the Muslim world also condemned the US for supporting Saddam after the Iranian Revolution. They condemn us for "working with dictators" and for overthrowing them. They can't have it both ways.

If liberal democracy cannot be "forced" on Muslims then Muslims cannot be forced on the United States. As a condition for total withdrawal from (and complete indifference to) the Muslim world, Muslims will be barred from entering the United States. How's that for compromise?

Posted by: PMK at December 30, 2007 11:11 AM

jewdog writes:

I prefer to think that American conservatism is more libertarian, with an emphasis on less government and more individual freedom, in a framework of Judeo-Christian ethics.

To this end, they have lobbied Congress to ban all forms of online gambling. They have demanded the passage of a Federal Marriage Amendment to ban same-sex marriage, which would necessarily end up overriding state marriage laws and state courts.

Some of the things they say sound disturbingly close to the view of women in Sharia: That wives should "submit" to their husbands; that it may have been a mistake to give women the right to vote; that the way to prevent unwanted pregnancies is for women to "just keep their legs together"; that the Government should rigorously enforce laws against sodomy; etc.

D'Souza is pandering to this socially conservative tendency.

Posted by: Steven L. at December 30, 2007 11:27 AM

Dinesh D'Souza expresses his attachment to the democratic principle: an attachment so strong and unyielding that he says, If they want Sharia, let them have it!

That is NOT the "democratic principle." That is self-determination, which is not exactly the same thing.

D'Souza is making the same error that the Bush Administration did. And that other Administrations did during the Cold War: Whatever the people vote for in an "internationally supervised election" is fine with us. They constantly pushed for self-determination and labeled it "democracy." Thus we got peoples voting themselves into fascism, communism, and (with the election victory of HAMAS) Islamist terrorism.

Well, no it's not. That's why our Founding Fathers did not create a pure direct democracy. They correctly feared mob rule, and popular demagogues getting into office and then abrogating people's rights. So they limited the ability of the people to demand things. The people can't abrogate the Bill of Rights, for example, even if a majority want to. Democracy includes respect for other people's rights, and respect for the rule of civil law--even if at some point in time, a majority of people would prefer otherwise.

Is Sharia popular in the Muslim world? Yes. Does that mean it's a moral ideal? No.

Posted by: Steven L. at December 30, 2007 11:40 AM

Morgaan Sinclair

I agree with you...go figure.

D'Souza has that effect on people.

"But women and men both voted for the Dawa party, and so essentially the Times and Dowd were arguing that if Iraqis don't want equal roles for men and women, their democracy is a sham."

Everyone knows women in an Islamic society are in danger for the their lives. All the women who did NOT vote for the Dawa party are either: (1) going to or have been lynched, (2) left Iraq.

Thus if a woman has children and wants to live...she votes for what the "man" tells her to vote for. Is that the kind of Democracy any of us want to live in? The lynch mob tells you who to vote for! No sir! Thank god for the 2nd!

Once again I repeat: The Traditional American Woman!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Miss-Annie-Oakley-peerless-wing-shot.jpg

D'Souza still does not understand America (or Islam).

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at December 30, 2007 11:41 AM

Morgaan:

Great post. I've always believed that, at the basis of Dinesh's "conservatism," lies pure mysogyny/wish to control women. In sharia women are the great losers, not even the homosexuals, for homosexuality is rampant and tolerated in certain parts of Islam. The real curse is being a woman.
Mysogyny is so transparent in Dinesh's thinking that I'm dumbfounded why it hasn't been discussed more widely.

Posted by: ovidius_naso at December 30, 2007 11:47 AM

Nothing like this kind of topic to bring out the best of Roberts 'worshippers',(I can't stop laughing
at that charge). Thanks Morgaan for pointing out what might otherwise slip under the radar...

Posted by: duh_swami at December 30, 2007 12:14 PM

Actually, I don't share De Sousa's cavalier attitude toward the imposition of Sharia law in any society. It smaks of relativism, all moral systems are equal, it's all a matter of a peoples cultural and religious view of right and wrong.

The relativist does not permit for any society to claim moral superiority over any other society or culture.

Taken to its logical conclusion, the Aztec's were wronged by the Spanish for brutally crushing their practice of human sacrifice.

Having said that, however, I understand where De Sousa is comming from. If we're going to insist that Democracy is the best form of government, where the will of the people must be considered in a democratic process -- even in an Islamic socirty --, how can we prevent them from imposing immoral and primitive laws on others in their socities, without destroying the democratic process?

We have to make up our minds that there are some people in this world -- most notably in the Muslim world -- where immorality is engrained in their thinking, and that the democratic process will only provide them with an opportunity to act out their immoral and primitive impulses.

In short, Democracy doesn't automatically insure that a population will act morally. Moral views are not determined by the one man, one vote concept. They are determined by a whole different set of things. In the Islamic world, they are determined by a morally inferior set of religious beliefs.

Nothing we can do about that.

Posted by: rational at December 30, 2007 12:43 PM

Sharia, and all who espouse it, are utterly incompatable with the human rights and secular rule of law concepts of the West.

They should be left to stew in this regressive 7th century folly in their own zone.

And kept from infiltrating and undermining Civilization.

Muslims belong in Mecca, period.

Posted by: profitsbeard at December 30, 2007 12:54 PM

Dear GreatComet ...

How nice! We agree!

Yeah, Dinesh is more about containing women than about either religion. Religion is just a means to this end.

I know that my being a woman is perhaps a prejudicing factor in the way I think. But, in fact, I'm a very conservative woman in my own dress and behavior, so I hardly qualify as coming down on the Brittney Spears side of things!

But I do think this: After having read Dr. Jerrold Post (the forensic psychiatrist who created the CIA profile of terrorists) on collectivism in Islam, and watching him come to the conclusion that radicals never get out of the Freudian infant-genital phase of development, I am scared to death that what we are looking at are a bunch of guys driven by fear of and hatred of women. That makes this, on some profound level (but not the only one), a war against women.

Even Jeff Jacoby of The Boston Globe wrote an article about the Islamic war on women.

It's suspicious to me that the great radical movements of the 20th century rose in direct opposition to the unveiling of women in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Paris of the Middle East in the 1950s—in the Iran of the 1920 and 1930s—in the Afghanistan of the 1940s and 1950s (Zahir Shah gave women full rights because "it was the right thing to do"), you find everywhere the same thing: women get rights given to them by educated upper classes, and immediately there is born a rabid resurgence of Talebanism and Wahhabism, the rise of the Ikhwan in Saudi Arabia, the Salafists all over the place, and Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt—that last one a DIRECT challenge to freedom of PRE-feminist American women. Qutb was likely gay and very upset about it, and had a huge misogyny going on. He claimed that he never married because he could not find a woman PURE enough for him, meaning, I guess, he thinks we're all just foul and disgusting. That's not even normal behavior for a gay guy! Look at Muhammad Atta, so eager to control women, even in the possibility one might attend his funeral. A tad maladjusted? Ya think?

Anyhow ... it's time we stop footsying around with saying this stuff. Terrorism has a HIGH DEGREE of sexual perversion, misogyny, pornographic ideation, social maladjustment — Post says because madrassahs block all contact with women for boys 7 to adult, so they have no ability to incorporate an understanding of natural female orientation or behavior. In Afghanistan, the Taliban allowed men to seek gay prostitutes in order to allay their inability to seek a woman in any kind of normal way.

Meanwhile, I don't like where feminism in the USA went, either. Mostly I blame Betty Friedan, whom I knew, and Gloria Steinem, whom I didn't. Betty Friedan was ALL about destroying the family for communism — which her husband exposed in his book a few years before she died, hopefully from the embarrassment of having lied all the time. Gloria Steinem was a vain adolescent.

Neither of them REALLY wanted respect for women — the way women perceive, the way they think, they way they have impact consciousness, their natural talent or intelligence, or anything else REAL aobut women. Both Betty and Gloria wanted just to **HAVE** what men had. That makes them the worst male chauvinists there are.

Meanwhile, the damage to child-rearing has been absolutely massive. The trick here is to offer equal opportunity to both genders and let the chips fall where they may — by this I mean no man should be refused entry into MIT because there's a less qualified woman and the quotas don't look good! — but also to reserve in child-rearing the gender "roles" that work. And that is: Mom stays home until ALL the kids go to school, Dad provides for the family, and then when all the kids are seven and above, one parent is still home in the afternoon after school through the evening. It's the ONLY thing that works. Every shred of evidence suggests that is what is needed. Every developmental psychologist worth his or her salt says the same thing: until a kid is seven, the principal parent is mother; after seven the principle parent is father.

The feminists threw this away, but both sexes failed. The ones who failed least were the traditionalist women, who refused to leave their children. The ones who failed most were the feminists. The ones who failed all over the place were the men who used feminism as an excuse to stop being responsible for the children they fathered and the women they got pregnant, and basically said, "Hey, you want to be equal? Well, take it off."

But the answer to that is NOT a return to women as slave labor and chattel of men. The answer is that women learn to be women again, and men start POLICING THEIR OWN. Men are always (in all cultures) trying to achieve balance in society by manipulating the behavior and roles of women. They never stand up to each other. They want to make a case against abortion, but they try to do that by legislating women's medicine — not by trying to contain the behavior of men that is HIGHLY tended toward spreading children everywhere and leaving women to hold the impact. And if birth control is on the agenda for everybody (and it certainly should be as Malthus was NOT WRONG about what happens when you don't control it), then try the physical systems of men, not women, as they are simpler and do not have the possibility of impacting unborn children.

That said, I guess I'm pretty much sick of being given a false choice: that we either accept D'Souza's patriarchy and shari'a law OR that we have to live with gansta rap and Brittna Spears flashing us without undies.

No, that's a false choice. The other choice, the third choice, is that men and women treat each other equally in all affairs, and that in the event there are kids, both men and women embrace the roles (flexibly) that every anthropologist and psychologist KNOWS must be there if children are to be healthy and happy.

AND, my guess is the first religion that completely embraces women in the priesthood will eventually win the planet. So far, that's the Protestants. Pity, too, as I tend towards Orthodoxy or Catholicism and can't abide the Lutheran anti-Semitic screed! Damn!

Anyhow, GreatComet, we've had some tiffs, but I do learn a great deal from you and have enormous respect for you, and it's good to have a chance to say so.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at December 30, 2007 1:03 PM

rational ...

Democracy is the wrong INITIAL focus. In the British system, reversion to self-rule from imperial rule, too 20-35 years, and was in graded stages. Self-rule in Belize, which was completely peaceful, was staged at 25 years, with the education of the population in democracy taking that long, the British thought, AT A MINIMUM. People can't deal with a party system and the power vacuum in less than two decades, and therefore the most organized criminal group (in Egypt that's the Muslim Brotherhood) will always win the first elections, and then take freedom from everyone else.

If the focus is FREEDOM and HUMAN RIGHTS and CIVIL PROTECTION OF EQUALITY first ... by constitution ... you have a much better chance of making it.

So, the focus is really FREEDOM and EQUAL HUMAN RIGHTS under the law ... probably a benign regent government for at least ONE GENERATION so at least half the bad guys peacefully die out ... and then a staged release to democracy. The staged release is important so that a decent regent government can halt or slow the process if really bad elements, which desire the suppression of one class, ethnic group, gender group, linguisitic group, etc., can't get hold of the government and oppress everybody else. You have to get used to full human rights, and there are many, many groups of people who don't want that as it's a threat to their power.

Thus it is that democracy is a poor, if not self-defeating goal for oppressed peoples, one they can't manage and can't handle, and that devolves to chaos and violence right away. I think recent events bear that out, and the only reason Afghanistan hasn't been as bad as Iraq is that Karzai was backed by the whole Popularazi tribe in Qandahar, and he is a highly educated leader, not a thug like al-Maliki.

People have to get used to freedom and safety first. And then, when there is AT LEAST one generation, better still TWO, that have lived in freedom and safety and know what it is, then they will fight for it.

But in Islamic countries there is yet one more obstacle, and that is the habit of submission, not only to religion but to state authority. As much as they bitch about it, CLEARLY it's going to be up to some poor kaffir to die for the freedom, because sure as hell they're not going to do it.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at December 30, 2007 1:16 PM

STEPHEN T.

What makes you think Muslims like Sharia law?

I'd guess that most of them are afraid to disagree with it so they pretend. DECEPTION is every Muslim's middle name!

BAN MUSLIM IMMIGRATION TO THE USA!!!!

Posted by: youngtimer at December 30, 2007 1:34 PM

Margaret Thatcher once put down an example that if you have an island of 20 people - 16 men and 4 women, and if there was a vote on whether it was okay to rape the women and passed, would it qualify as democratic? Under Thatcher's judgement, the answer is no, since the 4 women would have been disenfranchized.

For D'Souza, looks like the answer is yes.

Posted by: Infidel Pride at December 30, 2007 1:40 PM

Some of the things they say sound disturbingly close to the view of women in Sharia: That wives should "submit" to their husbands;

Only clumsy dolts are unable to decipher the colossal difference between to the two.

Posted by: Bar at December 30, 2007 2:00 PM

Infidel Pride ...

GREAT example. I'm going to save that one.

Cheers, M.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at December 30, 2007 2:24 PM

Morgaan Sinclair,

Good analysis! but the thing that makes me pessimistic about the prospects of even a gradual movement to a just Islamic society, based on equality and respect for human rights, is that Islamic societies are God-centered in ways that other societies are not.

The foundation of the Islamic faith is the Koran, an eternal, unchanging and unalterable book, transmitted to Muslims by God. Much of what God teaches in the Koran is inherently hostile to the Western concepts of equality and human rights.

Even a well-meaning gradualist who attempts to redefine Koranic teachings to make them more compatible with Western ideas of equality and human rights, is going to be met with overwhelming resistence from the Islamic world. It won't make any difference if it's the present generation, the next generation, or the generation after that.

A case in point is Turkey. The Turks have had several generations of exposure to Western concepts of justice and equality, yet the Turkish military has found it necessary to overthrow at least four governments elected by the Turkish electorate in free elections -- because those governments were moving in the direction of an Islamic State -- with the obvious approval of the Muslim people of Turkey.

In short, Islam is incompatible with any Western ideas of what costitues a just and equal society. When push comes to shuve, Muslims will always opt for God's laws over laws enacted by men.

It doesn't sound rational that a people would choose oppression over freedom, injustice over justice, light over darkness, but that is exactly what Muslims will do.

It is their faith, and nothing we do or say is going to change it. Only the demise of Islam will change it.

Posted by: rational at December 30, 2007 3:07 PM

Infidel Pride said

if there was a vote on whether it was okay to rape the women and passed, would it qualify as democratic?

The alternative is to have U.S./U.K. soldiers on every island in the world, to ensure that nothing bad happens anywhere.

I think we need to keep our focus on protecting ourselves first. Saving the Muslims from themselves should be an extremely distant second.

Posted by: special_guest at December 30, 2007 3:13 PM

D'Souza's a goofball.

And I don't think sharia is something we can be so dismissive about.

Someone would have to convince me that sharia in mot inherently expansionist and imperialist.

I don't see any place in the world where sharia seems to oppress only it's own votaries.

I'm thinking that we have to go on the offensive to discredit sharia everywhere.

Posted by: joeblough at December 30, 2007 3:47 PM

My problem is this: I don't want one more drop of blood and not one more penny spent on this adventure in Iraq if our goal is to produce an Islamic state. I don't care if it is done by democracy or by a dictator.

Why do we have to help these people? Why is it in the U.S. interest to produce a state that (as D'Souza says):

"Consequently Muslim democracies are likely to be more conservative socially than they are when secular despots rule them."

That means a Islamic state. Is this what we want? Is this worth the lives of men and women who have died in this battle in Iraq? Is this worth the money?

It is their world (I know that), and if they want to beat their wives in Iraq so be it, but we don't have to help them do it. It is not our job to help pay for their sick fantasies and religion. Let them do it on their own dime and with their blood.

We should be promoting AMERICAN VALUES! One of those values is a western style bill of rights. I want out of Iraq. I want out now.

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at December 30, 2007 5:05 PM

Re: D'Souza: If they want Sharia, let 'em have it!

If they want Nazism, let em have it.

So much of this guys' Western "immorality" bullshit and the family values crap reminds me of Hitler's criticisms of England and America in the 20's and 30's. The answer with Islam will finally have to be the same answer given to Hitler. Islam (as with all non-commercial imperial-isms) is an ideologically based cover for supremacism-domination-exploitation-destruction-of-indigenous-cultures.

The "morality" crap of D'Souza is no different than the Nazi shit on the matter. Give me commercial imperialism any day over these ideological rationalizations for domination. Islam is just another cover for imperialism, as in Pizarro in Peru, or Muslim invaders of India.

I don't think it can be reformed. I think, like Nazi "mortality" and "family values", Islam is as real as the liar Fibrahim Hooper.

Posted by: Frank at December 30, 2007 5:23 PM

Funny, but maybe Coulter was, in a sense, right: invade, kill their leaders, and convert the people to Christianity (or to any other religion, I'd say, except Islam). The problem is with the religion (more precisely, with the religion's politics, which are an inherent part of the religion).

Now, maybe we can't invade and convert over a billion people, but we CAN treat the dar al-Islam in a way comparable to how it treats the dar al-harb. Near-zero Muslim immigration; strict implementation of secular government and its laws (thus rejecting anything like sharia in the US, even if "self-imposed"); and ACTIVE attempts to halt and then roll back Islam in the world.

Sound familiar? Islam is a political construct. Time to treat it that way. It doesn't matter if Allah happens to be the top guy in this political philosophy, only that the philosophy is totalitarian and dangerous to more advanced peoples.

Posted by: sk-Zion at December 30, 2007 5:24 PM

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at December 30, 2007 1:03 PM

Wonderful post! You touched on everything that is wrong with modern "feminism", and I agree with at least 98 percent of what you had to say, Morgaan.

Thank you!

Posted by: Abscedere at December 30, 2007 5:37 PM

The more I think about the differences between the ideological-"religious" covers for imperialism (Pizarro in Peru, Muslim invaders of India, Nazis in Russia, etc.) and compare it with good old fashioned British-style (or US) commercial-domination imperialism, the more I realize that the commercial-domination imperial-isms generally (but not always) respect indigenous cultures. (Commercial imperial-isms are generally tolerant (Dutch-style)of anything that doesn't interfere with commerce.) Islam is a sneering-at-indigenous-cultures domination rationalization system (similar to Nazism or Pizarro in Peru, or Muslim killer-invaders of India) and its pretenses to "moral superiority" are similar Hitler preaching morality.

Posted by: Frank at December 30, 2007 5:46 PM

The hallmark of Western Democracy is one man, one vote. The equivalent in Islamic Democracy is one man, one vote, one time. And that's the problem.

If there would be freedom of religion, freedom of association, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and equality before the law, after people vote in Sharia, then fine. Eventually such freedoms would allow the cracks and problems of Sharia to be exposed and people would hopefully vote it out.

However, once Sharia becomes ascendant it destroys dissent, limits speech, muffles religions other than Islam, and doesn't even pretend to try for equality before the law. This is why it is very difficult to imagine a Western style democracy functioning in a Sharia state.

Posted by: scattergood at December 30, 2007 5:48 PM

Morgaan Sinclair-

You are honest but not "pure". We have a lot in common.

This "purity" nonsense reminds me of a German art critic of the 20's-30's (I forget his name, and I think he fled to America) who said that every-time he heard the Nazis talk of their cultural and moral superiority he wanted to reach for his pistol.

The Nazis (SA and SS) were infested with homosexuals. Islam (like Nazism) is about control and the fear of women one of the fears at the core of both Nazism and Islam. Control is about insecurity and arrogance is a cover for insecurities. It's very unpleasant to deal with such people.

Posted by: Frank at December 30, 2007 6:08 PM

Morgaan, we need people like you teaching in our universities. The clarity of your comments are well appreciated.Sk-zion, you are soooo right. Islam is not and never has been a religion. It is as you say a political construct used to control the minds of the masses. I do believe as wellington has said in previous posts that we are in a 100 year war for the survival of our form of civilization and I just hope people wake up sooner than later.

Posted by: imamerican at December 30, 2007 6:09 PM

"Democracy" for D'Souza is mere head-counting. He does not understand what Western democracy is, what other understandings it brings with it. The idea of a representative republic, with careful checks on the vulgus mobile, and Burke's "little battalions," and solicitousness for the individual, and enshrinement of individual rights that make real, advanced Western democracies at least possible, if they are sometimes let down by their cretinized populations, and distortions in the system, but at least are free of the Total System of Islam, one that is collectivist, and that locates the legitimacy of the government not in the will expressed by the people but in the expressed will of Allah.

What a dope he is.

But on the other hand, isn't it pleasant to think that The New York Times, in now hiring as one of its "conservative columnists" the comical and deplorable William Kristol, at least has not hired, for now, the comical and deplorable Dinesh D'Souza?

Look on the bright side.

Posted by: Hugh at December 30, 2007 6:33 PM

Hugh-

Re: "What a dope he is".

Democracy, as we know it, means that public opinion matters and a very important component of that is the protection (1st amendment style) of unpopular-not-majority-ideas-and-opinions. The founders wanted minority ideas-and-opinions-speech protected because as Oprah once said (I'm close) "Be careful of being too harsh on unpopular opinion because that opinion may one day be your opinion".

The founders did not want to give non-majority opinions-ideas any extensive power (without them swaying public opinion), but they wanted them well heard from for the Winfrey reason. There is no such protection in Islam. "What a dope he is".

Posted by: Frank at December 30, 2007 7:05 PM

It occurs to me that the flow of our conversations as free people takes completely for granted the freedoms others in the world don't have any idea about.

We absolutely do believe that NOBODY can take our freedoms away, and we believe we are basically safe. Nobody shoots us for a bad opinion.

Unless freedom is secure and safe, democracy even as a discussion is worthless. I can understand why the USA, never an empire, made these huge mistakes.

But I can't get how the British, knowing what they know about this, blundered this badly.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at December 30, 2007 7:11 PM

"It occurs to me that the flow of our conversations as free people takes completely for granted the freedoms others in the world don't have any idea about".- Morgaan Sinclair

Inherent in our idea of "democracy" is our ingrained-trained-indoctrinated desire for the protection of minority ideas-opinions. Without that there is no public opinion and "democracy" is a farce. There are maybe 20 countries in the world (if that) where public opinion matters. It's unusual in history. But in all 20 or so countries "democracy" depends on the majority protecting unpopular opinions-ideas.

Hugh is right the D thinks of "democracy" as only head-counting. "Democracy" depends on the majority adamantly-forcefully protecting the heads of those who have minority opinion-ideas.

Posted by: Frank at December 30, 2007 7:28 PM

Good point, Frank. Good point. I see a TOTAL absense of that in Islamic countries. It's always pointed at overcoming ALL "otherness".

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at December 30, 2007 7:48 PM

Morgaan Sinclair-

Thank you.

Morgaan, I think the very foundation of "democracy" (a society where public opinion matters) depends on the very strong protection of minority-opinion-ideas by the majority. "Democracy" is a new concept in history. Most of history is "off with their heads" stuff re minority opinion-ideas. We have to wake-up to the reality that most of the world has never known "democracy".

Frankly, I think we ought to get out of the Bush-style export business re "democracy" and stop importing totalitarian whack-jobs. In trying to export "democracy" we are as loony as they are. Democracy cannot be exported. They believe in Islam. Islam is not about protecting minority ideas-opinions (which is central to "democracy"). Islam is not democratic because it does not actively protect minority-ideas-opinions. It is what it is. We have to deal with reality on this matter.

In any case, we have to stop our democracy jihad. We are as crazy as they are in trying to export democracy (where minority-ideas-opinions are actively protected by the majority). It will not work.

Posted by: Frank at December 30, 2007 8:20 PM

sk-Zion said

Funny, but maybe Coulter was, in a sense, right: invade, kill their leaders, and convert the people to Christianity

How? How do we, as unclean foreign kaffirs, get the Believers In The One True Religion to give up the one thing that regulates every portion of their existence?

And even if we could, why? Why should we continue spending our national treasure trying to save a people who don't want to be saved? Why do we owe the Iraqi people, or the Afghan people, anything whatsoever? If you believe the "few extremists" line, then we already did them a favor by getting rid of the "few extremists". And if you don't believe the "few extremists" line, and agree that the "vast majority" are the problem, then I repeat, why help them?

Posted by: special_guest at December 30, 2007 8:32 PM

Posted by: PMK : As a condition for total withdrawal from (and complete indifference to) the Muslim world, Muslims will be barred from entering the United States. How's that for compromise?

I'll go along with that wholeheartedly. Sadly, I think it is the only humane option left to avoid a civil war in Europe.

Just look at these Muslim population stats(from Daniel Pipes blog)

Marseilles - 25 percent (200,000 of 800,000) (*)
Malmö - ~25 percent (67,000 of 270,000) (*)
Amsterdam - 24 percent (180,000 of 750,000) (*)
Stockholm - 20 percent (>155,000 of 771,038) (*)
Brussels - ~20 percent (some say 33 percent) (*)
Moscow - 16 percent-20 percent (2 million of 10-12 milllion) (*)
London - 17 percent (1.3 million of 7.5 million) (*)
Luton - 14.6 percent (26,963) (*)
Birmingham 14.3 percent (139,771) (*)
The Hague - 14.2 percent ( 67,896 of 475,580) (*)
Utrecht - 13.2 percent (38,300 of 289,000) (*)
Rotterdam - 13 percent (80,000 of 600,000) (*)
Copenhagen - 12.6 percent (63,000 of 500,000) (*)
Leicester - 11 percent (>30,000 of 280,000) (*)
Aarhus - ~10 percent (*)
Zaan district (Netherlands) - 8.8 percent (*)
Paris - 7.38 percent (155,000 of 2.1 million) (*)
Antwerp- 6.7 percent (>30,000 of >450,000) (*)
Hamburg - 6.4 percent (>110,000 of 1.73 million) (*)
Berlin - 5.9 percent (~200,000 of 3.40 million) (*)

While we are discussing, all the while the demographic Jihad keeps rolling along, as that great river in America (I wish they had made it easier to spell).

Posted by: DP111 at December 30, 2007 8:35 PM

PMK

The USA and Britain can help those countries and people that genuinely are in the process of becoming a liberal democracy. However, that effort has to come primarily from the people themselves, and only then will they value that freedom. Freedom thrust on a people against their wishes, and against their deeply held religious beliefs, will be resisted. We have seen this in Iraq and in Afghanistan, where after all our nation's sacrifice in blood and treasure, we ended up legalising shari'a.

And where it will it stop? After Iraq, will it be Iran, then Pakistan, Syria ? Every Muslim country? And then the rest?

So if they want shari'a - its none of our business, as long as it does not affect us in a direct way.

Posted by: DP111 at December 30, 2007 8:52 PM

What people should realize is that, laws passed by a parliament determine the boarders of that country. Laws passed in Congress are enforced in the boarders of that country and are not enforceable in Canada or Mexico. If you allow Sharia or for that matter Roman law to function in an area of you country then you have tacitly recognized a new country. If you grant Dearborn the right to enforce Sharia law then you have granted Dearborn independence. It is as simple as that. I am certainly all for democracy, but not to the point where a democracy commits hari kari. Democracy should be a shield, a protection to defend my rights and obligations. Democracy for me is sacrosanct a safety net. Allowing people the choice to destroy it by voting it out of existence is what this gentleman is advocating. Has this man forgotten the consequences of allowing the Nazi party by democratic means to destroy Democracy in Germany in 1933. Allowing people to establish areas of Sharia Law will have the same consequences. Any party allowing this is guilty of treason.

Posted by: Holger Dansker at December 30, 2007 10:01 PM

For the freedom loving societies still capable of resisting, there is only one path to halt the metastatic plague of Islam. First, ASAP we must wake up our leaders with the political equivalent of a sharp slap in the face, or, better still, replace them with a leadership who will act on our behalf, quickly and decisively, to do whatever is necessary to protect our civilization.

This means that we must shed the comfortable fiction that Islam has been "hijacked" by fundamentalists or radicals, or boogey men. Islam has not been hijacked. Islam is merely in the process of actualizing its essential quality--which is that it is nothing other than a totalitarian blood thirsty evil cult of death. The goal of Islam is to make the world Islamic. By any means possible, including suicide, mass murder, theft, deception, politics, monetary bribery (e.g. the game Saudi Arabia plays), etc.

This, friends and neighbors is the true face of Islam. Shedding the fiction that Islam is basically peaceful means that we have to come to grips with a far scarier truth which is that Islam today constitutes the most lethal threat facing civilized humanity in 14 centuries. And once we come to that realization we need to act.

As a key step in the process, we must halt entirely the immigration of Muslims into the USA and elsewhere in the secular Judeo Christian West. The Trojan Horse analogy used elsewhere on this blog is a good one. If Muslims want to go somewhere, let them to go Saudi Arabia or Iran or Syria, or fifteen other places in the world where 7th Century law prevails.

In dealing with Muslims, we must discard the dangerous vulnerability inherent in political correctness. These people are masters at exploiting our weaknesses in order to topple us. The fact is, from a practical perspective in the year 2007 there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim. I wish there was, but the deafening silence after 9/11 and Madrid and London and Beslan etc. has shown me that there simply isn't.

In World War II, we isolated Japanese Americans in quarantine because we feared their loyalty to Japan. The same concept applies today. Unfortunately, given the ethos that drives their faith, all Muslims are potentially dangerous. It is just a question of how explicitly, from moment to moment, or day to day, they choose to follow the homicidal/suicidal/maniacal marching orders given to them in the Qur'an.

Folks, we have to protect ourselves. Or much sooner than we can imagine there will be very little left to protect.

Posted by: lorthog at December 30, 2007 10:36 PM

For the freedom loving societies still capable of resisting, there is only one path to halt the metastatic plague of Islam. First, ASAP we must wake up our leaders with the political equivalent of a sharp slap in the face, or, better still, replace them with a leadership who will act on our behalf, quickly and decisively, to do whatever is necessary to protect our civilization.

This means that we must shed the comfortable fiction that Islam has been "hijacked" by fundamentalists or radicals, or boogey men. Islam has not been hijacked. Islam is merely in the process of actualizing its essential quality--which is that it is nothing other than a totalitarian blood thirsty evil cult of death. The goal of Islam is to make the world Islamic. By any means possible, including suicide, mass murder, theft, deception, politics, monetary bribery (e.g. the game Saudi Arabia plays), etc.

This, friends and neighbors is the true face of Islam. Shedding the fiction that Islam is basically peaceful means that we have to come to grips with a far scarier truth which is that Islam today constitutes the most lethal threat facing civilized humanity in 14 centuries. And once we come to that realization we need to act.

As a key step in the process, we must halt entirely the immigration of Muslims into the USA and elsewhere in the secular Judeo Christian West. The Trojan Horse analogy used elsewhere on this blog is a good one. If Muslims want to go somewhere, let them to go Saudi Arabia or Iran or Syria, or fifteen other places in the world where 7th Century law prevails.

In dealing with Muslims, we must discard the dangerous vulnerability inherent in political correctness. These people are masters at exploiting our weaknesses in order to topple us. The fact is, from a practical perspective in the year 2007 there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim. I wish there was, but the deafening silence after 9/11 and Madrid and London and Beslan etc. has shown me that there simply isn't.

In World War II, we isolated Japanese Americans in quarantine because we feared their loyalty to Japan. The same concept applies today. Unfortunately, given the ethos that drives their faith, all Muslims are potentially dangerous. It is just a question of how explicitly, from moment to moment, or day to day, they choose to follow the homicidal/suicidal/maniacal marching orders given to them in the Qur'an.

Folks, we have to protect ourselves. Or much sooner than we can imagine there will be very little left to protect.

Posted by: lorthog at December 30, 2007 10:36 PM

For the freedom loving societies still capable of resisting, there is only one path to halt the metastatic plague of Islam. First, ASAP we must wake up our leaders with the political equivalent of a sharp slap in the face, or, better still, replace them with a leadership who will act on our behalf, quickly and decisively, to do whatever is necessary to protect our civilization.

This means that we must shed the comfortable fiction that Islam has been "hijacked" by fundamentalists or radicals, or boogey men. Islam has not been hijacked. Islam is merely in the process of actualizing its essential quality--which is that it is nothing other than a totalitarian blood thirsty evil cult of death. The goal of Islam is to make the world Islamic. By any means possible, including suicide, mass murder, theft, deception, politics, monetary bribery (e.g. the game Saudi Arabia plays), etc.

This, friends and neighbors is the true face of Islam. Shedding the fiction that Islam is basically peaceful means that we have to come to grips with a far scarier truth which is that Islam today constitutes the most lethal threat facing civilized humanity in 14 centuries. And once we come to that realization we need to act.

As a key step in the process, we must halt entirely the immigration of Muslims into the USA and elsewhere in the secular Judeo Christian West. The Trojan Horse analogy used elsewhere on this blog is a good one. If Muslims want to go somewhere, let them to go Saudi Arabia or Iran or Syria, or fifteen other places in the world where 7th Century law prevails.

In dealing with Muslims, we must discard the dangerous vulnerability inherent in political correctness. These people are masters at exploiting our weaknesses in order to topple us. The fact is, from a practical perspective in the year 2007 there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim. I wish there was, but the deafening silence after 9/11 and Madrid and London and Beslan etc. has shown me that there simply isn't.

In World War II, we isolated Japanese Americans in quarantine because we feared their loyalty to Japan. The same concept applies today. Unfortunately, given the ethos that drives their faith, all Muslims are potentially dangerous. It is just a question of how explicitly, from moment to moment, or day to day, they choose to follow the homicidal/suicidal/maniacal marching orders given to them in the Qur'an.

Folks, we have to protect ourselves. Or much sooner than we can imagine there will be very little left to protect.

Posted by: lorthog at December 30, 2007 10:36 PM

You are 100% correct Robert. Dinesh is completely off his rocker. Dsouza uses the Bush administration's idiotic assumption that democracy in the ME will blossom into Western style demoncracy, or that even if it doesn't, the will of the people must be respected.

D'Souza's argument could be taken to its logical end: The Germans' choice of Hitler as chancellor, since it was laregely a democratic action (at least initially), should have been accepted. Further, as Hitler was that population's choice, Hitler should have been appeased and of course, negotiated with. Further the German populace was simply manifesting a desire to have its leader impose a NAZI 'culture'.

A second example

The Yugoslavs' support for Milsovic, among other reasons, led to Serbia's being bombed. So much for sovereignty, national will and so on. Why can Europeans be bombed (and not having threatened the West in any way) for having a regime that is unsupported by the West, but war-like despotic regimes in the ME should be accepted under the notion of national will and culture.

Posted by: Kafir Nonbeliever at December 30, 2007 11:18 PM

DSouza's discourses are so internally inconsistent (how liberals supported Taliban yet they resist democracy because it will bring sharia which will suppress feminists and gays, does he not know about Taliban) and self contradictory that he looks childishly immature while debating Hitchens and Danett or using Jihad to build up neocon cause. UNinformed audience ready to believe in him and his agenda (similar to Ann coluter's readers) would agree with him and felt 'see how we are right', but in long run this type of discourse will be damaging to the very causes they feel are being supported. His previous work against liberal left itself and assertion that it is OK if feminists and gays are suppressed in sharia imposed nations is strkingly akin to liberal lefts' support of JIhadists grounded in common hatred of capitalism. But neither the left nor Dsouza realize that while they may support root of Jihad based on some partial similarities, they will never gain their support on shared partial similarties. Sharia or islam is a total system from which nothing can be taken out and nothing can be added. American neocons and leftist liberals have much more in common with each other which they take forgranted, than with the religion of peace.

Posted by: pagan at December 31, 2007 12:59 AM

Morgaan Sinclair:

Hat tip.

Most particularly about matters around mating and child rearing.

It's always seemed to me that we are confronting the results of a vast failure of imagination.

How shall women be and live in the modern era? Why just like men and good corporate and especially bureaucratic functionaries, of course. Doh!

We could have done better. And hopefully later generations will, assuming we win this war and the world doesn't revert to darkness for another millennium.

============

That said, I think there is a sort of destructive synergy between opressed women, eaten by envy, fear and a sense of helplessness, and the kind of male children that they rear -- who imbibe their mother's envy, helplessness and fear with their very milk, and grow into panicky, control-hungry brutes.

And I'm not talking about people who feel that they've gotten a raw deal, when in fact their lives have been fairly cushy, I'm talking about the victims of real raw bloody brutality.

The mothers who celebrate the death of suicide bombers are quite interesting in this context. As are their perverse sons with their ritually freshly laundered underwear and visions of untouched virgins dancing in their heads.

I'd be interested to know your take on this.

Posted by: joeblough at December 31, 2007 3:42 AM

Joeblough ...

Thanks.

Never underestimate the power of a woman to play competitive games with other women—or games for the affection for those in power or for men's attentions.

When a women defines herself in terms of men only, there is a real problem. That's why women need to determine who they are based on their own models of femaleness, not those of men or the institutions men thoroughly influence.

Case in point: when a Muslim woman defines herself as the object of a man, you *can* (not necessarily will) get the ranting Princess Halfa (wife of Prince Bandar bin Sultan) who routinely had the other embassy wives over to her house for a weekly re-Wahhabinization session in which she screamed at them for minor infractions like the wrist-length of their abayas.

You get those disgusting suck-up-to-the-imam pieces, which American newspaper editors are apparently panting to get, written by young (facially beautiful) Muslim girls about "What My Hijab Means to Me." I find these pieces infuriating.

And when you get a culture in which you rank highest according to the number of children you have had and WHAT THEY DO (within the culture's values) then you get the potential case that the mother of multiple suicide bombers is the one who gets elected to parliament, as happened in the Palestinian territories.

All of this is a result of defining women in TERMS of their relation to men and the competition that results from that.

A point here is that it is absolutely impossible for a woman to really love a man when she is defined by him. Even the women I know who are VERY traditional in their role relationships do not actually DEFINE themselves as a relationship to men—they define themselves as free, responsible spiritual beings first and wives and mothers after—are able to really love because they do not subject themselves to the kind of control that men and the culture will try to put on them. And that's there, even in this country where things are so great for women.

Anytime you find women DEFINED BY their relation to men, you've got a problem. And often, women can't WAIT to capitulate to that, because they don't want all the hassle that comes from trying to make it alone in what is still largely a male-based culture, and certainly a male-based business community. Sadly, so many wind up single mothers now that the culture allows men to abandon them, so they are forced to confront that under the worst possible circumstances with children who have no father and are stuffed into bad day care (meaning they aren't getting any parenting at all) while she works herself to death for bad pay.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at December 31, 2007 6:16 AM

Holger Dansker-

The reason they could propose selective applications of Sharia law is because we briefly lost sight that secular law in democratic societies exists to protect individual rights-not collective rights. For example, if a woman is getting beaten up in a Muslim or non-Muslim home, her individual rights are being violated and there is no appeal to Sharia law or Moose law. Many Muslims instinctively know that individual rights for persons means losing power over women. There is a lot of fear behind this pretense to superior Muslim sexual morals. Muslim pretenses to superior sexual morality is bullshit.

Posted by: Frank at December 31, 2007 9:11 AM