. . . and a socialist mayor at that. Good grief . . . oh, and good on you, Hubert.

Posted by: FallingProphet at March 8, 2006 12:57 PM

Robert - your headline "Muslims ask French to cancel 1741 play by Voltaire" is misleading. Muslims don't ask, they demand.

Posted by: johnb at March 8, 2006 1:16 PM

Wow another example of Muslim double standards. As we speak in Europe a Turkish production of an anti American, anti Jewish film is being shown to sell out crowds (all Muslim of course).

The movie is called Valley of the Wolves and its lead actor is American Greek actor Billy Zane.
Billy Zane is showing a mentallity here by playing the role of a corrupt American soldier that is absurd.

Here's a guy whose ancestors have been and continue to this day to be brutalized by Muslims, and he willingly goes out in a movie made by these people to show them as the oppressed. What a freaking retard, I have to say this guy is your typical western sellout who knows absolutely nothing about where he came from and where the world is headed today.

Back to the movie, it is sold out all over Europe being viewed by young Muslims, and there is nobody in the western world asking why these devout multiculturalists aren't upset that Jews and others are being insulted.

Oh yeah did I mention a double standard.

Posted by: niv at March 8, 2006 1:17 PM

For his fans, it represents a manifesto for liberty and reason and should be read not so much as an attack on Islam but as a coded assault on the religious dogmas that have stained European history with bloody conflict....

And, of course, that is exactly would it would be. Not to say that Christian scripture - unlike the Koran and the hadith - gives any warrant for "stain[ing] European history with bloody conflict". But that, I'm afraid, despite Christian teaching, is what Christian factions did.

So what would someone like Voltaire, at a time like that, do but write an oblique commentary on that? And why oblique? Because it would slip past the censors. It would also serve to avoid getting people's hackles up so that they wouldn't have their defences up against the message - but the message would get through at some level, nevertheless.

(There is a long tradition of this sort of thing. Is The Life of Cyrus The Great really a biography of Cyrus or - as has been suggested - what Xenophon wanted to say, particularly about child-raising, to the Ancient Greeks?)

I don't know that this is the case, but it is what is most likely. Now, say to yourself: Even if explained this to the Muslims who are complaining knew, would they care? I doubt it. It is an insult to "the Prophet" - that is all that concerns them. Big babies.

Posted by: Yojimbo at March 8, 2006 1:29 PM

In this best possible world, at this best possible time, Modern Muslim states are the best possible manifestations of the notion that goal of the Islamic religion is "to promote and mask political ambition..." -- all practitioners of metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology be damned!

Posted by: jsla at March 8, 2006 1:30 PM

"For a long time we have not confirmed our convictions, so lots of people think they can contest them."

And the silent and long term approval by Europeans of colonizing Muslims on European's home ground has contributed greatly to this distortion of enlightenment principles.

I think that the Europeans ought to more humbly admit to their "Colonization Abroad " scheme, played this time, as a Multi-Culti continuum home game. This could help them drop some of the arrogance that has had them neither confirming free speech nor contesting their disavowal of free speech.

I simply don't trust the timing of the performance of the religion of Secular Society's Passion Play. It's not honest; it seems a cover up of secularism's and colonialism's failure rather than an admission of the same. Furthermore it seems to be the mindless equivalent of Islam's fanaticism in its propensity to top-dog arrogance and blaming.

Posted by: Daisytoo at March 8, 2006 1:31 PM

"On the night of the December reading, a small riot broke out involving several dozen people and youths who set fire to a car and garbage cans."

Why do you think the mayor resisted ?

When there are 100,000 people violently demonstrating against the Voltaire performance, there will be no performance. The mayor will speak about "respect for religion and others' culture" to try not to look too coward.

That was a tiny little riot and hence, they asked the Muslims to shut it.

The history of France will now be a time run between two possibilities: victory of an extreme right party in 2007 (unlikely), 2012, 2017, or even, 2022 (or 2027 ?).

Or a demographic victory of the Muslims, who will elect THEIR guys to govern France. And then, a lot of French people will leave France (to go to the USA, for instance), as a lot of White people are presently leaving South Africa, where crime and corruption have gotten too high, to settle in England, the Netherlands, Sweden, etc.

Another part of the White "Christian" French will not be able to leave. Some will resist, and there will be fights and blood. Others will convert to Islam and embrace the Arab culture.

It is a question of demography.

Unless the White French women start making 10 babies each.

Posted by: joiesauvage at March 8, 2006 1:55 PM

Unless the White French women start making 10 babies each.
Posted by: joiesauvage

I'll do my part. "Have Gun (so to speak). Will travel" (Sorry, bad joke. I couldn't resist)

I am not counting the French out just yet. I will say this about them they defend French culture (zealously).

Posted by: Mr Ape Pig at March 8, 2006 2:18 PM

I said this months ago, but what we need to do is set up a National Sharia Court within each nation and submit ideas to them for prior approval.

MORE KORANS MORE HADITHS MORE SIRATS MORE ISLAMIC SCHOLARS & JUDGES!!!

School districts, universities, media outlets, and government agencies would earn a near 100% approval rate.

Real live humans who love freedom and independence would earn a near 0% rate. But, they might be stabbed in their sleep by scowling, intense Moslem operatives making good on the Sunnah as taken from the Holy Islamic Scriptures.

Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at March 8, 2006 2:28 PM

Muslim immigrants = termites
They will quietly gnaw away and subvert your society. The sooner the Europeans figure this out, the better.

This attempted Muslim suppression of a play proves that their worldwide riots are not about "blasphemous" Muhammad cartoons but are about making the non Muslim into an obedient dhimmi. Toeing the Muslim line. About making Muslims our arbiters of culture. Already these termites have succeeded in keeping the Mo' 'toons out of most media outlets

Posted by: dennisw at March 8, 2006 2:31 PM

daisytoo

And the silent and long term approval by Europeans of colonizing Muslims on European's home ground

The colonizers have become the colonized. The French once ruled Algeria and other colonies, many of them Islamic. Now they are ruled by Algerians and other Muslim émigrés

Posted by: dennisw at March 8, 2006 2:36 PM

dennisw,

"The colonizers have become the colonized. The French once ruled Algeria and other colonies, many of them Islamic. Now they are ruled by Algerians and other Muslim émigrés"

Good point. And long before the French colonized Algeria, Islam had stretched its Imperialist domain Westward. Relatedly, while "imperialists battling for supremacy" is not the only way to see the Islamification of Europe - if the truths concerning the conflictual goals of 'absolute secularism' and 'absolute religiosity' are ignored - then reality based solutions are imperiled.

If Europe does not take back it's Judeo-Christian ethical and religious structure then Europe is doomed. Islam's parasitic attachment could not have occurred without an available "absolute secularist" host. If it were not Islam, it would have been some other fascistic movement. But it is Islam - which makes perfect sense - Arabic alliance with Hitler's fascism was, after all, declared in WW2. This fact and it's implications -- particularly within European culture which looks ripe for a fascistic revival --continues to be ignored and I think this practical ignorance is highly dangerous.

Posted by: Daisytoo at March 8, 2006 3:17 PM

This is OT, but I know a lot of people have been keeping an eye on the article from an Iranian newpaper that former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl denied the Holocaust. According to WND, Kohl is refuting the story, calling it a fabrication. Here is the link to the WND item:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49168

Posted by: Howard, Fine & Howard at March 8, 2006 3:30 PM

Mr. Akhrouf, the cafe owner and activist, says that in early December, he got an agitated phone call from a friend who had just received a leaflet advertising the event. Mr. Akhrouf found a copy of the play on the Internet and started shaking with rage as he read the portrayal of Muhammad as a fanatic.

Shortly afterward, he attended Friday prayers at a big mosque in Geneva and talked about his concerns with Hafid Ouardiri, a mosque official and veteran of the earlier anti-Voltaire campaign. They drafted a letter to the mayor demanding the play be cancelled "in order to preserve peace."

Seymour Paine (PBUM)

Posted by: Seymour Paine at March 8, 2006 3:35 PM

"Mr. Akhrouf found a copy of the play on the Internet and started shaking with rage as he read the portrayal of Muhammad as a fanatic."

How long will it be before they are calling for the internet to be banned?

Posted by: philiph35 at March 8, 2006 4:11 PM

"Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau."

In French schools, the assigned texts in literature , handed down from on high by the Ministry of Education, are not to be tampered with. The assigned topics in history are not to be tampered with. They are nation-wide. They are even imposed on students abroad following the French curriculum, from Togo to Teaneck, via the CNED (Centre national d'education a distance).

Now come the Muslms of France, and insist that they will not listen to a teacher attempt to teach about World War II and the Holocaust (too likely to elicit sympathy for Jews -- besides, what Holocaust?). They have no interest in listening to the story of the development of French history, as little as they do in the St.-Denis, where the kings of France are buried, which now lies horribly in the middle of a hostile, dangerous, all-Muslim district (just try to visit, dear foreign tourist, dear Frenchman).

Teachers have been shouted down -- google the case of Louis Chagnon, when they bring up anything, anything, that offends Muslims. It could be Montaigne, with his Jewish mother and that damned skepticism. Ditto with Marcel Proust. It could be anything in the skeptical line -- and what could be more skeptical, more antithetical to the spirit of Islam, than the very motto of Montaigne: Que scais-je which became the title of a series of Presses universitaires de France paperbacks, on subjects as disparate as Poisons and the Byzantine Empire (come to think of it, poisons and the Byzantine Empire go very well together). So Montaigne, out. Marie de France, out (uppity woman, how dare she). Assorted fabliaux and lais, out (not part of Islam, and all those "Frangish" knights are practically crusaders, aren't they?). La Fontaine, out. Victor Hugo, out (for "Les Djinns"). Voltaire, out ("Mahomet"). Racine, Corneille, Moliere, out. The immorality of the stage is not to be tolerated. Rousseau, out. (La volonte generale). Chateaubriand, out (La genie du Christianisme). Flaubert, out (a woman daring to be an adulteress in Madame Bovary, the disrespectful observations on Egypt made to Maxime DuCamp). Proust, out (you know why). Georges Perec (ditto). And on and on. of course don't even dare suggest that anyone read Maurice Dantec or Houellebecq or anyone else who has dared to be anything but salaam-salaamish about primitive and totalitarian and life-diminishing Islam.

The pride of France were its schools. Jules Ferry, and all those thoughtful pedagogues. But they posited a world of students who were from the same moral and intellectual planet, however varied they might be in their natural gifts. No one foresaw the arrival of students, hostile and aggressive not merely as a result of individual life history, but as the result of inculcuation, inculcation from an early age, in mosque and outside mosque, in growing up in a world where the Infidels are the enemy, and Islam is "to dominate and not to be dominated" and where going to the mosque or being observant is not even necessary to take such an attitutde.

Not at all. All one needs, to take such an attitude, is to call oneself a Muslim, and to retain, or to return to, or to re-emphasize, the hostility this requires toward all that is non-Muslim. For it is, in the end, worthless. All that matters is to learn from the West how to make weaponry. And learn how to get from the West as much, by way of Jizyah -- disguised in foreign aid, or explained as the justification for the stealing of Infidel property all over the Lands of those Infidels, by Muslims now deep behind enemy lines.

The French system of public education -- the pride of France -- is being undone, has been undone, in all the major cities. Here and there, in small towns in rural Brittany, or the Dordogne, or elsewhere, you can still take advantage of it. But in many places, the teachers now must deal with a hostile, violent, and altogether dangerous population of Muslims who cannnot conceivably take a deep interest in the facts of French history, the scope of French literature, in France as France. A very few Muslims may be the exception -- but those exceptions cannot be pointed to as making up for the intolerable rule.

Posted by: Hugh at March 8, 2006 4:22 PM

"oblique commentary" - that's the funny part: it wasn't even really aimed at Islam, but they are now pointing out its relevance precicely by their posturing.

Regarding Kohl - I never believed the Iranian claims. A German politician who said anything like that could basically never go back to Germany, at least not expecting to ever go back into respectable circles.

Re '10 children each' - no thanks, I prefer that (secular minded) muslims be encouraged to integrate and have only 2 children, like people who respect the environment and dwindling resources generally do. Muslims who want sharia really need to be encouraged/helped to move to suitable countries.

Posted by: Lili at March 8, 2006 4:31 PM

I'm sorry to burst the bubble of many here, but if Voltaire were alive today, it would be a safe bet that he would be on the side of our Gore Vidals, Michael Moores, George Soros, George Clooneys, Noam Chomskys, Cindy Sheehans, etc., ad nauseam.

Posted by: Dr. Pepper at March 8, 2006 5:12 PM

Dr. Pepper,

Interesting point, and I'm essentially in agreement .. at the same time, it's always a gamble just where an iconoclast would end up if transported in time!

Absolute secularism is not the solution to Absolute Islam.

Posted by: Daisytoo at March 8, 2006 5:21 PM

I'm sorry to burst the bubble of many here, but if Voltaire were alive today ...

With regard to the other writers you speak of, I do believe the directors of the present system to be influenced by them. Such masters, such scholars. Who ever dreamt of Voltaire and Rousseau as legislators? the first has the merit of writing agreeably; and nobody has ever united blasphemy and obscenity so happily together. The other was not a little deranged in his intellects, to my almost certain knowledge.

Edmund Burke. To Unknown - [January 1790]

Still, he'd read them, hadn't he? Why shouldn't we be able to? Why should not we be able to watch the play? And if it's the French now, won't it be us next?

It's not about whether we agree with Voltaire wholly, or in part. It's about whether we can hear what he has to say or not. The umma says "no". What do you say?

Posted by: Yojimbo at March 8, 2006 5:33 PM

Let's face it, demographics is destiny!

The fate of France (and all of Europe) will be Muslim if the current demographic trend continues.

For nearly 60 years, the Western elites have into the myth of overpopulation and have destroyed the future generations. The United Nations Population Fund was coercing non-Muslim countries like China and India to limit the number of children. Meanwhile, secularist Europe (on both sides of the Iron Curtain) slid into negative population growth. In most of Europe the tax systems are set up to intentionally discourage large families among the European population, while bizarre welfare programs for immigrants encourage them to make more babies.

Meanwhile, Muslims are making babies exponentially, with the numbers supplemented by polygamy and child marriage. Europe (especially Russia), as well as Israel, parts of the Far East, and other non-Muslim areas are in danger of simply being overwhelmed by this Jihad of maternity.

This suicidal self-hatred and reverse-racism needs to be ended or there will be a right-wing backlash as a desperate last resort.

Posted by: Provoslavni at March 8, 2006 5:49 PM

joiesauvage,

It's not an issue of the color of the babies, but what their influences are growing up.

Posted by: Beagle at March 8, 2006 6:37 PM

"Police chased Muslim youth through the streets..."

Is that not going to be the most common phrase of the next era?

Provoslavni-

Demographics is an Idol.

Pandemics favor the over-crowded, genetically-self-narrowed, and dogmatically superstitious.

Natural disasters, like the Tsunami, show our status on this planet. To be shrugged off when Mother Nature gets sufficiently irritated.

Don't under-estimate both the globe's own means of equilibrium as well as human nature's.

We essentially dislike the dogmatic and arrogant.
And will fight to remain free of their smothering attentions.

"Submission" is simply unnatural to our spirit.

Posted by: profitsbeard at March 8, 2006 6:38 PM

"I'm sorry to burst the bubble of many here, but if Voltaire were alive today, it would be a safe bet that he would be on the side of our Gore Vidals, Michael Moores, George Soros, George Clooneys, Noam Chomskys, Cindy Sheehans,"

We will never know, will we? but I would never wager so if I were you.

When was the last time you heard Gore Vidal, Michael Moore, George Soros, George Clooney, Noam Chomsky, or Cindy Sheehan, say something with similar clarity or wit about Islam? What brave similar utterances have they made about Islam's execrable so-called "prophet"?

And I give Voltaire great credit for the fact that he's still revered by millions (and rightly) despite being DEAD for for more than 2 centuries! Who among your list of notable nobodies will be remembered 200 years hence? Not a one... Not ONE! Now THAT would be a safe bet! Many on your list will be forgotten or well on their way there before they cease to trudge upon this splendid planet.

And while we know that Muslims will rampage at the slightest hint of offense, I greatly admire Voltaire's honesty and perspicacity regarding Islam nearly 300 years ago.

Last, I would add that he was fearless to formulate his thoughts and speak his mind in an ere which was far harsher and precarious than our own towards outspoken critics. The cowards you named, and which you suggest he'd be numbered among, rail against a society which they know would never cast them into the Bastille, or sever their heads on the guillotine..!

Posted by: jsla at March 8, 2006 6:50 PM

Dr. Pepper

Voltaire hanging around with Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, and George Soros?

It might drive him to suicide.

Posted by: Beagle at March 8, 2006 7:09 PM

OT but, meanwhile, back in the United Kindom of Islam...

The home secretary, Charles Clarke, criticised the decision by the Danish prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, to snub a request from 11 Muslim countries for a meeting after the cartoons were published in the Jyllands Posten newspaper in September.

Mr Clarke told a public meeting in Willesden Green - primarily held to discuss law and order issues - that Mr Rasmussen had not even responded to the request.

Admitting it was a "political point", Mr Clarke said: "I think that was a serious mistake which you could not imagine happening in other countries ... certainly not in this country. It is a question of respecting others, and that means do not provoke or challenge the deeply-held views of others."

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,,1726328,00.html

You hear that Brits? You must respect the Neo Fascist Peaceful Religionists in your midst. Or, perhaps it's time to turf out that loser government.

Posted by: mistyhymen at March 8, 2006 7:11 PM

Next thing you know, they will be rioting and demanding the death of Voltaire!

Posted by: Bohemond_1069 at March 8, 2006 7:19 PM

Ridiculous. Laughable. What a stupid, assinine request. I am laughing at the sheer ridiculous stupidity, and by the very existence of said request, their evidenced lack of appreciation for history, and by extension, knowledge in general and it's pursuit and spread, education.

Do they know people are laughing at them? Does it make them feel humiliated? Does the humiliation make them ashamed? They can't be serious. I can't take them serious. If I can't take them serious, I will have trouble respecting them. I will be civil to them, even friendly. I would be very careful not to do anything that would make them feel threatened, But I wouldn't respect them. Sorry, it wouldn't happen.

By the way, I wonder why 93 pictures out of every 100 I see of muslims show them with arms raised, fists clenched, mouths agape, presumably bellowing, and jammed shoulder to shoulder. Are those countries really that crowded? Don't they have jobs to go to? Do bugs fly into their mouths when they walk around slack-jawed and bellowing. Do their arms get tired?

Posted by: t-ham at March 8, 2006 7:38 PM

Long Live the Greater Republic of Algeria. France algerienne! France algerienne! France algerienne!

Posted by: David England at March 8, 2006 7:51 PM

I see we have alot of ideas here, from everyone is to blame, forget about religion and let the secular societies give these religions no voice to attach themselves to.

Great, we live in the western world which is run by secular governments, which have laws which stem from Judeo Christian principals. There is a secular Islamic state out there named Turkey. Thank God (or Karma for those secular types) that this country isn't an Islamic state because I can't imagine what would happen to those remaining 62,000 souls classified as Christians, in 72,000,000 Muslim Turkey.

Western countries have made mistakes, and will continue to do so; however these countries built off of Christian ideals are open to inquiry, investigation and freddom of speech to make changes when they are needed. Islamic countries on the other hand have shown the opposite, as witnessed in countless Islamic states, most are now closer to resembling stone age cultures than they are to modern 21st century cultures.

Christianity spread peacefully and in many well documented cases where Christians made enormous sacrifices, ie: fed to lions, crucified etc.
In many centuries later atrocities were committed by Christians, but again inquiry and self reflection are allowed to show our wrongs.

In the Islamic world there is no such freedom, and any attempt at inquiry and free speech will mean your death. Islam also spread by the sword right from its genesis, and continues to this day. Don't forget that the middle east was mostly Christian when Mohammed rode out of the desert and put so many to the sword and forcefully converted the entire Mid East and North Africa. Then Spain fell in the 700's and three hundred years later Europe finally woke up and started to fight back.

Our biggest problem today is not the Muslim movement which has never stopped since its Genesis, it is within ourselves refusing to see the truth for it offends our modern sensibilities that this monster truly lives, and that we must face up to it at some point or watch our freedoms die. Unfortunately we don't have three hundred years to wake up.

Posted by: niv at March 8, 2006 7:56 PM

Not only Voltaire but Marlowe's Tambourlaine has much wisdom coming down through the ages, to teach us that others have faced before what we face today and this is how they dealt with it. These are useful signposts we should be following. But still political correctness leadens our feet and dull our minds to the truths presented by these playwrights of the Middle Ages. If what they saw and observed and remark upon is so similar to what we are dealing with today, if their characters find it useful to deal with Islam harshly in order to impress upon it their rejection of it's principles, who are we to turn our back on their wisdom. Better we should take some lessons and learn that others have been here before us and have dealt with this menace with firmness and resolution.

Posted by: foreign devil at March 8, 2006 8:23 PM

foreign devil,

Please don't apologize for Western history ..it only weakens the Western position in regard to Islam.
The West should stop apologizing for it's past and take pride in it.
Don't admit to even [b]one[/b] error of judgement.
Don't give the damn Muslims one ounce of ammunition aginst the West.

To hell with Islam.

Posted by: Mike_W at March 8, 2006 9:46 PM

Regarding population, it is worth noting that the reasons for declining birth rates are education, technology and health. As technology starts to require less labor, and health advances ensure the survival of children, having large number of babies becomes unneccessary. Note that the muslim nations supposedly 'outbreeding' us have a much higher infant mortality rate, and lack out standards of health and technology, and most of all education and critical thought. The issue in Europe is mainly one of immigration: stop them from coming and their family size becomes moot. When they become more educated, their birth rate will drop...and of course they would likely cease to be Muslim as well.

I must also point out that its not just Judeo-Christian principles that we are governed by in spirit, but rather Western principles. While Judeo-Christian values form part of this, we must not ignore the vast foundation of Mesopotamian, Greek, Egyptian Roman, Nordc, and Enlightenment principles. These, along with Judeo-Christian ones, form the bedrock of our civilization. A survey of alot of the thinkers and values of all of these groups will reveal much in common with what we know today as The West. (Examples: the Negative Confessions in Egypt, the code of Harumnabbi in Sumeria, embryonic democracy in Grece and republicanism in Rome; Solon the Athenian was the first to come up with ideas of as constitution, the right to bear arms, and put the idea of equality into writing). We are a culmination of 5000 years or more of rich heritage that transcends any one religion; this makes what is at stake - what we are fighting for - even more precious.

Posted by: Akhetnu at March 8, 2006 9:55 PM

http:/www.touregypt.net/featurestories/seapeople.htm

This is a Islam-Muslim invasion, an Islamic inquisition, a conquering, a Total War via demographics, a breeding of the destruction of modern civilization.
History is repeating itself!
Islam is liken to a return of the First Dark Ages 1400 BC via *The Sea People* which were defeated and recorded only by Egyptians, the only ones left that could write history.

Islam can be countered by a commonsense philosophy of Total No Quarter War against a Total No Quarter Enemy, the spawning Muslim Hordes of Islam.

"No land could stand before their arms, from Hatti, Qode, Carchemish, Arzawa and Alasiya on, being cut off at one time. A camp was set up in one place in Amurru. They desolated its people, and its land was like that which has never come into being. They were coming toward Egypt, while the flame was prepared before them. Their confederation was the Peleset, Tjeker, Shekelesh, Denyen, and Weshesh, lands united. They laid their hands upon the land as far as the circuit of the earth, their hearts confident and trusting: 'Our plans will succeeded!'

Medinet Habu Inscription

"The foreign countries made a plot in their islands. Dislodged and scattered by battle were the lands all at one time, and no land could stand before their arms, beginning with Khatti [1], Kode [2], Carchemish [3], Arzawa [4], and Alasiya [5]... A camp was set up in one place in Amor [6], and they desolated its people and its land as though they had never come into being. They came, the flame prepared before them, onwards to Egypt. Their confederacy consisted of Peleset, Tjekker, Sheklesh, Danu, and Weshesh, united lands, and they laid their hands upon the lands to the entire circuit of the earth, their hearts bent and trustful 'Our plan is accomplished!' But the heart of this god, the lord of the gods, was prepared and ready to ensnare them like birds... I established my boundary in Djahi [7], prepared in front of them, the local princes, garrison-commanders, and Maryannu. I caused to be prepared the rivermouth like a strong wall with warships, galleys, and skiffs. They were completely equipped both fore and aft with brave fighters carrying their weapons and infantry of all the pick of Egypt, being like roaring lions upon the mountains; chariotry with able warriors and all goodly officers whose hands were competent. Their horses quivered in all their limbs, prepared to crush the foreign countries under their hoofs. "

Posted by: SirSeth at March 8, 2006 10:13 PM

The Sea Peoples were Aegean and Philistine actually, but I understand the analogyyou are trying to make. I do look to ancient Egypt for inspiration as much as anywhere else in the West, and it is unforutnate that modern day Egypt is a shadow of its former self =/

Posted by: Akhetnu at March 8, 2006 10:20 PM

Apologies foreign devil, I meant to address my post to niv.

Wouldn't it be just like Islam to start a war and then remember it needs a bullet factory.

Posted by: Mike_W at March 8, 2006 10:31 PM

"The issue in Europe is mainly one of immigration: stop them from coming and their family size becomes moot. When they become more educated, their birth rate will drop...and of course they would likely cease to be Muslim as well."
-posted by Akhetnu

I agree with the former but not the latter. There is no indication that Muslims, as they become more educated and by extension, more prosperous, that their birthrates will drop and that apostasy will rise. Some of the wealthiest Muslims countries (Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States) have the some of the highest fertility rates in the world. Of course they are not as high as Sub Saharan Africa (the highest) or the poorest Muslim countries (Bangladesh, Somalia, etc) but they are plenty high for countries that have a rather large educated and wealthy class. They are also the most fanatical.

Even those Muslims in the West who have an education and who are not on the dole, neither do they have small families nor do they jettison Islam. According to the General Social Survey, the average fertility rate among American Muslims (the most educated and the wealthiest Muslims in the diaspora) is 4.8 children per family. Low Muslim birthrates are rare in the West in general and what is even more rare is Muslim apostasy.

The problem I see with your second statement, the type of universalism you espouse is something that socialists, liberals, lock-step neoconservatives, and beltway conservatives will seize upon and use to assuage the rest of us that the solution to our Muslim problem is not immigration reform, but more integration and secularism. It cannot work with Islam for many reasons but the most obvious being that Islam cannot be stopped by modernity and secularism alone (as the Kemalist project and the former Soviet Muslim states have demonstrated). Rather, it only retards Islam's power over society, it does not displace Islam the same way it has displaced Catholicism in France. We must not lose sight of that. Much like with many "universal" ideas, Islam proves to be the exception. That is why we have to treat it as a special case.

Islam will not collapse on itself if we do sit by and do nothing. Immigration reform is the first step, containment is the second, and propaganda is the third, and so forth.

Posted by: igor at March 8, 2006 10:31 PM

jsla,
re: Voltaire today

I think Dr. Pepper has a point. If Voltaire was alive today he would bow down to the god of multiculturalism and anti-Americanism and side with that rogues gallery that Dr. Pepper mentioned. However, he wouldn't go as far as Foucault and actually SUPPORT "radical" Islam, he would be against it (much like how Vidal, Soros, Chomsky, Sheehan, Moore, and Clooney do not want a caliphate) but at the same time point out that the Muslims have a point about Western hegemony and the "Palestinians". The majority of "leftists" in his day would not allow Islam to state its case but times have changed, haven't they? How many leftist (and rightist) media organs give Islamic spokesmen, both "radical" and "moderate" alike, a chance to spread their propaganda about Islam and the jihad that is being fought both on a military front and a demographic front? Voltaire was human afterall and if he continued to hang around like-minded individuals like himself today, he too would succumb to idol that is hesperophobia. The only difference between Voltaire and Gore Vidal, George Soros, Noam Chomsky, Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore and George Clooney is that he had talent. They don't.

Posted by: igor at March 8, 2006 10:51 PM

"There is no indication that Muslims, as they become more educated and by extension, more prosperous, that their birthrates will drop and that apostasy will rise. Some of the wealthiest Muslims countries (Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States) have the some of the highest fertility rates in the world."

Birth rates drop when women get equality and freedom. Despite wealth, that has not happened in muslim countries. So educating and integrating both boys and girls into their host countries is essential to giving the girls career choices.

Re 'overpopulation myth' - just to note that I totally disagree that it is a myth, we don't all believe that kind of 'myth myth' here. No need to debate it here, I just don't want visitors to get the wrong impression.

Posted by: Lili at March 8, 2006 11:05 PM

"Islam and the jihad that is being fought both on a military front and a demographic front".

Also,and most effectively in the Jihad for Western submission, is the power of the media and propaganda.
These forces should not be underestimated.

Also, all those petrodollars, flowing back to the West, so generously granted to Universities and in other ways to pro-islamic causes, in the form of taqiyya.

Shame on people such as Clinton, Gore, Livingstonem Galloway, Fisk (perhaps, to be fair, he is just disturbed), and especially ...Prince Charles, you tool of Islam you.

Posted by: Mike_W at March 8, 2006 11:10 PM

Igor / Lili:

Good points all around. I would agree that the main steps are immigration reform, containment and propaganda. Islam is a special case, as you have pointed out with good data, and shoudl be treated as such.

I would also agree that the main facotr preventing Muslims from lowering their birth rate is the lack of basic women's rights (among many other rights). Islamic apologists generally resort to the argument that Islam treated women better than arabic society did at the time; however, this is not saying much, and women seem little more than chattel is some Muslim states.

Posted by: Akhetnu at March 8, 2006 11:11 PM

igor-

Gore Vidal's early novel "Messiah" is worth a read.

About a nihilistic 'Mahdi'.

A shame he doesn't grasp its modern incarnation.

His urge to be witty outruns his tongue. And judgment. Instead of being an American Salman Rushdie, he plays the old "kick your pet pooch while saying that the hydrophobic dog at your throat is probably harmless".

The mental disconnect is tragic.

He might have been our Oriana Falacci.

Instead, he is a confetti sweeper.

Fighting the past and missing the future.

Posted by: profitsbeard at March 8, 2006 11:19 PM

Voltaire would never stand with the michael moores, chomsky, etc! What happened to the true Liberals.. the ones that wanted freedom for all people! There are no freedom in the cult of "islam"! the true liberals would champion the rights of women in islam! where are these femininsts? where?? no if Voltaire were alive today, he would be printing cartoons day and night, and writing about freedom of speech! France and the WEst need another "Voltaire"/ France needs to remember what "Voltaire "stood for!

Posted by: Lulu at March 8, 2006 11:36 PM

They probably want us to cancel 1741 too I'll bet.

Posted by: pythagoras at March 8, 2006 11:40 PM

Igor -- not only did Voltaire have a monumental talent, he also had a monumental wit and intelligence. Could you possibly read ANYTHING he wrote, and then place him among that rogues list?

In fact, given his stupendous dissection of the hypocrites and sophists of his day in Candide, he would have spit fire and venom at the likes of Vidal or Chomsky -- and as for spume and fleas like Sheehan or Soros -- he would not have insulted his excrement by allowing them to come in contact with it!

Posted by: jsla at March 8, 2006 11:48 PM

Sorry for lack of elegance. Upon rethinking my phrasing, I should have said:

"... and as for spume and fleas like Sheehan or Soros -- he would not have even allowed such to come in contact with his excrement, out of regard for his excrement."

Better.

Posted by: jsla at March 8, 2006 11:52 PM

"Birth rates drop when women get equality and freedom. Despite wealth, that has not happened in muslim countries. So educating and integrating both boys and girls into their host countries is essential to giving the girls career choices."
-posted by Lili

I think we should avoid reducing the causes of high fertility to one phenomena, whether it be a lack of women's rights, poverty, lack of education, or religion. There seems to be a counterexaple for every one. Eastern Europe is far more macho and traditional than Western Europe but Russia is also sufferring from low fertility rates. Saudi Arabia has a large wealthy class and it has a high fertility rate. Education is more available than ever in India and we haven't seen a decline in fertility. Before the one child policy, China had a high fertility rate despite the lack of religiosity among most Chinese. The list goes on and on.

We should not be concerned with the lack of women's rights in Muslim countries. We should only be concerned when they export those same attitudes to the West packaged nicely with their jihad. Afterall, there is no guarantee that even if we improved the status of women in the Muslim world that their fertility rates would drop signficantly. They just may end up grafting those women's rights to Islam (much like they do with any Western ideology that they import). Sure they will give them "education", but what will they be able to do with that education? Will these liberated women decide to stay home after they get their M.A. or will they become lawyers? How many Muslim men would be willing to have a female lawyer represent them in a Muslim court? Is that even allowed in the first place? We cannot fight for women's rights in the Muslim world by changing a few laws here and there or by changing their "attitudes" even. We would have to change their culture and they have been adamant that there is nothing wrong with Islam, no need of reformation or "enlightenment". So the task in itself is impossible as long as Islam is the animating force of any society. That is unless you want to go for the Bush Benchmark. Women's rights in Islamic countries won't resemble our own, much like "democracy" but they are still legitimate and we should be satisfied with that. In order to deem it a success story, we would have to lower our standards.

The Democracy-Unto-The-Muslim-World was misguided enough, let's not give our politicos any ideas by suggesting that we should change our policy to Feminism-For-The-Muslimah. Because we all know what that will mean in the end. More jizya. More concessions. More disappointment. More denial. More jizya.

Posted by: igor at March 9, 2006 12:03 AM

"What happened to the true Liberals.. the ones that wanted freedom for all people!"

Stop mistaking paradise with the spiritual penal-colony Earth :)

Posted by: Mike_W at March 9, 2006 12:19 AM

jsla,

I agree with you in part. But my point (and Dr. Pepper's) was that liberalism (and liberals by extension) has changed so much over the centuries that even the great Voltaire would have succumbed to the crapthink that passes as "discourse" today. It happens to the best of us. It is just so ingrained in the liberal-left culture that to oppose it deems you "right wing".

Granted he would not associate with one trick ponies like Cindy Sheehan, dimwitted celebrities like George Clooney, overrated writers like Gore Vidal, propagandists like Noam Chomsky, megalomaniacal billionaires like George Soros, or obese "film" makers such as Michael Moore. But would he oppose them entirely? I'm not so sure. The easier route would be to blame our problems with the ROP on America and Israel. You like to think of Voltaire as the exception because he knew about Islam. Okay, but so does Bernard Lewis. He is not an apologist of the Karen Armstrong or John Esposito kind but he clearly is not on the same wavelength as us. Voltaire might be able to resist the peer pressure but is it a sure thing? I don't think so.

Posted by: igor at March 9, 2006 12:25 AM

igor wrote:

"So the task in itself is impossible as long as Islam is the animating force of any society."

I agree that traditional Islam itself in one form or another is the major stumbling block in regards to keeping Muslim population under control. All the more reason to eradicate it with the tools you suggested previously. There are Muslims I know who have 1-2 kids an d are sensible people, although they are Muslim in name only. They accomplish this only by being devoid of the traditional Islamic fundamentals, although such neutered Islam is fine with me. I would rather have westernized muslims saying they are muslim than actually being muslim. Reading Robert Spencer's arguments, it seems that either eradication or such reformation of Islam into something totally different, so to speak, is the goal.

The West built great civiliazations up to the 1900s with a fraction of the population they have now. Pity that Islam believes in death by numbers; it seems the only way they can make their beliefs into reality: by being the majority. I don't want to play their game...let their religion be deleted or transformed, not our evolved lifestyles.

Posted by: Akhetnu at March 9, 2006 12:27 AM

Indeed, Igor. Such misguided utopian notions are part of the problem, after all. I supported the Iraq war, not for humanitarian reasons, not for some pie in the sky democracy project purposes, not for securement of WMD, although if those things happen, fine... FINE!

After 9/11 we needed to instruct the Muslim nations of earth in graphic bloody detail exactly how easily and completely America can decimate their regimes. Prior to Saddam's fall, Iraq was considered the biggest baddest thing the Muslim world had to offer -- and they had to notice the ease with which we toppled him in a matter of in weeks. This was accomplished even with 4th Infantry floating in the Mediterranean.

Now, after Iraq has proven so costly and perhaps hopeless, our focus will be simply on the toppling part -- if anything, our capabilities in that regard have been enhanced by our actions in Iraq.

We will not yet have come to grips with Islam's war against us as long as this or any other bankrupt idea is allowed to float about in the Western World unchallenged and undefeated.

That's an indication of how big I think this war actually is.

Posted by: jsla at March 9, 2006 12:30 AM

I guess the Western embassies in the Islamic countries should reform their visa-issuing policy. How about having the applicant sign an affidavit that s/he understands that in the West one can see things that don't correspond with Sharia (and won't react to them!)? Also, put up similar admonitions at all Western border checkpoints?

Posted by: highbg at March 9, 2006 12:37 AM

And an indication of how long it will take. Without wishing to be insulting to anyone reading these threads, I think the slowness of otherwise intelligent people to grasp how huge and menacing this enemy has become is extremely disconcerting. They continue to writhe in various hogwallows of old think -- not recognizing how old think got us where we are today --

I have often said that Bin Laden cleaved a diamond on 9/11 -- he fractured our world along brilliant and deep faultlines which already existed but were invisible, or unimportant seeming. Left from Right. Europe from America. Rich from Poor. The gaping hole which was left is showing up in every nation where Islam has a foothold. Yet the nattering populations of all the rest -- that is all the non-Muslims still aren't on the same page -- and still adhere to their now irelevent ideas about how the world runs.

The world is different -- the world is changing -- they just don't know how - or why -- But as long as these old think people continue to look through the same lenses, the ones which are now cloudy, and somehow altogether inadequate for seeing purposes, the will drag us down, and enable the onslaught of the Muslim Monster to continue and gain momentum.

Posted by: jsla at March 9, 2006 12:38 AM

I must agree with Dr. Pepper and Igor about Voltaire's compromised position vis-a-vis Islam. Certainly Rousseau, with his worship of the primitive, the barbaric, the exotic and irrational, is a much more direct forebearer of today's multi-cultaralists than Voltaire. Yet in his alienation from his own civilization, his facile elevation of the virtues of the "other" in order to flaunt just how broad-minded he really was, Voltaire is also emblematic of the mental confusions and degenerations of our age. From Gibbon:

But the most striking feature in the life and character of Amurath is the double abdication of the Turkish throne; and, were not his motives debased by an alloy of superstition, we must praise the royal philosopher, who at the age of forty could discern the vanity of human greatness. Voltaire admires "le Philosophe Turc": would he have bestowed the same praise on a Christian prince for retiring to a monastery? In his way, Voltaire was a bigot, an intolerant bigot.

Posted by: emperor_diocletian at March 9, 2006 1:03 AM

And Igor -- you're comparing minds which are like dull stone impliments with a mind which was like the sharpest of razors... I get your point, but 18th Century liberalism and 18th Century Intellectualism bears NO resemblance to 21st Century pseudo-liberalism and pseudo-intellectualism. I'm convinced the prevaricators and poseurs named by you and Dr. Pepper would be espied and eviscerated by Voltaire before he had his pamplemousse et cafe!

Posted by: jsla at March 9, 2006 1:06 AM

sorry implements

Posted by: jsla at March 9, 2006 1:06 AM

igor, I appreciate and agree with your amplifications of my original point about Voltaire. However, my critics here, and even you who defend me are forgetting a crucial thing here: Voltaire was part of a process that began the excessive self-criticism among Westerners as a popular intellectual movement. Voltaire was anti-West by being anti-Establishment and anti-Catholic and anti-Royalist. And it is this overarching anti-Western nebula, spanning an arc of at least the last couple of centuries (but with key differences in advancement from generation to generation and decade to decade), that is responsible for our current inability to critically condemn Islam.

Today's Establishment is Bush and Blair, and Voltaire would be railing against them (for the wrong reasons). The current figure whom Voltaire might most resemble were he flourishing today is the old Hitchens, before he reconstructed himself and began criticizing Islam in bite-sized phases.

Posted by: Dr. Pepper at March 9, 2006 1:09 AM

Nonsense.

Posted by: jsla at March 9, 2006 1:11 AM

And Hitchens, despite his turncoat conversion away from his former insane leftist zealotries (and don't get me wrong -- I love his overheated, sometimes hysterical prose...) worries me -- I don't know what it will be, but I'm convinced that something is going to unhinge that man so completely that, in the end he'll "revert" to Islam! OK -- maybe a little hyperbolic -- but suggesting that Hitchens and Voltaire are comparable? Naw. Nope.

Posted by: jsla at March 9, 2006 1:17 AM

P.S.: Voltaire's Mohammed play was in great measure a vehicle by which to pillory his own Western Establishment; the fact that he could so easily use Mohammed and Muslims as a vehicle merely speaks to the fact that, as igor points out, the PC sea change that has assaulted our institutions and culture in the last 50 years had not yet done so in Voltaire's time. Voltaire's play's point was about the dreaded equivalence we still have to fend off daily ("what about the Crusades?" "what about the Inquisition?" "Christians have been waging wars too" "what about the American genocide of the American Indians?" "what about slavery?" "what about witch-burnings?" "The Church arrested Galileo", "what about McCarythism?" etc. ad vomitum). Voltaire's play, in fact, was to a great extent an exercise in, if not a grand initiation into, our Western Ego Quoque that now cripples us.

Posted by: Dr. Pepper at March 9, 2006 1:24 AM

Sorry, I should have added that Voltaire would have opposed "radical" Islam much like Rushdie opposes it. But not Islam entirely, as a religion, as a philosophy, or as a culture. Then we would get into this whole discourse about how "fundamentalism" is the problem, not belief. Also, believing that enlightenment is a universal concept that is able to achieve the same ends in every culture regardless of history would also have been a blindspot for Voltaire. Enlightenment can happen in some cultures, but the results are not the same, outside of the West, most of them are fraught with many limitations. In some cultures, enlightenment is not possible at all due to extreme forms of fetishization and ignorance. Islam is one of these cultures.

Looking towards the savage in order to teach civil society a lesson in morality can be instructive if used sparingly. It becomes devastating to civil society if it is done repeatedly and if unearned or exaggerated praise is placed on the primitive society in order to shame the civil society of its accomplishments. History is kind to no one but to denigrate a culture that literally brought the rest of the world into the modern age because nobody will take your ideas seriously is nothing more than a symptom of hesperophobia.

Posted by: igor at March 9, 2006 1:27 AM

I think Voltaire had some excellent points that paved the way for tolerance (vis-a-vis the quote coined by his biographer). However, such tolerance in a society should not include tolerance for those forces which threaten to destroy said society in the first place.

The problem with our acceptance of Islam despite its dangers is not one of tolerance in and of itself; it is one of absolute tolerance in absence of prudence.

Posted by: Akhetnu at March 9, 2006 1:36 AM

Seems like the last week or so has witnessed a new willingness, in parts of the mainstream media, to speak of a problem with Islam itself, not just with "extremists." Especially in the conservative media, but not only them.

The crushing of Western free press by cartoon rage seems to have been an important turning point. Following so quickly on the intifada in France a few months ago. Then there was the recent gruesome 3-week torture by Muslims of a French Jew, who finally died. And the increasing awareness that Europe is rapidly turning Muslim by immigration and reproduction. There is also the wave of rapes by Muslims in Europe, who say they deem unveiled European women to be asking for it. And of course a while back there was the murder, on behalf of Muslims, of the gay Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn when he proposed shutting down further immigration to Holland, because he didn't appreciate Muslim attitudes toward gays ("gays should be killed") and he objected to Muslim supremacist goals in general. The tolerant Dutch hadn't seen a political assassination for centuries. Then there was the virtual beheading of Vincent van Gogh's great grand nephew, filmmaker Theo. And more recently the Asian (Indonesian?) girls on the way to school, suddenly losing their heads to Muslim beheaders. And the Sudan genocide carried out by Muslims. And the Saudi police forbidding female Saudi students to escape from a burning building, where they died, because the Saudi police deemed them not properly attired to be seen in public. The fact that Iranian guards, seeking to carry out the death sentence for those convicted of capital crimes, were required by Islamic law first to rape the convicted person if she was a virgin, because Islamic law forbids capital punishment being inflicted on virgins. Never mind that the girls in question were not guilty of anything by civilized standards of justice. Then there is the unwillingness of the Turkish Muslims to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. And the latest evil cherry on top: The SUV jihadi in Chapel Hill, NC. And Steve Emerson's reports that 80% of mosques in the U.S. are infiltrated by Wahabi-Muslim hatred for the West. Oh, and Muslims in Beslan a while ago shooting fleeing children in the back. I haven't recounted 1/20th of the list of outrages. This stuff rains down on us like a flood, and it's amazing we still haven't quite awakened.

Yet it seems like a bit of a breakout moment. We are maybe now witnessing the penetration of a realistic awareness of Islam into significant portions of the mainstream intelligentsia. It is becoming harder to tar as racist those who denounce Islam as fascistic, since that is what it in fact is, as one can see if one just looks with a bit of thoroughness at the primary Muslim documents, listens openly to the arguments on all sides, observes the habits of majority-Muslim societies around the world, and if one doesn't rely blindly on what the Muslim apologists pretend.

As we contemplate Iran's activities and so much else that portends large world conflict, maybe we are waking from our naive American slumber -- from our even more naive European slumber -- in worlds that, by historical standards, have been remarkably sheltered for decades from the terrors of war and history, and drowning in a prosperity unlike anything known before to humanity, free from famine, free from poverty such as it was in all past times, freed by modern science and health care from so many of the agonies and tragedies fragile human flesh has endured from time immemorial -- in the midst of all this we have been lulled by unprecedented levels of comfort and ease. So that our peoples have difficulty imagining things are all that different anywhere else, and forget large parts of the world are not yet civilized (if 'civilization' means the group does not crush the individual and social processes are continually critiqued by open public discussion.) Nor have those large, still barbarous parts of the world yet learned, to the fortunate extent the West and civilized friends of the West have learned, how to turn swords into ploughshares. But we are being forced now to wake, and ever so slowly we are discovering a grim sense of realism akin to what our grandparents evinced when they confronted the malignant barbarianism of the 1940s.

Now warlike Athena, inspirer of the wisdom of the brilliant Greeks; now the divine Christ of love and freedom; now Moses of the law; now Copernicus, Galileo and Newton; now every one of the million Hindu gods and of the countless Bodhisattvas; now all those hidden forces aligned with civilization; they stir anew and urge us to protect our children and the future from that psychotic and tyrannical moon god of the Arabian peninsula, god of death as dead as the moon, as dead as the Arabian deserts; the moon god who spoke even in the formulaic abstractions that by hidden paths into Western science once pretended to exhaust ‘dead’ matter’s laws and to set up a determinism forbidding the existence of free will; moon god who decreed the death of the image, iconoclast, Jehovah-imposter, who like Jehovah broke the idols and images, but unlike him, saw smashing not as prelude to rebirth and continual transformation; rather as eternal closure, to outlaw the descent into man, from the heavens, of the transforming agent, imagination, which we have heard is the repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I Am. This was forbidden by the same moon god who commanded instead the abstract arabesque, and spoke to Mohammed of submission, and who to this day marshals forces for the end of earthly evolution, and for the sake of removing, to his own impoverished and vacuous realm, those whose misfortune it is to succumb to him until the war is won.

(Ok, getting a little too passionate there, the very thing I have criticized Hugh about.)

Posted by: eduardo odraude at March 9, 2006 1:51 AM

"We should not be concerned with the lack of women's rights in Muslim countries. We should only be concerned when they export those same attitudes to the West packaged nicely with their jihad"

Igor, I agree, mainly because we have so little power over what happens in those countries. Saudi Arabia is a good example of the uselessness of the qualifications women can gain there, simply because it is a wealthy country with university education available.

I meant immigrants (I think I used the word 'integrate', you'll recall). Once they enter our countries, I do think that the excessive fertility can be affected by education and employment of women. I never said it was the only factor.

BTW, I've been reading Faithfreedom.com articles, and am becoming more convinced that Islam as set out in the koran and hadiths is nothing but a dangerous, politically subversive cult with few redeeming features. Perhaps we need to push for its proper labelling?

Posted by: Lili at March 9, 2006 2:02 AM

"However, my critics here, and even you who defend me are forgetting a crucial thing here: Voltaire was part of a process that began the excessive self-criticism among Westerners as a popular intellectual movement. Voltaire was anti-West by being anti-Establishment and anti-Catholic and anti-Royalist."
-posted by Dr. Pepper

Yes I agree. But I would like to add that self-criticism is not bad in itself. It becomes corrosive to society when there are no limitations to that criticism. A critique of slavery would have been perfectly moral and beneficial to society eventhough it would be anti-establishment. There is a vast difference between that Voltaire's irrational hatred of Catholicism and Judaism.

Of course the effects of self-criticism are not recognizable immediately but only several generations after. I personally think that Voltaire would be shocked that a field of study called "Whiteness Studies" exists today. If we went back in time and told him that he would have laughed at us and told us we were crazy. The problem with liberalism is that its only limit is when it finally builds utopia and there are no wars and nobody goes to bed hungry. Since that will never happen, then there are no limits to "progress". But I am in agreement with you that Voltaire was part of this long process eventhough he himself may have not been aware of it.

Hitchens however, is not a modern day Voltaire. He is a modern day Orwell. He knows what he sees is wrong (Islam) but he cannot bring himself to leave the leftist and Bushite neoconservative baggage behind which is a problem because it is these ideologies that is helping strengthen the power of Islam. He fails to understand that this war involves doing things he does not like, such as restricting Muslim immigration. And also like Orwell, he is realizing that his leftist buddies do not see a threat at all. Hitchens does but his approach is so confused because he cannot reconcile being leftist and supporting the Bush ("the great secularist") democracy project. Unlike Voltaire, Hitchens is not an original thinker. He just traded his leftist talking points (and I should mention that he makes NO distinction between the far left and moderate left--he considered Chomsky a hero prior to his comments about 9/11) for some nice right ones from the The Weekly Standard. The only thing he shares in common with Voltaire is his atheism and his hostility towards Western religion, but that is also shared by Orwell.

Posted by: igor at March 9, 2006 2:04 AM

I hope the poor misunderstood moslems don't read Paine's Common Sense wherein Mahomet is criticized for "cram[ming] hereditary right down the throats of the vulgar". And for the sake of all that is holy PLEASE DON'T TELL THEM ABOUT THE "SHORES OF TRIPOLI" LINE IN THE MARINE CORPS HYMN!

Why is it people in the 18th century had a much better grasp than we have today of what Islam is all about?

Posted by: niallr at March 9, 2006 9:17 AM

jsla:

If Hitchens is likely to revert to anything, it might be the faith of his mother and grandmother -- Judaism -- and not Islam. Having seen him don a yarmulke when he spoke last December at a Toronto synagogue with David Frum, I have to say he looked comfortable enough with it.

Hitchens is given to taking very strong positions on many things, but he's also able to admit his errors and see flaws in other people and "movements" he once admired. When it comes to Chomsky, he says that the Noamster once wrote some good stuff, and his recent book on Orwell is critical of Ed Said.

Posted by: waterdragon52 at March 9, 2006 9:23 AM

igor

"I would like to add that self-criticism is not bad in itself."

I didn't say "self-criticism"; I said "excessive self-criticism." That makes all the difference in the world.

Voltaire was part of a process that began the Western movement into excessive self-criticism. That excessive degree has reached pathological proportions in the last 50 years (with lurches into metastatic disease before that, in the mass movements of Communism and Fascism). It is directly responsible for the fact that (as another thread notes) a poll indicates that 67% of ordinary Americans in 2006 do not think Islam contributes to violence. In any sane, rational, healthy society at this stage of the game, that percentage would be minuscule.

If all the events were the same, but the years and culture were different -- to wit: if this were 1940, and all the same Muslim actions had occurred as they have in the last, say 27 years (dating from the Iranian revolution of 1979 to the present), the percentage of ordinary Americans who believed who did not think Islam contributes to violence would be on the order of 5% at best, not an obscene 67%.

In the last 50 years, the process of self-criticism verging carelessly on excess that began as a popular intellectual and social movement with the Enlightenment (which has brought much good in its wake, to be sure) has careered out of control into pathological, irrational, and now perilous excess (an excess capable of smug, smirking, stately decorum befitting a dominant sociocultural hegemony, as at the recent Oscars).

And I fear that Voltaire (whom my favorite philosopher of history, Eric Voegelin, considered to be philosophically illiterate), were he alive today, would be on that bandwagon of excess rather than putting the brakes on.

Posted by: Dr. Pepper at March 9, 2006 11:16 AM

Muslims dont 'ask'-they'Demand' in our western countries. The main cause for this is -OURSELVES. We ,pointing out our freedoms,gave these unwanted people full rights and freedoms in our societies,and they got a strong hold now. In their countres,like Saudi Arabia,United Arab Emirates,and in Pakistan,non-Muslims are snubbed soen. They cannot become citizens in that country,and you wil be reated as a thirdclass Paraya.We should have practiced the same type of treatment on them here in Europe and in America.The fault lies with us.Even after Sep 11, July 7.Mo''toon trouble,we have not realised the danger witch is lurking over our heads.Thank God,slowly France,Germany,Holland,and Netherland are tightening their immigration of Muslims,and opt for East European Christian workers,who recently joined the EU.Hope USA and Canada joins them.

The 'UN-HOLY Koran says in Sura 9:5 the following:
" FIGHT AND SLAY THE UNBELIVERS WHERE EVER YOU FIND THEM. SEIZE THEM AND BELEAGUER THEM, AND LIE IN WAIT FOR THEM IN EVERY STRATAGEM."

I challenge you, you cannot find such words in any holy books of other faiths. This is the MAIN reason for how cruel these Islamists behave towards others.

Posted by: rafia at March 9, 2006 12:05 PM

Re baby production. As I recall, right after WWII the French government had some sort of bonus system set up to promulgate French baby production - I forget whether it was a tax benefit or an outright handout. They must have abandoned it with all the PC environmentalism. What a pity.

Posted by: Jimmy Bones at March 9, 2006 12:43 PM

"In the last 50 years, the process of self-criticism verging carelessly on excess that began as a popular intellectual and social movement with the Enlightenment (which has brought much good in its wake, to be sure) has careered out of control into pathological, irrational, and now perilous excess (an excess capable of smug, smirking, stately decorum befitting a dominant sociocultural hegemony, as at the recent Oscars)."

Dr. Pepper,

So well said ... excessive self-criticism ( like all excesses) misses the mark. i.e. - Over-Responsible effectively = Not Responsible.

Excessive Self-Criticism effectively = Self-Indulgence that substitutes blame for critical thinking &/or responsibility.

Excessive self-criticism is both pompously anti-intellectual and morally lax (responsible action is disabled ).

Posted by: Daisytoo at March 9, 2006 2:51 PM

I propose an anti-denial-of-plays-by-Voltaire law for Europe. Those people over there seem to need a law to regulate every damn aspect of their life -- what to say -- what to do -- what not to say -- what not to do -- And I'm talking about the Europeans, not the Muslims!

Posted by: jsla at March 9, 2006 4:53 PM

"I'm talking about the Europeans, not the Muslims!"

...I know what you're all thinking: it's a distinction without a difference... And yep, I'm starting to agree -- sadly - slowly --

Posted by: jsla at March 9, 2006 4:55 PM

And while you are here in Europe - Islam - ah - what else do you want?

A new dress code - for everyone or Islamic law - perhaps!!

I love this line by the Mayor Bertrand ~
________
"For a long time we have not confirmed our convictions, so lots of people think they can contest them."
________

Posted by: Pass It On at March 11, 2006 6:23 AM

maybe the Muslims in Western Europe could not do the abuses that they are doing if it were not for the EU govts. So you have a problem with your own EU govts seemingly using the Muslims for some purpose or other. Now, indeed, the mainstream "leftist" intellectuals of today are dumb about Arabs and Islam. They see an "insurgency" in Iraq when it is really a civil war between Sunnis and Shi`is based on very old hatreds. The "left" today including Hitchens is a body of manipulated public opinion. These people can hardly think and cannot take in empirical evidence that gainsays their prejudices. The EU govts are mainly Eurabian [as Bat Ye'or points out]. The US foreign policy has been pro-Arab in regard to Israel since the 1940s. Yet this is disguised by presidential rhetoric from time to time. So the anti-Israel State Dept and CIA are restrained by public opinion and presidential decisions. The US has been making the Saudis rich since the 1940s, and especially since 1951 when ARAMCO was allowed to pay them more. See below:
http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2005/09/kindly-making-arabia-rich.html
http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2005/09/what-does-left-really-mean-in-2005.html

The Left on the whole converges in its pro-Islamic policies and propaganda with the EU pro-Arab policy.
On one more point [can't respond to them all], yes, some scholars in the 19th century [not just the 18th] understood the Islamic political system very well. One was Cesar Famin, a French diplomat, writer and historian whose book was plagiarized by none other than Karl Marx.
http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2006/03/jewish-majority-in-jerusalem-in-1853.html
http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2006/03/muslim-oppression-of-non-muslims-in.html
See what Famin wrote about Islamic war and exploitation 150 years ago. How come the understanding on the part of Famin and others has been forgotten?? That's the question.

Posted by: Eliyahu at March 12, 2006 3:16 AM