The nutroots go apeshit when you say 'I hate such 'n such..'

Being a hater you are automatically discredited. Being a hater or a 'racist' is worse than being a serial killer, for that kind of thing the moonbats wanna find the 'root-causes', like a bad childhood or something...

Our world has turned to s#*t...

Collective insanity is the norm, trivialists like Oprah, Jerry Springer and Britney Spears rob the half-wits of their last 5 cents, we're on skid row.

Posted by: sheik yer'mami at February 17, 2008 6:59 AM

'My allies are not Le Pen or Haider,' he emphasises. 'We'll never join up with the fascists and Mussolinis of Italy. I'm very afraid of being linked with the wrong rightist fascist groups.' Dutch iconoclasm, Scandinavian insistence on free expression, the right to provoke are what drive him, he says.
-- from the article above

It is good that "The Observer" kept this statement by Wilders in its piece. He has, after all, been the victim of the media which always affixes to him (as to others, even to the famous anticlerical anti-Vietnam War leftist Oriana Fallaci) the Homeric epithet "far-right."

Even calling him "right-wing" has to be understood in the Dutch context, where "right-wing" is nothing more than being a McCain Republican. His stated admiration of Margaret Thatcher, means, in the Dutch context, simply an intelligent fed-up-ness with a system that now has nearly one-third of the population on a kind of permanent and extraordinarily generous dole, supported -- maddeningly -- by the other two-thirds. The welfare state set up by Dutch, after World War II, so that they could take care of those Dutch people who needed help, a system entirely paid for by the Dutch taxpayers, has now become a way for Dutch non-Muslims to transfer wealth to Muslims who have managed to settle, and then to reproduce, at terrifying rates, and in other ways increase their numbers within the Netherlands (15,000 in 1970, more than a millioin today), even while posing a greater and greater threat to free speech, free thought, and all that comes from those freedoms whose development is so closely associated with the Enlightenment, and therefore with The Netherlands. Neither Rembrandt, nor Spinoza, nor any of the other figures famous in Dutch history, could ever have been produced within, or would last one minute under, Islam.

\

Posted by: Hugh at February 17, 2008 7:17 AM

"For more than three years, Wilders has been paying for his 'honesty' by living under permanent police guard as the internet bristles with threats on his life. He has lived in army barracks, in prisons, under guard at home. 'There's no freedom, no privacy. If I said I was not afraid, I would be lying.'"

And yet he continues on, for the sake of all of us.

"There is little doubt that if Wilders's film exists - and it's shrouded in secrecy - and is broadcast, it will be construed as blasphemy in large parts of the world and may spark a new bloody crisis in relations between the West and the Muslim world."

If he shows the film there will be a new bloody crisis. And who's telling us this? The Muslim world. And who will perpetrate the bloody crisis? Muslims. Is it really that far of a stretch to put two and two together and see that Wilders isn't the problem here, Muslims who follow their book are? The book that says if infidels insult Islam it's A-OK to start a bloody riot?

"He does not seem to care. 'People ask why don't you moderate your voice and not make this movie. If I do that and not say what I think, then the extremists who threaten me would win.'"

Dead straight. It's either us or them.

Posted by: Isabellathecrusader at February 17, 2008 7:23 AM

I read the Observer article with a growing sense of disbelief. I have very rarely seen such lack of objectivity on behalf of a reporter. The whole report was completely biased and smacked of the worst kind of multiculturalist bigotry and self-rightousnes. This guy Traynor or (traitor) is what he tries to portray Wilders as; a gutless, boneheaded, ignorant self-righteous prig.

I recommend that everyone who reads this has a look at the article.

Posted by: ericthekuffar at February 17, 2008 7:54 AM

CAIR's Ibrahim Hooper who said, "Islam is an ideology. It's not a race." So if it is an ideology, it can be liked or disliked, and subjected to critical scrutiny like any other, no?
this might be a bit off topic but Imo this is one of the few true things that has ever been said by this man, without the use of Taqiyya and Kitmanbut that's just my opinion and I agree with Geert Wilders I do not hate Muslims just a fascist Islamic belief system that demands the entire world must follow

Posted by: doglover at February 17, 2008 8:26 AM

'I read the Observer article with a growing sense of disbelief. I have very rarely seen such lack of objectivity on behalf of a reporter. The whole report was completely biased and smacked of the worst kind of multiculturalist bigotry and self-rightousnes. This guy Traynor or (traitor) is what he tries to portray Wilders as; a gutless, boneheaded, ignorant self-righteous prig.'

Indeed, British journalism is crawling with and infested with smug, self-righteous, self-important bigots who are addicted to putting down and disparaging anyone with integrity and the courage to tell the truth. It's truly vomit inducing to read their treatment of the interviewees. Another recent example of this was an interview with Martin Amis, painting him as some kind of neurotic failure rather than an intelligent critic of Islam.

In the meantime, I wish Wilders God's speed and look forward to his film, which the world is crying out for.

Posted by: johndoe at February 17, 2008 8:36 AM

What a ridiculous and irrational statement: "I don't hate Muslims, I hate Islam."

A 'Muslim' is one who believes in the religion/ideology of Islam. He identifies himself with it, and he wants you to identify him in that manner.

I find it unbelievable that a Muslim in the US will not know the "controversy" surrounding Islam and its "Prophet."

Imagine now, you have someone standing before you in Muslim garb, with the beard, etc, saying proudly, "I am a Muslim. I believe in Allah and the Prophet." YOU know what is in the Koran, the Hadith and the Sira.

So now, you are supposed to think this person is just like any other believer. He is to be compared to a Jew a Christian, a Buddhist or a Hindu.

Complete cognitive dissonance, and a lie that will kill us.

Posted by: Ethelred at February 17, 2008 8:51 AM

every country should have a geert wilder to point out the dangers of this fascist belief called islam. where is ours? anyone brave enough to be like him? perhaps we won't get ours until these packs of ultra libs running for president are thrown out after 4 years.

Posted by: desidude at February 17, 2008 9:56 AM

What a crazy statement; just as crazy as these:

I don't hate Nazis; I hate Nazism.

I don't hate white supremists; I hate white supremacism.

I don't hate child abusers, I hate child abuse.

Posted by: Pelayo at February 17, 2008 10:02 AM

I find Ethelred's comment dangerous, and I applaud Wilders for saying that he doesn't hate Muslims. I am not sure either that he ever said "I hate Islam". Fighting Islam is not the same as losing your head and going on a verbal rampage. All criticism has to be accurate, not hotheaded.

I am Dutch, I live in the Netherlands, in Amsterdam. Contrary to many reports on the internet which would have us believe that, after the murder of Theo van Gogh, the enraged Dutch population subjected Muslim property to a kind of Kristallnacht treatment, in fact only one building (a school) was set ablaze by an unstable adolescent, and in Amsterdam itself there was NOT EVEN ONE violent incident. I am very proud of that. It is an excellent example of the motto: I despise and reject Islam, however I do not hate, and would never attack, ordinary Muslims or their property. It is their ideologues and ringleaders and Saudi contacts we have to go after. Moderate Islam may not exist, but many people with a Muslim background are utterly indifferent when it comes to religion. It's no use antagonizing them, they are silently on our side but cannot speak out. In their indifference and reasonableness they are the seed which will hopefully bloom into a peaceful future.

We do not want bloodshed, we do not want a civil war. It is easy, if you are not Dutch, to hope that things will spin out of control in the Netherlands, so that your views of Islam are once more confirmed. But I live here, I don't want that. It is our momentous task to deal with the threats of Islam in a way that shows we are the civilized party. The people of Muslim background are never going to leave my country, they are here to stay. This means that the threat of Islam has to be defused in a gradual way, by a change of mentality in the migrant population.

I know many of you are now ready to shower me with all manner of invective, so I will state clearly: No kowtowing to Islam, no asse-hatte dhimmification - but no violence, no civil war either! If I had to hate every Muslim I see in our streets, I would end up a psychopath or a racist. That wouldn't solve anything.

Posted by: Flying_Dutchman at February 17, 2008 10:20 AM

Well put, Flying Dutchman.

Your sentiments are spot on and echo what's on the mind of millions of non-muslims everywhere.

However, the problem is that with traditions of outright deceit like taqqiya etc, there's no way to distinguish the friendly, reasonable muslim from the kaffir hating alla's warrior. And there lies the rub.

Posted by: Dunk at February 17, 2008 11:01 AM

What would islam be without moslems?

Posted by: interestinconundrum at February 17, 2008 11:34 AM

"Hate, of course, is the third rail of today's public discourse." -RS

May I inquire what this means, please? By "third rail."

Posted by: darcy at February 17, 2008 11:35 AM

"The people of Muslim background are never going to leave my country, they are here to stay. This means that the threat of Islam has to be defused in a gradual way, by a change of mentality in the migrant population."
-- from a posting above

Why do you insist on this? Why not at least modify it a bit, by writing, for example, that "unless things become absolutely intolerabe, the people of Muslimi background are never going to leave my country, they are here to stay." It is precisely such a statement that gives Muslims the o'erweening assurance that they can get away with all kinds of mayhem, even murder, or that "moderate" Muslims can simply remain silent, and not actively question, and work against, all those Muslims who, unlike them, take the texts and tenets of Islam to heart. You are being too easy on Muslims, and too hard on the Netherlands, and by extension the rest of the advanced, civilized, Western world.

Do you agree, or disagree, with the notion of halting all Muslim migration? Would you, if you could turn the clock back thirty or forty years, knowing what you now know about the bewhavior of Muslims and, presumably, the Total Belief-System of Islam, have opposed at the time the free entry into the Netherlands of so many Muslims?

Do you agree, or disagree, that what makes the Netherlands the Netherlands, its art, its science, its solicitousness for the freedom of the individual, is all of it flatly contradicted by the spirit and letter of Islam? Do you agree, or disagree, with the following statement, that I post frequently here:

"The large-scale presence of Muslims in the lands of Western Europe has led to a situation that is far more unpleasant, expensive, and physically dangerous both for the indigenous non-Muslims, and for other, non-Muslim immigrant groups, than would be the case without that large-scale Muslim presence."

If you agree with that statement, and if you further recognize the durability, and immutability of the doctrines of Islam, and if you hve studied the behavior of Muslims toward non-Muslims over the past 1350 years, in places where the Muslims started out as a tiny minority, and gradually increased in numbers, and if you further examine the tenuousness of the 20th-century attempt, in Turkey, to systematically constrain Islam as a political and social force, and relegate it to the realm of private ritual, and if you keep constantly in mind the immutable texts, and the tenets that arise from those texts, of Islam, then your placing of "hope" in the possibility of permanently changing the beliefs of Muslims in The Netherlands -- those whom you stoutly insist "are never going to leave my country, they are here to stay" (is this an observation, made neutrally, or in despair, or is it an affirmation of your belief that it would be immoral or unacceptable to create the conditions in which the conduct of a Muslim life is so difficult, and the whisperings of Shaytan so continuous, that Muslims will decide to leave and lead their Muslim lives in Muslim lands?)is entirely misplaced.

Yes, your expressed "hope" is prompted by a wish not to consider other possibilities, as too painful, or too out of what has been within the realm of possibilities in nice, tolerant, easygoing Netherlands. But nice, tolerant, advanced Czechoslovakia, back in 1946, with Germany in ruins, nonetheless decided that its people did not have to live, indefinitely, with the internal threat that the Sudeten Germans -- so many of whom had collaborated with the Nazi invaders -- and that the problem would be resolved by expellling those Sudeten Germans, even though in some cases their ancestors had lived in the area for hundreds of years. And not a single Czech of note then or since, has ever tkaen major issue with the acts of Jan Masaryk and Eduard Benes, nor did any Western statesmen --not Churchill, not Truman, not De Gasperi, no one -- at the time, find moral or other fault with what came to be known as the Benes Decree. You might profitably look into it, and how it came to be passed, and whether or not today you think the Czechs did something terrible, or something that was, under the circumstances, entirely understandable and justifiable.

The "hope" that you express is of the kind we call in English a "forlorn hope." And I am as aware as you are that the phrase, so appropriate in this case, comes from the Dutch. Of course, it comes by way of an inaccurate folk etymology, for in Dutch the phrase “verloren hoop” means a group of soldiers, or troop, undertaking a nearly-suicidal mission: they are the “lost troop” or “verloren hoop.” You choose to believe in a “forlorn hope.” I do not. I prefer hard heads to soft hearts, when so much of overwhelming value is in the balance, and prefer the intelligent readiness to take extraordinary measures in defense of the West, faced with a subtle, slow-moving, many-faceted, but quite clearly unappeasable and immutable enemy, that goes from strength to strength not through open combat, but through a combination of historical events: the trillions of OPEC dollars, that show no signs of stopping, the millions of Muslims allowed, through near-criminal negligence on the part of Western elites, into Western countries paralyzed by the totem of a diseased understanding of “tolerance,” and last, the inexorable workings of both much higher birth rates for Muslims within that West (their families, sometimes polygamous, supported by the incredible, nearly suicidal generosity of Infidel governments and taxpayers), and the well-financed campaigns of Da’wa that target the economically and psychically marginal groups and individuals within that West, both contributing to an inexorable demographic conquest that the Infidels seem able to recognize but believe themselves unable to do anything about – as your comment indicates.

You are, I hope – and my hope is not forlorn – quite wrong.

Posted by: Hugh at February 17, 2008 11:59 AM

Flying Dutchman, dunk,

Of course, I agree with interestinconundrum, but feel free to change the word "hate" to something else. Of course, I, as an American, am not trying to tell you how to solve your problem. However, we look at Europe with mounting horror and a sense of "not here." I never said for you to attack any Muslim or his property. And, for the record, how does thinking negatively about Muslims make you a racist?

What part of Islam do you consider redeemable? What actions of Muhammad do you think worth emulating today? Do you think at all at what the "indifferent, reasonable" Muslim is thinking, at how they can manage their mixed feelings? The "silent majority" provide the "radicals" with cover. And why do you think that the children of these "nominal" Muslims will remain so?

Why do you think it is up to the West to de-fang Islam? Islam is beyond repugnant, it is pure evil, as Muhammad was. Islam does not belong in our civilization. It must be resisted with a giant NO to every single statement it makes.

I don't think I have to lay down every individual part of Islam that is barbaric, inhumane, irrational, hateful thing Islam teaches, or that it is Arab imperialism thinly disguised as a religion, and we idiots fall for it.

But I must ask you: at what point do you fight back? How many assassinations or bombings will it take? How many of your rights must be taken away, and how many special privileges be give to Muslims?

The world has suffered enough, and it cannot compromise or accommodate evil.

Ethelred

Posted by: Ethelred at February 17, 2008 12:13 PM

Hugh has expressed my sentiments better than I!

Posted by: Ethelred at February 17, 2008 12:17 PM

Is it strange, is it inexplicable, is it difficult to comprehend, why, when one now sees a hijabbed woman, with her beared husband beside her, and a half-dozen or dozen children whom, one knows with a certainty, are being paid for in large part by the Dutch or British or French or Danish taxpayers, to react with inner distaste, dislike, even fury at the situation? Is that humanly impossible to comprehend, given all that that beard, that hijab, those half-dozen children may mean for you, for your one or two children, for the future of your too-generous, too-open, too-vulnerable country or countries, done in by the very thing that makes them admirable, but that, alas, does not make them better able to resist an unprecedented -- in its scope, in its resilience, in its permanence -- threat to the civilization developed, over so long, and capable of being undone not by a superior civilization, but by mere numbers, the numbers of those who adhere to a Total Belief-System that remains unimpressed by, and permanently hostile to, everything that makes the West the West.

Why should one not react with dislike, or even intense dislike, to those who subscribe to such views? I am not talking about the Muslim who is not a Muslim, not a Believer, but is merely what I call a Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only Muslim. But those who are not such -- those who take their Islam seriously, and the beard, and the hijab, are sufficient indication -- such a person represents a threat to all that the West represents and offers, all that you, and I, and almost everyone who visits this website, should love and wish to see protected, defended.

Why should you react otherwise?

Posted by: Hugh at February 17, 2008 12:54 PM

We are at war. A defensive war. When there is war, it is reasonable and sane to hate the enemy who wishes to dominate you , who wants to destroy your culture and values. In the Second World War, the Germans were the enemy, not just the Nazi ideology, and it was reasonable to hate anyone who followed and idolised Hitler.
Similarly, if someone idolises Mohammed and takes the koran as the immutable word of God, he is the enemy of our culture and freedom, and therefore we are obliged to hate this person, whose identity is wrapped up and inseparable from such a totalitarian belief system. Muslims must be reminded again and again how despicable their ideology is to anyone who loves freedom and that whosoever subscribes to it and recognises Mohammed as a prophet and perfect man will be treated with zero tolerance.

Posted by: johndoe at February 17, 2008 1:26 PM

Moderate Islam may not exist, but many people with a Muslim background are utterly indifferent when it comes to religion. It's no use antagonizing them, they are silently on our side but cannot speak out. In their indifference and reasonableness they are the seed which will hopefully bloom into a peaceful future.
-Flying Dutchman

This could be said of the German population that looked the other way as Jews were being led to concentration camps. Whether they are numb or have not read the texts of the the Koran does not negate the fact that the seed of violence, supremacism and oppression are inspiration for the millions of psychopathic Muslims that has led
Geert Wilders to take the stand that he has taken. What evidence do you have that these indifferent Muslims have attempted to stop the intrusion of the psychopaths of their religion? How long will you wait- like Chamberlain did for Hitler? Indifference under the the hand of tyranny sanctions that tyranny.

Posted by: Briars at February 17, 2008 1:35 PM

"not by a superior civilization, but by mere numbers" --Hugh.

That is so depressing. The Demographic Jihad. Excuse me, but something has to be done about all of those numbers or we're doomed. Majority rules.

"to react with inner distaste, dislike, even fury at the situation?" --Hugh

I do feel very angry when I see the Hijabed woman in the grocery store or wherever. I feel like saying, "Why don't you go back to your Islamic country?" According to "johndoe" (above) this is why I feel angry:

"We are at war. A defensive war. When there is war, it is reasonable and sane to hate the enemy who wishes to dominate you , who wants to destroy your culture and values."

Uh huh, yes, I see her and all Mohammedans as my enemy. They want to take over my country - there is no doubt about it, just as they are doing in Western Europe and as they tried to do in Europe centuries ago. As people say, "This is just the continuation of an old war."

Posted by: darcy at February 17, 2008 2:02 PM

Hugh Fitzgerald rhetorically counsels us to "react with dislike, or even intense dislike" to Muslims who consciously follow Islam. Sorry, but I reserve my "intense dislike" for things like stopped-up toilets, my mother-in-law, or lame movies like The Hottie and the Nottie. Surely, a 1400-year-old ideology that has mass-murdered over 200 million people, and inflicted horrific abuses, including slavery, rape and pillage on millions more, and continues to espouse the evil supremacism that motivated that blood-drenched history, deserves something a little more redblooded than "intense dislike".

Meanwhile, the Flying Dutchman wrote above:

"I find Ethelred's comment dangerous, and I applaud Wilders for saying that he doesn't hate Muslims. I am not sure either that [Wilders] ever said "I hate Islam"."

He sure did. At the end of the article, Wilders is quoted as saying:

"I don't hate Muslims. I hate their book and their ideology.'"

"Fighting Islam is not the same as losing your head and going on a verbal rampage. All criticism has to be accurate, not hotheaded."

The word "hate" does not necessarily entail "losing your head" or "going on a verbal rampage". Hate is not necessarily "hotheaded". One can be accurate, and still hate one's enemy. When there is an enemy who is determined to destroy you if they cannot subjugate you to the evil supremacism they fanatically espouse, it would be preposterous not to hate them.

In sum, must we kowtow to the PC police and let them dictate to us whether or not we are permitted to hate our inveterate and evil Enemy?

Posted by: cantor at February 17, 2008 2:18 PM

"Hugh Fitzgerald rhetorically counsels us to 'react with dislike, or even intense dislike' to Muslims who consciously follow Islam. Sorry, but I reserve my "intense dislike" for things like stopped-up toilets, my mother-in-law, or lame movies like The Hottie and the Nottie. Surely, a 1400-year-old ideology that has mass-murdered over 200 million people, and inflicted horrific abuses, including slavery, rape and pillage on millions more, and continues to espouse the evil supremacism that motivated that blood-drenched history, deserves something a little more redblooded than 'intense dislike.'"
-- from a posting by "cantor"

I did not "counsel us" or anyone to "react with dislike, or even intense dislike" to Muslims "who consciously follow Islam." I said that such a reaction was understandable, and justifiable. That is different from urging, or counselling, others to feel it.

But that is not the only thing you have misread. I attempted to supply alternatives to the word "hate" such as "dislike" or "intensely dislike" and, what's more, was talking only about Muslims, not about Islam. You, however, in your eagerness to find fault (not for the first time) ignored what I wrote, and then went to describe and condemn a "1400-year-old ideology." I distinguished, as Ibn Warraq and others have done, those who are born into Islam and many of whom are entangled in it, find it difficult or impossible to get out or even to see it clearly, from within, and the ideology called Islam.

You may answer that anyone who calls himself a "Muslim" must be held to know exactly what has been done, over time, in the name of Islam, and to know this even if that person has grown up within Dar al-Islam and had little chance to be exposed to what, in the West, Wafa Sultan and Ibn Warraq and Ayaan Hirsi Ali were exposed to. I think one has to still make allowances for

1) ignorance of the real history of Muslim conquest -- as with the mass killings of tens of Hindus

2) ignorance of the actual mechanism of conquest and then, more importantly, of the islamization over time of the conquered populations and of the arabization that frequently accompanied it

3) filial piety, including memories of sympathetic older relatives who were quietly pious and did not seem to wish harm to anyone -- such as the parents, for example, of Magdi Allam, who writes about them so touchingly

4) the desire to spare oneself knowledge of certain truths that would call into question the entire value of what has been, in so many ways, central to one's sense of self, or rather of the self immersed in the umma, or collective, or community of Believers. How difficult it is for those who are essentially not in free societies, subject to the constant din of Islamic propaganda, in lands suffused with Islam, where this total belief-system offers a simple explanation of the universe, a complete regulation of life, and thus a comforting way to organize and make sense of the universe.

5) among Arab Muslims, their ethnic identity reiunforces a desire to protect, to defend, not to question, Islam -- and that can be true of non-Muslim Arabs -- the "islamochristians" -- as well.

These are explanations, but not justifciations. But they should give slight pause to those who insist that every Muslim everywhere surely must know exactly what the texts and tenets are all about, and should be denounced, therefore, with the same intensity as one would denounce the ideology.

No. "There are moderate Muslims. Islam itself is not moderate." The only thing I would add to the formulation by Ibn Warraq is that the phrase "moderate Muslims" must not stand alone, must be held up for inspection, to see how shape-shifting and treacherous that concept can be, and how it does not, therefore, provide much solace for those threatened by the un-moderate or better, immoderate, Muslims --that is to say, a great many of them, with the "moderates" always being in danger of becoming "immoderate" Muslims for reasons we cannot always detect.

Posted by: Hugh at February 17, 2008 3:01 PM

Hugh, I agree with 'most everything you write. I certainly agree that we made a big mistake back in the Seventies when we allowed the Muslim workers whose contracts had expired to stay and bring their families. If we'd had the foresight then to pick non-Muslims for our jobs, we would not have been in the present, rather alarming situation. And I agree that everything should be done to halt further Muslim immigration, although this is fraught with legal problems.

You imply that, if things become "intolerable", it should be possible to expel Muslim citizens to the countries of their forefathers. Well, for the large majority that has Dutch citizenship a Sudeten type "solution" is simply impossible, for a host of reasons. Morocco, or Turkey, have not waged a war on us that would justify mass expulsion of their subjects (whom, by the way, they didn't send, but whom we invited).

I admire your (and Robert's) articles, with their wealth of insight into Islam, but you do not show the Western European countries a practicable, feasible, realistic way out of our problems. (I hasten to add that that's not what Jihad Watch was set up for.) Defining the problem and crying out against the tenets of Islam is one thing (and a prerequisite), solving it is quite another - and it's the harder part. Sending them away en masse is not an option - national and international law simply doesn't admit anything of the kind, and rightly so. Things will have to improve the hard way: through education, through economic and social emancipation. With a good education and a good salary, new generations of Turks and Moroccans will be more likely to appreciate all that is good about this country, this continent. There may come a time when they celebrate Eid ul-Fitr the way a secular person celebrates Passover Seder or Christmas. That is the kind of future I set my hopes on. There is no other solution.

Posted by: Flying_Dutchman at February 17, 2008 3:16 PM

There is no other solution.

Posted by: Flying_Dutchman at February 17, 2008 3:16 PM

No? For Western Europe's sake and survival, I hope there is.

Posted by: darcy at February 17, 2008 3:50 PM

perhaps we won't get ours until these packs of ultra libs running for president are thrown out after 4 years.
Posted by: desidude

-----

Yep. It is totally disgusting and depressing to see the current "crop" of Presidential hopefuls.

And this time I really thought it could not possibly get any worse.. after all the current Dunce in thief Bush is the worst since Dhimmi Cuhtah.. and now this..

A socialist woman Hitlery, the moslem hussein O. and John McCAIRn the RINO liberal. He who wants to pick Condi rice the Anti-Semite as his running mate..

I am sick to my stomach..

Posted by: Allah Schmallah at February 17, 2008 3:53 PM

Sending them away en masse is not an option - national
and international law simply doesn't admit anything of the kind, and rightly so.

Completely wishful thinking. International law has no moral authority without survival. If I have to choose between survival and abolishment of the human rights of all muslims, any choice to the contrary is a suicide pact.
Why do you feel compelled to disregard any proposal to expel all muslims? I think such a proposal is unrealistic for a number of reasons, but making the life inhospital for muslims is not necessarily the same as mass deportation.
But your suicidal international law would equally bar a law stripping religious freedom protection of Islam. And why should we observe international law when Islamic nations don't? International law should always be based on the principle of absolute reciprocity, and muslim nations don't recognize human rights of non-muslims.

Posted by: PerH at February 17, 2008 4:08 PM

Islam as a religio-ideology or ideological-religion must be rigorously subjected to an open intellectual investigation and critique in the West.

There is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON why an particular ideology calling itself a religion must be accepted as such within the West's framework of what the word means.

Islam must be rejected as a religion and treated as an ideology which is contrary to the core principles of our society and even deeper, our civilization. It can then be controlled as the evil thing it is.

Muslims then have a choice: leave Islam or leave the West.

Once (or, really if) Islam "reforms" (right!), it can then join humanity AS DEFINED BY US.

If you have not read Ali Sina, go to www.faithfreedom.org.

Ethelred

Posted by: Ethelred at February 17, 2008 4:15 PM

To add to what PerH has said:

Reciprocity is the key. Forget about our supposed higher morals. Those morals of self-sacrifice as leading to our destruction.

We (meaning the West as represented by our Rule of Law and Respect for the Individual) should treat them (meaning Muslims) as they treat us in dar al Islam (meaning as things lower than dogs).

No Christian worship in the Hagia Sophia, no Muslims in Cordoba. No churches or synagogues built in Saudi Arabia, no mosques ANYWHERE in the West. The human rights for the Infidel/kuffar in Pakistan/Iran/Saudi Arabia, no rights, meaning the equivalent rights for them here.

And most importantly - no signator of the Geneva Convention fighting us, no rules for our soldiers.

It is time to treat a rabid animal as such.

Ethelred

Posted by: Ethelred at February 17, 2008 4:24 PM

Hugh responded: I did not "counsel us" or anyone to "react with dislike, or even intense dislike" to Muslims "who consciously follow Islam."

My initial phrase was deficient: I neglected to supplement my word "rhetorically" when I said "Hugh rhetorically counsels us..." with the word "implicitly".

I said that such a reaction was understandable, and justifiable. That is different from urging, or counselling, others to feel it.

In the context of the full weight of Hugh's rhetoric (in the good, classical sense) that increasingly layers on the profound justifiability of that intense dislike, this seems a disingenuous distinction. At any rate, the "counsel" or lack thereof is really peripheral to my central point.

But that is not the only thing you have misread. I attempted to supply alternatives to the word "hate" such as "dislike" or "intensely dislike" and, what's more, was talking only about Muslims, not about Islam.

I did not misread the attempt to supply alternatives: my objection was precisely these supplied alternatives!

As for the distinctions between Islam and Muslims, and then between Muslims who consciously support Islam's evils and injustices (both past and present), and those Muslims whose relative ignorance of their Islam may to one degree or another exculpate them from a support of the evils and injustices of Islam (both past and present) -- all this is important to clarify. I did not address these things in my last point because they are not pertinent to my opinion that "intense dislike" is insufficiently robust in the face of an Islam that has been and continues to be evil and dangerous, and of the logically extended objects of that more robust disposition: the Muslims who sufficiently support that Islam which we rationally hate (however one wants to define "sufficiently support" is immaterial to the point of my opinion).

Once those distinctions (between Islam and Muslims, and then between two or more types of Muslims relative to culpable awareness of their Islam's evil and injustice) are clarified, I still stand by my conviction that "intense dislike" is insufficiently robust for both the evils and injustices of Islam, AND for those Muslims who consciously support Islam's evils and injustices.

How does one then determine if a given Muslim "consciously supports Islam's evils and injustices"? I contend that it is not necessary to submit said Muslim to a 3-hour examination with blue books about the history and texts of his or her Islam. If said Muslim, to pick one example out of a turban, participates along with thousands of other Muslims in calling for the death of a schoolteacher for the "crime" of naming a teddy bear Mohammed, then, as Jeff Foxworthy would say, you know he's your enemy. Then, one step removed in the diagnostic mechanism: if, in attempts to solicit from a given Muslim a condemnation of those teddy bear demonstrations (or of any of the thousands of outrageous atrocities and exhibits the Muslim world furnishes us with), the given Muslim, instead of offering sufficient condemnation with due alacrity, rather dances around and quibbles with one degree or another of sophistry -- then you know he's your enemy. Etc. & so forth.

I.e., I think it's in our interests to err on minimizing the qualifications for enmity, particularly with the escalating availability of WMDs of various flavors in conjunction with the psychopathically murderous fanaticism and trans-national diaspora of our current enemy.

It is also rational to keep in mind that the difficult problem of discriminating between the two types of Muslims (with perhaps further fine gradations in between) should not interfere with or obstruct our proactive self-defense in deference to the statistical probability of the existence of the less culpable (even in many cases innocent) type of Muslims. The "hate" then, is not specifically directed at innocent harmless Muslims even if tragically necessary exigencies concomitant with our rational hatred directed at the other culpable type of Muslim may entail the unavoidable fusion of the two. (We did not, for example, require the 200,000+ Japanese we bombed in Japan during WW2 to demonstrate their Enemy Literacy before we targeted them. We are not currently faced with such an emergency exigency, true; but at what point will we agree to its logic (buttressed by other factors, such as the unusually strong cultic cohesiveness, sociologically and psychologically, that exists among those who follow Islam)? Only after a catastrophe happens?)

Posted by: cantor at February 17, 2008 5:06 PM

Why is self-preservation considered evil?

Have you no family?

Have you no children?

Have you no self?

Ethelred's wife.

Posted by: Ethelred at February 17, 2008 6:15 PM

Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me twice, shame on me.

This war was declared 1400 years ago. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

A muslim is only loyal to Islam.

Islam is a political ideology pretending to be a religion. No need to give it's "believers" the protection we extend to real religions.

Posted by: tanstaafl at February 17, 2008 6:18 PM

tanstaafl,

Amen!

Ethelred

Posted by: Ethelred at February 17, 2008 6:58 PM

I only have one comment for author Ian Traynor who wrote the article and said "Scandinavian insistence on free expression..."

uh... newsflash - Holland isn't part of Scandinavia. Sweden, Denmark, Norway = Scandinavia. Add Iceland & Finland and you get the Nordic countries. It's clear to me from the tone of the article that Ian Traynor thinks that Geert Wilders is a racist and nothing else (His intentions are good, racism is vile, but still he's probably never read any Islamic holy books to know that they are full of hate speech themselves.) But... whenever somebody opens their mouth and declares Holland a part of Scandinavia, or mixes up Switzerland and Sweden... I just completely tune out...

Posted by: Lost in the Hazel at February 17, 2008 8:08 PM

Ethelred , You posted a joke here one time (I think it was you), it was circular reasoning about islam. I have looked for it high and low, if you remember it will you post it again?
"Mohammad said "I am a Prophet because I say I am..." etc.

Posted by: interestinconundrum at February 17, 2008 8:10 PM

tanstaafl (and Ethelred):

You say: "A Muslim is loyal only to Islam."

That is an impossible generalization. There are millions upon millions of people who are culturally Muslim but are not interested in advancing the jihad agenda or even necessarily aware of it.

This is true just as it is also true that there are millions of people who call themselves Christians but who pay little or no attention to the effort of conforming their lives to Christian teachings. In every belief-system there is a spectrum of belief, knowledge, and fervor, and Islam is no different.

To extrapolate from Islamic teachings to the proposition that all Muslims believe in and are advancing the jihadist cause is just as absurd as assuming that because Jesus said to love your enemies, that every last Christian is humble, self-effacing, non-combative, and forgiving.

That's why Wilders' distinction between Muslims and Islam is not illogical, not false, and in fact is quite useful and important.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch at February 17, 2008 9:19 PM

darcy:

In the New York subway system the trains run on three rails. Two rails for the wheels, and a third rail for the power. So if you grasp the third rail, you die. Hence the third rail, grasping the third rail has become a metaphor for doing something that brings on political death.

To say "Islam is not a religion of peace," for example, is to grasp the third rail in the public discourse about terrorism today, which will bring you death as a "legitimate" spokesmen from both liberals and conservatives.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch at February 17, 2008 9:23 PM

Gay people are always being told by christians: "I love you though I hate what you do". Patronising and annoying though that sounds for gay people and their friends (e.g. me), it's a useful concept to apply to muslims and islam.

Posted by: Lili at February 17, 2008 9:55 PM

"you do not show the Western European countries a practicable, feasible, realistic way out of our problems. (I hasten to add that that's not what Jihad Watch was set up for.) Defining the problem and crying out against the tenets of Islam is one thing (and a prerequisite), solving it is quite another - and it's the harder part. Sending them away en masse is not an option - national and international law simply doesn't admit anything of the kind, and rightly so."
-- from a posting above

1. Education of Infidels, so that they are well aware of the contents of the texts of Islam -- Qur'an, Hadith, Sira.

2. Education of Infidels, so that they understand how, over 1350 years, those texts have been received, and acted upon, by Believers.

3. Education of Infidels, so that they know a good deal about the history of Islamic conquest, and subsequent subjugation of non-Muslim peoples in the lands conquered -- a subjugation that, no matter what the land, or the kind of non-Muslims conquered, the result was always the same.

4. Education of Muslims within Infidel countries, so that they will understand that the failures of Muslim societies -- political, economoic, social, intellectual, and moral -- are the direct result of Islam itself.

5. An end to all Muslim immigration to Infidel lands.

6. Imposition of tests for naturalization that require a detailed knowledge of the history and cultural achievements of the Western country in question -- google "Going Dutch" and "Hugh Fitzgerald" for one, admittedly exaggerated-for- effect example.

7. Inclusion, in the test for naturalization, of a loyalty oath, swearing sole allegiance to the political and legal institutions of the particular Infidel nation-state. In the case of the United States, allegiance to the Constitution would be considered adequate. Subsequent proof of perjury would, in the law, be considered valid grounds for stripping a naturalized citizen of that citizenship.

8. Making any support, direct or indirect, for Jihad -- defined as the "struggle" to remove all obstacles to the spread and dominance of Islam, including but not limited to the political and legal institutions of the host country.

9. Preventing any foreign funds from entering the country to be spent for the building or upkeep of mosques or other institutions connected to Islam, or for campaigns of Da'wa.

10. Curtailing in the prisons campaigns of Da'wa, on the grounds that the evidence shows that those who convert contain a high proportion of people who subsequently present a threat to society.

11. Refusing to bow to any Muslim demands for changes either in schools or in workplaces to accommodate Muslim rituals or Muslim ideas of what is fitting, from the hijab (where banned, as in France) or for extra time off for prayers in the middle of the work-day. This is not the sort of accommodation that Infidels, in Infidel lands, should be expected to make. In other words, the policy should be No Changes For Islam.

12. Reciprocity in the current number of mosques. Taking into account the absence, for tens of millions of non-Muslims in Muslim-ruled lands, of churches, Hindu temples, and other houses of worship, the policy should be to reduce the number of mosques in Western lands until there is a change in the Muslim lands. Reciprocity is a concept most people can understand and justify.

13. Reducing benefits so that large families (likely to be Muslim) cannot continue to be formed by those who assume they will be supported by the state. Muslim women will be expected to work in the same numbers as non-Muslim women, and will no longer be supported by the Infidel statee (that is, Infidel taxpayers) to be breeding machines.

14. Polygamy will be outlawed. Those practicing polygamy will be subject to being stripped of citizenship and returned to that Muslim state from which they, or their closest relatives, came. Since so many Muslmis in Western Europe continue to observe, in Muslim enclaves, the mores of the countries that they, or their parents, or their grandparents, came from, the argument that they cannot "go back" can be dealt with. There is no obligation for the countries of Western Europe to live with the colossal error of their immigration policy.

15. There will be not the slightest concession made to Muslim sensibilities on the subject of aspects of Islam, including Muhammad. Those who wish to live in an environment where Islam is to be free of criticism are free to move to Muslim countries. There are many dozens of them. They control vast land areas, and vast natural resources. This is not a case of a tiny people having no place to go.

16. Efforts should be made to publicize the most celebrated defectors from Islam, to publish and distribute their books, to make much of them. This should be done both for the education of Infidels, and for the conceivable education of those who, born into Islam, may be persuaded to leave it.

Western European countries can do much to make the practice of Islam, and campaigns of Da'wa, harder to support, and to make those Muslims who are intent on adhering to this ideology so dangerous to non-Muslims think again about remaining in the Western world. Benefits can be limited. Foreign sources of aid can be cut. The general atmosphere of a refusal to yield, increasing Infidel awareness of the texts of Islam and the history of Muslim conquest, will create -- naturally create -- conditions of suspicion and hostility that, at least to the well-informed, would seem to be not wicked or baseless but entirely reasonable.

And so on.

As for "national and international law" -- I haven't the faintest what you are talking about."International law" is still largely a fiction; Hans Kelsen noted that both norm and sanction are required. There is no International Government to enforce sanctions, thank god, and the countries of the West are still powerful enough to ignore, if they choose, such Islam-dominated fora as the United Nations, an organization that, at least in this country, is a figure of fun and contempt. "National law" is whatever one chooses to make it. We possess free will. We possess the right to judge that the survival of our political and legal institutions, of the conditions that make art and science possible, that make individual liberties possible, are of a higher order than other considerations.

You claim that the Czechs could enforce the Benes Decree because there had been a war, and so far there has not been a "war." I beg to differ. Jihad is a war. Islam itself clearly inculcates the idea that Muslims are in a state of permanent war, though not necessarily open warfare, with Infidels. That is the "war" I had in mind, and it is "war" enough for me, and I think for most people who take the time to educate themselves on this matter.

Posted by: Hugh at February 17, 2008 9:57 PM

Sheik yer mami said: "The nutroots go apeshit when you say 'I hate such 'n such..'

Being a hater you are automatically discredited."

Not necessarily. It depends on what you hate. To the nutroots, it's perfectly all right to hate poverty, war, global capitalism, American imperialism, McDonalds, Israel, SUVs, and George W. Bush. And quite a few of them also think it's just dandy to hate Christianity, too, and are not shy about expressing it.

Winders has made an important distinction that neeeds to be made. There IS a big difference between hating an ideology and hating the people who follow it. The anti-Semites never said, "I hate Judaism." They hated Jews, and made no secret of it. The analogy drawn between anti-Semitism and so-called "Islamophobia" is patently false. This needs to be pointed out, over and over again, to the logic-challenged media.

Posted by: angloirishslav at February 17, 2008 10:49 PM

Hugh, a huge hug for you! This ought to be copied to every western politician, so that none may say that "nothing can now be done". In order of actionable priority, the idea of reciprocity is fundamental and will be easy to register, remember and propagate.

Non-muslims should know for example that it is illegal to take their Bible or holy books into Saudi Arabia. It is illegal (and even if "officially legal", impossible or dangerous) to construct a church or a temple in muslim countries. So it is eminently just and fair to demand reciprocity from the muslim countries. I have no doubt that muslims living off the west, without exception, must have wondered at the unbelievable dumbness of the west. What a stroke of luck - truly alla's providence - he befuddles and stupefies even a mighty, and otherwise invincible enemy.

Robert, this analogy of yours needs to be quoted often: "because Jesus said to love your enemies,.. every last Christian is humble, self-effacing, non-combative, and forgiving". But taking the idea of reciprocity further, we need to "Do unto others (at least) what they are doing unto you".

Ethelred, you probably didn't read all of my post.

Posted by: Dunk at February 17, 2008 10:56 PM

Reciprocity works only with bilateral ties. You cannot sign these treaties with 'Islam'; you can, however, enforce them with each individual Islamic nation.

Which has its own set of headaches, of course. Is Malaysia, for instance, freedom of religion is enshrined in the Constitution - except for Muslims. (Let's not mention that getting a permit to construct new places of worship is rather difficult) The Constitution is the Supreme Law of the land, and the Federal Cout the Supreme Court - except for Muslims, who are subject to Shariah. How you gonna set up reciprocity like that?

It only works when each individual Western nation (or superbloc, like the so-called EU) enables reciprocity for citizens. Which is almost like extending your national sovereignty on foreign soil. The term 'neo-imperialism' rears its ugly head (although for the life of me I wouldn't mind becoming the 52nd State of the USA [United States of Asia Pacific, anybody?])

Posted by: gkong3 at February 17, 2008 11:23 PM

We are stuck with the dilemma: The effective way to deal with islam would be medieval. There is no chance this will happen, Europe will rather slink into dhimmitude.

How about something we *can* resaonably demand:
No religious excuse for political and hate speech.
Political and hate speech is subject to the same rules as any other speech when made in the name of religion.
And not religious excuse for hate speech, either. I am not sure where that that leaves to Koran, but we MUST debate this if want to survive.

Posted by: Derukugi at February 18, 2008 1:19 AM

"This is true just as it is also true that there are millions of people who call themselves Christians but who pay little or no attention to the effort of conforming their lives to Christian teachings. In every belief-system there is a spectrum of belief, knowledge, and fervor, and Islam is no different." -- Robert Spencer

Islam may be "no different" if one takes Spencer's description with a scrupulously meticulous and legalistic exactitude (thereby pinching one's eyes so as to screen out the larger picture). But Islam is profoundly different from other religions -- particularly when contrasted with Judaism and Christianity, and even more acutely when contrasted with the West as a whole (which is what we should be contrasting Islam with -- that Self-Contained Counter-Culture that tries to fuse not only Religion and State but everything else under the Sun into one Self-Suficient Civilization). Judaism and Christianity have become profoundly affected by (and have richly contributed to) the development of modern Secularism, which in turn has become the wider context we call "the West" -- a wider civilizational context that has so profoundly changed the sociological, the cultural, the political, the legal, the psychological attitudes and structures of people and institutions not only in the West, but throughout the world, as to make any such equivalency strange -- particularly when emanating from the Director of Jihad Watch.

Posted by: cantor at February 18, 2008 1:35 AM

Surely, a 1400-year-old ideology that has mass-murdered over 200 million people, and inflicted horrific abuses, including slavery, rape and pillage on millions more, and continues to espouse the evil supremacism that motivated that blood-drenched history,

One knows what you mean, but ideologies do not slaughter 200m people, inflict horrific abuses and espouse any supremacy. Their subscribers do! One could come out with the most vile ideology in the history of the world, but if such a following does not gather any support, its potential is worthless. Which is why this business of loving a sinner but hating the sin has always rung hollow: sins do not exist in a vacuum, and don't happen unless and until a sinner commits them.

Yep, there are any number of Muslims who have no idea about what Islam is all about, or who may be driven by either filial piety or by denial towards not distancing themselves from Islam. Fair enough. However, fact remains that all the excesses of Islam perpetrated over the millenia from Fez to Bandar Seri Begawan more intensely, and from Anchorage to Auckland less so, would not have happened had there not been Muslims to perpetrate those excesses in the first place. One doesn't have people and governments worldwide sweat over the antics of various cults simply because they don't have the following they do. If Islam didn't have all its members from 632AD until this day, it could not have (let alone would not have) mass-murdered over 200 million people, or inflicted horrific abuses - no matter how much it would have wanted. Let's say for the sake of argument that the Hutus of Rwanda came out with a blueprint for world supremacy. Anybody out there thinks that such a threat would deserve to be taken seriously, given the number of Hutus worldwide?

On the question of choice of words, don't like the term 'hate'? Fine, replace it with abhor, dispise, loathe - any of these terms which don't hit one so directly in a negative way.

Bottom line - it's fine to cast the blame on Islam, but remember - Islam, no matter what it advocates, would be powerless to execute on any of that - without Muslims!

Posted by: Infidel Pride at February 18, 2008 1:38 AM

Muslims are the first and worst victims of Islam.

The corollary, unfortunately is: Misery loves company.

Posted by: profitsbeard at February 18, 2008 1:48 AM

My longwinded last post meant to boil it down to this: Islam is different from other religions, particularly Judaism and Christianity, by being sufficiently more resistant than other religions are to modern secularism, making it -- Islam -- in our time the uniquely hairy problem and danger it is. And this resistance to modern secularism makes the existence of nominal or lax Muslims -- as well as actively secularist Muslims -- a far less significant factor than pertains among Jews and Christians throughout the West and the world. (Ditto for Buddhists and Hindus, who seem to be able to secularize with significantly fewer problems than do Muslims.)

Infidel Pride,

I agree. That's why I massaged the import of my post later by adding that it is appropriate and rational to hate not only Islam, but also all the Muslims who consciously follow and support Islam.

Posted by: cantor at February 18, 2008 2:22 AM

Flying Dutchman:

I am sure you realize that if Holland pulls it off to integrate a large muslim population into a non-muslim society, you would be first country in the world and in history to have achieved this?

If you do manage, I am sure many will want to learn from the recipe. But excuse me when I am sceptical.

I am looking a Kosovo, and I am wondering what the demographics of Holland will be in 50 years. (Not)

Posted by: Derukugi at February 18, 2008 3:11 AM

Dear Flying Dutchman,

I think we all want to rub along together in a spirit of goodwill and amity.I was just like you until I started studying the situation

But it takes two to tango.

Unfortunately the sort liberal aspirations you have (and I had) are just what led us into this situation in the first place - it is too late to turn back the clock.

I really hope (and I hope it is not a forlorn hope but I think that it is) that something positive happens to ameloriate the situation in your great country.

ATB

ErictheKuffar

Posted by: ericthekuffar at February 18, 2008 5:50 AM

The loaded language (e.g. use of the term "far-right"), the little digs ("pugnacious billionaire Christoph Blocher") and belittling ("the Antwerp get-together") are the standard tools of the leftist media, of which The Observer (the Sunday version of The Guardian) is a fully paid-up member.

The following statement is typical of the sneering rubbish that the leftist media serve up:

All across Europe, the new breed of right-wing populists are trying to revive their political fortunes by appealing to anti-Muslim prejudice.

It's a little known fact, but Guardian, Observer and Daily Mirror journalists are all issued with copies of "The Qur'an for Lefties" when they join. In the book, the equivalent of the Verse of the Sword, for example, is known as the Verse of Conviviality:

"Then, when the sacred months have passed, hug the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (for lunch), and honour them, and prepare for them each a nice cup of tea. But if they offer to pay, then refuse, saying 'verily, thou art my guest'. Lo! Allah is a wonderful, peace-loving chap who loves everyone, regardless of whom they worship."

Posted by: watling at February 18, 2008 6:31 AM

"All across Europe, the new breed of right-wing populists are trying to revive their political fortunes by appealing to anti-Muslim prejudice."
--quoted from some British press account in a posting above

How true. Such "right-wing populists" as Oriana Fallaci, for example. Sge managed remarkably well to keep her "right-wing" attitudes hidden for fifty years, from the time, as a young teenager, she helped her father and other Italians fighting the German soldiers in Florence, to her affair with a Greek left-wing political figure who was murdered for his views, and about whom she wrote in "Un Uomo" ("A Man"). Or such "right-wing" figures as Pim Fortuyn (murdered by a "animal-rights activist," mentally deficient, who had beeb persuaded that Muslims, being as "vulnerable" as the animals he was used to defening, had to be protected from the likes of Pim Fortuyn, that libertine leftist. As "right-wing" as Theo van Gogh, presumably. As "right-wing" as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, self-described "child of the Enlightenment" which she learned about in the Netherlands.

Oh, yes, all of Europe is full of these "right-wing" people, who have all "tried to revive their political fortunes by appealing to anti-Muslim prejudice" -- and just look at how well they are all doing, at how well Pim Fortuyn is doing, or Theo van Gogh, or how triumphantly Ayaan Hirsi Ali merely strides down the streets of Amsterdam -- and right beside her, of course, also without a care in the world, because he has managed by his "appeal to anti-Muslim prejudice" to "revive his political fortunes" is -- Geert Wilders.

Yes, it's all a deliberate and cruel act, the fomenting of prejudice against the inoffensive Muslims in our midst, who have done nothing in London, Madrid, Amsterdam, Beslan, New York, Washington, Jerusalem, New Delhi, or a thousand other places, to deserve the "anti-Muslim prejudice" fomented by all those "right-wingers."

Posted by: Hugh at February 18, 2008 8:44 AM

Infidel Pride hit it on the head.

Islam without Muslims would remain a bad dream. Islam with Muslims is the scourge of the earth and humanity.

I care not that there are millions of ignorant, willfully or otherwise, Muslims. By simply existing in Infidel lands and having children, they are part of the demographic jihad.

Once more, I am NOT calling for mass extermination of Muslims, in the West or elsewhere. What I am saying is that Islam must be exposed as the totalitarian ideology that it is and the banned (or at the very least, culturally suppressed) in the West.

A mosque is a place of sedition, and will be watched and taxed as a political institution. No burqas, no polygamy, no honor killings, NOTHING special for Muslims, but an ever growing disgust for them, as the embodiment of the evil ideology.

Once Islam is viewed this way, Muslims, who can no longer bully society have a choice: leave Islam or leave the West.

Those that say that Muslims are those most oppressed by Islam would do well to follow this logical plan, which, in the West, would emancipate any Muslim who still has a brain.

Ethelred

Posted by: Ethelred at February 18, 2008 9:06 AM

I must also add Hugh to the list of "nail on the head" posters.

To base a policy on the hope that these "nominal" Muslims will side with our society and civilization is extremely dangerous.

All Muslims must be held accountable for what Islam is, and the true Believers preach and do.

How can anyone logically argue otherwise?

Posted by: Ethelred at February 18, 2008 9:10 AM

Cantor

Islam may be "no different" if one takes Spencer's description with a scrupulously meticulous and legalistic exactitude (thereby pinching one's eyes so as to screen out the larger picture). But Islam is profoundly different from other religions -- particularly when contrasted with Judaism and Christianity, and even more acutely when contrasted with the West as a whole (which is what we should be contrasting Islam with -- that Self-Contained Counter-Culture that tries to fuse not only Religion and State but everything else under the Sun into one Self-Suficient Civilization). Judaism and Christianity have become profoundly affected by (and have richly contributed to) the development of modern Secularism, which in turn has become the wider context we call "the West" -- a wider civilizational context that has so profoundly changed the sociological, the cultural, the political, the legal, the psychological attitudes and structures of people and institutions not only in the West, but throughout the world, as to make any such equivalency strange -- particularly when emanating from the Director of Jihad Watch.

Once again, whether out of ignorance or malice I do not know, you misunderstand me.

I was talking about the distinction between Muslims and Islam. For you to take this to mean that I do not perceive the profound differences between Islam and other religions, after the several books and mountains of articles and JW posts I have written on that subject, is bizarre, at very least.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch at February 18, 2008 9:11 AM

Imagine I start wearing NAMBLA (North American Man Boy Love Association) buttons and passing out their literature.

I swear up and down that I have never touched a boy, but then say if I did it would be natural and good.

Can anyone honestly make a distinction between the NAMBLA philosophy and me, or better, the real, actual members?

How is this different than Islam and Muslims?

Ignorance is not an excuse.

Posted by: Ethelred at February 18, 2008 9:39 AM

Ethelred,

That's a silly analogy. NAMBLA is a group that people join voluntarily. It is not a 1400-year-old and deeply entrenched culture, encompassing millions and millions of peeople, which people are born into without any choice, and which encompasses them at all times whatever they may think of it, and which many people will simply live in and around while not taking it too seriously and doing their best to live normal lives.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch at February 18, 2008 9:46 AM

How about we all agree on this approach:

1. We agree to love all of the Muslims who openly and loudly repudiate Muhammed and his example, who deny he was a prophet, who condemn the Koranic call for jihad and Islamic domination and conquest, and who vow that their children will not be taught the poisonous concepts found at the core of Islam. Every single one.

2. We understand that every political movement which has threatened western civilization has been carried by the people who believe in it. For example, Naziism would not have been a problem without the millions of Nazis who filled the ranks of the Gestapo, built the tanks, staffed the death camps, marched to war, and otherwise supported the "struggle" of the Third Reich and its false prophet. Therefore, the remainder of the Muslim population, who do believe in the false prophet and his struggle, is a problem and a threat, without which Islam would be just a wierd theory. And those Muslims do not need to be loved.

3. We understand that no serious response to any full-fledged attack on our continued existence as a civilization can ever be won through political correctness.

Posted by: Karl at February 18, 2008 10:18 AM

Robert,

So Muslims are completely impotent and unable to think and make value judgments because they are mired in the muck of an entrenched Islam. They cannot be held responsible for what is done in the name of that which defines their existence. They stay silent, or maybe hang back while the talk goes on in the mosque.

Of course, all the members of the British mosque where that obnoxious black imam holds forth or where Captain Hook preached and said nothing, did nothing, reported nothing are completely blameless.

What about all of the nominal Muslims who read about the very high percentage of their fellow Muslims who want Sharia, but again say and do nothing?

These Muslims are blameless, and yet they provide the cover for the activists. They provide children for the demographic jihad. They register as Muslims for government aid.

It is time to tell these Muslims that they are going to go down with the ship which is headed towards disaster as the jihadi captain aims it at our jugular.

Cordially (really),
Ethelred

Posted by: Ethelred at February 18, 2008 10:19 AM

Karl:

How about we all agree on this approach:

1. We agree to love all of the Muslims who openly and loudly repudiate Muhammed and his example, who deny he was a prophet ...

Hmmm ... I wonder what the reaction down at the mosque would be to "Muslims" who said such things there?

Posted by: watling at February 18, 2008 11:17 AM

Robert wrote:

"Once again, whether out of ignorance or malice I do not know, you misunderstand me."

And:

"I was talking about the distinction between Muslims and Islam."

Here is what Robert wrote, and I quote this for the second time on this thread (the first time to Robert in the very post he responded to) -- [emphasis added in bold]:

"This is true just as it is also true that there are millions of people who call themselves Christians but who pay little or no attention to the effort of conforming their lives to Christian teachings. In every belief-system there is a spectrum of belief, knowledge, and fervor, and Islam is no different."

Clearly, there is evoked here a comparison between the "millions of people who call themselves Christians" and Muslims, both of whom furthermore are embraced within "every belief-system" in which, as you wrote, "there is a spectrum of belief, knowledge, and fervor, and Islam is no different."

Robert insists he was only talking about a distinction between Islam and Muslims? Why the mention of Christians? Why the mention of "every belief system"? Why the mention that Islam is "no different"? No different than what?

Posted by: cantor at February 18, 2008 8:19 PM

Cantor,

I really don't think my statement is unclear, except, of course, to a mean-spirited prosecutorial type who dislikes me intensely and is trying to catch me out.

Not that that would be you, of course!

Anyway, my friend, Islam is no different from Christianity or any other belief system IN THIS ONE PARTICULAR: there is a spectrum of belief, knowledge, and fervor among its adherents, such that one would be unwise, and incorrect, to assume that "all Muslims" think the same way about anything in particular.

In saying that, does that mean that I think that Islam is, like Christianity, a religion of peace, or that it doesn't sanction violence and warfare? I suppose if you think that in a relatively offhand remark I would contradict literally hundreds of statements I have made to the contrary in books and articles and appearances on radio, television, and before numerous live audiences, statements that I have made at great personal cost to my reputation and personal safety but which I have continued to make because I believe them to be true -- if you really think I would blandly contradict all that in a comments field, then you must think I am an idiot, or someone who will trim what he says to suit his audience, or both. However, as far as I can see, that statement does not contradict the many others I have made, as it is not on the same topic, and only -- once again -- someone hunting for rope to hang me with would see it otherwise.

Which brings me to something I've been meaning to ask you for some time: why does it all depend on me in your mind? If you think what I am doing is so wrongheaded and ill-advised and misdirected, why not just do it properly yourself, instead of spending all your time skulking around sniping at my efforts?

Inquiring minds want to know!

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch at February 18, 2008 9:01 PM

"Anyway, my friend, Islam is no different from Christianity or any other belief system IN THIS ONE PARTICULAR: there is a spectrum of belief, knowledge, and fervor among its adherents..."

Yes, each has a spectrum as you say, of belief, knowledge, and fervor among their respective adherents. But are the two spectrums the same? And if not, why are they different? I maintain that the two spectrums are vastly different, because of complex cultural processes -- most especially secularism, which is itself a Western organic growth out of Christendom and has little if anything to do with the growth of anything internal to Islam.

So yes: both are the same in that they both share the same class of spectrum. But they are so importantly different in the manifestation, concretization and development -- quantitatively and qualitatively -- of that class of spectrum, that to leave the differences unmentioned, and to stress the absence of differences in the framework of an abstract "particular", seems extremely odd in the context of JW (but of course not odd at all out in the mainstream).

Posted by: cantor at February 19, 2008 12:02 AM

"Ye that love the LORD, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked." Psalm 97:10

I hate evil. I hate Islam.

Any questions?

Posted by: champ at February 19, 2008 12:53 AM

Watling:
I love your "Qu'ran for Lefties", which you have quoted as saying:

"Then, when the sacred months have passed, hug the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (for lunch), and honour them, and prepare for them each a nice cup of tea. But if they offer to pay, then refuse, saying 'verily, thou art my guest'. Lo! Allah is a wonderful, peace-loving chap who loves everyone, regardless of whom they worship."

As soon as you finish your translation of the "Qu'ran for Lefties", we can sneak into all the mosques and switch it out for the old version. Maybe when everyone hears the imam preach the new version, the Muslims down at the mosque will verily recite those inspired words of what Allah really intended to say (before his words were replaced by the satanic verses), and then they will all walk out of the mosque laughing at the Mohammed cartoons and go out and offer everyone a nice cup of tea!!

Posted by: Karl at February 19, 2008 1:02 AM

Some journalists don't even realise how far their own biases sway them. I imagine this one didn't even realise how badly the following sentence biased and even contradicted what Wilders stands for:

All across Europe, the new breed of right-wing populists are trying to revive their political fortunes by appealing to anti-Muslim prejudice.

Wilders is quite clear, adamant and unmistakable that he is not anti-Muslim and does not wish to be associated with "anti-Muslim prejudice"; he is opposed to the Islamic ideology. It grates that a professional journalist can quote him on this and then blithely, as if it were obvious that Wilders was lying through his teeth, contradict this by associating him with exactly this in the "background story".

It's the sort of thing Spencer has to deal with on a daily basis.

Posted by: Archimedes2 at February 19, 2008 12:57 PM