In opinion poll after poll, Muslims in Western Europe show an astonishing willingness to admit to their support for suicide bombing and for other forms of terrorism, not even in distant lands, but within the very countries they live in, and of course, given the likelihood that many will hide their real feelings, the true numbers would likely reveal still greater Muslim support for violent Jihad. But even those who support Jihad – the “struggle” to remove all obstacles to the spread, and then the dominance, of Islam – through non-violent means (such as the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da’wa, demographic conquest), are a menace to the well-being of Infidels and their institutions.Those who have studied Islam know that Muslims are taught to offer their loyalty, their sole loyalty, only to Islam, as a faith (in Islam, what is worshipped is Islam itself), and to fellow members of the Umma, the Community of Believers. Not all do so, but quite a few do, especially the most primitive. Islam is centered on an inculcated division of the world between Believer and Unbeliever, Muslim and Infidel, and on the notion that between the two a state of permanent war, if not always of open warfare, must exist. It makes no sense to expect Muslims to ignore this, to somehow push it to one side. Too many people, easygoing or fearful, choose to rely on examples of outward affability in circumstances that require it – living in an Infidel nation-state where one does not yet have sufficient numbers to show one’s true feelings – instead of on study, not endless but at least detailed enough, and prolonged enough, of Islam – enough, that is, to give the student a grasp of Islam’s texts and tenets and the effect of Islamic teachings, reinforced in a thousand ways outside of madrassa and mosque, on the minds of its adherents.
These Muslim migrants demonstrate, in the constant flow of aggressive demands for changes in the Infidel lands in which they have settled, changes in the social arrangements and understandings, as well as in the legal and political institutions, a singular indifference, or more accurately deep hostility to, Infidels and their nation-states, seeing them, in geographic terms, solely as land areas to be conquered, not by military but by other means. Among those means, discussed in Muslim circles quite openly, and even mentioned by Muslim rulers such as Boumediene of Algeria at the U.N. in 1974 and Qaddafi of Libya in 2006, is that of demographic conquest. This is an overwhelming through both breeding – Muslim birth-rates far exceeding those of the indigenous non-Muslims or indeed of the other, but non-Muslim, immigrants in Western Europe — and through campaigns of Da’wa, particularly in prisons, to win over the economically and psychically marginal.
Have you noticed how many Muslims who have gone from Europe to join the Islamic State have been converts, who first became Muslims either in the projects, or while in prison? These are the Muslims whose knowledge of Islam is completely textual, and not the result of long experience of “living with Islam.” Textual Islam means Islam in its purest and most dangerous form. Over centuries, Muslims learned to adapt, mainly by ignoring or choosing not to find out about everything that Islam taught. It was a lot easier to do this in a time of mass illiteracy. Now, with the most militant Muslims spreading their message through the Internet, it is harder to ignore what is being said.
I don’t know how those who are “moderate Muslims” deal with the disconnect: that is, they know perfectly well to what extent the members of the Islamic State are merely putting into practice the teachings and texts of Islam without any moderating force, and yet they have to deny this, have to keep saying, not only to Infidels but to themselves, that this is “not the real Islam.” They can never offer up examples of when the Islamic State has behaved “un-Islamically,” even though they are firm in repeating this. Perhaps what they want to say, but cannot, is this: yes, the Islamic State is doing its best to follow what the Qur’an and the example of Muhammad, tell them to do. They even post on their websites the exact textual support for whatever action they have undertaken. Yet that, these other Muslims say, “is not the real Islam. The real Islam is what we do.” But what they cannot say, but only think, is this: “And what we do is based on our ignoring a lot of the Qur’an and the Hadith.”
Yet everyone knows that Islam in its purest form, without the softening of nuance that real life can produce, is intolerable for many Muslims. Over the centuries they have not, generally, lived by observing all the rules as the Islamic State does, but have by unstated consent agreed to live in a more relaxed fashion, and that is why, over time, the message of Islam, and the practice of Islam, deviated.
And just as it’s amazing how few non-Muslims have been looking into the texts of Islam, set out for them online, it’s amazing that so many of those non-Muslims have been so incurious, or so disbelieving, or perhaps better, so unwilling to believe the evidence of their senses, and to fail to recognize what should be obvious: adherents of Islam, those who are not “extremists” but simply adherents of mainstream Islam, represent both a civilisational and a physical threat to the well-being of non-Muslims, and this is not a secret. The Shari’a, the Holy Law of Islam, flatly contradicts in letter and spirit Western notions of political legitimacy (based on a social contract theory), and Western solicitude for the rights of individuals, including those recognized in the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the American Bill of Rights.
Gary says
“for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity. ” (Jonah 4:2)
Yet muslims “Claim” to know God.
Liars! Following their father. The father of all lies: Satan!
spot on says
Most people today believe they are smarter than people were 2000 years ago. This is not true. The only difference today is we have improved technology which brings new ways to express ourselves.
Satan was a good way to explain Evil 2000 years and there is no better way today. The problem today is that people think they are just too smart to believe “Evil” or “Satan” exists, even when it is staring them right in the face.
William says
Have you noticed that today we are more knowledgeable, have much more information about the world, including scientific discoveries of the world consisting of the minutest of creatures and expanding out to include all the way out to galaxies, information that was not available to people of the distant past, and yet today, we as a whole are more skeptical than our ancestors were and we are disinclined to hold beliefs? It seems a paradox: the more one knows, the less one believes.
Western Canadian says
“the more one knows, the less one believes.”
Utter rubbish. If you were to study the history of science and scientists lives, you would find that the most inquiring minds were drawn from religious orders or devout believers (Mendal, Newton, hundreds of others). Churches in the west have done an extremely poor job of remaining true to their roots, and what they have been offering up seldom stands, and would often fall even IF they had not been under attack for long run of years, usually by those of a hard left ‘faith’, who know less than nothing but believe quite strongly.
Don McKellar says
“… it’s amazing that so many of those non-Muslims have been so incurious, or so disbelieving, or perhaps better, so unwilling to believe the evidence of their senses, and to fail to recognize what should be obvious…”
And we’ve got the propoganda machines of the Obama regime and Cameron and his stooges to encourage this.
Remarkably, it all started with George The Idiot when he declared “Islam is the religion of peace” — and somehow we still have so many still buying his bullshit because they desperately want to believe!
spot on says
10-4 on “George the Idiot”, his “Religion of Peace”, and all his tin soldiers following his stupid line. They all have their heads in the sand.
Papa Whiskey says
I am acquainted with a university professor who could not refer to Dubya without saying “asshole” in the same breath, yet she once parroted his “hijacking a religion of peace” trope verbatim. It was an amusing exercise to point this out to her.
Babs says
Leaving their backsides exposed to the kicking they deserve.
Western Canadian says
The lie about islam (RTC) being of peace predates bush by decades, of not millennia. Bush didn’t create the lie, he just repeated it, which is bad enough. But it did NOT ‘start’ with him.
spot on says
Changing peoples minds is tough. Somehow, people operate with their minds in the rear view mirror and heads in the sand. Five to ten years ago, there were 1001 excuses given why Iran cannot hurt us with their goals with missiles and nukes and almost everyone thought Islam was a Religion of Peace. The hard nosed ones said that our subs could handle Iran if they got out of hand. No one wanted to admit Iran could keep improving until they get where they want to go and that goal is clear…Death to America and Israel. Now people are starting to run low on excuses but with Europe edging closer toward Sharia, our politicians may decide that that is the way to go. Our politicians think that Europe is the way to go on everything else…for example, Obamacare, so why not Sharia to go with it.(sarc)
With the MSM (Democrat Party) clearly on the side of Islam, we will likely be stalled where we are until something occurs to change minds and MSM direction. That could be catastrophic.
Baucent says
There is certainly ignorance in muslim countries of what the Koran actually teaches. Some years ago I visited Indonesia and in meeting muslims I asked them if they read the Koran. Many had never, what they knew of the Koran came from the Imam’s sermons at Friday prayers. That leaves individual Imams wide discretion to pick and choose what bits to teach.
Thomas Hennigan says
Therefore, one of the best methods for combatting Islam and jihad is precisely what Fr. Zaccharias Botros is doing with his cable TV program. telling muslims what the Koran and the rest of Islamic text hold and the kind of depraved subject Mahommad was. In the second place the Christian message should be presented to them as they cannot be left withoout any hope. That also goes for muslims in Western countries.
William says
From the premise that many Mohammedans haven’t read the Koran, the conclusion implied is that if they read the Koran, then they would reject it. I disagree with that argument. I don’t believe that if all Mohammedans read the Koran, they would wholesale reject it or reject their religion. There may be a very small number who do, but not most. It may surprise many that the most devout and dangerous Mohammedans are the ones who have had the commitment and drive to read the whole book and the other supportive documents. The reason is that if Mohammedans don’t know at this stage what their religion is comprised of, which includes all the things we see discussed on this site such as distinguishing the world between believers and unbelievers and waging warfare against the unbelievers until they worship or accept the Mohammedan god, then reading it in the Koran is not going to spur them into rejecting it.
I can use the same argument with Christianity. I am quite certain that most who claim to be Christians, and that includes myself, have not read the Bible cover to cover. Most have read parts of it. Most have a good understanding of Christianity not only from reading the Bible, but from being immersed in a Christian culture and by living among Christians and by taking part in Christian rituals. Reading the Bible cover to cover is not going to cause me to change my view of Christianity, one way or the other.
Western Canadian says
Given the differences between what Christ taught and what churches preach…. you might be VERY surprised by what you would have to change.
babs says
With due respect, you are both very mistaken to use Christianity as a template by which to understand Islam.
We are fortunate, however, to be able to think critically, at least for the most part, and to be able to disagree with what we are told if we believe it to be wrong, however authoritatively it is shouted.
Muslims are phobic of that, having been not to question from their earliest years.
gravenimage says
You are right, William. The idea that most Muslims would reject Islam if they understood what it taught is simply not borne out.
Ib fact, when most Muslims study their vile creed more closely, they become more apt to wage violent Jihad.
If this premise were true, then you would find mass apostasy in places where Islam is practiced most devoutly, and this is clearly anything but the case.
vlparker says
So many humans seem to be easily programmed. They will believe anything, even if the evidence before their “lying” eyes proves the opposite.
spot on says
The ones that have no firm belief system when they are raised are the easiest for others to program.
Babs says
Not necessarily.
I know many atheists who would harm no-one, contribute greatly to the societies in which they live and bring their children up to obey the law whether they agree with it or not.
Your argument is flawed – those with no belief system and who are psychologically and existentially rootless and outcast and have no clear internal locus of evaluation, (whether this is their own fault or that of society or their upbringing) are often so eager to belong somewhere that the apparent certainty of salvation and belonging offered by Islam gets them hooked very easily. The Muslim groomers can spot these and target them in the same way as cult recruiters do. They appear to offer the certainty that these people crave but at the cost we all know about. They are dangerous indeed
Champ says
Yet everyone knows that Islam in its purest form, without the softening of nuance that real life can produce, is intolerable for many Muslims. Over the centuries they have not, generally, lived by observing all the rules as the Islamic State does, but have by unstated consent agreed to live in a more relaxed fashion, and that is why, over time, the message of Islam, and the practice of Islam, deviated.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yes — that makes a lot of sense. Great analysis, Hugh!
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
Muslims are taught to offer their loyalty, their sole loyalty, only to Islam, as a faith (in Islam, what is worshipped is Islam itself), and to fellow members of the Umma, the Community of Believers.
Therein lies the crux of the whole mess. Islam is strictly a self-perpetuation machine. It’s as if the Holy Prophet sometime before or around the year 610 AD became inspired not by God but by the spirit of Rube Goldberg (who hadn’t been born yet) and was then possessed by the Devil. And now we are possessed by… the devilish spirit of the Holy Prophet Mohammed.
mccode says
As Robert Spencer so cogently inquired a couple of years ago, is a ‘good’ Muslim a ‘bad’ Muslim? Seems pretty evident, hey?
mortimer says
Fitzgerald wrote: “Textual Islam means Islam in its purest and most dangerous form. Over centuries, Muslims learned to adapt, mainly by ignoring or choosing not to find out about everything that Islam taught. It was a lot easier to do this in a time of mass illiteracy.”
Agree. ‘Textual Islam’ is ‘real Islam’. This has to become our message to naïve politicians like Boris Johnson and David Cameron.
‘Textual Islam’, rather that ‘folk Islam’ is real Islam.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
Somebody in here yesterday made the point that the ubiquity of the Internet has expanded the problem enormously. I’d add to that the programs in the West to educate Moslem children, especially teaching them how to read. Not good. It would seem we’d be better off if all Moslems were illiterate, that way they’d all have to memorize the Holy Ko-Ran to be fully clued in on the hate. It could turn out that such a policy would leave us staring at an angry Hafiz Horde, but that’d be a prettier picture than the problem facing us now.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
… demographic conquest. This is an overwhelming through both breeding – Muslim birth-rates far exceeding those of the indigenous non-Muslims or indeed of the other, but non-Muslim, immigrants in Western Europe…
Spengler writes frequently that Moslem birth rates are falling, and predicts the demise of Islam by demographic implosion. He’s quite optimistic that the Global Jihad will be only a reprise of the Thirty Years War where the grandsons of the original combatants will be too few to continue, thus winding the conflict down to a whimpering conclusion.
Whether or not Spengler is right on this, the key point is that their war on us, their war on civilization, is bound to be a long one, and a war that we are most likely to lose. He sees the out from civilizational demise in demographics.
I dunno which is true, but there is stark disagreement on demographics here. I don’t see Moslimas turning their husbands down, Allah covered that possibility with a chapter on beating them to make them put out. It’s also hard to see Moslimas taking the pill, so I dunno.
What I do know is that here in Minnesota it is routine for a successful Moslem cab driver to take multiple wives, a county wife and 1 – 3 mosque wives, to be able to pound away (if you’ll pardon the expression) at the project of Demographic Jihad. It’s an enriching experience for all involved, where the offspring of the mosque wives are brought to the county as bastard children of indigent sluts and thus eligible for monthly AFDC welfare checks. A while back on a Saturday morning I pulled up in an expensive furniture store parking lot next to a silver Lexus sedan with a four hijab wearing Moslimas in the car with a presumed successful cab driver wearing the obligatory geeky little white cap. Being prejudiced against Moslems, my understanding was that the country wife was riding shotgun and the three mosque wives were in the back seat. Everybody had their place in the scheme, everybody getting paid. For being Moslems.
voegelinian says
I don’t know how those who are “moderate Muslims” deal with the disconnect: that is, they know perfectly well to what extent the members of the Islamic State are merely putting into practice the teachings and texts of Islam without any moderating force, and yet they have to deny this, have to keep saying, not only to Infidels but to themselves, that this is “not the real Islam.”
Hugh Fitzgerald is being way too generous with the seemingly moderate Muslims here, almost as though he were reaching for a way to give them the benefit of the doubt. This is the precise opposite of the inclination we should cultivate — given, that is, the bloody mountain on fire of data about Muslims which we know (or should know, by now).
awake says
Hesp,
Hugh put moderate Muslims in quotes, not so subtly implying that he refutes the term outright.
Angemon says
Unless you’re a Western politician, expert or journalist, in which case it’s just propaganda with nothing to do with islam.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
These are the Muslims whose knowledge of Islam is completely textual, and not the result of long experience of “living with Islam.” Textual Islam means Islam in its purest and most dangerous form.
This is another excellent point, along with the one that Islam the worship of Islam (and thereby a perpetual motion machine).
But the chances of this point being discussed anywhere on TVis nil, , even on the Fox RINO channel, This is because all news entertainers studiously avoid the texts of Islam, except on occasions where they are invoked to put Moslems in a favorable light. No news entertainer wants to become controversial in a negative way only to see his ratings go down along with his high paying career talking into the camera. Plus, news entertainers are people, too. Nobody wants to die, and telling the truth about Moslems would make a news entertainer the riskiest of professions.
voegelinian says
Textual Islam means Islam in its purest and most dangerous form. Over centuries, Muslims learned to adapt, mainly by ignoring or choosing not to find out about everything that Islam taught. It was a lot easier to do this in a time of mass illiteracy. Now, with the most militant Muslims spreading their message through the Internet, it is harder to ignore what is being said.
This implies that textual inculcation is the only type of significant inculcation and, by extension, a perniciously deadly & seditious ideology cannot be inculcated (in terms of a sophisticated sociological/anthropological cultural atmospherics) without textual means. Or, perhaps worse, it implies that if we can say it is possible for a perniciously deadly & seditious ideology to be inhibited wheresoever & howsoever textual means are lacking, we ought to incline to give Muslims the benefit of the doubt and assume that the ostensible appearance of a “lax Islam” means an actual, relative lack of Islam.
If we’ve learned anything on this bloody, raging mountain of data on fire on whose upper slopes we sit here in our midsummer tragicomedy of the wold wood of our midlife in the middle of this second decade after 911, it should be that, when it comes to our appraisal of Muslims, we should always err on the side of assuming the worst.
If the only definition we have of the dangerous Muslim is the violent jihadist (and the stealth jihadist who is supposed to know their Islam full well), we will be at a loss to explain all the Muslims Who Seem to Just Wanna Have a Sandwich — without simply giving them the benefit of the doubt and effectively functionally assuming they are just like anyone else (categorized under various permutations, like the famous rose, of the Moderate Muslim By Another Name Stinks Just the Same).
At any rate, the proper methodology the Counter-Jihad should apply whenever we encounter Muslims who aren’t exploding (or stabbing or beheading) is not to assume the best about them — that there must redeeming reasons for that lack of conspicuous extremism — but rather we should begin with the axiom that Muslims — any and all Muslims — are nefariously fanatical (which = normatively fanatical — a fanaticism informed by the supremacist expansionism encoded and enculturated in Islam, the fanaticism that endangers us all in myriad ways, overtly in violence or covertly in taqiyya stealth, in the coming decades). and then “reverse engineer” an explanation for why any number of them seem to be un-extremist, without transforming that explanation into a presumption of innocence.
Thus, to pick one example of thousands we could pluck from a fez: When we encounter a seemingly moderate and reformist Muslim like the Tunisian President Béji Caïd Essebsi, who has made a point of distancing himself from the “Salafists” among the Ennahda party that has been trying to dominate the Arab-Sprung “Jasmine Revolution” of Tunisia, who doesn’t sport a zebibah on his forehead, and who in the wake of the most recent Tunisian jihad attack (there have been others, just as calamitous, in recent history) claimed that “Islam is not Islamism” (where the latter is bad, the former made of sugar & jasmine and everything nice) — we should not glibly assume Essibsi really is a reformist moderate; we should rather figure out ways to explain why he is behaving and speaking as though he were a reformist moderate, given our presumption, cultivating a ruthlessly rational prejudice, that he obviously must know damn well that “Islamism” is Islam and that there is no “reform” or “moderation” of Islam that would not utterly destroy that putrid welter of toxic waste otherwise known as Islam.
voegelinian says
Emendata: When I wrote “in our midsummer tragicomedy of the wold wood ” that was not a Skeltonian spasm; I of course intended to type “wild wood”
Western Canadian says
“This implies that textual inculcation is the only type of significant inculcation”
It implies no such thing. Again you make a leap….. and miss.
voegelinian says
If Western Canadian would actually show how it doesn’t imply it, he might be able to persuade the reasonable reader of his blunt claim. I can show how it does imply it (though it’s likely that wasn’t Hugh’s intention):
Textual Islam means Islam in its purest and most dangerous form. Over centuries, Muslims learned to adapt, mainly by ignoring or choosing not to find out about everything that Islam taught. It was a lot easier to do this in a time of mass illiteracy. Now, with the most militant Muslims spreading their message through the Internet, it is harder to ignore what is being said.
Hugh says that in times past, before modern communications (and particularly before the Internet), Muslims were able to “adapt” Islam into something less Islamic (less pure and less dangerous), and this was because they were able to ignore or “choose not to” learn what Islam teaches – clearly implying that the pure and dangerous true Islam is mainly done through textual means, and that avoiding textual means (especially in a cultural situation where the lack of modern communications makes this easier) allowed for the imperfect development of an “adaptive” Islam that was less malignant – for it malignant pure Islam weren’t mainly due to textual modes of communication/inculcation, and if, rather, as I argue, it is also communicated/inculcated through a variety of extra- and para-textual cultural means, then it wouldn’t have been possible for so many Muslims (enough for Hugh to remark about them as though their numbers are significant to our problem) to have “adapted” a relatively benign form of Islam.
It’s all there in black and white in the text (speaking of textual) I quoted from Hugh.
Again, rather than give Muslims the benefit of the doubt and assume that Muslims in history who show signs of “syncretism” are really diluting or “adapting” their Islam into anything other than the pernicious toxic waste it is, we should try to reverse-engineer the data to figure out how it appears to be that way, but in fact is not.
Angemon says
voegelinian posted:
“If Western Canadian would actually show how it doesn’t imply it, he might be able to persuade the reasonable reader of his blunt claim.”
LOL!!! That’s hilarious, coming from you! Or is it hypocrite? Or both?
“I can show how it does imply it (though it’s likely that wasn’t Hugh’s intention):”
And later you write:
“It’s all there in black and white in the text (speaking of textual) I quoted from Hugh.”
So Hugh implied, likely without intending it, something that was all there, black and white, in the text. Hmmm. Having a cake and eating it?
“Hugh says that in times past, before modern communications (and particularly before the Internet), Muslims were able to “adapt” Islam into something less Islamic (less pure and less dangerous), and this was because they were able to ignore or “choose not to” learn what Islam teaches”
That’s not what Hugh says. Hug says, and I quote, “Over centuries, Muslims learned to adapt, mainly by ignoring or choosing not to find out about everything that Islam taught.”
Muslims adapted by ignoring what islam said. Nothing in there says muslims adapted (or “adapt”, as you say) islam. Hugh said that muslims learned to adapt, not that muslims learned to adapt islam. There’s a difference, but I fear it’s too much obvious for your finely tuned eye who dart on the microscopic illusions while ignoring the macroscopic evidence right in front of them
Whatever eldritch abomination you derive from your sophistry is null and void.
“clearly implying that the pure and dangerous true Islam is mainly done through textual means, and that avoiding textual means (especially in a cultural situation where the lack of modern communications makes this easier) allowed for the imperfect development of an “adaptive” Islam that was less malignant”
Once again, Hugh never said, or implied, that muslims created any other sort of islam. He said that muslims learned to adapt by ignoring parts of islam, not that they adapted islam to something else.
Tell me, do you spend the best part of your day cooking this kind of easily debunkable sophistic attacks against Robert, Hugh, Raymond, and all other authors who publish articles in Jihad Watch? If so, I think you need to spend more time doing something involving paper tissues and cleaning sticky messes. Like scrubbing your bathroom or something.
voegelinian says
By the way, for those whose asymptotic lenses prevent them from seeing clearly, the interpretation of the data I am objecting to (viz., that any time we see data that ostensibly shows Muslims seemingly watering down their Islam, we must take that at face value as genuine – i.e., certain Muslims really were/are watering down their Islam for reasons X, Y, and/or Z; etc.) — is itself an engineering of the data.
Given everything we know (or should know, by now) about Muslims and their Islam — including stealth jihad, taqiyya, and the False Moderate (not to mention the additional little details such as their perennial imperative and blueprint to conquer us, destroy our societies, and mass-murder those among us who resist; their fanatical resolve to do so; and their fanatically psychotic hatred of us), it behooves us to reverse-engineer the PC MC paradigm. By the latter term I refer to that disastrous template/framework by which (among a litany of grievous fallacies) we as modern Westerners feel obliged to assume that we must give Muslims the benefit of the doubt. The PC MC Weltanschauung (if that is not too lofty a word to use for a current fashion of thought, endowing it with more substance than it deserves to be credited with) survives in between the cracks and floorboards of the Counter-Jihad in the form of the more decaffeinated (and sweetened with Sweet N Low) form I call “asymptotic”(thanks to Hugh Fitzgerald for unintentionally — and likely grudgingly if at all — giving me the idea).
Angemon says
voegelinian posted:
“By the way, for those whose asymptotic lenses prevent them from seeing clearly, the interpretation of the data I am objecting to”
By which you mean your failed attempt to denigrate a JW author and your support of a totalitarian framework where one can be arrested, judged and sentenced for something that they did not do since they the system considers that they might be thinking about doing the deed, and absence of proof must is not proof of absence because it needs to be reverse-engineered into a plausible explanation for why there’s no proof of them actually trying to commit the crime for which they were arrested, judged and sentenced for.
Angemon says
Hmm, a few words sneaked in. Damn touch screen!
Let’s try again:
By which you mean your failed attempt to denigrate a JW author and your support of a totalitarian framework where one can be arrested, judged and sentenced for something that they did not do since the system considers that they might be thinking about doing the deed, and absence of proof is not proof of absence because it must be reverse-engineered into a plausible explanation for why there’s no proof of them actually trying to commit the crime they were arrested, judged and sentenced for.
Angemon says
voegelinian posted:
“This implies that textual inculcation is the only type of significant inculcation and, by extension, a perniciously deadly & seditious ideology cannot be inculcated (in terms of a sophisticated sociological/anthropological cultural atmospherics) without textual means. Or, perhaps worse, it implies that if we can say it is possible for a perniciously deadly & seditious ideology to be inhibited wheresoever & howsoever textual means are lacking, we ought to incline to give Muslims the benefit of the doubt and assume that the ostensible appearance of a “lax Islam” means an actual, relative lack of Islam.”
No, it doesn’t. It implies none of those scenarios, and anything you derive from those faulty premises is equally faulty.
“At any rate, the proper methodology the Counter-Jihad should apply”
Who died and made you strategist-in-chief?
“whenever we encounter Muslims who aren’t exploding (or stabbing or beheading) is not to assume the best about them — that there must redeeming reasons for that lack of conspicuous extremism — but rather we should begin with the axiom that Muslims — any and all Muslims — are nefariously fanatical (which = normatively fanatical — a fanaticism informed by the supremacist expansionism encoded and enculturated in Islam, the fanaticism that endangers us all in myriad ways, overtly in violence or covertly in taqiyya stealth, in the coming decades). and then “reverse engineer” an explanation for why any number of them seem to be un-extremist, without transforming that explanation into a presumption of innocence.”
What’s expressed in this NKVD-esque plan of action is a complete reversal of the cornerstone of Western legal systems as it is enshrined, directly or indirectly, in the constitutions and legal systems of most, if not all, Western nations: the presumption of innocence. And all that it entails: if one is presumed guilty without actually breaking, or plotting to break, any law then one can be judged and sentenced without being given a fair trial. After all, there’s no need for the Prosecution to bring forth evidence or make a cogent case because, according to you, when faced with someone seemingly innocent of any crime one can ““reverse engineer” an explanation … without transforming that explanation into a presumption of innocence“.
What you’re suggesting is a hallmark of totalitarian systems, and yet you take offense if I point that out. (Cue in the propaganda: “Angemon is obtuse”, “Angemon either didn’t realize or purposely ignored that I wrote ABC but I clearly meant XYZ”, “Angemon is attacking me for years”, “Why isn’t anyone defending me?”, etc.)
Angemon says
Ah, I forgot to point out the obvious flaw in Dr. Voeg’s “strategy”:
“At any rate, the proper methodology the Counter-Jihad should apply whenever we encounter Muslims who aren’t exploding (or stabbing or beheading)“´
It only applies to those openly identifying themselves as muslims. What to make of muslims who, under taqqyia, never identify themselves as muslims, curse islam, muhammad and muslims, consume pork, eat alcohol, and engage in all manner of vices, like fornication or drugs, all along waiting for the fateful phone call, or text, or email, or cryptic code in the 8-o’clock news, that tells them it’s OK to blow themselves up, or pick up an weapon and unload it into a suspecting crowd of civilians, and ensure the redemption of all his sins and entrance into the heavenly brothel that is the islamic paradise?
If voeg had his way, muslims would be driven underground (because why would they identify themselves as muslims, since it meant they were considered guilty of plotting to murder non-muslims and impose sharia law, despite the lack of evidence) and then EVERYONE would be a suspect. And I don’t just mean that the nice guy living across the street could in fact be a neckbearded slave of allah. No, the nice guy living across the street could in fact be eying your wife, or your job, or your parking place, and plotting to denounce you as being muslim. And if – when – the police came knocking into your door asking you what was your muslim name, or who was muhammad, or when and where you converted to islam, there would be nothing you could do to defend yourself from the charge, much like suspected political dissidents or suspected American sympathizers in Communist Russia.
awake says
“This implies that textual inculcation is the only type of significant inculcation and, by extension, a perniciously deadly & seditious ideology cannot be inculcated (in terms of a sophisticated sociological/anthropological cultural atmospherics) without textual means.”
It does no such thing. It implies exactly what it stated, that doctrinal Islam, which cannot be separated or parsed from Islam, is pure Islam and the root of the evil. I can’t think of a single historical example of a Muslim committing violence, completely independent from and devoid of any doctrinal concept of what Islam inculcates, while coincidentally acting in relative lock-step with those Muslims who do directly invoke their doctrine.
Methinks you’re reaching a bit here.
gravenimage says
Another excellent article from Hugh Fitzgeral. So glad to have him posting here again.
One point:
Yet everyone knows that Islam in its purest form, without the softening of nuance that real life can produce, is intolerable for many Muslims. Over the centuries they have not, generally, lived by observing all the rules as the Islamic State does, but have by unstated consent agreed to live in a more relaxed fashion, and that is why, over time, the message of Islam, and the practice of Islam, deviated.
……………………….
There is another factor here, as well. The past two hundred years—from about the defeat of the Barbary Pirates through the fragmenting of the last Caliphate until about fifty years ago—Islam was in many places at least partially suppressed, with weakened Muslim power and a confident, influential West.
This period was hardly perfect, of course—the horrifying Armenian Genocide, for instance, took place during this period.
But generally Islam *was* at a low ebb, with less intensely enforced Islam in many places, especially those with Western colonial influence, and in Turkey under Kemalism. It also presented less of a threat to Dar-al-Harb.
This is why you can find pictures of large numbers of unveiled women in Cairo and even Kabul from the mid-Twentieth century. You would be hard-pressed to find such now.
A confluence of factors developing a little over fifty years ago led to a resurgent Islam—the influence of unearned oil wealth in so much of the Muslim Middle East, the Muslim yearning for a new Caliphate, increased Muslim immigration into the West, especially Europe, coinciding with this growing Islamic perception of strength a concomitant crisis of confidence in the free West, and an internal undermining of her values.
And now Dar-al-Islam is in so many places—not just the Islamic State, but Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Nigeria, Sudan, Bahrain, Aceh in Indonesia, on and on, less and less relaxed all the time.
Babs says
Thought-provoking, but why do you think it is that many if not most Muslims do not observe fully still remain in such an intolerable situation? Like more and more people in the UK I am waiting for a massive turnout on the streets, akin to crazed swarming against the mohammed cartoons, from those Muslims. Why do they lack the courage to do that?
It seems to me that Islam. like any other death cult which actively recruits, depends upon its slaves having an external locus of evaluation – that is they have little or no sense of agency to act on their own behalf and are brainwashed into following the herd. Critical thinking and questioning is forbidden. Muslim communities are closed and isolated from the wider communities in the west and gossip is rife and can kill if someone is found to be different. Islam also depends upon another staple of cult membership and recruitment, that of phobic induction – about the horrors of hell fire which await those who deviate from community mores and the fear of ostracism and even death, and certainly “honour”-killing of women and girls.
It would take generations to replace that external locus of evaluation with an internal one – a one which has a Muslim thinking deeply about what he really wants to do and daring to swim against the tide. The only recourse is for him to leave Islam and publicly to declare that he has done so, but that, for obvious reasons, brings dangers.
I wrote this several years ago about how our stupid leaders have allowed Islam to become more and more powerful in the West by co-opting to its cause the useful idiots in governments and, in the UK, on the far left having pulled the wool over their eyes as to its intentions and end game. David Cameron and previous prime ministers are prime examples of those who fell for it hook, line and sinker. If you agree with it, please circulate.
It was originally published on Faith Freedom – Dr Ali Sina’s blog, but the site got hacked and it can now be found at:
http://tinyurl.com/aeusodk
gravenimage says
Babs wrote:
Thought-provoking, but why do you think it is that many if not most Muslims do not observe fully still remain in such an intolerable situation?
………………………………..
Thanks for your considered reply, Babs. I would differ with part of your premise, though: I don’t believe the situation *is* deemed intolerable by any Muslims.
I would not assume that every Muslim who is currently refraining from beheading and blowing up Kuffars is hence necessarily morally opposed to it.
Are you familiar with the concept of “Fard Kalifa” and “Fard Ayn”? The former Islamic tenet posits that as long as *some* part of the Ummah is waging violent Jihad and other pious Muslims support that JIhad—through Zakat or “Jihad of the tongue (or pen or internet)” or even through “moral support”, that this is sufficient.
The latter concept holds that in times when Islam is either threatened or is poised to claim a significant victory over the Infidels that Jihad becomes “Fard Ayn”—that is, incumbent on every able-bodied adult Muslim.
Whether the latter holds right now is one of the few genuine disagreements in Islam today.
For many Muslims who believe that JIhad being “Fard Kalifa” holds today, they may well support Jihad even if they are not currently waging it personally. Given the high level of support for Jihad and Shari’ah among Muslim even in the West reflected in polls I believe this is quite common.
For such Muslims, the rising tide of violent Jihad is not an intolerable situation at all.
More:
Like more and more people in the UK I am waiting for a massive turnout on the streets, akin to crazed swarming against the mohammed cartoons, from those Muslims. Why do they lack the courage to do that?
………………………………..
Again, I don’t believe that in most cases this presents a lack of courage at all, but rather an actual support of Jihad, even if it is just tacit.
There are, no doubt, a few Muslims who actually do find Jihad appalling, but are simply too frightened of being accused of being “apostates” and having that violence turned against them. This is, certainly, hardly an idle fear.
But again, given the support expressed for Jihad by a disturbingly high percentage of Muslims, I don’t believe this is the only or even the primary factor.
More:
It seems to me that Islam. like any other death cult which actively recruits, depends upon its slaves having an external locus of evaluation – that is they have little or no sense of agency to act on their own behalf and are brainwashed into following the herd. Critical thinking and questioning is forbidden. Muslim communities are closed and isolated from the wider communities in the west and gossip is rife and can kill if someone is found to be different. Islam also depends upon another staple of cult membership and recruitment, that of phobic induction – about the horrors of hell fire which await those who deviate from community mores and the fear of ostracism and even death, and certainly “honour”-killing of women and girls.
………………………………..
All of this is quite true, Babs. At the same time, I believe that many Muslims *have* internalized their beliefs—this is why you find so many “lone wolves” in the West, as well as those who go out of their way to hook up with ISIS or other Jihad groups. These Muslims are not simply reacting to pressure from the local community—instead, they are going beyond what that community currently demands of all its members.
In other words, these are not Muslims reacting just to external pressure—they are true believers.
More:
It would take generations to replace that external locus of evaluation with an internal one – a one which has a Muslim thinking deeply about what he really wants to do and daring to swim against the tide. The only recourse is for him to leave Islam and publicly to declare that he has done so, but that, for obvious reasons, brings dangers.
………………………………..
The problem is that the movement is not toward this sort of moral introspection, but *away* from it. Much of the world is further Islamizing, both in the Muslim world and in the West. I doubt we are going to find much Muslim introspection in the coming years—not at the macro level, in any case.
Thank you for the link to your article. I will read it and comment on it as soon as I am able.
Babs says
Thanks for your fulsome and interesting response, gravenimage.
I am more knowledgeable than I am comfortable with about Islam and its intentions . I have indeed heard of Fard Kalifa and Fard Ayn and this is why I trust no-one who designates him/herself Muslim but a “moderate”. The term is oxymoronic. The moderate Muslims are jihadi supporters or jihadis in waiting.
Internal loci of evaluation are not identical to internalised beliefs or introjects which are put into people at an early age and adopted as if they are the person’s own. The former represent the being-in-the-world of those who do what they believe to be right, whether or not others agree with them or threaten to cause them trouble. A Muslim with half a brain and an internal locus of evaluation would be better able to withstand the supremacist claptrap perpetrated by imams and dished out in the koran than would the rest who care far too much about what their fellow-Muslims would think if they did that, although, as you say, it would take a great deal of courage to go against that.
Any questioning of Islam by the rest of us causes Muslims extreme discomfort primarily because theirs are introjected beliefs, thrust upon them rather than arrived at by introspection and reflection, and criticial thought and conscious decision. Introjected beliefs tend to be more flaky when they are challenged because they lack the firm foundations of carefully considered and consciously chosen philosophies and beliefs. Add to that the threats from Muslim leaders about what will happen if the Muslim does NOT believe and the result may be to want to obliterate totally the ideas which gave rise to the discomfort.
Of course their leaders take advantage of the disturbed emotions which accompany that and orchestrate them to create murder and mayhem, ostensibly to further the cause of Islam, but in reality to shore up their power and the status quo. Their people are ripe for it. I believe that the lone wolf who goes the extra mile is, in reality, insecure in his beliefs and his recruiters/groomers recognise that and present mass murder as a way for him to be “glorious” as he dies.
My wish for more Muslim introspection is, I believe, a vain one, for the reason I mention above and because of the phobic induction against any public disagreement with the letter of Islamic laws and behaviour which I mentioned in my previous post.
We can’t know either whether there had been a precipitating life event for the Tunisian lone wolf – Hamas in Gaza, for example, used to target the recently bereaved, who probably believed that life no longer had meaning for them, and encourage them to suicide murder Jews as a way to give meaning to the memory of their deceased relative. There are also recorded incidences of their operatives deliberately seducing young women, and then offering them “martyrdom” by suicide murder as a way to redeeming their and their families’ honour. In one case I read about, the husband of the “dishonoured” woman actually drove her to the place where she would self-immolate among Israeli Jews.
gravenimage says
Thanks for the response, Babs.
You wrote:
Internal loci of evaluation are not identical to internalised beliefs or introjects which are put into people at an early age…
……………………..
Actually, you are quite right—these are different matters. You are also correct about Islam positing an external locus of evaluation. This is manifested in Islam’s rejection of reason and ban on anyone, Muslim or Infidel, from criticizing or even questioning Islam.
I read you linked article—a very good piece.
I think quite accurate that much of the denial of the threat of Islam in the West is due to fear of violent Muslims—but further, I think it is also due to the West’s general optimism, and hence unwillingness to believe any creed, especially a major religion, to be actively malevolent. The fear of Muslim violence is often not explicitly acknowledged at all—instead, it is more subconscious.
It is easy to be sympathetic to this general optimism, but in this case, as you know, it is incredibly dangerous.
The same thing happened in the 1920s and ’30s when it came to recognizing the threat of Fascism. Many believed for years that Hitler was no threat, or even that his was benevolent.
I’m not sure how much the West is actually fascinated by Islam, though, except in the sense of being snowed by Taqiyya artists. In fact, many in the West—even intelligent people—actively resist learning more about Islam, which is why so few actually read the Qur’an, the Hadith, and the Sira, or bother to learn anything about Islamic history.
I believe in some cases this is just general apathy, but in many more it is a reluctance to learn anything that would undermine their desire to remain in denial. What if they were to learn something that undermined the idea that Islam is a “religion of peace”?
You are quite correct, I believe, in many Westerners’ hopes that if they cling to this trope enough that it will—somehow—become true.
And cynical Taqiyya artists are all too happy to fuel this false view of Islam—since, after all, hopeful Infidels actually *want* to believe it.
I think it is also quite accurate that Westerners project Western values—which they erroneously believe to be universal—on others, including Muslims. After all, Westerners value truth, so they believe that Muslims must, as well.
And you are also quite correct that while pious Muslims despise freedom and Western values, they are all too happy to exploit them when it is convenient—at the ballot box, for instance, or to chide Westerns for supposed “Islamophobia” whenever they become alarmed over the violence and oppression of Islam.
They are willing to use the West’s healthy habit of introspection and righting of wrongs to instill unearned guilt. All too many in the West are willing to enable this in a way that is often nothing short of masochistic.
I know you touch on other points, also—I hope others read your article, as well.
One small point: I would not characterize this as “Islamism”—instead, this is simply Islam.
I hope to see you contributing more here in future.
Davegreybeard says
By the Quran, by “Uswa Hasana,” by “believers are the best of peoples,” by “Infidels are the vilest creatures,” by a thousand other tenets of Islam, ALL Muslims are suspect.
This is the reality.
Bought that pistol yet, voeg?
voegelinian says
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/06/tunisia-islamic-state-jihadis-murder-at-least-27-at-resort-hotels/comment-page-2#comment-1259629
voegelinian says
“But even those who support Jihad – the “struggle” to remove all obstacles to the spread, and then the dominance, of Islam – through non-violent means (such as the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da’wa, demographic conquest), are a menace to the well-being of Infidels and their institutions.”
The (ostensibly) non-violent Muslims in the West are also a menace only because they are working in tandem with the ones who counsel and commit violence. If the former weren’t working in tandem with the latter, if the former weren’t in any way enabling the latter’s deadly potential, they wouldn’t be a menace and they would only subside into being at worst a relatively minor nuisance (for even if members of an immigrant demographic harbored xenophobic disdain and disrespect of the culture of their new home, as long as they didn’t enable its violent destruction and overthrow through a long process of destabilizing terror through violence, their various irksome attitudes and behaviors would not rise to a Problem Houston).
How then is the stealth jihad of the (ostensibly) non-violent Muslims in the West working in tandem with the violent jihad of their co-religionists?
That would be a good test question for a Counter-Jihad Quiz. Bring your blue books and #2 pencils. You have 30 minutes to answer in 300 words or less. (No cheating by looking up the Hesperado blog on your iphone in a desperate attempt to find a ready answer already articulated, rather than the dismaying disarray of disorganized data & dots every-elsewhere in the Counter-Jihad Blogosphere which one would have to spend enormous time piecing together.)
Davegreybeard says
I am assuming you are not familiar with firearms voeg, so I would strongly advise a revolver to start.
Pick out a fairly heavy one, that is, the heaviest that you will be comfortable drawing, pointing etc.
A used one is just fine, as long as the gun shop guarantees its proper functioning. You can usually purchase one of these for $200 or so.
Caliber must be .38/.357 But you will be shooting .38 ‘til you get the hang of it.
Have you helpful gun shop person show you how the weapon functions, or better yet, ask them to show you at the range.
REMEMBER:
• Keep your finger off the trigger until you have a target in your sights
• Never point a gun at anything you don’t want to destroy
• A gun is always loaded
• Have fun, it’s a blast!
Seriously, you should try it voeg. I find shooting clears my mind, sort of like a Zen exercise. It is something that requires your complete focus that has absolutely nothing to do with wordsmithing, or philosophy or just how America and the Counter-Jihad is going to hell at the moment.
Frequently I leave the range with a sense of accomplishment, a feeling that I have just done something worthwhile. You can spend a lifetime and never completely master it.
And there is a bonus. Having a firearm and knowing how to use it gives you a chance where without it there is none. It is also comforting and tends to make one LESS paranoid – happy shooting.
BommelBen says
ISLAM: AN IDEOLOGY OF SWINDLERS AND SUCKERS
You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all of the time, unless you are either a genius or a tyrant and probably both.1)
Actually it is not one person who is fooling all of the people for more than 1300 years, but a relatively small group of his self-appointed scholars and spokesmen, only disagreeing among each other over minor details, but with a disastrous result for all of the people. Logically it seems impossible to be at the same time intelligent, honest and a true Muslim believer. This regards especially the professional Muslims like imams and ayatollahs of which the so called moderates are the biggest swindlers.
It is clear who the victims of these crooks are: the majority of moderate and peaceful Muslims. Most Muslims simply don’t know what they believe (and probably don’t care, they just do what is described and willingly believe they are superior in spite of the almost daily confrontation with the opposite) and the professional swindlers will be the last to inform them correctly. All criticism, especially when it regards the “truth” as it is written in their “holy” books, are called insulting, because the professional Muslims are afraid of the truth about their faith. And of course a cartoon can be much more explicit than a written text, especially because the illiterates can understand it without the help of the professional swindlers.
So if you want to diminish the influence of the Islam you must start with the professional Muslims, most of them sufficient intelligent to know better than to really believe themselves that the Koran should be the word of Allah. There are more than enough reasons to declare those imams “persona non grata” or undesirable immigrants. The main reason of course is their propagation of unacceptable values: divine approval of plunder (when it is from infidels), inequality between men and women, not freedom of choice about religion, extreme intolerance towards other minorities like Jews and gays and dishonesty in their explanation of the Muslim ideology. A great advantage of this strategy is that it can be executed by using strictly human measures in accordance with our moral values: just send then back to where they (or their parents) came from, in stead of deporting millions as is deemed not impossible by Geert Wilders.
It is clear that most Muslims will not be eager to admit that they have been fooled all their life, as it is apparently also very difficult for our political leaders to admit that Islam is not a religion and most certainly not a religion of peace. Just like an animal that has been used to its cage is reluctant to leave it when set free, so will the Muslims be when the opportunity presents itself to be free at last of the fetters of Islam. And of course nobody will hinder them to pray to Allah or God. But they will be free of the ridiculous and immoral rules set by Mohammed, which most of them did not know or obey in the first place. They will be grateful to be free at last and most certainly their and our children will be.
1) Abraham Lincoln? with adaptation
Joe Cobb says
I think it works as a trick to establish social hierarchy and dominance. Since the Qur’an is a lapidary collection, like the bible, it is never entirely considered but when a “leader” wants to quote scripture, he has awesome power to command. Educated Muslims used to memorize it since they never had printing. Thus the power to bamboozle the mass of people depends on threatening them with fear of hell, and that begins in the crib. It is a terrible form of child abuse to condition a young mind to believe in some evil supernatural place waiting for you if do not submit to authority. I do not believe this craziness is inherited, so it could be changed in one generation if the adults did not fear imaginary hell fires. The teenagers are the ones who finally read the books and like we know teenage boys particularly can do, they become excited about the dreams of power and the blood is just a lot of fun too.
Joe Cobb says
I cannot find Part II of this essay.
I found Parts I and III.
Angemon says
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/06/strategies-of-denial-revisited-part-ii
Babs says
@gravenimage, thanks for your reply.
“… You are also correct about Islam positing an external locus of evaluation. This is manifested in Islam’s rejection of reason and ban on anyone, Muslim or Infidel, from criticizing or even questioning Islam.”
Thanks. Have you read Robert R Reilly’s “The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis?” It’s not exactly light reading but, in my opinion, it complements other analyses as to how Islam came to the sorry state it is. Reilly talks about the intellectual and I suspect physical war between those Muslim scholars who favoured introspection and discussion about Islam as an aid to learning, and those who, threatened at a very basic level, wanted it to be taken as literally as it is today The latter won and some took it to inordinate and frankly crazy lengths – there is an account in the book about Ibn Ghazali, for example, refusing ever to eat watermelon because he could find no mention in the koran and ahadith that his prophet ever ate them!
“I read you linked article—a very good piece.”
Thank you.
“I think quite accurate that much of the denial of the threat of Islam in the West is due to fear of violent Muslims—but further, I think it is also due to the West’s general optimism, and hence unwillingness to believe any creed, especially a major religion, to be actively malevolent. The fear of Muslim violence is often not explicitly acknowledged at all—instead, it is more subconscious…”
As we see in the asinine pronouncements by the UK PM, even in the face of the latest atrocities in Tunisia and the knowledge that hundreds of Islamists are at large in the UK today, that Islam means peace! He’s terrified all right, but I am not sure whether that because of Islam or because the next atrocity in the UK will have people on the streets demanding his resignation. He’s protesting far too much.
“It is easy to be sympathetic to this general optimism, but in this case, as you know, it is incredibly dangerous.”
It’s a dangerous, faulty coping strategy given what Islam presents, an avoidant one rather than an approach one.
“…. I’m not sure how much the West is actually fascinated by Islam, though, except in the sense of being snowed by Taqiyya artists. In fact, many in the West—even intelligent people—actively resist learning more about Islam, which is why so few actually read the Qur’an, the Hadith, and the Sira, or bother to learn anything about Islamic history…”
By “fascinated” I mean “snowed” and Islam is good at that. The fascination trance is born of immense cognitive dissonance and a desire to feel comfortable. Cameron and his government are living examples of that. They dare not acknowledge to themselves the extent of the mess we are in because of their failure to admit to the threat.
“I believe in some cases this is just general apathy, but in many more it is a reluctance to learn anything that would undermine their desire to remain in denial. What if they were to learn something that undermined the idea that Islam is a “religion of peace”?”
Absolutely!
“… I think it is also quite accurate that Westerners project Western values—which they erroneously believe to be universal—on others, including Muslims. After all, Westerners value truth, so they believe that Muslims must, as well.”
Indeed, and in spite of the experience of Muslim lie upon Muslim lie.
“…They are willing to use the West’s healthy habit of introspection and righting of wrongs to instill unearned guilt. All too many in the West are willing to enable this in a way that is often nothing short of masochistic.”
Yes. I am uncomfortable with the analogy of Islam being parasitic (which was brainwashed into German people by the Nazis about Jews) but I’m afraid I’m becoming convinced that it is. A parasite lives off the best in its host, which nourishes it and becomes weak as a result, but the parasite rarely kills outright or it would lose its source of nourishment. Islam is parasitic on western democratic values which it perverts to its own ends. It needs democracy to survive only for as long as it can use the democratic process to undermine it terminally.
“…One small point: I would not characterize this as “Islamism”—instead, this is simply Islam.”
Me too!
“I hope to see you contributing more here in future”
Again, thank you!