Are we are war or not? Is there not an enemy that wants to bring down Western civilization and all it stands for, and has at the very least, fielded a vicious army of thugs against us? If you read the vile anti-western rhetoric spewing from the ‘small number’ of Muslim extremists living in Europe and America, it is very clear that they want to overthrow the current democratic governments and impose their dream of an Islamic Empire upon the world.
And they don’t hide their intentions. Here’s just one example.
On February 3 this year, a group of Muslims gathered outside the Danish Embassy in Sloane Square, Chelsea. They were there to protest against the illustrations of Mohammed which had first appeared in the Jyllands-Posten newspaper on September 30 last year. Individuals, many with faces covered, screamed abuse and called for violence against those who insulted Islam. They bore placards emblazoned with the slogans: "Behead those who insult Islam", "Europe. Take some lessons from 9/11", "Europe you will pay. Demolition is on its way", "Europe you will pay. Your extermination is on its way," "Slay those who insult Islam," "Butcher those who insult Islam." The demonstration had been organized by Anjem Choudary, a former lawyer who headed the since-banned group Al Ghurabaa, whose members had mostly belonged to Omar Bakri Mohammed's Islamist group Al Muhajiroun.
The question we face is two fold.
- How do we treat the ‘large’ number of moderate Muslims who do not respond to such rhetoric?
- How do we respond to the ‘small number’ of Muslim extremists who seek to bring down the governments of the free world?
We can go on and on over who’s a moderate Muslim and who is not. How a moderate Muslim should act and how they should not. What a moderate Muslim should do or say and what they should not. The answers to these questions are fuzzy and have become little help in identifying the enemy in our midst.
But if we ignore the debate over moderate Muslims and face a threat that we can easily identify, we can send a message to the moderate Muslims that this is what we will accept in a time of war and this is what we will not. What we will accept is the right to free speech and disagreement – but not sedition. The words espoused above by Anjem Choudary are not words of disagreement of policy. They are the words of sedition intent on bringing down our society and destroying civilization.
Could you imagine members of an American Nazi Party standing on a street corner holding signs saying "Kill those who insult Hitler", "USA. Take some lessons from Europe", "America you will pay. Demolition is on its way", "America you will pay. Your extermination is on its way," "Slay those who oppose the Reich," "Butcher those who insult the Reich."
If they did, you can count on three fingers how fast their attitude would be changed by either the FBI or patriotic bystanders.
11 comments:
Charging them with sedition is a great idea.
I say anyone who espouses Sharia law is guilty of sedition, because Sharia law is all-encompassing and is therefore a Constitution, not simply a set of laws.
Many major universities offer degrees in Islamic law. Therefore, many major universities are guilty of sedition as far as I am concerned. Certainly, the chairs of the Departments.
We, as a society, will eventually come to realize that these things are true. And then, people will look at what guys like you and I wrote and say, "Hey, look at that, those bloggers were saying it in 2006. Too bad we had to get nuked before we paid attention."
Steve,
Isaac Schrodinger has a real good "Uncovered Meat" post just a few below this post. It presents a photograph which is a solid argument for exactly why we don't want to go Hitler on Muslims.
Even if she isn't, there are others like her.
Ouch.
That must have been painful.
Cue commenters dropping by to explain to Pastorius that such people are not faithful Muslims.
Yes, I've got it. I understand. Still, if you ask them what they are, they say they are Muslim. Do we want to go Hitler on such people?
I was riding the bus yesterday and eavesdropping as usual. There was a swarm of undergraduate math nerd talking first about Turing machines. One was Egyptian and two were Jews and they all got along quite well. The math nerds didn't really believe anything much religiously--the common choice of undergrad math majors. I wouldn't wish to go Hitler on the muslim boy, but what happens if he goes back to Egypt, turns twenty five and has Sudden Jihad Syndrome? I just don't know what to think.
I dated a Palestinian boy a few years ago, just after he got a MD. & then he went back Jordan to get married to the woman his parents picked. I never heard from him again. I suppose he is living the happy type of gay marriage that the Christian Right wishes on American women. I suppose he is a victim of Islam, but I imagine him getting older, more bitter, and more perversely more more religious. Again, I don't know what to think.
I'm quite sure that both would be dissuaded by social or legal penalties for being muslim. While going Hitler seems a bad idea, deliberate suppression of Islam if we are forced to invade strikes me as essential.
Demosthenes,
Deliberate suppression of Islam only makes sense. Muslims need to learn to redefine their existence without these things:
1) stoning of gays, apostates and adulterers
2) preaching of violent Jihad
3) burqas and anti-female aspects of Sharia
I'm sure there are other aspects of Sharia and the Koran which also need to be changed, but those are the biggies.
It is the height of stupidity that we allowed the Iraqi and Afghani constitutions to be written to include Sharia.
Sharia is, itself, a constitution, as it is an all-encompassing body of law. As such, Sharia's goal is the overthrow of all other constitutions.
How do you like this Haggard thing, huh? I haven't wanted to jump on the bandwagon of bashing Evangelicals at this point (disclosure: I am an Evangelical), but I do think his case shows the folly of trying to live a straight life when one is gay. It would be better for a gay Christian to simply live a chaste gay life of monogamy. That way he isn't hurting anyone.
It is such a tragegy that this man has destroyed his family, and his ministry, and probably damaged the faith of several thousand people.
I know gay Christians who try hard to suppress their feelings. It never seems to work. I play music sometimes at a church that is rather artsy. My church believes that gay sex is a sin, and that's that.
Anyway, in the music and arts program, we have some guys who are clearly gay. One time a friend said something negative about gays to me, and I noted to him that we have quite a few contributing gay guys at our church. He said, "Oh yeah, like who?" I said, "C'mon man, look around you. Some of these guys sure can dance awfully well, don't you think?"
Sorry to stereotype, but you know what I mean, right?
The dude's swish. They're just different. And, their friendships with chicks always seem compfortable at the friendship level. It ought to be obvious to all who have eyes to see.
Oh well.
It would be nice if people like them had a real Bible-believing church that would accept them, so that they could grow in a church over a lifetime. As such, most of them end up leaving the church, and lord knows where they go, but you can imagine.
Quite many of my friends here in Norway support a Muslim-free Earth. Me too.
Pastorius,
My thought about Haggard is that many people fail in one way or another. I would just ask for Haggard and his parishioners to reflect on what the incidents means about the experience of being human. I would suggest that the Bible properly understood does not condemn gay people. I do believe that it condemns straight people who are overly adventuresome in their sexuality. I also strongly think that Biblical view strongly condemns the promiscuity of modern gay male cultures. I just can't help but think Christian acceptance of gay marriage could cure so many of the hateful rifts in our society. I wish gay men had a reason to listen to Pat Robertson when he tells them they should not sleep around.
My criticism of Fundamentalism is two-fold. Fundamentalist often misinterpret the Bible in obvious ways and they force the Bible into a singular of voice of God, whereas the Bible is the polyvocal voice of God. Let me start from the beginning in how the Fundamentalist misinterpret the Bible. They have created a set of nonsense claims like alchemy that they call "creationism". I don't see one word in Genesis that contradicts the theory of evolution. One has to remember that the ancient Hebrews did not have the set of concepts that we call the science of Biology today. The fact that Epicurean Greeks and Roman did not enunciate a doctrine of biological evolution is a testament to how far the Ancients were from the idea. Genesis should be interpreted as a divine pointing to evolution given the ideas existing at the time it was wrote. My second point is that God would not give us a text book and tell us here are all the formulas for our life. It's hard to imagine a better way to stifle free will. God gave us many ideas for us to make decisions. God didn't provide the one way. I believe this to be a better interpretation of the Bible than what the Fundamentalist provide.
I'm afraid I've written a very theoretical answer to your personal stories. I hope you'll forgive me for that.
Nothing you write bothers me. However, one thing I can not argue with my fellow christians about is, the Bible does seem to consider homosexuality quite a bad sin.
Thing is, homosexuals, if they are being monogamous, are not hurting anyone. People who gossip hurt lots of people, and yet gossips are not kicked out of the church. In fact, often they are among the most popular people in the church's social strata.
I look at it from that perspective. What a gay person does is between him and God. Our job as Christians is to love and help one another. It would be good for all gay people (who want to do so) to be able to go to church and be accepted, and to sit and read the Bible with fellow believers. I think the kind of condemnation the church lays on homosexuality very naturally cuases gay people to stay away from churches.
Of course, there are some churches which will accept gays, but they are squishy churches which don't really seem to adhere to the tenets of Christianity. thus, the only churches gay people end up going to are squishy churches which can not really help them to understand the Bible in a realistic manner.
Anyway, enough of my crap.
by the way, one of my Pastors agrees with me wholly on this. But, the lead Pastor does not. So, there is a bit of a rift in my church on this issue. It will be interesting to see how this plays out over time.
Oh, and another thing, one of the guys I am friends with happens to be on the church board, and he also agrees with me on this issue. So, as I say, it will be interesting.
:)
I feel sorry for poor Haggard and his family.
My post at the top of this comment string was removed by me for the record.
Mark my words, it's the first (and last) time that I will ever delete something again. My convictions, however, stand. If political correctness sways any of you (especially in this time of crises that we face with the threat of the end of western civilization) then perhaps none of you should be blogging at all.
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