Liberal Counterjihadist

A LIBERAL looked honestly at Islamic doctrine to find out what is really true. He was so taken aback by it, he created a website to open the eyes of his fellow liberals. He calls himself "Candid Progressive." I will give you a link to his web site in a moment, but first I want you to know what I'm going to do.

I am going to publish something by the Candid Progressive below, but I don't want you to share it with your liberal friends and family. Let's maximize the impact. Here's what I want you to do: Go to Inquiry Into Islam and subscribe. It's free, and I hardly ever publish anything on that site. The site is as neutral as I could make it. It has no "edge" to it. In fact, it is so neutral, some Muslims have written to me thinking it was a pro-Muslim site! (Read more about that here.) But I will publish the article below on Inquiry Into Islam next Friday. When you get THAT article in your email inbox, forward it to your liberal friends and family. They will hopefully go to Inquiry Into Islam to explore more, and they will follow the links to the Candid Progressive, and let us hope their eyes will be opened.

Okay, below is the article I'm going to publish on Inquiry Into Islam next week. It is written by Candid Progressive, originally published here. Republished with his permission.

A Progressive Liberal on Islam

The following is a candid, unflinching appraisal of the  religion that keeps making the news, around the world, day after day by a progressive liberal. I will attempt to shed some light on just why Islam keeps making the news, and why that news is never pretty.

This is intended to serve as a wake-up call for some of my dozy (or less scrappy) fellow progressives, who seem unaware that we're now engaged in a global War of Ideas that's much bigger, and more threatening, than the absurdly-named "War on Terror" suggests. I created a web site for the secular progressive who wants to get the skinny on what we're facing with the Muslim world, and what we can do to protect our more enlightened, life-embracing culture from the advancing shadow of grim, aggressive Islamism.

Some key points to get out of the way:

1)  This is NOT about hate. The Candid Progressive is too happy to be a hater.  But not so blissed-out as to be unperturbed by a barbaric, woman-hating, freedom-squelching ideology with hordes of violence-prone True Believers, who are just aching to drag us all back into the Seventh Century and make us slaves to ancient superstition. That sort of jangling, in-your-face insanity does manage to puncture my cozy little bubble of bonhomie from time to time  —  and from my (relatively) civilized, femme-loving, liberty-addicted  perspective, that whole scenario seems more than a little f’d up.

2)  This site is NOT about racism. I have nothing but respect for former Muslims, regardless of their race/color/ethnicity. And I consider bone-headed white converts to Islam to be just as great a threat to democracy and human decency as rabid Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia. The trick (which many of my fellow progressives have not yet mastered) is to ignore skin color, language, and geography, and focus on the ideas that motivate people, and on their resulting actions. Race has nothing to do with it.

3)  If white people behaved in the ways that millions of dusky-hued Muslims do every day, liberals would be literally foaming at the mouth in their condemnation of them. On MSNBC, they would never shut up about those vile, pedophilic, wife-beating, honor-killing, homo-hanging Scandinavian bastards. But since the miscreants are swarthy people from "developing" nations, the mainstream media seems to have nothing but respect for their ideology and culture. Apparently they get a special Brown People Dispensation, and are thus beyond reproach. That, of course, is bullshit. Bad behavior is bad behavior, regardless of who is hacking off their pubescent daughter's genitalia, or stoning someone to death.

4)  This is a critique of an ideology  —  an ideology that is inherently hostile to democracy, free speech, freedom of the press, women’s rights and other fundamental human rights  —  principles that all progressives should support wholeheartedly. Islam's brutal subjugation of women should be reason enough to make all liberals unite in heated opposition to it. (And the fact that this has not happened indicates that something very strange and unlikely is going on here, between Islam and the political left.)

5)  The idea that Muslims should somehow be exempt from having their ideology criticized (in a way that Catholics, or Christian Creationists, for instance, are not) is a bigoted position, because it’s based upon the assumption that they are too uncivilized, or too immature, to handle it. It’s actually more respectful to treat them as adults, like everyone else, and expect them to deal with criticism without reacting violently, just like everyone else.

6)  Some cultures are clearly far more enlightened and humane than others. A brief look at what goes on in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan makes this fact obvious. Cultural relativism is a lie, and it serves no purpose, except to prevent backward cultures from engaging in the kind of honest self-criticism that leads to the development of happier, healthier, more progressive societies.

7)  Political correctness is totally counter to the spirit of free speech, and prevents the discussion of important truths. It might make superficial people feel more comfortable, but it has serious, real-life consequences. Political correctness is an unacceptable hindrance for serious people who want to see the world become a better place.

My aim with my web site is to shine a bright light on this lethal ideology, so that well-meaning but misinformed progressives can finally see it in all of its bloody, benighted glory. Here you'll find a veritable cornucopia of facts, figures, and commentary on the "Religion of Peace";  its origins and mythology, its founding prophet; its central texts and tenets; its rambunctious fourteen-hundred-year history; the types of societies it tends to create  —  and what it has in mind for you, Cupcake!

You'll also find some timely advice on how to wage a war of words, laws, and ideas  —  a cultural counter-jihad, designed to halt the spread of light-sucking Islam in its tracks  —  along with a few Islam-savvy suggestions on foreign policy and national security, and the occasional plug for energy independence, via clean, renewable alternatives. That sort of thing.

There's a lot of confusion in the West regarding Islam  —  especially among progressives, because we're only programmed to distrust religious fanatics of the Bible-thumping, evolution-denying, queer-hating American variety. The others, we're told, are really just victims of something or other. But somehow the evidence confronting us from around the world doesn't seem to match up with the bland reassurances of the politically-correct types, or the passionate denials of dissembling Muslims.

An honest, clear-eyed appraisal of Mohammed's desert dogma, from an honest-to-God, tree-hugging, SUV-hating, voted-for-Obama progressive. Sound unlikely? A little surreal, perhaps? Is that the theme from The Twilight Zone you're suddenly hearing? Well, stick around, 'cause it gets weirder!

On this site, Political Correctness and Cultural Sensitivity will not stand in the way of honesty, common sense, or the basic instinct to survive.

You've no doubt noticed that Islamic culture appears totally alien and antithetical to the sort of open, progressive society we Lefties cherish. And, in spite of all the assurances from Muslim apologists (and from such imminent Western thinkers as George W. Bush) that "Islam is a religion of peace", if you're like most people, you're not entirely convinced. You realize that something smells "not quite right" in the world of burqas and beheadings. But what, exactly, is the source of that funk?

If you get your info regarding Islam from NPR, CNN, the BBC, and other PC venues, you've heard repeatedly since 9/11 that the violence, misogyny, and mayhem are not inherent to the religion itself, but are the results of unrelated "cultural" quirks. (One of those "You say 'tomayto' / I say 'Death to those who insult Islam!'" type of deals.)

We're told that the suicide bombings, the "honor" killings, the stonings, the female genital mutilations, the acid attacks, the forced marriages of underage girls, the slavery in royal households, the judicial amputations, the murderous rioting over cartoons, the virulent anti-Semitism, the hostility towards outsiders, the Sunni/Shiite massacres, the public hangings of homosexuals, the beheadings of blasphemers and apostates, and the murder of outspoken infidels in Western cities are all the results of, well...something else. Maybe it's poverty. A lack of education. "Cultural" hangovers from a barbaric past. "Tribal" traditions. Political oppression. European and American imperialism. The PC types have all sorts of theories. The only thing they seem to agree upon is that it has nothing to do with Islam.

Or, at most, they'll tell us that these horrors are the products of a tragic (and apparently commonplace) misreading of what is actually an enlightened, peace-loving religion. A religion that rejects these nightmarish behaviors in the strongest possible terms...but, regrettably, can't seem to go five minutes without being hijacked by brutal, misogynistic thugs.

So please, come visit my site and let's sort this thing out.

Author: The Candid Progressive
From the web site: Handbook For Infidels