The ‘Hate Speech’ Canard: Ticket to Tyranny

From Pajamas Media:

It’s impossible to overstate the importance of the ugliness Pamela Geller has exposed, and how grateful we should be to her.

Geller’s “Muhammad Art Exhibit & Contest” in Garland, Texas, on May 3, sponsored by her American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) and Jihad Watch, featured “about 350 entries depicting Muhammad” — in drawings and cartoons.

For this — creating drawings and cartoons — radical Islamists have declared that she and others associated with the event must die.

After numerous online and other Islamist death threats during the preceding week, two ISIS-inspired jihadists drove 1,000 miles from Phoenix to Garland’s Curtis Culwell Center hoping to carry out the demanded executions. Fortunately, thanks to a heroic police officer’s aggressive action, they were killed before they could carry out their plan.

As will be seen shortly, it is no exaggeration to say that long-established organizations in the international “human rights” community opposed the exercise of free speech embodied in that event, and believe that its sponsors and attendees deserve to be punished.

Elite U.S. reactions to Geller’s and her attendees’ near-death experience demonstrate just how far their campaign against so-called “hate speech” has progressed. The answer is, “farther than almost anyone might have thought.”

A much greater than expected swath of elite commentators and pundits on both the left and right clearly believes that Geller and event organizers — again, by exhibiting drawings and cartoons — provoked the attack. Many of them believe the event was an example of “hate speech,” and that it should not have taken place. Some have gone further, declaring that it should not have been allowed to take place. Those who truly believe in freedom should be thanking Pamela Geller for helping us identify genuine enemies who until now have cloaked themselves in respectability.

Sadly, the surface desirability of eliminating “hate,” especially in speech, is powerful.

After all, the great religions of the world – with the notable exception of certain far from minor strains of Islam — treat genuine hate as sinful. In Catholicism, hatred “(targeted) directly at the person … is always sinful.” Mahatma Gandhi, a Hindu, is credited with saying “Hate the sin, love the sinner.”

This nation’s Founders were religious too — and uncommonly brilliant. As they declared this nation’s independence from Great Britain, they, uniquely in human history, also declared that human beings’ rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, were God-given and not conferred by men or their governments. The Founders’ First Amendment-confirmed definition of “liberty” clearly includes the right to say, write, draw, or produce whatever one wishes. Given the intensity of political discourse at the time, it’s clear that they did not intend to carve out any kind of exception for “hate.”

The creation of the “hate speech” construct is irrefutably communist in origin, and goes back to the afternath of World War II:

… the introduction of hate-speech prohibitions into international law was championed in its heyday by the Soviet Union and allies. Their motive was readily apparent. The communist countries sought to exploit such laws to limit free speech.

[…]

The dominant force behind the attempt to adopt an obligation to restrict freedom of expression was the Soviet Union.

[…]

The states where criticism of totalitarian ideology was prohibited were the ones that internationalized hate-speech laws.

The initial Soviet-led efforts were too ham-handed and obvious for most of the rest of the then-free world to stomach. So, the definition of hate speech evolved:

… hate speech is any speech, gesture or conduct, writing, or display which is forbidden because it may incite violence or prejudicial action against or by a protected individual or group, or because it disparages or intimidates a protected individual or group.

Now, “hate speech” is a tool to be exploited by the perpetually aggrieved. Note the definition’s obvious implication that truly hateful speech directed at anyone who is not a “protected individual” or in a “protected group” cannot be considered “hate speech.” People not in protected groups are also apparently not worthy of federal protection when violently threatened.

Unbeknownst to most Americans, the “internationalization” to which the excerpt above refers has left this nation as one of a very few without oppressive “hate speech” laws favoring “protected individuals or groups” on the books. This intensely frustrates the so-called “human rights” community, many of whose members believe that the U.S. is a haven for “hate” and must be ostracized by the international community until it falls in line.

Most, but not all, of those who wish to impose their totalitarian regime on us have been circumspect about their ultimate goals. One such exception is Tanya Cohen, who claims to have worked with a number of “human rights” groups.

The headlines and content of Cohen’s recent columns will quickly disabuse those who still hold the quaint notion that banning “hate speech” is merely a project designed to ensure that everyone is civil to one another.

Her April 18 entry, “It’s Time To Put An End To Anti-Choice Speech,” is a prime example. In Cohen’s version of a supposedly free society, lobbying for pro-life legislation, demonstrating at an abortion clinic, or even publishing a pro-life opinion on your Facebook page would be outlawed. In Ms. Cohen’s ultra-scientific opinion, such people are “spreading lies,” and must be stopped.

Banning any discussion of abortion’s morality, which if logically extended would drive Catholicism and many of the world’s other major religions underground, is just a start. In that same column, Cohen clearly is on the side of a professor she quotes who wishes to similarly squelch speech “for climate denialists” and even “the tobacco industry.”

Separately, we find that Ms. Cohen has advocated an online command-and-control regime in Australia about which George Orwell’s Big Brother could only have dreamed:

What I propose is something called a Human Rights Online Act. This Act would not only make it a severe criminal offence on the federal level to publish, distribute, promote, or access hate speech online, but implement a federal Internet filtering system to protect Australians from being exposed to hate sites run out of the US. The Internet filter should block access to all hate sites, and anyone who tries to access any hate sites should be sent to gaol (i.e., prison — Ed.) … anyone accused of offending, insulting, humiliating, or intimidating other people should be required to prove their innocence or be declared guilty automatically …

Cohen has also celebrated how “attempting to link Islam with terrorism, saying that gay marriage isn’t really marriage, or saying that trans women aren’t really women would get you charged with discrimination and/or incitement to hatred” is “one of the most admirable things about Europe.”

Those with totalitarian impulses have created the idea of “hate speech” out of thin air and have turned the entire idea of “human rights” on its head, transforming it into the tyrant’s ultimate tool.

Now we know, and must react accordingly.

Thanks, Pamela.

The Psychodynamics of JIhad

The FBI has asserted that there will be more surveillance of "marginal" or "borderline" American terror suspects. This assertion is supposed to comfort the American people? Really?

In the world of jihad, the preparatory command is not a “borderline” activity. It is a seamless activity where the one command is followed through naturally by the second command. The myth of a borderline jihadi is just that.

I believe that watch lists should be maintained to locate individuals who show signs of preparatory command. When these signals are identified, they should be removed from the public square prior to execution of command.

Muslim Elton Simpson embarked on jihad with his first signal noted on a social media platform. He became a shaheed through intent, not action. He died for the cause the day he declared for the cause. His death on May 3rd in Garland, Texas is merely the visible demonstration of the death which he had already invoked. Don’t kid yourself. He was already a dead man walking.

The above excerpt comes from "The Psychodynamics of Jihad," posted at The Last English Prince on May 10, 2015. Read the rest HERE.

Pamela Geller is correct when she states that if the target had not been the Draw the Prophet Art Exhibit in Garland, Texas, there would have indeed been another target as the focus of Elwood Simpson and Nadir Soofi.

Double Standard On Display

Art by Bosch Fawstin

The full article Double standard on offending Christians and Muslims (emphases mine):

By George Parry

In 1987, Andres Serrano submerged a crucifix in a glass of his own urine and took a picture. Entitled “Piss Christ,” the photograph won first place in a contest sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts.

In 1996, another avant-garde artist, Chris Ofili, smeared elephant dung on a portrait of the Blessed Mother and displayed it in a government-funded Brooklyn museum.

And so the stage was set for the ensuing nightmare of Christian terror and violence that descended on the American art community.

Just kidding. Nothing of the sort happened. There were no canonical death warrants issued and no attempts on the lives of the artists or anyone else associated with these presentations.

To be sure, Christians objected to “Piss Christ” and the feces-covered Holy Virgin. And they rightfully wondered why their tax dollars had been used to promote these blasphemies. But their objections and questions were condescendingly dismissed by the secular left in the media and intelligentsia. As one prominent art critic sniffed, Ofili’s “The Holy Virgin Mary” was “deliberately provocative” in order to “jolt viewers into an expanded frame of reference, and perhaps even toward illumination.”

As if in one voice, the mainstream media and self-anointed intelligentsia argued that antiquated religious sensitivities must not be allowed to interfere with either an artist’s free expression or his right to government funding regardless of how offensive his work may be to Christians.

Well, it seems that things have changed.

In Garland, Texas, on Sunday [May 3, 2015], two radical Muslims died trying to replicate the Charlie Hebdo massacre by mounting an armed attack on a “draw Mohammed” cartoon contest. We are not talking about drawings of Mohammed dunked in urine or smeared with animal dung. No, the gunmen apparently deemed the mere drawing of Mohammed to be an offense punishable by death.

What has been the response of the liberal media to this act of lunacy? Have the talking heads come to the defense of the cartoonists’ right of free expression in a pluralistic society? Has anyone publicly observed that drawings of Mohammed might “jolt” Muslims "into an expanded frame of reference” or “illumination”? Far from it. The overall media consensus has been to blame the intended murder victims for recklessly provoking the terrorists. Such provocation, we are told, is unacceptable and irresponsible behavior given the risk of retaliation by offended radical Muslims.

By this bizarre logic, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Selma marchers should be condemned for instigating the melee on the Edmund Pettus bridge. Same for the three murdered civil-rights workers in Mississippi, the victims of Bull Connor’s police dogs, and anyone else who has taken a stand that might irritate violence-prone people.

For the mainstream media and chattering classes, dumping on peaceful, law-abiding Christians is good, safe sport. But pointing the finger of blame at murderous Muslim fanatics? Well, let’s not get carried away. Rather than draw the ire of radical Muslims by firmly and unequivocally condemning the attack, the infotainment industry has concentrated its attention on the provocative nature of the draw-Mohammed contest. After all, like a drunken, immodestly dressed rape victim, weren’t the draw-Mohammed contestants just asking for it?

Better to question the wisdom of cartoonists exercising their rights than to acknowledge and vigorously confront and expose the elephant in the room, i.e., that there is a disturbingly large number of radical Muslims in this country who oppose our Constitution and who believe that murder is an appropriate sanction for those who offend Islam. That, of course, is the real story behind the attack in Texas. But to grapple with that might inflame those radicals and pose a risk to careers and corporate profits, or result in expulsion from the preening ranks of the politically correct.

All of which leads to this question: Given their pusillanimous double standard, why should any reasonable or serious person believe, respect, or credit the self-serving mainstream media?

George Parry is a former state and federal prosecutor practicing law in Philadelphia. lgparry@dpt-law.com

(hat tip to Finntann of Western Hero for the link in this blog post)

Franklin Graham Pusses Out, Criticizes Mohammed Cartoon Contest

Franklin Graham Pusses Out

- if you need to see evidence, here's the link.

For my part, he has separated himself from us. He is no longer with us.

So, all this guy's standing up for Christians, declaring Islam is a religion of Satan saying that Obama's sympathy for Islam will lead to persecution of Christians and Jews, it all meant nothing?

He's not willing to stand for the foundational precept of Freedom of Speech?

What does Franklin Graham stand for? If he is not willing to stand for Freedom of Speech - the absolute FIRST PRINCIPLE of life - then what does he really stand for?

Who the fuck is he?

I have a lesson for Franklin Graham: IF A MAN IS NOT FREE, HE CAN NOT CHOOSE TO FOLLOW GOD!

So, if you are not willing to stand for Freedom, you are standing against people's ability to choose to follow God.

The reason Freedom of Speech is the first principle is because words are how we define ourselves; HOW WE CHOOSE TO BE WHO WE WANT TO BE, WHO ARE, AND WHO WE WILL BECOME.

IF WE CAN NOT CHOOSE THESE THINGS, WE CAN NOT CHOOSE ANYTHING.

Here's something for Christians to ponder (if you're not a Christian, go ahead and ignore this part):

When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden, God had three choices:

1) He could have turned them into automotons.

2) He could have utterly destroyed mankind, and declared us an experiment gone wrong.

or

3) He could have done what He did, which is to allow us to keep our Freedom of Choice, and worked out a way to use it for His Greater Glory.

God chose the way of Freedom for us, and that Greater Glory He worked out was to have His Son die for our sins, so that we could be reconciled to God, AS LONG AS WE CHOOSE TO FOLLOW HIM.

Therefore, when Jesus died on the cross, HE DIED FOR OUR FREEDOM BEFORE HE DIED FOR OUR SINS.

We make the choice to follow Him and THEN our sins our wiped clean.

One and then the other.

Freedom is embedded in the Christian worldview, no matter how much the average Christian, or the average Theologian might have you believe otherwise.

Freedom is necessary to follow God.

God made us in His Image.

He made us Free, Rational Human Beings, with a Creative Will.

He Loves us the way He created us.

Islam, on the other hand, believes that violence, coercion, and bribery can be used to motivate a person to follow Allah.

In other words, Islam does not believe in Freedom of Choice.

And on the other hand, Freedom of Choice is foundational to the Judeo-Christian worldview.

Christians need to take this to heart, and be willing to stand up for Freedom. Christians need to be willing to lay their lives on the line for Freedom.

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.

Why Blame The Messengers?

I have a theory as to why so many who should have better sense than to take the position they take are attacking Geller and Spencer for sponsoring the event in Garland, Texas.

That the two Garland jihadists don’t “fit the profile” makes these reality deniers uncomfortable — to the point that they are blaming the messengers (Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, Bosch Fawstin, and any who support these messengers). To do otherwise would mean having take an honest and objective look at the teachings of the Quran and the Haditha.

The uncomfortable reality that Islamophiles struggle with: the Garland jihadists didn’t have long criminal histories, histories of mental illness, or histories of having grown up downtrodden in poverty.

So, what did set off the would-be mass murderers?

Islam, of course.

The Garland jihadists were serious about strict shari’a and desired to be enforcers thereof. That is the reality.

The values of shari’a and Western values are incompatible.  Islam is the problem!

How do we deal with having in our midst those whose desire of the heart is to enforce strict shari'a and those who support, financially and otherwise, those who wish to enforce shari'a?

Breaking: One Garland Suspect Identified

From ABC News:

One of the suspects in the shooting in Garland, Texas, late Sunday has been identified as Elton Simpson, an Arizona man who was previously the subject of a terror investigation, according to a senior FBI official.

Overnight and today FBI agents and a bomb squad were at Simpson's home in an apartment complex in north Phoenix where a robot is believed to be conducting an initial search of the apartment.

Officials believe Simpson is the person who sent out several Twitter messages prior to the attack on Sunday, in the last one using the hashtag #TexasAttack about half an hour before the shooting....

More information at the link.

URGENT! BREAKING! Shooting At AFDI/Jihad Watch Event In Garland, Texas

IS THIS PARIS/CHARLIE HEBDO HAPPENING IN TEXAS???

Tammy Swofford is at the scene, contacted AoW. Has since been forced (by authorities?) to hang up.  AOW here...I am updating as I am able to do so at the bottom of this blog post.

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION EVENT APPARENTLY UNDER ATTACK IN TEXAS

Dallas Morning News:

Breaking: Gunfire reported at anti-Islam event at Garland ISD facility

A spokesman for Garland ISD has confirmed that gunfire was reported at an anti-Islam event at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland ISD.

Initial reports indicated that shots were heard outside the facility where an art show devoted to caricatures of Muhammad was being held.

WFAA-TV (Channel 8) has said an officer was involved in the shooting, and there are reports that SWAT officers had responded to the incident.

KXAS-TV (NBC5) says Garland police were still working to secure the area, and there were reports that officers had sealed the doors to the center.

Opponents had said the American Freedom Defense Initiative's Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest on Sunday would be an attack on Islam. But its organizers said they were simply exercising their right of expression.

The contest, which was offering a top prize of $10,000, has received about 350 entries depicting Muhammad. Caricatures of the Islamic prophet are considered offensive by many Muslims.

In January, a French newspaper that published such cartoons was attacked by terrorists and 12 people died.

As part of its contract with the district, the American Freedom Defense Initiative has paid $10,000 for extra security - nearly $50 for each of about 200 tickets that have been purchased so far. That cost doesn't include private security the group is employing.

AOW cutting in here: The bomb disposal unit has arrived; apparently, two devices were found. Those attending the event have been moved to a safe place and are under armed guard.

The explosive devices are believed to be in the parking lot where those attending the event are parked. Attendees are not allowed to go to their vehicles; buses are being brought in to take the attendees away from Curtis Culwell Center.

While waiting, the attendees are singing "God Bless America," "The Star-Spangled Banner," and other patriotic songs.

I got this information from Tammy Swofford, who is on the ground there and is attending the event.

AOW again...Heavy.com has this information.

midnight rider: per Pam Geller:

Two men with rifles and backpacks attacked police outside our event. A cop was shot; his injuries are not life-threatening, thank Gd. Please keep him in your prayers. The bomb squad has been called to the event site to investigate a backpack left at the event site

. -

AOW here...The lights have now gone off in the safe room. This information via Tammy Swofford, who is on the ground there.

She sent this picture

UPDATE - For some reason blogger is not posting our updates.

UPDATE FROM PASTORIUS - I have to wonder if the Police/authorities are trying to send this story down the rabbit hole by forcing our correspondent Tammy Swofford to turn off her phone and then corraling all attendees into a safe room, AND THEN TURNING OFF THE LIGHTS!

ANOTHER UPDATE - Jihad Watch's site is now inaccessible. It could be that there are too many people attempting to get their news there and the site crashed.

OR IT COULD BE THAT SOMEONE HAS ATTACKED THE SITE AND TAKEN IT DOWN -

IF THAT IS THE CASE, THE QUESTION IS, IS THIS A COORDINATED ATTACK?!?!?!?

UPDATE - GOOD NEWS - JIHAD WATCH IS BACK UP - PAMELA GELLER IS POSTING AT JIHAD WATCH BECAUSE ROBERT IS IN LOCKDOWN AT THE CARTOON CONTEST FACILITY.

UPDATE - At Fox News, commentator Harris Faulkner is getting worked up about this story. She is a conservative black lady, and she's hot, and she seems to cognizant that this is a big, big story.

MY QUESTION IS, HOW DO WE AS FREE PEOPLE LIVE WITH MUSLIMS WHEN THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE CRITICIZE THEIR RELIGION?

In a free society, all loci of power need to be criticized. It is part of our system of checks and balances. It is absolutely necessary that we be free to criticize all religions, businesses, academic insitutions and  government officials. 

That is a necessary part of freedom.

If we are importing Muslims by the tens and hundreds of thousands, granting them political asylum, this is what we are going to get.

It is not that all Muslims are Jihadists. But a percentage of them are. Look in our sidebar under "Game Over". There are 10 posts there featuring statistics that will show you what percentage of Muslims in various countries around the world, including the West, hold anti-Freedom ideas. 

That is the percentage we are dealing with.

and that is why this is happening. 

We can not live with this. We can not abide it for one second.

midnight rider: Fox TV reporting a local Walmart has now been evacuated

UPDATE - This appears to be a Tweet from one of the attackers - 

UPDATE - THE ATTACKERS HAVE BEEN KILLED

VIDEO