Free Speech vs. Islamists: Why the West Is Losing
Also, these days, when Islamists threaten free speech about Islam-related topics with violence, legal action, boycotts, or complaints about “Islamophobia,” many Westerners — especially the leftist European and American elite — actually join in the efforts. In Germany, the government recently announced that it would be monitoring the “counterjihadi websites” to make sure no hateful language was used. Presumably, those malefactors found will be prosecuted for their anti-Islam “hate speech,” as were Geert Wilders and Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff. In Scandinavian nations, so-called “right-wing” parties that are concerned about unlimited immigration and the unwillingness of the mostly Muslim immigrants to integrate are branded the ideological sympathizers of one of the few non-Islamist terrorists, Anders Breivik, so as to undermine the appeal of the “right-wing” parties to the average voting citizen.
In the U.S., thanks to a little pressure from CAIR — which because of politically correct feelings is able to avoid the stigma of being recognized as a group with “ties to terrorism” — websites like Bare Naked Islam are taken down (but later returned), the NYPD is increasingly derided for being anti-Muslim, and honored generals are shunned. A Pennsylvania judge decided that a Muslim’s decision to choke an offending atheist — who was parading down the street as “Zombie Mohammed,” right next to “Zombie Pope” — is no reason to punish the choker, but reason enough to lecture the chokee for being a “doofus.”
Even the U.S. president meekly apologizeds, along with much of his administration, for the accidental burning of Korans in Afghanistan.
Most disturbingly, international organizations are increasingly getting into the Islam-related censorship field. As I have already mentioned, the OIC has pushed resolutions through the UN General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council since 1999 to restrict “defamation of religions.” Egypt and Pakistan have also forced the UN Human Rights Council to ban in-depth discussion of religions after an NGO representative to that body described female genital mutilation as sanctioned by Islamic law. Interpol, the world’s largest international police organization, may have been enlisted by Saudi Arabia to help track down Muslims who violate that nation’s “blasphemy laws.” If this occurred, this action violates Interpol’s own constitutional neutrality clause which states that it is “strictly forbidden” for the organization to undertake any intervention of a religious character. Even the OSCE, an organization most Americans have never heard of, is now promoting censorship at the behest of Muslim Europeans.
There is at least one Western man who stands strong. In 2007, Lars Vilks, a Swedish cartoonist, drew a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a dog. He immediately found himself threatened by death by Islamists and was forced into protective detail. But he kept on speaking out in defense of free speech. At one of his most recent lectures, where Vilks showed a picture of Mohammed in front of a beer bottle, he found himself pelted by eggs thrown by Islamic radicals.
But otherwise, the situation is bleak.
What I find most interesting in this idea of offending people’s “cultural” sensibilities is the increasingly accepted notion that the more angry one gets, the more righteous must be their indignation.
This speaks to a culture in the West that is uncertain of its own values; no surprise really since we seem to make up new “traditions” every year. This further speaks to the fact our so-called traditions are nothing more than shallow fads with little shelf life. Of course we then blanch in the face of resolve since we ourselves in the West have swallowed the idea of resolve or our own cultural audacity as being arrogant and too forward and intolerant.
Stick by your guns is a phrase with an increasingly dual tone to it in the West.
An interesting side note is that William Darymple, the man perhaps most responsible for the Jaipur literary festival if my memory serves, is a noted Muslim apologist and no friend to Israel. He was caught between a rock and a hard place on this one.
Well, yeah, the trouble is, Lefties hate Western Civilization and Christianity, while people on the Right are wimps who do nothing but rant on or listen to talk radio. So who is going to stand up for free speech? No one.
It’s easy to call “rightwing” people wimps when we are arrested, posecuted and thrown in jail if we “do” something. The double standard is breathtaking and our own laws and leaders are our biggest enemies.
Who wants to have their entire life turned upside down (including the destruction of your entire family) to stand up for our culture when our own people are willing to use the entire force of the stated to crush us?
I think there is a new program on network television called “GCB,” which stands for “Good Christian Bitches.” Hmmmm, I just wonder what would happen to that same network if the show was called “GMB,” for “Good Muslim Bitches?” Sure, like THAT would ever happen.
The networks are scared of their own shadows, let alone if they even mention the word “MUSLIM.” Why? Because Christians do not blow themselves up in childish fits of rage over their religion. And I wonder, just wonder, how many action/police dramas on TV today mention Islamic terrorist groups, let alone groups like al Qaeda? Not many, if any, I would imagine. If after 9/11 and all of the many acts of terrorism Islamists have carried out against the west we still are afraid to mention who the enemy really is, then they have won the battle. They can hit us with impunity and we are even afraid to utter their names. Obama can fire as many helfire missiles at terrorists as he wants. But if we are afraid to live our lives and say what we want to say in our own country, then we’ve lost the war.
Rushdie can have all the girlfriends he wants. What I really object to is the way others helped him succeed. Perhaps that’s the real reason India turned him away- something to do with ethics?
Of course the West is losing the free speech fight! Granting visas, aid, military equipment, special NGO attention, and all the other tax funded bennies without for a moment considering if they have enshrined the First Amendment in their founding documents. We ARE funding out own defeat.
Such is Islam…as one person once said, more of a gov’t system than a religion. Say anything against it & you can die. Now, isn’t that God’s love?
Islam, Fascism, Communism (Mohammad, Hitler, Stalin/Mao) = The same show just under a different tent.
That’s why the Marxist-Islamic Alliance exists.
http://www.jochnowitz.net/Essays/MarxIslam.html
Totalitarianism.
A main reason, perhaps the main reason, we are losing freedom of speech as regards the totalitarian system of islam, is because of our oath breaking traitorous military officer corp, and the higher ranking the more traitorous they seem to be, which has been subjecting our military ‘rank-and-file’ to Islamic law and pushing it generally.
The book “Londonistan” provides some additional insights into this issue. Basically, Muslims have taken advantage of the freedoms in England to establish themselves and then complain of discrimination to further their establishment of a Muslim community. They have gained ground in the use of Sharia to govern their affairs, established an air of multiculturalism, and have Sharia zones. In one case, they objected to dogs being allowed on public transport, since dogs are unclean to Muslims. The Muslims use terrorists like a pit bull. Say anything against them and they caution that the pit bull might attack – not that they want it to, but it might anyway. Complain about the pit bull and they call you Islamophobic. The EU has made things worse by embracing hate speech laws; they’re used to full advantage by Muslims. The U.S. isn’t too far behind.
Also, folks at BBC recently admitted that they mock Christianity more than Islam because it’s safer. So, it isn’t about principles or respect, it is about fear. Not surprising.
The Saudi Organized Crime Syndicate writes all Sharia Law. Saudi written Sharia Law is rewritten daily to overthrow Democracies, to replace them with bloody, genocidal, Hitler-Like, Saudi Criminal Dictatorships.
The important concepts, that the Saudi Organized Crime Syndicate put into
Sharia Law, is that the one Dictator can kill, detain, torture, silence or intimidate any citizen the Dictator chooses.
Sharia Law is about turning Democracies into Criminal Dictatorships.
Actually Kermudjin the country who’s freedoms you refer to is called Britain, not England. ALL of the people of that country fought hard for the freedoms they have enjoyed over the years. In fact, much of that fight was against unjust laws enacted by the English crown and government in order to subjugate the ordinary people of Wales and Scotland. The destruction of the pre-English languages and cultures of Britain are a stark, but largely silenced aspect of Britain under English rule. My own grandmother’s generation were beaten with canes at school for the ‘crime’ of speaking their own language until the language was beaten out of them. The Anglicisation of Britain is is as unwelcome as the Islamification of that country.
England is not a country, it is a part of Britain.
“Free Speech vs. Islamists”
Do not submit to political correctness by using the word “islamists” (which doesn’t even pass my spell checker). It is “Free Speech” vs. Muslims”.
I am urging all Zionist and Christian forces who are working against the Islamic Holy Forces of Allah to submit immediately. Otherwise, we will hold them responsible for their actions. Any attempt to fight the Islamic Holy forces of Allah is pointless. We are committed to putting all of the world under our jurisdiction.
You cannot overcome the Islamic Holy Forces of Allah now that we have our brother, Imam Hussein Obama, in control of your country and it’s military and FBI and Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security. Any individual or group that tries to fight the Islamic Holy Forces of Allah will now be humiliated if not imprisoned by our brother Imam Hussein Obama. With the help of our brother, Imam Hussein Obama, the Islamic Holy Forces of Allah will easily overcome all the Zionist, Christian, Infidel and Pjmedia stooges. Allah willing.
The great dream of Islam will come true. Muslims dream to see flags that read: “There is no God but Allah” fluttering in the wind atop a Mosque at Ground Zero, a Mosque next to the Pentagon, a Mosque in a field in Pennsylvania, a Mosque next to Reagan National Airport and then a Mosque at the Temple Mount and a Mosque at Haram al-Sharif, and then Pjmedia will become fully compliant with Sharia Law, Allah willing.
The Saudi Organized Crime Syndicate wrote the “Saudi written Sharia Law” to overthrow Democracies, and any other country that does not have “Saudi written Sharia Law.”
The Saudi Crime Syndicate, and the Dictators they create, do not believe in the “Saudi written Sharia Law” as a religion, but as a tool to legally detain, murder, torture and silence any of their citizens that they want to control.
The Crime Syndicate is not religious, it’s an Organized Crime Syndicate that just brutally murdered over one-Million Middle Eastern Civilians by taking over Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and Kenya. If the Saudi Organized Crime Syndicate gets their way, there will be no population of poor believers left. It will be the Saudi Organized Crime Syndicate, and their oil, as all that is left without any poor masses to support.
Saudi Puppet Obama is on his way out and America will get rid of the rest of the Saudi Organized Crime Syndicate soon after.
The best hope we have is to reclassify Islam as a political/legal system which is what it really is. How can it not be when there is no separation between religion and state in Islam?
The assumption that somehow there is a necessary chasm between political and religious life is modern and, ironically, due almost entirely to Christian philosophy. No other religious system in the world holds that the government is, or even should be, separate from the religious authorities. Even Christianity really doesn’t, if you examine it closely – it just assumes that more often than not the leaders will not be Christian, and we’ll just have to live with it.
Your religion is the set of principles around which you organize your life. Islam is just more emphatic about being all-encompassing, although socialism/Progressivism probably surpasses it.
We are, in practical terms, silencing our own ingrained response to islam and any other cult or radical “religion” because we want to recognize religious freedoms above common sense. Hence, islamists can run roughshod over us while usurping this “freedom.” There is nothing wholesome about islam, and it will require its ideological defeat if not destruction to ever overcome the evils it foments. More, the struggle against it will mean actual liberation from its oppressive, tyrannical hold on millions of its adherents. That’s the approach the rest of the world will need to finally embrace for this to ever move forward positively for all.
I heard an excellent talk the other day that bears on this. Islam is multifaceted. As a belief in God, it is protected under the First Amendment. But as a political system (i.e., Sharia law), it runs afoul of the Constitution being the supreme law of the land. It is terribly important to keep this in mind when considering Islam. Muslims have a right to their beliefs, but they do not have a right to usurp our Constitution. The conflate the issues on purpose.
KNOW YOUR ENEMY:
The enemy, that has taken control of parts of our government, is the
SAUDI ORGANIZED CRIME SYNDICATE.
You can stop them when you know their name.The keep committing crimes and Americans do not tolerate criminals very well.
“Further, since 1999 the Muslim world — through the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) — has been pushing resolutions through the UN General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council to restrict “defamation of religions” (read as “defamation of Islam”) throughout the world.”
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Moreover, they are promoting concrete action on UN human rights council Resolution 16/18 in what is called the Istanbul Process.
They are looking for concrete ways to criminalize free speech by causing those who say something that others react violently to, to be held legally responsible.
In other words, if you accidentally burned a Koran and a riot erupted and people were killed, one could be held liable for the riot and deaths.
What I do not understand, though, is why are Secretary of State Clinton and the department of state seemingly playing along with this?
Islamic World Tells Clinton: Defamation of Islam Must be Prevented — in America
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/12/islamic_world_tells_clinton_defamation_of_islam_must_be_prevented_in_america.html
‘The Istanbul Process’: Hillary Clinton Hosts Summit On Religious Intolerance
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/15/istanbul-process-clinton_n_1152508.html
Someone explain to me why threatening to kill Innocent people if a religion is offended isn’t terrorism.
It is. It’s just that the powers that be (who are usually Progressives) can not accept that people can really hold to any belief system other than their own, and so don’t take the Islamists seriously. They also really hate Christianity, because it calls them to account, and hope that the Muslims will take us out and save them the bother. If push comes to shove, a Progressive will gladly accept conversion to Islam and go on his/her way; after all, a good Muslim only has to follow the 5 pillars to be found pleasing to Allah, then can do pretty much anything he wants. (It will be interesting to find out how the Progressive women fare under Islam, when they find out that their Progressive male counterparts are actually quite sexist when they can get away with it.)
Christianity holds no one to any account. It’s the most docile religion of all time. That’s why the left hates it.
No F!@#ing Surrender Ever! (no surrender to islam OR political correctness)
For all of your virtual koran desecration needs please visit
http://BlowUpTheKoran.com
Peace! (the real kind, not the islamic kind)
David Pax
When Rushdie was threatened I was a much younger guy, but I remember how strange it felt because I kept waiting for something to happen. I kept waiting for Gr. Britain to lay it down this way:
If any harm comes to Mr. Rushdie or, God forbid one of your misguided
followers should kill Mr. Rushdie, traceable to this “fatwa,” as you call
it, we will take it as the act of war on our sovereign nation, which it is,
and Iran will suffer the consequences. It will never be open season for any
country or ideology against any British subject.
This never happened. It better damn well start happening.
President Obama implilcitly approves of Indonesia’s blasphemy laws and urges the world to emulate its loving kindness. “[President Obama] praised Indonesia – the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation – for a ‘spirit of tolerance that is written into your constitution, symbolized in your mosques and churches and temples, and embodied in your people,’ a quality worthy for all the world to emulate.”
Wilson, S. (Nov. 10, 2010) “Obama praises Indonesia’s ‘spirit of tolerance’ as a model” retrieved Feb. 10, 2012 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/09/AR2010110906579.html?wprss=rss_print
Sir,
With all due respect, just what is the West losing? Or, who cares?
Let the non-West choke on their fascism. We have B-52′s, bunker bombs and for us Americans, the Bill of Rights.
I for one want no part of fighting with the non-West over their barbarism.
Superbly well referenced essay today, Mr. Turner. I wonder, though, why Mr. Rushdie endures so many death threats for saying what many other Muslims (and former Muslims) say with regularity — may of them in public places (granted, though mostly in the United States, not in India or other parts of Asia or Africa).
Readers interested in examining what some of these other rogue (i.e. honest) Muslims have to say about their own religion are invited to visit Another Slow News Day’s blog page devoted to that topic.
http://anotherslownewsday.wordpress.com/islam-honest-muslims/
Visitor to ASND may also want to browse the many other related topical branches sprouting from the Update Topics / Religion / Islam menu tree.
It’s comforting to know that Secretary Clinton is right on board.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/08/secretary-of-state-clinton-says-state-department-will-coordinate-with-oic-on-legal-ways-to-implement.html
Muslims in America
Notwithstanding TLC’s cancellation of the reality show, “All-American Muslim,” because it didn’t portray reality and because the Muslims depicted weren’t as much Americans as they were Islamists, Muslims have been making inroads into American society and becoming a force to be reckoned with.
Just a few examples of growing Islamic influence in America: Muslim schoolkids are given preferences over non-Muslims in New York City schools and elsewhere; the Muslim Brotherhood was “consulted” on the appointment of the Los Angeles police chief; Twitter just closed down accounts critical of Syrian dictator Assad on request of his wife; and the Black Muslim official newspaper characterized Glenn Beck as “a minion of the synagogue of Satan” for daring to intimate that President Barack Hussein Obama’s life could be in danger.
True, Islamists occasionally overstep but, for the most part, they are granted special treatment mainly due to the mainstream media’s fear of violent and bloody Muslim retaliation should the MSM report extensively on such horrors as “mercy killings” or treat Islamists with the same disdain they treat Christians.
One Muslim, the black racist leader of the subversive Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan, knows no bounds when it comes to spewing his extremist views but he recently discovered that even the students and faculty at one of the most liberal universities in the country have their limits of tolerance.
Last Saturday, Farrakhan addressed an audience of some 600 at the University of California Berkeley where they are accustomed to applauding subversion and anti-Americanism. However, he crossed the PC line when he launched into a tirade against his favorite punching bag, Jews.
Why his virulently anti-Semitic rant came as a surprise to the audience is mystifying since Farrakhan has lambasted Jews for decades and has called Judaism “a gutter religion,” and worse. He has also called Obama both a “murderer” and an “assassin.”
None of that vile background bothered Berkeley . . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=17264.)