PJ Media

In an ideal Western Democracy, where a perfect market place for ideas flourishes, where people freely and under no coersion choose to debate and adopt or reject presented facts, theories, hypotheses, claims, propositions, beliefs and all other forms of human thought and action; where discourse is not only allowed but encouraged, by a benevolent facilitator-State, one would have no issue with islam or any other human faith system co-existing with all else.

But we don’t unfortunately live in such a place, time or circumstance.

Whereas, in such a free market place of ideas the fallacies and realities of islam, the history, teachings and personal behavior of its “prophet” and his various followers from the 7th century AD to the present would have been subject to a thorough, unbiased, free and unhindered examination, analysis and debate, given all available evidence in a court of wide public opinion; when no one could prohibit such a debate claiming infringement upon “religious sensitivities” or characterize these debates as “attacks on a religion” or “violation of civil and religious rights;” were that to be feasible, then islamic tenets would be eventually fully revealed; and they would not be painting a pretty picture for islam.

Whereas, in an impartial and transparent governing system that would not only prohibit but instead supply incentives for and fully support and serve such free debate for the benefit of the population is supposedly represents, the truth about islam would be ultimately uncovered; and islam wouldn’t like it.

But then, it is safe to claim with confidence, that all parties, be them Christians, Jews, atheists, muslims or whatever could arrive to a well argued and educated verdict-conclusion about islam, no matter how painful that would be for islam and its followers. And of course, no one would have any objection to their presence anywhere, under in a reciprocal arrangement whereby non-muslims’ presence is also allowed under similar circumstances on their lands, where similar debates would take place.

But this isn’t reality. There are multiple failures in such markets of ideas as well as in governance, on many counts not only in Asia or Africa but even in Europe or the Americas. No matter how imperfect these markets and governments are, some extensive (although still not enough) debates about Christianity, Judaism etc have taken place in the West, but very little about islam; thus the emphasis here is on islam.

First of all, muslims migrating into Europe and the US are the least bit interested in such debates, brainwashed by islam – they are here to advance their cause. They aren’t here to either “assimilate” “integrate” or “accept the western value system.” They aren’t in England to enjoy a ride in the English countryside, or in the US to visit the Guggenheim Museum or Independence Hall. To these people, the educated and the uneducated alike, the marketplace of ideas is not only unfamiliar, strange even hostile territory, but instead an anathema. They are here to build mosques everywhere, even upon the sacred grounds of the Nation, and teach islam.

Moreover, and potentially far more pernicious than the muslims’ raison d’etre in the “West,” the “objective” “hands-off” wise governments of the “West,” i.e., the instiitutions by and through which this “free debate” is to take place, are far from neutral (for reasons not to be elaborated here). In a counter-intuitive manner, “liberalism” has turned western governments into a stifling mechanism suppressing a free exchange of views. This stifling mechanism is however grossly asymmetric: it stifles opponents but not proponents of islam. The fundamental flaws of islam are not allowed to be subjected to debate, as is the personal life and behavior of the “prophet” of islam, lest one is willing to be characterized as an “islamophobe” and be potentially targeted, mind you not only by islamists but by the very government which is there supposedly to defend the individual’s Right to free speech.

Under any reasonable criterion, this is a new form of obsurantism. It’s a new version of a Dark Age.