Is the world progressing, as the progressives claim, or is it in fact regressing?
More and more evidence suggests the latter. In fact, in certain respects, the West is increasingly becoming like the quintessential Third World — namely, the Islamic world.
One can cite several examples — the West’s eagerness to ban any Christian symbol, lest it offend, its ban on free speech, lest that too offends (or “blasphemes” against Muslim sensibilities) — but an unexpected one recently surfaced.
On an episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight, the host offered the following account (note, especially, the italicized portions):
Josh Denny is a comedian. You may have heard of him. He used to work for the Food Network. He’s also pro-life, personally, and willing to say so out loud. Earlier this month, Denny was preparing to host a comedy show in Rutherford, New Jersey. That’s about a half hour outside of New York, but just minutes after the show was announced, Antifa, a violent, radical group, decided to shut it down.
Hundreds of Antifa-affiliated Twitter accounts started bombarding the venue called the Williams Center. They also went after the chief of police of Rutherford, a man called John Russo, and they threatened violence. Now, at that point, a chief of police who wanted to defend the Constitution, his solemn duty, would have pushed back and affirmed the sacred right of free expression of every American, but that’s not what Chief Russo did. Instead, he caved to the demands of the mob.
He warned the venue that the venue might face civil liability if they let free speech continue, if they allowed the show to go on. Then he said he would shut down the show on “public safety grounds.” So ultimately, the Williams Center had no choice and canceled the show. In the end, the only people who showed up at the Williams Center that night were several police officers, and they were there to make sure there was no comedy taking place, none at all.
Then, to add insult to injury, the next morning, the mayor of Rutherford, New Jersey, Frank Nunziato, bragged about what the city had done. He said it was his decision to use the power of the state to cut down comedy.
“Unbeknownst to the borough,” Nunziato wrote, “an event was planned for this evening at the Williams Center, news of which quickly circulated through social media. Online intelligence led the police department to believe that the event had the potential for confrontation. Therefore,” Nunziato said, “after discussions with the owner, the event has been canceled.” Now notice the blame shifting here, “the potential for confrontation.”
It wasn’t the comedian who was going to confront or threaten anyone with violence. It was the radical left-wing group Antifa. But it was the comedian who was punished.
This entire scenario is a virtual duplicate of what regularly happens to religious minorities throughout the Muslim world. In the preceding few years, I have come across numerous stories of Muslim authorities shutting down Christian churches on the claim that they are “security threats.” Like the American comedian, these churches of course posed no threat; rather, those who dislike them, “radical Muslims” — like those who dislike the pro-life American comedian, “radical Antifa” — were the ones who posed the threats, and engaged in actual violence.
Only recently in Egypt, Muslims attacked a church and its Christians after authorities had given them permission to fix their church’s collapsed roof, which had fallen on and hurt several worshippers. (According to strict sharia, churches must never be repaired but left to crumble over time.) On the following day, the Muslim governor rescinded the church’s permit to fix its crumbling roof. This church is now one of more than 50 churches in Egypt to be closed on the claim that they pose security threats — that is, because Muslims riot at their existence.
In short, whenever Christians throughout the Muslim world attempt to repair, renovate, or build a church — all of which contradict the draconian, anti-Christian dictates of Islamic law — the same events follow: local Muslims riot and rampage, and local (Muslim) officials conclude that the only way to prevent “angry youth” from acts of violence is to ban the church—which is then seen and treated as a “threat” to security.
And now this same “logic” is operating with impunity in America.
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