Is Ed Miliband Insane?

Here’s a question for Ed Miliband, the socialist leader of the Labour Party in Britain and eager aspirant to the premiership of the Britain that, were he elected, would certianly no longer be Great: would he arrest his predecessor, Tony Blair? I think he might have to. After all, Tony Blair just went on record to warn that the world must unite to “defeat Muslim extremism.” Isn’t that, Dear Reader, a patent example of Islamophobia? As the heavy Dragoons declare in Patience: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Let’s leave to one side the fact that Islamophobia is a fantasy tort: a “phobia,” as your dictionary will tell you, is an irrational fear or loathing of something that in the normal course of things is not fearsome or worthy of loathing.  But how about Muslim extremism? I know, I know, the people currently in charge of this country are all in the running for the “see no evil” award when it comes to our Koran-toting, scimitar-wielding brethren. Muslims run aircraft into the World Trade Center, and we’re told that Islam is the religion of peace. Muslims bomb a night club in Bali, a train in Madrid, the underground in London, a marathon in Boston: no Muslims here, only “violent extremists.” A couple of deranged Muslims raid the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, leaving a dozen people dead while informing the world that “the prophet has been avenged,” and a colleague across town kills four people in a Jewish supermarket.

Need I go on? I easily could, you know.  But there is some radical disconnect between the “violent extremist” crowd, adamant about not uttering the talisman “Muslim,” and reality. “Islamophobia” is a made-up crime, but if the label is going around, then I am a proud Islamophobe: I fear and loathe Muslim extremism and think civilized countries should do everything they can to stamp it out. Tony Blair is 100% right that “the world has not yet fully come to terms with the scale of the radical Islamist problem or the need to deal with it.” Quite right!

But here’s the question: if (heaven forfend) Ed Miliband actually moves into Number 10, will he arrest Tony Blair? For he has just gone on record saying that he wants to make “Islamophobia” a crime. Yes, that’s right.  Not only does Ed Miliband want to expropriate wealth from the productive class, he wants to make an attitude a crime. “We are going to make it an aggravated crime. We are going to make sure it is marked on people’s records with the police to make sure they root out Islamophobia as a hate crime,” Miliband told Ahmed J Versi, the editor of The Muslim News.

In the normal course of things, this frightening (and insane) declaration would assure that Ed Miliband would end his career declaiming from a soap box at Speakers’ Corner.  But these are not normal times, and I have a terrible inkling that the Brits might just be silly enough to elect this enemy of their civilization.  I hope I am wrong.