Islam

With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemies?

Calvin Freiburger blogosphere, conservatism, dishonesty, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Islam, Islamofascism, NewsReal, Robert Spencer, stupidity

Last month, I wrote a couple of posts on NewsReal criticizing the wisdom of one of my co-bloggers’ calls to “eradicate Islam in the West.” In a nutshell: Islam is a violent, totalitarian religion which needs to be aggressively and honestly confronted, but simply “eradicating” it outright would be not only impossible, but calling for such an eradication would confuse and alienate a heck of a lot of people.

One of my most persistent critics was a commenter using the name “ObamaYoMoma,” whose arguments were as verbose as they were insipid. In a nutshell: The West needs to be totally purged of Islam because it’s not really a religion anyway and therefore the First Amendment doesn’t apply to it.

Those interested can check out the sordid, stupid saga at the links above. Suffice to say, no amount of semantic gymnastics about what is or isn’t a religion can erase the fact that we have a First Amendment, and that according to just about every accepted definition of the term “religion” we have, Islam qualifies. And if you really think you’ll find enough public support, enough of a congressional majority, and elect a president who would support criminalizing an entire religion, plus find so much as a single court in the land who would stand for it…well, let me know how much luck you have.

This week, OYM popped up again on another of my posts, regurgitating the same idiocy. He wouldn’t define exactly what “banning” Islam would entail, nor did he answer my question about whether or not the First Amendment places any limits on what we can justly do to bring about Islam’s “eradication.” Instead, he smugly asserted that I don’t know what Islam is, and that I am “blinded by PC multiculturalism like John Gardiano” (wonder if he knows just how well John and I get along, or that John misrepresented my position on Islam).

Inasmuch as I made perfectly clear where I stand on Islam in each of the very posts OYM commented on, it’s hard to see him as much more than a liar or a buffoon. But to end this skirmish on a semi-productive note, let’s see what Robert Spencer, who OYM claims to be a disciple of, has to say on the subject:

The implications of what I’m saying are very bad. There’s no way to sugarcoat them. But there are precedents. And there are useful ways forward — if we have the courage to face this problem as it truly is.

This is a problem within Islamic teaching, within core Islamic teaching, founded on the Quran. As such, wherever there are Islamic communities, there will be terrorism and efforts to impose elements of Islamic law through peaceful means, to assert the precedence of Islamic law over the laws of the state in which the Muslims happen to be residing. That will always happen.

Now, in 1945, the McArthur government — the occupational government in Japan — issued an edict saying that Shinto (the religion of the Japanese that had fueled Japanese imperial militarism in World War II) would have no interference from the United States’ occupying forces as an expression of individual piety, as the religion of any Japanese citizen. No interference whatsoever from the government. However, Shinto would have no role in the government or in the schools.

The distinction was made — it was imposed from without — that Shinto would have no way to express the political militarism that had led to World War II in the first place.

Now, the United States, Great Britain, Europe, are all facing a very similar problem, with growing Muslim communities asserting political and societal notions that are at variance with our ideas of the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, the equality of rights of women with men, the equality of rights of all people before the law.

If our governments had the courage to stand up and say that any assertion of these political aspects of Islam that are at variance with our existing laws will be considered to be seditious under existing sedition laws, there would be a tremendous amount of progress made on this problem.

But of course we’re nowhere near that, because we can’t even admit that there are such initiatives going on from the Islamic communities as such.

And so as long as this unrealism persists, then the cognitive dissonance will continue to grow. And as long as the cognitive dissonance continues to grow, so also will the assertiveness and beligerence of the Islamic communities in the West, because they will see that we are not able and not willing to take the decisive steps necessary to do anything serious to stop them.

This is how we should treat Islam (or any religion, for that matter): firm, honest, and uncompromising toward its elements that are incompatible with liberty, but also thoughtful, responsible, and acknowledging legitimate religious rights. Thankfully, nobody with any real power or influence seems to be parroting OYM’s nonsense.

Does David Frum Make His Writers Fulfill a Lie Quota or Something? (UPDATED)

Calvin Freiburger Andy McCarthy, David Frum, dishonesty, FrumForum, Ground Zero Mosque, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Islam, Islamofascism

At ScumForum, John Guardiano has another condescending lecture about how conservatives need to stop being mean to Islam. David Swindle responded to John’s previous effort last week, and overall it suffices as a rebuttal to this one too; go read it.

One detail in particular caught my eye:

National Review’s Andrew McCarthy suggests we might have to reconsider whether the First Amendment ought even to apply to Muslims. After all, he argues, “intolerance is not just part of al-Qaeda; it is part of Islam.”

Woah! A prominent anti-terror conservative advocating a repeal of American Muslims’ First Amendment rights?  Man, if that’s true, National Review ought to fire McCarthy on the spot.

Oh, wait. It’s not true.

In the article Guardiano links, McCarthy makes no mention of the First Amendment at all, much less calls for exempting Muslims from its protections. In fact, McCarthy says:

No one credibly questions the legal right of Muslim landowners to use their property in any lawful fashion. Legality is an irrelevant issue, even if the back-tracking Obama now wants to pretend it is the only one he was really talking about on Friday night. The question here is propriety.

In other words, Guardiano’s lying. Not a shocker – that sort of thing is standard operating procedure at FrumForum.

UPDATE: Guardiano tweets that he’s not lying “at all,” and that details to come later. I look forward to whatever details he’s got, but if McCarthy really did say somewhere that the First Amendment shouldn’t apply to Muslims (a couple of quick Google searches sure haven’t come up with anything, and I have to imagine the Left would be shouting it from the rooftops if it were true), then Guardiano has no excuse for not elaborating or linking to it in the original piece. Basic morality and professionalism should keep people from leveling explosive charges against people if they’re not accompanied by evidence. Guardiano only linked to one example of McCarthy’s words – in which McCarthy expressed the exact opposite of the sentiments attributed to him.

At least John spelled my name right this time. I hear he’s particular about that sort of thing.

Don’t Rush Out of Afghanistan, Says…Time?

Calvin Freiburger Afghanistan, Democrats, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Islam, Islamofascism, mainstream media, Time Magazine, War on Terror, women's rights

My fellow NewsReal blogger Jenny Erikson has a powerful post highlighting Time’s latest cover story: “What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan.” Both works confront the horrifying subjugation of Muslim women, demanding to be read in full. Here I’d like to make a different observation: the moral clarity Time is capable of when the commander-in-chief is a Democrat is remarkable, isn’t it?

Around the Web

Calvin Freiburger Coulter, Edwards, environment, free speech, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Islam, McCain, Obama, Planned Parenthood, racism, scandal
It seems the federal Women, Infants, and Children program, ostensibly a low-income healthcare aid, is referring people to Planned Parenthood. Nice, eh?
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“He doesn’t look like the other presidents on the currency.” That’s the latest phony smear Obama claims the GOP is leveling against him. This race-baiting filth should be a cakewalk for any Republican candidate worth his salt. Unfortunately, we got Johnny the Wonder Dolt…who claims to be an “unabashed conservative.” Yeah, right.
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This week, Ann Coulter’s column takes on the Edwards-love child story. Lord knows if anybody’s sleazy enough to do something like this it’s John Edwards, and his reaction to the charges haven’t exactly been the conduct of an honest man with nothing to hide. Still, I’d be wary of anything from the pages of the National Enquirer.
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Religion of Peace update: evidently the Dutch no longer value freedom of speech.
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Required reading: Walter Williams on “A Country at Mercy of Environmentalists” and Rick Moran on “House Issues Apology for Slavery, Jim Crow.”

The Happy Warrior at Hillsdale

Calvin Freiburger Canada, Europe, free speech, Hillsdale, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Islam, Islamofascism, liberalism, me, political correctness, Steyn

Wisecracking, liberty-loving pundit extraordinaire Mark Steyn just gave an outstanding speech here at Hillsdale. The topic: Western capitulation in the face of Islamic browbeating—an issue with which he has firsthand expertise, and covers in greater depth in America Alone. I had the honor of meeting Mr. Steyn after the talk.

News Around the Web

Calvin Freiburger Andy McCarthy, crime, Hillary, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Islam, JB Van Hollen, Larry Craig, law, McCain, military, national security, Obama, pro-life, Robert Spencer, scandal, Texas, treason, Wisconsin
Valentine’s Day and Islam: not exactly the best combination.
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More excellence from Wisconsin’s disappointing Attorney General.
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The Texas criminal appellate court has upheld the recognition of the killing of preborn twins as double homicide.
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Andy McCarthy notices an area where John McCain can genuinely distinguish himself from Clinton and Obama. McCain doesn’t.
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Remember Larry Craig? Yesterday the Senate Ethics Committee lowered the hammer on him.
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More liberals “supporting” the troops. Just don’t question their patriotism.
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Oh, and Indiana Jones is back.

Liberal Theory of Relativity

Calvin Freiburger abortion, blogosphere, feminism, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, humor, Iraq, Islam, Islamofascism, liberalism, moonbats
Here’s a rather striking example from the lefty blogosphere of Bush Derangement Syndrome and general resentment of America. The post itself is actually an important message about Islamic honor killings, and I agree 100%. But just when I think the Left might be getting a dose of reality, the Comments section brings the nuts out of the woodwork. The highlights:
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[A]lthough honor killings are rare in the good old U.S. of A., there are nevertheless plenty of Americans who still place the “family honor” above the welfare of their kin. I point to my parents-in-law, who have now placed their phony-baloney reputations above three generations of sexually abused family members by intimidating anybody who dared suggest that the perpetrators should be exposed.
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You’ve got my total sympathy for the suffering those creeps put your loved ones through, but two nuts do not a national trend make. And if the perps were to be exposed, they’d go down for the count (that is, unless they got a left-wing judge to hear their case. Ironic, no?). A pretty defining difference between America & the Middle East, I think.
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It’s important to note that the increase in the number of so-called “honor” killings in Kirkuk goes along with the occupation. The dissolution of the established social structure under the occupation is leading to devastating things.
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Boy, I’d like to see some solid numbers on that one! But just for fun, let’s temporarily assume it’s true: 1.) “My life is crappy right now, therefore I’m entitled to kill my daughter”? Uh-uh. 2.) It’s entirely proper to condemn Bush’s handling of the war, but that’s a separate issue from whether or not it should be waged at all. Liberals could also use some perspective: y’think those devastating things are likely to get better with the fundamentalists as the country’s dominant force? Dream on.
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That [viciously anti-woman] attitude exists, sadly, in this country too – it’s just that usually the consequences aren’t death.
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Out of 300 million people, some consider women inferior?! Unheard of! If somebody wants to argue that it’s a national trend extending far beyond the scope of Bill Clinton, then show me what constitutes that attitude here.
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Right on about the attitude towards women, an attitude that is deteriorating fast here in this country with all this crazy legislaton being sanctioned by the Supreme Court, with a man being given the legal right to tell a woman what she can do or can’t do with her body.
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I get it. Bemoan the killing of girls and your (partial) inability to kill children in the same breath. If not for abortion’s human consequences, this would be hilarious.
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Amidst all this we had the usual assurances that Islam is not to blame for honor killings (a courtesy that the far Left seems to forget when discussing, say, Fred Phelps or abortion-clinic bombers), but the interesting thing was how few could resist the knee-jerk reaction to opine, “Yeah, but America does [insert-crime-here]!” Is it really that hard to make a simple condemnation of evil?
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The Liberal Theory of Relativity: “Every woe and/or wrongdoing in this world can be related back to the evils of the United States in some way.” Just don’t question their patriotism, whatever you do.

Anatomy of a Propaganda Racket

Calvin Freiburger Gaffney, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Islam, media, moderate Muslims, Muslims, propaganda
Why does this not surprise me?
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The producer of a tax-financed documentary on Islamic extremism claims his film has been dropped for political reasons from a television series that airs next week on more than 300 PBS stations nationwide.
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Key portions of the documentary focus on Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser of Phoenix and his American Islamic Forum for Democracy, a non-profit organization of Muslim Americans who advocate patriotism, constitutional democracy and a separation of church and state.
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Martyn Burke says that the Public Broadcasting Service and project managers at station WETA in Washington, D.C., excluded his documentary, Islam vs. Islamists, from the series America at a Crossroads after he refused to fire two co-producers affiliated with a conservative think tank.
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“I was ordered to fire my two partners (who brought me into this project) on political grounds,” Burke said in a complaint letter to PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supplied funds for the films.
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Burke wrote that his documentary depicts the plight of moderate Muslims who are silenced by Islamic extremists, adding, “Now it appears to be PBS and CPB who are silencing them.”
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A Jan. 30 news release by the corporation listed Islam vs. Islamists as one of eight films to be presented in the opening series.
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Mary Stewart, vice president of external affairs at WETA, said Burke’s documentary was not completed on time to be among 11 documentaries that will be aired beginning Sunday. Stewart said the picture may be broadcast by PBS at a later date.
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“The film is a strong film,” Stewart said. “I’m still hoping to see this in the Crossroads initiative.”
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Jeff Bieber, WETA’s executive producer for Crossroads, gave a substantially different explanation. He said Burke’s film had “serious structural problems (and) . . . was irresponsible because the writing was alarmist, and it wasn’t fair.”
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“They’re crying foul, and there was no foul ball,” Bieber added. “The problem is in their film.”
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The controversy involves a collection of documentaries financed with $20 million in federal grants from the corporation, which conceived Crossroads in 2004 to enhance public understanding of terrorism, homeland security and other crucial issues in the post-9/11 era. Independent filmmakers submitted 430 proposals. Full production grants were given to 21 of those, including Islam vs. Islamists, which received $700,000.
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Subtitled Voices From the Muslim Center, Burke says his film “attempts to answer the question: ‘Where are the moderate Muslims?’ The answer is, ‘Wherever they are, they are reviled and sometimes attacked’ ” by extremists.
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Michael Levy, a spokesman for CPB, said the corporation set up the Crossroads project and provided funding, but turned over management and content control to PBS and WETA 13 months ago.
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After that, Burke says in his Feb. 23 complaint letter, he “consistently encountered actions by the PBS series producers that violate the basic tenets of journalism in America.”-PBS officials turned down interview requests.
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The dispute adds to a running debate about political bias in the nation’s publicly funded television business. In 2004, filmmakers complained that CPB was pushing a right-wing agenda for the Crossroads series. A year later, CPB President Kenneth Tomlinson sought to eliminate what he saw as a liberal bias at PBS. He was forced to resign after an inspector general’s report found that he violated federal rules and ethics standards in the process.
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Burke’s credits include Pirates of Silicon Valley, a movie about the founders of Microsoft, and The Hollywood Ten, a documentary about blacklisted leftists in the motion picture industry during the 1950s.
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In the making of Islam vs. Islamists, Burke’s co-producers were Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, and Alex Alexiev, the non-profit organization’s vice president. Both men are neo-conservatives who have written on the threat of “Islamofascism” to the free world.
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Before filming began last year, Burke says, Bieber asked him, “Don’t you check into the politics of the people you work with?”
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Bieber said PBS was concerned that the Center for Security Policy is an advocacy group, so its leaders could not produce an objective picture. Because of that, he suggested that Gaffney be demoted to adviser.-Burke, who did not honor the recommendation, says that funding was delayed and WETA began to interfere with his film until it was “expelled” from Crossroads.
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Among Burke’s examples of tampering:
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• A WETA manager pressed to eliminate a key perspective of the film: The claim that Muslim radicals are pushing to establish “parallel societies” in America and Europe governed by Shariah law rather than sectarian courts.
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• After grants were issued, Crossroads managers commissioned a new film that overlapped with Islam vs. Islamists and competed for the same interview subjects.
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• WETA appointed an advisory board that includes Aminah Beverly McCloud, director of World Islamic Studies at DePaul University. In an “unparalleled breach of ethics,” Burke says, McCloud took rough-cut segments of the film and showed them to Nation of Islam officials, who are a subject of the documentary. They threatened to sue.
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“This utterly undermines any journalistic independence,” Burke wrote in an e-mail to WETA officials.
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In an interview, McCloud said she showed a single video frame to a Muslim journalist who was not a Nation of Islam representative.
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However, in a January e-mail, McCloud told Crossroads producers that she had spoken with Nation of Islam representatives and “invited them over to view this section.” She also wrote that they were outraged “and will promptly pursue litigation.”
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Stewart, the WETA executive, said McCloud was admonished for “inappropriate” conduct.-Otherwise, however, Stewart said Crossroads producers have dealt with Islam vs. Islamists in a fair and professional manner.
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Frank Gaffney weighs in on the controversy here. So here’s how it works: the Left can constantly accuse conservatives of hating Arabs & Muslims and portraying them all as terrorists and brutes. But when conservatives try to give voice to Muslims who genuinely are decent, humane, freedom-loving people, it’s silenced. Now that’s a pretty slick little propaganda racket.

Life in Bush’s Amerika of Fear – or – CAIR Needs to Get a Life

Calvin Freiburger bigotry, hate crimes, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Islam, Muslims, political correctness, War on Terror
The horror continues:
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Two hours before the Islamic Center of Clarksville held its 1 p.m. Friday prayer service, called Jummah, a Quran was found vandalized on the front steps.
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The front of the Quran, Islam’s holy book, read “Mohammad pedophile” while an expletive was written inside, smeared under two strips of bacon, according to a Clarksville Police report. The report labeled the incident a hate crime.
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The bacon strips are offensive to Muslims because they are forbidden from eating pork.
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Apparently, CAIR wants the FBI to investigate the case. Last time I checked, the feds were kinda busy with that whole “global movement of Islamic fanatics trying to kill people en masse” thing. I’d rather they didn’t make detours for every vandalism case that comes their way.
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