Beach Blogging
I’m at the beach in Corolla, N.C.. We’re staying at a really nice house, listening to the new Red Hot Chilli Peppers CD while Daughter Number One make lasgna. Spent the day on the beach, braving 20 mph winds, blowing sand and artic cold water. Well I didn’t actually get in the water deeper than shin deep. I like hot weather. It’s definitely n0t hot, unless your’re from well north of the Mason Dixon Line.
Offending the Perpetually Offendable
Don’t normally read TheHuffingtonPost.com but the good guys over at Ace of Spade HQ linked to a post by Sam Harris on the ROP’s reaction to the Geert Wilders’ film Fitna. Wilders is, according to Harris, “a conservative Dutch politician and provocateur, has become the latest projectile in the world’s most important culture war: the zero-sum conflict between civil society and traditional Islam.”
Fitna, or “strife,” in Arabic was “deemed offensive because it juxtaposes images of Muslim violence with passages from the Qur’an. Given that the perpetrators of such violence regularly cite these same passages as justification for their actions, merely depicting this connection in a film would seem uncontroversial. Controversial or not, one surely would expect politicians and journalists in every free society to strenuously defend Wilders’ right to make such a film. But then one would be living on another planet, a planet where people do not happily repudiate their most basic freedoms in the name of “religious sensitivity.”
He goes on to cite several instances, including one involving the publication of his own book where the mere thought of offending the delicate sensibilities of murderous Islamic thugs brought about “prior restraint” or self censorship by people who would otherwise be shouting from the rooftops for free speech.
But later in the piece, he makes an interesting comparison between the ROP and the fundamentalist Morman wackadoos under investigation in Texas.
A point of comparison: The controversy of over Fitna was immediately followed by ubiquitous media coverage of a scandal involving the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS). In Texas, police raided an FLDS compound and took hundreds of women and underage girls into custody to spare them the continued, sacramental predations of their menfolk. While mainstream Mormonism is now granted the deference accorded to all major religions in the United States, its fundamentalist branch, with its commitment to polygamy, spousal abuse, forced marriage, child brides (and, therefore, child rape) is often portrayed in the press as a depraved cult. But one could easily argue that Islam, considered both in the aggregate and in terms of its most negative instances, is far more despicable than fundamentalist Mormonism. The Muslim world can match the FLDS sin for sin–Muslims commonly practice polygamy, forced-marriage (often between underage girls and older men), and wife-beating–but add to these indiscretions the surpassing evils of honor killing, female “circumcision,” widespread support for terrorism, a pornographic fascination with videos showing the butchery of infidels and apostates, a vibrant form of anti-semitism that is explicitly genocidal in its aspirations, and an aptitude for producing children’s books and television programs which exalt suicide-bombing and depict Jews as “apes and pigs.”
Any honest comparison between these two faiths reveals a bizarre double standard in our treatment of religion. We can openly celebrate the marginalization of FLDS men and the rescue of their women and children. But, leaving aside the practical and political impossibility of doing so, could we even allow ourselves to contemplate liberating the women and children of traditional Islam?
Later on he writes:
The connection between the doctrine of Islam and Islamist violence is simply not open to dispute. It’s not that critics of religion like myself speculate that such a connection might exist: the point is that Islamists themselves acknowledge and demonstrate this connection at every opportunity and to deny it is to retreat within a fantasy world of political correctness and religious apology. Many western scholars, like the much admired Karen Armstrong, appear to live in just such a place. All of their talk about how benign Islam “really” is, and about how the problem of fundamentalism exists in all religions, only obfuscates what may be the most pressing issue of our time: Islam, as it is currently understood and practiced by vast numbers of the world’s Muslims, is antithetical to civil society. A recent poll showed that thirty-six percent of British Muslims (ages 16-24) believe that a person should be killed for leaving the faith. Sixty-eight percent of British Muslims feel that their neighbors who insult Islam should be arrested and prosecuted, and seventy-eight percent think that the Danish cartoonists should have been brought to justice. And these are British Muslims.
Someone, I forget who said the U.S. Constitution is not a suicide pact. I am a First Amendment absolutist. I think all speech no matter how obnoxious is protected under our U.S. Constitution. I also think people should be free to practice any religion or no religion as they see fit. I draw the line at pedophilic wackjobs like the Mormon fundamentalists in Texas, however. They can be a weird as they want, but when some old perve decides to marry a 12-year-old, he ought to be hauled off to jail.
But at some point, we have to conclude that any accommodation with Islam is unacceptable and even harmful to the freedoms upon which this country was founded. Islam should not be allowed in the U.S. Period. It is the enemy of the U.S. Constitution. It is the enemy of freedom, especially freedom of conscience and religion. And you cannot have a peaceful coexistence with people who believe it’s not only ok to lie to pacify and decieve an opponent, but that it is the moral and right thing to do.
You cannot compromise with these people, unless the compromise is on their terms and ends with you losing your head. They cannot and should not be allowed in this country nor allowed to practice their religion and spread their hatred.
I wish we had at least one presidential candidate who had the balls to say as much.