Things to Come

A policy point I would like the administration to adopt is the following:

Break up Saudi Arabia.

Why?

It is clear that radical Islamism is being spread around the world by Saudi petrodollars. This needs to stop.

I was pleased therefore to come across the following "map" outlining one possible future for a remade Middle East. Nobody in official circles admits to supporting it, but it's a more rational setup than the semi-random lines drawn by the post-colonial powers we are stuck with now.

The more I look at it, the more I like it:



Click to enlarge.

Pseudointellectual

Oh look, "Anonymous" has come back with a big long response! The original exchange started here.

And sure wasted a lot of time because its knee-jerk responses of standard cut & paste arguments completely fail to address the points I was making and continue to deliberately misframe the issues.

I'll get into details below, but broadly speaking, some of the typical errors Anonymous makes (which may serve as an object lesson to others) are:

1. A failure to appreciate there are worse things than hypocrisy

2. Contentment with marveling at its own ability to recognize "shades of grey" (congratulations!), but not being able or willing to distinguish between them and take practical action

3. An unwillingness to admit what the logical real-world consequences would be if its anti-Zionist program and its palestinian heroes succeed in their stated aims -- (hint, it would be indistinguishable from the fondest fantasies of the anti-Semites; who's the real Nazi?)

4. A total strawman-conception (out of ignorance or malice?) of the structure and purpose of the Bible

5. A stubborn refusal to see the difference between religious/philosophical doctrines as concepts, versus the actions of organizations of (universally fallible) people; I'll make it easy:

Evil doctrine = higher probability of evil outcome.

Good doctrine = lower probability of evil outcome.

Simple enough for you yet?

6. An inability to distinguish the important differences between the past (where events and people's motives can't harm us anymore), and the present or future (where they can)

7. A stunning blindness to its own anti-religion bigotry and thralldom to leftist religion, complete with its own set of values and virtues (i.e. appeasement, globalism, pacifism, and supporting claims of the weak over the strong regardless of merit), and as a corollary, silence over the blood on the hands of atheist left-wing utopians

These are the marks of the adolescent philosopher who has attempted to obtain a mantle of pseudointellectualism by adopting a ready-made framework of talking points but, alas, without applying critical thought. Thus, it can't respond coherently when its apparently clever (but subtly misframed) arguments are challenged from an unsuspected direction. Anonymous becomes, as its masters desired, one of their Useful Idiots.

But I will pray for your enlightenment, because Jesus loves you.

So, on to a few specifics. You can read the whole tedious screed in its comment here, I'll just refer to representative bits because it's a mountain of garbage in, garbage out.

I'll actually begin with the end, because it's the best part:

You’re a disgusting and ignorant human being and it’s a shame you’ll never realize truly how evil and dangerous people like you are to the survival of this world and the different people in it. And with that, I will never visit your racist and offensive blog again. Cheers.

Oh, that we should be so lucky! And then what, you'll stamp your feet and hold your breath until you turn blue? Stick your fingers in your ears and go la-la-la?

But actually, despite making that pledge, Anonymous, aka Mr. IP-address 66.11.209.xxx, with service provider in NY, has been checking back on this blog for any reply all afternoon! After spending an hour leaving this comment, it was back at 11:04, 3:17, 4:10, 5:04...you get the picture. Must have a masochistic urge to be taken to the woodshed.

Even spent another whole hour poking around the archives for material to criticize!

Do feel free to come back, old chap -- if you have anything new to say.

While I will certainly not even address your disgusting, Custer-esque contempt of American Indians and other City-On-A-Hill superiority complexes present in your response (and perhaps just refer you to Charles C. Mann's book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus),

Because it's a can or worms you'd rather not look too closely at? Watch too many 1970s revisionist made-for-tv movies? I am pleased I succeeded in disgusting and shocking you, for that was the intent of my rhetorical device to demonstrate I am not a slave to PC-taboos. Break those shackles. Reality is not pretty.

I do think there are a great number of issues you raise that warrant a response…even though I know full well that you won’t be moved to consider new ideas or transform into a forward-thinking humanist and will surely continue spouting hatred and bigotry until you die, alone with your god and your anger.

Ah, the highly-evolved lifeform, the forward-thinking humanist! And already fantasizing about my death. Who's the angry one again?

My comment regarding not being a Muslim and therefore not wishing to have a religious discussion was not stated out of any sort of ignorance on the subject. I do feel that any discourse on the contrasting merits of different religions is a dubious enterprise...we might as well discuss which is a better book, The Great Gatsby or The Sun Also Rises. Better yet, let's tussle over the merits of the original Star Wars Trilogy (if I think The Empire Strikes Back is the best one, does that make Jesus love me? Uh oh!).

What a stupid argument! Dolt, can't you see that what people believe about a book like The Sun Also Rises or a movie like Star Wars isn't really going to impact your life? But that what people believe about religion can have a huge effect on your freedoms and whether you live or die?

Your fallback argument is that all religions are equally a threat to you, so you don't care which one might be better or not.

As a survival strategy, that's pretty dumb!

Honestly now, ar eyou saying you can't distinguish between the effect of religion on you if you lived in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan or Bangladesh etc. versus a non-islamic country? Try criticizing religion or being a non-believer over there and report back to me, ok?

The dangers might seem on balance about the same, but only if you bizarrely conflate the past with the present.

Either way, regardless of whether this is stupid argument (which it is), you seem to want to debate Christianity and Islam and try to prove some bogus theory that Jesus-fanatics are better than Mohammed-fanatics. I find it sad and pathetic to try and justify your (or anyone's) way of thinking by citing scripture written thousands of years ago by humans, by the leaders of a cult that holds as much rational credibility as the belief in Zeus, Gilgamesh, Zoroaster, Xenu and the Galactic Confederacy, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Nana Buluku, or Krypton's Almighty Zod.

You forgot the Tooth Fairy!

Again you refuse to see the obvious. Those things you mentioned? Except for Zoroaster, they aren't real and don't exist. Duh!

But Jesus and mohammed existed -- or certainly might as well have, because we have, for a fact, a body of work directly attributed as their words and examples of living.

And this matters, whether or not you accept Divine inspiration for either of them, because lots and lots of people, today, who affect you, act and behave under the influence of those moral principles.

Somehow you think you live in a bubble outside the real world, and your skepticism will protect you from the beliefs (irrational or not) of others.

Guess again.

That you discard it all as equal to the Flying Spaghetti Monster betrays an incredible lack of maturity and depth of thinking.

The claim that certain religions or belief-systems are more violent than others or that promote violence over peace and understanding is absurd, as most religious doctrine present a hypocritical view of the world, one that serves the interest of the writers of the doctrine while condemning those who may not follow orders or have divergent viewpoints. Even to snicker at a pagan moon-idol while exulting almighty Yahweh is, at best, the stupidest thing you could attempt to do.

No, the stupidest thing is to think they are all equal in their effect and impact on you.

And, for those who claim that religions can not be condemned for the actions of people who 'act in the name of god', how else should a man-made belief system be judged if not by its followers? But I suppose that argument only works when it adheres to pro-American, pro-Christian thinking, so as to condemn obvious targets such as Bin Laden while avoiding having to mention Jim Jones, Timothy McVeigh, or David Koresh.

Strawman! I made clear I'm aware of every belief system, somewhere, sometime, being used for ill ends.

Who cares? It's human nature to be rotten and manipulate. You fail to give credit for the influence of good that beliefs have on their followers. You search for any transgression to seize upon and declare your "aha!" of superiority. Your "humanism" isn't guilt-free either, my boy!

Don't you think it odd to assert that all belief systems are exactly, precisely, the same in their outcomes?

I mean come on, the essence of Christianity is The Golden Rule: "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." And it's to be applied according to universal brotherhood to all mankind. If people fail to heed that, is it Jesus' fault?

The essence of islam however is to be good to muslims, and treat the infidel harshly. It's inherently bigoted. Somehow you can't see that.

But, no matter...onto the annoying crux of your argument (and without your obnoxious bold text for righteous emphasis!!)…

To know both the Bible and the Qur’an is to know that both are equally intent on bloodlust as they are on tolerance under the omniscient, benevolent, and omnipresent essence of one true god (wrathful, vengeful, and insecure are traits I can readily identify, but this may offend your pure sensibilities).

Why would I be offended? You miss the whole point of the Bible as the story of the difficult and evolving relationship of mutual understanding between man and God. I am only saddened at your low-level and sophomoric understanding of these texts. You can't distinguish pure history in these texts from their moral imperative teachings!

And guess what, history is bloody -- is studying history therefore dangerous? Can then not history be a tool for misleading people? Since that's an absurd argument, so too is it absurd to think the bloody Biblical Jewish history of the Bronze Age has, or should have, any particular influence on Christian behavior today!

You'd have to think every Christian were a knuckle-dragging retard to worry about that! I suppose you do think that, but it's a sign of your inherent bigotry.

So 4,000 years ago God said to slay the Canaanites or whatnot. So what?

Does God say anything like that today? (Again with your misunderstanding of past versus present!) Are there any logical conclusions I should draw from such a fact? Are there any Canaanites today I might be tempted to attack?

No, no, and no!

And maybe the Canaanites had it coming.

On the other hand, when a text says the sure way to heaven was, is, and always will be, dying as a shahid while killing enemies of the faith during jihad, well that's something entirely different, isn't it? We've still got infidels and Jews around as targets today, don't we?

The old the "Bible is violent!" argument is so inept, it amazes me anyone falls for it.

Both texts are full contradictions, issues that can easily be exploited by those wishing to promote certain beliefs. As David Rodier of American University in Washington, D.C., an expert on the world's religions, states, "If people are intent on using religion to motivate terror or violence, they'll find an excuse there no matter what the actual text says."

But it won't always logically follow or be generally accepted except by a fringe of the mentally ill if the intent of the text isn't really to motivate violence.

But if the intent IS to motivate violence, you'll get followers much more easily!

Quantity seems to not matter to you. A single example of religious justification for violence, whether reasonably warranted or not, is enough to condemn the whole program for you.

You totally neglect the massive works of good that religion, particularly Judeo-Christian religion, has historically inspired.

How convenient.

The Qur’an actually states time and again how tolerant Islam is of other religions and how religion itself is a very personal thing, and that the choice of belief is of one's own concern, not that of anyone else. It stresses its viewpoint that belief is to one's own benefit and that non-belief is a detriment; however, it distances Islam from the notion of religious compulsion.

A LONG section follows detailing the wonderful scriptures in the koran.

Ha! You seem to not really have studied islam at all!

You apparently don't understand that islam is a system of progressive revelation, in which later verses, when they contradict older ones, over-rule them entirely. It's called abrogation.

Those peaceful verses? Abrogated.

Null and void.

Or, understood to not be universally applicable to all mankind.

Oh, the friendly local imams don't tell you that, do they?

Furthermore the koran is not in temporal order, so you wouldn't easily know which came during mohammed's early "peaceful" period when he was weak and gathering followers, and which came later when he went on conquest.

And you only have to look at the common practice throughout officially islamic countries today, where there is indeed compulsion in religion. Not from a few nutcases, but whole countries full of people where the penalty for leaving islam is death. Try bringing a crucifix into Saudi Arabia. Try travelling to Mecca as a non-muslim and see how far you get. And we're talking about today, not the past. It's mainstream, not fringe or abberation. See the difference?

And now, the ridiculous old standby, as we get to what Anonymous thinks is the coup de grace, quoting from the Old Testament!

but what of the Judeo-Christian idea of allowing others to believe in religions different from their own? Let’s take a gander at some of your greatest hits:

For example, your precious Bible states, “One who blasphemes the name of the Lord shall be put to death” (Leviticus 24:16) and it doesn’t stop there…

Yes, more quotes of nastiness from Exodus, Deuteronomy, Leviticus...

My God you're dense!

You don't know the difference between the Old and New Testaments?

I mean, Bronze Age Jewish laws are historically interesting, but what do they have to do with being a Christian? I must have been absent when my Catholic church told me to follow ancient Jewish laws! Such a silly attack!

Exodus is poetic history. So what?

Same with the rest. Jesus didn't write those chapters. God's relationship with man evolved.

But, what else can one expect from a religion full of ridiculous contradictions? (Quick question: God said “Let there be light” on Day One, but waited until Day Four to create the Sun? Smart.)

And the Big Bang preceded star formation, so yeah, that's pretty smart, moron.

I mean, look at what your lord and savior, Jesus Christ has to say about things:

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.” (John 14:27)
“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34)

Stupid attempt at rhetorical games. One statement is a greeting, the other a metaphor.

But then again, the Bible seems not to be clear where it stands on the issue of deeds and faith. James 2:14-1 claims, “What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?...Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead,” while Ephesians 2:8-9 states, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith…not by works.” Maybe your god should get on his own same page.

You're so blinded by your hate that you can't think straight. Any idiot knows the Bible is a collection of separate works by different authors over time. Jesus is not James, and Jesus is not Ephesians. Go get a good Protestant Bible where the actual words attributed to Jesus are printed in Red if you want to know what Christianity is about. All those other chapters are secondary supporting history and poetry.

You'd prefer to mock and jeer to feel better about yourself than to look at it honestly.

Sad.

Then Anonymous gets into statement of the Founding Fathers, because I mentioned John Quincy Adams.

Again Anonymous makes a stupid mistake! Its reading comprehension is nonexistant!

For example:

But it doesn’t stop with doubting Thomas, unfortunately for patriots like you. Check out what James Madison had to say about your lovely belief system: “During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.”

So he's criticizing the legal establishment, he's criticizing the church as it had been instituted by fallible men. So do I!

I don't see criticism of the essential doctrines Christianity, only of attempts to live up to it.

Adams as I quoted was specifically discussing the doctrine of Jesus versus the doctrine of mohammed.

Why you think that doesn't matter is beyond me. I guess it would upset your carefully constructed worldview.

To repeat:

Evil doctrine = higher probability of evil outcome.

Good doctrine = lower probability of evil outcome.

Duh.

But now we get to the heart of the matter:

I think belief in Jehovah, Mohammed, a divine Buddha, Vishnu, and Quetzalcoatl are all equally absurd, which is why it’s frustrating that you saw fit to divert the genesis of this discussion towards that of weighing the merits of two of the world’s major religions rather than actually addressing your misunderstanding of Zionism and its disastrous policies and effects. It’s a pity you have no knowledge or understanding of history and are aware of only the disturbing and perverted propaganda of power-hungry racists. Maybe if you knew about the atrocities of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians during the Arab-Israeli War of 1948 and the subsequent systematic genocide, starvation, and other war-crime fundamentals of the BenGurion/Golda Meir/Ehud Barak/Ariel Sharon school of apartheid.

Ooo, a war had atrocities! I'm so shocked!

Look, when the colonial powers withdrew from the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire, all sorts of new countries had to be formed. Your precious UN even blessed this partition plan. Borders were being moved all over Europe too after the war, with millions of displaced European people who had to get up and leave forever to face the new realities. And also new countries were carved out of the Middle East. That's hardly surprising.

What is surprising is that anyone thought the arabs on the Gaza strip were somehow different enough from the arabs next door in Egypt, or that the arabs on the West Bank of the Jordan were different enough from the arabs in Jordan, that they should have their own special country. Sure arabs were in the area for 1300 years. And there had been Jews there for a lot longer. You're right I don't really care that the Jewish side isn't pure enough for you.

The palestinian side has been even worse and there's no excuse for their behavior. Sneaking into houses to shoot infants in their cribs? Shooting rockets at schools?

I ask you, who "occupied" their territory from 1948 to 1967? Hmmm? Nasty Jews?

No, Egypt and Jordan.

Why didn't they get on with the business of setting up a real country like everyone else in the aftermath of world-changing WW2? They tried -- and failed -- to snuff out Israel in 1948, and should have gotten on with things.

So today, if your palestinian heroes succeed in "anti-Zionism", tell me how that will be, in reality, when really carried out, different from an extermination of the Jews and destruction of Israel as a Jewish state?

But that's what you want, isn't it, my dear Nazi?

I’d happily provide you with news articles, books, and other matter from which to learn the truth about the Palestinian situation if I actually thought you cared at all. But, anyone who equates resistance against the overwhelming military might of a foreign occupation with extremist terrorism based on blanket racism is surely deceiving themselves, or at least allowing themselves to be deceived.

Ah, the venom starts to flow! I'll be happy to provide some of my own resources.

Such lovely people, they sure love their children!

Resistance to governmentally-sanctioned talking points is certainly not a neoconservative strength and I can only assume that fascists like yourself would probably have attacked Munich’s White Rose Society in the early 1940’s for not falling line with the Third Reich at the time.

A truly odd statement to make.

That is the start of an attempt to make "references", you see, to other things I've blogged about. Like I said, Anonymous sure spent a lot of time reading my blog!

But hey, who’s to care about conditions and realities in the West Bank or Gaza Strip, that are far worse than South Africa’s nightmarish Bantustans, when gay people might be getting married somewhere this very minute?! What a travesty! Let’s focus on what’s really important here…which, if I’m to believe your hero Daniel Pipes, is clearly to make sure that no god-fearing, patriotic American has to be burdened with the uncomfortable sight of Arabic writing on a t-shirt, let alone, having Arabic language and culture being taught in a Brooklyn public school. It’s true, there’s really no point in confusing good ol’ Western values and words with those crazy Arab ones, I mean, we’ll just rid ourselves of dangerousness terrorist codes such as “alcohol,” “algebra,” “giraffe,” “magazine,” “admiral,” “mattress,” “sugar”, “lilac,” and let’s be sure to forget the entire concept of zero that’s been secretly infiltrating our defenseless children’s math textbooks for generations now.

The pre-islamic Indian zero, by the way, came to us through the Persians, as the last gasp of a once-great civilization stagnating under its islamic rulers.

I have little else to write to you and your non-existent legion of blog readers.

Well, almost 70,000 hits so far according to the counter, which amounts to about 14 full Roman legions.

To wrap up,

People like you don’t read books, news articles, or see films that are shunned by the likes of such notorious bigots (oh sorry, in your world, you might know them as ‘luminaries’ and ‘soothsayers’) Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, or Ann Coulter. And when you decide that books you disagree with are not worth reading, you might as well save yourself the trouble of rallying against them and just burn them instead.

Again I ask, who's the one filled with hate?

You’re a disgusting and ignorant human being and it’s a shame you’ll never realize truly how evil and dangerous people like you are to the survival of this world and the different people in it. And with that, I will never visit your racist and offensive blog again. Cheers.

And when you do come back, and you will, I'll know, and I'll be laughing at you for your childish ranting!

And in the meantime, I'll be asking Jesus to save your poor bitter black little soul.

Sunt Mala Quae Libas; Ipse Venena Bibas!

Resistance

In seven German cities yesterday, a secret coordinated resistance effort by the "Anonymous group for democratic and free thinking" was revealed. Overnight, they had shrouded in burkas fourteen prominent statues of women, and placed placards on them with the following messages:

Veiling of sculptures and statues in a Germany-wide campaign

On the 18 September 2007, several female statues and sculptures in the cities of Berlin, Braunschweig, Bremen, Hamburg, Cologne, Witten, and Wuppertal are veiled with a Burka and a headscarf.

The aim of this campaign is to point out that the European idea of “unity in variety” is valid in Germany and that democratic and liberal as well as secular thinking is one of the most precious values that is to be protected and to be advocated for.

In a religious system that promotes totalitarian ideas and demands submission of individuals, such an achievement can easily get under pressure. Therefore, there should be a public discussion on whether the European vocabulary and the vocabulary of certain religious systems share a common basis. For instance, the “house of peace” and the “house of war” have a different meaning in Islam and in our understanding. According to the Islamic view, the “house of peace” can only exist where Islam reigns.

To oppose these systems, we refer to the article of the German constitution about the right of an individual to develop individual freedom without violating the freedom of others. This is shown by printed signboard.

Even here in Europe, this value and other values of the German constitution are not accepted as the most precious value by certain continuously growing parallel societies.

With this campaign, we want to counter this development.

Anonymous group for democratic and free thinking

Not exactly the White Rose, but it's a fantastic start!

See their photos here.

An example from the town of Witten:



Open resistance has started!

Racism!

[UPDATE: Even more comments were left below by Anonymous, so see further rebuttal of them here!]

I've been enjoying this dialogue, from the comments to this posting.

The standard talking points are useful to review here, and might get some people thinking:

Anonymous said...
It's a shame you're so racist and can't see the difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. But then again, what else can one expect from someone who equates one of the world's three major religion with Satan-worship and holds another up as the model of justice and tolerance...I suppose bigotry and hatred come easy to people like you. Pity.

11:01 AM, September 13, 2007

My first reply:

RDS said...
Typical leftist tactic, to begin with charges of racism when nothing I've ever said has anything at all to do with race!

It's always the 'progressives' who are hyper race-conscious.

The differences between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism pale in comparison to their similarities, being motivated mainly by an irrational dislike of Jews.

Yes, hatred comes easily to me for things that are objectively evil; what's wrong with you that you excuse it?

You think it's ok to laud as the most perfect of all men a pedophile and rapist of a 9 year old girl (Aisha), who was "surprised" that the "prophet" came to her bed when she was "still with her dolls"? I don't care what society you're talking about, never at any time has it been "normal" to rape pre-pubescent girls -- unless your moon-god says it's ok.

You like pedophiles and their followers?

Shall we get into mohammed's banditry and multiple murders? How about torture -- real torture, not panties on the head? How about using his moon-god to justify breaking apart his family so he could have incestuous sex with his daughter in law?

I don't care what bad things anyone has done in spite of their religion, I care what they do because of it: really follow the words of Jesus and you get lives dedicated to helping the sick and the poor of all races and creeds.

But follow the words of mohammed and you get rape, slavery, and war against the infidel.

So yeah, hatred of that comes easily to me.

Why doesn't it for you?

Can't tell right from wrong? Too scared of being called a racist or bigot to speak the truth? Pity.

8:41 PM, September 13, 2007

Anonymous came back with the predictable litany, which I will respond to piecemeal:

Anonymous said...
Oh right, I forgot that the ethnic cleansing, genocide, and other assorted atrocities during the Inquisition, Crusades, and Holocaust were all unfortunate side-effects of the benevolent alms-giving of your Christ-living brethren.

Where to begin!

First, this ignores my point entirely, that a priori, the mere fat that people who happen to be nominally Christian, or muslim, or Hindu, or white, or purple, or whatever, do bad things, for whatever claimed reason, is entirely uninteresting because we know that from time immemorial man's capacity for evil is unlimited.

What, the world lived in peace and harmony until Christianity came along?

Now, even an atheist should concede that even if religion is hooey, it affects how people think and thus how they act and so religious beliefs have real world consequences. And the question is then: does any particular relgion, on balance, tend to dampen or amplify our worst impulses? And do they tend to encourage, or discourage, our better nature?

Whether or not religion exists at all, people would still find stupid ways to divide the world into "Us" versus "Them", so it's not very useful to simply point the finger at religion (throwing the baby out with the bathwater) and feel morally superior.

That ignores the impact, for example, Christianity had on reducing human sacrifice (more common than most people believe), since God's sacrifice of His own divine Son made all future human sacrifice unnecessary.

It's simple-minded to just assume that all religions are equally useless. Indeed, wouldn't that be highly improbable?

Furthermore, one must ignore that godless, atheistic, rational communism has 100 million corpses on its hands.

Yeah, you don't need religion to find excuses to oppress.

And one relgion encourages slavery, for example, and the other discourages it by preaching universal brotherhood -- whether or not fallible humans always adhere to the message. The most fervent abolitionists were Christians. Muslim arabs ran much of the bulk of the slave trade. Doesn't that make a difference?

One religion teaches we are all dearly beloved children of God, the other that we are allah's slaves. The word islam means "submission" for a reason. The name "Abd'allah" (Abdullah), meaning "slave of allah", is highly popular for a reason.

President John Quincy Adams noted that, of Jesus,

"THE ESSENCE OF THIS DOCTRINE IS, TO EXALT THE SPIRITUAL OVER THE BRUTAL PART OF HIS NATURE." (Adam's capital letters)

But of mohammed,

"THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST: TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE (Adam's capital letters)….

Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. The war is yet flagrant…While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and good will towards men.”

None of that matters?

But to specifics, the Inquisition, though at times abused, actually was a reform that by injecting judicial proceedings actually exonerated many people from baseless charges of witchcraft and thus saved them from irrational mob justice!

...the inquisition was always more lenient than secular authorities and less likely to impose the death penalty. To common people this rather lessened the attraction of reporting neighbours for vindictive reasons. Also, the inquisition had higher standards of evidence which tended to disregard the confessions of witches incriminating each other and inquisitors were markedly sceptical about some of the more fantastic stories of broomsticks and devils. The most famous case involved the release of 1,500 alleged witches held by the Spanish inquisition after an investigation by an inquisitor uncovered massive flaws and inconsistencies in the evidence.

(Sources: pages 260 – 1, Rodney Stark For the Glory of God Princeton 2003; page 113, Peters; see also: Gustav Henningsen The Witches' Advocate: Basque Witchcraft and the Spanish Inquisition (1609-1614), 1980 and Brian P Levack The Witch-hunt in Early Modern Europe Harlow 1995)

The Crusades? A useful counterjihad gone awry, with nothing particularly surprising about it in the context of the times.

And the Holocaust? That old "Hitler was a Christian!" claim? Nazism had elements of pagan Teutonic mysticism, and Hitler rejected his family's Catholicism; indeed, he admired islam!

There are negative statements about Christianity reported by Hitler's intimates, Goebbels, Speer, and Bormann.[24] Joseph Goebbels, for example, notes in a diary entry in 1939: "The Führer is deeply religious, but deeply anti-Christian. He regards Christianity as a symptom of decay." Albert Speer reports a similar statement: “You see, it’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us [Nazis] than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?"[25] ... He was reported to say that religion should die on its own accord.

I love how Anonymous has to retreat to know-nothingness all of a sudden in the face of uncomfortable revelations about islam:

Anonymous said...
I'm not really going to debate the attributes of Islam over any other religion because, well, I'm not a Muslim, and because religion as a whole is very dangerous to open-mindedness and hope, since it emphasizes fear and blind devotion to nonsense in the name of maintaining an insular, homogenous, and altogether irrational lifestyle. But it's good that you think Jesus loves you - congrats on that.

Such attempts at mockery would be more effective perhaps if I were a churchgoer.

And really, isn't that a simpleminded, strawman view of what religion is all about? Through a bigoted double standard, Anonymous found it easy to criticize Christianity specifically, but then refuses to look islam in the eye.

As for islam, by comparison with these terrible sins oddly attributed by Anonymous to Christianity rather than human nature,

More people are killed by Islamists [following the jihad demanded by their god and prophet] each year than in all 350 years of the Spanish Inquisition combined.

Islamic terrorists murder more people every day than the Ku Klux Klan has in the last 50 years.

More civilians were killed by Muslim extremists in two hours on September 11th than in the 36 years of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland.

Jesus loves even you too, by the way; but that must rankle!

But now it's all about Israel and Iraq!

Anonymous said...
The lies you promote with regard to the political situation in Palestine are what really bother me - but it's really a waste of my time to try to educate a war-mongering facist like you who supports apartheid, racial supremacy, and the U.S.-aided slaughter of tnes of thousands of innocent people.

Lies? I present my honest understanding of the facts. If my facts are in error I'm happy to consider corrections. Evidence?

US-aided slaughter of tens of thousands? Please. The Lancet "study" is thoroughly discredited. What, nobody was slaughtered under kind old Uncle Saddam?

As a physicist I tell you that doctors are notoriously bad at statistical analysis. Indeed,

the Lancet authors “cannot reject the null hypothesis that mortality in Iraq is unchanged.”

And now, let's complete the standard "let's hate Western civ" story by bringing in the Native Americans!

Anonymous said...
But I assume that an Ann Coulter-loving "patriot" like yourself probably thinks that the Native Americans had it coming to them, too. I mean, hey, they didn't believe in Jesus either. Idiots.

6:43 PM, September 16, 2007

Oh, that's funny! Yes, they did indeed "have it coming", but not because they didn't believe in Jesus! I'm perfectly willing to accept in the spirit of ecumenicalism that the Great Spirit reflects some aspect or facet of Jehovah. In fact, the beatified Native American, the Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, is one step away from becoming a Catholic Saint.

But the pagan moon-idol known as allah, in spite of deliberate lies to the contrary, is a completely different entity anthropologically, theologically, and psychohistorically.

But I digress.

No, the Native Americans had it coming to them because they were vicious cannibalistic stone-age savages; Thomas Jefferson himself wrote the following, enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, as one of the colonial grievances against King George:

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

You know better than such an eyewitness?

[REMEMBER: please see here for followup and rebuttal to the further comments left below by Anonymous!]

Stop the Madrassa

There's a Saudi-backed publically-funded (by your taxes) islamic school, or madrassa, being set up in New York City.

American Values For Kids wants to stop it. They have such luminaries as Frank Gaffney and Daniel Pipes on the board.

Their goal:

Islamist organizations have worked systematically for years, backed by Saudi wealth, to impose extremist, anti-American, intolerant values in our children's history textbooks, teacher training programs, and now charter schools and Arabic language programs.

Citizens for American Values in Public Education will develop resources and educational materials to help parents and teachers investigate, expose and eliminate that Islamist influence on textbooks, curricula and courses.

Here you can get the Citizen's Guide to Islamist Curricula in Our Public Schools. The Table of Contents:

Why do we need a Citizen’s Guide to Islamist Curricula?
The Problem
“Politically Correct” Myths about Muslim Americans and Arab Americans
The Facts about Arab Americans
The Facts about Muslim Americans
The Facts about Discrimination against Muslim Americans
Textbooks
Teacher Training
Curricula
Charter Schools
Khalil Gibran International Academy
Title VI Reform: More Actual Language Training Is Needed
What can a parent do?
Investigate
Educate:
Advocate:
Resources
Islamist Curricula Organizations
Organizations Investigating and Exposing Islamist Curricula
Reports

Also on board is the Catholic League:

Purpose: To raise serious questions regarding the propriety of opening Khalil Gibran International Academy

Participants: Coalition of New Yorkers across faith communities

When: 12:15 p.m., September 4, 2007

Where: Steps of New York City Hall


Catholic League president Bill Donohue explains why he is joining the rally:

“There are several reasons why the Catholic League is concerned about the founding of Khalil Gibran International Academy. They include:

· The pedagogical necessity of establishing this school.

· The stonewalling by the New York City Department of Education whenever we have sought information about the curriculum, textbooks, school’s advisors, etc.

· The paucity of information about the Association of Muslim American Lawyers, a group that is slated to play an integral role.

· The incredible disparity in the way the New York City Department of Education treats Muslims and Catholics: Arab Muslims not only have a taxpayer-funded school, but the Islamic religious symbol, namely the crescent and star, is permitted in all New York City public schools. However, the Department of Education bars the display of nativity scenes.

· The entire pro-terrorist T-shirt controversy and the initial selection of Debbie Almontaser as the school’s principal.

Do it for the children.

Eager Accomplices

[UPDATE: The Office of Dr. Walid Phares notes an error in the quoted text below; he is an American scholar of Lebanese descent, not a "Lebanese scholar."]

The connections between the left-wing and the jihad are coming into richer focus.

Make a list, prepare a rope:

Without the internet skills and the service of hundreds of Western writers and intellectuals, the Islamists would have much greater difficulty spreading their propaganda to gain the submission of American and European leftist audiences. How important is the left’s servitude to radical Islam?

Jihad vs. McWorld is the name of a March, 1992 essay and a 1996 book published by Benjamin Barber. Barber, a social democratic “third-roader”, argues that both tribal warfare “jihad”, and what he sees as the “threat” of globalism, equally endanger democracy in the post-cold war world. Now, nearly a decade and a half after Barber’s essay appeared in Atlantic Monthly, it appears that leading anti-globalization activists worldwide have stopped equivocating and decided that globalism is the greater threat. They have teamed up with jihad.

Unlike visits to 1980s Sandinista Nicaragua, in-person displays of “solidarity” with Islamists are problematic. As the cases of Nick Berg and Danny Pearl show, Americans who fall into militant Islamist hands are routinely tortured and beheaded. But in the internet age liberals can proffer their rhetorical services to the logos-challenged Islamists on line without ever getting close enough for a scimitar swipe. Dozens of Islamist websites and newspapers now feature a harem of western liberals eagerly displaying their rhetorical skills on behalf of their Muslim masters.

Saudi-owned, Lebanese based Dar al-Hayat is an Arabic newspaper of record. Due to the Arab world’s massive illiteracy and dictatorial regimes, its circulation is only about 110,000. In an August 14 article, writer Jihad el-Khazen explains how they make up for the Islamic world’s literary failings, “…we are not lacking in friends. Our friends around the world have better personal and intellectual reputations than the Israeli 'gang of evil'. I would like to introduce the reader to some names, such as Tariq Ali, John Berger, Noam Chomsky, Eduardo Galeano, Naomi Klein, Harold Pinter, Arundhati Roy, José Saramago and Howard Zinn.” For readers unfamiliar, these are the leading intellectual lights if the international anti-globalization left.

Jihad continues, “Chomsky and his colleagues issued a statement called: 'Israel, Lebanon and Palestine', in which they held Israel fully responsible for the fighting and killings in Palestinian territories. They said that the recent conflict began after Israeli forces abducted two civilians….”

Chomsky’s statement in support of Iran’s ally Hezbollah came in an interview with Kaveh Afrasiabi a former political science professor at Tehran University and a Harvard PhD who serves as the Iranian Shia interlocutor to western liberals and leftists. As such Afrasiabi has been given column space in numerous western publications and a position at the UN. Afrasiabi founded a Massachusetts-based organization called “Global Interfaith Peace” which in 2002 encouraged useful idiots to serve as human shields in Iraq. CNN describes Afrasiabi as, “…a specialist in Iran`s foreign affairs, having done research all over the world, including Harvard and the Center for Strategic Research in Tehran. He is also a friend of (former Iranian) President Khatami.”

At the bottom of the column is a link to Jihad’s blogsite where he explains the interrelationship between action and propaganda: “Following the publication of the Prophet Mohammed cartoons in Denmark, I embarked on an effort, parallel to my daily work, to collect additional information about Israel’s cabal in the US.”

According to the list of articles posted on his website, www.Chomsky.info, Chomsky now writes for Dubai’s Khaleej Times, and Cairo’s al-Ahram Weekly and al-Adab. Since August, 2004 more than half of the Chomsky articles posted on his website were published in Arab newspapers or magazines. Chomsky in 2005 was named “the world’s leading living intellectual” after a poll conducted by the British magazine Prospect. He serves Islam. [and, thus, Satan. -- ed.]

A leading pro-jihad site, Jihad US, (US supposedly stands for “UnSpun”) features predictable jihadi “dispatches from the front” informing readers that, “Every Inch Of Iraq Will Be Covered With US Bodies”, but also the ramblings of Cindy Sheehan and, the “informed comment” of Juan Cole both of which require purchase of a $29.95 Jihad US subscription to read. Asked about the column, Cole replied, “(This is the) first I heard of it. I prefer that sites ask me before mirroring material.” He did not seem particularly upset to find his writings being used to raise money for a pro-decapitation website nor did he indicate he would be taking any steps to have the column removed. Sheehan’s publicist did not respond to a reporter’s emailed query.

A speech, “Our Founders and the unbalance of power” delivered in 2004 by Democrat Vice-President Al Gore to an audience at Georgetown University can also be found buried below links to an article by Osama bin-Laden, a fluff piece honoring, “Prominent Martyrs of Iraq” and an interview with Cheryfa Jamal, wife of a “Toronto 17” terror suspect. Gore’s publicist also did not respond to a reporter’s emailed query.

Under the Jihad US masthead, one side contains “mainstream news” consisting of Western media reports and opinion useful to the jihadi cause. On the other side is “uncensored news” consisting of reports such as, “The Islamic State Of Iraq News Report For The City Of Baghdad” –fifty after action reports on operations allegedly carried out against US forces and Shia civilians in Iraq. Other jihadi after action reports come from Afghanistan, Palestine, Pakistan and Chechnya. A report titled, “Al-Qaeda Fighters Versus The Soldiers Of “Freedom And Democracy” features New Yorker magazine writer Seymour Hersh claiming Iraqi prisoners were sodomized at Abu-Ghraib. An article condemns Hamas for considering the possibility of peace talks with Israel. Jihad US also promulgates the false story of “Fatima” an imaginary female Iraqi prisoner at Abu-Ghraib. Her fake story is a key propaganda device in recruiting assistance for foreign jihadis in Iraq.

American leftists including Cindy Sheehan in August met in Jordan with Iraqi leaders of minor parties some affiliated with the armed resistance. This was their second such meeting.

It is not only left-wing pro-surrender activists who are featured stars of the Islamist propaganda war on the West. Former Reform Party presidential candidate and current CNN commentator Pat Buchanan’s article, “Whose War?” (his answer: the Jews’) is front and center setting the tone on the anti-Semitic, pro-terror website www.NoWarForIsrael.com . There it fits perfectly alongside links to articles from the Holocaust-deniers of the mis-named Institute of Historical Review, and propaganda pieces from “electronic intifada”, JihadUS, the Iranian Islamic Republic News Agency, and numerous articles asserting that Israeli agents conducted the 9-11 attacks, not those poor misunderstood Muslims from al-Qaeda.

Another site, Islam Daily is almost entirely constructed of articles by non-Muslim westerners making the arguments which serve the current needs of Islamism. Islam Daily features dozens of western media commentaries including:
• Bush as Bad as bin Laden? In Some Ways, Worse,
• the latest anti-Semitic ramblings of Justin Raimondo (Israel is more dangerous than Iran) from anti-war.com,
• analysis of the “Angus Reid World Poll” which announces that “People in 13 countries believe the United States is the greatest threat to global stability, and residents of eight countries consider American foreign policy as the most menacing issue to the world…”
• An article by Kay Guinane of “OMB Watch” who shares this piece of genius: “Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, U.S.-based (Muslim) charities have become targets in the government’s war on terror financing. This development makes little sense. U.S. charities support efforts to stop the violence of terrorism, and financing terror is contrary to the sector’s mission of promoting the public good, providing humanitarian relief, protecting human rights and assisting with conflict resolution around the world.”

The pro-terror website www.albasrah.net in between articles celebrating the terrorist ‘resistance’ in Fallujah features photo essays from “Information Clearing House”, an AP article on an alleged US attack on a wedding, an article from the UK Sun and another photo essay by “The March for Justice.” Al Basra dedicates an entire page to “GI Special” propaganda aimed at demoralizing American soldiers and sailors. Most of the propaganda consists of carefully selected news clippings from the American media.

The pro-Saddam Baathist website www.uruknet.info is operated by Italian Orientalist professor Claudio Moffa. It features a series of articles condemning the “lynching of Saddam” (an American term perhaps learned from Saddam’s Democrat attorney, Ramsey Clark, formerly the US Attorney General to President Lyndon Johnson). While most of Saddam’s semi-literate followers could barely put two words together, Italian “documentary” filmmaker Gabrielle Zampani created the eight-part series from her postings on her delicately-named blogsite www.thecatsdream.com. Does she think the head-choppers are going to be interested in feline dream interpretation?

Explaining Zampani’s movie and related book, “American Voices of Dissent” British left Laborite leader Tony Benn says, “…the American left gets no coverage in the press yet remains the hope for America and the world.” Another Saddam lawyer is dual US-Dutch citizen and alleged pacifist Curtis Doebbler whose website announces a course in “Human Rights Law” he is teaching this January at An-Najah National University in the West Bank town of Nablus.

The Chechen Kavkaz Center, when not employing the services of Boris Stomakhin, editor of the monthly Russian newspaper Radikalnaya Politika (Radical Politics), to come up with excuses for the Beslan baby killers, makes room for articles from the UK Guardian (“Victory still Bush’s Iraq Goal” featuring a photo of President Bush sending an appropriate message to the Islamists) and an article on Israeli plans to cleanse Iran of nuclear facilities by UK journalist Jonathan Cook. Kavkaz also features articles by:
• Ousted Democrat Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.
• Kevin Zeese, director of Democracy Rising and a failed Green-Libertarian-Populist candidate for US Senate from Maryland
• Ted Rall, a political cartoonist and columnist who is infamous for calling Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice a “house niggah”, referring to US troops in Iraq as “An Army of Scum” and calling Army Ranger Pat Tillman “idiot” and “sap” after he was killed in Afghanistan. Rall is also a contributor to www.DailyMuslims.com. In an article, “Why America needs Hezbollah” he praises Hezbollah’s clean-up efforts after the latest upsurge in Israeli-Hezbollah fighting writing,” The citizens of New Orleans desperately need Hezbollah's can-do terrorist spirit.”
• Noam Chomsky, in an interesting choice for an Islamist baby-killer website, is given space to (falsely) denounce the UK Guardian for (accurately) reporting that Chomsky asserted that the 1995 Serbian massacre of Muslims at Srebrenica Bosnia was “overstated.” Another article praises Chomsky’s assertion that the US is “the world’s leading terrorist state.” It is lifted from www.Islam-online.net, a site which is in turn littered with more western leftist servants of Islam.
...
[American] Lebanese scholar Walid Phares, after listening to al-Muhajir’s entire message in the original Arabic writes on Counter Terrorism Blog of, “al Qaeda's penetration of American politics.” Says Phares, “Interestingly, the message asks (American) politicians if they will implement their electoral promises to withdraw from Iraq. Al-Muhajir (who is also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri) praises the choices by the voters of the enemy to ‘defeat Bush.’ More interestingly, he uses and American vocabulary by calling the War ‘stupid.’ Usually Jihadists call it evil or infidel and rarely qualify it in secular ‘electoral’ terms. But the most striking words used by a Jihadi commander is ‘lame duck.’ When I heard him uttering the words ‘al-batta al arjaa’ I realized he was off the classical Jihadi speech.” The Islamic website www.al-Qaria.net features UK Respect Party politician and al-Jazeera correspondent Yvonne Ridley warning Muslims to, “Beware of the Happy Clappies (who)… promote an Islam devoid of jihad, shari'ah and khilafah.” The British ex-wife of a PLO Colonel, Ridley was captured by the Taliban while covering the Afghan war in September 2001. She was released days later after promising to read the Koran. She converted to Islam in 2003 and now says, "I was horrible to (my) captors. I spat at them and was rude and refused to eat.”

Another Muslim convert, Seattle-based Al-Muhajabah, the former Laura Poyneer who converted in the late 1990s, operates the website Muslims for Kucinich and the “Clark Blog” she also posts the quaint and formerly de-rigueur statement: “Muslims condemn terrorism”. This makes her propaganda efforts on behalf of surrender-minded Democrats all the more effective, but many Islamic websites have moved beyond that fig-leaf.

Ridley and Poyneer are not the only leftists who have converted to Islam in the wake of terror attacks. Jihad US is operated by Khadija Abdul Qahaar who in a lengthy personal statement describes herself as, “the former Bev Giesbrecht, Canadian publishing entrepreneur and in later years, also web developer…” Her response to the 9-11 attacks was to convert in early 2002 from being a leftist Canadian Bush-hater to Islam. Her website celebrates al-Qaeda and violent jihadists worldwide.

Without the internet skills and the service of hundreds of Western writers and intellectuals, the Islamists would have much greater difficulty spreading their propaganda to gain the submission of American and European leftist audiences. How important is the left’s servitude to radical Islam? Osama bin-Laden explains it best in an intercepted letter to Taliban chief Mullah Omar: “It is obvious that the media war in this century is one of the strongest methods (of struggle). In fact, its ratio may reach 90% of the total preparation for battles.”

While these left-wing writers and intellectuals now openly serve the jihadis, Benjamin Barber confines himself to arguing for American paralysis. In his most recent 2003 book, “Fear’s Empire: War, Terrorism and Democracy in an age of Interdependence”, Barber, still the third-roader, strikes the familiar liberal refrain: fighting terrorists creates terrorism. Wisely he confines himself to normal Democrat Party surrender rhetoric. This keeps him clean enough to serve in a future Democrat Presidential administration while others more completely follow the logic of his positions.

Tip o' the iceberg.

Global Warming RIP

Stick a fork in it:

“Anthropogenic (man-made) global warming bites the dust,” declared astronomer Dr. Ian Wilson after reviewing a new study that has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research, authored by a Brookhaven National Lab scientist, Stephen Schwartz. A former Harvard physicist, Dr. Lubos Motl, said the new study has reduced global warming fear-mongers to “playing the children’s game to scare each other.”

The new research concludes that the Earth’s climate is only about one-third as sensitive to carbon dioxide as a series of reports by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has asserted for years. The IPCC reports have been increasingly dismissed as deliberate distortions of data that amount to little more than propaganda to advance the “global warming” hoax.

Having testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works, paleoclimate scientist Bob Carter noted in a June 18, 2007 essay that global warming has stopped. There has been little, if any, global warming since 1979, a period over which atmospheric CO2 has increased by 17 percent. Thus, the connection between CO2 and “global warming,” the key to the claims that it is occurring and will increase has been proven wrong.

Dr. Roy Spencer, another critic of the global warming hoax, has noted that, “At least 80 percent of the Earth’s natural greenhouse effect is due to water vapor and clouds, and those are largely under the control of precipitation systems.” The computer models used by advocates of global warming have been unable to include the actions and impact of clouds, thus rendering them seriously flawed.

Prior to and during 2007, one research study after another revealed that the central premise of “global warming” lacks any scientific merit. One by Dr. Tim Patterson concluded that, “The earth temperature does respond to the solar cycle as confirmed by numerous studies.” The solar cycle is known to be about eleven years in length and reflects increased or decreased sunspot (magnetic storms) activity. It is the Sun that largely determines the Earth’s temperature, which is never the same throughout the planet, given seasonal and solar changes.

In 2007, meteorologist Anthony Watts revealed that, “The U.S. National Climate Data Center is in the middle of a scandal. Their global observing network, the heart and soul of surface weather measurement, is a disaster.” It had been discovered that many of the measuring stations were placed in locations such as on hot black asphalt, next to trash burn barrels, beside heat exhaust vents, and even attached to hot chimneys and above outdoor grills!

Determining the Earth’s temperature, says Bjarne Andresen, a professor at The Niels Borh Institute, University of Copenhagen, collaborated with two other professors to write an article in Science Daily, saying, “It is impossible to talk about a single temperature for something as complicated as the climate of the Earth.” Indeed, “differences in temperature drive the processes and create the storms, sea currents, thunder, etc. which make up the climate.”

In May 2007, Dr. Reid Bryson, the founding chairman of the Department of Meteorology at the University of Wisconsin, dismissed fears of increased man-made CO2 in the atmosphere. He called the “global warming” argument “absurd.” As to any increase in the Earth’s temperature, he said, “Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting carbon dioxide in the air.”

On August 15, 2007, meteorologist Joseph D’Aleo, the first Director of Meteorology at The Weather Channel and former chairman of the American Meteorological Society’s Committee on Weather Analysis and Forecasting, said, “If the atmosphere was a 100-story building, our annual anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 contribution today would be equivalent to the linoleum on the first floor.”

Even the New York Times has given up:

But the best strategy, he says, is to make the rest of the world as rich as New York, so that people elsewhere can afford to do things like shore up their coastlines and buy air conditioners. He calls Kyoto-style treaties to cut greenhouse-gas emissions a mistake because they cost too much and do too little too late. Even if the United States were to join in the Kyoto treaty, he notes, the cuts in emissions would merely postpone the projected rise in sea level by four years: from 2100 to 2104.

“We could spend all that money to cut emissions and end up with more land flooded next century because people would be poorer,” Dr. Lomborg said as we surveyed Manhattan’s expanded shoreline. “Wealth is a more important factor than sea-level rise in protecting you from the sea. You can draw maps showing 100 million people flooded out of their homes from global warming, but look at what’s happened here in New York. It’s the same story in Denmark and Holland — we’ve been gaining land as the sea rises.”

Dr. Lomborg, who’s best known (and most reviled in some circles) for an earlier book, “The Skeptical Environmentalist,” runs the Copenhagen Consensus Center, which gathers economists to set priorities in tackling global problems. In his new book, he dismisses the Kyoto emissions cuts as a “feel-good” strategy because it sounds virtuous and lets politicians make promises they don’t have to keep.

Independence

Lots of countries seem to be thinking about heading towards independence.

Here is a successful template:

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

The long list of abuses can be read here.

Six Years Later

Lawhawk remembers.

Backlash Begins: Part 2

Besides the Swiss, things are happening in Germany.

Ugly things.

This is what happens when governments refuse to address real problems: people ultimately react.

A whole village in Saxony in the former East Germany, after a festival, chased out foreigners from India (of un-named religion), smashing a restaurant where they had taken refuge, and clashing with 70 police, screaming Auslaender heraus! (Foreigners out!).

And the next day, everyone pulled a Sgt. Schultz: they all reported knowing nothing about what happened.

Spiegel reports:

Racist Manhunt in Small-Town Germany

Singh has hardly slept during the past 40 hours -- ever since the events of Sunday which led to Milbradt's visit and the cop car out front. Events that are hardly imaginable given the peacefulness and the calm that Mügeln exudes.

Early on Sunday morning following the annual Mügeln municipal festival, Singh and seven of his compatriots were pursued across town -- a regular manhunt -- following an apparently harmless jostle on the dance floor. An angry mob made up of dozens of festival-goers chased down the Indians before severely beating them -- shouting racist insults all the while. Six of the pursued made it into Singh's pizzeria and locked themselves in. The rioters kicked in the front and back doors. Windows were smashed and Singh's car was demolished. Only a large squad of 70 policemen was able to force the romping crowd back, although the policemen were themselves attacked using bottles, glasses and benches. The violent rampage left 14 wounded, including four of the attackers, two policemen and all eight Indians.

Singh has no visible injuries, no cuts, scrapes, or black eyes like some of his friends. But he is concerned about further attacks. "I'm afraid," he says. "I'm now the chief reference point for them, after all."

Them -- the rowdies. The neo-Nazis? "I don't know," says Singh. "It all happened so quickly."
...
And even if the instigators of the attack came from outside the town, there is still cause for concern in Mayor Deuse's peaceful hamlet. Locals, it would seem, weren't entirely innocent. Singh, the owner of the pizzeria, says he was threatened by one of his customers shortly before the attack. Another eyewitness claims to have recognized some familiar faces in the angry mob.

Spiral Of Violence

Even worse, several fair visitors are said to have watched the brutal manhunt -- and done nothing to stop it. Some may also have cheered on the attackers while others might have joined in. Was the attack the "will of the people?" It has happened before, albeit on a much more horrifying scale. Fifteen years ago almost to the day, neo-Nazis set fire to a home for asylum seekers in the Eastern German city of Rostock -- and were cheered on by "average citizens." One does not want to imagine what would have happened if the attackers in Mügeln had been armed with Molotov cocktails.

On Monday evening, those few residents of Mügeln who are out and about are tight-lipped. Yes, pretty much the entire town attended the festival. Most say they are appalled. But hardly anyone admits to having seen anything. The older people say they went to bed long before the attack, while younger people ward off the questions they are asked. They have no idea what exactly happened, they say. Neo-Nazis? No, I don't think so. The same remark is made again and again, with minor variations: "We're just a little one-horse town."

Now, the one-horse town has achieved fame all across the country literally overnight. The police do not want to give a definite assessment of the motive behind the orgy of violence for as long as the 15 members of the special investigative team are investigating. The police say they have not yet settled on a xenophobic motivation for the attack.

They have, however, confirmed that attackers chanted "Foreigners Out!" and "The national resistance rules here!"

Any fool can see that Europeans will be forced to fall back on the only thing they know -- populist fascism -- to protect themselves from the nation-destroying antics of the EU superstate communist bureacrats.

Backlash Begins: Part 1

The elites are just making the backlash worse when it comes. Can't they see this?

First, Euroweenies are aghast at Switzerland's new proposal to control crimes by immigrants: throw out the whole family!

They don't like triumphalist minarets sprouting from mosques in their alpine paradise, either.

Switzerland: Europe's heart of darkness?

Switzerland is known as a haven of peace and neutrality. But today it is home to a new extremism that has alarmed the United Nations. Proposals for draconian new laws that target the country's immigrants have been condemned as unjust and racist. A poster campaign, the work of its leading political party, is decried as xenophobic. Has Switzerland become Europe's heart of darkness?

Oh, the horror! The horror!

At first sight, the poster looks like an innocent children's cartoon. Three white sheep stand beside a black sheep. The drawing makes it looks as though the animals are smiling. But then you notice that the three white beasts are standing on the Swiss flag. One of the white sheep is kicking the black one off the flag, with a crafty flick of its back legs.

The poster is, according to the United Nations, the sinister symbol of the rise of a new racism and xenophobia in the heart of one of the world's oldest independent democracies.

A worrying new extremism is on the rise. For the poster – which bears the slogan "For More Security" – is not the work of a fringe neo-Nazi group. It has been conceived – and plastered on to billboards, into newspapers and posted to every home in a direct mailshot – by the Swiss People's Party (the Schweizerische Volkspartei or SVP) which has the largest number of seats in the Swiss parliament and is a member of the country's coalition government.

With a general election due next month, it has launched a twofold campaign which has caused the UN's special rapporteur on racism to ask for an official explanation from the government. The party has launched a campaign to raise the 100,000 signatures necessary to force a referendum to reintroduce into the penal code a measure to allow judges to deport foreigners who commit serious crimes once they have served their jail sentence.

But far more dramatically, it has announced its intention to lay before parliament a law allowing the entire family of a criminal under the age of 18 to be deported as soon as sentence is passed.

It will be the first such law in Europe since the Nazi practice of Sippenhaft – kin liability – whereby relatives of criminals were held responsible for their crimes and punished equally.

The proposal will be a test case not just for Switzerland but for the whole of Europe, where a division between liberal multiculturalism and a conservative isolationism is opening up in political discourse in many countries, the UK included.
...
Dr Schlüer is a small affable man. But if he speaks softly he wields a big stick. The statistics are clear, he said, foreigners are four times more likely to commit crimes than Swiss nationals. "In a suburb of Zürich, a group of youths between 14 and 18 recently raped a 13-year-old girl," he said. "It turned out that all of them were already under investigation for some previous offence. They were all foreigners from the Balkans or Turkey. Their parents said these boys are out of control. We say: 'That's not acceptable. It's your job to control them and if you can't do that you'll have to leave'. It's a punishment everyone understands."

It is far from the party's only controversial idea. Dr Schlüer has launched a campaign for a referendum to ban the building of Muslim minarets. In 2004, the party successfully campaigned for tighter immigration laws using the image of black hands reaching into a pot filled with Swiss passports. And its leading figure, the Justice Minister, Christoph Blocher, has said he wants to soften anti-racism laws because they prevent freedom of speech.

Political opponents say it is all posturing ahead of next month's general election. Though deportation has been dropped from the penal code, it is still in force in administrative law, says Daniel Jositsch, professor of penal law at Zurich University. "At the end of the day, nothing has changed, the criminal is still at the airport and on the plane."

With astute tactics, the SVP referendum restricts itself to symbolic restitution. Its plan to deport entire families has been put forward in parliament where it has little chance of being passed. Still the publicity dividend is the same. And it is all so worrying to human rights campaigners that the UN special rapporteur on racism, Doudou Diène, warned earlier this year that a "racist and xenophobic dynamic" which used to be the province of the far right is now becoming a regular part of the democratic system in Switzerland.

Dr Schlüer shrugged. "He's from Senegal where they have a lot of problems of their own which need to be solved. I don't know why he comes here instead of getting on with that."
...
There is no disguising his suspicion of Islam. He has alarmed many of Switzerland's Muslims (some 4.3 per cent of the 7.5 million population) with his campaign to ban the minaret. "We're not against mosques but the minaret is not mentioned in the Koran or other important Islamic texts. It just symbolises a place where Islamic law is established." And Islamic law, he says, is incompatible with Switzerland's legal system.

To date there are only two mosques in the country with minarets but planners are turning down applications for more, after opinion polls showed almost half the population favours a ban. What is at stake here in Switzerland is not merely a dislike of foreigners or a distrust of Islam but something far more fundamental. It is a clash that goes to the heart of an identity crisis which is there throughout Europe and the US. It is about how we live in a world that has changed radically since the end of the Cold War with the growth of a globalised economy, increased immigration flows, the rise of Islam as an international force and the terrorism of 9/11. Switzerland only illustrates it more graphically than elsewhere.

Lots of sanity coming from the Swiss!

And much hand-wringing from the commies!

Et Tu, Scotland?

With Belgium possibly breaking up, will the UK go the same way?

Will Scotland do a Belgium?

It is not hard to be pretty dismissive of Belgium. As a country it has offered little to the wider world beyond its sickly beer and sicklier chocolate (plus Tintin, to be charitable). Now it appears to be engaged in one of its regular bouts of fratricidal introspection. Never mind “name five famous Belgians”, discovering five of them who like each other seems to be a challenge. As The Times reported on Saturday, there has been no proper national government there for three months and it is being seriously asked whether the place should be split between Flanders and Wallonia, with Brussels becoming a kind of Washington DC for the EU. So it could be Belgium RIP. Will anybody notice?

Which would be a real headscratcher, as I've heard Brussels now has a muslim-majority city council...

And as an aside about local Brussels government,

Freddy Thielemans, the Mayor of Brussels, prohibited a demonstration against the Islamization of Europe, planned to be held next September 11 in front of the European Parliament buildings. Mayor Thielemans is worried that the demonstration will upset the large immigrant population of Brussels. Over half the inhabitants of the Brussels region are of foreign origin, many of them from Morocco. According to the mayor there is a real danger of violence between demonstrators and Muslims living in the neighbourhood. The latter might not tolerate native Europeans protesting against their continent becoming Eurabia.

Thielemans is a member of the Parti Socialiste (PS), a Belgian party which caters for the Muslim population. The PS is the largest party in Brussels, holding 17 of the 47 seats in the city council. 10 of the 17 PS-councillors are Muslims. The PS governs Brussels in a coalition with the Christian-Democrats, who have 11 councillors, of whom 2 are Muslims and 3 are immigrants from Sub-Saharan Africa. Only 13 of the 28 councillors in the governing coalition of the city are native Belgians. Thielemans is the most conspicuous of these. He is an atheist who is fond of Muslims, not because he respects religious people, but because he hates Christians.

But I digress.

Back to Scotland:

Before we scoff, it is worth wondering whether the United Kingdom is destined to share the fate of Belgium, though at the same time barely recognising its own misfortune.

Within the space of a few weeks this year an administration was formed in Northern Ireland that contains Sinn Fein, a party committed to removing Ulster from the UK and merging it with the Republic of Ireland. Soon afterwards the SNP, a party whose purpose is to release Scotland from the UK, was sworn in to head the executive in Edinburgh. Not long after that Labour was compelled to accept a coalition arrangement in Wales with Plaid Cymru, a party with independence as its ultimate objective. If this were a foreign land, these developments would be reported as the death rattle of a nation.

Of the three events, the rise of the SNP is unquestionably the most significant. It is in charge of an administration (albeit a minority one) rather than being a mere junior partner, as are Sinn Fein and Plaid Cymru. Polls in Scotland, furthermore, indicate that – while there is not, at present, a majority for an outright divorce from the UK – there is strong support for a much more open marriage. Alex Salmond, the able, astute and populist First Minister (a sort of Ken McLivingstone but with talent) will not secure a referendum on independence by 2010 as he wants, but if his party is reelected a year after that his mandate for a ballot on Scotland’s future will become undeniable. At the least, his country is likely to emerge as the British equivalent of Quebec; nor is the complete division of Scotland from England – akin to the secession of Slovakia from Czechoslovakia in 1993 – unthinkable.

UK Waking Up?

UK opinion writers seem to be awakening to the fact that their "moderate" muslim population is actually controlled by extremists:

There’s a blurred line between moderate and extremist Muslims

Which of the following do you think is, or are, the more satanic: football, the Royal College of Music, taking the dog for a walk, or Jews? I’m looking for spiritual guidance here, please.

I’ve tried ringing Sheikh Riyadh ul Haq, the eminent Muslim scholar, to find out but no reply. I think, reading between the lines of his various speeches, it’s Jews. But one can’t be sure. For example, “Jews” and “music” are sort of synonymous; music is part of the “satanic” web by which Jews spread their filth through the world, as I am sure you’re aware. So pointless to distinguish between them, really.

Old Riyadh – who used to operate out of Birmingham Central Mosque until an unseemly argument over one of his wives, allegedly – is not just any old Islamic scholar, but perhaps the most important one in Britain today. He is the leading theologian of the Deobandi sect that controls many of Britain’s mosques (charitable institutions subsidised by you and me).

Aside from music, football, walking the dog and Jews, Riyadh also takes a pretty tough stance on Hindus, homosexuals, Christians and immodest women. He’s not going to be a big fan of Joan Rivers, is he?

His favourite things, meanwhile, seem to be long beards, armed jihad, martyrdom, the Muslim Council of Britain (which quite likes him, in return) and marrying lots of women. Does this make him a hardliner?

The same rather pointless dispute was occasioned when Yusuf al Qaradawi, the Egyptian Islamic cleric, was invited here a few years back (at Ken Livingstone’s instigation) to share his views with us all. "Extremist!" came the cry, citing Qaradawi's support for the execution of homosexuals, physical chastisement of women, female circumcision, suicide attacks against Israeli civilians and so on.

However, as Britain’s Muslims pointed out, in the Islamic world Qaradawi is indeed a venerated moderate; he condemned the 9/11 attack, supported the war against the Taliban and while he thinks it’s okay to smack women about a bit when they’ve been stroppy and disobedient, he strongly advises against using a stick to do so. A swift punch or a kick should suffice. Ergo, he is the Roy Jenkins of the Islamic world.

The terms moderate and extremist are not much use to us when considering Islam; they sort of merge with one another. You can be shocked, if you like, that almost half of Britain’s Muslims attend mosques where Riyadh’s views are de jour. But you may then wonder what goes on in the other 50%: do they have “hardliner” mullahs or not?

Incidentally, you can enjoy ul Haq’s lectures by ordering cassettes from online-Islamic-store.com – “your one-stop shop to Islamic shopping”. There’s some useful stuff on how to sneeze in an Islamic manner, too.

Indeed, Turkey's new Prime Minister has declared that the concept of a "moderate" islam is offensive:

"These descriptions are very ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it."

PM Erdogan also objects to the term "islamic terrorism", because such a thing cannot exist. Ha ha. For mroe of his taqiyya (virtuous lying to deceive the infidel), see Daniel Pipes' roundup.

Second National Language

This is just too much!

Dems' bilingual debate 'a historic moment'

In the first TV debate of its kind, questions and answers will be translated as Democratic candidates face off on Univisión.

In an acknowledgment of the explosive growth of Hispanic voters -- more than 16 million will be eligible to cast ballots in next year's election -- all the declared contenders for the Democratic nomination are joining in a debate sponsored by and televised on the Spanish-language network Univisión.

The candidates won't actually be speaking Spanish, a language most of them don't understand. Instead, questions and answers will be simultaneously translated.

What a low pandering stunt.

So are they saying that Hispanic voters don't know English?

The reason there aren't other foreign language debates is because everyone else who came here did so to become an American and learned English.

Anyone who can't understand English is not an American, and shouldn't be voting.

Dennis Kucinich, however, is from another planet, declaring at the debate:

Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich said he would make Spanish a second national language, but no leading candidate was willing to go that far.

Only McCain of the Republicans agreed to a similar Univision offer of a Spanish debate. These Democrats are playing with fire.

That the Democrats participated in the Spanish-language debate is the clearest sign yet of the growing influence of Hispanic voters. The candidates are reaching out to Hispanics with an intensity that speaks to the importance of the nation's largest and fastest-growing minority group in the campaign.

Fastest-growing? I thought the muslims claimed that! Anyway, the security fence should help reduce the speed of that growth to assimilatible levels.

US English should be supported in its efforts to make English the official national language. Their take:

U.S. English, Inc. Chairman Criticizes Spanish Language Presidential Debates

Statement by Mauro E. Mujica

U.S. English, Inc. Chairman Mauro E. Mujica today blasted Univision's plans to conduct presidential debates in Spanish next month. The debates, scheduled for Sept. 9th and 16th, 2007 in Miami, will feature questions and answers in Spanish. Translations in English will be provided for candidates who do not speak Spanish.

"In a land of many languages, but united by English, there is no place for debates in specific foreign languages. The 2008 election is about electing the next President of the United States, not the linguistically divided states.

"While candidates may choose to use foreign languages in select private forums, the limited number of public debates dictates that they be conducted in English so that 95 percent of the population can understand them. By pandering to specific immigrant groups, we are continuing a divisive national trend, asking government and government officials to learn the language of immigrants rather than asking immigrants to learn the language of our country.

"Informed political participation is based on the knowledge of the entire candidate, not a select glimpse of morsels offered in the native language. How is it that the Miss Universe pageant can be conducted in English, but U.S. Presidential election involves Spanish language debates?"

U.S. English, Inc. is the nation's oldest and largest non-partisan citizens' action group dedicated to preserving the unifying role of the English language in the United States. Founded in 1983 by the late Sen. S.I. Hayakawa of California, U.S. English, Inc. (www.usenglish.org) now has more than 1.8 million members.

Get involved!