Karl Friedrich Lessing (1808–1880)
I honestly don’t much about Pamela Geller or her organization’s ‘Draw the Prophet’ Muhammad contest. Since I have been busy I heard about this story, Texas officer saved lives in shooting outside Muhammad cartoon contest, police say, belatedly. So when I finally got around to reading this editorial, “Extremists collide in Texas: Our view (www.usatoday.com),” I was just barely able to put the controversy in its proper context.
A terrorist slaughter was narrowly averted in Texas on Sunday by a combination of sound planning and blind luck. But the circumstances point to a deeper and sure-to-recur problem — a collision of extremes that can’t be completely controlled in a free society.
On one side in the harrowing incident was the American Freedom Defense Initiative, an anti-Muslim group based in New York with a history of provocation. It invited trouble in the most transparent way possible — by staging a high-profile event to draw cartoons of the prophet Mohammed. The group knew, of course, that such cartoons — gravely offensive to most Muslims — have repeatedly caused mayhem in Europe, most notably in the slaughter of 12 people, including cartoonists and journalists, at the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in January. But AFDI went ahead anyway. (continued here)
Perhaps I have not been paying enough attention, but the reaction of some folks puzzled me.
- Why do journalists equate the “extremism” of drawing pictures of someone who started pushing daisies over a thousand years ago with machine gunning real, live, unarmed citizens?
- When did the corporate news media start considering it extremist to draw pictures that might antagonize anyone?
- The point of the contest was to demonstrate that Muslims have no right to suppress free speech. Nevertheless, two Muslims tried to suppress free speech. So why did so many editorials pretend that is not the core of the problem?
- Instead of linking to American Freedom Defense Initiative‘s website, USA Today linked to the Southern Poverty Law Center‘s hate map. The Southern Poverty Law Center calls organizations who just dare disagree with its policies extremists and hate groups. Why is it okay for that organization to be so provocative?
It use to be that we often spoke of journalistic crusades, but that term, “crusade,” no longer gets much use in the news media. Ostensibly, they don’t want to be insensitive (except to polite folk, who don’t consider it proper to terrorize other people). Are the folks in the corporate news media actually that cowardly? Have we seen the last of the true crusades from the American news media?
Citizen Tom 
Let me see if I can restate your position: Yes indeed, we can all have free speech as long as we don’t offend anyone. And saying something that offends someone violently evil is morally equivalent to “fostering” an international band of craven, murderous maniacs.
Your position, restated or not, strikes me as wrong-headed and servile, born of fear and a desire for self-preservation above liberty, even at your great remove from actual danger. I reject it.
The sole difference between mocking Christianity and Judaism and Buddhism and the Sikh faith and so on versus Islam is that all of those others won’t kill you for it, as a general thing. Islam deserves to be mocked until it grows up and/or weeds out the jihadist (and jihad-supporting) elements that make up too large a portion of its adherents now.
Islam has several types of practitioners, it seems to me:
(A) Those who are nominally Muslims but don’t pay much attention to the faith’s requirements, as they are more completely assimilated into their non-Islamic home countries. They often make good neighbors and good citizens. These are a minority, but evidently a large one in many countries. Tens of percent, in many cases. And generally, these are disinclined to (or cowed from) speaking up about what they might privately consider wrong actions by jihadists. The exceptions to this are rare, and many seeming exceptions are not; these are part of one of the groups below but masquerading as “moderate” Muslims.
(B) Those who are followers, supporting more or less the precepts of Shariah law, but not personally inclined to violence to enforce it, though they accept state or group violence to accomplish that same end. This represents a majority of Muslims world-wide, and this thinking is incompatible with the Constitutional republic and rule of secular law in the United States. Despite Egypt’s close brush with complete jihadist rule in the last few years, majorities in that country still support punishment for leaving Islam, punishment for blasphemy, and that the country must be ruled by Shariah law.
(C) Those who actively promote, encourage, train or knowingly financially support jihadist activity against those who are not followers of their brand of Islam. Not a very large number, but extremely influential. Most of the “500 Most Prominent Muslim Thinkers of the World” produced by the Saudi religious authorities fall into this category. As noted above, some of these (such as Imam Faisul Rauf of “Ground Zero Mosque” fame) present themselves to Western audiences as “moderates” who proclaim that Islam is peaceful and Shariah is compatible with the West (he even did so in a TED talk, piling lie upon lie), while telling Arabic audiences of their successes in advancing the cause of subjugating the infidels.
(D) Active jihadists themselves. Some are in governments, most operate separately and act for the day that they will bring the rest of the world under their rule. Currently, ISIS is the world’s largest D-cell, but every Muslim Brotherhood franchise from Hamas to ISIS to CAIR to al Qaeda to Hezbollah is operated by C and D leaders.
The latter two categories are variously guessed to be around 10% or so of the world’s Muslim population, with a blend from one to the other primarily controlled by personal courage and opportunity.
One group missing from the list, and almost completely missing in practice, are those who are actually devout observant Muslims who nevertheless deny the Qur’an and al-Hadith invocations of Shariah law and jihad. They can only do so through pretending that a reformation of Islam away from violence has already taken place.
Such a reformation would be very difficult for this religion/political system (Islam is both). This is because of the belief by its adherents that the Qur’an is the direct, letter-perfect dictation of Allah through the Angel Gabriel (Jabreel in Arabic) and that the traditions in al-Hadith are the validated words and actions of the world’s only Perfect Man and Holy Example for All Muslims and All the World.
Two decades ago, in the 1990s, there were a number of clerics truly advocating peaceful coexistence and exactly the needed reformation of the faith. These were slaughtered, in a series of assassinations spanning the Middle East and extending to Western and Asian countries as well. Now, few would dare speak of such a thing.
You see, it’s very important not to be a “provocateur.”
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
Keith – what the devil does this have to do with global warming and where the hell is Tildeb? By the way, your point about Mary/Miriam is a good one. My crude analogy could have used some refinement. But, the principle stands: there are things in most religions that its adherents view as sacred and which excite passionate response if they are viewed as being ridiculed or demeaned. Artistic depictions of the Prophet Mohammed are among these. I also agree with your conclusion (up the comment thread) that we should welcome Muslim immigrants and encourage assimilation.
However, you grossly misstate my position re Geller and others like her. Liberty is an important value to me. On the other hand, I don’t like to engage in activity that strengthens the enemies of liberty. Free speech is a good thing, of course. Those who practice it, however, needn’t do so in ways that strengthen its enemies.
My notion of free speech doesn’t include walking down the street and saying offensive things to passers-by in order to start a fist-fight.
@scout, who wrote:
And anyone who expresses such a dispute is marked for death by the one “modern” religion that will kill you over questioning its precepts.
And anyone who expresses such disdain for sacred Muslim notions is marked for death by the one “modern” religion that will kill you over such things.
You, like so many other leftist Western apologists, are quick to spread the blame to “most religions” so that we are not looking directly at Islam as the source of the problem. This provides the cover the jihadists need, so that people concentrate their criticism on Pam Geller and company.
Pam Geller is wise to direct attention to the one problematic modern politico-religious system, but you say she “has no judgment.” She is acting in defense of liberty against the jihadists by refusing to submit to them and encouraging others to stand firm, but you say she is “strengthening the enemies of liberty.”
Islam is not a bacteria culture with a limited stimulus-response repertoire. It can change. It must change, or it will be forever bent upon the objective of destroying the Western liberty which is explicitly prohibited under Islamic law. So we have two choices: Force Islam to recognize and reform its factions that want to destroy the West, or bow down as you suggest, submit, kneel, and try to avoid irritating them, because irritating them “strengthens” them somehow.
Trying to avoid irritating the jihadists is doomed to failure. So we must help them to become modern, like Christianity, and withstand Western liberty (including free speech) without resorting to violent attack and punishment of the irritants. All other significant religions have made this transition. Geller and the AFDI are in the vanguard now demonstrating that Islam has a long way to go. That demonstration is necessary.
You, with your approach of “let’s not annoy them and maybe they’ll eat us last,” are part of the problem. The jihadists rightly see you and your ilk as strengthening and encouraging their cause, and submitting to their rule by avoiding this ‘offense.” But of course, it isn’t enough for them, so your submission will need to grow ever larger in scope.
Or you can join Gellar and others and stand up for liberty. I know where you stand … or kneel, in this case.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
@scout/novascout, who wrote:
You seem to have forgotten who you are (you’re randomly swapping names again), where you are, and what you read. You are the only one talking about global warming on this post, rather out of the blue. The commenter “tildeb” may be off congratulating himself for “vanquishing” his hated, evil enemies; that’s his show.
But if you need more support from your fellow leftists, by all means go get him. Perhaps he will join you in advising that we should not offend those who slaughter homosexuals and kill and oppress women on a regular basis. You can commiserate on the bad ‘judgment’ of criticizing murderous genocidal primitives. Maybe the two of you can join forces against what you consider truly evil, such as desiring not to be forced to cater a same-sex wedding, or desiring not to be forced to pay for someone’s abortions.
Maybe your comment above is merely part of your usual approach of trying to create a distraction, just this time even more ham-handed than usual. I dealt with it separately here. Frankly, you’re almost fun to watch.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
Geller can say anything she wants. She has no judgement, apparently, but there are a lot of people similarly afflicted. But she does feed an ISIS/Al Quaeda narrative rather nicely. I have no more use for her than I do for others who foster those murderers.
There was a very thoughtful piece in the Washington Post today by conservative columnist Michael Gerson. If I were more technically adept, I’d link it here. Why don’t you put it up as a post, Tom, and let’s have a discussion about it.
There is some scholarly dispute as to whether the common perception within and without the Muslim world that artistic depictions of God, Man and the Prophet Muhammed are blasphemy. However, the reality is that a very considerable proportion of the Islamic world believes this to be the case, so that a cartoon-drawing contest of Muhammed is the Islamic cultural equivalent of a contest among Muslims to create pornographic images of the Virgin Mary ardently welcoming the Sixth Fleet during a port call. It is all arbitrary and irrational if one is not a believer, but these are matters of faith, the feelings are deeply felt and stir rough emotions in religious circles.
Ms. Geller is a provocateur. She would not claim otherwise, although I’m sure she thinks her provocations serve a useful purpose. It seems very clear to me, at least, that she and her enthusiasts are aiding and abetting ISIS and other extreme Muslim groups in that they play directly into the propaganda machine of these murderous groups that the West is lawless, Godless, undisciplined, and blasphemous. This is exactly the pitch that attracts aimless young people who feel marginalized and oppressed in a country like ours, a country that should be a garden spot for any religious adherent who simply wants to worship. Geller and her easily manipulated followers give strength to Islamic extremists. She would be far more productive if she were to foster programs intended to welcome Muslims to this country, to promote interfaith exchanges, and to prove ISIS wrong, rather than to prove them sort-of right.
@Scout
When I replied to scatterwisdom, I responded to much the same points.
I have no idea what kind of artwork Geller’s bunch generated. Shrug! Given some of the stuff our own government has FUNDED using freedom of speech as an excuse, I don’t much care. At least Geller and company used private money.
To silence Geller, we would have to violate our own laws and moral code. Do you really think that is an acceptable option? Then some people are going to say things we wish they would not say. We can disagree, but we cannot stop them.
On the other hand, Islamists don’t need an excuse for terrorism, and that behavior is far worst, and we can rightly prosecute such behavior. In fact, when we focus on Geller’s indiscretion instead of the barbarity of the terrorists, we serve up far more propaganda for the terrorists than they are capable of generating on their own. That’s as silly as blaming a lamb for a wolf behaving like a wolf.
Muslim terrorists are going to attack somebody. The important question is what do we do about it.
Well, the lamb is made of meat, you know. It is her own fault.
Would this mean that wolves who are good at predation have chops?
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
@Scout, who wrote:
In fact, the US National Endowment for the Arts would fund such a thing, and has already funded works similarly vile with regard to the Virgin Mary.
But Islamic countries, since Islamic tradition actually includes the character of Mary (as Miriam), are more inclined to hold contests for cartoons depicting Jews (and Westerners in general) as pigs, apes, snakes, octopuses, and other creatures engaged in various evil activities. Oh, and the Holocaust, to such Islamic authorities, never happened.
Note that current contests are being portrayed as being “in response to the offensive Charlie Hebdo works” — which is chronologically incorrect, as the contests have been running for many years. This one is from 2006.
You can strive mightily for your false equivalencies, but the jihadists you are defending are overriding all such efforts.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
I look at this incident as a foolish decision made to provoke violence in the USA. In your example of a wolf and lamb, the lamb wandered astray instead of intentionally walking up to the hungry wolf and daring the wolf to eat him. Muslims are devout followers of a religious belief to kill anyone who disagrees with their religious beliefs. That is contrary to our Constitutional beliefs in free speech. and laws not to kill.
We know that and if we want to provoke them to kill us, they will do just that. In my opinion, since we know Muslims do not believe in our laws and morals, it would be wise for our government to not grant citizenship to any Muslims because of their contrary religious beliefs .
Regards and goodwill blogging.
@scatterwisdom
What if a woman decides to dress to attract the attention of the opposite sex? What if that scantily dressed female gets raped? Do we blame the woman, or do we pity the woman and lock up the rapist?
Geller’s American Freedom Defense Initiative may be a misguided bunch. I don’t know much about them, but I don’t get much upset by their behavior. The terrorists (and the rapists) are already out there. If, to make a point (Muslim terrorists intend to kill us), Geller’s bunch wants to serve as bait for Muslim terrorists, I think that’s easier to deal with than waiting for those same terrorists going after random targets.
Consider again what you said.
We should not be changing our behavior just because we fear potential terrorists. The best solution is the one you endorse. We need to keep such people out of our country.
I believe you may be overlooking risk factor. If for example, a woman wants to dress provocatively for whatever her reason, it is her right. However, if she does that and then walks down a dark street by herself in a dangerous neighborhood, she is taking a foolish risk of being raped.by someone who has no morals or belief in laws or rights of woman to dress provocatively.
If we know Muslims have religious beliefs that make them believe it is their religious duty to kill someone that does not follow their beliefs, we risk being killed if we act provocatively.
Risk factors are things that a wise person should consider to avoid being a fool.
In my opinion, our Government leaders are foolishly increasing the risk of harm to American citizens by allowing Muslims to become citizens. You cannot become a citizen if you state you are a member of a list of prohibited known organizations.Until Muslims change their religious beliefs decreed by Mohammed that states to kill infidels, they should not be allowed into the USA.
In my opinion, this is a wise way to reduce the risk factors.of being killed by a Muslim.in the USA.
Regards and goodwilll blogging.
@scatterwisdom, who wrote:
“Provocative” is in the eye of the beholder. We are, almost all of us in the US, acting provocatively in the eyes of jihadists. This is part of the jihadist (Muslim Brotherhood and its franchises) core belief system, and is laid out in detail in Qutb’s Milestones. Such people, convinced that we need to die or be utterly subjugated, are not kept away by “not being allowed” to come into the country.
Moreover, Muslims should be welcomed in the US and helped to assimilate. It is the Islamist infrastructure, much of it in the US funded by Saudi Arabia, that opposes such assimilation and should actively be thwarted and ejected.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
I am not sure what you mean why anyone should be welcomed and helped to assimilate into the US if they pose a risk to any American. No one should come here for any reason if they pose a risk to us in my opinion.
I never said that, and you re-wrote my statement to get that out of it. Please be careful.
Instead, I asserted that “Muslims” should be encouraged to assimilate. Not all Muslims, and in fact not even a majority, are a source of risk to the US, but they can be if they fail to assimilate. Assimilation, i.e., becoming an active participant of American society and culture, defangs the violence of Islam. It turns would-be jihadists (who are radicalized by the Islamist infrastructure I mentioned, in the US and elsewhere) into citizens who are happy to answer that they are Americans who are also Muslims. Compare this to the large number in the UK, for example, famously answering that they were not British, they were Muslims. This is an active process that must be supported, and required, by authorities at all levels.
Muslims of the “A” group I mentioned are no threat, and we need their help to reform Islam into a religion of peace, which it has not been up to now. But we should cast a clear eye on the radical, jihad-indoctrinating mosques of which there are far too many (evidently a majority) in the US, and be prepared to deal with them by shutting them down until and unless they reform. There is where the problem really festers. Who would have thought that we would have hotbeds of jihadism in Norman, Oklahoma, for example. But we do indeed, and in many other places as well.
During the World Wars of the last century that were launched from Germany, the US German beer halls suddenly became “Swiss saloons” and similar dodges, as those American Germans were generally actively against what their ancestral country was doing, and their customers were as well. It was a PR move, and many enlisted and became fierce warriors defending America. Something like this needs to happen with the mosques and madrassas in the US that are currently teaching hate. They need to be interrupted, reformed, and their current members encouraged to become Americans instead.
Incidentally, that same assimilation process would be quite appropriate to apply to all immigrants, not to mention to black youth in the United States who currently feel that it is important to keep a culture separate from America. This separation causes them great harm at all levels. A black man arriving from Africa penniless, has a tremendously better chance of financial and cultural success in the US than one who was born in a large US city. The idea is not to stamp out other cultures, but to instill the realization that adopting American culture and values (perhaps not the current ones) leads to prosperity, dignity and individual liberty. And that these things are desirable, which is itself against some of the other cultures including Islam. American culture is values, language, history, philosophy, classical study … and a whole lot of current college professors and schoolteachers replaced, because they are indeed part of the problem.
Great majorities of Americans, including majorities of all immigrants (and a bare majority of blacks) support such assimilation. But right now, we need to use this as a tool in the Jihadist War that we are now engaged in. Our current administration is currently breaking and dulling the tools we already have. It is hard to credit logical reasons why this is true, but the truth of it is amply evidenced.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
Kieth
Perhaps I should restate my question. You said Muslims should be welcomed in the USA and helped to assimilate. I questioned why anyone should be welcomed and helped to assimilate into the US if they pose a risk to any American.
You gave a good explanation of the different types of Muslim beliefs. However, the fact remains that Muslim religious beliefs state they should kill infidels. This belief poses a risk to Americans and because they pose a risk, Muslims should not be allowed to immigrate into the US
It seems foolish to me for Congress to risk American lives in hopes that Muslims will assimilate and change their religious beliefs. Especially now because the risks are even higher because of the possible use of nuclear devices being used someday by terrorists in the USA.
Also the fact that we are now bombing and warring with Muslims factions, whether we consider them terrorists or any other identification of Muslims seeking power and using jihad propaganda to incite hatred to kill the infidels, that being anyone who is not a Muslim, or a Muslim of a different sect who does not agree with them.
Check out a previous post on this subject if you are interested in the foolishness of someone taking a oath of citizenship and/or a religious oath that conflict with laws in a country.
https://rudymartinka.wordpress.com/2015/01/16/king-solomons-advice-on-oaths-to-god-and-laws-of-man/
Regards and goodwill blogging.
You state that “Muslims” should be encouraged to assimilate. Not all Muslims, and in fact not even a majority, are a source of risk to the US, but they can be if they fail to assimilate. Assimilation, i.e., becoming an active participant of American society and culture, defangs the violence of Islam. It turns would-be jihadists (who are radicalized by the Islamist infrastructure I mentioned, in the US and elsewhere) into citizens who are happy to answer that they are Americans who are also Muslims.
Blacks, Hispanics, Caucasians, Asians, all can be sources of risk to US citizens if they become part of our country without accepting a role of joining our culture.
We are at war with jihadists. There are millions of them. We are not at war with a billion-plus Muslims, and we need as many of them as possible to help us educate jihadism out of existence, the only long-term solution.
I have tried to explain, and not been successful. Consider that the primary reason the Palestine portion of Israel continues to produce jihadists is that they are trained from kindergarten to become jihadists. Their schoolbooks, children’s shows, videos and supporting material are all geared to this end. Change that, and the supply of jihadists will dry up.
It will take years. Unfortunately, something like it is going on in the US as well. And changing it in most places is going to take the active cooperation and leadership of Muslims who support Western (and specifically American) ideals. We will have a hard time enlisting their help if we disallow all Islamic immigrants. This would necessarily imply forced deportation of the few million Muslims who live in the US currently, a portion of whom have American families going back a century or two. (Quite a few of the slaves were Muslim, for example.)
And what do we do with the Nation of Islam folks. In a poll a decade ago, 38% of them felt that Usama bin Ladin’s actions on 9/11 were justified. They would obviously be ejected and deported under the logic you propose. And I understand it … but (1) it is not practical, and (2) the result produces a new sort of country that has different values from the ones you and I defend.
And do we go after atheists also, like Timothy McVeigh? And, incidentally, like me? To which country would you deport me to? (Some of my ancestors have been here since the 1700s, and some for twenty thousand years. I am part Scottish, part English, three kinds of Native American, part German, part Irish, part French … apparently my mother got around quite a bit.)
No, I think we have to apply a bit of discernment, and discriminate between the “mostly harmless” Type A nominally Muslim folks and the potential or likely jihadists and jihadist supporters coming in. At the same time, we must do the best we can to stop encouraging such people that are already here, while changing the education process at all levels including into adulthood to give each current and potential citizen the best chance to be a valuable, productive, and satisfied member of the American society.
This is the key point, to my mind: The problem with the “importing diversity (and Democrat voters)” campaign Obama is on is not that it produces a minority of whites, it is that it produces a minority of Americans. We need to help them become Americans, and then the plan will backfire on the Left while solving the issues you and I are concerned about.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
I used a poor choice of words here:
It would be better to have said “stop the mosques and schools who encourage such people that are already here to become or support jihadists.”
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
If I understand your statements. we both seem to agree that we have a number of people living in the US, both legal and illegal, who for different reasons are here for other reasons than pledging their allegiance to the flag of the USA. So because they are here, it is now Americans responsibility to welcome them so they will not kill us. Sad but true..
Wise or foolish? We have a problem and lets hope for the best that in time everything will turn out for the best.
I say bah humbug. We have a problem and Congress should do something instead of burying their heads in the sand or catering to everyone in order to get elected again.
We are at war in both the Middle East and at home in our streets Congress. It is time to do something about the oaths you took when you were sworn into office.
As for a lot of comatose American voters, in my opinion, it is time to wake up. Wake up and get involved. , We need to help out our country. At lthe very least, complain to the representatives you elected and if they do not respond, DONT VOTE FOR THEM AGAIN..
Regards and goodwill blogging.
.
@scatterwisdom, who wrote:
You included this in a restatement of things we agree on, but I’d like to amply a bit, because your use of “welcome” in this construction sounds passive.
What I propose is an active process of teaching — history, virtue, language, culture — encouraged at all levels of government, and by nonprofits, many of whom try this now with little support. The goal is to get these folks (not just immigrants!) assimilated into the American culture of liberty and virtue that has made the country extraordinary, despite the negative effects of progressive policies.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
i agree we need to teach both immigrants and ourselves to assimilate. The problem is that it takes a long long time to assimilate, hundreds of years.
In my opinion we must first control and manage immigration to allow time for assimilation.
We also need to make it perfectly clear to everyone that we are proud to be Americans.
As for control, because the faucet is broken we need to shut off the main valve until it is repaired, If you get the jest of my analogy, we are flooding in an average one million legal immigrants that are currently being allowed each year to become citizens in our nation. Who knows how many illegal are also streaming in. No one ,because we have an inept bunch of plumbers in Washington who don’t know how to fix the faucet.
Because we are free to express certain ideas are we then ok to do so regardless if we know the resulting “insult” may lead to violent reactions? -mike
When we are dealing with terrorists, no insult is required.
The wolf ate the lamb because the wolf was hungry. Without a shepherd to intervene, the lamb’s fate was assured.
To add insult to injury, bullies want their victims to believe the violence they do is the fault of the victim, but the problem here is Islam. If you are not a Muslim, the fact you exist is an insult to Allah. We must either actively resist or submit. The Islamists will not allow us any choice in between.
The short answer is “yes.” The distinction between inciting your followers to attack someone versus doing something that someone else may find offensive is well established in jurisprudence. An ideologue such as Supreme Court Justice Breyer could easily miss that point, however.
But of course, it is always dangerous to irritate a tyrant or tyrannical group. Best to lie low and keep from being offensive. Some, it seems to me, strive to be sheep who desire, and deserve, Earthly shepherds. These shepherds inevitably evolve into wolves; such is the way of history.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
Reblogged this on The Gospel of Barney and commented:
Culture War
Of course they did!
Reblogged this on A Conservative Christian Man.