Posted on 07/31/2010 1:56:52 PM PDT by markomalley
My college Greek tutor used to tell the story of his college Greek tutor, who would end every class by stepping to the blackboard, writing down two or three points, and saying, Gentlemen, this is the irreducible minimum you should take away from this class.
Let me emulate that example and offer the irreducible minimum you should take away from the news today. Its from the indispensable Andy McCarthy over at National Review Online. His column is called Its about Sharia [1], and the irreducible minimum Id like to highlight is this striking proposition:
Islamism is not a movement to be engaged, it is an enemy to be defeated [1].
Please, commit that to memory. Think of it every time someone tells you that Islam means peace or starts making excuses for the latest chapter in the annals of Islams war against the West.
For thats what were talking about here: Islams war against the West. Its not Islams misuse of commercial airliners, its penchant for sawing off the heads of people they disapprove of, or even its profound lack of sympathy for bacon. No, its Islams fundamental, essential incompatibility with foundational Western values like free speech, the separation of church and state, and equality under the law. Such things are not simply missing from Islam: they are positively repudiated by Islam, a fact that is ingredient in the very word Islam, which, pace the multiculturalists, means not peace but submission, i.e., submission to the will of Allah.
Many well-meaning people, I know, will shudder when they hear this. Islam is a great religion. How could it be fundamentally incompatible with all those good things we like to celebrate in the West? Womens rights, religious toleration, not to mention Chateauneuf-du-Pape and kindred potations. Arent we beyond all that hawkish, divisive talk about the conflict of civilizations? Very possibly if wishes were horses, which they are not; ergo, etc. Cf. Matthew 13:43: He who has ears, let him hear.
Andys column is a gloss on an important speech [2] that Newt Gingrich delivered at the American Enterprise Institute a few days ago. Newts key insight is that we are engaged not in a war against terror but a war against Sharia, i.e., Islamic law. Would that our current masters in Washington had as clear-eyed an appreciation of the nature of the conflict in which we are immersed. Gingrich, Andy writes, is going about the long-overdue business of resetting our understanding of the civilizational jihad that has been waged against the United States for some 31 years. He continues:
The single purpose of this jihad is the imposition of sharia. On that score, Gingrich made two points of surpassing importance. First, some Islamists employ mass-murder attacks while others prefer a gradual march through our institutions our legal, political, academic, and financial systems, as well as our broader culture; the goal of both, though, is the same. The stealth Islamists occasionally feign outrage at the terrorists, but their quarrel is over methodology and pace. Both camps covet the same outcome.
Second, that outcome is the death of freedom. In Islamist ideology, sharia is deemed to be the necessary precondition for Islamicizing a society for Islam is not merely a religious doctrine, but a comprehensive socio-economic and political system. . . .
Sharia, moreover, is anti-equality. It subjugates women and brutally punishes transgressors, particularly homosexuals and apostates. While our law forbids cruel and unusual punishments, Gingrich observed that the brutality in sharia sanctions is not gratuitous, but intentional: It is meant to enforce Allahs will by striking example.
One further point. The main front in the battle between the party of freedom and the party of Jihad is not unfolding in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, or even in the colonized bits of Europe. It is here in the United States. The Ayatollah Khomeini used to refer to America as the Great Satan not because he thought we America was the embodiment of evil (though he may well have thought that, too) but rather because America epitomized everything about the West that tempted good Muslims to abandon that which made them Muslims: their belief in, and adherence to, Sharia, i.e., a view of the world that embraced the will of Allah as the last word about, well, about everything. There is no render unto Caesar that which is Caesars in Islam because Caesar, i.e., the secular realm, has no independent claims at all. Allah is it and Sharia describes the implementation of his law.
Andy McCarthy and Newt are right:
The war is about the survival of Western civilization, and we should make no apologies for the fact that the Wests freedom culture is a Judeo-Christian culture a fact that was unabashedly acknowledged, Gingrich reminded his audience, by FDR and Churchill. To ensure victory in the United States we must, once again, save Europe, where the enemy has advanced markedly. . . .
Our allies are the Muslims who embrace our freedom culture those for whom sharia is a matter of private belief, not public mission. Our enemies are those who want sharia to supplant American law and Western culture. When we call out the latter, and marginalize them, we may finally energize the former.
To which I will only add, Amen.
“All I need to know about Islam I learned on 9-11” bump.
ABSOLUTELY INDEED.
THX THX.
BLESS YOU BRO.
Thanks
ting for later read
THIS DISABLED VET’S RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS IS SOME OF THE MOST IMPRESSIVE AND BALANCED, FACT BASED SUMMARY I’VE EVER COME ACROSS ON 9/11:
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread598768/pg1
bttt
I just finished reading Andy McCarthy’s newbook, “The Grand Jihad, How Islam and the Left Sabotage America”.
This is an essential book for understanding our peril.
Which brings me to the next obvious question, if the truthers are correct, why are you posting on FR? Extremely curious.
Personally, I don’t KNOW
where they are right and where they are wrong nor what %
I just don’t believe much of anything the MSM tells me about much of anything any more.
I’m skeptical we’ll learn the whole truth about 9/11 in our lifetime unless it’s when we graduate from this life and God shows us.
My values are in lock step with FR’s values. That’s why I’m here.
That’s good enough for me!
Thanks for your kind reply.
Thanks for the ping!
Thanks for the ping!
With approximately 1.57 billion Muslims comprising about 23% of the world’s population, we have a lot of work to do.
Now where do we start?
First of all, does *truthers* mean any opinion outside the Official Story put out by our government?
Second, the Official Story put out by our government is like Swiss cheese, full of holes.
Inquiring minds do want to know.
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