The Islamist Challenge to the U.S. Constitution

netWMD - The War to Mobilize Democracy ^ | March 21, 2006 | David Kennedy Houck

[Steve_Seattle]

Belated reply: The traditional church/state doctrine allowed government to ban religious activities (e.g., polygamy, animal sacrifice) which contradicted secular laws that were passed for secular purposes. There are now some cracks in that doctrine, however, because I think the courts have now ruled that such things as peyote use in Native American ceremonies is legitimate.

[Steve_Seattle]

"There is no such thing in America as a "state religious monopoly" that needs to be escaped from."

There is a very rigid secularist mentality that is being enforced almost as if it were a religion. It is used - for example - to ban religious references during high school commencement exercises. The Founders would roll over in their graves if they knew the Federal courts were now assuming jurisdiction over the content of speech in public high schools. The application of the First Amendment to the individual states virtually negates the intent of that Amendment, i.e., it gives the Federal government authority in areas where the First Amendment intended to exclude it.

[Sam Cree]

I believe you, but my opinion is that the bail bondsman rules are more an example of the government abusing the Constitution than people signing their rights away. Of course, I guess that since the people elect the congressmen that abuse the Constitution, and elect the presidents who appoint the SC Justices, we can say that in at least a collective sense the people are voluntarily giving up our rights. This view is certainly supported by the fact that most Americans not only don't care, but actively work to give the state more power/reduce their own rights.

But my opinion is still that, in spite of all the above, in spite of the fact that our rights have been drastically eroded by various means, an *individual* can not give up whatever Constitutional rights may remain to him. We may have given up much collectively, but we cannot give up such things on an individual basis.

I will admit, though, that I am not a lawyer or an expert of any kind.

I will cite a personal example.
Some years ago I leased a business property; in the lease were requirements that actually contained the wording that the "lessee agrees to give up any Constitutional rights" that may pertain, and that the lessor reserved the right to use violence if necessary" for the collection of rent. My attorney said not to worry, none of it was legal, you can't give up rights, you just have them, they can't use violence no matter what you sign, it ain't legal.

'Course, violating contracts are not legal either, but perhaps such a contract wouldn't hold water in the first place.

[Racehorse]

Is concern over internal Muslim enclaves justified? On their face, the fundamental principles of the internal Muslim enclave are no more invidious than any other religious enclave. But ideology matters. Many proponents of an Islamic polity promote an ideology at odds with U.S. constitutional jurisprudence and the prohibition against the establishment of a state-sponsored religion.

My reply is, "yes," but with a rather large, "But."

Seems to me that in raising this very genuine alarm, Houck commits the same mistake Samuel Huntington makes:

The persistent inflow of Hispanic immigrants threatens to divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages. Unlike past immigrant groups, Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream U.S. culture, forming instead their own political and linguistic enclaves -- from Los Angeles to Miami -- and rejecting the Anglo-Protestant values that built the American dream. The United States ignores this challenge at its peril.

The Hispanic Challenge
Samuel P. Huntington
Foreign Policy

They both appear to view the face of their respective threats as monolithically bound by a common purpose.

There is certainly much in this article with which I agree.  And, thanks to Houck, there is also much new (to me) and useful information.  But, I don't buy the monolith theory.

In August 2004, a local planning commission in Little Rock, Arkansas, granted The Islamic Center for Human Excellence authorization to build an internal Islamic enclave to include a mosque, a school, and twenty-two homes.  While the imam, Aquil Hamidullah, says his goal is to create "a clean community, free of alcohol, drugs, and free of gangs," the implications for U.S. jurisprudence of this and other internal enclaves are greater: while the Little Rock enclave might prevent the sale of alcohol, can it punish possession and in what manner? Can it force all women, be they residents or visitors, to don Islamic hijab (headscarf)? Such enclaves raise the fundamental questions of when, how, and to what extent religious practice may supersede the U.S. Constitution.

What is the difference between what The Islamic Center for Human Excellence wants to do openly in Arkansas and what the followers of Prophet Warren Jeffs may be doing in Eldorado, Texas?

The secretive sect, whose forebears refused to go along with the Mormons' renunciation of polygamy more than a century ago, has an estimated 10,000 members.

It's based in Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, neighboring communities that straddle a remote stretch of state line, and led by a stern and reclusive prophet named Warren Jeffs who preaches that outsiders are to be shunned, multiple wives are the key to salvation and that "the destructions," or end times, are imminent.

In the past year, Jeffs and his followers have come under heavy pressure there, facing lawsuits and public calls for criminal prosecution of men, including Jeffs, who allegedly have conceived children with underage girls.

The church itself is in turmoil, as Jeffs has excommunicated scores of followers, sometimes reassigning their houses, wives and children to other men. He preaches that Zion lies in Texas, and heavily duns his followers for money.

"They call it the Holy City, and everybody who is worthy can go to Zion, either to visit or to live," said Richard Holm, 52, excommunicated last year.

"The resources of the community are being sucked out. He calls for money regularly. I'm sure that $15 million to $20 million has gone out of there (Colorado City and Hildale) in the last year," said Holm, whose wife and children were given to a younger brother.

The fundamentalists got off on the wrong foot in Texas when they told Doran that the 1,971 acres of rangeland four miles from Eldorado would be used as a corporate hunting retreat.

Some fear polygamists' story will end in Eldorado

Here are some of the splinter sect's other beliefs:

• The church leader is a prophet chosen by God through revelation.
• Men must have at least three wives to get to the celestial kingdom, heaven's highest plane. Marriages are arranged by revelation from the prophet.
• Women go to heaven only if their husbands take them.
• People who leave the church, "apostates," will be more damned than those who chose not to follow the religion.

 Mormon fundamentalists stir suspicion, mistrust in Texas town

Should we now mistrust all Mormons?

According to an article published in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, The Islamic Center for Human Excellence began as a branch of the Nation of Islam. 

Aquil Hamidullah, the imam of Little Rock’s Islamic Center for Human Excellence, believes American Muslims can play a role in ending the religious extremism that led to last month’s bombings in London and Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt. "Some clerics put all their emphasis on those passages, as if the Koran were a manual for war," he said.

Most of the Muslim holy book urges charity and faith. Those are the verses American Muslims can embody, Hamidullah said, and the ones Islamist militants ignore all too often. His mosque is affiliated with the ministry of W. Deen Mohammed, a wholly American Muslim movement that broke away from the Nation of Islam in the 1970s to embrace traditional Islam and its teachings of racial equality.

[. . .]

Before Sept. 11, 2001, relations between recent Muslim immigrants and native-born believers were occasionally strained, said Waheedah Shaheed, a Little Rock Muslim who like Hamidullah converted to the faith. "Before the attacks, sometimes some would make comments that anything not Muslim was haram — that means forbidden," said Shaheed, who grew up in Hot Springs. "But Sept. 11 shocked everyone, Muslims included. They realized they are Americans too, and they were under attack. I think it brought Americans together in a lot of ways."

Muslims condemn terrorism

Compare the above with a March 2006 Nation of Islam reprint of a 1973 article by Elijah Muhammad:

This is a great question. America knows her evil-doings against us; but to repent of it, I doubt it much. She feels that if she tries to make up with us for her evil-doing to us, she would be inviting her disgrace among the nations of the earth.

Her determination is to try and keep the so-called Negroes from believing in the true God, Allah, and the true religion of Islam, which is our salvation. They are using many tricks now to deceive the so-called Negroes. The foolish so-called Negroes are falling for them.

[. . .]

False friendship is not able to stand up for very long; an enemy is just not able to put over false friendship for long. You should be able to know them and their tricks as long as they have been putting them over on you.

According to the Holy Qur’an (60:1), friendship relations with enemies of Islam is forbidden. "O, you who believe, do not take my enemy and your enemy for friends: Would you offer them love while they deny what has come to you of the truth, driving out the apostle and yourselves because you believe in Allah, your Lord?"

In this kind of doings, the foolish so-called Negroes will be trapped. There are even some weak Muslims who ignore this warning. Some even go as far as to marry the enemies of Islam, and they even hate me for teaching the truth of the enemies. But Allah is with me, and I have no right to worry about the doings of the people after knowledge. The enemy does not love either you or me. As the next verse teaches: "If they find you, they will be your enemies, and will stretch forth towards you their hands and their tongues with evil, and they ardently desire that you may disbelieve." "They would slay you with their hands, and speak evil to and of you with their tongues."

You must remember that you do not like one who befriends your enemy. How much does God dislike you for making love with his enemies?

Will America Repent?

For me, the issue is not limited to Islam or Muslims.  The issue is anything that threatens our national identity, and that threat has many faces.  One of those faces showed itself along the Texas-Mexico border in a little town called El Cenizo.

So with little discussion and no dissension, the City Commission voted this month to hold its monthly meetings and all official functions in Spanish.

The decision made this tiny town along the Rio Grande the first to declare an official language other than English. It also put El Cenizo at the center of the debate over government's role in helping - or forcing - immigrants to learn a language other than their own.

Texas town makes Spanish official, stirs war of words

Hope to see many more articles and discussions which follow Houck's lead.

[El Gato]

The Founders would roll over in their graves if they knew the Federal courts were now assuming jurisdiction over the content of speech in public high schools

Probably. However, before they started rolling, they'd ask "What's a public high school". There were no public schools in their day, IIRC.

[the anti-liberal]

I'm glad you both read it and I'm glad you got something from it.

What follows is BetBasoo's response when asked if she had ever responded to his letter:

Carly never responded. But I am sure she reacted to the letter, because -- I cannot prove this but it is extremely coincidental -- HP began an advertising campaign where a cross in the form of a plus sign was used as a symbol. This happened after I published the letter and it spread like wild fire throughout the internet.

You are more than welcome to share this letter with all of your friends.

[the anti-liberal]

This goes very nicely with the letter, btw (imo):

A summary of the first 100 years of Islam, from the islamic server at USC. Highlighted are the few times they veered from the way of peace:

632: Death of the Holy Prophet. Election of Hadrat Abu Bakr as the Caliph. Usamah leads expedition to Syria. Battles of Zu Qissa and Abraq. Battles of Buzakha, Zafar and Naqra. Campaigns against Bani Tamim and Musailima, the Liar.
633: Campaigns in Bahrain, Oman, Mahrah Yemen, and Hadramaut. Raids in Iraq. Battles of Kazima, Mazar, Walaja, Ulleis, Hirah, Anbar, Ein at tamr, Daumatul Jandal and Firaz.
634: Battles of Basra, Damascus and Ajnadin. Death of Hadrat Abu Bakr. Hadrat Umar Farooq becomes the Caliph. Battles of Namaraq and Saqatia.
635: Battle of Bridge. Battle of Buwaib. Conquest of Damascus. Battle of Fahl.
636: Battle of Yermuk. Battle of Qadsiyia. Conquest of Madain.
637: Conquest of Syria. Fall of Jerusalem. Battle of Jalula.
638: Conquest of Jazirah.
639: Conquest of Khuizistan. Advance into Egypt.
640: Capture of the post of Caesaria in Syria. Conquest of Shustar and Jande Sabur in Persia. Battle of Babylon in Egypt.
641: Battle of Nihawand. Conquest Of Alexandria in Egypt.
642: Battle of Rayy in Persia. Conquest of Egypt. Foundation of Fustat.
643: Conquest of Azarbaijan and Tabaristan (Russia).
644: Conquest of Fars, Kerman, Sistan, Mekran and Kharan. Martyrdom of Hadrat Umar. Hadrat Othman becomes the Caliph.
645: Campaigns in Fats.
646: Campaigns in Khurasan, Armeain and Asia Minor.
647: Campaigns in North Africa. Conquest of the island of Cypress.
648: Campaigns against the Byzantines.
651: Naval battle of the Masts against the Byzantines.
652: Discontentment and disaffection against the rule of Hadrat Othman.
656: Martyrdom of Hadrat Othman. Hadrat Ali becomes the Caliph. Battle of the Camel.
657: Hadrat Ali shifts the capital from Madina to Kufa. Battle of Siffin. Arbitration proceedings at Daumaut ul Jandal.
658: Battle of Nahrawan.
659: Conquest of Egypt by Mu'awiyah.
660: Hadrat Ali recaptures Hijaz and Yemen from Mu'awiyah. Mu'awiyah declares himself as the Caliph at Damascus.
661: Martyrdom of Hadrat Ali. Accession of Hadrat Hasan and his abdication. Mu'awiyah becomes the sole Caliph.
662: Khawarij revolts.
666: Raid of Sicily.
670: Advance in North Africa. Uqba b Nafe founds the town of Qairowan in Tunisia. Conquest of Kabul.
672: Capture of the island of Rhodes. Campaigns in Khurasan.
674: The Muslims cross the Oxus. Bukhara becomes a vassal state.
677: Occupation of Sarnarkand and Tirmiz. Siege of Constantinople.
680: Death of Muawiyah. Accession of Yazid. Tragedy of Kerbala and martyrdom of Hadrat Hussain.
682: In North Africa Uqba b Nafe marches to the Atlantic, is ambushed and killed at Biskra. The Muslims evacuate Qairowan and withdraw to Burqa.
683: Death of Yazid. Accession of Mu'awiyah II.
684: Abdullah b Zubair declares himself aS the Caliph at'Makkah. Marwan I becomes the Caliph' at Damascus. Battle of Marj Rahat.
685: Death of Marwan I. Abdul Malik becomes the Caliph at Damascus. Battle of Ain ul Wada.
686: Mukhtar declares himself as the Caliph at Kufa.
687: Battle of Kufa between the forces of Mukhtar and Abdullah b Zubair. Mukhtar killed.
691: Battle of Deir ul Jaliq. Kufa falls to Abdul Malik.
692: The fall of Makkah. Death of Abdullah b Zubair. Abdul Malik becomes the sole Caliph.
695: Khawarij revolts in Jazira and Ahwaz. Battle of the Karun. Campaigns against Kahina in North Africa. The' Muslims once again withdraw to Barqa. The Muslims advance in Transoxiana and occupy Kish.
700: Campaigns against the Berbers in North Africa.
702: Ashath's rebellion in Iraq, battle of Deir ul Jamira.
705: Death of Abdul Malik. Accession of Walid I as Caliph.
711: Conquest of Spain, Sind and Transoxiana.
712: The Muslims advance in Spain, Sind and Transoxiana.
713: Conquest of Multan.
715: Death of Walid I. Accession of Sulaiman.
716: Invasion of Constantinople.
717: Death of Sulaiman. Accession of Umar b Abdul Aziz.
720: Death of Umar b Abdul Aziz. Accession of Yazid II.
724: Death of Yazid II. Accession of Hisham.
725: The Muslims occupy Nimes in France.
732: The battle of Tours in France.

[Lurker]

Your opinion on bondsmen may be due to some misconceptions you have about them. They don't work for the government. Basically they sell insurance policies. That's why a bail bond is properly known as a surety bond.

You basically are buying an insurance policy for the Court. If you don't show up, the bondsman forfeits the entire amount of the policy to the Court. If you abscond, the bondsman has the legal right to see that the surety bond is enforced.

IMO it's a classic case of the free market doing something more efficiently than Government.

The Consitution is there to restrain Government, not to restrain people. People sign away their rights all the time.

In the case that you mentioned where a party to a contract is claiming the right to use violence against you, I would never sign such an instrument. I probably wouldn't use any lawyer who told me 'not to worry about it', either.

Just my two cents.

L

[numberonepal]

That ends that little debate.

I had a History teacher in 5th grade that made us memorize Article VI, Paragraph 2 for a quiz.

[Sam Cree]

Just my 2 cents as well.

I understand that bail bondsmen are not government workers (my sister in law was one for awhile), though I think it could still be argued that they are in a sense, agents of the government. Anyhow, their contracts are a special thing, applied to those who would otherwise be behind bars. I don't think the bail bond thing means that a Muslim American citizen could sign away his consitutional rights permanently in the manner suggested.

I think you are correct that my then attorney shouldn't have so cavalierly let me sign the lease, though I imagine he was right that it wouldn't hold water. But why get near such a thing in the first place? I always thought my landlord was a nice guy, but in retrospect, considering that document, maybe not to everyone.

I do understand that the Constitution is primarily a positive document directed toward the power of government, with the Bill of Rights thrown in to satisfy detractors more than to define our rights.

[Gordongekko909]

I had a Civics teacher in high school that made us memorize the entire Constitution. Not word-for-word, but we just had to know what each part did.

I remember to this day, for example, that the 17th Amendment made Senators popularly elected in all of the states instead of being picked by the state legislatures.

[VOA]

bump

[Lurker]

The passage of the 17th was a very bad thing IMO.

L

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The ACLU won't go after the Muzzies, they are on the same side:

***************************************

There is a book,:

Unholy Alliance : Radical Islam and the American Left (Hardcover)

*******************************

And a review:

****************************************

Communism is dead. Long live Islam!, September 30, 2004

Reviewer:

Kevin Beckman (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews

It sounds absurd: why would Leftists make common cause with a religion that is diametrically opposed to everything the Left stands for? David Horowitz explains that it is really quite logical given the Left's first principle: America is evil and anything or anyone opposed to America is good.

Part I of the book is a brief history of 9/11 through the end of major combat operations in Iraq, and the Left's behavior during this time. Horowitz includes the reaction of Katha Pollitt of The Nation magazine: "The flag stands for vengeance, and jingoism, and war." Anthropology Professor Nicholas De Genova of Columbia University said he hoped for "a million Mogadishus." His colleagues objected, not to the despicable sentiment, but because of the bad publicity it brought their "teach-in." Our tax dollars at work!

Part II is the heart of the book: a history of the American and international Left. Horowitz calls them Neo-Communists or Neocoms. The Neocoms of old believed in the Soviet Union the way religious people believe in God. Those who spied for the USSR didn't see themselves as traitors to their country, but rather loyalists to humanity and an ideal of America that's never existed. When the Soviet Union fell, a few of them stopped for some introspection but most pressed on as if nothing happened. Communist historian Eric Hobsbawm put it nicely: "Without the Revolution, my life and my work are meaningless."

Now that they no longer have to defend an indefensible regime, modern Neocoms are simply nihilists. They know what they oppose but they have no plans for the aftermath of the revolution which they still believe will happen. They don't know what they want, but they know what they hate: the United States, capitalism personified.

So why are they allying with radical Islam? Horowitz says that the Neocoms still believe in Marx's dictum that "religion is the opiate of the masses." Once private property is abolished, the need for religion will vanish, and Islamic radicals will stop being Islamic and radical. The only thing standing in the way is the United States.

Sound insane? It is. They are. I highly recommend this book. Horowitz makes the insanity understandable.