Why Are We So Scared of Offending Muslims?

During the greater part of last week, Slate's sister site On Faith (it is jointly produced by Newsweek and washingtonpost.com, both owned by the Washington Post Co., which also owns Slate) gave itself over to a discussion about the religion of Islam. As usual in such cases, the search for "moderate" versions of this faith was under way before the true argument had even begun. If I were a Muslim myself, I think that this search would be the most "offensive" part of the business. Why must I prove that my deepest belief is compatible with moderation?

Unless I am wrong, a sincere Muslim need only affirm that there is one god, and only one, and that the Prophet Mohammed was his messenger, bringing thereby the final words of God to humanity. Certain practices are supposed to follow this affirmation, including a commitment to pray five times a day, a promise to pay a visit to Mecca if such a trip should be possible, fasting during Ramadan, and a pious vow to give alms to the needy. The existence of djinns, or devils, is hard to disavow because it was affirmed by the prophet. An obligation of jihad is sometimes mentioned, and some quite intelligent people argue about whether "holy war" is meant to mean a personal struggle or a political one. No real Islamic authority exists to decide this question, and those for whom the personal is highly political have recently become rather notorious.

Thus, Islamic belief, however simply or modestly it may be stated, is an extreme position to begin with. No human being can possibly claim to know that there is a God at all, or that there are, or were, any other gods to be repudiated. And when these ontological claims have collided, as they must, with their logical limits, it is even further beyond the cognitive capacity of any person to claim without embarrassment that the lord of creation spoke his ultimate words to an unlettered merchant in seventh-century Arabia. Those who utter such fantastic braggings, however many times a day they do so, can by definition have no idea what they are talking about. (I hasten to add that those who boast of knowing about Moses parting the Red Sea, or about a virgin with a huge tummy, are in exactly the same position.) Finally, it turns out to be impossible to determine whether jihad means more alms-giving or yet more zealous massacre of, say, Shiite Muslims.

Why, then, should we be commanded to "respect" those who insist that they alone know something that is both unknowable and unfalsifiable? Something, furthermore, that can turn in an instant into a license for murder and rape? As one who has occasionally challenged Islamic propaganda in public and been told that I have thereby "insulted 1.5 billion Muslims," I can say what I suspect—which is that there is an unmistakable note of menace behind that claim. No, I do not think for a moment that Mohammed took a "night journey" to Jerusalem on a winged horse. And I do not care if 10 billion people intone the contrary. Nor should I have to. But the plain fact is that the believable threat of violence undergirds the Muslim demand for "respect."

Before me is a recent report that a student at Pace University in New York City has been arrested for a hate crime in consequence of an alleged dumping of the Quran. Nothing repels me more than the burning or desecration of books, and if, for example, this was a volume from a public or university library, I would hope that its mistreatment would constitute a misdemeanor at the very least. But if I choose to spit on a copy of the writings of Ayn Rand or Karl Marx or James Joyce, that is entirely my business. When I check into a hotel room and send my free and unsolicited copy of the Gideon Bible or the Book of Mormon spinning out of the window, I infringe no law, except perhaps the one concerning litter. Why do we not make this distinction in the case of the Quran? We do so simply out of fear, and because the fanatical believers in that particular holy book have proved time and again that they mean business when it comes to intimidation. Surely that should be to their discredit rather than their credit. Should not the "moderate" imams of On Faith have been asked in direct terms whether they are, or are not, negotiating with a gun on the table?

The Pace University incident becomes even more ludicrous and sinister when it is recalled that Islamists are the current leaders in the global book-burning competition. After the rumor of a Quran down the toilet in Guantanamo was irresponsibly spread, a mob in Afghanistan burned down an ancient library that (as President Hamid Karzai pointed out dryly) contained several ancient copies of the same book. Not content with igniting copies of The Satanic Verses, Islamist lynch parties demanded the burning of its author as well. Many distinguished authors, Muslim and non-Muslim, are dead or in hiding because of the words they have put on pages concerning the unbelievable claims of Islam. And it is to appease such a spirit of persecution and intolerance that a student in New York City has been arrested for an expression, however vulgar, of an opinion.

This has to stop, and it has to stop right now. There can be no concession to sharia in the United States. When will we see someone detained, or even cautioned, for advocating the burning of books in the name of God? If the police are honestly interested in this sort of "hate crime," I can help them identify those who spent much of last year uttering physical threats against the republication in this country of some Danish cartoons. In default of impartial prosecution, we have to insist that Muslims take their chance of being upset, just as we who do not subscribe to their arrogant certainties are revolted every day by the hideous behavior of the parties of God.

It is often said that resistance to jihadism only increases the recruitment to it. For all I know, this commonplace observation could be true. But, if so, it must cut both ways. How about reminding the Islamists that, by their mad policy in Kashmir and elsewhere, they have made deadly enemies of a billion Indian Hindus? Is there no danger that the massacre of Iraqi and Lebanese Christians, or the threatened murder of all Jews, will cause an equal and opposite response? Most important of all, what will be said and done by those of us who take no side in filthy religious wars? The enemies of intolerance cannot be tolerant, or neutral, without inviting their own suicide. And the advocates and apologists of bigotry and censorship and suicide-assassination cannot be permitted to take shelter any longer under the umbrella of a pluralism that they openly seek to destroy.

“Democracy and liberalism are not a sufficient defence and this is a fact that the ideologues of ‘freedom’ need, equally, to comprehend. There is a fatal flaw in the liberal mind. Having established, in structure and form [though seldom in substance], a system of governance that corresponds to its conception of democracy, it feels that nothing more needs to be done. The ‘Truths’ of the liberal ideology are, as the American Declaration on the Rights of Man expresses it, ‘Self Evident’. They require no proof, no reiteration, and no defence - certainly no defence by force of arms. Once democracy [or even the ritual of quinquinneal elections] is established, according to liberal mythology, the mystical ‘invisible hand’ keeps everything in place; the ‘superior wisdom of the masses’ ensures order and justice...”. This is just so much rubbish. As we should know after living with falsehoods for fifty years now. Truth does not triumph; unless it has champions to propound it, unless it has armies to defend it.”

so impressive, I just had to see it repeated.

Some people are afraid, others are not. If a person is wrong, they are wrong, no matter which religion they claim.

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”
Winston Churchill

When you come upon a rogue wild animal that indescriminately kills people you KILL it, you don’t say “here kitty, kitty,

Amen Brother.
Now ask why W did not pursue that strategy. We need to step back, regroup, and the next time hit them hard!
No Islam in the 22nd century.

I would like to respond to this thread from the perspective a NCO in the US Army PSYOP field currently in Baghdad.
1. We are not allowed to target the corrupt Iraqi Security Forces. Even though we know they are complicit in IED atacks against us.
2. Iraqi’s have cell phones. On these cell phones they download videos. Not Paris Hilton are some other dingbat, but videos of Sadr and AQI chopping the head off of someone. Recently I saw one where they tortured a teenage girl, then chopped her head off with a sword. It apparantly wasn’t very sharp, it took a few swings. Then they threw cinder blocks on her head and body. Iraqi’s carry stuff like this around, it’s no big deal to them.
3. We are not allowed to target the enemy with effective information. Might upset them. So PSYOP in Iraq has become essentially ‘Tactical Newspaper Delivery Boys’ delivering bundles of Baghdad Now, which most Iraqi’s spit on and don’t read. But it is the status quo.
4. The Iraqi Police and Iraqi Army is so corrupt they are a joke. But the wusses at the big FOB’s say we can’t address that issue...too sensitive. No...too sensitive. Bombs are planted that target us and these so called security forces know who, when, where. They warn the enemy and for all intents and purposes, are the enemy. But we are too PC and weak in leadership to do anything about it.

God Bless and keep you!
I hope you, and your fellow soldiers there, KNOW that we understand what is really happening. We are not fooled, we are not afraid - not all of us- to name our enemy.
I wish two planes had been sent to Iraq, instead of all of you. Two planes with the capability of erasing Iraq and much of what surrounds it. One American life is worth more than all of the followers of Satanic Islam.

Because most that make the decisions in the free world, don’t have enough stones to take care of the threat the only way the radical islamists understand...

There’s enough folks in these conservative forums that would be fine in a the decision making world...

Thats what frightens ordinary people the most...Not the islamic fundamentalist terrorists...

When I check into a hotel room and send my free and unsolicited copy of the Gideon Bible or the Book of Mormon spinning out of the window, I infringe no law,

Whoops! I don't think so. You have just destroyed/stolen private property on top of littering my friend.

The left and libs are afraid of offending Muslims because they are overcompensating. They see the practitioners of Ismal as being somewhat deficient and victims and apply the same courtesies and sympathy that keeps them from insulting and offending the handicapped and disabled.

It is power voting politics too. Dems will take any vote: by fraud, by felon, by Fallujah killers, by fake citizens, by Muslims who are not really American in culture, ethos or mentality. And then there are the PC social commentators who live in those high elite condos with their long pony tails, wire glasses sipping whine and cheese blasting our American culture, democracy, and free enterprise system. Not realizing that they will be killed if the Sharia types ever gain power in this nation.

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