Older stuff- links, quotes, quips, and sometimes pointed graphics can be found by scrolling back from these two posts:
There is some good material in those posts that raises a lot of uncomfortable questions that everyone ought to be asking, and probably will once the “new” wears off, and we are stuck with four ( more likely eight, since 95% of the news & entertainment media are in his pocket ) years of a typical corrupt Chicago Political Machine Politician trying to jerk the whole country in one direction and then the next.
”People get the kind of government they want...
...and deserve?”
Don't say you weren't warned- we tried to tell you...
We did everything we could, and our state went for the Old Guy & the Naughty Librarian, but too many other voters were made stupid by the TV and public schools for it to matter.
We're in a Hell of a mess, and the worst thing is, "we"- the collective we, not you & I-- got us here.
Is Obama really the Abyss...
I like to make points with humorous graphics- this one sums it up as well as any:
Then, in a nutshell, "everything I see going bad with all this hopi- changi- stuff The One is peddling-- forced labor, censorship, spin, and pure mean-spirited rudness:
The Leader is not legitimate--behold a nation of The Leader, not of law.
November 24, 2008
SHOPZILLA: Consumers Prefer Cyber Monday to Black Friday. I expect to be doing nearly all my shopping online — but the sales look to be starting early.
Posted at 5:46 pm by Glenn Reynolds 
INTERESTED IN PREDICTION MARKETS? There will be a prediction markets conference in San Francisco this January 23.
Posted at 5:12 pm by Glenn Reynolds
WELL, THIS IS OKAY WITH ME: Black Friday Sales Intensify in Downturn. Retail Support Brigades, take note!
Posted at 4:57 pm by Glenn Reynolds
DEFENDANTS GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS in Holy Land Foundation Trial. “A jury on Monday determined that the Holy Land Foundation and five men who worked with the Muslim charity were guilty of three dozen counts related to the illegal funneling of at least $12 million to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.”
Posted at 4:50 pm by Glenn Reynolds
Posted at 4:11 pm by Glenn Reynolds
A BUNCH OF Thanksgiving menu ideas. Some involve bacon!
By the way, I ordered a few jars of the Baconnaise that I mentioned a while back, and it’s arrived. I’ll try to post a report after giving it a try. . . .
Posted at 3:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds
FREE ECONOMIC ADVICE FOR THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: We’ve already seen that the mere expectation of possible new gun regulations has produced an amazing post-election boom in gun sales. And the current problem, as in all deflation-threats, is that people won’t spend money when they get it, hoarding it instead against the threat of future bad times. But there’s an answer: Give ‘em a reason to spend now rather than later.
Now that the Obama economic team is together, they should announce plans for a national sales tax next year, encouraging people to buy like crazy now. Then, in a few months, announce that the tax is being “postponed” until a few months after that. This should produce a second wave of shopping. Then announce that the tax has been delayed indefinitely, but spread rumors of looming hyperinflation, encouraging people to stock up one more time. . . . .
By the time this wears through, we should be out of the woods! It’s practically guaranteed to work . . . .
Posted at 2:53 pm by Glenn Reynolds
READER MICHAEL GREENSPAN sends this political advice from Dave Barry:
You know what I miss? I miss 1960. Not the part about my face turning overnight into the world’s most productive zit farm. What I miss is the way the grown-ups acted about the Kennedy-Nixon race. Like the McCain-Obama race, that was a big historic deal that aroused strong feelings in the voters. This included my parents and their friends, who were fairly evenly divided, and very passionate. They’d have these major honking arguments at their cocktail parties. But unlike today, when people wear out their upper lips sneering at those who disagree with them, the 1960s grown-ups of my memory, whoever they voted for, continued to respect each other and remain good friends.
What was their secret? Gin. On any given Saturday night they consumed enough martinis to fuel an assault helicopter. But also they were capable of understanding a concept that we seem to have lost, which is that people who disagree with you politically are not necessarily evil or stupid. My parents and their friends took it for granted that most people were fundamentally decent and wanted the best for the country. So they argued by sincerely (if loudly) trying to persuade each other. They did not argue by calling each other names, which is pointless and childish, and which constitutes I would estimate 97 percent of what passes for political debate today.
Or something. I wrote a similar column, but naturally Dave Barry says it better. Because, you know, he’s Dave Barry and I’m not.
Posted at 2:41 pm by Glenn Reynolds
THOUGHTS ON THE EMOLUMENTS CLAUSE and whether Hillary Clinton is ineligible to be Secretary of State.
Posted at 2:29 pm by Glenn Reynolds
FORD FUSION HYBRID: 39 mpg city for $27K. Cool.
Posted at 2:09 pm by Glenn Reynolds
ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER CHARLES RANGEL TAX SCANDAL: “You’ve managed to reelect a tax cheat who’s been shorting the government (take your pick of New York City, New York State, District of Columbia, and the federal government) for years on end, and yet doesn’t think that this diminishes his capacity to head the very committee charged with writing tax laws for the country.”
Meanwhile, Jennifer Rubin thinks it’s time to turn up the heat on Rangel: “The Chairman of Ways and Means is a tax scofflaw, and the Democrats don’t seem to be a bit concerned. If the not-so-new Republican Congressional leadership is intent on doing its job (curbing the worst excesses of the majority and gaining credibility), they should shine a bright spotlight on Rangel. And start asking why he remains in one of the most prominent Democratic leadership posts.”
Maybe a GOP Representative should introduce legislation to give all citizens the same pass that Rangel seems to be getting . . . the “I Forgot!” defense!
UPDATE: Reader John Griffin emails:
I read your posts regarding the scandals surrounding Rep. Charles Rangle and wonder why the media isn’t plastering stories about him and his scofflaw ways on every newspaper’s front page and leading every broadcast on TV day after day.
You might remember that the media outdid themselves recently in showing how excellent they can be in uncovering $1,000 odd tax lien/scofflaws such as Joe The Plumber.
Surely they know how to do it again.
Oh, they know how to do it.
Posted at 1:54 pm by Glenn Reynolds
Posted at 12:57 pm by Glenn Reynolds
BEATING SPEED TRAPS with new iPhone Web apps.
Posted at 12:19 pm by Glenn Reynolds
IN THE MAIL: From Garr Reynolds (no relation, as far as I know), Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery. Based on the presentations I see, more people need to study up on the subject . . . .
Posted at 11:00 am by Glenn Reynolds
CHRIS MATTHEWS’ HONEYMOON SOFTBALL: “Rather than ask tough questions about Obama’s governing team, the Hardball host keeps on tingling.” Yeah, I know, dog bites man . . . .
Posted at 10:49 am by Glenn Reynolds
MARK HALPERIN CRITICIZED THE MEDIA for being in the tank for Obama. But Rich Hailey says they did a good job: “I think the media performed flawlessly during the two year election cycle. They managed the story, shielded their candidate, attacked the opposition, sat on damaging stories, and in short did everything a good state run media should do during an election cycle.” Ouch.
The comedians are in the tank, too, according to this transcript from Howard Kurtz’s Reliable Sources:
KURTZ: All right. The word on the street is that comedians are kind of shying away from making fun of Obama. Are you man enough to do it?
KINDLER: No. I don’t want to make fun of him. That’s the thing. You can’t just decide — I don’t believe in the equal opportunity comedy where you — I give it to the left and I give it to the right. I like having a point of view. I don’t like to say left, because I don’t even know what that means. But I wanted Obama to win. So I can’t now pretend and try to find stuff about him.
Sounds like a laff riot. Plus, a video on the subject from Ed Driscoll.
OBAMA’S CLINTON PROBLEM: Deregulation made the prosperity of the 1990s possible. Just ask Bill Clinton.
================================================
HIV patients to be forcibly tagged
AsiaOne, Singapore - 17 hours ago
"Do not misunderstand human rights; if we respect the rights of the people living with HIV/Aids, then we must also respect the rights of healthy people. ...
http://health.asiaone.com/Health/News/Story/A1Story20081124-102962.html
November 24, 2008 Posted by Scott at 5:57 AM
The Twin Cities is home to the largest population of Somali immigrants in the United States. In her latest Washington Times column, Diana West reports the discovery of immigration fraud involving the P-3 family designation in the current United States Refugee Admissions Program:
Within the last week...the State Department confirmed that massive immigration fraud has been perpetrated overwhelmingly by Africans claimed as close kin (parent, spouse, minor child) by legal residents in the United States. (According to a report in the City Pages in Minneapolis, this scam has been netting some unknowns along the food chain up to $10,000 per head.) Given that Somalis form the largest bloc of African immigrants to the United States, this becomes another story with Somalis playing a starring role.
West's column cites this City Pages article and this State Department fact sheet on the fraud. West concludes her column with a look at the ramifications on Minnesota politics:
Rep. Keith Ellison, Minnesota Democrat, who famously swore his 2007 oath of office on the Koran as the first Muslim elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, routinely declares that his 7,000-vote margin of victory came from Somali Muslims. Last month, Mr. Ellison was campaigning for that same Somali Muslim vote on behalf of Mr. Franken.
And what's newsworthy about that? In this case, the point is not that Mr. Ellison was campaigning for the Somali vote, but rather with whom he was campaigning. According to AsianTribune.com, after Mr. Ellison made a standard, if Somalii-oriented campaign pitch on behalf of Mr. Franken before a gathering of Minnesota Somalis, another speaker appeared before the crowd.
Described in the report as a "highly regarded prominent Somali traditional leader" -- i.e., a Somali leader from Somalia, not Minnesota -- Abdullahi Ugas Farah spoke on behalf of the Ellison-Franken cause. "In order for Keith to be helpful to the situation in Somalia, you must also elect Al Franken to the Senate," he said.
Now, there's something new on the American hustings: a "Somali traditional" leader. Curious, I Googled Mr. Farah and came up with one news story, a 2003 brief from the Asia Africa Intelligence Wire headlined, "New Islamic court opens in Mogadishu." The story reported that Mr. Farah was one of two speakers who presided over the opening ceremony for a new Sharia court in Mogadishu's Shirkole area. From Sharia courts in Mogadishu to an Al Franken rally in Minnesota.
Only in ... America?
West notes that the State Department is punting the question of what to do with fradulently admitted Somalis over to the Department of Homeland Security. And what is DHS doing with it? My guess is that the fraudulently admitted Somalis have about as much to fear from DHS as does President-elect Obama's deportable auntie Zeutuni. Help is on the way!
To comment on this post, go here.
The Impossibility of Bridging the Gap Between Islam and the West
by Baron Bodissey
I met Professor Johannes Jansen at the Counterjihad Brussels conference last year, and found him to be an intelligent and well-informed commenter on the status of Islam in the Netherlands. Our Flemish correspondent VH has kindly taken it upon himself to translate one of Prof. Jansen’s lectures, and includes his own introductory material.
I recommend reading this excellent lecture in its entirety, but here are a couple of noteworthy quotes:
Sharia is a continuation of the Jihad, but by other means.
Also:
To portray the Crusades as the equivalent of the Jihad, as the multiculturalists do, is a false presentation of the matter, an absurd distortion of history. It is like equating a cold with AIDS: both are viral diseases that lack appropriate curative drugs.
About Prof. Johannes J.G. Jansen
by VH
A few days ago the
lecture below (.doc format) was linktipped at the Dutch site
Het Vrije Volk. I admire the writings of the Arabist Hans Jansen, and in this recent lecture (Nov.7) he explains why Western culture is not only superior to Islam, but is also embroiled in the second Jihad while so many people are still not aware of it, or not willing to be aware of it.
Hans Jansen earlier this year brilliantly defended Geert Wilders in a
TV program against a bunch of leftist Muslims and appeasers. A few quotes (my translation):
[01:12] Interviewer Paul Witteman: The future image of the Netherlands, has that not been pictured as a caricature by Wilders?
Hans Jansen: Well, you cannot look into the future of course. When I was ten years, my old mother told me that 110% of the Dutch would be Catholic in 2000, and that also didn’t happen. When the apostates within the Muslim community come out in the open, and truly I can tell you there are many of them … gentlemen [looks at the Leftist Muslims Ahmed Aboutaleb from Labour, and Taoufik Dibi from GreenLeft], when they would dare to come out of the closet, these things will go differently, of course.
But may I say something else: Wilders has for months now been demonized and portrayed as a dangerous madman. Now he has made a film in which you can see things being done by Muslims, Muslims of whom nobody would have thought such things possible. These Muslims did these things in the name of Islam; that is quite factually presented, and now we sit here with this mess. Wilders has a hold on the complete Leftist church, because it is not a provocative film, it is not an insane film, it is not a hatemongering film, he just has a hold on [gestures at the Leftist politicians] that complete Leftist bunch.
[… at 5:19] Look here, you can hear in many sermons Islam is the third of three, but then those three are not Christianity, Judaism and Islam, but Communism, Nazism, Islam. That has not been made up by Wilders, that can already be read with others.
[… at 6:15] I am not afraid at all, but there is a certain risk. I am not afraid to drive a car, but there is a certain risk that you might kill yourself with one. Aspirin is a blessing for humanity, but there is a risk, and when you have a couple of million Muslims in your country, the chance of having a few hundred thousand radicals and terrorists … that is just a risk. [“A few hundred thousand radicals?” the Leftist politician and appeaser Pechtold from Democrats ‘66 asks] I estimate roughly that is between seven and twenty percent of the Muslim population in a country.
The “Utrecht Lecture” (one of a series of lectures organized by the
University of Utrecht and held at different locations) by the eminent Dutch Arabist
Hans Jansen. It was presented for the Utrecht Alumni Association on Friday November 7, 2008 in the auditorium of the Academy Building. Earlier this year he published his book
Islam for Pigs, Apes, Donkeys and Other Animals and
Reading the Quran by Yourself. An interview (in English) with Hans Jansen can be read at
Religioscope.
And now for my translation of his lecture:
The impossibility of bridging the gap between Islam and the West
by Johannes J.G. Jansen
Utrecht Lecture 2008
“Islam” is the name of a religion, and “the West” is the name of a region. At first sight it is therefore strange, if not impossible, to discuss how to bridge the contradictions between Islam and the West. You should not compare Islam with “the West” but with Christianity; at least both of them are religions. The West must then be compared with the Middle East, because those are both regions. Those who do so though, are really going wrong. Islam is spread over a much wider area than the Middle East; Islam now stretches from Pakistan to the Kanaleneiland [troubled immigrant neighborhood in Utrecht, the Netherlands]. And the West is not really Christian anymore, it is largely inhabited by modern unbelievers. However, the comparison of Islam with the West forms a sort of shorthand that is understood by any person of good will.
Contrasting “Islam versus the West” is about two cultures, one dominated by Islam, and in the past was originally located in the Middle East; the other mainly present in Europe and America and in the past was dominated by Christianity. This Euro-American culture is of course not uniform. You surely can not lump together all Westerners. But this polymorphic Western culture is the primary end product of America, Europe, the churches, and Christianity. It is a culture that is therefore related in countless ways to the explicit and implicit views of Christianity on people, society, and the world. The many modern disbelievers within this cultural area do not just believe in the God of Christianity. Their idea about what God, if he did exist, should be and do, is dictated by the notions of Christianity.
The Muslims, of course, do not have a uniform culture for the same reasons, but within the Islamic cultural area everyone, for example, is firmly convinced that no culture is closer to the true Islam than theirs. Also every Muslim would like to contribute to his local Islamic culture, so it develops in such way that the distance to true Islam becomes smaller. Writing and talking is making mistakes, that is why so terribly little is published by some faculties. But after this introduction to the shorthand skills of the art of comparison, I do dare to compare “Islam” and “the West”.
It is about a pair that have been quite often engaged in war with each other. Lodged in everyone’s memory is the rescue of Vienna in 1683. Also the Battle of Poitiers in central France in 732, where Charles Martel defeated an invading Arab army, has not been forgotten. But there are obviously lots more. Wasn’t there also something about the Crusades, the Reconquista of Spain, and the Islamic Jihad?
- - - - - - - - -
Actually we would should address all these issues in detail, but then we’d be sitting here a for few years instead of a few hours. We have to limit ourselves to a few key issues. Well, one of those key issues is that the West lacks a good authoritative and generally shared theory about Islam. Conversely it is different. Islam does have a fairly common shared theory about the West and Christianity. Let’s have a look at this Islamic theory.
The classical Islamic theory divides the world into two zones. One zone is called the “House of Islam,” the other zone “the House of War”. This basic idea is deeply rooted in the history of Islam and Islamic expansion. It is, by the way, not the Koran itself which already makes this distinction. The Koran though — as you know according to the Islam the literal word of God — does state that the Muslims owe it to Islam to take part in the war[1]. In Surah 9, verse 39 we read for example: “If thou dost not march out — He will punish you with painful punishment,” illaa tanfiruu, yu’adhdhibukum ‘adhaaban aliiman.
The Islamic texts that come after the Koran, the so called Traditions of Mohammed, tell that Mohammed shortly before his death in 632 sent letters to the sovereigns of the empires that bordered on the stateless Arab peninsula, namely the Emperor of the Roman Empire, the King of Persia, the Negus of Ethiopia and the Governor of Egypt. The oldest version of these letters that has been preserved, was not been written until about the year 750, and contained three lines. We also find this letter in the canonical collection of Traditions written by Al-Bukhari, which dates to about a century later. But by this time the letter contained eight lines. A modern researcher can only conclude from this that the stories about this letter have gradually emerged.[2]
Anyway, in this letter Mohammed is threatening his neighbors. The letter contains the memorable but ambiguous line aslim taslam, “if you surrender, you will not be killed”, also translated as “if you are Muslim, you will be preserved”. These letters are of course ancient history, but the Iranian head of state Ahmadinejad sent a similar letter to President Bush[3] and Osama bin Laden sent a handful of such letters both to America and to Europe[4]. Anyway, as the old stories about those letters of Mohammed have a historical basis, it is clear from the text of those letters that Mohammed himself has been dividing the world in two: a House of War and a House of Islam.
The fact that Islam divides the world into two, a house of war and a house of Islam, has received a peculiar general notoriety. The idea apparently possesses a macabre charm. Actually, everyone in the East or the West has heard of it. Moreover, it is obvious that this division is not an eccentric doctrine of Islamic fundamentalists. It is the general Islamic view. In later times, the theologians of Islam refined this division, and designated a third “house”: the House of the Treaty, a term that lawyers started to use to describe areas which in exchange for paying tribute or on the basis of an agreement, need not to be confronted with war for a limited period, usually not more than ten years.
Modern unbelievers in the West know this theory but are not worried about it. This has at least two reasons. Public opinion in the West has forgotten a bit what war was like. War, may I remind you, means robbing, killing, raping, and making slaves of workers or taking slaves. Secondly, modern Western unbelievers consider all religious beliefs, including this one, as harmless delusions. The Western academic world is convinced that Islam is a peaceful religion and that this dichotomy in the House of War and House of Islam has no meaning.
Anyone who takes this division seriously does not belong in a university. Even the fact that Islam has strictly forbidden the use towards unbelievers of the antique — originating in the Middle East — greeting formula “Peace be with you,” has not been able to persuade academic scholars to think differently.
It is therefore not at all so strange that most Westerners have forgotten what such a dichotomy could bring with it. If we had been thinking about that dichotomy in time, perhaps we would have understood that the Islamic acts of aggression against the West that took place in recent decades, have not been isolated incidents, but the result of a consistent theory that is as old as Islam itself. There is nothing radical in the present attacks against the West. It is simply the application of an old theory, albeit under changed, new circumstances.
From a politically correct point of view, three objections are raised now. The first is that only a small percentage of all Muslims took part in these attacks against the West. “The majority of Muslims has nothing to do with it, and can not be blamed for it.” Literally speaking, of course this is true. But may I remind you of the German invasion of 1940 in the Netherlands?
We usually say that on May 10 “the Germans” invaded the Netherlands, but that was of course not so. Most Germans simply sat at home that morning, having breakfast, or possibly doing the dishes. Percentage-wise, the Germans that where involved in this raid was minimal. In the same way also a percentage of all Muslims participated in the attacks of Sept. 11, of July 7, or in Bali, or against my friend Theo van Gogh. Although, according to some sources on the Internet, it involves more than 12,000 large and small terror attacks since 9/11[5].
But that only a small percentage of all Germans, or all Muslims, have participated in acts of war does not mean that Germany, or Islam, have no responsibility for these acts of war. There can be no peace or a normalization emerging if this responsibility is not recognized, or in fact denied. Everyone knows how often Germany after 1945 has admitted and took responsibility for the German acts of war. You also know how often the Islam has admitted its responsibility for whatever. Well, I have bad news for you. The denial of history and the pretension nothing has happened will over time lead to disaster.
The second objection sounds unusually modern. “In this world of globalization, we can not stick to such a dichotomy. Everything and everyone is connected with each other. In its classic form that old Islamic dichotomy in a House of War and a House of Islam really belongs to the past. That dichotomy is simply no longer valid.” Most Westerners and many Muslims will agree on that.
But there are exceptions. The prominent Muslim thinker Sayyid Qutb was executed in Cairo in 1966. His books are present in every Muslim bookstore. He has argued that in modern times Islam and non-Islam indeed have become intertwined with each other. Previously, non-Islam and Islam where both in time and in place clearly separated by boundaries. But today they exist alongside each other and in between each other. Islam and what Sayyid Qutb called the Jaahiliyya are forced to coexist. But, as Sayyid Qutb suggests, that may never lead to a peaceful coexistence.
Muslims are usually familiar with the term Jaahiliyya. In the belief system of Islam, Jaahiliyya is the word for the period of paganism and unregulated violence that preceded Islam. Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, declared war on Jaahiliyya, and he triumphed. Sayyid Qutb now demands that all Muslims follow the example of Mohammed, and also pursue the struggle with Jaahiliyya by battling against the non-Islamic world that surrounds them now, and even penetrates their towns and villages, sometimes even their homes and families.
Mohammed died in 632. Sayyid Qutb calls the period from Mohammed until the 17th/18th century, the “first round” of the Islamic struggle against the Jaahiliyya. That first round, al-gawla al-uulaa[6], came to an end with the rescue of Vienna in 1683, when the Polish army forced the Turkish army to beat a shameful retreat.
Sayyid Qutb and his many followers[7] are convinced that the modern world gives Islam a new opportunity to beat the West. Jihad is now no longer executed by Muslim states against Western states; that would be too dangerous for Islamic states: think of the fate of Afghanistan or Iraq, or the results of the wars against Israel that the Arab countries pursued. The states have since the nineties been replaced by individuals like Osama bin Laden and non-state entities such as Al-Qaeda, Hizbullah, and Hamas, who resumed the fight against the West on many fronts and with all imaginable methods. According to many people, this time it looks like the Muslims have a good chance of winning, and a third round will no longer be needed.
The third argument against the division of the world that Islam originally made sounds a little childish, but nevertheless is often raised. The objection reads something like this: “All right, Islam divides the world into a war zone and a Muslim area. Islam has a special word for the battle between these two zones: Jihad. But didn’t Christians have the Crusades? Islam and Christianity are both equally bloodthirsty and warlike.”
The moral and religious equivalence of the Jihad with the Crusades is, as you know, an essential doctrine of the multicultural ideology. Nevertheless, no matter how often even repeated, it is still nonsense. Why? Jihad existed for almost five centuries before the Christians for the first time came up with the idea of launching a crusade themselves[8]. Furthermore, the Crusades focused on a small piece of the world, namely the Holy Land. Jihad, however, focuses on the whole of Europe, Asia and Africa, and for some centuries America. These are big differences. To portray the Crusades as the equivalent of the Jihad, as the multiculturalists do, is a false presentation of the matter, an absurd distortion of history. It is like equating a cold with AIDS: both are viral diseases that lack appropriate curative drugs.
There is still something else to be added to this. When the Crusades were wrong, and time and again apologies have to be offered for the Crusades, or forgiveness asked, how much more wrong is the larger Islamic Jihad, for which I have never heard any apology?
But it’s not only the history that is presented falsely by the multicultural specialists and their Muslim friends. The text of the Bible and the Koran are the victim of gross multicultural distortions. The multiculturals and their allies will tell you that both Bible and Koran are bloodthirsty and contain stories full of atrocities. That’s a similarity. But the differences are bigger. The Bible describes specific atrocities, sometimes even looks forward to it, and hopes that God will keep giving the enemies of Israel a good licking. But that is something quite different from the Koran.
The Koran does not contain story after story like the Bible, but the Koran contains a few stories (which are often derived from the Bible) and dozens of calls — often very general in nature — to perform deadly violence. The best known call is “Kill them wherever you find them.”[9] This is repeated three times within the Koranic text: it is clearly not a slip of the tongue. It is unfair to compare this with Ezekiel 33:11, where the prophet imagines that God says “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, nolo mortem impii, but rather that the wicked converts form its path, and lives.” The difference with the prophet of Islam who imagines that God calls kill them, kill them could not be greater.
Unlike the Bible, the Koran contains a large number of generally worded calls for murder and manslaughter. There are Muslims who regard such passages as a license to kill. I need not to remind you the fate of Theo van Gogh. On the Internet there circulates a list of 164 calls to war to be found in the Koran. For such a short book, 164 is an incredible number. There is no such list of Bible passages. Believe me, if it was possible to establish such a list, it would have been made long ago. And then the Internet List is not even complete. Quran 9:30 for example, is omitted. At the end of that verse anyone is cursed who believes that Christ is the son of God. The curse expresses the wish that the accursed ones will be slain by God in the battle, qaatalahumullaah. I do not need to indicate here how many millions of people, mostly decent God-fearing people who are aware of nothing, are being threatened with murder and manslaughter because of this Koranic verse.
Arriving at this point, the allegations sometimes appear that I spread hate. I am sorry if anyone might think that. I want to remind you that in the Koran, hatred spatters the pages. I bring you bad news. But to say that I am the hatemonger is turning the thing around. If only the problem were with me, it would have been rapidly resolved.
A good discussion leader must now actually broaden the debate and point out that we always have talked about the Koran, and that Muslims are no vending machines who, like robots, execute what the Koran mandates. That is a valid point. The Protestant slogan sola scriptura, “by Scripture alone”, has outside Protestantism little or no meaning. The authority of the Bible towards Christians functions differently from the authority of the Koran towards Muslims. We should not look to the Koran, but to the manuals of Sharia, in which the ideal behavior of a good Muslim is described. What do those manuals say? What, according to those widespread manuals, is the ideal behavior of a good Muslim in his contacts with non-Muslims?
It is tedious, but the news again is not good. The authoritative manuals may differ on small details, but they completely agree on a key point. It is the duty of a good Muslim to fight for what Muslims see as the truth, that means: Islam. The experts and manuals suggest that anyone who in any detail whatsoever rejects the rules of Sharia as described in the manuals, commits capital a crime against Islam by doing so. This has two dreadful consequences. Every Muslim ruler who does not fully apply the Sharia but also decrees its own laws, makes it an implicit criticism of the Sharia, and therefore, according to the experts, a capital offense of Islam. It is this simple reasoning that formed the background for the assassination of President Sadat in October 1982.
But there is another implication. Someone who engages in a debate about one aspect or another of Sharia also has a big chance of being accused of apostasy from Islam, again with all the consequences. Men or women who are affected by these accusations are often terribly haunted. This all contributes to an atmosphere of intellectual stagnation. Religious reforms under such a regime are as good as impossible.
At the same time, the rules of Sharia are humiliating for non-Muslims and women. No Western government would dare come up with the idea to deal with the Muslim minority according to the rules the Sharia gives for the treatment of non-Muslims. And rightly so. Sharia is a continuation of the Jihad, but by other means.
Whoever is not a Muslim might think it should be clear though that the Sharia is the work of humans, the result of centuries of mutual discussions among Islamic Scholars. Indeed, there have been Islamic thinkers who raised this idea, Shukri Mustafa for example, who was hanged in 1978 in Cairo. But the general prevailing view among Muslims is different.
Islam ascribes to Mohammed the expression that his governance will not agree on any aberration. After all, it would show rudeness if God allowed his chosen ones to take the wrong road. Under this reasoning any rule or regulation, once agreement about it has been reached, is widely regarded as God-given. With this the Sharia became more than the work of humans. Because of this the Sharia is as good as sacrosanct; it became sacred and inviolable. Man-made laws, in the eyes of the broad Muslim audience, may never compete with something as great as the Sharia.
It is precisely this point that makes visible the significant gap between the Western and Islamic ideology. In a Western society laws are made through various democratic processes and are more or less constantly adapted to changing circumstances. Laws in the West come from below. In the Islamic system which stems from the Sharia, laws do not come from below, but from above, and once accepted by competent religious experts, they are unchangeable. These two visions of the law cannot be harmonized. The laws are made by people and thus changeable and can be criticized, or they are not. After more than two millennia of man-made laws, it would not be a good idea for the West even partially to submit to an Islamic system of laws that are assumed to be of divine origin.
There is another unbridgeable difference of opinion between Islam and the West. Christianity looks at the world with a certain metaphysical naïveté. The world simply exists; the observable world is for instance not a veil behind which true reality hides, as is the case in many Asian religions. The West sees the world as changeable by man. People may even improve the world. These are not provable, verifiable propositions. They are axiomatic points of belief. Modern science, after all, has convinced us that the combinations of molecules and atoms as by the observed naked eye, consist of emptiness and shells rather than massiveness. It is highly questionable whether the world indeed just exists, and is “real”. But we just pretend day in day out that it is.
What is the official position of Islam on this issue? The Islamic theologians teach that God not only created the world but that he also permanently re-creates the world. In this constant process of transformation God is not bound — according to Islam — to any restriction or rule, not even for example the need to be fair or predictable. God is “free and powerful in the creation”, and also in regeneration.
This seems a strange impractical question without much importance for practice, but this distinction between the West and Islam means that in the West there was a religious basis for the development of science and technology. The world was real anyhow, and simply existed, and even will tomorrow. Islamic thinkers, on the other hand, had in theory to take into account the possibility that tomorrow the world could be very different from today. For those who are working in engineering and science, that is discouraging.[10]
The West does not believe in unchangeable laws that are applied to a society, but in unvarying laws of nature. Islam on the contrary believes that laws that apply to society are fixed, but in terms of the laws of nature they are not so sure. It is tempting to see a connection with the distribution of Nobel Prizes. Nobel Prizes for science and technology have never ended up in the Islamic world. That looks like a confirmation of our suspicions about the unbridgeable complacency. Even with bridgeability it is not that good.
There is little choice other than to admit that since 9/11 Islam and the West are at war with each other. Who is going to win? Islam has the advantage that it knows what is happening. In Muslim eyes it is the old battle between the House of Islam and the House of War. The West has the disadvantage that it can not believe its eyes, and has great difficulty in admitting that something is going on. The West assumes that those who are attacked have not been friendly enough to those who attack. There must be a reason why the victim is attacked. Why do they hate America? That an attacker may have his own reasons to proceed to attack, reasons that are entirely separate from those who are attacked, does not come up to the average Westerner.
There is another factor that blinds the West: The Left has been unable to change the free, capitalist societies in the West. Islam also wants to change the society. The Left now hopes with the help of Islam to finally have success in changing society. It is questionable whether that is a realistic expectation. Islam does aim at social reforms, but Islam has a very different ideal of society than the European or American Left. When Khomeini came to power, as you may recall, he liquidated his wildly enthusiastic Leftist allies within a few months.
The Islamic strategy aims first to take in Europe, and strategically that is undoubtedly true. After Europe has fallen, Israel can not cost that much trouble, and America will readily follow after this. In order to conquer Europe it is also likely that remarkably little violence will be needed. The demographics do what they do, and the occasional assassination of a cartoonist, writer, or politician who makes bit too much trouble will do the rest.
The European elites are bending over backwards to comfort Islam, and are certainly not willing to become aware of the history of the expansion of Islam. Even with the CDA [Christian Democrats — a party in the current governing coalition] and the Christian Union [Christian Socialists — also a party in the current governing coalition] there is a peculiar reluctance to inform themselves about the history of the decline of Christianity under Islam. There cannot even a trainee at the party office being spared to do so.
At the same time, the ruling elite positions itself rock-hard against critics of Islam, who are if necessary, think of Gregorius Nekschot rousted from his bed by a platoon of mobile police units, but the same mobile units are not deployed to deal with misconduct by Muslims, because then all that matters is to do everything “to prevent worse happening”.[11] The leaders of the Muslim communities couldn’t wish for more. Under such circumstances, it is sufficient that the test of time does its useful work, and within a few decades everyone forgets why you should not become a Muslim.
Does one of the two parties deserve to win or lose the war? Is Western culture superior to the Islamic, or vice versa? The university spends numerous man-hours to prevent students from wanting to answer that question. From the perspective of a researcher all cultures are equal. But that question about the superiority of Islam or the West should not be answered from the perspective of an academic researcher who may or may not come to lay eggs in NOVA [leftist TV news program] or Pauw and Witteman [Leftist political interview TV program]. That question must be answered from the perspective of Western taxpayers. Those who pay their taxes to a government which in return has promised them where necessary to protect them against violence. It is desirable that both parties fulfill their obligations.
Is Islamic culture superior to its Western counterpart? It is almost unbelievable that societies that are incapable of providing their citizens with an operating sewage disposal system can be seen as equal to — or superior to — the West. The practice of dentistry alone should convince outsiders that the West is far superior.[12] And then there is the rest of medical science, and technology. But, as the Bible says somewhere: “The fastest does not always win the race.” (Eccl. 9:11)
Ladies and Gentlemen! The end is near. Islamic tradition asserts that Mohammed said man Zafirtum bihi min rijaal al-yahuud, fa-qtuluuh, “Kill every male Jew that falls in your hands.” A culture or religion that does not distance itself from statements of such bloodthirstiness can only hope to collect what it wishes on others. Who will win the battle? It looks good for Islam, but it’s still a bit too early to start predicting.
Think later also, while raising your glass, of two absent friends, Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh. That they both, despite all their craziness, may be sheltering with the martyrs and saints beneath the throne of the Most High.
Notes:
| 1. |
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Koran 9:38-58 and 9:87. |
| 2. |
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Hans Jansen, De historische Mohammed: de verhalen uit Medina [“The historical Mohammed: the stories from Medina”], Amsterdam 2007, 257-58. |
| 3. |
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See Henryk M. Broder, Hurra, wir kapitulieren! Von der Lust am Einknicken [“Hurray, we are capitulating! About the lust to bend over backwards”], Berlin 2006, pp. 71-90 on the international political context of this letter, and the European reactions to it. |
| 4. |
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See Bruce Lawrence, Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden, London/New York 2005. |
| 5. |
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www.thereligionofpeace.com. |
| 6. |
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Sayyid Qutb, Zilaal, iii, 1560, in the commentary on Sura 8. |
| 7. |
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Such as the influential Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who in an interview in January 9, 1998 talks again about the House of War, et cetera. Dr Al-Qaradawi is chairman of the ‘mainstream’ European Council of fatwa and Research. |
| 8. |
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The first crusade took place form 1096 till 1099. The Crusades ended with the fall of Acre in 1291. Jihad began in the years 620-630 and is still continuing. |
| 9. |
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Quran 2:191 (twice) and 4:89. |
| 10. |
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See, for example, the standard adopted by the authoritative Sunni Azhar University, by N.H.M. Keller, ed & transl., Reliance of the Traveler, p. 598: He who believes that things in themselves or by their own nature have any causal influence independent of the will of Allah has committed apostasy from Islam. |
| 11. |
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A not completely similar case that even so raises questions about the position and the independence of the police is the following incident: In mid-October 2008 the Amsterdam police refused to register the declaration of a Jewish young man who on October 15 at the Stadionplein [in Amsterdam] effectively was assaulted [and beaten up] by Moroccans in Amsterdam. Only after the intervention of the CIDI [Center for Information and Documentation on Israel] something happened. In early 2008, the police took every effort to stimulate the public to file complaints against the potentially critical Islam movie Fitna and its creator, and this while the film had not yet been published and the contents of the film was only known to the maker, and maybe not even that. There were even specially printed forms held ready for the Fitna-complaint, but that may have been a rumor, because such forms have not (yet?) come into the open. |
| 12. |
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Muslims know nevertheless in this debate to maintain courage to hold on by the persistent practice of comparing the non-Muslim world with the ideals of the Islamic world, many examples, for instance in Hans Jansen & Abdul-Jabbar van de Ven, Bombrieven [“Letter Bombs”], Amsterdam 2008; and www.thereligionofpeace.com, and on this website especially the section Games Muslims Play. The only proper course is to compare the practice with the practice, and the ideals with the ideals. |
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Bump for later reference. Thanks for the links.
to Rush ( His idea during the Clinton plague upon America ) I am starting a file on “The One,” mostly starting from the election date. 
The election results were long expected, but now that the day has arrived it’s quite a letdown, anyway. Reading about the joy expressed by Hamas and Syria and Italy and Indonesia… contemplating Obama’s Secretary of State, or (God help us) Defense… Thinking about the USA becoming just like Sweden, only with a real army, and aircraft carriers, and nukes… First Lady Michelle…
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
you too!
