I'm not convinced it's a good idea to ban political movements. The ideas can't be banned, after all. Thought cannot be policed. But Germany is already a country that bans totalitarian political parties, so why not add Salafists to the list? Anyone who thinks such a move would be "Islamophobic" should be aware that Tunisia, an Arab country that's 99 percent Muslim, also bans the Salafist party. When these people reach critical mass they're extraordinarily dangerous.
To which I respond:
One indeed cannot and should not ban political movements. I read both Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto in college; neither provoked me into being a socialist. Germany has a certain problem with extremism in the past and could potentially sink into extremism in the future, so banning political movements sets a bad precedent.
However, Germany (and the U.S.) has every right to ban immigrants who come into the country specifically to preach radicalism. A person who comes into a new country with the express intent of radicalizing the local population to overthrow the established order has no rights in that country and indeed is violating the terms of his immigration (to become a new citizen and blend in). He can and should be removed forthwith.
We've been reporting this problem at Rantburg for quite a while: Salafist preachers go to Germany, Britain, France, Australia, the U.S., and so on and start preaching their hatred to the gullible rubes in the local mosques. This is one of the essential links in how the Saudis (our friends) plan to spread Wahabbism and Salafism throughout the world. The local believers need to be indoctrinated and trained, so Salafist preachers are imported from Saudi Arabia or Pakistan to do the preaching.
That's where Germany has every right to fix the problem: expel the foreign preachers. This is not a free speech issue; no country allows foreigners to come to its land to preach sedition and revolution. Citizens have a right within the limits of the political system of a democratic state to believe, speak and spread hatred if they wish, as detestable as it may be to reasonable people, but foreigners do not.
Don't ban the movement. Ban the foreign preachers.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/10/2012 13:09 ||
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#1
I keep going back and forth on this. Consider, for example, banning racial epithets. Sounds like the decent thing to do, but there are problems. The new words start to take on the meaning of the banned words. Also, you get a slippery slope leading to political correctness (social Marxism). So maybe it isn't such a good idea after all?
Flag burning is another example. Best suggestion, BTW, I have ever heard for this issue: accept the idea that symbolic speech is speech, and give that speech a legal meaning. In this case, define the burning of a US flag as an affirmative statement rescinding your US citizenship.
Anyway, I think Orwell was onto something with Newspeak, but at the same time I wonder if changing words really does change ideas in the long run. Don't know.
Via Meadia is glad the press doesnt hate Obama as much as it hated Bush; otherwise the papers would be full every day with stories about the unintended, tragic consequences of the humanitarian intervention gone awry in Libya and about the policy failures and miscalculations that landed us in this mess. There would be eloquent lamentations and beautifully choreographed hand wringings by our professional moralists and the custodians of the collective conscience at our better universities and more prestigious magazines. There would be telling comparisons of the destruction of the tombs in Timbuktu with the looting of the Baghdad museums. There would be impassioned denunciations of the hubris that led the ideological zealots to promote the holy war, and scathing, mocking reminders of the promises they made about how nice things would be if we took their advice.
#1
The US-Mexico extradition treaty, for example, lists a number of extraditable offenses, such as:
- Violations of the customs laws
- Offenses against copyright or intellectual property
- Offenses related to international trade and transfers of funds or valuable metals
- Offenses relating to prohibition âunfair transactionsâ
Weâre not exactly talking about violent criminals here; these rules so opaque that just about everyone on the planet is in violation of some offense.
...and sometime it involves conspiracy involving reckless disregard of life and safety and leading to significant death count in that country. You really would deny an extradition request for Mr Holder from Mexico?
#1
"Austerity" has been redefined. It means "not increasing spending as much as the best & brightest think ought to happen." It definitely does NOT mean cutting government spending back to a level below that of the previous 12 months.
From the article: No less than the very sovereignty and liberty of free peoples everywhere depends on rejection of the international order that has evolved since the end of World War II. The central banking cartel and their willing political accomplices are pushing us into an international tyranny run on debt. Author does have a point. However, changing that order will be very painful, even AUSTERE. And that's not popular anywhere. The people are rejecting the rotting corpse of the established order. Only a few, very few at that.
Posted by: Secret Asian Man ||
05/10/2012 5:17 Comments ||
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#5
The only way out is one proposed by Charles Murray years ago.
Either cut the number of government employees by 40% or keep them all but cut all of their paychecks by 40% and to hell with the consequences to their standard of living. If they riot, incarcerate them or do whatever else is necessary to keep the peace.
America will be saved when the boomtown suburbs of D.C. fouled as they are with lawyers, lobbyists, and regulators, are reduced to impoverished ghost towns.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
05/10/2012 7:59 Comments ||
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#6
We are not immune here in the U.S. In fact, we are leading the movement. From Tea Party in 2009 and 2010 to Occupy in 2011 to May 8s overwhelming defeat of a senior establishment figure like Richard Lugar in Indiana, the people are rejecting the rotting corpse of the established order.
Amen and amen! I noted Lugar's bitter comments on the teevee last evening. Evidently 40+ years supping at the public trough wasn't enough for the greedy bastard!
#7
I would have labeled Lugar a "superannuated political figure" rather than a "senior establishment figure." He's been long past his "sell by" date.
"Rotting corpses" are still getting plenty of support. Cases in point:
Traverse City, Michigan -- City firefighters washed the city's budget hearing with yellow-clad supporters, some of whom called for tax increases to save the jobs of Traverse City's emergency responders threatened by budget cuts..."I'm a retired teacher,"... said Mary Anderson... "I will pay whatever you need to help pay for it." ...said Carol Tompkins-Parker, whose father was a city firefighter. "I will support the Traverse City Fire Department any way I can, I will pay more taxes," she said.
Whistles, whoops and honking cars marked unionized labor's picketingof Milpitas City Hall Tuesday evening. Paul Mullett, a union representative for public works employees, said his group gathered 700 signatures from the public in support of preserving their jobs instead of contracting to less expensive workers.
"I would say 99 percent do not want us to outsource the parks or the streets," Mullett said.
Anyone can find dozens of news items like these on any given day. When items like these stop being reported with a straight face, it might be a sign people are rejecting the status quo.
[Dawn] IS the current Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri ... Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as the real brains of the outfit. Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area. That is not a horn growing from the middle of his forehead, but a prayer bump, attesting to how devout he is... in Pakistain? "We believe" he is, said Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as The Woman to Call at 3 a.m. and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another William Jennings Bryan ... . The certitude in her voice was alarming, though it would have been better had she not gone public with her views. True, the Abbottabad ... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden.... raid has weakened the credibility of the Pak Foreign Office's rejoinder. Since the days of Gen Musharraf, Islamabad has insisted that it knew nothing about the whereabouts of the late Osama bin Laden ... who is now sometimes referred to as Mister Bones... . If, therefore, Islamabad implies that Ayman al-Zawahiri is not in Pakistain or dismisses Ms Clinton's assertion as conjecture, it should not be surprised if the world is sceptical. On May 2 last year, American Navy SEALs humiliated Pakistain's intelligence establishment the way nothing else has. Moreover, given the capture of senior Al Qaeda operatives -- with the help of Pak intelligence -- allegations of Ayman al-Zawahiri's presence on Pak soil cannot be dismissed altogether.
Nevertheless, on Monday the American secretary of state chose the wrong time and place to level familiar charges against Pakistain. Speaking in Kolkata, Ms Clinton renewed America's determination to go after Al Qaeda leaders, some of whom were "on the run", and indicated that it was in Pakistain's interest to apprehend terrorist leaders inside the country. Must the secretary of state have chosen the soil of a country, with which Pakistain has had a long history of rivalry, to say the things she did? Equally unfortunate was the timing of her disparaging remarks, for they came at a time when negotiations between the US and Pakistain to reset ties are at a crucial stage. In fact, on Monday a State Department front man said that matters were not at a "standstill" between the two countries and the negotiators were trying to lay down "the groundwork for new cooperation". Ms Clinton's ill-advised words go against this spirit. As Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said, if the US has any information that the Al Qaeda chief is hiding in Pakistain, it should share it with Islamabad instead of making speculative statements. Indeed, Ms Clinton should put her faith in quiet diplomacy rather than make sensitive statements through the media.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/10/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
India = Indjuh is still reminding the US "D ***ng it, We told You so"! as per Osama being in Pakistan.
#1
Whenever I have to fill out a form that asks my ethnicity I tell them I'm a Martian. I'm sure they know that really means I'm a cantankerous old white guy but I can still hope that it goofs up their database.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Zawahiri
Hillary Clinton
