Article

2007-08-29 Olde Tyme Religion

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by ryuge 2007-08-29 08:27|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [11134 views ] Top
File under: Global Jihad

#1 Precedents exist from an earlier era, when intolerant Christian governments forced Muslims to convert (notably in sixteenth-century Spain)

He shpuld get his facts straight. For centuries Chritian's policy in liberted areas of Spain towards Muslims was "Leave or else...". That after being repeatedly stabbed in the back by Muslims allowed to remain.

So allowing Muslims to remain in Spain after the fall of Granada provided they converted was a step towards tolerancy by the Catholic Kings. This leniency was rewarded by a bloody insurrection where the new "converts" perpetrated hoorendous crimes againt priestd and nuns in addition to teh usual burning or desecration of churches. It took over one hundred years of uprisings and support given to Turk and Berberic raids before the "intolerant" Spaniards resigned to expel families of Muslim oridin out of Spain.

Also, let's remind that over a century later in enlightened Germany the rule was "Cujus regio, equs religio" ie if your prince was protestant you had to abjurate catholicism nad viceversa.

And yes Islam is teh enemy not islamism: islamists merely follow Muhammad's message. The "moderates" are such because they are bad Muslims.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2007-08-29 08:53|| 2007-08-29 08:53|| Front Page Top

#2 My take? I understand the security-based urge to exclude the Koran, Islam, and Muslims, but these efforts are too broad, sweeping up inspirational passages with objectionable ones, reformers with extremists, friends with foes. Also, they ignore the possibility of positive change.

From JFM: And yes Islam is teh enemy not islamism: islamists merely follow Muhammad's message. The "moderates" are such because they are bad Muslims.

Nice sentiments from Pipes: more PC, multiculti horse$hit. But I agree with JFM. Islam contains within itself the impulse toward violence and extremism. It must be defeated just as the other totalitarianisms of the 20th century were defeated. A good first step is to exclude Muslims ad Islam from the west.

Posted by SR-71 2007-08-29 09:06|| 2007-08-29 09:06|| Front Page Top

#3 In modern times, however, with freedom of expression and religion established as basic human rights, efforts to protect against intolerance by banning the Koran, Islam, or Muslims have conspicuously failed.

Listing failures is helpful only for academic reasons or in so far as it points the way to a successful ban. It is not in itself an argument against the ban; this he leaves to his - as has already been pointed out - PC, multiculti, horsesh$t conclusion.

Minimally, their books should be burned, their people deported and their Orcish shrines converted to gambling dens, houses of ill repute and BBQ pig joints.

Posted by Excalibur 2007-08-29 09:17|| 2007-08-29 09:17|| Front Page Top

#4 Managed assimilation is generally a more effective tool than coercion.

That is, direct coercion takes of lot more effort than *preventing the religion* from being able to coerce its followers towards radicalism.

And if they can't coerce their followers, they lose their power over them, and they leave in droves or become far less radical. In turn, the real radicals and agitators become far easier to identify and separate from the majority.

An old Aesop moral is that "A tyrant needs no excuse". And neither does a fanatic. A fanatic can interpret the most banal text to justify his murderous radicalism. A moderate, conversely, can rationalize away the clearest call to radicalism to justify being peaceful.

But the radical cannot thrive unless he can do two things: radicalize others *and* coerce moderates into either following him or at least to not stand in his way. That is why radicals of all stripes see moderates in their group as their worst enemies, far more threatening than their real enemies outside the group.

So instead of condemning the Koran, attack the tools of coercion used by Muslims to control other Muslims. The wearing of the hijab or burkha. The madrassas for minors. Forced marriages and honor killings. Ghettoization in religious communities and non-assimilation into society. Sharia law. The exclusive use of a foreign language.

If Muslims aren't under the control of other Muslims, don't live in a tightly knit community of only Muslims, have to deal with non-Muslims on a daily basis, have to speak the local tongue, etc., in short order (note: NOT instantly, however), they will become more moderate.

Then there is the final selling point to moderation: the better mousetrap. Western civilization is full of efficiencies that Islam does not have. And if Muslims have a comparison in front of them, it will be a lot harder to do things the Muslim way, "just because".

Assimilation takes some time, and radicals do have to be policed up, but it takes far less energy to let it happen naturally than to try and force it.

Posted by Anonymoose 2007-08-29 10:39|| 2007-08-29 10:39|| Front Page Top

#5 Islam is not the enemy

Agreed. Islam is not the enemy, Islam is a problem. One of the many problems that transnational positivism prevents us from solving.

Posted by gromgoru 2007-08-29 10:56|| 2007-08-29 10:56|| Front Page Top

#6 Don't ban it, just move the covers closer together. Half a page thickness (between covers) should do...

Posted by M. Murcek">M. Murcek 2007-08-29 11:02|| 2007-08-29 11:02|| Front Page Top

#7 The book should be retained and read as a warning. Banning the book won't stop Islamists from attacking us any more than banning Mein Kampf would have stopped the Germans from attacking Poland.

Posted by DoDo 2007-08-29 11:46|| 2007-08-29 11:46|| Front Page Top

#8 In fact most of the first Free French were former Mein Kampf readers and Hitler had tried to block its publishing in France.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2007-08-29 12:11|| 2007-08-29 12:11|| Front Page Top

#9 Roberto Calderoli, coordinator of Italy's Northern League, in 2005 wrote that "Islam has to be declared illegal until Islamists are prepared to renounce those parts of their pseudo political and religious doctrine glorifying violence and the oppression of other cultures and religions."

At some point Western civilization will need to draw the line on what constitutes acceptable conduct and a reasonable degree of societal integration. Islam fails so dismally in both respects that its admission to civilized society does not even qualify for discussion.

More practical and focused would be to reduce the threats of jihad and Shari'a by banning Islamist interpretations of the Koran, as well as Islamism and Islamists. Precedents exist. A Saudi-sponsored Koran was pulled from school libraries. Preachers have gone to jail for their interpretation of the Koran. Extreme versions of Islam are criminally prosecuted. Organizations are outlawed. Politicians have called for Islamists to leave their countries.

Pipes is entirely off base. So long as kitman and taqiyya are admissible Koranic doctrine there is simply no way to distinguish between so-called "moderate Muslims" and their jihadi co-religionists. Islam intentionally sets it up this way so that Islamists are free to swim in the umma's ocean of ostensible peacefulness.

So instead of condemning the Koran, attack the tools of coercion used by Muslims to control other Muslims. The wearing of the hijab or burkha. The madrassas for minors. Forced marriages and honor killings. Ghettoization in religious communities and non-assimilation into society. Sharia law. The exclusive use of a foreign language.

'moose, by suggesting the elimination of shari'a law you areby extensionessentially banning the Koran. The two are inextricably intertwined. Additionally, in order to "attack the tools of coercion" we would have to monitor all mosques on a 24/7 basis for subversive preaching. There is little if any way to disconnect the radical and putatively "moderate" components of Islam. You can try to minimize exposure but there is no way to guarantee or measure any success in doing so. This remains the most dangerous and unacceptable aspect of Islam.

The Koran forbids any competing form of religion or government. There is simply no way to get around it. Furthermore, fewif anyMuslims will aggree that the democratic process is superior to theocratic rule. Allah's laws will always trump those created by man and to assert otherwise is apostasy. Separation of church and state is a direct and lethal affont to all forms of Islam. Theocracy is a fatal toxin to liberty and individual freedoms. They are immiscible. Wishing it were otherwise will not make it so.

If Muslims aren't under the control of other Muslims, don't live in a tightly knit community of only Muslims, have to deal with non-Muslims on a daily basis, have to speak the local tongue, etc., in short order (note: NOT instantly, however), they will become more moderate.

Again, how are we to monitor or measure any putative progress towards so-called moderation? There is no way possible way of doing so. Period. Andonce againthis is precisely what makes Islam so dangerous. Are we to assume that Muslims are successfully moderating only to find a major metropolis leveled in a terrorist nuclear attack? All because we were idiotic enough to hope that Muslims might abandon such incredibly powerful ideological tools as kitman and taqiyya for the sake of coexisting with their avowed enemy?

Islam has awarded itself every single unfair advantage imaginable. In the name of self-advancement it condones the absolute worst forms of deceit, treachery, mass murder and crimes against humanity. What is so beneficial about such a tyrannous ideology that makes it at all worthwhile to incorporate into Western society?

Islam's granting itself moral and ethical carte blanch makes it the enemy of all civilization. Adhering to Western values and simultaneously attempting to integrate Muslims into our society is like bringing a knife to a gunfight. We are tactically disarmednot by any inherent weakness or flaw within our own system but insteadby Islam's willful violation of any and all aspects of the social contract.

We can neither permit nor countenance such abject perfidy.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-08-29 15:48|| 2007-08-29 15:48|| Front Page Top

#10 bull. you can't ban a damn thing these days. There's this little thing called the internet?

Posted by Enver Phomoth9652 2007-08-29 15:59|| 2007-08-29 15:59|| Front Page Top

#11 There's this little thing called the internet?

Downloads of the Koran with imbedded hard drive scrubbers would prove a mighty strong disincentive to seeking it out online.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-08-29 16:12|| 2007-08-29 16:12|| Front Page Top

#12 their Orcish shrines converted to gambling dens, houses of ill repute and BBQ pig joints

Suggest thorough exorcism first, Caliburn.

Posted by gromgoru 2007-08-29 18:15|| 2007-08-29 18:15|| Front Page Top

#13 There's this little thing called the internet?

I always wanted to read The Procols of the Elders of Zion (yeah, I know the history) but you can't get it at mass market chain bookstores. It *is* available on-line. After a couple pages, I got bored; never read the whole thing. All praise the Interweb!

Personally, I think more people should read the Koran. They would be appalled.

Posted by SteveS 2007-08-29 21:17|| 2007-08-29 21:17|| Front Page Top

#14 The most consequential was by Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands to end Muslim emigration. Had he not been assassinated in 2002, he might have ridden his issue to the prime ministry.

This one example alone goes to disprove Pipes' point. We (the west) have bent over backwards in trying to be "tolerant" and "understanding" of Islam. The problem is, Islam is the problem in it's fundamental form. The irony of the above example seems to miss Pipes' brain completely. Here you have a politician in arguably the most *tolerant* nation on earth trying to control the jihadis within via the democratic/political process, and what does he get? Off'd by a jihadi, that's what, in his own nation.

Eventually, this will come down to a big, gigantic p!ss!ng match between "real" Americans (or other Western nations) and the jihadis among us. My bet's still on the rednecks, but it'll be a lot of bloodshed, unless we get serious about rooting out the jihadis among us. Delay the inevitable is only gonna make things worse, especially for the MMMs.

Posted by BA 2007-08-29 21:30|| 2007-08-29 21:30|| Front Page Top

#15 Personally, I think more people should read the Koran.

They are. And they are liking what they read. That's the problem.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-08-29 21:34|| 2007-08-29 21:34|| Front Page Top

23:49 Old Patriot
23:06 Barbara Skolaut
23:02 Gary and the Samoyeds
23:00 Barbara Skolaut
22:55 Shieldwolf
22:51 Shieldwolf
22:50 Shieldwolf
22:48 Barbara Skolaut
22:46 Barbara Skolaut
22:44 Halliburton - Jihadi Disposition Affiliate
22:38 macofromoc
22:34 Shieldwolf
22:32 BigEd
22:09 JosephMendiola
22:04 BA
21:55 B. Hussein Obama
21:54 Whiskey Mike
21:46 Nimble Spemble
21:45 Asymmetrical T
21:44 Skunky Glins5285
21:38 BA
21:34 Zenster
21:33 Halliburton - Work Accident Division
21:31 Skunky Glins5285
Merry-Go-Blog