Unforeseen Contingencies

Is Islam inherently totalitarian? Is the initiation of violence against peaceful people inherent in Islam?

No!

Is totalitarianism and the initiation of aggressive violence against peaceful people inherent in some forms of Islam?

Yes!

The texts of revealed religions are obscure and vague. Even taken literally, they are open to such extremes of interpretation that one may reasonably claim them to be compatible with ethical standards that range from pure libertarianism to complete totalitarianism. No revealed religion will survive a rigorous test for logical consistency or evidence (see George Smith’s “Atheism: The Case Against God” and Thomas Paine’s “The Age of Reason”). Regardless, these are obviously important sources for humans’ beliefs. And given that we don’t reject them as illogical and empirically falsified, i.e. given that we pay attention to what they say, they can be reasonably interpreted to include a wide range of beliefs.

Consider Christianity, for example. Some who take the Bible literally believe that all of the Old Testament laws should be enforced – e.g. gays and nonbelievers stoned to death, textiles that use mixed fibers banned, etc. Do a Google search on Dominion Theology if you doubt anyone would go that far. I’ve met plenty of Christians who have told me that gays, pagans, atheists, and similar non-believers should be put to death.

Simultaneously, people who take the Bible literally can be the most civilized, tolerant people imaginable. I knew a woman, a Christian fundamentalist, who took the Bible completely literally. She knew I am an atheist, but treated me with the greatest kindness and respect, was a good friend, and we had great debates on religion. I am sure she saw her friendship with me as completely compatible with her religion. I can’t imagine her stoning me, nor stoning the open lesbians and bisexual women on the women’s basketball team she coached (one of them told me they all thought she was a really fine person and friend).

The same goes for Islam. I have tried reading the Quran, and can’t make any sense of it. (Supposedly it must be read in Arabic, which is worse than Greek to me, but as Thomas Paine pointed out, the idea that God is limited by the constraints of human language is, well, genuine blasphemy.) But I have met a number of well-read, well-educated, thoughtful Muslims, and it is obvious to me from their wide variety of Islams that the Quran is every bit as obscure and open-to-interpretation as the Bible.

Consider Dean Ahmad, an American of Arab descent, Ph.D. in Astronomy, and Islamic cleric, and former Secretary of the Libertarian Party of the U.S. While at a conference I had the good fortune to spend an evening talking with him about Islam. He explained to me why, properly understood, Islam is a religion of reason, tolerance, and liberty. Afterwards I read his book “Signs in the Heavens.” While it is written for Muslims, and thus in places obscure to a non-Muslim such as me, it made a case that reminded me of Rose Wilder Lane’s “Discovery of Freedom” and Henry Grady Weaver’s “Mainspring of Human Progress:” real Islam is pro-reason and libertarian. Similarly, Dr. Taras Verakov, a Russian Arabic scholar and convert to Islam (who also happened to be my chess partner when I taught in Moscow) told me that Islam, properly understood, is inherently libertarian, and therefore Muslims should honor America as the society that is as close to ideal as humans have yet been able to come. (I almost felt I was speaking with Ayn Rand when I talked with him, although he was unfamiliar with Rand.) Both Ahmad and Verakov have deep understandings of the Quran and Islam; both are extremely well educated, both have read the Quran in Arabic, and both believe it is fundamentally pro-reason and libertarian. This is the good Islam. It is pro-freedom, pre-reason, and pro-human. Bottom line: there is a libertarian Islam.

Simultaneously, there is a perfectly reasonable interpretation of Islam that is utterly incompatible with freedom. I had the good luck a number of years ago to spend an evening discussing religion with a Pakistani economist, a devout Muslim who was head of the Muslim Students’ Organization at Montana State University. He was clearly very devout, and a genuinely honest and moral man. I really like him. And if I had $100,000 in cash that needed safekeeping, I would trust it to him, without hesitation. But I also would trust him to cut off my head if I tried to kiss one of his daughters. I asked him about dating in Pakistan – he assured me that in proper society it isn’t done. “And if a boy and girl did meet, without permission, just to talk?” “Usually their fathers would get together and agree to put both of the children to death. And then they would kill them. The children were immoral, after all.” “And would the fathers get away with this?” “There’s a good chance that they might spend a couple of months in prison, as this is technically illegal. But then they’d go free, it would not be a big deal.” He thought that this was appropriate. His Islam, which he assured me is well-founded in the Koran, is utterly totalitarian and authorizes violence against peaceful people.

This Islam, the evil Islam, is very common. How many Muslims demonstrated in protest when Daniel Pearl or Nicholas Berg were beheaded in the name of Islam? How many Muslims demonstrated in protest when fellow Muslims committed mass murder of grade school children in Beslan? How many Muslims demonstrated in protest when a pair of sociopaths from Hamas (may they rot in hell) blew to bits a bunch of teenagers on the Ben-Yehuda mall? Add up all the Muslims who publicly protested these savage murders done in the name of Allah, and you’ll find they are far outnumbered by those who publicly call for the deaths of some European cartoonists and editors. This is evil Islam, and we damn well better confront it, without regard for political correctness or politeness or the feelings of its adherents. Better that we do it now, with cartoons and ridicule, than later with guns and bombs. If you don’t understand that there are Muslims who are seriously working to impose totalitarian Islam on us all, then you have not been paying attention (reading “Foreign Affairs” is sufficient attention). At a practical level, this Islam is the equivalent of Nazism.

But at the same time, consider again my Pakistani fundamentalist friend. His vision of Islam is totalitarian and intolerant. But this is only a part of his Islam, and within him is also great good. He explained to me about the crucial importance of doing good to people, without regard for who they might be – “forgive your fellow man his sins, and do him well. It is your duty.”

A contradiction? Sure. Clearly, a large part of the Islam of my Pakistani friend is pure evil. But there’s the part that is good. In my view, he’s a good man, caught in a bad set of ideas. What do I wish for him? Enlightenment, and liberation. I cannot imagine how this could be done, without offending him and shocking the hell out of him. I hope that he sees the Danish cartoons, especially “Stop, stop, we’ve run out of virgins” and “relax folks, it’s just a sketch…” and the turban bomb. These will shock him horribly and offend him. But he’s an intelligent and thoughtful man. I hope that after the initial shock wears off he’ll realize that the world hasn’t collapsed simply because these were published. And then just maybe he will suddenly say “what was I thinking? That could be me, offering a bomb and a scimitar in the name of Islam, rather than the good works I was lecturing that foolish guy in Montana about.” And then, I hope, he will begin to acknowledge liberty.

We who are pro-liberty and pro-West must not worry about offending Muslims. We must attack their false ideas and shock the hell out of them. It is preferable to fighting them to the death in a struggle for reason and liberty (which we must do if it comes to it). And we should recognize that Islam is like most broad bodies of human thought: it contains not only falsehoods, but also good things from which we can learn, and some of its adherents are among the best people among us.

It may be a war of civilizations, but waged properly, it can be a positive sum game.

I will not post a "crime of the week" this week, not because there's no material, but because there are a few other matters that need attention, in particular, Barack Obama's recent speeches on Islam and terror, and Vladimir Putin's war. But this is probably a good time for a quick break and reflection on what it is all about. What's the point of "Islamic Crime of the Week?"

It's pretty obvious that most Muslims are not terrorists.  And there would be no sense writing multiple posts explaining that terrorism is wrong.  It's also obvious that there are forms of Islam that are enlightened and extremely pro-freedom.  But it's also clear that there are forms of Islam that are authoritarian or totalitarian and completely incompatible with a free, liberal, decent society.  The purpose of "Islamic Crime" is to show this and to show that this is the Islam not of just a few extremists, but at the very least a substantial minority of Muslims, and very possibly the majority.  And that kind of Islam is something we do need to make war against.  Whether it be intellectual war, or sometimes the real physical thing, it is imperative that freedom of thought, freedom of speech and other expression, and freedom to live according to one's beliefs be protected, including from sharia.

So far this feature has demonstrated that in countries where law is based on the Koran, Islam leads to executing gays and nonbelievers, torturing those who speak out against religious authority, punishing people who own dogs, forcing pre-teen girls into "marriages," and legal rape -- not as rare, one-off events, but as widespread practices involving millions of people in multiple countries and cultures on different continents.  I'm going to quantify this.  Before I am done, I expect to be able to show that at least 1 in 8 Muslims believe in executing anyone who leaves the Muslim faith.  It may turn out to be closer to 1 in 4.  When it comes to other kinds of violence against non-believers and apostates, I think I'll be able to show that the numbers are higher.

What's the point?  This isn't written for Muslims; I expect they already know what ideas are circulating in Islam (and besides, I'd be shocked if I had any Muslim readers).  (Heck, I'll be shocked if I actually have any readers.)  It's written for another group entirely: the advocates of political correctness, mostly on the left but certainly not entirely, who really do drink the "Islam is a religion of peace" Kool-Aid™.

There are very good people who are Muslims.  There are forms of Islam that support individual rights, freedom, and peace.  But Islam, far more than any other religion, is also infected with authoritarian, brutal, oppressive strains that are completely incompatible with civilization.  These strains are not the Islam of a few"violent extremists" and terrorists, but very common versions, and very possibly the dominant versions, accepted by the majority of Muslims today.  I'll establish that by the time this series is finished.

Quite a number of people -- mostly critics -- have noted Barack Obama's steadfast and explicit refusal to recognize such a thing as "Islamic terrorism," and his insistence that extremists are not really Islamic, but follow a false, perverted ideology that is not Islamic. This argument has become standard for White House and State Department spokesmen who have followed suit, often to the point of absurdity as they trip over themselves trying to explain why ISIS, say, isn't Islamic.  Anyone who follows Unforeseen Contingencies knows that "we" think it glaringly obvious that there's such a thing as extremist Islam and that it's incompatible with civilization.  So how to account for Obama's strange position?

One argument, usually from supporters, is that this is actually well-considered strategic policy.  This account on the Beirut to Beltway blog is the most reasonable defense of this I've seen.  But I don't buy it.  If that's it, there are plenty of other things often labeled "Islamic" that he seems quite comfortable with, e.g. the Muslim Brotherhood.  For another, it requires us to impose an interpretation on his words.  But, as I'll argue, it makes more sense to simply take them at face value and assume he means what he says.  He's consistent, after all.

So consider the critics.  Some critics -- Sean Hannity, for example -- argue that Obama is incredibly naive.  That's hard to believe.  It's not as though the rest of us have access to better information than the president does, and even a superficial glance shows that Boko Haram, Al Shabab, ISIS, and the many incarnations of Al Qaeda all claim Islam as their inspiration and Sharia as their goal.  Naivete seems a weak explanation at best -- it really seems to be "steadfast refusal" rather than confusion.

Another explanation is political correctness.  Blogger "Lorenzo from Oz" has a particularly insightful analysis of this phenomenon.  I think this goes a long way to explaining why leftist academics sympathize with Islamism, and probably explains a good part of the machinations of the Obama administration and foreign policy establishment.  (That, plus "following orders" is darn near a complete explanation.)  But "political correctness" and the philosophy behind it is another argument that ultimately amounts to a failure on the part of those who insist that Islam is blameless to really understand the nature of Islamism.

I don't think these explanations explain Barack Obama's position, and I'd like to offer a different one -- one that is based entirely on taking his own words at face value.  Barack Obama has repeatedly called violent extremism and terrorism done in the name of Islam to be a perversion of Islam.  In doing so, he is taking a theological position, and it is one that has been made by a number of people and groups that are Islamist -- that is, who believe political systems should be Islamized, made into compliance with the Koran and Sharia, but that terrorism is the wrong -- and even immoral -- route to this.  I first encountered this position in 1989, in the discussion with my Pakistani friend I've occasionally mentioned.  He made the point to me not that the ultimate goals of jihadi terrorists were wrong (the spread of Islam, including Sharia, throughout the world), but that their methods  -- terror and violence -- were wrong.  As I understand it, many others, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, make the same argument: terrorism is unIslamic.  But political Islam and the imposition of Sharia is Islamic.  This is a theological position, based on particular interpretations of of the Koran and Hadith.  When Barack Obama argues that violent extremism is unIslamic, he makes exactly this point.  I have never heard him suggest that Islamism is in any way a perversion of the Koran, nor, for that matter, in any way objectionable.  To the contrary, his statements suggest he is supportive of Islamism, at least mildly.

Given all that we've seen in his presidency, his speech in Cairo in 2009 seems much less bizarre.  Whether he's secretly a Muslim or not I neither know nor care (I suspect he has no serious religious beliefs at all and is a de facto atheist), but he knows Islam, I think well, from "three continents," and think of it with a great deal of sympathy and respect -- hence his references to the "holy Koran," "the prophet Mohammed," and "the revelation of Islam."  Given his background, he surely must understand Islam better than most Americans (I cannot fathom how he could be naive on Islam) and his pointed refusal to say anything at all against political Islam is telling.  I think he is sympathetic to Islamism.  Hence:

• His refusal to speak in favor of the liberals who opposed the mullahs during Iran's failed "Green Revolution"
• His support for Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt's "Arab Spring"
• His immediate condemnation of the removal of Morsi and crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood by General al Sisi
• His otherwise incomprehensible lament that the First Amendment "tied his hands' so that he couldn't go after the maker of the film on Mohammed that allegedly stirred up the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi (an allegation that turns out to have been a lie concocted by Obama and his administration) 
• His appointment of Harvard Law Dean Harold Koh as legal advisor to the State Department (Koh has written on how the First Amendment could be circumvented so that the government could prohibit things like blasphemy and bring America more in line with international "standards.")
• His apparent willingness to get any kind of nuclear deal with Iran, even a temporary one that leaves all of Iran's nuclear infrastructure intact (more on this shortly)
• His remarkable hostility to Benyamin Netanyahu, and to Israel in general
• His repeated negative and even hostile references to Christianity, from denigrating its "bitter clingers" to condemning it for slavery (as if slavery is unIslamic!) or the Crusades
• All sorts of other strange things start to make some sense if one supposes Obama is taking a theological position as to what is and is not Islamic, e.g. Obama's insistence that the murders of Jews in a Paris market were "random" or that the Fort Hood shootings were "workplace violence" 

So what to make of all this?  Based simply on his own words and action, Barack Obama is sympathetic to authoritarian -- totalitarian -- political Islam. He's also hostile to the American founders' principles of strictly limited government.  Rudy Giuliani recently said Barack Obama does not love America and was widely criticized.  But Giuliani is right.  What America is, fundamentally, is a set of ideas -- individual rights as the fundamental political value, government that exists and governs only with the consent of the citizens, and strict constraints on the powers of government.  These are completely incompatible with his progressivism and his leftism, as well as with Sharia and Islamism.  This is an extremely dangerous thing.  We should regard Obama the same way a president would have been viewed during the Cold War had one publicly defended Marxism-Leninism, criticized America's Constitutional system, and acted as a fellow-traveller.  He'd have been considered an enemy infiltrator, even if he had not been recruited by the KGB.  So too Barack Obama.  Again, I think he's not a Muslim, but his words and actions are more sympathetic to Islamism than to American political values.  He ought to be regarded as infiltrator.  His own words suggest this interpretation.

Is Islam inherently violent?  No!  As I've explained in the past, there are many variants of Islam, and some of them are certainly not violent or totalitarian.  In fact, there are genuinely libertarian forms of Islam that respect the rights of all individuals.

Unfortunately, it's also clear that that these are minority variants.  In addition, it's clear that among today's major religions Islam is by far the least tolerant, most violent, and most totalitarian; no other broad set of beliefs comes close.  It is only mad people largely on the left who seem not to be able to recognize this.  Egypt's President al Sisi, a Muslim, made a very clear statement on this matter in a New Year's Day appeal to Muslim clerics, calling for a revolution in Islamic thinking, because Islam has gone off the rails, because the entirety of Muslims have become "a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world."  He accused Muslims of "antagonizing the entire world" and repeatedly called for a "religious revolution" that discards violent doctrines.

I think al Sisi's points are obvious to almost everyone, save for a large share of the contemporary Left. Driven to insanity by political correctness, they are going to absurd lengths to deny there are any problems at all in Islam, hence the various bizarre convolutions of Obama and his administration to avoid terms like Islamic terrorism, or Duke University's decision to institute the Muslim call to prayer on campus as a way of responding the the Charlie Hebdo attacks (a decision that has, fortunately, been repealed, at least for now).

Well, the problem is not terrorism.  It's not even Islamic terrorism.  It's Islam.

It would be a waste of time  to argue that terrorism or Islamic terrorism are bad; anyone uncertain of this is beyond reason, and there's no fun in making arguments to the deaf.  On the other hand, there is some sport to be had in maximizing cognitive dissonance among politically correct leftists.  Towards this end, Unforeseen Contingencies excitedly announces a new feature: The Islamic Crime of the Week!

Every Friday -- the Muslim holy day -- we'll highlight an unambiguously Islamic action of mainstream "civilized" Muslims that is outrageous and violent.  Of course, if Islam really is a religion of peace, as we're repeatedly lectured, this will be impossible, so the politically correct need not worry.

Here's this week's entry:  The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is postponing the continuation of the public lashing of Raif Badawi for a week, for "medical reasons" (they suspect another 50 lashes this week will kill him outright).  Badawi received a sentence of 1,000 lashes and ten years in prison for insulting Islam by establishing a blog -- Liberal Saudi Network -- that some Saudi clerics and officials disliked.

President Obama, Eric Holder, Josh Earnest, and the entirety of the politically correct left are welcome to go ahead and explain that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not Islamic, and that this brand of Islam has anything to do with peace.

Happy Yawm al-Jumʿah (Friday day of prayer) from Unforeseen Contingencies!

Here's the second installment of our new regular feature highlighting outrageous, violent aspects of mainstream Islam that are incompatible with civilization.  Last week featured Saudi Arabia's sentencing of Raif Badawi to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in prison for unapproved blogging that happened to offend Muslim clerics.  Happily the continuation of the flogging has again been postponed.  He's not dead yet.

This week we have not one but two offenses.  The first comes from The Islamic Republic of Iran, the center of Shia Islam.  Iran's parliament is considering a bill that would punish anyone owning a dog as a pet with 74 lashes and fine of up to $3,700.      I have been unable to learn if the law passed.

The "Islam Question and Answer" site, apparently a major outlet for explaining Islamic thought,explains that owning a dog is haraam in Islam, and if you do keep a dog your qiraats will be deducted from your hasanaat. (I.e. it's anathema, and you'll lose brownie points in heaven...why do Muslims refuse to translate their beliefs into plain English?)  The rationalization for this is that keeping a dog in the house in unclean.  Oh?  In fact, keeping a Muslim in the house is a much greater disease threat -- humans share the same diseases; you won't catch a cold or flu from a dog.  You can more easily catch diseases from any human, Muslims included.

Shaykh al-Munajjid also tells a recent convert to Islam that she must get rid of her dog of eleven years.  Oh? If you adopt a dog, the dog becomes dependent on you, psychologically and physically.  It's plain cruelty to suddenly abandon it.  Islam is cruel.  That's not my contention, that's al-Munajjid's position.

Perhaps in the grand scheme of things giving someone 74 lashes for owning a dog isn't as bad as shooting them for drawing cartoons or being Jewish (although if more than 50 lashes would likely kill Raif Badawi, 74 sounds like a death penalty).  But it is crazy, outrageous, and unacceptable.  I live with a dog.  I love dogs.  I do not trust people who do not like dogs.  If someone doesn't want to have a dog, that's his or her business, but if I choose differently.  Dogs and humans evolved together; a good human-canine team is something special.  If Islam doesn't approve of dogs, to hell with Islam.

But wait, there's more!  Our second crime comes from Sunni Egypt.  According to Al Bawaba News, Egyptian authorities are waging war on people who decide they just don't buy arguments for God.  I know that some atheists in the United States claim to be persecuted, but I don't know of anyone who received a three year prison term for blasphemy, as Karim El-Banna did.

Iran and Egypt are Muslim countries.  The "Islamic Q & A" site is mainstream Muslim.  Mainstream Islam is illiberal, authoritarian, despotic.

Photo: Chief blogger Charles N. Steele and canine companions Chaos and Luna in the backcountry of South Cottonwood Canyon, Hyalite Range, southern Montana.  Click for bigger view.

A woman is taken to a secluded place against her will and gang raped by seven men.  They are caught and convicted, each given five years in prison.  She is also arrested, charged with having been in public unaccompanied by a male relative, convicted and receives a sentence of 90 lashes.  She appeals her conviction, and she and her attorney also complain publicly about her sentence -- which on appeal is raised to 200 lashes and six months in prison, and her attorney banned from further representing her and threatened with disbarment.

No terrorist groups were involved in this, and it's hard to argue that this is Islam being hijacked by unIslamic extremists -- unless one argues that the entire Saudi system is a hijacking of Islam, which I gather is what Iran's Press TV argues.  This case is actually from 2007, but the Press TV article is dated today (March 7 2015).  Iran and Saudi Arabia are at war by proxy in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and elsewhere, so I gather this case is being dredged up by Iran as a part of their effort.  Jerusalem Post then picked it up and re-reported it, where I first noticed it.  As it turns out, King Abdullah eventually commuted the woman's sentence, apparently because of pressure from the non-Muslim West, and the disbarment of the attorney was cancelled.

I know that Iran's Shiites believe that Saudi Wahhabism is not really Islam.  But it's not the mainstream Saudis that Barack Obama is thinking of when he says extremists are not Muslims.  And  the practitioners of political correctness insist that "Islam is a religion of peace" and anyone who disagrees is to be condemned as "Islamophobic" aren't condemning mainstream Saudi Islam as "unIslamic."  Wahhabi Islam is arguably the purest Islam.  Saudi Arabia's "constitution" is the Koran and the Sunnah, and its law is Sharia.  Trying this woman for any crime at all was an act of uncivilized savages, and the crazy ideas that drove them are similarly uncivilized.

I know very well that there are Muslims who would agree with my last sentence, and whose version of Islam is quite different and really is peaceful.  But this Saudi version is also Islam, it appears to be spreading (after all, the Saudis have spent over 100 billion of USD promoting it abroad), and it is indeed a religion of violence and destruction.  Never mind terrorism.  The mainstream version, as practiced by the Saudis themselves, is nasty and violent.

What's the proper way to deal with gays and lesbians?  What to do with unmarried couples who have sexual relations?  How about married people who have sex which someone to whom they aren't married?  What should the rest of us do with them?  Here's a hint: nothing.  We might consider their behavior good, bad, or indifferent, but it's also their behavior and their business, so long as it's consensual.  Certainly it isn't a police matter, and even more certainly it doesn't call for the death penalty, and most certainly it doesn't call for death by slow brutal torture.(Somehow I supposed that once something was "certain" it couldn't be "more certain," but these seem to be accepted expressions...oh well.)

Twelve countries have public stoning embedded in their laws as the punishment for such consensual sex.  Of these twelve, eleven are overwhelmingly dominated by a particular religion, and it's this religion that explicitly is the source of jurisprudence on this issue.  Any guesses as to which religion?  That's right, it's the "religion of peace!"  Nigeria is the only country with legal stoning that does not have a clear Muslim majority...but Nigeria only has legal stoning in the states that have clear Muslim majorities and include Sharia as a basis for law.  In the twenty-first century, stoning is Islamic and only Islamic.

The dishonor roll includes:

• Afghanistan
• Brunei
• Indonesia
• Iraq
• Iran
• Mali
• Pakistan
• Saudi Arabia
• Sudan
• Somalia
• United Arab Emirates

And it appears that in all of these states, stonings for these sex "crimes" are imposed and carried out.  Note that these places have little in common other than Islam and Sharia.  They are linguistically, culturally, ethnically, and geographically distinct.  Those who argue that Islam is a "religion of peace" need to explain how stoning women to death for fornication or stoning gay men to death is peaceful.  Or they need to be able to explain how Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the UAE, Iran, Indonesia, et al. "hijacked" the "peaceful religion" and how they aren't really Islamic.  Or maybe they can show how a similar percentage of Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, and secular societies also have adopted stoning for adultery and homosexuality.  Or maybe they should just come to their senses.

I considered linking to a number of stories about stonings, but became sick at heart reading them and gave up.  Most seem to involve women, much of the time rape victims, and the men tend to get off scot-free for lack of evidence.  But the fact that the law is applied improperly isn't the point -- it's a terrible, criminal "law."  And it appears to be a standard doctrine in Muslim jurisprudence.  Sure, it's also in the Bible... but no Christian or Jew has paid any heed to that for hundreds of years (except Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell's lunatic friend, Gary North).  Perhaps it's time for mainstream Islam to discover the Enlightenment and the rights of the individual.

Read about stonings here.  The links in this Wikipedia entry seem mostly to work.

And here's a slideshow that defends stoning in Islam.  I tried to post a comment but it required me to sign up with Facebook.  So I'll post my comment here: "This convinces me that Islam is evil.  Stoning is a way to torture a victim to death.  Fornication and homosexuality are not crimes, but peaceful voluntary acts. So too adultery.  None are equivalent to theft (which also doesn't deserve this savage punishment).  If this is Islam, then Islam is evil, and people who advocate this are uncivilized savages.  I am amused, though, that the author thinks the existence of sexually transmitted disease helps make the case for stoning.  That's pretty funny..."

Happy Friday prayers.

It's a "religion of peace," right?  Then explain why an impoverished illiterate woman, Aasiya Noreen (a.k.a. Asia Bibi) languishes on death row in Pakistan for blaspheming the so-called prophet Mohammed.

Noreen, a Christian, was working as a farmhand with a number of other women, largely Muslims when she drank some water from a common bucket.  Since she's a member of a lower caste therefore "unclean" -- oh, that's right, Islam doesn't have castes, everyone is equal -- well, since she's a Christian and therefore "unclean," the members of the "religion of peace" began berating her and insulting her religion, to which she replied "I believe in my religion and in Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for the sins of mankind. What did your Prophet Mohammed ever do to save mankind?"

News of this "blasphemy" spread, and soon a mob of adherents of the "religion of peace" dragged Ms. Noreen and the rest of her family from their home and began beating them.  The police arrived and quickly restored law and order by arresting -- not the mob of rioting Muslims, of course --but the helpless Aasiya Noreen and charging her with blasphemy.  She was subsequently convicted and sentenced to death.  Multiple appeals to higher courts have all failed to date.

The governor for Punjab Province, Salmaan Taseer, spoke up on her behalf, for which he was subsequently assassinated.  Pakistan's Minister for Minorities Affairs, Shahbaz Bhatti, spoke up on her behalf, for which he was subsequently assassinated.

By all accounts, Noreen's death sentence for blasphemy is popular in Pakistan.

This is mainstream Islam in Pakistan, not some perversion by a tiny minority of terrorists.  When her sentence was handed down, the courtroom erupted.  As she puts it, "I cried alone, putting my head in my hands. I can no longer bear the sight of people full of hatred, applauding the killing of a poor farm worker. I no longer see them, but I still hear them, the crowd who gave the judge a standing ovation, saying: 'Kill her, kill her! Allahu Akbar!' The court house is invaded by a euphoric horde who break down the doors, chanting: 'Vengeance for the holy prophet. Allah is great!'"

Yes, well, allah is not great.  Allah is a hoax.  Mohammed was no prophet.  The Koran is not a book of truth, but a book of old religious speculations of uncivilized desert nomads.  And Islam is not a religion of peace.  The followers of this religion are not civilized human beings.  I say that Mohammed was not a prophet but a violent and crazy fraud -- and for saying this I do not deserve to die.  Even less deserving of death is this poor, inoffensive Christian woman.  But as things stand, she will be executed for the "crime" of blaspheming against Islam.

Pakistan is the second largest Muslim country in the world, with over 180 million Muslims. Its official state religion is Islam.  Its legal system is based on Islam. This is mainstream Islam.

Here's the transcript of President Obama's speech in Cairo. Read it, don't listen, because you'll need to look at some of it more than once.

I don’t believe any American president has ever before given a speech targeted at all adherents of a particular religion. And I’m sure the U.S. has never before had a foreign policy position towards a particular religion. In the strange new world of Obama-style identity politics, we now have both. What to make of it?

Resetting the American policy approach to the Middle East and elsewhere is long overdue. It makes sense to offer an olive branch to reasonable Muslims, and anyone else for that matter. "We" here at UC greatly appreciate President Obama’s endorsement of the Golden Rule, and his call for mutual understanding and peace. If this were the sole substance of Obama’s speech, "we" might well be applauding. But instead, we're torn between being mystified and aghast.


There’s plenty that might be said about the Obama speech, and for a nice and fair analysis see the op-ed by political scientist Gerald Steinburg in the Jerusalem Post.

But for all that was good in the speech, there was plenty of utter nonsense in Obama’s offering. Consider, for example, his statement "Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism - it is an important part of promoting peace."

That's ridiculous. Muslim clerics issue fatwas calling for the murder of Salman Rushdie, Danish cartoonists, and anyone else whose free speech bothers them. Huge crowds of Muslims demonstrate, and frequently riot violently, on behalf of these bloodthirsty causes. The Muslim organization Hamas calls for extermination of Jews, and works for it. Hezbollah and Al Qaeda - both explicitly Muslim organizations - wage wars against civilians using terror, as does the Muslim Taliban. A Pakistani Muslim once described to me the practice of honor killings, in which fathers would cooperate to murder their own children for the mildest of "moral" offenses (e.g. a boy and girl from different families meeting without permission, but without even physically touching, just meeting to talk) and assured me that while illegal, it was widely regarded as acceptable. During a discussion of religion, another Pakistani friend mentioned that were he home in Pakistan and expressed the rather liberal interpretation of some verses from the Koran he'd just espoused, that his friends would physically beat him. Muslims aren't inherently violent, but there are violent, illiberal tendencies in many strains of Islam. It's common. This is something Muslims need to confront.

OK, this is an obvious criticism, covered well by Steinburg (above). And I suppose Obama's supporters would respond that he's simply taking rhetorical high ground. And after all, we do want Muslims to combat extremism and promote peace, so maybe we're just differing on how best to persuade?

Yeah, OK...

But what to make of these strange points from his speech?

"[I]n the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation. That's why I'm committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat."

What??? America restricts charitable giving by Muslims? Really! Since when? In fact, there’s nothing at all like this happening...unless, of course, Obama is referring to the closing of organizations that were channeling funds to Al Qaeda, Hamas, and similar terrorist groups. Or perhaps the ongoing connection of CAIR with Hamas? (The linked story is headlined to make CAIR look like a victim, oddly enough.) It’s bizarre to think that Obama could be talking about this, but what else could it be?

Or try this:

"[America will] create a new online network, so a young person in Kansas can communicate instantly with a young person in Cairo."

Yes, wonderful! But this doesn’t already exist? Well, sure, it actually does, in many internet variants. I myself have gone online, although perhaps not from Kansas, to "communicate instantly" with people in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East. So what is he talking about?

Or try this:

"So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed."

Now that's just creepy. Only a Muslim believes that Islam was "revealed." Certainly a Christian wouldn't say this. In talking with friends, I've been making a good deal of fun of the claim of that Obama is a Muslim, but here he seems to be saying that Islam was indeed revealed by God. Umm, is the Conservapedia entry on Obama right after all? Say it isn't so, B.O.! (No one in the press will ever dare seriously ask him.)

But say, why did he just receive Saudi Arabia's highest decoration? What's he done to earn it? At least when George W. Bush received it, he'd furthered Saudi interests in deposing Sadaam Hussein and opposing Iran. But why Obama? Why would the king of a feudal royal family that sees itself as the guardian of Islam (and that spawned and finances Al Qaeda as well as the Wahabi version of fundamentalist Islam that guides Al Qaeda) be presenting our new President with the kingdom's highest award? If during the Cold War an American President was awarded, after his first few months in office, "Hero of the Soviet Union," wouldn't it have been seen as at least a little bit suspicious? In this case, "creepy" is the word. Why does our President keep kowtowing to the Saudi king?

How about this:

"And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear."

Yes, yes, that's Article II, Section, umm... no, Article, er, umm... What is this about? Well, he did tell the French that America is a Muslim country, after all.

He goes on:

"That's why the United States government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab and to punish those who would deny it."

Yes, that’s the First Amendment, the inalienable right to wear the hijab, and the Federal Code, which makes it a felony to deny this right. Many Federal prosecutors have built their careers punishing hijab "rights deniers"...right? Again, what is he talking about? This is all nonsense.

Peter Daou (Huffington Post) is less measured than I on this one: "With women being stoned, raped, abused, battered, mutilated, and slaughtered on a daily basis across the globe, violence that is so often perpetrated in the name of religion, the most our president can speak about is protecting their right to wear the hijab? I would have been much more heartened if the preponderance of the speech had been about how in the 21st century, we CANNOT tolerate the pervasive abuse of our mothers and sisters and daughters."

Obama again:

"Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong, and it does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation."

They still do serve as chattel slaves in Muslim communities. The only slave I ever met was a black man owned by a Mauritanian Muslim (this was in West Africa). But more importantly, the plight of the Palestinians has nothing in common with that of American slaves. The Palestinians have had repeated opportunities to negotiate a peace settlement with the Israelis, and have refused. In his time, Arafat rejected his opportunity for a settlement with Israel. Now Hamas openly calls for the killing of Jews everywhere in the world, and the obliteration of Israel.

But back to the President:

"Hamas does have support among some Palestinians, but they also have to recognize they have responsibilities. To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, recognize Israel's right to exist."

Hamas has no past agreements to recognize, unless he means the Hamas Charter, which openly calls for literally exterminating Jews. Tolerance for genocide is malicious and deeply offensive as well. And Hamas did handily win an election against Fatah, and then used violence to drive Fatah from Gaza. So far, using violence doesn’t seem to have hurt Hamas' efforts in unifying Palestinians. It's probable that if a fair election were held in the West Bank tomorrow, Hamas would win over Fatah...which is why Abbas just postponed elections again.

And this:

"On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people - Muslims and Christians - have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than 60 years they've endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations - large and small - that come with occupation."

Gaza is not occupied, and neither is most of the West Bank. And if it’s 60 years of occupation he means, then he’s referring to the existence of Israel as "occupation." Is he taking a position on "right of return?" Or the eventual elimination of Israel? (I suspect the vagueness is intentional; Obama can be all things to all people, if he is careful.)

"I understand those who protest that some countries have weapons that others do not. No single nation should pick and choose which nation holds nuclear weapons. And that's why I strongly reaffirmed America's commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons."

The very next day, Russian Army Chief of Staff General Nikolai Makarov, speaking on behalf of the Kremlin, announced that the Russian nuclear arsenal is "sacred" and that Russia will never give it up, but will strengthen it. And Iran subsequently announced it would accelerate its nuclear programs, North Korea continued preparing an ICBM for launch, and the IAEA released two reports: one that Iran has been accelerating its nuclear activities, including those that seem to be weapons related, and another that the Syrians seem to be up to some secret atomic research as well.

So score one for Obama here; these countries are all concurring with him that no one country gets to pick and choose who has nukes and who doesn't.

(BTW, I regret my intermittent access to internet keeps me from linking to each of these stories, but a bit of Googling on the reader’s part should find them. Feel free to provide links in the comments.)

Well, there's more:

"Likewise, it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit - for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear. We can't disguise hostility toward any religion behind the pretence of liberalism."

No Western country has dictated what clothes a Muslim woman should wear. France has maintained a strict policy of laicity, of keeping state institutions secular, and hence has prohibited the wearing in public schools of symbolic Muslim garments such as headscarves and burkas, just as they ban open display of crosses. This is a wise policy, and the French have it because of their experiences with bloodstained alliances of church and state. Turkey has this as well. Obama's slap at our secularist friends in both countries is despicable.

"I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal,"

No one has suggested otherwise. What many critics of headcovers point out is that often Muslim women don’t choose. Despite what they might say once outside the home, the decision is physically forced on them there, by men.

"I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal, but I do believe that a woman who is denied an education is denied equality."

NPR interviewed several Muslims around the world after the speech, and several pointed out that this didn't make much sense, because in many, probably most Muslim countries there are ample opportunities for education for women. But was Obama even referring to Muslim countries here? It’s France (OK, and Turkey) where a woman with a headcover might have difficulty entering a public classroom. So who knows what Obama meant? It sounded politically correct, so that should be sufficient.

Of course, we can't simply leave it at politically correct cooings, we need a bold plan for action:

"On economic development, we will create a new corps of business volunteers to partner with counterparts in Muslim-majority countries. And I will host a Summit on Entrepreneurship this year to identify how we can deepen ties between business leaders, foundations and social entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world."

"On science and technology, we will launch a new fund to support technological development in Muslim-majority countries, and to help transfer ideas to the marketplace so they can create more jobs. We'll open centers of scientific excellence in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and appoint new science envoys to collaborate on programs that develop new sources of energy, create green jobs, digitize records, clean water, grow new crops. Today I'm announcing a new global effort with the Organization of the Islamic Conference to eradicate polio. And we will also expand partnerships with Muslim communities to promote child and maternal health."

Ah, good! Another new volunteer corps, an entrepreneurship summit on how to build, umm, foundations(?) and cartels(?!), a new fund, new centers, new political appointments of science envoys (?), green jobs, more digitized records, health care for all... say, isn’t this also the Obama plan for America? (Digitized records? How many of these countries have records to digitize? And even if they do, why would we want to do it?)

I don’t know what to say, this is all very bizarre. Is he just spouting campaign rhetoric? Given his record so far, it would be unreasonable to simply assume he doesn't mean what he says. He’s definitely a man who executes bold, sweeping plans. Good grief, has he cleared all this with our Chinese financiers? (I won't even bother to ask about the Constitution.)

Early in his speech, Obama approvingly quotes John Adams in the Treaty of Tripoli, "The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims." But Obama entirely misses the point: the United States were neutral with respect to Islam, they had no position on it. Obama sets himself up as a partisan of Islam and Muslim countries, if not a Muslim himself, and promises American support in building the Islamic world.

Whether he's serious or not, this is going far, far beyond the bounds of legitimate Presidential authority. He is out of control. It's bizarre, and dangerous as well.

I understand that in addressing the Islamic world it's highly desirable to speak respectfully and calmly, and to offer the olive branch to those willing to accept it. But it is at least as important to speak the truth, and to represent individual rights and America's interests. Those are ominously, frighteningly lacking in Obama's speech.

What the hell is going on?

That's how WaPo headlines an article on the homicidal Islamist in Sydney, echoing statements from various "experts."  It appears that Man Haron Monis had theological interpretations of Islam that didn't conform to what the "experts" describe as "basic Islamic theology."  Why, he didn't even know the difference between doctrines and ideologies!  (The article does not go on to explain the "obvious" difference.)

That's rich!  I'm waiting for similar headlines on how Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan isn't familiar with the basics of Islam.  I don't recall any equivalent headlines concerning Christianity or conservatism when maniacs assassinated abortion providers or blew up clinics, or for that matter when Hindu nationalists in India or Buddhists in Thailand commits acts of religious violence.  Somehow Islam is the only doctrine (um, theology? ideology?) we need worry being confused about.

Here's a better article than WaPo mustered on the Islam-inspired terrorist attack in Pakistan, from Albawaba.  It's much shorter and notes the significance of ISI's support for the Pakistani Taliban, a crucial fact WaPo neglects -- news seems to be crowded out by pathos and propaganda in the American MSM these days.

Meanwhile, back at Unforeseen Contingencies headquarters, we are about to head West for Christmas. More blogging ahead!

So says Whitehouse Press Secretary Josh Earnest:

Q    And will you speak about the battle against Islamist extremism?

MR. EARNEST:  Well, all forms of violent extremism would certainly be discussed in the context of this summit.  But obviously the threat that we see from violent extremism in which individuals invoke the name of Islam, an otherwise peaceful religion, as they carry out these attacks would certainly be obviously a priority in the discussion here.

Ed.

Q    Josh, why wouldn’t you use the phrase right there, that we are going to take on Islamist extremism?  You said all forms of violent extremism. 

MR. EARNEST:  She asked me what the summit would discuss, and all forms of violent extremism would be discussed, and obviously the most potent and certainly the most graphic display that we’ve seen in recent days is, again, motivated by those individuals that seek to invoke the name of Islam to carry out these violent attacks.  And that’s certainly something that we want to work very hard to counter and mitigate, and we’ve got a strategy that we’ve been discussing for some time to exactly do that.

Q    So if it’s the most potent form, according to you, of extremism, why isn’t the summit on countering Islamic extremism?

MR. EARNEST:  Because violent extremism is something that we want to be focused on, and it’s not just Islamic violent extremism that we want to counter; there are other forms of --

Q    The recent cases in Paris, Australia, Canada -- isn’t the thread through them that it’s Islamic extremism?

MR. EARNEST:  Well, certainly the examples that you cite are examples of individuals who have cited Islam as they’ve carried out acts of violence.  There’s no arguing that.

Attorney General Eric Holder agrees:

I certainly think we are at war with those who would commit terrorist attacks and corrupt the Islamic faith to try to justify their terrorist actions.

For many on the left, refusal to recognize that Islam itself is the problem likely stems from political correctness and the extreme cognitive dissonance they must be feeling.  But that can't explain the carefully constructed positions and language taken by the Obama administration.  This is not mere confusion or stupidity, but something calculated.  I cannot say what (because I am uncertain) but it is sinister and dangerous.

Donald Trump has just called for a temporary ban on immigration into the U.S. by Muslims, a ban that would be maintained until we better understand how to deal with Islamism.  Practically everyone in media and politics is attacking Trump over this (its seems there's more outrage over Trump's proposal than over the actual San Bernardino massacre by Muslim jihadis).   I'm not a supporter of Trump for president, and I am not so sure Trump's proposal is a good idea, but the criticism of Trump strikes me as largely nonsensical.  Here's why.  (Caveat: Trump has subsequently extended his proposal to include American citizens who are Muslims -- I am not writing about that, only about immigration by non-citizens.  Stopping free travel for citizens based on their religion certainly violates the First Amendment prohibition on restrictions of free exercise of religion.)

The criticisms of Trump largely claim his idea is unConstitutional. (If that is criterion for outrage, why does Barack Obama get a pass for legislating via executive orders, picking and choosing the laws he'll enforce, and the like?)  I think they are wrong.  The Constitutional arguments I've heard hinge on Article VI:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

It supposedly follows, then, that there can be no religious test for citizenship, or for immigration.  I'm somewhat skeptical, but perhaps this is so.  But here's my question: is sharia a part of Islam?

Sharia is the Islamic legal system, so that might seem a stupid question.  But sharia is a set of legal and hence political doctrines, and not simply theology; in fact, it's more than that -- it's an entire institutional framework, something like a constitutional order.  If sharia is a necessary part of Islam, then Islam isn't simply a religion, it's a political ideology.  And it is certainly not unConstitutional to ban immigration by those who support political ideologies that are incompatible with or even hostile to American principles.  During the Second World War, Nazis were excluded from immigrating to America.  During the cold war, so were communists (I think this is still enshrined in law, although am uncertain).  Certainly adherence to political Islam could be -- and should be -- grounds to block immigrants.

Not all Muslims support sharia, I'm fairly sure.  But this might be a minority.  Certainly among the "Syrian" immigrants, it must be a minority.  The bulk of these immigrants (fewer than 50% are from Syria, according to Eurostat) come from countries where the vast majority of Muslims believe sharia should be the law of the land.  According to Pew Research, 99% of Afghanistan Muslims, 91% of Iraqi Muslims, and 84% of Pakistani Muslims believe sharia should be the basis of national law.  Sharia includes blasphemy laws, criminalization of homosexuality, oppression of women, and many other anti-liberal doctrines.  If Islam is inseparable from sharia, then banning immigration by adherents isn't banning them on the basis of a religious test, but a political one.  And that is certainly legitimate, particularly when the U.S. government appears to have no ability at all to vet immigrants.

This isn't an endorsement of Trump -- he's a wild man.  He seems to have no political principles -- I don't mean that he's unprincipled -- I mean that he seems unfamiliar with the concept of political principles.  If he does have any, he's a Democrat (I still wouldn't entirely discount the theory that he's a Clinton operative, working to sabotage the Republicans -- I just heard a gentleman from Commentary magazine suggest on the John Batchelor show that Trump's most outrageous/least politically correct statements regularly come at times that Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama are facing their own damning revelations or gaffes, and the effect is to rescue them from scrutiny.  Interesting.  (You can read Rothman's argument here.)  Of course, damning moments for Clinton and Obama, and outrageous statements from Trump, are so regular that discerning a regular pattern is a problem in advanced time series (Granger causality, anyone?) so the argument isn't exactly convincing, and even Rothman didn't seem convinced in the interview.

Regardless, Trump strikes a chord with many people because his "outrageous" arguments usually have a measure of sense in them, as well as a refreshing refusal to be intimidated.  It is certainly sensible to be worried about "Syrian" immigrants.  I don't want neighbors who think that it's important to establish sharia as the law of the land.

If anyone doubts that "politically correct" left liberals are enemies of free speech, the "Innocence of Muslims" episode is giving us plenty of evidence to refute that belief.  In a NYT op-ed, Timothy Egan manages to express outrage over abuses of free speech, as well as over Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and the GOP in general  (Somehow he ran out of gas before getting around to Islamic rioters.)  OK, NYT op-ed writers attacking conservatives is hardly news.  What's chilling is that the Egan refers to the maker of the film as "firing the first shot," equating making a film someone doesn't like to murder.  Throughout the op-ed he (and others in NYT) suggests that those who criticize Islam in ways he finds crude or inaccurate hold some sort of blame for the riots and murders of religious terrorists.  Read the op-ed.  Chilling is the word.

Egan is simply wrong in most of his op-ed.  Never mind the argument about Mohammed.  (The Koran does portray him as having consummated his marriage Aisha when she was 9 years old and he 53, but that's not child molestation, it's just the diversity of multicultural values...ahem.  The entire story of Mohammed and his wives and sexual behavior strikes us at Unforeseen Contingencies as perverse, but that's beside the point.  The correctness of free speech isn't relevant to the discussion.)

1. Romney didn't "hail the film" or its content as an expression of American values.  He hailed free speech as an expression of American values.  No one, anywhere, disputes the "right" to say things that offend no one.  It's only speech that offends that needs to be protected.

Romney was not quite on target in his criticism, however, because he exempted the American embassy officials in Cairo in it.  Officials of the U.S. government are supposed to defend our rights, not apologize for them. Given that they've sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution (which says nothing about "respecting religious beliefs," something which is not a "cornerstone of American democracy"), the persons responsible ought to be immediately fired.  The attacks were violent assaults on America, and these cowards are apologizing?  What are they thinking?

2. "...people have no idea how much freedom Americans are given to say pretty much anything, true or not."  No, we' re not given freedom.  Individuals have inherent rights to freedom of speech; it's not given to us, and has nothing to do with us being Americans.  (This is the one thing the embassy statement got right, by referring to free speech as a "universal" right.)

This isn't a distinction without a difference; the government doesn't grant us rights.  They are inherent in us, and we grant government such power as we see fit.  (Yes, the system is breaking down as civil servants turn themselves into civil masters, but that's a different discussion.)  It's a fairly common doctrine now among left-liberals that rights are mere social constructs, that we can change them as we see fit, via state power.  But until they amend the Constitution, our government is built on the framework of inherent individual rights and limited powers granted to the Feds, not rights being given to us by the government.

3. The attacks were orchestrated.  Anyone ought to realize this.  Even Egan admits it in his second paragraph.  The riots aren't some understandable public outrage, but a set of coordinated attacks, stirred up by clerics targeting the U.S., very much like the Jyllands-Posten Danish cartoons episodes.  The cartoons had actually been published in Cairo newspapers well before the riots, and nothing happened.  It was only after Muslim clerics engaged in a campaign that the riots erupted.  It's the same here.  Apologizing is even worse under these circumstances -- it's surrendering to an opponent's orhcestrated political strategy.

4. Egan: "Steve Klein, a California insurance man with a long history of making erroneous claims about Islam, says he's one of the backers."

What are "erroneous claims?"  Mohammed was not a prophet.  Allah doesn't exist.  There's no such thing as Djinn.  The Koran calls  Jews "people of the book" and also calls for killing them everywhere.  Does Egan really want to get into a debate over what is and isn't error in Islam?  It's relevant?  Islam is a myth, for pete's sake.

5. Egan: "A Florida preacher, Terry Jones, who inspired deadly riots in Afghanistan by threatening to burn copies of the Koran, has come forth as a promoter of the film.  And when asked whether he bore any responsibility for the violence prompted by the incendiary film, Jones said his conscience was clear."

Jones is right, of course.  Only the Muslim attackers and their leaders bear responsibility. Egan finds this outrageous I guess, but just what standard would he substitute?  Should speakers bear responsibility every time a group of mad clerics takes offense (or pretends offense for ulterior reasons) and whips up a mob in response to free speech?  This simply amounts to surrendering freedom of speech whenever bad people threaten to retaliate.

So where does this leave us -- let's apologize to terrorist religious maniacs whenever they are offended, assure them we also despise what offends them but sadly our hands are tied by our system, and fiercely condemn anyone (especially Republicans) who says otherwise as vicious and irresponsible?

Well, no.  Prof. Anthea Butler of Penn goes farther.  In her USA Today op-ed, she calls for the imprisonment of the filmmakers (while pretending to be a fierce advocate of free speech).  Since the film is historically inaccurate (again, why is the accuracy relevant?) and supposedly interferes with national security by stirring up riots, the filmmakers should be arrested and imprisoned.  After all "other countries and cultures do not have to understand or respect our right."  She doesn't even pretend that any law has been violated or that there should be charges and a trial: "the military considers the film a serious threat to national security. If the military takes it seriously, there should be consequences for putting American lives at risk."

This is all a joke, right?

No, unfortunately it's not.

It's the new level to which multi-cultural diversity thinking has descended (admittedly maybe not really new, but now very openly and prominently argued).  We should sacrifice our own standards because others don't understand them.  We should apologize for our system to lunatics who think we should have anti-blasphemy laws and should criminalize anything that offends them.  Great, let's now have a debate about what kind of "common sense" restrictions we need to place on free speech, since "there should be consequences for putting American lives at risk" and "firing the first shot" that results in people being killed, even if the "shot" was simply someone expressing an opinion.

It's hard to know how to respond.  One can again ask, what standard do you suggest then?  If clerics decide to call for riots over something someone says, the speaker should be held accountable?  Then there's no way to know in advance what one can and can't say.  Prof. Butler is writing a book about Sarah Palin and the Tea Party, so if some rightwingers are outraged by it and call for violence in response, she'll turn herself in for imprisonment?  Should Southern Poverty Law Center be held criminally liable for labeling the Family Research Council a "hate group," thus offending FRC's religious sensibilities and contributing to a violent attack on FRC?

But there's no point in entering a debate about "where to draw the line," and no point in pointing out to closet totalitarians like Butler the contradictions in their positions.  Free speech is binary -- either you have it or you don't.  It's worth re-quoting Sam Harris: "Don’t draw cartoons of their Prophet, or they’ll kill you. Don’t write a novel that could be considered blasphemous, or they’ll kill you. Don’t criticize their treatment of women, or they’ll kill you. Don’t leave the religion and publicly disavow it, or they’ll kill you. Don’t burn a Qur’an, or they’ll kill you."  If actions that offend Muslims aren't to be vigorously defended and protected, we might as well just be done with it and invite them to come impose Sharia on us.

Of course, that's not my position.  In response to Butler, I insist that while people in other countries and cultures don't have to understand our rights, they do have to respect them, where "respect" means refraining from violating them.  And if they do not, we need to kill them.  That's no joke or exaggeration -- what else is the police and military power of the state for, if not to protect us from those who would take away our rights?  They can decry those rights, argue against them, say whatever they want, -- that's freedom of speech -- but when they try to violate them, they must be opposed by whatever means required.
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Footnote: I must highlight a pithy comment left by PL of the Post-Libertarian blog that concisely sums all this:

I have always maintained that in many ways, the riots that broke out in France and and Denmark after the "original" cartoon scandal--and, more importantly, the responses to these riots--were far worse than 9/11. To be ambushed from behind is one thing; to succumb knowingly and apologetically is quite another.

Spring break! Time enough to post something! (Even if it is just a post about someone else's blogpost.)

Sam Harris has an excellent short essay on Islam vs. Liberalism, certainly worth reading. In it he discusses, with his usual refreshing frankness, the anti-liberal and often homicidal tendencies that infect so much of Islam and the immoral and crazy defenses of it from the politically correct left. Apparently he's something of a target for attacks from the PC diversity crowd as a result, leading him to lament he feels "liberalism is simply doomed."

He's confused -- the craziness and malignance of the PC left is not a sign of a problem within liberalism. Harris repeatedly makes the error of assuming that modern progressives are liberals. They are not, and their intellectual ancestry is not liberal. They're not the descendants of John Locke, Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, John Stuart Mill, Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises, and other genuine liberals. In the utterly incoherent political taxonomy employed in the United States the PC left is called "liberal," but it isn't liberal and never has been. The real liberals were always about primacy of the individual, the liberty of the individual, understood that coercion and unreason are the fundamental threats against that liberty, and saw the institutionalized sources of coercion -- especially the state -- as dangerous things to be carefully constrained and limited. Try finding any of that in the modern counterfeit liberalism. You can't. (It's not in conservatism, either.)

The threat to liberalism in this case is that liberalism has been abandoned by intellectuals some time ago, in favor of some alleged "higher" value -- the good of the state, the proletariat, society, God, whatever. The illiberal intellectual, of whatever political stripe, assumes s/he has special insight for the rest of us how we should be constrained and limited in order to further these alleged higher values. The bizarre thing about the diversity PC version of illiberalism is that it refuses to choose among the phony "higher values" to which individuals are to be sacrificed: so long as there is a substantial religious or cultural tradition (preferably not one's own) it is to be carefully protected and defended, no matter how ridiculous or monstrous.

This confusion over liberalism isn't crucial to Harris' essay, which is a nice rebuttal of Islam and the crazy PC defenses of it.

I'm much more upbeat about the future of liberalism -- maybe not in the United States, or in the west, where it is actively opposed by "liberals" and conservatives alike -- but liberalism, real liberalism meets a human need that is not going to die because of cranky ideologies and religions.

Postscript: I'm slowly working my way through Harris' book The Moral Landscape, and at some point will post a substantive review of it. It's an extremely important book, and his arguments deserve very careful thought.

Jerusalem Post columnist Martin Sherman has a particularly important essay about the links between Islam and terrorism.  The piece is important reading.  The gist: Muslims comprise only 20% of the world's population, yet Muslims are involved in far more than 20% of the world's terrorism, religious violence, and religious wars.  The disproportionate representation of Muslims in murderous terrorist rampages shows a causal relation between Islam and terrorism.

Sherman is right.  Think of 9-11, Madrid, Beslan, Mumbai, Westgate Mall, Charlie Hebdo, Jyllans-Posten, Al Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram, Al Shabab, the various Talibans, the religious wars in Syria and Iraq...there's no other contemporary religion with a record even remotely like this.  Certainly not all terrorists are Muslims, and most Muslims are not terrorists, but clearly something is desperately wrong with Islam.

Not just any old marriage, of course, but child marriage. In Yemen, an eight-year-old girl died on her wedding night after her 40 year old husband consummated the marriage.

Let me rephrase that. In Yemen, an eight yer old girl was forced into marriage with a middle aged man, who proceeded to rape her, doing so much damage to her internal organs that she bled to death. What's remarkable about this is that in Yemen, and in Islam, this is perfectly legal. At least fourteen percent of girls in Yemen are forced into marriage before turning fifteen. While Yemen appears to be one of the worst places in the world for this crime, it's not an outlier. In Iran, child bride Razieh Ebrahimi, was handed a death sentence for killing her abusive husband. She'd been forced into marriage at age 14. This crime is quite common in many regions, but is particularly pronounced in Islamic cultures, because Islam explicitly endorses this practice. Banning it is un-Islamic.

I suppose it's bad form to quote Wikipedia, but note these:

"In 2013, Nigeria attempted to change Section 29, subsection 4 of its laws and thereby prohibit child marriages. This was opposed by Islamic states of Nigeria, who called any attempts to prohibit child marriages as un-Islamic. Christianity and Islam are practiced by roughly 50%-50% of its population respectively, and the country continues with personal laws from its British colonial era laws, where child marriages are forbidden for its Christians and allowed for its Muslims.[71][72] Child marriage is a divisive topic in Nigeria and widely practiced. In northern states, predominantly Muslim, over 50% of the girls marry before the age of 15."

This isn't simply a cultural problem with backwards Arab tribesmen who happen to be Muslims.  It's a Muslim problem.

"In Islamic nations, many countries do not allow child marriage of girls under their civil code of laws. But, the state recognized Sharia religious laws and courts in all these nations have the power to override the civil code, and often do. UNICEF reports that the top five nations in the world with highest observed child marriage rates Niger (75%), Chad (72%), Mali (71%), Bangladesh (64%), Guinea (63%) are Islamic majority countries."  And note "...there is a strong belief among most Muslims and scholars, based on Sharia, that marrying a girl less than 13 years old is an acceptable practice for Muslims."

Maybe this is an exaggeration. Maybe it's not "most."  Maybe it's only 25%.  I doubt that, but isn't there a serious problem in a religion that has at least hundreds of millions finding this crime to be perfectly acceptable in this day and age?  (Not a rhetorical question -- there's a correct answer: yes!)

Here's a fascinating video on a case of child marriage in Yemen.  It manages to be horrifying, uplifting, and heart-breaking.  But especially worth noting is the representative of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Yemeni parliamentarian and Islamic scholar, who explicitly defends child marriage as Islamic.  Religion of peace, pppffooey!

The title of this post comes from a recent lecture given by a Muslim professor from Georgetown University, and refer to slavery and rape in Islam.

A fair share of the libertarian intelligentsia seems to share the left's outrage over the temporary moratorium on immigration from seven threat countries.  From Cato, Alex Nowrasteh and David Bier are both on their usual jihads against any immigration controls whatsoever.  FEE has recently had pieces by two economists I respect, Sandy Ikeda and Don Boudreaux, criticizing arguments for restricting immigration.

There's a lot of this material, and it is tedious spending time evaluating arguments point-by-point, so I won't do it.  Suffice it to say there is no sensible argument for restricting productive workers.  But most of the stuff coming out now doesn't deal with this at all, a great deal of it denies there is any problem at all with Muslim immigration, and a fair amount suggests that the threat of terror is way overblown.  Much of it denies we should be concerned about cultural change, and treats us as bigots if we are.

This is madness.

Here's a very "nice" (i.e. horrific) example of why we should be concerned about the cultural attitudes that Islam promotes.  Professor Jonathan A.C. Brown of Georgetown University recently gave an address in which he repeatedly defended both slavery and rape as moral, if conducted in the Islamic way.  You see, worrying about individual autonomy and consent is merely a Western fetish, and once we shed it and understand that Mohammed practiced both of these things, they certainly are moral, since by definition he was the most moral man.

This not some nutty outlier position.  Linda Sarsour, one of the main organizers of the "women's march," has been promoting sharia.  The more I read about her, the clearer it is she is working for the Islamization of the United States. (Read all the way through the 2017 updates.)  Or consider Rep. Keith Ellison (D, MN), a radical Muslim and anti-Semite, and the choice for DNC Chair of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Chuck Schumer.

It's so disconcerting to realize all the women at the "women's march" imagining themselves in solidarity with Sarsour, some donning hijabs to protest Trump's "ban."  They do realize that in Islam most abortion is banned, at least after four months, and that a male's consent is generally needed, right?  They do realize that Sarsour defends the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia, and claims it is better than here?  I think they are beyond reason -- it's really madness.  So too with Sanders and co.

At some point, one also must start to wonder if libertarians for completely unrestricted immigration are playing with full decks, or if maybe they really share with leftists a desire to see existing society overthrown at any cost.  Or perhaps some are simply so naive and uninformed on anything other than economics and libertarian philosophy that they are unaware of what they are actually advocating.  (I hope this is the case with Boudreaux and Ikeda; I am fairly sure it's not for Nowrasteh and Bier, since they claim to be immigration experts who study this stuff for a living.)

It's hard to know what to say, other than that this is madness.  Bringing in large numbers of Muslim immigrants from the most fundamentalist and violent parts of the Islamic world is a terrible idea.  They'll not assimilate (leftist dogma these days is that "assimilation" is an exclusivist and racist concept!), they will not become productive citizens, and most importantly they'll promote a foreign culture that is incompatible with liberty.  (See the three charts below from the Pew Research surveys on attitudes of Muslims around the world.

I hope libertarians return to their senses on this soon.