Muslims Immigration: Even Open-Minded People Think it's a Bad Idea

This is a reprint from 2009.  I thought I'd run it since my last post on Islam in America got such a response.  As AOW concluded, immigration policy is something we can and must get control of.  Stop importing people who hate us and who have a history of spawning children who will grow up here and end up hating us... --Silverfiddle

** Unhinged DeviledEgg Rant Alert! ** 

If the thought of an "honor killing" on American soil doesn't disgust you and make you boil with patriotic rage, you're brain dead! 

I live in Europe, I've lived in North America, and I've lived in that armpit they call the Middle East. No contest which I think is better!

Close The Damned Gates!

Why the hell do Western nations continue to allow these troublemaking Muslims to immigrate? Look at a map.  Wherever there's trouble, angry turbaned men with beards are involved.

Our cultures are incompatible.  We enjoy pork bbq and beer, use toilet paper and refrain from female genital mutilation, for example.

Many Muslim immigrants refuse to assimilate, and the only way to have peace here in the West is to give in to their fleck spittled agitations at the expense of our cultural norms.  Not while I have breath in my body!  Better to close the gates!

ISLAM IS A RELIGION OF PEACE!!! DISAGREE AND I'LL KEEEEL YOU!!!

Unlike the DeviledEgg, foreign editor of The Australian Greg Sheridan is no xenophobe, but he declares, "Uncontrolled Muslim Influx a Threat to the West."

It is extremely difficult to talk honestly about Muslim immigration. All generalisations about it are subject to countless exceptions. Muslims are very different from each other.

Most are reasonably successful. But a much bigger minority end up with social, political, extremist or other problems resulting from a lack of integration than is the case with any other cohort of immigrants in Western societies. A lack of honest discussion about this results in bad policy.

He goes on to recommend a book by Christopher Caldwell, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West.

Jacob Laksin at City Journal recommends the book as well.

Polls show that some 70 percent of Britons believe that there are too many immigrants in their country. Majorities throughout Western Europe agree, and Muslim immigrants in particular are viewed with suspicion.

Europe is a Benignly Racist Continent
 
Despite the finger-wagging at America, many Europeans are fundamentally and unconsciously racist and insular. Here in Germany, people from the next village over are considered outsiders, fellow German speakers from Austria are treated as the enemy, and those who hail from farther afield have no hope of ever fitting in in the land of beer and bratwurst. 

Europeans are in a jam, trying to steer a course between the Charybdis of bigotry and the Scylla of cultural destruction. Worse, the entire continent is in denial. Muslims are to blame as well, especially when they display open contempt for their new home:

Yet the immigrants themselves are far from faultless. One of the immigration debate’s inconvenient truths is that Muslim immigrants have been so difficult to assimilate into European societies because they’re unwilling: many Muslims simply choose religious ties over national loyalties.

... 31 percent of British Muslims felt they had more in common with the people of Muslim nations than with their fellow Europeans.

I hope the US can learn the right lessons from Europe's immigration debacle. Reading Caldwell's book would be a good start, but cutting off all Muslim immigration is imperative.

I've got to stop now, that guy shouting from the tower is giving me a headache!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The DeviledEgg is prone to unhinged rants, childish outbursts, and fits of anger, but he's really a good egg once you get to know him. He is half German and half American and splits his time between the two countries. Western Hero is proud to add him to the team.

City Journal - Jacob Laksin
RCP - Greg Sheridan

The Hidden Imam & The Risen Lord

Liberals who reflexively scream and caw like a flock of startled birds at anything uttered by a conservative make the fundamental mistake of conflating Islam itself with the different cultural milieus and practices that spring from it.  We who defend Western culture should not make the same mistake.

Some bloggers in Right Blogistan have really been laying the wood to Islam, some going so far as to call it a satanic cult.  Others struggle to separate the Islamist murderers from the religion itself, while still railing against its malignant influence on Western Christendom.  While I do not criticize religious debate, I am in the latter camp.

I don't think it is any more racist to criticize black panthers or radical islamists than it is to attack white supremacists.

It is not anti-Christian to call Fred Phelps and his followers the anti-American ass-hat dingbats that they are, and it is completely legitimate to criticize Muslim extremists operating in the west who hate our western values. 

Having said that, I think Christians and conservatives do our cause more harm than good when we criticize Islam itself.  I've done it.  Usually while criticizing one of the Muslim world's multifarious abhorrent cultural practices, hydra-headed hatreds, cultural intolerance, or religious bigotry.  We can condemn an abortion clinic bomber without condemning Christianity; can we condemn a Muslim terrorist without casting aspersions upon the religion of Islam?  

How do you like it when smart-ass atheists ridicule your faith?

Sticks and stones, right?  But does it make you have a more favorable or less favorable opinion of them?  Does it make you more willing or less willing to hear what they have to say?  I found Mike Huckabee's winking anti-Mormonism repellent.  He lost my vote, and I'm not even a Mormon.

It is in our own best interests to keep our focus on the anti-Western practices of the few, rather than the religion of the many who go about their daily lives as good Americans.

My God's Better than Your God

I remember awhile back hearing Glenn Beck on the radio mocking the Shia Twelvers, calling the Hidden Imam “the boy in the well.” You’d think he'd be a little more circumspect, seeing as how his religion is based upon God coming into the world as a human baby, dying, and coming back to life after three days in the tomb, and then ascending to heaven.  To the skeptic, that's right up there with Mohammad's flying donkey.

Some Christians believe we’re all saved.  Others believe there is a preordained elect, and the rest of us will burn in hell. Catholics pray to saints, believing they are with God and can therefor plead to him on our behalf.  This leads fundamentalists to condemn the followers of the Whore of Babylon to eternal damnation. And that's just within Christianity!

My point here is not to mock anyone, but to simply point out that our different and varied beliefs are not reconcilable.  We don't have to respect the religion of others, but we must respect each others' constitutional right to freedom of worship.  None of us can scientifically prove our particular sect or belief is the right one, so why argue about it and inflame one another? As Dennis Prager once observed, every religion has elements that look downright ridiculous to outsiders.

Freedom of Conscience - Freedom from Violence

Outside of some witch trials, institutional bigotry against Jews, and a few spasmodic episodes against Catholics and Mormons, we've been blessedly free of sectarian turmoil and bug-eyed religious zealotry here.  I pray we can keep it that way.  Inshallah

Do Muslims have the Same Rights as Christians?

Herman Cain Stumbles over the Constitution

Just a Conservative Girl over at Potluck scolded presidential candidate Herman Cain for siding with the Murfreesburo, Tennessee group that wants to prevent a mosque from being built in their town. She rightly points out that Cain’s position runs afoul of the US Constitution.

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain said Sunday that communities have a right to ban Islamic mosques.

"Let's go back to the fundamental issue that the people are basically saying that they are objecting to," Cain said. "They are objecting to the fact that Islam is both religion and (a) set of laws, Shariah law. That's the difference between any one of our other traditional religions where it's just about religious purposes. (Sacbee – Herman Cain)

Cain’s reasoning is tenuous and tendentious as best. I understand the distinction he is making between religious islam and political islam, but it still does not pass constitutional muster. What’s to stop communities from banning Catholic Churches because that faith’s canon law does not jive with civil law on the subject of divorce? As gay marriage fever sweeps the nation, can states outlaw Baptist Churches because they refuse to bless such ceremonies?

Religious law that is voluntary, respectful of human rights, and not in violation of civil law is a good thing

Muslims have a right to their Sharia law, so long as it’s practice does not conflict with our civil law, and it does not impinge on the rights of the rest of us. It’s called religious freedom. More importantly, certain abhorrent practices aside, Sharia law is a code for Muslims to live by, and it provides a way for them to guide their lives and solve problems without getting government involved.

Indeed, the concept of solving problems at the lowest level has been snuffed by progressivism. Catholics call this concept of solving problems at the lowest level, subsidiarity, but they didn’t invent it. It goes back to the time of Moses, and our founding fathers wrote a constitution and built a nation upon the concept. National civil society starts with personal morality. Problems must first be addressed within the family, next the larger community, and so on. We’ve forgotten how to solve our own problems without government intervention.

If we are to stay true to our constitutional principles, we cannot be singling out certain religions for especial opprobrium or holding them to extraordinary standards. So long as the Murfreesburo Muslims obey the law, seek no special favors from the government and refrain from dictating their laws to non-Muslim citizens, what’s the problem?

Angry Islam Incompatible with European Liberalism

Europeans are increasingly unwilling to tolerate Muslim intolerance

The liberal media in this country are wringing their hands over increasing European intolerance. They worry that anti-Muslim sentiment is on the rise even in Sweden...

"...home of the Nobel Prize and known as the "conscience of the world" for aiding refugees and pioneering laws for women's equality and gay rights. Yet even here, the Swedish Democrats made it into the Rikstag by tapping into a surge of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment sweeping across many nations in Western Europe, propelling right-wing and nationalist parties to their biggest gains in years." (WaPo)

Are our ink-stained scribblers and enlightened cognoscenti really too dumb to realize that Islam is the greatest threat to Europe's famed and admirable liberalism? Muslims are not known for championing women's equality and gay rights.

A Swede put it simply:

"The Swedish are tired of walking around in their own neighborhoods and feeling like they're in Saudi Arabia," said Ekeroth, an intense 30-year-old and founder of the new Anti-Islamic Fund, which promotes criticism of radical Islam. "It is time for the Swedish to be comfortable again in their own country."

Angry Muslim replaces Ugly American as #1 Threat to Europe

There is disorder in the European house. Europeans were living comfortably and peaceably in the home they had built, settling upon a live-and-let-live liberalism that has kept the peace for 65 years.  Ugly Americans demanding everybody speak English used to be the main disturber of Europe's peaceful repose.

Now, denizens of the Olde Continent are shocked and horrified to see that many Muslims they generously invited in have become a pack of wild animals let loose in the house. The beasts have found high perches upon couch backs and china cabinets and bare their fangs at the customs of their hosts.  
 
Because of these newcomers, Europeans must change their behavior?

How is that right? A people have a right to their culture, and nobody has the right to forcibly change it from the outside. This is especially so when the culture is beneficial to mankind, not a threat to others, and has been decided upon by the people. Europe's culture meets all three criteria.

"It isn't racist to want to preserve your culture," said Leif Johansson, a 64-year-old carpenter. "I'm open to immigration, but these people come without a thought to integration, no interest in learning Swedish or being part of Swedish society."

Precisely. No nation should be compelled to commit national suicide. But what else could the agenda be of a people who move in and angrily demand conformance to their strange and violent politico-religious freak show?

Europe may finally be fed up. I pray they are, and I pray we learn a lesson here before it's too late.

* - This is a repost.  It expands upon my thoughts from yesterday's post

Understanding Islam

I thought I would read the Koran during my one-year deployment to the Middle East.  It was boring, and the literary commentary and criticism I sought out to help me through it was so uneven or obviously biased that I ended up selling the book to a captain who worked in C-130 Ops.

If you really want to understand not so much Islam, but it's history, its people and the cultural milieu that stretches from Turkey to China, I recommend three sources:  Anything written by Bernard Lewis; The Arab Mind, by Raphael Patai; and and The Arabian Nights, unexpurgated edition.

In addition to these works, you should read the history of whatever area or era you are interested in.  Muslim culture and its history is rich and varied.  Reading a book on the Taliban and saying you understand Islam is like saying you read a book on 1930's Germany and now have an understanding of Christianity.  The Muslim world and it's varied cultures and history is a vast topic.

Bernard Lewis, now 95, is the West's leading Middle Eastern scholar.  He understands the culture and can explain it quite well.  Of the current uprisings...

"I think that the tyrannies are doomed.  The real question is what will come instead."

"We should have no illusions about the Muslim Brotherhood, who they are and what they want." (WSJ - The Tyrannies are Doomed)

Lewis is no Muslim hater.  Just the opposite.  He has written essays in an attempt to explain the Muslim point of view to fellow westerners.  His overarching themes in these works is that their ways are not our ways.

Indeed Muslims have tried "our ways" in the form of authoritarian statism and fascism.  It's been a poor fit to cultures that were historically steeped in decentralized government where even kings and sultans must consult with the various guilds, tribes and scattered interest groups.

Iranians' disdain for the ruling mullahs is the reason Mr. Lewis thinks the U.S. shouldn't take military action there. "It would give the regime a gift that they don't at present enjoy—namely Iranian patriotism," he warns.

"We have a much better chance of establishing—I hesitate to use the word democracy—but some sort of open, tolerant society, if it's done within their systems, according to their traditions. Why should we expect them to adopt a Western system? And why should we expect it to work?" he asks. (WSJ - The Tyrannies are Doomed)

The Arab Mind, written in 1973, has come under sustained attack since 9/11.  The neocons read it and the military used it, so it must be bad!  Dr Patai is a cultural anthropologist, and this is a well-documented and scholarly work.  His downfall is that he sometimes takes specific knowledge from a narrow part of the Middle East and extrapolates it out to the whole.  The Arab world is such a large and varied place that many generalities just don't fit and end up smacking of stereotype.   

He also engages in some amateur cultural psychology that so many anthropologists are guilty of.  So it may not be the definitive work it was once thought to be, but it is still a good jumping off point to at least get yourself oriented.


Arabian Nights is a collection of highly entertaining folk tales from Arabia and South Asia.  Some of the stories take place as far away as China.  You'll recognize some of the characters:  Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves, Sinbad the Sailor (Who was actually a merchant from Basra, Iraq), Aladdin, as well as scimitar-wielding warriors, sultans and Genies (Jinn).

It is not history, it's folklore, so any facts you garner will be incidental.  Regardless, you will gain enormous insight into the history and culture of the Islamic lands of the Near East.  Read the unexpurgated version, and you'll get the tales complete with the murder, mayhem and ribald randiness missing from the tales you enjoyed as a child.

Dhimmicrats and Muslim Theocrats: Fellow Travelers

Islamists need to chill free speech in order to implement their agenda. Liberal dhimmicrats are their willful patsies

Clever propagandists have wound it up and bound it all so tightly, that one cannot criticize radical political Islam without appearing to criticize the legitimate exercise of religion.

I would expect this to work in the uneducated hinterlands of South Asia, but it is scary that such rot has taken hold here in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, and with the cooperation of so many supposedly enlightened individuals.

The only way for freedom loving Americans to combat this is to not kowtow to it. Shove it back in their faces. How many people have militia members decapitated in the past 10 years? I bet Muslims are beating them in the head count.

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, US Navy veteran, shows us how it’s done:

This exchange occurred at the King hearings on Islamic radicalization.  I love how he eviscerates the clueless dimbulb-ocrat who stupidly discounted the testimony of good Muslim Americans who related how radical Islam had tragically led their children astray. 

Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., went after the witnesses themselves. She said that these "anecdotes are interesting," of Bledsoe's and Bihi's story. She noted that hearing needed more experts. Then she asked a question of Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.

Speier: "Do you believe that you have expertise to be speaking?"

Jasser: "That's the question the theocrats ask me all the time." (RCP)

Bravo, Dr. Jasser!  And he did it with a smile.

The Tripoli Trap

Libyans are crying for the The Great Satan to come and save them, and the neocons who've never so much as heard a shot fired in anger are beating the war drums. 



My answer? Va Fangoul!

Remember the lies Chalabi and other Saddam opponents told us? People would throw flowers at our feet and welcome us with kisses, the Iraqi people just wanted to be free, Saddam was building nuclear weapons…

He and other succeeded in goading us to action, at a high cost in lives and treasure. Now the oil is flowing, and contracts go to China, who did nothing to topple the old regime. In Afghanistan, our troops are making the country safe for Chinese and Russian mining companies, while our “friends” the Pakistanis provide safe haven for their friends the Taliban.

We saved the Kosovar and Bosnian Muslims from slaughter and are rewarded by a Balkan Muslim gunning down American Airmen at Frankfurt Main.

We saved Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from Hussein, Afghanistan from the Taliban, and our military is stationed in the Gulf at the request of the poobahs to protect them from Iran.  All we get is hatred in return.

If we were so stupid as to go in to Libya, we would end up being further castigated by the purple-faced Muslim Street and their fellow travelers in the international left.

Libyans are already trying to lure us in…

Not because they love America or admire our ideals; but because they need our firepower to topple Khaddafi. Once that is accomplished, welcoming smiles will turn to fleck-spittle hatred and we’ll be accused of war crimes. If we leave too early we will be abandoning the Libyan people. If we stay too long, we’re building an empire. Every bomb we drop will end up killing “civilians,” most likely in one of those ubiquitous wedding parties. Every troop killed by a wild-eyed Libyan fanatic we’re trying to help will be called an unfortunate aberration…

We’ve seen this movie before, and there’s no good ending. Here’s how it begins…

“A large French flag hangs on the front of the courthouse used as the revolutionary council's headquarters after Paris recognised the rebel leadership […]

“But Libyans are also increasingly vocal in their criticism of Washington in particular for what is seen as a failure to back up rhetoric against the regime. (Guardian – Libyan Rebels)

Awww… See? They love us, but now they’re becoming disappointed in their hero Uncle Sam… BS!

But we’d better rush in there, or these feckless, unstable people will fall into the arms of the radical Islamists!

“However, Gheriani said that if the west failed to offer practical help to the revolutionaries to free themselves from Gaddafi's rule it risked frustrated Libyans turning to religious extremists.

If the west takes too long – where people say it's too little, too late – then people become a target for extremists who say the west doesn't care about them," he said.

"Most people in this country are moderates and extremists have not been able to penetrate them. But if they get to the point of disillusionment with the west there will be no going back."

Screw ‘em! We’ve heard all that before and it’s all BS. 
They’re all extremists and they all hate us! We’ve already proven that using our military power to help them won’t change that.

We’ve witnessed how they really feel about us...
Dancing in the streets at the news of 9/11, nothing but a constant stream of vituperation spewed upon the civilized west, ignorant stinking hordes lapping up every outrageous lie and conspiracy theory the demagogic mullahs tell them…

No, this is not fertile ground for Western civilization to take root. This is not a bridge to new friendships. It’s just another venue for the bug-eyed bastards of the Religion of Pieces to stage their theater of the grotesque. Well, this is one opera the US should skip. Let someone else provide the kettle drums and the snares.

We’ve allowed these inhabitants of the armpit of the world to send us on too many fool’s errands
The Muslim dingbats have again set their house ablaze, and again they call the US Fire Department. And again, once the fire is out, they will criticize us for putting axes through the doors and soaking the walls and the furniture. It’s time for the fire department to stand back and let the house burn down. Maybe that will teach these crazy morons to stop playing with matches.

For a more reasoned and informed analysis, read Intelligence analyst Paul Pillar's article, Not So Limited Liability in Libya.

Are You, or Have You ever been a Muslim?

Look at those stooges protesting “Islamophobia.” Russell Simmons is the king stooge. He should try taking his booty shaking brand of music to Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. They also don’t like Buddhists there. I’d like to hear his view of Islam after being clubbed and jailed by religious police.

There is no islamophobia in America. Phobia implies “irrational fear.” First, we are not afraid, we are concerned, and the concern is a rational one.

I wish one reporter would have asked the dingbats in the crowd where Molly Norris is. She’s the American in hiding here in America because bug-eyed head cutters are threatening to kill her in the name of the religion of peace. All because of some cartoons.

It is telling that lefties turn out for prefab agitprop like this
They need something to justify their pathetic, empty little lives. Yeah, Simmons is a millionaire, but he’s a poor excuse for a human being.  He was able to attract only 200 nobodies who need to justify their worth by attaching themselves to someone famous while speaking out against “injustice,” “hate,” “homophobia,” whatever the politburo propagandists tell them is the issue of the day.

What They Won't Protest

It is also telling that you don’t see these people protesting a rotten education system that churns out illiterate and unemployable graduates, disproportionately minorities. They won’t protest the crime-infested sewers so many of our poor people are condemned to, and they contribute to the moral rot with their popular “culture” of bling, objectifying women, and glorifying violence, drugs, criminality and irresponsibility.

You won’t find these sanctimonious herd-mentality simpletons speaking out against female genital mutilation, honor killings or the stoning of women. Hell, they won’t even speak out about human trafficking, sex slavery, hunger or poverty. No, those issues are too pedestrian, no opportunity to let your freak flag fly and bash good Americans.

The rally was full of empty feel-good comments like this from a dhimmi rabbi…

“American Muslims are as fully American as any other faith community,’’

Who has said otherwise? Lefties love attacking those strawmen. Keith Ellison, America’s first Muslim congressman exemplifies how Muslims mischaracterize the issue:

“To say we’re going to investigate a religious minority, and a particular one, I think is the wrong course of action to take,’’

Rep King is not “investigating a religious minority,” and Islam is not on trial. The hearings are to investigate foreign influences radicalizing American Muslims. Muslims should welcome this as an effort to purge the violent and hateful elements that are a stain upon their religion. I know I would welcome any investigation into foreign elements attempting to infiltrate and subvert Christianity, especially if I thought my kids were vulnerable to it.


1% of the Population, 81% of the Terrorists

Representative Keith Ellison (Muslim-Minnesota) blubbered and wailed through his testimony Thursday.  He should have left aside the histrionic agitprop and instead wept over these Justice Department statistics:

more than 80% of all convictions tied to international terrorist groups and homegrown terrorism since 9/11 involve defendants driven by a radical Islamist agenda. Though Muslims represent less than 1% of the American population, they constitute defendants in 186 of the 228 cases the Justice Department lists. (NY Daily News)

It is a failure and a tragedy when an American citizen is enticed to murderous sedition against his country. Good people of all faiths should want to find the root cause so we could stop it. Looks to me like too many would rather keep their heads in the sand.

Asra Nomani – In Defense of Peter King’s Hearings
USA Today – Muslim Hearing Could Harm Us All!
Boston.com - Rally
http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2011/02/10/on-capitol-hill-muslim-public-affairs-council-seeks-to-whitewash-terror-threat/
NY Daily News – Muslim Hysteria
John Hayward - The King Hearings

Muslims in America

Rep Peter King (R-NY) will convene hearings on the radicalization of Muslims in America. 

Some good may come of this. Getting the issues out in the open, starting a dialog and hearing from Muslims themselves could be a good thing.

Misperceptions abound on both sides.  Here's a common complaint:

“There is a generalized sense of Islamophobia floating around, and the hearings are not doing anything to assuage Muslim fears.” (CNN - Islam Hearings)

Wrong!

America is clearly not in the grip of Islamophobia (unless you count the press voluntarily bowing to Islamic pressure groups).  "Phobia" is an irrational fear of something.  Our concerns are quite rational.  Americans look at the Muslim world and we don't like what we see.  

More importantly, we don't want the misogynistic dysfunction and violent religious agitation freakshow setting up its tents here.  Sharia is not compatible with our constitutional republicanism.  We don't stone adulteresses (or even call them that), and we don't execute blasphemers.  We like out beer, boobs and bratwurst barbecue, and we like our violence to be random and non-religious.

Here's another reason we need hearings:

The efforts come a little more than six months after many Muslims were blindsided by a wave of national opposition to a proposed Islamic cultural center near New York’s ground zero last summer.

The fact that they were "blindsided" by the national outcry against planting a mosque anywhere near the site where Muslims killed 3000 people show just how out of touch (or arrogant) the authors of this idea are.

Still, they are joining King's debate.  CAIR and other organizations plan to “start offering facts about American Muslims and their role in helping prevent attacks on our nation,” ahead of King’s hearings, says Corey Saylor, the group’s national legislative director...

If nothing else, I hope these hearings deflate the false charges of "hate" and "Anti-Muslim" that is constantly hurled at good Americans.  Speaking out against a religion or denigrating it's culture or values is not hate.  Christians put up with it every day.

Religious Hate Crimes?  Ask a Jew

Of the 1,575 victims of an anti-religious hate crime:

• 71.9 percent were victims because of an offender’s anti-Jewish bias.
• 8.4 percent were victims because of an anti-Islamic bias. (FBI)

So I look forward to these hearings.  I want to hear good Muslim-Americans stand up and proudly talk about how they are fighting the religious intolerance and bigotry that spills out from the horrible countries they have fled.  I want to hear them talk about how our constitution trumps religious-based laws.

America's track record is pretty clear.  We are a tolerant people.  We have welcomed hundreds of thousands of Muslims and will continue to do so as long as they recognize the primacy of the constitution, respect the God-given rights of others, and refrain from honor killings and decapitations.

Further Reading:
Mark Steyn - Muslims in Europe 
USA Today - Rally to Protest

Ironic Story of the Year

Muzzammil Hassan, founder of Bridges TV, a project to promote a positive image of Islam, cut off his wife's head in their place of business.

This happened two years ago in Western New York state. In the United States of America. He was convicted this past Monday.

This item should be given an award for Most Ironic Story to Get No Press Coverage. The newspapers that did cover it at the time danced around the whole "Islam and cutting heads off" thing.  Mark Steyn gave us this newspaper clipping in his insightful treatment of this case:

An upstate TV exec who set up a channel promoting Muslims as peace-loving people was stressed about his failing business in the days before he allegedly chopped off his estranged wife's head, a friend of the couple said today.

C'mon guys, it's happened to all of us... Bad day at work, you slam your pickup door too hard and bust the glass out of the side window...

The dog gets in your path to the front door and you give ol' Beauregard a boot. You're not purposely trying to hurt anyone or be mean. You're just upset about your financial situation, and there's your wife in the kitchen...

You're in a bad mood, you lose it and accidentally chop her head off. It could happen to anybody, nothing newsworthy! Nothing to see here, move along...

Muslim Population set to Double

This is horrible news


Just look at predominately Muslim countries. Is there a good one in the lot? All we hear about from these lands is beheadings, stoning of women and honor killings of daughters, embassies burned down over cartoons, illiteracy, belief in wild conspiracies...

No Nobel prizes, no scientific breakthroughs, no contributions to literature, humane letters or art. Almost anywhere any violent conflicts are going on, Muslims are a party to it.

They seem to have a knack for snuffing the light of reason in every corner they infest. Contrast this with the Christianity-spurred Scholastic movement of the theocratic Christian Middle Ages. Other than a few flare-ups, Christianity rode the enlightenment and the renaissance rather than launch bloody rampages against it. Christianity has had its violent episodes, but it powered the advance of Western Civilization, and now sits content to let earthly powers run the governments. There are no Christian theocracies.

There is some good news, if we can believe it…

Despite the rapid growth of Islam, Christianity seems set to remain the biggest religion in the world for the next 20 years. There are currently more than 2 billion Christians - 30 to 35 percent of the global population - making it very unlikely that there will be fewer than 2.2 billion Christians in 2030.

The report undermines the notion that Europe is heading toward having any country with a Muslim majority. The continent will be about 8 percent Muslim in 2030, it projects.

"The data that we have isn't pointing in the direction of 'Eurabia' at all," Grim said.

"The Muslim population is growing and slowing. Instead of a runaway train, it's trending with the general global population," he said. (CNN)

Muslim numbers are increasing and spreading across the globe, and that is bad news indeed. I say this based upon my observation of the world.

What is the religious status of successful countries? 
The typical successful and free country has a religion-neutral government where practicing believers of various and disparate faiths peacefully coexist with one another and with non-believers. Until Muslims learn to do this, their lands will continue to be snakepits of hatred and economic misery

It's Saturday!

"Take a lesson," Westerners...


Christians are being murdered, persecuted and chased out of Muslim lands. If the roles were reversed, Christians attacking Muslims, the world would rightly be crying ethnic cleansing.

Here's what a "moderate" Pakistani imam had to say about the cold-blooded murder of a politician by his bodyguard.  The politician has defended a Christian woman against accusations of blasphemy:

They even went so far as to warn government officials and journalists that the “supporter is as equally guilty as one who committed blasphemy,” and so therefore they should all take “a lesson from the exemplary death” of Salman Taseer. (NY Post)

Are we able to take a lesson?

Pension and benefit packages threaten to collapse entire cities and states

Benefits packages for government workers are unsustainable, and we need to have a responsible discussion focused on the financial facts. The purported cupidity or sanctity of the pensioners has nothing to do with the facts on the ground. If someone opened the door to paradise, who among us would not walk in? So it's not about the people, it's about the fiscal mess we are now in.

We set up a system where people could grab with both hands while being completely insulated from the consequences.

What's the Answer?

Privatize it. City workers, teachers, auditors, logistics. This is not a knock against public servants. The good ones will get hired by the private sector and the bad ones will no longer be able to scam the system. End all government pensions and drive everyone to a 401K-type retirement plan. End all government health insurance plans and drive everyone to private insurance. End government disability programs; anyone who wants such protection can buy it in the public insurance market. These actions would put our federal, state and local governments on a pay as we go basis, reducing future unfunded liabilities.

Sound draconian? The private sector has already done it.

Further Reading:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-03/snowplow-slowdowns-might-become-american-way-commentary-by-kevin-hassett.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/us/politics/04fiscal.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper
http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/raging-against-them/?singlepage=true
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2010/12/where_i_differ.html

Nugent Schools Rosanne Barr


Go here and watch Ted Nugent school Rosanne Barr

Notice how every time he shuts her down she moves on to another issue?

My favorite line was when the host said Obama had accomplishments before becoming president; he helped the people of Chicago, to which Uncle Ted replied:  "The people of Chicago don't look very helped to me"

Have a happy weekend!