I get a lot of derision when I bring up the subject of sharia law ever being implemented in the US or western nations. After all, our Constitution makes it impossible. We have the right of free speech, freedom of expression, First Amendment, and all that. Yet it is a fact that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (formerly Conference), a sub-group within the UN, is still pushing to implement some form of global resolution that would make any form of criticism of Islam illegal. What is troubling is that the Obama administration, through Hillary Clinton, is working with the OIC on this issue. Nina Shea in National Review Online brings us up to date.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/276021/administration-takes-islamophobia-nina-shea
Indeed, I take note of the wording that reaffirms our freedom of speech in America. Yet keep in mind that such freedom of speech in Europe is more restricted. One can be prosecuted for engaging in what is termed hate speech. Just ask Geert Wilders of the Netherlands or Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff of Austria. Laws can be changed or tweaked. That's why you see the term, "creeping shariah" used.
Defining hate speech is somewhat like defining racism or defining alcoholism. In some cases it's quite obvious. In others, it's a matter of debate. We already see in the above article that within the OIC, they don't see any problem of hate speech being conducted in the Muslim world against non-Muslim religions. They ignore their own mainstream media cartoons portraying Jews in the old style of Julius Streicher's Der Stuermer. They ignore the persecution of Baha'i in Iran, Coptic Christians in Egypt, or the Christians in Pakistan, etc, etc. They ignore the fact that in major European cities like Malmo, Sweden, Jews are being attacked on the streets by Muslim immigrants. To them, there is only one problem in the world-Islamophobia.
To be sure, Muslims must also be protected from attacks and persecution. In America, we have laws that can deal with that. At the same time, how can we shut down legitimate discourse on a true world-wide phenomenon-Islamic terrorism, extremism, supremism, and persecution of non-Muslims? This is a discussion that we must have with all Muslims of good will living in the West. It is a frank discussion that we must have with the OIC as well. If Hillary Clinton intends to tell the OIC that they need to clean up their own act and we are not going to compromise on our freedoms, then I will support her. If she thinks she is going to find some sort of "middle ground' on what the OIC wants, then she has no business being our secretary of state.
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13 comments:
"I get a lot of derision when I bring up the subject of sharia law ever being implemented in the US or western nations."
Indeed you do Gary, and your words deserve derision. First, you never define what you mean by "Sharia." There are more definitions of Shariah among Muslims than there are schools of Muslim thought, and there are a dozen or more of those. You pile together some vague allusions to what you would like to assert Shariah means, the better to take the most paranoid position possible.
If there is any precision at all to your presentation, you assume that Mullah Omar is the acknowledged world wide supreme Islamic authority on the precise empirical meaning of Shariah -- which he is not. But if you brought up the subject of the Taliban obtaining supreme civil and constitutional authority in the United States, you would be laughed out of town. So, you have to link the Muslim population present in the United States, all of whom live by some notion of Shariah, just as you live by the Ten Commandments and the Gospels, to the actions of some fanatic in Afghanistan. Derision is quite the appropriate response for such demagoguery.
"Freedom of speech in Europe is more restricted." So what? If people in Europe want better protections for free speech, it is up to them to arrange for it. Europe has a history of state-endorsed religions. In that context, Muslims are simply asking for equality before the law. Canadian courts have accepted that it is "hate speech" to assert that the Bible condemns homosexuality. That notion has been firmly slapped down by the courts in this country. (http://openjurist.org/289/f3d/648/bryce)
What the law may provide in semi-feudal monarchies and corrupt military dictatorships or autocracies is no standard at all for what the law is here. As far as I know, cartoons portraying Jews in the style of Julius Streicher are protected by the First Amendment, as are disrespectful cartoons of the prophet Muhammed. Both are in bad taste, at best, and I wouldn't put much on the line to actively defend the authors of either, from the JDL or anyone else. But, they can't be prosecuted for it. Tell me Gary, aren't you tempted sometimes to give someone who burns an American flag a swift kick in the ass, even if they do have the legal right to burn the flag (over Justice John Paul Stevens's objections)?
The persecution of Baha'i in Iran, Coptic Christains in Egypt, Christians in Pakistan, is no template for what will happen in the United States. It is a legitimate topic for criticism of the quality of government in those parts of the world. The fact that irrational fear of Islam is not the ONLY prejudice in the world makes it no less real.
What the National Review article says, after stripping away the veiled innuendo and patent paranoia, is that the Obama administration proactively pushed through a UN resolution which did NOT limit free speech, heading off more dangerous proposals that might have done so.
It also reports that the OIC allowed a woman to co-chair an OIC session, hardly a harbinger of imminent imposition of the worst possibly interpretation of what Shariah might be. The woman in question was the U.S. Secretary of State, who was "firm in asserting that the U.S. does not want to see speech restrictions," and adhered to First Amendment standards set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Even with all this plainly admitted, the author objects to providing a "new world stage for presenting grievances of 'Islamophonia' against the West." Well, all free speech secured, there is in fact a pattern of thought fairly characterized as "unreasoning fear of Islam." The author of the article reeks of it. The only factual assertion offered is the unsubstantiated claim that the OIC "reasserted its demands for global blasphemy laws." Maybe so. In what form? Was this a formal OIC resolution? Was it passed under Clinton's co-chairmanship? Did they pass it as soon as she left the room? Or, more likely, is the author vaguely referring to some on-camera ravings by individual delegates?
If you want to be credible, you need to stop using the word "Sharia" -- with or without the h on the end. The real evils you sometimes point to are not "Shariah." They are practices which some Muslims indulge in, some Muslims justify, some other Muslims tolerate, but a Muslim can perfectly well practice "Shariah" without doing or condoning any of those things.
So, cut out the irrational fear of Islam, per se, then you can stop unconvincingly denying that you have an irrational fear of Islam. Focus on specific pratical evils, where and when the occur. You are fond of talking about the occasional honor killing of a daughter by a Muslim resident in America, but I can't recall a single such case where the perpetrator is not serving life in prison for the crime. Nor have you presented a single case where a district attorney has even considered criminal prosecution for blasphemy.
Siarlys,
Countries that allow anti-jewish cartoons in the Middle East would prosecute islamic blasphemy. Hypocritical?
I would not try to invent a case where a prosecutor took a blasphemy case in the US. Under present law it can't happen. It can happen in western Europe, however. As I pointed out-laws can be tweaked or changed over time. That's why it is called creeping shariah. Who knows what may happen in the next 25 years?
"Just ask Geert Wilders of the Netherlands or Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff of Austria."
Sure will.
But Gary will you ever mention folks like David Irving, Bishop Richard Williamson, Vincent Reynouard, and dozens more who have been tried, convicted and sentenced for questioning the Holocaust and upsetting Jewish sensibilities.
The laws don't even need to be changed to appease the Jews. Most European countries have robust laws and harsh penalties for Holocaust denial.
Why aren't you and the rest of the neo-con blogosphere making free-speech martyrs out of these folks?
Gary Fouse is a useful idiot for the Jews.
Hypocrisy is not the most accurate term of condemnation for a nation in which insults to Islam are prosecuted as blasphemy, while insults to Judaism are de rigeur and government endorsed. It is called Establishment of Religion, and in many countries around the world, that remains not only legal, but a fundamental principle of government.
There are, among Muslims, powerful antidisestablishmentarian movement. (You thought that was just a tough spelling word: it describes an Anglican who opposes disestablishment of the Church of England, but it can be applied to Muslims as well). If you don't mind going back 300-400 years, people were still being hanged in Great Britain for denying that God is three, while America was already being settled.
Your only modestly real point is "laws can be changed." Sure they can. Two thirds of congress and three fourths of the state legislatures could repeal the First Amendment, as well as the First, or the prohibition against ex post facto laws... Do you want a constitutional amendment providing that the constitution may never be amended again, no matter what?
The Islamists will push their agenda, which is to install Sharia over the entire world. They want a free ride with this quest, so they will counter any criticism of the Koran, Hadith or Sira. These three authoritative books are the foundation of Islam, which no non-Muslim can dishonor, according to the Islamists. Here is what one finds in the Koran, so think twice about what is presented and why would any American politician want this for America (I have posted this section before, but here it is again):
Their "holy book", the Koran calls us:
Diseased (2:10), Evil (2:99), Deaf dumb and blind (2:171), Can't be our friends (3:28), Are our enemies (4:101), Losers (5:53), Pigs and apes (5:60), Evil (5:59), Worst beasts (8:55), Filthy (9:28), Perverts (9:30), And the vilest of creatures (98:51).
It is NOT ISLAMAPHOBIC to have a rational fear of Pre-Pubescent Child Rape ( Koran 65:4)
It is NOT ISLAMAPHOBIC to have a rational fear of Gang Rape (24:13)
It is NOT ISLAMAPHOBIC to have a rational fear of Sex Slaves (4:24)
It is NOT ISLAMAPHOBIC to have a rational fear of Amputation and Crucifixion (5:33)
It is NOT ISLAMAPHOBIC to have a rational fear of Beheading (8:12, 47:4)
It is NOT ISLAMAPHOBIC to have a rational fear of Wives Beating (4:34)
It is NOT ISLAMAPHOBIC to have a rational fear of Murder (2:191, 9:5, 9:111)
It is NOT ISLAMAPHOBIC to have a rational fear of Theft and Robbery (Entire Chapter 8 called Booty)
It is NOT ISLAMAPHOBIC to have a rational fear of Extortion (9:29)
It is NOT ISLAMAPHOBIC to have a rational fear of Lying (3:28, 5:51)
Siarlys,
This is the problem with your arguments. You always reach back hundreds of years to find examples where other groups did bad things. Unfortunately for you they stopped centuries ago. The Dark Ages for us are over.
Anonymous,
"Gary Fouse is a useful idiot for the Jews."
Are you so ignorant that you don't realize that you are making my case?
As for the three names you mentioned, I only am familar with the first two. They are not exactly admirable characters, but I will state that from an American perspective, I don't view holocaust denial as something that should be a crime. It surely is not a crime in America, nor should it be. Those who engage in it are properly punished here by being considered idiots.
As for you, it is perfectly understandable why you remain anonymous. Smart move.
"Are you so ignorant that you don't realize that you are making my case?"
So being anti-Jewish equals being pro-Sharia/Islam???
That takes the cake for the most illogical statement ever made by the Fouse.
Anonymous,
The Fouse??? Am I the only Fouse in the world?
You make my point because you exhibit the bigotry that I was speaking up against. When you use the term, "The Jews", you are not differentiating between them. They are apparently all the same to you. I don't speak of "The Muslims" to make blanket statements about all Muslim people in that manner. I write about the "Islamists" or the radicals.
You are probably too dense to figure that out. That is why you don't attach your name to what you write as I do. I may make an occasional factual error, but if so I am willing to correct it. Yet I am willing to stand by what I have said or written because it reflects what I believe. I have never written or said anything that damned Muslims as people-only the violent or hateful ones. Thus, I have nothing to be ashamed of, and I can sign my name to whatever I write.
Unlike you.
Gary Fouse is often wrong, and seldom persuaded by logical presentation of facts to change his mind, but he is not an idiot.
Anonymous did raise a valid point: It is not a criminal offense in the USA to deny that the Churban Europa happened (please let's not call it the "holocaust," because that is a term for a burnt offering acceptable to the Lord). It IS a criminal offense in much of Europe. So, there is a logical sense of legality in suggesting that it should ALSO be a criminal offense to blaspheme against Islam.
"I don't speak of 'The Muslims' to make blanket statements about all Muslim people in that manner. I write about the 'Islamists' or the radicals."
True, but incomplete Gary. You do buy into and propagate the notion that there is something uniquely inherent in Islam that sustains the "Islamists." Specifically, when you talk about "creeping Shariah" you do exactly that.
Any Muslim of any branch of the faith tries to live by what they understand to be "Shariah." So when you attack Shariah, you attack all of them.
When you are sufficiently coherent and precise and thoughtful to list what you object to (honor killings, mutilation, oppression of the adherents of other religions) you are on solid ground. But then you attribute those to "Shariah," which means you are, in Islamic terms, blaming all Muslims and all varieties of Islam for these atrocities.
Laws can change over time... indeed they can. If two thirds of both houses of congress and three fourths of the state legislatures voted to do so, we could repeal the First Amendment, and the Thirteenth. Would you like an amendment providing that the Constitution can never again be amended for any reason? That's a trade-off. Nobody can ever wreck what we have, nor can we ever improve upon it.
The insinuation about "creeping Shariah" is paranoid, because it assumes that enough of the population of America could be converted, not only to Islam, but to the vision of Islam propagated by the advocates of a new Caliphate. Short of that, you are, whether you acknowledge it or not, mocking our Muslim fellow citizens as incapable of any other vision of Shariah.
It's not that much of a surprise these days that you would get an occasional anonymous anti-Semetic poster on your site. However, the Left's defense of all things Muslim is truly astounding. Such stupid, illogical, far fetched positions is beyond regular oppositional defiance. I hope they all get some time in Gaza or Yemen to see how wonderful the ROP really is. I suppose they will now maintain that the 9/11 attack had nothing to do with Islam but rather 19 unfortunate individuals, perhaps acting out inappropriately because of faulty early toilet training or something.
Only by defining all those who say something positive about Islam as "left" could anyone, even Miggie, sustain a quaint depiction such as "the Left's defense of all things Muslim."
Left refers to
a) those opposed to the government in power (which is by definition supported by "the right," or
b) those who fight for the working class against the capitalists; the latter would include Osama bin Laden, who like George W. Bush was the privileged child of millionaires.
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