Speech is not violence

Claiming speech is violence will result in violence.

Last week, Salman Rushdie was to address the Chautauqua Institution on the topic of freedom of speech. He has some experience with those who would stifle it. Thirty three years ago he wrote a book titled The Satanic Verses. He was in hiding for the next decade. And it turns out that wasn’t long enough.

For his title, he looked at a few words in the Quran, as interpreted by some Islamic historians. Islamic fundamentalists are triggered by the concept raised by those co-religionists as long ago as ~900AD. In any case, Rushdie was writing a novel. Fiction.

It’s no surprise, though, that Rushdie’s daring to discuss it was not well received in certain quarters. He upset the same Islamist fanatics who encouraged the slaughter at Charlie Hebdo, the murder of Theo Van Gogh, the threats to the Jyllands-Posten for publishing cartoons, the mass shooting at Bataclan and Pulse, and other murders, arsons and riots too common to detail.

Fundamentalist Islam insists religion and the State are one. Naturally, then, Rushdie’s temerity provoked a Muslim cleric and Head-of-State (Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini) to issue a bounty for Rushdie’s death in 1989.

AKA a ‘fatwa.’ In polities where church and state are separated, we don’t yet have a special term for state religion-sanctioned murder. We are working toward it via the Church of George Floyd, the Cathedral of Transexual Pronounism, the Pieties of the Green New Deal, and the rite of Skin Color Original Sin, but we aren’t there yet.

That does not mean progress is not being made here. This week a militant follower of Islam with ties to Iran stabbed Rushdie a dozen times. As yet, the police can’t find a motive. You have to wonder how the find their own butts.

Rushdie’s stabbing is merely a reminder that “don’t say anything we don’t like to hear” fanatics can be dangerous. We have some of our own.

Every day needs to be ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed day.’ Here’s a comprehensive “compendium of images that depict Mohammed (the 7th-century founder of Islam), spanning all historical periods, cultures, genres, styles, formats and themes.”

Here’s my own paltry contribution.

Every day needs to be ‘Everybody write The Satanic Verses day.’

Rushdie’s stabbing is ethically no different from the persecution of Kyle Rittenhouse, the firing of James Damore, the threats against J. D. Rowling, or the demonization of Nicholas Sandmann.

Ben Carson and Muslim Presidents

The Muslim Islamophobes Who Agree With Ben Carson

One of these religions is not like the others.

Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.

-Omar Ahmad, founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations

It’s ironic that Progressives who reference Jefferson’s “wall of separation between church and state” to bolster their case supporting abortion should consider Ben Carson’s rejection of sharia discriminatory.

The Constitution’s Article Six prohibits a religious test as a qualification for any public office, but that same document contains a First Amendment forbidding the federal government from establishing a national religion. An Islamic president would, by definition, either be an apostate (i.e., a lapsed Muslim according to main-stream Islamic theologians) or refuse to enforce the entire Bill of Rights.

Appealing to the Constitution when you deny its primacy in American law is not merely hypocritical, it’s taqiyya for the dhimmi.

Can’t we all just get along?

Sometimes all of us but CAIR can.

Extreme leftwing Bill Maher and rightwing Rep. Allen West agree on the seriousness of some Marines urinating on enemy bodies:

Maher, “If they were real Taliban, if they were people who burn down girls’ schools you know, and do honor rapes, threw acid in people’s faces, I’m not that upset about pissing on them, dead or alive.”

West, “The Marines were wrong. Give them a maximum punishment under field grade level Article 15 (non-judicial punishment), place a General Officer level letter of reprimand in their personnel file, and have them in full dress uniform stand before their Battalion, each personally apologize to God, Country, and Corps videotaped and conclude by singing the full US Marine Corps Hymn without a teleprompter.

As for everyone else, unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell.”

At least we didn’t waterboard the remains.

When pigs fly


Given that it is statistically a certainty that everyone has breathed a molecule that was exhaled by Julius Caesar as he died, it is dead certain that you’ve breathed many a molecule exhaled by millions of pigs, living and dead. So this NIMBY (Not In Muslim Back Yards) protest is as arrogant an attempt to advance sharia as any ignorant residential association has ever caved to. Burning pig waste is the least of Islamic concerns about contact with tiny bits of swine. This is a populist manifestation of the politics of establishing the World Caliphate.

Like every other being, these Muslims are already PERMEATED with pork effluvia. Idiots. Damned, too, from what they say.

When I suggested it would be the dust from the manufacture and transport of pork rinds causing this protest in the US, I wasn’t serious. These UK Muslims apparently are serious. Worse, the local governing authority is all atwitter to appease:

[Coton Park Residential] Association spokesperson Grant Scott said: “Several families have complained because of the smell of the pork, and also if the factory is cooking with it, pork particles and odour could rain down on them from the chimney at some point.

…A group of Muslims have opposed plans for a pet food factory to be built as possible pork emissions will violate their religious rights.

Now, here is a slope we slipped right down all unawares. When did a religious obligation become a religious right enforced on others? The UK did not seem to accept any form of this argument in the time its troops spent in Northern Ireland.

Butchers Pet Care could shelve plans for a factory in Coton Park, near Rugby, because angry Asian families have complained to their residents’ association about pork smells drifting into their garden.

Note: This is a group, if you believe UK polls, of whom a substantial number are quite comfortable with the “flash cook” suicide bomber recipe for toasting infidels. This raises two related points, 1) suicide bombings shower you in infidel chunks, bits and gasses, 2) humans are not AKA “long pig” for nothing – the savory odor of even a briefly roasted infidel is reminiscent of a luau.

Muslim residents in the area also claim the pork will effectively “rain down” on their homes and gardens after the factory’s 100ft chimney has pumped the meat extracts into the atmosphere.

The Coton Park Residential Association said they have received complaints from Muslims – who are directed to not eat pork by the Qur’an – and are taking the matter very seriously.

One family who live less than 100 yards from the proposed factory, but who did not wish to be identified, said: “A significant proportion of meats used in the pet foods processes are pig meat.

“Our religion expressly forbids us to consume pig meat in any form.

“Because of the way in which this meat material will leave the factory and give that the area can be ‘rained upon’ we will be consuming pork via inhalation of this ‘rain’.

“Not only that but our clothes will be contaminated by pork.”

Mind contamination is obviously not at issue.

Another family from the Coton Park housing estate said: “The owners of the proposed factory do not dispute the claim that meat extracts of pork will be pumped into the atmosphere via a 100ft chimney.

“They have said there will not be any chemical treatment proposed to treat the meat extracts before they leave the factory.”

“Chemically treated” pork is exempt from the strictures? Well, burning is a chemical reaction. Problem solved. Except burning animal parts doesn’t seem to really have been a problem in the first place. Emphasis mine.

A statement from Butchers Pet Care said: “The majority of our natural products are beef and poultry.

“Pork ingredients account for less than 10% of our range.

“At Coton Park we plan to introduce state-of-the-art odour extraction through the chimney stack.

“An environmental impact report has already concluded that emissions at the proposed Coton Park site should not have an adverse impact on air quality and odour levels.

“We would like to reiterate that we do not burn any animal materials.”

… [Association spokesperson Grant Scott said,] “It was something we hadn’t taken on board before but it’s definitely important and is a very delicate issue.

“If Muslims are unhappy about it, then Jews may complain for the same reason, and Hindus may complain because of their beliefs about cows being sacred animals.”

And then we’d all be forced into vegetarianism. Sounds just like the University of Michigan defending the installation of Muslim footbaths as a public safety issue.

Politicians don’t normally invite the next set of complaints, so here Coton Park is trying to obfuscate the fact that they are giving special attention to Muslim protests by dragging in other religions who have not protested. They forgot Rastafarians.

They can’t even seem to gather the proper level of indifference in Britain anymore. Keep a quivering upper lip, Coton Park Residential Association. I will make one suggestion, however, change your name to Coton Residential Association Park.

On the other hand

The Pew Research Center just published a poll measuring the attitudes of American Muslims.

A question addressed by only one report I’ve seen is how these attitudes compare to the general population or other identifiable subgroups. Muslim thinking on extremism seems to me to compare very favorably with some other ideologically-bonded groups. For example, Liberals.

A)
According to Pew, one percent of American Muslims overall said suicide bombings are “often” justifiable and an additional seven percent said they are “sometimes” justifiable.

Twenty-eight percent of Muslims surveyed don’t believe Arabs were responsible for 9/11. Seven percent believe that a U.S. government conspiracy is the reason for 9/11.

On the other hand, thirty-five percent of Democrats believe the president possessed prior knowledge of the 9/11 terror attacks that killed over 3,000 Americans. Another 26 percent of Democrats said that they are “not sure.”

B)
According to Pew, 5% of US Muslims have a favorable view of al Qaeda and 10% have an only somewhat unfavorable view. 27% refused to answer or didn’t know.

On the other hand, what’s the percentage of college professors, radical feminists, far left documentary makers and billionaire currency speculators who have a favorable view of the United States?

C)
“…fewer than half (36%) of native-born African American Muslims express a very unfavorable view of al Qaeda. By contrast, roughly two-thirds of other native-born Muslims (69%), as well as foreign-born Muslims (63%), hold very unfavorable views of al Qaeda.”

On the other hand, al-Qaeda affirmative action policies have not been adequately explained.

Oh, yes, the one report on a similar poll of an identifiable religious group: Midwest Lutherans Largely Reject Violence

Muslim Moderates

Daniel Pipes presents evidence that moderate Muslims are alive and well in Turkey and Pakistan.

A Million Moderate Muslims on the March

In Pakistan, an estimated 100,000 people demonstrated on April 15 in Karachi, the country’s largest city, to protest the plans of a powerful mosque in Islamabad, the Lal Masjid, to establish a parallel court system based on Islamic law, the Shari‘a. “No to extremism,” roared the crowd. “We will strongly resist religious terrorism and religious extremism,” exhorted Altaf Hussain, leader of the Mutahida Qaumi Movement, at the rally.

In Turkey, more than a million moderate Muslims in five marches protested the bid of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) to take over the presidency of the republic, giving it control over the two top government offices (the other being the prime ministry, currently filled by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan).

Ayaan Hirsi Ali also has some thoughts on Turkish secularism and Erdoğan’s presidential candidacy.

Can secular Turkey survive democracy?

How reformists can stop the Islamists who have chipped away at Turkey’s secularism.

SECULAR AND LIBERAL Turks have had a rude awakening from years of deep slumber. Kemal Ataturk’s heritage is about to be destroyed — not by an invading power but from within, by fellow Turks who yearn for an Islamic state.

Ever since Ataturk, Turkey has been divided into those who want to run state affairs on Islamic principles and those who want to keep Allah’s will from the public space.

Read them both.

American Islamic Forum for Democracy – Cheers!


This is excellent, and probably somewhat dangerous for those involved. AIFD will be added to the blogroll.

Press Release: Not All Muslims Support CAIR Plan to Sue U.S. Airways on Behalf of Six Imams

March 13, 2007
AIFD Press Release

PRESS RELEASE

MARCH 13, 2007

NOT ALL MUSLIMS SUPPORT CAIR PLAN TO SUE US AIRWAYS on BEHALF of SIX IMAMS

Muslim organization believes that lawsuit filed by CAIR on behalf of local Phoenix imams is wrong for American Muslims and wrong for America.

[PHOENIX, AZ: March 13, 2007]: Wide media attention is being given today to the lawsuit filed by CAIR on behalf of six imams against U.S. Airways for their claims of discrimination against race and religion. Most of the imams are from local mosques here in Phoenix and were removed from a U.S. Airways flight on November 21, 2006 en route to Phoenix from Minneapolis.

AIFD would like the American public to be aware of our following positions representing an alternative voice from the American Muslim community.

1. We will not accept the victimization agenda of organizations like CAIR. Lawsuits like the one announced today exploit the climate of political correctness and at the end of the day are harmful to the Muslim minority in America. …

Read it all at the link above.