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Why the Left Loves Islam — and an Even Stranger Contradiction

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For all the craziness in the world, there isn’t much that can match the sheer lunacy of liberals standing for both homosexuality and Islam at the same time. Islamic law calls for death for gays. How can we explain why the left loves Islam they way they do?

The best I can come up with is that gays and Muslims share one thing in common: they’re both minorities in the Western world, and the left is all for standing up for minorities.

It’s a reason. I’m not saying it’s a good one. It’s filled with contradictions. A closer look at it, though, reveals an even worse paradox within liberalism.

Liberals and Power

The reasoning begins with the left’s standard opposition to established power, and to whoever or whatever group is seen as holding that power.

As Jeffrey Hart wrote in 1972, and National Review just recently re-published, the liberal educated class

views history as a series of recurring moral melodramas in which villains or oppressors are continually defeated by their victims. One after another, kings, religious establishments, slave-owners, malefactors of great wealth and tyrants of various kinds, have been brought to earth by those whom they have wronged. It is a secularized version of “the last shall be first.”

This way of looking at the world, says Hart,

“tends habitually to structure reality in terms of what [Kenneth R.] Minogue calls “suffering situations.” As a matter of settled moral habit this sensibility instantly structures events in the political realm in terms of suffering, in terms of oppressor and victim.

The oppressor is bad, the victim is good. Thus a professor blogging at the American Mathematical Society can say that all “cis white men” should quit their jobs or take a demotion just for being members of that group.

No Human Motivation Is All Bad

This isn’t all bad. There was, after all, a day when people of color had no voice, not even a vote. There was a day (I’m old enough to recall it myself) when most people thought a young woman had just four decent career options to choose from: secretary, nurse, teacher or waitress.

There was a day, in other words, when liberals arguably stood for true freedom and justice for those who lacked power in society. But the left lost track of the fact that the problem was never power, but abuse of power. No social system can work without some structure, which means some people must have more power than others. It’s unavoidable. It’s even good: a society without order will quickly collapse.

Power Isn’t All Bad — Unless You Ask a Liberal

And power can be used for others’ good. Jesus explained it in just three sentences:

You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:25-28)

Blind to this, though, liberals see power as one leg of a triad, linked inseparably with oppression, the second leg. The third leg is whichever group is guilty of holding that power. Wherever one leg of that triad exists, the other two are there along with it. Thus if there’s a dominant culture, it has power, and it’s bad. In fact it’s pretty much all bad. Other people don’t have power and they’re not bad. It’s just that easy.

If that sounds too simple to be true, consider the claim that all whites are racist and no non-whites can be.

And that’s how Islam, being a minority group, is granted such favor from the left. It’s a minority group, therefore it’s an oppressed group, and thus it’s not bad — even though it was founded in blood, conquest and rape, and continues to mandate death to gays.

The Greater Contradiction on the Left

But the left has committed itself to an even greater contradiction along the way. Over the past few decades, liberals have gained positions of enormous power in education, media, publishing and the arts. Seeing themselves as champions of the weak against the power of straight “cis” white males, they’ve blinded themselves to the fact that they’ve become the Western world’s dominant culture, holders of tremendous power.

And now the left has become a group united in throwing its weight around in order to stop (what they see as) a powerful group throwing its weight around. If they were truly consistent with their own values, they’d be casting themselves out of their own positions of power.

I’m not holding my breath waiting for that to happen. Consistency isn’t the left’s strong point — which is why liberals can support Islam.

I said at the beginning I might be able to suggest a reason they do that. I didn’t promise it would be a good one. (For more from the author of “Why the Left Loves Islam — and an Even Stranger Contradiction” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Promoting Islam in Our Schools

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Memorizing the Islamic conversion prayer. Reciting the Five Pillars of Islam. Affirming that Christians are not as strong in their faith as Muslims. Several school districts across the nation are requiring their students to study Islam. And parents aren’t happy about it.

A 1963 Supreme Court decision allows for historical instruction about religions. But it seems that Islam is the only religion that is okay to promote. Some parents believe the Islamic teaching has gone too far. And now there’s a lawsuit.

The Court Opens the Door

The Supreme Court in Abington v. Schempp ruled that organized religious events violated the First Amendment. Schools could not require Bible reading or praying in class. But they could offer courses on the Bible or religion as a secular subject. The Court said that “education is not complete without a study of comparative religion or the history of religion and its relationship to the advancement of civilization.”

Those who know Abington know it as the case that kicked Bible reading out of public education. But it left the door open for a historical study of the Christianity — or any other religion. Now the study of Islam is making its way into the school systems nationwide.

Islamic teaching in public schools has alarmed several parents. They believe it has crossed the line from a historical study to indoctrination. They believe that school districts are promoting Islam over other religions.

The Problem with Teaching Islam

A La Plata, California, High School parent brought a lawsuit against the school. John Kevin Wood and his wife said that his daughter’s school required her to complete assignments that endorsed Islam.

The school required her to affirm that “Most Muslims’ faith is stronger than the average Christian.” The school required all students to recite the Islamic conversion prayer. The prayer, called the Shahada, states that “There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet.” The school also required students to profess the Five Pillars of Islam.

Wood said his daughter’s school forced her to write statements that offended and denied her Christian beliefs. When she refused to complete the assignments, she received failing grades. Her teacher sent her to the school library away from her classmates. As a result, she felt ostracized because of her Christian beliefs.

Wood contacted the school and asked for alternative assignments. The school’s principal refused. Wood informed the principal that he would contact an attorney and the media. The school then reportedly responded by obtaining a restraining order against Wood. He could no longer pick up his daughter on school property or attend parent-teacher meetings.

La Plata High School did not teach Christianity the same way as Islam, according to Wood. Christianity was taught for one day—disparagingly. Islam was taught for two weeks—sympathetically. The lesson did not require students to learn any of Christianity’s tenets, faith statements or creeds. Nor were the students required to learn any of Judaism’s.

It Happens in Other Schools Too

It happens in other schools, too. Parents across the country have complained that their child’s school required them to:

Dress up as a Muslim, learn prayers and scriptures from the Quran;

Memorize the Five Pillars of Islam and listen to a Muslim prayer;

Memorize and recite the Shahada, or the conversion prayer; and

Write the Shahada in Arabic as part of a calligraphy lesson.

Parents of students at several schools complain that teachers do not teach non-Muslim religions. And that is the crux of the issue for many parents.

The Ten Commandments would never be a lesson requirement, said one New Jersey mom. “If Islam is taught, teach Christianity, too. [My son] couldn’t even put a Bible verse in his presentation that was student-initiated. So they’re not only teaching Islam, but they’re not allowing students to be free in expressing their [Christian] religious beliefs.”

Many school districts indoctrinate students in Islam, said Thomas More Law Center President Richard Thompson. “This is happening in public schools across the country. And [parents] must take action to stop it.”

The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause

The Establishment Clause prohibits the government from establishing a religion. The Supreme Court decided in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971) that a three-part test would govern what constitutes “establishment of a religion.” Under the “Lemon test,” government can make laws or policy about religion if the reason for the law is secular, it neither promotes nor inhibits religion, and it doesn’t excessively entangle church and state.

Teaching about Islam in schools may not seem at first glance to be a problem. But the law is clear that the government may not adhere to, promote or inhibit a particular religion. This includes public school districts. Teaching Islam as a secular subject along with other religions equally is lawful. When the teaching of Islam promotes the religion above others, that is against the law. This is found in the Establishment Clause of our First Amendment.

The First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University stated these lessons can go too far. In particular, some “hands-on” activities border on unconstitutional endorsement of religion. They added, “Would any of these schools dream of acting out the Catholic Mass or inviting a Protestant minister to give a sermon in the gym?”

Even if school districts have good intentions, they can still cross the line, the Center noted. “However well-intentioned, including religions and cultures by violating the Constitution doesn’t help anyone. … All of us have an important stake in making sure that First Amendment principles are applied fairly and justly to each and every individual and group in the United States.” (For more from the author of “Promoting Islam in Our Schools” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

This 1962 Novel Predicted Western Collapse and Islam’s Takeover

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Following the news, I get more and more outraged. Not at God. Nor at Islam. Not even at my fellow man. The person I really resent is whatever satirical novelist is scripting our daily events from Hell. Or Purgatory, at best. No writer in Heaven would be cruel enough to inflict all this on us. Or would he? Perhaps to teach us a lesson. …

Love Among the Ruins

Is it you, Evelyn Waugh? You predicted our transgender madness, the euthanasia craze, and the toxic, infantilizing effects of the welfare state in Love Among the Ruins. Now are you pulling strings to make it all come true? Is this payback for that lousy movie adaptation of Brideshead Revisited? Enough, already.

That Hideous Strength

Or you, C.S. Lewis? Yes, you laid out to the letter what would become of our sexual culture in That Hideous Strength. You imagined a race that inhabited the Moon, who lost all interest in actual intercourse, and instead began to mate with technological images of each other. That’s how deep their disgust for God’s physical creation had become. Now married couples are shunning each other, while porn websites flourish. So yes, okay, you were right. But lay off already!

The Camp of the Saints

I would ask Jean Raspail, who wrote The Camp of the Saints, to accept that we’ve learned our lesson. Yes, you were dead-on right that self-loathing Europe would die not with a bang but a simper. The same glum hedonists who won’t have any children and warn that the slightest upsurge in Christian practice could lead to the Inquisition: they’re falling over themselves to show how “open” and “welcoming” they can be to Dark Ages-haunted theocrats, who have families of six and seven kids at taxpayer expense. I expect no mercy from you, Raspail. The French are an unforgiving race.

The Wanting Seed

But really I’m angriest at Anthony Burgess (most famous for A Clockwork Orange — far from his best book). If there is a single culprit, one writer who sketched out what would happen to us today, it’s you, Anthony. In The Wanting Seed you laid out a compelling theory of history: That the back and forth of ideologies and religions in the West acts like a see-saw. We always are either at or on the way to one extreme or the other. We oscillate between two theories of man.

Man Is Perfectible

One theory is that we can engineer man to be better, and make earthly life close to perfect. All we need to do is follow secular reason, impose more controls, and allow our enlightened elites to shepherd us forward to Eden. You dubbed this “Pelagianism,” after the English heretic who believed that God’s grace is optional and Jesus was just a really, really uplifting example. You linked it with socialism, Malthusianism, science-worship, and population control.

A society in its grips, you cannily predicted, will try to suppress the family, and hold up as heroes not just homosexuals, but actual eunuchs. Did you see Bruce “Caitlyn” Jenner offering President Trump advice in some crystal ball you consulted?

Man Is Unfixable

The other extreme is that man’s animal instincts and inborn evil are fundamental to his being. They will always overwhelm attempts to perfect human society. War, hierarchy, cruelty, and other historic evils: baked into the cake. There is no sense in trying to wipe them out, or even limit them. Instead we should harness and use them, and try to make sure that our group holds the whip hand instead of other people’s. Unfairly, I think, you labeled this “Augustinianism.”

In the novel, you pictured the Malthusian/Eunuch state collapsing all right — as indeed it is, before our eyes. You imagined a resurgence of fundamentalism, militarism, bloodlust, and primitive tribal hatred. On all that you were dead right. But you pictured it happening among Westerners, even Anglicans! What your visions didn’t tell you, at least in this novel, is that its agents would be Islamic. That they would be newcomers welcomed in by the pallid, Malthusian optimists. To give you credit, some twenty years later you did see the Muslim takeover coming, and wrote about it in your novella 1985.

The Wanting Seed is the creepiest, most chillingly prescient piece of literature I’ve ever come across. Plug in “Islam” for “Augustinianism,” and the novel flat-out predicted the events that wouldn’t happen till 50 years later. About how many other books can we say the same?

Pope Benedict on Technology vs. Islam

For the last piece of the intellectual puzzle, see Pope Benedict XVI’s famous speech at Regensburg. He pointed out that the dark shadow cast by the West’s obsession with godless speculation and technology was Voluntarism: the grim belief that Will, not Reason, is the ultimate force in the universe. That is the theory of God that most of Islam clings to. It feeds the cult of violence which has always accompanied that religion, wherever it conquers. The individual terrorist channels the capricious wrath of God.

Burgess’ novel is grim, alarming, funny, and deeply pessimistic. It needs to be made into a miniseries for Netflix. At the very least, it should be required reading for every Western college student. It’s only fair to warn them what they’re in for.

And Anthony, we get the point. Please cut it out. (For more from the author of “This 1962 Novel Predicted Western Collapse and Islam’s Takeover” please click HERE)

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Why We Must Name, Identify, and Combat the Ideology of Radical Islam

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The tragic terrorist bombing in Manchester, England this week reminds us that we cannot just combat radical Muslims, seeking to make our borders secure and fighting them overseas. We must also combat the ideology of radical Islam.

Homegrown Radicals

In 2005, after the horrific London train bombings, many Brits were shocked to learn that three of the four terrorists were born in England. The fourth, born in Jamaica, was raised in England from the age of 5.

These four men potentially had access to the best England had to offer. They were raised in an environment of religious freedom. Yet they ended up murdering children, women, and men in cold blood. And they did it in the name of Allah. Why?

We now know that the Manchester bomber, Salman Abedi, was also born and raised in England after his parents fled to the UK from Gaddafi’s Libya. Abedi’s family was reportedly “devout and well-known to be against Isis and Islamism. Abedi’s father, known as Abu Ismael, was described in glowing terms at the Didsbury Mosque where he and the family worshipped.”

According to a family friend, Abedi’s father used to lead early morning prayer calls. “And his boys learned the Qur’an by heart.”

But, according to this friend, the father, Abu Ismael, “will be terribly distraught. He was always very confrontational with jihadi ideology, and this Isis thing isn’t even jihad, it’s criminality. The family will be devastated.”

If this report is accurate, these were devout Muslims who repudiated violent Islamic theology. How, then, did the son come to embrace it? Or was his embrace of radical Islam the direct result of him memorizing the Quran as a child?

We Have to Verbally Identify ‘Radical Islam’

There are some who argue that there is no such thing as radical Islam, only Islam. Islam itself is evil and, by nature, a violent religion. Others argue that violent Islam is not Islam at all, and that Islam, by nature, is a peaceful religion.

My position has been that both the peaceful and violent expressions of the faith can be found within Islam. That’s why I use the qualifying term “radical Islam.”

Let’s put that debate aside for a moment. We can all agree that there is a barbaric and violent ideology that justifies its actions using Islamic texts, traditions, and history. That is the ideology commonly called “radical Islam.” That ideology that must be combated.

The Obama administration argued that this terrorist ideology had nothing to do with Islam. He said to associate it with Islam was to offend the Muslim world. But that strategy was doomed to fail.

First, it paralyzed intelligence and law enforcement agencies, since they had to purge any references to “Islam” from their manuals. How can you combat something you cannot name?

Second, since we were not allowed to identify radical Islam, we could not identity its roots and its appeal. How could we stop people from being radicalized by Islam if Islam (in any form) is not the problem?

For eight years our government avoided offending the Muslim world by refusing to say “Islamic terrorism.” How did that strategy pay off in terms of intelligence dividends? Did Muslims across America come forward in large numbers to help uproot radical Islamic terrorism? Not to my knowledge.

Questions to Ask

What we need to do now is what we should have been doing all along.

We need to ask who is getting radicalized. We need to ask how they are getting radicalized.

What ideology appeals to them? What type of individual is likely to get recruited? Why do they hate us so deeply?

Let us profile in the best sense of the word, the way Israeli airline security profiles passengers and the way behavioral analysis units profile criminals. (Think Criminal Minds.)

But the goal is not to profile Muslims. The goal is to profile people who are likely to be radicalized. If 99 percent of them are Muslims, then that is part of the profile. How do we identify that small percentage of the Muslim population likely to be recruited for terror? Peace-loving Muslims should lead the way in helping expose and uproot these dangerous weeds growing in their midst.

We need to ask who is doing the recruiting and how they are succeeding. Which leaders or groups are doing the work? How are they doing it? To what extent is it happening in mosques or Islamic centers or prisons or online?

Muslim Leaders Must Condemn All Terror

And we need to call on Muslim leaders across the world to denounce Islamic terror and to combat it, without caveat or qualification. That means that if a Muslim suicide bomber blows up people in Israel or England or France, the action must be condemned unequivocally.

Islamic theologians and political leaders must unite and say, “That is not Islam, and that is a hell-bound murderer, not a martyr.”

While some Muslim leaders have done this with consistency (although, more rarely when it comes to attacks against Israelis), all too many others have not.

In his book 111 Questions on Islam, Samir Kahlil Samir pointed to “the final document released at the end of the summit held in Beirut in January 2002, in which more than two hundred Sunni and Shiite ᷾ulemā’ [Islamic scholars], coming from thirty-five countries, participated.” They were discussing suicide attacks in Israel and whether those could be justified in the name of Islam, which otherwise opposes suicide.

The document stated this: “The actions of martyrdom of the mujāhidīn are legitimate and have their foundation in the Qur’ān and in the prophet’s tradition. They represent the most sublime of martyrdoms because the mujāhidīn accomplish them in full conscience and freedom of choice.”

This is heinous and despicable, yet it was the verdict of a wide range of multi-national Islamic scholars.

In 2001, another prominent Muslim leader, Yusuf al-Qaradawi of Egypt, claimed that “nobody can declare that it is unlawful to fight with all means against the [Israeli] occupation.” He wrote that “jihād on the way to God and in the defense of the country, of homeland, and of sacred things is today an obligation for all Muslims more than in any other period in the past.” And this did not only apply in “Palestine.” It also applied “in Kashmir, and in other hot spots in the world.”

Mainstream Muslims, We Need You

Only Muslim leaders can end this debate. If Islam is not, by nature, a violent religion, then the top Muslim voices across the world must denounce it and combat it. And they must help the West combat it. Is this too much to ask?

When a demented Christian kills an abortion doctor, Christian leaders immediately denounce the act, calling it murder. We disassociate ourselves from the crime. We rightly state that it is has no basis in our faith. We re-affirm that we are pro-life (not pro-murder). That’s why these violent “Christian” acts are so few and far between, despite our passionate stand against abortion.

And what if, God forbid, there was a wave of violent attacks in the name of Jesus and the New Testament? We would speak out all the more and do our best to expose the false, murderous, unbiblical ideology. “This has nothing to do with Jesus!”

Why shouldn’t Muslims do this around the world when it comes to their faith? And why shouldn’t they join forces with non-Islamic governments to combat Islamic terror? (This is what President Donald Trump called for in his speech in Riyadh.)

If, in fact, real Islam is violent Islam, then it is Islam we must combat. If, to the contrary, radical Islam is a deviant form of Islam, then mainstream Muslims must work with us to uproot it.

Either way, the time for pussyfooting around the obvious is over. The blood of slaughtered British children is crying out from the ground. (For more from the author of “Why We Must Name, Identify, and Combat the Ideology of Radical Islam” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

To Dean Obeidallah: If You’re Right, Then Debate, Don’t Run

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In response to my article “The Liberals’ Misguided Love Affair With Islam,” radio host and columnist Dean Obeidallah tweeted, “Hey @DrMichaelLBrown U win award award [sic] for dumbest article of the day — be proud. #moron.”

This was not the first time Mr. Obeidallah attacked me, offering rhetoric without substance, so I responded: “Let’s have a public, civil debate about the issue. You’ve challenged me before, but never with substance. Let’s deal with facts. Shall we?”

Some of his followers chimed in with their own mockery, and I responded to each one, wanting to move beyond the invective. Can we interact about specifics? Can you tell me what is factually inaccurate about my article? With one exception, I was greeted with either silence or further insult.

I then tweeted Mr. Obeidallah again: “Sir, please be kind enough to point out any factual errors in my article. I assume you read it carefully, correct?”

He responded: “Ur a joke — I just give ur views sunlight to destroy the BS — now go run along to Pam Geller.”

Actually, I don’t need this gentleman to give my views “sunlight.” By God’s grace, I have lots of internet exposure, with my articles posted on numerous websites. My Facebook page has more than 530,000 likes, I have a daily, syndicated radio show, an active YouTube channel, and three TV shows, two of which air internationally. So, he has his fine platforms and I have mine.

Unfortunately, Mr. Obeidallah’s attitude is typical of the condescending, “progressive” left: “We will ridicule and mock you because you are unworthy of our time.”

I replied to his tweet more forcefully: “You provide the perfect example of someone who has no facts to support his views: You mock and ridicule, devoid of substance.”

I also posted (to Mr. Obeidallah and one of his Twitter followers): “I call on peace-loving Muslims to join me in standing against radical Islam. You respond with mockery and insult. This is tolerance? Sad.”

Mr. Obeidallah then responded to my call to debate: “The answer is I don’t debate punchlines. Ur a joke.”

I answered: “The truth is you bring no substance, only insults, and your ideas would be instantly exposed in a civil, academic debate. Don’t run.”

He did not reply to me.

Was I surprised? Not in the least. I’ve seen the same thing happen time and again, and if anything, this approach suggests that the mocker is not ready to defend his viewpoint. Why not have your ideas challenged? Why not allow your viewpoints to be cross-examined? And if I am so wrong, why not expose me?

In the course of just three tweets, Mr. Obeidallah ridiculed my article as “the dumbest” of the day; used the hashtag #moron to describe me; then twice called me “a joke,” also accusing me of writing “BS.” And he did this without pointing out a single error in my article. Ah, the voice of tolerance!

Perhaps my esteemed critic can tell me if my Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University was a joke. Or if my three years of studying Classical Arabic was a joke. Or if my public debates at schools like Oxford University and Ohio State University, or outreach lectures at schools like the Hebrew University in Jerusalem or USC or Yale University, or scholarly papers delivered at schools like Harvard University were a joke.

Or am I “a joke” because I claim that radical Islam can trace its roots back to the Quran? Or that I believe that Robert Spencer should not have been shouted down when he tried to quote violent Islamic texts at the University of Buffalo?

The Needed Discussion

A colleague of mine in Australia pointed out that

The annual Freedom of Thought report published by the International Humanist and Ethical Union found that 13 nations punish apostasy with the death penalty.

The 13 countries are all Islamic: Afghanistan, Iran, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Says the report, “All of these countries, except Pakistan, allow for capital punishment against apostasy, while Pakistan imposes the death penalty for blasphemy — including a disbelief in God.”

Does Mr. Obeidallah deny that these countries are Islamic? Does he claim that what they are doing is in violation of the Quran and of Sharia Law?

He might say that their practices are abhorrent, that enlightened Muslims reject this, that as a Muslim himself he believes the Quran is being twisted. All that is fine and good, and that’s part of what we can discuss.

I am not one of those who believes a true Muslim is always a radical Muslim, and I often take flak from some on the right who believe that Islam is always murderous. That’s why I use the adjective “radical” before the word “Islam.” At the same time, I get flack on the left from those (like Mr. Obeidallah, apparently) who believe that radical Islam is not Islam at all.

That’s why I invite Dean Obeidallah to have a civil, moderated, public debate. We could debate the question, “Is Radical Islam True Islam?” Or, “Is the Left Giving Islam a Free Pass?” (Or, perhaps something else that is related. I’m open to possibilities. I would even come on his radio show, where he controls the mic, or he could come on mine.)

Whatever the format, for the sake of truth, for the sake of those affected by radical Islam, for the sake of our nation, we should hash the issues out.

And on a personal note, Mr. Obeidallah, when you respond with mockery and disdain, you make yourself look bad, not your opponent. Surely you can do better than that. (For more from the author of “To Dean Obeidallah: If You’re Right, Then Debate, Don’t Run” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Are Western Apologists for Islam Today’s ‘Useful Idiots’?

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Every day, in little ways and big, each of us faces the choice: Between illusion and truth. Comfort and courage. Between getting patted on the back or looking yourself in the mirror.

The French have made their choice. Confronted with monthly terror attacks, large sections of major cities “no-go” zones for police and women not wearing hijabs, and agents of ISIS infiltrating “refugee” groups, the voters of France overwhelmingly chose … surrender.

They rejected an imperfect candidate, Marine Le Pen, with a plausible and moral plan for containing the cancer of radical Islam. Instead, they picked Emmanuel Macron, an off-the-shelf crony socialist who favors open borders and denies that “French culture” exists.

That nation’s largest Catholic newspaper, La Croix, endorsed Macron, and the head of the French church welcomed his election. Meanwhile, Catholics in Iraq and jihadist-occupied Syria face burned and blackened churches, and life in refugee camps.

Just Cowards and Fools?

What’s the difference between Islam as seen by French Catholics, and by Iraqi ones? Are Christians who believe that Islam is a “religion of peace” simply … cowards and fools?

It’s a tempting conclusion. It easy to think the same of Western liberals who defend “Marxist theory” while squirming at Communist crimes. Indeed, Communists themselves used to call such people “useful idiots.” Both timidity and stupidity surely play their part.

But even those evils need something to work with. In the case of Communism, Westerners who sneered at “primitive anti-Communism” would insist that the “idealistic” Karl Marx was betrayed by Communist movements. Blood-soaked rulers like Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot or even Lenin. … They were never real Marxists at all.

Yes, every single time Marxism has ever been tried in the real world the results are the same: Famine, tyranny and slaughter. But that doesn’t disprove the theory. Go back and read the early writings of Marx, when he sounded like a liberal. Look at the vaporous utopia he promises. Why, it doesn’t even have a State! That “withers away” at some point, right about the time that everyone willingly gives up his private property. Then he works hard every day just for the common good. Then the chorus of “Kumbaya” breaks out from grateful billions. And everybody’s happy. No need for secret police, gulags or psychiatric prisons. Or even for “opiates” like Jesus.

That’s the real Marxism. You know, the one Marx daydreamed about before he even led a movement. Which only ever existed inside his head. The version millions lived through, out in the grubby world of actual people and places, which tyrannized half the planet. … That was the illusion. Okay? Have you got that, students? It will be on your final exam.

Doublethink on Islam

The same kind of doublethink prevails concerning Islam, and it’s equally hard to fathom. Apart, that is, from cynical explanations like faint-heartedness and folly.

But we do know what materials this self-delusion works with. That comes courtesy of a prominent Jesuit Catholic priest, Father Henri Boulad. Unlike the bishops of France, Fr. Boulad has lived for decades in a majority-Muslim country, Egypt. In fact, he was the leader of all the Jesuit priests in Egypt.

According to Agenda Europe, Fr. Boulad has responded to the elections in France and the rise of Islam in Europe … by seeking citizenship in Hungary. That country’s conservative president Viktor Orbán, has refused to accept Muslim refugees — to the loud condemnation of leaders in the EU and the Church. As Agenda Europe reports:

With accepting Hungarian citizenship, he wanted to “signal that the country has made the right decision on the issue of the migration crisis that threatens the existence of Europe,” said Boulad. “I would like to (…) fight for the future and for the Christian values on the side of Hungary and Viktor Orbán.”

Cherry-Picking the Quran

Boulad explained in his comments the source of Western self-deceptions over Islam, especially in Catholic circles. Essentially, those who wish to think the best of Islam, whose fear of “xenophobia” overpowers their rational faculties, have plenty of material to work with. They can draw on the part of the Quran that Muhammad supposedly received while he lived in Mecca. At that point, he was still a marginal, little-heeded mystical preacher, surrounded by pagans. And his message was one of tolerance, and peaceful coexistence among Muslims, Christians and Jews.

It was only later, once he ruled the nearby city of Medina as an absolute monarch, that Muhammad starting hearing very different messages. Now they told him to “slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them.” Now the messages began to include harsh condemnations of non-Muslims. They called for Islamic wars of conquest. Now Paradise was the reward for those who died in the course of jihad, while those who lived could keep the goods and the women whom they captured. Yes, plunder and sex slaves. As ISIS points out: It’s right there in the Quran.

Much more appears in the Hadith, dubious collections of supposed verbal traditions going back to Muhammad, which Arab scholars compiled centuries later. These filled in all the details of law, government and social control that were missing from the Quran — an infuriatingly vague and hard-to-understand document, whose first written versions only appeared long after Muhammad’s death. For useful, approachable books on the murky origins of Islam, see Tom Holland’s In the Shadow of the Sword, or the more provocative Did Muhammad Exist? by Robert Spencer.

We Are All Sufis Now

Wherever Islam really came from, or whatever happy visions danced in the Prophet’s head while he was still powerless, we know what happened next. Likewise, we know what came of Karl Marx’s youthful social justice fantasies. But if you want to avoid conflict, or seem more sophisticated than the “bigots” or “Bourgeois” around you, you can latch onto the early stuff. That is a religion of peace, just as Marx’s early scribblings talked a lot about “freedom.”

This cherry-picking is what most Christian clergy seem to be doing, Fr. Boulad warned. Except, of course, for Christians in Muslim nations, who oddly have a very different view of Islam. You know, the way the Polish Karol Wotyjla (later Pope John Paul II) had a different take on Marxism than lefty priests living in Paris.

In fact, Fr. Boulad even traces the etymology of Christian self-delusion over Islam. Boulad cites as the main source of Catholic Islamophilia,

French Islamologist Louis Massignon (1883-1962), for whom mystical Sufism had meant the essence of Islam. Islam, however, historically chose not the “Meccan,” but the “Medinian,” path that still determines it: “The suras of the Koran that threaten so-called unbelievers with violence and jihad, are from the Medina period, while the more tolerant, mystic suras stem from the Mecca period. Rome does not understand this, and the Christians of the East, who know Islam from the inside, are not asked, they are put to the side” [Boulad said].

Peaceful Muslims living in Western countries probably do the same thing in their heads that Massignon did. They focus on the early stuff, and shrug off its ugly sequels. We should be grateful for that. But the more time their kids spend in Saudi-funded mosques, or on the Internet, the more likely they are to find out the truth about Islam, at least as it’s preached by all its major religious authorities, in every Muslim country. Just like Marxism, by its fruits we shall know it. (For more from the author of “Are Western Apologists for Islam Today’s ‘Useful Idiots’?” please click HERE)

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Danish Teen Converts to Islam, Plans Terror Attack

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A Danish court on Tuesday convicted a teenage girl of attempted terrorism for planning bomb attacks against two schools.

Holbaek District Court judge Peder Christensen says the 17-year-old, who wasn’t identified, was also convicted of assaulting an employee in the juvenile incarceration facility where she had been held during the trial.

Christensen said the girl had converted to Islam and intended to carry out attacks, including one on a Jewish school, when she was 15. He said she possessed chemicals to make the explosive known as TATP. It also appeared she had online contacts with radical militants. (Read more from “Danish Teen Converts to Islam, Plans Terror Attack” HERE)

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MUSLIM DOG DAY AFTERNOON: Man With Dog Nabbed by Toronto Police for Offending Nearby Muslims

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The Muslim proscription against “unclean” animals received state-enforced validation last Saturday in Toronto at the annual Al-Quds Day rally held in the city’s Queen’s Park. 47-year-old Allan Einstoss, who was accosted by a Muslim demonstrator while walking among the crowd with his dog, is considering legal action after being held by the police after the assault, while the man who attacked him was not even questioned. Police on the scene reportedly chastised Einstoss for being “insensitive” to the Muslim protestors with the presence of his canine companion in the public park. “I was detained. They had me in handcuffs,” Einstoss told Front Page Magazine. “They trampled all over my rights.”

Al-Quds Day is an annual international event created in 1979 by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini to mark the end of Ramadan. It is anti-Semitic in nature, calling for the destruction of Israel and the creation a Palestinian state. Einstoss, who attended the event with his 77-year-old father and 16-year-old son, also brought along Cupcake, his 165 pound English Mastiff. Cupcake is a registered therapy dog slated to begin visiting veteran patients at Sunnybrook hospital this October. At the rally he was on a leash, and wearing an Israeli flag around his neck.

Einstoss said he was attending the rally as a “concerned citizen,” unaffiliated with any group. He was amongst the crowd when two Muslim women approached him to ask about his dog. According to Einstoss, he was then approached by a male Al-Quds demonstrator who told him he was “not allowed to go near our women.” Einstoss then asserted his right to go anywhere he pleased, but turned to walk away. At that point he said he was “punched in the chest” by a second male demonstrator, and that someone also kicked his dog.

Einstoss responded by shoving the man who punched him. He was immediately grabbed by several police officers and put in handcuffs. “The cops jumped me, and dragged me off in front of my 77-year-old father and 16-year-old son. They cuffed me for half an hour, and patted me down,” said Einstoss. “The two cops told me I was being arrested for assault and inciting a riot. One of them also mentioned that I was being insensitive to others. They threatened me with a weekend jail, before offering me a deal: they would free me if I agreed to be escorted out of the park.” He complied and left the area.

Part of Einstoss’s apparent “insensitivity” was that, in the eyes of the police, he should have known better than to bring his dog to a rally predominantly comprised of Muslims, whose dislike of dogs among the devout is widely known. By detaining him and threatening him at least partially on the pretext of this “offense,” while refusing to punish the real aggressor in the altercation, the police were essentially telling Einstoss that when Muslims gather in sufficient numbers, public laws and individual rights play second string. (Read more from “MUSLIM DOG DAY AFTERNOON: Man With Dog Nabbed by Toronto Police for Offending Nearby Muslims” HERE)

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Dems Shop Around, Find Two Federal Judges to Strike Down Trump’s Revised Travel Ban

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After President Trump’s first executive order ban on refugees from violent Islamic countries was struck down by two activist federal judges, Trump worked with some of the top legal minds to revise the language. The judges claimed that it unconstitutionally discriminated against the religion of Islam.

The new version removed Iraq from the list of countries banned for 90 days, leaving Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. It exempted people with green cards and visas and removed a provision that appeared to prioritize acceptance of those whose religion was a minority in their home country. Those with new visas were banned from entering the U.S. for 90 days and all refugees for 120 days. It was to go into effect yesterday.

Despite the changes, the revised version has just been struck down by two more federal district court judges. As with the original ban, left-wing activists went judge shopping in order to find liberal judges who would rule against Trump.

Peculiar Judicial Decisions

U.S. District Court Judge Derrick Watson, an Obama appointee who presides in Honolulu, issued a 43-page ruling on Wednesday. It came out less than two hours after listening to arguments, a sign he had already made up his mind and started writing the opinion well in advance. Judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland, also an Obama appointee, issued an opinion this morning. Chuang’s opinion only struck down the travel ban portion of the executive order.

A career government lawyer, Chuang was once accused by a Republican senator “of having a role in frustrating Congressional efforts to investigate the death of a U.S. ambassador in Benghazi, Libya, while he was serving on a special assignment at the State Department.” U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle, who blocked the initial travel ban last month, will also be issuing an opinion.

Judge Watson said the state had established “a strong likelihood of success” on the claim of religious discrimination. He also based his opinion on an assertion that the ban would hurt tourism. This is strange, since Hawaii has yet to accept any refugees. Perhaps he was referring to the foreign relatives of people currently in the state. However, the California man who is part of the lawsuits said his overseas mother hadn’t visited him in over 12 years. A 90-day ban probably wouldn’t change much there.

Judge Watson reasoned that since the six countries listed in the travel ban are over 90 percent Muslim, it amounts to a ban on that religion. He ignored the fact that up to 10 percent of the population in those countries are not Muslim yet still subject to the ban.

Strangely, instead of analyzing the federal law providing authorization for the travel ban, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f), the judges referenced Trump’s remarks about radical Islam that he made during the presidential campaign, not as president. Judge Watson called them “highly relevant.” Watson cited one of Trump’s campaign press releases: “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” However, that is not what Trump ending up doing with his travel ban as president; instead, he banned entire countries.

Interestingly, Judge Chuang disagreed in part. Chuang said the plaintiffs didn’t sufficiently develop their argument that a temporary ban on refugees discriminates on the basis of religion.

Since immigration is a federal issue, the decisions by the federal court judges to continue the injunction apply across the country. A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel upheld the injunction against the ban last month, which prompted the Trump administration to rewrite the executive order.

Trump’s Response

Trump strongly denounced both rulings. During a rally in Nashville today, he criticized the judges for failing to discuss the immigration law authorizing the travel ban, 212(F). “Even if you’re a bad student,” he said, “this is a real easy one. … Here is the real statute, which they don’t even want to quote when they overrule it. And it was put here for the security of our country.”

Trump went on to emphasize the national security interest against Islamic terrorism: “We’re talking about the safety of our nation, the safety and security of our people.”

This ruling makes us look weak — which by the way, we no longer are, believe me. … This is a watered down version of the first one. I was elected to change our broken down and dangerous system and thinking in government that has weakened and endangered our country, and left our people defenseless. And I will not stop fighting for the safety of you and your families, believe me. Not today, not ever. We’re gonna win it.

Although the two decisions will now be appealed to circuit courts which lean to the left, it is very likely the U.S. Supreme Court will ultimately make the final decision. Trump is confident of success at the high court, saying during today’s rally, “Even liberal democratic lawyer Alan Dershowitz — good lawyer — just said that we would win this case before the Supreme Court of the United States.”

Many of the news accounts of these two court decisions revealed their bias: They left out any discussion that the ban could be upheld by the Supreme Court, as well as any analysis of 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f), which clearly gives the president the authority to issue immigration bans. If this continues, random liberal judges could be dictating US immigration and foreign policy, in direct contradiction to the US Constitution. (For more from the author of “Dems Shop Around, Find Two Federal Judges to Strike Down Trump’s Revised Travel Ban” please click HERE)

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Fear of Islam Is Rational. It’s Not Islamophobia.

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Last October, prodded by a petition asking that it recognize “that extremist individuals do not represent the religion of Islam” and condemn “all forms of Islamophobia,” the Canadian House of Commons agreed on a statement repudiating Islamophobia. Samer Majzoub, president of the Canadian Muslim Forum, then demanded that the government deal with the “Islamophobia” endemic to Canadian society. That demand is now under consideration.

Which caused me to wonder. What is Islamophobia? Might I, as a critic of Islam who nevertheless seeks to be kind to individual Muslims, suffer from this malady?

Phobias are inordinate fears — of heights, dogs, snakes, enclosed spaces and so on. The term “Islamophobia” implies that if you are afraid of Islam per se (rather than just “extremist individuals”), you are likely to be unjust or unkind, or perhaps launch wars against innocent Muslims.

Thus the Canadian petition went on to note (echoing the constant drumbeat in some American high school textbooks), that the Golden Age of Islam produced a series of literate, advanced empires with the Muslim faith at their ideological core. It claims that Islam then made contributions in “arts, culture, science, literature, medicine” and more.

To what extent Islam produced rather than obtaining these things through its conquests is hard to say. That is just one of the many ways in which Islam is more complicated than the Islamophobia-phobic let on. In fact, I think it is rational, moral and biblical to be wary of Islam as a whole, not just a few “extremists” within it — while offering kindness to individual Muslims.

Responses to Real Danger

Most phobias are exaggerated responses to real dangers, after all. Heights are dangerous, unless you’re Spider-Man. Bees sting. Snakes bite. Ask a coal miner or parakeet what can happen in an enclosed space. God implanted such fears in us to keep us in one piece.

So why then is “Islamophobia” a word, and not “Buddhaphobia?”

Ask a Coptic Christian in Egypt whose faith has been suppressed for more than a millennia. Ask Nigerian Christian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram. Ask a survivor, if you can find one, of the once great and ancient Jewish communities in Egypt, Iraq or Iran. Talk to Yazidi girls sold into sexual slavery in ISIS-controlled territory.

A young Saudi woman I got to know in Oxford told me, “The only way I’m going back to Saudi is in a body bag.” A former imam I met in the same city told me that “of course” Islamic law prescribes death for those who convert out, which is why (after miraculously converting to Christ) he could not go home.

The villains in some of these cases are considered “extremist,” in others, they represent mainstream Islam. But “extremist” is one of those chameleon-words like “fundamentalist,” that derives meaning only from its neighbors. Therefore “extremist Muslims” must by definition be outliers and cannot “represent” Islam. The question that immediately leads to then, is, What does define Islam?

Defining Islam

Like any ideology, Islam can be defined by (a) the life and teachings of its founder; (b) its canonical writings; or (c) its developed traditions.

Western liberals tend to accentuate its traditions (c) rather than (a) or (b). But even viewed “liberally” as a mere social phenomenon, Islam provides rational grounds for worry, even fear. The horror of 9/11 was no aberration. “The borders of Islam are bloody,” said historian Bernard Lewis. And modern Islamic societies, as shown by broad-based United Nations research, tend to suppress women, among other ills.

Things turn even darker when we look at Islam’s founder. Among Mohammed’s crimes, as chronicled in Muslim tradition, are child-rape, polygamy, torture, slave-trading, assassination, mass-murder, armed robbery and the waging of many aggressive wars.

As for its canonical writings, much of what the enlightened world decries in modern Islam’s treatment of women has its origins in the teachings and actions of the prophet. These include marrying children to old men, polygamy, wife-beating, keeping women indoors and covered. Some of this is enshrined within the sacred pages of the Koran — and stands in stark contrast to the example of Jesus.

One must still give credit where credit is due. Who cannot admire, for instance, a Libyan Muslim immigrant to the United States who takes in terminally-ill foster children? Since Jesus teaches us to recognize such “Good Samaritans,” we should also recognize whatever Muslims have accomplished in medicine, art and science.

That said, recall that Islam conquered several cradles of civilization — ancient Sumer, Persia, Egypt, Israel, and much of the Greek Byzantine Empire — and ruled over technologically-advanced Nestorian Christian and Jewish communities. Islam then conquered much of Christendom and India and enslaved millions of Africans and Slavs. While not as inherently vicious as Nazism, Communism, or Aztec religion, Islam thus proves itself an object of rational fear.

The Two “Extremes”

One should distinguish between phobias or inordinate fears and reasonable concerns. Jesus taught his followers that they would be persecuted for His sake. Was that fear-mongering? Jesus sometimes avoided angry mobs and warned against bullies and ideological predators (“wolves”). Life under Islamic rule taught many followers of Christ to take pragmatic steps to mitigate the dangers of Islamic theology. They did this even while placing ultimate trust in God, making friends in the Muslim community, and treating each individual with the dignity and compassion of Christ.

Thus it is rational to fear the influence of a man whose example and teachings have led to great harm — even if it includes some good.

Christians should place ultimate trust in God. We are called to love Muslims as well, some of whom may prove better men and women than ourselves.

Osama bin Laden was an “extremist” because he followed Mohammed too closely. And that example is the root of a rational fear of Islam in its normative state. Those who truly love their neighbors are “extreme” rather in their resemblance to Jesus, the normative state of Christianity, which overcomes, but does not simply ignore, rational dangers. (For more from the author of “Fear of Islam Is Rational. It’s Not Islamophobia.” please click HERE)

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