Islam into the Breach: Another Great Mark Steyn Article

“Think globally, act locally” works for environmentalism and jihad --Mark Steyn

Mark Steyn nails the stand-for-nothing PC secularists who encourage jihadis on Western soil. These dangerously misguided liberals apologize for Western Civilization and denigrate Christianity and Judaism while aiding and abetting illiberal Muslim chauvinism.

Secular progressives and triumphant Muslims join forces to tear down Europe's great cathedrals. The Muslims construct mosques while the intellectually clapped out Western apologists build altars to Gaia. (BTW enviros, all that global warming crap is out the window when the Muslims gain electoral plurality in Europe. No way are they bowing to a strange god, especially a female one.)

Here are some excerpts from Steyn's excellent article:

And so in much of the post-Christian West “a pluralist society” has subsided into a vast gaping nullity too weak to have any purchase on large numbers of the citizenry. In practice, the “secularist and liberal defense” is the vacuum in which a resurgent globalized Islam has incubated.

It is only human to wish to belong to something larger than oneself, and thereby give one’s life meaning. For most of history, this need was satisfied by tribe and then nation, and religion. But the Church is in steep decline in Europe, and the nation-state is all but wholly discredited as the font of racism, imperialism, and all the other ills.

So some (not all) third-generation Britons of Pakistani descent look elsewhere for their identity, and find the new globalized Islam. And some (not all) 30th-generation Britons of old Anglo-Saxon stock also look elsewhere, and find global warming.

Progressive Multiculturalism is a One Way Street

To progressive opinion, it’s taken as read that “multiculturalism” is a one-way street: It seems entirely reasonable for a Wahhabist to say an Anglican church in Riyadh would seem, gee, I dunno, just somehow kinda un-Saudi, whereas it is entirely unacceptable for Heidi’s grandfather to say a Deobandi mosque in Lucerne is un-Swiss.

Everybody's gotta believe in something, and you can't replace something with nothing

Jesus told us 2000 years ago that nature abhors a vacuum:

"When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first." -- Luke 11:24-26

That goes for removing good stuff as well. You can't just sweep the house clean and expect it to remain empty. You've got to fill it with good things, or evil spirits will swoop in to fill the emptiness.

And a few verses before this passage, Jesus reminded us that a house divided against itself cannot stand. Are you hollowed-out Westerners listening?

More Minarets

Hirsi Ali is a victim of that potent combination:  Islamic misogyny and European cowardice

Dutch authorities were helpless to protect her when she dared criticize the religion of her abusers, and other European countries piddled down their legs and declared her persona non grata rather than defend classical Western liberalism.  This "Feminist Freedom Fighter" overcame it all and now lives in America.  Europe's loss is our gain.

Love the Religion, Hate the Political System 

She has written a brilliant piece on the Swiss minaret vote.  Her central thesis is that the vote is a rejection of political Islam, not the religion itself or its adherents.

Here are some clips:

What Europeans are finding out about Islam as they investigate is that it is more than just a religion. [...]  it prescribes a way of life. 

Islam is an idea about how society should be organized: the individual's relationship to the state; that the relationship between men and women; rules for the interaction between believers and unbelievers; how to enforce such rules; and why a government under Islam is better than a government founded on other ideas. 

The Minaret is a Symbol of Islamist Supremacy

These political ideas of Islam have their symbols: the minaret, the crescent; the head scarf, and the sword. 

The minaret is a symbol of Islamist supremacy, a token of domination that came to symbolize Islamic conquest. It was introduced decades after the founding of Islam.

In Europe, as in other places in the world where Muslims settle, the places of worship are simple at first. All that a Muslim needs to fulfill the obligation of prayer is a compass to indicate the direction of Mecca, water for ablution, a clean prayer mat, and a way of telling the time so as to pray five times a day in the allocated period. 

The construction of large mosques with extremely tall towers that cost millions of dollars to erect are considered only after the demography of Muslims becomes significant. The mosque evolves from a prayer house to a political center. 

Next comes getting the non-compliant women under control, killing the fags, harassing the Jews, and all the other community activities of intolerant religious chauvinism and bigotry.  

We don't have the same problems with Christianity or Judaism because these religions influenced the founding of Western Civilization and shaped its growth.  Islam stands apart with a different tradition.  Were it just a matter of people worshiping at a mosque, there would be no problem.  But the clash of civilizations begins when angry, arrogant  newcomers agitate to change our way of life.

Attention Angry Shoppers!

Another Thanxmas shopping season, another collection of news stories about social retards who don't know how to behave in public...

People in other parts of the world fight over food, water or religious freedoms; we fight over DVD players and toys

Store employees are to blame when two women get in a fight over a pair of discounted pajamas.  Just like...

... Teachers are to blame because our kids behave like spoiled brats, little sluts, and junior gangbangers.

... George Bush is to blame when people too benumbed by corrupt liberal governance don't know how to get out of the way of a hurricane

... People who dis Islam are to blame when wild-eyed radicals slash, bomb and burn

It's called personal responsibility.  People who don't know how to behave should be jailed or cast out beyond the pale of civilized society.

Muslims Immigration: Even Responsible People Think it's a Bad Idea

** 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!

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.

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

Muslim Immigration: Invitation to Murder?

Why are we allowing Muslims to immigrate to our country?

Nobody else is asking the obvious question, so I will. With all the terror plots in the news, I think it's a relevant question.

This is not an anti-Muslim screed
One of my favorite bosses of all time is a Muslim. He was just one of tens of thousands to honorably serve his country in the US armed forces. If white Eastern European Christians (my background) were blowing stuff up and cutting off heads all over the world, I would call for an immigration moratorium on them as well.


All Muslims are not terrorists, but outside of Tim McVeigh and the Earth Liberation nuts, all recent terrorist activity on our soil has involved Muslims. Given that there is an 8 in 10 chance that an immigrant from the Muslim world hates our Yankee cowboy guts, why do we let even a single one immigrate?

I know there are good Muslims there who want to come here, but why take a chance? The State Department is obviously no good at separating the good from the dangerous. We hope we're getting Fouad Ajamis. Instead we end up with Najibulla Zazis, angry young men cruising Denver beauty parlors collecting peroxide to make bombs.

Selective Immigration is not Discrimination
Discrimination, as legally defined in US Code, has nothing to do with immigration policy. If we're not free to choose who to let in to our country, then we've lost our sovereignty. But once we let someone in, they are protected by the constitution, and plotting terrorists know that and use it to their advantage. Are we stupid?  Yes we are.

We Owe Them Nothing, especially not a US passport
Some say we owe the Iraqis and Afghanis because we invaded their countries. Bull! They owe us! For the blood and treasure we've spent trying to give them a shot at improving their little corner of hell on earth.

Besides, we already have enough home-grown idiots, why import more? Why bring hatred, petty grievances and religious chauvinism to our doorstep?

It may be too late for Europe (I pray it's not), but we still have a chance to save our unique Western civilization from the clutches of those who want to destroy it.

Telegraph - German Village in Pakistan
NYT - Zazi
Dallas News
Reuters
Reuters

Rifqa Bary: The Flip Side of Religious Intolerance

Conservatives in the know are up on what's happening down in Florida concerning Muslim convert to Christianity Rifqa Bary.

Perhaps the girl really is in danger, but too many conservative Christians damned her family to hell instead of waiting for the facts, all because they are Muslim

I was roundly flamed at the time for condemning this rush to judgment against a suspect group as unfaithful to our constitution. I asked these crusaders to pause and consider that it could happen to them as well, since Christianity is already suspect in many corners of this nation.

Well, here's the other side playing out in New Hampshire:

One of these courts is in New Hampshire, where a judge recently ordered that home-schooled Amanda Kurowski be sent to public school. The order signed by Family Court Justice Lucinda V. Sandler says the 10-year-old's Christian faith could use some shaking up—and that the local public school is just the place to do it. [...]

This is based on complaints from Amanda's father, divorced from her mother for 10 years. The mother had primary custody and has chosen to home-school the girl, including religion in her curriculum.

But the order appears to be based on the guardian ad litem's worry about Amanda's "rigidity on faith." The order also accepts the same guardian's conclusion that Amanda belongs in a public school because she "would be best served by exposure to different points of view at a time in her life when she must begin to critically evaluate multiple systems of belief and behavior and cooperation in order to select, as a young adult, which of those systems will best suit her own needs."

I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so:

The family unit is sacrosanct, and unless lawbreaking is going on, no judge or pastor or anyone else has any business poking their nose in. This is a fundamental freedom that conservative Christians usually stand up for.

It's all well and good until Uncle Sam decides to bust up your Jesus Camp and liberate your brain-washed kids from your home and your authority.

Religious bigotry cuts both ways...

WSJ - William McGurn
Citizen Times - Cal Thomas
AmericanFreePress.net

Rifqa Bary: The Muslim Girl and the Christian Pastor

The Christian Come Hither

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - The fate of a 17-year-old girl who ran away from her Ohio home because she says she feared punishment for converting from Islam to Christianity could be decided in an Orlando courtroom Friday.

The teenager disappeared last month and police used phone and computer records to track her to the Rev. Blake Lorenz, pastor of Orlando, Fla.-based Global Revolution Church, who she had met through an online Facebook prayer group.

My first thought was, this one's easy.

Send her back to her family and prosecute Reverend Blake Lorenz for luring a minor child.

Yes, I know about the Muslim husband who cut his wife's head off in New York, as well as the Muslim father in Georgia who strangled his daughter to death because of his twisted, 7th century sense of honor. We also have the Texas "honor" killings.

Still in question is whether this young lady, Rifqa Bary, is in that kind of danger. He parents found out awhile back, and they were mad as hell, I'm sure. But she's still alive, which says something in her father's defense.

Too many things don't smell right. 17 year old girls are famous for being drama queens, even more so than Muslims are for decapitations. I saw the YouTube video and all I kept thinking was, she's saying exactly what those church people want to hear. And this whole episode is quite an advertisement and money boost for the pastor who used the internet to lure her to Florida. Striking a blow against Islam is just icing on the cake.

Could this be merely a cultural and generational clash gone viral?

I'd like to know more about what went on back in Ohio. How are her grades? Are boyfriends or some other teen-parent conflict behind this? Any parent can tell you how a simple matter can spin out of control when angry parents and emotional teens are involved. Religious conviction in the mix just makes the situation hotter. Her Christian faith could be sincere and her parents could be really mad, but that doesn't prove her dad will kill her.

Hillary Clinton and Marian Wright Edelman Would be Proud

The family unit is sacrosanct, and unless lawbreaking is going on, no judge or pastor or anyone else has any business poking their nose in. This is a fundamental freedom that conservative Christians usually stand up for.

I guess if you agreed with preemptive war, it's not much of a stretch to support preemptive justice. It's all well and good until Uncle Sam decides to bust up your Jesus Camp and liberate your brain-washed kids from your home and your authority.

To those who are convinced this is a black and white case, ask yourself this question: If this were a 17-year old girl from a fundamentalist Christian family running into the arms of an imam, would you still be sticking up for the girl and the mosque?

Once again, you can't use the honor killing excuse. If such arguments were valid, the Branch Davidian episode could be used to outlaw Christians having custody of their children.
It remains to be seen if this girl's life is really in danger. I trust the good judge in Florida will sort that out in due time,

One thing's for certain: Reverend Blake Lorenz must be prosecuted under Florida law for Luring a Minor.

* Update: I posted this over at Free Republic and got over 60 comments. You can read them here. Although debate was empassioned, it never stooped to the level of the kook left sites. Conservatives are good people, especially Freepers.

ABC News
Breitbart
Bailaman
YouTube - Rifqa Bary

ObamAmerica: A Muslim Nation?

President Obama, From a June 2nd interview with a French reporteur:

... we have to educate ourselves more effectively on Islam. And one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslims [sic] Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world. (Source: Whitehouse.gov)

As Toby Harnden points out, Obama and his army in the press mercilessly attacked McCain during the campaign when he said America (over 76% Christian) was a Christian nation. So, Obama's factual error aside (our population is less than 1% Muslim, around 1.5 million) how could we be a Muslim country, let alone one of the biggest? Indonesia has over 200 million Muslims, India more than 100 million, Saudi Arabia boasts between 25 and 30 million adherents to the religion of Muhammad. Hell, by the President's own standards, France is a bigger Muslim country than we are.

This isn't an "Obama is crypto-Muslim" rant. My point is to condemn this knee-jerk liberal instinct to commiserate with and suck up to foreigners. From Clinton to the Dixie Chicks to the current White House occupant, they throw us, our history and our values under the bus in a pathetic, sophomoric attempt to get sneering, hate-America weasels to love them.

We are America! We have contributed more to this world and saved more sorry asses who couldn't save themselves than all the other nations combined! Stop apologizing for it!

To the average Muslim, Islam is an ineradicable component of personhood and society. Christianity has no similar place of esteem in Western society. Stupid statements like Mr. Obama's only fuel further contempt for the weak horse they perceive America to be.

President Obama is naively feeding the beast of Islamic chauvinism.

Telegraph - Toby Harnden
White House Press Office
ARIS - 2008 Religious Self-Identification Survey

Cracks in the European Facade

Bruce Bawer has written a thoughtful City Journal piece on politics in Europe. Unbridled immigration championed by the left is changing the face of the continent: overburdened social services, gangs of angry young men contemptuous of everything Western, rampant crime and domestic abuse, demands for Sharia law...

It's scary, leading some to look to the right at the ballot box. But there are scary things over there too, so voters are stuck.

...over the last three decades, social-democratic Europe’s political, cultural, academic, and media elites have presided over, and vigorously defended, a vast wave of immigration from the Muslim world—the largest such influx in human history.

According to the London Times, the number of Muslims in the U.K. climbed by half a million between 2004 and 2008 alone—a rate of growth ten times that of the rest of that country’s population.

Yet instead of encouraging these immigrants to integrate and become part of their new societies, Western Europe’s governments have allowed them to form self-segregating parallel societies run more or less according to sharia.

Many of the residents of these patriarchal enclaves subsist on government benefits, speak the language of their adopted country poorly or not at all, despise pluralistic democracy, look forward to Europe’s incorporation into the House of Islam, and support—at least in spirit—terrorism against the West.

Europe's strength has become its weakness: It's passive tolerance makes it ripe for social conquest by aggressive bearers of intolerant dogma.

City Journal
http://www.brucebawer.com/

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 in Western New York state. In the United States of America.

This item should be given an award for Most Ironic Story to Get No Press Coverage. The newspapers that did cover it 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 here head off. It could happen to anybody, nothing newsworthy there...

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YWVlZDFkN2RmOGE1YWMzMmY5YjBiZThkYTIxN2Q5ZDU=
http://www.buffalonews.com/437/story/578644.html

A Secular Jew in a Muslim Land

The foundation of Western Civilization is infested with termites, and the structure is sagging at the northeast corner...

Here's a sad commentary from a young British woman at the front lines of the East-West culture clash. The liberal bastion that was Europe is becoming quite illiberal thanks to its booming population of 8th century obscurantist, misogynist haters.

I am a secular, liberal, identifying British Jew. My parents would have taken great pleasure if my acting talents had landed me a starring role in the primary school nativity play; on Christmas Day, we gather at home eating smoked salmon bagels and mince pies. There is no conflict whatsoever between my religion and nationality.

In August 2001, I turned 21 and my parents gave me a Star of David necklace. Then a month later, the world changed and my mother, with remarkable foresight, began her campaign to rescind the gift, begging me to take it off because she was frightened it would make me a target in the wake of mounting evidence that fanatical Islamism was tightening its grip on the country. My argument was always the same - when I am no longer safe being identifiably Jewish on the tube, I don't want to live in England.

Now it's happening and I am devastated...(Read entire article)

Echos of 1938...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/11/gaza-britain-judaism-antisemitism

Free Speech, Religion, and the Fed Up British Man

Does free speech include the freedom to criticize the religious views and practices of others? By now, I suppose everyone has seen the video of the British man calmly explaining why he is fed up with Muslim demands on Europe and the old continent’s capitulation. He doesn’t really insult Islam, but he sure slams some of its more radical practitioners, especially the Saudis. He is very well-spoken and stays away from wild claims as he presses his case.

If you applaud him, as I do, you must be prepared to accept speech like this as well. Yes, it’s the same guy. He’s an atheist who criticizes Christians with equal gusto. And he is liberty’s best friend. Freedom of speech and freedom of religion go hand in hand. You can’t have one without the other. I am free to practice my religion, as long as doing so places no demands on you. You are free to criticize my religious practices, and I am free to criticize your non-practice.

This balance has worked well for us in the US, but Europe is struggling. Scared Europeans are self-censoring in the name of political correctness. Or perhaps out of fear at being stabbed on the street. Our country was founded on religious tolerance and free speech. We need to guard both. If the first video delights you but the second one angers you, you have some soul searching to do, because you are in danger of becoming no better than those you criticize.