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Why Brexit Is More Entrance Than Exit

June 26, 2016

Why Brexit Is More Entrance Than Exit, PJ Media, Roger Kimball, June 26, 2016

(The petition for a new referendum poll was apparently a scam.

The BBC, The Mirror, France 24, The Telegraph, Manchester Evening News, The Guardian… all reported on the bogus petition.

But they got punked. The poll was manufactured by 4Chan and Anonymous hackers who loaded up the signatures with fake names from The Vatican, Ghana, North Korea and elsewhere. [Emphasis in original — DM]

The petition fit the meme, so it deserved and got no fact-checking — DM)

Pop psychologists tell us that grief proceeds through five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Have been blindsided by the stunning victory of Brexit on Thursday, members of the camp of the Remainders are now vibrating somewhere between anger and bargaining. This followed hard on a brief period of stunned denial that often expressed itself as gulping incredulity. As the psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple observed in City Journal,

For a long time, Britons who wanted their country to leave the European Union were regarded almost as mentally ill by those who wanted it to stay. The leavers didn’t have an opinion; they had a pathology. Since one doesn’t argue with pathology, it wasn’t necessary for the remainers to answer the leavers with more than sneers and derision.Even after the vote, the attitude persists. Those who voted to leave are described as,ipso facto, small-minded, xenophobic, and fearful of the future. Those who voted to stay are described as, ipso facto, open-minded, cosmopolitan, and forward-looking.

At this point it is not clear exactly when the Brits will formally invoke Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union and officially begin the withdrawal negotiations. But Thursday’s vote made Britain’s congé in the most stinging and public manner.

As of this writing, early Sunday morning, the Remainders have yet to take that rebuke on board. They have, however, moved firmly from denial to white hot anger, as the movement to invalidate the referendum by holding a second referendum attests. As of last night, a petition demanding that Parliament force a new referendum had attracted some 2 million signatures.

The fatuousness of that effort is as patent as it is contemptible. Back in 2009, Barack Obama smugly observed that “elections have consequences.” Thursday’s vote was a non-binding referendum, not an election, but it most assuredly has consequences, as (for example) the immediate announcement by David Cameron, the prime minister, that he would soon be resigning demonstrates.

I expect that the Remainders will soon abandon the petition and move on to more circuitous, backroom maneuvers to subvert or nullify the will of the people. It is at that point, when the delayers and dispensers of red tape arrive with their megaphones, that we’ll know that the bargaining stage has been definitively reached. (I am no psychologist, but my observation is that most people, even if they do progress through the five stages described, do not entirely leave behind the earlier stages. There generally persists, I believe, a bit of denial and more than a bit of anger.)

Fraser Nelson, editor of The Spectator, put his finger on one of the most extraordinary features of the Brexit phenomenon: that the vote turned out the way it did despite the Establishment’s mobilization of every resource at its command against it. “Never,” he wrote in an article for The Wall Street Journal, “has there been a greater coalition of the establishment than that assembled by Prime Minister David Cameron for his referendum campaign to keep the U.K. in the European Union.”

There was almost every Westminster party leader, most of their troops and almost every trade union and employers’ federation. There were retired spy chiefs, historians, football clubs, national treasures like Stephen Hawking and divinities like Keira Knightley. And some global glamour too: President Barack Obama flew to London to do his bit, and Goldman Sachs opened its checkbook.And none of it worked. The opinion polls barely moved over the course of the campaign, and 52% of Britons voted to leave the EU. That slender majority was probably the biggest slap in the face ever delivered to the British establishment in the history of universal suffrage.

I’d say that 52% is closer to “decisive” than “slender,” but Nelson’s point is well taken. The Remainders threw everything they had into this campaign, but it availed them nothing. The British people don’t like what the commissars in Brussels have been doing to their country. What is euphemistically called “immigration” — really, it is a sort of invasion – was part of the story, but only a part. Remainders seized on immigration as the motivating issue because it was easy to weaponize and use it to castigate those who favored Brexit as troglodytic nativists and reactionaries.

As I noted yesterday, the Brexit vote was less an “anti-Europe” vote than a positive assertion of freedom. Indeed, it was by accentuating the positive, by underscoring Brtain’s native strengths and potential, that Brexiteers like Boris Johnson were able to give affirmative voice to the people’s disenchantment. The unease that many Brits felt under the regulatory yoke of the EU is felt by many other people, including many Americans.

As has been often pointed out, that unease helps to explain the success of Donald Trump. Would that Trump had a scintilla of the insight and affirmative spirit of Brexiteers like Boris Johnson, Dan Hannan,Michael Gove, and Nigel Farage. Despite desperate howls to the contrary, the campaign these men waged triumphed not because of what they were repudiating but what they were saying Yes to. Sure, the campaign involved a No to officious interference by corrupt and unaccountable officials across the channel. But the main course was Yes: Yes to freedom, Yes to individual responsible, Yes to deciding for ourselves how we will govern ourselves.

There’s a moral here for politicians, and for political pundits. It’s unclear, however, whether many people are bothering to read the script.

Categories: Boris Johnson, BREXIT, Britain, Democracy, Donald Trump, European Union, Remainders
Tags: Boris Johnson, BREXIT, Britain, Democracy, Donald Trump, European Union, Remainders

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Freedom of Speech is not Free; it is Beyond Price

June 26, 2016

Freedom of Speech is not Free; it is Beyond Price, Dan Miller’s Blog, June 25, 2016

(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)

Accurate speech, considered “Islamophobic” or otherwise offensive to some, is now deemed “hateful” and punishable under distorted visions of law or university rules. So, apparently is the mention of God. Sometimes, those who dare to speak are silenced before they even begin.

The First Amendment provides,

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Congress is not permitted to ignore the First Amendment, but the U.S. Airforce and other government entities appear to have done so. Recently, Senior Master Sergeant Oscar Rodriguez, Jr. (ret.) was forcibly removed from a private retirement ceremony at an Air Force base because he was about to deliver his flag folding speech. The retiree had heard the speech previously and had asked Rodriguez to deliver it.

When Roberson’s unit commander discovered that Rodriguez would be delivering the flag-folding speech, which mentions “God,” during the ceremony, he attempted to prevent Rodriguez from attending. After learning that he lacked authority to prevent Rodriguez from attending, the commander then told Roberson that Rodriguez could not give the speech. Rodriguez asked Roberson what he should do, and Roberson responded that it was his personal desire that Rodriguez give the flag-folding speech as planned. . . .

Roberson and Rodriguez tried to clear the speech through higher authorities at Travis Air Force Base, even offering to place notices on the door informing guests that the word “God” would be mentioned. They never received a response from the authorities. As an Air Force veteran himself, Rodriguez stood firm on his commitment to Roberson. [Emphasis added.]

Here is the speech, as Rodriguez had given it previously:

What an offensive word! True, it’s in the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, but that’s gotta go. Thought experiment: what if Rodriguez had said “Allah” rather than “God?” Might that have been viewed as sufficiently inclusive to be acceptable? Why not? In its “unredacted” version of the Islamist Orlando shooter’s phone calls, the Department of Justice translated “Allah” into “God.” The DOJ probably didn’t want to hurt Islamists’ feelings by suggesting that the Obama administration thinks that Allah and hence Islamists have anything to do with terrorism.

Are we just beginning to enter a new age of fascism? No, we are already well into it.

Here’s a Bill Whittle segment about Obama, Guns, Islam and Orlando

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas-linked “civil rights” organization, recently published an “Islamophobia” report. In Obama’s America, CAIR and its Islamist affiliates are the Government’s principal “go to” organizations for ~~limiting~~ access to the Muslim community in “countering violent extremism” efforts and during investigations of terror incidents.

According to CAIR, “Islamophobic” utterances are “hate speech;” it has provided a list of “Islamophobes” and their organizations. Below are comments about the list by Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, a reformist Muslim. He, as well as The Clarion Project (also an advocate for Islamic reform), are on CAIR’s list of “Islamophobes.”

Europe and its Western culture, and now to a somewhat lesser extent our own American culture (such as it is) are being surrendered to Islam. Allied with government authorities, our leftist “friends” are in the forefront of the war on free speech.

[I]n recent years, we’ve witnessed an unrelenting assault on free speech with a concerted effort by the regressive Left to curtail thought and restrict the free exchange of ideas. Last week, I wrote about campus terrorism and how conservatives and others who maintain views that are inconsistent with the leftist narrative have been subjected to campaigns of harassment and abuse by campus hooligans.

Often university officials are apathetic, turning a blind eye to these transgressions, while in other universities the administration is complicit by instructing campus police to stand down, allowing the agitators free reign to shut down speaking engagements through use of bullying tactics. In at least two instances, university presidents were forced to issue rather craven apologies to an alliance of leftists and Islamists for having the temerity to defend the right to free speech.

This disturbing trend of muzzling free speech has now substantially broadened to include criminalizing speech that issues challenges to the so-called science of climate change. Some seventeen left-leaning state attorneys general have launched investigative and intrusive probes against Exxon Mobil and conservative groups because of their involvement in debunking alarmist claims of imminent doom issued by hysterical climate change proponents.

The ringleaders of this anti-free speech witch hunt include Eric Schneiderman (D-New York) and Claude Walker (I-Virgin Islands). At a recent speech at the Bloomberg’s Big Law Business Summit, Schneiderman was dismissive of his critics, accusing them of “First Amendment opportunism.” The more he spoke the more he sounded like Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s thuggish dictator who utilized the vast resources of the state to silence anyone who disagreed with him. [Emphasis added.]

I wish I could laugh at the next video. It’s funny in a way, but also deadly serious.

As the “best and brightest” from our top universities come of age and control “our” government, will the First Amendment be their principal target for destruction? Or will they also pursue with unabated vigor their war on the Second Amendment? Here is the text of the Second Amendment: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Our British cousins just voted to leave the European Union to restore democracy at home.

For my final broadcast to the nation on the eve of Britain’s Independence Day, the BBC asked me to imagine myself as one of the courtiers to whom Her Majesty had recently asked the question, “In one minute, give three reasons for your opinion on whether my United Kingdom should remain in or leave the European Union.”

My three reasons for departure, in strict order of precedence, were Democracy, Democracy, and Democracy. For the so-called “European Parliament” is no Parliament. It is a mere duma. It lacks even the power to bring forward a bill, and the 28 faceless, unelected, omnipotent Kommissars – the official German name for the shadowy Commissioners who exercise the supreme lawmaking power that was once vested in our elected Parliament – have the power, under the Treaty of Maastricht, to meet behind closed doors to override in secret any decision of that “Parliament” at will, and even to issue “Commission Regulations” that bypass it altogether. [Emphasis added.]

Rather like our own distended Federal and State bureaucracies.

I concluded my one-minute broadcast with these words: “Your Majesty, with my humble duty, I was born in a democracy; I do not live in one; but I am determined to die in one.” [Emphasis added.]

And now I shall die in one. In the words of William Pitt the Younger after the defeat of Napoleon, “England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example.”

. . . .

The people have spoken. And the democratic spirit that inspired just over half the people of Britain to vote for national independence has its roots in the passionate devotion of the Founding Fathers of the United States to democracy. Our former colony showed us the way. Today, then, an even more heartfelt than usual “God bless America!” [Emphasis added.]

I am less than sanguine that we remain as deserving of the high praise the author offers. In any event, we have another version of Brexit coming up in November. Will we be as brave and as far-sighted as our founding fathers were long ago and as the Brits were a couple of days ago?

Quo vadis?

Categories: Academia, BREXIT, Britain, Christianity, Clash of civilizations, Democracy, Department of Justice, European Union, Fascism, Federal Government, First Amendment, Gun control, Hate speech, Islam - submission, Islam and terrorism, Islamic reformation, Islamists in America, Islamophobia, Leftists, Obama, Obama's America, U.S. Military, Zuhdi Jasser
Tags: Academia, BREXIT, Britain, Christianity, Clash of civilizations, Democracy, Department of Justice, Euroean Union, Fascism, Federal Government, First Amendment, Gun control, Hate speech, Islam - submission, Islam and terrorism, Islamic reformation, Islamists in America, Islamophobia, Leftists, Obama, Obama's America, U.S. military, Zuhdi Jasser

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Thank you, America!

June 25, 2016

Thank you, America! Wattsupwith that, Christopher Monckton of Brenchley via Anthony Watts, June 24, 2016

(This is by far the best address I have read thus far on Brexit. — DM)

head-for-the-brexit

“Your Majesty, with my humble duty, I was born in a democracy; I do not live in one; but I am determined to die in one.”

And now I shall die in one. In the words of William Pitt the Younger after the defeat of Napoleon, “England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example.”

The people have spoken. And the democratic spirit that inspired just over half the people of Britain to vote for national independence has its roots in the passionate devotion of the Founding Fathers of the United States to democracy. Our former colony showed us the way. Today, then, an even more heartfelt than usual “God bless America!”

***************************

For my final broadcast to the nation on the eve of Britain’s Independence Day, the BBC asked me to imagine myself as one of the courtiers to whom Her Majesty had recently asked the question, “In one minute, give three reasons for your opinion on whether my United Kingdom should remain in or leave the European Union.”

My three reasons for departure, in strict order of precedence, were Democracy, Democracy, and Democracy. For the so-called “European Parliament” is no Parliament. It is a mere duma. It lacks even the power to bring forward a bill, and the 28 faceless, unelected, omnipotent Kommissars – the official German name for the shadowy Commissioners who exercise the supreme lawmaking power that was once vested in our elected Parliament – have the power, under the Treaty of Maastricht, to meet behind closed doors to override in secret any decision of that “Parliament” at will, and even to issue “Commission Regulations” that bypass it altogether.

Worse, the treaty that established the European Stability Pact gives its governing body of absolute bankers the power, at will and without consultation, to demand any sum of money, however large, from any member state, and every member of that governing body, personally as well as collectively, is held entirely immune not only from any civil suit but also from any criminal prosecution.

That is dictatorship in the formal sense. Good riddance to it.

I concluded my one-minute broadcast with these words: “Your Majesty, with my humble duty, I was born in a democracy; I do not live in one; but I am determined to die in one.”

And now I shall die in one. In the words of William Pitt the Younger after the defeat of Napoleon, “England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example.”

Indeed, No-way and Nixerland having already voted down the EU, Brexit may well be swiftly followed by Frexit, Grexit, Departugal, Italeave, Czechout, Oustria, Finish, Slovakuum, Latviaticum and Byebyegium. At this rate, soon the only country still participating in the European tyranny-by-clerk will be Remainia.

The people have spoken. And the democratic spirit that inspired just over half the people of Britain to vote for national independence has its roots in the passionate devotion of the Founding Fathers of the United States to democracy. Our former colony showed us the way. Today, then, an even more heartfelt than usual “God bless America!”

All who have studied the Madison papers will grasp the greatness of the Founding Fathers’ vision. They were determined that no law and no tax should be inflicted upon any citizen except by the will of elected representatives of the people in Congress assembled.

They regarded this democratic principle as of such central importance that they wrote it down as Article 1, Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States: “All legislative power herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” Period. No ifs. No buts. No exceptions.

Except one. The Constitution establishes that foreign treaties ratified by a two-thirds majority of the Senate shall have the same force of law throughout the United States as enactments of Congress.

It is, therefore possible for any U.S. Government that can muster that Senate majority to ratify any treaty and thereby to thwart the central principle of Congressional democracy: that no Congress may bind its successors.

The Republicans, who are not always as lively in their understanding of the threat to democracy posed by supranational and global institutions such as the EU, the UN and its bloated climate bureaucracy, are too often snared or charmed by determined “Democrats” who fully understand and thirst to exercise the power to inflict perma-Socialism on their nation by bilateral, multilateral or global treaties.

It is astonishing how many of the GOP are willing to be cajoled and schmoozed into supporting monstrosities such as the Transatlatic Trade and Investment Partnership, which on its face sounds like a free-marketeer’s dream but is in its small print a series of outright Socialist measures which, once the Senate has ratified them, cannot be repealed. Its climate provisions, for instance, are highly dangerous.

It is no accident, therefore, that the bankers, the corporate profiteers, the Greens and the National Socialist Workers’ Party of Scotland – the corporatists and the communists together – made common totalitarian cause and heavily promoted the campaign to keep Britain in the EU, that paradise of vested interests and their poisonous lobbyists.

It is likewise no accident that precisely these same national and global vested interests heavily promote the campaign to subject Britain and the world to various unnecessary and damaging measures whose ostensible purpose is to control the climate but whose real ambition is to curb capitalism, fetter freedom, punish prosperity,. limit liberty and deny democracy.

The necessity to protect the flagile flower of democracy from the scythe of Socialism is now surely self-evident. Here are two modest proposals to ensure that the will of the people prevails over the power of the politicians, the Press, and the profiteers.

First, every new treaty, and as many pre-existing treaties as possible, should be made subject to repeal by a national referendum – and not just by a referendum called by the governing party because it thinks it can win it but by the people via the initiative procedure. Britain would have left the EU long before now if we, the people, and not those who govern us, had had the right to put referendum questions on the ballot.

Secondly, the governing bodies of all new supranational or global bodies exercising real sovereign power or spending taxpayers’ money from the states parties to the treaty that establishes them should be elected at frequent intervals by the peoples of those states parties.

Otherwise every international treaty, being a transfer of power from elected to unelected hands, diminishes democracy. Britain’s membership of the European Union effectively took away our democracy altogether, so that three new laws in five (according to the researchers of the House of Commons Library) or five in six (according to the German Government in a submission some years ago to the German Constitutional Court) are inflicted upon us solely because the unelected Kommissars require it.

Till now, our obligation has been to obey, on pain of unlimited fines.

The vote by the people of Britain to break free from this stifling, sclerotic tyranny has sent a shock-wave through every major international governing entity. It was no accident that the the International Monetary Fund, the Organization for Economic Corruption and Devastation, and various world “leaders” including Mr Obama, broke with democratic convention by openly promoting a “Remain” vote in a flagrant attempt to interfere in Britain’s decision.

Mr Obama’s intervention was decisive. The moment he demanded that Britain should remain within the EU, the polls began to swing against it. It was only when, in his maladroit fashion, he had sought to interfere in Britain’s decision that so many undecided voters woke up to the danger that the maneuverings and posturings of the international governing class represent to democracy.

What will Britain’s decision mean for the climate debate? Of course, it will break us free from the EU, whose governing elite had seized upon the climate issue as a purported ex-post-facto justification for the now-hated bloc’s continued existence.

We are left with our own British governing class, which has until now been no less determined than the EU to damage our economic and environmental interests by shutting down vital coal-fired power stations and carpeting our once green and pleasant land with windmills.

Now that the EU and its devoted poodle Mr Cameron have been consigned to the trashcan of history, it is near-certain that any new British Cabinet will take a more alert and less acquiescent stance than the present lot on the climate question.

It may even occur to the new Cabinet to check whether the rate of global warming is anything like what the profiteers of doom had predicted; to count the number of downstream businesses – such as cinder-blocks made from fly-ash out of coal-fired power stations – that have been destroyed by the EU’s war on coal; and even to wonder whether the forest of windmills that infest our once beautiful landscape are now extracting between them so much kinetic energy from passing storms that they are slowing them down, causing far more flash flooding than slightly warmer weather would (if and when it happened).

In the past, there was no point in our politicians asking any such questions, for our policies on all matters to do with our own environment were set for us by the unelected Kommissars of Brussels, whether we liked it or not.

Now that our politicians are going to have to learn to think for themselves again, rather than acting as an otiose, automated rubber stamp for directives from Them in Brussels, perhaps the Mother of Parliaments will begin to calculate the enormous economic advantage that Britain will gain by abandoning all of the climate-related directives that have driven our coal corporations, our steelworks and our aluminum works overseas, and have killed tens of thousands by making home heating altogether unaffordable.

We, the people, are the masters now. Our politicians will have to reacquire the habit of listening not to Them but to us. Here, and in the rest of Europe, and eventually throughout the world, let freedom ring!

Thank you, America, and God save the Queen!

Categories: BREXIT, Britain, Climate change, David Cameron, Democracy, Dictatorship, Establishment, Europe, European Union, Globalists, Obama and Brexit, Treaties, U.S. Congress, Western civilization
Tags: BREXIT, Britain, Climate Change, David Cameron, Democracy, Distatorship, Establhment, Europe, European Union, Globalisets, Obama and Brexit, Treaties, U.S. Congress, Western civilization

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Brexit Vote Has Huge Ramifications for U.S. Politics

June 24, 2016

Brexit Vote Has Huge Ramifications for U.S. Politics, PJ Media, Roger L Simon, June 23, 2016

(Amen! — DM)

roger_brexit_article_banner_6-17-16-1.sized-770x415xc (1)

A bubble has broken, but it isn’t a stock bubble. It’s a human bubble consisting of elites who seek to govern in a manner not all that distant from Comrade Lenin, just hiding under a phony mask of bureaucratic democracy. They’ve taken a big body blow from the citizens of England. Churchill would be proud. Time for America to follow suit.

***********************

News flash: The revolt against elites is real in the UK and America and it’s only getting started. Maybe there will always be an England.

In a surprise, Leave won the Brexit referendum on whether to stay in the European Union by an equally surprising amount. British sovereignty won. David Cameron lost. Jeremy Corbyn lost. The EU lost. Bureaucrats lost. Angela Merkel lost. Barack Obama lost. Globalism lost. Authority figures almost everywhere lost. And, most of all, unlimited immigration lost.

So what happened to the vaunted British betting market that is almost invariably correct and was predicting by 80 percent a Remain victory? Or all those recent polls that were tilting Remain?

Answer: Those same elites had convinced each other they would win and therefore convinced the usual suspects—media, pollsters and, sadly, financial markets—that they were right. They were wrong. Watching them now on the BBC they still cannot comprehend what has happened. The peasants have revolted—oh no, oh no. There must be some mistake. Didn’t they get the memo? The sky would fall if they left the EU.

Earth to elites: Citizens of truly democratic countries don’t want unlimited immigration into their countries by people who couldn’t be less interested in democracy. They also don’t want to be governed by the rules and regulations of faceless bureaucrats whose not-so-hidden goals are power and riches for themselves and their friends. Simple, isn’t it?

This vote is of immense help to Donald Trump if he is smart enough to seize it properly and doesn’t bobble the ball. Many, probably most, Americans feel exactly the same as their brothers and sisters across the pond. They despise the same elites and want to save their country. Trump, now fortuitously in Scotland (I know—they voted Remain, but not in the numbers they were supposed to), should show his support. The UK is America’s closest ally. We should be the first to extend a hand, negotiate free trade, etc., and get her rolling again.

That most elite of presidents, Barack Obama, who opened his morally narcissistic mouth supporting the Remain side and warning the British people, as he is wont to do, that there would be “consequences” if they voted to leave the EU, is in no position to do anything, even if he wanted to. And he doesn’t.

Hillary Clinton is so elitist she practically defines the term. She was probably up all night figuring out what to do about the situation. I have a suggestion—move to Brussels.

Meanwhile, Trump should take up the gauntlet for the U.S. and the UK now. Why wait? Act like the president—we could use one. Donald has a natural ally in the leading Leave spokesperson conservative Boris Johnson. The two men are said to be similar and in many ways they are.

Long live the Anglosphere. Remember the Magna Carta and all that. This is a day truly to celebrate, even if stock markets are crashing around the world. They’ll come back. Look on it as a buying opportunity. A bubble has broken, but it isn’t a stock bubble. It’s a human bubble consisting of elites who seek to govern in a manner not all that distant from Comrade Lenin, just hiding under a phony mask of bureaucratic democracy. They’ve taken a big body blow from the citizens of England. Churchill would be proud. Time for America to follow suit.

But don’t get cocky. This is only one small victory—a non-blinding referendum—but make no mistake about it, still a victory after all. Just follow the instructions of Sir Winston and “never, never give up.” Yes, I know the quote is falsely attributed, but it’s good advice nevertheless.

ainston

Categories: 2016 elections, BREXIT, Britain, Democracy, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton
Tags: BREXIT, Britain, Democracy, Donald Trump

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Orlando Shooting: Pickled in Hatred

June 13, 2016

Orlando Shooting: Pickled in Hatred, Gatestone Institute, Shoshana Bryen, June 13, 2016

♦ The terrorists are pickled in hatred that simply does not allow for the humanity of “the other” and insists that individuals exist only as representations of religions, objects, and social or political points of view.

♦ The American homeland — free speech, religious institutions, open inquiry in academia, our military and our way of life — is under attack.

♦ America’s blessing is a political system built on tolerance of “the other.” Not all of us, not all the time — remember, we used to buy and sell our fellow human beings — but the principle to which we aspire is tolerance of “the other.”

♦ But our national blind spot is not seeing that we share this lovely space with people who want to kill us for the peculiar people we are.

It is a lot to process. Omar Mateen, the American-born son of Afghan parents, murdered 50 people and wounded scores of others in a gay nightclub Sunday. The first surprise is that it was not a surprise, especially to the FBI. Mateen was the subject of investigations in 2013 and 2014. “He was a known quantity,” a source said. “He has been on the radar before.” But Assistant Special Agent Ronald Hopper told reporters, “Those interviews turned out to be inconclusive, so there was nothing to keep the investigation going.”

Omar Mateen’s father probably wasn’t terribly surprised. He told NBC News “that his son became angry after seeing two men kissing a few months ago in Miami.” He speculated that could have triggered his decision to kill. “This has nothing to do with religion,” his father added.

President Obama was not exactly surprised, given, he said, the number of guns in America. He called again for gun control and said there was, “no definitive judgment on the precise motivations” of the terrorist.

Oh really?

President Obama’s response might have been a surprise to local police, who, according to CNN, received a 911 call from Mateen pledging his allegiance to ISIS just before the attack. Whether he was actually with ISIS or not, the Islamic State wasted no time blessing him as one of their own.

1647

Omar Mateen (left), the American-born son of Afghan parents, murdered 50 people and wounded scores of others in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on May 12, 2016. Mateen pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State just before the attack.

So where do Americans go with this?

First, pray for the victims and their families, and thank the first responders.

Second, do not bother trying to “explain” terrorists, or figure out their “motivation.” They are pickled in hatred that simply does not allow for the humanity of “the other” and insists that individuals exist only as representations of religions, objects, and social or political points of view. There is no other way to explain Shalhevet Pass, a six-month old baby shot in her stroller by a sniper, or Malki Roth murdered while eating pizza, or the Fogel children murdered in their beds. There is also no other way to explain shootings at Max Brenner in Tel Aviv or stabbings in Jerusalem; Hamas rockets fired indiscriminately into Israeli towns; gay men thrown off buildings by ISIS in Iraq or dragged behind motorcycles in Gaza; barrel bombs and chlorine gas dropped on civilians by Assad’s Syrian forces; the kidnapping and forcible conversion to Islam of girls by Boko Haram; the sale of Yazidi women and girls as sex slaves by ISIS; and the skinning alive of prisoners by the Taliban. They are all of a piece.

Third, recognize that the same hatreds exist in our country. We imported them — already pickled — and we pickled some of them here. What Mateen’s father said was that seeing what he found unacceptable — men kissing — was enough to make his son kill. Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, what do we need to do about people willing to kill us under those circumstances?

The Heritage Foundation maintains an extremely useful timeline of terrorist plots in the US. It includes the “shoe bomber” (2002), the “underwear bomber” (2010), the Times Square bomber (2010), the Boston Marathon bombers (2013), and the San Bernardino shooters (2015). But there’s more. Here is sampling from a Jewish Policy Center analysis:

[T]here were also plots against U.S. landmarks and institutions including the NY Subway system (2005 & 09), Sears Tower (2006), the Brooklyn Bridge (2003), the Long Island Railroad (2009), DC Metro (2010), the Federal Reserve in Manhattan (2012), the Capitol (2011, 12 & 15), World Bank Headquarters (2005), JFK airport (2009), the NY Stock Exchange (2004), and the GOP convention (2004).There were plots against American service personnel, including military hit lists (2010 & 15); Ft. Hood (2009); Ft. Riley (2015); Ft. Dix (2007) and Ft. Myers (2011); recruiting stations in Arkansas (2009), Maryland (2011) and Washington (2011); the Pentagon (2011); Quantico Marine Base (2009); National Guard facilities (2005, 08 & 09); U.S. Marshals (2013); and the NYPD (2015). There were plots against the ambassadors of Saudi Arabia (2011) and Pakistan (2004), and the Israeli Embassy (2011).

There were assassination plots against Presidents Bush (2003) and Obama (2011).

There were regional attacks planned for a Chicago Bar (2012), NY and Chicago-area synagogues (2009 & 10), an Oregon Christmas tree ceremony (2010), the Wichita Airport (2014), a Canada-NY train (2013), a Dallas skyscraper (2009), a Wyoming refinery (2006), the Florida Keys (2015), shopping centers in Ohio (2003) and Illinois (2007), and the University of North Carolina (2006). The Lackawanna (PA) Six (2002), the Lodi (CA) jihad training camp (2005), and the VA Jihad Network (2003) operated along with smaller-scale plots in support of al Qaeda (2002, 09 & 10).

The American homeland — free speech, religious institutions, open inquiry in academia, our military and our way of life — is under attack.

America’s blessing is a political system built on tolerance of “the other.” Not all of us, not all the time — remember that we used to buy and sell our fellow human beings — but the principle to which we aspire is tolerance of “the other.” America’s glory is men and women who run into danger while everyone else is running out — without regard for the particulars of who they are saving. It was true on 9-11 and it was true this weekend in Orlando. But our national blind spot is not seeing that we share this lovely space with people who want to kill us for the peculiar people we are.

Categories: Clash of civilizations, Democracy, Islam and Christianity, Islam and homosexuals, Islam and Jews, Islam and sex, Islam and women, Islamic hatred of others, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic radicalization, Islamic refugees, Islamist moral values, Islamists in America, Orlando massacre, Political Islam
Tags: Clash of civilizations, Democracy, Islam and Christianity, Islam and homosexuals, Islam and Jews, Islam and sex, Islam and women, Islamic hatred of others, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic radicalization, Islamic refugees, Islamist moral values, Islamists in America, Orlando massacre, Political Islam

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No Canada

June 12, 2016

No Canada, PJ Media, David Solway, June 11, 2016

(Europe? Obama’s America? Leading or following into the abyss? –DM)

burning_toronto_canada_police_car_banner_6-6-16-1.sized-770x415xc

Toronto police car torched during the G20 protest on June 26, 2010. Photo by arindambanerjee / Shutterstock.com.

Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber may have been tactless when he spoke of the “stupidity of the American voter,” but I suspect he might have trotted out the same insult had he surveyed the West in general or the Canadian electoral scene in particular. After all, Canada, a comparatively peaceable country that regards itself as an “honest broker” in international affairs and a beacon of cultural—and multicultural—enlightenment, is fundamentally no different from other Western countries marching down the Hayek Highway. I have written before of the collective foolishness of a presumably educated nation installing a majority Liberal government to manage its affairs despite the readily available evidence of the social and economic malaise that left/liberal politics have inflicted on Western democracies. A cursory reconnaissance of the U.S., the UK, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Scandinavian countries and others should have sounded a clear warning to Canadians, or at any rate to anyone still capable of cerebral functioning.

But no. We fell for the media hatefest against the Conservative party and its leader Stephen Harper, while subscribing to our own version of “hope and change” as represented by the jejune and deceptive Justin Trudeau and his troupe of trendy mediocrities strutting on the national stage. How could we have travelled this route? As David Mamet points out in The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture, we “reject any request for information about the actual mechanics of this ‘Change,’ by referring to ‘Hope’.” Unfortunately, hope is not a policy or a platform, and it is certainly not an expression of a practicable future. It should come as no surprise, then, that electoral promises have been duly and rapidly broken in favor of vanity projects and that a host of destructive policies have been legislated, or are about to be legislated. To take a number of examples:

By introducing Bill C-14, the Liberals have reified their advocacy for physician-assisted dying, depriving doctors and health professionals of moral choice on the issue. Claiming a “deep respect” for Parliament, they have nevertheless imposed substantial limits on debating time.

Trudeau is eager to engineer a change to our “first past the post” electoral system, replacing it with one of a wide variety of possible reforms, such as ranked ballots, proportional representation and online voting. The proposed reforms, based on vote transferability and leftist coalitions, would both introduce an element of needless complexity into the electoral process and, in Canada’s multiparty system, which leans collectively to the left, virtually ensure a permanent Liberal majority. A transformation this vast should require a national referendum, but Trudeau’s minister of Democratic Institutions—a label straight out of Orwell—cites a Twitter hashtag #electoralreform as sufficient reason to sidestep a plebiscite. The 30-year-old, out-of-her-depth, Afghan-born, newly created Minister Maryam Monsef is hostile to referenda because they supposedly exclude the “marginalized.” As National Postcolumnist Rex Murphy comments, “Evidently, women, people of color, the disabled—build your own list—are allergic to voting in a referendum.” But she is merely doing the bidding of her leader, who intends to strike a committee, in which Canada’s one conservative party will be outnumbered 9 to 3 by left-oriented parties, to determine the best way to implement what is nothing less than a political coup. The Liberals have recently shown signs of relenting on the referendum issue, but the situation reveals their arrogant disregard of the people they presumably answer to.

The Liberals deny that they inherited a balanced budget from the previous Conservative government and have now projected a $30 billion debt, sure to increase in the future, that will serve not only as a fiscal drain on the present but as an economic drogue on generations to come.

Trudeau eliminated selective income splitting for families, a measure ostensibly intended to deprivilege the “wealthy” and thus burnish the party’s popular image, but obviously designed to work against the traditional family structure by making it more costly to sustain the stay-at-home wife/mother arrangement. Cost, however, is not a personal consideration for Trudeau, as it happens, heir to a multi-million dollar trust fund. The nannies looking after his children will soak the Canadian taxpayer $100,000 per annum. Indeed, when he visited Washington to confer with Obama, he was accompanied by a 44-member entourage consisting of celebrities, fundraisers, in-laws and, of course, the nannies, at taxpayers’ expense.

Trudeau has enthusiastically endorsed the feminist agenda and established a gender-balanced cabinet, irrespective of merit or competence. The embarrassing spectacle that Chrystia Freeland, minister of International Trade, made of herself o Bill Maher’s show is no accident. We can expect more of such sophomoric ineptitude in the years ahead. A government that eschews proven or demonstrable talent in favor of gender parity, much like our current universities, and hires or appoints on the basis of sex is monstrously irresponsible.

To strengthen their “social justice” credentials as the party for the times, the Liberals, who long ago jumped on the same-sex marriage bandwagon, have, additionally, projected Bill C-16 providing for an up to two-year prison sentence for anyone convicted of fomenting “hate propaganda” against transgenders. The word “hate” clearly furnishes enormous latitude for interpretation and renders critical discourse problematic and even dangerous, now that the Criminal Code is about to be amended. It seems that freedom of expression contracts with every new piece of social legislation, by no means astonishing in a country whose left/liberal Supreme Court has already pronounced that truth is no defense in cases where offense is given to marginalized groups or individuals.

No less damaging, Trudeau’s well-documented sympathy for Islam has resulted in the importation of many thousands of so-called “Syrian” refugees, all improperly vetted, who will swell the welfare rolls, glut an already grossly dysfunctional single-payer medical network, further disrupt a progressively concessionary educational system, and create more social havoc in the form of Sharia ghettoes and eruptions of Muslim-inspired violence. Bet on it. As Muslim reformer Tarek Fatah reports in the Toronto Sun, Liberal Senator Grant Mitchell accused him of lying and of Islamophobia (!) when Fatah testified to the Senate about Canadian mosques that feature seditious preaching against secular democracy, about Israel as “useless garbage,” and about the necessity of spilling blood. “While this was unfolding,” he continues, the Trudeau government “had authorized a $200,000 grant to a southern Ontario mosque with links to the Muslim Brotherhood.”

In moving decisively to the left and bringing in programs that will inevitably fray the economic fabric of the country while diluting its traditional substance, Trudeau boasts that “Canada is back”—a slogan, Murphy writes, “that’s saccharine and weirdly jingoistic at the same time,” as if his election were “a victory, not for [the] party—which it was—but for the country itself.” Such hubris is both typical and unforgivable.

Perhaps what is no less troubling is that the cultural sycophancy practiced by the Liberals has now infected the Conservative party, which, despite its objection to Liberal spending and dubious policy initiatives, has, under interim leader Rona Ambrose, slotted the same-sex marriage plank into its party platform. “I think our party got a little more Canadian today,’ Calgary MP Michelle Rempel said after the convention vote. Indeed it did, and that’s a real shame. The Conservatives didn’t stop there. Ambrose has suddenly discovered that she too is a fan of legislation to prohibit criticism of transgenderism; “who you love, how you identify,” she pontificates, “should never be cause for fear or anxiety.” Interestingly, when the Daily Caller asked if she would then support or approve of pedophilia, no reply was forthcoming. By striving to emulate the Liberals as a matter of crass and misguided expedience—as if the Liberal base comprising the general run of leftists, Muslims, aboriginals, journalists, talking heads, environmentalists and global warmists, colonies of indoctrinated students and the entitlement crowd will gratefully change their voting habits—the Conservative party has betrayed its principles and its core constituency.

The real problem, however, is not the political party or the leader in question, but the intellectual laxity of the electorate. Canadians, who have always preened themselves on their moral and intellectual superiority to Americans, in reality merely ape the customs and usages of their neighbors to the south, generally a decade or so later. Mutatis mutandis, we would have flocked to the polling stations to vote for an Obama, a Hillary or a Bernie. The Donald would have been anathema.

Admittedly, there is a rather more modest Trump-like figure on the conservative scene who seems interested in running for the leadership of the party with a view to the 2019 federal election, namely, successful businessman and TV personality Kevin O’Leary. (See CBC’s Dragons’ Den and ABC’s Shark Tank.) Responding to questions about a potential leadership bid, O’Leary said he was not prepared to sit in perpetual Opposition, preferring to wait until he sees whether the party is willing to jettison the political hacks who led it to defeat. “I’m proud of the country,” he continued, but “I’m depressed that it’s not competitive and I see so much incompetence, mediocrity and stupidity when it comes to managing it and I’m just tired of it.” Like Trump, O’Leary is nothing if not confident. “One way or another,” he says, “I’m going to figure out how to fix it.” But in the present narcoleptic milieu his prospects are probably slight.

Ten years hence the country may wake up, as innumerable U.S. citizens appear to be doing today. This is assuming we still have a country that is anything like the country we used to have. Given an oppressive direct and indirect tax structure, the proliferation of “hate speech” laws, the discursive ravages of political correctness, the faux “social justice” agenda, the malignant influence of feminism on business, government, the courts and the academy, the ongoing inroads of Islam into the body politic and the culture at large, the faddish convictions of the intellectual and artistic communities swimming with the brackish tides, and the flaccid surrender of the public to these toxic developments—including the reluctance to seek out and process reliable information, as Mamet intimated—the issue is alarmingly moot.

To arrive at reasonably dependable insights for one’s political thinking, one needs to distrust any single media outlet and take the time to review multiple sources in order to factor out feasible assumptions in making political choices. It takes work, civic dedication and the willingness to pay attention. Laziness is not an option. A rudimentary knowledge of history is also essential. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in a January 6, 1816 letter to Colonel Charles Yancey: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free…it expects what never was and never will be.” This is true not only of the American republic but of any democratic nation, and Canada is no exception. Lacking a vigilant and enlightened citizenry, there can only be worse to come.

Decree by government decree, the ship of state is listing ever further portside, abetted by the shifting weight to the left of a lumpen public. This is how a once-proud nation must eventually founder. Captivated by a liberal/socialist media consortium and unwilling to do our homework, we have become increasingly sanctimonious and uninformed, denizens of Gruberland. Even hockey may not save us.

Categories: Canada, Canadian politics, Clash of civilizations, Cultural correctness, Democracy, Fantasy, Islamic immigration, Leftists, Socialism
Tags: Canada, Canadian politics, Clash of civilizations, Cultural correctness, Democracy, Fantasy, Islamic immigration, Leftists, Socialism

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The West’s Most Important Ally: Islam’s Dissidents

June 12, 2016

The West’s Most Important Ally: Islam’s Dissidents, Gatestone Institute, Giulio Meotti, June 12, 2016

♦ Today a new Iron Curtain has been erected by Islam against the rest of the world, and the new heroes are the dissidents, the apostates, the rebels, the non-believers and the heretics.

♦ This rapidly growing army of Muslim dissidents is the best liberation movement for millions of Muslims who aspire to practice their faith peacefully without submitting to the dictates of fundamentalists and fanatics.

♦ They are alone against all. Against Islamism which uses Kalashnikovs and against an intellectual terrorism which submits them to media intimidation. Seen as “traitors” by their communities, they are accused by the élites in the West of “stigmatizing.”

♦ We should support them — all of them. Some of the bravest defenders of freedom come from the Islamic regimes. Europe should give financial, moral and political support to these friends of Western civilization, while our disgraced intelligentsia is engaged in slandering them.

Islam, warned the best-selling Algerian novelist, Boualem Sansal, is going to split European society. In an interview with German media, this brave Arab writer painted a vision of Europe subjugated by radical Islam. According to Sansal, the terror attacks in Paris and Brussels are directed at the Western way of life: “You can not even defeat the weak Arab states, so they have brought in fifth columns to bring the West to destroy itself. If they succeed society will fall.”

Mr. Sansal, who has been threatened with death, belongs to a rapidly growing army of Muslim dissidents. They are the best liberation movement for millions of Muslims who aspire to practice their faith peacefully without submitting to the dictates of fundamentalists and fanatics. These Muslim dissidents pursue freedom of conscience, interreligious coexistence, pluralism in the public sphere, criticism of Islam, and respect for the rule of common law. For the Islamic world, their message could be devastating. That is why the Islamists are hunting them down.

It is always individuals, such as Lech Walesa, who make all the difference. The Soviet Union was defeated by only three beings: Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II — and the dissidents. When Professor Robert Havemann died in East Germany, few people noticed it. This intrepid critic of the regime was confined under house arrest in Grünheide, guarded by the Stasi. But the old professor never allowed himself to be intimidated. He continued to fight for his ideas.

A hero of Czechoslovak anti-Communism, Jan Patočka, died under grueling police interrogation. Patočka paid the highest price of silencing. His brilliant lectures were reduced to a clandestine seminar. Although unable to publish, he continued to work in a tiny underground apartment.

Hunted by the KGB, Alexander Solzhenitsyn set down the chapters of his Gulag Archipelago and hid them with different trusted friends, so no one possessed the entire manuscript. In 1973 only three copies existed. When the Soviet political police managed to extort the typist, Elizaveta Voronyanskya, to one of the hideouts, thinking the masterpiece was lost forever she hanged herself.

Today a new Iron Curtain has been erected by Islam against the rest of the world, and the new heroes are the dissidents, the apostates, the heretics, the rebels, and the non-believers. It is no coincidence that the first victim of a fatwa was Salman Rushdie, an Indian-British writer from a Muslim family.

Pascal Bruckner called them “the free thinkers of the Muslim world.” We should support them — all of them. Because if the enemies of freedom come from free societies, those who kneel before Allah’s enforcers, some of the bravest defenders of freedom come from the Islamic regimes. Europe should give financial, moral and political support to these friends of Western civilization, while our disgraced intelligentsia is engaged in slandering them.

One, an Algerian author, Kamel Daoud, who called Saudi Arabia “an Isis that had made it,” recently sparked an “Islamophobia” row for having directed his own anger at the naïve people, who he says ignore the cultural gulf separating the Arab-Muslim world from Europe.

Another, an Iranian exile, now in the Netherlands, the jurist Afshin Ellian, works at Utrecht University, where after the murder of Theo Van Gogh, he is protected by bodyguards. After the massacre at Charlie Hebdo, while Europe’s media were busy in blaming the “stupid” cartoonists, Ellian promoted an appeal: “Don’t let terrorists determine the limits of free speech.”

Another brave dissident and author, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, had to flee from the Netherlands to the U.S., where she rapidly became one of most prominent public intellectuals.

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Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a brave Muslim dissident and author, had to flee from the Netherlands to the U.S., where she rapidly became one of most prominent public intellectuals. (Image source: Gage Skidmore)

The Moroccan mayor of Rotterdam, Ahmed Aboutaleb, is also guarded by police. He recently told fellow Muslims who protested against freedoms they found while living in the West to “pack your bags and f… off.” A heroic Christian defender of these freedoms in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders, is now on trial accused of “discrimination.” “I am in jail,” he has said, referring to his safehouses, “and they are walking around free.”

Many of these dissidents are women. Shukria Barakzai, an Afghan politician and journalist, declared war on Islamic fundamentalists after the Taliban’s religious police beat her for daring to walk without a male escort. A suicide bomber blew himself up near her car, killing three. Kadra Yusuf, a Somali journalist, infiltrated Oslo’s mosques to denounce the imams, especially regarding female genital mutilation, not even required in the Koran or the Hadith (reports about Mohammad). In Pakistan, Sherry Rehman called for “a reform of Pakistani blasphemy’s laws.” She risks her life every day. She is branded by Islamists “fit to be killed” for being a woman, a Muslim and a secular activist. The Syrian-American author and psychiatrist, Wafa Sultan, was also branded an “infidel” deserving of death.

Le Figaro recently published a long report about Muslim French personalities threatened with “execution”. “Placed under permanent police protection, regarded as traitors by Muslim fundamentalists, they live in a hell. In the eyes of Islamists, their freedom is an act of betrayal of the ummah [community].” They are writers and journalists of Arab-Muslim culture who denounce the Islamist threat and the inherent violence of the Koran. They stand alone against Islamism which uses the physical terrorism of Kalashnikovs, and against the intellectual terrorism which submits them to media intimidation. Seen as “traitors” by their communities, they are accused by the élites in the West of “stigmatizing.”

The French journalist Zineb El Rhazoui has more bodyguards than many ministers in the government of Manuel Valls, and for security, has to change houses in Paris often in recent months. For this young scholar, born in Casablanca and who works at the French weekly, Charlie Hebdo, walking down the street in Paris has become unthinkable. A fatwa put out after January 7, 2015 reads: “Kill Zineb El Rhazoui to avenge the Prophet.”

Threats against another dissident, Nadia Remadna, do not come from Raqqa, Syria, but her own city: Sevran, in Seine-Saint-Denis. They reflect the growing influence of Islamists in the lost territories of the French Republic. What “crime” was she found guilty of? She created the “Brigade of Mothers” to combat the Islamist influence on young Muslims.

A philosophy teacher, Sofiane Zitouni, has also quit his job at a Muslim French school over “insidious Islamism.”

The French-Algerian journalist, essayist and author of several investigations into Islamist circles,Mohamed Sifaoui, is the victim of a double threat. He is a prime target for both fundamentalists and the “tolerant” grand inquisitors. Sentenced to two years in prison by the Algerian regime for “press offenses,” then harassed by Islamists, Sifaoui requested asylum in France in 1999 and has never set foot in Algeria again. Since then, Sifaoui has seen his picture and name next to the words “le mourtad,” the apostate, on Islamist websites, meaning that he is targeted for death. French police protection around him has been total since 2006, when he defended freedom of expression for the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo.

About fifteen witnesses made a deposition in favor of the magazine, Charlie Hebdo. Among them were the late Muslim Tunisian essayist, Abdelwahab Meddeb, who had the courage to challenge the entire French Muslim establishment which tried to stop Charlie Hebdo. Meddeb wanted to show “this is not about anyone against Islam, but enlightened Islam against obscurantist Islam.”

Also in France, Hassen Chalghoumi, the courageous imam of Drancy, preaches while wearing a bullet-proof vest. When he goes out on the street, he is accompanied by five police officers with semiautomatic weapons. This is not outside Baghdad’s Green Zone; this is in the heart of Paris. Chalghoumi backed the ban on burkas; made an unprecedented visit at Jerusalem’s Holocaust memorial; paid tribute to the victims of Charlie Hebdo and favored a dialogue with French Jews.

Naser Khader, a Muslim liberal with Danish citizenship, who called for “a Muslim reformation,” and authored “Honour and Shame,” is threatened by Islamic groups with death.

In Italy, an Egyptian-born writer, Magdi Cristiano Allam, is protected by bodyguards for having criticized political Islam. As the deputy editor of Italy’s leading newspaper, Corriere della Sera, Mr. Allam published a book whose title alone was enough to endanger his life: “Viva Israele.”

Ibn Warraq lives protected behind a pseudonym since writing a seminal book, “Why I am Not a Muslim.”

The Palestinian blogger Walid Husayin is also a rarity. Jailed for “satirizing the Koran, he recently published a book in France about his experience in the Palestinian territories, where his “atheism” nearly cost him his life.

In Tunisia there are a handful of filmmakers and intellectuals who fight for freedom of expression, especially after a secular opposition leader, Chokri Belaid, was assassinated. Also Nadia El Fani, the director of “Ni Allah ni maître” [“Neither Allah nor Master”], and Nabil Karoui, the manager of Nessma TV, are threatened with death and are being taken to court to answer charges of “blasphemy.” If Tunisia’s “Arab spring” did not turn into an Islamist winter, as elsewhere, it is largely thanks to these dissidents.

Those heroes know what happened to their predecessors in “the war on Arab intellectuals.” Writers such as Tahar Djaout were killed in 1993 by the Islamists in Algiers, as was the journalist, Farag Foda, famous for his sharp satires on Islamic fundamentalism. Prior to his murder, Foda had been accused of “blasphemy” by the great mosque of al-Azhar. A dozen Bangladeshi bloggers have also been murdered in cold blood by Islamists for the “crime” of “secularism.”

Last year, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al- Sisi called for reforming Islam and the way it is taught as did Sunni Islam’s leading cleric, Sheikh Ahmed al Tayeb, head of Cairo’s al-Azhar University, the center of Sunni Islam. And he said it in Mecca, no less. Egypt’s conservatives however did their best to tamp that down – at least for the moment.

There are, however, more and more dissidents successfully speaking out and leading bold, farsighted movements. In the U.S., M. Zuhdi Jasser, author of “A Battle for the Soul of Islam,” and a practising physician, founded the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. Last year, more than two dozen Muslim personalities promoted an appeal “to embrace a pluralistic interpretation of Islam, rejecting all forms of oppression and abuses committed in the name of religion.”

In Canada, Raheel and Sohail Raza founded “Muslims Facing Tomorrow,” and there is the outspoken Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario, Salim Mansur.

In the U.K., Maajid Nawaz heads the influential Quilliam Foundation, and Shiraz Maher, who defected from the Islamist organization, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, now serves as a Senior Fellow at the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King’s College London.

These are just a few of today’s heroes. Some had to be left out; there were too many to list.

The proud and painful resistance of these “Allah’s rebels” is one of the most beautiful testaments of our times. These “Allah’s rebels” are also the only real hope of reform for the Islamic world — and of preserving freedom for all of us.

Categories: Clash of civilizations, Democracy, Freedom of speech, Human rights, Islam and human rights, Islam in America, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic integration, Islamic reformation, Islamic supremacy, Islamisation, Islamists in America, Islamists vs Islam, Islamophobia, Political Islam
Tags: Clash of civilizations, Democracy, freedom of speech, human rights, Islam and human rights, Islam in America, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic integration, Islamic reformation, Islamic supremacy, Islamisation, Islamists in America, Islamists vs Islam, Islamophobia, Political Islam

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Public Support for the European Union Plunges

June 9, 2016

Public Support for the European Union Plunges, Gatestone Institute, Soeren Kern, June 9, 2016

♦ Public anger is also being fueled by the growing number of diktats issued by the unelected officials running the Brussels-based European Commission, the powerful administrative arm of the bloc, which has been relentless in its usurpation of sovereignty from the 28 nation states that comprise the European Union.

♦ Although the survey does not explicitly say so, the findings almost certainly reflect growing anger at the anti-democratic nature of the EU and its never-ending power grabs.

♦ On May 31, the EU, in partnership with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft, unveiled a “code of conduct” to combat the spread of “illegal hate speech” online. Critics say the EU’s definition of “hate speech” is so vague that it could include virtually anything deemed politically incorrect by European authorities, including criticism of mass migration, Islam or even the EU itself.

♦ On April 20, the European Political Strategy Centre, an in-house EU think tank that reports directly to Juncker, proposed that the European Union establish its own central intelligence agency, which would answer only to unelected bureaucrats.

Public opposition to the European Union is growing in all key member states, according to a new survey of voters in ten EU countries.

Public disaffection with the EU is being fueled by the bloc’s mishandling of the refugee and debt crises, according to the survey, which interviewed voters in Britain, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden.

Public anger is also being fueled by the growing number of diktats issued by the unelected officials running the Brussels-based European Commission, the powerful administrative arm of the bloc, which has been relentless in its usurpation of sovereignty from the 28 nation states that comprise the European Union.

The 17-page report, “Euroskepticism Beyond Brexit,” was published by the Pew Research Center on June 7, just two weeks before the June 23 referendum on whether Britain will become the first country to leave the European Union (Brexit blends the words Britain and exit).

The following are excerpts:

Much of the disaffection with the EU among Europeans can be attributed to Brussels’ handling of the refugee issue. In every country surveyed, overwhelming majorities disapprove of how Brussels has dealt with the crisis. This includes 94% of Greeks, 88% of Swedes and 77% of Italians. In Hungary and Poland, disapproval of how the refugee crisis has been managed stands at 72% and 71%, respectively. In France, 70% disapprove; in Germany the figure is 67%. The strongest approval of EU management of the refugee crisis is in the Netherlands, but that backing is a tepid 31%.
The EU’s handling of economic issues is another huge source of disaffection with Brussels. About nine-in-ten Greeks (92%) disapprove of how the EU has dealt with the ongoing economic crisis. Roughly two-thirds of the Italians (68%), French (66%) and Spanish (65%) similarly disapprove. (France and Spain are the two nations where the favorability of the EU has recently experienced the largest decline.) Majorities in Sweden (59%) and the UK (55%) also disapprove of the EU’s job in dealing with economic challenges. The strongest approval of Brussels’ economic efforts is in Poland and Germany (both 47%).
Nearly two-thirds (65%) of Britons say they want the EU to return certain powers to national governments. This Euroskepticism is not limited to Britain. In Greece, 68% of those surveyed want some EU powers devolved to the national government, followed by Sweden (47%); the Netherlands (44%) and Germany (43%).
A median of 42% of Europeans across the ten countries surveyed say they want to reclaim some powers from Brussels, while just 19% favor greater centralization (27% prefer the status quo).
Conversely, there is little enthusiasm for transferring more power to Brussels. Only 6% of Britons, 8% of Greeks and 13% of Swedes favor more power for the EU. The strongest backing for an ever closer Europe is only 34%, in France. In most countries, a quarter or more of the public prefers to keep the current division of power.
Three-quarters of Britons who disapprove of the EU’s handling of economic problems and 71% of those who have an unfavorable view of the bloc’s handling of the refugee crisis believe that Brussels should return powers to national governments.
The strongest backers of the EU are the Poles (72%) and the Hungarians (61%). In many other nations, support is tepid. Just 27% of the Greeks, 38% of the French (down from 69% in 2004) and 47% of the Spanish (down from 80% in 2007) have a favorable opinion of the EU. Notably, 44% of the British view the EU favorably, including 53% of the Scottish.
EU favorability is down in five of the six nations surveyed in both 2015 and 2016. There has been a double-digit drop in France (down 17 percentage points) and Spain (16 points), and single-digit declines in Germany (8 points), the United Kingdom (7 points) and Italy (6 points).
Young people — those ages 18 to 34 — are more favorable toward the European Union than people 50 and older in six of the 10 nations surveyed. The generation gap is most pronounced in France — 25 percentage points — with 56% of young people but only 31% of older people having a positive opinion of the EU. There are similar generation gaps of 19 points in the UK, 16 points in the Netherlands, 14 points in Poland and Germany, and 13 points in Greece. It remains unclear why young Europeans are so favorable to the EU, where youth unemployment is near 50% in some EU countries.
There is overwhelming sentiment across Europe that Brexit would be a bad thing for the European Union: 89% in Sweden, 75% in the Netherlands and 74% in Germany say the British leaving would not be good for the EU. France is the only country where more than a quarter (32%) of the public says it would be positive for the EU if the UK departed.

Although the survey does not explicitly say so, the findings almost certainly reflect growing anger at the anti-democratic nature of the EU and its never-ending power grabs.

On May 31, the European Union, in partnership with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft,unveiled a “code of conduct” to combat the spread of “illegal hate speech” online in Europe. Critics say the initiative amounts to an assault on free speech in Europe because the EU’s definition of “hate speech” and “incitement to violence” is so vague that it could include virtually anything deemed politically incorrect by European authorities, including criticism of mass migration, Islam or even the European Union itself.

On May 24, the unelected president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, vowed to use sanctions to isolate far-right or populist governments that are swept into office on the wave of popular anger against migration. Under powers granted to the European Commission in 2014, Juncker can trigger a “rule of law alert” for countries that depart from “the common constitutional traditions of all member states.” Rather than accepting the will of the people at the voting booth, Juncker can impose sanctions to address “systemic deficiencies” in EU member states.

On May 4, Juncker warned that EU countries that failed to “show solidarity” by refusing take in migrants would face a fine of €250,000 ($285,000) per migrant.

On April 20, the European Political Strategy Centre, an in-house EU think tank that reports directly to Juncker, proposed that the European Union establish its own central intelligence agency, which would answer only to unelected bureaucrats. According to the plan, the 28 EU member states would have a “legally binding duty to share information.”

The British Minister of State for the Armed Forces, Penny Mordaunt, responded:

“These matters are supposed to be, and must be the competence of member states. Intelligence sharing can only be done on a bilateral basis. This latest EU integration project not only shows how little the EU cares for the sovereignty of nation states, but also how little it understands the business of counter-terrorism.”

On December 15, 2015, the European Commission unveiled plans for a new European Border and Coast Guard force that can intervene anywhere in the EU, even without the host country’s consent.

On March 8, 2015, Juncker said that the EU needed its own military in order to restore the bloc’s standing around the world: “Europe’s image has suffered dramatically and also in terms of foreign policy, we don’t seem to be taken entirely seriously.”

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Jean-Claude Juncker, the unelected president of the European Commission, recently vowed to use sanctions to isolate far-right or populist governments that are swept into office on the wave of popular anger against migration. In December 2015, the Commission unveiled plans for a new European Border and Coast Guard force that can intervene anywhere in the EU, even without the host country’s consent. (Image source: © European Union 2015 – European Parliament)

In a recent interview with Le Monde, Juncker said that if Britons voted to leave the EU, they would be treated as “deserters”:

“I am sure the deserters will not be welcomed with open arms. If the British should say ‘No’ — which I hope they do not — then life in the EU will not go on as before. The United Kingdom will be regarded as a third country and will have its fur stroked the wrong way (caresser dans le sens du poil). If the British leave Europe, people will have to face the consequences. It is not a threat but our relations will no longer be what they are today.”

In an interview with the Telegraph, Giles Merritt, director of the Friends of Europe think tank in Brussels, summed it up this way:

“The EU policy elites are in panic. If the British vote to leave the shock will be so ghastly that they will finally wake up and realize that they can no longer ignore demands for democratic reform. They may have to dissolve the EU as it is and try to reinvent it, both in order to bring the Brits back and because they fear that the whole political order will be swept away unless they do.”

Categories: BREXIT, Britain, Democracy, Europe, European Union, Islamic invasion
Tags: BREXIT, Britain, Democracy, Europe, European Union, Islamic invasion

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Swedish Politicians: “Islam is Definitely Compatible with Democracy!”

June 8, 2016

Swedish Politicians: “Islam is Definitely Compatible with Democracy!” Gatestone Institute, Ingrid Carlqvist, June 8, 2016 — Part II of a series.

♦ With their goodhearted eagerness to be inclusive, not to discriminate and to defend freedom of religion, Swedish politicians are easy prey for Islamists with an anti-democratic agenda.

♦ “The presumption is that Muslims want nothing more than to adapt to a Western way of life and Western values. … the presumption is also that Islam can be tamed…” — Jimmie Åkesson, Sweden Democrats party leader.

♦ “Democracy is a man-made system, meaning by the people for the people. Thus it is contrary to Islam, because rule is for Allaah… it is not permissible to give legislative rights to any human being…” — Sheik Muhammad Saalih al-Munajjid, in fatwa number 07166.

♦ Everyone knows what happens to anyone who criticizes Islam — first, you get labeled an “Islamophobe racist,” then, like the artist Lars Vilks, you might get afatwa of death on your head.

♦ The question is where the democratic Muslims will be when Islam has gained even more influence in Sweden — will they stand up for Swedish democracy if that means openly going against the tenets of Islam?

It should not be a mystery whether Islam is compatible with democracy or not. All you have to do is look at the Islamic sources or call any imam and pretend to be impressed that Islam does not separate religion and politics.

Yet, when Gatestone Institute called Swedish politicians at all levels to ask if Islam and democracy were compatible, they gave assurances that there were no problems whatsoever with Islam’s capacity for democracy — or they hung up.

The two most common answers given were:

Islam is definitely compatible with democracy!
I cannot discuss this matter right now.

The question cuts through all parties; apparently no one dares to face the facts. So far, throughout history, and now in the world’s 57 Muslim countries in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), nowhere has Islam been compatible with democracy, freedom of speech, human rights and legal certainty. These Muslim states have not signed the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights, a document Swedish politicians seem to cherish. Instead, those countries have joined the Cairo Declaration, which stipulates that sharia is the only foundation for human rights. In short, human rights are all well and good so long as they do not conflict with sharia — if they do, sharia wins. In practice, this means that in the Islamic world, there are, in the Western sense, no human rights.

Then why do Swedish politicians believe they will be able to democratize Islam? Do they know something the rest of the world does not? Or, as the alternative is so terrifying, are they just pretending?

In 1985, Sweden was still a homogenous country. There was no doubt that Sweden belonged to the Swedes. We were proud of the country that our forefathers created, and the welfare state given to us by the Social Democrats. Women in veils and men in Middle Eastern clothes did not walk the streets, and Islam was still considered exotic. It was, as the analyst Ronie Berggren recently put it, “Arabian nights, or [the children’s book] Tam Sventon with his manservant, Mr. Omar, and the flying carpet. Olof Palme was still alive and Sweden thought itself a safe and functioning nation.”

But in 1985, the Swedish History Museum published an anthology, “Islam: religion, culture, society,” in which a diplomat, Dag Sebastian Ahlander, expressed concerns:

“Islamic immigration to Sweden can also lead to new conflicts within Swedish society. The Swedish perception is that there is freedom of religion in Sweden, but that perception is built on a private view of religion. To a Muslim, a large part of the rules regarding everyday activities is based on Islam; co-education of boys and girls, sex education, the view on the status of women, the demand that the slaughter of animals should be performed according to certain rituals, the demand that Friday should be a public holiday — all of these things are potential sources of conflict to Muslim immigrants in Swedish society, and they are all ultimately founded on religion.”

Sadly, the anthology fell into oblivion. All at once, while the Swedes were busy tending their gardens or repainting their summer houses, and feeling safe in the knowledge that our politicians surely were not lying to us, Islam was everywhere. The problems sketched out by Dag Sebastian Ahlander are now affecting all of us — but still the politicians refuse to address the most basic question.

In calls to politicians, Gatestone also encountered an incantation: Islam is democratic because it has to be democratic, because what will happen to Sweden otherwise?

Many politicians are, evidently, frightened to death to talk about Islam. They seem to do everything in their power to avoid giving an answer. They claim they are the wrong person to talk to; they hang up the phone — anything to skirt a discussion.

The reason may well be that no matter what they say, everyone knows what happens to anyone who criticizes Islam — first, you get labeled an “Islamophobe racist,” then, like the artist Lars Vilks, you might get a fatwa of death on your head.

Not one of the politicians or officials was able to name a single Muslim–majority country that has a decent democracy with legal certainty and freedom of speech. Not one could see any danger coming from an increasing Islamization of Sweden. Typical answers were:

“Yes, Islam is definitely compatible with democracy. At least, that is my interpretation.” — Beatrice Ask, Conservative (Moderaterna), former Minister of Justice.

“Of course if you read the words in the Quran, and the movements and schools that are leading around the world, then Islam is difficult to merge with the Swedish version of democracy. But I try to avoid talking categorically about Islam as a whole. Many people have Islam as their personal faith.” — Paula Bieler, Sweden Democrats.

“I have nothing against that. People can believe what they want in a democracy.” — Nooshi Dadgostar, Left Party (Vänsterpartiet).

“Islam as a religion is compatible with democracy, why wouldn’t it be? I don’t think there is any religion not compatible with democracy. As long as you don’t use religion to hurt each other, Christianity, Islam and Judaism are all democratic in their basic perspective.” — Jamal Mouneimne, Social Democrats (Socialdemokraterna).

“[Mehmet] Kaplan is a practicing Muslim in a democratically elected government, so of course both he and I believe Islam is compatible with democracy. He is also an anti-racist, a feminist and he stands up for human rights.” — Mikaela Kotschack, Green Party (Miljöpartiet), Press Secretary for the recently resigned Mehmet Kaplan.

“I cannot answer that I’m afraid. This calls for a longer discussion, you cannot just answer yes or no to that question. … No, the question does not make me nervous, but it demands knowledge and a longer discussion.” — Larry Söder, Christian Democrats (Kristdemokraterna).

The civil servants, who are supposed to give the politicians more insight into current political issues, seem no more knowledgeable than the politicians. Deputy Assistant Göran Ternbo, the Government Offices’ expert on democracy and human rights, was also asked if Islam is compatible with democracy:

“Eh, ah … that’s a controversial issue, it is. I don’t know. You cannot be that categorical answering one way or the other. Why are you asking these questions? It feels … where are you going with this?”

Gatestone: We just want to know what the government’s view on Islam is. Are you aware of the Islamic agenda?

Ternbo: “We have freedom of religion in Sweden.”

Gatestone: Can you say that Islam fits into democratic Sweden?

Ternbo: “Yes, if they follow our laws.”

Gatestone: But many say they want sharia?

Ternbo: “I have never heard that.”

Gatestone: Can you mention one democratic Muslim country?

Ternbo: “I do not understand where this is going. If you want to discuss Islam, I advise you to contact the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, they have experts on Islam.”

Gatestone: But the politicians are filling the country with Islam right now, how does that affect Sweden’s future?

Ternbo: “My job is to deal with completely different issues, so I cannot answer that. Right now, I’m working on the Nordic Sami Convention.”

Gatestone: You work with human rights, have the Muslim countries accepted the UN Declaration on Human Rights?

Ternbo: “Yes, they’ve accepted a number of declarations, including the Cairo Declaration.”

Gatestone: Does the Cairo Declaration view human rights the same way we do?

Ternbo: “I don’t want to continue this discussion, it feels like an interrogation. We have freedom of religion in Sweden.”

Gatestone: Is it possible to use Swedish democracy to abolish democracy?

Ternbo: “This is going too far. I have a meeting now. Goodbye.”

The Swedes are highly secularized. They have never asked to be invaded by fierce religious rules. However, the huge immigration of asylum seekers, mainly from Muslim-majority countries, has turned everything the Swedes take for granted upside down — such as the idea that people mind their religious business in private, and that you can trust what other people tell you.

Can you trust what Muslim politicians are saying? In the Nordic culture, telling the truth is a virtue. The Aesir clan of the gods in Norse mythology listed nine noble virtues: courage, love of the truth, honorable living, fidelity, discipline, hospitality, confidence, diligence and endurance. In Islam, however, love of the truth does not seem to be a prominent virtue — in some circumstances, not only is lying allowed, it is compulsory to lie if it benefits Islam.

The question of whether Islam and democracy are compatible is probably the most important one that Sweden has faced in modern times. If Islam is not compatible with democracy, while the number of Muslims in Sweden grows week by week, then Sweden as a democratic country may soon be but a memory.

With their goodhearted eagerness to be inclusive, to defend freedom of religion, and not to discriminate against any group, Swedish politicians are easy prey for Islamists with an anti-democratic agenda.

Islam has its own system of justice, built on divine law (sharia); a ban on any and all criticism of Islam, and laws regulating virtually everything in everyone’s life. Moreover, there seems to be no interest on the part of the newcomers in abandoning these traditions in favor of the traditions of the West.

The fact that all political parties apart from the Sweden Democrats (who are critical of immigration) have Muslim representatives might lead people to think that if there are Muslims working within our democratic system, they must be democrats.

Yet Swedish imams make no secret that in Islam, politics and religion are branches on the same tree. If you phone an imam, and say you are a Swede who has grown tired of the Swedish Church’s compliance on political issues, and that you have thought about converting to Islam, you might hear, as imam Ali at the Islamic Cultural Center in Lund, said, “No, you cannot take politics out of Islam, it is a part of our religion. Islam is a complete system, which people need.”

Of course, if you are critical of Islam mixing politics and religion, you will not get answers like that — the imams evidently know that such answers are not popular in Sweden — anyway, not yet.

Anyone who thinks that these candid imams might be mistaken can study the official pronouncements on the subject. In fatwa number 07166, for instance, entitled, “Ruling on democracy and elections and participating in that system,” Sheik Muhammad Saalih al-Munajjid, one of the most respected scholars in Sunni Islam, writes:

“Praise be to Allaah. Firstly: Democracy is a man-made system, meaning rule by the people for the people. Thus it is contrary to Islam, because rule is for Allaah, the Most High, the Almighty, and it is not permissible to give legislative rights to any human being, no matter who he is.”

His fatwa number 98134, “Concept of democracy in Islam,” states:

“Democracy is a system that is contrary to Islam, because it gives the power of legislation to the people or to those who represent them (such as members of Parliament). Based on that, in democracy legislative authority is given to someone other than Allah, may He be exalted; rather it is given to the people and their deputies, and what matters is not their consensus but the majority. Thus what the majority agree upon becomes laws that are binding on the nation, even if it is contrary to common sense, religious teaching or reason. In these systems legislation has been promulgated allowing abortion, same-sex marriage and usurious interest (riba); the rulings of sharee’ah have been abolished; and fornication/adultery and the drinking of alcohol are permitted. In fact this system is at war with Islam and its followers.”

In fatwa number 111898, he answers a question on whether it is permissible to participate in non-Muslim, democratic elections:

“The Muslim participants should intend thereby to serve the interests of the Muslims and ward off evil and harm from them. The Muslim participants should think it most likely that their participation will have positive effects that will benefit the Muslims in that country, such as supporting their position, conveying their requests to the decision makers and those who are in charge of the country, and protecting their religious and worldly interests. The Muslim’s participation in these elections should not lead to him neglecting his religious duties.”

In fatwa number 178354, the Sheik is asked, “What is the ruling on one who reviles the Muslims and praises the kuffaar [infidels], and even wishes to be one of them?” He replies:

“Allah, may He be exalted, has instructed His believing slaves to love one another and to take one other as friends, and He has instructed them to hate His enemies and regard them with enmity for the sake of Allah. He has stated that friendship can only be among the believers and enmity is to be between them and the kaafirs; disavowing them is one of the basic principles of their faith and is part of perfecting their religious commitment. There are very many verses, hadeeths and comments of the early generation to that effect.”

That Islam combines religion and politics, with a view to using politics to advance the religion, and further these views, which are clearly stated, appears a totally foreign concept to Swedish politicians. Perhaps this is the reason that a Turkish-born Muslim, Mehmet Kaplan, could become Minister for Housing and Urban Development, all the while rubbing shoulders with the Islamists of Turkish groups Milli Görüs and the neo-fascists of the Grey Wolves — he was convinced no one would ever question him or his agenda, as questioning him about such alliances would be considered “Islamophobic.”

When pictures of him consorting with these groups were leaked to the media, a video clip also emerged in which Kaplan compared Israel’s actions with the Palestinians to Nazi Germany’s treatment of the Jews. That remark, in 2016, crossed the line for what an Islamist may say and do in Sweden. In Sweden, it is incredibly important not to question the Holocaust. Disapproval may possibly have come as a surprise to many, who perceive Sweden’s Israel policy under Minister for Foreign Affairs Margot Wallström as extremely critical of Israel. Wallström and the government’s criticism of Israel stems mainly from a view of Israel as the stronger party in the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians, and from not recognizing that the Muslims and Arabs in the larger conflict perpetually threaten genocide against Israel and the Jews.

Mehmet Kaplan’s remark forced him to resign. Alas, anyone thinking that the Kaplan affair would lead to a discussion of the role of Islam in Swedish politics, is mistaken. Nothing in the public debate so far suggests that Swedish politicians will seriously start looking into a possible underlying agenda among Muslim politicians, such as that they might in fact be working to spread Islam in Sweden, as Sheik Muhammad Saalih al-Munajjid encourages. Such fatwas can be found in his IslamQA.info, one of the world’s most popular websites on Islam.

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Mehmet Kaplan, a Turkish-born Muslim, became Sweden’s Minister for Housing and Urban Development, all the while rubbing shoulders with the Islamists of Turkish groups Milli Görüs and the neo-fascists of the Grey Wolves — he was convinced no one would ever question him or his agenda, for fear that doing so would be considered “Islamophobic.” Kaplan was only forced to resign in April after revelations that he compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons/Jan Ainali)

Mehmet Kaplan had only just resigned, when, within the Green Party, the next scandal broke. Yasri Khan, chairman of Swedish Muslims for Peace and Justice (Svenska muslimer för fred och rättvisa), was also a would-be member of the Green Party executive committee. In a news report on Sweden’s TV4, viewers watched in amazement as Khan refused to shake the female reporter’s hand. Was a man who did this really a good representative for the “feminist” Green Party?

When the Green Party’s spokesman, Gustav Fridolin, tried to explain Khan’s actions and why he had been recommended for the party’s executive, he only made matters worse. On a morning television show, Fridolin said that he “did not understand that women could feel so offended by someone refusing to shake hands.” The same evening, Fridolin apologized for the apology.

The Green Party may be the easiest party in which Islamists can act as entryists. The party appears particularly fond of physical diversity and seems willing to accept just about anybody who appears to be not an ethnic Swede. Possibly the Green Party never counted on the Swedish people, including their own constituents, having a completely different view of religion, politics, gender equality and handshakes.

After these scandals, the scholar Lars Nicander of the Swedish Defense University warned inAftonbladet that the Green Party might have been infiltrated by Islamists:

“I see a resemblance with how the Soviet Union acted during the Cold War, when it tried to infiltrate various democratic parties, and these methods are similar to what we see today, when people close to the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist party, apparently have gotten a strong foothold within the Green Party.”

A few days later, the Social Democratic politician Nalin Pekgul, a Kurdish Muslim, told the public-service Sveriges Television that she believes the Green Party is rife with Islamists: “The Green Party has for a long time become an arena for many Islamists to involve themselves in. That is the party where they have been strongest and most successful.”

She also said that while other parties have been exposed to Islamists, the Green Party has been affected the most:

“The Islamists in the Green Party are members of the party executive, they are in City Halls around the country, in the District Councils, and they have friends in the Government Offices who push their issues and make sure their organizations get lots of money.”

The key issue is what, if any, lesson Swedish politicians have learned from the Islamist revelations this spring. If Sweden is to survive as a secular democracy, then all politicians need to understand what Islam actually is. The fact that there are democratic Muslims does not mean that Islam itself is compatible with democracy. Individual Muslims may make a distinction between politics and religion, but this does not mean that Islam accepts this division. The question is where the democratic Muslims will be when Islam has gained even more influence in Sweden: Will they stand up for Swedish democracy if that means openly going against the tenets of Islam?

In 2009, the year before the Sweden Democrats party entered parliament, party leader Jimmie Åkesson published an opinion piece, headlined “The Muslims are our greatest foreign threat,” in the newspaper Aftonbladet:

“This is the reason today’s multicultural Swedish power elite is so totally blind to the dangers of Islam and Islamization. The presumption is that Muslims want nothing more than to adapt to a Western way of life and Western values, and that Islam is essentially the same as Christianity, the only difference being that Muslims have another name for God. Thus, the presumption is also that Islam can be tamed, the same way secular forces have tamed European Christianity and relegated it to the private sphere.”

Åkesson further wrote that Islam has affected the Swedish society to a much higher degree than Swedish society has affected Islam. He listed several areas where Islam has made an impact. People who have made fun of Islam are forced to live under constant police protection; Muslim terrorist organizations are growing stronger; Muslim representatives are demanding sharia laws; taxpayer money is being spent on circumcising baby boys; public swimming pools separate men and women; demands for halal meat at supermarkets while schools should no longer serve pork, and so on.

Not even the Sweden Democrats seem to have focused on Islam’s demands for political influence. Party leader Jimmie Åkesson asked what things will look like in another few decades, when the Muslim population has increased several times over, and cities such as Malmö most likely have a Muslim majority. He concluded the article with a promise:

“The multicultural societal elites may see this future as a colorful, interesting change for a Sweden and a Europe one usually denies has ever been ‘Swedish’ or ‘European’. As a Sweden Democrat, I see this as our greatest foreign threat since World War II, and I promise to do everything in my power to reverse this trend when we go to the polls next year.”

Åkesson’s article ignited a firestorm. Members of the “establishment” swore they had never read anything so vile, and the article was reported to the Chancellor of Justice as suspected “hate speech.” However, the Chancellor at the time, Göran Lambertz, did not open an investigation into the case. He noted that the law allows for “criticism of ethnic groups or circumstances pertaining to those groups.”

“There is no doubt whatsoever that this does not cross the line for criminal behavior. You are allowed to say a lot of things that can be considered offensive and annoying and in many ways unpopular. That goes with freedom of speech.”

Seven years have passed. The Muslim population of Sweden is approaching one million (out of 9.8 million inhabitants), but even the Sweden Democrats do not mention a threat from Islam.

But whether the politicians’ unwillingness to discuss a threat stems from ignorance or fear, to answer a question by hanging up the phone is simply not good enough. It is the politicians who have filled the country with Islam, and the Swedish people have a right to know the result. Above all, they have a right to demand that the politicians know the consequences of their decisions for the Swedes, who are secular and who love their democracy.

Categories: Democracy, Islam, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamisation, Islamism, Islamists, Islamophobia, Sweden
Tags: Democracy, Islam, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamisation, Islamism, Islamists, Islamophobia, Sweden

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European Union Declares War on Internet Free Speech

June 3, 2016

European Union Declares War on Internet Free Speech, Gatestone Institute, Soeren Kern, June 3, 2016

♦ Opponents counter that the initiative amounts to an assault on free speech in Europe. They say that the European Union’s definition of “hate speech” and “incitement to violence” is so vague that it could include virtually anything deemed politically incorrect by European authorities, including criticism of mass migration, Islam or even the EU itself.

♦ Some Members of the European Parliament have characterized the EU’s code of online conduct — which requires “offensive” material to be removed from the Internet within 24 hours — as “Orwellian.”

♦ “By deciding that ‘xenophobic’ comment in reaction to the crisis is also ‘racist,’ Facebook has made the view of the majority of the European people… into ‘racist’ views, and so is condemning the majority of Europeans as ‘racist.'” — Douglas Murray.

♦ In January 2013, Facebook suspended the account of Khaled Abu Toameh after he wrote about corruption in the Palestinian Authority. The account was reopened 24 hours later, but with the two posts deleted and no explanation.

The European Union (EU), in partnership with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft, has unveiled a “code of conduct” to combat the spread of “illegal hate speech” online in Europe.

Proponents of the initiative argue that in the aftermath of the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels, a crackdown on “hate speech” is necessary to counter jihadist propaganda online.

Opponents counter that the initiative amounts to an assault on free speech in Europe. They say that the EU’s definition of “hate speech” and “incitement to violence” is so vague that it could include virtually anything deemed politically incorrect by European authorities, including criticism of mass migration, Islam or even the European Union itself.

Some Members of the European Parliament have characterized the EU’s code of online conduct — which requires “offensive” material to be removed from the Internet within 24 hours, and replaced with “counter-narratives” — as “Orwellian.”

The “code of conduct” was announced on May 31 in a statement by the European Commission, the unelected administrative arm of the European Union. A summary of the initiative follows:

“By signing this code of conduct, the IT companies commit to continuing their efforts to tackle illegal hate speech online. This will include the continued development of internal procedures and staff training to guarantee that they review the majority of valid notifications for removal of illegal hate speech in less than 24 hours and remove or disable access to such content, if necessary.

“The IT companies will also endeavor to strengthen their ongoing partnerships with civil society organisations who will help flag content that promotes incitement to violence and hateful conduct. The IT companies and the European Commission also aim to continue their work in identifying and promoting independent counter-narratives [emphasis added], new ideas and initiatives, and supporting educational programs that encourage critical thinking.”

Excerpts of the “code of conduct” include:

“The IT Companies share the European Commission’s and EU Member States’ commitment to tackle illegal hate speech online. Illegal hate speech, as defined by the Framework Decision 2008/913/JHA of 28 November 2008 on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law and national laws transposing it, means all conduct publicly inciting to violence or hatred directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, color, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin….

“The IT Companies support the European Commission and EU Member States in the effort to respond to the challenge of ensuring that online platforms do not offer opportunities for illegal online hate speech to spread virally. The spread of illegal hate speech online not only negatively affects the groups or individuals that it targets, it also negatively impacts those who speak out for freedom, tolerance and non-discrimination in our open societies and has a chilling effect on the democratic discourse on online platforms.

“While the effective application of provisions criminalizing hate speech is dependent on a robust system of enforcement of criminal law sanctions against the individual perpetrators of hate speech, this work must be complemented with actions geared at ensuring that illegal hate speech online is expeditiously acted upon by online intermediaries and social media platforms, upon receipt of a valid notification, in an appropriate time-frame. To be considered valid in this respect, a notification should not be insufficiently precise or inadequately substantiated.

“The IT Companies, taking the lead on countering the spread of illegal hate speech online, have agreed with the European Commission on a code of conduct setting the following public commitments:

“The IT Companies to have in place clear and effective processes to review notifications regarding illegal hate speech on their services so they can remove or disable access to such content. The IT companies to have in place Rules or Community Guidelines clarifying that they prohibit the promotion of incitement to violence and hateful conduct.

“The IT Companies to review the majority of valid notifications for removal of illegal hate speech in less than 24 hours and remove or disable access to such content, if necessary.

“The IT Companies and the European Commission, recognising the value of independent counter speech against hateful rhetoric and prejudice, aim to continue their work in identifying and promoting independent counter-narratives, new ideas and initiatives and supporting educational programs that encourage critical thinking.”

The agreement also requires Internet companies to establish a network of “trusted reporters” in all 28 EU member states to flag online content that “promotes incitement to violence and hateful conduct.”

The EU Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, Vĕra Jourová, has defended the initiative:

“The recent terror attacks have reminded us of the urgent need to address illegal online hate speech. Social media is unfortunately one of the tools that terrorist groups use to radicalize young people and racists use to spread violence and hatred. This agreement is an important step forward to ensure that the internet remains a place of free and democratic expression, where European values and laws are respected. I welcome the commitment of worldwide IT companies to review the majority of valid notifications for removal of illegal hate speech in less than 24 hours and remove or disable access to such content, if necessary.”

Others disagree. The National Secular Society (NSS) of the UK warned that the EU’s plans “rest on a vague definition of ‘hate speech’ and risk threatening online discussions which criticize religion.” It added:

“The agreement comes amid repeated accusations from ex-Muslims that social media organizations are censoring them online. The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain has now begun collecting examples from its followers of Facebook censoring ‘atheist, secular and ex-Muslim content’ after false ‘mass reporting’ by ‘cyber Jihadists.’ They have asked their supporters to report details and evidence of any instances of pages and groups being ‘banned [or] suspended from Facebook for criticizing Islam and Islamism.'”

NSS communications officer Benjamin Jones said:

“Far from tackling online ‘cyber jihad,’ the agreement risks having the exact opposite effect and entrapping any critical discussion of religion under vague ‘hate speech’ rules. Poorly-trained Facebook or Twitter staff, perhaps with their own ideological bias, could easily see heated criticism of Islam and think it is ‘hate speech,’ particularly if pages or users are targeted and mass reported by Islamists.”

In an interview with Breitbart London, the CEO of Index on Censorship, Jodie Ginsburg, said:

“Hate speech laws are already too broad and ambiguous in much of Europe. This agreement fails to properly define what ‘illegal hate speech’ is and does not provide sufficient safeguards for freedom of expression.

“It devolves power once again to unelected corporations to determine what amounts to hate speech and police it — a move that is guaranteed to stifle free speech in the mistaken belief this will make us all safer. It won’t. It will simply drive unpalatable ideas and opinions underground where they are harder to police — or to challenge.

“There have been precedents of content removal for unpopular or offensive viewpoints and this agreement risks amplifying the phenomenon of deleting controversial — yet legal — content via misuse or abuse of the notification processes.”

A coalition of free speech organizations, European Digital Rights and Access Now, announced their decision not to take part in future discussions with the European Commission, saying that “we do not have confidence in the ill-considered ‘code of conduct’ that was agreed.” A statement warned:

“In short, the ‘code of conduct’ downgrades the law to a second-class status, behind the ‘leading role’ of private companies that are being asked to arbitrarily implement their terms of service. This process, established outside an accountable democratic framework, exploits unclear liability rules for online companies. It also creates serious risks for freedom of expression, as legal — but controversial — content may well be deleted as a result of this voluntary and unaccountable take-down mechanism.

“This means that this ‘agreement’ between only a handful of companies and the European Commission is likely in breach of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (under which restrictions on fundamental rights should be provided for by law), and will, in practical terms, overturn case law of the European Court of Human Rights on the defense of legal speech.”

Janice Atkinson, an independent MEP for the South East England region, summed it up this way: “It’s Orwellian. Anyone who has read 1984 sees its very re-enactment live.”

Even before signing on to the EU’s code of conduct, social media sites have been cracking down on free speech, often at the behest of foreign governments.

In September 2015, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was overheard on a live microphone confronting Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on what he was doing to prevent criticism of her open-door immigration policies.

In January 2016, Facebook launched an “Online Civil Courage Initiative” aimed at Facebook users in Germany and geared toward “fighting hate speech and extremism on the Internet.”

Writing for Gatestone Institute, British commentator Douglas Murray noted that Facebook’s assault on “racist” speech “appears to include anything critical of the EU’s current catastrophic immigration policy.” He wrote:

“By deciding that ‘xenophobic’ comment in reaction to the crisis is also ‘racist,’ Facebook has made the view of the majority of the European people (who, it must be stressed, are opposed to Chancellor Merkel’s policies) into ‘racist’ views, and so is condemning the majority of Europeans as ‘racist.’ This is a policy that will do its part in pushing Europe into a disastrous future.

Facebook has also set its sights on Gatestone Institute affiliated writers. In January 2013, Facebook suspended the account of Khaled Abu Toameh after he wrote about corruption in the Palestinian Authority. The account was reopened 24 hours later, but with the two posts deleted and no explanation. Abu Toameh wrote:

“It’s still a matter of censorship. They decide what’s acceptable. Now we have to be careful about what we post and what we share. Does this mean we can’t criticize Arab governments anymore?”

In June 2016, Facebook suspended the account of Ingrid Carlqvist, Gatestone’s Swedish expert, after she posted a Gatestone video to her Facebook feed — called “Sweden’s Migrant Rape Epidemic.” In an editorial, Gatestone wrote:

“After enormous grassroots pressure from Gatestone’s readers, the Swedish media started reporting on Facebook’s heavy-handed censorship. It backfired, and Facebook went into damage-control mode. They put Ingrid’s account back up — without any explanation or apology. Ironically, their censorship only gave Ingrid’s video more attention.

“Facebook and the EU have backed down — for now. But they’re deadly serious about stopping ideas they don’t like. They’ll be back.”

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This week, the EU, in partnership with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft, unveiled a “code of conduct” to combat the spread of “illegal hate speech” online in Europe. The next day, Facebook suspended the account of Ingrid Carlqvist, Gatestone’s Swedish expert, after she posted a Gatestone video to her Facebook feed — called “Sweden’s Migrant Rape Epidemic.”

Categories: Clash of civilizations, Democracy, European Union, Freedom of speech, Hate speech, Human rights, Islam - submission, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamisation, Islamophobia, social media
Tags: Clash of civilizations, Democracy, European Union, freedom of speech, Hate speech, human rights, Islam - submission, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamisation, Islamophobia, social media

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