Rightist Wish Fulfillment

Arab News (With thanks to Jihad Watch, 22 March 2005, for pointing out this article), Monday, 21, March, 2005 (10, Safar, 1426) , Ministry Intervenes as Writer Sentenced to 275 Lashes
Raid Qusti, Arab News —

We have kept this bizarre tale around, well, because it is bizarre. It also illustrates why it is so great to be an American and to live in America. It also illustrates why we can take sides with the liberal Left on this issue. Wow! That last is really strange to write!

Too many on the Right whip themselves these days into lather after lather decrying "separation of church and state." Their fictions include the notion that separation of church and state is actually a Christian concept coming from the dictum to render unto Caesar, and you know the rest. They also claim that America was founded on strict Judeo-Christian principles and doctrines. Then they march to the Constitution to claim that nothing in it separates church and state, thus we ought to have prayer in schools, etc. They claim that without Judeo-Christian principles, there could be no morality, only rapacious chaos.

Alas they are so full of it that one wonders what would happen to them should they all take enemas en masse.

They cannot quite bring themselves to advocate a theocracy, although one of their number, talk radio host Michael Medved, proudly bills himself as a theocrat.

They, like so many people, have "bee hive minds." By that, we mean that their minds are like honeycomb, in with each cell exists completely separately from the next in a hexagonal mass. I.e., with these people, integration seems forbidden as does direct perception of reality.

So, let's look at some reality, from a theocracy. We must realize that there are not good theocracies to contrast with bad theocracies. Theocracies are totalitarian states which are profoundly anti-individual, anti-rights, anti-reason, anti-freedom and demand that their citizens serve as cells in the organ mass of the state which is also their only reason to exist and the source of any value they might have as individuals.

This article provides direct perception into reality, in this case into the theocracy of Saudi Arabia. It could just as easily been from Iran or medieval Christendom.

RIYADH, 21 March 2005 — The case of a Saudi writer who was sentenced by a
Shariah court in Riyadh to 275 lashes and four months imprisonment after being
accused of being “corrupt” by members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, has returned to the Ministry of Culture and Information yesterday after the intervention of the ministry, Arab News has learned.

The case is the first of its kind in Saudi Arabia.

Dr. Ali Al-Mizeini, an Arabic language professor at King Saud University, was charged by the commission with allegedly questioning the religious institution’s abilities and knowledge in an article written by him in Al-Watan
newspaper. The commission was represented in court by another professor at the
university, Abdullah Al-Barak from the Islamic Culture Department.

The accusers demanded that Dr. Al-Mizeini be tried according to Shariah for
his writings. Dr. Al-Mizeini was later summoned to a court hearing.

Dr. Al-Barak argued that his suit against Al-Mizeini was a private matter and that he relied on a regulation from the Ministry of Justice dated Oct. 16, 2004, after some persons complained about several articles published in the media. The regulation issued by the minister of justice states that “whatever offends Shariah or Islamic ethics or contradicts anything in the Qur’an or Sunnah (the Prophet’s sayings) or is an accusation of a person toward another which demands a religious punishment of lashes or imprisonment according to the nature of the crime is a matter that concerns public
courts.”

The regulation continues: “Public courts or primary courts which are given cases that deal with offenses concerning moral issues or attacks on Shariah that demand religious punishment should not transfer it to other concerned lawful bodies to look into it”

Judge Suleiman Al-Fantooh of the Shariah court sentenced him to a four-month jail term and 275 lashes.

The judge’s ruling violates the Royal Decree No. 37 of the publication law in Saudi Arabia issued in November, 2000, which states that Shariah courts in the Kingdom should not intervene in trying journalists or writers and that all matters concerning the media and publications should be dealt with through the Ministry of Information.

The judge, however, ignored the law and proceeded with his ruling.

According to Al-Hayat newspaper, the Royal Court issued an order to form a committee comprising officials from the Ministry of Information to deal with matters that concern publication of articles in local newspapers and that all complaints concerning publications should be confined to the ministry alone.

The Arabic daily also said that the Ministry of Culture and Information called editors of Saudi dailies and informed them of the new Royal Court regulation by phone. It said that the ministry intended to send a telegram to the Ministry of Justice opposing the court ruling because it violates the publishing law announced by the government last week.

Al-Mizeini’s article angered many Islamists when he said that the method used by the Supreme Judiciary Council in determining the beginning of Ramadan and Eid was “primitive” that still relied on the naked eye’s vision of the moon at a time where the crescent can be determined by telescopes as well by Saudi astronomers who are experts in the field.

Meanwhile, another Saudi writer is being tried by a religious court in the Kingdom for criticizing the commission in another Saudi daily, Al-Jazirah.

Abdullah Al-Bikheit, the writer, published many articles in the daily criticizing the
approach of the people who work for the commission. Arab News contacted the
writer who revealed his story. “In the beginning, I got a call from the police
department to appear in the station to deal with a case filed by a person I did
not know,” he said.

“When I went there and asked who my opponent was, I was told that ‘it did not matter and that I will have to appear in court’ which I did,” he added.

“When I appeared before the judge, I found out that the case filed against me was not signed by a certain number of people...I asked the judge again who my opponent was, but he did not give me an answer. He told me that the Public Prosecutor wanted to intervene in the case. I replied that the case had no basis since it concerned publications and that the case was not within their purview.”

“The Sheikh from the Public Prosecution office later came, and I found myself yet dealing with another person. He told the judge that ‘we want to punish him if the charges against him are proven correct’”.

“I later found out that 80 percent of those who filed the case were members of the commission who were angered by my writings in the daily,” he said.

He said that the court has asked him to reappear on April 12.

Asked by Arab News if anyone from the Ministry of Information intervened to help him, Al-Bikheit said that he was sure that the media was closely following his case. He also said that Turki Al-Sudairi, the head of the Saudi Journalists Association, promised him that he would help. Al-Bikheit said that he has not sought the help of the National Society for Human Rights in the court hearing since he has already told the judge that the case is out of the court’s jurisdiction.

“However, if a ruling is made against me in the next hearing, I need not go to the human rights body to complain. I will go to our leaders to complain starting with King Fahd, then the Crown Prince,” he said.

Al-Bikheit said that he criticized the commission in the Saudi daily as “any other government body that has its shortcomings.” He said that he replied to the negative feedback to his articles in the letters to the editor column of the paper which did not “please the commission’s members”. He intends to publish a book with all the 17 articles he has published in Al-Jazirah.

The old admonition says, be careful what you wish for because it may come true. Those on the Right who have religious blindness need a big dose of this admonition. A few years ago, Jack Kemp, serving in some Republican administration, crowed that "Freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion." The article just cited shows a tiny sample of what Kemp's thinking (and that of those who think similarly) looks like in practice in Saudi Arabia, a theocracy.

Whatever value religion has to an individual must be determined by that individual and not by the state. That individual should be free to have religion or not. The state should not reflect any aspect of any religion, nor should it proscribe or prescribe any, it as long as it is not seditious, as is Islam.

Islam is the archtypical fusion of religion with every single aspect of Muslim life, and what we see as a result is not something "hijacked" or distorted. It is what it is. Islam is a perfect manifestation of the dream of those Rightists who want to end separation of church and state. In that sense, they are just another group of jihadists.

Can You Be Moral? (I)

There are two positions on being moral in our culture today, and both are wrong.

The Right say that without Judeo-Christian religion, one cannot be moral. The Left say that the whole matter is subjective and differs from individual to individual. Both sides have made a total mess of the whole matter and have left people either confused or resorting solely to feelings to determine morality.

Since I grew up in a Christian environment, I have a real sense of the Right on morality. In a word, it was and is DUTY, and the religion provides the duties. People get left out except when they run afoul of duties and become sinners. When I think back on what the moral training was and the attitude toward morality as I grew up, I experience nausea and dysphoria. My "I" was always in conflict with the imposed duties, and my "I" was castigated as Augustine put it, "bespotted and ulcerous, sordid and corrupt." In short, according to the religious principles, if I put me first, I was being "selfish," and that was always wrong. Even as a child, I could see all of the hypocritical dancing about by others at the duty-self boundary to satisfy their "I's."

In college, I began running into the morality of the Left. And, you know what? It also was "duty," but differed from that of the Right. The "I" was always castigated as selfish, and groups took the place that religious doctrine took among the Right. It was far less clear what the Left meant by morality other than group standards. The Left firmly "believed" that personal morality could be morality only for each person, without generalizations that could apply to many if not all people. To them, truth was subjective, thus morality was subjective. You have heard the following: What is true for you is not true for me. Likewise, you hear: What is right for you is not right for me.

Interestingly, both the Right and the Left positions completely abdicate themselves from the field of morality. To the Right, morality is intrinsic to religious doctrine, and humans must take it on without question. A really good example of this kind of thinking comes from Rush Limbaugh's "32 Undeniable Truths" list, which I believe can be found on his website.

To the Left, morality can have no personal standard. It may have a group standard, depending on what the group wants to do. The Law of Identity says that something that is, in every case, is something specific, with a specific identity. And, the inverse says, to be nothing in particular is not to be. I did not make that up; Mother Nature did. Since the morality of the Left is nothing in particular, it is nothing. It does not exist. The illusion of it existing comes out in its subjectivity.

So, for the Right, morality is intrinsic, imposed on people from outside their choice. For the Left, morality is subjective, which means feeling based.

What is missing is the concept of "objectivity." That same concept is missing all over the country. Journalists really have little idea about it. Politicians eschew it. Academicians deny it. Religious people at all levels misidentify their intrinsicism as objectivity.

What we have for national leaders, given the state of morality, is President George W. Bush, intrinsicist religionist from the Right, and Senator John Kerry, subjectivist liberal from the Left. No doubt of it. We have a moral vacuum.

As a result, people struggle on their own to internalize a morality the best they can, and they do not do a very good job of it. Nor could they be expected to. The very intellectual leaders who should be making it possible for them to internalize an appropriate morality left the building like Elvis but they long preceded Elvis.

We are left with some big questions, really rather fundamental in nature, and they are not getting answered. In many cases, they are not getting asked.

Growing Good News from Iraqis?

More and more we are hearing about Iraqis coming out to dispatch insurgents and defend themselves. Only some has been verified thusfar, but this process, if continued, will put an end to "insurgency" and literally terrify every Middle East tyranny.

Two Fox News military consultants have given important information concerning the "insurgency." One said that insurgencies tend to last about 9 years. The other said that Iraqis rising up against insurgents will bring peace quicker than any other process, and it can come quickly. Both statements spell the end of the insurgency, of course.

But, we have written pieces in Sixth Column on numerous occasions wondering where the Iraqi citizens are in their own defense of themselves. That has included allowing suicide car bombs into public gatherings of Iraqis. We are aware that these car bombs have become far less frequent, and we hope this means that everybody in Iraq has put 2 and 2 together to get 4.

Now we hear about Iraqis coming out from their homes to gun down insurgent bullies trying to terrorize them. Like gathering drops of precipitation which ultimately become a big river, these are happening in very small groups, in twos and threes. We would not expect non-objective journalists to report these, but there are great stories to be told in these events.

It would be utterly wonderful to see an independent republic of Iraq, governed by democratic principles, with a non-Islamic constitution. So many have said it could not be done, but look at all of the things being done that have been proclaimed as "impossible."

The processes of citizens coming to dispatch insurgent groups on behalf of themselves just reek with merit. Backbone and self-esteem may be emerging. Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, etc., will fear these processes the most because these horrible governments continue to exist only because the citizens of these countries have been willing to endure tyranny. Satellites and dishes put devastating electro-magnetic radiations into these countries, and the people are not dumb. They have all the potential of all other humans. It won't take much for them to learn the lessons from Iraq if the Iraqis continue to rise to create their own destinies.

The Churchill Twin Sweepstakes!

The Churchill Twin Sweepstakes!, The Churchill Twin Sweepstakes!By FrontPage Magazine,March 28, 2005.

THIS IS FOR REAL. It also is an effective means of shining disinfecting sunshine on these postmodernists and can be useful in other contexts.

Have you had to endure anti-American propaganda in place of a college lecture? Now you can turn your professor's left-wing pontificating into cold, hard cash!

Just submit an essay, in 500 words or less, describing the professor you have had who most resembles Ward Churchill. This professor could have called capitalists "little Eichmanns," like Churchill himself. He could have demonized perfidious, bloodthirsty Jews in Israel, like Juan Cole. He could have prayed for Americans to lose the war in Iraq, like Nicholas DeGenova or Robert Jensen. The professor could even have held an alternative religion exorcism to cleanse the campus of the demons of conservatism, like Oneida Meranto (a major fan of Che Guevara, who eliminated his enemies in another manner). Or she could have spent hours of class time prattling about off-topic political issues, then force students to say Saddam Hussein had no Weapons of Mass Destruction on a midterm, like UNC-Chapel Hill's own Anthropology 10 professor Alison Greene.

Whoever the nominee, please indicate the subject of the course and explain why you have chosen this individual and why he or she deserves the coveted FrontPage Magazine Churchill Twin Award.

E-mail your submissions to: Ben@CSPC.org. The winner will receive $500. (It's the capitalist way!) The winning essay and honorable mentions will also be posted on FrontPageMag.com. Get your essays in now! The deadline to win is April 23, 2005.

This is NOT a satire! All submissions become property of FrontPageMag.com. All decisions are final. Many academically abused students will enter; few victims will win.

Google Irony

19:38, 03.27.05, "Google advertises Terror organization uses search engine to promote website of its military wing Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades," By Roee Nahmias and Gal Mor (with thanks to Jihad Watch for publicizing this).

The "irony" we refer to is that this site was turned down by Google's Adsense because of "unacceptable content." Are we on the wrong side, or what?

Terror organizations are advancing their recruitment and public relations methods: Internet surfers who enter the word “Hamas” in Arabic in the Google search engine, will view, in addition to the search results, an AdWord message that links directly to the website of the organization’s military faction Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

The link also appears in a search of several other words, such as the “Gaza,” “Palestine,” “Jihad.”

This indicates that a Hamas source has paid Google, the most popular search engine on the web, for the advertisement.

Google’s AdWord service offer registered surfers the opportunity to purchase search words and post text messages that are linked to certain websites.

The AdWords also appear in G-mail, Google’s email service, and on other websites on Google’s advertising network Adsense.

Google has automatic filters that prohibit the posting of links to “problematic” websites, such as gambling and sex websites, but as of now they can only identify English words.

Company Spokeswoman Debbie Frost said “we took care of the matter as soon as Ynet turned to us,” but Ynet has learned the advertisements have not been removed as of yet.

FIFTH COLUMN REPORT: Indians, Nazis, and the School Shooting by David Yeagley

David Yeagley is the read deal. He is an American Indian with an intelligent independent mind. At the bottom of this good article are the following credits: "Dr. David A. Yeagley is a published scholar, professionally recorded composer, and an adjunct professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Liberal Studies. He's on the speakers list of Young America's Foundation. E-mail him at badeagle2000@yahoo.com. View his website at http://www.badeagle.com. "

Does a person's philosophy influence his behavior? This article shows how the seepage of postmodernism into the 16-year old student at Red Lake Indian Reservation helped mold him. We now know what he had become: a nihilist. Like the nihilists of today, he was full of rage, self-pity, and the overpowering desire to destroy anything of value.

David Yeagley speaks from the inside out, free of political correctness, anti-Americanism, and even multiculturalism. He may be American Indian, but he is 100% American. This article deserves reading in its entirety.

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

FrontPage magazine.com :: Indians, Nazis, and the School Shooting by David Yeagley , FrontPageMagazine.com March 25, 2005


American Indians have finally, fully assimilated into American culture: Indian youth are committing the same crimes that blacks, whites, and Mexican do. Monday, March 22, 2005, a 16-year-old Indian high school student on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota came into school and shot down ten people and wounded seven others. He finally shot himself.

Indians are so assimilated that the media doesn’t even recognize us as Indians. When the Red Lake story broke, most reports did not say the shooter, Jeff Weise, was an Indian. Naming his ethnicity might have made him seem something other than a person or a full human being. A socialist British report doesn’t even mention the Indian reservation until more than halfway through the report.

It is universally assumed that Indians live on an Indian reservation, especially a remote one like Red Lake, and therefore students, policemen, and teachers are all Indians. But it isn’t true. Neva Rogers, 62, one of the teachers killed at the Red Lake high school, was white. In fact, most of the teachers at the school are white.

But the media wasn’t concerned with this issue. It was early alleged that Jeff posted on a neo-Nazi website. By not mentioning his ethnicity, the media gave the distinct impression that he was a white kid. Red Lake was another Columbine high school story, only on a poor Indian reservation. The media wanted Jeff’s very recent neo-Nazi association to “color” the Red Lake story white—right-wing white.

Jeff Weise was an Indian youth, however, and he shot other Indian youth. The alleged reports of his neo-Nazi leanings only confuse the issue. Why would an Indian, allegedly influenced by Nazi thinking, murder other Indians? After all, reportedly the Nazis did not take Weise seriously in part because he is an Indian.

The media seemed happy with a story about some white supremacist kid, and another anti-gun story. Evil whites are always a good blame. This story gives the ailing leftist media another chance to carp, “If there were no guns, there wouldn’t be such shootings”—and to hate whitey. Washington, D.C., black Chief of Police Charles A. Moose had everyone looking for a disgruntled, single white male in the D.C. sniper shooting, and it turned out to be two black men, John Muhammad and John Lee Malvo. More recently, the media assimilated Brian Nichols, the Atlanta murderer. He was not black, but “medium complexion.” In other words, look for a white man, despite the published photo of a black man.

Racial profiling is studiously avoided by the media—unless the suspect is white. No term is used which is associated with a “minority” race. But, in the Red Lake story, to identify an Indian reservation and not refer to persons in the story as Indians is obviously manipulative and insulting to Indians, using them as props in their propaganda war.

Indians are proud of being Indian. No Indian seeks to hide his identity today. (Indeed, people who aren’t even Indian are aggressive about claiming to be Indian, like Ward Churchill.) No Indian wants to assimilate to point of not be called an Indian.

But an Indian Nazi youth? This angle is misleading. Jeff is an Indian kid, from the Red Lake reservation, and he did shoot Indian students. That he allegedly showed a recent interested in neo-Nazism doesn’t mean he was white. (As noted above, he even complained that his interest wasn’t taken seriously because he was an Indian.)

Is this story then just another adolescent incident in the plague of rage running rampant in so many schools throughout the country? Are the Indians of Red Lake really like everyone else?

Jeff allegedly opposed racial intermarriage. That’s hardly assimilation. And Jeff allegedly complained that his teachers (white liberals of the Red Lake high school) condemned him for his ideas of racial purity.

Now the story makes more sense to me, as an Indian. Indians are a vanishing race, vanishing through intermarriage. Jeff opposed this, but he had liberal, white, anti-Indian teachers and counselors, who advocated intermarriage, which he saw as genocide.

I call this a kind of reverse racism, demanding that all cultures lose themselves in the American melting pot. Wiese saw America's leftists demand that the symbols of his heritage be removed from high schools, using Indian braves as their mascots. Now Jeff has committed the same violence as an Indian that other troubled American teens have. The media is anxious to blame whites, and the neo-Nazi bit in the story was their lead, but, in the Red Lake case, the reporters blamed the wrong whites. Politically Correct liberals influenced Jeff as much as the Nazis.

Federalizing the New Mafioso

Ladies and Gentlemen, Fellow Americans, we have to put a stop to these Muslim pressure groups. They have tasted blood and power and have gone into full lusting for all of it.

This week, we published articles on 6th Column Against Jihad on their actions and their fifth columnist supporter tell why they are making progress so easy and fast (see Islamic Organizations Use Public Television to Market Sharia Law to American Youth,
Playing Us Like a Wurlitzer, 2005: While It's Still America, and Busted! The Not-So “Grand Illusion”). Today, Jihad Watch publishes a new scandal from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR Calls the Truth About Islam "Hate Literature").

The fifth column supporting these groups is made up of some of the "good guys" as well as the "bad guys." Sadly, the finger of blame must point to the Bush Administration along with others.

AIM Column - Federal Money Goes to Controversial Muslim Group - March 15, 2005, by Sherrie Gossett, March 15, 2005, has much valuable information, including how courageous investigative journalists are being threatened by some of these Muslim pressure groups.

While the major media have portrayed the president's faith based initiative as a pay-off to conservative Christians, a controversial Muslim group accused of having an association with an extreme form of Islam has also been getting federal funds. The group, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), considers itself moderate and mainstream but has sponsored conferences in the past that included speakers known for violent anti-Jewish rhetoric.

Mary Jacoby and Graham Brink, writing in the St. Petersburg Times, describe ISNA as "subsidized by the Saudi government" and the "main clearinghouse for Wahhabism in the U.S." The New York Times has described ISNA as the umbrella organization for 300 Muslim groups and about one-third of the mosques in the United States.

Sayyid M. Syeed, Secretary General of ISNA, told AIM in a phone interview on March 10 that "For four or five years we've been invited to White House events. We believe all religions have to play a major role in the fight against poverty. Spirituality itself qualifies people to be more compassionate."

Syeed himself appeared at the inaugural conference of the Islamic Universal Heritage Foundation in Kissimmee Florida in December 2003, which I attended. That conference ran into controversy when it was discovered the headliner was to be Sheikh Abdul Rahman al-Sudais, who, in April 2003, while addressing 2 million followers at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, prayed to God to "terminate" the Jews. He called them "the scum of humanity, the rats of the world, prophet killers ... pigs and monkeys," according to reports by the Associated Press and Reuters.

Syeed told me, "You will be hurt, you will be pained by this if you continue to write such things." He closed the conversation with this comment, "I am sorry if I sound harsh. But I stand by every word I said."

While Syeed terms AIM's coverage of Islamic radicalism "scandalous" and "criminal," it is the failure of many in the media to report such issues truthfully that is the real problem. Reporters should not be intimidated from reporting the facts.

Syeed emphasized that ISNA is a mainstream organization and he invited AIM to meet with them at their headquarters and to get involved. "We would be very pleased to host you," he said, indicating individuals from various organizations have offered workshops at their conferences. "We are only getting bigger," he said, "You have to work with us."

The White House already does.

It is more than time to get mobilized to stand up to these "school-yard bullies." They meet crumbling resistance from courts and government. Corporations fold and run. Journalists by and large join the fifth column against us. And academia is hopelessly fifth column.

It may become a job that we in the RED STATES take on and win. Let's get going before these Muslim pressure groups become the new mafia.

Another Drive-by "Shooter" Visited Us

Frankly, we love critical comments, positive and negative. Recently, 22 March 2005, "Anonymous" drove by, shot a bunch of word bullets at us, and returned to wherever. We call these "drive by shooters." Why these folks do their one-time hits and disappear, we don't know. They seem to be Muslims or liberals, and neither group seems knowledgeable or willing to defend his or her views with critical discourse. That is a shame. We are very open to criticism, and we will publish it.

"Anonymous" put his comments at the end of D.C.Watson's blog of 22 March 2005, although it had nothing to do with D.C.'s blog. "Anonymous" was commenting on material published a little earlier this month. His comments give us an opportunity to address some things we don't often cover as much as we would like.

Here is the full comment from "Anonymous," just as he wrote all of it, except for emphases provided by me:

At Tue Mar 22, 07:41:13 AM PST,
Anonymous said in the Comments:

"Islam is a hopelessly out of date, tired, boring, absurd, Puritanical religion and evil philosophy which just stifles its adherents."

You are really showing your ignorance here. Every religion has it's fundamentalists and extremists, the majority of Muslims I know are moderate and peaceful. This sort of hateful dirge is just fuelling the fire of the fundamentalists. In fact your views sound as extreme as those of Hezzbullah just from the opposite end of the spectrum. I assume you're not a "terriorist", but then your country isn't occupied by another country's armed forces. I would suppose you would take up your constitutional right to bear arms following an invasion by Islamicists? It's America and Israels foreign policies that have caused the Jihad that you are so scared about. Policies that have directly caused many more deaths than any acts of Islamic "terrorism". How many deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan both civillian and military? Many many more than 911. Why don't you read the Koran? You'll find it to be a sensible balanced and moderate book that's been hijacked and wrongly interpreted by a few crazies. Just like the Bible has been by some people but not the majority.

"It is incumbent upon the individual to find ways to practice his religion that do not step on his contractual obligations, such as providing a day's work for a day's pay".

Tell this to Bush whom I understand likes to pray in the Oval Office

Let's start with what he quoted at the opening of his comments. He took these quotes from our article
The Crazy Aunt in the Attic: Jihad Against Starbucks (http://www.blogger.com/posts.g?blogID=7552242) , 17 March 2005. Here is the full relevant quote (emphasis mine):

If Muslims are productive human beings, in the really positive and rational sense of the term, they are so in the West, certainly not in Islamia. Islam is a hopelessly out of date, tired, boring, absurd, Puritanical religion and evil philosophy which just stifles its adherents. It even stigmatizes the Muslims who want to improve it by making Islam "moderate." Improvers are called hypocrites" and are subject to murder by the code of shari'a. So the "moderates," who, by and large, seem to want to live and let live get the equivalent of lepers' bells or yellow Star of David badges which Islam and Nazis put on Jews.

How did I arrive at such a conclusion? I did it the old-fashioned way: I earned it. After the events of 11 September 2001, I knew that I knew precious little about Islam. After reading a paperback history of the Arabs, I bought N. J. Dawood's translation of the Koran and read every word of it, and many parts, many times. I was so horrified by it that I set out on a quest to learn all I could about Islam. I read books about Islam and Arabs, and I read the core documents of Islam. That's my story, and I stick by it.

Oh, and the comment by "Anonymous" about reading the Koran? Well I have eight of them, and I have read them, some more than once. Some of the versions are pabulum written to pull the wool over the eyes of the unsuspecting Westerner by portraying Islam as peaceful, good, and kind, and are concerned solely with making nice. Others tell it like it is in its fully raw state. The Koran has not been hijacked. It is an Islamic war manual that incites Muslims to do what they are doing as jihadists and otherwise be chronic pains in the ass of the world. Muslims have not misinterpreted it. They "get it" and have always "gotten it" just the way it was written and meant to be gotten.

And, I am the wrong person to ask to defend the Bible.

What's so funny about this "misinterpretation" myth is how evil people use it to create the illusion that the evil they espouse is really not what it is. There is a hilarious parallel. The Democrat Party these days sulks about claiming that they did not get their message out to the American people, and that is why G. W. Bush won his second term. People either did not get the message, or the message was misinterpreted, they whine. Wrong! The Democrats lost because Americans got the message loud and clear. The same goes for Islam and all of its documents.

You know, "Anonymous," we read, study, discuss, and think about stuff like Islam. If you want to consider us ignorant, then be advised: We have your number, and we are coming for you. It's a matter of time 'till we get there. We've got to finish rousing and preparing the troops first.

You bet we would take up arms if you brought overt jihad into America. Our zoo carnivores would become utterly obese from your carcasses. Besides, we have taken up arms to go into Islamia to take the fight to your front door since you can't mind your own business. If you want to wear filthy clothes, sit in infested sand, do nothing, think nothing, accomplish nothing, and bitch at the universe because everybody else has gotten off their dead asses to earn their style of living, then do the entire globe a favor: Keep Islam to yourself, along with your squalor. Had you left us alone, well, you know the rest...

And, while we are at it, let's tackle "the Jihad that you are so scared about." We have dealt with the ridiculous term "islamophobic" before on this blog ["Language Morphing and "Islamophobia," 31 January 3005]. It won't hurt to "play it again." We chose the term "Islam expositor" because we expose Islam to the disinfecting sunshine. We are hardly "phobic," other than some life-long acrophobia. But, to be honest, jihad does frighten us some, but only because we have not yet mobilized the great American people properly. When that happens, and it will, "jihad" will become a game in some distant sand boxes.

Finally "Anonymous" quotes from Some Backbone at Last? ANSWER = "NO!" from 15 March 2005 about the Dell settlement with Muslims in Tennessee, and then quips about Bush praying in the White House. Here is the context from that article containing the passage "Anonymous" excerpted (emphasis mine):

The very simple principle is, separation of religion from commerce of any kind.
That means that people are free in this country to adopt any religion, but it is
never more than an individual matter. It is incumbent upon the individual to
find ways to practice his religion that do not step on his contractual obligations, such as providing a day's work for a day's pay.

Islam, Christianity, Judaism, scientology, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.--you name it--stays outside when the worker enters the job work area. He can pick it up again after work. It is not incumbent upon the employer to be "sensitive" to any religion for any reason at any time. It is incumbent upon the employee not to inflict this stuff on others, particularly the employer. Clearly, the employer has the right to set up prayer rooms and provide religious accommodations, but not the obligation.

President Bush praying in the White House in no way compares to Muslim prayer rug rituals five times a day that interfere with the work that they are being paid to do. The job of Mr. Bush being president does not suffer when he prays because he is still on the job. He is on the job 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, unlike the Dell employees. If his job performance was physically impaired by praying, I would object.

For what it is worth, the problem with Mr. Bush's religion is not that he takes the time to pray. It is that his beliefs have kept him from seeing the truth about Islam. His religion affects his ability COGNITIVELY to deal with Islam. Had Kerry not been a total Islam appeaser and all around loser, I could have voted for him. However, we had the choice between "bad" and "worse," and I prefer "bad" to "worse." At least Bush will fight the overt jihad, even if he can't see the covert jihad.

Well, this has been fun. To "Anonymous," please write again.

GUEST BLOG from D.C.Watson: BUSTED! THE NOT-SO "GRAND ILLUSION"

[We are pleased to publish another good article by D. C. Watson. Yesterday, we published a different outstanding one on our website.]

Busted! The Not-So “Grand Illusion”

by

D.C. Watson

(originally published http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/DCWatson50323.htm)

· “Hate crime, hate crime, hate crime.”

· “Call the FBI again, call on them to investigate this hate crime.”

· “Alert the media again, tell them of the “Islamophobes” threatening Muslims with this hate speech again.”

· “Quickly, call the State Department again and schedule another meeting about Islamophobia. If they ask why again, tell them it is about hate crimes against Islam, again.”

· “File another lawsuit, this is a hate crime. This is incitement to violence against Islam and an attack against Muslims.”

· “Put this on the website in the “Incitement Watch” section, it is another Islamophobic hate speech.”



Yes, the all too familiar words and actions of a few Muslim advocacy groups operating in the United States .

Make no mistake; the information to follow certainly falls under the category of hate speech, beyond a shadow of a doubt. However, the hate isn’t coming from Americans or Westerners, it’s coming from the minds and straight off of the fingertips of Muslims. Or at the very least, Muslim apologists. While Islamic organizations continue with their crying and whining for the protection of Muslims from so-called “Islamophobia” here in the “Great Satan”, there are those who have figured out a way to sign on at a computer terminal, have allowed their emotions to get the best of them, and in turn have let their true feelings for non-Muslims to be exposed.

With the permission of the Faith Freedom International website, e-mails sent to FFI, submitted by those who reveal that they are anything but peaceful, tolerant, and non-violent, have been reviewed and brought to you in this column.

This information will help to serve notice to Americans, including American Government officials (who are seemingly blind to this situation), everyone living in free societies around the world, and to the decent people in the Muslim community, that there are those claiming to practice the Islamic faith, supposedly religious people who, with their own comments have earned their place in the spotlight.



Disclaimer: The following data contains profanity, threats of physical violence, atrocious grammar, and a blatant refusal to use “spell check.” Reader discretion is advised. (Note: for the purpose of preserving authenticity, spelling in the commentary below has not been altered. Comments in their entirety can be viewed here: http://www.faithfreedom.org/comments/MComments.htm

*****After reading, please feel free to forward this information to Muslim groups in America . Ask them if they will publicly condemn these e-mails.*****

· “ALLAH (SWA) will give you what you deserve in the afterlife and I will watch and smile, while you burn in hell”....

· “Hey peice of shit....(have the balls, post this letter on your website) My advise to good-for-nothing vagabonds like you around, "plan the way this swine has planned, go and get hold of a major religion which you don't practise, built a website (cowardly) and start abusing right left with notions illogical and out of context. Further, "tell that you are a chicken fearing for your life and there are Muslims out there to get you and that's the reason you are hiding like a rat." Don't chicken,

Post this on your website you mother fucker”...

· “Ali, or shall i say u mad bastard?”

· “1st of all Ali is a muslim name so y use this name. If i met u somewhere out on the street i would love to cut your throat, u dirty bastard. I pray that u rot in hell and u will rot in hell. dont ever call my prophet a peodophile. u scum. when u read this mail of mine i hope have a heart attack and u go cabbage. u dirty son of a bitch”.

· “you son of a bitch! u will be burnt in hell forever. u committed blasphemy. curse on your birth. If I see u I will cut u in million pieces, u bastard, bullshit. May God destroy u soon at my hands”.

· “i know you are bloody jew because only jews are scared from the growth of islam”.

· “well.... instead of writting sumthing against islam & MUHAMMAD (PBUH) u should better see wats in your fucking religeons BASTERD... hinduism is based on cast system (which is totaly inhuman) chritianity is entirely based on the stupid idea that some normal human being was the son of the GOD ...and so is every other religeon!!!... just think about what will happen to u when u will die SON OF A BITCH!”

· “The pictures you put on your website are some of them of Ashura, and i read your comments about it. You wrote bad comments about it. You better delete them, if i findout who you are, i'll fuck you, peace of shiet! You better not say anything about my Imam Ali , and never say a bad thing about day of Ashura. Tear you apart!”

· “Dear Ali Sina,

“Your materials over the faithfreedom.org, is very very offensive”.

· “You have proofed that your a true kafir who will end up in hell.........deep in hell. Your mind have been poised by satan...I taking my chances to track you down......the moment i see you .....you are a one dead meat, thats for true. Go to hell”

Last but not least:

· “Helo, Did u see the video of the american that was beheaded in Iraq ?? Thats what gonna happen to you when i and my friends are gonna catch u. We are currently working on finding information about you, one of my friends is a computer genius. I have gathered muslims all over the world to dispatch any of them to your location. Once u have been beheaded we will use your head to play soccer and your body will be cut into pieces and fed to the dogs. Shut down this website, then we shall not kill you.I give you 1 month to think about it. Make your decision wisely”.

Unfortunate, yet educational. By all means, keep these e-mails coming. They serve as evidence, and lend support to many points.

Apparently, these individuals, instead of working on improving the image of Islam, not to mention their spelling and grammar, have disgraced their faith, and clearly wish to inflict harm on those who have spoken out against Islam. Many of them live among us. American brothers and sisters, have your collective eyes been opened yet?

New Material on 6th Column Against Jihad Website

Many new articles (6th Column Against Jihad). Please visit.

We Have Met the Enemy, and He Is Us (Pogo)

Jihad Watch: Iraq's Jaafari aims for Sharia rule, March 20, 2005

This is the lead item from Jihad Watch this morning, posted by Robert Spencer. It speaks the truth with luminous clarity. Sadly, it tells us that we (the American government) are our own worst enemy.

"Another I told you so update. It is very much within the realm of possibility that the U.S. has toppled Saddam Hussein and stayed in Iraq for all this time only to see the creation of another Sharia state there. This would not and could not have happened if the Administration and the State Department had properly identified the source of Islamic terrorism in the Qur'an and the Islamic doctrine of jihad, and in the impulse to impose Sharia that comes from and works through those sources. But because they persist in illusions about Islam, and persist in listening to the wrong people, they may well end up creating a problem greater than the one they solved.

"One would think that the example of Saudi Arabia and Iran would be enough to show them that above all they don't want another Sharia state. But of course, Jaafari assures us that Iraq won't be like that; it will presumably be Sharia with a human face. It will be interesting to see where he will draw the lines that will have to be drawn to create and maintain this humane form of Sharia, and how long they will last in the face of inevitable pressure from hardliners."

From AFP, with thanks to Nicolei:

IRAQ'S frontrunning Shiite candidate for prime minister, Ibrahim Jaafari, said in an interview he aimed to introduce sharia Islamic law and federalism and confirmed Saddam Hussein would be judged by the end of the year.

"It's understandable in a country where the majority of people are Muslim," Mr Jaafari said of the Sharia law, in an interview conducted in Baghdad due to appear in Tuesday's edition of German magazine Der Spiegel.

"Iraq should become a Muslim country but without falling under the influence of Iran or Saudi Arabia," he said.

"Everyone will have the same rights, even members of the many minor religious communities," he said, explaining there would be multiple forms of jurisprudence.

This probably refers to the Sharia provision that dhimmi communities govern their own internal affairs, and are not subject to Sharia courts. But the idea that "everyone will have the same rights" is going to collide with numerous Sharia precepts. How he succeed in creating and maintaining this smiley-face version of Sharia?

He also said women would be under no legal obligation to wear a veil. "They will make their own decisions," the Shiite candidate said.

Same problem again: his statement conflicts with Sharia. Maybe it's because, as noted below, he doesn't want "a strict application of sharia law," but, as I said above, it remains to be seen how he will draw this line and preserve it.

According to results of a poll released yesterday, most Iraqis are deeply attached to their Islamic identity but do not want a strict application of sharia law, as in neighbouring Saudi Arabia or Iran.

About 48 per cent of those interviewed agreed that "religion has a special role to play in the government", while 46 per cent supported a separation of state and mosque.

Humans have such a hard time coming to terms with the metaphysical fact that contradictions do not exist in reality, but can only exist in the minds of humans. People are always trying to live contradictions, rationalize them, and keep some irrational hope alive that this time they can get away with contradictions because reality won't notice perhaps. Sharia and individual rights, freeing Iraq so that it can retyrannize itself, religion is always good--they just won't work, no matter how much they are wished for or tried. Reality always wins. Always.

Some Backbone, at Last? ANSWER = NO!

Muslims reach settlement with Dell on prayer at work - Friday, 03/18/05

I was wrong. I thought I had seen corporate guts and integrity, coming from my Deep South. In fact, I thought that the legal contest had been concluded with the jury finding for Dell. Then comes this:

31 employees will be reinstated, managers to get training

Muslim contract employees at the Dell Inc. plant in Nashville reached a settlement with the company on issues related to a dispute over prayer in the workplace, a national Islamic civil rights advocacy group announced yesterday in Washington.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations said the 31 Muslim employees, who left work last month in a disagreement over Islamic prayers, will be reinstated, receive back pay, and be granted religious accommodation. Managers also will also receive additional training on existing religious accommodation policies and practices.

This is worse than nauseating. Had it been a simple political correctness cave-in, it would have nauseating. This goes far, far beyond and is ominous for our country.

The very simple principle is, separation of religion from commerce of any kind. That means that people are free in this country to adopt any religion, but it is never more than an individual matter. It is incumbent upon the individual to find ways to practice his religion that do not step on his contractual obligations, such as providing a day's work for a day's pay.

Islam, Christianity, Judaism, scientology, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.--you name it--stays outside when the worker enters the job work area. He can pick it up again after work. It is not incumbent upon the employer to be "sensitive" to any religion for any reason at any time. It is incumbent upon the employee not to inflict this stuff on others, particularly the employer. Clearly, the employer has the right to set up prayer rooms and provide religious accommodations, but not the obligation.

Sensitivity training, prayer rooms, rehiring with back pay--barf! These are particularly obnoxious when they apply to the death cult philosophy called Islam. Because it masquerades as a "religion," it gets kid glove treatment even though it is totally irrational and totally anti-American, and has as its aim the destruction of America, Americans, the Constitution, and our beloved land, way of life, and loved ones.

But, there is something worse in this Dell settlement, much worse. Note that CAIR is involved.

Ladies and gentlemen, what you are watching is the development of an Islamic mafia in America. Muslim pressure groups are meeting with success, thanks to unlimited funding from Saudi Arabia. Americans are caving before these groups who are out to quash all criticism of Islam and to eliminate all obstacles. The goal is first to establish Muslims as superior to all others by virtue of law. Equality under the law is the last thing these pressure groups want. They want dominance under the law.

They push around corporations, courts, television networks and production studios, politicians, journalists, and all others that have power and legal force behind them. Recently, as we shall write about soon, a prominent official with ISNA (Islamic Society of North America), another Saudi funded pressure group, told journalists who have been looking into ISNA's ties to terror and writing about it, that they will be hurt if they do not stop. [AIM Column - Federal Money Goes to Controversial Muslim Group - March 15, 2005, by Sherrie Gossett, March 15, 2005.]

Let that sink in.

Investigative journalists will be hurt if they keep writing.

We are watching the evolution of an Islamic mafia. This is American jihad. Every success emboldens these new mafioso. They wield legal threats and force now because we have so much weakness that we let them exploit.

They will reach resistance points where they cannot harness the engine of the law and its government enforces to overwhelm the resistance. Like the mafia, they will "make offers that others cannot refuse."

Until and unless people take the effort to learn the truth about Islam, they will continue to be part of the problem and not the solution. They are handing America over to a fully evil philosophy and body of practitioners without a whimper. As long as Americans willfully stay ignorant about Islam, they are as much a danger to America as the worst of the jihadists.

Think about it.

Too Good to Pass Up

Yesterday's Best of the Web had this snippet, which I have copied in toto and inserted the actual link to the photo--copyrighted by UFla 2001 (which also qualifies as a bit of an "in joke," if you are a Gator).


From: OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today - March 16, 2005

"Below the Beltway

Yesterday we noted that nostalgic feminists had met at the Florida State Capitol in an attempt to revive the moribund Equal Rights Amendment. Blogger Warren Meyer has a photo of the Florida Capitol, which is, as he notes, a tall tower flanked by two hemispherical domes." In case you're having trouble visualizing it, a picture is here (http://aquat1.ifas.ufl.edu/talcal.jpg). Where is Sigmund Freud when you
need him?"

The Crazy Aunt in the Attic: Jihad Against Starbucks

Jihad Against Starbucks: by Carol Gould, FrontPageMagazine.com March 11, 2005

Carol Gould is an American who has been living in London for several decades and writing cultural commentary. A number of her commentaries have been published in Front Page Magazine, as has this latest. While the whole article is fun reading, here are snippets:

Recently an advisory was sent to one of the writers for “Current Viewpoint” from the Friends of al-Aqsa, a group based in Great Britain whose purpose is to promote the Palestinian cause. The advisory announces with considerable fanfare that the charity Oxfam has terminated its relations with Starbucks.

Explaining that the Islamic Human Rights Commission and Innovative Minds (a group supported by Friends of al Aqsa), the Palestinian Return Centre, the Muslim Association of Britain and the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign have been in meetings with Oxfam, it emerges that the campaign’s target is “pro-Zionist multinational chain Starbucks.” That is news to us. So, all those Frappuccinos we have been guzzling here at Current Viewpoint are in some way supporting rampaging settlers and angry rabbis?

The document from Friends of al Aqsa says the organisations listed above had expressed their concerns to Oxfam regarding its one-year contract with Starbucks. According to the narrative, Starbucks had agreed to contribute ‘100,000’ (a currency is not specified) to Oxfam’s rural development programme in the East Harare coffee growing region of Ethiopia. We are instructed at this stage of the document to read background material.

Then it all begins to take shape: the al Aqsa paper states that Starbucks chair Howard Schultz is a pro-Zionist activist who helps ‘student projects in North America and Israel give presentations on the Israeli perspective of the Intifada.’ We are told that Starbucks has been a sponsor of bowl4israel and supports occupation troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Thanks are then proffered to the pressure groups and supporters who had petitioned Oxfam to cease its relationship with Starbucks, stressing that the petitioners ('those struggling for justice') had been instrumental in ensuring that Oxfam adhered to humanitarian values.

These kinds of behaviors in England and America make it impossible to take Muslim organizations seriously except to think that each is up to no good, no matter what it says to the contrary. Yes, indeed, all Muslims get tarred with the same brush because of really scurulous Muslims' behaviors and the fact that Muslims will not separate themselves into those who do not support jihadist activities. That leaves us always wondering about all of them since lying, deception, intimidation, and other behaviors sanctioned by Islam make Islamists seem like Middle Eastern derived mafioso.

So, we have to suppose all are up to no good, just to protect ourselves pro-actively. However, that does not keep us from heaping scorn and derision on the absurd behavior of some Muslims. In that way only, we can not take them seriously.

There is nothing evil in Starbucks, even if its founder is Jewish (that is a big deal to Islam, not me). If Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks, strongly supports Israel, he is showing his rational side, and looking at what he has accomplished, he has plenty of rationality aboard. He puts out a damned fine product, and he taken loads of cash we have willingly pressed into his cash registers. My only wish for Howard Schultz is for him to get rid of that liberalism of his, but he never shoves that on me or into my Starbucks coffees, so I can live with it. Unlike Islamists, he seems like a truly kind and very generous man, e.g., tsunami relief in MUSLIM Indonesia, conveniently overlooked and disregarded by these Muslim johnny-one-notes.

If Muslims are productive human beings, in the really positive and rational sense of the term, they are so in the West, certainly not in Islamia. Islam is a hopelessly out of date, tired, boring, absurd, Puritanical religion and evil philosophy which just stifles its adherents. It even stigmatizes the Muslims who want to improve it by making Islam "moderate." Improvers are called "hypocrites" and are subject to murder by the code of shari'a. So the "moderates," who, by and large, seem to want to live and let live get the equivalent of lepers' bells or yellow Star of David badges which Islam and Nazis put on Jews.

Starbucks is immensely wealthy for a very good reason. That reason is that many, but not all, people LOVE its product. Why do they love it? Because it is a true pleasure to consume. It is a titillation in life and is appreciated as such. Why should coffee-loving Muslims cut themselves off from Starbucks? Because they are Middle Eastern Carrie Nation's who fit that wag definition of Puritans as those who live in constant dread that someone, somewhere is having a good time. That makes Islam's product, by contrast to Starbucks, crazy aunts in the attic.

Carol Gould sums up the situation in her final paragraph:

Campaigns like those promulgated by the British al-Aqsa group are retrogressive and counter-productive. When a Muslim company can produce as dynamic a coffee empire as Starbucks, or as clever a fresh food franchise as Marvellous Markets, and then give money and aid to all manner of men and women, I will applaud them. Yes, the agenda of this advisory is ‘Sharon is killing our children whilst Starbucks cultivates Zionist youth in America,’ but the spirit of the world at this moment in time is the earthquake of freedom movements emerging in the Middle East and we urge the al Aqsa Friends to enter that spirit, not boycott those incomparable Frappuccinos which we at Current Viewpoint fully intend continuing to buy with great passion in perpetuity.

Rights versus Responsibilities

Globally these days, rights are commonly fused with responsibilities in discussion, as though one cannot have one without the other. The Left and the Right in America believe in this fusion as dearly as they believe in the concept of involuntary servitude embodied in obligatory national service. Rightly so, rights-as-fused-with-responsibilities is as collectivistic as obligatory national service.

We have discussed the proper concept of rights and some counterfeit "rights" on 6th Column Against Jihad. Readers will find information there and references to other sources for greater detail.

Here, it is necessary to mention only certain key aspects of the concept of rights in order to set the context for blowing the notion of fused rights and responsibilities out of the water.

First, rights are moral principles derived from the facts of human nature, namely that each human must provide for the upkeep and furtherance of his own individual life. That is his basic responsibility. Rights are actions needed for providing that upkeep and furtherance. They are born into each human, and they are, to quote Thomas Jefferson, "unalienable," meaning that they CAN NOT be taken away, given away, or granted. They may be violated, and the proper role of a government is protect each citizen's rights. Thus, all humans individually are born with the four fundamental rights to life, property, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. All other authentic "rights" are derivative from these fundamental rights.

That brings up the second real responsibility. Rights can be violated by the initiation of physical force directly or by the initiation of indirect equivalents of physical force such as fraud. Thus, each person has the responsibility not to violate the rights of any other human, or face civil and criminal action for doing so.

That's it. That is the end of the responsibilities: Responsibility for one's own upkeep and not initiating force against others.

The push globally to fuse rights and responsibilities reflects intent other than these two basic responsibilities because too many humans in America and globally view man from a collectivist perspective. Man, to them, must be harnessed to duties, they believe. These duties are the "responsibilities."

For example, the right to liberty means to these people that liberty contains a dark side. They portray liberty as freedom, sliding it into "license," meaning narcissistic impulsive action. They try to sell this notion as inherent in "liberty," which it is not. The responsibility of not violating the rights of others fully takes care of any rights violating behaviors by those given to it. But, some people have a vested interest in smuggling erroneous elements into concepts such as rights to take advantage of the poor understanding people have in general about rights. It is a softening up process to bilk people into accepting violation of authentic rights as "normal."

What the fusion crowd really objects to is that rights are selfish. They belong to each individual only and may be used by that individual only, solely to serve his own life. No self-respecing collectivist can tolerate that. Why? Well, because selfishness is bad, they say.

Why is it bad? Among other reasons offered, selfishness has no bonding of one human to another in the manner of being one's brothers' keeper. No, rights require each "brother" to be his own keeper and live by voluntary trade with others in freedom. Selfishness is not inherently bad. Narcissism is inherently bad. If it makes the issue clearer, modify selfishness to read "rational self-interest."

To many people, whether coming from religion or a secular orientation, all people must be duty-bound to others. However, duty and rights are polar opposites and are completely incompatible.

Take another example. The full, proper concept of rights permits any human to do with himself whatever he chooses providing he does not violate the rights of others. For example, if he chooses to take street drugs, that is his choice, as long as he is the sole victim. It is not an intelligent or moral choice, but it is his. He must be responsible for his own actions. In a society properly based on rights, most laws and regulations would either go away or never be instituted because the focus would be on the individual being responsible for himself.

Well, look at the uproar about warring on drugs. No one may be permitted, people of the Right and the Left say, to use drugs, to buy or to sell. Society would collapse, they state with completely evidence-free "certainty." So, the principle of living by permission becomes codified in law, and people's property, in the form of their money, is wrenched by force from them to finance drug war failure after failure after failure. What do these people do when they see their laws and wars against drugs are worse than worthless? Of course, they redouble their efforts and spend even more money to get more of the same.

I do not advocate use of street drugs. I see no reason for using these drugs other than some being useful for cancer pain control and the like. I also recognize that there are questions not covered in this discussion such as the care of children and the helpless, but the answers to those concerns does not invalidate the concept of rights--indeed, the answers further validate the proper concept of rights.

Just remember. Rights are sanctions of actions not entitlements to things. If someone has to provide you your "right," then it is no right. It is no one's "responsibility" to provide you the money, goods, property you want because you feel entitled to these, and the government has some law "giving you the right."

Once you understand this down to your toes, you are on the freedom trail.

Some Backbone, at Last?

30 Muslim workers fired for praying on job at Dell - Thursday, 03/10/05: by ROB JOHNSON, Staff Writer.

On the Tennessean website was the following poll: Reader poll Should companies have to make accommodations for their employees' religious beliefs? Two out of three respondents said "NO!" That is in middle Tennessee, where protestant Christianity is strong. How encouraging that was to read.

The kerfuffle was just another attempt by Muslims to wag the dog by the tail. Here was the issue:

Somalis left workstations at sunset.

Faced with that difficult decision, Abdi H. Nuur removed his employee badge and walked away last month from his forklift driver's job at Dell Computer's Nashville plant. He and 29 other Somali Muslims say they were forced to choose between their faith and their employment.

''Employees are allowed time off with pay to pray. We have traffic-free areas for them to use for prayer.''

Sometimes those religious needs conflict with the business, though.

''When granting time off during a shift on a manufacturing line would be disruptive,'' Drury said, ''we have worked out reasonable accommodations, such as a tag-out procedure when employees can leave the line to pray and return, allowing the next employee time to leave the line to pray.''

Even Dell was bending over to grab the ankles too much while other companies in the Nashville area have been utterly spinelessly obeisant to local Muslim demands for all sorts of concessions revolving about Islam. Obsequiousness toward Muslims' demands regarding Islam has reached utterly disgusting prominence everywhere in America, to say nothing of Europe.

An incident on Fox and Friends this morning was typical of American thought disorder regarding Muslims and Islam. The hostess, while interviewing Paul Sperry, author of a very important new book, Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives have Penetrated Washington, was quick to require that the author reinforce that "Islam is a religion of peace." You know the drill: No criticism of any religion, from the Right. Although not fully morally certain of himself, the author did in fact indicate that Islam is a religion of peace FOR MUSLIMS. Obviously, the hostess has abysmal ignorance about Islam and needed to hear something good said about a big religion.

If one is still ignorant about Islam this far past 11 September 2001, then one is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

These Muslims are pushing us around because (1) they can and Islam requires such behaviors, and (2) they regard us as weak. They have found all of the chinks in Americans' armor, and they exploit every weakness. They know that dominant Christians loathe criticizing religion per se and any specific religion. Christians always feel superior to any but their sect, but they turn the other cheek every time.

The author, Paul Sperry, gave examples of how Muslims even in the FBI literally "pussy-whip" that organization, using Islam as a club. And, the FBI lets them get away with it. The FBI is not alone.

Dell in the Nashville area stood up to these practitioners of the evil cult of Islam, and it won--while the spineless ran for the hills. Americans and America can win, but winning requires an attitude adjustment.

The tenets of Christianity itself sow the seeds of its own destruction with all of its paralyzing moral homilies. Unless Christians wake up, they will hand America to Muslims and perish as Christians and Americans.

There is a remark attributed to the late John Wayne: If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.

Religion (any) as Catch-22. Salman Rushie's Wisdom

Politics In bad faith, Salman Rushdie, Monday March 14, 2005, Guardian


[Summary: Today Tony Blair will try to force a law against incitement to religious hatred through parliament. Beware, says Salman Rushdie - the rising power of religion could end up destroying the western alliance.]


"I never thought of myself as a writer about religion until a religion came after me. Religion was a part of my subject, of course; for a novelist from the Indian subcontinent, how could it not have been? But in my opinion I also had many other, larger, tastier fish to fry. Nevertheless, when the attack came, I had to confront what was confronting me, and to decide what I wanted to stand up for in the face of what so vociferously, repressively and violently stood against me. Now, 16 years later, religion is coming after us all, and even though most of us probably feel, as I once did, that we have other, more important concerns, we are all going to have to confront the challenge. If we fail, this particular fish may end up frying us.

"For those of us who grew up in India in the aftermath of the partition riots in 1947, the shadow of that slaughter has remained as a dreadful warning of what men will do in the name of God. And there have been too many recurrences of such violence, in Meerut, in Assam, most recently in Gujarat. European history, too, is littered with proofs of the dangers of politicised religion: the French wars of religion, the bitter Irish troubles, the "Catholic nationalism" of the fascistic Spanish dictator Franco, and the rival armies in the English civil war going into battle, both singing the same hymns.

"People have always turned to religion for the answers to the two great questions of life: where did we come from? And, how shall we live? But on the question of origins, all religions are simply wrong. No, the universe wasn't created in six days by a superforce that rested on the seventh. Nor was it churned into being by a sky-god with a giant churn. And on the social question, the simple truth is that wherever religions get into society's driving seat, tyranny results. The Inquisition results. Or the Taliban.

"And yet religions continue to insist that they provide special access to ethical truths, and consequently deserve special treatment and protection. And they continue to emerge from the world of private life, where they belong, like so many other things that are acceptable when done in private between consenting adults but unacceptable in the town square, and to bid for power. The emergence of radical Islam needs no re-description here; but the resurgence of faith is a larger subject than that.

"In today's US, it's possible for almost anyone - women, gays, African-Americans, Jews - to run for, and be elected to, high office. But a professed atheist wouldn't stand a popcorn's chance in hell. Hence the increasingly sanctimonious quality of so much American political discourse: the president, according to Bob Woodward, sees himself as a "messenger" doing "the Lord's will", and "moral values" has become a code phrase for old-fashioned, anti-gay, anti-abortion bigotry. The defeated Democrats also seem to be scurrying towards this kind of low ground, perhaps despairing of ever winning an election any other way.

"According to Jacques Delors, ex-president of the European Commission, "The clash between those who believe and those who don't believe will be a dominant aspect of relations between the US and Europe in the coming years." In Europe, the bombing of a railway station in Madrid and the murder of the Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh are being seen as warnings that the secular principles that underlie any humanist democracy need to be defended and reinforced. Even before these atrocities occurred, the French decision to ban religious attire such as Islamic headscarves from state schools had the support of the entire political spectrum. Islamist demands for segregated classes and prayer breaks were also rejected. Few Europeans today call themselves religious (just 21%, according to a recent study); the majority of Americans do (59%, according to the Pew Forum). The Enlightenment, in Europe, represented an escape from the power of religion to place limiting points on thought; in America, it represented an escape into the religious freedom of the New World - a move towards faith rather than away from it. Many Europeans now view the American combination of religion and nationalism as frightening.

"The exception to European secularism can be found in Britain, or at least in the government of the devoutly Christian and increasingly authoritarian Tony Blair, which is presently trying to steamroller parliament into passing a law against "incitement to religious hatred", in a cynical vote-getting attempt to placate British Muslim spokesmen, in whose eyes just about any critique of Islam is offensive.

"Journalists, lawyers and a long list of public figures have warned that this law will dramatically hinder free speech and fail to meet its objective - that religious disturbances will increase rather than diminish. Blair's government seems to view the whole subject of civil liberties with disdain - what do freedoms matter, hard-won and long-cherished though they may be, when set against the requirements of a government facing re-election?

"And yet the Blairite policy of appeasement must be defeated. Perhaps the House of Lords will do what the Commons failed to do, and send this bad law to the scrapheap. And - though this is more unlikely - maybe America's Democrats will come to understand that in today's 50-50 America they may actually have more to gain by standing up against the Christian coalition and its fellow travellers and cohorts, and refusing to let the Mel Gibson view of the world shape American social and political policy. If these things do not happen, if America and Britain allow religious faith to control and dominate public discourse, then the western alliance will be placed under ever-increasing strain, and those other religionists, the ones against whom we're supposed to be fighting, will have great cause to celebrate.

"Victor Hugo wrote: "There is in every village a torch: the schoolmaster - and an extinguisher: the parson." We need more teachers and less priests in our lives; because, as James Joyce once said, "There is no heresy or no philosophy which is so abhorrent to the church as a human being." But perhaps the great American lawyer Clarence Darrow put the secularist argument best of all. "I don't believe in God," he said, "because I don't believe in Mother Goose."

Fair Warning: the "disease" of the Left may be no worse than the "cure" of the right.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights = WRONG, not right, Part 2

On 7 March 2005, we presented Part 1 of this two part article. This is the concluding part.

The importance of untangling this confusing mess of the concept of "rights" cannot be overstressed. Most people think nowadays that rights are some sort of entitlements, some things dispensed by the government, rather like largess. People who should know better fan the flames of this confusion because it creates pressure groups within populations demanding to the get their "fair share."

The truth is, if something called a "right" is a thing, a concrete, something created by someone such as money or products, then the thing called a "right" is not a right at all. Rights cannot be given by anyone to you, and they cannot be taken away by anyone. Even you cannot give away your own rights. Why? They are "unalienable," as the Declaration of Independence says.

Rights may be violated, abrogated, or be unprotected by one's government. Your neighbors may take your property, even your life or freedom, but you never lose your rights. And, if governments take your money and property to give to others without your consent, your rights have been violated by your government. And what the recipients of your productivity have is not satisfaction of their rights, but mooching of that looted from you.

If none of this is important to you or anyone else, you most surely will have your rights stiffled, one way or another.

DO NOT SUPPORT THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

(Part II of Two)

VIOLATING RIGHTS

Suppose, however, that one or more individuals decide that their lives will be advanced by taking the belongings of a neighbor or neighbors. We know that is wrong, but why is it wrong, in terms of rights?

Someone once said, “Your rights stop at my skin.” I.e., you are properly able to take any actions which do not violate the rights held by others. Rights apply evenly to all persons.

Remember, rights are freedoms of action in a social context, and as long as those actions do not violate the rights of others, this means ANY AND ALL ACTIONS, even those which others may not approve of at all, or those others may think unwise. However, if these others’ rights are not being violated, their approval is irrelevant. Someone’s actions, within the scope of rights, might result from poor choices, but, in a free society, those who engage in poor judgment are the only ones to suffer as long as they do not violate the rights of others. Many people have grave difficulty understanding this. Thus, many people advocate all sorts of governmental restrictions and laws against all sorts of actions they consider repugnant or immoral but which do not harm them directly. Once you finally grasp the concept of rights, you no longer have this hang-up.

It is only around other people that violation of rights even becomes an issue. A castaway on an uninhabited island faces no questions about his or her rights, even though he or she has them. There’s no one there to interfere with the castaway’s rights. However, let even one other person join the castaway, and the question comes up over and over. Alone, the castaway experiences no violation of his right to life if, for example, he fails to find sufficient food or shelter. His failure is not a result of some other person’s blocking his attempts to find food or shelter. The new arrival, however, introduces the possibility of force being initiated against the castaway. For example, if the new arrival steals the castaway’s food and shelter or tries to break his arms and legs whenever the castaway tries to hunt, fish, plant, or harvest, then the castaway’s rights to life, liberty, and property have been violated, along with his right to pursue his own happiness.

What if the new arrival just intimidates, or even makes verbal threats, to the castaway, but takes no physical action? If he does not follow through by initiating physical force, he is unpleasant, but he does not violate the rights of the castaway. Do you remember this expression from your early years? “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Thus it is with rights. Only the initiation of physical force can violate rights, and understanding this is crucial to understanding rights.

As obnoxious as the new arrival’s “psy-ops” may be, they cannot physically impede the castaway’s right to life. However, when the new arrival acts to stop the castaway from supporting himself, then the castaway’s rights have been violated.

It is important to differentiate the two types of physical force. To violate rights, someone must start—i.e., initiate—physical force against someone else in order to block that person’s freedoms of action. Until that physical force starts, no rights are violated.

The other type of physical force is retaliatory; if someone injures you or steals from you, you have the right to respond in order to restore your rights, as an application of justice. You obviously have the right to defense as well, to minimize or prevent violation of your rights.

Criminals may also use the intellectual equivalent of physical force: deceit and fraud. Both physical force and deceit-fraud prevent you from acting on your own behalf. If the castaway and the new arrival agreed to search for water, for example, and the new arrival found it but lied to the castaway, that would violate the latter’s rights. Enron is a larger and very well known example of deceit-fraud.

There is a pertinent statement in our Declaration of Independence, “…for these reasons [the protection of individual rights], governments are instituted among men…” Citizens delegate the use of physical force to a governing institution in exchange for freedom from that duty, so they can pursue their lives without that distraction.

Rogues and criminals exist in all societies, and they pose threats to the rights of citizens. However, their threat cannot compare either in quality or quantity to that posed by the actions of a rogue government. For example, just because there is a law does not mean that it is morally valid. When that government passes laws and regulations authorizing it to violate individual rights, it changes the moral use of force which has been delegated to it by its citizens into a legal one that is immoral, and then uses it. It may thus imprison, confiscate, tax, force into labor, kill, maim, starve, and enslave citizens in violation of their rights. A government like that of Saddam Hussein violates rights in egregiously obvious ways. Societies somewhere between being fully free (capitalism) and fully unfree (totalitarian) violate rights through a progressive mix of controls and legal distortions until the government ultimately acquires enough power to act openly against its citizens and without regard for the rights of those citizens.

Conservatives, more than others, are quick to tag “rights” with corresponding “responsibilities.” THE ONLY RESPONSIBILITY—ONLY—ENTAILED BY “RIGHTS” IS FOR EACH PERSON TO RESPECT THE RIGHTS OF OTHERS AND NOT VIOLATE THEM. There are NO social, religious, group, state, or collective “responsibilities.” How do I know? I know because I know the source and meaning of “rights,” i.e., that they derive from reality and pertain to the nature of human beings, not groups or states, or others.

THE RIGHTS TEST

There is a simple test which differentiates counterfeit “rights” from authentic, fundamental rights. The test is based on the fact that rights are freedoms of action in a social context. As Ayn Rand defines rights,

"Rights" are a moral concept—the concept that provides a logical transition from the principles guiding an individual's actions to the principles guiding his relationship with others—the concept that preserves and protects individual morality in a social context—the link between the moral code of a man and the legal code of a society, between ethics and politics. Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.

A "right" is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context.[7]

The “test question is: “Who provides these?” If the answer is “you,” meaning that you take the actions for you, then you are dealing with a right. If the answer is “someone else” or “others,” meaning that the money, property, or effort of other people are required to provide you with money or other property, then you are dealing with bogus rights. Your rights refer to your freedoms of action, not to the products of the actions of others.

THE U.N.’s COUNTERFEIT RIGHTS

Let’s apply the test question. We can use the bogus rights upheld by the United Nations in the UDHR as arch-typical examples. In briefest summary, the UDHR cites these “rights”:

· Social security

· Guaranteed employment and protection against unemployment

· Guaranteed social protections

· Periodic holidays with pay

· Guaranteed standard of living, food, clothing, housing, medical care, necessary social services, and security against unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age, and any circumstances beyond one’s control

· Free education

About each item and each sub-item in the foregoing list, let us ask the question, “Who provides?” Each time we get the same answer. Someone else, other than the recipient, must provide. It is always those who “have” who must provide to those who, be definition, “have not.”

No one whose thinking comes up with or approves such lists ever asks whether those who “have” if they want to subsidize those who “have not.” Ayn Rand said it perfectly:

Jobs, food, clothing, recreation (!), homes, medical care, education, etc., do not grow in nature. These are man-made values—goods and services produced by men. Who is to provide them?

If some men are entitled by right to the products of the work of others, it means that those others are deprived of rights and condemned to slave labor.

Any alleged "right" of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right.

No man can have a right to impose an unchosen obligation, an unrewarded duty or an involuntary servitude on another man. There can be no such thing as "the right to enslave."

A right does not include the material implementation of that right by other men; it includes only the freedom to earn that implementation by one's own effort.[8]

Implementation of these “U.N. rights” means taking the property and labor of some by force to give to others. To accomplish these ends, governments must initiate physical force against their citizens to get their property, labor, and even their lives to be able to “redistribute” to others. The fact that the providers might be willing to donate the fruits of his labor without the use of force in no way excuses the potential for the use of force.

Humanity always has groups of pseudo-moralists who use guilt to soften up the “haves” with moral pabulum so they will not resist the confiscations. This is never more than partially successful. Most people see the hypocrisy.

Inevitably, the power-lusting control-freaks turn bogus rights into legal (but not moral) entitlements that completely invert morality. The act of earning something through terms that are mutually and voluntarily agreed upon is an authentic right. Earning becomes a tangible value in the form of money; money certifies that something of value has been accomplished. The government, which takes this earned money to give it to someone else who did not earn it but who is given claim to it by the use of force on the part of the government, literally loots and steals, then “redistributes” this “stolen property” as a bogus “right,” justified by fiat.

Non-free nations engage in looting behavior as a matter of policy. Stealing is as much a way of life as breathing. Corruption dominates life. In such societies, citizens are free to do only what they are permitted to do because the state and its wards have legal but not morally valid claims to the lives, labors, and property of the citizens. People in Islamia have no recognition of their rights whatsoever; everyone lives by permission, following commands from the dispensers of force.

When relatively free countries engage in the manufacture of counterfeit rights, they become less and less free. Entitlements grow. Bogus rights replace authentic rights. Down the slippery slope such countries go; where they stop, WE KNOW. If they do not stop, the logical conclusion is to become an unfree society in which all individuals’ rights have been abrogated.

The morphing of the legitimate “Rights of Man” into the illegitimate “economic rights” (or any other set of bogus rights) establishes a fatal principle: The life and property of its citizens belong to the state, not to the individual. Totalitarian states fully implement this principle.

“NEEDS” VERSUS “RIGHTS”

Another source of confusion surfaces here. It always takes the form of asking, “What do those in need do in a free society? Who takes care of them, and how?”

Helping those in need is very important to most people. This benevolence contributes mightily to civilizing life among free peoples (it is scarce among non-free peoples). Americans, as the freest people on earth, are by far the most caring, helpful, and generous, both among themselves and toward others.

Is it a measure of generosity, though, if money and property are forcibly seized from those who have something to “redistribute”? Many people are ill at ease with such seizures, because they are fundamentally unfair. Yet, there are people who are still in need.

How do we resolve this problem? The answer, happily, is “easily.”

Let’s develop an answer that resolves the “need problem” by clarifying the question of “needs” versus “rights.” This clarification shows how well the “needs problem” gets addressed and resolved in a society while fully protecting the fundamental rights of every one of its citizens.

One ground rule is that a “need” is not an authorization to abrogate the rights of someone else. People must be left free to seek solutions. People must be left free to give whatever they choose to help those who are in need. And, if they choose not to give, then they must be left free not to give, since that is their right as well.

People who have a vested interest in spreading bogus rights want to distort the concept of rights into becoming a give-away system which they use to acquire power and influence. They play upon confused persons’ emotions about “helping people.” They fog the issue to exploit the benevolence and common decency of the confused in order to harness them to the exploiters’ purposes. They would have you believe that few people have compassion for those who are not as well off, and so must be compelled to help out. But, in fact, compassion is one of our best human sentiments. Compassion exists in all societies, but only in free societies is the means for them to blossom as well as strongly developed desires to help.

A free, moral society is a society where rights are universally recognized, and has a government which exists to protect those rights.

The freer the society, the more of your property (including your money) you keep. You and others build up savings (“surplus funds”) quickly when government is restricted in what it can take from you.

This surplus money routinely plays into the benevolence toward others that an estimated 85% of us have: the more people keep of what they earn, the more they can give to charities. Conversely, the less “surplus” money people can keep, the less they are able to donate. Ask any charity how well their coffers are filled during the “highs” and “lows” of economic cycles.

[Perhaps it is unnecessary to state this, but just in case it is not, remember always that government produces NOTHING, including money. What government has, it must extract from its citizens.]

The surplus money in a free society always goes to work; it buys better standards of living, and, through investing in the creation of businesses, results in widespread employment. Thus, those at the low socio-economic end of life find many more opportunities to earn their sustenance and to meet their needs.

A very small core of those who have met with unmanageable misfortune for whatever reason, and truly cannot help themselves at all, will always remain. In a truly free society, though, the numbers of the helpless become fewer than in any other kind of society, and they are easier for the rest of us to help since they are small in number. A free society is an OPPORTUNITY SOCIETY, and includes almost endless opportunities to help others.

This is not idle, pie-in-the-sky, wish-fulfillment theorizing. History bears this out. A free society always has the fewest dependents because it is the best able to provide opportunity for people to support themselves at many levels, and more people have sufficient “surplus” available to help.

BE BLOODY CAREFUL WHAT YOU ENDORSE

The UNUDHR wobbles unfocused between the Rights of Man, derivative rights, and counterfeit rights. Furthermore, it never defines “rights.” This is a failure which allows it to corrupt freedom. Given how little people understand “rights,” the UNUDHR package deal gets sold and bought, with well-meaning advocates and supporters being none the wiser. Those trying to build an edifice of freedom, based to any extent on the UDHR, build on a fatally flawed foundation. You cannot replace some of your money with counterfeit money and expect enduring good results. Nor can you smuggle in bogus rights and expect to get away with it over the long range. Reality always wins in the end.

The bogus rights of the UDHR are so-called “economic rights.” They are the core of all forms of socialism: “democratic” socialism, fascism, and communism. Bogus rights inexorably pave the way to totalitarianism unless the bogus rights are thrown out and replaced with authentic rights.

Those who are rebelling from the utter totalitarianism that is Islam must not sabotage their truly noble goals and efforts. Islam is a horrible religion and a vicious philosophy. It abrogates the rights of all Muslims. It destroys the minds and lives of everyone it touches. Escaping from Islam and rejecting it are among the highest moral actions possible to any human being. Those who escape and oppose Islam are exceptionally courageous and admirable people. Those who fully reject Islam in favor of reality, reason, and rights will serve as role models to inspire others in their struggle for freedom, and their ultimate success.

The opposite, the antithesis, of Islam (and any incipient or fully developed totalitarian ideology) are the famed rights of man: Life, Liberty, Property, and the Pursuit of Happiness. The derivatives of these basic rights are also actions; they are decidedly not what the UNUDHR offers--social security, housing, health, groceries, income, education, and so on. These are not actions; they are products that must be provided by others. Other people must be forced to produce and provide the concretes the UN regards as “rights,” which means enslaving some to serve others.

What I am saying to ISIS and all others escaping Islam, I say also to the United States of America, which must pursue the same corrective policies.

But to those escaping Islam: Yes, run from Islam. And, run from the UN’s UDHR as well. Replace this document with a philosophically valid concept of “rights” that benefits all persons on earth. This will set you and all people on earth free.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] http://www.secularislam.org/,

[2] http://www.un.org

[3] Peikoff, L.: Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand; Meridian Books, NY, ISBN: 0-452-01101-9, 1991, page 353

[4] Rand, A: The Virtue of Selfishness; Signet Books, NY; ISBN:0-451-12931-8, 1964; page 93

[5] Ibid, page 94

[6] Peikoff, op. cit., page 350

[7] Rand, op. cit., page 92-93

[8] Ibid, page 96