"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
I doubt that readers here will be surprised by anything in the video below, but I’d encourage you to spread it… and to do as the video suggests and expand your knowledge of The Cult of Hate that is Islam.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib9rofXQl6w
“Know your enemy” is a wise saying indeed… And Islam is, by its own definitive “holy books” YOUR enemy, unless you submit to it.
And further…
[audio:Islamnot4me.mp3]I’d like to see an electronic billboard playing this 24x7x365(.25) on a jumbo screen across the street from the site of the proposed Jihadist’s Cordoba House Victory Mosque in NYC:
Heck, I’d like to see it playing, along with an appropriate semi-permanent text message*, beside it on all sides of the proposed Jihadist’s Cordoba House Victory Mosque.
*For example, something like this:
Text could be varied by season. For example, during the Islamic new year, which celebrates Mohamed’s hijra (establishment of his warlord power in Medina), it could read,
“Happy Butcher of Medina Celebration, Pigdog Jihadists” or other epigram appropriate to the season that celebrates Mohamed’s massacre of 900 Banu Qurayzah Jewish men, the plundering of their goods, and the rape and enslavement of their women and children.
Update:
“A cult is any group uses psychological coercion to recruit, indoctrinate and retain its members. The group forms an elitist totalitarian society. The group founder leader is self-appointed, dogmatic, messianic, not accountable, has charismatic and narcissistic behavior issues. The group believes ‘the end justifies the means’ in order to solicit funds and recruit people. The group wealth does not benefit its members or society. Islam and their Allah is not a religion but no more than a cult political organization used to control their members to achieve worldwide conquest.”–John Tydlaska Jr. via Facebook.
I’m baffled by self-described libertarians who defend the idea of a “culture center” celebrating jihad’s most visible victory being installed a few hundred feet from round Zero in NYC. The “Cordoba House” (and doesn’t the very name say it all?) would be a celebration of everything libertarian thought supposedly despises: a hate cult that has for a millennium and a half expanded by means of violent imposition of its philosophy, offering only death, slavery, rape and pillage to those who refuse to submit to its hate cult.
But then, in my experience of the breed, most self-described libertarians are just wimpy crybabies anyway, concerned only when they see such tyranny attempt to impose itself on them. Watching a hate cult begin its campaign to impose itself on others is just fine and dandy by them. Every tyrannical cult in history has depended on people who say, “I am not my brother’s keeper.”
Geert Wilders’ short film re-introducing the West (Western Civilization used to know all this) to just the tip of the cult of hate iceberg:
Frankly, I have read the Muslim “holy books” (OK, in several translations, because I do not read Arabic) and done as much reading as I could stomach on the life of Mohamed, the Butcher of Medina, and I can find nothing of worth in Islam at all. Any morality in the life and teachings of Mohamed, the Butcher of Medina, is either lifted from elsewhere or twisted into a vile perversion and in any case is overwhelmed by the 70+% of Islam’s “holy books” that is simple, plain hate speech and incitement to abuse of “unbelievers”.
And Islam’s “contributions” to civilization? A big fat zero with the rim kicked off. Algebra? Nu-uh. Been known and used for millennia before Islam and the form reintroduced with so-called “Arabic numbers” was stolen from the same place the Muslims stole their maths: India–and BTW, Muslims castrated the maths they stole from the Hindu mathematicians, because negative numbers were “theologically” repugnant to them. Typical.
And so it has gone with all the great Islamic “contributions” to civilization. Omar Khayyam’s “Rubaiyat”–among the very the best of Islamic lit to come to the West–is a. full of things that would get poor Omar killed by genuinely devout Muslims and b. just so-so as literature. Western lit is FULL to overflowing of much better stuff. In fact, so full of “much better stuff” is Western lit that Averroes, the greatest of Islam’s “scientists” (though the term didn’t exist then, really) wrote his greatest work as nothing more than a commentary on… Aristotle.
Whoopee! Nothing original, just a glorified study guide.
And that is the BEST of what Islam has had to offer: mediocre literature that is not very Islamic at all, stolen philosophy and technology, and rehashing of the great thought of WESTERN thinkers.
Everything else? Pretty much either worthless or of highly NEGATIVE “value”.
And contrast so-called “Christian” acts of barbarity with Muslim barbarity. FACT: People who claim to be Christians and who commit mass murder, rape, pillage, slaving, etc., CLAIMING to do so in the cause of the Christ are liars, for all these things are diametrically opposed to the life and teachings of The Nazarene.
OTOH, FACT: Muslims who commit mass murder, rape, pillage, slaving, etc., claiming to do so in the service of Mohamed’s cult of hate are smack dab in the middle of Islam’s teachings, for these things are central (over 70% of Islam’s so-called “holy books” deal with exhorting Muslims to do such things or providing permission to do such things) to Islam. In fact, both “holy lies” (al taqiyah, deceiving the unbeliever) and mass murder are central to Mohamed’s–the Butcher of Medina–first “great” victory: the mass murder under a flag of truce of ~900 of the Banu Quraiza Jews at Yathrib (now known as Medina), followed by the pillaging of their goods and the rape and enslavement of their families.
If Mohamed were alive today and just starting out, he would be seen by those with eyes to see and ears to hear as several orders of magnitude more evil than Jim Jones and his words as more toxic than the Jonestown Koolaid.
So, there you have it: all the respect for Islam I can muster.
This is another re-post, this one from November of 2006, recalled for service as a result of the comment in a post earlier today, “Of course, the largest part of the problem is the way Islam has codified the savage tribalism and bent toward irrationality that is endemic in the region.”
Just a few off-the-cuff thoughts on the putative “clash of civilizations” between the West and Islamic societies.
First, let me define what may be an idiosyncratic view of civilization that may find echoes of sentiment in some folks, at least. I recognize that “civilization” (a rather recent word in the English language, as such things go) was coined to refer to a society of “city dwellers,” and that’s about it. But I would submit to you that any society that is truly civilized must recognize and embody certain fundamental principles. Leading those principles are:
1. Private property rights.
2. Rights of persons to life, liberty and the pursuit of their own goals, insofar as those goals do not infringe on the rights and property of others.
3. A government concerned with protecting these rights against outlaws–both within and without the society.
By any measure, especially the principles noted above, one can see that if Muslims can be said to be civilized at all, it is a most crude, rudimentary and severely flawed “civilization” they own, indeed. Property rights? Islam is clear that property rights are first and foremost for Islamic men, almost to exclusion. Oh, dhimmis can own things in Islamic countries… as long as some greedy Muslim man doesn’t decide they want it instead (following Mohammed’s treachery, rape, pillage, butchery and enslavement of the Jews at Medina, et al.). In Islamic society, regardless the false protestations of “moderate” Muslims, it’s essentially a pack mentality where top dogs rule.
Of course, given human nature, Western societies have a degree of that sort of thing, as well, but property rights (well, until Kelo) were at least protected with a fair degree of evenhandedness under the law for most of the history of Western civilization. In fact, the progress of true liberalism in Western civilization can be fairly traced largely in the restriction of the greed of the powerful to legally “steal” from the weak. Continue reading “Clash of Civilizations?”
Camille Paglia, of all people *heh*, has articulated my own view rather well, although I have a small difference of strategy with her:
Let’s get the hell out! While I vociferously opposed the incursion into Iraq, I was always strongly in favor of bombing the mountains of Afghanistan to smithereens in our search for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida training camps. But committing our land forces to a long, open-ended mission to reshape the political future of that country has been a fool’s errand from the start. Every invader has been frustrated and eventually defeated by that maze-like mountain terrain, from Alexander the Great to the Soviet Union. In a larger sense, outsiders will never be able to fix the fate of the roiling peoples of the Near East and Greater Middle East, who have been disputing territorial borderlines and slaughtering each other for 5,000 years. There is too much lingering ethnic and sectarian acrimony for a tranquil solution to be possible for generations to come. The presence of Western military forces merely inflames and prolongs the process and creates new militias of patriotic young radicals who hate us and want to take the war into our own cities. The technological West is too infatuated with easy fixes. But tribally based peoples think in terms of centuries and millennia. They know how to wait us out. Our presence in Afghanistan is not worth the price of any more American lives or treasure.
I still think it’s worth the time and treasure to bomb the hell out of the Afghan mountains that form a refuge for the Taliban and al Qaeda. And it might not be a bad thing to periodically swing back around that way and carpet the mountains with more Big Berthas until they’re mostly gravel. Just cos.
As for, “…outsiders will never be able to fix the fate of the roiling peoples of the Near East and Greater Middle East,” well, almost. Outsiders have done rather well for historically short periods of time (multiple decades) by partitioning the warring tribes and sects and punishing those who stray from their corners. Such a technique might well work in Iraq, if coupled by a “democracy” that is more republican than democratic, allowing the various tribes and sects to have representation in an overall federation via traditional tribal/sectarian leaders, not by openly democratic elections. In Iraq, it would have a fairly good chance of at least fostering a more or less stable government at least until the next strong man emerges.
But continuing to play “democratic nation builder” with the tar baby of millennia-old tribal and sectarian feuds is a plan for failure, IMO. The only large groups in that area even remotely interested in a more or less Western style representative democracy are Israel, the Kurds (~) and, to some degree, Turkey–because of the still powerful lingering effect of Kemal Attaturk’s example. The rest? Not even the relatively more civilized notional country of Iraq is anywhere near ready for a genuine Western style representative democratic republic, IMO.
(Of course, the largest part of the problem is the way Islam has codified the savage tribalism and bent toward irrationality that is endemic in the region.)
I see others hold similar views, apparently having learned the lesson of Santayana’s Axiom, where most have not. Had I been keeping current in my reading (alas, a monster of a cold has set me back), I would have seen Jerry Pournelle’s comments and his posting of the very relevant “FORD O’ KABUL RIVER” by Kipling, sho knew a thing or three about the peoples of Afghanistan… which things have not changed much since Kipling’s day.
Kabul town’s by Kabul river —
Blow the bugle, draw the sword —
There I lef’ my mate for ever,
Wet an’ drippin’ by the ford.
Ford, ford, ford o’ Kabul river,
Ford o’ Kabul river in the dark!
There’s the river up and brimmin’, an’ there’s ‘arf a squadron swimmin’
‘Cross the ford o’ Kabul river in the dark.Kabul town’s a blasted place —
Blow the bugle, draw the sword —
‘Strewth I sha’n’t forget ‘is face
Wet an’ drippin’ by the ford!
Ford, ford, ford o’ Kabul river,
Ford o’ Kabul river in the dark!
Keep the crossing-stakes beside you, an’ they will surely guide you
‘Cross the ford o’ Kabul river in the dark.Kabul town is sun and dust —
Blow the bugle, draw the sword —
I’d ha’ sooner drownded fust
‘Stead of ‘im beside the ford.
Ford, ford, ford o’ Kabul river,
Ford o’ Kabul river in the dark!
You can ‘ear the ‘orses threshin’, you can ‘ear the men a-splashin’,
‘Cross the ford o’ Kabul river in the dark.Kabul town was ours to take —
Blow the bugle, draw the sword —
I’d ha’ left it for ‘is sake —
‘Im that left me by the ford.
Ford, ford, ford o’ Kabul river,
Ford o’ Kabul river in the dark!
It’s none so bloomin’ dry there; ain’t you never comin’ nigh there,
‘Cross the ford o’ Kabul river in the dark?Kabul town’ll go to hell —
Blow the bugle, draw the sword —
‘Fore I see him ‘live an’ well —
‘Im the best beside the ford.
Ford, ford, ford o’ Kabul river,
Ford o’ Kabul river in the dark!
Gawd ‘elp ’em if they blunder, for their boots’ll pull ’em under,
By the ford o’ Kabul river in the dark.Turn your ‘orse from Kabul town —
Blow the bugle, draw the sword —
‘Im an’ ‘arf my troop is down,
Down an’ drownded by the ford.
Ford, ford, ford o’ Kabul river,
Ford o’ Kabul river in the dark!
There’s the river low an’ fallin’, but it ain’t no use o’ callin’
‘Cross the ford o’ Kabul river in the dark.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”–George Santayana
and
“In a democracy (’rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history are in the majority and dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance.”-third world county’s corollary to Santayana’s Axiom
And, as someone at Pournelle’s site commented,
“Some days reading the news is like living in a Flashman novel.”
*heh*
Making genuine distinctions between classes of events or objects or people, distinctions that are real and reflect an understanding of those distinctions is proper, right, just discrimination between differences.
I say this because it is easy to fall prey to those who simply sneer at careful discriminations between classes (of objects, events or people), especially when such folks climb on a “moral equicalence” horse and attempt to equate events, behaviors and people who are not equivalent.
Recently, in a Facebook discussion, I mentioned some clear behavioral distinctions between Christians and Muslims, and a respondant replied with, “Yeh, but there are some pretty horrific acts incited by God in the Old Testament.”
I threw the bullshit flag on that one, and here’s why. Compare the Old Testament (which is very influential but not dispositive in Christian theology; that’s why there’s a NEW Testament) with Islam’s primary text, the Koran. The Koran is at least 70% by actual content filled with exhortations to murder, slavery, theft, lies and more directed toward non-Muslims–and that doesn’t count the many exhortations to abuse women. The Hadith is even more bloody-minded, as it is more directed toward a recounting of the life of Mohamed. The Old Testament? About 5%–mostly in such books as Judges–of the content approves of violence against those who do not follow the Israelites’ religion.
But don’t stop there. The commenter’s postition was that since this 5% or so of the OLD Testament approved of violence against “unbelievers” then that meant Christians were the moral equivalent of Muslims (note: he never actually denied the facts of the brutality approved of–indeed encouraged by–the Koran… because no one can and not be proven a liar or idiot). But…
When Muslims commit mass murder or rape or theft or enslavement or any number of other brutal acts condemned by civilized people, they are directly, honestly and genuinely emulating the life of their so-called “perfect man”–Mohamed–and following his explicit teachings.
When someone claiming to be a Christian does those things and says it is excusable on Christian grounds then he is a liar, for,
…whoever says he abides in him [Christ] ought to walk in the same way in which he [Christ] walked.–I John 1:6
…and nowhere in the New Testament is there any record of the Nazarene condoning such behavior or engaging in such. Nowhere. (Go ahead: argue with me about Jesus driving the money-changers from the temple. I can handle that easily, especially in the face of Mohamed ordering 900+ Jewish men killed after they’d assembled under a truce; their women raped; their homes plundered and their surviving families taken into slavery.) Indeed, his teachings are the polar opposite of the violence and other abuse against unbelievers advocated by Mohamed.
So, whenever you see or hear false comparisons between the many horrific acts of Islam–consistent through history on up to today’s Islamic terrorism–and such things as the abuses of the Inquisition, remember: Islamic abuses have clear and unequivocal roots in the life and teachings of Mohamed, whereas all the horrific abuses perpetrated in the name of Christ by evil men, from the mass murder of Cathars to the Inquisition, WERE NOT in any way, shape, fashion or form in agreement with the life and teachings of Jesus of Galilee. It’s simple, really: evil can be freely committed by Muslims legitimately following the example and teachings of the founder of Islam, whereas such acts can never honestly be claimed to be in discipleship of the Christ.
That’s a discrimination that any honest, decent person must make.
…but apparently Scott Ott can. *heh*
iTunes Rival iSlam to Offer Muslim-Friendly Fare
…as a counter to the video, Fitna
According to Ott’s “satire” piece, iSlam will counter Fitna with Muslim-friendly fare.
“We have not edited out any of the blood, gore, explosions, beheadings, bodies dragged through streets, execution-style shootings, female genital mutilation, ritual cutting of children and other normal religious scenes,” said one unnamed Dutch Muslim leader. “But we have removed the horrifying cartoon images of the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him.”
*heh*
Droll, Scott.
Of course, given the norm of the Koran, the Hadith and the Sirah (the unholy trinity of Muslim “holy” writings), Scott’s piece, while technically satire (solely cos the Muslim-friendly iPod imitator, iSlam, doesn’t really exits… yet) is of course spot on in its painting of Islam’s normative (by the measure of the Koran, the Hadith, the Sirah and Mohammed’s own documented charater as a hate-filled mass murderer, pedophile, rapist, thief, liar and all-around scumbag) religious practices.
Trackposted to The Virtuous Republic, Nuke Gingrich, Faultline USA, Adam’s Blog, Right Truth, Shadowscope, The Pink Flamingo, Cao’s Blog, The Yankee Sailor, OTB Sports, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
Some people with poor reading and reasoning skills might assume from my previous comments on the subject of Islam that I do not respect Islam or Muslims. Silly. I very much respect Islam and Muslims, just as I would respect a pack of rabid dogs.
(Quick aside: anyone accusing me in comments of Islamophobia or racism will be banned as too stupid for words. Islam is not a “race” [update, for the idiot who missed the point: “Muslim” is not a race either] and a phobia is an irrational fear. Besides, “fear” isn’t the word to describe the feelings that result from a rational examination of Islam. Disgust, disdain, revulsion: those are good words to describe rational reactions to Islam.)
Here’s a YouTube video found at The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, that almost captures a completely rational response to Islam. “Almost” because the commenter makes the multi-culti mistake of assuming there are such things as “moderate Muslims” when such a term is a self-contradiction. (Read the damned Koran before you argue against that remark. And yes, I used the word “damned” in its non-profane, theological sense.)
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Trackposted to Allie is Wired, Right Truth, The World According to Carl, Shadowscope, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, A Newt One, Tilting At Windmill Farms, Conservative Cat, Right Voices, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.