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Monday, February 05, 2007
The Imperative Of The Age Part 3: Focusing Correctly
In Mark Steyn's recent blockbuster America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, he notes that the Muslim population fraction in the United States is considerably better behaved than those of Europe, for a simple reason:
On the night of September 11, Muslim youths in northern England rampaged through the streets cheering Islam's glorious victory over the Great Satan. They pounded on the hoods -- or, to use the quaintly bucolic locution of British English, the "bonnets" -- of the cars, hammered the doors, and demanded that the drivers join them in their chants of "Osama bin Laden is a great man."Try that in Texas, and the guy will reach into his glove box and blow your head off. Even in Vermont it's an ill-advised tactic. But in Britain you're not allowed to own a gun or even (to all intents and purposes) resist assault. So the unfortunate burghers of Bradford went home cowed and terrified, and the Muslim gangs went swaggering off with their self-esteem enormously enhanced. The bullying, intimidating side of Muslim immigration in Europe seems to be largely absent in America, in part at least because the assertiveness of the average American citizen makes it a riskier undertaking.
That got your Curmudgeon chugging along a new track: Where are "our" Muslims? Are they spread more or less uniformly across the American landscape, or are they concentrated in a small number of gun-averse, no-right-to-carry states?
Figures are hard to come by; most state governments don't track such things, and the federal government recently ceased to include such information in its annual Statistical Abstract. But Muslims appear to be more conspicuous, and more vocal, in some states than others: New York, New Jersey, California, and Michigan. Three of those four are notably gun-averse; in the fourth, Michigan, the Muslim population is concentrated in a handful of urban centers that have anti-gun laws comparable to New York's Sullivan Act.
Correlation is not causation, but it certainly does get one thinking.
While we're considering correlations, the largest question, which has been underlined by the unceasing denunciations of anyone who dares to ask it, is whether Islam itself must be opposed, or only Islamism, also known as "political Islam," "militant Islam," and "jihadism." Interestingly, most of the denouncers are on record as having insisted that terrorism has no connection to Islam of any variety. They dismiss all exploration of the correlation between the two; their reflexive reply is that it constitutes "racial profiling."
But the correlation is far too powerful to be ignored; if not for the McVeigh / Nichols bombing of the Murragh Building in 1995, it would be perfect. This is especially significant in view of the lack of any other social or economic correlation with terrorism. Like it or not, we must ask: does Islam impel its followers toward violence?
If it does, clearly the impulse is not 100% effective; there are many Muslims who live entirely peacefully, whether surrounded by their fellows or among us "unbelievers." But the correlation remains, intriguing and disturbing. If some among the ummah are already inclined toward violence, does Islam dampen the inclination, or abet it?
- The Qur'an contains numerous verses that vilify the "unbeliever," justify deceiving and defrauding him, and demand his conversion, subjugation, or death.
- All biographies of Muhammad show him as a living example of Islam's hostility toward the "unbeliever" and non-Islamic institutions, whether in war or peace.
- Islam exhorts Muslims to expunge all other authorities from the world and establish shari'a -- Islamic law -- as the sole law for all Mankind.
After fourteen centuries of exegesis, no significant body of Islamic doctrine has contradicted the dicta above. The history of Islam is extremely bloody. Muslim armies have ranged widely, slaughtering and despoiling without restraint; they've been checked only by the appearance of superior, non-Islamic forces. Islamic polities have never accorded "unbelievers" equal social, political, or juridical status with Muslims, and have used State power to whittle non-Muslim fractions down to nothing over time. Within overwhelmingly Islamic nations, Islamic sects at odds with one another have repeatedly resorted to war or terrorism to resolve their differences. In peaceably inclined states with Muslim minorities, those minorities are invariably identified with social unrest, political fractiousness, and violence.
Thus, what the Qur'an, the sunnah, the ahadith, and the teachings of militant imams all demand is what Muslims seem inclined to do, when they can get away with it. At present, they can't get away with it here, for the reasons Mark Steyn has cited. But Britain, France, the Low Countries, the Balkans, Scandinavia, and Australia -- all countries that essentially prohibit the private ownership of weapons -- are being intimidated into self-subjugation by the Muslims they've allowed to immigrate.
Opposing "Islamism" apart from Islam, as Harry R. Jackson Jr. calls us to do today, is too narrow an approach. The doctrines of the creed are themselves poisonous, and must be opposed just as forcefully as we ever opposed Nazism or Communism. The regularity with which Islam's most objectionable features are institutionalized in Muslim-majority countries should dispel any remaining doubts.
But this would put us into a state of war against more than a billion people, distributed over all the nations of the world, the objectors cry. How on Earth can we contemplate such a thing? Especially when the great majority of them are entirely innocent and want only to be left in peace, just as we do?
We contemplated it readily enough with Communism. More than that: we designed our national defense and foreign policy around it. Not because the typical Soviet or Chinese subject was eager to see the Communization of the whole world, but because of their dangerous fraction -- their governments and evangelical allies -- which used the larger, innocent mass for coerced support and as hostages. Then as now, we weren't at war with the Soviet or Chinese people, but with their dangerous fractions and the ideology that propelled them.
About here, the uningenuous and the deceitful will dredge up the Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades. Let it be admitted: there have been violent Christians; there have even been violent Jews. But there has never been a violent Christianity or Judaism, which exhorted the adherent to subjugate or kill anyone who would not accept it. All flavors of Islam demand exactly that, though they make allowances for the temporary inability to do so. It would appear that the best defense against Islam would be to make the inability permanent.
One cannot extirpate a creed by military means. To legislate against it is equally futile. But it would appear that one can curb its excesses by preparation and intimidation, at which task the American tradition of personal armament appears most effective.
Arm yourselves, and be watchful.
Comments
You might consider the book “The Tipping Point,” which identifies factors that contribute to social movements whose spread is sudden, like a contagious disease.
Which tipping point will be reached first: enough Muslims in America to be a significant day-to-day problem; or an understanding that our acceptance of Islamic immigration is crazily self-destructive?
At the least, people should begin to ask a single question: Is Islam primarily a religion? The answer (aside from your worthy blog, and gatesofvienna, and littlegreenfootballs, etc.) is jihadwatch.org. Pass it on, before another one of the permanently aggrieved ones comes to our shore.
Posted by on 02/05/2007 at 09:24 PMI fear you are correct. The next phase on the assault against the second Amendment is about to begin. One only has to be aware of the positions on the subject of the current crop of presidential hopefuls of both of the major parties.
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ!!Posted by ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ on 02/05/2007 at 11:24 PMThe day after 9/11 (Sept. 12, 2001 for you lawyers)I got on the subway in Atlanta. There were a group of young, well, hoodlums in my car. Obviously, they were used to intimidating people.
I don’t know how you were that day, but I was so pissed off that I would’ve strangled anyone who even hinted at disrespect of the U.S. Or me.
So this kid, about 16, sits real close and gives me a dirty look as if to intimidate me. I shot the kid a glare back. “Not today, kid,” I recall thinking. Remember, he was with friends. He and they moved away from me, down to the other end of the car, and sat down quietly.
Had anyone did what you report the British Muslims did, I would still be in jail or free because of jury nullification. I suspect I’m not alone.
Posted by IB Bill on 02/06/2007 at 06:28 PM
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