RoR: Forum

Post 0

Sunday, December 16, 2007 - 5:17pm

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From the NY POST:

The book, a No. 1 bestseller in Canada, argues that Western nations are succumbing to an Islamist imperialist threat. The fact that charges based on it are proceeding apace proves his point.

Steyn, who won the 2006 Eric Breindel Journalism Award (co-sponsored by The Post and its parent, News Corp), writes for dozens of publications on several continents. After the Canadian general-interest magazine Maclean's reprinted a chapter from the book, five Muslim law-school students, acting through the auspices of the Canadian Islamic Congress, demanded that the magazine be punished for spreading “hatred and contempt" for Muslims.

Steyn's book is a tour de force, a witty, scholarly treatise on the West's demographic decline and the threat of unassimilating polygamist shariamaniacs to the survival of the free world. I thought I had reviewed the book, I shall do so ASAP.

Give or get the book as a present for Diwali/Chanukkah/Saturnalia/Christmas/Imbolc or mere whim!

Ted Keer

Post 1

Sunday, December 16, 2007 - 5:54pm

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That the issue should even get as far as that evokes words I try to avoid using in public.

Post 2

Monday, December 17, 2007 - 7:27am

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Blame Canada!

Effing Emeffers should do quite nicely, Jeff, as does this ditty:

Ted Keer

Post 3

Monday, December 17, 2007 - 10:35am

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Back when the internet was new and we were all still on BBSes, one of the cable networks rolled out a product that brought computer interfacing to your television. Mostly, it was news, etc., that you could tailor with a menu. Anyway, as I was interviewing marketing people and marketers, one of them said, "Go back to <this person> and ask him why Canada censors the Nashville Network." That seemed wierd, but I followed up and I was told that Canada wanted to grow its own "country and northern" culture. "Like Ian and Sylvia?" I asked. I was told that there are many more artists now, but yes, basically. This was about 1993 or so. I knew from working with Loompanics that Canada prevented their catalogs from entering that country, as did, of course, U.S. prisons. The frontispiece warned that even if you pay for it, you might not get the catalog "if you are a prisoner or a Canadian."

Lest we too easily "blame Canada" just keep our own house in order.

Did you know about this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2589317.stm
(They came first for the Muslims...)

Have you ever actually read the Patriot Act?
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:h.r.03162:

It is not so much these guys here and now (though there is that) but what do you suppose will happen when President Clinton and VP Obama come to power?

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 12/17, 10:42am)

Post 4

Monday, December 17, 2007 - 1:43pm

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I agree with foreign nationals from Islamic countries being registered - it did not apply to naturalized citizens. There is a significant threat there that is justified.

Post 5

Monday, December 17, 2007 - 5:55pm

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Love Thine Enemy? At a Distance!

Has anyone noticed that isl@m is an openly avowed criminal/martial conspiracy to overthrow all secular law and replace it with theocracy whether by persuasion, fraud or force, with force as its preferred method?

If communists could be excluded from the country, is there any reason not to at least register, if not exclude avowed shariamaniacs? The Constitution forbids religious tests, but it also implicitly allows an oath to support and defend the Constitution. There is no requirement to extend hospitality to our avowed enemies just because they couch their hostility to freedom in religious garb.

Ted Keer

Post 6

Monday, December 17, 2007 - 7:10pm

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Why should communists be excluded from our country?

No sooner did we have a country, than the Congress and President enacted the Alien Laws and the Sedition Laws which were targeting against "radical republicans" who held foreign ("French") ideas that were clearly inimical to our way of life (or so the Federalists claimed).

Kurt agrees with foreign nationals "from Islamic countries" being registered. Would that include countries like India that have sizable Muslim minorities? Would it include Morocco's sufis or the whirling dervishes? Or would it include atheists from Turkey? I mean, I suppose that everyone who is here legally is registered somehow to begin with. You know, except for France, with its "Foreign Legion" the USA has been a prominent exception in allowing non-citizens to serve in the armed forces. Being a nation of immigrants that was always a reality, but it was one way for an immigrant to prove that he was worthy of becoming a citizen.

In most countries, the path to naturalization, even if it exists, is arduous. I mention that because Kurt Eichert probably does not know the scene in the 1927 movie Wings about World War I. When the German Arnold Schwimpf wants to enlist, the Irish sergeant replies, "If you ask me, all you Dutchmen ought to be locked up until this thing's over!" Oh, how quickly we forget...

I agree that Islam is the enemy of peace. I agree that communism is evil. And I distrust Christians for all the same reasons as I fear muslims and marxists and postmodernists and existentialists and logical positivists and platonists and neo-platonists. The most horrible wars and the most brutal atrocities ever known were commited by two armed camps of Hegelians, the Idealist fascists and the Dialectic Materialist bolsheviks. That said, once we start locking people up for their ideas, America qua America ceases to exist.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 12/17, 7:12pm)

Post 7

Monday, December 17, 2007 - 7:36pm

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Did I misread the article Mike? Were they put in jail? Point that out to me.

Is not everyone who enters registered anyway? I have all kinds of registration - drivers licence, soc. sec. so they can tax me, real estate.

Post 8

Monday, December 17, 2007 - 7:41pm

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Welcome to the Tundra!

If one holds that the Congress can exercise its Constitutional prerogative to regulate the borders, why not, Mike? I have no problem admitting Mohammedans who swear to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, and of dropping off those who break that vow on Rat Island.

The Constitution of the United States

Article. I.

Section. 8.

The Congress shall have Power...

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations...

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization...

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies...

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions...

Ted Keer

Post 9

Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - 4:41am

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Ted

Article. VI.
[...] The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/constitution_transcript.html

Kurt, of course, we are not locking them up, we're just making them wear yellow stars because they stabbed us in the back. They are not really part of our culture, anyway, but an invasion from the East. Kurt, what about this do you not get? In the first place, were you even aware of it? What do you think censorship looks like?

Post 10

Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - 5:23am

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This could happen here, and has.

Protesters Demand Hate-Crime Prosecution
by Michele Norris and Robert Siegel
All Things Considered, November 16, 2007 · Marchers flooded the nation's capital Friday, protesting what they believe to be the Justice Department's unwillingness to prosecute hate crimes. Leading the rally were the Rev. Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16368968

Fact Sheet: Hate Crimes and Prosecution of Civil Rights Violations
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2007/November/07_crt_921.html

... and others who belong to groups that have traditionally been the target of bias, prejudice, and violence.
U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Assistance
http://www.securityoncampus.org/schools/187249.pdf

Summary Campus Crime and Security Statistics - Hate Crimes
Aggravated Assault, Arson , Bodily Injury, Burglary, Forcible Sex Offenses,
Motor Vehicle Theft, Murder/Non-negligent manslaughter, Negligent, Manslaughter, Nonforcible Sex Offenses, Robbery
http://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/safety/crime/hatecrimes/index.html

HATE CRIME IN HIGHER ED: The Untold Story
“Most schools’ hate crime statistics have nothing there -- even in instances where we know there have been incidents,” says Howard K. Clery III of Security on Campus Inc., a national watchdog group that monitors college crime.
[Joe Roy, director of the Intelligence Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)] agrees. “If they said they had two,” he estimates, “they probably had about 10.”
http://www.tolerance.org/news/article_hate.jsp?id=437

I think that Objectivists in particular, but libertarians of all stripes, miss an opportunity here because culturally we tend to believe in market alternatives and individual responsibility. In other words, if someone dislikes me for my religion (or lack of it), well, to heck with them, I'll just go my own way and let them go theirs.

Of course, the problemwith "hate crime" (so-called) is that your enemies come to you in non-negotiable ways. So there is that.

Moreover, though, I mean that as big business is "America's persecuted minority" why not bring hate crime complaints against liberal college professors who say that corporations are evil? I have had an entire college course in "White Collar Crime." I agree with Edwin Sutherland's original thesis, that sociologists overlooked crimes committed in the course of normal occupation. However, businesses have always been concerned with such problems and to call it "corporate crime" is only analogous to calling street crime "Negro crime" or the "the African-American crime problem" or "colored crime."

We could use these laws to our advantage, but we do not. Would doing so be immoral? Would it be like turning in a competitor to the IRS, or to some other regulatory agency? Or are hate crime laws appropriate? If they are, then they should be put to use. However, if such laws are ethically flawed (and therefore politically wrong), then we should be wary of what is happening here in the USA before we take time out of our day to "blame Canada."

Post 11

Wednesday, December 19, 2007 - 6:17pm

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Does Religious Freedom Excuse Advocating Political Violence?

Mike, admission to the US is not an office. Neither does the advocacy of violence (explicit and inherent in all mainstream versions of Mohammedanism) somehow gain immunity if it is done for religious reasons.

I have no problem admitting people of any religion who abjure armed insurrection. Christians presumably do so as they believe in rendering unto Caesar, turning the other cheek, and loving their enemies. I am quite sure my quoting the unmitigated calls for political violence in the assassins' handbook again is unnecessary.

Happy Hajj!

Ted Keer