Last week, Matt Duss took to the pages of NRO to accuse Robert Spencer and David Horowitz of “Islamophobia” and ask that they essentially be ejected from polite society. Both Robert and David have responded ably, but the entire exchange triggered in my mind a thought experiment, one that I think shows the demonstrable absurdity of the Islamophobia slur:
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania — This morning marked a grim milestone in the fight against Christian terror in North America. Work crews cleaned up the remains of a suicide bomber and his victims after his self-detonation marked the 10,000th terrorist attack in ten years within the continental United States. The Camden, New Jersey–based Army of the Messiah immediately claimed responsibility. The bomber screamed the now-familiar “Praise Jesus!” just before he pressed the button, detonating his explosive vest while in a McDonald’s breakfast line.
At present, the United States government lists five states as “Crusader-dominated” in whole or in part. The Army of the Messiah rules New Jersey, the Knights Templar dominate Rhode Island, and the so-called “Crusader Regions” of mountainous Montana, Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado are utterly beyond federal control. In those regions, anti-blasphemy laws are enforced at rifle point, and Crusader militias have established training camps to support the California insurgency. These privately financed militias, often supported through Texas oil money and supplemented by Baptist telethons, are believed to number in the tens of thousands and are supported by the FBI as a counterweight to Mexican Catholicism.
In the meantime, hopes of a “Christian Spring” in Michigan were crushed when revolutionary Christian mobs attacked Muslims in Dearborn, and National Guard troops called in to keep the peace responded by crushing Muslim protestors beneath the wheels of their Humvees. Crusader parties were doing well in early polling in Ohio, Tennessee, and Kentucky, and in Florida a lonely protest marked the closing of the last synagogue — a once-thriving Jewish population having been completely expelled.
Overseas, the majority of the Christian diaspora is peaceful, but the Knights Templar are making significant inroads in British and French churches, and the Gulf States are still reeling from the destruction of the Burj Khalifa, formerly the world’s tallest building. Almost ten years after the coordinated truck bombing that took 3,000 lives and launched a decade of sustained combat, reconstruction is still not complete.
Honestly, we can scarcely imagine such a horror. In the United States, if a Tea Party member so much as makes an angry or obscene sign, we see the Left establishment denounce an entire alleged culture of hate. Yet this same establishment will turn with a vengeance on anyone who calls out an actual culture of hate, who warns our society of the danger presented by the spreading jihadist ideology that motivates thousands upon thousands of terrorist attacks.
The work of a “few extremists,” you say? Look again at the picture I paint above. Would you say that a “few extremists” could throw our own society into such chaos? No, it would take a mass movement, and a mass movement is exactly what we face in jihadist Islam.
So your thought experiment is basically the prequel to The Handmaid's Tale?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Handmaid's Tale is a complete joke, written by a fool who thought its events were possible, "could really happen," based on her pathetic perception of Christianity and American conservatism.
David French's thought experiment shows the utter stupidity of such a scenario.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAgreed. Having to read that self-pleasuring nonsense in high school was cruel and unusual punishment. It's basically "The Turner Diaries" for a left-feminist.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGreat thought experiment!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePreaching to the choir.
People who cannot already see the difference between the modern Western (ostensibly Christian) world and the modern (can we call it that?) Islamic world, will never be able to see it. They will never see it, until it's too late.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"if a Tea Party member so much as makes an angry or obscene sign, we see the Left establishment denounce an entire alleged culture of hate." Good thing that "conservatives" don't get similarly worked up when one idiot at OWS spouts anti-Semitic stuff. Those folks on the "left" who called all tea partiers racist are stupid, but precisely as stupid are those folks on the "right" who have tried to get observers to believe that a hatred of Jews is what is at the bottom of rage against Wall Street. And what is a "culture of hate". Do you mean all Muslims? Sorry, the Muslims I know are a lot like most Americans - they want to get fed, keep warm, maybe get laid if they are lucky. There is no "left establishment", but if you are writing about people like me, here's the deal: direct your anger at the folks who do bad things. Don't include so many other people in your indictment. Reading your diatribe, one would think you believe that every Muslim wants to kill every non-Muslim. It may take a bit of effort on your part, but you need to type a few extra keys each time you write about Muslims. Those keys should, in one wording or another, spell out that your hatred and fear is directed at those who commit or support terrorism, not those who don't believe in God as you see him. Islam, like every other Abrahamic faith, offers me nothing, but gosh darn it, some folks are born into it, attend to it sporadically, and do not let it run their lives. Kind of like most Catholics. Hating Muslims because they are Muslims makes one an Islamophobe.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOnly a small minority of the OWS crowd is anti-Semitic. Only a small minority is outright Marxist. Only a small minority advocates or commits violence. Only a small minority is mentally ill. Only a small minority can't articulate a coherent sentence.
Add up all those small minorities, though, and we're getting pretty close to a majority.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRe: the Muslims you know -- that's my experience, too. Most American Muslims I know are sort of like nominal Episcopalians. Religion is more a cultural thing, than something to get excited enough to blow something up over. (They do, though, seem to rather dislike Jews, even the thoroughly secular ones.)
In the rest of the Muslim world, though -- the place your Muslim friends decided was a great place for their kind of easygoing liberal Muslim to get away from -- things are a bit different.
You're basically making the "Islamophobes'" case without knowing it. You seem to be saying that as long as people "are born into [Islam], attend to it sporadically, and do not let it run their lives," everything's fine. The implication is that those who take Islam more seriously, and *do* let it run their lives, may be more dangerous specifically *because* of the faith they take seriously. That is, the problem is Islam itself.
And that's exactly what the "phobes" are saying. It's not the easygoing, beer-drinking, laid-getting Persian-American UCI student they're worried about. It's the guy who takes the fiercer aspects of Islam seriously that has them concerned.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI imply nothing of the sort. I guess a rational fear of zealots can be the proper response when confronted by any overzealous practitioner of the faiths that came out of the levant. Whether it's OBL, Meir Kahane, or Tim McVeigh, their all nuts. Regarding Muslims, there's a continuum of people who would call themselves such. On one end are those regular guys, on the other are the folks who strap bombs to little girls. Those ones on the latter end (far past those devout, non-murderous Muslims, who number in the millions) are a tiny minority of the world's Muslims. It would be only proper when referring to them to point out that one is only referring to them, and not the rest. Thus, say "terrorist", or "monster", but don't say "Muslim" and leave it at that. This is where thugs like Horowitz err. You err, by the way, in assuming that "my Muslim friends" came from elsewhere. Most, if not all, of the Muslims I am acquainted with were born right here in the US. And perhaps I'm lucky, but those same folks have no problem with Jewish people, such as my wife and son. I guess you just got unlucky, or perhaps, influenced by reckless guys like Horowitz, you are just assuming your Muslim acquaintances are anti-Semitic.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe American Nazi Party officially endorsed OWS on October 13th, and encouraged OWS to "fight Judeo-Capitalist bankers". The Socialist Party USA announced official support for OWS on October 11th. CAIR (Council for American Islamic Relations, unindicted co-conspiritors in the succesful Holy Land Foundation terrorist financing prosecution) supports OWS. So do the racist separatist Black Panthers, and Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam. Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Hezbollah ("Party of Allah": organized and directed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard), the Communist Party of China, and North Korea have all publicly stated support for OWS. So have President Barrack Hussein Obama (D, Illinois), Vice President Joe Biden (D, Maryland), and Rep Nancy Pelosi (D, California). What common ground unites these groups, and individuals?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePlease write the rest of this novel!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseExcellent walk through. Sounds like the plot changes that occurred in the Jack Bauer 24 series after they came under fire for plots realistically depicting terrorism threats.
There is no acceptable explanation for so many civilized westerners to refuse to recognize the obvious.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseUnfortunately this kind of hypocrisy and blindness is all-too-common. It is still important to point it out in hopes that at least a few people will come to the truth and maybe someday society at large will realize the truth and laugh at how stupid we all were.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAbsolutely brilliant. When put in terms we can measure and relate to--it makes it very chilling.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse+1
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAuthor Robert Ferrigno who has posted here has done a pretty good job of this in his Assassin Trilogy
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOutstanding post David!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBut, but, they have good family values and will undoubtedly be a great catch for Republicans if we can pander enough.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseChristianity - Jesus
Islam - Mohammed
Pretty clear.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe thing is, I have just as much trouble imagining this nightmare scenario in the North America -- 10,000 suicide bombings and widespread uprisings -- if I replace every instance of Christian with Muslim. Maybe Islamophobes don't, but I have enough faith in the country that I don't see it wracked by a religious war of any kind in the foreseeable future.
Now, I assume in French's extended metaphor, North America is a stand-in for Iraq or Afghanistan or some such country that does have Islamic terror. But I could rattle off a long list of reasons those nations are unstable (despotism, poverty, corruption, invasions) before I got to the Koran. Likewise, I don't blame Rwanda's Christian majority for the inhuman violence that has at times infested that country.
In short, this clever sounding post is a big long fallacy. Or as Herman Cain would put it, those are oranges!
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