Another Example of Plastic, Phony and Ignorant Christianity

The state of Christianity in America today is lukewarm at best, and shrinking in influence over the culture and in practice.

While mega-churches sprawl the Suburban landscape and tens of thousands hold their hands in the air to the uplifting music – Christianity has effectively become nothing more than a once-a-week or twice-a-year emotional tampon of feel-good rhetoric that a vast majority of people use to soak up guilt for absolution and an emoting experience. Little life changing and correcting fruits are seen these days.

How can I say such a thing? The fruits are rotten. Sure there are stadiums filled with thousands of people singing, crying and praying to evangelists and showmen who fill their emotional gas tanks with cherry-picked scriptures to advance the Health/Wealth gospel, but if there were truly the level of converted and convicted peoples that fill the seats, our culture would not be going down the toilet and Christianity itself would not be shoved into the closet as people of faith find themselves under assault by a secular culture.

Gone is the power Christianity once had to set and demand community standards, ethics, goals and defense of principles and ideas that are the bedrock of their faith and our liberty as a people. We have lost wisdom and common sense. American Christianity no longer evangelizes, it locks itself up into separate clubs, divorces itself from the world and parades around with slogans among the faithful while the culture is going off of a cliff into ruin and debauchery. Somehow Christianity has all but forgotten the command in Matthew 28:19 – to go forth to all nations. Today, many Christians are content to warm a seat once a week, hear and forget The Word, and equate Christianity with “What can Jesus do for me?”

A new kind of religious secularism is emerging in the vacuum of principles Christianity has abandoned. A new faith of tolerance for all things, the equality of all things, the debasement of what we were and what we were built upon is now the new doctrines of Christian Socialism.

This kind of Christianity wears the mask of love and tolerance for everything, but is become nothing but a political tool of the Secular Left, where hatred of Conservative, Bible-based faith is growing, and especially the eschewing and targeting of Israel as the target of scorn and lathing. This is become a major doctrine being adopted and preached in the newfound ‘Christian Progressive’ movement. Sin and Satan are not evil, the Religious Right and Israel are.

Joseph Farah brings out this level of hypocrisy in his latest essay.

Phony, ignorant Christians

Paul warned us about times like this and the way people – including those claiming to be professing Christians – would act.
“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away,” he writes in 2 Timothy 3:1-5.

And a chapter later (2 Timothy 4:3-4) adds: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”

I strongly believe Paul had in mind the kind of people who run major Protestant denominations like the United Methodist Church.

Today, at an event in Fort Worth, Texas, leaders of the denomination, which boasts membership by President Bush and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, will consider divesting from all companies that do business with Israel.

To say that even considering such an action is hateful, unbiblical, anti-Christian and evil would be an understatement.

It’s not even understandable except in the context of the kind of morally blind apostasy described by Paul.

Nevertheless, because so many people in our world do not know better and could easily be fooled by such discussions, let me explain in simple terms where the Methodists, and the Presbyterian Church USA and the United Church of Christ before them, are going wrong.

By calling for divestment from one nation in the world, the Methodists are suggesting in the strongest terms possible that Israel is the worst of the world’s nations with regard to human rights.

As far as I know, the Methodists have no similar divestment plans for Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Zimbabwe, Cuba, China or any other of dozens of tyrannical hellholes I could name. Israel is their only target.

That in itself is unbelievable. It shows how perverse this action really is. You have to believe up is down, left is right, black is white and right is wrong to accept such a bizarre concept.

The problem with these people is not that they don’t understand the Middle East. It is simply that they are no longer able to tell right from wrong. They are no longer able to distinguish between good and evil. They are no longer able to see the difference between freedom and tyranny. They are no longer able to judge between criminal and victim.

They have, in short, completely lost their moral bearings.

This is no longer a church; it is an organization of misguided political activism. This is no longer a house of God; it is a mad house. This is no longer part of the bride of Christ; it is a whore to the world.

I know these are tough words, for which I am sure to be criticized by some of my Christian friends.

Let me say this. We have many problems in this country that need to be addressed first and foremost by the church. So often, I hear church leaders say that their commitment is exclusively to spreading the Gospel, not in making moral pronouncements, not in teaching right from wrong, not in applying the lessons of Scripture to the direction of our nation and world.

Too often the church allows itself to be intimidated by the world, subjugated by tax laws, seduced by government, cowed by the doctrine of feel-good liberalism.

That’s what has happened to the Methodists and the Presbyterian Church USA and some other major denominations.

I would urge anyone still associated with the Methodists to divest yourself and your family from this institution. Divest it of your tithes and offerings. Divest it from your last will and testament. Divest it from your time and volunteer work. Divest your children from its Sunday school classes.

For those pastors leading Methodist churches who understand where your denomination is heading, it’s time to pack up and divest yourself of links to the denomination.

The biblical principle at stake is the one about avoiding relationships in which we are unequally yoked. As Paul would say, avoid such people and institutions that have turned their backs on God, on the Bible, on what is right, on what is moral.

It’s separation time.

The McCain Record of Pandering To Illegals- Soros and the Darlings of the Left

John McCain could teach a thing or two about spin and distorting records to the Clintons. In an Election where the Democrats and Independents have entered the early state “open” primary states to determine for the Republican party who the GOP candidate will be to run against their coronation of Hillary, it is clear that Conservatives have been discarded and jettisoned from the GOP – by design it would seem.

As Ann Coulter pointed out in her essay this week, McCain’s record shows he plays fast and loose with the truth – especially about his position on the Illegal Invasion from the South.

Of course, I might lie constantly too, if I were seeking the Republican presidential nomination after enthusiastically promoting amnesty for illegal aliens, Social Security credit for illegal aliens, criminal trials for terrorists, stem-cell research on human embryos, crackpot global warming legislation and free speech-crushing campaign-finance laws.

I might lie too, if I had opposed the Bush tax cuts, a marriage amendment to the Constitution, waterboarding terrorists and drilling in Alaska.

And I might lie if I had called the ads of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth “dishonest and dishonorable.”

McCain angrily denounces the suggestion that his “comprehensive immigration reform” constituted “amnesty” — on the ludicrous grounds that it included a small fine. Even the guy who graduated fifth from the bottom of his class at the U.S. Naval Academy didn’t fall for this a few years ago.

In 2003, McCain told The Tucson Citizen that “amnesty has to be an important part” of any immigration reform. He also rolled out the old chestnut about America’s need for illegals, who do “jobs that American workers simply won’t do.”

McCain’s amnesty bill would have immediately granted millions of newly legalized immigrants Social Security benefits. He even supported allowing work performed as an illegal to count toward Social Security benefits as recently as a vote in 2006 — now adamantly denied by Mr. Straight Talk.

Of course McCain’s record goes further to the Left of any other candidate in the GOP – except for perhaps Mike Huckabee, who is essentially Bill Clinton with a bible in-hand.

Coulter is not the only staunch Conservative making notes of McCain’s corrosive effect on Conservatism, Talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin have also voiced serious concerns about the effect a McCain nomination will have for the Republican party and the Conservative movment. Of course the battle within the GOP itself is being goaded by the mainstream media that all but declared Conservative radio irrelevant, that has many GOP Elites and McCain supporters telling Conservatives to “shut up” for the sake of the party – but as Mark Levin has written – now is NOT the time to shut up. It’s a PRIMARY for crying out loud! NOW is the time to decide who is the best standard-bearer of the party -based on principles, not on who can best win the horse race.

For that reason, a record counts. It is a history of the beliefs that really make up a candidate’s core thinking. What is being drummed loudly is his military service and his time as a POW. Yes, we are all indebted to McCain for his sacrifice, and he is a hero to the nation. Is that enough to overlook a political career that has not served the Conservative movement and actually infringed on Constitutional Rights such as Freedom of Political Speech? Michell Malkin reports connections McCain has with the Illegal Mexican lobby, and the Global Socialist George Soros – who has infiltrated and just about every mainstream media and reporting operation in the country. These things are noteworthy to consider when the two main issues of importance to most Americans: The War on Jihadists and Illegals – is being given the boot by political elites.

Meet the open borders family: McCain, Hernandez, Soros, and the “Reform Institute”

Shamnesty peddler John McCain taps former Mexican government official/shamnesty advocate Juan Hernandez as his presidential campaign Hispanic Outreach Director.

Hernandez is a fellow at McCain’s “Reform Institute.” What has he been working on there for the past year?
“Dr. Juan Hernandez serves as a Senior Fellow of the Institute’s Comprehensive Immigration Reform Initiative.”

That is: Shamnesty.

Among the immigration projects at McCain’s Reform Institute: An art contest in which students depicted their protests against a southern border fence.
The winner on the American side of the border?

Here:

…Via Discover the Networks, you’ll see that Soros’s OSI is a key open borders funder–providing support to the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund; the Immigrant Legal Resource Center; the National Immigration Law Center; the National Immigration Forum; the National Council of La Raza; and the American Immigration Law Foundation.

Remind me again which party’s presidential nomination John McCain is running for?

More at LINK.

The Clash of Civilizations

I remember hearing back in the early 1990’s a discussion about Mr. Huntington’s essay in regards to the Gulf War in Kuwait and Iraq. I recall someone making the statement that even as far back as the early 1980’s, that some were warning about the rise of militant Islam, and that if left unchecked – could rise to hurt the West. Of course in the middle of the Cold War and movies like the Day After, our national experience with radical Islam from Khomeni a few years earlier was already lost in our memories as we watched Reagan tackle the Evil Empire of the Soviets. We of course lost 263 marines when Hezbollah blew up our barracks when we were serving the peacekeeping mission in Lebanon in 1983. That massacre quickly faded from our consciences as we retreated our military forces from the region.

Jihadist Islam grew under our noses, quietly. We largely ignored the Palestinian intifada and assumed all Arab/Muslim problems were Israel’s – and we went along with our notions of fairness, even supporting the Muslim’s in Kosovo in ridding them of their hated ethnic cleanser; Milosevich.

We didn’t hear from Jihadist Islam loudly until Al Qaeda hit our embassies in Africa. The seething rage and hatred being stoked by radicals preaching end-time fulfillments of Islam’s domination of the world went ignored by us, and even then – we did nothing about them, unless bombing an asprin factory in the Sudan counts as punishment.

That of course led the the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, killing 17 Sailors. But like Beirut before in the 1980’s – we did absolutely nothing. Not even the perfunctory finger wave and empty rhetoric that “justice” would be served.

The lack of attention and retribution was seen by all Jihadists and most of Islam as The Sign – the signal that our weakness was complete and that the time to strike the Great Satan and take him down like Gulliver was at hand.

The rest, is now recent history.

Huntington’s thesis from the early 1990’s is virtually prophetic now. When one considers how militant Islam is being forcefully herded into accepting calls among sects for unity – even when listening to Ahmadinejad of Iran discuss the role the entire Muslim Umma will play in establishing a global Caliphate – I have to ponder aloud if the scriptures about the Beast images of Daniel and Revelation pointing to an empire made of iron and clay – mixed, is not speaking of an Islamic confederacy – where perhaps former secular Turkey itself becomes the lynch-pin for unifying Islam against the West. A speculation at best, and it makes as much sense to me as any other possibilities that underpin Christian prophecy circles.

We do live in interesting times, and it is even more interesting to note those who saw where we are now, decades ago.

The Clash

It would have been unlike Samuel P. Huntington to say “I told you so” after 9/11. He is too austere and serious a man, with a legendary career as arguably the most influential and original political scientist of the last half century — always swimming against the current of prevailing opinion.

In the 1990s, first in an article in the magazine Foreign Affairs, then in a book published in 1996 under the title “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order,” he had come forth with a thesis that ran counter to the zeitgeist of the era and its euphoria about globalization and a “borderless” world. After the cold war, he wrote, there would be a “clash of civilizations.” Soil and blood and cultural loyalties would claim, and define, the world of states.

Huntington’s cartography was drawn with a sharp pencil. It was “The West and the Rest”: the West standing alone, and eight civilizations dividing the rest — Latin American, African, Islamic, Sinic, Hindu, Orthodox, Buddhist and Japanese. And in this post-cold-war world, Islamic civilization would re-emerge as a nemesis to the West. Huntington put the matter in stark terms: “The relations between Islam and Christianity, both Orthodox and Western, have often been stormy. Each has been the other’s Other. The 20th-century conflict between liberal democracy and Marxist-Leninism is only a fleeting and superficial historical phenomenon compared to the continuing and deeply conflictual relation between Islam and Christianity.”

Those 19 young Arabs who struck America on 9/11 were to give Huntington more of history’s compliance than he could ever have imagined. He had written of a “youth bulge” unsettling Muslim societies, and young Arabs and Muslims were now the shock-troops of a new radicalism. Their rise had overwhelmed the order in their homelands and had spilled into non-Muslim societies along the borders between Muslims and other peoples. Islam had grown assertive and belligerent; the ideologies of Westernization that had dominated the histories of Turkey, Iran and the Arab world, as well as South Asia, had faded; “indigenization” had become the order of the day in societies whose nationalisms once sought to emulate the ways of the West.

…It is not pretty at the frontiers between societies with dwindling populations — Western Europe being one example, Russia another — and those with young people making claims on the world. Huntington saw this gathering storm. Those young people of the densely populated North African states who have been risking all for a journey across the Strait of Gibraltar walk right out of his pages.

…Huntington had written that the Turks — rejecting Mecca, and rejected by Brussels — would head toward Tashkent, choosing a pan-Turkic world. My faith was invested in the official Westernizing creed of Kemalism that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk had bequeathed his country. “What, however, if Turkey redefined itself?” Huntington asked. “At some point, Turkey could be ready to give up its frustrating and humiliating role as a beggar pleading for membership in the West and to resume its much more impressive and elevated historical role as the principal Islamic interlocutor and antagonist of the West.”

Nearly 15 years on, Huntington’s thesis about a civilizational clash seems more compelling to me than the critique I provided at that time. In recent years, for example, the edifice of Kemalism has come under assault, and Turkey has now elected an Islamist to the presidency in open defiance of the military-bureaucratic elite. There has come that “redefinition” that Huntington prophesied. To be sure, the verdict may not be quite as straightforward as he foresaw. The Islamists have prevailed, but their desired destination, or so they tell us, is still Brussels: in that European shelter, the Islamists shrewdly hope they can find protection against the power of the military.

…More ominously perhaps, there ran through Huntington’s pages an anxiety about the will and the coherence of the West — openly stated at times, made by allusions throughout. The ramparts of the West are not carefully monitored and defended, Huntington feared. Islam will remain Islam, he worried, but it is “dubious” whether the West will remain true to itself and its mission. Clearly, commerce has not delivered us out of history’s passions, the World Wide Web has not cast aside blood and kin and faith. It is no fault of Samuel Huntington’s that we have not heeded his darker, and possibly truer, vision.

More at LINK

Economic Armageddon?

Despite all the warnings from some about the shady Dealers at the Casino tables of America’s stocks, mortgage, bonds and money markets – America was content to ignore the dangers and in pursuit of fast money, let the good times roll.

Except the roll now keeps coming up snake eyes and hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars have evaported into thin air. This week has nearly everyone talking about the economy and the global market collapse underway. Of course the obvious fallout for this coming disaster is going to be the blame game, and it has already begun. I had to laugh in amusement at the comments by Hillary Clinton in last night’s Democratic Debate when she said “If you’re a homeowner who has been at the bottom of this incredible scheme that was established, you’re left holding the bag and you don’t have the house..” when this was the same Democrat party that pushed for and encouraged the banks to make risky mortgage loans to ‘working poor’ and illegal Mexicans.

I guess there’s nothing so typical than for government to encourage a scheme, exacerbate a problem and when the misery begins to be felt, blame the ones they enabled and create ANOTHER government scheme to deal with the effects of the problem.

The trial lawyers are already flapping their wings in prep to take flight in order to feast on the roadkill of America’s economy in multi-billion dollar lawsuits.

I think the only thing we can bank on for sure, is that beyond the lawsuits from new preisthood, we can count on the inept government behemoth will step in at the behest of a screaming dependent populace and make a bad situation an unholy nightmare that takes everything down and leaves nothing but ashes. Like all tyrannical behemoths throwing a total fit, when things begin to unwind – the Elites in power would rather tear everything down leaving absolutely nothing for anyone if they cannot run the show their way.

I guess we may look back on this period of time and consider the final straw breaking the proverbial camel’s back

My freind John has some serious warnings to consider about this market, and these are wise considerations:

BOOM!

During the day someone-according to Frederick Lewis Allen it was thought to have been a bright messenter boy for the Exchange-had the happy idea of entering a bid for a block of stock at a dollar a share. In the absence of any other bid he got it.”

-The Great Crash 1929 by John Kenneth Galbraith

And so as I awaken this morning, do I have a buck to spare? Uh, no. But the quote from the book above indicates what exactly happens during a wide open market panic. There is a misnomer that the powers that be, aka the “Plungers”(PPT), can not stop the momentum of the events we are about to see. The futures are already turning as I type this with an almost 1% swing in the Dow, S&P, and NASDAQ futures yet they are all still down substantially. The “plungers” will spend the next 5 plus hours buying futures in a desperate attempt to stave off a panic or crash on their watch as the scream after the formation of the PPT as a result of the 1987 crash was “never again” or NIMBY. Alas, the problem is that they have no control over Asia to any great extent and the traditional banking powers in Europe in coordination with the PPT can only influence so much for so long. To give you some idea as to the volatility, in just my one hour of being awake this morning the FTSE 100 has swung from down 226 to up 30 plus to back down 40 plus as I type. Will we see the U.S. markets rally? Who knows. There are rumors abound about Federal Reserve rate cuts, banks in trouble, and efforts by the banksters to use the power of their hedge funds to stave off or protect certain sectors in an attempt to hold the line.

They shall inevitably fail.

We might be so lucky to see rallies during the day as in the 1929 and 1987 crashes, yet please, don’t be an idiot. This is not a market for amateurs or people who do not have money to lose. If you understand the concept of trading in a bear market and have day trading experience, have fun as this is your day. If you do not and have the antiquated belief that “buy and hold” is the play of the day, God help you. By the end of today you could easily see a sizable chunk of your portfolio shredded. The brokers are not your friends. Their phones will be mysteriously busy for hours today, the email you send unanswered for days and the protection of their butts first and foremost on their agenda. The smaller platforms which allow you to trade online will probably get smoked today and you might even see some orders executed well below the levels you anticipated or at losses to your account.

The only safety is to be a spectator as I will watch with popcorn and iced tea in hand. History has a funny way of just “happening” as the clock moves forward and the calender flips pages. Those of you too young to have enjoyed disco, polyester jump suits and the 1970’s have to understand that in equity, energy and of course the metals volatility was the mantra of the day. But with internet trading, individual speculation and government sponsored meddling the volatility we during the rest of this month could be a nightmare. There will be bankruptcies from what we witness today. There will be political repercussions. There will be loud, shrill calls for government takeovers to ease the pain. It means nothing. The word is on the street that the first layer of the banking system has issues and those issues will show themselves in due time. IF you would like to check the “rating” on your bank you can go to BankRate to check on the status of your bank and just see how it rates. Watch the local news, read the papers and listen to what is being said by the management. When the entire financial system reaches certain levels of instability, the small community banksters are the first to implode.

So what can we look forward to today? As the title of this op-ed says, “BOOM”, and nothing more. The word “panic” is being used over and over again on Bubblevision and Bloomberg. When the financial media speaks in these terms and tells people to avoid the markets at all cost you can bet your bottom dollar that there are a truckload of sell orders sitting on the desks of the brokerage houses. Mutual fund owners are going to unwind. Small investors who elected to follow the Cramers and Kudlows of the world are going to unload. Foreigners who have been losing everything in Asia and Europe the last two days are going to unload. So regardless of anything our buddy Benron or Hank Paulson who speaks at 8 a.m. this morning wish to say or do, it will have little effect as the markets do not trust our central bank. Faith has been lost and that is not to be restored with $100 billion in intervention nor a 75 point basis cut in the Fed Funds rate and discount rate. I think it is also safe to say at this point that the dollar will be sacrificed to keep the artificial price on equities in place. The Fed may not move today into this panic, but you can bet that the author of Helicopternomics will fire up the rotors and destroy the traditional economic models that a lot of traders wagered trillions on. Despite the efforts and news today, promises of stimuli, and breast beating of the politicians, none of this matters to a family where the husband and wife watched their jobs get exported overseas and the ability to meet the terms on their Option ARM loan which is resetting. Homes will continue to be lost. Banks will be forced to write down trillions. The implosion will be so total, so complete that when the average uninterested observer finally realizes what has happened we will be well into the next depression.
You will see denial. You will hear the President. You will witness pompous political asses marching in front of cameras all night long as the markets gyrate. Remember the safest soundest strategy and remember the warnings we have been giving about the J.I.T. inventory system, the Ponzi scheme known as our financial markets, and the games the government has been playing with our statistical reports which the world uses for raw data to trade. All of the lies and manipulation have to come home to roost and that egg is about to be laid. The famous headline is so appropriate for what we shall witness.

As today, no matter the efforts, the lies and the manipulations we shall see, the smart money is gone and only those who hope and prayed this day would not come(due to their own financial interests) and those who will get religion on the floor of the exchange shall be engaged today. I worry more about the little old lady conned by the major brokerages to invest in stocks and funds she had no business in. I worry more about the people who piled monies into 401K’s because their corporate financial benefit’s advisers are more concerned about inflating their company’s own stock rather than investing in safety for the future of the employees. And I really worry that the spin we will see all day long will give us all major cases of whiplash.

Have your neck braces ready folks.

The day, the first of many, we have warned of, begins today. Below 1200 on the S&P cash market is the darkness. If we break that today, I see little if any technical support until we reach the 1030-1070 range. That’s just a historical observation and if we hit my prediction from the December 28th program and do it in one day, you can dispose of a lot of other predictions I made.

Because it’s:

What I worry about, is in our weakness – which one of our enemies will try and capitalize on it and do us even greater harm?

The world is in a period of momentous change and upheaval – which always happens when civilizations change hands.

What Ron Paul and the Anti-War Left Fail to Understand About Jihad and Its Motives

In almost every exchange you get into with anti-war pacifists or Ron Paul supporters, the inevitable argument is that the reason Radical Islam exists and why Jihadists want to see America destroyed is because of America’s presence and involvement in the Mid-East.

This is demonstrably an ignorant and clueless understanding of the Jihadist mindset and radical Islamist estacheology that fuels the desire to wage jihad against infidels. The anti-war argumentation is typical of the sheltered Intellectuals sipping latte’s and projecting our own Western motivations in answering “why?” Islamists hate us and are willing to wage war on us. The truth is that the real motivation is so beyond the multicultural ideology that infects the West – and pacifist thinking, that it is dismissed outright as not even considerable. Their minds automatically revert to the presumption that jihad is simply a reaction to provocation. Unfortunately, that is a Western mindset built on a belief of tolerance that does not exist in the radical Muslim culture.

The push for pacifist politics in dealing with the Islamofascist beast that is rising in the world is the result of pure ignorance of this mindset – and a lack of conviction in the foundational bedrock of our own culture and civilization.

Tawfik Hamid is a doctor and former Jihadist militant that shares the development of the Jihadist mindset by the radicals and gives us proper insight into the REAL REASON WHY Muslims across the spectrum of Islam are motivated to go to war on America and the West.

It is NOT because of the yellow-belly washing Ron Paul and the Anti-war left have everyone believing is the motivation.

Read what a militant muslim himself reveals.

(Excerpts posted here – go to link for full essay)

The development of a jihadist’s mind—What occupies the mind of a jihad-driven Muslim?

“We viewed both the Soviets and the Americans as enemies. The Soviets were considered infidels because they did not believe in the existence of God, while the Americans did not follow Islam. Although we planned to fight the Soviets first, our ultimate objective is to destroy the United States – the greatest symbol of the infidel’s freedom”.

TAWFIK HAMID

What occupies the mind of a jihad-driven Muslim? How is such fervor planted in young and impressionable believers? Where does it originate? How did I – once an innocent child who grew up in a liberal, moderate and educated household – find myself a member of a radical Islamic group? These questions go to the root of Islamic violence and must be addressed if free societies are to combat radical Islam. To further this aim, I will explore the psychological development of a jihadi’s mind through my own firsthand experience as a former member of a Muslim terrorist organization.

I was born in Cairo to a secular Muslim family. My father was an orthopedic surgeon and an agnostic at heart; my mother was a French teacher and a liberal. Both considered Islam to be, primarily, an integral part of our culture. With the exception of my father, we would fast on Ramadan. Even though my father was not religious, he understood our need to fit into the community and never forced his secular views on us. He espoused diverse philosophical ideas but encouraged us to follow our own convictions. Most importantly, he taught my brother and me to think critically rather than to learn by rote. I never had any doubt, however, that we were Muslim – that Allah was our creator, Muhammad his messenger and the Koran our book…

I felt sorry for the Christians, sensing that they must be hurt by being treated as an inferior minority in an Islamic society. In my short life it was the first time I perceived that my Christian friends were not my equals…

When I was nine, I learned the following Koranic verse during one of our Arabic lessons: “But do not think of those that have been slain in God’s cause as dead. Nay, they are alive! With their sustainer have they their sustenance. They are very happy with the reward they received from Allah [for dying as a shahid] and they rejoice for the sake of those who have not joined them [i.e., have not yet died for Allah]” (Koran 3:169-70). It was the first time I was exposed to the concept of shahid (martyr), and naturally, I began to dream of becoming one.

…Dying as a shahid, in fact, was the only deed that fully guaranteed paradise after death. In secondary school I watched films about the early Islamic conquest. These films promoted the notion that “true” Muslims were devoted to aggressive jihad.

…I was reading a book entitled Alshaykhan by Taha Hussein that cited the Prophet Muhammad’s words: “I have been ordered by Allah to fight and kill all people [non-Muslims] until they say, ‘No God except Allah.'” Following the reading of this Hadith, I decisively turned toward Nagi and said to him, “If we are to apply Islam correctly, we should apply this Hadith to you.” At that moment I suddenly started to view Nagi as an enemy rather than as a longtime friend.

What further hardened my attitude on this matter was the advice I received from many dedicated Muslim fellow students, who warned me against befriending Christians. They based their counsel on the following verse: “O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends: They are but friends to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them [for friendship] is of them [an infidel]. Verily Allah guideth not a people unjust” (Koran 5:51). In view of this verse and the previous one, I felt obliged as a Muslim to limit my relationships with my Christian friends. The love and friendship I once felt for them had been transformed into disrespect, merely because I wished to obey the commandments of my religion. The seductive ideas of my religious studies had diluted the influence of my secular upbringing. By restricting my contact with Christians, I felt that I was doing a great deed to satisfy Allah.

…We enviously lamented, “Look how Allah has blessed the Saudis with money and oil because they apply Shari’a.” We believed that our economic problems would be solved if we did the same – just as Allah had blessed the Saudis, He would bless us.

…They warned us about the punishments awaiting us after death if we did not follow Islam strictly and were effective in advancing Islamism among many of the students, including me….This militaristic attitude during prayers was the first step in preparing me for the concept of jihad against “the enemies of Allah,” the non-Muslims.

…Salafi teachings expressly forbid acting on sexual desire. They prohibit a man from touching any woman or even looking at one. Speaking to a woman on a personal level is not permitted. To be alone with a woman without relatives present, it is believed, would “invite Satan to be the third person.” Women became for members of Jamaah, therefore, forbidden creatures. But while relations with women were strictly proscribed, the erotic passages in Salafi writings simultaneously aroused in us a powerful sexual desire. This dilemma led us to conclude that dying for Allah provided our only hope for satisfying our lust, because that lust could be satisfied only in paradise. It is not surprising that Osama bin Laden and other terrorist leaders sent letters to their suicide murderers that described to them the hur, or white ladies awaiting them in paradise. In addition to its severe prohibitions governing sexual conduct, Salafi Islam also strictly limits most artistic expression, which it considers to be satanic…

…My hatred toward non-Muslims increased dramatically, and jihadi doctrine became second nature to me. My goal of being a physician and healing the sick grew tainted, infected by my strong wish to subjugate non-Muslims and impose Shari’a.

At one afternoon prayer session, an imam I had never met before gave a sermon. He was one of the fiercest speakers I had ever heard. His passion for jihad was astonishing. He advocated complete Islamic dominance, urging us to pursue jihad against non-Muslims and subdue them to Shari’a – the duty of every true Muslim. His rhetoric inspired us to engage in war against the infidels, the enemies of Allah. He particularly condemned the West for the freedom of its women. He hated the fact that Western women were permitted to wear what they pleased, to work and to have the same opportunities as men. He dreamt of forcing the West to conform to a Taliban-style system in which women were obliged to wear the Islamic hijab, were legally beaten by men to discipline them and were stoned to death for extramarital sex. After the imam’s speech my friend, Tariq Abdul-Muhsin, asked me if I knew this speaker. When I said I did not, Tariq told me that he was Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri and, because I was a new member of Jamaah, offered to introduce us.

…With a serious expression he placed his hand on my shoulder and said, “Young Muslims like you are the hope for the future return of khilafa [caliphate or Islamic global dominance].” I felt a great sense of gratitude and honor. I wanted to please him by contributing to his “noble” cause. Throughout my membership in Jamaah, I would meet with Zawahiri on six more occasions. He did not have much time to spare, however, for he was deeply involved in several Islamist organizations. One of Zawahiri’s significant achievements was to personalize jihad – that is, to have transformed it from a responsibility of the umma, the Islamic collective, to a duty of Muslim individuals. His goal is to spread the empire of Islam through the actions of individual radical Muslims, each of whom is incited to wage a personal jihad. This allows young Muslims to carry out suicide bombings without the endorsement of the collective body. Zawahiri and his fellow jihadis base their philosophy on the verse that states, “Then fight in Allah’s cause – you are held responsible only for yourself – and rouse the believers [to fight]” (Koran 4:84).

We viewed both the Soviets and the Americans as enemies. The Soviets were considered infidels because they did not believe in the existence of God, while the Americans did not follow Islam. Although we planned to fight the Soviets first, our ultimate objective was to destroy the United States – the greatest symbol of the infidel’s freedom.

Notice that he does not list Israel as the ‘ultimate objective’ for destruction. Please understand, that in most of militant Islam’s literature – it is the United States that is Satan’s Nation, or “The Great Satan” as in Shiite estacheology. Israel is only the ‘little Satan’. At a conference denying the Holocaust in Tehran in 2006, the poster advertising the “End of Zionism” depicted glass globes of America and Israel falling and shattering from an hourglass. Israel is in the process of falling in the poster – America is already shattered. In many of the studies of Salafi and Jiahdist Islam – there is a belief that America must be destroyed first, in order that Israel will wither and then be weak for annihilation.

My personal dream was to be an Islamic warrior, to kill the enemies of Islam, to smite their necks in accordance with the Koranic verse that read, “When ye meet the unbelievers smite at their necks” (Koran 47:4). We considered the Prophet Muhammad to be our role model. The Koran commanded us to follow in his footsteps: “Ye have indeed in the messenger of Allah a beautiful pattern [of conduct] for anyone whose hope is in Allah and the final day, and who engages much in the praise of Allah” (Koran 33:21). Salafi Islamic texts demonstrate Muhammad’s uncompromising nature. They encourage devout Muslims to emulate the prophet’s deeds and to accept and defend his actions in even the harshest passages. When confronted by outsiders, however, these same Muslims insist that such stories are misinterpreted because they are taken out of context – though they rarely, if ever, provide the context. This self-protective denial effectively paralyzes further criticism by the West.

Jihad against non-Muslims seemed to me to be a win-win situation. The following verse, commonly cited by Jamaah members, validated my duty to die for Allah: “Allah has purchased the believers, their lives and their goods. For them [in return] is the garden [of paradise]. They fight in Allah’s cause, and they slay and are slain; they kill and are killed… it [paradise] is the promise of Allah to them” (Koran 9:111).

…Among the more appalling notions it supports are the enslavement and rape of female war prisoners and the beating of women to discipline them. It permits polygamy and pedophilia. It refers to Jews as “pigs and monkeys” and exhorts believers to kill them before the end of days: Say: “Shall I tell you who, in the sight of God, deserves a yet worse retribution than these? Those [the Jews] whom God has rejected and whom He has condemned, and whom He has turned into monkeys and pigs because they worshiped the powers of evil: these are yet worse in station, and farther astray from the right path [than the mockers]” (Koran 5:60).

…The civilized world ought to recognize the immense danger that Salafi Islam poses; it must become informed, courageous and united if it is to protect both a generation of young Muslims and the rest of humanity from the disastrous consequences of this militant ideology.

More at LINK

Contradicting Huckabees – A Liberal, Living, Breathing Document – or Not?

If the rush to populism for the GOP candidates was not stomach churning enough, today we get treated to Mike Huckabee on CNN this morning, stating a time-honored Mantra of the Left that the Constitution is a “Living, breathing document written in order that it could be changed”. He was answering the question about whether or not the Constitution was a secular document, or a religious one. He then added: “The scriptures however were not written so we would change them to adapt them to ever-changing cultural norms”.

Funny that Huckabee, claiming that he wears the mantle of Reagan Conservatism (which his record clearly shows that he is not), while rightfully believing the scriptures are not adaptable to cultural change – somehow now thinks that the Constitution should change to “adapt them to ever-changing cultural norms”. If that be the case then Mr. Huckabee – you just shot down your own Marriage Amendment idea since the cultural zeitgeist of the moment desires or is indifferent to Homosexual marriage.

The truth is, he is parroting liberal socialist beliefs that the Constitution is amendable to whatever whim the culture brings along. If it is that easy to change, as we would taking in a breath – why bother having a Constitution at all? Let’s bend with every political wind that blows.

But outside of the obvious answer to that absurd notion, apparently Huckabee is in a state of contradiction. Contrary to his statement this morning on CNN, his campaign website says the opposite:

I firmly believe that the Constitution must be interpreted according to its original meaning, and flatly reject the notion of a “living Constitution.”

So which is it?

I’m beginning to think that Huckabee has the same disease that the Clinton’s have: expedient ideas stated for the moment. Must be something in the air in Arkansas where you can say one thing to one crowd, disagree with yourself on your own webiste and then flatly deny all of them on camera.

The spin cycle on this election cycle’s campaigns is dizzying beyond all reason.

So how will Huckabee spin this particular contradiction? Will his excuse be that he didn’t write that part of his own web site, or that he didn’t read it?

Ron Paul already pulled that number of denying he wrote or had anything to do with the racist anti-semetism of his newsletters that he says he now does not agree with.

I suppose if that excuse works for Ron Paul, then obviously it’s worth a shot for the Huckabee campaign.

After all, charges of anti-semitism and racism are harder to dodge than when one starts sounding like a liberal Democrat.

Ron Paul, Off The Mark and His Rocker

Election 2008 is no doubt a contest between overt Big Government Socialists and Marxists in the Democrat Party and several Big Government Liberals dressed up in Conservative clothing in the Republican Party.

There are a couple of stand-outs that have records of consistent Conservatism, but they are largely marginalized by the Big Government Elite Blue Bloods in the party and by the media that wants either a liberal or an anti-Bush candidate on the GOP ticket to run opposite of the crown they wish to bestow upon Hillary.

And then there is Ron Paul.

Ron Paul is the lone stand-out in the GOP. His mob followers argue that this is because he is the only true Conservative in the race, the rest of us would argue it is because he is clearly not a Conservative or Republican at all – but a typical Libertarian with more in common with the Anti-war Leftists than with Reagan Conservatives.

Of course the argument is that Ron Paul is closer to Reagan and the Constitution than any other candidate. I certainly do not agree with that assessment, notably because in the case of comparison between Paul and Reagan – Reagan NEVER, and I mean NEVER insinuated once that America was the cause of the problems in the world that Ron Paul has consistently charged us with.

Also, even though Ron Paul’s domestic ideas of returning to the Constitution are admiarable, he not only is off the mark on foreign policy, he is off his rocker if he thinks he can enact or enable any of his agenda as President outside of emasculating the military and retreating America from the world.

Bruce Walker posted an excellent observation in the American Thinker of where Ron Paul misses the mark in terms of addressing his “non-interventionist” (read Isolationist Pacifism) ideals.

Ron Paul holds the vain hope that American government would return to constitutional law anytime soon, even if he did win the presidency. Congress, the judiciary, legal education, and tradition have imparted momentum to the living constitution school of thought. Bring about an actual return to the Constitution requires more than a snap of the president’s fingers. Federal courts routinely “interpret” the Constitution in ways directly in conflict with the plain language of the document. At best, a president can only appoint judges the Senate will confirm and wait for natural turnover.

A lot of persuasion is necessary before Americans (including our elites and their institutions) change their way thinking. We in fact still need a crusade to change hearts and minds more than a candidacy.

This has been my main point of contention with the Ron Paul Mob Zombies from the get-go. The amount of virtual messiah-worship that Ron Paul is going to achieve all of these amazing things and save the country from itself is not only delusional, it’s dangerous. It has spawned a rabid fanatacism that one can easily compare with the Brownshirts of Germany in the 1930’s. No man is going to be able to do the things many of Ron Paul’s supporters are absolutely sure he can accomplish – mainly due to the limits the Constitution places on the Executive itself.

For all the love of the Constitution that Ron Paul stokes the masses to believe in, the big love is reserved for what they perceive to be the Constitution’s pacifism and ‘non-interventionism’. This is the one and only brick holding the various and bizarre ideologies of the Ron Paul brigades together.

But they miss the mark. Bruce Walker points this out:

And if we are going to return to first principles, remember that the Constitution is not the foundational document of our American experiment in individual liberty. It was preceded by the Articles of Confederation. Prior to the Articles of Confederation, which were adopted after independence, the Continental Congress acted as the original government of the United States and successfully waged a war against the great superpower on the planet with very little real authority. The fundamental principles of American government were established long the Constitution was adopted.

What does matter is the Declaration of Independence. The divine endowment of all people with liberty comes directly out of this document of 1776 and it is to this document that serious friends of liberty should look for inspiration and restoration. And what was the Declaration of Independence? It was, in effect, a declaration of war against the British Empire.

It was not an isolationist document but a universalist document. It speaks, pointedly, to the rest of the world. It talks about the reasons that governments are formed (not just our government.) It was bold, sweeping, and international. And it was seen by the rest of the world as just that: A revolutionary document for all peoples, even if it applied specifically only to thirteen embattled colonies in North American.

Ron Paul wants to return us to the Constitution, as if it were a sacred document which granted us freedom. Our spiritual lodestar should be the Declaration of Independence, which remains a much more dangerous, much more powerful, and much more relevant document to our times.

Those are indeed sobering points to meditate upon. The argument that ensues is that the Declaration of Independence is NOT LAW, which by doing so undercuts and grants the Socialists and Secularists the platforms upon which they stand to regulate and adminster liberty as they see fit.
The more worrisome attributes of applying strict Constitutional ideals to foreign policy without the grounding anchor of the Declaration and other fundamentals of liberty in a modern age – is the kind of backwards idealism that ignores reality for a theory that history has already shown to be impractical and endangering.

Paul also seems to doubt that people wish to do America harm because it is America, and that nuclear weapons change everything. Ever since H.G. Wells first used the term “atomic bomb” in his science fiction stories more than a century ago, it has become almost inevitable that true, horrific global war power was inevitable. Happily, America acquired fission weapons and then fusion weapons first. Happily also, America has had leaders willing to use that power to protect our nation and allies who would otherwise be unprotected.

And, as we learned from the Japanese in the Second World War and from radical Moslems today, the calculus of economic benefits and political rights which works very well in moderating and balancing the behavior of most people, simply does not work with everyone. Does anyone doubt that the Japanese would have used the atomic bomb on American cities or that radical Moslems will use thermonuclear bombs on America, if they can, even if it means massive casualties in our retaliation?

Liberty can no longer stand safely behind two vast oceans and decent men can no longer ignore their human brethren after Hitler, Stalin and Mao.

I think this mindset of Ron Paul is the most damning proof that he is unfit for the role of Commander In Chief. He has asserted that Iran poses no threat to anyone, not even to Israel. Ron Paul says that Iran has no navy, army or air force, which is complete ignorance on his part. He is of the clueless ideal that because Israel may have 300 nuclear weapons (which has never been confirmed or admitted to). Nobody would touch them. History has already proven him wrong since America has nuclear weapons, has USED nuclear weapons, and still we have been attacked by Jihadists. Ron paul also magically thinks that all the rhetoric coming from the Jihadists about annihilating Israel and America is just laughable – and that there is no possibility of harm from such entities.

I suppose if a person holds to the same ideas that many of the 9-11 Truthers that support Ron Paul hold; thinking we perpetrated 9-11 on ourselves – it is no wonder Ron Paul then so easily discounts what ragheads in the deserts of Afghansitan were able to carry out in killing 3,000 Americans in short order on September 11, 2001. Perhaps this is the reason he thinks only one submarine with ballistic nuclear weapons is all the military defense America really needs.

Bruce Walker concludes:

Liberty can no longer stand safely behind two vast oceans and decent men can no longer ignore their human brethren after Hitler, Stalin and Mao. ….Congressman Paul might recall the Gipper’s Cold War strategy: “How about this: We win; they lose?”

Ronald Reagan, like Abraham Lincoln, understood the supra-constitutional importance of liberty in the fulfillment of America, and liberty to them meant more than just the liberty of American citizens. ….

But the vision of America is much more than the Constitution. It is much more than Congressman Paul sees. What Ron Paul proposes is not bad or dishonest. It is simply no longer enough for liberty and decency to survive in America or in the world.

America does not exist in a vacuum. The world loathes the kind of liberty America represents, because it does not grant it to nobles, dictators and politburos. America is an anomoly in the world’s written history of the beastly empires of men. It seeks to return itself to that kind of rule that 500 years of Christian-led and inspired government has broken. Ron Paul considers fellow countrymen and our government the only single threat to liberty and assigns our involvement in the world as the cause of the enemies we have that are calling for and planning for our destruction.

That giant aspect of Ron Paul’s appeal is not only off the mark, but not even in the right direction of the target.

The Prophetic Past That Warned Us Where We Now Find Ourselves

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”

“Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, ‘equality’. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.” – Alexis de Tocqueville

I am encouraged when countrymen look into our past history to consider what our Patriarchs, Framers and even brillaint and simple men noted about the gift of liberty that is unique to America in all the world’s existence. There has been a bit of talk about one noted philosopher and author Alexis de Tocqueville, who came to America in 1831 and 1832 to write about his impressions of America from a European perspective after he was quoted in a Powerline Blog, and got mention on talk radio circles today.

What is so timely about the following notations from “Democracy In America” is that they put an exclamation point on the dangers this Election Cycle is parading in front of us with the various pushes and calls for bigger government Socialism, oversights, “fairness” and safety (for the children of course). From the scam that is Global Warming to the promises of what Nationalized Health Care will mandate – you can read de Tocqueville and feel as if you just read an indictment of our current culture and political circus that is this year’s elections.

In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville famously concludes with a warning of the kind of despotism to which democracies are especially susceptible. Of particular note is the chapter: “OF CERTAIN PECULIAR AND ACCIDENTAL CAUSES WHICH EITHER LEAD A PEOPLE TO COMPLETE THE CENTRALIZATION OF GOVERNMENT OR DIVERT THEM FROM IT”.

Among men who have lived free long before they became equal, the tendencies derived from free institutions combat, to a certain extent, the propensities superinduced by the principle of equality; and although the central power may increase its privileges among such a people, the private members of such a community will never entirely forfeit their independence. But when equality of conditions grows up among a people who have never known or have long ceased to know what freedom is (and such is the case on the continent of Europe), as the former habits of the nation are suddenly combined, by some sort of natural attraction, with the new habits and principles engendered by the state of society, all powers seem spontaneously to rush to the center. These powers accumulate there with astonishing rapidity, and the state instantly attains the utmost limits of its strength, while private persons allow themselves to sink as suddenly to the lowest degree of weakness.

Tocqueville warns that the passion for equality will give rise to a certain kind of degradation in which citizens will surrender their freedom democratically to a tutelary power:

Above these [citizens] an immense tutelary power is elevated, which alone takes charge of assuring their enjoyments and watching over their fate. It is absolute, detailed, far-seeing, and mild. It would resemble paternal power if, like that, it had for its object to prepare men for manhood; but on the contrary, it seeks only to keep them fixed irrevocably in childhood; it likes citizens to enjoy themselves provided that they think only of enjoying themselves. It willingly works for their happiness; but it wants to be the unique agent and sole arbiter of that; it provides for their security, foresees and secures their needs, facilitates their pleasures, conducts their principal affairs, directs their industry, regulates their estates, divides their inheritances; can it not take away from them entirely the trouble of thinking and the pain of living?

If one truly looks at and examines our culture and politics today in light of what Tocqueville is warning about – one could easily see that we have already arrived at that crucial point. Both political parties seem to be in a race over which one gets to be the bigger parent. You might recall the 1992 Presidential debate when an old hippie with pony tail asked Bill Clinton: “”We are your children, we have our needs. What will you do to take care of us-to take care of our needs?”

Government today works almost exclusively towards “providing” happiness, entertainements, bail-outs and free hand-outs to specific groups it decides deserves the largesse of the federal treasury from the pockets of a working class the government uses like slaves. All to the point that politicans and government talk about nothing but facilitating the pleasures of people, regardless how depraved and consequential they may be; dictates how industry works such as the demands Congress just placed on automakers for fuel-efficient cars and the abolishment of incandescent light bulbs for “enviro-freindly/mercury-filled” flourescents. Private property is now the pervue of the state according to the KELO decision of the Supreme Court; in Illinois you cannot smoke outside in any public place, in California not even in your own car. Your wealth is confiscated in taxes for those the government decides should receive it. This culture blames the government for not doing enough after Katrina or demanding they do something about high gas prices in the absolvement of any responsibility they should have for themselves, fulfilling what Tocqueville said about “tak[ing] away from them entirely the trouble of thinking and the pain of living”

I suppose we could almost declare Tocqueville a prophet in light of where we are today with what he was warning we could become.

Subjection in small affairs manifests itself every day and makes itself felt without distinction by all citizens. It does not make them desperate, but it constantly thwarts them and brings them to renounce the use of their wills. Thus little by little, it extinguishes their spirits and enervates their souls….

In listening to the political candidates, almost every single one of them is a purveyor of this disease. The fight for redefining what Conservatism means into some perverted nanny-state caring for others by use of government simply underscores where de Tocqueville said this Republic would end-up if we were not careful and vigilant.

Well….here we are.

Perhaps if we studied our roots rather than the latest ball game stats or arguing over who will win the next Survivor or America’s Next Top Model, we could have a chance to recpature what is being lost.

I’m not to hopeful, as the populace is become exactly like the ponytail Kid in 1992, that declared that all of us were children of Big Mama Government.

Free Speech and Press Police

It’s a funny thing that so many folks cannot see the correlation between the erosion of God from our culture, and the rise of tyranny and opression of men to replace what was once liberty.

In recent years and months, the power of the State has been increased at home and abroad to silence opinions and dissent that go against the mainstream thought process guided by the arbiters of Political Correctness. We have been warning about the efforts to criminalize Christians who oppose the acceptance of sinful lifestyles; the push to make thoughts and motives not approved, illegal.

What is notable, is that the Islamic enemies of the West have studied and have discovered how to best defeat us: from within, using our own squeamish sensibilities against us.

Two recent situations have come to the fore regarding the efforts of government and lobbyists to silence the ideas and liberties of those who criticize Jihadists and Islam.

We’ve seen how beserk the Islamic world went over the publishing of cartoons critical of Islam in Denmark. Now, the Politically-correct enabling-of-Jihadist’s bureaucracy that makes up the Socialist regimes in Britian and Canada are demonstrating the efforts the state will take to silence those who dare cross the established lines of Political Correctness.

Recalling how Canada has made any negative comment about Homosexuality a Hate Crime – even in church, I gues we should find it no surprise that the same rule now applies to anyone making negative comments about Islam. But America should take note – because this very effort is now beginning to happen here too, albeit thusfar it’s in the courts. Just take a gander at what’s been been happening to radio talk host Michael Savage in his battle against CAIR.

Dead man writing

Up north, the Canadian Islamic Congress announced the other day that at least two of Canada’s “Human Rights Commissions” – one federal, one provincial – had agreed to hear their complaints that their “human rights” had been breached by this “flagrantly Islamophobic” excerpt from my book, as published in the country’s bestselling news magazine, Maclean’s. Several readers and various Canadian media outlets have enquired what my defense to the charges is. Here’s my answer:

I can defend myself if I have to. But I shouldn’t have to.

If the Canadian Islamic Congress wants to disagree with my book, fine. Join the club. But, if they want to criminalize it, nuts. That way lies madness. America Alone was a bestseller in Canada, made all the literary Top Ten hit parades, Number One at Amazon Canada, Number One on The National Post’s national bestseller list, Number One on various local sales charts from statist Quebec to cowboy Alberta, etc. I find it difficult to imagine that a Canadian “human rights” tribunal would rule that all those Canadians who bought the book were wrong and that it is beyond the bounds of acceptable (and legal) discourse in Canada.

As I say, I find it difficult to imagine. But not impossible. These “human rights” censors started with small fry – obscure websites, “homophobes” who made the mistake of writing letters to local newspapers or quoting the more robust chunks of Leviticus – and, because they got away with it, it now seems entirely reasonable for a Canadian pseudo-court to sit in judgment on the content of a mainstream magazine and put a big old “libel chill” over critical areas of public debate. The “progressive” left has grown accustomed to the regulation of speech, thinking it just a useful way of sticking it to Christian fundamentalists, right-wing columnists, and other despised groups. They don’t know they’re riding a tiger that in the end will devour them, too.

Lights Out Up North

Ezra Levant, my old boss at The Western Standard, has just (as I type) begun his grilling by the Alberta “Human Rights” Commission. He is charged with the “crime” of reprinting the Danish cartoons:

As a lawyer, I’ve been in different courts and tribunals, but I’ve never experienced a kangaroo court first-hand. I will have a more comprehensive report later today. In the meantime, I leave you with… the hand-scrawled complaint filed against the magazine by a radical, Saudi-trained imam who has publicly called for sharia law to be imposed in Canada…

And why shouldn’t he? He’s a member of the “Supreme Islamic Council of Canada”, and when the Supreme meets the chicken of the west’s one-way “multiculturalism” it’s no contest. No doubt some of the above “hate speech” is hurtful and dehumanizing and offensive, but that’s the point: The price of liberty is eternal offensiveness. There is a name for societies that successfully outlaw offensiveness from the public space: Totalitarian.

Nevertheless, in Maclean’s this week, there’s a fairly typical letter from an ever-so-reasonable reader, Lauren Demaree of Windsor, Ontario:

PLACING LIMITS on free speech is a slippery slope, but that is not the only issue in play here. There is often a fine line that is crossed between opinion and hate propaganda and our laws need to reflect this more effectively. Where do we draw the line…?

This is the future of “multiculturalism”: a society in which, in the interests of protecting the “collective rights” of various identity groups, individual rights are circumscribed and public discourse is ever more regulated by the state. Good luck making that work, Canada. The “Islamic Supreme Council of Canada” has your number.

Now despite the grilling by the Supreme Soviet – errr, I mean the “Human Rights Commission” – there are apparently SOME in Canada who have the fortitude and the guts to spit in the face of tyrants , and tell them where they can go. Too bad there are not more people like this guy – willing to risk it all to defy a tyrannical act of government:

Ron Paul Lunatic Mob Zombies Threaten Yet Again

I suppose since there’s enough Ron Paul supporters that are made up of angry 9-11 Truthers, anti-war Democrats, free-drug Libertarians and Stormfront Neo-nazis, that it explains why the Ron Paul crowd acts more like Nazi Brownshirts than the grassroots campaign that brought Ronald Reagan to the White House.

Mobs are dangerous, and the Ron Paul bunch keeps illustrating why it is that Conservatives in the GOP are justified in their dismissal of their campaign and candidate.

While I can understand expressing anger and disatisfaction with what they perceive to be fraud – the way they vent those frustrations, and the manner in which they swarm and intimidate are not in any way the kinds of action grown ups and mature persons with a supposed zeal for a message of civility and peace they say their candidate stands for. Instead it reveals nothing but an unhinged mob of anarchists who are happy and eager to get in your face, and make threats and incite violence, even when it is obvious that the uncounted votes would not make a hair’s worth of difference to the outcome.

Some have said on other boards that ‘threats’ of death and violence by Ron Paul supporters are akin to the kind of “patriotism” our Founders had. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Founders never called for the heads of fellow countrymen and attempt to incite violence against other Colonists because they did not agree with them on going to war against the Crown. But dare disagree with Ron Paul’s ideas on foreign policy and watch yourself beset upon wailing and gnashing of teeth. Not only are these mob zombies eager to make threats on fellow countrymen who disagree with certain aspects of their candidate’s absurd political positions, some of them are eager to take their “RevolUTION” to the level of actual insurrection and violence.

Apparently these people refuse to understand that their entire movement is being tarnished by these kinds of actions and are being seen by many as nothing more than the fringe and out-of-control mob people like me are warning that they are.

What few grown-ups might remain in the Ron Paul campign better find a way to take control of this wayward bunch, or they will simply continue to fit a definition that their movement is nothing more than a bunch of unhinged Conspiratorial-Anti-war Left-Neo-Nazi Brownshirts.

Paul supporters ‘freak out’ town clerk
Vote-counting flub draws ire, threats

By RAY DUCKLER
Monitor staff
January 12. 2008 12:20AM

Jennifer Call’s eyes searched the office for nothing in particular. Her arms waved and her fear spilled out.

“This is where I grew up,” Sutton’s town clerk said yesterday. “This is my hometown, this is where my family is, and all of sudden, my name is being splashed across the internet as this horrible person. And the frightening part is, I don’t know these people and they don’t know me.”

Call wants the nationwide army of boisterous Ron Paul supporters, believers in more conspiracy theories than Oliver Stone, to know that she’s committed no crime.

Not treason, as the dozens of phone callers screamed. Not fraud, as the dozens of e-mails charged. Nothing.

Human error, by someone unknown, caused Call’s office to claim Paul received zero votes from the town during Tuesday’s first-in-the-nation primary.

Paul actually got a whopping 31 votes.

Out of 920 cast.

Launch an investigation. Alert the media.

The mistake was corrected early the next morning, but that hardly mattered. The Paul machine, upon reading the number in print, quickly went into counteroffensive mode.

This is luck at its worst. Screw up Rudy Giuliani’s vote total. Or John McCain’s. Or John Edwards’s. Or Bill Richardson’s.

But never, ever get anything wrong when it comes to Paul and his voting tally. If you do, fans who shouted from the rooftops through the primary season will track you down and chew you out.

“Most of the these people are not rational,” Call said.

Call, 35, arrived at the Pillsbury Memorial Hall Tuesday morning at 7 for the start of a marathon day. About a dozen or so staffers coordinated the effort, guiding voters, counting votes, rechecking totals.

Paul’s 31 votes got lost in the shuffle, lost in translation between moderator Greg Hill’s voice and Call’s pen.

The slot next to Paul’s name on the original return sheet said 31, but a space on Call’s return, next to Paul’s name, remained blank.

“He’s (Gill) reading off his results, I’m writing them down on the return,” Call said. “I don’t know why it was blank. I don’t know if he skipped over it or if someone interrupted him to repeat the last name and it got skipped, or maybe I missed it. It was that simple.”

No it wasn’t.

Call was met by town officials the next morning at 9:30. They told her the mistake had been rectified. Call, her jacket still on, was confused.

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

She was told someone had come in and said he’d voted for Paul. The voter noticed the “0” in the local newspaper and wanted an explanation. When he got it, he left, satisfied.

Call phoned the Secretary of State’s office and re-faxed the form, the one with a circled “31” next to Paul’s name. Just to make sure.

Then it hit, like one of those snowstorms last month. Call got a call from someone named Bob. No last name. She remembers the man identifying himself as a reporter for the Associated Press, looking for the story on voter fraud.

She said she’d fetch the details, then call him back, thinking the media would need a strict timeline and every tidbit available.

“I’m thinking he’s legitimate,” Call said. “I call Bob back and it’s a fax machine. I called AP and asked for Bob. They told me a reporter would have given a last name.”

Others in the office received calls and e-mails. But Call was the name out front, the town clerk as well as the tax collector. She was labeled the brains behind the plot. She had the biggest target on her back.

The assault picked up after lunch. Paul supporters phoning Call claimed to be from the media. Others just yelled, saying she had committed treason, fraud. One person said she should be shot. She received as many as 40 calls that day.

“One person said he was on a nationally syndicated radio station,” Call said, “and he has given out my phone number and they need to call the town of Sutton to find out why there’s voter fraud.”

The voices came from everywhere. California. Ohio. Florida. Michigan. Very few were from New Hampshire.

A man from Texas e-mailed that he was “contacting, by certified mail, the Attorney General of New Hampshire . . . and requesting a complete investigation and prosecution of any and all parties involved.”

A police dispatcher in New London said yesterday she’d received inquiries about the clerk’s office phone.

Call got a handful of calls that night at home, refusing to pick up whenever an out-of-state number appeared on her screen.

She got about five more the next day in her office. She tried to get work done. She called the Massachusetts company that makes the licenses for dog owners in her area. The guy had heard of her.

“Wow,” the man said. “This is the second time this week I’ve seen your name.”

“Where?” Call asked.

“I’ve gotten a dozen e-mails about how you’ve destroyed the New Hampshire primary.”

“Why?”

“We make voting machines.”

“The problem is,” Call said yesterday, “we don’t use voting machines.”

She went home and locked her doors. She called her mother in North Carolina. She cried. The calls kept coming. She unhooked her answering machine and requested an unlisted number.

“I was drained emotionally and physically,” Call said. “That’s when I really started to freak out. Thursday it hit me, that most of these people are not rational. That’s when I became scared.”

It’s calmer now. The calls and e-mails had stopped as of yesterday afternoon. Call had the day off, but she went into her office to retrieve some paperwork.

She’s hurt and nervous, but she’s got a job.

“I’ve got a school board meeting Saturday,” Call said. “I’ve got to be ready.”

These kinds of things are the actions of Brownshirts, not patriots.