Strange bedfellows
I’ve written a lot about the Pamela Geller incident and the reaction among pundits and the press, because it seems to me it has brought out some disturbing, although important, truths. The main one is how many people are willing to offer what Salman Rushdie called (in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo murders) the “Yes, but…” defense [sic] of free speech, which he rejects as no defense at all. Free speech means freedom for speech with which you disagree, by people you don’t much care for.
Another thing this has brought out is the virulence of the verbal attacks against Geller by her critics in this country, some of whom I’ve already pointed out, and their failure to offer any proof to back up their accusations. Another is that both Geller’s defenders and her verbal attackers (not her violent attackers, but her verbal ones) don’t necessarily break down neatly into the left vs. right camps you’d think they would.
Some liberals, for example, like Jonathan Zimmerman, absolutely loathe her and yet they pause in the midst of their vilification* to heartily and strongly defend her right to speak. His article is even titled “Je Suis Pamela Geller,” at the same time he’s also calling her an “appalling bigot” and “hateful” in it. Whereas some who are supposedly on the right and who might actually agree with some of her premises have said she should have kept quiet and not offended Muslims.
And yet it’s Zimmerman, who clearly despises her, who is defending her. Steven Lubet at TNR does almost exactly the same thing as Zimmerman—calls Geller a “a nasty-hearted Islamophobe” and calls her campaign to stop the ground zero mosque “despicable” and “repulsive anti-Islam activism.” Yet he adds:
Blaming her, even partially and conditionally, for an act of terror stretches moral reasoning beyond the breaking point…
There comes a point…when defiance is the only feasible response to censorship. In a better world, we would all respect the religious sensitivities of others, and no one would have cause for offense. Alas, we live in a world where atheist bloggers are hacked to death in the streets of Bangladesh, and Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris has been forced into hiding for four years after being placed on an Al Qaeda hit list. Self-silencing””at the point of a machete””is not the answer to this problem.
Lubet then makes sure the reader knows how much he hates Geller:
I stand second to no one in my contempt for Pamela Geller and everything she represents. Her derision of Islam and Muslims is morally wrong, but that does not make her morally responsible for the attack in Texas…
The defense of free expression should become stronger in the face of violent threats, not weaker.
It is to the shame of American liberalism that the assertion of such an essential ideal has defaulted to reactionary hatemongers such as Pamela Geller.
Like the NY Times, Lubet feels absolutely no obligation to illustrate what he’s talking about when he excoriates Geller in this way. The only specific offense of hers he even mentions is her opposition to the ground zero mosque—a position which, by the way, was shared by the majority of Americans and New Yorkers (by enormous margins). If that’s her offense, then most of America are reactionary hatemongers, too. And Lubet doesn’t even offer another example of her awfulness; we’re supposed to just take his word for it.
I find this one of the most curious aspects of the entire episode, although very emblematic of the leftist mind as I’ve come to know it. It is open season on Geller, and no one seems to feel the need to prove that she deserves such contempt. Nor was Geller a household word until this incident, so it’s not as though all the readers are familiar with her work. And yet some of the same people doing this also manage to defend free speech with some vigor, while the majority of their fellows (and some on the right as well) do not.
The distinction seems to come down to which people still value liberty at all. Some have lost that sentiment entirely, it seems.
[NOTE: *In the comments to Zimmerman’s article (at the moment, it’s the one at the top of the list), Geller herself offers this video in refutation of Zimmerman’s claims about what she actually said at the event he is describing.]
It was open season on patriots and resisters before the Normandy landing.
On the days following June 6, 1944 the purging began.
It’ll happen again …
You just have to read some of the vileness written by so called “liberals” in their Twitter and blog comments to realize that they are seething with rage and hate.
I love how our Fainting Couch Media getting the vapors over a cartoon speak Truth to Power these days, if by ‘speak Truth’ I mean ‘revel in their obeisant groveling’. Our Brave Sir Robins running headlong away from free speech like lemmings because they can’t even show the winning cartoon — which is more benign than many political cartoons of yesteryear, much less today. Simply amazing.
Help! I really have fallen down the rabbit hole and I can’t get up!
they are setting up Geller’s alleged bigotry as a
*strawman* to keep from getting on an Islamic
Hit List ! Libs are incredible cowards !
But the liberals would probably LOVE the poster from “The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” from San Francisco. It depicts transgenders in “The Last Supper” surrounded by sex toys. Of course, Christians don’t kill over things like that, but if that isn’t sticking a stick in a bees hive, then I don’t think a little cartoon is.
If anyone wants to see the winning cartoon from Ms. Geller’s contest (which she co-organized with Robert Spencer, by the way, although no one seems inclined to vilify HIM), the helpful souls at Power Line have it —
http://i1.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/admin/ed-assets/2015/05/bosch-fawstin.jpeg
It’s good. (I can’t say that it deserved to win, since I haven’t seen any of the others. But it’s good.)
In re Ms. Geller — from what little of her work I have seen (e.g. the New York MTA bus ads), I’ll say this — she’s loud. She’s in your face. She makes her opinions known, and she dares you to respond to them.
None of this is illegal, or sinful, or even terribly objectionable, by American standards. Lord knows, the Social Justice Warriors do it all the time. The problem — of course! — is that she has the wrong opinions. That’s all. (And worse, she not only voices her wrong opinions, but she stands by them. How unforgivable.)
Perhaps Ms. Geller is Islamophobic, or racist, or whatever. I’ve seen no evidence of it. I have seen her willingness to quote Islamists in their own words, complete with citations. (Again: how unforgivable.)
I can only hope that she hosts another “draw Mohammed” contest — with even heavier security — and that she accepts contest submissions electronically. I expect that, if she did so, she’d be swamped with entries, from all over America (and indeed from all over the world, although I’d expect the American entries to dominate). May she have more work on her hands judging too-many-entries than she does dealing with security.
I’m tempted to hope that such a contest would smoke out more incompetent would-be jihadis… but I won’t. I’m wishing for a victory for free speech here. There will be another time to wish for dead jihadis.
Jonathan Zimmerman says, “Je suis Pamela Geller,” and I say, “Pamela Geller is Sarah Palin” (in the reptilian Leftist brain, of course).
Ms Geller and ssome of the participants have already been targeted for reprisal.
Factual, as a friend that was in attendance and has written briefs for what must remain undisclosed organizations, has received hate mail already.
So is it a problem to say, for instance, that the doctrines of Islam are either garbage or second-hand, and that Mohammad was a pederast, because it is not true; or, because saying such a thing offends the sensibilities, and wounds the feelings of Muslims?
Lost it? What makes us imagine that they ever had it in the first place?
“Don’t fight back! They will hurt me!”
Curious – that the Fainting Couch Media is just so gosh-darned convinced that Geller’s “Draw Mohammed” entries were so horrible, raaaaaaccist and offensive … I recollect the very same whine from the major news organs when the original Danish Mohammed cartoons were made the object of a horrible fuss. They were soooooo offensive, sooo awful, your delicate little nerves wouldn’t be able to handle it, so everyone (with a few exceptions) caved on showing everyone what the fuss was about. But the cartoons could be easily found on line, and they were about one degree more edgy than your average Family Circle Sunday cartoon.
But the Muzzies went absolutely spare with insane rage … and our fearless press caved like soggy cardboard.
Pam Geller — from the first — has zeroed in on Leftist hypocrisy.
NO WONDER that the Left is writhing.
Her bus adverts pop many a cocoon.
When you read of this or that Leftist plaint about Geller — do be mindful that her ad campaign is pretty much all that they know of her — and her work.
In a vibrant display of cognizant dissonance, the Leftists write Geller up as a an anti-Muslim when — from the first — her main target has always been dead-head Leftists — and (NYC) Jews in denial.
Taking a paragraph straight from Alinsky: she’s holding Leftists — and Jewish denialists — to their own creed.
[ If there is one target audience that Geller has addressed — going back forever — and ever — it is Jewish denialists.
This is the same (Jewish) crowd that could sit through ayatollah Soetoro’s blather on backing his Iranian escapade.
Her point is: just at what point will American Jewry wake up to the clear and present danger of Islamism?
Especially now that ayatollah Soetoro is, de facto, promoting it?]
&&&&&
BTW, it’s not for nothing that the Norwegian assassin painted Geller and Spencer as inspirational — he was, and is, a doctrinaire Leftist, himself.
It took many a month until the assassin admitted that he’d ONLY ever named these classic liberals BECAUSE he intended to assassinate their political credibility.
This is a perverted ‘guilt-by-nomination’ that still lingers in the feeble minds of denialists in bi-coastal America. Many a fool still believes the original slanders.
They made absolutely zero sense at the time — for anyone familiar with Spencer or Geller.
A repeat of the WWII play,
Pamela Geller = Hillel Kook aka Peter Bergson,
Zimmerman-
Lubet = establishment Jews/ Stephen Wise.
They got away the last time. We’ll see about this time.
Excuse me while I puke.
Sgt. Mom Says:
May 8th, 2015 at 3:50 pm
“But the Muzzies went absolutely spare with insane rage … and our fearless press caved like soggy cardboard.”
%%%%%%
The Danes published only TEN cartoons inre Mohammed.
TWELVE cartoons circulated throughout the Muslim Middle East.
It’s the OTHER TWO that have caused all of the uproar — and Western readers know naught of them.
Both would be rated XXX. This goes a long way towards explaining why Western media types refuse to run them.
Indeed, the Western media has simply denied that the ‘extra’ images are even circulating — and have been appended to the original Danish ten.
&&&&&
The result is that no-one reading the Western press would have any idea that the Danish ten have been augmented with graphic torments — put their by (almost certainly Egyptians — i.e. Muslim Brotherhood players) and then MASSIVELY distributed in that form across the Muslim Middle East.
Consequently one is forever reading about innocuous Danish cartoons — and Muslim riots. The deeper agitprop goes entirely unknown in the West.
This reality IS known to the high and mighty in the Western press. It’s just that this is a story — of Muslim manipulations of Western broadcasts/ publications that the elites wish to suppress.
&&&&&&&&&
Folks, the Muslims in the Middle East are subjected to relentless agitprop — Soviet style — ALL THE TIME.
It is COMMON for Western materials to be morphed — to traduce the general tenor of Western morals and thought.
And while all of this is going on: SILENCE from our media lap dogs in the West.
So: the Muslims are fed a diet of agitprop…
The West is fed a diet of somnolent propaganda…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSjK2Oqrgic
Frank Drebin.
&&&
Pam Geller is the 3AM phone call…
the MSM is the snooze button.
I think that what is the major problem for academics like zimmerman and Lubet is that these are men of ideas, not men of substance. they fall in love with ideas and do not filter the ideas by whats possible or not.
Why would zimmerman hate geller, or lubet?
this really gets the crux of things because one can learn a lot by looking towards what one hates vs what one claims they love.
well, one thing you can glean from his writings is that he gets his facts all jumbled and ignores other things as if they dont exist at all..
after all, if one looks to the plight of the american indian and ignores the history of the other side, then it does appear that the US was not so nice… but if you look at the actual history, you might notice that the big issue came from the brutal treatment of indians at the hands of the spanish, and then came the british and french… all that came before the making of the US is ignored!!! after all, columbus sailed in 1492 and discovered the US for SPAIN, not England.. and it was the spanish that brought horses, and that was in the 200 years before the revolution… when you read the whole history, you will find that the brutality started with the indians, not with the settlers… and that the spaniard were real nasty… then the british paid them to find rebels of the revolution, then the french paid them to go after the british, and so on.
the first mistake Zimmerman makes is the use of the new term islamophobia… a shaming term that when examined would be translated to “an irrational fear of islam”. is it an irrational fear?
and notice that he has no specifics about geller.
this is very telling on the left as the majority of the time they never read or do any research on facts about what they comment on, they generally just copy what they heard from contemporaries.
the problem is that their ideas are not correlated with reality, they are loved for what they are, and held separate – which then necessitates all kinds of name calling and games because the debate ends up bringing in inconvenient facts that then demolish their ideas and makes them to be fantasies and castles built in the air.
so above, you can see, the left fought hard to insure that it was ok to make piss christ, and that it was funded with federal money.
now the left says its not ok, and they would yell and scream that the federal government should not fund gellers next art show.
the problem they have is that their lack of consistency of thought exposes them to be forced to see the things about themselves that they dont want to see… and that their ideas are nothing more than fantabulously constructed bs and not real erudition – and so are applied based on some non rational emotaional gestalt, and not like their enlightenment betters, some deep seated well thought out logically coherant thoughts.
they play favorites
their rules are contradictory
their ideas are applied unevenly
their concepts often negate each other
all this and more is why they want you to look at things in isolation in a petri dish.
so why is it ok for piss christ, and not ok for cartoons?
easy… the winner, the church, and western civ, are the oppressors, and the islamic culture by its position must be the oppressed… like jews and germans (who forget the jews were german too), the smart winners must have cheated and so oppressed the others and so, the others have a right to class hatred against their oppressors…
all their ideas when isolated look great.. like a painting. or a photo… but when you see the greater context, you realize that by doing their hate christian love islam, they are in the same boat as hitler, a person they claim to despise.
even worse, the oppressor in this case has reformed and become enligthened and has jettisoned the ideas that the leftist thinks it had (without knowing that the ideas they hate or dislike was part of earlier defunct convenants, and that they dont apply any more and stopped applying with the new covenants)
so these are men of ideas…
by removing the concept of workable, and all that, they get to love ideas that normal people dont… dont you just love the idea of a society that lives as in the garden of eden? the less hard you work on the idea and its concordance and self reference, the more you can invent wonderful things that are beautiful (just so long as you dont examine them too closely.. like fondant covered cowpies)
but what is missing here is that their ideas also follow an IDEAology… a meta idea they love more than anything else, and so they are willing to accept the irrational suposition over the rational concept just as long as the selection fits into the idea ology
Men of Ideas was a 1978 BBC television series presented by Bryan Magee. There were 15 episodes, in which Magee interviewed noted philosophers.
Guests:
Isaiah Berlin on “Introduction to Philosophy”
Charles Taylor on “Karl Marx“
Herbert Marcuse on “Frankfurt School”
William Barrett on “Martin Heidegger“
Anthony Quinton on “Wittgenstein”
A. J. Ayer on “Logical Positivism”
Bernard Williams on “Linguistic Philosophy”
R. M. Hare on “Moral Philosophy”
Willard Van Orman Quine on “Quine”
John Searle on “Philosophy of Language”
Noam Chomsky on “Chomsky”
Hilary Putnam on “Philosophy of Science”
Ronald Dworkin on “Political Philosophy”
Iris Murdoch on “Philosophy and Literature”
Ernest Gellner on “Philosophy: The Social Context”
in the larger sense, the philosphers have been waging a war to get their seat back they lost to the sciences, especially the hard sciences… their attack on religion is to get rid of the only other irrational philosophy people follow.. and negate that their points are irrational, unworkable, etc… and just as much religion too
Those that support Sarah Palin are my allies. Those that support Geller are my allies. Anybody else… well, that’s best left unsaid.
As for losing their sense? Did they ever have a sense for liberty or was that the whole innocent moderate Democrat excuse people kept hitting me in the face with?
Delve into the term…
Russian Revolution: From Men of Ideas to Men of Conviction
Men of Ideas: A Sociologist’s View
Martin Heidegger: Men of Ideas
“Men of Ideas” Marcuse and the Frankfurt School
Alfred Adler: Men Of Ideas
Men of Ideas – John J. Loeper
“Men of Ideas” The Ideas of Chomsky
read this one and you get the feeling that these people are just sufferers of Stockholm Syndrome
The first people totalitarians destroy or silence are men of ideas and free minds.
Isaiah Berlin
and i kind of like this one
“When they start killing the men of ideas, you can be sure the Devil is laughing.”
― Mark Mills, The Savage Garden
you see… given they nevr work out what their ideas would actually be in reality, they end up blaming reality for not allowing their ideas… since they cant fight reality, they have to fight the people who notice the problem, and point it out… then, they can delude themselves into believing that their ideas work…
when mao decided to do his cultural revolution, his ideas caused mass starvation… did he stop? no, because he wanted his ideas to be real and workable, so he had to construct reasons why things didnt work, reasons that did not point to him or his ideas being at fault.
Men of ideas vanish first when freedom vanishes. – Carl Sandburg
Until the men of action clear out the talkers we who have George Bernard Shaw
all through history you will find that for the most part, men of ideas are impotent men… they are made small by men or women of action…
geller is a woman of action…
she makes Zimmerman and lubitz and all those who spend their days chatting up ideas and not caring to know whether they work or not as the ideas are too beautiful to them to want them destroyed by reality.
and here comes someone like Geller…
Geller is a woman of action, the jihadis are men of action… for the most part, when they appear, the men of ideas are seen as impotent, wrong, etc… their ideas are tested, and found lacking… their beautiful constructs lay broken on the floor and no way to resurect them… other than to negate the people of action from action…
for the idea men (and women) the crucible of action destroys their world… science beat them because science demanded impiricism… politics welcomes them because there is no impericism in politics, philosphy, etc.
[note that another name for such idea men are bull sh*t artists]
these are nothings…
they are not men of action, other than writing
they are not self made men, other than study
they are not great men, until the world tries to impose their ideas
(and not that their ideas are valid)
Self-Made Men
by Frederick Douglass (1872)
The lesson taught at this point by human experience is simply this, that the man who will get up will be helped up; and the man who will not get up will be allowed to stay down. This rule may appear somewhat harsh, but in its general application and operation it is wise, just and beneficent. I know of no other rule which can be substituted for it without bringing social chaos. Personal independence is a virtue and it is the soul out of which comes the sturdiest manhood. But there can be no independence without a large share of self-dependence, and this virtue cannot be bestowed. It must be developed from within.
http://www.monadnock.net/douglass/self-made-men.html
This subject has come up for consideration under a variety of attractive titles, such as “Great Men,” “Representative Men,” “Peculiar Men,” “Scientific Men,” “Literary Men,” “Successful Men,” “Men of Genius,” and “Men of the World;” but under whatever name or designation, the vital point of interest in the discussion has ever been the same, and that is, manhood itself, and this in its broadest and most comprehensive sense.
ah… all the real things they could be, they chose to be nothings that banter ideas never tested and are paid for castles in the air that could never ever be built
is it any wonder that they like web dubois, but not douglas?
i suggest reading it, as he pretty much negates the leftist idea of oppression, and puts blame where its right, which is in the individual and their actions..
I have been asked “How will this theory affect the negro?” and “What shall be done in his case?” My general answer is “Give the negro fair play and let him alone. If he lives, well. If he dies, equally well. If he cannot stand up, let him fall down.”
The apple must have strength and vitality enough in itself to hold on, or it will fall to the ground where it belongs. The strongest influence prevails and should prevail. If the vital relation of the fruit is severed, it is folly to tie the stem to the branch or the branch to the tree or to shelter the fruit from the wind. So, too, there is no wisdom in lifting from the earth a head which must only fall the more heavily when the help is withdrawn. Do right, though the heavens fall; but they will not fall.
the point is that the men of ideas want to be worshipped..
the other side is the side of people of action, and so, they have little need for ideas that are unworkable, and cuase misery and so on, no matter how beautiful… Self made men of the american melieu have their OWN ideas and even more so, they employ them, act on them, and succeed with them.
how can zimmerman and lubitz compete with THAT?
without writing things down, their work has literally no substance to it.
gellers ideas have agency in the world…
their ideas are used to entertain the bored so that they show up and see an advert that then causes them to go out and buy something.
in this world, the men of ideas ideas bring no action, but the advert jingle causes action in sales… how horrid is that… how horrible it is to know tha your beautiful construct is at most entertaining pablum and derivative, and that the half naked image with the caption under it causes more people to act on that idea than all your lifes work caused anyone to act
the rest is just a cover for the hatred that rots their core…
Ymarsakar:
When I wrote “lost” I didn’t meant that each person had once had it and lost it. I was meaning that as a group, over time, there is a growing percentage of Americans that have lost it compared to the percentage years ago that didn’t have it. At least, that’s my perception.
Just remember the next time someone makes light of the patriotic chances to win a new civil war, just remember how weak and frail the current SFWhore infested military is, how pliable the MSewerM is, and how utterly disgusting the Left’s rapists are that dominate unions and teacher circles.
These people will defeat us in a hot war? Just imagine that. If they can’t even fight Islamic Jihad which doesn’t even have logistics here, they are going to fight 300 million insurgents? Half of them, perhaps, that are capable of being armed, but still that is a lot more than the population of Iraq or Vietnam. Remember that.
Geller has a powerful enemy in Grover Norquist. I wonder just how many of the “conservatives” now speaking out against her are influenced by him?
While I may not have used the same words as Ms Geller, I do not disagree with her premise. There are a great many Islamist’s who would do the United States and Israel much harm, just because we are who we are, what we believe and how we live.
Ann, those are some good names. I’m sure they’ll be put on the List sooner or later.
Over and over again the leftist chattering class and their foul mouth running dog lackeys reveal their anti-liberty pro totalitarian mindset. Shun them. Ridicule them. They are the threat, for they seek to destroy America, and know not that all that ultimately stands between them and the executioners of islam is the America they despise. They are utopian dreamers and fools every last one of them… and the horse they rode in on.
…Over and over again the leftist chattering class and their foul mouth running dog lackeys reveal their anti-liberty pro totalitarian mindset. Shun them. Ridicule them….
EFF them off!
Eventually eradicate ….
Pingback:The Bookworm Beat 5-8-15 — the “packing it up” edition and open thread
It appears that the attempted execution of Pamela Geller and cohorts was implicitly condoned by the US Government.
Hmmm…. eradicate.
I am of a divided mind over the event itself. I admire the chutzpah of a “Draw Mohammed” contest, but I would never choose to blaspheme someone’s religion because I actually respect religion, though I think Islam is wrong. However, the hissy fit over the IDEA of this event and contest — when Charlie Hebdo devoted an entire issue to Mohammed yet is lauded as brave — is simply too hypocritical to bear. If an entire satirical magazine ‘guest-edited by Mohammed” with a cover that says “100 lashes if you don’t die of laughter” isn’t provoking Muslims, then I don’t know what is. But THAT is sheer comic genius??? And Charlie Hebdo is supposed to be non-hateful because they spit in everyone’s eye while Pam Gellar — whom I know nothing about — is supposed to be hateful because she opposes jihadis. Liberals think intentions matter more than deeds, which is the only reason any of this makes any kind of sense. Well guess what? If you’re a radical Muslim, your intentions behind your cartoon of Mohammed don’t matter AT ALL.
…But THAT is sheer comic genius??? And Charlie Hebdo is supposed to be non-hateful because they spit in everyone’s eye while Pam Gellar – whom I know nothing about – is supposed to be hateful because she opposes jihadis. …
Charlie Hebdo’s sheer comic genius.
Ah! Zimmerman and Lubet’s preferred position ….
Agree with Gail. Before this event I had heard of Geller but didn’t know much about her (still don’t). It’s possible to fully support free speech and Geller’s constitutional right to it and still be opposed to blasphemy in general. I’m Catholic, I am offended by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence AND I support their constitutional right to say and do what they do. That doesn’t mean that I think they SHOULD say and do what they do, or that they are outside the bounds of public criticism. With freedom comes responsibility. I suppose there are those that would call this a “yes but” defense. So be it.
It’s less a “yes but” defense and more a “yes AND” defense.
I may not agree with you have to say — but I will defend your right to say it.
Good times … when lefties used to say that. Sometimes, now and again when they were in a sentimental moment, I think that they actually believed it.
Ann Says:
May 8th, 2015 at 5:07 pm
Norquist is a real snake, and he seems to have great influence in the Republican Party.
I had been wondering for some time whether Norquist had something to do with G. W. Bush’s risible statement that “Islam is a religion of peace”. After reading your link, I no longer wonder about it. It’s pretty obvious.
Facts? Objectivity? For everything you say? Not just part?
You mean, like, integrity or something?
Zimmerman, NY Times, all the rest – – not gonna happen.
For some deliberately so, for others (probably most) an intellectual and psychological failure explained by what, exactly?
Astonishing that so many are so completely out of touch with reality.
Today at Ace of Spades, I saw an excellent comment by zombie. Here it is in its entirety:
(Emphasis in the original.)
Except for the fact that I don’t know whether Geller is doing this consciously and deliberately, I agree completely with zombie’s analysis.
This is a war. It is a world war. The sooner the bulk of the people realize it, the better. Our so-called “leaders” in the government/intelligentsia/media axis are so corrupted by leftism, moral relativism, if not actual ties to Islam, that they are worse than useless. They are an outright threat to us. They are going to have to be forcibly shoved aside if we are going to fight this war properly.
Gaile Finke said:
“…but I would never choose to blaspheme someone’s religion because I actually respect religion, though I think Islam is wrong…”
You can not not blaspheme Islam. It’s impossible. Just ask Asia Bibi, currently on death row in Pakistan for blaspheming Muhammad. Or Sawan Masih, also on death row in Pakistan for the same crime.
This is how this article put it.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/27/pakistan-court-sentences-christian-man-death-blasphemy
“A court in Pakistan has sentenced a Christian man to death for blasphemy, his lawyer said, over an incident that triggered a riot in the country’s second-largest city.
Sawan Masih was convicted of insulting the prophet Muhammad during the course of a conversation with a Muslim friend in the Joseph Colony neighbourhood of Lahore in March last year.
More than 3,000 Muslims rioted, torching about 100 Christian homes in Joseph Colony, after the allegations against Masih emerged…”
Just like Pamela Geller, he didn’t trigger anything. Muslims choose to act this way. And they choose to do so because their religion teaches them it is their duty to do so.
As the article points out, these blasphemy laws simply depend on having enough Muslim witnesses. Really, one will do, as a non-Muslim’s testimony (and a Muslim woman’s) is essentially worthless against a Muslim man’s.
So these blasphemy laws are used to settle personal disputes. Asia Bibi tried to get a drink of water from a well, and a group of Muslim women took offense that a non-Muslim would put her filthy hands on the water bowl. Apparently they argued. Sawan Masih was apparently having a property dispute.
But even if there is an actually statement involved, you’d be amazed if you don’t know anything about Islam what Muslims consider blasphemy or an insult to Muhammad. A Christian in Pakistan and in other countries like Saudi Arabia or Egypt can end up either on death row or in prison for long stretches in the more moderate ones for simply expressing his faith in Christ. Because the Quran and the Sunnah teach it is blasphemy for anyone to say Christ is the Son of God.
So, yes, you would blaspheme someone’s religion. If that religion is Islam. Because it’s unavoidable. In fact you just did blaspheme Islam. Your statement that you think Islam is wrong would be enough to do get the job done.
That’s why I unequivocally support Pamela Geller. She didn’t do anything you didn’t just do.
“The problem – of course! – is that she has the wrong opinions. That’s all. (And worse, she not only voices her wrong opinions, but she stands by them.” Daniel in Brookline
Bingo. In their heart of hearts, the great majority of ‘progressives’ believe that those with the wrong opinions have no rights. None at all.
DNW,
The problem is stating the truth, loudly and then sticking by it; that the doctrines of Islam are, by America’s founding principles, evil and, that Mohammad was a murderous pederast because it threatens the Left’s agenda. The last thing the left wants is for America to awaken and unite in the face of Islam’s threat. Their fear is that if Americans en mass began to recognize and act upon Islam’s totalitarian nature, they might begin to recognize the same nature in the Left.
Artfldgr,
One cannot look at the actual history without considering the utter brutality of the American Indian.
The King of Great Britain “has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.” Declaration of Independence
Nor was it just in ‘war’. Tribal culture during times of ‘peace’ was to conduct periodic raids into lands adjacent to theirs. Because of their vulnerability, settler farmers were particularly attractive. Launch a surprise attack, kill the men and youngest children, rape then kill the older women and rape and enslave the younger women. Pragmatically, a tribe that could increase its women grew in strength as the men were free to rape slaves.
Mercy was an utterly foreign concept, as prior to Christianity, it had been in Europe.
Gail Kinke,
“I actually respect religion, though I think Islam is wrong.”
If only it were just wrong.
The Leftists have so many shibboleths, don’t they?
These knee-jerk denunciations of the content of Geller’s blog, for instance, are the latest. Which blog I’ll lay you dollars to doughnuts they’ve at most barely glanced at.
But they have to genuflect to their brazen god in every circumstance.
neo-neocon said:
“I find this one of the most curious aspects of the entire episode, although very emblematic of the leftist mind as I’ve come to know it. It is open season on Geller, and no one seems to feel the need to prove that she deserves such contempt.”
I chalk it up to the progressive left’s Stockholm syndrome. They hold each other hostage. Their Muslim allies hold them hostage.
Gail, if you are curious, Pamela’s work is right there at PamelaGeller.com.
Easy peasy.
She’s forceful, but she Speaks the Truth. And that’s what chaps everyone’s rear end. No need to slander the enemy, when his own vile words and evil actions condemn him so utterly.
Beverly said:
“She’s forceful, but she Speaks the Truth. And that’s what chaps everyone’s rear end. No need to slander the enemy, when his own vile words and evil actions condemn him so utterly.”
As you would imagine, the Islamist apologist crowd wouldn’t be above lying. That’s why I present this blast from the past from 2002.
https://www.questia.com/magazine/1P3-208748351/cair-launches-library-project
“The 18-item library package includes the PBS documentary “Islam: Empire of Faith,” Prof. John Esposito’s The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?, Jack Shaheen’s Reel Bad Arabs, as well as a copy of the Qur’an, and childrens’ books.”
If you quote an English language transliteration of the Quran to argue with people from the Hamas front group CAIR about what their vile words actually mean, they’ll say that unless you can’t read the Quran in Arabic you don’t know what it says.
There’s a lot wrong with that. But one thing is, to counter “Islamophobia” they were distributing their own English language transliteration of the Quran shortly after 9/11/2001.
There’s a thriving publishing industry producing Qurans in just about every language on Earth for Muslims. Because only a small minority of Muslims speak much less read Arabic. And the Arabic speakers and readers don’t read 7th century Arabic.
You can get far more reliable transliterations as long as you avoid the CAIR/Muslim Brotherhood propaganda versions. But you’ll be called every name in the book if you put that much work into it.
Islam is defined as *submission* so yes, they, and in their mind set, *everybody* is under the yoke of Allah constantly….. ad infinitum
Strange bedfellows:
Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam And The American Left
Except, it is not strange. It seems so because… we won’t face the facts ….
Your Libtard family members, “friends”, neighbors, acquaintances, colleagues, do.not.mean.you.well…
@G6loq, MY lefty family members hear an earful for
voting for this America hating, Muslim enabling poser
all the time ! They stay strangely silent & uncharacteristically docile when I make the remark
“he s against Christians & pro Muslim”
just ask the Coptic s, the ones that are still alive !
I heard that the US state dept denied a Visa to a
Syrian Nun who wanted to tour the US and speak out about the slaughter of the ME Christians, I imagine like Lois lerner the State Dept is just doing the bidding of our tyrant.
G6loq,
There is a fundamental difference between the liberal retards who voted for Obama and the ‘progressives’ who voted for Obama.
Libtards are ignorant fools and being played for fools (useful idiots) by the Left. They actually believe that the left’s memes and narrative are true and that, the socialistic ‘solutions’ that the left offers will make for a better world. Their motivation is idealistic, though profoundly unrealistic.
Progressives deepest motivation is power and personal aggrandizement. More than anything else, they seek to rule.
Many Leftists and Democrat socialites also thought Sarah Palin’s children were savage or not part of their social clique for having gotten into a fight at a party, together more or less.
I saw it as youths getting it out, since certainly I would like to rampage through some crowds of human detritus for stress relief and fighting in that context prepares the mind and body for conflict.
Of course, the Left doesn’t treat Islam, their jihad allies, with the same opprobrium. Maybe because they don’t consider Islam a real threat or maybe they consider Palin and her children the “real threat”. Maybe they understand that they can affect the social status of the teenagers by pressuring Palin when they know that pressuring Islam on honor killings and FGM is worse than useless. It’ll get you killed sooner or later.
So, hypocrisy? Perhaps even that title is too good for Leftists and so called Americans.
The Left point of view on issues is defined primarily by ‘who’, not ‘what’.
People place too much confidence in their ability to determine people’s motivations, beliefs, and thoughts. They may be accurate for some people, but that does not extend to the majority of either faction.
It is especially inaccurate for people who cannot make accurate predictions about the present or future, to then use that inaccurate personal judgment to decide what a bunch of people they have never met, feels, thinks, and knows.
It’s not something they can know. All they know is the people they’ve interviewed and interrogated, which isn’t even a good sized sample.
That doesn’t mean that I think they SHOULD say and do what they do, or that they are outside the bounds of public criticism. With freedom comes responsibility. I suppose there are those that would call this a “yes but” defense. So be it.
I would call that freedom of conscience. It’s what the bakers and florists wished they still had in so called America.
The Left though, when you refuse to obey them, they will get you. They will set you up. They will stab you in the back. They’ll get the government to use Power to break you. That is the Left.
So Geller doesn’t want to kill her conscience merely for the fear the Islamic Jihad brings. And neither do a lot of Americans want to live under a Gaystapo, killing their conscience so that they Obey the Left’s Authority.
The Left thinks disagreement is wrong, that it is evil, that it means you are a sub human who can’t love.
Good times … when lefties used to say that.
Those disgusting turds used to say that a lot in the Iraq war debate, perhaps even here, against the rest of us.
Where are those rapist supporting f tards now?
They were deceiving themselves and the rest of us when they said they “believed it”. They believed in their belief.
When liberals and progressives express their beliefs and thoughts, as they incessantly do, and when we witness what they do as being congruent with those expressed beliefs, we may reasonably conclude as to their motivations.
No one can ‘know’ the majority, so conclusions based on an inadequate polling sample are unavoidable, not to mention the notoriously questionable ‘accuracy’ of polls, determined by what they ask and especially what they do not ask. The qualifier is that our conclusions must be open to revision when new information commands it.
“Having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise.” Benjamin Franklin
Put another way; “One can judge from experiment, or one can blindly accept authority. To the [true and rare] scientific mind, experimental proof is all important and theory is merely a convenience in description, to be junked when it no longer fits… To the academic mind, authority is everything and facts are junked when they do not fit theory laid down by authority. “ Robert Heinlein
Who can make ‘accurate’ predictions about the present or future? I’m unaware of this ‘Cassandra’.
A profiler or interrogator that tries to take random samplings of what people say and then use that as a way to judge the expressions, lies, and emotional reactions of the subject in front of them, isn’t conducting any kind of professional operation.
It may be a scientific study, but the results will be less practical and far too abstract to be of immediate use.
Of course the reverse may also be true, where anyone who interviews a single family member then somehow thinks they have the Skeleton key to unlock the psychological secrets of everybody else on this planet.
In the end, the proof is in the prediction and the percentage of accuracy. I told people that the Left obeys authority and that all of them would have little trouble obeying the Death Squads or giving those extermination groups the locations of American patriots. GB talked about people being innocent because they are ignorant. As the US authorities care about ignorance as being a defense in crimes. But even if they do, it doesn’t change the highly inaccurate portrayals and theories presented by the “we know they are ignorant of this” line of theorizing.
In a direct response to the mass murder of people at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo last January, Norway has abolished its blasphemy laws. This is a development of sheer magnificence!
Bravo Norway!
Are we supposed to take their words at face value? So when Islamic Jihad says Islam is peace and that they are peaceful, we take at face value their “good intentions”. Of what purpose or benefit does that serve?
If the Left and Islam says they will kill you and then they actually go out and kill someone, that has weight to it. But the mere words people espouse about their own intentions have little weight to them in and of itself.
When the Left shows by their words and actions that they are innocent, does that mean they won’t ever push the security button to let the death squads in the door? What matters are their actions, not the words they use to cover up their intentions. Nor does it matter what their intentions are, what matters is what they actually do and how their behavior fits into the predictive models. A model using good intentions and the previous words of people to gauge their danger levels is not going to be able to handle things. Humans are fickle, they can decide at any time to obey evil, and they already have.
In the past it was difficult to obtain relevant examples of people obeying death squads or providing information detrimental to American patriots. The IRS changed that. The Texas shootings changed that. But even then, there were plenty of examples before then. They just weren’t relevant to the people who obtained the “good intentions” of the Left from their friendly neighborhood association of families. They just weren’t relevant to the people who obtained their good impression of homos and Islamos from their friendly neighborhood proto Gaystapo and Islamic Muslim “free speech” good intentioned “Americans”.
Since a good intentioned Muslim can obey the evil of Islam at any moment, what does it matter whether GB says their intentions are good or not? What does it matter if the Left says their intentions are good or not? It doesn’t even matter what their intentions are.
Homos had good intentions? Maybe. Until the Gaystapo told them to find the heretics and make them pay. Then those good intentions kind of evaporated. Funny enough that’s the reality people don’t want to deal with. They keep making excuses that they couldn’t predict it ahead of time. Obviously you can’t predict anything by relying on people’s proclaimed good intent.
That’s what happens when people place an overly high importance on reading intentions. Being right doesn’t mean they can deal with what people do.
Public officials and individuals like Clinton are much easier to read. Their profiling is much more useful and calculating the intent or not of Hussein may or may not be useful. But I avoid the claim that Hussein had good or bad intentions. Evil isn’t about intent. Whether Hussein destroys the US or not, is an element of fate, it is not an element of what people intend to do. But if it helps people understand that someone is evil by convincing them that they intended it, there is plenty of evidence to support that as well if needed. But the proof of evil does not require intent. Obedience to evil does not require bad or good intentions.
A so called American can claim to be for free speech and still be against Palin and Geller. Hypocrisy is not the point in this context, the point is that their actions matter more than what they say.
If the predicton is correct that Leftists obey evil, then until someone with “good intentions” refuses to obey the Left, what does it matter what people think that intention is? Once they refuse to obey the Left, they stop being a Leftist. Of course there are people who fall from the Circle and try to get back in, I’m sure their good intentions will not save them from the fire or from the guilt. Getting back into the den of evil after they threw a person out, is that person good or bad? Good intentioned or bad intentioned? I’m not sure it matters and in fact there’s a lot of arguments I use to demonstrate that it matters not.
When humans are under Authority, what they will do is based on the orders they get from that Authority. There’s no such thing as free will there in the enemy. That’s not what we are dealing with here. If they are told to give up the locations of Tea Party patriots to the death squads, the Left will. And it does not matter whether people like to differentiate them into “innocent” ignorant savages with good intentions or whether they want to differentiate them into the elite priest leadership cadre of the Clintons and Messiah Husseins. One may give the orders and the other obeys, but both are guilty. Merely because one party has more guilt, does not exonerate the other parties involved.