On Islam and the definition of “religion”

The New Neo Posted on by

I noticed a discussion in the comments today about whether Islam is a religion, so I thought I’d feature a link to this previous post of mine on the subject of the definition of “religion.”

That post – which I suggest you read – focuses on the legal definition, and obviously people often use the word in more than the legal sense. But I think that Islam is a religion by any definition that comes to mind, at least for me.

Of course, not all religions promote good things (that’s covered somewhat in the previous post, as well, with examples such as suttee and female genital mutilation). But that’s a separate issue, although an important one.

Commenter “Cicero” writes:

Islam is an ideology, not a religion. It has found the soft underbelly of the post-Enlightenment West. An example is CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a clearly political entity, as its name clearly indicates, which is a non-profit because it is ”religious”.

Those are two separate issues as well, in my opinion. The first – that Islam is not a religion but rather an ideology – is incorrect, in my opinion, because Islam has all the trappings of a religion in the legal and in the vernacular sense. However – as with most religions – a lot of other things come along with Islam in terms of its actual beliefs and practices. It’s not that Islam isn’t a religion. It’s that it is a suprasecessionist religion that wants to dominate the entire world and that it also is deeply intertwined with political goals. For example:

Political aspects of the religion of Islam are derived from its religious scripture … as well as elements of political movements and tendencies followed by Muslims or Islamic states throughout its history. Shortly after its founding, Islam’s prophet Muhammad became a ruler of a state, and the intertwining of religion and state in Islam (and the idea that “politics is central” to Islam), is in contrast to the doctrine of rendering “unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God”, of Christianity, its related and neighboring religion.

Of course, many countries do have Christianity as an official religion (such as, for example, the Church of England), but they also have freedom of religious belief. In the US, the separation of church and state goes further in that no state religion can be established. That’s why the US Constitution and Islam proper are in inherent conflict. Although there are plenty of not-so-religions individual Moslems who aren’t interested in Islam taking over the world or the US government, the traditional beliefs of devout Moslems would include such a goal of takeover. In that sense Islam is both a religion and a political ideology.

CBS pays Trump in settlement of biased-editing lawsuit

The New Neo Posted on by

Trump’s on a roll.

Here’s the agreement reached in his lawsuit against CBS for deceptively editing a Kamala Harris interview to make her look better:

Paramount Global and CBS agreed on Tuesday to pay President Donald Trump a sum that could reach north of $30 million to settle the president’s election interference lawsuit against the network.

Trump will receive $16 million upfront. This will cover legal fees, costs of the case, and contributions to his future presidential library or charitable causes, to be determined at Trump’s discretion.

There is an anticipation that there will be another allocation in the mid-eight figures set aside for advertisements, public service announcements, or other similar transmissions, in support of conservative causes by the network in the future, Fox News Digital has learned.

I suspect that’s nothing much to CBS. But still, it’s a victory for Trump. And apparently they are also agreeing that in the future they will post entire transcripts for interviews with presidential candidates.

More:

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and eight Democratic colleagues sent a letter to Redstone in May asking her not to settle the lawsuit against CBS News, which they called an “attack on the First Amendment.” They called the potential settlement a “grave mistake” and “a blatant attempt to intimidate the media and those who speak out against him, President Trump.”

The letter also stated “presidents do not get to punish or censor the media for criticizing them” in the United States.

Nobody censored anyone – except for CBS, which censored (that is, made editorial decisions that were somewhat deceptive) the words of Kamala Harris. Trump wanted full disclosure of her words; how is that censorship? And he used a courtroom to duke it out with CBS. Of course, Trump has a lot of power as president. But CBS has a lot of power as a major network, and it has used that power over and over to put its finger on the political scales in favor of the left.

Sean “Diddy” Combs found guilty on the more minor charges

The New Neo Posted on by

You may or may not have noticed that I haven’t covered the Sean Combs trial. I’ve left that to others because I just don’t happen to be all that interested – I’m not a fan, and it’s clear he’s a sleazebag although whether he’s guilty of actual crimes isn’t something I especially wanted to follow.

But the verdict is in:

A Manhattan jury has found Sean “Diddy” Combs not guilty of racketeering conspiracy, the most serious of the charges he was facing, and the one that could have put him behind bars for life. This charge, which falls under the RICO Act, “alleged that Combs participated in a criminal enterprise. Prosecutors claimed he used his business empire to facilitate illegal activities,” according to NBC News.

He was also acquitted on two counts of sex trafficking, by force, fraud, or coercion. This charge relates to “allegations that Combs coerced individuals into engaging in commercial sexual activity,” as per NBC. If he had been convicted, he would have faced 10 years to life in prison for each count.

Combs was found guilty on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of ten years in prison. “This charge alleges that Combs knowingly transported individuals across state lines or internationally with the intent that they would engage in prostitution.”

From what I’ve read of his offenses – which isn’t much – a life sentence seems excessive. So perhaps this is the correct verdict. As for his fans, I’m not sure whether the trial disgraced him or enhanced his status.

Mamdani’s new voters

The New Neo Posted on by

We’re still digesting the Mamdani primary win from a week ago. Here’s another tidbit, this time from Front Page, in which Daniel Greenfield observes that the NY Times discovered that 10% of the NYC Democrat primary voters were newly registered, and number about 40K. In addition, a greater percentage than in 2021 had names that tend to be “associated with Muslim majority countries.”

Plus, they are young, between 18 and 25 years old, a group that had more participation in the primaries than any other age group.

Greenfield opines:

Who were these 18-25 year olds? The Muslim settler population in the US is uniquely young so that “roughly a third of all Muslim adults are under the age of 30”. That may offer a partial explanation for what we’re seeing here. Social media trends wouldn’t do this. Organized community bloc voting would. Beyond fraud and numbers like these absolutely raise that question, we are seeing a test of the system that Islamists used to swamp elections in the UK.

So this is probably not fraud in the sense of registering people who don’t exist. But this seems to represent the result of organizing by far-leftist and/or Moslem partisan groups. In a primary with low turnout, mobilizing voters is absolutely crucial. The extent of participation of these new voters doesn’t seem to have been reflected in polls either, which showed the race to be much tighter.

NOTE: Mamdani got by far the most out-of-state contributions of any of the candidates.

Happy belated 95th birthday to Thomas Sowell

The New Neo Posted on by

I missed the occasion, which was yesterday. But I want to wish a belated happy birthday to a formidable and formative thinker on the right, probably the contemporary political writer I most admire. He apparently has hardly lost a step in his extreme old age, which is quite an achievement.

Here are links to the over-100 posts I’ve written that mention Sowell. But for now I’ll just repeat the substance of this one from four years ago:

And yet most people probably have no idea who Sowell is.

Sowell was one of the very first thinkers I encountered during the course of my political change experience, and he was probably the most formative one. When I initially read his work – I think it was the book The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy – it was with a happy sigh of recognition and relief as well as admiration. Finally, here was someone who was voicing clear, intelligent, common-sense versions of thoughts, some of which were new to me but some of which I’d already had in extremely inchoate and amorphous form but had never been able to articulate or order. He made perfect sense, and I couldn’t imagine why everyone in the world didn’t agree with him.

Unfortunately, they didn’t.

Notice also that subtitle – of a book first published in 1996 – Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy. That’s an excellent example of Sowell’s ability to distill – into a short phrase, sentence, or paragraph – a complex and highly insightful as well as illuminating idea. He’s been doing that for about fifty years, and his body of work holds up very well.

So Happy Happy Birthday, Thomas Sowell. Long may you live and grace us with your clear-headed wisdom.

Do you know what’s in the Big Beautiful Bill that just passed the Senate?

The New Neo Posted on by

I freely admit that I’m struggling to understand exactly what’s in the bill and, more importantly, how it will affect Americans. And I think I’m hardly the only one, if people were to be honest.

The media and the politicians and even bloggers and commenters put their own spin on it. There are, for example, the usual cries against GOP members who are perceived as selling out to various interest groups. There’s the railing against the parliamentarian and those who decided not to overrule her, although they might have. But I don’t fully trust anything I’m reading. So here’s my take on it which admittedly contains a lot of guesswork.

The bill passed 51-50 with Vance breaking a tie, and the three GOP defectors being Rand Paul, Thom Tillis, and Susan Collins:

Paul and Tillis had each voted against even debating the bill. Paul called for greater spending cuts. Tillis said the bill would cost his state $26 billion in Medicaid funding, breaking a federal promise of health care to low-income people. …

Collins had voted to debate the bill but opposed its approval primarily because of Medicaid cuts. She said one-third of her state – 400,000 people – depend on Medicaid and the bill would hurt rural healthcare providers and nursing homes.

She also cited concerns about phasing out tax credits for renewable energy providers. She said the bill should have kept incentives for families that choose to install heat pumps and residential solar panels.

I’ve said it before about Collins, and I’ll say it again: if you want Maine to have a Republican senator, it would have to be someone who votes as Collins does. Otherwise, it’s a Democrat for sure and would help Democrats to gain control of the Senate.

Note also there were only three defectors, which made it possible for the bill to pass. That’s because the other would-be defector, Murkowski, was placated in a compromise:

The deal with Murkowski breaks a deadlock that lasted throughout Monday night and into Tuesday morning.

Thune, Crapo and Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee Chair John Boozman (R-Ark.) thought they had secured Murkowski’s vote by crafting language to provide an enhanced federal Medicaid match for Alaska and a waiver to shield the state from Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) cuts.

But Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough threw a wrench into those plans by ruling the initial Medicaid and SNAP provisions designed to help Alaska didn’t comply with the Byrd Rule and therefore weren’t eligible to pass the Senate with a simple-majority vote.

Republican leadership and committee staff then spent hours Monday and early Tuesday morning to craft language that could secure the approval of both Murkowski and the parliamentarian.

So, why didn’t the Senate GOP just vote to overrule the parliamentarian? I believe – although I also don’t know – that the answer revolves around the three defectors plus Murkowski. I don’t think any of them – and that includes Murkowski – would have voted to overrule the parliamentarian. Certainly there’s no reason that the three who voted against the bill would have voted to overrule the parliamentarian in order to pass it – that simply wouldn’t make sense. And Murkowski was very lukewarm on the bill as well, and relishes her own power.

So those people who are angry at the GOP as a whole for not voting to overrule the parliamentarian are – IMHO – not taking into account the reality, which is that it probably couldn’t have been done. Still another reality is that getting rid of Collins would bring the Democrats closer to a Senate majority; Tillis is going anyway; and Rand Paul is Rand Paul, another kettle of fish.

Furthermore, this isn’t the final bill. It has to be “reconciled” in the House. The fat lady may be warming up in the wings, but that’s about it.

NOTE: If you want to find out what’s in the Senate bill about Medicaid versus what’s in the House bill about Medicaid, here’s the only article I found that purports to say. It’s CBS, so it would tend to have an anti-GOP spin, but take a look.

Forum-shopping: it’s not just your imagintion

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s for real:

As the Trump administration faces substantial pushback in the courts, including an unprecedented wave of nationwide injunctions halting its policies, some are claiming that his opponents are tilting the scales of justice by selectively bringing their lawsuits before sympathetic courts in a practice called “forum shopping.” They note that three-quarters of the lower court justices who have blocked Trump policies were appointed by Democrats.

Gaming the federal justice system, however, is harder than it sounds because plaintiffs bring cases before courts rather than judges. Most federal courts have a mix of judges appointed by Democrats and Republicans. The plaintiff’s goal in forum shopping is to launch their suit in a district where they are more likely to draw a sympathetic justice – ideally, this district would also include an appellate court stacked with like-minded judges.

To see whether Trump’s adversaries are engaging in forum shopping, RealClearInvestigations analyzed 350 cases brought against the administration. We found that plaintiffs have brought 80% of those cases before just 11 of the nation’s 91 district courts. While Democrat presidents have appointed roughly 60% of all active district court judges, each of the 11 district courts where the anti-Trump challenges have been clustered boasts an even higher percentage of Democrat appointees. In several of these venues, the administration’s challengers are almost guaranteed that a judge picked by Joe Biden, Barack Obama, or Bill Clinton will preside over their case.

We pretty much already knew that. But it’s interesting to see the numbers.

Tillis retreats and the Big Beautiful Bill advances

The New Neo Posted on by

Senator Thom Tillis announced he’s not running for re-election. This was after Trump suggested it might be a good idea to primary him:

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis announced Sunday that he won’t seek reelection after drawing President Trump’s wrath over the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — stoking speculation that Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara may potentially vie for the seat.

Just before his sudden announcement, the Republican senator had rankled Trump by voting against advancing the marquee Trump legislation because of his concerns about the Medicaid provisions in the megabill.

“In Washington over the last few years, it’s become increasingly evident that leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species,” Tillis said in a statement Sunday. …

“When people see independent thinking on the other side, they cheer. But when those very same people see independent thinking coming from their side, they scorn, ostracize and even censure them,” Tillis bemoaned.

Well, duh. Politics is partisan. “Independent thinking” is a phrase that tends to mean “voting against your party’s programs.” Why wouldn’t a party – any party, left or right – criticize that? If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen – which it appears that Tillis is poised to do.

Meanwhile, the Big Beautiful Bill has advanced in the Senate, despite Tillis:

The Senate held a procedural vote to allow for debate on the OBBB, and it passed, 51-49. There was no need for Vice President JD Vance to make a tie-breaking vote, even though he was in the chamber in order to do just that.

Sen. Ron Johnson saved him the trouble. As of Friday, Johnson was still a firm “NO” vote, despite meeting with President Donald Trump to see if a compromise could be found. But somewhere between the vote and the final tally, Johnson miraculously conceded and voted “YES.”

If the bill passes, it will go back to the House for fine tuning. Here’s an article explaining what needs to be reconciled for the bill to become law.

Getting to know Mamdani – a bit late in the game

The New Neo Posted on by

Of course, lots of people would agree with Mamdani’s remark here, and they’ll be voting for him in November:

That’s instructive in so many ways. If you watch it, you’ll learn how smooth and smiley and downright pleasant Mamdani sounds. He just wants less inequality, that’s all, and he’ll work with everyone in New York to make the place more fair. It sounds good to a lot of people who don’t think much beyond the happy vision. Who really needs a billion dollars, anyway? Mamdani is just imagining a world in which billionaires don’t exist, but he doesn’t explain how that would occur or what the consequences would be.

We can guess. The methods that come to mind are to confiscate the money of anyone earning over a certain amount, either through an astronomical tax rate or some other method; or cap salaries and investments. The kind of “fairness” he’s talking about can only be accomplished through income redistribution and government control. Government decides how much people “should” earn. The effect this would have is that, on a local level, the rich would move away – and take their job creation with them. Or they’d just stop striving.

Kipling said something of the sort long ago:

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

I don’t know what Mamdani would have the power to actually do about it if he did become New York’s next mayor. But it’s just one of many worrisome statements of his.

He’s certainly got the attention of the press and pundits, and there’s a lot of analysis since last Tuesday of just who voted for him to account for his win. Here’s one article on the subject:

Less than 30% of Democrats voted in the mayoral primary. Of those, supposedly, 43.5% voted for Mamdani. So some 12.9% of New York Democrats voted for Mamdani.

56% of registered voters in the city are Democrats so some 7.2% of city residents voted for him. …

Mamdani’s base isn’t New Yorkers, it’s a coalition of white hipsters and Muslim immigrants, most of them weren’t even in the city during 9/11, like Mamdani, have no roots in the city, and no connection to its history. The quintessential New Yorker, as envisioned by a thousand Hollywood movies, TV shows and Broadway musicals, still exists, but is harder to find than ever. The city of those movies and shows can be glimpsed as a palimpsest under layers of chain stores, illegal migrants, social justice projects and vegan eateries before it vanishes again in the rain.

What happened to New York is what happened to legendary cities across the country and around the world, from Philly to London, which is that the revival of the 90s was the final act in driving out its working class and middle class population. Rents soared until the only young people who could afford to live there were white hipsters and third world immigrants.

And their politics became based on coalitions between the hipsters and the new arrivals. In New York City, as in London, it produced a Jihadist coalition that paved the way for a Muslim mayor.

Interesting observations. But unless a decent alternative is presented to the voters, and unless the opposition becomes focused on just a single candidate, Mamdani will probably win because his supporters are passionately involved. There’s apathy and disarray on the other side, and that’s not good.