As we witness surging Muslim violence against non-Muslims in Afghanistan, Egypt and even here in America, the response seems increasingly that the victims must apologize to the perpetrators.
I am not concerned about what Muslims do in the Middle East. We cannot, and should not attempt to police the world. I am however concerned, as we all should be, about what is happening here in the United States. Our government, from President Obama on down, has been apologizing and seeking forgiveness for offending Islamic sensibilities by accidentally burning Qurans. This was felt necessary even in a case where the books had been defaced by captured Afghan jihadis as a means of encouraging their comrades to further acts of violence against us.
It seems that Christians are also widely considered to be at fault for having churches, Bibles and religious practices that offend the dominate Islamists in Egypt, Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. Certainly, no apologies are forthcoming when the Christians are murdered or forced to flee for their lives, their churches and sacred texts put to the torch, etc.
And here in America last week, a Pennsylvania judge felt the need to dress down a man assaulted for parading in a Halloween costume he called “Zombie Mohammed.” Far from punishing the perpetrator, a Muslim immigrant, Judge Mark Martin sympathized with him for the offense caused, noting – seemingly without objection – that it was a capital crime to engage in such free expression in some countries.
Worse yet, the judge suggested that the victim in this case had exceeded the “boundaries” of his “First Amendment rights.” Such a view seems to track with the Obama administration’s collaboration with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in fashioning international accords that would prohibit “incitement” against Islam.
This is a short step from – and enroute to – the OIC’s larger goal of banning and criminalizing any expression that offends Muslims or their faith. As such, it poses a mortal peril to the Constitution’s First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech.
What is going on in country after country, in international forums like the UN Human Rights Council and even in some American courts is a calculated effort, backed by terrifying violence or its threat, to make us “feel subdued,” as the Quran puts it. The idea is to use Western sensibilities and civil liberties, notably, respect for the free practice of religion, to deny the rest of us our fundamental freedoms. These include the freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and, yes, freedom of religion.
The trouble is that when we accommodate such demands, it is seen by Islamist enemies of liberty as evidence of our inevitable submission. According to the doctrine of shariah, they must, under such circumstances, make a redoubled effort to achieve their ultimate triumph, including through the use of violence.
So, far from alleviating the threat posed by shariah’s adherents when we accommodate, apologize and appease, we are actually exacerbating it, at home as well as abroad.
In short, we find ourselves in what is, properly understood, the civil rights struggle of our time. Muslims are of course free to practice their faith in America like anyone else – provided they do so in a tolerant, peaceable and law-abiding way. What they are not entitled to do, in the name of religious practice, is subvert our Constitution, deny us our rights or engage in sedition without facing concerted opposition – if not prosecution.
Today, just as in the civil rights struggles of the past, there are those who are prepared to go along with what they know is wrong, in order to get along. But now, as then, we must take a stand to defend our constitution. A good place to start is to write your Congressmen and Senators NOW, and be sure you vote a straight Republican ticket in November.
The American people have readily and dynamically fought every effort from outside this country to conquer us. But never in our history has the effort been directed by our own President. Never before has the covert element been benign on the surface while dynamically propelling this nation toward its own suicide by anesthetizing the awareness of the citizenry. Never before have so many people’s sense of caring for the might and majesty of this nation been allowed to deteriorate to this point. Never before has the threat come from within. We stand at a point in history where rhetoric and verbal sleight of hand are accepted as policy.
If you
are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem.
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