What’s Wrong with the World

I know your question is semi-rhetorical, but of course the answer will always be "no," among respectable conservatives everywhere. Already I am seeing ridiculous qualifications to their denunciations of this barbarous act such as, "Of course only the gunmen are responsible for this attack," which seems to me to be morally insane, and a back-door way of confining agency for the attack to two lone individuals so as to absolve the culture and the religion that gave birth to it.

Moreover, I am willing to bet that the explanation for this atrocity will be found somewhere other than Muslim immigration per se, especially if it turns out that the terrorists were foreigners linked to Al-Qaeda in Yemen, as some early rumor-mongering on the internet has suggested. Unobjectionable commenters have made a lucrative industry out of drawing inexplicit connections between terror attacks and creeping sharia on the one hand, and mass immigration on the other, preying on normal people's intuitive loathing of Islamic supremacy while avoiding the icky work of providing a credible plan for denying it entry to the West.

But that's just me griping, and not something anybody here doesn't know. The awful fact is that the jihad scored a major victory today, as the jihadists measure these things. French writers and satirists may well capitulate, and for all the defiant talk coming from various corners of educated Western society now, it is questionable at the least that anyone will step in to replace Charlie Hebdo.

The appalling cowardice of jihadist violence is overshadowed by the moral terror it inspires. Islam advances in the same manner as a crime syndicate--by demonstrating that its members are willing to perpetrate and to forgive acts of savagery. Its victims, knowing that they are not willing to go as far or do near so much by way of sadistic bloodshed to defend themselves, are steadily cowed by the creeping fear that Islam simply cannot be resisted. Islam thrives on the sense that its conquests are inevitable. That is why every territorial reversal, however small or however just, is met by Muslims as an undying insult to Allah that must be amended or revenged at any cost--beneath its bravado lies a pathological insecurity, as is the case for any movement that premises its justification on its worldly successes (International Communism found the expression of this psycho-social defect in the Brezhnev Doctrine).

Muslims in Europe feel their oats, and why shouldn't they? European intellectuals openly discuss a future in which the European peoples are a minority under the dominance of Islam. However, things can change, and often do. So we'll see how many people in respectable circles are emboldened to rethink their attachment to liberal dogma.

Moreover, I am willing to bet that the explanation for this atrocity will be found somewhere other than Muslim immigration per se, especially if it turns out that the terrorists were foreigners linked to Al-Qaeda in Yemen, as some early rumor-mongering on the internet has suggested.

Perhaps I should clarify that under "immigration" I'm including short-term visas and the like. I'm guessing that these guys were either in France legally or that, as seems increasingly to be happening in the U.S., illegal immigration is accepted by lots of deliberate government blind-eye-turning, making the distinction between "sneaking into the country for purposes of terrorism" and "being allowed into the country because everybody is, even if they might be terrorists" invisible in practice.

Creeping sharia is, of course, a real issue, but it couldn't happen if there weren't lots of Muslims around! What I think you are highlighting among some conservatives is lots of talk-talk about the evils of creeping sharia and Islamicization combined with a resolute refusal to say, "It would be better if we had _waaaay_ fewer Muslims in the West. Is there any way we could try to accomplish this or at least slow down the rise in numbers?"

I think Vox Day's take on Islam in Europe is likely correct. In another 20 years, multiculturalism will not only be dead among white Europeans, but Europe will give the Muslims a stark choice: voluntary repatriation or genocide. Mainstream anti-Islamic views are exploding in Europe and it's more of a matter of when, not if, the rising nationalist parties either win enough seats to start making policy changes or simply overthrow the elected government. In the case of Holland, if they continue down the path they have with Geert Wilders and his party, it will likely end with the Dutch government facing a coup once the nationalists realize that any attempt to play within the system will result in prosecution.

Going back to Sage's comment, perhaps I just remain perennially hopeful (at least a tiny bit) concerning some mainstream conservatives. An example: Several years ago I had a respectful disagreement with David Wood, who has _ample_ knowledge of the dangers of Islamic enclaves, on the subject of Muslim immigration. David did not want it to be restricted, though he does criticize Islam sharply and gets constant death threats and threats against his family from Muslims. I don't want to misrepresent his arguments, so I won't attempt to reconstruct them from memory. As I say, it was a good exchange on his Acts 17 blog. I haven't re-read it since then.

I would like to think that someone like that could gradually gather a data set from events like today's terrorist attack and eventually conclude, "Okay, whatever I thought was a good reason for continuing to bring more and more Muslims into the West, it is outweighed by the ever-growing mountain of evidence of the downside of doing so."

You know, exotic conjectures of events 20 years hence are hardly conducive to fruitful conversation. It's always fun to speculate, but I think anyone who has a solid "take" on events nearly a generation into the future is probably trying to sell something.

I'm guessing that these guys were either in France legally or that, as seems increasingly to be happening in the U.S., illegal immigration is accepted by lots of deliberate government blind-eye-turning, making the distinction between "sneaking into the country for purposes of terrorism" and "being allowed into the country because everybody is, even if they might be terrorists" invisible in practice.

After the Algerian war, France bestowed French citizenship on all Algerians. Now all one must do is get an Algerian document of citizenship (sounds difficult, no?). Many of the "Algerians" in France are not Algerian at all. I believe Charles de Gaulle put this absurd law into effect which is why so many Frenchmen tried to assassinate him over the years.

What Paul said ,verbatim

Mike T., I shouldn't need to say this, but if your predictions re. "offering" genocide came true, that would be evil. Maybe you think so, too. But you didn't bother to say so.

I think it would be both evil and an inevitable outcome of today's politics left unchecked. For Paul to call it an "exotic conjecture" ignores the fact that it is actually not unreasonable if you consider history as precedent and various factors such as demographics, the deep disconnect between the ruling classes and the public and that these immigrants are simply not even remotely attempting to integrate.

Consider the Jews, Gypsies and Muslims as minorities in Europe. If the Europeans would so ruthlessly turn on one of the most productive ethnic minorities in history and do more or less the same to one that is a mere annoyance, how much more savagely do you think they will turn on the Muslims once Muslim arrogance and cultural aggression is simply unavoidable for ordinary Europeans? The history of Europe is riddled with push-push-push... overwhelming fury in retaliation. Even as late as WWII, the British simply abandoned their principles to engage in wanton slaughter on the Germans at Dresden out of pure vengeance over German aerial terrorism. The British.

Anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe is already starting to show much more radical signs than it is in the US. Just look at how they are starting to react to the flood of Gypsies and Eastern Europeans. Now imagine what it may be like if Islamic attacks become staggering common place and the governments continue to take a politically correct, multiculturalist view. 1/8 Germans openly admit that if there were an anti-Islamization rally in their community, they'd show up. That's just the 1/8 so fed up they are willing to risk censure. Hungary, Italy, Greece and France have seen their far right parties and nationalist left parties do increasingly well in the elections. The English Defense League and UKIP are starting to make real headway as well. Times are changing, for better or for worse.

I'm with Mike T on this one. Things are simply not going to go on like this forever. Either the Europeans are going to curb Muslim immigration in the very near future or there's going to be a lot of bloodshed as a result.

As for the U.S., we're so fractured that I bet we'd see a civil war before a genocide.

How would you stop Muslim immigration? Is the idea to apply a religious test to potential immigrants? Or to outlaw immigration from certain countries, e.g. predominantly Muslim ones?

I wouldn't have a problem with curbing legal Muslim immigration per se, but the "how" is important. A religious test seems like both a bad precedent and bit beside the point. The Muslims who will sneek through either by illegal immigration or by faking being non-Muslim are the kind we least want. The Muslims who wouldn't enter because they wouldn't either lie or enter illegally are, it seems to me, the least harmful kind.

I'd probably say we could do some of both. Perhaps a prima facie blockade on all immigration from predominantly Muslim countries with exceptions made for those who could show persecuted minority status together with skills or other valuable properties to be brought to the U.S.

Jordan, as Lydia indicates, you could use a combination of processes.

It is not in the least inappropriate to modify our quotas of allowable immigrants from certain countries downward. Toward just a few hundred, even.

It is not in the least bit inappropriate to institute tests that are designed to weed out people whose way of life (and thinking) is toxic to American rule of law, American democracy, American freedoms, etc. We do NOT owe visas / citizenship and the attendant freedom of thought and freedom for hatred of Judeo-Christianity to people who are non-resident aliens. We can mold our admittance policies to reject such people. If that has the effect of landing on certain religions more heavily than others, so be it.

It is also possible to refuse to renew visas of visitors, students, and workers whose activities are inimical American values - even if the activities are NOT ILLEGAL. We don't have to invite into our midst people to belittle our way of life. If they don't like democratic processes and want to insist on sharia, we should tell them to get lost when the visa period is up.

That's all without changing any fundamental direction of our constitutional structure, and only modest changes in a few laws.

A religious test seems like both a bad precedent and bit beside the point.

That one lost me. Beside the point?

And before I forget, the Swiss and Swedish are turning progressively anti-immigration from Islamic countries as well.

The sensible approach would be to stop all immigration from predominantly Islamic countries and then offer those Muslims already in Europe a plane ticket and one year's welfare payments per family for the majority who are on welfare to repatriate on their own. Those that stay would lose welfare payments and the state would take a zero tolerance policy toward non-assimilation with a willingness to call out the Army the moment one of the Muslim no-go areas defies civil authority.

Speaking of Dearborn, one point I raised here a while ago is that with history as our precedent, it's more likely that should it continue to grow Islamic as a percentage of population one day it will be the US military, not Department of Justice, being sent in to defend the rights of the non-Muslims. When Muslims become a large minority or a majority they tend to regard the territory as belonging to the political authority of Dar al-Islam and do not easily suffer infidel claims to the contrary. Given what we've seen with Acts 17, it's quite plausible that if the demographic trends continue, that the local government will be secular on paper only and the cultural norms will be effectively inline with Islam.

Is it okay now to oppose Muslim immigration?

It will never be okay in the progressive view. In this way they are like the suicide bombers; they don't care if they live as long you die.

MarcAnthony,

I don't know if I would predict a civil war in our future, but when you see the liberals writing opinion columns like this one by Nicholas Kristof:

Is Islam to Blame? Let’s not respond with our own brand of intolerance.

One does wonder how these folks will ever be convinced of the wisdom of rejecting Islam from American life?

The truth looks closer to this than the fantasy land of Kristof...

Scott, that's certainly true of progressives. I'm more wondering about mainstream conservatives who are uncomfortable with any idea of discriminating against Islam or taking it into account in immigration.

Tony's point about not renewing visas is excellent. It has _always_ been the case that you can be denied visa renewal for activities that are legal or are punished only very lightly for citizens. For example, I don't know if it's still on the books, but up until fairly recently you could be denied a visa renewal if you committed adultery while in America. (I don't know if the other party had to be a citizen or not.) So visa renewal applications could easily be connected with, say, Internet searches even just of readily available information (I'm not talking about warrantless e-mail reading here) that might turn up advocacy for sharia and jihad on social media, etc.

Doing that would mean that DHS would be doing real work and actually using its police powers responsibly and within something bearing a more than passing resemblance to constitutionality. Much like how we have people arguing that we can't afford to control the southern border while we have a few hundred thousand soldiers and marines doing... what besides drilling and preparing for our next ill-advised police action^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hwar of national liberation?

Oh and Boko Haram apparently just launched a major offensive that destroyed an entire town and slaughtered a few thousand people. As Instapundit said, why is the US not targeting the wealthy people in the Middle East financing this? If there are any people in the region who deserve assassination by the CIA, it would be them.

I just read what Bill Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights wrote on this. Words fail.

http://danaloeschradio.com/bill-donohue-those-cartoonists-had-it-coming

http://www.catholicleague.org/muslims-right-angry/

Gotta love his use of "the Prophet," cum capital P.

Lydia,

Donohue is disgusting:

"Stephane Charbonnier, the paper’s publisher, was killed today in the slaughter. It is too bad that he didn’t understand the role he played in his tragic death. In 2012, when asked why he insults Muslims, he said, “Muhammad isn’t sacred to me.” Had he not been so narcissistic, he may still be alive. Muhammad isn’t sacred to me, either, but it would never occur to me to deliberately insult Muslims by trashing him."

He doesn't realize that his very unbelief is an insult -- there is no safe place or hiding for unbelievers Bill. You are either part of Dar al-Islam or you are not. As Christians we should be in the business of trashing Muhammad and respectfully "insulting" Muslims by presenting the truth of Christ. Shame on you Bill.

Lydia,

Who would have thought that the late Christopher Hitchens would be the one advocating moral clarity on this sort of issue...

Looking at their about page, the Catholic League sounds like a whiny bunch just like the NAACP and ADL. Typical whining and moaning about how some people are just mean to us and *gasp* some people discriminate against Catholics even though Catholicism is the single largest Christian sect in the US and also the largest Christian enabler of the left (always under the banner of charity and social justice). Think it's hard being a Catholic? At least the average leftist gives the Catholic Church some respect. Try being a Protestant. The average educated secularist assumes you're some holy roller who thinks Left Behind is high literature until proven otherwise.

Now he's whining about being misrepresented...

http://www.catholicleague.org/charlie-hebdo-perverts-freedom/

Yes, Charlie Hebdo's speech was an abuse of freedom of speech, but then so is rhetoric that suggests an appeasing attitude toward enemies of the nation. They may be guilty of a certain degree of immorality in their desire to provoke the Muslim community; the Catholic League, likewise, is guilty of a certain degree of moral treason by speaking words of rapprochement with a religious community that is incorrigible in its unwillingness to self-police against violent extremism.

Muhammad isn’t sacred to me, either, but it would never occur to me to deliberately insult Muslims by trashing him."

Jeffrey - On the one hand you're correct that we can't make nice with jihadists by trying not to offend them. But on the other hand, I agree with Donohue here. I don't see a reason to gratuitously insult what other people consider to be sacred, and I say this as someone who's debated religion with Muslim friends and colleagues. I have no problem pointing out various instances of Muhammad's foul behavior or absurdities in the Quran. But showing Muhammad kissing a Jewish caricature on the mouth is tasteless and pointless. I wouldn't create such a thing out of respect for Muslims that I actually know and don't fear in the least.

On the other hand, it's gutless for news organs reporting on the controversy not to show the cartoons. CNN got it exactly wrong by pulling photos of Piss Christ in an attempt to appear even-handed.

For that, she is going to die. Bill Donohue disagrees with her being put to death, but he wants non-Muslims to respond to Muslim claims that they’re insulted by curtailing their own speech. Thus he would have Asia Bibi and other threatened Christians in Pakistan not make the slightest, most innocuous expression of their faith. He might argue that there is a world of difference between Asia Bibi and Stephane Charbonnier, and that is no doubt true, but where and how does one draw the line? How does Bill Donohue propose to distinguish between intentional and non-intentional insults?... To rule Charlie Hebdo’s mockery of Islam (and other religions) out of the realm of acceptable discourse is unavoidably also to rule out any criticism of Islam, jihad, and Sharia oppression at all.

I don't think much of Donohue's article either, but I have to say that Robert Spencer's screed is well off target as well. Donohue doesn't attempt to argue that Charbonnier had a partial role in bringing about his own death because Muslims _were_offended_by_ his paper, but because he was calculatingly and indecently derisive to Mohammed.

Let's make this clear: even though Muslims often don't care to distinguish these, WE DO. If I carefully lay out an argument why Mohammed's activities were not those of a prophet, based on 1500 years of prophets in the Bible, Muslims are going to BE offended. But my language is not insulting. Charbonnier's paper makes a habit of pornographic depictions of people they are tilting against, without any cause other than to be lurid, insulting, and to make hay out of being part of the poking fun at crowd (instead of being poked fun of). They are doing in a paper what the school-yard bully does to taunt his victims - except in the schoolyard he might be hauled up for indecency. Western governments long gave up attacking indecency in the media, not on any principled love of the good, but because they DIDN'T WANT to make the effort of saying what is indecent and what isn't.

Spencer would have us believe that we cannot tell the difference between acceptable discourse disputing with a religion and mockery. That's the other defense of a bully. The first is "I can't help it if you were offended - your being offended is your problem, not mine." Bull-oney. We don't have to accept that dirty pretended confusion. The bully knows perfectly well his behavior is unacceptable. The first amendment doesn't preclude laws against indecency, and good social behavior doesn't preclude social response to egregious mockery with shaming, boycotts, etc.

Donohue, as I indicated, didn't do much for right thinking. He shouldn't have written an article that could so easily have been taken for conflating opposition to Islam with being intentionally and indecently insulting. And given the reality of Muslims killing so many Christians around the world merely for speaking the truth without doing it insultingly, he should have been much clearer about the principal motivations of these kinds of attacks than he was.

The was another Catholic League, fully of its own whininess and moaning, but it managed to hold together -- and precisely hold together in defiance of Islamic wickedness. Something suggests to me that John Don of Austria was somewhat insouciant about insults and bluster. Not even the "shadow of the Valois" in those days, I cannot imagine, forbade defiant drawings be made of the Turkish Sultan's prophet in French lands.

Donohue has got a lot of nerve roping the Preamble into this. The treachery in Paris was brazen assault every last one of the six purposes laid out in that fine sentence, while the details of scatological French cartoons only impact any of them in a very distant and attenuated of manner.

Tony, to me it's Donohue's timing. The detailed untangling of the question, "Does Charlie Hebdo pervert freedom?" may well be a worthy endeavor; it is certainly one upon with men of good will may well disagree. But set in comparison to "Does the butchery of cartoonists by trained assassins pervert freedom?" we're kind of in a new and distorted world where I cannot imagine a good will reason for raising that first question of perversion, right on the heels of the assassins' treachery."

And Donohue most emphatically did set it in comparison, so I am most emphatically left wonder about his good will.

Donohue doesn't attempt to argue that Charbonnier had a partial role in bringing about his own death because Muslims _were_offended_by_ his paper, but because he was calculatingly and indecently derisive to Mohammed.

Tony, this is some truly epic hair splitting. Carbonnier was murdered precisely because his behave gave grave offense to the Islamic community. With this particular community, there is no meaningful value in differentiating what gives them offense because they are the only religious community in the West whose go-to response to offense is violence. The problem isn't the obscenity here, and I grant it was probably obscenity ("probably--"I have not actually seen the cartoons). Obscenity is only an excuse of any sort to private violence in rare cases such as you find your neighbor has been exploiting your child in pornography.

What is at stake here is that if obscenity is going to be punished, it should be punished for the fact that it is obscene, not offensive to this or that group. Subjective factional differences that lead to offense in bellicose minorities is an argument for bringing the iron fist of the state down on the minority, not regulating speech. The proper response to this case, short of the French state outlawing obscenity generally, would be to send militarized french police to every known Islamist's door, kick it in, drag them out, send them to a holding center and then rapidly banish them back to their ancestral homelands.

Donohue reminds me of a feminist who complains about crude cat-calling but doesn't really understand gentlemanliness. Pornographic depictions are wrong because they are pornographic, not because (or particularly when) they are insulting to Muslims. As Mike T. says, obscenity should be punished because it's obscenity not because it is offensive to a grievance-mongering or, even worse, violent and wicked group of people.

Donohue literally said that Muslims "have a right to be angry" right after Muslims murdered people. This is horrible timing, it is pandering, it is grievance-mongering, and it does nothing for the cause of decency in discourse. Donohue should get out there and start complaining about indecency in French (and American) society _generally_, not just about indecency that makes Muslims angry. Then I'll believe that he cares about decency.

Donohue doesn't attempt to argue that Charbonnier had a partial role in bringing about his own death because Muslims _were_offended_by_ his paper, but because he was calculatingly and indecently derisive to Mohammed.

But that's absurd, because he would have had just as big a "role" in his own death if he had been, say, Robert Spencer or David Wood, who constantly get death threats but are not "indecently" derisive of Mohammed.

By the way, I don't really think there is anything necessarily wrong about being _calculatingly_ derisive of Islam or Mohammad. Indeed, insouciance is often called for precisely in a situation where the bullies are threatening. Making fun of a bully may be a positive good. It isn't necessary to be indecent to be insouciant. Consider, for example, the "everybody draw Mohammad" day that that girl cartoonist called for (for which she had to go into hiding) in which she imagined drawing Mohammad as a toaster (if I recall correctly). That was funny. It was "calculatingly" derisive of Mohammad and of the Muslims' bizarre prohibition on drawing him. It was not indecent. It was a good idea.

Tony,

I've gone back and looked though some of Hebdo's previous work and there is no question that in my perfect world the French state would have long ago shut them down on obscenity charges -- but that's because they are obscene and offensive to good taste (e.g. depicting the Trinity having sex); not really because they intend to provoke or insult.

I think free speech is a public good and I wouldn't shut them down if they attempted to argue Christianity is false.

I'm with Mike T. -- either you go after the pornographers (we can only imagine a future when France starting doing that!) and obscenity in general or not at all.

What you don't do is start complaining about insulting Muslims when they have just gone on a killing spree -- as Paul says the timing is just terrible and makes Donohue (who I kind of like and enjoy on my Catholic radio station when he appears) look really, really bad.

Of course Muslims had a right to be angry.

Of course Charbonnier played a role in his own death.

I haven't read the article, but if that's what's offensive here, I think taking offense is wrong-headed. What's the big deal with pointing out the obvious?

One common liberal trope these days is that victim-blaming is wrong: "Stop telling my girls to be more modest, and stop teaching men not to rape." That's kinda dumb, because the situation isn't either-or. No, men shouldn't rape; yes, immodest clothing might make a difference in some situations, especially date rape.

We're not going to stoop to that, are we? I ask because the situation with Charlie Hebdo is exactly analogous.

No, Muslims shouldn't kill people who offend them. Duh. Nonetheless, Charbonnier et al took a big risk by publishing those cartoons, and they probably knew it. (If they didn't, they were horribly naive.) They went well beyond the typical discussion of the Quran and historical issues, and instead showed gratuitously inflammatory pictures. There should be no question about any of this.

The problem with Muslims isn't that they were offended by cartoons. If they had protested Charlie Hebdo, nobody should have had any problem with them.

That's what Donohue does most of the time, by the way -- point out how people are being jerks about Catholicism. There's nothing wrong with that. A Catholic advocacy organization should be expected to do no less. It's merely principled to point out that they shouldn't be jerks about Muslims either. And it's merely obvious to point out that the risk they took with Muslims was a hell of a lot higher than it normally is with Catholics, and they paid the price for taking that risk.

So the only problem with the article -- at least, the bits that people are talking about -- is the timing, which makes it look callous.

Jake,

You say,

Of course Muslims had a right to be angry.

Of course Charbonnier played a role in his own death.

I hope you realize that this is a problem -- and not a problem for Charlie Hebdo. If Muslims were just like Catholics, or Jews, and protested peacefully every time some secular jerk offended them (or a Christian or a Jew) then no one would have a problem with Muslims. But they don't protest peacefully -- they get violent and they get nasty. To say Charbonnier played a role in his own death is at once true and horrible at the same time -- horrible about what it tells us about Islam and Muslims.

They (Muslims) have a problem with Western civilization -- this is what Donohue should be talking about.

Charlie Hebdo does have a problem: They have a tendency to be disgusting; their disgusting tendency is incompatible with Islam; there are a lot of Muslims in France.

Islam also has a problem: They have a tendency to murder when people insult their religion; their murderous tendency is incompatible with Western civilization; there are a lot of Muslims living in Western countries.

The second paragraph doesn't negate the first. It's all well and good to tell someone what they should be talking about, but the second paragraph wasn't what Donohue wanted to talk about. You can say his timing was in poor taste, but I don't care much about taste.

Jake,

You say: "Charlie Hebdo does have a problem: They have a tendency to be disgusting; their disgusting tendency is incompatible with Islam; there are a lot of Muslims in France."

O.K., that is (was?) factually true -- we here at What's Wrong with the World are in the business of pointing out that there shouldn't be a lot of Muslims in France. When crazed Muslims are rampaging about (although praise God they are dead now) it is not the time to be lecturing Hebdo about good taste. Indeed, while mainstream media throughout the Western world are busy censoring themselves to make sure they don't give offense, well then it is actually time to start lecturing all of us about taste -- the willingness to show poor taste to offend more Muslims.

As Mark Steyn put it:

These men [the staff at Hebdo] were exceptionally brave. Most of the people expressing solidarity with them are not that brave. I'm not that brave. But when the Canadian Islamic Congress attempted to criminalize my writing, I fought back, and I pushed back, and I got a law changed in the Canadian Parliament, because that's how important I think freedom of speech is. But I wasn't asked to die for it like these guys were. And to be honest, it makes me vomit to see people holding these Princess Dianafied candlelit vigils, and using the hashtag #JeSuisCharlie - I am Charlie -and in effect appropriating these guys' sacrifice for this bogus solidarity. It makes me sick to see all these 'the pen is mightier than the sword' cartoons that have appeared in newspapers all over the United States, Canada, Britain, Germany, France, Australia, everywhere, from other cartoonists, again expressing solidarity with these very brave men - but not doing what they did...

These guys are dead because back in 2005, these Danish cartoons were published in an obscure Jutland newspaper, and a bunch of fanatics went bananas and started killing people over them. So a couple of publications on the planet, including mine in Canada, and Charlie Hebdo in Paris, published these cartoons... Le Monde didn't, and the Times of London didn't, and the New York Times didn't, and nobody else did. And as a result, these fellows in Charlie Hebdo became the focus of murderous rage. If we'd all just published them on the front page and said "If you want to kill us, you go to hell, you can't just kill a couple of obscure Danes, you're going to have to kill us all", we wouldn't have this problem. But because nobody did that, these Parisian guys are dead. They're dead. And I've been on enough, I've been on enough events in Europe with less famous cartoonists than these who live under death threats, live under armed guard, have had their family restaurant firebombed - it's happened to a Norwegian comedienne I know - have come home and found their home burned, as a Swedish artist I know happened to. And all these people doing the phony hashtag solidarity, screw your phony hashtag solidarity. Let's have some real solidarity - or if not, at least have the good taste to stay the hell out of it.

we here at What's Wrong with the World are in the business of pointing out that there shouldn't be a lot of Muslims in France.

Sure. So why waste time arguing about a guy who isn't in that business?

This is not to say that all Muslims are going to commit acts of terrorism

Silence is consent, and the vast majority of muslims who don't commit acts of terrorism rarely condemn them.

The traditions of Islam are saturated with violence and there is absolutely no evidence to suggest muslims discard those practices once they migrate. Refusing entry to a group prone to rampant terrorism is simply common sense and could possibly encourage muslims to confront and eject those traditions that are violent.

But Jake, you do care about taste with respect to Charlie Hebdo. It's just that you don't seem to care about taste with respect to Donohue. I think that's part of what's keeping you and Jeffrey at cross purposes here, and it's why I think the more consistent stance to take is that it is absolutely terrible form for Donohue to make Charlie Hebdo the focus of his finger-wagging.

We can take it as read that Charlie Hebdo's material is in bad taste. That's not really all that controversial, but under the circumstances it's also not terribly relevant because, as Lydia says, they could have been murdered by jihadists for much less. This isn't a simple case of "telling somebody what he should be talking about." The timing matters, and really, the good manners of a publication like Charlie Hebdo is a triviality by comparison to the fact that France is in a state of virtual siege by Muslim murderers at the moment.

The bottom line for me in all of this is that Charlie Hebdo's adolescent, needlessly provocative artistic judgment are not much in dispute and it says nothing good about Donohue that he thinks that's the really important story here. He can and should be criticized for acting like a stupid jerk.

Sure, people can talk about whatever they want, but it's just not true that time and place are irrelevant considerations. It's a commonplace nowadays to dismiss people who want to "tell me what I ought to be talking about," but people's priorities really are often indicative of something important about their moral formation. In Donohue's case, it's that he is a fanatic according to Churchill's definition--that is, he can't change his mind and won't change the subject, which for him is whether somebody's religion should be insulted.

Well, there really are times where that's an insane thing to be focused on, and this is one of them. People are right to point that out.

How do you put an end to Moslem immigration? And, at least as importantly, get the ones already in you nation to leave?

Enact a law requiring *all* burials to include a piece of pigskin leather *touching* the corpse.

Sure. So why waste time arguing about a guy who isn't in that business?

Because he's wrong to say it in the current context, for one thing, and he's an influential figure in his way, so what he says is important for that reason. Also, because he's seizing on the gruesome murders of a bunch of (bad) satirists to flog his little hobby horse, which is a lousy way for him to behave, period. And there's no "argument" if we just allow the criticisms of his remarks to stand.

The role of the court jester who gets protection from the King is an old one in Western tradition.

But that's besides the point. What is absurd here is that right now we're talking about this as if it's relevant - as if they somehow "had it coming".

We're not going to stoop to that, are we? I ask because the situation with Charlie Hebdo is exactly analogous.

That's a decent point, though. That said, it seems a bit silly to talk about it when Muslims are kidnapping people and shooting them in response.

Jake, I think that timing speaks.

Notice, too, that there would be a difference rhetorically between saying, "I don't in any way mean to condone Charlie Hebdo's obscenity, but it's actually completely legitimate and even in some ways laudable to be brave, defiant, and insouciant towards Islamic bullies who threaten to kill you for insulting Mohammad" and saying, "I don't mean to condone killing people for insulting your religion, but Charlie Hebdo was obscene, its cartoonists played a role in their own death, and Muslims have a right to be angry."

Both the emphases and the content are different, but they both condemn obscenity.

Notice that "Muslims...angry" actually tends to _mean_ something different from "Christians...angry." When "Muslims angry" is being discussed *in the very context* of murdering to "avenge the honor of the prophet," then it's just plain dumb and tin-eared to use a phrase like "Muslims have a right to be angry."

Similarly with a phrase like "played a role in his own death." For one thing, that makes it sound rhetorically like it's generally blameworthy to make Muslims angry. Consider, Jake, your own analogy to immodest clothing. Now, it's wrong to wear immodest clothing. It's wrong even if you don't get raped. But it's not _wrong_, per se, to tick off Muslims. The very existence of this site itself probably ticks off Muslims. That doesn't mean we should be scolded for it or that it would be the right thing to say, if any of us were killed by Muslims for the site, that we "played a role in our own death." If David Wood or Robert Spencer were murdered tomorrow, one could use the phrase and say that they "played a role in their own death." But if I may say so, I would call both of those men admirable and courageous. And "played a role in their own death" sounds scolding and critical, not admiring!

The fact of the matter is that Donohue is lumping where he should be splitting. He's scolding Charlie Hebdo for ticking-off-Muslims-with-obscene-cartoons and not distinguishing the "ticking off Muslims" part, which can be a laudable and important thing to be courageous enough to do from the "with obscene cartoons" part, which is wrong even if you aren't ticking off Muslims.

This is highly problematic. It's confused thinking. And take my word for it: That sort of rhetoric and thinking will contribute to victim-blaming when the victims are *not doing anything wrong* but are being admirable and courageous and get murdered for it.

One common liberal trope these days is that victim-blaming is wrong: "Stop telling my girls to be more modest, and stop teaching men not to rape." That's kinda dumb, because the situation isn't either-or. No, men shouldn't rape; yes, immodest clothing might make a difference in some situations, especially date rape.

As the leading advocate of victim blaming on this site, I'd like to point out that the difference between sensible victim blaming and what Donahue has done is that the former recognizes that responsibility is not a zero sum game whereas the latter bears an inescapable mark of "he had it coming." Inasmuch as the Charlie Hebdo staff kept intentionally poking an increasingly angry beast and bidding it not attack them, there is some basic truth to that from a matter of pure causality. Beyond that, not much.

The bottom line for me in all of this is that Charlie Hebdo's adolescent, needlessly provocative artistic judgment are not much in dispute and it says nothing good about Donohue that he thinks that's the really important story here. He can and should be criticized for acting like a stupid jerk.

It also speaks volume of his character that he wasted a perfectly good opportunity to contrast the civility of how Christians deal with similar issues and the Muslim response in order to write a piece that wastes a lot of ink justifying the rage of Muslims. Right after that rage manifested in grave evil.

Jake, I think that what a lot of us are getting at here is that it is possible to make rational judgements about what the most important aspect is of some given shocking event and what, therefore, _should_ be emphasized. To show a severe lack of a sense of perspective in the face of an historic event is itself a fairly serious fault, and that is a fault that Donohue has manifested. The "story" here is not, "Obscene cartoons are a bad thing." The important story here is the implacable fury of Muslims in defending their honor against perceived slights, which *by no means* need to include obscenity. Another part of the story, if I may say so, is that along with all the obscenity there was a kind of courage in Charlie Hebdo's defiant editors and cartoonists, a courage that is increasingly going to be needed by anyone who is willing to speak out against Islam, especially with any humor (insulted Muslims are utterly lacking in a sense of humor) and with persistence. That refusal to "live on one's knees" is, I would argue, a _more_ important part of the story than the obscenity, which can be condemned on its own terms and quite separately.

Donohue either doesn't really care about sorting out his priorities rightly in his statements or else he has his priorities badly messed up. That is worthy of censure.

Teach men not to rape : dress more modestly :: teach Muslims not to jihad : don't provoke Muslims

I get the analogy, but it's not really analogous. Women (and children - the largest group of sex abuse victims) should be taught to protect themselves the same way we teach everyone to lock their doors -- there's no way to tell when someone will commit the somewhat commonplace crimes of rape and theft. However, there has never been a time when people had to worry about jihad, except when large numbers of Muslim immigrants flood one's country. This analogy assumes Muslim "co-existence" in the West--a proven impossibility, but still being tried by liberal Western governments all the same. There is nothing about jihad that makes it something one should expect as a fact of life and I shudder at the thought that it ever would be!

What is known as Victim-blaming isn't intrinsically a-okay or intrinsically bad. The phrase includes everything from really bad lack of perspective and even condoning evil (while saying one isn't doing so) to mere statements of prudence concerning entirely foolish, wrong, and non-admirable behaviors. (There is nothing remotely admirable about wandering around drunk late at night, for example.) So sometimes it's okay to get outraged about something as wrongful victim-blaming and sometimes it's foolish, hyper-sensitive, etc., to do so. Everything depends on particulars.

In the area of Islam, the big problem in the West is looking to "explain" the violence of Islam by everything but Islam itself. Islamic militants storm our embassy, killing our ambassador, and the Obama administration runs around looking for a video-maker in the U.S. to arrest! Christian missionaries in Dearborn get arrested for discussing the deity of Christ on a street corner because this might make Muslims mad. Lawmakers strain to find some way to outlaw burning a Koran. Europe arrests people for speech offensive to Muslims. And so forth. I'm afraid Donohue is part of that pattern, not just some gentlemanly fellow tsk-tsking over dirty pictures. Indeed, his very timing tells us that.

Right, Marissa, and I would even go so far as to say that at least some of us _should_ provoke Muslims! If you're sure that nothing you ever say is provoking to Muslims, then, in all probability, either you never talk about Islam, or your thinking is wrong about Islam, or you're a wimp.

It also speaks volume of his character that he wasted a perfectly good opportunity to contrast the civility of how Christians deal with similar issues and the Muslim response in order to write a piece that wastes a lot of ink justifying the rage of Muslims. Right after that rage manifested in grave evil.

Mike, I agree. Donohue's article was not a good idea, on multiple levels.

The important story here is the implacable fury of Muslims in defending their honor against perceived slights, which *by no means* need to include obscenity.

Certainly true, Lydia. But the sheer fact that the slights in this case did in fact involve obscenity helps obscure that truth. We can here point out the gravely wrong evil of the murders, and the grave evil of the objective of these terrorists. We cannot as readily use THIS event to illustrate that the jihadist murderers target those who gainsay Islam even reasonably and mildly, and that we should on that account be outraged by their Muslim outrage turning to violence. We are, and ought to be, outraged at the murders. We need not be outraged at Muslims being angry at obscenity.

Muslims had a right to be angry.

Anybody will naturally be angry at what amounts to "fighting words." We created the notional category of fighting words to convey just that very thought. If you say my mother wears army boots, I am going to get angry. We tend to think that anger is (sometimes) justified, but at the least understandable and a mitigating circumstance for certain violence in response. That's the "fighting" part of it.

Notice that "Muslims...angry" actually tends to _mean_ something different from "Christians...angry." When "Muslims angry" is being discussed *in the very context* of murdering to "avenge the honor of the prophet," then it's just plain dumb and tin-eared to use a phrase like "Muslims have a right to be angry."

Lydia, that's kind of what I was thinking: Donohue was being tin-eared and refusing to consider his timing, like a single-issue crank. Fighting in the heat of the moment isn't planning and executing murder. It is one thing to throw a punch a guy who calls your mother a wh**e, quite another to come back later, pull an AK-47 and shoot him and his company up.

That Muslims got angry at obscenity levied at Mohammed isn't all of what's at issue here, it's that they reacted with mayhem, murder, and terror. And that's not all, it's also that they invited mockery by being utter jerks about their crazy, idiotic rule "you can't make images of Mohammed" even though (a) Mohammed isn't God and there is nothing in the natural law that making images of a man, or even a prophet, is bad, and (b) that Islam isn't in charge of Denmark and the other countries in which the earlier "offenses" took place. And (c) even in Islamic countries the rule is stupid anyway - if nobody can ever make images of Mohammed, how the hell can you tell that THIS image I have made is of Mohammed? And how, precisely, does it damage Islam that Mohammed is imaged? It's dumb, dumb, dumb, and Muslims are categorically in the wrong for making a big issue of it. It should be one of those little things for which they hang their head sheepishly, scuff their feet a little, and say in a little voice "well, it's not really WRONG, you know, we just don't do it."

Another part of the story is, of course, if a bully is an absolute jerk at your earlier "offence" which really isn't an offence, and in theory ought to be "taken down" by someone standing up to bullying, and you choose to take him down by mockery...the predictable outcome is the bully will be enraged past the point of reason. So, if there is ample evidence that (some) dumb bullying Muslims react to cartoons with violence, and that some will react with murderous violence to obscene cartoons, did Charlie Hebdo take precautions to deal with the predictable? But this is the sort of thing someone like Donohue could bring up much later, not before the bodies are even cold, for crying out loud.

Donohue didn't need to equate Muslims getting angry at cartoons with a religious freedom issue, because it really wasn't one. If Hebdo's actions were an offence against religious freedom, and that's why the Muslim's actions were "understandable", then Donohue's article would have been valuable. But neither is the case. Hebdo's actions were an offence against decency and taste, and that's not a religious freedom issue. The terrorists' reactions to that were not for religious freedom, they were (if anything) against religious freedom (and against the rest of civil freedoms, like the right to life, the right to speak, etc). Donohue was really off base here, and should have been called on it - but not the way Spencer did it.

Another part of the story, if I may say so, is that along with all the obscenity there was a kind of courage in Charlie Hebdo's defiant editors and cartoonists, a courage that is increasingly going to be needed by anyone who is willing to speak out against Islam,

Lydia, I think you are right that we are going to have to recall how to speak out with courage against Islamic wrong. I am not so sure that Hebdo's defiant editors can be illustrative of that virtue. The virtues come in a package - as you grow in one, you grow in them all (including prudence, modesty, meekness, charity, etc), and that includes NOT being courageous about obscene depictions of public figures because some childish people find that funny. What we need is to realize that if even jerk-wads and immoral media people can be willing to take risks with offending Islam, we can all the more so because we have right on our side. We ought to be speaking out for Christianity over Islam, not shooting down Islam just because we are habituated to making fun of anything that people put their faith in.

But Jake, you do care about taste with respect to Charlie Hebdo. It's just that you don't seem to care about taste with respect to Donohue.

No, that's not really the case. My formulation was that Charlie Hebdo has a tendency to be disgusting, but it was in the context of the threat of Islam in France. My comment was about risk.

That's a thought that's near and dear to me, since merely by posting under my real and full name, I worry about the risk that a potential employer will reject my application, or that a wacko or a Muslim will want to kill me. If you post something that's an insult to Islam -- especially a truly disgusting insult to Islam -- you have to know that you're in a higher risk pool. If I were an insurance company, I'd do a social media check before underwriting your policy.

It's fine that you think that it's terrible form for Donohue to make Charlie Hebdo the focus of his finger-wagging. Nonetheless, that's what he does: Take liberal say-anything-do-anything, insult-Catholicism-all-you-want liberals and their supporters to task for abusing religion. That's his focus. I know you think he should talk about something else, but what you want him to talk about isn't what he talks about. You say "flog his hobby horse"; someone might more courteously say "effects his mission".

Push that thought further: W4 is also in the business of defending what remains of Christendom from Liberalism. Charlie Hebdo's vulgarity, and the rabid defense by many (including conservatives) of freedom of speech as being more important than religion, is part of Liberalism. As Christians, when vulgar speech is aimed at Christianity, we (should!) believe that it is wicked, full stop. Even when it is aimed at other religions, it is offensive, discourteous, and not condusive to proper order.

In other words, we're on the same side as Donohue on this issue. Or should be.

But instead we're getting ourselves worked up over someone who is pointing out the wickedness of Charlie Hebdo's content, and thereby correctly criticizing Liberalism, at a time when we'd rather people were focused on how bad Islam is.

Notice, too, that there would be a difference rhetorically between saying, "I don't in any way mean to condone Charlie Hebdo's obscenity, but it's actually completely legitimate and even in some ways laudable to be brave, defiant, and insouciant towards Islamic bullies who threaten to kill you for insulting Mohammad" and saying, "I don't mean to condone killing people for insulting your religion, but Charlie Hebdo was obscene, its cartoonists played a role in their own death, and Muslims have a right to be angry."

Why would you defend obscenity by emphasizing the way its perpetrators "brave, defiant, and insouciant"? Are they heroes, these purveyors of cartoon smut? If they were mere pornographers, killed by jihadists for pornography, would they also be heroes?

Sure, they were brave. So were the 9/11 hijackers. Is that what I emphasize when I talk about them? I can have a perverse admiration for people who would sacrifice their lives even when I can't stand the cause for which they sacrificed them, but it seems to me that Lydia's first formulation is as bad as the other, but in the opposite direction.

Everyone knows -- it literally goes without saying most of the time -- that ticking off Muslims isn't the same as ticking off anyone else. I don't buy that part of your argument.

As the leading advocate of victim blaming on this site, I'd like to point out that the difference between sensible victim blaming and what Donahue has done is that the former recognizes that responsibility is not a zero sum game whereas the latter bears an inescapable mark of "he had it coming."

'bears an inescapable mark of "he had it coming"' is exactly what liberals say when they talk about victim blaming in the case of rape.

They won't point out anything where the author actually says, "She had it coming". There's ample evidence that the victim-blamer doesn't condone the crime. But the victim-blamer's comments nevertheless 'bear an inescapable mark of "she had it coming"' nevertheless.

It's the same thing. Respectfully, Mike, if you're the kind of guy who says, "Rape victims should be a lesson to everyone that dressing provocatively is dangerous," perhaps this is a lesson in what others feel like when you support victim blaming.

There are other ocmments about what Donohue should have said, what the story is, etc. I submit that everyone is already talking about what that part of the story is, and that Donohue's unique contribution, based on his past writings, is pretty much what he said. Was it politically astute and a good act of PR? No. Does it deserve the haranguing he's getting. No.

There are plenty of aspects of this story that are worth discussing. Donohue isn't one of them.

Jake, if I may say so, there _are_ times when emphasizing skimpy clothing in a case of rape _is_ wrong and _does_ manifest a lack of perspective. For example, if the type of rape that it is and the otherwise unexpected nature and savagery of the attack are such as to make it extremely unlikely that the clothes the victim was wearing played any significant role, or perhaps any role, whatsoever. In that case, to launch a diatribe against immodesty is to show confusion, a one-issue obsession, and a lack of a sense of perspective. Which is what I'm saying about Donohue.

It's not like all victim-blaming is either right or wrong, not even in a particular area.

Moreover, there are times when, "This is so-and-so's shtick, this is what he does" just isn't good enough as a defense.

Suppose that some group has opposing illegal immigration as a major raison d'etre. Then suppose that some illegal immigrant child gets murdered by neo-Nazis in, I dunno, Akron, OH. If that group comes out with a statement the next day about how this is yet another example of why illegal immigration should be opposed, I'm going to call them a bunch of ambulance-chasing jerks. I'm not going to say, "Hey, that's their issue. That's what they talk about." And that, despite the fact that I also oppose illegal immigration.

By the way, as far as I can tell, not all the mocking of Islam was obscene, even in Hebdo.

Jake, I'm not going to go posting "Je suis Charlie," and that's precisely because of the obscenity. But your analogy to the bravery of 9/11 terrorists does not, in my opinion, hold up. There is _nothing_ admirable about deliberately killing innocent people for Islam (or for any other reason). It cannot be described at any level that makes it so.

But "mocking Islam," "saying something insulting to Islam," "defying Islam" are all descriptors that can apply to continuing to publish cartoons that tick off Muslims in the face of Muslim threats, *regardless* of whether the cartoons in question are obscene (and not all of them are). Therefore, there is a level at which "purveyors of smut" is not the only relevant descriptor of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists and editor who were murdered. Which, I'm guessing, is part of why so many people, even conservatives, feel a sense of solidarity with them and are tempted to tweet "Je suis Charlie." It is the desire to go down fighting.

Tony, I certainly agree that the obscenity complicates the argument that the Muslims would attack without obscenity, but it's interesting to note that even here there is relevant evidence.

The newspaper was firebombed several years ago apparently in response to a non-obscene (as far as I can tell) cartoon depicting Mohammad saying, "100 lashes if you don't die laughing."

And slander charges (!!) were filed over a cartoon in which Mohammad is crying and saying, "It's hard to be loved by idiots."

I feel a sense of solidarity with Charlie Hebdo, as does every right-thinking Westerner.

I just disagree with you about Donohue.

Re-reading his comments, it's not at all clear that Donohue is narrowly focused on obscenity. He slips back and forth between obscenity per se and mere disrespect or defiance. Look at his original conclusion: "Muhammad isn’t sacred to me, either, but it would never occur to me to deliberately insult Muslims by trashing him." Well. That would seem to encompass even the perfectly chaste Danish cartoons a decade ago, wouldn't it? Today, in his most recent comments, he refers to mere "insolent behavior." He's eliding the distinctions that, elsewhere, he insists are important. Donohue is not confining his remarks to denunciations of "obscene insults"; he emphatically (or perhaps sloppily) expands the denunciation to insults as such. "Catholicism teaches that freedom is the right to do what you ought to do." Is there some Catholic prohibition I'm not aware of against insolent defiance of the Islamic religion?

Paul, that is an _excellent_ point, and one I wish I'd noticed sooner, explicitly. It makes me think that Donohue is really of the Kreeft crowd: We need to be respectful of Islam, we worship the same God, etc., etc.

Which explains a lot, really.

I can't help wondering what Donohue would/will say about the *directly linked* hostage killings today at a Paris kosher market by collaborators with the Charlie Hebdo terrorists. Maybe they "played a role in their own deaths" as well? Oh, wait, I know: The deaths of the people at the kosher market are also to be laid at the door of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists for "trashing" Mohammad. Phew, glad I figured that out for him.

'bears an inescapable mark of "he had it coming"' is exactly what liberals say when they talk about victim blaming in the case of rape.

Liberals object to the very notion of responsibility in any capacity. No one here is really saying that Charlie Hebdo's staff are innocent of any behavior that could have caused this situation to be possible. Rather there is "blaming the victim" and there's blaming the victim. When you tell a woman who dresses incorrigibly slutty that her behavior will likely lead to crossing paths with a rapist, that's the former; telling a woman who has been raped, while the experience is still raw, that she bears a lot of the responsibility for the situation is quite another. What Donahue is doing is in effect saying that the Muslim community is right to be frothing at the mouth in rage and he spent quite a lot of the effort in those articles saying how justified Muslims were to feel this and that. Sure, he threw in a few token "yes, yes murder is unjustified, mmmkay" acknowledgements that the situation was actually, well, evil. A major American voice of Catholicism would have to do that lest it look unequivocally like he was excusing them.

There is a major difference between making a basic causal remark in ordinary conversation and throwing it in the face of a fresh victim or being a public figure and doing that from a soap box. I think why there is a difference should be clear to everyone.

As to the matter of the Muslim right of outrage? The day they clean their global house to the same level as tribal animists in Africa, let alone other major religions we can all sit down at the table and discuss respecting one another. Take a look at the list of global conflicts some time. You'll notice that Muslims are at least one belligerent faction. What does this tell us? If Islam disappeared from the world tomorrow, the world would finally be almost at peace.

I can't help wondering what Donohue would/will say about the *directly linked* hostage killings today at a Paris kosher market by collaborators with the Charlie Hebdo terrorists. Maybe they "played a role in their own deaths" as well? Oh, wait, I know: The deaths of the people at the kosher market are also to be laid at the door of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists for "trashing" Mohammad. Phew, glad I figured that out for him.

It shows us that the obscenity angle is a red herring. The motivation for these attacks was a deeper sense of entitlement and supremacy all too common to Islam. The non-Muslim has no right to offend Islam in any capacity be it a refusal to submit to Islam or engaging in outrageous obscenity directed at Islamic holy images. In the minds of many Muslims, their status as Muslims suspends the natural law in dealing with non-Muslims. A form of "do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" is very much in effect with them.

People like Donahue don't have the stomach to admit that the closer one gets to being an observant Muslim, the more likely one is to hold views like this. Islam is the only religion where fresh converts are more likely to support or actively start harming those outside their religion than take on what all other religions would recognize as a morally upright and more spiritual life.

By the way, The Onion did up an extremely offensive, NSFW image parodying the one from Charlie Hebdo. It simultaneously targeted Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism and the article said "no one has died over this image." The very non-PC point: Muslims are literally the only major religion that lose their #$%^ over childish obscenity. It's not for nothing that "Islamic Rage Boy" is a famous internet meme and you can see countless examples of people other than the original inspiration acting like a small army of "rage boys" at any protest involving Muslims in many parts of the world shown in the media.

My own suspicion is that you could create a lot more Muslim rage by a clever, funny cartoon that was non-obscene and that portrayed and made fun of Mohammad himself *directly* than by an obscene cartoon that was directed at Islam in some more indirect fashion and did not involve portraying Mohammad in a picture at all. Now, I'm not going to test that hypothesis, obviously. And one reason that it could be wrong is because the sense of supremacy is going to lead to furious anger over anything targeted at Islam at all. But I do find it interesting that the "100 lashes if you don't die laughing" cartoon was the one just before the fire-bombing. "The Prophet" himself is the object of veneration. He is literally "taboo" in the sense that he must be treated with reverence by never being drawn. Portraying and saying anything funny at the expense *of him* really triggers the rage. Obscenity is not only a red herring but a kind of free variable, if that is the right mathematical term. The rage is not a direct function of the level of obscenity but rather of the sense of "disrespect" directed at Mohammad himself, which may or may not come with obscenity.

Immigration is a useful tool but it will not solve the problem. For many generations, America had no immigration. Immigration before the 1965 floodgates, was only for a very few people coming into America and then mostly from Europe. Now, the floodgates are wide open and the progressives do not care who is in the country, so long as it dilutes the white populace.

Regarding Islam, they have let us know, very clearly, that they are at war with us. They are very careful about their actions in America as they are greatly outnumbered and are not even thinking of assimilating as their goal is conquest, for now with "stealth jihad", and as they gain power through numbers actual jihad through warfare.

My question is why do we allow any of them in country, at all? I know that progressives think that all cultures are equal and should be allowed to live side by side. This multiculturalism is giving rise to the balkanization of France with 751 "no-go" zones in country. After balkanization, what. Do they take over the cities and what is left of France.

Islam had a plan for the conquest of the EU just as they have a plan for the conquest of America. For the moment, they are winning the battle and the left is helping as best as it can. Let us wake up America and join the battle.

Paul,

Regarding "insolent behavior," one need only look at how Jews are commonly discussed in mainstream Islamic circles to see that there alone the Muslim community deserves not one iota of respect (Individual Precious Snowflakes Notwithstanding(tm)). Jews and Christians are referred to as pigs, apes and things like that in official Saudi educational materials. One can go down the line from Muslim public schools to mainstream media and find that non-Muslims are often discussed in terms that are as bigoted as the worst portrayals of blacks in southern media and culture a few generations ago.

So again, why do we "owe them respect?" I don't see how they've earned it.

Whirlwinder, I'm not sure what you are suggesting, but as an FYI we do not allow advocacy of terrorism in return for terrorism, murder in return for murder, etc., on our site.

I certainly agree that not all cultures are equal. I wouldn't be suggesting a moratorium on Muslim immigration if I didn't agree with that.

There are plenty of ways, both subtle and not-so-subtle, of making it clear that we do not particularly welcome Islam to our shores. Immigration can be used in this way. So, too, can things like zoning ordinances, not inviting imams to pray for the opening of Congress (!), and even the simple fact of enforcing _existing_ laws to prevent streets being blocked by Friday prayers and the like. And then there is the interpretation of "religious accommodation" in employment law, which does _not_ need to include the extreme accommodations demanded by Muslims. _Not_ putting in foot-washing stations in bathrooms is another example.

You say "flog his hobby horse"; someone might more courteously say "effects his mission".

So there's just no such thing as an appropriate context in which to "effect his mission?" He's entitled never, ever, ever to leave his script for a single second? Sorry, I just don't see that, whether it's coming from him or from some slime at Al-Jazeera.

Lydia, I think a moratorium on immigration until we can assess how to address the problem of Islam in America is in order. I am sorry if you saw terrorism and murder in my text unless of course these actions come from Islam. What I do suggest is that if someone is at war with you, you had better return the favor or lose the battle.

Regarding whirlwinder's last point...

Westeners need to start discussing is how woefully ill equipped most theologians and ethicists are prepared to deal with the realities of fourth generation warfare. This warfare blurs the lines between combatant and non-combatant to such an extent that it makes it very difficult to effectively wage war on a population with a large number of people who want to kill your people. We see this in Iraq with ISIS where several Sunni tribes go back and forth between acting like non-combatants and then helping ISIS achieve its goals of eradicating Yazidis and Christians.

One thing we need is an ethical plan to be able to, within the limits of natural law, wage war that includes the civilians who provide any aid to the Islamists. In Iraq, this would be mean making it clear that anyone who of their own free will collaborates with ISIS shall be regarded as a combatant even if they never take up arms. The Sunni who simply says "there is a Yazidi, get him mujahid" should be considered a legitimate target of war. Western soldiers should be free to kill him the moment he swings a single leg over the fence to even just straddle it.

Lydia, if I could express myself more intelligently, it would be like Takuan Seyio in his article "Oppression Instead of Admission", over at www:gatesofvienna.net.

Please read it and you have my thoughts.

Also at www:rushlimbaugh.com his essay, "How the Power of Two Terrorists Paralyzed the American Media in Fear", distills my thoughts as well. Here he sees the progressive agenda as a giant failure in Paris. France is everything the progressives dream about, political correctness, gun control, disarmament of the police, open borders, amnesty - everything. So the media does not dare talk about the failure of this agenda.

We're going to continue to to disagree, Sage. You think he should shut up about the vile filth spewed forth by the media in the name of freedom of speech -- about which he is 100% correct -- because you think the context is wrong. I'm willing to say that it was impolitic for him to say what he said, but not that he should shut up.

This isn't because I carry water for Donohue. I would say the same thing if it were said by the Anti-Defamation League.

I've said my peace, and I don't think I'll get farther, so I'll leave it at that.

Mike, I have been wondering about that distinction between combatants and non-combatants for a while. I think (and this in only my own conjectures, I have not run it down in specific research) in the old, old days of towns with walls, battering rams to break the gates, and catapults to bring them down, there wasn't nearly as great a distinction as we have now. Sure, there were soldiers as such, but when it's your town under siege, and your women that will be raped and children taken for slaves, and you that will be gutted and left to rot if you lose, there really isn't a lot of difference between "soldier" and "willingly helping out" and "just defending me and my own".

Before artillery made walled cities mostly pointless, and (much later in the same trajectory) before the Geneva conventions, I am simply not aware of Christian theorists making much distinction about non-combatants. Which leads me to wonder whether the distinction is somewhat artificial. Or, to say that a different way: subject to context that isn't universally applicable. It seems likely to me that if one examines the concept of non-combatant immunity and considers the principles on which it must be based, it is probably intertwined with the the coordinating principles which allow us to deem individual enemy soldiers not morally culpable for their orders. And those, I think, may allow for very unexpected (or at least unfamiliar) logical results respecting asymmetric warfare such as terrorism and the like.

It isn't a question of shutting up, Jake. It's a question of calling more generally for us to respect Islam. I thought that Paul's point was extremely pertinent to what you have been saying. Donohue is _not_ just opposing filth that is spewed in the name of freedom of speech. He is doing a lot more than that, and he's wrong in his general implication that we need to be respectful of Islam, not "trash" Mohammad, etc.

The distinction makes sense only when you can make a case that someone on the battlefield could reasonably discern the difference. That's why the firebombing of entire cities is morally wrong. You can be very sure in advance that most of the people you are deliberately targeting are not in fact engaging in combat or combat support roles. That said, there are plenty of reasons to deliberately target "civilians." The only moral distinction that matters is whether or not you are supporting the war effort or not.

Doubtless we'll continue to disagree, but I think your characterization is slightly unfair. I don't say that he should "shut up about vile filth," which makes it sound as if I would defend the publication of vile filth depending on the context. I wouldn't.

And anyway, as Lydia says, he said much more than that the cartoons in question were obscene. He denounced them on the grounds that they insulted Islam. That to me goes beyond merely an "impolitic" statement or clumsiness.