What’s Wrong with the World

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What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

Review on Jihad

The key principles in the intellectual fight against the Jihad, so far as one citizen, having studied and argued the subject at length, may venture with confidence, are as follows.

First, that we never lose sight of the pulverizing fact that the doctrine of aggressive, treacherous war to inflict conversion or subjugation is wicked. If there be any justice in the universe, aggressive, unprovoked war of conquest and empire, must stand condemned.

Secondly, that we must never forget the twist of deceit, that sullen and serpentine lie, by which mere unbelief, mere demurral on the question set before the conquered by Islam’s conquering armies, is itself a provocation to war or subjection. Once the evangel has spoken, all those who have heard the call must repent, confess Submission, or answer for their provocation.

Thirdly, that our antipathy is primarily for doctrines, not men. Many millions of the Muslim faith in their hearts reject the above sophistries. Our American tradition counsels strongly for respect for those who do not believe as we do; Americans deserve the benefit of the doubt, even if they are beguiled by deadly sophistries.

But sophistries these doctrines are — stark staring sophistries bent on blood. All just men are called to denounce and execrate them.

Now, as a matter of prudence, it seems to me that the weight of law should be brought to bear against these doctrinal menaces. It should be pronounced illegal to agitate for Jihad in America, or to promote its instruments. Thus any attempts to implement sharia or dhimma by subterfuge, as we have seen in Dearborn, MI, should be met with swift appellate justice. If defiance persists, Congress should pass resolutions to the effect that, should a judge show undue solicitude or sharia or dhimma, he may as well expect an impeachment will be forthcoming.

We should always keep Precept 1 in mind: Jihad and its subjugation ancillaries are wicked and intolerable doctrines. They are profoundly antagonistic toward our American tradition of politics. There is no reason that a republican people should feel obliged to endure the machinations of this menace.

I’ve long thought that such doctrinal precision, anchored in fact and axiom, might have prevented reckless endeavors in speculative theory like the Iraq War. Likewise it might have helped prevent the collapse into fatal casuistry that characterized the formulation of detainee and interrogation policy.

Comments (11)

One of the most difficult things about institutionalized, "functional sharia," as in Dearborn and elsewhere, is that it is well-nigh impossible to root out from the top-down. In the case of the treatment of Acts 17, a "color of law" federal lawsuit _should_ be the proper, and effective, antidote. And we'll hope that it works. But there are other cases less amenable, such as law enforcement cover-up of honor killings. Here is a dossier I just came across about something in Florida that I have to say has an exceedingly suspicious look to it:

http://www.floridafamily.org/full_article.php?article_no=49

Although this was Florida, the Acts 17 guys allege that an unnamed sympathetic police officer told them during their night in jail that the Dearborn police has covered up honor killings. Hearsay? Sure. But very, very difficult to detect.

It's legitimate for local law enforcement to have a great deal of autonomy, but the flip-side of that is that when there is widespread corruption--and I think it would be fair to think of this sort of thing as similar to widespread law enforcement corruption--and _especially_ when that corruption is ideological and no money passes, it's very difficult even to know how to get the feds involved.

Take the example of this young woman's death in Florida. What is anyone else to do if the locals stand pat and say, "We say it's accident, we're the guys investigating the case, it's our job, butt out"? Not much. And it _could be_ that the people who said she killed herself by beating her head repeatedly on the coffee table are telling the truth, and did so in such a convincing fashion that all the other apparent police negligence in the case was not negligence but justified sensitivity to a grieving family, though I must admit I wouldn't want to bet a lot on it.

I suppose this sort of thing is just another illustration of the fact that an ounce of prevention (thinking immigration policy here) is worth a pound of cure. Sharia is a heck of a lot harder to deal with in a direct fashion than jihad, because it has so many manifestations, comes in from the "ground up," and is manifested throughout whole communities.

One of the most difficult things about institutionalized, "functional sharia," as in Dearborn and elsewhere, is that it is well-nigh impossible to root out from the top-down. In the case of the treatment of Acts 17, a "color of law" federal lawsuit _should_ be the proper, and effective, antidote. And we'll hope that it works. But there are other cases less amenable, such as law enforcement cover-up of honor killings.

Having read quite a bit of civil liberties news and cases, I think you're naive about the efficacy of "color of law" suits. It is my understanding that actual intent to violate the civil rights must be present before they can proceed. A crime or cover up is not automatically intent to violate those rights.

The system could work, but you'd need to completely remove the mens rea requirement. The action itself should be sufficient to convict a cop. Any local or state crime that happens to violate a citizen's rights should be enough.

I think you're naive about the efficacy of "color of law" suits. It is my understanding that actual intent to violate the civil rights must be present before they can proceed.

I think the mens rea was present in the Acts 17 case. They intended to shut them up and stop their witnessing to appease the Muslim community--a clear intent to violate their 1st amendment rights. There's even evidence of conspiracy to do that. Whether the federal courts will see this or not remains to be seen.

I think the mens rea was present in the Acts 17 case. They intended to shut them up and stop their witnessing to appease the Muslim community--a clear intent to violate their 1st amendment rights. There's even evidence of conspiracy to do that. Whether the federal courts will see this or not remains to be seen.

They could argue that appeasing the community was motivated out of a desire to effectively keep the peace, not violate anyone's rights. That's the problem with our system in many areas with regard to "intent." The only intent that should matter is "did you intend, for any reason, to prevent them from exercising their rights." I don't think the law is there.

In related news, after Indiana's Supreme Court effectively revoked the 4th amendment, a local sheriff announced he feels free to conduct warrantless searches whenever he deems them necessary. What we are seeing here is a steady trend of local law enforcement insurrection against constitutional authority and it needs to be dealt with like an insurrection: with the federal government putting to the sword any local officer who knowingly engages in this behavior.

Anyway, I think my main point in relation to the main post is that jihad can and could be handled more straightforwardly and comprehensively in legal terms than sharia. The teaching of jihad can quite plausibly be fit into existing sedition laws, and agents can quite plausibly be inserted into mosques to detect it. It also makes _some_ sense to say that a lot of Muslims aren't on-board with jihad. Maybe they don't get the fact that it's commanded by their religion. Maybe they just aren't all that serious or devout. Maybe they just, for now, want a quiet life. Whatever.

But sharia is different. Sharia is multifaceted and multidimensional. It's a much harder sell to talk about lots of Muslims not on-board with sharia. Functional sharia will _as a matter of course_ result from the existence of large Muslim communities in the U.S. And judicial and police deference to sharia will, does, and can take the form of applying the law selectively, prosecutorial discretion in refusing to prosecute Muslims, designating crimes as accidents, designating non-crimes by uppity Christians as "disturbing the peace," refusing properly to police Muslim areas and protect Christians, and so on and so forth--all of which are virtually impossible to root out by any single or comprehensive legal approach.

I don't want to counsel despair. A federal judge has just, for example, ruled that Dearborn cannot prohibit leafleting on streets surrounding the Arab festival. All by itself, this is a good move, though if the Dearborn police are not reined in they will continue to perform harassment arrests as they did last year, and this ruling does not speak to that. There are still things we can try and things we can do. Thomas More Law Center is doing yeoman's work in this respect.

Nor do I deprecate attempts like Oklahoma's to outlaw the explicit use of sharia by a judge. I think they are laudable and, more importantly, send an important message. It's despicable that a federal judge put a stay on the OK law.

However, it seems to me that only comprehensive anti-Muslim immigration reform can stem the tide of sharia, specifically. Jihad, too, but sharia even more, because you just really cannot prosecute someone for, say, voting for Police Chief Haddad in Dearborn! Nor can you prosecute the Florida police department for negligence in the case of the death of this girl, even if they really were negligent. You have to stop the development of powerful, influential, Muslim communities.

I haven't looked at the statute, but there are differing levels of intent.

General intent is simply that you knew what you were doing, that it was a deliberate act - it was not by mistake or accident.

Specific intent requires a higher level of mental state - not just that you knew what your action was, but that you meant for the action to have the specific harm to that person. Sounds like the specific intent requirement is in the color of law cases - not just you knew your actions in violation of the rights were done purposefully (not accidentally) but with the pruspoe fo causing harm to the targeted person.

The best thing would be for state legislatur­­es to pass a resolution against sharia. Not a law, a resolution­­. It would be sufficient for purposes of re-asserti­­ng the primacy of American law over sharia law, without having to generate a lot of expensive, possible ineffectiv­­e, and most probably embarrassi­­ng, enforcemen­­t. A shot across Islam's bow, in effect.

The language of the resolution could simply state that the laws enacted by the democratic­­ally-elec­t­ed government of (your state here) are the law of the land, and any laws passed by any religious body have no standing or effect against them. It could be worded to make it clear that polygamy, wife-beati­­ng, honor-kill­­ing, keeping household slaves, funding or otherwise supporting terrorist groups, or letting little boys whip themselves with razors during Ashura are all right out of the question in our land and under our laws.

And I believe these matters are due to be clarified, after decades of multicultu­­ralism. Cultures are not all the same except for holidays, headgear, and cuisine. Some years ago the Canadian province of Ontario toyed with the idea of permitting sharia law to be practiced there. They dropped it, in part because of the protests of otherwise liberal Muslim women activists like Alia Hogben. She knew what would be in store for Muslim women if fundamenta­­list Muslim men were given the whip hand. The Land Of The Free should do no less.”

I’ve long thought that such doctrinal precision, anchored in fact and axiom, might have prevented reckless endeavors in speculative theory like the Iraq War. Likewise it might have helped prevent the collapse into fatal casuistry that characterized the formulation of detainee and interrogation policy.

I fail to see how anything mentioned in the article has anything to do with either the Iraq war or interrogation policy. On the former, I'd like to know how you'd have preferred Bush to have extracted 50k troops in Saudi maintaing a no-fly zone and rapid reaction forces keeping Hussein from performing genocide. In the long run it will be seen as the necessary action it was. You'd have us pull the troops home while Bin Ladin's claim that we were the weak horse was widely believed. I've never heard any give an account of how to avoid war, genocide, and avoid encouraging terror attacks at the same time. This is why the vast majority of "unnecessary war" theorizing begins with false premises.

Oops. Parden the error in block quoting. The first paragraph is Paul's and the rest my response. I'm on my iPhone enjoying some leisure time in Finland. A nice enough place I guess but you really appreciate home when you're gone.

Good work, gang. Protect America. Liberate minds.
Remember: Christ's glory depends upon this.
Selah.

I have not read through all the comments, but I wonder how long it will take for the media to put some spot lights on these issues. As a country we must have some faith that some folks in the media, for no other reason than a good, story, a scoop, will do some investigative journalism on these things. Hopefully in time for the prevention that Lydia mentions, as opposed to later when we're struggling for a cure.

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