Vigilant Freedom at Ground Zero

The United American Committee has organized the second annual “Rally Against Islamofascism Day” in various places across the country today.

The primary location is at Ground Zero in New York City. Christine of Vigilant Freedom (a.k.a. the 910 Group) has been invited by UAC to give a speech there, and is probably delivering it right about now.

I just talked to her on the phone. She says it’s chilly and breezy, but she’s prepared to go out there and rouse the crowd. She sent me an advance copy of what she’s going to say:

I’m with Vigilant Freedom, home of the citizens network 910 Group — members in 41 states and over 20 countries, working to protect liberty, oppose sharia and counter jihad — vigilantfreedom.org. You’ve come here today because you are vigilant in defending our freedoms, and I want you to know that groups around the world are working for those same goals, against Islamist Imperialism in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. Groups like Svenska Forum mot Islamisering in Sweden, Akte Islam and Ulfkotte’s new party in Germany, SIAD in Denmark, Liberté Vox in France — wear a blue scarf to support those resisting Islamification in France — Vlaams Blok in Belgium, in Southeast Asia Aburrahman Wahid and Nadhlatul Ulama in Indonesia, and here in the US we have our own interfaith groups working against Islamofascism, from the American Islamic Forum for Democracy to the signers of the Secular Islam Summit St. Petersburg declaration of March 5th.

Even as we meet, in London our British Vigilant Freedom Coalition is leading a rally to free the fifteen sailors and Marines kidnapped by the Iranian Republic Guard — we are putting feet on the street now. Citizens in Europe, Asia, Africa are saying: Enough! The paralysis of political correctness is slowly leaving the body politic, and we are learning that we can fight back against the Islamist attacks on our liberties that include lawsuits, anti-free speech legislation, bills to criminalize counter-terrorism like ERPA, the endless demands for supremacy of Islam over all other religions in our schools and communities. We offer equality to all, but supremacy to none.

We are awakening from this paralysis and we are resisting, a citizen’s Anti-Islamist international coalition. We are developing a credible platform of common positions to define what are our shared terms of victory over radical Islamists. Groups like the Muslim Brotherhood are global, networked, financed, distributed and organized, and they’re in it for the long term — and we who oppose them must be all those things and more to win the fight to protect all people’s liberties worldwide.

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We are building coalitions, and grassroots volunteers and leaders are joining up faster than we ever imagined — our biggest problem is handling our rate of growth . Ordinary people — without Saudi millions or UAE millions — who find in themselves the power to begin resisting Islamist pressures in their local communities and legislatures. Liberal Muslims — and they deserve our support when they speak up, because they are the first target of bullying from the Islamofascist lobby — and every other religion and political party. Organizing, tracking legislation, researching the opposition, doing the work of resistance. The world’s citizens see their liberties under attack by Islamist Imperialism. Some countries are close to being occupied by Wahhabism, and we are resisting that occupation and Islamist supremacism. We think our constitutions are just fine, thank you, without the addition of fundamentalist sharia law, much less without deferring to sharia.

Daniel Pipes’ words for the U.S. could apply to any of our countries in this international coalition: “Islam in America must be American Islam or it will not be integrated; there can be no place for an Islam in America that functions as a seditious conspiracy aimed at wiping out American values and undermining interfaith civility.”

If you awake and if you resist you will be called an Islamophobe, a racist, a bigot, a hate-monger, and that’s just the start of it. But “Islamophobe” is yesterday’s term to try to marginalize anyone who would defend the constitutions of their nations — CAIR is behind the curve, wrong on two counts. First, a phobia is an unreasoning fear, and we are eminently reasonable — it’s the Western tradition of reason, science, the enlightenment and the indivisible rights of the individual that we defend and want to share. Secondly, the world certainly fears the political ideology of Islamofascism and Islamic Imperialism and its global agenda of tyranny and terrorism, but we are beyond the paralysis of fear — we are too busy working to resist now to have time or patience for fear.

Why do CAIR and the other groups dwell so endlessly on Islamophobia? They desperately need to spread the lie that all fear them, because without the illusion that they cause fear they are powerless. Take away the bully’s ability to sow fear and you leave him, whining, alone in the playground. If we resist, the millions of Wahhabi from Saudi Arabia and the UAE invested in replacing our constitutional liberties with sharia law will turn out to be the Enron of geopolitics — petrodollars down the drain. If we resist, they get no return on their investment. As Reagan said: “Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid.”

So join UAC and vigilantfreedom.org and any other group you can find that defends our freedoms. No other issue will matter if we lose this one, for we will lose our political and civil freedoms if we are not vigilant in defending them.

Volunteer, work on legislation, become a researcher, help with administration, donate if you can — the need for funding to counter the Saudi and UAE millions is serious — give us your time if you can, your ideas, your prayers. We are all awake now, and we are all resisting. Take care, all of you — stay vigilant, and stay free.