Spackle is a regular reader and occasional commenter at Gates of Vienna. In an email to us he described a recent culturally enriched encounter he had with a sales clerk at Barnes and Noble. It was so very much a “Barnes and Noble sucks” moment (B&N Sucks has a Facebook page with various improvisations on that theme) that I asked his permission to post the story. Besides, I wanted to share one of my own.
First, Spackle’s Story:
I just wanted to share something amusing that happened to me this weekend.
I went to my local Barnes and Noble to pick up a copy of God’s Battalions. I remember hearing about it when it first came out, and then was reminded once again from this past week’s news feed.
[note: The full title of the book, an historical account, is God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades. You can check out the link for the customer reviews, sixty-one all together, of which thirty seven are five-star recommendations while the others break along some unpredictable lines. – Dymphna]
I searched first in the history section, but could not find it. So I went to the customer service desk for help. There was another man in front of me being helped by a beautiful young girl behind the desk. Just as the man in front of me was wrapping up I happened to drop some change on the floor. After I finished picking it all up instead of a beautiful young girl standing before me, there was a fully bearded Muslim male in his mid-twenties.
“Okay,” I thought, “this is going to be interesting…” In the beginning he was warm and friendly, and asked how he could help me. I told him I was looking for a book called God’s Battalions. Okay, so far so good. He typed away on his computer, and then all of a sudden his face and demeanor changed when what I was about to purchase sank in. The book cover says, “God’s Battalions — A case for the crusades,” and I assume there was a book description as well on his computer screen as he took far too long just to discover where it was located and if it was in stock.
He then very coolly asked me to follow him. The whole time I observed him closely to watch body language and demeanor. He led me to of all places the Christianity section! I said that it seemed odd to put such a book in the Christian section. I must admit I was fishing a little. No reply from him at all.
He eventually found it and handed it to me like it was burning a hole in his hand, and got away from me as quickly as possible without ever looking at my face again. I thanked him to his back and he kind of grunted back at me.
I suppose I should be thankful that he didn’t just tell me it was out of stock straight away. While there was nothing dramatic or overtly hostile in his behavior, it was still very interesting observing the whole episode from beginning to end.
I should also mention that if he wasn’t born and raised here he had at least been in America since he was a young child. His accent and mannerisms were distinctly American. Actually, I would dare to say that he would be classed as one of those mythical animals we always hear about but never actually see, the “moderate Muslim”.
I guess “moderate” in this case means that he didn’t try to bash my infidel brains in for purchasing such a horrible book. Or maybe “moderate” meaning he served me with clenched teeth and a thin veneer of professionalism? Professionalism being the only thing holding him back from freeing the beast inside.
In retrospect I would rather have talked to the beautiful girl. And the book is fabulous.
Spackle’s story reminded me of one of my own Barnes and Ignoble moments. Mine have been political. After all, the B&N I used to frequent was in Charlottesville – known to many of us as Berkeley East, though I prefer to call the town “Li’l Kumquat”. That is, if New York City is the Big Apple, then Charlottesville tends toward another fruit, one that is sweet on the outside, sour and seedy in the middle. Not really edible unless you mush it into marmalade.
Spackle’s story falls within the “Cultural Enrichment” genre. My experience was merely the usual political clash conservatives in Charlottesville experience at the hands of their betters, the Leftish, Loutish Majority. I’m sure than many people on the right of the political spectrum who are doomed to live and work amongst these Orthodox Lemmings have had experiences similar to mine.
I told Spackle:
Every conservative has at least one B&N moment. Mine came a few years ago when I picked up several books to peruse while I drank my latte. But first I went to the restroom, leaving the books on the table outside the door, as the sign directed.
When I came out, a woman was looking over my choices, a curl of disdain distorting her mouth. I asked if I could retrieve my books — one of which was David Horowitz and another a dismissal of AGW. She took her time leafing through them and then shoved them into my hands. Walking away, she hurled back a comment about this country becoming polarized. I’m usually quick on my feet, but that time I was simply glad to have the books back. I hadn’t planned on buying one (I’m one of those mooches who buys coffee and reads. Who can afford books? I shouldn’t even be spending the money on latte. But it’s a long drive home and caffeine really boosts my pain medication…or at least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it).
This time, however, I made a point of buying the global warming denial book. Back then, it was really swimming against the tide. The cashier looked at me sternly… hey, it’s Berkeley East in Charlottesville. They’re all like that.
Hope the Muslim didn’t take your picture.
I should add that despite the bookstore’s obvious political leanings, they did have the skeptic’s book . But that was only because I insistedin the first place that they stock at least one argument for the other side. So they did: exactly one copy of one book., the sole dissenting opinion on the subject in the store. Since they’d gotten it in at my behest, I bought it.
I’ve often wondered how a conservative bookstore would fare. It would have to offer a variety of conservative and libertarian opinions since there is much more disagreement among those on the Right than there is among the Leftists. The latter have certain hot button issues, call them orthodoxies, that don’t diverge much from one person to another. All too often, you can say their lines along with them. On the Right, there is a spectrum of disagreement – as Russell Kirk says in the introduction to his Ten Principles of Conservatism,
Perhaps it would be well, most of the time, to use this word “conservative” as an adjective chiefly. For there exists no Model Conservative, and conservatism is the negation of ideology: it is a state of mind, a type of character, a way of looking at the civil social order.
The attitude we call conservatism is sustained by a body of sentiments, rather than by a system of ideological dogmata. It is almost true that a conservative may be defined as a person who thinks himself such. The conservative movement or body of opinion can accommodate a considerable diversity of views on a good many subjects, there being no Test Act or Thirty-Nine Articles of the conservative creed.
In essence, the conservative person is simply one who finds the permanent things more pleasing than Chaos and Old Night. (Yet conservatives know, with Burke, that healthy “change is the means of our preservation.”) A people’s historic continuity of experience, says the conservative, offers a guide to policy far better than the abstract designs of coffee-house philosophers. But of course there is more to the conservative persuasion than this general attitude.
Indeed. And more to conservatism than the liberals who lurk in Barnes and Noble could dream of.
Feel free to share you B&N moments… or your ideas about the feasibility of a conservative bookstore. Of course, it would have to take into account the necessity for security. Odd, isn’t it, that the more to the Left one moves, the more likely one is to pick up a rock or a spray can of paint?
42 comments:
"After I finished picking it all up, instead of a beautiful young girl standing before me, there was a fully bearded Muslim male in his mid-twenties."
Straight out of a cartoonish horror movie.
Was the beautiful young girl also kidnapped and forced under a burka, during those few fateful seconds ?
The moderation of the muslim in question comes about by virtue of employment in a bookstore. Remember that writing is creating, and thus haram, as only allah can create. A more adherent muslim would not deign to dirty himself with such surroundings.
Being from Canada, I have a Chapters moment. Chapters is Canada’s premier book store.
My wife borrowed a copy of Obama's book, Dreams From My Father, from a colleague so I could read it. I’m not that cheap… it’s just that I have an aversion subsidizing writers I disagree with.
After the book sat on my shelf for months, I decided to dive in. I wasn’t tardy, it’s just that I delayed the almost instant gratification of being done with the unpleasant task in much the same way that one postpones making a commitment to the final appointment for a root canal.
My intention was to return the copy in the same pristine condition as I had received it. But after encountering outrage upon outrage in the obviously racist screed, I felt compelled to underline and highlight each offending passage for future reference.
I was now compelled to buy a new copy and return the new copy to my wife's colleague. I’ll use any excuse to visit Chapters, and this was as good an excuse as any.
After finding the same soft cover copy in a large stack of other soft cover copies conspicuously placed for easy access for practitioners of the BHO religion, I proceeded to the checkout. The young man at the cash, who seemed to be in his early twenties, looked every bit the part of a post-modern hippie. He congenially took the book to ring it up. Upon seeing the title he said, “Oh, I hear this is a very good book. I haven’t read it yet.”
Now for me, such a comment was an invitation which I just could not pass up. I replied that I already read the book and was replacing it for the copy I already defaced. “Yes,” I said, “The only thing good about it is the writing (thank you Bill Ayers), but for the rest it is a horrid book.” I further stated that if more people actually read it they would not have voted for Obama and that if a white man said about black people the things Obama says about white people in his book, they would immediately be declared a racist.
Here ended our conversation. The smile fell from his face, his eyes dropped to the cash register; he took my Interac, dutifully bagged the book and sent me on my way.
I suspect like all good Liberals, he has a copy on his shelf but won't read it. He’ll just comfort himself with the hagiographies supplied him by the media instead of reading the auto-hagiography for himself.
"I should add that despite the bookstore’s obvious political leanings, they did have the skeptic’s book . But that was only because I insistedin the first place that they stock at least one argument for the other side."
Well, here's to my surprise of thinking that climate change was a question of science, instead of politics. But hey, is not like it's the first time that science has been used as a political weapon. Isn't the first, won't be the last.
I'll be absolutely upfront and frank with you - I flat can't stand Muslims. When they are nice (rarely) they reek of insincerity and deceitfulness. And, more commonly, they simmer with barely controlled rage and hatefulness.
I NEVER EVER do business with Muslims. I never visit my local 7-11 where I used to go before 9-11 after its proprietor told me sharia law was a good thing and no different than our constitution.
The other day at Costco, I ran into a woman in full burka. I took out my camera phone and took a picture while asking her to smile.
My wife has begged me to be more circumspect and I have been - for the most part. But I no longer back down from these dogs and engage every chance I get. I now do so cordially but firmly. Most of the time they don't realize they've been zinged until afterwords since they are so used to Americans kowtowing.
One more thing. I believe the time for reasoned debate has passed us by. The only tools that work now are ridicule, disdain and, dare I say it, hate. Yep, hate.
Hate is a much maligned but necessary prerequisite for survival. We didn't "understand" the Japanese or the Germans during WW2. We hated the MFers. I suspect Jan Sobieski and El Cid weren't trying to "reach out" to the Muzzies. Nope, these MEN took the battle to their enemies. They hated them and defeated them.
When someone comes into my home to do damage to wife or children I don't try and find common cause. I can't afford that luxury. I react with God given hatred and defend my home.
These Muzzies are up to no good and the time for hatred has come.
I'm no theologian, but am a Christian and frankly don't know how to reconcile this God given capacity for hatred and self defense with the "just war doctrine" or any other such navel-gazing philosophizing. But I do know this, until and unless Americans start hating and getting justifiably angry and outraged nothing will happen and our civilization will continue to crumble.
"One more thing. I believe the time for reasoned debate has passed us by."
Calling for bloody mayhem doesn't exactly help the case of rational anti-Islamism. Nor does it make it very easy for people like me, who are most definitely NOT Christians, and who do not oppose Islam based on religious principles to associate with you. And saying that "Muzzies are up to no good" doesn't make your kettle any less black.
Also, El Cid was a mercenary, not a crusader. He fought on both Muslim and Christian sides in the reconquista, depending on who was paying more. Watch more James Burke.
Mr. gfag,
What is it about the Muzzies are up to no good that you don't understand?
I'm not calling for bloody mahem. I'm calling for expulsion from the West.
And listen, as far as your pedantic hair splitting about Ed Cid - go read Frigosi and then, respectfully, grow a pair.
In relation to this:
I noticed that if you want to buy any of the Loeb Classics, you cannot buy them at B&N stores. There is much Arabic and Oriental classical writing, but very little of Western classical writing being sold there.
And nothing of the Loebs.
At the University bookstore at the University at Buffalo, no Loeb Classics are being sold.
At Borders, they are, or were.
To refuse to stock the Loeb Classical Library is to make a distinctly anti-Western POLITICAL statement. Western Civ itself is being SILENCED.
"What is it about the Muzzies are up to no good that you don't understand?"
I think I understand that sentiment perfectly. What I'm saying is that such sentiments, coupled with the idolization of an 11th century mercenary lord do not make you superior to the Muslims you so hate. It makes you identical to them. Which does not make me a happy camper.
Think what you will of the historical accuracy of El Cid's exploits, you still call his supposed deeds against various Muslim states as righteous, that they should be imitated today. Which again, doesn't give your sentiments much credibility when compared to the sentiments of Muslims who draw their ideology from the exact same period. So pot calls the kettle black.
A felicitous typo:
"Most of the time they don't realize they've been zinged until afterwords..."
On this subtopic of "hate" brought up by Charles Martel: Each person is different, I suppose, but I find that the emotion I feel about Muslims is not hate, per se. The emotions I feel are principally fear (I continue to be suspicious of anyone who claims to be unafraid of the shopping mall he is in, or the airplane he is on, exploding unexpectedly -- much less of being stabbed 100 times and/or decapitated); horror (distinct from fear, as it is a visceral recoiling from the grotesque and ghoulish ultra-violence singularly typical of Muslims around the world today and throughout their historical career); fascination (at the impenetrably alien nature of their culture as well as, of course, orientally exotic, all intermixed with elements that seem vaguely recognizable); and righteous outrage at the utterly anti-liberal nature of their beliefs and practices (though I try to take care not to let that outrage endow human contours to the fundamentally alien being of Muslims -- for with outrage, as with hate, comes an expectation that its object has betrayed a human nature; but here, we have no human nature in the sense that the West (including, with juicy irony, Western liberals) has defined it, using the Homo Occidentalis as the gold standard of human being).
To "hate" Muslims strike me as a strange emotion; akin to hating the pack of jackals, say, that are surrounding your farmhouse and have already attacked your family before. Would one "hate" those jackals? Only someone with mental problems would, it seems to me. No, one would simply, and with grim determination, do everything in one's power to protect oneself and one's family and neighbors from those jackals.
I do, however, find myself readily, and sometimes apoplectically, hating my fellow Westerners who persist not only in being blind to the outrageously anti-liberal words and deeds of Muslims, but to go the extra mile in defending them, whilst mocking and condemning white Christians for words and deeds that pale (pun intended) in comparison.
I recall buying a copy of Peter Hitchens' The Abolition of Britain at the Waterstones on Islington Green.
Waterstones is a pretty typical chain bookstore. Islington is the heartland of chic elite left-liberalism in London.
The barely-contained disgust on the face of the checkout assistant — or bookseller as they rather pompously call themselves — was a sight to behold. I make a point of visiting that branch now for all my more "insensitive" purchases.
If Dymphna's phrase "B&N moment" (sounds like a gastroenterological symptom) includes all un-used bookstores out there (since used bookstores in my experience are either too charmingly cluttered or too threadbare to assume political reflexes), the bookstore I frequent is a medium-sized branch of the university that functions as a beacon not only of the American city I live in but also of my state; and while I have no "moments" strictly speaking to share, I have noticed time and again that of the books about Islam in the sections where they might be shelved ("Middle East", "Politics", "History", "Religions and Spirituality"), 95% are pro-Islamic apologetics (more often than not written by some white scholar or popularizing pseudo-scholar), and the alternative -- for example, Robert Spencer's book (usually only one copy of one of his books available) -- is invariably wedged in an inch away from the wall-to-wall carpet at my shoes.
Pace goethechosemercy, however, this bookstore does prominently feature the Loeb classics in shelves dedicated to them: it's quite pleasing to see all those tight little wine-red and pistachio-green tomes all lined up seriatim like that; including, on closer scrutiny, amongst the stolider Tacituses and Ciceros and Platos and Aristotles -- and further back into the mists of the West, Hesiods and Homers -- Proclus, Plutarch and Plotinus, and even Marius Victorinus, St. Bonaventure and Eriugena; et al. (if not all...).
I just had a devilish thought: In the spirit of Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book, someone should write an anti-Islam book titled Blow Up This Bookstore.
I worked in the Middle East for a couple of years and spent a couple more travelling around India on a motor cycle, so I have a very good idea of how things works out there. I had just come back to England and was living with a friend on a boat in St Katherine's Dock by tower bridge very schick and up market. This day I had gone with his wife to buy groceries in the east end in tower hamlets. We went into a green grocers run by one of the ball gown and silly hat brigade, complete with henna coloured beard, which shows that he had been on the hadji. On display was a Jack fruit,
see link
http://atenu.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/jackfruit.jpg?w=150&h=136
Having lived in India I was partial to this fruit and thought it would be a nice idea to buy one and share it at dinner on the boat. This was thirty years ago and the price was rather high 3 pounds we haggled for about 5 minutes and I got the price down too about 2 pounds. I gave him a 5 pound note and took the fruit and put it in the shopping bag. He started to give me the change being right handed he offered it too me with his right hand checked himself put it in his left hand and handed it too me. I went through the roof. What happened during the next five minutes was verbal mayhem, he refused to take the fruit back as I had already put it in the shopping bag, he only relented when I started to climb over the counter with the Jack Fruit threatening to ram it down his throat. I even made him hand my money back with his right hand when I threatened him with even more dire consequences.Paula my friends wife was at a loss to know what was going on. It was only later when I had calmed down and was able to explain to her that one of the more quainter customs of muslims was that they eat with there right hand and wipe there back side with there left and handing me my change with his left hand was an insult. She never really did understand and spent the evening in the Yacht club regaling our friends over the incident.
If you have never lived among them it is difficult to explain what an arrogant set of *************** s they are.
By the way forget the hate profound contempt is just as good.
Hate, profound contempt . . . . call it what you will. Until you are overwhelmed with a powerful emotional feeling of rage towards Islam and their enablers on the left you just haven't fully appreciated our predicament and the threat posed by these people.
Fellows like gotrybeafag, with their sallow chested, mealy-mouthed, pasty faced, hand wringing equivocation will never fully be on our side. They will cut and run when the going gets tough because they can't stand the heat. Their scruples will always plague and cripple them.
The point is, there is no other rational response to what the Muzzies and the left are doing to our country other than rage.
Oh, and gotrybeafag, I am not recommending killing these animals, though they richly deserve such a fate, just expelling them from our midst. Maybe you can go with them and carry on endless hairsplitting debates about El Cid thereby avoiding the larger more important points.
There is a case to be made for hate, or contempt, or rage, or something on that line. Although it's probably the most politically incorrect thing one could say.
This should not extend to our side, however.
Can a "civilized" people withstand the onslaught of a barbaric people?
Can a gentrified, dandified people defeat the primitive forces unleashed by Islam and the left?
We could debate the bombing of Dresden till the cows come home (for the record I believe that it was wrong) but say what you will, we were willing to do what it took to defeat the Nazis and the Japanese and they were not nearly as savage as what we are facing now.
The left has brought us to this precipice and they are now shoving us over the edge. Dandified wimps like gobeafag, even if nominally on our side, will do more harm than good.
And trust me, eventually, you, all rational non-Muslims, will eventually feel the rage. It is coming. Wait until these quaint animals carry of a Beslan, or two or three. Then maybe gobeafag will finally, ever so tentatively, give his provisional seal of approval only to pull the rug out from under us when his delicate sensitivities are violated.
One more thing, gobeafag's moral equivalency in post #10 is despicable.
"Dandified wimps like..."
(Sigh...) That's exactly what I meant by directing the rage in the correct direction. Pissing contests on blogs are a dead-end. Keyboard un-wimpiness carries very little credibility.
Sigh . . . forgive me Robert.
Quote:
Pace goethechosemercy, however, this bookstore does prominently feature the Loeb classics in shelves dedicated to them: it's quite pleasing to see all those tight little wine-red and pistachio-green tomes all lined up seriatim like that;
end quote.
Hearing that pleases me very, very much.
Let me confess right here that I hold Islam in deep contempt.
I do not believe it is an Abrahamic religion.
I do not believe that Allah is God; in fact, I consider Allah to be a demon who keeps people from Christ (who is, in my faith, God).
Their culture is deeply repulsive to me.
Their words are lies.
Every step they take in a Western country is conquest, every resource they use is theft.
History, theology, culture and tradition all validate my claims and my contempt.
I do not have contempt or hate for all that is foreign.
Islam is not foreign.
It is adversarial, an expression of Oriental despotism, and certainly the historic enemy of the West.
Do you really think that globalization changes these things?
You're wrong.
gotryfag --
Gates of Vienna's rules about comments require that they be civil, temperate, on-topic, and show decorum. Your comment violated the last of these rules. We keep a PG-13 blog, and exclude foul language, explicit descriptions, and epithets. This is why I deleted your comment.
Use of asterisks is an appropriate alternative.
----------------------
gotryfag said...
While the virulent hatred that mr. Martel seems to boil with is certainly refreshing, I'm not quite sure what it is that I said to deserve such spite. Not that I truly care.
I don't want to be on your side, Martel. And despite of your claims to be a true representative of the anti-Islamist movement, I neither think nor hope that you are the guiding ideological prototype of this movement. For if you are, this movement is truly doomed to the same ruinous end as of those certain historic German firebrands. Don't take it as an insult though, I just think of it as the likely result. Hatred of all things alien rarely leads to peace.
This is the larger point. El Cid or no [expletive], spiteful declarations do not make you allies, or to the movement you in so doing represent. The only thing you're doing is giving munitions those who would call us fascists and hatemongers. Because that's exactly what it is.
gotryfag: "What I'm saying is that such sentiments, coupled with the idolization of an 11th century mercenary lord do not make you superior to the Muslims you so hate. It makes you identical to them."
The only way that Westerners being "superior" to Muslims is relevant is on the battlefield - overseas or at home in the West.
Either way, El Cid is irrelevant to me. What is relevant is that our current leaders act as Muslim mercenaries - selling out the West for foreign-funded Muslim campaign contributions and the promise of cushy jobs upon their retirement from Muslim (!) public service in the West.
What is relevant is that Muslims are actively imposing Sharia Law on the West bit by bit.
What is relevant is that Muslims intend to enslave me and my family when they institute Sharia Law in the West.
What is relevant is that Sharia Law favors men over women and Muslims over non-Muslims in the West.
What is relevant is that Muslims absolutely intend to keep copying the EVIL behavior of their Satanic leader Mohammed forever including child abuse and molestation from infancy, forced girlhood clitorectomies, child marriage, child rape, gang rape, forced marriage, cousin marriage, honor beatings and killings, polygamy, mass murder, non-Muslim genocide, etc., in the West.
What is relevant is that Muslims intend to commit EVIL acts without allowing anyone to freely discuss and/or criticize past, present, and future Muslim atrocities via the United Nations adoption and imposition of Islamic blasphemy and/or anti-hate speech laws in the West.
The "superior" idea is the idea that wins the war. Period. If Westerners lose the war, Islam will obliterate Western ideas - ideas expressed via governance, culture, art, religion, etc.
gtf,
Hatred of all things alien rarely leads to peace, eh?
Exactly the problem we're facing re. Islam.
Do you believe in evil?
Y/N
Is Islam an evil doctrine?
Y/N
gottabeafag,
Seems I got your goat, eh?! ;<) Feeling a bit peevish are we? Maybe just a tab bit angry? Perhaps even a wee bit hostile. Well, perhaps if you identified more strongly with your own tribe you might eventually be moved to hating the enemy! He's trying to smash my head in, trying to destroy my family and my tribe and you squeamishly suggest that I need to dial it back and engage in pedantic nonsense to shore up your "intellectual" bonafides?!
That particular absurdity may work wonders for you on the cocktail circuit where, no doubt, you preen as an intellectual renegade "conservative." But you sir are a subversive in our midst laying claim to our heritage but eschewing its legitimate beliefs.
I'm angry, real angry, and I'd suggest that those sincerely of like mind, if they don't themselves feel the rage, understand it.
Someone said, and someone else repeated it,
One more thing. I believe the time for reasoned debate has passed us by...
Basta! There will be only "reasoned discourse" on MY posts on this blog or there will be no disocourse at all.
There are lots of places where you can rage and throw chairs around the room. This isn't one of them.
WE need light, not heat. If you can't tell the difference, look at, say, Egghead's comment.
If y'all have to talk ugly and send a comment thread sideways, by all means go over to the Newsfeed comment thread. That is the one place on Gates of Vienna you may be at Off Topic as you desire (as long as you're civl).
You can't do that here, though, and if I hadn't been unwell, I'd have extinquished these a long time back.
However, Nota Bene: From this line in the sand, there will be no more hate talk, no more baiting one another as though this is a bar and you get to break the place up.
Just because I understand the rage doesn't mean I have to tolerate the ruder versions of its expression here. The former, i.e., understanding is a kind of compassion, but the latter is simply spineless indulgence whilst letting another walk all over the rules of the house.
Find another venue.
As the saying goes: "Revenge is a dish best served cold."
I think that "hate" and "contempt" are giving Muslims too much credit. One only hates and has contempt for humans whom one deems to have betrayed certain human principles because one believes they are otherwise capable of manifesting those principles, and which then arouses the hatred and the contempt. Muslims are simply another ballpark altogether.
You heard it here first: Even hatred of Muslims is PC MC!
Hesperado -
Aren't you concerned that your NatioGeo graphic violence parable, likening Muslims to a wild pack of jackals will provide ammo to those in the animal rights movement seeking to tarnish the CJ initiative? They can be extremely sensitive about their beloved jackals and comparing them with Muslims could cause offence ;-)
But seriously, I'm with Charles Martel all the way, where he makes his general point that there is no way civil discourse will either stop violent Islamization or the ones enabling Islamic parasitism. I have nothing but contempt for those "civilized" types, drawing the Godwin card as soon as someone vents his serious dislike of Muslims. I do hope however, that @Charles Martel will take the warning by Dymphna to his heart. Use your energy and direct it to more productive anti-Islam goals and activities. Don't waste it on whining salon-CJ's my friend, they're not worth it.
All the best from Amsterdam,
Sag.
Message heard loud and clear.
We've a very long road ahead of us and will look back on these skirmishes as quaint luxuries our tougher descendants can ill afford. In fact, I suspect most will claim they've always felt nearly precisely as I've described so ubiquitous will be my attitude. For if we are to survive, it must be.
On another not altogether lighter note. Do you folks remember the story "The Time Traveler?" I don't know if it's been posted here or not. I may have actually found it here originally, though I don't think so. It's a great short story if you haven't read, do yourself a favor and take a look. http://www.dansimmons.com/news/message/2006_04.htm
I recall John Stuart Mill's opinion in 'On Liberty'. He wrote that freedom of thought and expression is wasted on certain peoples, and he's not wrong. How can you reason with a devout Mohammedan? You're wasting your time, because all that he's looking for is a chink in your armour so he can exploit it. One such chink is this nonsense that if you have a personal emotional experience after (for example) hearing of a young girl having unnecessary surgery performed upon her genitals, one that entails absolute condemnation of the people and beliefs involved, then you are 'as bad as' the perpetrators of such a hideous act. Utter tosh! Such absurd statements do us no good whatsoever. Ok we consider ourselves capable of reasoned debate, and that's fine. But part of that means pointing out that the the notion that because you despise the perpetrator of (let's say) an honour killing, you are as bad as the murderer, is simply nonsense.
Nick -
Nailed it squarely.
Charles Martel -
"We've a very long road ahead of us.."
The Road goes ever on and on.
I like the passage that says: "until it joins some larger way, where many paths and errands meet.."
Sag.
I'm reminded too of W. Montgomery Watt's thoughts on Islam in his biography of Mohammad. In response to one of the common (at one time) criticisms of Islam - that Mohammad made it all up (compare M with Joseph Smith - the parallels are there), Watt says that it's difficult to see how God could allow such an error to exist and thrive on this earth.
Watt here ignores that Satan is referred to in scripture as 'the god of this world' (2 Corinthians 4:4) and 'the ruler of this world' (John 12: 31). A 'religion' that denies the divinity of Christ, denies the crucifixion (Sura 4: 156 - 157), and at once denies that one can die for another, yet simultaneously allows for mass murderers who kill innocents in the name of the Islamic 'god' to have family members enter into 'paradise' with them (see Walid Shoebat, Prophecy Conference 2007)?
Someone said earlier that Islam is Satanic. As Neville Chamberlain showed us prior to WWII, it is not possible to enter into 'reasonable debate' with a Satanically inspired project. We all know this (1 Peter 5: 8).
Of course one particularly corrosive Satanic ploy is to pretend that everyone holding hands and singing Kumbaya by the campfire is really possible. A quick look at human history exposes this idea as pure hokum. But that doesn't stop people believing it. This is not too surprising. After all Satan is the tempter (Matthew 4: 3), and the father of lies (John 8: 44).
How about a McDonald's moment? This just happened to me this morning. I have posted this on other sites this morning but did not think it was appropriate to post here untill I saw this entry.
I was waiting for my order at a McDonalds in NYC. The guy next to me (guess his background, just guess) got impatient and made what he thought of as an amusing comment about putting the staff in the gas chamber.
I told him politely that I was jewish and considering what is happening in the world right now perhaps that sort of joke isn't-
"I figured you were a jew" he said and turned away.
I don't look jewish- he was just assuming that would be the only reason I would not think his holocaust joke was funny.
On Feb 27 2011 in New York City, less than a mile away from the world trade center, an average non political muslim arab american thought a comment about putting people in a gas chamber was amusing.
Sag, thank you for the link.
@ Nick "Someone said earlier that Islam is Satanic. As Neville Chamberlain showed us prior to WWII, it is not possible to enter into 'reasonable debate' with a Satanically inspired project."
I was watching a Hannity interview with Anjem Choudary (a radical Muslim cleric who has a British passport) who has stated many times that there are two camps in the world. Those that accept the sovereignty of God and those who accept the sovereignty of man.
Only one problem with this characterization. There is no doubt Muslims are guided by a slavish devotion, however the object of that devotion is most assuredly not God - of this there can be no reasonable disagreement. And the actual identity of the object of that devotion is quite evident - Satan. One need only listen to a well cultivated heart and soul to recognize the nature of the supernatural force that animates every single action of these odious adherents of Islam.
Muslims are unquestionably instruments of the devil himself. Islam is the embodiment of evil all gussied up in package attractive those whose powers of discernment have been undermined and destroyed by spiritual lethargy and immersion in a materialist hyper-rational Modernism.
Liberals wish to undermine and destroy the concept of God’s sovereignty and are doing so by failing to identify the supernatural being that Muslims pay homage to – Satan himself. They’ve thrown in with Muslims for their overriding common cause is the destruction of Good and the promotion of Evil. Leftists hate, and wish to destroy, all that is good, true and beautiful.
By sowing confusion about the absolute necessity of the sovereignty of God (by conflating Allah with God) they muddy the waters and cast aspersion on God’s supremacy. After all, if the sovereignty of God leads to Islamic radicalism then no rational person would want anything to do with this. But the sovereignty of Allah (Satan) and the sovereignty of man are just two sides of the same damned coin and not related in any way to the sovereignty God Almighty.
Groups from the left, ALL groups from the left, find common cause with ALL observant Muslims because of their common enemy, Jesus Christ, and by extension, the Good, the Beautiful and the Truth. It really is as simple as that.
jjk999, I wasn't going to post this either, but yesterday after a few of my original posts, I went to Best Buy and was standing in line with a clean shaven man from India.
I don't quite know how to put my finger on it, but I just knew this guy was a Muslim. So after engaging in small talk with him I asked where he hailed from. He answered in a very slightly guarded friendly tone, India.
I then asked, "Are you Hindu or a member of the religion of peace." Now I realize this may seem provocative to some here, but I ask this question all the time of people I meet from India and have discovered that Hindus are happy to clear the air and let you know as clearly as possible that they most assuredly are NOT Muslims. Anyway, suddenly, his friendly demeanor evaporated and he angrily retorted, "I have been told not to discuss such matter!" To which I replied, "Told by whom, your Muslim handlers?"
Believe me, the implication was not lost on this guy. He then shut up. As I was walking out of the store, I noticed he gathered with three other guys all of whom were typically Muslim in appearance as opposed to him who looked nearly entirely benign. Honestly, there was something extremely menacing in the appearance of these four guys.
He told me when we were engaging in small talk that he was attending a local engineering university. Can you imagine?! We are providing engineering educations for these backwards evil troglodytes!!
Folks, these cells of up to no good Muslims abound everywhere in this country and, I'm afraid, it's going to get very ugly very soon. The concatenation of innumerable ominous trends does not bode well for us.
Nick: compare M [Mohammad] with Joseph Smith - the parallels are there…
Many people would probably be very surprised to know that during the national drive to outlaw polygamy via Federal law, routine comparisons were drawn between Mormonism and Islam.
For those who are interested, read Irving Wallace's, "The Twenty-Seventh Wife". It details the life of Ann Eliza Webb who was the 27th wife of Mormon Church co-founder Brigham Young. Her successful divorce of him in 1873 shed unprecedented light upon the Mormon Church and became a national scandal.
The commonalities shared by these two manufactured "faiths" are fascinating.
Zenster and Nick:
There is one crucial difference between Islam and Mormonism, reflected in their respective members: While Mormons were causing disorder in the land over a century ago, they have, in subsequent decades up to the present, managed to become (with the usual exceptions that prove the rule aside) decent, productive, civil citizens -- even if they do tend to be annoying in person, enamored of beliefs that strike the normal person as nutty.
I.e., Mormonism shows that it is possible for a large community of individuals who believe fanatically in strange quasi-religious nonsense to be, nevertheless, peaceful and productive citizens. It is thus not so much the content of Islam that is the problem; it is its concrete application. And even that concrete application wouldn't be much of a problem, sans the scripted and therefore necessary tactic of ultra-violence that accompanies the Islamic way of life, calculated to terrorize as many non-Muslims as feasible in the context of a metastasizing strategy of supremacist geopolitical voracity that will not be sated until the world is conquered in order then to usher in the Islamic Eschaton.
Not only are Muslims astronomically worse than Mormoms; the lust for Lebensraum that possesses the former is considerably worse and more dangerous even than Hitler's.
A funny thing just happened. After my previous post, I tried to log in to my google account (which I'd used to send in the post) and was told that there had been 'unusual activity' and so it was blocked. Pretty weird, eh?
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