It’s obvious that one of these four allies has goals that diverge wildly from those of the other three. But expediency requires their short-term cooperation, and the lefties obviously believe they can successfully tame the Islamic beast after capitalist hegemony has been destroyed.
One of the latest battlefronts between the Demonic Convergence and the rest of us is occurring now in Tennessee. Dave Reaboi, writing at Big Peace, outlines what’s happening:
In Tennessee, the ‘Red-Green Alliance’ Defends Violent Jihad and Shariah
Imagine a bill criminalizing only those individuals who knowingly engage in what has already been defined federally as material support for terrorist activity. Indeed, what if the bill were even more refined and targeted only the material support of jihad terrorist activity. Meanwhile, the bill in no way regulates or affects the peaceful practice of any religion. Who would oppose such a common-sense measure? Recently, in Tennessee, we’ve seen a ‘Red-Green alliance’ between the radical left and Islamists wound into hysteria over this very suggestion — that has, very plainly, revealed them as defenders of the jihad provisions in Shariah.
This crucial piece of legislation to prevent jihadist acts of terror is being considered now in Tennessee. The “Material Support to Designated Entities Act of 2011,” also known as House Bill 1353 and Senate Bill 1028, is on the cutting-edge of anti-terrorism legislation, because it would be the first of its kind to empower local and state law enforcement to deal with the enemy’s stated threat doctrine — the law of jihad, as enunciated in Islamic jurisprudence, or Shariah.
The bill’s sponsor, Senate Republican Caucus Chairman Bill Ketron (R-Murfreesboro), said “this bill does not interfere with the constitutionally protected rights of those who practice Shariah religious law.” Ketron added: “This is not about religious rights or about those who practice Islamic beliefs. It’s about protecting our citizens from acts of terrorism that come from Shariah jihad which is a growing threat in all our states.”
Pressure by a Red-Green alliance (a coalition of ideology and convenience of far-left groups like the ACLU, Soros-funded extremist blogs like Mother Jones and ThinkProgress, and Islamist Muslim Brotherhood-linked pressure groups like the Muslim Public Affairs Council and CAIR) to defeat the bill has been fierce and growing. Willingly influenced by misleading propaganda, the Associated Press ran a headline on the bill, incorrectly reporting it “would make following Shariah a felony.” In the article, AP reporter Lucas L. Johnson II claims the bill’s focus on the Shariah law of jihad “represents the boldest legislative attempt yet to limit how Muslims worship.”
Amplified by the far-left, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) — unindicted co-conspirators in the largest terrorist funding trial in US history — have launched a media campaign to distort the law and defame its author, Center for Security Policy General Counsel David Yerushalmi.
These groups have lied, squealing that the Tennessee bill “would jail Shariah followers” and make it a crime to practice Islam peacefully in the state. For example, from the AP report: “Muslim groups fear the measure would outlaw central tenets of Islam, such as praying five times a day toward Mecca, abstaining from alcohol or fasting for Ramadan.” The piece continued, quoting Remziya Suleyman, policy coordinator for the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition: “This is an anti-Muslim bill that makes it illegal to be a Muslim in the state of Tennessee.”
In an interview with Mother Jones, CAIR staff attorney Gadeir Abbas said, “essentially the bill is trying to separate the ‘good Muslims’ from the ‘bad Muslims.’” In a sense, Abbas is correct: The Tennessee bill is an attempt to cleave Shariah’s law of jihad (‘bad’) from peaceful practice (‘good’) — and it’s being fought relentlessly, and with much flailing.
That Muslim pressure groups like CAIR and MPAC are mischaracterizing this bill so aggressively tells us something profound about their intentions. Despite the bill’s very clear wording on protecting citizens’ First Amendment rights to peacefully practice their religion — including, of course, Islam — these Muslim groups are making two very clear statements: (1) they are drawing a line in support of the law of jihad in Shariah, and (2) are affirming that, as books like Shariah: The Threat to America have argued, Shariah is a unified theological, political, military and legal code.
The proposed law is pretty straightforward, and is based almost precisely on the federal material support of terrorism statute upheld recently by the US Supreme Court. The Court found that Americans found to be providing “training,” “expert advice or assistance,” “service,” and “personnel” to designated terrorist organizations constitute material support and, thus, would be in violation of the law.
Read the rest at Big Peace.
Mr. Reaboi includes this rhetorical question:
Since September 11, 2001, we have heard CAIR, MPAC, ISNA, and the other Muslim Brotherhood pressure groups condemn what they describe as “terrorism in the name of Islam”; why can’t they support criminalizing organizations that clearly promote what they’ve called, “perversions of Islam”?
The question could be extended to include the far-left Democrats, the Greens, and the feminists — why don’t they object to groups whose ideology is diametrically opposite to their own?
But we already know the answer to that one: they’ve got their eye on the main prize.
8 comments:
Muslims may have a point in their protestations to these state proposals but their objections lie with Islam, their chosen religion, not our responses to it. If Muslims want to believe that Allah caused Gabriel to visit Mohammed Big Mo and whisper into his ear that henceforth all Muslims should worship the historical Arabian moon god named Allah and a big black rock in Mecca among other things, who cares. That’s their choice. Believe what you want so long as you don't bother the rest of us who want nothing to do with Islam.
But what we non-Muslims object to is Political Islam, namely the outer manifestations of this self-inflated religion which requires both Muslim and non-Muslim to behave in certain ways.
For example, during Ramadan, an Islamic ritual held cyclically based on the moon’s movements (explaining why this ritual is not held at the same time each “solar” year), Muslims fast during the day. All fine and good until Muslims start DEMANDING that others don't eat in their presence or worse that they too must obey Muslim strictures and also fast during the day. Muslims have countless rules on how humans are to conduct their personal lives, covering all aspects. These are laid out pretty thoroughly in the old Islamic standby, The Reliance of the Traveler. Again, all well and good for Muslims. But Muslims in their always present sense of superiority believe it is their right to impose their own rules on others.
But making demands of non-Islamic believers IS INHERENTLY part and parcel of Islam. To that extent these various state proposals banning Sharia law would deny Muslims the ability to be “fully Muslim” as that phrase is interpreted by Muslims. That is, being fully Muslim means imposing Islam on non-Muslims. This task is to be done until the whole world is submits. This instruction is expressly stated, more than once, by Mohammed himself in his Quran. The waging of holy war is affirmatively imposed on all Muslims. (In Islam there are two jihads: the greater struggle (or jihad) deals with personal spirituality; the lesser struggle deals with advancing Islam throughout the world by any means necessary (including force). Strangely Muslims confuse their priorities, choosing a pre-occupation with the physical, lesser jihad. Perhaps if they chose to focus on personal, spiritual self-improvement then the world might be a more peaceful place.)
This then is the problem: separating Religious Islam from Political Islam. We in the West can easily do this as such separation is part of our culture. Muslims find such a separation incomprehensible, impossible. Without Sharia Islam isn’t Islam, is the claim of Muslims.
But that world view is not the world view of the West. Separating the political from the religious can be done. Snake handling, once an acceptable religious practice in some American circles, is now unlawful. A larger example can be found in the admittance of Utah as one of the United States. Its admittance was conditioned upon the then-allowed Mormon practice of polygamy being legislatively banned.
We have precedent to divorce practices from belief. It can be done despite the shrieking banshee stage acts of the left and Muslims alike.
In the article, AP reporter Lucas L. Johnson II claims the bill’s focus on the Shariah law of jihad “represents the boldest legislative attempt yet to limit how Muslims worship.”
Considering that part of Muslim "worship" is emulating the terrorist brigand, Mohammad, then placing limits on Islamic practices makes perfect sense.
The core issue resides in Islam's compulsory nature. Were it not so dictatorial and ossified there might not be any need for this sort of restrictive legislation.
Just the opposite is true. The congenital inability of Islam to separate church and state literally demands that free nations impose limitations upon where, when and how Muslims may or may not follow the tenets of their credo.
gspencer: Muslims find such a separation incomprehensible, impossible. Without Sharia Islam isn’t Islam, is the claim of Muslims.
Exactly how is this any fault of the West? Muslims who immigrate to non-Islamic nations do so with the implicit understanding that Shari'a law cannot possibly remain all-encompassing as it does in dar-al-Islam. That they adamantly refuse to admit this patent truth is no responsibility of ours.
Finally, this entire "demonic convergence" is so intolerably irrational that it should be the butt of all ridicule and derision. Both Feminism and Environmentalism would not even exist outside modern technological societies of the sort created by Capitalism. In more severe historical eras absolutely no one had the spare time or luxury of redirecting scarce personal resources over to such counterproductive activities.
We see the same thing in how Muslims use Free Speech laws to drive hate speech and blasphemy legislation. This flagrant abuse of process and public tolerance by all three groups deserves nothing but the back of our collective hand.
There's a fundamental problem with the way this Tennessee bill frames its intent.
1) On the one hand, it seems to be argued (whether by the analyst David Reaboi at Big Peace or by the Tennessee legislators themselves) that this bill will be a redundant re-enforcement of existing Federal laws about material support for designated terrorist groups. If so, why the need for the bill?
2) On the other hand, the bill is designed to criminalize those portions of Sharia law that putatively support, and are used by terrorists to support, terrorism per #1.
When one puts 1 and 2 together, the ulterior intent of the bill seems to be to officially and legislatively link the criminality of material support of Federally defined terrorist groups to Sharia law. This aspect of the bill would be the only non-redundant part of it (see #1 above); but even so, its effects would still be entirely redundant.
Here's what I mean:
Apparently, under existing Federal laws, any of the individuals or groups who would be prosecutable under this Tennessee bill are already prosecutable now. Let's say the U.S. Government (or one of its States) nabs a Muslim (we'll call him "Rasheed"), and prosecutes him for material support of one of the Federally designated terrorist groups. Let's then say that Tennessee nabs another Muslim (let's called "Abdul") for the same crime.
Let's further say both cases succeed in finding the Muslims guilty.
The U.S. Government will punish Rasheed for the crime of materially supporting one of the Federally designated terrorist groups and punish him with jail time and/or extradition, without any need to add that he was following some part of Sharia law; Tennessee will punish Abdul with a similar punishment, and in addition will affix the extra label of "this is part of Sharia law" onto virtually the same sentence.
The only distinction here is rhetorical and nominalist; for the Tennessee bill is not calling for outlawing Sharia law itself, nor Islam itself. It's not even outlawing any parts of Sharia law: what it's doing is pointing to an existing crime (material support of one of the Federally designated terrorist groups) and labelling that as derived from part of Sharia.
Certainly, in terms of our parched throats that thirst in our desert of PC MC this bill represents a few drops of water; but it's still too little, and brackish with incoherence (for Sharia law cannot be cherry-picked into good and bad, much less can it be treated as some kind of specimen apart from Islam -- which in turn cannot be treated as some danger apart from the Muslims who actualize it) to satisfy in the long run.
Nice try, but close and no cigar.
Hesperado --
I like your close textual analysis, and I think you could be right. However, this may be a case of "This is the best that can be hoped for, so we took what we could get."
I've forwarded your comment to the gang at CSP to see if they have anything further to add to this.
Hesperado --
This comment was sent to me by Frontinus, in response to your comment above.
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Hesperado lives in a rational universe, where the federal government behaves rationally and acts when there is a threat. But in the real world, the federal government is often remiss, especially on local homegrown jihadist threats, where federal law enforcement, prosecutors and judges are Shariah-compliant and tolerate occasional jihadist incidents by denying their causes and labeling them as unknowable and unpreventable crimes.
However, with this bill as a tool, a STATE (not federal) AG can designate that same local jihadist group as a Shariah-adherent terrorist group, and then by law deny it material support. I don’t know if Hesperado is American or European, but there are numerous examples where the states have taken the initiative when the federal government has been asleep at the wheel. Arizona’s attempts to protect citizens from illegal immigrants is a good example.
As to the linkage between Shariah and violent jihad applied to groups that advocate a doctrinal, no-exceptions adherence to Shariah which therefore by definition includes a dedication to jihad, this linkage enables the AG to identify a group as terrorist and deny it material support BEFORE it conducts an actual terrorist act. There are plenty of other situations where we try to identify risk factors (normally called profiling) in order to justify watching organizations and then eliminating their resources before they take action. An adherence to mafia mores and gang social structures can be identified in this way, for example. Or membership in the Communist party, speeches stating that violent overthrow of the US government is mandatory to establish the people’s state, and literature on making dangerous devices. Law enforcement is not just about arresting bad guys after they’ve committed a crime; it’s also about trying to detect what they’re up to before they commit a crime, so you can prevent it.
Jamaat ul Fuqra was a federally designated terrorist group for years, before the State department removed that designation. This law would permit the AG in Virginia, Georgia, New York etc. IF they had proof and could get through the due process hurdles, to designate THEIR STATE JAMAAT COLONY as a Shariah-adherent terrorist entity and deny them material support. Even if the State Department would NOT designate them at the federal level.
Per Frontinus: As to the linkage between Shariah and violent jihad applied to groups that advocate a doctrinal, no-exceptions adherence to Shariah which therefore by definition includes a dedication to jihad, this linkage enables the AG to identify a group as terrorist and deny it material support BEFORE it conducts an actual terrorist act.
If only for the sake of establishing such linkage, the Tennessee bill may be of some real use. It is vital to set a precedent whereby strict adherence to Shari'a law is legally construed to be qualification as a terrorist entity.
While obviously constrained to a State level, for now, this linkage is going to take on a whole new meaning in the very near term.
A recent epidemic of "democratic" revolutions in the MME (Muslim Middle East), is setting the stage for several new Islamic republics to have Shari'a enshrined as constitutional law.
It is of vital importance that people in the West legitimately equate Shari'a and terrorism. Soon enough we will be seeing proxy terrorist attacks originating from within these infant Islamic republics.
Such attacks will require retaliation and what better way to justify them than by citing strict adherence to Shari'a as being a recognized precursor to terrorist activity?
I agree with Hesperado about how important it is to refrain from any parsing of Shari'a law into acceptable and unacceptable practices. All of Shari'a, just like all of Islam, eventually, must be termed as unacceptable to Western civilization.
However, these near term overthrows in the MME make it a high priority to establish even minor linkage between Shari'a law and Islamic terrorism.
It's long past tea for these Islamic cesspits to be held responsible for global terrorism.
Thanks Baron and Frontinus.
If under a bill like this Tennessee bill a State of the Union could prosecute and legally punish an individual or a group merely for adhering to that part of Sharia that is defined as contiguous with existing Federal laws criminalizing support of terrorist groups (forget for now the problem of disentangling that part of Sharia out of the tight weave of Sharia as a whole) -- without having evidence that this individual or group is actually offering material support for any of the Federally defined terrorist groups -- that would be great. But it seems to me that the State, as the bill stands, would need that additional evidence before proceeding (let alone winning). I don't see how adding this exceedingly politically incorrect rider on already existing laws is going to strengthen any State's ability to prosecute and punish such individuals or groups. How about Tennessee just aggressively enforce existing law?
I'm all for amending our laws through the legislature to make all of Sharia considered treason/sedition (and synecdochally -- eventually -- all Muslims qua practitioners of Islam). But this particular end run seems a bit too gingerly.
These groups have lied, squealing that the Tennessee bill “would jail Shariah followers”
Why shouldn't we jail Sharia followers?
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