Hesperado: B.I.P. (Blog in Peace)

I was banned from Jihad Watch approximately five days ago. Fuller details here.

A couple of days ago, a commenter on Jihad Watch, "Denise", was nice enough to post a comment on Jihad Watch which I had drafted -- a bittersweetly droll, but not in the least merely rhetorical, request:

Hi gravenimage, Wellington, dumbledoresarmy, Eastview, traeh, duh_swami, Courreges, demsci, Susanp -- Hesperado is wondering from beyond the grave if you remember him, and if you do, would you say a few words at his memorial service in memory of his passing?

This comment appeared at about 11 pm on September 28, on a respectably large and active comments thread. It is now nearly 48 hours later, the evening of September 30. Only two of those named bothered to respond, and their responses were rather pathetic demonstrations of toeing the line:

I remember Hesperado, I burn a candle for him every night, but I have no comment on his recent demise on JW...Sometimes you need to be careful about what you say or how you say it...or run the risk of deletion or banning...There is a dedication to free speech, but there are limits...If it is an opinion or outburst that reflects poorly on JW or staff, and can be used as a missile by those who would smear, it is deleted...Repeat offenders get banned...This is as it should be... duh_swami

A few hours later, The commenter "demsci" wrote:

I respect and miss Hesp, his intelligence, his analysis, his unbelievable depth and logic also and it came as a shock to me also to see him banned. Very unfortunate. But I see it as his fault, especially with his brains, not to respect the clear boundaries of Jihad Watch, which he did cross, with his epiphany that Muslims were no[t] humans.

To the latter, Denise responded:

Thank you for writing, demsci, but I don't consider the boundaries regarding this particular comment as clear as you find them to be. In fact I have read similar comments (similar to the one that Hesp made) from other posters over the years, but they never resulted in deletion or banning; so I am not entirely sure what "clear boundaries" you are referring to. ... Remember, he was banned without warning, but only later learned why. His "epiphany" comment wasn't even a repeat offense, since the offense didn't become known until AFTER the fact - until after he was banned. I have stated many times over the years that muslims can be "heartless & soulless" in some of my comments, which is similar in nature to what Hesp had written, and yet that remark never raises an eyebrow. I mean which is more egregious, my comment or his? They seem the same to me. I find some of the rules a bit confusing ...

What I found interesting was a later comment by Marisol, asking a Muslim commenter, Yusef YK, to substantiate his apparent claim that some Jihad Watch commenter wrote that all Muslims "need to be mulched". (To date, he has not responded to Marisol). Marisol then explained:

You know our policy, and you know how disingenuous you are to ascribe such sentiments to anyone who works for Jihad Watch. We delete genocidal and/or racist comments the moment we see them, or when they are brought to our attention.

Well, the two comments of mine that caused Marisol to ban me contained neither genocidal nor racist sentiments. I invite the reader to read my two comments, and demonstrate either genocidal or racist import in them. Unlike the commenter alleged by Yusef YK to have said that all Muslims "need to be mulched", nowhere in my comments did I advocate any action at all against Muslims. I have before on Jihad Watch comments (and here on my blog) advocated total deportation, but I have never advocated genocide, ethnic cleansing, or lynching.

An even more egregious (if subtler) example of unfairness practiced by Spencer & Marisol is indicated by the aforementioned Jihad Watch reader Denise, who informs me about the fiercely dogged defender of Spencer, nicknamed "awake" (for a display of awake's emotionalism and irrationality, I invite the reader to click on "Jihad Watch Watch" on the upper right of my blog here and peruse various comments sections where awake and I engaged in copious disputes). Denise claims (and I have no reason to doubt her) that awake posted a comment on Jihad Watch last month attacking me:

He then ended his rant last month by making some vile comment, which included calling you an f-er, and then about an hour later that word was scrubbed from his comment. And the sentence was left hanging, so it now reads something like this: "You are such a" ...

I.e., the loyal friend of Jihad Watch, awake (aka "Mike Slumber"), posts an offensive comment on Jihad Watch, and instead of being punished or having the comment yanked -- or even simply being admonished -- Marisol does him the gentle favor of taking some spit and Windex and cleaning up some of the unsightly smudges he left. Why didn't Marisol do me the same favor of simply airbrushing out my "epiphany" that so offended her? The answer, it seems, is that Marisol and Spencer (of one mind) had it in for me, and were just waiting for anything coming vaguely close to a pretext in any of my comments.

On a related note, I find it rich that the Jihad Watch commenter nicknamed "B" (one wonders if he chose that single letter to make it difficult for people to search for his comments in the archives), who in the thread in which I was banned made a point of defending Marisol's decision (and in the process, of mischaracterizing my supposed crime), more recently made a statement not that far from the one I made that so offended Marisol; arguably "getting close to the territory" of my statement, as Marisol would say.

First, here is what "B" wrote in defense of Marisol:

I agree and I think anyone lurking these boards or posting need to learn what Taqiyya means and how to spot it being used among Muslims. This will make you more assured of your dealings with Muslims and less afraid to engage Muslims in your own personal life. The goal with sites like Jihad Watch is to educate people about Islam, specifically the dangerous portions of Islam. Are all Muslims dangerous? No. Learning to recognize a Muslim who could be a valuable partner in the community and learning to trust them (but understanding Taqiyya and knowing what to watch for) is advantageous for all of us. Many Muslims in the American community have acted as informants to let Law enforcements know when something is going wrong or when Jihadists are present in the community or Mosque. They wouldn't be doing this if they felt like they were going to be stabbed in the back by us. When some people on this board make a blanket statement about "Muslims" without first identifying which Muslims you are referring to, I cringe. If you are doing this, you need to continue to educate yourself about Islam and Muslims. The information provided on Jihad Watch is there for a reason. Use it. I am against Jihadists Muslims or Islamic Supremacists. These are the people who embrace the violent parts of Islam and follow Jihad in all its variant forms (both peaceful and violent). I am not against peaceful Muslims who simply want to live and provide for their families. I am friends with many of them, and more specifically know many Iranians. Their wish is to practice religious Islam but not the political. Some Muslims I know are only Muslims in name only (MINO, if you will.) So please be careful on this distinction about Muslims.

Shortly thereafter, "B" added:

For people who makes a blanket statement like "f*** all muslims, they deserve (whatever punishment that person thinks of)...

I never said "f*** all muslims" nor anything close to that. I described my process over a long time of emotions and thoughts based upon the horrible atrocities perpetrated, countenanced and enabled by Muslims all over the world, and on that basis made an argument for a conclusion that "Muslims are not human" -- careful to add that my conclusion was not meant to be an ontological pronouncement. But carefully nuanced argument -- and consequently, respectful counter-argument -- seems to be beyond both the civilians at Jihad Watch, and the staff there.

To continue with "B" --

... Be more reasoned about who you are targeting in the Muslim community. Not all Muslims are Jihadists. To those Muslims we need to get their support in either reforming Islam or abandon it. Do you want to identify the enemy and deal with them? Or are you just going to tell all Muslims to f*** off and leave the US?

In that same thread, "B" then responded to the acutely apt question from Denise --

"can YOU tell the difference between a truly safe muslim and a dangerous one?"

-- and wrote:

You can never be too sure about anything. Even the best of the best have been fooled. Do you remember when the CIA station in Afghanistan was bombed by a guy who turned out to be a double agent? Yes, even they were fooled and I would consider CIA to be the best at figuring it out. You can learn to spot a Muslim employing Taqiyya and this will help you in your community to combat those local CAIR representatives. Those people are going to make all of us look bad by claiming Islamaphobia. Knowing the Quran well inside and out, knowing the contradictions will allow you to face those people in letters to the editors or if you are bold enough, to stand up in any speech they give to the community and show others their contradictions. Are all Muslims bad or using Taqiyya? No. Not all of them are doing this. Some are just like you and I, earning a living and caring for their family. Some probably are unaware of what the Quran really says and tells them to do. Should you lump all of them in with the Jihadist? No, because then you definitely won't save them if there ever is a chance to do so.

Okay, now that we have all that tediously asymptotic B material under our belt, here is the more recent statement he made that so amused me, in light of the above:

One must also remember that Muslims share the concept of the Ummah. In prostrating the idea of the Ummah, they become duty bound to follow the commands of the Quran. Those commands supersede even the loyalty of ones own family. They command that if your brother, mother or father is not following the Koran properly, then one should deal with their own family members properly. When I read about the Ummah and Muslims, It really reminds me of the Borg in the Star Trek Next Generation TV series. The Borg all think with one mind and follow the same rules and laws. Their duty is to assimilate all life into the "collective".

Gee, that sounds like "B" is condemning all Muslims as a mindless monolithic block of an evil force. He better watch out, or Marisol will cast him into the outer darkness, and he'll be gnashing his teeth like me, too.

Then, another similarly quasi-schizo Jihad Watch reader named "mike ryan" responded to this statement by "B" thusly:

Well said, B!

And yet, this same "mike ryan" just a few comments above B's comment had just gotten finished trotting out the tired exculpation of Muslims and the artificial distinction between Muslims and Islam:

... I am not anti-Muslim. I am against the teachings of Islam that lead to extremism, violence, hatred, and bigotry against followers of other religions. I am opposed to the oppression of Muslims by their co-religionists in the name of "Allah" or any other nomenclature with which you or anyone else would care to justify their or our oppression.

And concluded with the only logical conclusion based on such sentimentalist crap -- a rhetorical question divorced from the grimly horrible reality of Muslims:

My question is this: When will Muslims begin to take stock of the very real suffering that these teachings and those who follow them inflict upon the rest of humanity?

Anyone who has been reading Jihad Watch with any degree of attention and regularity would be disabused of even contemplating such a question, even rhetorically. We should possess the grim answer, which would lead us reasonably to assume that Muslims will never change -- at least not in numbers sufficient for the safety of our societies -- and that they will remain as fanatically obsessed with hating and dominating us as they have unremittingly done so for the last 1,400 years.

Conclusion:

Very few readers of Jihad Watch -- even counting those who have been reading it for years and who should thus know better -- have really digested the full horror of Islam, and the full horror of Muslims. As a consequence, they have to find ways, to assuage their liberal anxiety, to avoid the logical consequence which Islam and Muslims force upon us. And when someone like me comes along articulating that logical conclusion, they recoil, and let Marisol clean up.