In a report on Jihad Watch titled -- “France: Muslim who beheaded priest worked as airport baggage handler” -- referring to the second Muslim, Abdel-Malik Petitjean, involved in the recent terror attack on a sleepy church in northern France, Robert Spencer quotes from the report:
“Petitjean had no trouble getting through a police investigation and psychological evaluation” to get the airport job.
And opines:
And no one would have dared try to ascertain whether or not he had jihadi sentiments; that would have been “Islamophobic.”
Spencer thus exemplifies the very same flawed meme which is practiced by the Mainstream he is busy critiquing 24/7. The only difference, it seems, between the Counter-Jihad Mainstream and the broader Western Mainstream is one of degree, not of kind. Rather than scrap the meme of vetting altogether and shift the paradigm, the Counter-Jihad Mainstream just tightens the screws and nuts on the wheezing, clearly inefficient machine.
Thus Spencer needles the broader Mainstream and chides them for not “daring to try to ascertain whether or not this Muslim had jihadi sentiments.”
So many things wrong with this. First, there is the guiding, implicit assumption that all Muslims don't already have jihadi sentiments. If we adjust our definition of “jihad” and educate ourselves about the panoply of types of jihad (including the many types under the rubric of stealth jihad -- “stealth” precisely because it deceptively seems to be unrelated to violent jihad) -- and then we further educate ourselves about Islamic texts, history, and current events -- we can come to no other reasonable conclusion than that all Muslims are pursuing and/or enabling jihad -- are “jihadis”. Spencer knows everything that should lead him to this conclusion, but he doggedly maintains a position that not only fails to defend it, but one which substantively (albeit subtly) undermines it.
What motivates the Vetters of the West -- whichever of the two Mainstreams they inhabit -- is largely two-fold:
1) They take seriously the ostensible data -- that not all Muslims are stabbing, shooting, exploding, and plowing through crowds in trucks -- and seriously process that data such that it informs their diagnosis of the problem and their prescriptions for it.
What taking this data seriously means is that one is moved to conclude that all the Muslims who are not currently stabbing, shooting, exploding, and plowing through crowds in trucks, and who are not proven after the fact to be enabling same in direct, material ways, are to be treated as innocent before proven guilty.
2) Consequent upon #1, and infusing it, is a PC MC anxiety not to be bigoted, not to be prejudiced, not to “paint all Muslims with a broad brush.”
Given the immensity of the problem -- in terms of sheer size and complexity -- a complexity not only of the numbers of Muslims roiling and percolating throughout the West, by the millions, but of their remarkable mobility and cultural networking peculiar to Islamic culture, all devastatingly complicated by the problem of taqiyya -- we come to the reasonable conclusion that we cannot “ascertain” with certitude sufficient for our primary goal, the safety of our societies, which Muslims are harmless and which are not. And this principle holds after we generously assume that there exist some Muslims who are harmless! And again, by “harmless” we don't mean the absolute minimum qualification -- that they refrain from stabbing, shooting, exploding, and plowing through crowds in trucks -- but that they don't enable same in myriad ways.
So if we are to continue to pursue our Whack-a-Mo policy, we can continue to use Ol' Bessy Lou -- that chugging, wheezing jalopy of a system that continues to play Muslim Roulette by “trying to ascertain” which Mo is going to pop up and where, so we can whack him after the fact (hopefully before he mass-murders, but, as we have seen lately as the problem metastasizes all around us, not always). Or we can take seriously the fact that this problem is systemic and is getting horribly worse, and if we don't shift our paradigm, we, the entire West, will be overrun by Mohammedans and will be effectively destroyed by all the mayhem and misery Mohammedans invariably, perennially wreak.
13 comments:
Hi Hesperado,
I don't see failing to "paint all Muslims with a broad brush" as a bug, but as a feature of western civilization. If we are to paint reality with a broad brush, we would still live in huts. No electricity for you! Or me!
And it's not only a technical quality, but, even more importantly, a human quality. You write about islam, so you are aware how islam uses broad strokes on people, and what kind of existence Muslims have as a result.
It's in western nature to approach both the problem and the solution with precision. It's the nature that has been moulding for thousands of years. That doesn't mean any solution must exclude producing consequences to all or almost all Muslims. In fact, best thing to do could be more extensive than the one you propose. But whatever the solution, and the problem, are, they have to be precisely understood, precisely thought-out and precisely acted upon for best results.
I have great ideas of how to prevent massacres of Christians in Muslim lands - while repatriating Muslims to Muslim lands. If I can think of them, then others can, too.
Here's what Islam teaches 'moderate' Muslims:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3716280/Yes-boys-sex-slaves-Outrage-British-Muslim-cleric-mosque-Cardiff-jihadis-radicalised-tells-teenagers-captives-permissible-Islam.html?ICO=most_read_module
@Egghead
Great ideas are, by definition, rare. If you have great ideas, please do share.
Henry, two points:
It depends on the nature of the problem what solution is best. It seems awfully convenient for those who are concerned to be fair to Muslims as a whole that their conception of the nature of the problem just so happens to favor such fairness.
Secondly, while such principles as "innocent before proven guilty" and benefit of the doubt (along with many related ones such as an interest and curiosity about (and respect for) the Other moderating and indeed overcoming a tendency toward hostility toward the Other; and an ongoing process of transcending tribalism toward universalism) are all par excellence Western -- so too is the common sense that knows that a One-Size-Fits-All Principle can be wrongheaded, even devastating, if mis-applied out of some gallivanting need always to put Principle over Survival.
As I learn more and more, to my growing horror, about Islam, I see it is indeed the Mother of All Exceptions to the Rule. And the failure to grasp this in time will surely be the downfall of our precious, mad, flawed (nobody's perfect), wonderful, dearly beloved West.
Hi Henry,
First of all, I wholeheartedly disagree that 'great ideas are, by definition, rare' - but, even if great ideas were rare, that fails to obligate me to share a rare commodity of intellectual property (my ideas) in a public forum - where said ideas might inform the opposite side to prepare or to use said ideas against the West.
Secondly, the government knows how to contact me if the government wants to hear my ideas - which I might or might not choose to share as my intellectual property.
Thirdly, my overall point was that, if lowly little me can think up effective military strategies, then how much more effective would trained military leaders be if unleashed from PCMC to fight the good fight?!
Fourth, military leaders like and study military history. I believe that some unknown amount of military leaders are fully aware of the true nature and danger of Islam from 1) studying military history, and 2) serving as soldiers in Muslim lands. This is WHY the current PCMC administration fears U.S. veterans.
Fifth, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, etc. showed how easy it is for any country with a real military to invade and conquer most Muslim countries. It is the Chinese draw among the United States, Russia, and China that is the real issue - with PCMC military 'peacemaking' efforts being a secondary issue. If we go to conquer and subdue, then we will conquer and subdue.
Here's a hint: Start with Sherman's March to the Sea.
When I wrote Chinese draw, I meant a Mexican standoff where no superpower wants another superpower to control world resources including oil reserves.
Unfortunately, Obama is busily antagonizing both China and Russia at the same time (!) as millions of immoderate Muslims enter the West.
Chinese draw red line:
https://larouchepac.com/20160419/china-we-are-prepared-obamas-war-we-can-draw-red-line-make-clear-washington
Hesperado,
I wasn't thinking a lot about what the solution is, because I am not in position to drive it. Generally speaking, I agree with your solution. I especially agree with it compared to no-solutions coming from basically all directions. So I have no problem with that.
What I'm arguing here is that the way one comes to the solution is important. And it's important because the more refined understanding of the problem is, the more refined solution can be, with much better, or faster, or more significant, or longer-lasting results.
I also believe that broad-stroke approach is not how western mind primarily gets the case. So one of the goals for someone who wants to make a change is to present the problem as precisely as possible. For example, we can argue whether jihad means war against Kufrs or Muslim's inner strugle in myriad of ways, but when Dr. Bill Warner reveals that 97% of all jihad references in The Hadith are about violence and only 3% about inner strugle, with me being aware of most vile calls to kill unbelievers in final chapters in Quran, that closes the debate for me.
The ultimate task is arguably even more complex than just presenting numbers. I don't know if you are familiar with the story of Ignaz Semmelweis. He was a Hungarian doctor from 19th century, who discovered that when surgeons thoroughly wash their hands between surgeries, which they didn't do at the time, patients' mortality rates drop massively (I don't recall exactly by how much, but it was more than 10-fold as I remember). He was ecstatic about his findings, wrote a lot of reports on that, traveled around Europe's hospitals to present them, but nobody took him seriously. He literally went mad and died in an asylum. Then some years later came famous chemist Pasteur, who proved Ignaz's findings in a laboratory, with his microscope, chemistry formulas and what not, and his proof, precise undeniable proof, sealed the deal on bacteria. We can think it's not fair, but that's how it is. Precision, proof, scientific findings, etc, weight more than "loose" proof, let alone broad sweep. In the West, of course.
(As a sidenote: my view that there are two groups of Muslims who effectively reject Muhammad and his "morals", which I described in earlier post/comments, shows, to me, that almost all Muslims are hate-oriented. My guess, although uneducated, tells me that some 5% or at most less than 10% of Muslims are in those two groups. Which means 95% percent, or at minimum 90% of all Muslims literally either hate or sweepingly dislike non-Muslims. That conclusion is world away from believing that most Muslims are basically "good". Probably even Nazis didn't have such strong hate instilled across the board. If that conclusion proves to be correct, it puts something on desk for people at charge to sink their teeth in. And it's possible to prove or disprove the claim, among other conclusive proofs about Muslims (not only about islam) which wait to be unearthed...)
Hesperado,
The problem with Moderate Muslims is that even if they are actually "moderate", still there is no guarantee that their progeny will be moderates. Thus Akbar the "Great"'s
great grand son Aurangazeb was an absolute tyrant. ( Though there are many historians who are convinced that Akbar himself was a tyrant, this example can be used to question the presumptions about Moderate Muslims , since it is mostly accepted ( by leftists )that Akbar was moderate ( though that was more likely than not, not true))
Henry,
"Precision, proof, scientific findings, etc, weight more than "loose" proof, let alone broad sweep. In the West, of course."
Sure; but some things are not knowable. About the minds of 1.5 billion Muslims -- specifically about whether or not the ones not overtly advertising their mass-murderous intent are (in various ways) lying to us about their support for the jihad against us -- there's no way to know with certitude sufficient for our primary priority: the safety of our societies from the danger of metastasizing Islamic jihad. No way to know, no matter how much we structure the problem in terms of "precision" and taxonomy.
Given this, we have a dilemma: either we err on the side of generously assuming that all Muslims are not supporting the jihad against us (and, in addition, are practicing various types of jihad to enable this), or we err on the side of caution. To structure the problem in terms of "precision" and taxonomy is to imbue the problem with a false sense of certainty that we don't, and can't, have.
Let's look at Malawi, a very small and very poor African Christian-majority country with a large Sunni Muslim minority.
According to the CIA, in 1998, Makawi was 82% Christian and 13% Muslim.
By 2010, Malawi was 68% Christian and 25% Muslim.
In only 12 years, Muslims basically doubled their population in Malawi.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malawi
@Egghead
Most Muslims living in the West, who are labeled as "good" Muslims, are probably not good, but half-subdued in their hate or plain dislike toward non-Muslims. Really good Muslims are probably very rare. I am waiting for myth of "most Muslims are good people" to be shattered. I could 100% accept to be proven wrong, but I don't think I'm wrong.
Hesperado,
I agree with urgency. It's long overdue. Like that Chinese saying, "Best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, next best time is now".
It doesn't conflict to go about finding as much provable conclusions as possible, in parallel. It might be very valuable both for now and the future (so similar mistakes won't be made). Most western people are so oblivious about both islam and Muslims, it's almost insulting to decency. As you chronicle Jihad Watch, it's obvious even people who are knee deep in the subject have huge problems when it comes to making conclusions about what their knowledge and gathered data mean.
By the way, when it comes to researching Muslims, it's not hard to scientifically/psychologically find out what person believes and thinks. Even if he or she intends to lie. And with statistical methods you don't need more than couple of thousand people to extrapolate for billion. That's why small sample is enough to rather accurately predict outcome of an election. It's much more question of will/political correctness than the way. Sure some research is done by Pew and similar organizations, but they don't really dig into, they kind of glance over. We could very well be amazed of the extent of hate and even mental issues within Muslims, if serious research on Muslims (not only on islam) is done.
Correction: taxpayer subsidized
Post a Comment