Islamophobia?

The new buzzword that seems to be in combat with a concern for Islamofacism is "Islamophobia." Apparently, that would indicate "a fear of Islam." Supposedly, this fear is unfounded.

Now, why would anyone have a concern about Muslims? Couldn't have anything to do with the volatility of the "Arab street." Print cartoons depicting Mohammed and people riot, burn buildings, threaten to kill not just the cartoonists or the publishers, but infidels (you and I) in general. Couldn't have anything to do with the fact that the only people who seem ready to strap explosives on themselves and detonate themselves in a crowd are Muslims. Couldn't be all the beheadings and kidnappings and car bombs unleashed by Muslims. Couldn't be the election of a terrorist organization that has vowed to destroy Israel to run the fledgling Palestine. Certainly has nothing to do with the Mullahocracy in Iran and their deranged president pursuing nuclear weapons while deceiving and manipulating the rest of the world, and also threatening Israel and any other infidel nation. Couldn't be about al Queda and all the support they get in the Muslim world.

Are ALL Muslims insane beheading, bombing, infidel hating, Islamofacists? No. No way, no how. However, are there one hell of a lot of Muslims who are? Sure seems so. And it seems they're extremely vocal.

Until "moderate", or even 21st century enlightened, Muslims get to be as loud as those calling for our death and burning our flag all the time (despite the fact that we've fought for and liberated tens of millions of Muslims in the last dozen years), it would seem to me that it is perfectly legitimate to be uneasy about Muslims. If those calling for a new Caliphate and subjugation (or death) of infidels are the loudest voices, and the only other voices we hear are those telling us WE have a problem (CAIR, et al), rather than denouncing the radical Muslims, wouldn't it be foolish not to listen to the threat?

The cry of Islamophobia is meant to tell us that WE need to be more tolerant. We see Muslims burning embassies and threatening people over cartoons and WE need to be more tolerant. Doesn't the accusation itself tell us the rough equivalent of: "You are ALWAYS wrong." They make threats because they think we're wrong and bad in some way. If we acknowledge that it is Muslim who are threatening us, we're wrong again. THEY bear no responsibility. Everything falls on the infidels' shoulders.

When MLK Jr. was combating racism, he spoke of judging people "not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." Implicit in that statement is that not only do those holding wrongly based judgements need to re-evaluate their judgements, but that those being wrongly judged need to SHOW CHARACTER that proves the predjudice wrong. It is a responsible statement. He's saying, set aside your predjudice and we will prove that we are people of character.

Right now, the only thing we see from Muslims is what appears to be a vast number of them (it LOOKS like a majority, based on the volume of their voices) threatening us for who we are and how we live. When we comment, the only other voices are telling us we're Islamophobic. Muslims who want us to believe that Islam is not a threat to us need to show some character. They need to start backing down their own and to do it as loudly as the Islamofacists. If they don't, it's either because they agree that we should all be subjugated to Islamists, or they are afraid of their own. If they're afraid of their own, is that not Islamophobia? And if THEY are afraid to speak out, doesn't it mean that any fear (or mistrust) WE have is well founded?

Exposing the Weakness

Karl Marx said that religion is the opiate of the people. Marx was a bit reactionary on the subject, and then the pseudo-religion of "the state" replaced belief in a spiritual diety, making the "religion" of socialism the opiate of the people, complete with a utopian vision. But, I think his point was that religious beliefs, promises of wonders in an afterlife, can anesthetize people to the shabby earthly situation they find themselves in. For example, during slave times, Christianity was used to pacify the slaves by convincing them that no matter how lousy their lot in life is, heaven awaits the obedient and the oppressors will go to hell. Also, if an individual or group of individuals can convince the masses that they have a divine decree to hold power, the religious masses will basically subjugate themselves to the divine authority. Hence, kings were given power by "divine decree" and the Catholic church had power long ago.

So, now we have radical Islam. The West has basically seperated personal spiritual beliefs and practices from government. Power does not come from divine decree, and one's lot in life is seen (in a person of character) not as some temporary penalty that will be resolved in heaven, but as a matter of personal choices and effort (at least when we can get a socialistic state out of the way). The opposite appears to be true in radical Islam. Politics and religion are closely intertwined, or are one and the same. Imams have both religious and political power. The people are left in whatever plight they are in, under the promise that being good Muslims (as defined by the Imams who are interpreting the Koran for them) will gain them favor when they meet Allah. This is so deeply ingrained that people are willing to blow themselves to bits for the promise of 72 virgins in heaven.

This reliance on religion being the opiate of the people keeps the people from asking very simple questions that would expose the weakness of the political system. But, others can ask the questions and the lack of a good answer could expose the weakness to the people and perhaps begin to wake them from their hypnosis.

Look at the economies of states that run under theocracies, or at least Muslim Arabs in the Middle East. Take away the oil riches from the Saudis and others, and what do they have going for them? How are the people doing in Iran? What's the standard of living in Gaza? Why is Egypt getting foriegn aid money from us? It's clear that one of the reasons that the Israelis are the sworn enemy of the governments in the region is that they are a demonstration that people, set free, can actually accomplish something. There they are, on a barren plot of land with no oil, and they have a decent economy and a good standard of living. So, if you want to keep your people under your thumb, you have to make that success evil somehow, and have those people be the enemy, particularly if you have absolutely NO plan of your own to create wealth and raise the standard of living of your people.

So, that's the question: What is the plan for raising people's standard of living? In the Caliphate, how do you plan to create a thriving economy, or do you merely expect the people to suffer, and all of the technology and lifestyle enhancements of the modern world to eventually break down?
An economy is an interesting beast. It's either advancing as a result of the creativity and effort of the people (mostly spurred by the promise of reward in the form of enhanced lifestyle for the creator and the laborer), or it's declining. Look at Iraq's infrastructure. Granted it was a semi-secular dictatorship rather than a theocracy (though, in practice it is tough to see a difference in results as opposed to a difference in style), but one of the problems we have with rebuilding it is not the damage by war, it's the damage caused by the neglect and the lack of modernization. Look at the differences in infrastructure and the economies in long time capitalistic liberal democracies versus socialist countries. Do you suppose effort and reward in capitalist terms results in a better standard of living than totalitarianism, whether it be a theocracy or claims to be socialist?

Other good questions are: After you have defeated and subjugated the infidels, who is going to buy the oil, and with what? How are you planning to keep the economies of the dhimmis thriving when it is clear that even if you can get people work by force, you can't get them to create by force, or produce high quality goods by force? Is the plan to keep people at a standard of living that is barely subsistance level and keep promising that life will be good only after life is over, or do you have a better plan? If you DO have a better plan, why do we see no evidence of it in the Middle East today? Do the Imams and the Ayatollahs get to live richly while everyone else suffers, and, if so, why? There are plenty of Arab and/or Islamic states, and they don't appear to be particularly blessed economically aside from the benefits derived from oil, which makes them rich only because other, non-Arab, non-Islamic states buy the oil. Why should the people expect sudden economic blessings just because more of the world is under Islamic rule when they don't see it in the places where the states are already under Islamic rule?

In other words, the relevent question is: Aside from promises of future heavenly grandeur (which require belief, but for which there is no evidence), what is in it for the average Muslim if the world becomes Islamafied? We KNOW there's nothing in it for the infidels, though some of the infidels (you and I) seem to want to ignore what we'll lose (including our lives) if the Islamafacists have their way. But, it also seems like there is not much in it for the Muslims either, other than for the select few who rule. Isn't facism always that way, no matter what guise it comes under?

False Analogies and The Left

I haven't posted in a while, but I saw a trend and a thought coalesced as a result. What I saw were a slew of false analogies being used by the left to make their points. In logic, a "false analogy" is a fallacy: "The argument draws a conclusion from observed cases that are only superficially or apparently similar to the unobserved cases about which the conclusion is being drawn."

For example, Martin Luther King Jr. had his phone lines tapped. President Bush has the NSA monitoring calls from known (or suspected) al Queda operatives into the United States. The left uses MLK's phones being tapped as an analogy for President Bush's "domestic eavesdropping." The only problem is, the government (in this case, J. Edgar Hoover and Bobby Kennedy) snooping into the business of a US citizen for no reason other than a fishing expedition or to keeps tabs on him in peace time is not at all analogous to the CINC trying to gather information on our enemy's plans as they communicate to and from the US during war time. MLK was NOT a terrorist. Al Queda are terrorists. MLK was a man of peace. Al Queda has attacked US interests several times, including on 9/11. The government had no business listening to MLK's phone conversations, just as it has no business listening to yours or mine. It IS the government's business (actually, one of its most important jobs) to try to use sophisticated means to stop al Queda, or any other Islamofacist group, from attacking America or her allies. Making an analogy between listening in on MLK, or any other American, with no cause, and trying to gather information to prevent an attack by an enemy who has attacked us, is not only fallacious, it's stupid.

Another one: Right wing Christian groups getting upset over unflattering depictions of Jesus, or of Christianity, and Muslims burning down buildings and threatening bodily harm to publishers of cartoons. You simply can not compare raising someone's ire and having them respond with letters to the editor, complaints, or even protests and boycotts to raising someone's ire and having them burn down buildings, threaten to behead people, and kill all infidels (which means anyone who doesn't see things their way). The difference in scope is just too great to make the analogy. It's like saying being licked by a puppy is the same as being attacked by a wolf.

Similar: Comparison of the Newsweek article about flushing the Koran down a toilet and the publishing of the Danish cartoons. The only thing similar is the reaction. The events themselves are not analogous. One was supposedly a factual news story (that turned out to be false) reporting on torture of prisoners, the other was... cartoons. Satirical cartoons. Why would one decry the one and not the other? False reporting is NOT freedom of the press. It is antithetical to freedom of the press (wherein the press is free to express opinions, or, better still, to publish unvarnished facts--speaking truth to power, as it where). Satirical cartoons fall under the Freedom of the Press umbrella. As I said, the only thing similar between the two is the reactions of Islamists, who, apparently, take whatever opportunity is presented to call for death to infidels (again... meaning anyone who doesn't believe as they do--probably YOU and me).

Yet more: Carter compared MLK's struggle for equal rights (meaning equal Constitutional rights) for blacks to victims of Katrina, saying it proved we had a long way to go. Well, first of all, in a city that is majority black, would one not expect there to be a majority of black faces on TV when a disaster struck? Further, did Carter not look at the actual death stats and see that whites died in disproportionately large numbers compared to the percentage of the population they represented? Logically, one could conclude that if fewer blacks died than their demographics would dictate, then blacks were disproportionately represented among the rescued. MLK wanted equal rights. How does that have any relationship at all to Katrina? Yes, there were poor blacks in New Orleans. But were they oppressed by their black mayor, black police chief, or their Democratic governor? Rights had nothing to do with the tragedy of Katrina. In a place where a black mayor was elected, and blacks hold many high offices, it's difficult to say New Orleans wasn't a place MLK would've seen significant progress (if he didn't dig too deep into the corruption aspect that has been a historical problem). If the Democrats that have run Louisiana for umpteen years hadn't figured out a way to improve the quality of life for the population, that is hardly an equal rights issue, it's a government ineptitude issue, and probably a lack of personal responsibility issue. Remember, MLK spoke of equality in terms of judging people "not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." He didn't say that equality meant GIVING people other people's wealth, if that is what Carter thinks equality means. If the implication is that the federal government is to blame and it was neglectful because the population was black, that is simply rediculous. Again, black mayor (in charge of first response), Democrat governor (also ahead of the feds in the response pecking order), and THOSE are the people who put, or left, people in peril, no matter what color their skin was. The whole thing was a mess from the bottom up, but it has nothing to do with the equal rights struggle of MLK.

My point is: just listen for the false analogies that the left has taken to using. It's insidious, because the unthinking will say, "Yeah, those things are the same." The stark nonsense of Bush=Hitler is easy to spot (at least for anyone who takes three seconds to think it over), but the more subtle nonsense is more dangerous, because they make it sound accurate. People who debate with slogans, ad hominem attacks, false analogies, etc. depend on the ignorance of the audience to believe their argument and not see through the fallaciousness of it. Fortunately, with the advent of the blogosphere, there will always be smart people out there tearing the arguments apart.