What’s Wrong with the World

If we're in the realm of "say what you favor even if it isn't going to happen," then I say one solution to these puzzles is my old friend the Jihad-sedition law. Let the refugees (or at least any family coming along) forswear this doctrine (and any related doctrines we have embraced in the sedition law) to be admitted.

I have available to me no reliable indicators that Islam is a religion of peace. Neither its sacred texts nor its history convince that it is. (I can be convinced; but to date I am not.) If my debatable perception of it is correct, and if immigration is a privilege and not a right, then I am opposed to Islamic immigration.

I am not saying merely that Islam is opposed to modernity or to democracy. After all, it was also violently opposed to medievalism and to European monarchy. It's opposed to anything not itself; and it brooks no opposition to itself. Indeed, it is often at war within itself.

If our nation is meant to be a unity drawn together out of a diversity, then assimilation is an American necessity. Islam does not assimilate. It fights; it conquers, or at least intends to. It does not endorse principles as fundamental as our Bill of Rights; and it does not embrace the articulated basis of American public orthodoxy, namely that all persons are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

If they would do what Paul suggests -- forswear jihad -- then perhaps I'd change my mind. But I've noticed no movement in that direction.

That's a very fine comment, Mr. Bauman.

I'm going to have to dissent regarding a number of statements made by both Lydia and Michael, although I think Lydia's ultimate conclusion that FGM cases are "an illustration of the need to deal with asylum issues slowly, carefully, and on a case-by-case basis."

But then I read stuff like:

"Sharia is bad. [Agreed] Good Muslims are supposed to seek sharia. Muslim culture is incompatible with American culture as I want it to be."

or

"Islam does not assimilate. It fights; it conquers, or at least intends to. It does not endorse principles as fundamental as our Bill of Rights; and it does not embrace the articulated basis of American public orthodoxy, namely that all persons are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

and I cringe. Both statements seem to me to be gross generalizations that are difficult to square with reality. For example, the millions of Muslim-Americans who seem to be doing just fine in this country, don't seek sharia, and/or serve honorably in all sorts of American institutions including the military. Likewise there are millions of Muslims that either live in countries without sharia (e.g. India, certain Malaysian states, Albania, Kosovo , etc.) or don't seem to me to be actively promoting jihad (e.g. your average Kazakh or Tunisian).

Of course, this is not to say that there aren't dangerous Muslims and/or the general doctrine of Jihad isn't dangerous for America. It is and I'm down with a lot of what Spencer and the gang at "Jihad Watch" have to teach us. But like Paul Cella, I'd want to try and pinpoint who Muslims might believe in dangerous doctrines and exclude those folks. This might mean a total ban on immigrants from certain countries (e.g. Saudi Arabia, Muslim Pakistanis) that have been promoting sharia and/or jihad through their schools and state-run media.

There is no one "Muslim culture" which should be obvious to all who study the world, but apparently always needs repeating when the subject of dangerous and/or crazy Muslims comes up.

Oops, I meant to say I "agree with" Lydia's ultimate conclusion. I'm just glad that I stopped being lazy and actually used html successfully in a post over here!

Yes, Jeff, there is no one Muslim culture, there are many Muslim cultures. But they are all united by the simple fact that they are Muslim, which differentiates them from the non-Muslim sort. The fact that when Muslims are an extremely tiny minority, they keep their heads down, does not tell us anything especially interesting about the ultimate effects of mass Muslim immigration. For a more illustrative example of what one can expect from Muslim immigrants, when they have concentrated in very large numbers and become a socially and politically potent force, one must look to such places as Paris or, if you prefer a more local example, Dearborn, Michigan...where their enthusiasm for assimilating and is notable for its absolute absence, and where assertion of Islamic identity and demands for public recognition of such are much more pronounced.

Referring to "millions of Muslims" in America is more than a little deceptive, because it suggests that there are enclaves of Muslims numbering in the millions all over the US, and that their presence has gone more or less unnoticed and has caused no general disturbance or controversy. Living in a place where there are large numbers of Mulsims myself--and where they do not number in the "millions"--I can tell you that their eagerness to assimilate to Western and to Christian cultural mores is inversely proportional to their numbers, organization, and political power. "The moderates" as rule do not even attend mosque in influential numbers, much less exercise tremendous doctrinal and political influence over the course of Islamic identity.

As has been said a hundred times in a hundred places, it simply won't do to say that "most" Muslims living in America aren't literally bombing people. The question at hand concerns 1) how many serious, sharia-seeking Muslims can be expected in any large population of Muslims living in the West, and 2) what the rest of the Muslim population can be expected to say or do about them. The answer to #1 is, based on experience, "way too damned many," and the answer to #2, again based on experience, is "way too damned little," and in fact what one can expect is for the peaceful Muslims to object to any and all measures to deal with the others sort, on the basis that such measures are necessarily discriminatory.

I see no wisdom in waiting until politically-organized Islam in this country is a major factor in our decision-making on these issues, and appeals to such questions as precisely how many jihadists we can expect per how many "peaceful" Muslims strike me as frivolous. The bottom line is, we have lots of test cases throughout history, and even on the contemporary scene, that suggest what a specifically Muslim identity amounts to, once it has gained enough power to assert itself. And the evidence simply does not suggest that politically-organized, self-aware, and assertive Islam is anything that belongs anywhere outside the Muslim world, unless you're just stupid enough to want lots and lots of trouble.

Sage,

Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I guess you and I are in agreement that the U.S. should not allow ANY sort of mass-scale Islamic immigration into this country (heck, I want to restrict immigration to the well-educated or the rich, but that is a discussion for another day) -- we probably just disagree about the numbers. Again, even with respect to Dearborn, MI -- are you suggesting that Muslims there are seeking sharia and/or performing FGM? What exactly do you mean by "public recognition"?

Well, at first I thought the html link I embedded above was working because it turned blue, but I just checked and somehow I goofed it up. I promise this time to do it right.

To my knowledge, Muslims aren't performing FGM in Dearborn, so I don't mean to suggest as much. I support Lydia's general contention that we can expect as much if we start importing people from such places in significant numbers, and also with her (strictly implicit) point that "significant numbers" doesn't have to mean millions, but could be considerably less.

By "recognition" I mean things like permission to flood the place with that abominable call to prayer every day (which has happened in MI), the demand for footwashing stations in public buildings (ditto), for women's ID cards with their faces covered, for Muslim-friendly school lunches and curricula, etc. "Public recognition" isn't really the right phrase, on second thought, but hopefully my meaning is clearer.

As to numbers, I'm not sure I've noodled it enough to know what I think an acceptable number would be. For now, I'd be happy if we could establish the principle that Americans are within their moral and political rights to establish such controls at all.

Seeking sharia is different from actually engaging in jihad, and the former can easily go on among people who do not engage in the latter. And there are plenty of ways to support jihad. Muslims in Dearborn certainly do support (financially and emotionally) Muslim terrorist organizations abroad. (I recall a Frontpage article referring to "jihad shishkebobs" w.reference to a Dearborn restaurant chain that was a supporter of Hezbollah.)

The footwashing stations is something I was going to talk about immediately. Yes, I believe Muslim populations in any significant numbers certainly are going to seek sharia. We have only to look at England to see where we are going--everything from people's being arrested for referring to a group of attackers as "pakis" to public swimming pools that have "Muslim days" when Muslim swimming gear is enforced, to Christians being told they can't distribute tracts in a "Muslim area," etc. There are already "halal" Macdonalds's in California. CAIR's spokesman has admitted that he'd "like" to see sharia in place in the U.S. but doesn't think this is going to happen. (Awww.) In England sharia law for divorces and marriages is being incorporated into English law, gradually. Many college campuses in the U.S. have seen their "non-denominational prayer rooms" turned into blatant mosques, with men and women separated from each other by screens and Catholics threatened by looming young men who tell them they "can't" pray the rosary there. U.S. meat-packing plants have been closed down by near-riots involving property destruction by Muslim workers demanding special accommodations for Muslim prayer, which accommodations end up being unfair to non-Muslim workers. On and on and on. Muslim immigrants tend, when they see themselves growing in numbers, to become extremely demanding of accommodations which are increasingly disruptive of the ordinary workings of non-Muslim countries. Oh, and in England they have serious problems with FGM. I think it would be naive to assume that somehow we just got the "other" set of Muslim immigrants here in the U.S. And then there's imported maid enslavement. Just read an article about an uncovered case of that in California. There was another case in Colorado. It's widely accepted in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, of course. Wealthy Muslim immigrants who come from countries where it is accepted don't understand why they can't do it here.

More on Paul's suggestion later.

"Many college campuses in the U.S. have seen their "non-denominational prayer rooms" turned into blatant mosques, with men and women separated from each other by screens and Catholics threatened by looming young men who tell them they "can't" pray the rosary there. U.S. meat-packing plants have been closed down by near-riots involving property destruction by Muslim workers demanding special accommodations for Muslim prayer, which accommodations end up being unfair to non-Muslim workers. On and on and on. Muslim immigrants tend, when they see themselves growing in numbers, to become extremely demanding of accommodations which are increasingly disruptive of the ordinary workings of non-Muslim countries. Oh, and in England they have serious problems with FGM. I think it would be naive to assume that somehow we just got the "other" set of Muslim immigrants here in the U.S."

All good points, although I still think it is fair to ask if there isn't something different about our two countries (Great Britain and the U.S.A.) that in fact attracts a different type of Muslim and/or how our countries treat Muslims differently (given our different institutions and government). For example, while I can imagine goofy pc college administrators tolerating thuggish behavior from Muslim students, I can't imagine a factory owner wouldn't simply fire and/or have Muslim rioters arrested for insubordination and/or criminal damage to property. I still think the key is in total numbers as well as Paul's suggestion to try and screen out Muslims who support sharia and/or jihad. In my mind, importing large numbers of any third-world population is a recipe for trouble (more recently e.g. Hmong immigration or the trouble we are having with illegal Central American immigrants). In one sense, the "ordinary workings" of America is much more tolerant of diversity and especially diverse ethnic life (e.g. Chinatowns, Polish and Korean neighborhoods in Chicago with signs in only Polish and Korean, etc.) than I imagine is true of many other Western countries. It is sort of in the American DNA. I agree that with Muslims, it seems like they insist more and more on taking their customs public, sort of like a Mexican immigrant demanding a ballot be printed in Spanish. I think their demands should be resisted and if Americans were smart they would resist. Public call to prayer? If I lived nearby, I wouldn't like it, but how do you regulate such calls without also demanding church bells remain silent? I guess I'm more of a can't we all get along type guy, but then I was at a poker game not long ago in a classic Chicago three-flat and the Guatemalan neighbors were slaughtering and cooking a pig in their backyard which was both disgusting and fascinating all at once. My hosts didn't seem to mind, so I was content to take it all in. I suppose if I lived next to such a family, I might have a different attitude, but again, Americans seem to welcome many such traditional ethnic/religious customs. To the extent that Muslims stop insisting on changing public accomodations especially for their needs, I think I can handle our current population with an additional couple thousand asylum seekers thrown in every year.

Okay, back to Paul's very interesting suggestion about applying the jihad sedition law (and perhaps sharia sedition, too?) to immigration:

This resembles, IIRC, a suggestion by Spencer that we require all incoming Muslims to forswear jihad in order to be admitted, on pain of deportation if they start advocating it.

I am strongly in favor of the jihad sedition law as a good step in the right direction for dealing with Muslims who are already legally here: Citizens, naturalized or birth, converts, "permanent" legal residents, and just people whom it would be difficult otherwise to find a legal pretext for deporting otherwise. A law making it seditious to advocate jihad, and I would add to advocate the legal recognition of sharia in the U.S., would allow such people to be penalized or deported if they broke it. So much the better.

But signed statements purporting to forswear jihad and sharia as a tool for molding future immigration are more difficult. It's so easy to lie. Taqiyya and all that. Anyone committed either to jihad or to the spread of the ummah by gradual, peaceful means (immigration and demographic takeover) would think nothing of signing such a statement to continue to allow Muslim immigration to Western countries. It seems to me that we must have _drastic_ reduction of Muslim immigration generally and that such signed statements should be considered a useful part of policy re. future immigration only insofar as they might be applied in difficult cases such as the one(s) discussed in the main post, which difficult cases would be kept to a minimum and would be regarded as exceptions to a general rule of putting the brakes on Muslim immigration. Much as we would hear screaming and yelling if such signed statements were required, I don't think they would really do much good if Muslim immigration were allowed at its current rate so long as future immigrants were willing to sign such a statement.

I can't imagine a factory owner wouldn't simply fire and/or have Muslim rioters arrested for insubordination and/or criminal damage to property.

Perhaps it was confusing of me to jump back and forth between UK and American examples. I apologize. The meat-packing plant was in Omaha, Nebraska. And they gave in, completely. You should read Jihad Watch and Dhimmi Watch _religiously_, Jeff.

To the extent that Muslims stop insisting on changing public accomodations especially for their needs,

Which they will not do. This is just a matter of empirical observation, and a lot of it.

Jeff,
We still have been offered no evidence that Islam endorses the principles articulated in the Bill of Rights, or that it embraces the notion that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To insist on allegiance to those ideas is merely to insist on the most modest degree of assimilation possible. Short of that, Islamic immigration is a cultural death wish. Islam does not assimilate. It bides its time until it gets enough social, political and cultural power to impose its will.

Not long ago, the owner of La Shish restaurants here in Michigan, a man of peace by nearly every visible means available to the general public (the sort of evidence you have advanced), had to flee the country because his financial support for international terrorism was uncovered, something for which his customers were paying without their knowledge. In other words, even living peaceably, as most American Muslims do, is no evidence of their assimilation, or of their support for fundamental American values, things without which we permit immigration at enormous, perhaps incalculable, peril to ourselves and our fellows, both here and (literally) around the world.

To say, as you did above, that statements such as mine make you cringe, is to say about something about you, not about the prudence of Islamic immigration.

For one view on the La Shish story:
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2006/05/la_shish_owner.html

Jeff,

I think you illustrate my point nicely when you say of the Islamic call to prayer, "I wouldn't like it, but how do you regulate such calls without also demanding church bells remain silent?" There is nothing particularly "violent" about the call to prayer, and a perfectly peaceful Muslim population might insist upon it as a matter of fairness. But there are a couple of things to consider, not least the fact that the call to prayer is not a mere sound--it is a publically-broadcast command to get on your knees and pray. The fact that it is broadcast in a foreign language does nothing, I assure you, to ease the sense of cultural warfare on the part of Americans being subjected to it.

And because your argument is exactly what we can expect a liberal society to reach for in the face of such conflicts, the absolute best result we could get would be the silencing of our own church bells. (Food for thought: How, exactly, is the deliberate silencing of church bells in Christian countries not jihad?) The price of liberal neutrality in public accommodations is the annihilation of any recognizable vestige of our own traditions. If that's not reason enough to reconsider the relevance of the entire "how many jihadis per thousand" calculus, I don't know what is.

Muslim culture is incompatible with American culture as I want it to be. I could say more and more. We need to get a grip on ourselves, as Americans, about Muslim immigration. We shouldn't keep kidding ourselves.

Islam gets a free pass because of its size, ethnic diversity and similarity to Judaism and Christianity. Even though it is hardly superior to a Kali cult in any meaningful way, these things cause most Americans to assume that it's a decent religion and try to shut down criticism of it. The solution, I think, is to make people have to actually learn something meaningful about the scriptures of these religions, so that more Americans have to realize that Islam's current problems are based in scripture, not warping a religion.

Well-said, Michael and Sage. There are also so often purely practical things that show how the Muslim demands are interruptive: Church bells are not rung loudly for several minutes at a time *five times a day*, nor even three times a day. Church bells are not enhanced by loudspeaker. Muslims have demanded _many_ prayer breaks and washing breaks, too, from work. In the UK they have demanded something other than alcohol-based hand sanitizer. In the US (note, the US) Muslim workers at local stores will not handle _shrink-wrapped_ pizza that has pork in it. And on and on and on and on. The list is so long I cannot give it all. Their demands are deliberately disruptive. Getting in your face is, to no small extent, the goal. Remember the sheikh who said, "You will have to assimilate to us"? That is not an aberration.

Michael (and gang),

What I meant by saying your statement of "fact" makes me cringe, is that these statements don't comport to the reality as I understand it both here in America and in foreign countries. You point to one businessman raising money for foreign jihad...were you equally outraged over the Roman Catholic Irish here in this country raising money for the I.R.A.? Or the countless Italian and Jewish gangsters we imported back around the turn of the 20th Century (I know some modern-day restrictionists argue we did take in too many Eastern and Southern Europeans back then and others argue we didn't but have changed as a country which is why we should take in fewer immigrants today)? And it goes without saying that your recent comment concerning the impossibility of knowing whether or not "Islam endorses the principles articulated in the Bill of Rights" is strange. Are you saying that every single Muslim-American rejects these principals and therefore we should reject the sacrifice, for example, of a Muslim soldier who died serving in Iraq as somehow false and un-American? I can't believe this is what you really think so instead, you probably think that your understanding of Islam is incompatible with the "principles articulated in the Bill of Rights". And your understanding may be correct, but it is NOT the understanding of every single Muslim in America or even around the world. Again, context matters, so for every example you give me of a crazy Muslim and/or Muslims demanding something silly from our government I would ask the following questions:

- what about the Muslims who don't support jihad or demand sharia?

- what is the relationship between the two groups...are there more dangerous Muslims per-capita than say Mexican-Americans who come into this country?

- rarely, if ever, does "Jihad Watch" provide context or bother with opposing view-points which is why I got tired with the website (although they did teach me a lot about what I would call radical Islam), so I get frustrated constantly reading about the latest crazy Muslim without context

- what about other groups that ask for demands for accomodation...I assume you are equally outraged by every disruptive Jewish demand (how dare they insist companies make kosher food or offer kosher meals at hotels or want a menorah next to the creche)?

Why that company in Nebraska caved into the demands of their Muslim workers is fascinating...I suppose they were worried about lawsuits, but again, if those workers were damaging property I'd think that the company would have a strong case for termination. I'd want to know a lot more about the case before saying, "yup, another objective example of why we can't trust more than 10 Muslims in a room together". And finally, with respect to church bells, again context matters. If Muslims want to broadcast every day, five times a day, then that does seem disruptive and we should be able to work out a standard that is fair for both churches and Muslims. Remember, Muslims exist in large numbers only in certain areas...so we are talking not about the silencing of all church bells in our Christian country but an accomodation for some Muslims in certain areas of the country.

I close by noting that discussions around Islam can quickly provoke strong feelings on all sides and like Steve Burton, I'm more interested in how us neo-cons, paleo-cons, and religious conservatives can work together to defeat liberalism. I think here of the opprobrium heaped on Dinesh D'Souza when he wrote his book arguing American conservatives could make common cause with certain segments of the Islamic world. I happen to think D'Souza's argument was weak, but I'm not prepared to write him out of the conservative movement or dismiss everything he has to say. Likewise, there is plenty I think the paleos get wrong about Israel, but that doesn't mean they don't have something to teach me about foreign policy in general or specific cases of American foreign policy.