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His instincts aren’t terrible – he pretty much called this one on the money…

Sorry for the bad link earlier, here it is: he was dead-right about Rigoberta Menchu being a fraud. And he writes well, no doubts there…

And given that Islam has required its followers to struggle until its proscribed way of life was imposed as far as it could see & hear, the fact of new technologies bringing other vibrant (or decaying) cultures into its proverbial living room poses an entirely new challenge for the ideology-cum-faith. Because, when the known world expands from one where Islam is pervasive/hegemonic into one where Islam is but a minor player – and that fact of life is rubbed in one’s face 24/7 – what alternative is there but to resume the struggle until Islam is speread to the new boundaries?

But D’Souza goes further than this, as if to imply/argue that (1) Islam is somehow consolable, AND (2) that his proscription would console it; that, if the West was somehow to reject hedonism, and our TV broadcasts portrayed traditional Christian piety, man-made law and good works, that Muslims would find this invasion of their living rooms less objectionable and more compatible than the 24/7 sex/noise sewer pipe they field today. In other words, even if the “problem” isn’t exactly our “fault”, at least we have some way to control or defuse it, and that way is to adopt D’Souza’s proscriptions for a Better Culture.

What some see as self-evident and wise, I see as rank projection, a substitution of his own ends and reasoning for that of the Islamists. He might give up his own struggle if a more traditional American culture were restored, but I don’t think we can say the same for the worldwide umma, now that its conscience is alerted to the wider world (no matter how that was brought about).

Until he deals with the imperatives of Islam itself, he’s presenting false options. He also doesn’t deal with the mounting evidence of how psychological pressure of all kinds, not just an imagined disgust with Western culture, has a way of taking ordinary, rational, “peace-loving” Muslims and turning them into the worst kind of jihad-shihada zealots.

He doesn’t explain these points, or even appear to understand them. Instead he projects what he believes he would think, feel and act if he were Muslim, without understanding what Islamic scripture requires its denizens to think, feel and act. That is a monumental oversight that has gotten him into trouble intellectually. It will continue to mislead him. I don’t see how he could reach conclusions like these through anything but intellectual laziness. In this day and age, 5 years post-9/11, such laziness-induced myopia is unacceptable IMHO.

We in the West are presented with quite a conundrum. We must strengthen those who themselves may turn on us when they become more serious about their “faith.” Trying times indeed.

i feel some of the roots of Islam, specifically in the Hadith, are what many are taught for extremism. however, not EVERY Muslim is some extremist. i think what i should have made clear is..

the global left’s cultural INSANITY doesnt help us. is it the single root cause? no. is it a cause for SOME? yes, i would surmise (i think my christian bombing abortion clinic case is a suitable analogy). not every muslim is involved with Jihad, but im sure many of those not involved feel a personal affront when they see these cultural moves made by the far left around the world.

the mans values, he feels, were under siege..so what does he do?

i think this is further reason for why we should cleanse ourselves of lifestyle left wing insanity.

i dont think its any one set thing. I feel the Hadith is the largest influence; its Sura’s provide so much inspiration for these maniacs. i just think the lefts cultural imperialism doesnt help.

is that foolhearty? i think not

the cultural left is waging a war of cultural imperialism across the globe. hes completely right; planned parenthood expanding daily, having children go in there without parental notification. muslims hear of these things like this, and become outraged and end up hating americans.

blatantblue on January 26, 2007 at 9:39 AM

For me, the Freedom House report trumps any trouble we’re alleged to be causing. Fix the problem you’re suggesting, and this doesn’t change one bit, as they hate us for our religion and our graduation gowns:

The tracts [a mosque visitor named Ahmed] opens are in the voice of a senior religious authority. They tell him that America, his adoptive home, is the “Abode of the Infidel,” the Christian and the Jew. He reads:

“Be dissociated from the infidels, hate them for their religion, leave them, never rely on them for support, do not admire them, and always oppose them in every way according to Islamic law.”
The advice is emphatic:

“There is consensus on this matter, that whoever helps unbelievers against Muslims, regardless of what type of support he lends to them, he is an unbeliever himself.”

…

The books give him detailed instructions on how to build a “wall of resentment” between himself and the infidel: Never greet the Christian or Jew first. Never congratulate the infidel on his holiday. Never befriend an infidel unless it is to convert him. Never imitate the infidel. Never work for an infidel. Do not wear a graduation gown because this imitates the infidel.

The underlying problem is the doctrine of Islam itself. In a world where all cultures are equally visible from all points in the globe by satellite telecommunications, people themselves now have to be responsible for how they react to the behavior of other cultures. So what do we do? Buddhists/Hindus/Jews/Yezidis/… go about their business, like responsible adults, while the Muslim umma makes one never-ending federal case out of it.

One of Mark Steyn’s BEST suggestions in his book America Alone is that we (the West) help women prod things along. A lot of Muslim women-he says-probably don’t want to start off life with a clitorectomy and end it being “honour killed” by a father or brother.

When enough Muslim women are supported in their rightful quest for personal and religious freedom, I believe we will start to see changes in the Muslim world.

But for many Muslims, it’s bad to kill a man but it’s worse to strip away his honor. This is why some traditional Muslims are reluctant to condemn their radical counterparts. They don’t want to be seen as taking the side of Western depravity, a depravity that my book shows to be the product of contemporary liberalism.

I don’t read this a s appeasement, but rather as understanding that we are desirous that the Muslim world become more democratic, to which the Muslim powers that be point to western depravity as the ultimate outcome of democracy. Moderate Muslims will not embrace western democratic ideals if it means their children will lose their virginity by the age of fourteen, and their faith will be pushed out of public view. They feel they have better than that right now. Can there be a middle-eastern style of democracy that does not require absolute religious freedom? Can a government of, by and for a faithful people work as well, if not better, than a government of, by and for a “depraved” people? And, can there be a third road, a secular one, which asks both radicals and moderates,”we see what prayer and faith can destroy, but what great things are prayer and faith alone capable of building?”

the cultural left is waging a war of cultural imperialism across the globe. hes completely right; planned parenthood expanding daily, having children go in there without parental notification. muslims hear of these things like this, and become outraged and end up hating americans.

however i feel that sheer religion is also a huge motivator.
while, from my experience, the Qur’an does not provide explicit ammunition for the likes of Osama, I feel the Hadith does. so many Surat in the book can be taken literally for Jihad.

the worldwide cultural left doesnt help either. remember, it is a clash of civilizations, no doubt about it; and culture is part of our civilizations. they see our decadence in modern movies today. the sex, drugs, etc, and they feel their values are under siege. not to say their hardline views are any better.

i think too many people on this board are blowing off dinesh’s point.

and before anyone demonizes me, im all for blowing up bad Muslimeen just as much as the next guy. im takin their language so i can help do it.

i think we need to realize its a combination, and not a single reason applies to all extremists or radicals. 2 or 3 christians bomb abortion clinics over history. why? they feel their values threatened..and theyre a little nuts.

for some Muslims, its their religion, others, their fear of their values under siege

One of my long-standing problems with D’Souza is that at times he can be lazy. His instincts aren’t terrible – he pretty much called this one on the money – but he doesn’t provide a lot of research to support his guesswork. In instances like this he can let himself be dangerously misled.

JaHerer I wanted to pick up on something you were pointing out:

I couldn’t agree more. While many on the right talk about liberals being defeatists or appeasers this guy comes off as the ultimate appeaser.

Yeah – he parrots (in his best Stockholm Swedish) the same argument hawked by the grievance-mongers themselves: that pointing out the character flaws of the psychopathic architect-in-chief, Mohammed, is liable to chase any “moderates”, if there are any, right into the arms of the “radicals” – as if we tip the scales one way or the other, as if they’ve been waiting all their lives to find out what we think.

Pushing them toward radicalism? It’s not like Dinesh is trying to talk us out of lining up millions of Muslims and shooting them at point-blank range (well, most of us anyway); he’s suggesting we shouldn’t confront them verbally or hold them accountable for their own bad behavior!

If Western-style accountability is supposed to be some kind of big psychic trauma for them, and we’re just supposed to buy that at face value, then I’m sorry – it’s pretty much a given we’re being taken for suckers.

Funny about D’Souza… he still thinks we can worm our way into their good graces and “buy them off”, culturally speaking, and in that way turn them to be our friends. Deluded soul. And, by spending his energy advocating the idea, it’s also clear he thinks it’s a worthy goal to pursue. Twice deluded…

I’ve never heard one liberal advocate that Americans change their lifestyles to placate Muslims extremists [No - usually it's confined to other choices such as sacrificing Israel and other non-Muslim communities in the Middle East - RD] which is exactly what D’Souza seems to be saying. If we just stop being so immoral maybe they won’t hate us so much…

Yep… typical example of extrapolating nonsense from source data because of an invalid model…

the Other Guy had better points to make, and made them better–especially about having to go back many centuries to find a Europe with which Islam can be compared.

It ain’t 1096, ladies and gentlemen. And Islam is not ‘liberalizing’ but turning inward and backwards, and the result is Already Ugly and likely to get much, much uglier

now I’m depressed again; how about another Trump thread?

Libertarians and conservatives share many of the same (or similar) views on many issues, but not ALL of the same views. I understand your argument, and I respect it, but we’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one. I have a Libertarian streak myself — and I hate government overreach as well. My Libertarian zeal, however, is tempered by my belief in a righteous and holy God who is the absolute moral authority on all issues in life. I guess that I am a dinosaur in that respect. I DON’T believe in shades of grey. I may be one of the last inhabitants of planet earth that actually believes that right and wrong are absolutes (black and white).

This is where Islamist societies get into trouble: they don’t just ban porn, they ban all art and all movies and all books that aren’t the Koran.
Women have to be covered from head to toe, literally, because even one glimpse of flesh is considered a sin.
We’re a great country because we’re a free country and I want to keep it that way, porn and all.

Yes. I know. I own one of them.

God help us all.

You know, Cipher… they’re doing wonderful things in mental institutions these days.

Watcher on January 25, 2007 at 9:42 PM

Yes. I know. I own one of them.

You’re right. I was way too harsh. Enrique didn’t deserve it, yet.

Democracy and Freedom, which include freedom of speech and religion, must tolerate both the good and the bad, which would include porn.
We may not like it and it may be disgusting, but as one of our native patriots said, we must defend to the death peoples’ right to have it.

Jen the Neocon on January 25, 2007 at 10:24 PM

I enjoy many of your posts, Jen, but you are wrong on THIS one. I love free speech as much or more than the most zealous HotAir participant here. I will defend it fiercely — even to the death if necessary. But THAT’S NOT the issue here.

The flaw in your argument is not in your logic or even in your classification of porn as free speech. The problem is in the silent premise that you accepted at the outset. You are presuming that pornogography is ONLY free speech or freedom of expression. It is not. Sure — pornography can fall under the broad category of free speech, but so does hate speech. And we all know that hate speech is not JUST speech — or freedom of expression. It goes way beyond that. That’s why there are now laws on the books (at least in some states) against hate speech. Pornography is worse than hate speech. Pornography advocates the subjugation and humiliation of women along with acts of physical violence against women. It preaches that this violence is “normal behavior”. The producers of this vile stuff try to defend the violence under the banner of “freedom of speech”. If you don’t think that pornography advocates violence against women, then you haven’t seen the stuff that I am talking about. And it’s not rare, it’s common. If you don’t believe me, my two teenage boys can tell you all about it. (And no, it’s not that I am a bad parent. I’m divorced and my boys have not lived with me for many, many years.)

Even if we kill 100 radicals, it’s no use if 500 traditional Muslims join the next day.

Oh yeah?

Why is it that we only get causualty figures about US and Coalition forces in the war on terror, but very few on how many “radicals” have been killed?

Riddle me that…..

I mean, the guy seems to be blindly oblivious to the pathetic historical tragedy of forced atheism on people. A little perspective of how things operated in the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba should help. He seems, however, not only to lack historical knowledge, but a basic understanding of human psychology. You do not “force” beliefs on people. Even when the Communists in Russia “forced” atheism on the people, look what happened: Communism died, but the Russian Orthodox Church survives to this day, even stronger than before. Of course, there were decades of vicious persecution involved in an attempt to force thuggish secularism on an unwilling people. But Enrique probably figures that if you want an omelet, you gotta break some some eggs.

The ludicrous idea that sending PORN to the Middle East as a cure has got to be the Moron Comment of the Year (and it’s only January). I really don’t know how to respond to that, unless to say that if Enrique was joking, it’s not funny, and if he was serious, he needs to seek professional help.

The only redeeming quality to these posts of his is that they’re written in a sort of bubbleheaded, valley-girl-type stupidity that you have to at least give thanks that he’s not some militant atheist who can’t shut up about why he must spend 24-7-365 of his life attacking God, who of course, doesn’t exist, and thus people shouldn’t be so hung up over 24-7-365.

from what I’ve read of D’Souza’s book, he makes some good points but doesn’t quite get there; being a Muslim, he can’t quite seem to shake that Taliban-ish mentality.

Actually, I think D’Souza is a Catholic, not a Muslim.