Ridicule In Place Of Criticism

An organization supportive of the David Horowitz Freedom Center reports

Analyzing hundreds of examples from the past decade, the center asserts that "there are organizations on American campuses that support the agendas of terrorists groups [Hamas, al-Qaida and Islamic State] and spread their propaganda and lies with the financial and institutional support of university administrations."

The report lists the 10 worst offenders alphabetically: Brandeis University; Columbia University; Harvard University; Rutgers University-New Brunswick; San Francisco State University; the University of California, Irvine; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of California, San Diego; the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor; and the University of New Mexico.

The report names the Muslim Students Association and Students for Justice in Palestine, both established by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, as examples for organizations that sponsor annual campus events such as "Israeli apartheid week," during which "they lead chants calling for the destruction of the Jewish state 'from the river to the sea.' They are the chief sponsors of the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign, inspired by Hamas, whose goal is the economic strangulation of the Jewish state."

Moreover, "These terrorist-supported organizations are afforded campus privileges, including university offices and the right to hold events on campus grounds that would be denied to any other group preaching the hatred of ethnic groups or supporting barbaric terrorists, who slaughter men, women and children as part of a demented mission to cleanse the earth of infidels," David Horowitz, who founded the nonprofit Freedom Center in 1989, said in a press release.

Given that the report comes from the staunchly conservative David Horowitz, it should be suspect. On the progressive Alicublog, Roy Edroso responds (emphasis his)

Harvard? Columbia? Brandeis? This item, from Isreal Hayom, has the Center claiming that student orgs like the Muslim Students Association and Students for Justice in Palestine "lead chants calling for the destruction of the Jewish state 'from the river to the sea.'" ElsewhereHorowitz himself explains that what they actually chant is, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," but, he adds, "the river is the Jordan and the sea is the Mediterranean. Those are the east and west boundaries of the state of Israel. So what they’re really chanting is 'Death to Israel.'" Freedom for the Palestinians means death to Israel? Well, no wonder they're pissed.

I have said this many, many times over the years to people who yap about campus radicals, and I will say it again: If you think Harvard and Columbia are too radical for you, please remember that there are in this great nation plenty of Bible colleges at which your son or daughter will never hear a "radical" idea, and the prices are reasonable. (I know Horowitz is Jewish, but that should be no impediment, as evangelicals respect their Jewish brothers as providers of the on-ramp for the apocalypse.)

A squeamish (to be generous) Edroso has chosen not to note that Brandeis (photo from this site) traditionally is attended by many Jews, which he evidently thought important enough to put into italics. He chooses, additionally, not to explain what he thinks "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" means to the activists chanting it, probably because it is quite clear what is meant: no more Israel as we know it, as the United Nations in 1948 intended it to be.

It is unclear to what extent Horowitz's charges, including that terrorist-funded organizations are afforded extraordinary campus privileges, are accurate, given that Edroso prefers not  to challenge the claims. Instead, he suggests that if the likes of Harvard and Columbia "are too radical for you," you ought to go to Bible colleges.

In a society in which the importance of merit often is eclipsed by other, more subjective factors, attendance at an Ivy League college should be available to deserving men and women, notwithstanding their political views- or lack thereof.  If potential students are not hostile to the existence of Israel as a Jewish state, they should not be relegated to "Bible colleges," though Edroso deserves points for laying bare his animosity toward religion.

If Edroso's vile attitude were to hold sway, perhaps we can extend it to other groups. Offended by racism on campus?  Edroso presumably would want you to know there are several fine, traditionally black colleges. Frightened by misogyny at your college of choice? There still are women's colleges you may attend.

If you don't like the bias here, get out, Edroso implies. A few decades ago, before hatred of the USA became chic on the American right, there was a similar recommendation: "America, love it or leave it." If David Horowitz has his facts wrong, his critics have the opportunity to demonstrate that. Otherwise, there is a problem on American campuses that ridicule serves only to highlight.

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Making Enemies Of Americans

In "calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on," Donald Trump's media release on Pearl Harbor Day added that even

Without looking at the various poll data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension. Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine. Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad,and have no sense of reason or respect for human life.

Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks. Afterward, presumably, Trump will welcome horrendous attacks. Nonetheless, "we are going to Make America Great Again" (as the release concluded) is a clever slogan for a candidate who believes America is great and whose followers agree. (Imagine a Democratic candidate proclaiming "we are going to make America great again." Good luck with that, Commie traitor.)

It is a policy of dubious (though probable) constitutionality, one which relies on the honesty of its subjects, and strategically foolish because it targets individuals by religion rather than nation of origin. Though preposterous, it probably would not carry with it the dangerous implications of registering Muslims, as Trump proposed, or other measures targeting Muslims who are citizens of the USA and/or legally residing in the nation.

While warning of the Islamist roots of Islamist terrorism, Jeffrey Tayler argues

We must regain confidence in, and appreciation for, our Enlightenment and Western values — reason, equal rights for all (regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or faith), and consensus-based decisions and the rule of law established not by ancient texts, but by elected legislatures operating under the aegis of a secular constitution.

We cannot do that with the restrictions upon Muslims favored by the large numbers of GOP voters who believe the practice of Islam should be prohibited, that none may serve as President, that they be required to register, or that their mosques shold be closed.  Instead, our mission- should we choose to accept it- ought to be to treat Muslim citizens as American citizens. As CNN's Fareed Zakaria has observed

The tragedy is that, unlike in Europe, Muslims in the United States are by and large well-assimilated. I remember talking to a Moroccan immigrant in Norway last year who had a brother in New York. I asked him how their experiences differed. He said, “Over here, I’ll always be a Muslim, or a Moroccan, but my brother is already an American.” [...]













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Faith, Like God, Works In Mysterious Ways

Members of Rutgers Presbyterian Church in New York City, "horrified by Mr. Trump's call to deny people entry to our country based solely on their religion," have approved a resolution asking that the appropriate bodies of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. "review" the Republican's "standing/membership in our denomination." (Registering American citizens on the basis of their religion evidently is O.K., but never mind.)

Trump identifies as "a Presbyterian" (by which he means the PCUSA rather than the Presbyterian Church in America or the Orthodox Presbyterian Church) but no longer attends the church in which he was baptized nor any other in the denomination.  Hence, the PCUSA- which has definitively and publicly supported immigrants and refugees- has determined there is nothing it can do.

That's probably fortunate because individual churches in sects based on the divinity of Jesus Christ already read too many people out of their congregations. Still, Rutgers Presbyterian Church is not alone in believing Jesus would have been far more welcoming than Trump of the strangers in our midst.

Carly Fiorina, too, has criticized Trump because he wants "to use a religious test and ban people from coming into this country," though it's understandable she would knock anyon who has called her ugly. But Fiorina, a nominal Episcopalian, has more in common with the GOP's leading presidential candidate than either she or Trump ever would acknowledge.

The Art of the Deal, Trump contended in August, of one of his books, is "my second favorite book of all-time. Do you know what my first is? The Bible! Nothing beats the Bible." (Also, "Nobody Beats The Wiz.")  It didn't take his befuddlement at being asked what his favorite verse is to figure out that Trump was blowing smoke up our posterior.  Similarly, Fiorina was posturing- or hopefully, she was- when at The Faith and Freedom Conference last month she maintained (video below)

I do think it's worth saying that people of faith make better leaders because faith gives us humility, faith teaches us that on one of us is greater than any other one of us, that each of us are gifted by God. Faith gives us empathy, we know that all of us can fall and every one of us can be redeemed.  And faith gives us optimism, it gives us the belief that there is something better,that there is someone bigger than all of us. And so I think it's important that we elect a leader of faith and that we elect a leader, as well, who knows that more prayer,not less, is necessary in public life and in all our lives.







Faith gives us humility, empathy, and optimism. It appears faith also gave us Syed

Farook, an American citizen, (who) worked for the San Bernardino County Department of Health for the past few years and had a young daughter, his shocked father told the Daily News.

“I haven’t heard anything,” the elder Syed Farook told The News before his son’s name became public. “He was very religious. He would go to work, come back, go to pray, come back. He’s Muslim.”

And while apparently still very religious and filled with faith, Syed Farook went out and murdered 14 people at a Christmas/Chanukah/New Year's party in San Bernardino, California.

There is an obvious superficiality, as well as hostility and economic self-interest, enervating Donald Trump.   However, Donald Trump is not the only candidate in the GOP race making things up, nor is immigration/refugee policy the prime topic for dishonesty. Consider the feces being tossed around by Fiorina, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio about Planned Parenthood.

"Faith" may be the only issue more abused than abortion. Faith can be confidence that the New England Traitors will be in the NFL playoffs this season, that snow will fall in upstate New York this winter, or that ISIL will not be obliterated in the next month or two.  It is what also motivates many terrorists, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, and innumerable politicans for whom it's a convenient catchword meant to please some and offend none.








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The Religious Test The Right Likes

Representative Steve King, who has charged that immigrants from the Middle East do not want to assimilate into American culture, has told Talking Points Memo

Sharia law is incompatible with the United States Constitution and so if they want to demonstrate that they are open to being Americanized, the first thing they should do is renounce Sharia law. You won't get Keith Ellison or Andre Carson in this Congress to renounce Sharia law,let alone somebody that's just come out of the Middle East that is someone who has been steeped in Islam for a lifetime.

Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) with Andre Carson (D-IN) one of the two Muslim members of the US Congress, called King's comment "an incredibly ignorant statement. And when I say ignorant I don't mean it as an insult, I meanit as it is incredibly uninformed. That is all I can really say."

He could say more, but it would be extremely dangerous, all the more so because Ellison is not a Christian.  He could, of course, defend King's inference that American law should not be based on religious creed.

We already apply a religious test, as the US Supreme Court has endorsed.  Lest we forget, sixteen months ago the Court reprehensibly ruled 

that requiring family-owned corporations to pay for insurance coverage for contraception under the Affordable Care Act violated a federal law protecting religious freedom. It was, a dissent said, “a decision of startling breadth.”

The 5-to-4 ruling, which applied to two companies owned by Christian families, opened the door to many challenges from corporations over laws that they claim violate their religious liberty.

As Justice Ginsburg noted in her dissent

Would the exemption…extend to employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah's Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus); and vaccinations[?]…Not much help there for the lower courts bound by today's decision.

If the courts were to rule against such plaintiffs, it would become clear the Hobby Lobby case was an unconstitutional establishment of religion.  If courts were to side with the plaintiffs, they would reinforce the idea that sectarian law trumps civil law, not unlike in nations abiding by Sharia Law.

Not surprisingly, though, King applauded the majority opinion, which he wrote "concluded the Constitution means what it says and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 also means what it says."  He added "I congratulate Hobby Lobby for standing on both their religious convictions and on Constitutional principles." The religious convictions were the corporation's particular interpretation of their religion, and the Constitutional principles were that discrimination is permissible when that interpretation is claimed as the basis for discrimination.

Keith Ellison should offer his colleague this deal: King renounces and denounces anti-choice harassment and terrorism and all favoritism shown to corporations and others on the basis of their claimed, alleged religious beliefs. In return, Ellison will denounce Sharia law.  That's the last he'd hear from Steve King.


And have I mentioned how loathsome Carly Fiorina (below) is?













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Ignoring The Obvious

Noting "Over the past year and a half, authorities have arrested at least 66 Muslims (including refugees) in the United States on suspicion of plotting terrorist attacks or supporting ISIS," Atlantic contributor and frequent Salon blogger Jeffrey Tayler argues

exactly how many Jesus-freak “Jihadi Johns” have we seen beheading American journalists? How many Syrian Christians have even so much as suggested burning a Quran (remember that pastor in Florida?), let alone advocated slitting the throats of their religious rivals? At least as far as security goes, accepting Christian Syrian refugees hardly seems like a bad idea. In fact, it seems like a no-brainer.

Nonetheless, as an ardent atheist he ultimately recommends, with tongue not fully in cheek

why not consider seeking out atheist Syrian asylum seekers, few though they may be? (We have no definitive stats, but there surely are some.)  Why pride ourselves on welcoming confessional diversity, when the existence of any sort of confession indicates a predisposition to believe wildly nonsensical propositions on the basis of no evidence whatsoever? Why not affirm our Enlightenment roots and, for the first time, announce we wish to shelter nonbelievers?

Though his solution is too extreme, Tayler's logic is clearer upon hearing of the remarks made on the panel of speakers at the Camden, NJ campus of Rutgers- The State University of New Jersey.   The informal discussion prompted by Donald Trump's extreme remark(s) about Muslims was "hastily assembled by two undergraduates," wrote the Philadelphia Inquirer's David O'Reilly (photo below from staff photographer Ed Hille; Imam Hussein on left, Imam Muhammed on right).  The participants, Muslims from the greater Philadelphia, Pa. region, aimed to promote tolerance. In one instance, they also facilitated understanding as, according to O'Reilly, Imam Sami Hussein

told the audience that the leaders of terrorist groups such as ISIS, al-Qaeda, and Boko Haram were selecting passages from the Quran to justify their violence, but he cited numerous passages that point toward peaceful coexistence with those of other faiths.

The leaders of ISIS, which seeks to establish an Islamic state across Syria and Iraq that would have hegemony over all of Islam, "say that anyone who disagrees with them are disbelievers, and that they have the right to kill them," said Hussein. "So they are targeting Muslims and non-Muslims alike."

Yet, Imam Shaheed Muhammed bizarrely claimed "the term Islamic extremists (emphasis his) is a contradiction in terms."

Oh my, I don't think so, as Muhammed inadvertently and unconsciously acknowledged when he noted in closing remarks "no one has demanded from Christians that they stand up and eradicate their extremists." There are both Christian and Islamic extremists, only the latter more menacing.

Christians, as Jeffrey Tayler has often pointed out, are quite capable themselves of committing terrorist acts.  Apparent mass murderer Robert Lewis Dear, whom an ex-wife characterized as an "extremely evangelistic" Christian, has attempted to justify his deadly attack on a Planned Parenthood facility by bragging "I'm a warrior for the babies." That  does not suggest "terrorism doesn't have a religion," a claim of Muhammed, but rather that religion is sadly vulnerable to fanatical interpretation.

Dear hardly acted as Jesus would have, and President Obama and similarly-minded politicians have noted that Muslim terrorists distort Islamic teaching. Terrorists motivated by religion, as folks like Tayler, Sam Harris, and Bill Maher understand, have taken their religious beliefs to murderous extremes.  Yet, they have acted, illegally and catastrophically, on the basis of a belief system held by many other individuals. It shouldn't be surprising that your Muslim neighbor has her particular take on Islam nor that your other neighbor, a Protestant, interprets her religion differently than does your Catholic neighbor... or even than your other Protestant neighbor.  The consequences of deviating from mainstream Islamic teaching are, alas, generally greater than deviating from conventional Christian thought.

For various reasons, the terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists typically claim far more victims and are a greater threat to Western, liberal values than extremists motivated by their interpretation of Christianity or those un-motivated by religion.  Though radical and dangerous, the radical interpretation of Islam may not be the prevailing one among Muslims, but is widely held, thus of considerable significance.

Admittedly, the incidents of Islam motivating such terrorists will not decline if Western nations overly restrict the number of Muslims who migrate to their borders, and punitive action against individuals already in their midst will ony strengthen their resolve.   However, these terrorist attacks, ones which threaten the entirety of civilization, will not diminish because of an unwillingness to acknowledge they are committed by violent Muslims motivated by their set of Islamic beliefs.









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Speaking Of Accuracy

"There is nothing partisan about accurately describing Donald Trump as a racist," Buzzfeed editorial director Ben Smith concludes in his memo (below) to staff. Therefore, he reasons

it is, for instance, entirely fair to call him a mendacious racist, as the politics team and others here have reported clearly and aggressively. He's out there saying things that are false, and running an overtly anti-Muslim campaign. Buzzfeed New's reportingis rooted in facts, not opinion; these are facts.

Give Smith credit for prioritizing accuracy (a news report below) over vacuous bipartisanship or even the elusive "fairness," claimed in the slogan of a news network which is anything but.   Donald Trump is a liar, which news organizations, out of a sense of intimidation or of the necessity to say equally banal things about each candidate, are neglecting to admit.







Nonetheless, Donald Trump is not a racist- at least not that we know of. Running an an overtly anti-Muslim campaign, making hostile remarks about Muslims, or even discriminating against Muslims is not proof, or even evidence of, racism.

Racism is about race. It shouldn't be necessary to mention this, but apparently is.  In an otherwise sound and sensible speech Sunday evening, President Obama himself stated "groups like ISIL are thugs and killers (who) account for a tiny fraction of more than a billion Muslims around the world- including millions of patriotic Muslim Americans who reject their hateful  ideology."   Moreover, he maintained "it's our responsibility to reject proposals that Muslim Americans should somehow be treated differently... Muslim Americans are our friends and our neighbors, our co-workers, our sports heroes..."

So three times the President of the United States mistakenly referred to people united by religion as an ethinic group. Three times he conflated religion and ethnicity, an appalling error (and therefore one ignored by Republicans).   It shouldn't be difficult; Muslims are individuals who identify with Islam while Arab-Americans refer to individuals of an ethnic group, most but not all of whom are Muslim.

If "Muslim-Americans" should become part of the lexicon, we need to start referring to "Catholic-Americans" and "Protestant-Americans." We won't, however, because Catholicism and Protestantism are different religions or, arguably more accurately, sects of the same religion, Christianity. We understand that Christians who are citizens of the USA can be categorized as Polish-American, Italian-American, German-American, Haitian-American, Arab-American and on and on and on.

As Steve M. points out, the President spoke to the American people as if we were adults which, as expected, did not sit well with Republicans. Knowledgeable, as well as extremely careful with his language, Obama very likely knew his terminology was false and misleading. It will be of little significance, however, if media outlets understand that hostility toward an ethnic group does not constitute "racism."









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No Worse Than Before

Criticism of Donald Trump's vow (video below) at a campaign rally Monday evening to bar all Muslims from entering the USA was swift.




 




The evening hosts on MSNBC were apoplectic at what they seemed to believe is a singularly dangerous proposal, with Steve Benen, writing for Rachel Maddow on the host's website ,contending that "to a dangerous and genuinely scary degree" Trump "has out-Trumped" (GOP rivals) who "have been caught dabbling in the discrimination."  Similarly, Politico reporters termed it "a surprising escalation of rhetoric—even for him."

The Anti-Defamation League called the plan "unacceptable and antithetical to American values." Intimate Clinton aide Huma Abedin sent out an e-mail blast noting "I'm a proud Muslim -- but you don't have to share my faith to share my disgust" (because) "Trump wans to literally write racism into our law books."  (Trump doesn't want literally to write anything and Islam is not a race- but never mind.)

Even Republicans rivals joined the chorus. Chris Christie, the guy who believes law enforcement should be kept in the dark when mentally ill individuals apply for an expungement of residential treatment in order to buy a gun (no joke), maintained Trump's idea is "a ridiculous view."   John Ellis Bush called the leading presidential contender in in his Party "unhinged" and John Kasich described it as "just more of the outrageous dissension that characterizes his every breath." Candidates Huckabee, Rubio, Fiorina, and Graham also criticized the front-runner. Even Dick Cheney panned Trump's scheme, suggesting it "goes against everything we stand for and believe in."

These folks are right, but we may be losing perspective, and not only because, as Lizz Winstead tweeted, "all Trump has done is amp up the existing rhetoric created by the current GOP. It's a joke to watch them clutch their pearls." A few weeks ago, the candidate said he would "certainly implement" a program to track Muslims in the USA.  After criticism (including a comparison to pre-war Nazi Germany) his campaign manager claimed Trump was speaking of a terrorist watch list.

But given that Trump never actually retracted his proposal, and that a terrorist watch list has been in effect for several years, it appears that Trump really likes the idea of a national database, which he defended by arguing "It would stop people from coming in illegally. We have to stop people from coming into our country illegally."

The criticism now eclipses that over his support of creating a national database of American citizens (and individuals legally in the country) which, upon reflection, is a little odd.  The candidate who wants to humiliate and disadvantage persons already in the USA legally has decided that we should not admit any of those individuals.

Ce un outrage! However, the questions that beg to be asked are:

1) Why would someone want to get into the country, only to be persecuted because of her religion; and

2) Why would we want to welcome someone we hold in so low esteem, and whom we consider sufficiently dangerous,  that we would require her to register?

The answer to (1) is: no one with good sense. That forms part of the answer  to (2). The other part can be extrapolated by the remarks to Maddow of NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Richard Engel, back in the states after a long stint in the Middle East, who asked rhetorically "what has happened since the last time I spoke to you?"   Moments later, he explained

The reason there are 5,000 people from western Europe who've joined ISIS and left Europe is because they feel ghettoized, because they feel they're not part of the community, and the reason we have only 250 or so people from the United States who have gone to join ISIS is by and large because they feel they're getting a fair shake and have a shot at the American Dream. If you change that equation, you change the number.

We want, or should want, Muslims in this country, consistent with our immigration and refugee policies.  However, the worst approach is not to bar them from coming in but to treat those already here, or who would immigrate, in such a way that they sense they are not getting a fair shake. That would create a situation far more dangerous than we now have. It is an outcome that characterizes Europe, as Engel pointed out, and one which would be nearly unequalled as a recruiting tool for ISIL.

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