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Let's put this into plain English: If you disagree with me on my faith and reject holding my views in respect, you'll have hatefully incited me to use violence against you, in which case I may not help murdering you.
-or- even simpler:
Shut your mouth and tolerate my beliefs, or else...
Anybody who thinks this is Orwellian hasn't a clue into newspeak. Compared to this kind of two-faced thuggery, newspeak is a piece of eminent psychological warfare.
Where the F*#k is the press?? Is it really too much for them to note what is going on in Europe and Canada? Sometimes it almost drives me to conspiracy theories and wondering about the end of the world...eh, i'm a bit too irreverent to indulge all that for too long.
And they call US fascists...
"Above all, it was the ‘Free Trades Union’ that turned democracy into a ridiculous and scorned phrase, insulted the ideal of liberty and stigmatized that of fraternity with the slogan ‘If you will not become our comrade we shall crack your skull’. "
-- Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
Zippy, I must confess I'm a bit mystified by your citation.
I don't suppose she bothered to mention the large number of Muslim clerics who promptly and publicly condemned the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11?
Or did she just present Islam as a violent religion? If the latter, she was as much "defaming Islam" as someone who asserted that Christianity is a violent religion, presenting for evidence the all the many Christians who have committed murder in the name of their religion. Which I imagine Paul would object to.
Sorry, this should read: as someone who asserted that Christianity is a violent religion, presenting for evidence the all the many Christians who have committed murder in the name of their religion is defaming Christianity.
Paul: not trying to be mystifying, just pointing out that the peculiar modern sentiment "you must join our tolerant fraternity or we will kill you" has a long pedigree which, among other things, produced the nazis. And it is very odd that Europe, of all places, has forgotten. I don't know which possible future is worse: the one where Eurabia emerges under sharia or the one where Moslems push too hard too fast and are introduced by reactionary moderns to their own Auschwitz (in the name of preserving freedom of course).
But one or the other seems inevitable unless reason begins to prevail on the continent. I guess I am not convinced that Europe's preemptive surrender to Islam will result in peaceful dhimmitude in Eurabia. It is more likely that the secular worm will turn, that the tolerated Other will become viewed as the Oppressor; and Europe has a history of dealing with the perceived Oppressor in her midst that is not pretty. I fear for Moslems as much as for Europe herself.
This is a good example of why hate speech laws are counterproductive. The Islamofascist Imams can preach publicly and proudly about killing "infidels" and nothing happens to them. But let Oriana Fallaci criticize Islam in her books, and she gets prosecuted.
I don't suppose she bothered to mention the large number of Muslim clerics who promptly and publicly condemned the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11?
I don't know, but it seems quite irrelevant. Fallaci has no obligation do so.
Or did she just present Islam as a violent religion? If the latter, she was as much "defaming Islam" as someone who asserted that Christianity is a violent religion, presenting for evidence the all the many Christians who have committed murder in the name of their religion. Which I imagine Paul would object to.
I would object to it, but I would not hope to see criminal charges bought against her.
But of course when Muslims murder in the name of their religion, they do so in obedience with explicit commands of their Founder; when Christians murder, they do so against the explicit commands of their Founder.
But of course when Muslims murder in the name of their religion, they do so in obedience with explicit commands of their Founder; when Christians murder, they do so against the explicit commands of their Founder
Not just explicit commands, but explicit actions.
Zippy: Paul: not trying to be mystifying, just pointing out that the peculiar modern sentiment "you must join our tolerant fraternity or we will kill you" has a long pedigree which, among other things, produced the nazis.
Heh. This is a joke, yes? The Nazis were not - and never claimed to be - a "tolerant fraternity". The long pedigree of those demanding "You must join or we will kill you" includes, among other organisations, the Catholic Church - also not a "tolerant fraternity".
The definition of tolerant groups is that they do not demand that anyone join them - except in basic social tolerance. I have to admit, when I read Paul Cella vilifying the principle of social tolerance, I am strongly reminded of those Pilgrim Fathers who left England because the state church there wasn't persecuting people who didn't worship properly the way they felt it ought to. (So they came to America, believing it to be a country where they would be free to persecute people as much as they wished... and Paul Cella is plainly their heir.)
Paul: But of course when Muslims murder in the name of their religion, they do so in obedience with explicit commands of their Founder; when Christians murder, they do so against the explicit commands of their Founder.
And yet, Christianity has as long and bloody a history of persecution, mass murder, torture, and war, all done in the name of religion, as Islam does. (Or rather, Christianity's history of this is longer, since Christianity is six or seven centuries older.) So as quite evidently Christians down the ages have felt free to ignore Jesus's message of loving your neighbor as yourself, and distorting or ignoring his parables about respecting those of other religions, and just plain assuming that when Jesus said that what you do to "the least of my brethren" you do to Him... it really doesn't make sense to argue that Christianity is a less violent religion than Islam because Jesus was a less violent man than Mohammed.
Sorry again: "and just plain assuming that when Jesus said that what you do to "the least of my brethren" you do to Him... [he didn't really mean it]"
(must learn to hit preview)
This is a joke, yes?
No. But given the sheer number of ignorant statements in your reply to it I will make the judgement that I do not have the time or space to properly catalogue all the errors. Suffice to say that I do indeed worry about what will happen when Europe ceases to see Moslems as the harmless Other to be included, tolerantly, in the cult of the free and equal new man and starts to see them as oppressors (just as at another time a different semitic group was seen as oppressors).
Zippy:
I agree that the confrontation between Islam and Liberalism in Europe is likely issue in devastation and mayhem.
Zippy: But given the sheer number of ignorant statements in your reply to it I will make the judgement that I do not have the time or space to properly catalogue all the errors.
Thanks. I'll take that as an acknowledgement that you know I'm right, you're wrong, and you can't figure out a way of weasling out it.
You can take whatever you like without interference from me, Jesurglisac. Thanks for the morning laugh. If you were to say something interesting and substantive in a respectful way I might even consider responding to it, despite the level of ignorance manifested in your comments.
Zippy, anyone who thinks the problem with the Nazis was that they were tolerant is someone who does not deserve any respect. I have no intention of being respectful to you. It was a nutty thing for you to claim, and shows a level of ignorance that is nearly incomprehensible.
...anyone who thinks the problem with the Nazis was that they were tolerant is someone who does not deserve any respect.
I must say that if you think that is what I said you also lack critical reading skills.
Zippy, there's nothing wrong with my critical reading skills: if you didn't mean to say that the Nazis were a "tolerant fraternity" then you need to brush up on your writing skills.
Then perhaps you'd better be able to figure out what exactly you object to in my comments, and explain what it is, and get a respectful response from me: but your head-under-the-pillow reaction just indicates you really can't keep your end up.
...there's nothing wrong with my critical reading skills.
Okay, if you say so.
I'll give you a hint: ‘If you will not become our comrade we shall crack your skull’ was Hitler's way of paraphrasing his enemies, not an expression of his own point of view.
Zippy: I'll give you a hint: ‘If you will not become our comrade we shall crack your skull’ was Hitler's way of paraphrasing his enemies, not an expression of his own point of view.
Ah. So in your view, the Nazis were the champions of tolerance, and this is why tolerance is a bad thing?
And you wonder why I won't attempt respectful responses to this garbage?
Reading comprehension: when you don't have it, you don't have it.
Although I extremely seldom contribute to this site, I access it daily and I used to enjoy and learn from both Mr. Cella's postings and readers' comments - without necessarily always agreeing with them.
But it seems nowv that the whole site has been hijacked by that unreadable, obnoxious, lying little homo Jesgru-whatshisname, whose major passion, it seems, beside sodomy, is getting noticed.
Could you gentlemen possibly ignore him in the future and resume the interesting, exciting and often informative conversation, instead of useless squabble with a deformed, on more than one level, individual?
Seriously, let that silly frantic poodle yap as much as he (it?) wants; you don’t need to read and respond to his abominable claptrap.
Besides, he has his own, (quite measly) website. If you really must, you can email there directly. Well…?
I reluctantly agree with Erik Larsen's conclusion, if not with everything else in his post. Jersugislac has done considerable damage to the formerly collegial atmosphere in the comments section of this blog. I have sometimes disagreed with you, Paul, but I have never felt that expressing such disagreement would result in non sequiturs, ad hominems, the annihilation of straw men, or other abuses of rational discourse. Now we are flooded with them, and I'm sorry to see others beginning to respond in kind.
Perhaps I should not put my foot in it further, but:
I don't suppose she bothered to mention the large number of Muslim clerics who promptly and publicly condemned the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11?
Perhaps because they did not exist? I found such a response notably lacking.
... when I read Paul Cella vilifying the principle of social tolerance ...
This seems to me to be a straw man. Perhaps I am putting words in Paul's mouth -- and he is here to correct me, if so -- but I don't sense that Paul rejects tolerance per se. I believe his complaint is with the kind of unequal tolerance we are seeing in Europe in connection with Muslim immigrants.
Thanks. I'll take that as an acknowledgement that you know I'm right, you're wrong, and you can't figure out a way of weasling out it.
This amounts to an appeal to trial by ordeal. I don't buy it. It reminds me too much of a long debate I had on a Usenet group with a fellow who was convinced Special Relativity was a crock. I eventually gave up through sheer exhaustion -- which didn't make him right.
Zippy, there's nothing wrong with my critical reading skills: if you didn't mean to say that the Nazis were a "tolerant fraternity" then you need to brush up on your writing skills.
I understood Zippy the way Zippy intended. So maybe it was your reading skills after all. Another hypothesis, which I am somewhat hesitant to bring up, is that you understood Zippy just fine but wished to score rhetorical points by twisting his meaning.
Ah. So in your view, the Nazis were the champions of tolerance, and this is why tolerance is a bad thing?
This tends to confirm the second hypothesis. I've seen words put in people's mouths many times before -- but not by honest debaters.
Kent: Perhaps because they did not exist? I found such a response notably lacking.
Perhaps because you didn't bother looking? (And, I think, because the mainstream media in the US mostly ignored Islamic condemnation of the September 11 attacks.)
Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid al-Tantawi of al-Azhar, the highest institution in Sunni Islam, warned that those who attack innocent people will be punished by Allah, in his weekly sermon to thousands of worshippers in Cairo. "Attacking innocent people is not courageous, it is stupid and will be punished on the day of judgement," the moderate Sheikh al-Tantawi said at al-Azhar mosque. "It's not courageous to attack innocent children, women and civilians. It is courageous to protect freedom, it is courageous to defend oneself and not to attack," he said. cite
You'll find other such references here.
Kent: Another hypothesis, which I am somewhat hesitant to bring up, is that you understood Zippy just fine but wished to score rhetorical points by twisting his meaning.
Actually, I genuinely didn't understand what Zippy meant, and come to that, I still don't. He seems to be trying to make a rhetorical point against tolerance by quoting Hitler fulminating that his opponents don't tolerant him. It's entirely possible (since Zippy seems to take for granted that everyone is familiar with Hitlerian quotes) that he's using a rhetorical shorthand that you're familiar with and I'm not. That says nothing about my reading comprehension skills: it says that Zippy isn't good at making himself understood outside his coterie of people who understand his code.
As for comments that I'm spoiling this blog: I think I've been decidedly politer than several who have responded to my comments. However, if it's preferred to have a uniform, politically unanimous blog with no interference from, you know, actual gay people when Paul Cella fulminates against gay marriage, then I guess it's Paul's blog and it's his decision. (I suspect any Muslims wandering by would get the same short shrift.)
I do hope that when, or if Mr. Cella responds to the preceding comment he will not use the word "gay" to mean homosexual.
I believe the proper word for a homosexual is, and should remain, “homosexual”. I think by using the word “gay” we are unwittingly participating in a deception intended not only to hide the morbid nature of homosexuality, but to present it as something attractive, glad and cheerful, and desirable.
Just as the nature of cancer is to metastasize, so the nature of corruption is to corrupt. Sodomites hideously distorted sexual act and emptied it from its proper meaning. But as long as correct definition kept homosexuality firmly moored in reality that sordid business could not cross the line dividing pathology and health, deviance and normality, sexuality and filth. It has always been a tumor, but it was constrained in its place through correct and unsentimental classification.
But that was then. Today, with loss of religion and following it relativisation of morality our increasingly confused culture lost its gumption, confidence and good sense, needed not only to discriminate between moral and unmoral, natural and perverted, but to demand that each shall remain on its side of the division line. We don’t have to criminalize homosexuality in order to protect children from that malady. But we must never equate toleration, (which is lenience or indulgence), with respect. They have nothing to do with each other. When we do equate them the “division line” becomes fuzzy and eventually is obliterated - or actually drawn somewhere else. Definitions lose meanings, moorings snap, perversion becomes gay and the tumor is free to spread. When homosexual activists stole “gay”, that old, lovely and innocent word was defaced beyond recognition. It was an act of violence against language, but also against truth itself. It was inevitable that demands for sodomite marriage would follow in its wake.
The usurpation was perhaps one little step for a single homosexual, but a giant step for homosexuality – a cancer which indeed devours our civilization.
I appeal to all who love truth and decency and grieve for that sweet, wonderful and chaste word to never, never use it in connection with morbid corruption of homosexuality. Let’s start fighting back with what is available to us right now. Let us try to free "gay" from its sad captivity
I read the little book of Oriana Fallaci.
While she doesn’t bother to conceal her disrespect of Mohammedanism it is never the target of her direct attack.
She is raging against colossal and unprecedented treason. Her condemnation and contempt is directed against Italian (European) traitors of our Civilization - our culture, history, tradition and religion. And against the ruling cast of Glorious Pimps who give their country -- their Mother -- to the Moslem invader. And against the rest of us; liars, cowards, whores and fools; self-emasculating dhimmis worshipping at the altar of Moloch of Tolerance.
Jesurgislac, why don't you get Sheik Tantawi to support homosexual marriage in Egypt since he's such a reasonable man. Buggery is no longer an offence in the West, surely it's time to extend the same franchise to the Muslim world.
The irony in your comments on Ms Fallaci is that given her background, she would have been among the first to defend your rights as a sodomite. For that alone perhaps she deserves to be put on trial.
I guess I should thank Erik Larsen, T. Hanski, and Ivan for proving my point: if Paul's blog has become ugly with my posting here, it's because some regulars here are unable to contain their anti-gay bigotry - which is, I grant you, highly unpleasant to read.
Not precisely my fault, no more than it would be the "fault" of a black person wandering into a gathering of Ku Klux Klaners if the party turned unpleasant, but at least I'll survive the experience. Paul really should have a warning up: if you're not straight and not Christian this blog can turn ugly.
Bye.
However, if it's preferred to have a uniform, politically unanimous blog with no interference from, you know, actual gay people when Paul Cella fulminates against gay marriage, then I guess it's Paul's blog and it's his decision. (I suspect any Muslims wandering by would get the same short shrift.)
I will not lose any sleep if it comes to my attention that homosexual and Muslim activists do not feel welcome here. But I might lose some sleep if it came to my attention that Christians, traditionalists and American patriots felt unwelcome.
Is that a prejudice? So be it. Most of the prejudices of common men are saner than the all enlightened rationalism of our elites.
One other thing: Jesurgislac's implication that all or most homosexuals share his (or her) Leftist attitude is a self-serving elision. Many homosexuals are thoroughly disgusted with the activists that claim to speak for them. Indeed, the fiercest opponent of same-sex marriage I know is homosexual. His reasoning is refreshingly simple: if homosexuals want an institution analogous to marriage, they must undertake the hard work of building up with the material of custom and tradition something to call their, not hijack what others have built of thousands of years.
Paul: Christians, traditionalists and American patriots felt unwelcome.
So it doesn't bother you to make gay Christians or gay (or Muslim) American patriots feel unwelcome? (I leave out "traditionalist" - I have no idea how you define it.)
I guess not.
Jesurgislac's implication that all or most homosexuals share his (or her) Leftist attitude is a self-serving elision.
As is your Rightist presumption that no right-wing gay people support same-sex marriage. Many do. Believing that gay people ought to have the same right to get married as straight people is not a Leftist attitude: merely a pro-equality attitude, and one can be for civil rights for all whether one is Left or Right.
And that really is my last word. I'll warn all gay left-wing American patriots, Christian or Muslim, to stay away, since you prefer only straight American patriots to feel comfortable at your blog.
I'll warn all gay left-wing American patriots, Christian or Muslim, to stay away,
I have met (very few) homosexual American patriots and I truly respect them. Of course, I wish they would stop indulging their vice, but that is a different story. None of them was a left-wing, or Moslem.
I also met left-wing Americans, but they would never refer to themselves as patriots. They said patriotism is a primitive, bigoted mind set of a redneck and moron. They loathed patriotism. For them America was never that which is, but that which they will one day create.
I never personally met an American Moslem patriot. But I read a few articles by one of them. They were manifestly non-leftist! I have no idea of the fellow’s sexual inclinations.
On the basis of my experience I would think that “gay left-wing American patriot, Christian or Muslim” may just be an extremely rare being - if at all existing.
Therefore when I hear Jerusgislac parting salvo I can not resist responding with:
Good Lord! All three of them?
It occurs to me that in addition to the on-going news of Islamofascist murders and terrorist attacks, we have news stories like the prosecution of Oriana Falaci and the recent story about the Koran that didn't get flushed down the toilet (and the reaction to it in the Muslim World). You would think that the cummulative effect of these stories, after a while, would be to create a negative outlook by non-muslims toward the muslim religion. And from what I have read in polls, this is happening. Fewer people believe that Islam is a Religion of Peace than several years ago.
Who knows what the next "disrespect of Islam" story will be? I don't know what it will be, but I do know that there will be another story and another.... In other words, islam is getting bad PR and this will continue. I have to think that part of the reason for today's "No" vote by the French on the EU Constitution is based on fear of Islamic Turkey having more freedom of immigration into Europe if there was a Yes vote.
Further, there is alot of honest talk and discussion about the threat of Radical Islam on the alternate media--Fox Cable, talk radio, and the internet--and these forms of media are increasing their listenership and readers. If we can preserve it, Freedom of Speech may yet save us from the Islamic onslaught.
I will not miss Jesurgislac.
However, I am not insensitive to the possibility of this forum becoming a "smelly little orthodoxy," since I feel like a bit of an outsider myself.
I am a Christian, but suspect that some here might take issue with that self-identification.
I am a Traditionalist, in the sense that I begin any examination of social institutions and mores with the assumption that there is a good reason for them, and in the sense that I believe in the transcendent moral order discussed by both Russell Kirk and C.S. Lewis. But I am not unaware of the crying need for reform in Western civilization, and the reality that some of these reforms will be innovations.
I am a patriot, but not a nationalist. I see the hand of Providence in the events of the late 18th century in North America, but I do not believe that God is any respecter of persons, nations, or kindreds.
Jesurgislac disrupted the collegial atmosphere that has always made this forum refreshing and stimulating. I suspect this was deliberate. There is always a tendency for those unable to create to destroy.
Collegiality rests on two pillars. The first is the rules of polite debate. These prohibit attacks on straw men, ad hominems, the introduction of red herrings, and so forth. Jesurgislac violated these rules from the start.
The other pillar of collegiality is a set of shared values that the participants in the debate wish to explore and expand. This set of values may be different in different forums. My style of discourse is somewhat different at my own blog than it is here, because the assumed set of values is somewhat different. My contributions at Debunkers.org are quite a bit different, because the shared values are quite a bit different.
Jesurgislac evidently shared few of the values that have underpinned this forum (though probably more than he or some others were willing to admit.) That is a pardonable sin. What is less pardonable is that Jesurgislac is clearly uninterested in finding any common ground. His only desire was to provoke and disrupt, probably as a means of putting an end to the discussion that was taking place. I believe the correct Internet slang for someone like this is troll.
Notwithstanding the name of my own blog, I am not interested in trolls.
Actually, I genuinely didn't understand what Zippy meant, and come to that, I still don't.
If that were the case, you might try asking for clarification. Respectfully.
Mr. Budge,
However, I am not insensitive to the possibility of this forum becoming a "smelly little orthodoxy," since I feel like a bit of an outsider myself.
In what way? Not that I’m excluding the possibility of such development, but I think that “feeling like an outsider” may not be too reliable indication of it.
But I am not unaware of the crying need for reform in Western civilization, and the reality that some of these reforms will be innovations
Could you indicate roughly what reforms you have in mind? I am interested to hear partly because I’ve talked with my nephew recently about crisis-reforms relationship - or how acute the former must be in order to force the latter. It was in the context of the Islamic civilization and my reflection about its (in my mind) ages long inability to generate crisis despite its innumerable and grave problems.
I was very glad to read your insight into the meaning of collegiality. It not only confirmed but improved my own understanding of it.
And you have a very interesting, rich and informative blog. It is quite gratifying to explore it.
Glad you enjoyed the blog.
As a Mormon, I share a great many things with more orthodox Christians. But there is no denying that there are some very significant theological differences. My preference is to build on the things that are shared.
I see a great need for reform in the judicial branch of government. I don't know how to accomplish this within the traditional framework of the judiciary. Stare decisis has been allowed to override the original understanding of the Constitution to the point where I believe the reforms will have to be innovative. I wish I had a good suggestion for what they should be.
I may not have the highest reading comprehension, but I took Zippy's Hitler reference to mean that forced tolerance by Hitler's enemies (close to, but not identical at this point to, the PC we see enforced now) is what provided the atmosphere for Hitler's party and views to succeed as a backlash to the forced tolerance of things many (most?) did not like or agree with.
Returning to the topic at hand (the trial of Fallaci for "defamation of Islam") this points to yet another huge crack in the left/liberal edifice: the tension between criminalizing "hate speech", and the defense of free speech. In another article on this weblog, Cella points to an article from Canada in which we learn that "tolerance" has become mandatory in that country. The irony of "free thinkers" demanding that everyone either agree with them or be shut up (by any means necessary...) is rich and thick.
Unhappily, this irony is working in a one-way rachet with regard to Islam: the Islamists are free to use Christian Bibles for toilet paper in Bethlehem, and the PC left will ensure that no one dare criticise them for it. Yet the same PC left will also demand that any riots over the Koran must be handled with kid gloves.
The effect, in the long run, is nothing less than dhimmitude...which spells doom for atheist, agnostic, Christian, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, etc.
Oh, and with regard to "Where is the press", unhappily much of the press has decided to side with Osama. Not overtly, of course, but the trend is clear.
Someone, somewhere (do I read too many weblogs and other commentary?) suggested that the Orthodox Secular left is expecting to use Islam much as it has used parts of the Roman Catholic church and the main stream Protestant churches. They are deluding themselves, of course, because Islam has almost 1,400 years of experience in manipulating Kufr's to their doom.
The Orthodox Secular left does such a good job at being useful idiots, its a hard habit for them to break.
Hi, it has come to my attention that you're a homophobe and an asshole, and I just wanted to stop in and point that out, and to make fun of you for it.
A phobia is an irrational fear of something; claustrophobes cannot abide being in an elevator, for example. There does not seem to be any evidence that Cella has any fear (rational or otherwise) of homosexuals, although he does object to some of the political agenda being pushed nowadays.
It is interesting to me how the Left seems incapable of any discourse without reference to certain body parts or bodily functions, rather like young schoolchildren who giggle over words such as "poop" and "potty".
I wonder why that is?
notdhimmi.
Thanks for pointing out that so-called hate speech laws have a tendency to be enforced selectively.
notdhimmi,
I wonder why that is?
I think this is one of the forms of anal fixation. The other two most standard forms of that fixation is buggery and of course Leftism itself.
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