On Moderate Muslims

If Nidal Malik Hasan had been a white supremacist, who, say, walked into an African-American church and started shooting, we would easily identify him for what he is.  However, if a muslim walks on to a military base and starts shooting, what do we call him?

Well evidently, anything except:  An islamic supremacist.

Islam is a supremacist ideology.  It is very much akin to Hitler's nazism.  One did not have to man the death camps to subscribe to the ideology.  Plenty of Germans stood by approvingly or turned a blind eye.  I suppose we could say that those people were "moderate nazis."

Hasan's rationale comes straight from the teachings of islam.  The fact that most muslims don't run around killing infidels says nothing whatsoever about their beliefs or the teachings of islam.

Islam reveres muhammad and teaches that he led the "perfect life."  A life that all good muslims should emulate.  And yet, he was a warlord, a rapist, a pedophile, a misogynist, and a polygamist.  One could go on and on.  But, in short, he was an evil man.  So islam reveres evil.  If one subscribes to islam, one subscribes to evil.

So, so-called "moderate muslims" are like those "moderate nazis."  Do not let them off the hook for their vile beliefs just because they did not pull the trigger.

Now, the politically correct crowd argues that we should be tolerant of islam.  But this is like saying we should be tolerant of racist white supremacists.  I mean they don't all run around lynching people right?  To paraphrase Bruce Bawer, tolerance of intolerance is not tolerance at all.  It's suicide.

Hugh Fitzgerald asks:

There is no way that those so-called..."moderate" Muslims can suggest that no, it is the "extremists" who are untrue to Islam. They aren't untrue. They are perfectly loyal Muslims, good and righteous followers of that exemplar Muhammad....[I]f one really knew what Islam contained, as not all Muslims born or raised in the West may quite realize, then how could any decent person remain a Muslim? 

So, before you brand me a simple-minded bigot, I urge you to go do a little research on the basic tenets of islam.  After that, you can call me whatever you like.
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Love and Hate for Pamela Geller

LOVE PAMELA GELLER  She does basic shoe-leather reporting that no one else in the country is doing.  No one.  Take the Rifqa Bary case.  Not one so-called journalist bothers with the necessary legwork to accurately report this story.  Like it or not, there is only one source for this story:  Pamela Geller.  What's more, Geller does not subscribe to the delusional and deceptive premise that journalism must be neutral.

HATE PAMELA GELLER  But Geller has a problem:  She presents poorly.  There's just no other way to say it.  Geller does not present herself well and people, regardless of their own ideological convictions, often have a hard time taking her seriously.  Ordinarily I couldn't care less.  But the problem is, like I said above, Geller is the ONLY source for accurate reporting on Rifqa Bary.  If she is not taken seriously, and she is not, then the story suffers.  And, the truth is dismissed with the messenger.

While Geller should clean up her image, the real tragedy here is that so-called journalists are not doing their job.  Undoubtedly part of the issue is that one cannot turn to Muslim preachers or Islamic scholars for accurate information.  The preachers practice Taqiyya, which is beyond the comprehension of journalists, and the scholars have a vested interest in portraying Islam in a positive light.  The easy solution:  Just go read the Islamic texts.

Is that so difficult?
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Why Does Anyone Patronize Starbucks?

Nathan Heller writing about Starbucks coffee in Slate:

The flavor was bitter, the dark liquid acidic on the tongue.  One taster described it as aggressive in the manner of drain cleaner.  An iridescent oil slick capped all our samples, looking like something spewed out behind a maimed petroleum tanker.

To me, it is even simpler.  Starbucks' coffee just tastes burnt.  And, what's worst, they must aim for this taste because I have found this characteristic consistent across visits, times, and locations.  I have a hard time believing that most people like it.

So why do so many people buy it?  Ambiance?  Seems unlikely.  I think people buy it and drink it because they just don't know any better.

Before you tell me how wrong I am:  Go try a cup of the unpretentious Dunkin' Donuts coffee.  My office just happens to be equidistant between a McDonald's and a Starbucks.  Price aside, I always pick McDonald's for coffee.
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On the Mess that is Craigslist

I detest CraigsList.  Any yet, like millions of us, I use it regularly.  Not because I want to, but rather because there is no alternative.

I often complain about the arrogance of tech companies like Microsoft.  They have become so rich, they no longer really care about their customers.  CraigsList also has incredible arrogance towards its users, derived from monopoly power.  But this is a monopoly based on price zero and size.

Gary Wolf writes about the service in Wired Magazine:

The glory of the site is its size and its price.  But seen from another angle, craigslist is one of the strangest monopolies in history, where customers are locked in by fees set at zero and where the ambiance of neglect is not a way to extract more profit but the expression of a worldview.
...
The current strategy for growth—a slow, bloblike, seemingly unstoppable accretion of new craigslist cities, each an exact clone of the others, launched with no marketing or publicity.  Sometimes a new site grows very slowly for a long time.  But eventually listings hit a certain volume, after which the site becomes so familiar and essential that it is more or less taken for granted by everybody except the distressed publishers of local newspapers.  Revenue from newspaper classified ads is off nearly 50 percent in the past decade, a drop that comes to almost $10 billion.  Only a fraction of this loss is because of Newmark's company, but as the largest online classified site, craigslist is easy to blame.
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It is difficult to overstate the scale of this accomplishment.  Craigslist gets more traffic than either eBay or Amazon.  eBay has more than 16,000 employees.  Amazon has more than 20,000.  Craigslist has 30.
...
The long-running tech-industry war between engineers and marketers has been ended at craigslist by the simple expedient of having no marketers.  Only programmers, customer service reps, and accounting staff work at craigslist.  There is no business development, no human resources, no sales.  As a result, there are no meetings.  The staff communicates by email and IM.

Now I love the fact that they don't have marketing types.  But they have a tin ear when it comes to user needs, in no small part because their customer service is a joke.

The CraigsList people argue that they are not a business, but a community service.  But what do you get when you cross a free community service with a business monopoly with a hundred-plus cities?

Evidently the answer is:  Monopolistic anarchy.

I found this article thanks to my friend and blogging mentor, Craig Newmark (no, not the CraigsList idiot savant, but the economics professor).  On his blog, he has pointed out more than once, that if you don't like what you find there, he will gladly refund your money.  And sarcasm aside, his point is so true that it needs no further comment.  And he argues, this applies to CraigsList as well.

However, if I don't like his blog, or any blog, I can go elsewhere.  If I don't like CraigsList, where do I go?  The newspaper?  God forbid.

In fact, I often rail against newspapers on this site.  It's ironic that a company largely responsible for their demise, is so wholly undeserving.
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Hanna, Michelle, and Mary Jo

Hanna Rosin:

Public officials who do terrible things and then say they’re sorry (often in a press conference or book) are a dime a dozen.  But the ones who do something terrible and then repent indirectly in the form of a lifetime of dedicated public service are rare.

Well, in regard to Ted Kennedy, how hard is it to dedicate your life to public service when you inherit that much money?  What a sacrifice.  Public service from the family compound.  It would be funny if it were not so real.

Rosin goes on to point out that Kennedy did something terrible.  And, He made up for it partly by declining the ultimate glory of running for president, and choosing the more humble path....

Really?  Not running for president?  Let's get real:  Kennedy never paid for his mistakes.  The only thing worse than Ted Kennedy's unaccountable early life, and elevation to family-entitled position, were the dead brains who kept voting for him.

Michelle Malkin says it is crass to point this out today.  She is wrong.  The starry-eyed mainstream media will make Kennedy out to be an unblemished hero.  Somebody needs to point out their omissions.

Look, he was the brother of an assassinated president and senator.  He was a long-serving senator from the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  And to give him his due, he was an effective legislator.  I'm sorry he's dead.

But he was not a great man.
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Cool Ad Watch

Via Copyranter
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Rosenberg on Journalist versus Bloggers

Scott Rosenberg offers an extended excerpt from his new book on the rise of blogging, Say Everything.

Chapter Nine:
Journalists versus Bloggers

My take:  Traditional journalists with their press passes, phony neutrality, and monopoly on the public narrative, showered bloggers with invective, condescension, derision, and ridicule.

Rosenberg argues that traditional journalism was not objective about the rise of blogging.  They were too dismissive to be objective.  He does not, however, challenge traditional journalism's self-proclaimed objectivity itself.  To be fair, this is probably beyond the scope of his book.  But he goes on to point out that traditional journalists often lack the time, interest, or expertise to properly report on given issues.  Note this problem existed long before the internet.  Bloggers just helped make it painfully obvious.

In addition to the economics of the internet, to truly understand the trouble traditional journalism faces today, one must consider the quality of the product.  I would argue this starts with traditional journalism's claim to be objective.  Journalism is not, and has never been, neutral.  The idea of neutral journalism is, at best, delusional, and at worst, deceptive.  Proclaiming neutrality and objective reporting does not make it so.  Rather, it simply engenders public distrust.

As a long-time blog reader, what is refreshing about the medium is the best bloggers, on all sides of any issue, don't pretend to be neutral.  Readers are invited to engage with the writers or free to seek alternative viewpoints.  Traditional journalism, condescending to the end, trembles at the thought of it.

Update:
July 27, 2009
Kyle Smith reviews Say Everything in today's Wall Street Journal.
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The Gates Incident

Richard Thompson Ford writing in Slate:

I know Gates and find it very hard to imagine him engaged in disorderly conduct.  But many police officers demand more than orderly conduct; they demand submission and deference.  Given the difficult and dangerous jobs they do, they usually deserve it.  But it would be naive to imagine that there are no power-hungry bigots wearing the uniform.  Anyone, particularly a black person, needs only to encounter one such rogue officer to find himself in serious jeopardy—at that point a few hours in custody is about the best one can hope for.  Maybe Gates, who is well-acquainted with the history of American racism, raised his voice in anger or fear.  Maybe he even unfairly berated Crowley.  But there's no way that the slight, 58-year-old Harvard scholar, with his cane, posed a threat to public order that justified his arrest.

Let's face it, Gates made the officer mad.  Last time I checked, that is not a crime.
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M.A. Khan on his Journey Out of Islam

In the article, Shaming the Muslims Out of Islam, M.A. Khan, editor of Islam Watch and author of the recent book Islamic Jihad, discusses his own journey with Bill Warner:

I was one such liberal/moderate Muslim.  When 9/11 occurred, I felt that the attack was rather justified because of the United States' unjust policies toward the Palestinians.  I was lucky, I should say, that I was already involved in some internet groups that were critical of Islam.  But after the 9/11 attacks, as critical analysis of Islam, the Quran and hadiths flourished dramatically, I became a defender of Islam for quite some time.  I continued to resist looking into the basic texts of Islam, the Quran, Sunnah and Muhammad's biographies for 2-3 years.  But I eventually read them, and I was shattered and frustrated with myself.  I was ashamed because the Quran reads like a manual of unconditional war against non-Muslims, Muhammad was one of the most horrible, if not the worst, human being in the history of mankind.  And I had believed that Islam was the most perfect and peaceful religion, a perfect code to human life, for 35+ years of my life.  Emphasis mine.

This reminds me of Hugh Fitzgerald's question:

If one really knew what Islam contained, as not all Muslims born or raised in the West may quite realize, then how could any decent person remain a Muslim?

Personally, I am not at all sure that willful ignorance is susceptible to shame.  What's really frightening is that the true believers are perfectly well aware of the basic tenets of Islam.  Stronger measures than mere shame will be necessary.
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Postmodern Cops & Robbers

Have you seen the CBS police drama Flashpoint?

It is set in Toronto and follows a SWAT-like police team.  Each episode is based on an incident and the events leading up to it.  The show is well done and actually enjoyable, but this is not meant to be a review of the show.

Unlike modern police procedurals like CSI and Law & Order, and definitely unlike cop shows of days-gone-by, there are no bad guys in Flashpoint.  Only victims.  By placing the perpetrator in context, the show’s creators hope to demonstrate that he, too, is a mere victim.

What separates Flashpoint from its predecessors is the gray between black and white.  We all know it is there, has always been there, but this show is the first that I can remember that is less about the good guys and the bad guys, and all about the gray.

That is to say, Flashpoint is a cop show that only a postmodern sophisticate could appreciate.  Really. I can hear them now:  Well actually, I only watch the latest productions of Austen and Brontë on Masterpiece Theater myself.  But, if you commoners insist on watching cops & robbers, of course, context is everything.

And well, who can argue with that?

The problem is that the creators of Flashpoint have replaced the terribly passé concept of motive with a modern (and no doubt they would argue, more comprehensive) attitude towards context.  Thereby, mostly also removing the concepts of good and bad in the process.

Like society in general, the show loses something in this transition.  It is certainly old-fashioned to point out that some things are right and some things are wrong.  I know, call me simple-minded.  But, it does not really matter why you flew planes into those buildings killing thousands of innocents.  Likewise, even in the fantasy world of television, it does not really matter why you are holding a gun on that woman.

Geez, how I long for Dragnet.
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Content Wants to be Free?

News last week that The New York Times is considering a five dollar monthly fee for access to its website.  I do not understand why newspapers constantly complain about the internet and yet continue to give their expensively-produced content away for free.  I would love to think that most people are like me and would never pay for such biased news coverage.  But they are not.  Many people and many opinion leaders love The Times.

One often reads that content should be free, wants to be free, on the internet.  A few years back Michael Kinsley pointed out that content was free long before the internet age.  And I have little doubt that this will ultimately prove true for opinion.

But hard news gathering, regardless of how well it's done, is not free.  To pretend otherwise is foolish.  While advertising paid the freight for print, apparently it is not, yet, capable of doing so online.
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Outrage: The NC Turnpike Authority

Look at the above map (click on it for greater detail).  The people in the northern half of Wake County drive free-of-charge on the lovely I-540.  The people in the southern half of the same county get the North Carolina Turnpike Authority and a toll road for the same privilege on an as-yet unbuilt road.

If a toll road is what it takes to complete 540, while debatable, so be it.  But the people in Apex, Cary, Holly Springs, Fuquay-Varina, and Garner should not be forced to pay for transportation provided free-of-charge to North Raleigh, Wake Forest, and Knightdale.  If a turnpike authority is what it takes to complete I-540, fine.  But ALL users should pay equally.

Now my esteemed colleagues at the Raleigh News and Observer will point out, that in North Carolina, it is illegal to retroactively designate any road a toll road.  And therefore, sadly, we are unable to re-classify the northern half of I-540 a toll road.

That's their excuse.

No mention that any law can be changed.  Or, that the good voters of southern Wake County supported an outer loop of full circumference, not a free-ride for their north county neighbors.

Journalists at work.  Your newspaper at work.  Our government at work!

Now I am not really proposing that any of I-540 be turned into a toll road.  We all pay taxes, the government should do it's job.  But this should be done fairly and in good faith.

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English Language Mania

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Dogs and Statuary in Islam

Hugh Fitzgerald explains Muslim reaction to dogs on the Jihad Watch website:

A recent story in the Reading Evening Mail describes a 71-year-old blind Englishman and cancer sufferer who was asked to get off a bus because of the hysterical reaction to his seeing-eye dog by some Muslims on the bus....

The hatred of dogs is not rational.  It is simply based on the slavish acceptance of Muhammad’s strictures, in a well-known Hadith, in which he is reported to have said:  I will not enter a house in which there are statues and dogs.

This is a strange, and even mysterious coupling of two items deemed haram:  Statues and dogs.  Why, one may ask?  I think I know the reason.  Statues, of course, were to be found in homes of Christians, and if those statues are clearly declared to be haram, and if Muslims are told that Muhammad, the Perfect Man (al-insan al-kamil) will not enter a house with statues, then no Muslim would do so either.  That would be one bright line to distinguish Muslims from the Christians whose lands they conquered, and it would be one way to impose on those Muslims the duty not to become too friendly with Christians, not to enter their houses where there might still be statuary.  And if Christians, in order to allow the members of the ruling Muslim class, to enter their houses, which might for those Christians be a desirable thing (they would need to curry favor with the Muslims who now ruled over them) they might find themselves more willing to themselves do away with statues and icons of every kind.

But why the warning against dogs?  It is likely...that because dogs were prized by Zoroastrians, and treated with great affection and reverence, Muslims would want especially to distance themselves from the same practice, even to hold up dogs as objects of hysterical hatred.  In so doing, they would again, as with Christians and statuary, clearly distinguish the superior Muslims and their practices from those of the inferior non-Muslims, in this case represented by Zoroastrians.

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On Moderate Islam

I just finished Bruce Bawer's new book, Surrender.  Let me give you a small taste:

While there are such things as moderate and liberal Christianity, there is no such thing as a moderate or liberal Islam.  Yes, there are millions of good-hearted individuals who identify themselves as Muslims and who have no enmity in their hearts for their non-Muslim neighbors and coworkers.  Some of these Muslims are religiously observant, some are not; but their moderation is not an attribute of the brand of Islam to which they officially subscribe but is, rather, a measure of their own individual character.

Almost all of them are moderate or liberal not because they subscribe to a less conservative interpretation of their faith, but because they have chosen to put a certain distance between their own religious thought and practice and the strict tenets of institutional Islam.

As a rule, then, a moderate Muslim doesn't see extremist Muslims as getting their religion wrong in quite the same way that, say, a liberal Episcopalian might feel that a conservative Southern Baptist has gotten Christianity wrong; such a Muslim, rather, even though he deeply abhors the actions of his violent coreligionists, may well be unable to shake off the feeling that they're more dedicated to Islam than he is.  The result:  A profound reluctance to criticize.

The fact remains that if there are indeed millions of moderate or even liberal Muslims out there, the great majority of them tend to keep an extraordinarily low profile with regard to their moderation or liberalism; and when push comes to shove (as it has with increasing frequency in recent years), few will speak up against Muslim extremists.  I am reminded of a previous post quoting Sam Harris.

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Left versus Right

Public political discussion is most often driven from the Left.  Why?

Young, smart left-of-center types flock to government, academia, and journalism because they sincerely believe that these professions are the best way to contribute to society.  Moreover, these professions garner the greatest respect from their left-of-center peers.  These individuals have what Thomas Sowell describes as an unconstrained vision of what society could become given the correct leadership and direction.  And they want to be a part of it.

Young, smart right-of-center types are more likely to join the business world, particularly small business, and later entrepreneurial endeavors.  Do they sincerely believe that this is the best way to contribute to society?  Do they think about this question at all?  It does not matter, because whatever their reasons, they join the vast productive engine of our society.  That part of society that pays for everything.

And there they often disappear from public political discussion.  Sure, they might join the chamber of commerce.  But for the most part, they do not take an active role in politics.  Unlike journalists and academics they do not make a lot of noise.  They just quietly go about their business of creating wealth for our society.

Of course there are exceptions to this rule.  Big business attracts left-of-center types seeking secure employment, stability, and corporate welfare.  And, there are indeed talented journalists, academics, and public servants from the Right.  But these career choices go against the grain, and thus, draw smaller numbers.

This is why political commentary, as delivered by journalists and academics is most often disingenuous.  The Left fields its large A team, and the Right fields, well, something substantively less, both qualitatively and quantitatively.  For every Charles Krauthammer, there are ten Paul Krugmans.  And Doctor Krauthammer did not set out to become a pundit, but rather fell into the field some time after leaving Harvard Medical School.  As a practical matter, it’s any number of smart left-of-center pundits from Krugman to Michael Kinsley versus the bombastic Rush Limbaugh.  No contest.

This situation contributes, in no small part, to the leftward drift of our society.  In the public discourse, there is simply no relative counterweight to the left-of-center point of view.

They win by default.
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Bailout Journal: Newspaper Edition

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Hans Rosling on Economic History

200 years that changed the world

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Fjordman on Muslims and Hitler

From The Brussels Journal:

Why Muslims Like Hitler, but Not Mozart

In 2005, Hitler’s autobiography Mein Kampf was among the top bestsellers in Turkey, behind a book about a Turkish national hero detonating a nuclear bomb in Washington D.C.  Adolf Hitler remains widely popular in many other Islamic countries, too.  At the same time, Turkish PM Erdogan stressed that Islamophobia must be treated as a crime against humanity.  It is banned by law to discuss the Armenian genocide in Turkey, a genocide that allegedly inspired the Nazis in their Holocaust against Jews.

Despotism comes quite natural to Islamic culture.  When confronted with the European tradition, many Muslims freely prefer Adolf Hitler to Rembrandt, Michelangelo or Beethoven.  Westerners don’t force them to study Mein Kampf more passionately than Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa or Goethe’s Faust; they choose to do so themselves.  Millions of (non-Muslim) Asians now study Mozart’s piano pieces.  Muslims, on the other hand, like Mr. Hitler more, although he represents one of the most evil ideologies that have ever existed in Europe.  The fact that they usually like the Austrian Mr. Hitler more than the Austrian Mr. Mozart speaks volumes about their culture.

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Voice Mail Death Watch

Farhad Manjoo on voice mail:

Voice mail is one of the most inefficient, socially awkward, and least user-friendly means of communication out there....

If the voice-mail leavers in your life are anything like those in mine, there's often no great reward for getting through your messages, either.  Guess you're not there. Call me back.  That message might have made sense in the days of home answering machines, when the main function of voice mail was to let someone know who you were and that you'd called—both things our phones now tell automatically.  On the rare chance that you do get an important voice mail, your first move is to transfer the information to some more permanent medium—say, ink and paper.  Unlike just about every other mode of electronic communication today, after all, voice mail can't be searched.

And don't spin me on how voice mail is somehow inherently warmer and more human than e-mail.  Speaking into a dead phone has always seemed unnatural.  That's why we stammer, ramble on, leave awkward pauses.  I submit that whatever finally makes voice mail obsolete will make us all sound far more human—and a little more polished at that.

My personal issue with voice mail is the longer messages.  I always think, what does the caller expect me to do, take notes?  The answer of course is, yes some of them do actually expect that.  Screw that, just send me an email.

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DC School Vouchers

Barack Obama and the DC School Voucher Program

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Who'd Be Female Under Islamic Law?

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown writes in The Independent:

I am a Muslim woman and, like my late mother, free, independent, sensuous, educated, liberal, contrary and confrontational when provoked, both feminine and feminist.  I style and colour my hair, wear lovely things and perfumes, appear on public platforms with men who are not related to me, shake their hands, embrace some I know well, take care of my family.

I defend Muslims persecuted by their enemies and their own kith and kin. I pray, fast, give to charity and try to be a decent human being.  I also drink wine and do not lie about that, unlike so many other good Muslims.  I am the kind of Muslim woman who maddens reactionary Muslim men and their asinine female followers.  What a badge of honour.

I am aware that my words will help confirm the pernicious prejudices that fester in the minds of those who despise Islam.  Yet to conceal or excuse the violations would be to condone and encourage them.  There have been enlightened times when some Muslim civilisations honoured and cherished females.  This is not one of them.  Across the West – for a host of reasons – millions of Muslims are embracing backward practices.  In the UK young girls – some so young that they are still in push chairs – are covered up in hijabs.  Disgracefully, there are always vocal Muslim women who seek to justify honour killings, forced marriages, inequality, polygamy and childhood betrothals.  Why are large numbers of Muslim men so terrorised by the female body and spirit?  Why do Muslim women encourage this savage paranoia?

I look out of my study at the common and see a wife fully burkaed on a sunny day.  She sits still.  Her children and husband run around, laughing, playing cricket.  She sits still, dead, buried, a ghost.  She is complicit in her own degradation, as are countless others.  Their acquiescence in a free democracy is a crime against their sisters who have no such choices in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

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Hitchens on C-SPAN

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Arlen Specter Switches Parties

Arlen Specter is the latest U.S. senator to switch parties.  Nothing wrong with that.  These days, with Rush Limbaugh leading the Republicans, who can blame him?  But, he reminds us that there is an honorable way to do it, and as he chose, a dishonorable way.

Like it or not, any politician running on a party ticket owes a duty to complete his or her term as a member of that party.  A duty to the party and to the voters.  If he or she believes that they can no longer represent the voters through the party, then they should resign first, then join another party, and then stand for reelection.

The fact is, like most national politicians, Specter stands for the only principle he knows:  Getting reelected.

Update:  David Broder on Specter the Defector:

The one consistency in the history of Arlen Specter has been his willingness to do whatever will best protect and advance the career of Arlen Specter.

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