THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

Columnist James Hudnall opines on the need to snuff out this miserable house called political correctness. His language may seem terse in places, but his arguments stand on their own two feet. Free speech must be protected that liberty might survive.

Of course, that colorful spate called "hate speech legislation" is a completely different box of crayons...

IN THE EARLY 20th century Marxism seemed like a good idea to many of the poor and downtrodden the world over. It hadn’t yet resulted in the untimely deaths of more people than all the wars of the 20th century combined.

Even so, radicals then were as annoying and crazed as radicals now. So the people weren’t universally jumping on their bandwagon. The Marxists couldn’t flip governments without the masses. So they worked on a system to undermine unity in society. The old adage “United we stand, divided we fall” was on their mind. They had to divide the people in order to tear society apart and remake it their way. Thus, political correctness was born.

This documentary does an excellent job of telling its story. PC is designed by German Marxists of the Frankfurt School to destroy Western culture.

It should come as no surprise the the destruction of the family is one of its goals. And as it gained in prominence, its goals have been realized. The polarization of racial groups, and even of
the sexes is another.

That’s plenty of reason to see it die a horrible death. Marxists have murdered many times more people than the Nazis. They have destroyed the livelihoods of people the world over and imprisoned many millions in gulags and work camps. The last thing we want to do is let them win here or anywhere else.

While it may seem communism is dead, communism, socialism, fascism are all part of a many headed hydra called statism. These are political systems which are all about empowering the state as much as possible. They name they go under now is “progressive.”

Many progressives on the ground think they are fighting for equal rights and social justice. The progressive elites know better. They want power and control over people’s lives. Political correctness is a tool to accomplish these goals.

It should come as no surprise that the oldest Marxist states threw off Marxism because it doesn’t work, and went with their own version of capitalism. Almost every single former Soviet state went gleefully to capitalism. Russia even has a flat tax. That’s a pretty sad comment on where we are right now when their tax system is simple and ours is a bureaucratic nightmare.

Political Correctness is hated by just about anyone you meet. The only people driving it are leftists and government bureaucrats, who earn a living from it. Pardon my redundancy.

Here are five good reasons Political Correctness must die.

1. It’s censorship: Point blank, that’s what it is. It’s used mainly by people on the left to attack people on the right, but not the other way around. When Miss California, Carrie Prejean, politely said she thought marriage should be between a man and a woman, the PC thugs proceeded to try to destroy her life. But when Obama said it he was elected president. It’s used to accuse people of racism even when there is no racism involved, It’s not only a scare tactic, but also a career-destroying move. And it’s a thuggish weapon of intimidation.

2. It’s bigotry disguised as manners: You may think all those touchy-feely names they come up with for various special interest groups are more sensitive and empowering than the “mean” names of the past, but most of them are patronizing and they segregating. When you separate people into classes, it’s creating a kind of caste system. History has shown us that caste systems are used to suppress and marginalize people by putting them in special groups. The insidious thing about PC is it claims to treat people better when it really does the opposite. It implies that people in these groups are somehow lesser and weaker and must be “protected”, presumably by the government, and then implies that they are not being treated well by other groups (namely white males) which is an inherently racist argument.

3. It’s an attempt at mind control: The goal of PC always has been to segregate people into classes, destroy the family by marginalizing and polarizing people from traditional values and culture. It also tries to rebrand things to force people to think along a different path. You might think that’s a good thing if it makes people more tolerant. While our culture is more tolerant than it was in the past there is no proof or evidence PC had anything to do with it. The fact is, lying to people (which PC does) and trying to destroy a culture by effectively brainwashing people is downright…

4. Evil: The textbook definition of evil is that which is willfully and maliciously harmful to others. What else do you call something that is used to commit so much harm against people and a society as a whole. It has become a rampant monster that destroys lives, careers, and society. It’s used by creepy, selfish people to hurt others. Race-baiters we all know and despise have been using PC for years to try to extort money from business and government by making up racist claims. That’s nothing but a form of extortion.

5. Why should we do what some faceless creeps tell us? Most of the time we were told what the new term for something is. In the ’60s we were told Negro is not acceptable anymore. We should say black even though Negro is merely the Spanish word for black. Then in the ’70s we were told to use “Afro-American” then later “African-American” even though that term is not only a mouthful it makes no sense. A lot of black Americans are simply Americans, many others are from the Caribbean. Or they are mixed race like our president. Who makes up these lame terms and why should we start saying them? Because “we’re supposed to” isn’t a reason, that’s more of a threat. Who says we have to? Why shouldn’t we say steward or stewardess instead of flight attendant? Because “they” say so? Why should we take directions from faceless entities who tell us what we can say? Why can’t we say whatever we want? Most of the terms these people come up with are retarded mentally challenged. See, they hyphenate you to separate you from the rest of us, We’re all part of the same country, but they want to make you feel aggrieved. Angry and unhappy people are easier to sway with propaganda.

DELIVERING AMERICA FROM EVIL

Dear President Obama,
 
You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me.  
 
You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you.
 
You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and  your upscale lifestyle and housing  with no visible signs of support.    
 
You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America and culturally you are not an American.
 
You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll.
 
You scare me because you have never had military experience, thus don't understand it at its core.
 
You scare me because you lack humility  and 'class', always  blaming others.   
 
You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned yourself  with radical extremists who hate America and you  refuse to publicly denounce  these radicals who wish to see America fail.
 
You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the 'blame America' crowd and deliver this message abroad.
 
You scare me because you want to change  America to a European style country where the government sector dominates instead of the private sector. 
 
You scare me because you want to replace our health care system with a government  controlled one. 
 
You scare me because you prefer 'wind mills' to responsibly capitalizing on our own vast oil, coal and shale reserves.
 
You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose that lays the golden egg which provides the highest standard of living in the world.
 
You scare me because you have begun to use 'extortion' tactics against certain banks and corporations.
 
You scare me because your own political party shrinks from challenging you on your wild and irresponsible spending proposals.
 
You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consider opposing points of view from intelligent people.
 
You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both omnipotent and omniscient.
 
You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything you do.
 
You scare me because you demonize and want to silence  the Limbaughs, Hannitys, O'Relllys and Becks who offer opposing, conservative  points of view.
 
You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing. 
 
Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.
 
—Lou Pritchett

This was sent to me by a very dear person I have known my entire life. Evidence is piling up that our president is not doing all he can do to reach out to America, as he has often promised. Despite all the campaign rhetoric now safely in the past, it seems there are clearly still two Americas...

The note was prefaced simply, containing two earlier "first name only" signatures, which I have omitted here for clarity:

Hi, I really agree with this. Just wanted you to know how I think. You do not have to agree. This is still a free country. I just hope it stays that way. I foresee a time when he wants to be elected president for life.

Think about every line here, the first seven you have heard before. Remember I am truly an independent that is ticked off of both sides. Wherein lies the problem with most folks they want to align themselves with one or the other.

Hang in there and read every line, not with disgust but open consideration of reality. Those who disagree with most of what is said, I would like for you to sock it to me and tell how I am way off, et cetera...

As you can read, this person(s) who asked for rebuttals "socked to her" is obviously outside the usual spheres of influence the chattering classes dominate, where there are plenty of contrary opinions as well as similar observations. So what we have here Mr. President is a colossal failure to communicate. Step away from those teleprompters, and show us who you are, fairly and squarely, sir. America has a right to know. It's all there in the US Constitution, our founding document as a nation of laws and aspirations, a document of which we recall you are a purported scholar. Sir, you owe America that much because we heard you swear on your own word AND OURS that peculiarly American oath on Inauguration Day...

CITIZEN GRIPE #783

"Grimy jobs that required little education would be replaced with new high tech service jobs requiring university degrees."

ALL THAT DOES IS ELEVATE to necessity a bunch of phony college professors living lavish lifestyles from counterfeit disciplines. Most of them are communists laughing their asses off at the taxes we pay for their so-called service. Very few actually teach: instead they "do research", into such shockingly needful subjects as Native American studies, Black studies, Women studies, Marxism (of course), writing Bowdlerized, fake histories, and let us not forget the all-important studies of the sexual habits of everything that could possibly have sex—really important stuff, that!

None of it is worth a hoot on the open market, but we're supposed to finance their precious "interests" because they are "intellectuals", and you know they are intellectuals because—well—they say so. They hardly ever cease saying so. Phooey!

Any time now we can stop insisting that every living human being go to college. Most jobs require that you show up, be willing to learn, get along with others, and keep your nose clean; you can learn that in kindergarten. Corporations can teach the rest on the job, and you can spend your spare time looking for an honest history text so that you can discover things for yourself, like "there is no free lunch": Real History proves it.

Trying to replace real, productive work with collectivism is what keeps banana republics poor and in the grip of a few politicians and their buddies. That's where we're headed.

Thanks! I needed that.

IS IT TIME AGAIN FOR NATIONAL RATIONING?

Well, I was not yet born, but I know my American history better than a good portion of those living in the nation today. And history speaks of the time when one just could not stroll into the market to buy certain items whenever one wished. There was a "no excuses" policy called food and gasoline rationing in place. Pearl Harbor changed the pace and purpose of every American. Almost overnight the economy shifted to war production. Consumer goods now took a back seat to military production as nationwide rationing began almost immediately.

The word on the street was, "There's a war on, you know."

Everyone understood, and most dealt with the new restrictions with patriotic fervor and civic pride.

The news today is grim. Food shortages worldwide, an obese population nationally. Spiraling gasoline prices. The falling dollar. An unstable stock market. Global warming. A public bored with consumer habits, itching for a defining spirit of purpose, a purpose greater than oneself, one favoring the nation (or as some might put it, the world) rather than the individual. Could it be that the Bush administration made his critical error in winning American hearts and minds in suggesting that "business as usual" was the tact to take while he conducted his war on terror.

There's no answer to that question, but rationing could again be on America's plate. China, Russia, Iran, Al-Qeada. All in the news, and seemingly wanted our national head on a platter. Our enemies are great and persistent. Perhaps we should all reacquire a sense of political humility. Perhaps, despite the initial pain and rebrokering of a system already teetering on the brink of collapse, our financial leadership should be seriously considering how a well-regulated regimen of product rationing would help steer this country back to the mindset that will prepare us for what is certainly in store.

Such a tactic would certainly put a heavy spray of starch into the britches of both the control-freaked Leftists and the grab-grubby Rightists. That would be fun to watch. Now what was I just writing about F.A Hayek?

MONITORING THE HABITUAL LEFT

From the Frank Files...

"So the campus Left is placing itself squarely on the side of those who want to implement the institutionalized oppression of women and religious minorities sanctioned by Islamic Sharia law, who deny the freedom of conscience, and want to impose upon the world a supremacist and totalitarian code".

The political Left alliance with IslamoFascism is very similar to the Nazi-Soviet alliance of 1939. Most of the so-called Communists at the time considered the West the enemy (for demented ideological reasons) and even Stalin refused to believe Churchill when Churchill warned Stalin that the Nazis were going to attack the USSR on June 22, 1941. The British intelligence had Ultra which broke the Nazi code and an intelligence agent in Germany named "Lucy".

The left will be devoured by IslamoFascism as was Stalin in 1941 and only the "liberal" Western Democracies will save them from themselves. History is repeating itself here.

The political Left's extreme is motivated by ideology, as were the Communists who allied themselves with the Fascists in the late 1930's-early 40's. There was actually a leftist group picketing in front of the White House on June 22, 1941, carrying placards protesting Lend-Lease and any American involvement in WW2, protesting any aid to England. The same protesters (the next day-6/23/1941) had placards (I wish I had the film handy) calling for US involvement in the war and aid to Britain and the USSR. We are dealing with similar demented Leftists and Islamofascists in this matter. There is no reasoning with such people. It's all about "beliefs" with them.

Thanks Frank. Now for some fine tuning...

Well I don't know why I came here tonight,
I got the feeling that something ain't right,
I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair,
And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs,
Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you.

Yes I'm stuck in the middle with you,
And I'm wondering what it is I should do,
It's so hard to keep this smile from my face,
Losing control, yeah, I'm all over the place,
Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right,
Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.

Well you started out with nothing,
And you're proud that you're a self made man,
And your friends, they all come crawlin,
Slap you on the back and say,
Please.... Please.....

Trying to make some sense of it all,
But I can see that it makes no sense at all,
Is it cool to go to sleep on the floor,
'Cause I don't think that I can take anymore
Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right,
Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.

Well you started out with nothing,
And you're proud that you're a self made man,
And your friends, they all come crawlin,
Slap you on the back and say,
Please.... Please.....

Well I don't know why I came here tonight,
I got the feeling that something ain't right,
I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair,
And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs,
Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you,
Yes I'm stuck in the middle with you,
Stuck in the middle with you.

—Stealer's Wheel, 1972

GUILDED HORSE FEATHERS

When times seem throttled by events we do not comprehend, many of us tend to bury ourselves in other pursuits or distractions, going merrily upon our accustomed way. This is no way to be preparing our nation for the greatest threats our nation has ever faced. With technological advancements and merging global economies contributing to a matrix of diabolical consequences should one or several key dominoes begin to fail, the West must look clearly into the mist, and critically sort out the real from the imagined. This is no time for childhood or beauty queen fantasies.

The Left is adept at pretending that the "right-wing" in America is practically the same as the "right-wing" in Europe. But they are entirely different.

Author and historian Garry Wills has made the point that the right in America is anti-monarchical, anti-authoritarian in its root and on its extreme is almost anarchistic. The libertarian views are reflective of that. The right in America can really be traced to 1776. The right-wing in Europe is rooted in monarchy and is authoritarian".

Of course, when the right wing becomes part and parcel the corner of authoritarian voices, it begins to share in common more with the increasingly totalitarian Left, those soldiers of political correctness, whose aim to speak with a single "righteous" voice pits them against those rugged individualists who consider themselves quite capable of discernment over issues which influence or exert control over their own lives, and choose to voice dissention within the context of those times, or even from among all times, in the spirit of 1776, from a position that a strict constitutionalist of the hard right might favor.

On the other hand, the promise that same rugged and even somewhat radical individual may exhibit strong tendencies for empathy and compassion while choosing to think and act locally in most cases, is often a good ally to those liberals who seek redress of grievances against the harsh realities brought upon the many or the few by this or that specific heavy handed policy or measure of the Right. And the converse is true, as well. Liberalism oftens tags itself as the party of progressive thinking. Frankly, quite often, runaway liberalism is nothing but regressive and transgressive activity masquerading as humane policy.

Today's political parties offer no hope of elbow room for such an individualist. The political soup is poisoned and polarizing. When rights become set aside privileges in a twinkling of a cobra's eye by political gerrymandering whether done in the name of the Left or the name of the Right, something has gone wrong in the process. Of course the historical record shows that politics has never been a walk in the park. Today's political climate, while steamy, is not especially free of precedent or parallels. Intense struggle is always the norm; thus, the rippling blood and guts of political life has usually cautioned all but the worst provacateurs and the liliest of Pollyannas from entering political life.

As someone who was once elected to serve 26,000 Washington residents, as the ANC chairperson, I know first hand what a load of horse feathers the political game inspires in its captors. The suspicions of the electorate are usually valid while the maxims of the pundits tend to be greatly exaggerated, no matter what point is currently being postulated. One of our founding lights, Tom Paine, rightly walked away from the political arena after refusing the powered wig in vogue at the founding of this new republic, the beacon of hope for the world, as he once wrote.

Unfortunately, America still accepts and arrogantly touts that description of itself while playing an entirely different game on the world landscape today. Yes, times do change, but times have always been dangerous. Particularly in times of war, and in times preparing nations for total war.

It's still a smoke and mirrors game. Each side withholds evidence while arguing extreme positions. Despite past differences and pigheadeness on many a life or death issue, we the people have managed to stake our children and grandchildren proudly into the future, generation after generation. And for this we should not feel ashamed but healthy and thankful. But strategies for global survival seem particularly dangerous in these specific times. Indeed, as in the times of Dickens, these are the best of times and the worst of times. Every glance beneath the sheen of favor and status is observed a crumbling, rotting, core. Infrastructure of every kind is aging, superficial, and woefully neglected as the focus of Western life has shifted in great numbers to the mad rush of this constitutionally guaranteed personal pursuits of happiness and grabbing for riches and leisure from top to bottom, seizing the nation like a deadly fever.

So let's be plain. A polarized population weakens the House of America, and our enemies are watching, mapping strategies, recruiting soldiers, counting the hours. Consent of the governed? In a fifty-fifty red state, blue state split? Hardly.

THE TASK BEFORE EARNEST AMERICANS

by Hugh Fitzgerald of Jihad Watch.

Islam is an all-encompassing belief-system. It is quite different from those other monotheisms which, for obvious reasons while they are still a small group in the West, Muslims like to have "so very much" in common—that "three abrahamic faiths" pitch that once went over well, but nowadays appears to attract only the most muddle-headed or those who, while supposedly being Christian or Jewish clergymen, have brought their art of self-preening or cravenness to such a level that they become Defenders of the Faith, that Faith being Islam.

But Infidels can no longer be stopped. Once they begin to realize that the texts of Islam are not hermetic, and can be studied, they will study them. Once they realize that a knowledge of classical Arabic is not essential to learning about Islam, not least because 80% of the world’s Muslims know not a bit of Arabic, classical or otherwise, and that even many Arabs have difficulty understanding classical Arabic and certainly the text of the Qur’an (see Christoph Luxenberg on the 20% of the Qur’an that is inexplicable, in his view, until one recognizes an Ur-text of Syriac—that is, the Aramaic of Edessa), they will dare to open them. So Infidels are now free to read the immutable texts of Islam—Qur'an, hadith, and Sira—read, and reread, and study with growing understanding, but not necessarily growing delight or pleasure. They can find out about the interpretative doctrine of “naskh” or “abrogation,” by which—as in the common law—the texts deemed later cancel out, or abrogate, the texts deemed to have been set down earlier. And those later texts, presumably from the “Medinan” period of Muhammad’s existence, are far harsher than the softer, “Meccan” verses from the period when Islam was still weak.

Infidels can do so many things. They can find out, as apparently George Bush was incapable of finding out or being told, why Qur’an 5.32 cannot conceivably be understood without the context of the succeeding verse, 5.33. They can learn the real meaning, the meaning that Islam and Muslims assign to the seemingly benign Qur’anic observation that “there is no compulsion in religion.” They can find out what is Halal and what Haram in Islam. They can find out what Muslims are taught to think of sculpture, of paintings depicting living creatures, of music. They can find out what Muslims think of free and skeptical inquiry, and of the possibility of someone born into Islam being permitted to choose for himself whether to remain a Muslim, or to abandon that faith for another, or for no faith at all. They can find out. They can find out the details of Muhammad’s life, and consider what is the likely effect of those details on Muslims who are taught to regard Muhammad, a warrior who took part in 78 military campaigns, 77 of them offensive, as the Model of Conduct, the Perfect Man—uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil—for all Muslims, and for all time. Consider the implications of that in light of the beheading of the bound prisoners of the Banu Qurayza, the attack on the inoffensive Jewish farmers of the Khaybar Oasis, the satisfaction taken when he heard of the assassinations of Abu Akaf and Asma bint Marwan, the “treaty-making model” of Al Hudaibiyyah, and of course the business with little Aisha.

The Qur’anic text is available online, a click away, with several different translations set out synoptically. Much of the Hadith is too, and so is the Sira. More and more studies by the great Western students of Islam, from the period of genuinely free and uninhibited study, roughly 1860 to 1960, are being gathered into sourcebooks (such as Bostom’s The Legacy of Jihad) or republished (especially in accessibly cheap Indian editions). More and more people have uncovered what the Great of the Past had to say about Islam, writing as they did in a period when no punches had to be pulled, and one could speak or write one’s mind. What did that great religious reformer John Wesley write about Islam? And the most learned of nineteenth-century American statesmen, John Quincy Adams? What did that wise student of men and events, Alexis De Tocqueville, write about Islam, based on his wide knowledge, including his observations in Algeria? What did Gladstone have to say about the Turks, and about their role in Europe, and about the Bulgarian Wars? What did Winston Churchill, with his knowledge of history, say about Muslims and Islam?

And above all, we know have the phenomenon of “defectors” from Islam, the apostates from Islam, who in the Western world are no longer fearful, and are willing to speak from their own lifetimes of experience of being born into Islam and then choosing to abandon it, some for Christianity (Walid Shoebat, Nonie Darwish), and some to be resolute freethinkers, such as Ibn Warraq, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ali Sina, Wafa Sultan, and so many more. Some have been Iranians, some Pakistanis, some Arabs, some from still other backgrounds. Muslim spokesmen would prefer that you pay as little attention to these keen observers as possible, and attempt on every occasion to shut them up or shout them down. But up or down, those Muslim spokesmen and enforcers have not succeeded, for when someone such as Ibn Warraq writes Why I Am Not a Muslim and Ayaan Hirsi Ali writes her own stirring testimony in Infidel, or when Ali Sina, with a growing army of fellow apostates, conducts his own lucid campaign from the heights of www.faithfreedom.org, Muslims in this country cannot, as they would in a minute in a Muslim country, shut such efforts down. Thus we, the Infidels, are the beneficiaries of such valuable witnesses, such indispensable temoignage.

It seems a century ago that we were willing to engage in those phony “dialogues” which always end up being sinister apologies for Islam, with the non-Muslim clergymen willingly or unwillingly inveigled into participating into a farce of supposedly symmetrical fault-finding, a farce that relies heavily on Infidel ignorance of Islam, and willingness to assume that if some belief-system is called a “religion” then of course it must be a force for good, must be beyond criticism, and only that “handful of extremists” are not good. But “extreme” about what? If Islam is in its essence so unthreatening, so peaceful, so tolerant, so good, then why should someone who is fanatically in favor of that something good be a threat to Infidels?

Those “interfaith candlelight ceremonies” that were all the rage just after 9/11/2001 ring hollow today, especially with the list of all those Muslim clerics who appeared to utter all kinds of soothing words, and then were discovered in the past, or at the same time, or later on, to have been heard, even recorded, making quite different statements when they thought no non-Muslims were around. It has been quite a revelation, too, to discover the Islamic websites that counsel Muslims in how to talk to Infidels, telling exactly the things that should be said and the topics that should be carefully avoided, even explaining that one should “let the Sisters talk” if the subject is Islam and the Treatment of Women. And there are those Muslim websites that inform parents just how to wangle special treatment—prayer rooms and suchlike—from teachers and principals. It’s down to a science, all written out. And eventually someone is going to put all that advice for fellow Muslims together, and publish it, but as a warning to, and for the edification of, Infidels.

No Infidels need any longer accept the word of tireless apologists as to what those texts say, or what their "meaning" is, especially when we have all been treated to example after example of Tu-Quoque-and-Taqiyya, sometimes by omission, sometimes by deliberate misinterpretation for the limitlessly naive. Furthermore, we have the long historical record of Jihad-conquest, and the texts, written by Muslims themselves, on the subject of the necessity of Jihad, and the rules of Jihad—here again, see Bostom's sourcebook, The Legacy of Jihad. We have 1350 years of such a record, and are entitled to study that record, from Spain in the west to what is present-day Indonesia in the east. We can study how non-Muslim populations slowly or quickly were reduced in size: what happened to the Copts of Egypt? What happened to the Jews and Armenians under Shah Abbas II in Iran? What happened to the Christians and Jews of the Arabian peninsula? What happened to the Christians of North Africa, where Tertullian and St. Augustine once lived? What happened to the Hindus of India under Muslim rule? Was it all wonderful, or is there reason to think that K. S. Lal and other Indian historians are right in their claim that between 60 and 70 million Hindus lost their lives? What was the historical record of Arab Muslims and slavery in Black Africa? Splendid? A tale of Muslim Wilberforces, long predating the English one? When was slavery formerly abolished in Arabia, and why? And is there any evidence of the continuance of slavery in Arab Muslim countries? And is there any evidence that Muslim scholars today have written about the continuing, indeed permanent, legitimacy of slavery, because it was recognized and accepted by Muhammad?

And these are not the only questions that need to be examined, studied, discussed. One wishes to know what happened to the Hindus of Pakistan and Bangladesh. Why did their numbers in the populations of those countries drop so precipitously, while the Muslim population of India has gone up, both relatively and absolutely? What has happened to Buddhists in southern Thailand, and why? What happened to the Christians of East Timor under Muslim rule? What has been happening to the Christians of the Moluccas? Or Iraq? Or Lower Egypt? Or in Lebanon over the past fifty years? What has happened to the French peres blancs and the Italian monks who tried to help the Muslims of Algeria, and for their pains were murdered? What is that history all about? What happened to the Armenians, and why was it that when Turks and Kurds killed those Armenians, they took pleasure in calling them "gavours" (Infidels), and were delighted if Armenian priests and their wives were among the victims, as recorded by eyewitnesses?

And here is yet another question that needs to be considered, to be discussed, to be pondered and not only in the corridors of power. What are the instruments of Jihad? Bush has focused quite monomaniacally on "terror"—as if he cannot bring himself to see the use of the Money Weapon, carefully-targeted campaigns of Da'wa, and of course a demographic conquest that has been openly discussed by Muslims. It has been discussed by Boumedienne at the U.N. in 1974, and by mild-mannered Pakistani accountants in the letters pages of "Dawn" (see that for December 5, 2001 for example). There are Muslim websites where these developments are openly discussed—as they are by all kinds of Muslim posters at this (see "Naseem") and other websites.

Is it illegitimate for inhabitants of the Western or larger non-Muslim world to study these matters, and to raise these issues? Why? Is it illegitimate to discuss the proposition that one has a perfect right to defend the legal and political institutions that one's own society has received as a legacy, that others before one helped to create, over time, and that in every respect are flatly contradicted by what Islam inculcates? Is the individualism of the West, are our individual rights, those enshrined in the Bill of Rights, and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to be simply swept away, or to be subject to incessant attack by the adherents of a collectivist faith who do not believe in free speech, or in freedom of conscience, including the freedom to leave one faith for another, or to have no faith at all? Are these illegitimate questions?

And is it illegitimate to point out how frequently in history states and peoples have felt it necessary to expel others in their midst, and that it is a bit hasty to denounce all such efforts (though many certainly should be denounced), especially when one considers the reasons, the historical context, of the Benes Decree, which was adduced not as a model to follow, but as a case to study and ponder?

We in the West have an obligation to defend a civilizational legacy, even if many of us, individually, have not exactly proved ourselves worthy of it. And that includes considering measures that others have undertaken, to see if they provide lessons, any lessons at all, for us at this point in our endangered history.

And that is hardly illegitimate. It is the very least we should ask of ourselves, and of those who presume to "lead" us, or rather, in the cant of this cant-filled age, presume to "take a leadership role." Many people in this country have gone far beyond their so-called leaders, Democratic and Republican, in their understanding of Islam. And that is a good thing. That is a necessary thing.