M2RB: Deep Purple, "Playboy After Dark," live from the Playboy Mansion, October 1968
Hush, hush
I thought I heard her calling my name now
Hush, hush
She broke my heart but I love her just the same now
Hush, hush
Thought I heard her calling my name now
Hush, hush
I need her loving and I'm not to blame now
I thought I heard her calling my name now
Hush, hush
She broke my heart but I love her just the same now
Hush, hush
Thought I heard her calling my name now
Hush, hush
I need her loving and I'm not to blame now
"Fascism will return to the United States not as right wing ideology, but almost as a quasi-leftist ideology.”
- Irving Louis Horowitz, radical left-wing sociologist
By Bill Siegel
Immediately
following the initial Islamist violence in Egypt and Libya, which has
now spread throughout the Islamic world, the White House and Hillary
Clinton’s State Department blamed a barely seen video that mocked the
Prophet Mohammad. While a mainly compliant media reinforced this notion,
some criticism has hit the public square. In response, the
administration is doubling down on this notion of causation despite
facts demonstrating the Muslim hostilities were pre-planned, tied to
al-Qaeda, timed in part for 9/11, and so forth.
Why? A surface answer would suggest that, as a campaign matter, the
administration is so invested in the notion of an “Arab Spring” that it
can not permit the appearance of failure. President Obama’s foreign
policy itself has centered upon the fantasy that his mere presence is
sufficient to calm the Muslim world. It is easy to imagine the
Axelrod/Plouffe team prancing around the Oval Office demanding that
Americans, not Muslims, be the perpetrators.
A deeper psychological explanation is precisely what Obama has been
well able to manipulate. For decades, the American mind has found
innumerable ways to place itself as the cause of jihadist
activities. The secret behind this maneuver is that it feeds the
illusion that the threat is something we can control. That part of our
minds so desperately frightened by the concept that we could have an
enemy whose singular purpose is our destruction (the “Control Factor”)
has developed an ingenious set of maneuvers in order to restore the
fantasy that we actually can control this threat. As soon as any
evidence of the threat pops up, the Control Factor quickly jumps in to
stabilize the American internal emotional state. By consistently
repeating the causal connection, the administration feeds our deep need.
At bottom, if we caused the violence, we can always change ourselves
and control it.
There is a less-explored explanation for the full-court press on
tying the violence to the film. Obama has cleverly narrowed the
definition of the threat we face to “violent extremists” (and al-Qaeda
in particular). Following the killing of Osama bin Laden, Obama sold his
“gutsy warrior” image in part for re-election purposes, in part to
convey the battle is over. This approach, however, allows Obama,
Clinton, and their press to ignore the more potent levels of threat we
face: that of the civilization jihad (led by the Muslim Brotherhood to
infiltrate all levels of our government and society until enough power
is obtained to transform the U.S. from the inside and establish Shariah
law) and the international institutional jihad (led primarily by the
largest Islamic organization, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation
(OIC), to force similar changes from without). Both jihads are intended
to proceed only as fast as they are able to stay true to their design
and able to appear to the U.S. as gradual as to be non-existent; much
like a frog would perceive slowly boiling water.
A fundamental precept of Shariah law is to forbid any criticism of
Islam or Mohammad, and a major goal of these jihads is to erode our
treasured freedom of expression. If we can not criticize Islam freely we
can not control it; in fact, it will control us. Accordingly, in 2005
the OIC presented its “Ten Year Program of Action” which
institutionalizes notions of “Islamophobia” and “extremism” in order to
install speech restrictions on a global basis, including in the U.S. In
2011, Clinton colluded and co-sponsored Human Rights Council Resolution
16/18, which further institutionalizes “religious intolerance,”
“religious hatred,” and “profiling.”
U.S. law values and permits the right to blaspheme. Justice Clark in
1952 wrote: “[I]t is enough to point out that the state has no
legitimate interest in protecting any or all religions from views
distasteful to them. … It is not the business of government in our
nation to suppress real or imagined attacks upon a particular religious
doctrine.” Justice Frankfurter noted that beliefs “ … dear to one may
seem the rankest ‘sacrilege’ to another,” and added concerning
“sacrilegious” speech:
“[H]istory does not encourage reliance on the
wisdom and moderation of the censor.”
This fairly describes the law as
it sits today.
The relevant tension comes from speech that can be considered to
cause violence. Generally, speech can be civilly actionable if it is
both likely to incite imminent violence and is intended to do so.
Clinton’s 16/18 calls on states, however, to adopt “measures to
criminalize incitement to imminent violence based on religion or
belief.” Clinton took a reservation to 16/18 that the U.S. not be
required to “authorize legislation” or take “other action” that is
“incompatible with the provisions of the Constitution.” Presumably, she
wants to be able to say 16/18 will not conflict with U.S. law.
Maybe, maybe not. The greater concern is the effort to expand U.S.
law and practice to conform to 16/18. The OIC and the Brotherhood have
already successfully pressured for such laws within Europe. The language
of Clinton’s recent public statements appears specifically orchestrated
to comply with other demands of 16/18 including “expressing deep
concern” for “stigmatizing” Muslims and “religious intolerance,”
“condemning hatred” of Muslims, and “speaking out against religious
intolerance, including advocacy of religious hatred that constitutes
incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence.”
These words simultaneously tell the jihadists that the U.S. is playing ball.
While the violence commenced on 9/11, it was more importantly timed
to set the ground for the upcoming UN meetings. The OIC is the largest
voting bloc in the General Assembly. Right on script, Egypt’s prime
minister is reported to have called for the U.S. to “take the necessary
measures” to make sure that insults do not happen and that recompense is
made. Similarly, Saudi Arabia’s senior religious leader is reported to
have called for criminalizing such speech. The many White House meetings
and relationships with Muslim Brotherhood associates and associated
entities appear to have paid off well.
At its core, the effort seeks to more firmly implant into our culture
the narrative that insults to or inflammatory speech against Islam or
Mohammad so enrages Muslims that violence is certain to ensue. The more
this narrative of the “Fragile Muslim” (that Muslims uniquely can not
emotionally handle such outrageous speech to be able to control their
behavior) becomes common “truth,” the more statutes and case law will
embody it and the more easily the jihadists will be able to “evolve” the
rules in their favor. Once the first prong of our law — that speech
against Islam is certain to cause violence — becomes a common notion,
liability or guilt will rest solely on whether a defendant intended to
produce that result.
If that becomes the status of our law, free speech against Islam will
necessarily have disappeared. As a mere procedural matter, no one will
be willing to test a judge or jury on their determination of intent.
Indeed, the likely intention of the FBI in interviewing the filmmaker
that allegedly “caused” the riots is to gain evidence on his intention
to cause violence. If this course is allowed to develop further,
however, the two prongs will implicitly converge. That is, once it
becomes so accepted that such speech causes violence, the intention will
be inferred from the speech itself. At that point, Shariah will have
been established and the Ten Year Program will have been successful.
This alone should be reason enough to prevent any further saturation
of the ridiculous notion that this film (or ones by Geert Wilders or
Theo Van Gogh, or cartoons of the Prophet, or novels by Salman Rushdie)
causes violence. These events should finally convince Americans to cease
to accept responsibility for the behavior of Muslims. They should
finally spell the end of the fantasy of the “Fragile Muslim.”
Furthermore, the difference between the presidential candidates
concerning this trend could not have been better reflected in their
initial statements following the violence. The words coming from Obama
and Clinton shared the same structure: we support fighting “religious
intolerance” but not as a result of violence which we abhor. This
formulation disregards the true conflict, religious tolerance vs.
freedom of expression. Moreso, it is a set-up to return with some
“reasonable” intoned call to bargain restrictions in favor of religious
(read “Islamic”) tolerance in exchange for the cessation of violence
accompanied, perhaps, with some form of reparation/punishment (for
instance the release of the blind sheikh or criminal charges for the
filmmaker). In essence, submission to Islamic extortion.
Candidate Mitt Romney, on the other hand, has no use for “religious
tolerance”; it is simply a canard. Before the Libyan murders, Romney
appropriately attacked a State Department apology for the film. His
later statement also refused to acknowledge any causal connection
between the video and the violence. Rather, his formulation was simple:
violence seeking to erode our constitutional rights, including the
freedom of expression, must be fought firmly.
Given this distinction, along with Obama’s deep saturation with
Muslim Brotherhood associates and associated entities as well as
Clinton’s collusive actions in furtherance of Brotherhood and OIC goals,
our choice this November could not be clearer. If we do not speak up
now, we face losing that right later.
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