Considerettes

The “Cartoon Jihad” has given Europe a chance to reevaluate its values. To what degree should immigrants be assimilated? Newsweek has an article on this topic, but it has an odd title, “The End of Tolerance”. The subheading goes further: “Farewell, multiculturalism. A cartoon backlash is pushing Europe to insist upon its values.” Is this what “tolerance” and “multiculturalism” means, that countries should allow the killings and burnings to continue? Does “tolerance” mean that no set of values is better than another, or that a country can’t insist that people follow its values as expressed in its laws?

It’s this mindset that has turned schools into values-free war zones. The Dutch have seen what kind of war zones have been imported, and how it has been exported to the world. But Newsweek doesn’t want anyone to make value judgements. Instead we get writing like this:

What’s going on here? Weren’t the Dutch supposed to be the nicest people on earth, the most tolerant nation in Europe, a melting pot for minorities and immigrants since the Renaissance? No longer, and in this the Dutch are once again at the forefront of changes in Europe. This time, the Dutch model for Europe is one of multiculturalism besieged, if not plain defunct.

“Be nice and let ‘em in, but be tolerant and don’t judge them when they burn down your towns and kill you over cartoons.” Remember that America was, and still is, a melting pot, and we still generally ask that immigrants accept our shared values, including freedom of the press and religious freedom.

Multiculturalism isn’t being besieged so much as it’s coming in contact with reality. As the saying goes, a conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged.

(Cross-posted at Stones Cry Out, Blogger News Network and Redstate. Comments welcome.)

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This sounds promising.

The Japanese manufacturer Honda is close to winning the race in becoming the first mass car producer to offer a hydrogen- powered fuel cell car.

The company recently announced at the Detroit Motor Show that the Honda FCX Concept vehicle resembled the car it would produce in three to four years time.

Other major car makers have said that it will take between 10 and 15 years to mass produce the first fuel cell vehicle running on hydrogen.

But the FCX Concept, first unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show and also presented in Detroit this month, indicates that Honda has taken a big step forward in the evolution of the technology.

The sooner we come up with an oil alternative the better, and I think the free-market will get it here just fine, without the need for overt government legislation.

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The Blob that Ate Los Angeles!

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Back in June, I talked about J. Matt Barber who got fired from Allstate Insurance for writing an article, on his own time, critical of homosexuality and same-sex marriage from a Christian perspective. Today comes word that there has been a sealed, out-of-court settlement.

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In 6 years, if all trends continue, half the babies born in the UK will be to unmarried mothers. As “progressive” as the UK has been at, among other things, de-emphasizing religious and moral values, this may be a shock, but it’s no surprise.

The number of births outside wedlock exceeds 50 per cent in some parts, including Wales. In the North East, it was 54.1 per cent last year.

In London, where a higher proportion of young mothers are Muslims who adhere to more conservative family values, a third of children were born outside marriage.

Now comes the common sense, but is anyone listening?

The figures have alarmed family campaigners, who say the collapse of marriage could have a serious impact on social structures.

They say that most of the statistical evidence suggests that children brought up by married parents do better than those raised by cohabiting couples or lone parents.

This, of course, will be used by “progressives” to further the idea that same-sex marriage is the answer to this dilemma, but this arrangement is little better than a single parent family, as well-rounded children need both a male and female influence. (Here’s the report on one study, but there are many more.) The commitment in a “same-sex marriage” is better than none, of course, but as the report notes, there is far more that children need than that.

What we have is a slippery slope. While each person or group moving us down may not be working in concert with anyone else farther up the slope, the effect in any case is to have an incremental push over the course of a couple generations to the liberal side of the spectrum. In order to really make “same-sex marriage” palpable to a majority of people, you have to find a reason for redefining a term that has endured for millennia. Out-of-wedlock births fits that bill, but in order to do that, you have to break down the traditional taboos and mainstream extramarital sexual activity. In order to do that, you have to erode the religious traditions of the country (and sometimes you get the churches to help in that regard, unfortunately).

What it amounts to is the classic entrepreneurial action of creating a need and then filling it. Unfortunately, as people have continued to accept more and more liberal values during this process, countless lives have been destroyed. But with each slip, the proposed “solution” was always sold as being better than what came before. Instead, more and more lives are ruined. I predict that the next “solution” will bring about even worse results.

Campaigners and Church leaders have accused politicians of marginalizing marriage by undermining its legal and financial privileges and shying away from promoting it above other types of family.

Labour abolished the last tax break for married couples, the Married Couples’ Allowance, while its tax credit system is said to favour single-parent families.

Ann Widdecombe, a former Tory Home Office minister, said: “After the death of the extended family, we are now seeing the death of the nuclear family.

“The long-term consequences are bad for everyone. A well-ordered society is based on the bedrock of marriage, otherwise we will have increasing social disruption.”

The real solution is to go back to what worked, and worked well. Unfortunately, this may take further generations. In the meantime, the slippery slope is further littered with the lives of those who believed in the new “solutions”.

(Cross-posted at Stones Cry Out and Redstate. Comments welcome.)

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Backpedalling at the speed of light.

Iran’s foreign minister denied on Monday that Tehran wanted to see Israel “wiped off the map,” saying President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been misunderstood.

“Nobody can remove a country from the map. This is a misunderstanding in Europe of what our president mentioned,” Manouchehr Mottaki told a news conference, speaking in English, after addressing the European Parliament.

“How is it possible to remove a country from the map? He is talking about the regime. We do not recognize legally this regime,” he said.

Ahmadinejad caused a storm of condemnation last October after Iran’s official IRNA news agency quoted him as telling a conference: “Israel must be wiped off the map”.

If he meant the regime, he would have said the regime. And taken together with the President’s remark that Israel should be moved to Europe–thus wiping it off the Middle Eastern map–it’s not hard to understand that he meant what he said. This has everything to do with how the world is preparing to deal with Iran’s uranium enrichment program. The government is now trying to present a calmer face than one in which a madman is ready to blow up the Jewish state.

Mottaki’s comments came as he sought to assure EU lawmakers and institutions that Tehran had no ambitions to make nuclear weapons, despite widespread mistrust in Europe and the United States of the reasons behind Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran says it is for energy production only.

Mottaki also acknowledged the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were killed by Nazi Germany, despite Ahmadinejad saying in December that it was a myth.

But it’s just a mask.

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Do you consider the Boy Scouts a religion? A judge in San Diego said it was, and now the 9th Circuit (oh joy) gets a shot at it.

Arguments in a major Boy Scouts case unfolding in Pasadena, Calif., before a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals – a case that is certain to be headed for the Supreme Court — centered on the contention that the revered organization is actually a religion and should therefore not be given a lease of public land.

The case was brought by self-declared agnostics Lori and Lynn Barnes-Wallace and Michael and Valerie Breen, along with a son of each, in protest of a lease of parkland in Balboa Park and Fiesta Island by the city of San Diego to the Boy Scouts of America.

The agnostics sued the city on a claim that the lease to the Boy Scouts – out of more than 100 leases, including to the YMCA, a number of Jewish groups, one of which conducts Sabbath services on parkland, and the Girl Scouts – violates the Establishment of Religion Clause of the First Amendment, and that they are suffering “inferior usage” thereby because they don’t want to have to apply for permits, or pay usage fees, to the BSA. The case is Barnes-Wallace, et al. v. Boy Scouts of America, Nos. 04-55732, 04-56167.

A federal judge in San Diego granted the summary judgment to the agnostics, finding that the Boy Scouts are a “religion” because of the Boy Scout Oath, which includes doing one’s duty to “God and my country,” and the Boy Scout Law, which includes “reverence” as one of 12 precepts. Also, the Scouts require a belief in God as a condition of membership.

The city itself is not part of the appeal. It settled with the American Civil Liberties Union to avoid further expense, agreeing to terminate the lease and to give the ACLU $940,000 in attorney fees. The appeal continues since the Boy Scouts, if they prevail, want to be able to contract for a lease with the city again.

The case has drawn national attention because the federal judge’s finding that the BSA is “a religion” imperils the future work of not only the Boy Scouts, but all organizations that recognize a transcendent higher authority, including community service organizations like Rotary and Kiwanis, Alcoholics Anonymous, which works directly with the courts and government, and veterans organizations like the American Legion, whose constitutional preamble begins “For God and Country,” almost identical to the Boy Scouts Oath.

That any federal judge considered the BSA a religion is truly unbelievable. But the idea that using the “G” word in a sentence prevents you from consideration at all by any level of government is even more preposterous. When you see how much religion the Founding Fathers allowed for in government by their actions, this can’t possibly be a First Amendment issue. At least not the First Amendment the way they intended it to be. But to the “living document” judges, the Constitution means whatever they want it to mean. Today. Until they change their minds. Again.

So much for the Constitution be a foundation.

(Cross-posted at Stones Cry Out, Blogger News Network and Redstate. Comments welcome.)

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Predictably, now a California town has banned outdoor smoking.

The new Calabasas secondhand smoke ordinance, which would prohibit smoking in all public areas of the city including parks, sidewalks and outdoor businesses, will take effect by the middle of March, city officials said.

But in their magnanimity, they did allow some exceptions.

The city council agreed to allow smoking in the following areas:

•Private residential property, other than housing used as a childcare or health care facility when employees, children or patients are present

•Up to 20 percent of guest rooms in any hotel or motel

•Designated smoking “outposts” in shopping mall common areas that are at least five feet away from any doorway or opening that leads to an enclosed area.

Check out that first one; private property? They allowed it on private property? Folks, if you can’t smoke a cigarette outside on your own land, how private is that property? I’m not a smoker and I encourage folks not to smoke, but if second-hand smoke, diluted by the vast outdoors, is as bad and harmful as all this, then have the guts to ban it completely.

If you don’t, then legislation like this has no place. If you do completely ban tobacco, I’ll bet some folks, lulled to sleep during all these incremental incursions into their liberty by an ever more intrusive government, will wake up and kick you out. (Which is why I’m sure it’s all being done incrementally.)

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‘I’d rather go hunting with Dick Cheney than driving with Ted Kennedy.” — Frank Traynor in a Feb. 15th letter to the editor of WorldNetDaily. (Unfortunately, not a permalink.)

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Aesop’s Fables for the 21st century.

In response to reports the United States and Israel are exploring ways to monetarily isolate his terror group, which is currently forming the next Palestinian government, Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar yesterday slammed international critics and claimed Hamas doesn’t need “satanic” American money.

But al-Zahar took quite a different tone just prior to Hamas’ major win in last month’s parliamentary elections when he told WorldNetDaily during an interview his organization will “gladly” accept U.S. financial aid and that he will allow American donations to be monitored by “anyone who wants.”

And the fox said, “The grapes are sour anyway.”

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Another former Baathist member and former high-ranking General in Hussein’s army has come out to say that he understands that Iraq’s WMDs have been moved to Syria.

[Ali Ibrahim] Al-Tikriti says he knows Saddam’s weapons are in Syria because of contingency plans established as far back as the late 1980s, in the event either Damascus or Baghdad were taken over.

“Not to mention, I have discussed this in-depth with various contacts of mine who have confirmed what I already knew,” he said.

Saddam, after lying for so many years, knew the U.S. eventually would come for the weapons, he said, and wanted to maintain legitimacy with pan-Arab nationalists.

Also, he had “wanted since he took power to embarrass the West, and this was the perfect opportunity to do so,” al-Tikriti said.

“After Saddam denied he had such weapons, why would he use them or leave them readily available to be found?” he said. “That would only legitimize President Bush, who he has a personal grudge against.”

What we are witnessing now, he said, “is many who opposed the war to begin with are rallying around Saddam saying we overthrew a sovereign leader based on a lie about WMD. This is exactly what Saddam wanted and predicted.”

What I find interesting was his motivation to leave the Baathists.

Al-Tikriti said he turned against the Baath Party after his wife stood up to him and questioned his brutal tactics.

“This really made me think, because no one has ever even considered to question the tactics of myself or any others and lived to tell about it,” he said. “This courageous move made me think deep and hard.”

If you’re a married man, or about to be one (as one of our Stones is), this bit of advice is always timely. Listen to your wife. Yeah, you can always come up with a bad biblical example (Adam, for instance) but typically a man’s wife is a source he should tap more often.

And women, you can stand by your man, but stand up to him, too.

(Cross-posted at Stones Cry Out. Comments welcome.)

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Now they must be really mad. Mrs. McDonald could not be reached for comment.

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The mayor of Tall’Afar in Iraq has some choice words for our military. The Mudville Gazette has the full letter, but here are two hard-hitting paragraphs.

Our city was the main base of operations for Abu Mousab Al Zarqawi. The city was completely held hostage in the hands of his henchmen. Our schools, governmental services, businesses and offices were closed. Our streets were silent, and no one dared to walk them. Our people were barricaded in their homes out of fear; death awaited them around every corner. Terrorists occupied and controlled the only hospital in the city. Their savagery reached such a level that they stuffed the corpses of children with explosives and tossed them into the streets in order to kill grieving parents attempting to retrieve the bodies of their young. This was the situation of our city until God prepared and delivered unto them the courageous soldiers of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, who liberated this city, ridding it of Zarqawi’s followers after harsh fighting, killing many terrorists, and forcing the remaining butchers to flee the city like rats to the surrounding areas, where the bravery of other 3d ACR soldiers in Sinjar, Rabiah, Zumar and Avgani finally destroyed them.

I have met many soldiers of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment; they are not only courageous men and women, but avenging angels sent by The God Himself to fight the evil of terrorism.

I encourage you, as the saying goes, to read the whole thing.

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Heh heh. Great letter to the editor of the Boston Globe. Good satire makes you laugh and makes a point. This one stings.

I FIND all of your editorial cartoons deeply offensive, morally, religiously, philosophically, and spiritually. In fact, I don’t like your editorials, either. And the editorializing in your news coverage is annoying as well.

In keeping with your cowardly policy not to offend anyone, kindly cease publication at once.

Makes you think. Hopefully, it’ll make the Globe think.

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Does the Quran prohibit creating any image of the prophet Muhammad? According to Amir Taheri, writing in the Wall St. Journal, no.

There is no Quranic injunction against images, whether of Muhammad or anyone else. When it spread into the Levant, Islam came into contact with a version of Christianity that was militantly iconoclastic. As a result some Muslim theologians, at a time when Islam still had an organic theology, issued “fatwas” against any depiction of the Godhead. That position was further buttressed by the fact that Islam acknowledges the Jewish Ten Commandments–which include a ban on depicting God–as part of its heritage. The issue has never been decided one way or another, and the claim that a ban on images is “an absolute principle of Islam” is purely political. Islam has only one absolute principle: the Oneness of God. Trying to invent other absolutes is, from the point of view of Islamic theology, nothing but sherk, i.e., the bestowal on the Many of the attributes of the One.

The claim that the ban on depicting Muhammad and other prophets is an absolute principle of Islam is also refuted by history. Many portraits of Muhammad have been drawn by Muslim artists, often commissioned by Muslim rulers.

He goes on to list a few of the many famous depictions.

Well then, does this have more to do with a deep Muslim resistance to having their religion made fun of? Again, no.

Now to the second claim, that the Muslim world is not used to laughing at religion. That is true if we restrict the Muslim world to the Brotherhood and its siblings in the Salafist movement, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al Qaeda. But these are all political organizations masquerading as religious ones. They are not the sole representatives of Islam, just as the Nazi Party was not the sole representative of German culture. Their attempt at portraying Islam as a sullen culture that lacks a sense of humor is part of the same discourse that claims “suicide martyrdom” as the highest goal for all true believers.

The truth is that Islam has always had a sense of humor and has never called for chopping heads as the answer to satirists. Muhammad himself pardoned a famous Meccan poet who had lampooned him for more than a decade. Both Arabic and Persian literature, the two great literatures of Islam, are full of examples of “laughing at religion,” at times to the point of irreverence.

Again, he offers further historical examples.

So if what some are calling the “Cartoon Intifadah” is not religious in its origin, what is it? Mr. Taheri, explains.

The “rage machine” was set in motion when the Muslim Brotherhood–a political, not a religious, organization–called on sympathizers in the Middle East and Europe to take the field. A fatwa was issued by Yussuf al-Qaradawi, a Brotherhood sheikh with his own program on al-Jazeera. Not to be left behind, the Brotherhood’s rivals, Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami (Islamic Liberation Party) and the Movement of the Exiles (Ghuraba), joined the fray. Believing that there might be something in it for themselves, the Syrian Baathist leaders abandoned their party’s 60-year-old secular pretensions and organized attacks on the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus and Beirut.

It’s political. Much of the defense of Muslims has tried to come at this from one or the other of these perspectives. The fact is that nothing happened for months after the cartoons were first published, and only after a political body called for a response that 10 people (so far) were killed and buildings burned over them. This is a calculated political response, even if it may have gone farther than the Muslim Brotherhood intended.

I’m not thrilled when religion is lampooned, but I understand that not everyone shares the same opinion. One’s religion is as personal as one’s political opinion and so both are subject to it. Hence, I understand that it’s generally all fair game, including my own Christianity. And on the other side, when someone’s offended, it is their right to speak out against what they believe to be wrong, whether in fact, or whether it be one opinion vs. another. But this furor is unjustified on many counts. It’s has a political origin in spite of claims to the contrary. It doesn’t follow Islam’s own history. And it has become outrageous in its excess and cruelty.

This may be the oft-cited “less than 1% of Muslims” who are doing all the damage. I can buy that. But how soon will it be before we see this kind of action from the other 99%, rather than just press releases? There has been some, but it’s been lost in the din raging over some cartoons.

(Cross-posted at Stones Cry Out and Blogger News Network. Comments welcome.)

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