Amid Wave of Radical Muslim Terrorism, Left Declares: ‘Anti-Muslim is Anti-American’

The left’s deeply desires a political swivel from discussions of radical Islamic terrorism to discussions of the evil West. The only way to do this is to deem the threat of radical Islamic terrorism wildly overstated, and then to contend that Republicans who worry about that threat are suffering from xenophobic ethnocentrism – even as radical Muslims massacre their way through Paris, stab their way through Jerusalem, and shoot their way through Mali.

The left’s goal in politics – labeling the right the chief threat to world peace, as opposed to, you know, actual threats to world peace – takes precedence over the realistic need to keep Westerners safe. President Obama urges us not to overreact; Vice President Joe Biden says we must not compromise our “openness” and “tolerance,” because that’s “how we win” against ISIS; author Joyce Carol Oates asked, “All we hear of ISIS is puritanical & punitive; is there nothing celebratory & joyous? Or is query naïve?”

Meanwhile, having now demoted the threat of radical Islam to the level of “climate change,” the left insists that anyone who takes radical Islam seriously is a H8er! Charles Blow of The New York Times leads the way this morning with the pompously-titled “Anti-Muslim Is Anti-American” – a nonsensical statement, given that he doesn’t define “Anti-Muslim.” Obviously, “anti-Muslim” is anti-American if we’re talking about discriminating against Westernized Muslims who lament terror alongside other Westerners; if, however, you’re talking about discriminating against Muslims like the late former American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki — droned by President Obama — that’s a stretch. But Blow writes that there is “no bottom to the cesspool of Islamophobic rhetoric coming from Republican candidates…so poisonous that it cannot portend anything positive.”

What is so wrong? Blow points to Donald Trump saying there would be “absolutely no choice” but to close some mosques – a proposal that seems less radical when you consider that some mosques in the United States are terror centers funded from abroad by radical Islamic forces. There is a difference, of course, between exercise of free speech, utterly protected by the First Amendment, and organizational ties to terrorism. The federal government shut down the Holy Land Foundation, a Muslim charity, for its ties for terrorism. Furthermore, the left gets oddly sensitive about looking at restrictions on mosques’ connections with terrorism – even though they utilize the Massachusetts state government to close Catholic adoption agencies based on their heinous practice of giving children to heterosexual couples.

Blow also points to Trump’s non-statements regarding registering Muslims – he didn’t propose that or endorse it, as I wrote last week – as well as Dr. Ben Carson comparing Syrian Muslim terrorists to rabid dogs (which Blow promptly and dishonestly misconstrues as comparing all Muslims to dogs).

Blow says that Republicans are closeted genocidal maniacs; their distaste for radical Islam means that they’re looking for an excuse to do away with all Muslims.

Blow finally cites one poll from Public Policy Polling, a Democratic polling organization, asking North Carolina Republicans about their feelings about Islam: 72 percent of those polled say that a Muslim should not be allowed to serve as president, and 40 percent say that the practice of Islam should be illegal. Although the questions are somewhat vaguely worded, this is indeed a deeply problematic number – of course Muslims, should they also hold Western values, should be allowed to serve, and Islam should not be banned. But Blow’s point is that Republicans are the great Islamophobes, and the poll doesn’t show that: PPP did not ask Democrats the same questions, and national polls show that unfavorable opinions of Islam are strong across the board – probably due to the troubling connection between radical Islam and terrorism.

Blow then extends outward his critique to include anyone who opposes American imposition of Shariah law in courts, calling all such opposition “Islamophobic” – even though there are obviously certain applications of Shariah law that would surely violate traditional American doctrines. One New Jersey court originally found, for example, that domestic violence did not occur in a particular case because the defendant “lacked the requisite intent to commit sexual assault and criminal sexual contact based upon his religion.” That decision was reversed on appeal, but it demonstrates the problematic nexus between Shariah law and American law under certain circumstances.
As a general rule, there is nothing wrong with religious contracts signed by parties being enforced by voluntary courts in the United States, whether by a Muslim court or a Jewish beit din. But there are certain public policy ramifications for certain applications of religions law, and opposing Shariah law on those grounds is not out of bounds, even if such concerns are overblown.

All of this is misdirection from the left. The question of Syrian refugees is not a question of Islamophobia – irrational and hate-based fear of Muslims. The question of mass Muslim immigration is not a question of Islamophobia. Every society has values. Every person has values. There are differences between values. We must be honest about examining those value systems before we allow people to enter Western civilization with full privileges. And that is true regardless of belief system. Islam, as practiced by the vast majority of the world’s Muslims, tends not to mesh as well with Western civilization as Christianity. That is not Islamophobic. That is fact. We ought to consider that fact in discussing Syrian Muslim immigration to the United States. Doing less presumes that America has no values worth preserving — and that is un-American.