Mandatory

There are mornings when I come to the keyboard with a powerful idea for an essay -- Note: this is not the same as "an idea for a powerful essay;" not necessarily, anyway -- but then I perform my mandatory morning news sweep, which covers about thirty diverse sites and feeds, and thereafter find that I must write about something else entirely.

Today is such a day.

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Over to your right, in the "Blogs And Other Sites" category, under the subhead of "Mainly Politics," you'll find a link for Vlad Tepes's site. Vlad and his Co-Contributor Eeyore concentrate on coverage of the words and deeds of Muslims worldwide. In this pursuit they are tireless, and frequently unearth stories the major media have completely failed to mention, even on page A38 of the Friday Late Evening edition.

If you've never been to Vlad's site, head over there and review today's offerings...and yesterday's, and those of the day before. Then come back here and dare to tell me that "Islam is just one more Abrahamic religion," no worse than Christianity.

***

Long, long ago, at the old Palace Of Reason, I wrote the following:

There's much truth in the old saw that to be anti-immigrant is to be anti-American, for America is a nation of immigrants. We celebrate our origins on other shores, and also our ancestors' good sense in fleeing those places and coming here -- and we never forget that they came here to become Americans, not just Irishmen, Italians, Chinamen, Swedes or Zambians in another land.

The xenophilia of earlier generations of Americans was founded on the assumption of assimilation, the sooner, the better. The demise of this assumption explains the burgeoning xenophobia of our time. The typical immigrant to this nation in this time is determined not to assimilate to American norms, but to retain his earlier national allegiance and cultural identity, sometimes even to the extent of refusing to learn the English language.

Among the least assimilable peoples to reach these shores are Muslims, whether from the Middle East or anywhere else. Though the overwhelming majority of them do learn English, their associations, family structures, religious, marital and other practices tend to isolate them in enclaves with impermeable borders. We've spoken of black ghettoes, of Little Italys and Chinatowns, and now and then of Jewish quarters in our cities, but none of these have demonstrated the Muslim communities' near-absolute resistance to diffusion.

In the face of such separatism, continued American goodwill toward a people who display so much hostility toward American norms and culture is a remarkable thing, for which Americans are to be congratulated. But it might not continue much longer.

Why would anyone come to this country determined not to partake of its virtues and bounties? Once he'd arrived here, what would hold him back from doing so?

The answer is Islam.

Alone among the major religions of the world, Islam:

• opposes material progress and condemns most Earthly pleasures,
• erases all boundaries between religion and politics,
• denies that its adherents have any ethical obligations to non-adherents,
• prescribes death for blasphemy, heresy, and apostasy,
• preaches the use of force to impose itself on all the people of the world,
• promises eternal bliss to those who die fighting to extend its dominion.

One cannot be a "tolerant" Muslim. The concept is internally contradictory. The infidel is the enemy, to be converted by any means fair or foul. They who resist conversion are to be allowed to live only until Islam has acquired sufficient force to pose them the choice of conversion or execution.

To the extent that a Muslim internalizes the precepts of Islam, he ceases to be open to Western concepts of freedom, justice, and tolerance for human diversity and variety. He resolutely resists all such notions, for Islam condemns them all explicitly. If you embrace them, he finds fault in you, and the more devout he is, the more serious the fault.

The Islamic attitude toward other religions and other ways is essentially medieval. It hearkens to the times when "Cuius Regio, Eius Religio" was the rule. The ruler of a realm could impose his own ways and creed upon all his subjects, who had no recourse. Philosophically, Islam, which denies the legitimacy of a secular State, is in accord with the assumptions of that pre-Enlightenment code. The main difference between them is that Islam's ambitions are larger.

Given that Islamic doctrine and the resultant insularity of Muslims preclude influence by more advanced ways and concepts, Muslims are exceptionally vulnerable to demagoguery by Islamic authority figures. Worse, the impenetrability of Islam's wall against the non-Islamic world makes it possible for a demagogue to demonize the infidel, paint him in colors that would justify any atrocity including extermination, and thus raise the cry of jihad against him.

Americans are coming to understand this.

Yet, for a long period after Black Tuesday, we were repeatedly told, and repeated to one another, that the enemy was not Islam, but rather terrorists acting out their depravity under an Islamic rationale. We called these "Islamists," and made a point of distinguishing them from "peaceful" Muslims for whom the use of force as a vehicle for religious proselytization was unthinkable.

The combination of the gradual comprehension of Islam's actual precepts, accumulating revelations of stealthy Islamic maneuvers here and abroad, and the recognition of the horrors Islam imposes on its subjects, has propelled a major shift in American attitudes. The typical American no longer considers himself safe in the presence of a Muslim.

He is right not to feel safe.

I cannot improve on that analysis. Indeed, in reviewing it, I find that I must resist the impulse toward self-congratulation for perspicacity and clarity. There hasn't been even one development in the ten years since I penned that essay that contravenes its obvious imperatives.

Try to refute it, if you're feeling brisk. But I must warn you: I spare no one.

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The change in American immigration policy that removed the old notion of preserving the pre-existing ethnic balance has resulted in a flood of Middle Eastern Muslims to these shores. At this time, Muslims in America -- Note: I refuse to refer to them as "American Muslims" -- number somewhere around 3.5 million, though various Muslim mouthpiece groups such as ISNA and CAIR claim a higher figure.

In those parts of the nation where Muslims have concentrated, they've behaved exactly as Muslims have always behaved in non-Muslim-majority states: they've demanded ever greater respect for their creed while showing ever less regard for the laws and principles of the United States. As for respect shown by Muslims to other creeds...please! It's far too early in the morning for such ludicrousness.

To be as brief as possible, Muslims do not assimilate. Neither do they "immigrate," in the usual sense of the word. They invade. Their aim, all protestations and representations to the contrary notwithstanding, is to convert all the nations of the world into states ruled by Islam. Islamic rule requires:

• The removal from authority of all non-Muslims;
• The imposition of sharia law;
• The subjugation of all non-Muslims and the imposition of a jizya;;
• The chattelization and subjugation of all women;
• The pre-indemnification of all Muslims for any deed we would regard as criminal, if committed by a Muslim against a non-Muslim.

Any and every tactic that conduces toward that end is commanded of all Muslims by Allah. That includes lying about Islam and its aims to non-Muslims, as plausibly as possible.

Pressure for "respect for Islam," and the implied exemption of Muslims from various American laws and customs, is the first step in elevating Muslims above the rest of the people of their host nation, which of course is a prerequisite for all the rest of Islam's program of world conquest. It's happening here: in Hamtramck and Dearborn, Michigan; in Minneapolis, Minnesota; in parts of northern New Jersey; in several parts of continental New York; and in other counties and towns where the local Muslim fraction is more than 1% or 2%.

Don't take my word for it. Look into it yourself.

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The following video snippet from Michael Coren's Canadian television show is most instructive:

Robert Spencer is dead on target in each and every one of his assertions. Barack Hussein Obama's attempt to edit American history for Islam's benefit has been under-scrutinized by our major media. Then again, the actual dictates of Islam, as set forth in its scriptures and promulgated by its clergy, are generally suppressed by our organs of communication; they regard the truth as leading to "Islamophobia," one of the past decade's premier terms of deception.

Spencer and others have said that "There are moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam." This is exactly correct: There are Muslims who behave acceptably by American criteria, but Islam itself speaks otherwise -- radically so. More, and more important by far, "immoderate" Muslims -- i.e., those who take seriously the Koran's exhortations to jihad, world conquest, and the subjugation of all "infidels" under Islamic rule -- exert irresistible pressure upon their "moderate" brethren:

• To conceal the "immoderates" and their machinations from the law;
• To provide the "immoderates" financial and other material support;
• To concede the scriptural rightness of the "immoderates'" aims and their activities, however violent, in furthering them.

But we're not supposed to fear Islam, or doubt Muslims' allegiance to America and its principles. Oh, no! That would be wrong.

***

Among the measures contemporary Americans must take to preserve our nation for successor generations, none is more urgent than denying Muslims and Islam further ingress to the United States. If Muslims cannot be assimilated to American norms without fatally compromising their adherence to their creed -- and this is demonstrably the case -- then Islam and those who accept it do not belong in America.

Yes, there's a critical election ahead. Yes, we have a severe, ongoing recession to deal with. Yes, Russia and China are beginning to act like would-be hegemons again. Yes, there might soon be a very hot war in the Middle East, maybe even involving nuclear weapons. Yes, yes, yes.

Add this to the list of things to take seriously: the proper Muslim fraction of the population of the United States is 0%. Any and every effort Americans can make toward that goal, that's within the statute laws of this nation, must be taken at once and maintained in perpetuity.

We cannot allow avowed enemies of our Constitution and the rights it protects into this country. Therefore, we cannot have Communists here. Nor, for the very same reason, can we have Nazis, or Peronists, or Chavistas, or Sandinistas, or devotees of any other totalitarian ideology. We might never succeed in expelling them all. Nevertheless! That an ideal is only asymptotically approachable does not mean it should not be pursued.

The same applies to Muslims and Islam.

Refute me if you can.