Pat Condell: "Wake up, America"

[Skybird]

"Americans would do well to wake up and pay attention to what's going on (in Europe)".



Yes, he is spot on, as usual.

I watch the latest legal self-mutilations in Ireland and Netherlands with growign concerns, and I must say that it is no longer an abstract problem for me, but that it all becomes slowly but surely really frightening by now. I wonder if this is how the Jews started to feel in the late 20s and very early 30s last century. Hitler was still a nobody whose name almost nobody knew, but the mood already had started to change. When Islamic racism becomes legitimised by national laws and criticising relgion can bring you into jail for having commited hate crimes and when the freedom of free speech and thought becomes negotiable, and censored, and bit for bit sold away, then discussing that is no longer just an academic finger excercise, but it becomes threatening to one's very own life and freedoms.

The Cairo speech imo has been the most idiotic signal Obama has sent out so far. Reading about it in the news back then, I did not believe my eyes.

A friend of mine some days ago talked with me about these things, too, we are of roughly the same age. He wondered if he would need to take into accopunt to become a refugee at higher age, and needing to flee Europe like his ancestors once had (he is Jewish). "Back then the Nazis, today Islam?" he asked. He maried last year, his wife is pregnant. He has a reason to worry beyond his own life.

He also said something else. "Back then most Germans did not speak out loud whle there still was time. And today - again they do not speak out loud while they still have time."

Do people never learn...?

[Shearwater]

QFT (to help the discussion):

You remember the cartel of Islamic dicatorships that hijacked the United Nation's Human Rights Council, don't you, and then promptly passed resolution banning the criticism of religion - yes, of course you do.
Well, apparently they've decided now that the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" gives people just a bit too much freedom and dignity for their liking and so they've devised their own "Islamic Human Rights Charta", which is a bit like Satan getting his own set of Pearly Gates, and about as convincing.
Unfortunately, the Islamic Charta is based on Sharia, which is, of course, invalid because it's God's law and God doesn't exist. To claim that he does is extremely offensive to those of us who passionately believe otherwise, it's a grave insult to our most deeply cherished beliefs, an assault on the very core of our being no less and a violation, therefor, of our human rights, isn't it?
Well, isn't it?
Now, all this would be something of a tiresome joke, if not for the fact this nonsense is beginning to have a real effect on our basic freedoms, certainly here in Europe, and Americans would do well to wake up and pay attention to what's going on.
Ever since the Islamic countries demanded that Western governments make it a crime to critisize Islam, all over Europe blasphemy laws and religious insult laws are being used to criminalize freedom of speech. The latest is Ireland, a country that is being literally raped by religion, yet has passed a law protecting it from citicism. Talk about Stockholm syndrome.
Free speech, they tell us, carries certain responsibilities. Well, too true, it does - the most primary one being that what you say should be the truth, and the truth should never be embarassing and it should never be illegal, and any government that's so embarassed by the truth is governing under false pretences.
The Dutch government for example, which is in the process of embarassing itself by prosecuting the leader of one of the country's largest political parties for the crime of "telling the truth."
You see, these days in Europe we've become so used to weasel words and double standards that the truth has become distinctly unfashioable. Speaking your mind is now seen as virtually anti-social because some opportunistic crybaby is sure to take offense and throw a tantrum, and that might threaten "community cohesion."
Now what has all this got to do with America?
Well, President Obama is very keen on showing respect to the Muslim world, and nobody can fault him on his record so far, bowing as he did to the king of Saudi Arabia like some kind of vassal and then making a rather flattering (and some might say dishonest) speech in Kairo (although, to be fair to him, he did stop short of prostrating himself towards Mecca, at least for the time being).
But because he wants to play ball with Islam, especially now that they've given him a Peace Prize through their shills in the Norwegian establishment, that he's gonna have to justify in the next three years (the Iranians must be rubbing their hands with glee at that one), the American government has now done something that if they did it in their own country, it would violate the constitution: They have co-sponsored a UN resolution that puts a limit on freedom of speech. Because the Islamic countries don't like "free speech", they don't like "free anything" except "free foreign aid" obviously (they can't get enough of that). Even the Saudis want aid now, have you heard of that? I could hardly believe it. The Saudis have said that when the world starts using less oil, they expect to be compensated for loss of income. You really couldn't make it up, could you?
Now the problem with the new touchy-feely American administration is not that they want to be friendly and respectful towards everyone - that's very laudable -; it's just that when you have a moral agenda like that, it can be tempting to cut corners, especially when it comes to inconvenient things like constitutinal amendments. And if they're doing this now, outside the United States where they can get away with it, it's only a matter of time before this is allowed to become international law, and then you know they're trying to do it inside the United States as well - in the name of "community cohesion". Get used to that phrase, America, it's coming your way.
And this matters. It matters a lot. Not only to Americans, but to all of us who see the American Constitution as the Anchor for Western Civilization, which is what it is. We know that no spineless our politicians are here in Europe and elsewhere, and here in Europe they barely got a verterbrate in between them, as long as America's First Amendment remains involate, there will always be an Oasis of Freedom on this planet that Islam cannot touch. But as soon as anyone is allowed to interfere with it, to water it down, to reinterprete, to chip and chisel away at the First Amendment for reasons of religious or cultural sensitiviy, then we can wave our civilization goodbye.
Americans voted for change at their last election, they didn't vote for surrender. Watch what's happening in Europe, America, cherish that constitution, and don't let Islam anywhere near it - for all our sakes. Remember the words of Mr Omar Ahmed, co-founder of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, who said that "Islam is not in America to be equal to other faiths, but to become dominant," and that the "Koran should be the highest authority in America." That'll be highter than the Constitution then, by my reckoning.
You know, if President Obama is serious about showing respect to the Muslim world, then he should pay them the compliment of telling them the truth: That their religion is entitled to as much respect as it gives - Zero - and that with their record, no Islamic country has any business even holding an opinion on human rights, let alone serving on a legislative body. They're asking the people of the Free World to compromise their fundamental values. It's far, far more insulting than any set of cartoons or any book could ever be, and that if the Islamic countries had an ounce of genuine honour between them, they would issue a full and unconditional apology. That's what he should say, because that's the truth. Everyone in the Free World knows it's the truth. So let's hope the truth becomes fashionable again - before too long.
Peace. Oh yes.
---

I still have a bone to pick with with that man. But I'm much too tired to do it tonight.

[Onkel Neal]

We're awake. Some of us, anyway.

[nikimcbee]

just for skybird:

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

just for skybird:

Depressing.

[SteamWake]

Huh, wait, what... Hey is Michael Jackson still dead?