Sympathy for the Devil Victims

After the Islamic terror attack in Nice, politicians around the world expressed their sympathy with the people of France, sending warm thoughts and prayers.  Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada said “Our sympathy is with the victims.” Leung Chun-ying of Hong Kong expressed his “deepest sympathies” with the French people.  Hillary Clinton’s “thoughts and prayers” were with the families of the killed and injured.  Julie Bishop, the Foreign Minister of Australia’s “thoughts and sympathies” were with the victims and their families.”

In the meantime, security services were investigating the massacre, trying to figure out the motive and connections of a killer yelling “allah achbar.”  Same thing in Orlando, in Paris, and at many terror attacks.  Why did they do it, asked the investigators.  Were the terrorists acting alone?  Does this mean war?   Can’t be!

Let me save the investigators some time and money.  In each case the killer(s) did it for the cause of Allah.  They weren’t acting alone.  They were part of a network of 1.6 billion Muslims, whose religion demands that they subdue and dominate the world.  Even though the Orlando shooter and the Nice truck driver may have planned and carried out their killing by themselves, they were motivated by the entity known as “Islam.”

It’s a fragmented outfit, with members killing each other more than they attack outsiders.  Some of its adherents are the most vile, violent people on earth, but there are also sects such as the Sufi and Ahmadiyya who oppose any aggressive activities. Nonetheless, there have been close to thirteen hundred Islamic attacks so far in 2016, leaving twelve thousand dead, and fourteen thousand injured (with most of the victims being members of opposing Muslim sects).

This Means War

Islam’s record of violence is not a modern phenomenon, nor is the barbarity of ISIS.  Historians estimate that eighty million people died in the Islamic conquest of the Indian sub-continent.  Over a hundred and ten million black Africans were killed as a consequence of the Muslim slave trade.  Islam was not spread throughout the world by peaceful missionaries, convincing disbelievers of the beauty of their faith.  This means war.

There used to be resistance.  Much of India was under the thumb of Islam for over eight hundred years, but the population held on to its own beliefs, often under great duress.  When Islam conquered much of the Middle East, destroying Christian holy places, the Church, the European monarchs decided this means war, and the Crusades were organized to take them back.  They failed.  Islam moved on to conquer large swaths of Europe.  At the siege of Vienna in 1683, it appeared ready to over-run the continent.

“…throughout the camp that every man who has infidel prisoners was to put them to death, and whoever neglected to do so should himself be executed and his property given to the informer. When this order became known to the ghazis of Islam, they drew their swords and put their prisoners to death. 100,000 infidels, impious idolaters, were on that day slain. Maulana Nasir-ud-din Umar, a counselor and a man of learning, who, in all his life had never killed a sparrow, now, in execution of my order, slew with his sword fifteen idolatrous Hindus, who were his captives“.

That war hasn’t ended.  Only the resistance has wound down.  Large swaths of territory in France, Belgium, Sweden, and Germany, are “no-go” zones, no longer under control of their respective governments.  In other areas with significant Muslim populations, crime rates are soaring, as new-comers feel no obligation to respect the laws of the land.  Women and Jews are especially vulnerable targets.  The uber-wealthy pushing to increase immigration have walls around their compounds to protect themselves.  For the rest, the sense of security enjoyed by Europe, and even America, has dissipated.

An Invasion of Values

It’s not an invasion by an army.  It’s rather a set of values that has marched through the Gates of Vienna, this time unopposed by any armies, uncontested by a society that feels values are relative, there is no truth, and that the bad guy is the civilization that has brought untold progress and prosperity to much of the world.  Post modernism, moral relativism, keeps them from understanding what is happening, from realizing that this means war.

Is the fight over?  Is Western civilization about to crumble, to be overtaken by a misogynist, murderous intolerant ideology? Yes, if Western civilization refuses to recognize that it’s at war, a very old war.  Yes, if Western civilization refuses to resist the attackers.

One can only hope that as Islam presses its attacks, in places such as Paris, Cologne, Sweden, San Bernadino, Fort Hood, Orlando, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, it will be impossible to deny that we are under attack.  Sure, many officials deny that the terrorism has anything to do with an Islamic war on the West. It’s isolated incidents, criminals, mentally disturbed loners.  If there’s no army, no organization or terror network the officials can point to, there is nothing they are able to see.  Hopefully, these officials will be voted out of office by people who don’t have walls, don’t have armed security to protect the lives of their loved ones.  People who see the repeated attacks on their way of life, and understand that this means war.

Is Islam so different from the other two Abrahamic religions?  Judea was once a warlike, marauding state, fighting in God’s name.  That was well over two thousand years ago.  Christianity has a bloody history, especially in its record with South American natives.  Though intertwined, the monarch and the Christian faith were distinct entities. And the bloody violence ended hundreds of years ago.  Of the Abrahamic religions, only Islam is in a state of perpetual war.  Maybe they’ll evolve out of it, as did the others.  But can we afford to wait?

Here’s a suggested strategy for Western civilization:

• Identify the enemy: when a terrorist shouts “allah achbar,” believe that he’s doing it for the cause of Allah.
• Identify immediately  all acts of terrorism, rather than conceal or minimize them, whether in the US, Europe, and especially Israel (which has been the canary in the mine-shaft).
• Close all schools and mosques in the West which are funded by Saudi Arabia. The current wave of Islamic aggression has its roots in Saudi Arabia’s ultra-conservative Wahabi movement
• Demand that the Saudi government, and especially Saudi clerics clearly and vehemently denounce and issue fatwas forbidding acts of terror against non-Muslims.
• Expropriate, or if necessary confiscate all critical infrastructure or entities owned by radical Islamic nations or individuals.
• Shut down Islamic propaganda organizations in the West, such as Al Jazeera, and CAIR, and the Nation of Islam.
• Deport any non-citizen who endorses terror against the West.
• Establish that support of terror is treason, with all the consequences that incurs.
• Governments must pacify their no-go zones, establishing government authority and control.
• Enact strict controls over all immigrants, including refugees entering the country. In wartime, it is not discrimination to keep out potential enemy forces.
• Teach the real history of Islam in schools and universities; its death count over the centuries, its role in creating the African slave trade, its taking of European slaves.  Teach that America’s first war was against marauding North African Arabs.  Explain the role of women, the fate of homosexuals, the intolerance towards non-believers.
• Fight an all-out war against terror organizations on their home turf, whether Iraq, Afghanistan or Qatar.
• Above all, have the will to defeat a ruthless enemy that has been coming for you for fifteen hundred years.

I look forward to the day when the imams, the muftis, sheikhs, princes and presidents loudly denounce all terrorism, when they encourage their followers to live peacefully with other peoples.  When they say to the infidels “our way is not your way, but you are free to live as you wish.”  Many, many Muslims already feel this way, but are being drowned out by the Jihadists. Unless they speak louder, this means war.

The post Of Course You Realize This Means War! appeared first on Quantum Cannibals.

Lemmings are known for their mass suicide: jumping off cliffs, to die in the sea. Americans are not known for mass or individual suicide.

An Israeli man who was stabbed in the neck has been criticized by Yariv Oppenheimer, head of the Peace Now organization for fighting back and killing his attacker. Given that the alternative for the victim was to let himself be killed, Oppenheimer was effectively advocating a form of assisted suicide. A similar view was held by another great peace advocate. Gandhi said the Jews should have committed national suicide during the holocaust, and simply let themselves be killed.

The lemming mass suicides were dramatic, stirring the hearts of television viewers just twelve years after Gandhi counseled the Jews to follow the same path.   Audiences would have been glued to the screen to watch people with yellow stars sewn to their clothes, commit national suicide by willingly stampeding to their deaths.

Suicide at Masada

There is actually a story of mass suicide by Jews at the fortress Masada, but it took place before the advent of transportable recording equipment, approximately two thousand years ago. The best we can do is to re-imagine the story from archaeological remains, and the historical account of Josephus. The television series were reconstructions (in 1981, 2002 and 2015), rather than actual recordings of events, allowing for greater artistic and political license. The heroic story of a thousand men, women and children who committed national suicide rather than surrender to the Romans gripped the imagination of the world, and of the nascent independent Jewish nation.

Stories abound as well about Jewish communities during the Crusades who committed mass suicide rather than submit to the crueler predations of the Crusaders. While the rabbis who permitted this were praised in some quarters, they were roundly criticized in others.

Do such suicides set a precedent? Is the leader of Peace Now following Jewish tradition when he says a victim of terrorism should refrain from fighting back?

No.

The Masada story has been seriously called into question. Yigal Yadin, the lead archaeologist who promoted the heroic tale of national suicide has been accused sacrificing truth for the sake of myth. There are too many questions about interpretation of artifacts, too many archaeological remains that don’t fit the story. While there may have been suicides, they likely did not take the shape or scale of the heroic account promoted by Josephus and Yadin.

Suicide is often a response to stress or depression. But it’s not a Jewish response, especially to life-threatening situations. Josephus, a Romanized Jew, gave a Roman cultural inflection to the story of Masada. The silence of the Sages of the Talmud on an alleged act of national suicide speaks volumes; either they disapproved, or it didn’t take place.

Contemporary Individual Suicide

There are many ways for individual suicide, using a knife, a gun, or a noose. A person can instruct his doctor to give him a lethal dose of medicine, or provoke a policeman into shooting him (“death by cop”). He can climb into a poisonous snake pit, or bring the snakes into his home.

Contemporary National Suicide

There are many ways to commit national suicide. If you weaken the forces that protect a country from its foes, then it’s easier for them to stab its citizens in the neck, whether literally or metaphorically. When the police are prosecuted for protecting citizens, the level of protection will naturally drop. When laws prevent people from defending themselves, the foes of the nation, whether foreigners or citizens, have a free hand. The country becomes the poisonous snake pit.

When a nation is told by its leaders that it is sinful, that it is a source strife around the world, that nation will turn upon itself. The Biblical exhortations of Isaiah are happy children’s stories, compared to the evils impugned by “progressives” on America and the Western world. When the President’s Church Minister says “God Damn America,” you have to wonder if the leader of the free world answered “Amen,” and took upon himself the responsibility of making it happen.

Citizens of America, Canada and the Western world are being told by people such as Yariv Oppenheimer that it’s wrong to defend yourself against someone trying to kill you. The citizens of Cologne, Germany, were told that rape doesn’t matter; better not to offend the perpetrators. Sexual trafficking of children is kept out of the news.  And governments, to the chagrin of their populace, bring in more and more “refugees,” whose ethnic or religious group is responsible for most of this crime.

Lemming Suicide

It seems that America, Canada and the Western world are rushing headlong over a cliff, like the lemmings. But it’s not as simple as it seems. The lemmings didn’t willingly jump to their deaths. They were pushed by film crews anxious for a good story.

Americans aren’t metaphorically jumping off cliffs either, clamoring for wholesale immigration of people who want to change the nature of the country.  Witness the wild popularity of Donald Trump, Geert Wilders or Marine Le Pen.  They’ve tapped into national revulsion to filling your home with snakes, many of which are poisonous.  Trump et al are considered pariahs or clowns by intellectuals and pundits. Like the lemming film-makers before them, these myth-bearers are also anxious for a good story, or rather a feel-good narrative, and they are willing to push their country off a cliff in order to get it. It’s the same story in many European countries.

Suicide is unnatural, and a bad way to greet the future, and so people are resisting having their nation run off the edge of a cliff. It may not make for a pretty story, but the alternative, killing the character of your country, is much uglier.

The post National Suicide: The Death of a Nation appeared first on Quantum Cannibals.

Pick up your guns, strap on your helmet and report for duty. The bad guys are coming, and we have to mobilize. There have been skirmishes in many places, as varied as Ottawa, St. Jean, Chattanooga, Fort Hood, London, Paris, Västerås (Sweden) and others.  Lord only knows where’s next, and He isn’t saying.

Don’t have a gun? No problem. There’s the vast logistics and support network needed by an army at war. A call to arms doesn’t mean you have to personally fire a weapon.

You have no time for logistics? Can’t take off time from work? So what are you going to do to help for the Yazidi, Kurdish, or Assyrian

victims of ISIS?.   Are you concerned about the Syrians? Do you want them, or North African refugees in your country? Should you be concerned about the anti-science suppression of GMOs, which make proper nutrition available to the world’s poorest people? What about the campaign to delegitimize the only western democracy in the Middle East?

There are so many more issues: religious or environmental fanaticism, political correctness, sexual correctness, corporate greed, union greed. The list goes on and on. Can you really say you have no time to answer a call to arms? Many people consider themselves apolitical. Either they don’t care, or think one person can’t make a difference. They’re wrong. If you pay any taxes, politics affect your life. If you don’t grow your own food, politics affects you. Unless you’re a hermit, completely off the grid, politics affect you, whether it’s the stability of your job, the cost of your electricity, or the cost of your food. Even if you’re completely off the grid and nuclear war breaks out, politics affects you.

An Electoral Call to Arms

Voting makes a difference. Look at the economic decline of the U.S.A. under the current administration. Look at its loss of influence, its loss of respect. President Obama’s reset of relations, his red lines drawn in disappearing ink have given tyrants a free hand to flex their muscles, to threaten their weaker neighbors in the Ukraine, the Middle East, or the South China Sea. His quest for peace, for ending war, has made the world a much more dangerous place. On the home front, his election should have put paid to the issue of American racism. But race relations have deteriorated to levels unseen since the 1960’s as some unscrupulous people issue their own call to arms. What would have happened if Mitt Romney had won the election? John McCain? Any answer would be sheer speculation, but we can say for certain that different policies would have brought different results. The people who voted for Obama changed their country, changed their world.

In Canada, the choice of leader also makes a difference. Tom Mulcair, the Leader of the Official Opposition (and leading in some opinion polls) is very clear: he

doesn’t want Canada fighting ISIS overseas. Does he want to wait till ISIS is conducting more than skirmishes on our shores? Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau mocked the Prime Minister’s combative policies, accusing him and his supporters of ““trying to whip out [their] CF-18s and show how big they are.”” He advocated Canada giving victims of ISIS rapes, torture and beheading advice on how to stay warm in winter.

So given ISIS’ track record, given its ambitions, given its skirmishes in North America, does it make a difference who is elected Prime Minister? Who is the President of the United States? To be apolitical in the face of such horror is to say you don’t care. That makes you an enabler.

For most Americans and Canadians, no matter how passionate they feel about a political issue, there is little they can do. We live in a representative democracy where we select the government that will make choices on our behalf- whether to go to war or appease, fight climate change or fight poverty, battle oppressors or constructively engage them, drop bombs against ISIS, or drop blankets on their victims.

There are Canadians and Americans picking up weapons (be they real or metaphorical) in the fight against ISIS, in the fight against fanatics that threaten our way of life, that threaten our safety and livelihood.  The call to arms they have answered is one that all of us must heed.

It’s election time in Canada, and election time is approaching in the U.S.A. Therein lies the opportunity; therein lies a call to arms. It’s when we tell our leaders what direction to we want our country to turn towards. The choices are very stark.  Pick up your gun by working in support of the people who will best protect our interests, best protect our way of life. Campaign for the candidate who has learned the lessons of history: peace doesn’t come from appeasement. It comes from strength.

Your comments are welcome

The post A Call To Arms appeared first on Quantum Cannibals.

At about 11:00 a.m. on July 17^th 2015, a gunman attacked a storefront Naval Recruiting Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, firing aggressively into its window. No one shot back, because Bill Clinton had long ago disarmed U.S. soldiers on military bases. As any fool can know, as the only one armed, the gunman had the situation under control.

He then drove to a Naval Reserve Center seven miles away, where he murdered four Marines, before being killed by authorities. By 1:30 p.m., Chattanooga police said “The active shooter situation is over.” A dangerous situation was now under control.

By 2:00 p.m. President Obama had been briefed by his national security team. Half an hour later the Tennessee Governor made an announcement that people serving their country had lost their lives, and by 3:10 the incident was described at a news conference as an “act of domestic terrorism” (a statement later retracted).

By 4:00 the shooter was identified as Kuwaiti-born. Few media outlets were willing to reveal though, that he was the son of a Palestinian. Although Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez had traveled to Jordan and perhaps Yemen recently, counter-terrorism “experts” wondered why he had attacked the military facilities in the U.S.  A CNN news analyst wondered if he was Muslim.

It was time to investigate. The FBI announced it had no idea of the suspect’s motivation. Vice-President Biden promised that the United States would get to the bottom of the shootings. President Obama was a little ahead of him, declaring that it was a ‘lone gunman,’ and vowing a full investigation. The President’s words assured the American people that the government had the earlier chaos under control.

The gunman’s home was raided. A bomb squad truck, a military truck carrying armed men rolled into the area of the shooting. Police closed off streets, turned away people wanting to reach their homes. It quickly became clear that Abdulazeez blogged about Islam, argued with his schoolmates about Islam, and showed signs of becoming increasingly devout.

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”
? Albert Einstein

Any fool can know that Mohammed is a Muslim name, can understand why a Kuwaiti-born Palestinian would shoot up a U.S. military facility. Any fool can know that unarmed soldiers can’t defend themselves against someone with an assault weapon.  If you won’t see the pattern of the Fort Hood “workplace violence,” the shooting of an unarmed soldier at the Canadian Parliament, soldiers being run over in Quebec, and the Chattanooga rampage, then any investigation, no matter how thorough, will not prevent further attacks, further chaos. The point is to understand.

President Obama’s investigation is not aimed at avoiding future attacks against U.S. military installations, or even against civilians. We know how to do that:

• Arm American soldiers in the U.S.
• Stop the influx of refugees.
• Allow police and security forces to conduct ethnic profiling.

These measures won’t stop all assaults, but will certainly reduce their frequency and effectiveness. The fenced-off streets, the hundreds of federal agents, the massive resources being invested are a clear demonstration that the government has everything under control. This was an isolated incident, and they will soon get to the bottom of it. We will find out for example, if indeed Abdulazeez was a ‘lone wolf’ or part of an organized network.

ISIS has put out calls for Muslims in America to attack soldiers. Does it matter if such attackers are in direct communication with ISIS before following their instructions? According to such people, they aren’t even responding to a human call to violence, but rather the voice of God, as expressed by their prophet in their holy book. They respond with their prayers, with their guns and machetes. That, to the devout, is direct communication.

The massive Federal investigation that is getting under way is a sham, a pretense that the government has Muslim anti-American violence under control. It’s a way of avoiding action while pretending to take responsibility.

What Any Fool Can Know:

Most people knew what happened in Chattanooga shortly after the gunfire ended. The investigation, whether by Federal agents or fearful journalists is to ensure that people don’t have to face, don’t have to understand what any fool can know: the difficult decisions that must be made. The battle waged by ISIS in the mind of its soldiers, is the continuation of a war that began with the rise of Islam fourteen hundred years ago. If we want to secure the country, indeed the world against Jihad, we don’t really need to investigate. As distasteful as it might be, we have to understand: it’s time to fight back.

addendum:

The FBI has declared that there is no indication the Chattanooga shooter was inspired or directed by the Islamic State.

The post Any Fool Can Know appeared first on Quantum Cannibals.

The Bible Names Its Enemies:

The Bible names its enemies: Egypt, Amalek, the Philistines, and many others.  For each of them the Bible spells out why they are considered the

enemy, and what to do about them.  We are told not to hate the Egyptians because we were strangers in their land. We were also refugees there, and military allies.  Though Pharaoh did evil, Egypt doesn’t embody wickedness.

Amalek is the face of evil in the Bible,  the paradigmatic bad guy.  The nation attacked the Jewish people shortly after the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea. The Bible, in response, promised “a war for the Lord against Amalek from generation to generation.” Amalek is linked to Haman, who tried to eradicate the Jews of the Persian Empire. Even Nazi Germany is fancifully tied to them.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks is a global religious leader, philosopher and moral voice for our time. A towering intellectual and prolific author, he is respected and revered by Jews and non-Jews alike. He examined the face of evil in a recent essay in which he wrote that the Egyptians hated and enslaved the Israelites, because they feared their strength. When the reason for the hatred would disappear so would the hatred, because of rational self-interest.

Amalek, on the other hand, attacked the Israelites simply because they could. It was an irrational hatred that could not disappear when the reason disappeared, because there was no reason. Rabbi Sacks explains it is this irrational face of evil that the Bible demands we remember.

The Face of Evil Beneath the Heart:

The Rabbi explains:

It is easy at times of peace to forget the evil that lies just beneath the surface of the human heart. Never was this truer than in the past three centuries. The birth of Enlightenment, toleration, emancipation, liberalism and human rights persuaded many, Jews among them, that collective evil was as extinct as the Amalekites. Evil was then, not now. That age eventually begat nationalism, fascism, communism, two World Wars, some of the brutal tyrannies ever known, and the worst crime of man against man.

In the peaceful times that followed World War II, many Americans, Canadians, and Europeans forgot again about the face of evil, the irrational hatred which dwells in many hearts. The troubles in the world were attributed to the evil acts of the strong and powerful, to legacy of colonialism. The violence in South-East Asia, the Middle East, were explained away as rational responses to the legacy of western imperialism.

Refusing to Recognize the Face of Evil:

On September 11, 2001, it became impossible to ignore the face of evil, casting its evil eye. Although many people still searched for explanations or conspiracies, there was nothing to rationalize the brutal terror unleashed upon America. Rabbi Sacks declares:

Today, the great danger is terror… (emphasis added)

…That is why are commanded to remember and never forget Amalek, not because the historic people still exists, but because a society of rational actors can sometimes believe that the world is full of rational actors with whom one can negotiate peace. It is not always so.

The Rabbi Is Wrong:

Rabbi Sacks is wrong. The greatest danger is not terror. It’s radical Islam, which is the source of virtually all contemporary terrorism.

One cannot remember, never mind confront the face of evil if you refuse to call it by its name. We are not commanded ‘not to hate’ the chariot riders (Egypt), or to remember what the attackers of the weak (Amalek) did. We don’t identify these enemies by their military techniques. Terror is a technique, used to demoralize and crush. It is being used by the adherents of a specific religion, in the name of their religion. Victims may refuse to identify the purveyors of fear as Muslims, but the terrorists aren’t shy about it. A politician, a journalist, a Rabbi might say that terror isn’t Islamic, but the Muslims terrorists say it is. An Orthodox rabbi is not a higher authority on Islam than the many Muslims who proclaims terror as an integral part of their faith.  The Muslims who oppose them don’t deny the nature of their violence. A Brooklyn Imam, identifying radical Islam as a “cancer,” said:

“These scholars consider any verse that calls to treat people with kindness to have been abrogated. All that remains valid is ‘Kill! Slaughter!’ Is that the only thing that God tells us? …Muslims of the religious sector are time bombs.”

Put a Name to the Face of Evil:

If we refuse to name the contemporary Amalek, surely we cannot remember them.   If we’re too afraid to name them, they are winning.

In the first Biblical encounter with Amelek, Moses, the leader of the Israelites held up his arms during the battle, and the people were inspired to victory. The leaders of today such are not raising their hands, and the people hesitate to fight back. Rabbi Sacks says the evil is “terror.” The Dalai Lama says it’s not fair to associate terrorism with Islam.  Gandhi, the icon of nonviolence rationalized “…if Hindus became Muslims to save themselves from death, it was …not forcible conversion.”  The failure to identify, never mind remember the face of evil, the contemporary Amalek, is a violation of an obligation to God, of a responsibility to mankind.

The post The Face of Evil Today appeared first on Quantum Cannibals.

A Manifesto

Redefining the Battlefield

Our civilized world is in a different kind of war, aimed at dragging it back to the 8th century.  Our values are the enemy’s main weapon against us.  We must adapt if we are to survive.

Forget “religion.” Forget “nation” and “geography.” Don’t even think about “ideology” or “economy.” The enemy in this war includes our citizens, our co-religionists, people on the other side of the world, and our next-door neighbors. The civilized world, regardless of race, religion or region is in an apocalyptic conflict, aimed at dragging the world back to the Dark Ages, and the old categories are keeping us from fighting back.

Forget the meaning of war. Forget the Geneva Convention, the Hague Convention on the rules and regulations of war. Those are for armies, countries, civilized people. This is a different kind of war

Some combat takes place on the battlefields of Iraq and Syria. Other battles are on the streets of Ottawa, Paris, Boston and Montreal. Some involves the execution of soldiers; some, of shoppers. The aggressor in this war wants to browbeat his opponents into acquiescence; this doesn’t always entail killing. Sometimes the threat of violence is enough to cancel a lecture, silence a critic. The police are among the first to advise compliance in order to avoid trouble. They certainly don’t want to appear Islamophobic.

Cops are good for dealing with criminals. They are not equipped for war. Our legal system is not equipped for this different war. And so, we are losing.

We lost on 9/11.

We lost in the Madrid, the London bombings.

We lost in the Boston Marathon, at Parliament in Ottawa, in the relentless barbarism in Nigeria.

…and countless more.

We lose every time we go to the airport and  give up an hour or so to have our bags and bodies scanned.

We lose every time we use a phone, send an e-mail or look at a web page, because these are no longer private acts. They must be scanned by security, looking for plots by our enemies.

We lose whenever an organization fears to publish its address, when security guards or even soldiers have to protect religious institutions. When we can’t go into certain areas of our cities, because they are under control of the enemy.

We lose when dissenting opinions are shouted down or their speakers beaten up. When those opinions can’t be given voice, for fear of offending vengeful, violent people. Free speech is good and we are all Charlie Hebdo, but we don’t want to end up like Charlie Hebdo.

A Different Kind of War Strategy

It will get worse unless we prepare to fight back. We need different tactics, for this different war. Here are some suggestions:

• Ban immigration, ban temporary visas from regions where our defeats are celebrated, where our enemies are admired; places such as Iran, Syria, Pakistan, and North Africa.
  • Canada has a long tradition of favoring immigrants from particular countries. It’s time for Canada and the U.S. to discriminate on the basis of origin.
• Anyone who goes to fight on behalf of an enemy or terrorist entity shall be considered guilty of treason if he is a citizen or legal resident.
  • If he’s on temporary visa, the visa shall be immediately cancelled and the person deported.
  • The death penalty for treason must be restored, with a process that does not lead to interminable delays.
• Mosques must report to police the identity of new converts,so they can be monitored.
  • Some people find violence and savagery exciting. Tired of online game warfare, they want to go to the next level, and think that Islam will get them there. The Imam of the mosque of Martin Couture-Rouleau, the convert who ran over two soldiers in St. Jean, Quebec, understood the problem, and cooperated with the RCMP. Such cooperation must be mandatory.
  • This discriminatory practice needn’t apply to other religions; their converts are not killing in the name of their new beliefs.
• Jailed radical Muslims must be isolated from other prisoners, to prevent jailhouse radicalization or conversion.
• Prisons must develop and apply effective intervention programs to minimize radicalization of inmates.

A War to Protect Civil Rights and Liberties

“Civil rights” are the rights of individuals to receive equal treatment (and to be free from unfair treatment or “discrimination”) in a number of settings — including education, employment, housing, and more — and based on certain legally-protected characteristics.

• TheCivil Rights of the majority,and of peaceful minorities must be protected by civil and criminal law.  This includes (within the confines of law)
  • Ability to hold meetings
  • To publish and disseminate information
  • To dress according to their religion without fear of violence
  • To peacefully espouse their religious traditions and attend services.
  • To support the political and social causes of their choice.
    • All without fear of violence.

•  A person’s right to advocate for a cause shall not interfere with the right of others to work, or to carry on their business.

  

  • The right to practice a religion shall not oblige an employer to compromise his business in order to accommodate religious beliefs and practices.
  • If a person freely takes on an obligation, he cannot excuse himself from it because of religious issues
    • If a person takes a job as a bartender, he cannot refuse to serve alcohol. If he’s a taxi driver he cannot refuse service dogs because of his religion. If his faith forbids dogs, let him find a different job.
• Anyone on a visa who interferes with civil rights of others shall immediately have his visa cancelled.
• Anyone interfering with normal activities (civil rights) of Canadians shall be held financially responsible for the consequences.
• Anyone causing financial loss though demonstrations or related political activities shall be held financially responsible.
• Anyone sponsoring or organizing such interference, whether directly or indirectly shall be held financially or criminally responsible.
• The Tides Foundation of San Francisco funds environmental protests in Canada. Such protests include obstructing the operation or

  

  construction of national infrastructure. The anonymous donors who fund such activities through Tides must be held accountable for the damage they cause.

• Calling for the death of people because of their race, ethnicity or religion shall be deemed a criminal act.
• It shall be illegal to conceal one’s face when in public place, except as part of organized activity with permit from appropriate authorities.

International Economics and Propaganda in a Different Kind of War

The economic success of Western civilization is premised on capitalism, i.e. the free flow of capital between economic entities.   Any interference with the flow is bad, in principle. However when the entities have another purpose beside economic advancement or are trying to gain a surreptitious advantage, they must be controlled. When a CNOOC, a Chinese company bought a large stake in a Canadian energy company it gave the tyrannical Chinese Communist Party a direct hand in Canadian energy development. It didn’t take long for it to start reneging on the commitments it made to get regulatory approval.

Petronas, owned by the government of Malaysia also has significant stakes in Canadian energy companies, including infrastructure. Malaysia is sixty-one percent Muslim. This in itself need not be a problem, but the country is quickly sliding towards fundamentalism and violence. A past Prime Minister was a vicious anti-Semite, and the current one has praised the strength of ISIS fighters.

In Saudi Arabia and the gulf Emirates, the governments, the energy producers and the worldwide wealth they control are essentially the same entities. The Saudis are the second largest shareholder in Fox News. They have a growing influence in the American press and entertainment industry, and they are not shy about using it.   When environmentalists oppose North American energy development, when they create obstacles that delay projects and add costs, the Saudis gain a competitive cost advantage. Sometimes the environmentalists know who is funding their work, sometimes they are clueless. Either way, they are serving the regime that has funded the worldwide spread of radical Islam.

By funding North American environmentalists, by engaging in an energy price war, the Saudis are trying to gain a surreptitious advantage. Petronas, the Saudis and CNOOC are not simply foreign capitalist entities. The former two are connected to those who have undertaken the different kind of war against us. The latter two are part of aggressive, anti-democratic regimes with no respect for the values of Western civilization. They must not be allowed to influence us in our battle.

• 

  All voting control of subsidiaries of state-owned entities must be firmly and clearly separated from the regimes that own them.

• Western governments shall be entitled to place auditors within the subsidiaries to ensure that decisions they make are for normal business purposes only.
• Subsidiaries of state-owned entities shall not be allowed to engage in public relations, political lobbying or community affairs, whether directly or through funding of other groups.
• Subsidiaries of state-owned entities shall not be allowed to invest in the press, entertainment media, or online social networks.

 A Different Kind of War Entails a Different Kind of Sacrifice

In previous world wars, populations related to the enemy were placed in internment camps, to make sure they weren’t working to destroy us from within. Loyal Canadians and Americans were rounded up, and treated horribly. We don’t want to do that again. It’s more than probable that the vast majority of Muslims are loyal citizens of the Western countries they now inhabit (there is no way to properly quantify this). But we can’t ignore the many radicals dedicated to our destruction.   We must make sacrifices, such as suspending some of  our values— the ones that are being used against us.  We must fight back. Pretending that a different kind of war is not really a war is the path of appeasement on the road to surrender.

You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.
                                                                                    – Ayn Rand

The post A Different Kind Of War appeared first on Quantum Cannibals.

How did we get here? It’s not what our civilization is about.

On January 7, 2015, Three black-clad gunmen shouting “Allahu Akbar” stormed the Paris offices of a satirical publication known for lampooning Islam, killing 12, including its editor, three political cartoonists and a police officer whose cold-blooded murder at close range was captured on a disturbing video. This resulted in a wave of  Islamaphobia, and baseless hostility to the Religion of Peace.  Why  did the French government allow the magazine Charlie Hebdo to continue to provoke Muslims, thereby placing the safety of its citizens at risk?

“I think everyone sees history through their own lens, and I don’t begrudge anyone from wanting to see what they want to see. This is what I see. This is what we see. And that should be valid. I’m not gonna argue history; I could, but I won’t.”

 The History of Pearl Harbour

On December 7, 1941, a Japanese air expedition on a humanitarian relief expedition ran into mechanical problems near Hawaii. Contaminated fuel, or something like that, led to

their rapid descent from the skies, as they hoped to land at Pearl Harbor to repair and refuel. American military commanders mistook the peaceful approach for an attack, and started firing upon the peaceful Japanese aircraft. The pilots, now in even worse trouble, had to unload their ordinance to lighten their planes. The Americans used this as an excuse to declare war on neutral Japan.

“I think everyone sees history through their own lens, and I don’t begrudge anyone from wanting to see what they want to see. This is what I see. This is what we see. And that should be valid. I’m not gonna argue history; I could, but I won’t.”

  The History of the Warsaw Ghetto

Jews like to live in close-knit communities (ghettos), to be near their synagogues, kosher restaurants, gymnasiums and banks. On April 19,

1943, a fire broke out in the heart of the Jewish community in Warsaw, Poland. The fire raged for twenty seven days, before finally being extinguished with the help of visiting German troops.  It was a terrible holocaust. Shocked, disheartened survivors were sent to Treblinka, where they were given food, shelter, and gainful employment.

“I think everyone sees history through their own lens, and I don’t begrudge anyone from wanting to see what they want to see. This is what I see. This is what we see. And that should be valid. I’m not gonna argue history; I could, but I won’t.”

 The History of Fort Hood Workplace Violence

On November 5, 2009, a mass murder took place at Fort Hood, Texas. In a letter to a Florida congressman, a top Army official wrote that the available evidence did not indicate the 2009 attack was an act of international terrorism. The official, at the time the Army’s senior uniformed lawyer, described the attack as “the alleged criminal act of a single individual.” Hasan was charged with mass murder, not terrorism. The government made it clear: the Fort Hood shooting was workplace violence.

“I think everyone sees history through their own lens, and I don’t begrudge anyone from wanting to see what they want to see. This is what I see. This is what we see. And that should be valid. I’m not gonna argue history; I could, but I won’t.”

 The History of the Selma Civil Rights March

President Lyndon Johnson was opposed to civil rights for black people, and did everything he could to stop Martin Luther King’s famous march in Selma, Alabama. It was Johnson (not the liberal icon Bobby Kennedy, as some fascists claimed) who set the FBI on King.  It was a time when black people stood alone, as Jews and other whites were busy protecting their own interests.

“I think everyone sees history through their own lens, and I don’t begrudge anyone from wanting to see what they want to see. This is what I see. This is what we see. And that should be valid. I’m not gonna argue history; I could, but I won’t.”
–Ava DuVernay, Director of the movie Selma (about Dr. Martin Luther King’s famous march), responding to criticism of her distortions of history.

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How did we get to the point of cartoonists being slaughtered? It’s a consequence of substituting fantasy for history, a consequence of pretending the history that you want to see is reality. When the people who shape how we look at history don’t care about accuracy, we lose the ability to learn from the past.  When the people who shape our view of current events don’t care about accuracy, we lose the ability to cope with the present.

The post I’m Not Gonna Argue History appeared first on Quantum Cannibals.

Dangerous Classification

Classification can help you sort things out, make informed decisions.  If someone was to threaten you with a gun, it would be helpful to know whether it was an assault rifle or a Nerf gun (soft foam bullets).

Sometimes classification can be used to obscure, to prevent the making of informed decisions.  The Obama administration classified the Fort Hood massacre of 2009 as workplace violence, even though the perpetrator had been in touch with Al Qaida just before.  The death of a teenager throwing Molotov cocktails at civilians was classified as “tragic.”

There is a debate going on whether the Ottawa shooter at the Parliament Buildings was driven by a dangerous religion or mental illness.  The classification of his motives is a meaningless discussion.  He was a terrorist.

Another example of misleading classification is the concept of “religion.”  It has countless definitions; some positive, many pejorative.  They reflect the many different  aspects of life it contends with, from environmentalism to disease, from meditation to massacres.  Is a belief system that has no compunction about slaughtering non-believers in the same category as one that says life is sacred?  In the same category as a system that declares all humans have a right to religious freedom?   While Christian and Jewish fundamentalists may at times be annoying, they threaten no one’s life in the name of God.  Does anyone fear a pious Hindu?

“A religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful , pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a  general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.”
– Clifford Geertz

When we bring Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, shamanism, animism, etc. all into one big category, religion, it says they are all similar.

Dangerous Assumption

They’re not.  A mosque is not a church, which is not a synagogue, which is not an ashram.  Their symbols are different, their beliefs are different, but most importantly, their actions based on those symbols and beliefs are different.  If we assume that leaders from all religions promote peace and kindness, like Pope John Paul II, or the Dalai Lama we will be unable to respond when they act otherwise.

Dangerous Religion

When homicidal youth flock to only one particular system of beliefs and symbols, that system deserves its own, unique classification.  When the historical death toll of that system dwarfs all the others put together, we can’t say it’s like Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism or any of the others.  It’s not.

Your comments are welcome

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 to Avoid More Funerals

Michael Zehaf Bibeau and Martin (Ahmad) Couture-Rouleau tried to give meaning to their lives, tried to achieve martyrdom when they killed the soldiers in Saint Jean and Ottawa respectively.  They should be denied that meaning.  They should be denied martyrdom.

Islam believes that the body and soul remain connected after death.  If the body is comforted or tormented, the soul feels it.  Dogs are extremely naajis (impure, unclean). The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “If a dog drinks from the vessel of any one of you, let him wash it seven times.”  On the other hand dead animals are supposed to be treated with at least a minimum of dignity.

So at their funeral, how about burying Michael Zehaf Bibeau and Martin (Ahmad) Couture-Rouleau, each with a dead dog in their grave?  An eternity of impurity, and torment for their souls.  Now, some people may say this is too disrespectful to the killers.  Others will say it’s too disrespectful to the dogs.  But most dogs don’t have a philosophy of purity and impurity, nor do they believe in an afterlife.  So it’s no skin off their backs.  A humane society can easily provide the corpses.

A spokeswoman for a Muslim organization expressed her disgust towards the shooters, saying they didn’t reflect anything in Islam that they learned in Canada.  She also was worried about an anti-Islam backlash.  She, or any Islamic religious leader could do a great service to Canada and the reputation of Islam by attending the funeral of Bibeau and Couture-Rouleau, and publicly cursing, or at least denouncing each of them.

If aspiring terrorists see that their wishes will bring them curses and eternal torment rather than the glories (and 72 virgins) of martyrdom, it will make terrorism a much less attractive career path.  A miserable funeral is not what most people aim for in life.

The post A Funeral Proposal appeared first on Quantum Cannibals.

An annotated conversation about war, adapted from Facebook:

(click on links for annotations)

Alice: We are bombing over Syria!  Right now.  We are bombing.  Oh, my heart hurts.

Russ: Hate

Alice: The thing is this … there are children.  Women.  Men who want only to provide for their little families.  There are doggies and kitties, goats maybe.  Lives.  Their lives are gone forever.  People terrorized, people grieving, people forever lost.  There is no good that comes from war.  No noble thing at all.

Russ: War, what is it good for…absolutely nothing

Deborah:  And Russia is next.

Alice: Deb, sadly, you may be right.

Nathan: Yes, let’s let ISIS sell pre-pubescent girls into sexual slavery (after giving them clitorectomies), slaughter entire villages, chase them

up a mountain to starve, have sex with the goats (captured on video), whip kitties to death with a stick, starve dogs and then light them on fire when they’re too weak to move.  Yes, war is good for nothing.  Let’s just let ISIS do whatever they want.  They’re promising to behead random Americans, and there’s evidence they’ve come across the border from Mexico.  Why fight against them in Syria, when we can do it here?

Russ: Nathan, I will be right behind you following your advance

What Would God have Americans Do?

Alice: Nathan, what you describe is certain horror.  It’s hard to read your words.  Still, I wonder … What does the Torah say about war and the responsibility to kill people in a far off land who do horrific things to their people?  What would God have Americans do, according to the Torah?  Remember, you’re teaching a neophyte about the nature of God.

Phyllis: I hate it too but ISIS has to be stopped.

Karen: But violence brings forth more violence.  We live in a scary world.

Nathan: Not responding to violence gives it license to grow.

Leslie: Can’t believe it!  Worked 2 years ago with a little girl whose family escaped Syria.  Can you imagine?  I can’t.  She had the sweetest smile…

You are welcome to continue the conversation in the comments

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