The Left's love affair with Islam
By Chuck Hustmyre
The union between the American Left and fundamentalist Islam seems like a marriage made in hell.
The Left hates religion, particularly Christianity, and has succeeded in ripping nearly all vestiges of it from American public life. Through the legal machinations of its lapdog, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Left has banned Christmas from public schools, nativity scenes from City Hall, and the Ten Commandments from courthouses.
In liberal newspeak, "Happy holidays" has replaced "Merry Christmas." Holiday trees have replaced Christmas trees, and Christmas break has become "fall break."
Yet a few years ago, seventh-grade students in California were required to participate in a religious studies program during which they were told to wear Muslim clothing, memorize passages from the Quran, and choose an Islamic name for themselves.
Interestingly enough, the ACLU did not file a lawsuit.
The American Left champions causes such as gay rights (including gay marriage), equality for women (suffrage, the right to work, etc.), and religious freedom (usually in the form of freedom from religion). Yet, fundamentalist Islam opposes nearly everything the American Left stands for.
In many Islamic countries, homosexuality is punishable by death. In Iran, a top government official recently said that torture followed by death is the appropriate punishment for being gay.
In Saudi Arabia, women can't vote, run for public office, or drive cars. Women are routinely jailed and beaten for merely being in the presence of a man not related to them. The Saudi version of Dr. Phil provides televised lessons to men on how to properly beat their wives.
In many Islamic countries, women are forced into arranged marriages and held as property by their husbands, something not exactly in line with progressive Western thinking. In some Muslim countries, women aren't even allowed to decide what clothes to wear. To reveal even the smallest patch of skin is a crime.
Religious freedom is often nonexistent under Islamic rule. In countries like Afghanistan and Iran, people who convert from Islam to another religion face public execution.
So why does the American Left hate Christianity yet love Islam?
In this country, a shadow army of apologists works tirelessly to provide alternative explanations for faith-based Islamic violence--shootings, bombings, stabbings, and beheadings. These shadow soldiers work in government, media, and on college campuses. Most are members of the American Left. The rest are bureaucrats who have been cowed by the omnipresent specter of political correctness. You hear these apologists every time a Muslim goes berserk and murders people in the name of Islam.
That's an important distinction I'd like to be clear about. Every week someone goes nuts in this country and commits a sensational crime that captures the attention of the media for a few days. Last weekend, a convicted felon from Arkansas murdered four Seattle-area cops at a coffee shop. Before that, some nut shot up an Orlando office building.
Truly impulsive and insane acts of violence are unpredictable. But when horrific violence is based on a theology that preaches hatred, intolerance, and global conquest, there are usually plenty of warning signs. According to the FBI, imams preach jihad in at least 10 percent of the United States' 2,000 mosques.
Certainly Army Major Nidal Hasan signaled his intent when he told fellow Army doctors that infidels (those who don't accept Allah as the one true God) should have their heads cut off and have burning oil poured down their throats. After telling everyone around him that non-Muslims should be killed and that the U.S. Army was engaged in a war against Islam, Hasan murdered 13 people at Ft. Hood, Texas.
Practically before the sounds of the last gunshots had faded, professional apologists in government and the media were saying Hasan was not a terrorist and that the shootings had nothing to do with his belief in Islam. Of course, the exact opposite is true. Nidal Hasan is a jihadist and he committed mass murder because of his belief in Islam.
Nearly a month after the shootings, the American Left is blaming the Ft. Hood murders on everything but Islam. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley took the opportunity of announcing the expansion of the city's Arabic language program in public schools to blame the killings on America's love affair with guns.
Other apologists blame the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, claiming Hasan, a psychiatrist, suffered from "secondary trauma" after hearing of the horrors of war from the soldiers he was counseling. Still others invented a new psychological malady, pre-traumatic stress disorder, meaning the mere thought of going into a combat zone so traumatized Hasan that he snapped.
The proof that all of these excuses are just so much hot air is that Hasan himself told us why he shot more than 40 people before he did it.
Major Hasan's business card identified him as a "Soldier of Allah." He was in email contact with a militant Muslim imam who fled the United States and now operates in Yemen. He tried several times to contact al Qaeda.
To anyone but an American Left apologist, Hasan's motive for murdering 13 fellow soldiers and wounding another 30 is quite clear: He did it because he was fighting for Islam. As Hasan repeatedly told fellow Army doctors, he is a Muslim first, an American second.
In unambiguous terms, fundamentalist Islam has announced again and again that it despises the values, culture, and traditions of America. The American Left does too.
Consistent with the Arabic proverb that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, the American Left has formed an alliance with fundamentalist Islam to transform this country into something far removed from its Judeo-Christian origins and ideals.
The mistake the Left is making is that its so-called progressive goals have nothing in common with the medieval tenants of fundamentalist Islam. Militant Muslims have no respect for American progressives, any more than they respect the very existence of Israel.
Fundamentalist Islam is using the American Left to advance its own agenda. Militant Muslims want Islam and sharia law to dominate the West. Their goal is to subvert the U.S. Constitution and our way of life to the will of Allah. The word Islam means submission.
What members of the American Left seem blind to is the fact that in countries where Islam dominates, their progressive ideas would be crushed and many of them would be thrown in jail simply because of their lifestyle choices.
Yet, the American Left continues to serve as apologist-in-chief for fundamentalist Islam.
Why?
Because deep down American Leftists are terrified of Islamic fundamentalists.
Last year, publishing giant Random House canceled the publication of Sherry Jones's novel The Jewel of Medina because it might be offensive to some Muslims. According to its own press release, the publisher feared Muslim violence against its offices and employees. Apparently, Random House's fears were well founded.
In September 2008, three Muslim terrorists firebombed the home and office of the British publisher who bought the rights to the novel.
In 2006, the Apple computer company drew howls of rage from Muslims who claimed the glass cube the company built outside its midtown Manhattan store was modeled on the Kaaba, the Muslim shrine in the Saudi city of Mecca, and was meant as an insult to Islam.
The American Left's affair with fundamentalist Islam is essentially a love-fear relationship. The Left loves Islam's hatred of America and its desire to radically change this country, but the Left also fears what militant Muslims are capable of, especially if they turn their murderous rage on their so-called friends.
So the Left, like Neville Chamberlain with the Nazis, walks a tightrope, appeasing Muslims at every turn, offering excuses for Islamic violence, and hoping Muslim fundamentalists won't bite the hand that feeds them their excuses.
***
Chuck Hustmyre is an award-winning journalist and a retired federal agent. He is the author of three books and hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles. For more information visit www.chuckhustmyre.com.
Remember the Iranian "revolution" during the Carter administration? The Ayatollah Komeini and his "soldiers of Islam" had allies. Liberal leftist college students joined forces with the Ayatollah to dispose the Shah.
And what happened to these students after the Shah fled Iran? Tortured, raped and murdered in the prisons of the jihad.
Leftist across the world have not learned from history.
Another reason the Left defends Islam is because they think Christians have it coming.
Liberals honestly believe that Christianity has killed more millions of people than any other religion. It's what they have been taught and it's what they believe.
They view Muslims as the underdogs. The "root cause" crowd will always find some reason to give them a pass. Beslan was proof of that.
Absolutely.
This reminds me of that introduction to an article here at JW where Robert quoted Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Commando", to describe the Porkistani Taleban's decision to go after its creator, Porkistan's ISI, after it had attacked just about everyone else in that country: "I like you, so I'll kill you last." Is that what leftards hope for through their surrender and appeasement?
Since "not even trees can survive the destructive touch of mahoundianism" (I don't remember the original quote exactly), it's not commies that will prove an exception to that rule. They'd better get their heads ready for the chopping block after Friday zebibah-making sessions if they succeed in helping the jihadists win.
I think the anti-American angle is more important than the fear factor, particularly inside America. If Islam was consonant with and/or supportive of America, the Left would not be nearly as accommodating.
The proof of this is that the Western Left would have no trek with Islamism during the Cold War, when the USA more-often-than-not supported Islamists vs Muslim Leftists backed by the Soviets. It was only after the collapse of the Soviet Empire, when the Islamists re-directed their wrath towards the West, that the Islamo-Left alliance took shape.
It is their singular hatred of America and capitalism that drives the psychology of the Left.
Thanks for posting this, I've copied it and emailed it out.
I've noticed in the past few weeks that more and more of the people on my email list are circulating the emails regarding the cult of Islam. People are waking up!
:)
Mr Hutsmyre might also reconsider his comments on how the American left supposedly supports gay rights and women's rights... Once mahoundianism came along as their new agent of destruction of democracy, secular laws and human rights, gays and women were the first to be thrown under the bus. Just read what those two true giants in the fight for human rights in general and women's and gay rights in particular, Bruce Bawer and Phyllis Chesler, have written and said about that.
I have a different theory why the Left has a love affair with islam. My theory is the left loves islam because the Left unconsciously admires islam's methods. Leftists believe people should be forced to be free in accordance with the left's theory of how the body politic should be constructed. The left secretly admires the ruthlessness with which islam forces itself on the public.
I was at High school when the Iranian revolution happened.
I do remember the look on the faces of the leftists as they were led away to their deaths, the look of shock & surprise.
Once the ayotollahs had power the left was finished, they had served their purpose.
What was it that Stalin was reported to have said " I love to look at the faces of people who thought they could trust me, when they were led away to their execution, the look of surprise" or something like that.
All the lefties I have known are also anti American/British & western in general. Some of them regard islam as an ally against capitalism, they think that once the west is defeated it will usher in some kind of utopia.
Alot of them are genuinly in thrall to islam, they may even take the view that its victory is inevitable so maybe they should side with it now.
Either way they have a very unpleasant surprise coming to them.
As cruel as it may seem, we need in the west, acid thrown in the faces of women, stoning to death, crucifiction,more honour killings, gays being killed, we need sharia for moslems only. Then when the left see's the horror that will come in the event of a full islamist takeover, they may change their views.
The worst has to come before the tide will turn. islam is it's own worst enemy.
For my own leftist family, friends and colleagues, it's more of the PC/MC mindset that causes them to defend and apologize for Islam, as Hesperado often describes. Also, my Jewish family will defend Islam to the hilt because they hear any criticism of Islam as similar criticism of Jews. Because such criticism of Jews is usually paranoid, delusional and hate-filled, they assume criticism of Islam is the same, regardless of the facts. The Jews in my circle also like to rush to support the "oppressed", because Jews have been so oppressed over the centuries. They consider Muslims to be in the "oppressed" or "in-danger-of-being-oppressed" group because they are quaint, minority, ethnic, fascinating, "people of color". Or as my Jewish boss would say, they're "diverse". My Jewish circle also really believes in the Golden Age of Spain baloney, and feel grateful to Muslims for supposedly treating them so well then. How can we not believe in the Golden Age in Spain when it said so right in my Hebrew School history textbook, and that was in the 70's, way before Islamic apologetics gained full steam.
A lot of poignant previous comments which I agree with. The Left's love affair with Islam seems to be like mother's(or abused woman if you will) love for a child( or criminal boyfriend) that has become anti-social and violent. No matter how much violence that child commits, the mother protects it and excuses it away with great intellectual acrobatics. Perhaps in the PC-multicultural Newthink they think they can tame the Islamic beast and civilize it.
After all aren't all peoples and all religions equal?
Perhaps all Islam needs to change is for the West to treat it will mutual respect? If the West stopped being the West we could make all Muslims members of our happy harmonious socialist society!!!
Like many here I've had a debate with various types of Leftists and they just can't see what Islam for what it is. Even when you point out the hatred, bigotry, discrimination, and violence inherent and inspired by the Quran, Lefty's just can't see it. They'll usually rattle on about the Crusades, Pat Robertson, etc. as if those examples are relevent or remotely accurate to the conversation.
In a way it reminds me of that line by Lance Henrikson at the end of Aliens3 begging Ripley not to destroy the alien, declaring, 'We could learn so much from it...'.
Well, good for Ripley and death to Islam.
Wow.
If my kids were ever required to participate in something of that nature, you can bet everything you've got (and some of somebody elses, too) that the school would be put on notice that we found the activity to be more problematic than a simple exercise in "cultural vitality."
To that end, they should have no problem whatsoever with my opt-out activity of reading selections aloud from the Book of Concord.
But they would, of course. "Do as I say, not as I do," after all.
And that doesn't give me some mandate to knock them out with it, either (and I could...it's a really heavy book, in more than one sense).
Somewhere in the ether, if you listen closely, you can hear the sorrowful laughter of George Orwell.
I disagree with the article. I don't think it's a love-fear relationship at all. Both sides are using each other to advance their own individual agendas and think that once they're in power, they'll be able to eliminate the other. I don't think the Left fears Islam at all--they are very arrogant and overly confident and think that they can handle the Islamists who would actually love to see them dead.
Let's not forget the economic factor and nor get too carried away with just "fundamentalist Islam".
The smooth yet opaque Tariq Ramadan nicely positions himself for the West and especially the Left as anything but "fundamentalist". Why, neo-Gramscians might ask, isn't he one of us?
So what's not to love about these Tariqisms?
"...any serious critique of the World Order, the policies of developed nations and the decisions of the G8 has to be based on a meticulous analysis of the neo-liberal economic system, its institutions (WTO, IMF, World Bank), the tremendous power of a handful of multinational corporations, as well as the functioning of banks and financial markets."
"...From now on, one does not need to be in Caracas, Bamako or Jakarta to dictate one's decisions; from offices in Washington, London or Paris, or from trade floors in New York or Tokyo, domination is exercised through the new international division of labour which is establishing a 'new look' colonialism, and slavery from a distance. This domination is merciless, daily oppressing and killing children, women and men through terror and with an outrageous violence..."
There is more, much more of the same from his 2003 monograph, "Globalisation, Muslim Resistances".
These extracts are just from the first two paragraphs.
If there is indeed a Left/Islam love affair I think Chuck Hustmyre has missed some rather obvious lipstick on the collar.
When you get right down to it, the Utopia of the left is nothing less than a primitive existence. Islam has always been one. Without Capitalism, that is all one would have. Islams gains have always been a one time, short term gain at the expense of others. Re-distributing wealth is no different. Islamic rule has always been autocratic. Socialist and Communist rule has never been anything but autocratic.
In Islam, Allah tells you how to live your life. For the "leftist" they legislate how you live your life. Both also lie about everything with the straightest of Face.
Both are willing to work from within to achieve their goals.
Both are willing to kill with impunity.
Both want the good life that only Capitalism can provide, but eat the Goose that lays the Golden Egg in the process.
Many above have made interesting points about why the Left acts as it does. There's probably at least some truth, if not a great deal of truth, in all of them. As William Wordsworth observed, there's rarely one cause for anything. I will only add that, irrespective of the reasons why the Left thinks as it does, from experience I have come to realize fully that the self-righteouness of the Left is ordinarily insufferable. Because of my many years of associating with students and fellow teachers, I can say with considerable accuracy that so many of them have no idea how close-minded they are, even though they think they are the very model of open-mindedness.
As a liberal lefty, I have to admit I never thought of it this way. Then again, i've always despised Islam so it was never a question of tolerance for me. But I can certainly see how other daft liberals might be doing this.
Agreed, Wellington.
That self-righteousness you pick up on seems similar to what Thomas Sowell has in mind in describing 'the vision of the anointed', a Left/liberal attempt to claim the moral high-ground but only possible with a thorough purging of the old morality.
Leftists and other assorted utopian liberals thus happily travel with fellows whom they believe share their rejection of the old morality.
So it was in the early days of revolutionary Iran. But an old-fashioned-morality shock was not long in coming once the useful idiots were no longer useful.
Overhere in Europe it's even much worse than in the U.S. I'm a lefty myself and I'm totally unable to understand the great discrepancies between left ideals and Islam and how so many people among the left manage to combine these antagonistic ideas. Islam is totally opposed to humanity, to enlightenment, to science to any understanding of human nature which the lefties stand for or at least claim to stand for. These are still my firm positions but I feel utterly being betrayed by my comrades. I can only speculate about their real motives here in Europe.
They're coveting the Mahoundians as potential voters and/or they're on the Saudi payroll. The Saudis are proselitising or I'd better say da'waing tremendously. And our country Europe is their main goal or target however you put it. But other cultures are concerned as well, we aren't the only ones.
But when I go back thinking about the Swiss vote, I think that Europe isn't entirely lost. This intrepid mountain people voted for freedom and that's a clarion call. In France they're fighting against veils and burqas. May all the others follow, there are enough peoples in Europe.
David you are spot on I believe and if I may add..the leftists actually believe that they are smart enough to use muslims for their own purposes without being consumed themselves.
This is what I do not understand about those on the left who seem to feel that criticism of fundamentalist Christians is OK, but criticism of fundamentalist Islam is not.
They are driving their bus over the very causes they have forged in to our society. Causes, which I mostly agree are everything that is good about the left. Yet those who point out the contradiction are called hateful.
I don't get it.
I strongly suspect that because Christianity was largely the religion of the white people, whom the left sees as victimizers is another reason they so hate Christianity. Also, because the left through its PC multicultural lens doesn’t see Muslims as white people, they can only be victims and never victimizers.
I strongly suspect that because Christianity was largely the religion of the white people, whom the left sees as victimizers is another reason they so hate Christianity. Also, because the left through its PC multicultural lens doesn’t see Muslims as white people, they can only be victims and never victimizers.
I strongly suspect that because Christianity was largely the religion of the white people, whom the left sees as victimizers is another reason they so hate Christianity. Also, because the left through its PC multicultural lens doesn’t see Muslims as white people, they can only be victims and never victimizers.
What is truly astounding to me is that the more atrocities the mahounds pile up, the more the clueless dhimwits fall all over themselves making excuses for them and defending them, calling those who point out the "religion of peace"s violent nature the oh-so-predictable and tiresome "ïslamophobe" and "racist".
MBR
What Tariq writes is merely for Leftists and anti-globalists here in the West to get them to believe they are on the same page. But when you look closely at what goes on the ME in regards to trade and manufacturing. The Muslims are no different than the Chinese - they happily set up factories for Western companies and then exploit the shit out of the workers and kill them if they get out of line. Or one can examine the megolopolis for the rich in Dubai which was essentially built on and run by slave labor- mostly SE Asians.
Hell if you look at Islam historically they never had any regard for workers, whether they be Muslim or Infidel.
In short its a sham.
I usually have coffee once a week with a diehard leftie who never ceases to disabuse me about the evils of Capitalism and how he "hates all religions equally" etc etc.
I usually get my turn and let fly.
In one of our recent discussions when I loudly proclaimed that internment and mass-deportations are the only (humane) solutions we have, he snapped:
"are you nuts? I don't want every Muslim in the country to run around killing, slash'n burn and take people hostage...."
I owned him right there and then.
He just admitted, that Muselmanic terror, murder and mayhem will -inevitably- happen if we take measures to protect ourselves.
So its not that the lefties are naive. They feed the crocodile in the hope that it eats them last.
We need to protect ourselves from these fools!
So why does the American Left hate Christianity yet love Islam?
Politics makes strange bedfellows.
What they don't get (still!) is that it's the crocodile from 'Peter Pan,' the one that follows you around while ticking...
It goes beyond mere politics, PMK - including, variously, to one's world view, a utopian faith in perfectability be it of man and/or his institutions, a wish to be or appear to be morally righteous or even superior, an identification with one's tribe or clan be it Bedouin or Berkeley-based ... Plus the various factors noted in the comments section above.
The first part of your question can be validly broadened to include the Left throughout the Western world. It is not peculiar to America.
It is possible, too, that as the Left collectively and contradictorily holds that religion (Christiaity, sometimes every religion) is murderous and based on bigotry, it also believes that religion is a fairly trivial affair. So if the crunch comes, they will simply convert to Islam and thereby be "safe".
Those who have converted to Islam in the last few years tend to have been attention-seeking lefty types, who enjoy the novelty of being feted and appreciated by exotic brown people...often they marry them. But I predict conversions will increase due to more prosaic pressures of self-preservation. And these convertees be will those from the "atheist community", I bet.
Overall, great article.
BUT WAIT! After reading this I saw this story on O'Reilly!
http://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech-religion-belief/anti-islam-t-shirt-ban-prompts-aclu-lawsuit
ACLU is defending a FL student's right to wear a shirt that says "ISLAM IS OF THE DEVIL"!
Sort of turns this premise on its head.
I guess hell is freezing over right now, because I agreed with something B.O. did and I'm seeing a glimmer of hope from the Anti-American Civil Liberties Union!
With great respect I write this to you, epistemology. You described yourself as a "lefty" and at the same time you indicated your consternation as to why the Left in the aggregate can so sympthasize with Islam, repressive in sundry ways as it is of Western ideals. I would suggest a reason here and it's this: The modern Western Left emphasizes equality over liberty. This, I would contend, is a grave error.
Equality should never be elevated above liberty except with respect to the law. In all other human endeavors, freedom should be paramount. By placing equality above liberty, the modern Left can easily excoriate the West because it is precisely freedom of thought, of action, of most everything that has made the West in the past half millennium far superior to any other civilization and the Left can't tolerate this PRECISELY because freedon produces unequal results. The single greatest error of Leftthink is the notion that equality is paramount. But it is not. Freedom is. And no one knew this better than the Founding Fathers of America.
What made America so great and the West the greatest civilization in history is liberty. And the Left doesn't understand this. Not at all. Thus the PC/MC nonsense and the continual exculpation of Islamic terrorism by the Left because of the false assumption that all cultures are equal. No they're not and that's because freedom is the greatest determinitive of what cultures produce. When the West grasps this collectively, a major corner will have been turned. To date, the West collectively remains clueless of this timeless truth. Hope you are well.
PG - Not THIS atheist, whether it meant my skin or not.
Baest - Well, the ACLU was supposedly founded to protect everyone's legal equality, yes? They're supposed to support the right of the KKK to protest, as well as the that of the Black Panthers, for instance. Might not always agree with what they're doing, and, like other groups lately, probably lost their focus, but that's the ideal. Good to see they're backing up the t-shirt; however, I do agree that they should have made an issue of these Islamic cultural indoctrination sessions in schools, if they're going to argue that representatives of the state are to endorse NO religion, ever (which is why Santa might be allowed - if he still is - on public property, but not nativity scenes. Even though it can be argued that Santa is a sort of religious figure, being "The Spirit of Giving" sort of thing (if one takes the "spirit" part in the animistic sense, as a supernatural entity representing/embodying a quality or concept.)
Wellington - I like your point; it made me think back to when there was all that nonsense about dumbing down, or reducing qualifications, for jobs just so "more different kinds of people can apply". Nuh-uh, doesn't fly with me. I _KNOW_, for instance, that I could NEVER be, say, a firefighter. I can barely pick up my 25 lb cat. How the heck could I expect to carry someone to safety, or even handle a firehose? Do I feel discriminated against? Of course not. It's not the firehall's fault I've been graced with all the muscles of Bugs Bunny! I'm certainly not the physical equal of a strapping 25 year old buck. And in an emergency, I'd rather see the buck (or even a big bull dyke, say), than someone my size and frame - male or female - coming to help me.
The whole thing went too far, and it's been projected onto EVERYTHING, including culture and ideology.
I bet Desomond Morris (The Naked Ape, The Human Zoo) is hated by the left now, coz in the former book, he says he studies MODERN humanity as the mainstream, and states that stone-age peoples (whom anthropologists usually study and coo over) are stunted, and not representative of mainstream, progressing humanity.
I do not think the left are afraid of Islam at all, I think the left see Islam as just another tool with which to destroy the Christian West. They know they have failed to stir up the working classes in western countries, so they have pushed the barrow of multiculturalism in order to import a new proletariat and in the case of Muslims, a weaponised proletariat, with which to kick off the next revolution and finally destroy those pesky Christians and their civilisation.
I have pondered this subject for many years now.
The final conclusion I've reached (or should I say, the only explanation that makes sense) is that it is a result of what I call "Liberal Self-loathing Delusion", or LSD for short.
My eureka moment came while reading Francis Bok's "Escape From Slavery", where he similarly wondered why the lefty media doesn't care about the massive atrocities committed in Sudan. It's because Sudan is not ruled by 'one of them'. If you look at news stories, this is true. It's not about the victims or the crime, the left is only interested if there is someone to be portrayed as a terrible man/woman. Major Hasan? No. Bashir? No. A Saudi vice squad sentencing women to 100 lashes? Not really. Our own military punches a terrorist? Yes. Duke lacrosse players? Yep. Sarah Palin? Hell, yes!
I have no qualifications in psychoanalysis, but to argue contradictory things simultaneously could be deliberate deception, astonishing stupidity, or a form of delusion. There are no other logical explanations. Similarly, willingly sowing the seeds of your own destruction can only be from self hatred, maybe not literally self, but a collective loathing of one's own culture would also suffice. Since I don't think that the left is doing this deliberately, (at least not the vast majority, anyway), and are not idiots, then the answer is self-loathing delusion.
Maybe what is needed is to hold liberals and repeatedly say, "It's not your fault."
The Left hates Jews with a passion that blinds it of any commonsense. Because islam hates Jews, and on the principle that an enemy of my enemy is my friend, they flock to islam. I personally cannot stand or understand liberated Western media type feminists fighting islam's corner!
Simply speaking, Lefties [far left] are brain dead, mentally disturbed to the extreme, and have been for years. They simply cannot think for themselves, and must depend on radical Islam, the ACLU, and other clueless people like this to do their thinking for them. The reason they hate Christianity so much is because Satan hates Christianity, and so they are simply following the hate orders of their much beloved leader, Lucifer!
Jeffs:
Fantastic insights!
If leftists and progressives would only study the real history of Islam's rise, spread and core beliefs in the 7th cent., they would drop any illusion that Islam is a white knight in shining armor. Tell them they can study it all free online with the Historyscoper and get a clue at http://go.to/islamhistory
I think Natalie and Darrinh are closest -- because I also don't see the fear. I honestly think that Left is setting up the ultimate cage match with themselves wearing the badge of "Freedom" and the Muslims representing "Religion." Just as the ACLU is bastardising the notion of freedom (so that it's unrecognisable in its truest sense) Islam is the Left's favourite bogeyman of what they think all religion really is. Given those two choices, they assume that Rational Man will opt for their version of freedom, allowing them to prevail in the end.
As a Christian, I know this will not be the case, but it could be ugly in the way it unfolds. We'll be hiding in the catacombs once again until it plays out, emerging only to bury the bodies by night. Both contenders are liars, but this is necessary because we've given away the store to them. Pray for the next generation -- it won't be pretty.
What these left wing atheists seem to NOT understand is that there is one group that Islam hates even more than Chrisians ad Jews and that is the Atheists. They are marked for death the first then come the Christians and Jews. As I have said before everything is ok with Islam as long as it benefits them. As soon as they get what they are looking for (domination, control) that is when these atheists will truly see what is what.
Union made in hell for sure.
sheik yer'mami is half right in his assessment of the Leftist psychology (which is, to a great though blandly diluted, extent, the psychology of PC MCs most of whom are not Leftists):
Leftists semi-consciously fear Muslim violence, and of course, as sheik yer'mami realized, such fear presumes an indictment of Islamic culture.
But this is only half of the explanation of Leftist (and PC MC) psychology with regard to the problem of Islam: There is another, second fear that motivates them: a fear of themselves -- specifically, a fear of what they, as white Westerners will do if they allow themselves to think the unthinkable. And what is the unthinkable? Simply that an Ethnic People (Muslims) could be capable of systemic wrongs, if not evils. This is unthinkable according to Leftism, and according to its decaffeinated Lite version, PC MC: For only white Westerners are capable of systemic wrongs, and even systemic evils. Ethnic peoples are exempt from this charge.
And one of the premier systemic evils to which we white Westerners are prone begins with our own inner inclination toward bigotry and prejudice against ethnic peoples. If we don't interdict at the start our own thoughts and words of criticism against Muslims, we will be tempted to follow the logic -- particularly when we know, even if only semi-consciously, how dangerous Muslims really are -- and that logic will seduce us along a slippery slope of mistreating all those ethnic people -- rounding them up, putting them in camps, cleansing them, even trying to exterminate them.
In order to prevent another Holocaust, then, we have to put the brakes on at the beginning, in what we think, and what we say.
These two fears of the Leftist -- a fear of Muslims and a fear of themselves -- work together in a paradoxical way and only increase the energy of denial: the more that Muslims explode, the more, not the less, do Leftists dig in their heels and deny.
But the crucial key here is the doctrine of reverse racism. Without that factored in, the whole edifice makes no sense.
As a ranking greybeard, perhaps I might share with you a remembrance of the beautiful 'sixties, a turning point in my belief system. Whereas I was at heart a relatively conservative young man, committed to both the Catholic church and the scientific method, I was neverthetheless impressed by the arguments of my humanities and soft-science yoke-fellows. To my great shame, I must acknowledge that at that stage in my life political and moral considerations took a back seat to the much more enjoyable debaucheries of cannabis and the sexual enthusiasm of enlightened, nubile, new-age females. I suspect that I am not alone among my conservative friends in this, my early history.
On one occasion, I shared a 'bus seat with a very dear friend on a trip from Vancouver, Canada to Mt. Shasta, California. I boarded the vehicle as a hippie, and alighted from it a redneck, left-brained, misogynous, judgemental, patriarchal, etc., etc. ad infinitum fascist.
My friend, who had not slept for the previous week as a result of of a "crystal run" (ie methedrine binge) took it upon himself to educate me on several issues:
#1) We in the developed world are not nearly so enli-
ghtened as are the denizens of the middle east.
Why? Because we eat red meat and drink alcohol,
whereas the sons of the desert don't eat meat
and smoke dope, thereby qualifying themselves
as "cool, laid back people."
#2) Astrology is both an accurate science and an
advanced and sophisticated philosophy. His
reasoning? Surely, huge planets like Jupiter and
suns with the mass of Sirius or Betelguese must
necessarily exert a poweful influence on
newborns during the birth process. I spent the
distance between Salem Oregon and Corning
California in a fruitless attempt to explain to
him that the bag of weed in his pocket had a
far greater gravitational influence upon him than
did the entire Milky Way. He told me that I was
"up tight," hence "not open to new ideas."
#3) Working for a living sends the wrong message to the
powers that be. Every one ought to be free to
develop his own potential and be rewarded by the
state for so doing . Those who go to work every
day constitute a destructive force which delays
the realization of utopia, where all we'll need to
do will be to give each other flowers and colored
beads and smoke dope.
People like this are now running our fragile and besieged
countries. Good luck. Enjoy.
Individuals are rather unpredictable but groups are quite predictable. The larger the group the more predictable. An individual moslem may not be predictable but the whole of Islam really is. When I first heard of the events of 911 I didn't have to guess who was responsible.