Tolerating The Intolerable?

Who will miss Western Culture when it is gone? Will the liberals and leftists who espouse tolerance for all belief systems, except right of center western political thought, miss their liberty? Will they lament it, when non-western right of center religious and political systems, and leftist non-religious political systems finally overcome us, because we were so tolerant? We have gotten to the point where we let the fox in the hen house, and refuse to see the danger for fear of being labeled anti-foxists.

The WTC mosque controversy is a glaring example. A vast majority of Americans and of New Yorkers have voiced their opinion against building the Mosque so close to Ground Zero. A vocal minority side with Imam Rauf and his Cordoba Initiative. Rauf and his allies have framed the debate largely in terms of tolerance, or in terms of Constitutional protection of religious freedom. In fact many on the left have implied that the First Amendment guarantee of Freedom of Religion, mandates acceptance, and absolves Islam from criticism. Nonsense, that First Amendment also guarantees our right to voice our concerns about the Mosque, and about Islam in general.

In fact, putting aside the salt in the wound aspect, that placing the Mosque in downtown New York City has for many, the controversy really is about the reach and influence of Islam in America’s future. How much tolerance are we required to extend to Islam, and what is the intent of Islam?

As a religion, Islam’s followers are generally entitled to practice their beliefs. American legal history, does require that they do so in compliance with our Constitution and our laws. While the courts are often required to sort out fine points of religious freedom in the US, egregious violations of our legal tradition have been found to be unacceptable. Hence Indian drug use, and Mormon polygamy are not legal, religious freedom notwithstanding.

Islam should expect a similar reception. Stoning, slavery, corporal punishment for wives etc., are outside the legal norms we practice. In the name of tolerance, however, some liberals have sought to weaken our norms, asserting that we should not force our legal values on Muslims, hence a recent NJ judge's decision not to grant a restraining order against a Moroccan husband (fortunately overturned on appeal). The creation of Sharia only zones in Great Britain, Canada, and France, has encouraged Muslims and apologists to seek similar legal allowances in enclaves in St. Paul Minnesota and Dearborn Michigan. It has troubled police and neighbors where it has been allowed.

So why not? Isn’t “live and let live” part of our values? Isn’t religious tolerance inscribed in the constitution?

How do we deal with Islam, or is it Islamism? Islamism is the name that is catching on to describe those factions of Islam, both radical and mainstream that pursue jihad. Jihad is one of the pillars of Islam; the requirement to “struggle” for one’s faith. This concept of struggling has been described as both internal (within the self) and external. Jihad is used by Muslimsto describe the historical spread of Islam across much of Asia and Africa, by war, trade and assimilation.

Islam is a complex multi-faceted faith with sects and strains, just like all the other great religions. Jihad is central to all of its sects. The external Jihad is deeply entrenched in enough of those strains that it can hardly be called radical. What is now termed radical Islam, consists of those factions which seek a violent spread of Islam today.

Mainstream Islam, as it defines itself, today in the West, does not eschew external jihad, merely violence. We have accepted the Council on American Islamic Relations and Imam Rauf’s Cordoba Initiative as ideals of peaceful mainstream Islam in the US today, and yet they have obviously Jihadist doctrines.

"Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faiths, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."

Omar Ahmad, Co-Founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations

In America, we have a Constitution that created a three-branch form of government - legislative, executive and judiciary. The role of the judiciary is to ensure that the other two branches comply with the Constitution. What Muslims want is a judiciary that ensures that the laws are not in conflict with the Quran and the Hadith.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf

“Well so what?” ask many Americans. After all many religions are evangelical, seeking new converts and aspiring to grow, and even to dominate.

Islam is different . Islam as a religion, includes a complete set of social, economic, political and legal prescriptions. It calls on its adherents to create theocratic states governed by Sharia, Islamic law. While Imam Rauf can soft pedal Sharia as divinely inspired law, akin to the appeal to the creator in our Declaration of Independence, the fact is that Sharia law as it is practices throughout the world is deeply at odds with Western Humanism, whether secular or Judeo-Christian.

Sharia is the law of the land in Saudi Arabia. Sharia allows slavery. Sharia oppresses women, making wives property of their husbands. Sharia calls for the execution of homosexuals. Sharia calls for the stoning of apostates. Etc etc.

Americans simply don’t want to live under Sharia. Liberals, in the media, and in academia have so elevated tolerance as a value that we develop a lack of clarity about what Islam as a belief system promotes. It promotes a non-democratic non-western government and society.


“We could deal with those Islamists except for one thing: A large segment of our fashionable opinion-makers… think that Islamists aren’t as bad as all that; and if they are, then we are still worse, and what we stand for isn’t really worth defending. So the public doesn’t know what to think, and a few self-appointed custodians push them into all manner of doubt and guilt by accusing anyone who criticizes, or — horrors! — laughs at Islamists of Islamophobia, racism, fascism, etc. etc.”

David Pryce Jones

If Islam, were not a religion, if it was an otherwise all encompassing belief system, we could talk more freely about its challenges to democracy. Communism was (and still is)a belief system that prescribes an entire set of beliefs about how people should interact, how they should be governed, and even what they should believe about God (he is an imaginary figure). Most Americans, even if they happen to be Marxist in their outlook, do not begrudge an honest discussion about Communism and the advantages and disadvantages of the system, surely even American liberals are not saying that communism is beyond criticism, by virtue of our freedoms of speech, conscience and association. Liberals are rabid attack dogs when challenging any perceived fascism, a much abused word that still includes a definition of Totalitarianism. Atheists and Agnostics are often quite critical of Christianity and Judaism, often because that’s where they started out. But Islam is sacrosanct. As Pryce Jones noted in today’s society criticism of Islam as a thought system=Islamophobia=Racism=Fascism=Evil.

I think that far leftist thought is often rooted in guilt and self loathing. When we no longer care enough about our own culture and traditions to defend them, we have nothing left to fight for. Tolerance is as beautiful a thing as prejudice is ugly, but blind tolerance is blind to threats. Will the last liberal standing please give the Jihadists the keys