I am a muslim and I agree with most of the points raised in your article. However, what is said in the article does not apply to muslims from many non-arab countries. For example, consider the Iranian population of the US. After less than 25 years they have completely melted in the general population. They have their own stores, TV stations and newspapers, but they are not behaving differently than what earlier immegrants from Italy, Japan, Poland and Russia did. It is unfortunate that many characteristics that are attributed to muslim population in the US are really cultural having deep roots in Arab tribalism rather than having religous connections. Perhaps the best way to understand this is to go to Dearborn, Michigan where you have a large population of muslim Arabs and then compare it to Westwood area of LA where you have a large poplulation of Iranian muslims. I have lived in both places and you will be astonished by the differences. Come to think of it, some one should do a study of these two areas.

Dear Mr. Lawrence, I read your article on defeating jihad in America and I am in complete agreement with what you say. I live in Germany and here, there are two cultures Western Judero Christian and Islamic. The authorities here are trying to give the appearanced that all is well here but believe me, it is not. Not far from my home is a very large Turkish area. And believe me, it feels like a different country. Do you really think the governments of the respective Western nations will wake up from their slumber before it is too late? What about Bat Yeor, I believe she has it right, Europe engineered their current demise a long time ago. On another note, I sometimes think the US is allowing so many Mexicans in particular and Latin Americans into the country not just for cheap labor, but to offset the growing islamic presence here. What do you think the future of America will be, I am afraid to think about it.

One last thing, In todays paper, the Bild, a Turkish politican said that he projects the Turkish population to grow in germany to 37 million by the year 2100. The German population would be about 40 million and that the “Healthy” and fakily oriented people of Turkey will do what their armies could not do in the 16th century, conquer Europe. This remark came after his foux pax statement yesterday that German women were “Birth lazy”, not wanting children.

Anthony

Disgusted in Europe.

Dear Sir, I agree entirely with your suggestions for dealing with the threat to our national security. More than that, however, I am certain that a great many people feel the same way, but don’t know how to help stop the inevitable. We seem to be merely waiting for 9/11 Part Two to take place, after which surely the government will finally take decisive action, like the steps you mentioned? I fear that this is the course that will be revealed. I don’t see the people doing anything till disaster stikes again. And I believe that the terrorists among us are waiting to hit hard because they know that once they do the steps you wrote of might actually be implimented, and they would finally be expelled or detained. The problem is the economic and social instability that they leave behind will be most formidable.
I deeply appreciate your thoughts, and your willingness to present them. It seems that duty is calling us all.
If you are aware of any sites, etc., of like-minded, concerned citizens where I might link up for information, or to organize even, please let me know. As I mentioned, I have many friends who feel the same about our plight, and would like to get connected with information.
Yours Truly,
L.C.

If one removed the citizenship of and tried to deport “supporters of jihad”, there wouldn’t necessarily be any foreign countries willing to accept them: even Islamist regimes may prefer Islamists to remain in place in the United States. (I think Jordan some time ago prohibited its Palestinian citizens from selling their land to Israelis, for somewhat similar reasons.)

On a more basic level, it would seem dangerous for a country to start stripping citizenship from any category of citizens, except where it was obtained on false pretences. Despite what Mr. Auster says, this is an extreme measure, both because of the human attachments it tears apart and because it represents an end to the principle of equality of legal rights for citizens. If supporting jihad against one’s own country can be defined precisely enough to make it a crime, it should presumably be punished by fines or imprisonment, like other crimes, unless the perpetrator is a non-citizen. If it cannot be so defined, then stripping citizenship becomes a vague threat hanging over guilty and innocent alike, and a measure likely to be abused by the government. And if it is acceptable in principle to strip Muslim subversives of their citizenship, why not liberal subversives too? Isn’t this no-holds-barred approach the path towards civil war?

(On the other hand, I don’t see anything inherently extremist about another possibility, namely paying citizens considered demographically undesirable to renounce their citizenship voluntarily…)

I would definitely consider Mr. Hare’s carrot (pay people to leave) along with the stick of law enforcement, exclusion, and deportation.

As for Mr. Hare’s criticisms of the extremity of my position, the issue of whom to deport came into focus for me as I was writing the article. I initially included in my Point 4 the deportation of jihadis who were naturalized citizens, not American-born jihadis. But as I thought about that NY Times story about the Al Noor academy in Brooklyn and what the kids there say; when I thought about the other NY Times story about what British-born Moslems are saying, it became clear to me that the only just and safe solution is to get them the heck out of here. They don’t belong here. They have no business being here. We can’t put all the hundreds of thousands of people who have these jihadist beliefs and allegiances in prison; that would be impossible. And for the most part they haven’t broken any criminal laws, because this is not a criminal issue. The issue is that they are _fundamentalist Moslems_ and that as _fundamentalist Moslems_ they hate us and cannot help but intend our destruction. Therefore we must make an exception from our general laws when it comes to such Moslems. If that means a temporary suspension of certain Constitutional protections as they relate to certain Moslems, so be it.

This is not a matter of equality under the law, but of national existence. Without our national existence, we will have no laws and no Constitution.

Look at it this way. When we _admitted_ these aliens into our country over the last forty years, we did an _extreme_ thing ; the only way to right that mistake is to do the _opposite_ extreme thing and _expel_ them.

If anything, you don’t go far enough. I would advocate the destruction of Islam itself, by removing Muslim control of Countries, and the eventual replacing of the Muslim population. (Limit Muslim couples to 1 child, give incentives to non-Muslim populations to have more children.)

Great article! I must say I support the melting pot approach as long as pork is served!

I agree wholeheartedly with the article you wrote on Frontpagemagazine.com. Assimilation of koran abiding muslims to assimilate in the US and West as a whole. The question regarding deporting illegal muslim aliens is; how do you find them? So many cities (Seattle being a prime example) have bragged and advertised their new multi-culti laws which ban their law enforcement officials from asking persons about their legal “status.” So, how can you find illegal jihadists in waiting when law enforcement hands are tied? The ideas you bring up are excellent, now where do we start?

I agree with Naarah that I’ve only laid out the general strategy, not the how-to. A starting point for discussion might be Mark Krikorian’s article in the March 22 National Review, “Not Amnesty but Attrition,” where he makes some good suggestions on how to _reduce_ the illegal population in this country. I don’t know if the article is online at NRO.

I’m neither a Muslim nor from the ME, but I wish to attest to what Karim has stated about the Iranians. I have, via work, come to know quite a few Iranians. The ones I know have behaved like any other group in terms of assimilation. I’ve becomes friends with a few of them and they are quite candid, with me, about how much they hate what the (mainly) Arab Islamists are doing.

All the Iranians I know are hard working people and identify with Americans. This is their home and the ones I know have added a great deal to the fabric of our nation. They didn’t come expecting handouts and aren’t on welfare. I would be upset if they were to be deported because of their religion.

I agree with the Front Page article in part. I think any group who will not assimilate and who
works to undermine the US should be asked to leave.

This applies not only to the Islamists, but also to a group based mainly in California who wants to see certain parts of the US returned to Mexico.

Mr. Auster—Agreed, it is an extreme policy to admit as citizens those who hate your country. But this decision, once made, is a kind of contract with those citizens to extend the full protection of the Constitution to them. Breaking this commitment seems immoral, even if one realises later that one has made a serious mistake. (Also isn’t it likely, really, to create more enemies, among previously loyal or uncommitted Muslims, than it gets rid of?)

If it is a matter of an direct threat to national existence then virtually anything is justifiable. But the threat to national existence here seems to be of a more hypothetical character. (9/11, for example, did not imperil national existence.)

Mr. Hare is engaging in a fallacy similar to something Patrick Buchanan said in his article “No End to War” which I critiqued a few weeks back at FrontPage. Buchanan implied that only if America were facing a literal physical destruction even greater than that suffered by Germany and Japan in World War II, could we actually think of our national existence as being threatened. Well, I ask Mr. Hare, _how much_ prospective damage would justify the expulsion of Moslem jihadis from this country in order to prevent that damage? The destruction of a city and a million people? The destruction of two cities and two million people? Such a loss would not mean the end of America, but I would certainly say that preventing such a loss would justify very extreme preventive measures.

Karim has a point about (some) non-Arab Mohammedans being less of a direct threat. My close-up observation of Somalis over the last decade leads me to believe few of them want to serve as water-boys for Arab nationalism. They’re not interested in any other ethnic group than their own— and even that is new, as at home they had a clan-first mentality which retarded national thinking.

The real threat of “benign” groups like the Iranians and Somalis is not what they might do, but what they certainly won’t do— carry forward American tradition. Their presence is not so much explosive as erosive, or perhaps diluent. The “soft” measures Mr Auster and Mr Hare outlined— stopping the influx, repatriation incentives, attrition— are better for these groups.

We face something like a Trotskyite/Leninist bifurcation here. The Trotskyites were generally harmless (until they became neoconservative!), but you don’t want to import them regardless. Leninists were kept (or kicked) out by the McCarran-Walter Act. It is still on the books, and should apply equally well to “serious” Mohammedans. “False pretenses” can be taken for granted here.

By the way, Islam treats “to assimilate” as a transitive verb!

“A starting point for discussion might be Mark Krikorian’s article in the March 22 National Review, “Not Amnesty but Attrition,” where he makes some good suggestions on how to _reduce_ the illegal population in this country. I don’t know if the article is online at NRO.”

Krikorian’s article can be found here:

http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/markoped032204.html

Krikorian’s article cuts right through the leftist and pseudocon propaganda that we must choose between amnesty and mass forcible deportation, and that law enforcement against illegal immigration can’t work.

Admitting as citizens people who hate us isn’t extreme, it is suicidal insanity.

Going back to Mr. Hare’s point about the danger of stripping US citizens of their citizenship, I tend to agree. There is a caveat to this, however. Under the interpretation of the constitution’s 14th amendment that was practiced up until the 1960s or so, the students at Al Noor, US born children of foreign nationals, would not be considered citizens until they completed a naturaliztion process after reaching adulthood. The Nation of Islam and Islamic converts among the native Black population who embrace Jihadist goals could be dealt with as described by Mr, Hare above.

On Karim’s point about Jihadism being primarily and Arab nationalist idea, I have to disagree. Jihadis are active in every Muslim country, and non-Arabs were among the 19 terrorists responsible for 9/11. The Bali bombings, wars in Indonesia and the Philippines were hardly inspired by Arab nationalism.

In the case of Iranians, I think the generally moderate form of Islam practiced by this group in the US might be attributable to the fact that many are refugees from the Islamist regime in Tehran and have no desire to live under such conditions again.

Mr. Auster—You seem to be talking about committing a very significant immoral act as a means of *perhaps* reducing the risk of a *hypothetical* catastrophic event. We do not know what the probabilities of such events are, since they have never happened. Ought we not to rely on moral principles rather than utilitarian risk-analyses, at least unless we know the values of the probabilities that are actually involved.

(Incidentally, I am Canadian, so I do not share the experience of 9/11. However, it is easy to envisage Canadian as well as American cities being targets.)

Isn’t Canada’s head of state also the Defender of the Faith? And isn’t what Mr Hare calls an “immoral act” in the US her solemn duty in Canada? Without a Christian monarch, there is no point to Canada at all.

Forgive me if I misread Hare’s comments, but some reason I have seen a pattern in Canadians failing to see reality, even when it is in their backyard (i.e. gov’t allowing self-styled jihadists to seek political asylum in Canada, giving thumbs up for Shari’a law to be practiced in some muslim dominated neighborhoods, exempting muslims from the new hate speech law, not declaring Hizbollah a terror organization until recently, etc.) . The question is, how can Hare ignore the fact that muslims have declared over and over again that they will stop at nothing to force everyone to submit to allah-they willingly say as much! These are not dress/turban wearing jihadists, but middle class muslims in Britain, Canada (yes, even Canada) and America who willingly say this on TV, in newspapers, at rallies, etc. Why should these muslims have the privilege (not a right) to live in the US if their aim is to make us submit to allah no matter what the cost? Jihadists threatened in the past and made good on their threats. How is that for calculating the probabilities, Hare?
The other issue that has not been addressed here, or maybe it has and I missed it; muslims who harbor ill will toward the West do assimilate. The 19 terrorists that performed their allah inspired duty of mass murder all blended in very well. Most of them dressed like the average Americans, had families, had jobs, etc. So, even if they assimilate, are they really assimilating? The terror that jihadists are inflicting on the West has created its desired affect…to create a barrier of distrust between the West and muslims.

Mr. Hare says that stripping those who advocate jihad against their country, to which they owe their alliegence, of their citizenship and deporting them would be a “committing a very significant immoral act.” I must remind Mr. Hare the advocating jihad against one’s country is treason, and that the traditional penalty for treason is death. Surely denaturalization and deportation is a more “humane” or “compassionate” method of national and cultural self-preservation than is execution.

Appearently the United Kingdom, though it is lead by the politically correct Tony Blair, does not subscribe to Mr. Hare’s judgement of stripping a traitor of his citizenship as a “signifficant immoral act.” The British Government is pursuing stripping the pro-al Qaeda cleric abu Hamza of his citizenship and deporting him.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1203751,00.html

http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;sessionid=EH5YD0UNJ0RVVQFIQMFCM5WAVCBQYJVC?xml=/news/2004/04/27/nhamza27.xml&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=32152

This has perhaps been one of THE most important threads I’ve witnessed at VFR, although it seems many “regulars” have taken an early vacation.

Mr. Auster’s frontpagemag.com “treatise” was brilliantly developed and well-penned. I too thought he “hadn’t gone far enough” however with the deportation of jihadists, and he left out two other important co-issues. Then, as I thought about what he had said, I realized that his “deportation” concept was sort of the flip side of something I had written about and advocated when I first arrived at VFR—relocation camps for pro-jihadist Americans. It is clear that the country hasn’t the will for reopening those WWII camps—perhaps not until we’re attacked again in a major way. So, Mr. Auster’s “extreme” statement of “deportation for Arab American citizens”—assuming the countries of their or their parents’ origin would not take them back—makes complete sense. And by the way, if those countries WON’T take them back, then they either go to prison or to the relocation camps and lose/forfeit their homes, property, businesses, etc. The money taken from the sales of their homes and businesses would go back to the Government to help pay to house, feed and guard them. Here are some other things that must happen for the U.S. to survive, besides Mr. Auster’s excellent suggestions:

1) Shut down CAIR and other jihad-supporting groups. Why? We are at war. We are supposedlyu about to be attacked again in a big way. Yet, we still have some VERY powerful/well-placed Arab-American jihadist-supporting groups continuing to raise money for the jihadists “back home”—like CAIR, like Grover Norquist’s Arab pac (I can’t think of the name) and others and to defend their criminal leaders like Alamoudi and Sami al-Arian. WHY, pray tell, haven’t the Feds shut those organbizations down (and freezing their assets) already?

2) Shut down EVERY mosque in the U.S. and, if necessary, arrest some or all “imams” or clerics for preaching anti-American hatred to their followers and deport THEM! Either tear down those green fields for terror or plant impossible-to-find listening devices to monitor what goes on.

3) Arrest for treason/terrorism any American or alien promoting or plotting jihad against the U.S. Make those found guilty pay with their lives the way 6 of 8 Nazis were summarily executed when they were caught after landing on Long Island and in Florida in ‘42. Give reprieve from death (life imprisonment with no chance of parole) to those who are caught and either are convicted or confess and who “snitch” of the bigger fish. No deep sleep injection for treason—the firing squad.

4) Make every Arab American over 15 give an oath of allegiance to the U.S. and take a polygraph test. If caught lying about their allegiance to the flag and to the Constitution, send them either to the old relocation camps in California and elsewhere that have been refurbished or rebuilt (managed by the military police), or deport them. Getting them out of the U.S. is would be ideal. I would imagine that a good number of them would “renounce” their Wahabbiism or jihadist beliefs in order to stay here, but how can we know for certain? It would be nice to have a larger “Guantanamo” where these jihadists who were refused entry by other countries when we deported them could be placed. Again, however, I think Mr. Auster’s idea on its face is the right one—deportation.

The U.S. could use its financial muscle to “force” other countries to take in these persons. We would simply pull our investments out of Saudi Arabia and other countries and stop giving billions in aid as we have for so long. The success of that would in large part depend on whether Bush, if re-elected, were to open Prudo Bay/ANWAR.

If we even impliment half of these things, we stand a chance. If not, we are finished.

I agree with dj that that this is a very important article that Mr. Auster has given us - one that every American should read. Moreover, the proposals he advocates are really quite reasonable, practical, and are in the finest tradition of genuine tolerance (not the leftist version).

The only slight quibble I have pertains to stripping American citizens of theor citizenship. As I explained in an earlier post, I am not referring to the US-born children of Muslim foreigners, but only to a) native converts to Islam (the murderous Sgt. Akbar being an example) and; b) naturalized citizens who have taken the oath. Granting the government, the same people responsible things like Ruby Ridge, Waco, selling our military secrets to China, etc., a carte blanche to strip Americans of citizenship is a dangerous thing and should only be used in extremis. The government must prove that an accused citizen has be directly involved in Jihadist activity or finacial support in order to justfy such an action. At the end of the day, what’s to stop a Kerry administration from using such measures to purge the coutry of Evangelical Christians or NRA members? Allegations of “advocatng terrorism” are so vague that they could very well be used to strip pro-lifers of their citizenship and property.

A similar concern arises with dj’s point 2, to wit: “Shut down EVERY mosque in the U.S. and, if necessary, arrest some or all “imams” or clerics for preaching anti-American hatred to their followers and deport THEM! Either tear down those green fields for terror or plant impossible-to-find listening devices to monitor what goes on.” If we give the Federal government authority to shut down all mosques, it will have the authority to shut down any church that disagrees with offical policies - abortion and “gay marriage” to name two. Once such leftist angenda are ratified by the Magisterium (the Federal Judicidary), it becomes ‘disloyal’ and ‘unpatriotic’ to oppose them in the minds of the leftists in charge of the government,

Well, by Carl’s analysis we’re in a heck of a spot. In the normal course of things, society depends on the national government to defend it from external and internal threats. But if the government is so potentially dangerous that it can’t be trusted to defend us from aliens because it might use the same powers against Americans as well (and I can’t dismiss Carl’s concerns about what the government might do against conservatives or Christians), then we’re helpless. Under Carl’s reasoning, we could remove resident aliens, but do nothing against naturalized citizens or American-born Moslems.

But there are still things we could do. What constitutes punishable criminal acts? If an American says he hopes that enemies of the country succeed in harming her, then (at least during formal war), that is some kind of crime. But suppose a person doesn’t make any explicit statement like that, suppose he just belongs to an organization or a mosque that has those views. Wouldn’t that be enough? If person belonged to a pro-Nazi organization during WWII, even if he didn’t do or say anything, wouldn’t that membership be enough to get him in trouble with the law? So, even under a traditional understanding (leaving aside my more radical proposals), what could the government do against people who either belong to anti-American organizations during time of war or verbally sympathize with America’s enemies? I don’t know the answers to that. But my point is that even within a traditional understanding, we could do vastly more than we’re doing now to suppress and intimidate the jihad-supporters among us and make it uncomfortable for them to be here and make them thinking of returning to the Dar al-Islam.

Another good criticism of my article is, what if the deported person’s native country refuses to take him back? I suppose that in many cases, the deported person may still a citizen of his native country and so it coudn’t stop him from entering when our authorities fly him home.

Carl has just re-discovered the basis of liberal tolerance. You need to be very careful setting precedents for what the state can do to the bad guys. Another gang may come to power later on with very different ideas about who the bad guys are.

As far as stripping Canadian citizenship, right now there’s no provision in Canadian law for it other than when citizenship is granted under false pretenses. Our government tried to expand the scope and drastically fasttrack the process for the third time in three years. The bill was killed in committee twice and the third version was allowed to die on the order paper six months ago.

It should surprise nobody that the radical Muslims led the opposition to the Citizenship Bill. Here’s a [very heavily edited] piece I did at the time:

http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/2003/111303/news2.html

Elminyawi, the radical Muslim I interviewed, was previously in the news for saying (and I’m quoting from memory here), “The next Sept 11 is going to come from the Muslim community. Even so, Canadian Muslims should not cooperate with the security agencies until the secret trials end.” I was there at the press scrum at the courthouse when he said that. The pack of reporters fell silent. I’ve never seen a pack of reporters do that before. Finally, one reporter asked him to repeat what he just said. He repeated it and added, “If this is how we’re going to be treated, Canadian security is not our problem.”

DJ’s proposed forcibly polygraphing “every Arab-American over 15”. One problem there— seven out of eight “Arab-Americans” are Christian. Most descend from immigrants from Lebanon or Syria a century ago. The mayor of my hometown 35 years ago was a 2nd- or 3rd-generation Lebanese Catholic. Jihad wasn’t in his platform, even if he was a Democrat.

We’re not at war with Christian Araby. Unless they choose to be with us.

Thanks, Mr. Cæsar, for mentioning the fact that there are a substantial number of Arab Christians in the US, many of whom have fled the horrible conditions of dhimmitude in Islamc countries.

Mr. Auster, I think the Bund (the pro-Nazi organiztion active in the US) was under heavy surveillance during WW II, with arrests and prosecutions of those who made overt threats. As I recall, a couple of Bund members (US citizens) who were caught assiting Nazi spies who landed in New Jersey using a mini-sub were actually hauled before the military tribunal along with the spies and executed as enemy combatants.

Part of the reason this is such a problem has to do with the left’s constant campaign to water down the definition of citizenship. Until leftist judges started legislating from the bench, the simple fact of having been born here did dot necessarily guarantee US citizenship. At present, there is a serious movement under way to allow illegal aliens to vote in ‘local’ (ha-ha) elections. The day illegal aliens are given full franchise rights will be the day the US government loses any pretense of legitimacy.

In reality, the country faces two well-organized enemies: Islamists and liberals. That’s why we’re in such a nasty place right now.

Carl—So before the leftist judiciary, what was the criterion for U.S. citizenship?

Mr. Auster—A problem with the analogy with WWII is that the present conflict is likely to continue into the foreseeable future. It would now seem more important to think about conserving constitutional guarantees than during an emergency of limited duration. Even so, the world wars did lead to significant permanent erosions of traditional liberties in the English-speaking countries.

Joshua—I was referring to those “supporting” jihad, not “advocating” it. If one engages in treasonable activity such as advocating the violent overthrow of the government one can legitimately be treated as a traitor through the criminal justice system. Mr. Auster was arguing that criminal penalties of this kind would be inadequate to deal with the “hundreds of thousands” of American jihadists. I am not clear on precisely what he was suggesting, but it sounds to me like administrative tribunals passing rough-and-ready judgement on the private, possibly otherwise unexpressed opinions of hundreds of thousands of citizens, perhaps using polygraph tests and other totalitarian methods.

I think the fact that we have not seen a major terrorist attack in the US since September or December of 2001 (remember the plane that blew up in the air a few months after 9/11? We still don’t know what caused that as far as I know) shows that the problem in the US is probably manageable at its current level.
Therefore, I think that if we just seal the #**%&!! borders and concentrate on deporting those who are here illegally, there will not be a need to deploy the tactics of deporting those who are already citizens. As long as the numbers of Muslims in the US is limited, I think that they will present a limited threat and the vast majority of them will avoid jihad-ing. As long as actual violende reminas low, I think we can afford to tolerate harsh language.
Note that I am not saying do nothing, I am saying that the more extreme parts of Mr. Auster’s plan do not need to be implemented yet, and if we implement the less extreme parts, the more extreme ones shouldn’t have to be at all.

Amir Taheri offers interesting insights:
http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/4585
However, his last paragraph doesn’t make any sense.
“Muslims can build successful societies provided they treat Islam as a matter of personal, private belief and not as a political ideology that seeks to monopolise the public space shared by the whole of humanity and dictate every aspect of individual and community life.”
Isn’t the whole point of the previous umpty paragraphs that Muslims cannot view Islam as a private, personal belief?
What Mr. Taheri apparently expects is for Muslims to either give up Islam, or to adopt a version of “Islam” that doesn’ty really believe in Islam. Why doesn’t he have the courage to say this?

Mr. Jose writes:

“What Mr. Taheri apparently expects is for Muslims either to give up Islam, or to adopt a version of ‘Islam’ that doesn’ty really believe in Islam. Why doesn’t he have the courage to say this?”

Well, he’s saying quite a lot, isn’t he? Taheri is an Iranian who lives in Europe; he probably fled the Mullahs’ regime, and is probably secular. For him to phrase his ideas the way Mr. Jose would like him to, would put Taheri in the Salman Rushdie category of targeted enemies of Islam. I think Taheri’s formulation is useful, as far as dealing with Islam is concerned. But it’s also sinister, as what Taheri wants to do to Islam is what Western liberals want to do (and largely have done) to Christianity: to relegate it to a purely private sphere where it can have no presence in or influence on the common life of society. One reason I hate our confrontation with Islam is that it sets up a dialectic in which the things we want to see happen in Islamic societies, such as secularization, must perforce become the things we advocate for our own society. That is why my great preference would be that we defend ourselves from Islam by _isolating_ the Moslem world, rather than by trying to reform it internally, because whatever internal reforms we seek for Moslem countries, such as secularization, must also become the principles we validate for our own society as well.

Indeed, the first article by Taheri article I ever read (and we discussed it at VFR—see link) proposed the merger of Europe and the Islamic world. Of course, in order for the two civilizations to be successfully merged, their respective religious dimensions would have to be erased.

This is why we DON’T want to be joined with Moslems in a universal system, but to remain separate from them, in separate civilizational spheres, just as Christendom was separate from (and at war with) Islam during the entire Early and High Middle Ages when Christendom was taking shape and maturing.

And for the very same reasons, this is why I don’t want by and large to assimilate Moslems into Western countries but to remove them. In order to assimilate them we must find a common ground with them. The only possible such common ground would have to be totally de-Christianized (or de-Judeo-Christianized if you prefer).

While I don’t completely dismiss Bush’s democratization project, because it does have a logic (though the logic is deeply flawed) aimed at making Islam less dangerous to us, my own recommendation is not the democratization of the Moslem world, but the isolation of the Moslem world; just as my own recommendation is not the assimilation of Moslem immigrants, but the departure of Moslem immigrants.

Here is our discussion of the Taheri article, from early 2003:

http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/001119.html

Mr. Hare,

The judicial interpretation of the ‘birthright’ aspect of the 14th amendment in place prior to the 1960s held that children born in the US to non-citizens were not US citizens. A child had to have at least one parent who was a citizen in order to qualify.

The 14th amendment reads:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citzens of the United Staes and of the State wherein they reside.

Since the 1960s, the courts have essentially nullified the second clause (and subject to the jurisdiction thereof) and held that anyone born on US soil is a citizen. If the original interpretation was in force, at least some of the madrassa students in Brooklyn cited in Mr. Auster’s article could be deported along with other resident aliens who are supporting jihad.

I believe that Carl’s statement on citizenship is in error. As far back as 1898, the Supreme Court ruled that a Chinese born in the U.S. to parents who were subjects of the Emperor but legally domiciled in the U.S. must be considered a U.S. citizen.

That case was U.S. v. WONG KIM ARK and can be viewed in its entirety here: http://laws.lp.findlaw.com/getcase/US/169/649.html

The relevant section includes:

“The evident intention, and the necessary effect, of the submission of this case to the decision of the court upon the facts agreed by the parties, were to present for determination the single question, stated at the beginning of this opinion, namely, whether a child born in the United States, of parents of Chinese descent, who, at the time of his birth, are subjects of the emperor of China, but have a permanent domicile and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the emperor of China, becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States. For the reasons above stated, this court is of opinion that the question must be answered in the affirmative.”

To be sure, the question gets muddled. There are cases cited (which I can’t immediately find) were Asians were denied citizenship in 1902, another in 1914 — but these involved foreign born Asians.

(American Indians were not citizens until 1924, but that’s a special case, as they were previously considered citizens of indigenous nations that were, at least nominally, sovereign. The “granting” of U.S. citizenship in that case was merely a legal tactic to justify trashing the national treaties we made with their nations.)

There are probably other cases I haven’t stumbled over yet, and I beg anyone who has additional insight on this to post more info. But so far as I have found, the Supreme Court had decided since 1898 that children born to non-citizens permanently and legally domiciled are automatically U.S. citizens.

It should be noted also that the 14th Amendment (which was NEVER legally ratified in the first place,) changed the nature of citizenship in that it made citizenship of the Union primary and citizenship of a State merely derivative. That’s exactly opposite of how things should be. And going even further back — I think it was one of the most colossal blunders of the Federal Convention to give the general government authority in determining uniform rules of naturalization. But I can understand why none of the Delegates would have seen that at the time.

Thanks to Mr. LeFevre for his correction. I was not aware of the 1898 case, only those going back to the 1940s or thereabouts.

I seem to recall that one of the immigration reform groups was arguing for the more narrow interpretation in its amicus brief to the case involving the US born son of Saudi nationals who was captured in Afghanistan.

Thanks to Carl for pointing to that case, which I hadn’t followed. The case is Hamdi v Rumsfeld, and at http://fileus.com/dept/citizenship/hamdi/index.html
there’s an excellent amicus brief on the right by Eagle Forum that clarifies alot of this, with many of the key cases.

I think this clarifies Carl’s first point. The older interpretation, though not requiring citizenship in either parent, apparently required, at minimum, that foreign (non-citizen) parents at least have a legal and permanent domicile here, and not be here in capacity of representing the foreign country, for their U.S.-born offspring to be considered automatically a citizen.

HOWEVER, it did not always follow that just being born here in _every_ case made one a citizen. A child born to illegal aliens most likely would be excluded from that privilege.

Clearly this is not the case today, and such a broad interpretation of the 14th Amendment probably is as recent as Carl first suggested — one of many examples of the Court amending the Constitution since 1954. At least there is established precedent we can point back to during a more sane period, though the Court tends not to recur to sanity after undertaking to legislate.

Mr. Jose wrote: “(remember the plane that blew up in the air a few months after 9/11? We still don’t know what caused that as far as I know)”

I’ve got some strong suspicions about that one. On October 30, 2001, I interviewed a Taliban intelligence officer, the controller of the double-agent who burned Abdul Haq.

(Who’s Abdul Haq?)

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=238

He said, “There is another attack planned, 10 to 14 days from now. It will be somewhere in the continental United States and it will have something to do with airplanes.” On Nov. 12, 2001 an American Airlines flight from JFK crashed in a residential neighborhood in Queens killing 250+ people.

A website called Jihad Watch has reproduced my Front Page article (without my italicizations, which makes my writing sound more restrained), and has readers’ comments on it:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/002032.php#more

Here’s one comment that gives me hope that my ideas are reaching people:

“This article has me worried. It makes me question how foolproof our American system of government really is. Can we really remain a country that embraces diversity, immigration, and freedom of religion - and still be able to save ourselves from the onslaught of our radical Islamic enemies who will erput upon us from deep within our own borders?

“That’s a tough question worthy of deep pondering for all of us.

“Posted by: Nicholas at May 27, 2004 04:22 PM”

(Thanks to Carl for his reply.)

A couple of general observations—

1. I will admit that even tacit supporters of the anti-American projects of bin Laden have morally (not legally) forfeited their right to be considered as equal citizens. But more generally it is problematic to define who is loyal to the United States and so who merits the equal protection of its laws. Traditionally, surely it was the Constitution that provided the focus of American political allegiance—even a quasi-religious symbol. I gather that few Americans bother studying the Constitution nowadays. So what is a disloyal American disloyal to? One would think that traditionalists should be attempting to preserve or restore the Constitution as a focus of American political allegiance. But here we see Mr. Auster (26/01:37) suggesting suspension of parts of the Constitution. Perhaps he and his supporters would run the risk of being caught in their own Disloyalty Dragnet.

2. There have been many societies that have tolerated the presence of the disaffected minorities they have inherited, though this disaffection is something of a new problem for the United States. The existence of such minorities is likely to weaken the host country, but does not necessarily spell disaster. Notably, traditional Muslim governments, while oppressing their Christian, Jewish, etc., minorities, have refrained from going to the extreme of deporting them (or their disloyal members, which would probably amount to much the same thing in those cases); and probably moral (Quranic) restraints were of considerable significance in this policy. So these proposals for mass deportations among “enlightened” Americans seem somewhat alarming.

I agree with Mr. Hechtman that there is a good likelihood that the November 12, 2001 plane crash was a terrorist attack. (Also, in case I was unclear, when I said that we still didn’t know what caused it, I intended to give the impression that I suspected terrorism, not that I doubted that it was terrorism).
I wish we would hear more about it. We keep hearing about September 11 as the most recent major terrorist attack on the US, and about memorials and victims, but we don’t hear any discussion of the 250+ deaths from the plane crash two months later, or about the poor souls who lost their life in what could very well have been another Al Qaeda attack.

I think the overall discussion here is a good one, but it isn’t something I have a firm position on frankly although I agree in general that the time for half-measures has passed. On the other hand anything that is done must always without exception be objectively just.

On a specific point I think that Mr. Hare’s notion - that loyalty to America is identical to loyalty to America’s present constitution - needs to be examined more closely. It seems to me that loyalty to one’s country is loyalty to a particular people in a particular place with a particular shared history. It is not — indeed cannot be — loyalty to a legal text or to specific formal arrangements.

I think Mr. Hare is quite right that many think of loyalty to America as loyalty to the primary legal text establishing its current federal government. I will go further and suggest that this reflects in the secular realm the Protestant belief that loyalty to the Christian religion is equivalent to loyalty to the Bible; so the orientation is not without historical merit. But it is also the very source of the concept of the propositional nation, as a reflection of the propositional religion; and in the long run I don’t think it works.

I agree with Matt about what loyalty to one’s country really is. That said, the Constitution is the founding document of American federal government. Patriotic Americans may be committed to changing it, but loyalty to America means they should be committed to abiding by it while they try to change it in the way it provides: amendment. Americans should obey the Constitution (not that our federal government does); we don’t have to worship it.

Mr. Hare’s general observation (2) above is thoughtful, but misses the essential distinction between the way feckless modern societies embrace aliens who move in and the way earlier societies managed the presence of disaffected or incompatible minorities. In the United States, we grant full citizenship to millions of foreigners after a fairly short wait with no consideration whatever of their assimilability or what granting them the rights of citizens will do to society or the rights of native Americans. Thanks to our liberalism and our human rights establishment, we are well on the way to eliminating any meaningful legal distinctions between citizens and resident aliens - even illegals. That is true of most Western societies today. God knows it is true of Mr. Hare’s Canada. A faster way to lose a country is hard to imagine.

Most other societies have not done this. They might oppress minorities or they might grant them full protection of the law. What they generally have not done was grant them whatever political rights the majority has. In the Moslem societies Mr. Hare mentions, resident Christians and Jews were usually natives whose people had been well-established in the country before the Moslems conquered it. (Let’s not forget, however, how Mohammed himself disposed of the Jews of Medina.) In the American case, those Mr. Auster speaks of deporting are not natives of our country. They are of alien origin; most are very recent arrivals and, frankly, their presence here is not something most natives particularly want. To my mind, they are here on sufferance; they all have native lands of their own to which they may return at any time. If they abuse our hospitality, conspire against our country or even become a burden on her: send them home. And don’t let any more in. HRS

What if someone thinks that certain provisions in the Constitution - say Article I, Section 8 for example, or certain parts of the 14th amendment - are literally irrational and/or equivocal? How does one remain loyal to something irrational and/or equivocal? Does that mean that only people who are bad at logic can be good citizens? :-)

Matt wrote:

“Does that mean that only people who are bad at logic can be good citizens? :-) “

This brings me back to my conversation with Jim Kalb where he said that being an American requires one to be irrational. This is because America’s accepted explicit liberal principles do not comprehend the realities of politics and life, and therefore both political men and ordinary men must frequently do things that lack any rational validation within the terms of the liberal system. They must learn to be illogical—or, to be more precise, they must learn not to give a rational accounting of their thoughts and actions—in order to function in the world. It’s a profound insight that I’ve only excavated very partially; but the chief product of it so far is the idea of the unprincipled exception.

“I will go further and suggest that this reflects in the secular realm the Protestant belief that loyalty to the Christian religion is equivalent to loyalty to the Bible; so the orientation is not without historical merit. But it is also the very source of the concept of the propositional nation, as a reflection of the propositional religion; and in the long run I don’t think it works.” — Matt

This is an amazingly perceptive comment upon the nature of the US Constitution and its relationship to Protestantism. However, why limit the ‘propositional religion’ idea to Protestantism? Catholicsim is similarly universalist in its application. The next pope may very well hail from Africa, a place with no connection whatsoever to the particular Christian tradition of the West, or to the nations that formed the culture.

Christianity is explicity universalist in its message, despite the efforts of some churches to preserve particular nations and cultures within the universalist framework. Thanks to liberalism’s widespead acceptance in the West, even theologically conservative churches are out of balance on the question of our own racial, national and cultural preservation. In contrast, note that certain immigrant Churches, even the Protestant ones like the Korean Presbyterians, have no problem with the preservation of *their* nation and culture.

There seems to be a contradiction that we must resolve within the national conscience before this could move forward: the principle of freedom of religion and the principle of the separation of church and state. It seeems to me that when one of our basic tenets - separation…., is threatened by another - freedom…., we must defend the one that is threatened. Thus radical Islam cannot threaten our separation of church and state, and hide behind our principle of religous freedom. This could very well be the basis for taking action because the core tenets of jihadism and Wahadist Islam are by there own admission seditious and a violation of laws that already exist and should be enforceable now.

I certainly agree with Carl’s comment about the universalism of Christianity in general, and it is no doubt related to propositionalism. Also propositionalism specifically can be found in some of the later forms of scholastic Catholicism, which placed a great emphasis on formulaic responses to a wide variety of questions. But I think the tie to a specific canonical text as supreme authority commanding the highest earthly loyalty - at least within Christendom - is a uniquely Protestant thing (via the Bible) in the religious sphere and a Proposition Nation thing (via the Constitution) in the secular sphere. Part of what that implies is that the Proposition Nation has been with us in at least a nascent form for a long time.

The most important point is that, irrespective of where the idea of the proposition nation came from, loyalty to America is not, and indeed cannot be, centered on a specific legal document. Legal documents don’t even always make sense, let alone provide a basis for fundamental loyalties. Loyalty to one’s country is loyalty to a particular people living in a particular place with a particular common history. I think it has to be that first and foremost. That isn’t to say that particular legal traditions and even specific documents aren’t an important part of what a people and nation have in common; but I don’t think those things can be the essence of what a country is as an object of loyalty.

Well said by both Mr. Sutherland at 2:34 PM and by Terry above.

At some point, the leaders of our country—whoever they are—MUST decide that, in order to stay in power (assuming they are not patriots as we are but instead, politicians who take action only when it is politically feasible and not necessarily when it is “just” or to save the nation), they must take drastic steps to preserve the red, white and blue, and of course, themselves. We as patriots can “help” them along in this noble and much needed endeavor with our “call to arms” on extremely important subjects as this thread. If we have let into our country “jihadists” and others who are seditious and who want to destroy America (not simply wanting to bring the country to its knees), then we must deal with them and NOW, not later!

I find tonight’s story at WND about the Administration now having suddenly given up on democracy for Iraq—and instead having put in place a friend to Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan having been part of The Arab League for many years now to lead the next Iraqi government—truly amazing. Even our normal friendly-to-Socialist-and-Third-World-countries State Dept. (through Dep. Sec. of State Armitrage) has come out saying: and This, while it may be an attmept to lure Independent conservatives who left the GOP back into the fold before the election, is truly amazing, especially coming from the State Dept. It’s the admission that we made some poor decisions and that we are soon (November and early next year) going to be washing our hands of Iraq, hopefully financially as well. We were already giving Chalabi $335,000 a month, and now he is odd man out. A lot of chess pieces are being played now, and calculations made as to their desired effects. It will be interesting to see how this new Iraqi leader we’ve installed (Brahimi) does.

Couple this incredible story with the arrest of the imam in Philadephia yesterday and the searching of his mosque and apt, and I am beginning to see a pattern. I HOPE it is not meant as “red meat” for conservatives! I hope these things—and the deportation of all illegals in this country—are serious ventures by our government that are going to save us from 40 years of insanity.

While I can certainly sympathize with David Levin’s sentiments, the notion that that there is any substantive difference between those who wish to destroy America (Jihadis) and those who wish to bring America to its knees (liberals), is simply false. The end result of both agendas is the same: America ceases to exist.

In fact, I think that liberals are the greater danger. The Jihadi has clearly stated that you are an infidel and that his goal is your destruction. Evil as he is, he is at least forthright as to his intentions. The liberal, especially those like George W. Bush and the Republican establishment, tells you he is on your side while doing everything in his power to betray and undermine the tradtional society from within. He might see the need to fight the Jihadis, but only insofar as reducing their potential threatb to the liberal utopia they strive for.

Globalist liberals like Bush and Kerry have no more loyality to America (as tradtionally understood) than the Jihadis do. Our choice is therefore between a corporatist, leftist utopia or an Islamic utopia. It’s rather like a choice between ricin or cyanide. Until enough of the Kool-Aid swilling electorate comprehends this basic fact and realizes that there IS another choice - repentance, all we can do is to try and speak the truth - no matter how unpopular we become.

I want to apologize for mixing up WND’s Geostratedgy-Direct headline tonight on “U.S. Ditching Democracy in Iraq?” through U.N. Envoy Brahimi’s appointment with Reuter’s story on Drudge about Iyad Allawi, a former member of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party, becoming the Acting Prime Minister—NOT Brahimi.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38701

http://www.reuters.com/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=5290246

The main point of my 2:10 AM post above remains the same, however—that the Administration has apparently “given up” on a democratic Iraq and is frantically looking for an exit strategy that will “win” for Bush first and Iraq, second. Sadly, our boys will have to stay on there to the middle of next year, which I find unacceptable.

I made another stupid error in my 2:10 AM post in not copying in R, Armitage’s amazing statement indicating the U.S. position has changed:

, taken from WND’s headline tonight, “U.S. Changing from Democracy in Iraq to Cut and Run?”

Carl is of course quite right. I was perhaps being overly excited about the seeming change in the Administration’s approach in Iraq—and forgot where I was! I certainly am aware that Bush is no conservative and that the choice between the two major candidates is between not much of a choice at all. However, I do find it interesting how public opinion about our “nation building” as we are coming out of a very long recession (4 years) is finally having an effect on the Administration’s change of policy. Chalabi has been sacked and some powerful Saddamites are being put in charge by us and we are bringing in the U.N. envoy who has hardly been our friend over the years.

P.S. In my last posting, by “mass deportations” I meant “mass deportations of citizens.”