My letter to Diana West:

Quoting from your column:

“The reform starts, Spencer explains, ‘by identifying the elements of Islam that give rise to violence and extremism.’ The place to begin is with the twin Islamic precepts of jihad, or holy war, and dhimmitude, the institutionalized inferiority of non-Muslims and women living under Muslim rule. Reform is doomed, however, if these elements are ignored, obscured and denied.”

Unfortunately, jihad and dhimmitude both have their origins in the Quran (Koran). Westerners have liberalized their interpretations of scriptures to suit changing fashions in recent centuries, and tend to think that Muslims can be persuaded to do the same with the Quran. This is a mistaken notion. Islam will always have significant support for jihad and dhimmitude, because Muslims will not, en masse, simply ignore portions of the Quran that are objectionable. This is especially true when the objections all come from outsiders, which will just produce a defensive backlash.

Perhaps Mr. Spencer, and yourself, are in need of listening to your own advice and facing even more unpleasant truths about Islam than you seem prepared to face.

Thanks to Mr. Coleman for his letter to Diana West which seems less confrontational than my own. A correspondent told me my letters are too confrontational To which I replied:

“But how long must one be patient with such obvious evasions as West and many other ‘conservatives’ indulge in? We have two basic positions available today:

“The liberal position: all diversity is good and to be welcomed including Islamic diversity;

“The conservative position: (a) Islam is a very great problem, an enemy, a mortal threat, and (b) the way to deal with this mortal threat is to seek to ‘assimilate’ the Moslems. As I said in my article How to Defeat Jihad in America, even the most hardboiled among us think that (b) is the answer to (a). This is not an intellectually serious or sustainable position. In fact it is a dangerous position, because when readers see conservatives say (a), they think, ‘Ahh, someone is finally dealing with the problem, the conservatives are on the case.’ But in fact, the conservatives are _not_ on the case, because all they’re proposing to the dread threat of (a) is the chimera of (b).

“To satisfy you that I am not being too confrontational, I must find a way to tell people they are not being intellectually serious, but do it more gently. I don’t know if that’s possible, but I will take it under advisement.”

Having read her column, I do not find Ms. West as naive about Islam as Mr. Auster and Mr. Coleman do. I think she realizes the threat. Whether she is willing to take “the plunge” that we at VRF have—to admit that Islam is “the true enemy” of the West and that we are actually already at war with Islam—is another story. I must assume that she is a neocon.

I am probably a tad confrontational myself, so don’t listen to my advice. However, something came to me while I was reading the above. One way to avoid being confrontational is to ask yourself: “WWRRS?” What Would Ronald Reagan Say?
Whatever it is, it would be with kindness, respect, and good humor.

“One way to avoid being confrontational is to ask yourself: ‘What Would Ronald Reagan Say?’”

I am humbled. I admit to being pulled different ways on this.

To Mr. Auster and Mr. Raymond—

There is, in my opinion, NO reason to apologize for “being confrontational” when your country has let in millions of Islamists and after the country was attacked as it was on 9/11 by Islamists. Ours is NOT the time for being “Mr. Nice Guys”! While we are being invaded from the south by Mexicans and Central Americans, we are being blown up and otherwise murdered by Islamists—here at home and in Iraq—and we have allowed CAIR and other terrorist-aiding groups flourish here.

One could make a good argument that we do not belong in Iraq and that many people there hate us. One could not make the argument that we should not have done anything after 9/11 or that we were attacked on 9/11 because we are somehow guilty of something. 9/11 was today’s Pearl Harbor. The country is AT WAR, even if 50 or 60% of Americans don’t believe it.

“The country is AT WAR…” David Levin

Yes, it is. And when the U.S. was in a nuclear cold war, Ronald Reagan said and did the right things to be victorious, but through his sincere kindness, respect, and good humor directed at individuals, he permanently won over the head of the “Evil Empire”, Mr. Gorbachev. At the same time, his policies never wavered. He “just said no” to tyranny, intimidation, and media pressure, while maintaining the good will of the people and winning a second term in a landslide.

If Gorbachev can be won over, perhaps Diana West can be as well. As an illustration, if she only reads a third of the letter, then throws it out because she judges it to be hostile, the best arguments in the world will convince her of nothing.

We might not have been a nation at all had not Benjamin Franklin, in some ways the Ronald Reagan of his day, brought France on board through diplomacy and enlisted the cooperation of representatives of the Colonies, who held very divergent views and special interests.

If, as Mr. Levin says, we have 50-60% of Americans to convince that we are at war, we will not persuade them by insulting them.

Mr. Raymond has a very good argument. However, some people may change their mind - and Ms. West might be one of them, and others are closed-mind ideologues (Open Borders commissars at WSJ).

Communication style can be different for two groups.

By the way, I didn’t find Mr. Auster letter excessively confrontational. But it is just me.

Mr. Raymond’s description of Reagan’s sincere kindness to his enemies while refusing to compromise on princple is accurate. Indeed, it’s probably the most remarkable characteristic of the man.

Nevertheless, Reagan could be quite confrontational when the situation demanded it, as in this incident from his days as a sportscaster in 1933 Iowa:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38860

Oh come now, Islam isn’t radical, it’s a great religion composed of Billions of followers. They condemn terrorism, but there are bad apples like the rest. I’m a Muslim, and I’m conservative as well. However, I’m losing my taste for most conservatives if they’re going to keep spewing vitriol. Insult terrorists, I don’t care because I’m not one. Insult Islam, and you cross the line. I thought conservatives were pro-religion. If Bush said the sort of comments about Islam that many conservatives do, I’ll go vote for Nader.

With the epidemic of Moslem terrorism in the world today, the onus is on Moslems who say that Islam does not require jihad or condone terrorism to prove it. The Koran can be read to approve both. Most conservatives favor their own religion; that does not mean they endorse all religions. As others have observed many times, Islam has bloody borders. Is that merely coincidence?

I don’t think many at VFR would mourn if Sulayman were to vote for Nader. I doubt many of the regulars here are planning to vote for Bush. HRS

Does Sulayman believe that since Western conservatives are “pro-religion,” that they therefore favor Islam, and that they therefore favor the Islamicization of the West, and that they therefore favor the disappearance of their own religion, culture, and civilization?

Furthermore, if he finds out that Western conservatives do not in fact favor the Islamicization of the West, will he therefore feel terribly disillusioned about the conservatives and feel that they have sold him a bill of goods?

Let’s be clear what Sulayman is saying. In order for conservatives to earn his continuing approval, they must be completely approving both of Islam and of the spread of Islam in the West, and thus be completely accepting of the destruction of the West itself.

Whenever someone says, “I used to be a conservative or pro-conservative, but now, with this recent conservative outrage [whatever it is], I’m getting disillusioned,” you know you’re hearing a propaganda line from a liberal. An example is, “I used to be a conservative, but then I found that that conservatives are against homosexual marriage. I’m shocked. I didn’t realize that conservatives were such bigots.” Back when I listened to call-in programs, I’d hear people like this all the time, liberals calling up pretending to be disillusioned conservatives.

However, let us acknowledge that this situation is not entirely Sulayman’s fault. It is the West, by telling the world, “The West has no culture of its own, it represents equal acceptance of all cultures,” that has given the Sulaymans of the world the notion that conservatism means support for Islam and everything that that implies. It is up to real conservatives to ‘splain things to Sulayman.

Question for Mr. Sulayman: What is your reaction to the statements by “moderate” Muslim leaders that they do not accept the current government of Spain as legitimate, because Spain, a.k.a. al-Andalus, was stolen from the Muslims centuries ago by military means? This was discussed in a recent VFR thread.

Excellent issue pointed out by Mr. Auster in his last paragraph: When the regime’s propaganda artist’ portray the West as essentially being just about the equal promotion of all cultures, rather than it’s own, (or worse, only of other cultures- since we have no culture of our own), it must include those cultures to whom the West means only dihimmitude or jihad. It thus claims that its own destruction is part of it’s ideology… Unless it’s only point is to bring actual cultures of others into existence during the interim period that “freedom” exists.

Such a price to pay to avoid the heretical truth that a government has an obligation to defend the nation.

Here’s an article from Frontpage which shows us how well Muslims are assimilating:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=13810

Of particular concern is the merging of the notorious native-grown Black Muslim movement with the Jihadis imported from overseas. Until relatively recently, bonafide Muslims regarded the NOI types as imposters much in the way Orthodox Jews view the Black Hebrew cult that’s taken up residence in Israel. The beginnings of a very dangerous fifth column are already in place. All of the blantantly pro-terrorist and anti-Semitic activity described has taken place on a campus that shut down College Republicans’ affirmative action bake sale as being racist.