VFR reader smokes out a Usual Suspect

John D. writes:

In reading your entry on Melanie Phillips today, Karen W. asked the same question that I ask every time I read a comparable article, “What’s the point of her writing?” Rick Moran recently wrote a rather whiney piece at American Thinker decrying the fact that half of Britain’s mosques are under the influence of the radical imam Riyadh ul Haq. In the write-up, he bemoans the fact that British authorities are unwilling to do anything about the problem of the growing jihad, and that they are hoping that no one will notice. Then, in usual neocon fashion, he completely fails to offer up any type of solution. I wrote him the following:

Mr. Moran,

Your write:

“And the problem is only going to get worse as more radical Islamists graduate from religious schools and take up residence among the faithful, pushing their agenda of hate and loathing of the West. The fact that the authorities appear unwilling to do anything about this mess leads me to believe they were hoping no one would notice. ”

Many people notice. The governments notice. You have noticed. So then, why is it that no one ever talks about what must be done in order to counter “this mess” in which we find ourselves? Wouldn’t it be a bit more practical to at least suggest a potential solution to the Islam problem such as a change in our immigration policies? Or does this seem to be an excessively radical idea? Many have spent a great deal of time identifying the problem. How about a solution? Or are we all too comfortable in our liberal complacency?

He replied the following:

You can’t deport Muslims which is the only “solution” that would address the problem in GB. Restricting immigration won’t solve the problem either. On what basis do you deny ordinary people the opportunity to immigrate? Not allowing the haters in is fine—I have no problem with that. But restricting immigration doesn’t get at the root of the problem either.

This is because it is not the West’s problem but Islam’s problem.

What the authorities could be doing is shutting down those mosques that preach hate. That’s what I was referencing when I said that they seemed unwilling to do anything.

RM

I then wrote him back to which he offered no reply:

Mr. Moran,

Thank you very much for your reply.

You state that Muslim deportation and immigration restriction is the only “solution” while simultaneously rejecting it as a possibility. How does this make sense? Here’s what you I feel you seem to be missing. Muslims are not “ordinary people.” They are adherents to a political ideology that is not compatible, in fact absolutely opposed to Western liberal thought and our overall way of life. Some adhere to its jihadist principles, some will ultimately cross that divide another day, and a few will not. This is indeed Islam’s problem, as you say. So why shouldn’t it remain Islam’s problem and in the meantime protect ourselves by discontinuing the only vehicle (immigration) through which it has become a problem for the West.

Robert Spencer had long been an advocate of screening out the jihadists. He has finally come to the realization that it would be an impossible task. He has since decided that there should be a moratorium on Muslim visas, taking on somewhat of a separationist policy.

You state:

“But restricting immigration doesn’t get at the root of the problem either.”

I am perplexed as to what you possibly feel is the root of the problem. If it is indeed Islam and its guiding principles as we both seem to believe, then immigration restriction is the only viable solution, unless you feel that an all out war with 1.3 billion people would be viable, which I’m quite certain that you (nor I) would not. Islam is not going to change. It is our policies toward its adherents that needs to change.

I agree that the authorities should be shutting down the hate-filled mosques. But it just doesn’t go far enough to combat this ultimate evil that we face.

________________

My point in all of this is to confirm what you have been saying about the usual suspects all along. They continue to declare the problem, then totally reject out-of-hand the only practical approach to remedy the problem. Either their liberalism simply cannot permit the thought that Muslims are incompatible with Western existence, or it is outright prevarication. We need to start calling them all to the mat on it.

LA replies:

This is great. I love it when readers question neocons on this, the way Karen questioned Melanie Phillips. Now all we need is for these people to snap out of their hypnotic state, or their prevaricative state, or whatever.

The most remarkable thing is that Moran cannot even conceive of the thing you’re talking about. He simply assumes that America or Great Britain have some intrinsic obligation to admit millions of “ordinary Muslims.” “On what basis do you deny ordinary people the opportunity to immigrate?” he asks you. In his mental universe, the mass immigration of people from an alien religion based for the last 1,400 years on jihad and polygamy and five-times-a-day foot-washing and the subjugation of infidels is simply the norm It’s not odd, it’s not troubling. It’s the default position. It’s someone like you, who questions this immigration, who has no conceivable correct basis for doing so. And Moran, who believes in this extreme liberal ideology, thinks of himself as a conservative.

It comes down to this: the West is dying from its own deepest and most unquestioned beliefs. So if someone says, “You’re dying, you’re letting in your mortal enemies, you need to do such and such to survive,” it simply doesn’t register with people, because that would mean questioning their deepest beliefs.

So their situation is a fraud. They are in bad faith. They complain endlessly about the consequences of having Islam here, but are unable to imagine doing anything about it. And they are shielded from realizing this contradiction by the distinction they make between “ordinary Muslims” and “haters.” They actually believe that we can wage war on the “haters,” while continuing to welcome and embrace the “ordinaries”! As though the two groups have nothing to do with each other. That’s why the phony words “Islamist” and “Islamofascism,” which suggest that the haters have nothing to do with the ordinaries, are crucial to the mainstream conservatives.

And, finally, they, including Phillips, keep making this distinction between haters and ordinaries, despite the fact that, as Phillips points out in her recent article at NRO, about a half of Muslims in Britain would like to live under sharia law. Which means that the mainstream conservative now regard sharia supporters as ordinary, unthreatening Muslims. And these are the same people who claim to be warning us against the Muslim threat and leading us in a war against Islamic tyranny. Talk about being in bad faith!

Thanks again for doing this.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 20, 2007 08:13 PM | Send