How to tell Muslims that we don’t want them around

Unlike the mainstream “conservatives,” who alternate between sweetly cooing that Muslims are God’s children whom we must democratize and assimilate, and darkly crying that Muslims are monstrous enemies whom we must crush and wipe out, I respect Muslims. I clearly say to the Muslims that our problem with them is not that they are bad people, but that they are good Muslims. And for that reason, for our own protection, we cannot allow significant numbers of them to live among us.

See this excerpt from my February 2007 draft statement, “What to do about Islam.”

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Paul Cella writes:

Well said.

LA replies:

Thank you.

It’s a thing of combining that old fashioned American frankness about people one doesn’t want around—“Hit the road,” “23 skidoo”—with a measure of respect or at least not gross disrespect.

In one of Hemingway’s Nick Adams stories, Nick and a friend are at a train station where a bunch of prostitutes, weirdos, and losers are hanging out. One of them is a kind of decayed homosexual, and at the end of the story as Nick and his friend are leaving, the homosexual says, “Where are you going?” and Nick answers, “The other way from you.”

I love that about America. You can just honestly say you don’t like someone, and it’s not exactly insulting or degrading, it’s just honest. It’s this straightforward quality in the American character.

There’s a scene in the movie “Barfly” that conveys a similar attitude:

Woman: Do you hate people?

Man: Nah, I don’t hate people. But I feel better when they’re not around.

You see a somewhat less negative, more amiable expression of this frank quality in the Hollywood movies of the 1930s, where people are often brusque and tough with each other (like the scene in “It Happened One Night,” where Clark Gable scares off some scam artist who is bothering Claudette Colbert), but not in a way that is an attack on the other person’s dignity, whereas in today’s movies (and real life), the same kinds of confrontations would instantly decline to the “F” word and threats to rip the other guy’s face off.

Well, I want us to apply that same kind of old-fashioned honesty toward Muslims: “You simply don’t belong here. Nothing against you personally, but your religion is not compatible with the survival of our society, so that’s just the way it is.” I’m trying to get people past the hang-up of not being able to say that.

Paul Cella replies:

It’s a noble effort, that. Intuitively, that’s what I try to do as well—especially in conversation with liberals—but I don’t think I’ve ever articulated it in terms of “American frankness,” which is a very good way to look at it.

January 16, 2009

LA writes:

Along the same lines about how to speak to Musiims, see my take-off on Dylan’s “All I really want to do,” where I change the end of each verse to:

All I really want to do
Is be far away from you.

Also see the entry, “Let there be no commerce between us.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 22, 2008 07:54 AM | Send