FrontPage Magazine discusses my idea of banning Islam

William Kilpatrick, who regularly writes about the Islam problem, has an article at FrontPage Magazine in which he addresses a question that has been central to my writings over the past several years but has scarcely ever been raised by mainstream conservative Islam critics: should Islam be legally restricted in the United States, or perhaps even banned altogether? He starts off by confronting the argument of libertarian Steve Chapman that the construction of the Ground Zero mosque should not be opposed because our Constitution requires us to treat all religions the same. Kilpatrick’s reply is that it makes no more sense to treat Christianity and Islam the same because we believe that all religions are the same, than it would be to allow both our sixteen year old child and our six year old child to drive a car because we believe all people have the same rights. Equality means treating similar classes of persons or entities equally, it does not mean treating different classes of persons or entities equally. Only an equality divorced from reality would insist on treating the religion that is part of the foundation of our civilization the same as the religion that aims at the crushing and enslavement of our civilization.

Kilpatrick’s argument culminates in a serious treatment of my proposal (see this and this) for a constitutional amendment to outlaw Islam. This—at the website from which David Horowitz, that great champion of intellectual freedom, secretly banned me four years ago for a non-specified charge of racism.

(Here is a single page view of Kilpatrick’s article.)

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Irv Pollack writes:

I posted this to the comments that followed the William Kilpatrick article. I hope it has an effect.

Just a note to Mr. Kilpatrick and all commenters. The writer, Lawrence Auster, who Kilpatrick cites at the end of his article, used to be a contributor to Front Page Magazine. He was declared persona non grata by David Horowitz for reasons unknown about four years ago. I have written to Mr. Horowitz on many occasions asking him to start publishing Mr. Auster’s insights again. He produces brilliantly clear, reasoned analyses on a host of subjects. We need to hear from people who get to the very essence of difficult problems that confront us. David, we can not fear the unvarnished truth! I call upon you again to apologize to Lawrence Auster and publish his essays. The truth will set us and keep us free!

LA replies:

Many thanks to Irv for protesting David Horowitz’s shockingly unethical behavior toward me in 2006 and 2007. As I have said before, if Horowitz didn’t like my ideas, he of course had every right not to publish me. But his secretly telling his editors not to publish me any more, over an unspecified charge of racism, and then his rudely telling me to “go away,” when I found out what had happened and simply asked him what it was about, was beyond the pale. We’re all going to die some day. Does David Horowitz want to leave this earthly realm without having repented of such a despicable act, an act that contradicts everything he supposedly stands for?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 30, 2010 10:33 AM | Send