The costs of standing up to Islam in Islamized America

Van Wijk writes:

As if the entire establishment coming down on his head were not sufficient punishment for insulting Islam, Terry Jones will now be saddled with the “security costs” surrounding his proposed Koran-burning to the tune of $180,000. If a citizen can be billed for “security costs” he did not ask for, this sets yet another dangerous precedent.

Meanwhile, a Seattle cartoonist named Molly Norris, who organized the “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day!” in May, has gone into hiding due to a fatwa. She will have to move, change her name, and probably take up another profession, but the feds will not be providing any monetary assistance.

LA replies:

Why does an American woman have to go into hiding in America? Because Muslims are in America. If there were no Muslims in America, Molly Norris wouldn’t have to go into hiding in America. Why has Geert Wilders had to live under 24 hour armed guard for the last six years? Because there are Muslims in the Netherlands. If there were no Muslims in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders wouldn’t have to live under armed guard in the Netherlands. Why do we have to pass through absurd and humiliating security measures every time we board an airplane in America or enter a government building in New York City? Because Muslims are in America. If there were no Muslims in America, we wouldn’t have those absurd and humiliating security measures in America.

But no one ever identifies these simple and obvious connections. We accept the unreal and unacceptable, as though it were normal and acceptable. Which is the definition of Kafkaesque.

Now it could be said that my argument is unreasonable and extreme, because there are measures short of the departure of virtually all Muslims from America that would make us safe from Muslim intimidation and violence. What are those measures? At a minimum, they would have to include the departure of all Muslim jihadists from America, or, alternatively, their suppression. That would require at a minimum that the government shut down all pro-jihadist activities, organizations, mosques, and websites. But pro-jihadist activities are so much a part of Islam (80 percent of U.S. mosques. are Wahhabi-funded) that an anti-jihadist campaign would be indistinguishable from an campaign against Islam itself. And certainly the “moderate” Muslims would vehemently protest such a sweeping attack on their fellow Muslims, and see it as an attack on Islam itself. Thus a narrowly tailored campaign, aimed only at jihadists and not all Muslims, would rapidly turn into a confrontation with all Muslims.

Another major problem is that a shutdown of Muslim institutions would be seen as a violation of the First Amendment which declares that Congress shall not infringe the free exercise of religion. Which means that the only way to crack down on jihadist Islam would be through a law or constitutional amendment declaring that Islam is not a religion under the meaning of the First Amendment, thus excluding Islam from its protections. (I have repeatedly explained elsewhere why any serious measures against Islam in this country will require that Islam be excluded from the First Amendment.)

The point is that jihadist Islam is so much a part of Islam that the former cannot be suppressed without suppressing the latter. And the legal suppression of Islam would inevitably lead to the departure of believing Muslims from this country, just as Muhammad and his followers fled from Mecca when they were not free to practice their religion there.

In conclusion, when I say that the only way for Molly Norris to be safe from Islamic threats in America is for there to be no Muslims in America, I agree that that sounds at first like an extreme and unwarranted statement. But once you look at the problem more carefully, you realize that my statement is true. There is no half way solution to the Islam problem. In the final analysis, the only way to be free from Muslim intimidation and violence in our society is to reduce the Muslim presence to the point where Muslims have no power to affect our society; and such a reduction will ultimately mean—one way or another, whether voluntarily or by coercion, whether gradually or quickly—the departure of the Muslim population.

Here is the article about Molly Norris, from FoxNews.com:

‘Draw Muhammad’ Cartoonist Goes Into Hiding at FBI’s Insistence After Assassination Threat
September 16, 2010

The Seattle cartoonist whose artwork sparked the controversial “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day!” has gone into hiding at the advice of the FBI after being targeted by a radical Muslim cleric, according to the newspaper that published her comics.

Molly Norris has moved and changed her name, the Seattle Weekly said Wednesday, after U.S.-born Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki placed her on an execution hit list. Awlaki—who has been linked to the botched Times Square bombing and cited as inspiration for the Fort Hood massacre and a plot by two New Jersey men to kill U.S. soldiers—reportedly called Norris a “prime target” for assassination and that her “proper abode is hellfire.”

“You may have noticed that Molly Norris’ comic is not in the paper this week,” Seattle Weekly Editor in Chief Mark Fefer wrote Wednesday. “That’s because there is no more Molly.”

“The gifted artist is alive and well, thankfully. But on the insistence of top security specialists at the FBI, she is, as they put it, ‘going ghost’: moving, changing her name, and essentially wiping away her identity. She is, in effect, being put into a witness-protection program—except, as she notes, without the government picking up the tab,” Fefer wrote.

Norris ignited a firestorm in April after drawing a satirical cartoon to protest the decision by cable television channel Comedy Central to cancel an episode of “South Park” over its depiction of the Prophet Muhammad in a bear suit.

In her cartoon, Norris mockingly proposed making May 20 “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day!”

Soon after, a fan page popped up on Facebook, but Norris wrote on her since-shuttered website that she had nothing to do with it.

“I did NOT ‘declare’ May 20 to be ‘Everybody Draw Muhammad Day,’” she said, adding that her idea was satire that was “taken seriously, hijacked and made viral.”

“I apologize to people of Muslim faith and ask that this ‘day’ be called off,” she said.

The 27-year-old Facebook page creator—a Canadian woman who asked not to be identified due to fears of reprisal—told FoxNews.com in July that she was visited at her home by Royal Canadian Mounted Police officials who advised her to remove her page and not to talk to reporters.

“I’m scared,” she said. “I’m scared that somebody might kill me.”

Islam strictly prohibits the depiction of any prophet as blasphemous and the “Draw Muhammad” page led to Facebook being temporarily blocked in Pakistan and sparked angry street protests.

In July, English-language Al Qaeda magazine “Inspire” attributed an article to Awlaki, saying Norris “should be taken as a prime target of assassination.”

“The large number of participants makes it easier for us because there are more targets to choose from in addition to the difficulty of the government offering all of them special protection,” wrote Awlaki. “But even then our campaign should not be limited to only those who are active participants.”

He warned that “assassinations, bombings and acts of arson” are all legitimate forms of revenge against the creators of blasphemous depictions of Muhammad.

“Now, with the defamation of Muhammad reaching the shores of America, I wonder whether the patriotic American Muslim will still have the audacity to claim that he enjoys the right to be a Muslim in America?” Awlaki wrote. “Does he understand that this right includes his duty to fight against those who blaspheme his Prophet?”

Awlaki invited Muslims worldwide to “stand up in defense” of Muhammad and for their efforts to “manifest in all appropriate” means.

- end of initial entry -

Lydia McGrew writes:

The billing of Terry Jones for security costs is an extremely dangerous precedent. In effect, it amounts to a fine for angering Muslims and incurring threats from Muslims. So far from signaling to Muslims that their threats will not be tolerated and will be met by determined resistance by government entities who will enforce U.S. law, such a billing tells Muslims that they can threaten all they want and that it is those they are threatening who will be punished for daring to provoke their wrath. If Jones is billed, he must file a First Amendment lawsuit against the city immediately. This new idea of billing citizens for insulting Islam (which is what it comes to) is a serious threat to the freedom to oppose Islam in America. My post on this news is here.

LA replies:

Be sure to see Lydia’s blog post, it’s devastating.

JC writes from Houston:

What the City of Gainesville is proposing has already been held to be an impermissible burden on the First Amendment exercise of free speech. In 1992 the Supreme Court held in Forsyth County v. The Nationalist Movement that:

“Speech cannot be financially burdened, any more than it can be punished or banned, simply because it might offend a hostile mob.”

These types of requirements to pay costs associated with a demonstration have been struck down on more than one occasion.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 18, 2010 08:53 AM | Send