Academic Freedom & Its Limits

INTRODUCTION

“Academic Freedom” (AF) appears to be, in the USA, a special case of the constitutional protections of free speech and a free press as contained in the Bill Of Rights. Within public and most private colleges and universities it, as best applied, protects faculty (Or, at least tenured teachers) from punishment or retribution for what they say or write---Without regard to the arrogance, foolishness, “craziness” of such words or the extent to which they irritate others.

There are the academic world's own limits to AF, some of which are the products of the anti-free-speech movements, often based of “victimology”, which have appeared in recent years on some campuses. (For an excellent analysis of this issue, please see Professor Donald Alexander Downs' Restoring Free Speech and Liberty on Campus (1).

Certainly, universities and colleges accept, if not encourage, varieties of speech and writing that private and public employers in other sectors would not allow and would be likely to punish by various means up to and including termination-of-employment or even civil or criminal prosecution.

There are other limits to AF and issues as to applying that special case freedom to students AND as to the duties of university administrators and the general public or the government, especially the courts, as to AF. There are also the question as to just how much (Public) universities should be involved in actions against alleged violators of AF and other claimed “rights” to an extent which goes beyond those allowed or required of the general public.

GENERAL LIMITS TO AF FOR TEACHERS

AF for teachers does have some more limits, which include:
1.Not allowing civil or criminal punishment for accepting pay as a teacher and failing to teacher what is included in published course descriptions or other documents available
to the student, that being a form of fraud;
2.Not allowing civil or criminal punishment for accepting pay and teaching materials outside of or beyond professional competence or education (eg An art teacher instructing medical students in eye surgery, a political scientist attempting to teach forensic architecture or metallurgy, a teacher of philosophy attempting to instruct students in military science or “ag-science”), that being a form of gross fraud;
3. Not allowing the taking of overt actions, directly or through others, to limit the AF of others (Teachers, students, guest speakers a U-events);


4.Not allowing the active solicitation to or participation in actual criminal activity (eg Arson, Battery, Disorderly Conduct, Theft, “Violation Of Civil Rights” as defined by statute); And,
5.Having any expectation of avoiding “hurt feelings”, on any basis, as teachers are expected to be strong individuals free from such alleged injury (Or, “If you can not stand the heat, get out of the academic kitchen!”).

AF FOR STUDENTS (?) AND ITS LIMITS

Within public and most private academic settings, there is a general and growing acceptance of AF for students inside the class room, if not outside of it and still on campus. What are the AF “rights” of students?
1.To be free of unqualified teachers who inflict ignorance on others.
2.To be able to, respectfully, disagree with teachers and other students in or out of class as to the materials presented in class or being considered or debated otherwise at their schools---Even if such disagreement is that of a “minority of one”--Without retribution by teachers, students or others.

The limits on students AF is much like that of teachers (Noted above); But, without the expectation of competency or education beyond what is expected as a prerequisite for entry into any given class. Certainly, students' AF does NOT include any right to solicit or otherwise participate in any criminal activities or suppression of others' AF as individuals or organized/impromptu groups or mobs. It does not (Or should not?) create any expectations, in those adult students, of any “freedom from hurt feelings”. [eg A student who behaves in a discourteous manner or asks an off-subject question in a class has a reasonable expectation of being “called on that”---Without regards to that students “feelings”.]

A SHORT STEP BACK INTO HISTORY

It is worth a few words as to the “why” of AF and the greater expectations (Sometimes very unreasonable) of students and teachers for certain “rights” or privileges beyond that given to or expected by citizens outside of the academic world.

All of these date back to medieval times when universities had special charters allowing very much independence from the civil courts and having their own courts and laws and immunity from the civil or criminal actions to which non-academics were subject. As such universities were, in fact, the creation of the Catholic-Christian Church, some of hat may be due to the great privileges given any literate person to about 1800 on the assumption that most such persons were bound to be clerics.

However, civil law and literacy grew to today's level where no such special powers or rights are recognized by law in most places in the world.



Therefore, it is reasonable to ask if colleges and universities (And their students and teachers) should have in this age legal powers, protections and rights beyond what is given to the general mass of the People by democratically passed laws—As long as the right of qualified teachers and civilized students to search out truth and new knowledge is seen as a ongoing and very important societal need if both democracy and civilization.

This will be addressed below in more detail.

DUTIES/POWERS OF UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATORS

To what extent should the administrators of (At least public) universities and colleges go beyond the normal range of the public law to protect all within their jurisdictions? There are certainly many (Perhaps, too many) laws on the books to punish, by civil or criminal actions, such acts as sexual assault, other physical assaults, robbery, theft, false imprisonment, riot, arson slander, perjury and false swearing, defamation-of-character, disorderly conduct, something called “hate crimes”, etc.

Certainly, as the administrators of a facility such administrators have a legal duty to protect those on their property as would the owner of a factory or office building or hotel. Violations of those general duties would and should leave such administrators open to civil or even criminal prosecution---Within the same laws as govern others. Of all those legal duties, the first is to insure that all violations-of-law are reported to the appropriate civil authorities---Something which school administrators, from graded schools to universities have historically been reluctant to do and therefore make themselves liable. The civil authorities have, I am sorry to say, tended to let them “get away” with such omissions.

I doubt that any school, in today's litigious society and very large jury awards, can afford to omit that particular duty. (eg If I were a student or teacher or guest speaker at a university where the authorities did not prevent individuals or a mob from attacking or limiting my exercise of my free speech rights or, at the least, actively seek out and file criminal charges against those that did so, I would bring a civil and, perhaps, criminal action against those administrators, as individuals, and the school as a corporation. This could make me and some attorneys very rich.)

What then should universities and their administrators do to protect students, teachers, other staff, guests, themselves and their schools? I suggest the following steps.
1.Make it very well known that any on campus violation of the criminal laws will be prosecuted by the very active efforts of the school and its administrators;
2.Take such “PR” efforts as will cause the local District/States/US Attorney to very
actively make public her/his intent to cooperate with such efforts and to execute such cooperation in a very public and, even, ferocious manner;
3.Ask for such changes in the law or public policy as will allow the school's security staff to be made “Special Deputy Sheriffs”--With jurisdiction limited to the property of the school; And,



4.Even, to have the local Chief Judge appoint some person as a “Special Prosecutor” for on-campus crimes (Including the making of false accusations against others).
5.Insist that the police (Or, if necessary, the National Guard) take every means necessary to immediately suppress any mob terrorism actions such as “take overs” of class rooms or other university areas. Negotiations with such terrorists is a waste of time and would be a matter of misconduct by university administrators.

Other steps which might be taken might be:
1.The video taping of the audiences at all public speeches by guest speakers or in other places where there is a reasonable expectation of disorderly or other criminal conduct (eg Overlooking newspaper distribution boxes in the event of such publications making “politically incorrect” statements);
2.The use of modern face-identification technology to ID persons who appear to have violated the law or to exclude previously banned persons from campus locations; And,
3.Use of restraining orders, where the law allows, to prevent any person who represents a clear-and-present danger to the safety or rights of others from all or selected on-campus locations

I think the above and possibly other like steps would combine the best of the ancient special case of universities with the need to comply with the laws that more democratically govern all People in the same, more public, jurisdiction---This to eliminate the need or justification for any in-house “prosecution” of offenses by universities and colleges. (Confinement in a jail or prison would make it impossible for a student or teacher to continue in the academic world and would make termination of such status automatic and self-inflicted. Personnel records and transcripts could and should record such actions.)

UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATORS SHOULD MAKE IT VERY CLEAR THAT THEY HAVE NO LEGAL DUTY TO KEEP THE “FEELINGS” OF ADULT FACULTY AND STUDENTS FROM BEING (ALLEGDEDLY) HURT BY THE WORDS OF OTHERS AS LONG AS SUCH WORDS DO NOT VIOLATE CRIMNINAL STATUTES---AND THAT THEY WILL BRING LEGAL ACTIONS AGAINST ANYONE WHO FALSELY CLAIMS THAT THEY HAVE FAILED IN SOME DUTY THEREBY.

CONCLUSION

By all of the above and proposed steps, much of the controversy and wasted efforts (To poof up the academic world to some sort of society with laws beyond that set by the People through their democratic processes) of universities and their “people” could be eliminated and personal time and energy better expended on the seeking of rational and verifiable truths.

Perhaps, it well past the time for universities to join the larger democracy around them and not to believe or practice undemocratic and self-seeking qualities or conditions not allowed to or expected by the People.

(1)Downs, Donald Alexander
Restoring Free Speech and Liberty on Campuses
The Independent Institute (Oakland, CA) and Cambridge University Press
2005, ISBN 0-521-83987-4
[A most excellent book which I highly recommend !]

(2)Comments or reactions to this paper should be sent to me, under the topic of
“Academic Freedom”, to jamespawlak1 "at" hotmail "dot" com

The Most Needed US Supreme Court Decision

The most needed US Supreme Court decision is NOT one overturning Roe Vs. Wade OR the McCain-Feingold anti-free-speech Law OR confirming that the fact that the right to keep and bear arms belongs to the individual citizen OR declaring that "affirmative action" is unlawful racial discrimination OR any of the like and chiefly domestic issues.

What is most needed for the defense of the USA and real civilization is a final and declarative decision that Islam, as it is now and has been for 1400-years, is a terrorist movement no better than and, in fact, worse than the Nazi movement and the KKK or like operations, Islam should be limited, restricted and punished as those other terror-based organizations or movements have been. Such civil or criminal sanctions should apply to both individuals and organizations supporting the hateful practices of Islam and even those who preach its horrid teachings as such are direct calls for action and NOT covered by Free Speech protections.

The pseudo-religious veneer of Islam is no more a protection against such actions as the Neo-Paganism of the Nazi movement, the warped and false Christianity of the KKK, the ceremonies of the Chinese gangster triads and of the Mafia or Cosa Nostra.

Both the hateful teachings of Islam and its anti-human practices are written in the blood of its victims for 1400-years and to this day in far too many places to list here in full but including the massacre of the Armenians by the Muslim Turks, the events of "9/11" (Celebrated by many Muslims by their dancing in the streets), The Sudan, Killing women and children in such other places as London, Spain, the Philippines.

The eveidence for such a ruling is there. All that is needed is a case-at-law and the willingness of the Justices to be honest rather than "polically correct".

Senior Bureaucrats As Toxins

How many of the below described senior bureaucrats do you know in your organization or other, private or public, bureaucracies?

"There is a remarkably distinctive smell emitted by fearful bureaucrats. It is acrid, rank and seems to cling to the clothing and the hair. Acting like a pheromone, it drives senior management to form small defensive herds from which to scream homicidally at middle management that they must not tell junior staff who can fix the problem what is going on because everything, including what has just been reported on the radio, is secret." (1).

During my 34-plus years in a State bureaucracy I saw this all too often--Especially as the civil service became more-and-more political and less and less committed to "service" by public servants. This disease or toxicity appears to be specially rampant in universities and is inversely proportional to the relationship between the effective Public (NOT political) control of any bureaucracy and directly proportional to the tenure of the senior bureaucrats and the amount of discretionary money involved in their programs.

(1) Macinnis, Peter
Poisons: From Hemloc to Botox and the Killer Bean of Calabar
Arcade Publishing, New York, 2004
ISBN 1-55970-761-5

Letters RE: Islam

THE TWO LETTERS BELOW WERE SENT BY ME, IN THE LAST FEW DAYS, TO EDITORS AND OTHERS.

2321 South 82 Street
West Allis, Wisconsin
USA 53219-1735
(414) 545-1884

Sir:

I found the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's July 22nd, front-page and very large photo story as to Muslims praying for Lebanese and Palestinian civilians recently killed or in danger overseas of great interest. Strangely enough, nothing was written about their prayers for those in Israel, The Sudan, The Philippines and other places killed by Islamic terrorists.

Perhaps, their prayers were those parts of the Koran which encourage, if not require, the killing of Jews and those which declare perpetual war against all Non-Muslims.

Sincerely yours,
James Pawlak



2321 South 82 Street
West Allis, Wisconsin
USA 53219-1735
(414) 545-1884

TO THE EDITORS:

Lebanon's "right" to be an independent state is dependent on its execution of
its DUTY to control and suppress banditry and terrorism within its own borders.
As it has very grossly failed of that duty, it has no "right" to complain when the much abused State of Israel undertakes that duty as a matter of self defense.

Respectfully submitted,
James Pawlak

PS---I am NOT a Jew.

Terrrorist Prisoners--NOT

New York Post

KILL, DON'T CAPTURE

By RALPH PETERS

July 10, 2006 -- THE British military defines experience as the ability to recognize a mistake the second time you make it. By that standard, we should be very experienced in dealing with captured terrorists, since we've made the same mistake again and again.

Violent Islamist extremists must be killed on the battlefield. Only in the rarest cases should they be taken prisoner. Few have serious intelligence value. And, once captured, there's no way to dispose of them.

Killing terrorists during a conflict isn't barbaric or immoral - or even illegal. We've imposed rules upon ourselves that have no historical or judicial precedent. We haven't been stymied by others, but by ourselves.

The oft-cited, seldom-read Geneva and Hague Conventions define legal combatants as those who visibly identify themselves by wearing uniforms or distinguishing insignia (the latter provision covers honorable partisans - but no badges or armbands, no protection). Those who wear civilian clothes to ambush soldiers or collect intelligence are assassins and spies - beyond the pale of law.

Traditionally, those who masquerade as civilians in order to kill legal combatants have been executed promptly, without trial. Severity, not sloppy leftist pandering, kept warfare within some decent bounds at least part of the time. But we have reached a point at which the rules apply only to us, while our enemies are permitted unrestricted freedom.

The present situation encourages our enemies to behave wantonly, while crippling our attempts to deal with terror.

Consider today's norm: A terrorist in civilian clothes can explode an IED, killing and maiming American troops or innocent civilians, then demand humane treatment if captured - and the media will step in as his champion. A disguised insurgent can shoot his rockets, throw his grenades, empty his magazines, kill and wound our troops, then, out of ammo, raise his hands and demand three hots and a cot while he invents tales of abuse.

Conferring unprecedented legal status upon these murderous transnational outlaws is unnecessary, unwise and ultimately suicidal. It exalts monsters. And it provides the anti-American pack with living vermin to anoint as victims, if not heroes.

Isn't it time we gave our critics what they're asking for? Let's solve the "unjust" imprisonment problem, once and for all. No more Guantanamos! Every terrorist mission should be a suicide mission. With our help.

We need to clarify the rules of conflict. But integrity and courage have fled Washington. Nobody will state bluntly that we're in a fight for our lives, that war is hell, and that we must do what it takes to win.

Our enemies will remind us of what's necessary, though. When we've been punished horribly enough, we'll come to our senses and do what must be done.

This isn't an argument for a murderous rampage, but its opposite. We must kill our enemies with discrimination. But we do need to kill them. A corpse is a corpse: The media's rage dissipates with the stench. But an imprisoned terrorist is a strategic liability.

Nor should we ever mistreat captured soldiers or insurgents who adhere to standing conventions. On the contrary, we should enforce policies that encourage our enemies to identify themselves according to the laws of war. Ambiguity works to their advantage, never to ours.

Our policy toward terrorists and insurgents in civilian clothing should be straightforward and public: Surrender before firing a shot or taking hostile action toward our troops, and we'll regard you as a legal prisoner. But once you've pulled a trigger, thrown a grenade or detonated a bomb, you will be killed. On the battlefield and on the spot.

Isn't that common sense? It also happens to conform to the traditional conduct of war between civilized nations. Ignorant of history, we've talked ourselves into folly.

And by the way: How have the terrorists treated the uniformed American soldiers they've captured? According to the Geneva Convention?

Sadly, even our military has been infected by political correctness. Some of my former peers will wring their hands and babble about "winning hearts and minds." But we'll never win the hearts and minds of terrorists. And if we hope to win the minds, if not the hearts, of foreign populations, we must be willing to kill the violent, lawless fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population determined to terrorize the rest.

Ravaged societies crave and need strict order. Soft policies may appear to work in the short term, but they fail overwhelmingly in the longer term. Wherever we've tried sweetness and light in Iraq, it has only worked as long as our troops were present - after which the terrorists returned and slaughtered the beneficiaries of our good intentions. If you wish to defend the many, you must be willing to kill the few.

For now, we're stuck with a situation in which the hardcore terrorists in Guantanamo are "innocent victims" even to our fair-weather allies. In Iraq, our troops capture bomb-makers only to learn they've been dumped back on the block.

It is not humane to spare fanatical murderers. It is not humane to play into our enemy's hands. And it is not humane to endanger our troops out of political correctness.

Instead of worrying over trumped-up atrocities in Iraq (the media give credence to any claim made by terrorists), we should stop apologizing and take a stand. That means firm rules for the battlefield, not Gumby-speak intended to please critics who'll never be satisfied by anything America does.

The ultimate act of humanity in the War on Terror is to win. To do so, we must kill our enemies wherever we encounter them. He who commits an act of terror forfeits every right he once possessed.

Ralph Peters' new book, "Never Quit the Fight," hits stores today.

Christianity, Guns & The UN

There are altogether too many persons in the Holy See and the rest of the Catholic Church (And other Churches) who have climbed on the United Nations' bandwagon riding towards total gun control in this world. Those persons and that movement should be suppressed for the following reasons.

1.The United Nations is dominated by Islamic, Secular Humanist and other anti-Church nations who do all in their power to reduce Christianity to a state of impotence or seek to totally destroy it.
This is specially true for those nations with a Muslim majority as the vast part of the followers of that ideology believe that Allah has declared that there is a perpetual state-of-war between them and all others and that any means necessary to make unbelievers submit to Islam are justified and required. This includes the requirement that all Muslim males either be on military jihad or actively support those who are. The most recent sites of such conflicts are Nigeria, The Sudan, the Southern Philippines, India and, of course, the terrorist attacks against Israel, the United Kingdom, Spain and the USA.
In such places as Nigeria and The Sudan the question is not control of weapons,
but the lack of such means for self-protection by non-Muslims against unjust war acts by those already heavily armed by governments (Which support gun control).
Secular Humanist (ie Atheist) orientated nations are less overt about the
suppression of rights, preferring bureaucratic sanctions (Backed up by armed police)
to direct conflict and, therefore, may be more dangerous for that reason.
It seems very strange that the Church would ally itself with the very corrupt
UN in this and many other matters!

2.Many of the nations most in favor of stricter gun controls are those where human
rights (Including the right to worship according to personal beliefs OR to worship
in any manner OR that of other free speech) are most suppressed. I do not believe that it is consistent with Christianity's interest in the welfare of the People of God to support such governments' as so suppress those rights in this or other like matters.

3.All people have a natural law right to protect themselves, their families, their
neighbors and the products of their labors from unjust aggression. That right becomes meaningless unless they have ready access to the means to do so. As the police (If not the unjust aggressors or their allies) are seldom on-site to provide that protection, the maintenance of that natural-law right requires that the common people have ready access to modern weapons and ammunition without the control of such governments or ideologies as would violate their basic rights.

Wrong Premise, Wrong Conclusions RE: Islam

The Governments of the USA and all Western nations AND most reporters, editors, teachers and Christian ministers-of-religion (As well as those they mislead) are placing all of us and our civilization (Or, such of it as is left) in great danger by thinking based on the false premise that the conflict in the Middle East and South Asia is a matter of various nations (eg Pakistan, Israel, India, Lebanon, Syria, Iran) contending with each other.

That is as false and dangerous a premise as basing a medical drug-administration logical argument on such a premises as “There are no medical differences between men and women, between old people and children”.

The proper premise is that: : The basis for all the conflicts in the Middle East and South Asia (And, throughout the world) is the conflict between Islam and all other ideologies. If, and only if, we accept this premise as basic, valid and true, then we will have some chance of resolving the noted problems and protecting our nation and the world from the majority view of Muslims which supports all of the teachings of the Koran and other Islamic works. [Those teachings requiring Muslims to: Either participate in active military jihad or actively support those who are so occupied; Murder any Muslim who leaves that ideology or any person who “insults” the Koran or Mohammed; Not voluntarily submit to any legal system other than Sharia or any ruler other than a Muslim; Give non-Muslims and a only limited legal, social and personal privileges and no rights; Allow (Muslim) women only a very inferior place in the world; And, all of the other horrors inflicted on the world by Islam and still with us today.]

THEREFORE, if you have some teaching/leadership/journalistic/religious position of authority, you are committing a crime or a sin against your followers or students if you argue AND act from any other premise in this 1400-year old war between Islam and the rest of the world.

Islam---So Full Of Hate

What religion or political movement or ideology is so full of hate as is Islam? Not even the hateful Nazi movement, with its Brown Shirt VS. Black Shirt and bloody conflict, ate up itself so much with internal disputes. Even the Thirty Years War between various Christian groups or the Crusaders' errors in persecuting the Eastern Churches have lasted as many centuries of murderous hate as expressed by the many killings of Muslims by Muslims since Mohammed claimed that his pronouncements came directly from Allah---Including those conveniently abrogated by subsequent rulings.

Even the Slavic pogroms and Nazi holocaust against Jews have come to an end with the growing understanding of the Jews as the spiritual ancestors of Christianity and what is truly good in the West. Yet, Islam continues to preach destruction of the Jews, jihads against Christians and others----While still engaged in an almost sexual frenzy of Muslim murdering Muslim. Even our home-grown “skin head” and like movements are small in nature and short-lived---Even though they keep popping up like a rash or teen age pimples, disfiguring and embarrassing but not dangerous to the vast majority of people.

Even the ACLU (American Christian Loathing Union) and other secular groups, who wish to destroy Christianity “for the greater glory of atheism”, do not hate themselves so much as does one branch of Islam detest all others.

Why?

Perhaps, we should look to the teachings of the Koran and the Hadith (The purported sayings of Mohammed) AND to the various interpretations of them as contained in the Sharia (The Islamic codes of law) for some basis for that essential hate-in-Islam.

What other major ideology teaches that the response to an insult is to kill and not to “turn the other cheek”? What other current “faith” of today requires, as a matter-of-law, that those who leave it be executed? What other form of government, unlike those on a Sharia foundation, seek to suppress others on the basis of gender (By means of sexual mutilation and other horrid practices) or religion (Being a Jew or Christian or pagan or even some other form of Muslim)? What other ideology maintains that slavery is a normal, expected and divinely approved state in this world?

What other way-of-thinking always degenerates to the position that music, art, invention, democracy, and literature (Other than the Koran and derived works) are evil and condemned by our Creator? What other culture has given so little, if any, of those best of human efforts to the world as has Islam?

[I suspect that if Israel and Jews did not exist, Muslims would commit more of their energies to murdering each other as a natural result of the underlying hate-filled nature of their way-of-thinking. I suspect if Islam ruled the whole world (As is its expressed goal), its followers would degenerate into a world destroying orgy of mutual/self-destruction.]

To paraphrase others, “There may be tolerant, peaceful and loving Muslims; But, Islam is intolerant, war-like and hate-filled”.

Anti-Christian Operations In British Prisons

PLEASE CAREFULLY NOTE THE PRACTICE OF "FAIRNESS" DOES NOT EXTEND TO ISLAM !


Saturday, July 08, 2006
Christian Prison Ministry Runs Afoul of Politically Correct Types in Britain
From the Telegraph:

Everyone agrees that there is a problem about prison. For some - the “. . . and throw away the key” school - there should be more prisoners, locked up for longer, to keep the rest of us safe. Others think there should be fewer people in prison, since prison only degrades its inmates.

But both sides accept that the aspect of prison that works badly is reoffending. Recidivism is very high. Prison may protect the public, but at present it does not succeed in getting criminals to go straight.

In the United States in the 1990s, Chuck Colson, who had been in prison for his part in the Watergate scandal in the Nixon White House, invented a programme called InnerChange. The idea was “the transformation of lives through the love of God”. In several states, including Texas, then under the governorship of George W Bush, prisoners went on a course that introduced them to role models from the Bible, learning from parables such as that of the Prodigal Son or the Lost Sheep. The programmes also provided what is so often lacking - follow-up after release.

Reoffending fell dramatically. In Texas, it is claimed that recidivism dropped from 55 per cent to eight per cent for those who took part in InnerChange.

More recently, InnerChange came to Britain. In early 2005, it began a pilot project in Dartmoor Prison, supported by the then governor, Claudia Sturt. The programme was modest (only 10 prisoners were permanently on it) and voluntary. It, too, offered aftercare, and it did so to all participants, including those who refused to embrace Christianity.

Sturt was promoted to Belmarsh last year, however, and from then on, life became harder for InnerChange at Dartmoor. It was decided that the programme should be accredited under what is called PSO 4350 (Effective Prison Interventions), even though this is normally used for “commissioned” schemes in which public money is involved, and InnerChange raised its own funds and did not seek this accreditation.

Someone called the Area Psychologist of the Prison Service was told to have a look at InnerChange, and she did not like much of what she saw. She reported that the leader of the programme believed “the root of offending is in individual sin”, and she opined that this “lacks basis in specific scientific research”.

Warming to her theme, the Area Psychologist wrote: “The place of anti-social behaviour in the concept of good and evil, god [she kept God lower case] and the devil may not encourage self-responsibility in a manner which enables the individual to make sophisticated choices when faced with complex situations in their lives.” She worried that the programme might proselytise and that the people who ran it believed that their version of Christianity was “right”.

She also noted that the programme promoted the unique virtue of heterosexual marriage. This meant, she concluded, that it was “discriminatory” against homosexuality: “This issue will prevent the Validation Panel approving the programme.”

The Chaplain-General to the Prison Service, the Ven William Noblett, has refused to comment publicly, but he was scarcely more friendly to InnerChange and agreed that it should be refused accreditation. He has ordered all prison chaplains to sign a declaration that: “We will not as chaplains knowingly say or do anything which insults or in any way denigrates the faith of any other person . . . We will not knowingly display any literature which offends another faith tradition.”

The supporters of InnerChange say they have no desire to cause offence to other faiths, but they point out that, for example, many Muslims regard the idea that Jesus Christ is the Son of God as intrinsically offensive. Does that mean that no Christian may say it? Can one of Archdeacon Noblett’s chaplains only do his (or her) job if he promises never to say the Creed or display a Bible?

Archdeacon Noblett’s Faith Council report on InnerChange said the programme did not “sit well with multi-faith chaplaincy”. It also worried that there were “issues about whether what works in the religious and social context of the United States would necessarily work in the prison context here”.

The public doctrine of “multi-faith” seems now to have been pushed way beyond its origin - the admirable desire to respect different faiths. It has become a concept in which the word “multi” trumps the word “faith”. Trying in any way to convert others is considered wrong.

Since Christianity and Islam are both, by their nature, religions of conversion, this would seem to disable them, though those who have contact with the Prison Service tell me that in practice none of these restrictions is applied to Islam, and all are imposed on Christianity.

As for the doctrine of “diversity”, it appears, in a manner that George Orwell could have satirised beautifully, to mean the opposite. “Diversity” means that you may say nothing, even by implication (InnerChange has nothing in its programme on the subject), against homosexuality.

And ideas that come from a nasty foreign place such as the United States must be rejected here. Yet imagine the fuss if Archdeacon Noblett’s team had questioned Muslim programmes because of “issues” about whether the “religious and social context” of seventh-century Arabia would work in British prisons today.

One reason that this matters so much is that, without the religious element, there is so little success in helping prisoners lead new lives. The Christian insight, contained in the title InnerChange, is that people at rock bottom can escape their condition only if their hearts alter.

Even for those who do not accept this idea in theological terms, it is a fact that many who find faith do, in the process, recover dignity, and start to lead lives that benefit themselves, their family and their neighbours. The need for such recovery is as desperate as it has ever been.

Britain, of course, doesn’t have any First Amendment prohibiting the establishment of religion, and indeed the Anglican Church is still the established religion of the realm.

But the worldview of secular leftist anti-Christian types is the same there as on this side of the Atlantic.

posted by John McAdams at 9:43 PM

An Experiment In Elections

INTRODUCTION�CAMPAIGN FOR LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR
STATE OF WISCONSIN----FALL, 2006

On this 230th birthday of the United States Of America I am announcing my write-in candidacy for the position of Wisconsin's Lieutenant Governor in the September 12, 2006 election as an experiment to see how many votes can be obtained: Without asking for or using funds from my fellow citizens OR, any various special interest groups ; On the basis of my life history and positions on matters of public interest; And, by using only Internet, word-of-mouth and other like, non-costly, forms of communication.

Therefore, if you vote in the September 12, 2006 Republican primary, I ask you to write in my name and date-of-birth as given here:
JAMES PAWLAK
9-1-1938

As a Republican I believe that Ms. Jean Hundermark (The �official� Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor) will be a most excellent incumbent in the office. Yet, I think this experiment will be worth the while AND to the benefit of the People..

Even if you choose to vote in another Party's primary OR disagree with my positions, I ask you to join (Out of a sense of fairness and ADVENTURE) in this experiment by forwarding this note (CUT AND PASTE IF YOU CAN) to as many Wisconsin voters as you can. Even if you live outside of Wisconsin, please forward this to as many Wisconsin residents as you know with the challenge to do the above and route this to as many other like voters as they can, and so on, and so on....

Also, please mention this experimental adventure to your friends who do not receive
e-mail. THANK YOU!

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

BORN: September 1, 1938 at Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
RESIDENCE: Life time resident of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin.
FAMILY: Married (Once and still) for the last 38-years; Two (Step) daughters
and one son; Four grandchildren AND one "on the way" !
MILITARY: United States Navy; Active duty from 1956 into 1959; Honorable
Discharge; Highest grade (E-4) Fire Control Technician, Third Class.
EDUCATION: West Allis public schools, Graduated, 1956, West Allis Central
High School; BS (Psychology), UW-Milwaukee, June, 1964;
Some graduate Social Work credits at the same University;
Military training in electronics and gun fire control systems;
Milwaukee Area Technical College classes in Electrical systems,
Police Science and (Current) Jewelry Construction; Many hours of
professional in-service training within Wisconsin's Department of
Corrections.

EMPLOYMENT: Wisconsin Department of Corrections; Full time from 7-1-64 to
9-1-98 as Probation & Parole Agent, Social Worker, Social
Service Specialist and Social Services Supervisor; One year, half
time, thereafter as a �Limited Term Employee Social Worker�; And, prior employment as a Hospital Attendant, warehouse worker and cafeteria server and dishwasher.

HOBBIES: Reading; Making jewelry; Working out at a gym; Walking; Talking about what interests me and listening to people who know �things�
I do not know or understand; Writing e-mail letters to editors,
politicians, friends and �not-friends�.

MY STANDS ON POSITIONS OF PUBLIC INTEREST

The person holding the position of Lieutenant Governor has very little power over the actions of State Government for lack of the veto and budget planning powers held by the Governor and, except in very unusual cases, any vote in the Legislature. However, I think it fitting and proper to let you know my positions on some matters of general and public interest as given below.

BUDGET: If the members of the Legislature and other public officials can not
execute their duties to present to-and-for the People a balanced
budget, then there should be some provision in law to facilitate
that action. Rather than TABOR, or anything like it, I favor the
following plan: If a balanced budget is not passed into law by
some certain date (eg 90-days after the start of each biannual
session, then the pay of the legislators, the Governor and the
Secretary of the Department of Administration would be reduced
by 50%; And, if that is not done within another 90-days, that
reduction would be another 25%. This would apply to both the
General Fund and ALL other funds and would not allow further
borrowing to produce such a balanced budget.

VOUCHERS: ALL State aid for students or pupils, at the high school or lower
levels, should be directly connected to each such child/youth by
vouchers filtered through their parents/guardians (Thus insulating
the State from any church-state conflicts), to be applied to the
school of those adults' choice---If the payee school is accredited by
the Wisconsin Department of Education OR some other and
recognized accreditation organization (eg Northwestern) OR
has completed-in-full an accreditation application for such
recognition.

This is, after all, the real basis for the �Irish Economic Miracle
Model� so touted by UW Administrators, industrial leaders and
the editors of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Consideration for truly new schools and home schoolers would
be implemented after the initial program is in place.

U-WISCONSIN: The University of Wisconsin non-system has decayed into a
disorganization run for the benefit of its senior administrators and
` professors with the People and Legislature removed from effective
control of its income-sources, expenditures and programs. I suggest
that we elect the President of the University (As we elect a State
Superintendent of Schools) and its Regents (As we elect School
Board members---Perhaps two for each Congressional District).
Some sort of truly reforming action is needed to return the
UW to its basic purpose: The education of our youth.

TECH SCHOOLS: I think it past the time to really evaluate our State's Technical
Colleges to see if they are meeting the needs of their students and
the People OR if they have fallen into the same disease as the UW
non-system. Of special interest will be to see if the administrators and (Full time) teachers at those schools are being paid at, below or above those persons, with like qualifications, in public high schools or in the private (Not university) sectors. ALSO, I call for the direct election, by the People, of technical college board members.

CCW LAWS: At this time Wisconsin is only one of twp States in the USA
which does not trust its law abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons after meeting the standards of each such State. The People of our State have already voted to approve a Constitutional Amendment as to the right to keep and bear arms and, by repeated majority and democratic votes of the Legislature, approved CCW for Wisconsin. Only the veto of Governor Doyle has prevented the will of the People from being enacted in full. Those States which have adopted CCW have either had no increases in crime or noted some reduction in crime rates. At least one such State is eliminating some of the public places where
concealed weapons were not previously allowed. I support the expressed will of the People in this matter.

IMMIGRATION: As the son of an immigrant, who came here in accordance with
the laws then in effect and as an amateur student of history, I understand that this nation was built on the sweat of like, lawful, immigrants.

I am totally opposed to granting illegal immigrants any rights or
privileges due to citizens and legal immigrants who are fully under the jurisdiction of the USA as illegal immigrants or visa violators are not..
I would work towards having Wisconsin's Department of
Corrections and County Sheriffs exactly determine which persons under their control are �illegals� (Doubly in violation of our laws) and take such measures to assure their deportation asap or secure, Federal, detention until they are deported.

RELIGION: I, very strongly, support the �free exercise of religion� and free
speech, as protected by our Constitution, in all public places. I
maintain that Atheism and �Secular Humanism� are religions,
based on the premise that there is no God or gods AND, therefore,
they are not entitled to any more-or-less protection than any other religions. Secular Humanists and Atheists are NOT entitled to monopolize our schools and other public places.

MARRIAGE: As you can probably tell from the above statements, I am very
much in favor of democratic resolutions of issues. As to the
proposed, Wisconsin, �Marriage Amendment�, I maintain �LET
THE PEOPLE VOTE AND CHOSE�.

VOTE FRAUD: It is very apparent the the overly localized �system� of registering
voters and poll control requires much thought and will likely
need attention to insure that our most precious votes are not
diluted by fraud.
I suggest interconnected voting registration systems for all
counties and all voting places to insure real-time checks on any
questionable or challenged voters. This would include connections
with criminal justice computer systems.
I suggest punitive actions be taken against registrars or deputies
or poll workers who are careless or who condone fraud.
I would work towards having Wisconsin's Department of
Corrections insure that �revocation� actions are initiated against
all felons under its control who vote in our elections.

DANE COUNTY: The people of Dane County elect the Circuit Court Judges
there. Those judges preside over the Courts which have
original jurisdiction as to most cases involving State agencies and,
as the Legislature sits in Madison, over criminal cases where
members of the Legislature are alleged to have misused their
positions. This situation gives the citizens of Dane County an
power which is greater and unequal than that given to the citizens
of other counties.

Therefore, I support changing our laws to: Give every citizen,
having a court case involving a State agency, the option of having
that case tried in his/her home county; And, providing for the trial
of Members of the Legislature, accused of official wrong doing, to
be tried in her/his home county by those fellow citizens who were
responsible for electing that Member.

CONTRIBUTIONS: I will NOT accept any political contributions for myself. If you
wish to do yourself and the People of Wisconsin (And the USA)
some real good, contribute to the Mark Green For Governor fund
by going to and clicking on
�CONTRIBUTE�; Then completing that section. If you do not wish to use a credit card, send your check to:
Green For Governor
PO Box 22366
Green Bay, WI 54305

OTHER ISSUES: My positions on other issues may be added in response to your
questions (Please see below) or upon my own reflections!


QUESTIONS FOR ME

If you have any serious questions or comments for me, please send them by e-mail to the address noted below; BUT, please be sure to use the subject heading: Questions For Candidate.



cc State Of Wisconsin Elections Board
NOTICE: AUTHORIZED AND PAID FOR BY JAMES PAWLAK, THE CANDIDATE.



GOD SAVE THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND ITS PEOPLE !

Learning From Mexico

I am NOT so much a “super patriot”, or chauvinist, that I believe that the other nations in the world have nothing to offer us as to ideas and their applications. Even our neighbor to the South, Mexico, has positive and negative lessons for us. First the positive lessons.

Certainly, the goal of family loyalty, patriotism and adherence to Christianity (Or, some other religious faith or morality-teachings associations) are positive and very Mexican lessons which we should review so as to better evaluate the essential goodness of the USA.

More specially, we should look to the Mexican election system for ideas which we very much need to adapt to and insist upon for our won elective processes, of which some of the examples are given below.
1.All citizens are given a verified voter ID card having a holograph and the
voter's photograph and thumb print.
2.Those cards must be presented at the polling places where they are VERY
carefully examined before voting is allowed—Usually by poll watchers from
the several Mexican political parties.
3.A paper ballot is used which, unlike some of the electronic and other voting
non-systems used in the USA or proposed for such use, allows for a ready
recount if needed.
4.The elections are run by a non-partisan governmental organization to which all parties (Including the most minor ones) have access to and some part in its administration.

Also, I believe, that Mexico is like many other nations (eg Germany) where the accident of birth in that nation does NOT make you a citizen if it---Which helps protect the culture and self-identity of such lands.

The primary negative lesson is that corruption flows from the highest level(s) of government to the lowest as demonstrated by the strange and great wealth of most of Mexico's ex-presidents and the every present fact of the mordida (“Little bite”) of expectation of bribes at every level of Mexican government down to the lowest and very petty functionary. We might consider the practices of some of our State's governors and the downward flow of corruption to those in power in our Legislatures and the higher levels of the Civil Service. (I name no names!)

Of course, some of the judicial or quasi-judicial rulings of other nations are in strict oppositions to the letter and intent of the USA's Constitution, laws and traditions. Although we may wish to consider adapting some foreign practices (eg Mexican voting rules, Irish school practices, including government payments to the schools chosen by scholars' parents or guardians, restricting citizenship to those children born to citizens, universal military training as in Switzerland or Israel) we must protect our heritage by limiting our judges to purely American laws, constitutions and legal case lest we end up with the worst of foreign government without any of the freedoms and protections we now have.

A Guide To True Knighthood

I HAVE DEVELOPED A "MIND EXPERIMENT" ORGANIZATION TO ME KNOWN AS "THE CRUSADER KNIGHTS OF THE TWO SWORDS". BELOW YOU WILL FIND THAT ORDER'S GUIDE FOR ITS MEMBERS.

1.Learn that whatever hardships you have to endure are but temporary and offer you
a chance to learn and to strengthen yourself.
2.Always behave correctly with courtesy to others; But, with due respect for
your own beliefs and always defend them against all violent or irrational attacks..
3.Do not fall prey to avarice, indulgence or egoism.
4.Sorrow and righteous anger are both gifts from God to be used in accordance
with His will and to allow you to grow in strength.
5.Never stray from the paths of the Faith nor that of preparation to combat, by pen
or sword, the enemies of what is Good.
6.Fear not the strong nor despise the weak—Both can teach you as friends or destroy you
as enemies.

"The Religion Of Peace?"

THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE PROVIDES SOME USEFUL REFERENCES AS TO THE TRUE NATURE OF ISLAM.

The Religion of Peace?
By Andrew G. Bostom
FrontPageMagazine.com | June 28, 2006

During the discussion period after a recent talk by the courageous secular Muslim “apostate” Wafa Sultan, Judea Pearl, father of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl (who was barbarously murdered by pious Muslim terrorists), alluded to the Koran’s “verses of peace”—which certain votaries of Islam uphold as the religion's exclusive legacy. According to an observer at the event, Judea Pearl derided Ms. Sultan’s critical view of Islam by further contending that the Koran's bellicose and brutal verses were mere “cultural baggage”, akin to “similar” pronouncements in the Old Testament. The comparison was naïve, if not absurd.

Naïve because the Koran’s “verses of peace”, frequently cited by both Muslim and non-Muslim apologists, most notably verse 2:256, “There is no compulsion in religion”, were all abrogated by the so-called verses of the sword. These abrogating verses of the sword recommend beheading or otherwise murdering and mutilating non-Muslims, and Muslim apostates. According to classical Muslim Koranic commentators verse 9:5 (perhaps the most infamous verse of the sword), “Slay the idolators wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush…”, for example, cancels 124 verses that promote patience and toleration.



The sacralized Islamic sources indicate that as the Muslim prophet Muhammad accrued political and military power, he evolved from a proselytizer and persuader, to a warrior (i.e., a prototype jihadist; see: The Prophet Muhammad as a Jihad Model), and dictatorial legislator. Thus the sword and other similar Koranic verses—as per the linkage between Muhammad’s biography and the Koranic narrative—capture the Muslim prophet at his most dogmatic, belligerent, and intolerant. Muslims are enjoined to fight and murder nonbelievers—woe unto those who shirk these campaigns—but those who are killed fighting for the one true religion, i.e., Islam, will be rewarded amply in the afterlife. A sampling of such verses, which established these eternal injunctions, are included below:



47:4: “Now when ye meet in battle those who disbelieve, then it is smiting of the necks until, when ye have routed them, then making fast of bonds”



9:29: “Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Messenger have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.”



4:76: “Those who believe fight in the way of Allah, and those who disbelieve fight in the way of the Shaitan. Fight therefore against the friends of the Shaitan; surely the strategy of the Shaitan is weak.”



8:12: “When your Lord revealed to the angels: I am with you, therefore make firm those who believe. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.”



8:38-39: “Say to the Unbelievers, if (now) they desist (from Unbelief), their past would be forgiven them; but if they persist, the punishment of those before them is already (a matter of warning for them). And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah altogether and everywhere; but if they cease, verily Allah doth see all that they do.”



9:39: “If you do not go forth, He will chastise you with a painful chastisement and bring in your place a people other than you, and you will do Him no harm; and Allah has power over all things.”



4:74: “Therefore let those fight in the way of Allah, who sell this world's life for the hereafter; and whoever fights in the way of Allah, then be he slain or be he victorious, We shall grant him a mighty reward.”



9:111: “Surely Allah has bought of the believers their persons and their property for this, that they shall have the garden; they fight in Allah's way, so they slay and are slain; a promise which is binding on Him in the Taurat and the Injeel and the Quran; and who is more faithful to his covenant than Allah? Rejoice therefore in the pledge which you have made; and that is the mighty achievement.”



As Ibn Warraq notes, aptly (p.69):



…“tolerance” has been abrogated by “intolerance”



And this doctrine of abrogation, necessitated by the many contradictions which abound in the Koran, originates as putatively taught by Muhammad, himself, at verse 2:106: “Whatever communications We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring one better than it or like it. Do you not know that Allah has power over all things?” . This verse, in combination with verses* 16:101, 22:52, and 87:6, was elaborated into a formal system of abrogation (naskh in Arabic) by the greatest classical Muslim Koranic scholars and jurists, which entailed (p.72),



…the suppression of a ruling without the suppression of the wording. That is to say, the earlier ruling is still to be found in the Koran, and is still to this day recited in worship, but it no longer has any legal force [emphasis added]



But it is only when viewed in the larger context of the uniquely Islamic institution of jihad war—which derives substantively from the abrogating Koranic sword verses—that Judea Pearl’s naïve equation to “similar” verses from the Old Testament, becomes entirely fatuous. From the bellicose verses in the Koran, expounded upon in the hadith (the words and deeds of Muhammad as recorded by pious Muslim transmitters), Muslim jurists and theologians formulated the Islamic institution of permanent jihad war against non-Muslims to bring the world under Islamic rule (Shari’a law).



Since its earliest inception, through the present, jihad has been central to the thought and writings of prominent Muslim theologians and jurists. The precepts and regulations elucidated in the 7th through 9th centuries are immutable in the Muslim theological-juridical system, and they have remained essentially unchallenged by the majority of contemporary Muslims. The jihad is intrinsic to the sacred Muslim texts, including the divine Koranic revelation—“the uncreated word of Allah”. The Old Testament sanctions the Israelites conquest of Canaan—a limited domain—it does not sanction a permanent war to submit all the nations of humanity to a uniform code of religious law. Similarly, the tactics of warfare are described in the Old Testament, unlike the Koran, in very circumscribed and specific contexts. Moreover, while the Old Testament clearly condemns certain inhumane practices of paganism, it never invoked an eternal war against all of the world’s pagan peoples.



Uninformed ecumenical zeal in search of a fantasy Islam yet to be created, does not excuse making intellectual, let alone moral equivalences, between the severely limited and contextualized war proclamations of the Old Testament, and the permanent proto-jihad war injunctions of the Koran. Staking out the presumptive “higher” moral ground by a thinly veiled (and ahistorical!) attack on a courageous secularist seeking profound, not cosmetic (and meaningless) changes in Islamdom, is unsavory and destructive, regardless of the misguided motivations.



* 16: 101: “And when We change (one) communication for (another) communication, and Allah knows best what He reveals, they say: You are only a forger. Nay, most of them do not know.”; 22:52: “And We did not send before you any messenger or prophet, but when he desired, the Shaitan made a suggestion respecting his desire; but Allah annuls that which the Shaitan casts, then does Allah establish His communications, and Allah is Knowing, Wise”; 87:6: “By degrees shall We teach thee to declare (the Message), so thou shalt not forget”



The discussion of abrogation/naskh draws heavily upon the insightful analysis, here pp. 67-75, of my courageous mentor and colleague Ibn Warraq.

A Blind OR Criminal FBI

The FBI's spokes-thing, on this June 23rd morning, specially emphasized that the indictment of seven (Islamic) terrorists in Florida was NOT an indictment of any religion. I am curious if that spin-doctor, or his empire-building superiors, have ever read the Koran and the other works of Islam which, among other horrid commandments, declare that Muslims are in a state of perpetual war with all other peoples until they submit to Islam AND that every Muslim must go on active and military jihad against the "unbelievers" OR actively support those who do.

I also wonder if they read the papers as to other, independent, Muslims who elect to kill or try to kill others in the name of Islam and in accordance with its horrid teachings. The cases in the San Francisco airport, where the murderer left a note on his apartment's door with the command "Read The Koran", and the more recent case of a educated Muslim trying to use his auto to kill students on a Southern university campus come to my mind.

The "conventional wisdom" that such murderous Muslims are only a "radical minority" is a lie. They are the true believers in Islam and a majority party (Remember the dancing on "Arab street" when the news of "9/11" arrived?)

The FBI maintains "profilers" who attempt to link together common elements in the crimes of serial killers and other offenders. It seems more than strange that the FBI cannot do the same as to the terrorism threat of believing Muslims as to their threat to many thousands of our citizens and legal immigrants.

Of course, they may have all of the information available and are only too "politically correct" or cowardly to proclaim the truth---That an unreformed Islam is the most dangerous ideology (NOT a religion) in the world.

It appears that the FBI would rather murder unarmed women, holding their babies, as at "Ruby Ridge" and promote such assassins, than do their duty to the truth and towards the real protection of the American People.

That failure to the Truth, the People and the USA is CRIMINAL !!!

SUCH PERSONS AS WERE JUST ARRESTED IN FLORIDA APPEAR TO HATE THE USA. IT WOULD BE UNJUST FOR US TO MAKE THEM LIVE HERE. I SUGGEST THAT THEY BE TAKEN 20.0001 MILES OFF OF FLORIDA'S COAST AND EXPELLED FROM OUR NATION BY DROPPING THEM OVERBOARD.

Jews & Muslims In England

THERE IS A LESSON AND A WARNING FOR THE USA IN THE COLUMN BELOW.


How Cromwell gave us Joan Collins and other luminaries
By Charles Moore
(Filed: 17/06/2006)

Exactly 350 years ago, we began to be a multi-racial society. 1656 marked the return of Jews to England. They had been driven out by an edict of Edward I in 1290. In the intervening centuries - known as the Middle Period - Jews quite often came to this country on business, but they were not permitted to reside here or practise their religion. Their status, in fact, was that of Christians (and Jews) in Saudi Arabia today. In 1656, Cromwell let 300 of them return, and Jews have been here ever since.
Among the eventual consequences of this re-admission have been Benjamin Disraeli, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Yehudi Menuhin, Peter Sellers, Joan Collins, Arthur Koestler, Alan Sugar, Nigella Lawson, Lucien Freud, Tom Stoppard and Sid James.
And why not add Max Perutz, Ali G, Ernst Chain, Jimmy Goldsmith, Miriam Rothschild, Melanie Klein, Alfred Brendel, Bernard Lewis, Emeric Pressburger, Harold Pinter, Sigmund Warburg, Keith Joseph, George Weidenfeld, Karl Popper, Ronald Harwood, Ernst Gombrich, Simon Schama, Jonathan Miller, Philip Green, Rachel Weisz and Robert Winston?
Or Isaiah Berlin, Jacob Bronowski, Rosalind Franklin, Harold Abrahams, Alexander Korda, George Solti, Denis Norden, Muriel Spark, Siegfried Sassoon, Jacob Epstein, Daniel Day-Lewis, Nigel Lawson, Janet Reger, Marjorie Proops, Sam Mendes, Stirling Moss and Bernard Levin? It is even claimed that David Beckham, if not technically a Jew, is, as the old joke has it, Jew-ish.
(And since into each life a little rain must fall, one might also note Michael Winner, Esther Rantzen, Eric Hobsbawm, Jerry Springer, Edwina Currie and Robert Maxwell on the debit side of the ledger.)
Anyone who has ever studied at a university, needed good doctors, shopped at Marks & Spencer or Tesco, benefited from scientific invention, listened to classical music, sought accountants or lawyers, watched a film, bought a book or needed his head examined, has gained from Cromwell's decision. The Jewish contribution is so great that it pervades almost all aspects of British society.
I have named individual Jews deliberately because, though it is always dangerous to generalise, even favourably, about race, it does seem to my gentile eyes that there is more prodigious ability and energy per Jew than per the rest of us. The community here has never been enormous - at present, it is somewhere between 250,000 and 400,000 - but it has achievements out of proportion to its size. I like Herbert Samuel's claim that "The Jews are the same as everybody else, only more so".
But the interesting thing for British society today is to ask why such a people have been able to overcome prejudices that at first excluded them absolutely and later accepted them only on qualified terms (Jews could not sit in Parliament until the mid-19th century, for example). The answer could be useful for everyone.
The key, perhaps, is to be found in one of the earliest reports of Jews in England after their return. On October 14, 1663, Samuel Pepys found a way of visiting a synagogue in London (something very unusual for a Gentile at that time). In his diary, he described the service which he witnessed. He did not like it ("I never… could have imagined there had been any religion in the whole world so absurdly performed as this"), but he also noted that the Jews said a special prayer for the King. In other words, they accepted the civil power.
The Jews did not do this just to save their skins by sucking up to Charles II: they did it because it was part of their religious duty. It still is. No believing Jew will obey a civil law that forces him to disobey his religious law - eat pork, for example. But if there is no conflict, his religion teaches him that he must obey the law of the land. In the Talmud, the question arises of whether you should pay taxes to a secular king. Yes, comes the answer, because "The law of the kingdom is the law". In the standard collection, called Ethics of the Fathers, which brings together rabbinical wisdom over the centuries, Jews are told: "Pray for the welfare of the government, for, without the fear of it, people will swallow one another alive."
Even the most cursory study of Jewish life shows that it is full of disputes. There are splits between orthodox and reformed Jews, and within orthodoxy. There are thousands of secular Jews who feel very Jewish, but refuse to have their Jewishness defined by religion. There is ceaseless, often angry argument: when you read the Christian Gospels, you find that one of the most common scenes is of learned men quarrelling. That is still the case in Jewish culture.
But because of this basic agreement among Jews about the status of the secular law, the effect of these quarrels on the wider society is minimal. It is significant that virtually no one reading this article will have heard of Dayan Chanoch Ehrentreu. He is the chief justice of the Beth Din, the Chief Rabbi's court which adjudicates on the endless delicate points of Jewish law, often relating to diet or Sabbath observance, which come up within the community.
If Judaism were an aggressive religion, seeking to lay down its law for all mankind, then this supremely learned old gentleman could acquire menacing power. Like the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran after 1979, Dayan Ehrentreu could tell people to kill in the name of God. Instead, his effect is the opposite. By policing so meticulously the difference between the precise duties of Jews and the duty to society at large, this scholar helps define the space necessary for people with beliefs quite at variance with those of the majority to live harmoniously among them. In this sense, people can be "fundamentalist" and yet perfectly at home in a society which is not. For 2,000 years, Jews have developed a subtle understanding of the difference between the ideal society that would exist if God's laws prevailed everywhere and the world as it is.
Without this understanding, people do indeed "swallow one another alive" and - one might add in the era of suicide bombings - swallow themselves in the process.
With this understanding, a minority community can develop enough confidence and win enough acceptance to do good beyond the confines of itself. The Jewish concept of mitzvah, on which David Cameron dwelt when he made a speech celebrating the 350 years last week, means a good deed done for its own sake. Such deeds are visible in the importance that Jews attach to charity and to education. British society needs a lot more mitzvahs. There is also the idea of "chesed", man's kindness to all men, as first shown by Abraham when he entertained angels unawares. Thus does a potentially very closed community open itself out. The difference between majority and minority is very real - but not antagonistic.
In the past half-century, Muslims have come where the Jews came earlier, and in much larger numbers. Like such Jews, they have sometimes experienced the unhappiness that comes when one's religion is misunderstood or derided. Unlike the Jews, too many of their leaders tend to teach them that such slights must be avenged, that existence as a minority is just a temporary misfortune, not a state to be lived with, and that the law of England is virtually no law at all. If that attitude continues, society is reduced to a conflict about who will swallow whom alive. To avoid that is a huge and urgent task.

Information appearing on telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of Telegraph Group Limited and must not be reproduced in any medium without licence. For the full copyright statement see Copyright

Vigilantes, Crusaders & Other "Good Guys"

“Vigilantes” are those who are forced to band together to enforce the basic order and laws when the civil or military authorities are unable or unwilling to do so.

In this nation's “Old West” there were times when the farmers, ranchers, merchants, miners and others saw the lack of basic order-and-law as clear-and-present dangers to their physical safety, that of their families and to what they had earned by the sweat of their brows AND saw NO government willing or able to control such dangers. They did not lightly give up income producing time and effort to exercise the missing role and duties of government.

The crusaders did not form up for hundreds of years after the Muslim takeover of the Holy Land. They did so, as a special sub-set of “vigilantes”, only when Islam clearly demonstrated itself as the enemy of those who wished to peacefully worship, according to the dictates of their Christian beliefs, in that land. Although they failed there and did make errors of judgment as to the Eastern Churches, they did clear out Islamic tyranny from Spain, Sicily, the Balkans and Greece and stopped its military aggression along the borders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, at the gates of Vienna and at the Battle of Lepento. So, the next time someone (Probably a Muslim) uses “crusader” as a derogatory term, confront and correct him on the basis of historical facts and truth.

The “Minutemen” now on watch along parts of our border with Mexico are a very law abiding and peaceful sub-class of the “vigilante” movement. They are there only because the US Government is unwilling (NOT unwilling) to execute its duty to protect this nation from foreign invaders. So, the next time anyone (Including the President of the USA) uses “vigilante” as a derogatory term, to describe those “Minutemen”, confront and correct all such persons with the facts of history and the government's unwillingness to do its duty.

"Detroit" Is Brain Dead

Below you will find a variation from my usual themes as to Islam and Secular Humanism: Unless you wish to consider the proposals made in terms of making the USA less dependent on Arab-Muslim and Chavez-Secular oil money.

“Detroit” is the word-symbol of the corporations of and, much more importantly, the People who manage and work in the automobile industry of the USA.

“Detroit” is brain dead! They have lost the race for innovation, cost effectiveness and quality control to Japan, Korea, Germany and every other auto-producing nation except Serbia (Remember the Yugo?) and France (Who buys a solely French made auto deserves all the trouble and pain also purchased). That brain death has also yielded the death of many, good paying, jobs in this once industry-leading nation.

Since I am NOT one to complain about a problem, I offer up the follow and interrelated solutions.

First, use all citizen, labor union, stock holder organizations and “Detroit” lobbying resources to insist that the Congress and the President liquidate the incestuous relationship between “Detroit” and “Big Oil” by the following steps:
1.Make interlocking boards of directors and vast stock holder “arrangements”
between those two industries very illegal with mandatory prison sentences
and vast fines for violations of such a law;
2.Require that all automobiles and light trucks using internal combustion engines (Including “hybrids”) manufactured in or imported into the USA after
January 1, 2009 be powered by such engines as will ONLY use alcohol as
a fuel. (I am sure that the “Big Oil” company gas stations would, very quickly,
become and morph into “Gas & Alcohol Stations”);
3.Require that all fuel-alcohol be “doped” with materials that will make
its flames visible when burning in the open (Pure alcohol has a colorless fame, this being the technique used in “Indy” cars as a safety measure) and not usable as a beverage; And,
4.Tax such alcohol fuel at far less that petro-fuels.

Next, the above item #2 would hopefully be a “wake up call” for the managers and engineers of “Detroit” to take a great-leap-forward to regain the USA's prior place as a leader, not follower, in their industry and our economy. Some of the characteristics of an innovative and new-wave American auto would be:
1.A two-to-four cylinder and small, only alcohol burning, internal combustion engine would operate the auto and charge batteries when a more efficient method
(Please see below) is not available;
2.The use of the most efficient and power-dense batteries (eg “nano-tube” batteries; Look them up on your search engine) which would NOT include
the use of lead-acid batteries;
3.The ability to charge up such batteries by plugging in the auto to the much
more efficiently produced household current by use of external/internal
AC to DC converters/rectifiers;
4.For protection of batteries and for comfort purposes (In the very cold climates
of parts of the USA) such heaters (Perhaps only in use when the auto is plugged-in to external current) as would keep the batteries and passenger compartment at about 40-degrees F (“Normal heating could operate by means of the small engine OR by means of the type of supplemental heater used in the old Volkswagen buses OR by flameless or catalytic heaters;
5.The same, only when plugged-in, application of fans to maintain battery and
passenger compartment temperatures no greater that the outside temperature, which is important in our often very hot climate; And,
6.The same, very effective, flow-through flow of air (With an overhead intake and rear facing and venting back-seat weapons as in the old VW bus; I had one and it did work very, very, well) in lieu of the power demanding air conditioners now in use.

There are, no doubt, other ideas which any, non-brain-dead engineer supported by any
non-brain-dead manager could develop as to make this innovative car (Or, light truck) even better.

The real question is: “Does the Congress and 'Detroit' have the intelligence and will to do the above?”. [If not, please pass me a dictionary and grammar for Japanese or
Korean or Thai!]

No "Clash Of Civilizations" # 2

Again, I note that there is NO “clash of civilizations” between Islam and anything else.

There is only Western Civilization (which is limited to the USA, Canada, Vatican City, other small places in Europe and the rest of the World and too few other places), Islam (Which is an ANTI-civilization; bent on following Mohammed's instructions to destroy everything which marks true civilization) and Secular Humanism (Which is a NOT-civilization, equally against the basics of true civilization, as destructive of culture as is Islam; But, offering nothing but individual hedonism---Not even the community of the wrongful and homicidal believers of Islam).

What "Moderate Muslims" ?

I keep on hearing and reading the term “Moderate Muslims”; But, I do not hear them or see their positions in print---According to MY definition.

“MODERATE MUSLIM(S): One/more persons who identify themselves as “Muslims” and part of the “Islamic Community” who have or, upon request, formally and publicly condemn and reject (For all time) those teachings of the Koran and the Hadith (The sayings of Mohammed) which permit or encourage or command: The killing (Murder) of any Muslim who converts to another religion OR who “insults” Mohammed or the Koran; The sexual use (Rape) of slave girls and female captives taken on jihad; The proposition that Islam is in a state of perpetual war with all others until they “submit” to Islamic rule; The proposition that non-Muslims and all women are to be allowed only inferior legal, social and political status under Islamic rule and law; That it is forbidden for a Muslim to be friends with non-Muslims; That democratic governments and laws are inferior to Islamic rule under its laws (Sharia); AND all of the other like teachings of the Koran and Mohammed.”

When I see full-page adds, signed by many local Muslims, in newspapers with the above perpetual condemnations, I will believe that there are “Moderate Muslims”. Until that happens, please do NOT use that term as it is a lie, a deception and a part of the jihad against all “unbelievers”.

Maintain Ignorance Of Islam!!! A Fatwa!

In the name of Allah, The Merciful (Except to victims of suicide bombers, girls and women in the Sudan, the thousands killed on”9/11” and the other foes of Islam), do NOT let anyone overcome their ignorance of the true nature of Islam by reading that horridly accurate book noted below.

Most specially, do not let any potential or recent converts to Islam to do so. In addition, try to suppress its reading, understanding and application among: Elected officials, especially in democratic governments (Which will be submerged beneath our Sharia law); Journalists, especially those not paid bribes by our followers or whose agencies are not owned by Muslims; The so-called clergy of the unbelievers; Professors and teachers in the schools of those who are our enemies (Until we can convert those institutions to only the study of the Koran); And, to the diplomats and military of those evil ones who oppose the spread of Islam until our very lucrative operation controls the whole world.

Spencer, Robert
The Politically Incorrect Guide To Islam (And The Crusades)
Regnery Publishing, Inc. (An Eagle Publishing Company)
Washington, DC; 2005

This fatwa is binding on all Muslims.
/Abdul bin Abdul bin Adnauseam

A Way To Earn US Citizenship

So many are complaining that immigrants do not have a “fair chance” at earning citizenship in the USA. Here is a way for some of them to do so and to serve the USA in the process: ESTABLISH A USA “FOREIGN LEGION” which would mirror the equivalent French organization which is an elite group which grants French citizenship after a term of five years of loyal service. The characteristics of our Foreign Legion would be these.

1.All recruits would have to pass such physical examinations as would allow intense
military training and service.
2.Minimal understanding of English would be required to the extent of obeying orders and communicating with officers and NCOs.
3.All officers would be US Citizens, paid at US Army rates and drawn from the Armed Forces of the USA.
4.All NCOs would, initially be our fellow citizens until Legionaries are experienced
and trained enough to warrant promotion—With no such being promoted to Sergent or above until at least four-years of service, proof of greater English ability and appropriate NCO training. The initial citizen NCOs would be drawn from the our own Armed Forces and draw their regular pay.
5.The highest rank, before a grant of citizenship is had, would be Warrant Officer.
6.The initial term of service would be seven years (As citizenship here is worth much more than that of France as it is located in Eurarabia).
7.The pay given to such soldiers would be one-half of the equivalent in the US Army, with a matching sum held (In interest bearing escrow accounts) until honorable completion of seven-years of service.
8.At the end of such years of honorable service the Legionnaire would be given that escrow pay and US citizenship AND allowed a choice of taking a full discharge (Which would also satisfy US citizens' military obligations) OR transferring to the
US Army at the same grade/rank OR reenlisting in that Legion at one range increase in pay with NO 50% withholding.
9.This Legion could be deployed at the will of the President of the USA with only a
post-deployment message to the Congress as to the “reasons why”; But, no armed deployment in the USA (Outside of established military bases) wound be allowed. Unarmed use, in the USA for fire-fighting and construction in US Parks and Forests would be allowed.
10.This Legion would have its own and more severe criminal code which would exempt its non-citizen members from the protections of the Constitution, appeals to our courts and limit appeals only to the President.
11.Persons who desert from that Legion or who commit serious violations of its criminal code would be imprisoned and then deported or shot.
12.After four years of loyal service, qualified members could be appointed to West Point or to Army or USMC or its own OCS for return for a minimum of five years of active duty in that Legion at rank and pay consistent with their promotion and with US citizenship.
13.Basic training would be no less intense than that of the French or Spanish equivalent forces and would emphasis the learning of English and the USA's laws, mores and customs.
14.All promotions would be tied to success in the areas noted in #13 above.
15.The uniform of this service would be of a different color than that of the other
United States forces.

Against Those Who Attack Us

There are and have been those who would destroy the USA and, more importantly, what remains of Western Civilization. If you do not believe me, then study history and learn from it (So you are not condemned to repeat it).

Some centuries ago there was a group of persons known as “Cathari” who built a short term culture on the beliefs that the physical world was evil, sex was wrong, property should be taken from others for the common good (Defining that last term and making recruitment a lot easier). If they would have succeeded, then the growth of the human race stopped, the forces then developing towards technology and democracy killed and all the other benefits of our civilization prevented. Although their “philosophy” did have some good points, robbery and murder AND the potential of the destructions-of-civilization greatly outweighed any such positive positions.

In France they made great headway. But, when confronted with a local and defensive crusade, they hid themselves among others (Many who had benefited from the Cathari robberies) when besieged in the city of Beziers. The leader of the crusaders there was in a moral dilemma as he was unsure of the results of his to-be-successful assault on that town and his inability to recognize, by language/dress, those who were his and civilization's enemies. He asked an expert on morality and was told, “Tues-les tous. Dieu reconntdea les sein” (“Kill them all. God will know who belongs to Him”).

The lessons to be learned from this piece of history are:
1.That we in the West have gone past that kind of theology for decision making
(For better or worse as theology does present a good basis for morality and civilization in other areas);
2.The same and ancient use of deadly force is, every day and throughout the world, used by Muslims to justify terrorist bombings and such horrid acts as occurred on “9/11”; And,
3.That terrorists hiding among those who protect them are liable for destruction even if that means some “collateral damage” by reason of death and injury to
those who do not expel them from their homes and towns who may, as is the teaching of the Koran and Hadith (The sayings of Mohammed), be performing a “religious duty” in protecting such thugs.

I think that there is (On the part of anyone who understands both history and current affairs) that organized or disorganized Islam has been at war with us and attacking all other (And superior) cultures for 1400-years AND that most Muslims support those attacks (Remember the dancing on Arab streets on arrival of the news of “9/11”?) as such has been commanded by Allah. This presents us with a major conflict of forces (Like the totally materialistic forces of Communist China and Secular Europe VS. the rest of the world) for which the only solution may be the destruction one side or another.

Again looking to history, we find the “Roman Solution” (Rome then being a republic), using “Mecca” as the symbol of Islam, and we should declare, again-and-again, “Mecca delenda est” (“Mecca must be destroyed”).

To that we should add the Crusaders' (Who waited some hundreds of years before counter attacking the aggressive forces of Islam and, although they lost the Holy Land, freed most of Europe from the slavery which is Islam), cry of “Deus vult! (“God wills it!”).

If Communist China does not again follow the examples of past history and destroy itself as a nation, we may have to look at such principles and positions for it---And, the other Secular Humanists who infest and are attacking the real basis of civilization as did the Cathari.

Save $ On Book On Islam

THE ARTICLE BELOW SUMMARIZES THE NOTED BOOK. THEREFORE, IF YOU CANNOT GET IT FROM A PUBLIC LIBRARY, AT LEAST DIGEST, UNDERSTAND AND APPLY THE LESSONS GIVEN BELOW.


E-mail Author
Author Archive
Send to a Friend
Print Version

April 28, 2006, 6:24 a.m.
Not for the Feint of Heart
Robert Spencer asks the hard questions about Islam...and answers them.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), by Robert Spencer (Regnery, 233 pp., $19.95)

It is often said that in order to keep polite company polite, we must refrain from speaking of religion and politics. Yet, the two are not equals in the hierarchy of politesse. Political debate may be unwelcome in many settings, but no one clears the room by observing that the great totalitarian evils of the 20th century, Communism and fascism, were directly responsible for incalculable carnage.


Not so when it comes to religion — or, at least, one particular religion. The past three decades have borne witness to a rising, global tide of terrorist atrocities, wrought by Muslims who proclaim without apology — indeed, with animating pride — that their actions are compelled by Islam. Nonetheless, the quickest ticket to oblivion on PC's pariah express is to suggest that the root cause of Islamic terrorism might be, well, Islam.

That the possibility is utterable at all today owes exclusively to the sheer audacity of Muslim legions, who have rioted globally, on cue, based on what even their exhausted defenders must now concede are trifles (newspaper cartoons and a tall tale of Koran abuse at Guantanamo Bay leap to mind). But the largest obstacle to any examination of creed — larger even than a growing alphabet soup of Muslim interest groups — has been the same Western elites who are the prime targets of jihadist ire. In the most notable instance, President Bush absolved Islam of any culpability even as fires raged at the remains of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. And, although attacks before and after that date have been numerous and widespread, it has become nearly as much an oratorical staple as "My fellow Americans" for U.S. politicians to begin any discussion of our signal national security challenge with the observation that Islam is a "religion of peace" — a religion that has surely been perverted, "hijacked," and otherwise misconstrued by terrorists.

No more, insists Robert Spencer, the intrepid author and analyst behind the Jihad Watch website. Spencer's theory is as logical as it is controversial: when the single common thread that runs through virtually all of the international terrorism of the modern era is that its perpetrators are Muslims, and when the jihadists themselves tell us that their religion is the force that drives them, we should seriously consider the probability that Islam is a causative agent, even the principal causative agent, of their terrorist actions. This he undertakes to do in The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)..

One might once have assumed it inarguable that an ideological battle cannot be fought with complete inattention to ideology. But that has been the case with the war on terror, and Spencer's mission is to rectify that with a simple, user-friendly volume that walks the reader through elementary facts about Islam — its tenets, its scriptures, and its history, including most prominently the Koran and the life and deeds of the Prophet Mohammed. It is a tutorial shorn of wishful thinking.

While Spencer does not declare that anyone adhering to Islam is a terrorist waiting to happen, he clearly believes it is a perilous belief system. Make no mistake: This is a disturbing account. And most disturbing is that the truly arresting passages are not the author's contentions and deductions. They are the actual words of Islamic scripture and the accounts of several revered events in Islamic tradition.

The story by which Islam achieves hegemony over much the world and the loyalty of millions of worshippers, very nearly extending its dominion throughout Europe, is a story of military conquest. Mohammed, deemed the final Messenger of Allah — superseding the prophets of the Judeo-Christian tradition, a group in which Muslims include Jesus — was a warrior, in addition to wearing the hats of poet, philosopher, and economist, among others.

The Koran, Spencer argues, does not teach tolerance and peace. At best, he explains, there are isolated sections which urge Muslims to leave unbelievers alone in their errant ways, and which counsel that forced conversion is forbidden. But these must be considered in context with other verses, such as those directing that Mohammed "make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them," and that the faithful "slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them captive, and besiege them," and so on.

What are we to make of the seeming contradiction? Obviously, self-professed moderate Muslims point often to the benign passages, while terrorists echo the belligerent ones. Who is right? Spencer vigorously contends that the militants have the better of the argument. The Koran, which is not arranged chronologically but according to the length of its chapters (or "suras"), is theologically divided between Mohammed's Meccan and Medinan periods. The former, from the early part of the Prophet's ministry when he was calling inhabitants of Mecca to Islam, are the soothing, poetic verses. The latter, written in Medina after Mohammed was ousted from Mecca, are the more bellicose. The Medinan scriptures come later in time and, sensibly, overrule their predecessors.

This is bracing in at least two ways. First, even if there were a logical counterargument to this (and let us pray that someone comes up with a compelling one soon), it underscores the seeming impossibility of proving wrong those who commit atrocities in the name of Islam. When they claim justification in their religion for merciless attacks and other brutalities (such as beheadings), they are not imagining it out of thin air — it's right there in black-and-white. The reformers may try gamely to minimize or reinterpret, but they cannot make the words go away.

Second, those words are taken to be the words of God Himself. The Koran is not like the books of the Old and New Testaments. It is not thought to be "inspired," to be related through intermediaries whose assumed human gloss opens up possibilities of reinterpretation or correction. Muslims believe the Koran contains the unvarnished teachings of Allah, dictated directly to Mohammed by the archangel Gabriel. This renders all the more challenging (to put it mildly) the burden of discrediting terrorist operatives who claim to be doing precisely what they have been divinely instructed to do — and doing it in the service of jihad, the "striving" which, Spencer explains, is a bedrock obligation of all Muslims.

Islam, Spencer elaborates, aims at nothing less than total domination — first, unrivalled supremacy in any territory that is (or was at any time) under its sway, and, ultimately, spreading throughout the world — whether by persuasion or by sheer force. The bleak choices presented to non-believers in the Muslim lands are to accept Islam (and its attendant social system, which is particularly oppressive of women); to live the grim life of dhimmitude by submitting to the authority of the Islamic state (permitted to practice other religions under tight regulations and only if the jizya, or poll-tax on non-Muslims, is paid); or to die. The bleak future for non-believers in the rest of the world is a state of war until they are subdued, as — beginning in the seventh century — were the Byzantine Empire, Persia and the Christian strongholds of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.

Consistent with the "Politically Incorrect" model, Spencer spends much of his time deconstructing "PC Myths." These involve not only the sugar-coated conventional wisdom about Muslim doctrine but also what he sees as the cognate project to revise Islamic history.

The "Golden Age" of Islam, for example, is, according to the author, a gross exaggeration. He does not deny that there were grand achievements under caliphates that ruled various places from the tenth through the fourteenth centuries, and Muslims themselves, he acknowledges, were responsible for important advances in mathematics and, to a lesser extent, medicine. Nonetheless, Spencer counters that many of the epoch's achievements either occurred despite Islam (particularly in the areas of literature, art, and music) or are better understood as the accomplishments (especially in science and architecture) of better educated peoples whom Muslims conquered.

Islamic culture, for Spencer, thwarted great possibilities. Muslim philosophers were singularly responsible for preserving and explicating the work of Aristotle — but over time, these philosophers were read primarily in the West, because waves of anti-intellectualism and a conceit that rote study of the Koran was sufficient education overtook the Islamic world. Medical advance was stymied because of traditions that forbade or discouraged dissections and artistic representations of the human body. Spencer does credit Islam with causing the Renaissance and the discovery of the New World — but only indirectly. The conquest of Constantinople caused Europeans (like Columbus) to seek new trade routes to the East and hastened the flight of Greek intellectuals to Western Europe.

A final "Myth" Spencer endeavors to explode is the legacy of the Crusades. While not gainsaying Christian excesses and brutality, the story, he asserts, is far from one-sided. It is just that, consistent with today's victimology leitmotif, only one side gets told anymore.

The comprehensive narrative, Spencer insists, stretches back for 450 years before the supposed eleventh century start of the Crusades — back to the conquest of Jerusalem in 638. "The sword spread Islam" and ultimately repressed the formerly predominant non-Muslim populations that are tiny minorities in what are now Islamic countries. The Crusades, Spencer relates, were largely defensive struggles to protect threatened Christians. He does not dispute that the political agenda of recapturing what had been eastern Christendom loomed large, but he does contend that the legends of forced conversions, insatiable looting, and mindless atrocities are largely overblown.

This is not a book for the feint of heart. Nonetheless, it is well done and extremely important. Much of current American policy hinges on the notions that there is a vibrant moderate Islam and that it must simply be possessed of the intellectual firepower necessary to put the lie to the militants. These are the premises behind the ambitious projects to democratize the Middle East, to establish a Palestinian state that will peacefully coexist with its Israeli neighbor, and to win the vast majority of the world's billion-plus Muslims over to our side in the War on Terror.

They are, however, premises that are more the product of assumption than critical thought. In this highly accessible, well-researched, quick-paced read, Robert Spencer dares to bring that critical thought to the equation. The result is not a promising landscape, but it's a landscape we must understand. You really can't fight an ideological battle without grappling with the ideology.

— Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

Pope Patrick---A Book Review

De Rosa, Peter
Pope Patrick
Doubleday & Co.; New York; 1997

This book caused be to laugh out loud---Something I seldom do. It also gave me nightmares AND I am NOT prone to such! You may get others' impressions of this book on line or through major public library catalog systems. However, here is my take on it.

A very low ranking (Cardinal Deacon) member of the College of Cardinals, a “pure Irishman”, is elected Pope as the other Cardinals cannot agree on any candidate. In his one year, Christmas to Christmas, reign he imposes (Or, inflicts) real Christianity on the Church and the World.

There are many who will NOT like this book. Professional Catholics (NOT Catholic professionals), especially the higher clergy and their ultra-right supporters will recoil at the clear showing of every pimple and wart on the Earthly Body of the Church and the cancers within it. American “liberals” will not like it as it exposes the same for our nation in terms of amoral and immoral life styles, while American politicians will flinch at their portrayal and businessmen at their very Unchristian greed and arrogance. Professional Englishmen will hate the painted picture of their leaders and of their horrid mistreatment of the Irish. Europeans will snicker at all of the above---Until their venality and emptiness is clearly exposed by this author using Italians as examples of the “European mindset”.

Most of all, Muslims will hate this work as it so clearly exposes the hatefulness, rigidity and worship-of-death inherent in the “Mullah mentality” through the fictional interview with the head of a fundamentalist Islamic empire and the last chapters of this book, which were the part thereof which gave me unusual nightmares. (I will let you read this entire book, if you dare, to understand that last statement!)

What can be learned from this book?
1.That the Church is in great need of change and redemption; But, it has always
been so as it is a institution begun by The Christ but administered by we, very weak, human beings.
2.That the USA and Western Civilization has lost track of ethics, morality, honesty and the true, God-centered. Reason for our existence.
3.That European culture is no longer the fortress of Western Civilization; But, is so centered on each individual's search for immediate gratification as to make it a cesspool rather than the glorious idea it once was.
4.Every Muslim and Islam itself may, at any time, revert to the most horrid interpretation of Mohammed's teachings and may not be trusted to value death more than humanity, sharia (Islamic law) rather than justice and the worship of an unpredictable, anti-human and cruel Allah rather than a merciful, yet just, God.

Historical Wisdom RE: War

I have often touted the maxim, "Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it!" However, history is not just facts (eg Names, dates, places) but is also the lessons that people have left to us as our legacy---If we will attend to those words.

As to War, I offer the following two examples and lessons.

From Vegetius, a fourth century Roman:
"Qui desiderat pacem, paeparet bellum.
"Let him who desires peace prepare for war."

And, from the USA's own and respected philosopher, John Stuart Mill:
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral
and patriotic feeling, which thinks that nothing is worth war, is much worse. The person
who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his
own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made
and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

The first quote is most certainly in the Roman style: Short, compact and expecting the reader
to understand history and humanity.

The second also relies on the understanding of unwritten concepts, all too neglected in this degenerate age, of "duty", "honor" and "the common good".

The problem with most "liberals" (ie Most journalists, most professors and too many others) is that they do not understand or learn from history and most certainly do not understand humanity and the concepts upon with Mr. Mill based his statement.

Thought, Word & Deed As Prophesy

The three “kings” who came to Bethlehem and worshiped the new born Christ were likely out of Persia (Now a degenerate, Mohammedan, Iran) and heirs to a rich culture which produced the concept of an eternal war between good and evil and, perhaps, more importantly, the true ancestors of the real knighthood of nobly thinking, speaking and acting warriors.

In fact, the motto of those ancient Persian knights was: “The thought well thought; The word well spoken; The deed well done”.

Could it be that those ancients were, in their own way, prophets as to the coming of the Christ? Could it be that the Thought of God, as to our salvation, the Word spoken of by John and the actions of Jesus, as well done as any in the history of the World are the glorious reflections of that precept out of Persia?

Jurisdiction Of USA, Immigrants & Their Children

Illegal immigrants have avoided the full jurisdiction of the United States by their unauthorized entry into this nation. Those persons who remain here after their visas have expired or are otherwise in violation of such visas are also outside of that jurisdiction.

THEREFORE, the children of such persons as born in the United States after such illegal entry or violations are NOT entitled to the privilege of citizenship in accordance with the Constitution Of The United States.

THEREFORE, any such child may be challenged as to voting in the USA or obtaining a US passport or any other right of citizenship in this nation.

Those persons/parents are, themselves, not eligible for any protections (Except, perhaps, against “cruel and unusual punishment”) under our Constitution and may be detained as long as is necessary and expelled from the USA upon any finding of illegal entry or violation of visa.

Do I Hate Muslims ?

Do I hate Muslims? Heavens, NO! I care for them so much that I would send those of them who commit horrid crimes in the name of Islam out of this world and to the Judgement of God before they commit more such sins against humanity.

Immigrants: Order, Law & Justice

The USA is, as are most basically civilized nations (Please see below) is built as a pyramid, that most stable of structures, of justice, law and order. Justice, being the highest of such values or forces is at the top and is the hardest to reach. Law provides the framework so justice may be sought and, if possible, that high goal achieved. Law is impossible to obtain except on the base and basis of an ordered society.

If we erode the underlying layers of order and law, then justice will collapse and slide into the chaos of injustice. Today's “liberals” are lazy! They wish to achieve a just society without working first to build the stable structure described above. They fail to realize that their “justice” for some is injustice for those who rely on all three building blocks of society. Their “justice”, by offering “open borders” and “amnesty” to illegal immigrants, is an unjust taking away of rights and privileges earned, through hard labor and patience, by legal immigrants and the children of such. It is a typical “something for nothing”, “free lunch”, delusion common to the unthinking, knee-jerk reaction, liberals. [You will find that the most emphatic of opponents to open borders and amnesty are those recent and most excellent immigrants who obtained visas and came here in an orderly manner and in obedience to our laws.]

If anyone wishes real justice for all in this nation, then let immigrants enter here in an orderly manner and in obedience to our democratically passed laws. The USA is a nation based on the contributions of LEGAL immigrants and their descendants.

(The USA, Canada, Australia, the UK, New Zealand and like nations have some chance of reaching that golden goal of justice as they still, with difficulty, maintain their basic structures of order and law. Saudi Arabia has order and law but no justice; A situation shared where the Islamic codes prevail. Such nations as the Sudan and Mexico have no basis in order or enforceable laws and have criminal gangs ruling in portions of their nations.. The present day Iraq is attempting to establish, at the least order and laws and may, if severe Islamic law is avoided, be able to reach for justice.)