the Centrist

Perhaps she was right, perhaps that psychedelic diva, Janice Joplin, was prophetic when she sang about her and Bobby McGee … “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to loose.” Many say that is the problem with the ‘religion of peace,’ it is as simple as that those faithful are so destitute, there is ‘nothing left to loose.’ That would explain, at least in Western terms, why they react so manic to what Westerners would feel is their ‘inalienable right’ … freedom of speech. For instance, recently Pope Benedict while making a plea to all faiths for non-violence quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor’s take on Mohammed. While perhaps not the most Politically Correct person to quote Benedict obviously felt compelled to make his point. The pope read the quote of the Emperor: ‘Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.’ Most Westerners would simply say the Pope was exercising his cherished right to free speech. It was refreshingly frank and gave us insight to the spread of Islam from a Byzantine historic prospective. After all the pope was neither agreeing, nor extolling its virtues, he was merely quoting it in the context that all religions should have the common thread of peace and love.

Why is it that Muslims demand universal understanding of their faith, while they have a total lack of tolerance for any other? Merely a few years ago they desecrated the birth place of Christ during an illegal occupation by Palestinians. What would have happened if Christians or Jews had desecrated anything Islamic? Think about the outrageous reactions to free speech we have recently witnessed from radical Islam: criticism in a film (Van Gogh murdered … Holland), political cartoons (Danish journalists still in hiding), a historic novel (“The Satanic Verses” by Salman Rushdie finally able to emerge after years of protective custody … Great Britain) or a speech (Benedict … Germany still rioting, church burnings, and one murder even after several apologies) … in all of those art forms the authors were attempting to advance tolerance by pointing out the obvious. The response which flowed from the radical Islamists was not love, it was blood.

The pertinent question should be is the West willing to accept the reality of this jihad? The radical Islamist gives the Westerner but three choices: convert to Islam, become a Dhimmi, or die by the sword. Dhimmi is the notion originated in the 7th century (628 AD) which imposed laws to make all but those accepting Islam inferior to their Moslem conquerors. They not only had to pay a special tax, but lived in a type of escalating apartheid. Thus, in the bizarre world of the Islamo-fascist Westerners are required to accept destruction of buildings, including hospitals and schools, which have killed thousands of innocent men, women, and children as normative … as long as it furthers Islam, but should any make statements offending Moslem sensibilities they are automatically guilty of blasphemy and will incur the justice of the jihad I am tired of this these irrational Islamic demands as well as the caving of Western Post Modern Political Correctness. It is time for the nonsense to stop and for well meaning men in moderate Islam and the West to realize that we are in a fight for our existence. We are not in a debate, we are in a war. We are not fighting a nation, we are fighting organized radical Islamic gangs of zealots. They hold only one universal freedom near and dear, the freedom to take their own lives while simultaneously destroying all and any they are able. Faced with the fact that more and more educated, materialistic, capitalists in Islam have joined the jihad, it is time to realize that maybe Janice was not prophetic … maybe even when they have everything to loose, the radical promises of the jihad wins out. Furthermore, maybe it is time we stop placing our problems at the feet of poets and return to our roots. I think it is time to quote a different source, more profound and timeless. It is time to realize that hope is the prerequisite of love. But even with Western leaders, a pope, a president, and a prime minister who understand these facts it has become just as impossible and frustrating to rationalize with the West’s Politically Correct (PC) as it is with the world jihad … both are irrational and illogical people do irrational things … illogical people are people without hope, and those without hope will always embrace hype in an absurd attempt to substitute it for reality. If America could show the jihad, as well as the PC, that there are non-material things worth living for … that hope is foundational to love and harmony, then that hope will inspire love for family, friends, and community … and only then will tolerance abide and the violence will end.