Profiles In Dhimmitude

The Economist makes it's allegiance clear.

As Islamic terrorism and jihad violence spread all over the globe, The Economist has doggedly maintained its tone of blame-the-West-first dhimmitude. Instead of seeing the cartoon controversy as another threat to freedom of speech in the West, it places the onus all on Danish racism and xenophobia. The spin starts in the lead sentence: “For much of last year, various squabbles have simmered over several prominent Danes' rude comments about Islam.”

And so The Economist story got its proper lead. Then it follows with this: “Now a schoolboy prank...” Oh, so that's what it was. Not a trial balloon to see if free speech still existed in Europe. Not an attempt to defend it against attack. Just a schoolboy prank. Those idiotic schoolboys at Jyllands-Posten! Don't they realize they're playing with fire? “Now a schoolboy prank by a newspaper has landed the prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, in the biggest diplomatic dispute of his tenure in office.”

Excellent article, read the whole thing here.

When I attended the anti-Bush rally last Friday I was accosted by some young Muslim girls who asked me, most respectfully, how I could possibly support this president?

I said first of all that I did not support the president on all things, but, over all I did support him. I explained that I thought I he was making the right moves on the war on terror and overall doing a variety of good things.

They explained to me as though I were stupid that they were being threatened on a daily basis. Their families were being threatened on a daily basis and that "radical Islam" was solely based on wrongheaded American policy.

I asked them what precisely was the threat they faced. Harsh looks and mean statements were the reply, and an uncle of theirs had been investigated for supporting an "Islamic charity."

I asked them if they would acknowledge that the problem we face with terrorism is, unfortunately Muslim in nature.

Nope, they don't see that. They feel the real problem is George Bush. I explained to them that while I deplored anyone treating them poorly due to ethnicity or wearing a hijab, other than that everything they shared with me seemed eminently reasonable.

They weren't happy, and I suppose I wouldn't be either were our positions reversed, but I'll be damned if I'm going to act like Islam is the problem here. It is.

A little story to illuminate. One of the first Muslims I ever met was at a Denny's cooking the overnight shift. He was a beautiful young man, he really was, and one evening I was working on a bible study in the breakroom when he came in to smoke a cigarette, I joined him and we chatted for a couple of minutes. He finally noticed my bible and inquired if it was indeed a bible. I assented. He jumped up as though I'd spilled something on him and spat out "my Koran will kill your bible!" before stomping out of the break room.

As I'm sure you can imagine, I was stunned. So I made sure to feed him Sausage gravy for his meal later that long morning. You don't mess with the chef, not if you want him to feed ya.

And that experience has left me wondering about alleged "moderate" Islam. I don't see it, I wish I did, but I don't. Oh, I'm sure each of us knows someone we could point to and say he/she's not one of the crazies.

But I can't help but wonder, what if their like my old dishwasher friend deep down inside?