Why Islam is So Mean

Daniel Greenfield recently wrote an excellent column on why Islam is violent. (And yes, Islam is violent.)

Greenfield writes,

Democracy works in cooperative societies. It can only work within tribal societies as a democracy of groups. And it requires that these groups prefer cooperation to conflict as a civilizational strategy.

Islam favors conflict over cooperation. In the absence of outside enemies, its doctrine allows its quarreling groups to name each other as infidels, heretics and enemies. To reform Islam, Muslims would have to make the civilizational transition to a cooperative strategy. They would have to fundamentally change their values, their priorities and how their societies function.

And there is no sign of that happening.

Islamic civilization becomes unstable once it expands beyond its tribal limits. Its only coping strategy for that instability is violence, whether directed externally at non-Muslims or internally at other Muslims. Its economic development tools are limited and make supporting a modern society very difficult because they emphasize maintaining internal hierarchical stability over innovation and progress.

The politically correct do not want to face these facts. Instead of facing them, they try to export democracy and liberty (something the politically correct themselves no longer consistently support), and it fails again and again. Whether the politically correct consist of someone like George W. Bush trying to foist a democratic republic on Iraq (which failed) or Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry trying to help Muslim dictatorships like Iran become nuclear powers, the end result will always be the same: futility and disaster. It’s because Islam does not want liberation; Islam wants to be Islam, and, as Greenfield writes, Islam is not based on things like reason, cooperation or economic freedom. Islam is based on submission and conquest.

Greenfield also writes that, “Islam is an ideology. Its violence is a strategy. That strategy fit the needs of Mohammed. Mohammed chose to use force to spread his ideology.”

And so do his followers. Islam is an ideology, not merely a religion. Religion, at least as enlightened people view it, is personal. It’s about morality. (It’s faith-based morality, not rational, but that’s a separate discussion.) Religion, as most of us think about it in America, is not about politics. Islam represents a complete and total blending of religion and politics. The two are indistinguishable, in fact. To question whether Islam and America, a secular country based on the separation of church and state, can coexist, is preposterous.

In order to blend America and Islam, you’d have to accept some form of Sharia law (or some other Muslim version of church-state integration) as part of the government. Are you prepared to practice Islamic beliefs, particularly if you’re a woman, a homosexual, or just about anybody who chooses not to live a life of moral puritanism? Well then, you’re already against the idea of Islam, whether you know it or not, even if you consider yourself “liberal” and progressive. I find it absurd to the point of hilarious when lesbians, gay men, feminists and others try to lecture on the idea that Muslims are an oppressed minority. They simply have to be kidding.

Rational people who suggest that Islam cannot be tamed are called racists. You’re considered no different from someone who says, “Black people cannot live under capitalism or civilization.” But blackness is not an ideology; Islam is. It would be racist to make any unwarranted generalizations about people of any race. But it’s not racist, and is, in fact, intellectually honest, to face the truth about an ideology such as Islam. Unless we seek to understand Islam, we will never have the ability to survive it. And there’s no mistaking that Islam is an ideology dedicated to death and destruction, just as Nazism and Communism were, although for different reasons.

America would not be so vulnerable to Islam if it were not so far adrift from the principles of private property, individual rights and freedom upon which the nation was founded.  Private property rights, individual rights and individual liberty are under attack as never before in American history. Democrats and Republicans fight over power and control; neither side even offers the pretense of respecting the rights and sovereignty of the individual any longer. It’s all collective and group “rights” to health care, college, bank bailouts, cell phones, lack of competition with businesses in foreign nations, you name it. Our government has collapsed into one gigantic and corrupt power grab. The solution to this problem was there all along: Individual liberty. But nobody seems willing or able to name it.

Like the Roman Empire before us, which gradually fell prey to invasions from barbarians on the outside, America is similarly vulnerable. The twenty-first century version of barbarian invasions are Paris, San Bernardino and 9/11. You can better believe that more will come, probably worse than what we have seen. Barbarians attack us because we are weak. We are not only weak militarily; we are weak economically, politically and morally because we have permitted rotten politicians to take away our liberty. Islam merely cashes in on our weakness with their own priorities. Will the people wake up and start facing the fact that Islam is an ideology, not merely a religion, and that there’s nothing peaceful about it? Time will tell. And time is running out.

Thank you, Daniel Greenfield, for writing such an informative and enlightening article. In times like these, reasonable and intelligent voices are rare to find, but we will always find them.