Who is a bigot?

The Left, with its usual moral smugness fancies that bigotry is a sin of the Right. In fact, so far down the road of self-congratulation and self-serving delusion has it travelled that it equates bigotry with anything right-wing, and contrariwise it deems left-wing thinking to be the opposite of bigotry. Thus to hold left-wing opinions is somehow to be protected from the sin of bigotry. By holding the opinions defined as respectable on the Left, the Leftist feels guaranteed a place in the warm light of virtue. It is to be one of the blessed.

But bigotry properly defined and understood is simply the obstinate holding of an opinion despite countervailing evidence and sound reasoning. It does not matter whether the opinions are of the Right or the Left, it is the manner in which they are held and maintained.

So, the failure of the Leftist to revise his opinions and attitudes in the light of evidence; his pattern of discounting evidence and character assassination and discreditation; his unwillingness to question his assumptions; these are the marks of bigotry.

Given that the Leftist typically projects these qualities of obduracy onto his political opponents means that he develops a greater and greater blind spot to these failings in himself. This is reinforced by the Leftist's fear of crossing from the side of "virtue" to the side of "sin". Any shift in his opinions to the Right triggers the fear that he is siding with the devil. Hence, he resists information and argument that threatens to move him that way.

On my anguish at the inexorable advance of the virus

When the Obama administration moves from telling us that the Muslim Brotherhood would stand no chance in the Egyptian elections to telling us that the MB may do pretty well but that's OK because the MB are really moderate, pragmatic and will soon adopt less belligerent policies as they confront the electorate's demands for better public services they will have to be more accountable; then we hear the MB saying they will never accept Israel and never make peace and they will implement Sharia law and still the Obama administration keeps telling us they're fine and they send them 1.5 billion dollars in aid.

At this point, will all the other things going on in the muslim world and increasingly in the non-muslim world as evidence that Islam is gaining force and belligerence on a daily basis, the blindness of western elites drives me to despair. The complicity of the left drives me to despair. What planet are these people on? I feel like I'm in a nightmare where I'm on a ship sailing obliviously towards an iceberg and I'm trying to wake the passengers and get to the captain to tell him of the threat but the passengers are unwakeable and when I speak to the captain it's like talking in a vacuum: nothing is heard or understood; the captain just looks at me strangely.

In his book, On the theory of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Khun put forward the idea that science does not advance in an incremental fashion, adjusting and revising theories as new evidence challenges them. Instead, scientists strive to protect favoured theories and even to suppress evidence when it conflicts with these theories. But as evidence accumulates which throws the theory into greater and greater doubt, there comes a point where the theory has to be discarded in favour of a better model which explains the evidence more completely. A scientific revolution occurs.

Perhaps we can expect something comparable to happen with the mainstream view of Islam as "just another religion". As more evidence accumulates which the media and other elites find harder and harder to ignore and suppress, it will become harder to maintain certain viewpoints in the public domain. They will simply sound absurd. The media and other elites will continue to try and diminish evidence that runs counter to the official line; they will talk up examples which appear to validate it (they did this to begin with during the "Arab Spring"). But we can't be too optimistic, kicking the can down the road is a favoured stategy and thought crimes are going to be policed more and more strictly.

Wellington at Jihadwatch making perceptive comment on the Left

The modern Left has done so much damage. It's given us socio-economic excuses for crime, thus exculpating many criminals and removing the concept of personal responsibility. It's given us school curiculum changes which have dumbed down students in their native language, in history, in geography, in economics, in literature and even in mathematics, the sciences and logical thinking, all the while filling up young minds with PC/MC nonsense. It's given us victim-oriented thinking so that most anyone except white heterosexual males of northern European origin can claim some kind of victim status. It's given us speech codes on college campuses, an Orwellian development if ever there were one. It's given us hysterical assessments about impending environmental damage. It's given us moral relativism, thus revising in a trashy form the Sophists' challenge to Socratic absolutism. It's given us scathing assessments, riddled with ridicule and cheap caricatures, of traditional Christians and their belief system. It's given us foolish and false hopes that peace can be achieved without strength. It's given us junk that has been called art. And it's also given us what this article is about---deliberate courting of the Muslim vote in the West for short-term political gains with no view to long-term consequences, replete with continued excuse making for Islam's many pathologies.

Ah yes, the modern Left has done an enormous amount of damgage over the past half century and I write this as one who when young was a man of the Left. I know how the Left thinks because I use to think that way. No more. Forever.

Are there any compensations to the costs of awakening to the jihad threat?

I have definitely become far more miserable and pessimistic since becoming acquainted with the core imperialistic doctrines of Islam and discovering how these are being played out in the world today. I have become more isolated; more aware of the weaknesses of my fellow citizens; more hostile to Muslims and to those who seem determined to protect them at all costs; I find the sight of Muslims more and more unbearable; I dread the future and fear for that of my children; I feel that all that is most precious in the world is under increasing threat from the impending darkness of islamic cultural hegemony. So are there any compensations to this grim state?

Surprisingly, the answer is yes. I do feel more in touch with some core sense of personal integrity. I feel that I am at least trying to do something honourable for my children, my country and my civilisation; indeed, not just for my civilisation but for the very principles of civilisation.

I feel that I have a much better appreciation of what previous generations of people went through when they were faced with this threat. (I think this is something the Left just cannot see. They don't really believe in external threats, they appear to believe at some level that it is always we who are the threat to others.)  I think that facing up to the reality of the threat, however painful it may be, does take one a step closer to authenticity. All those people that I see around me who are relatively blind or naive do give me a sense of having greater awareness. Although that of which I am aware is not so great it is nonetheless awareness of something very important.

I also gain a tremendous sense of purpose from my opposition to islam. When you take the trouble to examine islam you begin to understand that it is not just another religion from which people derive meaning in their lives, you can see that it is a very twisted and tyrannical force that has millions of people in its grip; it is not really doing them any good because it is corrupting and reducing them as human beings; and, it threatens to do the same things to ever more of us. Opposing islam is to oppose evil. To have that clarity is to have a clear sense of purpose.

Galloway elected in Bradford

With the election of George Galloway in Bradford on Thursday, we have Britain's first islamist member of Parliament. In a letter sent to his prospective consistuents, Galloway used the following points to present his case:
1. He never drinks alcohol.
2. His opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not a view only held by islamists but certainly a position consonant with islamism.
3. He used the phrase "God willing" - to his Muslim audience that reads "Inshallah".

In a campaign speech he used exactly the same religious arm-twisting that the Tunisian islamists used to persuade Tunisian Muslims to vote for them, that is he said that if they did not take this opportunity to vote for a islamically sympathetic candidate this might go against them in the afterlife.

From Galloway's record in Bow, Bethnal Green and Tower Hamlets, we know that he furthers the cause of Islamism in Britain. We can see from the above points how he has sought to appeal directly to Muslims on the basis of their religion and employed the same technique as islamists in other countries. We therefore have our first islamist MP.

Amnesty International and Afghanistan

I had to laugh this morning when I was reading Amnesty's latest magazine. For a start, I had a look at the back cover where a photo of some Amnesty members was shown. I've always enjoyed trying to read faces to discern attitudes and many of these faces were absolutely transparent. The bien-pensant, pacifist, liberal-lefty, we-can-get-on-with-everyone, all-you-need-is-love, naivety was plastered all over them. What a collection of gullible, useful idiots they looked.

I read an article inside about the plight of Afghan women pending the withdrawal of coalition troops. The article spoke of the many advances for women in Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted from large areas of the country from 2001 onwards. It spoke of the brutality of the Taliban and how they violated human rights for everyone but especially women. Now, as the Obama-led coalition seeks a speedy exit and is holding negotiations with the Taliban, fears about the consequences for many Afghans are rising.

All understandable enough, and I'm right behind anyone who wants to uphold universal human rights but this is really where the cultural relativists of the Left have got their (or rather the poor Afghans') comeuppance. Having pooh-poohed the efforts of coalition forces to bring order and justice to Afghanistan ever since they started and having done all in their power to bring the troops home (under whatever pretext), they are now crying for the Afghans because the enemy that they don't want to fight, and whom they have busily tried to define as a non-enemy in their usual sneering manner, is positioning itself for a return to power. Dress it up how you like, we will put the Taliban back in power when we leave.

What the likes of Amnesty need to understand is that universal human rights cannot be upheld universally all the time. If a group of people is violating the human rights of another group and they can only be stopped by force, you have to violate their human rights to stop them: you have to kill them.

But those people on the back cover of Amnesty's magazine just won't accept this unpleasant reality.

Citizen's Journal 070911

"Let there be no compulsion in religion." Surely, the religion consists of nothing but compulsion: believers are compelled to conform to thousands of rules and non-believers are compelled to become believers. Where exactly is the lack of compulsion?

The Malisites locally are increasingly numerous and increasingly asserting themselves. More of the women cover their faces and more of the men grow their ugly beards. A walk through the town is an act of stoicism. I feel a strange sort of exile; I don't seem to belong here anymore; my world is being being removed around me. The familiarity of homeliness is disappearing; I can't relate to most of those people I encounter on the street.  Fortunately my fellow passengers on the train are still english in some meaningful sense; we are like the workers coming into the city to do the jobs that pay the taxes that keep the society from going completely broke in too short a time. We are though a dwindling proportion of the population. What will society look like when Malisites are 60,70, or 80 percent?

There are small things that seem to point to a more widespread malaise: on the train there are many passengers (generally pretty young) with their feet on the seats. The "train managers" often don't challenge them; nor do the passengers - we feel it's almost a certainty that we'll be sworn at or even assaulted so why bother taking the flak? Those with their feet on the seats are undoubtedly pretty foul-mouthed.

I cancelled an appointment at the vet. He was very appreciative that I had phoned to inform them. This made me think of the number of appointments that are made and not kept; and not only not kept but not properly cancelled. Another symptom of a society where all manner of standards are being eroded. Just like the feet on the seats, many of us are too exhausted to make a stand.