Horace Jeffery Hodges is the oldest of my cyber-friends dating back to the '90s. He writes:
In a recent post on Islam – how to conceive of it and how to deal with it – my cyber-friend Bill Vallicella notes that some who undertake this task mistakenly assume:
that Islam is a religion like any other. Not so. It is a hybrid religious-political ideology that promotes values inimical to the West and . . . [the West's] flourishing. Sharia and the West do not mix.
Bill emphasizes that Islam is not a religion like any other, that it's a hybrid religious-political ideology. My view differs little from Bill's view, though I would add a point.
Not only do I find Islam a hybrid religious-political ideology, I would describe it as a throw-back to an earlier stage of religious development, the religion of the priest-king, a figure with both a religious role and a political role to fill. Think of the Caliph, who fills both of these roles, and recall the recent Caliphate, which attempted to install shariah as the law of the land that it occupied.
In Islam, there is no separation of mosque and state. The mosque is, in fact, an extension of the state, which clarifies why Islam restricts all other religions wherever it gains political power, for other religions are suspect, potentially, as extensions of some other state's power, and the adherents of other religions are, technically, considered to be foreigners.
Just some things to consider in considering Islam . . .
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Jeff has a deeper knowledge of these matters than I do, so it is gratifying to receive his endorsement. What he adds to my post is also correct as far as I am able to judge.
Jeff rightly points out that under Islam there is no separation of mosque and state. This is one of the reasons why Islam is incompatible with the values of the West.
The threat of Islam in this regard is actually two-fold. There is the general threat to the separation of church/mosque/synagogue and state. And there is the more specific threat posed by Islam's being the worst of the great religions. Suppose the USA were ruled by a Christian theocracy. That would not be good, but it would be far better than if it were ruled by a Muslim theocracy.
As for immigration, one point that needs to be made over and over in the teeth of retromingent leftist incomprehension is that immigration is justified only if it benefits the host country. Trump understands this; Hillary and her ilk do not. This is another reason why his defeat of Hillary is cause for jubilation. No doubt it is good for Muslims that they be allowed to flood into Germany; but what the Germans need to ask is whether there is any net benefit to them of this in-flooding. And the same for every country.
This is just common sense, a commodity in short supply among lefties whom I call retromingents because of their tendency to piss on the past and its wisdom.
UPDATE : Claude Boisson (France) sends the following:
I think Horace Jeffery Hodges is absolutely correct.